Sidebars

Romney the Absurdist....by Bob Sanders

 

If the word "absurdist" is the perfect word to describe Samuel Beckett's monumental Waiting for Godot, then that same word is most applicable to Mitt Romney's quest for the U.S. Presidency.

Let's look at it this way.  The essence of the play is that nothing happens.  Vladimir and Estragon are on stage as the play opens.  They are very confused as evidenced by their conversational schtick that smacks of Buster Keaton with some Charlie Chaplin thrown in.  Then, too, a hat-trading routine can only be Laurel & Hardy.  Their confusion is accompanied by disappointment when they learn that Godot, an enigmatic figure for whom they wait will not come that nght but will come tomorrow.

Vladimir and Estragon are us and Romney would make an excellent Godot.  We are very curious about him but know nothing other than mostly what others have told us.  While it's true that Romney brought success to an Olympics in Salt Lake City where it could hardly fail, his only political gig was as governor of a state (Massachusetts) hardly known as a harbinger for political conservatism.  He ruled as he had to and his major plus was a very successful use of ObamaCare.  How mysterious that Romney's greatest triumph cannot be used as evidence of it?  On the other hand, it was that accomplishment that prompted attack by all preliminary competition starting with the Tea Party.

What Mitt Romney represents is frightening to at least 47% of us when he appealed in May to a well-heeled fund-raising roomful during which moochers at the public trough like me were branded as heavy users of entitlements, a term that has been fiercely building for many years in the vocabularies of conservatives.  By the way, let's start calling him by his real handle: Thurston Howell Romney.  That's what conservative New York Times  columnist David Brooks called him in a devastating September 17 column.  Anyone with a sliver of a doubt about Thurston Howell absolutely has to read this one.

Yes, I'm one of the 47 percent as a guy, by Romney's calculations, who receives Social Security and Medicare benefits.  This "victim" worked for both of those and I caddied and peddled newspapers as a kid.  My experiences carrying golfer's bags at $1.00 a round ($1.50 for doubles) gave me insight into how wealthy minds tend to work.  Rare were the cold Coca-Colas offered on hot days while tips amounted to either 10 or 25 cents.  I was known to trade off a 25 cent hacker bore for Lou Bushara, the Pontiac dealer, because of his two handicap.  

With Brooks leading the way, something approaching a pile-on has resulted with right wing media types including Charles Krauthamer (Washington Post/Fox News), William Kristol (National Review), Peggy Noonan (columnist and ex-Reagan writer), Jonah Goldberg ("O'Reilly Factor" regular), and Scott Brown (he's running for Massachusetts senator) throwing such barbs at the GOP nominee as "incompetent," "arrogant and stupid" and "donor remarks reflect Romney's political naivete," you get the feeling the game is over.  Then, there was the crowning blow.  Scott Walker, his vice-presidential running mate, came up with "inarticulate."  How devastating.

So, maybe, you had a little trouble with his "likes to fire people" comments, the fact that his plans for the economy are totally without specificity, that his self-reassurance can't possibly compensate for a remarkable self-destructiveness, or that his scary travels in Europe proved without question he's a diplomatic disaster.  Thurston Howell is like a superb satirical invention by Terry Southern, the guy who co-wrote Dr. Strangelove.

Romney, bizarre during the mess of  a convention (A National Review editorial was critical), was quite possibly at his worst when asked by Fox News's Brett Baier why he failed to mention the war in Afghanistan?  The only other convention reference to the war was by Clint Eastwood who managed to slide in a confused reference in his infamous empty-chair "speech."

Replied Romney to Baier: When you give a speech you don't go through a laundry list, you talk about the things that you think are important and I described in my speech my commitment to a strong military, unlke the President's decision to cut our military." 

This is straight out of the vaudevillian efforts of Vladimir nd Estragon.  There's nothing quite like a would-be commanders in chief who doen't think an active war qualifies as being "important"

Beckett left the party 23 years ago and it's tempting to suggest someone do another parody of Gogot.  People of noble writing skills including Turkish playwright Ferhan Sensoy and the American Meron Langsner have done so.  Even an independent film, Waiting for Woody Allen, was produced in 2004.  The tragic comedy involves two quarrelsome Hasidic men who wait on a Central Park bench for a no-show Allen.  On the surface of things, Thurston Hewell Romney is the perfect Godot.

Some of Beckett's best lines could be used again.  For example, Romney, who somehow escaped the military along with his five sons, is reluctant to discuss war although a reference could be made to George W. Bush, a much more accomplished dodger since his memorably accomplishments in that area of endeavor were while in service.  Bush's eight years in the White House beg Beckett's line: "We are all born mad. Some remain so."

There are thoughts that Godot (Romney) is a miracle worker of some sort but not everyone agrees.  According to a former Baine and Co. employee, quoted in this past August's Vanity Fair, the memories are mixed.  The person quoted in the article by Nicholas Shaxson recalls Romney a being "nice, he was fair, he was logical...he was really encouraging."  He also recalls Romney, the seeker of vital infomation, selling the philosophy of "falsifying" identies by pretendintg to be a graduatte student (Harvard) at Bain for the summer.  Romney's approach: "We won't ak you to lie.  I am not going to tell you to do this, but (it is) a really good way to get the information." 

We kept looking for the real Romney during the political prelims.  There were all those questions about income tax returns even after he finally came up with reports for 2010 pluz  a 2011 estimate.  He and his wife paid $1.94 million in federal taxes in 2010 on $13.7 million, a rate that falls considerably short of American middle-incomers.  That's because he takes his pay from Bain Capital as investment income.  According to Romney, he never broke the rules while keeping an eye on the White House.  Tx expert Lee Sheppard, quoted in the the Vanity Fair article, suggests that anyone running for President "might want to err on the side of overpaying your taxes, and not chase every tax gimmick that comes down the pike.  It kind of looks tacky."

Romney, tacky?  If it took one to recognize one, then Newt Gingrich's your man.  It was Gingrich who gave us a great take on Romney's offshore accounts and he did it with humor during one of those, otherwise, humor-less debates: "I don't know of any American President who has had a Swiss bank account."  Gingrich could have gone much further but chose brevity as the soul of wit.  Romney has other holdings in such tax havens as the Cayman Islands and Bermuda.

One of Romney's problems has been  the contrast his refusal to release more than one year's worth of tax returns offfers to his open-book father, George.  A cards-up guy all the way, the senior Romney released 12 years' worth immediately prior to his run for the Presidency.  His 1967 comment should bring embarrassment to son Thurston Howell: "One year could be a fluke, perhaps done for show."  We've been waiting a long time for George's son to ante up.

As we now know, Romney finally released 2011 tax information late Thusday plus a re-written 2010 in addition to an accountant's letter outlining the past 20 years.  By doing this on News Dump Friday, Romney and his brain trust ducked tapings of the Sunday political TV shows and bet that short media memories will have bigger fish to fry on Monday.  We shall see. 

The tax "claims" (more than seven years have been available to smooth out the numbers) have a Romney "promise" to be not less than 13%.  They appear to be that.

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Less Than Chairitable....by Bob Sanders

 

Already conceded to be among the most bizarre moments in American political convention history, film director Clint Eastwood's use of an empty chair continues to evoke astonishment.  Perhaps reflective of the media's reluctance to fully inspect the recent past in its consummate rush to achieve the next big get, an entertainment industry story but five months old contains a captivating rationale for Eastwood's odd behavior.

Writing in "The Hollywood Reporter," Mathew Belloni reported details of the legendary 82-year-old actor-filmmaker's suit against the owners of a furniture company for selling products branded 'Clint' and 'Eastwood.' 

Published April 7 of this year, the story tells of Eastwood's complaint filed in Los Angeles Superior Court against Evofurniture, maker of entertainment centers, ottomans and chairs.  Also sued were owners Alan Finkelstein and Casey Choron and a website called Inmod.com(http://www.inmod.com). Eastwood claims the stores have used marketing statements such as: "When you're invited into a person's home, you get to see the good, the bad and the ugly.  When visitors come to your home the Clint 47  Entertainment Center makes your family room alone look like you live in a perfect world of a million dollar baby."

As readers of this space have come to appreciate, "Sidebars" presently has a close relationship with "Leaky-Wiks" which, through adept uses of unique electronic devices, is able to report truths which, otherwise, would not come to the public's attention.  What follows is the story behind the Eastwood sage.  It is made possible through highly creative uses of drone Fly-on-the-Wall technology--often called "bugs on bugs."

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Chairs were just one of many furniture products when film icon Clint Eastwood became aware of what Alan Finkelstein and Casey Choron were doing with his name.

In truth, the two were continuing the furniture industry's common marketing use of Hollywood names.  Eastwood, who won Academy Awards as director and producer of "Unforgiven" and "Million Dollar Baby," also was nominated for Best Actor in both films.  Some of the other actors, whose names have been used in furniture industry marketing programs, include: Marlon Brando, Clark Gable, Paul Newman, Elvis Presley and Humphrey Bogart.  It was Bogart's estate that was encouraged recently by a Georgia federal judge's decision that prompted a big bucks suit involving intellectual property.

The Bogart suit, initiated against Ashley Furniture of Arcadia, Wisconsin, claims various kinds of Ashley products are being sold through use of the late actor's name.  Ashley has countered by claiming the furniture in question actually is a reference to Bogart, Georgia, a small northeast community in the state; the firm further says its products, numbering more than 650, carry names that include colors such as Gable Mocha, Brando Cocoa, Newman Oyster, Presley Cafe and Bogart Ocean.

The furniture named for Brando is a sectional variety of considerable size.  Ashley denies the product's spaciousness has anything to do with the star's increasing girth achieved while making classic films.

Sometimes venturesome in creating product names, Chelsea Furniture has a Linda Loveseat, presumably a play on words involving Linda Lovelace, star of the 1972 runaway porno hit "Deep Throat."  Convinced of marketing viability inherent in associating products with all aspects of the film capitol, the firm boasts a chair with upholstery by Simmons called Malibu Wine.

At this juncture of the Eastwood story, a rumor has surfaced suggesting the chair used in the Bob Newhart-esque 12-minute talk to the chair has been purchased by President Obama and placed in the Lincoln Bedroom.  Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich was one of the first to respond to the rumor suggesting: "If it is true, the presence of the chair in the Lincoln Bedroom is demeaning to the 16th President.  As Stephen A. Douglas, I would be more than willing to debate the chair's presence in the sacred room"

Choosing the right chair was not easy for Eastwood who realized he would likely attract the wrath of both Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.  It was Stewart who commented: "This is the most joy I've gotten from an old man since Dick Cheney non-fatally shot one in the face.  Give me more!"  Colbert's interview of the chair produced little of interest other than the chair's low esteem of Eastwood.

