Friday, November 23, 2007

Levine's Laws

When I was broadcasting for the Mariners I came up with "Levine's Law". It is:

The lead-off walk will always come around to score, unless it doesn't.

So far I have never been proven wrong. These are the kinds of pearls I will be bringing to KABC radio in Los Angeles when I co-host a sportstalk show this Sunday night. (And yes, they stream. Here's their website.)

But just for you, my cherished blog audience, I share my other irrefutable laws.


******

Parking toll attendants at LAX are the slowest and dimmest people on the planet. They make postal clerk look like an Indy 500 pit crew. And the dimmest of the dim are working this weekend during the Thanksgiving rush.

There are more New York cab drivers who speak English than all the night nurses in all metropolitan hospitals combined.

There is not one mohel who doesn’t think he’s a comedian. There is not one mohel who is right.

The AMPTP will never give writers anything they're not absolutely forced to.

No pregnant woman looks good in a bikini.

If a waiter doesn’t write down your order he will get it wrong.

If you’re telling a joke in a restaurant the waiter will arrive and interrupt the minute you get to the punch line.

The driver in front of you is an idiot.

There will always be one young couple that brings a baby to a slasher movie.

A hostess in an empty restaurant will always lead you to the worst table.

If a restaurant patron has a walker or cane he will always be seated at the farthest table from the entrance.

In every article that mentions you, no matter how complimentary the article, there will always be one thing said or misquoted that will prevent you from Xeroxing and sending it to your family.

The heavier and more cumbersome your carry-on luggage, the farther your gate will be from the terminal.

When a hostess tells you it’ll only be five more minutes, they just have to clear off some tables – it’ll be twenty.

The minute you begin eating on an airplane, turbulence will begin.

When a couple from the mainland gets married in Hawaii the marriage is doomed. It's okay to honeymoon there, just not have the ceremony. Trust me, you have a much better change of survival if you tie the knot in an Elvis chapel.

Nine out of ten tourists at Disneyland are overweight. Ten out of ten if they stay two days.

The screw up because the hospital forgot to bill the correct insurer will never ever ever be resolved.

Women will always claim the number one thing they’re looking for in a man is a sense of humor and then pick the best looking guy.

On my sportstalk show, the first caller will have a question about something I know absolutely nothing about.

28 comments :

Anonymous said...

One of mine is:

The moment I've decided I'm the smartest guy on the planet is approximately the tenth minute I've been driving with the turn signal on.

Anonymous said...

I just got home from an AA meeting where a young couple brought their screaming one year old. After that, I really need a drink!

Rob said...

Some of mine from traveling this weekend.....

Thanksgiving is where you travel 700 miles every year to spend two or three days with people you would never visit if they lived next door.

Every hotel that costs $50 or under will have a stain somewhere that you're pretty sure you don't want to know what it is.

You could put a Wal-Mart in a gated community in Beverly Hills and you'd still find too many mullets and too few teeth.

The shortest distance between two points can't be found in Ohio.

No matter what city you go to, there is always an egomaniacal meteorologist with the latest in technology who works hard to give you a forecast that is 100% wrong.

No matter what city you go to, there is always a channel that is "on your side", has an I-team investigative reporter, and provides you with "breaking news" about something that happened yesterday with a live report from a scene where nothing is happening.

Anonymous said...

If I hate a column I'm writing for the weekend section of my local newspaper, my editor will like it.

If I'm having a relatively good time with it, he's going to have some issues. Case in point being a Thanksgiving column I wrote and then ditched after he told me that it had some pacing problems, and I honestly couldn't think of what to expand on.

Anonymous said...

No matter what city you go to, there is always an egomaniacal meteorologist with the latest in technology who works hard to give you a forecast that is 100% wrong.

That reminds me. I have to call my psychic about next week's lottery numbers.

*Ba-dum-bum*

Thank you, thank you. I probably won't be here all week.

Catherine said...

All I have to say is, no matter what you do, do NOT. EVER. get into the line I have chosen at the grocery store. Doesn't matter how promising things look, doesn't matter how clogged and lengthy the other ones look. You wanna make it out of that store before next Thursday? Pick another line.

