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Phone Booths....by Bob Sanders

Phone booths are making something of a comeback if my stumbling analysis of Google responses the other day is correct.

My gleanings were the result of a game I guess most of us play on the computer.  It's the collective total of what happens when a random question of Googled or Binged or whatever and is called, at least in my parlance, "How About That?"  Being vague is part of the fun and stumping the all-knowing computer is, seemingly, impossible.  Better try to beat it at chess or, perhaps, a Japanese game.  As "Jeopardy" superstars learned the other day, the computer can't be beaten, in spite of identifying Toronto as a U.S. city.

My fact-seeking question was: "How are phone booths?"  Notice I didn't ask for something specific as in "How are things in Glocca Morra?" or "how deep is the ocean?"  Had I asked the latter, I would have learned the Pacific is 36,200 ft. at its deepest and that the Irving Berlin tune, written in 1932, contains only one line ("I'll tell you no lie.") of 15 that isn't a question.  Glocca Morra, a fictional town in Ireland created for "Finian's Rainbow," started out as Burton Lane's first line, "There's a glen in Glocca Morra," but got talked out of it to: "How are things..." by co-writer Y.A. Harburg because it was more personal.  But, then, you knew that.

My curiosity about the well-being of the once ubiquitous phone booth is of serious intent.  After all, if it weren't for the phone booth, Agent 86 of "Get Smart" wouldn't have an entrance to his workplace nor would Superman a place to change clothes.  Because of the cell phone's increasing popularity, the phone booth's diminishing numbers have given us a dodo bird warning while begging the question: are we ready to give up on the phone booth whose U.S. total numbers were lessened by half between 2000 and 2007 to below one million.  We're so casual about the matter that numbers for the past three years don't seem to exist although I didn't check in with Watson.

Providing hope is a charming story out of Westbury-sub-Mandip in Somerset, an English community (population 800) located near Bristol.  There is a single phone booth there that during recent years had fallen into disuse because of the cell phone,Twitter, Facebook and all the rest of the technical shit that is dramatically reducing face-to-face communications.  The booth had been reduced to but an average of one call per day.  What to do?

The bookish people of Westbury-sub-Mandip (let's call them Mandippers), lacking a mobile library due to poor economic conditions, put shelves in the booth and now the red beauty stands tall as a lending library where town folks line up to chat with each other and trade reading opportunities.

Phone booths in Russia offer an opportunity to artists.  In Petrozavedsk, for example, an artist has transformed small and boring open-to-the-public booths into sharks heads with wide-open mouths.  The Russian sense of humor has come into play with the Petrozavedsks now spending more time taking pictures of people being eaten by sharks than they ever did wrestling bears after consuming a proper amount of vodka.

Telekom Austria, the owner of 13,500 phone booths, is keeping them all, thank you very much, and last year converted 30 to electric vehicle charging stations.  A veritable rain in Spain of electric phone booths is happening in Madrid, Barcelona, and Seville while even China is getting into the act although the country didn't have many phone booths to begin with.  At last report, the country is considering turning them into Wi-fi hotspots although something may have been lost in translation with the use of the word "hotspot" since the reference might be to Sacha sauce, a blistering condiment used on hot dogs.  If so, Wi-fi hot dog stands are something of a stretch but the Chinese are unpredictable 

Leave it to the French for unique inspiration.  A few years ago, promoters of the Lyon Light Festival turned a phone booth into an aquarium bringing attention not only to light but, also, that old French expression: "Let there be fish."

And, in a world both digitized and Hans Brinker-ized, the Dutch, as we know, are innovative far beyond sticking fingers in dikes.  Aware of the importance cell phones often play in linking customers with denizens of Amsterdam's Red Light District while acknowledging the decline of the phone booth in such matters, Amsterdam's nicotine-prone Dutch now have converted some booths from phoning to smoking to help kill a little time.

As gawkers are aware, prostitutes in the District display their wares in store windows proving that it pays to advertise.  A rumor persists that one of the more aggressive District business partisans has suggested that all-glass "small exhibition" phone booths be tested on the outer edges of De Wallon, the largest neighborhood comprising the famed District.  Many theorists believe the converted phone booths are spot on representing the advertising equivalent of TV's 10-second spot.  Of more than passing interest is a companion rumor that the Sexmuseum on Damrak has a similar plan.

Phone booths and the number of people who can stuff themselves into one is a controversial subject in the Scottish communities of Edinburgh and Pennan.  The latter recently broke the Edinburgh mark of 14 but, hold on.  The Pennanites were all youngsters while the Edinburgh record included but two.  Can infants and dwarfs be far behind?  It's difficult to believe that a country responsible for golf and its myriad rules can't bring order to something simple like phone booth bloating?

August of last year brought a phone booth announcement by powerhouse Google, determined to make a success of its Voice Integration.  Going retro, the firm began sweeping the Nation's airports and colleges by installing dazzling red phone booths in which free calls can be made.  Powered by Internet connections, the calls are offering Google Chat competition to Skype.  I don't know how to pronounce the latter whose ownership could very well be that of Rupert Murdoch.  If true, I think I'll make it rhyme with hype rather than call it Sky-pee.  The latter sounds like something one might do at 30,000 feet.

The phone booth is definitely revered by Mennonite and Amish families in southern Maryland where a dozen eight-foot rusted metal chambers stand guard.  Called "community phones," the oil tanks-turned-phone booths link 1,600 plain people to the business world as they adapt to ever-changing times while observing their own prohibitions against home phone lines and cell phones.

Your humble reporter would be remiss without mentioning The Green Phone Booth whose cyber space writers work faster than a speeding bullet toward "a cooler, cleaner, healthier planet.'  This posse of Greenies is led by Alison, otherwise known as The Conscious Shopper.  With a wallet her principle weapon, she "challenges arch-nemesis Advertising and its sinister sidekick, Cheap Plastic Crap."  The women favor neither the phone book to change clothes nor the wearing of capes.

