A mini-scandal I uncovered but never reported has probably benefitted Baton Rouge more than any of the “award-winning” exposés that elevated me from a gutter in New Orleans to semi-prominence as a network television  investigative correspondent.

The annual O’Brien House breakfast will be held tomorrow. The facility is among the finest in the country for treatment of indigent alcoholics and other addicts. And knowing the roots of O’Brien House, I marvel each year at its miraculous growth during the 39 years the facility has been in existence. 

In 1971, my broadcasting career was saved by a man named Lew Carter, then the manager of WXOK, Baton Rouge’s only black programmed radio station. In February of that year, the city’s most prominent station fired me as its News Director and host of a daily talk show. My boss lost his tolerance for me showing up drunk—if at all—and regularly delivering newscasts in unknown tongues. Nor did he appreciate the telephone call on the eve of my firing, telling him that I quit and he could cram the station up his derriere.

Three days later after a failed audition as a New Orleans skid row alcoholic, I was hauled back to Baton Rouge by a girlfriend, who had been summoned by a group of street people when I began showing symptoms of delirium tremens caused by an imbalance of blood and alcohol. That marked the end of my drinking and the beginning of a sober journey. Six weeks or so after the final bender, Lew Carter took a gamble and hired me to create WXOK’s first news department. I was not his first choice, but he had been unsuccessful in recruiting a black newsman.

In the early days of sobriety, Alcoholics Anonymous was my lifeline. I attended meetings six nights a week. It would have been seven, but there were no meetings scheduled on Saturday, although AA members got together socially to play poker. As I write in Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, staying sober trumped everything in my life and became a major factor in the founding of O’Brien House.

In my 1971 no-booze evangelical fervor, I tried to drag winos off the street to go to meetings. One night in my unofficial role as an AA recruiter, I picked up two guys named Tony and Bob at a halfway house operated by Baton Rouge’s federal anti-poverty agency. On the way to a meeting, they complained that all the food in the facility had been stolen and asked me to buy them hamburgers. The theft, they said, was not unusual. Thieves had also absconded with medications, television sets and everything else of value. 

Skeptical about the complaints of two street drunks, I did some research. A quick inventory and check of records revealed that the problems were worse than Tony and Bob indicated. Besides the pilfering, there was no discernible treatment program, nor any oversight by the agency running the halfway house.

Armed with these facts, I wrote an exposé. But before airing the story, I contacted the agency head, Charles Tapp. He pleaded ignorance of the boondoggle and asked me to delay the story until an in-house investigation could be conducted. We were longtime acquaintances and I trusted him to do the right thing. And it didn’t take long for Charlie to confirm the problems. The following day, he conceded that grant money was being thrown away. He also admitted that his staff was unqualified to run Baton’s Rouge’s only publicly funded program for indigent alcoholics. Fearful of losing federal grants, Charlie made a proposition that I couldn’t resist. He said his agency would bankroll a new halfway house if I recruited ex-drunks and civic leaders to run the program.

Fortunately, my six-month sober mind had cleared enough for me to seek the help of Eugene Snelling, then head of Baton Rouge’s Alcoholism Council. He was a good friend and among those who helped save me from myself.

In August 1971, we recruited a group of folks from inside and outside the recovery community to form a not-for-profit corporation. And in a matter of weeks, Baton Rouge’s first authentic treatment center for indigent alcoholics opened.

Although I was elected as Chairman of the initial Board of Directors, I don’t want to overstate my role. My biggest contribution was to my ego, which badly needed a boost. Indeed, I credit street drunks Tony and Bob with playing the key roles in establishing the facility. They were also the first clients. O’Brien House is their legacy, even though neither achieved long-term sobriety.

So tomorrow at the O’Brien House Breakfast, I will remember Tony, Bob and the hundreds of men and women who have come through the doors of O’Brien House—many of whom found longterm sobriety.

Coincidental to our annual breakfast, September is National Recovery Month. I have been selected as Louisiana’s delegate for a series of events sponsored by the A&E cable network. In connection with its weekly program titled Intervention, the network’s third annual National Recovery Project will be held on September 26th in Philadelphia to publicize the need for expanded treatment programs in the country. Because of my aversion to reality shows, I did not watch the A&E show until after my selection as a delegate. I highly recommend the program. It accurately depicts the ravages of addiction—and the solutions.

There are an estimated 22-million Americans who suffer from from alcohol or drug abuse. Less than 10% receive effective treatment. I feel privileged to be involved with O’Brien House, which provides hope for men and women who can’t afford treatment. The expansion and success of O’Brien House is one of many miracles I have witnessed since I stopped drinking more than in 39 years ago.

