My Tony Bennett Story

The legendary Tony Bennett passed away yesterday at age 96. Sadly, I never had the chance to see him perform live. I never had the chance to meet him. I also never had the chance to interview him on the radio. Yet, despite those things, I still have a Tony Bennett story that may make you laugh.

Whenever a Tony Bennett song comes on the radio, or his name comes up in conversation, there is one person who immediately comes to mind. My Italian grandmother.

This is a story that had I ever had the chance to talk to Tony, I wouldn’t share. You will soon see why.

“Everybody loved Tony” is a phrase that popped up in many celebrity tweets and videos today as they reflected on the man. Alec Baldwin, who did a fantastic Tony Bennett impression on Saturday Night Live, posted a video on his Instagram saying that exact phrase today. “Everybody loved Tony. Everybody loved him.” Well, not everyone ….

One day, we were all playing pinochle at my grandma’s house. Earlier that year, I had found a picture of Dean Martin (her favorite singer) and had it blown up into a poster. She framed it and at one point actually hung it in her garage so she could see him when they pulled in the car. Anyway, we began discussing singers. It was during this discussion that I learned of her feelings for Tony.

If memory serves me correct, we were playing cards and had the radio on a station that was playing “The Music of Your Life” stuff. It would be similar to the Sinatra channel on Sirius XM. “Sinatra was ok, but Dean Martin was better!” she told us. That was how the discussion began. This led to me asking about other singers.

“I’ll tell you one guy that I just can’t stand! That short, pimple faced one!” I had no idea who she was talking about. The more she tried to remember, the angrier she got. I finally asked her is she could think of one of his songs. She came up with “Rags to Riches” or “I Left My Heart In San Francisco” (I think. It was definitely one of his bigger hits)

“Oh! Tony Bennett?!” I said.

“Yeah!” she said, “Oh, I hate him!!”

This made me laugh and I asked her why. She never really had any type of concrete answer, but the fact that she disliked him could not have been more obvious.

This led to my dad, my brother, my friends, and me all finding ways to work Tony into conversation every time we visited. It also led to one of my favorite pranks to play on my grandma.

I was out shopping one day looking for a CD that I needed for an upcoming wedding I was to DJ. It was an older album, so I went to one of my favorite used record stores. After I found what I needed, an old LP caught my eye.

The big red letters shouting “TONY BENNETT” called me to it. I purchased it and wrapped it up for my grandma’s birthday or Christmas or something (I really don’t remember). I do remember her face when she opened it! She said, “Oh no! Not this pimple face! I hate him!” and threw it across the room – laughing, of course.

Now my grandmother could have easily just thrown the album away. She didn’t. She kept it on a shelf in both her house and eventually in her condo. Naturally, I had to have some fun with it. Every Sunday when we would visit, I would find a reason to slip away and get the album. I would then hide it somewhere in the house for her to find.

Many times it would be in a place she’d see right away. I’d put it behind the coffee pot, up on the chandelier, under a decorative pillow, on the chimney mantle, in place of an old 8X10 photo, under her pillow on her bed, in between the toilet seat and the lid, etc… It was every where! When she’d find it, she’d laugh and shout, “I HATE him!”

On second thought, maybe I would have told Tony that story if I met him. He might like to know that he was such a big part of my relationship with my grandma. Who knows…

She’s Movin’ On Up!

There is nothing that makes time move faster than watching your children grow. In 6 months, Ella will be 4 years old. It seems like just yesterday that I was blogging about getting her room and crib put together!

Moving from the crib to a toddler bed was the next big step. This is a step that Andrew is getting closer to every day. How in the world has her “big girl bed” lost that status? It is a sad reality, but true. Ella is movin’ on up from her toddler bed to a “real” big girl bed!

Sam and I looked for twin beds on Amazon and we found one that looked cute and will serve a dual purpose.

We opted to get a trundle bed, which Andrew (or a friend/cousin) can use in the future.

The mattress came Monday and It was all rolled up in a box and shrink wrapped. I opened it up and it had to sit flat for 72 hours before you could use it. Thankfully, the bed itself didn’t arrive until yesterday.

Ella was very excited to be sleeping in her new bed ASAP! When I got home from work this morning, she was asking when I was going to build it. Sam had a doctor appointment today and she took the kids with her, so I built it while they were gone. It wasn’t the easiest thing to build in her room, which still had things on the floor, but I got it done.

With her graduation to a twin bed, that meant we needed to get some new sheets and a new bedding set. Sam bought her a Disney Princess set, which she liked, but those are not the sheets on her bed.

Sam’s mom, knowing that Ella was moving to a twin bed soon, saved the butterfly sheet set that used to be on her sister Grace’s bed. You may remember that Grace passed away late last year. Ella was very close to her.

When Sam asked if she wanted her new princess bedding or the butterfly bedding. She instantly said the butterfly one! The conversation went like this:

Ella: Mommy if I use Gracie’s bed sheets then she will come visit me. I miss her so much! I need her to come visit, she has been a good girl for Jesus long enough.

Sam: When you have Gracie’s blankets they will let her come visit you every night in your dreams.

The Sam walked away crying.

May your new bed bring you many visits from Gracie and plenty of sweet dreams, my princess!

Random “Crap” (Pun intended)

The work that they are doing on our street has been more than annoying. We’re having to park on side streets because we can’t get to our driveway. Our mail is not being delivered because the mail lady can’t get to our street. Whatever happened to “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds!?” Oh, and Amazon called Sam to tell her they couldn’t figure out how to get a package to the house. It’s insane!

The thing that I’m not really happy about is the new lawn decoration that the construction crew has placed in front of my house ….

I understand that the workers need one of these, but is this really where it needed to be?

Of course, the kids thought it was awesome. Sam actually had to tell Ella that she needed to stay out of it! Urgh!

I already have to use earplugs for noise. I suppose I will be needing nose plugs for the stink, too.

Funny Thought

I thought other bloggers and folks who use social media would chuckle at this. Saw this on the net earlier:

“Remember when people had diaries and got made when people read them? Now, they put everything online and get mad when people don’t!”

So true!

Hit the Deck!

So, my father-in-law and I are working on yet another project. This one, however, was not a planned project. And as per usual, once we started it, we found that we’ll be doing more than expected.

This time it is our side porch. Forgive the photo, but the only one I could find was one I took once the Christmas lights were up.

The above picture will serve as a “Before” picture, as I didn’t really take one.

So here is what happened. Sam and I have been discussing getting rid of the railing and just keeping the posts for some time. One day she was sitting on her bench rocker and I leaned over the railing and it broke away from the post. That wasn’t such a big deal because the railing was going away.

However, when the second post from the left in the above picture broke away from the porch itself, we knew we had a problem. It seems that the bottom of the post and the deck boards were dry rotting. With that little incident, I called my father-in-law.

We began to look at each of the posts and saw that some of the others had done the same thing. One of them, in all honesty, we can’t even believe that the roof hadn’t come down! We decided that were were going to do some wider posts and just fix the bad boards. But, as I have stated, nothing ever goes that smoothly for us.

Once we got rid of the railings, we went to work on the posts. The bad news was that they only had a few of the decking boards we needed. That was when my father-in-law suggested that we could probably get away with just replacing the bad boards and stain/paint the deck. We ripped out the bad boards and laid the new boards and ran into another issue.

The old boards are double boards (in the orange square). They have a groove down the middle (green arrow). The only deck boards we could get were single boards (in the blue square) and when you put them together, there is no groove. This led to about a one inch gap (circled in yellow). So it became obvious that we now will end up ripping up all of the old deck board and replace with new ones – at about 15 bucks a board!

With daylight fading, we were able to lay down the remaining deck board and we got up three of the five posts.

In all honesty, despite the work and cost involved, I think the deck is going to look really good. My father-in-law and I were talking and I can see a grey paint or dark stain for the deck itself and white paint for the posts. I am excited to see how this all turns out. I’ve got my fingers crossed that we run into no more issues ….

I’m hoping this is the last big project for quite awhile!

Afternoon Delight

Every doctor appointment I go to starts this way:

Doctor: You still working midnights?

Me: Yes

Doctor: Yeah, we gotta get you off those!

Well, she will be happy when I come to the next appointment! I will finally be able to answer “no.”

A week or so ago, our interim manager called to ask if I might be interested in an afternoon position. Naturally, I had questions. She gave me more information and I told her I would have to discuss things with my wife.

Once I brought it up to Sam, she immediately said that I should do it. There were some things that we’d obviously have to adjust, but we could make it work.

For me, it will be a big change. One thing I am certainly looking forward to is actually being able to sleep with my wife next to me. Working opposite shifts has been tough.

Another thing I am looking forward to is having some meals together as a family on a more regular basis. Those family meals are very limited with our current schedules.

I will still be working with patients from time to time, but it will be a lot less than I do now. I will be more of a bridge between days and nights. I will be helping sort charts, assigning patients, and working with day staff.

It will certainly be a big change, and the positives outweigh the negatives. I think it’s going to make a huge difference in my life.

Besides, on a bright note (pun intended), I will see the sun a whole lot more!!

National Ice Cream Day

Today is National Ice Cream Day!

I have two memories tied to National Ice Cream Day and both involve my radio days. Both were when I worked at B95 in Flint.

The first was when I was working mid-days. I wanted to do a live broadcast from a local ice cream place. I put the bug in the sales team’s ear and they were able to find a little place called Ron’s Pizza and Ice Cream. It was a place I was unfamiliar with, which is sad because I was so close to where I was living.

We did the entire shift from Ron’s. They had pizza specials and a free cone for the first 100 people who came out. They had picnic tables where folks could sit and there was a steady flow of listeners who stopped by throughout the five hours we were there.

Their pizza was delicious and the ice cream scoops were huge. I took the family there often when we lived in the neighborhood. Sadly, they closed some time ago, but that broadcast remains one of my favorites.

The second memory was from when I was doing mornings with Steph. We hooked up with the Frosty Boy in Ortonville. If memory serves me right, we did a two hour broadcast from there after our morning show.

The Frosty Boy was known for their ice cream and their amazing broasted chicken! I remember we had this huge box truck that we took to the remote broadcast.

They had their mascot (a chicken) out waving people in at the curb. I remember Steph and I got a picture with that chicken! She probably has it somewhere.

We had such fun talking to listeners that day. I remember they gave us Frosty Boy T-shirts, which I seemed to wear a lot, as it is in a lot of old pictures.

I think they have new owners now. They building is the same, but they painted it and changed the name to Frothy Girl. I’m not sure if they still have broasted chicken.

I hope to take the kids out for ice cream later to celebrate.

Harrison Who?

With all the talk about the new Indiana Jones movie (I still haven’t seen it), there has been no shortage of things about the character and Harrison Ford online. I stumbled on something that I thought was cool and thought you might get a kick out of it, too.

Right up front, I will tell you AI scares me. However, when they use it for stuff like this, I think it is cool. You may remember that Tom Selleck was the first choice to play Indiana Jones in the first movie. Things didn’t go as planned and Harrison Ford landed the role. But what if other actors were slated to play Indy?

AI takes the “what if” and offers what Indiana Jones might of looked like if played by ….

Tom Cruise

Keanu Reeves

Samuel L. Jackson

Brad Pitt

Chris Farley!!!

Will Smith

Denzel Washington

Nicholas Cage

Bill Murray!!!!

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Eddie Murphy

Sylvester Stallone

Rick Moranis

….and, of course, Robin Williams

Oh the possibilities ….

Weapons of Mass Construction

It is going to be a LONG 4 months!

We’ve known for some time that they were going to be working on our street. It began loudly on Monday morning. We were awaken by someone using one of those big cement saws to slice a line at the end of our driveway.

They went up and down both sides of the street cutting lines on all the driveways. From the looks of things, they may be ripping up half of our front yard, too. That remains to be seen, but there are all kinds of those flags across the lawns of my neighbors and me.

The other day, I woke up after dreaming I was flying in a World War II fighter plane. Think about the sounds that are made by the machine guns ……. got it? That’s what I was dreaming I was hearing. Nope. It was just the sound of a HUGE jackhammer pounding holes into the concrete!

That, of course is just the beginning. Then you have the “claw” that comes by and rips up the concrete block by block.

They were taking the blocks and dumping them in piles all along the street, but it seems like they got rid of most of them as they have made their way down to our house.

The kids certainly have loved sitting out on the porch watching the “big trucks” go up and down the street.

This afternoon, one of the drivers saw the kids on the driveway and honked the rig’s horn for them. They got a kick out of it.

For me, it has been a challenge to sleep during the day. Even with earplugs, I can hear the ruckus. At times, I can feel the ground shake as they are working. It hasn’t been fun. Today, we could feel the ground shake as they dumped these big pipes outside the house.

I guess what I don’t understand is that they are literally going all the way down one side of the street and tearing it up. We have three blocks on our street. To me, it would make sense to do from the main road to the end of block one (both sides), then from the end of block one to the end of block two, etc… Doing it this way has been one big mess.

We got a letter in the mail saying that we’d be allowed to park on the side streets where it is usually illegal to do so. That sounds good in theory. I’d do it, if there were big piles of gravel and dirt all along those side streets. It just seems like they really didn’t think things through.

Since starting on Monday, they have hit the water lines a couple times. Our water was off and on and off again. We are boiling water just in case because they never said if it was ok to drink it yet. They’ve also hit a gas line and they shut the gas off for almost a day. Thankfully, they came in and relit the pilot light on the water heater and furnace for us.

I really feel bad for my one neighbor. They just sold their house and will be moving within a month or so. They want to have an estate sale. I wonder how they are going to get people to come when they can’t even access the street! And how are they getting moving trucks in and out of there? Moving out is bad enough for them, and moving in will be bad for the new neighbors. Urgh!!

This is supposed to go on through November! I sense a lot of sleepless days for my wife, my kids and me.

By the way, I hope the port-o-john doesn’t find its way to my front lawn…..

Turntable Talk #16 – Coulda Been A Contender

It is time once again for my contribution to Turntable Talk, a series hosted by my friend Dave Ruch at his blog “A Sound Day.” This is the 16th installment and the topic this time around was an easy one for me. The topic this month is entitled “Coulda Been a Contender.” This is simply  a song that we felt should have been a hit but wasn’t.

As a music director (the guy who helped the radio station’s program director choose what songs to play) I heard a lot of songs that wanted a spot on our play list. Many times we added songs that never went anywhere on the charts, but we thought they were good. On the other side of the coin, we played a lot of songs that I felt were crap, that wound up being hits.

When this topic presented itself, one song immediately came to mind. Unlike other topics where I went back and forth between 2-5 songs trying to pick one to write about, this one was the only one I felt really should have been a smash. I have felt that way about this song since hearing it the first time. It is a duet by a legendary artist you will know instantly, and a singer whose name you SHOULD know, because she is just that good!

The song is “Where We Both Say Goodbye” by Catherine Britt and Sir Elton John.

From her website at http://www.catherinebritt.com :

She has lived a life in the world of entertainment most will never experience or dream of.  The archetypal Aussie girl from the coal works of Newcastle uprooted herself at 17 years old and moved for six years to Nashville TN (USA) where she gained a deep knowledge of country/roots/folk history as well as touring extensively and releasing top 40 Billboard hits.

How did this happen you may well ask. Not every 17 year old  moves from Newcastle to Nashville to pursue their musical dreams. Well, the story is that a certain Elton John (yes, THAT Elton John – not to be mistaken for  . . .)  heard Catherine during one of his Australian tours in the early 2000s. So impressed with Catherine was Elton that he took her albums back to America with him and helped get a deal with RCA Records.

I can only imagine the feeling she had when she heard that Elton John was a fan AND was helping her get a record deal! There is a very cool video of Elton and Catherine that I will share after I talk about the song.

Music, like humor, is subjective. It has a certain power to it. Perhaps my feelings about the song are a bit swayed because of what was going on in my life in 2005. My mother was dying of breast cancer, my son was going through intense therapy for autism, and my marriage was slowly falling apart.

I connected with the song on a personal level, but I also understood that I wasn’t the only person who was having relationship trouble. This song struck a chord with me and I knew that there were listeners who had to be going through the exact same thing. As years went by, this song took on more and more meaning for me. As my first marriage continued to crumble and my unhappiness grew, I heard this song again on my iPod, and knew it was certainly time to “say goodbye.”

I still cannot understand how this song was NOT a hit. Perhaps it was programmers questioning whether or not to play Elton John on a country station? It could have been some consultant who felt that way, too. But today, we see artists crossing over from genre to genre and no one thinks twice about it. Maybe this song was ahead of its time.

Catherine’s voice is simply beautiful. It is almost sultry. Elton could sing just about anything and it would sound great. These two together? Magical! Their voices blend so well. Their harmonies are stellar and they convey the hurt of the lyrics. Here are two people who are dying inside because they both know – it is probably over.

Let the steel guitar pull at those heart strings …..

Where We Both Say Goodbye

A fire that’s left unattended
Surely will burn out and die
Now that we’re down to nothin’ but ashes
Is this where we both say goodbye

Chorus

Is this where two hearts break down and cry
Is this where we let go and give up the fight
Have we reached the point where it’s too late to try
Is this where we both say goodbye

It’s so hard to go on pretendin’
The truth is we’re livin’ a lie
And it kills me to know our love’s dyin’
Is this where we both say goodbye

(Chorus)

I wanted you to hear the song before you watched the next video. This is a very cool piece with Elton and Catherine talking about how they came to meet and eventually record the song. I love watching behind the scenes stuff like this.

https://youtu.be/85pORTOgkkk

The song itself only reached #38 on the Country Singles Chart. Shame on country radio !!

In 2008, RCA dropped her from the label and she returned home to Australia, where she has had great success and continues to tour.

Her website states:

Over the course of her career Catherine has collected a host of accolades, a legion of fans and a mantel of awards including the country industry’s highest honours, 2009 CMAA Female Artist of the Year Award, 2012 CMAA Single of the Year, 2013 CMAA Female Artist of the Year Award, 2016 Female Artist of the Year, 2017 Vocal Collaboration of The Year for her celebrated single “F U Cancer” as well as APRA Award and CMC Artist of the Year nominations. 6 of Catherine’s albums released to date have been nominated for the ARIA Award for the Best Country Album release, which is a first for any Australian country artist. In 2010, Catherine was also presented with the CMA Global Artist of the Year award. 

I tend to feel like Elton John in that I have always thought that she was the “real deal!”

Catherine got a raw deal here in the states. Personally, I believe she could have been as big as Martina McBride or Faith Hill. All too often, station programmers will opt to play crap from an established artists instead of playing a truly great song from a newcomer. Stupid radio/records politics!

She has done quite well for herself in Australia. Her fans love her and support her and she has taken control of her career. Her website says that her latest album, Home Truths, is “Catherine’s first release in over 20 years as a completely independent Australian artist. It’s a decision based on Catherine wanting complete control of her career – and having ownership of her own recording masters and copyrights. That’s something that – now as a parent of two young children – she believes is important – and something to pass on to them.“

“Where We Both Say Goodbye” should have been the song that made America country fans take notice of Catherine Britt. It is a song that proves that she is not only an amazing songwriter, but an amazing singer as well. Her music is deep, heartfelt, and honest. I’m glad that she is enjoying the success she deserves, even if it isn’t here in the US.

My hope is that I have chosen a song that is completely unfamiliar to you. If it makes you want to hear more from Catherine, fantastic. If not, that’s ok too. Music is subjective, right?

Thanks again to Dave for allowing me to take part in this monthly feature. I look forward to reading the rest of the gang’s picks and next month’s topic. Thanks for reading..