A Striking No-Hitter Quiz

It’s July, the weather is beautiful and my Oakland Athletics are right in the heart of an amazingly mediocre season. You know, maybe it’s time for me to switch allegiances to the Giants. Hold on, let me check the standings. OK, never mind.

Let’s put the unremarkable play of our local heroes aside for a moment but stay with the subject of baseball again tonight. Howsa ‘bout if we have a little fun by testing your knowledge of the no-hitter? Batter up!

1. On average about how many no-hitters are thrown during a season?
a. 1
b. 2
c. 3
d. 4

2. What was noteworthy about the no-hitters thrown by Dave Stewart and Fernando Valenzuela?
a. Both were thrown on the same day.
b. Both pitchers were over 40 years old.
c. Both pitchers hit home runs in the game
d. Both pitchers lost the game

3. How many no-hitters have been thrown in Major League history?
a. 34
b. 128
c. 234
d. over 500

4. How many pitchers have thrown more than one no-hitter?
a. none
b. 5
c. 15
d. 25

5. What makes Johnny Vander Meer unique in baseball history?
a. He threw a 14 inning no-hitter.
b. He threw back-to-back no-hitters.
c. He pitched two no-hitters and lost them both.
d. He threw a no-hitter as a teenager.

6. How many perfect games have been thrown in Major League history?
a. 6
b. 17
c. 44
d. Over 100

7. Nolan Ryan pitched seven no-hitters. Who has the next most with four?
a. Steve Carlton
b. Tom Seaver
c. Cy Young
d. Sandy Koufax

8. What makes Don Larsen unique in baseball history?
a. He threw the only World Series no-hitter.
b. He threw the only World Series perfect game.
c. He threw the only post-season no-hitter.
d. All of the above.

9. What was unique about Bob Feller’s 1940 no-hitter?
a. It was the last game Feller ever started.
b. It was on opening day.
c. He didn’t strike anybody out.
d. He went five-for-five at the plate.

10. What was unique about Bobo Holloman’s 1953 no-hitter?
a. It was his first major league start.
b. It was one of only three career wins he would have.
c. A few months after pitching it he was out of major league baseball forever.
d. All of the above.

ANSWERS:

1. On average about 2 no-hitters are thrown each season. What’s so rare about that, you whine? Well, about 160,000 babies are born each day and we still refer to the little bastards as miracles, right?
2. Both of these no-hitters were pitched on the same day, that day being June 29th, 1990. Two no-hitters were also thrown on the same day way back in 1898.
3. There have been 234 official no-hitters thrown in Major League history. And don’t make me remind you about all those damn babies again.
4. 25 pitchers have thrown more than one no-hitter.
5. One of them was Johnny “Double No-Hit” Vander Meer, who threw his no-hitters back-to-back. This question is a gimme for any true baseball fan, and if you got it wrong my friend Greg would tell you to “Go put on a skirt!”
6. There have been 17 perfect games thrown in Major League history. Did I ever tell you about the time I almost saw Tom Seaver throw one? He lost it in the ninth because somebody named Jimmy Qualls got a hit. I’ll never forget that punk’s name. Never.
7. Sandy Koufax pitched four no-hitters in his abbreviated career. Ryan pitched for 27 seasons and also threw 12 one-hitters.
8. Don Larsen threw the only no-hitter in a World Series. It was also a perfect game and the only post-season no-hitter. Yeah, Chump, that makes it All of the Above. And every real baseball fan knows this one too. Better pick out a blouse to go with that skirt, eh Greg?
9. Feller’s no-hitter was pitched on Opening Day. You guessed (d) didn’t you? God, I’m so tricky.
10. If you have been reading my column as religiously as you should you would know that Bobo Holloman pitched a no-hitter in his first start, only got two more wins, and was out of the majors before the season ended. That’s if you have been reading my column religiously.

Does This One Come in Children's Sizes?

Saw a comic on TV tonight. He was talking about a time when a four year old girl came up to him and said, “Hi.” Being a friendly sort he said “Hi” back, and before he knew it the little girl’s mom appeared, pulling the little girl away while shooting a less-than-friendly look at the comic. “Hey, I didn’t start it, “ he said in his defense. “She came on to me.”

I know that this was based on a true incident and I know how the guy felt. A few years back I was staying at a hotel for some goofy corporate seminar and as always I eventually found the hot tub. I was soaking my tired bones, probably after a hard day of doing nothing, when two kids—a boy and a girl—entered the tub.

After a while I was talking to them, and they began an underwater breath-holding contest. I helped out by timing them, using the large clock on the wall. I was really getting into the spirit of it, and suggested that they time me. Sure I was showing off a bit. I had never smoked cigarettes and as I ducked my head underwater I was hoping that the smoking of anything else I might have tried would not have the same deleterious effect on my lung capacity.

