Ralphie, Annie and Pierre

My post about favorite old time kid radio shows failed to mention that I was a pretty big fan of Little Orphan Annie. How many of the hundreds of thousands who have watched A Christmas Story since it appeared in the '80s know why young Ralphie was thrilled to see Pierre Andre's signature on the letter welcoming him to the Orphan Annie Secret Society, qualifying him to decode the secret message at the end of the program. I am among that elite half dozen or so, either old enough or sufficiently into things that stopped being important long, long ago. (If they ever were.) Any decent, died-in-the-wool old time radio nut knows that network radio announcers were stars in those days. One of the great ones in Chicago was Pierre Andre. He worked at WGN for 30 years. With a name like that, as he read those secret code numbers, how could he help but have a voice and delivery well calculated to make you send your parents out for a can of Ovaltine. A letter with his signature would probably bring a good figure on eBay these days.

No Leg Lamp this Time

I asked Santa to bring me a leg lamp. He did not deliver the goods. Mrs. Santa probably intervened. You would think the old lady would have developed a decent sense of humor after a lifetime of living with old Jelly-belly.
Oh boy, a lamp in the form of a shapely female leg like the one young
Ralphie’s old man won in the “ A Christmas Story” movie is just what I need to complete my nostalgic toy room. I could set it between the 1941 Zenith Radio and the big picture of a 1930 Packard. Or maybe it would look good shining its light on my Hammond Organ from the 60’s. No, the only appropriate place for a leg lamp is near the four pictures of 50’s pin-up girl Bettie Page. She died last week at age 85 and keeping her images illuminated by the leg lamp would be just right. My nostalgia den would be the envy of every old boy who dreams of his own playroom.
It’s probably not fair that guys get away with being little boys with their toys forever while girls are supposed to grow up and become responsible, nurturing citizens. But hey, life is not fair. Never was, never will be. Marriage counselors should warn starry eyed young things about what guys are really like and how it gets worse as we age, so the girls can opt out before it’s too late.
Young Ralphie’s old man and his prized leg lamp are just one of the hilarious and charming scenes from Jean Shepherd’s Christmas tale. It started out as one of his late night radio monologues back in the 40’s, often about growing up in Hammond Indiana. The story eventually found its way into Shepherd’s book, “In God we trust, all others pay cash.” It became a holiday tradition 25 years ago, when he narrated the movie version. I just watched it again and I agree with those who say it's just as funny as before, even if you see it every year.

They made a big thing of the film’s 25th anniversary back in November, but Hammond, Indiana got short changed. It was celebrated in Cleveland, where most of the outdoor scenes were filmed. You could tour the family home where Ralphie lived, take a shot with his BB gun, meet some of the original cast members, and even ride in the fire truck that rescued Ralphie’s nutty friend Flick when he got his tongue stuck on the cold flagpole.
Some of the indoor scenes were shot in Canada. I know about that because of a discussion on the antique radio internet group that I check into. The big console radio that Ralphie listened to so he could decode the secret messages with his decoder ring was a 1940 Canadian Westinghouse model 780. Only an old boy who loves his toys could possibly care about a detail like that. Several of the guys in my online group have that same model in their antique radio collections. Remind me to look for one of those. But let us not tell my wife about it, eh?
The best part of the month long celebration and convention in Cleveland would have made me head South in a hurry if I had known about it in time. I could have come home with my own 45 inch full size Christmas Story leg lamp from the gift shop for a hundred bucks. Some of our local stores advertised a 20 inch, table lamp version for 40 bucks, a pretty poor substitute for the long, luscious one that Ralphie’s old man loved. I guess I should have bought myself one of those anyway, and just told Santa to forget it so he could restore domestic harmony at the North Pole with a “Yes, dear. You’re right, dear. No leg lamps this year, dear,”
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Bugs's Greatest Hits

My best Christmas gift: Bugs Bunny drawn by my 9 year old grandson, Alex Lynn. The kid has talent. The printing on the music says Bugs Bunny's Greatest Hits.

Billy, Rick and Barack

The media pundits have already named Pastor Rick Warren the next Billy Graham. There's a funny story going around that when someone asked Billy Graham about Rick Warren he said, "Who?" I like that. I hope it's true.
Billy got burned by his involvement in presidential politics and he vowed never to do it again. Rick Warren is up to his armpits in presidential politics. The Reverend Mr. Graham is older and a whole lot wiser.

Changing times, racing chimes

NBC Television has started using the old NBC chimes, but those three notes that were so much a part of American life in radio's better days are now speeded up to keep up with our breakneck pace of living. I don't have an accurate stopwatch, but I'd say the original chimes took almost four seconds to play, while the current, souped-up TV version races by in just over one second. I spent far too much time trying to find a recording of Three Chimes of Silver, the song that Meredith Willson wrote for the NBC Network's 25th anniversary in 1951. I recall hearing it at that time. It appears that ASCAP or the Willson estate has the song locked up tight, making it unavailable. I hoped I might find a bootleg You Tube of it, but no luck. Surely there must be recordings of the NBC anniversary program that featured the song. Can you help me with this one, Harry? The chimes used in 1932 and thereafter were produced by an electro-mechanical device that was something like a glorified music box. It had rotating drums with little projections that plucked tuned reeds. You can hear those chimes along with earlier ones and the history of one of radio's most memorable sounds here.

Henry and Fanny

Harry Heuser has asked me to talk more about favorite radio listening when I was growing up in the '30s and '40s. I wonder if it will be a surprise when I reveal that the most important program for my family, including me at a pretty young age, might well have been One Man's Family. It was a family drama, too good to be called a soap opera. Maybe we loved it because the Barbour clan of Seacliff San Francisco, with their conservative stock broker patriarch, liberal philosopher son Paul and his troublesome siblings were so vastly different from our life in rural Michigan. Whatever it was, it captivated us and a good part of the nation's listeners for 27 years.
The program was written by the very prolific Carlton E. Morse, who also turned out an adventure series, I Love a Mystery. That one seems to get more press from collectors and historians than the family drama. But all I remember about it is the theme song, Valse Triste, and the characters' names, Jack, Doc and Reggie. On the other hand, I can still become transported to California and find myself thinking about the Barbours as if they were real. That could indicate that I'm weird or that Morse was a great radio writer. Take your choice.
Some years ago I acquired a tape of Chicago radio historian Chuck Schaden's interview with Carlton E. Morse. He said that when he sat down at the typewriter to write the program he went into trance-like state and when he came out of it, an entire episode had virtually written itself.
Morse was so good at little things like names for his characters, maybe not so little after all. Even though it was radio and we could not hear the "U" in "Barbour," we saw it when we read about the program. We knew they were no ordinary Barbers. I became quite enchanted with Paul. If I could change my name, my persona and become a different person I would be about 45, handsome and wise. I would be Paul Barbour with a "U" in my last name. Paul's elusive love interest, his wife of a very short time having died, was Beth Holly. She was referred to but seldom appeared on the program by the time I started listening. There was something mysterious there. I thought "Beth Holly" was the prettiest name any woman could ever be given. Was she a girl-next-door, Doris Day type? No, Paul would choose a more exotic, Rita Hayworth look alike. One of the Barbour daughters, I don't remember if it was Hazel or Claudia, married a Brit, Nicholas Lacey. Another perfect name. Paul had a daughter, or maybe she was adopted, called Teddy. Oh, the teen age traces that she kicked over. I could look up all these details but it's more fun to speculate about it.
The program was introduced with, "One Man's Family is dedicated to the Mothers and Fathers of the Younger Generation and to their Bewildering Offspring." I don't know how staid old Father Barbour managed to avoid a heart attack over the things his bewildering offspring threw at him.
Morse had a gift for hiring the right actors, too. I never quite recovered when Michael Rafetto had to give up his role of Paul when his voice became too hoarse.
Russell Thorsen was alright in the role. But he was not Paul Barbour.
Let us assume that this is being read by persons much younger than I, as just slightly less than one hundred percent of bloggers are. They are now thinking, has this guy gone senile? Did my grandparents get that caught up in radio shows? First of all, we didn't call them shows. They were programs. There was "The Jack Benny Program." and "The Johnson's Wax Program with Fibber McGee and Molly." That's the way they were introduced on the air. If your doddering old grandparents speak of a favorite TV program, you can be pretty sure it comes from their radio listening days. There was a TV version of One Man's Family. If I ever saw it, it must have been forgettable.
I must get away from all this nostalgic wallowing and rejoin the real world. But I still like the Barbour's world better. California, here I come.

