My challenge: I know nothing of eroticism. But I’m learning, I’m learning. I shop at L.A. boutiques, I watch a lot of Starz.

Honestly, I don’t know a streamer from a channel anymore, or a mood from a vibe, or a server from a waiter.

Beware: Every word eventually gets a cool new sister wife that becomes all the rage, when really that new word is just describing the same old stuff.

That’s the paradigm in which we now live.

FYI, I am best with the same old stuff. I’m built of spare parts and Silly Putty. That’s why a goof like me could one day succeed at eroticism.

Meanwhile, half of what happens on my computer seems to be by magic.

Magic. Miracles. Good fate. We don’t respect them enough, especially when it comes to cheap foreign electronics.

Sometimes I think magic and good luck are actually God’s caress, but that’s probably wishful thinking.

Faith is faith and we’re lucky to have it. Love is love, hope is hope — all those abstractions that go unseen. Yet they are the most-powerful possessions we own, if own is the proper word.

Who owns love? Not me. At best, I get a six-month lease.

Yet, the really good concepts — Hope. Love. Gratitude. —never go out of style. Call them the holy trinity of a really solid life.

Look, who am I to give advice? I sleep on a pillow stuffed with old sports sections.

Is that a tribute? A bribe? A so-called baksheesh?

My latest fascination: The idea that there’s no edge of the universe, just as there is no flat Earth. Every delicious thing in the cosmos seems conical or elliptic: Easter eggs, pizzas, Dolly Parton.

Why not the universe?

So, if you rocket off into the stars one afternoon, heading straight up, wouldn’t you maybe just circle back and end up where you started, like a space-age Magellan?

If you walked the Earth, heading straight north around the poles, you’d eventually end up back in Glendale, right?

Same with the Cosmos. In the end, you get Glendale.

Imagine heading off to map such a universe, brushing the hair from the eyes of angels, smooching them softly on their sun-burned lips? Would that be erotic or spiritual?

You decide.

This concept of an oval universe, gleaned from physicist Carlo Rovelli, blows my mind a little.

Obviously, I hail from a different world from everyone else. Suzanne teases me over all my Tony Bennett references, my fondue jokes, the ascots I wear to workouts.

She is essentially — please keep this between us — dating my father.

Ewwwww … ick.

Two other things that are the same thing: Me. My father.

Early on, I adopted too many of his mid-century tastes. We both loved my mom, for instance. And we both got all pie-eyed over Angie Dickinson (please note that Suzanne has Angie’s car-fender cheekbones. Coincidence? Or a cheekbone miracle?).

Like my dad, I adore rental rowboats and crisp autumn days. Half his face was forehead, just like mine. Dad also had a bunch of Donegal in his Irish grin, every wink a pub.

From my father, I learned what was funny: Ted Baxter, Tim Conway, Don Rickles.

“Know who was really hilarious?” he used to ask. “Rasputin.”

From him, I learned irreverence; I learned the universe.

From him, I also learned to tie a fish hook and knot a tie. I learned how to curse other drivers for not using a turn signal.

Dad hated phonies. He loathed cheats.

Best of all, I learned from my father a love for family.

Dad used to say, “If you have kids, you have everything.”

I’d say, “Cool, Dad. Thanks!”

“Well, I wasn’t talking about you specifically,” he’d say. “Just kids as a concept.”

Man, I miss his laugh, especially on holiday weeks like this. I miss his love for hard-boiled eggs and good sports sections.

That’s where the revolutionary writers of his day lived, on the nation’s sports pages, surviving on jabs and wisecracks.

Maybe that’s why sports sections are still stuffed in my pillow?

On this holy week, here’s to fathers everywhere, the ones who push the strollers on Saturday mornings so Mom can sleep in.

Here’s to the dads who rake the infields, pour the pancakes, set up soccer goals, fix the stuff they didn’t break.

Love all you dads.

As a concept, anyway.

Coming Saturday: Eat a Peep. Cave to the Candy.

Some thanks are in order.

First, thanks to all who are supporting me now on Substack. Note that even if you’re a so-called “free subscriber,” you can get one free post a month. That kicks in April 11. If you prefer the twice-weekly posts, please subscribe.

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Secondly, thanks to all those who supported the Erskine Family Compassion Fund, honoring my late wife and son. You pulled together nearly $15,000 to help families across Los Angeles. Still like to help? Please make checks out to LCPC Parent Ed, and send to LCPC Parent Ed, 626 Foothill Boulevard, La Canada, CA 91011. Or click here: LCPCparented.org/give/

If you have problems on the donation site, or with Substack, please email me at Letters@ChrisErskineLA.com

Thank you. And Happy Easter from our home to yours.

• Baseball is church bells.

• Baseball is a call to prayer.

• Hey batter, batter…

• I prefer longing to regret.

• I prefer whimsy to sentiment … gratitude to self-pity.

• I prefer crickets to clocks.

• “Singing is like a celebration of oxygen.” —Björk

• You can quote me: Movies have become about as fun as toe fungus.

• Comedy genius Bill Lawrence (“Scrubs, “Shrinking,” “Ted Lasso”) should run a studio.

• FYI, I got rich the moment I had kids.

• Pets are riches too though.

• Hey, whatever fills your heart, right?

• Coaching tip: A dugout is where dreams are made, not careers.

• Pro sports credo: “More than enough isn’t enough.”

• “Laugh and the world laughs with you. Snore and you sleep alone.” — Anthony Burgess

• Prediction I: The Dodgers three-peat.

• Prediction II: The Rams win the next Super Bowl.

• Meanwhile, the Lakers remain an enigma wrapped in an egg roll.

• If I ever open a chicken joint, it’ll be called “What the Cluck.”

• If I ever write another parenting book, it’ll be called “Dad to the Bone.”

• Yep, like the old song: Da-da-da-daaaad-to-the-bone…

• Lucky Boy breakfast burritos make me mental — in a good way.

• As do Charlie’s cheeseburgers, in the Fairfax Farmers Market.

• As do soup dumplings at Dan Modern Chinese (various locations).

• “When your children are teen-agers, it’s important to have a dog so that someone in the house is happy to see you.” —Nora Ephron

• March is madness.

• March is buzzer beaters.

• Best breakfast spot: the patio at Brookside, overlooking the driving range and the Rose Bowl.

• Menu tip: Avocado toast with salmon.

• I love baseball the way Abercrombie loved Fitch.

• Sure, Streisand was a bit cringy on the Oscars. Still, how wonderful her Redford tribute.

• I love cringy.

• Trivia question: Name three famous novelists who were also physicians.

• My advice to aspiring writers: Linger in bed.

• More advice: Close the bar (in L.A., that’s 9 p.m.)

• Hey, I’m not forgetful; I’m just buffering.

• Descanso Gardens is out of control right now — in a good way.

• Take a bow, Pasadena Playhouse. Your production of “Amadeus” was sensational. OK, maybe a little long.

• Note: Playhouse head honcho Danny Feldman is a local treasure.

• A good play is a slow stroll through the human heart.

• “I prefer neurotic people. I like to hear rumblings beneath the surface.” —Stephen Sondheim

• FYI, “The Cat in the Hat” uses only 220 words.

• So? Most of my columns use only about 10.

• Hey batter, batter…

• FYI, the best coaches call your bluffs.

• Got a good feeling about this Chesney dude now coaching UCLA football.

• Note to Mick Cronin. Nobody loves a sore winner.

• Hockey fact: Anze Kopitar is L.A.’s Ice Mamba.

• Flower fact: Descanso has more than 700 types of camellias.

• Fun fact: When they fall in the creeks, they make camellia soup.

• “Just remember, once you are over the hill you begin to pick up speed.” —Charles Schulz

• At Grand Central Market, the older the food stand the better the grub.

• Big props to Duke’s in Malibu for the recent reopening.

• Sometimes happiness finds you; most times you have to get off the couch.

• Yeah, I hate that too.

• But Duke’s or Descanso are good places to start.

• Hot tip: Duke’s Barefoot Bar.

• Cold tip: Graham Central Station ice cream at Handel’s.

• ’Tis the season for naughty little desserts.

• Favorite sundae topping: irreverence.

• My new motto: “Honestly, who cares?”

• Newborns remind us that we’re all touched by an angel.

• “Television is an invention that permits you to be entertained in your own living room by people you wouldn’t have in your own home.” —David Frost

• Something I miss: Grass stains.

• Other things I miss: Milk Duds and Jiffy Pop.

• And finally: Siskel & Ebert.

• Happy heavenly 100th to Miles Davis (May 26).

• Poetry can make you “remember what you didn’t know you knew.” — Robert Frost

• Ditto, Bombay gin.

• After two gins, I turn into an Irish pirate.

• FYI, after 100 years, Phillippe’s is doing away with the sawdust on the floors, citing safety and insurance standards.

• Bring your own?

• Trivia answer: Novelists who were also physicians: Arthur Conan Doyle, Somerset Maugham, Michael Crichton.

• When a doctor dies, I’m always a little shocked.

• Thank God for babies.

• Thank God for March.

• Thank God for Thin Mints.

• If laughter is prayer, jokes are whisky.

• “To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.” —Somerset Maugham

• Best two words in the world?

• “Play ball!”

• Best three words in the world?

• Hey batter, batter…

• Shaaawiiiiiiiing!

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Props to everyone who has supported this new Substack venture. Please keep the comments coming. Like the photos of the grandkids, they are often the best part!

