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Big-city newspapers love to hire columnists to do "man of the people"-style columns, the Mike Royko, Jimmy Breslin kind of writer who, ultimately, sounds the way the city feels. There are still a few good ones out there. The L.A. Times' Steve Lopez isn't one of them. Since joining the Times after a long run at the Philadelphia Inquirer, "Man of the People" Lopez has managed to get a few points across:

a) We don't pay enough taxes.

b) We REALLY don't pay enough taxes.

c) There is nothing outside of Silverlake, downtown and East L.A. The rest is open space, and the edge of the world is the 105 Freeway.

So he's a Man of Some of the People, people who, the best I can determine, all live in Silverlake and Los Feliz and wish the government would take more money out of their paycheck so they can really feel like they've done something to, you know, contribute to society, although they DO write a check every year to KCET. (This is how the entire L.A. Times staff feels, evidently- a couple of weeks ago, in a searing indictment of the accuracy of the Zagat guide, ombudsman David Shaw actually decried how the guides reflect a trendy Westside mentality while noting that he lives in the more down-to-earth, real-people neighborhood of Silverlake. There is no self-awareness at the Times)

Sunday's Steve Lopez, Man of the People column, however, reached a new height of Man of the People-ness. This week, Steve did a brave, exciting new thing, something he actually had to venture all the way across the 5 freeway to Atwater Village (why, that's practically Glendale!) to accomplish. Ready? Here's his grand achievement:

He went to Costco. For the very first time.

Now, this kind of exotic adventure isn't for the faint of heart. As Steve Lopez, Man of the People says, he's been out of step on this one:

I'm a hopeless coot in some ways. I once traveled the nation reporting on how superstores had helped bulldoze the American landscape, crushing entrepreneurial spirit and obliterating the character and history of a thousand towns, all for a $1.99 savings on a 12-pack of tube socks.

You may think he's just being facetious here, but he really does think this way. However, he's ready to change, for research purposes:

But Mom and Pop are as dead as Main Street, and Wal-Mart plans to build dozens of mega-stores in California. We're obviously headed for the day when one store the size of Montana sells everything, most of it made in China, with illegal immigrants cleaning the floors at night.

Damn those discounters! They've killed Mom and Pop, destroyed Main Street. Although I'm not sure where Main Street in Silverlake is- maybe it's where the boutiques on Sunset are.

So Steve Lopez, Man of the People, signs up and ventures in:

Don't hesitate, I told myself. The whole economy is based on people shopping, shopping, shopping, whether they need anything or not. If you've got big, you need bigger. That's why Costco has a Philips 60-inch TV ($1,499).

Yes, all those people pushing carts are buying $1,700. TVs. People actually like to take the money they've earned and buy things for themselves, Steve- what else do you want them to do with it? Are we supposed to work and earn money and then not spend it? Maybe it would be better to live in a country where nobody can earn enough to buy anything but rice and beans and a '57 DeSoto, because then nobody would feel guilty about buying "luxury" items.

Oh, and while he fought the temptation to buy things he likes- mustn't seem like an Ugly American Consumer- he did take the opportunity to make a cheap Fat American joke:

I found the strength to resist, though, just by watching other shoppers herd through the chutes with items such as the eight-can Cattle Drive Chili Party Pack ($7.99). Many of them did not appear to be strangers to the 35-pound Chef's Pride Liquid Frying Shortening ($15.39).

So Steve wandered around the store taking notes, getting in a few tax cut shots and trying to come up with a way to end the column, and, finally, does so by noting all the people lined up to buy all those useless things and musing:

This must be why everybody drives a huge vehicle, and in another example of great marketing by Costco, a bright and shiny new 2003 half-ton GMC Yukon XL was parked just outside the store and listed at $43,229.

"Ignore the Sticker Price," read the sign in the window. "Members Pay Less."

That's the end of the column.

No, really, that's it. That's the punch line.

And they PAY him for that.

