One olive or two...

As it said at the door, welcome to the Three Dot Lounge.

When asked by numerous friends and colleagues to start up a blog, I immediately said no. Upon reflection however, I see this as a great time saver. Get all the garbage out of the way first thing in the morning and reduce my daily FaceBook time by an hour or so. This will bring temporary joy to my wife.

Very temporary.

The Lounge is a tribute to the late, great Herb Caen, who columnized and idealized The City (San Francisco) for more years than most of you have been around. His style and grace were matched only by his powers of observation and ability to communicate what he saw to his readers. If you're looking for any of that here, fuggedaboutit. But I am happy to send you to the Master of Baghdad by the Bay at: http://www.sfgate.com/herbcaen/ . There will never be another like him. And so, with due respect...

This time of year
Though I loathe the cold (I know, what the he** is he doing in Idaho?), this is and will always be my favorite time of year. In a 75 day period, you get The Super Bowl, high school basketball (playing now, at a school gym near you), The Crosby (sorry, I'm old school and still, after 25-plus years, refuse to call in the AT&T National Pro-Am), the start of Spring Training, the NCAA Basketball Tournament, The Oscars and Opening Day. Let me save some time for those of you who are going to cry out (or write in) "What about the NBA All-Star Game?" Pro basketball has been nothing but a running slam dunk contest ever since Larry and Magic left, except of course for the few years afterwards when Michael was still around. But now everyone wants to BE Michael, and no one ever will be, so why bother? Moving on...

Respect for our Fathers
Those of you who know me know I hold very strong opinions about the, with all due respect, Nimrods, who we elected to run this little corporation we call the United States of America. What you may not know is that I am neither a Democrat or a Republican, a liberal or a conservative. The main reason being that, for as long as I have been old enough to pay attention, both parties have had their respective heads buried so far up there "where the sun don't shine", I would have been too embarassed for them to affiliate with either. But what has my garments in a bunch today is that I am sick and tired of members of either party or ideaology claimning they have the foggiest idea about what the Founders "intended" when they wrote anything; or worse yet, when they get on the tube with a Talking Head and say, "this is what the American people want". I have never ONCE heard any politician immediately precede follow that comment with anything even remotely resembling something I agree with.

So, to Barack and Mitch, and Harry and Nancy, and all the other Corporate Whores within a six block radius of the Reflecting Pool, SHUT UP!...

While You Were Sleeping
In the hopes of keeping our children's attention correctly focused on their studies and not the latest boob on the tube, my wife and I circumsized the connection to our DirectTv. Since the invasion of the digital signal, however, we now can receive two of the "Big Three" local affiliates, NBC and CBS.

When we last visited TV Land (collectively, not the cable station), NBC had control of the comedies with Friends, Seinfeld, Frasier, etc., etc. and CBS had a couple of good dramas going and that Survivor thing where normal folk play Robinson Crusoe, live in mud and eat berries and whatnot, except for that little hobbit of a man who walks out of the jungle every episode in a pair of fresh Dockers. So a few days before the Super Bowl, we hook up the plasma and CBS is now this monsterous juggernaut with at least two nights of outstanding drama and at least a half dozen killer half hour sitcoms...and that funny little guy popping out of the jungle in his freshly pressed Dockers. ABC, a loser since NBC's "Must See TV Days" of Cosby, Cheers and ER on NBC, have even lost their single once-redeeming feature, Monday Night Football, to their Big Daddy, ESPN; itself a joke except for the three or four times a year they let Berman out of his oxygen tank to remind people of the days they were phenomenal.

Hey, when did MTV quit playing music?...

Four Days in Heaven
Tomorrow at around 9AM, I receive what has become one of the great joys of my life: my grandson Aiden will begin a four-day visit in our home while his parents are out of town on a business trip.

BOO-YAH!!!

Forget the classic grandparental drivel I swore I would never recreate, or the inability for this extrordinary young lad to verbally communicate his needs or wants (he'll turn 10 months old Sunday after next), requiring me to relearn "babyscream". Or even the scent-loaded diapers that increase in wreakage with the introduction of each new vegetable and are so abysmally odiferous they make brussel sprouts smell like cotton candy. Forget all of that.

This tyke is the joy above almost all other joys. The impromptu rhapsodies created with his furious pounding on the piano, the endless conversations between Aiden and our dog Huck through the sliding glass door. The wide-eyed look of magical fascination when the large flourescent in the kitchen comes on and goes off and then back on again. The smile that accompanies this and other activities are worth more than all the bank bailouts, seedy corporate campaign donations and fraudulent Medi-care calims...combined.

These are the moments that validate everything else.

Lousy bosses, crowded lines at the overpriced grocery, high taxes, drugs, and gangs, and war.

Anything connected to anyone referred to as a "celebutante".

Five minutes with Aiden and all the ills and disractions and madadies of life that you have wrongly allowed to get under your skin, are now something akin to that lone, pesky fly buzzing around your head at 3:30 in the morning. Only now, you're holding two full cans of Raid.

I can proudly play peek-a-boo, or watch the great old Disney movies, or listen to that paino recital. I can become the magic man who can make the lights go on and off, or the uber-grandpa who always knows right where the Vanilla Pudding Packs are hidden. I can make the Rubber Ducky pop out of the bubbles (again, to the heart-stopping smile of the century) or fill his sippy cup with juice and watch him suck it down like a Hoover Wet-Vac just suped up by Tim "The Tool Man" Taylor. I can grant his every request, fill him up with sweets and become his best friend.

And then send him home to mom and dad when it all wears off.