Tankees

There are few things, sportswise, I enjoy more (other than perhaps seeing J.D. Drew melt like a quivering deer in headlights during pressure situations) than watching the "fabled" New York Yankees act as subservient bitches of my L.A. Angels of Anaheim (for more than a decade!) As of August 21st, the Angels have won six of eight from the New Yorkers this season. Light up the halo!

Boom, Boom, Out Go the Lights

My friend the movie deal-making guy invited me to see The Doors at the Pacific Amphitheatre in lovely Costa Mesa, California, a few weeks back. Actually, they aren't allowed to call themselves the Doors, or even The Doors of the 21st Century, despite featuring two living, breathing members of the venerable L.A. band. Keyboard player Ray Manzarek and guitarist Robby Krieger have resorted to calling themselves Riders On the Storm, thanks to legal foot-stomping of ex-Doors drummer John Densmore, who wisely has washed his hands of this entire pathetic mess. My friend wanted to go because his drum teacher currently pounds the skins with the Riders. I figured it might be fun in a car-crash sort of way, so I went. Besides, I once dropped 'shrooms at an Allman Brothers gig at the Pacific and I was feeling nostalgic.

First thing I had to do, though, was talk my friend off the Ticketmaster ledge. "For $115 we could sit in the first five rows." He wasn't high when he said this. He was dead serious. I explained that someone's huge ego demanded they play the 8,500 seater, when they should have been playing the El Rey. I told him we could probably get tix in front for twenty bucks from scalpers outside the venue. And we would have, but we didn't bother negotiating and paid forty bucks for good-enough seats. After all, who really needs to see 200-year-old guys up close. So I could count wrinkles?

There were so many fucked up things about this experience I almost don't know where to begin. (I won't even discuss Krieger's uber-cheesy blue L.A. Dodger logo t-shirt. That was so raawk, Grandpa). But the night started on a high note. Movie-Deal Guy had mentioned that Paul Rodgers (without Free, without Bad Company, without The Firm, without Queen, but with, of course, muscle shirt) was the headliner. He thought someone was opening but didn't remember his name.

Much to my infinite glee, we walked down to our nice orchestra seats just in time to hear Pat Travers chugging his warhorse, "Boom, Boom, Out Go the Lights." Travers was a sort of poor-man's George Thorogood, and he was huge in the eyes of my Valley stoner buds at Monroe High School, circa 1980. In fact, the Pat Travers Band gig at the Santa Monica Civic in 1980 was a goldmine for my pals, who ripped off at least a dozen car stereos during the event. One of these sweet AM-FM cassette decks made their way into my beloved, stock-as-a-rock, six-cylinder 1968 Camaro -- at a cost of only twenty bucks to me. Such a deal.

According to his website, Travers is only 52, but he looked about 20 years older up there on the stage in broad daylight. I'm surprised he didn't melt into a puddle on the stage. The thousand or so geezers in the crowd passionately rocked their fists and waved their ponytails at the appropriate moments. (Luckily, there were no "show us your tits" moments. That would have sent me over the edge.) At that moment I felt glad to be alive, and glad to be the second youngest person in the audience (movie-deal guy is two years younger than me). But also strangely glad to see Pat Travers, though I'm bummed that we missed hearing his other classic, "Snortin' Whisky, Drinkin' Cocaine."

I have no issue with nostalgia-package shows. I appreciate the desire to re-live a time in life when everything had yet to unfold. I certainly rush to the Greek every summer when the Go-Go's play and I never fail to get weepy even after seeing the band play the same songs more than 30 times in 30 years.

What's weird is that Manzarek and Krieger persist in this sonic charade. It was odd enough when they were joined by former Cult singer Ian Astbury, but at least that kind of made sense. Astbury was certainly influenced in many ways by Jim Morrison. But when Astbury bailed to rejoin the Cult, wouldn't it have been a fine time for the surviving Doors to go off quietly into their sunset? After all, they did get something of a victory trot, albeit without their meal ticket.

But when I saw then in Costa Mesa, I surmised that they must either be broke or in possession of monstrous egos. Why else would they continue to graze on the remains of Mr. Mojo Risin', this time with The Guy Who Sang in Fuel. Talk about diminishing returns. Who's next? Taylor Hanson? (Don't get me wrong. I think Taylor Hanson is The Bomb)

I started to think about the motivation of the Fuel Guy. He must assume that he's finished as anything viable in the music business if he's signed on to do Jim Morrison karaoke. And he was totally acting. Leather pants, slithering around, yelping appropriately. The Old Doors even forced Fuel Guy to do "Peace Frog" and some weird pretentious poetry shit from American Prayer. I guess since they no longer have a legitimate frontman, they're doing the "edgier" stuff to show the world that they're all about the music (and not, as I suspect, all about the ego and/or the cash).

