If I inexplicably found myself in a battle zone, that's the place I'd like to be. For those not familiar with CBS News' Chief Foreign Correspondent (and according to the ratings, many are not) Lara Logan is a South African, who grew up detesting her country's hideous racial policies. She's been covering the wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq for most of this decade. Lara is a tough, intelligent, tenacious reporter, with a kind of courage that is rare to find. Oh yeah: she's really, reeeeeeeeallllly pretty, too. I'd be lying if I denied that this has a lot to do with her appeal. It is CBS she works for, not AP. I read where Bob Scheiffer was quite concerned with her safety, and I'll admit that without knowing the woman, I am, too. This war has cost the lives of more journalists from around the world than any other. That nightly TV presences like ABC's Bob Woodruff and CBS's Kimberly Dozier survived the serious wounds they suffered is a credit to the skill of Army doctors, and grace from above. Yeah, I see Lara Logan, soak in the brave, fearless reports from Iraq or Afghanistan, and (like an old-fashioned guy) surmise that a woman that good-looking shouldn't be in harm's way. The troops on the ground love her for trying to tell their story. Regardless of the fact she's a knock-out, I admire her honesty. Lara Logan is the real deal.
As was Tim Russert. It's been a week since he died suddenly, and for anyone who watched "Meet the Press" on a weekly basis, as I have, it's tragic loss. The man was unfailingly fair minded, in a medium that has developed strong voices to the right and the left (regardless of what conservatives think, the majority of the partisan noise blows in from the right). Each Sunday, Tim Russert, a lawyer and NBC Washington Bureau Chief, would sit with the political movers and shakers of the 21st Century, and grill 'em like a stack of burgers on the 4th of July. Russert would research his subject, and confront them with their own words. He was so focused but respectful and even-handed, they had to take it and make as much of a public accounting as a politician can ( meaning to say, they had to think fast to talk their way around the truth). Tim Russert will be missed by friends and family and colleagues...and by those of us who admired (here's that word again) his honesty. And he will not be easily replaced. What a blow to political journalism. What a blow.
I can't let the losses of two other media figures go by without some comment. Jim McKay was 86 years old when he died, June 7th. He'd last been seen in a 2003 HBO special on his life and times, a special he wrote and narrated. When I was 11 years old, I spent a late Saturday afternoon watching Jim McKay present old black and white tape clips during a 10th Anniversary episode of ABC's Wide World of Sports. From that point on, until I got into high school, at least, Wide World became appointment TV for me. Jim McKay's enthusiasm was so contagious, he made then obscure sports like gymnastics and figure skating compelling. His gift for language made his descriptions effusive, lyrical.
Like this from coverage of the 19th Olympiad in Mexico City, 1968:
"Bill Toomey...running in the cold and the dark of Mexico City...winning the decathlon!"
His words and inflections brimmed with pride, but also provided the perfect caption for the picture of an exhausted Toomey, breaking the tape of his final event, then falling into the arms of his closest competitor. Jim McKay proved that in TV, pictures may tell a tale, but a great announcer provides the perspective.
Working as a newspaper reporter following a stint in the navy during World War II, Jim moved to TV in its infancy. So many great TV presences like McKay, like Walter Cronkite, were writers before they stepped in front of those brand new, black and white TV cameras, and set the standard for what we have, today. That's why they were so special, I suppose. I'd like to think we have a large place in our hearts for pioneers.
A little something about another sports announcer who left us in June: Charley Jones. Football fans will recall Charley's gravelly delivery and play-by-play over NBC for years and years. He was one of those working broadcasters with whom you were familiar and took for granted. After calling AFL/AFC games on ABC and NBC for 35 years, I'd say his most memorable moments came in the games of the 24th Olympiad in Seoul, South Korea, 1988. Charley called the track and field events, which had been moved to the morning hours to facilitate live broadcasts to the United States in prime time over NBC. You never heard a more stirring call than that of Charley describing Ben Johnson winning the 100 Meter dash in '88--only to have Johnson disqualified for using steroids. Because of that tainted race, Charley's Tour-De-force description of those seconds has been lost to the mists of time. I certainly hope Charley Jones isn't. He was 77.
HERE COMES SUMMER
There's a heatwave in Southern California as the summer begins, and fittingly so. Some of the best summers in life were those when I was a teenager--not working, done with summer school, hanging out, all day and night. The summer of '76, in particular, was great. I more or less tried to re-live that one over and over again, with mixed results. As work and adulthood ensued, summer came to mean something else: a few precious days at the beach, taking in movies, maybe a few vacation days For some reason, the summer of '89 stands out. Even though I worked my tail off that year, I think the fact it was my first full summer in Ventura County, with its relatively cool temperatures and nearby beaches made it special. I spent weeknights on the air, playing the hits, or in the studio, making funny, one-minute bits for my countdown show. Weekends, I hit Ventura clubs in pursuit of vodka and female companionship (the vodka was always easier to get, though there were some memorable moments).
Over the last decade, summer came to mean filling in on the air while others took vacations, or trying to sleep in the daytime as I toiled over the radio all night. Not much fun except for last year, when I chose to hit the beach every Sunday and have some semblance of a summer-like amusement. And I dug it. Sitting in a canvas beach chair, listening to Vin Scully call three innings of a Sunday afternoon Dodger game as the waves crashed. And of course there were the bikini-clad denizens of the sand...which made me fairly happy, as well.
As summer '08 dawns, I find myself at liberty most of the week, and filling the nether hours at my former employer just to keep some sort of income, on Saturday and Sunday. The weekends are a sleep deprived wash. It's brutal, and need at least a day and a half afterward to recover from it. I halfway suspected that most of my attempts to grab another worthwhile gig would result in failure, because that's the way it is. But while I have time to bide, I will enjoy the sights, the sounds and the sand of the beach, and have, as the misguided youth of the early 1970's would say, "a bitchin' summer."
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Thursday, May 29, 2008
CAMPAIGN "OH ATE"
Yes, it has been a while since I logged and blogged. You can blame a lot of things. I'm most comfortable pointing an accusing finger at sleep deprivation and the lure of television. The mix of the two is deadly for creative people.
Regardless, when you write, you have to have something to say, and these last three months I haven't had much to offer. I've been easily distracted by the need to get a new gig, and the temptation of watching Jackie Johnson do the weather on L.A.'s K-CAL 9. I never remember a single forecast this curvy sensation utters, but udders are what dominate my thoughts once her segment is done!
It's time for me to offer some cogent thoughts about Campaign '08. These have been, without question, the most curious, compelling six months of presidential politics in my adult life. Emphasis on adult life. It is true that I was an 8-year-old about to turn 9 in during the '68 race. Because my parents were active in Democratic politics, I can remember a lot of the details. Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy's appearance at the elementary school I attended stands out. The kids were so badly behaved around TV cameras, McCarthy was photographed only from the neck up--lest the networks have to settle for the distracting picture of a rather aloof politician surrounded by a leaping, bounding, gaggle of bobble-headed grade school children. If only the other memories were that amusing. On June 4, 1968, I went to bed listening to Vin Scully describe Don Drysdale's shutout of the Pittsburgh Pirates. He was on his way to a then-record 58 and 2/3 scoreless innings pitched. I woke up the next morning to the image of Roger Mudd filling the TV screen in my brother Thomas' room.
"Is the election still going on?" I asked?
"No. Kennedy got shot." I was horrified. I went to the dining room, and there was the headline spread across the front page of the Los Angeles Times. When JFK had been assassinated, I understood only that there would be no cartoons on TV that weekend. This time, I felt surprise and shock for the first time. If you are at all given to prayer, or rubbing a rabbit's foot, do what you must in hopes that we should never have to suffer the agony of that type of violence again.
I mentioned Roger Mudd. At long last, he has written of his time with CBS in Washington. "The Place To Be," is the name of his tome, and it's a great read for political and news junkies, alike. One of his revelations made me shake my head and laugh. At the 1970 Washington Press Corps Dinner, he was seated next to President Richard Nixon as Diana Ross performed. According to Mudd, Nixon turned to him during her performance and said, " They really do have a sense of rhythm, don't they?"
What is missing in 2008 is the analysis of Roger Mudd...and Mike Wallace, and yes, Dan Rather. Even at their respective ages (Mudd is 80, Wallace is in his 90's, and Rather is well over 70), they'd have a field day with the fruit that's been born of Campaign '08.
With three cable channels providing all politics just about all the time, every word by every candidate has been analyzed, squeezed, wrung-out, and dissected; then roasted on a spit by every ex-consultant, pol and pundit who can elbow his or her way before a camera. Once on the air, the bantering, predicting and pontificating begins. The most innocuous item is blown up to the size of the fat guy on "Lost," then it's off the table by the end of the week. This campaign has been an exhausting process because following it means a daily dose of constant haranguing. I, for one, am tired of it.
This is all part and parcel to the advent of the 24-hour news cycle, of course. Everything, as they say, is grist for that mill. It's a monster that must be fed.
It's also the gritty residue of dirty, maintain-power-at-all-cost, negative politics. Consider what the Presidential campaign of 1988 was like. That summer, I was working 7 to Midnight at Q-105. I set a then-new Zenith VCR to record the nightly three hours of the Democratic National Convention. By '88, the networks had reduced convention coverage to three hours a night. As late as '72, the conventions had been just about an all day, all week, saturation, gavel-to-gavel telecast. Then the parties became painfully aware that the more fractious the convention, the more distant their chances for victory in the fall.
I ran across one of those old convention tapes this week and watched some of it. What first greets you is the difference in the graphics used by CBS...the number of politicians who've passed away in 20 years, and the dark heads of hair on Dan Rather and Bob Schieffer.
