A few days ago I turned over the keys to my beloved red 2007 Ford Mustang. Its time had come:  The lease was up. In its place in front of my house now sits a blue BMW 135i convertible. Yes, I was tempted to get another Mustang convertible, which would have been my fourth, and was even considering getting a third red one in a row, and debated whether doing so would signal a complete lack of originality, or a complete command of originality, because after all, who would get the same model car in the same color, three cars in a row? But I snapped back to reality when I realized that none of that mattered, that what mattered were things like features and price.

I was fine with the features on the old car. The features on the new car are comprehensive and frequently inexplicable. Because the car is linked via Bluetooth with my iPhone, if someone calls my cellphone while I’m driving, the sound system immediately switches over to the sound of a ringing phone, which I can answer (or not) from my steering wheel. That’s easy enough. But until someone who works for me figured out the correct way to place an outgoing call, every call I tried to make meant first calling home and hanging up. Given that my wife sleeps during the day, this can’t have been amusing. The first time I refilled the car with gas, I couldn’t figure out how to open the gas tank door. There are also three soft rubberized buttons that line the bottom of the rearview mirror, and I have no idea what these do. I’ve pressed them numerous times with no discernible effect, but for all I know, I’m activating landmines in Bavaria. In an effort to resolve these and other riddles, I was recently reduced to reading  owner’s manual; even writing here that I read the owner’s manual seems a shameful admission, but I did. And I still can’t figure out half the features.

If it seems I’m complaining about the car, I’m not. I actually love the car. I love the 459 electric seat adjustments, and I am confident that by the end of this lease, I will have that seat perfectly adjusted. (I make a little progress every day.) No, what I’m complaining about is yet another indication of my own future shock; first I couldn’t figure out advancements in video games (I think it was “Donky Kong Country” that left me behind), then I couldn’t make a web page (this site in its current design is testament to that), and now I can’t properly drive my car. Prepare the wheelchair, tartan blanket, and grassy hillside behind the rest home.

The only feature I actually don’t care for is the one that has me thinking there’s a bit of overkill going on in automobile advancement. The first few times I took the car out, whenever I was backing up it seemed there was something happening in my peripheral vision. I’d start to back up, then jerk to a stop because something was moving over there on the right and I didn’t want to hit it. By the third time, I realized what it was:  the passenger side mirror. The car does many things for itself, not least of which is decode the approximate amount of ambient light and conclude whether or not it should put its own headlights on. Never mind that I’ve been putting the headlights on — or not — for myself for three decades with no problem.  It seems it does a similar thing for the passenger side mirror when engaged in reverse:  It swivels that mirror down to give you a “better” look at what might be there for when you’re backing up. Only problem:  My human brain, being engineered to react to movement, sees the movement and instructs my brain to stamp down on the brake. How I ever reversed the previous thirty years without this technological advance I don’t know, but I do wonder if there’s some way to disable it. (Which will necessitate another look at that Tolstoyan owner’s manual.)

I should also add that the car has sonar.

That it has some sort of James Bond tires that you can continue to drive on after a puncture, and that that mitigates the need for a spare.

That you can program the seats to automatically readjust to different people’s preferred settings via their electronic keys.

And that the front seats have leg extenders, or a shortened version of the footrest that comes up on a La-Z-Boy.

This is the sporty BMW convertible that still has a back seat (which I need so that I can occasionally transport children — mine). This isn’t the top of the line “touring sedan” 7-series BMW. I wonder if that model has a jacuzzi, a raw bar, and photon torpedoes.

By the way, Bob Dylan’s Christmas album is not the first from a Jewish musician. (It’s merely the worst.)

Report: Nation’s Wealthy Cruelly Deprived Of True Meaning Of Christmas

My friend Mike Folie notified me that this is going on:

Clever Scam – taking advantage of older men, or any other men, as well

Women often receive warnings about protecting themselves at the mall and in dark parking lots, etc. This is the first warning I have seen for men. I wanted to pass it on in case you haven’t heard about it. This will only become more commonplace as the weather warms.

A ‘heads up’ for those men who may be regular Lowe’s, Home Depot, or Costco customers. This one caught me by surprise.

Over the last month I became a victim of a clever scam while out shopping. Simply going out to get supplies has turned out to be quite traumatic. Don’t be naive enough to think it couldn’t happen to you or your friends.

Here’s how the scam works:

Two seriously good-looking 20-something girls come over to your car as you are packing your shopping into the trunk. They both start wiping your windshield with a rag and Windex, with very suggestive, skimpy T-shirts. It is impossible not to look. When you thank them and offer them a tip, they say ‘No’ and instead ask you for a ride to McDonalds.

You agree and they get into the back seat. On the way, they start playfully undressing. Then one of them climbs over into the front seat and starts crawling all over you, while the other one steals your wallet. I had my wallet stolen October 4th, 9th, 10th, twice on the 15th, 17th, 20th and 29th. Also November 1st and 2nd, twice on the 3rd, three times last Monday and very likely again this upcoming weekend.

So tell your friends to be careful. What a horrible way to take advantage of older men.

