A Journalist Remembers
A couple of months after Live Aid and We Are the World, an opportunity arose to see firsthand what some of the money raised by the benefit concert and charity song was actually doing for the people afflicted by the drought and famine in Africa.
• Listen up you whippersnappers! When I was your age, I had to haul around a lot of crap • There was heavy lifting in radio news • Where was the digital age when I needed it? One of the reasons I started blogging about my broadcasting career was because my three nephews, all "digital … Continue reading The Things I Carried
If a plane carrying Harry Belafonte and me disappeared in a Western Darfur sandstorm, only one of us would make the headline. How that no-brainer was arrived at.
Can a reporter be compelled to testify in a Houston courtroom? Can he be jailed for conspiracy to go skinny-dipping in Austin? The answers may be found - or not - here.
• Is it possible to have a crappy time at a rock concert in Rio de Janiero? • We go Flying Down to Rio. . . but forget about that Girl From Ipanema • Do you want some whine with that caipirinha? A newspaper comic strip popular with my journalist friends, called “Shoe” featured some … Continue reading Rock in Rio – Yes, Ozzy, AC/DC, Go-Gos, Iron Maiden (and more!)
Your ace sports reporter, Red Roughandsore, captures all the excitement of the Georgetown Hoyas' first national title, beating Houston, 84-75, at the Kingdome in Seattle. Thrill as the seconds tick down. For one shining moment, I was Jim Nance. Listen here: (:33)
The Wimbledon Press Pass Caper and Other Stories, in which gates are crashed, wristwatches are smuggled and Richard Burton expires.
Weird Al Yankovic was promoting one of his Michael Jackson parodies. I guess I thought I’d do a lame Jackson impersonation. (I had nothing on my face but a stupid look.) Anyway, Weird Al’s not in this blog post. Jerry Seinfeld, Steven Wright, Jay Leno, Richard Lewis and Robert Klein are, but I didn’t have photos with them.
• These are a few of my favorite things. . . that happened while interviewing celebs • Notorious B.I.G. almost ruins an interview with his eyes closed • The guy from Fountains of Wayne versus the guy from Wayne, N.J. Brian Wilson was still under the spell of a weird therapist, Eugene Landy, and extremely … Continue reading Odds and Sods – Brian Wilson, Biggie Smalls, Oasis, Bob Dylan
• Presidential nominating conventions aren’t what they used to be: interesting • They used to let long-haired freaks walk right up to the podium and place a collect call • What it was like covering that big Brian Wilson story no one can forget at the ’84 Dallas Republican confab • In the heat of … Continue reading Unconventional Coverage
• 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
(Welder by day, dancer by night)
• Ever seen US Marines slam-dancing? • Not exactly “3 Days of Peace and Music” • Cheap Trick, Kansas, Doobie Brothers, for the boys They used to send Bob Hope to entertain the troops. Or Playboy playmates (both in fiction – “Apocalypse Now” – and in reality -- Playmate of the Year Jo Collins visited … Continue reading 1st Airborne Rock and Roll Division
If you like the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, Cream and the Doors, you've probably heard them - and others - play a song written by Willie Dixon: "Whole Lotta Love," "I Just Want to Make Love to You," "Little Red Rooster," "My Babe," "Back Door Man," "Spoonful," "You Can't Judge a … Continue reading Seventh Son – Willie Dixon
• Remembering when The Beach Boys were the most controversial thing on the National Mall on July 4th • That time Ronald Reagan stood up for Rock n’ Roll • The Malling of America was a best-selling book in 1985. Just a trivia fact It appears to some that, with a speech at the Lincoln … Continue reading I Think it was the Fourth of July – The Beach Boys, Jimmy Page and Joan Jett
• The age-defying Rolling Stones wrap up a swing through North America this summer to some very enthusiastic reviews • Thirty years ago, I ramped up my own enthusiasm describing what they did backstage before the opening riff of “Start Me Up” • What’s a ROSR? Stay tuned In December of 1989, the Stones wound … Continue reading Stone ROSRS
• Fifty years of that deaf, dumb and blind kid • And I thought I felt old at the 20th anniversary celebration • Hope I don’t die before the 60th I can’t say that “It could have been 1989 in Madison Square Garden the other night.” Because, clearly, it wasn’t. This was September 1, 2019. … Continue reading The Who’s Tommy
My outgoing answering machine messages got a good review from the late Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert:
There WAS collusion in Russia. Plus Billy Joel concerts. And vodka. Lots of vodka.
• Jennifer stole my heart • Mariah took me up and away......and left me cold • Little Debbie invited me up to her room 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
• The move from radio to radio with pictures • I’m a Good Morning America music correspondent, alongside Joan Lunden and Charlie Gibson. • “Never pass up an opportunity to have sex or be on television” - Gore Vidal When I returned from Moscow in 1987 after successfully completing my first two TV pieces on … Continue reading TV, GMA, Bee Gees, Mellencamp, Joel, Hall & Oates
• 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
• 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
• “Oh, before you go – one more thing....” • What really goes on backstage. Smile. • Before selfie sticks, one was at the mercy of the photography skills of the passer-by who was asked a favor. And it showed This post pretty much only exists because this picture, which I’ve posted before on Facebook, … Continue reading Grip and Grin – Tupac, Snoop, Rodman, Will Smith, LL Cool J, Jenny McCarthy
• Was this the most awesomely bad TV show ever? • Does anyone remember actually watching it? • Why has it been scrubbed from history? I’m about to dish out the whole enchilada about the Whole Enchilada, a recipe for hard-to-swallow TV. In 1989, right around the end of my ABC News years and just … Continue reading The Whole Enchilada
• Which do you choose, a hard or soft option . . . in news? • 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 … Continue reading Showbiz Today, CNN – Pt. 1
• A part of CNN at its post-Gulf War peak • Covering show business like it's a . . . . business • When celebrity breaks out, we break in! For the next twelve years, spanning the nineties, I had a most amazing time as a CNN correspondent. “No heavy lifting,” is how I … Continue reading Showbiz Today, CNN – Pt. 2
“So you’re the guy who defended Stuttering John’s First Amendment rights?” That was an incredulous Howard Stern, asking me, a CNN Showbiz Today correspondent, why I had tried to prevent one of his radio sidekicks from being tossed out of the Grammy Awards telecast at Radio City Music Hall in 1991. It was the first of many times I would appear on his program.
• TV news once took Darwinism to a silly extreme • A pox on the medium gave Pax TV (R.I.P.) a far-fetched idea about hiring • Who was their HR guy, Jeff Probst? I despise so-called “reality TV.” Not just because it is supposedly “unscripted” and resulted in the elimination of jobs for writers in … Continue reading Reality Bites
Woodstock Nation lives! No. No, it doesn’t. I’ve attended every effort to revive it, and I won’t be fooled again. Here’s why: