The Year Santa Got Rolled

Why it popped into my consciousness in this month of June leaves me scratching my head.

Perhaps as we get older the file cabinet of stories acquired over a lifetime of misadventures becomes so loaded with material that a synapse misfire will produce a decidedly "out of season" memory.  For example, just this morning I awoke recalling an event from Christmastime 1970.  

 I was working for a radio station in Gainesville, Florida that had studios located in the largest shopping mall in town.  Being far less sophisticated in those days,  merchants in the shopping center thought having a broadcast station on the premises was a smart promotional move as shoppers would stop to watch the paid monkeys (see disc jockeys) do radio shows from our glassed in studios.  As if it weren't bad enough being reduced to a circus act, management also required the air staff to dress as if we had real jobs.  This meant combing our hair, wearing ties and refraining from scratching our privates.  All major concessions on the part of those of us engaged to honk the hits for WUWU.  (It was already tough enough just saying those call letters!)

The Saturday before Christmas I was into the final hour of my 6-10AM morning show when the manager of the mall's Sears store dropped by the station and asked the receptionist if he could have a word with me.  In those days Sears was a major player in retail nationwide and, just as in many malls, Sears was the anchor tenant of this particular retail development.  After entering the studio and some initial small talk he got to the point of his visit.   Santa was to arrive at the Sears store shortly after 10AM and he wondered if I would be interested in picking up a quick $100 to handle the microphone and help keep the crowd of kids in line.  In those days a hundred bucks was a considerable addition to my weekly salary and I quickly agreed.

Talking up the intro to the treacle infused and eternally crappy "Make It With You" by Bread at approximately 9:56AM I practically skipped out of the station.  Not only was I on my way to a cool $100 for doing next to nothing, I also didn't have to listen to that musical meadow muffin.  It was going to be a great day!

"Piece of cake.  What could go wrong?"

When I arrived at Sears the manager handed me my check and pointed me toward the microphone and the parking lot which already had a large area blocked off for Santa's helicopter arrival.  There was rope and yellow tape to restrict the crowd and I was tasked with reminding everyone to stay behind the barriers to ensure the safety of all.  The crowd was huge and was mostly composed of grade school aged children and their parents.  I had been given a few promotional and sales items to announce in addition to my reminders to stay back and allow plenty of room for the helicopter and Santa.  When the helicopter came into view the kids began jumping up and down with excitement.  I had to keep repeating the admonishment to "STAY BEHIND THE YELLOW TAPE" so that Santa could land.  Once the chopper was on the ground the crowd began to surge forward.  They could see that Santa had many bags full of small packages that looked to contain candy and small toys.  As he backed his non-padded ample ass out of the whirlybird, the crowd jumped the line.  In spite of my pleas, chaos reined, Santa was rolled, the helicopter nearly turned over and...the cops were called.  It was like drag queens at a wig sale.  In the confusion I made for my car and a nearby bank.  Oh, the humanity!

"You little bastards are going on the naughty list!"

As I write this it occurs to me that perhaps recent television coverage of Bernie Sanders supporters may have jogged my memory.  Maybe a warning phone call to old St. Nick is in order?  I happen to know he has a Trump sticker on his sleigh.

As George Carlin once observed: "The world is a freak show.  If you're an American, you have a front row seat."

Never Forget

"A veteran is someone who, at one point, wrote a check made payable to The United States of America for an amount up to and including their life."

I've searched and have yet to find the source of that quote, but it's beautiful. During this long Memorial Day weekend let's all spend some time thanking the unselfish men and women who's checks were cashed so that we might continue to live in freedom and prosperity.  They earned what we so often take for granted in these United States of America.  May their sacrifice never be forgotten.

Nathan's Turns 100...and other stuff

I see that Nathan's Famous franks just turned 100.  Until you've had one at their New York Coney Island stand, you haven't lived the American dream.  These days you can buy Nathan's at most supermarkets but the dogs eaten after watching the freak show at the Coney carnival are the best.   The guy who eats glass and the Elastic Lady

Coney Island Freak Show cast

 are a great opening act for a Nathan's redhot loaded with mustard. The olfactory lobe assault of the Big Apple summer miasma of slightly ripe garbage, pizza and pee is guaranteed transport to hot dog heaven.

