Discussion Reset: The NCAA

The NCAA is shocked -- shocked! -- that former University of Southern California basketballer O.J. Mayo might have been given money and other goodies by an agent's go-between while he was in high school and during his one year in college. If that happened, NCAA rules have been violated. Not only that; according to ESPN, it's a misdemeanor in California for sports agents to give stuff to student-athletes. So Mayo, the agent, the alleged agent of the agent, USC, and everybody under the sun is gonna get investigated for this. Just like another recent USC star in another sport, Reggie Bush.

My question is: Why?

I understand that the NCAA has rules, and it wants to make sure that its participants abide by those rules. But in this case, I don't understand what evil the rules are meant to prohibit, and I don't understand why society at large would spend any of its resources to enact laws to enforce rules that benefit the NCAA, which is just a private club.

I get the NCAA prohibition on school boosters paying kids, and the expansive definition of booster: basically anybody who wants a kid to go to a particular school. If money could buy college rosters, Tiny College would stand even less of a chance of ever being competitive with Gigantic State than it does today.

But what's alleged in the Mayo situation, so far, at least, isn't that somebody was paying him to get him to go to a specific school. If that turns out to be the case, I understand the NCAA's desire to squash that kind of thing. Supposedly, though, some agent who figured Mayo to be a sure-fire NBA player wanted to start paying him to get on his good side early so that he could become his agent and get a percentage of the millions he'll make if that dream comes true. The stories surrounding Mayo when he was nearing the end of his high school days were that various advisers were looking to see if there were ways to avoid the need for college at all: the NBA rule against drafting guys straight from high school had kicked in, and the suggestions were that some folks around Mayo were looking to see if he could spend the year playing professionally in some non-NBA forum, like Europe or the Harlem Globetrotters. So if people were paying Mayo, it looks like it had nothing to do with his choice of college.

And if that's the case, who's it hurting?

It makes sense that the NCAA doesn't want its ranks filled with ringers: college kids are at a disadvantage if they have to play against professionals, and if the NCAA doesn't want the Tiny College kids to play against old guys from the Eastern Industrial League, fine. But does O. J. Mayo have any greater advantage over a Tiny College kid because some agent gives him some cash? No, I think it's the other way around: the agent wants to give Mayo some cash only because it's already clear he's better than the Tiny College kid. If that agent gave Mayo a Hummer, a wardrobe, and courtside tickets to the Lakers game, none of that gives him any on-court advantage. If these prohibitions are there to protect the Tinys, they don't make sense.

Nor do they make sense if they're there to protect some sort of outmoded ideal of what it means to be an "amateur." Maybe a century ago, there was some perceived nobility in playing collegiate sports purely as an afterthought and not very well. And that may still be true for many participants in many sports on many college campuses. But that isn't the case for top level basketball and football. Kids at the powerhouse schools in those sports are supposed to be the next best thing to the top professional ranks, with the best of their members clearly preparing as well as they can to take that next step up. How do they demean the sport by fixing their eyes on the pro prize? Why is a college athlete banned from participating in his sport just because he hires an agent in contemplation of turning pro? Does a kid in a college theater program get banned from the school stage if she gets an agent to try to get her auditions on Broadway? Does a journalism student get banned from the school newspaper for doing an internship with the Washington Post? I see no reason why preparation for professional sports should irrevocably taint a college student any more than any other half-step toward earning a living doing whatever you're doing in college.

Are we supposed to believe that these rules are there to protect the athletes themselves? I don't get that one, either. Colleges don't prevent students from getting into premature relationships with employers, creditors or significant others. Some of each are bad, and some of each are good, just like the agents who want to woo tomorrow's pro stars. The NCAA could limit authorized contact to those agents who are approved by the players' associations of the pro leagues the kids aspire to; the lists are already out there and readily available. Banning relationships with agents is throwing the baby out with the bath water.

If the baby you want to save is the kid's interest, that is. But it seems more likely that the NCAA is trying to preserve its own product. It wants to punish kids for even thinking about leaving the college game, and it holds over their heads a threat that only the smallest group of the most gifted players can ignore: if you're caught looking to the pros and you're not as good as you thought you were, you'll lose your chance to play in college, too.

