The National Bird is making a visit to the Southland today. No, I’m not talking about the bald eagle, but rather Air Force One, which will deliver President Obama to Los Angeles for a pair of Democratic Party fundraisers later this evening. AF1 is scheduled to hit the tarmac at LAX around 4PM – just the right time to guarantee the Presidential motorcade will irritate the hell out of evening commuters. The President’s destination is Hancock Park, where they will be holding a pair of events at the home of writer/producer John Wells of “West Wing” and “ER” fame.

Maybe I’m just getting cynical in my old age, but it seems like a lot of time and effort to hop an overnight to Cali just to rake in some money for the party coffers. Sure, they’re gonna stop in Wisconsin to make a speech at some alternative energy factory there, but we both know that’s not the real reason they topped off the tanks on the Big Blue Bird this morning. It’s so the elite – and wannabe-elite – of Hollywood and the local political ranks can be seen with the President, and inject a little capital into a political machine that’s hemorrhaging hundreds. But while it may seem a little smarmy to have the Commander-in-Chief fly cross-country to raise money while juggling two wars, it’s no different than his last 10 predecessors did.

Let’s put aside the distaste for a second and get down to what matters – the money. They always say that if you want to understand a scam, follow the money – so let’s give that a shot here. The two events – a cocktail party and a dinner – are expected to raise about a million dollars. The 200 guests get a chance to hob-nob with the rich and powerful, but we all know there’s only one reason they’re dropping the money in the till – Ol’ #44. Let’s face it, if you want to meet LA Mayor – and fellow fundraiser guest – Villaraigosa, all you need to do is be in the right snack stand at a Lakers game.

So the Dems are counting on the Pres to show up and do his thing, but just how much do you think it costs to bring a sitting President across the country. There’s the cost of the flight, plus the security, plus all the hassle on the ground … I’m pretty sure it’s a lot more than the $1M they’ll raise. And if you think about it for a second, who’s paying to bring Obama to the Wells residence anyway? That’s right – you and I, the American Taxpayer. We’re footing the bill for the entertainment at a event where money is raised for a political party. Wouldn’t it be easier – and a lot less irritating to commuters – if they just had us all write out a check directly to Nancy Pelosi?

Excuse me while I force the vomit back down my throat …

Perhaps it’s rebellion against the diet whackos or maybe just a plot by underemployed cardiologists, but there seems to be a spate of incredibly unhealthy fast food items hitting the market these days.

First it was KFC’s Double-Down, a bacon-and-cheese sandwich where the bread is replaced by a pair of deep-fried chicken breasts. That was topped by the Grilled Cheese Burger Melt from Friendly’s – a gut bomb of a burger with the usual trimmings, save the twin grilled cheese sandwichs that replace the bun. But those are culinary lightweights compared to the newest entry in the field.

Homer Simpson Approved, no doubt ...

Denny’s is revamping their Value Menu as part of their “$2 $4 $6 $8″ advertising campaign, trying to breath life into a franchise that is seen primarily as a breakfast stop. Most of the items are pretty straightforward – cheese quesadilla, nacho salad, fried shrimp platter and the like. But one item in particular has caught the public’s eye – and not necessarily in a good way.

The Denny’s Fried Cheese Melt at first appears to be your typical grilled cheese sandwich – a guilty pleasure to be sure, but not the end of the dietetic world. But the staff back in the kitchen weren’t satisfied with your normal pan-fried delicacy, so they kicked it up a notch – by adding four deep-fried mozzarella cheese sticks into the mix. Denny’s isn’t discussing the calorie count, but the folks at DietsInReview.com did their best to try and figure it out:

The restaurant chain announced that the Fried Cheese Melt will cost $4.00, but has not released its caloric content. Here’s our best estimate, with data provided by Denny’s:

• 750 calories for an 8-ounce serving of Denny’s mozzarella sticks, without condiments (Denny’s does not disclose how many pieces they consider a serving)
• 650 calories in Denny’s three cheese melt,
• Totals 1,400 calories

The meal will also come with a serving of fries, and a serving of marinara sauce. The french fries have 425 calories per 5-ounce serving, and the average 1/2 cup of marinara sauce has 93 calories.

