Carry me back to California...been on the road too long!

Carole King's "Back to California" has been hammering in my head for the past couple of days. In spite of all its problems, the "land of fruit and nuts" seems to suit me and I miss it when I'm away.

Linda and I have spent most of this month dealing with my mother. My brother and I have now found a really great place for her and she seems to be settling in nicely with other seniors who are lost in the fog of dementia. The nuns who run the facility are angels of dedication and mercy who almost inspire me to maybe drop in for church one of these days. (It has been a few years. Okay, forty.)

Since the stay in Illinois was extended, I opted for a satellite receiver in the rental car we picked up at O'Hare. Local radio is, for most of the country, no longer local or very good. It is amazing to hear what passes for talent in some of the largest media markets these days. Though many solid pros remain, there are now people on the air in top ten metropolitan areas who would have had little or no chance of being hired in Palatka, Florida twenty years ago. The same goes for lots of television and newspaper help as well. Granted, there are many more media outlets today, but that alone doesn't explain the thin bench and lack of polish.

We live in a time of ever shortened attention spans and are consumers with the ability to be our own program directors and editors. "I get my news on the net", is a common refrain--though most of the time it isn't clear if "the net" means The Wall Street Journal site or TMZ. For audio diversion, the cell phone has become the alpha and omega of a growing crowd. How many inane conversations have you been forced to overhear at the airport? Departure gates have begun to resemble insane asylums as people ramble on to unseen friends and business acquaintances.

Newspapers in most cities are beginning to resemble the Weekly Reader of my grade school days. Little serious reporting and lots of People Magazine celebrity gossip dominates the pages of once proud publications. Frankly, I can't remember the last time I plunked down money for a local paper where I didn't feel like I'd been had.

Perhaps I should just calm down and accept the fact that radio, television and newspapers are, like burlesque shows of thirty years ago, just doing their final sweaty, out of shape, grungy bump and grind into the ash can of history.

Paying Attention: Woodschlock and other stuff

"You should get bitter as you get old. It shows you're paying attention." TV's Craig Ferguson

I have been paying a lot of attention lately.
It's not a problem because I have been spending quite a bit of time in airports wondering how a mode of travel that used to be fun became a form of torture. My god, it is a miserable experience to get on an airplane these days! The stepped-up security I can handle. I merely remember the smoking wreckage of September 11, 2001 and the fundamentalist idiots who did it and I am fine. However, what does get me going is this "nibbled to death by ducks" pricing that the airlines seem intent on imposing: "That'll be $30 if you want to check a bag, sir." "Something to drink? How about a snack? Got a credit card?"

Stop it!

H0w about telling me what the REAL price is when I buy a ticket? You clowns are fooling nobody. JUST GIVE US ONE ALL ENCOMPASSING PRICE PLEASE! ((It also wouldn't hurt if you were occasionally on time.)

Also, I am completely sick of this endless debate of health care in America. Wasn't Medicare and Medicaid supposed to fix everything when LBJ drunkenly foisted it upon us back in the 60's? If those two socialist programs haven't taken care of everybody by now how is implementing an even larger plan going to do anything more than bankrupt us? And, more importantly, if the freeloaders in Congress think their health care reform is so damn good for their constituents why have they exempted themselves from the plan? It would seem that until they come up with something that they are willing to submit to along with the rest of us they should just SHUT UP AND LEAVE US THE HELL ALONE.

Now...on to something that really chaps my ass: Woodstock

It is necessary to keep a pail near my easy chair as I watch the endless television news tributes to the fortieth anniversary of "three days of peace and music". "The 1960's and Woodstock was a time of great hope and dramatic social change for everyone" gushed one report.

PULLEEEZ! What a crock! Chris Reed, in the San Diego Union-Tribune, said it best: "The festival's alleged history-altering greatness is best seen as just another talking point of a helplessly, hopelessly self-infatuated generation." Amen!
While most of my friends were either working, in school or in the service, these nitwits were smoking dope, screwing , rolling in the mud listening to crappy music by mediocre musicians not unlike themselves.

I don't think that it's a coincidence that the folks who were at Woodstock mostly wound up in education and government where "feeling good about yourself" trumps accomplishment. I wonder how that "single payer" (see government) health plan would have played at Woodstock?

Kumbayah anyone?

It's time

Mother dozes in her chair
awakes awhile and reads her book
then dozes off again
Wind makes a rush at the house
and, like a tide, recedes. The trees are sere.

