The Great One and Me

"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take." - Wayne Gretzky

If you walked into a bar in Canada, any bar any place in Canada, and stated that the most important day in the history of Canada was January 26, 1961, few, if any, Canadians would argue.  For on that momentous winter day, in the small Ontario city of Brantford,  a mere 100 km from Toronto, Wayne Douglas Gretzky was born.

17 years later he would grow to the height of 6' 0" and 185 lbs. (His official playing height and weight only - most teammates would have laughed hysterically if you told them he was more than 5' 10" and 170 lbs.)

He wasn't tall, big or fast.  He didn't have a particularly hard shot.  He wasn't the prettiest skater.  All he could offer a team was the ability to score goals.  Lots of goals.  And after he'd been in the league a few years, and teams started to make defensive adjustments to him, he made his own adjustments and became more of a passer and playmaker.  Then all he did was set his teammates up for goals.  Lots of them.  Many of them easy tap-ins to an open net.  He made opposing defenses and goalies look silly.  He made the game look easy.

And when he finally hung up his skates for the final time at the ripe old age of 38, he had tallied 894 goals and 1963 assists to add up to a career 2,857 points.  He averaged the most points per game (1.921) in NHL history.

To give you an idea of how thoroughly Gretzky dominated the game, the next leading scorer in NHL history - former teammate Mark Messier - is almost 1,000 points behind.  Gretzky literally changed the way the game was played.

Here's a tip if anyone ever asks you a question involving single season or career scoring records in the NHL.  No matter the question, or how it's phrased, the answer will most likely be "Gretzky."  He holds or shares 61 NHL records.

He won four Stanley Cups as Captain of the Edmonton Oilers and then was traded to the Los Angeles Kings.  He would be traded by the Kings to St. Louis and would end his playing career in New York.

"A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be." - Wayne Gretzky

By the time the San Jose Sharks joined the NHL in 1991, Gretzky was playing for the Los Angeles Kings, and while still an amazing player, he was definitely on the downside of his career at the age of 30.  I figure he played about 30 games against the Sharks in his career in a Kings sweater.  I must have seen half of those.  And he was still able to create magic and wave his wand and make scoring opportunities and goals appear where none seemed to exist.

On a cold Spring night in April of 1999, I would find myself on an overnight for work in New York City.  Gretzky and the hometown Rangers were set to take on the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim.  While he had not officially announced that this season would be his last, there were certainly plenty of rumors.  I didn't need to listen to the rumors.  I just had to look at his body language and listen to his voice in post-game interviews.  The game just didn't seem fun for him anymore.  The Rangers would not make the playoffs that season, and Wayne lived for the playoffs, and the league was at the height of its obstruction, or "clutching and grabbing," era.

Many expansion teams were added to the NHL in the 1990's - there were now three teams in California alone - and with expansion came a lowering of skill.  Newer teams with fewer skill players would try to hold and hook and stop players like Gretzky any way they could, and the league put up with it.  It was no coincidence that Wayne's nearest rival, Mario Lemieux of the Pittsburgh Penguins, had already retired around this time, disgusted with the level of play and tolerance for obstruction in the league.

The Great One skates off one last time.

I have a good friend who lived in Manhattan at the time, and she had never seen the Great One play in person.  We headed off to Madison Square Garden to try and score some tickets for the game.  Virtually every Rangers' game is sold out in New York, but I'd had good luck in the past getting tickets at the box office at the last minute.  Not tonight.  The line for returns at the box office was incredible.  Far beyond what I'd ever seen before in New York.  I wasn't the only hockey fan who sensed this was Wayne's last week of hockey.

Striking out at the box office, we started to wander around the outside of the arena in one final, vain attempt to get inside to see Wayne one last time.  We finally found an unscrupulous scalper and paid $100 for two tickets.  The game had already started and we ran back to the Garden and up to the entrance.  The doorman at the entrance scanned our tickets and looked at them closely for a moment, and then motioned over a supervisor.  They explained the tickets were counterfeit, showed us how they could determine that, and turned us around.  A costly, painful lesson learned in the Big Apple.

Ciaran (l) and Aidan (r) watch the Phoenix Coyotes practice.

A few years later, in December of 2007, I was an assistant coach for my boys' Bantam hockey team, and we had all made our way to Phoenix, Arizona for a tournament over their Winter Break.  We were scheduled to play one game early in the morning at the AllTell Ice Den in Scottsdale, practice rink of the Phoenix Coyotes - led by NHL legend and now coach, Wayne Gretzky.

We had tickets to watch the Coyotes play the Detroit Red Wings later that evening.  As our game started, we could tell that the Coyotes were starting to file in to the arena to have their pregame practice, or morning skate, right after the boys' game, on the same ice surface.

As our game started to wind down in the third period, and as it got closer to their own practice, the Coyotes coaches and players started milling around the glass in the corner of the rink nearest their locker room, watching my boys and their team play.

I was on the far end of the bench, running the defense (which at that level mainly consisted of telling the two defensemen on the bench to get ready each time the two defensemen on the ice headed towards the bench).

I was aware that now Head Coach Gretzky, coffee cup in hand, and some of the other players were up against the glass to my left, watching the game and smiling and laughing, being pulled back in time to when they themselves were that age and size.

I had my attention on the game when I suddenly heard what sounded like a light knock on the door at the end of the bench, a door we weren't even allowed to use because it only led to the Coyotes' locker room.  I thought, "what's going on now?' and didn't immediately pay it any attention.  I continued to watch the game, and realized the tapping on the door continued.  I looked over and there was a man in a Coyotes' coaching jacket and warm-up pants, wearing a Coyotes baseball cap atop his head, at the door, motioning me to come over.  It was Gretzky.

I quickly ran over and cracked open the door.

Gretzky poked his head through and asked, "so where are you guys from?"  He was watching the game and was curious (as I recall it was a close game, and we had several good players on our team - although as it turned out that would not translate into a winning season) and started asking me questions.

"How far are you from San Francisco?  Is that near Napa?  Who do you play?  How long was the drive down?  How old are the kids?  How are you doing in the tournament?"

My attention shifted back and forth between the end of the game and Wayne's questions.  I guess we talked for about five minutes.  I informed him the entire team would be at the Coyotes game later that evening.  There was finally a pause in the conversation.  I had not asked him anything at that point.  I tried to end our conversation on a light note.

"Bring back any memories?"

His mouth opened into a grin, letting out a quiet chuckle.  He shook his head and said, "I'm far too old to remember back that far!"

He asked if I had a card.  A card?  When you're coaching youth hockey, you are required by USA Hockey to carry a "coaching" card, to show at games and tournaments, that proves you have satisfied the proper requirements for coaching each level.  You constantly have to produce your coaching card and sign paperwork and score sheets each game throughout the tournament.

"My card?" I thought to myself.  "Why in the hell would he want to see my card?  My card!  He wants my business card!"

I realized what he was asking, but I didn't have a business card.

"Give me your number," he said, "and we'll have the boys come downstairs after the game tonight."

I quickly scribbled down my cell phone number on the back of a lineup sheet I had in my hand for the game.

"Somebody will give you a call with instructions.  Good luck in the tournament."

Stunned by the whole experience, I managed to get out a  weak, "thanks," as he shook my hand.

We lost the game, and headed back to our hotel.  The boys had seen me talking to Wayne on the bench and I told them everything I could remember about the conversation.  I told them he had asked for a contact number and said we might be able to go downstairs after the game that night.  I tried to undersell the offer as him just being polite because I didn't expect to get a call from anyone.

An hour later my cell phone rang and a "623" number - that was a local Phoenix number - showed up on the display.  I answered.

"Hello, Vince.  I'm Bob Thompson (no, I don't really remember the name), I'm the traveling secretary with the Phoenix Coyotes.  Wayne gave me your number a few minutes ago and asked me to give you a call.  He'd like to invite your team downstairs to the locker room after the game."

He seemed very pleasant and efficient and made sure I understood all the instructions on how to go downstairs in the Arena to the locker room area after the game.  He had one caveat before he hung up.

"Now remember, Vince, this whole thing is off if we lose.  We just don't have anyone around after a loss.  You wouldn't even want to be down there after a loss.  This only happens if we win.  Hope to see you tonight."

Oh, boy.  I had already had my moment with Wayne, I didn't really care if we went downstairs to the locker room after the game or not.  But my boys and their teammates would get a kick out of it.  Trouble was, the Coyotes were a mediocre team and their opponent - the dreaded Detroit Red Wings - were the class of the league.

We went to the game that night and I had low expectations.  We had great seats and the boys on the team were having a good time.  The Coyotes struck early and went up quickly to a 2 - 0 lead.  And then they did what bad teams do - they sat on it.  The Red Wings kept up the pressure and got on the board.  The Coyotes held on to a 2 - 1 lead halfway through the third period.  I exchanged glances with the two other coaches, and we gave each other hopeful looks as if to say, "we got a shot.  Maybe the Coyotes pull this off."

A few moments later, a Coyotes defenseman made an ill-advised pinch along the right boards to try and keep the puck in their offensive zone.  The puck took a weird bounce and went by him, springing the two most dangerous players on the Wings, Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg, on a 2 on 1 odd man break.  They passed it back and forth a couple of times.  The defenseman and goalie never had a chance.  The puck was in the back of the net for a 2-2 tie with five minutes left to play.

"OK.  OK," I thought to myself.  It's not over.  The Coyotes were holding their own.  They were at home.  They could still pull this out.

A couple of shifts later, Datsyuk and Zetterberg were out on the ice together again.  Another bad pinch by a Coyote defenseman - "why in the world would you make that pinch in a tie game?" - all of the amateur coaches in the stands thought to themselves.  Same result.  Zetterberg to Datsyuk, back to Zetterberg, fake, puck finds the back of net.  Game over.  Good night, drive safely.

And with the Coyotes' loss went the boys' chance to meet the Great One.  Maybe next time.

 

A touching video of Wayne Gretzky's last game in the NHL.

Someday, Someway

Marshall Crenshaw is why I never could have been a record executive.

(I just sensed a collective “huh…what?” from anyone out there reading this.  Let me rephrase that.  Nine out of ten of you – assuming ten people ever read this – have never or barely even heard of Marshall Crenshaw.  The tenth is now jumping up and down yelling, “He’s AWESOME, dude!.” or something to that effect.  So stay with me here for a moment, and this should all make some sense.)

Marshall Crenshaw released his eponymous first album in the summer of 1982.  I was 19 years old and had just finished my first year of college in Los Angeles.  I love music.  I was his target demographic.  I think I even subscribed to Rolling Stone magazine at the time.  (Does anyone subscribe to magazines anymore?  I remember just getting a pile of magazines in the mail every month in those days.) 

His album received rave reviews, and I kept hearing the catchy single, “Someday, Someway,” on the radio.  It was three minutes of infectious power pop bliss.  I had to have it.   I had just purchased my first CD player around that time, and bought it as a CD.

 (For any younger readers, 1982/83 would have been right around the time of the transition from vinyl analog albums to digital compact discs, or CD’s).

I purchased the CD IN A MUSIC STORE and brought it home.  Placed the disc in the CD player and cranked it up.  100 watts a channel coming out of four speakers.  Every song seemed catchy, yet intelligent; fresh, yet familiar; and very pop, but almost alternative.  I don’t believe a day went by that summer when I didn’t listen to that album. 

Most of my friends at college and work loved the album.  I still love that album.

“Have you heard Marshall Crenshaw’s album yet?”

“Oh, yeah, it’s awesome!  Love that album!  Crenshaw rocks!”

First off, the thing to note here, as Vin Scully would say, is that people back then would actually talk and read about albums.  ENTIRE albums.  They might even go so far as to have a party and invite people over to listen to a new album.  Sometimes, if they liked it, they’d play it again!  That just doesn’t happen anymore.  When was the last time you had a conversation with someone about a new album?  When was the last time somebody made a decent, complete album?  I’m guessing Green Day’s “American Idiot.”  Instant classic. That was seven years ago.

So Marshall Crenshaw was young and talented, looked a bit like Buddy Holly (he would even go on to play Buddy Holly in La Bamba, the Hollywood biopic of Ritchie Valens), maybe even sounded a bit like an ‘80’s version of Buddy Holly, had a nice, pleasing voice, wrote some catchy tunes, got good reviews and airplay, and seemed to get good buzz at the time.

The album showed some staying power and was on the pop charts for six months, but it never rose higher than #50.  The single, “Someday, Someway,” went to #36 on the Billboard Hot 100 that summer.  The album eventually sold a respectable, but not eye catching, 400,00 copies.  Crenshaw would never have an album or single chart that high again.

The problem is that album should have sold four MILLION copies.  Easy.  It was a great album then and it’s still a great album.  It got five out of five stars in both the All Music and Rolling Stone guides.  It was released by Warner Brothers Music, one of the largest music companies in the world, so it had some marketing muscle behind it.  But for those strange, ephemeral reasons that a new talent or sound immediately strikes a chord with the general public, or it doesn’t, Crenshaw wasn’t quite able to nail the pop bulls-eye.

Just for fun, can you guess which talented, fresh, new act won the Grammy for Best New Artist that year?  Men at Work.  The award was outsourced to Australia.  Crenshaw was not even nominated.

And that’s why I never could have been a record executive.  A kid like that walks into my office, pulls a demo tape out of his back pocket with the songs from that first album on it, and I’d be ready to bet a kilo of coke that he was going to be a star. 


Never happened, and talent had nothing to do with it.

 

Crenshaw’s first national television appearance on Late Night with David Letterman in 1982.

Bonnie and Clyde Trade Days

Bonnie & Clyde Trade Days; Arcadia, Louisiana

I grew up in Northern California.  My wife grew up in Northern Louisiana, and didn’t set foot in California until after she graduated from college.  The two places could not possibly be more different.  We make it work.

Occasionally, my wife will meet someone new; they’ll notice her Southern accent and ask, “Where did you live before the Bay Area?” To which my wife will truthfully reply, “Southern California!”

I have been down to the Bayou State numerous times in the twenty years we’ve been married, of course, and I don’t mind visiting, as long as it isn’t during the summer. 

Her family couldn’t be friendlier or more accommodating, you can buy a nice home on a big plot of land for what would be gas money back here in California, and the food is quite tasty.  I just loves me some hush puppies!

Every once in a while during my visits below the Mason – Dixon line, I’ll have a little Yankee/Southerner encounter that illustrates the huge divide between parts of our country that I find quite fascinating (it boggles my mind that a person could run for President in the South and then come out West and campaign in California), but which usually produces cringes of embarrassment for my wife and her sisters.

The strangest of these was about 20 years ago, when the political situation in South Africa was still fresh in everyone’s minds, as we drove out to Arcadia, Louisiana to visit “Bonnie and Clyde” Trade Days. 

Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow met their untimely demise in a hail of bullets in Arcadia.  In commemoration of this landmark event in local law enforcement, a huge flea market has come to life in the area. 

Dozens of local vendors at the Bonnie and Clyde Trade Days are happy to sell you a bullet pulled from Bonnie and Clyde’s car on that fateful day, beautifully mounted in a wooden cabinet.  How they are able to continue to sell hundreds of “authentic” bullet fragments a day, from an event that occurred over 75 years ago, is beyond me.

But that wasn’t the oddest part of the day. 

I strolled over to a vendor who was selling toy wooden cars that had a metal shaft that came up about three feet from the front axle, and had a steer wheeling at the end.  A child, presumably, could hold the metal steering wheel and push and steer the toy car around on the ground.  I hadn’t seen anything quite like it before.

Killing time, I asked the local gentlemen who was selling these toy cars if he made them himself. 

“Oh, no,” he cheerfully replied, “they’re made in South Africa.” 

“Hmmmm,” I thought.  

Sure enough, as soon as he said that, I noticed the words "Made in South Africa" printed in black letters on each box containing the cars.

“South Africa?  Don’t we have an embargo on goods from South Africa?”

“Don’t know nothing about no embargo,” the man replied, “but you can buy one of these cars and support apartheid!” 

“I’m sorry?,” I reflexively blurted, thinking I had misunderstood his accent. 

“Sure, buy one of these toys and you’re supporting apartheid!” he pleasantly offered.

“Oh…” I uttered, as I slowly backed away from his stall.  How charming.

I walked back to my wife and pointed out the toys and informed her we could buy one and “support apartheid” in South Africa, a retail selling point that I seldom heard back home in California.  She rolled her eyes and shook her head.

I often wonder when I’m down there if anyone can hear my accent and determine where I’m from.  My wife and her family tell me locals can only tell I’m not from the South, but wouldn’t be able to place my accent.

On the car ride home, I was reflecting on the day's adventure when I realized I had been wearing a San Francisco Giants baseball cap on my head the entire day.  The distinctive  “SF” logo emblazoned right on top of my head.

Logo of the San Francisco Giants

The Giants star player at the time, Will “the Thrill” Clark, was actually from New Orleans, so even a casual sports fan from Louisiana should have been able to discern that a Yankee wearing a San Francisco Giants cap, indicating I was likely from California, would hardly be a prime candidate to work the “apartheid” angle to close the sale.  It was just plain weird.

Now if you’re reading this story while sitting in California, or you’re a Yankee somewhere else, I wouldn’t get too smug and label this an "only in the South" tale, if I were you.  Arcadia, Bienville Parish, Louisiana may or may not have been the home of some ardent supporters of apartheid, but ignorance and racism will always be the most inclusive of national pastimes across America.

Now who wants pie?

You never forget your first.

The front lot at Universal Studios Hollywood.

You never forget your first time.  I will never forget mine.  It was the summer of 1982.  I had just finished my first year of college in Los Angeles.  I anxiously waited for it my entire life, hoping, praying the day would come.  The moment had arrived.  I didn’t know then how many more there would be in my future.  I would lose count.  But I don’t think anyone ever forgets their first.  I never would.

I exited from the Hollywood Freeway and maneuvered my boxy, orange 1980  Toyota Tercel (don’t laugh – it had a killer sound system, and was very reliable) up Lankershim Boulevard.  My body was alive with a seeming charge of electricity running through every pore in anticipation of the moment that was just around the corner. The harsh Southern California sun bounced brightly off every surface of the car. 

I continued north on Lankershim and looked up at the gleaming black tower of glass and steel, rising off to my right.  All I could think of was the mid-1970’s disaster film Earthquake in Sensurround ™.   I recalled how this building collapsed in that movie as the Big One finally destroyed Los Angeles.  Not even Charlton Heston, Lorne Greene and George Kennedy COMBINED could save everyone in that building.

It was time.  I made the right turn off of Lankershim and slowly inched up to the guard shack.  There was a small, wooden gate blocking the entrance, and an older, thin, gray-haired man in a uniform, holding a clipboard, standing just outside a small guard shack in front of the gate.

“Should have a pass for Cleary.  Vince Cleary.”

The guard glanced down at his clipboard.

“Please be on the list.  Please be on the list,” I thought to myself.

It’s all about THE LIST in Hollywood.  Are you on the list?  Are you supposed to be on the list?  I don’t see you on the list.  Who can put me on the list?  I should be on the list.

A few weeks later I would wind up on the other side of this equation as the holder of THE LIST.  I quickly recognized that sense of desperation.  That brief look of fear in their eyes everyone has between when they inform you they’re on the list and you either find their name, or you don’t. 

And each time you knew you were on the list - you HAD to be on the list – you still held your breath for a moment just in case somebody had screwed up, a phone call wasn’t properly made or somebody along the line was just plain lazy. 

You live in Los Angeles long enough and you will find yourself going someplace where you don’t really care if you’re on the list or not, but at that moment you still automatically do the Hollywood prayer and think to yourself, “I hope I’m on the list.  They said they’d put me on the list.”

“Clearly?  I see a Clearly?”  Close enough.  “Yeah, that’s it.”

The guard continued to stare at his clipboard and contemplate if the name "Cleary" could conceivably be transposed to the name "Clearly."  

The line of cars behind me, waiting to go through this same routine, were starting to back up on to Lankershim Boulevard.  He took his eyes off the clipboard long enough to glance up at the line of cars.  Satisfied, he turned around and quickly grabbed a small piece of white paper from the guard shack and tucked it under the top of his clipboard.  He wrote something on the paper and shoved it under my face.

“Put this in a visible spot on your dash.  Have you been on the lot before?”

“Never.”

Long sigh. “Okay, (he’s now slightly annoyed that he’s forced to converse with a human who has never been on the lot before)…uh…just go straight through and turn left at Stage 37.  You’re going to the old machine shop.  Just outside 37.  Any open spot right there.”

“Great.  Thanks!” 

I’m in. For the first time in my life, I’m driving on a major motion picture studio lot.  Universal Studios!  Phantom of the Opera (the original 1925 silent version with Lon Chaney, not any of the later pretenders), All Quiet on the Western Front, Frankenstein, Shadow of a Doubt, the Abbot and Costello movies, Harvey, Winchester ’73, Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Birds, To Kill a Mockingbird, Psycho, The Sting and hundreds of other films, some lost forever, and many fondly remembered by millions of people, had all been shot on these soundstages.  

Have you ever had a moment in life where you say to yourself, “this is so cool!”? I hope you have.  They don’t come often, so I think you have to savor every one.  Be prepared for those “so cool” moments and absorb as much as possible, so you can treasure the moment forever.  I was having a major “so cool” moment. 

I simultaneously tried to find my destination, contain my excitement, and absorb all the film history around me. I realized that I was now required to find an old building I’d never seen, in a place I’d never been, through a maze of nondescript large, gray buildings that each had a huge, hangar like door on one side, and a small, normal sized door down at the corner, right below a red light, that looks like it had been ripped off the top of an LAPD cruiser.

A few of the large hangar doors on several of the stages were open, allowing me a peek at the hive of activity, hammering, sawing and set building that’s was going on inside.  

I passed a stage where the red revolving light was lit up.  That meant the camera was rolling and NO ONE was to enter that door for ANY reason.  Then the red light suddenly turned off, and the door quickly flung open as crew members ran in and out, preparing for the next shot, or to grab a quick drag off a cigarette between takes.

Every one of the soundstages had a quiet, solid presence (if memory serves correctly, there were over thirty sound stages of various sizes at that time on the Universal lot.  Stage 12, the largest, was right in the front of the lot and was the size of a football field ), but every one was a monument to film history.  Every one of these large, square and rectangular buildings had a quiet story that added up to the history of Hollywood.

As I took all this in, and daydreamed of the sight of Cary Grant or Alfred Hitchcock or Jimmy Stewart walking in and out of one of those sound stages, I realized I also had to navigate narrow passageways without acting like any of this made any impact on me at all. 

People were walking and zigzagging through the lot on bikes and golf carts all around me, as they went about their work.  

Every few seconds another car, many of them exotic foreign sports cars, would buzz by me if there was an opening, or come at me so fast from the other direction that I couldn’t see how they were going to get by me without damaging both our cars.  I had to act like I did this every day.  Be cool.

I found my way to the building where I had my appointment.  I walked out after the interview unaware that this lot would be where I would work for the next four years.  And would be only the first of many film lots that I would drive or walk on in the coming years.   And the thrill I got every time I drove or stepped on to a movie lot never went away.  It never gets old.  But I’ll always remember my first time.

Loma Prieta

I lived with my ex-girlfriend (now my lovely wife) in the Sunset district of San Francisco from March, 1989 through September, 1992.

Once in a while, I’ll meet someone new who lived in San Francisco, or realize someone I already know lived there around that time.  After this discovery, the next question that quickly comes up in the conversation always is, “where you there in ’89?,” quickly followed by, “where were you?”

At 5:03 p.m. on October 17, 1989, while the rest of the country was preparing to watch the Bay Area’s Major League Baseball teams, the San Francisco Giants and Oakland Athletics, start the third game of the World Series, your intrepid reporter was standing in the checkout line of my neighborhood Safeway supermarket on 31^st and Noriega, in the Sunset district of San Francisco.  I thought I was ten minutes away from cooking a plate of nachos, tossing a salad, pouring an ice, cold beverage, and joining the rest of the country to watch the game.  Mother Nature had other plans. 

If you’ve never lived or shopped in a grocery store in San Francisco, especially in some of the City’s more heavily Asian communities, such as the Sunset, I should mention here that many of the locals cling to the belief that they are still living back in their native country, not in California.  They like to barter and dicker at the checkout stand.  You soon learn to avoid getting behind an older Chinese lady at Safeway the way an Israeli learns not to get behind a Palestinian at the airport.  Do so at your peril because it could be a long wait.

“I pay you two dollars jar of Jif, that’s all.”

“Ma’am, the Jif is $3.99.  It’s always $3.99.  You will have to pay $3.99 if you want the peanut butter, just like everyone else.  I’ll have someone put it back if you don’t want it.”

The Asian ladies grimace and shrug, the checker moves the jar of peanut butter along the counter and towards the bagger, with the other groceries.  And on to the next item…

“I pay you three dollars for bag of rice, no more.”

“Ma’am, the rice is $4.99.  We don’t barter on our prices at Safeway…”

This exact same scenario plays out dozens of times a minute, every hour of every day, at every grocery store throughout San Francisco.  I must have watched this Kabuki show hundreds of times, and not one single time did I ever see it work.  The checkers made you pay the listed price or take it back.  That’s America.  But the Asians couldn’t resist.  It was in their blood. 

This evening was busier than normal, with everyone buying last minute provisions before the ball game.  The older, Asian lady in front of me in line was working the barter act pretty good.  And then everything started to shake.  I could feel the ground rock and roll beneath me.  I heard thousands of cans and bottles flying off of store shelves and exploding as they hit the ground.  The large glass windows in the front of the store buckled and shattered. 

Sometimes you wonder how you’ll react in a sudden or unusual situation.  I knew immediately it was an earthquake.  I knew immediately it was the largest earthquake I’d felt in my lifetime.  When the earthquake started, I was next in line in the checkout line, behind my bartering Asian neighbor.  When the quake subsided ten seconds later, I was standing outside the store, in the parking lot, safely away from the Safeway.  I looked back towards the store and realized I was the only person outside.  Everyone else was still standing in place, frozen in shock.  Ready to barter.

My first reaction was, even though it was a large jolt, I could tell that the store didn’t have any major structural damage and, as the shoppers and checkers eventually shuffled out of the store, it didn’t appear that anyone was hurt.

My second thought was, “Shit!” 

I was THAT close to getting my groceries, they were still visible sitting there on the belt of the checkout stand, and now every store in the City was going to be closed for the night.  For days.  We were going to have to make due for a day or two with whatever provisions we had at home.

My third, and most important, thought, of course, was for the safety of my (then) girlfriend.  She was working at a construction site in downtown San Francisco, and should have been starting her commute home.  No cell phones back then, and all the landlines were dead, so I’d just have to go home and wait, and hope she’d show up soon.

I slowly drove home.  The power was out all through the neighborhood, so there were back-ups at every intersection with a stoplight.  Most of the local radio stations did have back-up power and stayed on the air.  The enormity of the quake sunk in as I listened to all the radio reports on the short drive home.

An odd thing about living through a large earthquake, when the power and phones go out for days at a time, is that everyone else in the country was seeing the coverage on television that none of us in the earthquake zone were able to watch.  All we had was radio.  And as I recall, the news radio coverage in San Francisco was excellent that week.

Our flat at that time was located right on the Great Highway (which, as I liked to joke, was neither great, nor actually a highway), literally across the street from Ocean Beach, the sandy, foggy expanse in the western portion of town where San Francisco met the Pacific.  We lived on the third floor in a unit in the back, facing East towards the mountain that divides the Sunset from downtown.

I went upstairs and checked out our place.  A few things thrown off shelves, pictures fallen from walls, power out and phone line dead, but nothing major.  Our back wall was lined with several large windows, offering a scenic view of the City, and looking through them and up towards the Marina district, I could see smoke quickly rising through the air as the sun started to set.

Feeling aftershocks, I realized it wasn’t wise to stay in the apartment.  I left and went out front to wait for my girlfriend to return from work.  Hundreds of residents of the Great Highway where out on the berm of grass between the road and the beach.  Everyone excitedly checked in with neighbors for the latest news, the latest reports on the radio echoed through the neighborhoods, and we waited for our loved ones to return home. 

The ballgame was cancelled.  Word started to spread that a couple of the double decker freeways, that were prevalent in the Bay Area at the time, had collapsed; particularly tragic was the complete collapse of the Cypress freeway over in Oakland.

I think it took my wife about two hours to drive the seven miles home through the City.  She had just left her office atop the Moscone Convention Center in downtown San Francisco, and was making a left turn on to Market Street – the longest and most heavily traveled street in the City – when the earthquake hit. 

She said she noticed all the high rises that line Market Street were waving back and forth across the street.  It was a shocking sight.  Power was out throughout the City, so she had to stop at every intersection with a street light, all the way home.  During rush hour.  But she was safe.

That earthquake had a more pronounced impact on the national psyche because so many people were watching the game broadcast live when it occurred.  Friends and relatives were dialing furiously in those initial hours to try and get through and check on us to see if we were okay.

I had an “800” phone card that I always carried back then because I traveled so much for work.  They were rare at the time, if you didn’t travel.  I discovered I could go to some pay phones, get a dial tone, and eventually use the phone card to dial out.  We called our parents, told them we were fine, and asked them to spread the word. 

The sun had set and a pure darkness enveloped the City that we had never witnessed before.  The aftershocks seemed to subside and we eventually felt safe to go back up in to our apartment.  We lit some candles, set up the radio, cleaned out anything from the fridge that was going to spoil without power, and watched in awe at the red and orange tinted smoke that emanated from the fires in the Marina.  The only other visible light was the occasional lone set of headlights that we’d see from a spare car or two traveling the empty streets.  Eerie.

Power and phone service remained out for 48-72 hours.  The only way you could buy something was with cash during that time.  Most stores and gas stations remained closed. 

I did become more prepared for future quakes by always making sure we had a radio, flashlights, blankets and batteries at home and in our cars.  I tried to never let the gas tank get too low in our cars, and always try to carry some cash.  I’m curious how the cell phone system will work in the next big temblor, but I suspect it will not be very useful.  Hope I’m wrong.

Los Angeles, not to be outdone, went through their own earthquake in 1994, centered in Northridge, right where I had gone to college.  I jokingly congratulated my friends in L.A. with their foresight to have their large earthquake during a hard fought election year.  Their freeways were repaired MUCH faster than ours.  Up here, we're still working on the damn Bay Bridge twelve years later. 

I think I’ll always remember where I was at 5:04 p.m. on October 17, 1989.

The Bard's Mobile

Lost amidst all the hoopla and hysteria over the Murdoch phone hacking scandal in the U.K., and our own budget crisis here at home, was a fascinating story of potentially historic importance on the other side of the Atlantic, first reported last week in the Manchester Guardian.

A Shakespearean literary forensics team, led by Sir Nigel Tufnel, High Chair of the English Literature Department at the University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, digging for months at a site near Stratford-upon-Avon, have made the startling discovery of what they believe is William Shakespeare’s first cellular, or mobile, phone.

Last week a graduate student working at the site unearthed a large, wooden object, preserved in a peat bog, about the size of a shoebox.  The sole clue to the object’s identity was the letters “N-o-k-i-a” written on one side. 

While it is a widely held belief among Shakespearean scholars that the Bard himself was an early adapter of mobile phone technology, little more is known because no writings in his own hand are thought to exist.

There are notes in early Folios of Merchant of Venice, however, that indicate Shakespeare may have written Shylock’s famous line, “if you prick us, do we not bleed?” in response to seeing his first wireless bill. 

Furthermore, there are many references in some of his early comedies to “friends and family plans,” "tooths of blue" and a magical object known only as ye merry olde “Moto-rola.”

While telecommunication anthropologists have long thought there was an extremely crude, primitive wireless network in central London in Shakespeare’s time (they say it would be equivalent to today’s A.T.&T Wireless network), this is the first evidence of an Elizabethan wireless network in Warwickshire.

While the research team has not been able to power the phone (a 0G model) up - it is believed in Shakespeare’s day that a cell phone took a score of oxen working a fortnight to charge - they have been able to extract a small chip that contains a few of, what they believe may be, the great writer’s first mobile texts.

A sample of texts the team has recovered so far include:

To: BobGreene (mobile)

From: @WS

Sent: 2 August, 1592 (2:32 a.m.)

“A horse 2x my KD 4 a horse!”

To: CMarlowe (mobile)

From: @WS

Sent: 13 September, 1592 (7:45 a.m.)

“2 thine own self b tru”

To: TommyNash (mobile)

From: @WS

Sent: 7 October, 1592 (3:02 p.m.)

“brevity is the SOW”

To: AnneHath (mobile)

From: @WS

Sent: 12 November, 1592 (1:27 a.m.)

“O Romeo 2X, where 4 art thou R?”

To: BobGreene (mobile)

From: @ WS

Sent: 27 November, 1592 (7:32 p.m.)

“A2, Brute?”

To: AnneHath (mobile)

From: @WS

Sent: 25 December, 1592 (12:31 a.m.)

“4ever&aday”

To: CMarlowe (mobile)

From: @WS

Sent: 4 January, 1593 (2:40 p.m.)

“2 B or not 2 B – that is ?”

Prof Tufnel said, “this is a treasure trove of electronic data that will be fruit for Shakespearean scholars for generations to come.”

Wireless usage in Shakespeare’s time is thought to have been prohibitively expensive, reserved for only the highest members of society.

Tufnel noted “British Telecomm scholars believe a single text in that era may have cost as much as two pounds, three farthing, four schilling, threepence.”

“Roaming charges were, of course, bloody astronomical,” according to Tufnel.

The University of Birmingham’s team hopes to return the precious artifact to its original condition and place it on display at the Shakespeare Museum in the small village of “Stepping-on-my-Toe” in nearby Worcestershire by the end of the year, just in time to upgrade the phone, as Shakespeare’s original 420 year service agreement will finally expire.  

Game on!

My sons Ciaran (left) and Aidan (right) take a break from pond hockey in Ontario, Canada. 

I’m a big hockey fan.  That’s not really true.  Let’s face it: I’m a hockey fanatic.  I’ve been playing on and off for over fifteen years.  I was the Captain of my adult league hockey team for several years (which is like herding cats).  I was an assistant coach for my boys’ hockey teams for several years (which is like herding kittens).  

In my previous life as a flight attendant, I would often bid my overnights around the NHL schedule.  I’ve seen games around the U.S. and Canada in half the NHL arenas (Montreal is my favorite).   

My wife is from Louisiana and SHE started playing hockey (how cool is that to have a wife from Louisiana who plays hockey), AND she was the Captain of her adult league team.  I think she once scored the winning goal in a shoot-out.  

(You have better odds of winning the state lottery than a forty-something Mom from the Bayou State has of scoring the winning goal in a shoot-out.)

She coached the boys’ mite and squirt teams for a couple of years.  She was the only female USA Hockey Level 3 certified youth hockey coach when we left Santa Rosa.

Our two boys, now 16, started skating when they were three, and were playing competitive hockey when they were six.  They have since traveled to Toronto, Dallas, Denver, Phoenix and all over California for Travel hockey.  

This year their Midget 16 team won the California State Championship.  My son Ciaran was the team’s captain (a greater honor and more important position in hockey than any other team sport), and my other son, Aidan, was the team’s leading scorer in the playoffs.  In one game against the top team from Southern California, he had five consecutive goals:  in the FIRST period.  

They both play on their high school’s roller hockey team and Varsity ice hockey team.

We’re a big hockey family.  

During crucial times of the NHL season, I’ll check my favorite hockey blogs for the latest NHL news before I check my e-mail.

So how does a young boy who grew up in San Jose become such a hockey fan?

I don’t remember the exact details of the first time I attended an NHL game, but I’m sure it was with my father in Landover, Maryland, in the Washington Capitals first year of existence (1974-1975).  The team was new, it was easy to get tickets, and my Dad was always looking for a suitably manly outing for his young boys.

The Capitals went 8-67-5 that inaugural season, setting a record for expansion futility that stands to this day.  I remember it as pretty cool, but it didn’t hook me.

Fast forward about ten years and I’m going to college in Los Angeles.  One day a friend asks if I’d like to go to a Kings’ game at the “Fabulous” Forum.  Hockey in L.A.?  Who Knew?  Nobody in L.A., as it turns out.  This was the “pre-Gretzky” era, when the Kings were a motley crew of cast-offs and also-rans, banished to hockey Siberia.  If you could get a good tan and a Fatburger with fries in Siberia.

The Kings’ claim to NHL notoriety at that time was the “Miracle on Manchester” (the Forum is located on Manchester Blvd.), a thrilling come-from-behind playoff win against Wayne Gretzky and the upstart Edmonton Oilers on April 10, 1982.  The Kings were down 5-0 after two periods and came back with five unanswered goals to tie (with five seconds left in regulation), and then win the game in overtime.  The stunned Oilers went on to lose the series in five games.  It was, and remains, the greatest NHL playoff comeback of all time.

But I missed those Kings.  I came on board a year later.  The L.A. Lakers with Magic, Kareem, and “Showtime” were the toast of the town.  The Kings were an easy ticket.  So easy, that they sold “student rush” seats for $5 two hours before each game.  They were ALWAYS available.  

These were nosebleed seats closer to passing planes on final approach to LAX than they were to the ice.  The place was empty.  More people saw “Heaven’s Gate” (I just lost anyone younger than forty) than watched the Kings that season.  

So once the puck dropped, we would start working our way down closer to the ice.  At the first TV time-out, we moved into the first row of the upper section.  By the second TV time-out, we were sitting pretty in good seats in the lower section.  By the end of the first period, we were sitting like kings, pardon the pun, in the “Senate,” or Club, seats, about ten rows up from center ice.

Senate seats in the old Fabulous Forum were the best seats money could buy before every arena in the land was ringed with luxury boxes.  Good seats back then were close to the action, not up in the rafters.  One low six-figure price guaranteed you the same seat at EVERY event in the Forum all year long.  The Boss to the Lakers to the Kings; these seats were yours.  And they would place a plaque with the seat holder’s name right under each Senate seat.

Every game we would look under the Senate seats we were “borrowing” for the night to see who owned them.  The area around the Forum was heavily populated with hospitals, medical centers and doctors’ offices.  So usually you looked under your seat and saw “Centinela Hospital,” “Pfizer” or “Dr. Singh, OB/GYN.”

But one night we slipped into a couple of perfectly situated empty Senate seats and looked under our seats for the plaques.  

Inscribed on a small brass plaque were the names “Michael Keaton” and “Harry Columby."

