The Growth of College Sports on Television and My Role In That Growth

My wife and daughter were watching Olympic Gold Medalist Suni Lee compete for the Auburn Tigers in SEC gymnastics last night and I thought about how far we’ve come in broadcasting now that the larger college athletic conferences have their own networks while smaller conference teams live stream their games.  Then I thought about the role I played in college sports broadcasting.

In spring of 1986, I was a sophomore at William Paterson College (it’s now a university) in Wayne, NJ.  I was a business major but my campus activities included working at the college’s closed circuit “radio” station and the concert crew, working as local crew for shows by The Ramones, Cheap Trick, George Thorogood, The Smithereens and others.  Most of my college friends in radio and concerts were communication majors and I realized that to pursue my passion in sports, music and production, I needed to change my major.

In order to change majors, I had to meet with the Chair of the Department of Communications, who met me with great enthusiasm at the prospect of swelling her ranks.  She promptly asked what area of study I wished to concentrate on (choices were Radio and TV or Interpersonal Communication).  When I answered, “Radio and TV,” her enthusiastic smile turned sour and she promptly replied, “There are already 36 channels of TV on cable.  There won’t be more jobs in that area.” 

She could not have been more incorrect!  Indeed, we’ve now got hundreds of channels, live-streaming, concert video production, and sports teams with their own video production departments.  I later learned our Chair’s interests were in the Interpersonal Communications area and that she was a bit of an academic snob who thought radio and TV were for trade schools and not college campuses.

Two years later I was running the closed-circuit radio station, working concerts, working in the college’s campus cable TV head end and public access channel master control, and using my spare time to master the school’s TV production studio equipment in my senior year when the Chair called me in to offer me a Graduate Assistantship.  She wanted me to help the college build a real radio station as William Paterson had just received a license from the FCC to operate an FM radio station.

I signed on.  But in addition to building the radio station with the school’s engineers and another student/friend, I also worked with another student/friend on initiating WPC-TV Sports, which would be cablecasting live William Paterson football home games on Friday nights with an all-student volunteer crew on the college’s public access channel.  We used 4 cameras, graphics, and instant replay (full speed as we did not have a slo-mo capable tape machine).  We built scaffolding behind one of the end zones so we could get a camera 30 feet in the air to cover punt returns and field goals.  On Monday’s following the games, we made copies of the game tapes and brought them to UA Columbia Cable, Vision Cable, and Suburban Cable, which all ran the games on their local origination channel, giving us a potential viewing audience of over 250,000 viewers in northeastern New Jersey.

This was 1988.  Colleges simply didn’t do this in 1988, but we did, thanks to the help of two school engineers – the late John Kiernan and Dan Cleary – who put the equipment together and accompanied us on Friday nights.  When football season ended, we did basketball, complete with lavaliere microphones taped under the backboard to pick up sneaker noise and the “swish” of the ball going through the rim.  In the spring, we used 5 cameras to do baseball, including a centerfield pitch camera and a high camera behind home plate to catch the action.

When I say, “colleges simply didn’t do this in 1988,” that’s the truth.  The equipment we used was from the theater and was used to record jazz concerts, but with theater renovation underway, I was one of the student workers who was supposed to move all the gear to storage during the renovation when I hatched the idea of doing multicamera live sports coverage.  We were New Jersey’s first school to broadcast its sports games.  To my knowledge, we may have been first in the nation.  Of course, the big school’s football and basketball programs were broadcast on the networks by network production crews.  Smaller Division I schools never got on TV.  Division III?  Forget about it.  But we did at William Paterson.  And as equipment became cheaper fifteen years ago and streaming gave schools and conferences the opportunity to reach their audience easily and inexpensively, conference networks were born. 

Now the Big 10 Network and others broadcast or livestream all of a university’s sports events, from football to field hockey and from basketball to lacrosse.  That’s how my wife and daughter now manage to watch Suni Lee compete for Auburn on Friday nights (she scored her first perfect 10 last night).

We’ve come a long way in 33 years.  The number of media production jobs has increased exponentially.  In 1995, I became the first full-time video editor hired by an NHL team (and maybe any pro team in America) when the New Jersey Devils hired me as their Coordinator of Game Entertainment.  I’ve since worked on the in-house video board production crew at a Super Bowl, the Stanley Cup Finals, the NBA Finals and thousands of soccer, football, basketball and hockey games.  As a video journalist, I’ve covered a few PGA Championships, the US Open in golf and tennis, UFC fights and boxing championships with my own equipment.  I had the opportunity to spend three hours at Mario Andretti’s home interviewing the greatest race car driver ever and touring his trophy room, sports bar and garage.  On video journalism gigs, I shoot on either my $3,500 camcorder and/or my $1,800 DSLR and then upload the video files to a file server for my client, who is based in London, UK.  The technology today is truly amazing. 

Oh, and that Department Chair who tried to dissuade me from majoring in Radio and TV in 1986, she came around to realize the value of Radio and TV.  The radio station we built at William Paterson has become a world-recognized station, earning multiple Marconi Awards for excellence in college radio, while WPC-TV Sports eventually moved into a real TV Truck and traveled out-of-state to bring William Paterson College baseball’s two Division III Championships (1992 and 1996) to viewers here in New Jersey.

