I don't go to a lot of movies, these days, for no single reason in particular. If I had to nail one down, I'd have to say there are few films that motivate me to leave the house, what with being able to watch DVDs in the privacy of one's own home. When there's a movie I just have to see, I'll usually hit a matinee, and it's a good thing, too--those of us who can still hear very well ( I was told my ear drums are "pristine") are bombarded by the level of the soundtrack. Loud, loud, loud! Perhaps to drown out the incessant chatterboxes who regularly attend.
Pirate Radio is a film well worth taking two hours of audio punishment in today's multi-plexes. Being a true radio guy, I loved every minute. I think the last time I had my enthusiasm for the act of playing music on the radio reinvigorated by a film was in 1988, when I went to see Good Morning Vietnam...twice! I was working at a poorly programmed AC station in San Diego. A.C. means "adult contemporary," but that's a misnomer. The format should really be called S.S.B.M: "Sick, Sappy, Background Music," or perhaps the more creative of you can find other more denigrating words that start with the letters "B.M." Any you come up with would be dead-on accurate, as far a s I'm concerned.
After seeing Good Morning, Vietnam, I just had to find an outlet where I could enjoy being an air personality, again. Even for a man of 28 years, as I was then, a well produced movie could inspire me. Today, in a more consolidated, neutered radio business, I feel energized by watching Richard Curtis' hilarious homage to the guys who defied the stuffy British Broadcasting Company, and delivered mid-60's rock and roll to the United Kingdom from boats off the British coast. Yes, that was really the case. Regardless of the fact the Beatles were changing popular culture or that The Stones, The Who, even the Dave Clark Five were influencing kids and ruling playlists around the world, the BBC, as repressed as today's AC radio, limited Rock and Roll to two hours a week. Bear in mind that British broadcasting was all government run, at the time-- payed for by licensing fees leveled on all who owned radios. Commercial broadcasting was considered in poor taste. To hear the rock and roll that was emanating from their own country, Brits had to scan the dial for stations from the European continent...until the Pirates started broadcasting.
Richard Curtis does movies that are engaging, exquisitely assembled, and excellently cast. You may recognize a couple of the titles: Love Actually, Four Weddings and a Funeral. In the U.S., I've heard these films refereed to as "Chick Flicks." Women should love this compliment, because it gives the fairer sex credit for being able to absorb intelligent, witty dialogue and plots better than the plodding, grunting, flatulent male, who'd rather sit and watch things blow up. When it comes to these particular movies, the term does not apply.
I watched Pirate Radio in a sparsely populated, stadium-seating theatre, with only a few of us occupying the massive chairs. Two bald, older gentlemen who may have been teens during the year the movie is set (1966), clapped and sang along with the energetic 60's soundtrack (when they weren't hauling their melon-sized prostates to the men's room, at least three times. I noticed because they had to walk right past me...in a near empty theatre). I'm not going to reveal the plot, or expound upon the story, I'd like to focus on the parts of the film that brought to mind some of my own radio experience.
For example: the camaraderie on that ship was a lot like our 10-watt station on the campus of Long Beach State, 30 years ago. We did it all for free or for college credit, but like the Pirates, there were forces that wanted us shut down. In late 1980, the administration at Long Beach State, continually exasperated in the shadow of U-S-C and U-C-L-A, wanted the "prestige" of a public radio venue, and purchased the license of station KLON from Long Beach City College. This, plus the general attitude that "those damned kids" were talking to no one and accomplishing nothing," meant that our own KSUL had to go bye-bye in March of 1981. A fight ensued, of course, but to no avail. A lot of Pirate Radio reminded me of that time. Had the higher-ups at Long Beach State had an ounce of vision, both stations, KLON and the 10 Watt KSUL could have co-existed, with radio-loving students still able to play music and learn. Snobbery and managemental dysfunction, however, ruled the day. As 2010 looms, a Radio/TV Department has not and does not exist at Long Beach State. KLON is now K-Jazz, run as an independent enterprise, by a commercial broadcaster, Saul Levine.
I was one of the students who hung around to work at KLON, thinking that playing jazz records would be cool. Instead, I lost five years of my career, learning nothing about REAL radio, and not enjoying the esprit de corps we had at KSUL. The guys reading this who are KSULers know what I'm talking about.
The other thing that struck me as I guffawed at the dialogue and situations in Pirate Radio, were the parallels to my current situation. God, those guys were having fun! The music, then, was new, but unlike any other era in the long history of Rock and Roll, music from the mid 1960's (I'd say 1964 through 1968) has youth and life that keeps it fresh and vital. The kind of music that pumped blood through our veins as oldies at KRTH prior to 2006. I defy anyone of any age not to get caught up in the life force of those songs. Reality intrudes, of course: missing from the music mix in the film is the Beatles, probably due to licensing issues. When viewing the film, try to imagine a Beatles song during the musical lulls. It is, after all, a movie.
