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Saw "Little Miss Sunshine" today and it was OK, not the world-beating Best Picture Of the Century like some critics and Sundance casualties would have you believe but amusing in a "let's make fun of the dysfunctional losers" way that culminates in an "aww, the dysfunctional family sort of triumphs" finale. Not horrible, not great, mildly diverting, worth a cheap matinee or DVD rental.

But what made this movie better was that despite a crowded theater, there was precious little misbehavior. No eating smelly salads, no talking through the movie, no cell phones, nobody sitting right next to us despite seats being available elsewhere, no bother. Just the movie, nothing else. No aggravation.

I could get used to that.

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No time tonight. So...

When I was five years old, I thought this was screamingly funny.

Again, I was five years old. Five. You can't blame me.

I would likely have seen this when it aired the first time, too:

But I was 4 at the time. Four. And I would not have been screaming, not for the Dave Clark Five, at least.

I'd have watched this, too, and it would not have seemed odd to me that the singer and others were flailing in a most unfortunate manner:

I may have seen this, too, but I can't honestly recall it:

It's amazing to see a) Koufax dominating the Twins, and b) the way baseball on TV used to be- no obtrusive graphics and announcers who didn't yammer on and on and on and on and on. (We're lucky here to still get the latter- thank you, Vin Scully. And, yes, Vin is heard on this one)

It was a very good year. I didn't know from cancer, or war, or mortgages or taxes or anything else. All I knew was that I had a safe place to live, a family that loved me, and a TV that worked and brought me Soupy Sales and "Shindig" and Sandy Becker and "Hullabaloo" and "The Flintstones." That was good enough for me, even if the TV was black and white, only got a few channels, and took forever to "warm up."

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It's not that I have nothing to say, it's that it's August, it's been a long day, I've been writing nonstop for hours, and I just don't really feel like writing it right now.

So here's a blog about old shopping malls.

And a great, if haphazardly organized, page on discount stores of the sixties is here.

And here's a clip from 1964:

I remember this version. No Brett Somers or Charles Nelson Reilly or that microphone, but the same old game. And an unforgettable Bert Kaempfert theme.

Perhaps I'll be more inspired by the time I have to write the weekly newsletter. Or not.

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Here's something minor that drives me crazy about radio people: they sometimes just take stories directly off the web or some Fark-like "wacky story" service and don't actually pay any attention to things like, say, important details.

Example: the story I had on All Access about the editing of Tom and Jerry cartoons to eliminate smoking. When I wrote it up, I noted that it was the BRITISH version of Boomerang doing the cutting- it was at the behest of UK broadcasting regulator OFCOM after a complaint. Then I heard it on several radio shows, and NONE of them mentioned that it WASN'T being done in the U.S.

READ THE DAMN STORY! And if you're just relying on a prep service that doesn't itself read the stories, you owe it to your own credibility to do your own writing, and use a prep resource that you know actually reads all the stories before writing about them. One like, oh, I don't know, how about All Access? There's my self-serving thought for today.

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This week's All Access newsletter addressed the recent news-making format changes at KZLA/Los Angeles and WSNI/Philadelphia, with the overall theme of Maybe It Was The Right Thing To Do, Or Not, But Get Over It:

Get ready (get ready)... for the NEW (the new)... M-M-M-MOVIN' LETTER!

Next week: something written in haste while I daydream about getting a whole two-day weekend for Labor Day. I take what I can get. Maybe I can use the time to finally answer the backlog of e-mails and letters I've been meaning to get to. Sorry and thanks for your patience.

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Running along PV Drive today minding my own business, I noticed helicopters, someone or something on a parachute, and a general commotion in the ocean. What could it be?

Could it be... why, yes, it IS the Black Pearl!

They're shooting more scenes for the third "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie in the ocean a couple of blocks from pmsimon.com World Headquarters, and all I had with me is my lousy Treo 600 0.3 MP phone camera. Well, to the naked eye it looked a LOT closer- you could easily make out all the sails and see about a dozen boats and two helicopters in the vicinity. But all I can do is zoom in a little on GrainyVision here and you can barely make out the ship:

I wasn't the only person watching, though. Cars and minivans and trucks appeared out of nowhere and filled the little fishing access parking lot on the other side of the old Marineland lot, with families all gawking from the cliffs:

Can't blame 'em this time. It was pretty damn cool to see the ship in person. No sign of the Deppster, though. Or Keira, or Orlando, or even Mackenzie Crook or Jack Davenport. Just a ship, some choppers, and lots of boats with cameras. Even in jaded L.A., that's enough to draw a crowd.

