Hello again.
Hope you enjoy version 2.0 of the site. I’m slowly getting closer to what I had in mind when I first thought of putting something together in the 90s. Initially, it was at a breakfast meeting with Ted Blackman and Mitch Garber. Sadly, we lost Ted in 2002. But even as an old school newspaper guy, Ted bucked the prevailing feeling at the time – that was really, truly held by (too) many who shared his print background – that this internet thing might be useful but it can’t possibly replace newspapers as a source of information and entertainment. Ted had the vision thing. It also helped that he seemed to have every new piece of technology at his disposal long before it reached anybody else.
Garber and I came at it from a bit of a different perspective. We were hosting radio shows at the time. And a young man named Lonny Dubrofsky urged us to consider the possibilities of what we could do on the ‘net. Lonny, with a lot of help from Pat Caporali, designed and operated my first website while I hosted the “Melnick: No Limit” drive home show on CIQC radio in the mid-90s. It was quirky. It worked. And the website was a big reason why.
I’ll tell the full rest of the story in this space one day. But I think Garber did well for himself.
I remember watching a Habs game a few years ago, followed by the Sergio Leone classic “The Good, The Bad & The Ugly” and something clicked. I had been blogging on a semi-regular basis on our primitive (initially Team 990) station site and wanted to go deeper into what the Montreal Canadiens were doing but couldn’t figure out the formula. I didn’t want to write full game stories. I already had a full-time job. I needed to find a way to communicate in a certain style that I had and discover a format that best suited that style. Plus, by this time, I was playing catch up to Mike Boone and Habs Eyes On The Prize who were already supplying informative and entertaining (in Boone’s case, flat out funny) summaries of Habs games. So, in the end, it was Leone and Clint Eastwood and Eli Wallach and Lee Van Cleef who pushed me into trying out The Good, The Bad & The Ugly format.
I’d like to think it caught on quickly. I was, after all, able to plug it on my radio show. My ultimate goal was to use it to drive people to a website that would feature a lot more commentary from other voices and on other subjects – some serious but mostly not so serious (and I’ll never forget Heath Ledger). I wanted it to especially incorporate my love of music and film.
Kesh Dheer, who had been handling our TSN 690 social media accounts, approached me and suggested (much like Lonny two decades earlier) that I step up my social media game and at the very least get on Facebook. Kesh designed and operated the site while I blogged and searched for content. Once we posted the terrific Tim Snow photo album from the 40th Anniversary Celebration of The Last Waltz at a sold out Corona Theatre in November of 2016, we realized we were starting to get some serious traction. Before Kesh rebuilt the site for this new version that photo album had reached several hundred thousand views.
Just as I was ready to take the next step I got a call from Arpon Basu. I was excited when he explained that he wanted The Good, The Bad & The Ugly in The Athletic. I thought, at some point, the blog would be worth something. The money came earlier than I had anticipated. I love The Athletic. As I wrote in my introductory piece for them, it’s something that Blackman, Garber and I had discussed over breakfast. But clearly the blog had outgrown my own site. (At this point I’d strongly suggest a subscription which brings you to the best sports writing in all of North America. And commentary and dialogue among readers that is almost totally troll-free. What a relief and pleasure it is to be that engaged, usually without even a hint of frustration or anger.)
I didn’t lose sight of the site. But I clearly had to step back and reconsider what I wanted to do and how to get there. What you’ll see on these pages is just step two of what will hopefully be, a high enough ladder for anybody who likes sports, music, movies, comedy and thought provoking commentary, to discover, climb a little and share.
I’m anxious to read more of what Jay Farrar has to say in The Third Culture. We will soon be incorporating video – including (once Kesh figures it all out) the entire series of Sports Hot Seat TV shows hosted by Garber and myself (complete with Starter sportswear). We’ll begin by presenting the show we did with the late Red Fisher.
I have a library of old radio interviews, some of which go back to my early CJAD days in the 1980s. Hopefully, one they’ve been baked, we’ll be able to salvage a lot of them and post them right here. Rubin “Hurricane” Carter is in the on deck circle.
Thank you for supporting the site in its initial form. Thank you for continuing to read The Good, The Bad & The Ugly – even though you have to pay for it – in The Athletic. Thank you for supporting events staged by Billy Bob Productions. This is where we will continue to operate. And thank you for circling back here as we slowly kick it back into gear.
Oh, and the picture on top of this post? It was a meeting of radio minds about a decade ago. A glorious night. Might have been at a joint called Bada Bing!
And away we go.
