Month: October 2020

It’s a given that the Covid 19 Pandemic has turned this year’s Halloween fun upside down like a pack of bats in a cave.  So instead of bemoaning all that’s different now, I thought I’d take a nostalgic hayride down to the Halloweens I had as a kid.  Trick or Treat!

Looking back, yeah the free candy (which I’ll get to in a bit) was nice but landing sweet treats wasn’t that hard for me as a child.  I earned my candy money by mowing neighbor’s lawns and doing odd jobs. 

No, for me it was all about the costumes and dressing up as someone who wasn’t me.  Seeing my friends and neighbors do the same was equally fun.  Recalling my costume get-ups, I had a store bought Devil outfit and mask, then Spiderman, then a pretty genuine Cubs road uniform that wasn’t just a Halloween get-up. One year my mom fashioned a ‘Great Pumpkin’ outfit for me. But then in fourth grade I wanted to be Dracula.  Not a vampire, I wanted to be THE guy, the Count from Transylvania.

Two weeks before Halloween, my mother was in the hospital for back surgery so my father designed a Dracula cape and his mother, my grandma, sewed it together.  The cape was black velvet with red satin on the inside and a bent coat hanger positioned upside down and sewn inside provided the winged look behind my head.  It was beautiful and very authentic. Then all I needed was black slacks, a white shirt, fake fangs and my dad applying ghoulish make-up with the fake vampire blood dripping from my mouth.

I loved this costume so much I wore it for the next five Halloweens. In sixth grade, thanks to growth spurts, my mom had to lengthen the cape by adding more velvet and satin.  Still looked great.

TRICK OR TREAT On the day of our town’s annual candy hunt, I’d bolt out of school at 3:15, get home to jump into my costume, slap on the needed mask or make-up then meet up with pals to hit the door to door sweets solicits.  Up until my Dracula outfit years, me and my sister Marianne and several neighbors all went door to door together.  I don’t recall my parents ever going out with us. You rarely saw parents escorting their children.  Older brothers and sisters did the looking out as the streets and times were safer back then. My mom and dad were always busy at home handing out treats to the kids ringing our doorbell.

From age nine on, it was me and my friend from across the street, Pete Hassler pairing up in search of fun size Milky Ways and Snickers bars.  Pete opted for different costumes each year, one time he was dressed as a hippie woman which was funny and a little weird.  I think he also had some military get-ups.

Most of us gathered our treats in a pillow case which could hold loads of snacks with no worry about breakage or springing leaks.  From four in the afternoon until six we’d systematically hit the homes in the four or five blocks around our houses.  Next it was time for a quick dinner at home, usually some soup or chili and a sandwich plus the unloading of our first filled bag of diabetes infusing stash into large metal bowls my mom laid out.

After dinner, Pete and I would meet up again and work our way east to York road and close to Butterfield Park. Then around nine-thirty it was time to work our last snack grabs on the way back home.  Two cool things I recall from those days. One, I don’t remember any snow or pouring rains on Trick or Treat night.  Also, back then it was rare to come across a home with nobody home.  At least one adult would be at the door to admire kids’ get-ups and drop a popcorn ball, mini-box of raisins or an awful orange peanut shaped marshmallow into our pillowcases.   No matter what the treat, we always said “Thank You’ then would be on our way to the next set of steps and the next doorbell. 

At the close of the night we’d go home and empty out one more pillowcase stuffed with sweets.  The one safety rule we obeyed was to not eat any of our candy until mom and dad checked everything out for razor blades, needles, poisons and other items that never ever appeared.

Those full bowls of candy would last a few weeks with all family members snacking on the sweets I worked so hard to happily gather.  Those were grand times, not just because we were so young, they were great because of the innocence and the joy of homes happily surrendering some sweet eats for the kids in costumes. 

Happy Hallloween!

NEXT BLOG:  Hitting to all Fields.

“Ain’t it funny how a melody can bring back a memory, take you to another place in time, completely change your state of mind.”  (Clint Black)

In the past I wrote about how the Pointer Sisters’ cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “Fire” evoked great memories of a wild time I once had at a club in Ft. Lauderdale. So let’s turn on the ‘way-back machine’ for some more recollections.