Where will we be 30 years from now?  Who knows?  I’m glad to have played a role at the forefront of media production in sports.

It has been about two months since the release of Paul McCartney’s last album release, New.  So why am I reviewing it now?  Simply because I don’t think one can fully review an album until it has been fully digested.  One has to listen to a collection of songs a dozen or more times and listen closely (with headphones, at least once) to get all the nuances of the music.  This collection of songs was available with 12 songs plus a “hidden track” and a “Deluxe Version” featuring 14 songs plus the “hidden track.”  Additionally, the Japanese version of New included a song that was not featured on the release anywhere else in the world.

The collection of songs – I have all 16, so that is what I will review – is McCartney’s best release since 1973’s Band On the Run.  To be sure, I am a huge fan of McCartney and believe he has released dozens of great albums and hundreds of great songs over his entire career, but this New album is so phenomenal that two months later, it’s still spins at least 3 times a week in my car while commuting to work.  (I spend about 15 hours a week in my car).

Background

Paul McCartney’s last great album, in my humble opinion, was 1997’s Flaming Pie, which was a great collection of acoustic and rock songs.  Between Flaming Pie and New, McCartney released:

- Four rock/pop albums

• Run Devil Run (1999)
• Driving Rain (2001)
• Chaos and Creation in the Backyard (2005)
• Memory Almost Full (2007)

- Two electronic albums

• Twin Freaks (2005), with producer The Freelance Hellraiser
• Electric Arguments (2008), with producer Youth, released as “Firemen”

- One standards album

• Kisses On the Bottom (2012)

- Three classical albums

• Liverpool Sound Collage (2000)
• Ecce Cor Meum (2006)
• Ocean’s Kingdom (2011)

- Five live albums

• Back in the US (2002) with Concert DVD
• Back in the World Live (2003)
• Live in Los Angeles (2007)
• Good Evening New York City (2009) with Concert DVD
• iTunes Live from Capitol Studios (2012) with Concert DVD

- Two Retrospective albums with DVDs

• Wingspan (2001)
• The McCartney Years (2007)

And then there are vocal performances McCartney did on recordings with other artists (and they’re all good songs, check them out on-line!), such as:

• George Michael – “Heal the Pain,” 2006
• Tony Bennett – “The Very Thought of You,” 2006
• George Benson & Al Jarreau – “Givin’ It Up,” 2006
• Nitin Sawhney – “My Soul,” 2009
• Ringo Starr – “Walk With You,” 2010
• Steve Martin & The Steep Canyon Rangers – “Best Love,” 2011
• The Bloody Beatroots – “Out of Sight,” 2013
• Eric Clapton – “All of Me,” 2013
• Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic & Pat Smear – “Cut Me Some Slack,” 2013

McCartney also performed on five tribute/film soundtrack albums:

• “Vanilla Sky,” 2001, from the soundtrack to the film Vanilla Sky
• “(I'm Partial to Your) Abracadabra,” 2001, tribute album honoring Ian Dury
• “I Want to Walk You Home,” 2007, tribute album honoring Fats Domino
• “Whole Life,” 2007, tribute album honoring Nelson Mandela, featuring Dave Stewart
• “(I Want To) Come Home,” 2009, from the soundtrack to the film Everybody’s Fine
• “It’s So Easy,” 2011, tribute album honoring Buddy Holly

In addition, McCartney re-issued digitally remastered and extended versions of some of his classic 1970s LPs and concert films and toured extensively.  And lest we forget, performances at the 9/11 concert, the 12-12-12 concert for Hurricane Sandy relief, the 2012 Olympics, Super Bowl XXXIX in 2005 and the Queen’s Jubilee, all of which required much organizing and rehearsal.

Simply put, McCartney in his 60s was more productive than almost any other artist on the planet (U2, for example, released just 3 studio albums and 2 live albums in the same span).  And he accomplished all this while losing his first wife to cancer, marrying and divorcing his second wife (and fathering and raising a child with her) and marrying his third wife.  I’m exhausted just thinking about it all.

The rock albums McCartney released following Flaming Pie were good albums, no doubt, but they weren’t nearly as memorable as some of his previous work and most fans would probably admit that they don’t spin them more than once or twice a year.  So while I looked forward to the release of New, I was certainly not expecting anything great with this release.

Yes, I underestimated the greatest musician of the last half century.

What’s New?

New is a phenomenal piece of work for a number of reasons.  First of all, McCartney plays, perhaps, the widest array of instruments on any album of which he’s ever been a part of, Beatles, Wings or solo.  To wit, according to the album’s credits, McCartney performed on electric guitar, 6-string and 12-string acoustic guitar, bass, glockenspiel, percussion, synthesizer, celeste, Play-Me-A-Song book, ciguitar, piano, drums, lap steel, Moog, Mellotron, tambourine, upright (Bill Black) bass, harmonium, harpsichord, Wurlitzer, conga drums, maracas, bouzouki with pencils, keyboards, tape loops, tubular bells, ngoni, washboard and thimbles.  I looked each instrument up on the internet and they’re all legit (except, perhaps, the children’s song book, but its inclusion illustrates just how far McCartney will go to get the right sound).

