And The Winning Lotto Number Is: One


My dad used to say that lottery tickets were an unfair tax on the stupid, so I rarely buy them. I prefer my stupidity in sneaker form.

But when I heard the Mega Millions had reached 10 figures, I had to join the mania. At $2 a pop, inflation included, NOT buying a ticket seemed akin to not entertaining hope.

So I drove to one of the three Seven-11s within a mile stretch of my home (it’s that tony). I was out of my favorite $5 wine, anyway. I’m that tony. It was still a couple hours until the drawing, so I could still pick up booze, Skittles, my guaranteed winning ticket, and still have time to fantasize how I’d make my mortal enemies regret the day they called me Scotty Potty.

When I got to the store, though, I saw I’d make no dent in that list: The line of customers ran the length of the place. Two cashiers worked furiously, counting cash and printing receipts like CVS on crack.

“Twenty dollars of Mega Million tickets,” one customer said.

The number of tickets seemed to rise like a Sotheby’s auction. One bought $30 worth. One $48.

The highest while I was there was $80, though I’d love to hear a story among cashiers who surely saw people drop thousands in cash for a spin on a roulette wheel with 303 million pockets in it.

I picked up the wine and got in line. When my turn came, I plunked the moscato on the counter and ordered one Mega Millions ticket. The cashier stopped hammering the register, looked up, and smiled.

“Lottery tickets have to be in cash,” she said, almost jokingly.

I smiled back and gave her a $10 bill. She printed the ticket, asked if I needed a bag, and made a point to wish me good luck.

I walked to the car, a $5 bottle of wine and a Lotto ticket in hand, the American dream Big Gulped.

And I thought: That wasn’t an unfair tax on the stupid. Unfair is the inability to express that stupidity. Stupidity is the tax on itself.

In fact, next time the Lotto is past a billion, I’ll spring for the $2 again. Then we’ll see who’s laughing at Scotty Potty.

I’M The One Who Fava Beans

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CAROLINE!

May be an image of 2 people and beard

Anthony Hopkins’s letter to Bryan Cranston after watching Breaking Bad:

“Dear Mister Cranston.

I wanted to write you this email – so I am contacting you through Jeremy Barber – I take it we are both represented by UTA . Great agency.

I’ve just finished a marathon of watching “BREAKING BAD” – from episode one of the First Season — to the last eight episodes of the Sixth Season. [Editor’s note: There are in fact five seasons of Breaking Bad; this might have been wishful thinking.] (I downloaded the last season on AMAZON) A total of two weeks (addictive) viewing.

I have never watched anything like it. Brilliant!

Your performance as Walter White was the best acting I have seen – ever.

I know there is so much smoke blowing and sickening bullshit in this business, and I’ve sort of lost belief in anything really.

But this work of yours is spectacular — absolutely stunning. What is extraordinary, is the sheer power of everyone in the entire production. What was it? Five or six years in the making? How the producers (yourself being one of them), the writers, directors, cinematographers…. every department — casting etc. managed to keep the discipline and control from beginning to the end is (that over used word) awesome.

From what started as a black comedy, descended into a labyrinth of blood, destruction and hell. It was like a great Jacobean, Shakespearian or Greek Tragedy.

If you ever get a chance to – would you pass on my admiration to everyone — Anna Gunn, Dean Norris, Aaron Paul, Betsy Brandt, R.J. Mitte, Bob Odenkirk, Jonathan Banks, Steven Michael Quezada — everyone — everyone gave master classes of performance … The list is endless.

Thank you. That kind of work/artistry is rare, and when, once in a while, it occurs, as in this epic work, it restores confidence.

You and all the cast are the best actors I’ve ever seen.

That may sound like a good lung full of smoke blowing. But it is not. It’s almost midnight out here in Malibu, and I felt compelled to write this email.

Congratulations and my deepest respect. You are truly a great, great actor.

Best regards

Tony Hopkins.”

All The News That’s First To Print

I love the New York Times.

It is the talisman of American journalism, full stop. Slackwits will bray that it’s like any other liberal media outlet. Stockwits will caw against investment. And bitterwits will grumble that their product is so similar as to be indistinguishable from the New York Times. All bullshit.

I worked for its only ”competitor,” The Washington Post, and even we knew: The Times was where you wanted to go to, if not come from. Post reporters went to the Times, not the other way around. If the Times had a story cold, your only option was to confirm it. Because you were never going to upstage or outdo a Times story. The Times was truth. Is truth.

Which made it so heartbreaking to be a fully-engaged online subscriber for less than 24 hours.

I began the subscription quite by chance. I subscribe to the Times’ free Southern California newsletter, a curation of Times stories throughout the West. A story about covid mask safety lead me to the primary site, nytimes.com.

When I learned I had reached the limit of free stories, I considered subscription. I’ve always felt public information should be public, free and funded, like the public library system or PBS. But that’s another column. At $4 a month, the NYT was a screaming deal. And the industry buckles. So I took it.

When you subscribe to the New York Times online — as I’m guessing happens when you subscribe to any online news outlet — you’re greeted with an array of options on the news menu, all offered a la carte: sports stories; international reports; business pieces; cooking articles. My inbox was full enough, so I just clicked ”Breaking News.” I figured if Russia invaded Flint, I’d wanna have my day interrupted.

Within that day, I got an alert: The president had Covid. Ok, all systems working.

But later that day, I got another alert: Witnesses had been finalized for upcoming Jan. 6 hearings.

Uh oh.

At the end of the day, alert again: Pence staff called families to say tearful goodbyes, Jan. 6 witness testifies.

For one of the few times in my life, I went to bed with buyer’s remorse.

The next morning, this alert (always in red, always in caps) awaited me: President Biden’s Covid symptoms improved after his first full day of taking an antiviral drug, according to the White House physician.

Ok, now I’m pissed. That is not breaking news. Breaking news would have been if the president’s condition had worsened.

And I realized: The New York Times was still the talisman of journalism. But journalism itself had changed, and the Times was a dark reflection of that shift.

People who are not in the news business — and a frightening number who claim to be — have often misunderstood what journalism does. Journalism doesn’t cover reality. It covers exceptions to reality. That’s why it’s called news. It is something new and worth sharing. And the journalistic ethos states, quite chillingly: It’s not news if the school bus didn’t crash.

And in Biden’s case, the bus did not crash. At best, Biden’s Day One recovery was a day two story. It was a box score. But that urgent, breathless delivery of all news has made the conveyance actual news flaccid, impotent, forgettable. School Shooting! Trump Stupid! Abortion Overturned! Biden Aging! AMERICA WINS SHOUTING CONTEST!!!

The Times used to silently carry the big stick of truth. Now it screams it has a gun. That the Times can’t distinguish between breaking news and not-yet-reported news is heart-piercing and inevitably tied to journalism’s larger wayward drift:

We have forgotten the power of understatement.

So I canceled all emails. I’ll still keep the subscription; their stories remain unrivaled and the closest thing to that unattainable oxymoron of objective journalism. They’re still the truth.

But I’ll decide what breaks my day.