A Journalist Remembers
The Zeitgeist Beat. If you enjoy The Reporter On the Road, you need this book. It’s an immodest tale about how I figured out what to do for a living and wound up among amazing people, places and things...embedded with Marines in Lebanon...backstage at Live Aid...confronting famine in Darfur...at Rolling Stones rehearsals...covering the Grenada invasion, … Continue reading The Zeitgeist Beat!
• Who, me? Disrupt a news conference? • Julio Iglesias thought he was going to skate through his presser until I piped up. • It took the Washington Post interviewing me about Grenada to bring it all back. I don’t think of myself as the type of reporter who would try to upstage a public … Continue reading Me & Julio – and Slash – Down By The Hotel
• These are a few of my favorite things. . . that happened while interviewing celebs • Notorious B.I.G. almost ruined an interview with his eyes closed • The guy from Fountains of Wayne versus the guy from Wayne, N.J. Brian Wilson Brian Wilson was still under the spell of a weird therapist, Eugene Landy, … Continue reading Odds and Sods – Brian Wilson, Biggie Smalls, Bob Dylan, Tupac, Snoop, Rodman, Will Smith
• Call me "the Fourth Child" or "the Sixth Spice" • With Mandy Moore, bowling for column lines • More teen spirit than one man can take I mingled with Destiny’s Child at a Grammy Awards show or an MTV Video Music Awards show in the late ‘90s. I understand the young woman to my … Continue reading More Divas – Beyoncè, Madonna, Barbra Streisand, Janet Jackson, Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson, Mandy Moore, Spice Girls
I wanted to be a radio newsman but had to spin some platters at first, and the bookstore was out of “Radio News for Dummies.” I’ve cued up that story here.
• If you build it, they will come: Allman Brothers, Ike & Tina Turner, Canned Heat, Chuck Berry, Edgar Winter, Alice Cooper • When Woodstock Nation annexed North Baltimore, Ohio • Was it all just a front for laundering pot dealers’ money? I’ll never tell The idea started as a pipe dream, probably. A handful … Continue reading The Park — ‘Weekend Woodstocks’ in NW Ohio Cornfield
• Lies and the lying liars who launched Air America • The slow-motion train wreck that was supposed to take down Rush Limbaugh • You can call me Al and Rachel and Marc’s radio colleague once upon a time They were among the luckiest documentary filmmakers ever. “Left of the Dial,” was a documentary that … Continue reading What’s Left of the Dial
• You can’t always get the story you want • Clapton, Jackson and Orbison: off-limits • Once, twice, three times a loser One of the best rock shows ever filmed was underway and I couldn’t talk my way past the bouncers at the stage door. I had tried, since landing in L.A., to get a … Continue reading Thwarted
In the 1990’s, when I was covering entertainment news for CNN’s Showbiz Today, I was sent to Toronto, where the Stones were in rehearsal for their Bridges to Babylon tour. They had taken over an old Masonic temple with a rehearsal space the size of a large basketball court, offices, a mess hall, and interview … Continue reading
• James Carville and/or Paul Begala called Washington, DC “Hollywood for Ugly People” • I must have fit right in; I got sent there often enough • Me and Tipper Gore in a hotel room I was based in New York with ABC News and CNN from 1983 to 2001. But I spent considerable time … Continue reading Hollywood for Ugly People – Frank Zappa, Tipper Gore, Prince, Pearl Jam and Gerald Ford
• Why don’t we do it on the road? • Yes, I’m going to go there • From the sacred to the profane and everywhere in between . . . the sheets I was interviewing Leonard Cohen in the studio at CNN’s New York bureau. It was around 1993. He was a personal favorite; I … Continue reading Sex and the Single Reporter
• ABC’s Reporter on the Road.....doesn’t go on forever • Mick and Keith to the rescue. They keep me from going on the dole, mate • All the news that’s fit to print – or say – about the Steel Wheels tour As the Eighties drew to a close, so did my days as ABC … Continue reading RSNN: The Rolling Stones News Network
• Jennifer stole my heart • Little Debbie invited me up to her room • Call me "the Fourth Child" or "the Sixth Spice" So there we were, on 52nd Street, outside the now-shuttered Roseland Ballroom. It was 1999 and budding movie star Jennifer Lopez was throwing a party for the launch of her first … Continue reading My Divas – J-Lo, Mariah Carey, Vanessa Williams, Debbie Gibson, Beyonce´, Barbra, Spice Girls
• WHA? As a PA announcer in the World Hockey Association, my safety was in question • D’oh! The Stanley Cup-clinching overtime goal this reporter missed • All the news that fits: covering college hockey for the NY Times People who have trouble ice skating sometimes say, “My ankles are weak.” Circa 1956 Mine weren’t, … Continue reading Hockey News
• I got mugged by the Hanson brothers from “Slapshot” • Hung out with Gretzky, Messier, Huddy and Lowe at their Edmonton bar • Scored on an assist from Rod Gilbert. Honest Any reporter worth their salt gets amped up covering the stories that bring them in contact with some of their personal favorite subjects. … Continue reading Hockey Celebrities
• The ultimate sports fantasy camp: you play in a televised game against the '74 and ’75 Stanley Cup champions. • What would you pay to spend a weekend treated like an NHL player? But wait – there’s more! • See how Dave “Full House” Coulier, Cameron “Beverly Hills 90102” Bancroft and I combined for … Continue reading Celebrity Hockey
Okay, I dished some dirt in a recent post, The Bad Actors. But really, people, isn’t tossing bouquets a better use of a blog than throwing shade? Here are some of what I thought were the good guys. Respect.