What truly got me was the commentary. In July of 1988, there were Walter Cronkite and Eric Severeid, offering opinion and fielding questions from Dan Rather. Between the two, they'd done 17 conventions on TV, but never once in their observations, not a single time in their ruminations did the idea of dirty politics come up. Nor was it discussed by any of the floor reporters or Bruce Morton, another CBS political correspondent of the time. At that convention, the only problem they could see in the distance for nominee Michael Dukakis was whether Jesse Jackson (who dominated the convention with what author Joe Klein would call, "hot, sweaty rhetoric.") would prove to be a loose cannon in the fall campaign. No one, at least on CBS in July of 1988, had an inkling that dirty politics and wedge issues devised and executed by Lee Atwater and the George H.W. Bush campaign would destroy Dukakis. This was the same Vice President Bush who was so freely ridiculed by the Democrats during the convention (and ridiculed for good reason).
The coverage that current candidates endure would not have saved Dukakis from himself, for he found fighting back not to be in his character. But it certainly would have exposed the tactics employed by the Republicans. Near death in 1990, Lee Atwater apologized to Dukakis. His soul was cleansed when he died, but the damage was done. Dirty politics is the Karl Rovian-way of the political world. Before November 4, 2008 gets here, we're in for a filthy, bitter ride.
*
Before I summarize the candidates, another word about Eric Severeid. He was the last of the scholar correspondents. Hired by Edward R. Murrow during World War II, he was the great sage of CBS for 40 years, then retired in 1978. Until his death, he'd be resurrected at convention time to add words of wisdom to CBS coverage. His face was placed on a commemorative postage stamp earlier this year. That's when I heard an attractive morning anchor on KTLA-TV 5 in Los Angeles announce that "...in addition, Eric SeverEED is also on a new stamp." Eric SeverEED? How could a working journalist not know the correct pronunciation of Eric Severeid's name? Then it dawned on me that the anchor, a lovely Filipina named Cher Colvin, was probably just born when Severeid retired. She must have been a ten-year-old, more interested in Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam plus Full Force than politics, when Eric last appeared at a convention. It made me feel old and less impressed with TV news. The very idea that an electronic journalist could not know his name is disappointing.
Now--the candidates: If John McCain wore coveralls, he might be Walter Brennan in an ancient episode of 'The Real McCoys." Forget for one moment all the political hype, positioning and manipulation. He puts me in mind of the perpetually wisecracking-but-pissed-off homeroom teacher, the one who might verbally lacerate you at the drop of a hat. I get the strong impression that this is one Senator who has used the M.F. word with skill and knife-like precision.
*
Charlton Heston is gone. You won't have to pry a rifle from his cold dead hands, but you'll need a hydraulic-trip hammer to loosen Senator Hillary Clinton's grip on the campaign. The mantra here is "Do anything, say anything " to win. This is not an observation born out of sexism. Any man or woman who so doggedly continues in the face of math that doesn't add up favorably is seeking power without regard for reality.
That leaves Senator Obama, a man who has lit a flame under part of the electorate. In recent times, only Mario Cuomo and Bill Clinton himself could offer such oratory. But those two never drew 75 thousand to an appearance, as Obama did by the Willamette River in Oregon. Watching the faces of those in the throngs that gather to see him, I can only imagine what it must have been like to see JFK or RFK. Surely no Democratic politician has caused such a stir, since. If the math is correct, and there's no reason to expect it won't, the son of Stanley Ann and Barack Obama, Sr., literally an African and American, will be the Presidential nominee of a major party in the United States. He'll have his work cut out for him. There will be hate in his face, for a myriad of reasons. Those to the right will hate his politics. There are some who will hate his erudition (why do we, as a nation, not seem to want an intelligent person in the most powerful office in the world? Have we not seen what stupidity can do?). And, in a segment of our land where there has been no growth, regardless of his late, Kansas-born mother Stanley Ann, and yes, regardless of the progress the country has made in 40 years, they will hate him for the color of his skin.
AND FINALLY, HERE'S DAVE WITH SPORTS...
Just a few notes. In this, the 2nd full month of the 2008 season, it appears the Dodgers have traded their bats him for soggy, wet socks. Tommy Lasorda said it best 25 years ago: "They'd need an OAR to hit the f--king ball!" All the kids are there--Loney at first, Kemp and Ethier in the outfield, Martin behind the plate. When a mysterious malady of the calf made Nomar no MORE, a Double-A 3rd Baseman named Blake Dewitt made such a name for himself, a radio station in his Missouri hometown now carries Dodger games live.
Yet, at this writing, they've scored 7 runs in 4 games, and lost every single one. At 26-27 on May 30th, it's safe to say they stink.
I yearn for the day when the Dodgers could captivate Los Angeles the way the Lakers do. The Lakes are third on my list of favorite sports teams. I don't follow them with the tenacity I do the Dodgers and S.C. football...but when the prospect of playing Boston for the NBA Championship arises, look out! Should Boston prevail over Detroit, ABC-TV will be doing the dance of the infidels, because a Celtics-Lakers Championship Series means big ratings. And anybody who's followed the Lakers for a DAY...hates the Celtics. This could be fun...
Regardless, when you write, you have to have something to say, and these last three months I haven't had much to offer. I've been easily distracted by the need to get a new gig, and the temptation of watching Jackie Johnson do the weather on L.A.'s K-CAL 9. I never remember a single forecast this curvy sensation utters, but udders are what dominate my thoughts once her segment is done!
It's time for me to offer some cogent thoughts about Campaign '08. These have been, without question, the most curious, compelling six months of presidential politics in my adult life. Emphasis on adult life. It is true that I was an 8-year-old about to turn 9 in during the '68 race. Because my parents were active in Democratic politics, I can remember a lot of the details. Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy's appearance at the elementary school I attended stands out. The kids were so badly behaved around TV cameras, McCarthy was photographed only from the neck up--lest the networks have to settle for the distracting picture of a rather aloof politician surrounded by a leaping, bounding, gaggle of bobble-headed grade school children. If only the other memories were that amusing. On June 4, 1968, I went to bed listening to Vin Scully describe Don Drysdale's shutout of the Pittsburgh Pirates. He was on his way to a then-record 58 and 2/3 scoreless innings pitched. I woke up the next morning to the image of Roger Mudd filling the TV screen in my brother Thomas' room.
"Is the election still going on?" I asked?
"No. Kennedy got shot." I was horrified. I went to the dining room, and there was the headline spread across the front page of the Los Angeles Times. When JFK had been assassinated, I understood only that there would be no cartoons on TV that weekend. This time, I felt surprise and shock for the first time. If you are at all given to prayer, or rubbing a rabbit's foot, do what you must in hopes that we should never have to suffer the agony of that type of violence again.
I mentioned Roger Mudd. At long last, he has written of his time with CBS in Washington. "The Place To Be," is the name of his tome, and it's a great read for political and news junkies, alike. One of his revelations made me shake my head and laugh. At the 1970 Washington Press Corps Dinner, he was seated next to President Richard Nixon as Diana Ross performed. According to Mudd, Nixon turned to him during her performance and said, " They really do have a sense of rhythm, don't they?"
What is missing in 2008 is the analysis of Roger Mudd...and Mike Wallace, and yes, Dan Rather. Even at their respective ages (Mudd is 80, Wallace is in his 90's, and Rather is well over 70), they'd have a field day with the fruit that's been born of Campaign '08.
With three cable channels providing all politics just about all the time, every word by every candidate has been analyzed, squeezed, wrung-out, and dissected; then roasted on a spit by every ex-consultant, pol and pundit who can elbow his or her way before a camera. Once on the air, the bantering, predicting and pontificating begins. The most innocuous item is blown up to the size of the fat guy on "Lost," then it's off the table by the end of the week. This campaign has been an exhausting process because following it means a daily dose of constant haranguing. I, for one, am tired of it.
This is all part and parcel to the advent of the 24-hour news cycle, of course. Everything, as they say, is grist for that mill. It's a monster that must be fed.
It's also the gritty residue of dirty, maintain-power-at-all-cost, negative politics. Consider what the Presidential campaign of 1988 was like. That summer, I was working 7 to Midnight at Q-105. I set a then-new Zenith VCR to record the nightly three hours of the Democratic National Convention. By '88, the networks had reduced convention coverage to three hours a night. As late as '72, the conventions had been just about an all day, all week, saturation, gavel-to-gavel telecast. Then the parties became painfully aware that the more fractious the convention, the more distant their chances for victory in the fall.
I ran across one of those old convention tapes this week and watched some of it. What first greets you is the difference in the graphics used by CBS...the number of politicians who've passed away in 20 years, and the dark heads of hair on Dan Rather and Bob Schieffer.
What truly got me was the commentary. In July of 1988, there were Walter Cronkite and Eric Severeid, offering opinion and fielding questions from Dan Rather. Between the two, they'd done 17 conventions on TV, but never once in their observations, not a single time in their ruminations did the idea of dirty politics come up. Nor was it discussed by any of the floor reporters or Bruce Morton, another CBS political correspondent of the time. At that convention, the only problem they could see in the distance for nominee Michael Dukakis was whether Jesse Jackson (who dominated the convention with what author Joe Klein would call, "hot, sweaty rhetoric.") would prove to be a loose cannon in the fall campaign. No one, at least on CBS in July of 1988, had an inkling that dirty politics and wedge issues devised and executed by Lee Atwater and the George H.W. Bush campaign would destroy Dukakis. This was the same Vice President Bush who was so freely ridiculed by the Democrats during the convention (and ridiculed for good reason).
The coverage that current candidates endure would not have saved Dukakis from himself, for he found fighting back not to be in his character. But it certainly would have exposed the tactics employed by the Republicans. Near death in 1990, Lee Atwater apologized to Dukakis. His soul was cleansed when he died, but the damage was done. Dirty politics is the Karl Rovian-way of the political world. Before November 4, 2008 gets here, we're in for a filthy, bitter ride.
*
Before I summarize the candidates, another word about Eric Severeid. He was the last of the scholar correspondents. Hired by Edward R. Murrow during World War II, he was the great sage of CBS for 40 years, then retired in 1978. Until his death, he'd be resurrected at convention time to add words of wisdom to CBS coverage. His face was placed on a commemorative postage stamp earlier this year. That's when I heard an attractive morning anchor on KTLA-TV 5 in Los Angeles announce that "...in addition, Eric SeverEED is also on a new stamp." Eric SeverEED? How could a working journalist not know the correct pronunciation of Eric Severeid's name? Then it dawned on me that the anchor, a lovely Filipina named Cher Colvin, was probably just born when Severeid retired. She must have been a ten-year-old, more interested in Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam plus Full Force than politics, when Eric last appeared at a convention. It made me feel old and less impressed with TV news. The very idea that an electronic journalist could not know his name is disappointing.