And, again, cheers to those who turned out for the Happy Hour Hiking Club last Saturday. As you might’ve guessed, I’m a big believer in the f-words: fun and fellowship. Thanks to Armando at El Portal for hosting us, and for Diana Gould for helping set it all up. Thanks to Nina Hoffmann for her terrific photos, as always.

Upcoming hikes: Santa Monica Beach and Descanso Gardens. Stay tuned for dates and details (Reminder, paid subscribers get first dibs).

Next week: Here’s to Easter and “the blessed slenderness of spring.”

In two weeks: A salute to so-called Boomer Wisdom.

The Happy Hour Hiking Club at El Portal in Pasadena.

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Not sure I’ve ever been more proud. That’s such a Chicago remedy … an Irish front-end-alignment.

“You’ve trained her well,” someone assured me, though my older daughter remains feral and largely untrainable, which in itself is an achievement. These women today, right? They breathe hope.

Look, life is a series of little ouches: car repairs, moldy cottage cheese, burning your fingertips on toast.

It’s the big ouches you hope to avoid.

So far, I’ve done a fine job of blending big hurts with little ones. I mean, haven’t we all?

In the evenings, I’ll now start to self-medicate with baseball, our nation’s most ornery and eloquent game.

By the way, these Dodgers! They’re older than your local Kiwanis Club, yet look at how they play. They’re an inspiration for seniors everywhere.

One more year, and the Dodgers will have to wheelchair through airports. Who cares, as long as they can muster the energy to stand on stage, strong and proud.

One day, the Dodgers will have to pay the piper. Ohtani’s ransom will come due, and this aging team will shift its focus to shuffleboard and the proclivities of Medicare.

Till then, admire and appreciate this marvelous baseball club, led by Dave Roberts, the best coach in all of sports.

Baseball is life, baseball is a tone poem. Los Angeles gets this more than most places, though most places love this magic game.

I’ve never seen it healthier. I’ve also never seen it more broken and expensive.

I hope — wait no, I pray — that baseball can avoid the big ouches. An owners’ strike looms, for instance, and more and more they’re trying to mechanize this lovely, bucolic game, a game that allows us — more than any other activity — to slow down and connect.

One day, I’d love to lead a fans’ strike, over $40 parking and $19 beers.

Till then, rejoice.

We are better when we all laugh together; we are better when America has something to cheer. Baseball is our opera.

By the way, here are the best baseball books of all time, no arguing allowed:

1. “Shoeless Joe,” W.P. Kinsella

2. “The Boys of Summer,” Roger Kahn

3. “The Art of Fielding,” Chad Harbach

4. “Catcher in the Wry,” Bob Uecker and Mickey Hershkowitz

5. “Perfect Eloquence: An Appreciation of Vin Scully,” edited by Tom Hoffarth.

Scully? Ever heard of him?

Honestly, I thought Dodger baseball would end the day he retired, and in some ways it has. When he died, baseball lost its Beethoven.

But oh my, does baseball go on.

So swing hard. Rejoice.

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Saturday: They’re taking the sawdust out of Philippe’s? Sigh.

Next week: Here’s to Easter and “the blessed slenderness of spring.”

You are super-sumptuous for the internal stuff too. For the stuff that bangs around your minty, mirthy mind

Can you quoteth Shakespeare, for instance? Allow me:

“For summer and his pleasures wait on thee.”

Honestly, that’s about all the Shakespeare I’ve got.

More easily, I can quoteth Sir Rodney Dangerfield:

“I’m so ugly, the proctologist keeps sticking his finger in my mouth.”

When pressed, I can dig out a quip by Moliere — “Nearly all men die of their remedies, not of their illnesses” — yet I am decidedly more comfortable with old movie lines.

“My childhood was typical. Summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. When I was insolent, I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds.” (Mike Myers as Dr. Evil)

See the wonderful things we hold in our heads? They define us, make us fun to be around. Some are very useful. Some are mere silly string.

The silly stuff sugars us. It’s the silly stuff that makes you so sumptuous and happy to be alive (at least most mornings). So send in the clowns. Please.

“I like to rock n’ roll all night and part of every day. I usually have errands….I can only rock from, like, 1-3.” (Paul Rudd in “Role Models”)

I can fake knowledge of almost anything. It’s why I’m so adept in bar debates and at charity dinners. As Miss Suzie will attest, I can talk for two hours and reveal absolutely nothing.

Know people like that? We seem full of helium. Like Beyonce, we generate our own wind.

Among the stuff stuck in my brain:

• The lyrics to “Last Train to Clarksville.”

• Directions to a perfect French Quarter oyster house.

• The length of the Gettysburg Address (272 words).

• Frank Sinatra’s birthday (Dec. 12).

• Ernie Banks’ lifetime homers (512).

We are all a little unhinged, right? Normal is so abnormal — and pretty boring. It’s our devotion to silly stuff that makes us special, that separates us from the pack: guacamole recipes, chord progressions, sports stats.

Only you know the variety of things you know. Bravo to that. And tomorrow you will be even more interesting. Let’s hope, anyway.

Speaking of unhinged….

“Last night you were unhinged. You were like some desperate howling demon. You frightened me. Do it again.” (Conversation between me and Suzanne)

Ha! Gotcha. As you know, that was actually Anjelica Houston, in “The Addams Family,” a deliciously sly film.

Look, I’m approaching 200 years old, and I’m smarter now than ever before — wiser, breezily sarcastic, brimming with trivial information that — given about 15 minutes — I can retrieve almost at will.

Who needs AI? Well, me for one. I’m one brain cell away from being a brick.

As with professional baseball players, I can only hope to get 1% better every day. Over a lifetime, that might be statistically significant. Guess we’ll see, right?

In The Times the other day, the Dodgers’ Freddie Freeman explained how he was unhappy with batting only .295 last season, third best in the National League. In most previous seasons, he’d topped .300.

I will share that little Freeman nugget, over beers, with probably 50 people before etching it into my permanent hard drive, which isn’t as hard as it used to be. Still, it gets the job done, trust me.

Thanks, Mom! Thanks, Dad! My folks always cherished a funny story and a good laugh. They shared them with me like heirlooms.

Speaking of which…

“Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries.” (John Cleese in “Monty Python”)

I just threw that in for you, Yvonne and Chris. In certain cases, with certain types of jokes, I can still hear my dad’s har-har-hearty laugh.

FYI, I miss movie houses and living rooms full of laughter. I miss comedies the way I miss creamy desserts, were creamy desserts suddenly obsolete due to corporate consolidation and studio malfeasance. The Industry, as they say, seems stuck on stupid.

Question: If the screenwriters go on strike again, as threatened, do we really even care?

Did Shakespeare ever go on strike? I don’t know. He was probably too busy ripping off Christopher Marlowe.

We care because the actors don’t make up their lines, as we all once thought. Writers make up the delicious retorts, the spinning thoughts, the malapropisms. It’s the writers, so wonderfully unhinged, who tap into the silly string that rescues us all.

For Hollywood, writers remain our only hope.

So, yeah, if they all go out on strike, I might lose my mind — and some of what sugars it.

We all might.

Props to everyone who has supported this new Substack venture. Loving the comments and feedback, often more witty and readable than the column itself. Damn you!

And cheers to those who turned out for the Happy Hour Hiking Club on Saturday. What a cheery bunch. I think you’d been pre-drinking, like me and Smartacus before Dodger games. Or is that just your personality? Whatever the reason, the fun and fellowship of that great afternoon will not be forgotten. Thanks to Armando at El Portal for hosting us, and for Diana Gould for helping set it all up. Thanks to Nina Hoffmann for her terrific photos, as always.

Upcoming hikes: Santa Monica Beach and Descanso Gardens. Stay tuned for dates and details (Reminder, paid subscribers get first dibs).

Coming Saturday: Lucky Boy burritos make me mental — in a good way. Plus other Random Thoughts.

Next week: Here’s to Easter and “the blessed slenderness of spring.”

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Lot of good it’s done, right?

Who knows? Perhaps these prayers shield you from worse calamities than you’re already facing. Perhaps they do you no good at all.

Still, we stroll and hope — the wobbly dad and his frisky praying dog.

I’m a simple man, obviously. I still drink from garden hoses, still kiss under porch lights. I marvel over vapor trails. My stomach barks after I eat spicy Thai.

I never know which button to push (apps, elevators, people). I blush too easily, especially for such a manly man.

I push ahead mostly to see what happens next, what fiasco awaits us all, and how the bureaucrats will bobble it.

Most times, I have more faith in the neighbor I don’t know than I do in the candidate I voted for.

I default to my usual state: horrified yet hopeful.

Look, I still believe in all the mainstream myths of our day. That kindness counts. That God has a plan. That most people are honest and good.

By the way, I was haunted the other day to realize that I dress almost exactly like the actor Steve Carell. In fact, if he were a brand, a sub-species, a phylogeny, I would be him.

Also like Carell, I’ve grown “comfortable with being uncomfortable,” in the words of TV critic Robert Lloyd, who wrote recently about the affable actor.

That’s not a bad outlook. Bookmark that. Mention it to your bartender or your shrink.

Comfortable with being uncomfortable…

Discuss that concept over a nightcap with someone you adore. Bittner, for instance. Or, that rascal, Mark J. Miller. Jeff or Pete or Charley.

We’re a band of brothers, my buddies, a fleet of cheerful suburban dads, all subsets of Carell, whom I’ve always hoped is as gentle a soul as he seems on screen.

So authentic in “Little Miss Sunshine.” So awkward in “The 40-Year-Old Virgin.” Such a devoted dad in “Crazy, Stupid, Love.”

