dave randall

THE 25 GREATEST WORLD SERIES TELECASTS

2011-10-11T21:32:00.000-07:00

It's the middle of October, now, and yes I haven't blogged since June. That would have meant reliving the annoying summer of '11, with its jury duty, Smog Tests, fifteen hundred dollar car-parts, and more that makes me melt down. I promise an update befoee the year ends.

It turned out to be a better summer at Chavez ravine that I thought it would be. Yes, L.A. played before mostly janitorial staff, and the owner should be driven out of the city on a runaway rickshaw, but by summer's end, things we're looking up. Clayton Kershaw deserves the Cy Young Award, and Matt Kemp slugged and stole his way to an MVP-worthy campaign. Dodger fans can only hope the team will be in new hands by spring, ready to compete in post-season, again.

Elsewhere in Major League Baseball, 2011 couldn't have been more exciting. Three teams clinched play-off spots in extra-innings on the final day of the season. It doesn't get any better than that. We can only hope that a compelling World Series will follow. That hasn't been the case since 2002. What old-time network booth-announcers used to call, "...thrilling World Series action!" has eluded us, especially over the last five years.

If you're a true, traditional baseball fan, and want to see classic "thrillers," they are actually available on video. That couldn't be said, years ago, but now I can put together a list of the greatest series games since the birth of television, preserved in their entirety.

THE 25 GREATEST WORLD SERIES TELECASTS

1952 GAMES 6 & 7 NEW YORK YANKESS AT BROOKLYN DODGERS

The World Series was first telecast over four, east coast stations in 1947. The initial coast to coast classic was beamed via the co-axial cable in 1951. These are the earliest preserved, series telecasts, kinescoped for Gillette off WNBT, New York. The Dodgers had the Yanks down 3 games to 2 in Game 6, but the pinstripers fought back. In Game 7, the Mick homers, and Billy Martin makes a spectacular late-inning catch to disappoint Brooklyn fans, yet again. It's available on home video, or you can view it at the Paley Center in Beverly Hills. You'll marvel that the play-by-play men say very little--the style at the time was to provide captions for the pictures.
Announcers: Mel Allen and Red Barber, NBC

1956 GAME 5 BROOKLYN DODGERS AT NEW YORK YANKEES

It's the missing gem that collectors searched years for. In the early 1990's Doak Ewing, of Rare Sports Films, finally found a kinescope of Don Larsen's perfect game. Thought to be lost forever, from an age when NBC regularly burned film they had no room to house, all but the first inning of baseball's only post-season perfecto are here, Gillette commercials and all. A real World Series Thriller, one of the greatest games ever played.
Announcers: Mel Allen and Vin Scully, NBC

1960 GAME 7 NEW YORK YANKEES AT PITTSBURGH PIRATES

The hunt for this game ended sheerly by accident. Bing Crosby was part owner of the Pirates. Heavily superstitious, he left the country for vacation, as a wildly exciting 1960 series careened toward the concluding Game 7. In that age long before VCRs and DVRs, Bing ordered the game kinescoped by a a San Francisco-based production company. He watched it upon his return, knowing by then of it's unprecedented climax. Then he stored it in his wine cellar. There it stayed for half a century, until it was discovered, some 33 years after Bing's death. Like Larsen's perfect game, this has been high on the wish list of everyone who never saw it, live. Count me as one of those people. One of the earliest baseball stories I ever read was about the bad-hop that took down Yankee shortstop Tony Kubek, setting up Bill Mazeroski's eventual series ending heroics. It's available at MLB.com, and is one of the most exciting games I've ever seen. Those of us not old enough at the time (I was a year old) are surprised when Mel Allen tells us, "this World Series game is being brought to you live and in color on NBC."
The kinescope is black nad white.
Announcers: Mel Allen and Bob Prince, NBC

1965 GAME 7 LOS ANGELES DODGERS AT MINNESOTA TWINS

It would be great to see how NBC captured Bobby Richardson grabbing Willie McCovey's line drive to end the series in '62, Sandy Koufax striking out fifteen Yanks in 1963, or the Mick hitting a walk off shot against St. Louis in '64, but there's a huge gap in what's been found. Thanks to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, which aired NBC's coverage, we have all seven games of the '65 series, kinescoped in black and white...the best of which is Game 7. The greatness of Sandy Koufax is displayed, on two days rest, minus his knee-buckling curve, using fastballs to completely shackle the powerful Twins. He gets some great defensive help from Jim Gilliam in the 8th. NBC Instant-replays are a feature, here. It was also the last year that announcers for both teams handled all the play-by-play. That means vintage Scully!
Announcers: Vin Scully and Ray Scott, NBC

1968 GAME 1 DETROIT TIGERS AT ST. LOUIS CARDINALS

Once more, the CBC did what NBC did not do: keep copies of all seven games, albeit in black and white, and on kinescope, not color video tape. In Game 1, at a scorching Busch Stadium in St. Louis, Bob Gibson mows down the Motor City Kitties with a series-record 17 strikeouts. Pay special attention to the work of Harry Carey, then the Cardinals number one voice. In his final years, he digressed a lot during broadcasts, but in '68 he was at the top of his game--a SUPERB play-by-play man.
Announcers: Curt Gowdy, Harry Carey, NBC

1969 GAME 3 BALTIMORE ORIOLES AT NEW YORK METS

Another milestone: the earliest World Series game on color tape...in fact, what is called the "truck feed," minus commercials, but with all Tommie Agee's game-saving catches, first inning to last. Someone at NBC must have noted the historic nature of what was going on. The once woeful Mets turned it around on a Baltimore team that won 109 games, and then shocked the country by taking the series in 5 games. The contrast to previous games on monochrome kinescope is equally stunning.
Announcers: Curt Gowdy and Lindsey Nelson, NBC

1971 GAMES 4 & 7 BALTIMORE ORIOLES VS PITTSBURGH PIRATES

Game 4 is the first night game in World Series history. The Pirates' 14 hits and 4-3 victory tied the series at two games apiece. I remember watching this game. Previously, a mid-week game meant smuggling a transistor radio to school, if you were brave enough. Until this night, series games played on the east coast started at either 9 or 10 in the morning, Pacific time. If you lived in L.A., you watched the fall classic with oatmeal and toast, not peanuts and Cracker Jack. Game 7 gleams with the play of Roberto Clemente and the pitching of Steve Blass, who shut down the O's on that Sunday in Baltimore.
Announcers: Curt Gowdy and Chuck Thompson, NBC (both of whom looked stricken during the post-game wrap up, unable to hide their distress that the Bucs had prevailed)

1975 GAME 6 CINCINNATI REDS AT BOSTON RED SOX

We've gotten to what is considered by many the best game ever played. In Boston, it's thought of that way, for sure. The classic replay of Carlton Fisk rooting for his extra-inning blast to go fair was made possible when a camera man in the outfield wall was spooked by a rat. True story. The game is so much a part of baseball history, you'd think the Sox had won the series: They didn't.
Announcers: Curt Gowdy, Dick Stockton, Joe Garagiola, Tony Kubek, NBC

1977 GAME 6 LOS ANGELES DODGERS AT NEW YORK YANKEES

The 31st televised World Series was the first seen on a network other than NBC. A new TV package gave ABC the rights to the series every other year. Thus ended the policy of a home-team announcer as part of the telecast. Reggie Jackson's historic three-homer barrage was even harder to take because Howard Cosell was yammering all through Reggie's trip around the bases on tater number three. Each game is in a DVD package from MLB.com, the first Dodger-Yankee series since '63. The Reggie-straw stirred the drink, alright...to my everlasting chagrin.
Announcers: Keith Jackson, Howard Cosell, and Tom Seaver ABC

1978 GAME 2 NEW YORK YANKEES AT LOS ANGELES DODGERS

Shades of the '50's, with a Dodger-Yankee series in successive years. Same result: Yanks in 6. Game 2, however, gave us a thrilling stand-off--two on and two out in the 9th, Dodgers up 4-3, Reggie Jackson at the plate and 21-year old Bob welch on the mound for L-A. You could cut the tension with a knife. One of the greatest Fall Classic moments.
Announcers: Joe Garagiola and Tony Kubek, NBC

1984 GAME 5 SAN DIEGO PADRES AT DETROIT TIGERS

There was really no competition in this series. Detroit started the season 30 and 5, and rolled on from there. But Game 5 showcased a bravura performance by the Tigers' Kirk Gibson. He belted two home runs, the second a three-run job in the 8th, after the Padres pulled to within a run the previous inning. It was a preview of Gibson World Series heroics to come, and a great, great game. Also the first televised series called by Vin Scully since 1974.
Announcers: Vin Scully and Joe Garagiola, NBC

1986 GAME 6 BOSTON RED SOX AT NEW YORK METS

A Mets comeback so stunning it still takes your breath away. It took Boston 22 years to forgive Bill Buckner for the error that cost the Sox Game 6, and subsequently the series. Boston was one out away from their first World Championship since the end of World war I, when fate interceded. It still brings New Englanders to tears, but reigns as one of baseball's epic games, bar none. Again, Scully's poetry augments what was already high drama.
Announcers: Vin Scully and Joe Garagiola, NBC

1988 GAME 1 OAKLAND A'S AT LOS ANGELES DODGERS

The swingin' A's were supposed to sweep through Chavez Ravine with a broom, and it looked like they'd do just that until the 9th, when a gimpy-legged Kirk Gibson stepped into the box with two-out, one on, and the A's ahead, 4-3. As usual, Scully's description of the improbable conclusion was masterful, but Jack Buck's CBS Radio call is historic, as well: "I can't believe, what I just saw!!" Also worth a look is Jose Canseco's steriod-fueled grand slam in the second inning, which actually put a dent in NBC's centerfield camera. Gibson, though, is the story--one of the most sensational homers in the history of the sport.
Announcers: Vin Scully and Joe Garagiola, NBC

1991 GAME 7 ATLANTA BRAVES AT MINNESOTA TWINS

One of a small handfull of out-and-out-classic, seven game sets. Both teams had finished last in 1990. Each team's wins had come on its home field. Game 6 had gone 11 innings before Kirby Puckett won it with a homer, setting the stage for a heart-stopping Game 7. Jack Morris of Minnesota pitched ten shutout innings, and then the Twins finaly pushed across a run to capture the Series. It was a Sunday night to remember.
Announcers: Jack Buck and Tim McCarver, CBS

1993 GAMES 4 AND 6 TORONTO BLUE JAYS AND PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES

The fourth and final Series Televised by CBS was the first with a representative from Canada, and the last played entirely on astro-turf. Game Four was the longest in World Series history, at 4 hours and 14 minutes, a tub-thumping slugfest that ended in a 15-14 victory for Toronto. The Jays scored 6 runs in the 8th to stun the Phils. This awe-inspiring, offensive tour de force proved significant: In Game 6, the Phillies were leading 6-5 in the bottom of the 9th. A win would force a Game 7. With two on, Joe Carter crushed a Mitch Williams fast ball, and a World Series ended with a walk-off homer for only the second time. I missed it, but heard Vin Scully's call on CBS Radio, while driving to a night club.
Announcers: Sean McDonough and Tim McCarver, CBS

1996 GAME 4 NEW YORK YANKEES AT ATLANTA BRAVES

MLB had weathered a strike that effected two seasons and cancelled the '94 series. The Yanks were back in the fall classic for the first time since the last strike year, 1981. The Braves were the reigning World Champs, and looked like they'd dominate the game for years to come. After blowing out the New Yorkers in the first two games, the Bravos were poised to take a 3-games-to-1 lead in Game 4. His team down 5-3 in the 8th, Yankee catcher Jim Leyritz blasted a three run-jack that turned the series on its ear. It would be the Yanks who won the series and started a dynasty, not the Braves. It was the first series televised on the ten year-old Fox network. Since '96, only the '97 and '99 series were on a network other than Fox.
Announcers: Joe Buck, Bob Brenly, and Tim McCarver, FOX

1997 GAME 7 CLEVELAND INDIANS AT FLORIDA MARLINS

The Indians were in seventh heaven. They had a four-year-old, state-of-the-art ball park, were in their second series in three years, and boasted a hard-hitting team that could blast their way through snow, sleet or steam. They'd have to do all that, because there were flurries in Cleveland during the series, and steamy humidity in Miami. The Marlins began play in 1993--they were only one year older than the Tribe's stadium! Game 7 was all a fan could ask for: The World Championship was settled on the last at bat of the 11th inning. This would be the second to last World Series ever televised by NBC.
Announcers: Bob Costas, Bob Uecker, and Joe Morgan, NBC

2000 GAME 2 NEW YORK METS AT NEW YORK YANKEES

The first series of the 21st century (or the last series of the 20th...it depends on how you look at the year 2000), was the first Subway Series since Dodgers-Yanks,1956.
The Yankees ruled baseball like lords at the turn of the century. They won three straight series. Game 3 in 2000 would inflict their only loss. Game 2 is a classic, however, because Roger Clemens and Mets catcher Mike Piazza nearly came to blows. The Mets scored 5 in the ninth to make it exciting, but to quote the title of Joe Torre's subsequent book, these were "The Yankee Years." Outside New York, there was as little interest as there's ever been for a World Series on television. The 2000 classic drew the lowest ratings since they started playing the Series at night.
Announcers: Joe Buck and Tim McCarver, FOX

2001 GAME 7 NEW YORK YANKEES AT ARZIONA DIAMONDBACKS

Like the Marlins before them, the D-Backs were an expansion team enjoying their first series after a very short time in existance. The Yankees were in pursuit of their fourth straight series title, harkening back to the '30's, '40's, and '50's, when the Pinstripers were Kingpins of the diamond. This uber-exciting, seven game set helped draw the country out of its pawl, following the events of 9/11. After winning two heart-stopping extra-inning thrillers in New York (with walk-off homers), the Yanks strode into Arizona for Game 6 needing one win to wrap it up. The D-Backs crushed them 15-2, behind the picthing of Randy Johnson. Next evening, the teams played the third series game ever played in November. Roger Clemens vs Curt Schilling. There was no score after 5 innings. Arizona took a 1-0 lead in the 6th, The Yanks came back with a run in the 7th and another in the 8th. Leading 2-1, they rode the arm of only the greatest closer in the history of the game, Mariano Rivera, into the 9th. One out, a run in, Jay Bell on third for the D-Backs, Luis Gonzales at the plate...I think the slogan was born that evening: I live for this>
Announcers: Joe Buck and Tim McCarver, FOX

2002 GAME 6 SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS AT ANAHEIM ANGELS

The Angels were one of a handfull of teams that had never been to the World Series. The Giants had not held a world title since they fled Manhattan. San Francisco was in control, leading the series 3 games to 2, and Game 6, 5-0 in the bottom of the
8th, when all hell, and rally monkeys, broke loose. It was as close to a ring as Barry Bonds would get. Needless to say, a game seven would be played, and the Angels would win their first-ever series--but it's Game 6 that shook the Richter Scale all the way from the Big A.
Announcers: Joe Buck and Tim McCarver, FOX

2004 GAME 4 BOSTON RED SOX AT THE ST. LOUIS CARDINALS

We're getting to that point in history where the series itself starts taking a back seat to the LCS. The Sox, with their tortured history of caticlism and collapse, had been down to the Yankees, 3 games to none in the ALCS. Then they did something no baseball team had done in the post-season: they won four staright and took the pennant right out of those greedy Yankee hands! Then they overwhelmed a St. Louis Cardinal team that had won 105 games in the regular season. Game 4 in the 2004 Series is a classic because it culminated in the cloud finally lifting for the Sox, and the dream coming true at last: The first Boston World Series win since 1918. It were as if anguishing defeats in 1946, '67, '75 and '86 were finally avenged. A great story, if not a great series.
Announcers: Joe Buck and Tim McCarver, FOX

2005 GAME 4 CHICAGO WHITE SOX AT HOUSTON ASTROS

Lost in the commotion over Boston shedding its jinx and winning a World championship in the era of electronic media, was the fact the Chicago White Sox hadn't won a series since 1917 . The Chisox hadn't even been in a series since 1959, when the Dodgers beat 'em in 6. So Game 4 in 2005 brought relief to another long-standing American League stalwart. The pride of the South Side swept Houston (in its first series) clinching the title with a 1-0 win. Historic, in that Chicago had not won a World Series since the advent of broadcasting. Thus, the 1-zip classic that ends our list of 25 Great World Series Telecasts.
Announcers: Joe Buck and Tim McCarver, FOX

Where are those other great moments, you may ask? Billy Martin knocking in Hank Bauer with the series ending run in game 6, 1953. Willie Mays' sensational catch in Game 1 of the 1954 series? Sandy Amoros equally spectacular catch and throw that preserved a lead and helped Brooklyn win their first series in 1955? Eddie Matthews amazing grab that ended the '57 classic? How about a pan of the L.A. Coliseum through NBC color cameras in '59? Jim Lonborg's near no-hitter over St. Louis in Fenway Park, Game 2, 1967?

I could say they're all gone, but there's always a chance they could be laying around, somewhere. NBC, which held exclusive rights to World Series telecasts from 1947 to 1975,and radio broadcasts 1957 to 1975, did not save copies of the games. To save expenses, because they had no room and/or saw no use for them, kinescopes were routinely destroyed. When video tape came into use, it was two-inches wide, and very expensive--close to a thousand dollars a reel. NBC always had the poorest archives of all the networks. Somehow, ABC, with its lean earnings in the 60's, managed to house copies of Wide World Of Sports, and classic NCAA College Football games, like Notre dame-MIchigan State in 1966, and USC-UCLA in 1967. Had those games been televised by NBC, you wouldn't be able to enjoy the highlights on You Tube, today.

CBS was best at archiving because of a system their fastidious president Frank Stanton put into place. Their news and entertainment archives are nothing else than outstanding. It also helped that entertainers like Ed Sullivan made enough money to store the tapes of his shows. That's why all those classic rock and roll performances can be seen today. At NBC, they erased nearly a decade of Johnny Carson's Tonight Show, much to Johnny's chagrin. After 1970, when he took over ownership of the program, Carson had each tape stored deep underground in Kansas. His nephew now oversees the library. It's computerized so that a key word can bring up any particular interview or performance.

So that's why the list stops at 25. I have a fan's daydream, though...that there's a 90-year-old, retired Chief Engineer from an NBC affliate somehwere, with two dusty spools of color video tape in his basement. And that his grandson will run across them, only to discover Sandy Koufax in the sunshine of October 6, 1963,in Game 4 of the World Series, vanquishing the Yankees, in living color.

POST SCRIPT, OCTOBER 23, 2011

Make it 26 Greatest games...

2011 GAME 3 ST. LOUIS CARDINALS AT TEXAS RANGERS

Albert Pujols got five hits, four in consecutive innings. More importanly, he hit three home runs, as The Cards kept Texas at bay in a slugfest that ended, 16-7. An egregiously bad call in the fourth inning opened the flood gates for St. Louis. ranger first baseman Mike Napoli made a sensational leaping tag that everyone saw except the umpire. A footnote: there were at least four sensational College football games on the air against this broadcast--which means fewer people saw Pujols hitting exhibition than will admit in the future. It's a shame it was played on a Saturday. There wasn't the finality of Reggie Jackson's three dingers in '77 to end the series...but then, this one 's not over, yet.
ANNOUNCERS: Joe Buck and Tim McCarver, FOX

2011 GAME 6 TEXAS RANGERS AT ST. LOUIS CARDINALS

Delayed one day by a dire weather forecast, The Rangers came within a strike of the World Championship in the 9th and 10th innings. The Cards David Freese ended a four and a half hours of mortal combat with a homer to center in the 11th. The game started off with both teams a little edgy, defensively, but the teams went mano a mano, homer for homer into the chilly St. Louis night, setting the statge for the first climactic Game 7 since 2002.
ANNOUNCERS: Jack Buck and Tim McCarver, FOX

ALL BEEF WEINER

2011-06-17T17:10:00.000-07:00

What in the wide, wide world of Weiners causes a Congressman to tweet pics of his Pete? For that matter, what has society come to, when the definition of the verb "tweet" entails more than a bird's morning chirps?

I'm not sure about the latter, but I think the former can be found in the Big Book of Psychological Disorders. In it, psycologists can find the answers to other questions: What fuels the craving for power? Upon what impulse does the exhibitionist act? I don't mean to go all "Dr. Phil," here, but this most recent, lurid tale of inappropriate behavior by a politician has me in the mood to find some answers, and settle the matter. It could be the jaded skepticism that has grown on me like moss after three decades in radio. A healthy dose of reality roars this full-throated message that Fuck-ups are everywhere; that it's more human and ordinary than we choose to believe; that there are Weiners (those unfortunately named in a similar manner, those not) in every walk of life. We are unrealistically surprised and judgemental when they are in politics or entertainment.

Please remember that in our country, regardless of what you hear, and regardless of its bewildering bureaucracy, our government actually works. It's the politics of any business (including PARTISAN POLITICS) that gets in the way. The politics makes hay of a narcissist like Congressman Weiner and the other Democrats AND Republicans who buy whores, chase boys, pose stripped to the waist, or exercise their horny prerogatives while spouting belief in Family, Faith, Moral Superiority and drilling virgin territory (no pun intended).

Our sudden burst of technological wonders have made it worse. Not much is private, anymore, yet we have to be hit over the head to understand that fact. Beginning with cordless phones, some 25 years ago, a Federal request for a phone tap was no longer needed to eavesdrop--all you had to do was buy a device to hear your neighbor's phone calls.

For those so inclined, it used to take a Polaroid One-Step to photograph your fun-mate in the nude, laying languid and spent following a zesty session of lovemaking. Now, these orgiastic bursts of brain farts are snapped on a smart phone and sent into cyberspace...to what I'm sure will be the future embarrassment of both the photographer and his/her lusty subject.

What I'm saying is that it takes an ego pretty large and a naivety equally huge to, 1) take naked pictures of yourself when you're not Brooklyn Decker, and 2) not expect them to be discovered and revealed.

Yet, it is within the realm of human nature to do so. Decades ago, I had a co-worker show me a Polaroid of his ex-wife in post-coital recline, ta-tas akimbo, looking either like bowling pins or twin baby sea lions (whiskers and all). This was unfortunate--the next time I saw the woman, I had to look away. The embarrassment was all mine, for she knew not of her ex's betrayal. A weak human moment paved the way for discomfort. Imagine the kind of damage that photo could do today?

I thank God for modesty, every day. We're up against a beast, here on this world-wide-web. We have at our fingertips what those born in the first 25 years of the
1900's could only dream of. If there's something you want to keep private, you have to be vigilant, lest you be hurt, and lest you hurt the ones you love. Ask the very lovely Mrs. Weiner, Huma. In my callow youth I used to ask how a guy could even imagine being unfaithful when such a beautiful woman is in one's life. Now, of course, I know the answer is found in our human experience...and that Big Book of Psychological Disorders.

THE KOVACS COLLECTION

My career has been periodically plagued by having to work stretches in late night shifts, and for about two years, the overnighter. It plays long-term havoc with one's ability to straighten out sleeping rhythms. So I'm often up late, whether I want to be or not (contrary to the bleating of at least one evening radio person, after midnight is when most insomniacs are functioning--not earlier). If you've read earlier posts on this blog, you know that, because of the hours I've kept, I'm well versed in the history of Late Night TV.

There is one brilliant comedian who no longer gets the credit he is due, mostly because died nearly fifty years ago, a week before he would have turned 43 years of age. Because so much of his work was burned, tossed into the Hudson River, or otherwise discarded by NBC, it has nearly passed from memory that for the last six months of 1956, Ernie Kovacs hosted the Tonight Show on Monday and Tuesday nights.

The few remaining kinescopes from his Tonight Show work can be viewed at the Paley Center (formerly the Museum of Television and Radio, on Beverly Blvd. in Beverly Hills). To see Kovacs in total, you can do as I did, and get a copy of "The Kovacs Collection."

Ernie Kovacs has often been called the first comedian to truly use the medium, as opposed to comics who performed their radio or vaudeville acts on early TV. He's also been called the "Dali" of the small screen--a surrealist, for sure. I agree. Ernie influenced everyone from David Letterman to Chevy Chase, and was the true fore bearer of Laugh-In, Saturday Night Live, Second City TV, and all that forced you to think as you laughed. I fear that in today's ADHD world, a comedian like Kovacs would be consigned to Public TV and endless pledge breaks.

To watch the collection is to see the genesis of television itself: production train wrecks, pacing and technical problems, the growing pains of an infant medium that would lose today's viewer. Yet Kovacs' genius stands out. Most of his best efforts harpoon TV itself, especially his send-up of the kid's show Howdy Doody, "Howdy Deedy." Kovacs plays "Buffalo Milos," the Hungarian version of the real Howdy Doody host, Buffalo Bob. Buffalo Milos, with a heavy Hungarian accent, and in a full mourning suit, gets so annoyed with the marionette, he walks over, takes out a pair of scissors and clips its strings. The camera then pans a row of child actors in the skit, their mouths agape.

I laughed like hell. When I read in the accompanying pamphlet that Letterman had watched as many Kovacs kinescopes as were available before starting his own show 30 years ago, I could see the influence. In '92, Letterman did a flashback bit to explain what happened the last time he'd been on Sesame Street. In the bit, Letterman accidentally sets Oscar the Grouch afire with his cigar. It's subversive, hilarious stuff.

A great deal of thanks must go to Ernie's late widow, Edie Adams, whose efforts to preserve Kovacs' work were nothing less than herculean. She worked like hell after his death--literally and figuratively--to buy back all of his remaining kinescopes and two-inch reel-to-reel videotapes. When you get a chance to view the Kovacs Collection, it's the videotaped specials done for ABC in 1960-61 that capture his essence best. Sadly, he left us long before his time. I hope this collection keeps the memory of Ernie Kovacs living amongst all who appreciate creativity.

*

The subject of the Great Kovacs wouldn't be complete without establishing his place in Tonight Show history. It reads like this: The show's originator and innovator, Steve Allen (who should be the subject of another blog, later this summer)hosted from 1954 to 1957, with Kovacs taking Mondays and Tuesdays in late 1956. Allen started a Sunday night prime time show in the fall of tha year. When Steve left Tonight to focus entirely on his prime time program, NBC opted to make the show more like it's sister telecast, Today. Tonight: America After Dark proved a disaster that didn't last beyond July of 1957. Jack Paar then took over and revolutionized late night talk. Paar left in April, 1962, NBC filled with guest hosts until Johnny Carson's ABC contract ran out, then Johnny debuted, October 1 of that year.

The rest is recent history: Carson retired on May 22, 1992. Leno's first day was May 25, and, save the nine months that Conan O'Brien hosted the show in 2009, he'll host it until NBC is no longer a viable conduit to provide television programming. He'll do the show until he has fossilized--I'm convinced! Woe unto Jimmy Fallon if he believes Leno will ever step aside again...while any of us are young.

By the way, it was while quickly surfing past Late Night with Jimmy Fallon that I thought I saw Christina Aguilera...and it turned out to be Kirstie Alley! That's good news for one, bad news for the other.

A MYRIAD OF OBSERVATIONS

2011-05-06T19:10:00.000-07:00

So far in the merry, merry month of May, we've seen any number of events transpire, paramount of which is the elimination of the most wanted villain in the world. Then, in no particular order, there's been Major League Baseball taking control of the Dodgers, while the team achieves mediocrity on the field; We're watching another TV season end with, as usual, reality shows topping the ratings; and last, but certainly not least, the struggle of man's best friend to perform an evacuation for his doting, spandex-clad mistress. Yes, even the great Canine Constipation Caper merits note in this month's myriad of observations.

THIS IS A BULLETIN FROM CBS NEWS...

That's how they would slate it in television's first 15 years. A bulletin, like one would receive on an Associated Press ticker. Sunday May 1st, the slate read CBS NEWS Special Report, crawling at the bottom of the screen while 60 Minutes continued. I was on air, executing an innocuous weekend, TV on, as usual. It's pretty much a good idea to always have it on during an important ball game, or tuned to news, in case something of note should occur. Music stations don't pay for the Associated Press, anymore, and the internet is not as fast at breaking news as the networks and news channels on TV.

When CBS semi-interrupts its signature news program with a crawl that reads the "President of the United States will speak in half an hour," it gets your attention. What the hell could be happening on a Sunday night, 7:30 PDT, 10:30 Eastern Time? What topped my mind was, would I have to go on air with what ever is happening? Music stations do not, as a rule, stop the music unless there's a local emergency, war is declared, or someone of political prominence as been assassinated.

This is how I came to deliver the news that Osama Bin Laden had been killed by Navy Seals in a surprise attack. I wasn't the first to break the news. I had to call the boss, then waited until the music sweep came to it's end at 8:18, just before President Obama addressed the nation. By then, all the networks had confirmed that Bin Laden was dead, but those in their cars listening to KRTH got it first from yours truly.

Even while playing a small role in the announcement of an historic moment, a student of journalism or "news junkie," can't help but observe how a major event is reported. Anyone my age or older remembers where they were and what they were doing when JFK, RFK and MLK, Jr. were assassinated; when Neil Armstrong stepped foot on the moon's surface; when Nixon resigned; when the Challenger exploded...and when those jets struck the twin towers and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.

All I can tell you about November 22, 1963 was that the news came on, and wouldn't stop. No cartoons. Such is the perspective of a Four-year-old. My sister remembers the tears in Walter Cronkite's eyes as he broke the news. She was seven, and her recollection predates the thousands of times the moment has been replayed in the last 30 years. Usually, it's something like that which will stand out during the reporting of a crisis.

All of us vividly recall the late Peter Jennings in his shirtsleeves, on the air, day and night after Tuesday, 9/11/01. He was in control, calm and collected, and asking his director to linger on a shot of firefighters draping a flag across the roof of the Pentagon, nearest to where the intentionally crashed jetliner had left a gaping hole.

Sunday May 1st, because I was on the air, and had to quickly and concisely draft a bulletin for delivery on a music station (short and to the point), I didn't sample all the networks, but saw that NBC (reporting first on MSNBC, then breaking over the NBC network) had their first team working, regardless of the hour, and irrespective of it being Sunday night. David Gregory, host of Meet the Press, was first on, followed by White House Correspondent Chuck Todd, then Brian Williams, the nation's top-rated news anchor.

I had the studio TV on CBS, of course, with an occasional eye on 60 Minutes. It was Lara Logan's first appearance since her horrible assault in Egypt. I wrote an earlier post on this blog about Lara. It was as if our worst nightmare came true when she was attacked by that mob in February. Her disturbing account of the assault had concluded around 8:20, PDT. Within twenty minutes, she was back on the air, jarringly, describing Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda, in her role as CBS Chief Foreign Correspondent. In New York, hours had passed. Here, it made your head jerk! My God...this woman's resiliency! For now, it's the thing that stands out about what I saw, Sunday night, before the President spoke. There was something else I noted, though: Where were the rest of the CBS first-teamers?

Poor, sedate Russ Mitchell, seemed almost too calm, and over matched. The rest of the CBS crew gave good, hard news reports, but they are not well known at all. Bob Orr, David Martin, Chip Reid at the White House. If ever a network suffered from being in third place for twenty years, and if there were ever proof that it doesn't pay to not have a news channel under your company umbrella (as NBC does), CBS is it. Katie Couric will be gone, June 3rd, probably to ABC for a talk show, in 2012. The talent paid millions to be the face of the news organization was not to be found when the network reported that, at long last, Bin Laden was dead.

I couldn't help thinking back on the talent that went through CBS in the 60's, 70's and early 80's. SERIOUS journalists who were out front and ahead on every story from Moonshots to Vietnam, from Watergate to The Iran Hostage situation. My bookshelves are filled with memoirs by Roger Mudd, Dan Rather, Walter Cronkite, Bob Sheiffer, Daniel Shorr, and others who tell the story of how television journalism (specifically at CBS News) took shape, kept the country informed, and created a hefty sense of internal pride. They are trying to restore that pride. For nostalgia's sake, I certainly hope the company has their day once more.

D-O-D-G-E-R-S TEAM, TEAM, TEAM, TEAM...

What a mess. And I'm not just talking about their play on the field (we'll get to that later). In January of 2004, when Frank McCourt first stood before a press gaggle as "owner" of the Dodgers, I was listening to Big Joe McDonnell one of the most cogent and accurate sports voices in L.A. After ten minutes of McCourt, Big Joe went on and surmised that the guy was full of it, and that his highly leveraged acquisition of the team would lead to nothing but trouble. Did I say Joe's thoughts were cogent and accurate? In ten minutes he heard what it took Major League Baseball seven years to build a case against. Neither Joe nor MLB could have known that Frank and Jamie McCourt would have a messy divorce, but no one needs a crystal ball to have seen how they used the money gleaned from the teams assets.
After the Los Angeles Times reported that McCourt had to borrow 30 million to meet the Dodgers April payroll, Commissioner Bud Selig swooped in at last. They won't call it receivership, but what other term would one use when you take control of a franchise away from an owner?

For his part, McCourt has been on a media blitz, talking to any and every one with an open microphone...sort of like Charlie Sheen without the Tiger's Blood or the porn stars...trying desperately to win a public relations offensive based on flash, not substance. Guess what team won't meet payroll again, this month? Mr. McCourt should, for the sake of this great ball club, give up the ghost and cash out. There are any number of names with deep, deep pockets and community cache who would bring the luster back to Chavez Ravine--on and off the field.

The horrific beating of Giant fan Brian Stow has really cast a pawl over the start of the season. For reasons I've yet to determine, this incident resonated more than the killing of a Giant fan in the parking lot a few years ago, or the stabbing death of a fan outside Angel Stadium in Anaheim in 2009. It may well be because Mr. Stow was an EMT, and it was his life's work to come to the aid of his fellow man. It may also be that Dodger fans are fed up with whom they have to share the stadium with. It's been a poorly kept secret that fights have been a frequent occurrence in both outfield pavilions at Dodger Stadium, and in the Field level corners by the foul poles. That's where, in 2000, I saw a Giant fan pop a beach ball, hand his eye-glasses to his wife, then head into the aisle to meet four punks in Dodger-garb. They swarmed the Giant fan like they were back on the prison yard. And those not engaged in the beat-down looked on--some with toddlers seated on their shoulders so the kids could see the fight. It sickened me. It's been eleven years, and I still won't buy tickets in those sections.

Whoever purchases the Dodgers once MLB takes full control and kicks McCourt to the curb for certain, will have the money to make the team and the stadium experience much better. Even before Mr. Stow was attacked, and long before the Commissioner castrated Frank's ownership, I viewed the guys on the field as doomed to mediocrity-- nothing better than a .500 season looms. I wish I weren't right, but injuries and some obvious needs make the 2011 Dodgers worthy of all the empty seats you see at the stadium. Aside from Andre Ethier and Matt Kemp, L.A. is ordinary. Clayton Kershaw's curve is amazing, but, like his right-handed counterpart, Chad Bilingsley, there's usually one inconsistent inning per game that staves off greatness.