Now--the candidates: If John McCain wore coveralls, he might be Walter Brennan in an ancient episode of 'The Real McCoys." Forget for one moment all the political hype, positioning and manipulation. He puts me in mind of the perpetually wisecracking-but-pissed-off homeroom teacher, the one who might verbally lacerate you at the drop of a hat. I get the strong impression that this is one Senator who has used the M.F. word with skill and knife-like precision.
*
Charlton Heston is gone. You won't have to pry a rifle from his cold dead hands, but you'll need a hydraulic-trip hammer to loosen Senator Hillary Clinton's grip on the campaign. The mantra here is "Do anything, say anything " to win. This is not an observation born out of sexism. Any man or woman who so doggedly continues in the face of math that doesn't add up favorably is seeking power without regard for reality.
That leaves Senator Obama, a man who has lit a flame under part of the electorate. In recent times, only Mario Cuomo and Bill Clinton himself could offer such oratory. But those two never drew 75 thousand to an appearance, as Obama did by the Willamette River in Oregon. Watching the faces of those in the throngs that gather to see him, I can only imagine what it must have been like to see JFK or RFK. Surely no Democratic politician has caused such a stir, since. If the math is correct, and there's no reason to expect it won't, the son of Stanley Ann and Barack Obama, Sr., literally an African and American, will be the Presidential nominee of a major party in the United States. He'll have his work cut out for him. There will be hate in his face, for a myriad of reasons. Those to the right will hate his politics. There are some who will hate his erudition (why do we, as a nation, not seem to want an intelligent person in the most powerful office in the world? Have we not seen what stupidity can do?). And, in a segment of our land where there has been no growth, regardless of his late, Kansas-born mother Stanley Ann, and yes, regardless of the progress the country has made in 40 years, they will hate him for the color of his skin.
AND FINALLY, HERE'S DAVE WITH SPORTS...
Just a few notes. In this, the 2nd full month of the 2008 season, it appears the Dodgers have traded their bats him for soggy, wet socks. Tommy Lasorda said it best 25 years ago: "They'd need an OAR to hit the f--king ball!" All the kids are there--Loney at first, Kemp and Ethier in the outfield, Martin behind the plate. When a mysterious malady of the calf made Nomar no MORE, a Double-A 3rd Baseman named Blake Dewitt made such a name for himself, a radio station in his Missouri hometown now carries Dodger games live.
Yet, at this writing, they've scored 7 runs in 4 games, and lost every single one. At 26-27 on May 30th, it's safe to say they stink.
I yearn for the day when the Dodgers could captivate Los Angeles the way the Lakers do. The Lakes are third on my list of favorite sports teams. I don't follow them with the tenacity I do the Dodgers and S.C. football...but when the prospect of playing Boston for the NBA Championship arises, look out! Should Boston prevail over Detroit, ABC-TV will be doing the dance of the infidels, because a Celtics-Lakers Championship Series means big ratings. And anybody who's followed the Lakers for a DAY...hates the Celtics. This could be fun...
Thursday, March 27, 2008
WHEN LAST WE LEFT OUR HERO, or "They Fired My Ass!"
'Tis true, they did. When I posted my last entry, it was a Sunday night, and I pretty much knew someone at the radio concern that employed me for 13 and a half years would be dispatched. The organization was going to wring itself like a bib sopping with fluid, and squeeze out one selected member of the air staff. It made sense to me that some reason would be made to expunge the overnight guy. So it was, so it shall be. On February 7, they did.
Now, I did not want to use this blog as a platform for whatever was running through my mind at the time. These emotions never look good in print after they've been poured forth. The whole idea of writing on the web was so that I could express the humor or observations I never could over the air. Being funny is more fun than heaping abuse upon those who have vexed you. Since I couldn't make the situation amusing without devastating insults, the kind that sting like a ripened pimple on one's gluteal cheeks, I chose not to write.
But I'm back. I still work three weekend shifts, but the severance checks have been cashed, and though I would never do or say anything to damage my professional reputation, I am searching for someplace new to ply my trade. Like all businesses where talent is judged, Radio is subjective. What's funny to one employer is not to another. Who's talented to one department head is not to another. Cronyism, nepotism, favoritism, specifics carved out by Federal mandate, and just plain, old, taste in personalities prevails. With patience and a good deal of luck, I'll find another outlet, and realize the goal I've worked for, lo these many years.
Slowly, I've become grateful to not work four overnight shifts. It's a brutal and unappreciated endeavor. Many are the slights that come along with it. No matter what the spin is, it's usually a place where they "stick" someone. I still do Saturday mornings, 12-6am, but it's for the cash alone. Doing overnight shifts on the radio takes a person of hearty stock, physically and mentally. The phone calls alone demand an education far beyond my Bachelor of Arts from Long Beach State. All night, the deeply disturbed reach for the phone as their connection to humanity. Not so much to request music, but to unload some sort of pathetic minutiae on another set of ears. I call it looking for cheap therapy from the disembodied voice coming out of that speaker. In truth, some calls did come from the institutionalized, but if the call wasn't from Britney Spears, I had no use for it. I was polite, to the point, and moved on. The minute the conversation starts, you can expect a nightly call that will take your attention away from your job, because this is a person not listening to the radio, just looking for a someone to trap into a lengthy chat.
Then there are the drunks. I dealt with a lot. Not as many as police officers, bartenders or hospital nurses (also up all night for the purpose of making a living), but enough. One alcohol soaked drinker-and-dialer yapped on and on that he baby-sat for the Jackson Five, back in Gary, Indiana. Come to think of it, that would explain a lot!!
To put a lid on the subject, over the two and a half years I was painted into that dead-end in order to make a living, I did enjoy hearing from those who were working. Taxi company, blood lab, newspaper, hospital workers, etc. They never called a lot because they were otherwise engaged, but it was nice to know that every now and then when you answered the request line, it didn't necessarily have to be an ad for anti-mania drugs.
SO...WHAT DO YOU DO ALL DAY?
Looking for a full time radio job IS a job. I've edited hours of "airchecks" (a radio word for recordings of old shows), and with the help of Mike Stark, another Long Beach State, KSUL vet, I've put up a site unconnected to this one, with audio, video, and photos from my career. You can view all this at http://www.daverandallradio.com/. It's a great way to expose one's talents to prospective employers. For now, it's posted via My Space, which accounts for the half-naked babe who wanted to sign up as a friend. I allowed the sign up, and the next thing I knew, there was a picture of this gal's shapely buns, getting dollar bills shoved into the dental floss that masqueraded as her G-string.
Uh...I don't think she's a potential employer. Because spitzer is not my name (but probably something she does) I deleted her. The site's for professional purposes. Boy, am I no fun, these days!
That leads me to what else I do, besides catching up with friend and family I've been out of personal contact with when I had to make an attempt at sleep, all day: I read, and keep up with the Presidential race.
I'll save the meat of my commentary for another, more thought out time. I can tell you this: Chris Matthews is the only person on television who requires a sneeze guard. He gets as worked up as a a ten-year-old that's gotten into a bag of brown sugar, and the spit starts to fly. Sometimes, as he steamrollers guests and colleagues alike, his state becomes so high pitched and agitated it sounds like this: HEEEEEEEMEEEEEEENEEEEMEEEEHEEEEEEEMEENEEEEMEEEE!SPITZER!WHORES!HOOKERS!HARDBALL. WE'LL BE RIGHT BACK!!
I've noticed he's a bit more sedate when he offers his analysis as a guest on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," hosted by the smug former Florida Congressman Joe Scarborough, and the delicious Mika Brezhenski (daughter of former National Security Advisor Zbigniew), late of CBS News, having bailed out, along with many after Cutie Katie made a Tea Party of the CBS Evening News*. When I have to be up that early, I'll tune in until Joe and Pat Buchanan make my morning toast indigestible. Mika saves the day. With her family pedigree, her intelligence is a given, but, as Letterman often says, she's also "easy on the eyes." I chose to be a disc jockey and often wondered why women like Mika never fell into my existence. These are the things you ponder after a few years toiling in the bowels of the night.
Then there's Keith Olberman, who has morphed from the snarky sports guy who worked at KTLA and KCBS-TV in Los Angeles 20 years ago, and into the only non-right leaning host on TV who's both compelling and funny. Surely the only one with the avocado-like testes to call-out the sitting President on TV, and do likewise with the Clintons. Outside of Keith, you just don't see that. He must have a wheelbarrow preceding him when he walks the streets of Manhattan...either that or everyone else on cable or network TV (on an outlet that provides BOTH points of view) simply has no courage.
As this street-fight of a Presidential race continues--and it's only March--I'll offer some snarky comments of my own. After all, my mind is clear, 'cause I'm sleeping more.
*look for the future posting of an unsold article about the CBS Evening News, one I wrote four or five years ago The New Yorker and Parade Magazine turned it down, and rightfully so. It's more memoir than article, all about growing up watching the newscast, and it's impact on me.
Now, I did not want to use this blog as a platform for whatever was running through my mind at the time. These emotions never look good in print after they've been poured forth. The whole idea of writing on the web was so that I could express the humor or observations I never could over the air. Being funny is more fun than heaping abuse upon those who have vexed you. Since I couldn't make the situation amusing without devastating insults, the kind that sting like a ripened pimple on one's gluteal cheeks, I chose not to write.
But I'm back. I still work three weekend shifts, but the severance checks have been cashed, and though I would never do or say anything to damage my professional reputation, I am searching for someplace new to ply my trade. Like all businesses where talent is judged, Radio is subjective. What's funny to one employer is not to another. Who's talented to one department head is not to another. Cronyism, nepotism, favoritism, specifics carved out by Federal mandate, and just plain, old, taste in personalities prevails. With patience and a good deal of luck, I'll find another outlet, and realize the goal I've worked for, lo these many years.