Not that I mean to inflict harshness on Nathan's centennial celebration, but I do have a question for their management:  What the hell have you done with the tube steaks proffered in "natural casings"??  I can't find those bad boys anywhere of late and they most certainly were the crown jewel of the franchise.  The snap as you bite into a hotdog with skin is far superior to the wimpy "skinless" wienie.  What gives?   Surely this can't be a nod to those millennial sissies who want nothing to do with resistance of any kind, including food they actually have to chew. Is there a "safe zone" for processed meats that I don't know about?   Trigger words?  I need answers!

Moving on to other annoyances:  It's official, I will no longer watch the evening news on any one of the three major TV networks.  These shows, once captained by real news hounds, have deteriorated into programs not unlike those godawful local PM Magazine atrocities of the 1980's that featured lost dogs, cute kids, weather, and lovable curmudgeons.  CBS, NBC and ABC are completely bereft of any real news at all.  Stripped clean, they make USA Today seem like the Congressional Record.  Unwatchable!

And, since we're on a media rant, have you noticed that the majority of the TV meatheads have now dropped all pretense of objectivity?  The embarrassment of these idiots being turned out by our nation's journalism schools is beyond tragic.  I guess it should be no surprise as they are all being "taught" by the losers who couldn't get hired for genuine newspaper, radio or TV jobs thirty years ago and are now chairing college communications departments.  These clowns have given us TV reporters who have, at both the local and network level, turned "guys" into an all purpose, non gender specific collective noun.  Nothing says mental midget quite like, "now back to YOU GUYS in the studio".  More often than not they are tossing back to at least one or two "guys" who wear dresses and use the ladies room.  (Oh, that's right, bathrooms are no longer gender specific.  Don't get me started.)

With the November election looming like taxes and/or tooth extraction and already inflicting plenty of unwanted pain,  check this out for network "objective reporting":  Norah O'Donnell of the CBS Morning (ha!) News recently sat down with Donald Trump's daughter to grill her about allegations that her father had made unwanted advances toward women.  This had been reported in a New York Times article and was fair game for any reporter until you consider that Elvis will turn up alive and well in a Florida retirement community before ANY reporter dares to put the same questions to  Chelsea Clinton.  The sad part of all this is that most journalists are too dumb to see that there is a problem.

Other problems that need to be handled:  basketball season is still WAY too long, baseball has made no progress toward speeding up the game, Obama remains in the White House and Survivor is still on television.   Get these things fixed and bring me a Nathan's dog in natural casing and maybe I'll calm down.

Or not.

Now, back to you GUYS in the studio.

Nirvana!

If You Haven't Read Him, You Should

Jim Harrison

In March Jim Harrison, a man of big appetites and even bigger talent, slipped out the side door of life while at his home in Patagonia, Arizona.  He was 78 and, lucky for us, left a magnificent collection of prose and poetry to wander through for generations.  The man could write.

He was a product of northern Michigan and his style, like the woods of the Upper Peninsula, is rough, hard scrabble and often reflective in the kind of "born there, die there" mentality of the people who inhabit that state.  Unlike Hemingway, he employed complex sentences and far more complex characters who almost always struggle with a weakness for both sex and alcohol, problems not unknown to Mr. Harrison himself.

In addition to poetry and fiction, Harrison also wrote extensively about food and drink for magazines like Esquire.  His book, The Raw and The Cooked, is a collection of tales recalling his Rabelaisian immoderation.  For example:  there was the summer he personally tested 38 varieties  of Cotes du Rhone which he referred to as a "small wine festival, just me, really."  And, my personal favorite, the story of the day he ate 144 oysters just to see if he could finish them.  (He could.)  Having once, in 1971,  consumed 132 of those delicious bi-valves while in New Orleans, I am now ashamed to have often bragged of the feat.  In my defense, I was at Felix's  Oyster Bar on Iberville Street and may have been under the influence of ardent spirits.

Harrison lived most recently near Livingston, Montana during the summer where he often spent afternoons blasting rattlesnakes in his yard while quaffing a beverage or three.  Winters found him in Arizona near the Mexican border where he also took aim at any critters that dared offend him.  His prose still mostly employed Michigan as a backdrop but he no longer maintained a home there.

In his time the man produced an impressive amount of fiction, including Legends of the Fall,  Dalva, Farmer, Wolf, True North and many others.  Most recently The Ancient Minstrel  , a book of fiction, and Dead Man's Float, a poetry collection were both published.  Both are great.  But, if you have never read the man, I would suggest his memoir, Off to the Side,  and The Raw and the Cooked, as an excellent introduction to his work.  Do yourself a favor and order one or both from Amazon.  For my money he is one of the finest writers America has ever produced.  A true character of True North.