Sidebars can now report exclusively, because of bugs-on-bugs technology by Leaky-Wiks, that Eastwood, despite reports to the contrary, spent a great deal of time determining the type of seating to be used in his monologue.  First choice was a Barcelona chair designed in 1929 by the German architect Mies van der Rohe but the Hollywood great quickly determined that Mitt Romney might interpret such a choice as indicative of Eastwood's desire to be ambassador to Spain.  Also never really in the running for a similar reason was a chair from IKEA. Although it's possible the film deity may be considering government service as he eases into retirement, Sweden's appalling weather was an admitted challenge although the country's women are appealing to the megastar often called "a serial womanizer."  The father of seven acknowledged children produced in concert with five women, Eastwood has married twice.

A distinct chair selection possibility was a revolving model ruled out because it might remind viewers of Romney's flip-flopping.  Eastwood refused to share his decision-making process with the GOP hierarchy although members of the Swift Boating committee that sank John Kerry's Presidential campaign in 2004 were standing by.  Even the poofbag chair, designed by Francois Poof and brought to Eastwood's attention by both Koch Brothers, was finally determined to hint of homosexuality thus running the risk of losing the votes of white males in southern states--Texas and South Carolina among them.  The idea suddenly went poof.

Another early favorite was the curule chair of hieratic significance in Republican Rome.  Cooler heads prevailed when it was pointed out that Roman Republicans normally charged taxation at the rate of 1% although wars upped the ante to 3% in those good old days treasured by contemporary Republicans if only for low taxation.  Politicians, whose guiding principle back then (hang on to this one) was to get rich, bought votes and created tax farmers who dug up the money for them.  Although Eastwood continues to believe the curule chair to be emblematic of Roman Republicans, Karl Rove's astute understanding of public relations quickly prevailed when he pointed out that only the highest civil officers were allowed to sit on the chair, an upholstered campstool.  Such a chair would have provided unintended dignity to the imagined presence of President Obama.

Even a director's chair was considered but that, of course, was too much of a stretch and eventually turned down since it was extravagantly show businessy while running the risk of reminding the GOP audience of such remarkable directorial talents as Roger Corman, John Waters and Cecile B. DeMille and how Eastwood's skills might be compared with such notables.  Republicans have always had problems with Hollywood (it was truly remarkable that Eastwood was invited to speak considering that one of the industry's hallmarks is the surprise ending) and an imagined shout of "Ready, when you are, Mr. DeMille" could have reverberated quite easily through the stadium thus reducing the effectiveness of the hoped-for reality produced by the old Hollywood hand.  As Billy Wilder once wrote: "Nobody's perfect."

Republican politicos and policy wonks were particularly pleased to learn Eastwood had backed off from the tete-a-tete chair, a type of settee consisting of two connected chairs that allow two people to sit facing one another.  The chair, at first considered "perfect" for the occasion because of the intimacy afforded, was rejected for that very reason.  Aware that Republican politicians are uncomfortable with intimacy except when hitting the sauce at parties away from Washington, D.C. or their home towns, Eastwood wisely determined not to run the risk of promoting blatant though imagined gayness.

Despite all the presumed thought given the selection of the Obama chair, Leaky-Wiks' technology never uncovered Eastwood's final choice before he bolted onstage from a convention green room.  By asking an aide to grab the nearest (and, as it turned out, bland) chair, the actor's actions recalled former President Ronald Reagan who once commented about a tree: "When you've seen one, you've seen them all."

As the mystery of the empty chair deepens, it becomes likely Eastwood's actions may result in a worthwhile addition to our vocabulary.  The word is "Eastwooding" meaning ranting and raving to an inanimate object, something many Chicago Cubs' fans believe announcer Harry Caray did to microphones.  Actually, Eastwood's use of the empty chair is not a political original.  It goes back to 1924 and the Democratic Party's convention held in Des Moines.  It was Montana Senator Burton K. Wheeler who used what now must be called the old empty chair routine in attacking Republican President Calvin Cooledge.

One of those distinctly possible rationales for Eastwood's actions may be a bit subtle for politicians.  There are Hollywood insiders who believe the actor/director/producer was merely issuing a warning to the furniture business to back off.  Dirty Harry with chair in hand is unquestionably a threat to kneecaps.

Meanwhile, Eastwood is unavailable for comment.  He's on the road flaking his latest film, "The Trouble With the Curve."  Perhaps, that's what he threw at the GOP.

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Big Mouths....by Bob Sanders

 

Her professional clothes were designed by "Omar of Omaha," she wrote 75 percent of her material, her nude photos were judged too good by Playboy (the magazine was going for laughs), and she performed as guest pianist with more than 100 of the Nation's symphony orchestras.

Her name was Phyllis Diller.  She died last week in Brentwood at 95 and those at her bedside said she went out with a smile, thoroughly i keeping with her having been a very, very funny lady.  If she hadn't created such a long and successful career starting at age 37, she probably would have died in St. Louis rather than the Los Angeles suburb.

I had lunch with Diller in the Gateway to the West not long after being named TV Guide regional manager of a large chunk of real estate that included St. Louis.  Transportation in those days was of particular importance to entertainers and St. Louis' central location was a major career consideration.  Diller had achieved her initial success doing stand-up at the Purple Onion while working days writing copy at a San Francisco radio station.  That was in 1955 and it wasn't long before she was being seen on the shows of Jack Paar, Red Skelton and Jack Benny.

If memory serves, the luncheon was somewhere in the Gaslight Square area where Diller had held forth at the Crystal Palace, creative home of other talented people--among them song writers Fran Landesman and Tommy Wolf whose credits include "Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most" from their "The Nervous Set."

The Diller luncheon included four other members of what was then called the press and I believe my invitation was decidedly more of an acknowledgement of my magazine's national stature rather than any impressive local strength.  A difficult market for TV Guide in those days, St. Louis had but three stations, one a UHF.  Diller's arrival from suburban Webster Groves was in a Rolls-Royce and she stayed in character complete with the cigarette holder, a crazy hat and clothes tastefully reduced in impact from her TV appearances.  Her cackling voice and references to "Fang," her brilliant and oft-used comedic invention, were on target and her best line, one of many alluding to her attire, was: "You know you're old when someone compliments you on your alligator shoes, and you're barefoot."

My luncheon with Diller was oddly precient involving recognition on my part that her body, then 42, would have been appreciated by Playboy photographers.  Nude photographs of her were submittd to the magazine two years later and I went to work for Hugh Hefner in 1968.  Oddly enough, during my tenure with Playboy, I never became aware of the Diller photographs nor the "rejection" story until the facts were mentioned in her obituaries.

As many of us now know, Hefner began using photographs of celebrities older than the girls next door.  That was more than 30 years ago; Terry Moore has been the oldest at 55 followed by Nancy Sinatra (54), Vicki LaMotta (51) and Farrah Fawcett (50).  One has to wonder if Diller provided the original nudge some six years after the magazine's first issue with Marilyn Monroe on the cover.  It seems a bit surreal to include Phyllis Diller and Marilyn Monroe in the same sentence but life can, indeed, be curious.  Of more than passing interest are those Diller nude shots.  At least one survives and is included in her 2005 autobiography, Like a Lampshade in a Whorehouse.

Diller's greatest contribution to comedy probably was paving the way for a future generation of feminine big mouths including Roseanne Barr, Sarah Silverman and Joan Rivers who, come to think of it, is still being outragous while nearing 80.  The latter's introduction to comedy was as a writer for Diller with the most valuable lesson learned being the mileage achieved from self-directed barbs.

While Diller could be described as a somewhat beguiling big mouth (her work was remarkably clean), such was not the case with Howard Cosell, the sports journalist who transformed an obnoxious one-of-a-kind persona into a much-copied norm for sports broadcasting.

Indeed, there was and continues to be but one Cosell who once said of himself: "Arrogant, pompous, obnoxious, vain, cruel, verbose, a showoff.  I have been called all of these.  Of course, I am."

Until Cosell became a household name in the mid-50s, sports broadcasters were largely a breed inventing their craft as they blathered along with home team announcers most often referred to as "homers."  The term remains in use today largely because of the role played by ownerships, particularly baseball, in choosing broadcast teams.  Vin Scully, now pushing 90, is a notable exception and before him such worthies as Graham McNamee and Ted Husing.  It was McNamee, a budding opera singer, who invented play-by-play prior to Husing coming on board as a crossover from news and political conventions coverage.  Arrogant, opinionated, even coarse, Husing could have been the role model for Cosell.

Cosell also was impressive with none of Scully's class and you either thought he was wonderful or an outrage.  Assuming a "tell it like it is" approach, the one-time lawyer (he was admitted to the New York State Bar in 1941), began on ABC with pre- and post-game shows of the then brand new New York Mets.

While baseball was a springboard to fame for Cosell, it was boxing and "Monday Night Football" that cemented his relationship with fans.  It was Cosell's defense of Muhammad Ali who, while still fighting under his birth name, Cassius Clay, refused to be inducted into the military.   Cosell's four years U.S. Army service during World War II made his defense of Ali a lot easier.

Cosell transformed sports reporting and nothing could have been of greater reportorial contrast than the work of Jerome Herman ("Dizzy") Dean whose approach was more than bizarre.  Baseball was his game (he remains the last National League pitcher to win 30 games) and his base runners "slud" into third base while sometimes "returning to their respectable bases."  Inclined to mount evidence that good pitchers must be of stout heart, Dizzy suggested that one possessed "testicle fortitude." 

Until Cosell came along with an intellectual approach, sports broadcast reporting was heavy on cliches and light on stories behind the stories.  His feuds, particularly with New York sports columnists Dick Young and Jimmy Cannon, were classics.  Cannon once suggested: "This is a guy who changed his name, put on a toupee and tried to convince the world that he tells it like it is;  If Howard Cosell were a sport, he'd be the roller derby."

In a very real sense, Cosell legitimatized the sports loud mouth and probably helped open the door, if briefly, for Rush Limbaugh.  ESPN hired the master of hate radio to contribute his limited football knowledge to "Sunday Night Countdown."  That was in the fall of 2003 with Limbaugh lasting less than a month by making racist remarks about Philadelphia Eagles' quarterback Donovan McNabb.

Sports broadcasting's big mouths are many these days with demands made by cable's 24/7 the biggest factor.  A lot of time has to be chewed up and the need for panels of experts results in an obvious contrast to sports anchors on 30-minute newscasts.  About as colorful as network sports broadcasters are allowed to be can be found on golf coverage now the province of CBS, NBC and the Golf Channel.  Johnny Miller of NBC is often peevish while CBS' Gary McCord is consistently amusing as he makes light of a sport that takes itself too seriously.  McCord, still barred from The Masters for nearly 20 years following his description of the 17th green as appearing to be "bikini waxed," is the same guy who split his pants while bending over a putt at the 1984 Fed Ex St. Jude Classic.  Unfortunately, he was without underwear and, after brief embarrassment, bought fellow pro Peter Jacobson's rain pants for $20.  McCord and David Feherty of Golf Channel are the sport's best.

