Sidebars

Waiting for Gojoe....by Bob Sanders

Timing, as the saying goes, is everything and that undoubtedly explains my recent series of failures to find Joe Scarborough on his "Morning Joe" television show.

Slotted on MSNBC beginning at 3 a.m. (PCT), the three-hour program is my Plan A when I find a return to sleep challenging.  Searching for Scarborough has been something like "Waiting for Godot," Samuel Beckett's absurdest play in which nothing happens while the main characters anticipate the arrival of Godot who never appears.  Let's call my Joe no show "Waiting for Gojoe."

The interruptions of my sleep were occurring about every fifth night or so.  Scarborough simply wasn't showing up whenever I flipped on "Morning Joe" and there were a number of possible reasons.  Had the former Florida U.S. Congressman returned to hometown Pensacola preparatory to running for public office?  Never in memory has any former politician shown greater evidence of a longing for, in his case, those good old days featuring Newt Gingrich as House Speaker and his Contract With  America--proudly signed by Scarborough.  What a contrast with today; yesterday's Contractors, who screwed things up, have been replaced by today's Tea Party leaving in the dust such forever pols like Scarborough whose evidence of GOP loyalty consists largely of trumpeting the triumphs of Ronald Reagan.

There were other possibilities for Scarborough's absences including a resumption of talks with CNN or CBS regarding a move away from MSNBC.  The original rumors came last year on the heels of "Morning Joe" executive producer Chris Licht's leaving NBC to take over the always foundering "Morning Show."  Self-serving like most rumors of its kind, they coincided with contract negotiations involving the major "Morning Joe" hosts.

Those devilish contracts nearly ended Joe and Mike Brzezinski's show about a year after it began in 2007 when Mika learned Joe was making 14 times her salary.  There were a number of factors involved including Joe's positioning as producer plus Mika's having joined NBC after being fired from CBS.  A then recent book published by her with the title, Knowing Your Value, was a bit awkward and she successfully battled for a re-worked contract after producer Joe, the guy who underpaid her, casually gave her one of his paychecks.  Joe, obviously, didn't want to lose Mika.

Another plausibility for Joe's no show might involve that very odd intern death back in Walton Beach, not far from Pensacola.  Had the cops finally come up with some answers to questions about Lori Klausutus' mysterious death 11 years ago?  Klausutus, 28, a Scarborough employee, was found in the congressman's office early one morning.  The shoddiness of Florida police work was no better then than the current Trayvon Martin shooting death in Sanford.  The cops all too quickly determined that Klausutus, a long-distance runner in outstanding condition, had fainted striking her head twice on a desk.  The cause of death, heart arrhythmia, was determined by a discredited medical examiner apparently incapable of wondering how a head could strike a desk twice.

Scarborough, scornful of the media these days, back then also was publisher of the Redneck Riviera's Independent Sun and he quickly resigned his ties to the newspaper and his seat in Congress.  The man people now refer to as "Morning Joe" had initiated divorce proceedings two years earlier from a wife of 13 years.

A much more likely reason for Scarborough's disappearing act would be occasional guest appearances by Zbigniew Brzezinski, Mika's father and national security adviser during the Carter administration.  Do not invite Zbigniew and Scarborough to the same party.  The latter plays smart ass to a man who treats the show's host much as an un-wanted son-in-law.  Their relationship peaked late in 2008 when Brzezinski called him "stunningly superficial" for his assessment of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  Brzezinski's umbrage was very reminiscent of Jack Paar's Alexander king, maybe the best TV guest ever.

"Morning Joe," close to celebrating its fifth anniversary, has strange origins even for television and began with Brzezinski doing a news segment from beautiful downtown Secaucus, New Jersey for Scarborough, then hosting a failing "Scarborough Country" program from Florida.  Informed by friends that Mika had used mocking tones about "Scarborough Country" during her feed to the show, Joe was intrigued, looked her up and, as they say, it was just a matter of time.  That time came when Don Imus, host of "Imus in the Morning" and the prior occupant of the "Morning Joe" time slot, was fired for making insensitive remarks about the Rutgers women's basketball team.  We can measure the true power of a broadcast personality on the basis of whether or not they get fired for serious indiscretions.  Imus was gone quickly for what was paltry compared to Rush Limbaugh's recent disgraceful series of rants leveled at a female law student.

Keith Olbermann, who left MSNBC last year for the Current Channel, continues to suggest that Scarborough's sharp elbows are being thrown all over NBC as he challenges credentials of guests on shows other than his own, now augmented by a talk pack of nearly 30. 

There is an odd chemistry, not yet fully realized, that exists between Mika and Joe.  The fractious relationship of "The Odd Couple" has been suggested more than once although it seems to this viewer that whatever magic exists is much more reminiscent of Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn although Trace rarely did the kind of off-putting body language now so seemingly intrinsic to the Scarborough persona.  Arms across the chest, Scarborough seems committed to sweaters and other casual attire to set himself off from the guests, regular and otherwise, who bring to the table far too much about politics--particularly the strange people who have been attempting to unseat President Obama.  Third host Willie Geist seems to be on board mostly to keep beady-eyed Joe from running roughshod over Mika.

Of late, the political pickings have been so sparse that clothing worn by regulars and guests has been seized upon as slim and obvious subject matter.  Three hours a day is a long, long time.  Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post and clearly a sartorial dandy, was a bit put out recently by show regular Mike Barnicle whose clothes might best be described as the kind of go-to-hell casual worn by far too many men in Bellingham, Washington, a serious candidate for dress down capitol of this country.  I know about these things because I live there. 

With my sleeping habits much improved during very recent days, I have managed to note that Pat Buchanan is no longer a "Morning Joe" regular.  Pat, who has managed to maintain guest status on the decibel impressive "The McLaughlin Group," recently dashed off a book in which he finally put in writing what he has been saying for many years: he's an out and out racist.  Good luck with the book, Pat.

Other people have come, gone and, in one case, come back.  The comebacker is Mark Halperin who got cut from the talk team last year when he called the President a dick.  To be perfectly accurate, the quote was "sort of a dick the other day."  Poor Obama gets blamed for everything: gas prices, wars, being a Muslim (according to one poll, 52 percent of Mississippi residents believe so), a questionable birth certificate (45 percent of Republicans are birthers), and, probably, bad asshood for putting a hex on second-seeded University of Missouri by picking the Tigers to be one of March Madness' final four.  Missou was knocked off in the first round by 15th seed Norfolk State.

The dick caller returned to "Morning Joe" after a month's banishment and everything, as my dad used to say, is copacetic.  A Time senior political analyst, Halperin is co-author of Game Change with fellow "Morning Joe" regular John Heilemann.  It's an inside look at what went wrong when John McCain and others decided to put Sarah Palin on the 2008 GOP ticket.  Made into a feature length film, it is currently playing on HBO.

In truth, Halprin should have received a stiffer sentence than a month's dismissal not so much for disparaging the President but for being so inaccurate with political predictions.  Among his gaffes: insisting that both Palin and fellow lightweight Donald Trump were serious GOP ontenders; suggesting that McCain's mid-campaign week's return to Washington "won the week" for the Arizona Senator, and just about any crystal balling found in his (2006) book, The Way to Win.  Co-author John Harris, co-founder of Politico, has to share the blame for that turkey.

Halperin's castigation that morning of the President created a momentary pall upon the show's usual cocktail party atmosphere (Starbucks served, of course) with Scarborough expressing agitation that a new producer was unable to activate a seven-second delay.  Such are the vicissitudes of broadcasting when a producer can't punch the right button.

The essence of "Morning Joe," clubby yet rife with the distinct possibility of someone walking in off the street to take exception to Scarborrough's brand of conservatism heavy with wish for the halcyon days of Reaganism, may very well be on the right track.  The challenge is that the rigors of doing it three hours a day for five days a week may wind up boring the hell out of viewers but that would have happened by now.  "Morning Joe," with less than half the audience of the hardly scintillating "Fox & Friends," continues to stay ahead of CNN in the time slot.  Certainly, the casual roundtable banter is a welcome contrast to the all too traditional panel stuff seen in short segments on "Meet the Press," "This Week," "Fox News Sunday" and "Face the Nation," soon to expand to 60 minutes.

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Sarah Revisited....by Bob Sanders

 

Anyone who thought Sarah Palin was simply going to disappear from public consciousness has been convinced otherwise by two cable films during recent days.

The first, "Game Change," debuted this past weekend on HBO and it must have been tempting to those responsible for creating the film's trailers to borrow from the marketing maneuvers of Jack Nicholson's 1980 "The Shining."  Yes, Sarah is back.

Perverse pleasures admitted, this viewer has missed Palin and it may very well be due to the obvious contrasts she offers to the rag tag collection of politicians who for far too long have flailed away at nailing down the Republican Party's presidential nomination.  Mitt Romney, challenged by Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, and Ron Paul, simply can't make the sale to a party base moved to the right somewhere in the general vicinity of Attila the Hun.  All this, of course, has come after semi-final rounds during which we were introduced to the strange campaigns of Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Michelle Bachmann, and poor Jon Huntsman, he of the nice-guy-what-am-I-doing- here? persona.  Never in the past 100 years of the election process has the American public been confronted by such a collection of boring possibilities.  Never has the other party been given such a leg up while 20 debates put audiences to sleep.

Palin's remarkable selection as John McCain's running mate is the focal point of "Game Change."  The film is based upon the best-seller by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin.  Palin, as played by Julianne Moore, initially is drawn as a sympathetic character decidedly over-matched as McCain's advisers determine she is a logical choice as the Arizona Senator's running mate.  Moore's portrayal of Palin invites comparisons to the wickedly funny Tina Fey impressions on "Saturday Night Live."  As good as Fey's you-betcha takes were of Palin, Moore's provide much greater insight as we experience her strengths (connecting with crowds) to her weaknesses (foreign affairs about which she knows next to nothing).  It is through Moore 's nuanced performance that we see the many Palins: fragile, sullen, magnetic, and vain.  The pit bull mom may not have much upstairs but she appears to have a vast collection of hockey jerseys.

