A great American I work with and hold court with now and again surprised me with a nice gift.  The gift, an ordinary object seen day in and day out, is a reminder of my youth.

We were having speaks one day about this and that.  The subject of said object came up and we had a good chuckle about it as we were speaking of things from an era that won’t return…only in memories and the occasional surprise gift.

I am not going to divulge the contents of said gift here today.  That will be for another day.  The day after I get around to showing it to some of my cronies, whom I don’t want to ruin the surprise for here, I will post about it again in complete earnest….instead of being obscure and less than forthcoming.  That doesn’t suit one used to speaking the rights. That is why I need to halt this action.

Regardless, I am thankful.

Speaking the rights.

Danny Johnson

speaktherights.com has been back and forth of late with a guy named Gordy Marshall.  His is a gentleman worth knowing about.

I reached out to him and asked that he be the subject of the first interview on speaktherights.com.

I hope he acquiesces.

Gordy is a musician.  I have seen him play drums and percussion…and the flute.  He is a machine of a performer.  He tells great stories of his own that can be found if you look for them.  His “Postcards” are interesting reading in that medium and interesting listening via podcasts that are entertaining and insightful.

In his “Postcards” book, he took us around America and told us of places and sights he sees as he is running, as he is in transit, and as he is behind a drum kit doing most of the heavy beat lifting for The Moody Blues…my favorite band.

Here is Gordy Marshall playing drums behind John Lodge at The Lawn at White River State Park in Indy in 2010.

Gordy has been playing with The Moodies since 1991.  I first saw him north of Cincinnati at Kings Island’s Timberwolf Amphitheater in ’91.  I suppose it is still there.  His drumming ability and his robotesque performance during John Lodge’s 1972 standard “Isn’t Life Strange” is worth pushing through the turstile to see any Moody Blues show.

So…we are waiting Gordy…to hear from you.  I have an enticing line of questions for you.  I hope you enjoy them too.

Speaking the Rights.

Danny Johnson

My dear wife, Carrie, and I attended church this morning at Hancock Chapel.  I sang what we used to call in the old church services…and I know some still do call it… a “special”.  I know some more contemporary services have left “specials” to be extinct.  It matters not.  The message is what counts…whether it comes from a three piece suit or a guy walking around in sandals sporting a beard and a robe.  I don’t think I have ever seen any pictures of Jesus in a cardigan.

I sang a song today that I wrote a few years ago.  This was the first time I had a chance to sing it at Hancock Chapel.

Know this…Hancock Chapel is old school.  There is one building…there is one room.  There are privies for men and women no farther than ten yards from the front porch of the church.  A privy is an outhouse for you not familiar with the word privy.  Those of you with no knowledge of an outhouse…well…that is an outdoor toilet.  The church has been there for a long time.

The song I sang was a bit of charged tune…charged as in “take charge” and do the right thing.  The song is called “Lord Lead Us On.”

My dear Carrie and I were led to get married.  It was the right thing to do.  We loved each other.  We still do.  We wanted to make a life for ourselves and our sons Jarrett and Cody.  I think we have done that.  They are both fine, charming young men.  Carrie and I are still here.  I love her now more than ever.  The thing is…I had no idea what I was doing nineteen years ago when I looked at Carrie and said “I do.”  The truth?  My life with her has been better than I ever imagined.  She is my best friend.  We were married 19 years ago this Tuesday.  Our wedding was at Hancock Chapel.

Am I fortunate?  Yes.  I know I am.

Did we get turned around in New York City?  Yes…about seven times.

We found Times Square.

We found that North Carolina Shore.

We found the front stretch at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

We have found more football games than we deserve.

Most importantly…I found her…Thank God!

Now that is Speaking the Rights.

Danny Johnson

It was supposed to be a wonderful day…then tragedy struck.  How many times have we heard that sentiment leading up to a story?

The good news?  No one got killed.

The bad news?  I am not over the proverbial hump yet.  I still have the disease.  The disease of fear.

I pay as much attention to the news as I can to keep somewhat informed.  No, I do not watch Fox News or CNBC…and neither should you.  Just a bunch of windbags separating the country while they make money doing it.  Not a healthy thing for anyone.  I pine for the days of Walter Cronkite and John Chancellor and David Brinkley.  They gave it to us straight.  Well, maybe they didn’t…but it sure seemed liked it.  This was a time when the World Series got better ratings than college football.

I digress…I digress because I am stalling.  I don’t want to go on…but I need to.  I have studied counseling theory.  I need to continue for my own good.  I need to discuss it.  I need to let it out.

I do watch some news.  Perhaps I am paranoid.  Anyway, yesterday I saw news footage of a plane crash landing in Taipei.  You might have seen it.   It made me cringe.  It made me remember.  It made me uneasy.

Follow along.

I made plans for the greatest two weekends of pro football I could ever imagine.  In 2012 the NFL schedule makers actually got it right.  In the first two weekends of November the Cincinnati Bengals were playing host to the Denver Broncos and the New York Giants.  Translation: the Manning brothers, Peyton and Eli, were bringing their teams to the Queen City for games against the Bengals in consecutive weeks.  Being the Manning fan I am, it was a time to behold.

