Saturday, April 26, 2008
Friday, April 18, 2008
The Regina Years Part One - "The Studio Camera Doesn't Lie" or "A slap's as good as a wink to a Best Man."
It's been two-plus months since I've dusted off the computer and conducted some business, so it's time to get yakking once again.
Spring is a time for new growth, and 'round here is no exception.
Adam spent a day "job shadowing" in the Kindergarten classroom for his Fall debut; Brenna had her 1st multi-district track meet, and finished a fabulous 7th in high jump; and baseball has been very, very good to Mr. Braiden! (Last Friday night, he went 1 for 1 with 2 walks, 2 RBIs, and 3 runs scored - this is first season that he's ever played the sport!!!)
Kristin and her best friend/step-sister will be off on a free Mediterranean cruise, while my Mom and I are taking a bus trip to Seattle to catch a 3 game series with the Jays at the end of June!
Things have been going excellent. (In the words of Borat - very niiiice!!!)
I got a fevered and passionate request to detail my time in television news -during what can only be described as "The Regina Years". (Okay, so it wasn't really all that passionate of a request, and "The Regina Years" was more like "The Regina 16 and-a-half-months"; but what's a little hyperbole?)
We moved back to Regina in 2004 to be closer to family.
Leaving North Carolina was tough. It's a great place and things were rocking personally and professionally. Good friends, good job ... and especially good eats! If you ever get a chance to binge on Lexington Barbecue and hush puppies, it's well worth the bloat! Once, while on the South Beach diet, I ate an entire pound of the BBQ'd pork!)
Professionally speaking, moving back to Regina was also tough. I had to start all over again. My first job back was at CTV. I knew I was in for an ego-blasting when the HR lady interviewing me was worried that I didn't have any studio camera experience!
Despite her concerns, I still managed to get the job ... as a part time studio camera operator. Here I was, with a college degree, 5 years big market experience, and a couple of awards under my belt, and I was setting up the weather camera at 11:15 at night.
On paper, I was probably the most over-qualified part time studio camera operator in the history of part time studio camera operators. Here's the irony: I absolutely sucked at studio camera! (Ask Kevin McKay about the time I set up the sports studio cameras backwards ... and had to change them around live on the air!) I felt like Donald Trump, suddenly being stuck doing his own taxes, and not knowing what the hell a 1040 was! (Imagine the Donald saying, "Am I 'Married 1' or what?".)
However, I grinned and bared it. I was lucky to also get on at Global Regina part-time also. This was a little more news and a lot less studio camera. "Thank God!!", said fans of quality studio camera work.
Eventually, a full time news photographer job came open at Global and I quit CTV. The folks at CTV were really nice and I really appreciated that humbling experience because I was ready to start kickin' @ss again! Come on, I've met Regis for fricksakes!!! Chew on that, Ikegami studio camera!
For those who've never shot a professional TV camera, it's a lot like operating a car. At first glance, all cars seem the same. A steering wheel is a steering wheel, whether it's in a Porsche or a Dodge Dart, right? But when used at high speeds or under dangerous conditions, that's when you find out the difference, and sometimes --- you also find the ditch.
Well, video cameras are the same. Every one has a lens and a record button. But every individual camera acts differently. The ergonomics, the color balance, the sound, the iris and the focus ring are never the quite the same.
So when you transition to a camera you've never used before, you suck initially. (This experience is similar to getting into the Wood family car after Kristin's driven: the seat's pulled so far up I nearly impale myself with the steering wheel. One these times the seat back is going to break and I'm going need the Jaws of Life.)
The cameras at Global Regina were DVCPro: the Laser Disc of professional digital video cameras.
(For those who don't remember Laser Discs, they were basically DVDs that were the same size as record albums. You could only watch half of the movie before you had to switch it over to continue on the 2nd side. My brother convinced my Dad to buy a Laser Disc player. It still sits in my Mom's basement today, along with 2001: A Space Odyssey, Maverick, and Diggstown.)
With the DVC Pro cameras, you ended up with all sorts of interesting colors. If you ever wondered what a person would look like through poop-colored glasses, these cameras made your dreams come true.
The problem is, video cameras are expensive. And to get good ones costs upwards of 50 grand. And good ones break just as easily. 50 large is a lot to pay to drop one in the Gulf of Mexico. (Ask the guy from WFTX in Florida how it felt to drop two in one shoot. One was Fox's; the other was borrowed from CNN.)
Thankfully, the people at Global Regina were much better than the cameras: although they each had their own entertaining quirks.
The first person I met at Global was the assignment editor, Doug Tabak. Technically speaking, Doug was the first person I heard. I had called originally from North Carolina, and I immediately recognized Doug's voice from years in Regina radio.
Doug has that low key Ben Stein droll comedy thing. To call Doug laid back would be an understatement. Doug reading aloud the Canada Post and Doug on fire would likely sound the same.
Doug was also consistent in how he delivered his assignments. The less glamorous VOs and VOsots were given to you with the accompanying phrase, "go ahead and swing on by ...". I can't help but wondering if Doug's wedding vows included "go ahead and swing on by ...". Even typing this makes me smile.
The next person I remember was the news director, Les Staff. While the joke's been done to death, I still find it entertaining that a manager's name would be Les Staff. Sounds like bad comedy from an HR convention.
When you think of news directors, usually Ed Asner comes to mind: wrinked, frumpy, old, crusty dudes with rolled up sleeves and gruff exteriors that mask hearts of gold. (Insert CTV joke here.)
Not Les. He's the best dressed TV person I've ever met. He had an amazing collection of suits and shirts. Honestly, I was jealous. News photographers tend to dress in shorts and T-shirts, and look like roadies for rock bands. (Like one cameraman who met the Queen of England dressed like this. "Greetings, your Majesty. (Pause.) Yeah, I'm with band. You want a toot?" More on Liz and Philip later.)
Les was great to work with; he was always up for new ideas. He was a cool dude, too. And with the exception of one time, I never got into trouble with him.
The Canada Games Feel Good Incident. (No one else remembers it by this name, but it's my blog.
In TV news, your story is expected to make it into the newscast in a specific order. If it doesn't get there when it's supposed to be, it screws everything up. Some of your less humorous and more embarrassing TV mistakes come when the story's not ready, and they have to tap dance until you get it there. I've never been on a news desk, but I can't imagine the angst of being left to twist in the wind because fat boy news photographer didn't get his work done in time.
The phrase for it is called "floating". I think it's called "floating" because it's the TV equivalent of passing gas during church.
This was during the 2005 Canada Summer Games in Regina. I was working with reporter Ross Neitz, and we pieced together a really great story about some of the feel good aspects of the Games. I spent a lot of time on the sound and unfortunately, the story didn't get done on time.
The problem was, there were other stories running in the cast that night that weren't as "feel good" about the Canada Games as our piece. So, they had to run the more negative stories first and then push our piece to an entirely different segment. Basically, it made the newscast look like the "Canada Games sucks" newscast. Not good.
So that was bad enough. Next day, I made it worse.
I was late.
Everybody was in the morning meeting when I arrived. When I came in, Les yells, "You're late!" This was not good. Turns out he had read everyone the riot act already. Somebody else who was less later than me had already suffered the initial public rebuking! So I'm late, and I floated yesterday, so imagine how much deeper I'm going to be in the crap hole!
Naturally, Les proceeds to give me the verbal business in front of everybody! I'm mortified. What could I say?
(It reminded me of my friend Chris's wedding. He was married in the Catholic church. I was the best man. I really only had one responsibility: provide the rings. That's it.
Now I was raised Catholic too. But the thing is, I never once paid attention to the ring transfer-portion of a Catholic wedding. It's not like passing the baton in the 4X100 metre relay.
It comes time for my ring passing and the priest lifts the plate of rings towards me. And I try to grab them off the plate.
Wrong!
As I put my fingers on the rings, the priest slaps my hand! During the ceremony! In front of everybody!!!
He says, "pass them the plate!".
I hear laughter coming form Chris's entire family.
After the ceremony, the priest is talking like this is the funniest thing he's ever done. Eleven years later, I'm starting to wonder if he set me up. Like this was some priest comedy thing. I'm imaging him, pre-show, telling the alter boys, "Okay boys, today we're going for the old grabby-grabby naughty fingers routine ... ten bucks says Mr. Glad Hands there goes for the rings barehanded.".
I'm thinking, "Why did we not go over this sooner?!!!" This was definitely dress rehearsal material! This should have come up.
I guess I should have asked. "Is there any reason, in advance, that you can think of, where you might have to strike me, in any way, during tomorrow's ceremony? I'd really like to steer clear of being slapped, if at all possible.". I guess I never thought I'd have to worry about being slapped on my hand during the happiest day of my best friend's life.)
Needless to say, Les's heck-giving wasn't as timeless as that.
Overall, Les was a great guy, and would play a major role later on. More on that later.
Join me next time when I tell you more about the parade of characters from Global Regina. Some of them were right out of a sitcom, I swear.
Spring is a time for new growth, and 'round here is no exception.
Adam spent a day "job shadowing" in the Kindergarten classroom for his Fall debut; Brenna had her 1st multi-district track meet, and finished a fabulous 7th in high jump; and baseball has been very, very good to Mr. Braiden! (Last Friday night, he went 1 for 1 with 2 walks, 2 RBIs, and 3 runs scored - this is first season that he's ever played the sport!!!)
Kristin and her best friend/step-sister will be off on a free Mediterranean cruise, while my Mom and I are taking a bus trip to Seattle to catch a 3 game series with the Jays at the end of June!
Things have been going excellent. (In the words of Borat - very niiiice!!!)
I got a fevered and passionate request to detail my time in television news -during what can only be described as "The Regina Years". (Okay, so it wasn't really all that passionate of a request, and "The Regina Years" was more like "The Regina 16 and-a-half-months"; but what's a little hyperbole?)
We moved back to Regina in 2004 to be closer to family.
Leaving North Carolina was tough. It's a great place and things were rocking personally and professionally. Good friends, good job ... and especially good eats! If you ever get a chance to binge on Lexington Barbecue and hush puppies, it's well worth the bloat! Once, while on the South Beach diet, I ate an entire pound of the BBQ'd pork!)
Professionally speaking, moving back to Regina was also tough. I had to start all over again. My first job back was at CTV. I knew I was in for an ego-blasting when the HR lady interviewing me was worried that I didn't have any studio camera experience!
Despite her concerns, I still managed to get the job ... as a part time studio camera operator. Here I was, with a college degree, 5 years big market experience, and a couple of awards under my belt, and I was setting up the weather camera at 11:15 at night.
On paper, I was probably the most over-qualified part time studio camera operator in the history of part time studio camera operators. Here's the irony: I absolutely sucked at studio camera! (Ask Kevin McKay about the time I set up the sports studio cameras backwards ... and had to change them around live on the air!) I felt like Donald Trump, suddenly being stuck doing his own taxes, and not knowing what the hell a 1040 was! (Imagine the Donald saying, "Am I 'Married 1' or what?".)
However, I grinned and bared it. I was lucky to also get on at Global Regina part-time also. This was a little more news and a lot less studio camera. "Thank God!!", said fans of quality studio camera work.
Eventually, a full time news photographer job came open at Global and I quit CTV. The folks at CTV were really nice and I really appreciated that humbling experience because I was ready to start kickin' @ss again! Come on, I've met Regis for fricksakes!!! Chew on that, Ikegami studio camera!
For those who've never shot a professional TV camera, it's a lot like operating a car. At first glance, all cars seem the same. A steering wheel is a steering wheel, whether it's in a Porsche or a Dodge Dart, right? But when used at high speeds or under dangerous conditions, that's when you find out the difference, and sometimes --- you also find the ditch.
Well, video cameras are the same. Every one has a lens and a record button. But every individual camera acts differently. The ergonomics, the color balance, the sound, the iris and the focus ring are never the quite the same.
So when you transition to a camera you've never used before, you suck initially. (This experience is similar to getting into the Wood family car after Kristin's driven: the seat's pulled so far up I nearly impale myself with the steering wheel. One these times the seat back is going to break and I'm going need the Jaws of Life.)
The cameras at Global Regina were DVCPro: the Laser Disc of professional digital video cameras.
(For those who don't remember Laser Discs, they were basically DVDs that were the same size as record albums. You could only watch half of the movie before you had to switch it over to continue on the 2nd side. My brother convinced my Dad to buy a Laser Disc player. It still sits in my Mom's basement today, along with 2001: A Space Odyssey, Maverick, and Diggstown.)
With the DVC Pro cameras, you ended up with all sorts of interesting colors. If you ever wondered what a person would look like through poop-colored glasses, these cameras made your dreams come true.
The problem is, video cameras are expensive. And to get good ones costs upwards of 50 grand. And good ones break just as easily. 50 large is a lot to pay to drop one in the Gulf of Mexico. (Ask the guy from WFTX in Florida how it felt to drop two in one shoot. One was Fox's; the other was borrowed from CNN.)
Thankfully, the people at Global Regina were much better than the cameras: although they each had their own entertaining quirks.
The first person I met at Global was the assignment editor, Doug Tabak. Technically speaking, Doug was the first person I heard. I had called originally from North Carolina, and I immediately recognized Doug's voice from years in Regina radio.
Doug has that low key Ben Stein droll comedy thing. To call Doug laid back would be an understatement. Doug reading aloud the Canada Post and Doug on fire would likely sound the same.
Doug was also consistent in how he delivered his assignments. The less glamorous VOs and VOsots were given to you with the accompanying phrase, "go ahead and swing on by ...". I can't help but wondering if Doug's wedding vows included "go ahead and swing on by ...". Even typing this makes me smile.