Woody Harrelson, as campaign strategist Steve Schmidt, gives another outstanding performance as he moves from enthusiasm for Palin to a realization that five days were simply not enough time to vet the Alaska governor.  Ed Harris is splendid while offering a compassionate portrayal of McCain.  Harris and Harrelson, both compiling impressive bodies of work, have become two of our very best film actors.

What is particularly intriguing about "Game Change" are the sympathetic roles played by the advisers who, much like race horse bettors given a sure thing in a four-horse race, are aghast as their filly stumbles out of the gate and at all the turns.  Often with media backgrounds, advisers in a political story are people in the shadows, rarely gaining audience rapport or even interest.  Senior adviser Nicolle Wallace, played by Sarah Pauley, bears the brunt of Palin mistakes and malice; Schmidt's "explanation to Palin about the why of not allowing her to give a concession speech is a classic.

Something quite different in Palinology may be observed in "The Undefeated," like "Game Change," inspired by a book.  Going Rogue, "written" by the then jobless governor having fled Juneau, was Palin's explanation of how things happened.  The bad show business people, led by Bill Maher and Matt Damon, are introduced.  The best line is that of ex-New York mayor Ed Koch who, in describing Palin as "plucky, perky," then adds, "and she scares the hell out of me."

First viewed last July, the documentary comes off as an infomercial rather inexpertly cut on somebody's dinner table.  The guilty are director/writer Stephen K. Bannon and the late Andrew Breitbart whose producer credits are augmented by appearance snippets enabling the audience to better understand Palin's brilliance.  He is joined by conservative talk show host Mark Levin and others as the banal product unwinds providing explanation of the box office failure following theatrical release.  It is currently playing on the ReelzChannel as what can only be regarded as a curiosity piece.

One of the reasons for it being a curiosity is its frantic pace and helter-skelter use of very low grade digital video of a lesser quality than YouTube.  Be assured that when the bad guys are offered up as depraved contrasts to the self-appointed mama grizzly, you can count on either stock footage of good old boys in a smoke-filled room or an incessantly brooding film score.  The feel of much of the material is that it is a collection of out takes clipped from promotional film shot for "Sarah Palin's Alaska" whose run on The Learning Channel mercifully has been completed.  There are always re-runs for the Palin-addicted.

Another of the oddities of Bannon's love letter to Palin is the paltry amount of time spent on the presidential election although her considerable triumph, an acceptance speech at the 2008 Republican National Convention, gets a lot and it's Sarah at her best, by golly.  John McCain is barely recognized.  Hardly a master of subtlety, Bannon tells us that government is wasteful, then gives us three shots of money swirling down a toilet.

We never see Palin inThe Rogue: Searching for Sarah Palin, Joe McGinniss's wickedly amusing and sometimes frightening six months spent living next door to the remarkable woman who threatened to become a heartbeat from the Presidency.  McGinniss is not new to Alaska having researched the critically acclaimed Going to Extremes  there in 1977.  McGinniss does make it clear that, in his opinion, the Palinized Wasilla and much of Alaska is full of people thoroughly fed up with Palin.

In an unusual bit of good fortune, McGinniss, having determined that Alaska's most famous resident was worth a book, was offered a rental next door to Palin.  The mere beating of such odds strongly suggests Palin has a lot of enemies in Alaska in general and Wasilla in particular.  In investigative journalist fashion much more Confidential  than New Yorker, McGinniss gives us Sarah: having a fling with an NBA basketball player; doing drugs back when with First Dude Todd; coming up with easily doubted stories about the birth of son Trig suggesting she is not his mother; and as being committed to religious control of government in spite of not being sufficiently devout.  Oh, yes, the Palin family in all its dysfunctional glory is on board and, as described by McGinniss, not pretty.

She may be guilty of all his charges but McGinniss weakens his case with a disconcerting bitchy quality to his reportage and there are far too many stories told by "a friend," "one resident," and "a former resident."

On the other hand, if only one-quarter of McGinniss's stories can weather a scrutiny closer than the author's he said, she said conclusions, then Sarah Palin is, indeed, one of our major oddities worthy of the Koch quote about scaring the hell out of us.

McGinniss strikes just the right note with his last two paragraphs: What should never have been more than a freaky sideshow performed on a carnival midway was transformed by John McCain's desperation into what many still seem to see as the greatest show on earth.

Actually, it's long past time to strike the tent.

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Golf's Sometimes Bunker Mentality....by Bob Sanders

This is the time of year when golfers and those who follow the game on television begin thinking of The Masters, that grand competition set against dogwood and azalea on the best maintained course in the world.  If, by chance, you are planning on attending for the first time, be aware that the egg salad sandwich with pimento cheese is still $1.25 and security people will give you the goofy eye should you step somewhere you shouldn't.  The people who run The Masters are concentrated traditionalists in an ever-changing sport.

That tradition has included not keeping records for caddying in the tournament begun in 1934.  A game of record second only to baseball, golf has acquired all manner of information about the winners.  You could try to look up who carried bags but it's not in the books.  Only the winners are.

While many professional tour caddies today pay taxes as lower class members of the One Percent Club or are close to qualification, it wasn't always that way--particularly in those days when golf professionals were not allowed to enter country clubs by the front door, when black caddies carried the bags of the pros at The Masters, and when first place in the fournament produced a check for $500.  That's what Sam Snead won the first two times out playing Bobby Jones' creation, now a thoroughly revered site.  Snead's winnings today might buy a rather limited round of drinks for semi-intimates--a thought rarely, if ever, contemplated by the tight-fisted Slammer.

In spite of its lofty status in golf, The Masters took for many years a minimalist role in the sport's continuing evolvement.  Not inclined to participate in social engineering, the tournament refused to invite black players finally relenting in 1975 when Lee Elder became the first African-American to play for the green jacket.  That was three years after Elder requested consideration.

Only the course's black caddies carried bags of the pros until 1983.  The pros, eventually playing for prize money that even the NBA's vastly over-paid would find interesting, demanded that their personal caddies tote their sticks.  It made a certain amount of sense; the pro's caddy had intimate knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of his employer's game.  On the other hand, there is nothing quite like local knowledge and The Masters caddies had that in what we used to call spades.  A breakthrough year was 1970 when Gary Player's caddy received a death threat by an anti-partied demonstrator.  To the rescue came Carl Jackson, then a Masters caddy who volunteered to replace the threatened bag totter.  Jackson was so good with advice about the subtleties of August's greens that Player won.  This April, for the 51st time, Jackson will tote a bag at what many consider the biggest of the majors, another of those records not in the books.  For those who wonder just how much a caddy can mean to a player, be sure to check out the degree of involvement Jim Mackey has in boss Phil Mickelson's game.

While the most notable aspect of Masters' management over much of the event's history has been an attitude resembling that of pre-Civil War plantation owners, it was golf commentator Gary McCord who once explored the organization's lack of humor.  Bringing attention to the slick greens at August, the quick-witted former journeyman golfer suggested that the putting surfaces were so slippery that groundskeepers must have used "bikini wax" on them.  The imperiousness of the anger vented by the defenders of the golfing shrine toward the CBS employee was and remains severe.  Eighteen years later, McCord continues to be barred from The Masters which gave him an identification enabling him to charge upwards of $30,000 for personal appearances.

As the only sport in which players call penalties on themselves, golf has prided itself as the most honest of all.  While amateurs have been known to improve lies, whack unlimited Mulligans, and exhibit highly creative writing skills on score cards, the sport's professionals have remained remarkably un-tainted.  There have been notable exceptions but they tend to involve interpretations of rules.  One of the more recent embarrassments involved Tiger Woods whose cheating off the golf course a few years back was the stuff of Twitter and Facebook.  A sudden alliance of Woods' fans provided aid and comfort on the par 5 13th hole of the 1999 Phoenix Open, now aptly named The Waste Management Open.  Having pulled a drive into an untenable position beside a boulder roughly the weight of a particularly large NFL lineman, Tiger asked for relief and oh, what a relief it was.

Six Friends of Tiger, having heard the magic words "relief" and "loose impediment," completely ignored the spirit of the rule and rolled the boulder to a position that enabled the smiling Woods (he offered encouragement) to par the hole and, eventually finish third.  Today, the boulder bears a plaque telling of the momentous occasion believed by many Tiger fans as approaching Biblical proportions.

The tournament's rules persons, having given Woods a highly questionable favorable ruling, then were relieved of their explanatory duties by the PGA which, aware of Tiger's impact on TV ratings, conducted what can only be called a campaign of explanation highlighted by inclusion in a rule book by Arnold Palmer.  Yes, the boulder was a loose impediment.

The only woman professional golfer to be found guilty of cheating was Jane Blalock whose LPGA pals took exception in the mid 70s to her inclination to place a marked ball closer to the hole.  Regarded as a hippie by the 29 players who signed papers to dismiss her from the tour for one year, Blalock, one of the tour's more unpopular players, was also noted for drawing peace symbols of little artistic merit on her golf bag.  She confronted her suspension with a winning law suit. The charge against Blalock eventually was identified as being in violation of antitrust laws.

For those with a penchant for a look inside the ropes, there's a golf blog (Waggle Room) written by an LPGA caddie who in 2010 commented about the ethics of Korean lady players.  Detailed in the blog is a situation in which two of the Koreans misplayed each other's ball on the last hole of a round, then signed cards ignoring the indiscretion.  

