Tune in today, March 8th, to Volume 106, 7 PM East, 4 PM West.

Phone #: 844-6-VOLUME, 844-686-5863

Twitter: @lefsetz or @siriusxmvolume/#lefsetzlive

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Hello Bob!

I was forwarded the article you wrote regarding Giant. I am the singer in those videos and I must say that you completely made my decade! I very much appreciate your kind words and taking the time to write about Giant.

Thanks again!

Bryan Cole

P.S.  It was truly an honor to be a part of such a great band. Wonderful guys that still remain friends to this day

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Every player in town that knew about this going on was flipping out; myself included.  I was unfortunately on the road when they held this benefit for “Toddzilla” that gave us this reunion but saw the video the next day.

Todd (Austin), a Nashville musician fixture for decades, had lost possessions & pets in a house fire.

Nashville is pretty darn cool and our musician community is just phenomenal!!

Lee Kelley

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I was just out of music school when Giant appeared in ’89 and Dann Huff elevated rock guitar to another level. My musician friends and I were obsessed. And though we’ve moved on of course – some of my friends are playing professionally, while others are on the industry side, we’re still as obsessed as ever with certain players – Eric Johnson, Steve Lukather, Jeff Porcaro, Dann Huff. We stay in touch by sending each other links of solos, songs, and live performances; and when we get the chance to see each other IRL, anyone in our orbit will inevitably be subjected to a deep dive on why Giant mattered.

Thank you for this and for the links – the 2017 performance, which I didn’t know existed, will be a great addition to my group text collection.

And, here’s one for you: from Dann Huff’s instructional video  which was recorded circa Time To Burn. Aside from his astonishing guitar work (see: instruction on how to play the scorching opening lick @ 8:42), the joy he exudes from playing is palpable and so fun to watch.

— Kirsten Cluthe

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Loved Giant and have been hoping that record would be released on vinyl one of these days. I saw them at a little club in Murfreesboro TN (outside of Nashville) before the record dropped and they did an epic Jeff Beck cover. I think maybe it was Goodbye Pork Pie Hat but can’t remember now.

Kevin Twit

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You nailed this one – right down to sheepish Dan Huff, remembering the old days and then blowing away his alt-country-loving Nashville fans with incredible playing. I dove into the rabbit hole and didn’t come up for a few hours.

JH Tompkins

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The Last of the Runaways album has been a guilty pleasure of mine for so many years. It’s a record filled with choruses from front to back. It’s no wonder that Dann Huff went on to have the career he’s had.

Thanks for the reminder on this one as it’s been a while since I’ve listened.

Jaime Feldman

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I love when you do this, Bob… Giant was an amazing band/album… and your description is so spot on. I feel the same way about Winger’s album, Pull… so much history and media noise, that’s it easy to miss how great they all sound (and play together). 1988 – 1998 had so many albums like this… I’d even argue that Bon Jovi’s These Days was one of their better albums… but they had no chance facing the flannel and sounds of Seattle.

Thank you, as always, for reminding me about bands and albums that I loved… and let go by the wayside…

MITCH JOEL

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Great to read about Dann , Giant and “I’m A Believer”. Yeah, he was defiantly perceived as a “threat” or interloper (from Nash Vegas, for chrissakes!) by the more established “hired guns” in LA at the time. I know, I was there. I built all the guitar rigs for many of the best studio players of that time and was friends with most of them. In fact, I demoed to Steve Lukather Dann’s rig I had just built for him at my house on 4th street in Santa Monica. At different late night “get togethers” there would be talk like “who is this Dann Huff guy coming here getting all the gigs?” ….Ha ha! But Dann was such a nice guy and certainly a great player who eventually moved back to Nashville and started an extremely lucrative career as a top producer. Fun times!

Bob Bradshaw

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lol

I didn’t roast Dann. I think he is a huge talent and a sweet guy.

Great band that had potential but no commitment. Its HARD to make it as a band !!!  You gotta LOSE money to make it and hang in there. Had they had a hit record history may have changed that.

Too much money in studio work for Dann and Alan Pasqua and then I heard Mutt gave him some production gigs and poof.. he has done very very well for himself.

Alan is a massive talent who last I heard was teaching jazz at UCLA and doing lots of film work. Another great guy,.

