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
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
'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?
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?
Thursday, December 18, 2008
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
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
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