With the advent of doping in sports has come the poster juicer of a sport heretofore left out of things.  The highly unlikely Douglas Barron, whose best finish has been a tie for third in the 2005 Byron Nelson Championship, was given a 12-months banishment in 2009.  The people who run golf and who are highly sensitive aboult those who fail to regard the sport as being mentionable in the same breath with  football, baseball and basketball, were hoping for a Davis Love III, Justin Leonard, or the they-should-be-so-luck, Rory Sabbatini.

Barron, whose "steroid" plight began with a needfor testosterone replacement (Testopel), has a body reminiscent of Craig "The Walrus" Stadler on a five pizza day.  Not exactly the Alex Rodriguez of his sport, Barron required 238 PGA Tour starts to get that tie for the bronze.

The golfer no one had ever heard of sat out most of the 2010 season, then had his ban lifted by the PGA in September of that year.  Having investigated the very lengthy World Anti-Doping Agency drug list, the PGA granted the golfer a Therapeutic Use Exemption (TUE) for testosterone replacement therapy.  Oh, the ignominy of it all in a port desperate for attention searching for bona fides.  The only winners appear to be the people who write about golf who no longer have to Google the name Doug Barron.

Oh, yes.  I'm delighted to report that Barron has acquired a sponsor--the highly logical Slate Pharmaceuticals, Inc. that markets Testopel.  The logo possibilities are extensive.

The subject of Pro Tour cheating was introduced by Golf magazine in January when 50 PGA Tour caddies were questioned about the pros--particularly if any had observed cheating.  Fifty-four percent answered "yes" while 44 percent said "no."  The rest would not comment.  At first glance, this seemed a condemnation of Pro Tour Players.

But, wait.  Maybe the 27 caddies were talking about players other than those for whom they carry bags; further, maybe many or all of those offering condemnation have in mind two or three golfers observed over 10 or 20 years of caddying and it's the same two or three being referenced.  Maybe, their indiscretions fall into the Blalock Syndrome suggesting they are psychologically unable to resist something like replacing a marked ball closer to the hole.

Good golfing news has arrived in the form of New Rules for 2012-2015 and it's tempting to take a Bill Maher approach to new rules.  The most significant change evolving from a collaboration between the Royal & Ancient (R&A) and the United States Golf Association (USGA) is helpful to those who might be victimized by wind.  As devotees may recall, it was Rory McIlroy who was penalized in the British Open when his ball was moved on the 7th green by the wind after he had addressed it.  Since wind, in a particularly strenuous case, also can be caused by flatulence, it is believed that golf's rule makers likely will continue to kick that one down the fairway.

While on the subject of the human body that continues to grow exponentially, it's worth mention that golf's rules people, once again, have ignored the belly putter.  However, it was exciting to learn that the Gecko Euro Pro Tour, a mini event in Spain, has banned the club in all future events although major tours continue a hesitant approval.  Two belly putter victories last year by Webb Simpson plus Keegan Bradley's win at the PGA (a major's first) have made the instrument one of much discussion.

The belly putter and its taller first cousin, The Broomstick, are essentially cheating devices of remarkable timing as we pursue our propensity for obesity.  The belly putter is decidedly more effective when the club's owner is of ample girth thus affording a greater fulcrum for the stick and subsequent delivery of the putt.

Of course, the very essence of golf, promulgated by equipment manufacturers, is to lower scores and we've seen a remarkable 30-year re-design of equipment to the point where pros who drive 250 yards have little chance.  Distance is too much of what it's all about thus enabling stars to carry three wedges.  Persimmon woods (how I miss that sweet resonant click) are a thing of the past and tees from which balls used to be driven are now called "tee boxes," an all too descriptive public course phrase now adopted in what be part of that public relations program mentioned earlier and designed to popularize the game, excuse me, sport.

Let me know if you've noticed any boxes at The Masters, Pebble Beach, or Pine Valley, will you?  Tee boxes are what they used to have at Dyker Beach in Brooklyn where a homeless guy lived in a patch beyond the second hole.  There was never a rumble with the guy mostly because he was armed.  The 14th fairway used to feature immigrants who picnicked and played volleyball on weekends.  They had little appreciation of golf.  That's where you find tee boxes.

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Newton Minow & The Supremes

 

It was while working for TV Guide in 1957 that I learned some multi-tasking, long before the term was invented, that enabled me to do a particularly good job then and later on for my employer.  My acquisition was in an unlikely place, Dothan, Alabama, and provided additional insight into the inner-workings of small-town television. 

I had been moved to Atlanta from St. Louis in the late winter of that year.  Atlanta was a production center where editions of the magazine were produced for Georgia, North and South Carolina, Florida, Tennessee and Alabama.  My first day on the job was a bit unusual and involved a breakfast to herald the acquisition of MGM films by WSB, a station whose call letters stood for Welcome South, Brother.  Aware that the breakfast was to begin in 10 minutes, I dashed out of my office to find what I thought was a cab parked by the curb.  Leaping into the vehicle, I realized the driver was a cop who saw the humor in what had happened.  "Where do you want to go?" he asked.  "WSB," I answered and we were off.

The cop then drove me to what turned out to be WAGA-TV, the CBS affiliate.  Apologizing for confusing the two stations (perhaps I spoke a strange dialect?), he took me to WSB.  "What an interesting introduction to what I'm sure is a wonderful city," was my Chamber of Commerce comment made to a curbside Norman Shavin, then radio-tv columnist for the Atlanta Journal.  He used the quote in his next day's column.

Having a unique responsibility for coverage areas of many stations, I took an early-on drive through Alabama where I was astonished to find a dirt road in the very heart of Birmingham.  To get to the Florida panhandle, I had to go through Dothan where I learned from the promotion manager of the town's only station that the magazine was getting 50 and 60 spots a week in trade for a half-page advertisement.  Many were in prime time.  Offering proof of performance by showing me station logs, he threw in a comment about "an FCC ruling that any citizen, upon request, must be shown a log."

I never forgot that one realizing I could not only view the accuracy of our programming but, also, the positioning of our trade-out-spots. While stations in markets like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles traded on a dollar-for-dollar basis, it was the Dothans, Topekas, and Chattanoogas where enthusiasm for the magazine often was based upon the answer to a question I was prone to ask station managers and promoters: "Would you rather have a newspaper or a TV Guide in the hands of a viewer seeking program information?"  Because TV Guide was pre-eminent in providing program details, the answer to the question went a long way in the magazine's success.  All it took was a handshake.

Venturing further south to Panama City, I checked the station's logs and learned things that would have raised the ire of the FCC.  In those days, you could not have three commercial spots in a row.  A way around the rule was to drop a station promo spot among the paid-for ones and I was surprised such obvious subterfuge was ignored there.  The log showed popular shows like "Tennessee Ernie Ford" often were resumed in progress--sometimes missing more than two minutes during which commercials ran.

While it's unlikely Newton Minow was ever aware of the specific guile practiced by the Panama City channel, it is true that the former FCC chairman included the spirit of such shenanigans in his charge that the TV industry was a "vast wasteland."  That was on May 9, 1961, four years after my trip to Dothan.  Minow had been appointed recently to his position by President John F. Kennedy and his words shook up TV like no one before or since.

The Minow comment got mixed reviews.  Many regarded his attack before the National Association of Broadcasters long overdue as criticism of excessive violence and frivolity while others thought it elitist hammering of programs enjoyed by viewers who believed the criticism as private enterprise interference by government.  Sound familiar?

Others unhappy with Minow's observations included (not surprisingly) Ayn Rand and Sherwood Schwartz, the creator of "Gilligan's Island."  Schwartz, who died last year at 94, offered a retort in the form of Gilligan's ill-fated ship, the S.S. Minnow.  The ship was used in  pre-program dramatic effect to explain how the seven survivors wound up on the island.  Minow never got specific about what constituted "wasteland" but "Gilligan" had come more than close and the FCC chairman took the jab in stride.

Over the years, I've had the good fortune to chat with Minow while working for WTTW, Chicago's public television station.  A Chicagoan, he was instrumental in getting the station on the air and in eventually hiring a long-needed professional general manager, Bill McCarter.  I also spoke with him shortly before retiring from the Chicago Tribune in 1988.  Although Minow's "vast wasteland" speech is his strongest connection to the public, he is responsible for fostering two initiatives that dramatically changed American TV.  His All-Channels Received Act of 1961 mandated UHF reception for all television receivers thus creating the number of stations that included PBS throughout the country.  He is a past president of the Carnegie Corporation, the original funder of "Sesame Street."  Still active at 86 and holder of many honors, Minow is the Walter Annenberg professor emeritus at Northwestern University.

Minow believes his most important contribution was successfully urging Congress to pass legislation making possible communications satellites.  It was Minow who told Kennedy: "communications satellites will be much more important than sending man into space, because they will send ideas into space.  Ideas last longer than men."

Writing late last year in Politico while taking exception to the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United permitting unlimited expenditures of union and corporate money in politics, Minow called attention to a law that has been on the books for more than 75 years.  Minow, who continues his law practice, suggests in his article, written with former general counsel of the FCC Henry Geller, that Section 317 of the 1934 Communications Act is the means of discovery and consistent with Justice Louis Brandeis's philosophy that "sunlight is the best disinfectant." 

One of Minoe's complaint examples involves Terry Branstad who ran for the Iowa Republican gubernatorial nomination last year.  Roughly $370,000 worth of TV commercials accused him of being a "liberal" while purchased by "Iowans for Responsible Government."  Not revealed was that the ads were created and paid for by the Democratic Governors Association.  In addition, something like $450,000 commercial time was bought by "Concerned Taxpayers of America" who turned out to be the "Ending Spending Fund" underwritten by one donor who sponsored more than $1 million in campaign ads.

According to the authors, "the long-standing FCC regulation requires an announcement to fully and fairly disclose the true identity of the person or persons...or other entity by whom or on whose behalf such payment is made.  It provides that when a person or entity acts on behalf of another, and this fact is is known or could be known by the station exercising reasonable diligence, the name of the real sponsor must be announced."

