Slow News Day: Breaking Views from a Jobless Journalist

A 'Fresh' start for Devo

2009-11-01T20:05:00.004-05:00

Ignorance used to be bliss. Yet somewhere along our evolution as a society, we all went ape.

This week our news media delivered a gem of a story, a slice of life so tasteless it made one almost wish for another aimless balloon over Colorado: the evolution of swine flu parties. People hoping to build immunity to the pandemic are flocking together to get each other sick. Are we witnessing de-evolution at work?

"Well, absolutely," says Gerald Casale, who would co-found rock band Devo soon after he watched his friend die at the hands of the Ohio National Guard. She was one of four students killed on May 4, 1970.

The Kent State University shootings would only further embitter a country already furious with Nixon's relentless actions in Cambodia and Vietnam. Devo, a band out of Akron, coined their name from an overall disgust with the regressive evolution they watched unfold. Man was, in the group's mind, de-evolving. Ergo, Devo.

"There's no question that de-evolution is real. It came true. The world went backwards and down," says Casale, whose band will unleash a pair of remastered albums and hit the road for a seven-city tour Tuesday.

Known for their minimalist synthetic sound, herky-jerky performances and uniform wardrobe -- sometimes clad in JFK wigs, sometimes in flowerpot-like headgear -- Devo sparked two major musical movements during the '70s: punk rock and new wave.

"They really are the first post-modern band," says Jade Dellinger, a Tampa art curator and co-author of We Are Devo!, the group's only biographical account.

"Their ambition was to sign with one of the biggest record companies in the world -- which they did -- and to sort of dismantle them from the inside, which they never did," adds Dellinger.

Warner Bros. Records -- the label that dropped Devo following their 1984 album, Shout -- has partnered again with Devo, the company announced in September. Such a move should be considered sacrilegious, even anti-Devo, given their outspoken attitude toward record companies.

"They're sort of countering what they used to make fun of," says We Are Devo! co-author David Giffels, "but they pull it off in a charming way."

The music industry has changed over the years, argue Mothersbaugh and Casale. It's not about selling albums anymore. Touring brings home the bacon, Devo's leaders proclaim, and Warner Bros. knows how to whip it into shape.

"It's the devil you know," says Casale. "It actually made a lot of sense."

Mothersbaugh admits: "It was ironic. The old Warner Brothers we signed with, they were just thugs. I was totally ready to say 'forget it, I don't want anything to do with it.' But I think we'll be a good match for each other."

"I'm sure this is not some nostalgic move on Warner Brothers Records' part," says Stan Cornyn, a former creative executive at Warner Bros. "These days, it's hits or see ya, and that's not just in Burbank."

Now flirting with age 60, the members of Devo will perform back-to-back nightly shows of two albums in their entirety (Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! and Freedom of Choice). The band have rehearsed the material since Oct. 21. Between both albums, there are 11 songs they haven't played live in about 30 years, says Casale.

"We try every day to get better at them," he laughs.

"They were predictive. Now they're reprising their past, saying 'I told you so,'" says Robert Margouleff, who produced Devo's 1980 Freedom of Choice album which spawned the hit "Whip It."

"They created their own boogie," says radio personality Kal Rudman. "The Devo crowd in particular catered to a special niche of people, so it becomes a real treat to go see them again."

Call it foreplay; Devo are just getting warmed up. Paunchier, angrier and more passionate about de-evolution than ever, Devo's November live dates should prove to be good practice for the band's scheduled spring tour and first full-length recorded project in 20 years. Just don't call it an album.

"'Album' is just a term to figure out what we're doing," says Mark Mothersbaugh, the other creative half of the Devo brainchild. He would prefer to release Devo's new stuff online, a few songs at a time. "We'll see what comes out. We're having fun so far."

"The working title is Fresh Devo, because it is. We're treating it like produce," Casale points out. "I think it'll carry forward what people like about us."

Devo have stepped away from the console this time around, and have tasked a handful of producers with remixing and reworking the finished tracks. Contributors include Greg Kurstin (Geggy Tah, Kris Allen), John Hill (Shakira, Jay-Z) and DJ Adam Freeland. John King of the Dust Brothers -- a duo known for its textured production of the Beastie Boys' Paul's Boutique -- will produce "Step Up," a new Devo song.

To bookend the new album and tour, a Devo documentary will likely hit the big screen next year, says Tony Pemberton of Go East Productions, a New York-based company.

"Our release date at the moment is for Fall 2010 or Spring 2011, mostly at festivals and, hopefully, immediately in theatres," says Pemberton.

Gerald Casale acknowledges he's working on a Devo biopic that follows the band from its early days in Akron to its first days with Warner Bros.

Mark Mothersbaugh, whose scoring credits include Pee-wee's Playhouse, Rugrats, Wes Anderson's films and, most recently, the animated Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, says he plans to pitch an "Adult Swim-style show" along the lines of "a twisted, dark Dick Tracy." It too will examine the theory of de-evolution.

"Since the beginning we've been kind of anti-stupidity and pro-information," he says. "I'm all for six billion humans, but I'm not for having them on the planet at the same time."

Fresh Devo won't be the last we'll hear from those iconic perpetrators of political prowess.

"I'm hoping that after we put this out there'll be at least one curtain call," Casale laughs.

For their first album in 1978, Devo chose to cover a classic song, one that likely seemed ambitious on paper. What they made was arguably one of the best covers of all time: a rhythmically robotic version of The Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction."

Well into their sixties, The Stones continue to make music and tour the world for their fans. Will Devo follow suit ten years from now? Mothersbaugh and Casale are, after all, the new wave Jagger and Richards: bold, haunting, oddly sexual.

"Who knows," says Mothersbaugh. "Humans might not be around when I'm approaching 70."

Herb Alpert: No more Tijuana Brass hits

2009-10-25T23:31:00.001-04:00

John Lennon had it right -- in 1966, The Beatles were more popular than Jesus. That would, in a matter of speaking, put Herb Alpert above God.

Barely into his thirties, the California-born co founder of A&M Records had trumped fellow trumpeters Louis, Dizzy and Miles in album sales and American appeal. This sharp, striking man fronted six musicians known as the Tijuana Brass, none of whom hailed from Mexico. They were Italian, their leader was Jewish, yet all wore charro suits; the band's mariachi sound was complimented by their crisp wardrobe. Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass told sensual stories without vocals. A walloping trombone and hysterical xylophone intertwined with soft strings to place four Brass albums in Billboard's Top Ten -- at the same time. It's a record that no one, including the Fab Four, has topped.

"When we got to London, they loved us," remembers former Tijuana Brass bassist Pat Senatore, 74. "We hung out with The Beatles."

Not bad for a guy who started his record label out of his garage. Good thing Alpert's business partner suggested the Tijuana Brass name in 1962.

"It became a hell of a lot more successful than I could have ever dreamed," Alpert admits of the band name he originally hated.

Jerry Moss -- the 'M' of A&M Records -- had told Alpert to call his group the Tijuana Brass for his love of bullfights. Alpert agreed, but he wasn't jazzed.

"We're having dinner tomorrow night," he says of his best friend of more than 40 years.

Since Alpert partnered with Moss in 1962, the trumpet player has sold more than 75 million albums. Alpert -- born 38 days before Moss -- ran the independent label with his friend until the men sold A&M Records for half a billion dollars in 1989.

"We never signed any papers. We never signed anything," says Alpert of his loyal 30-year business relationship with Moss. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted the two men in 2006.

No longer backed by the Brass (their leader disbanded the group by the early '70s), Alpert now records and performs with his wife of 36 years, Lani Hall.

"It's never been an obstacle," he says. "She's been my guardian angel."

The couple leave for Newport News, Va. on Thursday for the first of 22 American shows. Expect a performance of jazz improv; just don't expect to hear "Tijuana Taxi."

From his Malibu home Alpert explains in his silky voice that, as grateful as he is for the songs that built his success, he has made a significant change to his setlist. At 74, the only thing Alpert has retired is his live Tijuana Brass ensemble -- no more "Spanish Flea" or "Lonely Bull."

"Every time I played it I got a funny feeling in my stomach. It was not fun for me," Alpert tells the Tampa Liberal Examiner. "The audience doesn't seem to miss them."
"The music is still alive in a lot of people's minds," says Pat Senatore, one of three surviving former Brass members.

Senatore operates Vibrato Grill Jazz, a Bel Air club that recently featured a surprise set from Stevie Wonder. Alpert and Hall played Vibrato in April, when the married performers treated the audience to songs from the couple's first album, Anything Goes. The title parallels the improvisational, unpredictable essence of jazz music to which Alpert has subscribed since he first picked up a trumpet.

"I never, ever rehearsed or played the songs before I recorded them," Alpert says, then quickly points out "Zorba The Greek" as the lone exception.

His music is heard everywhere: on elevators, on commercials and, most recently, on iPods. Alpert understands this new world of illegal downloads and instant gratification. As for today's budding musicians: "My advice to them is to make friends with the Internet."

His songs have subtlely sold household products, spurred romantic flings and stirred up hip-hop music with a cornucopia of melodic samples. One might call Herb Alpert the original crossover artist. Alpert's an act for all ages, and he's not about to age out.

"I try to be as authentic as I can," he says. "It's odd, but playing the trumpet gives me energy."

Jack Kerouac's death in St. Pete remembered 40 years later

2009-10-19T11:05:00.000-04:00

St. Petersburg, Fla. / "I'm not a beatnik. I'm a Catholic," the physically bloated and socially awkward writer told the St. Petersburg Times in Oct. 1969. "As you get older you get more ... genealogical."

It would be Jack Kerouac's last interview.

Ten days later Kerouac's handsome, French-Canadian features flanked an obituary as dark as its subject. Newspapers struggled to articulate the 47-year-old's literary brilliance that somehow managed to spiral into self-indulgent madness. Kerouac died in St. Petersburg 40 years ago this week, on Oct. 21, 1969.

John Louis Kerouac was born a child of the Great Depression on March 12, 1922 in Lowell, Mass. Years before he would tell the world tales of male lust and cross-country travels, Kerouac would be discharged from a two-month stint with the Navy. The military had diagnosed the 21-year-old with premature dementia.

In 1948 destiny would bring together Kerouac with Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs; these men would comprise the core of the Beat Generation, a clique that moved out to San Francisco in search of experimental sex, drugs and free-form literature. Time dubbed Kerouac the "cult leader of post-World War II intellectual vagrants."

"He saw the American dream kind of burst," says Kerouac biographer Gerald Nicosia. "Kerouac had the virtue of sharing all sides of himself even if they didn't make sense."

He was indeed a conflicted man. A loyal patriot. A devout Catholic. A closeted bisexual. A jealous loudmouth.

A surviving Beat Generation poet remembers his confrontational first meeting with Kerouac in the 1950s.

"He was annoyed that Allen [Ginsberg] had a boyfriend, and I was his boyfriend," Peter Orlovsky, 76, tells the Tampa Liberal Examiner from his Vermont home. "He tried to put his fist through a bathroom wall.

"I loved him, I loved him, I loved him," Orlovsky punctuates with a slow, scratchy voice.

"Publicly, he could never quite open up to it," says Nicosia of Kerouac, who found himself torn between his sexuality and religious faith.

By July 1957 On The Road was just weeks from publication and years from appreciation. Kerouac and his ill mother, Gabrielle, picked up and moved to 1418 ½ Clouser Avenue in Orlando. It was in this cottage Kerouac would write The Dharma Bums.

Over the next decade, Kerouac and his mother bounced from Tampa Bay to Long Island to Cape Cod, where Kerouac once challenged the son of writer Kurt Vonnegut to a fight -- in Vonnegut's kitchen.

"He was crazy," recalls Vonnegut in his autobiography Palm Sunday. "There were clearly thunderstorms in the head of this once charming and just and intelligent man."

Kerouac would marry Stella Sampas in Lowell, Mass. in 1966. A few years later the couple took Kerouac's mother with them to 5169 10th Ave. N. in St. Pete, "the town of the newly wed and the living dead," as Kerouac called it. It was an eerie thing to have been said by a man who would waste away the last eleven months of his life here.