The first week the Denver Broncos came to town.  I was for the Broncos.  This was also a time for me to get to a game with a couple of my childhood cronies I have managed to maintain good times with thirty-some years later.  I went to this game with my pals Kelly Samons and Mick Rutherford.  They were both in my wedding to my dear wife, Carrie.

We had a great time, the three of us.  Peyton threw his touchdown passes.  Having attended Colts games and rooted for him in the Horseshoe, it was odd to see him running out on the field in that choppy gate of his in a blue helmet.  He went from being a Colt to being a Bronco.  What does that mean?  The Broncos won the game handily.

Me, Kelly Samons, and Mick Rutherford

The next week my favorite team, the New York Giants, came to town.

This week I took my Dad and my dear Carrie to the game.

We parked across the Ohio River in Kentucky.  We walked over the bridge at Newport and made our way to Paul Brown Stadium.  As you can tell by our attire, the weather was kinder than is was the week before.  It was a very pleasant November day in Cincinnati, Ohio.

It was Veterans Day, November 11th.  The stadium was decorated and a card section was in the stadium to pay tribute to our country’s veterans.  This was of great significance to us. Our oldest son, Jarrett,  was in Afghanistan at the time, stationed there by the US Army.  He was a crew chief on a Blackhawk helicopter.

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The field was adorned with a flag and the East stands spelled out Thank You Veterans.

Then…as fate would have it…a plane came in from the Southeast to make a flyover of Paul Brown Stadium.

This plane changed me.

If you can see the bank of the plane from left to right…you can tell it is heading opposite of the stands I was sitting in.  I have witnessed many flyovers of sporting events in my time.  Each and every time it has always been the same.  The flyovers are maneuvered over the length of the field…from one end zone to the other across the length of the field.  Not so this day in Cincinnati.

Carrie and Dad and I were sitting in just a few rows in the upper deck that is on the West side of the Paul Brown Stadium.  It was the side of the field the New York Giants were on.   When the cargo plane came in for a flyover it was heading in from the Southeast over the Ohio River toward Paul Brown Stadium with its nose down in the direction of the West stands we were sitting in.

In short, I looked to my right when the public address announcer said this plane was approaching and all I could see…and I can still see them…were cockpit windows close enough that I could easily make out the windshield wipers that sat at rest below the windows.  I had never seen such a sight at a football game flyover.  Being that my whole point of reference for flyovers went out the “window”, and that what I saw was the nose of a plane heading in my direction…well…it wasn’t pretty.

The body can do some physiologically strange things.

Translation:  When I saw this plane seemingly heading my way, my brain told the rest of my body to brace for impact.  My body did just that.  When the flyover was over, my wife and my Dad saw me humped over in my stadium seat.  Neither one wanted to address me. They thought I had become a bit emotional given the Veteran’s Day acknowledgement and they thought I was just caught up in the moment thinking about Jarrett.  They gave me my space.  When I never seemed to be doing better after a minute or so, one of them asked me if I was okay.  I told them I was not.

In the course of my brain telling the rest of my body to brace for the impact of the plane I had no doubt was going to crash into the stadium, my rear personage from my neck down to my Achilles tendons became a two inch thick muscle cramp prompted by my brain.

It was the perfect storm, I thought.  This plane was going to crash into the side of the stadium behind the New York Giants.  The team from the same town that was terrorized by planes in 2001.  That is what my brain told the rest of me.  My day was done.

We stayed for the game.  The Giants got beat.  I got beat worse.  I was a nervous, mentally unstable guy.  I had a babysitter die on me when I was five.  I have known loss of family and friends that would make a man sick for three days.  This was different.  This was involuntary.  I didn’t think about any of it.  I went from getting ready to watch a game I had been waiting on to hyperventilating as my Dad thought I was having a heart attack.

Things didn’t get better very soon.  I went to the Doctor  three days later and told him I needed something for my nerves.  I was walking on eggshells and when I drove to work I was convinced I was going to be hit by most oncoming vehicles.  Two weeks later I finally got to feeling better.

Last summer I suffered a huge setback…a panic attack if one ever existed.

For the first time in my life I was driving up the New York/New Jersey Turnpike.  Little did I know that on one of the busiest, nastiest roads I have road I have ever driven, there would be the view of Manhattan and the new Freedom Tower where the Twin Towers sat on my right…and planes coming in low and hard into Newark International Airport on my left.  It was too much.  I went into panic.

Want to stop on the New York/New Jersey Turnpike?  Good luck with that.  I was at the point of no return.  Breathing heavy if I was breathing at all.  I was so scared that I was putting my dear Carrie’s safety in jeopardy.  I couldn’t enjoy driving past the Metlife Stadium where the New York Giants play their home games.  I was concentrating on the lines I was trying to keep our Ford Edge in between and nothing else.  We drove over the George Washington Bridge.  I remember it.  I can’t see it.  I was scared.  Finally, we got into the country North of New York City.  I found a place to pull off to breathe and convince myself I was going to keep living.

The plane that crashed in Taipei looked a great deal like the one that flew crazily into Cincinnati that day in November 2102.

If I had the pilot of that plane in front of me, I would kick him in the shins…both of them.  Then I would ask him what he was thinking.  I don’t for a minute believe the maneuver he pulled over that stadium was up to regulation.

Will I get over all this?  I sure hope so.