Another writer once deftly described Carell as resembling a bemused forest creature.

Yet, over the years, Carell has become, like Tom Hanks and Jimmy Stewart, an American “Everyman.” That’s not a bad accomplishment. In fact, I’d take that over an Oscar any day.

Bravo, Mr. Carell. Take a bow but keep moving along. Because we might soon change our restless and fickle minds.

Speaking of change, I surprised myself last week by being almost completely relaxed over an impending jury summons.

In the past couple of decades, I’ve done maybe eight stints of jury duty, and there was always a gut-twist the night before: the parking, the cattle call, the schlepping from court to court to court.

As you know, court personnel sometimes round you up and send you to trials in Hollywood or East L.A. Fine places, of course, gritty garden spots. But who wants to schlepp there after already schlepping downtown?

This time, I had no anxiety at all. Kinda threw me.

Attention, class: Getting older is not so bad. Eventually, you become comfortable with being uncomfortable, to the point of being at peace with all your misfit quirks.

Meanwhile, here’s the thing about L.A. jury pools: There’s always one woman with a bag so big that you could fit a sheepdog. She could tumble head first into her bag at any moment, and rescue teams would never find her.

Till then, she can’t find anything in this gigantic canvas bag: her jury summons, her mortadella sandwich, the bridal dress she’s sewing for her niece, “who’s prematurely pregnant but really loves this Draymond guy.…”

Also, there’s always one L.A. juror with bitchin’ hair — obviously an actor. The rest of the jury pool looks like me or Steve Carell.

Is that a crisis or a cry for help? Neither? Both? Let me get back to you.

Finally, here’s something to chew on: One of L.A.’s top trial lawyers tells me that winning a case relies primarily on three things: jury selection, opening arguments and the facts of the case. Jury selection, he believes, accounts for 80% of winning.

Me, I wish the facts were 80% of it.

Takeaway: There is the way we wish the world worked, and the way it actually functions. They seldom share a sandwich.

That bother you? Me too.

Come on, let’s pray.

Next week: ’Tis the season for naughty little desserts and Random Thoughts.

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Can’t thank you enough for supporting me on Substack. I’m grateful beyond words, which I’m not much good at anyway. English isn’t my second language. It just seems that way sometimes.

If you have problems or complaints, please email me at Letters@ChrisErskineLA.com

Hiking note: Today’s (March 21) Pasadena hike has bout four spots left. Interested? Starts at 3 pm and winds through Old Pasadena. If you’d like to join, please email me at letters@ChrisErskineLA.com

Cheers and thanks!

Such is the life of an artist.

FYI, when Van Gogh was beginning to lose it, he got into a raging argument with Paul Gauguin — you know geniuses, prickly about the stupidest things.

In the course of the argument, Van Gogh cut off his own ear and later presented it to a prostitute. This caused a stir, because most people back then paid for affection as they do today, with cash and broken promises.

But an ear?

The next day, French police hurried Van Gogh to a hospital, where they treated the ear but not his bigger emotional needs. Were they more astute, Van Gogh might still be alive today. He’d be almost 200 years old, living in Big Sur and painting cottages for tourists.

That’s my theory anyway.

I have a theory on everything. It’s why I’ve been banned at dinner parties and thrown out of three colleges (four if you include beauty school). I’m what they call a disruptor … a revolutionary … a goof.

No wonder I can’t get many baby-sitting gigs.

I was watching my wee granddaughter the other night. “Cakes,” I call her, for she is sweet and fluffy and celebratory. Angel food.

Remember that stretch of time, two summers in a row, where I attended four weddings and didn’t manage to acquire a single slice of beloved wedding cake? As journalists point out, the first time is an aberration; the fourth time, a trend.

I wrote extensively — and quite well — about how weddings no longer offer cake to their guests, which to me jeopardizes the entire marriage.

No cake? What other traditions will you forsake, what other tribal pleasures will you deny those who love you? Every society offers tiny signs if impending collapse. This may be ours.

Which brings me to this living room in Santa Monica, where I’ve agreed to sit my two grandkids, Cakes and Puddles. It’s a little like caring for raccoons.

They own me, as grandkids often do. When Mom and Dad leave, they take the rules with them. “No ice cream,” they say as they dash out the door.

So the very first thing we do? Gobs of ice cream, one of the last great tribal pleasures that America has left.

This improves morale immediately. Yum, Papa!

Then I let them watch too much TV and stay up past their bedtimes, mostly because the bedtime routine sucks the marrow right out of my tired bones. There are teeth to brush, and now Cakes has even started flossing.

Have you ever helped a 4-year-old floss? It’s like putting lipstick on a lemur.

And Puddles? He’s 1.7 years old now; hence, a squirmy acrobat. You can’t put pajamas on such a creature. You would have better luck getting him to sit for a tattoo.

Doesn’t help that they both just had gobs of ice cream, which triggers in them revolutionary impulses.

By the time, I start putting them to bed, it is well past their curfew, and even I am starting to fade, as I do every night around 9.

Out front, we hear a car door slam, then another. Boom-boom. Oh no! It’s the cops: Mom and Dad.

If Mom and Dad catch them up at this late hour, I will lose this baby-sitting gig, my only remaining legitimate work. If I lose this job, the only client I will have left is baby Mookie, who lives down the lane with Aunt Rapunzel and Uncle Truck.

Word will get out about the ice cream and the broken curfews, as it always does in L.A.

“GET IN BED! GET IN BED!” I yell, and the kids giggle quickly toward their beds, as if some sort of air raid. Cakes and Puddles both know that they will be busted too if Mom and Dad walk in at 8:30 on a Friday night to find them still up with Papa.

“They have a schedule, you know,” says every mother since the dawn of time.

Oh, sure. Blame all your parenting problems on me, the free baby-sitter who drove through Friday rush hour to get here.

I raised four kids, you know. And that was before baby monitors or sleep sacks or specially made “night diapers,” the ones with little cows and moons.

It was a simpler time, and we mucked that up too.

Point is, I know what I’m doing. I’m just a little rusty, that’s all.

And look, Mom: After 40 years of this insanity, I still have both ears.

Coming Saturday: I still drink from garden hoses. I still kiss under porch lights.

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Can’t thank you enough for supporting me on Substack. I’m grateful beyond words, which I’m not much good at anyway. English isn’t my second language. It just seems that way sometimes. Especially when I try to be grateful and sincere. I am also blown away by your nice notes.

If you have problems or complaints, please email me at Letters@ChrisErskineLA.com

Hiking note: Our Saturday March 21 Pasadena event is a sellout. If you made the list, you should have received details by now on place and time. If not, please email me at Letters@ChrisErskineLA.com

More hikes and gin events just ahead. Cheers!

• If it moves, kiss it.

• If it stinks, eat it.

• Admit that “last call!” is merely a suggestion.

• Be playful.

• If that fails, still be playful.

• Underwear? Optional.

• Deodorant? Optional.

• Let your hair go.

• Sharpen your tongue.

• Snore.

• Smirk a lot.

• Tempt fate.

• Embrace your inner brat.

• Waste every opportunity.

• Pry into everyone’s business.

• Dilly-dally.

• Dupe.

• Hoodwink.

• Bamboozle.

• Take the low road.

• Max-out Mom’s Visa.

• Kill that keg.

• Boo Santa Claus.

• Hiss at heroes.

• Date an heiress.

• Marry a Munchkin.

• Loiter.

• Dawdle.

• Procrastinate.

• Hone your vices.

• Mumble your prayers.

• Follow every sneaky impulse.

• Lose your way.

• Climb rainbows, flaunting all the usual safety protocols.

• Kid a kid.

• Tease a teacher.

• Deny the obvious

• Break your promises.

• Snag that last slice of pizza.

• Forget to brush.

• Forget to flush.

• Twist the facts to your own advantage.

• Cheat. Bet. Swindle. Covet.

• Tip sparingly, if at all.

• Always leave your wet towel on the bedroom floor.

• Complain vociferously.

• Never listen to reason, especially your dopey dad.

• Carry carrots (in case you meet a unicorn).

• Harmonize.

• Twinkle.

• Twankle.

• Truckle.

• Tempt.

• Rush through dinner.

• Steal a kiss.

• Take all the credit.

• Mock every good idea.

• Never make your bed…ever.

• Dance to church bells.

• Flirt with disaster.

• Laugh in the face of actual work.

• Wiggle out of everything.

• Spit a lot.

• Let your laundry pile up.

• Ignore your obligations.

• Win at all costs.

• Throw rocks at the A students.

• Go to a nice steakhouse. Order the fish.

• Favorite color: ginger.

• Favorite crush: Emma Stone.

• Favorite sport: belly rubs.

• Investment plan: a lottery ticket.

• Life savings: none.

• Health plan: none

• Regrets: none.

• Favorite workout: a tall glass of beer.

• Favorite song: “You’re So Lame.”

• Hug a mother.

• Pet a Pekingese.

• Noogie a nun.

• Talk back.

• Slouch.

• Drool.

• Entice.

• Titillate.

• Razz.

• Rib.

• Sing.

• Rejoice.

• Make every day St. Paddy’s Day.

Wow. Whew. Wowza. I am humbled and amazed at your outpouring of support as I hold my hat out. It’s more than I ever dreamed. And it’ll definitely ensure a few more years of these often silly, sometimes serious missives. Thank you.

