1 PHILIP LOBEL. Born 1956. TRANSCRIPT of OH 2055V This

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PHILIP LOBEL. Born 1956.

TRANSCRIPT of OH 2055V

This interview was recorded on September 20, 2015, for the Maria Rogers Oral History Program. The interviewer and videographer is Sue Boorman. The interview was transcribed by Susan Becker.

ABSTRACT: This interview is part of a series about three football games known as the Hairy Bacon Bowl, which occurred during the early 1970s. Participants included University of Colorado students who identified with hippie culture and/or anti-war sentiment, versus campus and Boulder police officers. The games were seen as a way to address tensions between the two groups. The idea for the games originated with the Program Council office at CU. Phil Lobel became involved with Program Council in 1973 and then led the program from 1976 to 1979. He touches on the concept of the Hairy Bacon Bowl, but by the time he was Program Council director, the days of the Hairy Bacon Bowl competitions were almost over—he describes the change in culture at that time from the tense, seriousness of anti-war protests to a light-hearted one exemplified by the practice of streaking. Much of the interview focuses on the transformation of Program Council into one of the most successful student organizations of its kind in the country (culminating in Program Council winning the 1978 Billboard Magazine College Talent Buyer of the Year Award) and how Mr. Lobel’s work for Program Council paved the way to his long career in entertainment public relations. He provides a fascinating window into the workings of Program Council and into the music scene of the 1970s.

KEYWORDS: 1970s (decade) 1970s (music) Barry Fey Colorado Music Hall of Fame CU Events Center Feyline Folsom Stadium Hairy Bacon Bowl Macky Auditorium Mary Ripon Theater Program Council rock and roll streaking university entertainment programming University of Colorado (Boulder)

KEY PEOPLE: Crowder, Eddie (1931-2008) DiStefano, Philip P.

Fey, Barry Michael, George (1963-2016) Miller, Glenn (1904-1944)

NOTE: The interviewer and narrator are identified by their initials when there is a change in speaker. Added information appears in brackets.

[00:00]

SB: Okay. So we are here today at UMC—is that what it's called?—the UMC building at the University of Colorado—

PL: Yes, the University Memorial Center—UMC—at the CU Program Council Office.

SB: CU Program Council Office—

PL: Formerly the Colorado Daily office. But that's another story.

SB: That's good to know. And it is September 20, 2015. I'm here to interview Phil Lobel about the Program Council, and also about the relationship with the Hairy Bacon Bowl that the Program Council had and [pause]—I think that's it for the intro. Phil, what's your date of birth?

PL: 4/17/56.

SB: Okay. Thanks. So—hello, Phil.

PL: Hi. How are you?

SB: Good. How are you?

PL: Good to see you. Very fortuitous that I happened to be in town for this interview.

SB: It really was. I contacted Phil a couple of weeks ago, and you were just coming into town for a game—

PL: For the game, and also I'm on the Colorado Music Hall of Fame founding board of directors. Our grand opening at our new home, Red Rocks Amphitheater Trading Post, is on Monday, September 21, 2015. So all the exhibitions of our five-year-old Hall of Fame of Colorado musicians are being moved—or have been moved—there from the Broomfield Center so that they'll be open to the public 363 days a year at the Trading Post—except Christmas and Thanksgiving.

SB: So that's going to be—where is the Trading Post?

PL: The Trading Post is at the bottom entrance road to Red Rocks.

SB: I know where that is. Interesting.

PL: So if you haven't gotten to see the Colorado Music Hall of Fame, definitely go. There's a lot of great music history there and wonderful inductees that are now being recorded and memorialized in the Colorado Music Hall of Fame.

SB: Yeah, and thanks to you for your help in doing that.

PL: And by the way, it's cmhof.org.

[02:12]

SB: Thanks. Okay. So you got your start in life—where did you—just to get some history on you—where were you born? Where did you grow up?

PL: Born in the Bronx, New York City. Seven years there. Moved to New Jersey, northern New Jersey. I had never been to a concert in my life. It was the kind of a family that would take us in to Manhattan for theater and shows, from the Nutcracker to the Sound of Music. Had a few pop records to my name from Cher's Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves to Blood, Sweat and Tears’ Spinning Wheel, but on 45s. And that was really it. I had never been to a concert in my life before I came to Boulder and CU.

SB: And how did you—in growing up, what were some influences—you said—musical influences—were there influences in your life?

PL: Yes, musical influence—for me, definitely, were The Beatles. I vividly remember that moment, transfixed in front of the television set on a Sunday night, watching The Beatles come on the Ed Sullivan Show. And, of course, I came from a world of crew cuts, so I remember asking my parents, "Is that hair real? Or are those wigs?" And so I remember that. I remember The Rolling Stones also in the mid-'60s making their first appearance with "Satisfaction" on the Ed Sullivan Show. So, mostly I got that from television. I used to watch Dick Clark's Bandstand—American Bandstand—on Saturday mornings.

But still, it wasn't until I came to CU in Boulder in September of '73—Leon Russell was performing at the stadium. He had a big hit then with a remake of The Rolling Stones "Jumping Jack Flash." And it was Leon Russell, Mary McCrary and Little Feat. I was in a triple at Farrand Hall on campus in Boulder. My roommates were going to the show. I had never been to a concert, as I said. I went over there. Eventually I snuck in. There were 35,000 people here for this event—smoking pot, and drinking—and I had never participated in any of that.

I was just transfixed. Literally, everybody in the stadium exited the stadium—I was still sitting there on the sideline wall, because I didn't have a seat—when a security guy came over to me and said, "Kid, you got to leave." And I was just in awe, and I was just like, "Well, how did this happen? Who does this? Like how does this take place?" And he goes, "Some group called the

CU Program Council. They're in the student union. But really, you gotta get out of here now. Nobody's here. They're tearing down the stage."

And that was it. That was that transformative moment when, the following week, the second week of my freshman year, I came into the UMC, went up to UMC 424—I remember the room that was our office—the Program Council office—and volunteered to hang up posters. And that was the start of my five-year career with the Program Council.

[05:10]

SB: How did you sneak in to that concert?

PL: Well—interesting. Very observationally. I notice that—at that time there was very much an antagonism between the police and the students. The long-hairs—the hippies—versus the pigs, the cops. And groups would form in front of the tunnels, and literally would crash through the gates ten at a time. And I would just stand and watch this. And I watched students being arrested as they were climbing the Folsom Stadium walls—scaling the walls. I noticed also at one point in time some student was trying to come out to go back to his dorm room, and the guy, arguing, said, "You can't go." And he said, "I have to go back to my dorm room for some medicine." And the security guy said, "Okay, leave me your ticket stub and give me your driver's license." And he let him out.

