The Joshua Tree 2017

Its been almost a week and I still can't stop thinking about U2's concert at AT&T Stadium on Friday night. The images, the sounds, the emotions, they won't leave me. Not that I want them to.

There are only a few full circle moments in life. Moments where you see the beginning from the end, where you are transported back to a time when you were much younger, but with the benefit of years of experience gained along the way.  In many ways and for many reasons, this show was a full circle moment in my life.

Back in 2015 I posted on this blog a musical bucket list. These were the top artists that I wanted to see before I, or they, kicked the bucket. U2 was number two on the list, only behind fellow countryman Van Morrison. This is what I wrote:

"I had the chance to see U2 once, back when U2 was EVERYTHING to me. I had a ticket to their sold out show at Tarrant County Convention Center when they were touring in support of the Joshua Tree. November 24, 1987. Unfortunately, I had received a speeding ticket the previous week and my father grounded me from the concert. A friend of mine sold my ticket for face value and I have resented my dad ever since.   I know U2 still tours and perhaps one day I will see them perform, but it won't mean what it would have meant to me when I was seventeen."

 It had to be U2.

The most important band of my generation.  The band of my passionate youth. The band that woke the American conscience on a cold night at Red Rocks. The band that carried the banner of love, peace and pride for the sons and daughters of those who had lost their way. The band that fed the world. This band is the only band that could make me feel seventeen again, and for two hours that is exactly what they did.  From the opening drum kick of "Sunday Bloody Sunday" to the final sing along rock-out of "I Will Follow" I was taken back in time. This was the show I had been waiting 30 years to see, and it was so worth it.

It had to be "The Joshua Tree"

U2 at their zenith. I was, or course, a huge fan before this album was released but "The Joshua Tree" was such a culmination, a fully realized vision. This was the perfect music, in the perfect moment, in the perfect location to remind us all that America is a wonderland. A land of mystery and myth, of big sky and bigger dreams. It was at once a loving portrait and a dissection. It transcended radio and MTV and managed to weave itself in the fabric of my life. I memorized it to such a degree that even if I did not have my Walkman handy, I could play the entire album in my head. It was and is, a masterpiece.

It had to be my wife.

Here's the thing that strikes me as I type away next to my sleeping wife, the people I have connected with over U2 are all people I have loved.  There was Doni Jandl, the girl I crushed so hard for as a sophomore in high school. I loved her, she loved Larry Mullen Jr. She was the first U2 superfan I ever knew. At first, I was interested in U2 because I was interested in her, later I grew to appreciate them on my very own, which is good because Doni never became interested in me.   There was Travis Williams, my best friend from those days. We would spend hours listening to U2 while he tried to copy the drum parts on his snare, because that was the only drum he had. He is the one that said Bono could sing opera if he wanted to, and he was right.  Then there was Erica Carson. Erica was another one of my crushes, this time as a senior. She was super intelligent, pretty, and of course, out of my league. We were friends though, good friends. She was the friend I was going to the show with that fateful November evening in 1987.  After I missed the show, we went our separate ways. I think she went to Princeton, while I attended Princeton on the Pond, i.e. Tarrant County College Northwest Campus.

So it had to be my wife who was sitting next to me this time around. The woman who bought the tickets so we could go, the woman who, even though she is not a big U2 fan, wanted to see the look on my face when I finally witnessed them hitting the stage.  The woman who smiled because I could not stop smiling. The woman who has given me two daughters that I thought about when the band played "Ultraviolet" and images of great women spread across the massive screen. She is my biggest love.  She completes the circle.

So thank you U2. Thank you for bringing it all back around again. Thanks for reminding me how much music matters, how much it holds the power for change and for goodness and grace.  How it can make you feel like a kid again. By the way, dad, you are forgiven. I know you were only doing what you felt was right.

The Ticket and Me: Part 2 (Or Part 1 of Part 2)

Thanks for being patient.  Life has forced me into the fast lane and out of memory lane for the last couple of months.  But with just a little time on my hands I wanted to continue to remember my time at The Ticket, which turned 23 this year.

After being let go from the station in January of 1996, I was a little lost.  I had tapes and resumes out there, but not many offers, back then there was only one sports station in town and I was narrow minded and arrogant enough to believe that not only did I belong in town, but I only really wanted to be a sports guy. (Side note: if you want to stay employed in broadcasting, best to be able to do a little bit of everything. Over the years I have done news, weather, traffic, and the always difficult to execute "traffic and weather together." I have done promotions, emcee duties, public address announcing.  I have done play-by-play for high school girls softball on the internet, to high level college and minor league sports on ESPN News, ESPN 3, Fox Sports Southwest, etc. In other words, have voice, will travel)

For not the first, or the last time in my career, I got very lucky in March of 1996.  Since The Ticket and KRLD/TSN were owned by the same company, management had made the decision to move the Kate Delaney show to the Texas State Network.  She would still be heard on The Ticket, but now she was being syndicated statewide.  TSN needed a sports anchor for her show and someone to cover games, edit tape, and handle a few morning and evening sports casts for the network. The program director at The Ticket recommended me to the director over at TSN and from there I was off to the races.  A new job with some of the old perks, it was a great deal.

