It’s been so long that I’ve written here on my “daily” clog that the fingers are sluggish; but there’s only one way around that, isn’t there?  Pour a cup of coffee, set it down on the old notebook with comedy ideas from the eighties, crack the knuckles and GO.

By the way, I haven’t actually cracked my knuckles since 4th grade, when my mom told me if I kept doing it, not only would my hands be as stiff as a statue’s, but my grandchildren wouldn’t be able to make a fist.  I’ve tried to similarly terrify one of my kids from doing it in the same way, but he’s certainly smarter than me, and can smell hyperbole a mile away.

Ah, folks.  The weeks and months have been busy, and I’ve been about as flawed and stupid as I usually am — no self-deprecation there:  We’re all flawed and stupid, and the sooner we realize that, the easier it is to smile at it and be happy.  On a related note, maybe you’ve noticed that the only really “smart” folks you ever meet are, uniformly, exceptionally unpleasant and annoying (and often dangerous) people.

And here we are, once again at the greatest time of the year:  President’s Day!  My wife and kids are already excitedly at work upstairs on our traditional Franklin Pierce cake, and we’re rehearsing our Warren Harding tableau, AND… this year I’ve promised a shiny, new Kennedy half-dollar to the first one who can figure out what-in-the-world-kind-of-middle-name “Gamaliel” is.

Enough thin sarcasm; especially inappropriate, considering that the whole point of this clog was to say thank you.  Thank you, that is… to you.

I’ve been lucky over the years of show biz.  I love acting and writing, and I work pretty steadily, and that’s pretty lucky.  And I love being a comic (maybe first and last, I don’t know), and my one-man show, “Cocktails With Larry Miller” is doing very well and growing every month.   It’s a cliche, but a true one:  Dough goes up, and dough goes down, but making a living doing what you love is quite something.

But that’s not what the thank-you is for.  It’s for something that doesn’t involve money at all (at least not yet).

My podcast, “This Week With Larry Miller,” on Adam Carolla’s Ace Broadcasting Network, is doing really well.  We went up 262% in 2011, and we’re hoping to do the same this year (hey, who knows?  Maybe 263%).  But I love it, and it’s a wonderful, new, other way of being funny and meaningful, and it means the world that it’s finding a home out there.

That home is with you.  So… thank you.  I think podcasting will find ways to make lots of dough someday, and that will be dandy, but it won’t make me any happier doing the show, since I love it now.

Colonel Jeff’s idea of “The Million Martini March” is a good and witty one:  Thank you for tuning in every week, and please tell a friend.  As you may know, our website is larrymillerpodcast.com, and getting to a million by the end of 2012 would be a very big step indeed toward — well, I don’t even know toward what.  All I know for sure is that it’s a big step, and a good one.

And I tweet daily, usually two or three a day, at larryjmiller.  I try to make them funny and reflective, and I actually think that 140 characters is more of a poetic guide than a trite limit:  I love the challenge, and try not to ever write things like, “Walking down the hallway now… tight shoes… tight hall… tight walk.”  My followers (God, that’s still a creepy word to me, “followers”.  Makes us all sound like Hitler in the twenties) have grown from 10 in November of 2010, to just over 9300-plus today, and that’s an honest, three-or-four-a-day, and that’s the way I like it.

So thank you.

This blog in general has informed “Cocktails,” which has informed “TWWLM”, which informs the Tweet — and over and around and back again.  An example of this is that the line I began here, “Remember:  If you walked out of bed today, and had a job to go to, and a home to come back to, and someone there who cares about you?  Folks, the game’s over, and you’ve won.”  That line and theme and sentiment is now the weekly sign-off on the podcast, and I’m moving it into the show.

I wrote 400 or so of these clogs, and I see that as the same creativity and story-telling of all the other forms.  Oh, sure, if I were better organized or smarter — or just slicker — I could do them all and throw in learning Danish as well, but life rolls on, as you well know, and I’m not that well organized.  In fact, I think I’ll take the kids upstairs now and we’ll see if there’s a good “war picture” on (as my daddy would say).

Besides, who needs to learn Danish anyway?  (Finnish, maybe…)

So thanks, folks.

Keep working and trudging and laughing out there, and I’ll do the same here.  And don’t forget to look up every day and say, “Thank you.”  After all, there’ll come a day when you won’t have to look up to do it.  After all…

REMEMBER:  IF YOU WALKED OUT OF BED TODAY, AND YOU HADN’T DONE SOMETHING YOU LOVE IN FIVE MONTHS, AND YOU FOUND YOURSELF WITH A COUPLE OF EXTRA HOURS, SHUFFLE OVER TO THE DESK AND DO IT.  AND THEN GO WATCH A GOOD WAR PICTURE.

I got up and took an exercise walk on a gorgeous Southern California morning.  I love these walks, because they get the blood moving, and oil the joints, and keep the muscles limber.  Oh, and they also give me the illusion that I’ve burned enough calories to spend the rest of the day eating pretzels, drinking beer and watching football.

On this particular morning’s walk I also had reason and occasion to stop at the halfway point and walk VERY quickly into a local and popular breakfast restaurant as they were setting up for the day, nod politely to the folks setting out forks (nod, again, VERY quickly), and (more or less) dart into their washroom.  Walking (much slower) back out into the early sunlight, and taking an important second to lean against the doorframe and mutter, “Whew,” I continued my power-walk back up the hill.

Then I set out an astonishing breakfast for everyone, including the dog.  Four completely different dishes — poached eggs and toast and fruit and coffee for my wife, French toast for Number Two Son, one giant panny-cake and raspberries and sliced strawberries for Number One Son and a scrambled egg for the dog (on top of his dog food:  the way he likes it).

Then I had the favorite meal of every father in America:  three different items of leftovers from the ‘fridge so that none of it had to be thrown out and go to waste.  Not very good separately, and close to revolting all thrown together, they were nevertheless nutritious (with a very loose definition), and I cleared the decks and  reloaded the dishwasher correctly after my wife left the room.

Then I laid myself back down in bed and got my wife’s permission to turn on a football game (the one time in the week I hold that sway).

The second half is on now, but I’m writing to you about it.

See, I’ve done this before, and many of you know it.  Taken a mundane event and written about it in grandiose detail as if it’s the most important event.

Because, you see, it is.  Of course it is.  There has never been anything in the history of the world more important or more fun.  And you all know it.

What would be better?  Playing golf in Hawaii?  Hardly.

Climbing a pyramid in Peru?  Please.