If you are wondering, yes…I have flown since this debacle.  I have no beef with getting on a plane and taking a ride.  It helps if I don’t have to watch.

Speaking the rights.

Danny Johnson

We favorite stuff…usually with the click of a computer mouse or the tap of a finger on a key pad or a phone.  That is in my favorites…

Before we get started, understand this is my FAVORITE lady…my dear wife, Carrie.

So I was asked about my favorites recently.  No no…not websites in a computer’s memory. We’re talking about my memory.  Believe me, it can rival the computer.  Ask my cronies.

In no great order my friend rattled off an inquiry of my favorite this and that.  I asked him to slow down as I grabbed a piece of paper and scribbled my responses in shorthand.

Favorite Pro Football Team:  New York Giants.  As long as Eli Manning is playing quarterback, I will root for the Giants above all others!  I have made mention here before…my pro game allegiance belongs to my favorite player.  Eli is the man.  I watched him play for Ole Miss in Nashville, Lexington, and Oxford.  I never tire of watching him chunk it down-field.

Favorite College Team:  Marshall…closely followed by Ole Miss.  My allegiance to the Herd is documented on this site.  With a nod to Annie Savoy…you could look it up.

Favorite Basketball player:  Julius Erving.  Doctor J was my basketball hero.  The only one I ever had.  I just don’t care that much about basketball.  Oh my, I do so enjoy the NCAA Tournament in March.  Wow.  That is good times.  Dr. J just seemed so cool…so fluid in his movement.  Poetry in motion…I think that is what we called it.

Favorite Baseball Team: Cincinnati Reds.  I still have visions of the Big Red Machine in my head.  Like a guy lucky enough to see the 1927 Yankees…I saw The BIG RED MACHINE!

Favorite Baseball Player:  George Foster.  He played left field for the Reds in the 70s and part of the 80s…I think.  He was a wiry  guy hitting 52 homers and driving in 149 on 1977.  His bat was black too.

Favorite Food:  I like a good pizza.  If I am ordering, I order sausage, onion, and black olive….though I appreciate other veggies as well.  Beware.   Some sausages can keep me awake for days.

Favorite City:  Chicago.  The Art Institute of Chicago has my favorite painting when it is not on loan.  NIGHTHAWKS by Edward Hopper.  The first time I saw it I wept.  Just thinking about seeing it again makes me nervous.  The last time we visited it was on loan to a museum in France.  Maybe it helped them out.

Favorite Concert:  WHOOOAA!  Back up.  I am a fortunate man.  I have seen too too too many concerts to pigeon-hole this category.  Okay, narrow it into categories.

Group:  The Moody Blues.  It is the music I most relate to outside of the church house.  This music makes sense to me…not just on an “oh, I love that song” sort of way.  A good Moodies concert resonates in my soul.  I remember an orchestra show they did in Evansville in 1994.  It was the best of the orchestra shows I saw.  The Ryman Auditorium Show in 2008…their first concert at the Nashville legend was special.  Too many to mention.

Male Solo:  Tie.  Justin Hayward of The Moody Blues playing in a shoe-box of a venue in Newberry, South Carolina this past October.  I heard him sing a song from a 1971 album I never thought I would ever hear in person.  It is a special song to me.  His simple three piece with no drums was an intimate evening.  Paul McCartney…Carrie and I have seen Sir Paul four times.  The first time we saw him was in 2002 in Indianapolis.  When I heard him sing a song dedicated to John Lennon I cried like a baby.  The song reminded me of my friend Corner King Lincoln who passed away in 1997.

Female Solo:  Alicia Keys.  No question.  This was a great concert in Greensboro, North Carolina on the way home from Spring Break a few years ago. What a voice.  What a fun crowd.  It felt good to be in the minority for a change.  Most of folks sitting around us were black.  Like Fred Sanford called Lena Horne “The Horn”…I will forever call Alicia Keys “The Key”.

Duet:  If you can call it such…Billy Joel and Elton John at Louisville’s Freedom Hall.  That concert was like listening to the soundtrack of your life.  Glad we were there.

We have been so fortunate to see so many concerts over the years.  The list of artists is staggering.  Honorable Mention goes to Huey Lewis and the News, Don McLean, Train, Bob Seger, Allison Krauss, Tim Krekel, Jimmy Buffett, Pink Floyd, Gordon Lightfoot, Garth Brooks, and Celine Dion.  I better stop there.  My apologizes to Harry Connick, Jr.

Favorite Restaurant:  I wrote about the place a few posts ago: Hyman’s Seafood in Charleston, SC. There is not a eatery I enjoy more.  The Riverview Cafe in Snead’s Ferry, NC is the restaurant I look forward to eating at the most…just because it means we are a few miles from our favorite vacation spot.  Can you say fried flounder fillets and oysters?

Favorite State: Tie…North Carolina… because I have seen more of it and know more about it than I do Indiana. Vermont…We have been there once and it made such a favorable impression…I can’t explain it.  Felt like we were on a movie set or something.  There is a beauty there in late June that is exquisite.  Hope to get back there some day.

Favorite Sport:  Football.  Duh!

