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This weekend marked the end of two eras in South Dakota, one in the press and one in music.
Although public knowledge for a while, Terry Woster officially said good bye Sunday with a front page column in the local daily. After 40 years in the news business, Terry took an early retirement package as the Gannett layoffs hit the paper. I’ve had the pleasure of knowing Terry for roughly 30 of those years and have always viewed him as one of the most honorable and best reporters — and people — I’ve known.
From the standpoint of a journalist, I learned a lot from Terry, the unquestionable dean of the South Dakota capitol/legislative press corps. It started in 1976, when I did a political science internship in Pierre. Even though I wasn’t a working member of the media, I tended to hang out in the press room at the Capitol, in large part because I was friends with Terry’s brother, Kevin. That session I absorbed a lot about how the legislature and press corps operates by observing and listening to Terry’s insight. And Terry treated me like he treated everyone — you were presumed a friend until you gave reason for him to believe otherwise. In fact, two years later he was largely responsible for getting me a stringer position for the June primary election.
Two years after that, we were competitors. He was still with AP and I was working for UPI during the 1980 session. Even though we worked for competing organizations, the professional courtesy and camaraderie of the journalism world meant Terry was willing to help with a lot of my rookie questions and learning some of the essentials of the then-current routine in Pierre. That didn’t mean he was going to give me an edge on anything or lose one to me. But he did understand that the public was better served if the reporters covering state government possessed basic tools and knowledge. Plenty of bad-tasting coffee and bull sessions in the press room made for mutual (hopefully) respect and friendship.
I last had the opportunity to work with Terry when I went out to the 1982 session while working for the Rapid City Journal. This time, it was more like old home week. And despite leaving journalism less than 18 months later, I always received the same warm greeting whenever I bumped into Terry over the next decade or more — occasions that were too far and few in between. You couldn’t help but like Terry and enjoy time spent with him. His sense of humor might be the perfect definition of wry. All that was multiplied exponentially if you by chance ended up in the midst of or observing a Woster Brothers “discussion.” In fact, you couldn’t help but learn about certain core values by spending time with the Woster boys, individually or in any combination. I have no doubt my life is richer for that.
The other ending occurred Sunday afternoon when the last two South Dakota Acoustic Christmas concerts brought a 19-year run to an end.
What started as a holiday performance by a group of friends morphed into a statewide holiday tradition that raised more than $1 million over the years for charities and arts organizations. While I’m not a fan of Christmas music, Acoustic Christmas went beyond that. Their music wasn’t the mainstream music you normally think of this time of year. In addition to original compositions, they delved into truly traditional Christmas music, the folk-based songs generated by a variety of cultures over a number of centuries. Even mainstream Christmas songs were rendered with a new feel or arrangement.
Knowing this was the last year, our family was determined to attend one of the final concerts. Sunday’s next to last show was a wonderful performance, as so many have come to expect. The combination of exceptional playing ability, voices and joy on stage reinforced why this became a modern tradition from one end of the state to the other. Everyone also felt just a touch of ownership in seeing such talented South Dakotans bond together to not only make music but to help others in doing it.
Yes, two quintessential examples of South Dakota character are at an end.
There’s journalism — and then there’s life.
Terry Woster’s inscription in my copy of The Woster Brothers’ Brand
Bulletin Board
Don’t forget. Tuesday is Festivus!!!!!
Bookish Linkage
The National Book Critics Circle has revamped its web site and blog.
The Words Without Borders staff picks their favorites of the year.
What I called scifi v. lifi is evidently now a trope — which can also be reversed.
Nonbookish Linkage
Create your own NPR podcast.
What Bob said.
The Big Picture has the year in photographs — don’t miss it.
Other than “south” and “dakota”, South Dakota’s congressional delegation likes to talk about energy, at least in the Congressional Record. (And it appears Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin has a narrow vocabulary.)
Further proof that Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead. (Okay, so I’m old.)