Injuries he suffered during a bar brawl would collide with years of hard, daily drinking. An internal hemorrhage forced blood from Kerouac's throat while he watch television one Monday night.

"The poor guy was in shock from the time he hit the emergency room," a surgeon told reporters.

Attempts to save Kerouac had lasted three hours and nearly depleted the blood bank at St. Anthony's Hospital. He was gone by 5:45 the following morning. St. Pete had been, in Kerouac's words, "a good place to come to die."

Forty years on, Kerouac's estate remains entangled in court. Stella's relatives have controlled Kerouac's image, manuscripts and property since his wife's death in 1990. Kerouac's daughter, Jan, fought for his belongings until she died in 1996. Those on both sides of the battle have estimated the value of the estate at between $20 and $30 million. A Tampa judge, however, ruled in July that the signature on Gabrielle's will -- which left her son's estate to his wife -- had been forged.

"It's clearly misspelled," a pulmonary specialist pointed out in court. "There's an 'i' in there that shouldn't exist."

Nicosia, author of Memory Babe: A Critical Biography of Jack Kerouac, says he's writing a complete legal history of the 15-year-long case for California Lawyer Magazine.

The Sampas family is appealing the judge's decision, says attorney Alan Wagner, who represents Paul Blake Jr., Kerouac's nephew and last surviving blood relative.

"It is extremely hard to predict the appellate process," adds Wagner. "Hopefully, it will be over soon."

"The last time I was in Lowell, a homeless man reclined against one of the pillars in the Kerouac Commemorative Monument in Kerouac Park," remembers biographer Michael Dittman. "To Jack, the man might have been a Holy Fool, but the tourists averted their eyes, made the conversation little bit louder and did their best to pretend the old man didn’t exist."

"End Of The Road," Steve Rowell and David McElroy's one-man play about Kerouac's last days, premieres Wednesday at American Stage Theatre in St. Petersburg, on the 40th anniversary of his death.

Tampa Bay remembers Matthew Shepard and Laramie

2009-10-14T00:12:00.000-04:00

A pen and a pad can usually get a reporter to the front of the line that's snaked around the corner, but not tonight.

The new Raymond James Theatre on St. Petersburg's Third Street holds 182 spectators. No standing room allowed. No exceptions. It's one of 150 theatres across the country hosting a one-night performance of The Laramie Project Ten Years Later: An Epilogue, an oral history of the 1998 murder of gay college student Matthew Shepard. And I can't make out a word of it.

I'm huddled with six others around a small table in the lobby by the concessions booth, just outside the theatre doors. We're staring at a giant television screen without sound. One tiny ceiling speaker lets an occasional burst of sound escape, but it's quickly drowned out by the blast of air conditioning and the jet engine din of a nearby vacuum cleaner. We watch as four actors read scripts from behind metal podiums standing against the backdrop of rural America.

"I babysat her," the woman next to me says, breaking the silence with a few proud words while pointing at the grainy screen.

Nineteen minutes into the performance, the seven of us are hanging on to the actors' every word, despite not being able to hear a thing.
Maybe I'm destined to not see this show. My brother Scott once played several roles while at Auburn. I remember hearing he played the preacher at Matthew Shepard's funeral.

Shepard, a 21-year-old University of Wyoming student, was beaten and tortured by two homophobic men. Shepard would be found by another student who later testified that the body had resembled a scarecrow. The 20,000 residents of Laramie, Wyoming refused to believe Shepard's sexuality had triggered his murder. It must have been a robbery, a drug deal gone bad. It couldn't have been a hate crime, not in their city.

For the last decade, Congress has stopped short of approving legislation that would federally protect gays under hate crimes law. A North Carolina House representative would even call the story behind Shepard's death a "hoax."

This week the Senate might pass the Matthew Shepard Act, which finds itself bundled with a $700 billion defense spending bill dedicated to buying more missiles, training Afghan security forces and transferring Guantanamo detainees to the states. On the eve of the vote our senators are poised to decide whether the bill should include money to prosecute those who harm someone based on his sexuality, gender or disability. The hate crimes legislation would finally guarantee federal protection for gays.

"It's time for Laramie to come into the 21st century," the faint ceiling speaker belches just before intermission.

Eleven years on, has the attitude of Laramie -- and the country -- changed toward gays?
"I don't know much about the story, and that's why I'm here," says Kelsey Carter, 17, who remained in the lobby through the show's first act.
So far Pres. Obama has promised to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, yet he's refused to recognize gay marriage. Kudos are due to Calif. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who this week signed into state law a day of recognition (May 22) for equality activist Harvey Milk. Milk was murdered by a fellow politician in 1978. A new law says married gay couples who move to Calif. will not be required to register as domestic partners, despite the state's passage of Proposition 8 last year.

Osceola High School student Nicholas Kemp of the Gay-Straight Alliance hopes Monday's national performances of Ten Years Later will teach his generation to accept people's differences.

"It can inspire everyone else to be who they really are, gay or straight," Kemp says.

"Every year I've become more comfortable with it," says lesbian student Corey Panabaker, who came out to her family and friends four years ago.

"It's who I am. It's what I am."

And then, the 17-year-old student says nothing. Sometimes you don't need to hear words to get the message. Time for Act Two.

Gore ignored in Nobel Peace Prize list

2009-10-11T16:17:00.002-04:00

Whether through unexpected delight or profound anger, the world did a double take as it awoke to news Friday that U.S. Pres. Barack Obama had earned the Nobel Peace Prize, making him the fifth -- not fourth -- president to garner the award.

Pres. Al Gore, whom the American people elected in 2000, received the Prize two years ago for his work with climate change and global warming. The media have mistakenly overlooked Gore this week in their coverage of past presidential recipients of the Prize.

The Nobel Foundation praises Obama "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples," one day following the president's discussions with Gen. Stanley McChrystal to send 40,000 more troops to fight in Afghanistan.

While the award sends a signal to the world that Obama's efforts are worthy of such honorable recognition, the Prize now sets the highest of expectations for a man Republicans say was too young and inexperienced to serve as Commander in Chief.

As much as it stings to agree with Michael Steele, the Republican National Committee chief got it right when he said Obama "won’t be receiving any awards from Americans for job creation, fiscal responsibility, or backing up rhetoric with concrete action." Not yet, anyway.

To his credit, Obama's humble response to the Nobel Foundation's announcement proves our president agrees, albeit indirectly, with Steele.

"I don't feel I deserve to be in the company of the transformative people who won this award,” Obama told the nation Friday.

Obama has been president for only nine months. It takes nine months for a child to develop in the womb. Nine months is the length of a typical school year. Nine months into the first Bush administration, 9/11 happened.

Might it be the Nobel people had become so polarized with Bush's pompous middle-finger-to-the-world attitude and overall absence from positive foreign policy that they now find his nemesis personifying that blast of fresh air we've gasped for since 2001? Aside from Bush's efforts to help fight AIDS in Africa, his international outreach involved a steady increase of ego and bloodshed.

Simply put, the Nobel Foundation should have waited on its premature decision to award Pres. Obama the ultimate Prize. It now requires Obama achieve peace while he struggles to balance an unstable economy, the highest-ever unemployment rate and two expensive wars, all created by the previous administration. It will take a lot longer than nine months to heal the world and clean up the mess. Peace will not come until the fighting stops, which should happen by the end of 2011, Obama promised earlier this year. Pledging additional troops to Afghanistan, however, will prove otherwise.

When people asked why I voted for Obama last year, I gave them this answer:

"Because the world will accept, understand, and even like this man."

That alone should be the reason we elect our president. We're in good shape if the rest of the world likes our leader. Maybe that's why he's worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize. But not just yet. He's got to prove himself. And he's still got to create peace at home.

Obama promised homosexuals a "commitment" during Saturday's Human Rights Campaign National Dinner to end "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." He stopped short of providing a timetable of when Congress would honor the reversal of the 1993 military policy, which bans gay soldiers from disclosing their sexuality.

"Finally, we heard something quite remarkable from the President," H.R.C. Pres. Joe Solmonese said in an email.

As thousands of lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgenders march on Washington today, the Senate will vote this week on a defense policy bill which includes hate crimes legislation that will -- for the first time -- protect homosexuals. The bill, assuming it passes the Senate, will go to Obama's desk to be signed into law, once and for all. Let's hope he makes good on his commitment.

Until then, the Republicans must remember Obama is our elected leader, and should cease their vile campaign to discredit him while boasting their own sense of patriotism. If ever there were a time for the G.O.P. to drop its childish antics toward Obama, it is now. After all, the only five presidents to take the Nobel Peace Prize have been left-leaning men (except for that white supremacist Woodrow Wilson).

Makes one wonder: If the liberals are the ones doing all the peacemaking, what's wrong with all you "compassionate conservatives"?

Almost Famous: How unsung singer Scott Wilk made the greatest lost album of the '80s

2009-10-02T15:37:00.003-04:00

Has nothing changed in 30 years?

Record companies remain ruthless -- they're just not doing all the dictating anymore. We're still living in a musically-material world: iTunes creates our playlists, American Idol commands our tastes and a satellite controls our dials. None of this existed at the turn of the '80s. It was, as rock 'n' roll photographer Richard Schoenberg puts it, "the last time music would not be sold on television."
It was sold on the radio, where disc jockeys spun singles -- songs sold as seven-inch vinyl discs in glossy paper sleeves. Some even offered an extra cut on the B-side. MTV would showcase these singles in a new way in 1981, a year that marked the end of a little-known rock band that came awfully close to going big.

You've likely never heard of Scott Wilk + The Walls; even Google can't tell you much. One might find the Chicago band's lone album bookended by Wilderness Road and John Buck Wilkin records within the stacks of a secondhand vinyl shop. During the summer of 1980, copies of Scott Wilk + The Walls were displayed side by side in store windows to form an abstract puzzle. Its simple artistic design, created by Wilk's high school friend, smacked of a new decade.
The Walls would appear and vanish within a year's time. Without a hit single or a solid tour, a phone call from Hawaii would serve as strike three for the new wave quartet.

"We need to hear from you today," a voice barked into Mark Wolfe's answering machine.

It was Warner Brothers Records on the line. Executives there had a new rule: no second album without first hearing the band's new demos. The first release, Scott Wilk + The Walls, never charted. It barely sold.
The story of what was said during that phone call between Warner Brothers and Wilk's manager isn't clear -- Wolfe adamantly refuses to acknowledge the conversation. Whether or not Wolfe lost his temper (as some claim happened) doesn't change the fact that Scott Wilk had, by the end of that call, lost his record contract. What's worse, Wilk had the new songs ready for Warner's review -- an album's worth -- but suddenly found himself stuck in Los Angeles without the record deal that brought him there. It was early 1981, and Scott Wilk + The Walls were done.

Building The Walls

By 1971 one could easily gauge the American attitude toward the Vietnam war by observing what was happening in Chicago. Take that morning in January, when more than 200 men in the city failed to show for Selective Service induction. Northern Illinois was quickly surpassing the rest of the nation in draft evasion cases that month.

One Friday, not far from Northwestern University, F.B.I. agents arrested a 22-year-old musician manager. He was immediately arraigned on charges of draft evasion before a federal judge. Mark Wolfe posted the $1,000 bail himself, but couldn't escape a mention in the next day's Chicago Tribune blotter.

Three hundred miles east in an Ohio college town, a music student was working on a song with Noel Paul Stookey, known to millions as middleman Paul of folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary. Scott Wilk -- tall, lanky and bespectacled -- had spent most of his 18 years making music. Born in November 1952 to his piano-playing mother, Wilk would pick up the clarinet at age six; by 11 he'd write his first song.
"He had an innate connection with what music is and could be," remembers Highland Park High School friend Thom Glabman.
"Scott also had the drive necessary to function and succeed in the commercial world of music," an Oberlin professor recalls. That, Wilk would discover, would take time. Almost a decade of writing and recording jingles in a Chicago studio passed. Wilk wanted more. He could write, he could sing, he could play most instruments. He needed only a band.