In short,(and mostly because McCourt has no money) they let their catcher, Russell Martin go, rather than pay him like a veteran. The Yankees are very happy to have him, as they cruise first place in the American League East. L.A. needs more punch at first base, a younger third baseman, an RBI man in left field, an established ace to lead the pitching staff, and a true closer, because Big Jon Broxton will give us all heart attacks, even when his elbow is healthy. McCourt's penny-pinching has a hand in all this. And yes, regardless of his performance-enhancing-drugs embarrassment, there would never have been a Mannywood, and the exciting close to 2008, had the Red Sox not paid all of Ramirez remaining salary for that season. The Dodgers got him free, essentially. Then they paid him...and he promptly got caught.

Steve Garvey says he's lined up two deep-pocketed investors. Rumors abound that the hallowed former owner of the Dodgers, Peter O'Malley, would come back to run the team with the right money behind him. Magic Johnson is interested in putting together a consortium. Mark Cuban, owner of the NBA Dallas Mavericks is always looking to own a baseball team. There are options, here, to putting the Dodgers back on top. My Blue Blood is up! I hope something happens before the team has to play in front of no one but cleaning crews.

WHAT THE HELL IS SO REAL ABOUT REALITY?

I'm fed up with the talent shows, amateur hours, and anything that entails people performing a task, then being judged by three to four effete, supercilious entities who either weep for the poor varlots, or revel in their own superiority. These shows are relatively cheap to produce, and viewers are watching in droves. This perplexes me, because it means not too many share my viewing habits (speaking of reality shows-- ten years ago, who would have guessed Christina Aguilera and Kelly Osbourne would swap physiques? But I digress...). Folks, you are missing some funny shows:

Community, NBC Thursday, 8pm--You want laughs, you got 'em. Chevy Case hasn't been this amusing since Christmas Vacation.

The Office, NBC Thursday, 9pm--Steve Carell is gone, but he began to annoy me, anyway. The other characters are funny enough to carry the day.

Parks And Recreation, NBC Thursday 9:30pm -- In the mold of The Office. Amy Poehler has never been funnier. Rashida Jones is lovely and a great comedic actress. Like tThe Office, the other outrageous characters will both appall and amuse.

30 Rock, NBC, Thursday 10pm---Getting a little long in the tooth, but Tina Fey is a great writer. Alec Baldwin's comic timing is a true gift. The first few Emmy-winning seasons were the best.

Modern Family, ABC, Wednesday 9pm -- Again, like The Office and Parks and Recreation, filmed in documentary style, the writing here is crisp and never fails to deliver. Even if you have no sense of humor, Sofia Vergara is worth a look...or a good healthy stare!

Cougar Town ABC, Wednesday 9:30pm -- I feel like I'm the only person watching this. I'd rather laugh at a bunch of borderline boozers than absorb the pursuit of a mutilating serial killer on the competing Criminal Minds, or try and guess if evil will prevail on whatever verison of Law and Order that NBC is offering, these days. The mind behind Scrubs is the mind behind Cougar Town. That's enough for me, and Courteny Cox is holding up quite well, thank you.

...and the Dramas...

NCIS, CBS, Tuesday 8pm-- The humor, the camaraderie, Cote De Pablo? It's frequently the highest rated drama for a reason. And it holds its own against American Idol! Seacrest, OUT!!

The Good Wife, CBS Tuesday, 10pm -- The best written drama on TV. The casting is perfect. I've been a fan of Juliana Margulies since her days on ER. Some have called this a woman's show, but then they call every program that doesn't entail explosions "a woman's show." It has story arcs, yes, but there's nothing soapy about it. Watch an episode and tell me it's not superior to an hour of Trump browbeating
D-list celebrity messes.

Hawaii Five-O CBS, Monday 10pm, and Harry's Law, NBC, Monday 10pm-- Record one and watch the other. Hawaii Five-o had a tough task trying to re imagine a classic. With its casting and action sequences, I don't think Hawaiians will come to hate it as they did Jack Lord and the original, back in the late 60's/early 70's. As for Harry's Law, it's a David E, Kelly creation,which means quirky characters and peerless scripts. NBC will bring it back this Fall, for sure. Remember when they were the network that surmised everyone needed an hour of Jay Leno each weeknight at ten? See? We, as viewers, do have the power to stop corporate greed: stop watching shit!

AND FINALLY, A DOG DAY AFTERNOON

The last observation for May came as I tooled down the road between the mall and the former location of an Armstrong's Nursery. Call it a "Scene from the Suburbs": To my right was a grassy berm, in lieu of a sidewalk. In all of seven seconds, I saw a stunning woman, tightly wrapped in spandex and sneakers, wearing a visor just above her Sophia Loren-sized sunglasses, her pony tale bobbing around. In her right hand was a lime green plastic bag, in her left, the leash that controlled a beautiful Golden Retriever. As this good-looking lady jogged in place, the Golden Retriever assumed the position atop the berm, haunches quivering, face twitching, body shivering--it's as if this poor animal were trying to pass a Heisman Trophy! During these short, seven seconds of life, it occurred to me that this sexy woman, devoted, ready and willing to pick up after her distressed beast, would do anything for her dog--yet had neglected to put more fiber in his diet.

And no, I didn't look back to see if he'd "...made for mommy."

Thanks for your attention, and for more, check out my other blog at Lamediawatch.com, a new media sight from the imagination of Sky Walker. Click on "LAMEDIABLOG" for the story of "The Bag Man," a hilarious true to life radio tale of dead air and galloping gonads.

A BAD CASE OF THE "WHAT IFs"

2011-04-04T17:22:00.001-07:00

We've all done it. Everyone has played "Kreskin" with our lives or historical events. Or, wondered, as Yogi Berra might put it, "What would have happened if what happened didn't happen?"

One-time speech writer and long-time Journalist Jeff Greenfield has put himself in front of a crystal ball and tried to determine the "what ifs" from our political landscape, and how our destinies would have been affected, in his new book, "Then Everything Changed." It's interesting fiction, and disturbing in some ways. Greenfield takes three events from the last 50 years and fleshes out what he imagines would have been the result: If what happened...hadn't happened. Without spoiling the plots, I'll just go over the events.

Greenfield reveals that a second-thought by a twisted mind really did prevent John F. Kennedy from behind blown up by a suicide bomber, as he left for church in Palm Beach, Florida, December 11, 1960. The would-be bomber didn't want to harm Jackie, who'd accompanied the then-President-Elect to the front door of their winter home, holding the new-born JFK, Jr.. Few were aware of this event, including historian Robert Dallek, who published a definitive JFK biography in 2003. Greenfield uses his immense political knowledge to fictionalize what might have been, had the bomber gone through with his plot, annihilated JFK, and left the country without a President-elect.

The second event under the microscope is the assassination of Robert Kennedy. What if RFK's brother-in-law, Stephen Smith, had been walking in front of Bobby, as he usually did, when the victorious candidate entered the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel, June 4, 1968? What if he'd prevented Sirhan Bashera Sirhan from hitting his target?

The third destiny-altering speculation considers the 1976 debate between Democrat Jimmy carter, and Republican President Gerald Ford. What if Ford had recanted or clarified his off-handed comment that there "...would be no Soviet domination of Poland and Czechoslovakia under a Ford Administration." In truth, the comment put his campaign in damage-control mode, and stopped Ford's climb in the polls--just long enough for Carter to eventually eek out an electoral win. What if?

Greenfield's tome is fictional food for thought. Entertaining, sometimes outlandish, and in the case of what would have taken place had there not been a JFK administration, depressing. But, as with his political reporting for ABC, CNN and CBS over 40 years, his book is well considered, and excellently put to paper. It gave me an idea of my own, as all my reading material does: What would have happened had comedy, drama, and variety on radio survived the onslaught of television? What if there had not been the need to employ announcers to spin records? Had there been no such profession as the Disc Jockey? This one gives me pause. But if Jeff Greenfield can wonder aloud how a President Lyndon Johnson would have handled the Cuban missile crisis, surely I can conjecture a world without disc jockeys (the way my career has gone these last three years, the world's damned near been without THIS one!).

First of all, the birth of Rock and Roll would have been protracted. The crossover of R&B would have taken a great deal more time without a medium through which the music could be heard regularly. The social ramifications of this are almost too ponderous to explore in one sitting. What can be determined is...what would have become of the Disc Jockey?

That's easy. The talented, the greats, the legends, would still have been enormous successes in broadcasting. The age of comedy, drama and variety on radio was a tremendous playground for dialecticians and enunciators. By the early 1950's when the era was on the wane, Jack Webb was striving for more "natural" actors. Radio would have continued to create work for performers of all kinds who actually had the goods.

Now--what of the cavalcade of dumbshits, babblers, con artists and sex predators who helped heap shovelful after shovelful of dirt on disc jockeying, through their idiocy and marginal talent? The recipients of nepotism, cronyism, payola, plugola and practitioners of ethics that make Bernie Madoff look like Mohandas Ghandi? What of them? These are the folk who made it possible for consultants and programmers to comb through data, and rationalize that radio is better as background, etc. These are individuals who got wealthy by accident of fate. What would these people have done with themselves if they'd needed another venue for their deft application of office politics?

Hmmm. I can imagine a cluster of big-voiced buffoons auditioning to be Ronald McDonald in some local community. Or as clowns at children's parties (God help the kids!). Bellowing imbeciles warbling "Itsy-Bitsy Spider," to frightened boys and girls, who would, in turn, beg their moms and dads to whisk them from the presence of this narcissistic specter!

I can imagine a plethora of used car salesmen, telemarketers, and loud-mouths engaging in fisticuffs over infomercial hosting jobs. Alas, there would be precious few Doctors, engineers or rocket scientists with deep voices. In some cases, the number of interior decorators would overwhelm the market! And, sadly, welfare rolls would have increased incrementally...had there never been a need for disc jockeys.

As for me? It's hard to think I could have had even less success doing something else. I would never had heard The Real Don Steele when I was an adult (hearing him when I was a kid doesn't count). I wouldn't have veered from sports to music presentation, and maybe would have been spared the occasional sociopath or megalomaniac as a direct supervisor. Who knows? I would have tried to write. We can never have any idea.

In the end, though, what we have is a talent like Jeff Greenfield to come up with a fascinating premise for a novel, and entertain us by musing, "What if?"

FREAKS AND CELEBRITY SLOP

2011-03-02T21:48:00.000-08:00

As long as human beings have lived in communities, there have always been what we've colloquially (and not endearingly) called "freaks." From the village idiot to the court fool, from the afflicted to the deranged, these poor, misbegotten creatures have been the spectacles that drew mixed amounts of fascination, merriment and scorn.

P.T. Barnum made a fortune trotting out what were then called pinheads, bearded ladies, limbless souls, Siamese twins, all for perusal, derision, revulsion, and the almighty buck.

Society has advanced, thank God. The damaged among us are protected from exploitation by law and the evolution of our thinking. This does not mean our thirst for "freaks" has abated. Not a chance. Not as long as there are celebrities, and as long as money can be made exploiting their human condition.

Cases in point: One Carlos Estevez, AKA Charlie Sheen, Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears, and the beauteous train-wreck-to-be named Christina Aguilera.

How is watching Charlie Sheen' s recent media blitz any different than answering the call of the Carnival Barker a hundred years ago, paying ten cents, and gaping at the Elephant Man? If Charlie weren't a wealthy, famous celebrity, we'd refer to him as that loadie, that perve, or, more kindly, "...that eccentric guy down the street with two broads. " We'd say he's crazy. We'd say he needs help. Since he's Charlie, most of us just watch the meltdown like the TV show it is, and wait for the pay-off. And once it happens, and Sheen disappears into either treatment or the abyss, our curiosity will take us somewhere else. Our curiosity--aided and abetted by the breathless reporting on all forms of media.

Should we feel remorse for our voyeurism? Should we point out that in the 1800's, families used to pack a picnic lunch to attend hangings? Is it our responsibility to police our primal urge to leer at the less fortunate, or that of the modern day P.T. Barnums of our world to sacrifice ratings, internet hits, and the priceless word of mouth gained by keeping Charlie's public pain in our faces?

He's hard to miss. There's a quote that describes Sheen's ubiquitousness over these last few days. It's what the late New York Yankee manager Ralph Houk said to a then-unknown sports reporter named Howard Cosell, in 1961: "You're like shit--you're everywhere." In this case, it's both Charlie, those willing to exploit him, and those of us eager to watch, that are everywhere... and feeling shitty about it.

Unlike Barnum's Freaks, some celebrities learn to make the exploitation work for them. Fifty years ago, Lindsay Lohan would have been disgraced and treated as radioactive. Today? Well, no, she can't land an acting job, but her perp-walks into court are carried live on local TV stations and cable networks. Can a young woman get the help she needs if she knows it will result in less attention?

Britney Spears has been largely off the radar since her celebrated breakdown. It's hard to forget, though, that she'd lost it, grabbed a pair of clippers and turned herself into Curly from the Three Stooges, a few years ago. At the time, her former Mickey Mouse Club mate, Christina Aguilera, shook her head and offered platitudes about Britney's behavior.

Judge not lest ye be judged, right? A few years have passed, and now it's Christina screaming for help--and a lot more distinctly than she sang the national anthem!

Miss Aguilera's is a case that draws our focus more sharply because she is so incredibly beautiful, and blessed with a voice that can make buildings shake. Sadly, Christina's public problems have been pushing on her fault-lines in wait of a quake. If her singing rattles buildings, her probable meltdown will make the structures tumble.

This is a woman gifted as a young child, who witnessed an abusive father in action, and took the bullying of classmates jealous of her precocious talent. This is personal baggage that gets unloaded publicly when fame and fortune manifest themselves. The results are predictable--young, lithe, pretty beyond reason, she was drawn to (and exploited by) older guys who could administer the maintenance she demanded--the maintenance that made her (according to a long list of people who've dealt with her) very difficult to work with.

You could see it in the succession of albums. Then the "Dirrty" video, the metal studs marring a face with porcelain features; marriage, a baby...the tabloid tidbits about wild sexual appetites...divorce, a new boyfriend not nearly as rich and famous as she was, and then the drinking. The drinking presaged the fiasco with the national anthem at the Super Bowl, the copious weight gain, and the tumble taken at the Grammy Awards.

Her now legendary difficulty has made it impossible for many to feel empathy. And it is only the antics of Charlie Sheen that have kept her arrest Tuesday morning from becoming a more full blown media event. The L.A. County Sheriff's Department only took her into custody for the night because they'd arrested her boyfriend on a DUI, and she was just too incapacitated to move.

Too drunk to take care of herself. Screwing up "The Star Spangled Banner" is one thing, a reason to snicker at her and view as just desserts for her being a difficult person. Drinking oneself into imbecility, however, doesn't happen without reason.

We'll watch, we'll behold, and cluck our tongues. Most of us will find within us the hope that Christina, Charlie and Lindsay will eventually entertain us with their talent, again...and not their desperation. It is a faustian bargain, the quest for fame.

FUNNY YOU SHOULD ASK...

2011-02-14T18:04:00.000-08:00

The results are in. It should be no surprise that the question I posed in the previous post produced exactly the results I expected.

Question: Do you still like humor in the presentation of your favorite songs on the radio? No scientific methods at work, here. No perceptuals, no pollster like Pat Caddell, no equations or word manipulations from a Frank Luntz--just a very informal question with some varied, but like-minded answers. All of them, predictably, in the affirmative. It might well have been informative to find someone who is so addled they don't enjoy humor on the radio, but then I'd have to reach out more to people so distraught they can't conceive of (or handle) anything thing but a morose, funereal presentation of the music. Unless, of course, we are being deceived. That would account for the ratings that keep stations with a "no humor policy" in big business. I suspect, as is the case with questions prepared for a political poll, it's how the query is posed. I'll return to that point after a look at what you have to say.

Radio veterans replied most to my question. George in L.A.'s San Fernando Valley was very brief with his answer: "Funny jocks aren't getting jobs." It's true.

Mark in San Diego left his view in the comments section, here. "As long as it's not drop your pants type humor." In presenting music, I agree. The edgy stuff is more apropos to morning shows, and not necessarily while riffing over a song intro aimed at women ages 25-54.

Kevin in Long Beach has more to say on this, in his comment. Click comments to read it in its entirety. In short, he says the business is in a spiral toward "never ending suicide."

From Brooklyn, New York, Bill writes, "Sure, the wit enhances the presentation. I've known non-radio people who will remember for YEARS a silly crack made by some guy on the air, and the guy who made it. A well-placed zinger in the middle of the formatics goes right to the bulls eye with the guy on the street. Slick programmers [though] have trouble with non-funny [jocks] trying to be funny, and typically overreact to creative content. Of course, the genuinely talented guys on the staff are then unfairly restricted. That problem has to do with the programmer's taste and intelligence...a whole different issue.

"Sure. great radio humor is as important today as ever. Pity, however, the funny performer who's career is controlled by an administrator who is intimidated by the guy's talent. The manner in which that administrator can short-circuit a man's future is decidedly UNfunny."

I've personally found out how true that can be!

Darryl in North County, San Diego, says its a problem throughout the entertainment business: "I'm of the mind that well thought out and clever/intellectual humor MUST be part of any decent broadcast. Station programmer/management types and so called "consultants" have ruined the radio markets with forced and monotonous playlists.

How could they have any idea about what radio audiences want with the inaccurate means of ratings measurement currently in use? Consider, it is they who have conditioned the minds of listeners to the degree of having no taste or actual opinions. The result?
The music industry, in keeping with similar schools of thought, has taken part in stifling true creativity and talent in favor of manufactured, gimmick-laden music, with no lasting or redeeming qualities whatsoever."

Ouch! True...and the subject of another blog at a future date that should inspire some realllly lively conversation!

John in the state of Washington touches on what Bill observed--that an unfunny jock, unlike the proverbial bad apple, can rot the barrel for us all.

"...I'm pretty sure the reason, in regard to radio, that people would say that they don't want to hear humor [in the presentation of music] is because so much of the humor tossed out on the air is bad...'hey, there's a traffic jam on the 405...well, they must be listening to ME...hahhahahahah...' and worse. It's often so bad, that's it's truly embarrassing, and as a listener, you can't help but want to turn the station or put in a CD.
Radio takes ordinary people and makes them think they are instant experts. A guy who used to sell cars gets a radio sales job and becomes an overnight expert on advertising and the song selection of a given format. A former fast-food worker gets an internship which leads to a board op position [one responsible for what's on the air, executes the elements, but doesn't ordinarily open the microphone], then gets to do the weather on air and suddenly they're a comedian. From there they go to work at a talk station, become instant experts on politics, or become part of the morning show on a music station and 'presto,' they're an expert on love relationships...oh...and they are also a comedian...."

Strong opinions, here.

A former programmer tells us radio is slowly squeezing itself into non-relevance by leaving its strengths, as MTV did. His post is here in the comments section, and speaks to the point: It's pretty much up to the programmer to insure that the station (the jocks) compels return visits by listeners...and well-placed humor is a part of the "personality" that makes them come back.

Finally, Dave in Woodland Hills pointed out that because of consolidation, companies have figured out a strategy that makes virtually everything said between (or over) song intros relate to the station, a current contest, or tease of what's coming in the next few minutes. And this should be constant. We've seen this on TV news, when the teases for a particular story about, say, side-effects of mixing Viagra and Flintstone vitamins, will add up to more air time than the actual story itself. To certain programmers, this squeezes humor off the agenda, even though talented jocks could toss off the tease in a very funny way.

All of this input is dead-on. No one wants ill-prepared jocks filling the air with attempts at humor that drives us to hit the seek button on the car radio. Yet declaring humor a felony inappropriately, regardless of what skewed statistics say, goes agin the human grain. Yes humor is subjective, but man has been laughing out loud since the earliest Neanderthal slipped on a banana peel. How hilarious it must have been to see that hairy bastard flying feet first and landing on his arse! I love a story told by author Robert Metz in his 1979 book, The Tonight Show, which chronicled the rise of the NBC show and offered a brief history of comedy's place in our world. In examining the path to be trod by Steve Allen, Jack Paar and Johnny Carson, Metz wrote of the fourteenth century German comic master, Til Eulenspiegel:

"Til was cruel in exercising his wit. In the village of Budenstetten, he was engaged by a parish priest with whom he was constantly in and out of trouble as he practiced his merry pranks--including a gross maneuver which caused the priest to relieve himself during mass. As stage manager of the Easter play, he situated an old foe, the priest's venerable chambermaid, at the tomb of Jesus to play the angel of the Lord. Til and two peasants took the parts of the three Marys. When the chambermaid-angel asked "Whom do you seek?" one of the peasants, on instructions from Eulenspiegel replied, "We are looking for an old, one-eyed concubine belonging to the priest." In the uproar that followed, Til was once more forced to flee."

I wonder how Til Eulenspiegel would have fared presenting music on the radio in 2011? Methinks he'd, once more, be forced to flee.

We love to laugh and make each other laugh. No one, from Captain Bligh to his current day, media counterparts, should forsake us that right--especially over the radio.

ANSWER ME THIS...

2011-02-07T17:18:00.000-08:00

I've had a thousand thoughts and opinions rumble through my head since I last updated this blog. It is true, I probably won't drone on about politics very much, anymore. As much a s I would contribute to the national discussion, I'd rather make you laugh, or inquire your opinions. Most of the comments to my blogs have been spam from overseas websites of...dubious nature.

This month I'd really like some answers from everyone who reads my blathering and blithering. Because I need an answer.

"The Radio" has been my career for three decades, now. For those of you who share this profession, a long recounting of what has changed in broadcasting (and changed for the worst) is not necessary. And those who are in the business also know that, to keep working and keep winning, we sometimes adjust our ideas to "go-along and get-along." But I must ask all of you, fellow broadcasters, personalities, friends or just the person who still flips on the radio for a little music or talk:

Do you still like a little humor with the presentation of your favorite songs?

Among the many ways the radio biz has gone south in the last decade has been the purge of humor from the delivery of music. Some of this approach comes from "perceptuals," or "polling" by consultants. The lighter the fare, the less humor. The younger the music...the less humor.

Write a comment to this post if you enjoy a laugh with music as its presented. It's not a real Focus Group, not a scientific poll, but it goes a long way to proving what I believe: That well placed zingers augment the music and enhance the station.

What say you?

THE LAST POLITICAL BLOG...FOR A GOOD, LONG WHILE

2010-09-03T16:45:00.000-07:00

Either I'm on a path toward more prolonged happiness, or I'm just too fed-up to waste otherwise positive energy ruminating on the operations of the body politic, and media coverage of same.

In days gone past, I would have attributed this to the deep, abiding cynicism that invaded my psyche as a young man. Not now. I look at things too clearly. Instead of the accusatory and judgemental "They," I use the inclusive "we," because every human being is capable of the same lapses and foibles. Not everybody has the fondness for, or sense of history I posses. That's just a personal idiosyncrasy. Just about everyone, however, tends to view politics pejoratively, now...but not for the same reasons.

In my case, it's a realization that the benign civics lessons we try and teach children combine fact and apocryphal. Ours is a republic, with candidates elected to represent our interests, etc. Lifelong immersion in the machinations of government, governing and campaigning for said, reveal a filthy process. Millions remain blissfully ignorant of the dirt, and how the manipulation and exploitation are used to make ordinarily decent people vote against their own interests and the interests of the nation on a whole.

The individuals most susceptible to this are my age--the guy at the half-century mark, frustrated because life hasn't been all he'd hoped it would be. As disappointment, the rigors of child-rearing, divorce, job loss, aging, et al, build up, the interest in politics and the rants begin--against taxes, government, races, genders...issues that they'd never given a living shit about start to make their bile bubble up.

Decent people, by and large. Good human beings who still believe that a candidate or a party embody what they stand for: God, Country, and Family Values, dammit! The salt of the earth, who faithfully absorb the opinion that passes for news or fact, not knowing their inner fears and fires are being cynically stoked, and their religious fervor is being whipped up in a revival tent larger than the Caribbean Sea.

I'm not that guy. At 5-0 plus 1, now, I'm fatigued with having my buttons pushed. I was interested in politics at 13, when at the same age, many of these other fellows were smoking dope and sneaking out of their bedroom windows late at night (there'd have been hell to pay had I tried either). I read Time or Newsweek, watch some of the talking-head shows, and realize the agitation is not worth it. And there is continual agitation. Thirty years of being involved in broadcasting teaches one that all reporting is not intended to be informative. Much is written to churn up a maelstrom. The panel shows are there to pit two ideologues against one another, not to come to a resolution, but to bang heads, cause sparks, and create ratings.

Politics. Inflame and assail. Foment hate and derision. Governing? Stop the other guy by any means necessary. Party loyalty? Republicans found the power of the pulpit 30 years ago. Somehow, in a world of all-too-human hypocrisy, fundamentalism cohabitates with cold ambition and lock-step uniformity. Democrats, liberal, progressive, willing to fight for issues concerning something other than personal gain, show human weakness of their own: They lack the desire to piss off the guys who are being whipped into a frenzy by the Republicans. And the G.O.P. plays offense much better than Democrats play defense. The hostility chip that seems to operate in conservative ideology is not present in liberals, not where politics is concerned. Thus the difference in approaches, and results.

Me? I have watched and read and written of the political world, and have seen a man with actual intelligence elected overwhelmingly to the Presidency. How often can you say that? JFK had those smarts, that charisma. You have to be over 55 to remember his brief years in office, and his assassination obscures the fact that he was cautious about much, stymied by congress, and loathed by crackpots. Imagine if they'd know what he was hiding (poor health, probably sex addiction)?

Does that all sound familiar? JFK had major newspapers and (essentially) two and a half television networks to contend with. President Obama has millions of internet bloggers, and a channel that masquerades as a news organization, while decimating the complete agenda of his opposition (Fox). On cable, at least, objectivity (CNN) means playing devil's advocate. The so-called lefties (MSNBC, after sunset) give Obama grief as well. A cerebral President who uses his scholarly resolve is not popular among the hot-headed motormouths who need a constant vortex whirling to provide content.

The problem is, fellows my age still look at TV and Radio as the voice of official fact and reason. They're neither. They are hell-bent on creating conflict that equals ratings, that equal money. Period. Otherwise, how could broadcasters with a modicum of intelligence take Sarah Palin seriously? The history of popular culture in our country is riddled with characters like her, whose glibness hides an insidious, venal, covetousness. The kind we're told is sinful. How many parents tell their kids to finish what they started? How many of these same parents now worship at the feet of this person who resigned elective office to go make money, then (I'll bet) run for yet a higher office. Do our like minded opinions spin us into denial, as far as politicians are concerned? Do people need a leader to believe in so badly they'll inhale whatever hot air is blown in their direction?

Apparently so. And in a world where ex-Disc Jockeys evolve into talk-show hosts, sometimes appropriating political talking points they don't believe, getting riled up is no longer worth it. I take verapmil and atenlol to control blood pressure. My own radio career is held in limbo, and essentially I'm alone. Is the current body politic (with only the new media making it different from what's gone on in politics since the Roman senate) worth the agitation.

I say no. And look toward a little more happiness in life.

HEY LAAAAAAAAAAADY!!!

Many of you will read this once the holiday is over. You may or may not have seen 84-year old Jerry Lewis cry and drop his pants once more, in his honorable, never-ending, herculean effort to raise funds for the MDA, and find a cure for these dreaded diseases. I no longer watch. Besides getting sick of politics, I've gotten sick of telethons, and would rather send a donation than suffer the maudlin proceedings. Telethons used to be entertaining. Now they use the same marketing techniques as any other business that wants to attack your emotions and separate you from money. I'll send my check (If I don't, Jerry will send envelopes all year, anyway), but will take a pass on the pathos.

JULY WAS GREAT IN '88

2010-07-21T21:10:00.000-07:00

One of the advantages of being born in July is that it's summer...at least in the northern hemisphere. The July's have piled up thick and strong, now, and each has its special place in my memory. Coming across an ancient TV commercial on YouTube can take me back to being a 7 year-old, in 1966. Affairs of the heart, and the occasional flare of youthfulness can conjure up 1976. It's when the month is unusually mild, as this one has been, that I recall July 1988.

Something as simple as a sea breeze can do it. For a few reflective seconds, I'm 29, leaving San Diego as if with a knapsack on a stick. Fleeing the repressive formatics, inane lack of leadership, and the hideous overnight shift at what was then Y-95-FM. I landed in Oxnard, at Top 40,
Q-105. One of the questions I was asked when interviewing for the night job was, "Why in the world are you leaving San Diego to come here?"

The question was valid. San Diego was beautiful, its beaches breath-taking, a small town/big city. I had left the nation's 18th largest radio market for number 88, or something lower on the list. It took an entire weekend to make my decision to go. I'd be leaving friends, a nice apartment in a great neighborhood, with reasonable rent, and I wouldn't be paid any more...in fact, for the first few weeks, it would be less.

I left to get off the overnight shift, yes, but also to play the hits, and bring my natural humor to the air. The suffocating atmosphere at KWLT (which became KKYY, Y-95) was more than I could bear. Along with production man John Nixon (who's reading this, I'm sure), more fun was had in the halls, and the studio making amusing spots than any time spent on air with the listening public. Adult Contemporary radio, as its called, makes money, but it's wall paper. Background noise. It stifles talented people. And it's no place for someone as young a 29 as I was.

When I got to Q-105, regardless of the dilapidated shack we broadcast from, and the fact the place was permeated with the scent of the cow, pig and chicken manure used to fertilize the surrounding strawberry fields, I was ecstatic. To be able to display my innate enthusiasm, to embrace the vibrancy and freshness of Top 40 music, and to crack wise over the air...at will? A hefty burden had been lifted from my shoulders.

The 70 degree summer temperatures and soft Oxnard breeze immediately brings back the positive vibe, and the energy of July 1988--and the music. Whether it can be considered good music or not, only a musicologist can say. I can't be critical about it. It reminds me of feeling free on the air for the first time, even though a review of recordings from that summer reveal a jock trying desperately to break free of the repression that was lingering in his head. I was horrible. But I felt good!

These are some of the song titles you'll never hear, you'll never see on a list of 1988's major hits, but they are songs that immediately bring forth the rush of excitement I felt playing them for the first time, that summer:

Rush Hour - Jane Weidlin
Summer Girls - Dino
Spring Love - Stevie B.
Simply Irresistible - Robert Palmer
Another Part of Me - Michael Jackson
Jackie - Blue Zone
The Twist - The Fat Boys, with Chubby Checker
Shake Your Thang - Salt and Pepper
Parents Just Don't Understand - D.J. Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince

The latter was number one on the Top 8 at 8 (brought to you by Saturday's Fashion store in The Oaks Mall) the night my U-Haul rental rolled into Port Hueneme, where I'd live for two years.

The pay would improve a little, my talent would develop, especially by summer, 1989, and I would never leave Ventura County (although I miss the sea breeze). All that mattered in July of 1988, was that, after 7 years being suppressed in both San Diego, and earlier in Public Radio, I was playing the hits...being young, and ready to burst with enthusiasm for what I was doing. I flush with moments of that feeling when a zephyr brings back a song--I'd love to feel that all the time, just once more in my career.

PUSHING BUTTONS THROUGH THE YEARS

While I'm thinking about all this, I'm reminded that I hardly listen to music at all while I'm in the car. Call it maturing, call it getting older, call it not associating positive memories with what I'm hearing. I think we can all, however, recall what the buttons on our car radios were set to as life rolled along. I certainly do.

On the buttons of my first car in 1977, equipped with a factory, Philco, AM radio, I punched up, from left to right, KABC (Dodger games) KRLA (I could never resist the oldies..and in '77 they had a current play list. It was Art Laboe, Johnny Hayes, the music, and that's it), KTNQ, The new Ten-Q (new home of the Real Don Steele, but they sped their music up 3 to 4 percent...sounded like the Chipmunks sang every song), KHJ (coming to the end of it's long run as THE Top 40 station in L.A.), KGFJ (the heritage "soul" station), and 1580, KDAY (the preeminent "soul" station). If you didn't have FM in your ride, you missed KMET, K-EARTH, KLOS, KUTE, the new "Disco" station, and jazz on KKGO.

Flash ahead ten years, as I settled in at Q-105, and my '83 Corolla has six AM and three FM buttons. On the AM: KMPC (not for the big band music, but for the remarkable, funny sports reporter Jim Healy, who's daily 5:30pm, 30 minute, drop-in filled shows could not be missed); KABC (Dodgers, as always), and KNX for news. FM: K-EARTH (who knew I'd wind up working there, someday?), Q-105 (where I worked, then) and KIIS (the leading Top 40 in the '80's).

The state or radio and car radios themselves have changed. Not having Sirius/XM, my six AM presets, today, are occupied by sports talk--710 KSPN, 1090 out of San Diego, KNX for news, KFWB, for my friend Maggie McKay (Phil Hulett's on too early for me to catch while driving) and KABC (Dodgers...back home again, although surrounded by some fairly hostile right-wing hosts, and weekend infomercials). I have 18 FM presets I used for no more than four stations: The Sound, KLOS, KIIS, and K-Earth, though I rarely listen when I'm not in the building.

Enjoy the summer, enjoy listening to what you dig, whether the radio delivers it or not. And if you surf the net for what radio used to offer, enjoy my friend Kevin Poore's "Nights at The Sound Table" Wednesday nights at 7:30, PDT, at www.ustream.com. A panel determine what music sucks and what doesn't. It's a lot of fun.

UP NEXT: GOOD LOOKING PEOPLE RULE! FIRST, HERE'S JACKIE WITH THE WEATHER...

2010-06-09T19:26:00.000-07:00

After I jotted down the notes for this month's ramblings, I came across an article of note in Newsweek magaizne. The writer, Dahlia Lithwick, was obviously pondering the same notion that I was: that Good Looking people, apparently, rule.

For those who have not read or do not intend to read the article, Dahlia observed that "...the less attractive you are, the more likely you are to receive a longer prison sentence, a lower damage award, a lower salary." She pointed to a new book written by Stanford law professor Deborah Rhode, that proposes laws be enacted to halt "looks discrimination." "The Beauty Bias," is its title. In it, all kinds of low, vile, and shallow employer practices are cited, like those at Abercrombie and Fitch. Evidently, these yo-yos hold Sorority-type management meetings in which they review photos of their sales kids, and fire them for acne breakouts, weight-gain, and (as Dahlia Lithwick writes), "...unacceptable quantities of ethnicity."

Ms. Lithwick's article illuminates exactly what was running through my mind, though my thoughts are more in line with the root cause of this kind of discrimination: Innate human nature, and repetitive exposure to our national addiction...TV.

Look--as humans, we've always been drawn to beautiful things: flowers, cloud formations, and other people. First paintings, then photos, movies and celebrity, via television, simply compounded the allure. I figured it might be a great idea for those of you with young children if, one evening during a power outage, you regale the kids with tales from days of yore--not about a era before plastic surgery and dental veneers, but more recent times. For example, when ugly people delivered TV news.

'Tis true. Especially in Los Angeles. A sign has been posted and fully accepted: No uglies allowed, especially when it comes to delivering the WEATHER! Oh, sure, they let a bald guy with brains cover politics, or a heavy-set woman in horn-rimmed glasses report from the Pentagon. When it comes to Highs and lows and the marine layer, staggering good looks are a necessity.