Slowly, I've become grateful to not work four overnight shifts. It's a brutal and unappreciated endeavor. Many are the slights that come along with it. No matter what the spin is, it's usually a place where they "stick" someone. I still do Saturday mornings, 12-6am, but it's for the cash alone. Doing overnight shifts on the radio takes a person of hearty stock, physically and mentally. The phone calls alone demand an education far beyond my Bachelor of Arts from Long Beach State. All night, the deeply disturbed reach for the phone as their connection to humanity. Not so much to request music, but to unload some sort of pathetic minutiae on another set of ears. I call it looking for cheap therapy from the disembodied voice coming out of that speaker. In truth, some calls did come from the institutionalized, but if the call wasn't from Britney Spears, I had no use for it. I was polite, to the point, and moved on. The minute the conversation starts, you can expect a nightly call that will take your attention away from your job, because this is a person not listening to the radio, just looking for a someone to trap into a lengthy chat.
Then there are the drunks. I dealt with a lot. Not as many as police officers, bartenders or hospital nurses (also up all night for the purpose of making a living), but enough. One alcohol soaked drinker-and-dialer yapped on and on that he baby-sat for the Jackson Five, back in Gary, Indiana. Come to think of it, that would explain a lot!!
To put a lid on the subject, over the two and a half years I was painted into that dead-end in order to make a living, I did enjoy hearing from those who were working. Taxi company, blood lab, newspaper, hospital workers, etc. They never called a lot because they were otherwise engaged, but it was nice to know that every now and then when you answered the request line, it didn't necessarily have to be an ad for anti-mania drugs.
SO...WHAT DO YOU DO ALL DAY?
Looking for a full time radio job IS a job. I've edited hours of "airchecks" (a radio word for recordings of old shows), and with the help of Mike Stark, another Long Beach State, KSUL vet, I've put up a site unconnected to this one, with audio, video, and photos from my career. You can view all this at http://www.daverandallradio.com/. It's a great way to expose one's talents to prospective employers. For now, it's posted via My Space, which accounts for the half-naked babe who wanted to sign up as a friend. I allowed the sign up, and the next thing I knew, there was a picture of this gal's shapely buns, getting dollar bills shoved into the dental floss that masqueraded as her G-string.
Uh...I don't think she's a potential employer. Because spitzer is not my name (but probably something she does) I deleted her. The site's for professional purposes. Boy, am I no fun, these days!
That leads me to what else I do, besides catching up with friend and family I've been out of personal contact with when I had to make an attempt at sleep, all day: I read, and keep up with the Presidential race.
I'll save the meat of my commentary for another, more thought out time. I can tell you this: Chris Matthews is the only person on television who requires a sneeze guard. He gets as worked up as a a ten-year-old that's gotten into a bag of brown sugar, and the spit starts to fly. Sometimes, as he steamrollers guests and colleagues alike, his state becomes so high pitched and agitated it sounds like this: HEEEEEEEMEEEEEEENEEEEMEEEEHEEEEEEEMEENEEEEMEEEE!SPITZER!WHORES!HOOKERS!HARDBALL. WE'LL BE RIGHT BACK!!
I've noticed he's a bit more sedate when he offers his analysis as a guest on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," hosted by the smug former Florida Congressman Joe Scarborough, and the delicious Mika Brezhenski (daughter of former National Security Advisor Zbigniew), late of CBS News, having bailed out, along with many after Cutie Katie made a Tea Party of the CBS Evening News*. When I have to be up that early, I'll tune in until Joe and Pat Buchanan make my morning toast indigestible. Mika saves the day. With her family pedigree, her intelligence is a given, but, as Letterman often says, she's also "easy on the eyes." I chose to be a disc jockey and often wondered why women like Mika never fell into my existence. These are the things you ponder after a few years toiling in the bowels of the night.
Then there's Keith Olberman, who has morphed from the snarky sports guy who worked at KTLA and KCBS-TV in Los Angeles 20 years ago, and into the only non-right leaning host on TV who's both compelling and funny. Surely the only one with the avocado-like testes to call-out the sitting President on TV, and do likewise with the Clintons. Outside of Keith, you just don't see that. He must have a wheelbarrow preceding him when he walks the streets of Manhattan...either that or everyone else on cable or network TV (on an outlet that provides BOTH points of view) simply has no courage.
As this street-fight of a Presidential race continues--and it's only March--I'll offer some snarky comments of my own. After all, my mind is clear, 'cause I'm sleeping more.
*look for the future posting of an unsold article about the CBS Evening News, one I wrote four or five years ago The New Yorker and Parade Magazine turned it down, and rightfully so. It's more memoir than article, all about growing up watching the newscast, and it's impact on me.
Sunday, February 3, 2008
TWO BIG ENCHILADAS
Two Big Enchiladas. What an approriate title for this entry, on a national day of great drunken and gastro-intestinal excess. Today's big Enchilada was the Super Bowl, which concluded in a nail biting New York Giants upset over the previously undefeated New England Patriots.
The next big Enchilada won't yield results until November. That would be the 2008 Presidential Election, which has created interest that hasn't existed in years.
I'm the guy who spent Super Bowl Sunday napping and resting up from a long week. I hope my friends understand, it's better to fall asleep on the couch than behind the wheel, en route to a party. Besides, there's so much you miss at a party--like the GAME. Then there's the commercials and the always overly-hyped half-time spectacular. Who will ever forget the year the enormous, brown mammary gland of janet Jackson sprung forth like a jack-in-the-box, and put the broadcast industry in a state of terror for years to come.
But that's another subject. I like the company at Super Bowl parties, but as a broadcaster, I despise working them. About 16 years ago, I co-hosted a party at a restaurant-bar in Oxmard's Channel islands Harbor. I watched as the other host dared a sodden guest to jump off a small pier and into the channel...for tickets to Knotts Berry Farm, I believe. Before you knew it, this inebriated ass-clown dashed down the stairs, out of the bar, down the small pier, and dove into the drink. He came back to a hearty round of cheers and, dripping like the Creature From the Black Lagoon, snatched the tickets from my co-host's hand. As the effects of my own vodka-soaked efforts wore off, I considered that no one knew the depth of the water. There was a good chance this beer-belching simpleton could have struck his head underwater and drowned, leaving the restaurant and the radio station I worked for liabel for his untimely demise. It was a chilling thought.
The next year, when I was main host of the party, at the same restaurant, I reckoned we'd been lucky that idiot hadn't killed himself. I decided there would be no repeat performance. Intsead, I peppered the crown with a stream of one-liners, and when I spotted a swacked-out-of-his-mind fossil in a suit, who looked just like Buddy Ebsen, I lead the crowd in a hand-clapping, rousing rendtion of "The Theme from the Beverly Hillbillies." It was a pretty good moment, and sort of made up for the fact the game was another one of those early 1990's Super Bowl blowouts.
Later that week, the Account Executive who handled the restaurant told me they were disappointed I didn't have someone dive off the pier like the last year. I must have had a look on my face like Jerry Lewis in "The Bell Boy." Apparently I was too cautious for that small a market.
On to the second Enchilada, now, which I had a taste of just before the Big Game. To avoid the mind-numbing, endless pre-game chatter, I flipped around to C-SPAN just in time to see a packed Pauley pavillion on the campus of UCLA. A Barack Obama rally was in progress, minus Obama himself. The thousands in attendance were shrieking for the sheer female star power, on a stage set up roughly where Kareem-Abdul Jabbar, Bill Walton and many other old Bruins made college basketball history years ago. Oprah Winfrey, Caroline Kennedy, a surprise appearnce by her cousin Maria Shriver, First Lady of "Cully-fornia," and a passionate Mrs Obama were all there. Stevie Wonder stopped by to lead the crowd in a simple chorus of the candidates name.
These political rallies in '08 have drawn unprecedented throngs. It's been completely engrossing-- more competitive than any presidential primary season since 1972. In fact, the "Horse Race," as they call it, hasn't provided such drama in both parties since well before a lot of us were born--1952.
Back then, there were relatively few primaries, and they were little more than straw polls. A candidate would enter to test the waters and prove his viability to party bosses. The delegate snatching and the heavy lifting was done at the conventions. And 1952 was the first year the entire country would peep through the key hole of the smoke filled room. Thanks to the co-axial cable, the conventions could now be seen from sea to shining sea.
They proved intoxicating theatre. The Republicans gaveled to order with isolationists martialed behind "Mr. Conservative," Senator Robert A. Taft, son of one term President and Supreme Court Chief Justice, William Howard Taft (the man whose bulk was so vast, he got stuck in the White House bathtub). These forces engaged supporters of General Dwight David Eisenhower who was previously non-partisan and sought after by both parties. Ike became a Republican and dealt a death blow to Taft's shot at the nomination.
The Democratic Convention was even more wide open, because President Harry S. Truman had chosen not to run for re-election. As respected as he is today, Truman's job approval rating in '52 hovered close to "W's" range, and he'd lost the New Hampshire primary to Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee.
At the raucus convention in Chicago, Kefauver sought a duel with the intellectual, ultra-articulate, but indecisive former Governor of Illinois, Adlai E. Stevenson. The bespectacled southerner and the bald, divorced darling of the left didn't exactly go at it hammer and tongs--the party wanted to draft Stevenson at all costs--all described for viewers over CBS-TV for the first time by a 35-year-old Walter Cronkite.
No one under the age of 45 can possibly have any functioning memory of a political convention that's anything but a tightly controlled infomercial/coronation. Kinescopes from 1952, at the dawn of coast to coast, live network television, reveal bare-knuckles political dickering, populated by cigar-chomping, bulbous-nosed pols with thinning hair, in rumpled suits, and all caucasian. Politics in the raw, covered day and night, gavel to gavel. At one point, a small fire broke out on the convention floor, stomped out by a few delegates before it could spread. No one knew it, but the exit doors at Chicago Stadium had been chained, and had that fire grown, a tragedy of untold proportions would have transfixed terrified viewers.
