PMSimon.com

The NBA All-Star Game halftime show is LeAnn Rimes and Big and Rich.

The NBA All-Star Game.

Country?

Somewhere in a luxury suite, David Stern is saying something to a client about how you can't say the league appeals only to hip-hop fans and video-game players anymore. See? he's saying. Country music. We're huge with the red staters. Maybe we'll consider a franchise in Nashville, if Ratner can't close the deal in Brooklyn.

Nope, no scary hip-hop here. We got us some twang.

I liked it better when they dunked at half-time. No music.

(This game is pretty useless, actually, but it's for stuff like Vince Carter's off-the-glass-pass-to-himself slam. And memo to Charles Barkley- maybe Atkins for a month or so, OK? Take it from a fellow weight struggler, it's time, man)

 Share

Addendum to yesterday's weather-related mea culpa: all that mud that cascaded down our hill ended up in someone's home. The home in question was a multi-million-dollar house a half-block away, right on the cliff overhanging the Pacific Ocean.

There was a front-page article about that house in today's Daily Breeze with pictures- here it is.

You can temper your sympathy because they're rich, if you like. I feel really bad for them- they were rebuilding that place for what seemed like a year and a half, and they'd finally moved in not too long ago. And no matter how wealthy anyone is, nobody deserves an 18 inch cascade of mud busting down the front door.

 Share

Today, February 21, in 1848, the Communist Manifesto was published. In 1965, Malcolm X was assassinated, and in 1885, the Washington Monument was dedicated. NASCAR was incorporated on this day in 1948. Nixon arrived in China on February 21, 1972, and Greta Garbo's first American film opened on February 21, 1926.

And all of these events pale against one overriding, critical event that occurred on February 21. This was the day on which Fran was born. Nothing else even approaches the importance of that.

Happy birthday, Fran. I love you.

 Share

A guy is charged with plotting to assassinate the President, and it's not the lead story anywhere.

If this was 1980, or 1970, or 1960, it would be different. "PLOT TO KILL PRES FOILED," you'd see on the Daily News. "MAN HELD IN PRES SLAY PLOT," that would be the headline on Newsday. The Post would have "PARIS HILTON PHONE HACKED." You know how the Post is. But it would be all over the place.

But not today. Right now on CNN.com, the lead is the double killing in the Amber Alert case in Texas, then there's a crackdown on scams, then there's the drop in the dow, then there's Bush's comments about Iran, and then there's the arrest. At Foxnews.com, it's either second or third depending on how you read the page- California's rains and the double killing are both above it. It's an also ran on MSNBC.com (main hed: "Bush's Hit List"), where it doesn't even make the top seven headlines, although there's a note that it's being discussed on "Scarborough Country," in an evenhanded and clam manner, I trust. ABC News doesn't even have it on the main page. CBS has it second to California's mud.

I dunno, maybe it's because the guy's been in custody since 2003, but we don't seem to treat attempts on the President's life the way we used to. I wonder sometimes whether the world would stop now the way it did on November 22, 1963 if, God forbid, there was a repeat performance. Maybe 9/11 indicates that it would. I'd hope so. But this is a different world.

 Share

Still raining.

This has to stop sometime, right?

 Share

I'm amazed and impressed, really, that Glenn and Ed can continue to blog, and eloquently and prolifically so, while their wives have been in health emergencies. Their dedication is admirable, both to their readers and their spouses.

Me, anything happens to Fran, I fold like origami. She's OK now, but it was a long day, so I'm going to take the cheap way out and beg off for now. My brain isn't big enough to handle everything at once. Thanks for your understanding.

 Share

At the post office the other day, a guy walking in front of me with a cell phone pressed to his ear and a daughter running in random circles around his feet bumped his way through the door, failing to prop it open for me. Fine, not a problem, I thought, he's busy. And then I recognized the voice.

The guy was a radio chef. He'd been, until recently, host of a restaurant show on a big L.A. talk station, but one weekend not long ago he was suddenly gone, a non-person, replaced. Shortly thereafter, I saw his picture in a flyer as the new spokesman for a grocery chain. That's what he was discussing on the phone. I think he was hoping people would be listening.

"Yeah, well, they tell me sales are up," he said. "They're seeing increases everywhere." And it sounded to me like he was insinuating that the sales increases were due to him. In a way, I imagine he's right- the previous spokesperson for that chain was a child, an unbelievably grating little kid who looked like a clam in glasses and a hat and had a nails-on-a-blackboard voice to go along with it. They could have hired Scott Peterson as spokesman and it would have been an improvement. But the guy kept talking, left the post office, and soon climbed into his SUV and was gone.

We all like to ascribe the success of the business for which we work to ourselves. Must be me, we think. And then things go south and it's someone else's fault. Good equals us, bad equals those idiots in marketing. I listened to the guy- how could I not?- and I felt for him. He didn't have his show anymore, all he has is this endorsement deal, and he wants it to work for him. Can't blame him. I would, too. But, dude, if sales are up, or down, or flat, it has nothing to do with you. And I'd tell you that even if you'd held the door for me.

 Share

Hugh Hewitt has an item on the resistance to Wal-Mart, and how the media reacts, and he's right but he misses a critical point, the reason the media, the print media in particular, can't stand Wal-Mart.

Follow the money.

Wal-Mart doesn't do much newspaper advertising. The chains that Wal-Mart competes with do. Ever wonder why Target, which bears a striking resemblance to a slightly more pricey, slightly more fashionable Wal-Mart, never gets bad press? Buy the Sunday paper and check the circulars. That'll tell you everything you need to know.

 Share

Yes, I think this picture is funny. But the headline makes it special.

It must be terrible to be a celebrity knowing that you can't even scratch yourself, let alone puke on the roadside, without someone snapping your photo. We watched that "Stars Without Makeup" show on Fox last night and agreed that it was a new low, snarkily criticizing (mostly) actresses for having the temerity to get older. Just terrible, we thought. Evil, even.

Except that we watched it all. And there's the rub: if not for the obsessive celebrity-watching, these folks would not be as rich and famous as they are. They owe a lot of whatthey have to the very banes of their existence, the paparazzi and the bottom-feeding tabloid journos. It's a tradeoff you know you have to make when you chase after stardom- you'll lose your privacy in exchange for fame and fortune.

And, sometimes, someone will fire off their camera phone when you have to expel a load of vomit. It's a small price to pay.

 Share

I slept all day.

What?

 Share

This Iowahawk post is priceless. Hunter Thompson meets Scooby and friends- wish I'd thought of that.

When Scooby invokes the guy from Nazareth, I lost it.

(Hat tip: LGF)

 Share