You're In Charge Now, Millennials...FIX THIS!

"Shake and shake the catsup bottle, none will come and then a lot'll."--  Richard Armour

Oh the humanity!  The squeeze bottle disaster continues.

Humorist Richard Armour penned those words in the 1950's when we boomers were still spelling ketchup C A T S U P and pounding the crap out of the bottom of its glass bottle just to get a delicious blob or two splattered onto our hamburger.  It was slow work but we got the job done.  A knife or a splash of vinegar was enough to free the last of the precious "red lead" before we tossed the empty container into the trash.  There was none of this recycling nonsense to contend with in those days.  EVERYTHING we didn't eat, drink or smoke went into the garbage can and was spirited away to the landfill or--even better-- was burned in a big old barrel behind the garage.  (Personally, I was a big fan of the trash barrel method of dispatch as it provided we youngsters a chance to play with matches while we practiced flame broiling weenies and marshmallows over smoldering household detritus.

Recently I read that the Millennial generation has now surpassed we Boomers as the largest demographic segment of our American society.  The torch has been passed as those of us brought forth via the lust of parents made horny by World War II's forced separation,  to a generation sired by helicopter progenitors hell bent on making sure every one of their offspring brought home a trophy  for merely showing up.  Is it any wonder that this now jumbo generation is enamored of a seventy-four year-old pink-o pant load from Vermont who promises them free college, condoms, and a carefree existence?  It's time to kick start some Millennial ass...er ambition!

Granted, it was most certainly a Boomer who decided that the glass bottle ketchup delivery system had to go and that a plastic squeeze bottle was the answer to the container that needed spanking before it gave up it's tomato wine.   Flip-top cap, plastic bottle, PROBLEM SOLVED!  Right??
WRONG!

TRIGGER WARNING!  (Millennials require notification prior to hearing scary stuff.)

SQUEEZE BOTTLE CONDIMENT DISPENSERS ARE A DISASTER!  They don't freaking work! Instead of making it easy to extract the very last drop of gooey goodness from a ketchup, relish, mustard, or mayo container, we've made it harder.  Starting with the flip-top cap that NOBODY ever remembers to snap shut to the embarrassing gastro-intestinal sounds made possible by air, goopy content and squeezable plastic,  the whole delivery system is a catastrophe. It must be fixed!

We Boomers, now that Millennials have pushed us aside, are too busy doing retired stuff to help with this one.  The torch has been passed Millennial youngsters.  Run with it.  We need a fix pronto, or sometime next week if you can manage.  Your country, the ketchup, mustard, relish and mayo need you!  When you have something let us know.  We'll be on the golf course, riding our bikes, fishing or doing other important retired people stuff like cheating on our taxes.  Don't want to accept the challenge of making condiment consumption great again?  Move to Russia and take that commie, Bernie, with you.   Now, if you'll excuse me,  I'll be in the bathroom.   I believe I left the flip-top cap off my toothpaste, which, by the way, doesn't work worth a damn.

This is just WRONG!

Don't Bother Me, I'm Resting...

He's six years-old, which is precisely why he is inclined to bask in the approval I offer when he hears that he is my FAVORITE grandson.  It won't be long before the fact that he is my ONLY grandson becomes apparent and bops rain down upon my head from those inflatable boxing gloves he presented to me a couple of years back.  The gloves were a birthday present as I recall and were offered as a way for the two of us to pretend to be Rocky as we slugged our way to the championship.  The problem is:  the kid got good at it.  These days I hide the gloves when I know he's coming.

We hadn't seen him in almost a year, not by design, but because of Linda's continuing recovery from cancer and a stem cell transplant.  It was shocking to see how much he had grown when his mom and he showed up for a long weekend visit.  Kids hate it when adults do the "Look how much he has grown" routine, but we couldn't help it.  I'll bet he is at least a foot taller than the last time we laid eyes on him and wonder if the altitude grandma and grandpa have lost may have found its way to him.

We had plenty of fun last Friday through Monday and then they were gone, back to San Diego and busy young lives.  Just as it should be.  With luck, there will be no more long stretches between visits. Once her doctors clear the runway for travel, Linda and I plan to make up for lost time.   However, right now we're still resting up from a visit from my FAVORITE grandson, Dan-the-man.

Cue the Rocky theme.  It's time to knock some sense into  gramps.