A venerable institution, if you're enraptured by dive bars, is The Phone Booth in San Francisco's Mission District.  Located at 25th & S. Van Ness, The Phone Booth specializes in drinks that are cheap and stiff although the draft beer selection is, according to some, lacking.  The bartenders get high marks for being funny and capable of handling unfortunate situations of rather common occurrence.

The writers of "Mad Men" might do well to catch up on what could be called a climax to this examination of phone booths.  It comes by way of a Google in which the story of a New York transvestite prostitute is told.  It seems the woman used to spend an inordinate amount of time in a bank of phone booths on the lower level of the Pix Theater located on 42nd St. between Sixth and Seventh Avenues.  It was there that she offered to practice fellatio in a booth.  Passers-by, even those on the stairway, thought nothing of the sight of a man's back seen through the booth's door window.  Further, observers could discern neither the practitioner of the sex act nor the smile on the man's face.

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Solving Problems....by Bob Sanders

Gary Quinn had known for some time that his TV set's life was being threatened by factors outside his living room on Oahu's North Shore.  The TV, a 42-inch Panasonic, had been purchased nearly four years earlier at a Honolulu Best Buy.  Gary is my wife's son by way of a marriage to a man whose lack of skill with hammer and saw earned him the nickname: "Mr. Nailbender."  I am more of the same and pity the poor wife of both.

Nearly  everything about the Quinn home is country Hawaiian, another way of saying it is non-Waikiki Beach.  There are no high-rises in Haleiwa, the village where Quinn and his wife Cyndie live, nor are there any smoking hot restaurant/bars like Duke's named not for the musician (Ellington)) but the surfer (Kahanamoku.  Duke's is the kind of place you can walk into directly from the beach (surfing is available, if the spirit moves), next order a mai-tai and a mahi-mahi sandwich at the hang friendly bar, then jump into a pool a few feet away.  About the most exciting thing in Haleiwa is Matsumoto's where shave ice is consumed largely by Baskin-Robbinized tourists who place pleasure in numbers.  Matsumoto's World Famous Shave Ice has even greater variety.

To be precise, the Quinn home, some 35 miles northeast of Waikiki, is located just southwest of the Banzai Pipeline, perhaps the Everest of professional surfing.  The Quinns are busy and committed people.  In addition to running an outstanding first floor b&b named Santa's-by-the-Sea, Gary is a film professional whose recent efforts include short features about church ministries in Malawi and Boracay Island in the Philippines.  Cyndie, a half-Filipino beauty, is a marriage and family therapist while both are deeply involved in their six-month old church, The Mission North Shore.

There is a lot of salt in the air when you are located less than 200 feet from the powerful surf.  Salt is to coastal communities what moss is to Bellingham, Washington where there are those who suggest The City of Subdued Excitement gets its nickname because its citizens have been smothered by the green stuff while an excess of sunless days have been depriving the community of sufficient Vitamin D.  The complaints, largely dismissed by Chamber of Commerce types, have acquired a burgeoning number of adherents who suggest we are of legendary lethargy while cases of severe sloth abound.

It was while nearing the end of our month-long stay with the Quinns that their TV was showing signs of oncoming failure.  Included were spasmodic inclinations to quit displaying programming and, worst of all, local commercials so inept that laughter is absolutely guaranteed.

Then, the set failed.  Completely.  Not even Gary Quinn's voodoo that he do so well (thank you, Cole Porter) could rectify the situation.  A Chicago Bulls game was coming up and we had nada.  Bowl games so plentiful that teams with as many losses as wins would soon be upon us and I was already feeling a sense of chortle deprivation without those TV spots highlighted by one featuring a woman's non-stop laughter achieved, as the copy writer explained, "all the way to the bank."

And now for a brief explanatory pause.  The only real difference between the afore-mentioned Mr. Nailbender and your humble transcriber is that I have never pretended to be anything other than a total nitwit when it comes to technical mysteries.  A pretty good slant on matters was once offered by my mother who lived with us in Friday Harbor, Washington  in the  mid-90s before her death three weeks short of 97.  Seeing me marching out of the house with a determined look and pliers in hand (I was about to do battle with something simple that had gone wrong with a lawn mower), she tossed questions at my all-too-aware wife: "Where is Robert going with those pliers?  Is he going to pull hair out of his nose?"

I'm sure my mechanical ineptitude is one of those left-brain, right-brain things but at 84 have long figured it's too late to do anything about the situation.

As Gary, the complete mechanic/computer whiz/photographer/carpenter/masonry master/plumber/painter genius and all-around good guy, continued checking out the back panel of the TV, I offered a thought: "How about using Cyndie's blow drier to dry out the water and all that salt that has to be harming the set?"

Gary blinked.  Never, in our nearly 23 years of friendship, had he ever experienced a reasonable observation from me about mechanical things that made any sense.  Again, he blinked, then left the room coming back with Cyndie's blow drier.  Off came at least 75 screws from the back panel and off came the panel.  Suddenly, Vidal Sassoon's QuietTraveler was demonstrating what it was created to do: dry things although I don't think Vidal had TV sets in mind.

Gary finished, then replaced the panel by way of his trusty Ryboy screw-driver and turned on the TV.  Voila!  Fixed was the glorious plasma presenter of pandemic palpable productions to pacify the palates of populations proposed as a paradox by a guy who doesn't know shit from left field.  Hosannas and tidings of grateful cheer went up and Gary mumbled something about "consider the material, not the source."

Perhaps Vidal and I are on to something.  Just maybe what had happened bore resemblance to George Crum (yes, that's his name) who, while cooking French fries, was confronted by a persnickety customer who kept sending back Crum's efforts as being "too soggy."  That's how the potato chip was borne.  Then, there's the case of Atlanta pharmacist John Pemberton who came up with a cure of headaches.  It sold for eight years as medicinal fare, then was re-discovered as Coca-Cola.  The list goes on and includes Charles Goodyear, a favorite of Canadians.  It was Goodyear who accidentally spilled rubber, sulfur and lead on a hot stove thus creating vulcanized rubber.  Among the bi-products is the hockey puck for which Maple Leafers might be cheering shots and goals involving hockey sticks and soap bars. 