Minow and Geller continue: "Broadcast and cable stations are required to determine the true identity of the sponsoring entity or entities and announce that name.  Most important, when viewers and listeners hear an ad that used a front group with a meaningless name--"Americans for a Better Tomorrow"--they should ask the station, with a copy to the FCC, to use reasonable diligence to disclose the real person or entity that put up the money.

"If the station fails to do so, there can be resort to the FCC or, if necessary, the courts.

"The Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United permitted unlimited expenditures of union and corporate money in politics.  'But the court did not rule that these expenditures should be secret.  It ruled, prompt disclosures of expenditures can provide shareholders and citizens with the information needed to hold corporations and elected officials accountable.  This transparency enables the electorate to make informed decisions and give proper weight to different speakers and messages."

Cornerstone of American television policy, the Communications Act has driven conservatives crazy for 77 years and that must have been the case two years ago with narrow-minded members of the Supreme Court whose search for loopholes and re-interpretations resulted in a terrifying decision whose short-sightedness has resulted in the current election mockery as a handful of Republican sugar daddies determine the Republican Party presidential nominee.

Imagine.  The solution to a remarkably outrageous Supreme Court decision that provides increased opportunity to buy elections, has been on the books on 77 years.  Thank you, Newton Minow.  The transparancy law appears to be the same one--certainly it has symmetrical spirit--as that referenced by that Dothan, Alabama station promotion manager so many years ago.

It's time to write some letters and knock on some doors.

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The Yips....by Bob Sanders

 

The problems inherent in producing superior sports performance has been the subject of a great deal of analysis and it may be that Yogi Berra was on the right track when he observed that "90 percent of this game is half mental."

Everyone has bad days.  People who write for a living have been known to stare at paper in a typewriter or the computer equivalent, realize the muse is not being helpful, then toddle off to a park or bar for inspiration.  Major league hitters don't have time to be so selective.  Most pitches come in somewhere between 85 and 100 mph.

The Pittsburgh Pirates had a pitcher, Steve Blass, whose dependability earned him a World Series MVP honor in 1971.  The following year he went 19-8 with a 2.49 ERA.  The right-hander with a herky-jerky motion had difficulties finding home plate the next year going 3-9 with a horrendous 9.81 ERA.  Having been diagnosed with what is today called Steve Blass Disease, the hurler was sent to the minors the next year where he walked 93 hitters in 56 2/3 innings and was gone from baseball.

Proficiency in turning the double play at the second base position is one of those talents of enormous appeal to managers likely inclined to take for granted the ability to execute a throw to first on routine ground balls.  Steve Sax, named NL Rookie of the Year in 1982 while playing for the Dodgers, did everything expected of him and more.  Great things were to happen the next year but, suddenly, he couldn't make the easy throw to first and things go so bad that jocular fans behind the first base dugout began donning batting helmets.  Sax, who committed 30 errors in 1983, got better eventually and six years later led all AL second basemen in fielding percentage and double plays while playing for the Yankees.  Second basemen of errant throws are perceived to have the Steve Sax Syndrome.

While baseball has seemingly been the sport with the greatest variety of head cases (the Chicago Cubs within recent years have employed both Milton Bradley and Carlos Zambrano), such athletic pursuits as basketball (failure at the foul line), tennis (serving shortcomings) and some of the NFL's normally reliable field goal kickers have been perplexed by the mysterious yips.

Incurring the yips is one of those sports phrases more associated with golf than any other.  Indeed, it was Tommy Armour, a major pro player, who left the tour after acquiring the yips, also called flinches, twitches, staggers, jitters, jumps, shakes, and jerks.  It was Armour who brought attention to the problem when he observed: "Once you've had 'em, you've got 'em."

The yips are so common that researchers at the Mayo Clinic suggest that somewhere between one-quarter and one-half of all mature golfers become afflicted.  Careers severely damaged by the yips include those of Ben Hogan, Harry Vardon, Johnny Miller and Sam Snead.

Armour, often called The Silver Scot, won three majors, became known as one of the best iron players ever and, oddly enough, holds the record for the most strokes, 23, on one hole in PGA Tour play.  Achieved at the 17th hole of something called the Shawnee Open, Armour's feat was accomplished prior to acquiring the yips.  One wonders if the Armour record for inefficiency might have been even more impressive had he then been in the throes of the leaping willies.

Not to put too fine a point on the recent AT&T Pebble Beach Pro Am Tournament won in spectacular fashion by Phil Mickelson, but the competition's big loser was Tiger Woods who confirmed what we have suspected for some time: he has the yips.

While the game's TV observers have yet to suggest that Woods is so afflicted, his final round of 75 included five missed putts of less than five feet.  The game's commentators, including the aforementioned Miller, continue to talk around the subject much as family members of an Alzheimer's patient using phrases like "memory loss" and "early dementia."  Tiger's performance was in sharp contrast to Mickelson who carded a sizzling 64, 11 strokes less than his playing partner who finished tied for 15th.

Those Mayo folks so far haven't come up with the exact cause of the yips but suggest that the condition may result from biochemical changes in the brain that accompany aging.  Because Tiger is but 36, it appears science will have to dig deeper in his case.  It may very well be that Tiger is simply a head case while addressing short putts as thoughts of driving into fire hydrants in the wee small hours race through his rattled mind.  Then, perhaps, he thinks of a now wealthy ex-wife whose concentration these days involves flattening a former home to make possible a manse of greater square footage.

Trying to figure out what is wrong with Tiger is like trying to determine what is right about the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro Am which used to be the Bing Crosby National Pro-Amateur.  Back in more casual times when the tournament was often referenced as the Crosby Clambake (Snead won the first two with $500 payoffs each time), golf's "progression" is reflected in the event's battle to retain luster as the most important non-major stop on this country's pro tour.  Playing on three great golf courses, the field is lessened by a decision by many top European Tour players to forsake the beauty of Monterey Bay for a stop at the Omega Dubai Desert Classic.

The Clambake's beginnings in 1937 were an opportunity for the entertainment world's golfers to rub cashmeres with the golfing elite.  With TV came actor Jack Lemmon's annual and pronounced Pebble Beach adversities.  There was nothing quite like Lemmon's three decades of jousting the elements on Pebble Beach's 18th hole.  Crosby crony Bob Hope soon came up with his own tournament in Palm Springs and it wasn't long before singer Andy Williams had one in Torrey Pines north of San Diego.  Once considered a weak link on the pro tour, California tournaments became monetarily meaningful to the people who run golf and the charities splendidly served.

Whether or not Crosby's second wife, the exceedingly private Katherine Grant, was a long-suffering golf widow is anyone's guess, but it appears likely when one considers how quickly the entertainer's name faded from tournament reference following his death in 1977.  Gone were Crosby's pals including Phil Harris and it's quite likely the golf widow exacted the revenge dreamed of by a great many women.  AT&T became the event's sponsor in 1986.

What we have now is a trade-off of sorts with corporate America's finest joined by football players and coaches whose golf swings are now analyzed in agonizingly slow motion by host experts including Nick Faldo.  Golf, sensitive for a long time that critics believe the game is a skill rather than a sport, appears to be insisting it is the latter by association with participation by such coaches as Bill Belichick, Nick Saban, and Bob Stoops and quarterbacks Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady, and Tony Romo.  Denver Bronco quarterback Tim Tebow was a scratch due to injuries.  This association process involves millionaire coaches as extensions of corporate America plus brainy millionaire quarterbacks the new show biz personalities.  Every mindful that women also are involved in sporting activities, host Jim Nance proferred an awkward reference to a daughter of one of the coaches who apparently directs lacrosse at Ohio State.  One wonders if Joe Paterno or Jerry Sandusky were ever invited.

 With the exception of always funny Bill Murray who replaced Lemmon as the event's fairway doofus following his death in 2003, the old show biz people are down to an un-precious few who include comedians George Lopez and Ray Romano plus links spiffy Andy Garcia.  All had  their swings analyzed, we learned that Mickelson's grandfather used to take a train down from the Bay Area to Pebble Beach to caddy for 25 cents a bag, and Murray was resplendent in a camouflage and feather ensemble.  He gave no evidence of the yips other than the normal physical idiosyncrasies evidenced by a golfer with a 15 handicap.

Through it all, there was sadness on this viewer's part that the tourament has all but abandoned Crosby connection in spite of lip-service suggesting otherwise.  Maybe there is just too much money involved.  Murray's days of entertaining on a golf course may be numbered and we may be reduced to watching him play golf course superintendent Carl Spackler in the still hilarious Caddyshack.

The largely humor-less touring pros aren't crazy about playing with eccentrics who could very well induce the Yips. 

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"Rin Tin Tin" by Susan Orlean...reviewed by Bob Sanders

 

Susan Orlean, whose The Orchid Thief  found the enormously able writer examining an obsession, is at it again with a nearly 100-year look at Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend.  Be advised that any fond memories of a dog will make it difficult for the reader to put down the unlikely tale of a man who masterminded the creation of what was billboarded as America's Greatest Movie Dog.

The obsession in Rin Tin Tin is that of the dog's owner and trainer, Lee Duncan, who found the celebrity canine on a World War I battlefield in France.  Duncan's extreme devotion to his dog is similar to John Laroche's intense attachment in The Orchid Thief.

Orlean weaves three story developments in telling the compelling tale of a dog who achieved public recognition that grew into the cult of Rin Tin Tin.  There's the story of Duncan's bonding with and training of the dog; the Hollywood part of the story as Rinty (as intimates called him) achieving greatness in silent pictures; then the super dog's TV career when producer Herbert B. Leonard re-introduced him to audiences.  With an eye for rich detail, Orlean explains how Rinty (there were a great many over the years totalling a singular icon) fit in with the transformation of dogs from work animals to pets.  "Keeping an animal in the house as a companion is so common now," she writes, "that it's easy to forget how fundamentally odd it is, and what a leap it must have been to share living quarters with a nonhuman life form just to have their company."

