The Day The (Disco) Music Died

Thirty years ago, disco died in Chicago.

But the death has strong ties to Detroit, for a variety of reasons.

Let me explain.

On July 12, 1979, the Detroit Tigers were playing the host Chicago White Sox in a doubleheader. The rivalry between the two midwest teams was well known, but neither club was exactly challenging to make the post-season that year. In order to generate some sort of interest in the home team, Sox marketing director Mike Veeck - son of Bill, baseball’s all-time master of publicity stunts - concocted an idea that ranks up - or down - among the strangest and most notable in baseball history.

Enter flamboyant radio shock jock Steve Dahl. The popular 24-year-old DJ was hired by WLUP-FM several months earlier after he quit another Chicago radio station that had gone to an all-disco format. Dahl, as you can imagine, was not a fan of the disco sound. He and his co-host, Garry Meier, almost immediately started a “disco sucks” campaign that quickly became the focal point of their daily show. Similar programs were live and kicking at album-oriented rock (AOR) stations across the nation; growing up in Detroit, my friends and I were strong supporters of WRIF-FM's DREAD (Detroit Rockers Engaged in the Abolition of Disco) listener army, clutching our gold plastic DREAD cards like they were badges of honor.


Dahl had gotten his start in radio at Detroit-s WABX-FM as one of the rebel rock station's "air aces." But at WLUP, he took the pro-rock/anti-disco mantra it a new level. Listeners would call in to request their most hated disco songs, to be played on the air briefly before one of the hosts swung the record needle (this is long before the era of CDs and MP3s) screeching across the record, followed by an explosion sound effect and a quote borrowed from a popular SCTV skit: “That blowed up real good.”

Dahl quickly developed a rabid following, anointing himself the "field general" in the "war against disco." He nicknamed his troops the "Insane Coho Lips" and had the station issue free ID cards to fans who wanted to enlist in Steve Dahl’s Disco Army “dedicated to the eradication and elimination of the dreaded musical disease known as disco.” Within a week, the station received over 10,000 requests. Dahl even penned his own theme song, “Do Ya Think I’m Disco?" - a parody of the Rod Stewart song "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?"

Veeck saw what he thought was a very good thing in Dahl - a vibrant voice of the people who could convert his cause - the end of disco - into bringing fans to Comiskey Park, home of a bad baseball team and a huge scoreboard that "exploded" with lights and sound when the Sox achieved success. The perfect storm was visible, and the seeds for Disco Demolition Night were planted.

The idea: fans bringing a disco record to the stadium would be charged 98 cents admission (as in 98.3 FM, WLUP's radio frequency) for the doubleheader against the Tigers. The records would be collected in a large trash dumpster by the main gate, and the dumpster would be relocated to center field after the first game of the doubleheader, to be blown into smithereens by Dahl. After the opener, while both teams, umpires, and other baseball personnel went into the locker rooms to take a break before playing the second half of the twinbill, Dahl & Co. went into action.

Dahl welcomed fans to “officially the world’s largest anti-disco rally,” and turned the stage over to the pyrotechnic. With a roaring boom, thousands of disco records met their symbolic death, vinyl shrapnel flying 200 feet in the air. Fans - more than 20,000 - stormed the field and wouldn't leave. Other anti-disco warriors still in the stands began throwing more disco records around and onto the field like Frisbees. Those on the field tore up the turf, lit bonfires, destroyed equipment, and the Sox ended up forfeiting the second game.

According to the 1986 book Rock of Ages: The Rolling Stone History of Rock and Roll the event was the "emblematic moment" of the anti-disco "crusade" and noted that "the following year disco had peaked as a commercial blockbuster". Steve Dahl himself said in an interview with Keith Olbermann that disco "was a fad probably on its way out" but that the event "hastened its demise." Nile Rodgers, guitarist for the popular disco era group Chic said "It felt to us like Nazi book-burning, This is America, the home of jazz and rock and people were now afraid even to say the word 'disco'."

Thirty years later, Disco Demolition Night is still regarded as one of the most memorable - if not successful - promotions in sports history, one of the most infamous since Cleveland's "Ten Cent Beer Night" in 1974.

Thanks to Swindle Magazine for a detailed background on Disco Demolition Night from the Chicago viewpoint.

