Might As Well Be Next Week

It started just the other day. 

The shadows are longer; there is a diffuse and sort of film noir quality to the late afternoons that hints at what passes for the change from Summer to Fall in Southern California.  Kids head back to school next week which always means cooler and quieter evenings in the neighborhood.  Mounds of Halloween candy fill an entire section at  Costco now and the Christmas doodads can't be far behind. 

Except for the realization that another year is nearly shot to hell, Fall is the absolute best time of year nearly everywhere.  Labor Day, not January 1, feels more like the beginning of a new year just as Memorial Day always seems more like the end.  Whatever the case, it all is moving faster and faster.  I swear I can feel the breeze of passing time hit my face like a gale force wind.

My brother tells me on the phone from Illinois, "I think mom has forgotten how a light switch works.  She unplugs the lamp in her room at the nursing home instead of turning it off--same goes for the TV."  I find myself wondering how the coming change of season looks to her.  Does it register,  or is it just more shadows to contend with as she fades into dementia?

I start to make a mental note of all the plug in appliances we have around the house.  Let's see...bread maker, ice cream freezer, electric carving knife, can opener, (no...haven't seen that one for years).  I can't remember the last time any of these were plugged in except the carving knife.  It gets a workout every Thanksgiving.  Maybe mom is on to something.  I should just unplug everything.  The clocks might be a problem, but there is always a wristwatch handy.  Who needs to know what time it is anyway?  It's slipping through our fingers too rapidly as it is.

What time is sundown today?  I should be reserving a West facing corner of the backyard as my observation outpost.  After all, I am the vice president of sunsets for the Pacific time zone and the sun is not allowed to set until I give it the okay. 

If you're reading this in the Midwest and find that it is already pitch black outside, mom may have pulled the plug a little early.

Ancient Rome Anyone?

Initially they were there because during times of fragmented audiences and runaway production budgets they were cheap and easy.  I don't think anybody at the networks had an inkling of how, like pigs to slop, Americans would belly up to dreck like Survivor, American Idol, Big Brother, and countless other witless and dippy examples of human discomfit.

REALITY BITES!  Face it, these shows are squirm inducing monuments to narcissism and man's unique ability to ignore what the rest of the world recognizes as a complete void of talent and personality.  It's train wreck television and in the age of idiocracy it is a ratings winner.  Damn, it is awful!

I checked out the first episode of Survivor.  I thought it might be an interesting change.  By the first commercial break I found myself hating ALL of the participants and wondered where the network was able to find such a massive collection of complete (sorry) dicks to be on the show.  An hour into the program I was ready to take a flame thrower to the entire cast and, if I could have found it, my shotgun was prepared to "Elvis" the TV set.  I was enraged.  Was America really stupid enough to watch this crap?!  The answer was, of course, in the affirmative.  Troubling.

Apparently there are enough nimrods willing to watch other nimrods embarrass themselves on television and, bingo, ladies and gentlemen...we have a hit on our hands.  Now it's everywhere.  Even shows like the Tonight Show incorporate elements of reality TV into their traditional format.  "Jay Walking" is a very disturbing feature of Jay Leno's nightly gabfest.  In case you've missed it, this benchmark has Jay asking people on the street questions that any D minus third-grader should be able to get right.  Naturally, they don't.  Am I the only one who finds this infuriating?  It's NOT funny.  It's sad.  It makes me wonder  how our schools can consistently be so horrible that we unfailingly  graduate a nation of functional illiterates who, though well into adulthood, have no clue about...ANYTHING.  I fear for a country full of women who can't complete a simple sentence without the word "like" and men who dress as if they're still in grade school and sport spider neck tattoos and pants that appear to be toting a load.

Bringing back the draft might be a step in the right direction.  Maybe a couple of years in the Army might pound some intelligence into these dopes.  It worked in the sixties.