Abandoned first by his father, then his mother when he was six, Duncan lived in an orphanage three years before his mother retrieved him and an older sister.  Lacking the ability to make normal human interaction, Duncan became dependent upon animals for lasting bonds.  His single-mindedness in creating a legendary super dog and the author's pursuit of a sprawling story are the book's recurring themes.

It was in a shelled kennel in eastern France that Duncan stumbled upon a newborn litter of German shepherd pups.  In an unfinished memoir, Duncan wrote that Rinty "crept right into a lonesome place in my life and...became a part of me."  Although the dog was found in September, 1918, Rinty's greatness didn't become obvious until he was filmed in slow motion by a friend of Duncan's.  The footage of Rinty jumping over an obstacle nearly 12 feet high wound up on newsreels resulting in a Warner Bros. contract.

Rin Tin Tin's enormous silent film success was in 23 productions that saved the studio from bankruptcy on a regular basis. He was then the most famous dog in the world; at the height of his popularity, he was filmdom's number one box office star receiving 50,000 fan letters a month.  Duncan became very wealthy.

"A dog was at no disadvantage," writes Orlean, "to a human in silent film; both species had the same set of tools for telling a story--action, expression, gesture.  In fact, an animal acting without words looked natural and didn't fall into pantomime and exaggeration the way human actors in silent film often did." 

The original Rin Tin Tin died in 1932 and the Hollywood rumor mill had the dog dying in the arms of handy Jean Harlow who was living across the street.

Talkies were tough on Rinty whose contract was terminated shortly before the dog's death.  It wasn't until 1954 that Leonard brought him back in the huge TV success, "The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin."  The show played in more than 70 countries and became so popular in the U.S. that nearly one-third of the television sets in the country were tuned to the show.

Leonard is one of many odd characters who wander in and out of Orlean's impressively researched story.  Caring nothing about dogs, Leonard sought out Duncan who held TV in low esteem.  It was Leonard, whose other tube triumphs include "Route 66" and "Naked City," who "antagonized everyone he ever knew," according to one insider as Orlean pieces together who did what to whom in those early days of TV production.  Some of Leonard's more significant battles are with Ralph Cohn, founder of Screen Gems and nephew of the outrageous Harry Cohn, head of parent company Columbia Pictures.  Leonard, whose extravagances included four wives and a gambling addiction (at least one studio assumed his losses contractually),  wound up sleeping in cars and homes of friends.  Orlean has to have so much Herb Leonard material that she must be tempted to crank out a book about him.  On the other hand, Sammy Glick in Hollywood has already been done.

One of the particularly insightful passages of Orlean's writing occurs near the book's end; more than anything else, it explains why she was so drawn to the dog:.."I was used to the idea that everything connected to Rin Tin Tin was full of happenstance and charm, lightning strikes of fortune and hairpin turns of luck; from a standstill, life around Rin Tin Tin always seemed to accelerate out of the depths of disappointment to a new place filled with possibility.  Just like that, wonderful things happened to someone who otherwise would have been luckless, friendless, abandoned.  This is what the story of Rin Tin had become in my mind--a myth--and why it had drawn me in, as it had drawn in all these other people.  The facts were all interesting, but they were mere armature; the rest was like an ancient legend, wondrous, lifting everything around it, as buoyant as a dream."

Orlean, a Clevelander and graduate of the University of Michigan, has been a New Yorker magazine writer since 1992.  The Orchid Thief, one of several books, formed the basis of a film script by Charlie Kaufman and Spike Jonze.  The film, Adaptation,   portrayed Orlean (played by Meryl Streep) as Laroche's lover and partner in a drug production operation in which orchids were transformed into a fictional psychoactive substance.

Now, go get the book if you haven't already.  Susan Orlean's pursuit of detail is extraordinary, her insight also at that level.  She is simply one of our very best writers.     

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Bonhomie Bob Cromie....by Bob Sanders

It was while taking the #15 WTA bus to downtown Bellingham the other day that I began thinking about my good fortune to have known Bob Cromie.  Perhaps it was the book I was reading during the ride that reminded me of him.  A classic among journalists, Robert J. Casey's Such  Interesting People is a highly perceptive look at Chicago reporters, writers and editors who, among other things, inspired Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur to write The Front Page.

Cromie, who left us at 90 with six months and change left before the Millennium, was a carry-over from Casey's era.  His book, published in 1943, did not goose me into the field of journalism; rather, it was reportorial efforts on The Heun Gazette, a for-laughs-only publication passed around study halls by restless students at Lakewood High School located in a suburb immediately west of Cleveland, Ohio.  More later about The Gazette, editor Dick Heun and our decidedly bizarre approach to journalism as we created our versions of the first pages of history.

Cromie may be recalled as the host of a nationally syndicated radio show about books plus two TV programs, "Cromie Circle" on Chicago's WGN and "Book Beat," home based at WTTW, the city's public TV channel that fed the shows to PBS stations.  His broadcast triumphs were an adjunct to four decades of reportorial excellence.  He loved words and the people who used them--particularly those who called attention to social injustice, an attitude that characterized every aspect of his work and life.

Successful journalists owe their reputations to many things.  Some dig deeper for stories than their counterparts.  Others, not as persevering, may place greater emphasis on originality while some make effective use of contacts calling upon rolodexes both real and of the mind.  Cromie is the only journalist I ever met who was thoroughly noble and it showed in the way people responded to him.  I never heard him swear and that includes time on the golf course where people are very inclined to do so.

In a business where excessive drinking, more than any other shortcoming, has probably ended more careers, Cromie (to my knowledge) never took a drink.  Whether this was a lifelong consistency or a resolve preceded by a battle with demon rum I know not.  He often sat at John Fischetti's First Amendment celebratory table at Riccardo, joining in and providing hilarity while not imbibing.  Fischetti, a Pulitzer winner for editorial cartooning, was my best friend first at the  Chicago Daily News, then at Sun-Times after the Daily News was folded by Marshall Field V.

Like many outstanding journalists, Cromie was a messy desk person although he was on the neat side compared to sports writer/columnist Bill Gleason of the Sun-Times.  I once made reference to something he had written nine years earlier prompting Gleason to dive into a filing system everyone called Mt. Gleason.  Groping for a moment or two with Herman Cain-like proficiency, he extracted a published piece plus paper-clipped notes and proclaimed: "You mean this?"   

The messy desk possibly continues to be a matter of pride to some contemporary journalists.  I once took wife Janet on a tour of the Chicago Tribune editorial floor during which she met such print paragons as columnist Eric Zorn, critic Gene Siskal (then thumbs-upping it at the movies with TV co-host Roger Ebert) and cartoonist Jeff MacNelly, a three-time Pulitzer winner.  It was in the newsroom that we came upon a remarkable example of clutter whose magnitude suggested it had to have been detritus of an Oklahoma tornado decidedly off course.

"Whose office is this?" asked Jan.

"It's Casey Bukro's,"  I replied knowing what was coming next.

"What does he do?" was the anticipated question.

"Why, he's the Environmental Editor" I giggled in return.  Bukro, responsible for environmental entries, nearly won a Pulitzer for his "Save Our Lake" series.

Born in Detroit and educated at Oberlin College, Cromie joined the Tribunein 1936 and was the newspaper's war correspondent for four years.  Wherever World War II battles raged, whether in Europe or the Pacific, Cromie was there to report--often with a local angle.  His modus operandi nearly always was kicked off by asking if there were any soldiers or Marines from Chicago or Illinois.  Tribune readers had the war "personalized" for them and Cromie was masterful.

Cromie was with the Marines when Guadalcanal was invaded and he put in a lot of miles traveling with Gen. George Patten including coverage of the Battle of the Bulge.  Like Ernie Pyle, he wrote stories about average guys turned into everyday heroes.  Typical of his work was an October 12, 1943 report telling of a raid on Rabaul located, as the dateline proclaimed, SOMEWHERE IN NEW GUINEA.  The writing is rich, spare and aimed at a readership whose heightened interest in the war is in direct contrast to today's indifference.

"As we taxied on the runway," continued Cromie, "I moved into the bomb bay and stood between rows of 1,000 pound bombs.  We had plenty of respect for the 1,000 pounders--Staff Sgt. Fred C. Whitney, 22, Independence, Mo., Staff Sgt. John G. Shaffer of Logan, W. VA, and I.  We didn't return to our comfortable posts in the waist until Bond (Lt. John E. Bond 24 of Scarsdale, N.Y.) had plenty of time to get his plane on an even keel.  Other heavy bombers were all around us.  I could count more than 50 at one time.  We gradually got into formation and headed for Rabaul, soon running into heavy fog which hid the wingtips and sent tiny drops of water running on the windows.  Then into the sun once more.  The morning was all blue and gold and blinding white.  I went forward and stood behind the pilot's seat.  Tech Sgt. H. V. Milarski of 3800 Diversey boulevard, Chicago, was working on the radio.  As he smoked a cigarette he looked as bored as if riding down State street in a street car.  Tech Sgt. Joseph A. Gosseaux, 23, of Grindstone, Pa., the engineer, was busy writing down the names of the personnel.  He did this with ease from long practice, even to putting down each man's serial number from memory--some numbers containing eight digits." 

Cromie's war journalism is something we don't get today because of the military's control explicit in embedding reporters resulting in spoon fed versions far short of what we should be getting.  For that we can thank President George H.W. Bush, Dick Cheney (then Defense Secretary) and other members of the administration who conducted an assault on constitutional freedoms during Operation Desert Storm.  Without question, a strangely passive press also was at fault.