So I stood around a little bit longer, and after another group crashed through the gate, I stepped inside the gate, and the guy turned around. The ticket-taker looked at me and said, "What do you want?" And I said, I have to leave. Well, I had picked up a stub from the floor outside the stadium. He said, "You can't leave." And I said, "Well, here's my stub. Can I give you my stub and my driver's license? And I'll be right back." And I gave him my stub and my driver's license. It's called misdirection, which I learned many years later, working with David Copperfield. And he said, "Okay. Just come right back to this gate." And I came back ten minutes later. And he gave me that ticket stub that I'd picked up off the ground and my driver's license. And I went in very peacefully—not part of the crashing groups—and watched the rest of the concert. And that was how it happened.

[06:49]

SB: That’s great! I love that! How did you end up coming to Colorado at all for college?

PL: I was going to major in journalism. I had been editor of my junior high school paper. And I worked on the literary magazine in high school. So I was going to be a journalism major. So I applied to five schools that had journalism schools. But I saw a picture of the Flatirons and the CU campus. And I literally was transfixed by that photo. I just couldn't believe, I really had—in New Jersey, we didn't have big mountains.

I envisioned myself going here. I dreamt about going here. I applied even to DU. I applied to Missoula, because they had mountains. But ultimately, I said, "I have to get into Boulder. I don't want to go anywhere else."

My grades were okay. My SAT scores were fair. But I remember writing or typing out this lengthy, lengthy letter to the admissions office on how I would be such a valuable asset to CU if they would admit me. I have no idea if that was read. All I know is I did get admitted. And I like to think that I have contributed over the years to CU. So that was what I did to try to get admitted to CU. And it came to pass. I was so excited when I got that.

I had never been to CU or Boulder or Denver before I got here. I came out with my father. We spent the night in Denver. I was slightly disappointed with Denver. And then we drove up U.S. 36 the next day. And there was that ridge. I had my dad pull over to the scenic overlook, and I had my 8 mm camera, and I was like in awe. I was like, "Oh, my God. I cannot believe this is where I'm going."

And that was it. I never went back. I stuck around, and I got in-state tuition, and I stayed here at CU for five-and-a-half years, and in Colorado for ten years, working with Feyline and Barry Fey doing concerts. And Chuck Morris.

[08:51]

SB: So the letter you wrote had some truth in it, that got you in—

PL: Uh, yeah, but very fortuitously, yes. And it became my home and my life. A the end of my freshman year, I basically gave up my career in journalism. I had wrote one story for the Colorado Daily, here in this office. And then I had to make a decision, because at the end of my freshman year I was sticking around to get in-state tuition. And I was volunteering for the Program Council, and volunteering at the Colorado Daily.

And somebody at the Program Council said, "Kid, our advertising director is leaving. You want to do ads? You want to do our advertising?" And I go, "I don't know how to do that. I don't know anything about that." And they said, "Just cut and paste out these pictures and stuff for the movie ads, and lay it out on a piece of paper, and give it to the Colorado Daily. They'll do the rest." And I said, "Does it pay anything?" And they said, "Yeah, it pays $45 a month." And that was it—$45 a month, and I was now the CU Program Council ad director at the end of my freshman year, because I was sticking around that summer to get in-state tuition.

So I applied for in-state tuition and—

SB: Yeah. And you had a job.

PL: And I got a job, and I also was working as a night guard in the dorms on the midnight to 6 am shift, because I was living in Farrand Hall at the time.

SB: And was that where you were the guard?

PL: I was a guard at Farrand, yes, for the first two years—I would be—usually the police would show up and find me asleep on the couch at four in the morning and wake me up—I wasn't a very good guard. You'd sit in the office to let people in that came in after midnight.

SB: Right. Do you know a guy named, um, Shep—Michael Duran—he called himself Shep. He did that overnight, but it might have been a little earlier.

PL: I don't know. It sounds familiar. I started doing it in '73. '73 to '75, I was doing that, because Program Council didn't pay enough then. But—

SB: It might have been before that. I don’t remember the exact years.

[10:47]

PL: It might have been. But so, anyhow, that was at the end of my freshman year when I started taking over as advertising director, I decided I was not going to go after the editorial ship. I wanted to be the editor of the Colorado Daily, I decided, or director of Program Council. At that time, there was not one single editor of the Colorado Daily. They had a three-way—a triumvirate of people. And I was like, I want to do something where I can be in charge. Like where it's me making the final decisions. And Program Council afforded that opportunity. There was a single director—even though this was the start of my sophomore year, that was what I set my sights on. And I became director in my junior year. March of 1976. And stuck around as director until almost ‘79.

SB: And were you still a student then?

PL: You had to be a student. Unfortunately, I was doing Program Council forty hours a week, so if it came down to waiting for a call on The Rolling Stones or going to take a mid-term, for me the answer was quite clear. I would have to stick around the office. There was no email then or cell phones, so I would always—and the first couple of years, I had a grade point average of 3.2. After that, if I was doing bad in class or having to miss tests, I was—at that point I had in-state tuition. A course was maybe 150 bucks. So I just dropped the class to maintain my grade-point average. And I had to have a least one class. So through all my years as a CU student and running the Program Council, I always had one class, which was why after five-and-a-half years of school I was actually three credits short of being a junior.

[12:38]

SB: So yeah. So you had to juggle both.

PL: I had to juggle both, but the juggling was really juggling getting out of class to take care of Program Council and the concerts. Because we were doing—you know, at that time, from '76 to '79, sometimes we had, oh, maybe a half a dozen shows a month. On some nights, we had a show sold out in Macky Auditorium. A show sold out in the Balch Fieldhouse. Three movies sold out on campus in the UMC Forum Room, which doesn't exit anymore; in Chem 132, which

was called Cinema One; Chem 140, which was called Cinema—oh, Cinema One; Chem 132 was Cinema Two.

And I'd be up in the office, the Program Council office, with my business manager, and we would be counting the money coming in that night, which would be tens of thousands of dollars through sold-out movies, sold-out concerts. And even then, we would look at each other and go, "Can you believe we're doing this?" I mean it was—we didn't get student fees at the time, so it was all self-supporting organization. The money we made stayed within the Program Council accounting within the university. But as long as we didn't spend it illegally, we could do whatever we wanted with that money, spend it however we wanted on programming. There were no administrative like controls on how we spent it, as long as, like I say, it was spent—legally, we couldn't buy liquor, we couldn't buy drugs. But we could decide to buy better sound systems for the theaters, which we did. We could decide to buy anything to do to improve the program. We could buy talent and bring artists in with our own money.

So that's how the funds were spent. And during those three years it was kind of called the golden years of PC. With no student fees coming to us, we had a lot of freedom.

[14:41]

SB: Wow. Great experience.

PL: Yeah. It was. It was like running a small business on campus but having the protection of the university. And the power of the university behind you. They would sign the contracts and issue the contracts, but we were doing all the negotiating. And many times we'd work with the big shows—with the concert promoters—usually Barry Fey and Chuck Morris and Feyline—and they would take on the financial liability, and we would get a guarantee. And if the show did well, we'd get percentages of a successful show. And at that time, we were selling 30 or 40 percent of the house to students, contributing greatly to the success and the number of sold-out shows that the promoters would bring on campus.