Dann DID do a mighty good impression of me when he came to LA. hahaha Even he would admit it. He found his own voice and I still dig the guy and never had any issues as I had pretty much stopped doing lots of session s by the time he started.

I am a fan.

Luke

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Thank for shedding some light on Dann Huff. First heard he and his drummer brother in the band Whiteheart, which was kind of an 80s Christian version of Toto when I wound up on a festival bill with them. Dann went on to a long list of high profile studio credits and was working the late 80s LA scene along with Steve Lukather, Michael Landau, et al. He copped heavily from Luke’s style, for which Luke lightly roasted him in his book.

He did very well as a producer du jour upon returning to his hometown of Nashville. His father, Ron Huff, was a very busy arranger/orchestrator in Nashville for decades, so Dann inherited quite a Rolodex when he got into the biz.

Michael Gregory

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I moved from San Diego to LA Jan 1985 for music. By Aug 85

I was homeless and sleeping on the couch at Baby O studios. They had a rehearsal room on Vine and one of my ways of earning my keep was to open, close, clean and run the rehearsal room. I was broke and had no Hollywood cred so most people ignored me there.

Once day a band was rehearsing in there and one guy kept talking to me named Dann Huff. I being a guitar player noticed him right away and at that point in my life I had never seen such an amazing guitar player up close. He was mind blowing good. I was a huge Bowie fan and so was Dann. He told me about meeting Bowie and almost getting to play on a record with him which was also mind blowing ( I would meet and hang out with Bowie 3 years later but that’s a different story).

Point is Dann Huff made me feel so special at the lowest time of my life and I will never forget that. In 1990 his Giant record was out as was my first major label record called Colorcode.

Dann and I could now talk like colleagues but I had mad respect for him always remembering how he treated me when I was a no one in LA.

When he became a massive Nashville Producer my hopes were and still are that he will take one of the many Sass Jordan songs I wrote in the early 90s and get a country star to do a cover…..I could use a new house.

Stevie Salas

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Great piece. I’ve been a Giant fan for a long time. Still love playing their music cranked to 11.

Thanx for reminding the world their music still exits. Steve

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I have all 6 of the Giant albums.  There are usually 4 or 5 killer cuts per disc.

There is a Live And Acoustic-Official Bootleg, released in 2003 with Dann and David Huff.  It features both Live and acoustic versions of “I’m A Believer”.

I would disagree that the band has broken up.  There is a brand new album, Shifting Time, released on January 21, 2022.  Dann Huff plays on 1 track; David Huff plays drums again.

Tony Colao

Easthampton, MA

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Bob, I didn’t know about the Giant reunion but I was a fan from the first CD and have listened to it on and on over the years. Thanks for making me aware.  LOVED seeing that reunion clip. Sounded better than it should for a club gig!

Best,

Ray Palagy

ESPN Sound Design

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This is timely – A friend of mine put on Janis Ian’s Breaking Silence today – I made an offhand comment about the killer guitar parts – turns out they were played by none other than Dann Huff.

Vince Welsh

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Great piece. I discovered, like you, that reunion club video a few years ago. I think Dan not singing at that gig was a function of no longer being able to hit those notes which was evident even in the 1980 live video (which I have also watched many times). As us singers get older, the voice tends to get deeper and in most cases (mine included) rougher and those high notes are no longer within reach.

But, damn, can that boy still play his ass off or what?

Between this and the piece about Terry Thomas and Charlie, you are putting together a great look at bands who never really broke through but were just so very crazy good. Loved both of those pieces

Bill Evans

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Giant-

What the late great Kevin Gilbert used to call “H-T-P’s” – “…highly trained professionals…”

Like so many, great at commerce and craft, really low on innovation, art and the things that make any form of popular music really matter…

See Bob, what so many of us often forget is that between 1964 and 1975 we experienced one of the few times in the history of this world that the most successful popular music being made was also the best music being made.

And back then listeners and bands were in a social contract – the bands created music and presented a lifestyle that helped us make sense of the world around us and in doing so they really mattered…

Peace and Love,

Paul ILL

MFT, MusiCares

Instructor, Jail Guitar Doors

Www.adoptthearts.org – Board Member

Www.dolphinproject.net

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Sorry to burst your bubble, but there’s a reason I’ve never heard this song or album before. It is terrible music! It combines all of the worst elements of 80’s excess into one shiny turd. It tries to be everything to everyone: Cheesy synths, wanker guitars, BIG snare sounds and mechanized drums. If you combined Whitesnake, U2, Van Haggar and the Fixx into one horrifying algorithm, this would be it! In no way does that qualify as classic rock, classic metal, or even tasty pop music.

