|
|
||||
|
|
Read Previous Columns
(click)
|
Read "Gone and Also ... A Work in Progress" | Claude Hall
|
|
|
By Claude Hall I sat with Buddy Blake for perhaps an hour watching people come to look at the wall. Most, out of fear, stayed well away. Only a sporadic courageous soul would venture to touch it. We didn’t talk much after the coffee was gone. I offered to get him some more coffee from the student union, but he declined. An elderly couple stood, hand in hand, by the wall, looking fondly at each other. “If they’re going to commit suicide,” said Blake, “they should move around to the west side. That’s the direction it seems to be going.” “Is that what they doing?” “Probably.” “Shouldn’t we try to stop them?” “Not me,” Blake said. “Not my responsibility. Anyway, who’s to say they’re not doing the right thing? “Horrible thought,” I said after thinking about his statement for a moment. “Yeah. Wish I hadn’t thought of it.” My legs were cramped from squatting on my heels too long. But I rose, shook the kinks out, told Blake that I would see him later, and walked over to the ad min building. When I stopped and looked back, the elderly couple was still standing by the wall. The campus was deserted at this hour and had a peaceful feeling about it. The early morning sun laced between the branches of the trees, creating a ribbon effect on the new grass. The office, however, wasn’t quite so deserted. Edgar Hadland was in the outer office talking with Dr. Sansbury Wiggins. Both looked up as I entered the room. They seemed concerned at seeing me. Neither said hello. But I had decided that if they were going to play games, I could play, too. I walked up to Wiggins. "I need that news release back," I said. "What news release?" Hadland's face was slightly pale. Wiggins couldn't look directly at me. His eyes went here and there about the room. "The one about the capital fundraising campaign," I said. I almost added, "The same one Hadland here gave to a newspaper reporter in an attempt to make me look bad," but I didn't. I admit, however, that I received a slight feeling of pleasure out of the situation. It didn't help my headache much, but I felt good anyway. Wiggins glanced furtively at Hadland, who moved his head just slightly. "Forget it," Wiggins said. "We have decided not to do the capital fundraising campaign." "Could I at least have the news release back? For my files? I put a lot of work into that news release." "Mrs. Kellish misplaced it," said Wiggins after a long pause. "I don't know where it is." "If you find it, I'd like to see it," I said. "Of course," said Wiggins. Hadland said something that I couldn’t hear to Wiggins and then quickly walked in short little strides to the stairs and disappeared from view. Wiggins merely nodded, then turned and went quickly into his office and closed the door behind him. For a moment, I suppose I floundered. I didn't know quite what to do. I'd had my moment of sarcastic humor, but it hadn't been all that much fun and certainly not rewarding. And too quickly over. Finally, I went into my office and closed and locked the door. Wiggins had a key, but if he tried to come into the office unannounced I would at least have a little warning. I unlocked my attaché case and took out the bottle of gin I'd purchased yesterday and put it into my filing cabinet and locked the drawer. Then, nervous that maybe Hadland actually had a key to my filing cabinet, I took the bottle out and put it back into my attaché case and made sure the combination lock was working and no one could open it. The attaché case went under my desk out of view. I wondered what Hadland and Wiggins had been doing at the desk of Doris Jean Dawkins in the outer office. Had they been prowling through the drawers of her desk? And, if so, why? Unfortunately, I had work to do and had to dismiss those thoughts from my mind. Once a week, I do a four-page newsletter. The major feature of the newsletter is a list of the week's events on campus compiled from memos and notes sent to me during the previous few days. It's extremely boring to type and I dislike doing it. Normally, I have a couple of drinks before starting the list. But maybe it was too early in the morning for that sort of thing. Thus, it seemed like a very slow, tedious task this morning and it lasted forever. About 8 a.m., I went out and checked. Virginia Mae Kellish, administrative assistant to Wiggins, had the coffee brewing. There was already a line waiting. "Another three minutes," she said. "Need to talk with you," said Dr. Irey. "Me, next," said Hemp Geslin. "Dr. Lamb called," said Doris Jean Dawkins. "Wants you to call her first thing. She's in her office." "Phone calls can wait," said Irey. "This