Looking at the Eiffel Tower?  No, thanks.

I’ll take the morning I just had.  And so would you.  Oh, wait, maybe there’s something greater.  Well, if not greater, just as wonderful

See, Brian from Key West wrote in about a story I told on Adam Carolla’s podcast about a parachute instructor.  It’s a story that happened twenty years ago that I’ve never forgotten, and I wanted to pass it on.  And it had a good effect on him, and THAT, someone telling you something you passed on had an effect, that may be as great as anything, too.

His letter on this site was so meaningful, I retold the parachute story on my podcast this week (it will be out Wednesday on “This Week With Larry Miller”, downloadable for free on iTunes, or Adam Carolla’s new App, or on acelarrymiller.com).

And I’d like to tell it to you, now.

A friend took a sky-diving class twenty or twenty-five years ago, one of those one-day courses where you learn all about it in one day, and at the end of the day you actually jump and do it.

It was funny that when I first told the story, someone at Carolla’s asked me if I had ever done that.  ”What?” I said.  ”Sky-dive,” she said.  ”Have you ever parachuted out of a plane?”

And after a long pause, I said, “Allow me to answer that question by posing another:  What do… you think?”  She looked at me closely and crinkled her nose, and smiled and said, “Now that I think of it, probably not.”

And I said, “Now you know, like Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, the Power of Positive Thinking.”

Anyway, my friend took the course, and at the end of the day the instructor gathered them all and said, “Okay, you know what to do, you’ve packed the chutes, you’re all set.  As you know, you pull the ripcord.  Now, the chute is going to open.  Don’t worry.  It’s definitely going to open.  But if, for some crazy, one-in-a-million reason, the ‘chute doesn’t open, pull the auxiliary ripcord.  It’s definitely going to open then.”

Then he looked at them and said, “Now, listen to me carefully.  If, for some reason, some loony reason, the first ripcord doesn’t work, and then the second ripcord doesn’t work, go back to pulling the first one again.

“You pull that first cord again,” he said.  ”And you keep pulling it.  Again and again and again.”

Then he said the thing I’ve never forgotten.

He said, “I don’t care if you’re thirty feet above the ground, and about to smoke it in at two hundred miles an hour.  I want to see you still pulling that ripcord.”

I don’t think my friend thought much of it, but I knew then that was something I’d never forget.  It’s way more than a story about sky-diving, it’s a philosophy of life; an important one.

Keep pulling that cord.

No matter what happens, no matter where, no matter how dire the circumstances… never give up.  Never cry or despair, or have regrets.  Plenty of time for that soon enough.

You keep pulling that cord.

Brian heard me tell that, and it made a difference to him, which made a difference to me.  Not for my vanity.  I don’t deserve any credit.

Hell, if anybody deserves a nod and a smile and a pat on the back, it’s that instructor.

Life gets crazier every day, it seems.  Monsters roam the Earth and do their evil, whether it’s in dark alleys in our cities, or basements in other continents, or tents in a desert.

Or locker rooms at a university.

We can’t stop it.  We can’t see it coming.

All we can do it keep pulling that cord.

REMEMBER:  IF YOU WALKED OUT OF BED TODAY, AND HAD THE WHEREWITHAL TO MAKE A NICE BREAKFAST, THERE IS NOTHING IN THE WORLD YOU DON’T HAVE.

Movies and TV and theater are all stories.  Music is a story.  A painting is a story.

But, for me, it’s a great blessing to go to different theaters around our country, set up shop for a night, rehearse, set the lights and props and costumes… and move on — back home, or to another city.

I do this one-man show, “Cocktails With Larry Miller,” and right now I’m in Hammond, Louisiana, getting ready to do a show tonight at the Columbia Theater.  That’s not a plug, since most of you will read this after it’s done.  (Next week I’m in Richardson, Texas.  That’s a plug.)

My wife calls one-man shows “standup with a ribbon,” and that’s a good phrase, but I love this show very much, and hope to keep growing with it for the rest of my life, which my doctors tell me will be seven hundred years.

By the way, the recent fascination with vampires and zombies and immortality in entertainment always makes me a little sad.

These stories and themes have been around a long time, and all of them center on the desire of some people to live forever.  ”Oh, if only we didn’t have to die.  If only we could stay here forever.”

I swear, I don’t understand that.  Man is born to die, leaves bloom to fall, snow melts.  It’s not only the blossom of flowers that makes them beautiful, but the knowledge and certainty that it must be brief.

Until, of course, they bloom again.  In the next generation’s lives.

I hope my wife lives longer than me, I hope our children live longer than us, I hope their children live longer than them.  Ad infinitum.  Why would I want a potion that kept me alive when all around me withered?

More importantly:  Why would I not want to find the answers to the great mystery?  Every other soul who has ever lived has died, and I guess I want to feel that, hey, if it was good enough for them, it’s good enough for me.  Is life eternal in a different form?  Are we reunited with loved ones?  Is there… something else?

I think there is, but what do I know?  The key is if you’re lucky enough, not to live forever, but not to die young.

Children dying young shatters me more than anything else.  If you get to ask God a question or two at The Big Meeting, I wouldn’t waste it on, “Why can’t New York pizza be made in Los Angeles?” or, “Okay.  Shouldn’t all men be bald rather than just some?”  I would ask why all children don’t get to be at least thirty before something terrible can happen.

But that’s not the way it is, is it?

Of course, I could be wrong, and this could be it.  Well, then, if that’s the way it is, then this was pretty good.

But that just doesn’t make sense to me.  Instinctively, it just doesn’t make sense.  It doesn’t make sense that so much light and creativity and striving and potential and sincerity and laughter and love don’t live forever.  (It also doesn’t make sense that so much evil doesn’t get called out and judged.)  There just feels, to me, like everything is balanced and justified and payed out and payed off.

What astonishes me is that we’ll all find out.  I mean, that really amazes me.  The most important question in life is what happens after it and… well, we’re all going to find out.  No one will be saying, “Oh, I forgot to check the mail.  What happened?”  One way or the other, everyone will be on the same line.

No one remembers being born.  But at the end?  I bet we’ll all remember that.

This is not a maudlin topic.  I feel sorry for those who are just brick-hard about even the possibility of the indestructability of life, and insist, “No, there’s nothing else.”  I don’t know how they can know that and not even let in other ideas.  But I’m okay with them, as long as they’re okay with me.  I just don’t know how you get by in life without thinking, “I don’t know why I think there’s something else, but I do.  Oh, well, we’ll see.”

