Your Routes Are Showing

"So won't you carry me back to
California
I've been on the road too long
Take me
To the West Coast daddy
And let me be where I belong" (Carole King/ "Back to California")


"Better start packing, kids."
"We're moving to California."
That's what I told my daughters and my wife Linda in July of 1976. We were living in Tampa at the time and I had just said "yes" to an offer from a radio station in San Diego. The job, the afternoon drive show on KOGO, was a fantastic offer and I had to be on the air by the second week in August. We made it on time and have pretty much been denizens of the West Coast ever since. Our oldest daughter, Kelly, migrated to the East Coast for college in 1989 and has lived and worked in New York City since 1993. She always had, I think, an East Coast soul. That's good. We all need to be where it feels like HOME.

I love the West. We have lived in California, (North and South), Washington state, and Nevada. We settled in San Diego twice: in 1976 and once again in 1986. We must like it.
The absolute best thing about the West is the fact that damn near everybody here has a "story". They left someplace else to get here and most of the time it's an interesting narrative. The place is alive with characters. That's the reason your crazy cousin Carl lives here now. We're ALL here!

Linda and I are both native Midwesterners, she from South Dakota and I from Illinois, Michigan, Iowa and South Dakota. Our youngest daughter, Katie, was born in Kansas. Somehow, even with all of those roots, the Midwest never felt like home to any of us. Too flat, too common sensical, too windy, too.....who knows, it just never felt quite right.

We have lived in the South and love the people and the food. (Hate the heat and the bugs!) But, by virtue of birth, will always be looked on as "Yankees" by those natives of the Land of Cotton.

New England is a magical place of real beauty with all that early American history. It charms me every time I'm there, but knowing that my old pal "The Skipper" has lived in New Hampshire for nearly forty years and is still "The New Guy"makes me think that Linda and I could never feel truly at home there.

You have got to be where you're supposed to be.
That's why I'll be right here on the West Coast with all of the other weirdos making sure that the sun sets in the Pacific each evening.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I believe old Sol is waiting for my cue...

Sunday afternoon with Cmdr. Cranky

We are not amused!



DAMN IT! Just decide!
Either we do this daylight saving time thing all the time, or we stay on standard time. I don't care...Just do one or the other and let that be the end of it. Better yet, ask God which one is really HIS time and that will settle it once and for all. All I know is that I'm sick of spending the better part of an afternoon changing clocks and seeing moronic feature stories on the pluses and minuses of how dark it will be tomorrow morning.
"School kids trip over still sleeping drunks while waiting for the bus...film at eleven...Or is it ten?"

While we're at it: Is anybody else picking up on the government plot to get us to hoard worthless one dollar coins? Here we go again. Who at the U.S. treasury department missed the message we sent regarding dollar coins? When was the last time you reached for a Susan B. Anthony or a Saca...Sacawhatchamahoogie...Sacajawea...(that's it!) to pay for anything? (I would have remembered the Indian babe if I still had any of those things around.)
The problem with the coins was and still IS that they are too small. Now they have presidents on the coins but they are still about the size of a quarter and we won't use them until they are at least as big as the almost non-existent fifty-cent piece. I'm sure that the government is aware of this. They want us to put them away because the treasury makes money when we don't keep them in circulation. (I wonder if the LBJ dollar will have him holding his hound dog by the ears?)

Also, as I run down my "bitch list". Where was this young genius John Cornwell when I was consuming vast quantities of a certain frothy, amber, malt beverage we like to call beer? This Duke University grad has built himself a refrigerator that can toss a can of beer to his couch with the click of a remote control. It took him about 150 hours and $400 in parts to modify a mini-fridge into a beer tossing machine. You click the remote, a small elevator inside the refrigerator lifts a beer can through a hole and loads it on to a catapult arm. A second click fires the beer up to 20 feet.
Excuse me...I'm misting up. Is this a wonderful country?!

Now, isn't it about time for a beer?
Do we spring forward or fall back? For the beer, that is.

At Last! A paternity suit that fits!

not Dannielynn



Okay, I'll admit it.
I'm the father of Anna Nicole's baby, Dannielynn. (not really..but keep it quiet.)

You see, I'm in the midst of doing my taxes and I really need the deduction. I need lots of deductions! In fact, if you have any spare kids around that you wouldn't mind me claiming as dependents, I'd be forever in your debt.