Summary: Steve Lopez, Man of the People, finally decides to explore a Costco store and is appalled by the fat, acquisitive people there. It's all quite distressing, in a "humorous" way that "real" "Angelenos" will be able to "identify" with. See, the rest of us are also affluent trendoid Silverlakers who disdain chain stores and people from the "other side" of the hill, who exist to be lampooned when not being ignored, so we can laugh along with Steve as he...

...oh, right, I live south of the 105. Therefore, I don't exist.

Maybe I should move to Silverlake. I'll bet I'd identify with Steve Lopez, Man of the People then. I might even be one of the People of whom he's the Man.

Next week: Steve Lopez, Man of the People, tries the self-service pump at the 76 station, with hilarious consequences. Don't miss it.

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There's an election in my town on Tuesday, and I guess I'll go and vote. Who's getting my vote?

Damned if I know.

It's drummed into everyone at an early age: you have to vote. It's the essence of democracy, the bedrock of our nation. Not voting is an evil, a subversion of the greatest political system on God's green earth, a failure to hold up your end of the bargain, un-American.

And then you get old enough to vote, and you enthusistically do so for the first few elections. Then you lose interest. Then, at some point, you become an adult with a mortgage and a tax bill and maybe kids, and you start to vote again, except that now, instead of the idealistic college student voting for theories and feelings, you're now the practical mature person voting your self-interest. And there's nothing wrong with that. In national or statewide elections, that's easy. Every issue's in black and white. Who's guaranteeing that taxes won't go up? Who's pro- and anti-environmentalism? Who's pro-life, who's pro-choice? You know who's what, for the most part, and you vote accordingly.

Local elections are different. Oh, that's not always true, and, if it's a big city, you get the same volume of information as the state and federal races. But in a town like mine, it's different. Rancho Palos Verdes is a mid-sized suburb, only incorporated for 30 years, and with few really local major issues, which are a) open space preservation, b) infrastructure, c) education, and d) two resort developments, one owned by Donald Trump. I like open space, and so do all the candidates. The infrastructure needs work; everyone agrees, just not about to what extent the work is necessary. Education's unanimous- the local schools are excellent. The resorts are, well, um, see, now, here's the thing- the resort developments get the same response from the candidates as the infrastructure question, and the open space preservation, and education and everything else on the board:

We need to study it carefully.

Really? Gee, that's taking a controversial stand on the issues.

The local papers have been no help, asking all of the candidates the same general questions and getting the same general "we need to study it carefully" answers. I was hoping to see these questions and the answers to them:

1. Are you planning to raise taxes? How much and why?

2. If the sewers and drains need to be replaced soon, what's the best way to pay for it and don't try to tell us we need to study it carefully- you studied it, you have an opinion, what the hell do YOU think?

This is why I don't write for the local papers.

I went to the web sites and the ballot statements and the newspapers to see where the candidates stood, and I discovered that there are two factions opposing each other on the council: the old guard, who, as far as I can tell from the sniping between the candidates stand for studying everything carefully and the other guys will raise your taxes, and the Mayor (selected by the council, not elected) and his allies, who stand for studying everything carefully and the other guys will give all the open land away for development and raise your taxes anyway and make RPV look like Torrance without the refineries.

How the hell am I supposed to choose from these clowns?

I thought that the candidates' endorsement lists might help, that I might recognize some of the names and know from that where these people stand. Nope- just long lists of people who remain unknown to me. For all I know, they used a Random Suburbanite Name Generator: ((Bob) or (Phil) or (Doug) or (Bruce)) and ((Ginny) or (Susan) or (Barbara) or (Linda)) ((Smith) or (Doe) or (Jones) or (Wojechowicz)). Or they just used a list from some other town's campaign. Nobody here really knows their neighbors, so nobody would know the difference.