Until then, it’s great to be in another hotel, and get up and do a couple of radio shows to promote the show, and go down and do it.  It takes some large and small flights and car rides to get to some of these places, but I guess I understand airports at this point, and they understand me.  Plus, there are so many fine places around our country other than the five or six big cities everyone knows — and I get to see a lot of them.

It doesn’t even bother me when someone else’s TV blares through the wall.  Well, it does, but my first reaction isn’t anger, it’s a shake of the head and a smile.  ”Well, here I am in this place, and it looks like another knucklehead doesn’t have the manners to know what a volume control is at six in the morning.”

Of course, right after that, I call the desk and ask them to knock on their door and turn it down.  And they do — and they do.

Well, come on, folks.  Loving life and everything in it doesn’t mean we have to be stupid and roll over for every lunkhead around us, does it?

BY THE WAY, there’s going to be a redesign soon over here.  My podcast, “This Week With Larry Miller” (downloadable for free on iTunes at www.acelarrymiller.com) is doing great, and a lot of listeners come to the “Cocktails With Larry Miller” shows out here on the road, and the Larry Miller Drinking Society (where one doesn’t have to drink) meet locally after the every show now, and Jeff Fox, the producer, and Tomas Calvo, the designer of this site, and Michael “The Dream Crusher” Hansen, my publicist, are bringing them all together, so the Twitter site (LarryJMiller) links photos and videos and –

Oh, you know the rest.  Comedy may not move the world forward, but it doesn’t move it backward.  I think I’ll go think about it on the treadmill.

Of course, on the way, I’m going to ask the folks at the desk about that TV in the room next door.

REMEMBER:  IF YOU WALKED OUT OF BED TODAY AND HEARD “THE TODAY SHOW” AS CLEAR AS A BELL FROM YOUR NEIGHBOR’S ROOM… DON’T WORRY ABOUT IT AND JUST CALL THE DESK.  BESIDES, I HAVE A FEELING THERE WON’T BE ANY MORE BAD MANNERS ON THE OTHER SIDE OF LIFE.

We’re all together, and everyone’s fine.  But this past summer was the last summer with my kids.  Because they grew up.  I knew it back in June as school was ending, and I knew it all the way through, and I knew it when school started again, and I know it now that their fall sports have not only started but are almost halfway through.

And a quick word on the school year.

It doesn’t take a lot for me to hate various government institutions.  (Or love them, when appropriate.)  But when it comes to local, county, state and national standards and committees and trends and mandates on education, there’s nothing I hate more than the first yutz who suggested a good way to save money might be to have year-round schooling.

Not summer school.  Not because you failed something and are forced to go against your will (that was my experience), or are trying to get extra credit so you can go to an extra-special, big-time college that will turn you into an extra-special, big-time jerk (that was not my experience).  I’m talking about regular school, regular kids, all year.  Oh, you know what I mean.

It’s little enough we all have in common as Americans.  We have no royalty, we have no mandatory draft or service, no common interests except potato chips.  We don’t all watch the Super Bowl (even I flip around and see if some Howard Hawkes or John Ford movie is on) or the last game of the World Series (or the Pope’s Christmas Eve speech, which will soon be on the same day).  Hell, even if there were televised executions or live love-making with your favorite stars, not all of us would watch at the same time.

Come to think of it, if there ever were televised executions, some clever network executive would counter-program it with star-sex.  And I’d still flip around looking for Howard Hawkes or John Ford, so there.  (But I’d tape the execution and the sex.  You know, for my research.)

The point is we all have so little in common.  Can’t every kid at least have the school year in common?  Doesn’t everyone know that it used to be great that every kid in America could always say to every other kid, “Boy, only two more weeks of school.”  Or, “I can’t believe how fast summer vacation went this year.”  Or, “Hey, did you see that guy get executed last night?”

AND… this business of starting the school year now before Labor Day is just plain wrong.

MILLER’S LAW NUMBER 4473:  Labor Day Weekend.  Labor Day, that Monday.  Tuesday off to buy chinos and loose-leaf notebooks.  Wednesday, school starts.  WEDNESDAY.  AFTER LABOR DAY.  SCHOOL.  STARTS.  The end.  Then, somewhere around June 12, school ends.  Then, kids play and scrape their knees.

How hard is that to do?

Anyway, this past summer, I knew, I just knew it would be the last summer with my kids, meaning… they would both take a giant step forward in growing up, and the days of the hugging and the cartoon-cuddles and the reading at night, and the tuck-in giggling, and Bear Theater (with little stuffed bears) and baby talk (from me) and stupid nicknames (from me) and syllables strung together in sentences that would puzzle a Martian (from me) were over.

And they were.

Of course, sane people understand that this is good.  Children should become more independent and conscious and grown-up every day.  And their parents should smile at this and know it to be the right way, the only way.

I know this, too.

But I tell you what, folks, if there’s a heaven, you know what I think it is?  I think my sister and I will always be babies and toddlers and ten-year-olds and children to our parents, all at the exact same instant, and they will always be children to theirs, and so on, and so on, every generation back to the very beginning.

And mine will always be children to me.

And then you get to drink and have sex with everyone you always wanted in tenth grade.

Okay, I’m not so sure about the last one, but I’m not afraid of losing their childhood.  I just hope I’m around for the rest.

REMEMBER:  IF YOU WALKED OUT OF BED TODAY AND WERE LUCKY ENOUGH TO HAVE HEALTHY KIDS, BE GRATEFUL THEY’RE BIG ENOUGH TO DRESS THEMSELVES.  EVEN IF THEY DON’T WANT TO CUDDLE IN YOUR BED ANYMORE.

I hope you’re all well.  I’m in New Jersey, at my sister’s (where I’ve written many times before — remember eating the dog food in the ‘fridge and thinking it was chopped liver?).  I did two “Cocktails With Larry Miller” shows, one in Green Bay Friday night and one last night, Saturday, at Centenary College in Hackettstown, N.J.  Two wonderful theaters, good audiences… and another reminder of something.

Performing live is a great thing to do in life.  If the laughs are sincere and well-made, the message is very good.  To see people smiling afterward who want to say hello is quite a deep gift — and I’m the one who gets it.