Though attractive lead actors and actresses have always dominated soaps and prime-time TV, it's taken time for the prerequisite for what I call "beyond telegenic" looks to completely overtake the news. In TV's first 25 years, broadcast journalism was more sacrosanct. What we would now consider ridiculous looking human beings (that is, every day folks) would bring you the daily forecast.

On KNBC, Channel 4, in the late 60's-early 70's, there was a gentleman named Bob Hale, who illustrated his weather reports with a huge, magic marker. He'd draw cute little seals, puppies and kitties next to the southland's predicted highs and lows. A bespectacled man who looked like an insurance agent, Bob disappeared from the air one summer, never to return. Former KNBC Anchor Tom Snyder told his late night audience (years after Bob had passed on) that in between drawing cuddly characters, the weather artist pounded the sauce with a vengeance, and swerved his way out of TV.

Also on Channel 4, around the same era, was a genuine meteorologist named Gordon Weir. With looks a bit like an aging James Mason, he took a professorial approach to assessing the next day's weather, using a pointer and science instructor's monotone. His forecasts were so deadly dull, you could almost hear the director yelling "WAKE UP" through the cameraman's headset. Old Gordon may well have nodded off, himself, between the overnight low in the valley, and the high in Manhattan Beach. You couldn't tell. When he drifted from TV, around the middle of the 70's, I imagined he went back to his perch in some ivory tower, to be dusted, occasionally, by a bored, university scrub woman. In truth, he passed in 1987 after a long illness.

Over on then-highly rated KNXT Channel 2 (now CBS2), Bill Keene held forth. A weather fixture with the visage of a basset hound, under his very perceptible rug, Bill left TV for KNX, the radio station upstairs at Columbia Square in Hollywood, where he'd spend the rest of his professional life as the area's preeminent traffic reporter and punster.

Who could forget Dr. George Fishbeck on KABC Channel 7's Eyewitness News? The pixie-like Dr. George was the very image of fatherly befuddlement, as amusing as he was sincere. He often held his right hand over the "7 in a Circle" crest, just above the heart on his Eyewitness News Blazer. As late as 2008, he was still doing forecasts in his living room for his wife. He's what they like to call a "spry" 88 years old.

This era of pallid, old weathermen with limp, damaged hair started crumbling while they were at their height, when KNBC hired the comely Kelly Lange to do weekend forecasts. With the recent retirement of CBS2 Weather clown Johnny Mountain, who'd been on the air in Los Angeles for 32 years, the crypt is nearly sealed. Comics like Fritz Coleman on KNBC4, and dimpled, leading men-types like Dallas Raines on KABC7 are the last of their ilk.

Turn on most TV news in L.A., today, and you realize why no one makes time to watch the Miss America Pageant, anymore. Why should you when you can watch someone just as stunning do the weather on TV?

Cases in point: Jackie Johnson, CBS2. Just try and mentally process weather information and remember tomorrow's high while being exposed to those curves for two or three minutes. I regularly go to the internet for the weather, but watch Jackie just for the diversion. What's worse, I easily admit my shallowness, and I'm not alone.

Early in the morning on KNBC4, a voluptuous distraction named Elita Loresca is gainfully employed. They must spend a fortune on her wardrobe, what with those cashmere sweaters being stretched beyond capacity. A lot of coffee must get spilled with Elita on display. Those who don't get up early can see her layout in FHM. there's wet clothing involved.

Turn to KTLA, Channel 5, and there's Vera Jimenez, who once did morning traffic on CBS2. Thinking back, I have to say she's soooooooooo much cuter and cuddlier than Bob Hale's drawings of kitties and seals, especially when she did traffic. Something, however, is amiss at Channel 5. KTLA lights her differently than CBS2 did. A petite young woman, her look is diminished by Channel 5's inability to light her correctly. Even in HD, you half-way expect a screeching cackle, a broom and smoking cauldron to accompany the graphics. And this is a seriously good looking woman. TV has never known how to properly light performers with brown skin, I suppose.

Finally, I submit to you, the strapping Indra Petersens, on KABC7, every Saturday and Sunday morning. A Swedish Beauty. She may well have been on Tiger's short list, but she's obviously too smart for anything like that. If you're up early on the weekend or just falling asleep, it does you good to know there's someone who looks like that on TV.

My point: The latter sentence says it all. Even I, as immersed in the history of broadcast journalism as I am, as acutely aware of discrimination as I am, have to concede that it's a treat seeing women so beautiful present news. It's sexist, yes, and unabashedly superficial, but evidently, we love it--at least according to focus groups, galvanic skin response tests, and the almighty Nielson ratings.

The author of "The Beauty Bias" may well be correct. Of all the forms of discrimination, though, this would be the most difficult to adjust or to legislate against. It's a deeply ingrained part of our flawed human nature. Besides, is beauty not, as they say, in the eye of the beholder?

***

A final observation: I hope at some point in time that, as day must follow night, AUTO-TUNE will go the way of the WAH-WAH PEDAL. For an example of autotune at work, think of Sean Kingston's "Beautiful Girls." The robotic computer program is used to keep him on key and in tune. After while, it's like finger nails on a chalk board.

For memories of the equally hideous wah-wah pedal, think back to the old Cheech and Chong bit where, in a fit of wah-wah induced rage, Cheech snatches the offending pedal out of its power supply. It's on Cheech and Chong's Wedding Album. Still funny, after all these years.

IT HAPPENED AT THE TAMI SHOW

2010-04-21T20:16:00.002-07:00

I'm probably going to provoke a lot of opinionated discussion here, because when it comes to music, especially rock and roll, nothing (save politics and religion) stimulates more passionate positions. So steady yourself for agreement, or a reaction that makes you pace the room with restrained aggression.

In this, the 55th year since Bill Haley and The Comets topped the Billboard charts with "Rock Around the Clock," we have the luxury of looking back on over a half century of rock and roll recorded on film or video tape. I believe there are five performances that galvanized, charged, or struck viewers with awe, and altered the lens through which popular music was examined. In no particular order, they are:

Elvis Presley performing Hound Dog on the Milton Berle Show, June 5, 1956

It wasn't his first TV appearance, of course. It was, however, the one during which he bumped and humped and grinded like nothing the country had seen outside of a stag film. The Big E's evocative, interpretative, unselfconscious gyrations at the old NBC Studios on Sunset and Vine in the heart of Hollywood, beamed live across a country and shocked an older generation to its conservative, repressed toes. For his subsequent TV appearances, including his celebrated shots on The Ed Sullivan Show, Elvis was photographed from the waist up...to both simmer the surging hormones of teenage girls, and the blood pressure of the sexually stifled parents, network TV affiliates and their sponsors. Regardless, Elvis rocked their world, and opened the door for expression via spontaneous hip-swiveling. The generation that sat watching with mouths agape as he stole the show from Uncle Miltie, would be doing The Twist at parties, four years later.

The Beatles on Ed Sullivan, February 9, 1964

Before a huge Sunday night viewing audience, the Fab Four shook America from its moorings, and its mourning. Two and a half months after President Kennedy's assassination, The Beatles filled a gaping hole in the heart of our popular culture. Four young men and their instruments, introduced by the stiff-as-a-board-impresario...an image now indelible to all fans of rock and roll, whether they'd been born by '64 or not.

Jimi Hendrix Lights his Guitar, Monterrey Pop Festival, 1967

The rock and roll worm had turned by the Summer of Love, and when Hendrix lit his ax for the crowd at Monterrey, cameras recorded a seminal moment in stage-craft. You didn't dance to this-- you watched in awe, whether it was at the festival itself, or a movie theatre the following year. Sure, he plucked his strings with his teeth, and played the National Anthem as it had never been rendered before. But it was setting flame to his fretboard that was unforgettable. Pyrotechnics and rock music forged a union for better and (tragically) worse.

Michael Jackson Moonwalks, Motown 25th Anniversary Show, 1983

We'll forget for a moment the wacky eccentricities and disturbing details of the life. For sheer spellbinding TV, you have to point to M.J.'s performance on a TV special celebrating Motown's past. Though he'd left the label years before, it was Michael's 1983 "present" that rocked the house. There's no doubting the talent or the influence. People who couldn't trot and chew gum, were moon-walking after this show. In an age when cable was just wobbling to its feet, and viewers were not yet separated like vegetables from entrees on a cafeteria tray, it stirred a huge audience over NBC.

And, last but not least, James Brown, at The TAMI Show, Santa Monica Civic, 1964

An unparalleled performance for all-time. To watch it is to witness exhilaration personified. J.B. had, by then, been called, "the hardest working man in show business." His engagements at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem were seen only by almost exclusively Black audiences, but released as an album that stayed on the charts for a year. What's lost in the story of this electrifying celebration at The TAMI Show, is the fact that Brown was next to last on stage. Now that it is, at long last, available on DVD, it's background, and why I think J.B.'s performance was the most extraordinary history, bears some explaining.

I was 14 years old in November of 1973. Saturday nights usually meant playing cards with a family member or watching the CBS-TV trifecta of Mary Tyler Moore, Bob Newhart, and Carol Burnett. For some reason, on this particular night, perhaps it was Thanksgiving weekend, I was clicking around the TV set and landed on Channel 28, the Public station in Los Angeles. There, in black and white, was a film that started with what were then 9-year-old-rock acts readying themselves for a show. Jan and Dean, The Miracles, The Supreme,s The Stones, and James Brown were all shown in various states of preparation. Then the opening titles flashed: The TAMI Show, teenage music international. Having an affection for the music of my much older siblings, who'd come of age between '64-to-'68, I lay on my stomach, propped myself up by the elbows, and watched the show.

What stood out on that night was James Brown. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. My inner monologue was riddled with questions. "Is he having a nervous breakdown? Those guys are trying to take him off stage...what? He's running back? Are guys in white coats gonna strap him to a gurney and haul him away?" By the time he strutted, exhausted, off the stage, I was laughing, having seen the most remarkable act of my tween-aged life.

The next Monday, back in my 9th grade, fourth period class, I was listening to a guy we actually called "James Brown" because of he worshipped The Godfather of Soul. In his stammering way, he tried to describe J.B.'s show at the L.A. Sports Arena. Coincidentally, he'd appeared in L.A. the same night the public TV station ran the Tami Show. I joined the discussion and added how Brown's minions would drape the emotionally drained singer with a cape...to no avail. Brown would whip off the cape, leap back to the microphone, and fall to his knees with a wail of soul-searing anguish.

Crestfallen, the kid who worshipped the Godfather of Soul looked at me with baleful eyes. "Were you at the Sports Arena, Saturday?"

"No," I told him. "I saw a 9 year old show on Channel 28." I don't know which answer would have hurt him more--that I'd perhaps had seen the show, or that I saw something on TV that he'd missed because he may or may not have been out stealing a car.

I never forgot The Tami Show. As the years went by, bits and pieces, a performance here, a performance there, various clips of some of the acts, but not all, would find their way to TV, movie screens, and bootlegged video. In 1974, Dick Clark dedicated 90 minutes of ABC late night time to a ten-year retrospective, where he forewarned girls who'd been in the audience, "Don't look now ladies, you're nearing 30." Later, he described Lesley Gore's 1964 hairstyle as having "...been sprayed on with gunnite."

Now that The TAMI Show is on DVD, it can be seen in its entirety. A two-hour film, released over the holidays as 1964 ended, The TAMI Show was shot by television cameras, recorded on high-speed video tape. They called the process Electronovision. It would allow for a higher resolution, once transferred to a 35 millimeter print for theatres.

The acts hit the stage at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium for shows on Friday October 28th and Saturday October 29th, 1964, before an audience of teens. Producers asked local schools to distribute the 2500 tickets. It was the Saturday show that made it to the screen.

In alphabetical order, screaming kids from Santa Monica watched The Beach Boys, Chuck Berry, the aforementioned Godfather or Soul, The Barbarians (a Massachusetts group that we'd now call a garage band) Marvin Gaye, Gerry and The Pacemakers, Lesley Gore, Billy J. Kramer and The Dakotas, Smokey Robinson and The Miracles, The Supremes, The Rolling Stones, and hosts Jan and Dean.

Uncredited were a slew of dancers who frugged, monkyed and jerked through the whole show. Among them was a teen-aged Antonia Basilerro, who later danced her way to the charts as Toni Basil, and a tall, leggy, alluring blonde who was workin' herself into a frenzy. She would later "roll in the hay" as a damsel in "Young Frankenstein," and gain an Oscar nomination for her 1983 role in "Tootsie." When you watch The TAMI Show, keep an eye peeled for her: 20-year-old Teri Garr. At one point, the dancers boogie right through The Supremes act, and there are two future Oscar nominees as young women, facing each other--Teri Garr and Diana Ross.

In fact, the entire show's a black and white snapshot of some of our greatest artists on the verge of super stardom. The exception would be Chuck Berry, who starts the show. He was already a legend. The DVD notes point out it was Berry's penchant for demanding his pay in cash, just prior to performing, that ate up the show's petty cash on hand. The Four Seasons had asked for too much money, otherwise (save The Beatles) even more stars would have shaken the auditorium to its rafters. What an evening. One of rock and roll's tender years frozen in amber, all captured on film. You should watch it, then view Monterrey Pop to understand just how music and the world would change between 1964 and 1967. The contrast will give you whiplash.

There's so much to see. The unbridled joy on the face of Gerry Marsden of Gerry and The Pacemakers, his guitar poised just under his chin. You'll never see an artist smile so much while singing. Even though it was 45 years ago, you can feel the verve of youth surge from the screen.

The Beach Boys harmonies and surf guitars are as flawless on stage as they are on record, astounding when you consider how many of today's acts must lipsync. It was, however, these very songs that caused the Beach Boys management to snip their set from future theatrical releases of The TAMI Show. By the time "Pet Sounds" was being recorded, they no longer wanted to be typed as the "surf and hot rod" band. It's only on this DVD that their entire TAMI performance is seen once more.

The Motown acts on the bill had just come off the road. Smokey told Dick Clark on that ABC-TV retrospective in 1974, "...I was hoarse." That's an understatement. The Miracles demonstration of The Monkey makes up for it. For that matter, a shot of Teri Garr doing The Monkey in tight jeans is worth it, too, bless her heart. Lauren Bacall was right: film is forever. Thus, so is beauty.

Marvin Gaye was backed up by Darlene Love and the Blossoms, and actually danced. Long after his passing, Motown associates would reveal how difficult that was, because, "Marvin...could NOT dance." The Supremes were resplendent in evening wear, two hits into a string of ten number ones in a row over 1964-65. Lesley Gore was the queen of the hop with a six song set. From a historical perspective, she was the leading female artist of the time.

Gerry and The Pacemakers and Billy J. Kramer and The Dakotas were overseen by the Beatles manager, Brian Epstein, so they came as a package deal. The Pacemakers opened the show and traded songs with Chuck Berry, quite an honor, as British bands revered early rock and roll and R & B performers.

Then there was James Brown. Forget the dated portions of this film--the big hair, the quaint, harmless frugging and twisting, and the distorted monaural sound. J.B. superseded all of that. He's a study in showmanship that's almost vaudevillian. I cannot emphasise too strongly the impact of this performance. When James died, clips of this night were shown in tribute, everywhere. Years before, another generation of singer-dancers paid homage to his TAMI Show set. Prince had it run on a continuous loop in the lobby of his Paisley Park offices in Minneapolis. Hammer danced along to it in a 1990 music video.

And who had the thankless job of following this tour de force on stage at The TAMI Show? The Rolling Stones. Producers had insisted that The Stones be last on the bill. Relative newbies from across the pond, they were faced with the unenviable task of coming on after J.B. . As the years passed, they would, of course, perfect their stage act as "the World's Greatest Rock and Roll Band." But on The TAMI Show, Mick Jagger's Brown-inspired, improvised moves look like those of a child who needs to pee--arms flailing, knees wobbling, hopping, jumping, generally having a fit. Their musician ship ruled...the choreography would get better. Not that the kids cared, that night. The screaming didn't stop.

Until The TAMI Show, rock and rollers were seen almost exclusively lipsyncing on dance shows like American Bandstand, or doing a live song or two as a guest on Ed Sullivan, or one of the many other variety shows of the era. This film set the standard for concert and concert films.

And the only thing today that comes close to the long-lost American myth of innocence, all that could come close to the good-time teen groove of The TAMI Show, would be something from the Disney Channel roster of acts. If you don't believe me, connect the dots. Hannah Montana, The Jonas Brothers, screaming tweens and harmlessness.

And if you're over 45, watch the TAMI Show, experience a world we once knew, and know that when you see James Brown, you will have seen nothing like it, before or since.

CLUSTER UPDATE, KARMA, AND CAREY MULLIGAN

My thanks to all who wrote or called. This cluster is over. New pain relief has been prescribed. Let's hope another four years passed before it strikes again.

Also, good friend Craig Gross's daughter Karma is now two and a half months old. Born on February 15th. Man, time passes fast!

And finally, lest you think my eye for the alluring is lost in '64, admiring Teri Garr in her youth:
Carey Mulligan of "An Education," is half my age. So what? That dimple knocks me out! So does her smooth British purring. Ya gotta call 'em like you see 'em.

THE CLUSTER AND I

2010-03-31T17:00:00.000-07:00

Today, I'm hale and hearty. A little cranky from catching up on the massive sleep loss of the last month, but feeling good. This has not been the case for the month of March, and as much as I hate to talk about infirmity, it's probably time to shed some light on a health malady that's been part of my life since I turned 17.

The name of this affliction is ridiculous: Cluster Headache. In no way can what it is called convey the excruciating, debilitating pain involved. Most people assume any headache not designated as migraine can be easily taken care of with over-the-counter remedies advertised on TV and radio, ad nauseum for 70 years. Excederin, Bufferin, Anacin, Tylenol, Advil, good old Bayer Aspirin are all like an umbrella in the teeth of a hurricane when going up against the cluster headache that one out of five thousand human beings suffer from.

The "cluster" represents the rapidity of flare-ups that occur during a cycle, or period of time the sufferer will have these attacks. For example, the intense headaches will start in one's sleep, last an hour at the rate of maybe one or two flare-ups a day, everyday, or as isolated as once a week, for up to a month or eight weeks, annually, every two years. In my case, every three or four years. Some poor souls suffer year round.

To describe the pain is difficult. Stab wounds and gunshots show visible results. Headaches cannot be seen neither by human eye or x-ray. Legitimate headaches hit everyone, some as vicious, vascular headaches in the relm of the migraine. Sadly, an ache of the head is often used by goldbricks, fakers and manipulators as an excuse to be absent. Because of the location of the pain, a "headache" is what is used to reference what cluster sufferers feel. Doctors will tell you, medical websites will back it up: a cluster is the most intense pain a human can withstand that won't kill you--it just makes you want to die.

I'd just turned 17 in August of 1976, when I woke up one morning with this horrible pain on the left side of my head. It lasted an hour, then eased up. After a week, the episodes stopped. I had no idea what had happened, since I'd never suffered head pain before.

A little more than a year later, the same thing happened, except the headaches went on daily for a month, waking me in the night, centering behind the eye, around the cheek, behind the ear, and thrashing through the temple. Tears fall, not from crying (although that's what you want to do), and the eye itself shuts. "It's sinus," said family members. I took Sinutab and Tylenol Sinus...popping them like M & M's. One relative told me to "Go outside and eat some ice cream."
I did, one afternoon at Long Beach State, while enduring vicious pain as a professor lectured on the history of the blues.

During a cluster in early 1980, I was advised to see an eye doctor. I made an appointment. I needed glasses, yet another cluster occurred that summer.

Stress. Tension. Sinus. Self-diagnosis, misdiagnosis. I endured, gritting my teeth through truly medieval , excruciating pain. Following the removal of a growth in the perotoid gland in 1981, my late Mother remarked, "I'll bet those headaches stop, now." Nope. A short cluster followed the surgery by a week.

In 1983, I was attacked by a cluster so awful, I wondered if I had been chosen for some Biblical test of faith, and I became a lot more Catholic than I had previously been. For naught, as it turned out. I went to a doctor , still thinking my sinuses were to blame, and was prescribed a nasal mist and antihistamines. I would wake up in pain and shoot this mist into my nostrils. It succeeded in making mortal anguish worse. So, more cluster cycles came in 1985, 86, and 87.

You get the idea. In 1988, I missed an evening of work just based on how I looked after a day long siege. 1989, 1990. Nobody knew, really, because it was impossible to convey the nature of these attacks, as opposed to the head pain most humans feel.

It was a doctor named Barbara Leigh, now practicing in the upper reaches of northern California, who first suggested that what was happening to me had nothing to do with anything known to most people. It was the first I'd heard of Cluster headache, and I was given a mist called "Staydol." It was a pain killer mist. It knocked my out, but did nothing to stop the grinding, drilling flares of punishment.

Darvocet. Vicodin. Narcotics could not stop this thing once the pain started. On Thanksgiving 1992, I made Herculean effort to finish my laundry while it felt like there was a hatchet going through the left side of my head. It eased and I went to dinner at my boss' house. No one was the wiser. By 1998, another Doctor, William Davis, also understood the nature of what I was going through. He gave me some material to read (in an age before webMD.com) that described to a T what was had been happening to me all those years. Much research had been done by a Doctor Kudrow in the field of headaches. If you were a fan of the TV show Friends, you recognize the name. He's the father of actress Lisa Kudrow.

Through this reading, I felt some relief that there were people who knew the depth of the agony. It occurs usually in young men with the onset of tobacco and alcohol use. Sleep deprivation and stress are also named as probable causes. This may be the case with some patients, but not all. With me, starting smoking and drinking in the summer of '76 probably was a root cause. Yet cigarettes and booze haven't been a part of my life for years. Even my current Doctor, Paul Reisser, cannot be a hundred percent sure as to why I'm one out of five thousand who suffer cluster cycles, why they start or last as long and with as much intensity as they do. I am aware of one phenomenon: I have had month long episodes in 2003, 2006, and the month that ends this day. Dr. Reisser surmises that the blood pressure medicine atenolol has contributed to the cycles being less frequent than they were in my youth. For that I'm grateful.

I have at my disposal relatively new pain relievers, mainly used for migraines. I'm at the tail end of a cycle, so the next time this should happen, I'll be using the most effective means of halting the pain: a tank of pure oxygen, taken at a furious pace, from a mask. As far as any medical professional knows, it's the only sure-fire way of stopping cluster pain once it's at it's horrible zenith.

Writing this is cathartic. Perhaps people will understand what happens to me every few years. Maybe it will make me talk about it more, because once a cycle is over, I'm so relieved, I push it from my mind. Monday the 22nd, I was still suffering the after effects from a flare-up the previous day, when my employers called, asking me to fill-in for someone. I could have explained that I, too, was ill, but didn't. Subsequently they started calling someone else. Maybe I'll explain it all better, and at long last people realize this is nothing like the fakery of someone who wants the day off to go to a concert, or recover from a bender.

R. I. P. KELLY ROBINSON

In my previous blog, I referenced the old TV show "I Spy," and the relative cool of Robert Culp as Kelly Robinson, and Bill Cosby as Alexander "Scotty" Scott, who traipsed about the globe protecting freedom. On the morning of Wednesday March 24th, Bob Culp was walking, not far from his Hollywood Hills home. He fell, hit his head, and died, months short of his 80th birthday. Cosby, of course, reacted with sadness and great words of kindness for his old pal. That on- camera chemistry was not fake. That's what made the show so special in its time.

It was while I read about his passing that I recalled how, in the '80's, when it was retro, I tried to channel Culp's "I Spy" look--the white denim trousers, white sneakers, and pull-over V-neck sweaters with no undershirt. I didn't try to look like Cos, because, frankly, I didn't have the ass width. One of those genetic things.

It shows the impact of TV characters on young viewers. If, at my age, I remember "I Spy," will kids today wax nostalgic about Keifer Sutherland in "24," and waterboard a friend just for kicks?

Hopefully they'll just channel Jack Bauer's steely resolve, maybe his choice of trouser, and leave it at that.

Rest in Peace, Bob Culp.

FILTER, FLAVOR, PACK OR BOX

2010-02-22T19:02:00.000-08:00

There are at least a couple of things I've seen or read over the last few weeks that reminded me of my personal history with cigarettes. Not that the memories aren't firmly embedded and recalled in savant-like fashion (as are most of my recollections). Two things in particular have caused me to shake my head in amazement, grateful that my days as a smoker were short-lived, and 30 years ago.

First, there's that voyeur's delight, Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew. I've run into that one while channel surfing, and have been rendered spellbound by the efforts of Dr. Drew Pinsky and staff to help a handful of addicted, C-List celebs, some of them having gone through Sex Rehab with Dr. Drew, as well. It dawned on me while observing this reality show, that while these semi-well-known folks were trying to kick drugs, they were sucking on Marlboros and Newports like pixie sticks. Drugs do more harm, but ciggies will always get you in the end.

The second piece of information that slammed cigarettes back into my consciousness was this small fact: Prior to 1930, lung cancer was a rare occurrence in the United States. 13 words, no more, no less, but with the impact of a sledge hammer. 80 years ago, in 48 states, with half the population there is today, lung cancer wasn't near the killer tuberculosis was...or influenza. Today, there aren't too many of us who haven't known, worked with, loved or cared about at least four to five people who've been felled by this form of cancer. How did this happen?

Well, a brief history of advertising in America would be boring, but bear in mind that 1929-30 marked the true beginning of coast to coast network radio, as well as the birth of the talking motion picture. While the American Tobacco Company began sponsoring radio shows and hawking Lucky Strikes to men and women alike, movies focused on alluring couples, their romance smoldering like the cigarettes between their fingers, smoke curling above their heads as passion flamed in their eyes.

And so, a nation smoked. Through World War II, when soldiers C-ration kits always contained a pack of Camels. Through the early television years, when cigs were ubiquitous. Even during the 60's, after the landmark 1964 Surgeon General's report that concluded cigarette smoking could be hazardous to your health.

That's about where I came in. I was born into a household of smoke. My mother puffed Parliaments, my father championed Dual-Filter Tareytons. On Saturday mornings when we were little, my sister Lisa and I would open the door to our parents room to watch cartoons on TV. The smoke in that room hung in the air like the London fog Charles Dickens wrote about: floating, creeping, undulating like a poltergeist. It didn't stop us enjoying the black and white images of Alvin and The Chipmunks , but it's probably responsible for Lisa's life long battles with bronchitis, and my own desire to take up cigarettes full time, as soon as I was able to buy them without being asked when I was born.

Vin Scully once described the era better than I could. Setting up an anecdote about World Series games played in the afternoon, he said, simply, "...in those days, EVERYBODY smoked." When I was a boy, that was certainly true. Everybody in my house smoked, whether they were old enough, or not. Save Lisa, sisters, brothers, cousins, aunts, uncles, family friends. Everybody had a butt lit. The brands stand out in my mind because of the television advertising. To me, at that age, its as if the packs leapt off the screen. Uncle Henry smoked Pall Mall, "...longer, long lasting...and they are mild." His wife smoked Viceroy. Salems were apparently country fresh, otherwise, why would my Aunt Barbara puff on them? Winstons surely must taste good, like a cigarette should, lest my mother's friend Gladys be proven foolish. My first brother in law showed us his Larks, when asked (like The Beatles! They smoked Larks!), and my brothers' neighborhood friends took drag after drag off KOOLs...to be cool. Right?

On the TV, Garry Moore greeted guests with a lit Winston in hand, the habit having been formed when R.J. Reynolds Tobacco sponsored his shows. I'm not sure what brand was Johnny Carson's favorite, but he always had a cig going as he sat behind the Tonight Show desk. Hadn't this always been the way? In the 40's, long before my time, an announcer named Del Sharbutt would assure Jack Benny's Sunday night radio listeners that nine out of ten doctors agreed: "Smoke a Lucky (Strike)...to feel your level best!!"

Not just the ads, but the actors on TV cultivated the look you needed to become, undoubtedly, the coolest son of a bitch on two feet. That's why I always felt it was Robert Culp, not Bill Cosby who was coolest on I Spy. Culp would open the title sequence lighting up a Pall Mall Gold 100, then put his Ronson to the fuse of a bomb, which would explode and show us highlights of that evening's episode. Cos was the "Rhodes Scholar" and ground-breaking first Black leading actor on television, but let's face it: Culp got all the groovy chicks, man.*

And so, I smoked, legally, from age 18 to a month before I turned 20. I also read. I knew what cigarettes did. It seems like my teenage brain was hell bent on ignoring the fact that these things impaired your health and hooked you like a deep water marlin, flailing and wriggling, but eventually mounted on the wall of some pompous-ass.

There are few known photos of me smoking. One was with a date at a dance in 1978. She was snuggled into my right shoulder, while I sat in my disco-velvet vest, Windsor knotted tie, left elbow on the table, a Benson and Hedges Light 100 between my fingers, it's smoke coiling into a halo above us--although I can assure you nothing saintly happened that night. The girl got custody of the photo, and I'm glad it's gone.

On I went, through my first two years of college, puffing away. Getting ready for school meant showering, dressing, hopping into the car, then negating all that grooming by lighting up as soon as I turned the ignition.

How did I stop, you ask? When did it dawn on a teenager that I could be launching a life time of health maladies? It was the 70's, after all. Congress, to its everlasting credit, had banned cigarette ads on radio and TV, and since January of 1971, "...you could take Salem out of the country, but..." you couldn't advertise them over the air.

Regardless, the nicotine addicted militantly continued, sometimes imparting half-truths learned over years and years of exposure to those commercials.

"Cigarettes help your digestion after you eat," said a woman I worked with at the mall.

"If I couldn't smoke afterward, I wouldn't F--- , " said a friend's older brother, his nic-addiction having gone waaaay too far.

"Oh, I only smoke when I drink," many would say, like social smoking was something that could be done with no risk at all. The way we once thought passive smoke was harmless.

Three things happened that finally got me past growing up in a house full of smoke, and being mesmerized by slick advertising (it was Dick Gregory who said about Marlboro commercials, "Kids know they're not gonna get that horse...so they might as well do like the Cowboy"). A Long Beach State Professor named Peter Carr warned about our cultural addictions in his Folklore and Mythology lectures. He talked about lighting up a Lucky when he was a youngster (that had to have been a long time before--by 1978, he sported a Ben Franklin look). He said he coughed like crazy, got sick, and threw the pack away. He also cautioned about liquor, and urged us to unplug our TV's. He made sense, but he was talking to college sophomores. Somewhere in my 19-year-old brain, I equated giving up all that to being under the parents thumb, again. No smokes, no booze? NO TV??

It took the other two events to get me off the ciggies. One was a girl named Wilma, who, I was told, dug me, but not the smokes. No one in her family smoked. How could this be, I thought, raised as I was, and taught by TV that "Tareyton smokers would rather fight than switch." That Frank and Sammy and Dean got plenty of "broads" with a song in their hearts, and a Chesterfield dangling from their lips. Wilma's cuteness factor became a huge part of my decision to stop, but what really sealed the deal was a Friday night with an old high school friend and his wife at their apartment. It was sparsely furnished, as the apartments of teen newlyweds often are, so I sat on the floor until 4 in the morning, puffing a full pack of Silva Thins, and a half pint of Seagrams 7. The next day, rising like only the youthful can after that kind of night, I went to my Alma mater to run a mile on the track. After coughing and sputtering through four laps like a '61 Volkswagen. I leaned forward, put my hands on my knees and wondered aloud, "what the hell am I doing?" I felt awful. And that was that. It was June 1, 1979. That's the day I quit smoking.

There were lapses. I tried a pipe later that year, but looked ridiculous and felt downright stupid. At one point, I would dangle an unlit ciggie from my lips, a la Baretta (Jesus! Some role model!). It worked, but drove college classmates nuts. "Why don't you just light that thing?" they'd ask. But I never did. After while,l I didn't even need that.

Addiction specialists will tell you of nicotine's power, and how it penetrates the brain. You wonder why smokers arch their back when non-smokers get on their case? That's the need for nicotine. When he was in his 20's, one of my brothers had a rough financial time between stints in the army. Not being able to buy his customary carton of KOOL Milds, he picked several of my mother's Parliament butts out of an ashtray, one afternoon, and snuck off to a spot under the elm tree in our back yard. He sat there in the shade, sucking on those lipstick-stained recessed filters like his life depended on it. 37 years later, a tank of oxygen and a length of tubing follows him every where he goes.

It's a different world, today. We are all well acquainted with the ills. Even without access to the airwaves, tobacco companies find way to hook teenagers, just like the old days. Make it cool, and they will follow. Don't be fooled. If the tobacco lobby could somehow get the advertising ban repealed, even in the face of the all too dangerous facts, TV and radio would belly-up to the money trough with no remorse. Joe Camel and his like would find fertile ground amongst those who weren't implored to "Come to where the flavor is. Come to Marlboro Country" the first time around.

I didn't write this to wring hands, admonish friends to quit, or otherwise heckle smokers. It's simply my own story, belched forth like a puff, stirred by the sight of Heidi Fleiss and company in their televised struggle to clean up, while depending on another drug, with cork-tipped filters. The irony was too much to just sit by and watch.

BEFORE WE CONCLUDE...

* Regarding I Spy: Culp got all the chicks, and Cosby was essentially celibate--unless Nancy Wilson or Barbara McNair was the guest star. Such were the times. The sight of Harry Belafonte and Petula Clark holding hands on her 1968 NBC special sent at least one sponsor into a "white hot" rage, shall we say. As far as I Spy was concerned, I wondered what Cos would have done if Moms Mabley had been signed for a guest appearance? I'm sure Cos would rather have taken a crack at Joey Heatherton. I was only 8 at the time, but I sure as hell wanted to!!

WE'VE DONE THIS DANCE BEFORE...

2010-01-12T15:40:00.001-08:00

Understanding the world of entertainment, specifically Television, is a lot like trying to get a grasp on the reason Hummingbirds can fly. As I once heard it put, "the properties of physics say the hummingbird should not be able to sustain flight. Not knowing this, it flies." You could say pretty much the same for TV executives: With the often ridiculous decisions they make, they shouldn't hold such lofty, well paid positions. Not knowing this, they continue to work.

You'd have to factor in the human aspect: money, power, favoritism, and the nagging truth that looking indecisive could have a disastrous result. This doesn't stop the messes from being made over, and over, and over again. Take, for example, NBC's current late night melt down.

Yes, we've been to this dance before. It's hard to believe it will soon be 18 years since Johnny Carson abdicated his throne as King of Late Night TV. A generation of legal adults have no idea who he was or what he did for close to 30 years. They also have no knowledge of what a catastrophe NBC made of deciding upon a successor.

