Category Archives: Personal History

Time for Talk: KBOA830.com

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Time for Talk was (is?) a public access program on the local cable system in Kennett, MO. As I recall, it started about the same time I began working at the local radio station, KBOA.

Time for Talk was a labor of love for Dr. Russ Burcham (a local dentist) and his wife, Rosemary. Rosemary did the interviews and Russ worked the camera. Sort of Wayne’s World with Aunt Bea and Sheriff Taylor replacing Wayne and Garth.

Time for Talk was 15 minutes long, as I recall. And it was kind of big deal in our little town because it was about the only way you’d ever see your self on television without getting arrested or dying in bus crash.

Because I was “on the radio,” Russ and Rosemary had me on several times over the years. Before YouTube, the only way you’d see one of these treasures was to go to Kennett.

This one was recorded in 1998, fourteen years after I left Kennett. Rosemary asked me to talk about the website I created for the local station (my first effort at a website). Enjoy.

White Horse Pub, UK

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Keith Povall has been an online pal for years. He lives in Walsall in the UK where he and his mate (that’s the way they talk) Wally the Welder frequent the White Horse pub, a traditional pub that Keith says is quickly dying out. So we decided to visit (via Google Hangout). I love all things British and could listen to these guys talk for hours. A few minute should be enough for most folks. I share my poorly produced video here for archival purposes.

A quest to save AM radio

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Most of my on-air time for the dozen years (1972-82) I worked at my hometown radio station was on the AM station. In the 60s (?) the station sold (at cost?) “FM converters” because so few cars had FM receivers. This NY Times story tells the tale:

“In 1978 half of all radio listening was on the AM dial. By 2011 AM listenership had fallen to 15 percent, or an average of 3.1 million people, according to a survey by Veronis Suhler Stevenson, a private investment firm. While the number of FM listeners has declined, too, they still averaged 18 million in 2011. (The figures are averages based on measuring listeners every 15 minutes.)”

“In 1970 AM accounted for 63 percent of broadcast radio stations, but now it accounts for 21 percent, or 4,900 outlets, according to Arbitron. FM accounts for 44 percent, or 10,200 stations. About 35 percent of stations stream content online.”

“Nearly all English-language AM stations have given up playing music, and even a third of the 30 Major League Baseball teams now broadcast on FM. AM, however, remains the realm of conservative talk radio, including roughly 80 percent of the 600 radio stations that carry Rush Limbaugh.”

Mainland Ukes

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Hopped in the MINI and took a little road trip to Nashville, IN on Thursday. The 368 miles took about seven hours. Nashville — a quaint little village in the hills of south-central Indiana– is the home of Mainland Ukes, owned and operated by Mike Hater and his charming wife Tootka. Tootka is the brains and Mike is “Artistic Director.”

tootka-mike

Purpose of the trip was to swap my new soprano uke for a slightly larger “concert” model.

Mike and Tootka’s story is interesting. After years as a psychiatric nurse, Mike quit and moved back to Indiana where he worked in landscaping before throwing in with a guy who sold harmonicas. When that business tanked, Mike and Tootka took over and switched to ukes. Mike played and knew lots of folks in uke space, so…

Somewhere in this adventure Mike got snowed in for five days and used the time to meet (online) some people in Thailand (where he lived as a younger man). Mike and Tootka connected, corresponded for a while, and then he jumped on a plane to go meet the lady. After that it was love, marriage, and back to the US and Mainland Ukes.

ukes600

They have a big uke festival in June and I’m thinking I might try to make it. Nice people, good ukuleles.

I have a tiny instrument

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Screen Shot 2013-03-07 at Thu, Mar 7, 8.36.38 AMBack in the 70’s I took guitar lessons for a few months. In answer to the question, “You think I’ll ever learn to play?” my teacher (Hoyt Wooten) answered: “Depends on how long you live.”

While I won’t live long enough to learn to play the guitar, I might live long enough to learn a few chords on my new ukelele. I’ve got lots of support I didn’t have 30 years ago. Half the members of The Order of the Fez play the uke, including Professor Peter and Howlin’ Hobbit, who advised on this latest purchase.

YouTube is awash in instructional videos and the technology is much better. I’ve got a tin ear so keeping that guitar in tune was a bitch. I had a little pitch pipe that was all but worthless. This time around I have a little eletronic doo dad that clamps on to the uke and uses vibration to tell you if the string is sharp or flat.

I’m approaching this in the manner of Bill Murray learning to play the piano in Ground Hog Day. I have a long time in which to learn to play a few chords. Once I get a few thousand hours under my belt, I’ll share something here.

Wedding Photos

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Day One

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Feels like I’ve been “retiring” for a long time. Months. Didn’t plan it that way but it sort of dragged out. I grew weary of talking and thinking about it and assumed others did. But a few people have asked about The First Day of the Death of Your Life so here’s a brief run down.

Got to the Soldier of Fortune Command Center (Coffee Zone) around 8:00 a.m. Shot the shit with my buddy Clyde for a couple of hours until he had to go to work. He’s supposed to be retired, too, but “doing nothing” is not an option for him.

Ran some errands and then drove to nearby city to have lunch with one of my house-mates from college. Back home for some (daylight!) fetch with Lucy and Hattie (the Golden Retrievers). A little meditation then off to the gym for 45 min. Really didn’t have much trouble filling the day but there was a noticeably different tempo. Almost anticipation. Probably what dogs experience when they find themselves on the other side of the “invisible fence.” Waiting for that shock that never comes.

Stay tuned.

My offices

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office

While cleaning out my office yesterday, I reflected on the spaces in which I’ve worked over the past 40 years. During my radio days I spent most of my hours in a studio (on-air or production). When I came to Learfield they didn’t have a real office but provided a tiny desk on a tiny sun porch attached to the old house.

sunporch

I don’t have a photo of my desk but it looked just like this one (in which Roger Gardner is hiding his face for some reason). I got a nicer space when Jim Lipsey and I each had a corner of a big old room in that same house.

mccarty_office

We eventually built the nice building we’re in now and I had a nice office just a couple of down from our CEO. That proximity mattered in those days (perhaps it still does). The carpet was a different color in these offices to visually make the point we were special.

I suppose we once needed offices to put things like filing cabinets and typewriters and chairs for visitors. And we needed a private space to talk about things that others weren’t authorized to hear. My little office started feeling like a small prison cell (albeit with a big window).

In an era of smart phones and MacBooks, a building filled with little square rooms lining hallways seems… quaint. Hardly the best use of space. But then, where would I keep my stapler.