Lecture series

I know one of the things that makes life a horserace is the fact friends can sometimes have differing opinions. God knows there's only a scant few who aren't fed up with me talking about Springsteen, Breaking Bad, sushi and Vegas as much as I do. I know it, you know it and the American people know it. Yet, I love those friends anyway. I have no choice—it's right there in small print on the friendship contract.

And, because I'm also passionate about certain points of view, I completely understand someone wanting me to see things their way. Often times, after giving it some thought or reflection, I will. I'll eventually come around to their thinking.

I'm nothing if not open-minded.

There are usually two approaches people take when asking me to change my mind about something. One is objectively giving me the facts to consider, and then allowing me to consider them. The other is bludgeoning me with their opinion, especially if they know I may not be entirely on board with it, and then continuing to bludgeon me when I don't immediately come around to their point of view.

Here's which way works better for me: Spoiler Alert: it's the first one.

There's someone I've followed regularly for a long time. I get a lot of good out of their teachings, and they've helped me view the world in a more compassionate, less fearful, more confident way. But recently I've had cause to question their character, and whether I should continue investing time in them.

Here's my process. First, I consider the context of events. I listen to both sides. I take into account the good I've gotten out of it until this point. Then, I make a decision.

What I require is a little patience from the person arguing the other point of view.

And the understanding that mocking, condescending and badgering comments—because I don't instantly agree with them—make it less interesting to give their argument the consideration they'd like me to.

And that I'd like to. Because I'm nothing if not a giver.

All the continual bombardment does is crowd the field. It makes me focus on the diversion and attitude, not the topic at hand. It does not make the argument they think they're making.

I get we're in a time when passions run high, feet get dug in, lines get drawn and everything is black and white. Gray area? That's just crazy talk.

Listen, I'm not a delicate little flower, and if you're my friend and you want to rant and rave at me, have at it. I'm a big boy and I can take it. But if you want me to take it seriously, here's some free advice: there's a better approach.

Why free advice? Told you I was a giver.

The most wonderful time of the day

I think breakfast has been hogging the spotlight as "the most important meal of the day" for far too long. It's a new morning in America. And as the sun rises on this new morning, we skip breakfast and go straight to the rightful holder of the title: Lunch.

There are a couple things I look forward to everyday as I make my scenic, freeway-free commute to work. One is the end of the day, and the other is lunch.

Neither ever gets here fast enough.

There's a strange phenomenon in advertising agencies I've talked about before here and here. People take themselves way too seriously. They think they're contributing something—shall we say, more meaningful—to society than they really are.

One way that kind of thinking reveals itself is by not going to lunch.

Apparently some agency people have talked themselves into thinking the work they're doing is too important to stop for lunch (it isn't), if they take a lunch break they'll fall behind (you won't), and that they can't go to lunch because what if the client calls? (News flash—the client's out to lunch).

You see these people in the kitchen between 11:45a.m. and 1p.m., loitering in front of the bad coffee, next to the dirty microwave waiting for it to ding. Then they're back at their desks, typing that Powerpoint presentation with one hand and eating Stouffer's Lasagna, again, with the other.

From where I sit, at the restaurant down the street waiting for my food to be brought to my table, it's a sad existence.

A few agencies I've been at cater lunch in every day. It's positioned as a nice, money-saving perk for the employees. But don't be fooled. Their intentions aren't that altruistic. They knows people take shorter lunches if they don't go out, so they can get more work hours out of them. As if just being there actually equalled productivity.

Anyone who's ever worked with me can tell you that's not true.

Personally, I have to make a break from the compound everyday. I spend too much time there already, and if I don't get out, feel the air, the sun and walk around a bit, it just feels like I'm biding time until my parole hearing.

I understand not wanting to spend money eating out every day. By the time you've split the check with the person who had a three-course meal while you had a cup of soup, and add tax and tip, you feel like you need a co-signer just to pay the check. But I think the more important thing to ask is what's the psychological cost of not going out for lunch at least once in awhile?

I have no idea either, but I'll bet it's pretty high.

The right connections

Assuming you're going to read this post—and I recognize that's a big assumption—are you going to read it all the way through the first time, or stop halfway, go do something else for an hour, then come back and finish it?

Stop talking, it's a rhetorical question.

If you're going to read it, you'll do it nonstop until you get to the end. And why wouldn't you? It's easier, it takes less time and you can get to whatever you're doing afterwards a lot faster.

All the same reasons I like to fly nonstop.

It's literally been 21 years since I last took a connecting flight somewhere. The only reason was because it was the only way I could get to a surprise birthday party I'd arranged for a friend who was shooting a movie in Ponca City, Oklahoma. If you've never been to Ponca City, the Walmart on Saturday night is the hot tip. You're welcome.

Of course, part of the reason it's been so long since I've been on a connecting flight is I usually fly to destinations that are easy to get to directly. San Francisco. Las Vegas. New York. Las Vegas. Seattle. Las Vegas. Portland. Las Vegas. Austin. You get the pattern.

With how much I love gambling (how could you tell?), you'd think I'd book connecting flights more often. It's always a roll of the dice whether or not it'll be on time, the connecting flight will be there when I land, or the weather will cooperate at the second airport of the day.