Cover art for Paul McCartney's 2013 release, New

I recently read a book by Daniel Levitin called This Is Your Brain on Music, in which the author covers the theory that anyone can become a professional musician with a certain number of hours of practice, but I believe that theory to be absolute rubbish and cite McCartney as my evidence.  Before The Beatles broke in the UK, bass player Stuart Sutcliffe left the band and McCartney became the band’s bass player; why, because even in his late teens, he could pick up an instrument and play it well.  In the mid-60s, McCartney began composing on piano and, despite no formal training, was writing rock anthems like “Let It Be,” “Hey Jude” and “The Long and Winding Road.”

McCartney’s incredible talent is on full display on New, with McCartney experimenting with anything from old African instruments he had recently purchased to classic Greek instruments to the most modern electronic instruments; none of which he had ever used on a recording before.  Clearly McCartney is an artist still experimenting and trying new things, even at 71.  But that's been McCartney throughout his career.  And when you think about it, what other artist of his generation could get away with so much experimentation?  The Stones?  LOL!  The Who?  Pish-posh!  Page & Plant?  Surely you jest!  Clapton?  Never.  Only McCartney can get away with this kind of experimentation!

But unlike other recent recordings, McCartney also had his band in the studio with him, having drummer Abe Laboriel, Jr., guitarists Brian Ray and Rusty Anderson and keyboardist Paul “Wix” Wickens perform on a number of tracks.  And why not?  The guys are outstanding and accomplished musicians who have been performing with McCartney together as a unit since their Super Bowl pregame show appearance in January, 2002.  If you do the math, you’d discover that McCartney has been with these guys for almost 12 years; even longer than the recording career of The Beatles and Wings.  In fact, McCartney’s recording/touring relationship with Wickens goes back over two decades.

All these years of working together has given McCartney more trust of his touring team in the studio.  I’m sure it’s not easy working with a living legend.  I’m sure his bandmates have peppered McCartney with questions about The Beatles and Wings – who wouldn’t – but after 11 years, those questions have been asked and answered and now these guys are more than just a band.  They’re friends; a tight-knit unit whose chemistry is undeniable.

But there are two more ingredients that went into the recording of this rich aural tapestry:  the songs themselves and the four producers McCartney worked with.  I’ll get to the songs in a moment.

Usually when an artist has more than one producer on an album, it’s because that artist did not get along with the first producer, but still used some of their work.  In the case of New, McCartney was looking to do something… well… new!  Thus, McCartney auditioned four of the top British producers in the industry with the expectation that he’d choose one.  Problem was, he liked them all.  Two had lineage to The Beatles – Giles Martin is the son of Beatles producer George Martin and Giles had produced the soundtrack to The Beatles/Cirque du Soleil show in Las Vegas, Love, while Ethan Johns is the son of one-time Beatles engineer Glynn Johns.  The wild cards are Mark Ronson, a 38 year-old British DJ, musician and producer and Paul Epworth, a 39 year-old British musician and producer.  Ronson and Epworth have produced some of the most successful British artists of the last decade.  All four producers helped give McCartney a fresh sound he hasn’t had on a recording in many, many years.  And the variety keeps the album sounding fresh and diverse track-by-track.

But without great songs, one can hire the best musicians in the world, a wide variety of instruments and all the talented producers one can find and still fail to produce anything worth a listen.

The songs, themselves, on New are outstanding.

Track by Track

Leading off the album is “Save Us,” a straight-ahead, brisk rocker that lasts just 2:39 and features the most basic rock instruments.  The song was co-written with Epworth and written as it was recorded.  This is a great McCartney ditty that should become a staple on his next tour, perhaps even a show opener.

Next up is a song called “Alligator,” which was produced by Ronson and is the album’s first foray into diverse instrumentation.  One can tell from interviews that this was one of McCartney’s favorite tracks on the album.  It’s an up-tempo rocker with a slow/mellow break for the bridge and has good drive to it.

“On My Way to Work” is the third track and is one of my favorites as it is written very cleverly.  The second verse introduces us to a woman the singer meets through a magazine; she waterskies and studies history.  Then the verse takes a turn and we discover that she’s a centerfold who "had removed her clothes, for the likes of me."  This is not something you’d expect from McCartney.  After this verse, the song plunges into a plodding march beat reminiscent of Russian trudgery, which sums-up many people’s robotic daily commutes to work.  The song also features a string section and Wix playing a soothing accordion during the verses.  A great track.

The fourth song is another outstanding piece and the second single from the LP.  “Queenie Eye” is another up-tempo rocker driven by McCartney’s piano playing.  The hook is unmistakably McCartney and the chorus lyrics refer to a childhood game McCartney used to play.  This song will go down as another McCartney classic.

The fifth song on the album is a guitar ballad called “Early Days.”  The song is a wistful and nostalgic look back at McCartney’s early days that, after a warm and fuzzy first two verses, takes a turn on the third verse and jabs at revisionist Beatles historians who weren’t there to know “who did what” in the Beatles early days because they simply “weren’t where it was at.”  McCartney also recorded his vocals dry, without any effects.  One can clearly hear at points that his voice may not be quite what it once was, but at 71 years of age, it’s still damned good and effective at capturing the mood of the song.

