I think I’ve figured a way to save our country from ruin: We should elect a new president every year. The stock market always goes up before a presidential election, right? That means all recessions will be limited to a half-dozen months and the good times will roll every summer and fall. And you’ll never again hear the word “deficit.” Has Congress ever raised taxes or cut services in an election year? And all those out-of-work Americans? Well, they might not have jobs, but they’ll at least have something to do. They can spend their empty days campaigning for the latest empty-headed candidate…
When I was a kid, computers were the size of apartment buildings, and there were, like, four fuzzy channels making their way through the air to our little black and white TV set. Most Americans got their information and entertainment primarily from radio (no, not satellite) and newspapers (remember them?). (My earliest memory of television’s impact on my life was having my bedtime moved all the way back to 7:30 one day a week so I could watch Whirlybirds, a show about a guy who owned a helicopter company and was hired for all sorts of daring jobs and rescues … sort of like a Charlie Sheen …
There are certain sentences you figure you’ll never have to say: “Please pass the piano.” “Saw off my leg.” “One piece of bacon is plenty for me!” “I’m not wearing that tutu.” I’d never spoken the first three—until I just read this column aloud to myself—but I said the fourth the other day when our daughter the Sous Chef walked down the stairs with a piece of her past. She had just heard I was taking the soon-to-be-3-year-old granddaughter to a mommy-and-me—in this case, Baba-and-me—ballet class. Contrary to some of my buddies’ predictions, I did show up at the home of my eldest daughter, the…
REPORTING FROM SOUTH LAKE TAHOE It’s 7 a.m. and already 72 degrees. Standing in the direct sunlight, it feels warmer. With no wind to point its nose into, the Waverunner sits idly alongside its buoy. The lake is so flat that it appears to be the world’s biggest ice rink … and the snow-covered mountains ringing it do nothing to diminish the illusion. As I breathe in the crisp mountain air, it occurs to me that this spot has been our family's vacation mecca. More than 30 years ago, my wife’s stepfather and three partners bought a lakeside motel here, converted it into condos and one of the …
So what’s your first reaction if you walk into the library and someone is screaming at the top of her lungs? Call 911 and report bloody murder? Retreat back out the door at a run? Maybe see if you could somehow help? Predictably, I immediately chose the second option and was about to grab AngelFace and sprint when I was informed—by a 2½-year-old, no less—that everything was fine: “Mish Mah-wee doin’ 'tory time, Baba.” As it turns out, Miss Marie does story time at a volume I haven’t heard since the Who played Anaheim Stadium in June 1970 and I was sitting on the mound while 3 tons of sound …
If you think you rate a 6 or higher on the political-correctness meter, maybe you'd better stop reading right now … For the last 30-some years, my wife, Goggy, has been pointing out every insensitive, impolite, loutish or obnoxious comment I’ve made in her presence … and the list is Library-of-Congress formidable. (Sometimes she jots stuff down I mumble in my sleep and scolds me in the morning.) And if all the people the American Idle has offended over the years got together and voted for Scotty over Lauren just to spite me, he’d be a shoo-in to win American Idol. (Yeah, he’s got a great …
Goggy and I celebrated our 33rd wedding anniversary last week and it got me thinking about prostitution. Uh, wait … I’d better start over. Goggy and I celebrated our 33rd wedding anniversary last week in Las Vegas and, as is so often the case in that particular municipality, our eyes unintentionally landed on quite a few of, well, let’s call them ladies of the evening. And we’re not talking back-alley, HBO documentary types here; most of these girls in the upscale hotel bars look as if they just stepped off a Hollywood red carpet. Of course most of us couldn’t afford to kiss one of these …
I graduated from college with a degree in journalism and worked more than 30 years for the Los Angeles Times, a newspaper that has won more than its share of Pulitzer Prizes for investigative reporting. And even though I was a sportswriter for most of that time, I broke my share of stories. (It was I, after all, who first reported that Reggie Jackson had what looked like a nasty diaper rash on his butt before the playoffs began in 1982 and wouldn’t that surely hurt the Angels' chances of making it to the World Series?) But now—in my new role as community clown, er, watchdog—I’m digging into …
Hey, dudes, check this out … I moved to Orange County when I was 14 and was the envy of every one of my pals at the beach in Santa Monica, thanks mainly to references by the Beach Boys and Jan and Dean proclaiming my new hometown of Huntington Beach “Surf City” … because, well, none of them had actually ever been there. The reality was that the wind blew onshore most afternoons and ruined the surf, just like it did 50 miles up the coast, and the waves were certainly no better than they were at Malibu, where we occasionally talked one of our parents into taking us. But it was still very much a…
We had a pool at our first house in Mission Viejo, and both our daughters were able to float and propel themselves through the water before they were a year old. I would station a beach chair next to the pool’s edge and read the newspaper—remember those?—while the 10-month-old sous-chef-in-the-making would flop off the top stair and swim a little circle back to her starting point … maybe 100 times. Growing up, both girls spent much of every summer on the beach in San Clemente in the state Junior Lifeguard program, and the Stay-at-Home-Mom swam the butterfly at Capistrano Valley High. I’ve …
