'Twas the Monday after Xmas...

Dec 29

Will, Glenn, Rita, Bill, Ben, Jim, Steve L, Jeanette, Edgar, Bob, Bobb, Barbara, Mary, Ray, Lynne, Andy

One of the best Mondays for several months: big turnout, lively conversation, everyone on good form in that unreal period between Christmas and New Year.
In Ian's absence we had the unusual and welcome sight of Bobb and Barbara back and center in the booth. Appropriately, Bobb was wearing a t-shirt reading 'Bobb. The man. The myth. The legend.'
As often happens, a contender for most fascinating conversation of the night came right at the end when most people had gone home. Bob and Ray started exchanging tales about their days working front of house in LA cinemas in the 1950s. It ranged from having Lee Marvin serving popcorn to Marlon Brando sitting in the second row because of his bad hearing, how to skim ticket money, the martinet but corrupt district managers who insisted on everything being spotless and couldn't stop interfering, even on their days off and how Ray got 50% added to his normal week's money for cleaning the cinema one night at union rates. I treasure the memory of the young Birchard and Campi in their tuxedos showing people to their seats (or not).
A news item got the other end of the table earlier on talking about exhuming bodies: Jim told of how Big Bopper, Jape Richardson, was removed from his coffin in Texas, whereupon his family put the old casket up for sale on eBay! As Jim said, they ought to fix it so when it's opened a voice says 'Oh Baby, you know what I like!'
This could start a trend. In fact, there already is one: exhumation is one of those taboos we love to break, on the slightest excuse. Abe Lincoln was disinterred so his extended jaw could be examined for a malformation, and the apparent Parkinson's Disease suggested by the blurring of his fingers in the long photo exposures that were required in his day.
Frustratingly, they never did get to exhume Hitler because his body was reportedly burned, giving rise to a good 20 or 30 years of rumours that he had escaped and was living in South America. And the biggie that everyone has (I think) resisted so far is Shakespeare. Let's face it, you couldn't really tell if he had written those plays just by examining his skeleton, but then some people think he didn't really exist at all.
The recession is of course a running theme, week by week. This week Lynne came in late after a visit to Target, grumbling that the lines were being held up by so many people cashing Christmas gift vouchers. Another problem diners have been encountering is more people paying with cash instead of plastic. This met nods around the table, as if credit cards were some drug that we need to be weaned off. Personally I just use mine as a payment card and pay it off every week, but I know that not everyone finds it that easy. At least half the Monday night diners use the folding stuff when Javier comes round with his little silver trays.
'This recession will bring us all back to earth, especially the amount they pay ball players,' said Jim.
'Don't get me started,' Rita agreed, a trifle bitterly I thought. Does she secretly own the Dodgers or the Lakers, that players' wages should bother her so? I think we should be told.
Ray joined us after his usual visit to Mijares, to say that they too are hurting financially.
'They got 20 waiters, 5 chefs, 5 doing the accounts, that's a lot of overhead,' Ray pointed out, 'and they're just not getting the business. They've been there 85 years and they own the freehold, but they're wondering whether they're going to have to sell.'
One of the plus sides of the recession is the Obama infrastructure program - not that there is one yet, but we're all hoping, and it could be just what we need to build a decent light rail network in LA. Mind you, every other sizeable city is saying the same, so resources could get a little stretched.
That led to a comparison of the ease of parking in cities around the world, mainly LA versus New York versus London versus Vienna - the worst, said Andy. And no one could argue with him on that one.
Bob nailed what he regarded as the myth that the freeways were a big conspiracy got up by the auto industry. He recalled: 'My father used to come home cursing the Red Cars for the congestion they caused, and it was that that created the political pressure for the freeways to be built. So dies another urban myth.
London's parking reminded me about London's weather - freezing now, with -13c to come in the next couple of weeks. So do we have global warming or not? Whatever the truth, Al Gore did pretty well to scoop the Nobel Peace Prize AND an Oscar on the strength of that light-weight film he made. Timing is all.

CAUGHT ON THE BREEZE
Geese don't like lawyers - smart birds
It was a farcical built for two
That's a clear case of bad pun disease
Heard of the hotfood Indians? They go ho ha hahaha ho ha ha when they eat jalapenos
My dad was born in a house with a dirt floor
Is she clean? She's fastidious!
He's ok, he just doesn't know it
Now which half of Mr Ed did he own?
I'm not allergic to anything, and then suddenly this happens
I'm open to anything, really
I'm just not a "reach out" sort of guy
I was going to run a 10k race in Pasadena and even before I started I was coughing
I got picked up by the cops for parking my car in a Beverly Hills street
Projectionists have no one to talk to all day, so they go a little nuts

'Twas the Monday before Xmas....

Dec 22
Bob, Will, Lynne, Bill, Jim, Steve G, Bobb, Barbara, Jeanette (only to give everyone a bag of coffee), Ray, Lisa, Ian, Gloria, Andy

A distinctly festive air about Conrads tonight, everyone looking forward to Christmas, several planning trips out of town or even out of state, to visit relatives - and they even seemed to be looking forward to it. Just shows how a few reindeer can crack up the spirit of bonhomie. Yo. Ho. Ho.
Ray and I were wearing matching velvet jackets, red for him, blue for me. No Santa hats this week, though. You can go too far.
Bob surprised the early arrivals by being the first, plonked firmly midtable, coat on, book in hand - about film, inevitably. 'Some academic from Toronto, I mean just listen to this....' Bob wasn't impressed, but he nobly ploughed on.
Lynne and I complained of the cold, especially at home. We'd already been regaled by Will with tales of his freezing home, and Bob was in no doubt that it's the fault of global warming - presumably because someone else is getting the warm weather we should be having. I mean, snow in the San Gabriels! The very idea!
While Will puts coats on his bed, Bob confied that he wears a nightshirt, like someone out of a Dickens novel - pick a character to suit. Bob had at least heard of draft excluders called sausages, common in chilly Britain, hard to find in California. No double glazing. Cracks in between double doors. Bob admitted he sometimes got out of bed, put on the central heating then got in his car and drove around while the house warmed up. There has to be a better way, I can't help feeling.
Jeanette turned up with a large box of bags of Steve's special blend of coffee beans - minus Steve, who was ill, as was Edgar. Probably the same long-lasting cold that I have had and Lynne is catching. Winters, who needs 'em?
Ian turned up at about 7.30, hotfoot from retrieving Regina from her brother's grand-sounding mansion in Pacific Palisades, probably the very least that a top honcho from Goldman Sachs could be expected to put up with. Ian seemed happy to be back in the warm bosom of Conrads, though.
Merry Christmas to Javier and everyone who pops in on the Monday night crowd - however briefly or infrequently. This bonhomie is infectious, dammit.

CAUGHT ON THE BREEZE
You'll shoot your eyes out - Barbara's t-shirt, from Christmas Story.
My other t-shirt says: 'Be nice. I know Santa.'
Mutt and Jeff has been going 100 years but it's been lame for the last 50 years
Javier, there is no red sauce with the spaghetti, it's just the meat. Pass the ketchup!
It was a moral gesture, nevertheless I'll take the immoral dollar
It's a bad sign if you own more cars than books
We had a Christmas show but we couldn't get in the mood
The whole trick is not to do too much- but isn't that true of life?

Here comes Santa

Jim, Ian in Santa hat, Regina, Frank and Sue from Seattle, Lynne, Bill, Ray, Edgar, Glenn, Bob, Jeanette, Steve L, Andy
Dec 15

A big hello to all my loyal (and the disloyal) readers after two weeks' absence: will we ever find out what happened on those two Missing Mondays?
And apologies for filing slightly late, but I've had a code in de doze. I can't tell you what it does to my keyboard...
It was great to see Andy back after a long absence, as opinionated as ever. Ian wore a bright red Santa hat with white trim, but as far as I know no one referred to it. Don't worry, Ian, we did see it and appreciate the seasonal gesture.

As our gathering prides itself on being up to the minute, the evening would not have been complete without theories from both ends of the table as to how Bernie Madoff got away with it for so long.
Jim came up with the idea of the Golden Child, in that people believe in and act upon improbable things because they believe in their gut that they are exceptional in some cosmic way.
He explained: 'It goes back to our infancy when large beings shower us with love and attention all the time. The odds of winning the lottery may be greater than being struck by lightning, but that little internal golden child assumes that it will buck the odds--because it deserves to. A guy will believe in a God "whose eye is on the sparrow," i.e., omniscient, because his internal golden child assumes that he is being watched and looked after. Ditto for UFOs. Sure, you're a hillbilly with an eighth-grade education living in Bumfuck, W.Va., but when that superior intelligence flies 50 light years to Earth, is it going to land in front of the White House? Of course not, It will hide in the boonies, despite its superior technology, and contact only some hillbilly in a rowboat. Only a golden child could believe that scenario.'
I prefer the notion of the golden father figure, which Madoff fits, all-seeing, all-knowing, promises to take care of you and see you right. As there is more than a hint of insider trading about his remarkable investment returns, there may be something in that on this occasion. He also played around with options on the shares he bought, which is enough to make the most hardened stock market analyst glaze over.
At the kitchen end of the table, Steve had no doubts: it was thoroughly justified punishment for greed, and of course he's right up to a point.
Madoff had the aura of the charmed circle about him, and existing clients only had to drop hints over the dinner table about this guy's magical abilities and everyone else wanted to get in - the classic pyramid or Ponzi scam.
Lots of people are staggeringly naive, taking too much on trust, at the same time regarding investment as a cross between boring and incomprehensible, so there is an overwhelming temptation to trust someone who seems to know what they're doing. Big mistake.
I also suspect that the whole thing got too much for Madoff. Every successful fund manager knows that feeling, when his or her fund gets too big to be able to nip in and out of promising situations without the rest of the market knowing what you are doing. Some funds have even turned away investors for that reason. I think it got too much for Madoff and he didn't want to admit it.
Happily, though, no one at Conrads was admitting to having any money with the old rogue.
The chat turned to TV quiz shows, started by Ian telling the old joke 'I've started so I'll finish.' It was a catchphrase of Magnus Magnusson, an Icelander who used to host a pretentious UK quiz called Mastermind. Contestants got two minutes to answer general knowledge questions, and another two minutes on a subject of their choice. If Magnusson was in the middle of asking a question when the two-min buzzer sounded, he would sonorously declare: 'I've started so I'll finish.' This gave rise to ribald jokes about him having sex with his wife when the phone goes. Fill in the blanks for yourself.
America led the way with quiz shows in the 1950s, partly because the powers that be imposed a limit on the top prize UK TV stations could offer - something pathetic like 1,000 pounds, while the 64,000 Question was handing out exactly that, $64,000. Eventually the UK limit was seen to be absurd and was abolished. Then, ironically, British independent producers started inventing shows like Who Wants to be a Millionaire? that were franchised round the world
Bob, Steve and, yes, I took great delight in recounting the sufferings of Sam Zell now that he has had to get Tribune Company to file for bankruptcy, including the LA Times. So that is probably the end of Zell's grand scheme to get his hands on $8 billion of assets for $300 million.
Trouble was, he wouldn't sell the LA Times when there were buyers because he thought he was going to make a fortune out of it, and now he can't sell it for anything like what he regards as a tolerable price.
Meanwhile, as Steve pointed out, Zell sits in a vast Malibu spread that he has carefully kept well away from his newspaper business, what there is left of it.