Please go to ChrisErskine.LA for signup info. Questions? Please email me at letters@ChrisErskineLA.com

COMING SOON

Next week: I still drink from garden hoses. I still kiss under porch lights. I still marvel at vapor trails.

Easter beckons: Jellybeans and jasmine and what Updike called “the blessed slenderness” of spring.

More Random Thoughts are ahead too: Baseball is a call to prayer.

Quote of the day: “Singing is like a celebration of oxygen.” —Bjork

Hiking note: We had a little glitch (imagine that!) with the signups to the March 21 Happy Hour Hike. We’ve resolved the issue. If you RSVP’d after 4pm Sunday, please RSVP again to letters@ChrisErskineLA.com. The hike begins in Old Pasadena at 3 pm and moves to El Portal at 4. About a dozen spots remain. If you RSVP and don’t hear back from me, that means you’re on the waiting list. Thanks for your interest. If you miss this one, we’ll have more soon. Note that, from here out, Founding Members get first dibs on hiking spots. But we’ll get as many thirsty hikers in as we can.

Finally, really enjoying the personal notes you’re sending with your subscriptions. Not sure I can respond to all of them. But I do read all of them and appreciate them very much. I’m glad we’re able to keep this thing going.

According to mathematician Thomas Bayes, being rational is not about true or false. Bayes’ Theorem is about forming opinions based on the best available evidence.

He insisted our beliefs are only as good as the evidence they are based upon. And those beliefs improve over time, as more valid evidence pours in.

Sound reasonable? Sound obvious? Then how do you explain Clippers fans? Or, how do you fold faith and compassion into how you feel about certain issues?

How do you explain impossible dreams: colonizing Mars, curing cancer, writing the Great American Novel?

How do you explain Walt Disney, for instance? Or Mother Teresa? Or even, pardon the politics, Elon Musk?

This junction of faith and logic is where value systems get interesting. That crossroads, my dear, is the gumbo of life…of politics…of art…of humanity itself.

So, next time you hold the door for someone and they don’t say “thanks,” congratulate yourself.

With no assurance that the other person will appreciate your gesture, you do it anyway.

That, too, is the essence of a gumbo life: Being kind without any assurance of reciprocation.

Call it “Erskine’s Theorem.” To this day, not one of my kids has ever said thanks.

Oh, just kidding. Easy joke.

Yet, parenthood is prayer, parenthood is humor.

Watching the lovely and patient older daughter scurry after her two wildcat babies might be the definition of faith itself. It is the cabaret music of the human spirit.

Of course, young children have their moments. Their hearts unsullied, disappointment not even entering their minds, small kids will gift you a wild dandelion out of sheer kindness.

Do they get anything in return? Maybe a smile and a hug. Or, what they really crave, a moment of your time.

Or, maybe you’re texting at the time and can’t be bothered. Will they bring you another dandelion anyway?

Yes, over and over and over again, into sunshine piles.

See, young children have a culture all their own, untainted yet by rules and ruffians. It’s a culture of feety pajamas and bedtime stories, of innocence and sweetness.

That’s why moms get all collywobbles when they send their kids off to kindergarten, knowing the child’s wide-eyed innocence, her inherent sweetness, will soon be tested.

Into the jungle they’ll go. Have fun, baby! Be sure to write.

Will the kid be better off than before — tougher, smarter, more socialized?

Absolutely.

Will she be, in some ways, worse — less open, less kind, increasingly leery of what the goofy kid next to them might do?

Probably.

We blast through those collywobbles anyway, because gumbo is gumbo, spice is spice, life is not knowing any outcomes and marching boldly ahead.

Damn amazing, right?

In the course of a lifetime, we see fire, we see rain.

As I reminded Miss Suzie the other day, there are the scenarios we can plan for. But there is always that added scenario that no one could ever imagine.

Life is so short, really. As my reader/friend Judy noted, we never really know when we’ll do something for the very last time: The last time we’ll hug our mom; the last beer with an old buddy; the last meal in a favorite pizza place before it suddenly closes.

Life is a lot of “lasts.” Be sure to live a little.

My son Smartacus is finishing up college soon. It was a place, like kindergarten, where group-think thrived and individuality was mostly crushed.

Smartacus loved college anyway, the whole colossal muck of it. Starting a few months ago, he started counting his lasts.” Last football game. Last midterm. Last meeting with his adviser.

I’m not sure what the real world has in store for this kid, who still seems a kid. He’ll soon be home, cutting onions in our kitchen like his late mother did: chop-chop-chop…pause for tears…chop-chop-chop-chop-chop.

Fortunately, Smartacus knows the value of Bayles’ Theorem, of solid data on which to base his values and beliefs.

My son also knows the value of compassion, faith and kindness.

As a family, we always tried to push that.

Which may explain all the collywobbles.

Coming Saturday: Just in time for St. Paddy’s Day, a “Leprechaun Code of Conduct.”

Hi and welcome to Substack. Hoping your experience has been as seamless as possible. The quick outpouring of paid subscriptions feels like a minor miracle. I’m very grateful. I value your friendship and support. If you haven’t subscribed yet, be sure to sign up as these will be behind the paywall in a month.

Subscribe now

As always, you’ll get e-mails with each new post. If you have problems or complaints, please email me at Letters@ChrisErskineLA.com. Here’s to all the smiles ahead. FYI, I could not have done this without the help of the lovely and patient older daughter, who guided me through the tricky tech. Hugs to her and all my kids and friends for being such good sports through the years. Hugs to all of you, my friends and readers.

Hiking note: Spots remain for the March 21 Happy Hour Hiking Club event in Old Pasadena. We’ll step off about 3, hit a venerable old watering hole about 4. Interested? Please RSVP by emailing Letters@ChrisErskineLA.com. This is the last one before we put it behind the paywall benefits for founding members (first) and paid members.

Hi everyone,

What do I know about Substack? I thought it was a sandwich shop. Turns out it’s a way for writers to make a few shekels for their work… “to keep the smoke coming out of the chimney,” as Mickey Spillane once put it.

So, starting Wednesday, you’ll be receiving my twice weekly posts from Substack instead of Wordpress, my former carrier. The columns will be the same material you’ve come to love – or at least like - still hosted at ChrisErskineLA.com. Once subscribed, they’ll keep coming directly to your inbox (if not, check your junk folder). For the first month, they’ll continue to be free. After that, there will be some nominal costs to get the same content.

Subscribe now

Subscription Tiers

• Free subscribers: Get the first post of every month for free. No cost at all, straight to your inbox

• Paid subscribers: $5 per month or $30 per year for what you’ve been getting all this time - 2 posts a week on Wednesdays and Saturdays, plus VIP access to Happy Hour Hiking Clubs, Gin & Tonic Tastings, space permitting (upgrade to Founding Membership to be the first to hear).

• Founding Members: - For $50 per year, you’ll get all that and more, including first-come access to all hiking clubs, gin tastings and any events, virtual hangs and holiday parties.

If you sign up before April, you can take advantage of an introductory 20% discount with the button below:

20% Off Here Before April

I hope you find this fair. After all, your doctor and plumber don’t work for free. And I haven’t busted any pipes – at least not yet.

Thank you for your continued support. I (with IT support from the Lovely and Patient Older Daughter) have done everything we can to make this as smooth as possible.

Cheers,
Chris

PS: I promise more of these, too:

He sent me Bittner. Am I lucky or what?

Speaking of love, I came across an old Barry Alan Pinkus TV special the other night, the singer still young…some 40 facelifts ago. You probably know him better as Barry Manilow. 

Obviously, the guy can pen a torch song. His best hits are world-weary, heartbreaking, melodramatic, needy. 

I like that in a song!!!

Speaking of music, my buddy Doug calls me the other night. He’d dusted off his old turntable, purchased an amp and was drinking wine and listening to old vinyl, the delicious snap, crackle and hiss of it, prompting the surprise phone call from 2,000 miles away. 

FYI, the longer the distance, the better the phone call.

Anyway, Doug tells me he is really enjoying the old Chicago albums on the turntable. As you probably know, old vinyl has a richness to it that is almost lurid.

Me, I like a little lurid. In moderation, of course. 

You know, sometimes life comes down to “achieving grace in the face of trauma,” in the words of writer Colum McCann. 

Sometimes life is just about getting out of bed in the morning. One cold step, then another, on the way to the coffee maker, which is my daily defibrillator.

Clear! Jolt-jolt-jolt! He’s alive!

Well, mostly.

Colum McCann also said: “I think the real bravery comes with those who … look at the world in all its grime and torment, and still find something of value, no matter how small.”

Look, sometimes life is about lining up the mundane stuff we all face — taxes, moving, jury duty — knocking them out one after the other, like bowling pins, proving to yourself that you can knock things out, even when your level of disinterest is only slightly less than your sense of obligation.

Sometimes life is jelly beans.

Sometimes life is avocado toast, crispy on the bottom, soft on top.

Sometimes life is that burrito you drive all the way across town for, so fat and wonderful. 

Treat yourself, OK? To be honest, you seem a little tired. Should I send God over? Or maybe Bittner? Or even Searles?

My pal Steve Searles tells me that the Paiutes insist that tribal members pray for themselves before they pray for others. Why? Because you can’t help someone else till you have yourself in order.

Sometimes life is about amusing others in order to amuse yourself. 

I firmly believe that when you help others, you are helping yourself.

This is the best excuse I know for charity, generosity, fellowship, laughter, song, long-distance phone calls.

Making others laugh helps the heart. Best cardiologist I ever knew? My son, Dr. Smartacus, who continues to lighten my heart as only sons can.