:P

Ken, are you a Seattleite like me!? GO SEAHAWKS!!!

brian t said...

What's a "mohel"? I tried looking that word up, but all I could find was a reference to circumcision; there's nothing funny about genital mutilation of infants, is there?

Anonymous said...

>>there's nothing funny about genital mutilation of infants, is there?<<

Only if they're Jewish.

One of my favorite California license plates belonged to an editor: FILMMOYEL

Bitter Animator said...

Is this a rerun?

I'm getting a real sense of deja vu.

Anonymous said...

Cut the number in half when a man tells you the total number of women he's slept with.

Add five to the woman's admitted total.

Anonymous said...

I'm lovin these "Levineisms"

Anonymous said...

Actually, plenty of pregnant woman look good in a bikini -- until they start showing.

What's with that preggers beer ad? Looks like something conceived for "Mad Men."

By the way, my mom drank beer when she was pregnant with me, and it had no adblersh avex whtsooeffer.

Anonymous said...

When a couple from the mainland gets married in Hawaii the marriage is doomed. It's okay to honeymoon there, just not have the ceremony. Trust me, you have a much better change of survival if you tie the knot in an Elvis chapel.

My parents eloped in Hawaii and they've been married for 20+ years. Crazy.

Anonymous said...

Ken, I hope the KABC experiment will open the door for you as host of Dodger Talk?

Would be nice to hear some witty banter between you and Earl from Westminster(on line three).

b

Anonymous said...

i read your blog regularly, and i happen to support the writer's in the current strike.

but, um, i have to say mention that posting images that you did not create without proper attribution (if not express permission) is exactly the opposite kind of behavior that the strike is promoting.

people deserve to be credited for their work, at the very least.

i don't mean to be rude or pugnacious. i just think a little "walking the walk" could benefit everybody.

Anonymous said...

sorry, that should say "writers" not "writer's".

Unknown said...

I believe you are in the Daily News this morning.

By Ken Levine said...

Which Daily News and where?

Unknown said...

L.A. Daily News. I think it's you on the viewpoint section. I grabbed a copy if you want to see it. It's a photo from the fox studios picketing. Unfortunately, I can't find the picture online.

Anonymous said...

No pregnant woman looks good in a bikini? You obviously have never seen the last pictures taken of Sharon Tate.

The Curmudgeon said...

"There is not one mohel who doesn’t think he’s a comedian. There is not one mohel who is right."

He's got a knife and your son's future in his hands. You better laugh anyway.

Anonymous said...

anonymous: "No pregnant woman looks good in a bikini? You obviously have never seen the last pictures taken of Sharon Tate."

Yikes, I hope you're not talking about crime scene photos, dude.

Anonymous said...

Having just made the holiday return drive, I can attest that not only is the driver in front of me an idiot, but the one BEHIND me is a bigger idiot

Anonymous said...

The second-to-last one is so true it hurts...

Ellen said...

You said: "In every article that mentions you, no matter how complimentary the article, there will always be one thing said or misquoted that will prevent you from Xeroxing and sending it to your family."

In the "Wordplay" press, every article had an error. Sometimes it was tiny, but always something. My friend compiled these into one big review, where EVERY SINGLE fact is wrong. http://qaqaq.livejournal.com/29964.html

Anonymous said...

jbryant: Oh, no, I didn't mean the crime scene photos of Sharon Tate! Sorry about that. I meant the photos taken of her and her friends in her backyard a few days before the murders.

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

You will always need to twist the USB Key or Power Plug twice before it fits.

While that one song on your mp3 player kills your ears because it's louder than the rest of your playlist's songs, you'll never go throgh the trouble of lowering the song's volume.

You'll never use your voice recorder in public to record an idea because you look stupid using it. By the time you're by yourself and ready to record it, you've forgotten what the idea was.

You'll never start working on something if the time isn't divisable by half hours.

Disagreeing on what movie to see on Christmas never ends with sunshine and happiness.

Whenever you decide to pee while taking a shower, the drain clogs up.