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Below is a memo I wrote in April 2005 to Washington City Paper management. The Internet was beginning to impact the company and, as the paper’s Webmeister, I had some thoughts about that.

My key insight was to recognize that the company that published an old-fashioned newspaper was in fact an information-rich, advertising-based media company. That the defining idea of the business must be reconsidered in order to offer information to people whenever and however they wanted to receive it. Unfortunately, almost the only part of that idea to gain traction was that the publisher started referring to the paper as a “media company.”

Of course, I was talking “brand” and “marketing” and “digital-first” to an organization with an open disdain for such concepts. A short digression:

When City Paper launched its site in 1996 and I was made content manager, I created a house ad to promote this momentous event. The ad consisted of a single quote against a white background. In industry terms, it was called a “tombstone ad.” Oh, the irony. The ad said this:

I was confident that CP’s discerning readership would recognize the line from Ghostbusters, spoken by the Harold Ramis character, and, again, get the irony. Almost instantly after I faxed the proof to one of the owners for approval my phone rang and the big boss was shouting at me, “I NEVER WANT TO SEE THAT AD AGAIN! DESTROY IT!” And on and on and on and on. The ad never ran.

Back to my prescient memo. Some of what I wrote reflects a still-print-centric mindset. I underestimated Pitchfork. Some of the ideas were kinda crazy. (Creating a “radio station” using then-new Live365.com?) And I was clearly wrong about not posting editorial online. In my defense I was trying to defend our paid archives, as well as suggesting that the website and the paper were separate entities and should each offer what each did best. But I was certainly correct that the site needed more blogs. Which did not happen for several years.

But most of what I wrote holds up rather well:

Washington City Paper: The real-time interactive solutions company!

CP is two companies. Historically, a print publication and, increasingly, an online enterprise.

As has been said, we used to be the Internet before there was an Internet. People came to City Paper to find out WHAT was going on. Now, they can get that information from primary sources.

But they still come—they come to our message board. They come to Matches. They come to Crafty Bastards. They come to Nosh Mobs, and they come to the paper (online and off) to find out WHY something is happening. To find out WHAT it means.

Because our critics still provide the context. Our writers still do the legwork, we offer authority to reader’s lives. That’s what they can’t get elsewhere. We offer more value than undistilled Internet info.

That’s why the paper will survive, and that is what we can leverage online.

But the paper only does it once a week. The reason Craigslist is succeeding is that they’re real-time.

But we still have a powerful and attractive name—which is our brand. And that’s the key: We are more than a paper, we are a source for definitive information, the first and last word on city life and culture. So decisions based on a once-weekly delivery must be expanded to consider the real-time needs of readers—even people who don’t read the paper but do want the hip cred that our brand lends them.

Because readers can wait a week to find out about PUDs, or that a guy is sitting on a bucket while a condo is built around him, or whose drains are backing up. [THEN-RECENT CP STORIES] Because these are CP enterprise stories that will SURPRISE readers, in our time-honored fashion. People enjoy those stories, but they’re not online looking for them.

Because readers no longer want or need to wait to learn how the show was, who’s coming to the show, where the show is, and how much it will cost. They already know that Band X has an album coming out. They want to know if it’s any good. That’s where our critics can give them context.

And, because we still get the CDs, movie, and theater tickets first, we are still the place to come for advance word on what’s what.

So, our RADIO STATION can turn people on to new bands, sounds, trends, fads.

Also, City Paper branded (or co-branded with a partner) CDs can present the best local bands, or even national indie material. And our RADIO STATION can let them hear it.

It’s a real-time news cycle now. Just because the paper only appears once a week doesn’t mean that the City Paper brand can’t have a real- (or nearly real) time component. Classifieds will soon be just that, Matches, too.

Nearly every day, people gather at our message board, inDCent eXposure, and organize a happy hour. Many of these posters have become friends through the board. They could just as easily IM or telephone or e-mail each other, but the congregate at our house. Because they know it’s the cool place where all their friends and other cool kids will be. And also because it’s a bit easier — post once, all the cool kids read the notice, plans get set. We can create similar “cool hangs” around other parts of the brand.

