Music still has its charms ...

When my lovely wife and I decided to make our annual visit to the L.A. County Fair today, we figured it would only be for a couple of hours.

That's the way we usually do it. We walk around some and we visit the shopping buildings so that she can pick up the latest ShamWow or 1,000 thread count sheets or whatever it is they're selling this year.

But this time was a little different. When we got there a little before 3 p.m., we noticed that the featured concert at 7:30 p.m. would be the Beach Boys. Now I know the group is a pale imitation of the original, with Carl Wilson and Dennis Wilson dead and the others split into three different bands.

This one had Mike Love, though, and it had Bruce Johnston as well, along with a group of younger guys who weren't even born when Beach Boys songs were all over the radio all the time.

I had seen the original Beach Boys -- minus Brian Wilson -- three times before, in 1974, '75 and '76 in Washington, D.C. They were great shows, and the group had provided a major part of the soundtrack of my life since their first national exposure in 1962.

Still, Love and Johnston are 68 and 67, respectively, and I'm still getting used to the idea of senior citizens rocking and rolling. But in a pretty tacky week, culture-wise, I suppose I was willing to try it.

It couldn't be worse than Mackenzie Phillips going on Oprah (no, not really on Oprah herself) saying that someone needed to speak up for consensual incest victims or Tom "The Hammer" DeLay channeling his inner Travolta on "Dancing With the Stars."



So I definitely needed some of the wonderful, upbeat music that I loved when I was in high school. Without the three Wilson brothers, the soaring harmonies from the '60s weren't there, but the audience didn't seem to mind. I saw people from 15 to 65 on their feet dancing and singing along with song after song, crammed into a 90-minute performance.

Johnston sounded all right on the lovely "God Only Knows," but he knew he was just a fill-in. When he finished, he dedicated the song to the "one and only Carl Wilson, forever in our hearts."

It was a pretty nice evening, and I didn't hear one person talk about politics all day.

I needed that.

Million dollar shot great to watch

Talk about a dream come true.

I have been playing golf for 15 years and have never had a hole in one. I've come close a couple of times, including once on my favorite hole, the par-three No. 7 at Empire Lakes in Rancho Cucamonga.

I put a shot eight inches from the hole and tapped in for birdie. Close, but no ...

That's why seeing this shot from the Mark Eaton Celebrity Classic in Utah, in which a restaurant manager from Provo won $1 million, is so amazing.



The hole was 150 yards, just a little shorter than No. 7 at Empire Lakes, which is why it's obvious this guy is a much better golfer than I am.

You see, I use a five wood to clear nearly 150 yards of water.

He used a nine iron for his shot.

Amazing baby takes her first steps

Milestone, milestone.

Madison Nicole Kastner, aka The Amazing Baby, took her first unaided steps today -- five of them before sitting down. I wish I could post the video here, but if you're a friend of mine on Facebook, you can see it on my home page.

Since today is Sept. 16, little Maddie walked three days before her first birthday. She's also really close to speaking her first words, so she's right on target developmentally. With her parents in language training, Maddie is spending her daytime hours in day care. She started in a class for kids who hadn't started walking yet, but it looks like they're going to have to move her up to the next class now.

Yay, Maddie!

Am I crazy, or is it possible ...

I have decided I'm not going to go gently into that good night.

I want to learn to surf. I want to get a board, head for the beach and learn how to ride a wave.

Editor's note: Mike, you're an idiot. You're almost 60 years old. You can't learn to surf.

Why not?

I can swim, I'm strong enough to carry a board and I've got enough endurance to work out for an hour at a time. Why can't I learn to surf?

Heck, if a penguin can do it ...



Seriously, from the first time I ever heard "Surfin' Safari" in the summer of 1962 on high-flying WING radio in Dayton, Ohio, I dreamed of going to California and trying it myself.

Of course, at 12 I wasn't going anywhere, and other than 10 days in the state in the summer of '78, I didn't make it back until I was 40 years old. I could have tried it in the summers of '90, '91 or '92, but for some reason it never crossed my mind.

Maybe it was just that I didn't have the kind of car you could strap a board to the top of, or maybe I was at a point in my life when I thought I was past all that. Then I became a family man and didn't think of it at all.

But it can't be that difficult.

You paddle out, turn around and raise ...

Isn't that all there is to the coastline craze?

A life without memories ... maybe

One of the most difficult things about being human is the memory.

I always loved Annie Savoy's line from the wonderful movie "Bull Durham:"

"The world is made for people who aren't cursed with self awareness."

I remember mentioning that line to my sister Laura once. I don't know if she was in a bad mood or what, but her response was that she had never considered me particularly self-aware.

I wish she was right. I wish I were a year old, as my lovely granddaughter will be this Saturday. I wish I could sweep away all the mistakes, all the hurts and just live my life again from the start.