So I don't know enough about these candidates to make a wise choice between them. But I was raised to believe that voting is a responsibility, so troop off to the voting booth I will, and I'll go in there and do what every God-fearing right-thinking loyal American should do... you call it, heads or tails. I suspect that this isn't really the way it's supposed to work, but I've been motivated to vote for candidates who say they'll do what I want them to do and I can't find anybody like that here. They won't say anything substantive. They're all too busy studying everything carefully. And I'm sure after studying everything carefully, they'll come to the only fitting conclusion: the matter needs to be studied more carefully.

Maybe next time I should run for council. On second thought, I never did like studying.

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On the day I was born, people went from toddler to adult without bothering with those pesky teen years. I know this from careful study of a recent acquisition, a TV Guide from the week in which I was born.

Indication #1: The cover star is Lawrence Welk.
Indication #2: Here's the listing for the only rock 'n' roll show on TV that particular day, "American Bandstand":

(7) AMERICAN BANDSTAND-Clark Dick's guest is organist Jack Wiegand, who offers "Stairway to the Stars." (Live)

Indication #3: Other than "American Bandstand" and "Dobie Gillis," there was not a single teen-oriented show on TV that day, not on the stations listed in the Kentucky Edition (hey, that was the one I could get. The New York edition might have had another dance show or two, but I doubt it).

So it's clear that on the day I was born, there was no rock 'n' roll. Elvis was on his way to Hollywood soundtrack hell, Buddy Holly was dead, and the Beatles were still playing skiffle in Liverpool. Lawrence Welk and Connie Francis- that was pop music back then. Oy.

Every network had westerns. At 7:30, you could choose between NBC's "Laramie" and ABC's "Sugarfoot." "Wyatt Earp" was on ABC at 8:30, "The Rifleman" at 9, "Colt .45" (wth guest star Adam West!) at 9:30. CBS' Louisville affiliate had "Hotel de Paree" at 7:30, and its NBC competitor carried "Death Valley Days" at 10:30. That's a lot of westerns. They all had good guys in white hats and bad guys in black, and there wasn't, as the late Jack Elam said, a lot of psychoanalyzing WHY the bad guys were bad. They were. You knew it. No debate necessary. Good vs. evil. Simple.

Not so simple: "Amos and Andy" on the Cincinnati CBS station at noon every day. The March on Washington, the Civil Rights Act, the riots were still to come.

I'd have rioted, though, if one of my few TV choices- most cities had two TV stations, so the choice was limited- was "Arthur Murray's Dance Party":

Kathryn Murray's guests are Marie Wilson, Robert Q. Lewis and Jeannie Carson. Before the dance contest, each of them sings an old childhood favorite. Marie's tune is "I Wish I Were a Sugar Bun." Ray Carter orchestra.

"I Wish I Were a Sugar Bun"?

And Robert Q. Lewis was a childhood obsession of mine, centered entirely on the question "what does this guy DO for a living?" He fascinated me. Comedian? No, not really. Singer? Nope. Actor? Dancer? Politician? Fireman? None of the above. So what did he do, and why was he always on TV?

I have yet to find the answer to that question.

Anyway, it's all kinda pointless, except to make me feel old and from a different epoch. And nothing says "you're old" more than this: cited in news items in this issue are the "smashing new comedian Bob Newhart" who nearly saved the Emmy Awards with a bit about a TV director telling Khrushchev what to do, ABC signing a five-year, $10 million deal to telecast "the new professional American Football League games," and Mel Blanc signing on to do "one or more voices for ABC's new prime-time cartoon series, 'The Flintstones.'"

But there was one harbinger of things to come. There's a listing on the day I was born for the telecast of a baseball game from Crosley Field, where the Reds were playing...

... the Phillies. They won, 2-0. It was pre-ordained.

And I promise, that's the last excursion into Old TV Guide Land.

For now.

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When I was in college, they used to like to send students to Center City Philadelphia or downtown D.C. to "live on the streets" for a night, huddling on steam grates and begging for change. It was all intended to "raise awareness" of the plight of the homeless, and give the students an idea of what it's like to be destitute.