Don’t get me wrong, I totally understand your reminiscing about the power of real rock and roll bands/concerts etc. I was there too! I just doubt many people are nostalgic for formulaic dreck like this.

Geez…

Jarrett Light

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“And then there are those who believe punk rules, if it gets too complicated it gets too self-conscious and loses the essence.”

Yeah, why bother having all those other weird chords, right? I mean, what’s next, harmonies? Singing in tune?

Berton Averre

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Man, you got me. I missed them, probably because of the very thing you mentioned, music had changed by that time.  Nobody was looking for this.  IF they had hit that 15 year time warp you nailed, they could have stood toe to toe with VH etc. top 70’s, 80’s bands.  Believer has that U-2 guitar riff, and he kills it.  Stay is also has a great sound and Thunder and Lightning.  Huff is fantastic, he’s so good it looks easy.  Thanks, I got’em in my library now.

John Brodey

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I was surprised yet so glad you recognized Giant. They were “such” a great band. Dann Huff’s an incredible talent. Killer guitar player, great singer, and a kick-ass songwriter. Man, I wish Rock was back.

Regards,
Peter Kalish

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Great to see you giving one of the most underrated and passed over bands their due recognition. Giant’s second record, “Time to Burn” was even better than “Last of the Runaways”. Dann teamed up with the late great Van Stephenson of Blackhawk fame to write most of the material on that second record and they found what would have been their essential sound on songs like “Chained”, “Stay”, and “ I’ll Be There When It’s Over”. TTB is a songwriting and production masterpiece that is very much worth the time to check out.

Last thing, and just a bit-picky niggle really, but to say Dann Huff wasn’t as well known as a session guitarist as others of the era might be a little bit off. Obviously not to civilians, but if you are a musician, his name might as well be like sterling stamped on silver. Us session, touring, and production cats all know damn well he’s one of the most recorded guitarists in music history. Huff, Luke, and Michael Landau were on everything back then, sometimes all three on the same record. Simply one of the most innovative and brilliantly musical players of all time. If you really want to hear what he was great at when a producer just let him have his way in the booth, check out the Patrick Leonard-produced Peter Cetera record “One More Story” or Michael W. Smith’s lead track “Lamu” off his mid-80s commercial breakthrough “The Big Picture”. Huff’s inventive parts elevated those records to the heights of some of the most innovative sounds you’ll ever hear and his signature sound still stands up to this day.

Thanks for shining a light on those guys. Incredible band and each original member (c’mon, Alan Pasqua and Mike Brignardello, too??!) was a huge piece of what made them so fantastic.

Deane Ogden

Bali

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I hope all is well in your world!

You gave me that warm, fuzzy feeling today with your words about Giant. Years before I was fortunate enough to meet “The Late, Great Bud Prager,” whom I regularly credit with saving my business and possibly my life . . . (everyone needs a solid mentor & friend, and Bud, may be the best of both that’s ever been) . . . I got turned onto Giant. Their “Last of the Runaways” album, which featured “I’m A Believer” and the hit ballad “I’ll See You In My Dreams” was a favorite of mine for years. The guitar layering and spacial riffing on the title track is absolutely sick . . . check out Dann Huff creating an “Edge-like” soundscape with intermittent lead lines that I’ve only heard from the likes of Dann, Steve Lukather, Larry Carlton, or Jay Graydon.

I met Dann at Bud’s memorial service, and later became friends with his brother and drummer David Huff through mutual acquaintances. In addition to both being immensely talented musicians who have played with everyone, Dann and David are two of the nicest music industry guys I’ve ever met . . . great DNA! Giant’s bass player, Mike Brignardello and keyboardist Alan Pasqua have also toured and recorded with the “Who’s Who” of pop and rock music from the 80’s and 90’s; and Mike, in particular has had a major presence on the CCM scene. There were no weak links in that band, and yes “I’m A Believer” really launches the whole album in a big way.

Thanks for the nice memory . . . I still can’t believe that the album is a few decades old. It still holds up.

