Large Mouth Bass

You couldn't just meet Dick Bass.  You had to experience him. If he was awake, he was talking...a mile a minute. (and there are great stories about him when he wasn't awake) He had a story or a poem for every occasion...and he was quite a story in himself. The clergyman presiding at his memorial said he could imagine St. Peter, after meeting Dick, turning to God and saying "Are all Texans like this?" Rancher, oilman, ski area developer, adventurer, Dick went after everything he did with a vengeance. Why not the Seven Summits!?

It's hard to say who came up with idea to climb the highest mountain on every continent and call the effort the Seven Summits. But Dick and his cohort Frank Wells, then president of Warner Brothers, decided to tackle that daunting challenge in a big way.

I met them both back in the 80's when they started that journey and now, with Dick's recent passing, the story of their quest will be left to the history books.  Frank took a detour to be president of Walt Disney before he could reach the final summit of Mt. Everest, but Dick kept his eye on the prize. He finally put his name in the record books as the first person to reach the Seven Summits in 1985.

Persistence and tenacity were high on Dick's list of important traits and he wreaked of them. Four times he tackled Mt. Everest before he made it the final jewel and his crown of mountains. I'm personally disappointed and I might say even offended that the New York Times published a major obit, choosing to focus on the "paid assistance of professional climbers" who went with Dick on the Seven Summits adventure.  The majority of those climbers were not paid to be there.  They wanted the opportunity to go places they had never been  Dick and Frank gave the climbers that opportunity, while surrounding themselves with the best, like good leaders do when they tackle an unknown challenge.

Dick's mountaineering achievement has been credited and discredited for the the dramatic rise in guided climbs on the world's highest mountains. But Sir Edmund Hillary and Reinhold Messner were predicting the advent of guided (paid) Everest climbs long before Dick and Frank had their great idea. Governments and guide services both discovered on their own the opportunity to make money from the mountains with encouragement from their clients,

Do not mistake Dick Bass's business success and personal wealth as the reasons for his climbing accomplishments in the mountains of the world.  He took every step on his own.  He scaled every obstacle and avoided every danger to reach his goal under his own power. He earned the Seven Summits. And he did it with heart and soul and his own inspiration.,

When it was over, Dick celebrated as only Dick Bass could. Big Time. At Snowbird. And his partner Frank Wells was right there with him when they walked together to the top of Snowbird's peak. There, several hundred of his closest friends, even the mountain people like us, listened to his stories one more time and afterward the symphony choir echoed "Climb Every Mountain" into the valleys below. Frank was later tragically killed in a helicopter skiing accident but, fortunately, he was able to be there to relish the realization of the dream. It was an amazing celebratory moment in time. Well done and well deserved.

For several years after achieving the Seven Summits, Dick was the oldest person to have climbed Mt. Everest. Finally someone surpassed his record and immediately he began to get ready to win that honor back. During the ensuing years, I spent a lot of time working and playing with Dick at his home in Dallas, at Snowbird and around the world.  A few months ago, he made a special trip to Seattle to add his comments to a film we were working on about uber expedition leader and guide Lou Whittaker. Dick credited Lou with opening the door for him to the mountains of the world that he came to love. We spent the day with him telling stories and he was still planning his next Everest climb and looking for the next $80 million development deal,which he always seemed to be chasing.  He was always moving ahead. "If you never stop, you can't get stuck" he used to say.

At the time of Dick's Seven Summits quest, I formed a group called the First Team made up of interesting and exciting individuals who had all achieved a first in some kind of sports endeavor.  The tag line I coined to describe it was "Records are made to be broken, but a first lasts forever."

My long-time friend Phil Ershler, a member of the First Team who, with his wife Susan, became the first married couple to reach the Seven Summits, went with me to Dick's memorial service in Dallas.
Phil spent more time with Dick on the Seven Summits and Mt. Everest, specifically, than anyone. As we sat in the honored row of "Mountain People" next to his family at the service, we listened closely to one of Dick's best and oldest friends paint a water-colored picture of Dick's life.

In summing up, his friend said he asked Dick which was more important to him, being the oldest person to climb Everest or being the first to reach the Seven Summits. He said that Dick replied without hesitation, '"The Seven Summits, of course, because there can always be somebody older but a first lasts forever." Phil and I just looked at each other and smiled.  Dick is with us and always will be.