I have two particularly fond memories of Cromie.  One involved attending services for Fischetti who died two weeks after I left Field Enterprises (owner of the Sun-Times).  There were people critical of my leaving for the Tribune but Fischetti was highly supportive during two months of my maneuverings with the marketing and editorial departments of the Boul Mich monolith.

Cromie's eulogy for Fischetti was perfect.  In the company of all who loved the guy, Cromie offered a parting line that recalled a legion of mid-day fun: "I think it's entirely possible that John Fischetti invented the long lunch."

My other indelible memory of the journalist was the result of a question I asked him following a taping of "The Cromie Circle" at WGN.  Of all the authors he had interviewed, with which one would he prefer to spend a lot of time?  Cromie mentioned several but the stickout he decided was Ernest K. Gann.  Gann's many lives were spent as a theatrical manager, film director, painter, writer, pilot and seaman.  Both he and Cromie were man's men for whom laughter was an important ingredient of living.  "He is truly one hell of a guy," was the way he put it.

"'ll tell you something interesting about Gann," observed Cromie.  "His was the only interview I ever conducted in which the subject would not tell me where he lived.  I asked him why and Gann replied: "If I tell you, you'll ask me what it's like and I'll tell you how wonderful it is.  Members of your audience will then get interested in the place and they'll buy property and build homes and the place won't be the same.  That's why."

Our conversation took place in 1985 shortly before Cromie retired.  When more than four years later Jan and I moved to San Juan Island in the Pacific Northwest, we discovered that one of its better-know residents was Gann, author of 25 novels about aviation and the sea.  Among the best known: Fate is the Hunter, The High and the Mighty and Blaze of Noon. 

We met Ernie and spunky wife Dodie (an inductee into the National Ski Hall of Fame, she captained the 1948 Olympics team) at a party a couple of weeks after our January, 1990 arrival in Friday Harbor.  He recalled the conversation with Cromie and thought our meeting indicative of pronounced prescience on Cromie's part.  Among the many joys of our island life were the sensational views offered from our home including the Olympic and Cascade Mountains, the waters of Puget Sound, the Strait of Juan de Fuca and much of Ernie and Dodie's 760-acre Red Mill Farm in the San Juan Valley below.

The farm and its assured future gave further evidence of Ganns' staunch attitude regarding the heaven on earth he had referenced in his conversation with Cromie.  Shortly after donating a conservation easement to the San Juan Preservation Trust thus denying development, Gann told me: "We have to do something to save this land, not only for our children but for ourselves.  People need to stop thinking of money all the time, or the land won't be here." 

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Polls Raise Cain....by Bob Sanders

 

Excuse me, but have we once again become distracted?

The reference is to the Herman Cain contretemps that started out as another one of those "revelations" planted with an online media outlet.  Knowledgeable observers remain of a mind that one of Cain's rivals in the race to represent the Republican Party in the 2012 Presidential election did the planting.  Suggestions that the Democrats are responsible make no sense.  The race is for Mitt Romney to lose and the Dems would much rather be confronted by Cain in the finals for all the obvious reasons.  Cain, meanwhile, is in impressive denial with the specter of at least four women pooling their experiences on TV chilling in terms of a Cain survival.

It was an odd week of peculiar verbalizing by the rag tag collection of those seeking the GOP nomination aided and abetted by not always helpful associates.  Michelle Bachmann suggested Mount Rushmore recognition for James Garfield who barely had time to check out the rose garden during six months in office.  Then, there was money decider Karl Rove, further distancing himself from the Tea Party by suggesting that celebrity attorney Gloria Allred (Sharon Bialek's mouthpiece) "lends credibility" to sexual harassment accusations leveled at Cain.  Let us not forget big-hearted Rick Santorum who became a rare early bird to not call for Penn State's Joe Paterno's resignation just hours before the old coach was told to clean out his locker.  We certainly can't pass over Ron Paul who once again suggested scuttling the minimum wage nor can we forget a quote, actually a resurrection of a quote, about Newt Gingrich that was first reported a year ago.  We have word from ex-wife Marianne Gingrich who quoted "Newtie" staffers as saying: "He's a sociopath, but he's our sociopath."

Perhaps the biggest gaffe of the campaign was made Wednesday night when Rick Perry, straight from a highly animated appearance in New Hampshire where he gave further evidence that he does a magnificent impression of George W. Bush, couldn't come up with a third department he would eliminate should he make it to the White House.  This guy is so goofy "Saturday Night Live" has zeroed in on his stumbling.

Somehow, and hardly a surprise, the far right wing commentators (identifications are hardly necessary these days), responded to the Cain matter by blaming it all on the "liberal press."  Were Machiavelli around today, he would not be impressed by the lack of subtlety.

Lost in all the ululation was the Cain story's most important factor.  Given 10 days advance warning by Politico.com, Cain handled things with such withering dithering that his guilt or innocence regarding old sexual harassment complaints simply don't matter.  Cain bungled a series of challenges while changing his stories to meet the developing charges finally implying race is at the root of it all when pointed in that direction by the usual hate radio suspects.  The bottom line is that Cain has proved what most people had already figured during his inept campaign; he is not capable of the Presidency although better than most of the candidates.  It seems logical that had Bill Clinton been given 10 days to come up with a superior legalistic use of words, we would have heard something more impressive than a parsing of the word "is."

Cain's run for the Republican nomination has underlined how stunningly short of leadership we are in this country.  The message is clear when a candidate like Cain can gain significant traction with Republican Party primary voters by running as a Beltway outsider who once ran a pizza company and the National Restaurant Association.  His undeniable connection is based upon the well-earned eight percent approval rating currently accorded the 535 clowns who represent us in Washington.  How in the world has there not been a call for Joe, the Plumber to haul us out of this mess?

What we have been getting out of Cain has advanced from puzzlement over the words "settlement" and "agreement" to what sounds strangely like lines from old "Amos & Andy" radio shows with Cain doing a very effective George "Kingfish" Stevens including the kind of upscale speech expected from a representative of the business world.  Those of sufficient memory may recall the Kingfish as a fraudulent observer whose misadventures often involved "The Knights of the Mystic Sea."  Kingish nemesis was Madam Queen and we seem to be gathering a burgeoning cast of featured females more than capable of raising Cain's hackles.  Who knows where the road will lead us but I have the damnable feeling that we're going to hear more about the inner-workings of the hospitality-prone National Restaurant Association than we really deserve.  We may yet see those women on "The View" with the go-getting Barbara Walters, a highly proficient getter of the "get," in fine feminine fettle.

This action distraction in politics, characterized by a deadly seriousness and determined reluctance during shallow TV debates to discuss a lot of highly important subjects, wasn't always so.  Back in the days when Richard Nixon was running for Congress against Congresswoman Helen Gahagan Douglas, the future President was done in for the first time by prankster Dick Tuck, then a student at the University of California, Santa Barbara.  It was an absent-minded professor who made possible Tuck's stunt by asking him to promote a campus appearance by Nixon whose campaign against Douglas remains one of the dirtiest ever.  As advance man, Tuck rented a big auditorium, invited very few people, then gave a long-winded speech to introduce Nixon.  As Nixon moved to the microphone, Tuck asked him to speak about the International Monetary Fund.  When Nixon finished, the candidate asked Tuck his name, then told him: "Dick Tuck, you've made your last advance."  It wasn't.

Tuck quickly became Nixon's avenger with his famous prank, "the Chinatown Caper," a particular winner.  Running for Governor of California in 1962, Nixon pulled into Los Angeles Chinatown where a backdrop of children held "welcome" signs in English and Chinese.  When Nixon spoke, a community elder whispered that one of the signs in Chinese said: "What about the Hughes loan?"  The reference was to an unsecured $205,000 loan that Howard Hughes provided Nixon's brother, Donald.  On camera, Nixon grabbed a sign and ripped it up.  Later, Tuck learned that the Chinese characters actually spelled out: "What about the huge loan?" 

So distinctive was Tuck's mischief-making that arch-conservative William F. Buckley singled him out as a master political prankster.  "You see," wrote Buckley, "Dick Tuck has been an employee of Democrats for many years, and his running assignment is to embarrass Republicans by any means.  He specializes in glorious improvisations which are no doubt more damaging to Republicans than any conversation the Watergaters might have tapped from the telephone of Lawrence O'Brien."

Humor always characterized Tuck's pranks and there was never any suggestion of meanness to what became legendary efforts.  In 1868, Nixon was defeated by Pat Brown in a race best known for his "you won't have Nixon to kick around anymore" comments to reporters.  Nixon's state of mind that day was believed by many to have been irrational and unbalanced; his behavior was partially attributed to Tuck having tricked Nixon twice during the campaign.  Included was the premature departure of a train from which Nixon was speaking.  Tuck modestly denies the event and such is the snow-balling effect of fame where undeserved credits are sometimes awarded.  To connoisseurs of dirty tricks, Tuck's were to politics what Frank Sinatra was to beautiful women.

One of the most fascinating moments of Tuck's career occurred in the White House during a give and take between Nixon and H.R. Haldeman.  On tape, a perplexed President makes references to disclosures by staffer Donald Segretti whose Watergate dirty tricks were deemed inferior to those of Tuck's everyday efforts.  That was in October, 1972 and there is admiration in Nixon's voice in recounting Tuck's triumphs.  "Dick Tuck did that to me," says the President.  "Let's get out what Dick Tuck did!"

It's easy to understand how a lot of people credit Tuck with an inspirational role in Watergate.  Segretti was hired by Dwight Chapin who reported directly to Haldeman.  It was during the Watergate hearings that Tuck ran into Haldeman, asked to resign the month before along with John Ehrlichman.

"You started all of this," said the former White House chief of staff.

Replied Tuck: "Yeah, but you guys ran it into the ground."