And on days when I want a ”miracle fix,” I only need to attend an AA meeting to see miracles in progress—or pause for a moment to consider all that has happened in my own life during the past four decades.

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, is available at amazon.com and independent bookstores. It offers much more than $19.99 worth of laughs. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) career.

Earlier this year, I was selected to represent Louisiana at an event in Philadelphia sponsored by

Since the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous 75 years ago and the beginning of Alanon for spouses and families of alcoholics shortly thereafter, the “anonymous” label has been attached to a multitude of 12-step recovery programs. Spin-offs are designed to deal with an array chemical, physical and emotional problems—gambling, sex, eating disorders, addictions to illegal and/or prescription drugs, and an array of struggles that part of the human condition.

Regardless of the ailments, the underlying principles of all the different 12-step programs are pretty much the same. The steps put into practice a value system that is unknown to many—the basics of which include universal tenets of faith, trust, honesty, courage and humility. In AA lingo, incorporating the principles in one’s life leads to a “spiritual awakening.” Not to be confused with a sudden epiphany that is often described as a ”spiritual experience.” Twelve step programs gradually bring about a level of self-honesty. That is why so-called tea partiers need to form a recovery program called, ”Deniers Anonymous.”

From inception, Tea Party members and its candidates have been in a state of denial in responding to any and all criticism. The most recent instance of self-deception is the refusal to acknowledge the NAACP’s claim that the loosely formed organization have been invaded by racists, bigots and hate groups. The denials must be coming from blind and deaf spokespersons. How could they miss an inflammatory road sign in Iowa comparing the President to Hitler and Lenin, or fail to see placards at rallies that are clearly racist, or not accept the word of credible sources that epithets were directed at black congressmen as they walked through a crowd of Tea Party demonstrators? That is the equivalent of my years of denial that alcoholism caused my drunken episodes, delirum tremens, nights in jail, an emotionally abused broken family and eventually led me a failed skid-row audition. 

Vice President Biden refused yesterday to label the Tea Party as racist. And I agree. However, that does not mean the absence of racism among many of its members—a subtle form of which is sometimes more sinister than outward bigotry. Indeed, it is often difficult for people—me included—to detect underlying prejudices. Our failure to see deep-rooted personal bias is troublesome for African Americans. At least they know where they stand with the Klan mentality.

Deniers Anonymous would be particularly helpful for Tea Party candidates, some of whom have denied saying or believing they made statements in radio, television and newspaper interviews. Sharron Angle is an exception. The Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in Nevada simply avoids mainstream media interviews. She answers only to God, Fox “News” and right-wing reporters in her home state. God apparently is not satisfied with her answers. Senate Majority leader Harry Reid has been resurrected from the graveyard of politically dead incumbents.

Meantime, God has smiled down on Democrats in Kentucky by delivering a Tea Party-supported candidate whose mouth has gotten him in so much trouble that he is no longer a a sure-fire Republican successor to slightly deranged incumbent Jim Bunning. Dr. Rand Paul stumbled in the race coming out of the gate by making 1960’s era comments about civil rights. Like Sharron Angle, he now avoids interviews that could expose him as under-qualified to occupy Bunning’s Senate seat—a level of incompetence that is probably impossible to achieve. Nonetheless, Dr. Paul’s gaffes have made the Kentucky race competitive. Given his explanations that previous statements are not a real reflection of his position on civil rights, Deniers Anonymous would be helpful in allowing Paul to get in touch with his true views.

Former Presidential candidate Ross Perot is the best example of my own experience of encountering political candidates living in a state of denial. Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger provides all of the gritty details. If interested, buy the book and be entertained by my journey to a vast fantasy land. In short, my one hour in-depth confrontation with Perot during the 1992 Presidential campaign was his final sit-down interview with an investigative reporter .

I had flashbacks of the Perot debacle sixteen years later while watching Katie Couric interview Sarah Palin—another political figure who defines accountability as being a personal attack. She has become a role model for refusing to do interviews with anyone but the Fox “News” bunch and their ilk. She and all her cohorts at the Republican propaganda networks are excellent candidates for Deniers Anonymous. Especially Glenn Beck.

