The newspaper waltz

INTERESTED?
Bill McIlwain will read from and sign copies of "Dancing Naked With the Rolling Stones: A Life in News and a Good-bye to Booze" at 7 p.m.

Friday at Sarasota News Books, 1341 Main St. Call 365-6332.
Bill McIlwain doesn't pull any punches in his memoir about journalism and alcoholism, "Dancing Naked With the Rolling Stones.

" The book is subtitled "A Life in News and a Good-bye to Booze," and reflects not just his career as a newsman for some of the larger newspapers in America for six decades, but also his struggles to vanquish the demon rum (or, in his case, whiskey and vodka). McIlwain, now in his early 80s, was editor of the Herald-Tribune from 1984 to 1990. For some weeks he was camped out at a motel in Port Charlotte as the newspaper strengthened its circulation in Charlotte County.

McIlwain, who had battled alcohol for much of his life, had done a stint in rehab in North Carolina in 1971 and had stayed sober except for one period in the intervening years. But he found himself filling "an oversized plastic cup with vodka and tonic" before walking to work in the morning, and refilling it again at lunchtime. "I was excited, happy and feeling good," he writes.

"Surely I don't intend this as a boast, but I was doing good work. It had been that way in the old-old days. I could drink steadily throughout a day or night, rarely make a misstep and the next day recall everything that had happened or been said, sometimes down to an exact quote.

Later on, after years of drinking, it was not like that at all. By then, I was soaked through with vodka. I started the day sloppy and I ended it sloppy.

" Confronted by publisher Elven Grubbs, McIlwain turned down an offer of help and said he'd take care of it himself. He hasn't had a drink since 1986. He attributes his ultimate sobriety to finally getting at peace with himself.

That, and smoking pot. "I had wanted to write the book a long time ago and I just didn't really know what to do about (relating his experiences) smoking pot," said McIlwain in a telephone interview from his home in North Carolina. "I kept thinking about it, and I knew I couldn't leave it out because it wouldn't be honest.

" The book's title refers not to an actual incident of dancing naked with the Rolling Stones, but to a turning point in McIlwain's life in 1982. His second marriage was coming apart, and he was living alone in a condo in Amityville, N.Y.

A co-worker had given him a cassette tape of a Rolling Stones album, with Mick Jagger singing "Start Me Up." One winter day, McIlwain was engaged in his morning ritual of sitting naked on his sofa, drinking coffee and smoking a joint, when he put the Stones tape into his stereo and found himself dancing frenetically and joyously around the room. "Dancing naked with the Rolling Stones," he writes.

"It tickled me and I laughed. I sat back down and rolled another smoke. I knew that I had learned something.

I had learned that dancing naked to the Stones full-blast would snap me out of sadness. It was the start of my understanding how to shake bleak thoughts." It's McIlwain's belief that "people should try to be as happy as they can once they meet their responsibilities," he said.

That especially applies to newsrooms, where McIlwain has made his living since the age of 17. He started his career at the Wilmington Star-News as sports editor. Nearly 50 years later, he returned to the same downtown newspaper building to occupy an office from which he worked for the New York Times Regional Newspaper Group as a writing and editing coach.

In between, he worked for Newsday in the 1950s and 1980s, the Toronto Star, the Bergen Record, the Boston Herald-American, the Washington Star, the Arkansas Gazette and the Herald-Tribune. He attributes his vagabond ways to a childhood spent moving around and to a hunger for new challenges. And of course, there was the drinking.

It was "a long time before I ever could be happy," he said in a North Carolina drawl. He learned the hard way not to take a job merely for the money. His book doesn't make much comment about the state of newspapers in the 21st century.

McIlwain instead focuses on the heyday, when newspaper circulations were increasing and competition between newspapers in a city made the work exciting every day. "I'm still impressed with (young journalists)," he said. "I don't ever despair about the young ones.

" Last modified: May 27. 2007 12:00AM
Bill McIlwain doesn't pull any punches in his memoir about journalism and alcoholism, 'Dancing Naked With the Rolling Stones.' The book is subtitled 'A Life in News and a Good-bye to Booze,' an .

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