March Gladness

New York-
If you stayed on the sunny side of the street it almost felt like Spring had finally arrived in the city. March is like that in this corner of the country. The days are longer and often bright with a hint of blossoms and new leaves to come.
For now, bare trees, rain, and cool temperatures are a lock for the coming weekend. In a couple more Sundays the parks will be packed with the winter weary and their four-legged friends shaking off the stale smell and feel of another Winter spent in the lofts and tiny walk-ups of Manhattan. This morning I saw more than a few New Yorkers wearing the same look Jack Nicholson sported when he so spectacularly snapped in "The Shining".

Linda and I left our daughter Kelly and her husband, Pavol, on the corner of 2nd Avenue and St. Mark's Place about two hours ago as we headed for JFK and a return to San Diego. (There's only so much March I can handle.) They are exhausted from days on the road with their very successful theater company, The Nature Theater of Oklahoma, and the recent opening of "Rambo Solo" an original play conceived and produced by them for the SoHo Repertory Theater Company. We saw it with friends and relatives on Friday night and thought it was wonderful. The critics, including the New York Times, loved it too and the run has been extended. It's nice to see your kids happy and successful. Overnight sensations...after fifteen years of hard work!


Zachary Oberzan in "Rambo Solo" conceived and created by Pavol Liska and Kelly Copper

This trip to "The Apple" will be more memorable than most. Not only did we have the fun of experiencing a daughter and son-in-law's success, but this time we had a beautiful unexpected surprise.

The night before last we had a call from our youngest kid, Katie, telling us that she and Doug are going to be parents in October.

WOW! At 35,000 feet it is beginning to sink in that all my grandpa chops will soon be put to the test. Money and candy out the ears and nose will soon be my stock and trade. Perhaps a swing-set and a trampoline for the backyard are in the cards?

Someone once said: " A grandfather is a man with silver in his hair, gold in his heart and jelly beans in his pockets."

I'm thinking that the really cool grandpas will have M&Ms too.

Gotta get the kid one of these hats.

It Changed EVERYTHING

"You should do a blog."

It wasn't Moses and the burning bush. Actually it was my friend, Mike Leach, his voice coming to me from somewhere in the steam room at the gym. Mike, no doubt having grown tired of yet another tirade from me about something, was probably just trying to get me to shut up.
It was only natural that I considered the steam room just another radio show. After all, I was talking to people I couldn't see and it gave me the opportunity to vent about things that were on my mind without having to break for commercials.

I thought about it and...four years later, here we are. Like radio, it's free and I think worth the price for the two or three of you who stop by to see what's on my mind. Look at it this way: It keeps me from going "postal" and taking hostages in the neighborhood.

It was always easy to pick out the really important events that transpired in my parents' and grandparents' generations. The inventions of the automobile, airplane, radio, TV,and the moon landing were all watershed items in the timeline of humanity. I often found myself wondering if there would be one of those Biggies in my generation.

In 1989 my daughter, Kelly, was a freshman at Dartmouth College. On her first trip home from school that Fall she mentioned something called the Internet. "Dad, you really need to check out the net. We do all of our assignments for our professors via the Internet and you and I could stay in touch on-line." It goes without saying that I had no idea what the kid was talking about and gave her words little heed. That seems to be the way of really big things. They sneak up on you and change your life.

The Internet is hands down the most significant life changing invention of my life. It has given most of us access to information on ANYTHING we care to know about and has provided the means to stay in touch with people who may have slipped from our orbit. It is a Godsend to friendship maintenance.

Through this little blog I have heard from old friends, neighbors and co-workers going back over a span of more than fifty years. I like that more than a little bit.

So here's to the net! It's right up there with velcro, canned beer, Sham Wow, and Mighty Putty. It doesn't get much better than that.

Thanks for stopping by...

It's called...STEALING!

There was Bernie Madoff pleading guilty and heading for a lifetime stay in stony lonesome and still not quite sure what he did wrong. That's the way it is with sociopaths. The rules are for everybody else; not them.

In Bernie's defense I would offer that his conduct has been no different and no less reprehensible than that of our elected officials. The congress and a long line of our nation's chief executives have presided over the greatest theft of wealth in the history of mankind. From the Ponzi scheme of Social Security to the printing of worthless paper money, these guys and gals have run our country with an oversight worthy of Al Capone or the Purple Gang. And...it may be too late to turn things around.

Where is Elliot Ness when you need him?


Thomas Jefferson counseled us, "We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt."
(Glad Tom isn't here to see this.)

Can you imagine what the founding fathers, who risked their very lives to create this wonderful country, would think of Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi, Chris Dodd and the likes of that moron Bernie Sanders?

"We gave you a republic and you turned it into a whorehouse!"
(By the way, the only whorehouse in the world that DOESN'T make MONEY!)