In 1979 Wilk recruited three guys he knew from the studio: Roger Ciszon, a guitarist with a blues bent; bassist Bob Lizik, the group's funkiest and, at almost 30, oldest member; and Tom Scheckel, whose tight, groove-oriented drumming provided the perfect backbeat for what would become Scott Wilk + The Walls. Wilk, the frontman on keyboards and vocals, rehearsed his band and prepped them for a trip to Los Angeles -- they were lined up to audition for dozens of record labels, courtesy of Wilk's new manager. The man's name was Mark Wolfe.

"We did showcase after showcase," remembers Bruce Gaitsch, who joined Scott Wilk + The Walls during the band's first auditions in West Hollywood. "No label guy showed any interest. They were all stone-faced after our short set."
"It was intimidating," says guitarist Roger Ciszon of the band's first days in California. "But we had the energy and we pulled it off."
The late '70s had thrown electronic experimentation into the punk rock mix; something called new wave music was washing away rock's current political brashness with the sounds of synthesizers. Bands like Devo and Talking Heads were creating something more complex, more cerebral. All Music Guide simplifies the distinction: "Where post-punk was arty, difficult, and challenging, new wave was pop music, pure and simple." Bands exhibiting the style were fast approaching dime-a-dozen status by 1979.

If obscurity was hell, musical purgatory might well have been the front office at Warner Brothers, where bands like Urban Verbs and Code Blue barely got past the receptionist. "A lot of them had no chance of surviving," says Richard Seireeni, the label's former creative director. "It was a crapshoot."
Former A&R representative Felix Chamberlain compares the era to "the running of the bulls at Pamplona. You just get stampeded by the big guys, like Van Halen and Prince.
"But everybody really, really, really liked Scott," adds Chamberlain, who helped sign 26-year-old Wilk to Warner Brothers in September 1979.
"Everybody thought this was going to be the next big, big thing," bassist Bob Lizik says of the band's first meeting with the record company.

Becoming almost famous

Scott Wilk's passion and efforts culminated Monday, 31 March 1980, when he and his band first entered the now-defunct Cherokee Studios. The building at 751 Fairfax Avenue had been home to decades of album recording sessions. It was here where Scott Wilk + The Walls would record their first -- and last -- notes.
On this particular day rock band Toto had just wrapped a session for its Turn Back album, which left Jeff Porcaro's drum kit at Tom Scheckel's disposal.
"Being a fresh 25-year-old kid with my own style to create, I detuned them and started over," he says. "I've often wondered what the tracks might've sounded like had I left Porcaro's tuning on them. Maybe we would've had a hit."

A hit for The Walls wasn't out of reach -- famed producer Michael Omartian, 64, who would go on to make dozens of successful songs, including "We Are The World" and "She Works Hard For The Money," stepped in to help Wilk with the album's sound.
Omartian would take home several Grammy Awards in 1981, including Album of the Year, for his production on Christopher Cross.
"Oddly enough," Omartian says from his Nashville studio, "it was the album that I thought wouldn't do well that turned out to be the big hit. I loved being able to go from Chris's polished sound to the alternative, punk sound of Scott's record."
"He was coming off of his mega success with 'Sailing' at the time, which made me initially skeptical about whether he would get what we were up to," says Wilk. "He turned out to be a fantastic person to have as a co-producer, in that he let me have my head but steered me away from trouble."
Nothing, however, would quite steer Scott Wilk + The Walls toward stardom, though Billboard noted in August 1980 the band "delivered sinuous rock situated somewhere on the plateau flanked by Tom Petty and Elvis Costello."
The comparison to two of rock 'n' roll's leaders was without question the most encouraging press The Walls would realize during their whirlwind year of recording and touring. Wilk's catchy melodies and layered arrangements on songs like "Man In The Mirror" and "Shorting Out" were, at the very least, garnering appreciation from audiences beyond Chicago's FM circles.

I'm feelin' Radioactive
think I'm gonna melt down tonight
Feelin' Radioactive
like uranium dynamite
You really got my Geiger counter clickin'
got a hydrogen heart -- can't you hear it tickin'
I'm Radioactive -- 'cause you're so attractive
Feelin' Radioactive gonna melt down tonight

A European police siren wails over Scheckel's explosive crash cymbal, which jump starts "Radioactive," an up-tempo adventure of a song not far from the approach of The Ramones. Wilk's voice evokes images of Joe Jackson, Ric Ocasek, even a bit of Bowie. A herky-jerky, freewheeling David Byrne angst peppers an Elvis Costello likeness that would draw criticism from the alternative press.
Scott Wilk + The Walls are one hell of a long way from jingle territory here. Their songs stretch across the musical spectrum: Wilk brings a classical touch to Ciszon's hard rock spirit, while Scheckel and Lizik have the jazz and funk areas covered. The group comes together to create a confident, experimental new wave album.
The textured "Victim Of Circumstance" weaves a metallic percussive click through a sardonic song of personal consequence, highlighted by Ciszon's speedy picking on his '62 Gibson Firebird. What sounds like a slight false start on Wilk's keyboards launches "Man In The Mirror" into one of the album's catchiest hooks about an identity crisis. Scheckel's hypnotic toms and hi-hat thunder through tracks like "Danger Becomes Apparent," while Lizik's throbbing bassline underscores a dark depth to the spastic "Shorting Out," which could well be Scott Wilk's "Psycho Killer."

The band's first single, the paranoid "Suspicion," would find an audience on Chicago radio in the summer of 1980, and was added to playlists as far away as Cleveland.

Former WMMS-FM program director John Gorman claims "the song never really caught on. It received three to four spins a day for about three weeks. July is a rough month to establish a new artist," he says.

"This brooding cut might forge its way into Top 40 and AOR playlists," Billboard predicted the following month. Nothing happened. Warner Brothers, in its effort to expose Scott Wilk + The Walls to a national audience, wanted a music video for "Suspicion." There was talk of a television station that would, within a year, broadcast these things around the clock.

A prickly feelin' creepin' down your spine
A blind alley in the back of your mind
And in the shadows where no light shines
Suspicion
Suspicion

The band shot a sequence on the second floor of a post-production house, an appropriate location which still stands on Chicago's Grand Avenue. Garry Gassel knew Wilk from his jingle-composing days, and assembled a team to shoot and edit what would become the music video. It was beyond low-budget; it had no budget. Gassel's assistants had worked for free, which meant weeks of labor to hammer out the four-minute clip.
The video stalks a nervous Wilk who traverses tight hallways, anxiously jiggles doorknobs and winds up trapped inside a game of Pong. "As dated and stupid as that video looks, it was comparable to videos of that time," Gassel says.
That wouldn't make any difference. By the time Gassel presented his finished product to Warner Brothers, the label had already dropped Scott Wilk + The Walls. "Suspicion" never aired on MTV.

The Costello comparison

"Suspicion" had legs to keep Scott Wilk + The Walls going on a modest tour of clubs and colleges. A hair salon now stands in place of Tuts, on Chicago's West Belmont Avenue, where the band first played in May 1980. Once they released the album in August, The Walls performed for a crowd of 5,000 as the opening act for ChicagoFest headliners Robin Lane & The Chartbusters. Momentum would push The Walls toward the band's biggest gig: opening for The Pretenders, who had topped both the U.S. and U.K. charts with "Brass In Pocket." It was to be short-lived; Scott Wilk + The Walls replaced The English Beat for a single show.

Meanwhile, rock journalists were accusing Wilk of mimicking Elvis Costello's look and sound.
"Scott Wilk needs to branch out," advised Billboard.
Trouser Press writes: "Encountering the line between artistic influence and stylistic plagiarism, Scott Wilk grabbed a copy of Elvis Costello's Armed Forces and blithely pushed ahead."
The late '70s had killed off Presley and birthed an all-new Elvis, this one from England, who rolled in with the new wave tide in 1977. His songs were addictive, melodic and, unlike Wilk's music, overtly political and heard internationally. One could argue similarities exist -- the energetic bridge of Wilk's "Too Many Questions" easily qualifies as Elvis-esque. There are, however, obvious differences between Wilk and Costello's talents: They play different instruments, for starters. And while Costello can write a hit song in his sleep, Wilk can sing much more articulately. The media, however, ignored Wilk's originality, and hastily wrote off Scott Wilk + The Walls as pop poseurs.
"I took it in at a deeper level than I should have let it," Wilk says. "There was no conscious effort to emulate him."
Had Wilk chosen to imitate anyone, it was, by his admission, a quirky American singer-songwriter with a similar appreciation for tongue-in-cheek lyrics and fun melodies.
"Michael Omartian called me the new wave Randy Newman. That's what I was trying to be, I guess," Wilk says of the musician whose success peaked during the '70s. "He completely floors me."
Scott Wilk and Randy Newman share a knack for scoring films; Newman has won several Grammys for his work on movies like the computer-animated Monsters, Inc. Today he's arranging the music for Toy Story 3, due in theatres next summer.

Scott Lawrence Wilk, trim and handsome at 56, sports silver streaks through a dark mane of hair that cascades from high above his round glasses. Contacted by phone the day before Michael Jackson's death, Wilk sounds a bit apprehensive to discuss his fleeting year as a major label musician. It was, after all, half a lifetime ago.
"Perhaps we should just chat on Facebook," he graciously suggests with a trace of nasality in his voice.
He's lived outside Los Angeles since Warner Brothers signed him 30 years ago. His son, a college student, studies broadcast journalism less than an hour from home. Wilk enjoys blogging and social networking when he's not composing music from his home studio, but doesn't communicate much with his old band members back in Chicago. Before those guys could make the move to California in 1981, a phone call from Hawaii -- the conversation manager Mark Wolfe won't discuss -- stopped The Walls in their tracks in Illinois.
"I placed an inordinate amount of trust in him to steer the band, and ended up with a terrible mistake," Wilk says of his former manager, with whom he hasn't spoken in 25 years. "I was way too naive."
Wilk, caught in the crossfire between his manager and record company, had his new material for the follow-up album heard, but it was too late. A shouting match had erupted between Wolfe and Warner Brothers, he says. The contract was gone. Wilk eventually decided against taking his manager to court.
"We worked our balls off," grumbles Roger Ciszon, 54. "We were just left hanging. Though I had been through many band breakups prior, that one hit me rather hard."

...And The Walls came tumbling down

The track that concludes what would be the only album from Scott Wilk + The Walls seems to eerily reflect the band's collision course with Warner Brothers. "Shadow-Box Love," a sultry, dark tale of love gone wrong, almost hints at the morbidity of The Beatles' "A Day In The Life." Both songs gently begin with ironic lyrics and culminate with haunting, powerful piano chords.
"Michael Omartian played the piano solo in one inspired take," remembers Wilk.
Of the more than 100 albums Warner Brothers released in 1980, most have received the compact disc reissue treatment, regardless of their obscurity. Scott Wilk + The Walls appears to be the lone exception. Somewhere along the way, the C.D. revolution neglected this gem.
David McLees, former senior vice president of A&R at Rhino Entertainment, expects the album will remain unavailable.
"C.D. is a dying format," he says. "Unless the record company sees great sales potential, then it won't get to first base. Least likely, there's something great in the vaults that the record company is unaware of and hasn't got around to it."

Why? Sales? Politics? Was new wave old hat? What broke down The Walls?
"It seemed that there was an awful lot of similar music in the marketplace. That is in no way to denigrate the quality of Scott's music, but there was quite a logjam of punk and alternative going on," offers album producer Michael Omartian.
Scott Wilk, determined to "stretch" his style after reading those biting record reviews, by 1983 had cut his hair, lost his glasses, and founded electronic dance group Bone Symphony. The band -- a deliberate departure from the sound of The Walls -- recorded a five-song E.P. for Capitol Records and landed a single on the Revenge of the Nerds soundtrack.
"I just think that pop music was shifting to a different vibe and there was some very exciting music happening that we wanted to be part of," says former bandmate Marc Levinthal.
Wilk would compose the soundtrack for the film Valley Girl, and record with musicians like Harold Faltermeyer and Charlie Sexton. The '90s would find Wilk releasing a concept album under the moniker Swyvel. The sound collage communicates the story of a man's struggle with amnesia following a car crash.