The Cartman Identity

One of the most famous songs recorded by 1960s comic singer Allan Sherman - who was his era's "Weird Al" Yankovic with a distinct Jewish flavor - is a ditty called "Hail To Thee, Fat Person!" Less than two minuets in length, it ranks as one of the most original social commentaries on obesity:

I would like to explain how it came to pass that I got fat.
Ladies and gentlemen, I got fat as a public service.
When I was a child, my mother said to me,
"Clean the plate, because children are starving in Europe."
And I might point out that that was years before the Marshall Plan
was ever heard of.
So I would clean the plate - four, five, six times a day.
Because somehow I felt that that would keep the children from starving
in Europe.
But I was wrong. They kept starving. And I got fat.
So I would like to say to every one of you who is either skinny
or in some other way normal -
When you walk out on the street, and you see a fat person,
Do not scoff at that fat person. Oh no!
Take off your hat. Hold it over your heart.
Lift your chin up high. And in a proud, happy voice say to him,
"Hail to thee, fat person!
You kept us out of war!"

Some 40 years later, obesity is an even larger (pardon the pun) problem in the United States. According to the Center for Disease Control in a study presented yesterday, 26 percent of the United States adult population - more than one in every four - are obese.

Research has shown that as weight increases to reach the levels referred to as "overweight" and "obesity," the risks for coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes, cancers (endometrial, breast, and colon), hypertension (high blood pressure), dyslipidemia (for example, high total cholesterol or high levels of triglycerides), stroke, liver and gallbladder disease, sleep apnea and respiratory problems, osteoarthritis (a degeneration of cartilage and its underlying bone within a joint), and gynecological problems (abnormal menses, infertility) also increase.

I bring all of this up not because I was doing intense research on the topic, and not even because I caught myself singling along to Yankovic's own saga to gluttony, "Fat." No, it's because several days ago, I finally decided to get off the couch and get back to basics: I returned to the world of the workout.

Let me backtrack. Two years ago - July 2007 - I planted myself on the bathroom scale and was stunned that the number staring back at me was in excess of 250 pounds for the first time. I have been overweight for years - I can date it back to late high school, when two things happened within a short period of time: (a) I got my driver's license, and (b) my 10-speed was stolen. The two are joined at the hip; I became more dependent on transporting myself via the automobile, and I don't mean the Flintstone's foot-powered behemoth. And thus began the transformation from a skinny (especially in comparison to today) 16-year-old to a somewhat rotund man in his early 40s.

Anyway, I was mortified, and decided, OK, it's time to get to work. I scoped out some area gyms, and despite not being a huge fan of the "commercial" approach, went with the package offered by LA Fitness. The decision centered on several factors - decent cost, variety of equipment, extra options (pool, racquetball courts, basketball courts, sauna), and hours. I also locked into a series of personal trainer sessions.

And I began working out - four, five, six times a week. And in tandem, I began eating better. No more pizza or soda! No more fast food! More salads and grilled chicken! More water!

It was a lifestyle change.

The positive results were not immediate, but they began to take place. The first real sign was in early September, after school resumed, when a coworker noticed that my face was thinner. Even though school had started in mid-August, I was still hitting the gym, but the visits began to dwindle to 2-3 per week. Still, I went from 254 pounds on July 22, 2007, to 240 pounds on September 24, to 229 pounds on November 22.

And then it fell apart. I got lazy. I ate too much (damn holiday season!). I stopped going to the gym on a regular basis. And then, in July 2008, I stopped going altogether.

Well, it's a year later. I have ballooned to 260 pounds as of July 5, and due to a number of factors - three weddings to attend in August and September, paying for a gym membership going to waste (but not to waist, lol), serious interest in a specific member of the female population, and - most importantly - my health and my future - I have made my way back to the world of LA Fitness, with the intent of getting in shape, losing weight, fitting into my suits, leading a healthier lifestyle, and being in the low 200s/high 190s by August 2010. (An average of one pound a week is realistic.)

So far, so good. As of this afternoon, I'm down to 254 pounds.

Brother Blutto Would Be Proud!

One of the many joys I experience on a daily basis is exploring the weird, the strange, the bizarre, that abnormal ... in the world of news. To do this, I rely on many different Internet news and blog sites. But my favorite source of amusement is Fark.com.

If you've never heard of Fark, I suggest you click the link above. You'll happen upon this submitter-created "tagline":

Competing with New York in the "Most Childish State Government" contest, California budget debate devolves into food fight.

Some background is necessary regarding New York, I suppose. According to the New York Daily News, one month after what is dubbed as a "Republican coup" of the New York state senate, the GOP and Democrats are at a stalemate in terms of creating a workable environment for 2009-10. Both parties currently have 31 senators.

Awkward, to say the least.

The stalemate in Albany has stalled many state issues, including - until today - Gov. David Paterson naming a lieutenant governor; the office has been vacant since disgraced Gov. Eliot Spitzer resigned last year and Paterson succeeded him; the state constitution does not provide for filling the office in the event of a vacancy.