We were all smiles after the interview. Then my piece ran on CNN and Elton John's publicist went ballistic. Why? Come down in time for the answer.
The Wimbledon Press Pass Caper and Other Stories, in which gates are crashed, wristwatches are smuggled and Richard Burton expires.
“Suppose They Gave a War and Nobody Came.” – ‘60s anti-war slogan. 1983: “Suppose They Invaded an Island and Let Nobody Cover It.” The first of a two-part tale of reporting the Grenada invasion.
• Old saying in the business: “Sports is the toy store of journalism.” If that’s true, then what's news about entertainment? • Would there be no turning back? Would the journalism gate-keepers ever let me back into the hard news fraternity? • I'm a part of CNN at its post-Gulf War peak During my time … Continue reading CNN Showbiz Today
George Clooney heard me on the radio when he was in high school. Years later, he puked behind my back.
• Charlie Watts' side hustle . . .and true love. I've got lots of pictures of me and various Rolling Stones. Mick, Keith, Ronnie, Bill. Not a single one of me and Charlie. The drummer was seldom involved - and reluctant when arm-twisted - in the massive pre-tour hype machine which cranked up every time … Continue reading Flown But Not Forgotten
• You can’t always get the story you want • Clapton, Jackson and Orbison: off-limits • Once, twice, three times a loser One of the best rock shows ever filmed was underway and I couldn’t talk my way past the bouncers at the stage door. I had tried, since landing in L.A., to get a … Continue reading Thwarted
I think it's worth noting that in 1980, what we called the counterculture had only been around for about 15 years. So breaking into a Monday Night Football game with the news of the murder of John Lennon was actually a debatable decision. Hear Howard Cosell lose the off-air debate to "Dandy Don" Meredith, and … Continue reading Monday Night Football, Dec. 8, 1980
• Idle googling turns up not one but two Natalie Merchant profiles • Idle gossip about her and Michael Stipe had to be addressed, I guess • An unplanned blog post. Surprise! The ROTR will return to hibernation. In a spasm of boredom the other day, I googled my name and up came a YouTube … Continue reading These Are Days – 10,000 Maniacs, Natalie Merchant, Michael Stipe, Cat Stevens and Salman Rushdie
• Uriah Heep, John Belushi, the exploding lunch trick and Jesse Helms across ‘Americaland’ • A relic from another era: a petrified noon newscast • A private company launching a rocket into space? Never happen! Way, way down at the dusty bottom of that milk crate was the last cassette. Krapp’s Last Tape? No, just … Continue reading Rock it, WMET News!
• It was the first year with a Rap category and a Hard Rock/Heavy Metal one, too • So, how did that go? • The struggle for Grammy relevance was real . . and still is Evil Duke: Put them in the iron maiden. Ted: Iron Maiden? Bill & Ted: Excellent! [air guitar] Evil Duke: … Continue reading How Bogus Were the ’89 Grammys?
• Cramming thousands of kids together on a Florida beach used to be a good idea • “Where the Boys Are” in 1989 • Rick Nielsen is blasé about half-naked ragers In a post-Covid world, one imagines, an annual ritual such as spring break on America’s beaches will be revived safely . . . if … Continue reading Superspreader: Spring Break
• Hear, hear! . . how dull things were - already - 40 years ago • The pandemic’s silver lining: shrunken presidential nominating pageants • In 1980, everybody must have gotten stoned Summertime, every four years. The speeches, the balloon drops, the protests. The boredom. National presidential nominating conventions can’t die soon enough. I could … Continue reading R.I.P. Conventions