Things were going well.
Things had gone to hell.
Let’s move ahead in our story.
I’d been in California for about three weeks.
We were staying in a house we’d rented in El Cerrito, a town just outside of Berkeley.
It was a great house.
And for the most part I had it all to myself.
Well, the downstairs part.
Well, part of the downstairs part.
I mean, it wasn’t technically “the basement” because it was carpeted and it had a sliding door which led out onto the deck.
I believe my sleeping arrangements consisted of an air mattress that didn’t hold air, a bedspread, and a bedsheet. I either used my jacket as a pillow or on particularly chilly nights I wore the jacket and used my Carolina Panthers team bag as a pillow.
However, I don’t remember there being a whole lot of opportunities to try and get a night of uninterrupted sleep. For whatever reason, the most frequent time for Jim Jorden to show up at the house tended to be well after midnight.
He’d usually come in through the sliding glass door, tromp past me without comment, tromp up the stairs, unlock the door, do whatever the hell it was he did, and then tromp back down the stairs and into “Brad’s” room.
The only other person staying at the El Cerrito house at that point was “Brad.”
Sometimes “Brad” and Jim would leave the glass door open open while they stood out on the deck and “Brad” smoked cigarettes while both talked sh*t mostly about Michael Tolajian as I recall; but sometimes about the veritable Nixon’s Enemies List of people who they they’d believed had wronged them back at NASCAR and NFL Films before that. I faintly remember a few times when I might’ve heard them talking sh*t about me, too. Maybe they forgot I was in the corner, and still in earshot, although trying to sleep. Maybe they didn’t give a sh*t if I could hear them or not. Or maybe it was just me dozing fitfully and mixing what was with what I’d expected.
Our Daughter and I began to jokingly call “Brad” my “handler.”
I had no car, no BART pass and no way of getting anywhere on my own. So I was dependent on “Brad” or, occasionally, Jim, to to where I needed to be.
Our Daughter and I then began to refer to me as “The Package.”
As in: I would text her: “Package is on the move.”
She’d text back: “Roger that, package. Location?”
Me: “Campus.”
Her: “Roger that, Package.”
For the most part and for most of the time, I pretty much had the house all to myself. During the entire time I was there, I can’t specifically remember an instance when Jim Jorden or anyone else from Jim Jorden Productions (other than “Brad”) had spent even a single night at the house.
Despite how cool the El Cerritos house actually was, you’d have thought that the frickin’ Amityville Horror house had more ambiance and had been more welcoming.
Jim had apparently set himself up at the Oakland Marriott and apparently had no interest in downgrading to a house in El Cerritos that lacked all the Marriott amenities plus a fully-staffed restaurant, fully-stocked lounge, and room service.
As a result, I remember that “Brad” would more often than not stay at the Marriott as well — presumably so he could be close to Jim, “just in case.”
Meanwhile, Jim, as I recall, would spend his day bouncing back and forth from the Marriott to (among other destinations):
1) campus to sometimes shoot practices or once in a while shoot an interview or even more rarely try and conduct an interview;
2) El Cerritos to pick up or swap out gear;
3) San Francisco for PAC-12 Network meetings;
4) San Francisco for God only knows what;
5) God only knows where for God only knows what;
6) etc.
So, with Jim almost always and “Brad” more often than not booked into the Oakland Marriott, it seemed like I had the house to myself on most days and nights.
Nevertheless, I remember that I almost exclusively stayed downstairs.
I also remember how my schedule had quickly seemed to slide into the insufferably predictable. When I wasn’t working (although working never seemed to include writing for the first several weeks), I mostly enjoyed passing the time doing one of three things:
First, I was working on a 3D globe of Middle Earth from Lord of the Rings. Back in Charlotte, I’d bought a big foam ball at Hobby Lobby. Then I was using a concoction made of tissue paper/toilet paper, wood glue, and water to create the landscape which I sculpted using exacto blades.
Then, there was a storage room that ran nearly the length of the house (a little over 20 yards). I turned it into a sort of makeshift firing range by stacking up a bunch of foam and cardboard boxes at one end and using an airsoft pistol I’d brought along in order to maintain my accuracy. Depending on whether or not there was anybody else in the house and I had enough down time, I’d usually burn through around 25 magazines — or about 300 rounds.
I found it to be was relaxing.
Finally, I’d brought along a couple of Wilson NFL Game Balls. And without any furniture, the downstairs was extremely spacious. So I’d sometimes spend as much as 90 minutes at a time doing nothing but working on footwork and doing different football-handling drills.