CAUGHT ON THE BREEZE
I got 4 cats and no pension
You're here to sing: why else do you think we invited you?
There's not enough people on the council to vote for anything - it's totally corrupt
My entire life I've been ruled by women. I like it that way

A Right Royal Evening

Will, Jim, Ian, Regina, Bill, Lynne, Edgar, Bobb, Barbara, Ray, Steve L, Jeanette
Nov 24

Royal succession: how it works and why. A rather grand theme, you might think, for the humble surroundings of Conrads, but it happened like this.
Will is putting together a bit of business for his next show at the Steve Allen Theater on Dec. 8, involving Lynne as a very English royal expert challenging Will's right to be called King of the Cowboys.
Trouble is, very few people who live outside monarchies such as Britain - and quite a few who do live in them - don't understand the exact rules, and why should they care?
It seems logical that elder brother succeeds as King. But if he dies before becoming King, shouldn't his brother or sister take over? Not if dead brother has any children of his own, because they take precedence. Bit of a yawn, really, but you wouldn't believe how obsessed some people get by all this in England (the Scots and Welsh hate the English all the more because of it).
Regina raised the fascinating question of how the means of expressing ourselves affects and influences the content of what we express. Every typist knows that typing prpduces a more staccato prose style than writing by hand. I knew a journalist on the Daily Mail who always wrote his columns in long hand and gave them to his secretary to type for the printers (who never accepted anything but typescript in those pre-computer days).
But it goes further than that. Typing on a typewriter produces different results from using a computer keyboard, which flows better and involves less physical effort. Writing with a pencil is different from using a ballpoint pen, which differs again from using a really expensive fountain pen. Speaking is different from writing, whispering from shouting and so on. The medium really is the message, as Marshall McLuhan put it.
Lynne's OCD tendencies came out, largely as a result of tales of moving house and putting things on shelves in the right order. But Lynne claimed that, compared with some people, she was only a little bit OCD. Isn't that like being a little bit pregnant? Either you are or you aren't, though some people do take it to clinical extremes. Howard Hughes, for example.
Wicked! the musical is coming off at the Pantages in January - a particularly suitable theater for it, according to Will. That set off reminiscences about The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Frank Baum's 1900 book, which spawned a stage version only two years later, and of course the classic 1939 film starring Judy Garland.
Ian said Baum wrote the story as a deliberate (and successful) attempt to produce an American children's fairytale to rival the many European ones. Motivation is a strange thing, but at least it gets things done.
A tawdry postscript to the epic presidential election contest: the National Inquirer says McCain's wife has been having a long-running affair with Dino, a used car dealer. It was all kept quiet during the campaign, which must have been quite an achievement, probably helped by the liberal use of bribes and hush money.

CAUGHT ON THE BREEZE
I didn't realize you had such a curved thumb: it's a sign of intelligence, my father always said.
I'm just scratching my nose to think
No iPhone, no answers
You can probably find him - he'll be under the table
It's not a play, it's a coincidence
Singing is honest labour
My sister is very beautiful - in Morocco
I don't sleep - I snore

When is a fake not a fake?

Jim, Edgar, Will, Bill, Lynne, Bobb, Barbara, Ian, Bob, Steve L, Jeanette
Nov 17

Edgar brought free copies for everyone of the Gene Autry Fake Book of Golden Hits, a comprehensive book of musical scores, by no means all about cowboy themes - indeed Autry wrote several Christmas songs, including the Hollywood Christmas Parade anthem, Here Comes Santa Claus.
The puzzle, for those of us who have not been professionally involved in commerical music, was: Why 'Fake'? It turned out, according to Will and Ian, the accepted authorities on this branch of the arts, was that the scores were simplified for working musicians to fake the music. It still seems a fine distinction, but enough to send these copies flying off the shelves, once upon a time.
Bill and Lynne had just come from a hospital visit to see how Rollo was coping with his mystery illness. Answer: with difficulty, walking very stiffly, unable to sit, couldn't walk backwards (something he needs to do from time to time). It all sounds very familiar, but he was looking very sorry for himself.
We left Ian taking Rollo for a walk, as his bladder is not as strong as it was (another ailment that resonated). But by the time he reached Conrads he had heard from the lawyers acting for the promoter of An Evening with Kenneth Anger at REDCAT, all of a lather over Ian's rights to songs appearing in one of the films. The upshot was that Ian left early to go to the Disney Center to sign a legal waiver for that evening only.
'Anger has just been ripping me off for years,' said Ian, 'and he knows it.'
The dispute, if it can be called that, surrounds the loophole that films shows in a Festival - as opposed to commercially - don't usually trigger royalties. But when should a composer like Ian insist on royalties? Easy to see how this loophole can be exploited.
The aftermath of the Obama election still echoed round the table, along with the looming recession. Obama good, recession bad, was the verdict - and not much the new President will be able to do about it, except show he is doing something about it.

CAUGHT ON THE BREEZE
It is unnatural to cut spaghetti
I said, of course you can show that film - as long as you pay me
The question is, is this going to be a V recession or an L recession?

Practice makes perfect - or does it?

Will, Edgar, Bill, Lynne, Bobb, Barbara, Jim, Regina, Ian, Sue, Bob, Steve L, Jeanette, Ben
Oct 26

While Javier was handing round the huge green menus, conversation among the early arrivals turned to the strange American concept of practice dating - which, like many female concepts, is a euphemism for a Platonic relationship, which is in turn a euphemism for no sex please, I don't fancy you.
It is a tribute to women that they will go through these charades, which men will undertake only under threat of blackmail or the prospect of vast riches. Unless of course the woman in question is a brilliant conversationalist, in which case the man's thoughts will turn carnal anyway, whatever her looks. Women don't understand this, but then few of them understand the male need to dominate, which invariably boils down to notches on the bedpost.
Does there have to be fireworks? No, but it's a bit dull without them. Yes, men are shallow, childish, animalistic games players who will play along with female games mainly in order to further their own masculine agendas.
As Sue Dadd shrewdly observed, it depends whether you are the asker v askee. If, like most women cleverly do, you manoeuver yourself into the position of askee, you have more options as, crucially, you have not declared your position. On the other hand the askee, usually some sap of a guy, has stupidly put his cards on the table, just waiting to be trumped by the lady, who then dictates the play (which is how they like it).
Dating is like selling, Ian said - the more the merrier. Will Frankel said I'll give anyone two hours of my time.
But, as frequently occurs in other situations, money is the key. Regina pointed out that on practice dates the two people go Dutch. A vital line is therefore crossed when one of them insists on paying. A relationship has begun. The practice is now for real - maybe, but the maybe stage is when it gets to be fun.
Edgar is about to end a relationship, as he is losing his doctor. Reason: said doctor is abandoning insurance jobs, the bread and butter of most surgeries. But the price of the insurance company check is a roomful of records, with a staff to manage them. Something I still find it hard to come to terms with is the extent to which conversations with a GP here revolve round money, which often decides what sort of treatment will be implemented. I am on a physical therapy course, but I couldn't go back to my orthopedic specialist on the day of one of my therapy sessions as this would have breached some insurance rule. So I had to make an extra journey. For someone like Edgar, and the rest of us, it is vital to find a doctor who does play the insurance game. They charge much less for cash jobs, but they are still dearer. And anyway, we need insurance cover in case of suffering a major illness or injury. And when you're in the system you're in the system. It's like pregnancy: you can't be a little bit pregnant.
As this was the penultimate Conrads session before the Presidential election, discussion fell to who would win and what the winner would do about the crunch-recession-depression-crisis thingy.
The McCain-Palin show is looking very rickety, veering on a freak show - and that is the opinion of many Republicans. So is the way clear for Obama? Democrats refuse to believe it until it happens. The race card, so much more of a factor in the US than anywhere in Europe except perhaps Germany, muddies all rational discussion although newspaper commentators seem to be deciding that the positives and negatives roughly cancel out.
So we are likely to get a US President of color, a Democrat, who will inherit the worst econonomy since FDR in 1932. We have come so far and become so prosperous that it is still impossible for many people to imagine we could go back to the deprivation of the 1930s, mass unemployment, terrible poverty. But a penetrating article in the Wall Street Journal, End of the Age of Prosperity, shows how it could happen.
Everyone knows we lack confidence, but no one knows why and therefore no one knows how to restore confidence. The WSJ article suggested that we were suffering from precisely the same malady as in the 1930s: too much uncertainty. The election result will remove one strand of uncertainty but, despite FDR's magisterial leadership in the 1930s, his election was not enough of itself.
The new man can't do nothing and he will be constantly criticised for being too slow, too quick, too meddlesome, too much in the hands of the free-marketeers and Wall Street. The temptation to order the banks about will be immense. And, despite all that, we could languish for years until something happens to unify purpose. Let's hope it's not a world war again.
Ian spoke wistfully of the twilight world he inhabits, consisting of the three Cs: Conrads, the Coffee Gallery and Cantalini's. Is it a parallel universe or an alternative universe? I think it's one of an infinite number of satellite worlds that constantly circle LA, just as they do every great city. The center can only hold so much before activity bursts out. Hollywood and Beverly Hills burst out from Downtown, which has become reduced to satellite status.
Ian also highlighted a common problem in leafy Altadena, Pasadena and South Pasadena. When a tree sprouts branches into a neighbor's land, who does the law say is responsible for trimming it? Ian's black preacher neighbor turned up in his front garden to demand that Ian trimmed his tree, which had spread over the fence into the preacher's garden. Ian insisted that the part which was over his neighbor's space was his neighbor's responsibility - not so, Lynne subsequently discovered. The neighbor CAN cut it, with the owner's permission, but the obligation lies with the person on whose land the tree grows. Ian talked his neighbor into doing the job himself, with much mockery of his hand gestures and preacher's dramatic speech. But the preacher hadn't done his homework.
The internet would have settled that dispute, as it does so many others. The free access to such a storehouse of knowledge should make the present generation of children far better educated than their predecessors, as Bob argued, but Jim disagreed. How important is rote teaching? Or is it irrelevant?
Today's teachers would on the whole disdain drumming into their pupils the name of the capital of every US state, as Jim can recite, and spelling is going back to being the movable snack it was 200 years ago.
But memory is less important, as long as we remember to check facts. And today's adolescents seems better able to debate, perhaps because they are allowed to and perhaps because deference is disappearing like an outgoing tide. Few adults can nowadays get away with the clincher 'Because I say so!' It's simply not enough, and it never should have been.
Despite the internet and hundreds of TV channels, there are more bookshops than ever before. School orchestras and other special-interest groups flourish as never before. But is it enough? Only time will tell, says he as he tries to bring the blog to an end.
That's all folks, as the mighty Bugs Bunny used to say, until Lynne and I return from London on November 17. But the airwaves are open to anyone else to keep the series going....

CAUGHT ON THE BREEZE
Day trip? I thought he said a gay trip!
Once you've seen one wave you've seen the lot.
If you look right it doesn't matter if you've never acted in your life.
After van Gogh was assassinated he became van Gone - to Americans, at least. To Europeans he was just a nasty cough.
I dream about Hitler, not elevators.
My doctor called all his women patients Honey, but only because he couldn't remember their names.

Gloria and Obama

Bill, Lynne, Edgar, Glenn, Will, Jim, Steve G, Bobb, Barbara, Bob, Gloria, Jeanette, Steve L
Oct 19

It was a rare and delightful treat to see Gloria in Conrads, complete with wide-brimmed black straw hat and now-obligatory bluetooth earpiece (no one phoned, but who cares?).
Gloria told an extraordinary story of how she got into the Democratic convention and witnessed Obama's acceptance speech, Greek pillars and all.
Seems her daughter urged her to go to Denver, even though she didn't have a ticket or any documentation, or even a hotel room. But Gloria found a hotel on the outskirts of Denver, and they advised her to drive into one of the hotels nearer in and park there.
Milling around in there, she came across a lady who had a spare pass to the Convention. 'I didn't know who to give it to, but I guess this is yours,' she told Gloria.
The bus wouldn't take Gloria to the the Investec arena because she wasn't an accredited delegate, so she decided to hop a cab. She shared with a journalist from the Chicago Tribune, who refused any help with the fare because it was on expenses - so Gloria got to the Convention on Sam Zell's tab!
She apparently had an excellent seat, some way from the platform, but within reach of VIPs such as Bill Richardson - and she met several friends and relatives from Denver as well as her home town. Only Gloria....
It just goes to show how far you can get with a little patience, persistence, politeness, inoffensiveness and sweet reasonableness. Being a little old lady helps, too.
Will has many of those qualities, except the last, and they could yet get him his cherished goal of becoming a governor of the Academy of Motion Pictures. He was talking about it at length, painting an image of an anachronistic organization that just happens to own one of the media world's most valuable franchises - the Oscars.
Short of being nominated for an Oscar, entry to the Academy seems to be a tortuous process ruled by obscure committees packed with accountants in suits who couldn't tell a decent cinematic performance if it smacked them in the eye. The consequence is that creatives like Will have to wait for a stroke of fate - the right person in the right position at the right time - to get them in.
And it's all that times ten for one of the coveted governorships, which seem to come up about as often as a seat on the Supreme Court. Not only are there a limited number of places, the competition is that much more fierce, with secret telephone campaigns for individual candidates.
None of that is Will's style of course, so he waits his turn. Would he like to be a governor?
'It would be very nice,' he said, looking into the distance.
As Sarah Palin would put it - You Betcha!
The betting doesn't look great for Jim's friend, Phil Spector, as he undergoes a retrial for the murder of Lana Clarkson, starting this week and going on for two or three months.
It's not so much what Spector did that night in February 2003, so much as the criteria for a conviction for second-degree murder. Some reports suggest that the victim merely has to die in the accused's house, and she certainly did that.
But Jim visited with Spector recently and he was apparently in remarkably good spirits, with a new lawyer and what he believed is a strong case. Let's hope so: the penalty is 18 years inside, a terrible blow at Spector's age - 69 in December.

CAUGHT ON THE BREEZE
I didn't want to sound like a stupid fan, but I was
The trouble is there is no fucking outrage in this country
I'm recording all I can while I can, before my voice and fingers seize up
Running the Academy is just a chance for people to throw tomatoes at you
If McCain keeled over we'd all be in a bowl of shit
Before the war you could drop out of sixth grade able to read and write - now you can come out of UCLA without being able to do that

When things aren't what they seem

Ian, Jim, Will, Bill, Lynne, Bobb, Barbara, Mary, Jeanette, Steve L, Kim, Kirsten
Oct 12

It was an international evening at Conrads last night, ranging from Yorkshire pudding and Germanic Superman to how to ask for a cup of tea in Spanish or Japanese - reinforcing tea as the international language.
Ian was his usual squeamish self, talking with middle-class English distaste of words like uterus and whether a a father should be present at his child's birth. Ian, who has so far skipped, ducked and otherwise avoided fatherhood (as far as we know) said he wouldn't dream of being at a birth. Indeed, his father was sent away by his mother to play golf at the climactic moment. It's a strange phenomenon (Greek classists please note) that fathers are so eager to start the reproductive process but so reluctant to witness its natural conclusion - I do not include Caesarians or other surgical procedures. Maybe we are programmed to move onto the next project, whatever it may be, while the mother is unavoidably preoccupied with rearing the infant. Such biological imperatives are deeply incorrect politically, but sometimes physical necessarity has an inconvenient way of getting in the way of our preconceptions (or even our conceptions).
Bobb was wearing one of his super-hero, as opposed to Superman - t-shirts, fearing one of said heros with a boy of seemingly early pubescent years leaning with his elbow on hero's knee. It seemed to me that the boy's elbow was suspiciously near his hero's crotch, a view confirmed by what looked very much like an heroic erection. Ian thought Superman was Germanic, but is he merely gay? He certainly seems keen to impress.
Lynne confessed that since childhood she has retained a piece of nonsense speech which she is convinced means 'Would you like a cup of tea?' in Japanese. A quick internet search soon produced a translation, but it was impossible to tell how accurate it was as it was in Japanese script.
At this, Barbara volunteered that Japanese was one of several languages she had studied, including Spanish, Italian and Russian. She was unable to enlighten us as to the correct Japanese for 'Would you like a cup of tea?' but did correct the internet attempt at a Spanish translation, which just goes to show that you can't believe everything you read on the internet - but we kinda knew that, didn't we?
Up the far end of the lounge, all bar seats were taken for an enthralling audience watching the NLSC Championship game between the Dodgers and Phillies. The Dodgers were winning for most of the evening, sparking great whoops of triumph. But they still lost and that may be that, as the Phillies lead the best-of-seven series 3-1. I hate to admit it, but they seem to be the better team. This time. For the moment. We'll be back next year.
Will had most of us scratching our heads over the names of his two favorite magazines. They were both about film, and I guessed that one was called Film Fun, an old British cartoon comic that died out in the 1950s or 1960s. But it was a trick question, as Will's other favourite was also Film Fun - the US version!
Finally, Lynne offered a complex and incomprehensible explanation of why Yorkshire pudding isn't a pudding. In truth, it's only batter with some leftover gravy mixed in. But it's meant to fill up the consumer, and a name like pudding helps to do that.

CAUGHT ON THE BREEZE
When my mother gave birth she told my father to play golf.
I can only remember two languages at once.
It wasn't so much a relief rally as a hand relief rally
I don't sound Essex, do I?
My to-do list goes back twenty years

Hitchin' a Ride

Glen, Ian, Edgar, Jim, Opal, Ellen, Bill, Lynne, Bobb, Barbara, Ray, Jeanette, Steve L, Bob
Oct 5

Sorry about the lack of a diner blog last week, but I wasn't at Conrads and as far as I know no one else has recorded what was said that evening. We may never know what we missed...
The new additions this week were a British singer-turned-producer called Opal and his wife Ellen. Opal was born near Brighton but for many years they have lived in Oakland, near San Francisco. A tubby chap, same age as Ian, fond of wearing shorts (as do Bobb and Steve L). Like Ian Opal has kept every scrap of his English accent - me too, but that hardly counts as I've only been here a couple of years.
Opal was in the booth across from Ian, so naturally they talked through their different showbiz careers, from Opal's 60s soul group, the Frays, to the modern scene.
We moved on to transportation and the tantalising question for all southern Californian motorists: Why are the Chinese the worst drivers? Easy to work out why the Germans are reckoned to be the best, followed by the British, both very orderly in our way. Glen suggested that the Chinese refuse to be regimented, which may explain why all those soldiers ended up being turned into terracotta.
But it also gave Glen the opening to explain why, given the opportunity, he prefers trains. Not only prefers them, he likes hitching free rides on freight trains, a risky hobby as it is illegal and he admitted he had had a .38 pulled on him. His defence, he explained was to be well dressed and well equipped so as not to be mistaken for hobos who actually needed the ride. Whether this endears him and his friends to the railroad staff was not clear, but for Glen it's all worth it just to be able to stand in an open boxcar with the wind in his face. Rita has been with him once, but now forbids him.
Ian had an equally dramatic transportation tale of an escapade flying by mistake from Sussex to Russia in his uncle's light plane, hopping from country to country in fog - you see, American friends, it's not just London that gets fog (matter of fact I've experienced it on the 210, but that's another story).
Ian and his uncle were eventually apprehended under suspicion of being Soviet spies, but his uncle's impeccable accent got him a billet in the officers' mess while Ian had to explain his way out of his trendy leather jacket. The perils of being a fashion icon.


CAUGHT ON THE BREEZE
In the 60s it was all that Stones crap
OJ got convicted and you know what? Nobody gives a damn
I'll tell you how to make money - get a job in the Mint!
In the old days the straight man got 60% of the money because the comedian needed him to set up the jokes
Dick Tracey is like a dream world

Eye, eye, that's yer lot!

Jim, EJ, Will, Glenn, Regina, Ian, Edgar, Bill, Lynne, Jeanette, Steve L, Ray and (sitting at separate table) Bobb, Barbara, and Edgar

Three walking wounded hobbled into Conrads last night. Glenn's right eye has suddenly and mysteriously hit problems, Lynne looked like a wife-beating victim after walking into a glass door at the Egyptian on Saturday, cutting her eye and bruising her knee in the process - just as Regina had done in her own confrontation with the fates. For poor Jeanette it must have felt as if she had taken a wrong turning and ended up in the Huntington's ER. That was where in reality Lynne had spent five hours getting patched and stitched, although since then her eye has turned a dramatic shade of red. So plenty of sympathy all round for those on the injury list from the rest of us, overshadowing the launch of Ian's latest audience-participation song.
Keen observers of the Whitcomb oeuvre claimed to see a CD being assembled complete with a pop-up book demonstrating all the hand movements. Maybe one of the growing collection could be picked up for inclusion in a movie. Ian has already experienced the heady feeling of such a windfall landing out of the clear blue sky, and Ray has just seen his Caterpillar selected for a new movie.
Ray took us onto considering songs of a different style, the old vaudeville songs that look so innocent on paper, but were sheer filth with a nod, a wink and the right emphasis from one of the old stars. Local watch committees and purity groups were always on the lookout for what they saw as public bawdiness - none more than in Pasadena - but the moment their backs were turned the singers started turning the meaning upside down.
As the election approaches and the stock market continues to stumble downwards, Jim and Bill thought about the contrast between the US and Europe. Not that Europe has either avoided the stock market contagion or produced perfect politicians, but it does offer a contrast in size compared with the US. Is 300 million too large a population to govern, on a continent that spans four time zones? Smaller countries appear to be more nimble, raising the question of what is the best size for a country - and are the American independence movements right to argue that the US should be broken up? OK if you're lucky enough to live in California or New York, but not if you are in Kansas, Oklahoma or the Dakotas.

CAUGHT ON THE BREEZE
A nice girl is one who makes breakfast
Every generation thinks it invented sex
Roof wouldn't leak if they had listened to me
Banks and drug companies suck
I could do a Veronica Lake, but then I couldn't see anything
Lillie Langtry is the sort of woman I admire - and it didn't do her any harm that she liked sex

When it comes to names, we're loyal to royal

Ian, Jim, Will, Bill, Steve G, Barbara, Bobb, Glenn, Edgar, Mary, Bob Birchard, Jeanette, Joan, Ray

Why is it that there are so many names with royal roots? America has long have a love affair with aristocractic names like Earl, Duke, Prince and so on, but it is easy to forget that such common first names as Rex, Regina and even Ian have royal origins. Even if a first name doesn't actually invoke a title, those that have recently been used by a royal (or, in the US, a showbiz star) suddenly become popular. The absent Lynne's second name is Elizabeth, and she was born not long after QE2 ascended the throne. Robert is of course very popular both at Conrads and throughout the land, and that has a long and distinguished history. Girls get a much worse deal, because their parents often want to give them something distinctive - like Sharleen, Jayleen, Chardonnay, Sparkles. This is also a class issue: there is a custom among wealthier families to name the son after the father, hence the US inclination towards calling people Hiram Jehosophat the Fourth. I don't escape this because I was named after my father, who was peeved I didn't inflict Williamness on either of my sons.
The crashing stock market is a growing cause of concern for the dwindling savings of our merry band. I could bore for Britain on this one, and dedicated masochists can see my views last Sunday and this on www.timesonline.co.uk by putting William Kay in the search box. Suffice to say it's bad and it's going to get worse, so pay off your debts and save in the safest places you can find.
Will recalled how offended he was to find Mount Rushmore, with its carvings of white US Presidents, on Indian land, sparking a debate about cultural colonialism. Ian argued vehemently that we were doing other races a favor by bringing them art, music, literature and TV shows that they couldn't have invented for themselves, as their own culture was so limited. But if all you have are cave paintings and tom-toms, there's a limit to what you can produce. The electric guitar has much to answer for, good and bad. Anyway, native Americans have casinos.
John McCain's line in his convention speech about Palin working 'by hand and nose' led us naturally to nose jobs: Cher (unnecessary) v Streisand (absolutely essential) and the need for stars to keep updating or even reinventing themselves through cosmetic surgery. But then, with the advances in CGI, surely all future stars will have to do is to preserve their 30-year-old selves on a hard disk and never age?
Ian rounded off a fascinating evening by admitting that he is in that sad class of male that finds Sarah Palin sexy because of her schoolmarm hairdo and glasses, leading to lascivious throughts of the hair being let down and the glasses being tossed off...and whatever else comes to hand.

CAUGHT ON THE BREEZE
Dodgers are top of NL West and I hope some of that luck rubs off on me.
A new illness afflicting the Republican party: Sarapalin
Even the best sfx can't make John Wayne act
You've heard of walk on, well you're just a talk on
Pantages theaters were a magic place
I'm just a bit-part player, Will's the star

Post-Cinecon hangover

Jim, Ian, Regina, Bobb, Barbara, Bill, Lynne, Will, Bob, Ben, Steve L.

Back to Conrads after the double hiatus of Ernest Borgnine and Cinecon, as soon as Bob turned up it was inevitable that Cinecon and how it went was going to be a major topic.
Favorite films this year included Ninth Guest, Speedy, I Can't Give You Anything But Love Baby, Texan, Home Maker, and The Case Against Brooklyn. A pretty wide range, but there were as many as 40 films shown each day over the five days - and Will wants another two days! While Bob nearly keeled over at that idea, I think we should print Cinecon + 2 t-shirts and launch a campaign. After all, if the Edinburgh Festival can be extended over the whole month of August, why not Cinecon (OK Bob, just kidding - for now!)
Clearly there is a mood to extend Cinecon, though, but the question is how? More workshops, more than one screen, introductions to more films and a wrap party were among the hotly contested suggestions. As the number of living survivors of the silent era is beginning to dwindle rapidly, it might not be too soon to get hold of them - live or on camera - while we can.
Cinecon led to an extended discussion of those perennial twin themes, Hollywood Boulevard changing and the Walk of Fame falling into disrepair - and what to do about them. Bob reckoned it costs as much as $25,000 to have someone added to the Walk, usually screwed out of a studio or TV station, but the Chamber of Commerce does little in return to maintain the fabric of the entries. The Kodak Center has done a lot to revive the Boulevard, but it is piecemeal and the halo effect fades as you go east. Maybe the Pantages development will get the upgrade moving from the other direction, but you've got all those disused movie theaters in between and ownership of the properties is divided between too many hands to get a co-ordinated effort without huge organization. Maybe the hand of commerce will eventually do the trick.
Somehow I have to segue from Hollywood to Jim's birthday, so I'll stop off on the brief but energetic discussion of 'segue' which Ian insists on spelling Segway - a version which has been claimed as the brand name for those stand-up scooters that are so popular in DC and catching on in LA. This strange lapse by Ian was particularly ironic in view of the fact that he featured in the LA Times crossword on Sunday - 'British invasion rocker Whitcomb'. As he admitted, this places him well above the vast majority of the population in terms of fame, but below the A-list of McCartner, Jagger or Lennon. Does that make Ian a B-lister? Surely not.
From mis-spelling to mispronunciation: Bobb, Barbara and Will ran through an exposition of variably pronounced place names, from Ohio, and Missouri to Arkansas and even Los Angeles, ending on the ever-popular Sepulveda.
In the midst of all this, Jim 'When I'm 64' Dawson sat quietly basking in his new-found old age, surrounded by Regina's deliciously squishy dark chocolate cupcakes - which I found went down remarkably well with vanilla ice cream and a cup of coffee. Now you can't get that at the Parkway Grill!

CAUGHT ON THE BREEZE
You are just as old as you feel - but what if you feel old?
Let's have a prenup that we're never getting divorced
I don't spend a nickel on anything that doesn't appear on screen
Trouble is, everything today is about people with super powers
There are a lot of shades of black

nothing to it

Edgar, Ian, Bill, Lynne, Sue, Helen, Steve G, Bob, Will, Steve L, Jeanette.

This blog is very skimpy as my iPhone battery appeared to collapse - better now, though, so I must have been abusing it (don't ask!).
I managed to do no more than record who turned up, a list graced by the appearance of Sue's mother Helen, over on one of her regular visits from England. And we had the welcome return of Javier, whom some thought we would never see again - though that mood arises every time he ventures south of the border. Juan did a great job, but it was great to see Javier again, complete with a very severe military haircut that made it look as if he had stopped off at Camp Pendleton on his way back to Pasadena!
Steve gave me some very sound advice about not using cowboy repairers for the dent in our Dodge Neon, instead sending me and Lynne off to Holmes Body Works on Colorado Boulevard. They were very professional but wanted $2,600, a bit too much for a car that cost only $8,500, so dented it will have to stay.
Bob, Steve and I tried to make sense of Musharraf's overthrow in Pakistan, while Sue told me all about how she and James had built their wonderful amphitheater below their home - and, as luck had it, they were putting on a concert that Saturday, featuring some magical Indian sitar music on a perfect warm summer's evening under the stars.
Er, that's about it. No Diner Diary next week because of the Ernest Borg9 evening in South Pasadena - and maybe not the following week either, because of Labor Day and Cinecon. Back to normal after that, I hope!