Many toast were raised the night of the advanced use of the Sassoon blow drier and the guy who saw the wisdom in it all.  As good pal Gary so succinctly put it more than once: "consider the material, not the source."

It would be nice to report that the toasts were the end of the story.  Unfortunately, the next morning's hangover found Gary turning on the TV to a blank screen.  Somehow, over the salt-filled night, the TV was, again, emasculated.  That was the bad news.

The good news is that Gary, while rummaging through papers attendant to the TV's purchase (he never throws anything away), came upon a warranty scheduled to expire January 20, 2011.  Once again, timing is all.

Meanwhile, I figure the Sassoon QuietTraveler, having performed the Salt Miracle Solution (maybe an effective new brand name?) for 12 hours, may simply require some tweaking to bring it up to snuff or whatever level of proficiency that may be required.

Your move, Vidal.

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aka Bleacher Preacher Part III....by Bob Sanders

As the self-appointed fans' chaplain, Jerry Pritikin, aka the Bleacher Preacher, would arrive at Wrigley Field a couple of hours before game time.  One of his missions was to convert holders of allegiances to such atheistic citadels as New York and its miserable Mets and St. Louis whose Cardinals were considered an abomination by The Preacher.  Conversions consisted of a ceremony part Catskill Mountains resort comedy and part religiosity.

Voodoo dolls of opposing players and highly original signs, often created during games, were key aspects of his ever-burgeoning repertoire.  A massive array of pins of various colors were used to pierce the dolls at propitious moments of a game.  Their various hues related to hoped-for misdeeds including fielding errors, missed signals, and balks by the pitcher.  One time The Preacher spilled his pin collection, then spent a couple of innings putting his jinx arsenal back in an alignment I never fathomed.  A greater sense of reality accompanied his developing fondness for visiting players who distinguished themselves for off-field heroics resulting in his creation of an MVP Award.  In 1989 it went to Trevor Wilson, a free-spirited Giants pitcher.

Spirited hazing of rookies is one of the rights of spring in the major leagues and Wilson was honored by The Preacher "for his courageous assault against the statue of Civil War General Philip Henry Sheridan and his horse Winchester above, beyond and below the call of duty in his rookie campaign."  Wilson's award as "Most Valuable Painter" for his Lincoln Park escapade was for brushing Winchester's testicles a brilliant pink.  Understandably, Wilson became a favorite of the Bleacher Bums.  The feeling was mutual and word circulated that he wanted to be traded to the Cubs.  His wish was never granted.

Late in September of that year, Jan and I left on an eventful trip to see some of our national parks and, as it turned out, buy a home on an island 100 miles northwest of Seattle.  The Cubs had clinched the division title and we were driving to Glacier National Park as the team was about to take on the Giants. With Jan at the wheel, we sped into Browning, Montana, a Blackfoot Indian reservation just south of the Canadian border where, at an Elks Club bar, we caught the first pitch of the series.  A friendly bartender, learning of our origins, announced to the room that we were from Chicago and the 25 or so in the place applauded enthusiastically.  Either all were Cubs fans, or, perhaps, they regarded San Francisco a city of pronounced exotica.

With a battery operated TV in the car, we were able to watch a good chunk of the third game of the series while riding a ferry from Vancouver to Victoria.  By then it was apparent the Cubs would not advance and the playoff series was lost.

The Bleacher Preacher was accorded press attention shortly after the opening of the 2001 season when Cubs pitcher Julian Tavarez, driven from the mound by the Giants, castigated San Francisco fans with extreme umbrage; included was what he felt to be their sexual orientation.  Pritikin, then pitching in a gay softball league, was interviewed by the Tribune, Sun-Times, Fox News and NBC-TV.  Jerry suggested that Tavarez apologize to Giants fans.  How instrumental the gay Bleacher Preacher was in convincing the pitcher of his social gaffe is anyone's guess, but Tavarez did express regrets to fans and the Cubs.

Carmella continued to attend Cubs day games believing night baseball, introduced in 1988, a mistake.  Recognized for her loyalty as the 1998 season wound down, she threw out the first pitch of a September contest from halfway to home plate.  It was a strike and star outfielder Sammy Sosa hugged her.  Hurrying to what became a rained out game in late May, 2001, Carmella fell on Waveland Avenue, then rescued by firemen located across the street from Wrigley, according to newspaper accounts including one in USA Today.  She made it back to the bleachers from the disabled list in early August of that year after a hip replacement.  Coming off the DL at 99 was not easy but Bleacher Bums are a breed accustomed to challenge.  Carmella died December 22, 2002.  She was not quite 101.

Surfing the Internet a few years ago, I learned the Bleacher Preacher is one of six members inducted into the Die-Hard Cubs Fan Club Hall of Fame.  Another bleacher honoree is Ronnie "Woo-Woo Wickers, one of the more delightfully demented denizens known for galloping around the bleachers shouting "woo-woo" while wearing a Cubs uniform and clutching a stuffed blue bear cub.  Also inducted was the late Harry Caray, Cubs broadcaster named a month before his death on February 18, 1998.  Carmella Hartigan remains a failure to break the Hall of Fame's glass ceiling and one wonders if it's time for pins and voodoo dolls?

Much has happened in the intervening years.  The Cubs continue to play in Wrigley as they seek to win a World Series after failing for 102 years.  In a financial free fall that began in the mid-90s, Tribune Company was purchased for $8.3 billion by real estate tycoon Sam Zell who gives little evidence he either knows or cares anything about the communications industry.  Having declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2008, the Tribune Company is in hopes of emerging from it later this year.

In the fall of 2009, the Ricketts family of Chicago bought the Cubs for $845 million.  So far, it looks like another season of mediocrity for the Lovable Losers although Starlin Castro, a 20-year-old shortstop, appears to be the best Cubs player at that position since Ernie Banks.