As a result, the state's payroll controller has ordered paychecks for all 62 state senators to be withheld - $3,049 per senator for the most recent two-week period. The initial $190,000 - will be added to $1.5 million in expense voucher reimbursement being held back (so far).

The impasse was so bad last week that Paterson ordered the senate back in session Sunday - that would be July 5 - to try and work out something. The "special session" lasted a whopping three minutes before adjournment.

Ah, government in action ... I mean, "inaction" ...

That leads into the situation in California. Like many states, California is struggling financially, and lawmakers are still trying to finalize a budget for the upcoming fiscal year.

Because he feels the legislature should be dealing with the budget first and foremost, Gov. Arnold Schwarznegger apparently took three of the state's lawmakers to task for proposing legislation dealing with (a) creating a blueberry commission, (b) bottle labels for pomegranate juice, and (c) the definition of "honey."

Unfortunately, that's as good as it got. No "Three Stooges" parties gone awry. No mass chaos from Mel Brooks cowboy movies smashing their way into the cafeteria.

Regardless of what results, though, Schwarznegger should be concerned about the budget for 2009-10. After all, there's been no word on how much the state will be asked to contribute in the aftermath of the Michael Jackson festival ... yet.

Coping With "Close but ..."

A mantra I stress to my debate students constantly is that what they do should be fun. "It's not about the trophies," I claim. "Trophies aren't my priority. Debate is an elective, it's an after-school extracurricular. If you're not having fun, why are you doing it?"

I try very hard to live my life following this viewpoint. I know debate coaches who live vicariously through their students' successes, and believe - whether consciously or not - that the number of first-place finishes by their students defines who they are in their school, their debate community, and the debate world at large. I have no intention of being one of these types of individuals.

Now, don't get me wrong, watching students take home a trophy or two (or more) is pretty darn cool. I understand completely what these awards symbolize, and it's certainly nice, from a mentoring and administrative position, to see the fruits of their labors and my guidance result in these positive accolades. It's just that, in the grand scheme of things, the winning of trophies was never why I was hired, and is not a priority in my life. I don't care about wins and losses. I do, however, care about winning and losing fairly. And sometimes, what I end up seeing leaves me scratching my head in confusion.

I being this up because for the past week, I have been in Birmingham, Alabama, at the 2009 National Forensic League national speech and debate championship tournament. This is my second trip to what is touted as the premier national championship tournament for high school debaters; one of my Public Forum Debate teams qualified for the NFL nationals in Wichita two years ago. This year, I had a senior - now a high school graduate - advance from our district qualifier in Congressional Debate, which is just what the name implies - a student-operated version of what you can watch on CSPAN.

Amanda DeStefano is the first student in my school's history to qualify for the NFL national congress, which is a remarkable feat, given the history my program has earned since it was founded in 1988. It's her third national championship tourney; the past two years, she qualified for the National Catholic Forensic League nationals as well. At both NCFL nationals, Amanda advanced to the "Super Congress" final round. Suffice to say, she's pretty darn good at what she does, and has earned the respect from many a peer the past four years.

Amanda had her sites set on advancing to the NFL's final round, and possibly even placing in the top nine. Unfortunately, the powers that be - three judges and a parliamentarian - felt otherwise, and her high school debate career ended in the semifinal round. it was a crushing blow to Amanda, who felt she was much better than many of her fellow semifinal round competitors.

Based on a separate semifinal rounds I had judged on Wednesday (judges can't evaluate competitors from their home region), along with my observations of the championship round (which both Amanda and I watched on Thursday), I have no doubt in my mind that she was more than accurate with her stance. Many - not all, but many - of the speakers I watched in that final round had me scratching my head. One senator quoted South Park's Eric Cartman ("Respect my authority!") in his introduction. Another quipped the much-overused "If the opposite of pro is con, then the opposite of progress is Congress" line. A third opened her speech with a joke about Paris Hilton, the Vice President and the agriculture community.

All of these, plus many more instances of less than professional commentary, had me shaking my head, rolling my eyes, and wondering what the judges and parliamentarian had witnessed in their prelim rounds ... and had me wondering, if this is what advanced from the previous session, just how bad had the non-advancing student legislators been? It also had me a bit depressed - not because Amanda didn't win the whole thing, but because I really wonder about what the judges were thinking, or at the very least what they use as their criteria when scoring speeches and ranking students.

I have no argument about who won the tournament, and won't point fingers at the students or coaches who placed highly in the final round. That would be unfair to both the competitors and their coaches, and this is not an attack on their advancement. But it sure would have been nice to have Amanda as part of that final round, to see if, had perhaps one scorer result been different, she would have been on stage at the awards ceremony tonight.

If it sounds like I am jealous ... well, maybe I am. A bit. As much as I don't want the trophies to define me, there's a small part of me that wouldn't mind such recognition. Is this wrong? No. I'm wise enough to be able to look at the big picture and realize what I am providing to my students - the opportunity to compete, to travel, to grow emotionally and mentally, to be better prepared for college and the "real world" than I ever was when I was in their proverbial shoes - far outweighs receiving a trophy, a plaque, a gavel.

I don't want to live vicariously through my students. At times, though, making the separation can be difficult.

Palin v Letterman

Years ago, I used to watch David Letterman frequently, and by "frequently" I mean "every night." This was back in the days when Letterman was considered by the masses to be a comic genius, when his hair was still more Afro than tight shave, and before Jay Leno was Johnny Carson's replacement.

Much has changed in the past 15+ years. To be honest, I haven't watched a full Letterman show since the early 1990s, and can't even remember the last time I tuned in for even a portion of the show. Most of this is due more to changes in my life than in Letterman's approach to his audience.

Every once in a while, though, I scan the Internet to check out a Top 10 list. And every once in a while, a Letterman story makes its way to the point where I actually, you know, read it and ponder what the heck is happening.

Last week, such a story captured the front pages of those newspapers that are still around to publish in hard-copy format. In case you missed it - and since I don't watch Letterman, I am among those individuals - last Tuesday (June 9), Letterman made some tongue-in-check comments about the former GOP VP candidate and her daughter during their visit to NYC. One of the jokes hinted that the most difficult part of Sarah Palin's trip was "keeping Elliot Spitzer away from her daughter," a second dealt with the concept that Palin's daughter was "knocked up" by Yankees star Alex Rodriguez, and a third focused on Palin going to Bloomingdale's "to update her 'slutty flight attendant' look."

OK, like many of Letterman's jokes (and, to be honest, like most every other late-night host's jokes), this is not high-brow humor. And it would have passed as such, except ... the Palin family took exception and fired back, full guns a-blazing, accusing Letterman of making sexually-perverted rape jokes about 14-year-old Willow Palin.

Now, whether you believe Letterman's eventual apology or not - the apology where he claimed he was referencing 18-year-old Bristol Palin (whose announced pregnancy during the presidential campaign was a conversational topic), not her 14-year-old sister - the irony is that most of American (myself included) would have never had a clue about Letterman's comments, because most of American doesn't watch Letterman. According to David Bauder of the Internet site Town Hall, Letterman's ratings could reach their highest mark in years because of the attention given to what many perceive as a regular set of late-night television throwaway comments.

Additionally, some pundits believe Palin & Co. are jumping on the Letterman commentary not so much due to a sense of personal outrage, but to keep her name front and center in the minds of Americans for the upcoming 2012 presidential campaign.

It's easy to blame "the media" for so many things today. This is not new, or unique, and has included pointing fingers at movie scenes and music lyrics as the reason for an alleged decline in America's moral values. Palin v Letterman follows in this grand tradition, which has included (among other things) a lawsuit against rock band Judas Priest and deletion of a scene in the 1993 football movie The Program. (In 1990, JP was unsuccessfully sued over allegations backward masking of lyrics led to a suicide pact between two Nevada teens. In The Program, a scene depicting high school football players lying down in the middle of a busy road as a way of proving their manhood; the scene was later cut from the film after several children were injured trying to re-create the stunt.)

I'm not saying there aren't problems in the media, or that the media are always responsible. Nor am I saying that Palin's outrage isn't without some merit; at face value, it does take a "cheap shot" (or three) at her and her daughter(s). However, all too often, it seems, what happens in "the media" is blown so far out of proportion with reality, it magnifies the alleged "problem" or "incident" to absurd proportions. Seriously, what is the impact of Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" on Middle East relations or the alleged importance of Adam Lambert's sexual orientation on the world economy? The irony here is that because the Palins aren't talking about the "flight attendant' joke, the comment has barely (if at all) been mentioned in followup stories the past week.

Letterman apologized to the Palins late last week, but the apology was viewed as half-hearted at best by some individuals calling for the talk show host's head (or, at the very least, his job). Today, Letterman issued a more direct apology (shown below); no reaction yet from the Palin camp. Or from Spitzer, Rodriguez, or flight attendants, none of whom have commented on the fracas the past week, to the best of my knowledge.