Pure White Eugene

Jim, Will, Ian, Regina, Bill, Lynne, Barbara, Bobb, Glenn, Edgar, Ray, Steve L, Jeanette, Bob Birchard, Andy

After Libby ended a long absence last week, it was Ian's turn to return, though after not so long. He had been at the Oregon Festival of American Music in Eugene for two weeks, where he reported a tempestuous time with the Festival's director, and with the airline that was supposed to be flying him back from San Francisco to Burbank.
"Eugene is pure white," said Ian. "Not a black in sight, apart from one of our singers, just lots of people with very white teeth and skin."
Ian had seen a stage performance Wizard of Oz in Oregon and the Conrads conversation turned to the back story of the characters that were well known to people going to see the movie. The tin man for example had really been an accident prone chap who kept chopping bits of his body off while working in the woods and had them replaced by tin parts. Like so many fictional characters, it was based on a not-very-far-removed true-life original.
Ian was due back on Sunday night, but didn't reach Burbank until 11 o'clock on Monday morning. A cancelled flight meant a night in a dingy hotel - why do the airlines think they are enhancing their reputations by treating customers so badly?
While he was in foreign parts, Ian bought the New York Times in Starbucks every morning and found what many of us have long thought: that it is far superior to the LA Times, which once saw itself as a rival. Sadly the LAT under the odious Sam Zell is sinking fast and becoming little more than the parish gazette for a fairly large provincial city. It is now absurd to compare it with any of the major international titles such as the London Times, Figaro, Le Monde, the Washington Post or the Wall Street Journal. The NYT is infinitely more professional, and if it weren't for its continuing obligation to be NY-centered it could easily became a proper US national paper.
Lynne and Will had been enthralled by a well written story in LA weekly about two elderly women in the upscale Pacific Palisades who fed rats and added an estimated half a milion to LA's Westside rat population. Despite this, the authorities did nothing about it. Lynne and Will, both vegetarians, wondered if the pair could be such animal lovers becuase the very long piece said that, while the twins didn't want to kill animals, they loved eating chicken. This says much about the ability of the butchery industry to divorce the meat they sell from the cuddly animals that provide the raw material.
The internet is creeping up on all the mainstream press, newspapers and local weeklies alike. Which is why, as Barbara pointed out, the Chinese authorities employ 60,000 functionaries to police the level of internet access available to its 1.3 billion citizens.
It is surely a losing battle for the bureaucrats, hampered even further by their government's decision to host the Olympic Games. Apart from bringing thousands of journalists to Beijing, such a huge event fosters the trend towards the interconnected world. Censorship is getting harder and harder. While this has been a boon for the porn industry, it also means that free speech is freer.
Such freedom could yet put Paris Hilton in the White House as the first female US president, after her elegant political broadcast replying to John McCain's unwise decision to drag her into his tetchy battle with Barack Obama.
People in the US are so sick of the two main parties and the process which produces such dull candidates that Paris Hilton might stand a very strong chance in November as a protest candidate. Pity that US presidents have to be 35: she is only 27, and it is a little late to change the rules in time for this year's vote.
A mini-tradition which has sprung up on Monday nights recently is to celebrate events and anniversaries with cake. This time it was the publication of Jim's masterly book on Angel's Flight, which was marked with chocolate cake all round.
Who's next?

CAUGHT ON THE BREEZE
I don't make mistakes. I thought I did once, but I was wrong
Magic Moments covered the whole of Perry Como's range
If I wasn't so perfect I'd be perfect
You can't give Ian anything, he has everything
Why do we have two of most things but only one heart and liver?
I always thought Malaysia was a disease.

The horror you can't see

Edgar, Will, Libby, Bobb, Barbara, Bill, Lynne, Jim, Mary, Steve L, Jeanette, Bob, Ray.

First appearance for several months by Libby, who I can report had a very pleasant evening and as a result is thinking of popping in every couple of months - as quite a few of the crew already do - subject to her other Monday night commitments. Let's hope we see much more of her.
If this blog seems on the short side, it's because there was little or no general discussion so I can only cover what was going on in my immediate vicinity - which may tell some of you things you missed, but it means that I missed plenty. All contributions gratefully accepted!
Question: what is the worst horror you can imagine? Answer: the one you can't see. Too many modern horror films are in your face, but if you go back to hits such as Quatermass and Frankenstein it was the fact you couldn't see the monsters that made them all the more frightening... which of course makes radio the ideal medium for the scary stuff and worked so spectacularly well with Orson Welles's War of the Worlds in the 1930s.
Strangely enough, this fits in with a little-discussed and genuinely frightening corner of the real world - torture. When the British SAS is training its soldiers to withstand torture, the main message is that the worst thing about it is the anticipation - which quite a few captors exploit by playing tapes of people screaming in agony before they begin questioning someone. The reality, the SAS assures its people, is never as bad. Don't want to test the theory, though!
Talking of radio, Bobb Lynes reminded us that the Gunsmoke western series was on radio before TV - and, naturally, a very different cast was employed for the screen version. I say naturally, but Bobb rightly pointed out that the radio team fought a valiant fight to make the transition, on the grounds that they looked more like real cowboys (ie, ugly, misshapen, totally unglamorous). They even organised a still photoshoot at Knot's Berry Farm in 1953.
The ugly argument might work today, but in the 1950s James Arness's 6ft 7in rugged good looks won easily over the radio Matt Dillon, William Conrad - a little fat guy who happened to have a deep voice. Howard McNear's Doc Adams was supplanted by Milburn Stone. Kitty Russell went from Georgia Ellis to Amanda Blake and Parley Baer had to yield Chester Proudfoot's character to Dennis Weaver, who adopted what became a famous limp (the TV character was renamed Chester Good).
Another TV series to get the backstage nostalgia treatment tonight was The Avengers, led for so long by the quirky-looking Patrick Mcnee as John Steed. Will revealed that the name of Steed's sidekick, Emma Peel, came from the requirement to provide Man Appeal, which became M. Appeal and transmuted into Emma Peel - true, according to the excellent Avengers entry in Wikipedia, which records the entirely believable reason for the series' end: it was up against the Rowan and Martin Laugh-In, which slaughtered it in the ratings. I had also forgotten that the show was invented by a Canadian, Sydney Newman, who worked for Associated Television (ATV) in Britain. He lived in Hampstead, North London, in the 1960s, when I knew his daughter (no, not that well).
However, I must correct one wild misunderstanding by Will, that Mcnee was brought up in a castle full of lesbians. The grain of truth in that claim is that his parents divorced after his mother declared herself a lesbian. However, Mcnee was educated at Eton College, the top English public (ie private) school. He himself, now 86, claims to be a distant relation of Robin Hood.
Universal's lost films from the April fire largely recovered. There is no film equivalent of Library of Congress - should there be?
The ever-patient Bob Birchard is probably sick of being asked about the films that were feared lost in the Universal Studios fire on June 1, but it turns out the material has been largely recovered. This is good news for Bob, as he is now confident of receiving 8 of the 10 Universal films he wanted for Cinecon at the end of this month. There were copies of everything, but the question was whether Universal would pay to copy everything that was lost, or even the films such as Bob's, that were on order. Universal's initial public stance was that it would be too expensive to restore everything, but as the fuss has died down the archives department has quietly started replicating most of the material lost in the fire. Sounds like it was largely down to money and office politics - as usual.
There is no film equivalent of Library of Congress - should there be?

CAUGHT ON THE BREEZE
I used to write with a quill - but the hedgehogs objected
Is that Rowan Atkinson on your t-shirt, or the Mona Lisa? Oh, both.
That was my brother-in-law on the phone -I haven't spoken to him for six years.
I could never do leapfrog, I always preferred to have people leap on me.
I hereby bequeath you my olives
Captions kept me away from Flash Gordon

Who is Aaron Conte?

Present: Will, Bill & Lynne, Edgar, Ben, Steve & Jeanette, Jim, Big Jay, Andy

In a low-key kind of way, this Monday's fairly select gathering ended up discussing song - or at least that's what I heard most about. But if you know better, do say!
Ben, on one of his occasional visits, raised the intriguing question, Who is Aaron Conte? The reason is that he has a framed Platinum Disc, the accolade bestowed on records that sell (or at least ship) more than a million copies.
The trouble is, this record dates back a good 50 years and intense Google searches don't reveal a singer of that name in that era. Indeed, the only Aaron Conte on Imdb is an actor/drummer who is around today and has no such sales. It could be a mistake, it could be a hoax. Answers on a postcard, please.
That led, by a roundabout route to a wayward to and fro about Christmas songs, and how Ian should release a Christmas album - for some reason, Santa Baby was thought to be a good track for him. The musically minded around the table then launched into a Christmas medley, including Silver Bells. Turned out this was originally called Tinkle Bells - until the composer Jay Livingston's wife told him not to be so silly!
Livingston's co-composer, Ray Evans's wife Wyn was much older than most people realised, having been born in 1900 and died in 2002. She was old enough to be a friend of Charlie Chaplin's family in the 1920s and 1930s, and used to have lunch regularly with Chaplin's mother to keep her company.
This got Will talking about how many old radio and TV shows are now available on CD or DVD for a few dollars, mainly because the costs have already been covered many times over. This set Will off on one of his favorite subjects - why writers get paid so little. I joined in enthusiastically on behalf of journalists. Jeanette looked on as if she were hearing strange creatures from another planet, as well she might on a nurse's salary!

CAUGHT ON THE BREEZE
If you're trying to tame a bronc you're not being leisurely
These things are dangerous, they have salt
You can get some really very good books in Out of the Closet, brand new and smelling nice
I just lucked out because Larry Wilson likes me. No, he hasn't got a crush on me!
One thing I'll say about Ian: he's a great STAGE performer

Where angels fear to fly

Present: Jim, Will, Edgar, Mary, Ian & Regina, Bill & Lynne, Bobb & Barbara, Steve & Jeanette, Sue, Bob, Ray and - after most had gone home - Gloria.

Sadly, we were without the wonderful Javier to keep us in order tonight - and were informed that he will be gone for as long as two months, on a trip home to Mexico. This was nothing short of a minor disaster, as he does so much to keep the rattling train on the rails on a Monday night. But his replacement, the balding Juan, rose to the occasion in a way that suggests we might actually get through the next month or two without tearing our hair out in frustration.
Just as the celebrations for Ian's recent birthday went on far beyond the day itself, so last night we had the beginning of what promise to be a lengthy launch of Jim's eagerly awaited definitive account of Angel's Flight - the first book of his in some years where the title has not contained an obscenity. Official publication date is August 11, and a major promotion is planned downtown for September 12. After that, any visitor to LA who cannot produce a SoCal gas bill will have to buy one. So I hear. Anyway, it's a masterly volume that will be essential reading for anyone pretending to know anything about the history of LA.
It was a busy, buzzy evening, with far more discussion threads than I could keep up with, from the plight of West Virginia miners at one end of the table to the iniquities of Altadena Town Council at the other - it's their loss, Steve, but I think you've reached that conclusion already.
Sue Dadd made one of her all-too-rare appearances. She and Steve had what he described as "a lovely discussion" on Louis B. Easton and a restoration she and James did to one of his very significant homes, and how since his methods of construction were unique, the restoration required significant flexibility of thought. They also spoke at length about a commission she is consulting on, to restore the ceilings at the Arizona Biltmore.
Barbara's pack of Pentel retractable pencils caused a small but significant flurry, for the simple reason that the lead, once exposed, in all cases refused to retract, like toothpaste coming out of a tube and other similes of a similar nature. Several of us tried, We all failed. I would hate to be the person in Pentel's customer service department who takes Barbara's call.
But even the non-retractable pencils were but a fleabite compared to the main topic of the evening: Ian's underpants. To general consternation, Regina revealed that they must be Calvin Klein, and must be bought from Macy's - or better, presumably, but it is a sad comment on the state of Pasadena retailing that that is about as good as it gets these days.
Counter-suggestions of going to Target or JC Penney, from Lynne and Bobb respectively, were dismissed with a regal wave of Regina's hand, while also telling the world where that pair go shopping. At least no one admitted to patronizing the 99cents or Out of the Closet (yuk!) underwear departments. Don't get ideas, you two.
But have we stumbled on the secret of Ian's musical success - a money-no-object attitude to girding his nether regions? Does he, like the girl in the ad, feel like a million dollars when he goes on stage with Ck emblazoned on his bum, or elsewhere?
And no one thought to ask the zillion-dollar question: boxers or Y-fronts? Maybe I ought to hang around the men's changing rooms at Caltech, purely in the interests of objective reporting, naturally.
While Ian's tackle is not in doubt, some weird cross-gender revelations came out of a little test Lynne had plucked from the LA Times: what words do we see in BE_A_E and LO_AL? The Times was adamant that men saw BECAME and LOCAL, while women saw BEWARE and LOYAL. You can't do much more with LO_AL other than LORAL (pertaining to lore, knowledge, learning, etc, in case you are wondering). But Regina and Barbara also saw BEHAVE as well as the other two permutations in the first word, and Bobb picked out LOYAL. Another fine mess courtesy of the Times.
Such weighty issues put into their proper context subsequent discussion about the impact of education on democracy, whether we have a democracy at all, gun laws, thuggery in Altadena and the length of time Ray had to wait to get a plane back from England (or was it to England?0 Either way, he played to the usual crowd of 70,000 in Nottinghamshire, presumably the same 70,000 as hung on his every note last year. And I bet he doesn't wear Calvin Klein underpants.

