Turn out the lights, this presidency's over

Ever want to run a bar? I mean build it, or refurbish it…open it…run it...host Super Bowl parties there…invite the Bud girls to buy happy hour drinks at your place…sell a T-shirt that says “(your name here)’s Tavern”?

Man, I do. Just about every time I calculate what I’ll do with the lottery ticket that I should have bought when driving through Eastland. Because you know nobody wins the lottery in Fort Worth. They gotta be down the road from Quanah Parker High School or in Poth, Texas, or some place like that to win the lottery. It’s a prerequisite that’s more cruel than the GSP. But when I calculate what I’d net after taxes and the first few business ventures my buddies approach me with (which, naturally, would go south), I wonder what type of bar I’d open with the remaining loot.
And I don’t think I’m alone in fantasizing about this. However, I’ll admit that I’ve never really discussed the following “Mourer’s Bar and Grill” master plan component with too many folks. At least not while sober. So here goes…

(drum roll)

I predetermine a set of tunes that will automatically be played following the announcement of last call. Sometimes it changes, sometimes it repeats night after night. But, when I make last call, I kill the juke and run my tunes in specific order. In the old days, I envisioned this being done via dubbed cassette tape, but thanks to Steve Jobs, I can now use my fancy iPod.

I think of it as my tribute – albeit a musical one – to local icon Bob Harshman, who ran The Pub while we were at TCU, and would symbolically close the work of the day at 1:50 a.m. by saying “Alllllllright…it’s last call…” Or, on a national, historic, journalistic level, you could think of it as the soundtrack to accompany my nightly “And that’s the way it is” moment, with apologies, of course, to Walt Cronkite.

What songs would I choose? Glad I asked.

Van Halen’s version of “Happy Trails” often comes to mind, as does one of the many versions of “Good Night, Irene.” Remember that “Closing Time” tune by Semisonic? That doesn’t make it, though – at moments of lesser creative judgment – I’ve considered it. I think of the Grateful Dead’s “Broke-down Palace,” which talks of leaving said establishment “on my hands and knees,” because that’s when you know you’ve run a good bar. I’m sure there’s a George Thorogood number that would fit. Speaking of George, Mr. Strait once sung about a six-pack to go. That one makes the list.

But my time to sign off, or offer my last call, to this little column piece is about happen. Hence the free association to bring us to the actual point of this column. And while technology will now allow the playing of some appropriate tune when you open your Newsworthy, respect for the fact you might be doing so at work prohibits applying that added touch to this issue. Especially if we were to choose The Doors’ “Road House Blues” and you opened up the e-mail to hear “Well, I woke up this morning and I got myself a beer.”

I’ve enjoyed serving as your J-Exes el jefe. But, better yet, the new guy, John Denton, is fixing to take over and bring you even more insights into the world of TCU and journalism than I ever could. This is largely due to the fact that John did something with his journalism degree, while I seemed to have squandered mine on convincing district sales managers that I can deliver impactful messages. Denton, your new president, is the color analyst for TCU football and men’s basketball games, and has won more awards while doing so than most folks have listened to games on the radio.

So I entreat you to check him out at 88.7 KTCU The Choice, where our man David Green always insists that we list the campus frequency before the other option: 103.3 FM ESPN Radio. Or, you can listen to Denton and play-by-play great Brian Estridge on the Internet at gofrogs.com, which is what my wife and I did while in exile in Wichita Falls during the ’05 campaign. Talk about marital bliss…sitting around the computer, banging on the file cabinet to on-line accounts of the ’05 Air Force or BYU games.

Denton graduated in ’85 and has worked big-time and small market radio and TV gigs. He was introduced at the J-Exes Breakfast on Sept. 22, and – if you weren’t there – you should be there every year. It’s such a neat time to come back and see what’s happening at TCU and with the Schieffer School of Journalism. You can be regaled by feats of accomplishment that today’s students are pulling off, which make the TCU degree you earned twice as valuable. More, you can even meet some of these students, who might, in fact, conquer the world.

No telling who will be on next year’s Hall of Excellence induction slate, but this year we simply heard from the great Ellis Amburn, who heard from the great Jack Kerouac while working with him at Newsweek. He also wrote a biography on the Main Beat, as well as others.

Or you’ll want to be there to see who won the Ethics Award. Local guru Jim Reeves took it this year for his excellent work on the sports pages of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, where he efforts to keep sports – professional and otherwise – in honest check with itself and the publics the media work for.

If nothing else, you’ll want to be there to enjoy my lasting contribution to the J-Exes Breakfast. It’s something I’ve campaigned for tirelessly throughout my up-and-coming years, and was able to implement at the 11th hour toward the end of my tyrannical rule as your J-Exes President. It’s something fitting. Something just and right and something that makes any Homecoming weekend event go ‘round. It could bring world peace and prosperity, light where there’s dark, and maybe music to the masses. It might even help solve the need for a collegiate football playoff system. It is, my friends, the bar.

Yes, for the first time, the J-Exes annual Homecoming breakfast had a bar at it. I’ll grant you that it was a cash bar, but folks seemed to dig the Bloody Mary options that our Joe Garcia’s staff so kindly poured. So, as John Denton takes us courageously toward 2008, here’s a toast to his abilities to take my administration goals even further, and implement an open bar.

But that’s down the road. Another year, another time. So, until then, good night, Irene, or whatever your name is, and happy trails to you until we next get to make it to closing time and crawl out on our hands and knees. After all, that’s the way it is.