A late break-up entry

You may remember a while back I did a post about break-up songs, and decided to turn it into a contest for the best one.

If you remember that, you're doing better than I am.

Due to the enormously underwhelming response, not only did I completely forget about it, but the grand prize of the winning song via iTunes remains unclaimed.

So here's what I'm going to do, since I'm not ready to break-up with this contest yet (I know, but I went for it anyway).

Let's give it another go. Submit your best break-up songs, and the selection committee here at Rotation and Balance will pick a winner shortly. We'll even sweeten the heartbreak pot: not only will you win your song from iTunes, you'll get the 5 runner-ups as well.

Entries from last time - Maybe You're Right, Hating You For Christmas and With Or Without You - are still in the running, so for the people who submitted them (you know who you are), no need to resubmit.

Just to get the tears rolling, I'm entering Can We Still Be Friends (don't worry, I'm not eligible to win).

What're you waiting for? Get listening. Because now, dredging up all your bitter, forgotten pain and heartache from the past could mean valuable prizes!

Remembering Ann again

Yesterday was an interesting day for me. I was at my friend Al's Super Bowl party that I look forward to each year. And it was also 30 years to the day that my mom passed away. When it happened I didn't know how to get through the next minute, much less 30 years. But she wouldn't have wanted me to waste any time getting on with my life. She was good that way. Please excuse the repost if you've read it before, but one more time, this one's for mom.

It's not like me to get sloppy in my beer. Alright, who're we kidding - I'm a sap. And the fact that today is 28 years since my mom died isn't helping that any. I'm sad to say I can't remember nearly as much about my mom as I would like. 
I can still hear her laugh. Because my parents had me later in life, I can still hear her almost apologizing to me for being "an old lady." But I never saw her that way. She was my old lady. She was my mom. She was there, frightened and strong in the emergency room at Cedars when I'd been thrown forty-five feet out of a car and knocked unconscious in an accident (many people by the way are still waiting for me to regain consciousness). She was there at the graduation when I walked onstage at the Hollywood Bowl to accept my diploma (yeah, I've played the Bowl). She held me, and the bucket, after my first real experience with a little too much egg nog and bourbon.

The last meal I had with my mom was at Nibbler's on Wilshire in Beverly Hills. Coke, tuna melt, arguements. The sounds of a generation and a half older clashing with a time and world that had changed in ways they didn't completely understand, and my impatience at their lack of understanding. Not my finest moment, and probably the first one I'd go back to change. Three days later, it was my turn to be with her in Cedars emergency room. She had died three times in the ambulance, and had been brought back three times. There was severe brain damage, and ten days later she was gone. I remember going into her intensive care room (can someone really be hooked up to that many wires?), and talking to her for about an hour. Trying to make my peace. Trying to say goodbye. And then, my mother opened her eyes and looked right at me. It was the first time she'd opened her eyes in ten days. Her doctors said it was a muscle reflex, similar to a twitch. They said she wasn't really there, wasn't really seeing me. But after a lifetime with this woman who gave me my sense of humor, sensitivity, temper, and everything I ever wanted (yes, only child), I didn't really care what the doctors said. Because I knew better. Every day, especially today, I'm the one who's seeing her. Bye mom. Before you know it.

Things I don't need to know Part 1: See's nutritional info

Welcome to the beginning of yet another ongoing running series of blog posts from all of us here at Rotation and Balance World Headquarters.

Like my Luckiest Actor Alive series, my Why I Love Costco series, my What Took So Long series and my Guilty Pleasures series, this one will deal with a specific topic - things you don't need to know.

Although it's not a competition (or is it?), it'll also make coming up with a post much easier for me. Cross one new year's resolution off the list.

So, seized by the holiday spirit, I bought a five pound box of See's candy for one of the companies we do business with. And I had every intention of getting it to them before Christmas.

Then I had every intention of getting it to them before New Year's.

Then I had every intention of getting it to them the first week in January.

Then I had the discussion with my wife about whether it was too late to deliver a Christmas gift. We both agreed it was. I felt bad about not having been able to deliver a box of candy just a few blocks from my house on time, so I did the only thing I could think of.

I ripped the paper off that sucker and drown my sorrows in chocolate.

Can you blame me?

However, inside the box was this little bit of buzz-killing reading. Really? A nutritional brochure for See's candy? Because that's what people stuffing their face with the vanilla cremes want to know?

I think not.

Internally I'm sure the fine minds at See's thought they were being informative. After all, there is that pesky law about nutritional value labeling in California. But intentionally or not, what they were really being was annoying. The last thing anyone eating See's candy wants to know is:

A. What's in it (besides chocolate)

B. How many calories it has

C. Anything besides how good it is

Maybe it'd be better if they put it under the second tier of candy at the bottom of the box. That way it wouldn't matter and you wouldn't even have to pick it up and look at it. Where it is now, at the top of the box, you can't help but pick it up to get to the candy. Your eyes can't help see the words.

And that slight twinge of guilt for having seen it is unavoidable.

But guilt is something me and my people have had a lot of experience with. And I've turned getting over it quickly into somewhat of an art form.

At least until Valentine's Day when I'll be dealing with it again.

Sign of stupidity

Now how are we going to thin the herd?

Can't government just stay out of our lives? Apparently they just don't care about the small percentage of people who want to walk in front of moving cars. They've taken away that right. Now those people can't say no one told them not to.

This is obviously a bigger problem than I thought. Or that I would have thought if I thought there were people stupid enough to need a warning about waiting for cars to stop before they cross the street.