And so the other thing for Boulder and for CU is we had the most amazing array of venues. We had the 1,000-seat Glenn Miller Ballroom. We had the 1,000-seat Mary Ripon Theater. We had the 2,400-seat Macky Auditorium. We had the 6,000-seat Balch Fieldhouse. We had the 60,000- seat Folsom Stadium. There were just no other campuses in the country that had that array of venues.

And also, remember at that time, Colorado was the hotbed of music— you had Caribou Ranch going up outside of Nederland, which was bringing us artists and recordings from Blood, Sweat and Tears; from Chicago; from The Beach Boys; from Elton John; from Supertramp. So many artists were coming here to record. You had Crosby, Stills, Nash living in Colorado. You had Dan Fogelberg living in Colorado. You had FireFall, the biggest success out of Boulder ever, with multi-platinum albums—with hit singles and hit albums. So, Colorado at the time was just where music was happening. It was like one of those things. Here I was, running the Program Council, and Colorado was the center of the universe for music in the country, so it was really an exciting time to be doing this.

[16:42]

SB: Yeah. You were at the hub of this huge thing.

PL: Yeah, I mean, you work hard in life—timing and luck plays a lot— and I was lucky that it was the right time at the right place. The whole era had been changing from the antagonism with the students over concerts and being hippies and the riots and the Vietnam War—that was over. And now my whole motto was "we're going to run this like a business." There were no more long-haired hippies in the Program Council office. Even though I had a big Afro, when I would meet with administrators I would have a jacket and a tie on. When I'd meet with Eddie Crowder, the athletic director at the time, to convince him to let us back into the stadium, because he had banned concerts at the stadium, I would call him Coach, and I would treat him like a businessman. He wasn't used to that. It was always a very antagonistic approach between the athletics and the CU Program Council.

That transformative relationship brought Program Council more fame and more money than we ever saw before, because in the years that I was there we had, well, four stadium shows: Fleetwood Mac in 1977—May 10, 1977. Then '78, it was The Beach Boys doing a stadium show in May. Then July, it was The Rolling Stones. Then July 29th, it was the Eagles. And the stage stayed up in the north end zone, and the only thing that changed was the paint and the decorations of the stage. But we had hundreds of thousands of dollars coming in to CU, into the Program Council, and into the athletic department, into Boulder—the hotel rooms were filled, the restaurants were filled. It was a huge economic boon to the city of Boulder.

I had a golf cart that I would [use to] travel from the UMC to our office back stage at the stadium. I was the only student on campus with a little golf cart [chuckles] traveling around that said CU Program Council on it. I mean, some people said we were out of control, and maybe in some ways we were, but we were bringing—even back then as students—money talked, and we were bringing in huge revenue to everybody that was involved at that time.

[19:01]

SB: And what was the criticism about being uncontrolled about?

PL: Well, I remember there was sometimes conflicts with some of the people at the student government. They would go like, "Ugh, those guys, there they are in their golf carts again! Oh, my God; they are so out of control. They think they rule the campus." There are these elected officials and dealing with student fees and student money. And we're getting hundreds of thousands of dollars in through our business activities—benefitting the students—you know, we put so much into equipment and sound systems and programming and all that—but there was this little friction like, "Oh, God, there's the Program Council people again.” That went on.

The administrators just kind of got a kick out of it. I remember, I would always keep—I had a really good relationship with the president of the university at the time, who was Roland Rautenstraus, everybody called him "Raut." And I would go over to his office, which was right

here on campus at the time. And he just wanted updates on how things were going. And he would just say, "If you've got any problems with any of my people on the campus standing in your way, you let us know. You call me and let me know."

SB: So they were behind it.

PL: The president of the university was behind it. So sometimes, yeah, sometimes we would run into opposition or problems at different areas of the campus when we were trying to do something—especially for a stadium show. And I would go, as a student, I would go, "Don't make me call the president on this." And that would put an end to the issue. [chuckles]

SB: You had the backing of the president.

PL: I had the backing of the president, and it was a very empowering situation to be able to have that, and it gave Program Council the opportunity to really grow and expand and do so many things, because we knew we had that support from the administration.

[20:52]

SB: Yeah. And what had happened that shut down the concerts?

PL: Well, a lot of things. After I left, the Program Council continued to—they started working more—buying their own artists and working less with promoters taking the risk. Okay, well, we were buying artists when I was there selectively, but when you are buying other artists and putting the university or the Program Council's money up, if you're not picking the right acts, you're losing money very rapidly. So they started doing that. They were buying talent that was not making money.

SB: This was after you—

PL: After me; after I left. I was, at this point, working at Feyline with Barry Fey. And, in essence, what happened was, they suddenly went into deficit spending. They spent all their money in the Program Council accounts. The university had to step in and was ultimately liable for those expenses, for those bills, because it was still a university account. So suddenly when— it's one thing when you are making money and you're operating in the black. The minute you hit deficit spending and you're in the red, somebody goes, "Whoa! What's going on here?"

So there were audits and accusations of misuse of funds. The whole accounting was reorganized. They suddenly became—they were moved under the UMC board, there were restrictions put on them. And then, even after that, then they had to start requesting student fees, because they didn't have any more money. So the dynamics changed. It went from this semi-autonomous business on campus, to one that became a much more controlled operation by the administration, because once you are touching student fees, it has to be that way. So that was the shift in the dynamics of what took place.

[22:53]

SB: And, before you got rolling, hadn't they stopped concerts at Folsom?

PL: Yes, they had, because after—I was at Program Council, but when we did the Doobie Brothers in 1975, it wasn't with Barry Fey. It was with another promoter that brought them in. That promoter had promised the athletic department to make sure that nothing happened to the AstroTurf. It was AstroTurf back then. Unfortunately, he didn't live up to his obligations. The plywood to protect it didn't arrive. The tarp coverage wasn't adequate. And after the stadium concert I was there. I was the assistant to the director. So I was part of it. So everything was going on—

I remember the concert was over. There were the Sani-lets, the Port-a-Potties, along the field. Eddie Crowder came down from his office in Folsom Stadium and jumped over the wall to come down to talk to the director, and I'm standing there watching this. And he fell right into all the Sani-lets, the Port-a-Potties, that had overflowed. And he just literally landed hand and feet into the mess, overflow, of—. So, he got up, and you have never seen more verbal abuse sent in the direction of the Program Council director. And I'm watching this. And I'm hoping that—oh my God, I'm the next director, I hope—and now I'm seeing in front of me my dreams go to pieces because he's telling the director, who is standing next to me, "You're a bald-faced liar! Blah- blah-blah! You promised me you'd keep this stadium safe! Over my dead body, there will never be another stadium show in Folsom again!" And this is May of 1975. And suddenly I'm like, oh my God!