Be well, God bless, & GOGETEM Bob . . . You ROCK!!!

Pat O’Connor

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So excited to read your missive today on Giant.  I am possibly the only Giant fan in Australia, bar the late night DJ on KixFM that used to play Believer religiously each Sunday night.  Interesting their ties to Foreigner, you could hear that musical tie in their music.  Their music represented to me – a young aspiring musician at the time – impeccable songwriting and execution, perhaps too polished.  It just made me dream of what was possible if you got your chops up.  Years later while on a soul-searching sojourn through America in a GMC truck, I discover Keith Urban and see Dann Huff’s name on it, and I can hear the connection.  You can hear a Dann Huff record.  Now his impeccable quality is on so many records, and I still get excited when I see his name on something.  I’ll unlikely ever meet or work with him, but he truly is a hero of mine.  Anyone that rips a 1-minute guitar solo as an intro to their single should be applauded, I think it’s gutsy.

Well done digging this one out of the crate, gave me goosebumps.

Matt Aitchison (Aus)

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Thanks for writing about Dann Huff & Giant.  I saw them open for Heart in 1990 at Poplar Creek Music Theater just outside of Chicago.  The two things I remember about that evening were…

1) Several dudes making no effort to hide the fact they were drooling over my date.

2) Giant stole the show.

I’m no longer with that woman but I still have my Giant CDs.

Thanks for jogging my memory,

Ken Misch

Grumpy Dingo Radio

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Your kind words

Hi Bob, this is Dann Huff. I wanted to thank you from the bottom of my heart for what you wrote about me in your blog today. Means the word coming from you. All the best, Dann

“But one thing you can be sure of

You know that I’m a believer”

Giant was a band out of time. AOR was on its last legs, we just didn’t know it yet. Giant was perfect for the fifteen years before, but was now out of step with America’s changing tastes. After a decade of MTV pop now ruled, And hip-hop was growing. Sure, we were on the last legs of hair band ballads, and Guns N’ Roses was something different, something dangerous, yet Giant was more akin to a seventies act, just great players playing straight ahead rock. That sound is still dead, but there were years where it was the biggest in the land.

I don’t do much mindless surfing these days. I remember telling my shrink twenty-odd years ago that I’d seen it all, I was on repeats. Then I went into my tab cycle, it would take me about an hour to go through all of mine on Safari, and by time I got back to the beginning, hopefully there’d be new news. But then there wasn’t, and then the news exploded, sometime in the late aughts, and then we got to the point where there was no way anybody could get a grasp on what was going on, you could surf new stuff endlessly. End result was the loss of truth, and in many cases credibility, and it’s been overwhelming. And sometime in the last ten years surfing was eclipsed by apps.

I must say I never got into the Facebook thing. I’d already heard from most everybody I ever knew, and the people I went to high school with, there was a reason I left my hometown. But recently, years late, I find myself on Instagram, turns out you’ve got to surf or you lose your name, which happened and having reclaimed it I don’t want to lose it again. And Reddit is an endless rabbit hole. But the funny thing is all these outlets have a window, it opens and you’re fascinated, you spend time and then the novelty wears off, and suddenly you’ve got little interest in going back. Doesn’t matter how much the platforms shuffle the deck, you’re done. Other than Twitter, which most people never pay attention to, it’s for information junkies, it’s more up to date than any news site, as a matter of fact all the reporters are on Twitter, but it turns out most people are more concerned with their image, becoming influencers, than the news.

But every once in a while, when I’m really relaxed, I find myself surfing once again.

I was listening to music on my iPad via headphones, the big ones, not the portable ones, and when I get the urge certain go-to songs come to mind, and about two weeks ago, it was “I’m a Believer.”

For a long time “I’m a Believer” was unavailable online. Took a long time for a lot of non-hit music to resurface. But I had a CD anyway. Which for a long time sat in my car, I’d like to fire it up when I was driving, especially on the freeway, when I could put the pedal to the metal.

And I’m listening to “I’m a Believer” and I’m wondering if there’s a live version.

Giant broke up long ago. There’s still a band with that name, playing some of the old music, but the key members have long gone. The most key being the lead guitarist and vocalist Dann Huff, who reinvented himself as a hit country music producer, one of the best, to some degree unchallenged until Dave Cobb emerged with his earthier sound.

And I’m on YouTube and I find a Giant reunion, it’s already five years old, and it’s in a club, so my expectations are low.

And Dann Huff has got that latter day Eric Clapton look, you know, cleaned-up with short hair, as if when he’s done he’s got to pick up the kids at school. He’s smiling like he’s embarrassed, like he never does this anymore. He resembles nothing so much as one of those players at your high school reunion. Have you been to one of those, where all the boomer players come out of the woodwork and get together and play, dividing the reunion in half, the players going down the rabbit hole together? I have, not my own, but Felice’s.

And then Dann starts to play.

I expect the sound to be lousy, it almost always is on these YouTube live clips. And sure, it’s not perfect, but Dann certainly is. I mean I’m bugging out, staring, it sounds like the record, are they playing the record or is it really him?

It’s him.

And then some guy in torn jeans and a vest takes the stage and…who is this? He’s the singer, why is it not Dann?

Well, doing research I found somewhere on Facebook that Dann didn’t want to. But this guy, who looks jive, opens his pipes, and wow, he’s like Arnel in Journey, he doesn’t look like Dann but he certainly sounds like him, maybe even better.

And now the band is firing on all cylinders and…

You forget that the sound used to be imperfect. Back before all the acts went to hard drive, never mind being synched with untold production. It sounded like the original, but different. The studio take was always slick, the edges were sanded off, but live the music breathed, the edges were back. And that’s what made it so immediate and relatable. That’s something that’s been lost, along with the humanity.

I don’t think non-boomers get this. Maybe Gen-X’ers understand. We formed bands, we went to hear bands. A great band built a rep, you had to hear them. Even the local ones, never mind those that played the Fillmore, which you knew about from being immersed in the culture, FM radio, the rock press, you had your ear to the ground, it was a whole culture which is now dead.

Now there are some that say bands like Giant killed it. There are those who believe music died in the sixties. And then there are those who believe punk rules, if it gets too complicated it gets too self-conscious and loses the essence. And then Nirvana came along and wiped this music off the map anyway. But it survives on classic rock, and yacht rock channels. But Giant doesn’t really fit in either category. Oh, they’ve got a ballad, but they were never classic, most people have never heard of them, but there was some airplay on the dying AOR.

And last night I went down the rabbit hole once again. I watched this 2017  reunion video and got the same feeling, I wondered if there were any live videos from the band’s “heyday.” Turned out there were. I started watching one from London, in 1990. I never knew the band went overseas, but in truth their manager, Bud Prager, was always a big picture guy. With these big picture bands, like Foreigner, although his paradigm was already long in the tooth.

And the video, after some labeling that’s depressing, the images are shiny and bright in a way that Giant was not, you see a throng of cheering rock fans. Which doesn’t square with the rest of the footage, maybe that scene was staged, because when the music starts the audience is quiet, but still on its feet. This is definitely a rock audience, no other one compares. These are not casual fans, they need the music. How they look is secondary to how they feel. They go to the show to be transported, to bond with the band, to be taken to another level.

And here’s Dann Huff once again. Playing the instrumental into to “I’m a Believer” impeccably. But now his hair is long, it had to be to be accepted in the scene, even though by this time it was an affectation. But boy is he wailing. And you’re brought back to the era when being an ace guitar player was key. Maybe Slash was the last one.

And this is a live track, but it’s so perfect you’re wondering if this is a typical video, you know with the studio version providing the audio. But then Dann steps up to the mic to sing and you’re reassured that this is truly live. And you’re brought right back, there’s an energy without the dross that’s been laid on in decades since, without the fakery, the imagery, it’s just the music.

And I can’t believe how great a guitarist Dann Huff is. I go to his Wikipedia page, even though I’ve been there a zillion times before. And they’ve got a list of some of his studio gigs. Yes, he was a hired gun. Before he tried to break out on his own with his own band, before he went back to being a player, before he worked behind the board.

I mean that was the rap, that Huff was a studio guitarist, that was part of the hype. But Dann didn’t have the fame some of the others did, maybe because he played on so many pop records, maybe because the world had changed and people were less interested in the musicians than the package. But one thing is for sure, Dann could wail effortlessly. Watching it’s hard to believe, how did he ever get this good, he’s an elite player, member of a small group.

