Less Coffee, More Wine

Runnin' down a dream while others try to wake you up

It was a standard nightshift on a Wednesday in November.

I was to arrive at work, do some editing on my laptop on a story I was working on, then head to a local high school to shoot another feature piece. I was three months into the job, and have found that in the world of television, the best feedback you can get on your performance is no feedback at all.

Essentially, no news is good news.

So when I got an email asking to meet regarding my performance-to-date, I was taken by surprise. I stepped through the door of this particular supervisor’s office, sat down, and was met with a series of statements that are plastered into my brain for the rest of my existence.

“You’re not the talent I thought I hired,” I was told. “You have been a disappointment so far.”

Naturally, when you spend your entire life chasing something (more on that in a second), words like those will cut through you. I felt a pit in my stomach. Two of the pieces I had done in the last week were among the station’s highest traffic-drivers on digital and social media. What was I doing wrong?

I was told I was awkward on-air. I carried too much energy.

“You’re too much coffee,” they said. “I need you to be more…wine.”

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Let’s turn the clocks back to April 10, 1998. The New York Yankees are playing their home-opener against the Oakland Athletics in the old ballpark in the Bronx. It’s the height of the Steroid Era, balls are clearing walls with ease. It’s mediated chaos, and we are mystified by its glory.

The future world champs beat Ben Grieve’s A’s 17-13 (amazingly, with just one home run hit across nine innings). For the uninitiated, that’s a highly-improbable score for a baseball game. And five-year-old Jon Alba was enamored with watching it on television. The storyteller’s pace, the grandiose nature of Yankee Stadium, it was all truly larger than life for my 3-foot stature.

I had to be a part of it one day.

I turned to my mom, who was watching the game with me. I had already reached my astronaut and dinosaur phases in toddlerhood. Now I had a new dream: I told her I wanted to be the guy who gets to talk about baseball on TV when I grew up.

The next few years would see my child-self wake up at 6 a.m. every day, and rush over to the den. I’d stand up a plastic yellow children’s chair, step up, and attempt to reach the cable box to change it to channel 44. With that, I was consuming “MSG Sportsdesk,” my first exposure to regional sports television. I’d watch the anchor bounce through highlights, discuss news about players I knew little-to-nothing about, graphics would flash across the screen, and then it was time for school.

To sit at that desk one day? Well, it harkens back to Bruce Springsteen’s song “Badlands.”

“Talk about a dream, try to make it real.”

Knowing what you’ve wanted to do your whole life is both a blessing and a curse. On the upside, you know exactly how you’d like your career to play out, so you set yourself up in the best way possible for it to do so by committing entirely to it.

Conversely, you commit entirely to it.

It started with having a sports segment on the morning announcements in middle school. Then it was discovering live, online sports talk radio (the pre-podcasting era) in eighth grade, where I was doing poorly-produced hot take radio through a USB microphone from the “Rock Band” video game.

Some kids went to sleep away camp. Me? I went to sportscasting camp. While other teens were playing sports in high school, I was announcing them over the public address system, politely telling people to throw their trash in a nearby trash receptacle. School newspaper (where the faculty advisor told me I’d never be a sports journalist). Video newsmakers (where another faculty advisor told me I’d never be on TV). All of this before I stepped foot on a college campus.

Once I got there? Legitimately, hundreds of hours dedicated to extra-curricular student media work. Late nights, early mornings, traveling on my own dime to events across New England. Then came the internships with hours of commuting both ways, before the first on-air gig came calling.

I was on the golf course on the final day of August in 2015, when my phone lit up with a 207 area code. I was asked one question, and with that, was given a day to decide if I wanted to move my life on a whim to Bangor, Maine to work for $22,000 a year as the youngest sports director at an affiliated station in the country.

Insane? Of course.

But when it’s all you want? When it’s all you know? You do it.

The holidays missed. The relationships squandered. The 12-14-hour days, the six-day work weeks. The lack of sick days. The angry viewer comments. Being sent to cover a murder when you thought you were going to be shooting highlights of a high school basketball game.

The sacrifices made all because this way of life is embedded in who you are. It is in your genetic makeup, where the moment that red light goes on, you are at your most authentic self. All of those downsides are behind you when you’re in that moment. It is the ultimate adrenaline rush, where the stars align, the energy is palpable, and you are more comfortable then than you are at any part of your day.

And you need to “make it.”

If you don’t? You didn’t achieve all you set out to do.

You came up short.