That sense of self-preservation is natural. What isn't natural is that society spends its resources on enforcing NCAA rules. The NCAA is just a private club of member schools. If you don't follow the rules of your local Elks or Water Buffalo chapter, they'll kick you out, but there's no criminal law consequence. Why should there be for failing to follow rules of a bunch of well-to-do schools? How come it's a crime for an agent to give money to a student-athlete, and not to give the same amount of money to a student?

The NCAA has been getting the benefit of the doubt, along with a free ride on society's coattails, for far too long. If there's no apparent greater good, why should we continue to act as if they're on the side of right and justice?

Discussion Reset: "Free Markets"

"Free markets."

I see the term used as if everybody understands it to refer to an absolute good. The Cato Institute, for example, calls "free markets" a "traditional American principle," right up there with individual liberty and peace. As if everybody understands that regulation of markets is an unnecessary evil, only to be tolerated barely, if at all.

Like the way food products are sold with the term "all-natural." If it's all natural, it must be good, right? And free markets are better than markets with regulation, right?

Well, let's hold it a minute.

Unless I have my homespun medicine wrong, leprosy and bubonic plague are all-natural. And completely unregulated markets gave us feudalism and snake oil salesmen.

The bottom line: "free market" only describes an unequivocal positive if you're in a position to exploit it. If that free market puts you in a position to get exploited, or to have to clean up the fallout of someone else's exploitation, then "free market" probably describes an unequivocal negative.

When we're talking about what's good public policy, "free market" shouldn't be swallowed as necessarily a good thing any more readily than we'd take a big gulp of all-natural crude oil.

Discussion Reset: Unions

Sometimes, American conversation takes off down a path and stays on that path indefinitely, without recognition of obvious realities that should redirect things a bit. Sometimes it's worthwhile to take a look at those realities and step away from those well-worn paths.

So it is with some of the discussion that is provoked when the subject of unions comes up. Unions get blamed for plenty of problems. The state of public education, for example. Supposedly, a big part of the problem with public schools in America is the behavior of teachers' unions: they are accused of being more concerned with protecting their jobs and making those jobs easier and more lucrative than they are with teaching children.

Unions are prime suspects when an explanation is needed for the decline of America's auto industry. They demanded fat pensions and medical benefits whose costs drag down the potential quality and value of every vehicle that rolls off a Detroit assembly line. They insisted on work rules that filled factories with unnecessary employees and kept them paid whether those factories were making cars or not.

Darts get thrown at unions even in sports discussions. They're at least partly to blame for major league baseball's steroid woes, you know. After all, baseball's owners and commissioner wanted to have a strict testing and punishment policy long before all the juicing got out of hand. The only reason they couldn't implement one is that the players' union wouldn't allow it.

So there's this general background noise that's humming the tune that unions, since they are watching out for their own interests and are unconcerned with bigger pictures and greater goods, are doing something that is somehow wrong.

And that is where some rethinking is in order.

Unions, in attempting to ensure that their members get the hugest possible money for the smallest possible effort, and that they don't have to do anything that troubles them, are not doing anything that is remotely evil.

What they are doing is exactly what unions are supposed to do. They are using the power of collective bargaining to negotiate arrangements that are best for their members. While individual members of a union may feel an obligation to interests other than their own, the unions themselves are supposed to be looking out for their members.

When the battle between union interests and employer interests produces results that are bad for third parties, that's not the fault of a union; it is the fault of the belief that unregulated combat between opposing interests necessarily produces positive results for anybody other than the winner of the battle.

If we are willing to see corporate employers attempt to make as much money as possible, it is only right that we are willing to see their employees' unions try to take as much of that money for as little work as possible. When we don't like the fallout, we shouldn't blame the unions, we should blame our trust that those struggles are going to be good for us.

Changing Horse Racing

I'm a horse racing fan.

That would have been an unremarkable statement in 1948 America. But sixty years later, with racing now overshadowed by spectator sports that previously garnered only a fraction of its attention, racing fans are a bit more of an oddity. As a fan in today's America, I get the feeling that I belong to a steadily shrinking cult -- kind of like the players of straight billiards who have to explain to the rest of us how they can play pool on tables that don't have pockets.

Non-fans get to hear about the sport in mainstream media in no more than four instances in the average year: the three Triple Crown races and, to a lesser extent, I think, the Breeders' Cup. On those occasions, true racing fans speculate among ourselves about why the sport doesn't get the kind of attention it once did. There are some explanations that are beyond the capacity of the sport to change: for one, racing once had a state-sponsored monopoly on legal gambling, but there are now plenty of legal wagering alternatives, including many that offer a chance for a bigger win and demand no special attention or expertise.

Another factor, though, is a situation created entirely by people inside the racing industry. The modern American thoroughbred is more fragile than its predecessors. That fragility is displayed in one form that is certain, and in another that is suspected, but perhaps not proved. Neither is helpful to the sport.

Today's thoroughbred races less frequently than did his ancestors of just a few generations ago. Many commentators have compiled statistics demonstrating the decline in the average number of races run by horses in various categories. They prove the point, but there's an obvious, non-statistical shortcut to the same conclusion. Churchill Downs, home of the Kentucky Derby, shares the spring racing calendar in Kentucky and does not open until one week before the Derby, which is run on the first Saturday in May. That one week before the Derby was traditionally considered plenty of time for a contender to get in a prep race and still be rested enough to be at his best in the Run For The Roses. In fact, five days was considered enough, as was demonstrated by the fact that Churchill's main prep, the Derby Trial, was run on the Tuesday before the big race. In 1948, 1952, 1953 and 1958, the Derby Trial winner was also the winner of the Derby itself. In 1949, 1959, 1964 and 1965, the Derby Trial winner started the Derby as the favorite. In the 1970s, Derby contenders still ran in the Derby Trial. In the 1980s, Churchill, recognizing the belief that horses were starting to need more rest between races, moved the Derby Trial ahead as much as they could, to the Saturday one full week before the main event.

Despite that move, no trainer pointing his horse for the Derby today seriously considers the Derby Trial to be what it is named. Not a one of the 20 starters in the 2008 Derby had run in the Derby Trial, because no trainer today would run a valuable three-year-old a mere week before a big race. Today, the Derby Trial, despite its name, is more likely to be a prep for the second jewel in the Triple Crown, the Preakness, run three weeks later. In 1975, each of the 15 Kentucky Derby starters ran in a prep race within two weeks of the big day. This year, not a single one of the 20 starters did.

Any sport will suffer when its performers don't perform often enough to build up some name recognition. Which is why the NCAA and the NBA don't like their basketball players going from college to the professional ranks so quickly: when your favorite college team isn't bringing back any of its stars from last year, it'll take you longer to decide that you care about the new squad; and when your NBA team spends its first round draft pick on a guy who only played three national television games in college, it's hard to get excited. Today's best horses tend to run only a few races, and as soon as they've shown a flicker of special ability, they're retired. Nobody's building up any Seabiscuit-style following.

The suspected but not proved manifestation of modern thoroughbred fragility may have reared its head in last week's Derby. As everyone now knows, Eight Belles, one filly running against 19 colts, ran a race outstanding enough to thrash all but one of her opponents, but some distance after crossing the line, broke both of her front ankles and had to be immediately put to death on the track where she fell.

There have always been tragic, fatal breakdowns in thoroughbred racing. Even in Triple Crown races. (Black Hills in the 1959 Belmont, for example) But the fatalities in the prime time events seemed relatively rare. Until recently. The grouping may just be happenstance, and the inclusion of the Breeders' Cup to the picture adds at least seven events to each year's ledger, so we're not talking about similar sample sizes, but each of the last three calendar years has produced a fatal injury in a marquee race: Pine Island in the 2006 Breeders' Cup Distaff, George Washington in the 2007 Breeders' Cup Classic, and Eight Belles. And not least: Barbaro. He was an undefeated Derby winner, with the look of one who was on his way to special achievements. More eyes than racing usually gets were anticipating a view of the best the sport currently had to offer. Potential fans got caught up in the story of the efforts to save him, and their hopes for him were dashed after months of emotional investment.

Horse racing isn't just failing to attract new fans, it is horrifying fresh batches of would-be fans every year. With this year's Derby fresh in our minds, fans of the sport are again asking what should be done.