The other Walls -- Lizik, Ciszon and Scheckel -- returned to Chicago following the band's breakup. The unexpected end of Scott Wilk + The Walls would lead its members toward other musical avenues there.
While Roger Ciszon has been in and out of several bands in his hometown of Palatine, you've likely heard the music of drummer Tom Scheckel; he played for President Obama in January, in what was the drummer's second inaugural ball in four years.
"They're like any other corporate gig," he says.
Since 1983 Scheckel, 54, has backed up oldies group favorite The Buckinghams, whose '60s hits include "Kind Of A Drag" and "Don't You Care."
Bob Lizik -- a session bass player in high demand -- would go on to back up artists like Madonna and Billy Joel. Perhaps Lizik's most notable gig was spent with Beach Boys founder and Pet Sounds mastermind Brian Wilson. Lizik agreed to play alongside Wilson for a handful of concerts during his Imagination tour in 1998.
"Brian gave me very specific direction," says Lizik. "Those few tour dates turned into ten years."
Former bandmate Chuck Soumar says, "All I can say about Bob Lizik is that he is the consummate professional. He is the best at what he does."
Lizik, 59, ended up recording several albums with Wilson, and retired from touring last year.

Though the three former Walls live within a short drive of one another in Cook County, Illinois, they rarely see each other. The band left its founder in Hollywood on good terms 30 years ago, but there's never been talk of a reunion.
"I have tremendous respect and affection for those guys. I've never felt more comfortable with anyone in the studio," says Wilk of the band he formed during his days as a budding composer.
His Walls agree. Casual phone calls and occasional spins of the album aside, however, the four men haven't been in the same room since Warner Brothers dropped them in early 1981.

From Oberlin music student to jingle writer to quasi-celebrity, the prolific Scott Wilk scores television shows (remember Duckman?) and international commercials (ever tried Kirin Ichiban® beer?) from his home production studio, Scott Wilk Music, outside Los Angeles.
Says Everett Peck, creator of the mid-'90s animated series Duckman: "What I tried to do with Duckman was match the fantastic writing we had with equally strong visuals and music. Scott understood this and really succeeded beautifully."

Who knew a great lost Warner Brothers album from 1980 would catapult Scott Wilk + The Walls into a musical world where record sales don't determine true success?

Elvis Costello once admitted to a certain musical inspiration during the recording of his debut album, My Aim Is True.
"I hadn't really found my own voice," he writes in the reissue's liner notes. "I certainly learned quite a bit while shamelessly attempting to copy Randy Newman. It was just part of my apprenticeship."

You've never heard of Scott Wilk + The Walls. But you've heard them. You've witnessed their contributions, however subliminal, in film, on the radio, at concerts halfway around the globe. They've somehow always managed to be almost famous.

"It's been said that if someone can talk you out of being a writer, or a songwriter, or an artist of any stripe, well," Scott Wilk pauses to reflect, "you should probably look into what else you can do."

Florida leaves children behind on Obama speech

2009-09-05T13:21:00.000-04:00

"Whenever a parent calls and says, 'I'm keeping my child home,' it's always excused. We never question what a parent does."

-- Pinellas County Schools Superintendent Julie Janssen

In keeping with George W. Bush’s tradition of leaving every child behind, Florida school superintendents have now decided to teach their students a lesson in treason.

President Barack Obama, in his effort to connect with children in a 15-minute televised education speech next week, will, in the opinion of certain superintendents, be armed with too much liberal propaganda for students to bear.

That’s why Pinellas County parents have been offered the choice to “opt out” their children from school on Tuesday, which nicely parlays Labor Day weekend into a cozy, four-day vacation for those who want to stay home.

One more time for those in the back row: Students will be excused from school because the president will be talking.

I remember being made to watch the damn O.J. verdict in my ninth grade art class. What’s happening?

Here’s the real lesson here for Florida students: Many of your leaders are hopelessly devoted to the Republican Party, and will fight President Obama at every turn. Take Pasco County Schools Superintendent Heather Fiorentino, the three-term Republican state legislator who once cosponsored a bill requiring every public school to display the “In God We Trust” motto. And there’s Mary Ellen Elia, Superintendent of Hillsborough County Schools, who gave money to the Republican National Committee just last November. Somehow this week, right-wing radio revved its engine and allowed school superintendents to drive this unequivocally anti-American decision straight into the history books.

Ah, history books. Talk about propaganda. Find me one school textbook that devotes more than a paragraph to civil rights, the Vietnam War, or Oliver North.

As for compassionate conservatism, Florida has always been really good at being really bad at running elections. TheSunshine State runs the darkest and worst-managed children and families department in the nation. And we’re the only state that refuses gays the right to adopt children.

Ralph Nader remembers his father’s nightly question at the dinner table: “What did you learn in school today? Did you learn how to believe, or did you learn how to think?”

Maybe most parents will decide to send off their children to school Tuesday. Maybe they’ll even decide to gather at the dinner table as a family, and discuss what President Obama had to say.

While people angrily accuse him of spreading socialism and/or fascism, those same critics only encourage anti-patriotism; they spitefully plan to shelter their children from their president, and from what might well be an important lesson.

Whatever happened to staying in school?

Trusted Man

2009-07-18T16:28:00.001-04:00

"Cronkite fought for Tampa's right to truth"

And that's the way it is.

Walter Cronkite, known to millions as "the most trusted man in America" for his consistently careful reporting, lost his tenacious battle with cerebrovascular disease at his New York home tonight.

Cronkite anchored the CBS Evening News from 1962 to 1981. His confident delivery became iconic for viewers who turned to the newsman for the latest on Vietnam, Watergate, Kennedy, King and Lennon.

A fierce advocate of ethics and accuracy, Cronkite once went to bat for a Tampa investigative team facing the fight of its life.

"He was so gracious," former Tampa television journalist Jane Akre remembers of the 92-year-old legend.

"He was a gentleman, with the emphasis on gentle."

In April 1998, Akre and husband Steve Wilson sued Tampa's Fox-owned WTVT station. The reporters had been fired over their four-part investigative series on bovine growth hormone. A number of farmers in several states, Akre and Wilson discovered, were injecting their cows with the controversial additive. The story would expose its maker, the Monsanto Company, for failing to inform the F.D.A. about the hormone's potential health risks on those who drink milk, the journalists claimed.

Monsanto threatened Fox, and the station pulled the story after Akre and Wilson refused to slant their story, according to the lawsuit. The team soon found itself embroiled in a sour seven-year court battle with the "fair and balanced" network.

"We needed someone in the business to explain to the jury why reporters don't lie on television," Wilson explained to the Tampa Liberal Examiner from his Detroit home. The 57-year-old has served as the chief investigative reporter for WXYZ-TV since 2001. Wilson remembers dialing up news directors and media think tanks, but no one wanted to fight Fox.

"Everybody told us we were crazy," he chuckled. "They said you cannot beat someone with pockets as deep as Rupert Murdoch's."

Walter Cronkite, it turned out, was happy to give a deposition about the ethics of journalism.

"He was appalled at what had happened," Wilson said.

When, in April 2000, Cronkite was asked in court to what extent a reporter should mislead the public with a story, the television veteran replied: "He should not go a microinch towards that sort of thing. That is a violation of every principle of good journalism." Fox's counsel would object to Cronkite's role as a "media law expert" in the case.

"Mr. Cronkite is not an expert in the pre-broadcast review of a story," the network's lawyers argued.

The newsman, then 83, continued: "The reporter's reputation for integrity is of great importance to the reporter. And I think he would have found in this case that his employers did not have that same sense of journalistic integrity, therefore there was an incompatibility that probably could not be bridged."

For all his wisdom, clout and experience, Walter Cronkite could only halfway convince the jury that distortion has no place in a news story. Wilson was eventually ordered to pay $156,000 in legal fees; Akre, who was awarded more than $400,000, lost it all on appeal from Fox. Akre would never again work in television news.

The truth had certainly set them free.

By 2005, investigative team Akre and Wilson were free of their house, their life savings and much of their credibility. The couple had lost just about everything in its standoff with Fox, despite having the most trusted and respected man in news by their side.

Wilson said, "He was everything you would expect him to be. Walter Cronkite is in a totally different class."

Added Akre, "I'm eternally grateful for that man."

Cronkite's final sign off tonight, though without words, says so much about the death of fair journalism. Before he left the stand in that trial where business interests prevailed over ethical responsibility, Conkite said this of today's journalists who face intimidation from their superiors:

"His duty is to protest as much as possible. I think his ultimate duty is to resign."

Thanks, Walter. And be sure to say hello to Ralph Flanary, my late granddaddy, who never missed your broadcast. -P.F.

The Infomercial

2009-07-02T17:28:00.052-04:00

Remember Ronco?

Come on, who wasn't tempted at two in the morning to buy one of those rotisseries?

The Veg-O-Matic, the Pocket Fisherman and, yes, even that spray-on hair stuff.

Original pitchman Ron Popeil was born into sales in New York City, but would introduce his products when he made the transition to television. He did so in Tampa, Fla.

Thus the infomercial was born in Tampa, although Popeil would air his first television spots elsewhere in the country. He produced his first ads on WFLA in 1963, according to Entrepreneur. Why Tampa? It was the only place Popeil could afford. A 60-second clip for what would become the versatile Ronco Spray Gun cost 500 dollars to make.

Popeil would blaze a trail for a new generation of salesmen, and would retire from the limelight just as a stocky guy with a beard was weaseling his way onto our airwaves.

Let's shout it together: "Billy Mays here!"

Early medical reports indicate OxiClean magnate Billy Mays died of heart disease at home on Sunday at age 50.

Mays lived in Tampa. He attended church in Tarpon Springs. Many of Mays' segments and spots were shot OmniComm Studios in Clearwater, and aired nationwide on the Discovery Channel's Pitchmen. Billy Mays was a Tampa Bay celebrity whose products will be forever found tucked into pantries and beneath countertops across the country.

This week Ron Popeil, 74, mourns the late contemporary infomercial king in an email released to the Tampa Liberal Examiner:

It has been a sad week already, and with Billy’s passing, the world has lost another gem. Billy mastered the art of the pitch with his warmth and amped-up energy. For those of us who grew up before him on the boardwalk and at the state fairs, Billy was the leader of the next generation of pitchmen. I’m sad to see his sale cut short. He was a teddy-bear and my thoughts are with his friends and family. It was a privilege to know you Billy!

"Billy realized that an eye-to-eye pitch has to be honest and salable to the core," Popeil tells Time in its July 13th issue.

"It was this skill -- along with verbal agility, stamina and likability -- that he used to get consumers to buy products they never knew they needed."

One could argue the infomercial was born in Tampa with Ron, and died in Tampa with Billy.

We'll remember Billy Mays as pitchman... but that's not all.

-P.F.

Billy Mays

2009-06-28T16:40:00.001-04:00

Billy Mays is no longer here.

The infomercial icon, who flamboyantly showcased products like OxiClean and Orange Glo, died this morning, according to Tampa Police.

William Darrell Mays, Jr., who would have turned 51 next month, suffered a bump on the head during a landing at Tampa International Airport yesterday.

Upon his return from Philadelphia, Mays had tweeted: "Just had a close call landing in Tampa. The tires blew out upon landing. Stuck in the plane on the runway. You can always count on US Air."

It was his humor that never failed to provoke reaction; Mays would often inflame "Pitchmen" co-host Anthony Sullivan during show tapings for the Discovery Channel. The show airs Wednesdays at 10:00 p.m. A recent episode featured Mays dangling from a pirate ship near St. Petersburg's Pier while demonstrating the strength of a new product.

Mays would joke about his "hard head" to television crews following the flight. It's not clear what struck his head, or whether his death is connected to the blow.

Mays' wife, Deborah Wooley, told police she found Billy's body inside his Tampa home this morning. Police do not suspect a break-in or foul play.

The enthusiastic pitchman had been working on a book deal in New York earlier this month. He had just appeared on Tuesday's "Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien." And Mays had been scheduled to undergo hip replacement surgery -- his third -- tomorrow, per his Twitter entry.

"He's gone. I'm gonna be strong for him. Thank you for all the thoughts and prayers everyone," Mays' 22-year-old son, Billy III, tweeted this morning.

The King

2009-06-25T21:04:00.074-04:00

The King is dead.

Throughout a career equal parts charisma and chaos, Michael Jackson still somehow managed to heal the world.

"Weird Al" Yankovic wouldn't be "Weird Al" without those infectious Jackson parodies, like "Fat" and "Eat It." Tonight Yankovic tweets: "Oh man. Can't believe it. RIP Michael Jackson."

Another contemporary musician -- ?uestlove of The Roots -- posts on his Twitter account: "Elvis got revisionist media treatment. I expect the friggin same for my hero."

The media certainly never encountered a more intriguing icon-meets-spectacle personality. He was the original M.J. He was his own reality show. And he was only 50.

"He was a positive thinker," remembers Bruce Swedien, Jackson's recording engineer on every album since Off The Wall.

Reached at his Florida home tonight, the 75-year-old Swedien describes Jackson as "a joy to work with...totally prepared, always." During recording sessions Jackson would come to the studio with the music already memorized, Swedien says.

The men met in 1978 during the filming of The Wiz, an African-American adaptation of The Wizard of Oz, which features Jackson as the Scarecrow. The Off The Wall album would soon follow, and by 1982 Thriller would set the musical masterpiece bar to an all-time high.

Thriller isn't just the best-selling album; Thriller may well be the best album ever made.

Swedien couldn't predict the impact the record continues to inflict on the world. On Thriller's success, he remarks, "You can't go into it with that in mind. What comes out is what comes out."

The year 2001 would represent each man's final venture in music-making; the ironically-titled Invincible arrived post-9/11. The engineer claims Jackson had "no firm plans" to make another album when the two spoke last year.

"Michael kept things pretty close to his chest," Swedien recalls.

While recording the Bad album in 1987, Jackson struggled with his vocal on a song that demanded a higher key. He couldn't sing it. So he walked out of the studio.

Swedien found Jackson in the corner of his room, sobbing.

"He was totally upset that he couldn't perform it," Swedien says.

The men decided to take it down a key. And then the song sounded just right:

If you wanna make the world a better place, take a look at yourself, and then make a change.

"'Man In The Mirror,'" Swedien sighs. The single would hit number one in early 1988.

Tonight Jackson's musical partner and friend of 30 years chooses to remember that -- in spite of the controversy, the disgrace and the stigma -- Michael Jackson lived up to his loving lyrics.

"If you could think of the best possible situation, that was working with Michael."

-P.F.

'Jenny' Memoir

2009-06-17T11:58:00.180-04:00

Forget all the gossip you've heard about Jenny.

She never dated any member of the '80s rock band Tommy Tutone, and she certainly never changed her number; the girl who got away does not -- and never did -- exist.

"There was no Jenny," songwriter Alex Call admits during a telephone interview from his Nashville home Wednesday. "The number? It came to me out of the ether."

Since late 1981, Call's classic "867-5309/Jenny" has maintained urban legend appeal with its young lust tale of a boy who discovers his crush's phone number scribbled on the wall of the men's room.

The song itself serves as a bittersweet paradox; heavy radio and MTV rotation would catapult the San Francisco band to Top Five status, while the tune's popularity would ruin the lives of those who shared Jenny's phone number. Three decades following the birth of "Jenny", the crank calls continue.

"It was a joke that happened one day," Call remembers of the quick songwriting process. Today the man behind the Tommy Tutone tune puts the finishing touches on his forthcoming rock 'n' roll memoir, For A Good Time Call: 867-5309: I Wrote The Song That Saved My Ass. The 300-page snapshot will span his experiences between 1960 and 1988.

By 1981, Call had already recorded with Elvis Costello and Huey Lewis, and had even gone platinum with a song he wrote for Pat Benatar. But there was just something about Jenny.

Call had the catchy chorus down. The name and the number had seemed to fall into place while he sat beneath a plum tree in his Mill Valley, Ca., backyard, just north of San Francisco. But Call was missing something. He needed verses.

That day Call got a visit from Jim Keller, a well-known guitarist and friend Call had met through the local music scene. Within 20 minutes, the two men had it: I got your number on the wall.

Before long Tommy Tutone were off to Los Angeles, but 32-year-old Alex Call was stuck at home digging ditches for a contractor, publicly unattached to the band's fame that was only beginning to bud. "Jenny" was creeping up on mainstream radio. And suddenly the band wanted exclusive rights to the song.

"There was always a dagger in someone's hand, and it was usually a friend's hand," Call remembers. "Sometimes, it's your best buddy."

Call wasn't about to sign over his share of the writing credits. His decision paid off when Arista Records offered him a deal. His self-titled first album barely hit shelves in 1983 when the deal fell apart. The guy who had signed Call had been fired. Another guy had abruptly quit the label.

The songwriter, now 60, chuckles, "I went from zero to hero to zero in about a year-and-a-half."

Jenny was a work of fiction, but she somehow managed to come between the men in her life.

While the song's opening guitar lick, chord progression and chorus were Call's idea, Keller beefed up the tune's backbone with additional lyrics. The two songwriters agreed on their roles in the composition. It was Tommy Tutone frontman Tommy Heath who, according to Call, created the copyright controversy.

"We did fight over it. Tommy wanted to be part of the song [credits]. But he wasn't." Heath could not be reached for comment.

Even with the band's success realized, Tommy Tutone would later refuse to record another Call-penned song, "You Never Really Loved."

"It would have been perfect for them," he says.

Still, every time "Jenny" plays, she pays. Even today. Record sales are down, and those '80s compilations have lost steam, but the royalty checks have never stopped coming. Call splits a sum with several people each time an FM station spins "Jenny": roughly 12 cents.

That's when 30-second television spots have come in handy. "It's a real good place for songwriters to get money out of their catalogues," Call explains.

Hits from the '80s have recently featured in television ads, many selling a taste of the old school while those who recall the hits -- many no longer considered "thirtysomethings" -- eat it up. A new Ore-Ida advertisement serves up a snippet of Quiet Riot's "Cum On Feel the Noize" cover. And a nationwide Benjamin Franklin Plumbing commercial presents a rendition of "867-5309/Jenny."

Call continues to compose and record music in Nashville -- and the only lady in his life is named Lisa. The married couple have performed their album, Passion & Purpose, at a number of healthcare conferences across the country.

Call's next project involves polishing those final chapters of his rock story by the end of August.

She may have saved his ass, she's nothing more than the hypothetical heroine of a three-minute teen angst anthem.

"Jenny's just a good rock 'n' roll name."

-P.F.

Joe's Show

2009-06-14T11:55:00.055-04:00

Despite David Gregory's best effort, the "Meet The Press" host couldn't quite unhinge Vice President Joe Biden this morning.

Yet somehow -- during a nonstop, fast-paced 32-minute Q-and-A -- Joe never lost his footing. He wasn't overly defensive. He never appeared angry. And no inappropriate jokes! Phew.

Gregory's rapid-fire reporting style kept our Veep on his toes. Let's face it, when Dick Cheney starts logging more media face time, the American people deserve a Biden status report. We need answers on the economy, soaring unemployment and our health care state. And we need them from Mr. Second In Command.

Three key points from Biden's "Meet The Press" appearance:

While he withholds comment on the impact of Ahmadinejad's election win, Biden assures "we're not going to allow Iran to go nuclear";
on our country's rising unemployment claims, Biden remarks "everyone feels mildly better about where the economy is going"; and
with some prodding from David Gregory, Biden admits he "won't rule out" a future run for President.

Well, Joe, you almost made it through an interview without an awkward statement.

First, saying we won't allow Iran to develop nukes is like saying we won't allow Lindsay Lohan access to alcohol. It's inevitable. And neither seems afraid to advertise it.

As for people feeling "mildly better" about the economy, I'd like to meet those eternal optimists. "Mildly better" more aptly describes how one feels the morning after a NyQuil-induced coma.

And, I'm sorry, but Joe Biden should have never hinted at a future Presidential run. That's one question you should have dodged, Mr. Vice President. Are you suggesting Obama is a one-term President? Assuming a second-term victory, you'll be 74 when Obama leaves office in 2017. And, for argument's sake, what if Obama refuses to endorse you at that time?

Well, look... Joe's a good guy. He's weathered unspeakable family tragedies during his lifetime. He's sharp and approachable. And he calls his 40-year-old son Beau (who's serving in Iraq) "the finest man I have ever known in my life."

Not bad, Biden. You've lately perfected the art of answering questions without necessarily answering them. Maybe you should run for President.

-P.F.

Kickin' It?

2009-06-12T14:52:00.058-04:00

For his final question of his final broadcast of "Meet the Press", Tom Brokaw asked Barack Obama about the habit he had vowed to break in the White House: "Have you stopped smoking?"

The President-elect admitted he had "fallen off the wagon" at times.

Brokaw pressed harder: "That means you haven't stopped."

Obama -- denying his interviewer a straight answer -- smiled and replied, "I have done a terrific job under the circumstances of making myself much healthier. You will not see any violations of these rules in the White House."

In 1993 former First Lady and current State Secretary Hillary Clinton officially banned smoking at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. This preceded a time when her husband - ahem - occasionally enjoyed a cigar in the Oval Office.

Obama wasn't afraid to bum smokes off voters while on the campaign trail. Has he since kicked the habit? A stroke of his pen would indicate so; today Obama signed into law the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act.

And you thought the government was only getting its paws on your car and your credit. Now, in the latest demonstration of federal regulation, Congress wants to curb your cravings.

While states like Florida and Massachusetts have recently imposed a tobacco tax, the new federal law will allow the F.D.A. to fool around with the formula. Removing thousands of toxins from cigarettes will render them unpleasant to the taste, say the feds, and will prevent teens from lighting up.

Not a bad move, considering the government's role for generations as the pusherman and lone victor in this very dangerous -- and very prosperous -- drug game of Big Tobacco.

The law will even require cigarette manufacturers to cut the word "light" from cartons and signs beginning next year. No more Camel Lights, Marlboro Lights, Parliament Lights, et cetera.

Will this cause users to suddenly quit? Let's not blow any smoke here.

While this legislation certainly seems naïve right now, it may eventually prove brilliant; no one has ever thought to just make tobacco taste worse. Simply banning smoking would never work, but selling tobacco that tastes like mud may just do the trick. Spending our taxes on this will likely get us nowhere, but for the sake of public health, this is one risk we should allow Congress to take.

The American Cancer Society claims tobacco products kill more than 440,000 users every year, and let's not forget the hell smoking inflicts on your health insurance premium.

Our elected leaders and their lobbyist cronies never before seemed to care about the American addiction. They're mistaken if this new band-aid will suddenly cause the country to quit cold turkey.

Let's face it: this new law may be the closest the government will ever come to winning that money pit we know as the war on drugs. But don't hold your breath.

-P.F.

It's Terrorism

2009-06-10T15:20:00.083-04:00

ter·ror·ism: the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion.
-- Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary

ter·ror·ism: (threats of) violent action for political purposes.
-- Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary

"Terrorism is violence, but not every form of violence is terrorism."
-- Walter Laqueur, The New Terrorism

Today a security guard was shot. Not at a mall. Not at a school. The guard went down when an armed man opened fire inside the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.

Two other security guards returned fire on James W. von Brunn, an 89-year-old World War II veteran who -- in his blog entry dated May 12, 2008 -- published a piece entitled "Hitler's Worst Mistake: He Didn't Gas The Jews."

The accused shooter's writing goes on to articulate his feelings on the Holocaust: "It is now proven - irrefutably - there were no genocidal gas-chambers used during WWII. 6-million Jews were not murdered."

Why reprint the shooter's name, or quote any of the anti-Semitic trash he writes? Simple. To prove that, by combining his hateful prose with his decision to enter the Museum with a gun and pull the trigger, James von Brunn committed an act of terrorism this afternoon. Period.

Though the term terrorism seemed to enter the American vernacular following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the debate over the definition has recently intensified in mainstream media reports. Merriam-Webster dates the word to 1795 during the French Revolution. Today, more than 200 years on, many Americans choose to align terrorism with those who simply practice Islam.

There are people in this country who -- without a legitimate argument -- accuse our president of living a lie as a closeted agenda-driven Muslim. Some even still argue Obama was born in Africa.

These are the same people who will no doubt fight the notion that today's shooting in our nation's capitol was an act of American terrorism. An American -- who openly advertises his disdain for those of the Jewish faith -- committed an act of violence inside a museum dedicated to preserving the memory of those victimized by vile leadership. James von Brunn used his hatred as his motive to terrorize a monument he refuses to acknowledge.

James von Brunn is a terrorist.

The old man sought to provoke fear through his political agenda, a selfish and destructive act that may ultimately prove deadly for both the security guard and for himself.

My college terrorism course in 2002 was instructed by a self-proclaimed "leftist" Palestinian. But his class opened my eyes. He was not a terrorist sympathiser; my instructor simply wanted his students to realize the layers within a phenomenon we typically blame on those who sound and dress funny. Walter Laqueur's The New Terrorism investigates Hamas and the P.L.O., but also thoroughly examines the I.R.A., the Branch Davidians in Waco and Ted "The Unabomber"Kaczynski. Quite a read.

You see, conservative talk radio chalked up last week's shooting of abortion doctor George Tiller to nothing more than a mentally-challenged gunman, who lacked the fortitude to commit murder for political purposes. The doctor was killed inside a Kansas church. This week his family decided to close his clinic. So, once again, the terrorists won this battle.

The right-wing media solely blame hundreds of thousands of Islamic extremists for committing terrorism. Certainly truth exists here, but denying Fascist/white supremacist motives as a platform for domestic terrorism only further exposes American ignorance.

Folks, while terrorism certainly occurs abroad (al-Qaeda remains alive and active), terrorism is regularly happening here at home. The first World Trade Center attacks in New York. The Oklahoma City bombings. The Atlanta Olympics. Matthew Shepard in Wyoming. Columbine in Colorado. All serve as examples of violent intimidation. And all happened during the 1990s. Only a few, however, are officially regarded as terrorism.

The F.B.I. reports more than 9,000 hate crimes were committed in the U.S. in 2007. These facts are based on incidents involving violence toward a person based on his race, religion, sexuality, ethnicity, even disability. Why, then, are these cases not considered acts of terrorism?

While I realize this may be taking too many liberties with the definition of terrorism, why are we still arguing over its meaning two centuries following its first mention?

And why are the terrorists -- at home and abroad -- still getting their way?

--P.F.

311's 'Uplifter'

2009-05-28T00:34:00.137-04:00

Shelling in the summertime doesn't guarantee that flawless find, but that's usually not why you're even looking. You just hope the tide returns a few gems while you're around.

Rap-rock-reggae rabble-rousers 311 seem to embrace the value of time. In the Twitter age two years passes like two minutes, and the boys of Omaha get that. Never before have they let four years go by before going forward, and maybe that's what holds them back.

For Uplifter, the band's ninth album in 16 years, 311 took their time and took on producer Bob Rock, whose résumé will forever outshine that of his peers; he produced Metallica's 1991 self-titled masterpiece, an album that coincidentally shares a song title with 311's last radio hit. Their current single ("Hey You") sounds disappointingly crafted for the masses, and should have been passed up for another rocker. Incidentally, Rock may want to leave Uplifter off his next job application.

It's not to say his latest effort, which hits stores Tuesday, has suffered; the band sounds more focused and genuine at points, especially on songs like "Too Much Too Fast" - easily the album's standout - which oddly recalls melodies from Paul McCartney's Wings catalogue. Tim Mahoney's tropical guitar strings echo and soar over P-Nut's (subtle) bass pulse and drummer Chad Sexton's (modest) staccato thunder.

A lot of Uplifter's lyrics, however, rapidly leave listeners wondering why they had to wait so long for so little ("You take a little bit of me and a whole lot of you/Add it up together and here's whatcha gonna do.") Here's what you ought to do: Skip directly to track four ("Golden Sunlight"), the tune Rock should have showcased as the album's opening cut. It's the most mature 311 song since Transistor's layered "Stealing Happy Hours" from 1997.

Nick Hexum's vocals sound sporadically timid through much of Uplifter, while fellow singer S.A. Martinez outdoes himself with slicing harmonies. He's rapping less and singing more for a change, and it suits him. But the music heavily overshadows the album's lyrics. Uplifter could have easily been an instrumental record. Bob Rock's studio influence becomes evident about halfway through; he's allowing 311 to explore a bit beyond their formula of yore. If not for performances like the lovely "Two Drops In The Ocean" and the spacey-yet-spunky "India Ink", Rock's guidance would have sunk his first project with the band.

311 are clearly at their best when they aren't overthinking their comfort zone of chorus, verse, chorus, rap bridge, chorus. These guys were fusing hip-hop with aggressive riffs and backbeats before Fred Durst ever did it for the nookie. And they no longer have to prove their talent or their longevity. The band members are flirting with age 40 now; that, it's been said, is when life truly begins.

While it's not without its flaws, Uplifter indeed sounds like a summertime album: A dazed cloud sporting steel-toed boots. 311's only enemy is a safe, more-of-the-same album; they came dangerously close to engaging that demon. But taking their time has proven 311 have more gems in store for a band now pushing two decades together.

-P.F.

Killing Us

2009-05-24T21:23:00.069-04:00

This Wednesday a Florida man will be spared his scheduled lethal injection, thanks to an indefinite stay of execution granted by the Supreme Court.

Governor Charlie Crist had signed the death warrant last month for David Eugene Johnston, who claims DNA testing will exonerate him in the 1983 murder of 84-year-old Mary Hammond. The proof will be found in her fingernail clippings, Johnston argues. Next month marks 25 years since Johnston entered Death Row.

Florida resumed executions 30 years ago today following a lifted court ban on capital punishment. In 2000, the state retired Old Sparky, the state's electric chair that once came dangerously close to killing some officers when a nearby puddle of water caught fire.

Governor Crist has signed a handful of death warrants, but hasn't always gotten his way. Earlier this month, the court put a hold on executing John Marek. A jury convicted him of kidnapping Adella Simmons from the Florida Turnpike before he raped and murdered the 47-year-old in 1983. Marek's attorney now claims new evidence will clear his client.

Today white men comprise the majority of the 392 inmates on Florida's Death Row. Twenty-one executions happened on former Governor Jeb Bush's watch during his eight-year tenure in Tallahassee.

His brother - who would later be "elected" President - served for six years as Texas Governor; 154 people were put to death during that time, according to the state's Department of Criminal Justice. Texas leads the nation in executions.

The irony of capital punishment is that most of its die hard supporters claim to be devout Christians, people who preach from a book that certainly does not condone the act of killing someone. These are typically the same people who oppose a woman's right to an abortion.

By contrast, most liberals support that choice while they overwhelmingly condemn the death penalty. This political issue has had me straddling the fence for years. I admit I would be challenged to not take a firm position if a loved one were victimized.

But let's not forget about those who go free because of DNA technology. The Innocence Project of New York reports close to 200 cases where a convicted killer has been cleared through DNA evidence. The study finds most wrongful convictions happen because of "defects" like "mistaken eyewitness identification testimony." And think about this: DNA technology has been around for only 20 years. How many innocent people were put to death prior to 1989?

Some dated reports claim Death Row costs taxpayers tens of millions of dollars more than they pay for an inmate's life prison term. At the same time, doesn't it seem like you see jail expansion projects in every town you visit these days?

And then you take a convicted killer like Gary Alvord, who holds Florida's record for longest Death Row sentence: 35 years and counting.

In the early '70s, Alvord raped and killed a 10-year-old girl. He was found not guilty by reason of insanity. He was committed to a mental institution in Michigan. He escaped. He would go on to kill three women - three generations of a family - in their Tampa home.

To this day, Alvord sits in Union Correctional Institute in Raiford. And to this day, we continue to foot the bill. Why? And what's next?

Convicted killer David Johnston will be served dinner instead of his death sentence at 6:00 this Wednesday evening. The stay of execution allows Johnston's counsel to present its DNA findings in August. If they can't prove Johnston's innocence, he'll finally have to brace for the fatal needle.

In the meantime, the legal system needs a thorough examination. We should strive to reevaluate where we stand on life and money, and what matters more. And maybe Texas should get another hobby.

-P.F.

They Rule

2009-05-23T17:03:00.057-04:00

They write. They bicker. They decide.

And, not unlike the journalists who report on those decisions, our Supreme Court Justices are stuck for life.

Of the ten thousand cases they get each term, the appointed judges usually hear fewer than one hundred. But remember, they've got forever.

I recall memorizing the names of all nine Justices for my constitutional law course in college. Could never remember whether Ruth Bader Ginsburg's name had an s or a z.

I do remember the old guy was the liberal and the black guy was the conservative.

When it comes to laying down the law, the most powerful nine individuals are nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. George W. Bush got two picks during his eight years: the conservative Sam Alito and the extreme conservative Chief John Roberts. The former president's father, Bush One, had tried to do the same 19 years ago but wound up appointing a lefty -- David Souter.

Souter's out the door next month. That leaves his seat open for President Obama's first Supreme Court choice, 100 days into his first term. Word is he'll go female on this one. And if you thought you'd had your fill of G.O.P. bitching and moaning, prepare for the 'F' word to rear its head ad nauseam once again: filibuster.

Five minutes of those inevitable Senate confirmation hearings will no doubt provoke a nationwide bout of nosebleeds and migraines, not to mention months of wasteful and spiteful bullying, followed by a rushed October court appointment. The latter will only spur further republican axe grinding and Obama bashing, as the media gear up for that predictable Christmas-during-a-recession coverage.

The high court currently hosts four liberals and four conservatives, with Justice Anthony Kennedy as the swing vote. Things seem fairly even judging by the numbers. But Obama will face a bitter battle with right-wingers who will stop at nothing to block judges who might, God forbid, turn us all into a nation of Socialists. You know, because Obama is such a Commie and all.

My advice to the republicans: read a book. You sound incredibly ignorant when you call our president a Socialist one day and a Fascist the next. In fact, you're not allowed to call him anything yet. He hasn't started any global fights. And he sure as hell hasn't taken a vacation since he took office. Worst case scenario, women still get to exercise the freedom the court afforded them in 1973. You know, that word you all love to chant: freedom.

The other night a speaker at a Tampa networking event reminded us journalists in attendance that we share something in common with our Supreme Court Justices: we can do what we do for a living well into our old age.

Quick trivia question: of Justice John Paul Stevens and journalist Mike Wallace, who is older?

Answer: Mike Wallace, who turned 91 this month, came into the world two years before the court's oldest justice.

Journalists and Justices usually find themselves stuck for eternity in what they do. Both careers carry a virtual lifetime appointment.

We can walk away from the job at any time. Only few of us ever do.

-P.F.

Rush Hour

2009-05-13T20:49:00.145-04:00

Dude, where's our car industry?

First Chrysler shuts down 700 dealerships and signs on with the Italians, and now General Motors announces it'll officially jump ship Monday morning.

It would seem America's most prosperous business has resigned to the inevitable: the ride is over. Even Ford's chairman, Bill Ford, Jr., admits to the Detroit Free Press today his company "can't unilaterally solve" the car crisis. Already 187,000 American jobs are riding on this mess.

It would seem the Big Three has hit the brakes on competing as usual; believing otherwise would only be wishful thinking, now that the automakers find themselves firmly stuck in bankruptcy's crosshairs.

The feds are taking the driver's seat for G.M., and the century-old company now owes its bondholders more money than it has. Enter your taxpayer bailout cash next week, unless G.M. can convince 90 percent of its investors by tomorrow to trade up their bonds for preferred stock. So far, stakeholders have advised G.M. to get lost in traffic.

Republican bloggers haven't missed out on creating a conspiratorial controversy. They're suddenly accusing Obama of cherry-picking which Chrysler dealerships should close, namely those branches that contribute handsomely to the G.O.P. The president's spokesperson denies any role in the selection process. A public records search finds Ford, G.M. and Chrysler all slightly favored Democratic candidates during the 2008 election cycle. Another search proves oil companies overwhelmingly line the pockets of Republican politicians every year.

This week the brilliant consumer advocate Ralph Nader fired off a letter to Obama regarding his auto task force. Nader warned the president against driving G.M. into bankruptcy. He questioned whether the administration had "evaluated the social ripple effects on suppliers, innovation, dealers, newspapers [and] banks."