He’s like a human bypass, this kid.

See, I’m Irish by blood, Yiddish by temperament. 

So, basically, I’m double-doomed. I whistle past funeral homes, I sing past cemeteries. I’m prone to optimism, even denial, which is a helluva way to go through life, trust me.

I’m also hobbled by the deep belief that laughter is the best medicine — no prescription necessary. You can take it on an empty stomach, with alcohol. You can’t overdose on laughter. You can only have too little.

Guy goes into a bar. “Barkeep, gimme 12 beers,” he says. 

Bartender opens 12 bottles and places them on the bar. The customer proceeds to pound down the beers one after the other, boom-boom-boom-boom.…

The bartender says, “Why the rush?”

Customer says, “You had what I have, you’d drink like this too.”

Bartender says, “Sorry. What do you have?”

“Twelve cents,” says the customer.

Boom-boom-boom-boom-boom-boom-boom-boom….

When it comes to life, subtext is everything. Character counts. Humor is the secret sauce.

Comedy is the dapper bank president walking to work, pausing to step gingerly over the rain puddle in his expensive shoes, then plunging down an open manhole.

Meanwhile, what do you call a camel with three humps? 

Pregnant.

Thank you. I’ll be here all week. 

Coming Saturday: Why none of my heroes wear neckties.

One last plea for the Erskine Family Compassion Fund, which honors my late wife and son. The donations help struggling families across Los Angeles, providing everything from blankets to financial support. Any amount helps. Click here to donate.  If you prefer to send a check, please make it out to LCPC Parent Ed, and send to LCPC Parent Ed, 626 Foothill Boulevard, La Canada, CA 91011. Thank you in advance. If you have any problems with the donation site, please email me at letters@ChrisErskineLA.com

I mean, sometimes I hear harps.

I like the way cream clouds your coffee, like the dreamscapes in a Ken Kesey novel. I like old pickup trucks, a little rusty, or tureens of hot soup. I like the way the sauce bubbles in a cheesy tray of stuffed shells.

Obviously, I’m fond of forming these mini-heavens in everyday life. You never know for sure what really awaits you after the clock expires. Some folks are so sure they’re headed to some heavenly afterlife. Me, who knows?

Mostly, I like when stuff comes apart, unplanned bursts of real life (see cornbread above). I like when the dog gets loose, and someone has to chase him frantically up the cul-de-sac in the rain. I like when waiters drop a big stack of dishes in the middle of one of my incredibly wry and witty toasts. 

Bam! Silence! Cheers!

There is, in the universe, an anti-force. It exists — as sure as cloudy days and Christmas — to keep us humble, to ward off vanity. Still, we are not humble. Still, we chase perfection, knowing the universe is rallying against us.

This cosmic anti-force is the source of clenched jaws, mental anguish and that nagging feeling that you’re not doing enough with your life.

Honestly, do you get that too?

The other night, I was putting pajamas on my grandson. Still damp from his bath, Puddles’ arms would not slide into the PJs as planned — he may as well have been smeared in pine tar. 

Then he does a quadruple spin, a gold medal move, trying to worm his way back to nakedness…total purity and freedom, the uniform of the womb.

Even when difficult, my 1-year-old grandson is another little heaven. He’s got these Tony Bennett eyes and a crooner’s gift for mischief.

On a walk the other night, Puddles and I spot the popcorn vapor trails from a Vandenberg launch. Dusk. Heat. Galileo. Harps. 

“Isn’t family everything?” I ask him in the moment.

“No,” he says. But he’s still pretty young.

I was having that same conversation with a friend the other day, how family is such a source of playfulness, scandal, bemusement, germs, frustration. Not my family necessary. But yours and most others.

My buddy spoke of an elderly sister who, scouting her local McDonald’s for new friends — as older folks will do — latched onto a couple who happened to be heading to Asheville, N.C., just as she was. They invited her along on their roadtrip, promising companionship and adventure.

Being old, what did she have to lose?

The road-trip goes fine. She enjoys the scenery, the conversation, the company of fascinating new friends. Till she discovers they were actually going to Nashville, not Asheville. Oops.

Point is: There is nothing more entertaining than the triumphs and failures of our own families. They are an anti-force within the anti-force.

I was thinking about all this the other day as I was planning a chili contest. Other than the birth of a child, there is nothing more life-affirming than a good mid-winter chili contest. It has the glint of resurrection, of a sun-splashed Opening Day.

Chili today is even more magnificent than it used to be, perhaps the only item in the world that has improved with time. Has TV improved with time? College football? Media? Rom-coms? Corporations? Ma-and-pa diners? Your marriage. Medicine?

OK, maybe medicine. Maybe your marriage. Way to go!

Chili has definitely improved over time. There are all sorts today:  turkey, chicken, beef, bison, vegan. You plop on some sour cream, christen it with Tabasco, dip your cornbread. 

Heaven.

Chili contests are best held when it’s raining or snowing, and there’s a fire in the fireplace.

Warning: Everyone wants to have a personal moment with the person who wins a chili contest. These bursts of attraction are temporary, last about 3 seconds, but for a mega-moment, this chili champion is a rock star.

Don’t we all relish the thought of being craved?

OK, not everyone. Who even needs other people? Not me.

So, my ultimate point — finally — is that if you happen to find yourself a chili contest hero, please don’t let such fame change who you are — you imp, you ump, you lovable grump.

Because, one day, you may happily be headed to Asheville.

And then you’re not.

Hi. Me again. Reaching out on behalf of the Erskine Family Compassion Fund, which honors my late wife and son. The donations help struggling families across Los Angeles, providing everything from blankets to financial support. Any amount helps. Click here to donate.  If you prefer to send a check, please make it out to LCPC Parent Ed, and send to LCPC Parent Ed, 626 Foothill Boulevard, La Canada, CA 91011. Thank you in advance. There are many good causes; this is just one of them. If you have any problems with the donation site, please email me at letters@ChrisErskineLA.com

Mark your calendars: Happy Hour Hike planned for March 21 in Pasadena! Stay tuned for details.

Many of us are still coming off the glorious weekend featuring that tiara of white atop the local mountains. 

Heading east, it filled your windshield. The vistas stretched from Tujunga to Mt. Baldy and beyond. 

Sublime is too weak a word.

Pretty sure we store these postcard images in some sort of memory bank — our subconscious, perhaps. Or that little ZipLoc where we save our hopes and aspirations, and the guilty little secrets we don’t tell nobody.

These images sugarcoat the mind, season our dreams, soothe the soul. It’s one more reason to celebrate a winter weekend in Los Angeles. 

Threw open the windows to the fresh, post-rain air … we all did on Saturday. Know what they call that? Burping the house.

The New York Times just ran a piece on it. Burping the house is based on a German tradition called Lüften.

Essentially, it’s the airing out of the house by opening the windows, encouraging cross-drafts, thereby eliminating stuffiness, smells, germs, mold, bad juju, thereby fostering a healthier living environment.

Will it get rid of lingering houseguests? Pretty sure. Will it wake the sleepy kids? No doubt.

Just barge into their bedroom — always knock first, trust me — then throw open the windows as the dog jumps around the bed. That should do it.

Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaad!!!

And please don’t forget to burp the bathroom, the most-important room in the house.

By the way, when I visited my sis in Portland recently, I was pleased to discover the joys of a heated toilet set.

You might think that an affectation, a pleasure for the rich and famous. And it is.

Yet, for 130 bucks, you can plug in a Home Depot toilet seat, and I promise you a life-changing experience (make sure an outlet is nearby). 

The only things better? 

—First love.

—Movie popcorn.

—Ferris wheels.

—Taking off your ski boots after a long day.

—The first bite of a really good cheeseburger. 

That’s about it. 

Let me guide you through the experience, so your heart (and butt) don’t stop from pure happiness: 

On a chilly morning you plop down, as you’ve done a ba-zillion times before, pre-cringing, as if entering a bad dinner party, then discover that the throne is warm as a lover’s thigh.

Wow is all I can say. Double-wow. Wow to the 15th power.

Did Da Vinci ever invent anything as wonderful as a warm toilet seat?

It may also explain Rodin’s “The Thinker.”

By the way, these are just some of the many important ways I’m here to help you. Thanks to me, you can now burp your house, pamper your posterior, enjoy all these tactile pleasures that you otherwise might not even know about. Every day, I’m out here in the trenches, dodging enemy fire, just so you can live a little.

Right now, you’re probably asking: “Why doesn’t this guy have his own empire, like Caesar? Or at least a home shopping channel? Why doesn’t this guy start his own church?”

Tell you what, in my empire, all the toilet seats would be heated. There’d be a Zankou chicken on every stove, a little British convertible in every garage.

And on Saturdays — Sundays too — my subjects would throw open their doors and windows to rejoice in their amazing good fortune. 

“What a Shagri-la!” they’d sing. 

Or, in tribute to those mountains with the frosted tips, Shangri-LA.

Burrrrrrrrrp.

Coming at you once again on behalf of the Erskine Family Compassion Fund, which honors my late wife and son. The donations help struggling families across Los Angeles, providing everything from blankets to financial support. Any amount helps. Click here to donate.  If you prefer to send a check, please make it out to LCPC Parent Ed, and send to LCPC Parent Ed, 626 Foothill Boulevard, La Canada, CA 91011. Thank you in advance. There are many good causes; this is just one of them. If you have any problems with the donation site, please email me at letters@ChrisErskineLA.com

Coming Saturday: Chili contests and rocket ships.

