Why did’t I save more copies?

Imagine my shock when I found out last week that copies of Orbit Video magazine, which I managed, are now being sold online for $40 to $49 apiece.

Why didn’t I save more from the stacks of copies before it went under in 1989? (And why didn’t I save my old baseball cards?) I have one copy left, but I want to keep it.

Rare magazines often become collector’s items for some odd reason. Maybe we should have produced more of them.

It all started when my boss, the owner of Satellite Orbit magazine, decided to diversify with a monthly periodical that had reviews and features about movie stars. National Enquirer had just pulled the plug on the only other videotape magazine out there. But we figured we were smarter and could be successful by selling them directly at video stores.

We got tons of VHS tapes, reviewing from 50 to 100 new releases every month. One lady had the joy of reviewing maybe 30 of them, one per day. We took the rest of them home to look at. Unfortunately, most of them were utterly dreadful. There was a surplus of horror and gore films that were tough to watch.

We also had a videogame section. A 22-year-old guy was in charge of the reviews, a job that many teenage boys would have adored. I liked playing electronic golf games.

We added all kinds of features to the magazine. One of my biggest-ever challenges as an editor was handling a horoscope column. The writer was bored with simple lists of the month’s outlook for Leos and Sagittarius and wanted to write feature articles about astrology instead. No, thank you.

Our readership never took off. Research showed that customers at video stores were rarely happy. Theycouldn’t find the movie they wanted and were in no mood to buy a magazine. Just candy!

We found that our biggest fans were not Joe Sixpack butvideophiles--movie crazed people who would watch them endlessly all day.

Finally, after about 11 months, publication stopped. No more free movies and video games. We ended up with a negative circulation! How is that possible? We counted people as subscribers as soon as they signed up. But when they failed to pay, we had to dock them from the count, thus a negative circulation.

So, we stuck with Satellite Orbit, the viewing guide for people with large dishes. But we could see the writing on the wall: The TV networks started scrambling their satellite signals, making people pay for the shows they saw. And small dishes were hitting the market with online viewing guides that made paper guides unnecessary.

Now I have to pay for streaming movies. Yes, life is hard!

 

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Don’t miss “Fiddler on the Roof” by the Clarksville Community Players this weekend. On opening night last Friday, I thought the group put on one of its best performances ever. The singing, dancing and acting were terrific. Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m.

What do I do next? I can’t decide

Sometimes I think I have too many choices.

Back in the Stone Age, when I grew up, there were three TV channels. I could watch a soap opera or a stupid game show or Superman. Well, that was easy! Superman!

For music, I would hear a song on the radio and possibly buy the record album. It cost a lot of money, so I would listen to it over and over until I was sick of it. Then I would buy another.

Books weren’t cheap either. If I didn’t find anything I liked in the library, I would buy something. “Peyton Place”. Remember that? I should feel guilty admitting that It had a few words of profanity in its hundreds of pages?  Or “Battle Cry,” another long but exciting book.

Today, I just can’t make up my mind. A tech mogul understated it when he boasted of 500 channels of TV in the future.  With streaming, cable and traditional TV, you can choose among thousands of shows. You can see high school football games in Nebraska, soccer in Spain and college gymnastics from Michigan. You can spend all day just deciding what to watch.

Now you don’t have to sit through a whole three-hour game and the commercials. You can go to YouTube and get the whole game trimmed down to two minutes. Instead of reading a book, you can download a podcast featuring an interview with the author. And you can pick out just about any song you want on YouTube, probably including a video of the performers.

So, is this any good for your brains? A new book, “The Siren’s Call” by Chris Hayes, says that we have lost the ability to focus. We are so bombarded by stimuli that we can’t turn our attention to one thing at a time.

I rarely read newspaper stories all the way through anymore, but I forced myself to read a review of the book and was given it as a gift and read it (well, listened to it on Audible.) If that is too much, you can go to ChatGPT or another AI platform and ask for a 500-word or 3,000-word summary. And without paying for it!

There are birds singing in the trees. Sorry, but I am busy scrolling through my Facebook feed. Your spouse wants your attention? After this podcast ends!

Am I going to change anything? Well, no. My wife thinks I live in “the cloud” anyway. I actually welcome all of these choices.

But please don’t ask me to spend five minutes hearing your funny story. Can you boil it down to 30 seconds so I can get back to commercial-free reruns of “Breaking Bad?”

Our attention-deficit Broadway music concert

 

My memories of Broadway music go back to the time my dad brought home the “South Pacific” album from the library. Then I remember buying my own album of “My Fair Lady” and eventually visiting New York as an adult to see “The Sound of Music” and the long-forgotten “Ben Franklin in Paris.” As a senior adult, I performed in six musicals in the Prizery Summer Theater and sang in the Washington Men’s Camerata’s Broadway concert at the Kennedy Center twice.

So it is no surprise that I was thrilled when the Danville Area Choral Arts Society decided to do a medley of “100 Years of Broadway” on March 23. As a chorus member, I thumbed through the music in January, struck by the volume.

What’s this? There are over 50 songs in the 45-minute medley? Just a whiff of each song from most of the greatest Broadway hits.? this made for an audience of  ADHD people?

“If you hear a song you don’t like, you’ll get a different one in less than a minute,” quips Christopher Swanson, the choir director.

At the first rehearsal, the younger people seemed puzzled by some of the old songs. Doesn’t everyone know “Button Up Your Overcoat” or “We’ll Take Manhattan?” Don’t they remember when Jerry Lewis made a revival hit of “Rockabye Your Baby to a Dixie Melody?”

Pretty soon they were more familiar to everyone. “Oh What a Beautiful Morning,” “Tomorrow.” There wasn’t much music newer though than songs from “Phantom of the Opera” and “Les Miserables.”

We were allowed to sign up for the numerous brief solos. I got “On the Street Where You Live” and “I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy.” What? I’m a lullaby singer, not James Cagney! Swanson threatened to give me an Uncle Sam costume. Hey, no, but I am going to wave a little flag I got from Dollar General.

I like how Swanson goes back over difficult passages and drills us on them until we get them right.

I asked him what it was like directing so many songs together. “It’s a particular challenge with all of the key changes and time signatures,” he said. When he cut out several, he had to find new ways to transition from one to the other.

I asked him why he was doing Broadway music. “We wanted to do a program on the light side of things, to balance with ‘Messiah,’ a heavier work, which we did in January. Some people in the audience will know most of it. Everybody will know at least a few songs. “

When he is not directing choirs, he is a professor of music specializing in voice, at Longwood University. He drives more than 60 miles to the rehearsals and performances from Farmville to Danville. Three members of the five-piece band Sunday are also Longwood faculty.

The concert also includes the Danville Area Choral Arts Society Children’s Choir and the DACAS Ringers handbell ensemble.

I think you’ll enjoy this show at 3 p.m.  Sunday March 23 at St. Luke’s United Methodist Church, 3090 North Main St.

You can’t go home again

I feel privileged growing up across the bay from San Francisco, many Americans’ favorite city.

I I loved taking  my cousins, from Los Angeles, who could see Chinatown, Fisherman’s  Wharf, the beach and Market Street all in one day.

But I had mixed experiences the two times I lived in the city. I spent three months  in the seedy Tenderloin District when I got a summer job as a busboy at Manning’s Cafeteria in 1959.  It was a thrill seeing the San Francisco Giants regularly in their second year, with Willie Mays, Orlando Cepeda and Willie McCovey.

But My father never should have allowed a 17-year-old to live there. When a drunk tried to climb in my hotel window from the fire escape, he was lucky I didn’t push him five stories to the ground. He got mixed up and had entered the wrong room.

I moved back in 1970, when I was transferred there by The Associated Press after I got tired of writing about gambling in Las Vegas. What a contrast! The Indians occupied Alcatraz, police were getting shot by radicals, students were demonstrating against the war. I got a whiff of tear gas myself covering a protest at my alma mater, UC Berkeley. I loved taking a cable car to see a press conference by famous lawyer Melvin Belli.

 My sister helped me find an apartment overlooking Ocean Beach with a big bay view window in April. But the fog rolled in by May and the sun hardly ever shone again until September. My huge picture window was covered by sand and salt all the time. And what ever happened to summer? I had sinus headaches all the time moving through the various climate zones  to visit my parents’ house in the East Bay.