The first single and title track of the album is the sixth track.  “New” features a ridiculous array of instruments but is carried by harpsichord and Abe Laboriel’s thumping drums.  McCartney’s band contribute outstanding harmonies, particularly on the Beach Boys-esque a cappella coda.  This track is another example of the classic McCartney ditty and should also become a staple at McCartney’s live shows.

McCartney turns to his ciguitar (cigar box guitar) for some slide work on the next track, “Appreciate.”  This track features a McCartney vocal that is dripping in affects.  The verses are a bit understated in comparison to the faster and driving chorus and McCartney’s band contribute nice harmonies at times.  This song is very atypical of McCartney and his work with Firemen can be plainly heard here.  Songs like “Appreciate” keep the album diverse and exciting.

The anthemic “Everybody Out There” follows.  This song will be an obvious staple of live shows in 2014 as it is one of the more stripped-down songs on the album and can be easily played live.  The call-and-response portions of the song make it an obvious live track.  It’s another song with that great McCartney hook.

On New’s ninth track, McCartney breaks out his decades-old reel-to-reel tape recorder to create tape loops the way he did on The Beatles’ “Tomorrow Never Knows” nearly 50 years ago.  The track, “Hosanna,” is a love song with a haunting, almost ethereal sound created with those loops, an acoustic guitar, bass and Abe’s thumping drums.  A very unique track that, again, shows the Fireman influence while diversifying the album.

“I Can Bet” kicks off my favorite part of the album – the final three songs of the standard release.  This song also features some tape loops, but they’re far more subtle and the track, itself, is a more typical upbeat McCartney rocker driven by the acoustic guitar; until the solo break, which features an almost spacy keyboard solo followed by driving drums.  Again, it’s a far different track than anything McCartney’s done recently and a welcome break from the past.

“Looking at Her” is not your mom and dad’s McCartney.  This song begins as a nice ballad with some synthesizer programming but takes a heavy electronic turn during the chorus that sounds more like Trent Reznor than Paul McCartney before breaking into a soft Spanish guitar solo.  This song is pure brilliance and sounds phenomenal on headphones.

The standard issue album’s last listed track is “Road,” which is stunningly dark and eerie and features no guitars at all.  The celeste reminds me of another dark-ish song by Edwyn Collins called “A Girl Like You.”  McCartney’s vocals are understated and treated and the keyboard bass on the breaks are such a change of pace from the song that it’s stark and stunning.  This is a song I never could’ve imagined McCartney crafting but it’s one of my favorites.

The next two songs are on the “Deluxe Version” of New, though I don’t know why anyone would purchase the standard issue and miss out on two more excellent cuts.

“Turned Out” is a rocker that sounds like it came out of unreleased sessions from George Harrison in the mid- to late-1980s and could easily fit in on Harrison’s Cloud 9 or his Traveling Wilburys albums, until you get to the piano break, which is all McCartney.  This is as pleasant a song as you’ll hear on New and it would be a mistake to purchase the album without this song.

“Get Me Out of Here” is a very interesting song in that it is strummed on an acoustic guitar and sung as if it were an old country and western song, but after the first verse, Brian Ray joins in on conga drums and after the second verse, McCartney adds a West African tribal instrument called the ngoni (don’t even ask me how to pronounce it).  Somehow the odd combination of instruments works well and the song is quite catchy.

After a 10 second delay, the album’s “hidden track” reveals itself.  The piano ballad “Scared” is a simply a typical McCartney piano ballad expressing McCartney’s fear of telling his new girlfriend (now wife) how he really feels about her.  It’s a simple and pretty song that seems to end abruptly, like the song can go on but doesn’t and fails to resolve itself.

I conclude with a track that was released only in Japan, “Struggle.”  This song could’ve easily been a Firemen track and is a driving electronic song is also somewhat haunting and features McCartney acting almost as a circus caller during the bridge.  It’s a good track and I cannot understand why McCartney would leave it off the “Deluxe Version” of the album.  It can be found and downloaded (illegally, I suppose) from the internet, so McCartney fans everywhere have it.

In all, these 16 tracks are phenomenal.  They are fresh, experimental, powerful, and everything one looking for something new would like to find at any age.  With two weeks left to complete your Christmas shopping, if you’re one gift shy for someone you love, New is a great way to fill that stocking!

Happy listening.

Originally Posted 12th December 2013

Observations on The Beatles - Let It Be (Super Deluxe)

Obviously have not see the Let It Be film that premieres next month on Disney+, but I've just finished listening to the Super Deluxe edition of the album and it presents the band in a FAR greater light than had been previously thought. George Harrison once called the sessions "the winter of discontent," but he was a frustrated songwriter at that time, and you can hear him working over Something and All Things Must Pass. Paul McCartney was a work-a-haulic, whose ridiculous ease at writing iconic songs must've provided Harrison with further frustration, and John Lennon was screwing around, having fun making nonsense songs (Dig It and Maggie Mae), jamming, mixing in some great songs, and contributing to to Paul's songs.

For Paul, he'd just released the year prior two tremendous songs, Lady Madonna and Hey Jude, recorded some great songs on the "white album," and was writing the iconic Let It Be and Get Back along with The Long and Winding Road. On top of that, these sessions also produced the cheery, bouncy Two of Us, which John obviously loved and for which he sang a great harmony vocal, and I've Got a Feeling, which John also loved and on which John also dueted. And Oh Darling was also in development.