CAUGHT ON THE BREEZE
Have you had a haircut? No I just combed it, that's all
You're fired from the human race - give me that gun
I can read the back of Barbara's t-shirt without embarrassment
What is a Texan doing getting sunburnt?
That Pasadena Star News reporter is such an asshole
He doesn't usually slap himself
Oh, Regina's here! I haven't seen her all night
I have to say that Bush is quite good-looking - and, besides, who was the last ugly President?
They won't pay me, so I may as well write a letter

When is Universal Universal?

Will, Edgar, Ian, Jim, Big Jay McNeely, Bill, Lynne, Steve G, Glenn, Bobb, Barbara, Steve & Jeanette.

Glenn, the rest of us agree, is a man of few words. But when he lets rip, anyone in earshot certainly knows about it.
On Monday it was the word "universal" that got him. Not Universal Studios or Mr Universe, but as in universal healthcare. "It's ridiculous," he exploded, "healthcare is not for everyone in the universe."
Jeanette, Bill and Lynne tried to point out that, in this context, it meant healthcare for the entire universe of US residents.
Glenn started punching buttons on his cellphone-cum-organizer - not an iPhone, but just as powerful.
Up it came. Two definitions for "universal". The second covered everything in the universe, but the first was simply everyone or thing in a particular category, from sheep to left-handed pygmies - or all the people in the US who needed healthcare.
"I still don't like it," said Glenn, refusing to accept defeat.
Which only goes to show that we know how to let ourselves go on a Monday night at Conrads. Everything goes, and no one holds back - or shouldn't.
When Bobb and Barbara turned up, Barbara hugged Will to pass on greetings from a well-wisher: or should that be Will wisher?
The big set-piece of the evening was the clash of the musicians: Ian, Will and Jay talking musical terms like titans lobbing skyscrapers at one another. As Edgar adroitly observed, Ian and Jay were opera v jazz, Ian all in favor of structure and Jay putting the emphasis on the flow of the melody. What an evening it would be to get the two of them on stage together (again?).
Looks as if Jay could have a second career as a fire-eater, after he poured a huge amount of Hottest F-ing Sauce on his Greek salad and he ate it as unconcernedly as if he had gently shaken a little salt and pepper on his food. Asbestos mouth and iron stomach, no doubt about it.
Less fiercely, Lynne gave Ian a pot of the precious and rare Greek delicacy, taramasalata, for which he had been pining for months, as a late birthday present, and he revealed that as another present a friend in movies had offered to film his show at the Coffee Gallery on Saturday - but he turned down the chance and regretted it, because the house was packed and Ian was on top form, at least by his own calm, cool and utterly objective reckoning. Another time maybe.
Edgar and his partner, Keith, are thinking of having their house tented. Sounds like they ought to stop thinking about it and do something, because there are little piles of sawdust all over the house. Before long the whole house will be just a pile of sawdust.
We're as tough on termites as we are on anything else that gets in our way from the animal kingdom even though, as the irascible Glen pointed out, they were here before us, whether you are talking about skunks, racoons, coyotes or any of the other lively wild life in these parts. Edgar's bete noir is, appropriately, the black widow spider, which eats its mate and behaves in a generally antisocial way to the rest of the planet.
Monday was Bastille Day, a public holiday in France since 1790, to celebrate the previous year's revolution. But, according to Edgar's partner Keith, there is nothing left of the Bastille, notorious prison of the 18th century, except a post with a plaque on it. This led to tales of how prisoners were allowed to receive meals and other luxuries denied to modern inmates, especially the lavish last meals, before being executed. Americans on death row prefer depressingly familiar grub like hamburgers or fried chicken and the inevitable fries. Now, at Newgate in London, where the Old Bailey central criminal court stands today, some of the more colorful murderers used to bring in prostitutes to enliven their last night on earth...

CAUGHT ON THE BREEZE
This is the most unprepped menu in Pasadena!
What does Barbara's t-shirt say? I daren't look.
It says: "Hard work never hurt anyone, but why take a chance?"
They were all short films in the early days - until the movie houses got taller
Time drags when I'm in a Buddhist temple
They're always closing the Rialto and opening it again
In the 50s kids had springs on their shoes
It's ok - men can join the league of women voters

No more Mr Nice Guy

Ray, Ian and Regina, Bill, Lynne, Jim, Edgar, Steve G, Steve & Jeanette, Mary, Bobb and Barbara, Bob Birchard turned up at 7.03 and couldn't get a seat at first.

This edition of Diner Diary is later than usual because of last week's hiatus. The Diary's veracity came under challenge, whereupon I ceased publication. I did so because I am still a working professional journalist, and any suggestion of lying therefore poisons my reputation.
I have been persuaded to resume the blog only after a heartwarming display of overwhelming public demand, but only on the understanding that the rules are changing: the sources of Caught On the Breeze quotes will not be identified, and in return anyone who casts doubt on the blog will run the risk of full investigation and exposure. If you are mocked, humiliated, ridiculed or otherwise pilloried, you have to take it as served. In my book there is no such thing as a right of reply, but I promise not to censor comments.
Enough of rules. The dominant theme of last week's session at Conrads was Ian's 67th birthday, celebrated in characteristically eccentric style with cupcakes preceded by a large green bag of French onion-flavored multigrain chips. This marked the start of week-long celebrations, which are of course only a dress rehearsal for the big Seven-Oh, only three years away now.
Ray Campi made a second consecutive appearance after his debilitating two-month illness, and was flying to England on Wednesday to sing at a rock-a-billy festival near Newark in Nottinghamshire on Sunday. 'The promoters treat me real well,' he growled. 'We are put up in a five-star hotel, and give us plenty of time to see the other acts.' Trouble is, he will be stuck in one of England's less appealing areas, unless you are fan of Nottingham castle and Lincoln cathedral.
One of the group's more charming qualities is that everyone retains a childlike freshness, to the extent that it is possible to see each of us as children. That raised the question of how much we really change, or is growing up merely a process of learning how to adapt our inbuilt characteristics to our surroundings, and having the ability to change those surroundings. At school or college we are thrown together with people we may or may not like, but gradually birds of a feather flock together and no more is that truer than on Monday nights. But you can see the extroverts, the attention-seekers (plenty of those), the quieter ones, the mischief makers, the pontificators and the gossip-mongers. I couldn't possibly put names to any of those, but feel free to post your own suggestions in the comment box!
A recurring theme is the group's general distaste for organized religion, and scepticism or more about the existence of a god. Nowhere does that bring out hostility more than in the case of the money-making TV evangelists, and no one nails them more fiercely than Jim. 'They say God is merciful but then he's going to send you to hell if you transgress,' he pointed out, 'and he is infinitely powerful but he still passes round the begging bowl.' My view? Religion is inversely proportional to knowledge, so the more we have learned the more religion has taken a back seat. Politicians pay lip service to it, because millions of ignorant people still believe in an unthinking naive way. I'm not ruling out that there might be a god, but I don't think we've thought seriously about what form it might take.
Our closest observer of what is going on under Pasadena's placid surface is undoubtedly Steve Lamb, plugged in as he is to the Coffee Gallery and Altadena Town Council. He observed that you never know who the really rich are in Pasadena, because they dress like the workers. This also happens in Britain, where the old-money rich pay little attention to their appearance unless they are attending some grand ball, when the family jewels come out of the safe deposit box. They tend to be rural, love green boots and Barbours, let their clothes go to rags. It's not an attempt to hide, they just don't need to impress many people, and maybe the same goes for the old money in Pasadena. However, you can usually tell them apart if you look closely, because their tattered clobber usually comes from very expensive tailors, cobblers or couturiers. They just make things last - especially household gooes. One jibe by one of the English old wealthy against one of the up-and-comers was 'Do you know, he had to buy his own furniture!' Of course, none of us would be gulity of such a solecism.

CAUGHT ON THE BREEZE
You can never be too far from Birmingham [England]
La Crescenta is a dead zone
Regina is Queen of the Cupcakes
If a car goes 100,000 miles without changing the muffler you are not going to do much business
You watched Yankee Doodle Dandy and it wasn't even July 4? How wonderful!
It's too hot to cook
We'd all like to be Rollo!

Why Mars is like Vegas

Present: Jim, Ian, Lynne, Bill, Edgar, Ray (getting over 8 weeks in bed with a virus), Steve G, Bob Birchard, Will.

Maybe it was because it was the Monday before July 4, but we had a fairly small turnout of nine - no more than eight at any one time, because Will replaced Edgar - and the conversations took a while to get onto anything more than gas prices and the will they/won't they actors' strike.
Ray was a welcome returner after being away for a long time which turned out to be a virus that kept him in bed for eight weeks. He put it down to a diet of Mihares food washed down with copious Margharitas. Not exactly a balanced diet, but hardly deserving of eight weeks flat on his back. And next week Ray has to be off to Newark in Nottinghamshire, England, to play his special brand of rockabilly before an expected audience numbering 70,000. You can't knock the money that'll raise, even if the July weather in that part of the world is usually rubbish.
So, as a Brit I have to confess, are the breakfasts. The great British breakfast has been exported round the world but, like tennis, cricket, soccer and most other games we invented, it is done so much better in foreign lands.
The American diner and coffee shop are bywords for excellent reliable plain meals, especially breakfast. So why can't the Brits carry through on what they basically started? French and Italians have been making do with coffee, bread and jam, and northern Europe was starting the day with cold ham, cheese, salami and more bread - untoasted of course.
It has much to do with restrictions in the two world wars, designed to save light, encourage the workers to focus on the war effort and get everyone off the streets and tucked up in bed before the bombing raids started. But that's not the whole story, otherwise the standard would have risen as soon as the shackles were unlocked. Instead, many places quietly continued as if the wartime regulations were still in force, producing rubbish food and basically ordering consumers to buy when it suited the owners of shops, cafes, pubs and restaurants. British governments, too, were far too slow to scrap rules that were eventually half a century out of date.
Britain's volatile relationship with alcohol also discouraged a more liberal attitude, but the floodgates have been opened and the only answer is to avoid most shopping precincts and malls on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.
America, meanwhile, produced McDonald's, Burger King, KFC, Denny's, Carl's Jr Starbucks and many others (not forgetting Conrads, of course) that recognised the importance of reliability and repeatability.
Mind you, those qualities can be taken too far, and many of those fast-food chains are not to everyone's taste - nor, Jim pointed out, were crime series such as Perry Mason. But aren't all crime series formulaic, and all TV drama series, for that matter? There is a never-ending tension between the predictable framework that gets viewers into a hit series within minutes every week, and the conveyor belt nature of daytime soap operas.
Songs, too, go through periods when one or two formulas dominate - often, as Ian pointed out, related to particular nationalities such as the Italians in the 1950s. In the 1920s and 1930s, Chinese songs and dress were objects of great fascination in Europe and America, mainly because few westerners had been there so there was a great mystique attached to China.
Nowadays much of that mystique has been stripped away by cheap airfares. We can go just about anywhere now, and the reason that some areas are still remote is that they are not particularly attractive - the same could be said about the midwest, where few tourists venture.
Lynne said she was keen on a trip to Mars in the wake of the JPL Phoenix mission currently digging into the harsh, frozen northern soil. "Mars looks like Vegas before the hotels were built," Ray observed. I look forward to a branch of the Bellagio staffed with little green men with three heads: "I'm Brad, Brad and Brad and I'll be your waiter, waiter, waiter tonight."
Trips to Cuba may soon be on the agenda for left-leaning Americans after Fidel Castro stepped down and his brother started making conciliatory noises to Washington DC. Tales brought back to Europe by intrepid adventurers suggest it is a mixture of luxury and penury, which I suppose is the ideal blend for the champagne socialist with enough dosh to fly long-haul to Havana.
And we learned that during the Cuban middle crisis, Jim was on alert with the Marines - in North Carolina, though, so not really in the front line. I was at school and remember our chaplain getting all worked up about it as Kennedy and Krushchev played poker on a global scale.
Back in the realm of the day-to-day headache, Edgar told us about the unexpected complexities caused by the fact that his late father had transferred $80,000 to an annuity but died before finally signing it into action. That has created one of those legal limbos that lawyers love so much, though the odds are that it must happen to every annuity provider a few times a year, so it can hardly be impossible to sort out. As Edgar said, it certainly can be sorted out, but not without the go-betweens taking a little matter of $3,000 off the top for their trouble. And, as Edgar Snr was 82 already, the insurance company was onto a near-certain winner in return for saving the old fella the trouble of having to think about how best to invest such a tidy sum. For the sake of our heirs, may we all tidy up our financial compost heaps before we keel over.

CAUGHT ON THE BREEZE
My uncle had about 13 kids, all born in different countries
Barbara is the original earth mother
Reading a book is like going into that person's bedroom
The margharitas are weak but the flesh is strong
If you were told you'd get a 70,000 crowd at the north pole, you'd turn up all right
I've had my check but I've just noticed I haven't had my carrot cake. Sorree, Mister Jim, last piece just gone!

A piece of cake

Jim, Will, Edgar, Bill, Lynne, Steve G, Steve & Jeanette, Bobb & Barbara, Bob, Mary, Ian & Regina

Last night at Conrads was all about cake - a 40th anniversary cake! I was celebrating the start of my journalistic career on June 24, 1968. At least, that was when I started to get paid for scribbling, as opposed to the pretend stuff at college.
Regina literally topped off the whole occasion with party hats for everyone (I hope we can download some of the pix!). I felt that Ian and Barbara's shorts - sartorial rather than the movie variety - also added to the gaiety of the evening, however unintentionally.
The only thing missing was, er, the cake. I thought I had sorted this out last week by having a quiet word with the manageress and agreeing a price - she even showed me an example of the triple choccy job that would have suited perfectly. But last night no show. The lady gave me some nonsense about her boss deciding not to buy any more cakes for the diner, strange timing in view of the fact that I had placed a firm order for a whole cake, so no risk of them being left with any unsold slices. It was the most bizarre commercial decision I have come across.
So it was off to Ralph's across the road, who had one almost as good at half the price and Conrads for once had the grace not to charge for letting us eat it on their premises. The saintly Regina again stepped forward, complete with glass of water to keep the knife clean, to cut the cake into more than enough pieces for everyone. It made a great evening, and one I shall remember for a long time.
Inevitably my anniversary prompted a discussion about the newspaper industry, especially the long, slow but accelerating decline of the LA Times and the not entirely coincidental lack of competition either from a citywide LA paper or from local papers such as the abysmal Pasadena Star-News.
My main employer, Rupert Murdoch, came in for his usual quota of abuse but, as I pointed out, look at what Sam Zell has done to the LA Times in the few months he has owned it. Of course, there is much hysteria about Murdoch's changes at the Wall Street Journal, but I think this is as much cultural as megalomanical.
As I have found in my efforts to get work here, there is a much bigger cultural gap than is generally recognised between American and Anglo-Commonwealth ideas of what constitutes a 'good' newspaper. Americans love to sneer at the animalistic instincts of British tabloids, which at least do a good job of denting the outdated image of Britain as toffee-nosed and mealy-mouthed, while Brits routinely yawn at what they see as boring, overwritten US broadsheet features masquerading as in-depth analysis.
The culure gap is exemplified by the differing attitudes to the Journal and Britain's Financial Times, which is generally regarded by British journalists as the apex of business coverage, if a little dull at times. But I have read an LA Times piece dismissing the FT and the current issue of Atlantic Monthly scoffs at it as being trivial or superficial! I nail my colors firmly to the FT mast, and look forward to Murdoch enlivening the Journal.
But, as Jim pointed out last night, the big factor impacting on all newspapers is the internet. It's only the latest incursion, after radio, movies and TV, but this time it looks serious. 'It good and bad,' said Jim, 'because it encourages more freedom of expression but also produces diarrhea.' How true.
The beginning of the LA Times's decline can fairly accurately be dated from the day it was sold to Tribune Group by the Chandler family, which produced a delightful story from Steve Lamb about Otis Chandler.
Steve, as we all know, is a massive auto fan and historian. At the age of 14 he attended an exhibit featuring a car owned by Chandler. Steve spotted an error in it just as the great man was arriving on the spot, earning Chandler's gratitude. Nearly 25 years later Steve is at another exhibit of classic cars when who should sidle up to him but Chandler - who clearly remembered Steve despite the passage of years, a little extra weight round Steve's girth and a major transference of hair from the top of his head to his chin! It said a great deal about Chandler's attention to detail.
Otis Chandler is long gone, but this was the week for remembering the death only a few days ago of the comedian George Carlin at 71. I never saw his shows, but the clips televised since he died have very much the feel of Scotland's Billy Connolly - irreverent, saying the unsayable, breaking taboos on swearing. I don't know whether Carlin was the first, or if Lenny Bruce or someone else beat him to it, but they have certainly spawned a comedy genre that did not exist in gentler times and is miles away from the smutty innuendo of Max Miller.
Like Connolly, Carlin was as much a social commentator as a comedian, for much of his act consisted of making serious points in a funny way about genuine social or political problems, be it gun law or Iraq. One of his favourite targets was the fraudulent preachers who make themselves rich from scaring gullible believers and offering them catchpenny solutions to their problems. But Carlin's starting point is that of an atheist: if it turns out that some sort of god does actually exist, those pulpit scam artists might have been handing out useful advice. Similarly on the political front, like nearly all modern comedians Carlin started from a heavily left-wing standpoint, for that where most of the good jokes come from.
Not that there is any lack of political targets or ammunition, in the dying days of what is coming to be agreed is one of the worst presidencies the US has had to endure. As Bush has boasted, he is living proof that you can be a C-grade student and still make it to the top. Mind you, it helps if your father was also President and can buy you into Harvard.
While I am sure Jeanette does not entertain such uncharitable thoughts, she was buzzing with political talking points after her 1,000-strong national convention of the League of Women Voters in Portland, Ore, last week.
Healthcare was a major topic, with a focus on Japan's and even Switzerland's systems alongside the British National Health Service so cleverly extolled by Michael Moore in his film Sicko! As defenders of the US status quo love to point out, all the foreign schemes have flaws, but none lets a patient go bankrupt. I recently read an investment analyst's report claiming that healthcare is on track to absorb 25% of US GDP by 2025, compared with the present and already bloated 16%. I sense that we are getting close to something radical being done about the problem.
Perhaps Jeanette, and Steve for that matter, will soon have their very own global soapbox right on their doorstep in Alatadena, for Ian was telling us about how the owner of the Coffee Gallery has equipped the upper rooms with a state-of-the-art multimedia studio capable of producing top-class professional TV shows and even films.
Ian sees the potential of this facility for him to maybe make a TV version of his Wednesday internet radio show for Luxuriamusic.com, but the possibilities are enormous. And if the Coffee Gallery can lay on such a studio, why not other property owners in the area? Maybe the area is about to be transformed into another Hollywood! Ian and Steve could have their faces on a Walk of Fame down North Lake...

CAUGHT ON THE BREEZE
Are you shorter than the rest of us, Bill, or are you just slouching?
I just want to write a two-reeler, and then make it
Some people aren't tipping enough - and we know who they are
I wish they could bring the Red Line back again
Do you remember Richard Murdoch? no relation to Rupert
Maybe Phil Spector will come and see the Wrecking Crew documentary
Caltech and the houses to the east were built on a swamp
I just want to be remembered for who I am - but who am I?