Steve Forbes, if only he were better looking, should be president. He advocated and continues to push for a flat tax rate of around twenty percent for everybody. No deductions of any kind, just a flat tax on all income. I think he is on the high side at twenty percent. I would make it ten percent, but I'm cheap. Just about ANYTHING is preferable to the system we have now...A system so whacked that the founding fathers would be lining up to dump Hiroshima Hot sauce on Washington, D.C. if you gave them half a chance.

Unfortunately, we have become a nation dependent upon an electorate that is stupid beyond belief. Voters who in times prior to the creation of the EPA and OSHA would have been eaten by bears or backed over by non beeping dump trucks are voting like it's TEN CENT BEER NIGHT in America. Mendacious politicians perpetuate their existence by promising these boobs anything and everything that will get them elected time after time. "Vote for me and I'll give you--------(insert favorite freebie here)------and we'll stick it to the MAN!"

Here's a thought: How about letting everybody keep their money and take care of their needs by THEMSELVES? Can you imagine how much you'd be worth if you were able to manage all of your social security contributions? Oh that's right...We're too stupid for that! Send your money to Ted Kennedy and the gang. They are so much smarter than the rest of us. (Good drivers too!)

Excuse me, please. I must get back to making up some more deductions. Don't worry...I've already had practice living in Kansas. Leavenworth should be lovely this time next year and I understand that the food is excellent.

Oh, by the way...YOU DA' MAN!

Mr. Copper's Neighborhood

"Mr. Copper?"
"Yes."
"I'm just calling to see if I'm still in the will."

It's my old pal Dwayne Taylor calling from Denver. "Sideshow" Dwayne and I worked for the same radio station about ten years ago here in San Diego. The station, K_BEST, is one I remember fondly because of great people like Dwayne who were in the harness with me. As I recall, he left for Denver of his own volition about twelve years ago. I, on the other hand, stayed just long enough to get fired in 1998. (Seventeen stations on my resume and only four firings. I've always had good timing.)

As we caught up with each other, Dwayne now works for a sports talk station in Denver, (Jesus, talk about a damn death watch!),I couldn't help but think how lucky I've been to have such good friends in my life. I don't have many...but the quality of my posse is beyond reproach. My brother, Steve, attributes this to the uncanny propensity of the Copper men to reduce most everyone to two categories. For us it's either: "He's okay." OR "He's a prick."
Don't knock it. It works.
It also greatly reduces the odds of casual acquaintances attempting to sell you insurance or Amway products.

Anyway...Where was I?
Oh yeah, ...friends and how great it is to have good ones. I really expected to make some new ones when Linda and I moved into our new neighborhood two years ago. We initially were surrounded by young couples with cute little kids and they all seemed to be passing muster with the old Copper "okay/prick" test. I base this on having lived next door to some world class "okay" neighbors over the years AND some interplanetary "non okay" types too. (I won't name any names but Bill and Rita and Dennis and Meredith are in the "okay" column.)

Now, two years hence, I find that we have chased off all of the young couples with kids and are now surrounded by middle-aged people even creepier than we are. The only neighbor I've met is the guy next door who has left his house maybe once this year. I think his name is Jay and he claims to be a day trader, which we all know is code for "unemployed". I know he still lives there because every once in a while I notice that my morning paper has been stolen.

So, what I'm thinking is that perhaps you might be interested in buying old Jay's place and becoming my next door neighbor. After all you must be "okay". You're reading this aren't you?
If Jay really is a day trader, he surely hanged himself earlier this week and you can probably pick-up the joint for a song and an out of town two party check.

Won't you be my neighbor?

Here's the POINT

Have you noticed that we like to use extraneous words whenever possible?
Americans seem to think that if one word is called for let's make it two just to be sure.

These extra words have a way of sneaking into our vernacular. One day we're referring to the price of something and the next day it's the price point. Have you noticed? "I think you'll like these numbers, J.B., our price point is now $20,000." "The price point on that model is $40k."
What the hell happened to PRICE for God sakes?

To me this use of superfluous words seemed to start with that weasel John Dean during the Watergate hearings. In John's testimony nothing ever happened early or earlier...it was always early on. Nobody referred to things happening early on before Johnny Boy started saying it and now you can't escape it. I even see it in newspaper articles and on network newscasts. (Not that they don't make bonehead mistakes all the time.) In fact, I no longer think that ANYBODY checks the facts and pronunciations for newspapers or network news . How else do you explain the moronic practice of news reporters standing in either Reno or Las Vegas and referring to their location as Ne vah dah? Doesn't it ever occur to any of these clowns to ask a local how they pronounce the name of their state? (Here's a clue: The A sounds like the A in fatuous.)