[24:47]

So, fast-forward a year later, April of '76, when I am suddenly director, I know that the biggest financial opportunity and the financial resources available to the Program Council is the stadium. And from the minute I became director, that was my objective, to mend the fences with Eddie Crowder—with the athletic department. They were basically road blocking the way. And put that era behind us. And always have a promoter that would come in that would live up to all the promises. And really, the key was—I remember that first month I met with Eddie Crowder—and I did all my research on him—people told me he likes to be called Coach, wants to be respected as a coach, that's the direction you should come to him as; get a haircut, dress up, wear a jacket and a tie when you go meet with him.

So I did all that. We had a really cordial meeting. He recognized me, knew me from, you know, just the director's kid that would always be at his side. But now I was in charge. So I met with him and I said, "Listen, bottom line, Coach, what is it going to take to get stadium shows back in here?" And he goes, "All right, you want to be a businessman? I'll tell you what it's going to take. Do you know how much we get from your God-damn stadium shows up till now? I get a rental of $300. $300 for this 60,000-seat stadium! And every time I've gone to the Board of Regents to try to get a 50-cent surcharge on tickets for all events—anybody—so that we make some money on the events in my stadium,"—MY stadium—he goes, "your student body opposes it. So you want to know how you can help me? Let's stop that opposition. You want stadium concerts? Give me my 50-cents a ticket. Not just your concerts. On anything."

And I'm looking at him and I’m going, "Really? That's it? Like if I can help you get that approved, you'll let us have stadium shows?" And he says, "Yeah. It's that simple." And I reach out and shake his hand and said, "Coach, you got a deal."

[26:46]

And I went to work on it. I started meeting with the Colorado Daily, talked to the journalists. Gave them a vision of what it could be. I would talk about CU, it could be the Red Rocks of Boulder—Folsom Stadium could be the Red Rocks of Boulder. You can find that in the archives of the Colorado Daily, that exact quote. And so this vision started getting out there—what could be if we could get back in the stadium.

And then I went to meet with the student executives—the UCSU? What's the—whatever the—I forget what it's called—well, whoever the executives were that ran the student government. And I said, "Guys! What are we fighting here?" I said, "He's not trying to screw the students and say 50-cents—in fact, on all events—if he has a football game, it'll be a 50-cent charge. So all I'm asking is like—what's going to be great for students is having these concerts. Next time he goes before the Board of Regents and requests this 50-cent surcharge, just be absent. Don't opposed it. That's all you've got to do. And then the students benefit. And that's YOUR job, to let the students benefit, so that we can have this programming."

And they didn't go. They stayed away from the meeting. They didn't oppose it. Crowder went before the Regents. There was no hub-bub. He got his 50-cents. And that was it. We planned the next year—May 10, 1977: Fleetwood Mac, Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band, FireFall—sold out. It was the last GA show in Folsom Stadium—General Admission. It sold out ten-days in advance. Rumors [Fleetwood Mac album] was number one on the charts. Bob Seger was number two on the Billboard charts. Firefall was top 10. We could have done 80,000 tickets. We did 61,000 tickets—61,500 tickets—sold out 10 days in advance. And that was the start of a golden era. And from that show—the athletic department, Eddie Crowder, made 30 grand—for doing nothing.

SB: Wow!

PL: Thirty grand—fifty-cents a ticket. And Program Council made over 30 grand. And the university charged all theses expenses to—made so much money. And of course the city made so much money.

But then we got into a problem where there was a cloud covered in rain during the show when Stevie Nicks started singing “Thunder Only Happens When It's Raining.” And the sound was bouncing off the clouds and hitting in Table Mesa. And then became a whole issue with the sound ordinance. And we suddenly had to deal with that for the next year—new problem! Literally, the people in Table Mesa were hearing the concert as if it were in their own backyard. So then it became sound restrictions and decibel levels and all that for the shows in the summer of '78, which was my last year as director. But at least we were allowed stadium shows. And the summer of '78, the athletic department made over $100,000. One hundred thousand found dollars for doing nothing.

SB: And that was back in '78. That’s still a lot of money.

PL: That’s big money. Yeah, but now that would be worth probably three times that with inflation. So that's a little bit of the financial history of Program Council and how I made it work when I was there and why it kind flourished during those years.

[29:57]

SB: Yeah. It really is amazing to hear about the caliber of the shows that were coming through. Now, segue—Program Council was behind other types of activities?

PL: Yes, yes. Program Council had been around before I came. As a matter of fact, I think ten years ago they had celebrated their fiftieth anniversary. So Program Council has been around sixty years. Program Council did everything on campus. Program Council's mission from the university was, if it was student entertainment—a promoter wanted to bring entertainment on campus—aside from classical, aside from speakers—there was a Cultural Events Board for speakers, although we could do speakers—there were classical programs. Program Council's mission was to provide entertainment for the student body.

So we had incredible theaters. We had the biggest film program west of the Mississippi, with three theaters. Like I say, Chem 132, Chem 140, the Forum Room in the UMC. Running films six days a week. You'd usually have about 150 films a year. This was before videos, really before cable. And the movies were a dollar. So you could go off campus for a 3-, 4-dollar movie. You could come on campus. And we had pretty close to first-run films in our Cinema One, Chem 140, which seated I think about 400-plus people. We installed CinemaScope screens in there and Bose Surround-Sound speakers.

And then we brought speakers. We had Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein and William Shatner here. And we had Timothy Leary. And we had Vincent Bugliosi. Senator William Proxmire. We had so many.

And then we also had the Trivia Bowl, which back then was so famous and so well known. It was a contest of Trivia with teams. And it would pack the ballroom for a week every April. And teams would vie for that Trivia Bowl Trophy. It was huge, and that was fun, because it was free to the students. That was funded by revenue from the Program Council and we would provide a week-long entertainment, really. Then we would have celebrities come in for that from Tommy James and the Shondells to whoever—you know, trivia-type artists. Artists from the 50s, '60s. Back then we were doing it in the '70s.

[32:24]

So there were a lot of things Program Council had its hands in. Sometimes—I mean, we brought in the M.C. Escher exhibit—the famous Escher paintings. We did several concerts in the Mary Ripon Theater, which was a controversy there, because we had to deal with the Shakespeare Festival and the conflicts of the Shakespeare Festival and not messing with their—that was a

battle too. So—you know, this Mary Ripon Theater can't just be—Shakespeare Festival has a huge heritage and a huge history, but you've got to open this up. We're not bringing rock and roll in there. We're not brining heavy metal. We're brining things like Laura Nero. Or we're bringing things like folk music in there. We're not going to destroy the sets to have a concert there. So that was a battle too.