I thought about how great it would have been to have had a Pirate Radio Weekend, giving away tickets to a special station screening, and playing the hits from the soundtrack, all of them very familiar, and very radio friendly. I have no say, just frustration knowing how great a weekend that could have been for listeners in Southern California, as opposed to what we were actually doing. As for career, I'd have killed to spend three months on that boat.
Go see Pirate Radio, and remember how much you love good music--and how Brits went to extremes to both provide it and to hear it. You'll laugh out loud, and consider it sad that we've become so jaded as to accept so much less coming out of our speakers.
LENO VS LETTERMAN, 2009
We thought this battle had been fought and won years ago. Jay Leno has always been a superb stand-up comic, ill-suited, I've believed, for the roll of interlocutor, and heir to Johnny Carson. This is not the first time the majority of Americans have disagreed with me. Look at the radio ratings.
Jay Leno, as the result of a serendipitously pre-scheduled guest shot by Hugh Grant, (following Hugh's ill-advised purchase of fifty-dollar fellatio in 1995) passed David Letterman in the late night TV ratings war, and stayed on top until NBC made the first of its succession of programing errors. For first, to keep Conan O'Brien in fold, was a promise to give the 12:35 host the reigns of the Tonight Show in 2009. Second, they imposed "retirement" upon Leno. NBC "fixed" this sticky wicket with what I'm sure they believed was an intelligent way to save millions. They stopped placing expensive dramatic duds into the 10 PM slot, and developed at 5 night a week show for Leno--it would be cheap to produce, and keep Leno from jumping to ABC or Fox.
Sounds like a winner, right? Wrong. It was error number three. I never bought it. It's not that there had not been precedent for wicket fixing. When Jack Paar stepped down from the Tonight Show in 1962, NBC was not happy at all, and had to wait nine months before Carson, then considered Paar's "heir," could get out of his ABC contract. Paar, in turn, started a Friday night variety show that ran until August of 1965. One night a week, not five. Not against some of the hottest dramas on the air, mainly on CBS.
I hate to say I told you so, but regardless of the spin, outside the 11:35 comfort zone he developed after Hugh Grant's arrest for illegally having his bob lobbed, Leno is laying a bomb--a Daisy cutter, to use verbiage from the world of ordinance. What will never surprise me about TV networks, as their power and influence wanes, is how impotent they are when it comes to developing something that will work.
David Letterman is beating Conan regularly, now. Still ironic, still curmudgeonly, but freshly ( and astonishingly) painted as a Lothario. There are women I've run into who are upset that CBS has not punished him for his dalliances...but then I know without question that we've worked for individuals who have done far, far worse without offering the slightest whiff of a mea culpa. Letterman wasn't married, at the time, and as far as we know, did not force himself upon these women. It would be easy to apply selective outrage toward Dave, but believe me, I've seen guys in positions of responsibility be absolute degenerates while exploiting their power. What's unsettling is that so many people are more upset with the sex-capades than the extortion attempt that brought the ugliness to light. It's all bad news, but the alleged blackmailer is the even more significant villain of this piece.
PETROS
He's not everyone's cup of tea, and it took me a while to cultivate a taste for him, but if you enjoy sports talk, you've got to hear Petros Papodakis, the Petros part of "Petros and Money, " on Fox Sports Radio (KLAC 570, in L.A.). A running back and team captain prior to the Pete Carroll/ championship era at USC, Petros is a dervish--a whir of verbal energy, wit and, yes, intelligence. I haven't gotten so much zest out of afternoon drive since the late, great, Real Don Steele or Jo Jo "Cookin' Kincaid (and my own work at Q-105, 1991-92). He sings, he screams, he admits to taking Lexipro...punch him up and listen. If he doesn't blow the eyebrows off your face, stick around. Petros is really good. And I don't compliment everyone, you know...
A Happy Thanksgiving to all. With any luck, we'll get through the holidays without having the music from our radios put us all into insulin shock.
POSTSCRIPT, NOVEMBER 28, 2009
Recently, an old radio friend related in an e-mail that he once had a chat with one of the orginal 1960's "Pirates." This Brit had done three months aboard Radio Caroline, the vessel upon which events in the movie were based. The man told my friend the boat was an old rust bucket, that you couldn't get through a shift without vomiting, and that he was considered persona non grata, and couldn't return to England.
To top it off, the week after I saw the movie, it was gone from that complex. The reality of
Pirate Radio, as is the case with most subjects of motion pictures, has rearedits ugly head. Still, I'd buy the DVD.
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