In AA, we sometimes classify a category of alcoholics as “low bottom drunks.” Having spent time with my feet planted in a gutter, I fit the label. Glenn Beck is a low bottom denier. In the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, he consistently denies his racially charged and anti-semitic rants. Washington Post poltical reporter Dana Milbank wrote a column last week that provided astonishing statistics about Beck’s hate-filled lunacy and his influence as a self-proclaimed leader of the Tea Party movement.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/16/AR2010071602855.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

If the day comes that someone decides to start a Deniers Anonymous program, Glenn Beck should be among the first recruits. He should have some vague knowledge of recovery based on his past disclosure that he joined AA many years ago. I presume he is still sober today. Outwardly, though, he does not fulfill AA’s promise of restoring its members to sanity. 

That is not surprising. Anyone listening to Beck can easily discern that he knows nothing about the principles that form the basis of 12-step recovery.

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, is available at amazon.com and independent bookstores. It offers much more than $19.99 worth of laughs. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) career.

My ranking of life experiences is based on whether I will forever recall  events—good or bad. The latter is especially important as a warning sign to avoid repeating doing the same thing over and over and a expecting different result, a well known definition of insanity attributed to Albert Einstein. 

This past weekend, Annette and I viewed the impact of bad memories on tens of thousands of sober and happy people attending the International Convention of Alcoholics Anonymous in San Antonio, Texas. I venture to say that none of the more than 50,000+ alcoholics (66,000 registered for the event, counting spouses and friends) joined AA because things were going so wonderfully in their lives. Pain motivates the sufferers to seek sobriety. That was certainly the case in my life—pain combined with a sense of hopelessness and fear.

ttp://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7094224.html

The AA gathering was San Antonio’s biggest ever convention. And an event that no doubt brought to town the largest number of smiling people. There is a widespread fear among boozers that getting sober means they will never again have fun. That was certainly my mindset. But I learned differently.

And so would anyone present at Thursday’s night’s dance and entertainment program, which was supposed to be held in a park adjacent to the convention center. But remnants of Hurricane Alex forced it inside, probably to the chagrin of the Fire Marshall. The high-energy rock band had a hip-to-hip crowd moving and shaking. A young paralyzed military veteran in front of me was swinging his upper torso so rapidly that I thought he was going to leap out of the wheelchair begin dancing. It was like a Grateful Dead concert for sober people. If Jerry Garcia was looking down from above—or up from Hades for that matter—he would would have been proud of our crowd.   

Sober people do have fun. And even remember what they did the next morning. Caught up in the no-fun syndrome, it took me more than one try to grab hold of the 12-step program. My early failures were a result of lacking a requirement for a full membership in the fellowship, which is a “desire to stop drinking.”

As an alternative to plugging the jug, I tried different experiments. The most notable was eating pizza and bananas before a night of partying. That was my diet prior to attending a party one night. And, lo, I was not arrested, my then wife didn’t leave me, nor did I get fired. In my twisted mind, that was successful drinking.

I was reminded of my weirdness at a Saturday morning meeting titled, Healing Through Laughter. A speaker said she got sick and crazy after drinking screwdrivers. This happened, she rationalized, because of an allergy to citrus fruits. 

Thankfully, I disabused myself of the belief that I would find a way to control my drinking in February, 1971. Today, as the last survivor—a scary thought—of small AA meetings that were instrumental in saving and salvaging my life, I considered myself an “oldtimer” in the fellowship. But my 39 years of sobriety fell seven months short of getting me a floor seat at Saturday night’s ”oldtimers meeting” in the Alamodome. Over 500 recovered alcoholics at the convention had 40 years or more of sobriety. A few were sober for over 60 years, making me a relative newcomer.

A dozen oldtimers each spoke for a few minutes, giving brief accounts of their arrival at AA while expressing appreciation for the sober lives they lived. There was a remarkable consistency in their views and humor. Important to recovery is the ability to laugh at ourselves, God’s pancea for pain.

This year marks the 75th anniversary of Alcoholics Anonymous. And sitting in the nearly full 65,000-seat Alamodome at Saturday night’s oldtimers meeting, as well as Friday evening’s Flag Ceremony in which 73 countries were represented, was a miraculous experience I will never forget—an optimistic statement at an age when I do periodic memory check-ups to reassure myself that my loss of brain cells remains gradual. So far, so good. 

Miracles, according to my definition, are in the minds of beholders. Seeing more than 50,000 sober, happy alcoholics under a single roof certainly meets my definition.

I know for sure that my sobriety is a miracle.

