Posted by John on Feb 8, 2010 in
Me You may have missed the big news in the wake of Super Bowl hysteria and other distractions: ABBAWORLD is open for business. The 25-room touring extravaganza debuted in London (are they has-beens in Stockholm?), and reportedly features priceless ABBA artifacts and recreated scenes of their greatest musical triumphs. Move over, Graceland and Beatles Magical Mystery Tours, here comes the Dancing Queen. Mama mia!
I can understand enshrining Elvis and The Beatles, but ABBA? Okay, they sold 375 million records, but Anni-Frid, Bjorn, Benny and Agnetha hardly roll off peoples’ tongues like that other “Fab Four”, John, Paul, George and Ringo. Unlike Elvis, they’re not The King of annything, even in Sweden. And never have I heard a new band receive the appraisal, “Well, they’re not bad, but they’re no ABBA.”
If ABBA can do it, so can I; plus my hometown of McFarland, Wisconsin needs a new tourist attraction much more than London. Introducing (insert power chord): DUGGLEWORLD, a compendium of memorabilia from my storied– and music-ed– career, including:
- The nickel I received for my professional debut at age five at the Sunset Supper Club in Muscatine, Iowa, singing “You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby.” I still reprise that chestnut in my “Circle of Life” show, for not that much more money.
- My eighth grade version of “The Three Little Pigs,” written as a Shakespearean play, which prompted my teacher to observe that, “Someday you might be able to become a writer.” Folks still occasionally tell me that.
- The Hall of Battered Percussion, featuring the carnage of drumsticks and heads I shattered during teenage stints in neighborhood garage and school marching bands. My idol of the day, Keith Moon of the Who, was blowing up his entire drum kit, so I considered myself a petty criminal by comparison.
- A 1970s Chicago street map to help me find the Chicago Tribune and Sun Times from the University of Iowa. An anticipated bidding war at the papers for my talents never ensued; neither did anything else beyond a cursory dismissal from the receptionists.
- A Hall of Rejection containing all the form letters politely declining my book and magazine article ideas over the years. Better make that two halls.
– A “Learn to Play Guitar” guide, accompanied by an instrument, that I bought in my twenties because breaking drums in friends’ living rooms seemed increasingly anti-social. I now have four guitars, and am deciding which one to learn to play.
– A small ceramic mug on a string, looped around my neck one evening at the finale of a client’s sales meeting in Puerto Vallarta. I quickly learned that lifting the tiny tankard signaled the willing waitstaff to fill it with tequila. There was food and a band– I think– and the Eastern Regional Manager fell off a balcony, but not too far. Other memorable tales abounded, if only I could remember them.
Like all expectant exhibitions, DUGGLEWORLD relies on support from people like you. Fear not: I seek a job, not a handout. Help feed the passion by contacting me for a new writing project or musical engagement. Barring that, you may have the opportunity to purchase the aforementioned items on E-bay in the near future.
Posted by John on Sep 17, 2009 in
Me If you’re a tennis fan like me, you were probably heartened by the tremendous achievment of Belgian Kim Clijsters at the U.S. Open this week. Clijsters, a former number-one ranked player, retired at her peak to become a mother, then came back this summer after more than two years of inactivity. The U.S. Open was only her third tournament since her return, and her win was the first Grand Slam victory by a mother since 1981, when Evonne Goolagong Cawley came out of retirement much the same way to win Wimbledon. Cawley’s joyous response to her successor: “Go moms!”
Closer to home, another mother is making a comeback: mine. Grace Duggleby recently celebrated her 80th birthday, and her wish for the past year has been to take a celebratory trip with my dad, sister and me, and our spouses. Mom’s wanderlust rivals, well, mine. It has carried her all over the world, but health issues grounded her since 2001. Good news: she’s fought back, and we’re leaving tomorrow on a New England/Canadian cruise. We’re all thrilled, and I’m proud that my mother, in her own way, has shown the same irrepressible determination that Clijsters did with a tennis racquet. Go Moms!
