EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT THROUGHOUT THE SUMMER, I’M RE-POSTING SOME OLD BLOGS I THOUGHT WERE INTERESTING AND WORTH A SECOND LOOK, OR A FIRST GLANCE FOR MY MANY NEW READERS.
“Gas masks. Hazmat suits. Temperature guns. Security guards paytrolling outside boarded-up buildings. Many voting scenes from the 2020 election could very well be dystopian film outtakes. “ Gentlemen’s Quarterly
The lefty Journal Sentinel was more tghan happy to publish this nonsense that I blogged about in March of 2020.
EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT THROUGHOUT THE SUMMER, I’M RE-POSTING SOME OLD BLOGS I THOUGHT WERE INTERESTING AND WORTH A SECOND LOOK, OR A FIRST GLANCE FOR MY MANY NEW READERS.
I read a lot and enjoy sharing interesting material with readers. Summer ended a few days ago. However I’ve got one more in this series, though it’s a video, not an old article.
EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT THROUGHOUT THE SUMMER, I’M RE-POSTING SOME OLD BLOGS I THOUGHT WERE INTERESTING AND WORTH A SECOND LOOK, OR A FIRST GLANCE FOR MY MANY NEW READERS.
With the colder seasons quickly approaching and kids back in school, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is predicting a “tripledemic” similar to last year. The “tripledemic” includes RSV, the flu and COVID-19. —WOOD-TV, Grand Rapids, MI
While some individual schools and colleges have implemented temporary mask requirements, there is no sign that anyone in federal or state leadership is considering widespread COVID-19 restrictions, requirements or mask mandates. The administrations of several Democratic governors denied that any such moves are even under discussion. The overriding sentiment is to leave the decisions to individuals. —The Associated Press, September 13, 2023
Sorry, but I don’t trust any of those entities that took away our liberties and abused us in the past.
EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT THROUGHOUT THE SUMMER, I’M RE-POSTING SOME OLD BLOGS I THOUGHT WERE INTERESTING AND WORTH A SECOND LOOK, OR A FIRST GLANCE FOR MY MANY NEW READERS.
As of this posting the future of TikTok appears to still be in limbo as US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondois not planning to discuss the platform and the sanctions imposed on the app.
Despite the intense pressure, the US government has still not taken any decision regarding TikTok.
The US has said that TikTok is a national threat as the app allows the Chinese government to consume private information about the user.
“This is not something you would normally hear me say, but Donald Trump was right on TikTok years ago,” said Mark Warner during a visit to Australia, reported The Sydney Moring Herald on Oct. 25 (Warner is one of the most senior Democrats in the US Congress).
“If your country uses Huawei, if your kids are on TikTok, if your population uses WeChat as a social media platform, the ability for China to have undue influence is, I think, a much greater challenge and a much more immediate threat than any kind of actual, armed conflict.”
Warner, who is currently in Australia to engage with local intelligence chiefs, politicians, and business people, also warned about the technological domination that the Chinese regime is exerting over other countries, calling it scary.
“China having this kind of technology domination in a number of countries ought to scare the heck out of us because we’ve seen the kind of Orwellian surveillance state they’ve already created within China,” he said.
EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT THROUGHOUT THE SUMMER, I’M RE-POSTING SOME OLD BLOGS I THOUGHT WERE INTERESTING AND WORTH A SECOND LOOK, OR A FIRST GLANCE FOR MY MANY NEW READERS.
Could it be that we have not learned our lesson?
NBC News proclaims “ALL SIGNS POINT TO A RISE IN COVID.”
The Hill reports, “COVID-19 cases are on the rise and raising anxiety around the possibility that schools could implement mask mandates or close down again.”
A team of economists, public policy researchers, and others at The Leonard D. Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics at the University of Southern California has estimated the economic toll of the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. will reach $14 trillion by the end of 2023.
Workplace absences, and sales lost due to the cessation of brick-and-mortar retail shopping, air travel and public gatherings, contributed the most. At the height of the pandemic, in the second quarter of 2020, their survey found that international and domestic airline travel fell by nearly 60%, indoor dining by 65% and in-store shopping by 43%.
Who knows what could be coming down the pike.
We need to and must learn from history. That leads to this week’s FLASHBACK. From my blog vault on January 2, 2023: The best column of 2022.
EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT THROUGHOUT THE SUMMER, I’M RE-POSTING SOME OLD BLOGS I THOUGHT WERE INTERESTING AND WORTH A SECOND LOOK, OR A FIRST GLANCE FOR MY MANY NEW READERS.
Rudeness has taken over America.
From my blogging vault, July of 2018.
I give credit to CBS for tackling this subject. In my view the hateful Left is far more unhinged and off its rocker.
Years later the trend has gotten worse, even violent.
Today Catholic League President Bill Donohue posted the following column:
INCIVILITY IS THE NEW NORMAL
The ruling class, as I point out in my book, War on Virtue: How the Ruling Class is Killing the American Dream, no longer believes in holding people accountable for their behavior, and they certainly don’t believe in promoting virtue. The word has spread fast—we can do pretty much what we want and the penalties for infringing on the rights of others are minimal.
EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT THROUGHOUT THE SUMMER I’M RE-POSTING SOME OLD BLOGS I THOUGHT WERE INTERESTING AND WORTH A SECOND LOOK, OR A FIRST GLANCE FOR MY MANY NEW READERS.
This week my look back takes a markedly minority position.
Posted on April 9, 2021, with flashbacks to previous blogs:
Just about everybody and his uncle, and that would include newspaper editorial writers, advocates for high, higher, highest voter turnout each and every Election Day. Not me.
I’ve blogged on the subject several times. Here’s one from August of 2016:
On Tuesday turnout in Franklin for the primary election was 25%. The predicted turnout was about 16% but as the chief inspector at my polling place told me Franklin always does better than expected.
Even so most newspaper editorial writers around the state would probably lament Franklin’s 25% turnout as dismal and a troubling social ill.
Even before a vote was cast the Beloit Daily News was expressing disgust.
“We in the news business become frustrated after working hard to keep issues of self-governance in front of people, large numbers of whom demonstrate lack of interest.”
Low voter turnout makes many people disappointed, even angry. As for me, I’m cool with it.
I wrote the following back in March of 2008:
I have blogged several times that I’m more than ok with a low voter turnout on Election Day.
GASPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!!
Oh, the horror!
Yes, I know that such a notion sends newspaper editorial writers into orbit.
Then again, I don’t really care what editorial writers think. They’re notoriously wrong, most of the time.
If you haven’t read a single newspaper article about a certain election, you should stay home.
If you don’t know who the candidates are, you should stay home.
If you don’t know where the candidates stand on the issues, you should stay home.
If you’re basing your vote on the 30-second ad you saw the night before the election, you should stay home.
If you’re voting for a candidate because your spouse is, you should stay home.
If you’re voting for an incumbent because the incumbent has experience, you should stay home.
If you’re voting for the challenger because you feel it’s time for a change, you should stay home.
If after a gazillion months of campaigning, zillions of ads, trillions of news stories, and billions of speeches you wake up on Election Day and are undecided, please, please, please stay home.
I have nothing against a high voter turnout if somehow we could get more voters to the polls who have studied the issues and the candidates.
If voter turnout is low because people could care less or are unsure of who to choose because they just don’t know enough, I’m not going to lose any sleep.
Enter into the discussion my friend and former colleague at the state capitol Christian Schneider.
Schneider blogs about an interesting article he found in the 1958 edition of the Wisconsin Blue Book.
Lo and behold, the article says, “It is essential in a democracy that the people keep informed about the objectives and operations and operations of their government, exercise the privilege of voting and participate in the activities of their government.”
Schneider puts it bluntly, and well, I might add when he writes:
Basically, the nonpartisan Legislative Reference Bureau had no problem essentially calling people dopes if they either made an ill-informed vote, or threw their vote away as a “protest.”
—March 4, 2008
MORE…from May of 2010:
Lo and behold I am proud that conservative columnist John Hawkins, one of my favorites, feels the same way.