I'm not sure what happens to us when it's time to take the BIG nap, but I can conjure up no punishment worse than spending eternity hearing a continuous loop of:

"Grandma? Grandpa? Have you seen my piggy bank?"

Something to ponder while doing your taxes.

I wonder if the stooges in D.C. will take an out of town two party check this year?

Bastards!

The Theater of the MIND

Imagine my surprise to read a story in the paper that the Padres are really going all out this year for the baseball fans of San Diego. They announced that no longer will they brazenly charge $9 for an imported beer at Petco Park. Henceforth the price will be only $8.50! How's that for taking care of cash strapped Americans who enjoy our country's national pass time? (Domestic beers like Bud will remain a thrifty $6.50.) These baseball big shot bazillionaires really DO care about the little guy. I wonder if other teams are planning similar stimulus packages?

Looks like another year of catching most of the games on the radio for this corespondent. But, that's okay. Radio and baseball were made for each other. A good play-by-play announcer and capable color man can often make a game far more exciting than it really is via the audio picture that they paint.

Someone once told me that radio was the only medium that "worked from the inside out". The intimacy created by a gifted radio broadcaster conveys information in such a personal way that the listener internalizes it in the same way he or she receives and stores information shared with a close friend in a private conversation. A carefully crafted live ad for a restaurant might well cause a listener to file away knowledge regarding the eatery for several days before acting on it. Then, all of a sudden, it jumps out on a Friday night something like this: "I know! Let's check out that new Italian place on Chesapeake Avenue....I hear that it's great."

Useful information from a "good friend" recalled at just the right time. It has always been radio's gift and it worked for years.

Lately, in the turmoil of consolidation, the folks in charge of radio have forgotten the magic. They have tossed out the freaks and ego maniacs who provided the talent that made it work. It is now an industry of researchers and accountants who have managed to kill the golden goose in an attempt to figure out how it was laying all those precious eggs. Morons are in charge at the asylum.

As a kid just getting into the radio game, I used to listen to Arthur Godfrey. Not because I liked his show but because there was NOBODY better at selling products than "the old redhead". NOBODY. He had the ability to segue into a commercial and be out of it before you even knew you'd been sold something. He was your friend telling you about something wonderful he had discovered. Before Godfrey, few knew much of anything about Lipton Tea. He put them on the map.

Stories abound about what a bastard he was to his staff and others, but there was no denying when he was in front of a microphone----he was your best friend. A major talent.

Rush Limbaugh has over twenty million listeners and is a gifted broadcaster. He has carved a niche with listeners who, like me, appreciate his refreshing common sense take on the incredible load of crap that the political establishment wants us to swallow. I applaud him for that. But, Rush never seems to be talking just to me. He always seems to be speaking to an auditorium full of "you people" which means he never quite connects on a personal level. Maybe that's by design. All I know is that he is leaving out the intimate part of our most intimate medium.

Paul Harvey had the "one-on-one" intimacy polished to perfection. PERFECTION! He, like Godfrey, was a master of the medium of radio. He was scary good. And, now he too is gone.

I know that nothing lasts forever. The Pony Express is history and the village smithy is a thing of the past. Maybe radio as a viable medium is headed for the barn.

This much is certain: Radio today is being run by a cadre of buffoons not unlike the man who bought a fine restaurant, fired the chef, cut the portions and then wondered why he had no customers.

"And now you know...the rest of the story."

Race Cowards?

"A nation of cowards", is how our new Attorney General, Eric Holder, described race relations in the United States a couple of days ago.

That sounded odd to me. Maybe he meant that relations between blacks and whites wasn't perfect. What is? But, if he was implying that there hasn't been a change for the better in this country, well...he's just plain wrong.

The simple fact that he is an African-American Attorney General appointed by an African-American President of the United States says it all for me. As recently as twenty years ago someone my age would have told you that was impossible. Never going to happen. Yet, here we are.

I have long harbored a theory that most of us enjoy lifespans that are directly related to how much change we can handle. One-hundred years of updating the old cerebral Rolodex, (Wow, that dates me.), is only for the bravest among us.

"He treats us like men. He lets us wear two earrings."------an actual quote from a contemporary professional athlete, and moron, regarding his coach.

A quote like that would have had my father, were he still around, begging for somebody to kill him. There was no room for the concept of ANY man wearing even one earring left in his acceptance of change. I am barely able to grasp that one myself, but you get the idea.

Change happens! Your perception of it is all relative. You accept or reject it in degrees until you're "full up" and decide to cease to be among us.

This is not the same country I grew up in. Not even close. Some of that is good and some of that is bad.