Please Warn your friends to be vigilant.

Wal-Mart has wallets on sale for $2.99 each. I found cheaper ones for $1.99 at K- Mart and bought them out. Also, you never will get to eat at McDonalds. I’m looking into bulk orders at CostCo and will let you know what I find.

I  have looked everywhere for these girls so that I can admonish them in person, but no luck so far.

Still, I will be on the lookout and I appreciate being made aware of this scam.

Every once in a while, I check in to see what the free download is that week from iTunes. This week, I saw that it’s a new song by Bob Dylan. “Oh, cool! A free new song from Bob Dylan,” I thought.

Then I listened to it.

Yikes!

Paging Dr. Daniel Lanois. Paging Dr. Daniel Lanois. The last time Dylan sounded this bad he was in the middle of a motorcycle accident.

If you’re curious, go head on over to the iTunes store and check it out.  But first, let me share just a couple of the reviews from listeners:

“Sad. Terribly sad. When the once great artist no longer distinguishes between Christmas and trash.”

“WHAT THE HECK IS THIS?”

“Terrible!”

And, my favorite:

“Eww.”

A further bit of context:  I’m a Dylan fan, this is a free download, and I don’t want it. I’m afraid if I put it on my iPhone it’ll come up one day on random play and I’ll accidentally hear it again.

I’ve gotten countless emails and Facebook updates from friends and activists about the health-care reform bill staggering its way through Congress. On one side are the people asking me to support its passage; these people include my good friend Barack Obama and sometimes his pal Harry Reid, who write and email me frequently, in fact more frequently than people who actually know me by name. Also on this side are what I’ll call party regulars. On the other side stands just about everyone I know.

Last week, and no, I don’t remember the date, I decided I was against the bill. “Inalterably against” was I think the way I put it. I don’t know the date, but I do know the circumstance:  It was after Joe Lieberman got everything he wanted. Although it isn’t even remotely about Lieberman for me, I do have to say that if Lieberman were in favor of the Earth continuing to spin around the sun, I would opt for eternal darkness, because surely that would have to be better. As I put on my Facebook status that day, “Lee Wochner hates Joe Lieberman. Not because he disagrees with Joe Lieberman (disagreeing is fine), and not because of Joe Lieberman’s principles, but because Joe Lieberman has no principles.” Not much to add to that, except the comment this elicited from one respondent:  “But he does have one principle: do whatever is best for Joe Lieberman.” Right.

But again, that’s not why I’m opposed. And I’m sorry to be on the other side of the 31 million or 42 million or whatever the latest number is of people without health insurance who would suddenly get it, but here it is:  I just can’t swallow on the idea that people will have to buy insurance. The notion of being forced to buy insurance raises ugly images of a mishmashed “Brave New World”/”1984” society wherein the proles are forced to buy more to support specific industries and their elites. Every day we move further along that track, and it’s just not right. Even if it didn’t benefit insurance companies (which, obviously, it will), this component of the health-care legislation just isn’t right. In fact, given the nation’s inciting incident, it seems patently un-American. (And please don’t compare it with having to buy auto insurance. As the Department of Motor Vehicles is always keen on reminding us, driving is a privilege, not a right. Living, on the other hand, seems like a right.)

So there it is.  The reprehensible teabaggers and I have found common ground. I’m not happy about it. But at least, unlike them, I’m not acting in lockstep with my cohort.

In addition to being a place where one famous person who is the son of another famous person coincidentally attends the holiday party of a third famous person you admire, LA is also a place where everyone is a filmmaker, artist, comedian, weirdo, or combination of all four.

Some years ago  I was in London and trying to take the Tube from Piccadilly Circus to Kings Cross, where I was heading to see a play (my own) and was afraid I was going to be late.  The problem was the sudden crush of people trying to get on the underground right there. Even though each elevator car was capable of carrying dozens of people, I was still a good three-to-four elevator carloads back in the crowd. And then I would still have to take the train. So I decided to take the stairs down to the underground platform. Giddy with decisiveness, I threw open the door and skipped down the steps, other people pulling away from the crowd to follow me down.

An eternity later, still making my way down the steps, the giddiness had worn off long before. I now knew why this was one of what are called “deep line” stations. I don’t know how deep this stairwell went, but one area of descent on the Northern line is about 20 stories. Imagine yourself descending down an airless narrow circular passageway deep into the bowels of the earth with the crush of humanity behind you, in front of you, and to your left as a steady stream of people also tried to squeeze by on the way up, and then imagine winding down that path in such circumstances for about 45 minutes. When I wasn’t thinking of turning around, I was thinking of passing out. Ever since then, I’ve thought about how far we’ve dug into the earth, and what might happen in tunnels, especially under water.

And so, I have on occasion thought about the Chunnel — the underground byway that connects London with Paris.

Yesterday, 2000 passengers were stuck in trains in that tunnel beneath the channel with no water, no light, no power, no air conditioning, no food, and no escape — for 16 hours. The only thing missing from this scenario was sprinting zombies, as in “28 Days Later.” Here’s a horror story that will stay with me for a while.

Nineteen awful Nativity scenes.