THIS IS FOR MY FRIEND FRAN

This is no day for political ranting, or religious ranting, or social ranting or any other sort. This LOST weekend was a celebration of the reasons why life has meaning at all. For those of us who lack the greatness to bend or shape human history - and we are many - the depth of meaning in our lives is measured by the lives we touch and those who have touched us.

This LOST weekend saw Mrs. LOST and I hosting a dear - maybe our best - friends, while their daughter was down for a "friendly little" basketball tournament. Times like these inevitably lead to raucous and uncontrolled laughter of immeasurable pitch, as we poke fun at our past, engage with and yes, even vicariously live the future of the children we have respectively raised. Only Steph made the trip this time, Jim stayed with the rest of the fam, as they were attending to a most important and far more challenging task, that of dealing with a parent's serious illness.

LOST met Jim the Hillbilly almost 30 years ago on the 8th floor of a dormitory hi-rise. He had to be a hillbilly - who else sported a ZZ-top like beard, a trucker's ball cap and a flannel shirt on an LA September afternoon? From that strange meeting way back then an enduring friendship was born. It would be a few years before I met Jim's dad, Fran, for the first time; however, the Crown Victoria "FBI car" that he had sold to his son provided some insights.

Fran's first face to face meeting with LOST came in 1983; down from the East Bay with the daughters, he was taking in a ball game, and would be coming over to join us for dinner. In those heady days of being just out of school, the housing situation was not so much; three twenty somethings sharing a 1 - bedroom apartment across from a cemetery, with open holes in the walls which guaranteed an ample supply of both rodents and roaches, and monthly checks written to something called "Westwood 23." As luck or maybe fate would have it, the day Fran and his daughters would be coming over for dinner, the sink in the kitchen backed up,and as usual there were a stack of dishes needing to be cleaned before he next dinner could be prepared. What to do?

The solution was obvious, clean the tub, and use it as the building's largest wash-basin, that's what. It seemed like a flawless idea, and one that might work. In fact it was working just perfectly when the door opened a little earlier than usual, and in walked Fran and his girls with LOST carrying an armload of dishes out from the bathroom and back into the kitchen. At that moment, the dinner plan had been suddenly, irrevocably changed to "we have got to catch a flight home." Only later was it revealed that Fran, at the time an airline manager, took a flight attendant's "jump seat" to get out of that apartment and get home and away from a perceived hygenic nightmare, and an enduring legend had been born.

A couple of years later LOST met Fran's Jean - a health professional with a heart of gold and a colorful vocabulary to, ahh, coordinate. Jean loved her MTV - for real, fancying the hair-bands of the day. She indeed could tell the difference between Quiet Riot and Twisted Sister. Amazing. LOST one day would, as one of Jim's groomsmen, dance to metal with Jean at Jim and Steph's wedding reception, and they would swap many a colorful joke - usually of the salty nun-type.

Fran and Jean raised four other kids besides Jim - including the polar opposites of twin girls - which LOST quickly dubbed "good and evil" - a moniker which has persisted to this date. The family is full of characters, to be sure, but each one is successful, most are outspoken, and running through them all is a common, durable thread of family loyalty and closeness the like of which LOST had never personally experienced.

Fran left the airline industry and became an investment counselor/planner. LOST would, with his help, set up the accounts which would help defray the cost of educating the younger LOSTS - a process which begins in earnest this Fall. Fran was continuing to work into his eighth decade - long after Jean had put down her nursing togs, and the two seemed content to collect grandchildren and the happy experiences which come with each.

That is, until the letter arrived a few weeks ago. Fran would be stepping away from work for awhile, due to a family illness. Turns out it is his, and it is serious, and it looks daunting - even for a career Navy man who raised a bunch of savvy and accomplished kids who all like each other and get along well, and most of which have gone on to raise kids of their own.

So it was that LOST didn't care how the basketball games came out. Fun to watch for sure - even if the favored team didn't fare so well (and even if LOST started to feel like a living jinx of sorts). LOST was cheering for the patriarch to emerge a victor over his opponent, in a contest which is much more meaningful, and wishing and hoping and - yes, praying for Fran and his family to find comfort and peace. Please feel free to add your good wishes and prayers and warm thoughts, too, for a good group of people who need the extra help right about now.