“In all honesty, we’d be better off if less people voted. If the only people voting were well informed, highly motivated people who paid income taxes, I guarantee you we’d have a much better government and a much better country,” Hawkins writes.
EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT THROUGHOUT THE SUMMER, I’M RE-POSTING SOME OLD BLOGS I THOUGHT WERE INTERESTING AND WORTH A SECOND LOOK, OR A FIRST GLANCE FOR MY MANY NEW READERS.
From my blog, 12/16/2017:
I recall vividly how I asked my wife, Jennifer out for the very first time.
I said I’d like to go out with you. She said yes, and we went out, and later, got married.
Times have changed. There’s a faction on the left advocating screening a potential date to make sure they politically qualify.
Columnist Kurt Schlichter has his own thoughts.
But as conservatives, it’s vital that we also do some screening of our own. After all, the last thing we want to do is inadvertently turn down a Darwinian not-a-through-street and spawn more liberals. I’m out of the dating game thanks to my closed-minded, heavily-armed, hot American-Cuban wife, but let me try to help out you singleberries with some questions to assist you in detecting any right-swipes who are actually covert leftist weirdos, losers, and/or mutations.
He’s got 11 questions. You can read them in the entire column here.
—This Just In…, 12/16/2017
FAST FORWARD TO AN UPDATE FROM A FAVORITE BLOGGER:
Can conservatives and liberals still date each other?
There is a definitive answer to this question…and the answer is, “no.” Of course, there are always caveats, but it really is pretty much just, “no.”
Why?
Well, let’s start getting into more depth on this issue with a much-discussed, controversial tweet by Zuby that brought this issue to the forefront:
That enormous ideological gap between 12th-grade boys and girls is fascinating enough that it probably deserves its own article. If I took an initial stab at it, I’d guess it’s because not only has liberalism become so reflexively anti-male, it has done so at a time when men increasingly feel like they’re getting a raw deal from society in all sorts of ways – but again, that’s another article.
Zuby’s reaction to that was essentially noting that conservative men aren’t going to want to date liberal women and will probably need to increasingly look elsewhere in the future to find wives. Additionally, as you can see, to him it was so obvious WHY he was saying that he didn’t even feel the need to explain it. In fact, it really shouldn’t need an explanation, but let’s do it anyway.
If you’re talking about a one-night stand, a short fling, or any type of short-term relationship, compatible values aren’t necessarily all that important, especially for men. In fact, if there’s anything sexual going on or being teased, most guys may literally not even know if they like you as a person, much less whether you can be compatible long term two or three dates in. This may be an alien way of thinking to a lot of women, but an awful lot of guys would happily have sex with a woman they found very attractive, even if they hated her guts. There’s nothing malicious about that, a lot of men just have a high sex drive and sex is not necessarily tied all that closely to their emotions.
On the other hand, if you’re talking about a long-term relationship, having reconcilable values is a necessity.
I’ve known at least two guys who’ve told me that they’ve had a marriage crack-up because their wives felt very comfortable spending big and going into debt, while they didn’t.
Different ways of viewing sex can – and FREQUENTLY DO – blow up marriages as well. If one partner looks at regular sex as a necessity and a marital duty, while the other views it as an optional thing that they can take or leave (and for people like this, it’s usually “leave”), it can ruin a marriage.
There are other examples that come to mind. Can you see a devout Christian and Satanist getting married? What about one partner desperately wanting a child and the other not wanting children at all? What about a “Green Acres” situation where one person absolutely loves small-town living and hates the city while the other hates the rural lifestyle and can’t stand living anywhere with less than several million people?
Sharing a life with someone is a big challenging step under the best of circumstances, which is fine because it goes with the territory. However, if you have all the normal stresses of a relationship AND fundamental disagreements over core issues always percolating in the background, it’s hard to paper that over year after year.
Now, if one or both of you aren’t really that fervent about your beliefs, it may not be a problem. If you’re one of those, “Who’s the vice-president?” people and your wife is like, “Which party supports abortion again?” it may not matter much whether you’re liberal or conservative because it’s not a critical part of your life. Additionally, twenty years ago this wasn’t as big of an issue because the Left and Right were orders of magnitude less polarized than they are today and politics wasn’t as big a part of everyday life.