I stayed under for what I thought was a fairly impressive amount of time, impressive at least to a couple of six-year-olds, and I rose back above the surface fully expecting to hear exclamations of awe and wonder from the admiring kids. Instead I was faced with a stern looking woman in her thirties who was aiming that stern face directly at me as she gathered up the children. I’m sure they were given a good lecture about talking to people they didn’t know and that they wouldn’t be playing the “hold-your-breath” game with any middle-aged strangers anytime soon.

I think that’s a shame. And yes, I know you have to be so careful these days and predators are everywhere and if you had kids you’d understand, blah-blah-blah. So OK, I think it’s a shame that there are people out there who harm children and create this climate of fear, making it almost impossible for adults to have normal interaction with kids.

For example, I’ve mentioned Harry before. He’s this cute kid who lives on our block and with his baseball cap and wagon he looks like he’s right out of central casting. The first time my wife saw this kid her reaction was, “Can we keep him?” Whenever he has something to hawk from his school or one of his clubs he knows which neighbor to visit. So when he knocked on the door the other day I knew it was about to cost me money. You just don’t say no to Harry.

This time he was raising money for his school by running around a track. He was taking pledges from people to pay a certain amount of money for each lap he completed. I signed up for a buck a lap, which seemed to be the average pledge for the event. And only then did I decide to ask a few questions.

“Do you run a lot?” I asked.
“Yes.” Shit. Not the answer I wanted to hear.
“What is this event held on, a quarter-mile track?”
“No, I think it’s a sixth of a mile.” Double-shit. This kid would circle that thing like a blonde electron, and cost me a mint in the process.

Then Harry asked how my turtle was doing and even apologized for not remembering his name. Can you believe this kid? He apologized because he didn’t remember a turtle’s name! Do your hotshot kids that you’re so protective of do that? I doubt it.

And then I faced my dilemma. The kid obviously wanted to see the turtle, but what’s the proper thing to do here? After thinking about it for about three seconds I let him in and he paid a quick visit to Ellsworth and then was on his way. (Hopefully to eat some fattening food so he wouldn’t be able to run as many laps.)

So there again is the climate of fear that exists in this country, and without getting too preachy I do believe that it is more prevalent in this country. I’ve been around a bit and I’ve found, almost without exception, that other places tend to be more, I don’t know, relaxed I guess. And I’m not just talking about interaction with children.

I hear a lot of people, when they discuss topics such as this, say that things are somehow different today compared to the way they used to be in some long ago and possibly fictitious past. Well maybe they were and maybe they weren’t. I grew up on a quiet street where we played ball nearly every day. Maybe the raging paranoia wasn’t present then at the levels we see today, but there were a few times that I recall when something mysterious was going on that I didn’t fully understand.

There was this man named Pat who rode around the streets on a bicycle and seemed to genuinely enjoy talking to the neighborhood kids. Mostly it was with the other kids, because I was fairly stand-offish with this guy. Perhaps even then I had developed some sort of Freak Warning System that the other kiddies hadn’t. Eventually the word came down from the parents on the block that we kids should stay away from Pat. Why we should was never explained, and we never asked. It was a dark and murky area that we didn’t know about and didn’t want to know. Pat may have been a perfectly decent and innocent man and the victim of a suburban verbal witch-hunt, but I’ll never know. I do know that there was something different about Pat.

My earliest memory of this sort of thing goes back nearly fifty years. James K Polk was president and—screw you I’m not that old! Anyway I was walking around the block and I remember an elderly man (he was probably 38) giving me a quarter. Now that was major coin for a kid back then and I ran home to show it to my mom. I don’t remember her exact words, and there’s a better than even chance that my undeveloped mind got it all wrong, but at the time I distinctly recall getting the impression that I shouldn’t take money from strangers because that could, could, mean that they had just bought me.

Whew, that put the fear of the lord, and just about everybody else, into me, let me tell you. For the price of one quarter I apparently could have been swept away from my family, legally, and become the slave or plaything of this crusty old man. Man, that was a close one. Of course today I stroll the streets hoping to find a similar old man. I’m a little older now and a little wiser too, so if some old crank makes a similar offer I’ll be ready for him. Sure I’ll agree to the purchase but this time I plan to charge by the pound. If I’m going to do this thing I want to make sure I’m set for life.

Diversify or Die!

A wee bit of the hyperbole, I know. After all, while it’s certainly an excellent idea to diversify your stock portfolio you’re not going to die if you don’t. Then again, you could look at it from another angle and realize that you are going to die whether you diversify your portfolio or not.

Tonight, as we find ourselves smack-dab in the middle of a historic financial nightmare, I bring you a cautionary tale; a tale made even more horrific because it is true. It involves my friend Jillian (of course it’s not) who works for a leading financial corporation. At least it was up until about 48 hours ago. Now, who knows?

Jillian is a successful businesswoman, smart and savvy. She’s also thrifty, and so began to contribute to her company’s 401K as soon as she became eligible many years ago. Several years back her company’s stock took a steep drop and it was then that I found out that her 401K was funded completely with her company’s stock.

As a former stockbroker I at least know the basics, and so I warned her that she was in a risky position. She agreed, but she made no changes, which was fine since a year later the stock had mostly recovered. She had dodged a bullet, and so now I yelled at her even louder. “You have to diversify!” I insisted. Again she agreed that I was right.

I was watching a movie from 1933 the other day. In it a man pulled a strip of paper from an old-timey stock ticker machine and said, “General Motors, 29 5/8.” Today GM is about seventy-five cents a share and, after decades of the short-sighted production of nothing but gas-guzzlers, is on very thin ice indeed. Gone are the days when a company, any company, can be viewed as a rock-solid cornerstone of American enterprise.

Jillian is very intelligent but she is not a stockbroker or financial expert, nor could she ever have imagined that her company, another “rock-solid cornerstone,” could be brought in just a few short months to the brink of bankruptcy. Her 401K, comprised of two decades worth of savings and once worth over a million dollars, has lost over 75% of its value in the last year. And it’s all because she ignored a simple little philosophy that she has probably been reciting since she was in grade school: Don’t keep all your eggs in one basket.

Disconnect

By combining gossamer wisps of faded memories with good old-fashion logic I know that I once lived in a time when there was no Internet. That time now seems vague and nebulous and I can no longer recall any of the specifics of that long ago epoch. In fact, until yesterday I couldn’t even begin to imagine what life must have been like under those harsh and inhospitable conditions.

Science tells us that between the time that primitive man communicated by drawing on cave walls and the birth of the World Wide Web there was indeed a middle time, an era of newspapers and letter writing and telephones with cords. I’ve had a taste of that barbaric existence over the last twenty-four hours and even for that short amount of time I can confirm that it was nothing less than a horrifying experience. I can’t even begin to imagine the hellish torture of having to live that way all the time. And yet I’m told that I once did.

Yesterday morning both my Internet and e-mail services went out. This has happened before, but, after I spend an uneasy hour or two, the service usually comes back on.. This time was different. I had gone to visit a friend (And you thought I didn’t have any!) in Santa Cruz and found upon my return eight hours later that I was still disconnected. This new reality was, as you can imagine, somewhat disconcerting, but still I somehow managed to go to sleep in a positive state of mind, with visions of e-mails and porn sites dancing in my head. I awoke full of hope the next morning and found that, to my unspeakable horror, the computer had not healed overnight.

I soon grasped the seriousness of my situation and a tingle of fear ran up my spine like an electric shock. I was disconnected. What was I to do? How was I going to stay in touch with what amounted to basically every aspect of my life? Pressing questions began to whirl restlessly inside my head. What time does the A’s game start? How is the dollar holding up versus the Euro? Did Uncle Duke in Doonesbury relocate to Louisiana? Did that cute chick in Pleasanton send me an e-mail? Has Bush been indicted yet? Where is that new movie playing? How did my 401K do yesterday? What’s the current temperature in Paris?

With shaking hands I immediately picked up the phone and called my old chums at Comcast, who told me that they would send a technician out tomorrow to get me back on-line. Tomorrow! That would mean going forty-eight hours without the Internet. Forty-eight hours in a row! I can’t live like that--I’m not an animal!

This devastating disconnect from the world lead me to take drastic action. Seeing no other alternative I forced myself to turn off my crippled computer, put on some shoes and go outside! The brilliant sunshine and vivid blue sky seemed to be mocking me as I headed for the beach. I walked barefoot along the sand, explored tide-pools and gathered several shells that I found particularly unique. Later I sat on a dune of sugar-like sand and gazed at the sparkling and almost painfully blue ocean water while listening to the crashing of the white-capped waves. I inhaled the sea air deeply and leaned back on my elbows. I knew then that I was feeling the rhythm of the Earth, the very pulse of existence and, bathed in warm sunshine in that idyllic setting, I couldn’t help but wonder: What exactly are the next three movies on my choice list at NetFlix.com?

After doing some shopping I returned home to a miracle. The message on my answering machine told me that Comcast had discovered that the problem was not simply with my connection, but had occurred over a wide area. And they were canceling my appointment because they had already fixed the problem. Could this be true?

I dropped the bags of groceries on or near the counter. Melting ice cream, squashed fruit, broken glass, --I would deal with that later. Right now I had to attend to bigger issues. I switched on the computer, the screen flickered and the world poured in. There were my stock quotes, my news, my baseball schedule, my maps, my movies reviews, my e-mail from the cute chick in Pleasanton, my comics, and the entire collected knowledge of Mankind just waiting to be retrieved with a few clicks on my keyboard. Anything I needed to know was right there. I could even search to find out exactly what type of shells I had just brought back from the beach. And I would do that, eventually. But first I really needed to check on my movie list over at NetFlix.

Death of a Good Guy

If you’re not from New York and of a certain age you’ve probably never heard of Joe O’Brien, who died in a car accident this past Sunday at the age of 90. I, and many, many others I’m sure, do remember Joe O’ Brien and remember him well. And why shouldn’t we, since as kids we had breakfast with him almost every morning?

Joe O’Brien was a radio personality in the 1960’s. Actually, upon reading his biography I discovered that he began his radio career as a teenager in 1934 and continued to work in the field for 66 years, right up until his retirement only five years ago. But it was during the 1960’s that O’Brien is best remembered, at least by me.

O’ Brien did the morning show on WMCA in New York, and was one of the original WMCA Good Guys. The Good Guys were a group of six on-air personalities, and I’m telling you these dudes were popular. I remember having a photograph of the group and trying to memorize the name of each one as if they were some kind of rock group or sports team. The Good Guys made tons of personal appearances together, recorded jingles and even came out with an album. I feel like testing myself tonight, so I’m going to try to remember as many of the six as I can. Let’s see there was Joe O Brien, Harry Harrison, Jack Spector, Dan Daniel, and two others. Dan Ingram? And some Latino news guy, I think. I’ll check my list on the web and get back to you.

Anyway it was Joe O’ Brien who my family listened to while eating breakfast and getting ready for school. WMCA was a Top-40 music station, and it seems almost incongruous to me now that we’d be listening to the latest music from The Beatles, Stones, Animals, Kinks, etc. all introduced by a DJ who at the time was around 50 years old! I remember the family laughing once when an odd little song came on with some whiney-voiced guy singing, “Everybody must get stoned.” Sure we all giggled. To us getting stoned still meant getting drunk. We kids were all twelve years and younger and it was 1966—what the hell did we know?

O’Brien himself said that this era was the most fun he’d ever had on radio. "When a new Beatles song came out, the competition to get it first was amazing. I think we got all but one," he once said in an interview. O’ Brien also did his share to make the mornings fun and even ease the pain of facing yet another interminable day of school.

I remember he had an imaginary sidekick named Benny. I also remember arguing with a friend about exactly what sort of creature Benny was. For some reason I insisted that he was a chipmunk or squirrel, probably because he sounded so cartoony-cute. My friend Arthur said he was just a person. And now forty years on I’m almost willing to concede that Arthur might have been right. Around Christmastime each year (and you were permitted to call it Christmas back then—even on the radio) O’ Brien’s gimmick was to allow Benny to recite The Night Before Christmas. That is, only if Benny had been good. It was a funny gag that began weeks before Christmas. I can still remember Benny’s high-pitched voice as he begged, “Please Joe, let me recite!”

Another thing about my friend Arthur is that he had won one of the most coveted radio prizes of the time: A WMCA Good Guys sweatshirt. The shirt was orange with a smiling face (not a “smiley face”!) over the words WMCA Good Guy. Oh how I wanted to win that sweatshirt! Now that I think about it not only did Arthur win a Good Guy sweatshirt but so had his sister. I once asked him how they both could have been so lucky, and he said the trick was to mail in a picture postcard, like you’d send from vacation, rather than a regular plain one. Sad to say I never did send in a picture postcard, I think because it felt a little like cheating. And ever sadder to say, I never did get that sweatshirt. (I recently discovered that you can now buy replicas of the original WMCA Good Guy sweatshirts through the world of instant gratification that is the Internet. But where, I ask you, is the fun in that?)

Ok, I just checked on the original WMCA Good Guys. I had some names right, but the actual original Good Guys were brought together a little before my time. They did include most of the names I’d listed, but certainly not Dan Ingram, who worked over at WMCA’s arch-rival, WABC. And the “Latino” guy was Dean Anthony, who I now think might have been Italian. Hey, how about giving me a friggin’ break? It was forty years go.

This week even my fellow New Yorker Howard Stern, who almost always refuses to acknowledge any of his childhood radio influences, said he respected Joe O’Brien as a radio pioneer and a true “good guy.” To me Joe O’Brien will always be the voice on the radio who made my family laugh every morning while at the same time introducing me to the incredible rock music that was to become the soundtrack of my youth.

Danke Scheisse

“I can’t write about this,” I whispered to my cousin as we exited the theatre. “It might hurt your mom’s feelings.”

We had just donated an hour and a half of our dwindling lives sitting through the Wayne Newton show, and nobody was happy about it. My cousin’s mom, my aunt, had wanted to see Wayne Newton for her 70th birthday and so good sport that I am I went along with the group. And I dragged my long-suffering wife with me.

It’s too cheap and too easy to use this space to bash an aging showman who has, after all, spent the last forty years entertaining millions of people. So let’s begin. I’m just kidding but, if the truth be told, the experience had not been a good one. Not good at all.

