Russia, An Auto Parts Store's Dream

Like many people, I have become enthralled with the dashcam video of traffic and driving conditions in Russia on the net. I must admit when I first saw it, I thought that it was taken over time from law enforcement or other safety vehicles. But after a while, it became obvious there was too much video out there for just safety vehicles so I thought it could be that commercial vehicles have installed the dashcams as a way to cut insurance costs. But then even that didn't account for the amount of video in some fairly short time frames. Not wanting to believe that Russia had THAT many accidents, I Googled "Russia driving" and what I found just shocked me! Driving so, so bad that everyday motorists have installed the dashcams for their own protection.

In Russia, traffic enforcement is all but non-existent with police corruption a way of life, insurance scams from drivers and pedestrians alike, road rage over any little thing that is perceived as a slight, plus drivers and pedestrians who do not follow the driving laws and you get total and complete chaos on the highways. A real life Mad Max of driving. The rule of thumb is to carry an extra 5000 rubles (about $200) to use as bribe money for the police because they can and do stop you for no reason at all. Out in the country, robberies of motorists at roadblocks are not unusual.

The roads are in bad condition with hardly any multi-lane divided highways outside of the major cities. The countryside is almost always 2 lane surface roads in various states of disrepair. Add winter conditions and alcohol and you have a recipe ripe for a country with one of the highest death rates per capita of any developed nation.

The biggest problem is pedestrians who WILLING jump out in front of vehicles to scam insurance companies. It is really amazing how many pedestrians will wait for a car or truck to come by that isn't paying attention and then jump out and roll over the hood! 9 times out of 10 after hitting the ground, they get up and walk away! Some don't make it because the driver gets out, runs them down on foot and then pummels senseless. All caught on dashcam.

Of the drivers, most are driving WAY in excess of safe speed, driving ALL OVER the road, left lane, right lane, creating lanes where there are none, and using the shoulder as not only one lane but two or three lanes! Ignoring traffic lights completely, cutting off other drivers, forcing themselves into lanes, you name it. I am starting to see videos about something called "suicide runs." This is a video where the driver is on a freeway type highway and driving as fast as possible, weaving in and out of traffic while not slowing down. The chances taken mean one wrong move and DEATH, hence the name, "suicide run."

You see many head on collisions with most avoidable. You see a car in the distance in their lane when for no apparent reason, they move over into the oncoming lane and sometimes the collision is unavoidable. Or you see a car in the right lane turning left across the left lane and a vehicle, traveling in the same direction, t-bones the turning vehicle. You see snow and ice on the road and instead of slowing down to adjust to conditions, people just keep driving at the normal speed and then, boom, they hit a patch and off the road or into the oncoming lane or up a tree or into a snow bank or out into a field or..... Just stupid stuff. But the most amazing head on I have seen dealt with a snob nose panel truck. It hits a semi head on, the panel truck slides to the left and the driver of the panel truck tumbles out of the broken out front window to land on his FEET! He shakes his head a little and then walks around the wreck of his truck looking at the damage!

Parking in the cities are a nightmare. You will see cars parked any and every place. There were laws enacted to stop the practice, but the public didn't like it and they continue to park where ever they want and because of the number of people doing it, the police don't even try to stop it anymore.

Drinking is also a serious problem. It is so bad, the government has put in some of the toughest laws against DUI, but the culture is such, it will take many years to get that even close to being under control.

If you go to Russia, it is well worth the expense to hire a car to take you. If you aren't a VERY expert driver, Russia is a death trap to the driver. Don't believe me? Take a look for yourself.

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Nazi Television?

Those who know me know I am a big history buff of many topics. Broadcasting is of course one of them. But I recently stumbled across a little know recent discovery of television artifacts in Germany. Television under Adolf Hitler's Nazi Regime. These artifacts were locked away in East Berlin for years where they languished, forgotten. A few years after the Berlin Wall fell the Soviet era German archives were cataloged and moved to a new archive and during this process is when the 285 canisters of film were rediscovered.

It is generally known that during the Nazi Regime in the 1930's and 40's, Nazi Germany had a fairly advanced form of television. The 1936 Berlin Olympics were televised live in Berlin. But there was no way to record it other than to film a TV tube where a film camera is pointed at a TV monitor (later called kinosope) so television of the time consisted of test patterns and extremely exaggerated made up people in either extremely bright lit studios or complete dark boxes with a spinning disk and light shining through it "performing" for the "camera" live. So to find that film of those programs from that time has survived is remarkable.

