I'm not around many teenagers, these days, but I'd sure like to know how they use the radio. Sure, I'm privy to some of the market research. A lot of that data, however, can (in the hands of a cunning executive) yield whatever results desired.
I've read recently, for example, that more teens are listening to the radio now than, say, in the last decade. That report was posted on a radio trade website, and it flies in the face of all that I've heard from friends who have teenagers, and anything I've noticed in public. More than likely, the realty is mixed--kids who have the means download music from the internet, and constantly fill their iPODS with what ever they enjoy. Those for whom the computer culture is too expensive, rely on the radio.
It's an important point to make because Los Angeles just got a brand new Top-40/ CHR (Contemporary Hit Radio) station, Friday, February 20. 97.1 AMP radio supplanted FM talk station KLSX, 97.1 Free-FM, one time over-the-air-radio home of Howard Stern. Its studios were no more than 20 feet from where I still toil on Saturday and Sunday nights, one year after being laid off.
The "flip" as we call it in radio, happened at 5PM, when Tom Leykis offered up his final few opinions on dating, divorce, and knockers he has known. Amp Radio then started the first of 10 thousand songs, from a studio on Venice Blvd., several miles away. On the air, it had all the requisite, whiz-bang excitement of everything young and new. Except that there won't be a live human speaking to you for quite a while...if at all.
It used to be that when a new hit radio station went on the air, there was the palpable feel of human endeavor. The technological progress we've made, and (some say) gleeful corporate cost-cutting has put an end to all of that. How do teenagers and young adults 18-34 like their music presented? Many in important positions maintain that the disc jockey as we knew him/her is a deterrent. Others believe that only the right personalities appeal to the desired demographic, with a full plate of fast-moving elements, phone activity, and interviews. It's all very subjective. The truth is, regardless of the market, small or large, corporations now feel the less money spent on talent, the better.
Maybe someone can answer my question: are teenagers excited by the start of a new radio station? I can only point to what I've known. In the 1970's, "the New Ten-Q" started in L.A., in the middle year of my senior year in high school. It really made no impact on anyone I knew. In those days, we all listened to stations that defined our interests. Those who had "more soul than they could con-trol" listened to 1580 K-Day, which played all the "soul-hits," and, believe it or not, Philadelphia Freedom by Elton John. Surfers and rockers couldn't live without FM stations KMET and KLOS. The rest sampled everything else, with KHJ as a default station of choice. Ten-Q, with its music sped-up by a good 3 to 4 %, was unsustainable to me, despite the fact The Real Don Steele was there. Every song sounded as if it were performed by Alvin and The Chipmunks.
The 70's were marked by the insurgence of FM stations over those stalwarts on the AM band. Cassettes and Eight-tracks found their way to automobile dashboards. You had more choices as to how to get your entertainment. It's not surprising that a "format-flip" would not have the significance that KHJ's did in 1965. From all that I've read and learned from those who were there, KHJ literally exploded, and within a year had revolutionized the way Top-40 music was presented over the air--with forward momentum, constant, creative contests, and a thrill that's still present when you hear ancient airchecks (available for your review, in their entirety at reelradio.com, an online radio museum...membership is $15).
I was too young to understand it, but I could sense from my older brothers that 930 on the AM dial was absolutely where the radio had to be at all times--from getting up in the morning, to washing dishes at night, and even on New Year's Eve. That's when I remember hearing some of those gentlemen I eventually worked with, and have written of in previous posts. They plied their trade to my brothers' delight, while I scrambled around as a 6-year-old. By the time I was a teen, I didn't get to experience that type of sensation.
Not, that is, until I was in my 20's and trying to make it as a jock, myself. I was working at a deadly dull Adult Contemporary station ( A-C, as it's known: where old, slow, lugubrious hits by groups like America and Bread, and artists like Phil Collins and Billy Joel commingle to salve the troubled psyches of some very wounded ladies) in San Diego. In early 1987, Q-106 went on the air, and it was intoxicating. The energy was contagious, the tempo mesmerizing, and , for those of us in radio, the suspense was mounting. Who were the jocks going to be?
They added an air-staff gradually, after a week of playing nothing but hits and giving away T-Shirts. The result was an enormous ratings debut. Their competition, the previously established KS-103, gave up without a fight. From my outpost at the lowly K-Lite 94.9 (Lite Rock and Less talk), I pined away for a chance to work there, but my abilities weren't yet honed to what they would be. Still, I'd seen the impact of a great station launch. (An epilogue: all things in radio change. By the mid-1990's, Q-106 was first steered in what they call "Hot" A-C, meaning a little more energy and a lot more Michael Bolton music. Then it became a Spanish-language station, and remains so, today).
I have no doubt that somewhere in metropolitan Los Angeles, Orange County, Ventura County and parts of the Inland Empire, enthusiasts of Kanye West, Beyonce, Britney, Katy Perry, Lil' Wayne, and all who top today's charts, must be experiencing a sense of urgency. Those of us who are now too old to be CHR jocks get a kick out of Amp Radio, but are also extremely aware that this 21st century CHR will interface with listeners through all the modern avenues--twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Blackberrys, texting, etc. The fact that jocks are the last priority leaves some of us less excited than we would ordinarily be about a new station. I now know how old-time radio announcers felt in the mid-1950's when radio transitioned from soap operas, dramas and variety shows to D.J.'s. If they could cut through the jungle of theirown egos, they saw obsolescence.
MANNY, JOE AND "JANKEES"
Spring training is here, and anyone who loves baseball as I do is grinning it up. The dedicated baseball fan (as opposed to the off-the-charts-fanatics who maintain fantasy leagues year round) has spent the off season months keeping track of trades, free-agent signings, and doing some light reading on the subject. Dodger manager Joe Torre inadvertently stirred up a hornet's nest with his book The Yankee Years, written with Sports Illustrated baseball editor Tom Verducci. It's not penned like an autobiography at all. Verducci has blended interviews with all the main Yankee players from 1996 through 2007, Torre's last as manager. It's truly a great baseball book that only whipped up some flames in the New York tabloids and sports talk stations because of its assertions that Alex Rodriguez was a player unto himself. Previous to A-Rod's arrival, from Torre's first year through the third of three straight World series victories in 2000, the Yanks were a tough-minded, work-as-a-single-unit outfit, one on which the concept of team trumped selfish interests.
For all the useless words piled up and printed, coughed up and spewed over the air, the book came no where near as close to hurting A-Rod's reputation as Alex did himself when he had to admit to using steroids. If you read the book, and compare it to Alex's dissembling interviews, you know that Torre didn't defame him--Joe had A-Rod pegged. A-Fraud, indeed. Magnificent talent, varnished with a coat of "all shine, no substance." A-Rod is constantly concerned with image, and consumed with being catered to.
Finally, on the subject of catering to players with massive talents: As I write this, it's being reported that Manny Ramirez has rejected the Dodgers offer of 2 years at 45 million dollars, with an option to leave after 2009. This is bad news for the Dodgers, who need Manny's potent bat. You can't account for players (and their agents) who want to get all they can. It means an average year ahead for L.A., whose 2008 season was pulled out of the ashes only because Manny arrived for two cost-free months (Boston literally paid to get rid of him).
I hope that future posts will find him batting fourth in the Dodger line-up as the season begins, but hope appears to have faded, tonight. No slams, here. I appreciate what he did last season to start pushing nouns against verbs in order to blow him up. When it comes to ego and money and the unpredictable personality, all of this is not unexpected. We fans of the blue must move on--even if it means third place and stupefying mediocrity in 2009.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Thursday, January 22, 2009
SO FAR, SO GOOD or DOIN' FINE IN 2009
It was an unusually cold Christmas in Southern California, and a fairly quiet New Year's Day. For me, It was almost like being fully employed again. Three weeks of radio work, in the daylight, plying the trade I've studied and executed so well. Sure, I had to endure Christmas music the likes of which must be played for people who can't come down from injections of speed, but we got through it. I could blog for page after page about this dolorous, morose Christmas music...painful dirges that have nothing to do with the merry spirit of the season, but I'll spare you and get to the point of this entry: 2009 has started quite well.
What, You say? With the economy tanking? With the United States in a financial panic rivaled only by the great depression? With jobs being lost by the thousands each week (including the radio profession--not so much panic, there, just expediency. The technology is allowing companies to blow people out by the dozens, and doesn't bode well for my own career interests. More on that, later)?
Yes. We're doin' fine so far in 2009 from the perspective of hope. Any year that starts with a skilled pilot successfully ditching an airliner in the Hudson River, and saving 155 lives, HAS to be a positive year. Add that to the Inauguration of an actually articulate, intelligent person to our highest office, and yes, the year has promise for positivity. Even for those who are not fans of President Obama, just to see his predecessor go is an occasion for revelry. Eight years of that simpleton in charge has left the country in a shape that only his blindest, most ardent minions could ignore.