To their credit, if I closed my eyes during instrumental passages, I began to groove on the playing. Damn if it actually sounded like something resembling the Doors. Then my eyes opened -- or Fuel Guy opened his mouth -- and everything went all to hell. It may have been those tight shots of Manzarek's ancient fingers flashing on the giant video screens. It was worse when Manzarek opened his mouth. Clearly basking in the affection of the stoned half-filled amphitheater, Manzarek admonished a singalong during the instro jam of "Break On Through." It went something like this: "George Bush gotta get high... Dick Cheney gotta get high." I'm sure he was genuine, but I just felt all creepy hearing this from a 150-year-old guy with spectacles and a sweater. And to think I thought he was cool when he produced X.

Movie Guy, my companion, made a very good point while all this was transpiring. As witnesses to the victory trots of these geezer bands, we're waving good-bye to rock and roll as we know it. The Stones won't go forever (no, really, they won't), and all these folks we know and love are well past Denny's senior discount age, so they're gonna have to give up the ghost eventually. When will it actually end? I dunno, after U2 and REM hang it up, who will be left? What bands are there with a legacy, and a catalog, that people will pay to see? Maybe I'm being My-Gen-centric ( a la the Boomers before me), but I feel like I'm watching rock's Bataan Death March. Are we gonna pay top dollar for The Killers reunion in 2040?

At least I can tell my grandkids that I heard Pat Travers sing "Boom Boom, Out Go the Lights" before it was too late.

THE GREAT PINK HYPE

When I was growing up in the Valley back when the being from the Valley meant something, the only frozen yogurt we knew about came from the supermarket. They were called "Push-Ups" and came in citrusy flavors. Push ups shared space with ice cream and the gone-but-not-fogotten "ice milk," of which Grandma Ethel always had a plentiful supply, usually in vanilla. The problem with Grandma Ethel's ice milk, though, was that it was so old that sheets of ice often grew wild inside the plastic container.

If you lived in Sepulveda and wanted a cold, sweet dessert, Baskin Robbins was just about the only game in town or, if iyou were really stoned, you'd might trek south to Farrells on Van Nuys Boulevard. Then, somewhere around 1976 (right around the time I wanted one of those revolutionary and shockingly expensive pocket calculators for my birthday), Swensons opend up in our soon-to-be ghetto shopping center at the northwest corner of Parthenia and Sepulveda Boulevard. Unlike BR, Swensons looked like an old-fashioned ice cream parlor. I grew to obsess over the coffee chip (still my fave flavor), but at age 11, I was totally snookered by the "bubble gum" flavor, which was basically artificially colored blue vanilla with a mess o' gumballs But when you're that age, more is more.

Somehere in the mid-80s, we experienced the first wave of frozen yogurt shops -- Penguin, Golden Spoon and the like. It wasn't ice cream and its caloric benefits weren't always so hot, but it was okay in a piece of mind sort of way. But frozen yogurt seemed like a fad, and, indeed, its popularity has wavered greatly over the past two decades.

Now deep into middle age, I'm still of the mind that a good, full-fatted ice cream can't be beat (topped by a mountain of Carnation Malted Milk. Yum). Yet I can't hit the good stuff as often I as once did and have grown to embrace, sometimes even crave frozen yogurt at local hangs like Studio CIty Yogurt (where the doom-faced employees are almost worth the price of admission) or our new favorite neighborhood place, Menchies, which is a bit of a trough. Think Sizzler or Soup Plantation: How high can you fill the styrofoam cup, how much shit can you pile inside? Of course, you pile it high because you can -- you, the consumer, have the power. Then you pay the price, in many ways (they charge by weight). The Little Woman can trick herself into believing "carblite" yogurt options actually taste good, but that's where I draw my line in the sand. Life's too short too eat chalk disguised as dessert. I'll eat nonfat, but blow it by tossing in mega-fatted toppings.

Which brings me to the whole point of this. What the fuck is up with Pinkberry? Whoever's doing its marketing is doing some kind of mind control job on the trendy masses. I've been there (they opened one not far from my beloved Studio City Yogurt) and I have no clue what the fuss is about. Maybe it's the Japanese thing (related question: why is my daughter enamored with something as amorphous as Hello Kitty?). It can't be the yogurt. When did "sour" became a yogurt flavor. Green tea? Come on. No one really likes that flavor, do they? No one really puts fruit on their yogurt. Where's the M&Ms? Reeses? Cocoa Pebbles?

Yet this place has become a weird L.A. phenomenon. When I say I don't like it, people think I'm crazy. But I say it's just a silly little trend. For whatever reason, people are forcing themselves to scarf this expensive tart nothingness (and then top it with kiwi -- how insane is that?). I give it two years and then all Pinkberrys will become Winchells when the great donught renaissance of '09 grips the nation.

But I'm sure footage of the lemmings lining up for this vile stuff will make a funny segment when VH1 does its "I Love the Early 21st Century" special.