But I digress. My favorite extra word is LIKE. This is a word employed by people mostly south of forty years of age. "So he was like going....to like take the bike to like his folks' house."
It's like a quick way to make an Ivy League education sound like stupid.

Another beauty I hear all of the time is the extra of. Instead of: "It's not too bad a commute on our freeways." This comes out: "It's not too bad of a commute on our freeways." DUMB!

On the other hand there is one word that is lately often left out when referring to education. How did we get to the point where it is common to hear and see: "He graduated college." instead of, "He graduated from college."? If you don't know the answer to this one, you probably slept through English class before you graduated from college.

And, as long as I'm on a roll, something is either free or it is for nothing. It is NOT for free.
That one makes me like...ARGH!

Thoughts of Sunday and '52 Buicks

I don't go to church.

There, I said it. God makes me nervous when you get him indoors.
It's not that I'm an atheist or anything. I just associate church with music that I don't groove to and the overwhelming feeling of being a complete fraud when I'm there. Being inside a church always brings to mind all of the horrible things I have ever done and the expectation of a massive lightning strike is a constant worry.

I do believe in God. Too many prayers have been answered and too many undeserved breaks have come to me and my family to be a cosmic coincidence. Atheists have it all wrong when they fail to wager with the house. Whether you're at the $2 or the $100 window, the percentages say:" Always bet the Big Guy to Win, Place and Show".

My parents were of the "Let's try beating God into them" school of religious education. They dutifully dragged my brother Steve and I to both Sunday school and church every Sunday and I guarantee that at this very moment I can pick -up the phone and reach my brother who is also not in church. Sorry Mom and Dad...It didn't take. Call me crazy, but I don't think God is so anal that he or she cares one way or the other about our answering "Here" when roll is called at church each Sunday. That's too much like the Army...and I really hated the Army.

So, here I am on a Sunday in March trying to buy tickets to some of the Padres games for the new season. Hey, I'm pretty sure that God loves baseball and I can't wait to get his opinion on whiskey and cigars. ( I really miss the former.) The whole process of buying tickets on line is driving me crazy. Every time I go to buy a ticket the Padre website starts a timer that gives me about three minutes to decide if I want to purchase a particular seat and at my age that is no easy task. Distance to the men's room is a prime consideration now. When I was a kid and my prostate was the size of a walnut I could go practically all day without a break for drainage. But now, like all guys past the age of forty, my prostate has surpassed my ego in mass and currently approximates the specifications of a 1952 Buick Roadmaster. This naturally means that access to the men's room is of great importance.

Well, thanks for dropping by. Please put some money in the plate on your way out.

You'll have to excuse me now. It's that prostate thing again.
That's something I really must ask God about...just not in church.

Jimmy Dean is a Pimp

Iowa Hussy!


The Skipper has me hooked on the TV show Dirty Jobs. It is on the Discovery Channel and it is pretty good. The star of the show, Mike Rowe, is an entertaining fellow who each week involves himself in what most of us consider a "dirty job". The usual episode finds him up to his neck in crab guts, pigeon poop, or in one case a Midwestern cesspool on a hot muggy July day. It's all very interesting...and dirty.

Just last week I caught an episode where Mike was happily engaged in the commerce of pig farming in the state of Iowa. Having spent my high school years there, I daily rubbed shoulders with kids whose parents were in the pig farming business. Holly hog jowls Batman! I had no idea that pig farms were nothing more than porcine bordellos and pig farmers merely PIMPS. Because the Discovery Channel is on cable, the porker porn was inescapable. Those sows and boars have no shame and the farmers encourage them. It's wanton! My wife and I now know way more than we ever wanted to know about where bacon comes from. There they are... RIGHT THERE!... in the mud... slobbering and...well, you know. All this show lacked was some of that cheesy porno music looping in the background. (I've been told about this.) No wonder Porky and Petunia never have any pants on.

All of those years thinking that my beloved bucolic Iowa was pristine and chaste... shot to hell. I'll never look at a BLT the same way again. We can all take some comfort in the fact that cattle would never behave like the pigs. I mean they wouldn't would they?

Maybe professor Harold Hill was right. "We got trouble, right here in Eye Oway!" "It starts with P' and that rhymes with porn and that stands for PORK!" Oh, what the hell....pass me some of those ribs.