There's little better than 36 holes of golf

One of my favorite golf holes ever is the Par 3 seventh hole at Empire Lakes Golf Course in Rancho Cucamonga.

Depending on where the flag is placed and which tee box is used, it's a 160-170-yard hole. If you play it right -- if you attack it -- all but the last 10 or 15 yards is over water.

It's possible to play it safe, to hit up to the left of the lake and not risk a splash, but you won't be on the green. And if your first shot isn't on the green on a Par 3, it's much more difficult to par the hole and nearly impossible to birdie it.

I don't play often enough to be good, and I sort of created my own swing without benefit of lessons. When I play well, I can break 90 once in a while, which was actually my goal when I started playing golf.

Why? I guess because I read in a golf book that only about 10 percent of recreational golfers ever break 90. On my very best days, I've shot 83 and 84. That's very satisfying, since I remember the first time I played nine holes about 17 years ago, I shot a 75.

Golf can be the most damnably frustrating game. Within five minutes, I can top a shot and have it go five yards and follow a couple of shots later by blasting a pitching wedge 100 yards to within six feet of the pin.

I can hit a horrible drive and on the same hole sink a 25-foot putt.

Heaven ... and hell.

Mostly for me, golf is a way to step back from all the things in my life that frustrate me. It's a way to spend eight or nine hours -- we play 36 holes -- in the sunlight and come home with more tan than is really healthy for me.

It's a way to spend a day sharing a cart with my buddy Mick, who remains my closest friend in the world in the 45th summer of our friendship. It's the 2009 equivalent of when we sat on a curb when we were kids and discussed the things we had done and the things we wanted to do.

More often that not these days, the conversation is about our various physical woes. We used to play baseball, football and basketball together, but we're both on the far side of 55 now and pretty much limited to golf.

We discuss our families. He was a father before I was, but I beat him to grandfatherhood, if that's a word.

We played today. On the course at 6:30 a.m. and off at 3 p.m. So-so golf with some highlights to keep us coming back. I blasted my tee shot successfully over the water on the seventh hole both times, but missed my putts and didn't par the hole either time.

Heaven ... and hell.

But mostly heaven.

Media plays Jacko for all he's worth

In April 1945, a week after President Franklin D. Roosevelt was buried, his widow took a train from Washington, D.C., to New York City.

When she reached her apartment in Washington Square, reporters met her outside. They had lots of questions about her future plans, the late president's legacy and all sorts of other things.

Eleanor Roosevelt had four words for them.

"The story is over."

In 1975, on the brand-new "Saturday Night Live," Weekend Update anchor Chevy Chase satirized the coverage of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco by saying week after week that "Franco is still dead."

The story was over.

Of course, things have changed. Stories never end in these days of the 24-hour, Internet-fueled news cycle. Michael Jackson died two weeks ago today, and he is still the No. 1 news story despite everything else that is happening in the world.

For one thing, we are a lot nosier than we were in 1945 or even 1975. Remember the annoying journalist in "Die Hard 2?"

"The people have a right to know everything about everyone all the time."

We're got Perez Hilton, TMZ, the Smoking Gun and a dozen other sites designed to catch every celebrity's most embarrassing moments. We know more about Lindsey Lohan or Britney Spears -- including anatomical details -- than we ever did about any of our presidents.

We attribute qualities to them they don't even have. We ask them what they think about issues, when in some cases they haven't read a book in years or even finished high school.

Michael Jackson made great music, music that touched millions of people and made a difference in their lives. A letter writer to the L.A. Times today said he thought everyone on the planet probably had a favorite Michael Jackson song.

Well, I don't, and I'm pretty sure my wife doesn't either.

I don't think CNN needs to do breaking news updates on discussions of who will raise Jackson's three children, or what his albums are doing on the charts. Those children could be raised by winos and they'd still be better off than most kids in the world because they are rich.

And if Jackson's "Thriller" is the biggest selling album of all time, well, "The Eagles' Greatest Hits" is second and I doubt CNN will go nuts when Don Henley or Glenn Frey pass away.

But as long as there's money to be made and ratings to be won, American television will be chasing every detail of every story -- real and imagined -- about everyone in the world.

It's a shame we can't agree on one thing about Michael Jackson.

The story is over.

Laughter is always a good thing

I actually meant to post this a while back, but forgot. It's from "Pearls Before Swine," a comic strip that has become one of my new favorites.

This particular strip made me laugh out loud, which doesn't happen all that often anymore.

Enjoy.

Is any of this stuff really news?

Some habits are very difficult to break.

When I wrote earlier this week that I was opting out of the news cycle, I deleted a number of news Websites from my Internet favorites. I stopped checking Rush Limbaugh's transcripts and I decided that what news I needed, I would get from my subscription to the Los Angeles Times.

I've been having the print edition of the Times delivered since I came to California in April 1990, and even in decline, it's still a pretty good newspaper. The great thing about print over broadcast is that if I decide I'm not interested in a story, I just skip it.