At the time the US, Great Britain, and to a lessor extent, France, were all developing useable television. In the US, there had been experimentation with mechanical spinning disk television developed by the German inventor Paul Nipkow in the 1890s. In the 1920's it slowly became obvious that the mechanical spinning disk TV was approaching its technical limits of about 150 lines of resolution. Philo T. Farnsworth began developing the first electronic scanning system, the basis of today's TV. Soon Dr Vladimir Zworykin, working for RCA came calling on Farnsworth to find out about this new system which lead to the first TV standard in the US, the RCA 441 line system which eventually morphed into the now familiar and recently defunct "analog TV" 525 line NTSC-M system . In Britain, the Marconi Company and an inventor named John Logie Baird were competing for which system, mechanical (Baird) or electronic TV (Marconi) would become their standard. In France, they were attempting to develop an early RCA electronic type called the 343 line system. In Great Britain, 1934 saw the Marconi-EMI 405 line electron system win and was used until 1985.

As the Nazi' came to power in Germany in 1933, they saw TV as a propaganda tool, but it was still deep in development with the mechanical/electronic debate still hotly being contested in many areas of the industry. They first began development on the Nipkow spinning disk and very quickly abandoned it for development of the early RCA electronic 343 line system. The 1936 Berlin Olympics were broadcast in this 343 line format. Since electron video tubes were still in their infancy, the German's developed a TV camera that used film and that film was then immediately developed in the camera and a small video tube imaged the developed film and then transmitted it via coax into the system. Total time from the exposure of the  film to time seen on a TV monitor, 1 minute. Some of this film still exists in the German archive. Development continued and in 1937 Germany adopted the RCA 441 line electron system as their standard.

German television broadcast only 3 nights a week and only for a couple of hours a night. Only about 100 sets were produced and those went to party officials, some journalists and the rest to "Television Parlors". These were areas where the public could come in, watch TV on two 25 cm screens. The hope was to produce a "people's television" similar to the Volkswagon or "people's car". People were not that impressed with Nazi television. Even the Party officials were not impressed. Only Berlin had an over the air transmitter. Other major cities had coax from Berlin run to them.

Unlike the other TV countries of the time, the German's did not confine themselves to studios. The surviving film shows they shot many programs on film and then ran the film on the air as we do video tape today. Most programs were of an entertainment-variety types,  but were very heavily laden in Party rhetoric. To watch these films now, it is very chilling to see and hear the anti-Semitic language used. One of the first regularly scheduled programs was "Garden Party" shot in a rooftop garden. It was basically an entertainment show with Vaudeville and radio acts but the underlying message was clear and was tied in the Socialist slogan of the time, "Strength through joy" meaning you worked hard for the Fatherland and the Fatherland would reward with "joy." Another show was a called "Variety Show" shot in a theatre. It too was vaudeville acts and plays and a not so subtle message of you comply or you will go to a "rehabilitation camp." The example used in the show I saw was the host praising the preceding musical act and then switching to "not everyone is playing the same notes. Those who do not play the correct music will go to musical reeducation camp." Message received loud and clear, Heir Hitler. Even all these years later! There was even a homemakers show telling the women what was expected of good Nazi women.

When war broke out and Germany invaded France, the French 343 line system was replaced with the German 441 line system. At that time only Paris had television and it was broadcast from the Eiffel Tower. Again only very high party members and the military had access to television. One thing the German's didn't count on was that the British were also watching German TV broadcast from Paris as well, setting up a receive station along the English Channel on the British side. To help the morale of the wounded German solders, TV's were placed in the French military hospitals. On these sets were shown how the German's were repelling the English from German newsreels and other programming. What they actually did was show the British just how much damage aerial bombing was doing to Paris. It was an unfettered look into the city in a way that traditional Intelligence could never get. German TV from Paris continued until they were driven out. On the way out of town, the 441 line transmitter was destroyed.

Television in Germany continued over the air until an Allied air strike in 1944 took out the Berlin transmitter. It was never repaired or replaced. The TV coaxial lines that had been laid years earlier continued to send Nazi TV signals to those fortunate enough to still have TV's connected until early 1945. The Nazi's were finally defeated on May 7th, 1945 and the war in Europe ended and so did Nazi television.