The Bleacher Preacher is retired and his vestments hung in a closet.  He never attends Cubs games and the suits are back in big numbers because bleacher seats now cost $40-50 on eBay in spite of the economy.  Each game at Wrigley grosses something like $2 million when you figure in gate receipts, concessions, merchandise, luxury boxes, and broadcast rights.

Wrigley used to have a wide isle atop the bleacher stands.  It ran behind the entire outfield and was for standing room only, a place where fans could mingle and commiserate about their team.  When it was replaced by seats to improve box office receipts, one fan remarked: "there goes the the Champs Elysees of Wrigley Field."  Baseball Barnum Bill Veeck once explained the bleacher mystique as a place where "the sun is hotter and the beer is colder."

I guess they don't cut off the ties of suits in Wrigley's bleachers anymore.

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aka Bleacher Preacher Part II....by Bob Sanders

Chicago and the baseball world were shocked when Tribune Company bought the Chicago Cubs in 1981. The event occurred two months after my gallery poked fun at the lovable losers; in many ways it made a lot of sense.  WGN-TV was part of Tribune Company, had become a super station carried by many cable and dish outlets and welcomed the guarantee that large and popular chunks of programming would be theirs for the foreseeable future.  WGN radio also figured to benefit.  The acquisition of the Cubs was a complete surprise.  Not one word of media conjecture preceded the buy.

A noonish hurry-up phone call from a Tribune Tower executive revealed the corporation, so excited about owning the Cubs, had forgotten to deal in the Tribune.  Further, there was no one doing public relations in the firm, then worth something like $2 billion, other than Sue Somebody whose skills did not go much beyond typing.  Could I do something about this, the marketing vp asked?  Timing is everything and the Trib's first edition was on the street.  I was about to scoop my own paper.

Those were the days before the paper had acquired fax machines and the computer was two years down the road.  After alerting the newsroom, my next media call was to Brent Musburger in New York.  Sportscaster Brent had responded favorably to an idea I had advanced in 1968 while working for Playboy.  Then a columnist for Chicago American, Brent focused on "Playboy outdoor sports" available at Hugh Hefner's Lake Geneva, Wisconsin resort.  In 1975 he help me look for a job.  I owed the guy who had advanced to CBS network status after outstanding work at Chicago's WBBM-TV.  Musburger, now with ABC-TV and ESPN, is TV's most versatile sports announcer in his fifth decade behind a microphone.

After calling Musburger, I checked in with the wire services, then went after the rest of the Chicago press seeking them out at those restaurants where they likely could be found.  That was probably my second busiest and goofiest hour in my now more than 60 years in the business; Baltimore Jack, the ape who flew in Hefner's DC-9, remains the winner and is worth a Google and a giggle if you haven't already done so.  There were a lot of half-eaten meals at Riccardo, The Wrigley and other dining spots the day Tribune Company bought the Cubs.  I can still hear the uproar in those restaurants as the story was told and retold.

It was with second wife Mickey, a lukewarm baseball fan, that I made occasional visits to Wrigley.  We sat with the Bleacher Preacher and Carmella Hartigan, an octogenarian Cubs follower who rode two buses to get to the ballpark.  I recall running into Pritikin the first time.  He was wearing his solar-powered pith helmet upon which sat a plastic bear cub.  His pink T-shirt read: How do you spell Belief?  C-U-B-S.

It was late in 1986 that Mickey was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.  She died nine months later and I married Jan Quinn the next year.  She became an enthusiastic Bleacher Bum laughing loudest when the vaunted Shawan-O-Meter was raised by a Bum informing the fans of shortstop Shawan Dunston's up-to-the-minute batting average.  The light-hitting Dunston, perhaps challenged by the denigrating nature of the Shawan-O-Meter, had raised that year's average to a then .249 high by often understanding the dimensions of the strike zone.  Another major factor was the prior year's acquisition of outfielder Andre Dawson from Montreal.  The popular Dawson, aware of he responsibilities of being a role model, was once quoted about those responsibilities: "I want all the kids to do  what I do, to look up to me.  I want all the kids to copulate me."

The game the day Jan met The Preacher was against the St. Louis Cardinals and Jerry was busy passing out bird feathers of a proper hue, apparently a psychological attempt to cow the Redbirds.

Attaining baseball knowledge comes easier sitting in the bleachers.  You feel more a part of the game while seated between the lines in Wrigley's friendly confines; the people there know the game better than fans elsewhere.  With that knowledge comes wry humor including an appreciation of outrageous T-shirts for sale outside the park, never inside.  Some of the copy is just too much for a management often ridiculously sensitive.  One of my favorite possessions is a shirt that lists the TEN TOP LIES TOLD AT WRIGLEY FIELD.  Among them are: AUGUST IS OUR MONTH, THE TRIBUNE CO. REALLY CARES ABOUT THE FANS and BLEACHER BUMS DRINK IN MODERATION.

The '89 season again found us in the left field bleachers with Carmella and Jerry.  As far as we knew, Pritikin did some limited PR work which never seemed to interfere with his Bleacher Preacher responsibilities other than speaking of a desire to take his act to minor league cities within his reach.  In mid-season he announced he had been hired for a working gig by the Quad City Cubs in the Three I League and the four of us put together a weekend trip to Davenport, Iowa.  Jerry would work two night games, the three of us his claque.

Baseball fans who attend nothing but major league games should take in some minor league contests.  The admission price at Davenport's John O'Donnell Stadium was $3, beer 50 cents, over the wall home runs to right field went into the Mississippi River, and brats and hot dogs were charcoal grilled to perfection in foul territory.  There's nothing quite like clutching a beer and hot dog while getting out of the way of three ballplayers converging on a foul ball.  Humphrey Bogart nailed it when he said: "A hot dog at the ballpark is better than a steak at the Ritz."