Most my daily routine began with waking up just before dawn to an empty house.
About an hour after that, either Jim Jorden or “Brad” would usually swing by and pick up “The Package.” — aka me.
Usually “The Package” would promptly be delivered to, and dropped off at, the Cal football offices. These were located adjacent to Memorial Stadium on the Berkeley campus. I remember them being by the clock tower. I remember the view being pretty great.
Once there, I’d check in with the Cal staff before I’d either meet up with my camera crew or else I’d wait around until the crew showed up.
I always had the same camera guy: Bill.
Bill was a salty old f*ck. But he and I got along well.
I believe Bill had owned a farm somewhere around there that he’d bought for a song in the late Sixties or early Seventies and was now worth several million dollars.
Even though he’d also been a freelance cameraman with NFL Films and had worked with Jim Jorden since the Eighties, Bill didn’t seem to particularly like Jim.
Jim used to tell me that like many Children of the Sixties, Bill usually showed up to shoots high on drugs.
I’m pretty sure that one big reason Bill didn’t like Jim was because Jim often would allegedly tell people that Bill usually showed up to shoots high on drugs.
I was basically embedded with the Golden Bears as a field producer conducting player and coach interviews almost daily.
So once the camera crew was ready, we’d shoot three or four interviews over the next few hours with Cal players and coaches.
Cal head coach Sonny Dykes and I seemed to get along well.
I especially enjoyed talking X’s and O’s with Cal offensive coordinator Tony Franklin.
Coach Franklin was one of the early pioneers in the “Air Raid Offense.” Today, the Air Raid may be considered the staple offense in college football.
The Cal players were great and I remember freshman quarterback Jared Goff and I had seemed to hit it off right away. I remember first having to regroup and recover from an existential crisis brought on by the generation gap after he’d told me he’d never heard of the ’46-Defense’.
On the last day of August marked the first game of the season, as Cal hosted Northwestern at Memorial Stadium.
The Golden Bears fell to the Wildcats, 30-44.
One week later, Cal played host to Portland State.
From the time I woke up early on Gameday until the time I woke up early Sunday Morning, memories of the intervening 24 hours are scattershot.
I remember waking up on Gameday with a splitting headache and with the sensation of something less than a blowtorch but more than a Zippo lighter pressed against the back of my neck and running down my spine.
I remember taking one of my special headache pills straight away. I remember including two more — just in case — in the pill container containing my daily meds which I always brought along and kept with me. I remember placing it one of the pockets of my brand new Cal sweatshirt which I was wearing for the first time.
I remember that it was hot when we arrived at Memorial Stadium with several hours to go before kickoff and I remember taking my Cal sweatshirt off.
I remember that sometime around the end of the first quarter, my headache had returned worse than ever. However, I wasn’t going to leave my camera crew and so I waited until halftime when we all went together to where our gear was stored which I believe was just outside the doors to the Cal locker room.
I remember that I couldn’t find my brand new Cal sweatshirt — including the pill container holding all of my medication.
I remember that the decision to suck it up was a no-brainer. I don’t remember much of what happened for the rest of the game. But I remember being told by Bill later that night when we were all at the Oakland Marriott that I’d done really well.
I remember also learning that bolstered by Jared Goff’s 485 passing yards and two touchdowns, the Golden Bears had vanquished the Vikings, 37-30 for their first win — and, as it turn out, their only win of the 2013 season.
I remember how foreign it was when weeks later I was looking through my iPhone and I’d discover that throughout the day, I’d taken somewhere in excess of 100 photos from the game.
I’d also apparently recorded a boatload of live action video.
I’d even written a fairly detailed proposal in Notes. It was a concept centering on capturing media from each game on iPhone. The idea was to make it part of a value-added content package. First, it could strengthen the B2B relationship between Apple and AT&T. As such, it might then help to entice AT&T to enter into an agreement to carry the PAC-12 Network on its “U-verse” IPTV broadband service. Also, the parent company of U-verse was DirecTV. The PAC-12 seemed to be coming up short in their attempt to convince DirecTV to sign on to carry the Network. Joining into a B4B between Apple, AT&T, DirecTV and the PAC-12 might’ve been an example of forward-thinking innovation.
This also could’ve created a whole new model for broadcasting budget-breaking non-revenue sports, I’d apparently reasoned. It appeared that to my way of thinking, events could’ve been live streamed. Over the summer, our Daughter had showed me how gamers had started doing just that and how they’d started reaching subscriber numbers that exceeded previously-unheard of levels of not only hundreds of thousands, but sometimes somewhere north of a million.