Such ESPN cable carpers as Tony Kornheiser, Colin Cowherd ("The Herd") and "Mike & Mike in the Morning" have shown promise as certified blowhards.  The best of the bunch may be Samuel A. Smith whose boorishness is decidedly of the Cosell School.  A writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer since 1994, Smith had his column yanked in 2007.  Arbitration ensued and he was reinstated while forced to remove political views from his website and cable news shows.  Called "a self-promoting, race-based gasbag" by the New York Post, Smith does radio shows for stations in New York and Los Angeles.  National exposure comes in the form of ESPN's "First Take" with Skip Bayless who can be counted upon to run counter to most of Smith's opinions.  Smith has referred to himself as "a cross between Bill O'Reilly and Larry King" and has been known to change his mind as often as Mitt Romney.  The NBA is his special province and he was a special commentator on the Michael Jackson memorial funeral service.  

Smith may very well be Cosell's heir apparent yet there have been times when I was convinced any mantle assumption would be by Jay Mariotti whose loud mouth career has been stalled by a series of misadventures climaxed by being charged with stalking and assaulting his ex-girlfriend.  His 2010 court appearance (he pleaded no contest, got five years probation) was highlighted by the charge that he allegedly demanded "as a high profile sports writer and general celebrity" that the ex-girl friend get plastic surgery.  A writer of 17 years for the Chicago Sun-Times, Mariotti was employed by ESPN at the time of his arrest in Los Angeles.  His work there included "Around the Horn" while occasionally hosting "Pardon the Interruption."  He has been without work for three years.

Boistrous and obnoxious, Mariotti was so offensive to Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert that the Pulitzer winner challenged Mariotti's inclination to write sensationalist columns while working at his paper.

This just in.  Jim Rome, who left ESPN for a CBS radio gig in January, will go CBS  Sports Network  all the way when he finalizes a deal to do "Rome," a 30-minute daily cable TV show on the network that debuted in April.  Rome may be recalled as a guy who works his name into his show titles as in "Rome is Burning."

Rome may be recalled for an in-studio interview conducted early in his career with NFL quarterback Jim Everett.  Convinced that Everett was a bit shy when confronted by NFL tacklers, Rome began calling him "Chris," a reference to female tennis star Chris Evert.  Everett eventually took Rome to the floor while on the air.  A desk that had separated them, was overturned.

Word is that Rome, once again, will make certain his interviews will be conducted over a very sturdy desk.

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Straight Down the Muddle....by Bob Sanders

 

Professional golf, the only major sport whose players are not unionized, has management both brisk and mysterious.  Little is known about the boards that govern the sport other than the existence of a 16-member Player Advisory Council that reports to a PGA Tour Policy Board whose nine largely veiled members include four tour players plus five of impressive Corporate America lineage.  It is they who internalize the professional sport's unique underpinnings: the rules of the game.

In its never-ending pledge to shine light on those dark and musty corners of troubled American contemporary life, Sidebars, in concerted and highly unconventional efforts with LeakyWiks, has invaded the hallowed halls of professional golf through intrusive efforts originally revealed more than a year ago in "Flygate."  Acclaimed as the first fly-on-the-wall reportage, the journalistic breakthrough now has made possible access to golf's innermost secrets.

The scene is the board room of the Tenth of One Percent Country Club in Florida's Fruit of the Loon County.  All members of the PGA Policy Board are present for the special meeting called in spite of the 2012-15 rules changes already having been voted into place. 

                  Hugh Bristic:            

"In opening this meeting, I'd like to offer a warm welcome   to the tour board members.  It seems like only yesterday that you fellows were required to enter clubs like One Tenth of One by the back door.  Emancipation comes in many forms and you chaps, once considered the hired help, were early winners."

            Bubba Niblick:

"My things have changed and I guess change is why we've gathered here.  As I understand it, the public's increasing appetite for the belly putter exceeds that of our professional level where we have less stomach for it.  Let me offer the observation that steady equipment improvement has been a hallmark of golf and 350 yard drives would not be possible today were we playing with Bobby Jones wooden sticks.  Just as the mulligan will not be given up by once-a-week golfers, it is also true that the public welcomes the decline of scores just as baseball fans want more home runs from Alex Rodriguiz.  It's all about scoring and soccer continues to struggle because of a lack of it."

        Ben Bumptious:

"Thanks, Bubba.  Well put and I'd like to follow up with a comment about another of our problems--namely, logos.  As a member of the Progressive Insurance board, I seem to recall this bodacious body turning down my proposal that Flobot, one of Progresssive's intensely branded advertising weapons, be allowed to caddy for Charley Duckhook in this year's Masters."

Bod E. Orifice:

"Glad you brought that one up, Ben.  That didn't sit well with my board at Gold Libertarians.  Just between us, I heard a rather startling rumor that a gold consortium is coming up with a scheme to have one of the top pros painted gold before every round of the next PGA.  Sort of like what Goldfinger did to that girl in the Bond film."

Woody Cleek:

"Hey, now.  Talk like that is as welcome as a fried egg lie in the Road Hole bunker at St. Andrews.  Funny you should mention metal, though.  News Corporation approached me regarding silver; something about linking me to the FOX Financial channel and becoming the Silver FOX.  My agent tells me it was Stuart Varney's idea."

Bud Bunker:

"Pretty strange getting anything financial out of Varney these days.  He spends most of his time trying to elect Romney.  Hey, is Romney a golfer?"

Bod E. Orifice:

"If he is, he's sure hiding it while criticizing Obama for playing too much of our sport which is pretty funny when you consider Ike teed it up something like 800 times while in office.  I'll bet Romney's a closet golfer with a swing like Doug Sanders."

Bubba Niblick:

"Got it wrong, kiddo.  Doug swung like he was in a phone booth."

Bod E. Orifice:

"Same thing."

Bubba Niblick:

"Not so.  There are closets and then there are closets.  Didya hear about the hedge fund manager suing his poker pro ex-wife for a large percentage of her shoe collection valued at more than a million bucks.  He didn't know she has 1,200 pair, a number big enough to require a walk-in closet that would have handled Doug's goofy swing, his caddy and the entire CBS broadcast crew."

Banks Offshore:

"Let's get back to having a pro golfer painted gold like Shirley Eaton in 'Goldfinger.'  How come the FOX stations have so many gold ads?"

Bill Bottomline:

"Well, old sport, gold is very appealing to libertarians and others of a conservative bent who buy into FOX's basic appeal to those of gloom and doom.  The guns, gold and greed devotees were pretty disturbed when Glenn Beck left FOX but Rupert's people seem to have held onto the gold advertisers quite nicely."

Ben Bumptious:

"Yes, but it's the lustrous logos that appeal to the touring pros.  Take the always exciting Jim Furyk who has a $2 million three-year deal with Johnnie Walker menswear to sport a logo on the back of his shirt collar.  That's in adition to two chest logos plus one on his right sleeve.  He's starting to look like a NASCAR entry."

Hugh Bristic: 

Gentlemen.  "If we've squeezed, forgive the mixed metaphor, all we can out of gold and logos, let's hit one straight down the middle and turn our attention to the belly putter.  As we know, such golfers as Webb Simpson and Keegan Bradley are enjoying pronounced success on the tour and some of their short stick brothers are unhappy.  The subject is open for discussion."

"Soft" Fade:

To put it mildly, old bean, we professionals are hoist on petty petards of our own industry's creation--long putters whose functioning is centered under the chin or anchored to the belly.  It seems to me we're looking at unfair advantage and a total disregard for the spirit of the game when a golfer's stomach becomes part of the putting stroke.  I wonder how many majors Craig Stadler might have won had he used the belly putter?  The Walrus utilizing the dunlop is a horror story beyond anything written by Stephen King."  

Ben Bumptious:

"What in the world is a dunlop?"

"Soft" Fade:

"That's old timey Tom Morris talk taken from the expression: 'done lopped over your belt.'"

I.B. Bottomline:

"Why in hell do we call it a belly putter? That's such a dumb name in obese America.  Talk about bad public relations."

Woody Cleek:

"It could be worse.  How about the paunch putter, the bay window stick or the corporation club?  Other words and phrases come to mind including gut, bread bucket and spare tire.  Of course, the British would spell that last one with a y.  No, let's let bad enough alone.  Let's play this one as it lays."

Hugh Bristic:

"Who started this belly putter business?"

Bubba Niblick: 

"Some guy named Richard T. Parmley.  That was in 1965 and Phil Rodgers was the only touring pro to use it in the '60s.  Not much happened until Paul Azinger took it on late in 1999.  That was following a bout with cancer.  His putting had been all over the place: 143rd in 1997, 111th in 1999, then 4th in 2000.  Suddenly the Zinger could putt and he won the Sony Open by seven strokes.  Azinger has been an inspiration."

I.B. Bottomline:

"Bubba, you seem to have an historical perspective on the belly putter.  While this board is independent of the Royal & Anncient and the USGA in regard to professional rules and conduct of our cherished athletes, I wonder if you have any wisdom to import?"

Bubba Niblick:

"Indeed, I do.  During recent days, my agent has been checking out various plastic surgeons like the guy who has done the most work on Joan Rivers.  If winning golf tournaments involves successful anchoring of the putter in my navel, then you can bet your ass my belly button will be precedent-setting in terms of being the most accommodating"

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Whatshisname?....by Bob Sanders

 

I guess anyone with a computer and a curiosity plays a game I call Whatever Happened to Whatshisname?  I did it the other day and learned that Ray Tarrington left this great party in 1997.  A rather lengthy obituary included his age, 71; the place of death: Washington, Kansas; and the cause of death: heart failure.

There was quite a bit in the obit I didn't know about him.  Raised in Seattle, he played jazz trumpet, had his own band, saw U.S. Navy service in both Pacific and European Theaters including the D-Day Landings in Normandy, and was a graduate of Northwestern University.  We were born within a few months of each other.

Ray Tarrington wasn't his real name but I'll use it out of respect for him.  He was a helluva guy--easily the most enthusiastic person I've yet to meet.  It was that enthusiasm that made him an outstanding sports broadcaster eventually enabling him to pursue radio management and other enterprises.

