A morning blog entry that actually starts...

in the morning.  4:11 a.m. in the morning.  I have had major trouble remaining asleep beyond 4 a.m. in recent weeks and tomorrow (Thursday) is when I can finally talk to the doctor about it.

The name, Four Oh Four A.M. productions is a name that has multiple meanings.  One is that when I was trying very hard to write screenplays, most of my free time to write was around 4:04 a.m. in the morning.  I remember a conversation with a very successful writer I know, although her successes became more about historical novels rather than screenplays.  She commented about how she'd been forced to write at 4 in the morning because between her work as a Hollywood development executive and her kids, that was the only time each day that was hers and hers alone.  But I have to admit, right now I'd rather be still asleep and let the 6:00 a.m. wake-up call actually serve a useful purpose.

Another meaning for that label is something we don't see as often today.  In the early days of the internet, when the page you were looking for wasn't found, you'd get an error message.  Usually a 404 Error - Page Not Found message.  It just seemed like such a neat way to meld two very different meanings into one title.  I'd have the one production entity that produced stuff only in the darkness of early morning, while not finding what I'm looking for.

Things I'm pondering this morning.  Yesterday was the first time in a long time that I approached the downtown four-level interchange from the 101 going South.  I saw the sign and had a  warm thought for a moment.  The sign reads "Bill Keene Memorial Interchange".  No, not the comic strip author, his name was spelled Keane and he died only a year or two ago.  This sign was put up in 2006, six years after the death of former TV weatherman and radio weather and traffic reporter Bill Keene, who had worked at KNX1070 radio.  We don't remember the people who enriched our lives much, after they are gone.  I loved listening to his very humorous traffic reports (there's a ladder on the 110, they'll take steps to remove it now that CHP is on the scene).

I'm pondering something I was reminded of yesterday.  Bill Clinton, one of the most popular presidents in the late 20th Century never got a 50% plus one vote majority.  He won two elections by plurality.  H. Ross Perot at one time actually led in the polls over Clinton and Bush senior, before finishing a distant third.  Perot doesn't run, would Bush have been reelected?  We'll never know for certain.

When the Hollywood sign was in disrepair, a very disparate group of people came together to fund its repair. Among them were Hugh Hefner, Gene Autry, Andy Williams (the singer) and Alice Cooper (the other kind of singer).

Now I'm pondering how much fun it might be to try to eat a hot dog from Alice Cooper's Cooperstown restaurant in Phoenix.  They serve a 22 inch hot dog that weighs over 3 pounds with all the fixings.  I'd skip the fixings, so may be 1.5 pounds of hot dog on a long, long roll with several squirts of ketchup.  Next time I'm in Phoenix.

Candy Crowley is ordinarily a fine journalist and I'm not taking issue with her choice to violate the rules of the debate last night or accusing her of favoring Obama over Romney.  I am curious though, why is there such a strangeness to the name Candy?  I can't imagine loving parents naming a child Candy, given that it's one of those girl's names that strippers use a lot.  Candy, Amber and to a lesser extent Tiffany have always been names used by strippers I've encountered. 

How did I encounter so many strippers given I don't really like strip clubs?  I spent 2.5 years of my military career with a supervisor who was obsessed with dating strippers.  He was new in the area, so when he needed/wanted company going to strip clubs, I was his go-to wingman.  Like it or not.

I still chuckle at the incongruity of one thing.  The strip clubs in Biloxi, MS at the time were all on this one two block stretch of Camellia Street.  If you go up to the end of the next block on Camellia, there's a house of worship.  It was the local Jewish temple, the one I actually found time to attend while stationed there.  So on Friday nights, I had to drive past the strip clubs to go to temple.  And often after services, drive two blocks to find and join the boss.  That felt very strange.

In looking at the news that cars belonging to the New York Giants were burglarized while their owners were in San Francisco playing and winning a NFL game, I wasn't so much curious about how the burglaries happened.  Some of the cars were left unlocked in a lot behind an iron fence with security camera.  What I'm wondering about is a 1996 Chevrolet Caprice that was reported stolen.  What self-respecting NFL player is tooling around in a 16 year old Chevy?

My late father loved making websites for others.  But he had this habit of insisting on including sounds that would automatically load and play whenever anyone hit the website.  So if you went to a URL of his, you'd get music whether you wanted it or not.  I finally started muting the sound control before opening a page he wanted me to look at.  I was reminded of that this morning when I found an old webpage of someone elses that did the same thing and was blasted with music at 5:11 in the morning.  Yike.

Do you think the powers that be at Coupon Cabin worried about how poor Kate Gosselin will feed her 8 kids, now that she's been fired from her job as a blogger there? I don't think so.

I'm pondering something to do with Dancing with the Stars, which I no longer watch.  Debbie Allen, who I adore, professionally and personally, should be a guest judge on that show.  I'd watch an episode with her as guest judge. Paula Abdul as guest judge?  As Andy Warhol might have said, her 15 minutes are up.

Okay, okay, I wasn't going to ask, but I have to.  In a binder full of women, how many women are there?  Do different binders hold more women?  Does Mitt Romney's staff put three hole punches in the women to keep them in the binders?  Uh, Mister Governor?  Binders of women's resumes.  Resumes go in binders.  Women don't go into binders.  Sometimes if we're lucky, they go into the House and Senate, where if by some miracle you were elected, you'd have to deal with them.  Remember that.