The story is well told by New York Times TV Critic Bill Carter, in his book, "The Late Shift." HBO made a movie based on it. Johnny Carson's audience was growing as old as Johnny himself (66 when he stepped down from the Tonight Show, May 22, 1992). Arsenio Hall's nightly syndicated party had drawn away enough younger viewers to make NBC execs shiver in their boots. No competitor, from Joey Bishop to Pat Sajak, had ever put a dent in the armor of Carson's ratings. Those who viewed Arsenio were not enough to do any damage, but young enough to convince NBC execs to try and ease Johnny out the door. Carson, long aware of his power and what he meant to NBC's bottom line, hit the network with a pre-emptive strike, announcing his retirement date at a function for affiliated stations, almost exactly a year in advance. Then the race was on.

In one corner, David Letterman, host of Late Night, who's program was one of the first VCR favorites. Those who couldn't stay up until 12:30 to watch him, taped the snarky, hilarious, nightly antics for viewing at a later time.

In the other corner, Jay Leno, Johnny's permanent Guest Host for Tuesday nights, holidays and vacations. Carter's book, and the film, zeroed-in on the behind-the-scenes backbiting, treachery and egomania that resulted in NBC choosing Leno over Letterman. As a viewer, I enjoyed Leno's monologues, but Letterman was so much more. Dave, of course, bolted for CBS. This was after NBC made a slap-in-the face offer: They'd give him the reigns of The Tonight Show after two years of Jay as host. Letterman, who seriously wanted The Tonight Show (and Johnny Carson wanted him to have it) had to think hard about it. Looking back, his decision was a no brainer--he created his own show at CBS, rather than give NBC the chance to shaft him again in two years.

Today, January 12, 2010, Conan O'Brien said no to an NBC plan that would have pushed his current Tonight Show to 12:05 AM. Have we done this dance before? How could NBC believe Conan, regardless of the millions and millions he'd continue to make, would accept being pushed back a half-hour later? It was NBC executives who created this untenable situation when they thought they'd lose Conan, so they hatched a plan to retire Leno in 2009, and have O'Brien leave his !2:35 show, then ascend to the Tonight hosting duties. What well-paid individual in a butter-brickle suit with paisley suspenders and alligator shoes didn't think that Leno, having lead the late night ratings race since 1995, would not have a change of heart and want to continue his career?

What data-spewing, demon seed of a diletante truly believed that, regardless of network TV's shrinking audience, five nights of Jay bantering with Kevin Eubanks, and a wafer thin alteration of his Tonight Show format, would be better television than the dramas on CBS at 10pm? Now that they have admitted the failure publicly (thanks to near revolt by affiliated stations that have seen ratings for 11PM news plummet across the country), their plan was to give Jay back a half hour of his old time slot, then hose Conan by starting Tonight at 12:05. Conan's capitol is less, now that, after 7 months, Letterman has dominated on CBS.

Like so many in life, they'll never learn. Leno now has his show back, and no doubt his audience will slowly return, as he's the nice guy in the battle, and Letterman the smart-ass. Conan will more than likely wind up on Fox. They'll all make money. Their comfort is not the issue, here. It's the stupidity of the decision-makers. It's that we all watch and care. That's the issue. We watch these shows, and relate to the shitty way people get treated, whether they are wealthy performers or not. And we definitely relate to being force-fed moronic decisions by people who know better, but just aren't wired to do the right thing by ANYONE, even themselves.

A TIGER IN YOUR TANK

I have to repeat what I've written a few posts back--my opinion of Letterman remains unchanged, regardless of his office dalliances. I've seen worse in the work place. As long as there was consent, who cares? I've seen legitimate quid pro quo, and it's sickening. Perhaps my view would be different if I'd worked for Letterman and lost an opportunity to someone he was seeing. But since I don't and didn't, I say why it's his business. He made some moves that were morally unwise, but he's still funny.

If Tiger Woods had been honest and upfront, he would have weathered his storm a little better. Who really knows? The bottom line is that it's not our business. BUT--when an athlete so meticulously cultivates a commercial brand, so painstakingly creates a public persona to better snag huge endorsements, he should be ready for the scrutiny that comes when fame takes its eventual downturn.

My question is, who knew?? Who gave two minutes of thought to the possibility that the greatest golfer of this era (maybe ANY era) had the libido of a West Texas bull? And who thought he could be silly enough to tomcat around and actually trust his many paramours to keep quiet?

It makes all the sense in the world that a man with that kind of talent, that kind of competitive fire, would surely be capable of chasing the proverbial "p---- on the side." But, wow! It would have taken exceptional powers of perception to divine that this man's hormones were surging in such a way as to wash a testasterone tsunami over cocktail waitresses and party hostesses from here to East Jesus!

All too human, and in hindsight, all to understandable. However, it's between he and his wife. Judge, lest we be judged. We're not perfect, regardless of what ads for Nike may have implied about Tiger, and discounting his millions, he's just a guy with problems...like the rest of us.

FINAL TAKE: LATE NIGHT TV

The true loser in this latest late night bruhaha would be Carson Daly. I've asked this question for the last several years, and still haven't gotten a satisfactory answer: Who believes Carson Daly has talent? Teenaged girls did. Did any one NOT in a frenzy over seeing recording artists on MTV think this once pudgy fellow had the slightest ounce of charisma? Bland and non-challenging, he's had a pretty good career over the last twelve years. From MTV's last music based show Total Request Live, to Bob Costas and Greg Kinnear's old Later show on NBC, and that network's New Year's Eve specials, to engagements to hotties like Jennifer Love Hewitt and this month's Playboy cover girl Tara Reid, the guy has done damned well for not having any perceptible personality.

It doesn't matter. When you make the right connections, you don't dig for gold, the gold comes to you. Carson Daly is the new morning guy at 97.1 AMP-FM in L.A. "Music will drive the show," he said. I should hope so!

###

PIRATE RADIO, LENO-LETTERMAN, AND PETROS

2009-11-18T17:11:00.000-08:00

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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MAD ABOUT MAD MEN

2009-11-02T19:54:00.001-08:00

As 2009 gracefully enters its final two months, I accept the idea that there are few genuinely great television shows. If you love what they now call "procedural" cop shows, series that take you through the process of solving a crime, the CSI's and NCIS are by far the best. If comedy is what you crave, ABC has resurrected its viability as a television network with Modern Family, an absolutely hilarious half-hour of familial dysfunction. Few watch, but smart minds love 30 Rock and The Office, two well-written shows that never fail to produce big laughs.

There's also no excuse to miss a program, anymore. If you can find out what time, you just set the TIVO, DVR or VCR. If you can't, TIVO reminds you. Or just watch on demand if your cable company provides the option. That's why there's only yourself to blame if you haven't seen Mad Men, an hour of motion picture-like quality that flows in reverse of the short-attention-span theatre that most of TV programming has become.

Mad Men is set in the early 1960's, and it's visual authenticity is breath-taking. It's realism is jarring--unlike the movies and television from the era it depicts, Mad Men rips the facade off a time long passed. That it is not on a major network (it's on AMC, Sunday nights at 10, Eastern and Pacific) makes no difference. If it were on CBS. ABC, or NBC, it would have been quickly cancelled and forgotten. It's a show that gives its characters the time to truly interact, and viewers the time to ingest the depth of its writing. Better the show be watched a few million on basic cable, revered by critics, rather than be axed for another hour of Jay Leno.

The second to last episode of the season was so moving, I watched it twice. It was set against the assassination of John F. Kennedy. How this real life tragedy was woven into the drama was done masterfully, and reminded me that I'm old enough to have been through that weekend...in November of 1963.

With few exceptions, no one in Mad Men's cast was alive on that fatefull weekend. I was four. The images of what I saw on television burn brightly in my mind, though I had no feeling for the weight of what had taken place. I don't recall the Friday it happened. The earliest reaction I remember is asking aloud why the news was still on, and wondering where the cartoons were. Instead of Bugs Bunny, there was David Brinkley, at his slanted desk.

The next day, a Sunday, there was the image of Jacqueline Kennedy and her children, just about the ages of my sister Lisa and me, kneeling at the side of the coffin. The face of CBS coreespondent Harry Reasoner is another memory, speaking softly, reassuringly. Film of a color guard in close-up, folding an American flag with military precision, ran as my mother folded clothes. While the bulk of the country attempted sleep, those of us on the west coast got a respite from the onslaught of news...I know this because I went to the store with my father, and when we got back, a rerun of Mr. Ed was playing on Channel 2. I remember being in that nearly empty store, eye level with a box of Kellogg's Sugar Smacks, with Huckleberry Hound on the front. Kids notice things like that.

The pictures and thoughts from that weekend were all jogged by how the two children on Mad Men reacted: with questions, not knowing why adults were in tears, and transfixed by what was on that black and white TV screen, without a clue as to what they were watching. From a child's point of view, I found it to be exactly as I had behaved and reacted. For a medium that cheats facts and suspends disbelief on a constant basis, I find this fantastic. Well done. It couldn't have been better. A television drama captured the moment so succinctly it could have been a memoir. If you've never seen Mad Men, you should catch up on DVD. I'm utterly knocked out by it.

TWICE IN A LIFE IS ENOUGH

Being reminded that 46 years have passed since the Kennedy Assassination also brought forth memories of the more recent national trauma: 9/11.

Because I'd been so young, years passed before I was aware of the impact JFK's murder had on the country. I was full of questions as a child and as a young man. Not so much about who really killed him, but about how crushing it must have felt to be an adult, and cognizant of what had happened. I found out when I was almost 9, in 1968 when the world seemed to be tearing apart at the seams. The RFK and MLK assassinations were so shocking, I'm not certain a lot of parents knew how to help their kids cope with the grief. Seeing color videotape of RFK at the old Ambassador Hotel's Embassy Room, waving the victory sign and heading off into the kitchen is still too much for me.

9/11, however, happened when I was 42. The shocking deaths of not one national leader, but over three thousand citizens was beyond any of our scopes of reality.

I had a lot of time to think about the parallels of these two national tragedies in my lifetime: November 22, 1963 and September 11, 2001. The breaking of the news, the national coverage and preemption of commercial messages for four days. The jarring images. The fall out. As human beings, we endure, we heal, we move ahead with these events in our memories, and we are remarkable in that way. But at the half-century mark, I'm more than willing to speak for anyone reading this: Twice in a lifetime is enough. Let's hope we never have to go through anything like that again.

Perhaps if we held a mirror up to these events and see what we've learned, some growth can be gained from the pain. When JFK was assassinated, it marked the first time more Americans received news of tragic, historic importance via television. The reporters of the time, mostly men, mostly journalists who'd begun their careers at newspapers, comported themselves with what has been called "rigid detachment," "dolorous, but contained." They followed their creed of impartiality without displaying too much emotion (aside from a visibly choked-up Walter Cronkite when he delievered confirmation of the President's death), but their collective calm helped a grieving nation. The tape of the coverage on CBS and NBC survives in its entirety, and to see it is to view a medium coming of age, and living up to its responsibilities.

By 9/11, television news had changed. It was no longer a public affairs arm of broadcast entities, allowed to do good deeds so as not to impede the path to station license renewals. It was now a money-making force. In color, live via satellite from anywhere in the world, its pictures accopmanied by one-line captions emblazoned across the bottom of the screen. Yet the pros were there to do what had been done in 1963. Dan Rather, uncannily, filled the role he'd filled after JFK...a much older man, but just as inquisitive. The late Peter Jennings, like Walter Cronkite on November 22, forgot to put on his suit coat, and remained that way for four days.

Instead of three networks in full news mode, it was the spectrum of cable and satellite channels--QVC and Home Shopping Network went dark; on HBO movies played, but sister channels to ABC, CBS and NBC carried the feed from their mother networks. And a staggered nation tried to cope.

In the case of both these events, JFK and 9/11, political exploitation was an inevitablity. After President Kennedy, LBJ was swept into office in his own right, and twisted enough senatorial arms to pass Civil Rights, Voting Rights, Medicare and the acts of the Great Society, before he was crushed by the weight of Vietnam. Following 9/11, the George W. Bush /Dick Cheney administration muscled the Patriot Act through congress, and went to war. I'll leave it up to you to decide what benefited the country in the wake of tragedy, and what did not. Because that's how those who truly reported the events would have it.

WHERE HAVE YOU GONE MANNY RAMIREZ?

Home for the winter, that's where...and with the rest of the Dodgers. They did what they could with what they had. I really don't care that Manny was soaping himself up and singing Meringue favorites in the shower as the Phils' Jimmy Rollins jolted a two-run, game winning double off Jonathan Broxton to beat the Dodgers in Game 4 of the NLCS. It was a case of lightning striking twice--Matt Stairs popped a mammoth blast off Broxton in Game 4, last year to steal a win from L.A. and insure a Phillies pennant in five games. The 2009 result was just the same.

Other than that, it was a terrific season. 95 wins, the Western Division championship, a three game sweep of St. Louis and their vaunted pitching rotation in the Division Series. Any other off-season, all I'd say is they should go out and get a front line, ace starter. This winter will be different, though. Not in the Dodgers glorious history have their owners been in the midst of a nasty divorce. The Frank and Jamie McCourt parting promises to be edgier than Days of Our Lives (and with actual soap operas going south, why not have real life folks who control one of baseballs enduring franchises air their peccadilloes and promiscuity in public?). My advice to any Dodger fan is to follow my lead: Let whatever happens, happen. Just hope Rupert Murdock and News Corp (read: FOX) don't enter the picture, should either victorious McCourt be forced to sell.

Besides, it's November. God help us, I saw the first Christmas Tree, already. Prepare to have your bells jingled for a loooong time!!

AS I WAS SAYING...

2009-09-21T17:53:00.001-07:00

It seems I spent the month of August doing everything but making an entry here at BLOGSPOT. My friend John Nixon reminds me, on occasion, that it's time to produce a few cogent thoughts. John, by the way, is one of radio's greatest production minds. We worked together for a short time in San Diego, but have been friends for 23 years. We had a hilarious time in the production studio and in the halls, but at that place, humor never reached the air. It seems ridiculous for an entertainment concern to have an air sound so rigidly constrained, while employing two guys so humorous. We were lashed down like patients in a straight-jacket when it came to on-air presentation. Which do you think would have created better ratings? The constipated, Phil Collins-heavy play-list of K-Lite, or Dave and John making people laugh, both on air and with creative production? Such is the conundrum of the radio business, where theory trumps sense, every time. By the way, K-Lite averaged numbers in the 1.o share territory. It became a station more in need of Ex-Lax than a tubby guy on a Dodger Dog diet.

(To be fair, in 1988, with a both a call letter and slight format change, the station improved, but all improvisation was limited to the morning drive hours. When those fellows left, the station quickly perished. I got out of there in July of '88; John departed for the Pacific Northwest the next year).

DAVE'S SUMMER VACATION

Some vacation. You don't really vacate any place when semi-employment is a fact of life. You sort of keep yourself busy until you're needed--in my case, that's by my former place of full-time employment...where I'm still working each weekend. I've had an on-going broadcast idea floating since February, a great idea in fact. Making it happen has been the difficult part. If and when it hits, I'll be more than happy to share it with everyone. Other than that, I tried to sell a short story to a couple of magazines--an effort that met with little interest. To be sure, it was not one of my better efforts. It was more like a therapeutic fictionalization of someone I worked with. This was a person who used the request-lines as his personal bordello, talking to the mentally wrecked who reach out to the ambient voices that waft from their radios. To quote from the film "A Face in the Crowd," these distressed women were , "...the locker room where he eased up after a rough day." The story could have been better, I suppose, and needs telling. I'm not sure how many people are aware of how nuts are taken advantage of by the narcissist/ egomaniacs who find their way behind a mike. One thing is certain: consolidation of radio stations under one or two company umbrellas is squeezing a lot of those types out of the business...perhaps the only silver lining in what, for on-air people, has become a very dark cloud.

The tale of my summer, then, can be summed up as the two weeks in August I spent filling in during afternoon drive. You radio guys will understand the following: The Personal People Meter gives us ratings data on a weekly basis, and from August 10 through 21st, I drove the numbers up from a 2.9 share to a 3.7, in the 25-54 age group. For ages 35-64, the ratings rose from a 4.6 to 6.1 while I was on. I had anticipated having a good run, but was even more delighted than expected. I was also suprised and pleased by the response from the management. I had no need to reaffirm my abilities to myself or friends, or a good number of radio people. It's a great feeling, though, to have listeners in L.A., at a key time of day, acknowledge that one is very good at his craft.

THE GUIDING LIGHT IS OUT

I have no trouble admitting that, since I was old enough to walk home from the bus stop by myself, I've been aware of The Guiding Light. When I was in kindergarten, class would end at 11:30, and by 11:45 I was home. My mother would be tending to her housework with the TV on, and usually as I walked in the door, if Mom wasn't cackling on the phone with some relative, I'd hear an announcer intone, "...and now...The Guiding Light."

It's funny how these things happen. Every summer after that, when it was too hot to go outside, or a second TV was unavailable, my mother's schedule of soaps on CBS sort of ruled the viewing habits of my sister Lisa and I. Love of Life at 11am, followed by fifteen minutes of Search For Tomorrow, fifteen of The Guiding Light, then news at noon. For reasons I never knew, my mother didn't watch As the World Turns at 12:30, but would warm up the set again at 2pm when the game show To Tell The Truth would precede Edge of Night. The afternoon of serialized angst would conclude with The Secret Storm at 3. Not every day was like this, but enough. Through it all, the house was spotless, and dinner was always at 6. It used to amaze me how my mother could slice vegetables into a bowl while watching Edge of Night, never once breaking a nail or slicing a finger while completely keeping up with the travails of the shows fictional citizens of Monticello.

Being a child with an active imagination, I did many things while this soap stuff was flooding the house--drawing, playing with G.I. Joes, Tonka Trucks, Army Men, etc. But as I got older, while all the rest of those shows fell victim to changing times, there was always...The Guiding Light. From fifteen minutes in black and white, to full color; from a half hour to an hour; from 11:45 to 1:30, to 2pm Pacific, if one was around the house, it seemed a better choice than reruns of Cannon, or much later, judge shows and televised paternity tests. Plus the actresses were much more attractive.

By college, and then my first night job in radio, I'd either watch when I got home, or check it out when I woke up following a work-night. In the '80's, I'm pretty sure I awoke more often to what was by then simply Guiding Light (they dropped the "the" in 1977) , than those keeping normal hours did to The Today Show. And so life went.

By the time VCRs became common place, I had an excuse to quit the habit, but didn't. I set my device for 2pm daily, and would fast forward through episodes whenever I had the chance. And the years zipped by.

Afternoons, nights, overnights...naps, appointments, lunches, daytime dates, trips out of town...
I always kept up with Guiding Light. I was a little ashamed until about 15 years ago when I read that the esteemed journalist Bill Moyers followed As The World Turns in much the same way. Yes, even guys with little time during the day, get caught up in soap suds--the stories are ridiculous, but as I've said, the stable of actresses make rising at midday more palatable.

Now that CBS has, after 72 years (57 on TV) brought Guiding Light to an end, I'm free of this life long addiction...yet left with a wee bit of an empty feeling. Had it not been for recording devices, of course, this would have happened much sooner. To the remaining souls who got hooked on soapery long ago, I say get ready: Youngsters at habit forming ages have better things to do than invest their time in fictionalized serials--there's Facebook, Twitter, file sharing and Beatles Rock Band to take up idle time. In another seven years, the soaps will be as extinct as the DoDo.

HI THERE, SPORTS FANS...

The Dodgers have had A SPECTACULAR summer...even though several losses were frustrating and could have been avoided. On this date, they are 90 and 60, five games up on Colorado in the National League West, with 12 to go. I'm not taking anything for granted. In earlier posts, I've pointed out the things that have gone terribly wrong in Dodger history. Keep your fingers crossed that Andre Ethier and Matt Kemp keep jolting the ball out of the park, that Randy Wolf stays hot on the mound, that everybody stays healthy as the Blue travels through D.C., Pittsburgh, San Diego, and for the season ending series with the Rockies at Dodger Stadium.

By the way, I have no earthly idea as to what happened to mighty Manny Ramirez. Nothing but supposition can account for his limited ability to thrill in 2009. It could be that 2008 was a mirage--naw, he's to good a hitter for that. It may be that when he was suspended 50 games for using that female hormone, he was coming off a steroid cycle, which would explain his late season, super-hero home run tear upon being traded to the Dodgers last year. It might be that the long suspension rendered him unable to get in the groove, or that being hit on the hand in July has something to do with his reduced production. No one knows for sure. We do know that no matter what any East Coast sports talk hack says (or for that matter the numb-nuts who blather on and on from the West Coast) his mere presence in the line up has benefited the evolution of Ethier and Kemp into stars. Now if we could just get the opposition to hit the ball to someplace on the field where Manny doesn't have a glove on his hand...

I hope to have more career news and fun stuff a little sooner, next time. Until then, Go Dodgers, and Goodbye Guiding Light.

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A FEW WORDS ABOUT UNCLE WALTER

2009-07-27T20:08:00.000-07:00

I've waited until all the tributes and requiems subsided to write a few words about Walter Cronkite. There are 30 year-olds who have no idea what it was like to watch the CBS Evening News when Walter anchored. They'll never know. Only those who've been around for 45 years or more can attest to the truth echoed since his passing at age 92: Walter Cronkite was fair, mostly accurate, tough, competitive, a world class ad-libber, and completely natural.

What I would like to add are some of the facts that have been shunted aside. Like all people in the business of broadcasting, Walter had to deal with the mercurial nature of his executive superiors. Yes, he was Uncle Walter. Yes, he would eventually be considered the most trusted man in America. But it wasn't like he didn't have to fight naysayers and pettiness from within his company, even at a time when news departments were largely left alone to operate at a loss.

Author Barbara Matusow pulled back the curtain on the history of TV Network news in 1983 with her book The Evening Stars. Her Chapter The Age of Cronkite highlights the fact that CBS executives weren't exactly sold on Walter's ability to anchor outside special events like political conventions. When Cronkite did get the job in April, 1962, at age 46, the Evening News was a 15 minute telecast, and the majority of people in America still claimed to get their information from newspapers. Chet Huntley and David Brinkley's Huntley-Brinkley Report on NBC was still considered the nightly model for TV news, and held a considerable ratings lead over CBS.

Cronkite's lobbying was among the factors that convinced CBS to extend the Evening News to a half-hour in September of '63. Huntley-Brinkley followed a bit later, and continued to top the ratings. What has been lost in all the obituaries for Walter Cronkite, is how CBS nearly killed the goose that would eventually lay golden eggs. That would happen during the political season, in 1964.

For reasons even they were at a loss to explain, Huntley and Brinkley's NBC coverage of the 1964 Republican National Convention in San Francisco garnered a 55 ratings share, as compared to CBS's 30. (According to Barbara Matusow, David Brinkley said the accomplishment was acknowledged at a meeting with NBC President Robert Kintner, who "...offered a warm glass of whisky--no ice-- a damp handshake, and a gruff word of thanks.")

What everyone should remember about Walter Cronkite, besides the impact his stature and his character had upon while delivering earthshaking news over the course of 19 years in the anchor chair, is how he weathered CBS' knee-jerk response to that lopsided ratings victory by NBC. The trouncing so annoyed CBS Chairman William Paley, he had Cronkite demoted for the next jewel on the network schedule, the 1964 Democratic National Convention. CBS replaced Walter with the duo of veteran announcer-reporter Robert Trout and Washington reporter Roger Mudd. Marketed as "Mudd-Trout," the team did worse against NBC than Cronkite had. Though he seriously pondered whether to leave CBS after such a slight, he never wavered in public. He remained a company man, and went about his job with the same furious curiosity and perfectionism, because that's how he was wired.

Times changed. Events demanded more than Huntley-Brinkley and NBC could offer. CBS built a deep team beneath Cronkite, a former wire-service reporter in Worl War II, who demanded as much as he gave. By 1967, the tables had turned, and The CBS Evening News overtook all others for the next 17 years.

If that were not enough to persuade you that even a God among newsmen was susceptible to the withering politics of broadcasting's inner sanctums, the Matusow book offers another nugget that points out where Walter's boundaries were. While playing tennis with a friend, the subject of Harry Reasoner came up. Reasoner was a CBS correspondent that bolted for the anchor chair at then-third place ABC. After a few mildly successful years, Harry had earned enough capitol to defend his people when he needed to. When one of Reasoner's producer friends was threatened with firing by ABC, Harry said, "If he goes, I go."

A while later, CBS let one of Cronkite's producers go in much the same way. Asked during the tennis match why he didn't stand up to CBS the way Reasoner had with ABC, Cronkite replied, "Harry's tough, alright. But if I'd interfered they'd have gotten rid of me, too." The most trusted man in America was clear-eyed enough to know how the business worked.

This brings us to his retirement. By all reports, Cronkite, at 65, had the gusto to go on for years. As viewers, as Americans, it's as if we were prohibited from having him behind the anchor desk or abroad; denied his enthusiasm and penchant for dotting the i's and crossing the t's as the world changed before us. This is part of the story everybody got right when Walter died: still the company man, he stepped aside early so that Dan Rather could ascend to the top, lest he be stolen away by ABC. Dan, a dogged reporter, was seen as ratings cat nip. The bottom line guys at CBS couldn't afford to let him get away.

In retrospect, this decision not only robbed us of having Cronkite for several more years, it cost CBS Roger Mudd, who after years as Walter's number one substitute, had expected to get the job. The day the decision was announced, Mudd left his desk at CBS, Washington, not to return until he was retired, and writing his memoir in 2007.

What CBS had in Walter, with his "retirement" was an ill-used giant of news gathering, kept in the shadows lest he block the spotlight on its new anchor. The Eye network also got the peculiar intensity of Rather--frenetic, never comfortable-looking, and with a legion of haters. Though a superlative reporter, who's own truth-seeking would get him "relieved" after a 2004 story about President Bush's curious history with the National Guard, Rather was cast as an ideologue by those to the political right. He never attained the level of trust and comfortability that Cronkite enjoyed. By 1984, The CBS Evening News with Dan Rather had slipped behind ABC World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, never to climb the ratings rung, again.

It would be fun to suppose how Walter would have dealt with the changes in the TV news business as the '80's progressed. New technology made whiz-bang graphics more plentiful, satellite time became cheaper, equipment lighter--he could have done the news from anywhere in the world, as it's done today. Perhaps his authority would have diminished as compnaies merged, lay-offs ensued, as news bureaus around the world closed, and as cable made inroads. We don't know. All I can say is that those of us who are old enough to remember are grateful to have had him on-air during a tumultuous time in history, when calm and a steady hand was needed; when the incendiary voices we have today (on cable and talk radio) might have made matters more explosive and tear the country asunder.

His collegue Bob Scheiffer, who did a year at the anchor desk himself, said it best in his own memoir: "It wasn't the anchor chair that made Cronkite--it was Cronkite who made the anchor chair."

Walter Cronkite. 1916-2009. A giant in his time. Our time. For all-time.

A SURREAL DAY IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

2009-06-25T18:30:00.000-07:00

They say we truly grow older when we realize our own mortality, a realization that comes first with deaths in our own families, and then with the passing with enormous figures in our popular culture. Those of us who spent 1976-77 in high school danced to The Jackson's Enjoy Yourself, and watched Charlie's Angels with an ache in our teenaged loins. On this day, June 25, 2009, we all aged considerably.

In the summer of 1977, Elvis Presley died suddenly, sending shock waves around the world. Elvis? Dead? My late sister Laura came running from her bedroom, putting a loud, disbelieving voice to the news that this 42 year-old man, his career in decline for years, had passed away. In those days when tabloid news was pretty much restricted to actual supermarket tabloids, we scarcely realized or acknowledged his problems with weight and prescription drugs, making it much harder to understand that, at such a young age, he was gone.

Much the same can be said about Michael Jackson, except that we've known, via one outlet or another, of his controverseys and peculiarities. He was a year older than I. When the first bulletin crawled across the TV screen around 2:30 PDT (I'd been watching the Dodgers and the Chicago White Sox head into extra innings, tied 5-5), I figured he'd make it. It was on a sports talk show that I heard news of his death confirmed by the website TMZ, while local L.A. Tv stations and the cable news outlets were waiting for their own sources to make it official.

Shocking? Absolutely. When you get past the shock? Not as surprising. A 50-year-old man training intensely for one more come back, suffering cardiac arrest. A 50-year-old man, perhaps, not fully realizing his body is 50, and likely compounded by more than we know--his history with presecription drugs largely goes undiscussed. Hell, my own doctor told me last year that if I wanted to start jogging or running, I should have a stress test first. At 49 or 50, we are not what we were at 25.

This news, the surreal word that Michael Jackson was dead, obscured the fact that the pain and discomfort Farrah Fawcett experienced for three years , had ended, and that she was gone. From her great fame as Charlie's main Angel, to befuddling appearances on Late Show with David Letterman, Farrah was a beguiling creature. Tons and tons of high school and college-aged guys, and many more servicemen, hung that iconic poster of Farrah on their bedroom walls. To be truthful, I tacked the centerfold of a Playboy playmate named Denise Michelle (April '76) on the back of my door, but I watched Charlie's Angels until it began to drive my testasterone- charged teenaged senisibilities utterly wild.

But, back to the point of all this: the deaths of pop culture icons remind us that we are getting older, and mortality is the destiny of all. Farrah died at 62, but in our minds (and on that poster) her visage will forever be 29 years of age.

Michael Jackson dreamed of one last tour that would remove the stain of the last 16 years...years beset by allegations and peculiar behavior. The sad irony of life, as those of us old enough can attest to, is that his music, his phenomenal legacy between 1969 and 1993, will fly off the shelves of what stores still sell CD's, and burn up iTunes on the internet. He may become bigger than ever as some of his less appreciated or well remembered efforts after Thriller find their way to the air, with all the appropriate kudos.

There will be the inevitable books, with unimpeachable sources telling their stories without fear of reprisal, and we will learn in hideous detail of his massive foibles and peculiarities. The fact remains, however, that hardcore fans will pay no attention. In death, he will once more be the giant whose 1982 album sold more than any other by a solo artist. Like fans of Elvis rear-up in fury at the mere mention of drugs or dietary gluttony, those who deeply mourn the King of Pop will look past prurient revelations, and fiercely defend their lost Idol.

And perhaps we can hope that for the first time since his childhood swerved into superstardom, then disfunction, Michael Jackson has found peace.

APRIL ODD AND ENDS

2009-04-21T21:21:00.000-07:00

The sun just set on the third straight sunny, southern California day, with temperatures close to or above a hundred degrees. That's not unprecedented, but it's freaky for April, never-the-less. It reminds me that summer is not far away, and I haven't been on a real vacation for a long, long time. Nor have I enjoyed the natural beauty of the world outside So. Cal. for what seems like most of the decade.

There's so much to visually experience in this state, from the interior pleasures of Yosemite and Mount Shasta, to the hundreds of miles of precious coastline. You could spend years just soaking in the views from Eureka to Rosarito Beach.

For years, one of my favorite places of repose has been Point Loma in San Diego. It's a thumb-shaped bluff of peninsula that creates an entrance to San Diego Bay. A national park and monument stands near the peninsula's edge, named for Juan Cabrillo, the first European to sail into the natural enclosure. From the site of this monument, looking east, one sweeping gaze can take in the entirety of the city, it's airport, the skyline, North Island Naval Air Station, Coronado and its bridge, and, on an exceedingly clear day, Tijuana. Fighter jets land, while submarines, freighters and the occasional aircraft carrier churn their way into or out of the bay. The sands on Coronado reflect the sun and, at one time, shone as white as snow. The scope of this view is more picturesque and fluid than any other in this part of the state. If you cross to the other side of the bluff, you can look out over a seemingly endless Pacific Ocean, especially breathtaking as dusk nears.

I went there with regularity in 1987 and the first part of 1988, during another particularly difficult time in my career (difficulty in radio means A) not working, or B) remaining in a job you've come to hate with the searing heat of a thousand suns, or C) having to present A-C music in an A-C style...which for me is like a cat having its fur rubbed the wrong way). The therapeutic properties of just looking out at this magnificent vista from a location like Point Loma cannot be too strongly emphasized. I remember that view more fondly than the on air situation I encountered during those years. The Spanish word for the Cabrillo National Monument at Point Loma would be tranquilo.

MANNY'S BACK

Since my last blog, all has been squared away with Manny Ramirez. Though the Dodgers had an eight game winning streak end in Houston this evening, Manny ripped a homer to the farthest reaches of that pin-ball machine the Astros call a stadium. Their pitching is young, the middle relief a question mark, but other than that, it's the most dangerous Dodger team I've seen since the 1970's. Why? Not only are they young and talented, with a world-class hitter and sure-fire Hall of Famer in the middle of their line-up, aside from Manny, they are superior defensively. This will make for an interesting summer for all us Dodger fans.

ADIOS, DESGRACIADOS!

That's become my favorite Spanish word, thanks to the telenovela, Dona Barbara. There are a ton of desgraciados in the storyline, and they are liberally refered to as such. The English definition, of course, can range anywhere from "wretch," "disgrace," or "jerk," to the penultimate BASTARD! Dona Barbara deals with a lot of desgrasiados, and can be one herself, a great deal of the time. The series ends in May, and I have to tell you, it's been a hoot. Spanish-language television is an adventure worth the undertaking. The stories are told with a lot of tears, a lot of action, and an honesty you don't get with its English language counterparts. Dona Barbara could not have dealt with her enemies as grotesquely on NBC as she has on Telemundo. Watching has been a fun experiment while I've had time on my hands. I can now refer to cretins in the radio business as DESGRASIADOS!! Maldita Sea!! (that one means "damn it. It's always the four-letter words we learn first, isn't it?).

SCRUBS

On the subject of TV, here's a show that's taught us the meaning of cultural phenomena like Soup Shower (the act of placing a bullion cube in the head of some unsuspecting schmuck's shower); Bacon Back (slathering Crisco on to some sunbather, instead of Coppertone); and Grill Face (the result of college girls, hopping on to some drunken guy's back while he's standing too close to a Bar-B-Q...the results being predictable, as he pitches face-first into the fiery place between the burgers and hot dogs).

Scrubs has also given us the startling medical statistic that, "...75 percent of all (baby) deliveries are accompanied by an accidental dukey."

Underrated and under watched, Scrubs may well have delivered more genuine laughs than any sit-com in the first decade of the 21st Century.

AND IN CONCLUSION

...with hope, friends, the summer will bring some much need and well deserved career news. Stand By, as they say...

1979

2009-03-06T21:11:00.000-08:00

That was the year that was. Gas lines, J.R. Ewing, The World Champion "We are Fam-Uh-Lee" Pittsburgh Pirates, and Benny Hill's syndication to the United States (well...OK...it meant something to me).

Two other things bubble up from the ooze that is my memory of that year. One is caused by my continued reflection on what impact Amp Radio will have on the business and the southland; the other is something that has revisited our consciousness as would an unsettled meal: Michael Jackson. Like what emerges from a crypt in a Zombie movie (and with the pallor to match), he is risen, once more.

Jacko, as the British call him, is a talcom-powered example that the relative few who attain icon status in this world can get away with almost anything. If you don't believe that's true, try slathering on kabuki make-up, dressing like Mohamar Qaddafi gone wild with Bedazzler, and start favoring the company of non-adults. See how fast you get taken to the psyche ward or beaten up, or both, with all deliberate haste.

