Travel Thursday: San Diego

I certainly understand this can be hard to get used to.

If you hate perfect weather and beautiful scenery, by all means, stay out of San Diego.

I mean ... 12 months of balmy weather and little precipitation can get downright boring, and really, if you've seen one zoo full of practically every type of animal there is, you've seen them all, right?

Sure, the cuteness is off the charts, but who needs that?

Maybe that's why the Padres and Chargers have to be mediocre or historically underachieving, to bring San Diego down to other cities' level.

Needless to say, just a terrible place to watch a ballgame.

However, for those of you who just can't handle the thought of constantly pleasant surroundings, I'm here to tell you that once in a great while, San Diego is something less than paradise.

I now pronounce you ... mad at your meteorologist.

Some days, you just have to tough it out.

Every morning on the local news, there was a segment called "When Will We See Sun?' The meteorologist's name was Jodi, although I don't remember if this was her. Unlike in the Northeast, where such a segment might try to answer the question of when the endless clouds, rain and/or snowfall will actually leave so we can feel like human beings again, in San Diego, it's when the "marine layer" (what we non-Pacific Coasters might call "fog") will burn off so another day of perfect activities may begin.

One fine morning, Jodi announced confidently that the marine layer would burn off late morning ... as she had every weekday we were there. With that in mind, my wife and I decided to head to Coronado.
It's a lovely area ... cute downtown, nice houses and hotels and miles of beaches. On a sunny day, I imagine it would be hard to beat.

Except on this day, Jodi was wrong. The marine layer didn't burn off. The sun didn't come out. We had to experience Coronado on ... a cloudy day.

To this day, if you say "San Diego" and "Jodi" around my wife, she will growl. I think she's plotting for the day when vengeance will be hers.

Beware of old guys carrying chairs.

Balboa Park is simply wonderful. Not only is it home to the San Diego Zoo (which we went to separately), it has museums, gardens, walkways, shops and restaurants. It's easy to spend an entire day there.

However, it's also easy to seemingly spend an entire day looking for somewhere to park. The place is kind of popular. As my wife and I circled the parking lot looking for a spot we thought we'd never find, I saw in the mass of humanity heading up the sidewalk an old man carrying, of all things, a chair.

OK, that was weird, but destined to be a footnote once we finally parked the car and began enjoying the park. Our first stop was lunch, where the waiter, making small talk, asked us where we were from. When we told him Boston, he said that was interesting, because there was a former Boston Celtics player in the restaurant.

The waiter pointed him out, and I spent the rest of lunch not wanting to be that guy ... you know, the one who stares during the entire meal when he finds out a famous person is in the restaurant and interrupts the meal to get an autograph. Plus, he looked like he was with friends.

He finished his meal not long before we did, so as we were getting up to leave, he was headed out the door after stopping to talk to a few people. Out on the sidewalk, I saw him again ... and he was carrying a chair.

You see, that old guy I saw as we were parking and the former Celtic we shared the restaurant with were one and the same ...

...

...

... Bill Walton.

Travel Thursday: New Orleans

Imagine walking past this every day.

I always tell people that if there was any doubt whether my wife is smarter than me, it should have been put to rest a couple years ago, when we spent her 40th birthday in New Orleans, and four months later, I spent mine in my office.

Not only was it my wife's idea to go to New Orleans, she also suggested getting a hotel in the French Quarter. Good call.

If David Simon wasn't also the man behind "The Wire," his series on post-Katrina New Orleans, "Treme," would probably be considered a masterpiece. An overriding message behind the series was the characters' ability to find joy of music, food and each other amid the ugliness, be it the devastation of the hurricane, the corruption both specific to Katrina and generally throughout the city ... even a pothole that was decorated because it was never repaired.

This is Fats Domino's piano, damaged during Hurricane Katrina and now part of the "Living with Hurricanes: Katrina & Beyond" exhibit at the Louisiana State Museum. Seeing the display will make you mad about Katrina all over again.

Although Davis McAlary would not have approved, we spent most of our time among the joyous. We stayed in the French Quarter, mere steps from Bourbon Street, and even though we aren't the types to be in a bar as sunrise approached (as we saw while being driven to the airport to go home), there was always a buzz in the air, like something exciting was about to happen.

For the most part, New Orleans has a higher class of street musician.

And exciting things will happen, so you'd better be ready.

I mentioned my wife's birthday. For dinner that night, we found a little Italian place that wasn't quite a hole in the wall, but probably not the first place you would look. After a terrific meal, we were heading back to our hotel on a warm New Orleans evening, we heard strange sounds coming down the street, drums and horns and other instruments that sounded like a marching band.