The other day while at a store I heard a song on the p.a. that I nearly forgot about.  It was Vonda Shepard’s “Searchin’ My Soul” which you may remember as the theme song from the 90’s TV series “Ally Mc Beal.”  I never watched much of that show but thought that was a good tune.  At the show’s open you only heard a minute of it but the whole track is a fun one to check out.

Besides always liking the melody and lyrics of Ms. Shepard’s song, I have an extra positive neuro association with it.  It was New Year’s Eve 1998 and I was playing blackjack at Joliet’s Empress Casino.  Staying overnight at a nearby hotel and hoping to keep gambling for at least a few more hours I was already down one hundred and fifty dollars.  My funds were quickly being drained. 

The countdown to midnight happened and 1999 kicked in. Much of the casino broke into shouts of “Happy New Year!” with couples kissing and chugging down complimentary champagne and other drinks.  Me? I was alone that night and stayed perched in my chair at the blackjack table while fellow gamblers took a break to ring in the New Year.  It was just the dealer and me facing off for some lightning quick rounds of 21.

Just then, over the casino’s sound system, Vonda Shepard’s “Searchin’ My Soul” started blasting and I found my luck at the blackjack table started to turn.  That song runs four minutes and in that short span I not only got back to even, my chips totaled to being ahead by almost two hundred bucks!  That’s a three hundred and fifty dollar turnaround and I was thrilled.  With the speed that dealer was running the one to one game with me, she could’ve easily put out my lights, but “Searchin’ My Soul” brought me the luck this basic strategy player needed.  Whew!  Eventually the game slowed up as other players re-joined the table and I closed the night hours later winning just over one hundred dollars.

NO WONDER I LIKE THIS SONG, IT ONCE WAS THE SOUNDTRACK THAT SAVED ME FROM LOSING A CHUNK OF MONEY AT A CASINO.

ANOTHER MUSIC MEMORY FROM THAT TIME

1/1/99- Late the next morning, I woke up and headed to my hotel’s indoor pool to do an hour’s worth of laps before checking out.  A serious blizzard was forecast to start in a few hours and I wanted to be rested and ready at home. 

Heading north on I-55 I was channel surfing on the FM band and came across a song I never heard before, Sister Hazel’s “All for You.” Great track and lead singer Ken Block’s voice had me drawn in.  At the time I was working in country radio at US*99 and was missing out on some music heard on other stations. 

The chorus of “All for You” was quickly burned into my brain.  Later that afternoon when the blizzard arrived, I kept shoveling and moving piles of snow to the rhythm of Sister Hazel’s song.  To this day, whenever I hear that tune, it takes me back to the first day of 1999 and me moving mounds of snow.

STARTING 1999 WITH A TUNE I NEVER HEARD BEFORE WAS FINE BY ME, THANKS TO SISTER HAZEL.

NEXT BLOG– Trick of Treat memories from my youth.

Tony Lewis died this week at the way too young age of 61.   He was the lead singer of the English rock band The Outfield.  I never knew Tony’s name before his death but his vocals soared WAY high and were unmistakable. The band’s 1985 debut album “Play Deep” was a mainstay on my turntable.  At the time, a friend of a good friend of mine was promoting music for Columbia, the group’s record label and his enthusiasm for this disc was understood.   Side 1 was front loaded with great songs.  Let me run through those first four cuts because they’re worth talking about and hearing.

Cut 1. “Say It Isn’t So.”  This was the lead single but it barely made the top 40 on the pop charts. A total mystery to me because it’s the kind of track that grabs you and doesn’t let go. I do remember years later being at a couple of Bears-Buccaneers games in Tampa and at every kick-off the Bucs had, they’d play the  opening riff and the lyrics “You  got me all screwed up” over the P.A.

Cut 2. “Your Love”.  This was The Outfield’s most popular single and it got to number 6 on the U.S. music charts in 1986.  I could surely identify with the lyric, “You know I like my girls a little bit older.”

Cut 3. “I Don’t Need Her”.  This was a song I turned to when in a frustrated situation with members of the opposite sex. It made me feel better, even if for just a little while.

Cut 4.  “Every Time You Cry”. A damn good power ballad that had me from the opening chords and one I still enjoy hearing to this day.  Put it this way, I have an outline for a teen love story (title is under wraps because it’s damn good if I do say so myself) and for the longest time I’ve planned to feature this song in the script at a key moment. 