Our drive to Davenport was something like 180 miles from Chicago and the conversational flow a babbling brook compared to the roaring Niagara often revealed at Wrigley Field.  During the journey, the Bleacher Preacher expanded upon his Fanmandments, a work in constant progress.  Among them: "Thou shall not participate in the wave, wear ties in the bleachers, pay for autographs of current players or steal neighbors' seat cushions."  He also spoke of keeping afloat financially through a lawsuit settlement involving a photograph of his published without consent.  "Best thing that ever happened to me financially," he concluded.

Cubs trivia, a Pritikin favorite subject, also chewed up time on the road.  "Quick," he asked.  "Where is Charley Grimm buried?"  Answer: The ashes of the former Cub player and manager were scattered around Wrigley's infield.  The story of Pritikin's dad, a die-hard fan, came up.  On his deathbed in a coma, he awoke and uttered his first words in 30 days: "We gotta get rid of Kingman," a reference to a power hitting outfielder with low batting averages, a penchant for striking out and an errant arm that once put a ball in a dugout toilet during a game.

Pritikin brought along his Ten Fanmandments of Baseball to the games in Davenport and wore a flowing robe of white which added decided panache to what was clearly spirited shtick.  His attire also included the ever-present propeller-topped pith helmet emblazoned with the words Bleacher Preacher.

The Preacher was taking baseball very seriously that 1989 summer.  In addition, he was negotiating his act for gigs in Toledo and Columbus, Ohio; Kenosha, Wisconsin; and Shreveport, Louisiana.  While the Cubs were playing solidly, fans had seen disaster strike all too often in August and September.  His major concern: the classic mess of 1969 when the Cubs, in first place by 9 1/2 games in mid-August, finished eight behind the New York Mets.  Cubs manager Leo Durocher, so convinced in August that his team would win the division, took a much-criticized day off to visit his wife's son at a boy's camp in Wisconsin.  How did the Cubs blow 17 1/2 games?  Easy, when in one stretch in September they lost eight in a row while the Mets won ten straight

The now grim Bleacher Preacher was getting upset but it wasn't a matter of the team's performance.  It was some of the people attending he games.  In the midst of a real pennant race, the 1989 Cubs began attracting business types bagging three hours from the office to watch the surging team.  Bleacher seats at $6 were being sold for $25 on the street with the purchasers often office escapees.  In addition, box seats were  being traded even up for the cheapest tickets in Wrigley.  Suddenly, the bleachers were the place to be.

The first time I ever heard the word "suit" used in a pejorative way other than style or color was by The Preacher.  "Look.  There's a couple of suits."  His observation was followed by a  civil but firm approach invoking the Ten Fanmandments.  "Listen, fellows, the rule is you're not allowed to wear ties up here.  Take 'em off."  The young men ignored the sermon and The Preacher lamented that the team's success was bringing undesirable elements to the bleachers, his house of worship.

A couple of weeks later, a Bleacher Bum brandishing scissors cut off one of The Suits' ties.  "No ties at Wrigley," shouted The Preacher regarding the blasphemy.  There were more adventures ahead for The Preacher involving voodoo dolls, conversions from other baseball faiths plus Carmella Hartigan's throwing out the first pitch of a 1998 game to Cubs star Sammy Sosa.  She was 97 and threw a strike, admittedly from a distance less than 60 feet.

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Next Week: aka Bleacher Preacher Part III   

"Bright-sided" by Barbara Ehrenreich....reviewed by Bob Sanders

Barbara Ehrenreich is at it again as she continues challenging conventional wisdom.  This time the author of 16 previous books, including Nickel and Dimed and Bait and Switch, is unrelenting as she confronts the false promises of positive thinking.  Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America is debunking at its best.

Ehrenreich, combining deft commentary along with penetrating research and anecdotal material, bashes positive thinking claims.  Highly original, she takes us through the sunny look at life from its beginning as a healing technique to enshrinement as something approaching a mandatory cultural attitude.

Terming what she calls a "mass delusion" to Emerson, Christian Science and New Thought of the 19th Century, Ehrenreich suggests this country's emphasis on positive thinking is producing failure by turning a blind eye to material realities while ignoring risk and fomenting self-blame.

The author has a lot of fun with the "positive news" people including the Good News Blog that produces such stories as "Many Americans Making Selfless Resolutions," and "Childhood Sweethearts Attempt Romantic Adventure."  At a National Speakers Association convention, Ehrenreich is told not to watch the news because "you can't do anything about it."  Her conclusion is that "such a retreat from the real drama and tragedy of human events is suggestive of a deep helplessness at the core of positive thinking."

Perhaps the most penetrating Ehrenreich observations are those in the "God Wants You to Be Rich" chapter in which the author digs into the new generation of "pastorpreneurs" who include Joel Osteen, Robert Schuller, and Rick Warren.  Surveys conducted among the "unchurched" (also called "seekers") suggested people wanted little that reminded them of the church they had experienced in childhood.  As a result, the symbols of conventional churches--crosses, steeples, and images of Jesus, were scuttled.  Crosses, in particular, were a problem cited by religious historian Randall Balmere as "something that might affect the unchurched as they do vampires: they could intimidate or frighten visitors."

Ehrenreich offers trenchant insight regarding the burgeoning business of positive thinking suggesting that a special affinity has developed between corporations and places of worship, especially the megachurches while churches are becoming more like corporations "with both headed up by charismatic figures claiming, or aspiring to, almost mystical powers of leadership."

Pointing to poverty being the most routine obstacle to human happiness, Ehrenreich writes of the United States ranking 23rd in the world with the United Kingdom 41st in a happiness survey.

There are some rather strange quotes in Bright-Sided.  From one ambitious pastor: "Corporations are teaching us to look to the future and dream dreams"; Televangelist Joyce Meyer: "I believe God wants to give us nice things"; and Osteen in regard to prosperity: "Get ride of those old wineskins.  Get rid of that small-minded thinking and start thinking as God thinks.  Think big.  Think increase.  Think abundance.  Think more than enough."

