"A Little West Coast Swing" Part I: Random Thoughts

Can I first just say that after a lengthy hiatus, my friends Chris ("Our Man in LA") and Reggie ("ReggieNewton.com") have been kicking some serious butt in the blogging department lately? Excellent work, boys. It is time for me to step it up on the blog front after a recent dry spell. Anyway, I hope everybody had a nice Father's Day weekend with the family. I spent last week on the left coast visiting my sister and nieces in Silicon Valley and also managed to squeeze in a wedding of an old family friend in Squaw Valley/Lake Tahoe. Before I get into the details and attach some photos of my visit in another post, I wanted to dispatch with some odds and ends from the weekend in list form. In no particular order, they are as follows:

1) My sister and brother-in-law rented the first DVD of the new "Not Just The Best of the Larry Sanders Show" 4 disc set from Netflix. If you never saw the show - a behind-the-scenes look at the inner workings of a fictional late night talk show - on HBO in the early-mid 90's I highly recommend checking this out. The dry, biting, sarcastic humor, documentary style and lack of a studio audience on later comedy shows such as "The Office" (UK and US versions), "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and "30 Rock" is very much influenced and inspired by "The Larry Sanders Show."

The show's cast is a veritable who's who of "that guys," from Jeremy Piven of current fame on "Entourage" to later "24" regulars Penny Johnson (The first President Palmer's wife) and Mary Lynn Rajskub (Chloe), to Jeffrey Tambor ("Three's Company" and "Arrested Development"). This is in addition to all the actors/comedians who appeared on the show as themselves. The fact that they had only put out one season of the show on DVD since it went off the air in 1998 was a crime, and it is somewhat rectified by this collection of 23 episodes hand-picked by star Garry Shandling. It is not a substitute for releasing each season as a separate set, and the fact that the episodes are in no particular order screws up the continuity of some of the storylines. Regardless of these quibbles, the show is brilliant.

2) While returning from San Jose last night I connected at LAX and with some time to kill grabbed some food at the Burger King in the American Airlines terminal. I scanned the menu and saw several "Value Meals" such as the Whopper and Chicken sandwich items priced at upwards of $9.50. I settled on the Double Cheeseburger meal for $8.65, a relative bargain. This begs the question: Can you still in good conscience call various fast food entrees a value meal when it costs almost $10? Unless Bill Gates or Warren Buffett is the one buying it, I say no.

3) I don't know how many of you have seen the Southwest Airlines ad where the guy is in the plane and every part of the plane - from the luggage bins to the window shade - costs 25 cents to use, so as to poke fun at how the major airlines are bleeding customers dry. Hah hah, I thought, it will never get that bad. Well, on my flight from Los Angeles to Chicago we were told that:

a) There would be no freebies like peanuts or pretzels
b) There were two sandwiches available, a turkey wrap or chicken, for $5 and chips for $3
c) We could rent a Personal Entertainment Device (PED), not to be confused with an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) with an assortment of lame PG-13 movies including "Wild Hogs" and "The Sandlot" for $8
d) That the flight attendant would be coming through the cabin with a drink of our choice..."for $5" I said to the person next to me. No, actually the coffee, juice, soda and water is still free, believe it or not. Nice to know that I get something for my $350 round-trip ticket.

4) If you are ever driving on Interstate 80 East towards Reno, NV, aka the highway that takes you to Lake Tahoe, just be warned that the right lane is WAY bumpier than the left so stay in the left lane as much as possible. Then again, they let people drive on this highway with chains on their tires in the winter so neither lane is any great shakes.

5) If you are looking for a decent movie to see with the kids, I can actually kind of recommend "Shrek the Third." In fact, with all the references and inside jokes such as a Ye Olde Hooters restaurant and a Versarchery store in Far Far Away (where much of the story takes place) and music by Led Zeppelin, Heart and Wings, there seems to be more for the adults than the kids in this one. I know this because I chuckled on more than one occasion and got funny looks from my nieces, Caroline and Meredith, wondering what was so funny. I am not saying the movie is great, but it was something I could see with a 5 and 8 year-old and still retain my dignity.