And I’m watching this 2017 reunion show and I’m shattered. I can’t believe it. This is the magic, this is the sound, this is the essence, and it’s from an era when most people thought the dream was over, furthermore it’s being recreated effortlessly long after its time. And it’s just as powerful. And the audience understands what is on stage. And it matters not a whit that no one else is aware. It’s not about shooting selfies, it’s about bathing in the glorious sound, transcending your earthly problems for as long as the amplifiers are turned on and this mellifluous sound emerges.

Studio version: https://spoti.fi/3sJMQvM or https://bit.ly/3MpkXRt

7/1/2017 live version: https://bit.ly/3vOy0Gl

1990 live in London version: https://bit.ly/35TuPls

Dann Huff Wikipedia page: https://bit.ly/35xx1iM

He died.

We were the first TV generation. This was before they called it the “boob tube.” Its novelty had started to wear off, but our parents still remembered getting together for Sid Caesar and “The Honeymooners.” TV was a breakthrough, just like the internet. And you’d watch anything, just for the experience, just like you surfed mindlessly in the early days of AOL and the World Wide Web.

I can’t remember the first TV show I watched. I think it was “Winky Dink.” You put a plastic screen in front of the TV and drew along. And then there was “Tom Terrific.” And “The Mickey Mouse Club.”

I don’t remember a time when “The Mickey Mouse Club” was not on the air. It was a ritual, watching it every night while we ate dinner, at least we three kids. Sitting at our table in the lower floor of our split-level, the “playroom.” One wonders where that table went. It hung around for quite a while, it became a utility table thereafter, a place to store goods, it wasn’t even three feet square. It had black and white-checked linoleum on top. And four miniature chairs that disappeared quickly. It’s my Rosebud, but not really. I have essentially nothing from that period. My mother could throw anything out. Like the day’s newspaper. Sleep in? It’s too late, it’s ten a.m., the papers are GONE!

And what I remember eating most was buttered noodles. Much better than with tomato sauce. And we never ever drank milk, unless it was chocolate. My father owned a liquor store, we had a flowing pipeline of soft drinks.

So we’re sitting there eating and there were the Mouseketeers.

We were too young to know that Annette was a dream. She was a teenager, we looked up to all teenagers, never mind the ones on “The Mickey Mouse Club.” They were tall, and had a level of freedom. And it wasn’t only Annette. There was Cubby and Tommy and Darlene.

And there was “Spin and Marty.” It was a serial within the show. Set on a ranch. In black and white, nothing was in color. And Tim Considine was Spin.

“Spin and Marty,” no one ever talks about it anymore, but they did all the way up until the early seventies. I remember at a summer program in Chicago I was called “Moochie.” Maybe the most famous actor on “Spin and Marty.” But even he’s dead now, he passed in 2015.

And then came “My Three Sons.” It started in 1960. A new decade, which we were excited about, it was all about new back then. Shiny, pushing the envelope, possibility.

I had no idea Fred MacMurray had starred in “Double Indemnity.” He was just the guy from the Disney movies, all of which we saw. The two best, which Fred starred in, were “The Absent Minded-Professor” and “The Shaggy Dog.” Going to the theatre and watching them in pristine black and white, what an experience. MacMurray was a comic actor. But really he wasn’t.

So “My Three Sons.” Of course my favorite was Chip, he was closest to my age. I only wished I could be beamed into the TV, for I had no brothers, never mind two! 

Robbie was the in the middle, played by Don Grady, whom I met a little over a decade ago. I went to see the Refugees at the Getty, and he came up and introduced himself. ROBBIE! He was a reader. At first I was speechless, he was a god in my book. But here he was, older, much shorter than I’d thought, talking to me! Turns out he was a composer.

The oldest was Mike. Played by Tim Considine.

But five years later, when the show jumped networks, he was gone. He’d gotten married, he’d started his real life, at least on television. He was replaced by Barry Livingston as Ernie, Chip’s younger brother in real life. Who I never accepted. He was young and goofy. None of the three sons had ever acted so. Sure, they screwed up. But they projected an air of maturity.

You have no idea how much kids wanted to be on TV back then. There was no internet, essentially no way to break out of your hometown, you had to move to Hollywood, where they not only made the movies and TV shows, but the music too. California was aspirational. Instead of the right wing punching bag it is today. It was three hours behind. Long distance phone calls were expensive. It might as well have been a different planet.