I spent three years at KRLD/TSN.  Fairly early in my tenure KRLD/TSN and The Ticket went their separate ways due to ownership changes.  I was no longer being heard on The Ticket, but I had a great job.  I would come into work about 2:00 PM and prep some afternoon sports updates for TSN.  After doing the updates, I would head out to whatever game happened to be in town that night. During the fall and winter I spent most of my nights at Reunion Arena covering either the Mavericks or the Stars.  I also went to a lot of TCU and SMU basketball games and events like the Texas/OU Classic at the Cotton Bowl.  During the summer, the majority of my nights were spent at The Ballpark in Arlington.  This made sense. KRLD was the radio home of the Rangers at the time and the KRLD/TSN studios were at the Ballpark. I literally walked out our back door into the concourse area behind Greene's Hill in center field.

I loved, LOVED covering the Rangers. The Ballpark was still almost brand new, the team was turning into a winner under Johnny Oates and in fact, would win their first Division title in the fall of 1996. I was privileged to be in the locker room that night.  Summer nights at the ballpark are just about as good as it gets, especially when the hot dogs and sodas are free and you get to sit in an air conditioned booth right above home plate.  The Rangers press box had an empty booth that was only used very sparingly when an extra broadcast space was needed. Almost every night during a Ranger game it was occupied by Mike Rhyner and Greg Williams, the super popular, super baseball power hitting duo of the Hardline.  They allowed whoever was covering the game for The Ticket that night to sit in that booth, and one other, humbled, honored, special guest, me.

Those nights were just spectacular.  I learned baseball from two of the most passionate baseball nuts I could imagine, I was sitting at the equivalent of the cool kids table from junior high, an invitation only space of our very own, to be as loud and obnoxious as we wanted without drawing the scornful glances of the high and mighty scribes down in the writers pressbox. I laughed my ass off pretty much every night. I enjoyed trying to crack up Mike and Greg as well. Every seventh inning stretch I would come up with what I called the "Free Verse Cotton Eyed Joe" wherein I would ad lib lyrics to the Cotton Eyed Joe that were crude and sexually perverse, usually about people I had spotted in the stands. I'll not re-print them here, you can use your imagination.

This was also the birthplace of the "Half-Assed Novelist."  One night I was trying to make Mike laugh so I was doing this old mans voice, regaling Mike with this long winded, verbose story about a little boy that turned out to be John Cangelosi (I think, the details are fuzzy).  Rhyner liked it, he liked it a lot. He told me I should call in on the show and do the character.  Now mind you, at this point in my career The Ticket was the competition. But it was still where I longed to be. I started doing the bit for the Hardline and it seemed to be a hit. This only served to validate my thought that I was wasting away at KRLD and stoked my desire to return to The Ticket. (BTW I was wrong about wasting away, even though I eventually did go back to The Ticket, I should never have taken for granted the good thing I had at KRLD/TSN)

The Half-Assed Novelist was not the only character I did for The Ticket during this time. When down in Port Charlotte, Florida covering the Rangers for spring training, I happened to be there at the same time as The Musers (George Dunham, Craig Miller, Gordon Keith). Of course, I hung out with them most of the time when we were not at the Ballpark and one morning I saw a commercial on television for some New Age Music compilation. One of the artists was a guy named Ottmar Leibert.  I started goofing around with a voice that sounded like one part Colonel Klink, one part Kathleen Turner.  In our minds, Ottmar Leibert became a German industrialist who toured around the United States going to different sporting events. In whatever town he was in, he would develop crushes on the athletes of a certain team in that town and express those feelings of love in rhyme, in third person. A few examples:

"Ottmar is jealous of Mrs. Greg Ellis"
"Ottmar wants to do the splitski for Dirk Nowitzki"
"Ottmar wants to give a bone, to Jerry Jones"

This was, believe it or not, also a marginally successful character and my desire to return to The Ticket grew with every covert appearance. Every time I would hang out with those guys it would just remind me of what I was missing out on.  There was not an opening at the Ticket that would have made sense for me to leave what I had at KRLD at that time, but soon enough, a couple of wheels would begin to turn that would ultimately give me my dream shot...dang this is going to be a long post, better split it up.  I promise part two of part two will come quicker than part one of part two did. Hang with me.