DEATH ALERT

A few weeks back, I was channel surfing on behalf of my children (will it be Drake and Josh, Super Robot Monkey Team or Secret Squirrel?) It's always a bit of a drama when you have a five-year-old boy and two-year-old girl. Anyway, I was bouncing between Playhouse Disney, Boomerang and Cartoon Network when I got sucked into a Life Alert commercial. As everyone knows, life alert is kind of like Lojack for people who think they're dying ("I've fallen and I can't get up!!!!"). Press the little button around you neck (that is, if you're not having a stroke and your arms haven't become paralyzed) and the paramedics come to save the day.

Anywho, I was enjoying the testimonials of the geezers whose lives have been saved by this device -- mazel tov to them, right? All of a sudden, for just a flash I hear and see a soundbite from Gene Friedman -- the college adviser at James Monroe High School in Sepulveda (now North Hills), California, when I attended that fine institution of lower learning back in the fabulous 1980s. Now, I was never a fan of "Mean Gene." He had his cult of brainiac students -- he taught advanced placement history, I believe. He didn't like me, though, because, if I can correctly recall, he was pissed that I authorized a positive story in the school paper (I was editor of the Monroe Doctrine -- yeah, I know, pretty clever) about an outgoing principal whom he hated. To me, he was just a petty, old, bitter prick who didn't do what he wanted with his life.

Flash ahead 25 years: The guy's plugging Life Alert. Man, I thought he was old back in the day. So I mentioned this Friedman sighting when I had dinner and drinks with my old high school and college pal, David Koistinen. David actually liked the old coot. He was well aware of the Life Alert ad and thought it ironic that the ads were still running, since Friedman died in 2006.

Sorry, Gene.