2013 Road Trip Day 9: Circle Of Life

I know I've used enough cheap metaphors for one lifetime on this Homeric odyssey already, but the "Circle Of Life" definitely fits. We went to see The Lion King on Broadway today.

My daughter said it was "better than the movie." My son said he didn't like it, but was riveted throughout. As for me, I thought it had great Broadway production value, choreography, and puppetry. But the play was 2 1/2 hours, whereas the movie (I checked IMDB) clocked in at 1:29. That's just too long, fully one-half of a 5-Hour Energy.

But something Simba said late in the show struck me:

"How can I go back? I'm not who I used to be."

There are too many connections for me while having my kids with me in New York City. I lived here from 1996-2002, but it seems like a lifetime ago. The sights of smoke billowing from a manhole, the smells of a pretzel stand, the taste of a slice of pizza, the agony of a stagnant and overheated subway stand - they all tap into whatever part of the brain that links to memory. The kids don't have those memories and will likely never know them. This part is my journey alone.

So I went AWOL for a couple of hours to the old Upper West Side before meeting a friend for dinner. And at 96th & Amsterdam, it was still there.

The Dive Bar was getting a facelift on the exterior but it was pretty much the same on the interior. It's really anything but a "dive" with whiskey and beer selections that can be sampled for weeks.

The Yankees were playing the Red Sox and it brought back a flood of more memories - how many baseball games did I watch there? There was also a legendary high-stakes Super Bowl pool, and I watched several of the big games there. But more than that, it was my spot around the corner. A place to meet friends or kick back after work or just think.

There hasn't been a place like this for me in Omaha or Kalamazoo or Savannah, but of course life is different now with new responsibilities. But every once in a while you can sit on a barstool and relive the past in your thoughts, and come back to the same point in your circle.

Mad Men: The One Where MLK Gets It

It wasn't a prediction I made in a public forum, but those are words I said to another human in advance of Sunday's episode.

Yes it's a spoiler, and yes it's as insensitive as Harry Crane bitching about missed commercial advertising opportunities with the ongoing MLK assassination coverage. Though I enjoyed watching Pete Campbell take the moral high ground with his displaced outrage.

Mad Men lives off these reactions to the times of 45 years ago, and the ensemble's soulful response was definitely something I was right to look forward to.

Matthew Weiner's storyboard also dealt with the ugly riots in the aftermath of the death of Dr. King. It was reminiscent of an incredibly poignant episode of The Jeffersons, which flashed back to "The First Store," George's first store opening the day Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot. George had to sift through his anger and find the perspective to cool down his son Lionel.

But I digress - we wondered how Don & Peggy would continue to be connected after she left SCDP.

After the submarine job by Peggy's firm did on Heinz last week, the shock on award night was a perfect opportunity for them to intersect. And the national tragedy was a great chance to realize what's around them that they've taken for granted.

Don has a son who is growing up, opening Don's eyes for the first time while they take in a double-feature of Planet Of The Apes. But Don is haunted by his own childhood and his own father and realizes briefly how lucky he is.

And Don has great scene with Megan. Despite all the pretending in their marriage, she seems to be the one person who can extract Don's innermost feelings.

Peggy put her bid in on an impressive Upper East Side apartment, and it fell through. So she finally asks Abe, her hop-along hippie/flunky boyfriend what he really thinks. Abe wants to raise their children around "different kinds of people," and suggests the West Side.

I think Peggy's move to the West Side over the East Side is one of the great triumphant, seminal moments in the history of the show, but I'm biased.

Don and Peggy's self-hating, shallow lives in advertising have somehow netted people that love them unconditionally. And it took a horrific event to jolt them into reality.

September 11, 2001 - An Upper West Side Perspective

Eleven years ago - it isn't a round number for commemoration, but today shares one thing with the original date: Tuesday...which is significant. It's generally a very light air travel day. That and the weather was perfect. So the planes took off with no delays.

I had a flight scheduled that morning - 10:30 AM. LaGuardia through Memphis to El Paso, Texas. The car service arrived at 9 AM on schedule. Back then you only had to allow for NYC traffic to get to the airport, not security.

But right before I exited Apt #8G of the building pictured above, NY1 had live pictures of smoke billowing from the North Tower of the World Trade Center. They were reporting a plane crash, but the size of the plane or damage wasn't known. It wasn't exactly a ho-hum moment, but at that point there was no guarantee my plane would be grounded. So I went downstairs and hopped in the waiting Lincoln. Business as usual.

My Russian driver had one of the AM news channels on, and as we headed east through Harlem we heard that the second tower was hit. I got a call from my Jewish Mom, which was the last incoming or outgoing call that went through on my cell for the next several hours. I told her I was fine and aware of the news she was reporting, but traffic was starting to bottleneck so I had to tend to my immediate situation.

The driver was asking me what to do. I had no idea. I called the airline and couldn't connect, so we tried to keep plugging east but the outbound bridge was roadblocked. If we had gotten across 10 minutes earlier, we wouldn't have returned to Manhattan that day.

At that point I didn't need ultimate confirmation, I knew I wasn't going to my event in El Paso or spending the weekend in Memphis with my girlfriend, or going anywhere but home. It was
still about my issues, until we turned south and I saw the huge clouds of smoke obscuring the towers which should have been visible about 5-6 miles straight ahead. And then the news radio report came through that the Pentagon had been hit as well.

I got home and plopped in front of the TV for several hours (several days really). I had quit smoking cold-turkey about 10 days prior in conjunction with the emergency root canal I had underwent, so I was especially fidgety. Landlines were intermittent for several hours, which of course meant the modem-based internet was skittish as well. So updates from friends and loved ones were trickling in.

My friend (and boss on this event) was en route to El Paso when his Chicago-bound plane was diverted to Syracuse. He rented a car there and returned to his family in Connecticut that evening. ABC Sports colleagues of mine were stuck on the ground in Denver after the Monday Night opener. Some of them drove all the way back to New York. I got calls and e-mails from high school friends and ex-girlfriends to see if I was OK. I played phone tag with a woman I had dated recently who worked in one of the WTC satellite buildings.

The local news was alerting us that trauma units were looking for blood donations, but by the time I got to the spot in my neighborhood, they were already over-supplied. I changed into some running gear with radio headphones and went to Riverside Park for a run. I thought there wouldn't be anyone out, but a lot of people were just as stir-crazy and had the same idea I had.

It was late-afternoon by then and it was still a picture-perfect, gorgeous day. Only problem was you could taste the ashes in the air. The radio news programs were becoming repetitive at that point, as they are designed to be. So I switched to Sports Radio 660 WFAN, and Mike And The Mad Dog (Mike Francesa & Chris Russo).

They were having an animated discussion, with expert guests and regular callers, which somehow developed into how the attacks centered around the U.S. support of Israel. I remember specifically bits and pieces about the quandary that a religious nation-state presents, but I never found their opinions to be objectionable.

They were doing what they always did, taking the story of the moment and spinning it off the cuff. They were true New Yorkers, taking calls from the most passionate New Yorkers, trying to make sense of the greatest tragedy of our lifetime. Granted they were light years away from their area of expertise, but it was the first place where you could hear real people expressing their anger and sadness.

A friend of mine had slept on my couch on-and-off for a few nights after his girlfriend kicked him out. He stopped by to pick up his things, and returned to his apartment that evening. The perspective of 9/11 began their reconciliation. They're married with two kids today.

My parents met me at a bagel place, one of the few places open that evening. We all walked together since we had no idea which subways were running and which weren't. We collectively shook our heads failing to understand all the senseless killing, but how could we not appreciate still having each other at the end of this day?

Baseball returned 6 days later and the New York Mets, clad in their NYPD, NYFD FDNY, and PAPD (Port Authority PD) hats reeled off a bunch of wins in a row, coming up just inches short of the playoffs. The Yankees made a series of heroic comebacks in the 2001 World Series before falling to Arizona. Baseball bonded the New York community and however you feel about it, we still sing God Bless America in the 7th inning to this day.

One of the things I noticed in the months following was a lack of interest in individual accomplishments. The Emmy Awards were postponed 2 months. I remember the lack of build-up for the Heisman Trophy, eventually won by Nebraska's Eric Crouch. Anyone recall that?

Several months later I was in the elevator in my apartment building with a full German TV crew. One of my neighbors gave birth on September 11, 2001, and they were doing a big documentary.

Life went on but it was never the same, not in New York, and not at any airport. 

Ground Zero became a tourist destination, and I have not visited. I can acknowledge everything that happened there, and also appreciate the detachment of being just outside the zone of something so horrific.

As for me, I never made it to El Paso. But life has taken plenty of twists and turns in the last eleven years, more than I possibly could have imagined than if I still lived in #8G and that Upper West Side bachelor pad. And there are many days I lose perspective, but not today. 

Tomorrow on Backtime: the 9/11-related movie that you will never see on broadcast TV again.

Backtime Memo-Random: Atlanta 1996 (Part I)

Some wonder what's the point in keeping a daily weblog "blog." I never really had an answer. Every would-be response sounds self-absorbed like my opinions mean something. Many of the "hits" come from pictures that I post that are received and/or routed through Google images - they don't really read my commentary on "all things," which is my mission.

On the other hand, what's been accomplished on this site in the last 47 days has been the seeds of my memoirs in the television business. I don't know if a collection of my anecdotes would make a good book and I certainly don't know if anyone would read. But the stories resonate for the few, and are now easily accessible to me on the World Wide Web.

Since the Backtime reboot, I've unearthed experiences from my own mind with memories triggered by various people and places, and now: Atlanta 1996.

May 13, 1996

Orlando led Atlanta 3-games-to-0 in the NBA Eastern Conference Semifinals. So we were going through the motions and we thought the Hawks would as well. The Atlanta-based Turner Sports crew I was working with all had thrown in the towel on their hometown team.

But Smitty and Mookie (one of my favorite backcourts ever) weren't done. 

Steve Smith hit 7 3's and filled it up for 35, inspiring decibel levels that were rarely reached in the old Omni. The series continued. We all had to board a plane to Orlando. And freelancers like me got paid for an extra game. 

August 1, 1996

It was a hot and nasty month to spend in Atlanta at the Georgia State Fair Olympics. Most of the time was spent at horrible Georgia State dorm Carter Hall, that was converted into a crew hotel with third-world amenities. Or it was in the catacombs under Atlanta Olympic Stadium, now Turner Field, slaving away at a graphics desk on the world feed of track & field, for a Finnish producer/director that I could barely understand.

There were a few nights to let off some steam, but each day was grinding misery. Until the action on the track took on a life of its own. 

In our graphics cave, we were chugging constantly. Individual and heat lineups, results boards, schedule of events - what's next up? But don't miss any jumpers, throwers, or medal ceremonies. Was it the preliminary or the semifinals of the women's 400 intermediate hurdles? Was the bulky Romanian on his 2nd or 3rd hammer throw? We were always chasing our tail and my mind was soup. 

Until that transcendent moment. The 200M Finals. Michael Johnson had already won the 400M and was shooting for the unprecedented double. He came out in his gold shoes, stretching and bouncing around. 

And then everything stopped. There were no high jumps or shot puts. The 200M Finalist lineup was on the screen and the individual IDs were locked and loaded. All we had to do was watch history. 

My graphics operator read my mind and simply said, "Go." I sprinted. Not quite as fast as Michael Johnson, but around a couple of bends, up a ramp, and to the corner of the stadium infield just in time for the gun to go off. Johnson made the turn right in front of me. And I saw history.

Michael Johnson shattered the world record. It was one of the great athletic moments in human history, and I saw it with my own eyes. It made the last few days of the Olympics a little more palatable. 

That and the check I received at the end. Thank you very much - first month, last month, security deposit on an Upper West Side bachelor pad. But the Atlanta experiences of 1996 wasn't done. They got even better. Part II tomorrow.

A Bridge & Tunnel Hit and Run

"Don't let the past remind us of what we are, not now..." CSN

My yearly trip back to the old neighborhood was actually a trip to Newark. A train to a subway (I was embarrased I couldn't remember which was the express or the local) led me to my old front door. The slice of pizza was nostalgic. The old seat at the Dive Bar, although clear of smoke in the air, was just old. Seeing the family for dinner was comfortable.

Back to business - Seton Hall taking on St. John's in a Big East "old school" matchup in Newark. Now this takes me back. Back before the Big East was powered by teams like Louisville and Marquette. The Big East is like the Borg from Star Trek, assimilating teams left and right to add to an all-powerful collective.

It reminds me of what a Jersey kid and NYC dweller loved about the Big East. A couple of local schools who fed off local talent. Now St. John's and Seton Hall are fighting to stay relevant in the Big East 2.0. Both teams are very young - 8 of the 10 starters are sophomores, and the future is in their hands.

Hope you catch the action from "The Rock" - the Prudential Center. It's the newly minted jewel of downtown Newark, and may or may not have been built by Ralph Cipharetta representing Soprano family interests.