Favorite TV Show:  Tie…Monday Night Football…for obvious reasons.  Hill Street Blues because I love it.  I was thirteen years old when Hill Street premiered and I got it.  I watched on Thursday nights with my Dad for all the years the show was on the air.  Dad and I have not always had the same taste in TV shows.  We both loved Hill Street.  We shared it together. These days I have been watching the complete series on DVD as I exercise.  I am almost through the next to last season.  Season 7 will be the last one.  When I am finished, I am going to pass them on to my Dad and let him watch them.

Favorite Movie:  Tie…Children of a Lesser God 1986…no movie ever got my attention like this one did.  The setting.  The music.  The story.  The acting.  Got robbed at Oscar time.  Platoon?  Please….  The Prince of Tides 1991… Master storyteller Pat Conroy at his best.  Carrie and I met Conroy once.  He was gracious.  This movie was the last favorite I have known.  Emotion. Emotion. Emotion.  I still listen to parts of the Soundtrack on my IPOD every day.

Favorite Book:  The Holy Bible.  Amen indeed.

Favorite Author:  Lewis Grizzard for fun.  Henry David Thoreau for sense.  Pat Conroy for relativity.

Speaking the favorites rights.

Danny Johnson

Late this morning I sat down to check the availability and time of the golf tourney I want to take a look at on television before the weekend is over.   This activity led me to a time-honored tradition…a little channel surfing.

I found the info on the golf tourney.  I found and sat and watched a great deal of the Memorial Service for former Chicago Cub player, Ernie Banks, on the Major League Baseball network.  Ernie died late last week.  Folks spoke about him with gracious hearts and kind words.  Mr. Cub was a great ambassador for the game of baseball and the city he loved to play it in.

I sat in awe, as I watched former players I thought the world of as a youngster deliver small speeches.  Lou Brock spoke for a few minutes. I had not seen him in years.  Fergie Jenkins had his speaks.  Banks’ twin sons spoke.

Having been to Wrigley Field in Chicago a few times myself, I had some sense of the appreciation that town and that place has for Ernie Banks.  Notice I say has…it will always be “has”.  He will never go away.  He was a true hero.  He is a true “Hall of Famer”…if there really is such a thing.

I changed the channel.

On the NFL Network…by the way…for those you giving a rip…the Super Bowl is tomorrow. I am interested in this game primarily because I am a contestant in a radio contest and if the Seahawks win and the score is a reasonable facsimile of mine…I will win some nice prizes.   Anyway, on the NFL Network this morning,  there was a panel of talking heads discussing the possible new inductees into the “Pro Football Hall of Fame”.

Having a Pro Football Hall of Fame is a good thing, I think.  Though of all the places I have been, I have never been to Canto, Ohio to see this facility.  Why do I like the idea of a Pro Football Hall of Fame?  I like that there is a place for young fans to get a glimpse of how the game has evolved and some insight into some of the players that played this game professionally for very little pay and more acclaim than the bass-ackwards theme I see today where many players receive a great deal of pay for very little acclaim.  A sign of the times, I suppose.

I suppose my biggest beef with the likes of “Halls of Fame” is how they decide whom is inducted.  Players in large part, as I understand it, are voted on by sportswriters.  The possibility looms that a football player’s chance of getting into a hallowed hall might hinge on a vote by a guy who couldn’t block or tackle his sister if his life depended on it.  Good luck with that.  So.. what do we get?

We get players deserving…obviously…like first-balloter Walter Payton.  And we get guys who get in twenty-eight years after they have hung up their cleats…see Ray Guy.  In between we get a great deal of maybe they do and maybe they don’t (deserve to get “enshrined”  into this club).  For a football purist, it is just too much to rely on.  There are a number of guys that deserve to be called Hall of Famers.  They never will be.

Players I think should be in the Hall of Fame off the top of my head?

Jerry Kramer…Ken Stabler…Roger Craig…Drew Pearson…L.C. Greenwood…Ken Riley…Lemar Parrish.   None of these players were my favorites.  When they played, however, you knew they were on the field.  They made themselves known with their play…not their mouths.

My sentimental favorite?  Easy…Ken Anderson, former quarterback of the Cincinnati Bengals.  He led the league in passing 4 times.  Set multiple records for passing accuracy that stood for years.  He was a force to be reckoned with even though he played on many lousy teams.  He was running Bill Walsh’s “west coast offense” in Riverfront Stadium along the Ohio River long before Joe Montana threw a pass for Niners head coach and former Bengals’ offensive coordinator…Bill Walsh.  Over 32,000 passing yards and 197 touchdowns in a league that is much different than the one we see today, as he was trying to throw behind some bad line play, Anderson is a Hall of Famer to me.

Baseball’s Hall of Fame?  Don’t get me started.  The sportswriters have to watch 162 games a season yielding them more constipation than expected.  They are the biggest hallowed hall mongers of all.  That alone is a reason to despise the baseball hall of fame.  That and two other easy words:  Pete Rose.

What is worse than sport halls of fame?

Answer:  The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  Or as I like to put it…the Cleveland Museum of Musical Criticism as told by Journalistic Neurotics claiming to understand Rock and Roll.

There should at least be this criteria for being inducted into a the Rock and Roll Hall: Most of us have heard of something you sang or played on!

I don’t have a personal beef with The 5 Royales…or The Paul Butterfield Blues Band…or Lou Reed (so I have heard of him)…or…believe me I could go on.  I do wonder how they can be in a hall of fame.