The next person I remember was the news director, Les Staff. While the joke's been done to death, I still find it entertaining that a manager's name would be Les Staff. Sounds like bad comedy from an HR convention.
When you think of news directors, usually Ed Asner comes to mind: wrinked, frumpy, old, crusty dudes with rolled up sleeves and gruff exteriors that mask hearts of gold. (Insert CTV joke here.)
Not Les. He's the best dressed TV person I've ever met. He had an amazing collection of suits and shirts. Honestly, I was jealous. News photographers tend to dress in shorts and T-shirts, and look like roadies for rock bands. (Like one cameraman who met the Queen of England dressed like this. "Greetings, your Majesty. (Pause.) Yeah, I'm with band. You want a toot?" More on Liz and Philip later.)
Les was great to work with; he was always up for new ideas. He was a cool dude, too. And with the exception of one time, I never got into trouble with him.
The Canada Games Feel Good Incident. (No one else remembers it by this name, but it's my blog.
In TV news, your story is expected to make it into the newscast in a specific order. If it doesn't get there when it's supposed to be, it screws everything up. Some of your less humorous and more embarrassing TV mistakes come when the story's not ready, and they have to tap dance until you get it there. I've never been on a news desk, but I can't imagine the angst of being left to twist in the wind because fat boy news photographer didn't get his work done in time.
The phrase for it is called "floating". I think it's called "floating" because it's the TV equivalent of passing gas during church.
This was during the 2005 Canada Summer Games in Regina. I was working with reporter Ross Neitz, and we pieced together a really great story about some of the feel good aspects of the Games. I spent a lot of time on the sound and unfortunately, the story didn't get done on time.
The problem was, there were other stories running in the cast that night that weren't as "feel good" about the Canada Games as our piece. So, they had to run the more negative stories first and then push our piece to an entirely different segment. Basically, it made the newscast look like the "Canada Games sucks" newscast. Not good.
So that was bad enough. Next day, I made it worse.
I was late.
Everybody was in the morning meeting when I arrived. When I came in, Les yells, "You're late!" This was not good. Turns out he had read everyone the riot act already. Somebody else who was less later than me had already suffered the initial public rebuking! So I'm late, and I floated yesterday, so imagine how much deeper I'm going to be in the crap hole!
Naturally, Les proceeds to give me the verbal business in front of everybody! I'm mortified. What could I say?
(It reminded me of my friend Chris's wedding. He was married in the Catholic church. I was the best man. I really only had one responsibility: provide the rings. That's it.
Now I was raised Catholic too. But the thing is, I never once paid attention to the ring transfer-portion of a Catholic wedding. It's not like passing the baton in the 4X100 metre relay.
It comes time for my ring passing and the priest lifts the plate of rings towards me. And I try to grab them off the plate.
Wrong!
As I put my fingers on the rings, the priest slaps my hand! During the ceremony! In front of everybody!!!
He says, "pass them the plate!".
I hear laughter coming form Chris's entire family.
After the ceremony, the priest is talking like this is the funniest thing he's ever done. Eleven years later, I'm starting to wonder if he set me up. Like this was some priest comedy thing. I'm imaging him, pre-show, telling the alter boys, "Okay boys, today we're going for the old grabby-grabby naughty fingers routine ... ten bucks says Mr. Glad Hands there goes for the rings barehanded.".
I'm thinking, "Why did we not go over this sooner?!!!" This was definitely dress rehearsal material! This should have come up.
I guess I should have asked. "Is there any reason, in advance, that you can think of, where you might have to strike me, in any way, during tomorrow's ceremony? I'd really like to steer clear of being slapped, if at all possible.". I guess I never thought I'd have to worry about being slapped on my hand during the happiest day of my best friend's life.)
Needless to say, Les's heck-giving wasn't as timeless as that.
Overall, Les was a great guy, and would play a major role later on. More on that later.
Join me next time when I tell you more about the parade of characters from Global Regina. Some of them were right out of a sitcom, I swear.
Saturday, February 2, 2008
To all the stations I've loved before ...
The television stations where I worked - part one.
KXMC TV - Minot, North Dakota
I worked for a while on the weekends to help my wife. (She was what they call a one man band - shooting and reporting and editing.) This is where I fell in love with the business.
WBBH/WZVN - Fort Myers, Florida
Kristin got a job at the nearby Fox affilliate and we moved down to FLA in 1999. I ended up getting a job at the competiting station - technically, the competiting stations. Waterman Broadcasting had what's known as an LMA - a local management agreement. The two stations shared resources: equipment, staff, management, They did have seperate newscasts and seperate on-air personalities. As a photog, you had make sure that you had both station shirts with you, as you could never predict with whom you'd be shooting.
WFTX - Cape Coral, Florida
With Kristin already working there, it was only a matter of time before I jumped over. I wanted to be with my wife. Eventually, a position opened up and it also got me off weekends.
When I gave my two week notice at Waterman Broadcasting, they asked me to leave the building that day. I guess they were worried I'd give secrets to the enemy. It kind of made me feel like a criminal. What really sucked is that I ended up leaving behind my raw tape of an interview with Regis Philbin. (It took me a while to get past that.)
Fox 4 was where I learned to shoot and edit. There were lots of talented folks who gave me tips and hints, but who also let me run wild. Of particular influence was the great Mark Current, a great editor and a fellow lover of 70's music. Mark was the first guy who made me feel like I could actually do this business. It's been ages since I've heard from Mark - I'd love to track him down.
I've written before about the great times I had in SW Florida. It was one of those times when the stars align and everything works out perfect.
KXJB - Fargo, North Dakota
However, we missed family. Kristin wanted to get closer to home. We discovered a posting on-line and I sent a tape to Fargo, North Dakota. Both Kristin and I got jobs.
In 2001 we moved to Fargo's sister city of Moorhead, Minnesota. I got a job as the chief of photography at CBS 4.
It was like entering a time wrap. The facilities were old, the gear suspect, and the stories slow and featurey - dull compared the fast paced doom and disaster of SWFL. It took a while to get used to. I wasn't experienced enough to know what to do with the limited equipmemt. There was no frame-field setting that made my feature stories look like film. There was no digital format to smoothly slow mo. No mixing board to screw with the sound.
It was like learning all over again.
But I learned to work with what I had. And, after a while, I fell in love with the people the same way I had in Florida.
There were so many different cats in Fargo.
Bruce Asbury - the veteran, hippy dippy noon weather guy with the outrageous sense of humor. Bruce would often whip off his toupee like Rip Taylor. He even did it from time to time in his stories. His regular feature - a travelogue piece called "Trip on A Tankful", was about different people and places in The Red River Valley area.
During the long car rides covering these stories, Bruce and I yakked for hours about baseball and historical events. Bruce was older than I was - I often joked that he was so old he remembered walking out of the Primordial Mist - so he had a larger specturm of reference. I loved hearing about Frank Sinatra and Hank Greenberg and where he was Kennedy was shot. (Or was that when Lincoln was shot?)
