I walked past a jewelry store in the mall this weekend and noticed a boom box sitting by the entrance. It seemed out of place. Then I noticed a young man talking on his cell phone but in a strangely animated way. He was doing what we used to call a “live remote” on a local radio station. “This is Bobby Steele and I’m live at Zales where they’re having a Sizzlin’ Summer Sooper Sale!” Many years ago I did my share of remote broadcasts but in those days it involved a lot equipment. Big speakers, antenna, transmitter, banners, cables, microphones, etc. Took a while to set up and take down. But there was –in our small town– a sense of something special happening. This guy before me is on…the…radio! How cool. The young man I walked past in the mall could have been any guy talking on the phone. To those listening on the radio he probably sounded just as dumb I I did with all the gear. But there was no magic happening there at the mall. Back to you.
Category Archives: Personal History
XM Satellite Radio Update
I’m still mindlessly surfing the channels. They give you a little remote so you’re less likely to crash while doing this. I really like the…what do we call them? Jocks? DJ’s? Talent? They’re there, but not too there. I’ve noticed that I’m driving less aggressively. In less of a hurry. No doubt, because I am enjoying my time in the car more. Early favorites: Fred, Top Tracks, The Joint, Soul Street, The Groove, CNN Headline News.
Beyond AM. Beyond FM.
I subscribed to XM Satellite Radio today. The idea of “subscribing” to radio still feels a little funny. I got in the car, turned it on and punched up one of the 100 channels. It was Jimi Hendrix singing “Like A Rolling Stone” from the Monterey Pop Festival. I honestly don’t think I’ve ever heard that version on the radio before. It’s too early to offer any useful comments on the service because I was punching through the channels like Tom Hanks running through the toy story in Big. A snippet of an interview with Melissa Etheridge interview on the E! channel… a rousing gospel (soul, not country) number on one of the Urban channels… CNN Headline news. I had to stop and come inside. I have a few long road trips coming up so I can really evaluate the service. Oh, the audio quality was pretty amazing. Stay tuned.
XM Satellite Radio
Next Tuesday I’m scheduled to have an XM satellite radio installed in my 4-Runner. If you haven’t seen the TV commercials or billboards, it’s a new subscription radio service that offers 100 plus channels of digital music and information for about 10 bucks a month. The line-up of news channels is pretty amazing: USA Today, Fox News, CNN Headline News, Weather Channel, CNBC, BBC, C-Span. I don’t know anyone that has the service yet and that sort of surprises me.
The parallels to cable TV are obvious. I remember when cable was first introduced and people asked, “Why would you pay for TV when you can get it for free?!” The answer seems equally obvious these days. HBO alone gives me Band of Brothers, The Soproanos, Six Feet Under, Sex and the City, Oz, The Wire, Dennis Miller and on and on. I have no idea if satellite radio will catch on. Or what impact –if any– it might have on traditional radio.
For me it’s about choices. The Web has spoiled me in this regard. I don’t want to listen to what “most of the people” want to listen to. I want to listen to what I want to (know many good reggae stations?). And I’ll pay to do so. On a recent 15 hour drive from Florida to Missouri, I found a few radio stations I liked but I quickly drove out of range and back into “radio wasteland.” I never really thought Internet radio was much of a challenge to traditional radio. I’m not so sure about this.
July 19, 1947
Radio station KBOA went on the air on July 19, 1947. Today, 55 years later, that station doesn’t really exist anymore. Frequencies have been sold and shifted, call letters transferred. But the station’s early days make a great story. Five years ago I created a website in an effort to preserve some of that history. My father worked at the station for 30+ years and I worked there for a dozen. I recently came across recordings of jingles, old commercials, and oral histories by the men who put the station on the air.
It was a time when radio shows had names (Noonday Serenade, Rise and Shine, Old Camp Meetin’ Time) and commercials were read live or recorded on huge discs. The recently unearthed interviews offer a unique insight into the time, the people and the communities they served.
Mr. Rudy
Mr. Rudy will celebrate his 81st birthday this month. He calls himself “The World’s Oldest Disc Jockey” and it could very well be true. He got his first announcing job in 1946 at WLOF in Orlando, Florida. What’s that…56 years? I don’t think he’s been on the air continuously but he was never off for long and always near the edges. I stopped by (they’ve messed with the call letters and frequencies so much I can’t tell what’s what) in Kennett, Missouri, a few weeks ago and stood in the back of the studio while he finished his shift. I can safely say there is nobody else on the air doing the same kind of radio as Mr. Rudy. He’s celebrating his birthday by performing with, The Redneck Rhythm Rangers at the Kennett American Legion Building. (Musical footnote: one of the musicians is Wendell Crow, father of Sheryl).