The DVD "Television Under the Swastika" outlines much of this history.

Aspect Ratio -- or "Why is that person short and fat?"

I was watching my HD TV the other night when it occurred to me. I am seeing A LOT of full screen material. Why is that so earth shattering? Well, it wasn't that long ago that most of the material did NOT fill the screen. I had just gotten used to it the old way. I had noticed a change. Subtle, but a change.

First, a quick history lesson on how we got here.

The reason TV was a square, 4:3 in the first place was to mimic movies. They were roughly 4:3 aspect meaning, for every 4 units wide, the picture will be 3 units high. It is basic physics of 35mm film. In the 1950's, the movie industry was afraid that TV would kill it so they created, Cinemascope type or wide screen formats where the picture was wider that the old standard of 4 units wide to give it an edge over television and keep seats in the movie houses filled. When digital TV was developed in the 1980's, it was decided to again adapt to the wider screen format of movies. The only problem is that there are several different wide screen cinema formats so 16:9, 16 units wide to 9 units high was adapted for digital television. That is why you can sometimes still see black bars at the top and bottom and really wide movies when played on a HD TV. It is all about aspect ratio. "Why is that person short and fat?"

I bought my first HD TV in 2003. I got it for work since we had just started digital broadcasting and network was sending actual 16:9 formatted programming. I wanted to see it to be sure it was being broadcast correctly. In 2003, very few people had HD TV's. I jokingly said I had my "own" TV station. I could turn it on and off and do all kinds of stuff with it and no one ever called and complained. (They didn't) Problem was for all of 2 hours maximum a day, we had full screen material to broadcast. The rest of the day, we ran our analog 4:3 video through a converter that put black wings on the side of the picture to keep people the correct aspect and to fill out the 16:9 screen. It was simple. If network on was line, the converter was out of line and network worried about its own programming. When not in network, the converter was in line. Correct aspect was maintained. We did that for years. So did the majority of TV stations nationwide.

On June 12, 2009, full power TV stations were required by the government to turn off their analog transmitters. This forced the viewing public to conform to the new digital standard. This also forced stations and program distributors beyond the networks to begin dealing with aspect ratio since the new defacto standard had moved from 4:3 to 16:9. Literally overnight.

When the digital standard had been set, it was stated that standard definition could be 4:3 or 16:9. There was no embedded way to tell the set how to automatically format the picture though. Still isn't. All HD would be 16:9 and if it were upconverted SD the picture formatting signal was an option. After the Digital Transition in 2009, production companies very quickly moved towards converting their programs from 4:3 SD to 16:9 HD. In just 3 years, very few programs intended for mass distribution are still in SD where only network programs were in HD 16:9 before June 2009. Even local stations have converted to HD in a fraction of the time that they converted from black and white to color between the late 1950's into the mid to late 1960's. We began true 16:9 programming in the fall of 2009. Our newscast was still in SD, but it was true widescreen. In the fall of 2009 only 4 non network programs were available to us in HD and we broadcasted those programs in 16:9 HD while the rest of the schedule was upconverted SD 4:3 with black bars on the side, including locally produced programming. In the fall of 2010 we converted our news and production operation completely to HD including live field news reports via microwave and via satellite. Today, only 3 non network programs are SD. We air over 20 hours a day of HD 16:9 programming. Not bad. But........

On the other hand, commercial production has lagged way behind. The majority of commercials at the national level are still produced in 4:3 standard definition. The reason? Production houses charge more for HD commercials. It cost more to distribute them. Gone are the days of sending tapes with the commercials on them. They are now sent to severs located at the stations as files via the Internet and satellite. It takes bandwidth to do that. HD commercials use A LOT of bandwidth. So they charge more for it. That is changing, but very slowly. We have been producing our local commercials in widescreen and then in HD since the fall of 2009. The other local stations have also started to produce their local commercials in widescreen at least. We get about 6 HD national commercials a week compared to the more than 250 we get in SD.

The other night is when I noticed that I was seeing more and more national HD commercials. I was seeing less and less of the back bars on the sides. As a matter of fact, most of the commercials were in widescreen. Something in 2003 was unimaginable. It is amazing how far we have come in just 8 years.