Bruce reminded me of a less effeminate Paul Lynnde. He had catch-phrases like "Oh Man" and "Unbelievable".
Norm Bell - former football player and fellow photographer. A very nice man and the only African-American man I know who likes Steely Dan and Jellyfish. (This is because I don't know many African Americans.) He was very kind to my kids and he had a great sense of humor. He was often threatened with being on the receiving end of my hugs!
Wade Iverson - Wade is one of those guys that you swear you've met hundreds of time before. A sweet fellow who was always there was a cigarrette and a joke. Wade and I would get going doing different voices: most popular was one based a street-light repair man we saw often working in the nearby Target parking lot. We never named the Latin-voiced character who constantly bitched at his co-worker "Carlos".
Seth Oeltjebruns - Seth was a good kid with a great sense of humor. He really got into shooting and did a nice job. He too was great with my kids and a good friend.
There were so many good people in Fargo TV. But unfortunately, the marketplace doesn't always dicate things are going to stay good. In 2003, KXJB was taken into an LMA with the local NBC station. When the stations merged, I was going to lose my Chief's title to guy with a wealth of talent and a twenty years experience. (However, I likely wouldn't have lost my job as we were so woefully underpaid at KXJB that I probably was looking at a raise to be just a staff photog at the new company.)
However, Adam had been just born, and Kristin wasn't working. Soon enough, we'd be paying a fortunate in day care if Kristin ever wanted to work. So I decided to feel out the job market around the country. (Besides my teenage ego was rubbed the wrong way with the prospect of being demoted.)
I managed to stumble upon a job oppurtunity in Greensboro, North Carolina where I could basically double my income while working Monday to Friday 9-6! The cost of lving was cheap, the equipment was great, I'd have my own vehicle - albeit a Ford conversion Live truck with a micrwave dish on top - and I got to work with my single favorite human being in the news business ever.
But that's part two!
KXMC TV - Minot, North Dakota
I worked for a while on the weekends to help my wife. (She was what they call a one man band - shooting and reporting and editing.) This is where I fell in love with the business.
WBBH/WZVN - Fort Myers, Florida
Kristin got a job at the nearby Fox affilliate and we moved down to FLA in 1999. I ended up getting a job at the competiting station - technically, the competiting stations. Waterman Broadcasting had what's known as an LMA - a local management agreement. The two stations shared resources: equipment, staff, management, They did have seperate newscasts and seperate on-air personalities. As a photog, you had make sure that you had both station shirts with you, as you could never predict with whom you'd be shooting.
WFTX - Cape Coral, Florida
With Kristin already working there, it was only a matter of time before I jumped over. I wanted to be with my wife. Eventually, a position opened up and it also got me off weekends.
When I gave my two week notice at Waterman Broadcasting, they asked me to leave the building that day. I guess they were worried I'd give secrets to the enemy. It kind of made me feel like a criminal. What really sucked is that I ended up leaving behind my raw tape of an interview with Regis Philbin. (It took me a while to get past that.)
Fox 4 was where I learned to shoot and edit. There were lots of talented folks who gave me tips and hints, but who also let me run wild. Of particular influence was the great Mark Current, a great editor and a fellow lover of 70's music. Mark was the first guy who made me feel like I could actually do this business. It's been ages since I've heard from Mark - I'd love to track him down.
I've written before about the great times I had in SW Florida. It was one of those times when the stars align and everything works out perfect.
KXJB - Fargo, North Dakota
However, we missed family. Kristin wanted to get closer to home. We discovered a posting on-line and I sent a tape to Fargo, North Dakota. Both Kristin and I got jobs.
In 2001 we moved to Fargo's sister city of Moorhead, Minnesota. I got a job as the chief of photography at CBS 4.
It was like entering a time wrap. The facilities were old, the gear suspect, and the stories slow and featurey - dull compared the fast paced doom and disaster of SWFL. It took a while to get used to. I wasn't experienced enough to know what to do with the limited equipmemt. There was no frame-field setting that made my feature stories look like film. There was no digital format to smoothly slow mo. No mixing board to screw with the sound.
It was like learning all over again.
But I learned to work with what I had. And, after a while, I fell in love with the people the same way I had in Florida.
There were so many different cats in Fargo.
Bruce Asbury - the veteran, hippy dippy noon weather guy with the outrageous sense of humor. Bruce would often whip off his toupee like Rip Taylor. He even did it from time to time in his stories. His regular feature - a travelogue piece called "Trip on A Tankful", was about different people and places in The Red River Valley area.
During the long car rides covering these stories, Bruce and I yakked for hours about baseball and historical events. Bruce was older than I was - I often joked that he was so old he remembered walking out of the Primordial Mist - so he had a larger specturm of reference. I loved hearing about Frank Sinatra and Hank Greenberg and where he was Kennedy was shot. (Or was that when Lincoln was shot?)
Bruce reminded me of a less effeminate Paul Lynnde. He had catch-phrases like "Oh Man" and "Unbelievable".
Norm Bell - former football player and fellow photographer. A very nice man and the only African-American man I know who likes Steely Dan and Jellyfish. (This is because I don't know many African Americans.) He was very kind to my kids and he had a great sense of humor. He was often threatened with being on the receiving end of my hugs!
Wade Iverson - Wade is one of those guys that you swear you've met hundreds of time before. A sweet fellow who was always there was a cigarrette and a joke. Wade and I would get going doing different voices: most popular was one based a street-light repair man we saw often working in the nearby Target parking lot. We never named the Latin-voiced character who constantly bitched at his co-worker "Carlos".
Seth Oeltjebruns - Seth was a good kid with a great sense of humor. He really got into shooting and did a nice job. He too was great with my kids and a good friend.
There were so many good people in Fargo TV. But unfortunately, the marketplace doesn't always dicate things are going to stay good. In 2003, KXJB was taken into an LMA with the local NBC station. When the stations merged, I was going to lose my Chief's title to guy with a wealth of talent and a twenty years experience. (However, I likely wouldn't have lost my job as we were so woefully underpaid at KXJB that I probably was looking at a raise to be just a staff photog at the new company.)
However, Adam had been just born, and Kristin wasn't working. Soon enough, we'd be paying a fortunate in day care if Kristin ever wanted to work. So I decided to feel out the job market around the country. (Besides my teenage ego was rubbed the wrong way with the prospect of being demoted.)
I managed to stumble upon a job oppurtunity in Greensboro, North Carolina where I could basically double my income while working Monday to Friday 9-6! The cost of lving was cheap, the equipment was great, I'd have my own vehicle - albeit a Ford conversion Live truck with a micrwave dish on top - and I got to work with my single favorite human being in the news business ever.
But that's part two!
Ten albums I admit I bought ...
... and my rational attempts to explain why!!
Many times, I have reached into the barrell that is rock'n'roll, and pulled out a royal turd. These are ten of the most turdish.
-----------------------------------------------------------
10. Let's Get It Started - MC Hammer
Everybody bought Hammer Don't Hurt 'em: the summer of 1990, you couldn't go ten minutes worth out hearing "U Can't Touch This.".
