Eero's Aloe

Perhaps because for the first time in six months the five-day forecast in the newspaper contains only one word--"sun"--or maybe because yesterday I received in the mail a settlement check from a corporate law suit I didn't even know I was involved in--I have decided today to be totally sanguine, at least until something alters my mood. So I am going to dedicate my good will to one of the most reliable and intellectually valuable features of daily life: the crossword puzzle.

How much do I adore crossword puzzles? Let me count the ways. They provide excellent mental exercise every morning, something doctors and gerontologists suggest helps cerebral functioning and staves off the ravages of aging, including Alzheimer's. They are excellent fodder for filling waiting periods, speeding up the passage of time in doctors' anterooms and long air flights. They provide intellectual challenge in an otherwise dare-to-be-dumber world. They enhance vocabulary, especially of three and four-letter words of at least 50% vowel composition. I generally learn some new tidbit every day. And they reinforce my own sense of intellectual competence.

Today's LA Times sample was typical. Wednesday's puzzle is of average difficulty, falling between the absurd simplicity of Monday's Romper Room exercise and the brain-twisting agony of Saturday's entry. The breadth of knowledge required to fill in answers involves familiarity with Ben Jonson, ancient Egyptian dynasties, Hinduism, ornithology, Maureen Dowd, western songs, Madame Curie, 1950's comics character Dondi, Latin, Gloria Steinem, AOL and the San Antonio Alamodome. I finished the puzzle in eight minutes. No wonder I made it onto "Jeopardy" (twice).

I play a game with myself each morning to see how quickly I can complete the puzzle. Naturally, since many of the common crossword answers have become ingrained in my head, I am quicker to the draw. Rare is the puzzle that does not include aloe, eer or een, eero (Saarinen), obit, ibid, the directions ese or wnw, and other kneejerk abbreviations. If I don't finish the early-weekday puzzles in five minutes I am disappointed. The fastest I can complete one is four minutes, limited by the speed of my writing. By Thursday and Friday the degree of difficulty has me in the 8 to 10-minute range. The Saturday puzzle is a gret challenge in itself. I am usually groggy after a late-Friday poker game, and really struggle with the elusiveness, usually requiring twenty minutes to decipher its vague clues and multi-lettered answers. This is the only puzzle that I will occasionally not complete, leaving me grumbling for several unsatisfied minutes. The Sunday entries are usually much snappier, requiring only the solution of the theme, and I'm usually done quicker than I am with the Saturday stumper.

I suppose all the self-puffery is useful to gird myself against the Great Stupidities I am about to encounter in every bureaucracy that has me in its incompetent thrall. A feeling of intellectual superiority may be frail armor but there's something to be said for self-esteem, esteem which is buttressed by my daily tangle--and usual victory--over the crossword puzzle.

Doggie Days

The Reality phenomenon, which will go down as one of the myriad disappointing cultural developments of this decade, has now stretched its tentacles over the entire television universe. No longer confined to (relatively) big budget extravaganzas like "Survivor" and "The Amazing Race," the lesser permutations can be found all over the cable map, from slices-of-life like A&E's "Airline" to quasi-realistic Las Veagas experiences on the Travel Channel to gay-themed makeovers on Bravo. The latest net to get into the act is the pretentiously named Animal Planet, which among its many documentaries (the initial, respectable form of "reality programming") has premiered a competition named "Who Gets the Dog?"

The title, which sounds like some kind of hip-hop slang, is meant literally. Three couples vie for the right to adopt a rescued pooch. Each gets to play, feed, walk and try to coax the stray into performing simple tricks like fetching and jumping to command. A trio of judges, comprising two animal behaviorists and a sitcom writer (Merrill Markoe) then determines which couple seems to relate best to the animal, and rewards them custody. This concept was too hard for me to resist, mostly because I am a dog-lover, and only minutely because I used to write sitcoms.
That said, the program was a bit dull. There were a few useful maintenance hints scattered among the assigned tasks, such as how to wipe a dog's ears, but the potential owners (or to be p.c, "guardians") were largely clueless and, though well-meaning, pretty inept (rather like I was ten years ago when I adopted Josie).

When the pooch, an endearing white terrier, was awarded to the female "roommate" couple (whom I hoped were lesbians so there was less chance they'd separate), I felt a twinge of sympathy regret for the also-rans. But I also knew, as did they, that another dog was panting for them in a local animal shelter right down the road, and they wouldn't be losers for long. But herein lies the problem with this program: there is no real conflict, and certainly no potential villains to root against, like Omarosa or Rob-and-Amber or Johnny Fairplay.

This is the cuddliest of reality programs. I was less motivated to buy the advertised products than I was to call my dog to my seat to share in the experience, although her eyes cannot decipher the 512-line picture on my retro Mitsubishi. I just wanted to bask in the mutual comfort of the dog's compliant warmth. And while doing so I was reminded of some of the most salient contributions of dogs, which is that they bring out the very best in their human companions. I truly believe there is nothing more beautiful in the panoply of natural relationships than that between humans and dogs.

In their persistent reliability, dogs are rather like Social Security. It is reassuring to know that they are always there, and always reliable, and will never snub you owing to changed circumstances. Perhaps a wise Democratic flak (if one even exists) could conceive a publicity approach that would use a dog as a symbol for the dependability of the system--as did RCA long ago with its "Master's Voice" logo. Then the Republicans can be characterized as trying to clip the ears or bob the tail of what is a perfectly good animal in the first place, just needing a little guidance and responsibility.