His (alleged) misdemeanors notwithstanding, Michael Jackson is a pitiable soul. He's a lasting reminder of what can happen to talented, precocious youngsters when they are cruelly exploited and robbed of their childhood. By the same token, M.J. embodies our own basic human need to worship at the foot of the charismatic, regardless of their foibles or felonies. The innate ability of people to forgive allows Michael to exist. Not as the ground-breaking, breath-taking, one-gloved performer he was in 1979, but as the celebrity so burned into the iris of the public's vision, that he made news world-wide when he announced a series of "final" concerts, this week.

I'm not a fan of the individual. It's not easy to remain unsettled by a 50-year-old man who's beginning to resemble a Star Wars Storm Trouper. There is, however, no denying the talent...a talent that has come to represent what little was compelling about Top 40 music in 1979.

Last week, I wrote at length about the debut of Amp Radio, and why it's always exciting when a new Top 40-CHR (Contemporary Hit Radio) station starts. That made me recall how much fun it is to be a young person when something new is breaking. I always felt I'd missed something having been just four years-old when the Beatles exploded on to these shores. My brothers got to experience that as teens...plus The Stones, The Animals, Motown and James Brown.

Every teen or young adult has a music scene to embrace, but it's once in a couple of generations that an act like Elvis or The Beatles come along to rattle cages and shake up the landscape of popular culture. The rest of the time, people between 10 and 20 years are either digging what's cool, or searching for something more iconoclastic. What broke big when I was 18 was huge, but eventually loathsome, and had, by no means, the enduring impact of Beatlemania.

Disco. To say the word, even today, after semi-revivals and nostalgic reunions, is to blanch a little with disgust.

In 1979, Disco was at its height, a fact that speaks to the patchwork quilt that was Top 40 music in the 1970's. The decade began as a series of tributaries that flowed out of the radio: Soul, rock (the "roll" half of the name faded away for a brief time), some million-selling country hits, and a syrupy melange of mush and chewed bubblegum. We're talking James Taylor and Carly Simon as a couple, Elton John's softer efforts, The Partridge Family, The Osmonds, and abysmal one-hit wonders like Reunion (Life is a Rock, but the radio Rolled Me). On Top 40 stations from coast to coast, songs by those artists were linked by jingles to Led Zeppelin, Chicago, Charlie Rich, Jerry Reed, and Isaac Hayes doing The Theme From Shaft. It was true Top 40--hits from all fields, but nothing comparable to what shifted tectonic plates when the British landed in 1964. There was no real "craze" that gripped the country until Disco was delivered forth from burgeoning technology in the recording studio, and the glitter-balled excesses of New York night clubs. And it took over the airwaves in late 1977.

A previously low-rated album-rock FM station in New York started playing Disco records in Top-40 styled rotation and shot to the top of the ratings. They knocked off Dan Ingram and the venerable WABC, the city's leading Top 40 station for a decade. In L.A., KUTE 102, with a bad signal and ratings to match, went Disco in '77 under the helm of Bill Stevens, and zoomed past all the Top 40's except KHJ, and even they were feeling the heat.

Of all the music trends of the 20th Century, though, from ragtime to the big bands, from the birth of rock and roll to hip-hop, Disco is the most difficult to assess in a fair, even-handed way. For a music style that accounted for millions and millions of records sold, thousands of dance lessons taught, and hundreds of Discos opened, it was vastly reviled. Sticky-sweet, simple, thumping and monotonous, Disco was the first music trend since the Cha-Cha that entailed having to learn steps from professionals. What really caused its disconnect was the robotic tempo. You HAD to dance to it, because it didn't lend itself to listening for long periods, and reduced those not dancing to spectator status. As it blared, you sat, you drank, you ogled, as you were bombarded by this catchy, happy music that, after a while, just wasn't very good.

Rockers, particularly, were offended by having to abide a music form that ignored the depth and nuance of stirring chord progressions, textured guitar solos, and all the elements that afforded hard rock its artistic credibility. One of the cultural changes as a direct result of the Beatles influence was Rock's evolution from high school dance accompaniment to concert event experience. A steady buzz, comfortable pair of jeans, and some roaring guitar licks what all a rocker needed to get his (or her) groove on--no dance lessons needed. From the Rocker's disdain for its homogenized milieu, came the prevailing chant of the time: Disco Sucks!

Students of pop culture will tell you Disco died because it didn't develop enough stars; that its flame burned bright, then quickly burned out. I submit that unlike most other items that are plastic, its shelf life was doomed by its inability to change, as all things must.

While it permeated the charts and the radio, Disco momentarily obscured the music that would climb out of clubs and neighborhoods, and last for 30 years and counting. Call them alternative and hip-hop today--they were known as punk/new wave and rap in 1979. These are the forms that would merge into the mainstream, and resurrect the Top 40 radio format that was on life support after an overdose of The Bee Gees and Donna Summer.

I was one of those guys who got sick of Disco pretty quickly. In the summer of 1978, when it was a relatively new thing, I had fun hitting dances in a three-piece suit, downing Seven and Sevens though I was underage, and trolling for halter-topped, long-haired girls. By 1979, the music was no longer tolerable. Even TV dance shows stopped about music and artists and spontaneous fun, as much as they were a showcase for semi-gymnast professionals. It wasn't very participatory. I told friends that the next dance move we'd see would be some heavily-cologned, expensively permed Disco King throwing his partner in the air and shooting her down with a skeet gun.

Disco waned in 1980, and by the end of the year it was done. It bobbed like a cork in the tub until groups like The Pretenders, The Go Gos, and a vanguard of what was new wave became 1980's Contemporary Hit Radio, CHR, the former Top 40. And yes, one of the biggest beneficiaries of Disco's death was the fellow who's music stood out in the midst of the Disco lemmings in 1979. In 1982-83, Michael Jackson's Thriller became (for decades to come) the biggest selling album of all-time.

30 years later, with music even more fragmented from market to market, itemized by demographic group, the odds against another trend as encompassing as Disco run high. We who love music can be thankful for that. Its vestiges live on, as evidenced by the popularity of ABC-TV's Dancing with The Stars. People will still dance and love it, to salsa, meringue and big bands, but Disco will continue to peacefully push up daisies.

The same odds that would gleefully prohibit another Disco-like phenomenon would also, sadly, rule out a future event as world tilting as Beatlemania and its aftermath. And those four lads from Liverpool didn't have MySpace, Facebook, Twitter or Texting to conquer the universe and alter a generation.

TOTALLY "AMPED" & THE JANKEE JEARS

2009-02-26T22:13:00.001-08:00

I'm not around many teenagers, these days, but I'd sure like to know how they use the radio. Sure, I'm privy to some of the market research. A lot of that data, however, can (in the hands of a cunning executive) yield whatever results desired.

I've read recently, for example, that more teens are listening to the radio now than, say, in the last decade. That report was posted on a radio trade website, and it flies in the face of all that I've heard from friends who have teenagers, and anything I've noticed in public. More than likely, the realty is mixed--kids who have the means download music from the internet, and constantly fill their iPODS with what ever they enjoy. Those for whom the computer culture is too expensive, rely on the radio.

It's an important point to make because Los Angeles just got a brand new Top-40/ CHR (Contemporary Hit Radio) station, Friday, February 20. 97.1 AMP radio supplanted FM talk station KLSX, 97.1 Free-FM, one time over-the-air-radio home of Howard Stern. Its studios were no more than 20 feet from where I still toil on Saturday and Sunday nights, one year after being laid off.

The "flip" as we call it in radio, happened at 5PM, when Tom Leykis offered up his final few opinions on dating, divorce, and knockers he has known. Amp Radio then started the first of 10 thousand songs, from a studio on Venice Blvd., several miles away. On the air, it had all the requisite, whiz-bang excitement of everything young and new. Except that there won't be a live human speaking to you for quite a while...if at all.

It used to be that when a new hit radio station went on the air, there was the palpable feel of human endeavor. The technological progress we've made, and (some say) gleeful corporate cost-cutting has put an end to all of that. How do teenagers and young adults 18-34 like their music presented? Many in important positions maintain that the disc jockey as we knew him/her is a deterrent. Others believe that only the right personalities appeal to the desired demographic, with a full plate of fast-moving elements, phone activity, and interviews. It's all very subjective. The truth is, regardless of the market, small or large, corporations now feel the less money spent on talent, the better.

Maybe someone can answer my question: are teenagers excited by the start of a new radio station? I can only point to what I've known. In the 1970's, "the New Ten-Q" started in L.A., in the middle year of my senior year in high school. It really made no impact on anyone I knew. In those days, we all listened to stations that defined our interests. Those who had "more soul than they could con-trol" listened to 1580 K-Day, which played all the "soul-hits," and, believe it or not, Philadelphia Freedom by Elton John. Surfers and rockers couldn't live without FM stations KMET and KLOS. The rest sampled everything else, with KHJ as a default station of choice. Ten-Q, with its music sped-up by a good 3 to 4 %, was unsustainable to me, despite the fact The Real Don Steele was there. Every song sounded as if it were performed by Alvin and The Chipmunks.

The 70's were marked by the insurgence of FM stations over those stalwarts on the AM band. Cassettes and Eight-tracks found their way to automobile dashboards. You had more choices as to how to get your entertainment. It's not surprising that a "format-flip" would not have the significance that KHJ's did in 1965. From all that I've read and learned from those who were there, KHJ literally exploded, and within a year had revolutionized the way Top-40 music was presented over the air--with forward momentum, constant, creative contests, and a thrill that's still present when you hear ancient airchecks (available for your review, in their entirety at reelradio.com, an online radio museum...membership is $15).

I was too young to understand it, but I could sense from my older brothers that 930 on the AM dial was absolutely where the radio had to be at all times--from getting up in the morning, to washing dishes at night, and even on New Year's Eve. That's when I remember hearing some of those gentlemen I eventually worked with, and have written of in previous posts. They plied their trade to my brothers' delight, while I scrambled around as a 6-year-old. By the time I was a teen, I didn't get to experience that type of sensation.

Not, that is, until I was in my 20's and trying to make it as a jock, myself. I was working at a deadly dull Adult Contemporary station ( A-C, as it's known: where old, slow, lugubrious hits by groups like America and Bread, and artists like Phil Collins and Billy Joel commingle to salve the troubled psyches of some very wounded ladies) in San Diego. In early 1987, Q-106 went on the air, and it was intoxicating. The energy was contagious, the tempo mesmerizing, and , for those of us in radio, the suspense was mounting. Who were the jocks going to be?

They added an air-staff gradually, after a week of playing nothing but hits and giving away T-Shirts. The result was an enormous ratings debut. Their competition, the previously established KS-103, gave up without a fight. From my outpost at the lowly K-Lite 94.9 (Lite Rock and Less talk), I pined away for a chance to work there, but my abilities weren't yet honed to what they would be. Still, I'd seen the impact of a great station launch. (An epilogue: all things in radio change. By the mid-1990's, Q-106 was first steered in what they call "Hot" A-C, meaning a little more energy and a lot more Michael Bolton music. Then it became a Spanish-language station, and remains so, today).

I have no doubt that somewhere in metropolitan Los Angeles, Orange County, Ventura County and parts of the Inland Empire, enthusiasts of Kanye West, Beyonce, Britney, Katy Perry, Lil' Wayne, and all who top today's charts, must be experiencing a sense of urgency. Those of us who are now too old to be CHR jocks get a kick out of Amp Radio, but are also extremely aware that this 21st century CHR will interface with listeners through all the modern avenues--twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Blackberrys, texting, etc. The fact that jocks are the last priority leaves some of us less excited than we would ordinarily be about a new station. I now know how old-time radio announcers felt in the mid-1950's when radio transitioned from soap operas, dramas and variety shows to D.J.'s. If they could cut through the jungle of theirown egos, they saw obsolescence.

MANNY, JOE AND "JANKEES"

Spring training is here, and anyone who loves baseball as I do is grinning it up. The dedicated baseball fan (as opposed to the off-the-charts-fanatics who maintain fantasy leagues year round) has spent the off season months keeping track of trades, free-agent signings, and doing some light reading on the subject. Dodger manager Joe Torre inadvertently stirred up a hornet's nest with his book The Yankee Years, written with Sports Illustrated baseball editor Tom Verducci. It's not penned like an autobiography at all. Verducci has blended interviews with all the main Yankee players from 1996 through 2007, Torre's last as manager. It's truly a great baseball book that only whipped up some flames in the New York tabloids and sports talk stations because of its assertions that Alex Rodriguez was a player unto himself. Previous to A-Rod's arrival, from Torre's first year through the third of three straight World series victories in 2000, the Yanks were a tough-minded, work-as-a-single-unit outfit, one on which the concept of team trumped selfish interests.

For all the useless words piled up and printed, coughed up and spewed over the air, the book came no where near as close to hurting A-Rod's reputation as Alex did himself when he had to admit to using steroids. If you read the book, and compare it to Alex's dissembling interviews, you know that Torre didn't defame him--Joe had A-Rod pegged. A-Fraud, indeed. Magnificent talent, varnished with a coat of "all shine, no substance." A-Rod is constantly concerned with image, and consumed with being catered to.

Finally, on the subject of catering to players with massive talents: As I write this, it's being reported that Manny Ramirez has rejected the Dodgers offer of 2 years at 45 million dollars, with an option to leave after 2009. This is bad news for the Dodgers, who need Manny's potent bat. You can't account for players (and their agents) who want to get all they can. It means an average year ahead for L.A., whose 2008 season was pulled out of the ashes only because Manny arrived for two cost-free months (Boston literally paid to get rid of him).

I hope that future posts will find him batting fourth in the Dodger line-up as the season begins, but hope appears to have faded, tonight. No slams, here. I appreciate what he did last season to start pushing nouns against verbs in order to blow him up. When it comes to ego and money and the unpredictable personality, all of this is not unexpected. We fans of the blue must move on--even if it means third place and stupefying mediocrity in 2009.

SO FAR, SO GOOD or DOIN' FINE IN 2009

2009-01-22T22:11:00.000-08:00

It was an unusually cold Christmas in Southern California, and a fairly quiet New Year's Day. For me, It was almost like being fully employed again. Three weeks of radio work, in the daylight, plying the trade I've studied and executed so well. Sure, I had to endure Christmas music the likes of which must be played for people who can't come down from injections of speed, but we got through it. I could blog for page after page about this dolorous, morose Christmas music...painful dirges that have nothing to do with the merry spirit of the season, but I'll spare you and get to the point of this entry: 2009 has started quite well.

What, You say? With the economy tanking? With the United States in a financial panic rivaled only by the great depression? With jobs being lost by the thousands each week (including the radio profession--not so much panic, there, just expediency. The technology is allowing companies to blow people out by the dozens, and doesn't bode well for my own career interests. More on that, later)?

Yes. We're doin' fine so far in 2009 from the perspective of hope. Any year that starts with a skilled pilot successfully ditching an airliner in the Hudson River, and saving 155 lives, HAS to be a positive year. Add that to the Inauguration of an actually articulate, intelligent person to our highest office, and yes, the year has promise for positivity. Even for those who are not fans of President Obama, just to see his predecessor go is an occasion for revelry. Eight years of that simpleton in charge has left the country in a shape that only his blindest, most ardent minions could ignore.

Before I veer away from politics, I have to express even more than the relief that Mr. Bush has returned to Texas. If we can all suppress our partisan leanings for just a minute, a good look will reveal that the very idea of Sarah Palin even being in the vicinity of the White House (let alone a heartbeat away from the Oval Office) is mind boggling, especially at a time like this. Is it sexist to say that this glib person could probably be entertaining at a meeting of the Wasilla Community Players, and little else? Anyone who voted for that ticket, then viewed the Governor of Alaska holding court with reporters as a turkey got its head ground to bits has to see the light by now. If you didn't see it, there stood Sarah, beaming and prattling on about getting the government out of people's way (I think we've seen what happens when the government gets out of people's way: the government has to bail 'em out!). As she babbled, the guy who ran the farm rammed turkeys head-first into a steel funnel, its legs kicking as it's noggin was turned to a pulpy mass of viscera. We love turkey, but really don't want to see it's final moments in life played out as a woman who ran for Vice President spews disconnected political bullet points, in a bright, cheery manner. Yeah, that's who we want running the country, eventually.

Lastly, no Republican deny what drew nearly two million people to the Inauguration. Of course, the reverence will at some point recede, because he is, after all, a human being. So's The Chief Justice, who fucked-up administering the oath of office. I reflexively hit the jump button on my remote at the embarrassing moment, but it wasn't the President who goofed.

I wasn't surprised when later, on Fox News, Chris Wallace surmised that the oath might not have been legitimate because of the wording goof. Chris is a journalist-- he should be ashamed. But as we all know, there is no shame in the world of Fox. Before the holidays, I read a book about Rupert Murdoch and Fox, and it backed up what many of us had known for years: It's a propaganda arm of the Right Wing, and shouldn't be mistaken for news. You want objectivity? Try what's left of CBS, NBC and ABC...PBS, CNN. If you want to watch a dunderhead (Bush) put on a pedestal, and the new President stalked, then pounced upon at the first scent of blood, watch Fox. Just don't mistake it for news.

*

I just watched an episode of 30 Rock, one of the smartest (if not the smartest), funniest comedies on TV. Even after all the Emmys and Golden Globes, the ratings are still awful., and that's too bad. With television programs spread all over hundreds of channels, hilarious, well received, high-rated sitcom are rare. A fabulous talent like Julia Louis-Dreyfus is caged in drek like The New Adventures of Old Christine...well below her ability, and no where near 30 Rock in class.

Tina Fey must be the crush of a million guys who would have been too shallow to dig her twelve years ago, when she was a little heavier and less well known. It's good advice for us all to keep our eyes open for the Tina Feys of our world.

On the subject of ratings, I've said it for 15 years, and I'll say it for 15 more: Letterman beats Leno by miles. No, not in the ratings, but as a show. Where Leno is a practiced stand-up, almost without peer, Letterman is a real broadcaster, with the ability to work the irony and sarcasm out of a bit until it bleeds laughs. After his open-heart surgery, 9/11, and the birth of his son, he dialed back some of smirky Dave, and displayed depth of knowledge and interviewing prowess thatleaves many in the news business chartreuse with envy. This was especially evident when he finally got Senator McCain on his show and grilled him like a smoked salmon. For those who prefer Leno, it's a case of apples and oranges, I guess. NBC certainly is betting on the apples, what with elevating Jay to a nightly prime-time strip on the network, Monday through Friday at 10pm.

My reaction is that NBC is not just keeping Leno out of the hands of the other networks, b ut cutting costs, and taking a gamble. First, what are the odds that his current audience would break habit and follow him to another network like Fox or ABC? Secondly, does NBC really believe average folks in the Midwest who chose Leno over Letterman at 11:35, tune him in at 10? My bet is that they'll pick CSI: Miami, CSI: New York, Without a Trace, and NUMB3RS. That noise you hear is Sarah Palin putting the NBC Peacock into a steel funnel to have its head turned into pate'.

Finally, a note on the evaporation of jobs in radio--I can't say too much, if I still want to land some work, but believe me, there are some folks who are still getting rich in L.A., New York, and Chicago. Filthy rich, and sometimes for no return in the form of ratings. Example: at least one organization is paying two million a year for a morning talent, while scores of jocks are laid off. The lack of equanimity is not quarantined to radio, as anyone who as followed the fiscal crisis knows. Because its entertainment, it's just a little more sickening.

'Til next time.

THE BEST, THE BRIGHTEST, AND TURKEY-TIME

2008-11-17T21:13:00.000-08:00

Now that we've elected a new President, it didn't take long for the first Xmas trees to pop up at malls around the country. Bang! Zoom! From the Electoral College to Santa's Workshop in a matter of days, as if the rest of November doesn't exist. At least Nordstrom's has the right idea. I saw a sign in front of their newest store advising all who entered that they believe in celebrating one holiday at a time, and that their holiday decorations will go up on the 28th. "Happy Thanksgiving," the sign read. A pretty solid message from a place with a lounge-lizard piano player on site.

The holidays will bring a full schedule of for me, the first sustained work for, what up til now, has been my former and intermittent employer, KRTH, Los Angeles. It's a time to look ahead to prospects in 2009--prospects in a depressed economy--and to look back at the 14 years I spent at K-Earth 101.

Dave "Sky" Walker, who handles the weekend overnight shifts (while they still exist, knock on wood) remarked that it's amazing, the number of radio stars I've had the opportunity to work with, and he's right. I thought I'd share my observations about those who are no longer with us, and one who spent all of five days working in Los Angeles...but what a five days they were.

THE REAL DON STEELE

I'd always been aware of The Real Don Steele. KHJ was everywhere when I was young, and it was impossible not to hear him barreling out of radios all over L.A. I knew him best from his hosting duties on Boss City, the Saturday evening dance show on KHJ-TV Channel 9 (later called The Real Don Steele Show, once "Boss" became passe).

I became a true fan at a time I was struggling to advance in the business. That was in 1985, when Don burst forth from a seven year hiatus to do afternoons at KRLA, AM 1110. No air talent ever augmented the hits with more formatic precision, more energy, double entendres, sarcasm, and minimal, expertly timed observation than The Real Don Steele. I could go on and use a hundred superlatives about his work, which stayed extraordinary... from his earliest days in Omaha, 1962, until his terminal illness forced him off the air at K-earth 101 in April of 1997...but I've said enough. A memo by Bob Henabery of WRKO, Boston says it all succinctly and profoundly. This remarkable seven page document was written in June of 1966, when WRKO management contemplated a move to the Top 40 music format that made a huge success of its sister RKO station, KHJ. Henabery assessed KHJ from top to bottom, from the music to the jingles, newscasts and the boss jocks. He had this to say about Don:

"The Real Don Steele is the most articulate of the Boss Jocks in respect to the argot of the youth. he delivers this language flawlessly, at a furious and witty pace. Steele is the most intelligent and talented of the Boss Jocks..."

WRKO went on to become the Top 40 station in Boston for the next 15 years. Real Don went on proving Henabery correct until he passed away, August 5, 1997. He's the best there ever was, and it was surreal to be on the same air staff with him.

ROBERT W. MORGAN

My first memories of Morgan were from his TV stint with a puppet named Mickey Mudturtle. When I told him that, he laughed, coughed out some cigarette smoke and exclaimed "Christ, I was 27 years old!"

Morgan was a morning presence in our house. His was the voice from the transistor radio as my older brothers got ready to head off to high school. Armed with a razor sharp wit, he was ahead of the curve when it came to presence in morning drive. To describe him as gruff in his later days, would be to say that porcupines were a little prickly from time to time. That was part of the armor you experienced in person. On air, he was quick, absolutely funnier than anyone else, and a perfectionist. When we lost Steele and Morgan in freakish tandem, we lost more than two men of flesh and bone and spirit. The medium of radio lost two larger-than-life entities that towered over the rest. A pair that defined professionalism. The generations to follow will never know what it's like to have performers of their greatness present music on the radio. To have Morgan tell me "You make the station sound good," is a compliment I'll take to the end of my days.

Robert W. was tart and topical; his booming voice vibrated acerbic quips over intros to songs, tete-a-tetes with phone callers, and hit musical posts with punchlines. He tolerated no fools. Toward the end of his career, those five years at K-Earth 101, he was unrelentingly political, but he lost none of his old fans from Boss radio days at KHJ. Because morning meant MORGAN. Unlike Real Don, he went public with his lung cancer diagnosis, and retired at a lavish broadcast from the Museum of TV and Radio in Beverly Hills, January 9, 1998. He passed away on May 28th of that year.

DAN INGRAM

First things, first: Dan Ingram is very much alive, in New York City, active at age 73. He spent all of one week on the air in Los Angeles, from June 22 through 26, 1998, auditioning for the morning job at K-earth, left open by Robert W.'s departure. I got to follow him that first day. He was gracious, cordial, and hilarious.

Because I'm a Southern Californian born and raised, I hadn't heard of Dan Ingram until I read Rocking America, Rick Sklar's 1984 memoir about the heady, Top 40 days of WABC, New York. My introduction to Big Dan came by way of tape, and he was incredible. The zingers, the one -liners, the wink-of-the-eye smarty pants comments that preceded, followed and punctuated songs, commercials, newscasts and everything else, were side-splitting. For anyone who's never heard him, I'd say that, at his peak in the 60's and 70's, he was like Robin Williams in Good Morning, Vietnam, but more in control, more exacting, more professional.

A good example would be a series of ad libs between commercials on the 4th of July, 1968. He read what we call the "tag" to commercial about a Sea World-type exhibition, made a quip, ran another spot, then said of the "Sea World" commercial, "How about this: when love congeals, it soon reveals...the faint aroma, of performing seals..."

Anyone from the Northeastern United States who got to listen to him every afternoon were privileged, indeed. The one week we had him, ten years ago, he caused more positive phone calls than anyone else who auditioned for the job, including the guy who wound up being hired.

To compare his work in the afternoon to The Real Don Steele's is like comparing WABC to KHJ: it's a case of excellence born to two different mothers, and any comparison would be nefarious. They were different, on separate coasts, and both brilliant within their own veins.

DICK HUGG, "HUGGY BOY"

I was not a fan of Huggy's. He was from a time when presenting music on radio was in its infancy. It was that cred from the deep past that made Hug beloved in L.A.'s deeply entrenched Mexican-American community. In the 50's, he'd done his show live, all night, from Dolphin's Record Shop in South Central Los Angeles. In the 60's, when the '50's songs became oldies-but goodies, he purchased his air time, and did all night shows on Spanish language station KALI, cementing his connection to Latino listeners.

Flash forward to the 90's, and an elderly Huggy was at KRLA, until the station's format was changed. In October of 1998, he slid into a late night shift at K-Earth 101. We were told it was to keep him from going to a competing Rhythmic Oldies station, but in truth, he needed income, and they created a place for him. I wasn't alone in thinking he wasn't competent to perform at a station as well executed as K-earth 101 was, 10 years ago.

When he joined us, I went out of my way to be nice, but he was aloof...indifferent to me, and so I was little more than polite when I saw him. He truly believed what they told him: that he was there to lure Latino listeners and increase the nighttime ratings. To those who shared my sentiments at the the time, I said, "Huggy could no more generate ratings here than he could a solid bowel movement."

I felt bad about that as time went on. He really was like part of the family to so many on the East side, but I was correct that he didn't make any difference in the ratings. I respected what he had accomplished throughout his long time on the air in L.A., and its historic significance. What was particularly egregious was how the poor man left the planet...not so long after a fall at home, with no one there.

While we never liked one another, I'm sorry a performer held in such high esteem by a significant part of the southland had to come to such a heart-rending end.

*

APOLOGIES TO KATIE COURIC

In an earlier post, I think I wrote that Katie Couric had "cuted-up" the CBS Evening News. Well, when I'm wrong, I say I'm wrong. I hadn't watched her broadcast in some time, and according to the ratings, neither had much of the country. Though third in viewership among the network newscasts, Katie's program has become damned good. Her interview with Sarah Palin (Peggy Hill?) was epic! Quietly, politely, she delivered the questions that revealed Governor Palin's denseness. That's all you can ask of any good interviewer for a quality newscast. When I watch evening news, now, I watch Katie.

OUR EVENING OF JUBILEE

2008-11-07T21:28:00.000-08:00

There are few times in life when the emotions of joy, relief, and the feeling of justification converge. When they all hit at the same time, tears and smiles spring forth. That's an almost clinical description of what happened in my living room, in the homes of friends, across the country and around the world, November 4, 2008. It's as if America, truly as a people, made collective positive movement--out of the darkness of these last eight years and into, at the very least, a glimmer of light.

There's no need for tired ideology, just truth: for the first time in a long time, the bad guys lost. The forces of fear, the punitive control freaks, the unenlightened and the dogmatic lost their grip on our country's destiny. The new President-Elect seeks to govern not by getting even with those who hijacked power in 2000, but by doing what's right for the country on a whole, and not just the richest or the most fanatic.

A s he said in accepting his landslide victory (364 Electoral votes...the most for a Democrat since Clinton in 1996), Barack Obama said it won't be easy. He told the truth. The "haters" in this country (our domestic version of "evil-doers") abound...and the ideological wack-jobs of the right still command angry hordes of viewers (via Fox), and radio listeners (who accept the vomitous rantings of Rush Limbaugh as gospel). He'll be attacked daily, but this guy has a tough skin, and not only is he book-smart...he's a brilliant tactical politician. What mistakes Obama will make, he'll study and not repeat.

Should he fail, at least he will have come into this with good intent. I think his opponent simply wanted to live out a life-long dream. And the less said about "Peggy Hill," the better. There's a passage from Dickens' A Christmas Carol, in which the Ghost of Christmas Present shows Scrooge two emaciated, disheveled children.

"The boy is ignorance, and the girl is want. Fear them both, but above all fear this boy," he tells the old miser.

On the Republican ticket of 2008, Dickens' warning rang true. In the case of real life, the male was want, and the female was ignorance. The Governor of Alaska dissembled and obfuscated every day of her two months as a character in this play. The G.O.P. should be ashamed (and some are) that a person so woefully unqualified was put in place to perhaps assume the Presidency. Holding power at any cost, in this case by manipulating its base with a glib, physically attractive person, does not constitute doing right by the country.

I apologize to Mike Judge and his character, Peggy Hill, for the comparison. Peggy is big-hearted and means well.

TURNING TO SPORTS, IT'S MANNY MANIA

In Los Angeles, for two months, we saw one man put a team on his back as if he were performing one of the 13 Tasks of Hercules. And if the Phillies hadn't been so damned good, Manny Ramirez would have lead the Dodgers to the World Series.

They got as far as game five of the N.L. Championship Series. For some of us, it wasn't enough, but reality demanded that was as far as they'd go. Getting to watch Manny Ramirez turn Dodger Stadium into a Fantasyland, which it hadn't been for years and years, was worth it. He'll probably not be back next season. The Dodgers may well pick up where they were in July, battling to stay at .500. But for a short, passionate time, we got to relive what it was like when the Dodgers ruled L.A.

Had the Dodgers won, at least baseball fans would have had a glimpse of what the World Series used to be, played in sunshine and shadows, and the relatively warm temperatures of early Indian Summer. Instead, we were treated to watching freezing fans in Philadelphia--alliteration, I know, but true. The length of the play-offs, the dominance of east coast teams, and the insistence of Fox that the games be played at night have all diminished the World Series as national spectacle.

Maybe someday, someone can figure out a way to save the Series from the rain and the frosty, late October temps of the Northeast without further damaging this treasured rite of Fall. Until then, I recommend a book of photos by Neil Leifer. On its cover are Jim Gilliam, Don Drysdale and John Roseboro, embracing as they leave the field at Dodger Stadium under sparkling blue skies, having vanquished the Yankees in Game Three of the 1963 World Series. We'll never see World Series play in the sunshine, again, but this vivid color photo (as is the case with many others in the book) brilliantly displays what once was...and what should be, again.

THE LLOYD THAXTON HOP

Those friends and family members who've kept up with this sporadic blog over the last year, may have noticed I've changed the layout. The original white letters on blue background was the same used by the great Lloyd Thaxton, who also blogged at this site. I chose the same layout as a tribute. My brothers watched Lloyd Thaxton's KCOP-TV Channel 13 show EVERY DAY when I was very young. I remember seeing Lloyd pretending to play a trumpet to (what I later learned was) Herb Alpert's "The Lonely Bull." He did something goofy each afternoon that made you laugh. More importantly, for teens like my brothers, he played the hits, showed the kids dancing, and brought on the likes of The Temptations, Bobby Vee, The Shangri-Las, and all the top groups of the '60's. Lloyd was a gifted, good-humored man, who passed away a short time ago

I believe his writings are still posted here, at http://www.lloydthaxton.blogspot.com/. Read them, if you can. He would have been ecstatic about November 4th, too.

PEGGY HILL FOR V.P.???

2008-09-09T13:18:00.000-07:00

It would be less frightening if Peggy Hill actually were nominated to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency. Instead, the Grand Old Party has cynically put forth a woman whose only prerequisite for running is, apparently, a pair of X chromosomes. It's literally making me sick enough to discontinue my life long interest in politics--because (if you believe the tracking polls, and you recognize the fact that most of the electorate is easily misled) there's a good chance this woman who looks like Peggy Hill could very well be the next Vice-President of the United States.

It's appalling...and a political master stroke. Pull a good-looking political neophyte out of the snowdrifts of Alaska, fresh from giving birth and/ or field-cleaning a caribou, give her a crash course in stock answers, control her exposure, harass an already cowed national media, and you've got "Sarah-Mania." It's not that the press hasn't done it's job trying to unearth information about this little known woman...they've been trying. They're being out-shouted by the bullet-point pounding talk-shows and pundits from the Right, who are well versed in ignoring truth in favor of ideological uniformity. Because television and radio are commercial enterprises, and are subject to federal review at license renewal time, there may be a lack of testicular fortitude when pressing the point that there's been a fusillade of obfuscation and out right lies tumbling from the top and bottom of the G-O-P ticket.

What is particularly galling, is that fact there are many, many more qualified women from both parties who, if elected, could fearlessly lead this country should Grampy John McCain keel over. It is cynical, I believe, to have made such a choice...to anoint someone green, completely controllable, for the second highest office in the land. It makes me cringe when I hear Chris Matthews, or others equally enmeshed in the world of politics, lose sight of what's right. No, no, no, even if it's what research tells us, Americans should NOT vote for a candidate because they'd enjoy having a goddamned beer with them. Why don't voters in this country want someone intelligent, with the courage to lead? Because they've been convinced that an actually, bright politician might talk down to them?

Would George Washington not have been the Father of our country because folks in the village couldn't imagine having a flagon of ale with him? Repulsed by his withered legs, resting in a wheel chair, would Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Public, at the height of the great depression, reject Franklin D. Roosevelt and elect the feckless Alf Landon, because Landon was Kansas salt of the Earth?

Am I making this sound as ridiculous as it is? Those who are manipulated this way, and cast their votes against their own interest, harm the country and themselves. How many people who lustily embraced George Bush for his alleged values have lost their homes in foreclosure, or a loved one in a trumped up war.

Pay attention, America. Don't believe all you are told. Come to your own conclusions. And remember that candidates are packaged like the breakfast cereals that look good but pack enough sugar to put you into insulin shock. Or like the Alka-Seltzer that's supposed to cure your hang-over. In our country, it appears that good people are programmed to believe lies...and vote accordingly.

Note the irony when I say, God help us.

BYE-BYE BEIJING, HOLA DONA BARBARA

2008-08-25T04:04:00.000-07:00

I heard Vin Scully ask this question on a Dodger telecast last season: "When did everything get to be forty years ago?" He asked it after making a comment about a Dodger player from the 1960's. I asked it of myself when I realized I've been cognizant of the Olympic movement since I was 9-years old.

