The first radio job I could get was with WXXI, AM 1370, an NPR affiliate in Rochester.  I was interviewed by Bud Lowell and took over the Sunday morning announcing gig that was the 6 AM to noon shift.  Lee Strong trained me for my shift.  He also worked for the Catholic Courier.

I mentioned to Lee that I was a drummer and he told me one of his coworkers at the Courier was trying to start up a band and would have him call me.  This man was named Rob Cullivan.  Rob was a songwriter, singer and harmonica player.  He was trying to form a band and was interested to see if he could do it without a guitar player.

I enlisted my younger brother, Jeff, as the bass player and was introduced to Andy T. on keyboards and Paul Hansen who played percussion.  Paul knew Rob through some sort of Brockport connection.  The band was called the Moonmen.

When my first lease ran out on my apartment, Paul invited me to move to the house he shared with three other people.  At that point, I was not only doing the Sunday morning shift at WXXI, I was also producing two talk shows: Bob Smith’s “1370 connection” and Susan Harf’s “Real Life with Susan Harf.”  I was also working a sales job for a buyers club and making very little money.

My brother used to come up on Monday night to practice with the band, spend the night, spend the day Tuesday, then practice Tuesday night and drive back to Ithaca since he was attending Cornell at the time.  On one of the days he was staying with me he found a list of job openings that one of my housemates had printed out and left on the table.  One of the openings was an operations position at Ambrosia Software.  I interviewed and got the job.

I met David “Cajun” at Ambrosia Software.  He was in charge of customer support or something like that and had a basset hound named Rufus.  He also hosted a show at WITR called Rochester Sessions.  Rochester Sessions hosted local bands and had them play for an hour on Tuesday nights live in the studio, no audience, just them and the host.  Cajun wanted to learn to run the board and not host, since he knew I had a radio background and was in a band, he invited me to host.  I took over hosting duties for the next two years and he, with the help of Ed Trefsger, took over engineering duties.

One night we had Bob Prong and his Salt of the Earth band.  This band was a four piece including Bob on vocals and guitar, Tom Chamberlain on vocals and guitar, Chris Clinton on bass and vocals and John “Frenchy” French on drums.  They came in to the studio and insisted on playing with the lights off to set the mood.  Frenchy played on Bob’s electronic drum kit.  I was not impressed and found them pretentious.

My brother was no longer playing in the band I was in and we had moved on from a group called the Moonmen to be called the Druthers.  We had a new bass player, Kip, and a new keyboard player/singer, Don Anonymous.  Rob Cullivan, Paul Hansen and I remained in the band.

A few months later, I happened upon a show at the Blue Sunday coffee house.  I do not recall the name of the band but it was two guys, bass and acoustic guitar and I recognized a few of the songs.  We were sitting at the bar when they came up and told me I looked familiar.  I told them they were on my radio show once and they introduced themselves as Chris Clinton and Tom Chamberlain.  They were still playing and needed a drummer.  I had a practice space, we arranged a practice session and Ned Pepper was born.

At one time, the druthers and ned pepper shared a practice space but that is not the point of this discussion.  One night, the guys in Ned Pepper were trying to convince one of our friends, Dawn Botting, to be a bit of a manager and book shows for us.  That conversation didn’t really turn out with her doing that but she had brought with her two other friends, Daisy Hutchinson and Lisa DeJohn, who hung out with us while we were making our sales pitch.

A number of months later I was at a show at Water Street Music Hall and happened to see Dawn with someone else.  I was introduced once again to Lisa DeJohn.  A year and a few months later we were engaged.  Four months after that we were married.

So, Rochester, WXXI, Lee Strong, Rob Cullivan, Paul Hansen, Ambrosia Software, Cajun, WITR, Tom and Chris, and Dawn, led to Lisa.  It was quite a journey.  I left a lot out but still got to the happy ending.  Well, perhaps to the “to be continued” part.

Anyway, I’m now watching the US Pro Cycling challenge which is based in Colorado and they just flashed Levi Leipheimer’s statistics on the screen.  He’s 37 (one year younger than me), 5’7″, six inches shorter, 136 pounds.  Are you kidding?  No wonder I feel like I’m dragging a ton of bricks up climbs while I watch him fly up a mountain, and he’s not even one of the better climbers (look, he’s good, he’s really, really good, I couldn’t hold his wheel unless he handed it to me as his mechanic after a flat).  The guy is 66 pounds lighter.  Go ahead, do the math, I’ll wait.  Okay, got it?  Did you get 192 pounds?  Yes?  Well then go back to school or get out your calculator.  That’s 202 pounds (weighed after my ride today of course) which seems at least a bit normal.  Of course, when I do my health assessment for work it tells me I’m overweight.  I find that funny since I do everything I can to stay in shape.  Anyway, every time I climb a hill I think about how fast I could climb it if I weighed 136 pounds.  Of course, that would mean that I was 12 years old, or whatever age I was when I actually weighted that much.  Crazy.  At least I know I’m probably burning more calories with my ride than Levi when I ride.  Plus, my arms are bigger and oddly enough, I have more hair.  Go figure.

this is how a politician makes an omelette:  a politician is too selfless to ever make their own omelette, they would like to make one for you and hope that you like it.  they will first take your order and remind you they are up for re-election in November, a year and a half away.  they will ask you to repeat their order because they were too busy worrying about raising campaign funds for their next campaign to hear what you were saying.  they will go away and make the omelette.  they will come back and hand you a plate with dried toast.  you will ask, where is my omelette and they explain that one of their other constituents came into your house while they were making your omelette and that person owns a company that needs a government contract so that person gave the politician a contribution and received your omelette along with some toast.  these are the pieces that were left on the plate.

this is how an elite professional football player makes an omelette:  are you kidding? they don’t make their own omelette, they have people who do that for them.  in fact, they will often order an omelette with all the fixings, usually with the help of their agent to make sure they get just the right type of cheese.  halfway through the omelette, they will decide they need a different kind of omelette since they saw a player on another team eating one that looked better.  the agent will negotiate the new omelette and will handle any complaints and interviews asking why the first omelette seemed so good at first but suddenly wasn’t good enough.

this is how Chuck Norris makes an omelette:  according to the internet, without breaking any eggs.

It reminded me of an otherwise forgettable remake called Bedazzled.  The only reason to ever watch this was to see Elizabeth Hurley (a fine-looking actress even if she was a fembot after all) in various costumes throughout the movie.  It cracked me up that Brendan Frasier’s character never hit on her instead of his infatuation with his coworker but that’s not the point.  The point is, Anne Hathaway pulled that stunt during the Academy Awards and that seemed to be the only thing that kept it interesting.  I Googled the question, how many dresses and received this response: 7, plus 1 pant suit.  Thank you interwebs.

I’ve shared before some harrowing experiences at local establishments with initials in the name.  Perhaps I need to expand that to just names in the name.  A friend of ours suggested we try a place called Joey’s Pasta house in Penfield.  It has become a very busy restaurant known for its homemade pastas and sauces.  My wife made a reservation early in the week, we got a sitter and everything rolled along smoothly.  We arrived ten minutes early and were seated right away.  There were water glasses already poured, a dish with olive oil, a tomato/olive mix and garlic butter was sitting there and soon after we were seated a basket of bread arrived.  All was good.

We opened the menu, looked over a few things and wondered where the wine list was and how good that might be.  We watched our neighbor table, about two feet away from us, receive their entrees.  I closed my menu, having made my decision and we started on the bread.  We watched people moving around us, the hostess, who’s station was on the other side of the window from my wife (they could have communicated very well with hand signals), moved around sitting people, arranging the schedule, etc.  Each of us had two pieces of bread, sipped some water, looked at the menu again, and watched our neighbor table’s server return to offer them boxes for their entrees. 

Notice anything missing?  No one, not one person ever stopped by our table to greet us, offer us drinks, take our order, or really do anything other than drop off a basket of bread.  I looked at my watch, 25 minutes from sitting down we stood up, took our coats and walked past the hostess on our way out.  My wife very kindly said, “thanks for the bread”.  The hostess turned to me as I walked past and said, “what happened?”  I looked at her and said very plainly, “nothing, that’s the problem.  We’ve been here longer than 20 minutes and no one has taken our order for anything.  Thank you.”  She offered an ”I’m sorry…” as we walked away.

The place was busy, the bread was tasty, the water was water, and we really enjoyed our dinner, at Lento.

The Federal Department of Health and Human Services today issued a statement warning against using the “Craigslist Congressman” pose for Valentines greetings.  “We would like to suggest that men across the country refrain from taking pictures of themselves flexing in front of a mirror to send to their Valentine.  Our recent health reports show a majority of American men are overweight, especially following football season and we feel it would be a detriment for the overall physical health of the nation’s wives and girlfriends if we don’t keep such pictures from ever seeing the light of day.”

Verizon Wireless and AT&T have noted a spike in texts containing pictures going from accounts with male names to accounts with female names.  “Not that we actually check the pictures or account details or anything,” noted a spokesperson for AT&T, “but we do know the gender of the account owner and tend to monitor bandwidth usage.”  He continued, “We are wary of this sort of thing ever since the Brett Favre picture texting thing.  People tend to copy cat this sort of thing.  While I don’t think this is as bad an issue considering the content, I cannot vouch for the physique of many of these men sending pictures.”

The first Craigslist Congressman texting near fatality on record occurred outside a Walmart in Little Rock, Arkansas.  Sylvia Platt was leaving the store with a full cart when she received a text from her husband.  “I just thought he probably needed me to pick up some extra bacon or mayonnaise or something.  The next thing I know this picture pops up and that’s when I fell.”  Sylvia reportedly lost consciousness and was found lying in the middle of the parking lot with her cell phone clenched in her hand.  “It took me a second to figure out what it was.  I haven’t seen him with a shirt off since our wedding night and quite frankly we were both pretty drunk then so he was blurry at best.  All I can say is the man needs some sun and perhaps less bacon and mayonnaise.”  Her husband could not be reached for comment.

A spokes person for the Federal Department of Health and Human Services explained that they are working on a government funded program to assist those who just can’t help themselves.  “We are working with a few interns who are very good with Photoshop.  Our plan is to provide a site where you can upload your driver’s license photo and we will put your head on the top of an acceptable torso.  This will at least keep people from passing out in Walmart parking lots.  We do not want to encourage that behavior.”  The department hopes to obtain $2.3 billion in funding.  “Most of that will go to our lobbyists of course, as is the custom.  We hope to have this site up and running by mid 2013 which is pretty damn efficient by government standards if I do say so myself.”

Travelling always yields its share of stories and mishaps.  All too frequently we can find ourselves waiting out delays in the crowded solitude of an airport while friends and family send us encouraging words.  We’re used to the pat downs, the lines, the lousy food, the cramped quarters.  Really, everything there is about travel tends to have a negative spin.  This story is not much different.

This morning I departed our homestead for the wonders of Las Vegas.  Or at least as many wonders as I’ll be able to see since my itinerary is rather full from the time I land until I return with work related tasks.  Departing Rochester, NY is never all that difficult except that you have to connect out of a real airport somewhere along the line; mine today was Detroit, MI via Delta airlines.

The first thing that struck me upon my arrival was the security line at the airport, it stretched from the center security checkpoint all the way to one end of the terminal and looped back around.  I joined the line with little trepidation since I had plenty of time to make my flight.  Sleep had been rough the night before due to an ongoing nervous habit of missing my flight because of a faulty alarm clock.  My freshman year of college I was an Air Force ROTC cadet at RIT.  We used to have a class called Leadership Lab at 6:30 AM every Tuesday.  The very first Lead Lab found me waking up at 6:45 and running across campus.  I stood outside the room contemplating my next move before walking in confidently and sitting in an empty seat.  The seat was for the cadet commander (our highest ranking student officer) who was doing a presentation at the time.  Since then, I’ve had a bit of a phobia.  So this means whenever I have a flight the next morning (which thankfully isn’t often) I tend to sleep fitfully at best combining waking moments of brain surfing with dreams of missing my flight. 

Back in line, we were moving rather smoothly forward and then time stopped.  Or at least it seemed to.  There was a woman shouting “Roberts…we have six minutes to board the flight, six minutes.  Hurry up.”  This was referring to group of students from Robert’s Wesleyan College who were headed somewhere on an AirTran flight.  Using my incredible powers of 5:30 AM deduction, I figured out their flight was going to take off soon and this woman was hurrying them along.  Those of us in line wondered how they were going to pull of this feat.  “Roberts…we have six minutes to board!”  My fellow line people exchanged looks, I wondered if someone was going to wager on the potential for them to make their flight.  “Roberts, we have six minutes.”  Wait a second, didn’t she say six minutes two minutes ago?  Once again came the call:  “Roberts, six minutes”.  What was going on?  Were we in a time warp?  Had time frozen for the Robert’s kids?  I know some of the religious schools answer to a higher power, but one that could stop time? 

I thought this through as I made it into the security section.  I added two laptops, a digital video camera, my coat, shoes, belt, coat of armor and sword to the pile of things to slide through security.  The person working the security belt asked how my morning was going.  I told her rather well considering the hole in the space time continuum.  She smiled and wished me a nice day.  Next it was on to the body scanner.

“Please take everything out of your pockets, face that direction and hold your hands up” came the order.  “Now step outside and wait until you’re given the go ahead.”  I stepped out, the guy with the ear piece told me to stay put, and then he got the call in his ear.  “You’re all set.”  So no pat down, that did not find me disappointed.

All was progressing smoothly, perhaps too smoothly.  We boarded the tiny jet plane for Detroit, were airborne and arrived on time.  “Your carry on luggage will be plane side in the breezeway for you to get.”  I sort of like leaving my luggage there instead of finding room in the overhead bin.  Of course, as I approached the luggage rack, my attitude shifted.  Gone was my eye catching blue luggage tag.  In fact, gone was one side of the metal holding my top handle on the bag.  Gone!  This is metal.  What sort of monster had given that a mighty tug?  I was fuming.  What sort of person breaks luggage for sport?  Well, at least I have the side handle…the thought kept me cruising through Detroit’s airport labyrinth.  I arrived at the new gate on time, exchanging text messages with my wife back home who had put our daughter on the bus.  She couldn’t believe the handle was broken either.  Then came the clincher.  I rolled down the new breezeway, put my luggage on its side and grabbed the side handle.  Looking down I noticed that this too had a broken piece and I was now without either handle!  One flight, one trip, one simple task: move bag from one spot and put it another, could not be accomplished without someone breaking my bag in two places.  Was it someone in Rochester or Detroit?  A combination?  Do they mark specific bags for breaking and take care of each handle at the departing city and arriving city?  These are mysteries that will baffle me through the remainder of the trip.

 For now, I’ll sign off though.  I spent part of the flight fighting sleep to finish a work related book then cut up a live recording from a show my band played this past Saturday.  The guy in front of me keeps smacking his head against the headrest and another person keeps farting.  Airline travel continues to rock.  Like these six pretzels I’m going to eat.

I currently drive a very cool, Jeep Cherokee Sport.  It’s a 2001 which is the final year they made that model before moving on to the Jeep Liberty, Patriot; Compass lines that I guess make us feel more Anglo American, less Native American.  Of course, that’s just a quick opinion.  Anyway, I’ve come to the realization that I may have to get a mini-van.  Yep, take your jaw off the floor, it’s true.  I’m a family man after all, isn’t that the next step?  The fact that I’ve avoided it this long is probably something commendable I’m hoping.  Plus, it will better justify my purchase of some sporty two seat BMW when I hit my midlife crisis in a few years.  Of course, being a sensible person, I had to make a list of pro’s and con’s to getting a mini-van. 

Pro’s:  space (you can seat seven, have captain’s chairs for the kids which means they can sit next to each other in their own seats plus the seats come out to load drum equipment, bicycles, rocket launchers, etc), remote doors (opening the sliding doors and tailgate has to be a good thing right? Especially if you can catch someone standing behind your car a bit to close), smooth ride (let’s face it, the Jeep Cherokee sport wasn’t exactly built for cruising down the highway for hours on end at 75 MPH), add ons (I’m sure I could spring for the DVD players, heated seats, pleather or leather like substance, self cleaning, self washing, automatic driving, etc. that these things must come with now right?)

Con’s:  IT’S A MINI-VAN (toss the years of cool out the window that you have built by being in a band and the sideburns aren’t going to help since they decent from a scalp that is gradually getting more and more bald, your only hope is to get tinted windows and put on a few stickers that say things like “my other car is a Harley” or “my dog is my copilot”)

Guess I’m off to get my argyle sweater vest, some penny loafers, dad jeans and a mini-van.  It’s a sad day indeed.

I’ve long been angry at my parents and other parents in the church where I grew up for keeping something from us.  When I was in third or fourth grade, our AWANA leader was this guy who played guitar and led the singing time and then we would quote Bible verses to him that we learned, usually that same night because we were all super smart or something.  He seemed like a decent guy, I guess.  We may have made fun of his size, or the fact that he was on welfare but still had a satellite dish in his back yard to get lots of cool channels (keep in mind we were kids and didn’t know we were supposed to be politically correct yet).  We all got along so that’s really all that was important at the time.

He came up with an idea for our group to take a bike trip that would start from the church and head up to a wooded area about two or three miles from the church.  In hindsight, I’m not sure why that was wise simply considering the hills and age of our group, but we all thought it was a great idea since we liked riding bikes and going up hills meant you could go down them too.  After telling our parents of the plan, the first thing they all asked was “who is the other adult that is going?”  We were assured by our leader that there would be another one with us so everyone was happy.  However, when we got to the church to start the ride, he was the only adult that was going to go.  The kids (me included) couldn’t have cared less.  The adults were all skeptical.  Mine didn’t want me to go, but I insisted.  What could go wrong?  We were kids who knew how to handle our bikes.  We really only had one major intersection and I was sure we would all be able to ride much better than him anyway.  If there was someone to worry about it was him (in my mind because of his riding skills, in the adults’ minds…some other reason).

I’m going to spare you the details of the ride.  We went up hills and down, had to wait for him to catch up on several occasions.  We all brought our own lunches and ate them in the woods.  We rode back and our parents picked us up.  Mine asked about the ride, what had happened, was there anything unusual, etc.  I found the questions strange at the time but just answered.  The ride was fun, we rode a lot, had lunch and rode back.  That was that.

Years later, when I was in high school, this man, who had taken us on a bike trip by himself was arrested.  He was caught with a few boys and sent off to jail.  I was shocked.  My classmates were shocked.  What we didn’t know and our parents did:  it was his second offense.  He had already served time BEFORE he was our AWANA leader and took us on that bike trip.  Now I understood why my parents had such apprehension.  We dodged a bullet of sorts.

So why was I still angry?  Who was I angry with?  My parents?  Initially yes.  I couldn’t believe they didn’t tell us who this person was and why they were concerned and what we should watch out for and that they were concerned that day for legitimate reasons.  But what if they had told me, would I have even understood?  I have no idea.  After considering this situation that happened so many years ago, it really time to let it go.  Before I do that though, I have to consider the topics.  There are two things at stake here. 

1. Forgiveness.  The church had forgiven a supposedly reformed man (and to my knowledge, they forgave him again when he finished his next jail term).  Could I forgive the church for putting him in charge of not just mine but other groups?  I’m not sure.  Does it make sense for a recovering alcoholic to tend bar?  Would you have a reformed kleptomaniac guard your valuable possessions?  I’m going with no for both of those questions.  So why on earth would you have a convicted pedophile work with children?  I don’t have an answer so I guess I have not forgiven the church.
2. Parental responsibility.  I think my parents acted in the way they felt was best.  They wanted to give this person a second chance for the good of the church and didn’t want to prejudice me toward this person.  I’m sure they also didn’t want me to mistrust everyone and felt that as long as there were other adults around, everything would be okay.  Now that I have kids, I wonder how I would deal with the same situation.  We’ve already started talking to our daughter about avoiding strangers, sensing danger and not getting into cars with other people.  It’s a delicate discussion.  I don’t want her to fear everyone, but also do not want her to trust everyone.  Of course, now we can check online to see who in our neighborhood is a registered offender so we’ve got that going for us.  I’m okay with how my parents handled the situation because frankly, I’m not sure how I would have done it differently. 

I think in the end, I’m at peace with the situation.  We were fortunate that nothing happened and my parents handled it the best they could.  I have no idea what happened to that guy but I’m hoping for his sake and for the sake of others who he knows that he has completely reformed and can live a productive life. 

2 Hours in a chair will mess with your head.  If I can start letting things go that I’m hanging onto for no real reason, those 2 hours are well spent.  Let’s go for another few tomorrow shall we?