It took a true dork to go searching for Hammer's back catalog. Yes, this is MC Hammer's debut album, purchased mid-stream in my rap phase that began with the Beastise Boys Paul's Boutique album and ended some time after finally wearing out House of Pain's "Jump Around".
I remember nothing about Let's Get It Started - only that I sold it to a used record shop in 1993.
I'm not sure how it lasted 3 years.
-----------------------------------------------------------
9. Gonna Make You Sweat - C & C Music Factory
I signed up for the Columbia Tape & Record club in 1991. Admid Bat out of Hell and No More Tears, I ordered this dance floor favorite, purchased so that I could match Jason Baker move for move on "Things that Make You Go Hmmm ..."
Yes, I rap danced. (Basically the "Running Man".) For those who went to Watts On Main in Moose Jaw in 1991, I could be seen on the dance floor with Baker and Toby Torkelson (his real name) competitively "danicng". (Along with whatever girl I could desperately enough convience to witness said debacle.)
I think this is why I didn't date much for two years.
In order to keep up on my "moves", I practised while working weekends at the YWCA. Hiding down in the basement, underneath the swimming pool, I developed my foot work to C.C. Peniston's "Finally".
-----------------------------------------------------------
8. Don't Be Cruel - Bobby Brown
This was no accident. Grade 11, I purchased this tape a second time weeks after breaking the first one in my questionable ghettoblaster.
Ironically, the first tape lasted about as long the girlfriend it was bought to impress.
After Dana Roney broke up with me, I got drunk for the first time. (Two hours later, I got sick from being drunk for the first time.)
Bobby Brown's ranting rap during the title track somewhat encapsulated my female frustrations: Hey yo' Kimmy - what's up with this attitude? I thought I was bein' real good to you. I treat you sweet, take you out at night- but you never say thanks girl, that ain't right! I bought you diamonds, even gave you pearls. I took you for a cruise all around the world. I treat you high post, but you play me close. If I want to drink up, you won't even toast!!
I guess I wanted to drink up ... and Dana Roney wouldn't even toast! (After "drinking up", "cleaning up" the reminents of the microwave pizza I had eaten was a whole 'nother story.)
-----------------------------------------------------------
7. The Dune Soundtrack - Toto
Sometimes ... you're still a kid. This was one of my first tapes, bought around the time I had Girls With Guns by Tommy Shaw and the full Duran Duran discography.
I thought Dune would be the next Star Wars. I remember acting out the Sting/Kyle MacLachlan knife-fight scene in my bedroom. "I will bend like a reed in the wind.".
Looking back now, I'm shocked at just frickin' creepy the movie was.
Particularily the fat, gay, boil-ridden Baron Harkonnen. The soundtrack's only highlight included the Baron's freaky dialogue: "The Duke ... will die before these eyes. And they'll know ... they'll know ..that it is I, Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, who encompasses his doom! Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!".
-----------------------------------------------------------
6. *Music for the People - Marky Mark & the Funky Bunch
"Vibrations good like Sunkist ... made wanna know who done this?!"
Nuff said.
-----------------------------------------------------------
5. Ceral Killer - Green Jelly
I had no excuse. I was an adult.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNYi6W3v0io
-----------------------------------------------------------
4. Pickin' on Nashville - The Kentucky Headhunters
Country? I have no bloody clue why I chose this particular album. The forsenic musicologist in me theorizes I must have thought they sounded like .38 Special. Or maybe it had something to do with a purchase at the time of the Allman Brothers greatest hits.
Oh yeah, and because I had recently bought my own pair of cowboy boots! I think a picked a pair that made me look like a hooker.
-----------------------------------------------------------
3. Anti-Christ Superstar - Marilyn Mason
"The Beautiful People" was catchy. Not catchy in a "Jessie's Girl" kind of way. More like a heavy metal Gary Glitter playing with the Vienna Boys Choir at the Nuremberg Rally. (Gary Glitter, the phrase "playing with", and the Vienna Boys Choir all together in one sentence?)
Over ten years later, I swear I hear the melody of George Thoroghgood's "One Burboun, One Scotch and One Beer" buried somewhere in the mix!
-----------------------------------------------------------
2. No More Games (The Remix Album) - New Kids on the Block
There's a phrase - I don't think it's biblical - that basically says Be careful of laying down with swine, because you don't know you'll pick up.
Not that I'm suggesting that she was pig-like in any way, but when I methaphorically (not sexually) laid down with Robin Kirkness, my Grade 12 & post-high school girlfriend - I picked up something far nastier than anything you could imagine: I started to tolerate the New Kids on the Block.
Secretly, I purchased the controversial No More Games after watching a concert film Robyn had. I kept it hidden in my tape collection like it was a stack of expesnive and shameful German pornography.
The remix versions of their hits added something I've never heard before, and their step-by-step program to love and courtship was particularily inspiring.
Step one: We can have lots of fun.
Step two: There so much we can do.
Step three: It's just you and me
Step four: I can give you more.
Step five: Don't you know the time has arrived.
-----------------------------------------------------------
1. C.M.B - Color Me Badd
Many times, I have reached into the barrell that is rock'n'roll, and pulled out a royal turd. These are ten of the most turdish.
-----------------------------------------------------------
10. Let's Get It Started - MC Hammer
Everybody bought Hammer Don't Hurt 'em: the summer of 1990, you couldn't go ten minutes worth out hearing "U Can't Touch This.".
It took a true dork to go searching for Hammer's back catalog. Yes, this is MC Hammer's debut album, purchased mid-stream in my rap phase that began with the Beastise Boys Paul's Boutique album and ended some time after finally wearing out House of Pain's "Jump Around".
I remember nothing about Let's Get It Started - only that I sold it to a used record shop in 1993.
I'm not sure how it lasted 3 years.
-----------------------------------------------------------
9. Gonna Make You Sweat - C & C Music Factory
I signed up for the Columbia Tape & Record club in 1991. Admid Bat out of Hell and No More Tears, I ordered this dance floor favorite, purchased so that I could match Jason Baker move for move on "Things that Make You Go Hmmm ..."
Yes, I rap danced. (Basically the "Running Man".) For those who went to Watts On Main in Moose Jaw in 1991, I could be seen on the dance floor with Baker and Toby Torkelson (his real name) competitively "danicng". (Along with whatever girl I could desperately enough convience to witness said debacle.)
I think this is why I didn't date much for two years.
In order to keep up on my "moves", I practised while working weekends at the YWCA. Hiding down in the basement, underneath the swimming pool, I developed my foot work to C.C. Peniston's "Finally".
-----------------------------------------------------------
8. Don't Be Cruel - Bobby Brown
This was no accident. Grade 11, I purchased this tape a second time weeks after breaking the first one in my questionable ghettoblaster.
Ironically, the first tape lasted about as long the girlfriend it was bought to impress.