What sparked this ripple effect? You could blame our foreign oil demand. You could single out the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Or the lenders who lied to help homebuyers take on those pricey houses they could never afford. Or the homebuyers who lied to the banks about that personal capital they never had. You might blame the demanding auto unions and their pension payouts. And you'd likely be right on all counts. Welcome to Scapegoat City.

We can thank all of the above for contributing to mounting foreclosures and unemployment claims. People aren't working, so they're not buying cars. Cars don't sell, so auto companies don't buy local advertising time. Television stations force out experienced, contracted news employees to cut costs. Bosses encourage those who survive the ax to take unpaid furlough "vacations." And competing news affiliates now trade video, share helicopters and -- perhaps worst of all -- risk their independence on a daily basis.

But the American people will never shy away from an attractive sales pitch. This week French engineers unveiled their plan to hitch the American market in 2011 with the $18,000 AirPod, a car that runs on compressed air. Just plug it into the wall. And wait four hours. Give it time, and you can expect to get the equivalency of 100 miles to the gallon.

We've been down this road before. We get worked up about alternative fuels, but we never seem to physically embrace the idea. We often accuse efficient hybrids of being too new, too costly, too ugly. Remember the electric car? It briefly saw the light of day, but quickly disappeared when the government quashed the invention. The cars were hauled off, destroyed and eradicated from the public conscious.

But today's Washington Times reports that Ford and Chrysler will soon offer lines of battery-electric vehicles; how they'll manage to do this while closing plants and pink-slipping workers remains to be seen. It seems timing has never fared well for these revolutionary cars.

So really, dude, where's our car industry?

Stuck in traffic with that other Big Three -- the courts, the congress and the president -- and headed for one hell of a crash. And it's rush hour.

-P.F.

Oh, 'bama...

2009-05-13T16:32:00.075-04:00

Does President Obama want government transparency, or doesn't he?

This week it seems our commander-in-chief has managed, for the first time, to frustrate liberals on not one, but two major issue flip-flops. First, he said he'd repeal the "don't ask, don't tell" policy. Then Obama said he'd release those Abu Ghraib abuse photos. Now, he's doing neither.

Obama's spokesperson said of the former that it will take more than "the snapping of one's fingers" to eradicate President Clinton's requirement of forcing gay soldiers to hide their sexuality. It's not to say Obama won't urge Congress to overturn "don't ask, don't tell." But it is safe to assume - in this age when the military should accept anyone deluded enough to sign up to die - that this policy has found its way to the cozy back burner along with the other civil liberties issues the government continues to ignore.

Come on, Obama. You know it's bad when Rachel Maddow's guest says you're "morphing into your predecessor."

As if a George W. Bush comparison weren't enough to incite the "change" for which Obama campaigned, the president has further regressed by now denying the American Civil Liberties Union its Freedom of Information Act request for the Abu Ghraib pictures which, the administration decided Wednesday, will not see the light of day after all.

Obama says releasing the pictures would "put our troops in greater danger." Really? I'd argue your pledge last month to keep our troops in two wars until at least 2012 puts them in greater danger.

How about holding our troops to account rather than putting them on a pedestal? The American people are entitled to see how those they hold up so high have engaged in the lowest of activities. It would appear that too many soldiers have too little to do, so some have resorted to tormenting prisoners and capturing it on camera. Obama says releasing more evidence would only "further inflame anti-American opinion." Sorry, Mr. President, but that ship sailed six years ago, circa Bush's "Mission Accomplished" charade.

Our military must immediately cease its own "anti-American" operations, not the least of which ousting any soldier who admits he's gay. This, Mr. President, would exist as the crux of acting "anti-American." I hope you'll consult your Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, Michael Mullen, about your latest misjudgments. General Colin Powell would have never stood for any of this nonsense.

Powell fought President Clinton on "don't ask, don't tell" in 1993, but it stands 16 years later and looks like it may never go away.

Even Log Cabin Republicans - who "work within the Republican Party to advocate equal rights for all Americans" - accuse Obama of "backpedaling" on the policy. They say his administration has put "our military readiness in jeopardy."

If "don't ask, don't tell" were ever legally enforced in the world of business and politics, we would surely be without good leaders, as well as our good sense.

Have you ever heard of Kevin Beckner? He's a Hillsborough County Commissioner. How about Jeffrey Slavin? He's the mayor of Somerset, Maryland. And Lupe Valdez? She's the sheriff of Dallas County. And she - along with Kevin and Jeffrey - is an openly gay public official.

So, if you happen to be a gay American, you can convince the people of a Texas county that you're qualified to be the area's chief law enforcement officer. Just don't go fantasizing about boot camp anytime soon.

The best part is, Sheriff Lupe Valdez was once a tank commander for the U.S. Army. She even served as a Senior Agent with the Department of Homeland Security. You go, girl!

For too long, Governor Charlie Crist has fought rumors that he is a closeted gay politician. At 52, Crist married Carole Lynn Rome Oumano, 39, in December. Does our governor owe the people of Florida an explanation? The newly-released documentary Outrage would argue that he does. The film outs conservative Republican politicians like former Idaho Senator Larry Craig and former Florida Congressman Mark Foley as hypocrites who lead privately gay lives while they publicly denounce homosexuality.

No one - including public officials - truly has the duty to inform the public about his sexuality. And the government should have no duty to interfere with a gay couple's right to marry and/or adopt children. The only time it should interfere is when people are targeted for what they are.

In April, the House passed the "Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act," which now lies in the hands of the U.S. Senate. Matthew Shepard was subjected to unbelievable acts of cruelty, violence and bigotry in 1998. Two rotten men targeted the 21-year-old Wyoming student because he was gay. For more than a decade, legislation in his honor has never held up because of the opposing viewpoints on what constitutes a hate crime. If approved, the law would provide federal money to local prosecutors of crimes like the murder of Matthew Shepard.

Neither Senator Bill Nelson nor Senator Mel Martinez has returned calls for comment on Senate Bill 909. A subcommittee with more Democrats than Republicans has been reviewing the bill since April 28. We can only hope our representatives will send this off for the president's signature.

Mr. President, you wouldn't be here if it weren't for generations of fighting social injustice in the country you now lead. Please recognize the civil rights struggle that continues in the lives of our gay friends. Their public service depends on what you promised all of us for the last two years.

Do you want change, or don't you?

-P.F.

Amazing Grace

2009-05-08T18:36:00.088-04:00

She forces herself to avoid her newspaper and television this time of year. She looks forward to hearing from the same man who calls her every Mother's Day, without fail.

I'm hesitant to telephone Grace Callaway. I'm not the voice Grace expects to hear. But, true to her first name, Ms. Callaway politely and eloquently speaks to me from her Apopka home. She tells me she appreciates that people still ask about her son, Chip, the youngest of her four children. She says talking about Chip helps her grieve since she can't speak to him directly.

Tomorrow marks 29 years since Grace could do that. John "Chip" Callaway, Jr., was 19, a brilliant tennis player and mechanical engineering student at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. Spring Break rolled around, and Chip -- who typically caught rides with friends to see his family in Miami -- decided to get there sooner by hopping aboard a Greyhound. It was a week before Mother's Day, 1980.

"Providence put him on that bus," Grace tells me on the eve of the anniversary of Chip's death. "It was the most horrific experience of my lifetime."

Chip -- along with 25 others aboard the bus -- plummeted to his death on May 9, 1980, when a harbor pilot crashed the Summit Venture into the Sunshine Skyway bridge in St. Petersburg. The ship's force destroyed the bridge, and sent the Greyhound and several vehicles 150 feet to the bay below.

Lynnwood Armstrong remembers the eerie weather as he crossed the Florida border from Alabama that morning. "It was just strange," he says.

Investigators later reported thunderstorms, zero visibility and winds approaching hurricane force at 7:33 a.m., the time of the crash.

Fate would spare Lynnwood from the accident. He had gotten off the bus to see his mother in Plant City a short time before the vehicle was to cross the Skyway. Lynnwood Armstrong and Chip Callaway had left together on the same Greyhound from Tuskegee that day.

Lynnwood remembers meeting Chip during a pickup basketball game their freshman year. They clashed at first, but became close for the next two years.

"We just clicked," Lynnwood says. "He was a great guy to leave this earth so early. We did everything together."

They would grow together as brothers. Chip would give Lynnwood pointers on the tennis court. Lynnwood would include Chip at family gatherings. While traveling home on the bus together, the young men talked about summer jobs. They fantasized about getting their first apartment together. They couldn't wait for their independence. It would be their last conversation.

Lynnwood never heard from Chip that afternoon, and called his buddy's mother, Grace, in Miami. Together they watched television news reports of what was being recovered from the bay.

"When I saw the bus come up out of the water, I knew," Lynnwood tells me. He vividly remembers Grace's scream on the other end just before he dropped the phone. He had been on that mangled bus just hours ago.

It would be an agonizing five days before Grace and her husband, John, would hear Chip's body was recovered -- the last of 35 victims. Chip had drowned. His family now had some semblance of relief.

"I never thought I'd rejoice when somebody would tell me they found my child," Grace decided. "It changed my whole outlook on tragedy. It's uniquely traumatizing to lose a child."

Chip admired Swedish tennis star Bjorn Borg and loved the music of the Bee Gees. And he teased his friend Lynnwood, the architect major who spent too many hours studying. Chip could have never foreseen the tradition that his mother and his college roommate would one day share: Lynnwood's annual Mother's Day phone call to Grace.

Grace says Lynnwood never misses a holiday, especially since Grace's husband, John, died in November 2007. John had never gotten over Chip's death. Grace says she and John looked to God -- rather than to each other -- for guidance following the loss of Chip.

She explains: "You can't expect your spouse to support you. They can't. You're both dealing with the same emotions and expect the same thing of each other."

Heart trouble caught up with John while he sat in his parked car. He and Grace had been married 64 years. Grace only hopes people won't forget about what happened 29 years ago tomorrow. She knows Lynnwood never will.

Lynnwood, now 49, works for the Florida Department of Transportation in Bartow. He's quick to point out the irony; he even inspected the Skyway bridge during its reconstruction in the mid-'80s. Lynnwood enjoys fishing from the pier that stands in place of the old bridge.

"I go there and reflect," he says.

Grace Callaway, however, hasn't been to the Skyway since her son's death.

"I can't drive that bridge," Grace states gently, without a hint of doubt in her voice. She says talking about it helps her heal. Writing does, too. Years ago Grace decided to send a letter to the Summer Venture captain, John Lerro, who the state had cleared of negligence in the accident.

"I wished him well," she says. Lerro died of multiple sclerosis in 2002.

Grace evokes a quote from Mother Teresa regarding what she'd say to God if given the opportunity: "You've got some explaining to do."

She fights to catch her breath as we share a laugh over the phone. She wonders: "People who have no hope, I don't know how they could make it."

Happy Mother's Day, Grace.

-P.F.

Pants Down

2009-05-06T19:20:00.010-04:00

Listen hard enough, and you'll hear the strangest things while taking off your pants.

While behind the curtain in a Hyde Park alterations shop this afternoon, I hear Gov. Charlie Crist will likely announce his 2010 Senate run on Monday.

Crist certainly has his plate full these days: a new wife, a long-awaited seat belt law and an ongoing battle for blackjack. The latter is sure to incite some thorough mudslinging from the man who took Crist to court over past casino meddling: Marco Rubio.

The former House speaker - a staunch Huckabee supporter this time last year - announced his candidacy Tuesday, which will put him against the current governor in the U.S. Senate race. That's assuming Crist enters the race. He will.

The two republicans will soon spar, and no doubt Rubio will play up his Florida Supreme Court victory over Crist. Rubio alleged Crist overstepped his bounds when he talked casino expansion with the Seminole Tribe in 2007. The Court sided with Speaker Rubio. Crist's deal with the Tribe was a bust. Similar talks this week appear to be off the table as well.

Friday will mark the end to another annual legislative session. Lawmakers have approved a $66 billion budget that will drive up prices on car registrations and cigarettes. Crist will announce his news to run for the Senate on Monday, according to the voice on the other side of the curtain.

Once outside the cramped dressing room, the tailor pins my pants leg for a hem. The voice I had heard belongs to a guy my age who says he's a fundraiser for the Democratic Party. He's just been relocated to Tampa from Boston. He says his name is Brian. His shirt looks much too big for him. That's why he's here.

