INDIAN HILL

It’s in-between season time, ‘down time’ some say, when you look for sports nearby, places to catch a glimpse of action in the neighborhood--a ball and a bat, a runner jumping a hurdle, a rider clearing a curb on a board--the perfect time to enter the world of college baseball. While major leaguers tune their swings, test their arms, hold out and negotiate amid cactus courtyards and backdrops of palm trees and sand, college players are in action. Amid the not-quite romantic sound of metal bats spraying balls around the diamond, players cling to dreams of Omaha and the College World Series, high draft picks and bonuses.  The college game is close, intimate, has good players-there are some, and it’s all good if you like sitting close and hearing the game as much as watching it. Switch out the classic crack of a wooden bat lashing a line drive, fade in grunting umpires punching ‘ring-em-up’ third strikes and you have small-ball perfection, diamonds of just-cut grass and smooth-raked...

Across the street the small boy ran  from his house, Crying, Calling out, I heard him-- 'Mommy, I'm scared' I heard him -- 'What's going to happen?' Like a hundred children, Supermarket children wanting candy Playground children whining on a slide, Mall children tugging big hands to toy sections and how many children's voices sound that way?   Then Cop cars pulled up,  Screeching to angled stops, the man sitting on the front lawn hands around his knees, Cops surrounding, looking down, The child looking back, But he was walking away. The angry man yelling at the woman with the small child, Yelling 'Are you going to call...?' and it was someone's name The big cop turned from the sidewalk and said 'That's enough' And the man held his hand to his head.

Here's a hint; what's loud, oval shaped, and a great SoCal venue you've cruised by dozens of times?  (Hey, read the title, genius) Get yourself and your pals over to Irwindale Speedway...uh, make that the Toyota Speedway at Irwindale --and no brake recall jokes, okay?  Or I brake your mouth.. Football is over..OVER.  So get over it.   Now it's the NBA for two boring months before it gets interesting.  March Madness?  Too much ESPN, rants against mid-majors and Vitale's bubble picks.  Who dat. . .screw dat. Irwindale fires up March 27 with Super Late Models--these are 2 to 3 year old 'Cup' cars, along with Vista Paint Super Stocks, and a family-friendly lineup of popular Legends cars, Classic Stocks, mini stocks and more.  Maybe the best part?  The deal.  $15 to get in, $5 to park.  And there's not a bad seat in the steep-sloped grandstand that offers everybody a checkered-flag view.  Half-mile track, no pits to confuse specta...

Already I'm suffering from a Super Bowl hangover, and the game's barely over.  How's that?  While I love football--college bowl games are tops, no BCS playoffs for me--the Super Bowl means the end of the season, the page turns, mid-year NBA and that's no party.  March Madness?  More sadness.  And on it goes.  Here's the cure; local SoCal sports values.  They start in February and go through April. By then, it's baseball season and all is well.  So where, you say, to hang?  What to do besides pool halls and fantasy baseball drafts?  Listen closely.  Coming soon, my best local sports values.  Hints?  No golf, no skiing, no running along the beach.  These are real events in real venues, places to go where you may not have been.  Stretch the dollar like the old days.  No bowling (although 'dat's a good one', Arnold sez).  Nah, no arm wrestling joints or skateboard parks.  These are sure winners, bang-f...

I go alone--'Where's Joshua Tree?'--the frequent response I get from flat-landers before I gear up for a trek.  Don't care, don't need anybody, prefer hiking alone so I can hear silence, touch  roughness.   I'm the only one on the planet, the kind of isolated solitude I seek.  Wildlife is scarce today.  Not their afternoon.  A coyote lurks near the park road leading to a dusty dirt track to the trail head.  The casual indifference of a critter that roams his land, knows his enemies, how much he needs to survive another day.  Scruffy brown coat blending to the park's sandstone palette.  Patches of snow gather in hollows ahead, leaking down-trail, mud splattering my cuffs, swallowing tips of my hiking poles.  Late afternoon, cool air and flat light in Joshua Tree, good hiking weather through sludge and moist earth.  Joshua Tree--after a burn-out fall season left singed residue I could smell.  Hiking grade towards Lost Hors...

Love talking about food.  Eating, cooking, finding menus, wonderful restaurants, sharing a great meal with friends, even by myself.  Thinking about Frankie and me, Manuel, Dave Schwartz one night in New York, flying out from Los Angeles, connecting in Chicago, pulling up in a cab at The Franklin Hotel, stepping out later and seeing Tommy in his bright red Corvette, grinning and gunning his engine, saying 'get a cab', and we did.  All the way uptown to Harlem, past graffiti painted walls, crossing borders we didn't know we were crossing but it was okay, Tommy had the lead and when we pulled up to Sylvia's it was past eleven o'clock.  White linen table cloths, ordered stiff drinks; martinis, Dewars, the good stuff, and when the waiter came by all crisp in his white apron and showed us menus, I inquired about Sylvia's fried chicken.  The waiter gave me a dead pan stare, like I'd asked if Koufax had a fastball, if there were bodies in the Hudson--'hey kid, ...