Before I veer away from politics, I have to express even more than the relief that Mr. Bush has returned to Texas. If we can all suppress our partisan leanings for just a minute, a good look will reveal that the very idea of Sarah Palin even being in the vicinity of the White House (let alone a heartbeat away from the Oval Office) is mind boggling, especially at a time like this. Is it sexist to say that this glib person could probably be entertaining at a meeting of the Wasilla Community Players, and little else? Anyone who voted for that ticket, then viewed the Governor of Alaska holding court with reporters as a turkey got its head ground to bits has to see the light by now. If you didn't see it, there stood Sarah, beaming and prattling on about getting the government out of people's way (I think we've seen what happens when the government gets out of people's way: the government has to bail 'em out!). As she babbled, the guy who ran the farm rammed turkeys head-first into a steel funnel, its legs kicking as it's noggin was turned to a pulpy mass of viscera. We love turkey, but really don't want to see it's final moments in life played out as a woman who ran for Vice President spews disconnected political bullet points, in a bright, cheery manner. Yeah, that's who we want running the country, eventually.
Lastly, no Republican deny what drew nearly two million people to the Inauguration. Of course, the reverence will at some point recede, because he is, after all, a human being. So's The Chief Justice, who fucked-up administering the oath of office. I reflexively hit the jump button on my remote at the embarrassing moment, but it wasn't the President who goofed.
I wasn't surprised when later, on Fox News, Chris Wallace surmised that the oath might not have been legitimate because of the wording goof. Chris is a journalist-- he should be ashamed. But as we all know, there is no shame in the world of Fox. Before the holidays, I read a book about Rupert Murdoch and Fox, and it backed up what many of us had known for years: It's a propaganda arm of the Right Wing, and shouldn't be mistaken for news. You want objectivity? Try what's left of CBS, NBC and ABC...PBS, CNN. If you want to watch a dunderhead (Bush) put on a pedestal, and the new President stalked, then pounced upon at the first scent of blood, watch Fox. Just don't mistake it for news.
*
I just watched an episode of 30 Rock, one of the smartest (if not the smartest), funniest comedies on TV. Even after all the Emmys and Golden Globes, the ratings are still awful., and that's too bad. With television programs spread all over hundreds of channels, hilarious, well received, high-rated sitcom are rare. A fabulous talent like Julia Louis-Dreyfus is caged in drek like The New Adventures of Old Christine...well below her ability, and no where near 30 Rock in class.
Tina Fey must be the crush of a million guys who would have been too shallow to dig her twelve years ago, when she was a little heavier and less well known. It's good advice for us all to keep our eyes open for the Tina Feys of our world.
On the subject of ratings, I've said it for 15 years, and I'll say it for 15 more: Letterman beats Leno by miles. No, not in the ratings, but as a show. Where Leno is a practiced stand-up, almost without peer, Letterman is a real broadcaster, with the ability to work the irony and sarcasm out of a bit until it bleeds laughs. After his open-heart surgery, 9/11, and the birth of his son, he dialed back some of smirky Dave, and displayed depth of knowledge and interviewing prowess thatleaves many in the news business chartreuse with envy. This was especially evident when he finally got Senator McCain on his show and grilled him like a smoked salmon. For those who prefer Leno, it's a case of apples and oranges, I guess. NBC certainly is betting on the apples, what with elevating Jay to a nightly prime-time strip on the network, Monday through Friday at 10pm.
My reaction is that NBC is not just keeping Leno out of the hands of the other networks, b ut cutting costs, and taking a gamble. First, what are the odds that his current audience would break habit and follow him to another network like Fox or ABC? Secondly, does NBC really believe average folks in the Midwest who chose Leno over Letterman at 11:35, tune him in at 10? My bet is that they'll pick CSI: Miami, CSI: New York, Without a Trace, and NUMB3RS. That noise you hear is Sarah Palin putting the NBC Peacock into a steel funnel to have its head turned into pate'.
Finally, a note on the evaporation of jobs in radio--I can't say too much, if I still want to land some work, but believe me, there are some folks who are still getting rich in L.A., New York, and Chicago. Filthy rich, and sometimes for no return in the form of ratings. Example: at least one organization is paying two million a year for a morning talent, while scores of jocks are laid off. The lack of equanimity is not quarantined to radio, as anyone who as followed the fiscal crisis knows. Because its entertainment, it's just a little more sickening.
'Til next time.
What, You say? With the economy tanking? With the United States in a financial panic rivaled only by the great depression? With jobs being lost by the thousands each week (including the radio profession--not so much panic, there, just expediency. The technology is allowing companies to blow people out by the dozens, and doesn't bode well for my own career interests. More on that, later)?
Yes. We're doin' fine so far in 2009 from the perspective of hope. Any year that starts with a skilled pilot successfully ditching an airliner in the Hudson River, and saving 155 lives, HAS to be a positive year. Add that to the Inauguration of an actually articulate, intelligent person to our highest office, and yes, the year has promise for positivity. Even for those who are not fans of President Obama, just to see his predecessor go is an occasion for revelry. Eight years of that simpleton in charge has left the country in a shape that only his blindest, most ardent minions could ignore.
Before I veer away from politics, I have to express even more than the relief that Mr. Bush has returned to Texas. If we can all suppress our partisan leanings for just a minute, a good look will reveal that the very idea of Sarah Palin even being in the vicinity of the White House (let alone a heartbeat away from the Oval Office) is mind boggling, especially at a time like this. Is it sexist to say that this glib person could probably be entertaining at a meeting of the Wasilla Community Players, and little else? Anyone who voted for that ticket, then viewed the Governor of Alaska holding court with reporters as a turkey got its head ground to bits has to see the light by now. If you didn't see it, there stood Sarah, beaming and prattling on about getting the government out of people's way (I think we've seen what happens when the government gets out of people's way: the government has to bail 'em out!). As she babbled, the guy who ran the farm rammed turkeys head-first into a steel funnel, its legs kicking as it's noggin was turned to a pulpy mass of viscera. We love turkey, but really don't want to see it's final moments in life played out as a woman who ran for Vice President spews disconnected political bullet points, in a bright, cheery manner. Yeah, that's who we want running the country, eventually.
Lastly, no Republican deny what drew nearly two million people to the Inauguration. Of course, the reverence will at some point recede, because he is, after all, a human being. So's The Chief Justice, who fucked-up administering the oath of office. I reflexively hit the jump button on my remote at the embarrassing moment, but it wasn't the President who goofed.
I wasn't surprised when later, on Fox News, Chris Wallace surmised that the oath might not have been legitimate because of the wording goof. Chris is a journalist-- he should be ashamed. But as we all know, there is no shame in the world of Fox. Before the holidays, I read a book about Rupert Murdoch and Fox, and it backed up what many of us had known for years: It's a propaganda arm of the Right Wing, and shouldn't be mistaken for news. You want objectivity? Try what's left of CBS, NBC and ABC...PBS, CNN. If you want to watch a dunderhead (Bush) put on a pedestal, and the new President stalked, then pounced upon at the first scent of blood, watch Fox. Just don't mistake it for news.
*
I just watched an episode of 30 Rock, one of the smartest (if not the smartest), funniest comedies on TV. Even after all the Emmys and Golden Globes, the ratings are still awful., and that's too bad. With television programs spread all over hundreds of channels, hilarious, well received, high-rated sitcom are rare. A fabulous talent like Julia Louis-Dreyfus is caged in drek like The New Adventures of Old Christine...well below her ability, and no where near 30 Rock in class.
Tina Fey must be the crush of a million guys who would have been too shallow to dig her twelve years ago, when she was a little heavier and less well known. It's good advice for us all to keep our eyes open for the Tina Feys of our world.
On the subject of ratings, I've said it for 15 years, and I'll say it for 15 more: Letterman beats Leno by miles. No, not in the ratings, but as a show. Where Leno is a practiced stand-up, almost without peer, Letterman is a real broadcaster, with the ability to work the irony and sarcasm out of a bit until it bleeds laughs. After his open-heart surgery, 9/11, and the birth of his son, he dialed back some of smirky Dave, and displayed depth of knowledge and interviewing prowess thatleaves many in the news business chartreuse with envy. This was especially evident when he finally got Senator McCain on his show and grilled him like a smoked salmon. For those who prefer Leno, it's a case of apples and oranges, I guess. NBC certainly is betting on the apples, what with elevating Jay to a nightly prime-time strip on the network, Monday through Friday at 10pm.
My reaction is that NBC is not just keeping Leno out of the hands of the other networks, b ut cutting costs, and taking a gamble. First, what are the odds that his current audience would break habit and follow him to another network like Fox or ABC? Secondly, does NBC really believe average folks in the Midwest who chose Leno over Letterman at 11:35, tune him in at 10? My bet is that they'll pick CSI: Miami, CSI: New York, Without a Trace, and NUMB3RS. That noise you hear is Sarah Palin putting the NBC Peacock into a steel funnel to have its head turned into pate'.