After Dana Roney broke up with me, I got drunk for the first time. (Two hours later, I got sick from being drunk for the first time.)
Bobby Brown's ranting rap during the title track somewhat encapsulated my female frustrations: Hey yo' Kimmy - what's up with this attitude? I thought I was bein' real good to you. I treat you sweet, take you out at night- but you never say thanks girl, that ain't right! I bought you diamonds, even gave you pearls. I took you for a cruise all around the world. I treat you high post, but you play me close. If I want to drink up, you won't even toast!!
I guess I wanted to drink up ... and Dana Roney wouldn't even toast! (After "drinking up", "cleaning up" the reminents of the microwave pizza I had eaten was a whole 'nother story.)
-----------------------------------------------------------
7. The Dune Soundtrack - Toto
Sometimes ... you're still a kid. This was one of my first tapes, bought around the time I had Girls With Guns by Tommy Shaw and the full Duran Duran discography.
I thought Dune would be the next Star Wars. I remember acting out the Sting/Kyle MacLachlan knife-fight scene in my bedroom. "I will bend like a reed in the wind.".
Looking back now, I'm shocked at just frickin' creepy the movie was.
Particularily the fat, gay, boil-ridden Baron Harkonnen. The soundtrack's only highlight included the Baron's freaky dialogue: "The Duke ... will die before these eyes. And they'll know ... they'll know ..that it is I, Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, who encompasses his doom! Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!".
-----------------------------------------------------------
6. *Music for the People - Marky Mark & the Funky Bunch
"Vibrations good like Sunkist ... made wanna know who done this?!"
Nuff said.
-----------------------------------------------------------
5. Ceral Killer - Green Jelly
I had no excuse. I was an adult.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNYi6W3v0io
-----------------------------------------------------------
4. Pickin' on Nashville - The Kentucky Headhunters
Country? I have no bloody clue why I chose this particular album. The forsenic musicologist in me theorizes I must have thought they sounded like .38 Special. Or maybe it had something to do with a purchase at the time of the Allman Brothers greatest hits.
Oh yeah, and because I had recently bought my own pair of cowboy boots! I think a picked a pair that made me look like a hooker.
-----------------------------------------------------------
3. Anti-Christ Superstar - Marilyn Mason
"The Beautiful People" was catchy. Not catchy in a "Jessie's Girl" kind of way. More like a heavy metal Gary Glitter playing with the Vienna Boys Choir at the Nuremberg Rally. (Gary Glitter, the phrase "playing with", and the Vienna Boys Choir all together in one sentence?)
Over ten years later, I swear I hear the melody of George Thoroghgood's "One Burboun, One Scotch and One Beer" buried somewhere in the mix!
-----------------------------------------------------------
2. No More Games (The Remix Album) - New Kids on the Block
There's a phrase - I don't think it's biblical - that basically says Be careful of laying down with swine, because you don't know you'll pick up.
Not that I'm suggesting that she was pig-like in any way, but when I methaphorically (not sexually) laid down with Robin Kirkness, my Grade 12 & post-high school girlfriend - I picked up something far nastier than anything you could imagine: I started to tolerate the New Kids on the Block.
Secretly, I purchased the controversial No More Games after watching a concert film Robyn had. I kept it hidden in my tape collection like it was a stack of expesnive and shameful German pornography.
The remix versions of their hits added something I've never heard before, and their step-by-step program to love and courtship was particularily inspiring.
Step one: We can have lots of fun.
Step two: There so much we can do.
Step three: It's just you and me
Step four: I can give you more.
Step five: Don't you know the time has arrived.
-----------------------------------------------------------
1. C.M.B - Color Me Badd
"All 4 Love" was gay but catchy. "I Wanna Sex You Up" was just plain gay. So how was I got dead with this tape? Was I gay*?
(*Asterisk alert - my defintion of the word "gay" has nothing to do with sexual orientation. "Gay" to be means "lame". If you are homosexual, I will refer to you as a homosexual. However, if you are lame - you are gay!)
No, I bought this "gay" music to fit in with the guys. Not that they were homosexual guys. At least, I don't think they were homosexual. Not that I would have cared.
These guys were in my Business Admin classes. Jockular guys who considered music like Color Me Badd as "chick-getting-music". Kevin Calladine, Jason Watson, Jason Schiedner and a fellow who I can only know remember as "Goots" - were my friends for the first year and a half of business adminstration classes at SIAST Palliser campus in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan.
"Chick-getting" music was important - you went to the bars and you tried to get the girls to dance with you on the fast songs .
My skinny ass failed miserably.
I remember reaching my limit about the time that Nirvana started to hit its' peak. The rest of the guys thought Nirvana was "gay": literally homosexual music made by homosexual men made for other homsexual men. They wondered how you could get chicks with all that howling and ugly guitars. You couldn't dance to this, could you? That's what music was for!
I took a look at the cassettes on Kevin's wall - filled with artists like Dino, Expose, Alanis (three years before Jagged Little Pill), Snap, Paula Abdul and Technotronic - and decided we had different opnions on the sexual orientation of our music collections.
It was then that I decided I was only going to be happy if I was myself. No more rap dancing. No more Color Me Badd or Mr. Lee's "Get Busy". No more trying to be the failed ladies man that I was. Back came the Cheap Trick and the Kiss and the Alice Cooper and the comedy.
And soon enough, no more business administration.
I always look back on this time period as my mid-life mid-life crisis. The music I chose was just like the fifty year old man getting a hair piece and a fancy sports car. I was no dancer and certainly no stud.
I laugh when I hear these songs again. (I love YouTube!) They remind me of me back then - plastic, fake, and ridiculous - and funny as hell!