Just turned 49, I've spent a great deal of time watching still another round of games. For all that was written in the press, bandied about on the web, and chewed over on TV, the Beijing games turned out to be quite good, and extraordinarily watchable--save one thing: NBC's insistence on delaying their live broadcasts for the Pacific and Mountain time zones. Why? When live telecasts across the country would have permitted many of the swimming and gymnastics events to be presented in Prime Time on the west coast? Bread, bones, jing, moohlah...the ever-lovin' NBC/Universal, owned-and operated-stations and affiliate bottom line: Money. A live telecast from coast-to-coast-would have started at 5pm PDT, pre-empting local newscasts, the most lucrative of any programs aired by a local station, like KNBC, Los Angeles. They make millions in advertising revenue from the 5pm news. Better to delay the telecast three hours than lose those bucks. Besides, NBC promised sponsors Prime Time--and sponsors are to get exactly what they pay for, especially these days.

It's odd. Here on the west coast, viewers will accept a delayed broadcast of everything except the Super Bowl, World Series, college sports and the Academy Awards. 30 years ago, the NBA finals were not shown in prime time, but delayed til 11:30 EST and PST. No way they'd do that today. But the Grammys, Emmy Awards and the Olympics? New Yorkers would march on Rockefeller Plaza with torches if NBC tried it there. Southern Californians, mostly, don't care...so long as you don't tell them who won in advance.

I prefer the rush of the live telecast. I feel cheated, otherwise. My original Olympic viewing experience in 1968 was mostly live from Mexico City on ABC, in the afternoon when I got home from school. The network was charting virgin territory. It was the first time since the dawn of television broadcasting that the games were held in a time zone that permitted a live telecast. Some 40 hours of the games in Mexico City were beamed via satellite, in color. Much of the nation got to watch Olympic track and field events, gymnastics, swimming, diving and basketball as they happened. That had been done on a limited basis by NBC with some of the events in 1964, but nothing on the scale of the games of the XIX Olympiad.

I vividly recall watching Bernard Wrightson winning the gold medal on the 3-meter diving board. Soaking in the boxing matches called by Howard Cosell, and the stirring, closing ceremonies, in a dark stadium with its cauldron extinguished. In our house, we didn't see it in color, but it made quite an impression.

I admit that by the time I turned 13, ABC was preparing to telecast the Munich games, and I intended to watch as many of the planned 55 hours of coverage that I could. That's when the evil tape-delay first came into play. What was comfortably telecast during late afternoon in 1968, would be delayed three hours to be shown in prime time in 1972, or late afternoon weekend hours. It meant that when announcer Jim McKay was breathlessly describing the end of the
5, ooo meter run, and telling us, "...this is coming to you live! No one in the world knows how this will turn out!" we already knew Steve Prefontaine was going to fall just short of winning the bronze medal.

Though there were unforgettable moments, like Mark Spitz swimming to 7 golds (a record just eclipsed in Beijing by Michael Phelps), and Soviet gymnast Olga Korbut, those games remain marred by the memory of those Israeli athletes taken hostage and subsequently killed. On an early post, I acknowledged that, at his passing, Jim McKay was being remembered for the way he brought the news of that tragedy to the nation. What only I seem to remember, though, is hearing the news on an NBC special report that cut into the Nightly News with John Chancellor...because it was 6:45 PDT. McKay's soul-crushing announcement, "They're all gone," was not seen on the West Coast of the country for another three hours, because his reporting was a part of the Olympic package, to be telecast ONLY in prime time. ABC knew no shame.

It wasn't until 1984, with the games in our backyard, here in Southern California, that the Pacific time zone was treated to viewing Olympic sports live. The L.A. games were a tour de force. i was working at KLON, in Long Beach, the public radio station that supplanted our 10-watt college station at Long Beach State. This didn't keep the major sports franchises and the LAOOC (Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee) from assuming it, too, was a college station. I was de facto sports director of KLON. All that meant was I did the sports reports. And regardless of whom I had write the letters for me, I was denied credentials to the games. I reported the results from a portable color TV I brought from home, relishing the live telecasts, but chagrined no one had the juice to get me passes to cover the games in my own back yard (literally. I lived in Carson, a mile away from the Olympic Velodrome, and could look out the kitchen window to see cyclists, in the uniforms of their native lands, zooming through the neighborhood to stretch out their legs for the races to come. It was bizarre!).

Those games also stand out as the last great reporting done by Howard Cosell on ABC. Love him or hate him, he was brilliant calling the boxing matches from the L.A. Sports Arena, as spot on and accurate as he was at Mexico City in '68, Der Box Halle in Munich, '72, or when the U.S. Boxing team, lead by Sugar Ray Leonard, pummeled their opponents for a stunning five gold medals at Montreal in 1976. In Beijing, NBC farmed boxing out to CNBC, and all the Americans were eliminated early.

About CNBC...MSNBC, USA, and the other cable networks of NBC/Universal. Most of the events shown on those channels were LIVE. All night soccer, softball, field hockey, water polo, tennis, rowing, kayaking, canoeing, and a heaping helping of Table Tennis and Badminton. That got ridiculous, though. To most Americas, tab;e tennis and badminton are back yard barbecue games, which aren't played without a cooler full of beer or a plate of potato salad nearby. It was difficult to take the sports seriously. But they were, at least, LIVE Olympic action...and NBC saved dough by having the announcers for most of those events call the play from an HD screen in New York. To their credit, they never claimed otherwise.

?Tu eres Dona Barbara, verdad?

Because I'm the kind of guy who'd flip over to ESPN and read the sports updates on the crawl at the bottom of the screen, I knew whether to watch NBC's prime time Olympic coverage of an American victory, or stick with the Dodger game. But something new came into the picture a few days before the games began.

I love Spanish language TV. I speak so little Spanish, I can only pick out the words I know, but the announcers are so theatrical...they way they once were in English, before some focus group research resulted in a ton of guys with the vocal patterns of Ryan Seacrest (but not his money!). And then there's the Saturday morning auto-dealer infomercial with the scantily clad girls, cleavage plunging, skirts rising, ranting a mile-a-minute in Spanish about some second hand hunk of junk you actually wind up wanting to buy-- if she came along with it. It's a kick, as long as you can take the stereo-ping-ponging- telephone rings that accompany the hot salsa, cumbia and meringue music that girls are chattering to.

A few days before the Olympics started, I was flipping around between innings of a Dodger-Phillies game, when I ran across KVEA, the Telemundo station in L.A. A telenovela was in progress. For those who don't know, the telenovela is the heart of prime-time programming for Spanish speaking countries around the world. A soap-opera like show will run five nights a week until it concludes its run after 6 or 7 months. The hallmark of the telenovela is melodrama, gorgeous women, and lingering, smoldering looks on the actors faces just before cutting to another scene.

I had no idea what I was watching, but it appeared a bunch of drunken men were splashing through a river in pursuit of a frightened young woman. A hideous assault ensued, done without the explicitness you see in films, but with a brutality that allowed the viewer (even this one who doesn't speak Spanish) to realize what was going on. I flipped back to the ball game, but found myself headed back to Telemundo to try and figure out what happened to the young woman.

I had stumbled upon a story called "Dona Barbara," famous in Spanish literature. Written in 1929 by a Venezuelan who would eventually serve a short term as the country's president. Dona Barbara is a beautiful young woman raised by a river in Venezuela. Bandits kill her fiance then assault her, leaving life long scars that would make her the hard hearted femme fa tale. The story is rife with symbolism, it's characters who represent progressive and repressive politics. Barbara represents repression, cold and cunning, who falls for a neighboring ranch owner, Santos Luzardo, who embodies the tale's idealism and progressive themes. Barbara as a 17 year old daughter named Marisela, by the man she swindled her ranch from. Lorenzo is now a drunkard, living in the wild with Marisela, abandoned and sent away by Barbara as she consolidated power.
How do I know this? Well, I looked the story up on the internet, but found the English closed captioning, CC3. Some of the translations are a riot. In one scene, Dona Barbara rides up to her property and snaps an order to her ranch hand. In Spanish, kit sounds terse, dramatic. The English translation read, "Idiot, grab my horse."

An actress named Edith Gonzales plays Dona Barbara, and she is...easy on the eyes, shall we say, as is Genesis Rodriguez, who plays Marisela. You're reading this and think Dave needs to find more to do, and you're right. Dona Barbara, however, is a brave new viewing world, for me...it's histrionics and place in the world of literature that I was unfamiliar with. And did I mention the women were spectacular? I find it fun, not too bloody, over the top, and escapist is every sense of the word.

What a summer. The Dodgers show spark, trade for Manny Ramirez, then blow the tires on their already mediocre season; The Olympic experience once again; the beach...and Dona Barbara. All while waiting for another radio opportunity to develop.

A SMALL NOTE ON POLITICS

The Democratic National Convention opened this week in Denver. Conventions are simply known by acronyms, now. Opening night at the DNC was reviewed by pundits as slow and lethargic...but then they are apparently paid for opinions, whether they are valid or not. I was struck by the historic juxtaposition of a video presentation, then a warm welcome for former President Jimmy Carter; and a surprise speech by Teddy Kennedy. Senator Kennedy was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor, earlier this year, had surgery and has been undergoing radiation and chemotherapy in hopes to extend his life for as long as possible. I recalled that in 1980, there was a polarity between these two men that split the party and helped Ronald Reagan to a landslide. Here, 28 years later, there they were celebrated one after the other--the former President for his work helping the poor and hungry around the world, and the ailing Senator for his legislative work and roll as heart and soul of the party's left. In a word, it was moving.

OCCUPATION: FOOLE! George Carlin 1937-2008

2008-06-23T22:09:00.000-07:00

I cannot accurately estimate the number of hours I spent listening to George Carlin albums. from 1975 through the end of the decade, Occupation: Foole and On The Road burned up my cassette players and turntable, while they alternately inspired me, and convulsed me with laughter so hard, I'd literally turn purple. He wasn't just funny--he was riotous.

My old friend from high school, Craig Gross, and I must have known every word of those two Carlin records, and would weave them into our own humorous conversations.

"How's your Dog?!! How's your Goddamn dog??!!" That line opens a bit about pets from On the Road that even made my mother laugh. A simple question related in such a way that caught you off guard. Isn't that something you want to ask someone who's a little too attached to their canine? "How's your Goddamn Dog??"

If you read the previous entry here, you'll see that some great people have left the planet over the last couple of weeks. I've tried to express my "stranger's sense of loss." I didn't know George Carlin, but I was influenced by his wisdom and his comedy, and wouldn't have made it through the 70's without him and his like (in earlier posts, I've outlined my favorite comics--"Things that make you go "HA," is the title of the entry).

The truth is, it's starting to upset me that I find myself writing memorials to great people. I hope this pauses for a while, but that's a lot to ask from life. It's essential, I think, to add my take, lest people like George Carlin and Jim McKay be remembered mainly for one incident in the broad spectrum of their careers. Jim McKay was memorialized not nearly as much for his yeoman work as a sportscaster as he was for that hideous day in Munich, September 5, 1972, when he had to describe a terrorist hostage tragedy instead of track and field. It was a highlight, but there was so much more to his work...so much more that I'll remember.

The same for George Carlin. All the post mortems have touched upon his "seven words you can't say" on TV: Shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, mother-fucker and tits. "Those are the words that'll curve your spine, grow hair on your hands and bring us, God help us, peace without honor," he added with mock seriousness. Then he went to pains to point out that mother-fucker "...was a compound word." An English lesson, as well as a primer on contemporary mores!

Yet he was so much more than that. The world is short of people who are truly gifted in the way George Carlin was. For every arena that Dice Clay filled in 1988, and Dane Cook filled in 2004, there would be venues three times that size filled with people wondering aloud what those two were all about. That would never be so with Mr. Carlin.

Forget the seven dirty words. George Carlin, besides being so hilarious, had a clear vision, and suffered no...Fooles.

STUCK IN A FOXHOLE WITH LARA LOGAN

2008-06-19T22:05:00.000-07:00

If I inexplicably found myself in a battle zone, that's the place I'd like to be. For those not familiar with CBS News' Chief Foreign Correspondent (and according to the ratings, many are not) Lara Logan is a South African, who grew up detesting her country's hideous racial policies. She's been covering the wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq for most of this decade. Lara is a tough, intelligent, tenacious reporter, with a kind of courage that is rare to find. Oh yeah: she's really, reeeeeeeeallllly pretty, too. I'd be lying if I denied that this has a lot to do with her appeal. It is CBS she works for, not AP. I read where Bob Scheiffer was quite concerned with her safety, and I'll admit that without knowing the woman, I am, too. This war has cost the lives of more journalists from around the world than any other. That nightly TV presences like ABC's Bob Woodruff and CBS's Kimberly Dozier survived the serious wounds they suffered is a credit to the skill of Army doctors, and grace from above. Yeah, I see Lara Logan, soak in the brave, fearless reports from Iraq or Afghanistan, and (like an old-fashioned guy) surmise that a woman that good-looking shouldn't be in harm's way. The troops on the ground love her for trying to tell their story. Regardless of the fact she's a knock-out, I admire her honesty. Lara Logan is the real deal.

As was Tim Russert. It's been a week since he died suddenly, and for anyone who watched "Meet the Press" on a weekly basis, as I have, it's tragic loss. The man was unfailingly fair minded, in a medium that has developed strong voices to the right and the left (regardless of what conservatives think, the majority of the partisan noise blows in from the right). Each Sunday, Tim Russert, a lawyer and NBC Washington Bureau Chief, would sit with the political movers and shakers of the 21st Century, and grill 'em like a stack of burgers on the 4th of July. Russert would research his subject, and confront them with their own words. He was so focused but respectful and even-handed, they had to take it and make as much of a public accounting as a politician can ( meaning to say, they had to think fast to talk their way around the truth). Tim Russert will be missed by friends and family and colleagues...and by those of us who admired (here's that word again) his honesty. And he will not be easily replaced. What a blow to political journalism. What a blow.

I can't let the losses of two other media figures go by without some comment. Jim McKay was 86 years old when he died, June 7th. He'd last been seen in a 2003 HBO special on his life and times, a special he wrote and narrated. When I was 11 years old, I spent a late Saturday afternoon watching Jim McKay present old black and white tape clips during a 10th Anniversary episode of ABC's Wide World of Sports. From that point on, until I got into high school, at least, Wide World became appointment TV for me. Jim McKay's enthusiasm was so contagious, he made then obscure sports like gymnastics and figure skating compelling. His gift for language made his descriptions effusive, lyrical.

Like this from coverage of the 19th Olympiad in Mexico City, 1968:

"Bill Toomey...running in the cold and the dark of Mexico City...winning the decathlon!"

His words and inflections brimmed with pride, but also provided the perfect caption for the picture of an exhausted Toomey, breaking the tape of his final event, then falling into the arms of his closest competitor. Jim McKay proved that in TV, pictures may tell a tale, but a great announcer provides the perspective.

Working as a newspaper reporter following a stint in the navy during World War II, Jim moved to TV in its infancy. So many great TV presences like McKay, like Walter Cronkite, were writers before they stepped in front of those brand new, black and white TV cameras, and set the standard for what we have, today. That's why they were so special, I suppose. I'd like to think we have a large place in our hearts for pioneers.

A little something about another sports announcer who left us in June: Charley Jones. Football fans will recall Charley's gravelly delivery and play-by-play over NBC for years and years. He was one of those working broadcasters with whom you were familiar and took for granted. After calling AFL/AFC games on ABC and NBC for 35 years, I'd say his most memorable moments came in the games of the 24th Olympiad in Seoul, South Korea, 1988. Charley called the track and field events, which had been moved to the morning hours to facilitate live broadcasts to the United States in prime time over NBC. You never heard a more stirring call than that of Charley describing Ben Johnson winning the 100 Meter dash in '88--only to have Johnson disqualified for using steroids. Because of that tainted race, Charley's Tour-De-force description of those seconds has been lost to the mists of time. I certainly hope Charley Jones isn't. He was 77.

HERE COMES SUMMER

There's a heatwave in Southern California as the summer begins, and fittingly so. Some of the best summers in life were those when I was a teenager--not working, done with summer school, hanging out, all day and night. The summer of '76, in particular, was great. I more or less tried to re-live that one over and over again, with mixed results. As work and adulthood ensued, summer came to mean something else: a few precious days at the beach, taking in movies, maybe a few vacation days For some reason, the summer of '89 stands out. Even though I worked my tail off that year, I think the fact it was my first full summer in Ventura County, with its relatively cool temperatures and nearby beaches made it special. I spent weeknights on the air, playing the hits, or in the studio, making funny, one-minute bits for my countdown show. Weekends, I hit Ventura clubs in pursuit of vodka and female companionship (the vodka was always easier to get, though there were some memorable moments).

Over the last decade, summer came to mean filling in on the air while others took vacations, or trying to sleep in the daytime as I toiled over the radio all night. Not much fun except for last year, when I chose to hit the beach every Sunday and have some semblance of a summer-like amusement. And I dug it. Sitting in a canvas beach chair, listening to Vin Scully call three innings of a Sunday afternoon Dodger game as the waves crashed. And of course there were the bikini-clad denizens of the sand...which made me fairly happy, as well.

As summer '08 dawns, I find myself at liberty most of the week, and filling the nether hours at my former employer just to keep some sort of income, on Saturday and Sunday. The weekends are a sleep deprived wash. It's brutal, and need at least a day and a half afterward to recover from it. I halfway suspected that most of my attempts to grab another worthwhile gig would result in failure, because that's the way it is. But while I have time to bide, I will enjoy the sights, the sounds and the sand of the beach, and have, as the misguided youth of the early 1970's would say, "a bitchin' summer."

CAMPAIGN "OH ATE"

2008-05-29T21:15:00.000-07:00

Yes, it has been a while since I logged and blogged. You can blame a lot of things. I'm most comfortable pointing an accusing finger at sleep deprivation and the lure of television. The mix of the two is deadly for creative people.

Regardless, when you write, you have to have something to say, and these last three months I haven't had much to offer. I've been easily distracted by the need to get a new gig, and the temptation of watching Jackie Johnson do the weather on L.A.'s K-CAL 9. I never remember a single forecast this curvy sensation utters, but udders are what dominate my thoughts once her segment is done!

It's time for me to offer some cogent thoughts about Campaign '08. These have been, without question, the most curious, compelling six months of presidential politics in my adult life. Emphasis on adult life. It is true that I was an 8-year-old about to turn 9 in during the '68 race. Because my parents were active in Democratic politics, I can remember a lot of the details. Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy's appearance at the elementary school I attended stands out. The kids were so badly behaved around TV cameras, McCarthy was photographed only from the neck up--lest the networks have to settle for the distracting picture of a rather aloof politician surrounded by a leaping, bounding, gaggle of bobble-headed grade school children. If only the other memories were that amusing. On June 4, 1968, I went to bed listening to Vin Scully describe Don Drysdale's shutout of the Pittsburgh Pirates. He was on his way to a then-record 58 and 2/3 scoreless innings pitched. I woke up the next morning to the image of Roger Mudd filling the TV screen in my brother Thomas' room.

"Is the election still going on?" I asked?

"No. Kennedy got shot." I was horrified. I went to the dining room, and there was the headline spread across the front page of the Los Angeles Times. When JFK had been assassinated, I understood only that there would be no cartoons on TV that weekend. This time, I felt surprise and shock for the first time. If you are at all given to prayer, or rubbing a rabbit's foot, do what you must in hopes that we should never have to suffer the agony of that type of violence again.

I mentioned Roger Mudd. At long last, he has written of his time with CBS in Washington. "The Place To Be," is the name of his tome, and it's a great read for political and news junkies, alike. One of his revelations made me shake my head and laugh. At the 1970 Washington Press Corps Dinner, he was seated next to President Richard Nixon as Diana Ross performed. According to Mudd, Nixon turned to him during her performance and said, " They really do have a sense of rhythm, don't they?"

What is missing in 2008 is the analysis of Roger Mudd...and Mike Wallace, and yes, Dan Rather. Even at their respective ages (Mudd is 80, Wallace is in his 90's, and Rather is well over 70), they'd have a field day with the fruit that's been born of Campaign '08.

With three cable channels providing all politics just about all the time, every word by every candidate has been analyzed, squeezed, wrung-out, and dissected; then roasted on a spit by every ex-consultant, pol and pundit who can elbow his or her way before a camera. Once on the air, the bantering, predicting and pontificating begins. The most innocuous item is blown up to the size of the fat guy on "Lost," then it's off the table by the end of the week. This campaign has been an exhausting process because following it means a daily dose of constant haranguing. I, for one, am tired of it.

This is all part and parcel to the advent of the 24-hour news cycle, of course. Everything, as they say, is grist for that mill. It's a monster that must be fed.

It's also the gritty residue of dirty, maintain-power-at-all-cost, negative politics. Consider what the Presidential campaign of 1988 was like. That summer, I was working 7 to Midnight at Q-105. I set a then-new Zenith VCR to record the nightly three hours of the Democratic National Convention. By '88, the networks had reduced convention coverage to three hours a night. As late as '72, the conventions had been just about an all day, all week, saturation, gavel-to-gavel telecast. Then the parties became painfully aware that the more fractious the convention, the more distant their chances for victory in the fall.

I ran across one of those old convention tapes this week and watched some of it. What first greets you is the difference in the graphics used by CBS...the number of politicians who've passed away in 20 years, and the dark heads of hair on Dan Rather and Bob Schieffer.

What truly got me was the commentary. In July of 1988, there were Walter Cronkite and Eric Severeid, offering opinion and fielding questions from Dan Rather. Between the two, they'd done 17 conventions on TV, but never once in their observations, not a single time in their ruminations did the idea of dirty politics come up. Nor was it discussed by any of the floor reporters or Bruce Morton, another CBS political correspondent of the time. At that convention, the only problem they could see in the distance for nominee Michael Dukakis was whether Jesse Jackson (who dominated the convention with what author Joe Klein would call, "hot, sweaty rhetoric.") would prove to be a loose cannon in the fall campaign. No one, at least on CBS in July of 1988, had an inkling that dirty politics and wedge issues devised and executed by Lee Atwater and the George H.W. Bush campaign would destroy Dukakis. This was the same Vice President Bush who was so freely ridiculed by the Democrats during the convention (and ridiculed for good reason).

The coverage that current candidates endure would not have saved Dukakis from himself, for he found fighting back not to be in his character. But it certainly would have exposed the tactics employed by the Republicans. Near death in 1990, Lee Atwater apologized to Dukakis. His soul was cleansed when he died, but the damage was done. Dirty politics is the Karl Rovian-way of the political world. Before November 4, 2008 gets here, we're in for a filthy, bitter ride.

*

Before I summarize the candidates, another word about Eric Severeid. He was the last of the scholar correspondents. Hired by Edward R. Murrow during World War II, he was the great sage of CBS for 40 years, then retired in 1978. Until his death, he'd be resurrected at convention time to add words of wisdom to CBS coverage. His face was placed on a commemorative postage stamp earlier this year. That's when I heard an attractive morning anchor on KTLA-TV 5 in Los Angeles announce that "...in addition, Eric SeverEED is also on a new stamp." Eric SeverEED? How could a working journalist not know the correct pronunciation of Eric Severeid's name? Then it dawned on me that the anchor, a lovely Filipina named Cher Colvin, was probably just born when Severeid retired. She must have been a ten-year-old, more interested in Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam plus Full Force than politics, when Eric last appeared at a convention. It made me feel old and less impressed with TV news. The very idea that an electronic journalist could not know his name is disappointing.

Now--the candidates: If John McCain wore coveralls, he might be Walter Brennan in an ancient episode of 'The Real McCoys." Forget for one moment all the political hype, positioning and manipulation. He puts me in mind of the perpetually wisecracking-but-pissed-off homeroom teacher, the one who might verbally lacerate you at the drop of a hat. I get the strong impression that this is one Senator who has used the M.F. word with skill and knife-like precision.

*

Charlton Heston is gone. You won't have to pry a rifle from his cold dead hands, but you'll need a hydraulic-trip hammer to loosen Senator Hillary Clinton's grip on the campaign. The mantra here is "Do anything, say anything " to win. This is not an observation born out of sexism. Any man or woman who so doggedly continues in the face of math that doesn't add up favorably is seeking power without regard for reality.

That leaves Senator Obama, a man who has lit a flame under part of the electorate. In recent times, only Mario Cuomo and Bill Clinton himself could offer such oratory. But those two never drew 75 thousand to an appearance, as Obama did by the Willamette River in Oregon. Watching the faces of those in the throngs that gather to see him, I can only imagine what it must have been like to see JFK or RFK. Surely no Democratic politician has caused such a stir, since. If the math is correct, and there's no reason to expect it won't, the son of Stanley Ann and Barack Obama, Sr., literally an African and American, will be the Presidential nominee of a major party in the United States. He'll have his work cut out for him. There will be hate in his face, for a myriad of reasons. Those to the right will hate his politics. There are some who will hate his erudition (why do we, as a nation, not seem to want an intelligent person in the most powerful office in the world? Have we not seen what stupidity can do?). And, in a segment of our land where there has been no growth, regardless of his late, Kansas-born mother Stanley Ann, and yes, regardless of the progress the country has made in 40 years, they will hate him for the color of his skin.

AND FINALLY, HERE'S DAVE WITH SPORTS...

Just a few notes. In this, the 2nd full month of the 2008 season, it appears the Dodgers have traded their bats him for soggy, wet socks. Tommy Lasorda said it best 25 years ago: "They'd need an OAR to hit the f--king ball!" All the kids are there--Loney at first, Kemp and Ethier in the outfield, Martin behind the plate. When a mysterious malady of the calf made Nomar no MORE, a Double-A 3rd Baseman named Blake Dewitt made such a name for himself, a radio station in his Missouri hometown now carries Dodger games live.

Yet, at this writing, they've scored 7 runs in 4 games, and lost every single one. At 26-27 on May 30th, it's safe to say they stink.

I yearn for the day when the Dodgers could captivate Los Angeles the way the Lakers do. The Lakes are third on my list of favorite sports teams. I don't follow them with the tenacity I do the Dodgers and S.C. football...but when the prospect of playing Boston for the NBA Championship arises, look out! Should Boston prevail over Detroit, ABC-TV will be doing the dance of the infidels, because a Celtics-Lakers Championship Series means big ratings. And anybody who's followed the Lakers for a DAY...hates the Celtics. This could be fun...

WHEN LAST WE LEFT OUR HERO, or "They Fired My Ass!"

2008-03-27T18:31:00.000-07:00

'Tis true, they did. When I posted my last entry, it was a Sunday night, and I pretty much knew someone at the radio concern that employed me for 13 and a half years would be dispatched. The organization was going to wring itself like a bib sopping with fluid, and squeeze out one selected member of the air staff. It made sense to me that some reason would be made to expunge the overnight guy. So it was, so it shall be. On February 7, they did.

Now, I did not want to use this blog as a platform for whatever was running through my mind at the time. These emotions never look good in print after they've been poured forth. The whole idea of writing on the web was so that I could express the humor or observations I never could over the air. Being funny is more fun than heaping abuse upon those who have vexed you. Since I couldn't make the situation amusing without devastating insults, the kind that sting like a ripened pimple on one's gluteal cheeks, I chose not to write.

But I'm back. I still work three weekend shifts, but the severance checks have been cashed, and though I would never do or say anything to damage my professional reputation, I am searching for someplace new to ply my trade. Like all businesses where talent is judged, Radio is subjective. What's funny to one employer is not to another. Who's talented to one department head is not to another. Cronyism, nepotism, favoritism, specifics carved out by Federal mandate, and just plain, old, taste in personalities prevails. With patience and a good deal of luck, I'll find another outlet, and realize the goal I've worked for, lo these many years.

Slowly, I've become grateful to not work four overnight shifts. It's a brutal and unappreciated endeavor. Many are the slights that come along with it. No matter what the spin is, it's usually a place where they "stick" someone. I still do Saturday mornings, 12-6am, but it's for the cash alone. Doing overnight shifts on the radio takes a person of hearty stock, physically and mentally. The phone calls alone demand an education far beyond my Bachelor of Arts from Long Beach State. All night, the deeply disturbed reach for the phone as their connection to humanity. Not so much to request music, but to unload some sort of pathetic minutiae on another set of ears. I call it looking for cheap therapy from the disembodied voice coming out of that speaker. In truth, some calls did come from the institutionalized, but if the call wasn't from Britney Spears, I had no use for it. I was polite, to the point, and moved on. The minute the conversation starts, you can expect a nightly call that will take your attention away from your job, because this is a person not listening to the radio, just looking for a someone to trap into a lengthy chat.

Then there are the drunks. I dealt with a lot. Not as many as police officers, bartenders or hospital nurses (also up all night for the purpose of making a living), but enough. One alcohol soaked drinker-and-dialer yapped on and on that he baby-sat for the Jackson Five, back in Gary, Indiana. Come to think of it, that would explain a lot!!

To put a lid on the subject, over the two and a half years I was painted into that dead-end in order to make a living, I did enjoy hearing from those who were working. Taxi company, blood lab, newspaper, hospital workers, etc. They never called a lot because they were otherwise engaged, but it was nice to know that every now and then when you answered the request line, it didn't necessarily have to be an ad for anti-mania drugs.

SO...WHAT DO YOU DO ALL DAY?

Looking for a full time radio job IS a job. I've edited hours of "airchecks" (a radio word for recordings of old shows), and with the help of Mike Stark, another Long Beach State, KSUL vet, I've put up a site unconnected to this one, with audio, video, and photos from my career. You can view all this at http://www.daverandallradio.com/. It's a great way to expose one's talents to prospective employers. For now, it's posted via My Space, which accounts for the half-naked babe who wanted to sign up as a friend. I allowed the sign up, and the next thing I knew, there was a picture of this gal's shapely buns, getting dollar bills shoved into the dental floss that masqueraded as her G-string.

Uh...I don't think she's a potential employer. Because spitzer is not my name (but probably something she does) I deleted her. The site's for professional purposes. Boy, am I no fun, these days!

That leads me to what else I do, besides catching up with friend and family I've been out of personal contact with when I had to make an attempt at sleep, all day: I read, and keep up with the Presidential race.

I'll save the meat of my commentary for another, more thought out time. I can tell you this: Chris Matthews is the only person on television who requires a sneeze guard. He gets as worked up as a a ten-year-old that's gotten into a bag of brown sugar, and the spit starts to fly. Sometimes, as he steamrollers guests and colleagues alike, his state becomes so high pitched and agitated it sounds like this: HEEEEEEEMEEEEEEENEEEEMEEEEHEEEEEEEMEENEEEEMEEEE!SPITZER!WHORES!HOOKERS!HARDBALL. WE'LL BE RIGHT BACK!!

I've noticed he's a bit more sedate when he offers his analysis as a guest on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," hosted by the smug former Florida Congressman Joe Scarborough, and the delicious Mika Brezhenski (daughter of former National Security Advisor Zbigniew), late of CBS News, having bailed out, along with many after Cutie Katie made a Tea Party of the CBS Evening News*. When I have to be up that early, I'll tune in until Joe and Pat Buchanan make my morning toast indigestible. Mika saves the day. With her family pedigree, her intelligence is a given, but, as Letterman often says, she's also "easy on the eyes." I chose to be a disc jockey and often wondered why women like Mika never fell into my existence. These are the things you ponder after a few years toiling in the bowels of the night.

Then there's Keith Olberman, who has morphed from the snarky sports guy who worked at KTLA and KCBS-TV in Los Angeles 20 years ago, and into the only non-right leaning host on TV who's both compelling and funny. Surely the only one with the avocado-like testes to call-out the sitting President on TV, and do likewise with the Clintons. Outside of Keith, you just don't see that. He must have a wheelbarrow preceding him when he walks the streets of Manhattan...either that or everyone else on cable or network TV (on an outlet that provides BOTH points of view) simply has no courage.

As this street-fight of a Presidential race continues--and it's only March--I'll offer some snarky comments of my own. After all, my mind is clear, 'cause I'm sleeping more.

*look for the future posting of an unsold article about the CBS Evening News, one I wrote four or five years ago The New Yorker and Parade Magazine turned it down, and rightfully so. It's more memoir than article, all about growing up watching the newscast, and it's impact on me.

TWO BIG ENCHILADAS

2008-02-03T19:33:00.000-08:00

Two Big Enchiladas. What an approriate title for this entry, on a national day of great drunken and gastro-intestinal excess. Today's big Enchilada was the Super Bowl, which concluded in a nail biting New York Giants upset over the previously undefeated New England Patriots.

The next big Enchilada won't yield results until November. That would be the 2008 Presidential Election, which has created interest that hasn't existed in years.

I'm the guy who spent Super Bowl Sunday napping and resting up from a long week. I hope my friends understand, it's better to fall asleep on the couch than behind the wheel, en route to a party. Besides, there's so much you miss at a party--like the GAME. Then there's the commercials and the always overly-hyped half-time spectacular. Who will ever forget the year the enormous, brown mammary gland of janet Jackson sprung forth like a jack-in-the-box, and put the broadcast industry in a state of terror for years to come.

But that's another subject. I like the company at Super Bowl parties, but as a broadcaster, I despise working them. About 16 years ago, I co-hosted a party at a restaurant-bar in Oxmard's Channel islands Harbor. I watched as the other host dared a sodden guest to jump off a small pier and into the channel...for tickets to Knotts Berry Farm, I believe. Before you knew it, this inebriated ass-clown dashed down the stairs, out of the bar, down the small pier, and dove into the drink. He came back to a hearty round of cheers and, dripping like the Creature From the Black Lagoon, snatched the tickets from my co-host's hand. As the effects of my own vodka-soaked efforts wore off, I considered that no one knew the depth of the water. There was a good chance this beer-belching simpleton could have struck his head underwater and drowned, leaving the restaurant and the radio station I worked for liabel for his untimely demise. It was a chilling thought.

The next year, when I was main host of the party, at the same restaurant, I reckoned we'd been lucky that idiot hadn't killed himself. I decided there would be no repeat performance. Intsead, I peppered the crown with a stream of one-liners, and when I spotted a swacked-out-of-his-mind fossil in a suit, who looked just like Buddy Ebsen, I lead the crowd in a hand-clapping, rousing rendtion of "The Theme from the Beverly Hillbillies." It was a pretty good moment, and sort of made up for the fact the game was another one of those early 1990's Super Bowl blowouts.

Later that week, the Account Executive who handled the restaurant told me they were disappointed I didn't have someone dive off the pier like the last year. I must have had a look on my face like Jerry Lewis in "The Bell Boy." Apparently I was too cautious for that small a market.

On to the second Enchilada, now, which I had a taste of just before the Big Game. To avoid the mind-numbing, endless pre-game chatter, I flipped around to C-SPAN just in time to see a packed Pauley pavillion on the campus of UCLA. A Barack Obama rally was in progress, minus Obama himself. The thousands in attendance were shrieking for the sheer female star power, on a stage set up roughly where Kareem-Abdul Jabbar, Bill Walton and many other old Bruins made college basketball history years ago. Oprah Winfrey, Caroline Kennedy, a surprise appearnce by her cousin Maria Shriver, First Lady of "Cully-fornia," and a passionate Mrs Obama were all there. Stevie Wonder stopped by to lead the crowd in a simple chorus of the candidates name.