I met Ray in 1959 shortly after arriving in Kansas City having been transferred by TV Guide from a rather lonely outpost in the Quad Cities where the most exciting aspect of working for the magazine involved the printer and a reluctant press that broke down every month or so.  Not to get too far off this story's main thrust but Ernie Somebody, who directed press operations during my 17-months tenure, once ran his boat aground very close to the bridge that connects Davenport and Rock Island.  It was a bridge too close and enabled Ernie's out-for-a-drive wife to see her thoroughly besotted husband and a very attractive shipmate stumbling around the boat's deck.  With authorities involved, a headline over a picture in one of the local papers proclaimed Ernie's efforts as one of being Scotched on the Rocks.  I promise to write further about highly unlikely Quad City adventures.

I was deligthted to be in K.C.--particularly so because of Tarrington who showed me the town while introducing me to such people as former Mayor Roe Bartle, baseball's Charley Finley and singer Marilyn Maye.  Bartle was a lot of fun, Finley was strange and Maye, then in the midst of an 11-year run at mid-town's The Colony, was eventually discovered by Steve Allen.  With a record 76 appearances on Johnny Carson, she remains a singer of great taste and good enough, at 84, to play such disparate venues as Birdland, Feinstein's and The Metropolitan Room in New York.

Tarrington managed WDAF radio having earned his broadcast spurs while describing University of Missouri and University of Kansas football and basketball games.  He had a solid relationship with Bill Bates, general manager of both WDAF radio and TV, and I quickly realized the childless Bates regarded Ray as the son he never had.  The stations, originally owned by the Kansas City Star, were more of those embarrassment of riches with the newspaper another awkward handler of its electronic wonderkinds.

Sportscasters all have behind-the-scenes stories to tell about the business and Ray was no different.  One of Bates' dictums was that all sports spielers should never allow three minutes to pass without revealing the score.  One of Ray's prized possessions was a Bates' gift, an egg timer whose pouring sands reminded Ray to give listeners the score.   

Early on Ray and I discovered a mutual fondness for golf and it wasn't long before we were spending goodly chunks of Saturdays at Blue Hills where Bates was a member.  Our foursome was filled out by Bob Hanger, an advertising executive who had co-founded Jones & Hanger.  Among the agency's accounts was WDAF.  As related in a prior column titled Golf Linkage, we also played the south side's Hillcrest where our adventures once included the consumption of 64 beers after a round.  The impressive tippling produced impairment of our marriages; one, Tarrington's, was irreparable.  I learned years later than Hanger married Ray's ex-wife.

Ray's second marital venture involved a statuesque daughter of a very wealthy Phillips Petroleum executive.  Although I never met her having been transferred by TV Guide to Los Angeles early in 1966, I did receive details from both mutual friends and Tarrington when we hooked up in L.A. that year.  By that time, Ray had taken leave of broadcasting having decided to provide consul to athletes' general inability to deal with the media.  That aspect of sports remains a problem today although contemporary jocks, spoiled by the remarkable amounts of money thrown at them, are inclined to simply become "unavailable" unless being the producer of, say, a walk-off hit--a certain curtain call for a broadcast interview.  "Was it a fast-ball or a slider you hit into the right field stands?"

Ray's striking enthusiasm was a major factor in his ability to communicate with and teach people like Los Angeles Dodger shortstop Maury Wills how to work with the media.  Among L.A.'s major buzzes back then were rumors that Wills and actress Doris Day had been having a fling since 1962.  The story was told by Wills in his biography On the Run and denied by Day in A.E. Hotchner's look at the actress in Her Own Story.  If true, I believe Ray would have confirmed the rumors.  He didn't.

A decidedly open guy, Ray told me some great stories about his marriage to the stunning blonde who, by the time we re-connected, was an ex-wife once described by him as "looking like something wondrous from a Wagnerian chorus while being imposing enough to carry a sword."  Ray had a way with both words and women.

It was not long after their marriage that Ray, having determined to sleep in one morning heard some strange and powerful mechanical sounds coming from his Kansas City backyard.  More than a bit groggy from excessive libation the night before, a groggy "Tarrington staggered to a window where he observed a very large machine digging a humongous hole in the ground.  The sometimes forgetful wife had neglected to tell him she had ordered construction of a wimming pool.  Details, details.

Relations with her did not improve when the couple made the move to California.  A trip to San Francisco produced another and final adventure when the twosome quarreled in what is now called the Westin St. Francis Hotel.  When Ray awakened the next morning, he quickly realized the blonde bombshell had tossed every stitch of his clothing out a 10th floor window.  

The day of the 1966 Academy Awards offered further insight into Tarrington's relationships with women.  A noon-ish phone call I received was disturbing; it was from a friend of Ray's who said my name had been mentioned by him a number of times and she thought I would be a person to provide some analysis for what she believed was a frightening admission on his part.  The woman was fearful Ray was considering suicide.  I attempted to reassure her that Ray seemed in good spirits the last time I had seen him.

That year's Oscar awards was the one featuring wins for Julie Christie and Lee Marvin.  In the company of the Guide's Joe Finnigan (he wrote the magazine's Hollywood yellow pages), I was positioned in the basement of the Santa Monica Auditorium near a small platform that enabled Oscar recipients to move from the photo op area to one created for print interviews.

Given her award on stage by prior year's winner Julie Andrews,  Christie (she won Best Leading Actress for "Darling") and Andrews ("Mary Poppins") headed for the steps where I stood.  At that time, Andrews was arguably the biggest star in the business and she appeared to be enjoying her fellow Brit's good fortune.  Then I noticed Andrews' bemused smile.

"How quickly they forget," was my observation to her as she hung back on the tiny platform while Christie was enveloped by those anxious to get reaction from filmdom's new flavor of the year.  Andrews laughed and we chatted a few moments while Christie was engaged by the media horde.  The scene offered further suggestion that success in show business can be such a fragile matter.

Soon I was at a party at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel chatting with Angie Dickinson, seated at the end of a bar with then husband Burt Bacharach whose mind seemed elsewhere.  Perhaps he was composing music in his head or, maybe, I was the 28th guy that night to strike up a conversation with his gorgeous wife.

My mind kept shifting back to the conversation about Ray Tarrington.  I had handled the situation rather badly and was giving the woman's concern much more credence.  In an attempt to assume some responsibility in the matter, I called Bates in Kansas City.  It was about 1 a.m. back there and Bill was a bit disgruntled upon picking up the phone, then listened as I told him about the call from the woman and Ray's apparent threat to take his life.

There was a long pause at the other end.  "Bill, Bill.  Are you there?" I pleaded.

Long pause.  "Yes, I am," he answered.

"What do you think?" I asked.  "I mean about Jay killing himself."

"Well, Bob," replied Bates.  "That's what Jay tells all the girls."

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Greed & Outsourcing....by Bob Sanders

 

Now that it has been firmly established that this is A Sort of New Age of Greed, it's fascinating to recall avarice observations of two highly disparate personalities whose comments bracket the period we're in.

Greed has been around a long time but the current roaring American version that threatens the financial foundations of this country had a warning shot fired in 1987 with the release of "Wall Street," Oliver Stone's take on matters as told through the craven adventures of Gordon Gekko, played by Michael Douglas.  At least half the Gekko character was based upon Michael Milken, the "Junk Bond King" who eventually went to prison.  Gekko's signature line, "Greed, for lack of a better word, is good" paid homage to the robber barons of 100 years past while providing inspiration for current financial world players to turn Wall Street into a very ugly gambling casino with one notable exception for losers: Las Vegas' blackjack "house" edge of .5 - 1.5% must now look like one of those forks in the road not taken.  Wall Street continues to play recklessly with other people's money as the exceedingly ruthless run little risk of going to prison.

Twenty-five years after Gekko's pronouncement, we are, perhaps, equally affected and decidedly frightened by the words of Warren Buffett explaining that "there's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning."

Greed is everywhere and often explained as a natural outgrowth of globalization.  Laws, and clever interpretations of them, are in the books for those inclined to squeeze every ounce possible of financial nourishment.  It's all done in the name of stockholders who hold CEO's feet to the flames of "productivity."  When the CEOs do a good job or even a bad one, they are rewarded by hand-picked board members with rewards now averaging $13 million, up 14% over the prior year.  Actually, 2011 was a disappointing one for CEOs who received 22.8% more in 2010 than over the preceding year.  You win some, you lose some.  Worth pointing out is that CEO compensation last year was 380 times the average worker's pay, the kind of increase that makes possible the purchase of yet another home.

There are many rationales for overpaying CEOs.  One of them is successful outsourcing by the Walmarts, GEs and, yes, Mitt Romney, now threatening to become the Bain of our existence as his past unfolds.  Although corporate America is inclined to sit on such figures, GE admits its percentage of U.S. employees has been reduced from 54% in 2000 to 46% in 2010.  The multinationals cut 2.9 million U.S. jobs the past decade while adding 2.4 million overseas.  Interesting enough, even journalism is being impaired in the name of outsourcing.  More about this in a few paragraphs.

As readers of this space may recall, I retired from the Chicago Tribune in 1989 having worked in public relations for eight years.  I enjoyed toiling for a newspaper that had been retreating from a well-earned reputation for conservatism in a highly liberal community.  It was Col. Robert R. McCormick, editor/publisher from 1910-1955, whose penchant for a variety of hatreds had made the newspaper a worldwide symbol of reaction, isolation and prejudice.  It took an editorial, written by executive editor Clayton Kirkpatrick who dramatically reduced the imagery by calling for the resignation of Richard Nixon.  

Admittedly fond of my association with what McCormick insisted was The World's Greatest Newspaper, I must confess embarrassment and anger upon reading very recent on-line stories dealing with Journatic, a firm devoted to outsourcing news stories for major U.S. papers including the Tribune.

First, a little background.  Major American newspapers have, until recently, observed the high walls that separate editorial and advertising departments.  Advertising is sold on the basis of a publication's circulation plus a lot of intangibles including marketing conditions, reader profiles and the skills of  salesmen.  Gone are the days when a reader, hearing the friendly "plop" of a newspaper landing on the front porch, would regard what the newsboy had tossed as "his" paper.  We were very possessive then regarding our best connection to a distant world.

Advertising departments, being understandably aggressive, would occasionally veer from established tradition (front page placement was always coveted), editorial would scream, and the publisher would side with editorial.  It was not long after Tribune Company purchased the Los Angeles Times in 2000 that the paper's advertising department sold a special section highly commercial in nature.  Advertisers were told the paper's editorial department was on board to supply feature stories.  Advertising never told editorial until a couple days before publication.  Top Tribune editors, sent to manage the wily beast, failed to do so.  They included: Dean Baquet, now with the New York Times as Managing Editor for News after refusing to make one more staff cut; and James O'Shea who eventually wrote The Deal From Hell about the Tribune screw-up leading to Tribune Company bankruptcy.