I read Sports, I read the Calendar section and I consistently read the front section. I figured I'm at least as well informed as somebody who watches hours a day of CNN, MSNBC or Fox News.

As a rule, I don't watch TV news. I stopped watching local news shows in 1994 when I tuned in to the local NBC affiliate at 11 p.m. and watched a half-hour broadcast that didn't include anything other than sex, scandal, celebrity news and a car chase.

Hey, that's Los Angeles.

I did watch the CBS Evening News a few times because of this lust in my heart thing I had for Katie Couric, but as for the cable giants, the only time I ever hear or see them is when someone else is watching.

That's what happened to me Wednesday afternoon when I took my wife to the hospital for some x-rays. CNN was on in the background, and even though I couldn't hear anything, I saw Wolf Blitzer spend the better part of 15 minutes discussing Michael Jackson's children (Who will raise them?), Sarah Palin (What's next for her?) and President Obama's declining approval ratings.

I did the only sensible thing.

I fell asleep.

A promotion for little Maddy

When does a baby stop being a baby?

Since I didn't enter my own children's lives until they were already in school, I didn't get to see either of them as babies, infants, toddlers and whatever else comes in those early years. In fact, just about the youngest kid I ever hung out with was my friend Mick's lovely daughter Kelsey, who was 3 at the time.

My granddaughter Madison, who I christened the Amazing Baby on this blog, is on the verge of walking and talking. She actually stood up for 15-20 seconds the other day before realizing she wasn't supporting herself.

She promptly sat down.

If you look at some of the earlier pictures I've posted of her, she has this sort of goofy happy look in most of them. But if you look at this picture, she seems to have more going on in her mind.

I think she's earned a promotion.

From now on, Maddy is the Incredible Infant.

Jackson's sad odyssey at an end

I never really got Michael Jackson.

I wasn't that big a fan of his music, except for some of the early stuff with the Jackson Five. I was sort of repelled by his apparent obsession with plastic surgery, and I figured he was guilty at the very least of some incredibly inappropriate behavior with young boys.

My favorite story about him -- the one I thought really said a lot -- was the time he invited Elizabeth Taylor to dinner. The table was set for four and the guests were Jackson, Taylor and two chimpanzees.

Jackson himself didn't come to dinner, leaving Taylor to eat dinner with the two chimps.

I felt like the last significant contribution he made to music was at least 20 years ago, yet millions of people have been mourning his death for more than a week now. His greatest album, "Thriller," does nothing for me. I don't think it measures up against albums like "Born to Run," "Sergeant Pepper" or "Tommy," to name a few.

It isn't a black-white thing, either. I think Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On" is one of the greatest albums ever, and Stevie Wonder has made much better music than Jackson over a longer period of time.

Jackson was always a little too androgynous for me, and even though he was never convicted of pedophilia, he bought off at least one accuser with an eight-figure settlement.

I even thought his title -- King of Pop -- was sort of a left-handed compliment. "Pop" music was the stuff that wasn't quite rock 'n' roll or rhythm and blues. Pop music was Neil Diamond and Barry Manilow, Celine Dion and Mariah Carey.

Sort of like being the King of Marvin Gardens.

People are comparing Jackson to Elvis Presley, who died 32 years ago this summer, but anyone who thinks there is a serious comparison wasn't around when Presley was in his heyday. Elvis not only ruled the music charts, he made about two dozen movies whose only purpose was to get Elvis out there in front of his fans.

No, Jackson was no Elvis Presley.

He may have been the perfect symbol of our graceless age, a talented misfit who made hundreds of millions of dollars and spent most of it. A musical prodigy who was mostly spent by his 30th birthday. A man who never really related to women, whose arrested development left him comfortable only with prepubescent boys.

His choice of name for his home said it all.

Elvis had Graceland.

Michael had Neverland.

That says a lot.

Looking forward to an Amazing Baby

I'm going to have a wonderful summer, especially the month of August.

For one thing, it's beginning to look like we will finally complete the sale of our house. We have spent the better part of a year and a half struggling with the declining housing market, but -- knock on wood -- things are coming to a satisfactory conclusion.

Then Nicole and I will be spending the first half of August in the Pacific Northwest and I get to spend 10 days with my three favorite female people in the world -- my incredible wife, my gorgeous daughter and the Amazing Baby, my wonderful granddaughter Madison.

You can't imagine how much I'm looking forward to seeing Maddy. I heard her cry when she was 10 minutes old and she slept on my chest when she was 10 days old.

I've been watching videos of her for several months on Facebook, and she is really starting to develop a personality of her own. She's very close to walking without help and my guess is she'll be talking sooner rather than later.

But what is every bit as wonderful to me is spending the better part of two weeks with Pauline. I have never been as proud of anyone in my life as I am of my wonderful daughter. In addition to doing a terrific job as a mother, she has made amazing progress in her career as a foreign service officer. When I hear what colleagues say about her and I read her evaluations, I am absolutely blown away with admiration.

Maddy, Pauline and Nicole.

Damn, it's going to be a great summer.