If Tony Lewis’ death at age 61 tells us anything, it’s that this life is a short one. And I’d better get off my can and write the whole script so I can put that Outfield song in it. 

NEXT BLOG- A couple more music memories to share.

Random curiosity time as we play a new round of “Have You Ever.”  Look over this list and see how many queries you can answer “Yes” to.

HAVE YOU EVER:

SUED SOMEONE?

STOLEN CABLE CHANNELS?

BEEN TREATED FOR A DOG BITE?

TURNED DOWN A MARRIAGE PROPOSAL?

BEEN TURNED DOWN PROPOSING TO SOMEONE?

CANCELLED AN ENGAGEMENT OR A PLANNED WEDDING?

WALKED OUT OF A MOVIE LONG BEFORE IT ENDED?

CAUGHT A BALL AT A BASEBALL GAME?

SCORED A GUITAR PICK OR OTHER STAGE SOUVENIER AT A CONCERT?

CHANGED A FLAT TIRE YOURSELF?

HAVE YOU EVER:

DRIVEN OR BEEN A PASSENGER ON A MOTORCYCLE?

JUMPED A CAR’S DEAD BATTERY?

HAD A NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCE?

THROWN UP ON SOMEONE? (AND NOT AS A BABY OR TODDLER)

CREATED A RECIPE THAT OTHERS ASKED FOR?

HAD AN IRS AUDIT?

CAUGHT A FISH?

BEEN THROWN IN FACEBOOK OR TWITTER JAIL?

HAD A LETTER TO THE EDITOR PUBLISHED IN A NEWSPAPER OR MAGAZINE?

LEARNED ABOUT A DEEP DARK FAMILY SECRET?

I can answer “YES” to 9 of these 20 items.  Which 9? Well, I HAVE jumped a car’s dead battery and I have caught a fish or two.

NEXT BLOG: A couple of songs that take me back,

It only took me two years but I FINALLY watched the Netflix hit movie “Bird Box” starring Sandra Bullock.  I really enjoyed this thriller with only one criticism. While Sandra experienced numerous harrowing physical challenges throughout the film, why was her face make-up so spot on and red carpet perfect at all times?  It’s damn near the end of the world and Sandra Bullock’s face looks camera ready for a visit to “The Today Show.”

But never mind that.  For those who haven’t seen “Bird Box, the film is about a mysterious wave in the air that if people open their eyes and see it, they immediately kill themselves, often taking other people with them.  The big warning is you need to avoid looking, even slightly glancing at this mysterious effect or the pandemic will end your life.  You shield your eyes by wearing a blindfold.  However, some people balk at wearing the blindfold.  They refuse to cover up, even if that means their death.

Hmm.  Covering up to protect oneself and others.  Where have I heard this lately? 

Yes, I found this to be maybe not irony but at least relatable circumstances to today’s back and forth on whether people should mask-up to protect themselves and others from the Coronavirus. 

There was more to “Bird Box”; lots of strange voices in the air, havoc and paranoid hatred between characters and senseless self-destruction.  At every turn of this story I kept relating matters to what we’re experiencing today with the pandemic.  When “Bird Box” ended I took a few deep breaths and wished better for our current situation with the Coronavirus.

OTHER SHOWS- During my weekend I caught some other good shows. The four part series “Challenger: The Final Flight” shares chilling stories from rocket tech people who tried to prevent the 1986 space shuttle disaster from happening.  This was another offering from Netflix.

One more from Netflix was “The Social Dilemma” which delved into the ‘Big Brother-like’ tracking social media does on all of us.  What made this 90 minute documentary so good is the experts sharing well-heeled cautions on screen were former high level tech people from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and other services.

Finally, HBO has a new special “Wildcard: The Downfall  of a Radio Loudmouth.” This story covers New York radio sports talk show host Craig Carton.  He has a wild story to share and you don’t have to be in radio to be entertained by Carton’s saga.

Next Blog- A new round of “Have You Ever.”

We all have them.  An ‘uncool’ song that gets to us, some offbeat movie that you can’t see enough, a snack that others may turn their nose up at and so on. I’m talking about guilty pleasures.   Those items or happenings we turn to for a laugh, smile or just to feel good. They may or may not make sense. Doesn’t matter. So here are some of my personal guilty pleasures.