Our estimated calorie count for the meal is 1,918 calories. That’s about as many calories as one should eat per day. It’s not hard to imagine why America has an obesity problem when restaurants serve things like this an appropriate meal.

Lord knows, I’m a sucker for this kind of stuff. My weights tends to rise and fall like the tides – often, as defined by the availablity of McDonald’s own gut-buster, the McRib sandwich – but I at least have choices in my diet, even if I opt to avoid the right ones. One of the reasons community activists hate to see fast food joints moving into the inner city is because their menus are traditionally filled with high-calorie, low-nutrition crap that only makes difficult lives even harder. Denny’s, however, is supposed to be family-friendly, sit down fare – theoretically, exactly the kind of stuff you’d like to see come to those same tough neighborhoods. But if this is their idea of a wholesome, nutrition rich meal, they can keep it.

As I write this, the folks at British Petroleum are going ahead with plans to shove mud and eventually cement down the mouth of their leaking Gulf of Mexico well.  I’d love to tell you that I have more faith in this version of a solution (Plan G? Plan H?) than the rest, but history isn’t on our side.   So far, BP and the people managing the leak seem pretty good at developing plans and holding news conferences, but not too good at actually succeeding at much of anything.

To recap (pun strictly intended), BP’s Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling platform failed catastrophically on April 20th and sank in 5000 feet of water, taking the lives of eleven of her crew and tearing open the well bore, causing it to gush uncontrolled into the Gulf waters.  There were repeated attempts to stem the flow – some traditional (blowout preventer), some not (top hat, junk shot, top kill) – but all were unsuccessful.  A temporary cap was put in place on July 15th, limiting the flow to some seepage from the seabed, but no one’s sure just how long the cap can last.  Relief wells are still being drilled, but are several weeks away from completion.  Even if today’s effort to kill the well is successful, the relief wells will be completed to kill it deeper and decrease the likelihood of later failure.

If there’s any good news in all of this, it’s that the visible damage is far less than I or most others were expecting.  Having watched the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989, I was prepared for lots of oil on the beaches, but it seems that most areas have little more than tar balls.  Even the areas closest to the blowout along the lower coast off Louisiana seem to have fared far better than anyone could have hoped.  Perhaps it’s the difference in distance from shore between the spill in Prince William Sound (half a mile offshore) versus the Gulf (50 miles), or maybe I’m just watching the wrong newscasts.  Maybe it’s all sitting just offshore waiting for the skimmers to finally arrive … or the first big hurricane. Whatever the cause, it’s a blessing.

Of course, that’s just the visible oil.  Experts have said that the great depth of the blowout has resulted in huge amounts of oil mid-ocean, far below the surface, where cleanup is impossible.  No one has any idea just how that is going to impact the Gulf, both now and far into the future.  There’s also a great deal of concern over the use of chemical dispersants that were used to try and break down the oil.  They were used extensively, and the concern is that you are simply trading one chemical demon for another.  In any case, much like the sites of past disasters, we will be dealing with the results of this disaster for many years to come.

For now, let’s just get the damned thing capped.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is nursing a broken elbow suffered in a bicycling mishap Saturday night. His Honor was pedaling along Venice Boulevard when he was reportedly cut off by a taxi, causing him to fall. His crack protection detail was along for the ride, but apparently unable to finger the particular cabbie.

As someone who was a full-time bicycle commuter for several years, has pedalled over 5,000 miles on the pavement of Los Angeles, and has survived two car-versus-bicycle encounters, I can sympathize with the mayor on this one, and am glad it wasn’t worse than it was. Seldom is there a happy outcome in these events, and the truth is that drivers in Los Angeles just don’t look out for cyclists. When I ride, if forced to blend with traffic, I assume I’m surrounded by idiots who will do the worst thing at the worst time. I’ve learned all the tricks of survival on the streets (like looking at the wheel of a stationary car you fear might pull out into your path – you’ll see the rotational movement of the wheel much quicker than the forward motion of the car).

If anything good comes out of this, perhaps it will be a better understanding that if cyclists and motorists are genuinely expected to co-exist, it’s going to take a combination of cooperatino and new infrastructure.  One of the candidates running against Councilman Tom LaBonge is cycling activist Steven Box, who was quick to point out the challenges Villaraigosa faced unsuccessfully while riding in a decidated bike lane:

“Venice Boulevard is notorious for having all of the trash cans block the bike lanes. Venice Boulevard is notorious for having motor homes block the bike lanes. And Venice Boulevard is notorious for having fast traffic that uses the bike lane to squeeze through even when bicyclists are in the bike lane,” he said.