I’d then apparently reasoned that Apple could further build on this through establishing corporate partnerships with camera companies Cannon, Nikon, Olympus, Sony, etc. and foster interface through Bluetooth, firewire, or what-have-you in order to improve resolution quality. Then, with the added creative power of MacBook Pro, and Final Cut Pro X, universities could become broadcast partners and students could’ve changed the game and reshaped the sport media industry.
If the PAC-12 truly had been looking to find a new way forward, I’d allegedly reasoned, this might’ve been one direction that might’ve been worth looking into.
I remember that there was a lot more too this that particular proposal, as well as a number of brief ideas and scant-word suggestions and directions. But all those would be memory files lost to both man and machine. It’s been well over five years since my iPhone and MacBook Pro was hacked for the final and fatal time. Everything I’d ever done professionally and all of those years from our personal and family life was destroyed, corrupted, or both.
Nevertheless, I remember my surprise (albeit pleasantly) several weeks later when I rediscovered any of those files, photos, and data on my iPhone. Even so, I had only a vague recollection at best of taking any of those pics, recording any of that video, or writing down any of those ideas.
In that respect, at least, I thank God that everything out in California hopped in the fast lane to hell almost as soon as the Cal-Portland State game was over. I believe that because of that, I hadn’t had the chance to pull my usual dumb, and, ever eager to please, stupidly shared any of those ideas with anyone.
Instead of going back to the El Cerritos House where my much-needed medication was, I remember that Jim instead drove straight back to the Oakland Marriott.
I remember that I’d made matters markedly worse for myself by my failure to eat or drink anything all day. So I remember that I was in bad shape by the time we arrived at the hotel. And I remember how my circumstances were exacerbated by the fact that I was desperately in need of my prescriptions. (Note that none of these were opioids or painkillers. I refuse to take anything stronger than NSAIDS. Instead I took only specific acute, prophylactic, and abortive medications for headaches and fibromyalgia, and biologics for psoriatic arthritis.
I remember him handing me a pass key card and saying that he’d reserved a room for me. I remember him saying that I just needed drink something and then head up my room where I could just sleep it off.
I remember somehow being in front of the door to my room…
I don’t remember using my key card to open the door; but I somehow standing in the doorway, with the room being backlit by the minion yellow light stabbing at my back from the hallway.
I remember finding myself lying face down, fully clothed, and perpendicular across the king-size expanse.
I remember being aware of Jim Jorden standing in the doorway; his silhouette framed in that pale retro light. I remember he just seemed to standing there, transfixed, somehow casting off a muted yellow aura of eugenic dissatisfaction.
I remember being prodded awake by a streak of sunlight piercing through a seam in the thick curtains and otherwise invading the inky gray.
I remember stumbling to the curtains, nauseous but still fully dressed, shoes still on and all, and tearing open those curtains to reveal the Oakland skyline.
I remember calling home and my Wife telling me that I’d phoned her a few times and in turn she’d first phoned Jim to tell him that I needed my medication; followed by our Daughter who’d phoned him only to have Jim allegedly raise his voice when he reportedly told them first that I was fine, and then to stop calling.
I remember calling “Brad's” phone after Jim’s went straight to voicemail. “Brad” answered on the first ring and just like that, he now appeared to be suddenly present. Actually, it seems he'd been present at the Marriott the whole time. He’d been firmly entrenched in his own room a couple floors from mine where he’d been busily editing away since last night.
I was still nursing a headache that felt a little like a migraine… mixed with a sinus headache… while someone was simultaneously running a corkscrew into the medulla oblongata connecting my brainstem to your spinal column… and someone else was taking a power sander across the crown of my skull.
Despite that, I believe it was “Brad” who informed me that Jim had apparently given him very specific orders that he was not to be disturbed until no earlier than 11:30am PDT. Furthermore, I recall that “Brad” also added that he’d allegedly been instructed by Jim not to tell anyone what room he was in.
And with that, I remember willing myself out of the Hotel and out into the sunrise emanating from the opposite side from the Pacific in the direction of Back Home.
I found downtown Oakland to be absolutely beautiful and wonderful and friendly and working class and immune from homogeneity in the best possible way. While making new friends as I’m oft want to do and dipping in and out of little shops nestled into buildings which were well over a century old, I learned from my newfound People that Oakland’s architecture was actually much older than the San Francisco skyline because apparently, the Great 1906 Earthquake which devastated San Francisco did not wreak anywhere near the same degree of havoc across the other side of the Bay Area.