While news gathering in journalism's Golden Age was gained face-to-face or by phone, the brave new world of communications has made such basics sometimes obsolete.  Journatic, co-founded by CEO Brian Timpone, was created to provide content in TribLocal's 90 town websites and 22 weekly print editions.  Two points: Chicagoland is no longer a viable description of Tribune's huge coverage area and Journatic is so new a title that its use on a computer will produce a red underline.

Ryan Smith, who worked 10 years for smallish newspapers in Missouri before moving to Chicago in 2007, eventually joined Journatic to work for a publication called Blockshopper.  Smith was ecstatic about the copy editing offer having supplemented his writing with such gigs as office temp work.  Journalism jobs were, as he puts it, "drying up and blowing away like tumbleweed."

What he quickly learned was that many stories, positioned under phony bylines, "originated" in developing countries including the Philippines and African nations.  Writing stories under aliases is a breach of journalistic ethics.  The copy, paid for in paltry wages reflecting the country's economy, provided proof that basic rules of spelling and grammar were not understood.  Smith was offended, among other things, by his pay: $24 for an 800 to 1,000 word news story and $12 for 500 words.  Sad as it is, a Filipino can make as little as 35 cents for a story.  Smith worked from mangled press releases culled from retyped police blotters, reformatted public records and other data gathered thanks to the reach of the internet. 

Worst of all, Journatic Chicago hires since this spring number about 75 freelancers plus 20 full-time editors and writers to cover TribLocal.  Losing their jobs were half of the Tribune's 40 TribLocals including copy editors, designers and web producers.  Based in Chicago, Journatic employes 140 overseas contract workers whose squat work is fed to more than 200 U.S. based writers and editors who include 60 full-timers.

Smith, having decided to become a whistle blower, first approached Michael Miner who writes about the media for Chicago Reader, one of the best alternative publications in the country.  Miner made a few calls, nothing developed, and Smith approached "This American Life," produced by Chicago by public radio station WBEZ-FM.  Out of Smith's anger came "Forgive Us Our Press Passes."  Produced by Sarah Koenig, the 23-minute feature immediately prompted investigations by newspapers using Journatic.  Among them: the Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, Houston Chronicle, Newsday and the San Frnacisco Chronicle.  The Sun-Times fired Journatic while Gate House Media, a publisher of 28 Chicago area publications, is reconsidering its contract with Journatic and contemplating hiring their own reporters.  This past Friday the Tribune suspended Journetic indefinitely while admitting being an investor in the service.  Mike Foucher, head of editorial at Journetic, quit Saturday.

Contacted by the Columbia Journalism Review, Timpone admitted making a mistake "in allowing some of these stories to go to our clients.  But these stories really don't deserve bylines at all because they are compiled from six or seven sources."  Tribune now believes plagiarism also is involved. 

Another challenge to journalism's ethics occurred recently when Atlantic editor Megan McArdle admitted outsourcing her opinion of global warming.  "Providers" include Jonathan Adler, Ron Bailey and Pat Michaels--all Cato Institute connected.  As pointed out by Joe Romm of "ThinkProgress," the Cato Institute, originally the Charles Koch Foundation, is being taken back by the founders, Adler is a law professor funded by the Charles Koch Foundation, Bailey is a Cato Institute Media Fellow, while Michaels (also on the Cato payroll) has admitted that 40% of his work is funded by the petroleum industry.  The game is called Follow the Money and it's a media stunner when the senior editor for a major magazine would outsource her thinking on one of today's major issues, then admit it.  McArdle continues to post pieces on climate science in spite of outsourcing her expertise.

Journalism junkies are fascinated by Journatic's sudden aggressiveness in Chicago.  It came on the heels of an announcement by the New York Times that it was folding the Chicago News Cooperative.  That was in mid-February of this year and the decision was a disappointment to those who care about such things;  created in October of 2009 by old Tribune hand O'Shea, CNC was kept alive by funding from such deep pockets as the MacArthur and Knight Foundations, George Soros' Development Loan Fund and the financially-challenged New York Times.  The latter was paid back via four pages a week of Chicago stories produced by former Tribune editors and writers working out of WTTW offices where I once  worked (1972-75) for the public television station.

When O'Shea started CNC three years ago, he described it as a "fresh, innovative approach" to reversing "the news industry's precipitous decline."  Now, it is no more.

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Perfection....by Bob Sanders

 

Los Angeles, perhaps this country's most self-important community, has always been on an aggressive search for perfection.  It's as though the city, having overcome a prior description by Dorothy Parker who suggested L.A. was "72 suburbs in search of a city," expects perfection because it is so deserving.

My old boss, Hugh Hefner, has a somewhat beguiling theory about L.A.'s reputation for having a population of beautiful people perhaps not exceeded by any other of the world's cities.  The not exactly world-traveled Playboy founder believes Los Angeleans are noted for their beauty because something like five generations of attractive people have settled in Southern California with the intention of getting into the movies.  When Hef begins such beguiles, faint strains of Cole Porter can be heard along with the realization that he moved from Chicago to L.A. for many reasons, among them a surfeit of beautiful women.

One of Hefner's long-running friends was Barbie Benton, a UCLA premed freshman when she met him in 1968 on the set of "Playboy After Dark," a TV series I promoted when Screen Gems took a hike from responsibilities accepted on a handshake basis.  The pleasant, bug cute, and intelligent Barbie and I hit it off when we met poolside at Miami Beach's Playboy Plaza Hotel late in 1970.  Hefner, taking momentary leave of us, returned quickly accompanied by an unbecoming grumpiness about our somewhat intense chatter.  Asking her to come with him, Barbie refused, saying: "I will when I get through talking with Bob."  Hefner, decidedly a perfectionist, eventually determined that Barbie, certainly one of the girls next door, wasn't perfect although three pectoral pictorials were impressive.  Never a Playmate, Barbie appeared three times on the magazine's cover.

Benton hasn't been the only Barbie involved in nudity.  It doesn't seem possible but nearly 10 years have passed since the El Segundo-based Mattel Inc., then the world's largest toymaker, sued a Utah artist who used nude Barbie dolls in some of his photographic work.  That Barbie was regarded by many as perfection goodness knows and Mattel alleged that Thomas Forsythe's use of the doll infringed on its copyrights and trademarks.  The media never reported a reaction from Ken nor is there record of a Hefner response.

The humorless Mattel was stunned when a San Fancisco appeals court ruled that use of the doll's image was a parody and protected under the First Amendment.

There can be no doubt that greater Los Angeles is obsessed by beauty running from Botox to buttocks.  Further, going under the knife is now as common as sand on the beach at Santa Monica.  Fleshing out details is a tawdry business but we could start with Dr. Michael Niccole who began surgical improvements on two daughters beginning at age 10.  It all started with a much-improved belly button thanks to the critical eye of the refurbishment doctor.  Other family members, including a wife and two sons, have undergone cosmetic enhancement in the search for, among other features, the perfect nose.  Perkier and bigger breasts are part of perfection's pursuit and so it was that an 83-year-old grandmother recently acquired them, perhaps inspired by the terribly plastic Joan Rivers whose face these days is as tight as skins were on Gene Krupa's drums.  Granny is now hopefully at the beach attracting admiring glances if not conversation. 

As this is written, Granny may even be at Muscle Beach, one of this country's great freak shows now located in Venice although, judging from her age, might pay her respects at what what used to be the original site located on the south side of the Santa Monica Pier.  Officially closed there in 1959, Muscle Beach goes back to the '30s when Vic Tanny and Jack LaLanne sought body perfection later achieved by such celebrities as Arnold Schwartzenegger who made it to the movies and the governor's mansion in Sacramento before attracting the attention of checkout counter publications.

When the subject of baseball comes up, the sport's perfection is generally referenced by pitching performances in which but 27 hitters come to the plate in fruitless attempts to get a hit.  There have been 22 of them in the major leagues with the lone Los Angeles effort achieved by Sandy Koufax who did it in 1965 when he beat the Cubs, 1-0.  The Brooklyn-born lefty had a total of four no-hitters but only one was perfect.

Beauty, as we know, is in the eye of the beholder and so it was that what has been described as an eagerly anticipated environmental sculpture has been unveiled at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.  Titled "Levitated Mass," the work is by Michael Heizer who, apparently, was out to find the perfect rock, all 340 tons of it thus making possible a megalith in a megapolis.  If big is beautiful, then "Levitated Mass" is your cup of granite.

Moving the sculpture's center piece rock from its point of discoveery in a quarry near Riverside was not easy and required a circuitous, 105-mile path through four counties and 22 suburbs.  A huge transporter 200 feet long was used.

There's a stark quality about "Levitated Mass" and it might be its empty field location and a channel of polished concrete that cuts 456 feet across it.  The channel descends to a depth of 15 feet becoming a two-rail pedestal for the rock meaning that visitors can stand below ground level and see a rock from a vantage point never before possible.  At present there are no signs suggesting skateboarders should refrain from performing Gingersnaps and Godzilla Flips on the $10 million project, walking around money when compared to what it costs today to buy an election.  Everything considered, the location, immediately adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits, is perfect and doubtless will  produce stories about the ghosts of dinosaurs being aroused by the new Paleolithic rock now located in the prehistoric resting place.

It was a good week for rocks.  We learned that not only could one of 680,000 pounds be moved in Southern California but, also, how the enigmatic stone heads (some weighing 90 tones) of Easter Island were transported from their quarry points of origination.  It's one thing to move the "Levitated Mass" by means of gasoline and a huge transporter with 88 pairs of wheels, but quite another to have mysteriously transfered nearly 900 smiley faces in those Polynesian halcyon days that preceded a devastating "ecocide" climaxed by the island's population descending into cannibalism and barbarity.  A July National Geographic  magazine story includes details of an experiment conducted in Hawaii in which a smiley face replica was rock and rolled down a road by three teams using very strong ropes.  Lost in all that rock and rolling was the weight of the fake stone head: five tons, 1/18th that of the real thing.  The mystery, in many ways perfect, may not have been solved.  

Moving an isolated big rock 105 miles across a suburban sprawl to the heart of a city the size of Los Angeles is a bit complex in the business of getting the public's attention.  Sometimes inspiration of an unusual nature comes into play as in Carhenge of Alliance, Nebraska where a replica of Stonehenge awaits the next owner.  The asking price is $300,000 and the gray spray-painted 38 cars, jammed in the ground in 1987 in the perfectly arresting symmetry of the British original built between 2500 and 2000 BC, is, according to owner Jim Reinders, "slightly used."    

Drawing eyes of the curious to Alexandria, Indiana is the world's largest ball of paint whose creator was an amateur baseball player who saw a ball accidentally fall into some paint.  Fascinated, Michael Carmichael began a program of dipping and painting with the ball eventually becoming the size and shape of a football whose lack of perfection may have caused him to donate it to the Indiana Soldiers' and Sailors' Children's Home Museum in nearby Knightstown where it can be seen today.

