The loss of a very worthy opponent

I got news today that one of my former managers passed away on Friday last week.

His name was Rodger Klevesahl, he was my boss when I worked at Rose Productions Presents. We did all of the cool concerts back in the 80’s, Kiss, Motley Crew, White Snake, AC/DC, Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, The Grateful Dead, Prince (we did all of the production help for Purple Rain), The Suburbs, Husker Du, Madonna, lets put it this way, if it mattered to anyone we were the promoter.

Rodger was one of the first persons to really challenge me, he would make me take everything that I did for the company to the next level, if it was print ad promotion he’d have me do all of the Key Line (information pertinent to the artist and type set you choose) and push me to really push it to a new level, I actually got so good at it we won all the print ad’s for Prince “LOVE SEXY” tour, Kiss Animalize tour, and The Grateful Dead Peter Max shows. I also learned a lot about how the music industry really works, it is not at all what anyone pictures. Frank Sinatra sitting in the Northstars Locker Room at the Met Center, Bloomington comes to mind, he’s in his room with his three bottles of water, a hot plate and making himself some tea and Campbell’s Chicken Noodle soup with this big white table cloth as a bib. Rodger’s job was to settle the shows, and all accounting for the ticket sales. My job was to try and make this as easy possible with providing all of the dead print, radio logs and t.v. logs so we could get paid out and make the percentages. Towards the end of my employment I was doing all of the settlements and Rodger was talent buying.

Rodger noticed after about a year of working together that I have a real problem with failure. I would really kick my own butt for days over the smallest missed detail. He would tease me that no matter how hard I tried I would never be perfect, I’d just laugh it off, and mull over how to make sure if wouldn’t do it again. At the time I was Drugging and Drinking heavily but I would also camel out and go for month’s without doing anything being in total denial. I got up everyday worked, paid my bills, had a great place and nice things, I didn’t have a problem. He was 7 years sober at the time and suggested I meet Ernie Larson (yes the speaker) and Beverly his secretary. I reluctantly agreed to go only to shut him up (again I didn’t have a problem). Well to make a long story short I met myself for the first time in these meetings and damn it I have Rodger to thank. One of Rodgers quotes that I still use “if two people tell you that you have a tail, take a look behind you”. He’d start off the day coming off the elevator at Rose and instead of saying hello he’d just say “one day at a time, right?... He also would say, “if you can’t do it for yourself, do it for you kid”. And when he’d leave work he’d say “kiss your son for me”. Just to remind me that letting your kids know you love them isn’t unmanly. If you hadn’t seen Rodger for a while he wouldn’t shake your hand, he’d give you a hug.

Why I say he was a worthy opponent, he had rules for a disagreement.

1. All parties evolved are to stay in the room until the conflict is resolved and a compromise is reached. If you tried to walk away he'd say "get back in here".

2. Neither party will be right or wrong, they will just differ in opinion.

3. If someone feels they must yell, said party must sit silent for one minute before they can speak again.

4. You couldn’t leave his office until you took a Prepridge Farms Sausalito Macadamia nut cookie. Everyone feels better after a cookie.

We would get into disagreements over the silliest things, what color we should paint the office, or which chair would look better in our foyer of the office. We would actually start a disagreement and would see that it was noon, go to Eddingtons Eatery and disagree over lunch, walk back to the office disagreeing, back to his office and at about two or three decide to do this part of the task this way (his) and do that part of the task that way (mine)… It always worked that way, and if I just wanted to rollover on a disagreement he would allow it. We can’t have me making all of the decisions that’s not how a team works.

I left Rose to follow my musical career and he left a year later in 1989 to work with this little computer software company “Microsoft” to work on this crazy Windows Software project they had. Yes, Rodger was the promoter who launched Windows.

We’d touch base over the years and it was always great to know he was alright, happy, and hustling.

Rodger just lost a bout with Colon Cancer, I hate Cancer, Cancer sucks. If I were rich I would devote all of my free time to helping children and families deal with childhood Cancer. Losing Rodger, we all lose, he knew all of the rules and knew how to play the game.