Imagine a solo artist releasing an LP whose line-up features:

Side 1

Back in the USSSR

Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

Let It Be

Blackbird

Hey Jude

Get Back

Side 2

Birthday

Lady Madonna

I've Got a Feeling

Two of Us

Long and Winding Road

I Will

Helter Skelter

That's a helluva year of songwriting. We're talking incomparable here.

Anyway, as I stated before, John was just into jamming and was clearly having fun on these sessions. He's also heard giving advice to George, who was stuck on the lyrics for Something.

I've always thought the album Let It Be to be greatly underappreciated and underrated because there are some really great tracks on the album. It was lightly regarded because it sat on a shelf, was muddled by Phil Spector, and is perceived to have led to The Beatles splitting up. In a way, it did play a large role in the break-up, but it was more because three Beatles brought in Spector because they were mad at Paul for his failing to want to go with the other three on a new manager, so they completely saturated his songs with "wall of sound" courtesy of Spector.

This was the straw that broke the camel's back and it would be years before Paul spoke with John and George. But it really wasn't the recording sessions themselves that broke them up, a fact verified when they reconvened a few months later to record the epic Abbey Road album.

Anyhow, the new Let It Be album is outstanding both in terms of the content, the original Glynn Johns mixes and the outakes, as well as the spoken dialogue between tracks. I cannot wait to see the new film.

Meeting Gordie Howe

 In the mid to late-1990s, I worked for the New Jersey Devils hockey team.  I loved hockey at that time and was well-versed in its history.  In 1995, Gordie Howe and his wife, Colleen, wrote their autobiography, titled And ...Howe

(For those of you who don't know, Gordie Howe is one of hockey's greatest all-time players, who became a star for the Detroit Red Wings in the 1940s and was hockey's greatest player in the 1950s and 60s.  He was known as "Mr. Hockey."  He played in the NHL until 1971, then came out of retirement to play with his sons in the WHA in 1973.  He retired in 1980 - at the age of 52 - as the NHLs all-time leader in games played, goals, assists and points.  Gordie was a complete player who had all 5 tools - shoot, skate, pass, check and fight - and the "Gordie Howe Hat Trick," consisting of a goal, assist and fight in one game, was obviously named after him.)

So in early 1996, Gordie went on a short book-signing tour to promote sales of And ...Howe!  One of his stops was at the old Steinbach's department store (formerly Ohrbach's) at the Bergen Mall in Paramus, NJ.  He was scheduled to sign from noon to 1:30pm on a weekday, so I left for lunch at the Devils offices at Continental Airlines Arena in East Rutherford at noon, hoping to be back by 1pm as we only had one hour lunches.

When I arrived at Steinbach's, the line was not too long, though other fans had begun to file in behind me.  Most fans were wearing jeans and tee shirts - some were wearing Red Wings gear - but I was wearing my Devils office garb - a suit and a hockey tie (I left the Devils in 1999 but still have about 2 dozen hockey ties).

When I reached the hockey superstar, I smiled and said, "Hello," and the personable, ball-busting Howe looked up at me and replied, "What'd you do, get all dressed up to see me?"

I laughed and explained that I worked for the New Jersey Devils and was wearing my office attire.  Gordie stopped signing, got up, shook my hand and asked how his old friend Max McNab was doing.  Max had been the Devils General Manager before Lou Lamoriello arrived.  Max built the team that went to the 1988 Stanley Cup Semifinals the year after he was replaced by Lamoriello.  McNab was still in the office in an advisory capacity by the time I began with the Devils as a free lance video editor in 1994 (I was brought on full time in 1995).

I explained to Gordie that McNab had recently retired from the Devils but had been doing well when he left.  Gordie smiled, turned to his assistant (or agent... I can't remember, but he had a handler with him) and told the guy to go get him lunch because "my new friend from the Devils will stay with me while you're gone."

Of course, by this time, it was about 12:45 and I told Gordie that I had to leave to get back to work on time.  Gordie laughed and said, "You won't get in trouble, just tell your boss that you're with Gordie Howe.  Now get back here and sit with me."

How could I refuse?  I spent the next 20 minutes listening as Gordie Howe told me great stories of his career while signing for other people.  He talked about playing with Max McNab and Ted Lindsay in the 1940s and 50s, the legendary punch he landed that broke Lou Fontinato's nose in a hockey fight, playing in the All Star Game at the age of 51 with the 19 year-old Wayne Gretzky, playing with his sons, Mark and Marty in the WHA and winning the Stanley Cup in Detroit.  He was such a gentleman to me (though, unfortunately for the people on line, he was more interested in talking to me than to the fans) and I'll never forget it.

Sure enough, I returned to work about a half hour late and managed to sneak in unnoticed.

A year or two later, I met Mark Howe at a Devils game as he was scouting for another team.  Because I kept the book in my office, I brought it up to him and had him sign it, too.  Mark was just like his Dad, a gentleman, through and through.


At this writing, December 17, 2013, Gordie is still alive at the age of 85, 3 years younger than former teammate Ted Lindsay.  McNab passed away in 2007 at the age of 83.  Unfortunately, Gordie's wife, Colleen, also passed away a few years ago at the age of 76.  The couple met when she was just 17 years-old.

