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.

The Ticket and Me, Part I

Sportsradio 1310 "The Ticket" turned 23 this month. Unbelievable. The little sports station that nobody gave a chance is now one of the greatest success stories not only in D/FW radio, but nationally.  Drive around the country and see how many towns have a sports station called "The Ticket". There are a ton, but the one in Dallas, the one I worked at three times over the course of ten years, was the first. I am pretty sure it is also still the best. Mainly because I want to get this down before I forget too much, I am writing about my time at The Ticket and some of the memories I have of the place. I hope you enjoy.

I spoke my first words on The Ticket a few months into it's existence in 1994.  I was trying very hard to finish up my degree at the University of North Texas, graduating on the six year plan and needing to pass this Algebra/Pre-Cal class that had kicked my butt twice before. I was also working on my fledgling radio career, first at KNTU and KDNT in Denton, then the USA Radio Network in Farmers Branch.  My best friend Mark Followill told me there might be a weekend, overnight board-op job opening up at The Ticket and I should apply.  A quick primer, the weekend, overnight board-op is basically the lowest guy on the programming totem pole at any radio station. The job is simple, play a station ID once an hour and try not to get caught sleeping. I jumped at the chance.

The Ticket was the dream.  From the very beginning. Even though the industry "experts" were brushing it off, the guys I hung out with, those of us who went to UNT, studied under Bill Mercer, looked up to our predecessors like Dave Barnett, Craig Way, George Dunham and Craig Miller, we knew that this was something special and somewhere we needed to be. Mark had been the first of us come aboard, hired from the start to be a "Ticket Ticker" guy. His presence at the station had opened the door for me.  I started at the station in the spring of 1994, within a couple of months of it going on the air. Not a Day 1 guy but pretty close.

I ran the board on Friday and Saturday nights, overnight, when no-one else was at the station and the programming was syndicated garbage from some national network. I played the station ID at the top of the hour and watched television the rest of the time. Sweet gig. My first involvement with an actual show was running the board for "The Ticket Stub".  The Stub featured two young, up and coming talents named Gordon Keith and Laurence Scott.  It was an awakening.  The show was fresh, raw, completely original and unpredictable. It was the first time I had worked with genius level talent.  Both Gordon and Laurence were on another level intellectually and while that worked to create some of the funniest radio I have ever heard, it also created some of the most awkward on-air friction ever. Gordon was always concerned that the show would get too sports intensive, shifting the focus away from his strength, the comedy. Meanwhile Laurence, knowing he had the upper hand when it came to sports knowledge, was always trying to expose Gordon in that area and show off his own sports acumen.  It was mutual sabotage. It's a shame, because while both have gone on to outstanding careers, Gordon, of course, with the Musers, Laurence as a game host, commentator and content producer for the Golden State Warriors, had they been able to work together they might have become the best product The Ticket ever produced.

My first on-air break occurred quite by accident.  I was finishing up the overnight board shift.  The Saturday morning show, "The Bottle Rockets" were coming in.  Being a live show there were Ticket Tickers, but the anchor had not shown up and it was almost time to go to break.  I ran into the Ticker booth, threw together a couple of notes, and did the update.  It was probably terrible, but I remember it being among the most exhilarating feelings I have ever experienced.  I was just on the air, on The Ticket!!  After that the Bottle Rockets producer, Rick Arnett, gave me a regular assignment recording a sports calendar of events that would air throughout the weekend. I was on my way.

There was only one problem, I was coming up on graduation, having finally tackled that damn math class (D is for Diploma) and I was going to be in need of full-time work, and soon.   I figured I would have to travel out to a smaller market, maybe Mount Pleasant or Abilene, to get a start but I knew I should ask my bosses at The Ticket first.  I was at a remote at the Hard Rock Cafe when I approached station owner Spence Kendrick and told him about my situation. He said he would see what he could do. (Thank you Spence!!)  The next day the program director, Jim Short, came to me with a proposition, how I would I like to do Ticket Tickers mid-days, Monday through Friday?  At this time there was not a mid-day slot for Ticker guys, David Burrall handled the mornings, Mark Followill the afternoons. I would be the third person hired for the job. Amazing. Did it pay much? Hardly anything.  Did I care? Not a bit.  I was right out of college and about to be working full-time in a Major Market. Living the dream.

I did Ticket Tickers from August of 1994 to January of 1996. Along the way I picked up the nickname "Doogie" from Mike Rhyner.  Rhyner nicknamed everybody and I am not sure why he settled on Doogie but I am glad he did because Greg Williams wanted to call me "Flounder" after the character in the movie Animal House.  I was also just happy Rhyner took an interest in me at all after an unfortunate encounter in the Rangers clubhouse when I was still in college left me wondering if I had made an enemy for life in the radio business. That is a story for another day.  For a while I worked two Ticker shifts one during the mid-day and one during a new night time show called "The Sports Princess" with Kate Delaney.  I still lived in Denton, so I practically never went home, and that was fine by me. This was during the summer of 1995, or as I call it, "The Summer of Drunk". That's because virtually every night after the Sports Princess show, her co-host Gordon Keith, her producer Randy Myers, Mark Followill and me would all head out to Louie's or some Lower Greenville establishment and proceed to enjoy libation until the place closed down.  It was easily the most fun summer I have ever had. I was married to The Ticket, to the life, and it was a loving relationship, until it wasn't.  They let me go in January of 1996.  They said it was a budget thing. I was devastated.  All I had wanted to do was work at The Ticket, now that was over. Little did I know that this would only be part one of a three part series.  

The Half-Assed Novelist

The year was 1973.  I was an artist, living in New Orleans...I drew caricatures for tourists along the boardwalk on the East bank of the Mississippi River.   The times were indeed high.  My artist friends and I we shared love, we shared passion, we shared whatever intoxicants we might possess at our midnight gatherings in Jackson Square.  It was such a fine and natural sight, everybody dancin' in the moonlight just like the King Harvest song of a similar name.

It was at one of these nocturnal festivities that I saw something wondrous and truly affirming.  I was lying on my back, letting the cool of the grass support my carriage as to give my tired legs a moment of respite. In that moment my eyes happened upon a kite, swaying against the moonlight. The kite was as patriotic as Old Hickory himself, streaked with brilliant reds and blues against a backdrop of white.  I was mesmerized by the hypnotic dance of this flying wonder and could not help myself but to follow the string all the way down to the earth where I saw that the string stopped inside a little hand, a hand attached to an arm which made a skinny journey to the torso of....

a little boy.

This lad was a firecracker. He was decked out in bell bottom jeans with patches on the knees, a "Super Friends" t-shirt with likenesses of Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman.  He wore a baseball cap bearing the logo of what must have been his favorite team, the Baltimore Orioles. He wore horn-rimmed glasses which perched ever so carefully atop a slightly runny nose.

I rose to my feet. I walked over to the boy, fascinated by the way he mastered the kite flying high above our heads. I said "Son, what's your name?"

The boy barely gave a sideways glance as he mumbled somewhat under his breath "Jimmy."

My stare penetrated his blank exterior and I asked with fervor "Jimmy what?"

And with that the boy made a massive pull on the string, sending the kite into a nosedive, he jerked the string with such a violent motion that the kite leveled out, three feet above the ground, the pointy tip flying straight into my posterior.  I fell to my knees, my eyes watering, my backside on fire. The boy glared down with sinister, repellent eyes and said to me "My name sir....

is Jim......






FREGOSI!!!!"

Song of the Month

I am a lyrics guy. This might have something to do with the fact that I am not a musician. I love music but aside from being able to strum C, D, and G on six string I have no discernible musical skill. Lyrics though, lyrics I get. To me the essence of a song lies in what it has to say.  Obviously a great song needs to make sense melodically and feature excellent musicianship, but if I am to remember a song, more than likely it will be for the message that I take away from the lyrics. Recently I started compiling a list of songs that have changed my life. Songs that have buried themselves in my heart and now exist as part of the collateral mass that makes up my soul.  Naturally, these songs are great lyrical songs, with lines that resonate permanently in my psyche.  I came up with about twelve songs which means I should be able to share at least one every month throughout the year.  I will list them in no particular order, though some might be more timely than others depending on the season. Here goes...