Hot Stove III

Perhaps the only good that has come out of the Schiavo fiasco--aside from people actually giving responsible thought to their own living wills--is that it has taken the media focus away from last week's Congressional obsession, the Steroid Scandal in baseball. I thought the spectacle of the hearing was rather sad. Baseball players do not generally fare well in their civvies. And poor Mark McGwire, in attempting to be noble, totally undercut his popular rep so drastically that now he is no longer a favorite to make the Hall of Fame.

I have not resolved my feelings regarding this issue. On the one hand, there is the gross hypocrisy of any drug-indictment crusade. Steroids were legal for much of the time that current ballplayers have been active. The intense competitive nature of the sport and its high stakes naturally lead to the use of any performance enhancements. Governor Arnold is unapologetic about the steroids that bulked him up and made his career. Much of this ex post facto hand-wringing stinks of the politicized sanctimony undermining the integrity of our National legislature.

Another part of me, the unregenerate baseball fan, the Rotisserie League veteran who basks uncontrollably in the statistics that festoon the history of the sport, has to be offended by the artificial inflation of power stats during the hyper-steroidal period. The spike in home run production between 1998 and 2001 is more than a coincidence. It is cheating. McGwire followed his 70 homers with 65. Sammy Sosa hit over 60 homers three years in a row. It seems all Barry Bonds has to do is make contact and his enhancements do the rest of the work (though to be fair to the surly Bonds, steroids do not help one bat .370 in the twilight of one's career). Now Bonds, under suspicion bit unindicted, is considering taking a year off for his battered knees and more battered public image. He may even retire before passing Hank Aaron, which would spare us all from one of Sport's great Embarrassing Silences.

If there are any winners in this affair, they are the players whose achievements were unsullied by this kind of suspicion. The stoical Aaron for example, and Willie Mays, and let's not forget Babe Ruth, for whom hot dogs were the supplement of choice. Also, poor Roger Maris, whose name will eventualy get lost in all of this, but at least was well-portrayed in a respectful TV-movie. I remember waching Maris's homer when I was a kid, and though it was the '60s, it did qualify as a more innocent era. I also fondly recall watching McGwire's 62nd homer, from a seat at a blackjack table at Caesar's Palace in Atlantic City. Mom was sitting next to me, in fact, and I was pleased to share that baseball spectator highlight with her. I don't think the recent revelations will stain that memory at all.

Because, lest we forget, baseball is an entertainment. If we were to investigate the pre-performance antics of other entertainers, how many would involve the use of "illegal" drugs, or other substances like alcohol, purportedly to enhance their performance? They can work for or against. Cocaine can make John Belushi hysterical, then deposit him in the morgue. LSD could lead Diane Linkleter to dive out a window, but it could also help Dock Ellis pitch a no-hitter. Steroids can help Jose Canseco to early Superstardom, but they can kill Ken Caminiti and make hash out of Jason Giambi's pituitary gland. It seems we need to be concerned more about personal responsibility and less about selective policing--or don't make the rewards for enhanced performance so damn tempting.

Idol Thoughts

The pathetic Schiavo watch continues; the latest Federal ruling, this time from Atlanta, still backs the husband's legal position, as the protesters barrage Terry's hospice with symbolic flasks of water. Next stop for Terry's determined folks is the Supreme Court, where Justice Rehnquist can reemerge for one last time, ironically popping off his purported deathbed. If this appeal doesn't work, well, there is the aforementioned Constitutional Amendment; lacking that, the Republican Congress may defer its power to the Pope, who can also relate to the near-death condition. But better hurry guys; times a wastin', as of course is Terry's mortal coil. Interestingly, I read an article in the paper today maintaining that death by total starvation and dehydration is actually less painful and direr than most demises, according to nurses interviewed in several hospices.

Which brings me to "American Idol," our country's other current obsession. (Wow, what a culture! Les francais have to be rolling les yeux!) This is the first season I've taken to watching this cultural cobblestone, which continues to rise in popularity despite its repetitious formula and predictability. Today's other-than-Schiavo news relates a couple of "Idol" scandals. For one, former winner Ruben Stoddard is being sued by his manager; but his fortunes have been on the downward slope since he edged out Clay. Next stop for him is a costarring role with Kirstie Alley on her "Fat" series. This on the heels of the mysterious withdrawal of this year's favorite, sassy Mario Vazquez from New York. Some careless vetting there, or perhaps a wise agent suggesting Mario could do better without the shackles of an "Idol" contract.

More egregious is the discovery last night that three of the telephone numbers for the national vote were posted in error, negating the validity of the results, and causing the show to be rerun tonight to initiate a totally new election. This is sad, sad news for Fox, to be forced to air an extra episode of the nation's #1 Neilsen hit. I won't be watching, though I must admit to being entertained by last night's version. This is a perfect Republican type of show--mindless, but beautifully packaged. The colorful sets and exciting backdrops work to enhance the performances, which, with one exception, were all top-flight. The singers have received telling professional guidance and some excellent makeovers (rendering "Idol" a sort of portmanteau of "Star Search" and "The Swan") and could (and probably will) earn contracts, even if they end up in Branson, Missouri. I was especially moved by Scott Savol, who resembles a kind of ugly David Wells, but sings with such sweet authority that I was almost moved to pick up my phone and dial him in (an act which would have proved fruitless anyway). The big loser was the intense JAP Micallah Gordon, who narrowly squeaked by last week and will certainly be axed this week for her mumbling serenade. Tonight's voting recount is largely unnecessary.