The fire went out of the nomination fight as well, when Stevenson prevailed, and named Alabama Senator John Sparkman as his V.P. nominee (even though Sparkman wasa staunch segregationist--all southern Senators were in '52. Thus were the times for the Democratic Party). Come November, the Stevenson-Sparkman ticket promptly got its clock cleaned in the general election by Eisenhower and Tricky Dick Nixon.
Oh, how the political process has changed...as has life in America, in 56 years. An African American man and a Woman are battling, hammer and tongs for the Democratic nomination, through a primary and caucus season that starts before a New Year's hangover can wear off (adding to this exceptional contest, the woman's husband is a former President). A fiery, maverick Senator and ex-prisoner of war duels a miliionaire of the Mormon faith on the Republican side, and no love is lost between the two. All of this is happening under the scrutiny of three all-news cable channels, filling airtime with a steady flow of footage and a pile-on of punditry. It's difficult to believe either party would allow these brusiing battles to continue for eight months, then play out, embarassingly, at the conventions, before a weary public.
The media would love it. CBS, NBC and ABC gave up on the conventions long ago, limiting coverage to one or two hours of a four day event. Who could blame them? Even those brief hours caused the networks to hemorrhage viewers. With compelling stories on both sides (Obama vs Clinton speaks for itself; Romney is largely uninteresting, but McCain could shoot a cold stare, or engage in some "straight-talk" that might send his handlers into spin control. The possiblity for eruption is there), 2008 would be different, for sure.
With so many talking heads telling us what we were supposed to have seen and heard, interpreting every word, every wince, consulting body language experts to read the candidates mind, the element of theatre would only be heightened. The excitement would cause even more nationally televised spittle to fly from Chris Matthews mouth, as his eyes grow deranged with euphoria.
I'm not sure how America would react to nominations actually decided at the conventions. Most don't suspect that politics is a cold-blooded and dirty as it is. They're unware of "push polling," the art of calling prospective voters and planting false information about the opposition. They aren't cognisant of the craven menaces of the political world who feverishly work to suppress voter turnout, thereby increasing the likelihood of a strident ideaology taking power...without plurality or overwhelming mandate, as we've seen these last seven years. Or the question of whether voting machines are a safe, tamper-free way of casting ballots.
All that being said, this current scrapple, a race like nothing we've seen in over a generation, could run, at least, through March. If memory serves me correctly, It was June of 1972, when Senator George McGovern bested Hubert Humphrey in the California Primary to take all of the two-hundred-some delegates, and clinch his ill-fated Democratic nomination.
At the convention in Miami, Humphrey's people tried to get the rules changed and have the delegates apportioned by percentage of the vote. This fight went to the convention floor. Willie Brown, former Mayor of San Francisco, who was then a California state legislator, stood at the podium in a loud, plaid suit. Brown's scalp was inching toward the center of his head, the rest of his skull covered by a wild 'fro. His arms spread, his fists raised, he raved and screamed and demanded the convention "...Give me back my del-a-ga-tion!!"
And they did. The convention went on, a fractious, chaotic affair that poured its disorganization and crumbled decorum into the living rooms of all who watched. Senator McGovern chose a running mate who would soon reveal he had had electro-shock therapy (Senator Thomas Eagalton of Missouri), and gave his acceptance speech at close to 2 AM on the east coast. McGovern, of course, went on to a historic, resounding, embarassingly huge defeat at the hands (and underhandedness) of the miscreant President, Nixon.
In short, a messy, turbulant convention won't do either party, or the nation, any good. But be advised: It would make great TV.
The next big Enchilada won't yield results until November. That would be the 2008 Presidential Election, which has created interest that hasn't existed in years.
I'm the guy who spent Super Bowl Sunday napping and resting up from a long week. I hope my friends understand, it's better to fall asleep on the couch than behind the wheel, en route to a party. Besides, there's so much you miss at a party--like the GAME. Then there's the commercials and the always overly-hyped half-time spectacular. Who will ever forget the year the enormous, brown mammary gland of janet Jackson sprung forth like a jack-in-the-box, and put the broadcast industry in a state of terror for years to come.
But that's another subject. I like the company at Super Bowl parties, but as a broadcaster, I despise working them. About 16 years ago, I co-hosted a party at a restaurant-bar in Oxmard's Channel islands Harbor. I watched as the other host dared a sodden guest to jump off a small pier and into the channel...for tickets to Knotts Berry Farm, I believe. Before you knew it, this inebriated ass-clown dashed down the stairs, out of the bar, down the small pier, and dove into the drink. He came back to a hearty round of cheers and, dripping like the Creature From the Black Lagoon, snatched the tickets from my co-host's hand. As the effects of my own vodka-soaked efforts wore off, I considered that no one knew the depth of the water. There was a good chance this beer-belching simpleton could have struck his head underwater and drowned, leaving the restaurant and the radio station I worked for liabel for his untimely demise. It was a chilling thought.
The next year, when I was main host of the party, at the same restaurant, I reckoned we'd been lucky that idiot hadn't killed himself. I decided there would be no repeat performance. Intsead, I peppered the crown with a stream of one-liners, and when I spotted a swacked-out-of-his-mind fossil in a suit, who looked just like Buddy Ebsen, I lead the crowd in a hand-clapping, rousing rendtion of "The Theme from the Beverly Hillbillies." It was a pretty good moment, and sort of made up for the fact the game was another one of those early 1990's Super Bowl blowouts.
Later that week, the Account Executive who handled the restaurant told me they were disappointed I didn't have someone dive off the pier like the last year. I must have had a look on my face like Jerry Lewis in "The Bell Boy." Apparently I was too cautious for that small a market.
On to the second Enchilada, now, which I had a taste of just before the Big Game. To avoid the mind-numbing, endless pre-game chatter, I flipped around to C-SPAN just in time to see a packed Pauley pavillion on the campus of UCLA. A Barack Obama rally was in progress, minus Obama himself. The thousands in attendance were shrieking for the sheer female star power, on a stage set up roughly where Kareem-Abdul Jabbar, Bill Walton and many other old Bruins made college basketball history years ago. Oprah Winfrey, Caroline Kennedy, a surprise appearnce by her cousin Maria Shriver, First Lady of "Cully-fornia," and a passionate Mrs Obama were all there. Stevie Wonder stopped by to lead the crowd in a simple chorus of the candidates name.
These political rallies in '08 have drawn unprecedented throngs. It's been completely engrossing-- more competitive than any presidential primary season since 1972. In fact, the "Horse Race," as they call it, hasn't provided such drama in both parties since well before a lot of us were born--1952.
Back then, there were relatively few primaries, and they were little more than straw polls. A candidate would enter to test the waters and prove his viability to party bosses. The delegate snatching and the heavy lifting was done at the conventions. And 1952 was the first year the entire country would peep through the key hole of the smoke filled room. Thanks to the co-axial cable, the conventions could now be seen from sea to shining sea.
They proved intoxicating theatre. The Republicans gaveled to order with isolationists martialed behind "Mr. Conservative," Senator Robert A. Taft, son of one term President and Supreme Court Chief Justice, William Howard Taft (the man whose bulk was so vast, he got stuck in the White House bathtub). These forces engaged supporters of General Dwight David Eisenhower who was previously non-partisan and sought after by both parties. Ike became a Republican and dealt a death blow to Taft's shot at the nomination.
The Democratic Convention was even more wide open, because President Harry S. Truman had chosen not to run for re-election. As respected as he is today, Truman's job approval rating in '52 hovered close to "W's" range, and he'd lost the New Hampshire primary to Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee.
At the raucus convention in Chicago, Kefauver sought a duel with the intellectual, ultra-articulate, but indecisive former Governor of Illinois, Adlai E. Stevenson. The bespectacled southerner and the bald, divorced darling of the left didn't exactly go at it hammer and tongs--the party wanted to draft Stevenson at all costs--all described for viewers over CBS-TV for the first time by a 35-year-old Walter Cronkite.
No one under the age of 45 can possibly have any functioning memory of a political convention that's anything but a tightly controlled infomercial/coronation. Kinescopes from 1952, at the dawn of coast to coast, live network television, reveal bare-knuckles political dickering, populated by cigar-chomping, bulbous-nosed pols with thinning hair, in rumpled suits, and all caucasian. Politics in the raw, covered day and night, gavel to gavel. At one point, a small fire broke out on the convention floor, stomped out by a few delegates before it could spread. No one knew it, but the exit doors at Chicago Stadium had been chained, and had that fire grown, a tragedy of untold proportions would have transfixed terrified viewers.
The fire went out of the nomination fight as well, when Stevenson prevailed, and named Alabama Senator John Sparkman as his V.P. nominee (even though Sparkman wasa staunch segregationist--all southern Senators were in '52. Thus were the times for the Democratic Party). Come November, the Stevenson-Sparkman ticket promptly got its clock cleaned in the general election by Eisenhower and Tricky Dick Nixon.
Oh, how the political process has changed...as has life in America, in 56 years. An African American man and a Woman are battling, hammer and tongs for the Democratic nomination, through a primary and caucus season that starts before a New Year's hangover can wear off (adding to this exceptional contest, the woman's husband is a former President). A fiery, maverick Senator and ex-prisoner of war duels a miliionaire of the Mormon faith on the Republican side, and no love is lost between the two. All of this is happening under the scrutiny of three all-news cable channels, filling airtime with a steady flow of footage and a pile-on of punditry. It's difficult to believe either party would allow these brusiing battles to continue for eight months, then play out, embarassingly, at the conventions, before a weary public.
The media would love it. CBS, NBC and ABC gave up on the conventions long ago, limiting coverage to one or two hours of a four day event. Who could blame them? Even those brief hours caused the networks to hemorrhage viewers. With compelling stories on both sides (Obama vs Clinton speaks for itself; Romney is largely uninteresting, but McCain could shoot a cold stare, or engage in some "straight-talk" that might send his handlers into spin control. The possiblity for eruption is there), 2008 would be different, for sure.
With so many talking heads telling us what we were supposed to have seen and heard, interpreting every word, every wince, consulting body language experts to read the candidates mind, the element of theatre would only be heightened. The excitement would cause even more nationally televised spittle to fly from Chris Matthews mouth, as his eyes grow deranged with euphoria.