Well, there is plenty of ludicrous to go around — then and now.

Like, the fact that McDonald’s now relies on self-help kiosks. Obviously, McDonald’s has given up all its Michelin-star aspirations and decided to go after bottom-feeders like me.

During one recent visit, my order number vanished as I tucked my credit card away.  Luckily, the place wasn’t busy (those kiosks doing an excellent job of keeping the crowds down).

Indeed, the road can be a harsh place, Jack Kerourac taught us that, as did Napoleon, as did Thelma & Louise. Bad things happen out here on the gusty 395, which is one of the reasons I enjoy it: the suspense.

It’s just White Fang and me up here for a couple of days in the sugar-frosted Sierra. I lure the handsome husky into the Honda with promises of winds through the aspen and snow napping on the highest boughs. 

Our first morning looks like a weather alert. We wake to ice on the walkways and snow pushed 40 feet high. They get so much snow here — more than you’ve ever seen — so super-sized plows push it back off the parking lots into Seussian piles. 

You could ski the piles, if you wanted (no lines, no waiting). You could also hollow them out and build a condo, as they do almost everywhere else up here these days.

Remember Whiskey Creek, right there by the light? That whole area will soon be high-end condos. 

Meanwhile, my buddy Steve Searles, this town’s former wildlife guru, says authorities have killed or driven off most of the resident bears. Once a model for co-existence, Mammoth has few bears left, Steve says,. That’s a permanent black mark on Mammoth’s resume — if you ask me anyway, which you didn’t.

I’m here to tell you that money may finally ruin Mammoth just as it’s ruined many Western ski towns of once-glorious virtue. “The mountains are calling…” said John Muir, and he wasn’t talking about day spas and hyper-luxe log cabins. 

By the time they are done, developers will have paved over everything that made Mammoth irresistible in the first place.

But we’re not here to criticize. We’re here to appreciate … to get high on the wood smoke, the fresh snow, the starry-starry nights.

Our room at the Motel 6 is so cozy that when White Fang goes one direction, I have to go the other. But it is tidy, and they do that fancy thing with the toilet paper where they fold it into the shape of an arrow.

The message: Welcome too Mammoth! Watch your butt.

On every walk, White Fang and I hear the hymns blowing through the pines. As you know, Brahms wrote lullabies, he wrote symphonies. But did he ever write anything as beautiful as this?

Here’s hoping they don’t do to these amazing trees what they’ve done to the poor wild bears. What a lack of taste and finesse. In five years, this place could look like a West Hollywood strip mall.

In winter, Mammoth Lakes has always been a great place to visit but a tough place to reside. Lord knows when the cold wind blows it’ll turn your head around, etc., etc.

As a result, Steve says there are only a handful of restaurants left in town here. They never really bounced back after Covid, so now it’s down to hyper-busy Roberto’s and a few other joints. Before long, they’ll have to put up one of those nice McDonald’s. 

Till then, I’d recommend Toomey’s for the buffalo meatloaf, a slab the size of your ski boot. Tasty too. 

So, come on up. The skiing is phenomenal, thanks to the recent storms. But I gave up skiing just as I gave up golf: for emotional reasons.

Also, a day of skiing, though never a bargain, is now ludicrous. 

A one-day lift ticket now goes for up to $239, depending on the day of the week. A Tuesday night at the Motel 6 will run you $200 (weekends $350-$500). If you can find a restaurant, add another $50 per person for a cheeseburger and a beer. 

How do you get Dad buzzed and happy at those prices?

“Like standing in a cold shower and tearing up $100 bills,” my buddy Ulf used to say of a family ski trip.

Still, they come. Because Mammoth is California’s annual winter Olympics. Mammoth remains the antidote to rush hour on the 405 and the yakety-yack leaf blowers next door.

Stuccoed, paved, denuded, emasculated, de-beared, and soon to be unrecognizable, Mammoth Lakes is so wondrous that it may withstand all this cold-hearted greed.

But hurry.

Coming at you once again on behalf of the Erskine Family Compassion Fund, which honors my late wife and son. The donations help struggling families across Los Angeles, providing everything from blankets to financial support. Any amount helps. Click here to donate.  If you prefer to send a check, please make it out to LCPC Parent Ed, and send to LCPC Parent Ed, 626 Foothill Boulevard, La Canada, CA 91011. Thank you in advance. There are many good causes; this is just one of them. If you have any problems with the donation site, please email me at letters@ChrisErskineLA.com

Photo of cottage courtesy of Darlene Liptak

Trust me, I could listen to a star murmur all night long. Sure beats the dog snoring.

Margaret Atwood wrote that winter is the time “to eat fat and watch hockey.” She seemed especially smitten with the common french fry, as we all are. The best phases last a lifetime. FYI, when I love something, it lasts forever. 

Oh, don’t sigh. It’s kind of a curse, actually. My heart wears handcuffs.

Most recently, I seem to have fallen for the semi-sport of curling, which runs for hours,  in some sort of Olympic loop.

Love the intensity of the players, as they release that big doorstop down the ice …the focus, as if they are about to chisel-whack an expensive diamond. 

Curling is a game of finesse, like mending a bird’s wing, or making an omelette. The average fry cook or columnist could do it.

I’ve threatened to take “Miss Suzie,” as the grandkids call her, to curling lessons in Panorama City, where they teach the sport to beginners. 

At first, she seemed meh over the idea. Then, as with the rest of the worldwide audience, curling began to intrigue her. I suspect she will love curling forever — or till closing weekend, whichever comes first.

Miss Suzie is coming off a triumph of her own, the baby shower for her middle child. Like her mother, Claire tilts her head when she smiles. For a moment: Chopin.

Of course, the baby shower was lovely, as winter sports go. The setting was sensational, the weather held out, 40 or so guests showed up showered, shaved and spritzed. Handsome crowd too. Like extras in a Nancy Meyers flick. 

Claire glowed, as preggy mothers always do. Lloyd, the preggy dad, did too.

By the way, have you noticed what a great generation of young fathers we’re seeing? It threatens to knock the cynicism right out of me (don’t fear, I have a plenty).

Honestly, this generation of fathers might be the best of all time. They didn’t win a world war, or bring on the computer age — they left that to their dads and grandpas.

What makes them special, though — possibly The Greatest Generation of Fathers — is the way they relate to their kids.

They have embraced fatherhood with total passion. I see it in my sons-in-law, I see it in other young dudes, mostly in their 30s, who wear a baby on their shoulders with pride and joy, who gladly race off to change a diaper, warm a bottle, start the nightly bath.

I mean, our generation did too. But today’s young dads have taken fatherhood to the next level. It’s like they’ve discovered life’s secret sauce.

Honestly, if you want to add passion or purpose to your life, there’s nothing grander than a baby. 

Listen, parenthood will always have an imbalance, the mothers bearing the brunt of it. But these guys have really stepped up. In return, all they’ll get is the most-profound experiences they’ll ever have.

So there’s that to look forward to.

Meanwhile, Miss Suzie and I replay the highlights of the baby shower for a day or two after. Didn’t Claire look happy? Weren’t Lloyd and his mother terrific … Todd and Tracey…Kelly and MaryLou…Lynda, Nick, Blaine?

At one point, I tell Suzie that I would love to hear the other guests’ post-party reactions — what they said on the drive home, what they all ruminated about later over dinner.

Were the drinks cold, the food memorable? Did the party have a playfulness, a vibe? Were the speeches witty and warm? Did we, collectively, all 40 of us, manage to make a memory?

In a glum world, on that wintry L.A. afternoon, did this baby shower offer us a sunny spot in our lives?

I think you know.

Coming at you once again on behalf of the Erskine Family Compassion Fund, which honors my late wife and son. The donations help struggling families across Los Angeles, providing everything from blankets to financial support. Any amount helps. Click here to donate.  If you prefer to send a check, please make it out to LCPC Parent Ed, and send to LCPC Parent Ed, 626 Foothill Boulevard, La Canada, CA 91011. Thank you in advance. There are many good causes; this is just one of them. If you have any problems with the donation site, please email me at letters@ChrisErskineLA.com

Caption: Claire, bottom right; Lloyd, in white shirt directly above her.

Coming Saturday: Visiting L.A.’s winter wonderland.

Never heard of him? Now you have. I’m only happy when I’m helping you navigate this big, bountiful world.

So, getting back to loud ways to love someone…

Candy works. Wine too. Potions…lotions…polka-dot PJs, soft and loose.

The other day, my sidekick Suzanne spotted these amazing bird-shaped corkscrews at the Descanso Gardens gift shop, featuring custom wood inlays.

Obviously, that’s a loud way to love someone. Through artfulness. Through kindness and exquisite taste.

You could write him or her a song, of course, if that’s your jam. I was going to say “if that’s your forte,” but I was trying to act all cool and stuff. 

Note that not acting  “all cool and stuff” is a sign of authenticity, of character, and something to cherish, even pursue.

You could also give someone a poem. Or, a hug. Or a book by Somerset Maugham.

There are better writers, but not better names. Somerset Maugham. Sounds like a vineyard, right? Or a gated community near Laguna.

“So what’d he get you for Valentine’s?”

“A Somerset Maugham novel.”

“Huh? That’s it?”

If you truly give yourself to someone, flaws and all, confiding your fears, hopes, desperations, lusts, failures, strengths, weaknesses, thereby revealing your secret stash — your brave and generous heart — is that loving loud?

YES, I THINK IT IS!

In fact, it might be the very essence of love itself.