Of course, we don't get to do that. Even if we were in one of those goofy movies where the older person and the younger one switch bodies, it wouldn't be fair to Maddie to cheat her out of nearly 59 years.

I would actually be happy just to forget my past and live what's left of my life in clueless oblivion, to wake up to a new world every morning and just concentrate on loving the people I love and being good to the others.

Maybe I should try for that.

'Liberal' should not be a dirty word

One of the things that fascinates me, particularly in some of the comments to posts, is how many of you seem to see "liberal" as a dirty word.

I can't say I blame you. For the last 30 years, the right has been hammering away at the word, doing its best to equate "liberal" with "libertine" in people's minds, and completely ignoring the fact that there are shades of difference in those left of center on the spectrum.

One of the tactics talk radio hosts like Fat Man and Little Boy have used for years is basically saying that liberal, socialist and communist are all pretty much the same. There really aren't that many people except on the lunatic fringe who try to equate conservative with fascist and Nazi.

What have liberals done for America?

Well, even though they were Republicans at the time, they fought to end slavery. They fought for women to have the right to vote, and for a whole myriad of workplace rights from child labor to minimum wage to workplace safety.

They busted trusts and created the inheritance tax that at least limited the creation of a permanent American oligarchy. They created Social Security and Medicare, and they led the fight for civil rights and against the war in Vietnam.

They stood for food and drug safety and for consumer protection, and they battled for women's rights in the workplace and in reproductive freedom.

If you look at each of those issues, in almost every one of them, conservatives were opposed. They don't believe in the minimum wage and they have hated Social Security and Medicare ever since they were created. Look at one of their current leaders, Sarah Palin, who wrote in the last 48 hours that Medicare should be changed to a system of vouchers for people to buy their own health care.

I have never been ashamed to consider myself a liberal, although I think in some areas I would go beyond where liberals go and consider myself a European-style Social Democrat.

Here's what that means, according to the definition by the Socialist International, which supports social democratic and moderate socialist parties:

Social Democracy affirms three basic principles.

First, freedom — not only individual liberties, but also freedom from discrimination and freedom from dependence on either the owners of the means of production or the holders of abusive political power.

Second, equality and social justice — not only before the law but also economic and socio-cultural equality as well, and equal opportunities for all including those with physical, mental, or social disabilities.

Third, solidarity — unity and a sense of compassion for the victims of injustice and inequality.

That mostly adds up to two things -- we're all in this together and we are our brother's keeper.

I don't disagree with any of it.

A little wisdom from the South

I wanted to find out if folks really were as stirred up about Barack Obama as some are saying, so I went to my best source.

I called my friend Cooter Jackson. Cooter lives in a little town about 20 miles from Durham, N.C. He spent 30 years as a columnist for the Grits Advertiser ("All the news that fits, we print"), although he had to retire when he lost his sight in a fishing accident.

Some of you may notice that Cooter has a small resemblance to my friend Mick, who teaches at two community colleges in Southern California.

But it's obvious from the picture that the two men aren't the same. Cooter's hair is shorter, and you can tell from the dark glasses and the vacant stare that he's blind.


In fact, if you look at this picture of Mick teaching, his hair is longer and darker, and he clearly has his eyesight.

Now that we've settled that, it's actually sort of ironic. Cooter says being blind has actually helped him in a couple of ways.

"I was always purty good with the ladies," he said. "But now that I can't see, they're even more eager to come over. They say they don't have to put no makeup on and that's a pure pleasure."

So I called to ask him about Obama.

"Well, he surprised me some when he carried North Carolina last year," he said. "Part of it was McCain runnin' a bad campaign and part of it was folks bein' real fed up with ol' Dubya. Obama caught 'em at the right time, and there really ain't as much racism around here as there used to be."

And now, I asked.

"He wouldn't carry the state today," Cooter said. "Part of it is people thinkin' a president should be a miracle worker and he shoulda solved all the problems by now, and part of it is that he's probably a little more liberal than folks realized."

I asked him what he thought.

"Hell," Cooter said. "He's no more liberal than LBJ was, but Lyndon was a white Southerner, and back then conservatives hadn't turned 'liberal' into a dirty word. I think his biggest mistake is he left it to Congress to do health care instead of proposin' his own plan."

What about all the spending? The huge deficits?

"Bush ran the biggest deficits in history," he said. "He's the only president ever who cut taxes and went to war at the same time. Nobody was fussin' about it then. It's all about the propaganda, and Obama's losin' that battle to idiots like that Fat Boy on the radio and what's his name, Glenn Beck."

I knew Cooter had spent time with both Rush Limbaugh and Beck and he ddin't have much use for either of them. Rush had gone with him on one of Cooter's famous fishing trips.

"Worst one ever," Cooter said. "He just wouldn't stop talkin'. Scared all the fish away. And he kept smokin' those big ol' cigars."

Even so, he said he liked Rush a lot better than Beck.