Personally, I don’t think striping will ever be the answer – if anything, it gives cyclists a false sense of security and can lull them into believing they are safer than they really are.  The only real solution is physical separation, but as we learned with the Metro Rail system, it’s hard to wedge new infrastructure in among the pavement jungle that is Los Angeles.

Villaraigosa is resting comfortably back at his Getty House residence.  His office says he will try to resume a normal schedule of business sometime this week, although I’m sure he’ll make the kickoff of girlfriend / reporter Lu Parker’s new charity tonight – after all, he doesn’t have to buy tickets …

Let me say for the record that I love Iggy Pop. He does his thing his way, always has, and doesn’t give a fig for what you and I think about it. That said, there comes a time for a little common sense, even into the Popster’s realm – and now would appear to be that time.

Leatherman Lives ...

Ever since Iggy rolled out of Detroit in the late ’60s as the lead singer of The Stooges, he’s looked for ways to shock the audience as much as entertain them. Initially intrigued by The Doors’ Jim Morrison and his antagonistic relationship to his audience, Pop took it to another level, frequently exposing himself to the crowd and inventing the often-imitated “stage dive” as the ultimate demonstration of the idolation of the crowd. Though his popularity has waxed and waned over the years, his dedication to his craft has remained.

An iconic part of the Iggy Pop look over the years has been his bare chest. If you saw him in concert, whether last week or last century, you saw Iggy without his shirt, wearing nothing but jeans or leather pants – hopefully, zipped up. There was a point in time when he could pull off that look, but as this shot of a recent concert demonstrates graphically, those days are gone.

Like any performer past his prime but still wanting to connect with older fans, Iggy puts on the show everyone expects to see – and that includes losing the shirt.  But at 63 years of age, time and decades of hard living are clearly catching up with him.  Frankly, he looks like something out of a B-movie horror flick.

Please, Iggy – in the name of grandfathers everywhere … put the shirt back on!

I’m not going to lie to you – my daily existence depends on coffee. Remember that old Monsanto commercial tag line – “Without chemicals, life itself would be impossible”? That’s my morning in a nutshell. Ants leave a chemical trail to follow … my trail is defined by the location of the nearest Starbucks, Coffee Bean or McDonalds to insure ready access to a refill.

Considering what you now know, you can imagine my joy when I learned Starbucks was going to introduce a new size of coffee even larger than a Venti – until I learned the Trenta size was only for iced drinks!!!

The new 31-ounce Trenta is being tested in Phoenix and Tampa. The iced coffee version sells for $3.30 and the iced tea for $2.60.

Starbucks says unsweetened Trenta drinks have fewer than 5 calories, while sweetened versions have less than 200 calories.

There was no word of the potential impact on nerves.

Dammit all, I don’t need some watered down ice-with-a-hint-of-coffee crap, I need my medicine! This has me more irritated than when they pulled my chain for April Fools …

The day after last Thanksgiving, Tiger Woods’ finely manicured life began to fall apart with an auto accident outside his Florida home.  The day after Easter, he will take  his first halting steps towards regaining that life.  Next Monday, Woods will face the media for the first time in a press conference in Augusta, Georgia, in advance of his participation in The Masters, his first event of the 2010 season.

It’s been a long,  hard road for Woods since that holiday crash.  Rumors of infidelity turned to fact as at least a dozen women stepped forward to say they’d been a Woods mistress.  The golfer made several ill-advised attempts to control the situation before heading off to rehab (side note – ever notice how it’s only after the public catches a celebrity in the act that they enter rehab?  Just once, I’d like to be caught off guard by the announcement …), but web site notices and stiff public statements did little to help.  By most accounts, Woods has lost tens of millions of dollars in endorsement money because of his inability to keep it zipped.

The Monday news conference will be the first time Woods has stepped into the media glare with no preconditions.  No “statement but no questions”, no “five minutes only”.  Just Woods and the media, albeit in the admittedly cloistered Augusta National environment.  But it is the first chance most people will have to see the real Woods, post-rehab and post-embarassment.  As such, I have a few pieces of advice for Tiger.