The author's conclusion makes a lot of sense.  "The threats we face are real and can be vanquished only by shaking off self-absorption and taking action in the world.  Build up the levees, get food to the hungry, find the cure, strengthen the 'first responders.'  We will not succeed at all these things, certainly not all at once, but--if I may end with my own personal secret of happiness--we can have a good time trying."   

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Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda....by Bob Sanders

Woulda, coulda, shoulda.  The what ifs of life abound amid the stories of Puget Sound broadcast pioneers and are enlivened by remarkable story lines far stranger than fiction.  Take Bellingham's Rogan Jones.

Jones hit it big beginning in 1953 when he established KVOS-TV having started a radio station of middling success in the market some 25 years earlier.  KVOS (Voice of Seattle) was first used in the Emerald City 90 miles to the south by one of a number of failures in this tale.  Ultimate winner, the fabled Jones, would never have become a storied broadcaster were it not for the defeats of others including a unique one suffered by Roy Olmstead.

Olmstead was a cop with a sideline whose entrepreneurial spirit resembled that of Willie Sutton who robbed banks "because that's where the money is."  Olmstead's pursuit of criminals during Prohibition gave him the kind of education that enabled him to become the kingpin rum-runner of Puget Sound.  That was where the money was for the Seattle police lieutenant and he made as much as $200,000 a month.

The Rum King's career flourished--even more so after the feds nabbed a  tugboat crew unloading Canadian booze near Edmonds.  That was early in 1920 and Washington State Prohibition had barely begun.  On board were 100 cases of liquor and 11 people, one of them Olmstead.  It was a turning point giving him the opportunity to pursue full time what had been a lucrative sideline.  The young police lieutenant had lost his job but it hardly mattered except for the inside information he could no longer get by walking into any Seattle cop house.

Keys to Olmstead's bootlegging empire were a proximity to Prohibition-free Canadian whiskey and an avoidance of a $20 per-case fee slapped on booze bound for the U.S.  Olmstead's boats were ostensibly headed for Mexico.  Soon, the Rum King re-married, his social life far less guarded than Scott Fitzgerald's Jay Gatsby.  Olmstead's purchase of a mansion located on prestigious Ridgeway Place in the tony Mount Baker district was frosting on his rum-soaked cake.  The Olmsteads called it "Snow White Palace" and the good times truly rolled.

Roy Olmstead was no dummy and he soon came up with a brilliant idea.  His mansion was a perfect place to create KFQX, Seattle's first radio station and the origins of what is now KOMO.  It was a time when Seattle listeners heard such local staples as Henry Damski's Imperial Orchestra while adventuresome dial spinners could bring in the Coon-Sanders Original Nighthawk Orchestra heard coast-to-coast from the Muehlebach Hotel on Kansas City's clear channel WDAF.  Then, there was recorded music running all the way from Harry Horlick and the A&P Gypsies to Duke Ellington whose music was self-described as "beyond category."  Louis Armstrong, a young trumpet player then recently arrived from New Orleans, was recording in Chicago with the "Hot Five" and "Hot Seven."  Their records, played on KFQX, had Seattle toes tapping. 

Oh, yes.  How about something for the kids?  That something turned out to be very special children's stories read over KFQX by Olmstead's classy English-born wife, Elise, in a spare bedroom where the station was located. 

Those stories, told by "Aunt Vivian," were quite something.  Aimed at Puget Sound bootleggers because that's where the money was, the highly creative husband and wife team sprinkled codes among Mother Goose rhymes and Hans Christian Andersen stories.  Since those were the days before such things as radio newspaper columns and awards shows, there are no records indicating the quality of the programs originating in the Tara of Broadcasting.  Only one quite small but significant audience really counted and its members crewed rum-running boats.  In retrospect, it appears radio neophyte Olmstead was stumbling around in what would become the hallowed halls of broadcast narrowcasting.

Olmstead was felt by many to be something of a Robin Hood.  After all, his efforts enabled Pacific Northwest folk to quench their Prohibition-induced thirsts.  Observers of the times suggest he may not have had much of a sense of humor due to a reluctance to call his station KRUM.

The booze balloon burst on Thanksgiving Day, 1924 when the mansion was invaded by gendarmes including Federal Prohibition Agent William Whitney, long an Olmstead nemesis.  In a scene that would have worked in The Untouchables, Whitney arrested the Olmsteads and, perhaps inspired by the show business setting, began making phone calls to bootleggers urging them to come to a party ("don't forget to bring some booze") by doing a voice impression of the rum-runner/broadcaster.  The heavily-attended party saw 48 revelers charged with breaking the laws of Prohibition, then acknowledged by 23 states.  Details of the rollicking party are told in Emmett Watson's book, Once Upon a Time in Seattle.  Watson's fact-gathering challenge many years later was made additionally difficult by Seattle police who had purged all records involving Olmstead.

Before entering prison, Olmstead sent an underling to Aberdeen, a coastal community where station KFQX was re-positioned in an office building so that the rum-running beacon could be continued.  That's where Rogan Jones entered the picture.  He owned the building and, soon, the ratio station when the underling was arrested and sent to prison.

Meanwhile, Olmstead was turning his life around in the pokey by preaching the evils of crime to inmates while he studied Christian Science.  Released in 1931, he became prominent in church affairs and rehabilitating former prisoners.  Olmstead evenually was granted a pardon by President Franklin Roosevelt.  He died in 1966.

Jones, the future broadcast hall of famer, soon discovered Aberdeen wasn't much of a market while becoming bored by landlord responsibilities.  That was when he moved his station north to Bellingham where he resurrected discarded KVOS call letters originated by Louis Kessler, a woulda, coulda, shoulda kind of guy who had failed first in the Emerald City, then in Bellingham.  Jones would make a lot of money in Bellingham by appealing to the nearby under-served TV Canadian audience after being backed up by a landmark Supreme Court ruling in 1936 that changed broadcasting forever.