Yes, that Michael Keaton.  Batman.  But this was years before Batman. He was fresh off of Nightshift and  Mr. Mom. Life was good for Mr. Keaton in the mid-‘80’s.  Columby was his manager.  I assume they used their seats for Bruce or the Lakers games, or at least until Wayne arrived in THE TRADE in 1988.

So if you sit in Senate seats at the Fabulous Forum cheering on the likes of future Hall of Famer Marcel Dionne, a young Bernie Nichols, Dave “Tiger” Williams (the team goon, natch), all led by bench boss Rogie Vachon (just saying Rogie Vachon is fun – try it – “Rogie Vachon” – isn’t that fun?), and after two or three seasons at $5 a game, you’ll come to the realization that “this is a pretty sweet deal.”  And it was.  

A bench-clearing fight in those days was a complete “yard sale” bench-clearing brawl.  Helmets, sticks, and gloves all over the place.  Blood everywhere.  It would take the officials 15-20 minutes to figure it all out and assess all the penalties.  It was an indelible spectacle for $5 a pop.

And then the Kings got a new owner, who later would do hard time, but that’s another matter, and he went out in the summer of 1988 and made THE TRADE.  Wayne Gretzky, the Great One, the undisputed best player in hockey, was heading to Hollywood.  And if there’s anything Hollywood loves; it’s a star.  And Gretzky was a star.  The Kings were hip.  So the stars came.  Everyone in L.A. wants to see and be seen.  And out went the $5 student rush Senate seats.  But I was hooked.

Now flash forward a few years to the summer of 1991, and my once sleepy hometown of San Jose has done got up and got ‘em a bona fide National Hockey League expansion team.: The San Jose Sharks.  But they don’t have a building in which to play.  At least not in San Jose.  That would take a couple of years.  So they’re going to play their first two seasons up the road in the Cow Palace, or Le Palais du Boeuf, as it came be known in hockey circles.

The Cow Palace was a dump.  A genuine barn.  Never has the word “palace” been more of a misnomer.  The Cow Palace, built in 1941, was old and dilapidated by 1942.  By 1991 it was held together by baling wire and cow dung; the home of ice shows, tractor pulls and wrestling. 

(Oddly enough, it was the site of both the 1956 AND 1964 Republican National Conventions – go figure!)  

The Sharks were forced to go on a LONG road trip in October their first two seasons because the building was booked for a rodeo.  A rodeo!

But it was hockey.  NHL hockey.  Bourque, “Lucky” Luc, the “Russian Rocket,” Roy, Gretzky, Lemieux.

(In the Pittsburgh Penguins’ first trip to the Bay Area, I watched in amazement as Center Mario Lemieux lit the Sharks up for 6 points en route to a 8-0 thrashing of our boys in teal.  I’d like to report that 8-0 beating was the Sharks’ worst home loss of the season.  But that would be a lie.).  

My mother’s business bought season tickets for the newest pro team in town.  And my wife and I lived in San Francisco.  A mere slap shot from the Cow Palace.  Most people down in San Jose didn’t exactly jump at the chance to drive for an hour in rush hour traffic and watch the Sharks get pummeled in the Cow Palace on a Tuesday or Thursday night in January and February.  So my wife and I saw a LOT of hockey those two years.  A lot of bad hockey.  In their second season in the Cow Palace, the Sharks went on to lose an incredible 71 games in one season (still an NHL record).  We are just now, twenty years later, getting the smell of that place off our shoes and clothes.

But it brought me full circle back to the days of my youth watching the equally inept expansion Washington Capitals.

We were hooked, and after two seasons the team finally settled in to new digs in downtown San Jose.  They started playing in a brand new arena that locals quickly dubbed the “Shark Tank.”  Many corporate names have officially graced the building since then, but most locals still refer to it as the “Tank.”

And a miraculous thing happened that first season in San Jose.  They won.  Not all the time.  But they won enough to barely make the playoffs for the first time.  And then they went on to upset the dreaded Detroit Red Wings in the playoffs – still the greatest playoff series in Sharks’ history.  It was a special season.  

(SIDE NOTE; My wife and I flew down to Anaheim for the day - we were flying for free back in those days - early in that season to see the Sharks beat the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim in their shiny, new “Pond.”  After the game we raced up the 405 to LAX for the midnight flight back to SFO.  We scored a couple of seats in the first row of First Class and settled in.  A moment later, the players on the Sharks, tired and battered and bruised, and looking younger up close than you could possibly imagine, wearily shuffled down the aisle and settled into their coach seats.  We could tell we weren’t the only fans who had made the trip down for the game that night, and a buzz built in the plane as fans started to recognize the players.  Rookie Head Coach Kevin Constantine came in after the players and took his seat in First Class, directly behind my wife.  When the plane arrived in SFO and everyone got up to leave, there was a moment when we were waiting for the door to open, and my wife caught the eye of the coach and said, “thanks for the win!”  He looked down, sheepish and unsure quite how to react, and managed a muffled, “you’re welcome.”  A quick glance at his face showed he must have been thinking “this is weird.”)

Everyone who watched a game that season in San Jose was hooked.  The building gets louder and louder every year.  Now virtually every game is sold-out.  And kids all over the Bay Area started to play hockey.  And adults all over the Bay Area started to play hockey.  Last season six kids from California were drafted into the NHL.  And today more adults play hockey in the Sharks practice rink in San Jose than any other single ice rink west of the Mississippi.

And that’s how I became a hockey finatic.

Next time I’ll write a few stories about my brushes, real and imagined, with Wayne Gretzky, hockey’s exalted “Great One,” whose all-time scoring records will probably never be broken.  They end, most memorably, on a cool, blue sky winter morning where I finally get to meet and talk with Wayne for a brief moment in, of all places, Scottsdale, Arizona.