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
My Favorite Music
Favorite Songs
1. Surf's Up - The Beach Boys
2. Oh Candy - Cheap Trick
3. More Than A Feeling - Boston
4. Escape - Alice Cooper
5. I Was Made for Lovin' You - Kiss
6. Say It Isn't So - The Outfield
7. Just What I Needed - The Cars
8. (Just Like) Livin' In Paradise - David Lee Roth
9. Stacey's Mom - Fountains of Wayne
10. Another Nail for My Heart - Squeeze
11. Everyday I Write the Book - Elvis Costello
12. Hopes Go Astray - The Northern Pikes
13. The Ballad of El Goodo - Big Star
14. Reactionary Girl - Robin Zander
15. Heart & Soul - Huey Lewis and the News
16. Life On Mars? - David Bowie
17. Baba O'Reilly - The Who
18. New York Groove - Ace Frehley
19. Saturday Gigs - Mott the Hoople
20. Dear Prudence - The Beatles
21. Bat Out of Hell - Meat Loaf
22. On the Border - Eagles
23. Do Ya - The Move
24. So Lonely - The Police
25. Cruel To Be Kind - Nick Lowe
26. Hurricane - Bob Dylan
27. Come Sail Away - Styx
28. Brick - Ben Folds Five
29. Maggie May - Rod Stewart
30. Remember - Nilsson
31. The Soft Parade - The Doors
32. Armageddon - Prism
33. Pinch Me - Barenaked Ladies
34. 2-4-6-8 Motorway - Tom Robinson Band
35. Saturday Night - Bay City Rollers
36. Overnight Sensation - The Rasperberries
37. Love is Like Oxygen - Sweet
38. Your Imagination - Brian Wilson
39. Babe - Jack Green
40. Joining a Fan Club - Jellyfish
41. Rosalita (Come Out Tonight) - Bruce Springsteen
42. American Girl - Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers
43. Beach Baby - First Class
44. Girlfriend - Matthew Sweet
45. Don't Bring Me Down - E.L.O.
46. Hidin' From Love - Bryan Adams
47. Airport - The Motors
48. Peaches - The Presidents of the United States of America
49. Scenes from An Italian Restauraunt - Billy Joel
50. Live and Let Die - Paul McCartney & Wings
51. Pen Pals - Sloan
52. Carry on Wayward Son - Kanas
53. Levon - Elton John
54. Everytime I Think of You - The Babys
55. Hetrosexual Man - The Odds
56. New Mistake - Jellyfish
57. Heat of the Moment - Asia
58. Fell in Love - Moxy Fruvous
59. So You Are A Star - The Hudson Brothers
60. Bang A Gong - Power Station
61. I Believe in a Thing Called Love - The Darkness
62. Rusty Cage - Johnny Cash
63. Sail Away - Randy Newman
64. The Cowboy Song - Thin Lizzy
65. Don't Play Your Rock'n'Roll to Me - Smokie
66. Shootout on the Plantation - Leon Russell
67. Girls Talk - Dave Edmunds
68. Looking out for Number One - Bachman Turner Overdrive
69. We Gotta Get You a Woman - Todd Rundgren
70. My Sharona - The Knack
71. American Pie - Don McClean
72. Hold Back the Rain - Duran Duran
73. Xanadu - Jeff Lynne
74. Follow Me - Jason Falkner
75. Brain Damage/Eclipse - Pink Floyd
76. Shannon - Henry Gross
77. At The Hundredth Merdian - The Tragically Hip
78. She May Call You Up Tonight - The Left Banke
79. Rock Me Gently - Andy Kim
80. Johnny B. Rotten - The Monks
81. Underground - Men At Work
82. Sky High - Jigsaw
83. Is She Really Going Out With Him? - Joe Jackson
84. Tusk - Fleetwood Mac
85. It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock'n'Roll) - AC/DC
86. Helpless - Sugar
87. Na Na Na - Cozy Powell
88. Alone Again, Naturally - Gilbert O' Sullivan
89. If You Could Read My Mind - Gordon Lightfoot
90. Have Another Drink - The Kinks
91. Taxi - Harry Chapin
92. If You Leave Me Now - Chicago
93. Girls with Guns - Tommy Shaw
94. This Beat Goes On/Switchin' to Glide - The Kings
95. The Girl Most Likely - Greg Kihn
96. Raise A Little Hell - Trooper
97. Dance - Queen City Kids
98. Somewhere Only We Know - Keane
99. Hang On to Your Ego - Frank Black
100. Epic - Faith No More
Favorite Albums
1. Destroyer - Kiss
2. Heaven Tonight - Cheap Trick
3. Boston - Boston
4. From The Inside - Alice Cooper
5. Rockin' the Suburbs - Ben Folds
6. Author Unknown - Jason Falkner
7. #1 Record/Radio City - Big Star
8. Spilt Milk - Jellyfish
9. Gordon - Barenaked Ladies
10. Skyscraper - David Lee Roth
11. Pet Sounds - The Beach Boys
12. Bargainville - Moxy Fruvous
13. Nilsson Schmilsson - Nilsson
14. Snow in June - The Northern Pikes
15. Jailbreak - Thin Lizzy
16. The Wall - Pink Floyd
17. Volume 1 - The Traveling Wilburies
18. This Year's Model - Elvis Costello
19. Traffic and Weather- Fountains of Wayne
20. Into the Great Wide Open - Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers
Favourite Box Sets
1. Good Vibrations: Thirty Years of the Beach Boys - The Beach Boys
2. Sex, America and Cheap Trick - Cheap Trick
3. Playback - Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
4. Message In a Box Set - The Police
5. The Kiss Box Set - Kiss
6. The Life and Crimes of Alice Cooper - Alice Cooper
7. Thirty Years of Maximum R&B - The Who
8. Shine On - Pink Floyd
9. Flashback - The Electric Light Orchestra
10. The Byrds Box Set - The Byrds
Favorite Greatest Hits Collections
1. The Best of Sweet - Sweet
2. 1962-1966/1967-1970 - The Beatles
3. Greatest Hits - Mott the Hoople
4. Basher: The Best of Nick Lowe - Nick Lowe
5. Alice Cooper's Greatest Hits - Alice Cooper
6. Greatest Hits Volume I and II - Billy Joel
7. Greatest Hits - The Cars
8. Changesonebowie - David Bowie
9. Greatest Hits - Queen
10. Meaty, Beaty, Big and Bouncy - The Who
Sunday, January 6, 2008
The Superstar
Confession time: when I was 14, I used to take the cushions off our couch, and I would "professionally wrestle" them.
I did this while wearing a set of navy blue sweats with a pair of pink swimming trunks over top. (The pink trunks were originally white, but had been washed in the wrong temperature with colors.)
I was attempting to look like this guy:
I did this while wearing a set of navy blue sweats with a pair of pink swimming trunks over top. (The pink trunks were originally white, but had been washed in the wrong temperature with colors.)
I was attempting to look like this guy:
I think I ended up looking more like this guy:
Albeit, my bulge was more pronounced. ;)
-------------------------------------
So why did I do this?
Was I acting out my inner rage?
I was never a tough guy. Outside of the occasional fights with my brother & and the controversial Chris Eisler/"I'm going to cut your hair in the parking lot of the Circle K" showdown of late '87 (Don't ask!) ... I never fought.
I'm sure being 130 pounds had something to do with it.
Not that I didn't have my share of run-ins.
I drew the ire of Shane Lorencz in gym class one day for some rough fouls during in a basketball game.
(I hated getting pushed around in gym class. Once pushed around, I immediately resorted to poor sportsmanship. Even as an adult. Ask the guy from Business "D" who suffered the wrath of my obviously wide slide during a SIAST softball tournament. I went by him with slide that half resembled a chorus girl performing for Bob Fosse. )
I remember another guy in my 9th grade class who wanted to fight me. I don't remember his name off the top of my head, or why he wanted to fight ... but I do remember that I waited for him outside after class, and he walked right by me like he forgot about it.
I think he realized it was a lose-lose situation: if he won, nobody would care; if he lost, he'd have the infamy of losing to Mr. 130 Pounds on his head. I also remember that he was a huge Huey Lewis fan - and a "Hip to Be Square/Doing It All For My Baby"-era Huey Lewis fan at that; so his toughness may have been in question as well.
