Larry Listened

Can a compulsive talker be a good listener? Anything's possible but it doesn't happen often.  Can a professional talker ...news person, public speaker, commentator, broadcaster, talking head ... be a good listener?  The best  ones are very good listeners.  Larry King did it.

What's a woot?

I suppose it's quite normal for the Facebook Generation to use some old words that shock the old folks and invent some new ones to confound us. There's a strange word that one sees all over the social network world these days.  It is apparently an exclamation, usually to express great pleasure.  This is the only time I will ever type it and I refuse to say it. That's good because the Facebookers would get a good laugh upon hearing a geezer use their word.  Woot!

That was Burlesque

I'm not yet sure if I want to see "Burlesque." I prefer to remember the not-so-glitzy Avenue
Burlesque in Detroit.  I showed my birth certificate to get in to see Scurvy, the baggy-pants comic and
Blaze Fury, the original garter girl.

I won't play Misty for you, Evelyn

I've been thinking about Clint Eastwood's 1971 film, Play Misty for me.  He was a deejay and Jessica Walter was his crazed fan, Evelyn. Every deejay, especially those of us who worked overnight, know  there are some dangerously lonely women out there in radioland. Viewing that film has helped many an overheated deejay to keep his pants on.

Bob Hope's Writers

I was not a big Bob Hope fan.  Oops, I should fix that before I get deported for un-American activities. I might better have said I am not a fan of the snappy, topical one-liner kind of comedy that Bob did so well. Old ski-nose was a great and giving entertainer who probably made more people laugh, including our  service men and women, than anyone before or since.

Being a serious student of humor and comedy, I have  greatest admiration for the writers who put all  those gags in Hope's mouth. To his  credit, he often praised his writers for their good work.  There's a book, THE
LAUGH MAKERS  by Bob Mills, one of Bob Hopes best writers. If you want to know how it was done, this  will tell it all. Just think of the leg work and research it took to make every one of Bob's shows topical and local, something the members of each audience would relate to. When he did a show in my town he fired off a one liner about Nunica, a very small village near here.  He did that wherever  he went, making the audience laugh at things they know about. His overseas trips are full of topical gags that poked fun at something about the war or the particular military base where he was performing.

 I took a comedy writing course years ago and turned out quite a few groaners. When I am about to undergo some sort of surgical procedure I think up a topical  line to amuse the doctors and nurses. It doesn't always  work.  But my colonoscopy nurse thought it was real funny when I told her I drank my gallon of  Kickapoo Joy Juice to get cleaned out.  She was too young to know about Li'l Abner and  Dogpatch, so she thought I made up a funny word that had "poo" in it. If you don't know anything about that procdure I won't tell you why it was funny. An old friend told me my sense of humor is warped and untimely.  A local priest says it's devious.  They are both right.  That's why it's so much fun.

Zippy one liners are not my chosen brand of  humor.  I like a story or monologue that might or might not have a punchine but has laughs along the way.  If it's topical, that's even better.
Garrison Keillor does that well when he takes the Prairie show on the road. He always has something local and topical for the audience.  If he's in Florida his Lake Wobegon tale might include a bit about a Minnesotan vacationing in the Sunshine State.  If he's out West he speaks of a Lake Wobegon rebel who left the Lutherans and joined a California cult.

I guess I can't handle the shotgun comedy style.  I need to savor the humor. A belly laugh is always good but a  knowing chuckle is nice, too.
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I Love Wires

Do I know where all these wires go and what they do?  More or less.  Sort of.  How many wires does it take to go wireless?  As many as I can find places to plug them into.

R. I. P. e-mail

I continue to moan and groan about the demise of e-mail, the last vestige of traditional letter writing. Today's college students don't use e-mail because "it's too slow."  They need the instant communication gratification of texting and social networking. To quote Chester A. Reily, "What a revoltin' development this is."  Nobody under 70 knows who Reily was.  I'm damed if I will tell them.  Let 'em wonder.
Oops, I got so hot under rhe collar that I left the N out of "damn."  No, I was  not thinking about dames, as in "there is nothing like one."  Nobody under 70 probably knows about that, either.  They think a dame is a British broad that went to the Queen who touched her with her royal whatever it is and said, "You are now a dame."

Facebook: I don't get it

The current storyline on the funny comic strip  "Zits," about mom and pop and their teen age son,  has the parents wishing they had not looked at Jeremy's Facebook page.  How true to life that is. The language and content I see my adult offspring and their kids puting on Facebook for all the world to see leaves me reeling.  So why do I look at it?  I don't  know. Ask Jeremy's mom and pop. Ask Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman.  Scott comes up with the stories and Borgman draws the pictures.  I wonder if they have teen agers.  They seem to understand them well.