I'm not sure how America would react to nominations actually decided at the conventions. Most don't suspect that politics is a cold-blooded and dirty as it is. They're unware of "push polling," the art of calling prospective voters and planting false information about the opposition. They aren't cognisant of the craven menaces of the political world who feverishly work to suppress voter turnout, thereby increasing the likelihood of a strident ideaology taking power...without plurality or overwhelming mandate, as we've seen these last seven years. Or the question of whether voting machines are a safe, tamper-free way of casting ballots.
All that being said, this current scrapple, a race like nothing we've seen in over a generation, could run, at least, through March. If memory serves me correctly, It was June of 1972, when Senator George McGovern bested Hubert Humphrey in the California Primary to take all of the two-hundred-some delegates, and clinch his ill-fated Democratic nomination.
At the convention in Miami, Humphrey's people tried to get the rules changed and have the delegates apportioned by percentage of the vote. This fight went to the convention floor. Willie Brown, former Mayor of San Francisco, who was then a California state legislator, stood at the podium in a loud, plaid suit. Brown's scalp was inching toward the center of his head, the rest of his skull covered by a wild 'fro. His arms spread, his fists raised, he raved and screamed and demanded the convention "...Give me back my del-a-ga-tion!!"
And they did. The convention went on, a fractious, chaotic affair that poured its disorganization and crumbled decorum into the living rooms of all who watched. Senator McGovern chose a running mate who would soon reveal he had had electro-shock therapy (Senator Thomas Eagalton of Missouri), and gave his acceptance speech at close to 2 AM on the east coast. McGovern, of course, went on to a historic, resounding, embarassingly huge defeat at the hands (and underhandedness) of the miscreant President, Nixon.
In short, a messy, turbulant convention won't do either party, or the nation, any good. But be advised: It would make great TV.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
007 REDUX: BOTH SHAKEN AND STIRRED
So here we are, a couple of weeks into 2008. A Presidential Campaign is blazing like none we've seen in 40 years, maybe longer. Some star baseball players are accused of using more juice than Southern California Edison. And I'm still finding little nuggets from the past to share with you in the blogosphere.
Sometime in the spring of 1990, I was home with the flu. As I recovered, and out of sheer boredom, I pulled a dog-eared, paperback copy of Live and Let Die off my bookshelf and immersed myself in the world of James Bond. The book had belonged to my brother Reg when he was a teen, and I'd sort of inherited it. That novel, and Dr. No sat on the shelf untouched for years and years. By the time I was well, I'd read both and just had to have the whole Bond series. I found them all, except You Only Live Twice, which, for some reason, was out of print in 1990.
I thoroughly enjoyed Ian Fleming's fiction, inhabited by a more human Bond than the increasingly cartoonish movies. I went as far as to buy John Gardiner's new 007 adventures, written in the 80's and early 90's. So you might say I went through a Bond phase when I was 31 years old.
The Bond series was very fresh in my mind by 1992 when I took Margie (my girl friend at the time) to Chavez Ravine for an exhibition game between my Dodgers and her ridiculous Angels. What we saw that night inspired this short story, recently rediscovered in a desk drawer. As far as I know, Margie and I were the only ones to read it. Now a married mother of two boys, I doubt she still has a copy, so I feel free to share with the world my take...on 007.
IAN FLEMING'S JAMES BOND in FURBUTT
The legendary agent 007 has bested many and adversary: Mr. Big, Doctor No, Goldfinger, Blofeld, The Man With The Golden Gun, et al. Now, Bond faces his most disgusting enemy ever....the hideous Furbutt!
James Bond rarely visited Los Angeles. his favorite California city, in fact his favorite place in all the United States, was San Francisco. Something about the fog reminded him of the British Isles. But Los Angeles was where his assignment was, so Los Angeles would have to do.
The daughter of a prominent politician had been secretly spirited away from a hockey game by not just a man, "a curiosity," Bond's dossier on the case had said. Bond's experience with curiosities outweighed his knowledge of hockey. The game itself was a curiosity to him. He read more from the dossier:
"Witnesses claim the girl was last seen being grasped in the arms of a fat man, following a goal. The man, from behind, looked as if a large black poodle were stuffed into the rear of his trousers."
Bond paused there, his left eyebrow raised.
"Strange," he muttered to himself. The dossier went on to read that the same fan had been seen frequently at baseball games. One witness described the fan as "...a tub of shit who, from a rear view, looked like he was smuggling a mink stole under his shirt. "
"A curiosity indeed, " thought Bond.
The first place to look for this odd fan was at Dodger Stadium. Bond drove into Chavez Ravine on a smoggy Saturday night to attend an exhibition game. The skyscrapers of Los Angeles pierced through the dirt in the air and formed a backdrop to the magnificent stadium. As he entered the ball park at the field level, Bond thought he still liked San Francisco better. And God knows, he knew less about baseball than he did about hockey. But his mind kept going back to the descriptions of the fan:
"I assumed it was someone with an old raccoon coat tied around his waist," read one. Bond pursed his lips and found his seat, his eyes taking in as many fans as possible.
007 kept his vigil throughout the game, scarcely paying attention to the activities on the field. He did, however, have a Dodger Dog and a beer. He would have preferred a plate of lightly scrambled eggs and a bottle of Tattinger's, his favorite wine, but that surely would have made him more than conspicuous. He was chuckling at the thought during the seventh inning stretch when he spied what he thought were two mop-topped children standing behind a fat man. As the crowd sang Take Me Out to the Ball Game, Bond tried to get a better look, but his view was blocked. When everyone settled back into their seats, he was startled to see that it was not the unruly locks of two kids he was staring at, but the hairiest backside he had ever seen. The man's jeans were half-way down his buttocks, exposing an ass that, Bond thought, could have been the top of a massive head with its hair parted down the middle. Bond first laughed, then felt his Dodger Dog rise in his throat as the fat man began digging around in his mane. At once, Bond wanted to throw up or reach over and hike-up the man's pants.
Bond's eyes were riveted and revolted by the butt until the game ended. 007 carefully followed the fat man out of the park and was within 10 feet of him when he felt a sharp pain, then blacked out.
II
James Bond awoke to find himself tied to a chair. his head throbbed, but he mentally fought to clear his mind and assess the situation. the room was dimly lit, but he could make out a table with what appeared to be two, old fashioned, up-right, salon-styled hair dryers poised over it. As Bond pondered their purpose, the door flew open. Two women dressed in white preceded the fat man Bond had seen at the game. He wore only an athletic supporter. The two women walked behind the table and waited as the fat man waddled over and stretched across it, face down. Bond winced as he eyed the man's behind. It were as if plumes of hair were cascading from it, dangling from the side of the table. In his mind's eye, Bond thought an orangutan could be dyed black, balled up, and pass for this incredible ass. He couldn't catch himself. "My God," he breathed.
"You're laughing!" shouted the fat man from his prone position. "Everybody laughs Mr. Bond. No one, however, laughs twice...at Furbutt!"
"Is that why you grabbed the girl?' Bond asked
"Yes. And She, like these others, will not laugh twice. You see, Mr. Bond, you may laugh once and serve. Laugh twice...and die."
"Serve?" Bond quizzed.
The fat man chuckled. "Observe."
The two women poured gobs of shampoo on his behind and began to wash the massive pelt, then set it in curlers. After the fur on his butt was set, one of the women put a pillow just beneath his stomach. The fat man then hefted each hairy buttock until he had lodged them separately into their own hair dryer.
Bond wanted to burst out laughing but refrained. He simply said, "My government will pay handsomely for the girl's safe return."
"Ha! Ha! You can expect the girl to die!!" shouted the fat man, whose chuckle was suddenly strangled in his throat. He was starting to scream and was trying desperately to free his butt-cheeks from the dryers.
"Turn them off!! Turn them off! I'm being FRIED!! AHHHHHH" He yelled. The two women frantically snatched the plugs of each dryer out of the electric outlets. The fat man then hastily freed himself from the appliances and danced about the room in pain, each of his hands burrowing through the mounds of hair to grasp the burned areas. It was more than Bond could take, and he laughed until he cried.
"Laugh once and serve," said the fat man, suddenly still. "Laugh twice and DIE!" His fat leg swung from beneath his ample belly and kicked over the chair Bond was tied to. 007 was on his side, his profile to the ground. The fat man squatted over him and nestled the agent's face into the now singed ass-hair!
"I don't expect you to laugh now, Mr. Bond. I expect you to DIE!!"
Bond held his breath and managed to free his left hand. He reached into his pocket and brought forth an electric razor with sixty sharply pointed rotary blades. When Bond flicked the switch, the razor tore through enough curler-coiled fur to cause the fat man to spring up in anguish, then fall on Bond, crushing the chair and loosening the rope. Freed, Bond subdued the wailing fat man with a kick to his supporter-covered groin.
Doubled over in agony, the fat man's butt was sticking up like the head of a woolly mammoth. Bond, not laughing now at all, began ripping out tufts of the fur with his bare hands until there was nothing but raw flesh, dotted with red spots of blood.
By the time Bond was through, the two women attendants had fled, the fat man was passed out from the excruciating pain, and the floor looked like that found in a barber shop. Bond then bolted out the door and down the hall. There, in a vestibule, her hands and feet bound, was the girl.
"My name is Bond. James Bond. You certainly don't look any worse for the wear," he said with a smile.
"NOT!" she snapped. "Why didn't you tell me my hair was a mess??"
END
Okay. The ending was an inside joke, but it was between Margie and I. She always asked me why I hadn't told her her hair was a mess (and it never was). The story was based on the vile, hairy haunches of a porker with a felonious case of Plumber's crack, seated ahead of us at the Dodger-Angel game. Anybody who saw him would have been, like Bond's favorite drink, shaken, but also stirred, and in search of a lawn mower, pronto!
I haven't decided upon my next topic, but I have a title I like:
Paula Abdul is BATSHIT Crazy!