Rememberance - June 12, 2009

I was looking through some screen shot pictures of TV stations on several DX web sites. The majority of them were from the analog days of TV broadcasting. This summer marks two years since full power analog TV broadcasting in the United States ceased. You can still fine some low power stations still broadcasting with analog, but many have already either ceased broadcasting all together or are converting to digital or have converted to digital broadcasting. many believe that even these low power analog broadcasters time is very limited. With only tens of months left and all TV broadcasting in the United States will be digital only. To me it seems hard to believe we have been broadcasting digital only for almost 2 years. It many ways it doesn't seem that long. But in other ways, it seems like a life time.

I admit it. I do miss the analog days. I didn't think I would. Too many nights at the transmitter tuning up finicky exciters and outright defiant power amplifiers. Logging a list of signal readings a mile long. Snowy 4:3 standard definition pictures. Working with technology first developed in the 1930's and added to in the early 1950's. Being amazed we got a picture of any quality to broadcast. Ah, the "good ole days."

I was walking through the old transmitter building the other day replacing a repaired power supply in the back up transmitter and thinking about the television history that was made from that little building. And it was 99% analog history. The building was built in 1963 when the station was built. The third station to come on the air for the air. It was just big enough to surround the RCA TT-25DH (D-Line) transmitter. A monster in size compared to today's technology for the power level. In those days the site was manned whenever the station was on the air. Day one on the air made history. Not only for the fact it was the first day on air, but it was also the day the station went off the air. After being on the air for only a few hours, the main power bus in the circuit breaker panel melted taking the station off the air. It was hastily repaired and that patch lasted until that power panel was gutted in an electrical rewire of the building in 1993.

This picture is of a TT-25DH that was at WQAD channel 8 in Moline, Il. There are no surviving pictures that I am aware of for WGHP's TT-25DH. Interesting sidebar, WQAD became a sister station to WGHP in July of 2008.

In 1981, the original transmitter was replaced by a Harris TVD-50H dual tran transmitter and the building was enlarged to install the Harris while staying on the air with the RCA. The old "D-Line" was sold to a PBS station in Washington State on channel 9 that had the same model transmitter and was looking for another one to use in back up service. A few years later, the site was converted to unmanned operation as the era of wide spread manned transmitter sites drew to a close all over the industry. Several of the transmitter engineers moved to the studio and remained with the station for many years while others moved on to pursue other interests.

For the next 10 years, the site was maintained by one man basically, the late Roy Allman. Roy came to work at the station just as it was signing on for the first time in 1963. Roy worked as a transmitter engineer until the early 80's when he was named Transmitter Supervisor. But by then, there wasn't much to supervise with the site now unmanned. But he was responsible for the maintenance and operation of the transmitter. Roy passed away at age 73 in 2008, just months before the cessation of analog broadcasts.

In February of 1992 I graced the transmitter building for the first time. I was being interviewed to replace Roy upon is retirement in early 1993. My first thought was, "thank God the transmitter isn't a RCA." I had dealt with several old RCA radio transmitters in my career and I had heard the stories of the TV transmitters that made my experiences with the radio transmitters pale in comparison. The TVD-50H was very similar to the Harris FM-25K FM transmitter I was used to. Later I found out the trip to the transmitter was to see if I would run when I saw the transmitter and to see how comfortable I was around it. Guess I passed since I was hired in April of 1992. I spent the next year "apprenticing" with Roy on TV engineering which for me was to learn the video end of it since I already knew the RF and audio side of it.

March 1993 saw Roy's retirement and the mantle of "transmitter supervisor" being passed on to me. I got started by cleaning out 25 years of stuff that was lurking in hidden places and equipment that really wasn't useful anymore. The interior got a paint job and we rewired the electrical of the building. The next year we replaced the old shallow 20 inch RCA equipment racks with new 30 inch deep equipment racks and a rewiring of the audio and control cabling for the building. In 1995 we replaced the old reflector microwave receive antenna system with direct antennas mounted on the tower and added stereo generators and processors to the on air chain and began stereo broadcasting for the first time. Over the next few years life turned to planning for the digital transition.