Carmichael had bigger things in mind.  It was on January 1, 1977 that he had his three-year-old son paint another baseball.  The only rule observed by father and son: each new coat must be a different color from the preceding one.  Today's paint ball is strung up in a backyard shed and has more than 20,000 coats with wife Glenda responsible for 8,000 of them.  Families that paint together are quaint together.  Something of a fanatic about paint, Carmichael currently performs 10 coats on dry days although he once called it quits for nearly a year only to return to his obsession.  Some of those dry days are longer than others; once a month Carmichael paints a neighbor's lawn employing a different theme each time.  One of the obvious aspects of the situation is that Glenda never questions her husband's whereabouts.  And, yes, the world's largest ball of paint perfection has been recognized by the Guinness Book of Records.

Some cities attract visitors simply by being strange and two come immediately to mind.  One is Manshiyat Naser, a suburb of Cairo.  Also known as Garbage City, Manshiyat Naser is one big dump whose most significnt citizens are the Zabbaleen, Coptic Christians much envied by Waste Management.  While western collectors of garbage recycle between 20 and 25% of litter, the Zabbaleen regularly register a fingers-to-nostrils 80%.  That's not perfection as garbage collecting goes, but it is impressive.

Another odd place is Miyake-Jima, an island off the coast of Japan.  Its special allure is to those enormously attracted by volcanos.  Sitting on top of a chain of them is Mount Oyama where 17,500 earthquakes occurred in less than a month in 2000.  Lovers of volcanic destruction can take tours that include abandoned houses and flattened cars.  Visitors and locals are required to wear gas masks, a necessity that for all we know may be called "OyamaCare" and not a bad idea for those Christian folks near Cairo.

Realists realize that crowd-gathering curiosities can achieve success quite simply.  San Luis Obisbo, California has Bubblegum Alley where you can affix a chaw of your very own while the World's Largest Hockey Stick is in Duncsan, British Columbia.  It's in Duncan and not Yazoo City, Mississippi because British Columbia is in Canada whose relationship to hockey is something like Green Bay to football only more so.  Canada also claims the World's Largest Egg measuring 3,000 lbs in its fourth reincarnation.  Other wonders include The World's Largest Thermometor in Baker, California while Rock City, Tennessee pays homage to miniature golf where it all began.

Having spent far too many days this year in hospitals, I'll probably be inclined to turn down an inviation, should one be extended, to The Clinic, a bar in Singapore.  Morbidly chic and located in the trendy Clarke Quay area, The Clinic brings a medical atmosphere to booze matters including such comforts as gold plated wheelchairs while drinks are served in syringes and vials by nurses dressed in scrubs.  Their wheelside manners are reputed to be perfect.

Perfection is not easy to find in thoroughly laid back Bellingham, Washington where I live although lovers of rain, moss and bad soil take pride in those daily confrontations believing such challenges are what define and isolate us.  If so, perhaps it's time to get serious, like Los Angeles, and create an attention-getting attraction that will create a new us.

Two possibilities come to mind.  One, providing homage to our past association with Georgia Pacific, would be the erection of the world's largest roll of toilet paper, a monument easily constructed of stone being used in what will be a failed attempt by Regal Cinemas to build a 16-screen Cineplex at Barkley Square.  The last "tissue" of the perfectly enormous 10-story monument would be an enormous American flag whose snapping in the breeze will keep awake all 'hamsters living within a five-mile radius.

A much cheaper Plan B possibility would be an empty store, a perfect and significant sign of our times.

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Missing Jesper....by Bob Sanders

 

I miss Jesper Parnevik.

That's not easy to do considering his claim to fame as a touring golf professional: wearing clothes that strongly suggest the designer is the same guy who dresses the polka bands of Cleveland.  Among Parnevik's other eccentricities is eating volcanic dust as a dietary supplement and, yes, pleading guilty to introducing Tiger Woods to Elin Nordegren, an event that preceded Woods' entanglement with a fire hydrant and a reported golf-club-in-hand pursuit of Woods by the lovely Swede, now an ex-wife.

Following revelations of Woods' womanizing brought about by a phalanx of phallic conquests, the golfing world pretty much lined up lockstep behind the man capable of doubling TV ratings by qualifying for weekend play.  Parnevik, who was Nordegren's employer at the time of the introduction, took exception to her choice of clubs suggesting: "I hope she uses a driver next instead of a 3-iron."

The sartorially-challenged Parnevik, also from Sweden, won four times on the European Tour joining the PGA ramble in the mid-90s winning five events while making three Ryder Cup appearances.  Aware of the golfer's flamboyant sense of fashion set off by a decidedly gauche flip of his golf hat, the manufacturer of the Ryder Club cap attached the event's logo on the bottom of the bill instead of the front so that it could be seen.  Parnevik's explanation for the bill flip: he wants to make sure he gets his face tanned, a reasoning that would make sense only if his golfing was limited to the Eskimo Open, the Arctic Circle Closed or the general area of Bellingham, WA.

While it's tempting to suggest no sad songs should be sung for him in view of his tour winnings of more than $15 million, it is also true he is recovering from hip surgery and continuing back problems, the most recent being a broken lumbar vertebrae.  Those downers were followed by a severe injury to Parnevik's right hand suffered when he got too close to a motor boat engine blade.  Any golfing for money the injury-prone one does this year will be while on a Medical Extension whose challenges are severe: he has to earn $620,087 in his first 12 starts to retain status as a touring pro.  Jesper can handle that one by winning one event and have enough walking around money to buy a round of drinks for all attendees plus members of the host club.

Getting a tee-off time at the U.S. Open was a lot easier at the first one held in 1895 at the nine-hole Newport (R.I.) Country Club.  Literally a sideshow to the U.S. Amateur (both tournaments were conducted at the Newport club), the events originally were scheduled for September, then moved back to not interfere with America's Cup.  The Open's field of nine split a $335 pot with winner Horace Rawlins taking home $150.

Last week's U.S. Open Championship, won in highly impressive fashion by Webb Simpson, also featured the rather dramatic return to a major event by Casey Martin, now a 40-year-old college coach (University of Oregon) whose presence at the 1998 Open gave followers of the game a further peek into just how traditional and narrow of mind the stalwarts of the game can be.  Martin, who suffers from Klippel-Trenauney-Weber Syndrome of the right leg, is forced to ride a cart, a means of transportation that shocked, yes, shocked the sport's reigning nobility including Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer.  It was not one of golf's finer moments and the Supreme Court produced further embarrassment when it ruled in Martin's favor.  Despite playing little serious golf these days, Martin was back for another go round having won a tournament qualifier.  With the passing years has come respect for Martin from those who run the sport that prides itself on being the only competition in which players call penalties on themselves, something Jack and Arnie should have had the good sense to do.  Martin's nine over 159 did not qualify for weekend play but the hope is that, like 17-year-old Beau Hossler, he'll be back.

Hossler, an amateur who gained entry by winning a regional qualifier, was the surprise of the tournanment for shooting three over par for three rounds.  Very much in contention, Hossler faded on the last day--humbled like all the field, including the winner, by the Olympic Club's Lake Course.  It took a 68 on Sunday for Simpson to finish one over.

I hope I'm wrong but it does seem that we are seeing an increase in the number of logos being worn by this year's Open participants.  We've reached the point where the most successful of the touring pros know a year in advance what they will wear each day of major tournaments.  Logos are to golf what product placement is to the motion picture and television industries whose creators are more than willing to place bottles of Coca-Cola and Budweiser (logos in full view) as boy meets girl.

People who know about such things suggest a logo festooned Polo shirt can kick sales up 10% as a result of exposure during those exciting final holes, presentation of a trophy and the how-it-all-came-together interview.  With nine holes to go, the eventual winner was one of many being captured by TV's ever-curious cameras.  At the end, he was a jumble of tight shots.  The shirt people, scout's honor, would much rather have as a winner Adam Scott than the supremely lumpy Kevin Stadler whose father, Craig ("The Walrus") Stadler, was even more so.

Monetarily speaking, a cap logo is a lot more important than shirts and golf bags although the sponsor's name is much larger on a bag whose view is often shielded by camera-unaware caddies.  A top 25 player can make a much as $200,000 for a cap logo and $50,000 buys shirt and bag exposure.  Ryan Moore became the rebel without a logo when he won the Wyndham Championship in 2009, collected $918,000, then announced he would continue to forego sponsorships and endorsements, a policy begun a year earlier.  His relatively brief and rare fling with golfing Puritanism ended the next year when he became part owner of Scratch Golf sporting the firm's logo while playing.  Later that year he scratched Scratch, moved to Adams Golf, then switched to Shift4 and a contract calling for a logo on his left chest thus raising a question (at least for me) concerning the availability of a manly right chest.  That's why we have lawyers who write such problems, then solve them.   

There was a time when golf pros were delighted to be gifted with a box of free clothes that did not include T shirts until Clark Gable made them acceptable in 1934's "It Happened One Night."  One of the game's early clothes horses was Jimmy Demaret who never saw a stripe he couldn't mix with a plaid.  He eventually hooked up with a Fifth Avenue tailor who made Demaret a vision in electric blue, bottle green, canary yellow and vermillion.  A decade earlier the great Walter Hagen was much more traditional.  Having remarkable credentials in drinking and womanizing, Hagen was known to arrive at the first tee attired in a rumpled tuxedo, evidence of overnight carousing.

Protocol, one of those most respected aspects of golf, was momentarily forgotten when Phil Mickelson's caddy once showed up at The Masters wearing the same shirt as the offended Charles Howell III, who was playing in the Mickelson group.  The faux pas of Emily Postian significance was solved and word floated that a majority of club members were of the opinion that the late Masters "Chairman in Memorium" Clifford Roberts would have had a tizzy had he been around.  The golfing equivalent of unmitigated hell can break loose when a golfer decides the hat or shoes worn during a hot round the day before surely must be lucky omens pointing toward a fond embrace involving a trophy.

Idiosyncrasies are major tour story lines in the drama that is golf fashion.  Rickie Fowler always is totally bedecked in orange on Sundays.  That's because he attended Oklahoma State University where he played on the Cowboy's golf team.  The color green is anathema to Tiger Woods who also refuses to wear white pants.  On the other hand, Bubba Watson, this year's Masters champ, has been dressed during recent weeks in nothing but white as he earns $300 each time he drives 300 yards.  His driver is a riveting azalea pink and the money, paid by sponsor PING, goes to a series of Southern California charities while the clothing, produced by Travis Mathew Apparel, can be purchased by anyone regardless of handicap.  Play with a 24 and look like Bubba.

