'If the phone doesn't ring, it's me'

Harry Orwell is giving Thomas Magnum a run for his money as my favorite TV detective.

(Yeah, Jim Rockford is up there, too.)

Harry lives on the beach. He takes the bus everywhere because he says it gives him time to think. He's debating on whether to get his vehicle's transmission repaired on principle. And, as soon as he finishes fixing up his boat (named The Answer), he's sailing out to sea. Because, as he says, "there aren't any phones there."

Well, this was the 1970s, before cellphones became ubiquitous. But I get his point.

If it were up to me, or if I were in another line of work, I wouldn't answer the darn things. These people who walk around with a phone stuck to their ear as if it were an appendage look ridiculous. Casual conversation in a restaurant is an endangered species.

I told you the other day about "Harry O." It was an underrated show starring the underrated David Janssen. I'm working my way through the two pilot movies and the first season of episodes. You don't see TV like this anymore.

I've always wanted to live near the water. I guess Norris Lake would be more realistic than Coronado, California, the Mississippi Gulf Coast, or Lahaina, Maui. But one can dream.

The interns have returned for the summer. We call them that. It's actually a six-week summer camp, if you will, in which we tour various businesses around town and try to teach them a thing or two about herding words. I joined them for lunch today at Litton's. They are all in middle or high school and have their lives ahead of them. It makes me almost envious.

I told them if they find a job they love, they will never work a day in their lives. That's mostly true.

Speaking of which, I've got to head out to an interview in a few minutes. Hope you all are having a good afternoon.

Meanwhile, I'll be dreaming about a little cottage by the coast, the surf splashing onto shore, no deadlines, no commitments. Chances are I'll be humming that Jimmy Buffett tune.

"If the phone doesn't ring, it's me." 

'Monkees' in the morning

My friend Dean Harned to this day likes The Monkees better than The Beatles.

I thought about that yesterday afternoon when I heard the news that Davy Jones, the "Paul" of the group if you will, passed away of a sudden heart attack at 66.

And I thought, too, about the mornings we used to spend as kids, glued to the TV set when we only got four channels, watching "The Monkees" on WKCH 43. It later became a FOX affiliate and is now WTNZ.

I used to laugh whenever they'd run from the surf at the start of the show. And, for the record, my favorite one was Mike. I think it was because of his Southern accent. (Useless trivia: Mike Nesmith later co-wrote "Twelve Volt Man" with Jimmy Buffett.)

To this day, whenever I get "Daydream Believer" stuck in my head, I sing it for hours.

Cheer up, Sleepy Jean, oh, what can it mean?

I had a cassette tape (uhh) of their greatest hits and even "traded" for the Monkees revival album "Pool It!" (minus Mike Nesmith) from my friend Matt Shelton sometime in the late '80s. Yes, the Monkees reached down and grabbed us guys and gals from our generation, too, the one between X and Y.

Oh, where have the years gone? And, if I'm asking that, I can only imagine how the Baby Boomers feel this morning.

RIP, Davy.

Guess I never was meant for glitter, rock and roll...

Nope, I didn't go stand in line to see "Harry Potter."

What did that Piratehead poet say? Guess I never was meant for glitter, rock and roll...

It's crowdin' midnight as I type this and I'm in my PJs, listening to Vic Damone sing "Till There Was You" on Peter "Hollywood Squares" Marshall's radio show.



Channeling his best game show host, Peter proffers bits of trivia. The year Doris Day delivered a song. The name of the guy who conducted on Sinatra's "At Long Last Love." (Yep, it was Nelson Riddle.)

Peter says today (well, yesterday) is the late Gerald Ford's birthday. He asks if we knew what Gerald Ford's real name was. I remembered enough to recall Leslie King Jr. Found that out when we visited Mr. Ford's museum in 2005.

After I wrote an article about the trip I received an email from a reader who once met one of Ford's half brothers on the King side. Small world.

Peter's playing Dionne Warwick, live on the Sullivan show circa '69, singing "This Girl's in Love with You." Man, you just can't top Bacharach/David. If not I'll just die...



I can only imagine the chaos at the cinema tonight. Channel 6 was going to do a live remote from one of the Regal multiplexes.

Me? Well, here I sit, me and the oldies, the music of my life, 40 years too late.

Boats against the current...

"Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter -- tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. ... And one fine morning -- So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." -- F. Scott Fitzgerald, "The Great Gatsby."

That quote is among my favorite passages in any work of literature. It could have been ripped from my soul, a somewhat embarrassing realization that I have more in common with Jay Gatsby than I'd prefer to admit.

Didn't make it to Barley's last night. So after eating dinner with friends and visiting my parents awhile, I went home, eased into some comfy clothes and put on Tony Bennett.

I'd heard part of this album, "The Art of Excellence," referenced on The Sunday Show, and downloaded it from iTunes. It was the perfect companion for what became a foggy evening.

It really was worthwhile to live/When love was all we had...

I feel sometimes, if I can be blunt with you, like I, too, am a boat against the current, drifting along here in this strange place called 2007. Like Patton, who so hated the 20th century, I wonder if I really belong "back there" somewhere, seduced by a blinking green hued promise of a yesterday that never was, and a tomorrow that never will be.

This 1986 Bennett album was his "comeback," the first pebble (or should I say gem?) that touched off the second act of his career, leading up to his triumphant appearance on MTV's "Unplugged" in 1994. It reminds me of how good popular music once was -- and could be again. I think about Harry Connick Jr., Norah Jones, Michael Buble and a few others and dare to believe that hope floats out there amid all this noise.

I can't help but wonder how I arrived at this point, crowdin' 30 and feeling restless, wondering where in the hell the world went to that I always figured would be waiting here, and not much liking the harsh reality.

So I feel nostalgia's sweet tug and am a boat against the current, Jimmy Buffett's pirate who had so much trouble with his 40th year, born too late.

And I lose myself in that long-ago music, caught up in all those hooks and 4/4 mirages, hoping for reasons I still don't quite understand that some way, somehow, just like before, it's yesterday once more.

The South as a character...

It's hot.

No, really. It's hot.

Standing outside the newly-built St. Mary's Hospital North for the hospital's dedication this afternoon, I felt like I'd stepped back into some old black and white movie, maybe "To Kill A Mockingbird," always set in the South, and always hot.

The heat was oppressive. Hot. Smothering. I've never been more thankful for air conditioning in my life.

Told somebody the other day I think I may write a novel sometime about the South as a character. Throw in its faults and its charms, its quirks and its eccentricities, its uniqueness and its uniformity, and use that heat as part of the plot.

Aah, Faulkner's done it already. Williams. Even Harper Lee in her one beautiful book. But it's a thought.

Tonight I want to park myself in front of the fan and refuse to move. It's getting worse later this week. I dread those afternoons in my toaster oven office.

Tried to watch "Key Largo" tonight. Fell asleep. Couldn't bring myself to screen "Mr. Smith" again. Swallow too much Capracorn and you turn into syrup.

I may tackle more McCarthy before bed. A friend says reading prose like that takes time. Indeed. You don't curl up with Cormac, that's for sure.

Why not just turn on the radio? Something calm and cool. I'm thinking Ellington, or pre-fusion Miles ("Kind of Blue"). Maybe even a little Buffett.

Whatever it is, that will be me, the guy staying cool by the fan.