At some point, I think local government just has to roll the dice and realize they can't protect people from everything.

Especially themselves.

Cutting corners

When I was growing up, making the bed was an art form. Despite the fact it was a daily chore, when done right it was also a daily accomplishment.

Whether it was called hospital corners or army style, it was what my parents expected every day before I left the house.

Judging by the way my kids leave their beds, it's apparently a lost art form.

Here's the thing - no one has it easier when it comes to making their bed than my kids do. It breaks down like this: the fitted sheet, the top sheet, and either a heavy comforter with a cover for winter or a lightweight one for summer. That's it.

No tucking in sheets, no blankets to corner. Just a sheet to pull up, a comforter to straighten out, and pillows to be placed. Everything in life should be so easy.

Just to see where it clocks in at, I've made both their beds. It can be done in 90 seconds - for both of them.

You see where I'm going here. Despite the fact we've spoiled our kids by making it easier than we ever had it, and easier than it has any right to be, for some reason they still can't get their beds made before they head off to school in the mornings.

It is endlessly frustrating to me. That is until I start thinking about all the other things my kids aren't doing. Like drugs. Neglecting their grades. Being disrespectful to friends and family. Staying up past their bedtimes. Smoking cigarettes. Going on websites they shouldn't be on.

It's all relative (see what I did there?). And they're great kids. So if they're too busy getting good grades and handling more on their plates than I ever had to at their age to make their beds, I'll make a point of finding a way to overlook it.

Maybe I'll even shoot for father of the year and do it for them.

Besides, I could use a little accomplishment right about now.

Goodbye Epstein

Robert Hegyes died today. He was 60 years old.

Those old enough to remember know him best from the '70's show Welcome Back Kotter, where he played Jewish-Puerto Rican student Juan Epstein.

But that's not where I know him best from.

Robert Hegyes was my neighbor when I lived in Santa Monica. I lived on the 17th floor of twin high-rise towers right at the beach (don't get me started), and Hegyes lived downstairs from me on the 16th floor. I saw him almost daily in the hallways, elevators, laundry room and by the mailboxes.

We spoke often, and he was just a great guy. High energy, always had something going - a pilot, a screenplay, a meeting.

A couple of times I saw him in the elevator with his pal John Travolta (remind me to tell you about the time my roommate brought Travolta to our apartment in Brentwood while I was sleeping and didn't wake me up - it's okay, I'm over it). Anyway it was funny because on those occasions Travolta would just look down at the floor and not say a word, and Hegyes would be just as chatty and personable with me as ever.

He always insisted on being called Bobby, and, despite the fact we weren't really close friends, was always interested in what was going on with me and what I was up to.

I always wanted Bobby to find the kind of success he'd had with Kotter. It seemed to me with all the positive energy he projected out into the world, and the happiness he'd brought so many people in the past, that he deserved it.

Over the fourteen years since we moved from Santa Monica, my wife and I have thought of and talked about him, his wife and his kids many times.

He has always been in our very best thoughts.

Which is exactly where he is tonight.

Gunning it

It's been a very long time since I've gotten a speeding ticket. So I imagine the one I got this morning was not just for today's violation, but was in fact kharma for all the times in the past few years I've driven undetected just a tad higher than the speed limit allows.

I used to, well, like isn't the right word, not mind getting speeding tickets. Believe it or not, back in the days before the interwebs you actually had to go in person and spend a day in traffic school to get the ticket wiped off your record so your insurance wouldn't go up. That was the good news. The bad news is you were only allowed to do it once every 18 months.

There were many differently themed traffic schools to choose from. The reason I didn't mind so much is I always chose the Comedians Traffic School. It was taught by working stand-ups, so that made it a lot more bearable. Also it was usually held at the Improv or the Comedy Store - both former haunts of mine (remind me to tell you about the time I got up on open mic night at the Comedy Store in another post).

The other thing is it always gave me a chance to use my favorite traffic school joke.

Inevitably the instructor would say, "How many of you are here for speeding?" And I'd reply, "All of us who got here first." Alright, so it's not the best joke. These classes start early. Let's see how funny you are at 8 a.m. on a Sunday.

Anyway, here's the other thing about this morning's ticket: it wasn't my fault.

Wipe that smile off your face.

I'll have you know that both my wife and I suffer from a common affliction found in California that affects many drivers. It's supposedly a hereditary condition. We just pray to God we haven't passed it on to our children.

Car manufacturers alone hold the cure. They could make the right pedal much harder to push down. But they don't. In the same way the pharma companies are in bed with the doctors, the car companies are rolling in dough laughing with their insurance company pals.

At least that's what I tell myself. What else could it be?

The embarrassing thing about it is I wasn't even trying that hard. Apparently when it comes to getting speeding tickets, I'm just as much of an underachiever as I am in other areas.

As you can see, one of those areas is in Photoshop, trying to retouch identifiable personal information off the ticket so I could post it here.

But I digress.

The point is I was only going 51 in a 35. And since no one's under oath here - yet - the truth is I take that stretch of road much faster than 51 almost all the time. I guess all that means is I probably deserved it.

Although, again, not my fault. I have that condition.

I will say that the officer who gave me the ticket was very nice and professional about it. Not that I expected otherwise, but, you know, sometimes traffic cops are like a box of chocolates.

So I'll pay the fine, I'll go to online traffic school, and I'll be a good citizen and make a conscious effort to slow down when I'm behind the wheel and drive much more carefully overall.

At least until I'm eligible for traffic school again.