But there’s fifteen feet of snow in the East
Colder then a welldigger’s ass
“Diamonds on My Windshield,” Tom Waits, The Heart of Saturday Night
Wtih both the backend and the frontend of the blog acting hinky (a technical term) most of the week, last night I couldn’t access either or even the server it is hosted on. Thus, I spent a good chunk of the evening on the telephone with and e-mailing customer service people. Long story short, there was no problem accessing the blog — if you weren’t using my ISP. Problem is that generally at least 10 percent of the people visiting the blog use it.
Anyway, it appears whatever was causing the problem has been resolved. It sounds like there was a problem with a server in the ISP’s network and it wasn’t that it had decided to make the blog off limits for its subscribers. Of course, if you’re on my ISP and still getting a “page unavailable” or time out error, I guess you can’t tell me.
Technology …. brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other.
C.P. Snow, quoted in New York Times, March 15, 1971
Likely because next Thursday is Christmas, there’s two Booking Through Thursday subjects this week, addressed separately below:
Do you give books as gifts?
To everyone? Or only to select people?
How do you feel about receiving books as gifts?
I will buy books as presents for family members because I have a general idea what they want or are interested in. With others, I am more likely to give a gift card so the recipient can pick their own book and I don’t have to worry about buying something they already have. I also am a big fan of giving book gift cards as high school graduation gifts.
My approach toward giving books is similar to my views on receiving them as gifts. My family can look at my Amazon wish list if they want to buy a book but I otherwise prefer a gift card simply because my book desires change erratically.
What is the best book you ever bought for yourself?
And, why? What made it the best? What made it so special?
I would have to say any or all of the desert island books. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be desert island books.
Our own love for reading allows us to pass on to the next generation that which has been given to us: the gift of reading.
Dave Bouchard, For the Love of Reading
See the album pictured below? The one called Atlantic Crossing? It isn’t here because of its worthiness. To the contrary, it’s here because, to borrow a phrase, it may well represent the “start of the rot” in Rod Stewart’s career.
 It’s this week’s Music Moment because on Dec. 19, 1975, the album was certified gold in the U.S. That same day, Stewart formally announced he was leaving Faces, a band he had performed in with Ron Wood since 1969.
No one was surprised Faces was splitting up. Ron Wood had toured with the Rolling Stones in the summer of 1975 and Stewart already had an highly acclaimed solo career thanks to a series of LPs released on Mercury Records between 1969 and 1974, including the incomparable Every Picture Tells a Story (1971) and the often underrated Never a Dull Moment (1972). Some, though, believe 1974’s Smiler was the first indication of Stewart’s artistic decline.
Stewart’s announcement he was leaving Faces came after the band completed a tour in support of a muddy sounding live album. While I wasn’t a huge Faces fan, I loved Every Picture and Never a Dull Moment so when someone suggesting seeing them perform at the Minneapolis Auditorium on November 1, 1975, I figured what the heck. I still remember the huge number of people, from hippies to guys in Marine uniforms, in the back of the auditorium actually doing the twist during “Twistin’ the Night Away.” Little did we know, this would be the last concert by Stewart and Faces, although there are now reports they will reunite for a tour next year. (Contrary to the explicit assertion in its title, a DVD claiming to be the “final concert” was actually filmed on December 23, 1974. It just wasn’t broadcast until late November 28, 1975.)
Before the last leg of the Faces tour began (and just after Wood completed touring with the Stones), Stewart released Atlantic Crossing. The title referred to the fact Stewart was relocating to the U.S. and, in fact, he recorded it here. Yet the glam look on the cover was a foreshadowing. Not only was Stewart’s focus now apparently on supermodels and celebrity status, he also relocated dislocated his musical sensibility. Stewart seemed to abandon the music styles that brought him to the top. It got worse as time went on and the public, for some reason, soaked up crap like the smarmy “Hot Legs,” the lecherous “Tonight’s the Night,” and the insipid “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy.”
In his latest reinvention, Stewart is a top-selling artist of old American pop standards and even an album consisting exclusively of covers of classic rock songs. Atlantic Crossing represents one of the many Stewart facades over the last 33 years. Sadly, it also closed a door on what remains his best work.
Here they have a lot of fun
Puttin’ trouble on the run
Oh man you’ll find the old and young
Twistin’ the night away
“Twistin’ The Night Away,” Rod Stewart, Never a Dull Moment
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