In 1999 plans were to increase the size of the building to include a new digital transmitter and replace the tower with a stronger tower that would hold multiple antennas for both analog and digital since no one knew how long we broadcasting both. Plans were proceeding when 9/11 occurred and changed everything. Being owned by FOX at the time, FOX lost 3 transmitter sites on World Trade Center 2 when it came down that day. It was decided that if a station had viable analog facilities that could be converted to backup facilities, then it was better to build a new site for digital. That put in motion the two site concept that was eventually built. But on that Tuesday, I spent the whole day in that building watching the events unfold in New York City. Not knowing if another attack was coming and to keep the transmitter running at all costs.

On April 29th, 2002, we fired up digital channel 35 for the first time from the building with a super low power transmitter. A whopping 4200 watts total!

The Harris "dual tran" was finally retired in 2005 with installation of half of the new Larcan TTP-44H channel 8 transmitter for the new transmitter building that was being built at the same time.

The Larcan transmitter ran in the old building until March of 2006 when it was joined with its other half in the new building and main operations switched to the new tower and building on the other side of the property and the old building was relegated to auxiliary service. The old building was cleared out and a new 6 kw auxiliary channel 8 analog transmitter was installed along side of the low power channel 35 digital transmitter. In August of 2006, digital operations moved to the new tower and building with the low power channel 35 transmitter becoming a auxiliary transmitter.

After the digital transition, the plan was to remain on channel 8 digital and the analog channel 8 transmitters would be converted to digital. Two of the three transmitters were converted but due to signal problems with digital VHF, channel 8 was abandoned for channel 35. The two big VHF transmitters, one that had be converted to digital and the other which was never converted were traded in for a 5 kw channel 35 auxiliary transmitter that was installed in the old building. The low power channel 8 transmitter in the old building is being shopped around. The transmitter room that held the channel 8 analog/digital in the new building is now empty and is used for storage.

Strange how fast that much history can run though ones brain while taking only ten steps.

James Kenneth "McKay" McManus

Over the last few weeks, fate has continued to remind me that I am not the "young whipper snapper" I like to think I am. More often than not, I will make a comment about something with a reference from years gone by only for the recipient of said comment, who is young enough to be my child, to have a look of puzzlement on their face like, "what are you talking about?" I was once again reminded just last night as I was watching a DVR'ed episode of FOX News Channel's politically incorrect late night comedy panel show parody, "Red Eye."

On the panel of this episode was comedian Joe DeVito, lawyer Brooke Goldstein and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee. In discussing the MTV show 'Skins' and how children are not being raised with any kind of moral teaching anymore, in a joking response to a non sequitur comment from host Greg Gutfeld's sidekick Bill Schulz, Governor Huckabee replied "I think Captain Kangaroo is the most dangerous show for kids. Yelling at Grandfather clock to make him wake up! (pause) There are only a handful of people watching who even know what that means." I KNOW! I WATCHED Captain Kangaroo when I was going up in the 60's! The panel had no idea what Governor Huckabee was talking about. That got the laugh. For those who don't know. Grandfather Clock was always asleep. The other characters on the show got a big chuckle from waking him up all the time. Wow! I. Am. Old. To drive the point home further, this morning in perusing the Video On Demand of the DVR, I found the 2003 documentary of the late ABC Sportscaster, Jim McKay. McKay, died in 2008 of natural causes at the age of 86. I had seen this when it first aired on HBO in 2003. It was written and narrated by McKay himself.

McKay was born James Kenneth McManus. He wanted to be a big time newspaper sportswriter. He loved story telling. And while a huge sports fan, he was always more interested in the people behind the box scores and that is what he wanted to write about. If not for a chance offer to be a part of the first TV station in Baltimore, WMAR, we would have never heard of Jim McKay. We might have heard of a newspaper writer named Jim McManus instead. But after a few years at WMAR, opportunity knocked in the form of a new show in New York City and did McManus want to be a part of it. It was basically the same thing he had been doing at WMAR, a little bit of everything on air, just to do it in New York City. One small problem. The show had already been named, "The Real McKay." McManus would have to change his name to match the show. McManus agreed. Hence, "Jim McKay" was born.

During the documentary, it showed how this little known sportswriter became one of the best known sports reporters ever even though he never did a Super Bowl or World Series. But he did host the Kentucky Derby's, Indy 500's and many of the British Open's for ABC.