Animal rights activists have a simple answer: abolish racing. There is inarguable consistency to their argument. Even in the safest form imaginable, the training and racing of thoroughbreds will cause some of them to suffer injuries, including many which will be fatal. They suffer those injuries and fatalities for the profit and entertainment of humans; if there is any great intrinsic good for the horses themselves in being raced rather than being treated to a pet's life of leisure, I'm not aware of it. And unlike humans who risk life and limb in pursuit of the rewards granted to the winners in our spectator sports, the horses aren't thought to be able to understand the risks we're asking them to take. "Stop racing," the animal rights folks say, "and you'll at least stop all the harm people subject the horses to by asking them to run."

I can't disagree.

I'm just not that noble yet.

I may be that noble someday, but for now, I have to admit that I am willing to know that other living creatures are risking their lives for my entertainment. I've seen other racing fans write that the horses want to run, that they risk their lives running on their own in fields every day, and that the fatal injuries in racing are relatively rare. None of those responses disproves the notion that injuries and deaths that would not otherwise occur happen as a direct result of racing. The reality, as I see it, is that most fans are willing to abide that fact if the injury/fatality rates aren't beyond some unspecified level that constitutes "too much." It's feeling like "too much" now, though, and so many fans are weighing in with their thoughts on steps that might reduce injuries to a level that makes them feel really rare again.

Since everybody else is, I'll join in -- with the same solution I've been mumbling to myself for a couple of years now: instead of changing the game to follow the trend in breeding, change it in the other direction to provoke the breed to change for the better. Lengthen the races instead of shortening them. Introduce participation bonuses for horses who can finish in the money for multiple objectives in a season.

It can't just be done at the top of the food chain, though. And it can't be done overnight. Announce a participation points-based series of distance stakes for older horses starting next year, and you'll have nearly as many no-shows as the races get now, plus a few horses taped together to trot around the track to try to get an appearance fee when they should be in the barn.

No, this kind of thing has to be done throughout the condition book, and over a period of time. A track could announce that in five years' time, five and six furlong races will be carded as rarely as two-mile races are today. Starting four years from now, two thirds of all of the races in the condition book would be at least one furlong longer than currently carded, maybe two, and maybe a half mile. The most common distance on a day's program would be a mile or a mile and an eighth instead of six furlongs. More than half of the races carded would be a mile or longer, and a third would be ten furlongs or longer. Beyond that four-year mark, races would gradually stretch out even more.

At the same time, the track could restructure its purse program to skew some of its rewards toward participation bonuses. At all levels of racing. Races for individual conditions, whether in the claiming ranks or in stakes, could be grouped together over the course of a meeting, with a race or two at the end as climaxes, and bonus payouts for high point totals achieved by in-the-money finishes.

The other notion that would accompany these announced changes: when they came, they'd bring with them a race-day ban on medications like Lasix and Bute.

What would result? Some might speculate that the result would be empty barns and no entries for the races of the track that announced these changes. And I do agree that they'd be pretty drastic for any one track to be able to pull off.

But the reason I think they could be implemented now to an effect not possible in previous generations is that there is an unprecedented level of consolidation in race track ownership. NYRA has been a big fish since the 1950s with its ownership of New York's three biggest tracks, Aqueduct, Belmont and Saratoga. But there are other whales besides NYRA these days. Churchill Downs Inc. owns its namesake track, the home of the Kentucky Derby, plus Arlington Park, Fair Grounds and Calder. The Magna Entertainment Group owns Pimlico, the home of the Preakness, plus Santa Anita, Gulfstream, Laurel, Golden Gate, Lone Star and Thistledown.

When a single state announces that its racetracks are going to have a reasonably well-funded program of restricted races and purse bonuses for horses bred inside its borders, that's enough to change trainer behavior in what kind of horses they buy and where they choose to race them. Eventually, it changes the behavior of owners and would-be breeders as well. If a single state's breeding program can have an impact, I have to believe that any two of NYRA, Churchill and Magna implementing changes like these would be impossible to ignore.