You are a failure.

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I sat across the table, digesting the words.

”Less coffee, more wine.”

The comment was made as a metaphor, obviously. But it could not have been more damaging in its resonance. My style of on-air presentation, I feel, has always been conversational in nature, and self-aware at its core. The subject matter of sports is generally something people flock to as an escape, hence, it was my job to speak directly to them in an engaging, wink-and-a-nod manner.

Being told I was a disappointment, and that I needed to more or less become more boring, was devastating. How could I be my authentic self, and find fulfillment in the one avenue that brought me solace, if I couldn’t…well…be me?

My truest self and determination had gotten me knocking on the doorstep of my dreams. Now? Change it all. Your best you, turns out, isn’t the best for others. What makes you happy is about to become anguish.

I’m never above constructive criticism, and decided I would do my best to embrace it. One of our producers began to call me “Merlot” when he wanted to get on my case. I began to speak slower, more even-keeled. I focused more on hitting times, and less on engaging the viewer.

Yet for the next year and a half, I never felt entirely myself again on-camera. There were panic attacks. I got wildly out of shape. I greyed at an accelerated rate. The dream, everything I had worked towards, full of blood, sweat, and tears, had become a chore.

I was in an abusive relationship with my career. I knew it was falling apart. But I couldn’t give up on it, because it was literally the only way of life I was accustomed to. I no longer felt like Jon was good enough. My big TV aspirations were gone. This was going to be the end of the line, another classic case of “what could have been.”

I was a shell of the kid who once dreamed of more.

Ultimately, I made a pivot into the streaming and podcasting realm. It is a move that has come with its own set of challenges, including getting laid off for the first time, but sharpened my skill set. I learned to appreciate the ins and outs of life more, no longer in debt to the grind, fostering better relationships with those around me as a result.

I traded in my dreams for something simpler. I had come so close to making good on what I promised my younger self, almost reaching that place I had always wanted to go, yet accepted I would likely never reach it.

But even in peace, there is restlessness. I still was on the search for he who needed to be found most: me.

That’s when, completely from the void, I received a message on social media one afternoon. Someone had been following my podcasting work from afar for sometime. And not only that, but they thought I was actually good. They liked me, and wanted to give me a serious look.

There was one piece of feedback, however. They wanted to see more energy. Less wine. More coffee.

It was time to find me again.

Two months later, I was on the TV home of the New York Mets as a panelist. Nothing guaranteed, just a shot to prove I could do it again. My bravado started to swing. I was finding confidence in my voice. I was surrounded by a fantastic, supportive team, one that put up with my constant questioning of my abilities, and assured me I was doing well.

For the first time in years in front of a camera, it felt…right.

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Two weeks ago, I got an email I was not sure I’d ever receive: “Would you like to fill-in host Dec. 8?”

For most people in this industry, it’s another night at the office, and understandably. For me, it was anything but. This would be the affirmation the pain is indeed part of the path. Proof the doubt seeded in my brain was misguided. Confirmation that it is indeed alright to chase what makes you feel like you.

During my previous roles, I was unable to wear any suit color but blue and grey. So on this night? You bet your ass I was going to be a rebel. Brand, spankin’ new maroon suit it was.

Why?

Because I wanted to.

I looked at myself in the mirror as I applied makeup, refusing to lose my own eye contact. I straightened my tie, and adjusted my clip. With that, I took a moment to remind myself of the hurdles cleared to this point. The time for talking about dreams had come and gone.

Now, it was time to make it real.

With a deep breath, I stood beside my extremely welcoming co-host, and we launched into 30 minutes of uninterrupted TV tomfoolery. And it couldn’t have gone any better. I am so beyond grateful to have an opportunity I never expected to have, and be given the freedom to feel like the kid who grew to love the idea of this in the first place nearly three decades ago.

There is no more restlessness for me. If it all ends tomorrow, I am at peace. I did the damn thing.

I know with every cell in my body five-year-old Jonathan would have been proud not just of what we accomplished, but that we did it on our terms. The idea he could run to the TV in the morning, get on his tippy-toes, change the channel, and see himself become who he wanted to be?

It was all worth it. And maybe, just maybe, some other kid watching began to dream big this week as well.

Hear me. Your authenticity is your best quality, because there is no one else like you. Some of us are wine, or coffee, or lemonade, or iced tea. Hell, some of us just like to be water sometimes.

But whoever you are, hold on to it. One day, you’ll cherish that you did.