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.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Monday, February 22, 2010
FILTER, FLAVOR, PACK OR BOX
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!!
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!!
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
WE'VE DONE THIS DANCE BEFORE...
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!
###
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!
###
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
PIRATE RADIO, LENO-LETTERMAN, AND PETROS
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.
#
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.
#
Monday, November 2, 2009
MAD ABOUT MAD MEN
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!!
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!!
Monday, September 21, 2009
AS I WAS SAYING...
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.
#
(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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Monday, July 27, 2009
A FEW WORDS ABOUT UNCLE WALTER
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.
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.
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