It's Time To Lower the Drinking Age Back Down to 18

(First published 8th June 2014) - In the spring of 1983, I was a 16 year-old high school junior planning to attend William Paterson College in autumn, 1984, and took advantage of an opportunity to spend a day on campus with a friend enrolled at WPC.  Over 30 years later, I have no idea what classes I attended that day, but I have a distinct memory of going to lunch at Billy Pat’s Pub in the WPC Student Center.  Students and faculty filled the pub at lunchtime and enjoyed conversation and mentoring over a burger and a beer.

That’s right, students and faculty drank beer at lunch on campus.  Of course, at that time, the legal drinking age was 18, so almost every student on campus could enjoy a cold brew with their lunch before going back to class with same professors with whom they had been imbibing.  And I suspect that this was how it was on most campuses across America since the end of Prohibition some 50 years prior.

This was considered normal behavior at that time and it was great.  Students were able to interact with older adults and discuss anything from internships and job possibilities to current events.  Students practiced networking and polished their conversation skills without realizing it.

I did enroll at William Paterson, but by the time I arrived on campus about 18 months after that initial visit, the campus was dramatically changed; Billy Pat’s was closed at lunch time because the drinking age had been raised to 21 and, sadly, faculty were rarely seen in the Student Center.

While losing that faculty/student social interaction has hurt students, raising the drinking age has caused an even bigger problem:  Student drinking is no longer done in a controlled, public environment; instead, students binge drink at private parties.  In fact, According to the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, underage drinking accounts for 17.5% ($22.5 billion) of consumer spending for alcohol in the United States (Joseph Califano Jr., "The Commercial Value of Underage and Pathological Drinking to the Alcohol Industry,"  (168 KB) National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, May 2006).  Think about that for a moment, because underage drinkers tend to drink the cheapest beer they can find.  In other words, while some adults will spend hundreds of dollars on a good bottle of scotch or wine, underage kids drinking cheap beer still account for almost one fifth of all alcohol spending in America.  As a result, according to the Centers for Disease Control, from 2006-2010, underage drinking played a role in 4,173 deaths

(http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/DACH_ARDI/Default/Report.aspx?T=AAM&P=f6d7eda7-036e-4553-9968-9b17ffad620e&R=d7a9b303-48e9-4440-bf47-070a4827e1fd&M=AD96A9C1-285A-44D2-B76D-BA2AE037FC56&F=AAMCauseGenderUnder21&D=H).

That said, it’s time for the state of New Jersey to consider lowering the drinking age back to 18.  Sure, the old arguments still stand – if one is old enough to vote, marry, stand trial, and serve in the military, one should certainly be permitted to have a glass of wine with dinner – but there’s more to it than that.  Drinking in a pub or tavern is far safer for students than binge drinking at a “kegger.”  Students don’t play drinking games in pubs, but beer pong, flip-cup, quarters, etc., are regular features of a college keg party.  Further, binge drinking in a public establishments is difficult with bartenders policing drinking and the cost of alcohol serving as a deterrent to students on a low budget.  Clearly, lowering the drinking age would decrease unsafe drinking activities.

The drinking age in much of the rest of the world is about 16 years of age.  And while the United States saw a decline in traffic accidents following the increase in the drinking age in 1984, the rate of traffic accidents and fatalities in the 1980s decreased even more in European nations whose drinking age remains under 21 (Barry M. Sweedler, "The Worldwide Decline in Drinking and Driving: Has It Continued?," Presentation for the 15th International Conference on Alcohol, Drugs and Traffic Safety in Stockholm (Sweden), www.ntsb.gov, May 2000).

Thus, the decline in accidents and deaths from drinking in the U.S. could be attributed to many factors, including safer automobiles and airbags, seat belt laws, increased awareness of the dangers of drinking and driving, and an increase in the number of college students living on campus and walking back to their dorms after drinking rather than driving.  Of course, ride-sharing apps have even eliminated the need for walking back to apartments and dorm rooms.  Students can safely return home even if they don't live on campus.

We need to treat adults like adults and give them the responsibility that they can handle.  We need to bring college student drinking back into public places rather than in illegal, private spaces.  The left constantly tells us that we should distribute condoms to minors in middle schools because students are having sex anyway, so isn’t it time we realize that because adult college students are drinking anyway, they’ll be safer lawfully drinking in regulated public places rather than at illegal keg parties?  I certainly think so!

Meet The Beatles! (Or at least one of them)

January 31, 2012 - Sometime in early January, SiriusXM satellite radio announced that Ringo Starr would be hosting a Town Hall meeting to be broadcast live on Sirius radio from the Troubadour club in West Los Angeles, California, to promote Ringo’s new album release, “2012.”  Sirius listeners who wished to be part of the audience were told to submit one question per listener to Sirius through their website and that after reviewing the submissions, twenty lucky listeners would be chosen to be on hand live at the Troubadour with Ringo to ask their questions directly to him.

Fourteen months ago, I was fortunate enough to win tickets in the 4^th row to see Paul McCartney and his band perform live at the Apollo Theater with an audience of Sirius listeners, Sirius staffers and dozens of McCartney’s celebrity fans, so I knew that while the odds of winning probably were not great, I could not possibly win without entering.  I spent a few days mulling over potential questions and, realizing that he was promoting a new album, decided to ask Ringo specifically about how he became a songwriter.  I then logged-on and found that the question submission space allowed for 1,000 characters, so the questions could be long; thus, I wrote a series of four or five questions related to songwriting and clicked the “submit” button.