These political rallies in '08 have drawn unprecedented throngs. It's been completely engrossing-- more competitive than any presidential primary season since 1972. In fact, the "Horse Race," as they call it, hasn't provided such drama in both parties since well before a lot of us were born--1952.

Back then, there were relatively few primaries, and they were little more than straw polls. A candidate would enter to test the waters and prove his viability to party bosses. The delegate snatching and the heavy lifting was done at the conventions. And 1952 was the first year the entire country would peep through the key hole of the smoke filled room. Thanks to the co-axial cable, the conventions could now be seen from sea to shining sea.

They proved intoxicating theatre. The Republicans gaveled to order with isolationists martialed behind "Mr. Conservative," Senator Robert A. Taft, son of one term President and Supreme Court Chief Justice, William Howard Taft (the man whose bulk was so vast, he got stuck in the White House bathtub). These forces engaged supporters of General Dwight David Eisenhower who was previously non-partisan and sought after by both parties. Ike became a Republican and dealt a death blow to Taft's shot at the nomination.

The Democratic Convention was even more wide open, because President Harry S. Truman had chosen not to run for re-election. As respected as he is today, Truman's job approval rating in '52 hovered close to "W's" range, and he'd lost the New Hampshire primary to Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee.

At the raucus convention in Chicago, Kefauver sought a duel with the intellectual, ultra-articulate, but indecisive former Governor of Illinois, Adlai E. Stevenson. The bespectacled southerner and the bald, divorced darling of the left didn't exactly go at it hammer and tongs--the party wanted to draft Stevenson at all costs--all described for viewers over CBS-TV for the first time by a 35-year-old Walter Cronkite.

No one under the age of 45 can possibly have any functioning memory of a political convention that's anything but a tightly controlled infomercial/coronation. Kinescopes from 1952, at the dawn of coast to coast, live network television, reveal bare-knuckles political dickering, populated by cigar-chomping, bulbous-nosed pols with thinning hair, in rumpled suits, and all caucasian. Politics in the raw, covered day and night, gavel to gavel. At one point, a small fire broke out on the convention floor, stomped out by a few delegates before it could spread. No one knew it, but the exit doors at Chicago Stadium had been chained, and had that fire grown, a tragedy of untold proportions would have transfixed terrified viewers.

The fire went out of the nomination fight as well, when Stevenson prevailed, and named Alabama Senator John Sparkman as his V.P. nominee (even though Sparkman wasa staunch segregationist--all southern Senators were in '52. Thus were the times for the Democratic Party). Come November, the Stevenson-Sparkman ticket promptly got its clock cleaned in the general election by Eisenhower and Tricky Dick Nixon.

Oh, how the political process has changed...as has life in America, in 56 years. An African American man and a Woman are battling, hammer and tongs for the Democratic nomination, through a primary and caucus season that starts before a New Year's hangover can wear off (adding to this exceptional contest, the woman's husband is a former President). A fiery, maverick Senator and ex-prisoner of war duels a miliionaire of the Mormon faith on the Republican side, and no love is lost between the two. All of this is happening under the scrutiny of three all-news cable channels, filling airtime with a steady flow of footage and a pile-on of punditry. It's difficult to believe either party would allow these brusiing battles to continue for eight months, then play out, embarassingly, at the conventions, before a weary public.

The media would love it. CBS, NBC and ABC gave up on the conventions long ago, limiting coverage to one or two hours of a four day event. Who could blame them? Even those brief hours caused the networks to hemorrhage viewers. With compelling stories on both sides (Obama vs Clinton speaks for itself; Romney is largely uninteresting, but McCain could shoot a cold stare, or engage in some "straight-talk" that might send his handlers into spin control. The possiblity for eruption is there), 2008 would be different, for sure.

With so many talking heads telling us what we were supposed to have seen and heard, interpreting every word, every wince, consulting body language experts to read the candidates mind, the element of theatre would only be heightened. The excitement would cause even more nationally televised spittle to fly from Chris Matthews mouth, as his eyes grow deranged with euphoria.

I'm not sure how America would react to nominations actually decided at the conventions. Most don't suspect that politics is a cold-blooded and dirty as it is. They're unware of "push polling," the art of calling prospective voters and planting false information about the opposition. They aren't cognisant of the craven menaces of the political world who feverishly work to suppress voter turnout, thereby increasing the likelihood of a strident ideaology taking power...without plurality or overwhelming mandate, as we've seen these last seven years. Or the question of whether voting machines are a safe, tamper-free way of casting ballots.

All that being said, this current scrapple, a race like nothing we've seen in over a generation, could run, at least, through March. If memory serves me correctly, It was June of 1972, when Senator George McGovern bested Hubert Humphrey in the California Primary to take all of the two-hundred-some delegates, and clinch his ill-fated Democratic nomination.

At the convention in Miami, Humphrey's people tried to get the rules changed and have the delegates apportioned by percentage of the vote. This fight went to the convention floor. Willie Brown, former Mayor of San Francisco, who was then a California state legislator, stood at the podium in a loud, plaid suit. Brown's scalp was inching toward the center of his head, the rest of his skull covered by a wild 'fro. His arms spread, his fists raised, he raved and screamed and demanded the convention "...Give me back my del-a-ga-tion!!"

And they did. The convention went on, a fractious, chaotic affair that poured its disorganization and crumbled decorum into the living rooms of all who watched. Senator McGovern chose a running mate who would soon reveal he had had electro-shock therapy (Senator Thomas Eagalton of Missouri), and gave his acceptance speech at close to 2 AM on the east coast. McGovern, of course, went on to a historic, resounding, embarassingly huge defeat at the hands (and underhandedness) of the miscreant President, Nixon.

In short, a messy, turbulant convention won't do either party, or the nation, any good. But be advised: It would make great TV.

007 REDUX: BOTH SHAKEN AND STIRRED

2008-01-12T20:30:00.000-08:00

So here we are, a couple of weeks into 2008. A Presidential Campaign is blazing like none we've seen in 40 years, maybe longer. Some star baseball players are accused of using more juice than Southern California Edison. And I'm still finding little nuggets from the past to share with you in the blogosphere.

Sometime in the spring of 1990, I was home with the flu. As I recovered, and out of sheer boredom, I pulled a dog-eared, paperback copy of Live and Let Die off my bookshelf and immersed myself in the world of James Bond. The book had belonged to my brother Reg when he was a teen, and I'd sort of inherited it. That novel, and Dr. No sat on the shelf untouched for years and years. By the time I was well, I'd read both and just had to have the whole Bond series. I found them all, except You Only Live Twice, which, for some reason, was out of print in 1990.

I thoroughly enjoyed Ian Fleming's fiction, inhabited by a more human Bond than the increasingly cartoonish movies. I went as far as to buy John Gardiner's new 007 adventures, written in the 80's and early 90's. So you might say I went through a Bond phase when I was 31 years old.

The Bond series was very fresh in my mind by 1992 when I took Margie (my girl friend at the time) to Chavez Ravine for an exhibition game between my Dodgers and her ridiculous Angels. What we saw that night inspired this short story, recently rediscovered in a desk drawer. As far as I know, Margie and I were the only ones to read it. Now a married mother of two boys, I doubt she still has a copy, so I feel free to share with the world my take...on 007.

IAN FLEMING'S JAMES BOND in FURBUTT

The legendary agent 007 has bested many and adversary: Mr. Big, Doctor No, Goldfinger, Blofeld, The Man With The Golden Gun, et al. Now, Bond faces his most disgusting enemy ever....the hideous Furbutt!

James Bond rarely visited Los Angeles. his favorite California city, in fact his favorite place in all the United States, was San Francisco. Something about the fog reminded him of the British Isles. But Los Angeles was where his assignment was, so Los Angeles would have to do.

The daughter of a prominent politician had been secretly spirited away from a hockey game by not just a man, "a curiosity," Bond's dossier on the case had said. Bond's experience with curiosities outweighed his knowledge of hockey. The game itself was a curiosity to him. He read more from the dossier:

"Witnesses claim the girl was last seen being grasped in the arms of a fat man, following a goal. The man, from behind, looked as if a large black poodle were stuffed into the rear of his trousers."

Bond paused there, his left eyebrow raised.

"Strange," he muttered to himself. The dossier went on to read that the same fan had been seen frequently at baseball games. One witness described the fan as "...a tub of shit who, from a rear view, looked like he was smuggling a mink stole under his shirt. "

"A curiosity indeed, " thought Bond.

The first place to look for this odd fan was at Dodger Stadium. Bond drove into Chavez Ravine on a smoggy Saturday night to attend an exhibition game. The skyscrapers of Los Angeles pierced through the dirt in the air and formed a backdrop to the magnificent stadium. As he entered the ball park at the field level, Bond thought he still liked San Francisco better. And God knows, he knew less about baseball than he did about hockey. But his mind kept going back to the descriptions of the fan:

"I assumed it was someone with an old raccoon coat tied around his waist," read one. Bond pursed his lips and found his seat, his eyes taking in as many fans as possible.

007 kept his vigil throughout the game, scarcely paying attention to the activities on the field. He did, however, have a Dodger Dog and a beer. He would have preferred a plate of lightly scrambled eggs and a bottle of Tattinger's, his favorite wine, but that surely would have made him more than conspicuous. He was chuckling at the thought during the seventh inning stretch when he spied what he thought were two mop-topped children standing behind a fat man. As the crowd sang Take Me Out to the Ball Game, Bond tried to get a better look, but his view was blocked. When everyone settled back into their seats, he was startled to see that it was not the unruly locks of two kids he was staring at, but the hairiest backside he had ever seen. The man's jeans were half-way down his buttocks, exposing an ass that, Bond thought, could have been the top of a massive head with its hair parted down the middle. Bond first laughed, then felt his Dodger Dog rise in his throat as the fat man began digging around in his mane. At once, Bond wanted to throw up or reach over and hike-up the man's pants.

Bond's eyes were riveted and revolted by the butt until the game ended. 007 carefully followed the fat man out of the park and was within 10 feet of him when he felt a sharp pain, then blacked out.

II

James Bond awoke to find himself tied to a chair. his head throbbed, but he mentally fought to clear his mind and assess the situation. the room was dimly lit, but he could make out a table with what appeared to be two, old fashioned, up-right, salon-styled hair dryers poised over it. As Bond pondered their purpose, the door flew open. Two women dressed in white preceded the fat man Bond had seen at the game. He wore only an athletic supporter. The two women walked behind the table and waited as the fat man waddled over and stretched across it, face down. Bond winced as he eyed the man's behind. It were as if plumes of hair were cascading from it, dangling from the side of the table. In his mind's eye, Bond thought an orangutan could be dyed black, balled up, and pass for this incredible ass. He couldn't catch himself. "My God," he breathed.

"You're laughing!" shouted the fat man from his prone position. "Everybody laughs Mr. Bond. No one, however, laughs twice...at Furbutt!"

"Is that why you grabbed the girl?' Bond asked

"Yes. And She, like these others, will not laugh twice. You see, Mr. Bond, you may laugh once and serve. Laugh twice...and die."

"Serve?" Bond quizzed.

The fat man chuckled. "Observe."

The two women poured gobs of shampoo on his behind and began to wash the massive pelt, then set it in curlers. After the fur on his butt was set, one of the women put a pillow just beneath his stomach. The fat man then hefted each hairy buttock until he had lodged them separately into their own hair dryer.

Bond wanted to burst out laughing but refrained. He simply said, "My government will pay handsomely for the girl's safe return."

"Ha! Ha! You can expect the girl to die!!" shouted the fat man, whose chuckle was suddenly strangled in his throat. He was starting to scream and was trying desperately to free his butt-cheeks from the dryers.

"Turn them off!! Turn them off! I'm being FRIED!! AHHHHHH" He yelled. The two women frantically snatched the plugs of each dryer out of the electric outlets. The fat man then hastily freed himself from the appliances and danced about the room in pain, each of his hands burrowing through the mounds of hair to grasp the burned areas. It was more than Bond could take, and he laughed until he cried.

"Laugh once and serve," said the fat man, suddenly still. "Laugh twice and DIE!" His fat leg swung from beneath his ample belly and kicked over the chair Bond was tied to. 007 was on his side, his profile to the ground. The fat man squatted over him and nestled the agent's face into the now singed ass-hair!

"I don't expect you to laugh now, Mr. Bond. I expect you to DIE!!"

Bond held his breath and managed to free his left hand. He reached into his pocket and brought forth an electric razor with sixty sharply pointed rotary blades. When Bond flicked the switch, the razor tore through enough curler-coiled fur to cause the fat man to spring up in anguish, then fall on Bond, crushing the chair and loosening the rope. Freed, Bond subdued the wailing fat man with a kick to his supporter-covered groin.

Doubled over in agony, the fat man's butt was sticking up like the head of a woolly mammoth. Bond, not laughing now at all, began ripping out tufts of the fur with his bare hands until there was nothing but raw flesh, dotted with red spots of blood.

By the time Bond was through, the two women attendants had fled, the fat man was passed out from the excruciating pain, and the floor looked like that found in a barber shop. Bond then bolted out the door and down the hall. There, in a vestibule, her hands and feet bound, was the girl.

"My name is Bond. James Bond. You certainly don't look any worse for the wear," he said with a smile.

"NOT!" she snapped. "Why didn't you tell me my hair was a mess??"

END

Okay. The ending was an inside joke, but it was between Margie and I. She always asked me why I hadn't told her her hair was a mess (and it never was). The story was based on the vile, hairy haunches of a porker with a felonious case of Plumber's crack, seated ahead of us at the Dodger-Angel game. Anybody who saw him would have been, like Bond's favorite drink, shaken, but also stirred, and in search of a lawn mower, pronto!

I haven't decided upon my next topic, but I have a title I like:

Paula Abdul is BATSHIT Crazy!

HAPPY NEW YEAR, 2008

2007-12-31T12:03:00.000-08:00

I remember how the year would begin in a blur, in pursuit of the biggest party and the loveliest ladies. Now I'm happy just to be off the road! Times change. Happy New Year! My next post will be a recently rediscovered short story that will bring in 2008 shaken...not stirred!

Dave

A Christmas Letter To Laura, 2003

2007-12-08T22:07:00.000-08:00

Christmas, more than any other time of year, is a time for memories. It's probably this fact that leads so many to feel the blues, because not every memory is joyful.

Having been born with an arch funny bone, I refuse to succumb to said blues when I think of loved ones I'll never see again. So as a second Christmas approaches since my eldest sister Laura passed away, I'd like to share a note I wrote, which brought her gales of laughter. With any luck, you'll get a hearty guffaw out of it, too.

*

DECEMBER 19, 2003

Dear Laura,

Merry Christmas! Even though I can't be there for this year's festivities in the 'ville (Victorville, Ca.), I'm happy and downright misty-eyed that we were together at Thanksgiving. It was, in a word, wonderful!

I thought, to amuse you for the current holiday, I'd recall a Christmas from long ago that has withstood the test of time. No, it has nothing to do with that "special present," or that Hallmark moment," nor anything remotely connected with the true spirit of giving or warmth of the season. No, this was the kind of event that, for better or worse, is as much a part of everyone's Christmas as the Three Wise Men, or Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer.

We call it...Family Shit.

It was a typical Christmas in Southern California. December 25th, 1980--strong Santa Ana winds provided what we know as seasonal warmth, dispelling any of the chilly charm we pine for at Christmas, but not the spirit. Do you recall when we were all together at Lisa's (my other sister) house in West Covina? I made the trip with your two eldest sons and Reginald (one of my brothers) in his AMC Gremlin, a car with a fitting name for what would eventually happen that day.

Yes, there was a feeling that something would occur, and linger in our memories like the scent of Reg's cigarettes. It was, in fact, his inattentiveness to hygiene that set the tone on Christmas Eve. Darryl (my nephew), old friend Craig Gross, and I travelled to Reg's apartment on Orizaba Street, in an aging part of Long Beach. It was my own brotherly attempt to stave off some sort of embarassment. As you know, to open Reg's front door was to be assaulted by a conflagration of ash, smoke and stench. The ash rested in a fine layer over everything, just deep enough to make a snow angel were you to dared lay on the floor.

Then there was the smoke--wafting, moving slowly like a ghost. Smoke so white you'd think a Pope had been elected right there between the empty chili cans and rotting milk cartons. The evil scent that reached into one's nostrils and nearly pulled out an organ, should be left to your imagination.

Somewhere in the midst of this squalor was Reg's clothing. We figured he'd be able to get through Christmas Day if he were, at the very least, dressed decently. As he opened the door to his hall closet, I half expected a squadron of moths to fly out and buzz us like German fighter pilots. Even moths have to sustain life, however, and the cloistered environs of that closet would have suffocated Dracula!

Reg chose a suit he'd been given nine or ten years earlier, a green-blue, two-pant suit with a reversible, checkered vest. God knows what had happened to the green-blue pants, so he selected the checkered alternative. We suggested he try them on--years had passed since he'd worn them, and he'd put on a little weight. So he stepped out of trousers to reveal an unspeakable pair of briefs...fast on their way to becoming the color of Coca Cola. I stifled a thought that he might want to try a fresh pair of shorts as well, but I decided to choose my battles wisely.

The checkered pants were a mess. Getting into them, he looked for all the world like a teenaged girl putting on her first pair of panty hose, or a hausfrau struggling into a girdle. They fit him like the leotard on some Shakespearean actor...and if he were to wear them, he'd be asking for some sort of Shakespearean drama to occur.

"They don't fit, " I told him.

"These are MY pants, and I'm GONNA wear 'em!" he told us firmly, sucking the cork off a KOOL filter-tip cigarette. His attitude was so entrenched, we all backed off. The stage, then, was set for Christmas, 1980.

And it didn't take long for the fun to start. On the drive to West Covina, I kept my feet elevated, because some shopping bags were acting as a floor mat on the passenger's side of Reg's Gremlin. Apparently, he'd tried to consume what must have been an entire brewery a couple of nights before, and had tossed his cookies right there. It was a bad sign.

As I recall it, Darryl, Bryan (my other nephew) and I walked into Lisa's house first and milled around. Pop (my late father) was seated as only he could be, having eased his bulk into one of Lisa's comfortable chairs. Only two things could get him out of that seat: the shrill blast of our Mother's voice, or the chance to verbally jab at his sartorially and hygienically challenged third-eldest son. The latter opportinuty presented itself when Reg shambled through the door, dropped something, then bent over--in those pants, and while still in Pop's line of sight. Uh-oh...

As he bent, the pressure on Reg's pants was so incredible, the conjoined checks in the pattern were separating. The pantlegs were rising up his shins as if he were preparing to wade across a pond of elephant pee. Reg's ass was all anyone could see, his pants so taut, a sudden moment of flatulence would force a hole the size of a hubcap through them.

As Reg's "moon" rose, Pop seized the day--he simply could not resist.

"Hey, Smokey! Just couldn't conform, could ya? Couldn't find some decent clothes," he started. Reg ignored him.

"Oh yeah, I'm gonna talk about ya!" And Pop charged on, newly energized by Reg's reticence to acknowledge his caustic comments. And, yes, he sure did talk about him. At length! So as not to endure any further blistering, Reg went outside and fired up three or four consecutive KOOL filter-kings--the most powerful cigarettes not made in Turkey. Seriously, he could have saved money by just going down to La Brea and snorting the tar right out of the pits.

While Reg made like a refinery, belching smoke and frustration, I took a deep breath of fresh air, then went out to join him.

"I told you what would happen, asshole," I said, hoping the message would somehow get through the haze...the haze of his beer addled consciousness, and the fog of smoke curling from his nostrils and permeating everything in sight.

Reg fled the scene shortly after the meal. My only other rememberance of that day is going home to the folk's house and listening to the Lee Morgan jazz album that Thomas (another of my brothers who, sadly, has also left us) gave me for the holiday. Forever, though, along with Deck the Halls, Sleigh Ride, Jingle Bells, and Silent Night, the words, "Oh yeah, I'm gonna talk about ya!" will always, always conjure up this memory of Christmas, 1980.

Here's hoping Christmas 2003 is filled with Joy and laughter...not necessarily at someone's expense, but laughter, still and all!

Much love,

Your Brother Dave

*

More Christmas stuff to come.

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like YIKES!

2007-11-25T16:55:00.000-08:00

To begin the Christmas season, I have to confess: I always wince when I hear "Frosty the Snowman." I must have been 9 years-old when the story was turned into a cartoon special for CBS. There I was, a kid with three brothers in the service; I'd watched the nation mourn Martin Luther King, Junior and Robert F. Kennedy on TV, and endured a change of schools. Then, to compound events, I watched a holiday special about a snowman, and got bummed because the sumbitch melted!!

Enjoy "Frosty," if you must--I'll take an uplifting tune like "Let it Snow, Let it Snow, let's exchange breathmints."

*

Now, on to the holiday just passed. It was a quiet time for a man not used to two consecutive days off the road. I decided to spend the day after Thanksgiving observing the hustle and bustle of my fellow Americans as they consumed any and everything on sale. What I saw was just how the world has changed over the last ten years. It's over the last decade that the day after Thanksgiving morphed into Black Friday. At what point (during what apparently has been my ten years snooze) did the day after Turkey day turn into "Black Friday?"

In the 60's, this was a welcome second day home from school, with ABC-TV offering a full slate of cartoons. It was also a day for the first of what would be a hundred turkey sandwiches (in our house, that meant bread slices, spread with butter, then loaded with stuffing, cranberry sauce and turkey---no small wonder a family-wide cholesterol battle rages, still).

At some point, local TV news organizations appropriated the retail jargon that alludes to the profit goal of that day, and "Black" Friday was born. It's covered as breathlessly as a Presidential campaign. We're treated to early morning video, capturing a phalanx of shoppers (and a few loutish buffoons), in herculean exhibitions of pre-dawn bargain hunting.

Some stores were open as early as 3 am, others said the hell with it and were open on
Thanksgiving Day. The pumpkin pie could obviously wait! There was money to be made!

My Friday journey started with circling the mall parking lot for about 15 minutes. I marveled at the fact that, even by 2pm, this massive horde had descended upon one place.

This was immediately apparent: at least one in three of the drivers had one hand on the wheel, and the other jammed to their skull, in the now familiar position of the frequent cell phone user. Since 1997, as the years flew by with the whoosh of an F-15, not only has the term "Black Friday" become standard, but cellular telephony has become affordable, convenient, and conspicuous to the point where it's taken for granted.

This kind of constant communication was once the stuff of comic strips. Something Dick Tracy would use to track down Mucous Face, or Flattop, or some other miscreant. With cell phones we get chit-chat, photos, video, music, instantaneous information. Dick Tracy would be amazed.

None-the-less, I don't use a cell when I drive. I have enough on my hands making sure I don't get run into by the people who are talking, gesticulating, head jerking, doing all the things people have always done when they talk on a phone.

Back to the mall--once I parked and went inside, it was much the same as it was in the parking lot. One in three were ambling along, engrossed in conversation. I walked and watched, while my inner monologue carefully noted it all. Had I been on the phone, I wouldn't be soaking it all in...the chatters, the gawkers, the cuties, the waddlers, the whole atmosphere.

There's been a transformation in human behavior with the advent of the technology we use so readily. Most obvious to me is that as people engage the urge to gab, they do so at a full robust volume, and it doesn't seem to phase them. Any and all personal issues are thrust into the open to bounce off the walls and into the consciousness of others--from the most mundane item of daily drudgery, to the embarrassingly prurient detail. I guess there was reason Ma Bell put public telephones in booths, that reason being PRIVACY. People don't seem to care about what they say, how loud they say it or where they might be when it's said. This fascinates me because when I use the cell in public places, I gravitate toward an enclosure, or someplace where I won't disturb others or air any private harangues.

It's increasingly evident that the more technological advances we make, the more we have to sacrifice in return. We don't realize it's a sacrifice because the conveniences we enjoy are so awesome. But they are sacrifices, still and all. There was a line Spencer Tracy delivered in an old movie called Inherit The Wind that says it better than I ever could. Playing a fictional version of attorney Clarence Darrow at the famous "Scopes Monkey Trial," Tracy addressed the jury about the price of progress: "The telephone unites us, but we lose the charm of distance; The airplane brings us closer, but the birds lose their wonder and the clouds smell of gasoline!"

If the Clarence Darrow-like character wondered about the advances of the 1920's, what we have in the 21st century would make him beat his head like a Neanderthal seeing a fire lit for the first time.

This is where we are, and there's no going back.

*
Not that some don't want us to--go backward, that is. A couple of weeks ago, Mike Huckabee, a Presidential candidate who's slowly rising in the polls, told an interviewer he believes the world is six thousand years old. If Clarence Darrow were living, his head would explode! This is what the "Scopes Monkey Trial" of 1925 was all about. Educator John Scopes was arrested for teaching Darwin's theory of evolution in Tennessee. He'd done so to test the validity of the law. Darrow defended Scopes, and William Jennings Bryan, three time presidential nominee and fundamentalist voice of the everyman, served as prosecutor. The film "Inherit the Wind" dramatizes the story brilliantly. The Scopes trial was in 1925, the movie was released in 1960. The idea of a presidential candidate in 2007 disavowing the theory of evolution is alarming. This is a battle with ignorance that was fought and won years ago...or so we thought.

That little nugget from Governor Huckabee was compounded by an utterance made a few months ago by the latest "brain surgeon" to fill the "zaftig" seat on that one hour tribute to oral halitosis, The View. I don't know her name, and don't really care to, but this misguided, gum-flapping cretin said she didn't know whether or not the world was FLAT. I could surmise the same about her head. Somebody please show her a photo from any Apollo moon mission, or maybe, just maybe have her crack open a school book before her lips separate once more, and foul the air with her appalling stupidity!

*

For those not in the Los Angeles area, and if you're of a certain age, you missed a holiday flashback. L.A's Channel 5, KTLA, celebrated its 60th anniversary on the air, with 60 straight hours of venerated old TV shows. I hadn't seen some of these series in 30 years. The lesson here is that what once made you howl with glee doesn't always hold up. What we recall as amusing TV in the 1960's, with rare exception, ages poorly. Case in point, McHale's Navy and F-Troop were must-see shows for me as a child. Watching them this weekend, there was no escaping the triteness, and the unflinching insensitivity to Asian and Native Americans. Such were the times. It's better to not watch those old shows, and just remember they once entertained you.

The exceptions, though, were strong! Jack Benny, The Honeymooners, and yes, The Munsters are still funny, even though it's been 42 years since the thermos from my Munsters lunchbox rolled out, hit the sidewalk and imploded.

'Til next time, Merry, Merry!

A few Random notes for November

2007-11-11T21:59:00.001-08:00

THE DECADENCE OF SLEEPING ALL DAY

It's only decadent if you've spent all night, thrashing about in a world of hedonistic pleasure. If you work overnight, four or five nights a week, it's more like a refueling. That's what I did with the day, regardless of how I would like to have spent it, or where I'd like to have gone. When the body says "shut it down," you listen.

Having established that the day is gone, I figured this time out in the blogosphere, I'd tackle random topics with a few pithy comments, a la Larry King's old column in USA Today. I call it Larry King's old column, but who's to say Larry ever pushed a noun against a verb unless it was while he on radio or TV, massaging the egos of some politician, or Teeing up softballs for the latest tabloid sensation?

So, here we go with random thoughts:

JACK O'LANTERN THIS, CHARLIE BROWN

The pumpkin I bought for Halloween was tough enough to seat two fat rats and Cinderella. The sharpest steak knife couldn't carve it, so I drew the face of an imbecile on it with a magic marker. The neighbors loved it. Imbeciles were offended.

*
Have you noticed that once Halloween is over, Christmas season begins, with Thanksgiving as the huge meal in between? I'm certain that time hasn't dimmed my memory. There was a definite distance between the holidays, in the past. Here in the 21st century, you go to the drug store on November 1st, and the electrodes on Frankenstein's neck are replaced with jingle bells.

NEWS YOU COULD LOSE, AND JOHNNY U

After inhaling 858 pages of Arthur Schlesinger, I read Howard Kurtz, "Reality Wars," the latest tome detailing the seriousness and adjacent tom-foolery behind the world of network news. It's for those who are curious to examine the story behind those who present the news, and how delivering information has changed since TVs began to glow in every household. A 1983 book called "The Evening Stars," by Barbara Matusow starts the real tale of TV network news, from the 40's through Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings, and Dan Rather. Kurtz ' book picks up where Matusow left off. Interesting history. Where the early anchors, like Cronkite and Brinkley, made the ascent from newspapers to radio and TV, today's anchor is a creation of TV itself, hence they are celebs...yet journalists, still. If you are inclined, give it a read.

*
Another book I've been going through is a biography of Johnny Unitas, the old Balitmore Colts quarterback. In those far way days before VCRs and DVDs, I had a film-cartridge player with a hand crank. In one of the film cartridges, Johnny Unitas taught you how to play quarterback. Imagine a day before 24-hour sports networks and sports talk radio. Cranking those cartridges was a way to watch football between games and in January (yes, January) when football season was over. Also, turning the crank forward and backward a click or two could make Johnny Unitas do wacky things with a football that only kids could appreciate.

In the Unitas book, the author details Johnny's first days in training camp with the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1955. When he asked where equipment like pads, socks, and jockstraps were, Johnny U was appalled when directed to grab what he needed from a large pile in the corner of the locker room. That was the NFL in the 50's, unsophisticated, uncouth, and unsanitary. After reading this passage, I saw a 60 minutes TV report about the spread of MRSA, a super staph infection that is impervious to anti-biotics. High Schools in Virgina are disinfecting their locker rooms on a regular basis, and telling players to wash frequently and not to share towels and clothing. It occured to me that those who played in the 1950's era NFL may well have risked the PLAGUE.

WE WISH YOU A SCHMALTZY CHRISTMAS

Not to beat a point to death, there are times when I envy the bears that hibernate between November and January. Bears are lucky, because they don't have to endure the maudlin seepage that serves as Holiday music, today. Jingle Bells, Rudolf The Red Nosed Reindeer, and O Holy Night have been almost completely supplanted by so many depressing efforts, the joy of the season is nearly lost. It is a fact that as the days grow short, and as pressure to please and entertain mounts, the blues can take hold. It's my position that the happier aspects of the season can only be enhanced by music that picks up the spirits. Devastating lyrics about lost pets and other hideous circumstances pluck the heart strings, yes. But in my mind, they have little association with the words "Merry Christmas."

I'm nearly alone in my opinion. Since 9/11, the ratings companies tell us all-Christmas radio stations do very well playing both Frosty the Snowman and co-dependant, sob-inducing, dirges by the likes of New Kids on the Block and Kenny G, for up to two months, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Don't get me wrong--sentimentality, nostalgia, and pathos are a part of Christmas. I'd just rather hear bells jingling and egg-nogg pouring...with more nogg than egg, thank you. In other words, I prefer all the good-old Christmas tunes.

*

More holiday stuff to come, as Turkey Day ensues, and Santa gorges himself for his wild, world-wide ride.

Baseball, TV News, and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.

2007-10-21T22:16:00.000-07:00

Each region of the world has its climatological cross to bear. The paradise of Island life (Caribbean or south Pacific) is annually wracked by hurricanes or typhoons. For southern Californians, it's the constant knowledge that an earthquake is possible, and the devilish offshore flow, known colloquially as the Santa Ana winds. These super-heated winds that blow like hell from the northeast, make this rain deficient part of the country a literal tinderbox. As I put this week's thoughts down, I can smell the smoke from Malibu, one of 5 areas at this end of the state that has burst into flames, whipped to a frenzy by those winds. It puts my planned topics into perspective--it's strictly for amusement. Worse things are happening right around me.

Fortunately out of harm's way, regardless of the smell and the ash that floated down like snowflakes, I spent the day napping like an aging cat, catching pieces of two football games between the fire coverage which, though urgent, can get tedious. A lot of ad-libbing broadcasters with nothing to describe (you can see the picture) and little fact to provide, start filling the air with a lot of needless verbiage. The one TV anchor who never failed to share incisive expertise during these events was Hal Fishman, who died unexpectedly, earlier this year.

To show you how immensely local television news depends on the physical appearance of its reporters, even I kept thinking that the stellar ad-lib work done by an early morning weekend anchor on KNBC-TV would be a major star if she looked like a less competent reporter on KCBS-TV, Channel 2. This same gorgeous Asian woman had been at different local station 15 years ago, reporting on yet another Santa Ana fire in Malibu. As I recall, she was with her news crew, beaming back pictures from Pacific Coast Highway, as flames licked close to Pepperdine University. The anchor asked her question after quest about the location of the blaze, where it was approaching, etc. To paraphrase what Johnny Carson once said of a would-be competitor, she couldn't ad-lib a fart. She bumbled and phumphered and stumbled along. But, she was so stunning in casual clothes (a jacket and, as country folk say, "tight-fittin' jeans), it almost took your mind off the fire.

I can't protest too much, because I've watched it affect my viewing habits. Without question, in Los Angeles, KCBS and KCAL, two stations co-owned by the same company, utilizing the same reporters, employ a cadre of Miss America contestants. They are so good looking you almost look past the fact there's not a story about sex, molestation, a car chase, kidnapping, or other violent act that doesn't fill up the late newscast. KABC employs attractive anchors, but seems to offset its tabloid stories with those less titillating. KNBC seems to not give a fig about looks. Fox 11 is...well, it's Fox. ..what can I add? Mind you, this is coming from someone who just wants to get the news. There's nothing scientific about what I've surmised. This is just how it looks to someone not associated with the world of TV Journalism.

*

In my youth, the World Series would be over by now, before weather turned inclimate around the country, making players not the boys of summer, but the Icicles of late fall. Two things happened today that were not necessarily unexpected: It snowed in Denver and the Boston Red Sox beat Cleveland for the American League pennant.

It's always an event when the Red Sox make the World Series because of the team's schlep-rock history as the most cursed of the cursed. they won the Series in '04. The curse is done, but their park is so steeped in tradition and quirkiness, and their fans so rabid, it's like you know the team. It also helps that ESPN, located in Bristol, Connecticut, positioned between NYC and Beantown, is so East Coast-centric, it's as if the Red Sox and Yankees play in your home town.

No one, however, could have predicted that Denver's Colorado Rockies would be the Sox' national League opponent. The Rocks have been sitting on their duff's since last Monday, having vanquished the Arizona Diamondbacks in the National League Championship series. As a Dodger fan, this hurts like a glutial pimple...to see expansion teams vie for a Series spot. Yet, after having watched the Rockies step up and beat L-A with the skill of their name-less but sensational players, I respect them. It didn't hurt that Vin Scully, the legendary voice of the Dodgers, pointed out the talents of each sensational Rockie player has they planted a foot firmly in the ass of Dodger pennant hopes. It's not easy to listen to, but helps you appreciate your opponent. Announcers in other cities don't do that. I'm sure while Arizona was castrating the Chicago Cubs en route to their series with Colorado, the Cubs announcers weren't pointing out how talented the Diamondbacks were. Chicago broadcasters have a tendency to describe anything that goes against the Cubs like unsuccessful surgeons greeting an apprehensive family.