Also unnecessary is the core element of the show, the three-person judging panel, which always stops the show dead and makes me writhe in discomfort. Randy makes a few innocuous comments, Paula falls all over herself and her table in enthusiasm, and then there's Simon. And everything Simon says is so excrutiating, it's like being trapped in an elevator with a one-night stand you promised to call back. I know these folks were necessary for the elimination rounds (though that duty is mostly done by staff producers anyway), but the final judgements are made by the viewers. So what if Randy, Paula and Simon were axed themselves? We'd be left with a series of high-gloss enthusiastic performers introduced by the innocuous but inoffensive Ryan Seacrest. The show could be scaled down to 40 minutes of music, like VH1. True, this would force us to watch a few more Cingular ads than we might like, as well as promos for the follow-up show, "House," which is not about a weekly home renovation but a doctor.

Hmmm. Which brings me around to the question much of America might be asking today-- What would Dr. House have to say about Terry Schiavo?

The Vulcans Have It Right

Somewhat surprisingly it turns out that 70% of people polled thought that Congress overstepped its bounds in trying to legislate the Terry Schiavo case. That's just a little less than the 78% that believe Jesus's resurrection really happened (and it would be hard to be a "good Christian" without placing stock in that proposition), and significantly more than the 55% or so who believe in Creationism over Evolution. So basically, it means nothing--except that what was once the "silent majority" has transmogrified into the "loud minority," in the process launching a new "old" form of political animal, the Kneejerk Conservative.

Even more surprising, the Federal judge assigned to review this case, which has been essentially ruled exactly the same in every appellate court, decided that, wow, he saw no reason to change the ruling. So now Terry's parents are going out of state, to a district Federal judge in Georgia, maybe even Cobb County, which is usually busy trying to revive anti-sodomy laws and doing other useful business. One wonders where all of this is going to end. I'm sure Scalia, Thomas and friends are just biting at the bit to overrule the Floridean judicial system, something they are so good at. Next on the docket, if that doesn't work, is the Constitutional Amendment.

On the one hand it is somewhat impressive to see how legislation can be railroaded into existence so quickly (and time was of the essence here). Most laws take forever to navigate their way through the ways and means of congressional action. But it would have been nice if this legislation was important and not the most blatant example of muddleheaded emotional pandering that has ever emerged from the Beltway. This led me to muse about the differences between laws that have been initiated by emotional prejudice as opposed to those that have arisen through careful logic and reasoning. I'm afraid emotion does not fare well.

Let's look at the historic record. Here are examples of some laws or legal codes that have arisen from emotional reflex: The Inquisition; the Volstead Act (Prohibition); the Nuremburg Laws (Hitler's antiSemitic code); the Internment of Japanese Americans in World War II; the current Patriot Act.

Here is what has emerged from reasoned discourse and pragmatic thought: Hammurabi's Code; The French Declaration of the Rights of Man; The American Constitution; our Bill of Rights; the repeal of the Volstead Act; the Civil Rights Act of 1965.

So here I am actually arguing that law requires thought, reason, logic and due consideration, and not mindless hand-wringing and--well, let's really identify it, "HYSTERIA." Okay, I probably won't get many arguments there. But the Republicans, in their recent successes, have proved over and over that the appeal to emotion--and even irrationality--is more successful politically than the appeal to the intellect. How else can we interpret last year's Presidential debates? So don't be surprised, if poor Mrs. Schiavo succumbs, that she will be resurrected as a Poster Girl in 2008 by the radical right as a tragic testimony to the loathesome Democrats who dare defy the sanctity of life by inviting nature to take its course.

We have a long way to go--perhaps a Civilization's worth of governing evolution--to establish the rule of rational thought as the primary route through which we will guide our lives.

The Opposite of Progress

It was really heartening to see the President cut short his weekend vacation to catch an emergency flight to Washington, where he was to consort with a hyperkinetic Congress desperate to confront the great crisis threatening our Nation's Welfare. Terrorism? No. Natural disaster? Uh-uh. Reforming Social Security? Nope, too complicated. Terry Schiavo's feeding tube? Bull's-eye.

Or something else from a bull. Not at least since Elian Gonzalez was kidnaped by Good Florideans from his evil Cuban papi has a personal issue so galvanized our representatives. And never has there been such blatant grandstanding, from both parties, to a specific constituency, the Reactionary Christian Right. So despite three Florida judicial rulings, the House passed a law specifically addressing the Schiavo case, as though it is any different from any right-to-die cases scattered across the country. (The Senate also passed it by acclamation, though only three senators were in attendance. Why 3% constitutes a quorum is an issue too bewildering to consider here). So now a different Florida judge can give custody of the poor young woman to her parents, from whence she came, rather than her husband. Note how we don't hear very much about the "sanctity of marriage" in regard to this situation.