Finally, a note on the evaporation of jobs in radio--I can't say too much, if I still want to land some work, but believe me, there are some folks who are still getting rich in L.A., New York, and Chicago. Filthy rich, and sometimes for no return in the form of ratings. Example: at least one organization is paying two million a year for a morning talent, while scores of jocks are laid off. The lack of equanimity is not quarantined to radio, as anyone who as followed the fiscal crisis knows. Because its entertainment, it's just a little more sickening.
'Til next time.
Monday, November 17, 2008
THE BEST, THE BRIGHTEST, AND TURKEY-TIME
Now that we've elected a new President, it didn't take long for the first Xmas trees to pop up at malls around the country. Bang! Zoom! From the Electoral College to Santa's Workshop in a matter of days, as if the rest of November doesn't exist. At least Nordstrom's has the right idea. I saw a sign in front of their newest store advising all who entered that they believe in celebrating one holiday at a time, and that their holiday decorations will go up on the 28th. "Happy Thanksgiving," the sign read. A pretty solid message from a place with a lounge-lizard piano player on site.
The holidays will bring a full schedule of for me, the first sustained work for, what up til now, has been my former and intermittent employer, KRTH, Los Angeles. It's a time to look ahead to prospects in 2009--prospects in a depressed economy--and to look back at the 14 years I spent at K-Earth 101.
Dave "Sky" Walker, who handles the weekend overnight shifts (while they still exist, knock on wood) remarked that it's amazing, the number of radio stars I've had the opportunity to work with, and he's right. I thought I'd share my observations about those who are no longer with us, and one who spent all of five days working in Los Angeles...but what a five days they were.
THE REAL DON STEELE
I'd always been aware of The Real Don Steele. KHJ was everywhere when I was young, and it was impossible not to hear him barreling out of radios all over L.A. I knew him best from his hosting duties on Boss City, the Saturday evening dance show on KHJ-TV Channel 9 (later called The Real Don Steele Show, once "Boss" became passe).
I became a true fan at a time I was struggling to advance in the business. That was in 1985, when Don burst forth from a seven year hiatus to do afternoons at KRLA, AM 1110. No air talent ever augmented the hits with more formatic precision, more energy, double entendres, sarcasm, and minimal, expertly timed observation than The Real Don Steele. I could go on and use a hundred superlatives about his work, which stayed extraordinary... from his earliest days in Omaha, 1962, until his terminal illness forced him off the air at K-earth 101 in April of 1997...but I've said enough. A memo by Bob Henabery of WRKO, Boston says it all succinctly and profoundly. This remarkable seven page document was written in June of 1966, when WRKO management contemplated a move to the Top 40 music format that made a huge success of its sister RKO station, KHJ. Henabery assessed KHJ from top to bottom, from the music to the jingles, newscasts and the boss jocks. He had this to say about Don:
"The Real Don Steele is the most articulate of the Boss Jocks in respect to the argot of the youth. he delivers this language flawlessly, at a furious and witty pace. Steele is the most intelligent and talented of the Boss Jocks..."
WRKO went on to become the Top 40 station in Boston for the next 15 years. Real Don went on proving Henabery correct until he passed away, August 5, 1997. He's the best there ever was, and it was surreal to be on the same air staff with him.
ROBERT W. MORGAN
My first memories of Morgan were from his TV stint with a puppet named Mickey Mudturtle. When I told him that, he laughed, coughed out some cigarette smoke and exclaimed "Christ, I was 27 years old!"
Morgan was a morning presence in our house. His was the voice from the transistor radio as my older brothers got ready to head off to high school. Armed with a razor sharp wit, he was ahead of the curve when it came to presence in morning drive. To describe him as gruff in his later days, would be to say that porcupines were a little prickly from time to time. That was part of the armor you experienced in person. On air, he was quick, absolutely funnier than anyone else, and a perfectionist. When we lost Steele and Morgan in freakish tandem, we lost more than two men of flesh and bone and spirit. The medium of radio lost two larger-than-life entities that towered over the rest. A pair that defined professionalism. The generations to follow will never know what it's like to have performers of their greatness present music on the radio. To have Morgan tell me "You make the station sound good," is a compliment I'll take to the end of my days.
Robert W. was tart and topical; his booming voice vibrated acerbic quips over intros to songs, tete-a-tetes with phone callers, and hit musical posts with punchlines. He tolerated no fools. Toward the end of his career, those five years at K-Earth 101, he was unrelentingly political, but he lost none of his old fans from Boss radio days at KHJ. Because morning meant MORGAN. Unlike Real Don, he went public with his lung cancer diagnosis, and retired at a lavish broadcast from the Museum of TV and Radio in Beverly Hills, January 9, 1998. He passed away on May 28th of that year.
DAN INGRAM
First things, first: Dan Ingram is very much alive, in New York City, active at age 73. He spent all of one week on the air in Los Angeles, from June 22 through 26, 1998, auditioning for the morning job at K-earth, left open by Robert W.'s departure. I got to follow him that first day. He was gracious, cordial, and hilarious.
Because I'm a Southern Californian born and raised, I hadn't heard of Dan Ingram until I read Rocking America, Rick Sklar's 1984 memoir about the heady, Top 40 days of WABC, New York. My introduction to Big Dan came by way of tape, and he was incredible. The zingers, the one -liners, the wink-of-the-eye smarty pants comments that preceded, followed and punctuated songs, commercials, newscasts and everything else, were side-splitting. For anyone who's never heard him, I'd say that, at his peak in the 60's and 70's, he was like Robin Williams in Good Morning, Vietnam, but more in control, more exacting, more professional.
A good example would be a series of ad libs between commercials on the 4th of July, 1968. He read what we call the "tag" to commercial about a Sea World-type exhibition, made a quip, ran another spot, then said of the "Sea World" commercial, "How about this: when love congeals, it soon reveals...the faint aroma, of performing seals..."
Anyone from the Northeastern United States who got to listen to him every afternoon were privileged, indeed. The one week we had him, ten years ago, he caused more positive phone calls than anyone else who auditioned for the job, including the guy who wound up being hired.
To compare his work in the afternoon to The Real Don Steele's is like comparing WABC to KHJ: it's a case of excellence born to two different mothers, and any comparison would be nefarious. They were different, on separate coasts, and both brilliant within their own veins.
DICK HUGG, "HUGGY BOY"
I was not a fan of Huggy's. He was from a time when presenting music on radio was in its infancy. It was that cred from the deep past that made Hug beloved in L.A.'s deeply entrenched Mexican-American community. In the 50's, he'd done his show live, all night, from Dolphin's Record Shop in South Central Los Angeles. In the 60's, when the '50's songs became oldies-but goodies, he purchased his air time, and did all night shows on Spanish language station KALI, cementing his connection to Latino listeners.
Flash forward to the 90's, and an elderly Huggy was at KRLA, until the station's format was changed. In October of 1998, he slid into a late night shift at K-Earth 101. We were told it was to keep him from going to a competing Rhythmic Oldies station, but in truth, he needed income, and they created a place for him. I wasn't alone in thinking he wasn't competent to perform at a station as well executed as K-earth 101 was, 10 years ago.
When he joined us, I went out of my way to be nice, but he was aloof...indifferent to me, and so I was little more than polite when I saw him. He truly believed what they told him: that he was there to lure Latino listeners and increase the nighttime ratings. To those who shared my sentiments at the the time, I said, "Huggy could no more generate ratings here than he could a solid bowel movement."
I felt bad about that as time went on. He really was like part of the family to so many on the East side, but I was correct that he didn't make any difference in the ratings. I respected what he had accomplished throughout his long time on the air in L.A., and its historic significance. What was particularly egregious was how the poor man left the planet...not so long after a fall at home, with no one there.
While we never liked one another, I'm sorry a performer held in such high esteem by a significant part of the southland had to come to such a heart-rending end.
*
APOLOGIES TO KATIE COURIC
In an earlier post, I think I wrote that Katie Couric had "cuted-up" the CBS Evening News. Well, when I'm wrong, I say I'm wrong. I hadn't watched her broadcast in some time, and according to the ratings, neither had much of the country. Though third in viewership among the network newscasts, Katie's program has become damned good. Her interview with Sarah Palin (Peggy Hill?) was epic! Quietly, politely, she delivered the questions that revealed Governor Palin's denseness. That's all you can ask of any good interviewer for a quality newscast. When I watch evening news, now, I watch Katie.
The holidays will bring a full schedule of for me, the first sustained work for, what up til now, has been my former and intermittent employer, KRTH, Los Angeles. It's a time to look ahead to prospects in 2009--prospects in a depressed economy--and to look back at the 14 years I spent at K-Earth 101.
Dave "Sky" Walker, who handles the weekend overnight shifts (while they still exist, knock on wood) remarked that it's amazing, the number of radio stars I've had the opportunity to work with, and he's right. I thought I'd share my observations about those who are no longer with us, and one who spent all of five days working in Los Angeles...but what a five days they were.