McKay found himself to be at the center of many historical sporting events. In part thanks to his sports show, "Wide World of Sports" which was the catalyst of the modern day sports reporting on the athletes themselves and not just what they do on the field of competition. It was the show that spawned these classic cultural words that are used today, mostly out of context, Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sport... the thrill of victory... and the agony of defeat... the human drama of athletic competition... This is ABC's Wide World of Sports!

As the old video and film clips played documenting McKay's professional life, it became too apparent that I remembered many of these things as they were originally broadcast. You can't really say broadcast live since international satellite broadcasting didn't really start to happen until the late 60's and only then cost a small fortune and was saved for really truly exceptional events like coronations or the Olympics. Some big event that the coverage could be planned for. Not like now where all you need is a computer, camera and an Internet connection. Many of the events shown are now etched in the cultures collective memory. Jim McKay was there. Sadly, he will be best remembered for his coverage of the 1972 Munich Olympic murders. His finest moment broadcasting. An event he said that haunted him 30 years later. It was that broadcast that truly showed he "had the right stuff." Many of the big names in television news at the time recognized him as being the right man in the right place at the right time for that story. The legendary Peter Jennings, who himself in later years would become a beloved anchorman, stated in an interview, that at the time, he could not do what McKay did on that broadcast. He watched in awe how he guided the viewing audience through that terrible time with such dignity and integrity to get the the story right the first time, knowing that back home in Ohio, a family was wanting to know the fate of their loved one. As Roone Arledge, then ABC Sports President stated, "we all knew we were not reporting for the nation, but the Berger family. We had to get it right the first time." McKay's old friend and former co-host in the early days, Walter Cronkite sent him a telegram while still in Munich congratulating him on the coverage he had done and that it was recognized at the competitors shop. Not ABC, but Jim McKay owned the story as no one reporter in the world could. It was one of the the most important stories of the 20th Century, and Jim McKay is the only name that you remember with it.

And speaking of the Olympics, McKay's little ABC show, "Wide World of Sports" pretty much single handedly created America's love for ice skating and gymnastics. Back in the day, ABC was a far third place in just about all categories. ABC's Wide World of Sports was an attempt to find a niche within the sports reporting world with little known sports or off the wall sports. Arledge went around the world buying the rights to all kinds of things for pennies on the dollar to air on WWoS. Things like ski jumping, demolition derbies, barrel jumping, rodeos, gymnastics, track and field, just about any kind of off the beaten path sporting event or sports that didn't play on the other networks. McKay was perfectly suited for the job. This was to not only be the box scores, but to know the people of the events. WWoS went to gymnastic events of all kinds, track and field events and such all around the world. It was the 1960 US/USSR Track and Field broadcasts from the Soviet Union that took WWoS from a summer replacement program to a permanent place on ABC's schedule. This was the first broadcast by an American network from the Soviet Union and while the event wasn't available live in the US, ABC did record it on a new invention called "video tape" and flew the tapes back to New York for broadcast a week later. McKay made both sides human, even the Soviets got praise when they did well, something that hadn't been done before and was received with positive viewer reaction. Because of the accomplishments of McKay and WWoS with track and field and gymnastics and ice skating, events that NBC and CBS hardly touched, when ABC got the rights to broadcast the Olympics in the US market, McKay was the natural choice and became known as "Mr Olympics." Even after ABC lost the rights to the Olympics, the public expected McKay to be a part of the broadcast in some way and both CBS and NBC honored him by negotiating with ABC to allow him to be a part of their Olympic broadcasts until his retirement in 2000. You just couldn't have the Olympics without him. In 2008, NBC who had the rights to the games, dedicated the broadcasts to McKay after his death.

To me he will always be THE BEST sportscaster, period. There will never be another Jim McKay and the current crop of sportscasters are all too aware of it having grown up watching him and wanting to do what he did and are in his debt. The ones coming along? They have no idea whose shoulders they are standing on. They should get a clue.

Yeah. I am now officially old.

footnote - Sean McManus, President of CBS News and Sports is McKay's youngest child.

Ancient History

This past week I was struck how those under 30 years old reacted to the 30th Anniversary of the Assassination of John Lennon. Those of my generation clearly remember December 8, 1980 as if it were yesterday. But how does someone who wasn't born process an event like that? When one thinks of 30 years, the first thought is "boy that is a long time." But when you are looking through the lens of life experience thought that time, 30 years can be a long time or just yesterday. But through the lens of someone not even born then, 30 years takes on a completely different tone.