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, is available at amazon.com and independent bookstores. It offers much more than $19.99 worth of laughs. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) career. 

celebrated their sobriety at the 75th

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal is taking full advantage of the tragedy devastating the Gulf coast to revive his national political aspirations. But he may be over-playing the opportunity. Several Louisiana lawmakers are criticizing him for ignoring his Baton Rouge responsibilities while the recently adjourned legislature was in session. And the national media is questioning Jindal’s duplicity in lambasting the federal government out of one side of his mouth and begging for money out of the other side.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/26/us/politics/26jindal.html?th&emc=th

In some respects, Governor Jindal reminds me of smarty-pants kids, who always seemed to occupy the front row of my elementary school classrooms. While I looked dumbfounded when called on to answer questions that interrupted my daydreams of heroics on athletic fields, there were always teacher’s pets waving their hands saying, “I know, I know.”

Rhodes scholar and Ivy League graduate Bobby Jindal is so smart that I believe he outsmarts himself. The Governor’s presence on Louisiana’s Gulf coast is admirable and reassuring to residents. But he acts as if he alone has solutions to the catastrophe. Granted, BP’s public relations policies have been a corporate disaster. However, Jindal’s suggestion of foot-dragging by BP and/or the federal government is patently ridiculous. The company’s stock has plunged in value and President Obama is taking a beating in the polls because of his inability to dive into the Gulf and personally plug the leak. Remarkably, the President was criticized by many Republicans for strong-arming BP to put $20-billion into an escrow fund to compensate Gulf coast residents and businesses for their losses.

In recent days, much of the criticism of BP has focused on the bureaucratic snafus that have slowed the compensation process. One thing is for sure. When it comes to bureaucracy, Louisiana has very few, if any, short-term answers. A historical overload of too many layers of government has been the main contributor to the state’s current economic woes. Unfortunately, Jindal was absent from Baton Rouge while lawmakers wrestled with the problem during the recently concluded legislative session.

As Governor, his responsibilities “included” a frequent and visible presence at the site of the tragedy. But the job of Louisiana’s chief executive also requires his presence in the Capitol. The television cameras, however, were focused on the coastline. He could not resist a chance to redeem his image, which was badly damaged by a cartoonish speech delivered in response to President Obama’s 2009 State of the Union address. 

How much time Jindal has spent in Baton Rouge during the oil spill is a state secret. More than most past Louisiana Governors, he maintains a veil of secrecy around his official activities and travels. But for the time being at least, voters are getting to see his face on TV every night.

If all the national television exposure fails to revive Jindal’s national ambitions, his propensity for secrecy will make him a perfect candidate to head the CIA when the Republicans next take control of the White House.  

While on the subject of Gulf coast television face time, how about CNN’s Anderson Cooper? He has camped out at the scene of the disaster since it began. Not surprising. The same was true when he reported from Haiti following the devastating earthquake, and in New Orleans after Katrina.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/18/us/18cooper.html?th&emc=th

Among anchors, Cooper stands alone in his hands-on reporting from where news is breaking. The opportunity to be where the action is may be the reason that CNN is able to keep him on the payroll. He has received lucrative job offers from other networks. I doubt that money is an influencing factor. As the son of Gloria Vanderbilt, Cooper grew up with wealth.

In coming months, he may get a boost in ratings that are below what he deserves. Larry King announced yesterday that he will leave his nightly program in the fall. The ratings-poor King show is the lead-in to Anderson’s Cooper’s prime-time newscast.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/29/AR2010062904751.html?wpisrc=nl_headline

Larry King’s departure turns another page in CNN’s history. He probably should have followed me out the door ten years ago. Times were changing. Younger faces were appearing and the taste for fawning over celebrities was diminishing. Anyway, I hope the 76 year old veteran talk show host enjoys his sunset years. If his present wife fails her audition, Larry still has time to add a few more spouses to his alimony payroll.

In case anyone misses these missives for a few days, my blog posts will be absent until next Tuesday. I’m departing today for San Antonio to join thousands of anonymous folks in celebrating the 75th anniversary of an anonymous 12-step fellowship that save my life and salvaged the lives of millions of other people.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/29/opinion/29brooks.html?ref=opinion

Have a great holiday weekend!

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, is available at amazon.com and independent bookstores. It offers much more than $19.99 worth of laughs. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) career.

Only two people—an unidentified massuese and a famous politician—know what happened in a Portland, Oregon hotel room four years ago. She said. He said. And she offered to say a lot more about her encounter with Al Gore if the National Enquirer paid her a million bucks. The tabloid declined, but claimed she said enough in a freebie conversation. I can guess the extent of  information.

“Hi, I’m with the National Enquirer. Did you file a police report in 2006, accusing Al Gore of sexually assaulting you?”

“Yes.”

“Can you tell me what happened?”

“Yes, but you have to pay me $1-million.

“I can’t do that.”

“Goodbye.”