I can handle the Rockies in the series. It's more interesting to chew over how the World Series will turn out played in Denver, in that park where the ball flies far, where October snow can happen any minute, than to endure the teeth gnashing I'd experience had the Giants or Padres or Angels made it. Their fans gloat with too much relish when their teams are hot, and the Dodgers are not. Not appreciated by this writer.

*

Finally, I've spent a lot of spare time since October 5th, wrapped up in Journals: 1952-2000, the compiled journals of Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., the renowned historian. It's 858 pages long, and I've enjoyed 714 of them so far. His commentary and assessment of events as they happened over all those years is eye-opening and honest. Schlesinger passed away in February of this year(he'd have been 90 on the October 15th). Two of his sons assembled stacks of his typewritten journals that are a behind the scenes look at how politics , academia , and the society set functioned, and how all it evolved during one man's public lifetime.

Of his impressions of the politicians and Presidents, it's memorable to note that, as opposed to a memoir, a journal is related in real time. What Schlesinger thought of some of these men and women stands the test of time. He worked in the Kennedy Administration as historian, speechwriter, policy maker. He apparently knew nothing about JFK's celebrated indiscretions when they were happening, and later, after they were revealed, thought they were nothing more than titillation.

In one 196o's entry, Schlesinger shares that Kennedy often quoted a Chinese Proverb: "Many are on the stairs but no one's in the room ."

The author was prescient on most of his observations, but was wrong in 1980, when, distressed over the Carter Presidency, surmised that a Reagan Administration could be contained by a Democratic Congress. He was wrong, there. But he was quite right concerning another twice-elected President.

The biggest kick I've gotten out of this tome is that Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., a scholar, professor, historian; a man of letters and a reservoir of words, would choose the following to put Richard Nixon in crystal-clear perspective: "He's a shit." Schlesinger was also prescient in his ruminations about Nixon's Administration. In an eerie way, they mirror the machinations of our current White House occupants.

I laughed out loud as I read that, in 1979, Schlesinger and his family got new neighbors on New York's East Side: The Nixon's. The author's descriptions are priceless, as Nixon douses the lights on Halloween to avoid trick or treaters. He's hilarious when he relates looking out his bedroom window to see "the unmistakable visage" of Nixon in profile, skulking around the house. One afternoon, Schlesinger's 8 year-old-son was climbing a jungle-jim in the backyard, and scaling the fence. Schlesinger's wife later reported that Nixon began waving feebly at the boy, who later told his parents Nixon was telling him to get off the fence. Soon, the secret service had established a presence, and installed cameras.

The descriptions of Nixon walking back and forth, lugging firewood, only to take it back for smaller logs, then locking himself out makes you think of Tricky Dick as Mr. Wilson of Dennis the Menace fame. Schlesinger looking out his window to see a semi-clad Nixon sunning himself, only to have his wife ad, "It looks like a sunbather in a Nixon mask," had me on the floor. That and Nixon playing catch with a grandchild in a three piece suit and tie. You can't make this sort of stuff up.

*

Speaking of Halloween, we'll try and jot down some notes before the holiday about the fun of fall. If I could just stop laughing about Nixon, jowls flapping, chasing kids off the backyard fence!

They open their traps, and yap!

2007-10-07T21:59:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid, hilarious, countrified songs by Jerry Reed would come out of nowhere and waft out of the radio, in between The Rolling Stones, The Carpenters, Isaac Hayes, and whatever else was on the KHJ Top 30 survey ("Boss" had become passe by this time frame...1971-72). Funny, songs like "When you're hot yer hot," "Amos Moses," and "Alabama Wild Man," appealed to me because they were amusing. Reed's story-fueled records were rich with corn-pone accents, and characters who might easily have been from gene pools close enough to nudge each other at the elbow and ask to pass the grits. I'm pretty certain they missed the mark with my peers, but such was the nature of Top 40 radio, at the time. If it hit the top 40, a novelty hit would be there right next to Neil Diamond and The Staple Singers.

It's the title of one of Jerry Reed's comic send-ups that makes me invoke his name: "Lord Mr. Ford, what have you done?" The song was about air pollution, traffic accidents, all of what motor transport has brought us, despite the convenience of conveyance and the occasional back-seat soiree. I began to think of the title in terms of every other technological breakthrough that's delivered bad along with good. The medium I work in, for example.

Middle-aged Dave is not tuning around looking for funny ditties by the likes of Jerry Reed. And when playing music on the radio is your means of support, you don't go looking for music at all. I listen mostly in the car, and tune around for something that interests me. There's baseball, when in season. Without a local NFL team in greater Los Angeles, there's no local football broadcast that appeals to me (USC's success over the span of this decade has made college football a delight, though).

There is, increasingly, talk. Sports and politics, politics and sports. Regardless of the topic, it's talk. Just talk. Unfortunately for me, most of it is talk with little intelligence, profundity, insight or depth.

What about NPR, you might ask. If you want to be lectured to, and feel educated, how about public radio? Ehhhhh...not so much. I worked at an NPR affiliate just after college. Though there is earnestness, I couldn't get past the fact that all the news and information was disseminated with the delivery of a Kindergarten teacher reading "Dick and Jane," aloud.

That leaves a precious few, three or four hour shows of interest that may amuse or entertain. I'm fairly certain these are shows with listenership so thin, the accumulated audience could be invited over for Cheetos and Beer, during the broadcast.

Somehow, somewhere, sometime when content on the AM band was dying, and the rules and regulations administered by the FCC were loosened, Opinion took a stranglehold on all that was talk on the radio. In the past, commentary had been labled as such, and was pretty much limited to fifteen minute bursts of bombast. Dating back to what seems like the birth of the vacuum tube, a neanderthal like Paul Harvey would ramble during his time period each day, alternately relating his sunshiny homilies, and bemoaning things, like the fact a song called "I shot the Sheriff," was number one in the country. I used to think that had 'Ol Paul (decaying, even in 1974) been around at the advent of bathroom tissue, he'd have decried that real Americans , if they were Americans at all, would continue to use the good old corn cobb to cleanse their nether regions. That's an exaggeration, of course, but it's also how evolved he seemed to be.

The men and women who purveyed talk radio forty years ago, had to work within the limits of neutrality, while guests would take one side or the other. That's, of course, no longer the case. It's one ideology versus the other, with the lion's share of the mouthpieces being of one, vitriolic bent. My unique perspective, with a view from the inside, enables me to understand that as long as this creates ratings and profits, it will not change. That's fair. That's business, that's capitalism, that's American. It's entertainment, though a distressing number of listeners mistake it for news.

It also means, irrespective of topic, sports or politics, any loudmouth with a functioning larynx can wind up with a show. A cavalcade of cretins has emerged to bellow and coo for hours every day. Halitosis of the intellect with a big voice can impress and persuade, rile and incite, peak interest, compel, sell, and sustain the "numbers." Amidst those numbers are intelligent, grounded individuals who "get" the act and laugh, or listen simply to get an idea of what "the other side" is centered on for a particular day.

I don't listen to the political end much, because I find it sad to realize so many who are woefully uninformed, can't cut through the bull and form their own opinions. And I'm one of those who unfortunately allows himself (when my guard is down) to be riled by folks like the bloated beast from the Northeast, a particularly obese blowhard, one with a weakness for...concentrated tablets. Not just him, but a host of angry, verbose, largely uneducated zanies who have proliferated with his success, and replicated into a daily cacophony, all day and most of the night. And they've propagated their species faster than the guys in the NBA.

That leads me to sports. Again, formerly limited to post-game shows, engaging the faithful following some titanic (or less than stellar) team performance, you can now get your fill for 24 hours a day from two national networks, and in some major cities, two locally-manned stations focusing on local teams and sports issues. And, again, there were a couple of guys in particular who patented the 15 minute daily sports show. In 1940's and '50's Los Angeles, it was Bob Kelley, who broadcast "Sports at Six," until his death in 1966. He offered sports, opinion, and barbed shots at his crosstown competition, Sam Balter. One of Kelley's writers, Jim Healy, went on to his own 15 minute show that went from sports reports and opinion to a half hour of hard sports journalism and riotous commentary, laced with drop-ins and wild tracks of sports celebs and other noted figures caught in spontaneous moments. It was hilarious, though Healy was despised by many, he was listen to by millions, including me. He once did a talk show, but he'd never have had the same impact if he had to spread his material out over three hours. His show evolved from about 1970 until April of 1994, when he left the air, and died shortly thereafter.

That sports talk shows make me turn the radio off completely has to do with the template Healy set. By design, the host has to engage, and drag the listener through commercial breaks, and still compel the small percentage of those who will actually pick up the phone and participate. You can't do Healy for three hours.

This is why so much sports talk sounds like a couple of troglodytes full of beer and invective: because their employers demand it. A bunch of guys at the corner bar, belching platitudes and ale, simultaneously popping off and proving themselves intemperate, intolerant, raging dimwits. Add to that the fact that they have to spout political beliefs, sing songs, and sink to all manner of self-delusion outside the realm of sports to soak up three hours, and believe me, the reasons to turn off the radio are many.

It's probably unfair of me to just zero in on the bad and not talk about what I find fun and amusing. There are some great hosts who do appeal to my intelligence. You don't have to agree with their opinion or ideology to be entertained by a talented performer. In Sports, Big Joe McDonnell in Los Angeles is a journalist by trade, who never fails to keep you listening. He's out front with who he likes and dislikes, he doggedly supports his friends, and because he's a sports journalist, aside from his caustic humor, you get meticulously sourced sports news.

Late at night, Ray Taliaferro comes bolting across the ionosphere on KGO, eagerly taking on political hacks who call his show under assumed names, immersing himself in arguments so heated, the actual thought entered my mind that his heart might explode, right there on the air. He's fond of saying he prefers the nether hours, that his show on KGO is four hours, not three, and that he only requires four hours of sleep a day. This may account for his crankiness, but the man's in earnest--he said the following, after jousting some inane insomniac who no doubt wishes everybody not from his general DNA should leave the country, and they are words I wish were mandatory for every host, of every ideology, to reinforce (though they won't, because it would be bad for the bottom line):

"This is not the news. Use different sources--READ! Read newspapers, magazines, and other places to get your news, and try to separate it from supposition and opinion. O-PIN-ION!"

Unfortunately, for some, that would be like drawing back the curtain on the Wizard of Oz to find a guy who looks like the Janitor on "Scrubs," eating a donut and clipping his nails with mixed success.

For Your Enjoyment: Dodger Baseball is on the air!

2007-09-30T21:30:00.000-07:00

Baseball moistens the eyes of middle-aged men. That's the brave way to put it. It reads more stoically than, "it makes you cry." I'm not referring simply to the heaving and sobbing of the men on the field who've blown the pennant (sorry, Mets), or the joyful masses in the stands, exultant in victory (those damned Angels!).

I'm talking about the long term gestation of love for the game, its traditions, its heroes, and what it can do to a middle aged man who views his youth in bits and flashes of memory. Bob Costas, puts this in better context than most contemporary broadcasters and, along with comedian Billy Crystal, waxes on about Mickey Mantle. The Mick, according to Billy and Bob, never grasped his impact on a generation of boys until his final years. Mantle would register surprise that 45 year old men would be reduced to tears upon meeting him.

It is a shared experience that is accepted but never spoken of at great length. I can tell you with absolutely no qualms whatsoever that it's happened to me. My emotional investment in baseball has gone on, as far as I can determine, since a Sunday afternoon in October of 1966, when a fly ball dropped into the glove of a center fielder named Paul Blair, his name emblazoned across the TV screen. Thus ended the Baltimore Orioles four game sweep of the Los Angeles Dodgers, and began the joy and pain of being a devoted fan.

Flash forward to about May of the next year. Another swatch of memory before passion truly took hold of my seven-year-old soul. As clear as a bell, I can hear Vin Scully incredulously telling us all, "...19 to 1...and now Banks scores and the Cubs lead 20 to 1!!" The next sound was some disgruntled gibberish from my brother.

It didn't matter to me...yet. By later that month, after a weekend series with the Giants--ON TELEVISION, I was hooked. Like any TV kid in 1967, I tuned to that very same KTTV Channel 11 to see the next series against the Mets, only to find Merv Griffin jawing with guests on his nightly talk show. I didn't know why at the time, but the Dodgers of the 60's only televised games from San Francisco, which meant a skimpy 9 telecasts a year. My brother showed me how to find the standings and broadcast information in the sports section of the Los Angeles Times, and how to adjust the radio dial near the 64 ("Clear Channel Station K-F-I, 6-40). In front of the Grundig Hi-Fi in the living room, the wall-mounted kitchen unit, or my father's seldom used Sony transistor, I'd wait patiently, inside the house or not, for the opening anthem, the Union Oil song:

You always get the finest! The very best, the finest at the sign of the 76!
It's Orange and Blue, so look for that U--nion,
sign of the finest...
The sign of the Seven-ty Siiiiiiiiiiix!

And Jerry Doggett would intone, "For your enjoyment: Dodger Baseball is on the air!"

And so the game would begin. In 1967, this most assuredly meant the Dodgers would lose. They finished in 8th place, as predicted by the sporting media. Sandy Koufax had retired, Maury Wills and Tommy Davis had been traded for the equivalent of a kettle of fish (but for propriety's sake I'll name the guys: Wills to the Pirates for infielders Bob Bailey and Gene Michael; Davis to the Mets for second baseman Ron Hunt and outfielder Jim Hickman).

When you're seven, turning eight, you think about rooting for your team, not the ineptitude that causes the loss. My eyes were open with wonder. I loved baseball so much, and the Dodgers were on TV so little, I watched the NBC game of the week on Saturdays and became acquainted with the Cubs of Ernie Banks and Ron Santo; the Cardinals of Lou Brock and Orlando Cepeda. In the American League, there were the Red Sox of Carl Yastrezmski and Jim Longborg; Eddie Stanky's White Sox, the Minnesota Twins, the Detroit Tigers, and the first fantastic pennant race I'd see. And I can't give short shrift to the California Angels, who televised twice as many games as the Dodgers did, so I saw many more teams.

I proudly wore my first Dodger cap on a train trip to northern California with my mom. The conductor, a portly man, asked me "Why do you wanna root for them, their way down in 8th place! You oughtta be rootin' for the Giants!" I shook my head no. And I rarely took that cap off. I wore it until the bill literally unraveled and fell off, and then I wore it like a yarmulke until my brother grabbed it off my head.

"All you need is a propeller, and people will think you're Beanie (from Beanie and Cecil)! Take that off!"

As an eighth birthday gift, my parents, my sister, and my grandfather took me to see the Dodgers play the Mets at Dodger Stadium. In later years, I've heard others describe the same sensations I felt see in the green grass, the orange brick infield, and the multi-colored seats. I had only seen baseball on a black and white screen, and the pallet of colors was breath-taking. The Hollywood Stars game was in progress, and there, from our seats in the Loge section (or second deck, for those who've never been to Chavez Ravine), were popular stars of the day playing hard-ball with reckless abandon. It was all too much!

My Grandfather stuck the earplug in and followed the game on his transistor, while I ate everything from every vendor that happened down the aisle. To top it off, Al Ferrrara hit a two run home run, and the Dodgers beat the Mets 2-1. Grandpops, as we called him, had been scribbling all night, and when the game was over, he took out his earplug, and handed me the scorecard, where he had meticulously kept score of the game.

It was a terrific way to turn eight. Of course, my first live baseball game was followed by my first ever weekend of violent gastro-intestinal misery (caused by too many ballpark treats). I look back on it as a way of learning that baseball was joy...and pain.

*

Following baseball on the radio was almost all we had 40 years ago, at least in Los Angeles. The difference was Vin Scully and Jerry Doggett. I was eight, what did I know? I thought every city had someone who described baseball in such a special and thorough way. For the length of my life, there are things Scully said on the radio I'm sure I would never have known had I not been a Dodger fan. The word "Facade," for example. "There's a line drive...FOUL...off the facade of the second deck and into the field level seats." Or, "Lined foul! Off the auxiliary scoreboard, just left of the Dodger dugout."

How else would I have known what a "Marching and Chowder Society," was? Or know the ecstasy of a banner day at the plate by a journeyman ballplayer? I'll never forget the enthusiasm of Vin's voice in a bad season, exulting, "Dick Schoefield! Three for Three!!"

I listened to as many games as I could that first summer. There were only two commercial sponsors, and the spots were a minute apiece. I can still sing one:

From Fresno to San Dee--ay--Go,
From the desert to the Sea,
Security bank has of-fices,
where-ever you may be...

For money-matters,
Here's the key:
Let your fi-nan-cial part-ner be
Security First National Bank!

Today's baseball broadcasts have so many multiple sponsors, local and network spots, there are often four or five short commercials before returning to action. The kids that do hear the game on radio would never remember a jingle like that 40 years later. It would whiz by too quickly.

*

There were few great moments in those early years, but I learned the game and it's history and the history of the Dodgers, driven by the fact they were so average in the late 60's-early 70's. I had just missed the Koufax Era, and the thrilling World Series victories in '55, '59, '63, and '65. I could feel the pain of the play-off loss to the hated Giants in 1962 (my brother, upon being reminded, said, "I was crestfallen!"). As much as I hated the Giants...and still do...a big thrill was going to a game with my dad and my mom's uncle in what used to be the Dugout seats at Dodger Stadium, literally between the dugouts. I looked up to see Willie Mays on deck and shouted "Hey Willie!" He actually looked over and said "Hey." You could hate the Giants, but you had to love Mays.

*

By my adolescence, Dodgers got good enough to bring some pain. They lost the Western Division pennant to the aforementioned Giants by one game, on the last day of the '71 season. By then, they were televising up to 20 games a years. That meant a game each Sunday, and, rarity of rarities, a telecast of that final game of the year versus Houston...live from Dodger Stadium. My first Dodger pennant race, and it ended in ignominy.

Two years later, they started easing what Vin Scully and Jerry Doggett called "The Dodger Youngsters" into the line-up over veterans Like Ken McMullen, and others whose names were familiar. It pissed me to the point that by spring training of '73,I swore off the team in disgust, and decided to follow the Angels (there's desperation for you!). 13 year-olds are allowed to be fickle as their world fills with angst and acne, and as soon as they started to storm the National League West, I came back into fold to stay.

Then the Cincinnati Reds, with their team of future Hall of Famers did some storming of their own, and overtook the Dodgers that September. Pain, but no tears.

The next season remains my favorite. When Billy Crystal talks about being 13 and having the time of his life watching the '61 Yankees, he's describing a team that stands out in baseball history as one of the games most powerful. With Maris and Mantle chasing Babe Ruth's record of 60 homers in a season, and with the Yanks holding off a Detroit Tigers team that also won a hundred games, Billy had a lot to cheer for (the Yanks weren't stingy with telecasts--every home game was on TV, I'm told).

I followed the 1974 Dodgers from Junior High School that spring, to High School that fall. With a G-E Color TV ensconced in my bedroom, and a blue, Radio Shack transistor, with a free battery card to continually replenish the power supply, I had a summer following baseball that every kid turning 14 should experience. Steve Garvey, Ron Cey, and Jimmy Wynn hit homers in abundance, Davey Lopes stole bases, Don Sutton and Andy Messersmith headed the pitching staff, and a kinesiology major named Mike Marshall pitched a hundred and six games in relief. It was a new dawn, a new day! The Dodgers were winners, and logged a hundred and two victories. They bested Pittsburgh in the League Championship series, and were set to face reinging champ Oakland in the World Series!

This would be the first Dodger World Series since being swept by Baltimore in 1966, when I witnessed Paul Blair grasp the last out. Funny thing: My brother, the same one who turned off the TV in disgust that day, was getting married at an elaborate Catholic Mass on the day the Series was to start. This same brother who showed me how to find the games on the radio. In those days devoid of Tivo or home VCRs, part of me wanted to reason with him that my presence in the Wedding party, hideous 1970's brown tux and all, was surely not needed. The other part prevailed, however. All these years later, I can tell you what you already may have guessed: the blue, Radio Shack transistor found its way into the pocket of that hideous brown tux...at least until my mom caught me.

Then the pain. Six days later Oakland had won the Series. Nine months later, my brother was separated from his wife, never to return. My great summer of baseball didn't end like Billy Crystal's, with a World Series championship, but you only turn 14 once. You follow the game with your heart, not your head when you're that young. That's why when you look back on it, you're suddenly that man in his forties who sees a clip of Steve Garvey homering, crossing the plate, being congratulated by Willie Crawford...who has since passed away from heart disease...and baseball begins to mist the eyes.

*

Pain. Losing to the Giants, yes, that brings pain, especially since beating the Dodgers means more to Giants man that being capable of rational thought. In later years losing to the Padres would be more a pain in the ass, and the Angels a BITE in the ass. But losing two straight World Series to the Yankees and Reggie Jackson was a stabbing pain! I frankly didn't want the Dodgers to have to duke it out with them again. It was 1981, the Baseball had just lost 50 games to a players strike, and an extra layer of play-offs had been added to determine who would play in the World Series. Garvey, Lopes, Ron Cey, et al, had been together since 1973. 8 seasons in the same infield, a record that, in today's era of peripatetic free agents, will never be equaled. Having been in first place when the strike started, they automatically had a place in the post season, and opened what was to be called the Division Series with two losses to the Houston Astros. Somehow, they came back to win three straight to earn a berth in the League Championship Series against Montreal.

Down 2 games to 1, they rallied, and faced off with the Expos in game 5. It was a chilly, rainy afternoon on that parking-lot textured astroturf in Montreal. It was a warm afternoon in Los Angeles, and I was a Senior in college, living at my folks house, taking early evening courses and working late into the night at KLON in Long Beach, Ca. This meant viewing the games upon waking. With one eye open. Hoping. The remarkable Fernando Valenzuela dueled through the cold of Quebec in October, by the 9th inning, the score was tied at one. Rick Monday stepped up to the plate as NBC's cameras panned to Donald Sutherland, the only recognizable celebrity to attended expos games.

Then he did it. Rick Monday, by then a part time player, stroked one that cleared the fence in right -field. Unbridled joy! I leapt up about the same time Monday did as he rounded first and watched the bail sail over the wall. This mighty blow was made even more intense by the silent silence with which it was greeted at Olympic Stadium! There I was, leaping out of bed, there were the Dodgers, going bananas in a veritable crypt.

They held on in the bottom of the ninth to win the pennant, and I went out side. I didn't want my mom to see that baseball made a 22 year old man's eyes mist...and mist heavily.

The World Series with those nasty Reggie Jackson Yankees started the next day. There I was, in radio, working at a public station on the Long Beach State campus, as an, albeit unskilled, disc jockey, but bringing in a radio (the blue Radio Shack transistor was long gone--this was a mono boom box of the time) to hear the Dodgers lose the first two games in New York. Game three was a nail biter I heard mostly in the car on the way home from class. I caught the conclusion of a gutty Fernando pitching performance once I got in the door. The next day, a Saturday, began so harrowing, I turned off the set and left the house in the first inning, just after ABC showed Dodger pitcher Bob Welch trudging from the mound after being chased by the Yanks.

To my surprise, when I got home, the Dodgers had rallied with a homer by Jay Johnstone, and with the considerable help of an error by Reggie Jackson. 8-7 Dodgers. Series tied 2-2. That meant Game Five on Sunday. The game on ABC-TV, and CBS's radio coverage on KNX 1070. Vin Scully was calling the game for CBS. It was a no-brainer to watch the game with the sound down on the TV, and Vin's voice coming through the clock radio in my room.

A taut struggle ensued. The Yankee lefty, Ron Guidry, Louisiana Lightning, who'd humiliated the Dodgers in '77 and '78, versus the Dodgers southpaw Jerry Reuss, who'd lost game 1. New York went ahead 1-0, and the due continued until the seventh inning. Louisiana Lightning took a bolt, himself--from Steve Yeager, with a game tying shot into the left field Pavilion at Dodger Stadium. They say lightning doesn't strike twice in the same place, but this time it did, thanks to the bat of Pedro Guerrero. His homer to the same spot where Yeager's landed put the Dodgers ahead to stay, and sent the series back to New York with the Dodgers ahead 3 games to 2. A win meant their first World Series Championship since 1965, which I may or may not have been aware of at the time. This would be my first since learning to love baseball.

I went into the garage and pulled out an ancient portable TV to take to work. I didn't think about it, but it had been the same set I'd watched so many games on in '67, only now it was old and afforded only a snowy black and white picture. I didn't care. Even though Vin was calling it on radio, I had to SEE it.

It was a cakewalk. 9-2, Dodgers. World Champs. No moist eyes, just sheer joy!!

*

Because not all teams have the remarkable record of the New York Yankees, you can feel more pain, following baseball than you can joy. You learn that, in the long run, the winning is the goal, but the hope is the rush. And even the Yankees can't win EVERY year. It would be 1988 before unbridled baseball joy would enter the life of Dodger fans again, after some close, frustrating seasons in 1982 (blew it down the stretch, knocked out on the last day by those damned Giants on Joe Morgan's crucifying home run), 1983 (they won the division, then the Phillies shut them down in the League Championship Series), and 1985 (a GREAT season, sullied by those fastballs straight and true, heaved by reliever Tom Neidenfeuer, and hit by Ozzie Smith and Jack Clark of St. Louis in games 5 and 6 respectively, in the LCS. PAIN).

I was a full-fledged, 29 year-old Top 40 Disc Jockey at Q-105 in Oxnard by 1988. I'd moved from Y-95, San Diego in mid summer. I'd seen L.A. (referred to in San Diego as "Smell-A") lose a couple of close ones at Jack Murphy Stadium. It was one thing to lose, and yet another to blow a games wearing road grays in a city hostile to the blue. Through the vagueries of my business (I had to get out of there--oddly enough it was a 5 and a half hour overnight shift I fled), I was now back close to my home city, in Ventura County, place that embraced the Dodgers. The only thing was, I'd hired on for the "teen-appeal" shift, from 7 to midnight. Add in a couple of hours for commercial production and preparation, and listening to or seeing the '88 Dodgers was out of the question. I'd set the VCR for TV games (up to 50 a year by then), but who has three hours to watch a game when you get home and already know the score? It's not the same. So I mainly kept abreast of what was going on through the Associated Press machine at the studio, the morning Times, and weekend broadcasts. Welcome to the grown up world of following baseball.

In 1988, I missed most of the beauty that was Vin Scully's descriptions of the pennant race, and a lot of Don Drysdale's heightened enthusiasm whenever purpose pitches (throwing inside) was needed. Big D had replaced Jerry Doggett, who had retired at the end of the '87 season. Jerry was aging, at least 70 by then, a jaunty wig alternating with the cold weather cap he'd clamp on his pate for TV games. Jerry wasn't Scully, but he was Dodger baseball, and sometimes he could be so real it was hilarious. There'd been a spring game in the early '70's when he marveled over an infield play, turned to someone in the booth and inadvertantly blurted to KTTV viewers, "A great play like that and you tell me you missed it? JEEEESUS!!" As far as I know, the first quasi-religious reference on a Dodger telecast. It was never spoken of again.

The VCR enabled me to enjoy 1988. Orel Hershiser ended a remarkable season by breaking Don Drysdale's record for consecutive scoreless innings, a record set 20 years before. My brother and I had sat in the dark in his room on a Friday night in May of '68, listening to the Giants-Dodgers thriller that brought Drysdale close to the record. For me, it was almost as thrilling as a World Series, because a Dodger was causing all the excitement. Drysdale pushed closer to the record on the first Tuesady of June, versus the Pirates. I listened until ordered to bed, and woke the next morning to the shocking news that Robert F. Kennedy had been shot. Big D broke the record the follwoing Saturday, a day of triumph lost in national mourning, a game played after the world watched another funeral and burial in the volitile year of 1968.

As a Dodger broadcaster, Drysdale was in the dugout when Hershiser broke his record.The game wasn't televised, regardless of the fact L.A. had cliched the Western Division title as well, so only news highlights were available to me after I'd gotten home. It was a touching moment. Even then, even with the leadership of hard charging Kirk Gibson on the field, I was nervous about the superiority of the teams they would have to face for a shot at the World Championship.

The Mets had beaten them senseless all year, and should they get past New York, there were the Bash (later 'Roid?") Brothers in Oakland who'd pounded the American League into submission. For the championship series, I'd been able to watch live TV, because I was filling in for the station's morning show that week. The teams split the first two games in Los Angeles, lost a controversial, rain spattered Saturday game three in New York. Reliever Jay Howell was tossed for having pine tar on his glove, and suspened for two games. It didn't look good.

The next night, a Sunday, I was home, relaxed, ready to watch game four, and found myself changing stations as the Dodgers got behind to Mets star right hander Doc Gooden. I couldn't take it. My lack of desire to watch them loose caused me to switch to a laughless comedy on NBC called "Sister Kate," starring a saucy British actress named Stepahnie Beacham...as a nun. The show was awful, but watching this woman who'd done nude scenes in feature films dressed in a habit made me chuckle at the possibilities for bawdy humor.

By the end of "Sister Kate," I flipped back to ABC coverage of the game, and a miracle had cccured, the first of many in '88. Kirk Gibson and shocked the Mets with a game tying homer in the ninth, and Mike Scioscia, the Dodgers durable catcher, clubbed one in extra innings to take the lead. To top it off, Hershiser himself volunteered to pitch the last half inning on 24 hours rest, put a the tying and winning runs on, and got a sensational diving catch by center fielder John Shelby for the final out. Shocking! The Dodgers tied the series at 2, with game 5 the next afternoon (exactly noon in southern California). I set the VCR, but woke up and watched, anyway. A rookie right hander named Tim Belcher kept the Mets in check as L-A easily prevailed. This was an unbelievable turn of events!

Games six and seven (if needed) were in L-A, with Hershiser available for a do or die final game. The Mets took game 6, so Hershiser had to work his magic and he did, shutting out the Mets in the seventh game and sending the Dodgers to the fall classic. I was on air and got the news via A.P., and shared the joy with my listing audience (mostly teens, probably the ones who weren't glued to their sets or weren't Dodger fans--we had the largest audience in Ventura County, small potatoes, but revelevant never-the-less).

Saturday, October 15, 1988, the World Series versus Oakland would begin at Dodger Stadium, 5pm Pacific Daylight Time, so the east coast would see the action at 8. No one thought the Dodgers could avoid being crushed to infintesimal particles of waste by the (we now assume artificially) muscle-bound, window breaking A's. Vin Scully, for six seasons also serving as NBC's national baseball voice, would be calling the games. Dame fortune had looked fondly upon Chavez Ravine...in ways of which we could only dream.

In my world, I had a Saturday shift playing the hits, taking calls for inane youngsters, and cracking wise, as my Top 40 idols had done between songs. Ordinarily, I'd be home to watch the Series opener, but I'd taken a side gig at the Camarillo Boys and Girls Club. For a hundred much needed bucks, I'd be spending the evening rolling records for high schoolers.

It was a difficult task. The kids bugged the hell out of me all night. The dance kids complained they couldn't dance to what I was playing, the surfer kids didn't want to hear the dance music, and when I finally aquiesed, and played "Beds are Burning," by Midnight Oil, some very apprehensive girls hurried up to me sand said everyone had moved to the lobbhy and weren't dancing. The little cretins who'd asked for Midnight Oil were seated at the top of the bleachers, buzzed on something, enjoying their song, while I was resolving never to do this kind of shit again.

Afterwhile, they guy from the station who'd tossed the gig tgo me arrived to help break down the equipment. "Hey, " he mentioned casually, "The Dodgers won."

"Great!" I said, thinking something had finally gone right, today.

"Yeah," he went on. "Kirk Gibson had a homer." He tossed it off with the nonchalance of someone who knew little about baseball. It wasn't until I got home and watched the game on that btrust VCR that I realized Gibson had hit one of the top three home runs in all baseball history, a cataclysmic blow that fractured the A's and altered the dynamic of the series. This injured entity, an inert force who drove the team all year, limped to the plate, smote a game winning blast, circled the bases to a wild cacaphony, and crossed the plate into baseball lore. By 4 the next morning, I had rewound and watched the homer seven times...and the eyes of a 29 year old man misted...misted plenty.

I would also miss game 2. I had a date. I had tickets to a concert I didn't want to see, by a man whose music I firmly believe induces insulin shock (Kenny G), with a woman for whom I lusted deeply, yet was beginning to sense was not a good human being.

What was wrong with this picture. At 29, lust, unrequited as it turns out, wins big, and the VCR was set once again, as I suffered this wildy attractive, intensely moody woman, and tolerated the dreck played by the syruppy Mr. Gorelick (the soprano saxophonist's real name). The highligh was Smokey Robinson coming out for a surprise song. Walking back to the car afterward, I said to my mikni-skirted date, "How about Smokey showing up."
"I'm not a fan." She said flatly.

"Oh," I said. Unrequited lust, indeed. All that was waiting for me at the end of this night was the VCR. Thank God it was Game Two of the World Series. Thank God Orel Hershiser had shut out the A's. Thank God I'd had the sense to buy a stack of VHS Tapes to preserve each series game.

I was back at work during games three, four, and five, with the VCR set, and the A.P. wire at the ready. Mark McGwire, who, at a future date who reign in both ecstacy and ignominy, won game three for Oakland in the ninth inning. Then a win in game four, and the remarkable Hershiser in game five, another shutout, and a World Series Clincher!

It was amazing. It was unparalelled. I went on the air and exulted between the hits. I recently discovered the tape of that broadcast, and I sound a lot like that 14 year old in 1974, full of glee that my team had prevailed at long last! I remember thinking that even if they didn't win the next year, it wouldn't matter, because this was so fantatstic.

*

The joy I just relived writing that package has had to last for almost 20 years. I still have the tapes from the '88 series filed away. I never watch them because the memory remains so fresh. The 2007 season has just ended with the Dodgers falling to pieces like a decaying milk bone. Clubhouse factions were revealed, tensions between the youngsters who will lead the team and the high priced forty year olds who were supposed to provide leadership. So what else is new?

Vin Scully spent the final game marking great moments of the past. He's soon to be 80, working home games and road games from Denver and all points west. Three innings simulcast on radio and TV, the rest of the game eclusively via video. He remains a true artist. His voice, his demeanor, his content between the pitches represnts the franchise as much as the color blue.

This past summer, I spent Sundays at the beach, probably the only human being there with a radio as opposed to a discman or Ipod (the subject for another commentary: radio is no longer a presence at the beach). Listening to those three innings of Vin Scully calling the game while sitting in the sand was like having memories and emotion wash ashore along with the waves. To be connected to a baseball team for the majority of one's life is, indeed to know joy and pain. The losing is pain, but winning is not the only joy. The team, the game and what it has meant is the joy in it's blue-hued entirety.

And the eyes of middle-aged men will be subject to mist.

*
Next time, I promise, funny stuff. yes, radio stuff. My take on talk...the opnionated, jibber-jabberers you only think are making you feel informed