I didn't really watch much of the coverage. Mainly because I am recovering from major abdominal surgery, and I know the ending of the story. But I did watch an updated "Behind the Music" on VH1 Classics on the last years of Lennon's life. The episode starts after what has become known as the "Lost Weekend" where Lennon moved to Los Angeles in the early 70's with Yoko's assistant, May Pang whose job it was to be the "woman" to John, that Yoko couldn't while trying to deal with John's demons. During this year or so of time, John parties, and parties, and parties, and parties and parties some more. Along the way falling in love with May Pang (and May Pang in return), all with Yoko's blessing. At the end of the "Lost Weekend," Lennon realizes he needs to get his life together and that Yoko is the one he truly loves. May Pang is jilted and John goes back to Yoko, a changed man. May Pang remains bitter to this day. A year later Sean is born and this is where the story starts.

It goes through the years of John the househusband and then in 1980 taking the sailing trip to Bermuda where the sail boat is almost destroyed in a storm and from this comes the music for John's last two albums, "Double Fantasy" and the 1984 release, "Milk and Honey." After John publicly resurfaces in 1980 to restart his music career, with actual TV news video, right through the world wide reaction to the assassination. The updated portion is from 2006 where the addition of Strawberry Fields in New York's Central Park is stated as well as the Anthology songs "Free as a Bird" and "Real Love" are mentioned.

The thing that struck me was in the interviews with the people in Strawberry Fields. Most people were younger that 30 who had never known John when he was alive. All they knew of him was archival and his music. Many see him as omnipotent. A great thinker. A man before his time. Reverent, almost to the point of religious. My personal opinion is John would be quite appalled at that. John considered himself part of the working class proletariat. He was no better than anyone else, and didn't want to be. He was just a musician speaking his mind through his music. Nothing more, nothing less. Take it or leave it. He is on record saying that anyone who looked for deep inner meaning of his music beyond what was on the surface, was "Daft."

To many of the under 30 crowd, John Lennon is God like. Of course Yoko hasn't tried to dissuaded people of the thought. It helps keep John's memory and causes alive. Something she has stewarded for years oh so carefully creating and shaping and guarding John Lennon's legacy. The question is who will do that when Yoko Ono finally no longer is here to guide that legacy? Julian Lennon from John's first marriage with Cynthia Powell? Doubtful. He hardly knew his father. Sean? No one knows what his thoughts on the subject are. He has never publicly stated. I don't think he has ever publicly stated anything. So who knows?

I see John Lennon through the eyes of someone who remembers Beatlemania from news reports on TV. I remember when Sgt Peppers was release in 1967. I remember the breakup of the Beatles. I remember the Bed-In's for Peace. I remember when "Imagine" was released. I also remember vividly the events and my own feelings of December 8, 1980. John Lennon isn't God like to me. He is a man who died too young and the world was deprived of his creativity. He is a man who entertained me with his music. On occasion made me think about things differently. I don't think John would be disappointed if I just thought of him as a "musician." Who knows, he might have even song a song to me because of that thought.

Imagine THAT!

Imagine - 70 Years

Today would have been the 70th birthday of the founder of the band, The Quarrymen. Who? The Quarrymen? Yes. The Quarrymen of the English port town of Liverpool who would become, The Beatles.

October 9th, 1940, Alfred and Julia Lennon welcomed John Winston Lennon into the world. Alfred, a merchant marine, who would soon depart Julia's and John's world, only to resurface years later after The Beatles made it and John rejecting him outright. Julia, herself a free spirit, soon left John with her sister Mary Smith, better known to the world now as "Auntie Mimi." "Uncle George" and Auntie Mimi raised John and did the best they could for the rebellious child. Julia did resurface in John's life from time to time buying him his first guitar and taught John cords on a banjo hoping John would get it out of his system saying "The guitar's all very well, John, but you'll never make a living out of it." On July 15, 1958 Julia was struck by a car and killed. John was only 17.

In March 1957 John formed The Quarrymen as a skiffle band, with jazz, blues, folk roots and country influences and then later shifting more towards rock and roll. It was during this time he met Paul McCartney and George Harrison.