Still, how could I write an article about how horrible the experience was for me, and apparently my wife and cousins as well, if seeing Wayne Newton had been for my aunt something of a dream come true? And then I saw it. We had only been out of the small theatre for about two minutes when my aunt abruptly removed the Wayne Newton pin my cousin had given her and shoved it into her purse.

“I’ve never been so disappointed,” she said. And I knew it was go time.

Peachpit had warned me before I even went to Vegas that Wayne Newton’s voice was shot. I didn’t particularly care because to me it didn’t matter. If Newton had the voice of a young Pavarotti I still wouldn’t have been interested in seeing him, especially at a cost of $90. Hell, that’s six visits to the movies, and that’s including the pretzel nuggets!

I’ve never been a fan of all that glittery, tuxedoed Vegas-style bullshit. That stuff belongs back in the days of Frank and Dino and Sammy and the rest of the Rat Pack; it was before my time and aren’t we glad that something was? I cut my teeth on rock music and, more specifically, during the golden age of the singer/songwriter.

It matters not a bit to me if John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Paul Simon, Neil Young or Bob Dylan had a “great set of pipes.” In fact none of them did. But they were songwriting geniuses and in my mind will always stand elevated above those who make their living simply singing songs written by other people.

Oh, Newton must be a talented person, to be sure. Nobody gets that kind of a ride for that long without at least a smattering of natural ability. And after over 30,000 shows you know he’s got the mechanics down to a science. Why then couldn’t I just sit back, shut up and enjoy it for what it was? Well, for lots of reasons.

I’ve already mentioned that I’m pretty much repelled by that hokey finger-snapping horseshit, but I never expected that I would notice that Newton can no longer sing. What do I know about singing? And yet I noted that he cleared his throat on several occasions, was strongly supported (not physically—not yet) by two very talented singer/musicians, and when the show ended I estimated that he had performed no more than four complete songs. He did spend a lot of time taking bows and talking about his career, including his seven Top Ten songs. (Quick—name the other six.)

And then there was the humor. Listen, I’m the first one to rebel against this current ethnic over-sensitivity that is costing people their jobs on a daily basis, but holy cow, did I really need to hear Newton again mention that he’s a “Native American” (he’s actually half) and then go on an interminable Vegas-themed routine that went something like: Walkum? Walkum on Stripum? Seeum hookum? Payum hokum?

This side-splitter was later followed by some banter with his Puerto Rican drummer who put on the thickest Latino accent this side of the Frito Bandito. At one point I had to stop and look at my watch, because I could have sworn that it was suddenly 1958. And the illusion that we had indeed traveled back in time was confirmed when the impressionist did his renditions of Jimmy Stewart, Archie Bunker and God knows what other extinct celebrities.

Newton played some guitar, certainly much better than I do after 45 years of trying, and produced a few notes from the piano and violin. And then he lost me completely. He announced that, although he was not political he thought we should get rid of all the politicians. What a rebel. If there’s a cheaper way to get a round of applause from an audience, I don’t know what it is.

Oh yes I do. Newton used one of the oldest showbiz tricks around by getting people to stand by singing America the Beautiful, and then he threw in some rant about “the godless terrorists.” And so he left the stage to yet another standing ovation, which was too bad, because all those people on their feet made it hard for me to see, firmly and stubbornly planted on my ass as I was.

“Oh, he’s old,” more than one person has said to me, as if that justified Newton’s poor performance. Listen, Shlomo, he’s the same age as Paul McCartney, and that guy is still rocking stadiums. Hell, I saw George Burns perform when he was ninety- five years old and it was terrific.

Danke schoen, my ass. Somebody owes me ninety bucks.

Dinosaurus

At first I thought I had already written about this book, Dinosaurus, which I read when I was in fifth grade. And I was going to write about it again anyway, figuring that it would be okay since I don’t seem to recall the column and you never read it. Then I did a search of my blob (that’s what my dad calls it) and didn’t find anything at all. So there you go.

We didn’t use the word back in 1963, but now I’d say that Dinosaurus could easily be described as “trippy.” It was much more of a mind-bender, head-fuck or whatever else you’d call it, than were most of the books we read when we were ten. It must have been, for me to remember it so vividly after all these years.

Dinosaurus was the story of a group of scientists who travel back in time on an expedition to the age when dinosaurs ruled the Earth. (And if you believe that was only about four thousand years ago why don’t you quit reading right here? In fact maybe you should head north, because it sounds like you’re qualified to become governor of Alaska.)

Time travel, dinosaurs--pretty standard sci-fi stuff so far, eh? But then one of the adventurers on the expedition gets killed by a dinosaur. His brother, who is also there, is devastated. I’ll never forget that the doomed brother’s name was Owen. “Owen!” cried the surviving brother in his grief.