Never too hot for a Kool.
Something new on the smoking scene. New to me, at least. On a recent trip to Florida I walked to a nearby supermarket. The temp was in the upper 90’s and some of the employees were taking their cigarette break (just outside the entrance, of course). Rather than stand there puffing in the heat and humidity, someone had pulled their van up and parked it just outside the entrance to the supermarket. The sliding door was open and the AC was blasting. They even had a little cooler for drinks. They seemed to be taking turns crawling into the van to cool off. It was like a little nicotine tail-gate party.
Got a light?
I don’t think people rant about smokers the way they used to. I know I don’t. It would be like ragging on crack-heads. I don’t know any former smokers. Banned from their offices, from restaurants, even from bars in some cities… they huddle outside buildings in their shirt-sleeves in February, stamping their feet trying to keep warm. I always wonder what they’re talking about. Are they pissed about being “sent outdoors?” Or are they embarrassed that their addiction has brought them to this sorry state of affairs?
I try not to stare as I walk by. I hate seeing their furtive, defensive glances. They remind me, for all the world, of convicts in some 1940’s movie, milling around The Yard…waiting for the screws to tell them to go back to their cells. Or street bums huddled around a burn-barrel, sucking on a butt in some bombed-out neighborhood. Curious as I am about what drives these lost souls, I never approach them. I came close recently.
I was in the airport, walking past one of those little glass rooms they’ve constructed for smokers. There they were, jammed in, staring at the floor, the smoke so thick you could barely see them. I couldn’t resist. I took a picture. I took a couple. When they finally noticed me, some waved…one guy gave me the finger. I know it was insensitive of me. Like sneaking into the amputee ward at the hospital. But I couldn’t help myself. What –I wondered– could compel someone to sit in that little smoky room?
But that sounds like I have more sympathy than I do. Most of the smokers I know are pretty militant these days. (“Fuck you! I’ll smoke if I want to.”) I mean, where do they think it will all end. What goes through their heads when they see an emphysema sufferer dragging that little oxygen bottle through the mall? “Whoa. That looks like a drag.”
This is a recycled rant from an old Website. I dug it out after noticing that more people seem to be smoking today than ever before. Seems like I see lots of young smokers. I admire their fearlessness in braving what will probably be a long and agonizing death.
Telemarketers
Douglas Rushkoff is a best-selling author (Ecstasy Club and Exit Strategy, among others) which I would have thought somehow insulated him from annoying telemarketing calls. Guess not. He says he used to get rid of them by shouting, “I’m bleeding!” and hanging up. He has a new technique I can’t wait to try.
I confess to being a little nuts on the subject. I once told a telemarketer that I had just caught my wife and next door neighber in bed and had to hang up so I could kill them both. “Don’t do it, buddy. They’re not worth it. Believe me, I know,” pleaded the telemarketer.
While returning from a neighbor’s house later that evening, I passed sheriff’s deputy going the other way. Seems the telemarketer had gone a little beyond his prepared script and called the law.
I once asked the telemarketer if his mother knew what he was doing? “Yes, she’s very proud of me,” he insisted. “No, she’s not,” I explained. “She’s mortified by what you do but doesn’t love you enough to tell you the truth.” A supervisor came on the line and chewed my ass for abusing her guy. “See what you’ve come to?” I told the young man… “your supervisor loves you more than your own mother.”
500 Walter Street
I sold the family home this week. Not really a home for the last few years, but the place my brother and I grew up. I actually remember some of the places we lived before Evelyn persuaded John it made more sense to own than rent. I think they paid about $5,000 for the house back in the early 50’s. Probably paid $50 a month for 30 years. Evelyn had our trash guy plant a couple of little sycamore trees and they grew to 70 foot monsters before John had cut down because he got tired of “having leaves all over the yard.” Evelyn was gone by then.
50 years at 500 Walter Street boiled down to set of mis-matched golf clubs; a box of trophies (Blane’s); some really heavy high school year books; a set of 78 RPM records from the 40’s; a couple of pounds of mold and mildew; and a lifetime of memories. Everyone kept asking me if it was difficult to sell the house in which our family had lived all those years. I said no and that was more true than not. But for two days I kept hearing Peter, Paul and Mary singing The House Song.
This room here once had childish laughter
And I come back to hear it now and again
I can’t say that I’m certain what you’re after
But in this room, a part of you will remain.