is important." He appeared to be nervous. "Okay," I told Irey. "Could I see you in private?" Irey said. I walked back into my office. He followed, closing the door behind him. Then he just stood there, fumbling over words. “Well?” “She hated the article!” There was absolute alarm – as well as an underlying nervous tone – in his voice. “Says she may withdraw the offer of the scholarship.” “You’re kidding!” “Absolutely not.” “But....” “I know. I know. I read it myself and there was nothing wrong with it. But I don’t know anything about writing. Maybe you put in too many adjectives or pronouns or something.” “Keep calm,” I said. “It wasn’t Shakespeare or Hemingway, but it was at the very least a good Irving Wallace. Make that John Grisham.” “What are we going to do?” “We? I’m just a writer. How should I know?” His eyes darted to the window behind me. When I turned to look, however, I saw no one in view. “Billy Joe!" Irey said, after again fumbling over a choice of words, “you’ve got to go see her. Offer to rewrite the article. Write it like she wants it.” I slumped down into my office chair behind my desk. “I can’t go out there right now, Irey. I’m working on the Weekly Campus News. It has to be ready by 10 or 11 a.m. and I’m only halfway done.” “Call her. Make an appointment. You’ve got to do this for me, Billy Joe.” I nodded. I wasn’t sure that I had to do anything at all. On the other hand, I sort of liked Euwell Caldwell. And maybe a trip to Fairview would provide a fresh breath of air later in the day. “To tell you the truth, Irey, if that article you took to her doesn’t please her, I’m not sure, quite frankly, that I can do the job.” “Sure you can! I’ve got faith in you.” “My problem,” I told him, “is that I may not have the kind of faith in myself that you need. I assure you that I did the best I could on that article.” He looked at me for a moment, evidently trying to read something in my eyes. “Call her, Billy Joe. Please.” “Okay, I will,” I said. “But right now, I need some coffee.” We both headed for the coffee pot. The line had disappeared. That was because the first pot of coffee had been consumed immediately and another pot was brewing. I shrugged and went back into my office and shut the door and locked it and took out the bottle of gin from my attaché case and downed a slug from the bottle. Then I scrounged in the desk drawer for some Juicy Fruit Gum to help cover up any sign of the gin on my breath. For a while, I felt a lot better. But the kick furnished by the gin soon wore off and I didn’t dare take another drink just yet. My headache came back with a vengeance. That’s when the phone rang. “I need to see you,” she said. She seemed very agitated. “Right now.” I was pleased to get the phone call from her. When I'd seen her with Dr. Wiggins yesterday, I'd assumed that it was all over between us...that she'd finally slept with him. “I can’t, Norma Sue. I’m on a deadline.” “Screw the deadline!” “I would if I could,” I said. “But....” I didn’t have time to elaborate. She hung up the phone. Hard. The ringing in my ears compounded my headache. But all I could think of at the moment was: There goes my Thursday. Then I realized today was probably Thursday. I was surprised when I glanced at my desk calendar; yesterday had been Thursday. Was that why she was mad? At the moment, however, I didn’t have time to worry about a pretty strawberry blonde. The newsletter had to be done. Perhaps fifteen or twenty minutes later, I finally went out to the coffee pot and there was a cup left. Armed with a cup of black coffee, I headed back to my office. “Can I see you for a moment, Doris?” She nodded and followed me into the office. Hadland stood on the small verandah of the Zollars building looking directly at my office window. I saluted him with my cup and sat down. He probably hadn't seen me, of course, because of the reflection. “Hadland and Wiggins may have been searching your desk this morning,” I told her. “Fat lot of good it did them,” she said. “Just thought I’d mention it to you.” “If I’d known they were up to doing something like that, I would have brought in a couple of my husband’s rattlesnakes and tucked them here and there. That would have been a rather nice little surprise, wouldn't it?” “Your husband’s rattlesnakes? Pets?” “No, silly. He was at the Okeane rattlesnake hunt last week. Everybody goes. Or at least an awful lot of people. He brought home a sidewinder that had been stuffed. It’s mounted on a varnished stand just like it was coiled to strike. Also got a big rattler.” “What in the devil is a sidewinder?” “Small rattlesnake. They’re called that because a lot of the time they don’t bother to rattle before they strike. A big rattler will warn you most of the time so you can get out of his way. One of those little sidewinders don’t care if you know they’re about to kill you or not.” “Whew!” She glanced at the doorway. “Lots of rattlesnakes around here,” she said. “So, I’ve noticed,” I said. “But, rattlesnakes or not, tornadoes, wall...I’ve got to finish the legendary and quite infamous Weekly Campus News which no one probably reads.” “Don’t fool yourself. Everyone on this campus reads it, including the students. If you didn’t come out with an issue, the university would flounder to a sudden halt. You’d see.” I mentioned to her that I would probably have to run out to Fairview to see the widow Euwell Caldwell at some point during the day. “Would you fetch me the copy of the article that I gave you?” She went and got the copy. I folded it up and tucked it into the inside pocket of my sports coat. “Keep an eye out for twisters,” she said. “The weather report on the radio this morning wasn’t all that happy.” “Thanks. I will.” I slipped her a five dollar bill and asked her to take a sandwich and some coffee over to Buddy Blake at noon. “Roast beef on rye would be okay. Put some cream in the coffee. Don’t let him pay for it. Tell him I put it on my expense account.” “You haven’t got an expense account, Billy Joe.” “Jesus! Does everyone on this campus know more about me than me?” “Probably.” "Well, tell him that anyway because PR people are supposed to have lavish expense accounts with which to cater to the media. It's like a tradition." She said she’d deliver the sandwich. After she left, I continued working on the newsletter for another hour or so. One of the major problems is that I had to type it perfectly, ready for copying on the Xerox machine in the outer office. If I’d had a Macintosh or even a Panasonic typewriter with memory, I could have knocked it out, run a spellcheck or double checked it for errors, and it would have been done. But Mrs. Virginia Mae Kellish had assured me a few months ago that Dr. Sansbury Wiggins would never hear of getting me a computer, that he was of the opinion public relations was a wasted effort anyway. What she meant, of course, was that I should be happy with my IBM Correcting Selectric. I stared at my typewriter. It was an antique and didn’t know it; typewriters were already ancient history. Public relations, on the other hand, regardless of the opinion of Dr. Sansbury Wiggins, was already a science and rapidly becoming even more so. I’d taken a course about public relations in college under a guy named Alan Scott, a pretty good professor. Public relations was, in those days, a fledgling field developed by Ivy Ledbetter Lee and further developed by Edward L. Bernays, the so-called fathers of public relations. Over the years, of course, I have rewritten thousands upon thousands of news releases, once called press releases. But a large portion of my skills in the area came from observing a supreme scientist of the field, Carl Terzian in Los Angeles. The man knew his business. And once I landed this job, I quickly read all of the books about public relations that I could find in the library in Los Angeles. My respect for the science had grown enormously, of course, after working at the university for a couple of months. Shortly after I started work here, I discovered that the local newspaper merely chunked all news releases that I did in the trash. Took a lot of talking football with the managing editor to solve that image problem. Now, as a rule, my news releases were printed verbatim. Which may be, or maybe not, good, depending on your point of view. Nobody’s perfect. The newsletter, finally, was finished. I took the four pages out to Doris Jean to copy, staple, and distribute. A copy would go into the mail boxes downstairs of the faculty and staff. Several copies would be placed in four outlet boxes around the campus, including a rack in the student union. About 11:15 a.m., I called up Euwell Caldwell. She was a bit cold over the phone, but agreed to see me. I said that I’m sure I could fix the article up to her satisfaction. I was aware that I was probably lying to her and, hopefully, lying to myself. Maybe I really could patch it up or something. Writing is a funny game. You normally just try to do your best. Sometimes you surprise even yourself and what you write is, if not great, at least damned good. Maybe she wanted a few more adjectives about her father. I hadn’t used many flowery phrases, figuring that the actions of the man spoke for themselves. He’d been, all things considered, one hell of a man. Even for a preacher. Tornadoes were dancing in the sky as I left town. I saw one before I was barely out of the city off to the right, twisting