FRI. NOV. 30: FEAR NO EVEL

Tues | Nov 27 Everyone is talking about the latest issue of Self magazine which says that women living in Long Beach/Los Angeles are the unhappiest in the country. If you check out our back page, you’ll see that one of the Self editors told our Will Swaim that LB/LA women are bummed because they feel so much pressure to be perfect. Self clearly empathizes and so, in the same issue, offers tips on how women can improve all the things that are so horrible and slovenly about them, whether it’s bodies (“One month makeover!) or clothes (“Find the perfect shape-enhancing pants.”) Also, they show how reachable all of this is by utilizing fitness models and movie star Keri Russell as examples. Feel better?

Wed | Nov 28 News comes that late-night talk show mannequin Carson Daly will resume production of his show Last Call—even though the show’s writers are currently on strike. My reaction, like everyone’s, was: “That show had writers?” Last Call is dreadful, which is why NBC put it on at 1:35 a.m. to compete against reruns of Will and Grace and Guthy-Renker infomercials. Still, some are pointing out that this could be a sign that other late night talk show hosts will weaken and head back in front of the camera, but that’s unlikely given that Jay Leno has been bringing pizza to guys on the picket line and David Letterman and Conan O’Brien are both paying their staffs out of their own pockets. I find it surprising that people are outraged by Daly’s decision, as if to suggest they’re shocked by it. Daly has always been a corporate stooge. His one and only talent has always been to do whatever he was told, a fact nailed when Jimmy Fallon, on Saturday Night Live, uttered the dead-on summation: “I’m Carson Daly and I’m a massive tool.” Daly’s rise to national fame had always been curious to locals who knew him as a rather middling DJ at KROQ with nothing really interesting to say and no real interesting way to say it. Still, his massive head and vapor-like patter give him the appearance of a giant, novelty cotton swab with shoulders—which is why he reminds a lot of people of the late Larry King. What?

Thurs | Nov 29 Peter Scharf of Nevada is indicted in federal court today after law enforcement officials said he tried to sneak a Thompson submachine gun through the Port of Long Beach. Scharf is alleged to have put the disassembled weapon, best known as a “Tommy Gun” more adorably known as a “Chicago Typewriter” and inexplicably known as “Mrs. Coolidge’s Hair Brush” inside a Porsche 911. Scharf is expected to argue that being from Nevada he was as unaware of the concept of law as he is unaware of good taste and $2 blackjack tables.

Fri | Nov 30 Evel Knievel dies. It’s hard for anyone under 30 to understand how big Knievel was; how a guy whose saleable talent was jumping objects on a motorcycle, and failing much of the time, could not only become a star but an icon worthy of his own biopic—just like Gandhi—and lunch box—just like Snoopy. Could anyone, doing that, ever become that big again? No. The big reason is that Knievel’s stunts were performed on free TV, usually ABC’s Wide World of Sports. In fact, Knievel’s death hasn’t left me mourning for him—he seemed to live life on his own terms more than most people—but pining for Wide World of Sports. I know when a lot of people think of Wide World they remember the bizarre sports the show introduced—barrel jumping, cliff diving, soccer—but on any given week you might watch Knievel break every bone in his body and the next week watch Muhammad Ali do as much to a heavyweight opponent. Admittedly, it was a different time, a time when people actually cared about boxing and free television, a time when you didn’t have to shove 75 cents into a machine to get air at a service station. Thank heavens we’ve progressed. Oh brave new world, with such surcharges in it.

Sat | Dec 1 The Belmont Shore Christmas Parade takes place and, for the first time, I glimpse the Press-Telegram mascot, a giant rolled up newspaper with an expression that lands somewhere between jovial and “you got a purty mouth.”

Sun | Dec 2 Yesterday the Nos. 1 and 2 ranked college football teams—Missouri and West Virginia, respectively—lost, throwing the college season into disarray, as if a sport that relies on human polls and computer rankings to determine its “champion” isn’t dysfunctional enough. Current wisdom has it that Ohio State will be in the BCS title game but there’s a lot of debate as to which two-loss team should be the Buckeye opponent: LSU? USC? Oklahoma? (LSU was ultimately chosen.) No one is mentioning the best two-loss team, Hawaii, probably because the Warriors are UNDEFEATED. They are the only undefeated team. Proponents of the current “system” say that every game is a playoff game and that a playoff system would only cheapen the regular season—you know, the way it does in the NFL and Major League Baseball. But how much is the regular season devalued when the only team to go through it without a loss is passed over for a team with two losses? Now, some will say that Hawaii doesn’t play as challenging a schedule as the others. No, certainly, Hawaii couldn’t match Ohio State’s schedule of games against Akron, Kent and Youngstown states. So, you don’t take the undefeated team because they’re not good enough, even though Notre Dame, crappy, crappy Notre Dame, has a longer winning streak—two games—than either LSU or Ohio State. Happy New Year!

Mon | Dec 3 Look, Press-Telegram mascot, I’ve told you, I don’t like you like that.

Tags: , EVEL KNIEVEL, Long Beach, UNHAPPY WOMEN