On the other hand, today? Politics has now been inserted into almost EVERYTHING. Sports? Yes. Entertainment? Yes. The media? Yes. School? Yes. How you raise your kids? Yes. Where you live? Yes. It goes on and on and on. Even setting aside all the topics the two of you are going to have to avoid to just keep the peace like Black Lives Matter, the NRA, Critical Race Theory, feminism, Pride month, etc., there are a lot of core issues you may not be able to skate past.
What happens if your wife wants to abort your child because you have a vacation coming up later this year? Take your son to drag queen story hour? Says your daughter is really a boy because she likes trucks and football? Are you going to have a gun in the house? You may think she’s a dope for supporting a Democrat, but what if she concludes you’re evil for backing a Republican? What happens when you want to live in a conservative area, and she wants to live in Portland? What happens when she accuses you of being a racist for criticizing Barrack Obama? Can you fly an American flag on July 4, or does she think that’s a symbol of oppression? These issues can become surprisingly contentious in a hurry. If you don’t think so, just imagine a Republican man marrying a Democratic woman in the run-up to the Civil War.
Republican Husband: Hey sweetie, I went to the Lincoln-Douglas debate and I’m definitely voting Lincoln because…
Democratic Wife: Lincoln? That man is a monster! Someone should shoot him in the head!
Republican Husband: Wow, that is really uncalled for Hillary. He just wants to stop slavery.
Democratic Wife: Oh? And how does that impact us since I just bought two slaves?
Republican Husband: Wait… you what? We’re not going to have slaves in this house.
Democratic Wife: Oh, don’t worry, they’re going to be sharing the shed with the sheep.
Republican Husband: Sweetie, that’s horrible! We can’t do that!
Democratic Wife: Listen, honey, you better get on board with this. After all, you’re the one that’s going to have to cut their toes off if they run away.
Republican Husband: Cut their toes off? What the ****?
In a world where 40 to 50% (statistics vary) of all marriages end in divorce, can you really afford to take a chance on a serious relationship with someone who has diametrically opposed political views?
Maybe in twenty years, things will have normalized, and our political differences won’t be so stark and extreme. However currently, given the radical shift we’ve seen over the past two decades in our country, being in a serious relationship with someone on the other side of the political spectrum is a disaster waiting to happen.
It’s buying an alcoholic a drink. Letting a homeless guy house-sit while you’re out of town. Leaving the key in your unlocked car in San Francisco. Maybe you’ll be the one miraculous couple that beats the odds, but that’s unlikely.
EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT THROUGHOUT THE SUMMER, I’M RE-POSTING SOME OLD BLOGS I THOUGHT WERE INTERESTING AND WORTH A SECOND LOOK, OR A FIRST GLANCE FOR MY MANY NEW READERS.
From my blog of August 1, 2007:
The WI State Fair opens Thursday. I had the good fortune of meeting many celebrities backstage at the Main Stage years ago (the 1990’s). I got hooked into moonlighting when I had press credentials, and some of the backstage people whom I’ve known for a long, long time asked if I would put on a bright yellow Security shirt and give them a hand. With the 11-day run of the Fair about to begin, I thought I’d share some backstage security memories, some good, some not so good.
WAYNE NEWTON
Mr. Las Vegas came to the Fair about 7 or 8 years ago, complete with full orchestra and state of the art lighting, lasers, and Vegas-style stage show.
It was an extremely hot and humid night, and tickets sold barely numbered a thousand.
About an hour before the show, I was backstage, keeping my eye on the dressing room trailers. Suddenly, out of the main dressing room walks Wayne Newton, about 15 feet away from me. The well-tanned, jet black-haired Newton was resplendent in evening tuxedo and bow tie. I was in a security baseball cap, bumble bee yellow shirt, black shorts and shoes, and sweating profusely.
I smiled at Newton and before I could say a word, he walked right up to me, extended his right hand and said, “Hello, I’m Wayne Newton.”
