Changes in latitudes, changes in longitudes

CALIFORNY IS THE PLACE I OUGHTTA BE…
After months and months of plotting and planning for my big trip to New York City in August, I’ve decided to re-route my trip just a skosh, and now I’ll be heading to the Golden State, California, instead.  As badly as I want to see Yankee Stadium and Shea Stadium before they are reduced to rubble, it dawned on me last week that it would probably be a tad foolhardy on my part to try and take on Gotham City alone without a co-pilot and/or a police escort.  As I got closer to August, visions of Midnight Cowboy danced in my head (great movie, btw), and I realized that visiting New York would be much more enjoyable (and infinitely safer) in the company of others, especially someone who knows their way around up there, so I’ve decided to shelve that trip indefinitely rather than chance being literally splattered all over Manhattan.  I prefer to be in control of how I get around during a trip (i.e., rental car), and unfortunately, one is at the mercy of the subways and the buses to get around in the New Yawk, and I’m just not ready to deal with all that hassle, even though it’s actually cheaper than renting a car.

I’ve never been to California, and it’s been a longtime dream of mine anyway, plus I think I’m getting more bang for my buck than I would’ve in New York anyhow.  This is basically an extended version of the Bay Area trip I had planned to take last September that fell through, and it will now also include L.A., San Diego and most points in between.  And I won’t even have to go to L.A. via Omaha like Charlie Daniels—I managed to swing non-stop flights to and from LAX for under $300 round-trip via Southwest Airlines.  The baseball schedule shakes out nicely to include games at all five California Major League ballparks—Petco Park, Dodger Stadium, AT&T Park in Frisco, Oakland Mausoleum and Anaheim Stadium.  I’m also going to endeavor to check out some of the interesting eateries profiled on Food Network’s "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives".  As it turns out I’ll even be driving early Sunday morning, through Bakersfield, so I’ll be sure to do like Mick Jagger and be "listenin’ to gospel music on that colored radio station."  Maybe I’ll find that girl with the "Far Away Eyes" too.  The journey begins August 14th and ends on the 22nd and I’m really pumped to find my place in the sun, so to speak…

A little tip for those of you planning vacations that involve flying:  Avoid renting cars at the airport if you possibly can.  Take a cab to a nearby local rental car office and you’ll save a shitload of money.  I have a week and one day lined up for this trip, and if I’d rented from Enterprise at the airport, it would’ve cost me $531.  But I did a little checking, and Enterprise has an office three miles from LAX in Culver City that’ll give me the same deal for $193—well worth the $15-20 cab ride!  Hell, I’d even walk the three miles toting my bags to save 300 some-odd bucks…

YOU DON’T SAY!—PART 1
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell stated this week what has been obvious for ages—rookie salaries are "ridiculous", and is now lobbying for some sort of cap on first-year player salaries.  True, all NFL players are overpaid, but I’ve been screaming about this for years—I’ve never understood how someone who’s never played a down in the league can rate these eleventy-millon dollar contracts right out of college when some 10-year veterans barely make the league minimum.  Don’t you have to start at the bottom of the pay scale and earn your way up?  That’s how it works at my job…

YOU DON’T SAY!—PART 2
I heard on the radio yesterday about a survey that was taken about which industry has the lowest rate of customer satisfaction and poorest customer service reputation, and cable television was ranked at rock bottom.  Imagine that!  An industry that offers an inferior product at over-inflated prices?  Nawww, couldn’t be…

Hell, I’ve had to have Compost—er uh—Comcast come out to my house twice in the last four months because the same half-a-dozen channels on my digital tier either pixellate or don’t come in at all, and naturally they’re the stations I watch the most (Fox Sports Channel, TNT, both ESPN’s, etc.), and it’s still not working properly.  I woke up about 5:00 in the morning yesterday and couldn’t sleep, so I turned on the tube trying to find something to watch, and seven or eight of my channels were completely dark, and another half-dozen were stuck in freeze-frame!  I’m paying $75 a month for this?!?  Monkey muffins!

DOES IT EVER STOP?
Naturally, one of the few channels that was still viewable yesterday morning when I couldn’t sleep was the venerable BET, and there was the late Rev. Jerry Falwell still begging viewers for money for God with the MasterCard and Visa logos superimposed on the screen.  Is it just me, or does it seem to be a tad tacky to have a deceased person asking live persons to send money to them?  I believe it was Bono of U2 who said, "The god I worship isn’t short of cash, Mister!"

LET’S PLAY THE BLAME GAME
Speaking of fat cats who don’t need money, I heard on the radio this morning that some executive from Chevron appeared on "Larry King Live" last night and basically blamed American consumers for gas prices being so high.  Well, excuse me for needing to get to work and back every day—what an ass I am!

By the way, I think it’s high-time CNN renamed "Larry King Live" "Celebrity Pity Party".  Every other night there’s somebody who’s fallen from grace pleading their case to Larry and the public, like Ed McMahon or the Osmonds or Dr. Phil or Tammy Faye.  Oh wait, that last one’s dead—I forgot!

I’M SOOOO RELIEVED…
…to hear that Angelina Jolie is "doing fine" in the hospital, thanks to our daily news media updates on her pregnancy.  My gosh, I just couldn’t carry on if something happened to her!  Seriously, why does this semi-attractive and overrated actress rate such over-the-top media coverage over every little thing she does?  That goes for her equally-overrated boyfriend Brad Pitt, too.  Come on, America—get a life, already!

JUST WAIT UNTIL CAPTAIN TENNEAL HEARS ABOUT THIS!
Have y’all seen this new ABC show "Wipeout"?  It’s an out-and-out ripoff of Spike TV’s "MXC", and it ain’t nearly as funny.  Can’t these TV executive schmucks come up with ANYTHING original anymore?!?  I bet Guy LaDouche could!  It's like the networks are totally out of fresh ideas for TV series.  I can just hear hear it now:  "Next week on a very special 'Celebrity Body Cavity Search'..."

A LONG, SAD GOODBYE
I guess it was inevitable, but workers have begun demolishing Tiger Stadium in Detroit this week.  The place has been closed since 1999, and there have been numerous efforts to preserve the park (or at least a portion of it) or convert it for some other use, including one led by former Tigers play-by-play announcer Ernie Harwell that is still on-going.  I’m all for saving old stadiums, but I think it’s better if they tear TS down at this point, rather than just letting it sit and rot like it has—it’s like watching a sick old relative dying a slow painful death.  I visited Tiger Stadium on a frigid Michigan May evening in 1991 for a Tigers game and was impressed with what immaculate condition the place was in for its age at the time.  If the powers-that-be had acted sooner, they might’ve been able to renovate the place instead of building the new Comerica Park a mile up the road.  I attended a game at Comerica in 2006, and while it’s a nice ballpark with all the bells and whistles, it’s about as soulless as a Zamfir record.  I’ll take the old parks with all the quirks and ambience and soul (and even the foul smells!) over most of these slick new places.  Time marches on, I guess…