down out of a black cloud. It was about four or five miles north and heading vaguely to the northeast. I parked alongside the road and watched it for a few minutes. It seemed to be moving fairly slowly, a thing of majestic beauty. A bolt of lightning raced among other clouds not quite so dark. Little things, debris, whirled about the funnel of the tornado. I wondered if one of the little things might be Hadland. But, no, I couldn’t be that lucky. All of a sudden, just as if someone had pulled a switch, the funnel evaporated into small whisps of cloud and these, too, soon were gone and it was as if the tornado had never existed. I put the car into gear and pulled back on the highway heading west. Some of the farmers out this direction had spread fertilizer on their fields earlier in the day. The odor was rather obnoxious. A few minutes later, I saw another funnel cloud. It was much further in the distance and to the north. It never reached the ground, disintegrating as it spun down. It had looked to me like a toy top some kid had dropped, too fat to be a real twister. Someone told me that the deadly ones, as a rule, were those that coiled like a snake. They’d added that now and then, however, a tornado the size of a football field would roar across the earth with the noise of a giant freight train that had gone mad. You couldn’t run from those and you couldn’t dodge them, you could only try to get underground in some storm cellar and pray. Half an hour later, I pulled onto the side of a dirt road in front of a familiar sod dugout on the outskirts of Fairview, Oklahoma. She'd evidently been watching for me, because she came out of the front door, climbed up the steps into full view, and then walked toward my car. Today, she wore blue jeans, cowboy boots, and a western shirt. Her hair was done up in a silver bun behind her head. I got out and shook hands with her. Though she may have been waiting for me, I detected no sign of eagerness to see me. She glanced over my shoulder at the sky to the west. "There's a tornado alert for this area," she said, her voice cool, showing almost no concern about the danger of tornadoes. "I saw a couple of funnels on the way out. One of them was on the ground, but it fell apart even as I watched." "We get a lot of those out in this country," she said. "One afternoon I sat on the steps over there and counted maybe twelve to fifteen funnels forming, dissolving before they reached the ground. I was a little kid in those days. Come on inside," she said. We walked over to the sod house and down the steps. In the living room, she didn't hesitate, but walked directly to the old rolltop desk, picked up several sheets of typing paper, whirled and flung them at me. The sheets of paper fluttered through the air, scattering, falling to the floor. She evidently had intended to throw them in my face. None of the pages reached me. They were scattered all over the floor. "This was trash!" I didn't know how to answer the accusation. And I found it difficult to look her in the eyes. I tried. She stared me down. My head dropped. I looked at the floor, then knelt down and began slowly to pick up the sheets of paper. I stacked them neatly by shuffling the sheets against the surface of the desk. "Perhaps...if, well, if you told me what you wanted, maybe I could rewrite the article. I'm willing to give it a try." Some of the hard cold began to fade from her eyes as she stared at me. "I thought you were like him. Like my father." "I don't know about that, but I found myself respecting him. The senator was, if you'll excuse me, one hell of a man. I really believe that." "Your article made it sound as if you hated him." "No way," I said. And repeated it as firmly as I could, "No way." She grabbed the sheets of paper out of my hands and quickly thumbed through them. One of the sheets of paper, she held up in front of my face. "Admit it. You had to hate the man to write something like this." She pointed at the third paragraph on the sheet. I took the sheet of paper and looked at the paragraph. According to the sentence that led off the paragraph, the senator had been suspected of embezzling funds from his church. I looked up at her. I hoped I was wearing a sincere expression. "I didn't write this," I said. “I can prove it.” I reached inside my jacket pocket and took out the article I’d obtained from Doris Jean Dawkins. I handed the article to her. “This is a copy of the article that I wrote.” She took the article and scanned through it. “It’s the same article,” she said. “Impossible!” But when I looked at the article I’d just handed her, there was the same paragraph literally accusing her late father of embezzling funds from his own church. Now