I haven’t abandoned these clogs, but as I said last time, life really sores off, and the one or two hours of creative time a week doesn’t sound like much; but it was.  But here I am on a beautiful Sunday fall morning in Livingston, N.J., and my sister and her beau are rousing themselves and abluting, so I have at least these few minutes.  We’re driving to Brooklyn this morning to see her son, my nephew, and his family (one son and another on the way) before I take a cab to Kennedy airport and fly home to L.A.  (My secret plan:  Get one of them to offer to drive me; heh-heh-heh.)

I hope you have a sibling like my sister and get along well.  It’s a great blessing.  Seeing each other makes us both very happy, and she’s enough of a pack rat to have so many things from my parents lives that it’s a wonderful trip down memory lane for me to see odd things:  stands for plants, one remaining kitchen chair I used to sit in, an original cast album from a Broadway show in the sixties.  Each one brings a smile and a shake of the head — and a little glance upwards.

A friend was just telling me he hasn’t seen his sister in fifteen, twenty years, and they really have no relationship, and I told him, “You know what?  Start one.”

Oop.  We’re leaving.  I’ll write again, and more entertaining.  But I don’t want to lose you or this.

REMEMBER:  IF YOU WALKED OUT OF BED TODAY AND HAD A RUSH OF MEMORY, MAKE ONE OF THOSE MEMORIES A CLOG FOR AN AUDIENCE YOU CARE ABOUT.  (I SUPPOSE THAT MESSAGE IS FOR ME.)

I’m sorry for the almost two week delay since my last “daily” clog, but the plain fact is I just don’t know where the time goes.  I’m not lazy, and neither are you, but it’s like a starter’s pistol goes off in the morning, the day fills up (with things that were already there and things that fall in), and next thing you know, my old motto takes hold:  ”I’ve been up since six, and I haven’t done a thing.”

I could list what has filled my days in the last two weeks, but you could do the same thing, and we’d both be back in the same place.

This is not complaining, you understand (of course, you understand), it’s more like… amazement.  How did anyone EVER get things done in history?  Another old theory of mine, that I think we’ve talked about before, is that I think sharecroppers in 1840 had more free time than we do.

Think about it:  Their days were hard and long, but when it was over, it was over (something we haven’t learned) , and they knew how to sit on the porch, sit a little moonshine and stare out over the field.

Most of us these days just keep going ’til our legs buckle.  (By the way, I’ve decided to go back to ’til instead of till.  I know “till” is correct, but it doesn’t look right to me.  I think it’s a contraction of “until”, so that’s what I’m going to do.  Another brave stance for you and me!)

Anyway, on my end today, I have a lot of writing to do on my one-man show, “Cocktails With Larry Miller.”  I’m taking it around the country again this fall starting in Green Bay and Hackettstown and South Bend and many fine theaters.  Plus, I’m doing another Letterman show in September, taping the 22nd and airing the 23rd.  I know that sounds far in advance, but when you do stand-up on TV it takes a long time to shape just the right set.  (It does for me, anyway.)

Five minutes of standup on TV is very different from an hour in a club or two hours in a theater.  Five minutes is like a poem, a haiku, a sonnet.  Five is as different from sixty as the trumpet is from the flute.

Anyway, so I’m going to take that apart and put it together again and run it tonight at the Comedy and Magic Club in Hermosa.

This site has been a great source of creativity and story-telling for me, and I’m not closing it, but there just hasn’t been the time to service it, well, daily.  That’s all good news, in a way, because it means so much else has been filling the day.  I know those of you who like these stories and essays as much as I do appreciate their length and (hopefully) depth, but twelve and fifteen hundred-word essays take a while (again, they take ME a while; maybe others are faster).

I hope you also try me on Twitter at LarryJMiller, and my podcast “This Week With Larry Miller” at www.acelarrymiller.com

Oh, one more chore today that may be amusing:  My family and I have been bagging our plastic bottles so the kids can take them down to the store and redeem them for pocket money.  There’s been just one tiny problem.  They haven’t done it.  This means that one whole side of the garage is filled, covered, blocked by bags of bottles.

I have taken — I, not them — have taken FIFTEEN giant, black Hefty bags down this past week, three a day, and I’m, schedule permitting, going to take three more today.

Hey, maybe I can save time and write about recycling for the Letterman set?

One interesting note:  I met Scott 2 who’s a fan on the site here and has written in many times.  Get this, I was walking down Vine Street after an audition, still clutching the sides (partial script), and a guy says, “Larry.  Hi.  I’m Scott 2 from Kansas City.”  He was with a friend, and it was fun to meet out the blue like that.

Anyway, I don’t know how much time there’ll be for this.  The podcast, the Tweeting, the script, Letterman — and the main joys of family, shopping, showering, devotions (coupled with the occasional drink with a book on the couch with the dog)…

Stay with me on the other pursuits, and –

REMEMBER:  IF YOU WALKED OUT OF BED TODAY AND HAD A DAY FULL OF GOOD THINGS, IT’S WAY, WAY BETTER THAN TO HAVE A DAY FULL OF BAD THINGS.

But first…

Kathleen!  Hi!  Folks, as always, the years fly by.  Maine is one of my favorite states and has been since college, and I hope everyone’s well.  I was sorry to hear about Mike, and even the years since his passing have flown.  I hope you’re well.  (Her husband, Mike, in addition to many other great qualities, did the best Mr. Haney — Pat Buttram — impression in history.)

La Donna, as always, say hi to Mario, and Dan — there is no comedian or entertainer of any stripe who can hear anything finer than that someone who wasn’t feeling well felt a tiny bit better.  Thanks.

SO:  TENSION.

There’s an old joke, the kind my mother would say was “one year younger than God.”

“My brain is too tense.”

“Yeah, two-tenths the size of a normal brain.”

Speaking of old jokes and Maine, who was that comedy team that used to do the “Me and Bert” routine?  I remember one run:  ”Me and Bert… setting on the porch.  Car drove by — outer-stater — fella leans out and says, ‘Say, farmer.  Can I take this road up to Bangor?’  And Bert says, ‘No need.  Got plenty up there already.’  ’No, no,’ says the city fella.  ’Does this road go to Bangor?’  And Bert says, ‘ ‘Fraid not.  Gonna have to take that car with you, too.’  And the fella gets all steamed and says, ‘You know, there’s not much difference between you and an idiot.’  ’No, sir,’ says Bert.  ’Just the side of the road.’”

A more innocent time.

But probably the same amount of tension, don’t you think?  I think people have probably been living with constant tension since the days of running in front of woolly mammoths.