I have one daughter—the Stay-at-Home-Mom with the master’s degree—who still calls me to say that her car is “going clunkety, click, clack …. What’s that mean, Daddy?” I’ve got another, the Sous Chef, who’s still trying to figure out how to balance a checkbook so it doesn’t cost her $35—including overdraft charges—to buy a Red Bull at the gas station. My wife, Goggy, says our children are so dependent because of a lifetime spent listening to me tell them how smart I am, how right I am and how I do everything better than anyone else—hey, honesty is a key to good parenting—and because I do …
The new baby finally made his entrance, and AngelFace was right: She’s got a “bruddah.” But, oh, brother, it didn’t go exactly as Mommy and Daddy planned—do these things ever? The Stay-at-Home-Mom’s master’s degree did her no good in preparing for this job … and writing her thesis probably didn’t take as long. She had intense contractions nearly nonstop for three days that never got more than 10 minutes apart. It was a grueling 72 hours. How tired was she at the end? We were counting the time between “pressure waves”—I guess that’s a New Age term for contractions, sort of like “separation …
The Mailman—a buddy I’ve known since high school whom I’ve played tennis with twice a week for more years than either of us would like to count—has a nasty bruise on the inside of his thigh and a dislocated rib. (Thirty years ago, any discussion of “thighs” and “ribs” would’ve been about a barbecue menu. These days, it’s an emergency-room list.) The bruise is the result of an overhead I smashed that he managed to literally step into, and the rib injury happened after his feet became tangled and he tumbled while back-pedaling for a lob and hoping to return the favor. But I don’t really feel …
Uncle Jimmy wants to Facebook. “If he’s Facebooking,” he says, jerking his thumb in the direction of a golf buddy, “then I want to Facebook…. Does that mean I get to do those tweets, too?” Let’s just say that Uncle Jimmy is not a social network butterfly … or even caterpillar, for that matter. He has a son who is a computer programmer and a daughter who is among the most avid contributors on Facebook and Twitter. But Uncle Jimmy is a little behind the times here … “How many of those ‘friends’ everybody talks about do I have to have to Facebook?” he wonders. So I clear my throat and begin my …
One of the Sous Chef’s childhood best pals “friended” me recently on Facebook, and it brought home a flood of memories of the 10 years I coached girls youth soccer in Mission Viejo. The Sous Chef, our youngest daughter, and Legs played AYSO together on teams I coached starting when they were kindergartners until they were teenagers. The Sous Chef and I went on to the West Coast Football Club, and then she played at Capistrano Valley High School before turning in her shin guards for a Shun knife. Her freshman year—when she set an unofficial school record with about a dozen yellow cards (the …
I understand there’s a lot of money riding on every shot—and God knows I’m in a foul mood when I miss a putt with nothing but a lousy Gatorade riding on the outcome of a match—but I’ve always wondered why so many professional golfers skulk around the course as if they were next in line for a root canal. After all, these people are making a very comfortable living—at worst—by hitting golf balls on some of the most gorgeous swaths of landscape on earth. They work four days a week if they make the cut on the weeks they work. They’re their own bosses. Get free clothes, shoes, clubs and balls. And…
A former colleague got married recently. It was a second marriage for the bride and groom, a low-key affair at a private residence in Lake Forest. No alcohol. Potluck. (Hey, it’s not what you’re thinking. I’m not going to be snarky … really … just this once.) My wife, Goggy, and I made sure the Stay-At-Home-Mom and then husband-to-be were aware they were more than welcome to skip the Dana Point wedding and run away with a down payment on a condo. Blessings from Mom and Dad. Great way to start a life together. Big weddings are very cool, but boatloads of money disappear in a couple of hours. (…
Some days are worse than others. (Just ask Hosni Mubarak). This one really sucked. I’m already dealing with a stress fracture in my right foot that has me in a klutzy walking boot and off the tennis courts for a couple of months. And those closest to me know that this is a time to stay farthest from me … or is it furthest? Anyway, I don’t do sedentary all that well. If I end up in the hospital and you know any nurses, tell them to call in sick … or have a tranquilizer gun handy. And if I can’t work up a sweat and vent my need to compete on the tennis court, I’ll end up figuring out a way to …
I’ve often wondered how such a blessed event has to be preceded by such a cursed one. The Stay-at-Home-Mom with the master’s degree will be staying at home a little longer, mastering motherhood. She’s expecting a second child, and we all couldn’t be more thrilled—a little sister or brother for AngelFace. But, another baby means another—and I’m making a yucky face here—baby shower. Beyond the fact that it’s a celebration of the coming birth, there’s really nothing appealing about a baby shower … well, except for maybe the sangria, and, unfortunately, you can’t just drop by and pick up a gallon…
I’ve been reading a lot about the NFL returning to the Los Angeles area, and it occurred to me that this idea of building a stadium in downtown L.A. is not the answer … at least for me. The only way you’ll get my sorry old butt into another NFL stadium is if I can walk there. No trains, taxis, buses or, God forbid, freeways. In 30-plus years as a sportswriter, I paid my dues in dozens of these venues, and there was nothing super about the experience … and that includes the notoriously misnamed Super Bowl, which is an NFL beat writer’s biggest nightmare. It’s bad enough when you’re battling …