Alright, every generation has its own communication style, designed to be incomprehensible to the old folks. I accept that.  I am old enough to be the father or grandfather of most users of Facebook.
But I'm puzzled by those bright, educated, literate members  who seem quiite content to communicate with nothing beyond "John Jones like Mary Smith's status." I just don't get it.
Most have abandoned e-mail, the last vestige of real letter writing.  One can get in touch with them only through a Facebook message. They check that every hour on the hour, apparently to determine who likes their status or who wants to be their friend. I don't get it.
ON THE OTHER HAND ...Silly old guys can have far too much fun with it.

Oldest Profession

It's sports.  Oldest profession.  I was about to say second most popular and profitable.  But I'm not sure that's true. Going  way back to the Roman and Greek games, right up to the present, sports has more fans and makes more money than sex.   When a tennis match can pre-empt a steamy soap opera, when sports stars  salaries are in the millions, it looks like sex has been replaced. I doubt that even the hottest lady of the night makes that kind of money.

Arthur Godfrey

Harry Heuser's  Broadcastellan Blog is currently opening with a photo of Arthur Godfrey admonishing himself to behave, which he has no intention of doing. Thinking about the old redhead gets  me and lots of other old broadcasters who idolized him, all warm and  fuzzy. What a broadcaster/charmer//entertainer/communicator/salesman. Arthur Godfrey.  The forgotten giant.,

Leave my song alone, Lionel

Copyright laws can't possibly keep up with technology. The internet makes it so easy to get  so-callled "intellectual property" for free  that lawyers and legislators are going nuts trying to figure out how to make us pay for it.  One of the old laws, which still exists so far as I know, is that you can't copyright a title. I'm ambivalent about that one.  If I want to write a song called  "I love you, " I want to be free to do it without getting sued by the Cole Porter estate or anybody else who put music to those three little words.  On the other hand,  I hope that anybody trying to write another "Stardust" or a novel about "Gone with the wind" might get some legal flack from Hoagy Carmichael's people or the Margaret Mitchell estate. 

So where am I going with this? One of my favorite songs is "Dancing on the Ceiling."  Rodgers and Hart wrote it a long time ago. A great melody line, appealing harmonic progressions and  a lyric that is  some of the greatest  romantic imagery ever produced.

                           He dances overhead on the ceiling near my bed
                            in my sight through the night...

It ends with imagery and rhyme that gives me goosebumps.

                             I love my ceiling more since it is a dancing  floor
                             just for my love

Will I go to the federal pen for posting those words without permission from the copyright owners? Will Lionel Ritchie go scot free for his  rock song "Dancing on the ceiling" on which he steals Fred Astaire's ceiling dance  and Rodgers and Hart's title?   There oughta be a law.

Walter Tetley: Leroy and Julius

I heard one of  radio's most recognizable voices on the Great Gildersleeve show mentioned in the previous post. Walter Tetley was  the voice of Leroy, Gildy's nephew.  He was also Phil Harris's bratty neighbor, Julius. Tetley's story is not a pretty one. He was in his 30s on those shows, still sounding like a pre-pubescent boy. Later he voiced some TV cartoon characters.   His voice never changed and he was quite short.There is one awful story that his mother had him castrated because she didn't want to lose the meal ticket that he provided with his early radio work. He spent his last years in a wheel chair, the victim of a motorcycle accident. A sad show business tale.
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Added July 3:  I just watched "Gildersleeve on Broadway."  Walter Tetley appeared, not as Gildy's nephew Leory, but in a bit part as a bellboy.   A review called him "Midget actor Walter Tetley."
There's a biography, Walter Tetley: For Corn's Sake  by  Ben Ohmart and Charles Stumpf.  Listening to old Phil Harris shows every Sunday Night on Yesterday USA Radio, I am becoming very interested in Walter, thinking about springing for the book.

Old Radio Commercials as history

Some radio historian has probably written about old radio commercials as a history of the times in which they were aired.  Here's one I heard last night on a "Great Gildersleeve" show from 1949. Sponsored by Kraft, makers of  Parkay Margarine, it told us that we could now buy colored margarine if our state was one that had made it legal.  But it would cost more because of a federal tax on it. No doubt that made no sense to any  present day youngsters under 70 or so who might have been listening. I remember when "oleo," as  we called it, had to  be sold  in its natural white and colored at home with a little packet of yellow coloring that came with it.  The dairy industry didn't want the margarine makers to fool us into thinking we were getting the real thing..  Some parts of the world were behind us in accepting the yellow non-dairy spread. .  Australia didn't legalize it until the '60s.

Geriatric Obstreperousness

Thanks to Helen Thomas, former dean of the Whitehouse press corps and Bob Garfield of NPR's "On the Media," one of my blogs will have a new name.  Formerly "Farting Around," it shall henceforth  be known as geriatric obstreperousness.  That's one of the possibilites that Bob came up with to explain the  recent comments of the old babe,  even saltier than usual for her. Oh, I still believe in farting around.  But at my age I can think of nothing more fun than doing it with geriatric obstreperousness.  I don't know if Bob writes his own commentary.  I think he does.Whoever thought that one up deserves some kind of literary award.