Maybe I should just give up on TV.  Now that I reflect on it, the only shows worth watching lately are on premium channels like Showtime, HBO, AMC and FX.  The Sopranos, Rescue Me, Rubicon, Damages, Louie, Mad Men, and others require that you at least have your GED.  Perhaps the lame stream programing of ABC, CBS, and NBC deserves to be the home of the slag heap that is reality TV.  Watch if you must but know that for every hour you spend viewing shows like Survivor your losing at least five IQ points.  There goes the Mensa picnic.

Fast food and HDTV...bread and circuses anyone?

"Stupid is as stupid does." - Forrest Gump

Burning Memories

 tExcept for the occasional dialog that doesn't sound like something we would have said in the 1960's, Mad Men has it down cold. It is the AMC series of three martini lunches, avarice, adultery,  and ass kissing in the advertising business during the age of the "New Frontier" and hula hoops.  The producers have done their homework.  The clothing, furniture, cars, and kids all look letter perfect to those of us who were around for the early years of an America that knew no bounds.

The most striking visual, at least to me, is the smoking.  We smoked EVERYWHERE and nearly all the time back then.  Planes, restaurants, offices, cars, home, no place was "smoke free".  It seemed as if everybody smoked because, in fact, they pretty much DID.  My dad smoked; mom didn't.  I can't recall a single friend whose dad was a non smoker, though I'm sure that one or two probably were.  Maybe half of the moms were inclined to fire up a Chesterfield, though they never seemed to smoke as much as the guys.

From the time most of us boomers were able to walk and talk we, okay mostly the guys, couldn't wait until we were old enough to buy a pack of butts and join the big boys' club.  We bought candy cigarettes and played with our pencils in school as if they were smokes and, when we had the chance, stole a stick or two from the old man's pack and lit up in the woods.  Camels were purloined by me and the Chamberlain boys next door because, well...that was the brand our dads bought.  I still remember Bob Chamberlain being sent home from Boy Scout camp because he got caught hiding a pack of Camels in his canteen.  (The idea was pure genius until the scoutmaster borrowed the canteen and filled it with water.  I don't know if he was mad at Bob for swiping something from his dad or if he was pissed because the cigs were so soaked he couldn't light them.)

Being teens in the 1960's most boomers began to smoke.  Hell, we had practiced for years and that stuff about smoking causing cancer and other bad junk was all new from the AMA and was probably wrong anyway.  Right?   I smoked.  My friends smoked.  In college they even had ash trays in the classroom!  (The best place to buy smokes at odd hours during college was in the basement of the University medical school where there was always a machine.  Nobody smoked more than doctors.)  Cigarettes were something fun to do that made you look more mature and besides, we were all going to live forever.  

I quit smoking years ago, as did most of my friends.  These days I hardly know anyone who smokes.  No smoking rules have made it nearly impossible to be a smoker.  You can't smoke on planes or at work; you most likely can't light up at home and woe be unto you if you reach for a cigarette in a restaurant.  It's hard work to be a smoker in 2010.  But here's the funny thing:  I would go back to it in a minute if it were safe and inoffensive.  Smoking was something to do with your hands in social situations.  It was a relaxing ritual and, let's face it, most people look kind of cool doing it.  It doesn't come to me in dreams to lure me to an early grave like booze does, but I think about it just the same.

The last time I bought cigarettes on a regular basis they cost about eighty cents a pack.  In the early 60's of Mad Men they went for around thirty or forty cents.  

Two weeks ago in New York, out of pure curiosity, I checked on the price of a pack of Marlboro's at a bodega on the Lower East Side.

$10.58  for ONE PACK!

No wonder 2010 doesn't look like 1964.

Party on Don Draper.

E

I Know We're Pals, But...

He's kind of like an old Army buddy who comes to visit for a couple of days; then two weeks later is reminding you that you're out of vermouth.  I hadn't seen too much of my old chum Al the alligator lizard who spends Summers on the sunny side of our patio.  It's generally part of my routine to check on him as he catches rays from late May through the generally breezy and dry days of late October.

We've been having a particularly cool July and August in Southern California, the coolest since the 1930's according to the experts, and that is why I assumed Al had been making himself scarce.
Nope, that would have been too easy.  It would appear that he has decided that his cold blood is more suited to a different clime.