To update this story's spirited aspects, outstanding filmmaker Ken Burns is working on a six-hour three-part series titled: "Forbidden Fruit: Prohibition in America."  The word is that Roy Olmstead's adventures likely will be included when it plays on PBS in 2011.

And more about Rogan Jones in a future posting.

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Corporate Christmas....by Bob Sanders

Now that our government has more than taken care of Wall Street while giving the fish eye to Main Street, it's increasingly likely that we are going to be living with 10 per cent unemployment for some time.

Being out of work is no fun and I have a lot of empathy these days for those who are.  I acquired the problem once for nine months during 1975-76; the only positive aspect was lower golf scores.  As job interviews became fewer and fewer, the Winnetka Golf Club in the Chicago suburb where I lived saw more and more of me.  My failure to find work eventually produced a condition Cole Porter once referred to as "fighting vainly the old ennui."  Ennui can really get to you.

Fortunately, a radio guy by the name of Wally Phillips and his producer, Marilyn Miller, came to my rescue.  Wally was WGN's remarkable morning man whose peak 1.5 million audience comprised half of the Chicago area's listeners.  It was  during an on-air conversation with Phillips, set up by Miller, that listeners heard Phillips ask what I was doing to which I replied (as the expression went back then) "on the beach."  Phillips then blatantly suggested: "Let's find work for Bob Sanders."  

Before the day was over, I heard from Virginia "Dinny" Butts who ran Field Enterprises Corporate PR Department.  A young man in her department had died suddenly (a death I hoped not business-related) and there was an opening.  Some years before Butts had written for Dave Garroway who helped invent television in Chicago before moving on to New York where he became the founding host of NBC-TV's "Today" show.

Field Enterprises in those days had a number of properties including the Chicago Daily News, the Sun-Times, World Book and real estate including River Plaza, a then new apartment high-rise located next door to our headquarters in the Daily News/Sun Times Building.  The site, hard by the Chicago River, is now occupied b y Trump Towers (Chicago), the Donald's 2009 controversial triumph.

A lot of our work was very social with two or three functions a week the norm.  I'm forever grateful Phillips,  Miller and Butts for what they did.  Some of our PR assignments were something of a stretch although, in retrospect, I'm inclined to believe it was more a matter of quid pro quo; Dinny was the best player of the corporate game I've ever seen and always had her eye on bigger and/or more corporate fish to fry.  She was uncanny at times.

One of our assignments had to do with Christmas.  Artificial trees were trimmed each year on our corporate floor--one in the lobby and one in Charlie Stauffacher's office.  Charlie was one of those unsmiling CEOs, a superior bean counter who had arrived by way of Continental Can.  Marshall Field V, inheritor of the business from the Roman numeral preceding him, was a nice guy with many of his social soirees handled by our PR  group.

The corporate Christmas tree trimming was a real pain in the ass, a job much more amenable to the more artistic members of our over-staffed group which numbered eight public relations professionals, as we were prone to proclaim while purposely mispronouncing Stauffacher's name, hardly in the Christmas spirit.

Why Stauffacher's secretary couldn't do his tree was beyond my understanding, but so it went.  Perhaps the secretary was an early conspirator attempting to destroy Christmas, one of those who raise Bill O'Reilly's hackles this time of year.

What made the tree trimming exercise much easier was a vast collection of yuletide trappings in a large musty room on the top floor of our building.  There were enough goodies to decorate, however unlikely, Marshall Field's where it was all started by the first Roman numeral in 1881.  By the time I arrived, the department store chain had been sold.  One Christmas I discovered a wondrous and long-forgotten item which my instincts told me I would some time put to use.

One of my Field PR pals was Ralph Liguori, a really nice guy and veteran employee who appreciated laughter.  It was just prior to 1979's Christmas that Liguori was moved down our seventh floor hall to join more highly-salaried and specialized corporate brethren.  I figured Dinny knew a sale of the Sun-Times (the Daily News had been folded in 1978) was forthcoming and that Liguori would be better off closely aligned with the corporate hierarchy.  Public relations and advertising are usually the first to be whacked or whittled under unfortunate times.

Hardly a snob, Liguori did manage to make sighs of contentment about his very own impressive office which had a bathroom--major recognition of arrival in the corporate world.  No longer would he have to take lavatory treks down the hall like the rest of the peons.  Liguori's good fortune deserved proper acknowledgment--something that would combine Christmas, his bagnio blessing, and just a touch of the often Machiavellian corporate culture.

What I had found in that bastion of bagatelles, gee gaws, gim cracks, fiddle faddle, folderol, fribbles and baubles was a discovery to gladden the heart of any practical joker.  There among the toy soldiers, nutcrackers, hobby horses and other holiday bric-a-brac was a near life-size Santa Claus.  Not just any Santa, but one electrically-powered who pivoted 180 degrees.  Further, this kindly St. Nick had a particularly radiant smile featuring a conspiratorial hint suggesting he possessed a very special secret he might or might not share.  The pivoting Santa held his hands about six inches apart as though to make a presentation of some kind.  This was my kind of fun.  I went to work after the corporate offices cleared out.

I finished and made contact early the next morning with public service manager Jim Cumming who phoned me immediately after Liguori entered the front door.  Quickly I hastened down the hall and zipped into Liguori's office where I completed preparations.  I knew I could get away with this one because my public service pal would detain Liguori long enough for me to make my furtive get-away from his office cum toilet.  It was the day before Christmas.

I watched giddily from down the hall as Ralph left the elevator and headed toward his office and very own bathroom.  Soon howls of laughter could be herd from Liguori where, first thing every morning, he paid a visit to his lavatory, emblematic of corporate success.  Upon his entry, Liguori encountered the beaming, swiveling, winking Santa proffering Scott's finest paper. 

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Murf the Surf....by Bob Sanders

A striking aspect of South Florida's media community in the early 70's was that so many of its denizens considered themselves part of a New York City outpost and either hopeful of a return to the big time or frustrated because they had yet to take a bite of the Big Apple.