Answer:  Music Critics.  They are worse than sportswriters.  They know it all.  They try to be creative because they don’t play an instrument themselves.  You can throw a laptop across the room and it won’t make a good sound.  You can blow on a pen and piece of paper and no one will care.  So…they care little about what most of us like and use their own agenda to try to sway us to their liking.  In the meantime…they waste their time. I gloss over music reviews in my newspaper.

You who know me probably guessed it.  The Moody Blues are not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and I hope they never get their.  They deserve better.

Reasons The Moody Blues have not been inducted into the AMERICAN hall?

Could be:

None of The Moody Blues ever wore an earring.  Playing sell out tours in 2014 isn’t cool. Selling 70 million records just doesn’t cut it.  No members dead of drug-overdose.  Lead singer married to same lady since 1969.  Too many all over the world know the song Nights in White Satin word for word.

Who knows?  And really, who cares?  The Moodies just keep on rocking like the “Singers in a Rock and Roll Band”  they are.  Where is there a better hall than that?  Maybe in the kitchen.

By the way…this morning I had breakfast with four of the finest gentlemen I will ever know. Time has yet to play bad tricks on these guys.  Now and again…time stands still.  You’ll know it when it does.  This morning I was 7 and 47 at the same time.  To Steve, Jim, Harv, and Jerry…I thank you.

Go Seahawks…if someone must.

Speaking the rights.

Danny Johnson

I am sitting here listening to a…oh my…pirated CD.  No…it is not The Moody Blues.  It is a CD that is very precious to me.  It is a compilation CD my brother, Darrell, made for me.  It has a little bit of this and a little bit of that on it.  No…there are no Moody Blues songs.  There are songs I enjoy just the same.  We all could use a little “Flock of Seagulls” every now and then.  There is also some Coldplay and GNR and Foo Fighters and Beatles and Phil Collins and ELO and well..I think there are 18 tunes on it.  Having your brother take the time to put together a collection like this is special in itself.  I cherish it.

This weekend there is a VERY entertaining golf tournament.  The Waste Management Event of the PGA is going on in Arizona.  Yes, I know, so is the Super Bowl being played in Arizona.  More about that later.  This PGA event may be the best of any for the casual fan to watch.  I think this is the golf venue that has a Par 3 that is basically an amphitheater of a hole.  If the player put the ball on the green he is revered.  If he does not make the green or rolls off the green he is SEVERELY jeered.  It is awesome.  Tiger Woods is playing this tournament after getting a tooth knocked out recently whilst following around his favorite female person, Lindsey Vonn, the famous skier.  Not sure how it happened.  Guess the skiing crowd is tougher than the golf crowd.  Who knew?

Again… this is the PGA event to watch on TV.  I know…I know…it is not Augusta…but what is?  The rowdies in Arizona are much more fun to listen to than the piped in bird sounds at Augusta…do you have any Grey Poupon?

So I have a Super Bowl pick.  Help me out here people, please!

Seattle 34  New England 20

If I get the score correct or closer than any other contestant…many of whom have picked the New England Cheatriots, I will win a huge prize in a radio contest.  My Dad could use a new 40 inch TV.  That in itself is enough for you to help me root on the Seahawks.  If I were not in the contest, this game would not be the Super Bowl to me.  It would be the Pooper Bowl.  I could care less…prizes notwithstanding.  I hope I can stay awake for the whole thing.

Forgetting about Arizona for a while, I take the time to put a shout out to my friends in New Hampshire getting pounded by the great winter storm that is wreaking havoc on the Northeast.  Snow…snow….and more snow.  They are a hearty bunch there in the northeast.  What would seemingly paralyze most of us…they take in stride.  My dear wife, Carrie, and I were in New Hampshire when the great Nor’easter of 2011 took its toll on in the last weekend of October 2011.  Trees that were not broken were bent.  Power outages took a great deal of the region.  We were roughing it.  And it felt great.  It’s good to know you can hold your own when you need to.  I saw pictures today of Bob and Michelle’s girls sledding with smiles on their faces not far from Amherst Village, NH.  Did I ever tell you about the little store in the village with at least 5  daily newspapers to choose from each day from no less than 3 states?  God bless the literary sensibility of that place…and that little store.

I hope all are safe and sound. The Beatles are singing about a long and winding road.  That is the last song on the CD.  It is my favorite Beatles song.  I have heard Paul McCartney sing it four times in person.  It brought tears to my eyes each time.  I am not sure why.  More importantly, I don’t care.  We all have a journey.

Speaking the rights.

Danny Johnson

I have been somewhat perturbed…boy that is a kind word when you need it…as I have watched football on television.  No…I am not throwing more stones at the New England Patriots here.  With a nod to the final scene of the late 80s movie “Some Kind of Wonderful”, there is really nothing I can do to the Patriots that they have not done to themselves.

What has me p.o.’ed is watching the National Anthem being shown on televised football games.  No…I have no beef with the song or what it represents.  The thing is…I think networks should have been showing the footage of pre-game festivities…including and foremost…the NATIONAL ANTHEM for years.

Of late the playing of the song before some televised games has been featured.  ALSO featured is the fact that the song is being SPONSORED BY….so and so.

Translation:  The networks are getting around to showing the presentation of our country’s NATIONAL ANTHEM before games because someone is PAYING for it.  This makes me sick.

I have a point of reference here.  It is in the form of a piece I wrote a few years ago that never found publication before today.  I am glad I held onto it.

THE NATIONAL ANTHEM…NOT FOR SALE  (SUMMER 2010)

On two occasions this past June, I had grand opportunities to belt out The Star Spangled Banner…our National Anthem…in the context of exceptional circumstances.

The first, and most significant, was on June 14th at Fort Hood in Killeen, Texas.  My dear wife, Carrie, and I had trekked the from Indiana.  Inside a big white well air-conditioned tent positioned next to an airfield, Carrie and I were on hand to welcome back a unit of soldiers returning home from Afghanistan to the ones they love.

Like most inside the tent, we had a particular soldier we were there to meet…the newly promoted Sgt. Jarrett Beckett, our son.  Less than a week ago he was decorated with a medal for bravery.

As the troops fell into rank and everyone was positioned, those of us not already standing were asked to stand for the playing of our National Anthem.  I sang out.

I belted out that song like my life depended on it…and I suppose in part…it does.  Tears were streaming down my face as I thought of those brave exhausted soldiers before us and the ones whom made it back to the United States only to have their families face loss, anger, hate, pride, honor, and every gamut of emotion that must go into burying a proud soldier who perished in combat.

At that moment, our National Anthem made a little more sense to me.

The second chance I had to sing this great song was later in that month of June.  I was asked to sing our National Anthem in, of all places, the Conseco Fieldhouse ( it has since been renamed Banker’s Life Fieldhouse) in Indianapolis, Indiana.  This place is the home of the NBA’s Indiana Pacers and the WNBA’s Indiana Fever.

The promotions department of these entities had/maybe still has a noble program called “Court of Dreams” that invites Indiana girls high school basketball teams to play games during the day of a WNBA Indiana Fever game.  The high school teams participating during the day bought a block of group-priced tickets for the Fever game later that evening in exchange for the chance to play on the big stage that was the Conseco Fieldhouse during the day.

The high school games are played in the afternoon.  Afterwards these teams typically hang out in downtown Indy as they wait to return to the arena to watch the women’s pro game.

That afternoon, before the start of the girls’ game I was attending, the head coach of one of the teams about to play walked across the court and up to the sixth row where I was sitting and asked if I would like to sing the National Anthem.

I was honored.  I jumped at the chance.  After all, the only other person I ever heard sing in that building was Paul McCartney.

I sang my heart out.  As I sang my heart out, I could not help but to think about all the soldiers Carrie and I had seen earlier in the month walking in one after the other to their Ft. Hood homecoming.

Singing the National Anthem is an honor and a pleasure.  I have performed the song many times before in high school gyms.  I never dreamed I would be singing this song in a major league sports venue located in the state’s capitol.

Each time I lead an audience in the singing of this great song, I try to get out of it what I believe Francis Scott Key put into it as he was writing it.  As one with a penchant for songwriting, I have long been intrigued with the circumstances Key was presented with that gave him such inspiration.  We can only imagine.  I hope and pray we never stop imagining.

Upon finishing my rendition of our nation’s song at the arena that day, the young lady in charge of the day’s promotions and events indicated she liked the way I presented this great song.  Two staffers she had with her also raised their eyebrows in approval.

On that very spot, the lady in charge asked me if I would be interested in coming back to sing our country’s National Anthem at a Indiana Pacer’s NBA basketball game.  I told her I would be honored.  I continued to indicate my pride in the song and the fact that no more than ten days ago I was singing that song at Fort Hood as we were welcoming our son back from his service in Afghanistan.

After leaving the scorer’s table and heading back to my seat across the basketball court, I was met by a an older lady working there as an usher.  She firmly grabbed my arm.   She the told me my performance of the National Anthem…”was so wonderful it sent chills down my spine”.  I thanked her and returned to my seat to enjoy some high school basketball.

Over the course of a month or so I exchanged emails with the young lady at the Conseco Fieldhouse about the prospects of me singing the National Anthem before an Indiana Pacers NBA game.

An official invitation came to me from the Conseco FIeldhouse to sing the National Anthem before an Indiana Pacers game.

In the context of the invitation, however, I came across the following phrase…”As part of the deal”.

Reading on I came to realize I had been suckered.

Yes…they wanted me to sing the National Anthem.  But…I was expected to be a ticket agent for them and sell a block of tickets in exchange for my pipes belting out the National Anthem.

The balloon popped.  The air suddenly failed the sail.  And I was left to ponder how on earth a company could possibly think about parlaying the singing the country’s National Anthem into a money making proposition.  (Leave it to the NFL this year).

I know…I know.  Whitney Houston’s version of The Star Spangled Banner at the Tampa Super Bowl went off the charts in 1991 a few weeks after we entered the Gulf War.

Newsflash:  I’m not Whitney Houston.  This wasn’t the Super Bowl.  And I only wish our country gave half the enthusiasm to our troops today as we did in early 1991 heading into the Gulf War.

Can you imagine in 1814 someone going to Francis Scott Key and telling him if he sold enough tickets for the Governor’s Ball then they’d take a look at his little song?