Old Time Kid Radio

Reviewing my youthful radio listening preferences forces me to admit that I was a weird kid. The Lone Ranger, touted by historians as the greatest of all the kid shows, didn't do much for me. Of the WXYZ shows, I liked the Ranger's great nephew, Britt Reid of the Daily Sentinel lots better. As The Green Hornet, he beat the cops at catching the bad guys with his Black Beauty vehicle that sounded like an overgrown bumble bee. I found crime fighting through investigative journalism far more appealing than catching bad guys with guns and horses in the Old West. Mike Axford's phony Irish accent when he spoke of "The Green Hairnut" was pretty funny. And there was Miss Case. Did she and Reid have a thing going? There was Kato, the Hornet's Japanese valet. Like some other radio characters, he had to change his ethnicity or disappear from the show, so he became a Filipino. Those were strange times. I'm glad I was there to experience it.

Clifton Mercer's Daughter

I just found this comment from Cliff Mercer's daughter on my post about his work at WGN radio.

Sarah Mercer said...
This is Clifton Mercer's Daughter.My Father passed away peacefully he was a great man and loved his music and his carrer. Thank you for remembering


Sarah left no way for me to contact her personally so I do it here with the hope that she will see it. Thank you, Sarah. Your dad and I were both named Clifton, going through life with those two "F's" in the abbreviation, everyone assuming we are Cliffords. When I was a deejay and we got actual fan mail, I made a big thing on the air about spelling it with one "F." Which resulted in tons of mail addressed to Cliffffff Martin. I guess the post office wondered what that was all about.

R. I. P. Bettie Page

The greatest of all the pin-up girls has gone to that great, under the counter mens magazine in the sky. It's the end of an era. A sad day for us old guys and for Bettie's huge cult following of youthful fans, including lots of young women who want to look like her. Here is the Nurse Bettie get-well card drawn for me by Grand Rapids, Michigan artist Jack Snider when I was in the hospital. It was the start of what became my antique room/Bettie Page Shrine. I was saying so long to my troubled esophagus. Yes, it's possible to live without one. But I don't recommend it.
And here's a post imported from one of my other blogs, the "religious" one. More accurately, the one about religion.

Patsy and Bettie
Patsy and Bettie?? Now there's as unlikely a combination as you will find. Let me explain.I think I'm in love with Patsy Cline and I have the notorious Bettie Page, legendary pin-up girl to thank for it. I always liked Patsy's "I fall to pieces, " "Crazy" and some other songs but never paid a whole lot of attention her music. Then her most unusual treatment of the old gospel song, "Life's Railway to Heaven" showed up on the soundtrack of the Bettie Page film. I didn't recognize the voice but I had to know who that was. So I ran through the credits at the end again, and there it was. Patsy Cline. That song took me back to my Methodist Sunday School days. Usually sung quite fast in country gospel style, Patsy did it slow, plaintive, almost ballad-like with a backup vocal group making chugging train sounds.Gives me major goosebumps. Turns out that the Grand Canyon Railroad used her recording on their commercial. Thanks for the memory and the music, Patsy. And thanks to Bodacious Bettie.
Perhaps even more unlikely than a pairing of Ms. Page and Ms. Cline is the fact (I swear it's true) that I came home from church with several pages of Bettie Page tattoes that are available, given to me by our resident tatooed lady. Her name is not Lydia. I said to my poor old wife, "I think I will go under the needle." She said "I think you will sleep on the couch."

On The Media

I am a media freak. "Freak" being defined as a low class afficiando. A weekend "must hear" is NPR's On the Media. So much fascinating stuff that it makes my brain overload and swell up. Hosts Brooke Gladstone and Bob Garfield offer an ingsightful and good humored look and listen into the wacky world of reportage and general media madness. Sometimes they resort to satire that is so bad it's good, leaving me laughing out loud. Last week's show ended with a badly sung but hilarious parody of Cole Porter's "Night and Day" all about the terrible things media is doing to our brains. It had me cackling so hard that it brought tears. I can hardly wait for next week's show to hear listener comments about it. The song is here.

The Kate and Ted Show

I believe I have ATD. Associative Thinking Disorder. Everything reminds me of something else, often something that happened a great many years ago. I am at risk of becoming one of those boring speakers who says "that reminds me of a funny story" and then launches into an anecdote designed to wake up those in the audience who have been nodding off. Such stories are seldom memorable.
My funny story is inspired by Harry Heuser's mention of Kate Smith right here.
My mother and I listened to Kate Smith's mid-day talk program in the late thirties or early forties. Kate's announcer/co-host/mentor, who played a major role in making her America's beloved songbird, was Ted Collins. My mother, a pretty straight laced and proper woman of that era, was uncomfortable with all the happy talk between those two. She thought Kate was inappropriately giddy and giggly with that married man. Land sakes, land o'goshen and my stars and garters! Were Kate and Ted "carrying on?"

WGN's Cliff Mercer has died. The romance of radio.

I was doing my Saturday night show in Muskegon, Michigan in 1971, listening to WGN's legendary broadcaster, Franklyn MacCormack (that's the correct spelling) on the earphones. The "L" word is used too much, but he earned it. One of the great, golden voiced network announcers on "Jack Armstrong, the all American Boy" and many other shows, he became very successful after network radio went away, with his all night Meisterbrau Showcase on WGN. More than a few romances, marriages and probably some pregnancies were attributed to MacCormak's reading of song lyrics and poetry. I was not above stealing some of his knowledge of the big bands and immediately passing it off as my own on my show. He had worked with many of the great bands, announcing remote shows from the Chicago ballrooms. He became ill while doing his show that night and went home. Another old time "booth announcer" WGN staffer Cliff Mercer, came on the show and announced that Mac had died. He played tapes of Mac's big band remotes and continued to host the night show for several years.
I have wondered whatever happened to Mercer and couldn't find much about him. But WGN has now put an article about him and a link to what's listed as an interview on their website but it contains just a few words. It's here.
I did a shamelessly copied, poor man's version of Mac's late night schmaltzy music and poetry show, sponsored by a high class local jewlery store. I listen to the tapes sometimes and become reminded all over again that radio was, in every sense of the word, both broad and specific, a most romantic medium.

"Let's Pretend"

Harry Heuser's post about that much loved radio kid show really got my memory cells and hyperactive radio glands glands percolating. Harry was surprised that I wrote to the show asking for a piece of transitional music in one of the dramatized stories rather than something a child would be more interered in. That can send me off in a couple different directions. First off, I wasn't a small child, but probably a young teenager. Today's vintage radio program collectors categorize the shows in their databases. But back in radio's so-called golden age, radio listening was a family event. Mom and pop and the kids all heard the kid shows, soap operas, dramatic and musical shows.Crime shows, too, and I didn't become a serial killer. There might be the big console radio in the living room and maybe a small set in the kitchen. If you wanted big city entertainment in your home, you got it from radio. That's all there was. The family listened to it together. "Gathering around the family radio" is not a Norman Rockwell myth. It was really like that, incomprehensible as it might be to today's generation. It's probably impossible for anyone under age 70 or so to imagine the role that radio played in American family life in those days. My parents heard "Let's Pretend" with me and I listened to "Amos 'n Andy" along with them.
Ok. I popped off about that part of it. More personally speaking, I was probably born to be in radio, fascinated by the medium at an early age. When I won a grade school spellintg bee and got to tour WWJ and The Detroit News plant as a prize, the only question I asked at WWJ radio was "what's the difference between a record and a transcription?" I had to know how radio worked and why those golden voiced announcers told me "the following program is recorded and transcribed." Incidentally, as late as the 50's, when I got into the radio business, we still had to let the audience know that those musicians and actors were not really in the studio but they had been recorded. I even had to enter on the station log the time when I made that announcement. As a deejay, I would say "these records are just that" to make it legal. I doubt that anybody out there in radioland thought that Doris Day and the Les Brown Band were realy there with me, but the FCC was slow to change outdated rules. Now they have gone the other way. But that's a subject for another discourse, rant or whatever it turns out to be. So thanks, Harry. You ask good questions.

