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And they did it.

They did it, in huge numbers, despite the threat- more than a threat, a reality- of death. They were given a chance to vote and they did it.

That, of course, isn't enough for some in the West. I was listening to some Air America Radio shows this morning, and they were rerunning material from earlier in the week. It was all negative, of course- Rachel Maddow and Lizz Winstead were calling the elections "illegitimate" and whatever resulted a "puppet government" that would only make matters worse; their phone guest, Tariq Ali, who Maddow approvingly introduced as a "radical left Arab who isn't afraid to tell it like it is," insisted that there would be even more widespread boycotting than anyone had predicted. Most people wouldn't vote, he said, and the "new" government would have no legitimacy, although he feared that it might be seen as legitimate by some outside the country. The hosts and guest seemed to be rooting for the failure of democracy, the failure of freedom- Ali even compared America's role in Iraq to Germany in Vichy France.

They were wrong, of course, ARE wrong, and that's a good thing. But it's astonishing to me that the left doesn't seem to understand why the nation isn't voting their way, following their lead. Here's a hint: most folks think freedom and democracy are good things. If they have doubts about the war, they're about the way it's being waged and whether the goals can be achieved. It's not that they think the goal of freedom for Iraqis is bad. The talk I heard on Air America was of evil occupation, illegitimate goals. They continue not to get it. Maybe it's best that nobody clue them in.

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Big project taking lots of time. Good excuse, no?

I'll leave you with this- I was heartened to hear some on the left admitting that the Iraq vote was a good thing. Even Al Franken said so, before decrying how some on the right were "gloating."

Gloating? Being happy that the Iraqis defied the terrorists and voted is "gloating"? Celebrating a victory over evil people who send Down's syndrome kids into polling places as suicide bombers is "gloating"?

We should all be gloating.

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T.O. wasn't supposed to be ready for the Super Bowl, but he may be.

The A and C subway lines in New York weren't supposed to be fixed for five years, then they said 6 to 9 months. It took nine days.

I think someone's holding out on us.

You and me, we get injured, we're out for a long time. We get sick, we're sick for days, weeks. But whenever I have to take a day off from my slow, lame-ass exercise because I'm "not feeling right," I think about how your typical pro athlete plays through everything. And that's because, well, they get help. I once talked to someone in pro sports who said he doesn't have to worry about getting sick while traveling, because the team training staff will "take care of it." A quick shot of something and you're fine in a matter of hours, ready to go by game time.

Can't we get that treatment? Where are OUR trainers? If I get sick, I have to make an appointment to see the doctor, and she writes a prescription, and I have to go get it filled, and I take it, and I feel lousy for days until it clears up. I want to just drop by the trainer's room and get fixed up, no appointment, no problem. What's in the shot? I don't want to know. Just make me feel better.

The same thing happens with fixing other stuff. My computer goes blooey, the cable or satellite goes out, the car drops a rod, I'm out of commission for hours, days, weeks. I want the kind of acceleration the New York subway got. If a five year job took nine days to accomplish, a five day job should take nine hours and an overnight car repair ought to take, what, an hour? While-U-Wait service, that's what I want.

Of course, that ain't happening. The New York subway's vitally important- why, if the A and C trains are out, people will have to take the R train or- gasp- the bus! We can't have that! Put me out of commission and the only one who suffers is me. Apparently, I don't rate.

But it looks like we COULD get faster service across the board. It IS possible. I'd pay a little more to get taken care of in express fashion. Yes, I'd like the Terrell Owens treatment, please. Yes, I'll wait. But not for long.

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The State of the Union was a bold step forward in the... er... it was a fervent plea for... um...

Okay, I didn't see it. I was in a meeting all evening. Happy now?

Geez.

It's pretty much what we all expected, right? The partial privatization of Social Security? Cool, then, fine, no problem. How did he look, how was the delivery? Couldn't tell you. I was busy wondering if I'd ever get to eat dinner.

I did. A Del Taco #11 combo. Late. It's repeating on me right now. Mmmmm, return visits from a beef burrito.

I can also dispose of the Eason Jordan thing while we're at it: if I'm CNN, I fire his ass immediately. The top guy at a news organization making wild-ass unsubstantiated claims charging the U.S. military with deliberately targeting and murdering journalists? Done. Through. Fired. What are they waiting for? Do they think this can be ignored or talked around or allowed to blow over?

Worked for Dan Rather, sort of. But this is different- the evidence is Jordan's own words. Time to go.

There ya go. All caught up, and I didn't even spend a moment talking to anyone about it or watching the news or reading anything. Informed Opinions R Us. Even when we're not all that informed.

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You and I pay for the clothes we wear, the cars we drive, the music we listen to, the food we eat. We are, of course, fools. All you need to do is to be young, skinny, fabulous, skinny, young, and skinny:

(New York hotel "creative director") Tommy Saleh advertises for Prada, Chanel, APC, Paul Smith and Jeremy Scott - secretly. "Chanel did a pair of gold sneakers for me, and a skull-and-bones brooch," he says. "APC gives me so much stuff - like small-collar white shirts. A small-collar white shirt means a lot to me." Saleh also owns over 100 pair of shoes worth about $500 each, and a rack of suits by Prada and Paul Smith - a wardrobe worth well over $100,000, all given to him for free.

Which begs two questions: Why and how?

"A lot of people want to put their clothes on me, because of all the fabulous things I do," says Saleh, with no trace of irony.... "My friends are tastemakers," Saleh says. "I get asked maybe 10 to 20 times a day what I'm wearing."

