What The Hell Was That Last Night?

Whew, what was that nonsense last night all about? Sometimes when I come up with a topic to write about it suddenly dawns on me that it would be oh-so-much more entertaining if presented in the form of a poem. Off the top of my head I can remember previous poems working really well, such as the one I wrote about my pear tree and also the one about my hatred of geese. (Did you really buy that “top of my head” thing? Actually I had to hunt through my list of titles to find those two examples. There may even be more—who can remember?)

So last night when I decided to write about my mustache I thought that yes, here was yet another case where my subject would work so much better as a poem. And I think you know how that worked out.

Or actually, you don’t, because I didn’t print it. Oh sure, I posted the first two couplets which, if somewhat short of brilliant, at least had a certain wit and sparkle about them. (Even if one line was a lie: I rarely drink even a single beer, and never more than one. Yuck.) The third couplet, of course, was my total surrender. At that point it was “Give me a pair of rhyming words and get me out of here!” time. Yes, I did something that I rarely do—I gave up on a piece. I wrote those final lines and posted the shortest blog I’ve ever written. I then soaked in the hot tub for a while and went to bed. Sure I felt bad about calling it quits like that, and yet somehow the sun still rose this morning.

I actually was very near completion of the offending poem when I finally uttered my “no mas” in the wee hours of the morning. The full poem has a respectable seven or eight rhyming couplets. I don’t know the exact count and I absolutely refuse to cast my gaze on that hideous beast for even a second in order to check. Maybe someday I’ll read that grotesque poem again, but not tonight. And not for a long, long time.

What really inspired me to toss in the towel last night was something I saw on The Tonight Show many years ago. Johnny Carson was in the middle of a sketch that wasn’t working too well, which is fine if you’re familiar with Carson’s work. Nobody before or since has had the skill to take a mediocre piece of material and turn it into comic gold. He made bombing an art. On this particular night Carson did something I had never seen him do before: He stopped in the middle of the sketch and said simply, “Screw this.” And it was hilarious.

Which is the same conclusion I arrived at after reading last night’s mustache poem. The topic was fine, although it kept shifting between my mustache and my upper lip. One line talked about how my upper lip had never seen the California sun, but the next line was vaguely obscene and referred to some mysterious and unnamed places that it has seen. I ended with a cutesy line about perhaps shaving it when I’m ninety, as if me or my mustache stand a chance of being around for that long. I’m telling you reading that poem was brutal; it was truly a god-awful creation.

Which is what surprised me, I think. Creating simple poems with both meter and rhyme is something I’ve always been good at, perhaps the only thing. I’ve used my lyrics in songs for TV commercials and even I even earned the incredibly rare Triple Plus Mark in fifth grade for composing a Shakespearean sonnet about the 1964 World’s Fair. My teacher was a poetry lover and, while I can’t be positive, I’ve long suspected that reading my masterful poem for the first time actually caused him to ejaculate.

Perhaps someday I’ll look back and realize that I overreacted and that my mustache poem is not quite the horror I’m making it out to be. Perhaps it just needs a tweak here and there to make it presentable, even good. Perhaps, but frankly I don’t see it happening. In my heart I know it’s hideous, a disgraceful use of our language, and a real man with a stronger will would have immediately dragged it into the desktop trash bin and done the world a monumental favor. And really, you all owe me a major thank you just for having the kindness and good taste to not post it, thereby eliminating the risk of possibly subjecting you to that atrocity.

Finally I’d like to let you know that I am still planning on telling you all about my mustache, and in the very near future. It’s a tale I’m sure you’re just dying to hear. And so you can be sure that in the next few days I’ll post an article about the mustache that I’ve worn, uninterrupted, for the past thirty-two years. And you can also be sure that when I do, it will be prose.

My Mustache

I was thinking today as I knocked back some beers,
That I’ve had my mustache for thirty-two years!

I grew it in college my diary says,
And the last time I shaved it Dick Nixon was Prez!

This poem goes on longer, but as I've recently said,
"They can't all be gems," so I'm going to bed.

Fried Liverwurst Follow-Up

The entry I wrote last week about my childhood breakfast treat fried liverwurst brought back so many fond memories that I knew I had to just had to have some. So this morning I woke up and went right to the kitchen to whip up a batch. You might say I went from bed to wurst. Ha! Get it?

Ahem. As it turns out I stuck pretty close to the old family recipe, complete with Kaiser roll, onions, catsup and lots and clots of butter. (Truth: I just accidentally typed “clots” instead of “lots,” and when I saw it I laughed out loud so I left it that way.) And, just as I remembered, the fried liverwurst was delicious—enjoyed immensely by both Spike and myself. In fact the aroma is still with me.

And the reason for that is because before I threw out the liverwurst wrapper this morning I peeled off the nutritional label from the packaging and have it right here in front of me. And trust me, it stinks of the stuff. In fact after reading it a bit I'm starting to believe that they call it the nutritional label because it is more nutritious than the liverwurst itself.

For example, if I had thought about it as a kid I guess I’d have come to the conclusion that it’s called liverwurst because it’s made up mostly of ground-up livers. Except that I never thought about it. Until today. I mean, of course it’s made of livers, but livers of what? I had assumed it was from cows, but suddenly I wasn’t so sure. After all we’re talking about the Germans here—they’re capable of grinding up anything and putting it on bread. Hell, my Grandmother used to make sandwiches out of some unidentified glop she’d put through her grinder. My brothers and I loved it. What was in it? How the hell should I know?

As it turns out the label on the liverwurst tells me that the main ingredient is pork liver. Well there you go! You’re never too old to learn, eh? Oddly, the next two ingredients are listed as pork and bacon. Aren’t we drawing some fine distinctions here? Why don’t these Nazis just admit that they picked up the whole pig and threw him squealing into the blades--hoofs, snout and all?

The nutritional facts on the label tell us that liverwurst has 110 calories per serving. Not all that horrible, until you see that their definition of a serving is one slice. Who the hell is going to eat just one slice? Lara Flynn Boyle? As I mentioned in the first article, I usually put about four slices on a fried liverwurst sandwich, plus it’s not uncommon for me to “tidy up” by eating the last leftover slice or two afterwards. With no bread, of course--that might make it fattening.

But it’s not the calorie count that grabbed my attention on that smelly nutritional label.. No it was that old demon, fat. OK, all you fat counters out there, take a guess as to how many grams of fat are in each slice of liverwurst. Need help? OK, remember that a teaspoon of mayonnaise has 3.7 grams of fat and a chocolate brownie with icing has about 5. So how many grams of fat for the liverwurst? Ten! And that’s in a single slice! So by eating four on my sandwich and an additional slice for “dessert” I actually consumed the fat equivalent of ten chocolate brownies (with icing!) or, let me get out my calculator here, thirteen and a half teaspoons of mayonnaise! Oh, barf!

There is, however, a positive nutritional note to all this. Apparently ground-up pig guts are an excellent source of Vitamin A. In fact by consuming five full slices of this Vitamin A-packed foodstuff I have apparently gotten 650% of my minimum daily requirement. Hey, I’m covered for the week! Now hold on for a sec while I check the Net to see exactly why it is we need Vitamin A in the first place. Be right back.

OK, it turns out that we need Vitamin A to maintain healthy skin and hair. Terrific. I’ve eaten enough coronary-inducing liverwurst to pack every artery I own as if it were spackled, but look Ma, no zits!

Ah well, I’m still glad I got a chance to visit my old childhood chum fried liverwurst. I enjoyed it, Spike enjoyed it and even Ellsworth the Turtle seemed to enjoy the small piece I gave him. Although, now that I think about it, perhaps Ellsworth might not be the perfect barometer with which to measure the toothsomeness of a culinary delicacy. After all, he’s also been known to enjoy eating crickets, worms and, on occasion, his own poop.

A Tale of Two Screws

Well, three actually, if you count the book. I just finished watching a 1974 TV version of Henry James’ classic ghost story The Turn of the Screw. Two nights ago I watched a 1999 TV version of the same book. (You can do these kinds of fun things when you belong to NetFlix.) The reason I ordered the older version was because after watching the 1999 version Spike and I looked at each other as if to say, “What the hell happened here?” I was really confused when the movie ended, and that’s in spite of having read the book.

I’m happy to report that the 1974 film starring Lynn Redgrave was a gem. (They can’t all be gems!) It was sharply written, coherent and much scarier than the version that followed 25 years later. And like its successor the 1974 The Turn of the Screw simply used actors with no special effects to play the ghosts. No floating specters or see-through goblins, just good lighting and spooky make-up.

The reason I’m bothering you with all this is because I know that perhaps a few of you are like me in that you really appreciate a good ghost story. (Hopefully that’s the only way that you’re like me.) They’re a rare treat indeed. Each year the movie industry produces several good comedies and many good dramas, but a good ghost story only comes along every few years.

No, I’m not talking about the gore and blood-fests that pass for horror these days. Sure some of these, like the best in any genre, have some good things going for them. But they’re not really ghost stories, are they? In fact I can count the really good ghost stories released over the last few years on the carpal-tunneled fingers of one hand.

The Sixth Sense always seems to be the first one people rush to defend, and yeah, it was a good movie. I still have an unanswered question or two about it, but I’m willing to accept that the flaw might not be in the director’s filmmaking but in my thinking. (Holy cow! Did I just say that?) Anyway, it’s certainly the best of Shyamalan’s films so far. In fact they’ve gotten steadily worse and I just want to repeat my prediction that someday he’s going to find his way to television with a Twilight Zone-style show called M. Night Shyamalan Presents…Whatever. Just remember you heard it here first.

I thought 2000’s What Lies Beneath was a good ghost movie, mainly because it stayed true to being a ghost movie. It’s not a classic, but it will send a horrible chill up your spine on a dark and lonely night. Then again, so will a Bush press conference. I also have always loved The Blair Witch Project, but yeah, I can already hear you whining, “It’s not a ghost movie, it’s a witch movie.” Still, this one is a classic. I can’t think of any other movie that gives the impression of having been thrown together from a bunch of film scraps and yet upon closer inspection reveals itself to be a brilliantly and creatively edited flick with hardly a frame of waste. Ah, I don’t care what you say--I love this movie.

There was a ghost movie last year that I can’t remember the name of and am too lazy to get off my ass to check my box of index cards. I think it will win one of the yearly awards that I give out on my dopey public access TV show, possibly for Guilty Pleasure. I’ve never had this kind of movie experience before, and I’ve seen a lot of movies. Have you ever been watching a movie that is terrific all the way through and you’re thinking that if it comes up with a great ending this will be a classic? And then, of course, the ending disappoints you, because frankly great films don’t happen that often. That’s why they call them classics.

Well this movie, the title of which, again, I’m too lazy to get for you, was exactly the opposite. For about an hour and a half I thought I was watching a shoo-in for my worst movie of the year. I mean, my soda and nachos were gone and I just wanted to go home. And then something truly bizarre happened: It all came together in a brilliant ending and I left the theater truly confused. I don’t ever remember watching a crappy movie that came up with a great ending, do you? It simply isn’t done. Keep reading this blog and I’ll mention the title when I give my 2005 movie awards.

Anyway, I seem to have wandered off the original path on which I began, and that was talking about The Turn of the Screw (1974). I just want to let any ghost movie fans out there know that this is a good one and you might want to search for it at your local video store. And if you can’t find it there have been at least a dozen other versions (inferior versions, according to imdb.com) of The Turn of the Screw made since 1952. Hell, you might even decide to go completely nuts and actually read the book!

Hits

OK, so I was wrong. Last night you all participated in a little experiment that I wanted to try, and by “all” I mean a very, very small group of you. I’ve always loved statistics and therefore enjoy keeping track of the number of hits this site gets each day. That’s why I added that counter down there at the bottom of the page. What fun, eh?

I didn’t add the counter until I was already many months into writing this stupid thing, but once it was up and going I wanted a number that was an estimate of the total number of hits I’d gotten from the beginning. I kept track for a few weeks and to my surprise the numbers showed that I got almost exactly ten hits a day. And so I counted up the number of days this site has been going, multiplied by ten and that’s the number I began my counter with. If I remember correctly I think the number was around 1400.

Several months later I thought it was time to recalibrate because I wanted to be accurate and really, what else have I got to do? I was again surprised, this time by finding out how accurate my original estimate had been. The average number of hits per day was now sitting at 10.04! There was no doubt now that I was getting almost exactly ten hits per day, on average. I tried not to let this number get me down, especially when I reflected that the Drudge Report gets about ten million hits a day. That’s quite a spread, I know. And I’m pretty sure that Drudge doesn’t send out little annoying reminders every three or four days.

