And on an Unrelated Topic...

I don't recall exactly which comedian it was and that's odd for me because I always remember things like that. Henny, Rodney, Alan King. Whomever it was, once said "I get up in the morning, open the newspaper. and turn to the obituaries. If I don't see my name, I go back to bed..."

When you get to a certain age (I will use the term 'certain age' here since a few of our readers are still relative youngsters; however, what I really mean is "when you get to be our age...") you start to wonder every day 'who's next?' I have started to say recently that life now is like living in a foxhole: you see your friends and comrades getting picked off on both sides of you and all you can do is duck, squirm this way, dodge that way, and hope that the next bullet doesn't have your name on it.

You cry a little, too...

But when your career included meeting famous or semi-famous people, you kind of get an emotional stab when one of them goes as well. You may have already noticed that in a few of these blogs, the musician or artist I was telling stories about ended up passing away since I met them.

Happened again this week when I heard that Rick Derringer had died. If you listened to the radio at all during the '60's and '70's, you probably remember "Rock and Roll Hoochie Koo" a Top 25 hit (yeah, only peaked at number 23) that Rick turned out in 1973. If you were a real music nerd like I ultimately became, you might also remember "Hang on Sloopy" from a one-hit wonder band called The McCoys. That was Derringer, too.

It was in Buffalo, probably in '78 or '79 when Rick Derringer came to town. Tell the truth, I really can't recall whether I even went to the show. I probably met him when he came to the radio station for an interview. The next thing I remember is being kinda drunk and standing in a glass-enclosed sound booth at a well-known restaurant on the city's west side; management had found out that a famous rock star was stopping by and the DJ graciously gave up his position so that Rick could take the time to spin some of his favorite records. Unfortunately, Rick was drunker than I was.

I need to stop here and tell you how much I miss hanging out in bars in Buffalo circa 1978 and '79. If you went when there was a drink special going on, you got like three seven-ounce beers for a buck (!) or a 'well' (non- top shelf) drink for a buck-and-a-half. The entertainment usually provided by the bar was a young, barely-compensated young guy, who would take requests and play your favorite rock tunes: Bruce, Seger, Aerosmith, Allman Brothers...then you'd sit back, notice whatever game was on the bar TV, drink your beer, and watch the cute girls near the door hopefully get as drunk as you were. This was two-or-three times a week ritual.

When I was working the 7-to-midnight shift at QFM, I'd get off the air at 12am, drive home, change my shirt, and hit a place called 'Merlin's' right across the street from my apartment. I'd claim a space at the bar, alone or with a friend, have a beer or a Jack, and slowly drift off into my comfort zone to the sounds of the best music...

In 1980, I got to Hartford. My shift was 6-10pm. Excited that I had 'two extra hours' at the back end, I went home, changed my shirt...and discovered that there was no such place here. Or in any town surrounding Hartford. I questioned another jock at the station one night:

"Any bars around here where you can go and have a beer, that maybe has a sound booth, and a guy spinning rock records all night?"

The guy considered my request, then shrugged. "No," he said. "But that's a good idea!"

He then suggested I try Toad's Place, a famous rock club in New Haven. New Haven, a 45-minute drive away. I shook my head in disbelief, ordered a pizza, went home, and tried to find something interesting to watch on TV on a Friday fall night.

This is how I became addicted to the show "Dallas". More on that later.

Anyway, back to me and Rick, kinda drunk, Rick playing his favorite tunes while I pulled the albums out of their sleeves for him, while we talked about the records and bands that we were playing.

After a while, I was starting to get drowsy, but Derringer showed no signs of slowing down. If it was Bruce or maybe Pete Townshend, I would have hung on. But Rick Derringer was kind of a "B" level artist at this point and I felt no great need to stick around. I said goodnight and left him to spin his tunes. I heard later that week that he had gotten so drunk he vomited in the sound booth. I laughed. Never saw him again.

Rick Derringer died this week at the age of 77. He never got any bigger than he was when "Rock and Roll Hoochie Koo" made it in 1973.

But he was a pretty cool booth jockey!

RIP, Rick.

**********************

HAPPY MOTHER'S/ FATHER'S DAY!

We are just about halfway between these two Hallmark Holidays (more or less,) and I want to take this time to wish the best to all of you that are parents, which I believe covers about 90% of our readership.

As many of you are aware, I don't have any children. Just one of those things that happens--I was too busy betting on sports, chasing girls, and trying to hang out with celebrities to spend time getting married and having kids. "I would never be able to take care of a kid," I'd say when anyone asked. "I can't even organize my socks!" All true, and by the time I finally got married it was a little too late, much to the great disappointment of my mom.