It’s not things that make us tense.  It’s us that makes us tense.  It’s the way we’re made.  I taped my podcast today (which I love very much) and zipped back home to take one kid (whom I love very much, too, of course) to something, and then picked up another kid (whom I — oh, you get the idea) from something, and zipped him over to the local Impossibly Huge Sports Store, since he outgrew his last pair of spikes before we got them home.  Then the first one called to say he’d made a mistake, and practice wasn’t till tomorrow, so I turned around and drove back to get him.  On the way, my agent called to say the casting director, who asked me to do a table read on a script yesterday, sent him an email saying how great it was to see me and that he thought I was great.  ”Okay, but did we get the part?”  And after a few seconds of dead air he said, “I’ll get back to you.”

I know I’ll never be mistaken for David Bowie, but I hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and it was now five o’clock, and I was hungry.  So were the boys, because — well, their engines rev high, and they’re always hungry, so we went to a new ’50′s burger place and finished our immense, but over-cooked, meal just in time for me to remember that I forgot a call I was supposed to make at five (I knew the time sounded familiar).  This was okay, though, because my agent called back to say that he spoke to the casting director and the producer, and they both thought it was great to see me, and they both thought I was just right for it, but they weren’t offering the part yet.  So I said, “I’m sure this is a stupid question, but if everyone thought I was just right, who else do they need to check with?”

“The director,” said my agent.  ”But don’t worry.  He thought you were very, very good and very close to being right for it.”

We were back in the car now, and I said, “Maybe,” I said, “We can turn that ‘very, very good and almost right’ into a great and just right,” and there were a few more seconds of dead air, and he said, “I’ll get back to you,” again just in time for one of the kids to throw a mitt at the other, miss, and hit me.  And I said, “Hold on.  I have to pull over and find out which kid I need to throw this mitt at.”  And he said, “What?”  And I said, “You know what?  This time let me get back to you.”

I’m pretty sure he thought this was a good idea, since he’d already hung up.

This coincided exactly with the jalapeno burger in my stomach completing its metamorphosis to gypsum, and before I pulled away from the curb and back out into traffic, I briefly drummed my fingers on the steeling wheel, narrowed my eyes and considered turning the engine off, leaving the radio on for the kids and darting into the nearest bar for a quick twelve shots of tequila.

But then, of course, that would make me late for stopping off at the dry cleaners one minute before closing and picking up my shirts so I’d have something to wear on the road trip I’m leaving on tomorrow.  There was an elderly woman approaching the dry cleaners, too, and I wasn’t too harried to hold the door with a smile and gesture her inside first.  This was rewarded by her giving George, the owner, the thickest stack of tickets I’d every seen, which made sense once I saw that she was picking up enough clothes and robes to take the Mormon Tabernacle Choir on a round-the-world tour for a year.

But you know what?  (And I know you do; I know you all know this.)  Then I got home, and the dog said his doggie hello, and my wife got home from work, and the dog gave his doggie hello to her, too, and the boys smiled at her, and we were all in the house safely — and nothing else seemed to matter.  (I think even the jalapeno burger moved down a bit.)

See, in the end, I don’t there is any such thing as tension.  It’s just life.  Whether it was sharecroppers in 1840 or The Jetsons in a hundred years, we all do our work and do our best, and if you’re lucky enough to have someone to pick up and a place to take them, you ought to be horse-whipped if you ever complain.

But you all know that, too.

I might have a drink tonight, after all, but it won’t be because I’m tense.  It’ll be because I’m lucky.

Hmm… Maybe give my agent another call before I close up?

Nah.  It’ll keep till tomorrow.  I think I’ll go say hi to the dog again.

REMEMBER:  IF YOU WALKED OUT OF BED TODAY AND EVEN HAD A SHOT AT A JOB YOU’D LIKE, LET THE WORLD WORRY ABOUT ITSELF FOR A COUPLE OF HOURS.  AND ALWAYS HOLD THAT DOOR OPEN FOR SOMEONE.

I just got home last night from three-and-a-half weeks in Vancouver, B.C.  (As Steve Martin has noted, “That’s B.C. as in British Columbia, not as a measure of time.”  He continues to be a hugely smart and funny guy.)  I had a part in something I told you about last clog, and the part finished Friday evening; and I came home Saturday afternoon, and walked into the house about 6:00pm, and everyone was thrilled to see me.

Well, the dog was thrilled.  Beside himself.  Overjoyed to the point of little yippings and breathless jumping and licking.  The kids were playing something, but one of them definitely looked up.  Mostly because I had accidentally stepped in front of the TV when I tried to lower one of the steamer trunks before my back snapped like a fourth-grade ruler in 1960, but he definitely looked up; and it was only seven or eight seconds before recognition dawned on his face.

I’m kidding, we all had a very nice, huggy reunion, and they actually carried my bags upstairs for me, which was sweet, and which also gave my wife the chance to tell me she had tickets for the four of us to see Michael Feinstein at The Hollywood Bowl, that night, and we needed to leave… now.  Well, not exactly now, but seventeen minutes from now.

I gave her a lot of good reasons why staying home would be better, but not out loud.  I went over them in my head, though, as I drove us to The Bowl, and, believe me, they were some pretty terrific reasons.

That’s the way it should be, though.  Maybe some families are different, maybe most, I don’t know, but in our marriage I lost all leverage and input sometime after our first kiss.  Come to think of it, looking back, I don’t believe I had any say in that, either.

But who cares?  Men are actually happier when they just go along with things.  The only men who insist on fighting are those salmon who swim upstream — and you know what happens to them.

Here’s something interesting, though, another family argument that’s occurred so often we’ve put in on a tape, and just pop it in to save time.

We’ve been lucky enough to go to the The Hollywood Bowl many times over the years, probably thirty in all.  I crab every time (even when I haven’t just come in from the airport), but here are the benefits:  The kids get to see orchestras and singers playing both classical and Arthur-Fielder-With-The-Boston-Pops type of programs, and no matter what the world will look like in ten and twenty and thirty years, they’ll always know what an orchestra is; lots of their programs are VERY clever, like watching the movie, “West Side Story”, but with the L.A. Philharmonic playing the whole score LIVE (By God, folks, I’d forgotten what a great show that is, and how good all the creative people were — starting with Leonard Bernstein’s music); and my wife loves going.  It’s a elegant night out, she feels special doing it, and she enjoys that’s it’s something we do together.

I think I’ve still ruined most of those nights for her with my patented pre-and-post-show crankiness, but that just blends in with the din she’s endured in our marriage, anyway, so it won’t be the first thing she brings up in heaven.