Another thing I noticed was that my daily hits rose to about twenty on days when I did send out my little reminders, the link to my site. I send it out to two lists of names, each with about 75 people on it. Some folks have complained that “you didn’t send it to me” and I’m always amazed by this. I’m not actually sending anything—the site is always there, updated daily. You can add my blog to your “favorites” if you want to read it--which obviously you don’t. Maybe Microsoft will someday add a “least favorites” and you can add it to that.

I’ve been noticing lately that even on the days when I send out a reminder I’m now only getting ten or twelve hits, not twenty as I used to. From a statistical point of view I’m obviously trending in the wrong direction. I just recalculated my daily average hits since the site began and we’re now down to 9.74. Now I know part of this is because my Mom’s computer isn’t working, so right there I’m losing as much as a hit a day. But really, I send a reminder link to 150 people and only ten of them even bother to click on it? What can we learn from this?

And to make matters worse, people now know what this link is for. It appears that the more they know about it the less they click on it. How depressing! The only bright spot is that since the site began last June only two, or maybe three, people have actually requested to be taken off the reminder list. I thought this number would be much higher, and it may be yet. Hey, maybe people are not clicking on the link, but they don’t want it to stop coming either. Go figure.

And so last night I tried a little trick that I’d used once before. A few years ago I was writing for a site that paid me based on the number of hits my article received. One day I decided to title a piece Freakishly Large Naked Breasts just to see if it would attract a larger audience. Hell, if an article with that title showed up on my computer I’d be clicking faster than an African speaking Xhosa after three cups of coffee.

The results, while not phenomenal, were encouraging. So last night I thought I'd attempt to raise my sagging hit count by writing an article with the word “nudity” in the title, and use you all as guinea pigs. Not that it wasn’t a fun article—it was. Lots of laughs, said my only regular reader who still has a working computer.

I was less pleased with the results shown on my counter. Total hits since last night: 11. Even with an the word “nudity” in the subject box of the e-mail, followed by several exclamation marks, only 11 out of 150 clicked on the link. How disheartening.

I’d like to again try this experiment down the road, but I’ll have to come up with a title that is so irresistible and so tantalizing that nobody will be able to resist it. Or at least less than 93% of the people. Maybe I’ll try FREE BEER!!! or MOTHER TERESA NUDE!!! or DEATH COMET HEADING TOWARDS EARTH!!!

Any other suggestions?

Indigenous Nudity

The primary issue for me was whether the Indian women in The New World would be topless or not. The PG-13 rating description said nothing about nudity, only violence, so I knew going in that my prospects were slim. In spite of this I went to see the film, which turned out to be my best decision of the day. It’s a gorgeous film; a dreamy blend of raw reality and hazy mythology. But that’s not why I’ve gathered you all here tonight.

In case you are unaware, that’s the new phrase being used in the ratings of documentaries about native peoples, especially on television. If you’re watching a show on Discovery about some primitive tribe that is eking out a meager existence in the low-rent district of New Guinea they will warn you from the get-go that the program features scenes of “indigenous nudity.” That means all the chicks are nekkid. Classifying certain nudity as “indigenous” helps to draw a distinction between this type of acceptable display and regular nudity, such as a vacationing white woman running topless down a California beach, for example. You probably won’t be seeing the latter type on Discovery anytime soon. At least not without pixilation covering the choicest bits of real estate.

And while I’m thinking of it, what’s with that tribe where the men have affixed those long pointy cones onto their doodles? Those sticks extend out three or four feet! You know who I mean I’m sure--you’ve seen them on TV. I forget the name of the tribe, but I think the English translation is “The Wishful Thinkers.”

No, I’m sorry to report that the women in The New World didn’t run around topless. They tended to wear chic designer buckskin tops with the popular bare midriff look that apparently has been around longer than I realized. Like about 400 years longer. At first I thought that the filmmakers were attempting to be historically authentic. What do I know--maybe Native American women didn’t run around naked to the waist in the early 1600’s. But then, as if the producers were purposely exposing their own dastardly lie, the antique background etchings during the closing credits clearly showed two Indian women sitting in a canoe. Topless.

Frankly I think the problem here was that the historic Pocahontas was about 11 years old when she met Captain John Smith (who later wrote that she often did naked cartwheels) and that the actress who plays her is a mere 14 years old. So smart move by the producers, really—that’s one can of worms you don’t want to open up in this ugly year 2006.

Do you remember a film called The Emerald Forest? It was a pretty good film from about twenty years back, and actually one of the first major ecologically-themed movies that I can recall. Anyway, ecology-schmology, the chicks that belonged to that South American tribe were all topless. And hot! I still can remember a scene where a group of them were posing on rocks with a beautiful waterfall as a backdrop. It looked more like a Sports Illustrated swimsuit shoot than a tribe of primitive people. I know I saw this movie more than twice. Well, it was my way of trying to do something to save the environment, dammit!

About a year after I saw The Emerald Forest I happened to see a documentary about these very same people. At least they said it was the same people, but what happened? The women in the documentary were topless to be sure, but somehow they bore little resemblance to the sleek, golden- skinned bikini models exhibited in the Hollywood version. These women were squat, with tangled hair, bloated bellies and breasts that were droopier than your old Granny’s and hung like Spanish moss. So what? Let me ask you this: Since both of these films dealt with the plight of these indigenous people fighting to survive in a rain forest that is slowly but steadily being destroyed, which film would you rather sit through? Yeah, I thought so.

Which brings me back to Pocahontas. There is only one known image of that Indian princess made during her lifetime, and that is an engraving done in 1616 by Simon van de Passe. I’ve seen a picture of the engraving, and trust me that is not the actress in the movie. From all historic accounts, Pocahontas was quite a heroic girl. But take one look at that frightful mug in the engraving and believe me you’ll know that if she were alive today and they were making a movie about her life there’s no way she’d get the part. And that’s with or without a shirt.

Fried Liverwurst

It was a weekly tradition when I was growing up. Nearly every Saturday morning Dad would station himself by the stove and cook up a batch of fried liverwurst large enough to feed himself and his three rapidly expanding boys. Mom, mercifully paroled from cooking for at least one meal, would run around the house opening doors and windows, even in December, in a vain attempt to “get rid of that smell!”

I haven’t had fried liverwurst for many years now. For a while as an adult I’d make it occasionally, and I even recall preparing the treat for two or three girlfriends along the way. It may surprise you to learn that every one of those ladies liked (or claimed to like) the fried liverwurst, one apparently so much that she eventually became my wife. (Although I like to think she had other, deeper reasons besides my impressive culinary skills.) And I must be honest here and mention that after feeding these women their fried liverwurst we would often leave the house for the day’s chores or activities. Hours later, upon my return to my sealed up home, I was finally forced to admit what I couldn’t even begin to comprehend years earlier: Mom had been right: the house stunk.

And now, as a special treat to my loyal readers, I am going to tell you all how to properly prepare fried liverwurst. First of course, you’ll need a frying pan. Put it over medium heat and add some butter. Done? Good, now add some more butter. Mmmm, I’m getting stabbing chest pains just thinking about it. Now take slices of liverwurst (the thinner the better as far as I’m concerned, but you can make your own choices) and put them in the pan. How long you cook the liverwurst is also a personal choice, but you should fry the slices at least until the middle part rises like a small meat bubble. Hint: if it looks like you’re cooking a pan of brown diaphragms you’re on your way. You can even go so far as to crisp the edges of the liverwurst, but please remember that if you get to this point you’re done. Cook it any further and you’ll burn it, and then you’ll really hear my Mom yell.

While the liverwurst is cooking you should have also thrown some sliced onions into the pan. Sure go ahead, add some more butter. (I can hear my arteries clogging!) Meanwhile take your warm Kaiser rolls out of the over and slice them open. Put three or four slices (again your choice—vegetarians may want to use less) of the hot and greasy liverwurst onto a roll, spoon on some fried onions and top off with a dollop of catsup. And yes, the catsup is very important. I’ve never eaten fried liverwurst without catsup. I tried a bite once and it’s just not the same. It’s like having lobster with no melted butter. Sort of.

So there you have it. That’s the traditional way to prepare and serve fried liverwurst. There are variations, of course. The meal does not absolutely have to be made on a Saturday morning, although again I’ve never had it otherwise. And using basic nutrition-less white bread instead of a Kaiser roll is not forbidden; in fact it has its own unique gastronomic appeal. And please, if any of you actually are adventurous enough to try out this recipe, I hope you’ll tell me all about it. Just don’t tell your cardiologist.

Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk! A Three Stooges Quiz!

That was delicious! Now if you ladies will excuse us, we men will adjourn to the study where we shan’t bore the weaker sex with our barbaric talk of sports and politics. Gentlemen, please follow me and kindly close the door behind you. And may I offer you each a snifter of this fine twenty-year-old brandy and perhaps one of my prized Havana’s? Excellent.

OK, guys, now that the chicks are out of the way let me first apologize to you. Sad to say I don’t have any brandy, fine, old or otherwise, nor have I ever even seen a Cuban cigar. Still, there are some cold Bud Lights in that little refrigerator over there, and if you feel like smoking you probably could do worse than to take a hit off this. There you go—pass it around, I’ve got more. And now for our evening’s entertainment let me pop this into the DVD player. It’s got several shorts by the Three Stooges that I know you’ll enjoy. Just try to keep the laughter down, OK? —We’re supposed to be talking politics in here!

Nobody knows why women seem incapable of appreciating the comic genius of The Three Stooges. Oh they’ll laugh at the supposedly more highbrow antics of The Marx Brothers or Laurel and Hardy, but when it comes to Larry Moe and Curly it’s a long drawn-out yawn, a look down the nose and a whiney, “Isn’t there anything else on?”

Well, so be it, Gentlemen. After all, can any of us claim to truly understand the attraction of potpourri, shoe-shopping or clean bathrooms? Of course not. We’re two different species, men and women are, and may it ever be thus. Or as our French brethren might say, Viva la difference! And so let us tonight celebrate the male of the species, he of the quick mind, broad back and innate ability to perceive the humor in a grown man being dragged across a room by a pair of pliers clamped to his nose. And let it be known that the Three Stooges quiz that follows is, after all, for us and us alone.


1. The Three Stooges began their career working with what vaudevillian?
a. W.C. Fields
b. Frank “Giggles” West
c. Ted Healy
d. Sophie Tucker

2. What was Moe’s real first name?
a. Howard
b. Harry
c. Moses
d. Jerome

3. Which person was never a Stooge?
a. Joe DeRita
b. Joe Besser
c. Emil Sitka
d. Jimmy Ritz

4. Which Stooges were real-life brothers?
a. Moe and Larry only
b. Moe, Larry and Curly
c. Moe and Shemp only
d. Moe, Shemp and Curly

5. The brothers’ last name of Howard was changed from what?
a. Howardski
b. Horwitz
c. Henninger
d. The original name was Howard.

6. Who were the original Three Stooges?
a. Moe, Larry and Curly
b. Moe, Larry and Shemp
c. Larry, Shemp and Curly-Joe
d. Larry, Shemp and Curly

7. Why was Curly originally rejected as a Stooge?
a. He was too fat
b. He was too young
c. He was too shy
d. He was too good-looking

8. Of the 190 Three Stooges short films, what makes Hold That Lion! unique?
a. It featured only two Stooges
b. It featured Moe, Larry, Shemp and Curly
c. It was only four minutes long
d. It was considered too risqué to be released

9. What revived the Stooges’ career in 1959?
a. An appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show
b. Their short films were syndicated to television
c. Curly regained his health and returned to the act
d. Their feature film Gold Raiders was released

10. Which is not true about Curly?
a. He was married four times
b. He was often quiet and introverted off-camera
c. He once studied for the priesthood
d. His nickname was “Babe”

OK, Gentlemen, admittedly some of these were tough. And so what? Are we not men? So let’s check the answers and see how you did. Also, you might want to call the women into the room in order to serve tea and perhaps rub your tired feet while you tally up your score.