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Media Relations

The most important aspect of media relations is the relations, It's not just who you know. It's how you can build valuable relationships with mutual trust and respect in the meda.

I've been teaching that to students in the UW PR Certificate program for almost a quarter of a century. Even in today's lightning fast news media landscape, building those relationships is still the key.

When I saw Ed White from KING-TV at his retirement party recently, we realized that our relationship virtually spanned his entire career. For 32 years, Ed has been sitting in the middle of police and emergency scanners and ringing telephones while he made decisions about which stories would be covered that day and who would cover them. Suffice it to say that is not an easy task...but Ed made it all work.

There is no one better at running a broadcast newsdesk than Ed White. His skills and work ethic are legendary. When word got out that he was stepping down from his role, it wasn't just KING-TV that took notice. It was the entire broadcast community. Every anchor, every reporter, every news producer and camera person in town came out to congratulate Ed.

When you;re good, very good, at your job, people notice. And when that job is planning manager (read Chief Assignment Editor), not only those on the news side of the game but those of us who are sources for news know when we've found a competent ally, as well. Every PR person around has spoken with Ed at some time or other. We're used to receiving curt "No Way!" responses and to suddenly only hearing a dial tone on the other end of our media calls.  But Ed White could make you feel good about the "no" because he;'d tell you why. He would even take the few minutes he had to try to help you make it a better story. That has a very special meaning to a PR person.

Because of his exceptional skills, I've regularly asked Ed to speak to my UW Class on a panel of broadcast news professionals. No matter what was going on, he would always find a way to show up...and, usually with a stack of really poorly written or misdirected news releases in hand to wave in our faces as he chided us. It was no holds barred for Ed. He'd give the students the straight answers whether they wanted to hear them or not. He's come to my class for so long, I think he could teach it. I do not look forward to replacing him on the panel..those are.tough shoes to fill. One of our friends joked, "Who could ever replace Ed White...Ed Black?"

I've been building relationships with the media my entire career. Since my college friend Jane Pauley went to work in local television, I've known the value of those connections. The relationships I've nurtured make me better at my job. I'm constantly learning about what makes news today and what doesn't. It's an art not a science.

Ed White has brought one of the most important jobs in the newsroom to a new level. Because of Ed, the bar is very high now. No matter what is said about the relationship between journalists and PR people, Ed White made it work. And made it work well. I'm actually going to miss those midnight calls when only the two of us knew that the other one would still be at the desk working. I consider it a great privilege to have worked with him and to call him my friend. Now, go have some fun, Ed.  You deserve it.

Sad time for Charleston

Charleston, South Carolina, is a very special place for me and Jane. Over the past 20 years, we've worked there, lived there, celebrated there, grieved there and done a lot of growing up there. We've made life-long friends there.

Mayor Joe Riley was a working partner. From the first time I met him, I knew that Charleston was in good hands. He's a good public servant and a good man. But now,my heart is aching for Charleston and every one of its residents. I've seen them stand-up to everything from hurricanes to confederate flags and they'll stand-up to this senseless, angry, horrific act of violence...but it still hurts.

I've sat on the steps of Mother Emmanuel Church on a hot summer evening watching the locals chatter away as they'd come and go. They'll do that again...but not with quite the same safe feeling...that will take a while.

Many of the roots of our country, black and white, were seeded in Charleston. We're a strong people. We'll weather this storm. We'll get better...but not without more heartache and tears. Jane and I miss our friends in Charleston more than ever. Just so sad.

A Little Bit of Letterman

David Letterman and I didn’t know we shook hands at the end of our high school baseball game against each other until we connected a few years later.  We always lined up and shook hands with the opposing team…so we’re sure we did. The next time we ran into each other was in local television when Dave was a weatherman and late night movie host and I was an assistant in news and programming. Jane Pauley was a cub reporter then too and we had known each other in college. Jane was my Jane’s sorority sister and I managed and sang with a campus singing group where Jane P. was a member.

As time passed and Dave became a television celebrity, we came in contact again and that’s when my long standing acquaintance began. On Dave’s program, he calls it “a brush with greatness”. He admits that after 18,000-some-odd guests, he has trouble remembering who he interviewed on any particular night. So, only if I can give him enough touch points, would he remember us…but I do.

