The Idea Board

I have a bulletin board behind my PC with lots of arbitrary stuff pinned to it. There are airline and hotel bookings for future trips, receipts for items I may need at tax time, and winning sports betting tickets scattered around them (the box I have underneath, containing my old losing tickets is much bigger!)

On the lower right-hand corner is a hand-written list of story ideas for this here blog. The distressing part is, most of the ideas are already checked off: stories of meeting Bruce Springsteen, Jason Alexander, Harvey Weinstein, Ted Nugent, Jay Leno; the time I scammed front-row tickets to that Eagles concert from a competing radio station; the three weeks I spent working in a plant that produced questionable meat products. You've read about them all. (And if you haven't, what are you waiting for? The entire library of Modern Day Zelig is accessible at the bottom of every column!)

Remaining on that list are three or four notes to remind me which stories I haven't gotten around to yet. The problem is they are not related to each other, hence, there is no theme to these varied ideas. Sooooo. I'm just gonna haphazardly throw them out there. Some might be interesting, some probably should have stayed on the bulletin board. Some are just me venting over things that tick me off. But it's Thursday and I need to fill a column--so let's start with the most recent example of me being totally irresponsible:

...and I was really irresponsible with this one. Last Friday night (yes, this is indeed a new story,) I went to walk the dog around 11pm. Let me give you a quick history of my life with Lolo: He's half-Yorkie, half-Chihuahua and was supposedly born in the Dominican in 2009. Our next-door neighbors had him and a cat but just decided one day that Grandma was allergic to animals, so they kicked the cat out in the street (something I will never forgive them for,) and were now looking for somewhere to bring the dog. Since my mother-in-law had taken a liking to him and had actually taken care of him whenever he came back from a vet visit with medications, she volunteered to take him in.

She spent time with him when she was gardening and walked him twice a day, to the point where everyone in the neighborhood knew 'Martha and Her Dog'. But as Martha's health began to deteriorate, I was recruited to walk Lolo more and more until she passed away in 2016. So now I had a dog.

You all know of my affection for cats. It's not that I dislike dogs...it's just that I feel that cats are more rewarding and MUCH easier to care for; I loved my dog, Augie, when I was growing up but hated walking him and have never really owned a dog since.

But now? Now I had a dog to walk two or three times a day. And not just walk--I mean walk: he would sometimes drag me twenty minutes away from the house, then realize he had no idea where he was. So I had to spend another twenty minutes taking him home. Yes, we were doing 40–50-minute walks. To make matters worse. Martha had brought the dog up dining, not on dog food, but on chicken. Regular, boiled chicken, cooked as if it were for human consumption. So, I now had to make chicken twice a week, just for the damn dog!

We can just safely say that Lolo was a tad high-maintenance.

And now, at almost sixteen years of age, I am told by the vet that Lolo is as strong as ever! He has lost most of his sight though, and he doesn't like going outside if it's too hot, too cold, raining, snowing, or showing any other sign of imperfect weather. Thus,

when I feel the time is right, and he's awake, I take the opportunity to get him outside.

So here we were last Friday night, Lolo on his leash. We stepped out to walk when the damn dog decided he didn't really want to move, just stand outside the door, sniffing the air. I unclipped his leash with a snap and ordered him back inside. He didn't react, preferring to just stand there like a mule, not budging an inch. I was running out of patience and had other things to do (okay, it was time for me to feed the 'outdoor' cats,) so I told Lolo to "stay here, I'll be right back". (I love the way we talk to our pets and think they'll obey us!) I closed the door, leaving him in the alley next to the house.

''Where will he go?" I thought. "He obviously doesn't want to move, he can't see very well, and I'll only be a minute..." Not a great idea to begin with, but I made it worse when my ADHD kicked in and I stopped on my way back through the garage to find something I'd been looking for. After checking through a couple of plastic bins, I finally located the item, closed the lid, and suddenly thought to myself "the dog!"