After a year and a half, why would I accept a transfer to muggy Washington, D.C., from paradise on earth? For one thing, I didn’t like my current boss. And why wouldn’t a cardinal accept a transfer to Rome? Of course he would go. Look at the athletes (Aaron Rodgers, Joe Kapp) who left the temperate Bay Area for places like Green Bay, Wis., and Minneapolis.

I realized then that place isn’t all that matters. I worked all day and was too tired in the evening to do much. Saturdays were chore day for laundry, etc. So there is Saturday night for partying with friends and Sunday for leisure visits to the great sites. I could do that in Washington. Of course, the people you associate with matter too.

Maybe that’s why I never moved back, and why I am happy now in the opposite of San Francisco, Cluster Springs, VA.

What do I do next? I can’t decide

Sometimes I think I have too many choices.

Back in the Stone Age, when I grew up, there were three TV channels. I could watch a soap opera or a stupid game show or Superman. Well, that was easy! Superman!

For music, I would hear a song on the radio and possibly buy the record album. It cost a lot of money, so I would listen to it over and over until I was sick of it. Then I would buy another.

Books weren’t cheap either. If I didn’t find anything I liked in the library, I would buy something. “Peyton Place”. Remember that? I should feel guilty admitting that It had a few words of profanity in its hundreds of pages?  Or “Battle Cry,” another long but exciting book.

Today, I just can’t make up my mind. A tech mogul understated it when he boasted of 500 channels of TV in the future.  With streaming, cable and traditional TV, you can choose among thousands of shows. You can see high school football games in Nebraska, soccer in Spain and college gymnastics from Michigan. You can spend all day just deciding what to watch.

Now you don’t have to sit through a whole three-hour game and the commercials. You can go to YouTube and get the whole game trimmed down to two minutes. Instead of reading a book, you can download a podcast featuring an interview with the author. And you can pick out just about any song you want on YouTube, probably including a video of the performers.

So, is this any good for your brains? A new book, “The Siren’s Call” by Chris Hayes, says that we have lost the ability to focus. We are so bombarded by stimuli that we can’t turn our attention to one thing at a time.

I rarely read newspaper stories all the way through anymore, but I forced myself to read a review of the book and was given it as a gift and read it (well, listened to it on Audible.) If that is too much, you can go to ChatGPT or another AI platform and ask for a 500-word or 3,000-word summary. And without paying for it!

There are birds singing in the trees. Sorry, but I am busy scrolling through my Facebook feed. Your spouse wants your attention? After this podcast ends!

Am I going to change anything? Well, no. My wife thinks I live in “the cloud” anyway. I actually welcome all of these choices.

But please don’t ask me to spend five minutes hearing your funny story. Can you boil it down to 30 seconds so I can get back to commercial-free reruns of “Breaking Bad?”

What we do for love

Recently, I visited a high school friend who seemed quite happy after a woman had moved in with him for the first time (I think) in his 70s.I admired how much nicer the house and yard looked and how they did so many things together.

That’s quite admirable because it was hard sharing my house with someone even in my 40s. I had purchased a small home in Arlington, VA., neighborhood but it felt quite empty.

 When Pickett moved in, things changed quickly.  She brought her dog, her son and his dog. (I was not fond of dogs.) Soon my friendly neighbors hated me because her dog got loose and tangled with theirs.

She complained that the house was too small and that she could never tell which one was ours in our tract home neighborhood. So, OK, we looked for a new one. I wanted California modern. She wanted Victorian. Our realtor was quite frustrated.

Then he found one that was old-fashioned Victorian in the front and glassy, sun-filled California modern in an addition. Sold!!!

But now we had such a big house it, too, felt empty. We needed another child. (But not more dogs!) Later on, we adopted Sara. But I thought we should be married first.

 I proposed with flowers and a ring on bended knee at our house. She accepted and was happy  until it sunk in that we would have to plan and pay for a wedding.  So we had one at Dumbarton United Methodist Church in Washington, DC. This was no cookie-cutter wedding established by the church hierarchy.

Pickett upset the pastor by refusing to say “Til death do us part.” She said, “I already broke that promise once.” I arranged for a gospel choir from Anacostia to sing. She brought her large preschool class to the wedding to release balloons to the ceiling.