The change I'd expect is that there would be less demand for the kind of horses that look like speedballs early. And less demand for bloodlines that carry iffy prospects for durability and stamina. Maybe it will still be the case that the horse able to run the fastest mile and a quarter on the first Saturday in May of his three-year-old season will be a grandson of Mr. Prospector out of a granddaughter of Storm Cat. But without medication, maybe that horse won't make it to the starting gate at all. Today, I imagine that the midlevel buyer or breeder gambles that some slightly above average descendants of the aforementioned Mr. Prospector and Storm Cat will be throwbacks far enough that they can achieve greatness, look the part well enough to make a good impression at a sale, or throwback at least far enough to be the quickest at six furlongs in Thursday's third race at Nowhere Downs. After these changes, I'd expect that same buyer or breeder to think more about an offspring of an Ascot Gold Cup winner.

If you know that there are good places for you to run them, you'll be more likely to buy and breed horses that have stamina. If durability brings with it extra money-making potential, you'll be emphasizing that more, too. I'm no horseman, but I hear tell that the physical types that lean toward stamina also tend to be more sound.

So maybe then the Skip Aways of the world, who aren't quite as fashionably bred as some of their less accomplished contemporaries, would get some more love from breeders because of their proven toughness over multiple campaigns. Maybe a Silver Charm would be too big a star at stud to be sold away to breeders outside the United States. Maybe winners of the St. Leger or the Melbourne Cup could become relevant and start showing up in American pedigrees again.

And maybe, with their opportunities for generating cash at stud somewhat diminished when they haven't proven their durability, the Smarty Joneses and Afleet Alexes of the world wouldn't be rushed off to stud quite so quickly.

The hope, obviously, is to make it more attractive to breed some of the types that will stay on the track longer -- both in each individual race and over the course of their careers. It seems to me that this would be in the interest of a racetrack owner who is planning to stay in the game with multiple properties for the long haul. The benefit is apparent at both ends of the sport. The states and tracks need their racing revenue, so they'd like to see the number of dates and races stay up; if there are more healthy horses running more often, there are fuller fields everywhere, which makes for more betting and more money for everybody, even in Thursday's third at Nowhere. At the top end, every sport benefits when star performers get onto the radar screen and stay there for a while. Horse racing tells potential fans that a star is on the horizon, and more often than not, they're gone by the time anybody pays attention: Point Given in 2001, Smarty Jones in 2004, Afleet Alex in 2005 and the tragic Barbaro in 2006 were all gone from the track by September of their highlight seasons. No matter how fast his speed figures were, most folks outside of hard-core racing fans never heard of Ghostzapper; racing wins fewer new fans from a dozen Ghostzappers than it would from a single Kelso.

So this is a shout-out to NYRA, Churchill and Magna. Get together -- no, I won't be holding my breath in the meantime -- change the game, force a change in the breed, and we'll all reap the benefits of the sport you're so heavily invested in.

If You Remember Beta vs. VHS . . .

You might remember some of these other battles for the American consumer's affection:

Hot Wheels vs. Johnny Lightning: I hear tell that Johnny Lightning cars were faster. And they did have a corporate sponsorship deal with Al Unser's Indy 500-winning race team. But I was a Hot Wheels guy. Cooler car designs, easier to lay out the track. Righteousness prevailed in this one.

Wrestling vs. Roller Derby: Hard to imagine it now, but the two had approximately equal profiles at one time. Nobody except kids took either seriously. In fact, where I grew up, the wrestling audience was a little younger; at about ten, you forgot about Moose Cholak, Baron von Raschke and Dick the Bruiser and started paying more attention to the Joanie Weston, Earline "747" Brown and Ralphie Valladeres. The fact that Roller Derby was a bit more popular and more appealing to a slightly older audience is evidenced by the making of the 1972 Saturday-afternoon-for-kids-at-the-movies flick Kansas City Bomber, starring Raquel Welch. Roller Derby's proprietors probably still can't understand how wrestling got to be so much bigger in the last couple of decades -- which is why we keep seeing attempts to revive the skating spectacle.