THE REAL DON STEELE
I'd always been aware of The Real Don Steele. KHJ was everywhere when I was young, and it was impossible not to hear him barreling out of radios all over L.A. I knew him best from his hosting duties on Boss City, the Saturday evening dance show on KHJ-TV Channel 9 (later called The Real Don Steele Show, once "Boss" became passe).
I became a true fan at a time I was struggling to advance in the business. That was in 1985, when Don burst forth from a seven year hiatus to do afternoons at KRLA, AM 1110. No air talent ever augmented the hits with more formatic precision, more energy, double entendres, sarcasm, and minimal, expertly timed observation than The Real Don Steele. I could go on and use a hundred superlatives about his work, which stayed extraordinary... from his earliest days in Omaha, 1962, until his terminal illness forced him off the air at K-earth 101 in April of 1997...but I've said enough. A memo by Bob Henabery of WRKO, Boston says it all succinctly and profoundly. This remarkable seven page document was written in June of 1966, when WRKO management contemplated a move to the Top 40 music format that made a huge success of its sister RKO station, KHJ. Henabery assessed KHJ from top to bottom, from the music to the jingles, newscasts and the boss jocks. He had this to say about Don:
"The Real Don Steele is the most articulate of the Boss Jocks in respect to the argot of the youth. he delivers this language flawlessly, at a furious and witty pace. Steele is the most intelligent and talented of the Boss Jocks..."
WRKO went on to become the Top 40 station in Boston for the next 15 years. Real Don went on proving Henabery correct until he passed away, August 5, 1997. He's the best there ever was, and it was surreal to be on the same air staff with him.
ROBERT W. MORGAN
My first memories of Morgan were from his TV stint with a puppet named Mickey Mudturtle. When I told him that, he laughed, coughed out some cigarette smoke and exclaimed "Christ, I was 27 years old!"
Morgan was a morning presence in our house. His was the voice from the transistor radio as my older brothers got ready to head off to high school. Armed with a razor sharp wit, he was ahead of the curve when it came to presence in morning drive. To describe him as gruff in his later days, would be to say that porcupines were a little prickly from time to time. That was part of the armor you experienced in person. On air, he was quick, absolutely funnier than anyone else, and a perfectionist. When we lost Steele and Morgan in freakish tandem, we lost more than two men of flesh and bone and spirit. The medium of radio lost two larger-than-life entities that towered over the rest. A pair that defined professionalism. The generations to follow will never know what it's like to have performers of their greatness present music on the radio. To have Morgan tell me "You make the station sound good," is a compliment I'll take to the end of my days.
Robert W. was tart and topical; his booming voice vibrated acerbic quips over intros to songs, tete-a-tetes with phone callers, and hit musical posts with punchlines. He tolerated no fools. Toward the end of his career, those five years at K-Earth 101, he was unrelentingly political, but he lost none of his old fans from Boss radio days at KHJ. Because morning meant MORGAN. Unlike Real Don, he went public with his lung cancer diagnosis, and retired at a lavish broadcast from the Museum of TV and Radio in Beverly Hills, January 9, 1998. He passed away on May 28th of that year.
DAN INGRAM
First things, first: Dan Ingram is very much alive, in New York City, active at age 73. He spent all of one week on the air in Los Angeles, from June 22 through 26, 1998, auditioning for the morning job at K-earth, left open by Robert W.'s departure. I got to follow him that first day. He was gracious, cordial, and hilarious.
Because I'm a Southern Californian born and raised, I hadn't heard of Dan Ingram until I read Rocking America, Rick Sklar's 1984 memoir about the heady, Top 40 days of WABC, New York. My introduction to Big Dan came by way of tape, and he was incredible. The zingers, the one -liners, the wink-of-the-eye smarty pants comments that preceded, followed and punctuated songs, commercials, newscasts and everything else, were side-splitting. For anyone who's never heard him, I'd say that, at his peak in the 60's and 70's, he was like Robin Williams in Good Morning, Vietnam, but more in control, more exacting, more professional.
A good example would be a series of ad libs between commercials on the 4th of July, 1968. He read what we call the "tag" to commercial about a Sea World-type exhibition, made a quip, ran another spot, then said of the "Sea World" commercial, "How about this: when love congeals, it soon reveals...the faint aroma, of performing seals..."
Anyone from the Northeastern United States who got to listen to him every afternoon were privileged, indeed. The one week we had him, ten years ago, he caused more positive phone calls than anyone else who auditioned for the job, including the guy who wound up being hired.
To compare his work in the afternoon to The Real Don Steele's is like comparing WABC to KHJ: it's a case of excellence born to two different mothers, and any comparison would be nefarious. They were different, on separate coasts, and both brilliant within their own veins.
DICK HUGG, "HUGGY BOY"
I was not a fan of Huggy's. He was from a time when presenting music on radio was in its infancy. It was that cred from the deep past that made Hug beloved in L.A.'s deeply entrenched Mexican-American community. In the 50's, he'd done his show live, all night, from Dolphin's Record Shop in South Central Los Angeles. In the 60's, when the '50's songs became oldies-but goodies, he purchased his air time, and did all night shows on Spanish language station KALI, cementing his connection to Latino listeners.
Flash forward to the 90's, and an elderly Huggy was at KRLA, until the station's format was changed. In October of 1998, he slid into a late night shift at K-Earth 101. We were told it was to keep him from going to a competing Rhythmic Oldies station, but in truth, he needed income, and they created a place for him. I wasn't alone in thinking he wasn't competent to perform at a station as well executed as K-earth 101 was, 10 years ago.
When he joined us, I went out of my way to be nice, but he was aloof...indifferent to me, and so I was little more than polite when I saw him. He truly believed what they told him: that he was there to lure Latino listeners and increase the nighttime ratings. To those who shared my sentiments at the the time, I said, "Huggy could no more generate ratings here than he could a solid bowel movement."
I felt bad about that as time went on. He really was like part of the family to so many on the East side, but I was correct that he didn't make any difference in the ratings. I respected what he had accomplished throughout his long time on the air in L.A., and its historic significance. What was particularly egregious was how the poor man left the planet...not so long after a fall at home, with no one there.
While we never liked one another, I'm sorry a performer held in such high esteem by a significant part of the southland had to come to such a heart-rending end.
*
APOLOGIES TO KATIE COURIC
In an earlier post, I think I wrote that Katie Couric had "cuted-up" the CBS Evening News. Well, when I'm wrong, I say I'm wrong. I hadn't watched her broadcast in some time, and according to the ratings, neither had much of the country. Though third in viewership among the network newscasts, Katie's program has become damned good. Her interview with Sarah Palin (Peggy Hill?) was epic! Quietly, politely, she delivered the questions that revealed Governor Palin's denseness. That's all you can ask of any good interviewer for a quality newscast. When I watch evening news, now, I watch Katie.
Friday, November 7, 2008
OUR EVENING OF JUBILEE
There are few times in life when the emotions of joy, relief, and the feeling of justification converge. When they all hit at the same time, tears and smiles spring forth. That's an almost clinical description of what happened in my living room, in the homes of friends, across the country and around the world, November 4, 2008. It's as if America, truly as a people, made collective positive movement--out of the darkness of these last eight years and into, at the very least, a glimmer of light.
There's no need for tired ideology, just truth: for the first time in a long time, the bad guys lost. The forces of fear, the punitive control freaks, the unenlightened and the dogmatic lost their grip on our country's destiny. The new President-Elect seeks to govern not by getting even with those who hijacked power in 2000, but by doing what's right for the country on a whole, and not just the richest or the most fanatic.
A s he said in accepting his landslide victory (364 Electoral votes...the most for a Democrat since Clinton in 1996), Barack Obama said it won't be easy. He told the truth. The "haters" in this country (our domestic version of "evil-doers") abound...and the ideological wack-jobs of the right still command angry hordes of viewers (via Fox), and radio listeners (who accept the vomitous rantings of Rush Limbaugh as gospel). He'll be attacked daily, but this guy has a tough skin, and not only is he book-smart...he's a brilliant tactical politician. What mistakes Obama will make, he'll study and not repeat.
Should he fail, at least he will have come into this with good intent. I think his opponent simply wanted to live out a life-long dream. And the less said about "Peggy Hill," the better. There's a passage from Dickens' A Christmas Carol, in which the Ghost of Christmas Present shows Scrooge two emaciated, disheveled children.
"The boy is ignorance, and the girl is want. Fear them both, but above all fear this boy," he tells the old miser.
On the Republican ticket of 2008, Dickens' warning rang true. In the case of real life, the male was want, and the female was ignorance. The Governor of Alaska dissembled and obfuscated every day of her two months as a character in this play. The G.O.P. should be ashamed (and some are) that a person so woefully unqualified was put in place to perhaps assume the Presidency. Holding power at any cost, in this case by manipulating its base with a glib, physically attractive person, does not constitute doing right by the country.