As Dave Walker said—oh, that’s David M. Walker, Comptroller General of the United States, discussing the agency’s new “Transformation Challenges”—that the GAO must change focus from “hierarchical, process-oriented, and inward-looking” to one based on “partnering, results, and outward-looking.”

CP’s hierarchy works, but we must change our aversion to promotion and partnering.

A print-centric outlook suggests that the online enemy must be fought and contained.

The new view suggests that one can feed the other. Or, that online can feed itself.

To do that, our site needs consistent and sustained attention from sales. So many of our pages have no ads on them. The second most trafficked area, our message board, carries no adverting. We never attempt to leverage this crowd into dollars.

REDESIGN OF THE MAIN PAGE:

Our main page should feature the following:

EAT MEET SEE DO LISTEN MAKE BUY SELL WORK READ WIN

EAT = Restaurant Finder
MEET = Matches
SEE = Movies/Showtimes
DO = Listings
LISTEN = Music listings
MAKE = Crafty Bastards
BUY / SELL = Classifieds
WORK = Help Wanted
READ = Editorial/Back issue
WIN = Contests

Because that’s what we do. All those things are what people come to our Web site for. They come to the paper for the same thing, but differently. So the site must be a different experience than the paper.

With this minimalist presentation, we send you right away to our information, because that’s why you came to us. They don’t want a cool site, they want a useful site—they really don’t want any site at all, they just want the information. Which we can give them, as quickly and easily as possible—with a logo at every turn, reinforcing the brand, hopefully selling as well.

For instance, the online version of the City Lights page is counterproductive. We now should know that it makes no sense reproducing a print page. It works fine on paper. The eyes can take in the entire page, the entire week. Bold type attracts the eye, making a search easy. Online, you have to scroll and scroll down, very linear, one thing after another. What navigation we have is not all that clear, useful or used.

But people looking for something know what they’re looking for. They’ve been trained to search in certain ways, which the online City Lights page does not provide.

RATHER: Our picks should be subsumed into the listings database, with a button added to the main search page for people who want to see what we think the best bets are. Click the button and get all the picks. If they’d rather search for things to do on Monday or things at the Black Cat, or a type of music or theater, and a picked item comes up, it will be flagged with a Best Bet marker. So people can still get our editorial direction in two ways, but we must acknowledge that Control-F, the ability to search, has shifted the power.

But the power we still hold is that we are still the repository of information. And that is something we can still leverage, in that our listings can still be considered authoritative and definitive. But only if the interface supports readers assumptions and expectations about searching online.

No editorial should be regularly replicated online. Only on special occasions, if we want a more or less permanent link for promotional purposes—a writer is on the radio discussing the story, or a story is an exclusive or Romenesko bait.

Because the Web site needs to speak to another audience than just the paper. The site needs to translate what City Paper does and offers into the language that the plugged-in people understand and, just as importantly, expect.

So, in addition to City Paper radio, and the upcoming Matches blog, we can offer a food blog, an arts blog, a crafts blog…

Landmark Theaters has a free CD in the lobby, “Landmark Music.” I took one, listened, then bought two CDs as a result. We should be able to do the same—find a partner to defray costs (which are not that expensive: 100 black type on disc $265-$274; Or, buy a CD printer: $150-$300. CD duplicator: $300-$1,300.) The City Paper CDs can present the best local bands (no royalties).

Eventually, the site was redesigned partially along the lines I suggested. But the idea that the Web was a threat and that print was king held strong.

In Feb. 2006, I further clarified my thinking about information strategies when City Paper was approached with a partnership opportunity. A group of local entrepreneurs were creating a network of large-screen TVs to be placed in their many bars and restaurants. The group controlled some of the most successful and hip clubs in town; they were a good fit with City Paper. The concept was:

“a web based video entertainment network that features content and advertising that is visually stimulating & thought provoking.”