FROM THE 'KIDS, DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME" DEPARTMENTT

Yesterday, LOST did something really crazy and unhealthy . . . no, there were no Tequila shooters or unrestrained carnival rides involved. No LOST risked soul-rot, by tuning into about 1/2 hour each of the demigods of AM Radio. First, the morning drive time found local Rush Limbaugh wannabe Rick Roberts, railing about "bums rushes" and the Obama plan to horde 90% of the stimulus money until needed for marinating electoral districts during the mid-term elections. Over and over the message was the the vast majority of the stimulus money 80-90 percent hasn't been used yet. "It's being horded for the campaign coffers." It went to a point where he'd completely blurred the distinction between spending stimulus money in areas were Dems were trolling for votes, to using stimulus money to pay for campaigns. All the while there were references to "Chicago," "Socialism" "fascism" one goofball called in and wanted to press RICO charges against the President for this "taking public money and spending it on campaigns" The swelling pride in the callers voice as he shared his brilliant idea with Rick Roberts and the rest of his intellectually-challenged listeners was unmistakable. Strangely there was no agreement from Roberts, himself purportedly trained as a lawyer in Texas, yet there was also no rebuke about what was a plainly nutty idea, either. It was simply yeah yeah, harumph, the nerve of this guy ramming this bill through then not spending the money.

Over on Planet Hanitwit, it was a different story. There was the hair-helmeted blustery one, railing on about how President Obama had killed the auto industry Destroyed it, peppered with Tourette's-like outbursts of "Ronald Reagan SAVED THE AUTO INDUSTRY" and it occurred to LOST that neither of these radio nuts were on the same page - for Roberts was saying the Stimulus hasn't happened yet because the money's being horded, while Hanitwit was saying it had failed, and that President Obama - not the Vega, Pinto, Pontiac Aztek, the continuous whining about "burdensome" mileage standards, bad labor agreements - had killed the auto industry. Six months on the job and Obama had destroyed an economic sector which is responsible for nearly 10% of the jobs in this country. Neat trick. But it was soon time to change the subject in the land of the ADFDs (Attention Deficit Factually Disordered) and move on to ridiculous bidness taxes in LA. Actually it was a shame to leave, because this story - IF accurately told by Hanitwit (big IF, yes yes) had some intrigue about it - a syndication business beating the City of LA in an adinistrative hearing 20 years earlier on the classification of its business (for tax purposes) now facing a renewed claim by the City - coupled with the assertion that the previous finding was not binding on the city. Ah, but time to go, and the headache was back. Besides, all those commercials? Time to get new Auto insurance - 'cause there's no way LOST is staying with AAA as it's a proud sponsor of this Drivel. Better put Farmers on the list, too, there was one of their commercials, too.

Which brings us to the Savage Wiener. Yep, a fat gravelly voiced jewish guy who isn't Harvey Fierstein but who is most likely every bit as gay, is in mid rant about Obama when he abruptly shifts gears to kvetch about Michael Jackson. His music was awful, he was a molester, he had no real talent, he meant nothing to anyone important - on and on. Oh, but to "prove" that he wasn't a bigot, Weiner Savage played some "real music" snippets - John Coltrane, Duke Ellington - real "Black" music, you know, from a time when things were kinder and gentler, and you could always find your own drinking fountain. LOST was no fan of Jacko - ever since he went solo it was kind of "huh?" But it is impossible to deny his resonance with generations of people all over the world. And it was clear that the Savage Weiner was pining for that time when "those people" knew their place.

Listening to this pond of bile and ichor day after day - like Pavlov's bells, little wonder why there are 20% of the population so angrily animated about things which they neither know or understand clearly. And why the need to dance to the razors edge of racism each time, too? Each of these microphonies gleefully gets right to edge of screaming "beaner-loving darkie" at the top of his lungs, and then sits back and smirks while the callers push it just that much further. Reminiscent of those close up, stream-of-consciousness racial rants in Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing." Only that's just a movie. From almost 20 years ago. Why aren't we beyond this? Why aren't we better than this? And since we're not, why are so many unashamed - instead so proud of their ignorance and stupidity on these points? Like LOST was saying, Kids, don't try this at home.