But as you are also no doubt aware, I do have cats. My family always had a dog (Augie the Doggie!) and through a misunderstanding between my little brother and his friend, we ended up with a cat as well. And then another...and a third. By the time Augie passed away, my family had three or four felines, including one that lived in the garage; so when I got my first apartment in Hartford, I took one of the kittens with me.

Named him Bogart, of course.

I have had cats ever since and have four now. (Not including the ones that I feed outside, a habit I picked up from my dad.) I work with a group in town that operates a program where we catch kittens humanely, get them fixed, then foster them until we find someone to adopt them. Two of my recent fosters have turned into adoptions, hence I now have four.

So here's my question to you parents of human kids : HOW THE HELL DO YOU HANDLE IT??

I had a cat when I moved back to Long Island. He had been diagnosed with diabetes, which necessitated me giving him an injection twice a day. When I moved, we had to change vets of course, and the new guy didn't seem to have the same knowledge of the disease. I brought the cat in when he was showing signs of diabetes relapse and within a week he was dead. And now, whenever I hear or see something that reminds me of that cat, I get a stab in my abdomen and my eyes well up.

And that was 24 years ago!

Last week my 8-year-old had some type of fungus around his mouth and couldn't eat. I took him to the vet who figured he had suffered some type of abscess. They asked if I was willing to pay for anesthesia so they could work on his teeth and gums; as worried as I was, I naturally agreed. They knocked him out and went inside his mouth. It was nothing major and some antibiotics did the trick. He was fine.

But believe it or not, my eldest had the same problem, only much more severe, about a week later. Additionally, she was also wheezing and had some type of red grunge around her eye. I took her to the overnight clinic (called VEG in Jersey if you ever need one.) They did a great job patching her up before I could get her to her vet the next day. There, they suggested a visit to a full-fledged animal hospital. I had been there once before and knew it would be expensive. Didn't care.

And this place is like a REAL hospital: triage, stretchers, waiting rooms. I'll always remember walking into the place with my cat carrier that day, worried that something was really wrong. In 13 years, Consuelo hadn't really been sick a day in her life. As I got to the entrance, I was behind a guy around my age, carrying a terrier-type dog on a leash in his arms and as he was about to walk in, he kissed the dog on the head. I knew immediately how he felt--he was as worried as I was.

But one great doctor, more antibiotics, a life-long supply of thyroid medication, and a bill that would cover my mortgage for the next two months all seemed to work--- she's back to her old poised and mature self.

So again I ask: how do you do it?? I spent a rough day when Mikey went under anesthesia and two more rough nights when Consuelo was hospitalized. Listen, I get it: they're cats. But how do you guys get through it when your actual kids are sick, or hospitalized...or worse? How do you let them out of the house when they're young without staring out the window all day, waiting and hoping that they return safely?

Sometimes I even extrapolate situations that have nothing to do with cats. Whenever there's another unspeakable school massacre, I try to picture a parent finding out that their child was a victim. Then I feel like crying when I try to imagine how those parents can even stay in their homes another minute, with all the little things around that remind them of their lost child.

And then I return to my own reality and wonder how I could stay in my house if anything happened to any of my felines, what with all the toys, scratch pads, and cat treats lying around. And how could I not look at the 5,000 cat pictures I have on my phone?

So here's to all you parents, spending your lives worrying about your fragile children, no matter how many you have. You have my utmost respect and admiration. I don't think I could have done it.

I can hardly handle a visit to the cat hospital....

*************************************

THOSE AWFUL '80's

OK, now that I've successfully depressed everyone, let's piss a bunch of you off while I'm at it:

In discussing possible blog topics a few weeks ago, I mentioned that I would start to explore some different ideas (as I think I just did above!) One of the topics I threw out there was how much I believe that the 1980's was the most useless decade in history as far as popular culture is concerned.

Boy, did that get a reaction!

Look, this is obviously a subjective situation. And if you are somewhere in your early-to-mid '50's at the moment (meaning your formative years were in that embarrassing decade,) you are probably cursing me right now and looking up words in your thesaurus to use to defile me in the comments section.

There's a guy named Kyle Smith, who used to be a media columnist for the New York Post (he had moved on to political commentary, I believe, and is now the film critic at the World Street Journal.) About 15 years ago, Smith wrote an article that I absolutely loved where he expressed amazement that some of the film comedies of the '80's are actually considered classics by people who grew up in that decade.

"Risky Business." "Ferris Bueller's Day Off." "Stripes."

All amusing films to be sure, but fans of these movies believe them to be on a par with Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, the Marx Brothers, and the Farrelly Brothers.

Sorry, not close.

I'll never forget going on a date to see "Ghostbusters" (yes, the original,) and the two of us walking out halfway through to go play Galaxia in the theatre lobby. Not a major upgrade on the entertainment scale, but we truly didn't find the movie the least bit funny. Just simple slapstick, mixed with the right amount of bathroom/ sex humor and things crashing and blowing up. All provided by the late director Harold Ramis, considered by some to be a comedic genius, considered by others (like me) of being the least funny cast member of SCTV.

(I will partially walk that back: Ramis did direct "Groundhog Day" a film that was actually slightly intelligent.)

Either way, I can hardly think of three films of the 1980's that I still watch when they come on today. If there are any, they are 'period pieces', films that take place in a past time frame because I'm a history nerd--and Warren Beatty's "Reds" is the only one that comes to mind at the moment.

You will all no doubt send me titles of movies from the '80's that I'm forgetting. Have at it. I will be waiting to reply.

Television? Again, being totally subjective, I personally turned off my TV in the late '70's when Fred Silverman took over ABC and started turning out mass media pap like "Charlie's Angels" and "Three's Company." Were they good for a couple of thrills and laughs? Probably. Do they rate with "M*A*S*H", "Modern Family" or even "I Love Lucy"? I'll go to the mat on that as well.

So yes, I turned off my TV around 1976 and except for sports and movies, didn't turn it on again until around 1991. Except for "Dallas", of course.

Yes, all because of that one night in Hartford in 1980, when I got home and decided to find out what the whole 'Who Shot J.R.' uproar was about. I watched that episode, then waited for the reruns to catch me up (DVR? What?)

By 1981 I was addicted and would literally leave whatever bar I was at 15 minutes before the show started (usually 10pm, before it moved to 9,) to race home and watch the latest episode.  If I was too far away, I'd speed to the radio station and watch it on the little black-and-white in the newsroom. (I made sure to purchase a VHS player in 1983, so I could stop running out on my friends every Friday.)

I contend to this day, that Larry Hagman's portrayal of J.R. Ewing is the most series-integral performance in television history and that without his presence, the show would have been canceled after a couple of seasons. Only James Gandolfini's Tony Soprano comes close.

This theory was borne out when TNT revived "Dallas" in 2012. As soon as Hagman passed away, the show was indeed canceled.

(A side story: after J.R. was shot in the season-ending episode, Hagman held out for more money. The network balked and immediately started to search for a replacement. They decided they would say that J.R. was in a car accident coming home from the hospital and his face damaged so badly that when he finally woke up, he would look like--Robert Culp! Hagman called the network's bluff and continued his hold-out. He signed a mega-deal before the next season started. In doing research for this section, I discovered that Culp denied this story, claiming he would never leave his role on "The Greatest American Hero"--another '80's show I never watched!)

But aside from that blip on my '80's radar, I found nothing else worth watching. And PLEASE don't email me about "Golden Girls". It's on three different networks now, seven days a week and as funny as you may think it is, to me it's just another show where the actors all feel they need to SCREAM their lines in order to be funny. No thanks...

So now that you're ready to ditch this blog for good, let's get to a subject I was actually involved in: music in the '80's!

When I think about the 1980's in regard to music, you know what always comes to mind? Flock of Seagulls! How about Thomas Dolby? Men Without Hats? The '80's were just a potluck stew of British white guys playing Moog synthesizers and signing double-tracked and meaningless lyrics. One-hit wonders abounded. So here's a simple question I've often asked to help me defend my position: name me a successful band that started in the '80's....

U2? Formed in the 1970's.

Pretenders? First album: 1979.

You know who began in the '80's and enjoyed sustained success? Hair bands!

Twisted Sister, Poison, Metallica, Quiet Riot, Ratt. If you happen to be a fan of hair bands, then I take it all back. For that genre, it was a great decade.

Personally I'll pass.

The '60's were nothing but ground-breaking.

The '70's were so eclectic, we could enjoy Led Zeppelin, the Eagles and Earth, Wind & Fire on the same radio station.

The '90's, to me, were a refreshing reminder of the '60's but with harder guitars, gritty vocals and a cutting edge 'f-you' attitude. Give me Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots and Soul Asylum over ANY '80's band ANY time!

Even the 2000's had a string of female artists I totally enjoyed: Shania Twain, Ke$ha, Katy Perry, Amy Winehouse. I crank my speakers every time they're on.

The '80's: Dexys Midnight Runners anyone?

I will be awaiting your reactions with my hazmat suit on.

Talk Thursday.

IG

The old-timers are back and looking good!