Sometime in the spring of 1990, I was home with the flu. As I recovered, and out of sheer boredom, I pulled a dog-eared, paperback copy of Live and Let Die off my bookshelf and immersed myself in the world of James Bond. The book had belonged to my brother Reg when he was a teen, and I'd sort of inherited it. That novel, and Dr. No sat on the shelf untouched for years and years. By the time I was well, I'd read both and just had to have the whole Bond series. I found them all, except You Only Live Twice, which, for some reason, was out of print in 1990.
I thoroughly enjoyed Ian Fleming's fiction, inhabited by a more human Bond than the increasingly cartoonish movies. I went as far as to buy John Gardiner's new 007 adventures, written in the 80's and early 90's. So you might say I went through a Bond phase when I was 31 years old.
The Bond series was very fresh in my mind by 1992 when I took Margie (my girl friend at the time) to Chavez Ravine for an exhibition game between my Dodgers and her ridiculous Angels. What we saw that night inspired this short story, recently rediscovered in a desk drawer. As far as I know, Margie and I were the only ones to read it. Now a married mother of two boys, I doubt she still has a copy, so I feel free to share with the world my take...on 007.
IAN FLEMING'S JAMES BOND in FURBUTT
The legendary agent 007 has bested many and adversary: Mr. Big, Doctor No, Goldfinger, Blofeld, The Man With The Golden Gun, et al. Now, Bond faces his most disgusting enemy ever....the hideous Furbutt!
James Bond rarely visited Los Angeles. his favorite California city, in fact his favorite place in all the United States, was San Francisco. Something about the fog reminded him of the British Isles. But Los Angeles was where his assignment was, so Los Angeles would have to do.
The daughter of a prominent politician had been secretly spirited away from a hockey game by not just a man, "a curiosity," Bond's dossier on the case had said. Bond's experience with curiosities outweighed his knowledge of hockey. The game itself was a curiosity to him. He read more from the dossier:
"Witnesses claim the girl was last seen being grasped in the arms of a fat man, following a goal. The man, from behind, looked as if a large black poodle were stuffed into the rear of his trousers."
Bond paused there, his left eyebrow raised.
"Strange," he muttered to himself. The dossier went on to read that the same fan had been seen frequently at baseball games. One witness described the fan as "...a tub of shit who, from a rear view, looked like he was smuggling a mink stole under his shirt. "
"A curiosity indeed, " thought Bond.
The first place to look for this odd fan was at Dodger Stadium. Bond drove into Chavez Ravine on a smoggy Saturday night to attend an exhibition game. The skyscrapers of Los Angeles pierced through the dirt in the air and formed a backdrop to the magnificent stadium. As he entered the ball park at the field level, Bond thought he still liked San Francisco better. And God knows, he knew less about baseball than he did about hockey. But his mind kept going back to the descriptions of the fan:
"I assumed it was someone with an old raccoon coat tied around his waist," read one. Bond pursed his lips and found his seat, his eyes taking in as many fans as possible.
007 kept his vigil throughout the game, scarcely paying attention to the activities on the field. He did, however, have a Dodger Dog and a beer. He would have preferred a plate of lightly scrambled eggs and a bottle of Tattinger's, his favorite wine, but that surely would have made him more than conspicuous. He was chuckling at the thought during the seventh inning stretch when he spied what he thought were two mop-topped children standing behind a fat man. As the crowd sang Take Me Out to the Ball Game, Bond tried to get a better look, but his view was blocked. When everyone settled back into their seats, he was startled to see that it was not the unruly locks of two kids he was staring at, but the hairiest backside he had ever seen. The man's jeans were half-way down his buttocks, exposing an ass that, Bond thought, could have been the top of a massive head with its hair parted down the middle. Bond first laughed, then felt his Dodger Dog rise in his throat as the fat man began digging around in his mane. At once, Bond wanted to throw up or reach over and hike-up the man's pants.
Bond's eyes were riveted and revolted by the butt until the game ended. 007 carefully followed the fat man out of the park and was within 10 feet of him when he felt a sharp pain, then blacked out.
II
James Bond awoke to find himself tied to a chair. his head throbbed, but he mentally fought to clear his mind and assess the situation. the room was dimly lit, but he could make out a table with what appeared to be two, old fashioned, up-right, salon-styled hair dryers poised over it. As Bond pondered their purpose, the door flew open. Two women dressed in white preceded the fat man Bond had seen at the game. He wore only an athletic supporter. The two women walked behind the table and waited as the fat man waddled over and stretched across it, face down. Bond winced as he eyed the man's behind. It were as if plumes of hair were cascading from it, dangling from the side of the table. In his mind's eye, Bond thought an orangutan could be dyed black, balled up, and pass for this incredible ass. He couldn't catch himself. "My God," he breathed.
"You're laughing!" shouted the fat man from his prone position. "Everybody laughs Mr. Bond. No one, however, laughs twice...at Furbutt!"
"Is that why you grabbed the girl?' Bond asked
"Yes. And She, like these others, will not laugh twice. You see, Mr. Bond, you may laugh once and serve. Laugh twice...and die."
"Serve?" Bond quizzed.
The fat man chuckled. "Observe."
The two women poured gobs of shampoo on his behind and began to wash the massive pelt, then set it in curlers. After the fur on his butt was set, one of the women put a pillow just beneath his stomach. The fat man then hefted each hairy buttock until he had lodged them separately into their own hair dryer.
Bond wanted to burst out laughing but refrained. He simply said, "My government will pay handsomely for the girl's safe return."
"Ha! Ha! You can expect the girl to die!!" shouted the fat man, whose chuckle was suddenly strangled in his throat. He was starting to scream and was trying desperately to free his butt-cheeks from the dryers.
"Turn them off!! Turn them off! I'm being FRIED!! AHHHHHH" He yelled. The two women frantically snatched the plugs of each dryer out of the electric outlets. The fat man then hastily freed himself from the appliances and danced about the room in pain, each of his hands burrowing through the mounds of hair to grasp the burned areas. It was more than Bond could take, and he laughed until he cried.
"Laugh once and serve," said the fat man, suddenly still. "Laugh twice and DIE!" His fat leg swung from beneath his ample belly and kicked over the chair Bond was tied to. 007 was on his side, his profile to the ground. The fat man squatted over him and nestled the agent's face into the now singed ass-hair!
"I don't expect you to laugh now, Mr. Bond. I expect you to DIE!!"
Bond held his breath and managed to free his left hand. He reached into his pocket and brought forth an electric razor with sixty sharply pointed rotary blades. When Bond flicked the switch, the razor tore through enough curler-coiled fur to cause the fat man to spring up in anguish, then fall on Bond, crushing the chair and loosening the rope. Freed, Bond subdued the wailing fat man with a kick to his supporter-covered groin.
Doubled over in agony, the fat man's butt was sticking up like the head of a woolly mammoth. Bond, not laughing now at all, began ripping out tufts of the fur with his bare hands until there was nothing but raw flesh, dotted with red spots of blood.
By the time Bond was through, the two women attendants had fled, the fat man was passed out from the excruciating pain, and the floor looked like that found in a barber shop. Bond then bolted out the door and down the hall. There, in a vestibule, her hands and feet bound, was the girl.
"My name is Bond. James Bond. You certainly don't look any worse for the wear," he said with a smile.
"NOT!" she snapped. "Why didn't you tell me my hair was a mess??"
END
Okay. The ending was an inside joke, but it was between Margie and I. She always asked me why I hadn't told her her hair was a mess (and it never was). The story was based on the vile, hairy haunches of a porker with a felonious case of Plumber's crack, seated ahead of us at the Dodger-Angel game. Anybody who saw him would have been, like Bond's favorite drink, shaken, but also stirred, and in search of a lawn mower, pronto!
I haven't decided upon my next topic, but I have a title I like:
Paula Abdul is BATSHIT Crazy!
Monday, December 31, 2007
HAPPY NEW YEAR, 2008
I remember how the year would begin in a blur, in pursuit of the biggest party and the loveliest ladies. Now I'm happy just to be off the road! Times change. Happy New Year! My next post will be a recently rediscovered short story that will bring in 2008 shaken...not stirred!
Dave
Dave
Saturday, December 8, 2007
A Christmas Letter To Laura, 2003
Christmas, more than any other time of year, is a time for memories. It's probably this fact that leads so many to feel the blues, because not every memory is joyful.
Having been born with an arch funny bone, I refuse to succumb to said blues when I think of loved ones I'll never see again. So as a second Christmas approaches since my eldest sister Laura passed away, I'd like to share a note I wrote, which brought her gales of laughter. With any luck, you'll get a hearty guffaw out of it, too.
*
DECEMBER 19, 2003
Dear Laura,
Merry Christmas! Even though I can't be there for this year's festivities in the 'ville (Victorville, Ca.), I'm happy and downright misty-eyed that we were together at Thanksgiving. It was, in a word, wonderful!
I thought, to amuse you for the current holiday, I'd recall a Christmas from long ago that has withstood the test of time. No, it has nothing to do with that "special present," or that Hallmark moment," nor anything remotely connected with the true spirit of giving or warmth of the season. No, this was the kind of event that, for better or worse, is as much a part of everyone's Christmas as the Three Wise Men, or Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer.
We call it...Family Shit.
It was a typical Christmas in Southern California. December 25th, 1980--strong Santa Ana winds provided what we know as seasonal warmth, dispelling any of the chilly charm we pine for at Christmas, but not the spirit. Do you recall when we were all together at Lisa's (my other sister) house in West Covina? I made the trip with your two eldest sons and Reginald (one of my brothers) in his AMC Gremlin, a car with a fitting name for what would eventually happen that day.
Yes, there was a feeling that something would occur, and linger in our memories like the scent of Reg's cigarettes. It was, in fact, his inattentiveness to hygiene that set the tone on Christmas Eve. Darryl (my nephew), old friend Craig Gross, and I travelled to Reg's apartment on Orizaba Street, in an aging part of Long Beach. It was my own brotherly attempt to stave off some sort of embarassment. As you know, to open Reg's front door was to be assaulted by a conflagration of ash, smoke and stench. The ash rested in a fine layer over everything, just deep enough to make a snow angel were you to dared lay on the floor.