In 1970 Linda and I moved from the frozen tundra of South Dakota to Gainesville, Florida where I had been accepted for graduate school at the University of Florida. To support us I took a job as the morning man for WUWU radio. (Try saying those call letters fast three times.) The station was located in the Gainesville Mall on the Northeast side of town. My first morning on the job I arrived at the mall around five to prepare for my six o'clock sign-on. As I turned the key in the mall's darkened doorway, my eye caught sight of what appeared to be a pile of rubbish or something in the far corner of the entrance. I thought nothing of it until the pile, which I could now see was a bunch of cardboard, started to move. A small round black man stood and ambled toward me. "Geezus...I'm going to buy it right here! On my first day" was all I could think.

"Hello sir...it's me Henry," said the man who was toothless and easily into his seventies. Henry Anthony was the station janitor. He was sleeping under cardboard at the door to the mall because he did not own an alarm clock and was not trusted with a key to the premises. He would rise each morning when he "thought" it was time to get up; hop on his battered and rusty old bicycle and head for his job at what he referred to as "double woo radio". I was astounded.

Henry and I became good friends over the course of the year I worked at the station. He was one of the kindest and most decent people I have ever known. I learned that he had been employed by the owner, "Mr. Mims", for more than twenty years. More than twenty years and the guy wouldn't give him a key???!!!! What kind of redneck jerk was this guy? (The kind who makes the Army look like a vacation is what I later learned.) It took me about two days before I had a key made for Henry, (our secret), and had loaned him one of my many alarm clocks. We would arrive together and go about our very different jobs, each of us happy in his own way. While I played the hits Henry sang hymns as he vacuumed the floors and emptied the wastebaskets. Sometimes, because of his poor eyesight, he would barge into the studio while I was on the air singing at the top of his lungs. Most of the time his singing was better than the contemporary crap that was on the air and if I hadn't needed the job I would have featured him on the show. He was a character, but Mr. Mims was a humorless, cranky old man who would not have appreciated such programming genius.

Henry had a large family. All his kids were grown; most had college educations and he was proud of each and every one of them. I often wondered why they didn't make sure that he was well taken care of until I began to understand that Henry was too proud to ever let them know when he needed anything. He took care of himself.

Henry Anthony has been gone for more than twenty years now. He'd probably seen about all the change he could tolerate.

I often wonder what he would think about a black family in the White House. I'll bet that is some change Henry could have handled. "Tell Mr. Mims to get bent."

Race cowards? Henry wouldn't think so.

Grow up Mr. Holder.

Ahh...The Wonders of a Midwest February

People in the Midwest will tell you that they like living there because they love the changing seasons. "I don't know how you stand to live in a place like California where the weather is pretty much the same ALL the time," is a constant refrain.

(Cool and classy winter scene shown above shot somewhere in America that is NOT the Midwest.)

Once a year, usually in late Summer, I start to think that maybe it wouldn't be so bad to return to my roots in the "Heart of America". What could be so bad? A brisk breeze and a light dusting of snow might very well be refreshing...And then I go to Illinois in February!

"Son of a bitch!!! What was I thinking??"

Illinois in February has all the beauty and charm of a meat locker. My God...It is not only colder than a mother-in-law's heart, it's also like living inside a black & white TV from the 1950's. There is NO color, and it snows a lot. How could this be my native soil??!!

I was born here. My mother still lives here in Springfield; my brother and his family are nearby, but it sure doesn't feel right for me. I get the feeling that I got out just in time. I'm definitely a palm tree and sunshine kind of guy. California may be broke and inclined to tax the bejesus out of everyone and everything, but I'll pay the price. No more snow and gray skies on my calendar if I can help it. If that makes me a candy ass, so be it. I did my time!

Oh...the one neat thing about a February getaway to the charms of the Midwest: both of us caught a cold.

I've got the Theraflu, Zicam, and good cough medicines lined up and ready to go. It's time to get an "over the counter" load on in good ol' Southern California.

Party starts right now!

A Fable For Our Time...

Once there was a farmer who had a mule.

In need of money, he sold the mule for $100 to another farmer who lived nearby.



On the day he was to deliver the mule to its new owner the farmer found the animal had died.

Farmer One went to Farmer Two and said, "I'm sorry but your mule is dead."



Farmer Two replied, "Then give me back my $100."



"I can't...I spent the money," said Farmer One.



Farmer Two then insisted that Farmer One deliver the dead mule to him immediately.



"Why would you want a dead mule?" exclaimed Farmer One.



"I plan to raffle him off," was the response.

Farmer One thought this strange but was glad to be rid of the mule and the obligation.

Six months later Farmer One ran into Farmer Two at the bank and out of curiosity asked how the raffle of the dead mule had gone.

"Splendid...I charged $3 per raffle ticket and cleared $197 on the deal", said Farmer Two.

A startled Farmer One, amazed at this news, exclaimed, "What???? Didn't anyone complain about the mule being dead?!!??"

"Only the winner...and I refunded his money," came the reply.



CAST:

Farmer One: President Obama

Farmer Two: Democratic Congress Economic Stimulus Bill

Lottery Winner: You (minus the $3 refund of course)