PMSimon.com

Too busy.

Igs won, though. And there's nothing like driving beneath the palm trees in full view of the Pacific while Merrill Reese is on the radio screaming with joy because David Akers nailed the winning field goal despite a pulled ass muscle.

Good times.

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On an airplane, a woman with two children wants to get off the plane first. Unfortunately, she's sitting at the back of the plane, and there's an aisle full of people in front of her in gridlock, waiting to get off. Her solution: push people out of the way, repeating "exCUUSE me" in an annoyed tone. When a gentleman politely protested that he couldn't step out of her way, she simply repeated "EXCUSE ME!" and shoved him out of the way with a forearm. She did this all the way to the front, and she did get off the plane before everyone else.

A fat man on a bicycle was riding along Crenshaw Boulevard's sidewalk wneh he encountered a red light, then a green arrow sending traffic on a left-turn into his path. But he wanted to go first, whether the light was against him or not. His solution: just ride right across traffic, and let the cars swerve and screech to avoid hitting him. He never turned his head to look at the near-accidents he caused; he just kept riding.

A kid snaps rude comments back at his mother in public. A hotel manager says that, yes, the ad material and guest services book both state unequivocally that something is offered in every room, but it's not true and there's nothing he can or will do about it, too bad. A guy sees a long line of people waiting for drinks at a wedding reception and slips into the front of the queue, assuming nobody will want to make a fuss at a wedding.

They all got their way. They all do these things because they can. That's where society has gone.

Everyone says character does matter, but it doesn't. It can't. People are getting away with murder- most likely literally- because nobody challenges them, nobody says they can't, everything is acceptable. Laws are optional. Disappointment is simply not going to happen. If I want something, I don't have to wait like other people. If I want to do something, it's everyone else's problem if my actions conflict with order. Nothing matters, law doesn't matter, promises don't matter, contracts don't matter, civility isn't necessary, F you. It's nihilism in action. And I'm seeing it everywhere.

You could say that it's the end result of decades of spoiled celebrity and sports star behavior- you see Terrell Owens ignore his contract or Paris Hilton acting like she owns everything on Earth and you learn that behavior for yourself- but I don't think that's it. I think it's our refusal to say no, to say enough is enough, to discipline people for their behavior. The lady on the plane did what she did because she knows there's no copnsequence- she'll just ignore everything anyone says, and if you hit her, she'll sue for her injuries and get you charged with battery. The bicyclist is banking on your instincts, knowing that it's more likely you'll veer into another car than hit someone on a bike. The kid gets no negative feedback from mama, the hotel figures you won't want to move to another hotel after you've already checked in, the wedding crasher knows you'd rather let him cut the line than ruin the big day with a scuffle.

Here's how to fix it: let the victims fight back. That lady on the plane wouldn't be shoving people out of the way if people could shove back. I could have put an end to it before she ever shoved that guy, with one shot to the jaw. She'd have never known what hit her, and she'd never "excuse me!" her way through a crowd again. The bicyclist should have been open season material- they should award an insurance reduction for hitting that geek. The kid deserves a slap in the face, the hotel deserves not to be paid for the room, the line-cutter deserves a bottle of Merlot poured on his head. We need to believe in deterrence. If the people who take advantage of everyone's natural tendency to want to avoid conflict suddenly find that people aren't avoiding conflict anymore, they'll get in line. (My dad had a better idea- he always wanted a machine attached to his car that would fling feces into the cars of drivers who tailgated or cut other drivers off. The flaw in that plan: where are you gonna store the ammunition?)

You can call this vigilantism, you can decry it as Charles Bronson material, but the day is coming when we have to address the fact that people just aren't doing the right thing, and the only way to get them to straighten out is to make them aware that there ARE consequences to their actions. Otherwise, we might as well give up, and the world will forever belong to the fat man on the bicycle.

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You do everything you can to stay healthy. You try losing weight, you eat right, you take your vitamins. And then a cold comes along and wrecks everything.

There really is no good time to get sick, but this week involves extra work on several projects (some of which will bear fruit at All Access later this week), and I really don't have time for this congestion thing and the sneezing jags and the awful pounding headache. But I have no choice in the matter. I didn't catch a cold, the cold caught me.

And I'm in that zone you enter when you get sick: the rest of the world is moving at normal speed and you feel like you're at quarter speed. Your head fills up and gets heavy, and you look at the rest of society carrying on normally and you want to scream "STOP IT!!! Stop acting like nothing's wrong!" But nothing's wrong for THEM, just you. (Me.)

So my mood is foul, and the pile of discarded Kleenex is growing. Saturday can't come too soon.

Oh, yeah- have I mentioned that the TV in our bedroom decided to just die on us? It just won't turn on anymore. What sucks is this: I could go out and get a cheapo 13 inch analog set for less than a hundred bucks, but, well, you know, digital. HDTV. Flat panel. You don't want to spend anything on the obsolete technology, even if you know deep down that you'll be able to get several years out of it (most of the programming on cable and satellite is standard definition anyway). But the cost differential, even with LCD prices plummeting, is still huge, and I don't want to buy a crappy no-name low contrast ratio 4:3 set, I want a widescreen quality set, and that'll cost us. (Before you ask, no, it's impractical for us to take the analog living room set to the bedroom when we replace it with a plasma later this year- the old set's too big) I realize that this "problem" is not on the level of the things faced by so many people, like the victims of Katrina or Rita, but it's MY problem right now. That, and the cold.