I apologize to Mike Judge and his character, Peggy Hill, for the comparison. Peggy is big-hearted and means well.
TURNING TO SPORTS, IT'S MANNY MANIA
In Los Angeles, for two months, we saw one man put a team on his back as if he were performing one of the 13 Tasks of Hercules. And if the Phillies hadn't been so damned good, Manny Ramirez would have lead the Dodgers to the World Series.
They got as far as game five of the N.L. Championship Series. For some of us, it wasn't enough, but reality demanded that was as far as they'd go. Getting to watch Manny Ramirez turn Dodger Stadium into a Fantasyland, which it hadn't been for years and years, was worth it. He'll probably not be back next season. The Dodgers may well pick up where they were in July, battling to stay at .500. But for a short, passionate time, we got to relive what it was like when the Dodgers ruled L.A.
Had the Dodgers won, at least baseball fans would have had a glimpse of what the World Series used to be, played in sunshine and shadows, and the relatively warm temperatures of early Indian Summer. Instead, we were treated to watching freezing fans in Philadelphia--alliteration, I know, but true. The length of the play-offs, the dominance of east coast teams, and the insistence of Fox that the games be played at night have all diminished the World Series as national spectacle.
Maybe someday, someone can figure out a way to save the Series from the rain and the frosty, late October temps of the Northeast without further damaging this treasured rite of Fall. Until then, I recommend a book of photos by Neil Leifer. On its cover are Jim Gilliam, Don Drysdale and John Roseboro, embracing as they leave the field at Dodger Stadium under sparkling blue skies, having vanquished the Yankees in Game Three of the 1963 World Series. We'll never see World Series play in the sunshine, again, but this vivid color photo (as is the case with many others in the book) brilliantly displays what once was...and what should be, again.
THE LLOYD THAXTON HOP
Those friends and family members who've kept up with this sporadic blog over the last year, may have noticed I've changed the layout. The original white letters on blue background was the same used by the great Lloyd Thaxton, who also blogged at this site. I chose the same layout as a tribute. My brothers watched Lloyd Thaxton's KCOP-TV Channel 13 show EVERY DAY when I was very young. I remember seeing Lloyd pretending to play a trumpet to (what I later learned was) Herb Alpert's "The Lonely Bull." He did something goofy each afternoon that made you laugh. More importantly, for teens like my brothers, he played the hits, showed the kids dancing, and brought on the likes of The Temptations, Bobby Vee, The Shangri-Las, and all the top groups of the '60's. Lloyd was a gifted, good-humored man, who passed away a short time ago
I believe his writings are still posted here, at http://www.lloydthaxton.blogspot.com/. Read them, if you can. He would have been ecstatic about November 4th, too.
There's no need for tired ideology, just truth: for the first time in a long time, the bad guys lost. The forces of fear, the punitive control freaks, the unenlightened and the dogmatic lost their grip on our country's destiny. The new President-Elect seeks to govern not by getting even with those who hijacked power in 2000, but by doing what's right for the country on a whole, and not just the richest or the most fanatic.
A s he said in accepting his landslide victory (364 Electoral votes...the most for a Democrat since Clinton in 1996), Barack Obama said it won't be easy. He told the truth. The "haters" in this country (our domestic version of "evil-doers") abound...and the ideological wack-jobs of the right still command angry hordes of viewers (via Fox), and radio listeners (who accept the vomitous rantings of Rush Limbaugh as gospel). He'll be attacked daily, but this guy has a tough skin, and not only is he book-smart...he's a brilliant tactical politician. What mistakes Obama will make, he'll study and not repeat.
Should he fail, at least he will have come into this with good intent. I think his opponent simply wanted to live out a life-long dream. And the less said about "Peggy Hill," the better. There's a passage from Dickens' A Christmas Carol, in which the Ghost of Christmas Present shows Scrooge two emaciated, disheveled children.
"The boy is ignorance, and the girl is want. Fear them both, but above all fear this boy," he tells the old miser.
On the Republican ticket of 2008, Dickens' warning rang true. In the case of real life, the male was want, and the female was ignorance. The Governor of Alaska dissembled and obfuscated every day of her two months as a character in this play. The G.O.P. should be ashamed (and some are) that a person so woefully unqualified was put in place to perhaps assume the Presidency. Holding power at any cost, in this case by manipulating its base with a glib, physically attractive person, does not constitute doing right by the country.
I apologize to Mike Judge and his character, Peggy Hill, for the comparison. Peggy is big-hearted and means well.
TURNING TO SPORTS, IT'S MANNY MANIA
In Los Angeles, for two months, we saw one man put a team on his back as if he were performing one of the 13 Tasks of Hercules. And if the Phillies hadn't been so damned good, Manny Ramirez would have lead the Dodgers to the World Series.
They got as far as game five of the N.L. Championship Series. For some of us, it wasn't enough, but reality demanded that was as far as they'd go. Getting to watch Manny Ramirez turn Dodger Stadium into a Fantasyland, which it hadn't been for years and years, was worth it. He'll probably not be back next season. The Dodgers may well pick up where they were in July, battling to stay at .500. But for a short, passionate time, we got to relive what it was like when the Dodgers ruled L.A.
Had the Dodgers won, at least baseball fans would have had a glimpse of what the World Series used to be, played in sunshine and shadows, and the relatively warm temperatures of early Indian Summer. Instead, we were treated to watching freezing fans in Philadelphia--alliteration, I know, but true. The length of the play-offs, the dominance of east coast teams, and the insistence of Fox that the games be played at night have all diminished the World Series as national spectacle.
Maybe someday, someone can figure out a way to save the Series from the rain and the frosty, late October temps of the Northeast without further damaging this treasured rite of Fall. Until then, I recommend a book of photos by Neil Leifer. On its cover are Jim Gilliam, Don Drysdale and John Roseboro, embracing as they leave the field at Dodger Stadium under sparkling blue skies, having vanquished the Yankees in Game Three of the 1963 World Series. We'll never see World Series play in the sunshine, again, but this vivid color photo (as is the case with many others in the book) brilliantly displays what once was...and what should be, again.
THE LLOYD THAXTON HOP
Those friends and family members who've kept up with this sporadic blog over the last year, may have noticed I've changed the layout. The original white letters on blue background was the same used by the great Lloyd Thaxton, who also blogged at this site. I chose the same layout as a tribute. My brothers watched Lloyd Thaxton's KCOP-TV Channel 13 show EVERY DAY when I was very young. I remember seeing Lloyd pretending to play a trumpet to (what I later learned was) Herb Alpert's "The Lonely Bull." He did something goofy each afternoon that made you laugh. More importantly, for teens like my brothers, he played the hits, showed the kids dancing, and brought on the likes of The Temptations, Bobby Vee, The Shangri-Las, and all the top groups of the '60's. Lloyd was a gifted, good-humored man, who passed away a short time ago
I believe his writings are still posted here, at http://www.lloydthaxton.blogspot.com/. Read them, if you can. He would have been ecstatic about November 4th, too.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
PEGGY HILL FOR V.P.???
It would be less frightening if Peggy Hill actually were nominated to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency. Instead, the Grand Old Party has cynically put forth a woman whose only prerequisite for running is, apparently, a pair of X chromosomes. It's literally making me sick enough to discontinue my life long interest in politics--because (if you believe the tracking polls, and you recognize the fact that most of the electorate is easily misled) there's a good chance this woman who looks like Peggy Hill could very well be the next Vice-President of the United States.
It's appalling...and a political master stroke. Pull a good-looking political neophyte out of the snowdrifts of Alaska, fresh from giving birth and/ or field-cleaning a caribou, give her a crash course in stock answers, control her exposure, harass an already cowed national media, and you've got "Sarah-Mania." It's not that the press hasn't done it's job trying to unearth information about this little known woman...they've been trying. They're being out-shouted by the bullet-point pounding talk-shows and pundits from the Right, who are well versed in ignoring truth in favor of ideological uniformity. Because television and radio are commercial enterprises, and are subject to federal review at license renewal time, there may be a lack of testicular fortitude when pressing the point that there's been a fusillade of obfuscation and out right lies tumbling from the top and bottom of the G-O-P ticket.
What is particularly galling, is that fact there are many, many more qualified women from both parties who, if elected, could fearlessly lead this country should Grampy John McCain keel over. It is cynical, I believe, to have made such a choice...to anoint someone green, completely controllable, for the second highest office in the land. It makes me cringe when I hear Chris Matthews, or others equally enmeshed in the world of politics, lose sight of what's right. No, no, no, even if it's what research tells us, Americans should NOT vote for a candidate because they'd enjoy having a goddamned beer with them. Why don't voters in this country want someone intelligent, with the courage to lead? Because they've been convinced that an actually, bright politician might talk down to them?
Would George Washington not have been the Father of our country because folks in the village couldn't imagine having a flagon of ale with him? Repulsed by his withered legs, resting in a wheel chair, would Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Public, at the height of the great depression, reject Franklin D. Roosevelt and elect the feckless Alf Landon, because Landon was Kansas salt of the Earth?
Am I making this sound as ridiculous as it is? Those who are manipulated this way, and cast their votes against their own interest, harm the country and themselves. How many people who lustily embraced George Bush for his alleged values have lost their homes in foreclosure, or a loved one in a trumped up war.
Pay attention, America. Don't believe all you are told. Come to your own conclusions. And remember that candidates are packaged like the breakfast cereals that look good but pack enough sugar to put you into insulin shock. Or like the Alka-Seltzer that's supposed to cure your hang-over. In our country, it appears that good people are programmed to believe lies...and vote accordingly.
Note the irony when I say, God help us.
It's appalling...and a political master stroke. Pull a good-looking political neophyte out of the snowdrifts of Alaska, fresh from giving birth and/ or field-cleaning a caribou, give her a crash course in stock answers, control her exposure, harass an already cowed national media, and you've got "Sarah-Mania." It's not that the press hasn't done it's job trying to unearth information about this little known woman...they've been trying. They're being out-shouted by the bullet-point pounding talk-shows and pundits from the Right, who are well versed in ignoring truth in favor of ideological uniformity. Because television and radio are commercial enterprises, and are subject to federal review at license renewal time, there may be a lack of testicular fortitude when pressing the point that there's been a fusillade of obfuscation and out right lies tumbling from the top and bottom of the G-O-P ticket.
What is particularly galling, is that fact there are many, many more qualified women from both parties who, if elected, could fearlessly lead this country should Grampy John McCain keel over. It is cynical, I believe, to have made such a choice...to anoint someone green, completely controllable, for the second highest office in the land. It makes me cringe when I hear Chris Matthews, or others equally enmeshed in the world of politics, lose sight of what's right. No, no, no, even if it's what research tells us, Americans should NOT vote for a candidate because they'd enjoy having a goddamned beer with them. Why don't voters in this country want someone intelligent, with the courage to lead? Because they've been convinced that an actually, bright politician might talk down to them?
Would George Washington not have been the Father of our country because folks in the village couldn't imagine having a flagon of ale with him? Repulsed by his withered legs, resting in a wheel chair, would Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Public, at the height of the great depression, reject Franklin D. Roosevelt and elect the feckless Alf Landon, because Landon was Kansas salt of the Earth?
Am I making this sound as ridiculous as it is? Those who are manipulated this way, and cast their votes against their own interest, harm the country and themselves. How many people who lustily embraced George Bush for his alleged values have lost their homes in foreclosure, or a loved one in a trumped up war.
Pay attention, America. Don't believe all you are told. Come to your own conclusions. And remember that candidates are packaged like the breakfast cereals that look good but pack enough sugar to put you into insulin shock. Or like the Alka-Seltzer that's supposed to cure your hang-over. In our country, it appears that good people are programmed to believe lies...and vote accordingly.
Note the irony when I say, God help us.
Monday, August 25, 2008
BYE-BYE BEIJING, HOLA DONA BARBARA
I heard Vin Scully ask this question on a Dodger telecast last season: "When did everything get to be forty years ago?" He asked it after making a comment about a Dodger player from the 1960's. I asked it of myself when I realized I've been cognizant of the Olympic movement since I was 9-years old.
Just turned 49, I've spent a great deal of time watching still another round of games. For all that was written in the press, bandied about on the web, and chewed over on TV, the Beijing games turned out to be quite good, and extraordinarily watchable--save one thing: NBC's insistence on delaying their live broadcasts for the Pacific and Mountain time zones. Why? When live telecasts across the country would have permitted many of the swimming and gymnastics events to be presented in Prime Time on the west coast? Bread, bones, jing, moohlah...the ever-lovin' NBC/Universal, owned-and operated-stations and affiliate bottom line: Money. A live telecast from coast-to-coast-would have started at 5pm PDT, pre-empting local newscasts, the most lucrative of any programs aired by a local station, like KNBC, Los Angeles. They make millions in advertising revenue from the 5pm news. Better to delay the telecast three hours than lose those bucks. Besides, NBC promised sponsors Prime Time--and sponsors are to get exactly what they pay for, especially these days.
It's odd. Here on the west coast, viewers will accept a delayed broadcast of everything except the Super Bowl, World Series, college sports and the Academy Awards. 30 years ago, the NBA finals were not shown in prime time, but delayed til 11:30 EST and PST. No way they'd do that today. But the Grammys, Emmy Awards and the Olympics? New Yorkers would march on Rockefeller Plaza with torches if NBC tried it there. Southern Californians, mostly, don't care...so long as you don't tell them who won in advance.
I prefer the rush of the live telecast. I feel cheated, otherwise. My original Olympic viewing experience in 1968 was mostly live from Mexico City on ABC, in the afternoon when I got home from school. The network was charting virgin territory. It was the first time since the dawn of television broadcasting that the games were held in a time zone that permitted a live telecast. Some 40 hours of the games in Mexico City were beamed via satellite, in color. Much of the nation got to watch Olympic track and field events, gymnastics, swimming, diving and basketball as they happened. That had been done on a limited basis by NBC with some of the events in 1964, but nothing on the scale of the games of the XIX Olympiad.
I vividly recall watching Bernard Wrightson winning the gold medal on the 3-meter diving board. Soaking in the boxing matches called by Howard Cosell, and the stirring, closing ceremonies, in a dark stadium with its cauldron extinguished. In our house, we didn't see it in color, but it made quite an impression.
I admit that by the time I turned 13, ABC was preparing to telecast the Munich games, and I intended to watch as many of the planned 55 hours of coverage that I could. That's when the evil tape-delay first came into play. What was comfortably telecast during late afternoon in 1968, would be delayed three hours to be shown in prime time in 1972, or late afternoon weekend hours. It meant that when announcer Jim McKay was breathlessly describing the end of the
5, ooo meter run, and telling us, "...this is coming to you live! No one in the world knows how this will turn out!" we already knew Steve Prefontaine was going to fall just short of winning the bronze medal.
Though there were unforgettable moments, like Mark Spitz swimming to 7 golds (a record just eclipsed in Beijing by Michael Phelps), and Soviet gymnast Olga Korbut, those games remain marred by the memory of those Israeli athletes taken hostage and subsequently killed. On an early post, I acknowledged that, at his passing, Jim McKay was being remembered for the way he brought the news of that tragedy to the nation. What only I seem to remember, though, is hearing the news on an NBC special report that cut into the Nightly News with John Chancellor...because it was 6:45 PDT. McKay's soul-crushing announcement, "They're all gone," was not seen on the West Coast of the country for another three hours, because his reporting was a part of the Olympic package, to be telecast ONLY in prime time. ABC knew no shame.
It wasn't until 1984, with the games in our backyard, here in Southern California, that the Pacific time zone was treated to viewing Olympic sports live. The L.A. games were a tour de force. i was working at KLON, in Long Beach, the public radio station that supplanted our 10-watt college station at Long Beach State. This didn't keep the major sports franchises and the LAOOC (Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee) from assuming it, too, was a college station. I was de facto sports director of KLON. All that meant was I did the sports reports. And regardless of whom I had write the letters for me, I was denied credentials to the games. I reported the results from a portable color TV I brought from home, relishing the live telecasts, but chagrined no one had the juice to get me passes to cover the games in my own back yard (literally. I lived in Carson, a mile away from the Olympic Velodrome, and could look out the kitchen window to see cyclists, in the uniforms of their native lands, zooming through the neighborhood to stretch out their legs for the races to come. It was bizarre!).
Those games also stand out as the last great reporting done by Howard Cosell on ABC. Love him or hate him, he was brilliant calling the boxing matches from the L.A. Sports Arena, as spot on and accurate as he was at Mexico City in '68, Der Box Halle in Munich, '72, or when the U.S. Boxing team, lead by Sugar Ray Leonard, pummeled their opponents for a stunning five gold medals at Montreal in 1976. In Beijing, NBC farmed boxing out to CNBC, and all the Americans were eliminated early.
About CNBC...MSNBC, USA, and the other cable networks of NBC/Universal. Most of the events shown on those channels were LIVE. All night soccer, softball, field hockey, water polo, tennis, rowing, kayaking, canoeing, and a heaping helping of Table Tennis and Badminton. That got ridiculous, though. To most Americas, tab;e tennis and badminton are back yard barbecue games, which aren't played without a cooler full of beer or a plate of potato salad nearby. It was difficult to take the sports seriously. But they were, at least, LIVE Olympic action...and NBC saved dough by having the announcers for most of those events call the play from an HD screen in New York. To their credit, they never claimed otherwise.
?Tu eres Dona Barbara, verdad?
Because I'm the kind of guy who'd flip over to ESPN and read the sports updates on the crawl at the bottom of the screen, I knew whether to watch NBC's prime time Olympic coverage of an American victory, or stick with the Dodger game. But something new came into the picture a few days before the games began.