Whither Rod McKuen?

Is old Rod still around? I was holding a cat, reading Sara Teasdale and Rod's verse "Me and the Cat" popped into my head. He would be 3 or 4 years younger than I am, so I suppose he's still in business. Back in the 70's he was hailed as the all time most commercially successful poet. The envy of all the starving versifiers.

Tommy Dorsey ... Fallacious Forward

Trombonology's tribute to Tommy Dorsey, the bandleader who did everything right, reminds me of one of those heart-tugging e-mail forwards I got not long ago. Well meaning friends are always sending me things they think I need to know, whether for inspiration, patriotism, warning about some awful virus or who knows what. This one was presented a lot like one of Paul Harvey's "rest of the story" tales. The punchine was that Tommy Dorsey wrote the gospel song, "Take my hand Precious Lord" when his wife and daughter died. Thomas A. Dorsey did write it under those very circumstances. But he was an important, African American blues,jazz and gospel musician who worked with Mahalia Jackson among other stars. I wrote an article for our local senior paper about those legends and hoaxes that are partly true at best and most often totally false. But folks will go right on believing what they want to and the forwards keep piling into my mailbox. Oh, the junk we must wade through to find the good stuff the internet has to offer. Oh boy, I just had a dreadful thought. Do my blogs sometimes contribute to the cyberjunk that's piling up? Oh well, You know what they say. One man's junk is another man's treasure. Did anybody really say that or is that just another legend?

My Big P's

One of my several quirks is a tendency to compartmentalize things. Anything that shows up in this blog must be at least loosely related to media or pop culture, often with a definite tilt to things that stopped being popular a long time ago. Radio, TV, Newspaper, books, film, music, internet and such like. Other predilections, propensities, proclivities,preferences and passions are covered elsewhere, should anybody care. With something like 140 million blogs out there, I am not much concnerned about a big readership for this one or the others. I do it because it's fun.

Manatees, Apples and Yams

Only Jean Shepherd could leave me fascinated, intrigued, laughing out loud, running to the computer to find out all I can about Manatees. His tale of befriending one such sea creature in the Everglades, feeding it McIntosh Apples and Sweet Potatoes, is a rare treat for anyone who loves a good story. It's here.

The First Internet President

The Obama team's massive database had a big part in getting him elected. If I sign up, I can probably receive e-mail from the oval office. FDR had radio, JFK had TV. BHO has the world at his keyboard. He will have cyberspace and I expect that whoever follows him in that office will have outer space. What amazing times we live in. I'm just the slightest bit disappointed that I won't live to see that, but my ten year old grandson will.

The Funny Side of War

If I were a crusader type, filled with evangelical zeal and passion to teach the world something it needs to know, I might run around accosting strangers and asking, "Do you know about Jean Shepherd?" If one or two replied, "Sure, I still play some of them 78 rpm records of hers on my Victrola," I'd be in trouble. I would be forced to relive my days as Country Western deejay Cousin Clif in Flint, Michigan. That would not be good. But I digress again, leaving my readers, all two of them, with yet another Cliftonhanger.
Shepherd's claim to fame with the present generation is the 25 year old film, "A Christmas Story" about Ralphie, his air rifle and his old man's leg lamp. He was one of the past century's great writers/story tellers/raconteurs. Only Shep, who was elected to the radio hall of fame a few years ago, could do a laugh-out-loud funny 45 minute monologue about wartime humor. It's on Max Schmid's site. Get it while it's still there.
If my campaign to get Shep elected president of the universe fails, there's always my divine Sara Teasdale to go to bat for. Maybe I need to delete the "If I were" from my first line up there.

Art Bell and James Dobson?

Only in America. They were both inducted into the radio hall of fame last night. I listened to hear former inductee Orion Samuelson, one of the great farm broadcasters, eulogize WGN's Bob Collins. Uncle Bobby and several others who have gone to whatever awaits old broadcasters were inducted at the annual Chicago ceremony.

Playing With Words

Harry says I told a story that's a Cliftonhanger. That's funny. Playing with words is the most fun you can have without doing something illegal, immoral or fattening. On second thought, having too much fun with words can get you in trouble if directed at one who takes things literally and personally. I used to say what I thought were pretty innocent, brilliantly creative things to women, anticipating smiles of appreciation for my great cleverness and wit. What I got ranged from righteous frowns to disgusted glares. I don't do that anymore. The hypersensitive, painfully correct times we live in forced me to give up that kind of verbal recreation. Or maybe I just got too soon oldt und too late schmart.

Election Night Nerves

Although long retired from the broadcasting business, I still get seriously nervous at election time as I remember some major gaffes I committed while covering election returns on radio. You might ask, if I was and still am generally not interested in who is running for what office, why was I at election headquarters, microphone in hand, authoritatively reciting all kinds of names, numbers and percentages that meant nothing to me. If you were in small and medium market radio you had to do everything. I'll write more about that in another post one of these days.
I loved the three memorable years I spent at KOJM in Havre, Montana except at election time. (Say it "Haver" with a short "A.") It's not "Harve" and don't try to make it French like the seaport city it is named for. What a last frontier and land of opportunity. I would drive a hundred miles to tune a piano, emcee the Miss Havre Pageant on Saturday night and speak at three churches on Sunday Morning. One Sunday in Chinook, Montana,I rattled on in my great wisdom while those Montana Methodists left in mid-sermon to rescue their burning roasts. That green-eyed Norwegian girl who became Miss Havre was pretty cute. What was her name? That town's claim to fame was its annual national record low temperature. Anyway ... My first politcal faux pas brought only tolerant smiles when I played a political commercial and gave the guy's opponent credit for paying for it. Things got serious when I pushed the wrong button and put a political commercial on the air on election day. I was quickly informed that I had committed an illegal act of such magnitude that it might jeopardize my job and the station's license, if not the whole State of Montana. The boss literally made a federal case of it, drafting a letter to the Feds. It said I had been heavily scolded for my gross error and warned that any future such breach would find me no longer in the business. I don't remember if the candidate opposing the one whose spot I aired heard it and complained, or if the boss heard it and wanted to cover herself before the excrement hit the air circulator. Even as late as the 60's, which was when it happened, broadcasters were still scared to death of the Federal Communications Commission. They could yank your license if you broke the rules. Deregulation, automation and satellite broadcasting have pretty much ended that. Incidentally, the then program director at KOJM, Stan Stephens, later became governor of the great State of Montana. I made another election day broadcasting blunder or two after returning to Michigan. I have mercifully forgotten the details. I only remember the boss calling me to correct something dumb that I said. I probably announced that the incumbent mayor had been elected county Drain Commissioner or something equally crazy. I wonder if some election night party goers heard it and decided to give up drinking. Sports got me in trouble, too. But that's a tale to be told later, after I recover from these true confessions.
I must leave now. I'm starting to sweat just thinking about that dreadful election day in the Great Northwest.

Covering the coverage, then and now

The great demographers tell me that something under one percent of the world's 140 million bloggers were alive during FDR's first term. Should any young voters who put Obama in office happen to stumble upon my geriatric ramblings, they will probably think I have gone senile when I claim to be one of a great many Americans of the Roosevelt years who did not know that the president could not walk. The media, consisting of AM radio and the daily newspaper, kept the secret. If President Obama sneezes, the whole world will know about it.

Media Mania

You say you are relieved that the pre-election punditry is over? You ain't seen nothin' yet.

Horsing around with Sara

Hold it! Do not fire off a comment telling me that if I want to stump for Ms. Palin I should learn how to spell her name. Get off your political high horse, dead horse, dark horse or candidate you are horsing around with. I do not talk or write about politics because I am shamefully dumb about the political and governmental process. It is ignorant , uniformed voters like me who put crooks and scoundrels in office. Jean Shepherd, that great radio philosopher, was right. If you don't know what you're doing, don't vote. As for what this post is about, I quote a past president who got in trouble for horsing around with the truth: Let me make this perfectly clear. I refer not to the Governor woman, her political candidacy, her appearances on late night TV or anything else about her. I speak of another, very different Sara who has no "H" on the end of her name. She did but she dropped it. Borrowing a line from yet another commader in chief, who horsed around in the oval office, I did not have sex with that woman. I couldn't because she died when I was three years old. My love for her is pure. The lady's name is Sara Teasdale. She wrote poems. One of them made me fall eternally in love with her when I discovered it thrity-five or more years ago. Maybe forty-five. It was a long time ago. I believe this lovely little verse says something simply beautiful and beautifully simple to all of us, even though Sara named it...





Advice to a Girl
No one worth possessing
Can be quite possessed;
Lay that on your heart,
My young angry dear;
This truth, this hard and precious stone,
Lay it on your hot cheek,
Let it hide your tear.
Hold it like a crystal
When you are alone
And gaze in the depths of the icy stone.
Long, look long and you will be blessed:
No one worth possessing
Can be quite possessed.


You can have your Emily Dickinson. Give me Sara. I have high hopes of meeting her in heaven. We will sit on a cloud and I will read her verses to her with my best radio voice. She will say Oh Cliffie, my words never sounded better."

Holy Hollywood Habits

Watching former movie star Mother Dolores Hart being interviewed on the Catholic channel, it came to me that there was another well known film star who caused quite a stir when she traded her Hollywood habits for a nun's habit. I can't pull the name out of my memory.
Seems like she might be deceased. Have I gone totally senile or did this really happen? Help!

Buster and the Barton

Harry Heuser, whose Broadcastellan is a beautifully written and researched journal dedicated to "keeping up with the out-of-date" asks me to share a bit about my experience accompanying Buster Keaton's silent films at the annual Keaton Society Convention that's held in my town every Fall. First off, I'm a second or third rate piano player with no organ training and little justification for ever playing a theater pipe organ in public. So why did I do it for three or four years back in the 90's? That's easy. It's all about a total fascination with the instrument. I was involved in the local group that has restored the 1929 Barton Pipe Organ in our downtown theater in several stages over many decades. Over on the right, that's organ technician extraordinaire Jim Fles, tearing the Mighty Barton limb from limb, wire from wire. Could he possibly know where all those wires go? Not only did he get it back together but he added lots of new sounds to the original eight ranks (sets) of pipes. Most fortunately, there are many such groups and gifted technicians around the country and the world, lovingly rebuilding the old organs that escaped the wrecking ball. And there's a surprising number of brilliant young organists who have fallen in love with the theatrical style, generally attributed to Jesse Crawford, that came and went away long before they were born. In the photo below is Jim on the left, showing off his reborn baby. On the right is the late Stan Stone, who spent a lifetime servicing pipe organs.
Dan Barton, whose firm installed their organs in many theaters here in Michigan and around the country, was a circus musician. He loved the brightly painted circus wagons and when he went into the pipe organ business, he wanted his instruments to be as much fun to look at as they were to listen to. The red and gold console like ours is called the circus wagon model.

I wanted to show off the organ as best I could, letting newer generations experience the silent films as their grandparents did, accompanied by an instrument that was designed for that very purpose.
Not blessed with the musicianship or technique to actually compose a score to go with the films as many of the professionals did, I just watched the picture and improvised noise to go with the action. I got away with it pretty well, playing bits of old songs that the various scenes brought to mind. When a pretty maid came into view I might use "A Pretty girl is Like a melody" or maybe "Pretty Baby." One of the films had some restaurant scenes so I played "Let's have another cup of coffee, let's have another cup of tea" and "A cup of coffee, a sandwich and you." For the Keaton film, "The Cameraman," I composed sort of a poor man's score, weaving "You oughta be in pictures" into the accompaniment. For a scene where Buster was singing the old "Prisoner's Song ...If I had the wings of an angel," I played right along with him as he mouthed the words. I always wondered if there were any old timers in the audience who recognized those old tunes. When the villain appeared, I just played some scary minor chords and progressions down at the low end of the keyboard. Harry Heuser's high class journal, too good to be just a blog, and my middle class organ playing do have a thing or two in common. They are entertaining and they come from love.
Whatever my playing lacked, it was entertaining, and that's what the theater organ is for. It does not edify as in a church or concert hall. It weeps and wails for pathos, makes outrageously cute and funny sounds for comedy. It has horns and sirens, bells, whistles, xylophones, drums, all kinds of sound effects, all played from the massive console. The British fellow who invented the theater organ called it a unit orchestra ... a whole orchestra in one unit, playable with the fingers and feet of one very busy organist. I didn't get paid for the three or four years I made all that more or less musical noise, maybe because I let it slip that I would probably pay them just to be able to sit at the huge console. It looks like the cockpit of a jet plane, surrounded by three keyboards and countless knobs, buttons, levers, switches, things to push, pull and flip. And down below there's a keyboard to play with my feet for the low, low notes, plus some more big buttons, called pistons, down there to turn on some of the sound effects. The theater pipe organ might be the most complex, demanding musical instrument ever built. To play it well, you would need extensive, concert level training plus an understanding of registration. That's organ language for knowing what to do wih all those gadgets to coax the various sounds out of all the hundreds of pipes and assorted noise makers at your command. If you have the opportunity to watch a good professional theater organist's hands, as you can find on some you tubes, you will see him constantly pushing buttons and flipping tablets, changing the sound with almost every measure, jumping to one of the other keyboards for a few notes or a sound effect, playing on one keyboard while setting up sounds on another one. It is a demanding mental and physical exercise that is fascinating to watch. Any good keyboard artist can play the notes, but only a real theater organist can make the instrument sound like a whole orchestra and more. At the console for this year's Keaton convention was Chicago organist, Dennis Scott. He is president of the Chicagoland Theatre Organ Society and the Silent Film Society of Chicago. Of the big name organists who have played our Barton, I found Gaylord Carter, who played the "Amos 'n Andy" theme music on radio, to be the most entertaining. For beauty of registration, getting gorgeous sounds out of the then small instrument, my vote goes to Lee Irwin. He was one of the radio organists on WLW's legendary "Moon River" program.

Because they are so complex, pipe organs are notoriously temperamental. Pipes refuse to play while others might sound off all by themselves with no keys being pressed. When that happens, a good organist just plays around the offending squawker, playing notes that fit pretty well with it, until someone runs up to the pipe room and fixes it. One of my more memorable moments happened when the blower that supplies the air to the pipes died. No air, no sound. A woman from the audience wrote in her small town newspaper, "The show was very entertaining until Mr. Martin's organ lost its air." There's no business like show business.

Elvis's co-star now a nun

Former movie star Dolores Hart, who played opposite Elvis in 3 films, now a Reverend Mother, Prioress of an abbey, will be interviewed by Father Groeschel Sunday night Oct. 26 on the EWTN Catholic network. Should be most interesting. If you miss it, they repeat it on the following Saturday. I will probably have something to say about it on my "religious" blog, Goofy Church Stuff.
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Buster Keaton Lives

The Damfinos, the International Buster Keaton Society, came to my town again this fall for their annual convention. The Keaton family had a lakefront Summer home in an actors colony here in the 1920's. Here I am with Eleanor Keaton, Buster's widow on the left and Adrian Booth, his co-star in one of the classic Keaton silent films that I accompanied on the Barton Theater Pipe Organ on the right. The photos were taken in the mid 90's.



Eleanor was much younger than Buster, but they had 26 good and loving years together. Buster died in 1966 and Eleanor was with us until 1998. At my last report, Adrian Booth was still alive at 90.




Photos courtesy of dear friend, show business afficiando and friend of the stars Al Flogge

TWO BEAUTIFUL GIRLS

50'S pin-up girl Bettie Page in her famous Nurse Bettie pose, painted for me from a wall hanging that's over the Hammond Organ, by my very talented sister-in-law, Peggy Shumate. The other beautiful girl is Willie, still sleepy after a cat nap on her Hammond Organ. She owns the antique Zenith Radio, too. I will get a shot of her claiming it.