Well, the Pacers will have to find someone else willing to pay to sing the National Anthem.  I believe what they are doing is American Flag blasphemy.  While I am not a scholar of how teams of major professional sports go about presenting the National Anthem, I hope and pray this is an isolated case.  The Star Spangled Banner should not be for sale.  Our country is worth more than that.  The efforts of our soldiers are damn sure worth more than that.

As I sit here in my back porch enjoying a rare cool breeze on a late summer day in Indiana, I look out on the horizon…not quite sure of what I see.

Speaking the rights.

Danny Johnson

My dear wife, Carrie, thought I had lost my mind.  I told her we were going to get on a plane and fly from Louisville, Kentucky to Denver, Colorado to see The Moody Blues at Red Rocks Amphitheater not many miles west of downtown Denver.

We were on the back porch when I gave her the news. It was in late March 2011.  We flew to Denver on May 6th and flew back on May 8th.  By the way, if you fly out of Louisville the day before the Kentucky Derby and fly back the day after the Kentucky Derby, you can do so economically compared to most other days.   I wish you could have seen the look on her face the day I let her know of our upcoming trip.  It said somewhat of a combination of the following:

What?…  Oh…that’s great…  Really? (Not the annoying “really?” that was made glam by a TV show)… You’re kidding, right…  Another Moodies show?…  You know I’m scared of flying.  What?… (again)… Are you crazy?…  Well…okay.

I just asked her a few minutes ago about what she thought about the trip.  “Surreal”…is the answer I got.  She’s right.  And like me, she enjoyed the trip immensely.  We packed so much into so little time.  We rented a car.  We stayed at the foot of the Rockies in Estes Park.  Neither of us had ever been there before.  We drove into the Rockies as far as we could.  There was a foot and a half of snow up there and the Trail Ridge Road was closed at 10,000 feet and it was a good thing.  Any farther and I am sure I would have passed out. We ate great food.  I ran into Bill Benner, a Moodies fan from Indy.  Bill and I saw each other at shows in 2010, 2011, and 2012.  The coolest thing was going to Red Rocks the day before the show.

Red Rocks is a park that doesn’t cost a penny to visit.  Folks exercise up and down the rows of the venue and the views from the top of Red Rocks are fabulous.  I recognized the rocks as we were driving up the hill to the place.  I had been looking at them for nearly twenty years and now they were in front of me.  Wow.

Red Rocks is a natural amphitheater.  It is situated between two…well…Red Rocks!

The view from the top of the venue.

The view from the stage.

The ROCK..exit stage right.

Red Rocks is significant in Moody Blues history.  On September 9th in 1992, The Moodies played a concert for the first time with an orchestra.  Many whom have heard The Moody Blues groundbreaking album Days of Future Passed, recorded in 1967, might think this was a band that had worked closely with an orchestra.  Not so.  When the Moodies recorded Days of Future Passed  they did their parts separate from the orchestra.  The Moodies parts and the orchestral parts were put together through the magic of recording.  I have spent some time in a recording studio.  The end product for this place and time was nothing short of… meant to be.  I, like the Moodies, am very thankful.

When The Moody Blues took the stage that night at Red Rocks in 1992 and recorded their exploits, Justin Hayward, the songwriter-lead singer-guitarist of the group, told the sold out audience that twenty-five years ago that very week they handed a piece of tape to their record company, Decca Records. That piece of tape was Days of Future Passed and it featured their signature hit Nights in White Satin. 

I’m listening to that concert as I present this post on speaktherights.com.

I remember watching this concert for the first time on a PBS broadcast in March of 1993.  Not long after that it was available to purchase on…gads…a VHS tape.  DVDs soon followed…at least in my backwoods neck of the woods.  But I still remember right where I was the night I watched it.  I was captivated.  Though I had seen my share of Moodies concerts by 1993, it was the first time I had watched a show of theirs on television.  In retrospect, the popularity of this event and the fact that this vehicle allowed The Moody Blues to continue touring while being backed at shows by orchestras into the next century probably gave the group stronger legs to keep standing on.

The first orchestra show I saw was at Deer Creek northeast of Indianapolis in the summer of 1993.  The last Moodies orchestra show I saw at Deer Creek in 1999.  The place was packed.  In between I saw the Moodies play with orchestras in Louisville, Cincinnati, Evansville, Lexington, Huntsville, Noblesville, and Ft. Wayne. I think I saw thirteen Moodies orchestra shows in all.  They were all a joy.  A full orchestra is something to behold.

Had this venture not been such a fruitful endeavor for The Moody Blues…who knows?  It worked.  Thank God.  No, I really mean that.  The Moodies music is full of hope, love, peace, and optimism.  Who doesn’t need that?  Especially in our quick to bitch about world.  The Moodies have stayed around for a good reason.  I have no doubt.

The Moody Blues…Red Rocks 2011

John Lodge…just a singer in a rock and roll band

Justin Hayward taking it in at Red Rocks after Nights in White Satin…looks a bit familiar to those with the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary lithograph.