"Fast Car" by Tracy Chapman

 


Timing was definitely part of the reason this song had such an impact on me. Released in April, 1988, "Fast Car" came out just as I was preparing to graduate from high school.  I was moving beyond the synth-pop of the mid-eighties, looking for a change of pace from my punk flirtation with Black Flag and Circle Jerks, and my obsession with classic country was still a few years in the distance.  Tracy Chapman came along when I was trying to be a grown-up, and listen to grown-up music. Her song, a tale of a girl caught up in the cycle of poverty, alcoholism, and the bitter need to be self-reliant, was about as grown-up as it got.

"And I had a feeling that I belonged
I had a feeling I could be someone, be someone, be someone"

"Fast Car" is the musical marriage of Joni Mitchell and Charles Bukowski.  It's gorgeous melody cradling the tattered soul of a woman beaten by desperation and frustrated by the father, and the partner, who have done nothing in her life but let her down. Perhaps, one year earlier, in the incubator of high school where life is taken care of by those who know what's best, this song would not have registered.  But as a young man who graduated high school on a Friday, and went to work in a hot warehouse the following Monday, this song struck a literal chord in my life. It was about small victories and big dreams, and the heartache that occurs when those dreams have to be put down.  I would not be so presumptuous as to say I saw myself in the song, God knows I had it pretty good all things considered, but I did relate to the message.  For me the song is a testimony to the truth that no matter how much you want to believe in someone, at the end of the day you are responsible for your life, for better or worse.

"We gotta make a decision
We leave tonight or live and die this way"

 "Fast Car" changed my perception. It was so well-crafted, so intelligent, it moved me to explore deeper musical subject matter, and reminded me that life was bigger than what I saw through my windshield. That out there somewhere was a world I did not know, but I wanted to, desperately.

You got a fast car
I want a ticket to anywhere
Maybe we can make a deal
Maybe together we can get somewhere
Anyplace is better
Starting from zero got nothing to lose
Maybe we'll make something
But me myself I got nothing to prove

You got a fast car
And I got a plan to get us out of here
I been working at the convenience store
Managed to save just a little bit of money
We won't have to drive too far
Just across the border and into the city
You and I can both get jobs
And finally see what it means to be living

You see my old man's got a problem
He lives with the bottle that's the way it is
He says his body's too old for working
I say his body's too young to look like his
My mama went off and left him
She wanted more from life than he could give
I said somebody's got to take care of him
So I quit school and that's what I did

You got a fast car
But is it fast enough so we can fly away?
We gotta make a decision
We leave tonight or live and die this way

See I remember we were driving, driving in your car
The speed so fast I felt like I was drunk
City lights lay out before us
And your arm felt nice wrapped 'round my shoulder
And I had a feeling that I belonged
I had a feeling I could be someone, be someone, be someone

You got a fast car
We go cruising entertain ourselves
You still ain't got a job
And I work in the market as a checkout girl
I know things will get better
You'll find work and I'll get promoted
We'll move out of the shelter
Buy a big house and live in the suburbs

See I remember when we were driving, driving in your car
The speed so fast I felt like I was drunk
City lights lay out before us
And your arm felt nice wrapped 'round my shoulder
And I had a feeling that I belonged
I had a feeling I could be someone, be someone, be someone

You got a fast car
And I got a job that pays all our bills
You stay out drinking late at the bar
See more of your friends than you do of your kids
I'd always hoped for better
Thought maybe together you and me'd find it
I got no plans I ain't going nowhere
So take your fast car and keep on driving

See I remember when we were driving, driving in your car
The speed so fast I felt like I was drunk
City lights lay out before us
And your arm felt nice wrapped 'round my shoulder
And I had a feeling that I belonged
I had a feeling I could be someone, be someone, be someone