But it was beamed into our homes almost all day long. Programming filled the air between the test pattern. Haven’t seen that recently. In the eighties, with the growth of cable TV, there started to be 24/7 programming, and that was a boon for a night owl like me. If you needed a friend in the middle of the night, you could find one. An old movie. Or the infomercials. They were everywhere, and you knew them all…Didi 7, did it really clean that well? I knew to be wary of products hawked on TV, there was usually a scam involved, I mean how could they offer two for the price of one if you called right now, but I always wondered.

But we had plenty of TV back in the fifties and sixties, at least in the New York market. Three networks and three independents. And I thought CBS was on channel 2 everywhere, just like NBC was on 4 and ABC was on 7. Turned out this was true in Los Angeles, but in the rest of the country the networks could be at any number from 2-13, which I still don’t get. Then again, it’s not about networks anymore. It’s not even about cable, but on demand streaming. Actually, there’s a good chance you’re paying more for a little less, how did that happen?

So Beaver came back. Some of the legendary fifties and sixties actors. Hell, even Sid Caesar came back in a Mel Brooks movie. But mostly they live in our minds. And before the internet you had no idea what they were up to, they were just royalty, living in Hollywood somewhere. At least until they started ripping-off 7/11’s and having their mug shots in the news.

So Tim Considine was 81. Is that old or young, I no longer know. 81 was ancient when “My Three Sons” was on the air. 70 was old. But now your seventies are seen as an active decade. And you slow down in your eighties, but if your health is good you’re quite alive, you get around.

But reading the obituary I learned that nothing really happened for Tim Considine in show business after “My Three Sons.” He ultimately became a photographer, of cars and sports. He pivoted. He survived. Ironically in Mar Vista, only a hop from where I used to live.

And Tim’s death has me thinking, how life is long. Seemed short and immediate when I was watching him on TV, you had to do it now or forever lose your chance. And we know now that fame wasn’t everything we thought it was. Sure, kids knew you all over the country, the world. But you didn’t go to regular school. Your parents banked and possibly stole your money, which wasn’t huge to begin with. You had to have a second act.

That’s hard for boomers to square. At the end of our parents’ work lives we learned employment wasn’t for life. And today’s kids know that jobs are temporary and they’ll have a zillion. But us? We kind of still believed in the company, even though we ultimately got canned, and too many never recovered, if for no other reason than age makes you a pariah, companies don’t want to pay the health insurance.

So you’ve got to start all over, alone. Be an entrepreneur. But no one ever taught us these lessons. Certainly not in college. You took a job, you didn’t make one. And being an entrepreneur involved risks. Which our parents never wanted us to experience. Get a degree from a good college, plug yourself into the system and hang on. Or if you really wanted to go all out, become a professional, a doctor or a lawyer, accountants weren’t in the same league. And none of them were upper class, you could make good money as a surgeon, but you couldn’t afford to live in a 10,000 square foot house.

So many baby boomers are lost. They don’t know what to do with themselves. They may even have enough money to survive, but how to fill up the time? And volunteering just doesn’t fill you up, have the same gravitas, as getting paid.

So actually, Don Grady, who passed back in 2012, and Tim Considine won. Unlike one hit wonder musicians, they didn’t trade on their one success for the rest of their lives. They could leave the spotlight behind and continue. Maybe they were forced to, who knows. It’s hard to stay in the action in Hollywood, and like I said, pay was nowhere near what it is today, even in adjusted dollars.

But Mike can’t be dead. I mean Fred MacMurray, sure. But the three sons…they were always young and cool. Like an old girlfriend they’re fixed in our brains. And when we run into them years later, we’re shocked they still don’t look the same.

Tim Considine was Mike, but his hair had lost its color, he wore glasses, he looked like the guy you saw at the supermarket, or maybe down on the docks, looked fine, but older, which he most certainly was.

And if Tim got old, if even he couldn’t hold back the sands of time, that means…

I got old. You too. Time is running out. What do we want to do with it? Because if Robbie and Mike can die, ANYBODY CAN!

“Tim Considine, Young Star of ‘My Three Sons,’ Is Dead at 81”: https://nyti.ms/3CgPxYI