Retired columnist toots own horn at book talk

Before reading from his memoir, Dan Bernstein picked up his trombone. “I’ll just play a short one,” he assured us. “Don’t be afraid to plug your ears.”

No earplugging was necessary as he regaled us with Irving Berlin’s “Blue Skies.” Amid a string of overcast days, blue skies in any form were welcome. And so was a chance to see Bernstein, a favorite of Press-enterprise readers for decades.

He wrote a column from 1982 to 2014, a remarkable run of 32 years. And now the Riverside man has a memoir that focuses less on his career than on his nearly lifelong pastime of making music.

Wryly titled “He Kept His Day Job: Fanfare for the Common Musician,” it’s a tribute to music teachers, community music-makers and band nerds. On Saturday afternoon at the RCAA Art Center, Bernstein read excerpts, chatted and answered questions from the 15 or so of us seated on folding chairs.

The book’s impetus was a conversation after Bernstein had performed at an assisted living center. A 90-year-old lamented that he’d packed away his own trumpet after high school and always regretted it.

How many of us had played an instrument as children? Bernstein asked. About half the audience raised a hand. How many still play? Only a few.

That could’ve been Bernstein. After his college years in the anarchic Stanford Marching Band, he played

only sporadically as he navigated a journalism career. Then came a chance encounter at a party, circa 1990, with a player in the Riverside City College Evening Jazz Ensemble, who invited him to sit in.

These days Bernstein plays in that ensemble and in a brass quintet, and also volunteers at a hospital and an assisted living center, playing trombone as music therapy.

“I get more out of it than they do,” he said. “They’re a wonderful audience. They’re very forgiving.”

Was there overlap between writing a column and playing the trombone? “Your columns always had a cadence,” remarked Carolyn Badger, a former P-E copy editor who organized the reading.

Bernstein said he would read his column aloud or while listening to fast music,

trying to ensure his writing flowed and that readers wouldn’t stumble or lose interest.

He joined The P-E in 1976 as a business reporter, became an editorial writer and then, after columnist Tom Green departed for a startup called USA Today, submitted a couple of tryout columns at Green’s urging. “Well, we’ll give it a try,” executive editor Norm Cherniss told Bernstein noncommittally.

Bernstein’s focus was on civic life in Riverside, where he followed city and county goings-on closely and dispensed jabs when appropriate. Nicknames were likewise dispensed: the Handsome D.A. for Grover Trask, Mayorluv for Mayor Ron Loveridge.

“It was a great job,” Bernstein reflected. Retirement — i.e., giving up his day job — came at what seemed the

right time and allows him to play more music. He offers occasional commentary via his Facebook page, where he’s bestowed a great nickname on a current politico: Sheriff Chad Bianco is Hanging Chad.

And of course he published “Day Job,” after six drafts to get it as right as he could.

“Writing is not easy, but it’s a lot of fun,” Bernstein observed. “It’s almost like music in that way. If you’re concentrating on something — music, writing, carpentry, whatever — you block everything else out. You’re in that zone. It’s therapeutic in a way.”

Speaking of columns

As of July 1 my columns will have been in The P-E for three years, which means they’ve appeared in the paper about 450 times.

PHOTOS BY DAVID ALLEN — STAFF Dan Bernstein plays trombone at Riverside’s RCAA gallery on Saturday before talking about his new memoir, “He Kept His Day Job: Fanfare for the Common Musician.” In his book, the retired Press-enterprise columnist focuses on his passion of playing music.

Dan Bernstein signs his newly published memoir, “He Kept His Day Job: Fanfare for the Common Musician,” for Alan and Sandy Curl after a talk Saturday in Riverside.