Many of those with credentials of past success lived in comfortable isolation while contemplating comebacks.  New York gossip columnist Hy Gardner kept his hand in with occasional appearances on Miami TV, a far cry from his old gig on "What's My Line?  Public relations people were everywhere largely because of the remarkable number of hotels owned by highly-caffeinated types.  Arch rivals were the Fontainebleau and Eden Roc, side-by-side at 45th & Collins Ave.

Hotel competition was fierce and best exemplified by the spite wall Ben Novak erected in 1962.  Owner of the Fontainebleau, Novak ordered the 14-story wall built to block out the Eden Roc's afternoon poolside sun.  The wall was ordered by Novak because the Eden Roc's owner was Harry Mufson, a former partner; they had built the nearby Sans Souci.   A further complication was controversial architect Morris Lapidus who designed both the Fontainebleau and the Eden Roc.  Novak stopped speaking to Lapidus for a very long time.

Not only did the spite wall deny Eden Rocers sunshine, it also didn't take a lot of architectural expertise to realize that the wall was ugly; the side facing sun-less swimmers had no windows with the exception of a penthouse suite lived in by Novak who took great delight in looking down upon the gigantic shadow produced by his contribution to the architectural feud.  Not a nice man.

A flack acquaintance was Charlie Cinnamon, apparently still working in what must be something approaching his 50th year in South Florida's entertainment community.  Cinnamon is the only spin artist I can recall whose name appears in the title of a song, play or vignette.  Culture Clash, a Chicago/Latino comedy trio, a few years ago performed a piece of business in Miami titled: "Charlie Cinnamon, PR Man."  It's about a disgruntled fellow who longs for the alleged racial harmony of New York City.  This acknowledgement of Cinnamon's notoriety could very well have been prompted by his being hired a couple of years ago to promote Splatt, a South Beach nightspot drawing considerable attention to the then chewing tobacco frenzy.  Splatt (its competition included The Cuspidor) is owned neither by cattlemen nor redneck baseball players (think John Rocker).  Rather, it belongs to actors otherwise of little commonality: Ashley Judd, Mickey Roarke and Michael Caine.  Now, there's a trifecta.  A Google search suggests a waning Miami enthusiasm for tobacco clubs before the movement could produce a fellowship called Chaw.

Some of my strangest moments in Miami Beach were during luncheon in the Playboy Plaza's main dining room.  Judy Black, hotel social director, suggested I keep an eye on the tables of nearby elderly women, seated at a lower level.  The thievery was astonishing.  Silverware, salt and pepper shakers and napkins went surreptitiously into purses, bags, whatever.  The hand speed rivaled that of Las Vegas dealers.  I've thought many times about the thievery and have come to the conslusion there must have been gratification of some sort for the women.  I don't think they were poor.  I wondered if the unfortunates had had hard-working but thoughtless husbands who never told them one whit about work, wrote all their checks, then died leaving them floundering.  Maybe the ladies didn't have anything better to do. 

The best aspect of working in public relations in my opinion has always been the variety and unpredictability of experiences; also, the challenges of multi-tasking although we didn't call it that then.  We were simply "busy."

I once had the "opportunity" to help a world-famous criminal.  Jack Roland "Murf the Surf" Murphy was his name and it was a movie that changed his life.  Much more at home participating in water sports, Murphy and an accomplice (a third drove a getaway car) slid down a rope during a daring 1964 jewel robbery of New York's J.P. Morgan Memorial Hall.  Their inspiration was the movie "Topkapi" about a fantastic robbery of a museum in Istanbul.  Murphy and friends made off with 28 gems including the Star of India, the DeLong Star Ruby, and the Eagle Diamond.  The Star of India, a golf ball-size sapphire of 563 carats, was easy pickings for Murphy and his crime confreres.  The alarm for the only guarded jewel in the collection had a dead battery.   

Murphy and his cohorts were eventually caught and most of the gems returned with the exception of the Eagle Diamond now thought to have been turned into two jewels.  The Star of India, found in a Miami bus station locker, is now more heavily guarded in the American Museum of Natural History.  Murphy spent two years in prison, then paroled, then sentenced in 1968 to life for the first-degree murder of a secretary, one of two women whose bodies were found in a creek near Hollywood, Florida.  His conviction included the attempted robbery of a Miami Beach socialite that year. 

While promoting the Playboy Plaza in 1970 I got a call from an agent representing Murphy.  The former surfer while in prison had turned to painting and the agent wondered if the hotel would consider a Murf the Surf lobby exhibit.  I gave him little hope, checked with my boss and turned him down.  Playboy had its rococo side but a Murf the Surf exhibit was a considerable reach.  Frankly, I would have offered encouragement had Murphy not been more than a jewel thief.

Murphy and his heist was the subject of a 1975 film originally titled "Murf the Surf."  Pretty good, it's now titled "Live a Little, Steal a Lot" and has an excellent cast including Paul Stewart, Luther Adler, Burt Young, Robert Conrad and Don Stroud as Murf.

Murphy, now 71 and living in Crystal River, Florida, has been full of surprises.  Somehow, he got out of jail becoming a Christian motivational speaker for Bill Glass Ministries.  He began lecturing prisoners all over the U.S. in 1986 and has visited over 1,200 prisons and jails.  A lifetime parole was terminated in 2000.

In 1996 Murphy was elected to something called the East Coast Surf Legends Hall of Fame whose inductees that first year included legends Colin Couture, Skip Savage, Charlie Bunger and Peter Pan.  Most assuredly, I don't make up these things.

Somehow I fully expect Murphy, having wearied of those unending prison visits, to show up one winter on  Oahu's North Shore to compete in a major surfing championship.  Perhaps, a senior event if there is such a thing.  No doubt he'll be wearing Billibong surfing gear and, with a slight bow to the past, challenge the Banzai Pipeline.  A nice touch could be achieved by riding a hardwood longboard--something reminiscent of the equipment  of Duke Kahanomoku who did for surfing what Arnold Palmer did for golf.

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Next Week: Halloween Masks