Then it began to happen. As the story progressed the brother who lived was having an increasingly difficult time remembering his brother. The reason? Since the brother had been killed millions of years ago he could not have existed in modern times. Whoa! How cool is that? Really cool, especially when you’re ten years old and only just beginning to take your mind out on these early joy rides.

The brother struggles more and more trying to remember Owen. After a while he can’t recall his name, and eventually he doesn’t remember Owen at all. What a terrific literary device: By the end of the book the reader knows that Owen once existed but the character, his own brother, does not!

As you know I’ve been pretty successful in tracking down these dusty old relics from my past, and I’d thank God for the Internet if only he existed. But I’ve had no luck finding a book called Dinosaurus. In fact I’ve been so unsuccessful in my quest that I’ve even begun to doubt my memory (Owen!) and sometimes I think that the title was actually Danger: Dinosaurs! But no, I’m pretty sure that’s a different book.

But you know me. If this book ever existed, I’ll find it.

Celebrity Crime: A Fun Quiz

Now what’s wrong with this damn computer? I turn it on to check up on the important news of the day, like if Entourage won an Emmy and if Bush is still president, and what do I see but some old photo of O.J. Simpson being led away in cuffs by the police. What kind of electronic glitch is causing old news photos from a dozen years ago to pop up on my home page. And how much is this going to cost me in repairs?

Huh? He did what? Are you kidding me? Wow, never underestimate the power of a guilty conscience. Now O.J. is back in jail, Fred Goldman has his first woody in years and we have something new to entertain us and distract us from the war for a few weeks. Boy we love this stuff, don’t we? We love lifting these people out of obscurity and putting them way up on that pedestal to be adored and worshipped. And then we love watching them get knocked down.

So in that vein allow me to continue the tradition by presenting to you a fun quiz about the celebrities we love and the crimes they commit. And don’t go all O.J. and get too cocky on this. You may remember certain celebrities who have faced some sort of legal trouble, or even spent time in jail, but the details may have already faded into the gin-soaked crevasses of your rapidly deteriorating brain. Or perhaps not. So have fun and remember, no cheating. You must play by the rules. You’re not a celebrity, you know.

1. Tim Allen spent two and a half years in prison when he was caught with what?
a. Five kilos (about 11 pounds) of marijuana
b. 1.4 pounds of cocaine
c. Two ounces of heroin
d. The script for The Santa Clause 2

2. For what crime was Larry King arrested in 1971?
a. Grand larceny
b. Bigamy
c. Assault with a deadly weapon
d. Drug possession

3. For what crime were Mick Jagger and Keith Richards arrested in 1972?
a. Public intoxication
b. Lewd behavior
c. Marijuana possession
d. Assault

4. We all remember Nick Nolte’s elegant mug shot from 2002. What was his crime?
a. Kidnapping
b. Obstructing justice
c. Driving under the influence
d. Bad hair

5. In 1961 a 21-year old Al Pacino was arrested for carrying a concealed weapon. What excuse did he give the police?
a. He was returning the gun to a friend
b. He needed the gun as a prop for an acting job
c. Someone had planted the gun on him
d. The gun didn’t work

6. In 1999 police found Matthew McConaughey at home playing bongos and dancing naked with a friend. On what charges was he arrested?
a. Disturbing the peace and possession of stolen property
b. Resisting arrest and possession of marijuana
c. Public intoxication and possession of cocaine
d. Public indecency and possession of an illegal handgun

7. In what city was Jim Morrison performing when he was arrested for indecent exposure?
a. San Francisco
b. Miami
c. Austin
d. Paris

8. What was the name of the prostitute who made Hugh Grant huge?
a. Chastity White
b. Felicity Greene
c. Divine Brown
d. Faith Black

9. Between 1975 and 1989 who was arrested three times for driving violations?
a. Bill Gates
b. Michael J. Fox
c. Dick Cheney
d. Rupert Murdoch

10. In 2004 which felony was Michael Jackson not charged with?
a. conspiracy to commit child abduction
b. false imprisonment
c. committing lewd acts upon a child
d. attempted lewd acts upon a child
e. destruction of evidence
f. extortion
h. administering intoxicating agents to commit a felony


ANSWERS

Ew! Why do I suddenly feel the need to take a hot shower? Well never mind—I’ll get these answers down for you first. But ew!

1. In October 1978 Tim Allen was caught with 1.4 POUNDS OF COCAINE. He served only two and a half years in prison because he dropped a dime on his drug partner.
2. Larry King was charged with GRAND LARCENY for passing bad checks. San Quentin, you’re on the air!
3. Wrong! Jagger and Richards were arrested in 1972 for ASSAULT and obstructing justice after getting into a fight with a photographer. They pleaded guilty and the charges were dropped. Now how could you possibly think these two could be guilty of anything else on that list?
4. Nick Nolte was arrested for DRIVING UNDER THE INFLUENCE. Under the influence of what exactly wasn’t clear until the results of his blood tests came back: Nolte had taken GHB, a date-rape drug also known as “liquid Ecstasy.”
5. Pacino told the police HE NEEDED THE GUN AS A PROP FOR AN ACTING JOB. The charges were later dropped. I mean, who’s going the screw around with The Godfather?
6. McConaughey was arrested for RESISTING ARREST AND POSSESSION OF MARIJUANA. The drug charges were dropped and he paid a $50 fine for violating a noise ordinance. The friend with whom he was dancing naked was Cole Hauser. You know I’ve been drunk and under the influence of various substances but I’ve never played bongos and danced naked with a friend. I’m more of a harmonica kind of guy.
7. Jim Morrison was arrested in Miami, Florida.
8. In 1995 (my how time flies!) Hugh Grant was arrested in his BMW with the one and only DIVINE BROWN. Ms. Brown later played herself in a film about the incident. Talk about typecasting.
9. The little nerd who lives inside your computer, BILL GATES, was arrested three times for crimes which included driving without a license and under the influence. Dick Cheney was only arrested twice for drunk driving. (And once for sucking the blood out of young virgins.)
10. I’ve read the list a few times and nowhere does it say that Michael Jackson was ever charged with DESTRUCTION OF EVIDENCE. That’s still quite an impressive list though, isn’t it? Ew, time to go take that shower.

Whatever Works

I was going to start this by saying that I had been listening to NPR, but that wouldn’t have been true. I never listen to NPR, especially in my car. It’s for safety reasons. I’m always afraid that even if I tune in even for only a few minutes I’ll nod off and go skidding into a ditch.

So in fact it was Surfer Mike who was listening to NPR when one of their reviewers was putting down Woody Allen’s new movie Whatever Works. Which is fine, of course. That’s what reviewers do, instead of actually creating anything themselves. But when Mike said that the reviewer, and what his name is I have no idea, suggested that it’s time for Woody Allen to stop making movies I couldn’t believe it.

Sure the reviews haven’t been that good for Whatever Works. But wasn’t it only last year that Allen made the highly praised, Oscar winning Vicky Cristina Barcelona? And Match Point was just a few years before that. Hey, the Beatles did Hey Jude, but they also did Mr. Moonlight. Did anybody suggest they should stop making music after Moonlight came out? As the saying goes, they can’t all be gems.

And here’s where the story takes, for me, an unexpected turn. Despite the tepid reviews I went to see Whatever Works. It was showing in a small, nearly full art house. From the very beginning people were laughing out loud, me included. These laughs continued throughout the film. And at the end not only did people clap, a rarity in movie theaters, but there was one moment of applause right in the middle of the picture. I’ve seen thousands of movies but I don’t recall that ever happening before.

The truth is that if you’re going to team up comic geniuses Woody Allen and Larry David, how can you make an unfunny movie? You can’t. Another reviewer suggested that Larry David was simply doing a Woody impersonation, but this is simply not accurate and unfair. I have seen Allen movies when this has been the case, and it’s not a pretty sight.

In fact David is the perfect choice for this role, and perhaps it’s a good thing that the script lay in Allen’s underwear drawer for thirty years just waiting for David to come along. Woody Allen would not have fit the role as well as David, as Allen always eventually comes across as loveable. This was not a loveable role and needed a Larry David to play the cantankerous, misanthropic and mercilessly funny lead. It’s a perfect fit.

The bottom line is that with Whatever Works Woody Allen has made a movie that made a theaterful of people laugh out loud time and time again. And clap at the end. And this drip over at NPR has the nerve to suggest that it’s time for Woody Allen, Woody Allen, to stop making movies? Like I said, I have no idea what this reviewer’s name might be but, really, what a dick.

Antiquing With My Chum Michael Jackson

From HeywoodJablomi: The Internet Essays 1848 - 1853 (2002)
Available at http://www.leonardstegmann.com/

Concert review? Whoops--my mistake. The questions on Epinions asked "Have you seen Michael Jackson?" and "How was the show?" Well I haven't actually seen the weird ol' King of Pop in concert, but my answers to those questions would be "Yes" and "Pretty interesting."

OK, rewind. I went to a local antiques and collectibles fair in San Mateo on Saturday. Yeah, I live on the edge. What did you do on Saturday, Hot Shot? As I went from booth to booth (becoming increasingly annoyed by the growing number of Beatle albums, Circus Boy coloring books, Mr. Machines, and other items which couldn't possibly be antiques because I had owned them just a very short time ago in my youth) I heard several people talking about how some guy was walking around dressed as a "sheik", that it might be Michael Jackson, that he had two body guards, that it was known that he collected Disney crap, etc. etc.

So I went to look for the guy. Hey, I'm no star-effer, and in truth I think the number of times that the slime-trail of my miserable, sniveling little existence has crossed paths with the four lane super-highway of a celebrity's giant-sized life is well below the national average. When people start to discuss whom they've met I'm always going to be outdone--no matter how small the group.

