Up, up and away

There’s no shortage of complaints about the commute. And it doesn’t even matter where the commute is. If you live in the greater Los Angeles or Orange County area, you are, as we say in the driving biz, screwed.

When I worked recently in Santa Monica for a few months, it took almost an hour to get from the west side to the freeway at rush hour. We’re talking mere blocks. And then another hour to crawl home. Everyone has a commute-from-hell story.

It’s not as if there haven’t been solutions offered to relieve gridlock. Like the picture above from 1954. Yes, 1954.

A monorail system that rides over the center lane of the freeway. It follows the same route, and the property is city owned reducing the cost. Stations would be on a platform, visible, reducing crime.

Then there was the time in 1955 when Walt Disney offered to build a monorail system like the one at Disneyland from the beach to downtown L.A., fifteen miles of track for the then crazy price of free.

But L.A., being the forward thinking city it’s always been, decided to yield to the auto companies and not implement any form of mass transit beyond buses in order to drive up car sales. (Just a side note: years ago when there was a bus strike in L.A., the late comedian Steve Landesberg said it was the first time in history there was a strike of a non-existent industry.)

If you want the full story about it, watch Roger Rabbitt. It’s closer to the truth about public transportation than you think.

Anyway, I write this as I sit in my office in Orange County on Friday night, getting ready to make the drive north. I can see the 405 out my window, and trust me, even with all the lights it’s not very pretty.

The trick to making the ride bearable, or something close to it, is to arm yourself with a few things that can help distract from the congestion, and even make the trip go a little faster.

Which is why I have a nice car, E Street Radio and a carpool partner.

What is it with getting better?

This past Thursday night I saw Jerry Seinfeld at the Long Beach Terrace Theater. It was the second time I've seen him perform there, but not the second time I've seen him.

The first time was many years ago at the Paramount Theater in Seattle, just as his summer replacement series The Seinfeld Chronicles (later just Seinfeld) was picked up by the network. I have to admit prior to that I'd always had kind of a non-opinion of him. I felt he just did the observational humor, stayed away from anything political or edgy, and was just middle of the road.

You know, what Leno turned into.

That was when I went into the Paramount. When I came out, I was a convert.

I've also seen him in Vegas on New Year's Eve at the Thomas & Mack Center at UNLV.It's a tough crowd because everyone is just waiting to shout at midnight. But within one or two jokes, he had them. The show started at 9:30 so he was onstage at midnight, and he brought us all humorously into the new year.

And by the way, try getting a cab in Vegas on New Years Eve. You'll need a few laughs.

Anyway, each time I see him, it begs the same question: How good can this guy get?

His standup is the most highly polished, precision tuned performance you'll ever see a comedian give. And the real beauty of it is you feel as if he's delivering it off the top of his head, in the moment, just for you for the first time.

The observations are astute. They are dissected in a way that points out the foolishness or brilliance of the subject at hand. The material is eminently, frighteningly relatable. Take for example his description of being married:

It's inspiring not only to see someone like Seinfeld, who doesn't have to work another day in his life, but in spite of that continues to keep whittling, honing and improving his material to such a glossy sheen that it's brilliance seems to come so easy.

It's really electric to see a comedian so at the top of his game. And everyone else's.