I hurried to the side door and opened it, expecting to find Lolo still standing there stubbornly, waiting to be let back in. Instead, I found an empty alleyway.

(Are you starting to think that maybe I create these absurd situations just so I'll have something to write about? Don't answer that...)

"Well, how far could he have gotten?" I asked myself. "He can hardly see and he walks really slowly..." I looked one way down the alley, then the other. No Lolo. I walked out into the street, then looked up the block, then down. Nothing. Now I started to get scared.

It wasn't just the fact that he had disappeared, it was the fact that I had been irresponsible enough to spend so much time in the garage while my sixteen-year-old sight-impaired dog was outside by himself.

My first thought was that he had wandered into a strange driveway and was trapped there, not sure which way was out. (It's not really funny, but at this point, he's like a Roomba: when he's confused, he walks into one wall, bounces off it, turns, bounces off the next wall, and so on until he finds his way out. Stop, I told you, it's not funny!) I checked all the surrounding driveways and found nothing. I whistled. I walked around the block to the north, came back to the house; I walked west, looked down the block both ways. No dog.

This total lack of clues within such a short time led me to believe that perhaps someone had found him and, seeing his collar, picked him up. But then what? I never put any information on the collar, so how would they know where to return him? And if they did pick him up, would they try and come back around and locate his owner? I did the only thing I thought would help: I pulled out a lawn chair, placed it in the driveway between the cars and sat there, looking up and down the street every once in a while, deciding I would sit here until Lolo, or whomever found him, came back.

Soon a neighbor across the street saw me and called over to ask where Lolo was, figuring he was the only reason I would be outside this time of night. When I explained what happened, she said she would take her two dogs for a walk and check around the neighborhood. Another neighbor started looking under cars and behind garage doors. I had gotten up and started walking down the street in a different direction when I heard one of them calling my name.

"Hey, they found him!"

I hurried back to the house, where the neighbors were in conference with four or five high-school aged kids. Apparently, they had found Lolo wandering in front of the school on the corner (the only direction I hadn't looked in, of course.) With no identification, they had no idea what to do with him; but by some outrageous stroke of luck, a police cruiser had been passing by.

"So we gave him to the cop," said one of the kids. He supplied me with a phone number they had been given for non-emergency police calls. I called it immediately and explained who I was. The dispatcher confirmed that Lolo was there.

I thanked everyone profusely. They had saved me from what could have turned out to be one of the most irresponsible things I can ever remember doing. (And at this point, I must admit that I still don't know any of my neighbors by name. AND I had no cash on me, so I couldn't even reward the kids. I offered them free memberships to my gym on the corner, but I still haven't seen them there. I need to make it up to them somehow...)

Anyway, I hurried to the police station, where I told them I was the guy with the dog and explained to one of the officers how he had gotten away.

"You sure you weren't just trying to get rid of him?" the cop asked.

I thought about the long walks he used to take, the chicken I have to cook, how stubborn he is when it's time to go outside. I shrugged. 'Maybe I was,' I thought introspectively.

I waited a few more minutes, then a door opened and another officer came out with Lolo under his arm. It was a welcome sight, but I had to admit I was a little disappointed.

I was kinda hoping to find him with a policeman's hat on, eating an ice cream cone...

Now THAT would have made a great picture to post! Instead, I just have one of him sleeping comfortably...

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The first name on my bulletin board list was added earlier in the week. It says 'Ozzy'.

As I've mentioned many times, I was never a fan of '80's music in general or '80's heavy metal in particular. To be totally honest, I can't think of one song by Ozzy Osbourne, or his original band Black Sabbath, that I even like.

But we've lost another classic rocker, as Ozzy passed away Tuesday at the age of 77. Considering his battles with substance abuse and his difficult early life, some say he made it farther than most thought he would.

Ozzy was another rock star I got to interview in the early '80's (see: "It's Time to Play to Tell the Truth" blog from October 3rd.) Contrary to popular opinion, and my own preconceived notions, he was personable, intelligent, and seemed an overall nice guy. I was happy to have met him.

One unresolved note about that blog: I had said at the time that Ozzy had bitten the head off a dove but was quickly corrected by some of you, who reminded me it was actually a bat. But in researching Ozzy's death, I discovered that we were all correct----Ozzy did indeed bite the head off of a bat during a concert (whether the bat was dead or alive at the time is still under debate); however his bio also claims that at a meeting with CBS record executives, a drunken Ozzy bit the heads off not one, but two live doves! (On second thought, maybe I wasn't so happy to have met him...)

But no matter what you thought of him, Ozzy Osbourne was a unique individual--and the fact that he was able to create a second career as a reality TV star shows exactly how unique he really was.

RIP Ozzy.

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The next word on the bulletin board list is "Jeopardy".

I actually have a couple of stories concerning the iconic game show, as my mom trained me to watch it every day since I was in junior high school. Keep in mind however, that this was the 'Art Fleming' version of "Jeopardy", long before anyone outside of Canada had seen or heard of Alex Trebek. And in the days before computer-generated graphics of course, the whole look of the show was different: if you never saw the show during this period, try to catch a few minutes of it on YouTube.

First of all, when the show began, the opening round offered clue payouts ranging from $10-$50 (that's right--the easiest clues were worth just ten bucks!) The second-round rewards started at $20 and topped out at a hundred smackers. Hence, a winning player could walk away with as much as 500 dollars- -quite the payday!

Secondly, instead of the clues posted the way you see them now, when a contestant chose a category, the denomination they picked would slide up and the question (actually 'the answer', to be accurate,) would appear. The revealed clues were painted on a piece of blue pasteboard, in bright yellow paint. After the clue was read and answered, that piece of pasteboard was then pulled up and out of the slot. You could actually hear it being removed if you listened carefully.

The reason I know all this, of course, is because Mom took my brother and I to see a taping of the show at the NBC studios in Rockefeller Center. And after the show, since the clues can't be re-used, they piled all the squares of blue pasteboard at the bottom of the studio staircase and offered us all a chance to take a couple home with us...which we most excitedly did. My brother and I grabbed one each, but since they taped two shows per session, we went home with a total of four. And we were then able to actually see 'our' clues as they were revealed on TV when the show aired a few weeks later!

I'd love to tell you that I still have my two clues and be able to post a picture of them. But alas, after living in my bedroom closet for many years, they seem to have vanished into thin air, so I no longer have them. Instead, I have posted a photo of one of the clues from that time period. The pic is in black and white, so you'll have to take my word that it's bright yellow lettering on a blue background...

I'm assuming the correct question is: 'Who is Queen Isabella?"

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Our obsession with "Jeopardy" continued through the Trebek years, and sometime in the mid-'80's, my mom and I decided to try out for the show. Though we have significantly moved ahead on our timeline, we still have not reached the computer era in this story, so the only way to try out for the show was to do it in person.

The good thing was, you didn't necessarily have to go to LA to do it. The "Jeopardy" production crew would travel around the country to give people in other regions the chance to be on the show, and one of the places they held try-outs was at a casino in Atlantic City.

My mother and I absolutely no problem in trying out for the show while spending the day in AC at the same time!

It was taking place at one of the boardwalk hotels, this one partially owned by talk-show host and entrepreneur Merv Griffin (whose production company conveniently created and owned "Jeopardy", lock, stock and barrel!) We all lined up in front of one of the hotel's conference rooms and were then ushered inside, around thirty at a time, where we were given a list of about twenty questions. And these were not multiple choice, nor true-or-false queries. These were all fill-in-the-blanks.

And the questions? I don't remember any of them exactly after all this time, but most of them read something like: "He was the commanding officer for the 2nd British Army during the first wave of the Boer War..."

Or how about: "This was the first person Prospero spoke to in Act III of 'The Tempest'..."

Yes, I know I'm making these up on the fly but I swear, some were even tougher than these, to the point where I honestly didn't even comprehend the question! If I remember correctly, we were allotted around fifteen minutes; in that time, I think I had around five or six that I knew were right and another five or so that I took educated guesses on. I chose to leave the rest blank, rather than fill in funny answers like 'Bugs Bunny' or 'Millard Fillmore.'

I believe my mom said she averaged about the same.

Now the fun part: we were instructed to wait in the casino until they called the names of the contestants that had made the first cut. Convinced that we would not be included, we felt we had to at least hang around long enough to make sure we weren't called. But what made it difficult was that the loudspeakers used for the announcements were right above the slot machine area, which made it almost impossible to hear anything at all! And they made us wait for quite a while before they started announcing the names.

This of course, was a stroke of genius by the Merv Griffin production company: by making us nervously wait in the slot room, they figured a few of us would, you know, entertain ourselves by playing the one-armed bandits for a while...in a hotel that they owned!

Neat trick.

When the names were finally announced, as feared, my mother and I couldn't even tell whether or not we had been called. I think I went back up to the conference room to ask one of the reps whether they had a list of the successful contestants.

"Sorry," he said. "If you didn't hear your name announced, there's nothing we can do. You are free to take the test again tomorrow if you'd like..." Not sure I wanted to hang around and tackle any more questions about the Peloponnesian Wars, I politely declined and returned to the casino where I played blackjack until it was time to leave.

Since then, I have met four or five people who have been on the show. (One of them was actually a five-day champion.) Their stories about how they made it on, what the process was once they got to the studio, and what it was like being on that stage were all fascinating.

It has always been my contention that all three contestants on any given night probably know the correct answer to 80-90 percent of the questions, but that the trick to success is buzzing in before anybody else. (One of the reasons younger contestants usually do better than 'older' ones--faster reflexes!)

One successful contestant related to me the trick: he told me that contestants can't buzz in until the clue has been totally read (a change from the original show, when I believe you could ring in the moment it was revealed.) As soon as the clue has been announced, there's a bank of bulbs on the side of the stage that immediately light up, then blink off one at a time to denote the time you have to answer.

This contestant confided that the key is to buzz in as soon as the clue is completely read and just as the bank of bulbs lights up. He said this window is about a half-second, if not shorter---and that once a contestant gets into a rhythm of buzzing in during that minuscule window, they then tend to go on a tear and get a bunch of questions in a row correct----sort of like a hitter in baseball 'getting into a groove'....

OK, I guess you can tell by that monologue that I have always been fascinated by the whole "Jeopardy" process. Unfortunately, since I worked at ESPN/ ABC for thirty years, I was precluded from trying out again.

But you know what? I don't work for them anymore. And nowadays, one can try out on- line at any time. Man, wouldn't THAT make a for great Zelig moment?!

I'm gonna do it--I'll be right back...

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OK, I'm back! I just took the Jeopardy on-line test.

They were fill-in-the-blanks again, but since they gave you only 15 seconds to answer each one, I did NOT have to put my answers in the form of a question. Some of the questions were easy, some took some thought, and some were totally out of my depth.

Example: "The symphonies of Schumann and Berlioz typify this 19th century movement of emotion and individualism"...

Yeah, I left that one blank.

But this time I tried to keep score: I had 18 questions that I'm almost sure I got right. I left a total of six questions blank, either because I couldn't come up with the answer in time (I know I'll think of them in bed tonight and kick myself!) or because I couldn't even venture a guess.

Here's the frightening part: they said there would be fifty questions. But the website informed me that my test was complete after about thirty of them. I think this means I didn't pass...

Conclusion: I'm as stupid now as I was forty years ago.

But we knew that.

Talk Thursday.

IG