A Call From Arizona

How brutal is this? I’m sitting at the computer slaving away to respond to 7 pages of whacky news stories with 2 or 3 jokes each. I might as well be scraping barnacles off an aircraft carrier right? Then my buddy calls me from Tempe, Arizona where he is two rows off the grass at a Cactus League baseball game between the Cubbies and the Angels. Of course, the call is interspersed with reactions to events on the field. He did mention the joke on Leno last night that he knew was mine. (President Bush doesn’t like changes in personnel. He got this from having the same third grade teacher year after year after year.) Although I know the joke went all over, I must confess that I still can’t accept that fact on some level. Anecdotal evidence that it was broadcast in Arizona is quite stunning. That’s a long way from here. It’s actually a little scary that the keys I’m typing on right now are somehow hooked up to what comes out of a box in Tempe. Ahh, get over yourself, Bill. Anyone who makes a long distance call has their voice bouncing 22 thousand miles out in space. It’s that hum that we all feel: The big interconnecting wow.
I suppose I’d rather be sitting at a baseball game today, but this is pretty cool, too. I remember making the emotional leap to accepting that the material going in one corner of the living room was coming out the TV in another corner. Then one night, I went to the Plaid late and noticed a TV through a window in a basement apartment on the next block, and the Tonight Show was on there, too. I thought of the weirdness of being able to write a joke and have it come out one block over. I guess they come out in Arizona, too. Weird.