POOP SCENES IN MOVIES– Call it juvenile, immature, call it dumb, but anytime in a movie when someone has to unload their bowels in a furious hurry, I crack up.  I’m talking about clips like Jeff Daniels in “Dumb & Dumber”, “American Pie’s” Finch being stuck in a poopy mudslide while in a girls bathroom or the infamous bad Mexican food puke and crap scene at the bridal shop in “Bridesmaids.”  Forgive me.

LOVING THE MONKEY BOY When watching the movie “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels”, if Steve Martin playing Ruprecht the Monkey Boy doesn’t crack you up, then we have nothing more to talk about.

OF COURSE YOU CAN GO TO THE BATHROOM RUPRECHT.

For another pleasure in the gross-out category, there’s my watching the TLC series “Dr. Pimple Popper.”  It makes no sense that I find normal bare feet disgustingly impossible to look at but can easily watch Dr. Sandra Lee squeeze gooey custard from her patients’ cysts, lipomas and other skin growths. 

EAR CANDY- Anytime I’m in a mood to hear some bubblegum music from the past, I turn to You Tube and Debbie Gibson’s hit “Only in my Dreams.”  That song is the quintessential 80’s pop song, there are none that come close to it.

DEBBIE GIBSON’S LATE 80’S DEBUT ALBUM WAS A TEXTBOOK EXAMPLE OF CONTEMPORARY POP MUSIC.

SAY YES TO JESS And when I’m looking for a pop song with some country twang, I turn to Jessica Simpson and “Come on Over.”  Former Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo once described his former lover Jessica as being “sexual napalm.”  I guess we’ll have to take his word for it.

JESSICA SIMPSON TURNS THE TABLES ON A BOOTY CALL WITH ‘COME ON OVER.”

ATKINS ANYONE? I’m a Rob Lowe fan. Although I’ve never tried the snack foods from the Atkins Diet people, I like seeing actor Rob Lowe doing TV pitch work for those treats.  Lowe is a great choice to rep Atkins peanut butter snacks and other meals.  Four years short of 60, the guy still looks youthful and keeps things light and easy when talking up the eats.  While many dismissed Rob Lowe as a lightweight ‘pretty boy’ I never did. I get the impression that Rob ‘got it’ and never took his reputation too seriously.  Also, he’s over 25 years sober, been married to the same woman (four years older than him) for almost 30 years and they’re raising what appears to be two normal and happy sons.  If you ever want to see the former “Parks and Recreation” star at his sinister best, check out the movie “Bad Influence.”  And you’ll find Rob Lowe at his creepiest best as the Liberace’s plastic surgeon in “Behind the Candleabra.”

If you want to see another star not take themselves so seriously, try the “Funny or Die” clip starring former “Baywatch” hottie Nicole Eggert.  I was never into “Baywatch” but she won me over with a return to her lifeguard gig. A couple of years ago Nicole jumped into the “Me Too” movement claiming actor Scott Baio had sex with her when she was underage, this in spite of previous statements she made about being of legal age when first having adult relations.  But let’s drop that and dig on the ‘Funny of Die’ bit.

NICOLE EGGERT RE-VISITED HER “BAYWATCH’ DAYS IN THIS FUNNY OR DIE CLIP.

There are plenty of movies I enjoy watching again and one of them is “Magic Mike” (yeah, yeah, the male stripper film). To me the night club/dance scenes are the dull ones but the story away from the club is worth seeing. I especially like how “Magic Mike” closes out with a yet to be acted upon romance that is about to start up.  (And don’t cry ‘spoiler alert’ on this one, you’ve had eight years to see the damn movie)

So those are some of my secret little enjoyments.  Silly and fun for me yes, and a little dumb. I humbly plead “Guilty!”

NEXT BLOG- Another round of ‘Have You Evers.’

On October 2^nd 2017, Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Tom Petty died from an accidental overdose of prescribed pain killers.  Much like the 2016 deaths of David Bowie, Glenn Frey and Prince, this passing was a major shock and it hurt millions of music fans really bad.  Very few knew of Bowie’s cancer, Frey’s intestinal afflictions or Prince’s drug issues.  Turns out Tom Petty was in overwhelming pain from a bad hip but despite doctors recommending surgery and delaying a 40^th anniversary concert tour he soldiered on. 