It wasn't so much a scream,  it was an expletive that told me Linda had encountered a not so welcome surprise in our garage yesterday as we returned from the gym.  (She is not as fond of Al as I am.)  He somehow managed to break into the garage and position himself right next to the door leading to the kitchen.  Not a good move for the old boy since this is where we often chuck various pairs of shoes we are not fond of wearing in the house.  In fact, I'm willing to bet that some of these shoes Linda will not be wearing anywhere ever again.  Naturally, this has created a SITUATION.  Even though alligator lizards eat bugs, spiders and snails it is now my major mission in life to evict Al from the garage.  I really hate to do it.  He is a Padre fan, (and they are in first place), a quiet neighbor and a family guy. (I've counted at least three new "little Als" in the backyard this year.)  
Maybe if I offered him the TV a couple of nights a week to watch the Friars beat up on the Dodgers or the Diamondbacks?  Nah, Linda will never go for that.


If you need me, I'll be in the garage wearing my old combat boots and sporting a large shoe box.  I have a dead spider that might interest my old friend but, frankly, I don't think he'll fall for it.  
I'll come up with something...or be sleeping with Al and the cars tonight.


A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.

The Apple Goes Slo Mo

We first started coming to New York a couple of times a year back in 94' when our daughter and her husband decided to call it home.  As typical laid back Californians, my wife and I were amazed at the energy and excitement of "the city so big they had to name it twice".  The place was like a cage full of Guinna pigs on crack and it was unbelievably LOUD!  (That loud part comes in handy for covering up embarrassing old guy noises that my body increasingly makes.)
Everybody in New York was in a hurry.  It made other cities seem like they were on Ritalin or something.
As I sit with my feet up in California, resting up  from  days spent impersonating the "careful quick and kind" man from Bekins' Moving as Linda and I attempted to help "the kids" move from a fifth floor walk-up on the Lower East Side to a nice new condo in Long Island City, I have concluded that the Apple has slowed down.  No, really,  it has been a gradual slowing, but a slowing that is palpable and pervasive.
Why?
Cell phones.  People are on cell phones; all the time.  New Yorkers are so damn busy yakking that they have slowed their pace to a point where the whole place resembles a mental institution featuring millions of rambling nitwits gesticulating wildly as they carry on disjointed, though still loudly modulated, conversations at all hours of the day.  It is a marked change in behavior that now has me passing the natives on sidewalks, escalators, and subway platforms where I was once Manhattan roadkill.  It's a distinct advantage.  Yay me!
I gladly warn those of you who may be planning a trip to New York sometime soon.  Be careful, as you now have a very good chance of running over the locals as you check out the sites of this fabulous metropolis.  (If you're from Iowa disregard this advice and pick up your pace.)  It is in your best interest to simply leap over or step around the natives and be on your way, otherwise you'll be yelled at.  New Yorkers may be slower these days but the place is louder than ever.  All those phone conversations, you know.
By the way...How do you like the picture of the Manhattan skyline I snapped from the kids' new balcony in L.I.C.?  It's beautiful in daylight and spectacular at night and there is even room for our pup tent.
Yep, that's the Chrysler Building on the left: not a cell tower.

Just A Minute, It'll Come To Me...

