I've covered popular music for 30 years.

Most managers get in your way and that's if you're lucky. I've lost track of unreturned phone calls and dark ports, but I won't forget when the Sun-Times sent me to Toronto to interview singer Robert Palmer. His manager told me that Palmer had throat problems and we would have to put off the conversation for a day. My editors told me to sit tight.

I spent an extra day in Toronto. I did some shopping and caught a movie. When I returned to the hotel, there was Robert Palmer in the bar yucking it up with his band. Maybe Robert Palmer didn't know of this end run, but it was the only time in my career I never got an interview.

Doc McGhee is not one of those guys.
Hell, a couple weeks ago he gave me his cell phone number in the sports bar of the Carnival Destiny where he was on board with Kiss somewhere in the Bahamas. I don't think he even knew I was a journalist. (But then, maybe that worked in my favor.)
McGhee has managed James Brown, Diana Ross, Motley Crue, Guns n' Roses, Hootie and the Blowfish and since 1996, the heavy rock band Kiss...........

NASSAU, Bahamas--At first glance the thought of a Kiss cruise is tounge-in-cheek.

But when the first Kiss Kruise launched Friday from Miami, Fla. it was all business: rocking and rolling all night, wearing black and white face paint, and of course sticking your tongue just like the wet carpet of Kiss bassist Gene Simmons.

Its like I'm with 2,000 venus fly traps.

The four-day cruise, which concludes Monday has been so successful, it wouldn't be surprising to see it become an annual affair.....