I'm going to go to the bedroom now. The bedroom without a TV. This is sad. As in pathetic.

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So the Phillies made it to the last week of the season with a chance to get the wild card, and they can't beat the Mets- the Mets!- at home. And are the players mad at themselves for flopping? No, they're upset at the home fans, for booing. Even GM Ed Wade, who the fans want fired RIGHT NOW, understands:

Several times this season, uniformed Phillies - Kenny Lofton, Jimmy Rollins, manager Charlie Manuel - have ripped the fans for a lacking support, sophistication and patience.

Record attendance last year. The instinct to know that this team isn't good enough. No playoffs since 1993. Support, sophistication, patience.

On Monday, Wade upbraided serial fan critic Billy Wagner for the closer's latest salvo at the Phillies' fan base, launched Sunday. Wade has performed the chore often this season as his sensitive players find themselves the object of frustration born of a 12-year playoff drought.

"I've talked to players before about - you can't turn this around," Wade said. "It has to be about the fans. People have a right to boo."

Wagner was uncharacteristically surly before and after Monday's game, refusing to talk beforehand and dismissive afterward. Wade didn't begrudge Wagner his opinions....

Wagner acknowledged that Wade spoke with him, but did not comment further on the matter, though he indicated that he believed that Wade, too, gets frustrated with the demanding fan base, but just can't say anything.

Win and those fans will make sure you never have to buy another drink in Philadelphia again. They will lionize you. Fall short and it's a different story. Blame them for your troubles and you get what you deserve.

"You have to recognize that the fans here are very supportive," Wade said. "I've been around long enough to understand the frustration level. I've obviously been here longer than some of our guys. They want it as much as the guys in the clubhouse want it."

Not true. The fans want it more.

The players on this team seem to want to be rewarded for coming close. They want the Nice Try Trophy, the ribbon for participating. The fans expect more from a huge payroll than consistently falling flat in September. It's not like Atlanta's uncatchable, yet the Phillies have made it a habit of spotting the Braves a large lead and never quite catching up, preferring to battle the Marlins for the Also-Ran Award. The Marlins, of course, have won two World Series since the Phillies last appeared in one.

And then the players wonder why the fans are so negative, and why Philly seems to be more interested in football year-round than baseball in season these days.

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The baseball season ended for Dodger fans about two months ago, but the official end came tonight, the last home game. It was strangely fitting that the end came as the wind changed and smoke from the brushfires wafted into the park, the odor of the funeral pyre hanging in the air. Even the video board gave up early, the picture broken up by a misaligned flickering bar. It's over, time to go home.

The season began with false hope- this team's only real hope was for the rest of the division to stink, and stink it did, but even with the Padres hovering at .500, this team wasn't going anywhere. By the end, the lineup was stocked with who's-thats from Vegas and Jacksonville, and it no longer mattered that they'd removed the names from the uniform backs. You wouldn't know these guys even if you could read the names.

But the fans did turn out, if only to collect their Jeff Kent bobblehead dolls (with all the personality of the real thing). The outfield pavilions were filled, the upper decks had a decent turnout, but the place was almost silent, devoid of life, dead. The press box contingent was sparse, and most of it spent the first two innings in the cafeteria watching the Red Sox on TV.

Chances are that next year will be the same, but it won't matter. When spring training rolls around, everyone will be back. Baseball fans are stupid that way, I suppose. But there's always hope in baseball, even for the hopeless. Someone has to win it.

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All Access' redesign is finally up and running. If you're in the radio or music business, if you're interested in either one, if you just want to see what else I do, go check it out here.

And if you go to the News-Talk-Sports section: yes, I'm afraid that IS what I look like.

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I'm scheduled to be a guest on Rollye James' show tonight, live at 10 pm ET (but the first hour, which is supposed to involve me, is tape-delayed to 1 am ET on WPHT 1210 in Philadelphia). If you're curious to hear what I sound like with a bad cold, tune in and hear me and Rollye kick around radio nostalgia and random opinions.

Rollye's show airs live on XM Satellite Radio channel 165 and rerun over the weekend; it would be live on KRLD 1080 in Dallas (like WPHT, a 50,000 watt station that covers lots of territory at night) if the Rangers weren't playing tonight. Oh, well. Another good bet for the western U.S. is KGA 1510 in Spokane, which carries the show 1-4 am PT.

Listen to me speak and decide: Kermit the Frog with a head cold or the last weak emissions of a broken air horn? You be the judge.

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We were sitting around watching TV when Fran noticed that the evening had turned orange.

Literally.

These shots were not photoshopped. The color's pretty much as we saw it. The first shot's not even looking towards the sunset.

Everything was suffused in an orange glow. Must be the smoke from the brush fires 40 miles distant. Weird.

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Hope you enjoyed hearing me filibuster on the radio last night- thanks to Rollye James for saying nice things about me and letting me spew on national radio. Cold's finally abating, lots of catch-up to do, so I'm going to leave y'all to browse the archives while I return to normal.

Oh, and the sky's back to normal color.

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