Then there was the smoke--wafting, moving slowly like a ghost. Smoke so white you'd think a Pope had been elected right there between the empty chili cans and rotting milk cartons. The evil scent that reached into one's nostrils and nearly pulled out an organ, should be left to your imagination.
Somewhere in the midst of this squalor was Reg's clothing. We figured he'd be able to get through Christmas Day if he were, at the very least, dressed decently. As he opened the door to his hall closet, I half expected a squadron of moths to fly out and buzz us like German fighter pilots. Even moths have to sustain life, however, and the cloistered environs of that closet would have suffocated Dracula!
Reg chose a suit he'd been given nine or ten years earlier, a green-blue, two-pant suit with a reversible, checkered vest. God knows what had happened to the green-blue pants, so he selected the checkered alternative. We suggested he try them on--years had passed since he'd worn them, and he'd put on a little weight. So he stepped out of trousers to reveal an unspeakable pair of briefs...fast on their way to becoming the color of Coca Cola. I stifled a thought that he might want to try a fresh pair of shorts as well, but I decided to choose my battles wisely.
The checkered pants were a mess. Getting into them, he looked for all the world like a teenaged girl putting on her first pair of panty hose, or a hausfrau struggling into a girdle. They fit him like the leotard on some Shakespearean actor...and if he were to wear them, he'd be asking for some sort of Shakespearean drama to occur.
"They don't fit, " I told him.
"These are MY pants, and I'm GONNA wear 'em!" he told us firmly, sucking the cork off a KOOL filter-tip cigarette. His attitude was so entrenched, we all backed off. The stage, then, was set for Christmas, 1980.
And it didn't take long for the fun to start. On the drive to West Covina, I kept my feet elevated, because some shopping bags were acting as a floor mat on the passenger's side of Reg's Gremlin. Apparently, he'd tried to consume what must have been an entire brewery a couple of nights before, and had tossed his cookies right there. It was a bad sign.
As I recall it, Darryl, Bryan (my other nephew) and I walked into Lisa's house first and milled around. Pop (my late father) was seated as only he could be, having eased his bulk into one of Lisa's comfortable chairs. Only two things could get him out of that seat: the shrill blast of our Mother's voice, or the chance to verbally jab at his sartorially and hygienically challenged third-eldest son. The latter opportinuty presented itself when Reg shambled through the door, dropped something, then bent over--in those pants, and while still in Pop's line of sight. Uh-oh...
As he bent, the pressure on Reg's pants was so incredible, the conjoined checks in the pattern were separating. The pantlegs were rising up his shins as if he were preparing to wade across a pond of elephant pee. Reg's ass was all anyone could see, his pants so taut, a sudden moment of flatulence would force a hole the size of a hubcap through them.
As Reg's "moon" rose, Pop seized the day--he simply could not resist.
"Hey, Smokey! Just couldn't conform, could ya? Couldn't find some decent clothes," he started. Reg ignored him.
"Oh yeah, I'm gonna talk about ya!" And Pop charged on, newly energized by Reg's reticence to acknowledge his caustic comments. And, yes, he sure did talk about him. At length! So as not to endure any further blistering, Reg went outside and fired up three or four consecutive KOOL filter-kings--the most powerful cigarettes not made in Turkey. Seriously, he could have saved money by just going down to La Brea and snorting the tar right out of the pits.
While Reg made like a refinery, belching smoke and frustration, I took a deep breath of fresh air, then went out to join him.
"I told you what would happen, asshole," I said, hoping the message would somehow get through the haze...the haze of his beer addled consciousness, and the fog of smoke curling from his nostrils and permeating everything in sight.
Reg fled the scene shortly after the meal. My only other rememberance of that day is going home to the folk's house and listening to the Lee Morgan jazz album that Thomas (another of my brothers who, sadly, has also left us) gave me for the holiday. Forever, though, along with Deck the Halls, Sleigh Ride, Jingle Bells, and Silent Night, the words, "Oh yeah, I'm gonna talk about ya!" will always, always conjure up this memory of Christmas, 1980.
Here's hoping Christmas 2003 is filled with Joy and laughter...not necessarily at someone's expense, but laughter, still and all!
Much love,
Your Brother Dave
*
More Christmas stuff to come.
Having been born with an arch funny bone, I refuse to succumb to said blues when I think of loved ones I'll never see again. So as a second Christmas approaches since my eldest sister Laura passed away, I'd like to share a note I wrote, which brought her gales of laughter. With any luck, you'll get a hearty guffaw out of it, too.
*
DECEMBER 19, 2003
Dear Laura,
Merry Christmas! Even though I can't be there for this year's festivities in the 'ville (Victorville, Ca.), I'm happy and downright misty-eyed that we were together at Thanksgiving. It was, in a word, wonderful!
I thought, to amuse you for the current holiday, I'd recall a Christmas from long ago that has withstood the test of time. No, it has nothing to do with that "special present," or that Hallmark moment," nor anything remotely connected with the true spirit of giving or warmth of the season. No, this was the kind of event that, for better or worse, is as much a part of everyone's Christmas as the Three Wise Men, or Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer.
We call it...Family Shit.
It was a typical Christmas in Southern California. December 25th, 1980--strong Santa Ana winds provided what we know as seasonal warmth, dispelling any of the chilly charm we pine for at Christmas, but not the spirit. Do you recall when we were all together at Lisa's (my other sister) house in West Covina? I made the trip with your two eldest sons and Reginald (one of my brothers) in his AMC Gremlin, a car with a fitting name for what would eventually happen that day.
Yes, there was a feeling that something would occur, and linger in our memories like the scent of Reg's cigarettes. It was, in fact, his inattentiveness to hygiene that set the tone on Christmas Eve. Darryl (my nephew), old friend Craig Gross, and I travelled to Reg's apartment on Orizaba Street, in an aging part of Long Beach. It was my own brotherly attempt to stave off some sort of embarassment. As you know, to open Reg's front door was to be assaulted by a conflagration of ash, smoke and stench. The ash rested in a fine layer over everything, just deep enough to make a snow angel were you to dared lay on the floor.
Then there was the smoke--wafting, moving slowly like a ghost. Smoke so white you'd think a Pope had been elected right there between the empty chili cans and rotting milk cartons. The evil scent that reached into one's nostrils and nearly pulled out an organ, should be left to your imagination.
Somewhere in the midst of this squalor was Reg's clothing. We figured he'd be able to get through Christmas Day if he were, at the very least, dressed decently. As he opened the door to his hall closet, I half expected a squadron of moths to fly out and buzz us like German fighter pilots. Even moths have to sustain life, however, and the cloistered environs of that closet would have suffocated Dracula!
Reg chose a suit he'd been given nine or ten years earlier, a green-blue, two-pant suit with a reversible, checkered vest. God knows what had happened to the green-blue pants, so he selected the checkered alternative. We suggested he try them on--years had passed since he'd worn them, and he'd put on a little weight. So he stepped out of trousers to reveal an unspeakable pair of briefs...fast on their way to becoming the color of Coca Cola. I stifled a thought that he might want to try a fresh pair of shorts as well, but I decided to choose my battles wisely.
The checkered pants were a mess. Getting into them, he looked for all the world like a teenaged girl putting on her first pair of panty hose, or a hausfrau struggling into a girdle. They fit him like the leotard on some Shakespearean actor...and if he were to wear them, he'd be asking for some sort of Shakespearean drama to occur.
"They don't fit, " I told him.
"These are MY pants, and I'm GONNA wear 'em!" he told us firmly, sucking the cork off a KOOL filter-tip cigarette. His attitude was so entrenched, we all backed off. The stage, then, was set for Christmas, 1980.
And it didn't take long for the fun to start. On the drive to West Covina, I kept my feet elevated, because some shopping bags were acting as a floor mat on the passenger's side of Reg's Gremlin. Apparently, he'd tried to consume what must have been an entire brewery a couple of nights before, and had tossed his cookies right there. It was a bad sign.
As I recall it, Darryl, Bryan (my other nephew) and I walked into Lisa's house first and milled around. Pop (my late father) was seated as only he could be, having eased his bulk into one of Lisa's comfortable chairs. Only two things could get him out of that seat: the shrill blast of our Mother's voice, or the chance to verbally jab at his sartorially and hygienically challenged third-eldest son. The latter opportinuty presented itself when Reg shambled through the door, dropped something, then bent over--in those pants, and while still in Pop's line of sight. Uh-oh...
As he bent, the pressure on Reg's pants was so incredible, the conjoined checks in the pattern were separating. The pantlegs were rising up his shins as if he were preparing to wade across a pond of elephant pee. Reg's ass was all anyone could see, his pants so taut, a sudden moment of flatulence would force a hole the size of a hubcap through them.
As Reg's "moon" rose, Pop seized the day--he simply could not resist.
"Hey, Smokey! Just couldn't conform, could ya? Couldn't find some decent clothes," he started. Reg ignored him.
"Oh yeah, I'm gonna talk about ya!" And Pop charged on, newly energized by Reg's reticence to acknowledge his caustic comments. And, yes, he sure did talk about him. At length! So as not to endure any further blistering, Reg went outside and fired up three or four consecutive KOOL filter-kings--the most powerful cigarettes not made in Turkey. Seriously, he could have saved money by just going down to La Brea and snorting the tar right out of the pits.
While Reg made like a refinery, belching smoke and frustration, I took a deep breath of fresh air, then went out to join him.
"I told you what would happen, asshole," I said, hoping the message would somehow get through the haze...the haze of his beer addled consciousness, and the fog of smoke curling from his nostrils and permeating everything in sight.
Reg fled the scene shortly after the meal. My only other rememberance of that day is going home to the folk's house and listening to the Lee Morgan jazz album that Thomas (another of my brothers who, sadly, has also left us) gave me for the holiday. Forever, though, along with Deck the Halls, Sleigh Ride, Jingle Bells, and Silent Night, the words, "Oh yeah, I'm gonna talk about ya!" will always, always conjure up this memory of Christmas, 1980.
Here's hoping Christmas 2003 is filled with Joy and laughter...not necessarily at someone's expense, but laughter, still and all!
Much love,
Your Brother Dave
*
More Christmas stuff to come.
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