The screens would endlessly repeat a three-hour loop of eye-catching video interspersed with commercials. Beer commercials, car commercials, big glossy, expensive TV commercials.

The group simply wanted City Paper to advertise.

I instantly recognized the potential and switched the proposal around. City Paper would not advertise. City Paper would become a partner, offering its entertainment and other listing information as content in exchange for ad revenue-sharing. Further, the project would be branded as City Paper TV, or CPTV.

The businessmen agreed. (The original title they had was so completely terrible that I think they were relieved to have a better name.)

What I saw in this deal was the opportunity to rescue dead newspaper content and get it out in the public, in front of our readers where they were, every day of the week. Plus, all those pricey TV ads for liquor and cars that never made it into CP’s pages were now in our grasp.

This is how I broke it down to CP management:

WHAT THEY WANT: Money from us.

WHAT WE WANT: A branded venue for our content, with revenue potential through ad sales and/or revenue sharing.

WHAT WE OFFER: A jumpstart to their business.

City Paper offers 25 years of reader goodwill and brand loyalty.

With a City Paper brand on the screens, model is instantly credible. We can immediately supply top-quality content, in quantity.

We can immediately bring our advertisers to their screens.

FOR US: Ads are an upsell offer—paper, web, screen.

FOR THEM: Our clients become their clients, with no sales effort from them.

HOW IT CAN WORK:

They keep 100% equity of their business model and shares revenue generated by City Paper ad reps.

City Paper gets 100% onscreen branding opportunity and shares revenue from ad sales.

The business group was investing $1 million in technology. City Paper was investing nothing other than content we already had and the time of a salesperson, who would be upselling — print, online, TV.

I further defined the importance of embracing the idea that the company that owns the newspaper is much more than just a newspaper publisher:

We think of our information in terms of pages. Big blocks of static information in one physical package. And our pages do look nice. But all people aren’t always looking for all the info. And they don’t care how it looks. They usually want one thing, maybe two. We need to separate the info from the pulp—send it to people where they are, when they want it.

Further, I noted that

Our main processes are already in place—the advertising-collection system, the information-compiling system.

Indeed, supplying CPTV screens with content would be about as simple as sending the pages to the printer each week.

The New York-based, Harvard-educated CFO drew up a Projected Income Statement that saw first-year revenues at $1.5 million. City Paper would get half of the profits on that figure, estimated at $250,000. One of CP’s key salespeople was keen to devote herself to the task.

At the last meeting on the topic, the publisher stated that the quarter-million dollars coming in from CPTV really represented a quarter-million that wouldn’t go into the paper, because the salesperson would be distracted by the new venture. He saw it as a wash.

And sure enough soon lots of money was not going into the paper. And there wasn’t another revenue stream to replace it. City Paper the “media company” did not move into new media.

But I knew that CPTV was only a first step. I looked beyond, to other opportunities for our content to live. I wrote to management:

For instance, Restaurant Finder ads could be on movie screens. Restaurant Finder’s GPS-based functionality could be on people’s cell phones and PDAs.

I also envisioned replacing City Paper street boxes with City Paper wired kiosks, with touch-screens that let users search listings, restaurants, classifieds, or print out an article — for a fee. A customized, branded iPad, if you will.

But they wouldn’t. My vision in 2005 and 2006 was not widely shared. A year later, the old owners sold City Paper. A year after that, the new owners drove the company into bankruptcy.

Without the participation of City Paper and its brand and content, the TV screen network idea never really caught on. Meaning I didn’t even get a T-shirt out of the deal.

So apparently the McDonald’s corporation is giving extreme makeovers to its ubiquitous outlets. The fabled golden arches have long been on the way out and the new design de-emphasizes them even more. (I’m not buying that yellow swoosh thing.) Pictured above is the before (top) and after (bottom) for the renovation of the Mickey D’s at the corner of Colesville Rd. and Second Ave. in downtown Silver Spring.

My question: Does McDonald’s want us to think it’s now Panera Bread?