There's Something About a Hammond

Thanks to the grand and very special friend who has learned the joy of giving, my office/den/ antique gallery/Bettie Page Shrine now sports a Hammond Organ as well as the Antique Zenith radio over which I am seen peering geriatrically in the profile. Those 60 year old Hammonds are still treasured today,whether playing a corny skating rink tune, rockin' gospel, cool jazz or screaming rock. They do it all. No, mine's not a legendary B-3. Paired with a Leslie Speaker, a nice Hammond B-3 can bring up to $10,000 these days. Mine is an M-3. I saw one like it in the thrift store for sixty bucks. It's the first Hammond tone wheel model to be put in a spinet cabinet for those who did not have the cash or the room for one of the big boys. I only play schmaltzy theatrical style but I guess my M-3 could rock pretty good if I knew how to do it. Lots of rock groups use it. Right over the console there's a big wall hanging of Nurse Bettie,as well as the painting you see in the previous post,and a big poster in her undies. And there's a 1930 Packard that hangs over the '41 Zenith radio. We old boys must have our toys. I wrote about that on one of my other blogs, appropriately named Farting Around

Perfect Pitch Puzzle

Charlotte Harris, only female member of Lawrence Welk's TV orchestra, was interviewed at the close of last night's old Welk show on PBS TV. She said her entire family of six all had perfect pitch. I think she referred to herself, three siblings and both parents. How rare is that? Has it happened before? Has anyone done a family study about it? There is a fellow who advertises in the musician's magazine and on the net, claiming he can teach us to develop perfect pitch. Most scientists who are into psycho acoustics say you're either born with it or you're not. Does anybody really understand the phenomenon?

Days of Our Lives retro

Days of Our Lives has gone into a hilarious black and white, 1940's story line, complete with period sets, costumes, dialogue and even cigarettes dangling from their mouths. I am totally cracked up. I imagine the cast rolling on the floor in hysterics after they taped it. It's high camp.

What rhymes with "Saskatchewan"??

It must be 60 or more years ago that I heard a goofy song that I never forgot. It had wild, wacky rhymes for that Western Canadian Province that still make me laugh out loud. I probably heard it on that very popular CBC show, "The Happy Gang." That's the kind of fun material they did. That's where I first heard "When Yuba plays the rhumba on the tuba down in Cuba." Now there's a witty ditty. Many thanks to the Saskatoon Public Library for sending me the words to the Saskatchewan song. They tell me I need to put the copyright stuff at the bottom. I don't want the RCMP, headed up by Sergeant Preston and Yukon King, riding into town, carting me off to the Provincial Pokey. Here's the song:
=================================================
What a de-light when I think of the night that I met you on, in
Sas-ka-toon, SAS-KATCH-E-WAN;
Oh, what a thrill was the spill down the hill I upset you on, in
SAS-KATCH-E-WAN;
Swift as the breeze was the race on the skiis I would bet you on - in
Sas-ka-toon, SAS-KATCH-E-WAN;
I'd walk a-head while you rode on the sled that I'd fetch you on, in
SAS-KATCH-E-WAN;
We might have been in the Alps,
Just like you see in the pa-pers,
Risk-in a cou-ple of scalps,
And cut-ting Ca-nad-i-an Ca-pers;
It's gon-na be nice to come back to the ice that I'd sketch you on, in
Sas-ka-toon, SAS-KATCH-E-WAN;
I'll char-ter a plane or a hon-ey-moon train that I'll get you on, in
SAS-KATCH-E-WAN.
And tho' it's ten be-low, when you're in love, you feel as tho its
nine-ty-eight a-bove and so, a-way you go, a-cross a Par-a-dise of ice and
snow...
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I ask you, is Canada a great country or what?

----Words and Music by Irving Ceasar, Sammy Lerner and Gerald Marks." The
sheet music for this song that we have in our collection was copyrighted by
Paramount Music - "Copyright MCMXXXVI by Paramount Music Corporation, 1619
Broadway Avenue, New York, NY. International Copyright Secured."
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POOR OLD HELEN TRENT

A woman I know just turned 35. That’s still pretty young these days. She showed no signs of birthday trauma. I remember when 35 was middle age, especially for women. If a lady did not have a man and a picket fence by the time she hit the big three-five, she was on a downhill slide into spinsterhood.
I told my friend to ask her grandmother, who loved radio soap operas when she was young, if she remembered “The Romance of Helen Trent.” Nowhere in the pop culture of that era was the plight of a woman over 35 more dramatically portrayed than in radio’s longest running daytime serial. For over 7,000 episodes, from 1933 to 1960, harried housewives all over America sat at their kitchen tables with a small radio and a big bottle of Lydia Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound for “female complaint, “ as the announcer introduced the program.
“And now, The Romance of Helen Trent, the real-life drama of Helen Trent, who, when life mocks her, breaks her hopes, dashes her against the rocks of despair, fights back bravely, successfully, to prove what so many women long to prove, that because a woman is 35, or more, romance in life need not be over, that romance can begin at 35.”
The “true-life drama” of Helen Trent was grand fiction, turned out by radio’s most prolific writers, Frank and Anne Hummert. They wrote over a hundred shows, including “Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons,”, “Jack Armstrong the all American Boy” and the one we all loved, “Ma Perkins.” But there really was a
Lydia Pinkham. Nobody could make up such a perfect name for a patent medicine. It beats the fictitious “Betty Crocker” all to pieces. Lydia started out concocting home remedies that she gave away, and eventually turned her most famous elixir into a goldmine. It contained a fair amount of alcohol, so perhaps it helped in more ways than one.
The Pinkham product was not Helen’s radio sponsor, but she could have used a lifetime supply of it. In 1933 she was a 35 year old dressmaker who fought her way to the top to become a big time costume designer in Hollywood., victimized by high powered movie moguls and attracting the wrong men along the way. But there was one great love. If you ask his name from some folks who were around during radio’s great days , you will be surprised at how many will reply, “Why, it was Gil Whitney, of course!” The Hummert writing team gave Gil his own set of dramatic soap opera problems. Once a “brilliant and prominent attorney,” he was a secret government agent for a time and at one point was paralyzed in a train wreck. The cruelest blow of all for poor Helen came when Gil married someone else.
I listened to a Helen Trent episode online. I don’t know what year it was from, but I’m guessing it was sometime in the 40’s. The commercial featured a pint of AeroWax for your floors for just 29 cents. In this one, Helen is lured to an apartment by a fake message that she thinks is from Gil Whitney. She comes upon the dead body of a movie bigshot, and of course she is accused of doing the dirty deed. I dare not say more. My heart is racing and I’m getting much too excited for an old guy, wondering how poor Helen will get out of this latest predicament.
That story line might look like something you can see any night on TV. But there is a difference. Radio made us use something that you don’t need much of when you watch television. It’s called imagination. We drew our own mental pictures of Helen and Gil and all the enemies Helen made on her climb to success. That’s why old time radio is often called Theater of the Mind.
In one of the great moments of radio drama, the final episode had Helen on a balcony, waiting for Gil to finally come to her with a declaration of love. The balcony collapses with a terrible crash, followed by silence. Then we hear Gil Whitney’s voice. The last words to be spoken on of one radio’s great daytime serials: Helen? … Helen … it’s Gil … Helen!”
Helen Trent was still 35 when she went to soap opera heaven in 1960. All over the country, the Lydia Pinkham’s was diluted with tears. It still makes me teary because radio’s golden era died with Helen Trent.

Rent Radio City

You say you've got an idea for a really big show? You can rent the Radio City Music Hall for $118,000. Theater organist Jack Moelmann took those big bucks out of his personal bank account for a concert featuring him and other lovers of the Mighty Wurlitzer. The theater pipe organ hobby might not be the world's best known diversion, but its addicts love it with a passion seldom seen.

Great song lyrics

If you like to read "old standard" song lyrics, take a peek at Relative Esoterica's grand listing of songs recorded by Jo Stafford. Gershwin's "But not for me" always makes me smile at the last line that is not often heard. I don't know if Jo Stafford used it. "When every happy plot ends with a marriage knot, and there's no knot for me." I suppose it's a pun that doesn't play well unless you see it in print and maybe that's why it isn't often sung.