The squirrels in the neighborhood are still asking for him.

The kid discovers grandpa's pool table. Uh oh.

Perfecting his game

Taking grandpa's last dollar.  Who taught this kid to play?!

Mustangs or Money? Try Disaster...

"Because they think it will get them laid," replied Laura Wilkenson when I queried aloud about the seeming preponderance of dumb bastards who owned radio stations.  Laura was not only a talented radio personality she was also someone to count on for a non-PC, BS-free analysis of almost any subject.  She went on to expand on her theory by explaining that "guys with money know they can pick-up more women by telling them they own radio stations than they could by bragging about their chain of nursing homes."  As I mentioned, she never pulled her punches and was wicked smart.  I'll always be grateful to Laura and her then husband, "Fuzz", for getting me back to San Diego after spending five years surfing the dial on my "West Coast Tour" of radio stations.


The Communications Act of 1996 ushered in an era of massive consolidation of radio and television companies that effectively drove a stake through the heart of the smaller broadcast operators who owned only a few properties.  Today only three or four outfits own most all of the radio stations and the emphasis has shifted from SHOW business to BUSINESS.  Where once the lunatics ran the asylum, the accountants now hold sway.  At the time, I actually thought things would be better.  If you've listened lately, you know they're not.


Ah, but let's get back to my story from the days when an insane person could be a radio ringmaster.
At the time Laura and I were working together, the station, an oldies formatted AM & FM, had just been purchased by a chain headquartered out of Phoenix.  The company had several stations located in good quality major media markets and the owner was the son of a man who had been a huge radio celebrity in Minneapolis/ St. Paul.  He had made his fortune in the soft drink bottling business but, probably for the precise reason Laura described earlier, wanted to be in broadcasting.  Okay, that's fine.

Here's where he F' ed up: He turned the operation of the company over to one of the most incompetent nincompoops ever to darken the door of a radio station.  This clown, we'll call him "Jimmy", had been running the Phoenix operation for awhile and somehow convinced the "Big Guy" to let him run the entire corporation.  Naturally, once he got the owner drunk enough to hand him the keys to the kingdom, Jimmy moved the company headquarters to San Diego.  As near as anyone can tell, that was the last smart decision he ever made.

Jimmy arrived in San Diego with an entourage of desert rats that included several drinking buddies, more than a few hookers, an engineer sporting a sub 100 IQ and a GED in electricity, and his coke dealer.  It was a circus of horrors.   Within a few weeks he was well on his way to demolishing both the AM and the FM.  The man meddled in everything from sales to engineering and programing with a tsunami of ludicrous ideas.  One of his promotional "strokes of genius" that initially looked like a fairly good idea turned into merely a stroke thanks to Jimmy's hands-on oversight.  The "Mustangs or Money" promotion involved those of us on the air soliciting phone calls and inviting listeners to, by hitting a number on their touch tone phone, win their choice of either cash or a classic Ford Mustang.  The cars had supposedly been secured from a reputable auction house in Phoenix and initially looked like dandy rides when they were unloaded and displayed in front of the radio station.  Things went downhill from there.  Because we were an "oldies" station which featured mostly 1960's hit music, most contest winners were claiming the dream 1960's era Mustangs as a prize.  So far, so good.
The trouble began as winners drove these newly won treasures off the lot.  Brakes often failed at the first intersection, lights didn't work, convertible tops flapped in the wind and--biggest problem of all--when listeners attempted to register the cars at the California DMV, they discovered that the cars were HOT.  Most of the vehicles had either been reported stolen in Arizona or had been relieved of their serial numbers by a chop shop.  WAY TO GO JIMMY!!

Within a year most of us on the air had been fired to make way for cheaper help as Mr. Wonderful continued to work his Midas touch in reverse and,  not by coincidence,  had implemented his genius on company properties in Seattle, St. Louis, Denver and other cities as well.  The man had managed to wreck the entire stable of stations and was finally shown the door.  While most all of the folks he fired wound up with better jobs at other places on the dial, a few of us at a competing station that demolished Jimmy's masterpiece in less than six months, the last report I had on "the Jimster" he was reputed to be doing termite inspections in Phoenix.  It makes me smile to picture the good-for-nothing bastard covered in dust on his belly in a crawlspace looking for insects not unlike himself.

By the way, if you were lucky enough to have been a winner of one of those "classic" HOT Mustangs, you might want to get that transmission checked.