In fact, up until a few years ago the most famous person I had ever met was Ray Heatherton. He had come to my grade school when I was ten, and, since I was teacher's pet, Mr. Zellan dragged me out of class to meet the old fart. So when I say that--oh, OK, I can hear that big collective whine out there: Who the hell is Ray Heatherton? Well, Kids, there are two answers to that question. First, when I was a lad, Ray Heatherton had a kid's show called The Merry Mailman. And I swear that's all I remember about it, except for a few lines of the jingle. I'll sing it for you sometime. The other answer is that Ray Heatherton was also Joey Heatherton's father. OK, all together: Who the hell is Joey Heatherton?

Then a few years ago I got to interview Kristi Yamaguchi. (Kristi? Yamaguchi? Ice-skater? Olympics? Remember?) And as far as celebs go, I think that's about it. Quite the name-dropper, ain't I?

Yet, when I found "Michael Jackson" I was just curious--it wasn't any big deal. I just wanted to confirm that it was he and stalk, uh, I mean, observe him for a bit. Like the rest of us, he was going from booth to booth looking at the various piles of dusty, rusty, and musty old garbage on display. He was followed, not too closely, by two bodyguards, and also was indeed wearing a long white Lawrence of Arabia style robe, which would have left only his eyes visible if those hadn’t been covered by sunglasses. Nope, no chimp. No camel either, though it might have been a nice touch.

I looked for clues to confirm his identity. He seemed taller than I thought he’d be, although I realized I had no idea how tall Michael Jackson is. He was extremely thin. I trashed any thought that I might have had of getting myself a similar snappy style outfit for the office Christmas party. Hell, I'd look like a giant dim-sum. He had on some pretty slick shoes, kind of stone-studded black jobs. And I heard him speak once, and although it wasn't that voice, you know that voice, it was soft enough to lead me to believe this might be the Real Mccoy. If only I had had a seven year old boy to bait him. Then I'd know for sure. Allegedly.

And so what if it was Michael Jackson? It was odd, because he was just walking around being left completely alone, as if the whole place had agreed to let the poor freak look around like a regular person for once in his twisted life. But there's the rub, is it not? This was not a man who was dressed to avoid attention. My wife met him years ago at Disneyland. He was dressed in regular clothes then, and asked her not to tell anybody else he was there. But that was when Thriller had just come out. Maybe the Arab duds was his way of yelling "Hey, look everyone, it's Me!” If so, I'm sure he wasn't too happy with the reception. Everybody was just too cool, like, "Oh no big deal! Happens all the time. Why just last week we had Eddie Murphy wandering around here dressed as Snow White."

Sure I was cool, but I'm only familiar with the dude's most mainstream music and escapades, so what would I say to him anyway? "How come you won't give Paul McCartney back his songs instead of selling them for fuckin’ TV commercials?" Plus, how cool would I have been if it had been McCartney wandering around? C'mon, you just know I would have been squealing like a damp-pantied schoolgirl.

I spent a lot of time on the web that night trying to find out if it was Michael Jackson. No luck. And nothing on the local news. There are some fun websites out there, though, loaded with MJ fans, some of whom will go absolutely insane if someone were to suggest, say, that Jackson bleaches his skin or that he might have a few sexual preferences that fall slightly outside the bulge on the bell curve. "He's married!" they'll scream in his defense. Hey, so was Rock Hudson. And Elton. And Caligula, for that matter.

So I guess fame is a double-edged sword. I always remember watching Richard Nixon collapsing into tears at his wife's funeral, and people the next day suggesting it was an act, or that Nixon wasn't capable of human emotion, or people just laughing at him. I mean, c'mon, no matter what you thought of that slippery son-of-a--uh, of that former president--the man had just buried his wife for god's sake! And he had to do it on national TV!

So how did I feel when I peered into the opening of that veil, through the sunglasses and into the eyes of the man who might well have been Michael Jackson? Frankly, I found it very sad.

Sad? Yes. Because this bastard could buy any piece of crap he wanted at this fair, or anywhere else, was about to get into his limo for a pleasant ride home to his beautiful ranch, where he could afford to do any damn thing he pleased (within the constraints of California law, of course), go anywhere he wanted, or do nothing at all ever again if that's what he wanted.

I, on the other hand, would walk to my '92 Nissan with the 138,000 miles on it, which I had parked about a mile away to save the outrageous $4 parking fee, hope the clunker started, fight traffic all the way back to the crowded, middle class neighborhood where my wife and I rent a house, and maybe, if there was still time, catch the matinee at the local theatre and save ten bucks. Then later that night I'd spend a couple of hours knocking out this swill so that a handful of losers around the world will read it and I'll make a nickel.

Oh yeah, I thought, it was sad all right. Real goddam sad.