After submitting, I decided to read the rules to see the specific details of the contest.  I was crushed to read a rule stating that only entries with one question would be considered.  I thought I was out of the contest as soon as I submitted my series of songwriting questions; game, set match.

Still, I figured I would log on and listen when the town hall took place. 

On Tuesday, January 24, while eating lunch at work, my cell phone rang and when I failed to recognize the number on the caller ID, figured I would let the call go to voicemail until I remembered that I had just promised a former student who had just applied for an internship that I would serve as a reference for them.  So I answered the phone.  The caller told me that she was from SiriusXM and was calling to congratulate me as my question was chosen for the town hall with Ringo Starr, though Sirius could not supply airfare or hotel accommodations.  She asked if I still wanted to go.  Seriously?  I’d start walking right then and there from my home in New Jersey if that was what it took to get to LA by Monday to meet a Beatle!

The problem was that the event was scheduled for Monday, January 30, from 1pm to 3pm (Pacific time) in Los Angeles.  I had an event to attend at my children’s school in the early afternoon on Sunday, January 29, and a minor surgical procedure scheduled for seven in the morning on Tuesday, January 31; if I was going to go to California, I had about a thirty-six hour window for the round trip.  I promptly looked-up flights on American Airlines and found that I could get out locally from Newark Airport Sunday evening, but would have to return home on the red-eye (the overnight flight) to New York’s Kennedy Airport in Queens in order to make it to my surgery on time.

It would be a crazy whirlwind trip, but after working as much as seventy-five hours a week at my five jobs during the fall, a wild two day cross-country jaunt would not come close to exhausting me.  Besides, I had a few aces in the hole – may Dad worked for American airlines and I would be flying for free and my brother, Jeff, and his wife live in Los Angeles with their newborn son and, after checking Google Maps, I was pleased to discover that Jeff’s home was located about ten minutes from Los Angeles International Airport and about fifteen minutes from the Troubadour.  The entire trip would cost me nothing and by staying with my brother, I'd be the first family member other than grandparents to see the new baby.  Excellent!

Unfortunately, however, my wife, Susan, would not be joining me as my guest.  There simply was no possible way to make arrangements for our own kids to get to and from school those two days.  My oldest daughter, Katie, wanted to go with me – and I would have LOVED for her to come along – but the contest rules limited winners and their guest to adults aged eighteen or over exclusively.  I was sure my brother would be happy to join me.

On Sunday afternoon, my father was gracious enough to drive me to Newark Airport and agreed to pick me up at Kennedy upon my return to drive me straight to surgery so Susan could get the kids off to school.  While I have always been a comfortable flyer, as fate would have it, I had visited the 9/11 Memorial in Lower Manhattan on Monday, January 23.  Thus, terrorism was on the back of my mind as I traveled to the airport and it left me with a sense of unease.  I looked for a sign that my trip would be completed safely and that sign came when I arrived at the TSA screening line:  The Beatles “Penny Lane” was playing on the loudspeaker at the screening line.  It would be a safe Beatles trip with Ringo!

After and uneventful flight, I arrived in LA, was picked-up by my brother and went to sleep.  Or tried.  I was too excited to sleep and spent the night tossing and turning.

On Monday, we went to the Troubadour and arrived at 11am to find a short line had formed.  I checked-in and a video crew was walking the line and interviewing attendees.  They asked if we would agree to speak on camera and I said I’d be happy to do so; just as happy as I was when I was on line at the McCartney show at the Apollo.  The Sirius staffers were stunned; I had won two of their major contests involving the two living Beatles.  We had a good chat on camera before entering the Troubadour.

The Troubadour is an extremely small club with an amazing history.  Many of the biggest artists of the 1970s traced their beginnings to gigging at the club including James Taylor, Carole King, the Eagles, Linda Ronstadt, Jackson Browne and Elton John, among many others.  There was hardly any memorabilia visible of the club’s past, however.  The room featured a stage, a small open area that was filled with forty folding chairs for the town hall’s attendees, and a bar.  That was basically it.  From the middle of the floor, one could look left and right and see outside if both the front and back doors were open.  There was a balcony, which housed the VIP rooms, but they were not very large, either.  Regardless, it was the perfect venue for this event as every seat in the room was within 15 feet of the foot of the stage.

When the contest winners were e-mailed with contest details, we were told that the entire group would take one group photo with Ringo.  Not to sound like an ingrate, I thought it disappointing that I would have to appear in a photo with 38 complete strangers and Ringo.  While waiting for the event to start, we discussed this with other contest winners and all were in agreement; we figured that there were just twenty of us and if we lined-up for individual photos of the winners and their guests with Ringo, twenty individual photos could probably be taken in less than three minutes.  Heck, it would be just like lining up for character photos at Disney World!

Shortly after discussing this with a few of my fellow contest winners, we were told we would be going upstairs to take individual photos with Ringo.  Wow!!!  I would get to meet Ringo, shake his hand, exchange a comment or two and get a photo as a permanent reminder of this most memorable event.