I realized what Wiggins and Hadland had been doing at Doris Jean's desk! I have written some pretty stupid things stone drunk; a lot of writers have suffered from the same delusion from time to time that what they’re writing after a few beers is great stuff. The rude awakening comes in the cold light of dawn. It’s usually crap. Unless, of course, you’re also drunk when you read it. Then, strangely enough, it often reads like it was pretty damned good writing. “I don’t know how this happened,” I told Euwell Caldwell, “but this is not my writing. I only wrote from the material that you gave me. His diary. I didn’t add anything, I didn’t make up anything.” She didn’t believe me. Her eyes flickered with suspicion. I dropped the sheets of paper of the rolltop desk and stood facing her, fairly dejected. Then an idea occurred to me “Just one moment,” I said. “I’ll be right back.” I was gone only long enough to reach my car, open the attaché case, and take out the copy of the article that I’d placed there shortly after making copies for Irey and Doris Jean. Nervous, I quickly glanced through the article. The offensive paragraph wasn’t there. I was relieved. Too many strange and virtually unexplainable things had been happening to me lately. For the next few minutes, Euwell Caldwell and I went over the two different versions, paragraph by paragraph. Seven of the paragraphs were different. “The typing is the same, though. Looks like your typewriter.” “Yes, but most IBM Correcting Selectrics look the same.” “The next question is: Why would anyone want to do something like this?” I just shook my head. “I don’t know.” “It’s a pretty good article with those seven different paragraphs,” she said. It took a few minutes, but I told her about the first version being taken from my desk sometime during Wednesday night. “This is actually the second version,” I said. “And the first version was better?” “I don’t know. Maybe a little. I worked pretty hard on it. Sort of got a kick out of writing it. At least, the first version was quite a bit longer. The second version was, well, more of a drudgery. Real work." "I wish I could see the first version." "I haven't the slightest idea of what happened to it. Someone stole it out of my desk. I made some copies of the second version, just in case one got lost or misplaced. Whoever made the changes also made the changes in all of the copies except the one I’d locked in my attaché case. Went to an awful lot of work.” “Someone is really out to get you, Billy Joe.” “Looks that way,” I said. (continued next week)
e-mail claude@claudehallonline.com |
Commentary
No question about it. Sometimes I write better than other times. I hope I write about Paul Ackerman well. But he deserves better than I can do. I know that. I only knew him a few years. Primarily my early years on Billboard magazine where he was music editor. He was my mentor. Others such as record producer Jerry Wexler knew him longer, loved him, had even named his son for Paul Ackerman. Sam Phillips, the head of Sun Records who found Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis and others, also new and loved Paul Ackerman. When Paul had a heart attack once in Nashville, Sam Phillips, Memphis, had his private plane fly in the best heart specialists of Europe to tend him. Those in music who knew him and didn’t love him at least held him in enormous respect. Men such as Johnny Marks who wrote “Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer.” “Publishing is where it’s at,” Paul Ackerman told me more than once. He loved music and he loved music publishers. He could quote Chaucer and he could quote Hank Williams. And could talk business with Wesley Rose because he’d known and respected the great talent of Fred Rose, Wesley’s father. I don’t know many of the stories of Paul Ackerman. I wish I did. He was something else. He had two careers at Billboard. Left once when the magazine no longer met his standards; came back at the request of Bill Littleford who wanted him to become the editor; said he would come back as music editor if they would put Lee Zhito in as editor. I think Billboard needed the prestige and integrity that Paul Ackerman would bring. Matter of fact, I think the entire music industry needed Paul Ackerman for just that reason. He made us all look better than we are. Lee Zhito was a stringer at the time in Los Angeles. Just before he was named editor-in-chief. I joined Billboard March 1964 shortly afterwards as they were trying to rebuild the staff. Trying to rebuild the magazine. It was Paul who suggested I move with Zhito to Los Angeles when publisher Hal Cook decided to headquarter the magazine there. To illustrate how important Paul was, Sam