“Stop the presses,” the reporter screams to his editor. “We’ve confirmed the story.”

There may have been more corroboration. But I doubt it. Through a spokesperson, Gore denies the woman’s allegation. But without trying to contact him, the scandal sheet went with a thinly sourced story of a woman, who waited two weeks to report the alleged attempted assault to police. Then, she withdrew the complaint. Now, nearly four years later, the story is revived. Do I smell a lawsuit? Is this the reincarnation of Paula Jones? Oh, Paula’s not dead. Just forgotten. At least by me.

Actually, massueses are part of my illustrious career. And a tale is forthcoming. First, though, a recapitualation of Gore’s rub down, which has the smell of a shakedown. For juicy details, I refer readers to a Seattle Internet news site.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/dailyweekly/2010/06/al_gores_portland_massuese_pro.php

It doesn’t take a journalistic wizard to discern that the story is filled with holes. Yet, versions have begun appearing in the mainstream media. Editors must make decisions based on the fact that the National Enquirer was accurate in its revelations about the “love child” of former U.S. Senator and Presidential candidate John Edwards. Therefore, everything it prints must be true. It’s a sad commentary on the quality of contemporary newsgathering.

But here is a true story about an ambitious redneck reporter willing to risk his soul to get ahead (no pun intended) in television. I lift the anecdote from my “less selling” memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger. In 1973, the Miami Beach Vice Squad was among the early news sources I developed in my first TV job as the chief investigative reporter for south Florida’s then NBC affiliate.

Miami Beach morals protectors provided me material for the tawdriest story of my career. I launched a fearless probe of massage parlors. Salons with exotic names like Salome, Grecian Girls, and China House were actually “jerk-off” joints. Undercover detectives made the discovery while assigned to the dangerous task of getting massages.

 “When she began to manipulate my penis,” one arrest report stated, “I identified myself as a police officer and placed her under arrest. Did not ejaculate.” What a guy.

Based on the police reports, I proposed a single story to News Director Gene Strul. He wanted a series―plus corroboration. He sent me on a company-paid tour of every south Florida massage parlor that advertised in local newspapers. Traveling the grease circuit, I determined beyond a shadow of doubt what services were offered.

“Ironically, the movie Deep Throat has been banned from Miami Beach,” I intoned in my first report. “Yet, it’s possible in Miami Beach to purchase the real-life version of the sexual activity that is the movie’s theme. Oral sex.”

I disclosed the services offered by thirteen places. An on-screen graphic designated “M” for masturbation, “OC” for oral copulation, and “I” for intercourse. Below each was a price list. A massage parlor at the rear of an auto body shop in an industrial area charged five-dollars for a hand-job. The bargain probably caused a traffic jam in the neighborhood. How I developed conclusive evidence of these services remains confidential. To paraphrase a Las Vegas motto, what happens in massage parlors, stays in massage parlors.

However, if the National Enquirer will give me a million bucks, or any fraction thereof, I will gladly share my secrets. And speaking of journalism low-lifes, how about the Minnestoa “reporter,” who slipped into a 12-step recovery meeting to “out” the homosexuality of a gay Lutheran pastor. The group, a spin-off of Alcoholics Anonymous and similar confidential fellowships, was formed to help its members deal with their sexuality.

http://www.minnpost.com/braublog/2010/06/22/19134/lavender_outs_lutheran_pastor_–_by_crashing_confidential_support_group

The rationale for the so-called ”exposé” was the minister’s homophobic statements on a radio show he hosted. The “outing” appeared in a gay publication that, ironically, is headed my a man with 27-years of sobriety in AA. I wonder what kind of AA meetings he attends? There is no excuse for violating a tradition of confidentiality that other journalists have abided by for decades.

Readers of this blog and my memoir are aware of my 39-plus years as an AA member. But it was only after much soul-searching that I wrote about my  membership. That’s because my recovery from the depths of alcoholism defines me personally, spiritually and professionally. There is no way I could have otherwise given an account of my achievements—and failures. But with respect to identifying others in the fellowship, the Tradition of  anonymity is sacrosanct. I cannot imagine identifying folks who attend meetings without their permission to do so. And even then, only in a need-to-know context—usually in discussions involving AA friends.

For the most part, journalists have abided by the Tradition. Indeed, Alcoholics Anonymous celebrates its 75th anniversary next weekend. Thousands of members will gather in San Antonio, Texas to express gratitude for a program that offered a new way of life.

I will be among the grateful.

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, is available at amazon.com and independent bookstores. It offers much more than $19.99 worth of laughs. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) career.