The kid came out of nowhere.
My pal, Terry, and I were riding our bikes early in the afternoon of a hot Michigan August.  We had to have been around ten or eleven and the bikes were fairly new, probably from the previous Christmas.  I remember priding myself in "knowing this town like the back of my hand".  Only an eleven year-old would take pride in the kind of knowledge it took to master a village of approximately eighteen-hundred people.
We were riding near the old pickle factory, a less than splendid old building on the "wrong side" of the railroad tracks.  The boy rode up behind us on a feeble looking girls' bike which had been given a less than adequate recent paint job.  House paint would be my guess.
He looked to be about fifteen or sixteen; practically a grown up in our purview.  He overtook us like a cop pulling over a traffic miscreant and flashed some kind of badge he had encased in an old wallet.  The young guy claimed to be some sort of secret police officer and wanted to know what we were doing riding our bicycles in a restricted area of the town of Leslie.  As I recall, both of us were scarred but suspicious of this self important bigger kid, but what did we know?  He was older and, like a teenage baby-sitter, someone who should be treated like an adult.
Why am I reflecting on this as I wake up this morning?  Good question!
As I slowly come out of the ether, I recall that the kid had white adhesive tape wrapped around one of his beat up black oxford shoes.  At the time he pointed to the tape and informed us that this was indicative of his rank in the secret law enforcement organization that employed him.  We bought the  whole story and vamoosed back to our own neighborhood only later beginning to question the authenticity of the, (we later realized), self appointed lawman.  This morning, more than fifty years later, it came to me that the boy had white tape around his shoe simply to hold it together.  He was poor and probably jealous of the relatively new bikes ridden by Terry and me.

Memory...what an amazing and deceptive maze.
I remember the kid, his bike and shoes; even his face.
Now.....the name of that actress I've seen a couple of hundred times on that favorite TV show of mine...
By the way, what the hell is the name of that show??
You know the one.
Don't you?

Eddie Was Right...Mrs. Cleaver IS Lovely

Wearing her ever-present pearl necklace, June, Ward, Wally and Beaver Cleaver are all back.  The entire 234 episode, 37-disk set of the iconic television series "Leave It to Beaver" is now available for you to own.  I've seen the package offered on a few websites for a price somewhere north of a hundred bucks.  That's not bad when you think about it.  After all, this was a series that featured kids who actually talked and acted like kids.  There was never a doubt in your mind that the Beav and his pals weren't just like the rest of us boomers.  You know, worried about looking stupid, messing up around grown-ups, and not getting your share of cookies.  The writers, Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher had eight kids between them and I think that had a lot to do with there never being a false note in the dialog.

 In my radio days I was lucky enough to have interviewed three of the Beaver cast:  Jerry Mathers, Tony Dow and Barbara Billingsley and they all gave lots of credit for the show's success to Connelly and Mosher.  Of the three, hands down the most charming and entertaining was Billingsley.  She kept my old radio partner, Cynthia Heath Kerrigan, and me laughing for over an hour with her tales of life on and off the set of the show.  We learned that Hugh Beaumont who played Ward was known to enjoy an occasional adult beverage and would sometimes wind up spending the night sleeping in the backroom of Billingsley's family restaurant which was run by her son.  She also filled us in on the little known fact that Perer Billingsley, Ralphie in the movie "Christmas Story", is her grandson and that Frank Bank (aka Lumpy Rutherford) is her present day stock broker.  When asked who among the old Beaver cast was the best actor she didn't hesitate to name Ken Osmond.  "Ken was nothing like Eddie, he is a very very nice fellow," she professed.  Osmond, by the way, became a cop and was wounded in the line of duty.  He retired from the L.A. PD several years ago.

The most memorable funny story the former Mrs. Cleaver remembered from the days the series was in production, (1957-63), was the one about "the falling down horse".  That's what she called it.  It seems that there was an episode, maybe you remember it, where Beaver brings home a pony and ties the animal  to a stake in the Cleaver backyard.  Well, there was a scene where the family is having dinner, June in her pearls and Ward still wearing a coat and tie, and they are discussing what Beaver is going to have to do about the pony.  During the filming the director kept having to stop the action because the real live pony was making too much noise outside the dining room window.  As the shoot dragged on it was decided by the producer that a tranquilizer should be administered to the pony to calm the critter down.  All was well until sometime well into the umpteenth take the pony crashed very loudly into the scenery as he tipped over "out cold"and began to snore very loudly.  The pony was fine, but that ended the day's shoot when the cast and crew couldn't stop laughing.

Barbara Billingsley was, and I'm sure still is, delightful and the show is one of the true touchstones of American television history. 

As I reach for my credit card and head for Amazon to order my complete set of "Leave It to Beaver" I can only wonder...WHY aren't they making shows like that anymore?