I did have the occasional bouts with bullies. In Grade 9, my brother's friend Kim Fransen, a senior, once whipped me with a Twizzler so hard, that it left licorice shaped welts on my arm for days.
Another Grade 9 incident involved a guy by the name of Ed Begonia. Ed used to arm punch me, or push my stuff on the floor. One day I got pissed and shoved back. Ed stopped after that, I think in part, because he wasn't so much of bully as he just seemed like a guy who wanted friends, and just had a weird way of showing it. (Makes me sad thinking about it. Or maybe he was just an *sshole.)
Honestly, I believe that I dressed in stylish ring attire and performed such diverse moves as the "Dive Bomber" and "The Slap Jack" because I identified with wrestling.
Not the fighting and the violence.
No, I identified with the performing.
It was never "real" to me. It was an art form.
Laugh if you want, but pro-wrestling is ballet and physical comedy on the fly. It's co-ordinated but rarely choreographed. Wrestlers plan "high spots" like the finish and big moments in advance, but they also ebb and flow as the match occurs. (Imagine Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers making up a dance as it went along.)
I never doubted it that it was entertainment, but I also never doubted that it was athletic and took a certain skill level that no other "legitimate sport" has.
Wrestling goes in trends. It's hot topic one minute, and the next, it's blamed for all of society's ills.
I grew up watching Chris Benoit. He wrestled on the first live card I ever saw in Regina, at the Exhibition Auditorium. I remember after the show getting Owen Hart's autograph. He and Chris Benoit seemed not much taller than I did, and they both looked worlds away from the WWF.
When all the stuff about Benoit started last year, it did make me take a moment to review whether this was something I should be supporting. (I did the same thing when Owen Hart died.) The drugs, the constant physical damage and the real life violence seems too much to take at times. It can be vulgar, silly and offensively xenophobic. (Hilariously, at one point, Canadians were the bad guys.)
However, here's my theory. Sports, entertainment, literature and arts in general are one of the only areas in life where you can really express yourself. Not all of us can play a violin or paint the Sistine Chapel, so for some their theories on life are better expressed in somebody else's 3 minute pop song or in the joy of watching athletic ambition fulfilled.
I know that a lot of this sounded hooey-phooey psycho-babble from a douche-bag who dressed up in swim trunks and tight sweats as a teenager and delivered "The Hot Shot" to a sofa cushion, but I learned a lot from the behind the scenes and inner workings of the professional wrestling business.
I learned about the value of finding your own niche. Not everybody is 6 foot 4 and 250 pounds. Not everybody has an IQ of 180. Not everybody has a full head of hair. But to find out who you are and what your passions are and how you can make something of yourself is a prototype I've seen in hundreds of people who are living their dreams.
I learned about the value of putting everything you have into your art. I heard the stories of wrestler Dynamite Kid, who performed the same way at a community center in Red Deer, Alberta in 1978 that he did in front of a world wide pay-per-view audience almost ten years later. I spent seven years shooting and editing and treating everyday like a performance whether it was in Minot or for the national news.
I learned that nobody else is going to do it for you.
I learned that the gift of entertainment is a fabulous thing.
I learned that there's comedy in everything.
I learned hink that failure happens to everybody, and that you have to make your own second chances. I've read biographies of wrestlers who reached the top of the mountain, only to get pushed off. They started all over again, and climbed to even higher heights than they ever dreamed. Been there ... going to do that in the future.
I also learned that life is a career, and it's something that you have to work on.
Well, I gotta go. I think I'm going to take on my wife for the Heavyweight title.
The Bro
1990. Skinny leather tie with zipper. Stylishly fluffy hair. Waif-ish good looks. Youth truly is wasted on the young.
The folks in this picture ... from left to right ... are Chris O'Donnell (not the actor), Fabian Cascante, Pat Amon and me.
Almost 18 years later, Chris and I still are best of friends. He lives in Alberta, and daily deserves strong emotional punishment for his poor choice. ;)
It's hard to condense 20 years of friendship into a handful of paragraphs. In someways, we were polar opposites: Chris - a trumpet playing basket-baller, with an undying love for cars, Iron Maiden, fishing and the code of friendship; me- a skinny, nonathletic, KISS-loving ladies man, with an intricate knowledge of baseball, pro-wrestling, 70's television shows, and glam rock. (I kid on the ladies man thing.)
We had differing philosophies on many things - Chris believed in quality over quantity, the necessity to stay out as late as you wanted, and he pioneered the concept of "Bro's before ho's" long before "Bro's before ho's" had it's name. (I don't know how to write this phrase without apostrophes. Otherwise it looks like this - Bros before Hos. Which makes it read like Bross before Hoss. Which brings to mind ...
Me, I loved a good value - especially when it applied to used records and books. I had to be home at 1:00, or my mother paced the floors and called people's parents. And while I believed in Bro's, I also liked the Ho's.
Not that we didn't have bonding topics - politics, the Saskatchewan Roughriders, Canadian entertainers, the work of the Traveling Wilburies.
We also shared a love of 70's culture and 80's heavy metal. Chris was the type of guy who understood where "Dyno-mite!" came from. (Remember that this was Canada and "Good Times" wasn't necessarily a big show.) We spent hours reviewing his record and tape collection, which contained the first time I'd ever seen the booklet that came with the Kiss Originals album. (A big frickin' deal for 16 year Kiss fan in 1988.)
Along with Fabian, we engaged the perpetual three way battle of who rocked harder - Kiss or Iron Maiden or AC/DC? (I attempted to enter Cheap Trick into this epic contest, but the combination of "The Flame" and later, a cancelled 1990 Regina concert because of poor sales, left them too open to ridicule.)
We also debated lots, pushing each other buttons on sensitive issues. I kept failing my driver's license road test. He rarely had a girlfriend. I could not bench press anything more than the bar. He had to shower before going out anywhere. I knew nothing about cars - he rarely had a girlfriend!
We each went thru phases and trends: I grew my hair out and became Mr. Alternative; he got a truck and started wearing cowboy boots. I went to Moose Jaw and took public administration while he moved to Lethbridge, Alberta and took criminal justice.
But we've always remained close, and it's because of the following: Chris is definition of loyalty and class. I've had my struggles and problems, and I can always count on Chris to be there. Chris is the kind of person who puts the proverbial bro before anything else. (And on at least occasion, he literally chose a Bro (me) before this bro's ex-Ho.(Janelle Audette - who probably wasn't a Ho - but that's beside the point. All this Ho stuff is going to get me in so much trouble with Mr. Wood.)
When I got married, Chris was there, tuxedo and all. (Despite his theory that buying a suit was so much better than just renting a tuxedo.) When my Dad died, Chris dropped everything and drove 9 hours to be there for me.
Opinionated, honest, funny, loyal ... necessary qualities for friendship and for being a good human being, in my opinion.
Twenty years later and still my friend.
P.S. - Kiss still rocks the hardest.
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