I love Spanish language TV. I speak so little Spanish, I can only pick out the words I know, but the announcers are so theatrical...they way they once were in English, before some focus group research resulted in a ton of guys with the vocal patterns of Ryan Seacrest (but not his money!). And then there's the Saturday morning auto-dealer infomercial with the scantily clad girls, cleavage plunging, skirts rising, ranting a mile-a-minute in Spanish about some second hand hunk of junk you actually wind up wanting to buy-- if she came along with it. It's a kick, as long as you can take the stereo-ping-ponging- telephone rings that accompany the hot salsa, cumbia and meringue music that girls are chattering to.
A few days before the Olympics started, I was flipping around between innings of a Dodger-Phillies game, when I ran across KVEA, the Telemundo station in L.A. A telenovela was in progress. For those who don't know, the telenovela is the heart of prime-time programming for Spanish speaking countries around the world. A soap-opera like show will run five nights a week until it concludes its run after 6 or 7 months. The hallmark of the telenovela is melodrama, gorgeous women, and lingering, smoldering looks on the actors faces just before cutting to another scene.
I had no idea what I was watching, but it appeared a bunch of drunken men were splashing through a river in pursuit of a frightened young woman. A hideous assault ensued, done without the explicitness you see in films, but with a brutality that allowed the viewer (even this one who doesn't speak Spanish) to realize what was going on. I flipped back to the ball game, but found myself headed back to Telemundo to try and figure out what happened to the young woman.
I had stumbled upon a story called "Dona Barbara," famous in Spanish literature. Written in 1929 by a Venezuelan who would eventually serve a short term as the country's president. Dona Barbara is a beautiful young woman raised by a river in Venezuela. Bandits kill her fiance then assault her, leaving life long scars that would make her the hard hearted femme fa tale. The story is rife with symbolism, it's characters who represent progressive and repressive politics. Barbara represents repression, cold and cunning, who falls for a neighboring ranch owner, Santos Luzardo, who embodies the tale's idealism and progressive themes. Barbara as a 17 year old daughter named Marisela, by the man she swindled her ranch from. Lorenzo is now a drunkard, living in the wild with Marisela, abandoned and sent away by Barbara as she consolidated power.
How do I know this? Well, I looked the story up on the internet, but found the English closed captioning, CC3. Some of the translations are a riot. In one scene, Dona Barbara rides up to her property and snaps an order to her ranch hand. In Spanish, kit sounds terse, dramatic. The English translation read, "Idiot, grab my horse."
An actress named Edith Gonzales plays Dona Barbara, and she is...easy on the eyes, shall we say, as is Genesis Rodriguez, who plays Marisela. You're reading this and think Dave needs to find more to do, and you're right. Dona Barbara, however, is a brave new viewing world, for me...it's histrionics and place in the world of literature that I was unfamiliar with. And did I mention the women were spectacular? I find it fun, not too bloody, over the top, and escapist is every sense of the word.
What a summer. The Dodgers show spark, trade for Manny Ramirez, then blow the tires on their already mediocre season; The Olympic experience once again; the beach...and Dona Barbara. All while waiting for another radio opportunity to develop.
A SMALL NOTE ON POLITICS
The Democratic National Convention opened this week in Denver. Conventions are simply known by acronyms, now. Opening night at the DNC was reviewed by pundits as slow and lethargic...but then they are apparently paid for opinions, whether they are valid or not. I was struck by the historic juxtaposition of a video presentation, then a warm welcome for former President Jimmy Carter; and a surprise speech by Teddy Kennedy. Senator Kennedy was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor, earlier this year, had surgery and has been undergoing radiation and chemotherapy in hopes to extend his life for as long as possible. I recalled that in 1980, there was a polarity between these two men that split the party and helped Ronald Reagan to a landslide. Here, 28 years later, there they were celebrated one after the other--the former President for his work helping the poor and hungry around the world, and the ailing Senator for his legislative work and roll as heart and soul of the party's left. In a word, it was moving.
Just turned 49, I've spent a great deal of time watching still another round of games. For all that was written in the press, bandied about on the web, and chewed over on TV, the Beijing games turned out to be quite good, and extraordinarily watchable--save one thing: NBC's insistence on delaying their live broadcasts for the Pacific and Mountain time zones. Why? When live telecasts across the country would have permitted many of the swimming and gymnastics events to be presented in Prime Time on the west coast? Bread, bones, jing, moohlah...the ever-lovin' NBC/Universal, owned-and operated-stations and affiliate bottom line: Money. A live telecast from coast-to-coast-would have started at 5pm PDT, pre-empting local newscasts, the most lucrative of any programs aired by a local station, like KNBC, Los Angeles. They make millions in advertising revenue from the 5pm news. Better to delay the telecast three hours than lose those bucks. Besides, NBC promised sponsors Prime Time--and sponsors are to get exactly what they pay for, especially these days.
It's odd. Here on the west coast, viewers will accept a delayed broadcast of everything except the Super Bowl, World Series, college sports and the Academy Awards. 30 years ago, the NBA finals were not shown in prime time, but delayed til 11:30 EST and PST. No way they'd do that today. But the Grammys, Emmy Awards and the Olympics? New Yorkers would march on Rockefeller Plaza with torches if NBC tried it there. Southern Californians, mostly, don't care...so long as you don't tell them who won in advance.
I prefer the rush of the live telecast. I feel cheated, otherwise. My original Olympic viewing experience in 1968 was mostly live from Mexico City on ABC, in the afternoon when I got home from school. The network was charting virgin territory. It was the first time since the dawn of television broadcasting that the games were held in a time zone that permitted a live telecast. Some 40 hours of the games in Mexico City were beamed via satellite, in color. Much of the nation got to watch Olympic track and field events, gymnastics, swimming, diving and basketball as they happened. That had been done on a limited basis by NBC with some of the events in 1964, but nothing on the scale of the games of the XIX Olympiad.
I vividly recall watching Bernard Wrightson winning the gold medal on the 3-meter diving board. Soaking in the boxing matches called by Howard Cosell, and the stirring, closing ceremonies, in a dark stadium with its cauldron extinguished. In our house, we didn't see it in color, but it made quite an impression.
I admit that by the time I turned 13, ABC was preparing to telecast the Munich games, and I intended to watch as many of the planned 55 hours of coverage that I could. That's when the evil tape-delay first came into play. What was comfortably telecast during late afternoon in 1968, would be delayed three hours to be shown in prime time in 1972, or late afternoon weekend hours. It meant that when announcer Jim McKay was breathlessly describing the end of the
5, ooo meter run, and telling us, "...this is coming to you live! No one in the world knows how this will turn out!" we already knew Steve Prefontaine was going to fall just short of winning the bronze medal.
Though there were unforgettable moments, like Mark Spitz swimming to 7 golds (a record just eclipsed in Beijing by Michael Phelps), and Soviet gymnast Olga Korbut, those games remain marred by the memory of those Israeli athletes taken hostage and subsequently killed. On an early post, I acknowledged that, at his passing, Jim McKay was being remembered for the way he brought the news of that tragedy to the nation. What only I seem to remember, though, is hearing the news on an NBC special report that cut into the Nightly News with John Chancellor...because it was 6:45 PDT. McKay's soul-crushing announcement, "They're all gone," was not seen on the West Coast of the country for another three hours, because his reporting was a part of the Olympic package, to be telecast ONLY in prime time. ABC knew no shame.
It wasn't until 1984, with the games in our backyard, here in Southern California, that the Pacific time zone was treated to viewing Olympic sports live. The L.A. games were a tour de force. i was working at KLON, in Long Beach, the public radio station that supplanted our 10-watt college station at Long Beach State. This didn't keep the major sports franchises and the LAOOC (Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee) from assuming it, too, was a college station. I was de facto sports director of KLON. All that meant was I did the sports reports. And regardless of whom I had write the letters for me, I was denied credentials to the games. I reported the results from a portable color TV I brought from home, relishing the live telecasts, but chagrined no one had the juice to get me passes to cover the games in my own back yard (literally. I lived in Carson, a mile away from the Olympic Velodrome, and could look out the kitchen window to see cyclists, in the uniforms of their native lands, zooming through the neighborhood to stretch out their legs for the races to come. It was bizarre!).
Those games also stand out as the last great reporting done by Howard Cosell on ABC. Love him or hate him, he was brilliant calling the boxing matches from the L.A. Sports Arena, as spot on and accurate as he was at Mexico City in '68, Der Box Halle in Munich, '72, or when the U.S. Boxing team, lead by Sugar Ray Leonard, pummeled their opponents for a stunning five gold medals at Montreal in 1976. In Beijing, NBC farmed boxing out to CNBC, and all the Americans were eliminated early.