Because it was a marching band.

Mardi Gras was a few weeks away, and preparations had already begun, so our guess was that the band was rehearsing that night for the festivities to come. Needless to say, everyone on both sides of the street stopped to watch, clapping as the band went past.

I would have loved to take photos of the scene, and perhaps even tried to take a video. There was just one problem ... that night was the only time on the whole vacation I didn't take my camera with me.

I mentioned that my wife is smarter than me, but sometimes I prove she doesn't have a lot of competition.

Travel Thursday: London

How often do you get directions that say, "Get off the train, then meet me at The Famous Cock"?

There are untold numbers of things you can do and see in London: Trafalgar Square, the London Eye, all kinds of museums, Parliament, Buckingham Palace (at least while the queen is away) the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey and so on, and so on and so on.

But beyond the stuff to see, which is pretty much all awesome, by the way one thing I noticed when my wife and I went to London (with a side trip to Liverpool for this Reds fan) is that there's seemingly a new adventure around every corner.

The West End was something to behold, as were the posters for what look to be some awful shows.

Although my wife, father-in-law and I once accidentally ran into Yankees manager Joe Girardi outside an elevator at the old Yankee Stadium (it was next to the family lounge), it would never occur to me to wait outside the clubhouse after a game so I could say hi to Derek Jeter and tell him he just played a great game.

But not only can you do it at the theatre, the stage doors have helpful signs on them saying "Stage Door," so you know where the actors are coming out. We saw two plays in London, "The Commitments" (which was amazing) and "War Horse" (which was pretty good).

It was the classic marital trade-off. I wanted to go to Liverpool to see Anfield and to a soccer game at Fulham, and she wanted to go see a couple shows. We would up seeing the two we did because my wife wanted to see Killian Donnelly in "The Commitments" and Alistair Brammer in "War Horse" after she saw them in the movie version of "Les Miserables."

And she wanted to meet them, which we did, in Donnelly's case both before and after the show. They were both very nice, stopping to chat with the few fans waiting outside, signing programs and posing for photos.

Then ... they disappeared.

For the actors we saw, there were no entourages, no cars waiting to whisk them away after the show. If no fans stopped them on their way out the stage door, they either hopped on bikes or walked away, into the London night.

Even the exit signs on the London Underground were classy.

I loved the London Underground, which is good, because we used it a lot. My wife very intelligently chose a hotel right next to a Tube station, and we rode the trains both to get into town and then to get around once we got there.

The trains and stations were clean, convenient, almost always on time and frequent. We had to wait more than a few minutes for a train less than a handful of times.

Needless to say, trains are among the very best places for people-watching. One night, we were standing on the train when a group of women came and stood in front of us. I'd guess they were mid-to-late 40s, maybe early 50s, nice-looking ... and dressed to the teeth ... clothes, jewelry, shoes, you name it.

These ladies were headed out for a serious night on the town away from their husbands (I spotted at least a couple wedding rings). I said to my wife, "I don't know where the party is, but if I want to find it, I'm following them."

They have been known as "the cougars" ever since.

A decent view, wouldn't you say?

Our trip to Greenwich came after the one truly disappointing part of the trip. I wanted to see the Olympic Stadium and Olympic Park, but after a long walk in fairly warm weather (it rained very little while we were there, and then apparently didn't stop for months after we left), you couldn't get near the stadium due to construction, and the park wasn't done yet, so there wasn't much there.

I was kind of ticked off, but it only lasted until we got off the train in Greenwich.

The revolution will be filmed here.

Our first stop was the Royal Naval College, a beautiful facility where my wife informed me part of the "Les Miserables" movie was filmed, with the help of a little CGI. It was weird standing in the courtyard while she played the scene filmed there on her phone.

We were inspired to come up with a business opportunity built around tours of sites related to the movie with a performance of the play at the end. Since a bunch of actors from the movie are in West End shows, we figured we could work in some kind of tie-in there, too. It hasn't gotten off the ground yet, but if anyone steals the idea, I'll show the authorities this blog post to let them know we had the idea first.

Prime real estate

From the college, we headed up the hill to the Royal Observatory, which not only offers spectacular views of the city, but is also the site of the Prime Meridian.

Naturally, we wanted to do the touristy thing and stand with one foot in either hemisphere, but we didn't know where to go, so when I saw someone wearing an official-looking outfit come walking by, I flagged him down and asked him.

It was probably five minutes after 5 p.m. by this point, and it wasn't until a few minutes later that I realized what I had done to the poor guy. He probably spent all day with tourists asking him "Where is the Prime Meridian?" "Where is the Prime Meridian?" and when he finally got a chance to head home, another clueless tourist ... an American, no less, was asking him where the Prime Meridian was.

To his credit, however, he very calmly explained that the observatory was closed, so the main Prime Meridian display was closed, but that the line also came through the trail back down the hill not too far away, so we could go there, which we and a bunch of other people did.

Would I go again? I'd get on a plane now if I could.

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Why "The Big Bang Theory" still works and "Glee" doesn't

Today comes news both that CBS has picked up "The Big Bang Theory" for another three seasons, while over on Fox,"Glee" had record-low viewership last night.

Until a few years ago, I had never watched "The Big Bang Theory," which isn't all that odd, since I don't watch a lot of network prime-time TV shows. However, my mother-in-law first got my wife, then me, hooked on it, and since it had just come out in syndication with multiple episodes on every night, it was pretty easy to get caught up.

And having seen all but the first few episodes of this season (I was out of the country), and most of the reruns multiple times, I can say ... the show isn't as funny as it used to be.

But I can also say it doesn't matter all that much.

I still find the show funny, but not the consistent laugh riot it used to be. However, what makes up for it is that I care about Sheldon, Leonard, Howard, Raj, Amy, Penny and Bernadette. What once was a series of weekly hijinks involving four dorky guys and the pretty blonde neighbor has matured (as much as a sitcom can "mature") into a show about lives and relationships that happens to still include a lot of laughs.

For example, this moment wasn't particularly funny, but if you're a fan, tell me you didn't say "YES!" at least a little bit when it happened.

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And then there's "Glee," which I used to enjoy almost as much as I like "The Big Bang Theory" now. Sure, it was completely implausible -- unless your high school had a full band that could appear out of nowhere on a whim -- but it combined an enjoyable silliness with terrific singing.

Now, I forget that it's even on.

To be fair, "Glee" has the same problem as any other show set in high school, namely that the characters graduate. But instead of ending the show after the New Directions won the national championship or the main characters graduated, the producers and Fox decided to soldier on, and it's hard to blame them. After all, the show was doing well.

The problem is that instead of just bringing in new characters such as Jake, Marley and Kitty (who were clearly meant to be the next generation of Finn, Rachel and Quinn) to replace the graduates, they brought on a bunch of new characters to go with the ones who hadn't graduated yet and couldn't let go of the old ones. Rachel and Kurt went to New York, where Santana soon joined them, and others such as Finn (until Cory Monteith died) returned on at least a semi-regular basis.

The result is an overstuffed cast where neither the old favorites nor the newcomers ever have much chance to shine, and in the case of the latter group, it means there's less opportunity for viewers to care about them. For one, I'd like to hear a lot more Melissa Benoist (Marley, which is another part of the problem; I don't have to look up who plays Rachel).


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Which brings us back to "The Big Bang Theory." If it's true that next season is the final one for "Glee," it looks like it could limp to the finish, especially since co-creator Ryan Murphy said Monteith's death forced him to change his plans for how the show ends.

If Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady have an endgame in mind for the "The Big Bang Theory," I wonder if they have an idea how long it will take to get there ... and whether that will mesh with CBS' plans and all parties' pocketbooks if the show stays successful. The temptation for any show to stay past the sell-by date is strong when the ratings are high and the money is rolling in.

Why have pledging? What's the point?

I saw today that Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity is going to ban pledging for new members and require safety education, including alcohol education, after having at least 10 deaths linked to hazing, alcohol or drugs at fraternity events.

"In its statement, SAE lamented recent deaths and injuries and said the 'bad publicity' it has recently received is 'challenging and regretful.'” ...

... "In a statement to members, SAE’s national headquarters said college students will still be attracted to the fraternity once 'we get rid of pledging.' Chapter leaders complained that damage to the fraternity’s 'national reputation' has made it difficult to operate.
'We have experienced a number of incidents and deaths,' according to the statement, which SAE posted on its website. 'We have endured a painful number of chapter closings as a result of hazing. Research shows that hazing, which hides in the dark, causes members to lie.'”

There were a lot of fraternities and sororities where I went to college, especially since it wasn't that big of a school. I had plenty of friends who were Greeks, and fraternity and sorority bar nights provided much of the social life, but I never understood the value of pledging.

To be clear, I don't know of any serious pledging-related injuries while I was in college, and no one died. However, it always seemed odd why anyone would want to subject themselves to weeks of ritual embarrassment and humiliation (and that's the stuff that was out in the open, not even the stuff that was rumored to happen in private) just for the purpose of being part of a group and making friends.

Hell, if someone as uninteresting and socially awkward as I was could make friends ... anyone could. It actually isn't that hard, especially on a college campus with thousands of people. And there are lots of groups you can join without being treated like dirt for weeks before you get to be a member.

But what do I know about the process of vetting new fraternity members?

"Brad Snider, an SAE member at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, opposed the change even though he said it will make chapters safer. Without an 8-to-12 week pledge period, he and his fraternity brothers won’t have enough time to decide whether a recruit is 'worthy' of being admitted, (he) said.
'It only takes one member to bring down the entire organization,' said Snider, 20, a junior, who served as 'pledge educator' and now teaches members SAE rituals. 'For all we know, they may fail at their grades, and we hold grades to a very high standard. They may be socially awkward or extremely rude or disrespectful, and that will come back to us.'”

Seriously, if fraternities and sororities are to continue, I hope more take the step SAE did. I just wish it hadn't taken so long, and for a bunch of kids dying to make it happen.

Buy this! So you can be as ... dumb as these guys???

What do you get when you combine a version of Chuck Norris Facts, video of what appear to be awesome if often implausible activities (frequently involving beautiful women) and a few words from our hero?

You get the Dos Equis "Most Interesting Man in the World" commercials.




Along from the fact that Jonathan Goldsmith seemingly was placed upon this planet to play The Most Interesting Man in the World, the ads work because they're aspirational. When he drinks beer, he drinks Dos Equis; if you drink it, maybe you'll be like him!

So who exactly does Volkswagen want us to be like ... some idiot who runs over things in his garage to get to 100,000 miles, when he could have done the same thing but with less destruction by backing up farther down the driveway to give himself more room (or as my wife pointed out, driving around the block).



And by all means, Dish Network, sell a product where the characters in your commercial, when they're not leaving the house without pants, don't even pronounce the name of the product correctly.

 

And then there's Chevy. Oh, Chevy ... I know that if I ever did something I didn't want my wife to know about, the first thing I would do is check my messages so that she could hear each and every one of them.



The way I see it, there are only two possibilities.

One, based on an assumption that women make the buying decisions, dumb guys make them feel superior, so they'll buy the products that make them feel that way.

Or two, companies think there's gold in them thar stupid hills!

Come one, come all to the big Oscars party

I'm throwing an Oscar party tonight, but don't show up at my house. I don't have sufficient food or drink, and wouldn't want you to have to drive home afterwards because it's going to be late.

No, this party is at this here website, and anyone who wants to come is invited. Just sign in through Twitter or Facebook or whatever the other options are.

So wear your finest Oscar threads and come play. Cheer for the winners, argue about the snubs and make fun of all the silliness that comes with every awards show.

Over 40 ... what I've learned and what I haven't

I read a New York Times piece by Pamela Druckerman about the things that you learn in your 40s.

Being nearly a couple years into my fifth decade, I clicked the link. I actually wasn't all that impressed, except for her writing, "Among my peers there’s a now-or-never mood: We still have time for a second act, but we’d better get moving on it" (yup) and "By your 40s, you don’t want to be with the cool people; you want to be with your people" (also yup, although this actually dates back to my teens, because I've never been one of the cool people, more on that later).

However, it got me to thinking about the lessons I've learned, not necessarily since I turned 40, but as I've gotten older, and one came to mind almost instantly ... sometimes, it's best to just walk away from an argument.

To the people who know me, this has an outstanding chance of causing convulsion-level laughter, since I am an extraordinarily argumentative person. Several years ago, a co-worker hit me with perhaps the only argument you can't win unless you're trying to make one without the advantage of facts on your side ... "You're argumentative." Don't argue, and you're admitting the other person is right. Argue that you're not, which is what I think I did, and you're proving it.

Yet as time goes by, I try to pick my spots more. I'll argue about sports all day, because it's fun and ultimately harmless, and if there's something that really needs to be said, I'll say it. (I'm basically known among my peers as the "tell us how you really feel" guy.)

I'm learning the wisdom, however, of sometimes just letting stuff go. There's always a better fight to be had somewhere, and a lot of times arguing is just pointless. For example, I have several family members and friends whose political views are the opposite of mine, and the things they sometimes say or write on Facebook make me nuts.

Once upon a time, I argued with them, bringing what I (of course) believed were my superior information and rhetorical skills to the table. And what did it get me? Usually hours of comments and counter-comments that didn't change anyone's mind and just left me more upset. My blood pressure thanks me that I only do that once in a great while now.

Also, when people are younger, they believe every hill is the one worth dying on. I probably did the same thing. Now, though, when I do decide to charge up the hill, I'll fight like hell, but when I reach the point where I realize (or someone makes me realize) that I'll be dead if I keep going, I try to have the good sense to back down the hill.

After all, what good is dying on a hill if it means you can't charge up the next, bigger one?

When it comes to letting stuff go in other parts of my life, however, I've realized that I still have a lot of work to do.

As noted above, I was never the cool kid in high school. I was skinny, nerdy, not particularly good in sports and had no clue about girls. I had my group of friends, and they were awesome, and steeled myself against the kids who didn't like me by saying I didn't care what they thought about me. Defense mechanism? Ummm ... yeah!

A few years ago, my high school class and the two before it held a joint reunion. It was fun, and I reconnected with a lot of people I hadn't seen in years. However, there were a few people who I took pains to avoid when I saw them. Not only did I not want to talk to them, I didn't want to go near them in case they decided they wanted to talk to me.

It happened again a few weeks ago. I was on Facebook and decided to scroll through the "people you may know" list. I did know most of them, and didn't have much desire to be friends with them not because of anything they did to me, but just because we were never that close to start with. But some of them took me back to that reunion, where the thought of dealing with them left me cold.

Is it wrong of me to think that? Of course. I'm not the same person I was more than 20 years ago, so why am I assuming they are? But while I don't let my high school memories consume me -- after all, a lot has happened, much of it good, since then -- I realize I haven't yet learned to let all of it go.

God, country and Alan Jackson

The other day, after I dropped my wife off at the train station, I got behind an SUV with a bumper sticker that read, "Alan Jackson: Country Music the Way God Intended." (Apparently, it also comes in T-shirts.)

I'm no Biblical scholar, so maybe someone can tell me if this verse exists anywhere:

"And so a man will come from Georgia, a lanky man with blond hair and a mustache. He will wear a cowboy hat and jeans, and he is the one chosen by God to sing country music, and his followers will buy his albums and fill arenas far and wide. He will be hailed for his prowess with many awards."

I'm obviously kidding. I'm not an Alan Jackson expert, but apparently, he's still going strong. I don't know a lot of his music, but I remember "Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)" as a touching, moving song after Sept. 11, 2001.




The point of the bumper sticker and the T-shirt, obviously, is a way for Jackson's fans to stand up for traditional country music against what they see as the infringement of more pop-oriented acts like ... I don't know ... young woman ... tall blonde ... known for singing a lot about boys ...

Yes, Taylor Swift is not a favorite of the traditionalists. Fine, she's not everyone's cup of tea, but for some reason, country stations keep playing her songs, and the various organizations keep giving her awards.

And millions of people enjoy her songs.

Artists like Jackson and George Strait (who could probably sell out stadiums until he was 90) still have a lot of fans, but country music is changing, and no one gets to say what that is. Nelly rapped with Florida Georgia Line on "Cruise," and the band knows what it did for them.

"Not only did the song steam up the charts in both country and pop, but it also brought new fans to the duo’s shows, something that really gets them excited.
‘Cruise’ has earned the spot of No. 1 country digital single of all time, and it has streamed its way into the ear buds of fans of both country and mainstream sounds.
'The fans, you see a lot of different ages and a lot of different colors even,' FGL’s Brian Kelley says. 'You’ve got tons of different people coming to our shows. That’s what it’s all about man. We want everybody. Come party with us. Seriously.'”

They're not the only ones. Jennifer Nettles covers Bob Seger's "Like A Rock," and in her regular job as lead singer of Sugarland, they do a cover of Beyonce's "Irreplaceable" that I prefer to the original.


I could go on and on. But if country music is sounding a lot more like pop, then pop music doesn't sound like it used to, either, certainly not like it was when I was growing up. That stuff is practically oldies now, or on one of the "Mix something-or-other" channels playing "the best of the '80s, '90s and today" that exist in every single market.

As a matter of fact, I don't like a lot of today's pop music, which has me turning a lot more to ... country ... which I hated when I was a kid.

However, just as it's pointless to pigeonhole artists, it makes no sense to limit fans to liking one type of artist or one type of music, especially since iTunes now lets you sample bits and pieces of everything. My playlist isn't eclectic in the sense that most of the people on it are mainstream, whatever the genre, but depending on my mood I can listen to Adele, Carrie Underwood, Eminem, Jason Aldean, Metallica, Pitbull, Tim McGraw or Train.

As a matter of fact, the best music I heard all of last year was by the London cast of "The Commitments," with Killian Donnelly singing soul classics as Deco. Seriously, the dude brings it.



Like or don't like whomever you want, but just enjoy the music and don't worry about what box they fit into.