Top image Google Street View

This rescued video from the fabled 1971 NBC color spectacular is the only remaining example of the unique song-stylings of this all-male singing group. Leader Guy Gold would later attempt to recapture the magic with his 1985 outfit, Guy & the New Geldings, but the police quickly put a stop to that.

Enjoy.

This photograph says more clearly than any 1,000 words I could write about how I spent the holidays. Not shown: several hospital ID bracelets from a couple trips to the emergency room.

Let’s recap, shall we?

THANKSGIVING
Touch of flu a few days before the only holiday I care for leads nicely into a severe bout of back trouble, spine on fire. Two weeks writhing in bed cuts down on gift-buying time. No money, anyway.

CHRISTMAS
Just when back on feet, bronchial infection hits. Nights of violent coughing, days of exhaustion. Spend 25th alone, asleep.

NEW YEARS’
Halfway through the antibiotics, a sinus infection delivers a headache more painful than a mangled spine. Somehow drive to doctor, who sends me to ER. ER keeps me for a day. Or two? Released, but without the intravenous pain drip (Mmmmm….intravenous pain drip) can’t even keep down medicine, so back into hospital.

Have scheduled operation on sinus. Scalpel goes in through the nose. Affected area only touches on right eye and lower brain, so what can go wrong?

Have a happy 2012. I’m joining the Mayans.

John August is a smart and successful Hollywood screenwriter. On his blog, johnaugust.com, he dispenses invaluable insights and practical knowledge about the craft, business, and art of screenwriting and life in the entertainment business. I read him regularly. I also listen to his podcast.

But his curious post, “No Trombones,” shocked me. It is so wrong in every single way I thought it might be an April Fool’s joke — but December is much too early or late for that. For some reason, August believes that children should not be taught to play such one-note instruments as trombone, rather they should take up the more elegant piano, or perhaps guitar.

As I posted in a comment on the site, perhaps Mr. August’s young daughter came home from school with a trombone and that set him over the edge. I feel his pain. I play the drums, but can’t imagine living in the same house with a kid banging away on a set. But I bless my parents every day for their unselfishness — and endurance.

Please read the entire farrago here. I don’t want to quote the entire piece, though practically every sentence demands response for its utter wrong-headedness.

August begins with this falsehood:

“With the best of intentions, we’ve taught kids to be helpless cogs in a symphonic machine. Worse, we’ve created a system that pretty much guarantees most adults won’t be able to make music by themselves.

We need to stop teaching kids to play the trombone. And the oboe. And the French horn. Particularly the French horn.

Kids should learn piano and/or guitar.”

OK. Cogs in a symphonic machine? Sorry, the system that guarantees that most adults aren’t wonderful musicians is the same system that guarantees that most adults aren’t wonderful plumbers or architects or even screenwriters. That lots of kids spend time not fully learning to play an instrument is no worse a crime than the fact that most little girls in ballet class will never dance at the Met or most boys tossing a football will never win a Super Bowl. So let’s stop buying them tutus and helmets?

August continues: “So we’re clear: I have nothing against the other instruments. They just don’t belong in the hands of children, and they shouldn’t be anyone’s first instrument.”

I think if Mr. August was being clearer, he’d admit that he doesn’t like the sounds made by band instruments in the hands of children. And who does? But a good parent won’t stifle a child’s interests and, as above, most kids won’t stick with it anyway.

Consider how we adults feign delight over a child’s incoherent crayon scribbles, awarding them a place of honor on the refrigerator door. By August’s logic, we should keep all drawing instruments away from young fingers until they are somehow able to produce gallery-worthy work.

Of course the obvious problem with this reasoning is best summed up in Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers, where he quotes research that indicates that an artist must spent 10,000 hours practicing to become even good.

So denying future Urbie Green’s a trombone and expecting them to put in the necessary hours of practice as an adult is simply ridiculous. Most of the readers of Mr. August’s site are themselves amateur hopefuls who would surely agree that finding time for any kind of practice is extremely difficult once you’ve moved out of your parents’ house. Those unpleasant hours kids spend torturing some poor instrument, and adult ears, is the important foundation of any future in music — or any skill.