Yes.  Justin Hayward told the crowd that night that it had been 25 years since Days of Future Passed.  It seemed like such a long time…25 years.  How could these guys still be rocking we asked?   Well…

On May 10th The Moody Blues will return to Red Rocks….twenty-three years after the twenty-five year celebration.  To this fan…that doesn’t seem possible.  This time Justin can tell everyone….”48 years ago we handed a piece of tape to Decca.”  Wow again.

They still put on a great show, you know.  Maybe you don’t know.  Take my word for it.  When you get Justin Hayward and John Lodge and Graeme Edge in the same room…good things happen.  They just do.  After looking at them and watching these guys for so many years, I am convinced that what they share is the music they bring.  I doubt they spend much time together away from the instruments.  They don’t need to.  They found what they were looking for and they have continued to rock and roll year after year without fail. So many of us are thankful.

The first time I saw the Moodies was the fall after my senior year of high school in 1986.  Since then I have seen them play in 1988, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, ( this four year gap is due to me drowning in my own music and recording) 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014.  As of yet, I have no plans for one of the scheduled 2015 shows. The only time I ever got on a plane to see them was in 2011 for the Red Rocks show.

The Moody Blues love to bring their music to the people.  If they didn’t, they would have packed it in a long time ago. I, for one, hope they keep going.  We need more love, peace, hope, and optimism.

Another thing I like about The Moody Blues is that they don’t “milk the cow” like other artists do.  The Moodies keep their ticket prices down compared to what they could charge….hope I don’t give them any crazy ideas.

Case in point is the May 2015 Red Rocks show.  If you are in the know, there is access to great tickets to Moodies shows.  Some include perks…some don’t.  The perk-less tickets are face value tickets.  The Moodies offer pre-sale tickets to those in the know.  These tickets, to the Moodies credit, are ones the TRUE FANS pick up at the box office.

Translation: these tickets are for fans and not for ticket brokers…ticket scalpers…and cow milkers.

For the upcoming Red Rocks show, The Moodies released a number of pre-sale tickets.  They sold out.  More were released.  They sold out.  I got a third email alerting that more had been released for fans.  They sold out in a hurry.  I am glad that they did.  The Moody Blues took care of their fans.

I have been fortunate enough to get great Moodies tickets by being vigilant to the process.

This photo was taken by Carrie.  In the background is Gordy Marshall.  He has been playing with the Moodies since 1991.  He does most of the heavy lifting of the drums for the band.  Gordon Marshall too is awesome.

When he is not singing, Justin’s guitar playing is amazing.

Playing the song Higher and Higher…by Grame Edge

Graeme Edge comes off his drumming perch to deliver Higher and Higher. Note the lunar landing pictures behind the band.  The song was inspired by Neil Armstrong taking that first step onto the moon’s surface.

Justin Hayward and John Lodge

The boys taking it in after the last song at Red Rocks in 2011.

I hope all of you who are fortunate enough to take in this sight this coming May have a great time.  Well….you will.  It’s The Moody Blues.

Speaking the Moody Blues Rights.

Danny Johnson

Cheaters.  That is what my Granny would have said.  She then would have said: “They don’t belong in the Super Bowl if they’re a bunch of cheaters.”

There Granny, I said it for you.

Granny was right.

So…what is the price for being a cheater?  Lose a few draft picks in 2015?  Whatever…

That still doesn’t dismiss the fact that the New England Patriots cheated.  What do you expect?  It worked out okay in the past when they were exposed as cheats.  I know…I know…there are some of you out there who are of the philosophical nature that adheres to the old adage “if you ain’t cheatin’, you ain’t trying”.  Well, if you believe that, you are a cheater too.  Shame on you.

I knew of some cheaters when I was a younger man.  These guys were on the sideline of the opposing high school team.  They…or should I say…one of them…had enough football acumen to decipher what he heard when an opposing coach made a call for a run to go to the left or the right…or if it was pass.  When it was going left he would signal to a defender in the huddle…who was also a cheater…by scratching his left ear.  If it was a pass he scratched his forehead.  Cheaters.

Will this come back to bite Coach Bill Belichick on hindparts?  I doubt it.  After all, it has worked out so far.

His team played with under-inflated balls against the Colts last Sunday.  Cheaters.

This is the same guy that did not shake Tom Coughlin’s hand after the Giants beat the Patriots in the 2007 season’s Super Bowl.  Sore Loser and Cheater.

Will this keep Bill Belichick out of the Hall of Fame?  I doubt it.  Seems cheating is a little more acceptable these days.  When the Pats were caught taping Jets signals a few years ago it was treated rather novel.

The Patriots need to change names with the Oakland Raiders.  That should be their penalty.  The Oakland Patriots and the New England Raiders.  That sounds much better.  After all, Bill Belichick is allowed to take a pair of scissors to his sweatshirt when the league would not let former 49ers coach, Mike Nolan, wear a dress suit on the sideline.  This did not meet the NFL’s dress code?  Translation:  Belichick’s sweatshirt was available for purchase on a website and after a fan paid 70 bucks for it, said fan could also take scissors to his or her sweatshirt and make it like the sophomoric Belichick’s.  Nolan’s suits were not available on the league’s website.  Pathetic.

The team we love to hate?  Not me.  I just get mad at them when they cheat.  Otherwise, I don’t care if they play.  In fact, they shouldn’t play.  They’re…as Granny would put it….cheaters.

Speaking the rights.

Danny Johnson