Jamey Tucker’s BlogSquat

The Nashville Farmer’s Market was flash mobbed last week by The Circle Players. If you don’t know what that is or who they are, watch the video. It’s pretty cool.

I needed Tom Watson to win the British Open. Not because I had money on the tournament or any vested interest in Watson. I needed Tom Watson to win the British Open because I’m watching other parts of  my childhood fade away.

Notice all of the irony here: when Tom Watson won his first Masters, Farrah Fawcett was Jill Monroe every week on Charlies Angels. Walter Cronkite was telling us “the way it is”,  Ed McMahon was sitting at Johnny’s desk, and Michael Jackson was still part of The Jackson’s and just a few months away from recording  “Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground)”.

Now Farrah is gone. Walter is gone. Ed McMahon is gone. Michael Jackson is gone. And he was 50.   50!

And if Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson are old enough to die, so are the baby boomers who grew up watching them. We’re not ready to think about stuff like that, but we have to now.

This is already going to be remembered as the summer the 1970s died. Back when I was in the 6th grade with a tv in my bedroom, a nerf hoop on the back of my closet door and a Juliette model stereo tuned to Q-104. My room was painted blue with burnt orange shag carpet and I had posters of Dr. J and Pat Sullivan on the wall. I talked to my girlfriend, Kathy Driggs on the phone nearly every night. With a long telephone extension chord my dad got so I could take the phone to my room for privacy.

But I don’t want those days to be 30 years ago, at least I don’t want to feel like they’re 30 years ago. I want to remember them like I’ve always done, like they were yesterday.

So when Tom Watson walked down the fairway of the 18th at Turnberry, leading The British Open,  I got a lump in my throat. Suddenly, it felt like 1977 again, and I needed him to make that darned 10 foot putt.

If people could will something to happen, I think every over 40 man in America would have caused that Titleist to drop in that cup like there was a string attached to it.

We needed something good to happen for one of our memories of the 1970s.

But it didn’t fall. And it’s 2009. And our childhood is literally beginning to pass before our eyes.

Lionel Richie singing “Jesus Is Love”. My favorite and most overlooked Commodores song. Could funeral turn into revival?

How much information do you really want about a news story? In the case of Steve Mcnair, who was found shot to death with a 20 year old woman in a condominium in downtown Nashville Saturday, people seem to want to know every detail.

But how far will the media go covering the personal activities of the city’s biggest stars? And when does that information go from being relevant to the murder to being National Enquirer type gossip?

There are already lots of stories circulating that Mcnair had several girlfriends around town, that he paid their apartment or condo rent, bought them cars, breast enhancement surgeries and other things. People who frequent area nightclubs say they saw him frequently with different women. They were also not surprised to see pictures of Mcnair and Kazemi on vacation and said it’d be more surprising if more pictures of Mcnair with other girls did not surface.

So with all of that stuff in Mcnair’s closet, how much will the news media report?

I think it’s tricky.

Talking to people in our newsroom, this is the biggest news story (non-weather related) that has hit this town in a decade. And in a city that doesn’t get star-struck by celebrities very often, Mcnair’s following is unusually enamored by the man who led the Titans to the Super Bowl.

How much the news media reports about Mcnair’s private life may depend on how much people want to hear.

In the first 48 hours nearly all of the coverage (besides the police investigation)  was about Mcnair’s legacy and the fans mourning his death.  Yesterday was the first time I heard someone say they didn’t have as much respect for Mcnair now that they learn he was cheating on his wife and children.

But newsrooms are going to make some decisions in the next few days. What to report and what not to report. And it’s not going to be easy. Do you report scandalous details about Mcnair’s life that do not necessarily pertain to the murder investigation? Girlfriends, the company he kept, places he stayed. And do viewers and newspaper readers even want that much information if it tears down their hero?