There are always a lot of battles. A lot of battles. Macky Auditorium—there were many battles there, because at the time Macky Auditorium wanted their staff, only their staff, to usher and manage our concerts. And my contention was the Program Council is here to provide a learning experience for the students. And that we are promoting concerts in the stadium. We are promoting concerts in the Balch Fieldhouse. We're doing it in the ballroom. We have a staff of people that are trained in all these venues. Why should it only be your staff in Macky Auditorium? Why shouldn't I be able to have our staff also work side-by-side. That was a battle. I had to go to the Dean of the Student Union—the Dean of Student Affairs—on campus to finally settle it, that, okay, we're going to share this—there are going to be staffers from Macky and also a matching number of people from the Program Council, so that they can work hand-in- hand together. Our people were working for free. Whether it was just guiding people down the aisles or handing them programs, I just wanted the Program Council staff, these volunteers, to be able to participate in the events. And we were doing so many shows then—at Macky Auditorium—we’re talking maybe 20 or more shows a year at Macky—that to eliminate Program Council staffing from that, I thought, was an affront.

And there were battles—I was battling an administrator that was stopping us. So I had to go to administrators above her head to get us to be able to have our students in there and remind them that the university was here to serve the students, not the staff and the administration. It was always a constant battle when I was a student. Remember what your mission is—you're here to educate and serve the students. You're not here to create your own fiefdom, which is what I would say.

[34:57]

And then, because I learned how to really use and have a great relationship with the media, if the issue really was not something that could be solved, I'd walk around the corner and come into the Colorado Daily office or they would come into my office, and we would have a conference there after hours, which usually meant having a hit off the bong, which was hidden in the secretary's desk, and we would talk about it in a state of—and we would hash it out, and they would go, "You know what? We should do a story on this." I go, "Absolutely, you should do a story on this." And once a story ran, kind of exposing the administration standing in the way of student needs or desires or education, the problem would get solved really quick.

So that was—I mean, I've been in P.R. now—a P.R. company in L.A. for thirty years, but my formative years of learning how the media can shape a story and help you reach your goals really happened here when I was at CU because of my relationship with the Daily.

SB: Yeah. And you were right down the hall.

PL: Right around the corner. Yes. They were in this office and I was around the corner.

[36:13]

SB: And tell me what you remember about the Hairy Bacon Bowl, because those were sponsored by the Program Council.

PL: Yes. And when I got here, the Hairy Bacon Bowls were going on and it was a remnant from the Vietnam War, the civil unrest years when there were riots on this campus, back in '71, '72, '73, I think. The last riots happened before I got here. And the Hairy Bacon Bowl started—it's mission was to bridge the gap between students—the long-hairs, the hairy guys—and the cops— the pigs—hence the bacon. So they called it the Hairy—for the students—Bacon—for the pigs— Bowl. And that was a way to kind of, through sports, bridge the gap and the antagonism between the cops and the student body, much the way when the U.S. finally in the Nixon years went to China, it started over a ping-pong game. It was ping-pong players doing ping-pong against the Chinese, and that was ultimately was the entryway to Henry Kissinger and Nixon going to China. So they thought—well—before I got here, this was kind of like the decision process: Well, if ping-pong could help broach U.S. And Chinese relations, maybe we should do a football game to help broach the students, the hippies, and the cops, the pigs relations. That's kind of how it started. That was the concept behind it.

SB: Right. I hadn't heard the link to Nixon and the Chinese ping-pong.

PL: Yeah.

[37:46]

SB: All right. And is that something you thought of yourself?

PL: No. Like I say, I came—when I got to CU, it was already happening. It had already—the Hairy Bacon Bowl was an ongoing thing.

SB: Yeah.

PL: My first real involvement with it was, at the end of my freshman year, I was suddenly put in charge of advertising. And they said, "Oh, you'd better do an ad for the Hairy Bacon Bowl. It's coming up in a couple of weeks." And I was like, "How do I do an ad for this?" They go, "Well, you're in charge. You figure it out."

So at first I did like a little drawing of the stadium and gave it to the Colorado Daily and they ran it. It said "Hairy Bacon Bowl" and this very poor drawing of Folsom Stadium. And when it came out—I was not the director—the director then said, "What the “f” is this? This is like horrible! How could you run this?" "Yeah, it didn't come out really well, did it?" He said, "You'd better figure out how to make it look better."

So I went and I got, I think, a photograph in the archives of the CU Daily of the stadium. And I had them cut out the stadium—it was full of people—and I had them put it in a nice border and we picked some nice type style. And suddenly, that second ad—which I think you sent to me— emailed me—was a good-looking ad, and everybody was like, "Now THAT'S how the ad should be looking." And I go, "Yeah, yeah, I got it. I got it. Okay." And it never happened again. I realized my talents were not in artistry. That I just would rely on graphics and other pre- constructed graphics to put together, to give to the Colorado Daily for advertising.

SB: A collage type of thing.

PH: Yes, a collage. I would not try to be an artist myself.

SB: Gotta give you credit for trying.

PL: Yeah. Yeah. It was a lesson—I was really kind of humiliated from that and it never happened again.

SB: You learned so much.

PL: I learned real fast, yeah.

[39:36]

SB: So you started—tell me the year again you started at Program Council.

PL: I started—the year I started volunteering was September of '73. And I left as director in December of '78. And I took over as director in March of '76.

SB: Okay. And you were saying—so you remember that they happened—the Hairy Bacon Bowls—

PL: Yes.

SB: Why would Program Council have been interested in supporting those and keeping those going?

PL: Well, you know, I really can't give you the answer to that, because since it started before me, how the Program Council became the sponsor or pulled into that, I'm not sure other than it was kind of like—it wasn't really a sporting event, it was an entertainment kind of event. The idea was to have the students watching this, and it was a fun football game—it wasn't a real football game with jerseys. It was—you pulled the cloth—you tackled somebody, you pulled the cloth off out of their belt. So again, it fell into that entertainment zone. So I think that's how it fell in the Program Council's lap.

SB: I see. Did you attend any of the games?

PL: Um, you know, I can't remember! [chuckles] I don't know. I vividly remember putting the ads together. Was I actually there on that day? I don't remember! Don't remember. But during those years there are a number of things I don't remember just because of the nature of the '70s.

[41:03]

SB: I've heard that before. [laughter] And they went on from '70 to '76, I've just learned. And before we started recording, you said something to the effect of when you were finally in charge—

PL: Right. Right. So I took over March of '76, and at that point, the last of the “long-haired hippies” as Crowder—Eddie Crowder, the coach—used to call us, they were gone. I mean, at the time Program Council, the director and the concert programmer, they had hair well down past their shoulders. And then I came in, and I'm wearing suits and wearing ties and my hair was a big Afro, but it was not down past my neck. There was nobody really there with like really long, hippie-like hair. And when it came to moving the Program Council kind of in a more business- like direction, we just kind of all looked at each other—my staff and I—and said, "Does this make sense anymore?"

SB: The game.

PL: The game, the Hairy Bacon Bowl. There's no riots anymore. The Nixon years have passed. There's no more anti-war protests. As a matter of fact, the year that I started at CU, ironically, it went from the year before—anti-war protests—to streaking, the year I was a freshman. And literally, we had thousands of people out of the dorms streaking naked across campus—like into the library and into the UMC—en masse! Streaking. That was the year that—somebody streaked the Oscars that year. People were streaking naked on football games. Streaking. So how dramatically it shifted politically from what I heard the year before I got there and two years before where professors would literally dismiss the class to join protests that were happening against the war out on campus. "Class dismissed. Go protest!" To now, we were streaking for fun.

SB: Yeah. Frivolous.

PL: Frivolous mass gatherings. [snaps fingers] Like overnight a new generation came in, and that new generation was, for me, was like okay, let's make this a business. I would tell everybody—I would say to the Colorado Daily in interviews—I would say, "The same way the football team and the athletic department strive to be the very best in the nation—let's take that approach. Let us become the very best programming organization in the nation. That should be our goal. And let's run it like a business. And also the objective being that people that work for the Program Council, I don't want you to have to have—go to school—have another job to pay for your bills and have to work at the Program Council. Let's bring it up to the level where you go to school and Program Council can afford to pay you enough money so you can dedicate your free time to Program Council and be compensated." And that was the other approach that really changed. Suddenly, we had a core staff of a dozen people that were making money, but they were giving

all their free time to the Program Council and making money for it. No more second jobs or third jobs.

[44:18]

And so we completely changed the dynamic. We had a creative and energetic student body— students at the Program Council—that were committed to making this great. The final recognition of that was my last year—in 1978—we won Billboard Magazine's College Talent Buyer of the Year award. We were recognized as the number one college campus programmers in the nation. It was that award that I sent home to my parents, and I said, "I got my degree. This is what I'm here for. This has become my career. I don't need to stick around at this point and get the CU piece of paper, because this says University of Colorado on it. And we're the best in the nation. And I'm going to go work for—”—I got an offer to work for Barry Fey and Chuck Morris at Feyline. And I left.

And the great thing about that was it was not much of a transition, because when I went to Feyline, then I was the one bringing all the shows to the CU Program Council. So I stayed in touch with and had a relationship with the Program Council well after I left. I was here for every concert, and I'd be the one that booked the concerts for them. And I would be settling with them at Macky Auditorium or the Ballroom or whatever the menu was—the Fieldhouse.

Or then we had the CU Events Center. We had that, which unfortunately was constructed so it sounded terrible, which is why there are hardly any concerts there anymore. We were on the committee to advise them, and they built the CU Events Center and didn't take any of our concerns—I said, "You've got to have this or the acoustics will be bad if you don't do this. The sight lines will be bad if you don't do this." My comments, my complaints would be in the minutes, and then they did their own thing. I didn't have the power to dictate how they would spend the money. That's why the CU Events Center has virtually no concerts. After a flurry of concerts the first few years, the word would get out in the industry that the place sounded like tin can. And managers and agents heard that, so they wouldn't come and play the CU Events Center.

[46:25]

SB: But you met your goals while you were hear, it sounds like—

PL: I did. My wildest dreams. Yes.

SB: Yeah, it launched you into a career.

PL: A career, yeah, first at Feyline, and then 30 years now—January 2016 is my 30th year with Lobeline Communications.

SB: Yeah, and so say what you do now, what your work is now.

PL: Since I knew media so well, and I knew how to get P.R. for everything that I knew from the Program Council days to certainly when I was at Feyline, I oversaw—if I didn't do it personally,

I had people working for me to get stories for the concerts we were doing. P.R. was my thing, so it was really natural, when I wanted to move to LA, I wanted to started by own P.R. business from scratch—not work for anybody.

In hindsight, I don't know if I would do it again, because by a year-and-a-half into it I was so far in debt, and it was very tough. But I had a lucky break. I moved out there in '86, January of '86. And in September of '87 a friend of mine, who was also in college at the time at University of California, San Diego by La Jolla, was an agent and was going solo as a manager. He called me up in September of '87 and said, "My client is going solo, and he's looking for a publicist. Are you interested in meeting him?" And I said, "Well, who's your client? Who am I meeting with?" And he said, "George Michael." And I said, "You mean that guy from "Wham!"? He goes, "Don't let that taint your opinion. This new album coming out, it's called the Faith album. It's amazing. I'm sending you over a cassette." It was cassettes back then. Records and cassettes. Records on vinyl and cassettes. It wasn't eight-track, but it was just a little cassette.

[48:17]

So he sent it over, and I listened to it on my Sony Walkman, not my iPhone—my Sony Walkman. And after—I listened to it at the gym—twice. And I called him up, and I said, "Rob! You know you have six or seven number one hit singles on this record. Because I had ears that I could tell. I trained all these years to spot hit singles.

And he goes, "I know. We know. We know. Do you want to meet with George Michael?" I said, "Yeah! Of course I want to meet with him. This is an amazing record." And we had on that "I Want Your Sex," "Faith," "Father Figure," "One More Try," "Monkey," and "Kissing a Fool." Six number one hit singles. The album sold 17 million. And I never looked back. Suddenly I was doing the hottest artist in the country at that time. There was—Michael Jackson had "Bad." And George Michael had "Faith" album.

And I created this story called "The Battle of the Michaels" that I would put out to everybody. [Quoting himself at that time]: "The Battle of the Michaels continues this week as George Michaels "I Want Your Sex" climbs to number one, passing Michael Jackson’s, who’s falling on the charts."

So I wanted to elevate George Michael to the level of Michael Jackson. And I would hear the Casey Casem countdowns and the Dick Clark countdowns, and they'd be saying the words that I sent them by fax—because we didn't have email. We'd fax it to all these media outlets, and they picked up on my line: The Battle of the Michaels.

And that was it. I mean, my career took off as my own company. From that, twenty years with David Copperfield. I had Brad Pitt. Tony Robbins. Van Morrison. The Blue Man Group. Just so many. Not all music, but—Lisa Vanderpump today, from Real Housewives of Beverley Hills. Um—the Ten Tenors from Australia. The world famous Lippizaner Stallions. We do a lot of stuff. Thirty years I've been doing it, in January.

[50:03]

SB: Yeah. And it all started out—

PL: It all happened from the Program Council.

SB: Almost from this office.

PL: It did. Almost, really. Yes. Because I snuck into that concert in 1973 at Folsom Stadium. So that's why the Program Council means a lot to me. We set up an endowment here. The Program Council directors get an endowment that I set up for them in perpetuity, because it meant so much to me. I believe that future directors also, hopefully, can find their careers in life out of the Program Council. And that's why I asked you to do the interview here, because we're surrounded by a lot of memories here. Walls of concerts and music and events and speakers that go back 30, 40, 50 years.

SB: You were pointing to Rolling Stone before—

PL: That's from 1978—July 16, 1978. Barry Fey's birthday, he gave himself a gift and booked The Rolling Stones, which was his favorite band. That, right there, is from Folsom Stadium. There's a lot of memories here. And all these years I've been in touch with all the directors. I'm always available to them by phone or by email. It's nice. And of course I was just in town this weekend for our win over CSU—the CU-CSU game—where we won in overtime 27 to 24. I hang out there—I go to the president's box and the chancellor.

The interesting thing now is that the chancellor, Phil DiStefano, he came and visited once at our office in Los Angeles. And he saw the big picture of The Rolling Stones show up on my wall—a big panoramic shot, multiple panels of a print, framed. And he looks up, and he points, and he goes, "That's Yvonne and me sitting right there." And I go, "You're kidding me. Really? You were at our show?" He says, "I mean, yeah. I had long hair and a beard then—we were hippies here in Boulder. But I was there at your Folsom Stadium show with The Rolling Stones in 1978." And I said, "Wow. I got to hand it to you. You're the first chancellor to tell me that you were actually at my concert."

[52:13]

So, we've just really had a great time. And now also, I'm on the Colorado Music Hall of Fame. I'm one of the founding directors. So the artists that I work with—we just inducted FireFall this past year into the Colorado Music Hall of Fame. The new home is at Red Rocks Trading Post. And FireFall, the guys used to come and hang on this floor. The UMC—they would just hang out in our office. They did two free shows at Macky Auditorium to say thank you to Boulder and to the campus. We gave out 5,000 tickets to two shows at Macky. Never happened again. For the band from Boulder saying thank you to their fans and their friends.

SB: And when was that?

PL: Well, the album came out—let's see, they played in Folsom Stadium in May of '77. So the album, I believe, came out in probably—it was, I think it was the fall of '76. So when the album came out—I think it was '76—when the album came out, they had so many requests from friends, because this was their home—they came to me—they came up to the Program Council Office—and they said, "We'd like to do a concert for our friends." I said, "Well, if you are going to do a concert for your friends, we've got to give half the house to the students." They go, "Oh, well, half the house to the students—that means—that gives us about 1200 tickets for our friends." I go, "Yeah." He said, "Well, we need more than that." I said, "Why don't we do two concerts. Two. We'll do an early show and a late show."

So we did two shows, back-to-back; 5,000 tickets. Every other row got—there was hard tickets then—it was before we had Select-a-Seat or Ticketmaster—so tickets were printed up. Every other row was for the students. The students lined up in the UMC, downstairs. It was first come- first serve, get your tickets—two tickets per person—maybe it was one, I don't remember. But the point is, 2,500 students got to see FireFall say thank you to them here at Macky Auditorium in 1976.

And then they came back to be the opening act for Fleetwood Mac in Folsom Stadium. And now, like I say, to be able to be on the Colorado Music Hall of Fame board and to have had them honored as being inducted in our third or fourth year—all the old band members got together and appeared on stage. We did it at the Paramount Theater in Denver. It was just an amazing night. Nobody wanted to let them leave the stage. They and other bands got inducted, but they were the CU-Boulder band.

[54:46]

SB: Wow. And you know, just in general, Boulder—like you've come back now—do you come back often?

PL: A couple of times a year, usually.

SB: And thinking back on when you were here in the '70s, what—how would you describe what it was like in the '70s, compared to—

PL: Well, I wish I had the money to have bought some real estate back then [laughter], that's the first thing. My brother ended up coming to CU, and my cousin ended up coming to CU. They both came out—I had them flown out for the Fleetwood Mac concert. My brother decided not to go to Ames, Iowa; he came out here. And my cousin transferred from Tulane to Boulder. Became a doctor because he came here and got exposure to Boulder from that Fleetwood Mac concert, backstage, I had him backstage.

In some ways it's still the same.

SB: How is it the same?

PL: I mean, you know, the campus has grown; there's so many more buildings. But those Flatirons are still there. Boulder wisely bought the Greenbelt, spent the citizen's taxes. You come over U.S. 36, and there's still those cows grazing in the pasture—that view—and they managed to not—the term back then is “Don't Californicate Colorado.” And they managed to have laws in place and had the foresight to not have the homes built up, up the Flatirons and up the foothills, and keep that beauty there. So I'm here thirty years later, that which was so attractive of Boulder back then is still there because of the foresight.

The Pearl Street Mall just opened when I was a student here. It devastated the businesses there for a year of construction, but I knew that that would be just such a windfall for the city. You could barely walk on the Pearl Street Mall in the summer.

The Boulderado—we used to have parties at the Boulderado. We used to have the artists come to the Greenbriar. At the Greenbriar Inn, they would hold parties for us up on the second floor.

When Robin Williams had "Mork and Mindy" on the air, he came and did two free shows—not free shows—he did two shows. Sold out at Macky Auditorium. This was a couple of years after I left, but I booked them—I was at Feyline. Did two shows at Macky Auditorium. The night before, we had the Doobie Brothers in, I think, '80 or '81, at Folsom Stadium. And after he's partied all night at the Greenbriar till sunrise, he came to Folsom Stadium and hung out with us. I have a picture, I think I sent you, of me and Robin Williams backstage at the Doobie Brothers. I mean, that's amazing. So that's 5,000 tickets sold out the night before on a Saturday night at Macky. Now you've got 40,000 people in the stadium in '81.

And this is after me. Program Council still thriving and doing just amazing things. Great artists were coming in.

[57:34]

So it's just been—I come back here and I—I'm older, but I kind of feel still like student when I come here. And I always meet with the students of the Program Council. In May of this year— no in April of 2016—we're inducting—the Colorado Music Hall of Fame—is inducting Glenn Miller into the Colorado Music Hall of Fame posthumously. Obviously posthumously. But family is going to be here, and Glenn Miller is going to be inducted in his namesake—the Glenn Miller Ballroom.

SB: His family?

PL: Yeah, the survivors of Glenn MIller's family will be here for this. And the Glenn Miller orchestra is going to play. And so my connections to Boulder and to CU and to Colorado music still really remain very active and very alive. And I love it. I'm thrilled that I can keep that connection going.

SB: Right. Strong roots.

PL: Yeah. Because my whole adult life really came out of what I did here at the CU Program Council.

[58:38]

SB: And it doesn't sound like—did you identify at all with—because a lot of my focus in other interviews has been the Hairy Bacon Bowl—just a little bit about those again—

PL: Yes.

SB: Did you identify at all with being a hippie?

PL: No, I actually didn't. It's funny you mention that, because after I snuck into the Leon Russell concert, I came up to the UMC. I came here three times and walked by the office, and inside there were like all these long-haired hippies. And I’d look in and I walk by and I’d leave, because I felt so uncomfortable going in. And I did that once—

SB: Because they were hippies?

PL: Because they—yeah, to me they were hippies.

SB: And that was sort of foreign?

PL: Yes, it was. It was. It was just not who I was.