Brian tells me he works for Florida C.F.O. Alex Sink, and if Charlie Crist announces on Monday we can expect Sink to do the same on Wednesday. If he runs, then she runs. She simply can't announce her plans to run for Governor if the current one hasn't officially decided not to run for reelection. So we'll have to wait and see what Charlie does.

It may prove to be a long weekend for political junkies, but my wait will be much more grueling. I mean, really, seven days to hem a pair of blue jeans?

-P.F.

Hey, Joe...

2009-05-01T13:14:00.009-04:00

Bill Maher once jokingly attributed Barack Obama's calm demeanor during the campaign to Xanax. Seriously, who stays that calm for that long?

And then we have Joe Biden, for whom painkillers were likely designed. When he speaks, we shudder. Not to insult the senior senator, but his Secret Service detail might consider carrying a cattle prod. Somebody must immediately restrain our vice president.

Who could forget his endearing description of Obama in 2007: "I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy." Remember, this was a year-and-a-half before Biden joined Obama on the ticket.

The thing is, Joe's sincerity seems to trip him up at the worst times. He doesn't ever quite sound like he's trying to offend, but he does.

How about his 7-11 comment to an Indian-American voter in 2006: "You cannot go into a 7-11 or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. Oh, I'm not joking." Joe swings, Joe misses.

I don't mean to cherry-pick sound bites here, but shouldn't Vice President Joe Biden be a bit more well-versed after 40-some years in politics?

Perhaps the comments with the most impact on the most people came this week regarding the swine flu. Joe told Matt Lauer on "Today" the Biden family would not be travelling on trains or in planes any time soon. "I wouldn't go anywhere in confined places now," Joe said.

Sure, that's his advice for his family, and probably not the worst thing he's ever said. But when the American people hear their V.P. warning his loved ones against travel, the American people get scared. And when the American people get scared, they get grounded.

My wife interviewed a woman here in Tampa who refuses to allow her daughter to go on a scheduled school field trip to Busch Gardens. Mom fears the swine flu spread, and who can blame her? After all, the vice president told her to be scared.

In Florida we can only hope the suspected cases (one in Pinellas County) test negative for the flu. Today the World Health Organization says we are prepared for a flu pandemic. For the first time, the W.H.O. will "track the evolution of a pandemic in real-time." It adds that "imposing travel restrictions would have very little effect on stopping the virus from spreading."

I'll tell you what shouldn't be flying: Air Force One. That photo-op last week cost taxpayers $329,000 and several new pairs of underwear. And -- for the very first time -- President Obama wasn't calm. He says he wasn't consulted about the flight until after the picture was snapped.

I wonder if he settled down by lighting up one of those Menthols he used to smoke. Maybe Joe knows. Just don't ask him publicly.

-P.F.

Say What?

2009-04-15T14:20:00.009-04:00

On this Tax Day, file this away: watch what you say.

I'm talking to you, journalists.

As we watch our local news stations deteriorate into Layoff Land, many of us turn to cable, where we're all but guaranteed a 24-hour editorial spin cycle.

Today thousands gathered around the country to protest taxes, big government... but mostly Obama. Demonstrators armed with propaganda even hurled tea boxes onto the North Lawn of the White House.

This afternoon, CNN reporter Susan Roesgen stood surrounded by countless protesters assembled at one of Chicago's Tax Day Tea Parties.

"This is a party for Obama bashers," she began, obviously disgusted with the crowd.

One man had adorned himself with a billboard portraying President Obama as Adolf Hitler, complete with the Sieg Heil salute and toothbrush moustache. The protester repeatedly referred to Obama as a "fascist."

"Why," the reporter demanded several times.

The protester shrugged: "Because he is," a message he simply regurgitated from conservative talk radio and memorized for today's occasion.

Roesgen moved on to another demonstrator, who held his young son and a cardboard sign. It boasted: "I'm not even two years old and I'm already in debt."

The angry father criticized Obama for being very un-Lincoln-like, to which the reporter interrupted, "What does this have to do with your taxes?"

While the protester continued with his tirade, Roesgen again cut him off: "Did you know that the state of Lincoln gets $50 million out of this stimulus?" At this point the reporter was wagging her finger and shouting at the ones who were supposed to be doing the shouting.

Roesgen ended her live report from Obama's home state by dismissing the tea party as "anti-government, anti-CNN," and "highly promoted by the right-wing conservative network, Fox." She deemed the environment unfit for "family viewing" before she tossed back to the studio anchor.

Susan Roesgen broke a lot of journalism rules in two minutes' time: she screamed, she debated, she undermined a protest. She even called out a competitor. And she was smug.

Like it or not, those protesters can legally wear what they want to wear and say what they want to say. They're still U.S. citizens, regardless of whether their hatred of government spending contradicts their support for funding the $10 billion-a-month payment on the Iraq mess.

Simply put, most republicans don't mind spending provided it supports their own selfish interests: faith-based programs, marriage protection initiatives and "the war on terror," to name a few. In the same breath, conservatives will point out their contempt for the government meddling in their personal affairs, as they've articulated in hordes throughout the day.

Today's protesting comes on the same day a memo is leaked from Homeland Security. In it the federal government warns the current economy may create "a fertile recruiting environment for right-wing extremists.''

The department wants to avoid "another Timothy McVeigh-like situation," which it says may have been fueled by similar economic conditions in 1995.

It's truly scary (and ironic) that the department our last president created now worries about right wingers buying up guns in bulk in preparation for a revolution.

In simple terms, they fear Obama will take their Second Amendment right. Quite a paranoid thought, considering these are the same people who'd love to rework the Constitution to define marriage.

Bottom line, you can always bank on this: Opinion should stay out of the news. Hitler should stay out of presidential comparisons. And -- if only for the day -- Obama should probably stay inside.

-P.F.

Pull Out!

2009-04-09T17:16:00.014-04:00

You've filed your tax return and cashed your latest unemployment check, but wait. You still owe the Department of Defense.

Let's see: the rent, the car, the gas, the insurance, the food, the utilities... oh, right. The war.

Your share this month: $74.07.

You haven't forgotten your monthly obligation, have you? Your war bill continues to fight a "mission accomplished" six years ago in Iraq, and guess what? The president just asked for more.

Today -- on the anniversary of the fall of Baghdad -- Obama requested more than $83 billion to pick up the war tab in Iraq and Afghanistan through September.

I know, he's desperately trying to pick up after the eight-year frat party. Give him time. Thing is, Obama says our troops will stay put in Iraq until the last day of 2011.

That certainly puts time on the side of Obama's re-election campaign, but it dangerously flirts with more division at a time when we should all be working. Together. With benefits. And without war.

For those 135 million Americans who pay their taxes, their war bill blasts their bottom lines every month. At just over $74, I suppose it beats cable. But, you see, I like cable. And when it's angry, it only deletes that Top Model episode my wife hasn't seen yet.

Folks, we must immediately stop complaining about bailout money and economic turmoil until we decide to stop spending $10 billion dollars on Iraq every month.

Call up your congressman and shout, "Pull out!"

We must redirect to American taxpayers every dollar earmarked for this Iraq disaster, just as Obama pledges to redirect military focus to Afghanistan. Every misspent American dollar in Iraq could bail us out rather than drown us.

Remember: you scoffed when Congress approved a trillion dollars of your money to save A.I.G., Fannie and Freddie. It may have been necessary. But your $74/month sure ain't paying the bills.

-P.F.

Bite Me.

2009-04-02T11:03:00.003-04:00

"Well, that's unique," my new dentist mumbles from behind his face mask.

I already know what he's referring to as his metallic hook-like instrument scrapes away.

"Uh huh," I manage through an open jaw while fighting inevitable drool. I've got a tooth (or is it teeth?) that never fails to puzzle and amuse those who practice dentistry. I've come to expect this conversation, much like the one we'll have about sealants, fluoride and anything else I should consider purchasing today.

Turns out my "fused tooth" may be one in a million. The hygienist informs me my lateral incisor fused with its neighboring central incisor while my teeth were budding. Those two teeth sort of partnered up and never let go. My lower left jaw would never be the same.

Dentists in three states have expressed wonder and glee at the sight of my slightly deformed friend. One in Virginia said, "Wow. I haven't seen one of these since medical school!"

Things get really interesting when the hygienist hasn't seen the x-rays and proceeds with trying to floss my funky tooth. There's a groove, but no gap exists. Floss shall never tread on this territory. Fusion!

Ann A. Griffen of The Ohio State University College of Dentistry writes that fusion exists "in about 0.5% of children, so it is not all that unusual." I don't know, half of one percent seems rare. She adds that fused teeth often get cavities. Not to discredit the professor here, but I'm proud to boast I've never had a cavity.

What I do get are questions. My favorite comes from one of the hygienists today: "Did you have those teeth fused voluntarily?"

I nearly fall out of the dentist's chair, x-ray bib and all, while Costanza brags about his Jon Voight car on the t.v. overhead.

"Well," she says, "People with sensitive teeth can choose to fuse them to make them stronger."

Maybe I misunderstood or just misheard her. But I know I didn't choose this path for my incisors. Something in nature got them married during my terrible twos period.

And so it seems I'm a stronger person for all this. And I still manage to keep the experts guessing. There's a partnership in my mouth. But you're not invited.

-P.F.

Got "Milk"?

2009-03-26T16:27:00.007-04:00

No? Get some.

You'll find that no shelf life will ever threaten the movie's main ingredient: equality. Time, as they say, heals all wounds. Or does it?

Sean Penn does the gay struggle unparalleled justice as San Francisco supervisor Harvey Milk, who was shot down at the height of his activism for equal rights. At 40 years old, Milk set out to de-sour a city (and country) of its hatred for homosexuals. At 47, he would become the nation's first elected openly-gay politician. He would invoke the "hope" message while Barack Obama was still a teenager. And Milk would be dead within the year.

He wasn't killed because he was gay. No, Harvey Milk was envied. A fellow city supervisor longed for Milk's confidence and poise, his charisma and drive. That other man -- Dan White -- fatally shot Milk and the San Francisco mayor. White would later commit suicide following a brief prison term.

More than 30 years later, our country remains embroiled in a civil rights struggle that -- for many -- is too close for comfort: the gay marriage debate.

While Milk never touches the issue of marriage, the film begs each one of us to consider the way we treat others. Harvey Milk mounted a soapbox and needed no violent demonstration to make himself heard. He had hordes of people behind him in the end. Yet even more people opposed the thought of two men or two women romantically linked.

Homosexuality is not a choice, preference, lifestyle or a sin. It is not contagious. And after all these years, it is still not entirely accepted.

In the last election, Americans voted down gay marriage in all 30 states that put the measure on the ballot. Here in Florida, Amendment 2 passed without a hitch. And in California Prop. 8 sets back decades of Milk's activism there. White voters in California don't support same-sex marriage, and neither do black voters. Eerily, African-Americans overwhelming oppose this constant civil rights struggle.

How is it in the Netherlands and in Belgium gays are allowed to marry and -- here's the best part -- actually call it "marriage"? In Spain marriage has "the same requirements and results when the two people entering into the contract are of the same sex or of different sexes." Back home in the States, though, we're determined to keep "marriage" between one man and one woman. Civil unions, fine, but please... don't mention gay marriage.

Disgusting, isn't it? For the U.S. government to even hint at involvement in sex and marriage would be astounding enough, but when lawmakers exhaust taxpayer time and capital fighting a gay couple's unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, then, well... we the people come out the loser every time.

I'd never seen more tap dancing around the issue than when now-Veep Joe Biden and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin debated same-sex rights a month before the election. Palin at least clearly expressed her opposition to "redefining" marriage, while the moderator had to beat it out of ol' Joe: "Barack Obama nor I support redefining, from a civil side, what constitutes marriage." Hmm. Glad the parties could finally agree on something.

Look, if you support a gay couple's right to hospital visitations, home ownership, insurance... why not just let them get married? Adopt children? Start a family?

This was, in essence, Harvey Milk's wish. He wanted to "recruit" so many so that they could learn to embrace everyone. He didn't rebel, he led. Harvey Milk was the original glass-half-full guy. And we sure could use some more.

-P.F.