No one ever accused the Nixon White House of having a sense of humor and I think it fair to believe that Nixon and his staff didn't understand that Tuck was almost exclusively a merry prankster and a decided contrast to most of those who surrounded the President.  I was twice interviewed in 1967 by Haldeman and Ron Ziegler, both employed at the time by J. Walter Thompson Advertising in Los Angeles.  They were looking for a Ziegler replacement on the Disney account and my two sessions with them were enormously serious.  I didn't know it at the time but they had been tapped by Nixon for future White House work with Ziegler taking on a job for which he was disastrously ill-prepared: press secretary.

Tuck ran for office once and it was a failure.  That was in 1966 and his race for a newly-created California State Senate seat happened when he was late for a meeting with fellow Democrats.  By the time he arrived, his pals had chosen him.  He lost big time but his concession speech lives on: "The people have spoken...the bastards."

Two years later he joined the Robert Kennedy campaign following his candidacy announced in March, 1968.  Tuck did press relations and occasionally walked Kennedy's dog, Freckles.  Kidded by journalist friends, Tuck observed: "To you, this is just a dog, but to me it's an ambassadorship."  Tuck was walking behind Kennedy when the candidate, celebrating his California primary victory, was shot by Sirhan Sirhan.  Tuck tended to the fallen Kennedy and rode with police to the hospital where the candidate died.

Tuck also had the last laugh on Nixon when he helped give the public a better understanding of Watergate.  While the unedited transcripts were made available in August, 1980, no tape excerpts had been played on national media.  The National Archives would not allow any public access to the tapes other than being able to hear them at the Archive building.  Acquiring tapes from an undisclosed source, Tuck called an October 21 press conference in the Aspen (Colorado) Hotel's Jerome Bar.  He played excerpts for an hour, the media recorded the material, and the public acquired a better understanding of how venal and paranoid was our 37th President.

Dicktuck.com has a wealth of information about the prankster who lives in Tucson, Arizona.  Now 87 with a birthday coming up in January, Tuck has much to look back upon.  He had a lot of laughs and so have those of us who know how devastating humor can be in the political arena.  Nixon was almost forever a stranger to fun and breathed his last believing that a 1968 "Sock it to Me" appearance on "Laugh In" got him elected President.  My best guess is that he never really understood the why of it.

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Breaks of the Game....by Bob Sanders

 

In writing recently about some strange adventures involved in a Chicago Tribune public relations program suddenly dumped in my lap as the 1980s were winding down, I promised additional commentary about the guy who played dumper to my dumpee.

Dickey was one of three executives brought to theTribune in 1984 from the Orlando Sentinel, a sister publication where highly favorable marketing conditions made it almost impossible to do anything other than succeed.  Suddenly, publisher Charles Brumbach, editor-in-chief Jim Squires and Dickey were calling the shots.

It was shortly after my wife, Mickey, began chemotherapy treatments that I became aware my employment at the Trib was on shaky ground.  In retrospect, it still seems bizarre that my bosses could criticize my not coming to work for three days after Mickey's funeral services.  True, I had achieved bad paper status by leaving work at 2 p.m. each Thursday to take her home following treatments.  On the other hand, I always made up the time.  My work at the Trib was probably the best of my career and I won a number of major national awards including one for the White Sox send-up detailed earlier in "Pale Hose Humbuggery."

Because of my editorial background and news sense, I enjoyed excellent working relations with reporters and editors.  They trusted me thanks to word first put out by managing editor Bill Jones and others.  I doubt that any marketing employee at a major newspaper in this country at that time had my accessibility.  It was highly unusual and, in truth, I took a great deal of pride in being more a part of the editorial department than marketing.  Such a setup can invite problems.

A clue to my uneasy employment occurred about the time I won a national award from the American Newspaper Marketing Association for effectively positioning the Tribune in the White Sox craziness that included a threatened team move to Tampa-St. Petersburg.  I bailed Dickey out of a mess by giving focus and structure to his germ of a badly mounted idea.  Ironically, the project was deemed good enough for second prize in a monthly Tribune marketing department competition run by Dickey.  I had just turned 62, an event that prompted the usual birthday cake and singing of "Happy Birthday" followed by Dickey's comment that I was the oldest person in the department and almost 20 years senior to his marketing eminence.  His comment was a textbook lesson in how not to handle what might be proved as age discrimination.

In all honesty, I probably committed one of the biggest no no's of the workplace: killing the job.  Brought aboard to, among other things, give prominence to Tribune reporters and editors, I had booked a total of 1,500 broadcast appearances the first year eventually hitting 5,000 the last years of a highly effective run.  Obviously, I didn't have time to make all those bookings; rather, a snowball effect evolved with the paper gaining a tremendous lead over the Sun-Times whose circulation was concentrated in the city.  The Trib had become an even more significant regional newspaper with stories and editorial personnel appearing on those radio and TV stations whose signals helped enlarge the paper's circulation area.  Bureaus were created in the hinterlands, a sharp contrast to today's continuing pullback.  Like my work at Playboy whose circulation peaked during my tenure, so it was at theTribune during, as today's developments suggest, what was arguably the last golden yeaers of print journalism.   

Giving a lot of thought to hiring a lawyer and suing the paper for age discrimination, I decided I didn't want to go through 10 or 15 years of legal hell that dominates such pursuit, then took retirement in January, 1989.  Having married elegant and fun-loving Jan Quinn the prior year, we had discovered the San Juan Islands during a four-week look at some of this country's national parks.  The Pacific Northwest move would not have been possible had I been working for the Tribune.  Jan and I took up residence on the island in Washington State where we moved in January, 1990 having bought a home in a very elevated spot with glorious views of water plus the Olympic and Cascade mountain ranges.  Being corporate toast, however, rankled.  Something very wrong had happened and I knew a second shoe had to drop; when it did, I was astonished at what a thud it made in addition to a lot of sense.

Six months after moving to the island, the mail started bringing us clippings about Dickey.  The stories told of his being charged with bilking the Tribune out of about $890,000 over the course of three years.  Early published pieces, obviously controlled by the Tribune, about the executive's scam were somewhat lacking in detail although one report did mention his having been arrested in 1986 for stealing fishing lures from a shop in suburban Skokie.  Dickey pleaded he was a kleptomaniac, a problem described by his attorney as "diminished mental capacity."  One theory about the fishing lure theft suggested he had created an excuse in the event he was caught at his much grander larceny.  Cooperating with the newspaper, Dickey made restitution of $720,000--some of it realized from the sale of a home in swanky Kenilworth.   

In its June 22, 1991 issue, Advertising Age reported Dickey's biggest misappropriation was a false billing for a total of $748,352 in American Eagle gold coins.  Federal prosecutors said Dickey altered several of the invoices for the coins so that the "AE" appearing on the bill from a "Waukegan, Illlinois coin dealer suggested references to a Tribune employee rewards program know as "Advertising Excellence."  Dickey later sold the coins for cash and there is no record of any marketing department staffers (or anyone else, for that matter) winning the gold.  Perhaps one of those coins was "earmarked" for your faithful scribe's contest excellence although my second place finish probably wouldn't have qualified me.

Those American Eagle coins, hawked enthusiastically on Fox News and Fox Financial Channels, must remind Dickey of what might have been--particularly considering the price of gold ($1,765.50) as this is written.  Averaging around $400 an ounce during those halcyon years of thievery, Dickey's take would now be worth more than $3 million.  Had he not been caught, Dickey would likely be a fervent follower of Glenn Beck whose messages of fear helped drive the price of gold up to a record $1,917.90 early in August.  

During Dickey's profligate pilfering, he had the authority to approve payment of any promotional expense up to $50,000, according to charges.  About $140,000 in fraudulent goods and services invoices enabled him to convert to his personal use.  Included was $31,493 for landscaping, $7,844 for carpentry work and $2,071 for painting at his home.  Hey, living the good life isn't cheap.  Another payment went to a furniture business indicating the purchases would be used on the USS Chicago anchored at Navy Pier.

Whatever budgetary linkage there was between the purchase of coins and the costs of my work, salary and expenses (a yearly total of around $225,000 including staff appearances at $35 a pop) is anyone's guess.  I was not replaced.  Ah, irreplaceable me.

A rather odd series of visits to San Juan Island by Tribune staffers occurred during those early years of my retirement.  Two were by editorial department personnel and one from marketing.  Only one of the three, foreign news editor Michael McGuire, was anyone I had spent any time with while the other two hardly qualified as pals with the marketing department emloyee someone I had spoken to less than a half dozen times during about five years of her employment.  I'm certain all three took back stories that I was happy in my retirement and fully aware of how the Dickey drama had played out.  

The greatest satirical writers could not possibly come up with what happened to Tribune Company during the past four years.  The highly toxic Zell, who bought the firm in 2007, has done what corporate monsters do so effectively: mess up a good thing by not understanding, in this case the communications industry, and by making stupid decisions.  Among them: turning the firm over to Randy Michaels, a former shock jock (think Howard Stern) whose only media experience was with radio giant Clear Channel Communications.  Possessing no knowledge of print journalism, he was in vivid contrast to Col. Robert R. McCormick, the highly conservative and controversial editor/publisher who ran his fiefdom (1910-1955) much as an army battalion.  In a very short time, Michaels turned Tribune Tower into what one observer called a "sexist frat house atmosphere" where sexual behavior after hours became commonplace.  Some of the shenanigans took place in McCormick's old office.  In a deep financial hole, Michaels and his playmates managed to give themselves $57.3 million in bonuses while slashing 4,200 jobs in a wicked display of American greed.

Tribune Company is so screwed up that a guy I knew when he was working on the Trib's sports desk, Owen Youngman, is being sued for $328,049.  The money, received in the form of a check, was stock-based compensation he had accululated during 37 years at the newspapee.  Now a professor at Northwest University's Medill School of Journalism, he is one of 200 former excutives who find themselves targets of legal action in a Delaware bankruptcy court dealing with the company' s disastrous leveraged buyout.  Youngman didn't even work directly for Tribune Company.  All his 37 years were with Chicago Tribune, a fact being dismissed by a committee of unsecured creditors who want to claw back about $180 million in compensation.

I took a satisfactory chunk of money with me upon retirement in 1989 thanks to the then soaring value of company stock I accumulated and matched by the  newspaper.  My selling of the stock couldn't have been better timed.

Sometimes, while meandering down life's not always merry yellow brick road, we incur problems suggesting unfortunate consequences.  Thoes situations often turn out to be lucky breaks, but we don't know it at the time.  Every once in a while, Jan and I hoist a toast to Bob Dickey, 44, at the time of his arrest and a year older when releasd from prison.  We never would have wound up in the Fourth Corner for what has been nearly 22 terrific years had it not been for the thievery of Bob Dickey.

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Pushing the Sweepstakes Envelope...by Bob Sanders

 

With dire predictions about the future of the U.S. Postal Service rampant, it seems a bit odd that solicitations by mail appear to be both more numerous and of greater weight as we approach the holiday season.  Further, there seems to be something of a shrill quality to requests for monetary funds.  The economy is probably to blame but it's as if the old standby mail service is being used in more aggressive ways by many non-profits in what may be a kind of farewell salute.  As a great philosopher once suggested, "Get it now."

Offhand, I'd say I've received at least twice my normal mail during the past six weeks and it's not just attributable to the buying of public office.  At the risk of being called a roadshow Andy Rooney, I'm certain some of these annual appeals arrive at least four times a year.  A new wrinkle is the holiday gift including such items as tote bags, jackets, blankets, note pads and more return address labels than I could possibly use in 10 decades.  Boys Town, American Heart Association and the Paralyzed Veterans of America have told me to look inside for my present.  Easter Seals has announced on the envelope that I've been a supporter since 2011 and that there's important information inside regarding my 2012 membership.  Wonder what it might be?

I can't recall who it was but I've received two checks for $2.50.  Implicit in the pitch was the suggestion that I, the original nice guy, wouldn't cash the check but would add to it.  My guess is that the most difficult aspect of being a legitimate non-profit is media coverage.  Hardly a week goes by without a story about either a mail scam or the sky-high overhead of yet another do good organization.  Yes, let's blame the media, today's All-American whipping boy, if you discount President Obama.

In a country whee greed is hardly limited to Wall Street, many of us buy lottery tickets as a solution to money shorts.  While I'm sure that the people at Publishers Clearing House think otherwise, a sweepstakes is a sweepstakes is a sweepstakes.  How unfortunate was Gertrude Stein not to have lived long enough to experience the Clearing House Follies.  What a musical that will make some day with an Ed McMahon-like character making house calls while proving what he was: Max Bialystock with carny blarney.

Publishers Clearing House caught up with me the other day and my reaction was one of wellwhadyaknow? things much like running into a friend of a largely forgotten ex-wife.  Curious, I opened the PCH envelope to a WARNING indicating that the Executive Offices at 101 Winners Circle in Port Washington, NY were letting me know about my ignoring prior notices.  The WARNING was further identified as a WAIVER that could very well be activated if I followed directions.   

The WARNING (capital letters, often in boldface type, are PCH stock in trade) became detailed indicating that a failure to return my official entry validation & order form would (a) automatically waive my ownership of Mega Prize Number 391112404319, (b) automatically waive my number's permanent admission onto the Final Winner Selection List for the November 30th Mega Prize and (c) automatically waive my opportunity to win Millions of Dollars from this Notice.  Fortifying these threats was a hand-written note: "Don't let this happen to you.  Respond today, before it's too late."  In the word of Jack Benny: "Well!"

As if to sound a note of reason, there was a five paragraph raison d'etre from Dave Sayer, Prize Patrol Executive Director.  I wonder what it's like running a prize patrol?  Probably full of logistics and, if you're a veteran of the biz, likely to harbor feelings of good fortune that you never had affable Ed McMahon on your team although, come to think of it, McMahon's efforts as spokesman for rival American Family Publishing, no longer in business, were often mistaken as being for PCH.  Confusion often is a word used in conjunction with the sweepstakes since the direct mail scheme, deftly promoted, was started in 1963.  Confusion may have peaked with McMahon's death when a great many articles and obituaries credited McMahon's efforts as being for PCH, a firm for which he never worked.

We have Reader's Digest partly to blame for PCH's sweepstakes.  It was in 1963 that the Digest, now the world's most read monthly magazine with a circulation of 17 million and 70 million readers, came up with a highly successful sweepstakes that inspired PCH to develop its own version four years later as a means of drawing attention to magazines.  Who can forget a greatly enhanced version in the late 1980s and those live recorded moments featuring the Prize Patrol, lurking on American streets, and not conclude the towering excitement was an early version of reality television?  All those balloons, flowers, champagne, and big checks are impressions not easily diminished by time.

Sayer's reassuring note largely concentrates on why PCH is so happy to give away so much money.  It probably comes with the territory that any Prize Patrol Executive Director would become excessively inclusive and it took Dave but five paragraphs to declare palship by signing his first name to a communique with two references to my full name while interjecting seven yous, one you'll, plus a your in addition to making it clear I don't have to buy anything to win.  It was a promise later fort of rescinded.

Deception, no doubt accompanied by an awareness that a large percentage of this country's citizens continues to be victimized by a lengthy and severe dumbing down, has alway been part of Publishers Clearing House's sales ethics.  Something of a breakthrough occurred in 2000 when, without admitting any wrongdoing, the firm settled with 23 states for $18 million.  Key to the settlement was a forced inclusion of a "Sweepstakes Facts Box" and disclaimers thast tell participants "Buying Won't Help You Win" and "You Have Not Yet Won."  The firm also was ordered to maintain a Do Not Contact list for those wanting nothing to do with PCH.  Things got a touch more expensive the next year when it took $34 million to settle with 25 states and, for the first time, acknowledged "harm done in the past by deceptive practices."  Settlement agreements during the next 11 months were reached with 40 states.

State settlements appear to be a sweepstakes minor irritant to PCH.  In September of last year, contempt charges of violating the 2001 Agreement were reached with 33 for a paltry $3.5 million, a sum likely found encouraging by PCH.  Each settlement has produced more ground rules seemingly still trespassed judging from what arrived in my mail.  Certainly, the spirit of ground rules corrections has been violated; one wonders if PCH has the kind of corporate sense of humor capable of giving rise to a yearly internal sweepstakes game within the game enabling home office types to buy in-house chances on the number of state settlements to be made plus the dwindling chump change fines since the new century began.  Corporations, as we've been told by George Romney, are people and there are something like 400 employees headquartered in Port Washington, NY.  Conspiracy theorists are probably wondering if there is any connection between a doubling of lobbyists during the glorious George W. Bush years and greatly reduced PCH fines meted out for obvious obfuscation and whose murkiness remains a hallmark of written chicanerey.

I couldn't help but notice an enclosed Official Entry Validation & Order Form.  Implicit is the declaration that my current PROVISIONAL ONLY status will remain just that unless I affix my Mega Prize 10-diget number contained on the FINAL WINNER SELECTION LIST ADMISSION NOTICE.  If my submission arrives by November 14, I make it to the final round should my number be selected.  It used to be simple before this winnowing process was deemed necessary.  The odds of winning as much as a mega prize of $1 million plus $5,000 a week for life are something like 1 in 1.75 billion, an increase of 23% from a year ago.  The odds have always been contention's bone with the 2007 chances, announced by PCH, as "1 in 333 million."

I kind of like the free postage envelope enclosed.  I don't recall such assistance before but, the passage of time and the fecklessness of my past responses may be to blame.  With the government critical of the continuing word games played by PCH, there is possible blatancy in a suggestion on the envelop0e that it be used to "enclose your official entry validation & order form and mail."  Critics wise to the ways of nuanced literature will deplore an ampersand certain to put lawyers to work.  

I do miss all those magazines that Publishers Clearing House sold in the early days.  What came in the mail the other day makes one wonder why the word "Publishers" remains in the firm's name.  It's one thing to flog a classy publication like The New Yorker, it's another to shill for such products as an NFL Football Monkey complete with your choice of team logos; a heart-shaped birthstone pendant with two pairs of pierced earrings, an irresistible 32-melody wireless digital doorbell (tunes include "The Yellow Rose of Texas, batteries not included) and three sets of glittery Santa window sticker that come with three snowmen stickers if four payments of $2.99 are made.  I counted 83 advertisers participating in what normally is associated with cheesy local mailings heavy on pizza parlors, automotive specials and sex shops.

It wasn't long before I learned these people never give up.  Deep within the PCH envelope contents was a "Fast Cash" bingo card adjacent to eight sticker chips that, somehow, gave me a matching row of numbers and the opportunity to slap the card on the back of my Official Entry Validation & Order Form and make me a $50 Fast Cash Winner.

I also stumbled upon an even greater opportunity that might win $100.  It seems that Bellingham resident Robert Sanders is on the LOCAL PRIZE WINNER SELECTION LIST, provisionally (there's that word, again) eligible to win the SEATTLE-TACOMA TV area major prize of $1,000.  TV stations KOMO-TV, KING-TV and KIRO-TV are guaranteed to be alerted to my windfall.  Of course, the entry must be validated by 11/14/11 or the provisional eligibility will be REVOKED.

It's tempting to inform PCH that Bellingham, located 100 miles north of Seattle, is not part of the Seattle-Tacoma area.  Also, I don't believe either KOMO-TV or KIRO-TV will be interested in me and my $1,000 prize.  That's particularly so should they learn Brian Williams will announce the name of the mega prze winner on the NBC-TV nightly news of November 30.

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