Montrose - Daily Press

Recommended reading…….

My older brother, Paul, the CPA, and I can be further distinguished by late-night comedy: He’s a Leno fan; me, Letterman. He saw Leno in L.A; I saw Letterman in New York.

The musical director of Letterman’s ‘CBS Orchestra’ is Paul Shaffer. He’s authored a nifty memoir, ‘We’ll Be Here for the rest of Our Lives.’ It’s a good, lively read with lots of “insider’ show-biz anecdotes and stories. (Shaffer co-wrote the disco hit: ‘It’s Raining Men,’ for example.)

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Shaffer grew up in a middle class family, was destined for law school, but told his dad to “give him a year” to make it in “show business.” Shaffer went from playing keyboards in topless bars, to getting a break as musical director of ‘Godspell’, to ‘Saturday Night Life’ to Letterman. For almost 30 years they’ve been together. The book jacket sums it well: ‘A swingin’ showbiz saga.’

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Today’s the 90th birthday of Blackie Sherrod, my favorite all-time, best-ever sports writer and columnist. If you grew up in Texas around Dallas, you read Blackie. His columns were story-telling at their best, usually with a dose of news, in about 600 words. On Sundays, his “Scattershootin’” column – the model of ellipsis style writing (sometimes called “three-dot journalism) -- was the way people started their morning before heading off to church. His books (available on Amazon) are compilations of his columns. They’re recommended and worth the time.

Time was, sports columnists and news columnists, defined a city. Blackie in Dallas, Joe Falls in Detroit, Furman Bisher in Atlanta, Jim Murray in Los Angeles, Mike Royko in Chicago, Murray Kempton, New York; Herb Caen, San Francisco, Gene Amole and Woody Paige, Denver. Blackie was all “old-school,” and sitting in a pressbox with him was a big deal. The few times I shared the same airspace in Cotton Bowl pressbox, I would sit and just wonder: How can that guy like that write so well without writing anything down? He enjoyed tweaking the Establishment. Like when Jerry Jones bought the Dallas Cowboys. He referred to him as “Smiley” and everyone knew who he was writing about.

Blackie was the first “$100,000” sports writer. Like being the first-ever $1 million a year baseball player. Back in the early 1980s, he was lured away from his longtime home, Dallas Times Herald (no longer publishing), to the Dallas Morning News, fierce rivals in readership. It was a coup, a big deal in the newspaper biz and it was later determined than Blackie took about 60,000 subscriptions with him, adding to the speculation that his departure was the first crack in the Times Herald’s eventual demise.

Later, after he “retired,” Blackie wrote a twice-weekly Op-Ed column, which, too attracted devoted readers. Blackie, wherever you are, have a good one.

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Correction of the Week

“In a Nov. 4 story about the swine flu virus being confirmed in an Iowa cat, The Associated Press, relying on information provided by the Iowa State University Collge of Veterinary Medicine, incorrectly reported that a ferret diagnosed with the virus in Oregon died. The ferret is not dead and is recovering, according to the Oregon Veterinary Medical Association.”

--Omaha World Herald

 

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