About CNBC...MSNBC, USA, and the other cable networks of NBC/Universal. Most of the events shown on those channels were LIVE. All night soccer, softball, field hockey, water polo, tennis, rowing, kayaking, canoeing, and a heaping helping of Table Tennis and Badminton. That got ridiculous, though. To most Americas, tab;e tennis and badminton are back yard barbecue games, which aren't played without a cooler full of beer or a plate of potato salad nearby. It was difficult to take the sports seriously. But they were, at least, LIVE Olympic action...and NBC saved dough by having the announcers for most of those events call the play from an HD screen in New York. To their credit, they never claimed otherwise.
?Tu eres Dona Barbara, verdad?
Because I'm the kind of guy who'd flip over to ESPN and read the sports updates on the crawl at the bottom of the screen, I knew whether to watch NBC's prime time Olympic coverage of an American victory, or stick with the Dodger game. But something new came into the picture a few days before the games began.
I love Spanish language TV. I speak so little Spanish, I can only pick out the words I know, but the announcers are so theatrical...they way they once were in English, before some focus group research resulted in a ton of guys with the vocal patterns of Ryan Seacrest (but not his money!). And then there's the Saturday morning auto-dealer infomercial with the scantily clad girls, cleavage plunging, skirts rising, ranting a mile-a-minute in Spanish about some second hand hunk of junk you actually wind up wanting to buy-- if she came along with it. It's a kick, as long as you can take the stereo-ping-ponging- telephone rings that accompany the hot salsa, cumbia and meringue music that girls are chattering to.
A few days before the Olympics started, I was flipping around between innings of a Dodger-Phillies game, when I ran across KVEA, the Telemundo station in L.A. A telenovela was in progress. For those who don't know, the telenovela is the heart of prime-time programming for Spanish speaking countries around the world. A soap-opera like show will run five nights a week until it concludes its run after 6 or 7 months. The hallmark of the telenovela is melodrama, gorgeous women, and lingering, smoldering looks on the actors faces just before cutting to another scene.
I had no idea what I was watching, but it appeared a bunch of drunken men were splashing through a river in pursuit of a frightened young woman. A hideous assault ensued, done without the explicitness you see in films, but with a brutality that allowed the viewer (even this one who doesn't speak Spanish) to realize what was going on. I flipped back to the ball game, but found myself headed back to Telemundo to try and figure out what happened to the young woman.
I had stumbled upon a story called "Dona Barbara," famous in Spanish literature. Written in 1929 by a Venezuelan who would eventually serve a short term as the country's president. Dona Barbara is a beautiful young woman raised by a river in Venezuela. Bandits kill her fiance then assault her, leaving life long scars that would make her the hard hearted femme fa tale. The story is rife with symbolism, it's characters who represent progressive and repressive politics. Barbara represents repression, cold and cunning, who falls for a neighboring ranch owner, Santos Luzardo, who embodies the tale's idealism and progressive themes. Barbara as a 17 year old daughter named Marisela, by the man she swindled her ranch from. Lorenzo is now a drunkard, living in the wild with Marisela, abandoned and sent away by Barbara as she consolidated power.
How do I know this? Well, I looked the story up on the internet, but found the English closed captioning, CC3. Some of the translations are a riot. In one scene, Dona Barbara rides up to her property and snaps an order to her ranch hand. In Spanish, kit sounds terse, dramatic. The English translation read, "Idiot, grab my horse."
An actress named Edith Gonzales plays Dona Barbara, and she is...easy on the eyes, shall we say, as is Genesis Rodriguez, who plays Marisela. You're reading this and think Dave needs to find more to do, and you're right. Dona Barbara, however, is a brave new viewing world, for me...it's histrionics and place in the world of literature that I was unfamiliar with. And did I mention the women were spectacular? I find it fun, not too bloody, over the top, and escapist is every sense of the word.
What a summer. The Dodgers show spark, trade for Manny Ramirez, then blow the tires on their already mediocre season; The Olympic experience once again; the beach...and Dona Barbara. All while waiting for another radio opportunity to develop.
A SMALL NOTE ON POLITICS
The Democratic National Convention opened this week in Denver. Conventions are simply known by acronyms, now. Opening night at the DNC was reviewed by pundits as slow and lethargic...but then they are apparently paid for opinions, whether they are valid or not. I was struck by the historic juxtaposition of a video presentation, then a warm welcome for former President Jimmy Carter; and a surprise speech by Teddy Kennedy. Senator Kennedy was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor, earlier this year, had surgery and has been undergoing radiation and chemotherapy in hopes to extend his life for as long as possible. I recalled that in 1980, there was a polarity between these two men that split the party and helped Ronald Reagan to a landslide. Here, 28 years later, there they were celebrated one after the other--the former President for his work helping the poor and hungry around the world, and the ailing Senator for his legislative work and roll as heart and soul of the party's left. In a word, it was moving.
Monday, June 23, 2008
OCCUPATION: FOOLE! George Carlin 1937-2008
I cannot accurately estimate the number of hours I spent listening to George Carlin albums. from 1975 through the end of the decade, Occupation: Foole and On The Road burned up my cassette players and turntable, while they alternately inspired me, and convulsed me with laughter so hard, I'd literally turn purple. He wasn't just funny--he was riotous.
My old friend from high school, Craig Gross, and I must have known every word of those two Carlin records, and would weave them into our own humorous conversations.
"How's your Dog?!! How's your Goddamn dog??!!" That line opens a bit about pets from On the Road that even made my mother laugh. A simple question related in such a way that caught you off guard. Isn't that something you want to ask someone who's a little too attached to their canine? "How's your Goddamn Dog??"
If you read the previous entry here, you'll see that some great people have left the planet over the last couple of weeks. I've tried to express my "stranger's sense of loss." I didn't know George Carlin, but I was influenced by his wisdom and his comedy, and wouldn't have made it through the 70's without him and his like (in earlier posts, I've outlined my favorite comics--"Things that make you go "HA," is the title of the entry).
The truth is, it's starting to upset me that I find myself writing memorials to great people. I hope this pauses for a while, but that's a lot to ask from life. It's essential, I think, to add my take, lest people like George Carlin and Jim McKay be remembered mainly for one incident in the broad spectrum of their careers. Jim McKay was memorialized not nearly as much for his yeoman work as a sportscaster as he was for that hideous day in Munich, September 5, 1972, when he had to describe a terrorist hostage tragedy instead of track and field. It was a highlight, but there was so much more to his work...so much more that I'll remember.
The same for George Carlin. All the post mortems have touched upon his "seven words you can't say" on TV: Shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, mother-fucker and tits. "Those are the words that'll curve your spine, grow hair on your hands and bring us, God help us, peace without honor," he added with mock seriousness. Then he went to pains to point out that mother-fucker "...was a compound word." An English lesson, as well as a primer on contemporary mores!
Yet he was so much more than that. The world is short of people who are truly gifted in the way George Carlin was. For every arena that Dice Clay filled in 1988, and Dane Cook filled in 2004, there would be venues three times that size filled with people wondering aloud what those two were all about. That would never be so with Mr. Carlin.
Forget the seven dirty words. George Carlin, besides being so hilarious, had a clear vision, and suffered no...Fooles.
My old friend from high school, Craig Gross, and I must have known every word of those two Carlin records, and would weave them into our own humorous conversations.
"How's your Dog?!! How's your Goddamn dog??!!" That line opens a bit about pets from On the Road that even made my mother laugh. A simple question related in such a way that caught you off guard. Isn't that something you want to ask someone who's a little too attached to their canine? "How's your Goddamn Dog??"
If you read the previous entry here, you'll see that some great people have left the planet over the last couple of weeks. I've tried to express my "stranger's sense of loss." I didn't know George Carlin, but I was influenced by his wisdom and his comedy, and wouldn't have made it through the 70's without him and his like (in earlier posts, I've outlined my favorite comics--"Things that make you go "HA," is the title of the entry).
The truth is, it's starting to upset me that I find myself writing memorials to great people. I hope this pauses for a while, but that's a lot to ask from life. It's essential, I think, to add my take, lest people like George Carlin and Jim McKay be remembered mainly for one incident in the broad spectrum of their careers. Jim McKay was memorialized not nearly as much for his yeoman work as a sportscaster as he was for that hideous day in Munich, September 5, 1972, when he had to describe a terrorist hostage tragedy instead of track and field. It was a highlight, but there was so much more to his work...so much more that I'll remember.
The same for George Carlin. All the post mortems have touched upon his "seven words you can't say" on TV: Shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, mother-fucker and tits. "Those are the words that'll curve your spine, grow hair on your hands and bring us, God help us, peace without honor," he added with mock seriousness. Then he went to pains to point out that mother-fucker "...was a compound word." An English lesson, as well as a primer on contemporary mores!
Yet he was so much more than that. The world is short of people who are truly gifted in the way George Carlin was. For every arena that Dice Clay filled in 1988, and Dane Cook filled in 2004, there would be venues three times that size filled with people wondering aloud what those two were all about. That would never be so with Mr. Carlin.
Forget the seven dirty words. George Carlin, besides being so hilarious, had a clear vision, and suffered no...Fooles.
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