THE FRONT ROW WITH MARK NELKE: Jan. 26, 2014
I've watched with some interest those recent TV ads for noise-canceling headphones, featuring Colin Kaepernick, Kevin Garnett ... and now, of course, Richard Sherman.
I enjoyed how they dealt with the venom-spewing fans - and in Sherman's case, reporters - by simply slipping on their headphones and drowning out all that noise.
Fans yelling, "You s---." Or screaming, "choke artist." Or plastering the team bus with eggs. All that is drowned out by slipping on those headphones, and striding confidently past the mob - with the help of security and protective barriers, of course.
All the while, listening to the soothing sounds through those noise-canceling headphones:
"Well you can tell everybody
Yeah you can tell everybody
Go ahead and tell everybody
I'm the man, I'm the man, I'm the man
Yes I am, yes I am, yes I am ... "
IT'S A lot less publicized, but I've heard that this sometimes happens to sports writers when they show up at arenas and stadiums to cover events.
I've heard rowdy fans gather around the media entrance to arenas and stadiums, pelting reporters' cars with eggs, and hurling insults at the members of the Fourth Estate:
"You s---."
"You must love (Team X). They get all the coverage."
"No way. He writes about (Team Y) all the time."
"My kid's not getting a full ride if you don't start writing more about them."
And on and on.
Fortunately that doesn't happen around here - at least at the stadium - but just to be safe, whenever possible I'm going to bring our photographer along when I go cover a game. Nobody's going to egg a photographer, are they? Not if they want their kid's photo in the paper.
Anyway, I thought it was pretty neat that you could simply slip on a pair of headphones and drown out all the noise of the day. I wanted a pair of those, with that music on there. Problem was, I'd never heard of the artist - though he sounds like Bill Withers.
So, being old and technologically challenged - anything invented after the birth of CDs is baffling - I sent the lyrics off to a friend, hoping they could insert the music into the headphones somehow.
SOMETHING MUST have gotten lost in the translation.
The next game I covered, I hopped out of the car, slid on those noise-canceling headphones, and hit something that made the music play. It looked like a credit card - or an office key.
"And you can tell everybody, this is your song
It may be quite simple but, now that it's done
I hope you don't mind
I hope you don't mind that I put down in words
How wonderful life is while you're in the world"
"What the heck?" I thought. "How did Elton John wind up on here?"
Befuddled, I tried again. I bumped into something, and somehow some more music came out.
"Whatta man, whatta man, whatta man, whatta mighty good man ... "
Salt-N-Pepa? Yeah, that's more my style.
Right.
I would have been better off had my friend actually downloaded some Bill Withers.
"Lean on me, when you're not strong
And I'll be your friend
I'll help you carry on ... "
NATURALLY I returned the headphones, saying they didn't work. The salesperson took them back, warily, then shook his head at me as he walked away when he slipped on the headphones and heard what was on there.
When I got back to the office, the first stop was the editor's office, to tell him what had happened.
"How's that project you've been working on? The one that was due two weeks ago," he said. "You're wasting company time and money."
I was livid.
"When you try me with a sorry story idea like that, that's the result you're gonna get," I shouted back at him.
It was at that point that I realized I wish I had those noise-canceling headphones back.
Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached by phone at 664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via email at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at CdAPressSports.