You got a fast car
But is it fast enough so you can fly away?
You gotta make a decision
Leave tonight or live and die this way

Songwriters
Chapman, Tracy L

Read more: Tracy Chapman - Fast Car Lyrics | MetroLyrics

Respect for the Also-Ran's

Once, a very long time ago, I was "The Weakest Link." Allow me to take you back, all the way back to the turn of the century, 2001 to be exact. At this time there was a very popular game show on television called "The Weakest Link". It was hosted by a curt British woman named Anne Robinson. She was known for her harsh stares and directness, and for making contestants feel like dirt when they did not perform up to expectations. The idea of the game was that the contestants would build the jackpot together, answering questions, banking money in the kitty, and voting each other out of the game until one by one each of the contestants was eliminated save for one, and that person walked away with all of the money.

Early in 2001 the show was holding open auditions in cities across the country.  During this time I was producing a morning radio show in Dallas on 93.3 FM "Merge Radio" which before that was known as "The Zone", then afterwards "The Bone", then "I-93", and maybe a few dozen other names as well. Anyway, as a bit I auditioned along with the two hosts of the show, Tim and Yvonne.  The audition consisted of answering a few trivia questions, talking about yourself, and displaying interesting talents (Hellooooo Breakdancing!).
Yvonne received a call right away and was on the show soon after. As I recall she did well, finishing somewhere in the middle of the pack.  Months went by, I left the radio station, forgot all about the audition,  and then one day the phone rings and it's a producer from the show. They liked my audition, and want to fly me to LA to be on the show.

Cutting to the chase, I was terrible. I did not answer a single question correctly, I did not bank any money, and at the end of the first round I was voted the weakest link by every other contestant. Goodbye!

For a long time I looked at that as a defeat, a serious blow to my confidence. I had choked on national television. It all felt like failure, everything that I had been taught to believe about winning and losing told me that I was a loser.  Somewhere along the way, however, I began to realize something; what people saw on television was only part of the story.  Sure, I had blown it in that one round, and the fact that it was the first round was certainly a case of bad timing, but what was not seen was the victory that was getting on the show in the first place.  To become a contestant on "The Weakest Link", not only did I have to impress the producers in the Dallas audition, I had to be impressive enough to be chosen over people in Dallas, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and wherever else the auditions took place. Once you arrived in LA, they did not just slap some makeup on you and throw you on television. The producers brought more people to Los Angeles than they planned on using, so we had to play a "practice game",  a rehearsal if you will, only the people who made it through that simulation were chosen to be on the actual show.

Did I win any money? No. Did I get an all expenses paid trip to LA? Yes. Did I look silly on national television? Yes. Would I trade the experience? Absolutely not. Now I do not believe in the "every kid gets a trophy" approach that our culture currently embraces.  I think there are, and should be, winners and losers. I do believe, however, that we have too narrowly defined what a winner is.  We tend to see only the last man standing as the winner while giving no respect to the ones who gave everything they had, and fell just short.
People who do their best are winners.  People who don't give up are winners. People who overcome adversity and challenges and don't make excuses are winners.  We need more winners like this in the world, no matter where they might place in the race of life. Despite what society may say, no one who does these things is an also-ran.



 

To Him the Glory

The struggle is for our growth, the victory is for His glory!

Every now and then I will throw down some preaching. God knows how to speak to me because He made me.  He knows what will resonate and connect.  I think in sound bites so He often will speak to me in that way, giving me little quotes that I can jot down like the one above. Those words came to me this morning in prayer time when I was thinking about how our God is a God who is with us in the daily junk. He is intimate with our struggles but does not leave us stranded there. Instead He is leading us out, to a place of victory and redemption where we can look back at where we came from and rejoice in His might, His goodness and His love.

Take heart that God knows it's hard sometimes, but He also knows what you are made of, because He made you. He knows that you have power and strength. Most importantly, He knows that when things seem too much to bear, you have a God who is on your side, and will not let you down.

So when you are in the struggle, remember that you are growing, becoming who God designed you to be. When you achieve the victory, remember that it was God who delivered it and to Him should go the glory.