Speaking of Arthur Fiedler and The Boston Pops… My Dad, God bless him, used to love watching that on TV.  I think it was channel 13 in New York, and he thought it was, well, the classiest thing in the world.  Like your parents, I’m sure, their lives didn’t have as many gadgets as ours and our children’s.  Anything my mom ever cooked — anything — he’d take a bite and looked at us and say, “Kids, you couldn’t get a meal like this in a hotel.”  Because, you see, in the world he grew up in — like your parents — the craziest, most out-of-reach, most sophisticated thing he could imagine was a) going to a hotel, or b) spending money so wildly you actually ATE there.

I still say that to our kids at the dinner table, but they know the slightly oblique reference is just an homage to my dad.

I still remember him getting an FM Hi-Fi outfit when we were kids, and how many nights he and my mom used to sit in the club chair together in the den with the lights out and the daylight fading, arms around each other, just staring at it, listening, enraptured, just beyond even commenting on the things they had been given in life.

Only one night at The Bowl was almost unendurable.  About three years ago.

I had (again) just returned from a trip, and my wife said we had tickets, and we got the kids ready and went, and I didn’t even ask who was on.

Just a few weeks before I had worked with a big singing star in an amphitheater somewhere in Georgia, I think.  (I won’t tell you who this is, because I find, in life, the old saying is true:  If you can’t find something nice to say about someone, don’t say anything at all.  He was, and is, a big singing star who plays piano and has a big orchestra behind him, but hundreds of guys are like that.)

So before the show, I was waiting to go on in the green room.  There was only one, a large, elegant oval room about forty feet long and twenty feet wide.  No one was in there but me, and there was an hour to go before the show.   And then the singer came in with, I guess, his manager, and they both sat down on the other side of the oval.  I smiled broadly and nodded, since I thought the guy was pretty great, and was glad to be opening.  (Guys like me often hook up with big stars to open a few shows, and it’s good work in some of the nicest places in the world, and if you like the singer, too, that makes a big difference.)

And he looked back at me and nodded and said something to his manager, who came across the room to bring me over to introduce us.

At least that’s what I thought.

Instead, the manager came over, leaned down and whispered, “Mr. So-and-so would like you to not be here.”

Needless to say, my smile faded pretty fast, and I said what you would’ve said, which was, “What?”

And the manager simply repeated, “Mr. So-and-so would like you to not be here.”

I glanced back across the room, and the guy was looking away, out a window, legs crossed, as if he were seeing a beautiful sunset instead of a brick wall.  And I said to the manager, “Uh, I don’t know where we are, and this is the only green room, and I don’t want to bother anyone, but if I don’t sit here before the show, I think I have to stand next to the big guy with the “SECURITY” windbreaker next to the dumpster.”

And he just said, “Yeah… Mr. So-and-so would like you to not be here.”

So I stood next the the big guy in the “SECURITY” windbreaker next to the dumpster.

And THAT’S the guy we had tickets for three years ago.  The one where I didn’t even ask who was playing.  And when he came out, my mouth dropped and stayed dropped till the end of the show.

But last night was a fine show, and my wife was thrilled.  We had those seats that have a table where you can eat, too.  I was tired and didn’t need to be there, but I was much less crankier than usual.  I played “War” with the boys before the show while she read the program (I always bring a deck of cards), and she had a good meal and a bunch of wine, and kept saying, “I love this show so much, it’s just great,” and I leaned over and put my arm around her at one point, and she looked over as if there was something wrong, and I said, “No, I just love you,” and she smiled.  And went back to staring at the orchestra.

Hey:  Maybe a little like my mom at that Hi-Fi.

REMEMBER:  IF YOU WALKED OUT OF BED TODAY AND SOMEONE WAS RUDE AND SELF-ABSORBED AND OBLIVIOUS TO YOU… FORGET IT.  IT’S ON HIS REPORT CARD, NOT YOURS.  JUST TRY TO PASS ALONG SOMETHING BETTER.

I hope you have someone in your life who says things to you that make you feel the same way.  I find (and I’m sure you do, too) that the gift is really in the giving of it.  As Shakespeare said in The Merchant of Venice, “The quality of mercy is not strained.  It is twice blessed:  It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes.”  (I never understood the “strained” part, but I think the “twice blessed” line is pretty good.)

Of course, in yet another stunning uppercut of irony, that gorgeous, soaring sentiment is said by Portia at the start of the trial that doesn’t end well at all for Shylock.

But from all your good thoughts, Jason had one that made me laugh, because he’s right.  When I ultimately gave the $15 credit away in the airport to some folks instead of buying something for myself, he wrote, “Yeah, but $15 doesn’t even buy a burrito  in an airport today.  You should’ve thrown in a few bucks more so they could’ve gotten something decent instead of shelling out more themselves.”  I added a couple of words to that, but, man-oh-man, is he ever right.  I’m sure you all know, they take away the 89 cent bottle of water you bring, in order to sell you the same bottle at the gate for $4.99.  That’s quite a racket.  (Talk about friendly skies.)  Hey, here’s an idea:  They could sell you your OWN bottle of water back on the other side of security for just two dollars.   They still beat you for two, but you save three bucks.  Then everyone’s happy.

So I thought you’d like to hear about something that happened on the set the other day.  I’m lucky in show business, because I work pretty steadily.  You never know where the next job is coming from (which adds a delicious layer of constant terror to one’s life), but at this point, folks get to know that part of what I can bring to the party is the ability to add a few other choices, or alternates, to the lines.  Virtually every director I’ve known always leaves one take for me to do three or four other bits to the end of a scene or a moment.  And you never know.  Some, or most of them may not work, but some do and wind up staying in.  In fact, to whatever degree folks like what I do, a pretty high percentage are things I thought of at that moment, or as the phrase goes, “on the day.”

It’s not saving lives, or dragging people out of burning buildings, but I think comedy, when it works, is a good thing to bring to the world.  As I believe I’ve mentioned before, there are thousands of different styles of comedy, but only two kinds:  funny, and not funny.

Anyway, the director, Ron Underwood, is a great guy I’ve worked with before, and a no-kidding good story teller.  He has solved many problems with smart shot-choice, and knows how to move under pressure, and always “gets his day in,” as they say, meaning he never falls behind.  And he knows, yeah, we’ll do one extra take for you to fool around on, and see if we get lucky.