Let me attest to this personally. While I did take rudimentary drum lessons (a pun — I in fact studied drum rudiments. Ha!), I never truly learned to read music. And, unlike August, I never joined the school band. It wasn’t cool. They didn’t play rock.

And for playing rock at the teen center, no charts were required. It wasn’t until I’d been playing for nearly 30 years, put in my 10,000 hours playing professionally and then part-time, that I joined a big jazz band with the express purpose of learning to read music. As an adult, it took me a very long time to get it. I still shudder at the memory of a trombone player (yes, trombone!) cringing when I played right through a rest. But eventually I caught on and am now fairly proficient. I am comfortable sitting in with other bands without fear that I’ll embarrass everyone. But, because I’m still quite a ways from my 10,000 hours of reading practice, I’ll probably never be able to, say, walk into a Nashville or LA studio session and nail a chart on the first take. Or work the pit at the Kennedy Center.

And neither will anyone who doesn’t start studying as a kid. NPR’s Noah Adams decided to take up piano at age 51. He got a book out of it (Piano Lessons: Music, Love, and True Adventures). He has yet to release an album. Which is probably for the best.

August complains that instruments other than piano or guitar fail because “These instruments play a single note at a time, which works great for bands, but is incredibly limiting overall.”

Limiting how? Surely August understand’s that his own industry works the same way. Like an orchestra, each department in filmmaking — art, makeup, costume, crew, etc. — contributes to the success, or failure, of a movie. I guess learning lighting is limiting because you’ll never be able to go to a party and recite Shakespeare. You’re just a “one-note” kinda guy. But try shooting a movie with a cinematographer who didn’t spend his childhood messing around with lights.

August goes on to warn that “if you pick tuba, you’re never going to have a solo. Ever.” Where would film music be if little Tommy Johnson hadn’t picked the tuba? He’s the fellow who made the Jaws soundtrack the Jaws soundtrack. (Everybody sing: “Duh-duh. Duh-duh. Duh-duh…“) Johnson also played on more than 2,000 other soundtracks. Poor guy. Shoulda played piano.

Indeed, August seems fixated on the “problem” of instruments that “only” play one note at a time. If he knew any trombone, tuba, or sax players he might understand that they find joy and beauty in finding that one note to follow the previous, and then the next. Kinda like finding that right word to follow the next in your screenplays, eh, John?

“As a clarinet, you’ll form the backbone of most school bands,” writes August, “but no one will actually be sure what a clarinet sounds like.” Seriously? Is there anyone who doesn’t know what a clarinet sounds like? I suspect August’s problem is, as with tuba, the player supposedly won’t get to stand out. No solos. And here perhaps we get at what bugs August about trombones and one-note instruments and instruments that don’t sound pretty right away. The nature of August’s job is that he usually works alone and gets a single credit — his solo, if you will. He’s the star in the John August show. So from his perspective shouldn’t everyone want to shine in the spotlight, every time, all the time? That’s certainly the current zeitgeist, the look-at-me, I’m-so-special culture we’re enduring. But any solo is only good in the context of the work it’s part of.

Again August’s complaint reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of bands, orchestras, and music. I rarely play a drum solo, but the times that are the most fun and satisfying are when the entire band locks together. Nobody stands out because everyone is blending in. All those one-note instruments. Even the piano player.

Another ill-informed comment about high school band: “If you’re good but not great, you may be asked to ‘take one for the team’ and switch to an unpopular instrument like tenor sax,” August writes. Before the electric guitar, the saxophone was the lead instrument in rock and roll. It remains fundamental to jazz and is popular generally. Perhaps he meant soprano sax. Everyone hates Kenny G.

“The French horn is difficult, expensive and sounds terrible at a student’s level of proficiency. Ditto oboe. We might as well slaughter geese on stage.” Again, August’s discomfort with children’s lack of proficiency is irrelevant. Let parents decide if they can afford to buy an oboe and endure the learning curve.

