More Than a Few Things on His Mind

Random thoughts while waiting for the leaves to turn, the St. Louis Rams to win and Goldie Hawn to dress her age:

* Beer always tastes better in a crowd.

* Dusk always looks better in a stadium, during a pennant race.

* Beach balls belong at the beach, not the ballpark.

* “Enough is better than too much.”--French proverb

* “Icing the kicker” never works.

* Tony Soprano should own a football team.

* Or a network.

* In a perfect world, it would always be autumn.

* Favorite bumper sticker: “Hang up and drive.”

* Best line about the late Johnny Unitas: “He looked crooked, is how I always thought of him. Jagged. Sort of a gridiron Abraham Lincoln.”--Frank Deford in Sports Illustrated.

* Speaking of presidents, Rudy Giuliani is looking more presidential by the minute.

* Best bargain in town: a touch football game.

* Second-best bargain in town: a high school football game.

* If September isn’t the hottest month, it sure feels like it.

* Next summer’s sleeper hit: “My Big Fat Irish Wedding,” starring Ted Kennedy.

* Shouldn’t palindrome be an actual palindrome?

* Shouldn’t hyphenated have a hyphen?

* According to my junk e-mail, I’m bald, impotent and in need of constant refinancing.

* Let’s just hope I age as gracefully as Goldie.

* One day, Phil Jackson will host the smartest sports talk show in history.

* Chevy should introduce a retro Corvette.

* The trick to trick plays isn’t the trick. It’s the timing.

* The key to easing traffic congestion and smog: tougher driver’s tests.

* The key to improving high school dropout rates: no diploma, no driver’s license.

* Album worth picking up: “Come Away With Me,” by Norah Jones.

* The Dodgers’ Eric Karros runs like the fattest uncle at a family picnic.

* My buddy Eisen runs like a looter with a new toaster under his arm.

* “Home is the place where,

when you have to go there,

they have to take you in.”

--Robert Frost

* Surest sound of fall: a referee’s whistle on TV.

* A friend notes: When a husband and wife go somewhere alone, it’s a vacation; when the kids go along, it’s a trip.

* There’s never a bad time to buy a dog.

* There’s never a bad time to adopt one, either.

* Finally, a Monday night game worth watching.

* I’m playing my office football pool as a hedge against my 401(k).

* All puns are intended.

* So are most Freudian slips.

* “The biggest thing you can do for kids is [to] give them the ability to figure things out.” --Frank Zappa

* If Tony Soprano does buy a team, it should be in the New Jersey semipro league. With an Italian quarterback.

* Can’t John Madden do two games a week?

* Can’t Vin Scully do the World Series?

* In a perfect world, Bobby Knight would’ve been a football coach.

* Pinstripes never go out of style.

* On TV, families hardly ever eat. And they never go to the bathroom.

* How great would Katie Couric look if she weren’t getting up at 3 a.m.?

* Another thing I’m never sure of: When it’s 12 p.m., is it noon or midnight?

* Did you notice? In-N-Out Burger cups have Scripture verses imprinted on the bottom.

* If Tony Soprano “iced” a kicker, it would have an entirely different meaning.

* “Humor is laughing at what you haven’t got when you ought to have it.”--Langston Hughes

* No matter how it turns out, the Dodgers have had a great season.

* No matter how it turns out, the Angels have had an even greater one.

* Go Angels.

* Go Dodgers.

* Go Kings.

* Go Queens.

* Go everyone (except, of course, the Braves).

*

Chris Erskine’s column is published Wednesdays. He can be reached at chris.erskine@latimes.com.