I was just in Iowa. I had to fly to Denver, connect to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, then drive an hour and a half to where I was going in Iowa. It was an adventure, but it wasn't fun.

Like visits to the dentist, prostate exams and tax returns, I just prefer to have it done and over with as soon as possible. But because of the airline hub structure, and my need to go to little out-of-the-way towns in Iowa, I don't have as much choice in the matter as I used to.

I suppose the thing to do would be to look at connecting flights as a way to see parts of the country I wouldn't normally see, fly a variety of aircraft I wouldn't otherwise get to experience and rack up more frequent flier miles than I might going nonstop.

I also suppose I could also look at kale as cotton candy, but that's not happening either.

Rustic never sleeps

You know the old saying—you can take the boy out of the city, but you can't take the city out of the boy. Whatever. I'd actually hoped that saying would propel me into some kind of pithy segue into this blogpost about the most rustic restaurant you'll ever eat at.

Come to find out I was wrong. So let's just dive straight in, shall we?

This past Sunday we took my son—a newly-minted 21-year old—to the Saddle Peak Lodge for his birthday brunch. The wife and I have been there many times over the years, but not recently. And when we were thinking about where to take him, my wife was the one who came up with the SPL, which like many of her ideas, was a brilliant one (Hear that? It's the sound of me scoring marriage points).

The SPL is definitely unlike any other restaurant in L.A. For one thing, it's not in L.A. You'll find it on the side of a mountain in Calabasas, about five miles up the road from Pepperdine University and the Malibu Colony on Pacific Coast Highway.

Like someplace out of the 1800's, the SPL is built from logs, and has stuffed animal heads hanging all over the walls, looking down at you while you're dining on the superb, pricey food. Maybe it's that I've been to Disneyland too many times, but I kept expecting the heads to turn and start talking and singing like at Country Bear Jamboree. Or maybe the scene from Diner. "You gonna finish that?" "If you want it, just say it!" "Well, if you're not gonna finish it..."

They didn't. But it would've been bitchin' if they did, amIright?

Dining there, you really feel you've gone somewhere away from the city, and time-traveled to a more genteel era. Or a more gentile era, if that's possible. I may be getting off track here.

Anyway, the point I'm getting at is its rustic charm and semi-isolated location (even though only a few miles from the coast and a freeway) makes it feel like more than a nice meal. It becomes an easy getaway.

Unlike the Rainforest Cafe or other fabricated "theme" restaurants, the SPL comes by its rustic charm honestly. According to its website:

"Part roadhouse, Pony Express stop, hunting lodge, European auberge, perhaps even a hint of a bordello, Saddle Peak Lodge has been many things to many people in its long history. For 100 years—some say even more—Saddle Peak Lodge has been a place of enchantment, romance and great dining for generations of those who seek a unique experience."

In case you were wondering, my son had steak and eggs, and to celebrate his new 21-ness, washed it down with a mimosa. I had Eggs Benedict with smoked salmon and a heart-stopping good Hollandaise sauce. The wife enjoyed California Goat Cheese and Broccoli Quiche, you know, like they had in the old west.

Everything was exceptional.

The only suggestion I'd make is if you're going to dine there, it might be a better idea to visit at night. Away from the glare of the city lights, you can see the brilliant light of the stars against the dark blue blanket of the night sky. Also, the restaurant is decorated with lights inside and out. There's a lot of twinkly magic going on after the sun sets, and it brings out the enchanted quality even more.

Not to mention it hides all the bone-dry brush in the canyon that's one cigarette butt away from a raging inferno.

That might be the city boy talking.

A-maize-ing

Johnny Carson was born there. So was Ashton Kutcher. And The Duke himself, John Wayne. Herbert Hoover is from there. As are comedian Adam DeVine and actor Elijah Wood. TV Superman George Reeves hails not from Krypton, but from Woolstock, Iowa.

The point is a lot of famous things come out of Iowa. Not the least of which is corn.

I had my very first experience with Iowa this past weekend. Instead of going to one of the premier universities in the California system located virtually around the block from our house, my daughter had her heart set on a private college in Iowa, which we moved her into this past weekend.

Sure, it would've been nice to have her closer to home, but then we wouldn't get to pay out-of-state tuition, take two airplanes, drive two hours and travel 1,692 miles to see her. Apparently she doesn't know there's an east coast and it would've been even further from us. Maybe she'll learn about it in college.

Here's the thing about Iowa: cornfields everywhere. And by everywhere, I mean everywhere.

There's a certain beautiful monotony (Note to Rich Siegel: Beautiful Monotony, The Whiskey '06) to the rows of corn as you zip by them on the two-lane highways. And what it made me think about—besides how I was going to die when the driver of one of the eighteen-wheelers coming the other way fell asleep and slammed into me head on—was just how big a part cornfields have played in some of my favorite movies.

I know people don't like Signs because a) it stars Mel Gibson b) it's directed by M. Night Shyamalan and c) it's a story about faith lost and found, and not aliens (for the most part). But it does have Joacquin Phoenix, German Shepherds and cornfields, so that makes it a must see in my book.