Though I am clearly in favor of "right to die" laws, including euthanasia if demanded by the patient, I must admit that the Schiavo situation is somewhat more troubling, because she is not in a coma, is at least a little sentient, and has a remote chance for recovery. I'm not privy to the medical details, which are crucial here. The husband believes she never wished to sustain her life in such a state, and that fifteen years of total fuzzy-headed dependency is quite enough. And the means to release her of her mortal coil is to starve her to death, rather than simply pulling the plug on a respirator. The parents insist that she wants to live. They interpret every grunt from her uncomprehending face to be a plea for survival, but that seems more likely projection. Yet can one blame them for wanting to keep hope alive, and not wanting to watch their little girl starve to death? This is definitely not a clear-cut case, though Florida's judiciary seems to think so.

For me the issue goes beyond the tragic individual case. The extraordinary emergency legislation says much more about our cultural/political landscape than it does about its subject matter. If this were an election year I could understand the pandering to the Right, if not approve of it. But the next round of elections is not for 18 months, when this issue will be barely a blip in anyone's memory. Why is it so important to kowtow to the Fundamentalists? Are Congressmen feeling reticent about maintaining pro-Choice advocacy and feel this will somehow soften their rad-left credentials? What a morbid bandwagon this issue has created.

The question of misapplied priorities is too important to ignore. Would Congress ever apply such hasty unanimity to save a person on Death Row whose guiilt has been thrown into question because of DNA evidence? I doubt it. Yet it is a matter of supreme importance that this one life be extended. Will the Fundamentalists really rest easier at night knowing that poor Terry will go on and on, breathing, living uncomprehendingly and certainly unproductively, burdening her parents with the care of someone as responsive as a chia pet, and trapping her spouse in the limbo of non-husband, non-widower status?

Yes, of course, they will. Because Terry is a Floridean, and come 2008 they could very well use her vote.

Celebrity

Two judicial decisions were announced yesterday which confirm the importance of celebrity in our society and contradiction in the criminal-justice system. The first was the rather surprising (to me) acquittal of Robert Blake for the likely murder of his wife; the second was the confirmation of the death penalty recommended by jurors against the loathesome but telegenic Scott Peterson.

Blake's guilt had seemed obvious to me based on the scant evidence I'd heard on morning newsradio; I hadn't exactly obsessed on the details. And I hadn't factored in the historical truth that no Hollywood celebrity has ever been convicted of a capital offense. OJ is the obvious reference point, but we can go back to Fatty Arbuckle, Claudine Longet and Lana Turner's daughter for further precedent. The conventional wisdom is that fame and its attendant wealth enables the defense to buy the best lawyers possible; Blake's team was able to persuade the jury that Blake's actions, which constituted returning to the restaurant to "retrieve his gun," then coming out to his car to "discover his wife's head had been shot," were disconnected events. Why? Because there was no forensic evidence connecting Blake's hand and the supposed residue from such a shooting. Fuck, hadn't the jury ever heard of Handiwipes?
But that minor evidentiary gap was enough to establish reasonable doubt, though the Elephant in the Room is the matter of who-the-hell-else could have done it.

Jurors interviewed afterward seemed to imply they thought Blake had pulled the trigger but were stymied by the lack of concrete evidence. Yet this same reasoning didn't seem to apply to Scott Peterson's conviction. In that case everything was circumstantial; Peterson was found guilty because of the persuasive coincidence of his fishing near where the bodies were dredged up, and because he was such a major lying shit. No fingerprints, no smoking gun, nothing but a smirking asshole. He was really convicted of being a cad, and his boorish attitudes in court subjectively offended the jury. Enough so that they want him to die. (I am a not a proponent of the Death Penalty, whose application puts us in league with China and all those Mideast countries Dubya would otherwise characterize as Evildoers, but that's for another blog.)

It's interesting to speculate what would have happened to these two trials if 1) Scott Peterson had been the actor who was the lead on a TV detective show, or 2) Robert Blake were not a celebrity. Joe Shmoe (the hypothetic nobody, not the guy on the reality-show satire) would have been cooling his heels in the cooler for life with the same alibi as Robert Blake. Peterson would probably have received the benefit of the doubt from the jury enamored of his credits and with fond memories of his pet cockatoo Fred. As it was, Peterson did manage to solicit a high-profile defense lawyer, but only because the media took to his physical appearance (he was portrayed by Superman, for goodness sake), and that of his pretty but clueless wife. That high-profile managed to entice Mark Geragos, but clearly this superlawyer was overextended, at the time trying to double as Michael Jackson's defender, and didn't work hard enough at modifying his sociopathic client's courtroom demeanor.

If the Petersons resembled Dan and Roseanne Connor--or even Robert Blake and Bonnie Lee Bakely-- rather than Ken and Barbie, we never would have heard of them. But whoever said Justice was Blind?

March Madness

This title refers not to the NCAA basketball fest (which will end in April), nor to the dread of the Ides (today), one of Shakespeare's lasting contributions to modern superstition, nor to the upcoming St. Patty's day drinkfest (which I celebrate by wearing green, but only because I look good in green). It is a period of frenzy in the TV industry, with the "season" approaching its culmination and most executives hunkered away developing their pilots for next year.

Meanwhile we TV viewers are left with the dross after the February sweeps period, as the nets stock up on the remaining episodes of their surviving shows for exhibit during the next ratings battle period, May sweeps. So couch potatoes are provided a substandard diet of reruns of their favorite shows like "Lost" and "Desperate Housewives," and must subsist on ongoing Reality serial eliminations and some choice first-run episodes of "24" and "Alias."

