The Whole Week Has Been Just a Crashing Experience

I suppose this week could have been worse....

It began with my car, a beautiful, accident-free vehicle for the last five years, but no longer after Miss Radio Personality drove into it.

Did I mention the car was parked in my own driveway, the daughter is 28, she wasn’t drinking, certainly wasn’t talking to a boyfriend on her cellphone, and she just ran into it?

Then I chip a tooth gritting my teeth to keep from saying something like she takes after her mother, so I have to go to the dentist where I meet Dr. Aram Abramian.

Picture Kevin Brown with a drill in his hand. He asks his helper for an “explorer,” and I forgot to ask him if he’s a fan of UCLA, related in anyway to the McCourts, or looking to blow off steam because there’s no hockey to watch.

He’s just jabbering away as I’m drowning in my own saliva, talking about the 80 he shot last week in Costa Mesa, which included a triple bogey on a 120-yard hole, which tells me he’s capable of making atrocious miscalculations on the simplest things.

The Novocain hadn’t worn off by the time the wife cooked dinner, so I couldn’t eat it. The way things were going I deserved a break like that.

Then I get an e-mail from someone passing on a story from bloodhorse.com. Reminds me of the wife’s cooking. I notice the headline on the story reads: “Mullins says Simers, not Public, is an Idiot.”

Horse racing ranks right up there with hockey these days when it comes to readership interest, but I have a feeling any story that suggests Simers is an idiot is going to have a large audience. Dwyre will no doubt insist on extra copies.

Jeff Mullins was one of four trainers caught cheating and breaking milkshake regulations at Santa Anita. He blames this on everybody but himself, and says only “[gambling] addicts or idiots” come to the track.

I’m thinking the next words I’ll hear from him are, “I’m sorry,” but bloodhorse.com reports that he’s shifting the blame to me. So here I am writing about horse racing again, which is really a drag.

It’s an odd story. Mullins doesn’t deny saying what he said, but contends his comments were taken out of context, and directed at me rather than the public. He wouldn’t be the first one to call me an idiot, of course, and right now I’m sure Jamie McCourt is nodding her head up and down, but when we spoke that’s not what he said. When I told him he was being too tough on the people who keep him in business, he repeated his critical remarks.

I’m not surprised that someone caught cheating -- he was also fined $1,000 at the Fairgrounds in New Orleans on Sunday for using illegal medication on a horse -- would graduate to lying. In fact it doesn’t appear to be the first time.

He declined to take responsibility for cheating when we chatted, shifting the focus to a track veterinarian, then to a racing official and her brother-in-law before trashing the $2 bettors “who complain to the stewards,” and make his life miserable.

Like an idiot, I went to the track Wednesday to give Mullins the chance to speak to me directly, or apologize to the fans, but Tom Condon, a guy wearing a sports coat, tie and an orange dunce cap with “Idiot” spelled on it, got in the way. Condon was heckling Mullins, as were several other unhappy fans.

Jason Levin, who hosts a horse racing radio show on 570, said Michael House, who owns a Mullins horse, took offense while standing in the paddock and made an obscene gesture toward the fans. I’ll bet Fan Appreciation Day this year will be a lot of fun.

Mullins’ horse won the race, and he yelled to me it had done good, and I congratulated him -- because it takes time for the Milkshake test results to come back, and even if there’s a problem, the victory will stand.

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I WAS hoping for better results Thursday at Staples Center until I realized UCLA was playing. Coach Ben Howland is 29-27 in two years at UCLA. Tell me today what you’d be saying if Steve Lavin had the same start.

In the middle of the UCLA debacle they staged a free-throw shooting contest to award $3,000 to the Children’s Miracle Network, and invited Mrs. Grocery Store Bagger, who is six months pregnant, to compete.

When she took the court, Staples erupted with boos, and I guess I’m not the only one upset with the Bagger for making her belly big and messing with her shooting technique. Frankly, she hasn’t been the same since the Bagger got his hands on her.

Later someone said they were actually booing me, but that’s hard to believe, because I’m pretty sure the Bruin fans understand why I’m such a USC supporter. I mean they’ve seen UCLA’s football team play.

Anyway, the big-belly daughter lost to Fox Sports’ Michael Eaves, which goes to show you how poorly she performed. You might wonder if a milkshake would’ve made a difference, but I’ve got to believe she would’ve won had she just continued taking the pill.

I was right, though. It won’t get any worse this week, but next week I’m off to Indian Wells to write about tennis.

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I INVITED John Wooden and his daughter, Nan, to join the father/daughter gabfest this Selection Sunday morning, but Wooden said his daughter did not want to do it -- worried that I might be too tough on her.

He waited a few seconds for effect, and then told me he was just kidding.

He ought to be more worried about Miss Radio Personality, the Notre Dame grad, wanting to relive every second of the school’s 88-game-streak-stopping win. After all, it has been almost a lifetime since she has had any reason to talk up Notre Dame.

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T.J. Simers can be reached at t.j.simers@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Simers, go to latimes.com/simers.