The buzz of love, especially early on, feels like some sort of fission. It could come in a warhead, or a syringe. It is our most powerful abstraction. 

Warning: The onset of a loud love makes you irrational and kind of coo-coo. We could use a bit more of that, actually. 

Coo-coo-ca-chew…

As we know, love makes the world go ’round. Birds do it. Bees do it. Even educated fleas do it. 

We humans seem to make the most mess of love. Men make a mess of love the way Spain made a mess of Cuba. Women make a mess of love the way the Rams botch punts.

My first crush, my learner love? The ever-elegant Kathy Kelley, my original hometown honey, the Lauren Bacall of Barrington, Illinois. We’re still in touch. Know why? We never kissed. I was 4. I didn’t know where to kiss. 

Yet, I loved her as fully as any 4-year-old man could. I walked her home from kindergarten, discussed the crafts we’d made, the Elmer’s glue curling wildly on our fingers. In 1961, the height of the Kennedy Administration, Kathy Kelley and I had our own Camelot. We were a couple, a couplet, a rhyme. 

Lasted about a month, as the purest love often does. 

I’ve had a few raging loves since then, not many. There’s Bittner, obviously, and all my other buddies: Jeff, Mark, Eugene, Charlie, Pete, Chris, Billable Bob (my attorney). 

There’s my beloved beast, White Fang, who loves me just because I rub her belly when she’s a little sad. 

The “love of my life” is actually my children and grandkids, though their mothership, Posh, deserves a co-producing credit.

I also love — quite loudly — the Chicago Bears, William Blake and John Coltrane, especially on the soprano sax.

I love old vinyl when its dusty, and the silence between words in a Tennessee Williams play.

I love the crack of the bat and the roar of the crowd when the  rookie phenom comes roaring around third, nostrils flaring, heading for home.

As a concept, I really love heading for home.

Till then, I love that one bar in South Pasadena, Griffins of Kinsale — the pews along the wall, the tattered old menus, the sliders, the Harp on tap, the toot-toot train stop just down the block.

I love fresh apricots and good cigars. I love Steely Dan. I even love busy airports. Except, of course, LAX. 

I also love the music they play in bookstores and the sound the ocean makes beneath piers.

I love the way the local coyotes howl whenever a firetruck screams down the boulevard.  Obviously, coyotes are accomplished singers, as evil predators go anyway. 

As the Bible says: Love thy predators.

Seems we sometimes weaponize love, as you can weaponize wealth or power or even faith.

Maybe that’s why Cupid carries all those arrows, zinging, pinging, prodding us to take a chance on this chaos of the heart.

Way to go, you pudgy little punk.

Cupid for mayor! Cupid for president!

As they say, love conquers all.

Once a year, I reach out on behalf of the Erskine Family Compassion Fund, which honors my late wife and son. The donations go toward struggling families across Los Angeles, providing everything from blankets, to books, to financial support. Any amount helps. Click here to donate.  If you prefer to send a check, please make it out to LCPC Parent Ed, and send to LCPC Parent Ed, 626 Foothill Boulevard, La Canada, CA 91011. Thank you in advance. There are many good causes; this is just one of them. If you have any problems with the donation site, please email me at Letters@ChrisErskineLA.com

Next week: The snowy mountains are calling us.

By the way, I have a theory: Airline coffee never fully leaves the body. It’s digestible only in tiny bursts, like other micro-plastics. Mostly, it swirls in what engineers call a “closed loop.”

Still, I request a cup from the flight attendant. After all, a guy’s gotta loop.

See, football is over and tax season begins. I fear my annual post-gridiron funk, followed by the usual February rut. Not a bad time to hop a flight to the Pacific Northwest, Gate B4 out of Burbank, cozy as a phone booth. I tell you, you meet the nicest people when they’re accidentally standing on your foot.

As we all know, commercial air travel means a loss of humanity, of civility, of comfort, though down below us is Donner Pass, where real atrocities have happened, worse even than airline coffee and wooden swizzle sticks.

So, I’m all smiles….trust me, total smiles. Some 950 miles to the north, Portland beckons, a town of unconventional and chronic pleasures. 

By nature, big cities interest me, almost every one offers something special — a good pool hall, for instance, or oysters smoked in butter and cream.

Jeeeez, suddenly I’m channeling Anthony Bourdain?

Yet, like him, I’ll note that our wonderful country is being homogenized to an uncomfortable degree; really, it borders on desecration. Best to celebrate these funky and original old towns. And there are few cities with more scruffy character than Portland, Oregon.

You don’t visit Portland so much as you stick it under your tongue and savor it. Outside New Orleans, I’ve never seen a food outpost like this. In Portland, it’s as if the great grub finds you.

Dining out here is not a stuffy, pretentious experience, as it often is in L.A. or New York. Here, they eat, really eat. They don’t care that their rib cage no longer shows or that their Lulus don’t fit them like wet paint. Not sure they even have those here.

Mostly, they just pick up another flannel shirt at Costco, 12 bucks.

Trust me, I admire Portland the way Robert Frost loved country lanes and overnight dustings of snow.

Have to confess that escalating costs make me ponder alternative locations like this. My sis, Eleanor, a longtime denizen, is appalled that a little house next to hers is going for $400k. Welcome, I suppose, to 1988.

In any case, I am here for a glorious week of seeing my sister through a gruesome foot surgery, bringing  her meds, her phone, re-heating soup, running errands, taking out the trash bins, walking her slurpy little dog, Gigi. 

So far, none of this stuff seems beyond my skill set. But the week is young and I — at last glance — am not.

As Dr. Mercer does his thing, I duck into the Biscuits Cafe in Happy Valley, a steamy and inviting breakfast joint that serves heaping slabs of perfect hash browns, perhaps the only reason I bother to wake up each morning.

As I pay, the server says “God bless you.” Wow. So bold. That could easily get you fired in Los Angeles, where blessings are often discouraged. 

Up here, they apparently still honor God a bit, at least in little pockets northeast of the city.

As with any place, Portland is best defined by the food it serves: creative, artful, affordable, sustainable, magical, moving and graced by the gods manning the grill tops.

Breakfast as early Mass. Food as holy water.

Once a year, I reach out on behalf of the Erskine Family Compassion Fund, which honors my late wife and son. The money goes to struggling families across Los Angeles, providing everything from blankets, to books, to financial support. Any amount helps. Click here to donate.  If you prefer to send a check, please make it out to LCPC Parent Ed, and send to LCPC Parent Ed, 626 Foothill Boulevard, La Canada, CA 91011. Thank you.

Coming Saturday: Cupid. He’s such a little punk.

Load your young kids aboard “The Flying Couch.”  

FYI, right now is a very good time to fly a couch; rates are low and seats are plentiful.

On The Flying Couch, the first thing you do is buckle your seatbelts. Then you ask your passengers to put up their imaginary drink trays and stow their invisible laptops and other belongings.

Then you start the pretend engine. Then you re-start the pretend engine, because this low-budget airline hasn’t serviced this plane in a while — a bit of foreshadowing. The FAA has yet to catch up to this airline, which is what makes it a thrilling choice.

Down the runway you go. It’s one of those smaller local airports, so the runway is a little choppy. So you bounce on the couch cushions, the kids bouncing with you.

You spot a stray cow at the end of the runway, so you have to take off rather abruptly. Fortunately,  you’re an experienced pilot. 

Pull back the imaginary wheel, and up you go.

“Look, we’re in the clouds!” you tell your passengers. “Can you smell that McDonald’s on Pico? It’s right below us. Ummmmm, fries.”

You putter along for a while, ducking under the clouds to look for cruise ships and pirates.

“Where do you guys want to go today?” the pilot asks.

“India,” says the 4-year-old.

“This airline don’t go to India,” you say.

“Oh…”

“OK, I just talked to the tower. We’re cleared for India, here we go!”

The plane takes a steep banked turn, as you lean into your kid or grandkid till he or she giggles.

The most-important part of this schtick:: Exaggerate every airborne maneuver and loop-de-loop till they giggle. FYI, this works in your adult relationships as well. 

“Smell the salty sea?” you ask your passengers. “Oh look, whales.”

“Where?”

“Right there.”

You drop altitude to get a little closer to the whales. Sound effects are encouraged. Think of those kamikaze movies you watched as a kid.

“See? Whales.”

Of course, the landings are the best part of any flight. In this case, we’re stopping in the Canary Islands to refuel.

“Ever been to the Canary Islands?” you ask.

“Nope?”

“Full of canaries,” you explain.

You drop the landing gear as you smoothly glide toward the runway. All is well on this perfect day. Below, the Canary Islands begin to fill the windshield.

“Hold on!” the pilot tells his passengers.

This is where the fun really starts, because this is not a smooth landing — not a smooth landing at all.  

As you touch down, you bounce on the couch, kick your legs high in the air, flip over backwards, bounce even more, roll all around, yell “WHERE’S MY BRAKES? WHERE’S MY BRAKES?” Then you appear to skid out of control before regaining full command of the aircraft and coming to a safe and satisfying halt.

“That,” I always proclaim, “was my best landing ever. Puddles, you OK?”

Puddles is my 1-year-old grandson. He’s upside-down at this point, with his shirt half off and popcorn in his hair. 

Now, what do you do in the Canary Islands for fun? Well, you refuel and grab some lunch. Chase some canaries. Top it off with ice cream. Actual ice cream from the kitchen is a nice touch here, but optional. Then you climb back aboard the plane for the second leg of your journey.

Off to India you go, on the greatest airline the world has ever known.