It started with phone calls to his staffers.  I explained our connection to his long-time assistant, Laurie, who interceded for me and relayed greetings and messages. I began to place some clients on the program through the writers who Laurie put me in touch with. One of my favorite segments is when I placed uber-climber Lynn Hill on the show. She and Dave climbed a make-shift wall and Dave feigned hurting his back on the first hold. We had a ball.

My strongest contact happened when I came to know Mary Connelly, now a producer for Ellen Degeneres.  Mary totally got my connection with Dave and became my best liaison with the program. Of the 20-plus times I’ve attended the show, many with Jane in tow, there are certainly standouts.  I spent several of my birthdays there and got the full “green room:” treatment. Paul and band always stopped in for coffee.  I had some great chats with Anton Fig, the band’s drummer and a native of Cape Town, South Africa.  I’ve done a lot of work in Cape Town and Anton and I found that we have several friends in common. As a bonus, Mary took us on stage after the show to sit in the great man’s chair and toss footballs into the garbage can (Mary once beat Dave on the air in this perennial contest.).

With us in the “green room” (which, of course, isn’t green) have been some very fun surprises.  A long chat about the northwest with K.D. Lang, who lives in BC,  began a nice relationship there and Don Henley, formerly of the Eagles, was a hoot when we cabbed together to the airport afterward and talked “Hotel California” as we flew to DC. One time, Al Pacino made a brief appearance with handlers all around but Don Novello aka “Father Guido Sarduccii” and actor comedian Jay Thomas were both a lot more talkative.

The “green room” was fun but sitting in our front row seats (you can see us to the left of the red shirt in this screen shot) was always the highlight. If you’ve been to see the show live, you know that Dave does his own warm-up with an audience Q&A.  I always worked hard on my questions, just in case I got called on, which I did more than once. I brought Seattle and the Mariners into the mix on a couple of occasions and Dave acknowledged his affinity for the northwest and the Mariners ball club. My favorite encounter came when I told Dave that I knew he had a “spacer” to fill the gap between his two front teeth and that I had some work done on my teeth too. When they filled in the gap in my teeth, it seemed to change my life.  He said “How so?” I wasn’t prepared for his follow-up but Danica Patrick was on the show that night after winning the pole position at the Indianapolis 500.  So my comeback was that no woman had ever won the pole position at Indy before my gap was filled in. Dave laughed, removed his plug and I got to meet Danica Patrick.

In one of my early bios, I said, “I worked in local television with David Letterman and Jane Pauley. They went to New York and I ended up in Seattle” They may have become stars but I still think I got the best part of that deal. For me, Dave leaving the Late Show is like seeing a friend you’ve grow up with move away. There’s a void that you can feel. My parents were from Indiana and our Midwest roots are similar. Sense of humor. Easy going lifestyle. Love dogs. Quiet and reclusive away from work. Our mothers had the same approach to life and loved to “spar” with us. So much alike that I could often tell you what he was going to say before he said it. I recorded his daytime show and have seen virtually every one of his late night shows (I’m a late night person). I even found him on the air at 2am in Australia to keep me company.

Through all the ups and downs of the past 30-plus years, David Letterman has been the real thing. What you see is what you get. Whether up or down, healthy or not, happy or angry, you could feel the emotion in Dave. His mentor Johnny Carson was the same way. Neither was a comedian in the strict sense of the word.  They both were just funny and they made their guests feel they were part of the joke. I will miss Dave and the connection we had, no matter how far removed.  He made me laugh. He made look at life straight on. He made me care about those things worth caring about and not worry too much about the rest. Dave, you gave us all a lot of yourself. Now go enjoy some of life on your own…with Regina and Harry, of course.

Friday Tunes

“WHY IS THE MUSIC SO LOUD?” my friend yelled on the phone from his tour in Japan.  “I WRITE BETTER WITH THE MUSIC… WITHOUT THE HEADPHONES!” I screamed back. “I CAN’T WRITE MUSIC WITH MUSIC AT ALL!” he said.