R. I. P. Jo Stafford

Jo Stafford has gone to that great bandstand in the sky. I leave it to others to remember her hit recordings. I prefer to smile at the musical jokes she gave us as
Cinderalla G. Stump and Darlene Edwards. I was at a radio station in Montana not long after the Jonathan and Darlene Edwards record appeared. Hardly anybody knew it was Jo and Paul Weston. I played it and said it was a local housewife and I was the pianist. Would you believe some listeners actually thought the playing was pretty good. Lots of tin ears out there. Had fun with that for weeks before someone caught on. Good thing, as management, getting complaints about that awful singing, somehow failed to see as much humor in the whole thing as I did. Here's Jo as Cinderella G.Stump with Red Ingle and his Natural Seven.

Sedaris makes me guilty

I am on a monumental guilt trip for failing to properly appreciate David Sedaris, who has been declared a national treasure.

So Much for Soulmates

Do you believe in Soulmates? Do you believe in Jonathan Livingston Seagull? Do you have any idea what this crazy old blogger is talking about? Richard Bach wrote the seagull saga around 1970. Big, huge best seller. One of his later books was all about finding his soulmate, actress Leslie Parrish. Remember her? She was Daisy May in the '59 Lil Abner film. they got married. Then they got divorced. Bach's somewhat strange comment was that they were still soulmates but just couldn't live together. I think they both remarried. So did they get new soulmates? Are they living is soulmate sin? This is all too mystical and metaphysical for me.

Lil' Abner 1940

The cover of the 1940 DVD release of LIL ABNER says it stars Buster Keaton. It doesn't. He had a very minor role, a rather stupid and stereotypical Indian. No doubt most offensive to any present day Native Americans who might see it.The film got bad reviews as a failed attempt to put Al Capp's Dogpatch characters on the screen. I loved it, laughed my butt off. Silly and great fun.

Shep's Great July 4.

I got out my old VHS of Jean Shepherd's "Great American Fourth of July." Forgive the tired cliche' but I have to say it: It's a laugh riot. I'm almost ready to go out on a limb and declare Shep the best storytelling humorist of his time ... maybe the whole 20th century. Funny, funny FUNNY. And not as predictable as Keillor or Sedaris. You know what to expect from them and that's part of their appeal. But Shep has what for lack of a better term, I will call range. He can surprise me.

George's Hair

My only interest in George Carlin was his pony tail, which I envied. How did he do that? He was balder than I am but he had enough hair back there for a fine tail. Why can't I do that. If I say stuff that shocks people will my hair grow?
My favorite routine, that nobody mentions, is the one about the difference between baseball and football. That's funny.

Radio Days

I just watched Woody Allen's Radio Days again. Every fan of old time radio and 20th century pop culture oughta see it. Great memories of how important radio was back in those long gone days. Those too young to have been there won't believe it, but it was really like that. Radio was probably a more vital part of American life than TV is today because it had less competition from other media. Woody's parody of some of the great radio stars was right on. Especially the "Bill Kern" sport story.Wildly funny, clearly a grand jab at Bill Stern and his over-the-top tales.

Rethinking Oprah

Scott is right ... good reviews can be bought. I would find much to admire about Oprah if she gave me a car.

Crude Critique

I like Joan Rivers. She doesn't take herself seriously. She's just a good old broad who likes to get laughs. Don't like Oprah. Takes herself seriously. On a mission to make the world better. Don't like Ellen. Dances too much and has funny eyes.

Pageant Time

It's that time of year when the young babes enter their local scholarhip pageant, hoping to one day become Miss America. I would love it if one of the women would throw out her carefully prepared speech about her agenda for saving the world and say something like, "What the hell do you think I'm here for? I want to win the damn contest and get a scholarship and all the goodies that go with it. Isn't that what we're all here for?" She would get my vote.

Virtually Literal??

Literal is one of the good words that's gone bad lately. I heard a commercial that says a furniture store is literally blowing the doors down with their door buster sale. I'm not going near that place. Who wants to get clobbered by flying door parts. And there's the car commercial that says you can now literally take a test drive on your computer. Huh? What? If I crash, will I literally die? Will my insurance literally cover it?

Green Tea, Brown Presidents

Mr. Obama is a shoe-in. He's got Oprah. The most powerful woman in America says she did a happy dance when he clinched it. I don't want to see her happy dance. Ellen Degeneres does quite enough dancing for me, thank you. Imagine those two happy dancing together. Dr. Phil would proably join them. Whatever it takes to get ratings. That might make me throw a heavy object at the TV. Oprah plugs a book, it sells a million. Now she's endorsed green tea. Where can I buy some green tea stock? I wonder if Obama drinks green tea.

Great Commercial Lines

From a commercial for the Electricians Union: You should hire a union electrician because he knows his amps from a hole in the ground. That's funny.

Shake it, Sister Kate

One of the two things I don't like about modern jazz is, it's usually played without vibrato. A sax with no shake is just a honk and a trumpet sans vibrato is a blat. I'm not asking for Guy Lombardo's simpering saxes, just a little vox humana.
That's why I don't listen to classical organ music, either. Give me the trembling tones of a theater organ, please. Maudlin when done right. I love it. I will reveal my other problem with jazz after I recover from the virtual wounds I expect from angy jazz fans.

Harvey Korman has died

Thanks to blogger Scott for being the first to let me know. If there's comedy in heaven, Harvey and God and the angels are now breaking each other up, rolling around on the clouds.

Mounting Bettie

Got your attention, didn't I. But wait! Before you flag me or invoke your God-given duty to clean up the mess that is the blogosphere, let me explain. Those who know me best and wish they didn't, know the only thing I mount these days is new photos, paintings and drawings of the bodacious 50's pin-up girl Bettie Page on the wall of my den of nostalgic iniquity. She shares space with a Packard roadster from the 30's and the huge Zenith radio representing the 40's. I am dangerously close to finding room for a vintage Hammond Organ to add to the mix. But then I will need a Hammond clock, which the amazing Laurens Hammond invented before his organ rose to great heights. I must figure out how to post a You Tube so I can share my naughty, nostalgic wall of wonder with my fans. All two of them.

Foolish Finales

Thank God for Boston Legal. They actually had a season finale without a main character getting killed. Two straight guys who love each other have a fight, make up and go fishing. That's my kind of finale.

Crazy album covers

Audiophiles are all excited about the possible return of old fashioned vinyl Lp's that they can play on their vacuum tube equipment. They think they can actually hear a better, warmer sound from the old technology. Maybe they can. Others, like me, who don't hear all that well anyway, are more interested in seeing those big 12 inch album covers come back.Give me Julie London!! Who needs those dinky CD covers in their plastic cases. Warning: Do not go to these wacky covers unless you are in a position to laugh your butt off while you roll on the floor. It's from a great antique radio group that I check every day.

Keillor's aging audience

Sixty-five year old Garrison Keillor filled our 1700 seat theater last week. I was not there. Too pricey for me. The local reviewer wrote, "He regaled an audience of 1725, the majority of which appeared to be his age or in the vicinity." If I could find the review of his previous performance here in 2004, I suspect that the audience was younger. The sage of Lake Wobegon has given way to the young and more edgy humorists like David Sedaris. Too bad they didn't use the restored theater pipe organ as an opener. The old folks would have loved it. I'm not sure the Wurlitzer in Minnesota's Fitgerald theater is operational right now.

Old Farts and Computers

It's time for me to grind out another article for our senior magazine that's published by the area council on aging. I think it will be "Why You Need a Computer," suggesting that people my age (slightly older than dirt) oughta get computer-friendly enough to get some of the good stuff that's available on the 'net. Will anybody be convinced? Not likely. Too bad.

Hammond and Leslie

One of the great examples of 20th century American pop culture is a revolutionary musical instrument invented in 1935 that changed the way music was made in church, theaters, on rado and in homes. I wrote about it bsck in '06. Hook a 60 year old Hammond B-3 up to a Leslie speaker and you will send a present day jazz fan into ecstacy. You will also send him to the bank to get funds to buy it from you for several thousand bucks if you are willing to part with it.