Jean Arthur's voice

Feeling sorry for myself because I'm a quiet-loving introvert in a noisy world full of Facebookers commenting on each others status, whatever the hell that means, I googled Introverts Anonymous.  Is there such an unlikely group?  There is.  It put me onto a grand story about Jean Arthur.  She belongs here  because this blog is mostly about voices, radio, media and such. It was apparently her voice that not only gave her an easy transition from silent films to talkies, but helped to make her a big star.   She was terribly shy, tormented, hated the star system, might have been lesbian or bisexual. Said to be more reclusive than Garbo, which I did not know was possible.   I don't think I have seen any of her films, not even "Shane."  I will get around to it one of these years.
I hope friend Harry Heuser will do something about her if he hasn't already done so. There is no greater tosser of words or turner of phrases and I await what he might make of Jean Arthur, her films and her life.

Great Detroit Radio

I feel privileged to have grown up in the Detroit area, listening to the great radio that came from the Motor City.    "The Lone Ranger," "Challenge of the Yukon," The Green Hornet,"  "The Hermit's Cave." Stations identified themselves with,   WJR, the Goodwill Station in the Golden Tower of the Fisher  Building. Or   WWJ, the Detroit News.   I don't recall if  WXYZ,  which  originated the Ranger, the Hornet and the story of Yukon King had an identifying phrase. .  I seem to have a  recollection that they might have identified it as being in the Maccabees Building.  Those were the days when radio had class.
Any Detroit kid from that era can still name many of  the Detroit Tigers play-by-play announcers.  I remember Ty Tyson,  who served from before I was born on  into the '40s. That's when the Tigers played at Briggs Stadium.  There was Harry Heilmann and Paul Carey. The greatest of all was the late Ernie Harwell , currently being eulogized  throughout the baseball world. He was at the Tigers microphones for more than 40 years.    I was never a baseball fan but Ernie was a superb radio broadcaster and that's what I cared about.
When I got into the radio business  I spent many hours "riding gain" on the Tigers games.  That's radio talk for sitting at the control board, listening to the game and inserting local station breaks and commercials when the play-by-play men called for them. I literally fell asleep at the switch  at least once and let the Detroit call letters get on the air on the Flint Station.  I  never heard about it, so I assume the boss wasn't listening. 
The best part of the pre-game line checks that were sent to the stations  was listening to Tigers engineer Howard Stitzel  with his off the cuff chit chat and comments about the babes in the stands.. The listeners didn't hear that, but I'm sure Howard  had lots of fans at the stations.  As of last July, Howard , then 92, was the grand marshal at the parade in Southfield.  .  He said he plans to be 100.  I hope he makes it.  It was from Howard that I first heard that  most descriptive and colorful report of  the weather in the ballpark.  ....
"It's colder than a witch's tit!"

Dead animals, new babies and big ratings

Pardon my cynicism.  You know it's sweeps time when TV ratings that determine advertising revenue are being taken.  Kindly Dr. Phil shows off his first grandkid and properly horrifies us with graphic animal abuse pictures.

"24" is obscene

The award winning  Fox show "24" is filled with sickening, gratuitous violence.  So why have I watched it if it's so bad?  My wife likes it.  Let us hope she never gets seriously made at me. 

Facebook is so political!

The political commentary on Facebook leaves me reeling. How about "When I wake up in the morning I'm so glad that Barack Obama is President."
When I wake up in the morning I'm just glad that I woke up!

Supporting Jane Russell

I didn't see The Outlaw when it titillated audiences and irritated  censors  back in 1943. Turner Classics recently ran it for us who wonder (as in Wonder Bra) what all the fuss was about.  I was mighty impressed with the cantilevered bra that Howard Hughes designed for Jane Russell.

It gets even better when you know what a cantilever is.  It's a beam supported on only one end. It carries the load to the support where it is resisted  by shear stress. They use them for buildings, bridges and structures that project horizontally into space.

Why do I keep staring at photos of Jane's horizontal structure and the marvelous appliance that engineer  Hughes designed to support it?  Why can't  I  leave 'er?

Dinah, Dyna and Me

Over on my Facebook page there's a silly, musical video rendered on my old Hammond Organ.  One of the song snippets, played badly from my faulty memory of some of the notes, was made very famous by Dinah Shore.  If I put that hint over there, will I hear a loud chorus of "Dinah WHO?"  from 30 and 40 year olds who never heard of her? Might that confirm my  sneaking suspicion that I am much too elderly to be hanging out with those Facebook kids?  And what if I add a reference to another favorite Dyna, last name Flow,  who made my '51 Buick so shiftlessly  smooth.  Would the men in white coats be at my door to take me to the dementia ward? 