Music is the soundtrack of my life.  I can’t seem to get away from it.  There is always a tune or lyric banging around in my head. It’s been that way for me since I was a child. Even when playing sports, I always hear the music. I've got a friend who recites the poetry of Robert Service when he’s mountain climbing. The themes from “Chariots of Fire” and “Star Wars” have kept me going more than once. I remember when “Astral Tunes” hit the ski slopes…a Walkman in a fanny pack, with good marketing. Simple but It brought the tunes to life on the mountain.

The weekly manifestation of this music fetish is what has come to be called “Friday Tunes”.  It started back in the mid-90’s when I was trying to get a client speech written on a Friday afternoon.  It was quiet at the agency. No one was around my office in the brick waterfront warehouse…so I took off the headset and cranked up the boom box to 15. I’m pretty sure it was Soundgarden’s Black Hole that was playing and words immediately started coming out of my fingers onto the keyboard. At the break between that cut and Juan Luis Guerra’s “El Costo De La Vida” that I picked up in Uruguay while learning to merengue , a woman’s voice from the other end of the building said, “Do you really like pop music?” I yelled back “I like all kinds of music. Is that ok?” “Go For It!” she said and “Friday Tunes” was born.

The rationale is that by 4pm on Friday, most people are ready for the weekend, if they’re even still at their desks. That last hour and half is “tension suspension” and winding down is the objective. 90 minutes seemed like a good set and I started to create the playlists on Thursday nights It began with vinyl to tape; then vinyl and tape to cd, digital to cd and ultimately, iTunes playlists to the player. My 5000 vinyl albums are gone and so are most of my 3000 cd’s. I do have close to 40,000 songs in the cloud,though, and I have even transferred my most treasured vinyl to digital files.

Eventually the entire agency got behind “Friday Tunes” and I would get email and text critiques as the songs would play.  Only one artist got a complete “thumbs down” and a “never play again”. I know there are names jumping into your heads but the answer is Britney Spears.  Oops…the reaction was actually violent.

Requests poured in during the week and I even received playlists that I founds ways to use. The key to Friday Tunes is the mix.  I really do like all kinds of music.  There is a wealth of great Acid Rock and Grunge, though an acquired taste, is really good, thanks to the insight of my close friend Susan and her stint as a deejay on KCMU (pre-KEXP). But my travels around the world have yielded some of the most fantastic finds. In Sydney on Australia Day, I sat in a luncheon meeting with Yothu Yindi winding through the crowd playing the didgeridoo. I still get goose bumps. Johnny Klegg in South Africa; Carlos Vives in Colombia; Mary Black in Ireland; Dougie MacLean in Scotland, just scratch the surface of what’s out there.

I try to hit most of the genres each week.  There have been themes.  During the Jewish Holidays, I pull out the stops on Itzhak Perlman, the Klezmatics, Barbara Streisand and, of course, the long version of “Sweet Caroline” from Neil Diamond. Country is a big hit with fiddles and banjos and guitars blazing. I’m even starting to like some originals from the TV show Nashville.  They've got great writers. Classical and Opera always play a role, whether it’s Pavarotti, Callas or Neville Mariner. The set is not complete without a dose of pop by decade. Pharrell Williams, Aloe Blacc, Avicii and Lorde are on the current list. But the opener is always the pacesetter.  Kung Fu Fighting is one of the best. One of my agency colleagues walked into my office at 4pm one Friday just as I hit the button. The drum beat almost knocked him down. Other great kick-offs are Dire straits “Money for Nothing”, “Boom Boom” by Chayanne and the title cut from arguably the best pop album of all time, Michael Jackson’s Thriller. We followed the crowd to the stadium in Buenos Aires to hear his fantastic SRO concert.

I've blown through 4  boom  boxes but all have served me well. The highlight was when my IT friend Mark found me a set of speakers that were worthy of a KISS Concert.  I never knew the db details but I could rattle the windows in the office building at half-volume. They were so good, however, that they were sold in an instant on eBay when the agency had bills to pay.

Unless I’m alone in a sound-proof room, the headphones are back on for Friday Tunes at the office…and I miss them. The mix is still there every week but that raw bass and treble from the woofers and tweeters is something special that helps finish that draft or launches you into the weekend. Regardless, as the song says, “The music is in me”, especially on Friday’s at 4pm.