Of course, it did no such thing. It couldn't. If you send someone to "live on the streets" but that person knows he's going to be back safe and sound in his dorm room by the next day with his stereo and his TV and his fridge full of beer and daddy's money, he's not going to feel what it's like to "live on the streets." It's not an awareness-raising trip, it's a camping trip, only on the sidewalk in front of the Wawa instead of in the woods.

That brings me to Minnie Driver, who is going to work in a Cambodian sweatshop, she says, to "raise awareness" of the conditions there:

"I will be working alongside other young women for as long as it takes for me to raise awareness of the fair trade issue," Driver told The Evening Standard at the London premiere of the movie "Seabiscuit."

The newspaper reported that Driver said she and a photographer friend hoped to make a documentary or perhaps write a book about the experience. She said she hoped her effort would help improve pay and working conditions for those in poor nations.

Hey, Minnie, you wanna "help improve pay and working conditions for those in poor nations"? You make, what, a few million dollars a movie? How about taking ONE of those millions- ONE, and you won't even notice it's gone- and going to Cambodia and giving that money to those women you care so much about? Even divided by 100,000, that would be enough money to feed and clothe the women and their families for a long time. So, Minnie, how about it?

(crickets)

Minnie Driver, deep down, doesn't care about those women, or even the issue at hand. She cares about Minnie Driver. She cares about her image as a "caring citizen of the world." She wants to feel important, feel like she MATTERS. And she wants to make sure it's all on video for the documentary that she hopes will win an Oscar or something like that. What better way to do it than to go spend a few days in Cambodia doing the sweatshop thing? After all, it's not like she has to STAY there. She'll be there for the photo op, knowing she'll be safe and sound and on a plane home- first class, naturally- before the next bathroom break. Then she'll go home and buy clothes made by non-sweatshop labor, more expensive clothes, but what's a few thousand dollars when you'll know it wasn't made by slave labor?

"We in Britain and the Western world fuel the problem every time we buy clothes from any one of the major manufacturers which make goods in the third world using cheap labor," Driver said.

It'll never occur to her that the rest of Western society can't afford to pay the prices she can afford for politically correct clothes. What, EVERYBODY doesn't shop at Fred Segal?

So shame on you, Western imperialist slave-labor-clothes-wearers. Let Minnie Driver show you the way. But hurry- her plane back to London leaves any minute now.

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Bad mood today. Don't know why.

There's no real reason to be in a bad mood. It's actually sort of quiet right now- I just write my stuff and mind my own business. No major trauma. No major anything. Bad mood, though.

What do you do for a bad mood? What helps you snap out of it? Some people eat; I'm watching my caloric intake, so that won't work. Some watch funny TV shows or movies; I just sit there criticizing them ("Who WROTE this $#!%?"). Some people work out; I did that already today, twice.

No, for me, there's nothing to do about it but ride it out. That's fine, but for someone whose livelihood depends to a great extent on the ability to be funny, it's rough sometimes. Maybe I'm tired, maybe I'm hungry, maybe I'm bored. Maybe I should stop writing, wrap the day up, and go stare at LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony.

Now, that sounds like a plan. Excuse me.

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All I can say after reading the huge, ripe, juicy link on www.regularguys.com is that I'd damn sure better be good now.

Thanks, Larry. Like I needed the pressure.

(Really, I'm humbled. And "smarter than Eric"? Is that humanly possible?)

P.S. for the rest of you: a visit to www.96rock.com is in order tomorrow morning and every morning- click on the Listen Live link and feel the magic.