This babysitting stunt has solid precedent, by the way.

L. Frank Baum wrote about flying couches in his “Oz” series, as my friend Marty points out. 

Despite video games and too many screens, human imagination will always have a place in our lives.

Remember as kids, on those long rainy days, how you’d pull all the cushions off the couch and build forts? Or you’d take bed sheets and blankets and tent them into villages?

At night, someone would turn off all the lamps and get out a flashlight. You’d tell ghost stories. If Mom was in a good mood, she’d let you put on your PJs and spend the night in this fort.

Loved those carefree couches of our youth, which are mostly gone now.

Or are they?

Because we’re heading to India now, amid mild turbulence over the Arabian Sea, then some serious thunderheads over Pakistan.

“Please return to your seats and fasten your seatbelts,” the pilot says.

We eventually put down at a little airport near Bhopal.

“Hold on!” you scream. “Here we go again…”

Coming soon: Off to the Pacific Northwest

So this summery stretch we’re having feels like a July that’s come too soon. Haven’t had a drop of rain since Jan. 1, in what promised to be a very wet winter. Now, as do all things in California, we go from one extreme to the other.

As you know, there’s no such thing as “normal” in California. It is either a land of too much or a land of too little. Add to that an almost embarrassing abundance of Julys.

As you’d expect, the beach was packed on Sunday, as the temps neared 80. Took the wee ones to dip our toes in the surf. Folks were swimming, the vendor carts rattled by. Ice cream in February? We must have it pretty good.

Still, I miss the seasons, or even the relatively subtle changes that pass for seasons out here. The lawn could use a cold shower, and the magnolia leaves are growing dusty again.

February is supposed to be cold toilet seats and vapor trails high in the sky. According to a hiking pal, a former commercial captain, the reason we see more vapor trails in winter is because the atmosphere cools and the jets’ warm condensation leaves more of a mark in the sky. 

I like when these so-called contrails criss-cross, like skeins of yarn. To me, it’s a form of confetti. Like maybe somebody in charge of the cosmos popped the Champagne.

Meanwhile, White Fang is disappointed in this faux February. Like me, she runs hot, and the husky’s fur is flying off in clumps. In the afternoons, when the sun warms her play area, she digs into the cool flower beds, in hopes of a more-refreshing nap.

I took her to the snow recently, and now she’s back in her fry-pan home. Honestly, it might’ve been more humane just to release her into the wilderness. When she got hungry, she could’ve noshed a stray snowmobiler. You put enough ketchup on anything….

I sure can grumble about the slightest slights, can’t I? The other night, a reminder of how good we have it: Suze and I wandered over to Vibrato, the Bel Air music club, to listen to a Van Morrison tribute. Sensational…the food, the music, the gin, everything. Pricey, for sure. But isn’t everything these days? Last week, I spent 14 bucks on a quart of motor oil. Still can’t believe it.

Two nights later, we plunged into the heart of Hollywood for a birthday bash for our pal Brick. After drinks/dinner at the Astor Hotel, the guests all convened in a screening room for a showing of “The Big Sleep,” the noir classic, set in L.A., as most noir classics are.

Here’s the thing about Bogey; he hardly ever smiles. And Lauren Bacall, she hardly ever smiles too. So the two of them, this classic couple, two of the all-time Hollywood greats, are togethering on the couch, insanely hot for each other, yet not smiling. Is that really what romance is all about?

Well, come to think of it: Clark Gable and Carole Lombard? Nary a smile.

Dustin Hoffman and Mrs. Robinson? No smiles, just lust. He wouldn’t even smile at deer-eyed Elaine.

Elaine!!!

Here’s the disconnect: When I’m happy, I smile. I’m from the Midwest, and that’s the way we’ve been trained to express total joy, with a big dopey, golden-retriever kind of grin. 

Out here, apparently, when you’re happy, you just sparkle like the sea, which is what Bogey and Bacall were doing up on the big screen. Couldn’t take our eyes off of them — living, breathing sequins.

See, I’m learning Los Angeles., obviously. It’s taking me longer than I’d like, and like quantum physics, I’ll never fully realize it, since like quantum theories, L.A. love is counter-intuitive.

In conclusion, in mid-winter. L.A. is too warm. In love scenes, L.A. is too cool…like vapor trails, like snow on cedars.

What’s a simple boy like me to think?

Maybe I should just sit back and let the California sun eat my skin, as it’s prone to do with light-skinned lads like me.

On my tombstone: “Eaten alive by L.A. (Hey God, how about another round?)”

• Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be.

• I prefer my winter nights cozy and quiet. 

• If you can’t decide if it’s a stew or a soup, it’s a “stewp.”

• In L.A., everyone loves a good comeback story.

• In L.A., everyone IS a good comeback story.

• “I was born when she kissed me.” —Humphrey Bogart, “In a Lonely Place”

• FYI, I drive in iambic pentameter. 

• And I kiss in three-quarter time.

• You can tell a lot by someone’s fridge.

• You can tell a lot by someone’s lack of regrets.

• Like Bogey, I harbor no regrets (though several lawsuits are still pending).

• My secret spot: Dupar’s for breakfast.

• Do you have secret spots? 

• What about those freckles no one knows about?

• Quart of oil, 14 bucks?

• Hot coffee on a cold morning is the answer to a minor prayer.

• I am molded out of minor prayers.

• But remember, no regrets.

• Remember when goal posts were white?

• Remember when game balls were called “The Duke?”

• Props to NFL Films for 63 years of brilliant work.

• Its co-founder, Ed Sabol, was the Steven Spielberg of sports.

• Confession: I go into a minor funk the day football season ends.

• An antidote to minor funks: Paris Baguette, the new corner bakery in Montrose.

• Heaven must be full of bookstores and corner bakeries.

• “Misery loves company, but so does joy. And joy throws much better parties.” —Bill Ivey

• Another antidote to a post-football funk: a long, lazy hike.

• A dive worth trying: The 1881, Pasadena’s neighborhood jazz joint.

• FYI, the title to my new novel: “Creme de la Crime,” featuring a femme fatale named Jenny Because. And her wise and sexy pastor, Church Osburn.

• No, it’s not done. True art is never done. 

• Besides, I prefer stuff that goes on and on: hockey season, dark steakhouses, creaky old stadiums.

• Another secret spot: Mt. Wilson.

• And another: Chevalier’s Books in Larchmont Village.

• Hey, shouldn’t Tilly Norwood (the AI hottie) have a Valentine’s boyfriend?

• “The sky is low, the wind is gray, the radiator purrs all day.” —John Updike on mid-winter.

• Trivia time: Who was the inspiration for “Tiny Dancer,” by Elton John and Bernie Taupin? 

• Please note: Icing the kicker never works.

• But icing writers always does.

• Favorite reader reaction to my writing: “I had a friend talk like this recently…she was on Halcion for a dental procedure.”

• Why thank you!

• “Cinderella story…out of nowhere…former humorist…about to win his first Master’s…”

• Best winter lunch: cup of soup,  grilled-cheese sandwich. 

• In a perfect world, See’s Candies would serve chocolate malts.

• In a perfect world, so would bars.

• Despite white-tailed bucks, despite bald eagles, we still celebrate the lowly groundhog. 

• Take a bow, Pennsylvania!

• Pennsylvania might be my favorite state.

• OK, it’s still California.

• And Chicago remains my favorite tavern.

• Take a bow, Chicago!

• FYI, only about 150 days till quarterbacks and receivers report.

• Sending a big sloppy kiss to my secret crush: Griffith Observatory

• My public crush: The Rose Bowl

• I also like the zoo, though I seldom go.

• Guess I see enough wild behavior on the 405?

• Scariest stat: CHP gives out 1,600 speeding tickets a month to idiots topping 100 mph (per L.A. Times).

• L.A. is no longer a city, it’s a giant speedway.

• “Being a writer requires an intoxication with language.” — Jim Harrison

• My favorite typeface: Helvetica con carne.

• Did you know? After the epic 2006 Rose Bowl, Reggie Bush and Matt Leinart stopped by the Longhorns’ locker room to congratulate Coach Mack Brown.

• Always beware of generalizations.

• And random thoughts.

• Hey, let’s go to the horse track!

• Remember, Fridays are free.

• We could never put a price on all the good things our pets do for us.

• Same with hometown friends.

• Wish I could sing like B.J. Thomas.

• Wish I could howl like Robert Plant.

• Favorite primary physician: Dr. Steve. 

• Favorite specialist: Dr Pepper.

• Till I hit 60, I never even thought about knees.

• Till I fell in love, I never thought about my heart.

• Trivia answer: “Tiny Dancer” was inspired by Maxine Feibelman, seamstress for the band (obviously). And Bernie Taupin’s future wife.

• Happy Valentine’s Day to all you L.A. “smoke shows,” young and old.

• To me, women don’t peak till 85-100. Really. I swear.

• Love how they twinkle.

• Happy Valentine’s to football, baseball, chicken wings, Ray Charles and timeless San Marino girls.

• Cheers to new loves, old loves and the loves yet to come.

In need of a spring hike? Stay tuned, we’re working on something. Watch these end notes for more information. The Happy Hour Hiking Club will be back in action soon.

Captions: Most of these are the grandkids or White Fang. The winter scene is from the 395 coming out of Mammoth Lakes. The person in the lower right isn’t a person at all, actually; it’s AI creation Tilly Norwood, who needs an AI boyfriend. The neon joint is 1881, the cozy and beloved Pasadena jazz joint.

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