So the other day we’re shooting what could have been a difficult scene, but was solved by Ron with two different shots.  Kathy Najimy, whom I love, a really grounded, funny woman, is playing my wife, and the scene is that she’s looking through the closet to pick out clothes, but I’m in the shower, and we’re talking back and forth, and she’s telling me not to waste the hot water so there’s some left for her.  And I’m a plumber, and I tell her there’s plenty, and then I tease her into coming in there with me.  It’s a sweet moment that introduces the characters.

Plus, in terms of the way it’s shot, no one is naked.  It’s an implication that someone is about to get in the shower.  There’s nothing to see and no reason to see it.  I don’t think America needs to see any other part of me than my head and arm opening the shower door, soaking wet, to yell over to her in the next room.  It’s not necessary with any actor, and I’m pretty sure it’s triply not necessary with this one.

I did a Boston Legal episode where I’ve lost my mind and enter the board room with a shirt and tie and jacket — and no pants.  No underpants, either.  But it’s shot by Bill D’Elia, who just showed the reaction of the other board members (sorry about the word “member” there), and then the briefest swipe of a partial shot of part of my butt; just an intimation of it to make the point.  A good scene, I think, but nothing grotesque.

I know there’s a style of shooting today in TV and movies of chubby actors parading around without shirts, but I’m not a giant fan of it, especially if I’m planning to eat anytime in the next week.

Anyway, with all that set up, here’s… The One That Got Away.

The last shot of the scene is on my face seeing my wife coming into the bathroom to join me.  You don’t see her, but you know that’s what I’m looking at. and it’s all on my face, you know, “He talked her into it,” and we wanted to play it sweetly, that this husband and wife love each other, and whatever goes on is nobody’s business.

And I wanted to show that with a small, sweet smile.  You don’t see her, it just implies that I’M seeing her.  And I think that worked just fine.

And I thought of a line.  A line for that last alternate take.  I knew I’d close the moment with a sweet smile on this one, and then use the line of the alternate.  And I was thrilled, because as soon as I thought of it (while doing the smile), I also thought, “Wow.  I think that’s one’s pretty good.”

I may not know much about this and that, but I think I’m pretty good with jokes, and this one made me nod and smile and say, “Yup,” all inside the head.

See, Kathy and I play the Meehans.  Willy and Alvirah Meehan.

So Ron said, “Okay, let’s get that smile, last take.”  And we did, and then Ron came over and said, “Great, we’re all set.”  And I said, “Great.”  And the 1st a.d. (assistant director, runs the shots and the crew and the whole schedule) called out, “Moving on,” and the crew starts breaking down for the next scene.  And Ron said, “Good stuff, I think that’s a good scene,” and I said, “Me, too.”  And then I snapped out of it and said, “Wait.  I’ve got something.  We didn’t get an extra take.”

And Ron said, “Oh, I thought that was it.  I thought you just wanted to go with the smile.”  The crew was already breaking down the lights and camera and ready to move into the bedroom for another scene.  Moving on.

And Ron looked at me, and I looked at him.

One of the things I’m proudest of in show business is being a “good pro.”  Sometimes the light is leaking and a grip or gaffer runs over and just holds up a flag where the break is, and the director takes the shot, and it works, and someone nods at the grip and says, “Good pro.”  Or two A.D.’s run over with mats out of nowhere to mute the sounds of an actor’s shoes on the tile.  ”Good pro.”  Like that.  It’s like that in every business, I guess.  But I respect it a lot in mine.  And I hope I’m one, too.

So when that crew was already into breaking down, and Ron and I were looking at each other, and his look had a small, questioning, “What do you want to do?” look, and mine was slightly — slightly — crushed, I knew that if I quickly said, “Got to have it.  You won’t be sorry,” he would’ve stopped the break down, set it back up and taken it.  But that would’ve taken another fifteen minutes just to set up again.  And stopped the momentum of the crew.  And freaked out the producers, and made the 1st A.D. shake his head.

Et cetera.

So I looked at Ron and smiled and said, “No big deal.  Fine.  It’s good.”  And he smiled, too, and went to discuss the next shot.  And I went into the big walk in closet that now had no one in it and said (not too loud) three or four familiar words that describe various body functions.  And strolled out and got a cup of coffee.

There’s always going to be regret in acting.  A friend of mine calls it “Freeway Acting,” which means as you’re in the car going home on the freeway after the day is done, you think of three of four more things you could’ve done in the shooting, and start cursing out loud again.  ”Auuuggghhh!  Why didn’t I do this, why didn’t I do that.”  Everyone does it, it’s part of the game.

But that never lasts.  Never.  That’s the way it goes.

But this one wasn’t going away.  I couldn’t shake this one.  It would float back into my head every few minutes and I’d actually make a sound.  ”aaaahhhhhh…”

Ron came up to me about a half hour later at the food table and said, “So, what was the line?”  And I told him, and now I’ll tell you.

It’s not that anything’s the greatest in the world, it’s just that sometime’s you know something would’ve been right.

So remember, I’m in the shower, and my wife and I have been arguing, and I kid her into coming in there with me, the camera sees — you see — just me opening the shower door and sticking my head out with the water running with a smile.

And then I wanted to say, “Mrs. Meehan.  I think you know Mr. Meehan.  And Mini-Meehan…”

Ron was smiling as I told him, but then he didn’t laugh.  And his smile faded.  And he stared at me.  And blinked a few times.  And then said, “Damn.”

And I said, “Yeah.”

And he winced a tiny bit and said, “That would’ve made it in.”

And I said, “Yeah.”  Then I said, “Pal, no one’s fault.  I should’ve know it was the take, you were thinking of a thousand other things, and it just rolled by us.  They were already breaking down.”

And he said, “Yeah.”  And then, again, “Damn.”

That same day, at lunch, we were both clearing our trays and looked at each other, and he just said, “Damn,” again.

And I said, “Yeah,” again.

So, not the end of the world, by any stretch.  Just a joke, just a moment, just a smile.

But sometimes, more and more in a a world filled with horror, I think the small moments are often the only ones we have, the only ones that count.  One bite of a really good hamburger.  The sun setting just so between two buildings.  A hug from a loved one.

Or a line from a character in a story that might have been just right.

By the end of that day Ron and I were just nodding and smiling at each other, and he said one more, “Damn,” to me.  I’d have to write another whole script one day just to name the characters Meehan and put one of them in the shower to do it again.  Of course, you never know.  But for now, there it goes, off to comedy heaven, where all good jokes go.

I’m glad Ron asked, because telling it once made it live just a little longer.

Which is why I wanted to tell you, too.

No big deal.  Just a joke.  The scene is fine without it.  No lives at stake.  No gunmen shooting.  No posturing peacocks speaking at a podium.

But sometimes, one small moment of something right isn’t small at all.

REMEMBER:  IF YOU WALKED OUT OF BED TODAY AND WERE A GOOD ENOUGH PART OF SOMETHING AT WORK OR ON A TEAM, AND SOMEONE ELSE SAID, “SEE HER?  SHE’S A GOOD PRO.”  FOLKS, YOU MOVED THE WORLD FORWARD JUST AS MUCH AS ANOTHER GUY MAKING A BILLION DOLLARS OR A BILLION SPEECHES.

I hate being late for a flight, and don’t mind being early.  Many travelers hate to check bags and will do anything not to have to wait for them on the other end, but one of the greatest feelings I have is being able to stroll through an airport for an hour, hands in my pockets, a song in my heart, a silent whistle on my lips, a smile and a jaunty wave for all — much like any actor in “Finian’s Rainbow”.  (I’ve always wanted to throw back my head and sing, “How are things in Glockamoooorrrrrraa… Is that little brook still running there?”  Hmm.  Another song written before the authors realized that the first syllable, “Glock”, would be more associated with successful crack dealers than the magical search for a love that conquers time.  Oh, wait, that was “Brigadoon.”  Never mind.)

Anyway, I’m going back up to Vancouver today for another couple of weeks working on something, and my flight was cancelled, but the lady here in The Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounge (not at all like The Maple Leaf Rag Lounge) was nice enough to cover me with a boarding pass for the next flight.  Barring any other untoward events, that flight should be fine.

But there’s a problem.

This is an oh-fficial show business acting job, which means that you get flown first class, which is great.  That’s not the problem, of course, because when I pay for myself to zip around the country, I always fly coach.  I’m a big boy, I’ve flown millions of miles — literally; I’m about at three million — and I’m just as happy reading in a Twiggy seat as a William Conrad seat.  (It’s fun pulling names from eras that are one or two — or three steps back.)

But, as any sane person will know (and I think you’re all sane):  First class is better than coach.  Anyone need that explained?  Didn’t think so.

So, on Air Canada, when you fly first class, they let you go to the Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounge, which is nice, quiet and, in general, similarly better than sitting in the “Chili’s, Too” downstairs — something else I’ve done a thousand times.

Why is it better?  Is the food better?  No, but it’s free-er.

And there’s my dilemma:  I’ve already been here a couple of hours, and I’ll be here just over another two hours (which is why I get to write to you), and the nice lady in the front just came over and said that, because the flight was cancelled, the airline is going to buy everyone lunch, and I just got a fifteen-buck voucher.  So I can go downstairs — not the Wolfgang Puck place, she said, but anything on “this side”, which I think is Burger King, Starbuck’s and, yup, Chili’s, Too.

But, you see, there are snacks for free up here.  I already had a banana and apple and Special K, and I know that in a few minutes the lunch snacks will be out:  soup, cheese cubes, light and slightly-not-so-light bread.  You know.

I’m not starving, and I could be perfectly happy chomping a few of these things and stroll out downstairs to happily present my $15 coupon as an anonymous gift to the first shy family I see on line — or the first shattering pretty girl I see right behind them.

OR:  I could use the fifteen clams for a drink.  Or two. Or two-and-a-half.  Or two and a giant tip.  Leave my clean laundry and laptop up here with the nice lady and take my latest sword-shield-helmet-cross Templar paperback and have a tot.

See, I don’t need the drinks.  No one does.  I should just give the money to someone else and have a few cheese cubes.  It’s a good feeling to give someone an unexpected gift and just stroll away smiling.  Yeah, that’s the thing.  Give it away.

‘Course, if I do want a drink then… Ooh, the horns of the dilemma!  What to do, what to –

Hold it.  Wait a second.  Take it easy.  Wind that back.  Sound the all-clear.  Come up from your shelters.  The answer has just been revealed — or rolled out, anyway.

It’s almost 11:25, AND I FORGOT THAT THE MAPLELEAF LOUNGE SERVES COMPLIMENTARY DRINKS.  ANY KIND OF DRINKS.  DRINKS YOU POUR YOURSELF.  NO NEED TO SAY THE MOTTO OF THE LARRY MILLER DRINKING SOCIETY:  ”NOMINUM QUID GEMINUS?” — “YOU CALL THAT A DOUBLE?”

I still don’t need the drink, but now — if I want to — I can have cheese cubes, tomato soup, almost-dark bread, more fruit… and twelve shots of Crown Royal, and all of it free! — if I want to.

Probably would’ve gotten more points on my report card for just handing off the voucher before the soup and the liquor were rolled out here.  ”Now I notice, Larry, you very often gave away every airport voucher you received to families who were flying on a shoe-string.  That’s very good, very kind, very charitable.  Oh, but wait.  Wait a minute.  Oh, dear.  Hmm.  It seems right after giving the shy families the money you immediately went to a bar opposite Gate 32 called Destinations, and drank and read till boarding time, and then day-dreamed about the woman at the next table.  That’s not so good at all.  What’s that?  No, Larry, it doesn’t matter that the book you were reading had a cross on a shield.  Nice try, though.”

But I was going to give it away anyway, wasn’t I?  I was definitely leaning that way.  After all, the only reason I didn’t jump right up when she gave it to me was because… because I decided to write to you.  Yeah, that’s it.  I was going to find a family clutching a little change purse like “Grapes of Wrath” and make their day, like the truck drivers who tipped the cashier after giving the Joads the candy.  ”Hey.  Them ain’t two-for-a-penny candy.  Them’s one-for-a-penny candy.”  (Remember what the cashier says then?  Calls out to the counterman and holds up the bill and says, “Hey, Burt.”  Then shakes her head with a smile and says, “Truck drivers.”)

UPDATE:  Wanted to delay to see what happened.  Decided to have the cheese cubes and give the thing away.  Didn’t need the drink, either.  Sometimes more fun to kid about it than do it.

See you in Vancouver.

REMEMBER:  IF YOU WALKED OUT OF BED TODAY AND HAD A JOB TO FLY TO — FIRST CLASS, COACH OR WITH THE DOGS… GIVE SOMETHING TO SOMEONE WHO’S NOT LOOKING FOR IT.  IT’LL MAKE YOU FEEL BETTER THAN TEN DRINKS.