Direct Drive vs. Belt Drive: It used to be a young man's job to be well-informed on the merits of the latest consumer electronics technology, in case he ever fell into enough money to buy some of it. Back when music was listened to in homes and generated by the scraping of phonograph needles across grooves in vinyl discs, there was a period of some disagreement about the best method for rotating the platter that turned those discs. This disagreement wasn't of the "reasonable minds can come to different conclusions" variety. In fact, it was somewhat more intensely argued than spats about religion, because you could at least understand how someone would adopt the religion of his parents and not want to think any more about it. Turntables, on the other hand, were items you were free to choose on your own, and only a fool would choose anything other than the best kind when spending the kind of money we hoped to be shelling out some day. The best kind was either the kind that connected the record platter directly to the rotating motor (Pioneer, Technics, Denon) or the kind that drove the platter with a belt from the motor (Dual, BIC, AR, Thorens). The winner? Almost all DJs embraced direct drives, and if they still play records, that's the kind they use; home listeners have mostly settled on belt drives. As a reflection of the split decision, I have one of each.

Texas Instruments vs. Bowmar: Who was going to be the leading seller of the newfangled reasonably small, affordable calculator? Texas Instruments calculators were generally bigger and clunkier than the Bowmar Brains, which looked cooler, had a better display and wittier commercials. Seems as if there was some difference in the relative successes of the decisions made by the respective corporate management teams, though.

Atari vs. Intellivision: If it was for kids, Mattel would dominate the market, right? After all, where was Johnny Lightning in the 1980s? Well, not so fast. Intellivision had games with more detailed graphics and play. But there were fewer of them. And the controllers were clunkier and less intuitive. On top of that, Mattel made an interesting branding choice: it tried to position itself upmarket from Atari, with a more expensive system, more involved games, and ads featuring author George Plimpton as the spokesperson. The video game system for grownups who like to read? Don't think it sold quite as well as Mattel might have hoped.

VHS vs. LaserDisc: No, the battle with Beta wasn't the only format war for VHS. There was also LaserDisc. Then again, LaserDiscs couldn't record and needed the size of a record album to hold no more information than today's DVDs. Their prime advantage was picture quality, at a time when most consumers didn't see much wrong with over-the-air TV signals retrieved by an antenna. So maybe this was more of a minor skirmish.

Hyundai vs. Yugo: Car prices were creeping up through the 80s: though $7995 was the base price for a sports car as cool as a Mazda RX-7 in 1979, the same amount was only getting you an entry level economy car eight years later. A couple of carmakers decided that America could appreciate a bit less car for a bit less money; the Yugo and the Hyundai Excel both advertised base prices of under $5000 for the 1987 model year. The country that produced the Yugo has since separated into component parts that survive and, I hope, thrive. The cars had the separating part down, but I haven't seen any evidence of any Yugo bits surviving. Meanwhile, Hyundai is going upscale, aiming its new Genesis models at the customers who had happy experiences with the early cheap cars and are ready to spend a bit more on their transportation. If you're stumped by the concept of an "upscale" Hyundai, you might want to consider the possibility that your parents were probably similarly stumped by the concept of an upscale Toyota. Lexus marketeers ignored them to focus on you and seemed to do okay with that approach, so it may be time to face the possibility that you've entered the age group that sellers of trendy consumer goods willingly shun.

SACD vs. DVD-Audio: Scratching your head at this one? Don't recognize either of the combatants? You're not alone. This was a battle with no winners. After selling us on the idea that the Compact Disc would give us perfect sound forever, audio equipment manufacturers turned their attentions to improving on perfection. They came up with "high resolution" audio formats: they used the same sort of discs as the familiar CD to provide sound that was as much of an improvement over standard CD quality as high-definition TV was over standard broadcasts. Sony and Phillips came up with Super Audio CD, while Panasonic developed DVD-Audio. The two discs were incompatible, which meant one thing: format war. Consumers, remembering Beta vs. VHS, decided to get some answers before plunking down their cash on new players and a bunch of new discs. Like, "Which format sounds so much better than CD that I won't be able to resist replacing my old music with new discs?" Answer: Neither. And, "Which format is used in so many new releases and reissues of old favorites that I'll have the chance to start making most of my music purchases in high-res form?" Answer: Neither. Plus, "Which format will make portable players, players for cars, and players for some place other than a audio snob's home system?" Answer: Neither. Which means that the burning question for audiophiles circa 2001, "Which will become the format that wins?" got the same answer: Neither.

