Ever want to be a music producer AND editorialist

Here are a couple of new spins -- at least for us -- on the singing
cartoon:

(At least today you can go to www.tcpalm.com and link to it from the front -- later you should be able to get to it via the Opinion link.)

The cartoon notes the retirement of a legendary football coach, so ...

1) I tracked down an amateur recording artist who had done a 45-rpm after the team won a state championship in 1981. He recorded the cartoon's song, co-written by me and our ex-sports editor-turned-opinion copy editor, Jim Saturday, and inked by cartoonist James Casciari.

The singer/guitarist recorded it in one of our newsrooms at an old PC solely used to record reports our reporters do for our radio partners.

2) Then I asked him to re-record the A side of the 1981 45 because we couldn't find a digital version.

3) A radio station buddy of mine found an audio cassette of the old 45, and he digitized it for us gratis (earlier this month it cost me $95 to have an ad agency digitize a cassette tape of a 45-minute ethics commission hearing). So we posted the A and B sides.

4) Our Web guys posted the cartoon, then timed the panel images to the words.

Never thought I'd get into the music recording end of things ...

Larry Reisman
Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers