Transcript
BROOKE GLADSTONE: This is On The Media. I'm Brooke Gladstone.
BOB GARFIELD: And I'm Bob Garfield. Former Saturday Night Live cast member Charles Rocket didn't leave much of a mark on comedy, but he nevertheless entered the annals of live TV when he was fired in 1981 for blurting out a very naughty word in the middle of Weekend Update. NBC was fined for a 2003 incident when U2 front man and political activist Bono used the very same vulgarity during the live Golden Globes telecast. Then last weekend, the pantheon of broadcast "f-sters" got a new member, noted sports author, NPR regular and Naval Academy football color commentator, John Feinstein. Appalled by a referee's call in Navy's contest against Duke, Feinstein found himself losing his sense of place and uttering exactly what he was thinking, in exactly the way he was thinking it. He joins us now to relive the unfortunate lapse. John, welcome to OTM.
JOHN FEINSTEIN: Thanks. How are you, Bob?
BOB GARFIELD: I'm okay. Now, John, there are pretty much two rules for live broadcast. One is to keep your hair looking nice and the other is don't say the f-word. You were on the radio - your hair wasn't a concern. You had one [CHUCKLES] thing to remember. How the [BEEP] did you screw this up?
JOHN FEINSTEIN: [LAUGHS] I lost my composure is the very simple answer. The officiating in the game was terrible. That's certainly no excuse for what I did, but there was one call near the end of the game that was clearly a poor call. And ironically, Navy was playing Duke, which is where I went to college. And I just lost it for an instant. And when I said it, I couldn't believe I had said it. The first thing I did was I looked around the booth to see who had said it. And I saw everybody [BOB LAUGHING] staring at me, and I realized it was me, and I was shocked and horrified.
BOB GARFIELD: And there you were, the Charles Rocket of college football.
JOHN FEINSTEIN: Well, I don't know what I was. I was, I was thoroughly embarrassed is what I was. And I took off the headsets and went and found the, the athletic director and associate athletic director at Navy who were in charge of the radio network and said I wanted to apologize on the air. And I offered to resign. And they did not want me to resign. They said that I'd, you know, been associated with the school too long to have to do that because of two seconds of madness. And they've been fully supportive of me since the incident took place.
BOB GARFIELD: Now, speaking for myself, I'm pretty much a potty mouth in off-air life.
JOHN FEINSTEIN: Mm-hmm.
BOB GARFIELD: What about you?
JOHN FEINSTEIN: I am. It's a bad habit. And it, it's one that I've had for a long, long time. I grew up on the streets of New York. I've always lived in what I call "jock world," where that kind of language is the coin of the realm. My mother said to me many, many years ago that bad habits lead to bad things. I guess if anything good might come of all this, it's that I'm now going to be far more conscious about that. My wife has urged me to be conscious of it for years, especially around the children. And I hope that this will be a lesson for me. I think I've been profanity-sober for five days now and -
BOB GARFIELD: [LAUGHS]
JOHN FEINSTEIN: - I hope to get through one more day.
BOB GARFIELD: [LAUGHING] Yeah. Well, don't fall off the wagon. I want to know, was this an episode that you had feared would come to pass? I mean, nine years in the booth doing color commentary in the heat of sports battle, did you always worry somewhere in the back of your head that you were going to, you know, let the f-bomb go?
JOHN FEINSTEIN: Never crossed my mind. Never. I mean, I don't know how many times I've been on live television and radio in my life, but it's into the - at this point it's into the thousands. So it never crossed my mind, which may be why it happened. A number of people have called me this week, other people who are in the announcing business, and told stories. Dick Vitale told me he always puts the word "satellite" in front of him during a telecast to remind him not to forget during a commercial that you can still be heard on the satellite. So maybe if I'd thought about that possibility, it, it wouldn't have happened.
BOB GARFIELD: Now, I hate to do this to you, but only two months ago in the Washington Post you were kind of tough on Tiger Woods [OVERTALK] -
JOHN FEINSTEIN: Mm-hmm [AFFIRMATIVE].
BOB GARFIELD: - for his public demeanor -
JOHN FEINSTEIN: Mm-hmm [AFFIRMATIVE].
BOB GARFIELD: - including his liberal use of profanity.
JOHN FEINSTEIN: Mm-hmm [AFFIRMATIVE].
BOB GARFIELD: When you next see Tiger, if he points at you and laughs, how will you respond?
JOHN FEINSTEIN: I'll say, "You're entitled. Fine." I mean, he certainly won't be the first one to make a joke about it, particularly friends of mine who, A) know my tendency to use profanity, and in many cases friends of mine who use it themselves.
BOB GARFIELD: This weekend you'll be back on the air for the Navy/Air Force game. Will you be able to perform normally, or will you be so curse-word conscious that you just can't get, you know, any thought out coherently?
JOHN FEINSTEIN: I - I don't think it'll be a problem at all. And if I feel myself getting upset, I'll just say, "Serenity now."
BOB GARFIELD: [LAUGHS] All right, John. Many thanks. And what the darn heck! Go, Navy!
JOHN FEINSTEIN: [LAUGHS] Well, let's hope it's a good game. Thanks, Bob.
BOB GARFIELD: Author John Feinstein for nine years has been the color commentator for Naval Academy Football. [MUSIC UP AND UNDER] And now for some shameless self-promotion. In our ongoing attempt to serve you, our valued listeners, we have revamped our tired old newsletter. We've chucked the simple, relatively useless listing of what will be on the show and replaced it with a brief snapshot, written by a member of our staff, of a piece or interview we wrestled to the ground that week. Sometimes the notes are personal. Sometimes they're more like Production 101. But it is a look inside the show you couldn't get unless you interned for us, and we wouldn't wish that on anyone. So subscribe, for free, by going to our website at onthemedia.org. [MUSIC UP AND UNDER]
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