Phillips had a piano lifted outside the office building and through the window into Paul’s office just so “the killer” Jerry Lee Lewis could play piano for him. Can you imagine the time, the trouble, the expense? Paul was a quiet, humble person. Once, to a few of us, he mentioned about the girl who’d climbed into the tub with him when he was taking a bath. We never knew her name, never knew the rest of the story. His greatest passion was raising camellias. He built his own greenhouse out back of his frame house at Far Rockaway and raised this delicate flower. One year, he entered the competition in Madison Square Garden, it was said, took first prize, carted his flowers home and they never again escape that little greenhouse on Far Rockaway. During my years, he was invited to the hilltop estate of the late Ralph Peer, another camellia buff, and “stole” some clippings which were soon added to Paul’s collection. For those of you who don’t know, Ralph Peer was a god among music publishers, as was his wife, Monique. Peer Southern housed such copyrights as “Tico, Tico, Tic.” Paul loved all kinds of music, including blues and rock ‘n’ roll and country music, which he said depicted “sex, sin, and salvation.” He loved Nashville and most of its citizens – those in music – loved him. But in those days of the 60s, if you wanted to eat well in Nashville, you brought a bag lunch. We were dining at some banquet and Paul remarked about the food. Unfortunately, a lady nearby overheard us and commented, “Why, Paul, you don’t like the food here in Nashville?” and I thought for a moment that Paul, the most humble of souls, was going to crawl under the table. After a place called Mario’s opened, you at least had a place to go if not to eat and once Paul and I were doing a story with Audrey Williams, the first widow of the late Hank Williams. On several of these stories for The World of Country Music, an annual special magazine published by Billboard, Paul would ask most of the questions and I would take notes and write the stories. I was prolific as hell. I would also take photos. Audrey said I couldn’t take a picture. “I’m a blonde,” she said. And she was wearing a black wig. Or maybe her hair was black and she wore a blonde wig in public. We got through the story. Those specials were quite popular. I remember Don Pierce, head of Starday Records, once asking, “Well, Paul, how many pages of ads do you want?” Sonny James maybe didn’t like Don a whole bunch, but we at Billboard had no problems with him. A favorite story of Paul’s was when he introduced Seymour Steinbeagle, then on the Billboard staff, to Don Pierce and Seymour recited his entire catalog, impressing the hell out of both Don and Paul. Seymour later changed his name a dab and is still in the music business last I heard. Billboard one year held a music industry conference on the island of Mallorca. After I covered the sessions that were assigned to me for news, Barbara and I would take off in a rented Seat (Spanish version of the Fiat) and tool around the island. One day, I asked Paul if he wanted to come and Radcliffe Joe, another Billboard staffer, was hanging out and so we took him, too. We climbed and climbed a switchback to get over a mountain and came down into the city of Soller…then meandered over to Port Soller. Paul just had a ball on that trip! Beer at a small outdoor restaurant overlooking the bay. Cost 12 cents a bottle. Goatmilk cheese and wonderful bread. The view, just magnificent! Going or coming, I don’t remember, we had a flat on that narrow switchback and Paul and Radcliffe Joe changed the small little tire while I guided traffic around us. Fridays back at the Billboard office was always fun and very hectic as me and Mike Gross and Aaron Sternfield and others would gather in Paul’s little cubical and argue for or defend our stories for page one. Once, Paul wanted a story on page one about Elvis adding a gospel group to his act. Not the hugest of stories. Paul had written the story, of course. “I promised,” he said. Well, that was enough. If Paul promised whomever page one, it was page one. Once I wrote a story about the trend of LPs from 12 cuts to 11 cuts. Somehow, the story disappeared before publication date. I suspect that Paul’s elbow had “accidentally” knocked it off his desk into the nearby wastebasket. Paul was at the famous radio disc jockey convention in Miami. Never heard him say much about it except that as he was leaving someone in the record business tried to pay his hotel bill and Paul wouldn’t let them. He never told me who it was. That’s just the way Paul was. He retired to raise camellias and died in 1977. Jerry Wexler did the eulogy. I think this is twice that I’ve written