- Be humble.   Remember, you got yourself into this mess, and this is your first chance to start digging yourself out of the hole (or 12) you created for yourself.  Step up to the mike,  look at the assembled crowd , clear your throat and say, “My name is Tiger Woods, and I’m here to answer your questions.  Who’s first?”

- Be honest.  Jim Rome has a hilarious clip of Tiger quotes strung together to sound robotic: “My… game … is … awesome.  The … course … is … awesome.  I … like … my … chances.”  The only reason it’s so funny is that it’s so true – and today represents your first opportunity to change that.  The genie’s out of the bottle and can’t go back – the old Tiger Woods died in the car crash.  But a new Tiger can emerge from the wreckage – looser, funnier, perhaps a little more respectful of the game.  Don’t try to reclaim the cool, robotic Tiger – become a new, open, honest Tiger.

- Be patient.  You are going to hear a lot of personal, probing, embarassing questions – and hear them over and over.  You will be tempted to shut things down the first time you hear someone ask for details about the  affairs, but don’t.  The press may be a pain in  your ass – particularly today – but remember, without the press there never would have been the millions in endorsement money in the first place.  They made Tiger Woods, and they can break you as well.  That said,  you are under no obligation to turn this into the set of Oprah;  state  upfront that you won’t be answering any questions regarding the affairs, and when someone asks, simply smile and say “next”.

- Be real.  Look, you frakked up – there’s no sugar-coating that.  But you’re not the first, nor will you be the last.  Answer the questions to the best of your ability and let the people see you for who you are – a flawed human being doing the best you can to be better, and a golfer ready to kick ass from the very first tee.

Personally, I … like … his … chances …

For good or bad, I’ve been hacking away at this blog for nearly four years now. During that time, I’ve learned a lot, entertained a few and infuriated a couple. Hopefully, you’re one of them. But as I look back on the experience, I see that there’s one key relationship I didn’t understand when I first started – happiness is the blogger’s enemy.

Having been hooked on a number of blogs (some of which are still listed in the Blogroll to the right), I thought I could take a shot at it. After all, I thought I was everything most of the bloggers I read seemed to be – witty, snarky and miserable. Witty and snarky come naturally to me, but the key to a good blog is the misery part – you just can’t spend your time smacking down others unless you have a certain inner angst and self-loathing that needs to be vented.

For the first couple of years, the posts came easily. My job sucked, my life sucked, and it was pretty easy to get me irritated about something in the world. Much like Peter Griffin, there was usually something that really ground my gears, and dumping the bile out on the electronic pad and paper seemed to help. Look back through the history of the MB and you’ll see there’s pretty much a post a day – or two or three – in the early years.

Along the way, though, something happened – I stopped being angry. I’m a little older, so a little mellower, and a little more accepting of the stupidity of those around me. My job, while nothing to write home about, isn’t the worst one in the world, and I’m even happy in my personal life. Things just don’t suck quite as much as they used to, and the MB is paying the price in the form of gaps between posts – including big ones like the one just ended.

What used to come easy has become something of a chore. Much like someone who loved to home cook but suddenly found themselves slinging hash at Denny’s, the posts just don’t flow any more. It’s harder for me to find things to rant about, and harder for me to work up the lather needed to flesh out the rant. It used to be that if I saw someone do something stupid, I thought, “This’ll make a great posting!”; now my reaction more often than not is “Meh …”

Admittedly,  I’ve done things to make the job harder on myself.  I used to do a lot of posts that were basically  just commentary on stories of the day,  a couple of sentences wrapped around a quote from an article somewhere.  I’ve gotten away from those, as I have the Monday Sports Rant and Weekend Eye Candy posts that allowed me to focus on Tuesday through Thursday.  But shifting away from quantity towards quality puts an even larger burden on me to crank out the good stuff, and unlike some of my more talented peers, it’s not always easy.