Radio Organists

Here is an extensive list list of organists and the radio shows they worked on. It was my memorable opportunity to re-create WLW's famous late night "Moon River" program with Lee Irwin, who was one of the WLW organists who provided the beautiful music for the sentimental poetry on that show. I stood beside the pipe organ console at our local theater and read the poems, including the original opening and closing lines used on WLW, while Lee Irwin re-created his "Moon River" style that he played on the WLW Wurlitzer. Parts of the WLW organ were in a restaurant pipe organ North of Cincinnati for a while but I believe the place is now closed and I'm not sure what has happened to the organ. Our re-creation was taped and carried on the local station where I was a deejay. One of these days I will put a bit of it on here. I will say Lee Irwin got more beautiful sounds from that eight rank Barton organ (that's pretty small as pipe organs go) than any of the other big name performers who have played it.

Funny White People Stuff

The latest STUFF WHITE PEOPLE LIKE is so funny it made me laugh my left buttock off. And the right one is getting loose. Alright, you nutty grammarians. Don't bother to tell me I shouldn't oughta start a sentence with "And."

A Fine Romance

I just watched Fred and Ginger in "Swing Time." That's fun. That's romance. Comcast is not all bad after all. At least they give me Turner Classic Movies. Well they don't exactly give it to me. But it's worth the price to wallow in nostalgia.

Ghosts and Vampires

I watched a bit of "Numbers" last night, but all that math boggles me. I went to bed and listened to an old "Silver Theater" radio show with Joan Crawford emoting something fierce. I couldn't take much more TV after watching Jennifer Love Hewitt help ghosts cross over to the other side and the vampire guy leap tall buildings with a single bound while his eyes get all weird and his neck biting teeth stick out. I wonder if the actors on those shows laugh their butts off at what they do. Probably do, all the way to the bank. The vampire show ended with a bit of a song, as referred to in the previous entry. At least it was from my era and I could understand the words. I think it was a Glenn Miller recording that included the word "Moonlight." OK, I get it. Vampires do their thing by moonlight. But they might better have used Bing Crosby's "Moonlight becomes you."

Old Time Radio Drama Music

Has anybody else thought about how different the use of music was in OTR drama as compared to the way music is used in TV today? Listening to old radio shows, I am struck by the absence of background or mood music during dialogue. I find myself yelling at TV producers to eliminate the loud production music or turn it down, especially the contemporary "message songs" that end so many of the popularTV shows. I can't understand the words, I'm too old to be familiar with the songs or to appreciate how they somehow bring it all home to young viewers. I have no doubt that's what it does for them, but it goes right past me. OTR made wonderful use of music for transition or to set the scene, but was seldom used during the actual dialogue. In the days of radio station pipe organs, later replaced by the Hammond with its percussive attack so perfect for musical exclamation points, many organists who learned their craft accompanying silent films came up with brilliant musical ideas that helped the story along, moved the listener to a new scene or indicated passage of time. Great organists like George Wright, Dick Liebert, Gaylord Carter, Paul Carson and Rosa Rio knew how to make those keys and pedals tell a story with just a few well chosen notes. Take some time to check those links. Paul Carson played the "One Man's Family" theme music. Gaylord Carter made "The Perfect Song" a national institution as the "Amos 'n Andy" theme song. Dick Liebert and Rosa Rio both worked with Ted Malone. George Wright, the king of Theater organists, worked on many soap operas.
TV borrowed its production values from the movies, with elaborate musical soundtracks that often outlive the films. Today's theater sound is clearly designed for the very young who grew up with ear-busting audio. If I want to experience good writing and acting without uncomfortable musical distraction, I find it in "Old Folks Radio."

Paul Harvey's "Angel" dies

Paul's beloved wife, known to his fans as "Angel" has died after a long battle with leukemia. She was 92.

Spiritual, not religious

Another great blog is Stuff White People Like. My favorite entry is this one.

Bing Was Hip

A blogger who calls herself Trombonology quotes Artie Shaw, who said Bing Crosby was the first hip white person. Please check out http://relativeesoterica.blogspot.com/It's one of those special blogs that rewards you for wading through the junk to get to it.

Ben Stein Expelled

I saw Ben Stein's documentary, or whatever it is.
I don't have a whole lot of interest in the science/Intelligent design debate.
Playing the role of a film reviewer, it didn't impress me. The producers, trying to keep it from being a dull documentary about science, philosophy, religion, Darwinism, creationism and freedom of speech all rolled into one, jazzed it up with quick shots of Hitler, the Berlin Wall, Nazi death camps and who knows what. Way over the top.

Favorite Berlin Song

Has anybody else ever heard it? FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME. I know of only two recordings but I hope there are others. An instrumental by Mantovani and a superb vocal by Bunny Paul, A Detroit singer. "For the very first time there won't be a next time ... all my love affairing was simply preparing to love for the first time, you." And the melody is as good as that poetical lyric.

R. I. P. Local Radio

It's that time of year for thunder storms and power outages. When the power comes back, is that a power inage??
There's not much point in having a battery operated radio these days because there's no local radio to turn to. No local radio news. I was in radio when it was an important part of the community. You could could find out everything from who died (yes, there were daily radio obits) to who hit a pole and took out the power. Local radio announcers, news directors and deejays were public figures. We were stars. Today's only radio stars are Rush Limbaugh, Paul Harvey and few other syndicated talkers. They are not local. How about Paul Junior. Can he really sound that much like the old man? I'm not about to buy batteries to listen to them.

WLW

After dark, when AM radio reception is hot, I often turn the mighty '41 Zenith pictured above, to 700, WLW in Cincinnati. I'm not greatly interested in their news format. I listen because of history. That's where Doris Day, the Clooney Sisters and other big stars got their show business start. Fats Waller was a staff musician. For several years WLW was the world's most powerful regular AM broadcast band station, operating at an unprecedented half a million watts. No other station before or since has been allowed to do that. WLW ... magical call letters for any old time radio buff.

Famous Cliftons

I wonder what the average age of bloggers is. I'm guessing it's something under 30, and that less than a dozen of them around the world ever heard of Clifton Fadiman, for whom I was not named but I wish I had been. He was pretty smart. Learn who he was in the BROADCASTELLAN entry for April 22.

Fadimanesque Name

Thanks to Harry Heuser and his invention of what I assume is a new word, I now use my real, actual first name. Not Clifford. Clifton. I could say I was such a bright child that my parents named me after the erudite panelist on the Information Please radio show. But that would be a lie and I always tell the truth. Just like everyone else who puts things on the internet.

Unpopular Culture

Herewith, forthwith and henceforth, this blog shall be devoted to my geriatric journaling about Media, entertainment and so-called pop culture, whatever that is. Most of it will deal with stuff that stopped being popular a very long time ago. There might be an occasional foray into something fairly contemporary.

My Problem With David Sedaris

Now that I have your attention and you're ready to blast me for failing to appreciate the great humorist, let me admit that there's nothing wrong with him. It's literally my problem. There is something wrong with me. I am narrowly focused on the spoken word . I'd rather listen to it than read it. I have read none of Sedaris's stuff, only listened to it. I've read just a bit of Garrison's Keillor's work, with a whole different feeling from what his radio work gives me. I need the voice and inflections. I have read none of Jean Shepherd's books. Based on listening, I put him near the top of the great humorists of the past century. I like good adlib talkers. Sedaris is a writer who came to fame reading his stuff aloud on NPR. There is a big difference in writing for the printed page and writing spoken word material. When Sedaris did his show in this town, he lost his place in his reading at one point. Apparently that just added to his charm for his fans who nearly filled the big theater. And there's his voice. He said, in an NPR interview, ":Sometimes I worry that I never advanced beyond adolescence.. My voice didn't." He does sound like a teenage boy, which might be one of the more unpleasant sounds and creatures you can encounter. I raised two of them. Some wise person said teenagers are God's punishment for enjoying sex. I suppose the kid voice adds to his appeal for some, but with my need to hear a "radio voice": in the very old fashioned sense of the term, it doesn't work for me. Keillor has a wonderful voice made for radio as he closes his eyes and tells his tales of Lake Wobegon. He knows how to make love to a microphone. He loves the radio medium and he has used it to become somewhat of a phenomenon. Shepherd was a great adlib storyteller, also with a radio background. Like Keillor, he lets you think he's forgotten where he's going with it and then brings it all back full circle. In Sedaris's NPR interview, he also said, "Crack open my skull, a 12 year old would pop out." I do like that. I have no doubt that if Keillor heard that interview, he would say "me, too." He loves to talk about farts and boogers. Seems to me that it's even funnier when 60 year old Keillor does it than when I hear it from the teen age sounding voice of Sedaris. You expect it from a kid. It's funny from an old guy who still has the kid in him. So it's my spoken word obsession that won't let me appreciate Sedaris and his considerable gift. Same problem with Ira Glass, too. His stories are great but his voice irritates me and he talks too fast. Oh boy, I will hear from his fans, if any of them read my geriatric ramblings. They will tell me they can't stand Diane Rehm because she talks too slow.

