Category Archives: Media & Culture

The Beatles: Get Back

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Peter Jackson has released a “sneak peek” at his COVID-delayed documentary, The Beatles: Get Back. He stresses this is not a trailer or a sequence, rather a “montage” to give you a feel for “the spirit” of the film. Can’t imagine where or how he come up with 56 hours of “never before seen” footage of the band.

The Beatles hit the U.S. airwaves in February of 1964 (“I Want to Hold Your Hand”). I was a sophomore in high school and I won’t even try to tell you want a big deal this was. Nothing even close in the 50+ years since.

The Beatles broke up in 1969 so they provided the soundtrack for my high school and college years. I am really looking forward to this documentary. PS: It sure looks like they were having fun.

Did Buddy Emmons perform at KBOA?

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According to Wikipedia, Buddy Gene Emmons (January 27, 1937 – July 21, 2015) “was an American musician who is widely regarded as the world’s foremost pedal steel guitarist of his day. He was inducted into the Steel Guitar Hall of Fame in 1981. Affectionately known by the nickname “Big E”, Emmons’ primary genre was American country music, but he also performed jazz and Western swing. He recorded with Linda Ronstadt, Gram Parsons, The Everly Brothers, The Carpenters, Roger Miller, Ernest Tubb, John Hartford, Little Jimmy Dickens, Ray Price, Judy Collins, George Strait, John Sebastian, and Ray Charles and was a widely sought session musician in Nashville and Los Angeles.”

According to a newspaper clipping (Calumet, Illinois) sent to me recently by Brandon Rowe, Emmons performed with one (or more?) bands that made regular “appearances” on KBOA during the early 1950’s.

PS: My favorite line from the article: “Nothing really exciting happened in Kennett that I can remember.”

AUDIO: “Side A and B Combo” by Henry Buddy Roy Jr..

Are we ever “offline” now?

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I used to think about what it means to “be online.” I still recall when everything was off-line. Or pre-line.

Before social media and the primacy of the latest post — and the irrelevance of all previous posts — I thought of my websites, especially my blog, like a small town library. You kept everything you thought you (or someone) might want to retrieve and read again. I didn’t care much how infrequently a “book” was checked out, just that it was there on a shelf and in the card catalog.

But now the ever-flowing river of Tweets, Toots, FB posts, etc. makes anything below the scroll worthless. The notion of “rebooting” one’s online presence made me think of moving that small town library to a new building on the other side of town.

Sarah Cooper

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One of the few bright spots of the last 8 months is Sarah Cooper and her brilliant videos. Nice piece in the Washington Post.

In a medium where teenage gamers become instant multimillionaires, Cooper is the strangest kind of overnight star. She has earned a master’s degree, written three books and developed more than a casual understanding of John Maynard Keynes. She was in her 30s before she did her first standup set, and spent the bulk of her adult life working at tech companies, most recently Google, where she led the team that redesigned the company’s popular word-processing program, Google Docs.

Gotta say it… I’m impressed by the Google Docs thing. She went from doing gigs in a pizza place in January to a Netflix special on October 27.

It is not your standard Netflix comedy show. For one thing, “Sarah Cooper: Everything’s Fine” is not standup. The special is a darkly hilarious and political sketch show filmed on the covid-claustrophobic set of a fictitious morning program hosted by a needy and desperately cheery character named Sarah Cooper.

If you’ve been living in a cave (or watching nothing but Fox News) you can check out her work on YouTube.

Laurel Canyon

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I really liked this documentary. Late 60’s, early 70’s was my era, but it was just a very well done film. I learned a lot about the music and the musicians from that time and that place. I was playing a lot of this music on the radio in the early 70’s but had no real appreciation for the artists or the place the music was coming from.

When online video was hard

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Everywhere you look people are streaming live video. TV news programs, late night talk shows, online classes, grandmothers Zooming with their grandkids. It has never been easier to “video chat” with someone. But it wasn’t always this way. Here are a few of my memories from the early days. (6 min)

Turbo Encabulator

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YouTube notes: “This is the first time Turbo Encabulator was recorded with picture. I shot this in the late 70’s at Regan Studios in Detroit on 16mm film. The narrator and writer is Bud Haggert. He was the top voice-over talent on technical films. He wrote the script because he rarely understood the technical copy he was asked to read and felt he shouldn’t be alone. We had just finished a production for GMC Trucks and Bud asked since this was the perfect setting could we film his Turbo Encabulator script. He was using an audio prompter referred to as “the ear”. He was actually the pioneer of the ear. He was to deliver a live speech without a prompter. After struggling in his hotel room trying to commit to memory he went to plan B. He recorded it to a large Wollensak reel to reel recorder and placed it in the bottom of the podium. With a wired earplug he used it for the speech and the “ear” was invented. Today every on-camera spokesperson uses a variation of Bud’s innovation. Dave Rondot (me) was the director and John Choate was the DP on this production. The first laugh at the end is mine. My hat’s off to Bud a true talent.”

View on YouTube