Afternoons are the most difficult.
They seem to have no end.
no end and no one there.
Outside the trees do their witchy dance.
Mother grows smaller in her chair.

("Portrait of my mother in January" By: August Kleinzahler)

Often I have told my daughters that when I no longer know what day it is or can't remember to occasionally bathe and change my clothes they should tell daddy that it's time for a "fishing trip". On the boat I should be encouraged to stand near the stern of the vessel in order to haul in a really big fish; then as one of their husbands guns the throttle, I disappear over the side and slip beneath the waves with the help of my old Army boots and lead lined underwear.

They think I'm kidding.
I am not.

My brother and I are dealing with the severe decline of our 88 year-old mom these days. We love her but she can no longer function on her own. She tries to fake it, but there is now no doubt that she has slipped into the downward spiral of dementia. It is completely unfair.
She spent several years and sacrificed her own health to care for our father as he battled Alzheimer's Disease until it put him in the ground nearly fifteen years ago. Now, she's headed to the same sad rodeo.

In the next couple of weeks we will try to trick her into the room we have reserved for her at a fine facility in her hometown of Springfield, Illinois. There she will be provided the supervision she needs to take care of herself---something she neglects today. Like a three year-old, she will be reminded to eat, change her clothes, and take her medicine.
Damnit! There ought to be a better way.
There isn't.

When it dawns on her that she is leaving home to spend the rest of her life in a place for the mentally infirm, she will be furious with us.
For awhile.

Bring me the head of Buffalo Bob!

All Boomers should remember the Howdy Doody Show.
That was the TV show that featured a termite infested puppet and his human sidekick, Buffalo Bob Smith and a few other flesh and blood stooges. (I will exempt the smoking hot Princess Tinka Tonka from the stooge classification, but ONLY her.)

Now, as I teeter on the brink of geezerville, I can't help but wonder if there is a connection between Buffalo Bob's hype of Hostess Cupcakes and the outbreak of major "muffin top" among men and women of the baby boom generation.


I believe these pictures speak for themselves.......

I know that Buffalo Bob has gone to that big broadcast in the sky, but Howdy must still be hanging around the wood shop.

Does anybody have a brother-in-law who is a low life lawyer? I smell a class action suit coming for the ultimate woody.

Where the windows clean the people

"First liar in doesn't have a chance."
That bit of advice from longtime railbird, Ernie Myers, was some of the best I've ever received. Everybody at the track has at least one story of a fantastic win they've experienced but they're very hazy on any recent loses. I think it was Ernie who also advised me to "always bet the mob horse'. (You know---the one with the Italian owner.)

Like a moron I still buy the Daily Racing Form, read a couple of tout sheets and pretend to know what I'm doing before betting a few bob on the bangtails. Is this nag stepping up in class? How much weight is he carrying? Who's aboard this afternoon? None of it matters. The horses don't read the Form, but it makes me and other habitues of the track feel like we really have a chance to win. Yeah, right.


It's Del Mar time here in San Diego. The historic meet happens every summer in this beach town and it is a dandy place to spend an afternoon waving good-bye to your money. I love it.
Yesterday, after much serious research, I managed to win exactly NO races, but did pick-up a delightful sunburn and only lost around $100. A splendid outing.
Of course, until my next fleecing, I will be pestered by repeated dreams involving the murder of a certain "just a little too fat" jockey who came in FOURTH in the feature race. FOURTH!!! I had him bet across and the bastard comes in FOURTH. Why not make it LAST? What's the difference? Oh well, I'll just double up next time.

The beauty of horse racing is this: You may lose---no, make that WILL lose money, but damnit it's our last great American pastime. These days, where else can you take the kids and still swear, smoke, drink and gamble? The answer: NOwhere!
All of that and the horses have cool names too. Remember Buckpasser? How about Barroom Hussy and Gas Passer? Ya gotta love it.


Oh...I almost forgot the absolute best part of spending an afternoon with the thoroughbreds. You get to waste money like a congressman. Well, it's not quite as much fun as that. They, after all, get to spend money they DON'T have and merely plan to STEAL FROM YOU LATER. ( Your kids and grandkids too!)


If you see this fat f%$#, ask him who he likes in the seventh.

Count this early adaptor OUT!

(AP) NEW YORK--Following in the footsteps of Amazon.com's Kindle, another e-book reader is set to get a wireless connection from a cellular carrier, letting it access books anywhere there's a signal. AT&T Wednesday said it will support an electronic book reading device due early next year from start-up Plastic Logic.