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I almost bought the new "Honeymooners" DVD today. Had it in my hand at Costco, looked at it, read the box notes, held it up, started to walk away, turned back, put it back, went and picked up a prescription, got a flu shot, went back, picked it up again, and... put it back. I don't know why- maybe because I've bought too many DVDs lately (the Looney Tunes set, "The Office," "Blood Simple"- with the original soundtrack instead of that "I'm a Believer" crap they used on later versions, "24 Hour Party People," "Stalag 17," "Coupling" (the UK version, second series), the Bullwinkle first season set). I almost got the first season of "King of the Hill," too, but didn't. They had that Dick Van Dyke box- tempting, but resistable. So I left with a prescription and the residual twinge of the flu shot.

But Ralph Kramden is haunting me, and I may have to go back and get that one. What you have to understand is that I grew up in a time and place where those original 39 episodes ran over and over and over and over and when channel 11 or channel 48 (the old, good one) would try to rest it the flood of angry calls would get the show right back where it belonged, around 11 pm, Norton teaching Ralph how to play golf- hello, ball!- or Ralph dancing to "The Hucklebuck," or Ralph choking on "The $99,000. Answer." If you're my age from anywhere between, say, Bridgeport and Wilmington, you grew up with it, watched it, committed it to memory. Even if they weren't funny, you'd have done it. But, mostly, those 39 episodes were funny.

By all rights, the show should have disappeared long ago. It was black-and-white in a color age, it had one of the most depressing sets in entertainment history (in comparison, the prison in "Oz" is festive), and there were just 39 episodes- six weeks and you've seen them all. And the basic plot was the same every day: Ralph tries to elevate his place in his world, Ralph gets resistance from Alice and incompetent help from Norton, Ralph fails, Ralph and Alice really love each other anyway. I've seen writers try to analyze the show, but that's a waste of time- more often than not, it was just funny, that's all.

How good those 39 episodes were became apparent when, shortly before his death, Jackie Gleason "found" all those Honeymooners sketch kinescopes and hacked them into 30 minute "shows" for syndication. A lot of THOSE shows, frankly, sucked. The Gleason show in general kinda sucked. I grew up watching it every week ("From the sun and fun capital of the world, Miami Beach..."), and you got the June Taylor Dancers, a bad "Poor Soul" mime sketch, a stupid Reginald Van Gleason III sketch, Joe the Bartender (an excuse for Frank Fontaine to do the Crazy Guggenheim bit, where he mugged and talked like Sean Penn in "I Am Sam" on a bender, then sang in a crisp Irish tenor- surprise!- then said goodbye in the drunk voice again), and "The Honeymooners," except not the good "Honeymooners." For one thing, Alice was different (so was Trixie, but she was always superfluous anyway). For another thing, they sang. Sang! That's right, by the 60's, "The Honeymooners" was a musical, a lame-ass musical with production numbers and dancing and the Kramdens and Nortons on an around-the-world trip. It couldn't suck more if the Hoover company had sponsored it.

But the Original 39... mostly, they did not suck. "Chef of the Future"... "homina homina"... "Who wrote 'Swanee River'?"... genius. Still funny. Not all of them, but a very high batting average. And you could watch them over and over and over, which was good because channel 11 showed them over and over and over. It was comforting to know it was there. When the news on the other channels was too depressing to watch, you knew that on 11 Ed was at the piano and Ralph was guessing all the songs, and you took comfort in that.

It's not the same anymore. We get hundreds of channels. The news is always on, and so are the reruns. The TiVo lets you watch "CSI" when you're good and ready for it, lets you save any show for any time. And DVDs let you keep a library of your favorites, which is why I stood there for a very long time in the DVD section of Costco, staring at Gleason, thinking, deciding.

I might have to go back tomorrow and get the damn thing. Suddenly, I really want to watch the one with the mambo teacher.

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Wow.

All it took was a little note on the Regular Guys' website and the hit count took a healthy leap. Thank you, Atlanta, and Marietta, and Norcross, and Alpharetta, and Duluth, and Gwinnett County and all o' yez within the sound of 96 Rock.

I should reward you with an embarrassing story from the days when Larry and Eric roamed the wilds of Koreatown, but I can't remember any. They've probably told all of them on the air already. If not, make up your own.