Posted by John on Jun 8, 2009 in
Business,
Me At this time 25 years ago I left a “real” job in Chicago– and a pretty good one at that– to try what many deemed “sefl uemployment.” I had a concept for a children’s story brimming with multi-media tentacles, and a nest egg of $10,000 in 1984 cash. I’d swim until I became the next Walt Disney or until the money ran out, one or the other.
Neither happened. The childrens book never found a publisher, though eight others eventually did. I passed much of that first summer in my mobile office at Wrigley Field, three blocks from my condo. It was the golden era of pre-lights Cubs baseball, when $2 on game day conferred status as a Bleacher Bum, a subculture 355 feet and a societal universe from the hoi polloi behind home plate in reserved boxes. Barking comments to a left fielder known as The Sarge (he actually shouted back) and catnapping in the afternoon sun mollified the recjection letters piling up back home, and my manuscript always read much better after a beer or two.
Just as the Cubs were bounced from the playoffs in October, I got a call from my former employer seeking writing help. Then another inquiry, and yet another. To my mild amazement, freelance work was working. Within a year I had replenished my savings, and the rest is my version of history. The road has taken all sorts of unexpected professional and personal turns, including a journey north to sink roots behind the Cheddar Curtain in Wisconsin, from where I scribble today. It’s been a ton of fun, and to those who have smoothed the path with an assignment, even an encouraging word, I’m eternally grateful.
And say, might you be interested in a book on a talking Victrola?
Posted by John on Mar 2, 2009 in
Me Sometimes life throws you unlikely heroes. Such was Paul Harvey, who died over the weekend at age 90. Born in Tulsa, rooted in Chicago, Harvey’s voice was everywhere– or at least on about 1,200 radio stations– during my “Wonder Years” in the late 1960s. He was a radio beacon of conservative Midwestern values in an age where my contemporaries watched turmoil TV and demanded change in many of the institutions he seemed to uphold. What’s more, his five-minute broadcast cut into the groove of my rock station like a needle dropped on a vinyl record. Here was a guy who predicted that Elvis would flop within a year, and changed his opinion little about the Beatles and others who followed. I itched for his segments to end– or did I?
Truth be told, agree or not, I listened to him. How could you resist, the way his delivery included pauses a truck could pass through? Statistics like how many dogs bit people within a year, followed by how many people bit people? His announcements of exactly where he was in his script– “Page Two!”– yet slippery segues into ads that were halfway over before you realized you were being sold. And compared to today’s radio ravers of all stripes, Harvey waxed commonsensical and fair. One of his most famous broadcasts, issued in 1970 when Nixon expanded the Vietnam War, shocked his stalwarts by declaring, “Mr. President, I love you. But you’re wrong.”
A decade later I was a Chicagoan myself, part of a video crew working in a studio rented from WGN, one of the Windy City’s major TV/radio stations. On a facility tour, I was thrilled to enter the sanctum where Harvey recorded his broadcasts to the nation, and hugely disappointed that 1) he wasn’t there and 2) I was not permitted to sit in his director’s chair, emblazoned on the back with his trademark sign-off, “Good day!”
In recent years I stopped listening to Harvey and most radio in general, and heard nothing of him until four years ago when a guy named Don re-sided my house. Don was a one-man show doing a job typically performed by a crew of several, and about my age to boot. As the job stretched into the Wisconsin winter, since I have a home office, I invited him to eat his lunch inside for a respite from temperatures dipping below 20 degrees. He demurred, explaining that if he got too warm and comfortable, it would be harder to venture back into the icebox for the afternoon.
It made sense, but I noticed that, without fail, he was in his truck by precisely noon, pouring coffee and unwrapping his homemade sandwiches. I wandered up one day and booming from his radio was that familiar Midwestern carnival bark: “Good Morning, Americans, this is Paul Harvey. Stand by for news!” Don confessed that he was a daily listener, and soon I tuned in whenever I could as well. When the project finally ended, I pressed a check into Don’s hand with a hearty, “Good day!”
And now you know… the rest of the story.
Posted by John on Jan 7, 2009 in
Me Howdy, and welcome to my new web site. A new design permits me to edit more easily and post these chatty little blogs. For a techie, I make a really good writer/musician/dog sitter, but I’ll try my level best. Take a look around and let me@johnduggleby.com know what you think.