Meeting Ringo was a blast.  He was a cordial, accommodating host who exchanged some banter with his guests and smiled pleasantly for noted rock photographer, Rob Shanahan, who captured these pictures for forty most grateful fans. 


My brother, Jeff (left), Ringo Starr and I

 

We all shuffled back to our seats and I noticed drummer Gregg Bissonnette standing near the bar.  Bissonnette is a friend of Ringo’s who has been a member of Starr’s All-Starr Band.  He and I also share a common friend.  In the 1980s, Bissonnette was the drummer for David Lee Roth.  For the past sixteen years, I have worked with a man who served as a member of Roth’s security team in the 1980s and knows Bissonette well.  So I approached Bissonette and introduced myself.  He was friendly and told me to pass a “Hello” to our friend the next time that I see him.  Will do, Gregg!

Finally it was showtime and British actor/comedian Russell Brand took the stage to set-up the show, announce the ground rules, tell some bawdy jokes and, finally, start the live broadcast on SiriusXM.  Brand promptly introduced Ringo Starr and an intimate eighty minutes of conversation between the renowned Beatles drummer and fans began. 

The questions were excellent and one audience member noted that on this date, forty-three years prior, the Beatles performed their last live concert, the rooftop concert that became the Let It Be album.  Ringo answered them all and appeared to really enjoy the discussion, though at times, Russell Brand’s inappropriately sexually-charged quips seemed to frustrate Starr.  Midway through the Q and A session, Brand left the stage and was replaced by music producer extraordinaire Don Was, who conducted a more serious and musically-oriented session, even offering his own follow-up questions.

My opportunity to ask my question occurred during Don Was’ segment and Don did a great job of introducing me, pronouncing both my name and hometown properly – no small feat in itself.  I failed to mention that when we were seated in an order that matched our opportunity to ask our question, we were given a card with our question pre-printed on them because some people were, understandably, nervous and couldn’t remember their question.  The SiriusXM card simply gave us another souvenir (to go with the photo and an event pass hanging from a Sirius lanyard around our necks).  I did not need my card as I had wanted to thank Ringo for being an “entertainer for all ages” for years, and that’s exactly what I did.  I began by thanking him and explaining what “entertainer for all ages” meant; that the first song my children ever heard was his voice singing Lennon’s “Good Night” while being rocked to sleep; that as toddlers, my kids were fans of his narration of tales of Thomas the Tank Engine; and that the kids learned to sing along with him on “Yellow Submarine.”

He thanked me and then I asked how he got into songwriting and if the Beatles encouraged him.  He mentioned that the first song he had written, “Don’t Pass Me By” took time to join the Beatles catalog because the others were simply writing brilliant music and that to get one of his songs on an album meant taking something else off.  He also said that he had developed a knack for writing songs that he later discovered were simply re-writes of older hits, so they were never recorded; a remark that drew laughs.  Then he told the story of how he wrote Octopus’s Garden:  He had been on a boat cruise in the Mediterranean when he was eating octopus for the first time.  The boat’s captain told Ringo about how Octopus’s made gardens of stones on the ocean floor and that this conversation provided the inspiration for the song; simple as that.

After another half-dozen or so questions, Ringo introduced his band which featured the aforementioned Gregg Bissonette on drums, Richard Page (leader of 80s band Mr. Mister) on bass, Bruce Sugar (veteran sessionman and Ringo collaborator) and Mark Hart (hired gun for Supertramp and Crowded House) on keyboards and Steve Dudas (another veteran LA sessionman and Ringo collaborator) on guitar.  The group opened with the immensely popular "It Don't Come Easy".  Then Ringo took to his own drum kit and lit into "I Wanna Be Your Man."  Ringo returned to the foot of the stage and introduced his brother-in-law, Joe Walsh, who joined the group for the new version of “Wings” as featured on the new album.  The band went back to the Beatles to close the show with "With a Little Help From My Friends" and “Act Naturally”.  After shaking hands with Ringo at the end of his performance and thanking him once again (he thanked me for coming!), I turned and headed to the exit.

It was a great show to end an outstanding event with one of rock’s best drummers from the music industry’s greatest group.  And to top it off, upon exiting the Troubadour, we were each given a copy of Ringo’s newest release, 2012, on both CD and vinyl. 

As my departing flight was not scheduled to leave for another five hours, Jeff and I took a stroll up Doheny Drive to The Rainbow Bar & Grill, which ran parallel to Santa Monica Boulevard’s Troubador on Sunset Boulevard.  The Rainbow is a legendary hangout for rock musicians and their groupies from the 1970s through today.  John Lennon was a regular during his eighteen month “lost weekend” with Mae Pang and since the 1980s, the bar became noted as one of the leading homes for the LA metal scene.  We had a beer and their famous mozzarella sticks before heading to C & O Trattoria on Venice Beach for an outstanding dinner al fresco.

Then it was off to LAX for a routine flight and four hours of sleep on the red-eye.  Despite a long delay on the ground, I still managed to walk into the surgical center Tuesday morning just ten minutes late, to the shock of the nurses and doctors who were amazed that I had gotten off a plane from the west coast to be cut up.  Fortunately, the surgery went smoothly and the craziest 36 hours of my life concluded safely, successfully and most memorably.  Thanks, again, Ringo!