The Hard World Of Grown Folks -- Brought To You By Bill Withers

The music that was being played when I first started paying attention was early-mid 60s R & B and pop. Lots of Motown. Dionne Warwick singing Bacharach-David tunes. East coast vocal groups doing Brill Building songwriters. Curtis Mayfield songs done by the Impressions and Major Lance.

So as a kid, I got the pop lyricist's take on love gone wrong. "I cry so much just like a child that's lost his toy . . . Make believe that you don't see the tears; just let me grieve in private, 'cause each time I see you, I break down and cry . . . Sentimental fool am I, to hear an old love song, and want to cry . . . "

It wasn't hard to get the picture. Somebody went away. Or came and went. Or spent time with somebody else. Or stuck around, and was mean. Whatever went wrong, the response was lots of crying. It sounded so standard, so routine, that it didn't seem much more serious than the sniffles brought on by a December cold. In fact, some supposedly sorrowful songs didn't have much sorrow in them at all. Like the Temptations' Girl, Why You Wanna Make Me Blue? Bright and breezy enough to be your on-the-way-to-a-party soundtrack.

As I got older and closer to adolescence, the sad songs didn't change; they stayed inside the safe, abstract boundaries I'd heard since preschool: "I found love on a two-way street, and lost it on a lonely highway . . . Every street you walk on I leave tear stains on the ground . . . I spend my nights alone, crying bitter tears . . . "

Then, all of a sudden, I heard a dramatically different take on the Love Gone Wrong concept from Bill Withers.



The rolling, ominous bass line that starts in the intro and remains an undercurrent throughout the song is more surely a harbinger of coming trouble than the shark's theme in Jaws.

A man we passed just tried to stare me down
And when I looked at you, you looked at the ground.
I don't know who he is, but I think that you do.
Dadgummit, who is he, and what is he to you?

The lyrics of Love Gone Wrong songs had always included rhetorical questions of the "Why Do You Treat Me So Bad?" and "How Long Must I Suffer?" variety. This question, though, was demanding an answer. And it provoked a couple of thoughts. First: if the answer isn't the right one, there will be tears, but they won't all be his. Second: there might not be any right answer.

Something in my heart and in your eyes
Tells me he's not someone just passing by.
And when you cleared your throat, was that your cue?
Dadgummit, who is he, and what is he to you?

As my almost-teen brain was trying to nail down a concrete concept of the ill wind that was blowing through the song, Withers was kind enough to provide some interpretation assistance from real life. Withers was married to actress Denise Nicholas, who was, in my estimation, about as pretty as women needed to get. Rumor had it that Nicholas had suffered injuries bad enough to require hospital treatment (the juiciest of the rumors reporting those injuries to include a broken arm), and that those injuries were caused by her husband.

When I add the sum of you and me
I get confused, and I keep coming up with three.
You're too much for one man, but not enough for two.
Dadgummit, who is he, and what is he to you?

My life experiences as of that time left me short of the imagination necessary to think of exactly what I'd do with Denise Nicholas if she'd been my wife. But I knew that hitting her wasn't it. I couldn't imagine anybody doing such a thing. And yet I wasn't hearing loud denials from either of them.

You tell me men don't have much intuition.
Is that what you really think, or are you wishing?
Before you wreck your old home, be certain of the new.
Dadgummit, who is he, and what is he to you?

This didn't sound like it was coming from some standard pop songwriters' toolbox. It sounded personal, three-dimensional, real, and tangible. And it opened my eyes to an idea that I hadn't really grasped before: the business of romance -- that inspired so many cute and nonthreatening songs of woe -- was a business that set in motion forces that were potentially dangerous. Those forces had to be handled carefully: you didn't want to be a person who couldn't manage his own internal storms, and you didn't want to end up stuck with somebody who failed that management test, either.

Back when, drivers' ed classes for teens used to show students pictures of car wrecks to let them know that the motoring world they were about to enter contained not just the fun and frolic they imagined, but also a serious, potentially deadly side. That kind of lesson might not be a bad addendum to our teaching of the birds and the bees. Who Is He? plus a little of the Withers backstory would make for a great intro to that part of the lecture.


[YouTube video courtesy of 19urban72].