Not to underline the point but the hope among many golf intimates is that logos on the golfing body don't become more common than insignias on NASCAR equipment including the uniforms worn by the contestants.  With 75 million fans and enormous TV eposure, it costs underwriters anywhere from $500,000 to $20 million to get in the game.

It was while working for public relations firm Field Enterprises in Chicago in the 70s that I found myself making phone calls that, if successful, would help put corporate America's logos on the racing cars of Ted Field.  Ted came into play because his father, Marshall Field IV, had first produced Marshall Field V--unfortunate timing for the younger brother who had visions of becoming a motion picture mogul.  He eventually did just that producing, among others, "Cocktail," "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure," "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle" and "Mr. Holland's Opus."  First, Ted had to get the money to make them.

The Field Enterprises staff began seeing quite a bit of the kid brother and word suddenly was bruited about that he had met the age requirement of his father's will (Marshall Field IV's death was a suicide) for a big payoff.  This was slightly before the demise of the Chicago Daily News in 1978.  Meanwhile, Ted had become something of a pest asking that the PR department sell the logo project to any contacts including past employers with lines like "Playboy's a natural" and "how about TV Guide?" tossed my way.  We went through the motions and I have to confess most of them were slow if at all.  The thought of Walter Annenberg seeing his TV Guide logo on a car's hood was beyond amusing and abject failure was mine.   

It may have been NASCAR or golf logos that inspired Jason Sadler; then, again, it may have been Russian ladies, newly arrived in this country sans English skills, who wander around public markets wearing confusing, nasty or worse messages on T shirts.  Sadler, 26 when he founded IWearYourShirt in 2009, sells companies the opporunity for him to wear their company's shirt for a day.  His story has been picked up by "Today," CBS News, CNN, Wall Street Journal, and Forbes.  He charges what he calls "face value" that works out to $1 on January 1 and $365 the last day of the year.

This makes absolutely no sense nor does his selling of monthly sponsorships--good in tandem, he says, for $83,000 a year thus beating the hell out of food stamps.  It might take the mind of a Jesper Parnevik to figure this one out.

If there are possible questions about the availability of other locations for logos beyond shirts, caps and bags, can the human behind be, well, far behind?  Will the day soon dawn when touring pros, anticipating further use of the human body for advertising purposes and the resulting payouts, begin drawing attention to the billboard attractiveness of their very own asses?  Will Kevin Stadler go on a diet?

And, while we're on the subject of goofy possibilities, let us hope the tattoo craze does not become acceptable to professional golf.  On the other hand, think to what degree Jesper Parnevik's forehead, revealed in all its pigmented glory by the bill flip to end all bill flips, might inspire an advertiser?

What a way to sell Coppertone Ultraguard!

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Distractions....by Bob Sanders

 

I learned the other day that wife, Jan, was once a legal distraction.  That's according to her daughter Nancy who told me the story of Jan's being summoned for jury duty back in the days when she was living another life in Thousand Oaks, California.

Jan was a blonde bombshell when I met her in 1987 in Chicago and I'm sure she was even more so in her California days.  Attorneys for both defendants found Jan acceptable as a member of the jury and the case was barely underway when the judge determined that too many people in the courtroom were paying more attention to Jan than courtroom proceedings.  He ruled Jan off that legal turf for being a distraction.

We appear to be inundated by distractions these days.  The matter of this country's policy toward Cuba has been given scrutiny in this space on a prior occasion and there can be no doubt that Miami's Little Havana has become one enormous distraction.  While the fingerprints of the Bush brothers were all over this one in that prior decade of our official relationship with Cuba, there are new players in the game including Sen. Mark Rubio who, along with his family, has re-written their family history to conform to political correctness.  To fiddle with Vince Lombardi's best-known quote, winning elections is the only thing.

With the rest of the country finally aware of Little Havana's insidious clout, it appeared for awhile that a neighborhood state-of-the-art, tax-funded major league stadium costing the city $2 billion might achieve something beyond distraction status.  At least that was the best hope for Jeffrey Loria, Miami Marlins owner who hired (surprise, surprise) a Cuban, Ozzie Guillen, to manage the Marlins.  It looked like win/win for everyone since Guillan's former employer, the Chicago White Sox, were delighted to be rid of the highly vocal-but-makes-little-sense manager who had worn out his welcome in the Windy City.

With the team a couple of days from the home opener, Guillen, always a master of timing and obviously knowledgeable about foreign relations, decided to express his love and respect for Fidel Castro.  It was the kind of distraction, continuing as this is written, that makes for poor relations between the community and the Marlins.  Fortunately, the Marlins are battling for first place, another strong suggestion that all can be well in love, war and baseball with good pitching and timely hitting as significant as efficient drones.

Just as Olsen & Johnson used the running gag in such shows as "Hellzappin," so can an effective writer employ the running distraction.  A case in point would be Ariel Levy's incisive look in The New Yorker at Her Serene Highness the Principessa Rita Boncompagni Ludovisi.  Published November 28 last year, the article contained nine references to Playboy for which Her Serene Highness disrobed twice.  Full-circling the Principessa with that many allusions to the magazine was fair game since before revealing her serene nakedness she was the former Texas twang-speaking Rita Jenrette, perhaps best known for having had sex on the Capitol steps with then South Carolina congressman/husband John Jenrette. 

Defense of such distractions is hardly necessary and there are those who believe Playboy is, in itself, just one big one.  Her Serene Highness, who authored a memoir, My Capitol Secrets, is behaving herself these days while living in a 40,000 square-foot Roman palazzo.  To date, she has not been observed having sex on the nearby Spanish Steps nor, for that matter, in any public places.

Speaking of Rome, there's the decidedly ill-timed Vatican attitude toward an American nun who had the double dare audacity to write a book about faith and sexuality, pretty popular subjects.  Published in 2006 and ranked No. 142,982 on Amazon.com's best-selling list, Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics was going nowhere as a minor distraction to Pope Benedict XVI who, along with an intimate circle of advisors, suddenly forgot two of the cardinal rules of public relations: all press is good press and let well enough alone.

It was on Monday that The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the church's official orthodoxy office, produced a statement of criticism about Sister Margaret Farley's book referring to it as a "defective understanding" of Catholic theology and not fit for the eyes of Roman Catholics.  Farley is an award-winning ethicist now retired from Yale Divinity School.  In the general category of defective thinking, one pope's distriction might also be an opportunity to take some heat off what appears to be the essence of a Shakespearian plot whose "Vatileaks" corruption scandal features the valet of a weak pope supplying documents, in all likelihood, to help the pope oust his nefarious right-hand man, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.  Yes, the butler did it.  Key player Bertone should stay away from cameras.  His appearance is such that he would have been rejected by creators of "The Sopranos" for being too authentic and, therefore, a distraction.

How could we possibly forget politics in any commentary about distractions--particularly in this momentous year of the run for the White House.  The Republican primary has been so remarkably odd that comparisons with any preceding competition simply can't be made.  In fact, "odd" falls short of accurately describing our witnessing a Texas governor (Rick Perry) outdoing his predecessor, George W. Bush, in mangling what passes for his native tongue while appearing to be either stoned or drunk at the podium.

And, yes, let's invoke the word "bizarre" in any examination of the campaign waged by Herman Cain, the former pizza executive whose greatest triumphs appear to have been conducted in the back seats of cars, his preferred location for selling stimulus packages to female colleagues.  However, it was the unforgettable Perry who came off as the biggest dummy of all with stunning gaffes.  Cain's able execution of jive  resulted in his being named successor just the other day to veteran conservative radio host Neal Boortz.

Oh, and let's not forget that sensational sleazebag, Newt Gingrich, who somehow managed to attack Beltway politics while being a constant reminder that he's a classic example of a politician who moved from a power base (Speaker of the House) to become a wheedling, conniving, money-grubbing lobbyist so successful that he ran up a $500,000 tab at Tiffany's.  Also worthy of a quick dismissal were other oddities including Tea Party favorite Rick Santorum, Michelle Bachmann, Jon Huntsman (he didn't belong in this rag tag bunch) and Ron Paul, today's version of Harold Stassen who ran for the Presidency 12 times.  This Preposterous Group of Eight were thoroughly hopeless, so much so that Joe Scarborough, a former GOP congressman now host of MSNBC's "Morning Joe," called them "total idiots" on his show.  It was a conclusion reached following 27 TV debates.  One is inclined to wonder how GOP loyalists could suffer so many fools gladly?

While still in the general area of politics, there's the nauseous case of Donald Trump whose roaring ego has brought him ever closer to being a pol player.  The Donald, quite obviously, is unaware that his involvement on behalf of George Romney carries with it the same distraction factor that Bush provides the man whose job creation record as governor of Massachusetts was 47th best.  Romney, the awkward flip-flopper, will learn there are people who can do you no good in a Presidential race and Bush and Trump are two of them.

The Donald's ability to distract is not limited to politics.  Comes word from director Oliver Stone that Trump's cameo in "Wall Street 2" was cut out because of an obvious presence in his pants.  Timing is everything and it appears the hotelier was still in a Cialis four-hour time frame when the camera rolled.  The Donald's inability to stifle a stiffie resulted in his scene being cut.  Insiders say the deleted drama is being restored for the DVD.

Another political distraction is Jeremiah Wright who, one way or another, simply will not go away in spite of his words and presumed ministrations provided Barack Obama 20 years ago.  It doesn't take the political savvy of Karl Rove to suggest that Romney would be wise to back away from Wright just as Obama should forget about the dog on the roof of Romney's car.  Petty persiflage is, well, petty and distracting.

One person's distraction is another's call to action--particularly if the problem is in the classroom.  While it's common knowledge that distractions are a main enemy of a good education, teachers are continually coming up with ways to deal with problems that interfere with communications.  Our failure in the classroom is a matter of agonizing record in this era of addiction to technology; staying focused is not easy with student texting and cell phoning among the distractions.  Multi-tasking is in such pronounced use that students often find it difficult to concentrate on one thing: a teacher attempting to teach in a classroom.  There was a time when a distraction in a schoolroom was almost always a beautiful woman or a good-looking guy.

Beautiful people is what Hollywood used to all about but evidence has been emerging for some time that leading actors are more inclined to look like real people.  Unfortunately, the search for reality has ended there.  Very inclined to create product appealing to kids, the film business has embraced a philosophy for success that combines noise, monsters from far away places, vampires from closer to home, plus simplistic dialogue and plot developments that defy anything vaguely logical.  Unfortunately, distraction in the form of 3D is now with us boding ill for those who wish for intelligent dialogue and story lines offering some semblance of sense.

Back to politics and what may or may not be a minor distraction called Wisconsin.  Obama may not have figured out the state's importance as he maneuvers for those 270 electoral votes required to return him to the White House.  The  distraction was an attempt led by unions to nullify Gov. Scott Walker's 19-month old victory.  Having won Wisconsin by 14 points in the 2008 election, Obama ducked involvement while convincing himself that all politics are local with no connection between a Midwest gubernatorial recall and the run for all the Badger marbles in the fall.