August explains that he first learned piano as a child, then switched to clarinet, where “compared to other fifth graders, I was amazing at clarinet.” We’re so proud of you, John. But he goes on to contend, “[t]he problem is, success at clarinet doesn’t translate to music as a whole. I never learned chord progression, because clarinet plays one note at a time. I forgot how to read bass clef, because clarinet is written in treble. I only knew how to make fairly pretty sounds within a narrow range of musical genres: classical, Woody Allen jazz, and When the Saints Come Marching In.”

Haha. But stupefying wrong. Success with one instrument does indeed translate to an understanding of music as a whole. Because it’s all of a piece. That August forgot how to read bass clef is only a comment on his lack of commitment and interest in being a musician. He’s not a musician. He gave it up to became a writer. Fine for him. But if a kid has a true interest and desire to play music, they’ll pay more attention than did young Johnny. And that’s good for the future of music.

And that little joke about the “narrow range of musical genres” only demonstrates the narrow range of August’s musical knowledge. There is much more to clarinet music than “Woody Allen jazz.” Indeed, much more to jazz than Allen’s fixation with Sidney Bechet.

In half-hearted praise of learning guitar, August writes that “you’re unlikely to strum Beethoven.” For a start, these five people prove August utterly wrong. Again.

After bashing the idea of school bands, August then contradicts himself with the sentence, “If we’re going to save high school marching bands, we’ll eventually have to teach the band instruments. And we can, quickly. Because here’s the secret about marching bands: not only is the music fairly easy, so are the instruments. In fact, it’s common to switch players between instruments to make up for gaps in a marching band. We break out the mellophones and the marching bells and somehow it all gets done.”

Sorry, playing glockenspiel is not the same as trumpet, sax or, yes, trombone. Those players who switch instruments so easily are the ones who generally go on to become serious musicians, the outliers if you will. The same ones who were studying those horrible sounding one-note instruments as children. And nobody “quickly” learns an instrument. Especially if they’re denied the opportunity to start in grade school.

August then insults a “publishing industry that creates sheet music so that twenty-five kids can lurch through a patriotic medley.” Note to John: the sheet music industry has been as hard hit by piracy as your precious movie biz. Here’s an NPR story on the subject. The Hal Leonard company is not a cabal forcing John Philip Sousa on the public.

August sums up his jeremiad with this howler: “[I]f we got rid of grade school and junior high bands and replaced them [with] pianos and guitars, I think the actual learning outcome — the ability to make music — would be much better.” Make what kind of music? All George Winston and William Ackerman? A crazy assertion based on nothing at all.

August is currently producing a Broadway version of his movie Big Fish and notes that, as is the common practice, the creators are working out the show around a piano. He does acknowledge that the show will “ultimately have a full orchestra” to perform the song. Surely he must understand that the top-notch musicians who will play his score began as clueless kids making caterwauling rackets on one-note instruments in their parent’s basement.

That horrible sound is the price we all pay so that the show can go on.

UPDATE August has turned off comments on his entire site. Coincidence after they ran about 90% against him on the trombone piece? I’m not buying his explanation. Also, he says I’ve learned nothing. That’s true in many cases, not here. But welcome to all the John August fans. Hey, let’s start a band!

Time for another episode of “Danger Driving, with Dave Nuttycombe.” This time, I go off-grid for an encounter with — well, you’ll just have to watch! Reminder: All footage is real. All suspects are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

Hal Kanter has died. The image above is not Hal Kanter. It is a lunchbox from the ground-breaking TV show he created, the first to star a black woman, the wonderful Diahann Carroll, later paramour of David Frost (but I digress).

Julia the TV show ran from 1968 to 1971. I never watched it. It was “important,” which also meant it was square. But somewhere in the mid-’70s, I found this promotional tie-in item in a small hardware store in Rockville, Md. No idea why it was there; the store didn’t carry other lunchboxes. Also don’t know why I was there. But I knew kitsch when I saw it — and “important” TV shows past their prime are generally kitsch — and picked it up for probably a pittance. And it has stayed in the Nuttycombe Archives ever since.