We can't afford to lose...

Freedom is precious. Freedom to speak our mind—publicly—is much of what our country was built on. Freedom is en­joyed by a majority of the world today, but it’s being challenged with irrational bigotry by people whose only answer to what they don’t like is violence against the innocent. It’s terrorism at its worst. Whether it’s breaching personal data, stealing government secrets, avoiding the truth in public statements or indis­criminately killing people for making satirical comments about others, soci­ety is at war with itself today. We’re on the verge of being out of control. And for those of us who value freedom, it’s a scary and volatile situation.

The Charlie Hebdo incident has all of us who put stock in the written word and free­dom of expression feeling uneasy. Many of the major media around the world were very careful about how they reported on the diabolical act in Paris. It’s difficult to tem­per your responses when you’re trained to present the facts. Unfortunately, that’s what the terrorists want, and by attacking first, they have the upper hand, despite the defiance that ensues.

A French colleague of mine who has come to America to study and teach com­munications brings this down to a very personal level. She said, “What was most shocking to me was the fact that we hadn’t had terrorist attacks such as this one (in Paris) for many, many years... (We) usu­ally get bombings. I’m probably biased, but when it comes to shootings and attacks on freedom, the U.S. usually comes to mind first. This one felt more targeted and personal and that’s probably why French people reacted this way—putting ‘Je Suis Charlie’(the slogan adopted by supporters of freedom of speech) on their Facebook profiles, on T-shirts and such.

“Freedom to speak your mind is what countries like the U.S. and France repre­sent, so it’s hurtful when this is being at­tacked and yields uneasiness in other me­dia outlets, shaping their reporting. With terrorism being rampant all over the world, it seems that nowhere is ‘safe,’ nowhere can truly be free without risking attacks... that, to me, is the saddest part,” from her point-of-view.

Our whole world has changed since 9/11 and, importantly for me, it’s changed dramati­cally the way we communicate. With the ter­rorists using YouTube to promote their atroci­ties, the rest of us can barely comprehend what we’re seeing. Every public-facing business I know is now looking more closely than ever at what they say, to whom and how. Words, indeed, can be more powerful than the sword, IF the timing is right AND the offense is not too great. We now know that this can be taken to severe extremes.

Across the pond, an English associate of mine, educated at Cambridge and ex­perienced in corporate communications throughout Europe, takes a more global view of this dilemma. He told me, “These freedoms... have evolved in the ‘West’ over generations through the often painful, if principled, development of democracy. They didn’t appear at a moment of epiph­any. Democracy, and the related freedoms we enjoy and value, aren’t things we can impose on others or expect others to accept and adjust to overnight. Our attempts to do so in recent times, in the Middle East and elsewhere, whatever our motivations and purposes at the time, have served mainly to fertilize the soil in which many of today’s intolerant extremists have grown strong.

“Because they’re relatively new, and also fragile, these freedoms still are find­ing their feet and their limitations. For ex­ample, perhaps the ability to cause great, as well as gratuitous, insult to others is not a freedom a civilized society should regard as an inalienable right. This is not in any way to justify or excuse the reaction to the blasphemy we’ve witnessed from Islamic extremists and others (such as those on ei­ther side of the religious divide in Northern Ireland). But it’s a serious question.

“The West has stumbled into creat­ing more problems that it has solved in many parts of the world through igno­rance and arrogance, albeit let us hope, with the best of intentions. Let us also hope we’ve learned something useful along the way, in addition to acquiring a dangerous fatigue that has left us weaker and more vulnerable... and not only to the ambitions of Islamic fundamental­ism. We probably still need to carry a big stick and defend the freedoms we enjoy, but we surely need to tread more carefully and not simply want to teach the rest of the world what’s best for it,” he surmised.

What to do? Hide our heads in the sand? Stand out in the open and beat on our chests? Take everyone and everything to task in what we say? It’s hard to know, but first, we must remember that we’re in a war with terrorism, not Islam or any other specific ideology. These evil people have adopted certain religious principles to somehow justify their extreme causes.

More than ever, what we say and how we say it must be vetted very thoroughly. Before we speak, we have to consider all sides of the issue and what kind of a re­sponse could result. Still, we can’t shirk our responsibility to communicate effectively.