SB: You were shy—

PL: Maybe shy. I was not comfortable not walking in. And then I came by another day, and same thing—there were multiple people in there that were just hair down to their back, and not who I was. And then finally, the third time I came by there was just one person in the office—Neil Monthaven [?]—Neil is still in the entertainment business. I think he works in Las Vegas. He was the special events director or the concert production. He was all alone in the office. So it was just me and him. So I had the nerve to walk in, and I said, "I want to volunteer." He handed me a stack of posters and said, "Here, hang these up." And it was New Riders of the Purple Sage and Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen. Beautiful posters that were designed by a famous artist by the name of Chaz Barber who I still know and see today. He comes to many of the Colorado Hall of Fame events.

I took the posters—he gave me like 100 posters, and I went to all the dorms, and I put them out on the bulletin boards. But then I thought, there's a better way, I think. I think if I put them inside every bathroom stall, I'll have the undivided attention of the people that are in there. So for the women, I would put it on the inside door, and for the guys I would put it in front of the urinals or, again, also the inside door. And so I did that like in one hour, and I came back to the Program Council office and I said to Neil, "I'm done. They're all up." And he goes, "Dude, did you throw these out?" I go, "No. I hung them up." He says, "How did you get rid of 100 posters so fast? It's not even an hour you've been gone." I said, "I hung them up in all the bathroom stalls on

campus." He goes, "Oh, that's a great idea. Here's another hundred. Go do your job. Go try Kittredge and Williams Village." And he gave me another hundred posters. And I became known as the best poster-hanger-up volunteer that the Program Council had.

[1:01:14]

And then they asked me to work on stage crew. The New Riders of the Purple Sage cancelled, so it became—it was Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen and the Marshall Tucker Band. They were playing the Balch Fieldhouse, and I volunteered for stage crew. I didn't know what stage crew was. I found out stage crew meant building a stage with scaffolding and then after you put the scaffolding up, you put 2 x 8s, and then you put two layers of plywood and you’d hammer the plywood. They didn't have modular staging back then, so you'd spend like seven hours building this stage.

I thought that was it, so we built the stage, the show was going on, and I go, "So we get to watch the show? When do I get my t-shirt and my $40 for working?" And they go, "You get it when you tear down the stage after the show." And I go, "Tear down the stage?!? Wait! We put nails in that plywood! Why did we nail the stuff if we're tearing it down?" He goes, "How do you think this stage goes away?" I go, "You're kidding me. I have a test tomorrow." And they go, "Well, you signed—if you want your shirt and your money, you've got to be here until we tear this down." And I was like, "Oh, my God!"

[1:02:35]

So sometime at around—I was a freshman—sometime at around 3 in the morning, these upperclassmen took pity on me, and they said, "Okay, go home and go to the dorms, and you an have your shirt and you can have your 40 bucks. But if you volunteer for stage again, just know that we've got to tear down the stage." And I did one more stage crew—it was Joni Mitchell when the Court and Spark album came out, and that was my second stage crew.

[1:02:55]

We're almost done here. [laughter] Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's kind of—

SB: Yeah, I bet—I lost my train of thought. And you didn't consider yourself a hippie.

PL: No, I didn't consider myself a hippie.

SB: And were there tensions between police and students that you remember or heard about?

PL: You know, starting that year there really wasn't. I mean, I became friends with the ENTIRE police department. A, I was working as the night clerk at Farrand Hall, and later on, I think, at Libby Hall. So they were like my buddies. They would come in, and we would chat. If I wasn't asleep or they woke me up, we would just chat about things. And then once we started doing the stadium concerts, and even for the Fieldhouse and that, I became friends with Chief Towl and Captain Fred Gerhardt. I knew all the police on campus. I knew them all by their first names, and

over the years, even—just up to a few years ago, I think, the last of the holdouts from my years finally took retirement. But I would see them and they would be like old-home week, like, "Phil, what are you doing here,” and blah, blah, blah. I was friends with all the police.

SB: So you had good relations with them.

PL: I had great relations with them.

[1:04:16]

SB: And the times were different, you were saying, than when the games originated.

PL: Yes. Yes.

SB: It wasn't the same—

PL: There were no more riots on campus. There was no more war to protest when I was here. It was all different. Now we were all into like studying and concerts [chuckles]. Yeah.

SB: Anything else besides studying and concerts?

PL: Well—and partying. Partying.

SB: I love the story, though, about the bong in the secretary's drawer—that’s a sign of the times.

PL: Yeah, and you know, a lot of great stories—it kind of was a foreshadowing of where Colorado is today. I was at the game yesterday at Sports Authority Field. We were up in one of the suites, and we could smell it wafting up into the box. [laughter] Like—ooohh—

SB: Part of the ambiance.

PL: Part of the ambiance, right. It doesn't have to be secretive. Although I think you're not supposed to smoke in a public place anyhow.

SB: That's true. That part is not that in control—

PL: But you know, it's not illegal anymore. You don't have to hide the—like I say—the—. But a lot of those great stories came out of sitting there after 5:00 in—the Colorado Daily office would close, and the reporter or the editor would come over, and we would talk about what could be for the Program Council and the campus—

SB: And you said a lot of the creative ideas—

PL: While we were smoking—

SB: —while you were smoking.

PL: While we were smoking, yes.

SB: Okay, so, that says something about—something.

[1:05:47]

PL: So I think we covered everything.

SB: I think so. Anything else—in terms of those Hairy Bacon Bowls—do you think they could have any application in today's times?

PL: Um, well—sports can always have an—like I say, like the U.S. and Chinese used ping-pong. And we were using football to bridge the gap. Maybe, I don't know, maybe we should start having sports between the Iranians and the U.S.—other than just a peace treaty for nuclear proliferation. Who knows?

SB: I like that idea.

PL: But it seems like sports is the way to go, right?

SB: Could be.

PL: Sports or entertainment. Something that's not political.

SB: A combination.

PL: Yeah, right. Exactly.

SB: Like you were saying, it was sort of a combination.

PL: Yes, it was, because the Hairy Bacon Bowl was really an entertaining sporting event, just like ping-pong was for the Chinese in the U.S. in the '60s.

SB: Yeah, I like that analogy. Well, thanks so much for your time.

PL: All right. You got it.

SB: Anything else you want to add?

PL: I think that's it.

SB: Okay.

PL: Say hi to the next director of the Program Council.

SB: [talking to someone else] And can you just say your name?

AK: [difficult to hear, because person is not mic'ed] I'm Ari Kononov. And I'm going to be the director, starting in the summer, of Program Council.

PL: Ari Kononov, in case you didn't hear. And he'll have a long legacy, because he's only a sophomore, so—

AK: Yes, I hope so.

SB: Yeah. How do you spell your last name?

AK: K-o-n-o-n-o-v.

SB: K-o-n-o-n-o-v. Okay. Thanks.

PL: And he also happens to be partly from New Jersey. So there we go.

SB: Oh really. So he carries on the lineage. Thanks, Phil.

PL: Jersey rules! That’s right.

SB: Okay. Thanks, Phil.

PL: All right. Thank you. Bye.

SB: Bye.

[1:07:32]

[End of interview]