Do you like seeing Halloween decorations in the stores? (photo by Chris Erskine)

 You can go a long way on kindness and humor, and you can go a long way on being caustic and sly. 

Your life. Your choice. 

Self-interest guides almost everything we do – some people more than others. Oddly, we’re attracted to both species: the very selfish and the invariably kind. 

A personal note of condolence to those who make the wrong life choices, over and over. Helluva rut. But if it feels good, do it. I’m not your mother. 

I was thinking the other day how some people have both selfishness and low self-esteem, an unfortunate pairing. Yet, once you understand that, you can start to forgive them a bit. Not entirely, but a little. 

And forgiveness – with a side of gratitude – can be rocket fuel, the juice that helps us soar. 

But enough about my issues. How are you? 

Do you like seeing Halloween in the stores? Do the pumpkins glow your heart, even though it’s far too early to be celebrating the harvest? 

I did something a little weird the other day at the supermarket; I shopped in reverse. 

And here’s what I discovered about shopping in reverse: All the heavy stuff is at one end of the store – the beer, the 12-packs of ginger ale, the jars of kraut – and all the light stuff is on the other end – the bagels, the eggs. 

I soon realized that for six decades, I have been shopping all wrong. My advice to you: Start in the beer aisle, work counter-clockwise, finishing with the bread and the tomatoes. 

Boom! I mighta just changed your life. Probably not. But maybe. 

Know what else could change your life: kindness and humor. Dogs. Halftime shows. Silly friends. A hobby you never thought you’d try. 

My hobby? Tailgating. I love it the way some men love toy trains … the way others latch onto Warren Zevon or Renaissance fairs. 

All hobbies should have a senseless passion to them. 

Remember the Roman emperor Titus Antonius Pius? Of course you do. Great guy. Prosperous reign – till he died from eating too much cheese. But Titus was 74, which is pretty old for an emperor. And he died doing what he loved – scarfing Alpine cheese like a loon. 

Hey, if you don’t have a hobby, you end up watching too much bad TV. In a matter of months, you start looking like your couch. 

If you have a hobby, you start hanging out with yokels like me, rejoicing in the fact that others take such pleasure in a particular pursuit – be it stock cars or stamps, beer-making or cheese. 

There is a camaraderie to having a hobby, a sense of kinship. Don’t laugh. I think it kind of works. 

I like cooking too, though I can never seem to grill a pork chop just right, or bake anything of any value. Muffins, perhaps, the kind that come in tubes. 

That’s about it. 

By the way, I had a perfect pork chop the other night, at that hot new place on Hollywood Boulevard (Musso & Frank). 

After 100 years, they’re still finding their way at this elegant eatery. Yet, I would dub it “L.A.’s best restaurant” for a variety of reasons: 

–They greet you warmly when they don’t even have to (Musso’s has reservations for miles). 

–The waiters are old pros, not some sit-com wannabes. 

–The martinis shimmer like the September moon (according to lore, the barkeeps don’t use vermouth, though I haven’t yet confirmed it). 

–Most of us would rather be torn apart by wild boars then drive to this dingy stretch of Hollywood. Yet for Musso’s we go. 

–Bogart used to hang here … Frank Sinatra, Steve McQueen, Orson Welles. 

–They serve a chop that isn’t dry. 

Wanna judge a restaurant? Order the pork chop. If you can cook a pork chop well, you can cook almost anything. 

Not only is the pork chop not dry, there is a fellowship to consuming it, a tingle. 

Directions: Start in the south end of the pork chop, and work your way around the cape and up the coast, till you reach the bone, eventually giving in to temptation and grasping the remaining chop with both fists, as you would a college lover. 

Chomp. 

This, my friends, is true passion – pork chop passion, one of the finest of the 12 worthy passions. 

And they serve this pork chop nightly, just as they have across two centuries. 

That’s why Musso’s is L.A.’s best restaurant. 

I may be wrong. Probably not.