Opinions must be clearly stated and we should never stray from the facts of the situation (Brian Williams). Freedom of the press and expression continue to be among civilization’s most valuable rights. As com­municators, providing protection for these freedoms is essential. Doing our job profes­sionally, responsibly and ethically is what we learned from our teachers and mentors. Not straying from that commitment may be hard, but it must be done. These freedoms will cease to exist if we don’t defend them. It’s a part of this war we can’t lose. 

Live...in New York City

It was a cold, dark February Saturday night in New York City. I was spending more time there than I wanted to, working on the company annual report. It was one of the big responsibilities of my new corporate job.  I had talked to Jane, as I did every day I was gone, and now wondered what I would do for dinner. Walking around Manhattan is the only way to go. It’s an amazing city. I was getting to know it only too well, making weekly trips for months on end.

One of my good friends had an older brother who was a producer for the NBC Nightly News and it just so happened that the typesetting company (there’s a step back in time) I was working with was just around the corner from Rockefeller Center. A new late night comedy program was making news by being live on Saturday nights. The show was starting to catch on in the first season and I was hooked. I decided to call my friend’s brother to see if he could get me a ticket. He had already given me a great entrée to the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and I had seen Johnny, Ed and Doc live several times while in New York.

He told me people were lining up and there was a long waiting list but he would make a call and try to have my name added.  The line was indeed long. It was all the way around the corner across from Radio City Music Hall and, at first, that discouraged me. I walked past the line and went to the reception desk.  I told the Page there that I was a guest of my friend’s brother. She said that they had my name but I would have to wait over to the side near the elevators.

Soon the line began to move. Elevator after elevator shuttled the masses up to the studio. I had just decided that I was being left in the dust when the Page came over and said, “Quick, catch that last elevator! The producer has your name and he’ll introduce you around backstage. There are no audience seats left.” Who am I to question why? I squeezed through the door just as it was closing.

The elevator opened to controlled chaos. People with headsets running everywhere. A short guy with long hair in a sportcoat came up to me and said, “Hi. I’m Lorne. So you know Joe.” “Yes,” I said, “he’s the brother of one of my best friends.” “Great guy,” he said, “Say hello to Chevy Chase. Let me see if I can find you a chair. Things are pretty hectic right now”

Chevy said that rehearsal a couple of hours earlier had not gone well but some changes had been made and things should be back on track.  Lorne (Michaels, of course, now producer emeritus after all these years) appeared with a metal folding chair and said, “Sit anywhere you want that’s out of the way.  You can meet everyone after the show.”

What can I say. I was witness to the birth of an American comedic institution. They were all there. Chevy doing the news…”And Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.” Aykroyd selling automotive oil that was a health drink. Belushi as an Indian guru… and Gilda giving her opinion of the Supreme Court ruling on the DEAF penalty ("deaf people already have enough problems!") “Never Mind”. Jane Curtain and Laraine Newman playing reporters and Garrett Morris asking people to send him money for the White Guilt Relief Fund. Academy-Award-Nominee Jill Clayburgh was the host and a newly-discovered Leon Redbone was the musical guest.Even Andy Kaufman had become a semi-regular guest doing odd pantomimes to old records.  I was mesmerized.

The 90-minutes went by in a flash…but then, after the now-traditional group hug on stage at the end of the show, which actually took place backstage then, Lorne came up and told me to join in and meet the gang. I don’t think they knew that they were creating a staple of American life, generating catchphrases for generations and producing many of the greatest comedic talents that our country has ever seen. Belushi was cracking everyone up and Gilda, still in her Emily Litella garb from the news, was making sure that each cast member received her admiration and approval.

I’m glad that I didn’t go out to dinner that night. At about 2 am, I picked up my favorite pastrami and chopped liver sandwich and a Dr. Brown’s crème soda from the Carnegie Deli, went back to my hotel room and just thought about the experience. It was new. It was exciting. It was funny. They were even so far ahead of the curve that they depicted a lesbian wedding between two movie actresses to end the show. Sometimes now I think it would have been great to have had a phone with a camera…but when I think more about it, I feel like it would not have been the same indelible experience with today's technology. It was truly an "acoustic" evening. For sure, I have to count it as one of my all-time favorite “brushes with greatness”.