The ultimate father-son film couldn't help but be corny. Field Of Dreams takes place almost entirely in an Iowa cornfield. One of the ball players in the movie asks Kevin Costner, "Is this heaven?" To which he responds, "No, it's Iowa." Boy is it.

The first film anyone mentions when I say cornfield is Children of the Corn. Not exactly quality motion picture faire, but a horror classic for it's kitschiness and that tall, ugly red-headed kid. That short kid is yelling and chewing scenery all throughout the movie. Good thing most of it's edible.

Lions and tigers and corn, oh my. Perennial favorite The Wizard Of Oz not only has a cornfield, but a talking, singing and dancing scarecrow right in the middle of it. Ironically, the song the scarecrow sings is the same one our fake president sings to himself every night.

The other thing Iowa (and South Dakota where I connected through) have plenty of are the nicest people I've ever met anywhere. It's startling how genuine they are. Glad to see you, ready to help, open and honest, it really is a refreshing change of pace.

Now if they could just truck that to the big cities the same way they do their corn.

Start spreading the news

Even though you could probably guess, I'll say it anyway—I love New York. It's the best city in the world, and it vibrates with talent, creativity and possibilities.

As a theater arts major, the fact there's a city where I can go to a Broadway play or two every day is a little bit of heaven on earth for me. I'm always looking for reasons to hop a plane and go there. Fortunately, over the past few years, I've had a couple very good reasons to visit.

The first was to see my friend Holland Taylor perform at the Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center in ANN, the play she wrote and starred in about former Texas governor Ann Richards. It was a master class in acting watching Holland literally inhabit the spirt of Ann Richards.

Now you say, "Oh sure, of course he'd say that. He knows her." Just to be clear, she received a Tony nomination for Best Performance By A Leading Actress In A Play for her performance, so apparently I wasn't alone in my thinking.

This past April, the family and I hopped a plane to NY to see Hamilton. We'd had the tickets for a year, and even though it was coming to Los Angeles, we wanted to see it on Broadway. It's one of those rare plays that transcends the massive hype around it—for all you've heard, it's even better than that.

This October, I have yet another reason to head east. I don't know if you know this, but there's this singer from New Jersey I like quite a bit. Come to find out he's doing an 8-week residency on Broadway at the Walter Kerr Theater. It will be a night of stories, music, with just him, the guitar and piano. It's a 946-seat theater, the smallest venue Bruce has played in 35 years. And I'm going to guess at that size, there are no bad seats.

For as hard as it is to get tickets to a regular Springsteen concert, I'm going to wish it was that easy come August 30th when they go on sale. I've already seen one estimate that said it'll sell out in 45 seconds.

While Bruce has never done a show this intimate, I imagine it will look and sound a little something along these lines, minus the farm:

I'm going to say my prayers, keep my fingers crossed, live right, and be nice to everyone I know in New York and just hope I can see this once-in-a-lifetime Springsteen show. I know, I can hear you saying, "Geez, hasn't he been to a billion Springsteen shows? When's it going to be enough?"

That's easy. Never.

Yes, Iowa

If you know anything about me—and seriously, if you don't by now then we have nothing to talk about—you know that underneath this winsome, easygoing and slightly-overweight-but-still-brutally-handsome exterior lies the restless spirit of a globetrotting vagabond.

In fact, I'm surprised he hasn't asked for it back - BAM! I'll be here all week.

So knowing that, you might be asking yourself about now what exotic destination my travels will take me to next. Belize? Madagascar? Nepal? Fiji? Sadly, no. My next trip, coming up next week, will find me in two places I've never been in my life. And up until now had no reason to go. First is Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Followed by Orange City, Iowa.

Don't be jealous. It's such an ugly emotion.

Why those two cities? Well, I have to go through the first one to get to the second. And the reason I'm going is to take my daughter to college as she starts her freshman year.

I'll bet you're asking why she's not going to the world-class university located just blocks from us, even though she was accepted there and could live rent free at home. I've asked that my own self. I suppose the answer is I'm not the only one with a restless vagabond spirit.

The good news is the more I learn about Iowa, the more interesting it becomes. No really.

For instance, James Tiberius Kirk, captain of the starship Enterprise was born in Riverside, Iowa.

The Field of Dreams location, yes, that Field of Dreams, suits up in Dyersville, Iowa—a mere four and a half hour drive from Orange City.

Quaker Oats, world's largest cereal company, is in Cedar Rapids.

Meredith Wilson, who, I don't have to tell you, wrote The Music Man, is from Mason City, Iowa.

I'm completely going against my nature here, and not just because I'm taking a connecting flight. I mean I'm trying to be optimistic by looking at this Iowa trek (see what I did there?) as a big adventure.

Besides all the new things and places I'll be seeing, I'll also be a Jewish Democrat in a part of the country I'm pretty sure doesn't have very many of either. So I'll be as novel to them as they are to me.

I hope my girl is looking at it as an adventure as well, because the going-away-to-college years are one of the great life experiences not to be missed.

And, according to her, neither is Iowa.