Radio waves and the art of abatement for a diehard gambler, Part 2
by Frank Cotolo
Part 1 is here.
My hiatus from intense gambling on harness and thoroughbred racing was a well-needed rest. It afforded me time and money from the successful Del Mar meet and gave me plenty of time for freelance writing and my playful but serious relationship with Natasha. I had a novel under my belt and it was becoming popular with ragtag horseplayers across the country. I was also writing for American Turf Monthly and Gambling Times and a few fiction/poetry underground magazines; and I still had time to kill.
I made no plans for a future. I was living day by day and night by night without a care. Then when Los Alamitos harness opened again, I showed up at Del Mar simulcasting for a casual visit. I was not prepared to take on the meet. I could afford not to dive into heavy handicapping and betting again for a while. Whenever.
That night I wandered around the simulcast theater and watched some Los Alamitos races. No betting. Until there was betting. I saw a race coming up with a horse I recalled and remembered it was in the hands of another trainer last season while this season it was in the training and driving hands of Joe Anderson. I looked at the tote board. The horse was 26-1. Impossible, I thought. Then my pro-betting-self kicked in and my brain did a quick measuring of odds — true handicapping — and I knew Anderson’s horse should not be 26-1. It was worth 6-1 and that made it a monstrous overlay.
I did not second guess myself. I placed a $20 to win bet. In the two-minute race I collected more than $200. I left the simulcast theater after collecting the win and walked around the grounds in the moonlight. Then I went back to my apartment and started to think about the future.
Apparently, there was little thinking to do. That week I got a phone call with a lucrative offer to return to radio and TV. It meant reuniting with Wolfman Jack in a radical multi-medium project. The Nashville TV Network — the hub for all that represents the country music community nationwide — wanted to hire The Wolfman to be the top celebrity figure for a music radio network headquartered in Nashville, TN.
“Are you going to take the deal?” Natasha said.
“I have to fly to Nashville and meet with some people.”
“So, you want to do it?”
“Maybe.”
The challenges of major changes were piled before me. I sought none of them but they arrived and demanded my attention. How should I gamble on any or all of it? What about my relationship with Natasha? Would Wolfman and I click again with my professional return to producing and writing for the media? It was time to handicap the scenarios. First, I researched the back story of the job.
The Nashville music business was basically owned and run by the Oklahoma Publishing Company, a multimillion-dollar mini-conglomerate comprising radio and television and newspaper companies. It was privately owned by the Gaylord family. The radio project was to be another outlet: T N N Radio. It aimed for a younger audience since cosmopolitan country was a fresh genre; a spinoff format blending country music classics with a current generation of stylized country sounds by younger artists.
Sounded like a cinch for Wolfman to handle. I knew this from writing for him as he performed on multi-cultural platforms; he was an entertaining host for any genre of music. Besides, cosmopolitan country was deeply akin to rock and pop music. And Wolfman loved 10-gallon hats and jeweled cowboy boots. The expensive ones.
But what did I know about Tennessee? Nothing aside from lyrics of a song that told me Davy Crockett was born on a mountain top there. I knew a lot of classic country music from my professional musician days. Hank Williams and Buck Owens and Johnny Cash made it north and into the catering halls for wedding receptions with hit songs. But the essence of Tennessee was as foreign to a kid from Brooklyn as a stork farm in Bensonhurst.
The real concern was about living in Tennessee. To be more specific it was about living in a state prohibiting pari-mutuel racing. That stark reality hit me like a punch in the solar plexus. In my opinion its proximity to the historic equine, breeding, and racing state of Kentucky alone should have supported lawful wagering of any kind. There was another concern. A more personal situation. Natasha. It would have to wait. A seat was waiting for me on a plane from San Diego to Nashville.