ANSWERS:

1. TED HEALY. Moe says in his autobiography that the Stooges finally left Healy because of his alcoholism and abrasiveness.
2. HARRY. His middle name was indeed Moses, from which was derived the familiar “Moe.” Tough one, huh?
3. JIMMY RITZ was a member of the Ritz Brothers comedy team, but was never in the Three Stooges. The Ritz Brothers did, however, take the place of what was left of the Stooges in a movie called Blazing Stewardesses when both Moe and Larry passed away in 1975.
4. MOE, SHEMP and CURLY were brothers. Every true Stooges fan knows that.
5. HORWITZ. I guess they changed it because they didn’t want people to know they were Swedish.
6. MOE, LARRY and SHEMP formed the original trio. Shemp later left to pursue a solo career and returned when Curly suffered a stroke. And if you want to get totally anal about it, the original Stooges were Moe and Shemp, with violinist Larry later joining the group. But I did ask for three, didn’t I?
7. HE WAS TOO GOOD-LOOKING. But a quick shave of his mustache and full head of hair took care of that!
8. IT FEATURED MOE, LARRY, SHEMP and CURLY. This was the third Stooge film after Shemp had returned to fill in for the ailing Curly. Curly was included in the film in the hopes that it would raise his morale.
9. THEIR SHORT FILMS WERE SYNDICATED TO TELEVISON. You mean you didn’t watch the Three Stooges on TV when you were a kid? Hell, my Mom had to schedule dinner around that show!
10. HE ONCE STUDIED FOR THE PRIESTHOOD. Didn’t you read the part where I told you his last name was changed from Horwitz?

They Can't All Be Gems

If you were to say to me something like, “You know, Len, I usually enjoy reading your witty little spewings but the one you wrote last night just wasn’t up to par,” I’d probably answer with something like, “Then don’t read it and kiss my ass on your way out.” But let’s imagine for a moment that I’m not the bitter rude grump that you know and love but rather a normal well-balanced human being. Under these circumstances I might chuckle at your mild rebuke and respond with a cheery, “They can’t all be gems!”

My question to you tonight is have you ever used or even heard that expression before? The reason I ask is I have been hearing that phrase for well over forty years and am curious as to its origin. I mean, I remember where I first heard it, but I’m always wondering if current users have obtained it from the same ancient source.

OK, a little history here. I don’t remember how old I was exactly but I’m thinking I was about ten or eleven. I’m sitting in a mall (yeah, we had malls back in the olden days, smart-ass) reading from a shiny new paperback book I had just purchased for about fifty cents. It’s a collection of articles from Mad Magazine, and at the time it causes me to laugh so hard that I occasionally have to put the book down in order to catch my breath and to avoid embarrassment as well.

One of the articles in the book is a parody of the classic television series Bonanza. The take-off is called, of course, Bananaz and features a running gag where “The Cartwheels” keep coming up with endless and increasingly lame variations on the old bromide, “The family that prays together, stays together.” Now, sadly, I don’t recall any of the actual ones used in that Mad satire (give me a break—it was forty friggin’ years ago) but here’s an example so you know what I’m talking about: “The family that eats together cures meats together.”

Get the idea? So the Mad article goes on with characters coming up with about four or five of these things until one of them is so bad that one of the Cartwheels has to point it out. Then one of the other Cartwheels, the one who created the newest platitude, defends himself by saying, “They can’t all be gems.” Believe me, this line was hilarious to any youngster on the cusp of discovering irreverence and rebellion in the mid-Sixties, and was sure to be remembered, at least by a few.

I have occasionally heard this expression used (most often by Howard Stern) over the years and I’ve always wondered if the person using it first read it in that old Mad Magazine satire. A few months back I wrote about how I first read the phrase, “Eat my shorts,” in an article written by Douglas Kenney in National Lampoon, and wondered if it had also been read by some kid who later went on to write for The Simpsons and donated the phrase to Bart.

And now tonight I heard one of the characters on Desperate Housewives say, “They can’t all be gems,” and I had to wonder if some writer on that show remembered it from his childhood reading of Mad Magazine. So tonight I decided to do a little research on the Internet with the hopes of discovering an answer as to whether this phrase began with Mad Magazine or was already a commonly used phrase at the time the parody was written.

A search of “they can’t all be gems desperate housewives” led me right to a story about Marc Cherry, creator and writer of the popular show. In fact the name of the article was Housewives’ Creator: They Can’t All Be Gems and was a response by Cherry to criticism that his program was less creative and entertaining in this, its second season.

I did a little research on Mr. Cherry and found that he is 44 years old, a little wet behind the ears to have read the Mad issue that contained the original parody. Howard and I, after all, are a bit older so it’s conceivable that we read that article, but Cherry may not have even been born when it first appeared. (By the by, I searched the contents of every Mad Magazine of the 1960’s but was unable to pinpoint the exact date of the issue. I could go back and do it again more carefully if I felt like it, but, quite frankly, I don’t.)

But wait! Remember I didn’t read the parody in an issue of Mad either, but in one of their paperback collections. And by the way, don’t you think it’s the height of greed and bad taste for a writer to take a bunch of his previously published articles, slap them together into a book and then foist it on an unsuspecting public? You don’t? Then check out my books at http://www.leonardstegmann.com/. They make wonderful Valentine’s Day gifts. OK, no they don’t.

So maybe Marc Cherry, along with Howard and myself, did first read the phrase, “They can’t all be gems,” in a Mad book all those years ago. After all, those books have been in print forever. And what a tribute to the writer of that parody, to have created a line that is not only remembered nearly half a century after its publication but is still being used today by at least three people who read it as kids: a highly successful writer (Marc Cherry), a hugely successful radio personality (Howard Stern) and a colossal failure (Me.)

Hey, we can’t all be gems.

Son of Bits and Pieces

So I’m just getting back to my car in the Lucky’s parking lot the other day when two very attractive and very young girls walk by. “Look how cute this car is!” squealed one of the little Lolita’s. At this point I arrived at my car, pulled out my keys, smiled and said thank you. And then I drove away.

The little tramp’s phrase had taken me back to a time about twenty-five years ago when I was employed as a clerk in an adult book store. (Yeah, I had a college degree—why do you ask?) Two different young girls walked by the open door of the store. One of them stopped, looked in and squealed to her friend, “Look how cute this guy is!”

So there you have it—from cute guy to cute car in a quarter century. And I suspect the third and final “cute” stage of my life will occur in another twenty-five years around the time of my 80th birthday. I’ll be in the old-age home, hunched over in a wheelchair that has been positioned in front of a birthday cake and wearing a dopey pointed party hat on my bald and liver-spotted head. I’ll make a valiant attempt to blow out the single candle and act like I care, which I won’t. It will be an effort to look up when I hear some noise, but I’ll do it and through my rheumy eyes I’ll see two young girls walking merrily through the lobby, obviously there to visit some ancient relative. And one of them will see me in my birthday party regalia and squeal, “Look how cute this old man is!”

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Did you see where the Turkish government has re-arrested that guy I wrote about last week? You know, the thug who put three bullets into Pope John Paul II, and killed a journalist as well. Seems like they took my suggestion and re-evaluated whether five years in prison was sufficient punishment for having killed a man. Wow, I know this blog is only read by ten people a day, but I had no idea they were such powerful people.

**********

Unless they change the constitution, and they would if they could, three years from today, January 20, 2009, will be the absolute latest that George Bush will be able to stay in office. Should he for any reason leave office before then I will win a $200 bet. I am planning to give half of the money I win to a charity to help the people of Iraq and half I will use to splurge on an overpriced but celebratory bottle of wine.

**********

From the “So you want to be a writer?” Department: Did you know that Herman Melville died barely remembered and in relative poverty? And that Moby-Dick was not recognized as a classic until after he died? In fact years after Moby-Dick was published Melville had to give lectures to help support himself. The guy wrote one of the greatest books in American literature for God’s sake and he still had to whore himself out to scrape up a few nickels to feed his family. So what chance do the rest of us have?

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I’d love to write an article someday called What I’ve Learned. It would be a collection of useful information that I’ve acquired during my sojourn here on Earth that I could leave to a younger generation to help them on their way. The only trouble is I can’t seem to think of a single thing that I’d include in the article. Except this:

I have no empirical evidence to back me up, but I’m pretty sure that when you’re waiting in a long line (at the grocery store or post office, for example) and another lane opens up, I now believe the correct move is to stay in the line that you’re already in. Not only will you avoid any potentially ugly scene with some big ape who thinks you’re cutting ahead of him, but your line will become a lot shorter due to all the pushy bastards who impulsively jump to the new line. Yeah, I’m fairly confident in my recommendation that this is the way to go. Unless, of course, the clerk personally comes over to you and says, “I’ll take you over here.” Then by all means jump.

Guess Who? #4

Well here we go again. I’ve just returned from Boys’ Night Out, filled with about ten pounds of Japanese food and not one but two Diet Cokes. Yeah, we’re a wild group. So I don’t have a topic prepared, The Daily Show comes on shortly and I'm exhausted from having to work three days in a row. (A personal record.) Sure, the work today was done mostly while I sat on my ass and told somebody else what to do, but it’s still work. So what am I to do? But of course! It’s time for another round of the game that is exciting, challenging, fun and oh so easy to write. It’s time to play Guess Who!

Never played before? Well it’s time to get your feet wet. Simply read the clues given below and tell me who we’re talking about. Once again I’ll give you the hint of gender by referring to our mystery person as Mr. X. Now get to work. And no cheating!


Mr. X visited Cuba in 1998 and met for three hours with Fidel Castro. Afterwards Mr. X called Castro “a genius.”

Mr. X is known as Pickles among his close friends.

Mr. X turned down the role of Michael Corleone in The Godfather.

Mr. X was friends with gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson.

Mr. X’s middle name is Joseph.

Mr. X wrote the Monkees’ 1968 movie Head.

Mr. X claims not to know who his father is, and was raised believing that his grandmother was actually his mother, and his mother his sister.

Mr. X has been married once and has four children by three different women.

Mr. X once earned $50 million for appearing in a hit movie.

Mr. X has won seven Golden Globes.

Mr. X once worked as a messenger for MGM’s cartoon department.

Mr. X was voted Class Clown in high school.

Mr. X was boyhood friends with Danny DeVito.

Mr. X is of Irish, Italian and Dutch heritage.

Jeez, how many damn hints do you need? Got the answer? Good. The Daily Show is on.

DAMWISF

“Unfortunately we are unable to approve the requested plate configuration for the following reason(s): California Vehicle Code, Section 5105 (a) states we must refuse any license plate configuration which carries connotations offensive to good taste and decency.”

You know, when I applied to get the personalized license plate DAMWISF I had a feeling it might not get approved. My guess is that it was rejected because it starts with DAM. Sure I could argue that, in the first place, “damn” is the mildest weapon in our huge arsenal of deadly curse words and second, that’s not even how you spell it. Yet I certainly understand their point of view. I mean, how many license plates do you see with FUK in them? And that’s not spelled right either.

And it’s not that I’m the type of guy who would never try to slip some foul message past the good folks at the Department of Motor Vehicles. Of course I would. I just don’t think I’m clever enough to do it. Those word-Nazis at the DMV must know every trick, and in every language, in the book. I wouldn’t stand a chance. What’s bothering me is that this time, for once in my life, I’m innocent of the crime.

It took me a long time to even apply for a personalized (or “vanity”-let’s call it like it is) plate. The public display of such nonsense always seemed to me to be frivolous at best and as downright obnoxious as cell phones and “baby on board” signs at worst. Still, when I finally broke down and decided to get one it was because I thought it would be something with which I could have a little fun.

The reason I chose the above letters for my personalized plates is so that when people ask me what it stands for I could look them in the eye and say, "Don’t ask me what it stands for!” Then after their faces had turned to stone because of my shockingly rude response I could explain, “No, that’s what it stands for: Don’t Ask Me What It Stands For.” Ha! Big time fun, right?

And now the fun is all ruined for me because some of you sick twists are trying to get the government to unwittingly allow dirty words on your car. You should be ashamed of yourselves! Oh, I know I could try again by using SAMWISF, which would be an acronym for Stop Asking Me What It Stands For, but frankly I just don’t have the energy to pursue this any further. Besides, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t just a little thrilled when that letter from DMV came today and I saw the line, “A charge back in the amount of $90.00 will be applied to your credit card account.” Woo-hoo! Free money!

Every Limbo Boy and Girl, All Around the Limbo World

It’s been less than a year since John Paul II descended into the fires of Hell and already his successor Benedict XVI is shaking things up a bit in the Catholic Church. One of the first things the new pontiff wants to do is put an end to the concept of Limbo.

For those of you who weren’t lucky enough to be raised Catholic (twitch-twitch) Limbo is yet another of the possible destinations that await us in the afterlife. Until Limbo was invented by the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages, with no small amount of help from Thomas Aquinas, there were but three places you could go once you shuffled off this vale of tears: Heaven, Hell or Purgatory. But somewhere in medieval times some people began to think for themselves, and that is never a good thing as far as the Catholic Church is concerned.