Liza in NYC

I asked a gay friend if it's OK for an old straight guy to like Judy and Liza. He assures me that it is. I'm not a big Liza fan and the critics didn't much care for New York, New York. But what do they know. Good music. I liked it a lot when it came out and I will be watching it again the 26th just after midnight. The TCM channel is the only thing I use the digital box from Comcast for. Comcast, the cable company we love to hate.

Keillor's Joke Show

Garrison's annual joke show hit new highs (or was it new lows) in bad, bad jokes. I loved it anyway. It almost makes me want to contribute to Public Radio. But not quite. Any medium that lets him get away with a story about a farting high school class can't be all bad. His closing story about the cow, in such wonderfully bad taste that I won't even repeat it here, still makes me laugh when I think of it. Onward and upward, Garrison old boy. I don't care what you write in Salon or anyplace that gets you in trouble. Just give me some radio fun on Saturday night and I'll be a fan forever. One question, though. Whatever happened to booger jokes? Have they all been told?

Have you visited Lake Wobegon?

It surprises me somewhat when I run across someone who has never been transported by the magic of radio to Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon, Minnesota on a Saturday Night. But realistically, his 4 million listeners is a tiny, tiny drip, not even a full fledged drop in the bucket when compared to the huge millions of folks watching TV at any given moment.

Harry's Magnificent Obsession

I know what I will be doing with the rest of my life. I will read Harry Heuser's broadcastellan blog about great classic radio shows, movies, plays, books, writers, actors and on and on and on until my eyballs fall out. He says he's "keeping up with the out of date." It will take the rest of my days to read what he writes. He has already produced huge volumes and continues to write new stuff at a rate that boggles me. What a labor love.What a monument to the art of research. What a magnificent obsession. I love it. Why did I not know about this when he began it? The photos, the audio clips, the writing style are enough to make a fellow OCD type go happily nuts. Where else could I hear Arthur Godfrey as a staff network announcer before he became a big radio and TV star, introducing Fred Allen and his guest, Gracie Fields? It's wartime and Godfrey reminds us that if we have more than five tires per vehicle, we must sell the extras to the government. If we don't. we won't get our windshield sticker that lets us buy gas. Allen quips that his car has more stickers than Mrs. Roosevelt's suitcase. Where else might I see a video of a very young Judy Garland in a duet with Fanny Brice in her Baby Snooks dress? Where does he get this stuff? It's amazing. It's obsessive. So check it out. Get obsessed with Harry and me. You will never be the same.

IT'S MUPPETATIONAL!

Watching some of the original Muppet Shows with my 8 year old grandson, I'm reminded of what a genius Jim Henson was. Those funny creatures are utterly believable. They're real. And how fortunate that 8 year old is to have a mom, my splendid daughter, who exposes him to old stuff. Every kid should know about Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy and Lydia the Tatooed Lady.

Thanks, Father Bob

Friend Father Bob says I ask good questions. That comes from what my boss at the radio station in Flint told me many decades ago,long before General Motors fell apart and Michael Moore made Flint famous. Or infamous. He said, "I notice that when you interview someone, you ask a question and then answer it with your own view before he can answer. Don't do that!" He was right. I adopted the "be interested in what the other person has to say, then shut up and listen" formula and it made me a pretty good interviewer.

Bettie Page in poor health

Sad news for Bettie Page fans. The world's greatest pin-up girl, 84, is being cared for in a California nursing home. We love you, Bettie.

Wally Phillips

The great one died earlier this month at 82. Only words good enough for Wally and WGN Radio are "legend" and "institution."

How do you look naked?

Here's a good song about it

April in February

Guess what 50 year old recording just showed up on a cat food commercial. Oh yeah, April Stevens with her naughty "Teach me Tiger." I hope they paid her well for using it.

Jeep Song

Talk about infectious!! I just watched this Jeep commercial 15 times. Don't waste time trying to identify the singer or where you can buy it. It's production music, made for the commercial. Even if you get through to the agency, they won't tell you anything.

Farting Around

I have not read a Kurt Vonnegut book. I did stumble onto one of his funny lines. That was enough. It says it all. What more can you say.What more do I need to read. "Our purpose here on Earth is to fart around."

Miss W-DOG, where are you now?

Too bad I can't locate a photo of Miss W-DOG. To answer the inevitable question, why would she want to be Miss W-DOG, I can only say it was the 50's and things were very different. We had a contest to choose the young woman who would be so honored. It was rigged. She might have been the only applicant. I composed a terrible, awful, unspeakably bad rock'n' roll Official Miss W-DOG song for her. She thought it was beautiful. I am embarrassed to remember that some local group performed it at the Michigan State Fair. She was the local grocer's daughter. Sounds like a title for a racy paperback, doesn't it. Oh Carolyn, Miss-W-DOG. Where are you now?

The Banks of the Wabash

A blog I read every day is "All I'm Saying." It's written by a fellow who is back home again in Indiana after visiting far away places with strange sounding names. Most of the time I don't know what he's talking about because I am twice his age plus ten and quite out of touch with anything that happened after 1954. I like his blog because he has fun. Doesn't take himself with great seriousness. He found the ancient April Stevens recording of "Teach Me Tiger" that caused an uproar for being too sexy. It's on his blog for all to hear and laugh at how funny it sounds half a century later. Hearing it again for the first time in decades, I laughed out loud at how hot it was in its day.

Hawkey Night in Canada

I spelled it the way our neighbours to the North say it. Unless you live in Michigan, that is. We have Canadians to the North, East and South of us. Sounds like a Cole Porter lyric, doesn't it. Anyway ... it sure made me feel good to find someone who knows even less about sports and geography than I do. Sports came into the conversation and the Toronto Maple Leafs were mentioned. This person said, with genuine innocence, "Why would they name a team after a leaf?"

The Maple Leaf Forever

Here's my nomination for one of the most infectious, makes-you-want-to-dance songs of the late 20th Century. It's Bobby Gimby's Canadian Centennial Song. It almost makes me want to go to a hockey game.

Call the Undertaker

I must retract the post of December 29. There is something that's more fun than player piano music. It's a player piano accompanied by a live theater pipe organ. Check out this You Tube. Jim Riggs. If it doesn't make you dance, call the undertaker right away because you are dead.

What Would Shep Say?

Listening to Jean Shepherd's New Years Eve show from the mid 60's, I found myself wishing he were still with us. Wouldn't you love to hear his commentary on the present state of the world!

Great Communicators

One of the Fox News Shows referred to two of the current political hopefuls as having one-on-one communication skills comparable to two long gone radio and TV personalities that today's young voters probably never heard of. Two of the greatest broadcast communicators of the past century. Arthur Godfrey and Dave Garroway.

APRIL STEVENS

If anybody remembers April at all, it's probably the recording of "Deep Purple" that she did with her brother, Nino Tempo. Unless you are awfully old, which is not likely because old people don't do blogs unless they are in their second or third childhood like me, you never heard April's "Teach Me Tiger" and "Gimme a little kiss." That's your loss. They were pretty close to auditory pornography. She looked pretty hot, too. What blood I have left gets overheated at the mention of her name. I would try to play my old 45 but it might spontaneously combust. Or maybe I would.

Two Antiques

A 1930 antique with his 1941 antique. The thing on top is the famous Zenith Wavemagnet antenna.

I've Been Adopted

You know you are over the hill, too old to get in trouble when a sixty year old woman says she wants to adopt you as her father. Oh well, while it might not be quite as appealing as having a young thing call me her sugar Daddy, it's a whole lot safer. OK kid, you've got a dad to replace the one who died many moons ago. I agree with you that he and I would have liked each other. Maybe he's looking down and giving us his blessing. I hope I stay around long enough to do some good fathering for you.