"I met him at a party in Chapel Hill," Cooter said. "He has kind of a crazy look in his eyes, and I swear I never shook hands with anybody whose hands were softer and damper."

I asked him if he had any advice to pass along to Obama.

"He needs to get mad," Cooter said. "He needs to show some emotion, instead of just bein' so cool and collected about it all. Start runnin' people out there whose lives have been destroyed by insurance companies turnin' 'em down. Start askin' the folks on the other side what they'd do about that. He can still win this thing. He just needs to show he cares."

Howard Beale told the truth

Howard Beale, huh?

I can live with that. If you saw "Network," you may remember that Beale was killed for telling the truth and threatening to scuttle a major corporate takeover. Listen to the 1976 speech Paddy Chayefsky wrote for Beale and see how much of it was truly prescient.

I don't mind criticism, especially when I'm wrong, but I've read and re-read my original post and my response to Jim and I don't see anything I need to walk back. I said I was tired of haters and that they were bad people and liars, and I said something mean about Ol' Dubya.


Sorry, but I just don't much like the man. I thought it was a disgrace he was even nominated, let alone elected. The man just didn't have the gravitas to be president, and thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis paid the ultimate price for that.

As for being far left, uh, not so much. For one thing, I'm pro-life. For another, during the years I was writing a newspaper column, I called for Bill Clinton's resignation over the Lewinsky thing. I'm not a big fan of Nancy Pelosi, but I do think one reason so many people are so worried about Obama is the way the media is distorting the debate.

Two Ph. D's, huh Jim? Good on you. The closest I ever get to two Ph. Ds is when I go to bed at night. I dropped out of school in the seventh grade myself. Wanted to explore the exciting world of carnival geeks, but when I found out they wanted me to eat chicken every night, I couldn't handle it.

Besides, my old daddy used to tell me that arguin' about who's smart and who's not makes about as much sense as rasslin' with a pig. You get dirty and the pig enjoys it.

So no, I'm not insulting your intelligence or trying to claim I'm the smartest guy in the room. I am the smartest guy in the room right now, but that's only because I'm sitting here alone.

But I tell you what. If you're looking for fairness to Dubya or Dick Cheney, or measured commentary about Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter, you're probably at the wrong place.

I don't think I'm far left, but I am not ashamed to be called a liberal.

And Nan, in case you were wondering, I never censor comments or delete blogs.

I'm not afraid of words.

Time to put haters in their place

I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore.

I'm tired of seeing people trying to do something good and then seeing the haters try to turn it into something bad or evil.

Demi Moore and Ashton Kutchner, along with quite a few other recognizable Hollywood stars, made a video called "I pledge," which is basically a lot of people pledging to be less self-centered and do good things for the country and the world.

It's a response to President Barack Obama urging people to look outside themselves and be a better neighbor.

Here are some of the things the people in the video promise to do:

1. Work to end hunger.
2. Smile more.
3. Laugh more.
4. Love more.
5. To be a great mother.
6. To be a great father.
7. To be an American, not an African-American.
8. To find humor in everything.
9. To consume less.
10. To volunteer time.
11. To show more love to others.
12. To meet their neighbors.
13. To be a mentor.
14. To help build a culture of intelligence, not of ignorance.
15. To understand that we're all in this together.

All good things, but in the last minute of this 4:18 video, two different people pledge to serve President Obama in what he is trying to do to change America. It's these two quotes out of nearly 4 1/2 minutes of quotes that the people who hate Obama are using to characterize the video as "indoctrination" or "cult-like behavior."

The media is doing what it always does -- covering the controversy. Instead of the truth of the video, which is that people are trying to get people to do good things, they're treating it as if it is something shameful.

I'm tired of it. I don't care if it's liberals or conservatives, if anyone in this country urges people to do good things to help others, I'm on their side. If Rush Limbaugh says we should volunteer at the local hospital, I'll praise him. Ditto if Jane Fonda were to say the same thing.

It's time to call the haters what they are.

Bad people.

And liars.

Movies can have lasting effects

It's funny how some things stick with you.

When Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" came out in 1960 with its famous shower scene, there were quite a few people who didn't take showers for months after that.

I was too young to see "Psycho" in its original release, but I know of one Brian DePalma film that still affects my behavior nearly 30 years after I saw it.



"Dressed to Kill" was released in 1980, and I have never looked at elevators the same way since. In the early part of the movie, Angie Dickinson has an illicit affair. When leaving the man's apartment, she learns that she has probably gotten an STD from him and also that she left her wedding ring in the apartment.

She takes the elevator back up to his floor, and when the door opens and she starts to get out, the killer slashes her throat with a straight razor and murders her.

It's quite a scary scene, and ever since then, whenever I am getting into an elevator or coming out of one -- particularly when I am alone -- I always look around before I take a step. Just making sure there's no killer with a straight razor waiting for me.

Silly?

Probably, but I'm still alive.