Since the Church taught that you could not get into Heaven unless you were baptized, people began to wonder what happened to all those poor babies who died before their lazy parents got off their fat butts and dragged them down to the local priest to be baptized? They couldn’t, of course, enter Heaven (or its waiting room, Purgatory) because the unbaptized aren’t allowed in. Ever. And it seemed horribly unfair to condemn these innocent children to the eternal tortures of Hell simply because their parents had been a little sluggish in getting them dipped. What do you do?

Well, you use a trick that has since been eagerly and successfully adopted by the mental health profession: If something doesn’t fit into any of your existing categories, well, you simply make up a new one! And so Limbo was born, a nice, happy place where the unborn babies could frolic through all eternity. The only downside, assuming it is a downside, is that the citizens of this murky realm can never hang out with God, or gaze upon his big fat radiant face. Do you think these baby souls, running around in the sunshine, watching Barney and eating ice cream all day really care if they get to see the Big Man in person? I know I wouldn’t, as long as He kept the ice cream and cable TV coming.

Isn’t it nutty how religious doctrines come and go? When I was a kid if you ate meat on Friday you’d burn in Hell forever. Why? Who knows? There were also indulgences—prayers that you could say to take off some of the Purgatory jail time that surely awaited you or a loved one. For example, you might see a prayer in a book with the words “100 days” printed after it. This would mean you could take that amount of time off a Purgatory sentence just by saying the prayer. The catch was you didn’t know how long your Purgatory sentence would be. Saying a short prayer to get paroled 100 days sooner might sound like a good deal, but your time in Purgatory might actually turn out to be closer to 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 days. Suddenly it hardly seems worth the effort to mumble the damn thing, eh?

It’s reported that the Church, trying to survive in a (slightly) more sophisticated world, is doing away with Limbo because of the high child mortality rate in Africa. If you want all those millions of generous people to keep paying dues to your club, well you better not be telling them that their dead babies can’t go to Heaven. Otherwise you run the risk that they’ll join somebody else’s club that will tell them that they can.

Seen Any Good Movies Lately?

I just had the Golden Globes blasting in the other room, but I turned it off when Catherine Deneuve came on. (I just searched her name on the web so the computer would show me how to spell her name correctly and I can’t believe I got it right. Aren’t I something?) What a drag that people have to get old, especially once-beautiful people like Deneuve. Do you ever hear people say things like Catherine Deneuve or Jane Fonda or Sophia Loren look as good now (or better!) than they ever did? Don’t you just want to laugh out loud?

I still remember the ad in the newspapers in 1967 when Belle de jour came out. It had Catherine in a bra. That was pretty hot stuff for those days, let me tell you. I was only fourteen at the time and not old enough to go and actually see the movie. I was, however, old enough and hormone-filled enough to carry around that crumpled newspaper ad for about a month.

I’ve seen quite a few movies lately. In fact, for reasons that are none of your business and that I don’t fully understand myself, I saw more movies in 2005 than in just about any year of my life. I no longer write full-out movie reviews, partly because I don’t want to criticize somebody’s work but mostly because I’m no good at them. So below you’ll find a few blurbs about some current films. You’ll notice I don’t mind criticizing people’s work if it’s in short bits.

CASANOVA
If my parents had named me Heath instead of Leonard maybe I’d have released five movies last year instead of spending most of it wearing glasses hunched over a keyboard writing drivel. Still, there’s something terribly wrong with taking the memory of one of history’s greatest horndogs and turning him into a love-struck sap who moons over an 18th Century feminist in this latest chick flick. Some laughs, but also draggy in parts. Of course Oliver Platt is fun…as usual. B-

MATCH POINT
I’ve often written about the happy days when Woody Allen’s appearance alone on a screen would start me off on two hours of continuous laughter. Those days are gone, although I think they can be brought back if Woody would write to his age and do a comedy about getting older. After all, he is 70. But no, Woody seems to be interested in only young love. He also seems to be interested in making masterful movies. Wow. I didn’t see this one coming. When you watch this film you’re just a puppet with Allen pulling your strings. You go everywhere he wants you to and you don’t even know it’s happening, right up until he slaps you with one of the best movie endings I’ve seen in years. A-

GRANDMA’S BOY
Yeah, I know, but another reason I stink as a reviewer is because I like almost everything I see. This is a good-natured comedy where the jokes miss more than they hit, but there’s some fun here. Besides, where else are you going to see Doris Roberts, Shirley Jones and Shirley Knight together? I also like the depiction of the lead character’s video game industry work environment. Am I telling you to go see this thing? Hell no. It’s got a couple of funny spots, but ultimately it’s also got Adam Sandler’s stink all over it. And that’s never a good thing. B-

MUNICH
The early buzz on this movie is that it would be Spielberg’s greatest. Now that’s saying something. I mean, if I tell you that my next blog is going to be my greatest you’d say so what? I mean, it’s not like the bar is set very high. But Spielberg? Anyway, it’s a few weeks later and things have calmed down. You don’t hear that kind of talk anymore, but it’s still a great movie. Everybody always tells you that nothing is ever solved by violence, and that violence always leads to more violence. Yes, everybody says that but Spielberg shows you why, by pulling the cover off a world that most people never get to see. Munich is what Syriana had hoped to be. A-

BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN
On the other hand, if my parents had named me Heath maybe I’d be up on some isolated mountain herding sheep and banging cowboys. Or even worse, the other way around. This is one of those rare movies that just gets better and better as it goes along, thanks in no small part to our pal Heath. Sure Philip Seymour Hoffman snagged the Golden Globe and is already clearing shelf space for the Oscar, but this late charge by Brokeback has got to make him just a little nervous. And listen, if you’re avoiding this movie because of the gay theme let me put your mind at ease. It’s a movie about people, and it’s very well done. So relax, grab your best friend and go see it as soon as you can. Fag. B+

And speaking of Brokeback Mountain, it was great to see one of my favorite writers, Larry McMurtry, accepting the Golden Globe for co-writing the script. And if you think Catherine Deneuve got old, McMurtry looks like he’s the grandpa of the guy on the dust jacket of his books. But of course it doesn’t matter how he looks—after all, he’s just a writer.

So what have you seen lately?

When Your Weight Is Three Times Your I.Q.

She’s an attractive woman, perfectly coiffed and wearing a snappy gray business suit. I think she looks a little like Gillian Anderson during her X-Files glory days, but you might not agree. She strolls across your T.V. screen, never once taking her unblinking eyes from the camera, and asks the question, “When is a diet pill worth $153 a bottle?”

And of course there are a lot of answers you could volunteer here. Some of my personal favorites are, “When you’re stupid enough to pay that much,” “Never,” and “When your weight is three times your I.Q.”

And yet I have to admit that there is a part of me that admires the P.T. Barnum-style marketing hubris of this commercial. I can imagine the meeting when these thieves had to come up with a price for their new product.

“Trim-Spa is twenty-five bucks. Can we afford to undercut them?” asks one eager young beaver.
“Well, we certainly can’t charge the same. We don’t have the name recognition,” offers another firebrand. And after a bit of heated debate the room goes silent. The big man is about to speak. He leans forward in his chair at the end of the conference table, removes the cigar from his mouth and clears his throat.

“One hundred and fifty-three dollars a bottle.” The room goes crazy. Is he serious? How can you justify that much money for a bottle of this crap? It’s not heroin, for chrissake. The big guy repeats himself.

“One hundred and fifty-three dollars a bottle.” The debate is over and the Beta and Gamma males slink back to their cubicles to prepare the advertising campaign.

The answer to the question about when a diet pill is worth that exorbitant amount of money is of course, according to the commercial, “When it works!” It’s a vicious advertising strategy and it will not succeed on a lot of people. Then again, it doesn’t have to. When you charge six times what your competitor does, you only need a sixth of the customers.

That woman in the commercial then tells you that this drug is much too powerful for the “casual dieter.” If you only have five or ten “vanity pounds” to lose, this pill is not for you. But if you need to lose twenty pounds or more…well here you go! Yeah, right. That’s where the obesity problem in this country lies—with those slobs who are five pounds overweight. This ad is very clever. They’re willing to give up trying to hook the slightly overweight in order to capture the grossly overweight. Or in other words, half the country.

Of course their target audience is made up of desperate and probably unhappy people who have already tried just about every diet scheme out there with little or no success. Now they see a pill that costs nearly two thousand dollars a year ($153 x 12) and so they figure it must work because it’s so damn expensive! And for those of you who doubt that so many people in this county can so easily be misled, I’ll remind you that last November sixty million of your fellow citizens voted for Bush. Now if only half of them buy these diet pills…

Now here’s the part of this story that I really like. In the last few days I’ve been seeing a new commercial selling the same drug. In the commercial they show a clip of the old commercial, with the X-Files-looking chick, as if they’re putting it down. It’s nuts, they are telling you, to pay $153 for a bottle of this stuff because now you can get it at half the price!

I have no information that tells me that this new commercial is made by the same folks who created the first one. But of course it is. Haven’t you ever noticed when a product comes out they sell it for, say, $40 and then when they’re done scraping off that first easy layer of that delicious sucker cream they come back at you with the same product for half the price? “Millions paid $40 for this nose hair trimmer, but now…!” Of course you have. Hell, I paid $100 for my Magic Bullet and now you can get two for that price. (And it’s well worth it, by the way.)

So now they’re selling their bottle of junk for “Less than half the price!” of what it was. Fat people everywhere are waddling to the phone and patting themselves on their fleshy backs for being clever enough to wait until the price came down. Half price! Wahoo! At no point do they stop to ponder the fact that they are now paying $75 for a month’s supply of diet pills--triple the cost of Trim-Spa.

I hope you noticed that at no time during this piece did I say that the product was worthless. (“Junk” and “crap” yes, but not worthless.) The truth is I don’t know. I tried Trim-Spa myself for a while and it did without a doubt suppress my appetite. Fortunately I’m a trouper and was able to pull myself up by my bootstraps and eat my way right through the suppression.

Look, we’re a fat country where we sometimes actually pay people to tell us not to eat so much. We might even subject ourselves to dangerous surgery because we can’t control what we shove down out gullets. We all know that to lose weight one simply has to, sing it with me, eat less and exercise more. But we’d rather be able to take care of the problem with a simple pill, and someday I have no doubt that we will. Meanwhile get to work in your laboratory. You’ll be able to charge $153 a bottle and more when you come up with a pill that successfully reduces weight, re-grows hair or cures impotence. Oh, wait, we’ve already got that last one. One down, two to go.

Travels in Greece

I have a “travel wall” in my home. It’s made up of framed enlargements of photos I’ve taken in various countries around the world. Often visitors will look at the pictures and then ask me which place was my favorite. It’s a difficult question to answer, as I’ve enjoyed my visits to each of these lands. Yet more and more frequently I find myself answering the question by saying Greece. I can still remember the feeling as I stood at the railing on a slow-moving ferry and watched the sun set into the deep blue Aegean. Yes, my answer is definitely Greece.

Do you ever look at those ads up there? I mean the ones that appear right over the date on each of my new articles? Shortly after I started this website I signed on with something called AdSense. AdSense, which I guess is run by Google, offers blog writers payment in exchange for allowing the ads to appear on their blog. I went to the AdSense website, checked it out and figured what the hell, why not?

The morning after the night that the ads first began to run I visited the AdSense website to see how much money I had made. I was surprised and pleased to see that over ten dollars had already been credited to my account. No, it wasn’t enough to allow me to quit my day job (if only I had one) but it was a promising start. Apparently it was also the finish. The next few days registered no earnings at all. Over the following weeks I would occasionally have days when I’d earn two, three or even nine cents in a day, but for the most part each day was a goose egg. I figured that the original ten-buck bonanza must have been some kind of “welcome aboard” gift.

I haven’t checked my totals in months now. I wonder if I’ve yet to crack the magic eleven dollar mark? And so what? Really, this twisted little site of mine averages about ten hits a day. In fact it averages frighteningly close to exactly ten hits a day and has from the get-go. (Last time I did the calculations it came out to 10.04.) So how much revenue can you expect to generate when your daily ramblings are read by a few cousins, your mom and some cute chick in Pleasanton? When I start pulling in the ten million hits a day that Drudge gets, then I can seriously start thinking about quitting my day job. (If only I had one.)

No, I just wanted to point these ads out to you because they often make me laugh. Whoever is in charge of them is very skillful at matching the ads to the topic of that day’s article. For example, did you read my quiz about Koko the talking gorilla the other day? C’mon now, I know ten of you did. Well, the ads the next day were about learning sign language! A short time ago I had written about my new Sirius radio when the next day a couple of ads for Sirius graced the top of my blog. One night I even went on a somewhat anti-American screed, but it wasn’t long before there was an ad on my blog for “Patriotic Gifts.” Somebody really missed the point on that one.