(Hat tip: Gawker)

I've known about how celebrities get all sorts of free stuff for years. That's no secret- of course, a clothing company will want a celebrity, any celebrity, to be seen and photographed in its goods. But you've never heard of Tommy Saleh. Or Leigh Lezark:

Leigh Lezark, a DJ and promoter who throws the weekly downtown dance party Misshapes, is arguably one of the most influential New Yorkers in the music industry, though few outside her circle know who she is. "I get a whole bunch of free stuff - free CDs, clothing, makeup," says Lezark, who is in her early 20s. "People will say, 'I see you around; everywhere you go people are looking at you and your style.'" Since co-founding Misshapes - which has become the Saturday night destination for downtown scenesters and art-school kids - a year ago, Lezark has been given about $15,000 in free goods and services.

"Lacoste wants to give us free clothing; they heard about us through Misshapes," she says. "I get into sold-out shows all the time, like Interpol at Roseland - I don't even know how much it would cost to go see Interpol at Roseland. Fashion Week is not a problem - last year I was on line for the Marc Jacobs party and someone just pulled me out of the line and let me in. I can't remember the last time I paid for a drink."

But Lezark's true influence is felt in the music industry. "At a place like Misshapes, they play a song, and all the cool kids will be like, 'Who is that?'" says Carmelita Morales, a publicist at addVICE Marketing.

Morales, who gives Lezark CDs to test out at her party, points to the recent mainstream success of the Killers (who played on "Saturday Night Live" a few weeks ago) as proof.

"It was important to give the Killers street cred - because if it comes from the radio, all the club kids and tastemakers would never go for it. You want them to hear it in the clubs first."

There ya go- a major label band's publicist slips a CD to the "right" club jock, and that generates "street cred" with the "club kids and tastemakers," who are evidently too dense to realize that they're being marketed to just as slickly and commercially as the popular acts they disdain. All the "cool kids" are just as susceptible- maybe MORE susceptible- to marketing as the great unwashed bridge-and-tunnel crowd. In other words, the "cool" people aren't all that cool.

I'd rather not try to be cool, anyway. You keep the same style for, oh, say 40 years, cool cuts in and out on you no matter what you do. Lately, I've had several instances when people- generally young and female, for some reason- have pointed at my feet and said "oh, those are SO back in style." Oh, really? Converse All-Stars, white hi-tops. Been wearing them since, oh, about 1966. Converse doesn't pay me. I pay them. Forty bucks, actually. Uncool, I know, but I'm no Tommy Saleh.

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When we first moved to Los Angeles a decade ago, it became apparent that everything was a 45 minute drive from our house in Palos Verdes. Downtown? 45 minutes. The Valley? 45 minutes. Pasadena? Brentwood? Anaheim? 45 each. Ralphs? 7-Eleven? The post office? Well, okay, not those, but whether it was a Dodger game or the studio or lunch with friends on the Westside, you knew it would take 45 minutes, maybe an hour if the traffic was really bad.

No more. Now it's anybody's guess, but 45 minutes is the 2 am time. Any other time of day, forget it.

After a long period when I rarely had to leave the house for anything, I've been making the run a few times a week from home to Beverly Hills for a project on which I'm working, and each drive has been an eternity. I hadn't had to do any real commuting for years, with the exception of the run to Dodger Stadium last season, but I expected traffic for that. This time, it's a more standard route- the 110 to the 405 to LAX, then... standstill. The first day, I tried staying on the freeway to Sunset and ended up very, very, very late. The second day, La Cienega to San Vicente to Sunset- still very, very late. The third day, I bailed at Jefferson and wound my way through Culver City to Robertson- still late, not quite as late. Today, I bailed at La Cienega, then Jefferson to Robertson- much better, but still a long, long drive. But in each case, the drive took way longer than it used to. Every road has more people on it at any time of day than it used to.

The problem's simple- the roads weren't built to handle this volume of traffic. Just look at the 405 north of the airport- there's not really a bottleneck, even though the road's got construction work going on. Nevertheless, it always- always- comes to a standstill just past the La Cienega exit. It just does. And it stays that way- a sea of brake lights- all the way to the Valley. Gotta get someplace fast? Sorry. Alternate route? You're joking. It's L.A., and our roads can't deal with all the cars we have.

Possible solutions? Let's review:

1. Mass transit: Tried, failed. Check the bus stations they built along the 110 freeway- even the one that connects to the Green Line train is always empty. Miserable failure. I've written about it here.

2. New roads: where? No room, unless we want to spend a zillion dollars on eminent domain. Or we can build more of those raised roads, which strikes me as a poor idea, considering the earthquakes and all.

3. More carpool lanes: The ones we have don't work. Either they're just as stopped as the main lines, or they're empty while the rest of us are stopped in the other lanes. And we spent zillions on building those lanes so that a handful of cars could speed past. It's social engineering to force people to share rides in a city where no two people have the same point-to-point commute. Unlike most other cities, the commute isn't from the suburb to downtown, it's from anywhere to anywhere. I've worked at several companies here and none were downtown- I worked in Koreatown, Universal/Burbank, Pasadena, Culver City (twice), everywhere BUT downtown. I couldn't carpool to any of them.

So what the hell do we do? Can't reduce the number of cars, can't reduce the number of people (which, with the borders apparently porous, can only get worse), can't force people to carpool or take a bus or train... what's the best option?

The best option is to give up. Or work at home. Now I remember why I chose that route in the first place.

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I've been busy. Is there something going on this week?

Oh, yeah.

(I'm not obsessing on it. Really. I'm prepared for disappointment. We're talking the Eagles here. But, man, it's Super Bowl time and for the first time in 24 years, it matters. It's... surreal. And, yes, when the game rolls around, I will be here. Maybe you'll be able to track a true meltdown. ANd that can happen no matter who wins.)

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