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WARNING: This needs editing and, in all likelihood, rewriting, and the conculusions may be totally wrong, but I have no time to redo this, so caveat emptor:

It was a brief scene in an otherwise apolitical movie, when the British Prime Minister (Hugh Grant!) lashes out at the boorish, leering American President (Billy Bob Thornton!), but it said a lot. The movie is "Love Actually," and it's an entertaining, harmless enough chick-ish flick providing full employment for British character actors (look at the porn stand-in guy, it's Tim from "The Office"! Isn't that Rab C. Nesbitt as the manager, and what'sername from "Eastenders" as the tea lady?), but in a short span of a few minutes, it establishes a few things:

1. America's a bully.
2. The "previous prime minister" allowed himself to be bullied around.
3. The "previous administration" of the U.S. had bully-like policies that President Billy Bob is continuing.
4. The UK has to stand up to the bully, and when Prime Minister Grant does so, his popularity skyrockets.

I wonder who the "previous prime minister" and "previous president" might be.

Yes, it's now a crowd-pleaser when anyone stands up to America. The movie wimps out a little by making Grant react not to policy but to President Billy Bob's attempted canoodling with his tea lady, with whom HE wants to canoodle. (Thornton's character is an amalgam of Bush and Clinton, politically like the "previous president" but with Clinton's roving eye) But it's clear in that brief moment that the good guys are the rest of the world and the bad guys are America.

Having that scene in there, which makes no specific mention of WHAT the Americans want or WHAT policies are at stake, indicates just how much the big-is-bad attitude is ingrained in world culture. We have it here, too. People root against the big guys, the winners. Everyone WANTS the Microsofts and Wal-Marts and Martha Stewarts to be knocked down a peg or three. Everyone WANTS to see the big guy fall on his face. Nobody loves Goliath.

This isn't based on common sense, of course. Rooting against America- rooting for bad things to happen to America, rooting, as many people even here do, for the U.S. to lose the war, for the U.S. to run away with its tail between its legs, is rooting against freedom, against democracy, against the idea that anyone with the talent and desire who works hard can indeed succeed. That's not how it is in most other countries. In England, the class system still keeps the poor poor, the rich rich, the middle class firmly in its place. Most societies work like that, even Canada's, where most people with creative talent or enterpreneurial spirit end up heading south of the border. The attitude back home is that one mustn't get too big, too successful, because that's bad. You become a huge success and you're Goliath, and, well, you know. Worse, if America tries to eliminate tyranny and establish its freedom and enterpreneurial ways in other countries, it's "imperialism," and that's bad, very bad.

Why?

Two possibilities: because it makes people feel bad, and because, deep down, they fear they can't cut it in a free, merit-based system. The feelings part is simple- nobody wants to think that their homeland isn't the best, that their home doesn't matter in the world. It's the same thing as how people from places like New Jersey and Philadelphia and Cleveland hate the rest of the country for making jokes about them, because they think the only people with a right to rag on their hometowns are themselves, and because they know that the jokes are based in part on fact. The other element is the reason that socialism exists- in an American system, you have to compete, have to be BETTER than the next guy. Confident, talented people have no problem with this. Non-competitive natures, people with low self esteem or confidence, can't thrive in a competitive society, and they need to be comforted and propped up with the knowledge that the Nanny State will take care of them. They may produce precious little of value, but, by golly, they know they'll get eyeglasses provided by the state. (Some countries followed the American system and actually produce things of value like cars and electronic goods; these countries hate America anyway, just because it's bigger and they feel dependent on American sales, which they are)

So everyone hates America, and I managed to get all of this navel-gazing analysis out of what might have been, say, five minutes of a two-hour movie. This is why I'm not a good critic- my analysis is longer than the actual movie. Tomorrow: the sociopolitical ramifications of popcorn- butter vs. no butter.

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