Many years later, I had the good fortune to interview Mr. Kanter, after reading his fascinating autobiography So Far, So Funny: My Life in Show Business. Kanter was a quintessential showbiz guy. He worked in radio, TV, and film, He wrote and directed Elvis Presley films, was one of Bob Hope’s gag men, wrote jokes for the Oscars for 33 years. And oh so much more.

My interview never ran. Either I was lazy or the editor wasn’t interested. It was a long time ago, when Kanter was already an old man. He was 92 when he passed. Somewhere in the Archives is the cassette tape of our phone conversation. I recall him being feisty and full of vim and vigor, relishing re-telling 50-year-old anecdotes for the umpteenth time. And I enjoyed hearing them for the first. In the years since I’d snagged that Julia lunchbox in a fit of smug irony, I’ve come to a better understanding of how and why things wind up on our television and movie screens. And I’ve come to realize that despite being square, Julia really was important.

Here’s but one of many funny stories from So Far, So Funny, concerning Kanter’s time working on Bing Crosby’s radio show:

  During one visit to the Crosby show, [Al] Jolson told us he was going to Hawaii and said, “I’m gonna bring you a present, Bingy.” He boasted that he had a seamstress there who designed much nicer native shirts than the ones Bing wore. “I’m gonna have her make a couple for you.”
  ”Mighty considerate of you,” Bing said.
  ”I’m gonna bring shirts back for all of you,” Al promised John Scott Trotter, Ken Carpenter, Murdo, Bill and me. He instructed his one-armed aide, a man he called Lew, to write down everybody’s name and shirt sizes. When we finished reading the script around the table, they all went into the studio to rehearse the music and in a burst of largesse, Al instructed Lew to get the sizes of all the musicians in Trotter’s orchestra. Hawaiian shirts for all!
  I remained in the rehearsal studio, polishing some of the script that needed attention. Jolson returned to make a phone call. As I sat there, Lew came in and handed Al a slip of paper.
  ”What’s this?”
  ”The names and sizes you want,” Lew told him. “For the Hawaiian shirts.”
  Al looked at the list, crunched the paper into a ball and tossed it in the wastebasket.
  Nobody got a shirt from the world’s greatest entertainer.

Sometime before I die, I will find that tape and post the interesting parts. Which might be everything Hal Kanter said.

PS: Yeah, I know that everyone else today is writing obits and appreciations for Joe Frazier. As much as I liked Smokin’ Joe, I will miss Hal Kanter more.

Because I frankly just don’t care, please enjoy the first episode of my hotly anticipated Web series, “Danger Driving, with Dave Nuttycombe.”

All footage is real. All suspects are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

I humbly bring you the entire plot of the upcoming major motion picture, Twilight: Breaking Dawn. In song. You’re welcome.

Interesting side note: I have not seen any of the movies. Nor read any of the books. Same with the Harry Potter books/films. (Interesting side note side note: While, unlike the Twilight series, I was interested in reading the Potters, I didn’t get to the first book before the first film came out. Then the second book came and, and the second film, and I just got so far behind that I gave up. Until the final Potter movie. Was invited to an 11-year-old’s birthday party. Couldn’t say no. And though I know I missed a bunch of inside references, it was an entertaining affair. I’m sure I would have enjoyed all the others and maybe the books. Ah, well…)

Where was I? Oh, yeah, the Twilight saga. Though I have no first-hand knowledge of the works of Stepenie Meyer, it’s impossible to be active in the culture and not get sprayed with at least some of it. In fact, I got this idea when the trailer came on during Project Runway. (Oh, shut up!) Anyway, I must give Wikipedia a co-writing credit. And, of course, the great Chuck Berry. Another sad side note: The karaoke version of You Never Can Tell was listed first under Bob Seger’s name. Then Emmylou Harris. Then Chuck. Fine singers, all, but where’s the historical integrity?

If you’d rather just listen to the song, here you go: