Golf Channel at The Pond: a recap

(849 words)

I’m happy to oblige the several people who weren’t there and were eager to hear a jiffy recap about what happened Friday when Golf Channel came to The Pond to film us telling stories about native son Arnold Palmer.

Friends wanted to know if it was fun. Did it go well? Did anyone say anything memorable?

Yes, it was lots of fun, it seemed to go well and I said something memorable about two minutes after I walked through the door.

First of all, I’d underestimated how big a deal this was going to be. I thought this would be a little filler segment they’d throw together in time for Palmer’s 84th birthday on Sept. 10.

Wrong. This will be a ballyhooed special set to air in March. It is expected to be a definitive Palmer profile.

To get it right, the network sent a real A-Team to town.

And by real “A-Team” I’m talking about three accomplished broadcast professionals, not Mr. T., Howling Mad Murdoch or any other paramilitary types resourceful enough to assemble things like cabbage cannons from rusty farm implements. 

And, sorry, boys, but that would have been much more cool and would have completely changed the character of today’s post.

It turns out I had the logistics all wrong, too. I thought my most likely contribution would be Palmer stories I told during on-camera interviews Saturday at the Palmer Marriott.

That was perfect. I’d planned to get in early Friday, get a good night’s sleep, write down some notes and be fresh and ready for my interview.

Well, that was canceled.

Instead, it was all set for Friday at The Pond.

I didn’t learn this until Friday when I stumbled into The Pond.

This was unfortunate because Thursday I had one of my best buddies from college visit for golf and sudsy revelry. We really whooped it up that night and Friday dawned with the predictable hangover.

No problem. I wobbled through the day content in the knowledge I had no obligations to appear presentable or thoughtful.

So I was surprised when I walked into the bar and stranger asked, “You Chris?”

I told him I was “a” Chris. This seemed good enough for him because he immediately began unbuttoning my shirt.

He was Alan the sound man. In short order I was introduced to Mason the producer and a camera man whose name I lost in the whirlwind.

The three were the rare tricky mix of cheerful and competent. I’ve known many cheerful incompetents and an equal number of competent sourpusses, but few who combine elements of both positives.

Mason told me I was going to emcee a sort of bar round-table where we swapped Palmer stories.

It took Alan less than a minute to cheerfully and competently put a live mic on me, just slightly less time that it took me to protest that I hadn’t shaved, wasn’t wearing my lucky shirt and would need a quick nap before I was ready.

Too late. The train was leaving the station.

I was thrilled to see a stool open right next to Dick. He’s Dave’s Dad and the great, beloved man who built the family bar in 1954. He’s 87. I say that not so I can say, gee, he’s still sharp as a tack, spry, etc. I say it so you’ll challenge the conventional wisdom next time you hear anyone say that only the good die young.

Mason wanted me to interview Dick first. It was all happening so fast.

“Are you nervous?” Dick asked.

I am, I said.

“Do you want a shot of whiskey?”

No, I said. I think that would be unprofessional. Why? Are you having one?

“Yes, I am.”

I told him I’d have a double.

It was nerve-racking. And then it got worse when I confided to Dick what I now recall as my most memorable line.

“You know,” I said, “my whole goal here today is to be witty and insightful enough that the Golf Channel crew will out of gratitude splurge for me to take my wife to a fancy dinner at the country club.”

The three cheerful competents all heckled from across the bar that wasn’t in their budget.

The live mic had broadcast my whispers into the crews’ ear pieces clear across the bar.

What’s great is there seemed to be many more memorable lines. The crew and Palmer assistant Cori Britt all seemed pleased that it had gone well.

I was pleased that no one razzed me too harshly about my role. In fact, most were very encouraging, again reminding me that The Pond is a gold mine of good-hearted people.

The recognition made me feel so good it almost healed my hangover.

As for other memorable lines, we’ll just have to wait see what makes the final cut.

Either way, who really cares? We had a great night, met some nice people and can now all look forward to the show’s March premier.

Memorable lines?

Frankly, my dears, I don’t give a damn.

Now, that’s a memorable line. I wish I’d have thought about using it Friday. 

Related . . .

The Golf Channel doing Palmer interviews at The Pond

Zombies at The Pond

Our adopted cat finds a home

(656 words)

I guess it got my attention when the girls started including in their dinner grace a prayer to God that their daddy would start being nicer to the stupid dog.

It’s fair to conclude I’ve hated the dog ever since at least Oct. 2010 when I wrote this post I headlined, “I hate my dog.”

That was the year Val and I had talked about succumbing to the girls’ incessant begging to get them a dog. 

My mistake was giving three sweet-hearted females the green light to pick up a dog without giving them a sensible blue print for how a dog should act and look.

First of all, a dog isn’t something you should have to stoop to pet and you shouldn’t be able to pick it up with one hand and put it in your purse.

A real dog should be of consequential dimensions. 

I’ve seen studies that show blood pressure rates of heart patients plummet when calm therapy dogs enter the room.

Being in the room with Snickers when the door bell rings, a car passes or a single leaf falls to the ground causes him to react in ways that make my heart feel like it’s going to explode.

High-strung and nervous, he’s the Andy Dick of dogs. As I’ve said before, he’s the kind of dog more likely to ignite blazing fires than cuddle up in front of them.

So, yes, I hate him for reasons I believe make perfect sense.

But hearing my daughters narc me out to The Creator for being mean to a little animal is sort of a wake-up call. As much as it galls me to admit it, He must have created Snickers, too, so the plea is likely the kind of thing to sail right through His divine prayer spam filter.

And unlike the redundant prayers to end wars, starvation, despair and loneliness this is maybe the one prayer over which I have god-like dominion.

God can change my heart, but if He’s too busy it’s a simple attitude adjustment I can take of it myself. Who cares who gets the credit?

Besides, I’d hate to think of the girls sitting around the Thanksgiving table in 2019 all Gothed up and offering prayers to Satan and hearing my wife mutter, “You know, you really should have been nicer to Snickers.”

So into this mix strolls the stray cat.

And I’m not talking about Brian Setzer, which would have been really cool. I love him. Met him, in fact, back stage at a Stray Cats concert in 1982.

The girls heard her meowing when they were back down the creek that rumbles through the woods behind our property.

She was absolutely adorable.

I don’t know whether it was the girls’ prayers, my change of heart or the prevailing cuteness of the tiny feline, but I was kitten smitten.

She was cuddly, she was sweet, she was playful. She was everything Snickers is not.

And now after just eight days, she is gone.

Val was firm in saying she didn’t want another pet, even as she fell in love with the cat, too.

The girls took the cat to church yesterday and our wonderful pastor allowed them to her up with them to the children’s sermon by the altar. He told the congregation how we were trying to find a home for the stray.

A lovely elderly woman couldn’t help herself. After the service, she took the cat we never named to her home.

The girls cried and cried and cried.

Me, I had mixed emotions. 

I was really hoping this adorable kitten could be a healing bridge in the relationship between me and the stupid dog.

Now, it's just me and Snickers.

Either way, I’m more sure than ever that my daughters' prayers will be answered.

My heart is bound to be changed.

It will either soften or it will explode.

Related . . .

Our bum-sniffing dog

Santorum’s right: Man marrying dogs in Wisconsin!

R.I.P. Buster, our 19-year-old cat

My favorite Elvis songs

(987 words)

I guess it was around this day back in 1987 that I began judging people’s musical tastefulness based on what they declared was their favorite Elvis song.

Blame Bob Greene.

He wrote a Chicago Tribune column which I ignored because I thought it was a common snoozer and because I believed it was foolhardy for anyone within 500 miles of Mike Royko to bother writing columns as long as the Royko did.

And Greene worked just down the hall from Royko.

Greene, by the way, was dismissed in disgrace in 2002 when it came to light he was taking 17-year-old girls to hotel rooms to cuddle.

But then, as now, I was always eager for any distraction that would keep me from doing actual work, so when a buddy of mine told me to read a Greene column about Elvis’s music I was happy to do so.

Twenty-six years later, many of the lines are seared into my brain.

It was a great column.

On the 10th anniversary of Presley’s death at 42, Greene referenced a news story that asked about 50 mid-80’ celebrities to name their favorite Elvis song and Greene made editorial comments.

He complimented astronomer Carl Sagan for selecting “Little Sister” and “Marie’s the Name (of his latest flame).”

“Hound Dog” fans included Don Johnson, Phyllis Diller, Paul Newman and Moses Malone.

Burt Reynolds, Dolly Parton, Elliott Gould and Merle Haggard favored “Don’t Be Cruel.”

But most of the column dealt with the song literary giant Norman Mailer selected as his favorite.

It was “Polk Salad Annie.” He said he liked it because it was “really peppy.”

Greene was incredulous. He gave Mailer his due for his success as a writer, his awards and acclaim, but then turned on him for his Elvis song choice. 

He wrote: “His success speaks for itself. But in the field of Presleyana, I feel confident that I speak for most of America when I examine Mailer’s apparent reverence for “Polk Salad Annie” and come to the only logical conclusion:

“Jeez, the guy’s an idiot.”

It’s still very funny.

And it’s the only thing I remember Greene ever having written and if today anyone asks me to mention one interesting fact about Bob Greene I’d tell the story of how he’d play footsie with high school girls who came to him to learn about what it took to be a writer -- and I’ll bet he didn’t mention the part about being creepy around kids.

But ever since that day I’ve felt the need to be prepared in case anyone was going to judge me based on my favorite Elvis song.

There’s just so many.

I love Elvis. Today at Graceland they are commemorating his death with another candlelight vigil to be attended by 100,000 fans.

One of them is Tony Yoken. He’s the Sirius XM announcer for the all-Elvis radio channel. I asked if he could provide a list of the most played songs and he did, but he was unable to gauge an actual ranking.

The list of 25 includes all the usual suspects: “Don’t Be Cruel,” “Suspicious Minds,” “Heartbreak Hotel,” “Are You Lonesome Tonight,” “One Night,” “It’s Now or Never,” “All Shook Up,” “(Let Me Be) Your Teddy Bear,” and “Such a Night.”

Pick any of them and you’ll be sure to avoid scorn.

But to be cool, you need something a little edgier. Feel free to choose from my list, one I’ll play on the channel if it ever considers me for the guest DJ role Yoken so graciously mentioned.

What’s my favorite Elvis song?

I’d have to say “Jailhouse Rock,” but I always turn it up when these comparative rarities come on.

• “Such a Night” -- With vocals that range from coy to euphoric, this 1960 hit always gets me twitching. 

• “U.S. Male” -- From 1968, I love the swagger and clever word play on this one. It was written by Jerry Reed, who’d go on to be more famous as “The Snowman” in “Smokey and the Bandit.”

• “Are You Lonesome Tonight” -- Not the version you're thinking of, although I love that one, too. One of the great things about the Elvis channel are the rich rarities. Apparently Elvis used to change the lyrics to this one in concert for laughs. For instance, he’d change the line, “Do you gaze at your doorstep and picture me there?” to “Do you gaze at your bald head and wish you had hair?” And he cracks himself up, gloriously so. He loses control and giggles his way through the rest of the song. Perhaps he was high. Either way, it’s hilarious.

• “Hey Jude” -- I couldn’t believe it when I heard this the first time. It’s not good, but I love what it represents. If Elvis heard a song he liked, he’d call up the band and they’d record it. He just loved to sing. He does a better job with “Bridge Over Troubled Water” and, of course, “My Way,” but I find these oddball rarities irresistible. I think I even heard him singing some Dylan, as incredible as that seems.

• “Polk Salad Annie” -- Greene was right. This song is awful. But hearing this one will always remind me of its cameo in this outstanding Ray Wylie Hubbard song, “Mother Blues.” Check it out. In it Hubbard says he’s ignoring a woman who’s pestering him to play “Polk Salad Annie.” Then he hears her say the song turns her insides into warm butter and makes her want to take off her clothes and dance around in her underwear, a statement that makes Hubbard go right into, “Down in Louisiana where the gators grow so mean . . .” It’s hilarious and proves that even at his worst, Elvis can never be ignored.

Other favorites: “Devil in Disguise,” “Kentucky Rain,” “Don’t,” “Guitar Man,” “That’s All Right.”

What are yours?

Don’t worry, I’m not like Bob Greene. I won’t judge you.

And your daughters are safe with me, too, and you’re welcome to chaperone in case anything I do makes you all shook up.

The Golf Channel doing Palmer interviews at The Pond

(704 words)

Friday night at The Pond promises to be either one of the best or one of the worst nights in the bar’s 59-year history.

And one way or the other, a disproportionate share of the glory or the blame will likely fall on me.

That’s because on Friday at 5 p.m., producers from The Golf Channel will descend on my favorite bar to film locals yapping about Arnold Palmer.

And I had nothing to do with it. Honest.

Blame the Pond cheese sticks.

One of Palmer’s most trusted assistants has been hooked on them since he first started coming to The Pond about 20 years ago as a Saint Vincent College student. He now lives in Orlando where he helps Palmer oversee his globe-spanning empire.

Lavish business trips to exotic destinations in China or Europe are as routine to him as ordering Pond cheese sticks are to me.

He’s a very worldly, very refined and discriminating gent -- and I’m not laying it on extra thick just because I know he also loves this blog (thanks, Cori!). 

So when he asked me last week to share on-camera some of my Palmer stories for the show, he also said he wanted to include some Latrobe locals talking about Palmer -- and he wanted to have them do it right here at The Pond.

He asked me to line up some local characters to tell some great stories about Palmer.

Note: he didn’t say great true stories.

So now I have a vested interest in shining as positive a light as possible on both Palmer and The Pond.

Palmer, of course, should be a cinch. Everyone knows his accomplishments, his philanthropy and his friendships with both regal and democratic heads of state.

But The Golf Channel isn’t coming to The Pond to hear any of that.

That’s why tonight I’m hosting Pond auditions to get creative storytellers to tell tales that add depth and color to the Palmer legend.

And if all goes as planned, they will be legendary indeed.

First, I’ll be casting a glowing young woman who’ll say Palmer just appeared out of no where to deliver her healthy septuplets. “My water broke in traffic and I knew I’d never make it to the hospital so I pulled over and just tried to stay calm. I knew help was on the way. See, in Orlando pregnant mothers go to the Palmer hospital to deliver babies. Here in Latrobe, Arnold Palmer comes to pregnant mothers.” 

There will tear-jerker stories of Palmer rescuing cats from trees, saving blind grannies from burning buildings and thrilling tales of Palmer interrupting his Sunday morning round of golf to repair broken TVs moments before Steeler kickoffs.

I intend to cast a dead ringer look-alike to the Dos Equis “World’s Most Interesting Man” who can be filmed sitting in the corner and repeatedly mouthing in astonishment, “Wow!”

And don’t bother auditioning for the role of the eternally grateful woman Palmer bequeaths after hearing her pitiful story about her no-account husband who spends night after night in a local tavern dreaming up preposterous stories for his deadbeat blog.

The role’s perfect for my wife.

I’m not worried about The Pond shining. People love The Pond. It’s very authentic. Earlier this week WDVE 102.5 sportscaster Mike Prisuta raved on-air about his enjoyable Monday evening Pond visit. He gushed about the bar’s extensive and unique bobblehead collection that includes St. Francis of Assisi and the be-speckled Empire Carpet Man (sing it with me! “800-588-2300, Empire!”)

What does concern me is the bar being infiltrated by fame-seeking parents barging in with their tuba-toting prodigies.

That’s what happened in Mayberry once when Deputy Fife confused an ordinary shoe salesman for a big shot Hollywood talent scout. All the town rubes brought their tin-eared brats hoping they’d be discovered.

So, please, don’t anyone come to The Pond tomorrow at 5 with their children hoping a Golf Channel cameo will catapult them to international fame.

It’s just not going to happen.

Not a chance.

Not unless the kid shows up ready to play a mean ukelele folk song about the amazing adventures of the great Arnold Palmer!

Related . . .

It’s a bobblehead world

Arnold Palmer NOT attending my book signing

Yesterday Arnold Palmer watched me golf

Arnold & Elvis: Cool things raining on me!

(737 words)

One of the real benefits of having a blog is that when anything really cool happens you just write about it, which is much simpler than learning, say, skywriting.

And, boy, if I ever learn how to skywrite, you can bet I’ll blog about it!

But last week I had two really bona fide cool things happen to me and I just have to blog about it.

I do this knowing full well doing so could be wildly premature.

Offers could be withdrawn. I could get arrested. The callers behind the proposals could cruelly reveal they were just messin’ with Sasquatch.

Oh, well. I’ve lived with disappointment before so we’ll just see what happens.

In the meantime, I choose to bask in being the recipient of two incredibly cool offers.

Yes, last week I was approached by representatives for international media conglomerates to be an on-air expert on two of America’s most indelible icons: Arnold Palmer and Elvis Presley.

Let’s start with Elvis, which is appropriate because as John Lennon said when asked if he liked Frank Sinatra, “Before Elvis, there was nothing.”

It will be 36 years ago Friday that Presley died at the age of 42. 

We can argue back ‘n’ forth all day and night about what the greatest Elvis song is: Is it “Jailhouse Rock?” “Heartbreak Hotel?” “Hound Dog?”

Who’s to say?

Well, Graceland, that’s who.

About a month ago I reached out to the Graceland-based all-Elvis radio station on Sirius XM to see if they could tell me the top 10 most played songs for the story I’ll be posting on Friday. I included some of the links you’ll see below and was pleased to get a jiffy response.

We had a friendly back ‘n’ forth over a week that culminated with evening DJ Tony Yoken providing a list and of the most-played songs since the station launched Elvis Radio in July 2004.

And there was this: “If you ever come to Graceland, we’d love to invite you to ‘Guest DJ’ live in our Sirius XM Radio studio.”

I tingle every time I read that sentence -- and I read it about a dozen times a day.

How cool is that?

So I’m hoping sometime this fall to swoop though Columbus, Ohio, and pick up my buddy Quinn Fallon and road trip to Graceland.

Quinn owns the hot new Columbus bar called “Little Rock.” He’s also the great singer-songwriter for the band Los Gravediggers. So he’s one of the coolest guys I know.

And, get this, when he and Jessie got married in 2004, the ceremony was presided over by Elvis Presley!

They told all the guests it was an Elvis Presley impersonator, but I believe that was a ruse to foil the paparazzi. 

I believe it was Elvis.

So that’s just great. I’m incredibly jazzed about the opportunity.

And I’m coasting on that good vibe all day when less than 12 hours later I get an e-mail from a buddy who works with Arnold Palmer.

I’ve written many times about my history with and fondness for Palmer. He’s just the greatest and I believe being able to say I’m in any way associated with him is the coolest thing about me.

There may soon be compelling video evidence of that latter.

My buddy said The Golf Channel was coming to Latrobe to do a lavish profile of Palmer and he was recommending they talk to me for an on-camera interview, providing, he said, I agree to shave, get a haircut and and wear a shirt.

Yes, the Palmer people know me better than the Presleys do.

I was so floored by the offer I told my friend I’d go one better.

I told him I was going to run out and get some new nose hair trimmers.

And I did! 

It’s the Wahl 5640-1001 Lithium Micro Groomsman Personal Trimmer. It does such a bang-up job on nostril hairs I’m thinking of seeing how it does in containing the thatch of backyard bamboo.

Of course, as I said, this could all be premature. My hopes of prominent international exposure could be dashed. 

The fates could intervene. They could steal my euphoria, my self-respect and my last shred of dignity.

And that will make me sad.

But there’s one thing, I swear, no one can ever take from me.

My new nose hair trimmers!

And I’ll be cool with that.

Related . . .

Arnold Palmer gave me noogies on Monday

Happy 80th birthday Arnold Palmer!

Remembering Elvis, again

The true tale of how I became an iron-bladdered superhero

(735 words)

Alfred Hitchcock said the length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder. Interesting perspective from a filmmaker whose last name concludes with a vulgarity involving an essential component of male urination. 

Of course, he made the statement about 30 years prior to the introduction of the pause button that rendered his point mostly moot.

Besides, I disagree that movies are too long.

Bad movies are too long.

Good movies aren’t long enough.

Therefore, the real problem is that bladders are too small.

Reliable internet medical sources -- and is there any other kind? -- say the average human bladder holds about 300 milliliters (10 ounces) of urine.

If that’s true then I’m exceptional because my bladder can hold about a six pack of Yuengling. 

So when I say anything outlandish enough to cause people to blurt I’m full of crap, I have a ready rebuttal. I’m full of something, true, but it is not crap.

But talking rebuttals in this case would be getting off subject, not to mention off track.

It’s taken me 50 years to learn my superhero identity.

I am Elasta Bladder!

It’s true. I can drink buckets of beer, lemonade, water -- you name it -- and hold it forever. The discovery had made me what can only be described as cocky.

Just yesterday, we enjoyed a splendid inner tube float down Stonycreek River in Johnstown with the friendly folks at Coal Tubin’. It was great.

The only problem was that one of our party started complaining about the need to use the bathroom the instant the rubber hit the river. Setting aside the fact that we were immersed in body of water in a town known for historic flooding, I knew the person had just been in a bathroom 30 minutes previous.

So I went off.

“You have the bladder of a 7-year-old little girl! For god’s sake, either hold it or just piss in the river and stop your whining!”

My pee pep talk infuriated my wife, I guess, because the person I was screaming at for behaving like she had the bladder of a 7 year old girl was our 7 year old daughter, Lucy.

It was her first time in white water so I think a big part of it was nerves. Either way, her inability to urinate left me pissed.

I have no idea from whence her unreasonable fears sprang.

Or do I?

See I wonder if my superhero bladder might stem from some childhood incidents not dissimilar to my daughter’s. Yes, I was once a small child in a situation where angry grown men were screaming at me to urinate.

It was in the cavernous men’s rooms at old Three Rivers Stadium back when the Pittsburgh Steelers were winning Super Bowls with unparalleled regularity.

I believe the architects who designed the stadium were aware that the average human bladder could hold just 10 ounces of urine and merely assumed Steeler fans would comply with that biological imperative.

But they did not. Everyone was drunk. And everyone had to pee. Right away.

So there I was. I’d consume my 12-ounce glass of warm, flat soda and maybe 15 minutes later need relief.

I vividly remember my nerves twitching standing in those steamy, stinking men’s rooms, my eyes about butt high on the guy in front of me. It got worse the second my zipper descended and I approached the porcelain.

“C’mon, kid! We don’t got all day. Do your business and get out!”

I don’t think they heckled Terry Bradshaw as relentlessly as they did 10-year-old boys stricken with shy bladder.

I couldn’t go. I remember zipping up, fleeing and not peeing until the game was over and we were home and I was behind a locked bathroom door.

It didn’t scare the piss out of me. Quite the contrary.

I guess what happened to me wasn’t unlike what happened in the Spider Man saga. But instead of Peter Parker being transformed, it became a matter of me being determined to forever more just park my peter.

Thus ends the story of Elasta Bladder in Flood City, a dandy name for a comic action flick, maybe one that would have interested old Hitchcock himself.

I’d pay to produce it but right now I don’t have a pot to piss in.

On the bright side, I don’t really need one.

Related . . .

A galling story on useless body parts

Flush-free toilets in golden age