After the wedding, I expected life to go on exactly as before. But for the first time, Pickett packed my clothes for the honeymoon. I had never expected that and was not sure I liked it. And friends seemed to treat us differently. For a while, Pickett felt trapped by getting married a second time—until she opened a bed  & breakfast.

After those vows at the altar,  I knew that things had changed!

I guess for the better! Our 40th anniversary is May 11.

 

First a windfall, then the axe

One of the most bizarre situation I ever encountered in journalism came when I was a business writer at U.S. News & World Report from 1979 to 1987.

 

After founder David Lawrence died (and I wrote his obituary for AP), he left 100% of the company to the employees. As circulation grew, workers saw the stock value, determined by an appraiser, grow steadily.

 

 Many older employees decided it was time to cash out and retire. But there were new outside offers for the magazine, and when the bidding was over, its value skyrocketed seven-fold or 15-fold, depending on how it was measured.

 

The magazine staff was shocked but euphoric. The appraisers had never factored in the enormous value of the Washington, D.C., property the magazine owned, right between Georgetown and Dupont Circle. Editor Marvin Stone and his board, who could profit enormously, determined that it was the managers’ fiduciary responsibility to sell the company. For one thing, they couldn’t afford too many people retiring and demanding  cash. The eventual winner was Mortimer Zuckerman, a New York real estate magnate (like Donald Trump), who had designed and built our new office building and later purchased the Atlantic Monthly and New York Daily News.

 

Employees were greedily counting their forthcoming money, and many of them were about to become millionaires, depending on how long they had worked there. As a five-year veteran I didn’t become a millionaire, but I was able to put some money into retirement savings.

 

But wait! Those retirees who cashed out before the bidding war were steamed. Why should these newcomers get the money? The retirees filed suit, and the court battle went on for years, but we eventually got our money.

 

But wait again! In exchange for that big payout, most of us lost our jobs. Zuckerman didn’t like having people around who had gotten rich with his money. The place became so chaotic, we didn’t like working there anyway. People left mysteriously every few days, (Sounds like today’s federal government!)

 

 I was told to leave by the editor, David Gergen, who was a speech writer for presidents ranging from Nixon to Clinton and a famous PBS commentator. Giving me details of my firing was Kathy Bushkin, who was once presidential candidate Garry Hart’s press secretary and also a frequent talking head on TV. Months later, as Gergen was commenting on TV, I quickly switched channels, and there was Bushkin also discussing politics on CNN. I turned the TV  off.

 

But wait one more time!  Well after I landed on my feet at Satellite Orbit magazine, U.S. News’ circulation plummeted along with readership of other print media. (Was it because I left?) In 2010, U S. News got rid of its print magazine and today is best known (and controversial) for rating colleges and universities.

 

 

 

 

Lessons learned in life

 At my recent birthday party, someone asked me to write about what I had learned in my first 83 years. What? I’m not 100. I’m not qualified. But here goes:

—If your back hurts for no good reason, look to your head, not your back. It’s amazing how much the mind, often stressed, controls the body.

—Career is important, but so is family. Keep them in balance.

—My biggest regrets are not over things I have done. They are over things I haven’t done.

—When mistakes are made, don’t always blame yourself. Some things were just meant to happen.

—You learn the most from failures, not successes. I have recalled some setbacks and decided they led to something better.

—“No man is an island” as I learned recently from an old book of that title by Thomas Merton. I have tried to be an island most of my life, but I find that the most satisfaction comes from interacting with people. (I used to play music only for myself but now I try to share it with others. Does this column count?)

We are so fortunate to even be on this planet. We have to give something back. True satisfaction comes from contributing something to it. That can include good dead or even a friendly smile.

— Ask me again when I am 100.

Why small towns are better

Why live in a small town like South Boston or Clarksville? I asked some people who have moved here from big cities.

1.                  People are friendlier. While Holly Stadtler made some friends in bigger cities, she knows more of her neighbors in Clarksville. “I feel like it’s easier to borrow a car, borrow a shower if the plumbing is out, bum a ride, ask for someone to pick up a grocery item or let the dog out when we’re gone all day,”

2.                   Traffic is light. When I go back to Washington, I am shell-shocked. The only traffic jam here is when the train goes through South Boston.

3.                  Things are less expensive. I know many people who can work from home via broadband Internet, saving on rent or mortgages and taxes they had to pay in a big city. We used to take our car here for repairs  because they were more expensive in an urban area.

4.                  Online ordering. We may not have a Costco or a Whole Foods, but you can get just about anything you want on Amazon or other online retailers. It will be delivered to your door.

5.                  Safety. “The biggest advantage to me is the sense of safety and security,” says a Clarksville resident. Yes, you might meet a bear, but probably not a dangerous man.

6.                  Scenery. If you do have to commute, a drive through Southside is a lot prettier than the Washington Beltway. Says Sharon Satterfield of Oak Level, “There is nothing better than taking a drive down country roads to enjoy the beauty of fall or spring.”

7.                  Health: “The slow pace is better on our stress level,” says Alejandra Martinez of Cluster Springs.“We have those amazing farmers’ markets where we can stock up on fresh produce where you actually know and are friends with the people who grew it.”

8.                  Volunteer and cultural activities. You can be a big fish in a small pond if you are an actor, musician, artist or organizer. It’s much easier to get something started than in a big city.

9.                  Central location. They aren’t very close, but you are only a few hours’ drive  from the ocean, the mountains, Raleigh-Durham, an international airport, Duke’s fine medical center and six Atlantic Coast Conference college sports teams.

Familiarity. If you go to a restaurant, The Prizery or the Clarksville Community Theater, you are almost sure to find someone you know. That wouldn’t happen to locals visiting the Kennedy Center or DPAC in Durham. In fact, people are so familiar that recent arrivals have trouble getting used to friends and service people just showing up and knocking on the door. “We’re here!“

Ya Gotta Know When to Fo ‘Em

  

I have a confession: I play online poker for a half-hour every night.

What? The mild guy who goes to monthly prayer breakfasts?

Yes, and I have accumulated $840 million  so far.

Oh, I forgot to mention: It is not real money.

So with a new casino opening within 30 miles, I thought I would teach them a thing or two!

I wonder if I could use  my online winnings as a bankroll. I guess not. I wonder if this newspaper would stake me. I guess not. Might this be a tax-deductible business expense? Don’t think so.

I showed up last week at Caesar’s Virginia with a line of about 12 guys waiting for the 10 a.m. opening. They all seemed to know each other. They all looked alike, about 60 years old.

This place had only been open for a month. They can’t be tourists. It turns out, a lot of them were local retired police. Do they come here every day?

They even took me under their wing. “Don’t leave your bag behind the chair like that. It will get It will get stolen.” “Remove the rack when you place the chips in front of you.” “Those chips are 5’s, the dealer can give you change.”

Hey, you are talking to a guy who spent two years in Las Vegas and occasionally plays low-stakes poker in Reno!

The biggest drawback, and the reason I probably won’t play again: I couldn’t see the cards. They had to tell me what the five “face-up” cards were in no-limit Texas Hold-em. I am too old for this.

But on the first hand, I was dealt a king and a 10 and they told me there were an ace, a queen and a jack on the flop. I have a straight! Wow.

I think I bet $30, though I’m not sure what the chips meant. On the last round a young guy, out of place in this group, raised me $100. Against my straight? You are a fool! But I folded.

“Good fold,” he said as he announced he had a full house! He was right.

I sat through a bunch of weak hands but then I was dealt an ace. There were two aces in the flop. Three aces! I checked and did not bet as I learned to do in online poker. Everybody would know I had three aces and fold. I bet a lot on the next hand though and my buddy next to me hung in there. On the last card he got a flush and won!

The worst thing of the whole day came when he told the others, “I could have raised, but felt sorry for him.”

“Leaving so soon?” He said after I lost $134 in 20 minutes. Yes, and probably forever.

Pickett was horrified, as if I had lost the house and farm. “It was for my column,” I said. “Why didn’t you just interview these people?” She said. But I had to try it. And if I had won, this wouldn’t have been such a good column now, would it?

I have not been a fan of gambling for years, and I’m not so happy to see a casino nearby. Figure how much of those former policemen’s pensions is ending up in other people’s pockets.

But I expect to eat at the restaurants. More on that later.