Against this parade of repetition some wise execs have decided to counterprogram with debuts of series that either entered last year's development season late, or were withheld because of dubious audience testing results. But it's almost an axiom that these tend to be the more daring and creative efforts. I'm not talking about redux renditions of old '70s shows like "Little House on the Prairie" and "Kojak" (yes, "Kojak"!) hoping to either generate nostalgic loyalty or find a new audience unfamiliar with TVLand fare. The nets are also trotting out several new sitcoms, still hoping to breathe life into a wheezing old genre that didn't quite get that hoped-for hypo from "Committed." There is actually some good news to report.

NBC is still trying to bridge the "Joey"-"Apprentice" gap with an Americanized version of the British hit "The Office." Full disclosure, I never saw the original, but it won awards, so this is probably worth a peek or two. Also on the docket is Fox's "Life on a Stick," about kids cavorting in a shopping mall's food court. It had a good write-up in TV Guide (for whatever that's worth), so I will sample it, but with an audible sigh, as I recall the pilot project I pitched nearly twenty years ago called "Off the Mall," revolving around Guess What.

Even more interesting are two comedies that largely owe their creative inspiration to HBO, but thank you nonetheless. ABC has highly touted its "Jake in Progress"--pretentious name--as "Same City, Different Sex," (which would probably make "The L Word" "same sex, different city", but never mind.) Jake is portrayed by John Stamos, a likable romantic lead whose unfortunate ski-slope nose will forever rob him of any gravitas. Here he functions reasonably well as a PR agent and romantic player with sweaty palms (which you'd think would be a major detriment). The pace is quick, the lines are not embarrassing, and there's Wendie Malick's nearly iconic standardized career woman, a contemporary Ros Russell. The male companions are whiny and not nearly as interesting as Carrie's companions on the original "Sex in the City," and in the first two episodes Jake has not made much progress. At least there is the patina of adult sophistication here, thougn I'm not sure this will become appointment TV. Intriguingly, ABC will be pitting it up regularly against "Joey," a real head-to-head match-up of Not-Ready-For-Hollywood" TV matinee idols. "Jake" will be the smarter choice.

But the real choice program, amazingly, is Kirstie Alley's Showtime venture called "Fat Actress." I had major doubts about this vanity project--and it is in the most literal sense. But it's also a true hoot. It takes its cue and style from Larry David's "Curb Your Enthusiasm," if lacking in some of the latter's subtlety. I have major qualms about Scientology but it must have worked well on Kirstie's psyche, allowing her to parade herself in the most blowsy unflattering outfits and attitudes and make her seem endearing. Granted, she is a talented comedienne, but this kind of self-immolation is braver and more grandiose than Larry David's. As she frumps her way through meeting after meeting enduring the stares of producers stupefied by her gargantuan rear end her relentless confidence becomes surprisingly sympathetic. Parading around in her muu-muus she resembles one of those matrons of Late Victorian society with the big bustles in back, only Kirstie ain't wearing no bustle. It helps that every other character, fictional or true celebrity, is portrayed unflatteringly. This is an acerbic view of Hollywood much sharper than what we get from "Entourage." We are all in on this universal joke, and we have a central character whom we root for.

The only probem with this series is that it's already sowing the seeds of its own destruction, as Kirstie is signing up as a spokesperson with Jenny Craig (life imitating art, or vice-versa, I forget which), and in reality has already lost twenty pounds. You just can't have a porgram called "Fat Actress" about a svelte actress, so if the diet succeeds, Kirstie will have to move on--hopefully to a nice role on a funny network show, and I don't mean "Victoria's Closet." But perhaps the franchise could survive, importing other heavyweights like Camryn Manheim, Sharon Gless and maybe even Shelley Winters, in a rotating cast.

Happenstance

I've flown on planes probably hundreds of times without once experiencing any trouble or even any luggage damage. I've driven through eastern snowstorms and navigated through even more harrowing rainbursts on California freeways without incident. Yet this weekend I managed to have a car accident while eating a ham-and-bacon omelet. As I put my fork down I heard an announcement on the diner's PA system that an auto whose description matched mine had been in a collision. Rushing to the parking lot I saw that the front fender of my car had been badly scratched and the license plate smashed in, and a note left on my windshield stated "I hit your car. I'm sorry. Call me."

I managed to catch the perpetrator as she tried to slink into the diner. She was a neighborhood matron, about 70, and very apologetic. Rather than anger, my initial emotion was more consternation. This was a sedate parking lot with narrow lanes not conducive to fast cruising. Somehow, while she was coasting into her space, her car leapt over two concrete barriers between the rows and collided with mine. "I just don't get how you did this," I wondered aloud. She replied, "I guess I put my foot on the gas by mistake."

Fine. Guilt is not in question here, thanks to her written confession and the existence of several witnesses, including a man whose car she also nicked. I anticipate some inconvenience as I deal with insurance adjusters to have the front panel buffed and fixed and the license replaced, but as accidents go, this was pretty superficial. Her front fender suffered much more damage. Fortunately she was driving a Honda, a collision with which is the automotive equivalent of going three rounds with Dakota Fanning. The only beneficiaries will be the body shops with their ludicrous rates. And I should have no psychic repercussions because I was completely faultless and even magnanimous when dealing with the oafish woman.

But the moment did give me pause to reflect on the randomness of circumstance embodied by this kind of event. Earlier, when I was driving into the lot, I'd selected a different space in which to park, but my route was blocked by an approaching car, so my driving companion suggested I park in the fateful spot. I was reluctant because it was next to a dreaded SUV, but did so anyway. After the accident, my friend expressed some guilt over "talking me" into taking that spot. I will reassure him right now (and I suspect he is reading this) that he is also faultless; it was only because of the oncoming car that I ducked into, literally, the wrong place at the wrong time.

Being detached and philosophical (and uninjured) enabled me to place this incident in perspective. Two years ago another elderly driver had a similar "foot malfunction," but he was driving in a crowded farmer's market in Santa Monica and his acceleration fatally mowed down ten people--innocent patrons also blithely partaking of an afternoon meal. So how can I be bitter? Shit happens, as one of the wisest sayings goes. If the Wheel of Fortune is going to land on "Bankrupt" on occasion, it may as well be while I have very little to lose. If the odds of having an auto accident have caught up with me, I gladly accept this as my turn. If shit has to happen, let it be a tiny turd and not a cascade of diarrhea.

In everyday life, flukey occurrences happen so rarely that we don't ruminate much about the randomness of it all; we prefer to think we are in control, and to a certain extent we are. But we can do little to modify the acts of others. There was nothing really remarkable about the elements that led to my fender-bender that are not more easily apparent in the workings of a slot machine. To be rammed in a parking lot is probably less unusual that hitting a royal flush on a poker machine; both have happened to me. You pay your money, you park your car, you take your chances.

As Time Goes By

I was going to write about the NBC program "American Dreams," but then this morning I ran across an item announcing that a musical version of "Casablanca" was being prepared in, of all places, China. The show would include, it said, several tap dances and the song "As Time Goes By." Notably it did not say a tap dance number to "As Time Goes By," which would require a real up-tempo version, testing Sam's nimble fingers. Then again, maybe the Chinese could get Deborah Allen to choreograph it, as she did with the memorable soft shoe to "Saving Private Ryan," one of Oscar's Great Moments. Beyond that, I'm not sure where the other musical numbers would fall. Granted, there is the dueling Marseillaise-Nazi song bit, and perhaps some tender love duets between Sam and the Claude Rains gendarme. Then again, Nazis have been musicalized successfully in recent years. I just hope the trend stops here, and does not worm its way into "Schindler's List." Okay, enough.

NBC just moved "American Dreams" to Wednesdays, which is a bad sign for that series because it pits it against other popular programs such as "Lost," "Smallville," and "American Idol," an indication that it is on the chopping block. That would be a pity, because this has been one of the best produced and most authentic dramas on television. Yet it still has a surprisingly low profile and no buzz whatsoever. I think I know why, and the reason is unfortunate--too much emphasis has been put on its precise production values and not enough on its cast chemistry.

The show premiered with major hoopla (as opposed to Major Hoople) four years ago as an episodic version of NBC's "The Sixties" miniseries of a decade ago. It traces the lives of a Catholic Philadelphia family from the JFK assassination--a de rigeur historical turning point--through the entire decade. The gimmick was its interpolation of musical numbers performed by current stars impersonating actual performances on "American Bandstand," as viewed through a black-and-white monitor on the Bandstand set. This engaging feature has yet to lose its appeal; it's a kick to see Kelly Clarkson limn Connie Francis singing "Where the Boys Are," or Brandy doing Gladys Knight, and often the numbers provide ironic counterpoint to the dramatic events. The show is edited briskly to accommodate its several story lines, efficiently employing its large cast.

Furthermore, the writers and producers make a real effort to stay authentic to time and place. I am a demanding judge of this, because I actually lived in Philadelphia as a college student during this period, and am contemporary with the major characters, some of whom go to Penn, as I did. So I attend to the references, and every show makes some allusion to Bookbinders, Wanamakers, Penn (not Penn State, no never Penn State) or Frank Rizzo. I do quibble at minor inaccuracies, such as coed dorms at Penn (uh-uh), but they do have the students dressing in tie and jacket for dinner, which was an annoying requirement of my freshman year. I might like to hear some Philadelphia accents, but only for their added authenticity, not for the disagreeable way they fall on tender ears.

For all the attention to detail, though, the show has a major failing that will prove its undoing--it has no breakout star. The cast is perfectly capable and works well as an ensemble, but it almost blends into the background. Brittany Snow as Meg, the putative lead and Bandstand dancer is pleasant and pretty--I can believe her as a Philly High School senior--but has none of the charisma of, say, Amber Tamblyn in ""Joan of Arcadia." The most promising performer, Will Estes as J.J. the eldest son, had an exciting, if predictable, plot line in the requisite Vietnam section, but back home he's just a pompous morose ex-GI just waiting for his post-traumatic stress to set in. The teen antics of Meg and her friends are not very original and I have trouble buying Meg's anti-war activism.

The emphasis on the younger characters is necessary, I suppose, to capture the family audience, since the historic thrust of the show is interesting only to the Baby Boomers and any of the remaining Gen Xs and Ys who might want to know what happened in the world before Watergate. Sorrowfully, the Baby Boomers are no longer the desired demographic for advertisers, and this will spell the doom of "American Dreams" even if megaproducer Dick Clark recovers fully from his stroke. All the under-50s will be tuning into the finals of "American Idol" or the captivating but elusive "Lost" for the rest of the season, and I'm afraid we're never going to see Meg and her friends pout over the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King. But for the record, kiddies, they really happened.

Election Day

Today is Primary Election Day in Los Angeles, and the thundering silence you hear is the sound of 80% of the electorate staying home, or at least avoiding the polling places with their tacky styrofoam voting booths and smudgy inka-vote pens. The issue this year is our mayoralty. In a city that seems to function (or dysfunction) largely on its own, the mayor has been something of an irrelevancy, so much so that the press and the populace tend to lose track of the quadrennial contest and when it last ran.

The mayoral slate hardly reflects the breadth of political ideology in the city. All five "major" candidates are Democrats; within that field three are liberal, one is moderate, and one is "conservative" (Bob Hertzberg), positioning himself wisely to attract all the Republican votes he can muster. Another way to distinguish the candidates is racial--one black, two Hispanics, a Jew and a WASP (I believe Mayor Hahn is a WASP, though he looks Irish). In any case, and rather agreeably, I don't dislike any of these guys, and although none of them excites my admiration, I will not be disappointed by any result. The top two candidates will run off in May; I'd prefer to see Villagairosa vs. Hertzberg, and would have a hard time deciding. I also like Richard Alarcon, who sems to be trailing, in part because of an inane campaign slogan: "The Senator for Mayor!" Though it refers to his post as state senator, it sounds like a comedown.

Election Day for me is usually less about poll results and more about poll work. For several yars I've performed a civic duty, serving as Inspector for my local voting district. It is involving and exhausting work, demanding a fifteen-hour time committment, but usually empowering and gratifying as well. But last year's November experience was excruciating. Our district was combined with another, forcing far more people onto our rolls. Coupled with an astounding 85% voter participation, the polling place was swamped, the lines snaking for hundreds of feet outside the building, not diminishing until lunch time. I worked diligently, though, hoping that at the end of the day my patience would be rewarded with some upbeat election news. But that was 2004, when nothing good was supposed to happen, and it didn't. So I peevishly decided not to participate in the process this year, and to vote absentee (or is that absently?).

That decision, though selfish, proved to be presciently wise, since I have an annoying cold today and would have been hard-pressed to function well, even in a laid-back election such as this. While I'd probably be efficient, I'd certainly be peevish and impatient with the stupider of voters, like the woman who last spring put her inka-dot markings on the voting machine rather than the ballot, effectively ruining it (and it was the only Republican machine we had). Yes, that was a Republican act. We also have a hefty contingent of Russians in our district, who appear in relatively high proportions, but often need instructions in their native tongue. And the city in its limited wisdom has failed to provide voter information in Russian despite mine and others' urgings, preferring to supply us with pamphlets in the ever-popular Vietnamese and Tagalog.

The highlight of my election work experience came in a 1998 primary when a news crew from KCET visited our district and decided to wire me while I was working and interview me afterwards. It was a lovely spring day and everyone was in the best of moods. The interview aired later that day on the local program "Life and Times." They even shot me at a flattering angle, and after my interview I was cited as a spokesman for the upbeat character of the current electorate. That really tickled my cynical bone. But it was the late '90s, most assuredly the Good Old Days, when Al Qaeda was only in its plotting stage and not everyone was gabbing on a cell phone in his SUV. Nowadays the best we can say about our daily life is that the sun has finally come out. It's lame, but maybe it's a start.

No Dice

I spent part of last week where the Old Frontier meets the New Frontier, i.e, Indian Reservation territory in Southern California, where a barren landscape has begun to sprout giant beanstalks called "casinos." A complicated drive involving routes 101, 60, 71, 91, 15 and 76 eventually landed me at the Pala Hotel south of Temecula in the grand metropolis of Pala. This was my second sojourn to this incipient casino row, as I search for a local gambling alternative that requires neither airport security lines nor a twelve-hour auto round trip.

For the record, I liked the Pala casino a lot, though my sentiments may be influenced by the fact that the cards were generous there and I won some money. The resort itself was congenial and well-appointed; the room was spacious and had an excellent bathroom. The service people were all extremely courteous and the food was surprisingly good. The casino itself was laid out sensibly and the noise level was minimal compared to raucous casino neighbors, Pechanga and Harrah's Rincon. And, it had craps.

The classical game of craps in my favorite gambling game. There is nothing like the thrill of a good craps run, when the chips in your tray seem to be procreating, but until recently this excitement was denied visitors to California casinos. Some arcane state statute regarding local gambling has proscribed the determination of gaming results by dice. I don't know whether this was a sop to Nevada gaming interests or the peculiarly arbitrary thought of someone who once lost badly at the craps table. Whatever, this limitation undermined the appeal of local casinos for me. But now the Indians (I guess we can use that term again) have found a way to circumvent the law and open up those green felt rectangles with all the funny numbers, and even include the use of dice. It's not quite the same game, but close enough.

Pala's solution was to use a deck of 36 cards, each with an individual dice roll, for determining the rolls. The dealer pulls out two cards from a shuffled deck, places one on a blue square and another on a red square. The player then throws two dice, one blue and one red, and the higher number determines which card is selected as the rolled number. (There is never a tie, because one of the dice has only 2s and 3s on it, and the other has only 4s and 1s.) All the betting odds are the same as the classic model--the only real difference is that the moment of revelation is when the card is turned over, as opposed to when the dice land. It sorta worked, though I missed the pure excitement of anticipation watching the parabolic flight of the cubes. On the other hand, there is no concern about someone's hand getting in the way of a dice roll and causing a seven-out.

Pala's was only one approach to the dice circumvention. Harrah's Rincon also used card reveals, but in a more attractive form. The dealer randomly laid out twelve playing cards, six in a blue row and six in a red row. The card values for each row were Ace (1) through six. The player then rolled regular dice, and the numbers thrown are applied to the layout of the cards, with two corresponding cards revealed (so that a red 3 and blue 4 meant the third card in the red row and the fourth in the blue row determined the outcome). Somehow I found this more aesthetically pleasing. I did not check Pechanga but I believe there they don't even bother with dice. That makes sense and speeds the game along, which is good for the House, but I'm glad I didn't participate; throwing the dice needs to be part of the ritual.

I've read that Indian casinos, scattered as they are all over the country, are now amassing profits greater than those in Vegas. Though this is a rather warped way to compensate for our near genocide of Native Americans (there, I said it!), it appears to be working, as the ingenuity of the tribes is making the gaming experience, at least, as attractive as Vegas, Reno, Laughlin and Atlantic City. It would be nice to see this flow of income transform the area as well, as happened in Vegas and Laughlin but not in the still derelict Atlantic City. Twenty years down the road let's hope the road has turned into an avenue. Meanwhile the remoteness of the Indian casinos will limit me to just occasional visits--but I won't feel cheated when I go.

Give It a Rest

Somebody purchased a full-page ad in the Los Angeles Times last week urging TV viewers to demand that Paramount continue producing episodes of its fourth Star Trek spin-off, "Enterprise," despite lackluster ratings and artistic exhaustion. I credit these die-hards with their loyalty and persistence but I'm afraid this was money foolishly spent. It's really time that the franchise goes into hibernation.

Now I 'm not embarrassed to confess my "Star Trek" allegiance. I consider it one of the great TV pulp phenomena of the last forty years--a humanistic, science-based future myth, of creditable scope and insight, however it has morphed from its origins as a proposed "Wagon Train to the Stars," as Gene Roddenberry pitched to NBC back in the mid-'60s, through its allegorical initial incarnations to its latter-day adventures. Its cultural idealism and reliance on creative character relationships has kept me engaged, and I've probably seen 95% of the episodes. I can wander through the "Star Trek" annex at the Las Vegas Hilton and nod knowingly at references to tribbles, Garak, targs, the Dominion, both Borg queens and the Organian Peace Treaty. Yes, all that Trekiana and a mythology as voluminous as the Mahabarata has emerged after 800 or so episodes spanning five different series and twenty seasons.

But that's 800 episodes! Eight hundred hours (not even including the twenty hours of "ST" movies)! Nothing can sustain interest that long. All the James Bond movies equal 40 hours. The "Godfather" films, 10 hours. "Star Trek" has more chapters than the Bible. And the quality has finally begun to erode significantly. "Enterprise" should not have been developed, though its always nice to see Scott Bakula employed (his "Quantum Leap" performance was one of TV's great underrated star turns). In fact, "Star Trek" has been on the slippery slope ever since the mystical final episodes of "Deep Space: Nine," the most intriguing and complex of all the ST series.

The dedicated fan base encouraged Paramount to continue spewing out Trek episodes even after the "Voyager" series revealed serious story-development anemia (half the episodes took place in the Holodeck). "Enterprise" hoped to re-engage the audience through its prequel strategy, promising to fill the gaps left in its mythology from the first contact with aliens (the Vulcans) to the emergence of the Federation, the Space United Nations to which Captain Kirk and his crew would swear their fealty in 1966--oh, I mean 2260. But prequels are tricky. Look what a mangle George Lucas made of his "Star Wars" I and II. Audience expectations are formidable; they demand both innovation and the comfortably familiar. In films, only "Godfather II" accomplished this; on TV, "Smallville" has done a servicable job including elements of the entertaining Superman mythology (red kryptonite! Mr. Myxlptlk! Krypto the Superdog!) so that audiences can clearly connect the past and future.

"Enterprise" promised to do the same, but got bogged down in misadventures, the complex maneuverings of time travelers and the grubbiness of primitive (by Jean-Luc Picard standards) spacecraft. When a serial plot involving morphing aliens called the Sulamen faltered and character relationships failed to gel, the writers attempted a year-long story line about the Xindi trying to destroy Earth. This is what we call in sitcom writing "false jeopardy." If they succeeded, what would Captain Kirk do in eighty years? (Actually I liked the five-species Xindi race, and wonder whatever happened to them in the future). But like most Trek fans I'd be more interested in the connective tissue that led to the Federation and Kirk's "five-year" mission.

"Enterprise's" fourth season' strategy has been to hold the audience with trilogy plot lines and their requisite cliffhangers, but not even the return of Brent Spiner as the progenitor of Data's creator could energize the storytelling. It did represent some last-ditch effort to bridge the three hundred year Star Trek history. I was also amused by a recent episode that demonstrated why certain Klingons would lose their ridges and look like swarthy humans in the first-generation Captain Kirk series (it has to do with a virus commingling human and Klingon genomes, as opposed to reality-reality, which was low-budget make-up). But it's all too little too late.

It's time to shut down the warp engines for a while, and let our real civilization catch up a bit. In fact, I heard a teaser on a news show claiming the Pentagon was looking into the feasability of transport technology. Now that's something worth investing in. If I could find a way to get to San Diego by avoiding the freeway I'd surely go where no man had gone before.