I saw Petty and his ace band the Heartbreakers in concert three times, one of those shows being when he toured with Bob Dylan.  The Gainesville Florida native’s final tour, a 40^th anniversary celebration (which was his most successful) finished just days before he died.  

Since the first time I heard the jangling Rickenbacker guitars of “Listen to Her Heart” (one of my ALL TIME favorite songs in any genre) on FM radio, I was always up for whatever new works Tom Petty produced.  He did it with simplicity but not monotony and decades later his music never sounds dated.   Then in 1979 his “Damn the Torpedoes” album brought songs like “Refugee”, “Don’t Do Me Like That”, “Here Comes My Girl” and the hard edged “Even the Losers.”  From then until his death, very few rockers (including Springsteen, Seger, Mellencamp and even Elton John) have been more consistent in writing, producing and releasing quality material.

Petty’s work reminds me of country music’s Alan Jackson.  Since the late 80’s A.J. quietly put together an impressive list of hit songs and albums that stand up to any of his contemporaries and the younger stars as well.  Jackson is not Garth Brooks or George Strait or Blake Shelton but he didn’t have to be or want to be.

Petty had themes in his lyrics.  They included the waiting and want for righteous love. There was also the aim to get OUT of bad relationships “Don’t Come Around Here No More” (which also brought us one of the wildest music videos of all time) and defiance in songs like “Change of Heart” and “Won’t Back Down.” Petty’s songs were written from the view of an outsider looking for an angle into satisfaction. Millions of fans can identify with that. 

Several years before his death, Tom Petty was interviewed by Anthony Mason for CBS Sunday Morning.  After watching that feature back then, I realized he was the coolest rock star of my time. There’s no question about it.  He was cool because he didn’t TRY to be cool.  No following musical trends of the day, fancy hairstyles, fashions, no onstage preening or funky attitude.  Mason noted that he had a reputation for being laid back and Petty disagreed saying he was determined and had a lot of energy, he just didn’t speak unless he had something to say.  Not courting the limelight, not being needy for it is something I count as a major factor’ in being cool. That and being steadfast and true to one’s own convictions.

For forty years he compiled his music, and collaborated with others like Stevie Nicks, a hero of his youth Roger McGuinn and of course the Traveling Wilburys made up of George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison and Jeff Lynne.  When the Willburys went to work as a group, Tom was in awe of all who he played with but held his own as a contributor.  One day rock legend Carl Perkins stopped by a studio and Petty was wide eyed telling others in hushed excitement, “Hey, it’s Carl bleeping’ Perkins!”

In the Martin Scorsese documentary “George Harrison Living in the Material World”, Tom Petty shared the best stories on George, the Wilburys and Roy Orbison’s death. One of the last on camera chats Petty had was in the “Echo in the Canyon” documentary as the 60’s California music scene was aptly paid tribute to.  It was in this film that I learned from Tom that a Rickenbacker guitar is pronounced with the ‘short A’ sound like “Backer”, not ‘Bocker.’  If anyone would know this, it would be him.

TOM PETTY OFFERS UP HIS GEORGE HARRISON UKULELE STORY.

Besides the music, there are other things I liked about Tom Petty, like the personal friendship and on camera fun he had with Garry Shandling on both the “It’s Garry Shandling’s Show” and the “Larry Sanders Show.”  On “Sanders,” seeing him get into a backstage skirmish with actor Greg Kinnear and Country star Clint Black was hilarious. 

GETTING SERIOUS AND FUNNY ON “THE LARRY SANDERS SHOW.”

There’s so much more I could write in appreciation of Tom Petty and I’m glad I had that admiration for him many years before he left us.  Often times it’s AFTER a star is gone that we say, “Ohh yeah, that guy!  Sure, I was a fan but I forgot about how much I liked his work.”

I’m going to close off this remembrance of Tom Petty with two things. A recording made with his band that shows an off the cuff approach to covering a country classic. And enjoy the talk they do after the song.

Then the link to the CBS Sunday Morning feature.  After listening and seeing these two, I bet you’ll agree that Tom Petty was the coolest rock star of our time.   

NEXT WEEK’S BLOG: Some of my admitted “Guilty Pleasures.”