about Paul. I hope I get to write about him one more time before I die. JOHNSON MATTERS Sam Hale this past week sent me four CDs featuring Betty Johnson – primarily -- as well as the Johnson Family Singers. Good stuff, mostly gospel. Except for a nice little CD titled “Three Shades of Gray” featuring Betty Johnson, Elisabeth Gray and Lydia Gray, whom I suspect are her daughters. I went to the website on the CD, www.Betty-Johnson.com, but I haven’t found out much yet. You can order CDs there, though. This particular CD is nice, soft. Betty is a superb cabaret singer, though “Danny Boy” is a capela with just the ladies. She sings well and has a pretty voice. I wrote Sam Hale “why” and just received this back. Sam Hale: “I sent them because I've observed your eclectic range in music you enjoy AND, mainly, because of your recent writing about ‘Danny Boy’. Plus, I like to share that which I enjoy to others whom I think would also find pleasure in them. But, again, the main point is this BRAND NEW version of ‘Danny Boy’ recorded from the inner most being of Arthur's wife and their two daughters. It's REAL harmony. I think I mentioned, this collection, ‘Three Shades of Gray’ was to be Arthur's birthday present (his request); instead his funeral was on that day, December 21, 2010, as outlined in the liner notes. I SINCERELY hope you find some enjoyment.” And I did. Point: In “Hymns We Remember,” there’s a tune by Sabine Baring-Gould. During my college years, I went through everything I could find by Sabine Baring-Gould in that magnificent tower on the campus of The University of Texas. These included “The Tragedy of the Five Caesars,” “Werewolves,” etc. All with footnotes! If you haven’t read “Werewolves” by Sabine Baring-Gould and “War and Peace in the Global Village” by Marshall McLuhan, you just ain’t lived yet! And then, late Saturday, I’m conferring with George Wilson, a superb source of information regarding radio and music. He mentioned a hit record by Betty Johnson. “A wonderful human being. One of the nicest persons I ever met. You couldn’t say enough nice things about her.” POLITICAL MATTERS The more I see – and hear – this Liz Cheney on television, the more I think she resembles a real Nazi. Not a counterfeit Nazi like her dad, but a real blonde Himalayan brat with the mind of a can of toenail soup. I mean she’s one of the most vicious and depraved hombres I’ve noted since that first sergeant back in Germany who pretended to be an American soldier. While I’m at it, Sarah Palin is a comicbook (my apologies to those in the comic industry, including Bill Pearson). I like John McCain’s daughter (though I can’t recall her name at the moment); she seems like a lady with strong convictions and a head on her shoulders, i.e., bright, and dedicated to the common good. Slap her in the Senate to replace some of the horseapples currently there. That Bachmann lady? A real creep. Make that a crazy creep. But I pay attention when she’s on TV; I need the laughter. BASKETBALL MATTERS The Old Curmudgeon failed. I admit that. Only about 50 percent of his assumptions held up during the basketball season. Texas faltered, but yet may recover; they simply forgot out to fight; in Saturday’s game against Baylor, they were more fans than players. Duke did fine during the season; no complaints; fun to watch! Syracuse is really in the running; I thought as much as when I saw their first game. Big surprise was Maryland; in spite of Greivis Vasquez, whom I’ve watched since he was a freshman, I didn’t think they would have it; I was wrong and Johnny Holliday, who does play-by-play for a local Washington station, was right. Maryland is good. Michigan State? Good team. Same with Purdue. Kentucky? Not so good and nothing without Jon Wall who’ll probably go pro after this one season in college, thus hurting himself everywhere but in the pocketbook and, without question not doing much good for Kentucky. Kansas? Boring! Kansas State? Interesting. West Virginia, too. I was rooting somewhat for Texas Tech, but they let me down. So did Illinois. Love Villanova; it’s about time they showed up again for the game. Same with Wisconsin and Tennessee. Some of the others in listed top 25 polls are fadeaways just waiting to prove they don’t have what it takes. Yet, with the playoffs at hand, I’ve had a pretty good year as a fan. Saw some damned good games! And still have a few left. Some interesting players during the year? Andy Rautins, Syracuse; Jon Scheyer, Nolan Smith, and Kyle Singler, Duke; Avery Bradley and Jordan Hamilton, Texas; Greivis Vasquez, Maryland. They standout. Fun to watch.
e-mail claude@claudehallonline.com
|
|||
|
All
Content on this Web site 2003-2010 Claude Hall |
||||