It wasn’t until later that I recalled how this particular moment reminded me of an interview done with one of Elvis’ back-up singers, the Jordanaires after Elvis had died. I believe it was Gordon Stoker who said that when Elvis had a recording session, he would walk into the studio and before getting started, he would make it a point to say hello to everyone, from the engineers to the janitor.
Bobby Vinton said the first time he met Elvis was in Las Vegas and Elvis introduced himself first to Vinton, Usually, its’ the other way around, with the lesser name addressing the bigger name first. Being an Elvis fan, and knowing Elvis and Newton were very good friends, I was immediately impressed that Newton talked to a lowly security guard immediately after leaving his dressing room.
Newton and I, just the two of us, stood there and conversed for 15 minutes, just exactly about what I do not recall. But it was amazing to me how down to earth this guy was.
Newton went onstage in blistering heat before a crowd that could have been multiplied by ten and it still would not have been a full house, and he worked and worked for two hours and 45 minutes for that small audience. Certainly he could have shortened his show, but he did not.
After the show, an exhausted, drenched Newton was informed by other security that the Governor of Wisconsin, Tommy Thompson, was on the grounds and wanted to meet him. Waiting nearby was Newton’s private limo, ready to take him to the airport and his private jet.
Newton told security he would love to meet Governor Thompson.
Security then told Newton that Governor Thompson was elsewhere on the grounds participating in the Governor’s annual livestock auction and would be about another 30 minutes.
Without hesitation, Newton said, “I’ll wait.”
And he did.
The two celebrities enjoyed each other’s company before Newton finally did climb into his limo to drive to Mitchell International.
Now, I am not a huge fan, but I have always liked Wayne Newton. After seeing him at the Wisconsin State Fair, he will always be top-notch in my book.
KENNY ROGERS
The very next night after Wayne Newton, Kenny Rogers was the headliner.
When his huge tour bus pulled in, it stopped directly behind the stage. Part of our duties backstage includes organizing and overseeing the “meet and greets,” the impromptu photo opportunities for selected fans or fan club members or winners of radio contests to meet the stars. We were told by Rogers’ “people” that Rogers would come off the bus, immediately talk to the fans that we would line up, he would say hello and they would say hello, and after he’d pose for one photo, the fan was to walk away.
And that’s exactly what happened. When it was time to meet the fans, and as I recall there were only about ten at the most, finally Rogers emerged from the tour bus, and in robotic fashion said hello to each fan, signed an autograph, posed for a picture….NEXT!
Each fan encounter took no more than 15-20 seconds. When the line was done, in literally a few minutes, Rogers stormed right back into his bus until showtime.
Before the show, Rogers and his staff were told that Governor Thompson was going to be at the show with a group of people and wanted to meet Rogers afterwards. Rogers had agreed, but the plan was that as soon as Rogers walked offstage, the Governor and his entourage were to get backstage as quickly as possible to meet Rogers, who wanted to leave as soon as possible.
Knowing what Rogers wanted to do, we had Governor Thompson and his group leave their seats and come into the backstage area for the final few songs in order to save time. They were positioned along the side of the stage.
Rogers’ tour bus driver had lined up the bus so that Rogers could literally walk off the stage, down the steps, and right onto the bus. When Rogers ended the show, he climbed right into the bus, its motor running.
Around the corner comes Thompson in cowboy hat and jeans with his group, literally running to try to meet Rogers. Too late. He got there just in time to see Rogers get onto the bus, the door close, and the bus take off, exhaust flying in the direction of the Governor.
Contrast that to the way Wayne Newton handled himself the night before.
To this day, I wouldn’t cross the street to see Kenny Rogers.
AMY GRANT
Often, I have the tough job of helping performers walk up and down the steps that lead up to the actual stage. When it’s dark you use your flashlight to help guide them. Some of the female performers actually need to have their hand held.
A few years ago, I was helping Amy Grant down the steps. She started to extend her left hand to me, and I grabbed it, but she was carrying her guitar in her right hand and then stopped, handing me the instrument.
So I had Amy Grant’s guitar in my left hand, and Amy Grant in my right hand, all the while praying I wouldn’t drop either. As Amy took one step at a time, out of nowhere comes her manager, running frantically towards me.
“I’ll take that,” he said, referring to Amy’s guitar (yes, I guess we’re on a first name basis because she signed a CD for me later, “To Kevin, With Love”).
Amy said something to the effect that I had “it,” and everything was ok.
All the while, Amy’s superstar husband, Vince Gill, was at the top of the stairs, hiding from the audience behind some equipment. He had watched his wife’s entire show, but never stepped in to steal her limelight.
Gill took one look at Amy’s frazzled manager and just chuckled.
DANIELLE PECK
My, but you do get to meet some interesting people at those onstage steps. One of them was country newcomer Danielle Peck. I tried to help her onstage, but she had come out of her dressing area a bit early, so I was forced to stand at those steps and carry on a good, long conversation with her until it was showtime.
THE ABBA TRIBUTE GIRLS
Another rough assignment….again, at the bottom of the steps as the young galls waited to go on. When they sang all those ABBA tunes in their Swedish accents, the thousands of people in the crowd didn’t know that I had a great chat with them in their true native New Jersey-like tongues.
LITTLE RICHARD
“I’m not going on. No. Hear me and understand, Little Richard is not going on.”
The man who gave us Long Tall Sally and Lucille refused to get out of his limo and take the stage until he was paid. Apparently State Fair management pays their acts after the show is completed. Little Richard would have none of that, and he was serious.
After a while, the State Fair brass got together and presented Little Richard a check.
With a holler of WOOOOOOO!!! Little Richard in his white flowing outfit jumped out of the limo and began his show, even inviting audience members onstage to dance, a practice normally frowned upon by management and security.
To this day, rumor is the check was a bouncer, and that the REAL check was given to Little Richard after he was done performing.
KOOL & THE GANG
Old enough to remember Kool & the Gang when they played jazz, I was thrilled to see them at the Fair. (They’re back this year). I was given clear instructions to keep an eye on their dressing room. Thousands of dollars worth of jewelry had been stolen from their dressing room the night before, I believe in Pittsburgh, so once the show started, no one, absolutely no one except band members were allowed in.
Shortly after the concert started, a young man started walking towards me and the dressing room, wanting in. I stopped him and informed him he couldn’t enter the dressing room. The man had every Kool & the Gang credential and pass ever created. I wouldn’t let him in. He was nice but was obviously in total disbelief that I was standing my ground, started to walk away and said he’d be back.
About 10 or 15 minutes went by when a figure comes walking off the stage with a bass guitar slung around his neck: Robert “Kool” Bell, the founder and leader of Kool and the Gang. With him, the young man I refused entry to.
Bell asked me if it was true that I wouldn’t let the young man into the dressing room. I said yes because……and proceeded to explain why.
In front of the other man, Bell thanked me for doing my job and doing what I was instructed to. Then he gave his permission to let the young man into the dressing room.
No jewelry or any other item was stolen from Kool & the Gang that night.
KC AND THE SUNSHINE BAND
I love when KC comes to town. We spoke briefly about his concert at the Republican National Convention (Yes, Casey Finch, better known as KC, is a staunch Republican). But again, it’s all about those stage steps, and the job duty of helping, in this case, KC’s scantily clad with bodies that won’t quit dancers in big boots make it safely on and off the stage.
JO DEE MESSINA
Big Al Hartmann (big as in around 400 pounds) and I had to walk Messina and her young son around the park a few hours before the show. No one, I mean not a single soul recognized her with hair bunched up under a baseball cap.
When we got back from a tour of the grounds, Hartmann went to another area and Messina told me she wanted to take a shower.
I just assumed that I was nominated to show her where the women’s showers were. She politely asked that I stand outside to make sure she’d be alright. I think I said something to the effect of, “Well gee, Ms Messina, I don’t know……WELL OKAY!”
I did shout once, inquiring if she was ok or needed anything. With shower running, I heard her yell, “Oh, I’m just fine!”
Yes, they paid me that day.
EDDIE MONEY
I got to drive him in a van to a corporate tent party, and then after his show, I stood right next to him as he signed autographs.
One young woman in a tank top insisted that Money sign her chest. Money wanted to oblige, so because it was completely dark outside, I had to get as close as I could with my flashlight so Money could more readily see and sign the desired area. Many flashbulbs were going off for that one.