Facebook too personal?

Am I alone in becoming nervous and uncomfortable with the very personal stuff posted on Facebook?  Maybe I'm paranoid when I imagine all manner of bad guys using that information for purposes various and nefarious. 

I intentionally avoided mentioning last week's 56th anniversary of the day a radio fan and I got married on the air in Flint.  When you have been married that long you are expected to be wise and have profound things to say about marriage.  I'm not and I don't.

"Bones" ...Quirky fun

It's clear that I like quirkiness in my TV Fare. Which is probably why the only forensics/crime show I like is "Bones."  There's also the presence of Michaela Conlin.  She gets my vote as TV's hottest babe.  What a quirky love life "Angela"  leads. I guess she goes both ways.
Last night's episode started at a chicken farm operated by a guy named Cluckston.  That's funny.  I think the writers have great fun with their scripts.
Most interesting ... males are   most often portrayed as brilliant but dense, socially inept eggheads. But here we have a woman in that role.  Emily Deschanel as Dr. Temperance Brennan does it very well.  Fun fun fun.

Elitist Public Media

Are Pulic Radio and TV elitist?  Of course.  That's good.  We can use a little elitism to counteract the   crude, crass crapola that commercial media gives us.

Religious Jokes

This post also shows up in my Goofy Church Stuff blog. That one probably has even fewer readers than this one. Can that be possible?? Oh well, grinding out these silly things keeps me off the street.  But not always out of trouble.

Mr. Keillor might have been replaced by David Sedaris as America's greatest humorist but the aging guy from Lake Wobegon with the face made for radio reigns as our finest religious humorist. He gets away with things on Public Radio that would get him kicked off of commercial media. I love it. From one of his early annual joke shows: "What do you get when you cross a Jehovah's Witness and a Unitarian? Someone who goes around knocking on doors for no particular reason."   "As nervous as a Christian Scientist with appendicitis." I got in trouble when I quoted that one in my column in a local paper. A member of that body was not amused, said followers of Mrs. Eddy do not get nervous about things like that.

Patriarch? Hell, No!

For the first time, I have heard myself referred to as a patriarch, which might be translated as "grand old founding father," revered and honored for something or other. I am most uncomfortable with that label.  It's not the "old" part of it, I can handle that OK.  It just sounds too serious. One definition is "last surviving member,"  so all you have to do to become a patriarch is live longer than somebody else. Being the object of reverence and honor  is laughable.  I am in at least my second childhood.  All I want to do is  write, not caring a whole lot if nobody reads it, and play with my toys. Anything heavier than that is too serious.

Tell Me A Story

I totally relate to Don Hewitt and the four words he lived by that changed TV news and made  "60 Minutes" an institution.  I loved it when he said he's not interested in issues. He just wants a good story.  Issues are boring.  Tell me a story. That's probably one of a number of things about me that irritate and frustrate friends and family. I won't talk about issues and I'm not much interested in what others have to say about their favorite issues.  Tell me a story. And that's why NPR's "On the Media" is the best thing on radio.  It's not about issues.  It's about how they are covered in the media.  It's "covering the coverage." It's about how the stories are told.  I love it.

Life's Railway to Bettie Page

With thanks to friend Beth for the title, here is one more attempt to link to my musical tribute to the great pin-up girl.  It's clear that I don't know what I'm doing but some wise guy said you have to find out what doesn't work before your great invention is produced. OK, so this is hardly great stuff.  But bodacious Bettie is!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GACpzAqzQZE

Funny Business

Talking with a retired college level English instructor, I asked if she is a Garrison Keillor fan.  All she had to say was that he's a good story teller but she's not that interested in humor.  I'm pleased at that encounter because it brought home something I had not previously realized.  I am a serious student of humor.  I'm quite fascinated by funny ideas and how they are created, presented and perceived.

That Bucket Woman

I sit here laughing myself silly, still not recovered from watching that wonderful Britcom, Keeping Up Appearances again last night. It is so hiliarious that it stays funny no matter how many times you see the same episodes.  Funny, funny stuff.  I just put a photo of the cast on my desktop.  That's good for a quick laugh anytime.

Phil Harris and Alice Faye

I somehow missed Phil and Alice on their radio sitcom when I was young.  Our family must have been listening to something else when it was on.
I've been hearing it on Max Schmid's show on  the Yesterday USA online network.  Max, who knows as much about radio's golden age as anybody, says it's the "only radio sitcom worth a damn."
He might be right.  The cast and the writing are so right. It's not clever, not witty,  It's just silly and funny,  perfectly suited to Phil, Alice and and Elliot Lewis as Franky Remley, one of the great comedy characters to come from radio's best days.