Figuring Wisconsin as a minor distraction, Obama made no attempt to meet a 7-1 out-of-state GOP money avalanche, so he sent Bill Clinton whose messages were, to put it kindly, mixed.  Gov. Walker won by six points and, significantly, the voter turnout greatly exceeded what got him into office in the first place. 

It is one thing to complain about the Supreme Court's making possible the rigging of an election through unlimited amounts of money.  It iwas quite another to not match the Koch brothers, et al. when the money was there.  It was another example of Obama evidencing timidity and aloofness.

Stand-up comics have observed more than once that "everybody's got to be somewhere" and so it was that Obama, having personally ducked Wisconsin, headed instead for Hollywood and fund-raisers.

Setting priorities can be tricky.  Let's hope it doesn't turn out that Wisconsin was more than a minor distraction.

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Pizza Adventures....by Bob Sanders

I'm not sure where or when I had my first pizza.  My best guess is that it was in Tulsa in the early '60s and definitely in a Pizza Hut.  This would figure since the chain was begun in 1958 by a couple of students at Wichita University--something like 130 miles north of Tulsa.

Pizza Hut was a reasonable beginning and it wasn't until 1968 that matters got serious when I moved from Los Angeles to Chicago to work for Playboy Enterprises.  L.A. was essentially pizza-deprived back then although Sam and Joe Martorano had established Casa Bianca at 1955 Colorado Blvd., a couple of field goals from the Rose Bowl.  The Martoranos had worked at Tony's Pizza in the Windy City but their approach bore little resemblance to the deep dish Chicago product; the crust, I'm told, was light and the toppings slight by comparison.  The California approach to cooking was underway and the pizza obsessive under-served.

I don't recall any L.A. pizza places largely because my dining was pretty much limited to West Hollywood and environs running to the ocean.  With an office at 9255 Sunset Blvd, my favorite places tended to be within walking distance and included: the Cock & Bull across the street; Hamburger Hamlet, eventually a chain created by the still with us Harry and Marilyn Lewis who started at the corner of Sunset & Hilldale; and Frascati, a casual yet classy place with outdoor dining at the rear.  Oh, yes, there was Musso & Frank Grill, still there since 1919.

My discovery of Chicago pizza was made possible by a convention at The Drake Hotel that forced me to stay at the St. Clair on Ohio Street.  The Drake, immediately across the street from the Playboy Building, was the logical place for me but timing, as always, was everything and I was told I could move to The Drake when the convention was over.  We know the importance of timing when we reflect upon Turner Classic Movie's decision to play next Tuesday's (May 29) Irving Thalberg tribute show at 6 a.m. EST.

I didn't need The Drake.  I had settled in at the St. Clair, a place complete with a large contingent of raffish folks from the entertainment industry.  On the top floor was the Chicago Press Club and down the street Ike Sewell's uncommnly popular restaurants, Pizzeria Uno and Due.  I soon found myself eating a fair amount of deep dish that contrasted enormously with prior culinary adventures of the Italian genre.

Sewell, having served in Italy during World War II, had become a regional vice president of Fleishmann's Distilling Corp. and wanted something more exciting.  He found it when he teamed up with pal Ricc Riccardo, an established restaurateur who in in 1935 had turned a former speakeasy into Riccardo Restaurant and Gallery.  A Texan, Sewell wanted to specialize in Mexican food but fate, in the form of a very bad enchilada in a test dinner played a significant role in cuisine history.  Riccardo became so sick that Mexican food was out of the question so he suggested pizza.  Like Sewell, Riccardo had encountered the food while serving in Italy; both were of a mind that the real thing was little more than an appetizer, and they set about inventing something more substantial.  What evolved was a meal-sized pizza with a thick crust and lots of cheese. 

Business did not flourish immediately at the corner of Ohio and Wabash and Sewell soon gave orders to his bartenders to provide free sample slices to customers.  Fortunately for Sewell (Riccardo by then was concentrating on his own restaurant up the street at Rush and Hubbard Streets), Pizzaria Uno's clientele were heavy drinkers and the pizza eventually caught on.  More about the remarkable Riccardo and son Ric, Jr. at a later date.

I lived at the St. Clair for a month, then moved into an apartment on Division Street between State St. and Lake Michigan.  As things turned out, Betty and the kids did not join me in Chicago until August of that year.  It wasn't all bad since Hugh Hefner's home was two blocks away and I had an open invitation to parties that, seemingly, had no end.

The true origins of pizza are difficult to pin down.  People inclined toward conspiracy theories tend to believe that Marco Polo brought back more than spaghetti when he returned from China although such claims are tenuous at best.  We are told the Greeks had a vegetable pizza in ancient times and the Italians improved the product with a variety of fillings before baking.  We do know that Virgil, who lived in the lst Century BC, had the good sense to write a pizza recipe for posterity.

It is generally conceded that the first pizzeria in this country was opened in New York City in 1905 thus planting the city's incestuous family tree.  Like Sewell's experience 50 years later, it was slow to catch on.  It took World War II and a taste acquired by GIs to create a fondness for the food.  Today there are more than 70,000 pizzerias in this country producing an average of 46 slices or 23 lbs. a year for every man, woman and child.  Deep dish pizza, still served at Uno and Due, has run afoul of criticism during recent years for a calorie count of 2,310.  Pizza Hut is out of contention in that league with a modest 9-inch Triple Meat Heliano of 1,280 calories.  And you wonder how this nation got to be one of big butts?

Not credited with a national sense of humor, South Korea spoofed itself when the country's artery-clogged Mr. Pizza unit produced a YouTube pizza story suggesting that Marco Polo stole the pizza recipe not from China but from Korea.  The send up was produced by Gumshoe Pictures and is worth viewing.

In 1990, wife Jan and I moved to the Pacific Northwest and San Juan Island's Friday Harbor where nary a pizza could be found until an expanded gas station started cranking out product geared for those of decidedly limited dining experience.  Even the availability of the mainland 60 minutes away by ferry was of pizza disappointment.  Alas, the exquisite pizza and the magnificent hamburger are rarities of the Pacific Northwest.  We eventually discovered, thanks to then banker Brian Brown, an approximation of hamburger heaven on Commercial Avenue in Anacortes.  The Brown Lantern is a burger discovery that resurrected fond memories of Charlie Beinlich's in Northbrook north of Chicago.  Mainland mainstay Bob's (nine locations--three in Bellingham) knows what to put in a bun; by all means, hit the bar in the Barkley Village location for a genuine pub feeling.

Each of us has had memorable dining experiences.  One of mine occurred in 1992 when Jan and I were guests in Barcelona of Antonio Susquellas Escala, whose employment as presidente of EniChem Iberica, S.A. put him in the midst of the Olympic Games.  Tony had been an exchange student in Thousand Oaks, California living with Jan and her family.  Our six weeks with Tony was his "thank you" and included a highly impressive number of event tickets including opening and closing ceremonies.

It was while strolling down Barcelona's impressive La Ramblas that Jan and I, accompanied by my brother John and his wife, Terry, decided to have lunch at the Hotel Royal's Cafeteria La Poma.  Curious about whatever Barcelona's approach to the pizza might be, I ordered a thin-crusted beauty whose intriguing ingredients included walnuts and blue cheese positioned in the pie's center--about a four-inch circle.  Outside of a delicate winner consumed at, of all places, a short-lived Two Illinois Center restaurant developed by Arnold Morton (he built steak house giant Morton's), my experience with the light version had been limited.

The Barcelona product was remarkably good and here I am, 20 years later, recalling its virtues.  I was so caught up in the pizza that I paid little attention to Magic Johnson, a member of the U.S.A. Dream Team, unquestionably the greatest basketball squad ever.  Magic was seated nearby dining while a circus-like scene developed outside in front of a huge hotel window where a human pyramid of kids had materialized.  Mesmerized, the kids were shouting "Ma-jeek, Ma-jeek."  Completing his meal, the basketball star vanished out a back door and the kids disassembled.  Pronounced evidence of the departed youngsters was left behind on the window; the glass was heavily befogged by human vapors.

Pizza satisfaction is a personal thing and my problem with the Fourth Corner version can be summed up in one word: pepperoni.  Enthusiasts of the pepperoni experience are inclined to believe that pepperoni pizza is to the Pacific Northwest what the Packers are to Green Bay.  A current television commercial extolling the glories of Pizza Hut is, I find, a stomach churner of prodigious success.  While an imaginatively constructed pizza heavy on vegetables can mirror the exultant beauty of a Joan Miro work, the Pizza Hut TV effort features a very large pie whose disgusting topping consists of nothing but a slathering of pepperoni that appears to have been sitting for a week under a scorching Arizona desert sun.  It is beyond ugly made even more so by bread sticks of almost equal repulsion.

Reaching pizza nirvana is not easy although there is a greater variety available today than, say, 30 years ago.  Now a $38 billion industry, pizza is available in chains dominated by Pizza Hut, Dominos, and Papa John who claim 21% of the pizzeria total.  With hard times upon us, pizzeria prices have come down--partly because of the frozen variety competition whose costs are appealing.  Papa Murphy's, whose come-on is take-and-bake, is a highly interesting game plan.  A warning: do not deviate fromn Papa's instructions.  Among other things, bake within a hour of pickup and make sure you don't get a product that's been sitting around.

Store-bought frozen product is challenging with Freschetta, Red Baron, DeGiorno, Paul Newman, California and the rest battling it out to see who has the least amount of cardboard taste.  The boredom of pepperoni pizza has dominated Fourth Corner freezers and I had all but given up until three weeks ago when I encountered what I immediately determined as homage to Chicago: sausage and mushroom pizza.  It was at Fred Meyer and, indeed, produced by Kroger, owner of FM.  Further, a rather stunning picture of the pizza was on the black oblong box and within an hour I had achieved a blessedness never imagined from a frozen product.  The crust was thin and flaky but not overly so and the toppings more substantial and decidedly tastier than all others experienced.  At present, there are four Private Selection pizzas (11-14 oz.) that sell for $4.50 each.  The mushrooms used are portobella and shitake and the sausage Italian.  There's some jive on the box about the baking having been done on a marble hearth.

This column, always inclined to recognize superior marketing, believes Private Selection deserves recognition for realizing all frozen pizza boxes are the same shape.  Simply by creating an oblong pizza has the firm given the product recognition in a highly competitive environment.

And, frankly, I don't care if Private Selection pizza is baked on Aunt Tilly's breakfast table.  Now, go get yourself some sausage and mushroom pizza and think Cubs; that is, if you can stand the thought.

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