SARA EVANS
The summer of 2002, the summer after 9-11. Some State Fair police officers assigned backstage asked Evans for autographs.
I’ve always seen performers be very gracious to the guys in uniform.
Not Evans, who refused to honor the officers’ requests.
JOHN MICHAEL MONTGOMERY, DAVID CASSIDY, PETER FRAMPTON
I’m going to be candid. Montgomery was bombed when he went onstage. At one point, he climbed the ladder going up to the lights and was hanging onto the ladder with one hand with the microphone in the other hand. Many of the security folks immediately rushed to the bottom of the ladder at which point Montgomery’s manager came over, laughing. Don’t worry, he told us, Montgomery does this all the time. We respectfully said we weren’t moving, just to play it safe. Now the smile came off his face and the manager asked us to move away again. My boss backstage, Mike Wenzel told the manager in no uncertain terms that backstage security meant all of the backstage area and that we were going to be in perfect position in case Montgomery fell (especially in his inhibited state).
The next night, the Jordanaires were at the Fair. They asked me who else had been performing. When I mentioned Montgomery, Gordon Stoker of the Jordanaires immediately asked, “Was he sober?”
David Cassidy also was blitzed before going onstage. There was a threat of rain all night, the show was delayed as a result of rain and lightning, and the top-notch stage crew told Cassidy and his folks that it would take some time to get everything in order before Cassidy could go on so there’d be no technical difficulties.
Cassidy wouldn’t listen, stubbornly went on, and the rest of the show was marred by microphone and sound problems, feedback, you name it. Cassidy used to profanities in blaming the stage crew, the worst he claimed he had ever worked with. That coming from a has-been who was drunk onstage.
Peter Frampton was just an ornery jerk, screaming at the local female disc jockey assigned to introduce him just because she brought some old LP’s along in hopes he’d sign them.
THE CRUSHER
One of my prized possessions is a photo taken alongside Milwaukee’s favorite son, the Crusher, in his usual sunglasses and cigar.
How bout dat!!
ISAAC HAYES
A very nice man, but obviously not as young as he used to be.
Walking him to the stage, I said to him, “Well Mr. Hayes, what’s it going to be tonight? Two, three hours.”
“@#$%& no,” he said with a big laugh.
His manager warned me that during, “Walk on By,” there would be a rather lengthy drum and keyboard solo, and that I should watch to help Hayes back to the dressing room. This was an intentional built-in bathroom break.
As a rule, I have found most of the entertainers to be gems. It’s their Nervous Nelly, over-protective managers that drive you nuts.
—This Just In, August 1, 2007. The above photos are random and were not taken at shows I worked at.
Not included in this blog were remembrances of the rock group Chicago.
During the show there was at one point on a nearly 100-degree day a screen behind the band showing snowflakes on a blue background as they performed a track from their new album, Chicago 25, a kick butt version of “Let it Snow.” The Christmas album was released a few weeks later.
One of the original members, saxophonist Walt Parazaider and I chatted quite a bit before the show. He said they loved playing in venues like the State Fair because Midwesterners were the best audiences and the best people.
My favorite backstage memory was probably The Jordanaires, Elvis’ backup group. Gordon Stoker was more than happy to discuss not only Elvis but Patsy Cline whom the quartet also backed.
Last week after attending my monthly church parish council meeting (they actually appointed me, can you believe that?), it was about 8:15 pm. Sun was setting. And there was a very nice breeze that broke the heat of the day.
As some of us stood outside to BS before hopping into our cars to drive home we remarked how pleasant it was when I then mentioned how sad I felt for those without air conditioning (AC). I was referring to the elderly and the poor, actually. But one of my colleagues replied instantly he didn’t have AC. And so did a second. They were beaming with pride.
I was incredulous.
My two friends looked at me with crapola-eating grins, struggling for something else to say because they rightfully discerned I thought they were nuts.
I turned, started for my car while shouting over my shoulder that I suppose they were full of that Midwest machismo. They laughed. I was outta there.
This Just In... From Franklin, WI 