There are two things about this AdSense that I’m not sure about. The first is how do I get out of it if I want to? I think the answer is I can’t. It’s kind of like being in the mafia, without the good pay and nice shoes. The other question on my mind is how are the ads selected for the blog? Yes, they match the topics very well, but is their selection triggered by certain key words in my writing or are they chosen by a real live human being who reads my blog and then finds a matching sponsor? The answer may be obvious to some of you cyber-geeks out there, but I gotta tell you this one has me stumped.

So you’re probably wondering what that nonsense about Greece was all about. Well, tonight’s column is an experiment of sorts. I want to see if I can actually influence which ads appear up there and maybe give myself a clue as to whether the ads are selected by human or robot. So I decided to open and close tonight’s entry with some fluff about Greece. If the articles are electronically scanned then maybe some “Visit Greece” ads will appear tomorrow morning.

Of course I suppose a lazy, underachieving human reader might simply see the opening paragraph and assume the whole article is about Greece and plug in those same ads. Or he could read this entire article but put in the Greece ads anyway, just to fuck with my head. Damn, now I’m really confused. Oh well, I guess I’ll just see what pops up there, just for fun. Maybe it will be a recruitment ad for the mafia!

And as I stood on the Acropolis watching the sunrise through the Parthenon’s ancient columns, I knew that I was blessed to be in this special place. I could feel the warm breeze as the citizens of Athens must have felt it so long ago and I could see the spectacular view of the distant hills that they too had seen. The history of Greece had nourished my mind while its beauty had touched my soul. And I knew without a doubt as I stood transfixed on that eternal hill that someday I would return.

Half-Time

I have been consistently against the death penalty since I became aware of it as a child. My reason is the same one that is often given by people who are for the death penalty: Life is precious. So precious that those who support the death penalty feel that the only way justice can be served is by taking the life of one who has killed. It’s a primal and emotional argument, but I certainly understand it.

This will not be a tirade against the death penalty. I’m not in the mood and it’s a waste of time anyway. In my lifetime I’ve seen the death penalty become illegal in this country, and then legal again. And now we may well be seeing the swing back to abolishing the death penalty. And if we are it won’t be happening soon and it won’t be permanent.

No, what got me started on this topic was the release today of Mehmet Ali Agca from a Turkish prison. Agca had served twenty-five years in prison and was greeted today upon his release with cheers and flowers from his supporters. Agca, you might recall, was the man who fired three shots into the arm, hand and stomach of Pope John Paul II in 1981. It is only because none of the bullets hit a vital organ that the Pope lived. Two years later Agca was visited by John Paul II in his cell and was forgiven for his crime.

Agca served nineteen years in Italy for the attempted murder until he was pardoned in 2000 at the request of John Paul. He was then extradited to Turkey to serve a sentence for the murder of journalist Abdi Ipekci. He had served only about five years of his sentence when he was released today.

So you must be thinking that I, a strong opponent of the death penalty, am just thrilled with the release of this criminal. Let’s forgive him, the Pope did! Is that how you think I feel? Everybody deserves a second chance, right?

First off, I suppose that there is some justice in giving lighter sentences for attempted murder than for actual murder. Indeed, an attempted murderer hasn’t killed anyone. Still, it’s like getting rewarded for your own incompetence. After all, the original intent was the same. So maybe serving nineteen years for attempted murder was a just punishment for Agca. But what about the innocent man he actually did manage to kill? What about Abdi Ipekci?

No, I don’t support the death penalty in even the most extreme cases. Not for Hitler, Stalin, Saddam, Bush or this lowly thug from Turkey named Agca. Besides,didn't all these men believe that their killing was justified? But serving just five years for taking the life of another man, and then being greeted with flowers upon your release? Taking another human life is the most heinous of crimes. Shutting away a murderer for the rest of his life in some cold dank cell is certainly not a very enlightened approach to crime and punishment. In fact some day in the future it will be looked upon as absolutely barbaric. But right now it’s the best we've got.

Agca is only 48 years old. As of today he is free to hike, swim, go to the movies and make love. I applaud the Turkish government for commuting Agca’s death sentence to life imprisonment in 2002 after it abolished the death penalty. But he murdered a man and attempted to murder another and he’s only served twenty-five years. Put him back in—he’s only half done.

The Koko Kwiz

You know, I was aware that there are two famous people who make their homes in the neighboring town of Woodside, but I just found out there are actually three! Sure, we all know about Neil Young’s ranch, and that another 60’s icon, Joan Baez, also resides in Woodside. But do you know who else is proud to call Woodside home? Koko! Yeah, that “talking” gorilla we’ve been hearing about for years.

The truth is I hadn’t thought about the big guy (OK, gal) very much of late. In fact I wasn’t even sure if the super simian was still living. The good news is she is alive and well, and talking up a storm.

In case you’ve lived your life under a rock, Koko is a gorilla who allegedly can communicate through sign language. There has been great debate as to whether Koko has actually learned to use language or is simply signing for rewards without knowing what she is saying. I personally posed this question to Koko, who signed back the phrase “Get bent.” Remarkable.

That’s all I’m going to tell you about this amazing ape right now, because I don’t want to give too much away. After all, you have a quiz to take. That’s right, The Koko Kwiz! So good luck. You should have no trouble beating Koko’s score of 80%. After all, you are more evolved than a gorilla, aren’t you?


1. How old is Koko?
a. 28
b. 34
c. 46
d. 50

2. Where was Koko trained to use sign language?
a. Stanford University
b. Cal State Berkeley
c. University of San Francisco
d. Cal State Hayward

3. About how many hand signs does Koko know?
a. 50
b. 250
c. 500
d. 1,000

4. What animal has Koko kept as a pet?
a. Dog
b. Cat
c. Chimpanzee
d. Parrot

5. Recently Koko has been involved in what type of lawsuit?
a. Child Custody
b. Embezzlement
c. Noise ordinance
d. Sexual harassment

6. Where was Koko born?
a. Uganda
b. San Francisco
c. London
d. South Africa

7. When people visit, what does Koko often playfully grab?
a. Eyeglasses
b. Ties and scarves
c. Noses
d. Nipples

8. Koko will soon to be moving to a sanctuary located where?
a. Kenya
b. Tennessee
c. Hawaii
d. Neil Young’s backyard

9. What did Koko hold on April 27, 1998?
a. Press conference
b. Birthday party
c. Online chat
d. You don’t want to know

10. What has Koko indicated is her greatest desire?
a. Learn to speak English
b. Return to the jungle
c. Have a baby
d. Become governor of California

ANSWERS:

1. 34. Koko was born on July 4th, 1971, a week after I graduated high school. I’m not sure there’s a connection there.
2. Koko, unlike my Kaiser doctor, was trained at Stanford. The famous gorilla did not receive any training at Cal State Hayward, although she taught there for two semesters.
3. Koko knows 1,000 hand signs. That number goes up to 1,001 when someone cuts her off in traffic.
4. CAT. Koko has had several pet cats. I even have a Koko puppet around here somewhere with a tiny cat Velcro-ed onto her hand. Why, what kind of gifts does your wife give you?
5. SEXUAL HARRASSMENT Although Koko was not directly involved, several female former employees brought suit saying that they were “encouraged" by their employers to show their breasts to Koko to indulge her “nipple fetish.”
6. SAN FRANCISCO. Yes, of course at the zoo. Where did you think, at the Rice-A-Roni factory?
7. NIPPLES. Male or female, Koko loves them all. Did I mention she was born in San Francisco?
8. HAWAII. Yes, Koko’s moving to sunny, beautiful Maui. And you’re not.
9. AN ONLINE CHAT. I’ve seen some of the transcript from this chat. To the question “What is the name of your kitten?” Koko first answered “Foot” and then “No.” When asked, “Do you like to chat with other people?” Koko responded “Fine nipple.” Yeah that monkey’s a real whiz.
10. HAVE A BABY. What is with you chicks and babies anyway? Haven’t you ever watched Nanny 911?

Useless Information: Layla

Layla, one of rock music’s most popular songs, was written by Eric Clapton and released in 1970 on his album Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs. Some of you may not be aware that the song is about a model named Patti Boyd with whom Clapton had fallen in love. Unfortunately Boyd was at the time married to another of rock’s greatest guitarists and one of Clapton’s good friends, Beatle George Harrison.

Boyd and Harrison married in 1966, but when marital woes reared their ugly head, as they often do, Boyd skipped over to Clapton’s house for some much-needed comfort. That was when our boy Eric fell and fell hard for the blonde beauty. Remember the lyric “Tried to give you consolation, when your old man would let you down”? Well that old man doing the lettin’ down was Beatle George!

In 1977 Patti and George got divorced and two years later Patti and Clapton were married. Harrison, the next-to-least talented Beatle and not one to hold a grudge, attended the wedding, as did Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr. (And so, my friends, on that day in 1979 we came thisclose to an honest-to-god Beatles reunion!)

Finally marrying the woman who he had loved for so long must have made Eric Clapton the happiest man on Earth. The beautiful ballad Wonderful Tonight was also written by Clapton for his lovely bride Patti, and thus ends this wildly romantic tale of a sensitive artist who at last found true happiness by sharing his life with the woman of his dreams.

Except that a few years after that wedding Clapton’s alcoholisn and his extramarital affair began to put a strain on the marriage. Then in 1985 Clapton had another affair, this time with a spicy Italian model, and even had a child with her. Eric Clapton and Patti “Layla” Boyd were divorced in 1988.

Men!

UPDATE: Today Patti Boyd, ex-wife of both George Harrison and Eric Clapton, lives with a man named Rod Weston who is definitely not a guitarist.

Love Howard, Hate Sirius

Br-r-r-r-r it’s cold out there. I just remembered to go out to my car and retrieve my Sirius radio unit so that I can pop it into my boombox. I was listening to it in the car today, but if I want it ready so I can hear Howard first thing tomorrow morning I better put it in tonight.

OK, “hate” is a bit of a stretch. I don’t hate Sirius, but I liked the rhythm of that title. I gotta tell you, though, at this point I’m not too fond of Sirius either. Howard did his first show on satellite radio this morning and I got to hear some, but certainly not all, of it. Part of the reason I didn’t hear all of it is because I never do. As with his old show, Howard’s new show starts at 6:00 a.m.—a time when I’m usually otherwise occupied. (And if you think I’m referring to anything except sleeping here, I thank you for your vote of confidence but you’re wasting your time.)

Immediately after I woke up this morning I turned on the Sirius boombox on my night table and there he was—Howard was coming through in all his uncensored glory. Unfortunately his glory was short-lived. I listened to the show for half an hour and then it suddenly cut out as the hated “Acquiring Signal” message appeared on the radio’s digital display. I then had to pick up the radio and twist and turn it until it once again picked up that phantom signal that they tell me is being sent from outer space. I was able to listen for another fifteen minutes or so until it again cut out. This battle went on for the remainder of the morning until I got to the point where I wondered if listening to Howard was really worth all this trouble. And if you know me, you know that’s quite a dramatic and desperate statement, and not one to be taken lightly.

Some of you remember, in the days before cable TV saved the world, how we had to adjust the TV antenna in order to get a decent picture. Older movies and TV shows will often show the stock character of the hapless Dad climbing onto the roof to adjust the antenna so that his family could watch a clear picture. These scenarios almost never ended well for poor ol’ Dad.

Well nothing tragic happened to me today as I repeatedly wrestled with the heavy boombox, but it was so annoying and so--I don’t know--low-tech. Is part of the problem that I live out here a mere two blocks from the very edge of the country? Maybe. Would it be easier to pick up that elusive signal from the satellite (which I’m now thinking may or may not even be up there) if I took the radio outside? Without a doubt. I guess I just assumed that here at the dawn of the 21sr Century, when Bush knows the name of the last three books I’ve read and the color of the toilet paper I use (and when I use it), those kind of reception glitches were a thing of the past.

I wish Howard had stayed on terrestrial radio. There, I said it. Even if the Sirius reception was perfect, which it’s obviously not, I still face the problem of how to listen to Howard when I wake up in my bedroom and then later when I start working in my office. It used to be so easy. I had a radio in each location. Now I either have to turn the volume up to 11, which makes any broadcast distorted and annoying, or unplug the boombox and carry it with me each time I change rooms. Or I guess I could buy a Sirius unit for each room. At $100 bucks each plus $12.95 a month per. Yeah, that should help the stock price.

OK, so I know my somewhat negative view of Sirius may yet change. I might figure out how to use the twenty feet of antenna wire that came with the damn thing and maybe hire an astrophysicist to find just the right location to place the radio so that it works every time I turn it on. But right now if it wasn’t for my strong desire to help pay Howard’s half a billion dollar salary I’d chuck the whole thing and just listen to my Dave Clark Five cd’s.