Banana Beat

Bob, Ian, Regina, Jim, Bobb, Bill, Lynne, Barbara, Glen, Ben, Steve G and Steve L.

After last night I have a strong suspicion that most of our Conrad's Monday night diners have a banana stuffed in their pocket (and there was me thinking they were pleased to see me).
It all started with innocent remarks about whether people preferred green or brown (ripe) bananas. Like Jack Spratt and his wife in the nursery rhyme, Barbara and Lynne like 'em ripe, while Bobb and Bill prefer them harder - happily our old pal Dr Freud couldn't be with us, or he would have had material for several learned tomes on phallic symbols, erections and other trivia.
That led naturally onto a debate on whether bananas should be cooked, and how. I am delighted to report that no one could cap Bill and Lynne's method, honed after extensive testing, of splitting them, barbequeing them until brown and adding brandy and whipped cream. Delicious!
Unusually, bananas were a subject that we could all agree on - Bobb even went so far as to declare "You don't need to eat anything else!". Strange then, that the long-suffering Javier rarely takes an order for banana - or do they taste better bought from a supermarket?
Bobb's remark was a strong contender for quote of the night, but that has to go to the other Bob, Birchard, with his world-weary but profound observation: "I don't buy the idea that reading one book is going to change anyone's psyche."
Bill got Bob onto the power of books by mentioning that another biography of Cecil B. DeMille has just appeared - to the rest of us at least, though it turned out that Bob has had a copy for some time and found it paid fulsome tribute to his own sterling effort.
That led on to a riveting account by Bob of the historic Directors' Guild board meeting of October 9, 1950, which he had been sent by an Australian PhD student.
It was about whether Hollywood directors should sign a loyalty oath to affirm that they were not communists, and featured an ego-soaked battle between DeMille and the guild's president, Joseph Mankiewicz. I dug up an excellent report of the saga on http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE1DC1138F936A15752C0A96E958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all. Maybe Bob should write a book on that extraordinary episode, with the advantage of 60 years' hindsight.
Ian entertained us with his new song, the Clap Clap Crew, a pointed attack on those film buffs who love to applaud their favorites' names when the credits roll, as if they were there like actors taking a bow on stage. Leading exponents: Will Ryan and Mary Mallory of our Conrad's group. The song caused much mirth, but it seemed that felt as strongly about this harmless if pretentious practice as Ian himself. But if it takes off it won't be the first song to change people's thinking.
The checks are coming earlier and earlier, landing on our laps at 7.32 pm - not sure if that was because Javier wanted to take his break, or just that Ian and Regina had to leave early. But, whatever the reason, there was a mass exodus at 7.45, leaving just Jim, Bill, Lynne, Bob and the two Steves.
But the talk wasn't finished. Steve G, who revealed his father had been a gardener for the legendary Harry Chandler in Arden Road, Pasadena, joined in a discussion over whether the department store is dead, or are we just witnessing the death throes of Macy's?
Everyone has childhood memories of being taken to department stores, but nowadays Macy's seems to defy financial gravity by requiring few customers and even fewer staff. They just aren't places to be seen in any more.

CAUGHT ON THE BREEZE
Barbara asked if the group has transmogrified - for the worse?
Regina not sure what to do in November, likes Mr Kipling lemon and almond slices, but meanwhile wants to be Rollo.
Steve L said that BMW was ruining Morgan and Bentley cars, and Volkswagen likewise with Rolls-Royces.
Ian told Jim he should collect old women - starting with Helen Shapiro!
The heavily tattooed Ben raised the question of why tattoos are becoming so popular? And why do porn stars like them so much?

Brief encounter

An extraordinary evening at Conrads last night, beginnning and ending earlier than ever - 5.30 to 8 pm, much to the understandable disgust of the last arrival, Andy, who barely had time to sit down before he found himself in sole charge of a table littered with the detritus of long-gone meals (he didn't stay, preferring other company than his own).
It all started, as so often, with Ian, who had to leave at 6.15 to play at the Steve Allen theater, so had to arrive at 5.30 and asked Will, Bill, Lynne and Edgar to keep him company. We were gradually joined by Jim, Bobb, Barbara, all-too-rare appearances from Mary Katherine, Joan and Steve G, and a debut from Jim's New Orleans-born highly successful writer friend, Jervy - now living in South Central. The result was a disjointed occasion, which can be no bad thing because it shakes the pot and encourages new conversations - as it did this time.
Ian was still recovering from a hernia operation the previous Wednesday, so he was making a noble effort to perform for a second night running after entertaining the diners at Cantalini's Italian restaurant in Playa del Rey. Mind you, Edgar later revealed that he had had two hernia operations on the same side, as the first hadn't worked properly.
But Ian was, despite his temporary disability, in fighting form. He reported his abrupt dismissal of a lunch invitation from the record producer Nigel Grainge, responsible for such notables as the Steve Miller Band and the Boomtown Rats, and a declared fan of Ian in his rock 'n' roll days.
Such flattery cut no ice with Ian, though, who has renounced his early chart success in favor of the gentler melodies of the 20s and 30s, and apparently told the hapless Grainge so in unmistakable terms. Some of us thought this a little rash in a town where networking is as vital as driving if you want to get around. As Bill mildly pointed out, Grainge might at least know someone more in tune with the latter-day Whitcomb.
Whether this had any effect or not, the following day Ian had what he described as an attack of conscience and emailed Grainge apologising for his outburst. I predict a rosy future for their relationship.
After Ian's departure for the bright lights and greasepaint, chat turned to the Presidential chances of John McCain and Barack Obama, now that the last of Hillary Clinton's gnarled fingers have been prised off the cliff's edge and the two men can turn their full attention to defeating one another.
That produced the surprise claim from Mary Katherine that only last Friday she had "met the president of the US". This was greeted with a wary silence as her audience tried to work out what this was leading up to, for it was generally agreed that she had not shake hands with George W. Bush. Our skepticism was justified, for she had bumped into the actor Martin Sheen. But, just as surprisingly, they are godparents of the same child and knew of one another without having met.
It was Mary Kathrine who began the early exodus, for the simple reason that she has to wake before five each morning to embark on her two-hour journey to Santa Monica. That sparked, first, an examination of Mary Kathrine's route options to see if we could reduce her commuting time (we couldn't, she had thought of all the variations we could come up with), and then a lamentation of the state of LA traffic as depicted that day in a feature in the Times.
Like, it seems, every major Times story this analysis was pegged to a case study: Aundraya Reliford, who travels two hours and 40 minutes each way every day, from Rialto in San Bernadino County to the Water Garden office complex in Santa Monica, via two car rides separated by a Gold Line Metro trip to Union Station.
Most telling were the statistics that the region's population grew by 22% between 1990 and 2006, and the number of miles driven is up 42% in that time, but highway capacity had increased by only 7.5%.
Over the years there have always been better things to do with taxpayers' money than to build new roads or rail lines, and the resulting squeeze is beginning to hurt. But at least the near-$5 a gallon gas price means that we will all economize on our car journeys from now on - won't we?

An ishoo of life and death, or not

Ian, Jim, Steve L, Jeanette, Barbara, Bobb, Bill, Lynne, Edgar, Bob, Sue and the ever-late Andy.

"Pull out Betty, pull out! You've hit an artery!" exclaimed Barbara Watkins's t-shirt last night and, although it captioned two blood-sucking bugs sitting on someone's arm, it symbolised an evening of conversation that always threatened to hit a metaphorical artery but just pulled out in time.
Age is a constant preoccupation of such a gathering, if only because the winding-sheet hovers behind so many of their chairs, kept one step behind by work, exercise and mental agility. One trip or stumble, though, and the final whistle could blow.
So when anyone short of 100 dies they are now deemed youngsters snatched away far too soon. And if, like retired rocker Bo Diddley they are unseemly enough to fall on their sword as early as 79 the tut-tuts soon echo around Conrad's lounge bar.
Diddley's death called for a check of everyone's ages around the table, as if, just by examining the clocks, they could be stopped or even turned back. But no, yet again Jeanette Lamb came out youngest at just 50 - a baby, a baby, for heaven's sake! And when we discovered that Javier, our agile waiter, admitted to only 35 it hardly seemed fair.
It's a perennial issue, though, and mention of that fashionable word sent Ian off on a rant against the word "issue". "People don't say they've got backache any more," he lamented, "they say they've got an issue with their back. It's ridiculous!" As if to confirm his view I turned to the London Daily Mail website this morning and saw that I should call a certain phone number if I "had issues with accessing" any pages. It's a verbal plague, like viable, y'know and many other stock cliches before it. Tony Benn, the left-wing British politician who renounced an hereditary peerage, has been singlemindedly responsible for the issues rash, or Isshhooos as he calls it in his impeccable English public-school accent. "Politics is all about the isshhoos, not the personalities," he would say in as fine a piece of rubbish as I've ever heard. Of course the personalities are important, because they have to deal with the issues and voters need to know if they have the temperament to handle them.
Another issue worthy of a campaign is all the reels of film and video that went up in flames at Universal Studios on Sunday. The party line from the company is that nothing was really lost because it is all duplicated elsewhere.
However, it turns out that many of those prints may be too expensive to reprint because there will not have a commercial justification. This was disclosed by Bob Birchard, who is busily amassing his schedule for his Cinecon season at the end of August, and relies heavily on prints from the big studios.
"I was expecting nine from Universal," he said, "but I don't know how many I'll get now." So the party line was a convenient oversimplification and some valuable cinematic history may be effectively lost.
Another issue: egg cups and alarm clocks, which have also been effectively lost in southern California, unless you are willing to spend hours hunting through flea markets and other havens of times past. But they are much beloved of Brits and anglophiles as a throwback to an earlier, simpler era.
The deathless subject of Britain v America, which comes up at least once every Monday, sparked a vigorous debate on the merits of tooba v tyuba, address v ADDress, and the origins of "cock a snook" (no one knows, according to google). I certainly didn't realise that Americans address something but live at an ADDress. How odd. And they say tooba but are banned from going to Cyooba.
By Conrad's standards it wasn't a big leap to go from English pronounciation to English colonial rule so that Steve could blame the Brits for Mugabe's ruination of Zimbabwe. But in truth the ruinous slide only began after Britain surrendered the colony. Same in India - and, of course, in the rebellious, truculent United States to the point where is unruled by the universally disowned George Bush. Time for a return to benign British colonial rule the world over: think how many United Nations pen-pushers we could get rid of!
Saying of the evening, from Steve: She's a high llama chick. At least, I think that was it. Or is my hearing going? Anyway, never did get an explanation...