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It's a standard fallback column lazy newspaper columnists write when they need to fill space and wish to look smart and progressive to the latte-sippers in the readership, and a local columnist wrote one again today, another navel-gazer about going cold turkey and turning off the TV:

The television and radio have been turned off in our home and my car for a month now. Coincidentally, during that time, I have not been afraid.

That's the opening sentence. Do you really need to read the rest? No, but if you do, you discover that she's found an alternative:

But I mostly listened to the radio. Interestingly enough, I began to correlate my anxiety to what I was listening to and watched it decrease during the discussion of spiritual truth.

Though I spent most of my radio time listening to wonderful shows such as "This American Life" and L.A. Theatre Works' radio theater, I often listened to the BBC and National Public Radio news. I found the reporting deeper and the coverage at a much higher quality level.

Of course. NPR and more NPR. She's so enlightened and special. The baristas at Starbucks will be tres impressed. And if that's not enough to bring a tear to your eye, she ends with this:

During those hours frozen to the television, I discovered that the story of my life has been about my attempts to postpone now. I attempted to do that with activity, radio, paralysis and particularly, television. I did it because I was afraid of what now would contain, that it would not be good enough and that it should be different and so on.

So, I tried to make now stop. Because now, the only thing that ever is, is impossible to stop, I ended up merely distracting myself. In doing so, I missed the joy of being.

Life is a process of awakening. Until a certain level of awakening in me had already taken place, the television and radio had to be blasting. I understand that and am simply grateful for the shift.

It's amazing how beautifully long a day is when one is in it.

Which is another way of saying

Oh, I've been to Georgia and California and anywhere I could run
I took the hand of a preacher man and we made love in the sun
But I ran out of places and friendly faces because I had to be free
I've been to paradise but I've never been to me

And they paid her for it.

Watching television doesn't prevent you from being, er, you. It's not a manifestation of a deep emptiness. It's entertainment, nothing more and nothing less. But if you feel the need to apologize for watching television- the need to put it in writing and publish it in the local paper- well, that might signify something more troublesome and deep-seated, the need for approval, the need to appear learned, the need for people to know that, no, you're no addict, you're no robotic stooge mindlessly watching network crapola- no, even when you deigned to watch TV you watched quality TV:

Two years ago, I stopped watching the news completely. About the same time, I limited my watching to HBO, Showtime, IFC and the Sundance Channel. Still, I turned the television on whenever things got quiet, I felt lonely, or I was bored.

I surmised that "Sex and the City" and "The Sopranos" were more artistic than "American Idol" and felt appropriately superior. Jay learned never to approach the bedroom between 8 and 10 p.m. Sunday nights.

See? She only watched the "more artistic" channels, not that Fox stuff for the masses. She's elite, you see.

I can't stand people like this. I can't stand people who not only need their personal habits to reflect a perceived superiority but who need to make sure each and every person he or she comes into contact with knows that. "Oh, I never watch television," you say? I have nothing to say to you, and that's not because I want to discuss "Deal or No Deal" with you.

See, I watch TV. I don't like everything on it, and some of it is indefensible, but it turns out that there's nothing wrong with wanting to be entertained. I do live "in the day," and I like to relax and watch something that isn't Charlie Rose interviewing a professor from NYU. I like to listen to the radio, and I like everything BUT NPR- turns out I like to stay awake while driving. I will not apologize for liking baseball, "Green Acres" reruns, "shock radio," talk radio, or "House." I will not apologize for avoiding PBS like the plague. I have a full life. I can handle a little down time. And I can handle the disdain of the "superior."

Now, if you'll excuse me, it turns out that channel 30 has a "Green Acres" marathon starting at 5. It's amazing how beautifully long a day is when one is watching Arnold Ziffel.

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