So what exactly does this all mean? If I was smart, it’d mean the end of this blog. The kiss of death for any content source is lack of content, and those few people who regularly read the MarlinBlog long ago left as the posts became fewer and further between. But I’m a hard-ass and don’t like quitting on things, so we’ll just muddle on. Maybe my life will take a dump and I’ll suddenly find new venomous inspiration, and the posts will once again flow like the green beer and yellow pee on Wednesday. Or perhaps, like the Colorado River once too many irrigation pipes have sucked it off, the posts will slow to a trickle and finally just disappear into the desert sands.

I guess we’ll see, won’t we …

The next domino in the corporate failure of once-iconic car maker General Motors has fallen, as it was announced today that the Hummer brand will be ended.  A deal was thought to be in the works with a Chinese heavy equipment manufacturer, but the apparent collapse of that deal has sealed Hummer’s fate.

While I was sorry to see the earlier end of GM’s Pontiac and Saturn brands, I’m not gonna miss Hummer in the least.  Whereas Pontiac carried history and Saturn represented change, all Hummer stands for is excess.  Born in the chest-thumping days following the original Iraq War, the initial Hummer H1 was a civilian version of the HMMV “Humvee” that gained much fame in the desert sands.  Large, loud, and with no place on civilian highways, the H1 was nonetheless popular with the “big ego, small penis” crowd.  Originally built by AM General, the folks who built the original Humvees for the military, the brand was bought by General Motors and expanded.

I can remember trying unsuccessfully to stifle a giggle the first time I saw the Hummer H2.  Downsized to more closely match the SUVs that were becoming popular at the time, it was literally the worst of both worlds.  It was boxy to try and resemble the H1 (and included embossed replicas of the some of the H1 features no longer needed in a smaller vehicle), but that cost the H1 valuable cargo space.  I figured they’d jumped the shark when I saw a crash test on an H2 that showed it had the suvivability of a ball of tin foil, but it was the even smaller H3 and a pickup version of the H2 that set the stage for failure.  In a time when intelligent people are looking to hybrids and electric vehicles as the future, the Hummer is as dated as leg warmers and spandex pants.

It’s important to note that while the Hummer brand is gone, the HMMV goes right on, as GM owns no part of AM General.  From now on, the only folks with Humvees are the ones who’ve earned them …

I think I’m pretty typical for someone my age in that I feel my generation was totally screwed when it comes to cars.  Our parents got all the cool ’60s muscle cars, but by the time we got our license all those things were long gone – we got the Pinto and the Vega.  It’s not surprise, therefore, that I was pretty pumped when Ford rolled out their retro-Mustang a couple of years back – all the cool of the original with modern touches like airbags and disc brakes.  It didn’t take long for the other manufacturers to follow the leader, and soon we had a brand new Chevy Camaro and Dodge Challenger.  But while everyone’s dipping into the ’60s well for inspiration, some ideas are clearly more inspired than others.

Dodge was a little late to the table rolling out their modern muscle car, and 2010 is the second model year for the Challenger.  One could say they were a bit preoccupied trying to stay corporately afloat, but it seems they used the extra time to learn the mistakes made by Ford and Chevrolet with their earlier introductions.  Most people agree the Challenger is the throwback that is the “truest” to the original design – right down to the colors.  Like the original, you can get your Challenger in classic colors Detonator Yellow, TorRed or Blue Pearl – heck, they even brought back Plum Crazy.  But to celebrate what would represent 40 years of the Challenger – had they stuck around – they’re rolling out a version in … wait for it … Furious Fuschia.

Now, I should point out here that I’m a Ford guy, so there’s really only two acceptable colors to me – white with two Ford Blue stripes or Ford Blue with two white stripes.  I’m willing to tip my hat to the Mopar Gang for showing a little flair in their colors, but dude – that’s a pink car.  There’s just no other way to look at it.  I guess maybe if your girlfriend is into hot cars and you’re trying to impress her with a muscle car for her birthday or something, but I think for the rest of us this is just not going to work. Maybe they could have called this one “Failed Fuschia” …

Oh, and memo to the folks at the Three-Point Star’s Five-Point division:  If you’re gonna celebrate an award, make sure it’s something legitimate.  We all know that JD Power will give an award to anything from cars to toilet paper, but you guys are celebrating the Challenger being named “Most Appealing Midsize Sporty Car” – I mean, what the hell is that?  Probably exactly what you’d expect someone driving a pink car to celebrate, I guess …