As rock and roll became more prevalent, the band went through many names and members with the core remaining Lennon, McCartney and Harrison. By 1960, the band was now known as The Beatles, a play on words for the beat movement of rock and roll and from the "Mersey Beat Scene" the name used to describe the sound coming out of Liverpool and Merseyside England. The grueling Hamburg, German tours progressed over the next two years as the constant 8 to 10 hour stretches of playing in Hamburg's Reperbahn bars created The Beatles sound as the world would come to know. John, not one to sit on his laurels if it meant some mischief learned the "ways of the world" with his free spirit mother and father's genes on full display in Hamburg. But John's love of words blended in with his songwriting began in earnest with Paul in Hamburg as they honed their craft and played the standards of 1950's rock and roll along with standards of the 1930's and 1940's to the sailors and ladies of the night who, along with the beatniks of Hamburg, made up the Reperbahn club scene in the early 1960's.

If not for the now famous chance request of "My Bonnie" by "Tony Sheridan and The Beat Brothers" at the NEMS Store in Liverpool, and Brian Epstein going to The Cavern Club to hear The Beatles, John Lennon would more than likely have stayed in Liverpool working the blue collar job of the docks or on board ship and music history would have been much different. The general thought is John would have either been in jail or dead by 1970 had there been no Beatles as we know them today. John had been quite a teenage delinquent and was on a road to self destruction with only music saving him. Even in 1963 when George Martin first heard The Beatles, he had little faith this band of four, with Pete Best on drums and not Ringo Starr would amount to much more than a fad band. Thank goodness Sir George was willing to give them a try and Ringo agreed to join.

For those of us who remember December 8, 1980, the question will usually surface, "Where were you when John Lennon was shot?" Like the John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King assassinations and most recently 9/11, those events are elevated above all else and are markers in people lives that get relived over and over again. For me Monday December 8, 1980, I was at college. A friend of mine had stayed over Sunday night in the dorms and we had partied pretty hard so we slept in that Monday morning. After class that afternoon, we resumed the party from the night before. By the time the news filtered out from ABC's Monday Night Football where it was first announced, we had been partying many hours. In an instant, our party turned into a wake as we found a TV and turned it on and watched the news updates. After midnight when the TV stations went off the air (GASP! Yep, stations didn't stay on 24/7 like they do now) we went to the radio and started tuning up and down the AM radio band. Every station you heard had either Beatles or John solo music. My suite mate Mike Ivey, made a cassette tape of that night, but I don't think it exists anymore, being erased a short time later because it was too painful to listen to. The wake continued until morning. Sometime during the night, we took a sheet and painted a sign of remembrance to John and flew it out the dorm window. The sheet still exists. I have it somewhere in my things. I saw it a few years back. A picture of the sheet flying out the window was in the year book.

In the early days of John's and Yoko's relation, she really came off as a nasty interloper. But since John's death, she has really been wonderfully giving to the world of John. A few years back she allowed much of John's artwork to tour and pieces to be sold. It came through here. I went. The cheapest pieces were around $1000. I didn't have the money then. I still don't, but I could probably get it now, when I couldn't then. If I ever get that chance again, I will. Not as an investment, even though it will have value and hopefully it will increase, but to own a piece of John. Sentimental. They were small cards with original pen or pencil drawings. I suspect they are all gone now, but if I ever get the chance again, I will take advantage of it.

So at 70 years old what would John Ono Lennon be like? The same he was at 40 upon his death. He would be doing music. Championing causes of world peace. And I suspect global warming as well. Maybe even a Beatles reunion. That was never out of the question. It just never had the time to mature. And still loving Yoko even more (was THAT EVEN POSSIBLE?) and watching Julian and Sean becoming their potential. No doubt he would be mellow but with a rebellious streak, but he would have the wisdom to use that rebellion for good as he was starting to do that the last 5 years of his life as house husband and primary caretaker of Sean while Yoko tamed the business world.

John is missed, not only by his family and friends, but by the people of the world, fans and non fans alike. The music that could have been created over the last 30 years is that never happened, is a crime. The fact that his music of the 20 years of his adult life and the causes are still championed by the proletariat speaks volumes of John's timelessness. The world is a better place for John's contributions and the world is a worse place for what was never done.