Oh, and to be fair the Sirius radio is working pretty well in my car. Not as well as terrestrial, of course, but now it only cuts out when I drive by something that’s larger than the neighbor's cat..

Sore Loser

In the movie Support Your Local Sheriff James Garner plays an amiable wanderer who on more than one occasion delivers a somewhat windy speech about the foolishness of betting on roulette. “Why, a man would have to be a natural born idiot to bet money on that game,” he says, or words to that effect. Well, with due respect to Mr. Garner, the odds aren’t all that prohibitive in roulette if you make the right bets. Where you’ll find the real idiots in today’s modern casino is pumping their hard-earned cash into the slot machines. And that’s where I was today.

Look, I’ve played a lot of blackjack in my time. I’ve memorized the charts and know just what to do in every conceivable hand. I once sat at the same blackjack table for fourteen straight hours. Did I win or lose? I don’t remember. One thing I do remember, however, is that slot machines are a lot more fun. Why? Because they have a built-in home-run ball that’s absent in games like blackjack. No matter how many times in a row you lose, that next spin could be the one that hits big; the one that you knock right out of the park.

We went up to River Rock Casino in Geyserville today. It’s a pain in the ass to get there from here, and we often joke that it’s a good thing that it is. But in truth I don’t think location really matters. If the casino were only ten miles away would we go more frequently? Probably. Would we go every day and gamble away our paychecks? (Those of us who have one, that is.) I doubt it. Playing the slots is fun but, like flossing or being the “giving” partner in bed, it’s something you only want to do once in a while.

Regular readers (I do delude myself sometimes) might recall that the last time I went to this casino I won $750. Today of course I returned to the very same slot machine, but only for the most scientific and mathematically sound reasons: I think this particular machine really likes me. When my first two hundred dollars disappeared faster than Cheney during 9/11 I began to suspect that the romance was over. Slot machines can be a fickle breed.

After Lady Luck had given me my morning beating I knew it was time for a lunch break; time to relax, refuel and prepare for what I assumed would be a more successful afternoon session. Luckily the buffet was open and about seven thousand calories later (plus a Diet Coke) I was ready for the rematch.

I admit that I panicked a bit when I returned to the slots and saw a diminutive and elderly Chinese couple hovering around my machine. I breathed a sigh of relief when the man sat at the slot machine next to mine and his wife began pumping twenty-dollar bills into it. I quickly grabbed the chair next to him, in front of my machine, as he turned and smiled at me. Yipes. His teeth were hideous—they looked like Indian corn. Christ, I thought, why don’t you tell your wife to save some of those twenties and get you an emergency appointment with a dentist?

Luckily the ATM had given me my cash in hundreds, so I didn’t have to waste time waiting for the slot machine to accept twenties. The Benjamin slid right in, registered my 400 quarters (well, I’m not a wealthy man) and I was on my way. Right off I hit a small jackpot for forty bucks, followed quickly by several other winning spins. I might have–slap-slap-been behind for-slap-slap-slap-the day, but-slap-I was definitely ahead-slap-slap-slap-in this afternoon session and what the fuck is that slapping noise?

Playing a slot machine is not like driving in the Indy 500. There are no quick decisions to be made. Hell, there are no slow decisions to be made. You put your money in and gently press the “Spin” button to set the reels in motion. I find the whole affair rather relaxing, hypnotic even. You hit the button, wait for the results and then hit the button again. The rhythmic spin of the reels, the hum of the casino, the carcinogenic casino smoke all combine to lull me into a sense of peacefulness and well-being. The only thing piercing that mood was the constant slapping sound that is coming from somewhere on the other side of my brown-toothed Chinese friend.

I play a while longer, but finally I have to look. Three machines down some hairy young dude in a baseball cap is slapping the spin button, like a trained monkey trying to earn a banana, and slapping it hard--three, four, even five times for each spin. It’s annoying and I debate pointing out to him that one needs only to tap the button lightly to set the reels in motion. Look, just like this, see? It’s easy—even a Neanderthal like you can do it.

But of course I don’t say anything. It’s not simply that I’m a coward, although that certainly factors into the equation. The problem is this guy looks angry. He tense expression says he’s been on major losing streak, maybe just today but probably for his whole life. I notice that sometimes he does not simply slap the button several times but actually punches it. I take a quick vote and it’s unanimous: All of my tender body parts agree that it’s far better that this knuckle-dragger continue to punch the spin button rather than switching over to punching me.

I also suspect that this clown is not simply abusing the machine because he is angry, but perhaps he feels this is part of some system he has come up with. Maybe he believes that by slapping the machine in a random and non-rhythmic manner he somehow throws off the mechanism and thereby increases his chances of winning. As if to confirm my theory my Chinese friend leans forward and rubs the screen of his machine three times before spinning the reels. For luck, no doubt.

So now I know: I’m surrounded by lunatics. Fat, superstitious, smoking lunatics who think they are going to win big on their next spin. And then the horrible question pops into my brain. Do I fit in here? Well, of course not. After all, I don’t smoke.

Meanwhile my “winnings” have long ago disappeared and the coin count is getting lower and lower. The afternoon session is lasting longer than the morning session, which is encouraging, but that sizable jackpot that will send me home a winner remains elusive. I settle back into my slot-playing stupor as best I can, valiantly trying to ignore the slapping sound from three machines away, when it happens. Off to my right bells go off and I hear a guttural but joyous shout. And worst of all, the slapping has stopped. Yup, that idiot has hit the big jackpot.

I look up and smile as if I’m happen for the guy, but you know I’m pissed. And it’s not just because this annoying a-hole and not me won the jackpot, although that’s a big part of it. A really big part of it. No, what I also find frustrating is for at least the next twenty years this dope is going to be slapping every slot machine he plays, and annoying every player around him, because by golly it works. He’s got a system. And to prove it he’ll tell you about the time he hit the big jackpot at the River Rock Casino in 2006, slapping the spin button just like this.

I still had about two hundred quarters in the machine, and I knew without a doubt that I should cash out. Today would not be my day. Oh, intellectually I knew that the ape’s winning has nothing to do with my chances of a score, but the sixth sense in which I don’t believe told me to give it up. I didn’t, however, and steadily proceeded to run my coins down to zero. I got up from my formerly beloved machine, knowing we’d meet again on another day, and began to slowly walk toward that guy’s machine that was still proudly showing off the three jackpot symbols, displayed on the center row line and in perfect alignment. I wanted to get a good look to confirm what he actually won, but I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing me do it.

When I had won my jackpot a few months ago several people had come up to me, smiled, and said congratulations. Sometimes I wish I were like that. Sometimes I also wish that I could turn myself invisible whenever I want. And that I could fly. I suspect that none of these are ever going to happen.

The smug bastard looked up at me just as I was eyeballing his payout amount. I kept walking without a word, found Spike and we headed home. It took longer than expected because some bureaucratic nitwit decided to close one lane of Highway 101, so we were squeezed into a traffic jam for nearly two hours. Perfect.

That’s OK, I didn’t waste this downtime. I used the time for thinking, for imagining, for making up stories. In one story I came up with that lucky jerk at the casino arrives home to find an unexpected letter from the IRS saying that he owes them money. In fact the amount he owes is more than twice the amount he has just won at the casino! That, I thought, was a pretty good story.

And then I create another story, an even better story. In this one not only doesn’t he arrive home to find a letter from the IRS, he doesn’t arrive home at all. Yeah, that’s it. The annoying slot machine slapper who stole my jackpot leaves the casino, gets in his car and heads out onto the highway. But he doesn’t arrive home at all.

Useful Information: Hugh Thompson Jr.

A couple of months back I wrote a piece on the most well known of America’s Vietnam War atrocities, the My Lai massacre. I had become curious about the fate of Lt. William Calley, the soldier court-martialed for his part in the infamous slaughter. I discovered that Calley was sentenced to life in prison, a sentence later reduced by Nixon to what basically amounted to being sent to his room for three years.

I had suspected that many of you had never even heard of Calley, or the My Lai massacre, and were simply assuming that our current on-going atrocities are unique in our history. It turns out that a big piece of the My Lai story was missing from my knowledge of the incident, and I’d like to pass it along tonight to help you, too, complete the picture.

The headline read “My Lai massacre hero dies at 62.” My first thought was that Calley had died. My second thought was why on Earth was he being referred to as a hero? It turns out the story was referring to another Vietnam veteran by the name of Hugh Thompson Jr., and he is considered a hero not because of the number of people he killed, but rather the number of people he saved.

I had never heard of Thompson until I read his obituary today. Part of this is due to my own ignorance, and part is because his story was largely unpublicized in the U.S. for many years. In fact, I still might never have heard of him if I had limited my headline reading to Reuters, AP or Drudge. No, the only reason that I learned about the death, and life, of Hugh Thompson Jr. is because I also post the BBC News headlines on my home page.

On March 16, 1968 American troops were in the middle of slaughtering civilians near the village of My Lai when military pilot Thompson set his helicopter down between the villagers and the soldiers. He then ordered his men to shoot their fellow Americans if they continued to attack the villagers. Let me repeat that. HE ORDERED HIS MEN TO SHOOT THEIR FELLOW AMERICANS IF THEY CONTINUED TO ATTACK THE VILLAGERS.

Richard Pryor used tell a story about some of his friends who would brag, “If those Nazis had tried anything with me I would have told them where to go.” Pryor would respond, “You wouldn’t have told them Nazis shit.” Sadly, under these extreme circumstances silence would likely be the course of action taken by many, or even most, of us. There were three choices for an American soldier who found himself caught up in the nightmare of the My Lai massacre. He could take the easiest, though hardly easy, path by shooting the civilians and claiming to be just following orders. Or an uncommonly brave soldier could refuse to kill the innocent people, orders or no orders. And then there was Hugh Thompson, who stopped it.

For his trouble Thompson was shunned by his fellow soldiers, received several death threats and was once told by a congressman that he was the only one who should be punished over the My Lai massacre. For decades little was known about Thompson’s action until the story came out in an interview. Always quick to right a wrong, our government awarded Thompson the Soldier’s Medal for bravery in 1998, a mere three decades after his heroic action.

Hugh Thompson Jr. died of cancer today at the age of 62. William Calley, also 62, today works as a jeweler in Columbus, Georgia.

I said, I DON'T REALLY GET MARLEE MATLIN!

It’s been twenty years since Marlee Matlin’s Oscar winning performance in Children of a Lesser God. I must confess I’ve never actually seen the film but I’m sure she was brilliant in it. After all, they just don’t give Academy Awards to people simply because they happen to have a handicap. Right?

I assumed that in Children, as in most everything else she does, Matlin plays a deaf woman. Which is great. I say, if you want someone to play a deaf person, hire a deaf person. If you want someone to play a blind person, hire a blind person. If you want someone to play a Chinese person, then for God’s sake hire a Chinese person. Hopefully we’ve seen the last of such cinematic fiascos as John Wayne playing Genghis Khan. (The Conquerer-1956. Look it up.)

Look, life is a tough enough slog when you’ve got full use of all your senses. So let me say to deaf people everywhere that you should be extremely proud of anything that you achieve in life. I said, YOU SHOULD BE EXTREMELY PROUD OF ANYTHING THAT YOU ACHIEVE IN LIFE. NO, NOT “CHEESE.” ACHIEVE! ANYTHING YOU ACHIEVE! Oh, just forget it.

Boy, that was cheap. But never mind. My point here is that I’m surprised that Matlin has managed to create what has now become an extended and fairly successful career. I guess part of it is understandable. You have to figure that she’s a slam-dunk for any role where they need a deaf chick. I mean, who are you going to pick, an unknown deaf actress or an Academy Award-winning deaf actress? So she’s got that concession sewn up for fifty years. I guess there doesn’t even have to be a great number of available deaf woman roles when you’re the one who gets them all.

Here’s what I don’t get. Saw an odd little movie last night called What the Bleep Do We Know!? It’s part documentary and part story, and contains more than a dash of questionable pseudo-science. And some cool special effects. Rent it, don’t rent it—I don’t care. Marlee Matlin played the lead role in the film, and it’s not until about halfway through the thing that they finally let you in on the fact that yes, the Matlin character is indeed supposed to be deaf. Up until then you weren’t sure if she was playing a deaf woman or simply a deaf actress playing a woman who could hear. (I was going to say “playing a woman with no handicap” but I’ve never met one. Have you?)

My question is why is Marlee Matlin in this movie? As far as I could tell there was no reason for the character to be deaf. And when Matlin spoke she was, of course, difficult to understand. With the thousands of talented (and more attractive—sorry Marlee) actresses out there, why would you go out of you way to hire one who is deaf and difficult to understand if the story didn’t call for it? I just don’t get it. After all the film is about such heady subjects as perceived reality and quantum physics. I don’t know about you, but I have enough trouble understanding that stuff when it’s spoken to me clearly…

Going Back Part IV: Finding It

On our last night in San Diego Spike and I went to dinner with a good friend of mine and his wife. Actually more than a good friend, he was a childhood chum with whom I came cross-country in 1975 on our epic and often remembered quest to discover California.

Although we don’t see each other very often we do talk on the phone with some regularity. We met when we were about ten years old, although the circumstances of our meeting vary greatly depending on which one of us you talk to. On this trip we discussed our first days in California, when our home was located at a local KOA and made of green canvas. We disagree here, too. My friend says we lived in that tent for six weeks before we found an apartment. I say it was only twelve days. Luckily I’ve been keeping a journal for over thirty years and am able to check the facts, although I haven’t yet. I’m in no hurry, since I already know that I’m right.

The restaurant at San Diego’s Seaport Village was crowded and the wait was long, but well worth it. During dinner my friend and I discussed the same old topics and once again dusted off the so-familiar stories. We covered all the items on our personal history checklist: The Honeymooners, The Yankees versus the Mets, our high school, Jerry Lewis, our mutual hatred of Bush, Abbott and Costello, my friend’s dead parents and two live brothers, my live parents and two dead brothers, and of course the glue that holds it all together, The Beatles. Our wives, now knowing what to expect after so many years, hunkered down for the duration.

After dinner the four of us took a stroll around the harbor in the cool but not unpleasant San Diego night. My friend wanted to show me Sam’s Place, a 68-foot yacht that was often docked nearby. The boat is owned by Jerry Lewis and we had little difficulty finding it, decked out as it was with more lights than a Rockefeller Center Christmas tree.

From where we were we could see into the main cabin of the boat, which was about a hundred yards away. We could just make out the figure of a young girl seated at a table. She appeared to be very animated, and moved her arms frantically as if to emphasize the story she was telling. We assumed this was Lewis’ daughter Danielle, but as we squinted to look at the other people at the table we saw nobody who resembled Lewis. Near the rear of the boat a TV screen flickered, and without any evidence whatsoever we assumed that lying down watching it somewhere in the dark was Jerry Lewis himself.

At dinner I had nothing stronger to drink than a glass of water, yet soon I was launching into my rather poor Jerry Lewis impersonation. As we strolled along the waterfront and completed a semi-circle around the brightly lit boat the still night was punctuated by my occasional outburst of “Hey lay-dee!” and “Oh, De-e-e-e-an!” My voice wasn’t particularly loud, but it certainly must have carried across the quiet water. Immediately my friend and I began creating “Jerry” scenarios.

“If he hears me he’ll probably answer back in that same voice,” I offered hopefully.
“If he hears you he’ll probably call security,” countered my friend, probably more accurately
“I can just hear him now. ‘There’s another idiot doing a lousy impersonation of me. That’s the fifth one tonight.”

And so it went. For about a half hour we walked around the boat in a joyous cloud of unlikely Jerry Lewis scenarios, poor imitations and laughter. A whole lot of laughter.

What was it that drove me back to San Diego after thirty years to search for people and places that are no longer there? The shack in which I used to live had long ago been razed and replaced by a strip of apartments. The sleek new monorail I used to operate at the Wild Animal Park had become a creaky old relic, and its driver’s seat was now occupied by the shapely bottom of a too-cute girl who was young enough to be my daughter. The wondrous high-desert town that had been my first California home was now a congested and over-crowded city with an interstate running straight through its heart. And the little sea cave that I once could visit for a mere fifty cents now carried an entry fee of four bucks. And a stairway that seemed 50% steeper.

And yet, despite all these disappointments, I walked along the harbor with my friend and I realized that I was having a wonderful time laughing about Jerry Lewis and all the other people and stories that we had both found so hilarious over the last forty years. And there you have it. It can be a fool’s errand to return to the places of your youth and expect to find them waiting for you, welcoming and unchanged. But I found out that night as I walked around Jerry Lewis’ boat that sometimes if you’re very lucky a few things can stay the same. You just have to know where to look.

Going Back Part III: A Previous Employer and a Cave in La Jolla

During the summer of 1976 I worked at the second-best job I ever had: I was a tour guide at the San Diego Wild Animal Park. If you’ve never been to the SDWAP I’ll tell you it is a unique and forward-thinking “zoo” where the animals roam freely over huge areas of land and the people ride around in an electric monorail on an hour-long tour, taking them to a variety of areas that represent different geographic locations, such as Asia, Africa and Australia.

It was here that I felt the first stirrings that would culminate fifteen years later in a six-week trip to Africa. My job was to drive the monorail as well as give the tour to the two carloads of tourists. I’ve had other jobs as a tour guide, but the Wild Animal Park was unique in that you never knew what you were going to see each time you ventured out. A baby rhino, a running giraffe or a close-up of a tiger—the tourists on each sojourn might see one or several of these but the guide would eventually see it all.

Another nice thing about the job was the high pay. Since the guides drove the monorail we belonged to the Teamsters union, and so the starting pay was an unheard of five dollars an hour. My previous job had been at a convenience store that had paid $2.86 an hour, a sum I was thrilled to receive since it was more than half a buck over the minimum wage at the time. By nearly doubling my wage at the Wild Animal Park I was able to live well by working a mere thirty hours a week, and in a beautiful location at a fun job.

The job was fun because it was, discounting my two weak attempts at stand-up comedy, the closest I’ve ever come to show business. As part of my training I made sure to learn every joke that the other guides told, and combined them all into that one big laugh-fest that was my tour. It was great because I had a captive audience; nobody was going to leave a monorail with a pride of hungry lions on one side and a five-thousand-pound rhinoceros on the other.

Franz, the tightly wound European elephant trainer at the park, once cornered me at a party. “Why do you always say the same joke every time you drive by?” he demanded in his brusque Nazi voice. The answer, of course, was that I had a new group of people on each tour. So even though Franz had heard me say that you shouldn’t be embarrassed “because our elephants never go swimming without their trunks” twenty or thirty times a week, my tourist charges were always hearing it for the first time. So it was tough toenails, Adolph. As long as the people kept laughing at the line, I’d keep saying it.

So of course one of my top priorities on last week’s return to San Diego was to visit the Wild Animal Park for the first time since I gave my final tour nearly thirty years ago. Unfortunately the day we picked to go had to be one of their busiest ever. Even the overflow parking was filled to capacity and the line to get on the tour had signs warning that the “wait from this point is two hours.” And that wasn’t even at the end of the line.

Had I visited twenty-five years earlier I may well have waited in that horrific line, but that was then. As if we needed any further proof that we live in nothing close to a class-less society, we discovered a booth where, for only eight dollars, cheaper than the cost of a movie, you could buy a little slip of paper that would get you to the front of the line. Screw Karl Marx—I’m in.

A few years ago Spike and I were island hopping in Greece when we boarded a ferry that was filled to capacity. The trip would be about five hours long, and it seemed we were fated to spend the voyage sitting in cheap plastic chairs in a busy hallway just outside the gift shop. Walking around the boat we saw a screened-off area where people lounged on couches and enjoyed drinks and complimentary peanuts. Complimentary peanuts! We soon found out that this was the first class area and that we could upgrade our tickets and enter the chosen land for a measly twelve dollars. Over the years Spike and I have frequently referred to that purchase (as well as the purchase of our Softub) as “the best money we ever spent.” And now the eight-dollar upgraded tour tickets at the Wild Animal Park will forever be included in that list.

My first surprise was the monorail itself. Damned if they weren’t the same ones that I had driven three decades ago. I guess I had been expecting some Jetson-like technological upgrades. Sure, the monorails had been cutting edge back when I worked there, but surely the edge had moved since that time. I mean, this had been during the Ford administration for god sake.

We sat about four rows behind the driver, a cute young girl somewhere in her twenties. And she knew she was cute and she knew she was young, as we all do at that point in our lives. And so I sat back in my delightfully judgmental way to listen to and analyze her tour, and to eventually conclude that mine had been so much better.

First off, she was too cutesy. There’s a difference between being cute and cutesy; this chick had on several occasions descended into near baby babble and it wasn’t pretty. Also, she repeatedly complained about the poor operation of the monorail and also commented frequently that the tour was, “right on schedule.” These, as any good guide will tell you, are things that should be kept to yourself. These two carloads of shlubs had paid twenty-eight bucks each to go on this little joyride and they sure as hell don’t want to hear your complaints about the mechanical limitations of the vehicle or the tight schedule they have you working on. Save your whiney complaints for your co-workers—they love them.

“Great job!” I said to the guide when the tour was finished. Oh, did you think I wasn’t going to speak with her? Don’t young people just love to hear about the way things used to be thirty years ago? Well, when I told her I had her job way back when she seemed genuinely interested. No really, she did. She asked me if it had changed much, and I told her no. I would have liked to babble on with her and her co-workers, but I knew she was on a tight schedule and she had been polite and friendly. She could have sent me off with a “Yeah, that’s great Gramps but now we have electricity,” but she didn’t. And I’d bet anything that she told some of the other guides that some old guy who worked there thirty years ago had been on her tour.

And so I didn’t ask her about any people that we might know in common, which of course would have been preposterous anyway. It’s not like I worked there three or four years ago. The only ones who could possibly still be there from my glory years was some hundred-year-old tortoise and maybe a decrepit old elephant or two.

Another stop on my San Diego excursion was a visit to the beautiful beach town of La Jolla. We bit the bullet and spent one night there in an overpriced hotel. We went out to dinner shortly after we checked in, and found that one of the few places still open was a fondue restaurant. Yum. I had been craving fondue ever since I last had it in April in a small café in Paris. (I’m really dropping the travel references here, aren’t I? Too bad--it’s my life. And what’s stopping you from getting off your ass and going anyway?)

Spike had the impression that the maitre d’ was showing us the menu because he thought that perhaps he didn’t think we could afford to dine there. True, I was rather shabbily dressed with rumpled jeans and Neil Young flannel shirt, but there were two reasons for my scruffy appearance. One, I had just driven for eleven straight hours to get to La Jolla, and Two, I always look like this.

The truth was he was showing us the expensive combo fondue dinner, which included appetizers, entrees and dessert because he was trying to up-sell us. Too bad, but we settled on a simple entrée. There’s only so much melted goop you can pour down your gullet in one evening. That’s OK, I got back at the pushy guy. I began my tale of how I used to moped down to La Jolla all those years ago. Why, I even remember when the natural stone arch still existed at the cove, and I also remember the storm that destroyed it. You’ve probably only seen the arch in old photos, if that. So stick that in your five gallons of melted cheese. Punk.

The main reason for my return to La Jolla, besides my inability to find Pacific Beach at night, was to find the gift shop where, for a small fee, you could descend about 150 steps to the opening of a sea cave. It’s a beautiful sight and I looked forward to seeing it again. I had no difficulty finding the gift shop the next day, and although it was now a small museum I was happy to learn that you could still walk down that long stairway to the cave below. A young girl sat at a desk with a cashbox and a sign that read: Cave Entry: Four Dollars.”

“You’ve raised your prices,” I joked.
“Yeah, last year we added a dollar,” she dead-panned.
“No, last time I was here it cost fifty cents!” I exclaimed with glee. I mean, isn’t this kind of info fascinating and fun? Well, it wasn’t to her.
“Yeah, well, that was a long time ago.”
“Two tickets please.” Punk.

So not everybody wanted to hear the story of my triumphant return. (And let me add here that I also visited a convenience store in Escondido in which I had worked in 1975--my first California job--and the clerk has literally beamed when I told him my story. He told me the history of the store from the time I had worked there and laughed heartily when I asked him why they didn’t have my picture hanging on the wall. So there.)

The cave was much as I remembered and I took a photo of Spike that should be nearly identical (Yup, I’m having the film developed. Did you really think I had gone digital?) to the one I had taken of my cousin Terri in that same location decades earlier.

Looking out at the sea from that spectacular cave in La Jolla I felt much as I did the last time I had been there. The crisp salt air and the sea spray made me feel alive. I felt as if no time had passed at all. A short time later I finally reached the top step of the climb out of the cave and, wheezing like a pregnant water buffalo, I stumbled out of the small museum and began to greedily gulp the much needed oxygen. Perhaps I had been wrong when I was down in that cave. Perhaps some time had passed after all.

Going Back Part II: Ensenada

A quarter century ago when I lived in San Diego I would occasionally make a day trip across the border into Mexico. At first it would be to show out-of-town visitors the sights of nearby Tijuana, but later I would learn to skip that depressing city and drive straight through to the more authentic Ensenada. Many times I had heard of people who had simply driven into Tijuana, looked around in disgust and quickly retreated back into the U.S. bringing tales of how horrible Mexico was.

For years I advised people to continue on to Ensenada, less than two hours from San Diego, in order to get at least a little bit of the actual flavor of Mexico. And so on my first visit to San Diego in over two decades I wanted to create that experience for myself and rediscover the remembered beauty of Ensenada. Spike, who had been reading guidebook horror stories about driving into Mexico (“having a traffic accident in Mexico is a felony”) wasn’t so sure. Still, with my assurances of a scenic drive to a delightful city we purchased one day’s worth of Mexican car insurance for our rental and headed towards the border. (That is, unless it is illegal to take a rental car into a foreign county, in which case you folks at Enterprise can relax because I just made that part up.)

The first bit of good news was that once you enter Mexico you can now bypass Tijuana and drive directly south to Ensenada. Maybe you always could, but I didn’t remember and so this was an unexpected and pleasant surprise for me. I had been prepared for an hour or so of Tijuana noise and dirt and traffic congestion, but before I knew it we were cruising along the ocean on Highway 1 to Ensenada.

For the first half of the drive I was surprised by the seemingly endless panorama of ratty buildings that sat on the beaches along with billboards that proclaimed that you, too, could own your own little slice of paradise right here on the Mexican Pacific. Everywhere there were tall derricks and other evidence of ongoing construction, just as there had been twenty-five years ago.

This is something I never understood about Mexico, or at least this corner of it. How could they always be building and yet every edifice appears to be decades old and in poor repair? Surely somewhere there must be some newly completed structures, graffiti free and gleaming brightly in the Mexican sun? The only conclusion I could come up with is that our neighbors to the south are somehow building fifty and sixty year old houses. I wonder how they do that?

So far the “beautiful ride” that I remembered from my youth had failed to materialize. I had promised Spike some glorious scenery and right now my credibility was dropping like a Bush approval rating. I didn’t ask Spike what she thought because I knew the answer: She thought we should turn around and go home.

And the endless tolls didn’t help the cause. On our round trip to Ensenada we had to stop and pay no less than six tolls, each one for $2.35. Seemingly not a huge amount of money, but they’re clever enough to spread it over those six tolls. If they had just one toll and asked me for fourteen bucks, well, I might have just taken Spike’s unspoken advice, turned around and made that run for the border you hear so much about.

Finally the dilapidated coastal dwellings disappeared, the sun came out and a spectacular ocean view filled our windshield. In truth it was no more beautiful a sight than you can find in a hundred places along the California coast, but at least I was starting to feel a little vindicated. There was some lovely scenery on the drive to Ensenada after all, just as I had remembered.

The glorious view was short lived however, as we now were approaching Ensenada. Again I saw nothing but a series of unattractive homes and businesses, but I felt better when I saw the signs to the Zona Tourista. This then must be the section that I had found so exotic and so enjoyable all those years ago.

The tourist area of Ensenada is comprised of several streets made up of row upon row of souvenir shops and restaurants. It’s a dumpy, dusty burg that looks like it could use a good hosing off and, though only two hours from San Diego, screams Third World as much as any town I’ve seen in Africa or Fiji. Beggars are everywhere, including the young children who harass you constantly to get you to buy a few pieces of gum.

I’m not being a cold-hearted American here. In fact I dropped a quarter into the Styrofoam cup of the first beggar I saw, a pitiful old woman sitting quietly on the sidewalk. I looked into that cup and saw that, until I added my quarter, it had contained about six pennies. I had a pocket full of change and had fully expected to distribute it, and more, to any needy person who asked. And then I saw the sign in the shop window.

The sign, actually a simple notice printed on a white piece of paper, was a request to not give money to any of the multitude of beggars, especially the children, who populated the streets of Ensenada. The notice explained that begging was a highly organized business in this squalid city, and the beggars would see little or none of the money they collected. The government policy was that the children should be in school instead of working the streets, and yes, schools were available to them. It made sense, and so died my day of planned generosity.

Browsing the shops of Ensenada is a fun way to spend a few hours. I planned on buying something for myself, but never came across anything among the native crapware that I particularly wanted. I saw the hooded shirts I had bought here many years ago but they no longer appealed to me. Perhaps if I had discovered one of those colorfully painted plaster piggy banks that they used to sell I would have gotten it for old time’s sake, but I never did see one. Meanwhile Spike was negotiating with a street vendor and ended up buying a matching silver necklace and bracelet combo that she swears is an exact duplicate of a set a friend of hers got from Tiffany. Spike ended up paying twenty bucks for the two pieces of jewelry—the price sure comes down when there’s no little blue box, eh?

We had a fun day in Ensenada, but I never did discover what I had found so charming about it years earlier. Granted back then the trip into Mexico was my first time out of the U.S. (not counting a few quick jaunts into Montreal) and so seeing a foreign culture first-hand had been something new and wondrous to me. Having since visited places like Tahiti, Greece and Paris it’s only natural that dusty, dumpy little Ensenada would pale in comparison.

And then, as I mentioned last night, there’s the age thing. It’s a different world when you’re no longer young and immortal. And I don’t mean to say that it’s necessarily worse, just different. Twenty-five years ago I had driven with my girlfriend down the Baja peninsula in her rusty old VW minibus. We had actually spent one night in it by the side of the road and argued with a shabbily dressed man the next morning when he demanded payment from us for having stayed there.

That’s the nice thing about age. I couldn’t say it back then, being a young adventurer and all, but now if someone asked me if I’d like to sleep in a van by the side of the road on the outskirts of Ensenada, Mexico I’d be free to respond, “Are you out of your fucking mind?” After all, there’s a very nice hotel up the road in San Diego with a swimming pool and a free continental breakfast. And two hours and three tolls later that’s exactly where we were.

Oh, before I go I must thank the customs agent at the U.S. border. Lately I’ve been fearful of looking like your typical harmless middle-aged shlub, breezing through customs with his equally middle-aged wife and rented Nissan. Well, this guy at the border gave us a pretty good going over. He barked at Spike, demanding to know where she was born. He barked at me, demanding to know what I was bringing back. He ordered Spike to take off her sunglasses (I had already removed mine-I’ve been around a while) and made us open the trunk.

No, he didn’t direct us to the secondary checkpoint for the full search, but still this zealous cop had made my day. I may have a rented sedan, graying hair and be AARP eligible but this guardian of our borders saw something in me. He thought I could be a threat—perhaps a drug dealer or maybe an even more exotic type of smuggler! Maybe it was my still-longish hair, or the earring or the world-weary yet defiant look in my eye but something made this guy think that I might be, dare I say it, dangerous. Me!

So let me say to this fine young man, thank you. Thank you for not making me feel like a tired old cliché. Thanks to you I left that checkpoint feeling a decade younger. I guess it should really have come as no surprise that the high point of my short trip to Mexico came at the very moment that I left it.

Going Back Part I: San Diego

Twenty-five years ago I left San Diego and moved up here to the Bay Area. When I first moved to San Diego six years earlier I thought I had discovered paradise, and for sometime after my move north I would be at a loss to explain why I’d left. For a long time I would miss the beauty of those warm San Diego beaches and bemoan the ugliness I saw daily from my new home in the East Bay. And yet, except for a few shaky first days in Berkeley, I was never the least bit tempted to return south.

This week Spike and I took advantage of some time off to take a road trip. My original idea was to go to Yellowstone, but I soon found out that most of the park roads are closed this time of year. I actually didn’t mind that the temperature there was twenty-five below zero, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to drive all the way to Yellowstone and not see Old Faithful! (Which, it turns out, isn’t really all that faithful. Then again, who of us is?)

Spike suggested a trip to San Diego, which sounded just fine to me. Memories began to flood my head: Sitting by the pool in January writing postcards to friends back East, telling them that I was sitting by the pool in January. The open spaces, including the view from my apartment balcony that stretched uninterrupted to the jagged peaks of the distant mountains sharply outlined against a brilliant blue sky. The apartment itself, which came with a pool, Jacuzzi, sauna, tennis courts and two furnished bedrooms for $189 a month, a cost that I split with a roommate. “Change back from your hundred!” my roommate would happily chirp after we paid the rent each month. We knew what we had.

Knowing that you’re driving a route that will take you through the heart of Los Angeles is much like death itself. You know it’s horrible and inevitable and there’s nothing you can do about it. Still, sitting in that sea of traffic, feeling the tension and stress, was something that I had expected when in L.A. The surprise was that this nerve-wracking feeling would stay with me for my entire visit to Southern California. And on a day trip to Mexico as well.

From the time we crossed the San Diego County border I was waiting for the laid back, sun-drenched, dope-infused San Diego of my youth to reveal itself. It never did. What was revealed was a crowded, noisy and congested corner of the country that was nearly unfamiliar to me and barely recognizable as the idyllic Shangri-la I remembered from three decades earlier. In my mind I struggled to explain the incongruities between what I remembered and what I was now seeing, and while I haven’t yet come up with a definitive answer I have narrowed it down to four theories. They are:

The Weather Theory:
Remember that Seinfeld episode when Jerry’s girlfriend looked great in a certain light but hideous in other lighting? Perhaps San Diego suffers from the same affliction. It is, after all, a beach town, and therefore should be seen during the summer. The beach walk we took last week in P.B. (Pacific Beach for you outsiders) was fine, but I knew six months later that same walkway would be alive with beer-guzzling college boys whooping it up, kids dribbling melting ice cream on their shirts and near naked young women gracefully zooming by on roller skates. Today it was just a chilly walk along a near-deserted beach.

The Different Eyes Theory:
When I first arrived in San Diego I was twenty-two years old and fresh out of a college where the temperature could drop as low as thirty-five degrees below zero. To pack up a tiny Toyota and travel across the country with a friend to a place we had only heard about was an eye-popping experience for such a young inexperience lad. Neither one of us had so much as rented our own apartment before, so to do this in such an exotic far-away land as California had an exciting, edge-of-the-world, Columbus-like quality that I can still remember to this day. There were palm trees there, for chrissake!

So of course finding a place that seemed so wild and free, where there were nude beaches down the road and coyotes across the street and marijuana was but ten dollars an ounce—well of course it seemed like a new world! Plus, again, I was but twenty-two years old. It’s inevitable that I would see San Diego differently three decades later when I viewed itthrough the eyes of a bifocal-wearing, AARP-eligible fifty-two-year-old. That’s life, kiddies.

The It’s All Relative Theory
The relative in this case being my Mom. When I told her how disappointing I had found San Diego she suggested that San Diego looked great thirty years ago when I was comparing it to New York. But now that I live in a place I love on the incredibly beautiful Northern California coast, San Diego will naturally pale in comparison. Possible I suppose, but I’m not sure that I’m going to put much stock in this particular theory. Unless of course my Mom makes me.

The Visine Theory:
It’s all about seeing clearly. Perhaps the reason that San Diego now seems so crowded and congested and run down to me is that over the last thirty years it really has become crowded and congested and run down. And there is empirical evidence to back me up.

The first town I lived in (where we found that great apartment) was Escondido, which lies about a half hour north of the city of San Diego. When I lived there the population was about 50,000, and the main road that ran through town had two lanes in each direction. Today Escondido boasts a population of 120,000 and the main road through town is a very wide and partially elevated highway called Interstate 15.

Last week I returned to a street in East San Diego where I used to rent a tiny house (read: shack) for $125 a month. It wasn’t much, but it was comfortable, and close enough to my job at the dirty bookstore for me to commute safely with only a moped. The little shack is long gone, and so is the type of neighborhood that one could cruise around in anything less protected than a Humvee. We spent a bit of time driving down the dirty, crowded main street searching for my former place of employment with no success. Obviously the building itself was long gone, and as soon at we found the entrance ramp back onto the freeway so were we.

Later that day I was talking about the traffic to the desk clerk at the hotel we stayed in. He told me that he had worked a schedule out with his boss in order for him to spend less time commuting. Remember, this was not in Los Angeles, or even in San Diego itself, but in the once quiet town of Escondido.

Ultimately my negative reaction to San Diego last week was probably due to a combination of all of the above factors, plus several others that I’ve yet to identify. Of course it’s more crowded than it was thirty years ago. And of course a twenty-something will view things differently than a fifty-something. As Thomas Wolfe said, you can’t go home again. Well you can, but you’re probably not going to like it much.