This, ladies and gents is where I get off! I love gadgets, but...NOPE---I won't be on board for this one. No way.

I have learned to love computers. I've always been a sucker for the newest TV toy. I had the first TIVO in my neighborhood and will always be looking for the latest in cameras. I've got an up to date cell phone, though I never answer the damn thing. But, books on an electronic device are not something I will EVER embrace.


Every day I talk to somebody who's getting a Kindle and is actually excited about it. How can that be???
How do you underline favorite quotes? How do you dog ear pages that you want to read again and again? How many books can you keep on one of these creepy devices? As far as I'm concerned, there are no good answers to any of these questions.

Books are like old friends that you can call on for good advice or comfort in difficult situations. They are right there on a shelf ready and willing to take you away to a better place on a rainy day. Or, take you to a rainy day when you can't stand another day of sunshine and good news.

Books should be between sturdy covers and on paper gathering dust created right there in your own home. You should never have to worry about how much juice is left in your battery. Just worry about running out of juice in your refrigerator as you bunker in for a good long read of a book that actually opens and closes instead of powering up.

Winston Churchill said, "Words are the only things that live forever." He would never have risked any he uttered or owned to the vagaries of electricity. His were always on the shelf---right next to the brandy and cigars.

Of Almond Roca and Tacoma

The next time you need to hustle a free drink here's one that ought to stump most of the local barflies: Where does Almond Roca candy come from?
The answer of course, for those on top of their Pacific Northwest lore, is Tacoma, Washington.

You may wonder how I, a well traveled broadcast tycoon, came to know this particular nugget of candy goodness. Well, the story begins in San Francisco sometime in the early 80's. I had just

been blown out of my morning radio show by a new program director who objected to my spending four hours a day at the radio station and six hours a day hitting the saloons in North Beach and Chinatown. (Picky SOB!) In those days the morning news guy, John Emm, and I were out the door of the station by 10:01 AM and in the bag at one of our favorite bars by 10:02. We were "The Boys" and, probably because we had a radio show, seldom had to actually buy a drink. It was heaven. But, I suppose if we had continued riding the Jack Daniels limited much longer the train would have ultimately jumped the tracks and left us as a couple of grease spots on the road bed. That prick PD probably saved my life.
After a couple of months spinning the "Howdy hits", (radio speak for the Country format), in Oakland--of all places, I wound up being rescued by my former radio partner, Rob Sherwood. Rob, who had a long career in the Minneapolis market, had spent a year teamed with me on K-101 in San Francisco and was now running a station in Tacoma, Washington. He hired me for the morning show on KTAC.

San Francisco to Tacoma...It was a hell of a bounce.


Tacoma is drizzly and gray. And, as you know by now, they make Almond Roca there.
The station was sort of a fading star. It had been one of the big top-40 stations in the Northwest for years, but because it was an AM station in an FM world, was a work in progress. Rob, and the general manager, Harold Greenberg, were both great to work for and the staff were all friendly and talented. I liked it there. Tacoma and the rain depressed me, but the job was fun. I got to work with Chuck Boland, a curmudgeonly news and sports legend in the Puget Sound area. "And that's the way the ball bounces." was, and probably still is, a tag line familiar to most denizens of the Pacific Northwest. He was a master of all that was snarky and snide. MY kind of guy!

The morning show also came with a female traffic reporter who is one of the funniest and most delightful friends I have ever had--Dayle Nelson. Her name was Parks back then and, like most of us, she has since acquired a couple of kids and moved on from the radio business.

Dayle has glasses now and will no doubt be furious with me for putting this picture in the blog. She thinks that the glasses make her look smart and serious, but don't be fooled. She is still a total wackjob. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

I lasted only a year in Tacoma. The rain was too much. When a shot at owning a station in Las Vegas came my way, we booked for the fun and sun of Sin City, but left knowing there was a lifelong friend in Tacoma.


I never know who reads this blog. I do it because a middle-aged white guy who spent nearly forty years talking crap on the radio needs a place to spew when he no longer has the keys to a station. It's this or the goon garage.


What got me thinking of Almond Roca and the laughs I had working with Dayle is this...
Her son, Andrew, is a 22 year-old sailor who is up for consideration to sail in the Audi Medicup which is being held in Portugal this August. This is a very big sailing deal and Andrew has submitted an essay which will determine who gets the coveted slots in the event. He needs votes to win AND YOU CAN VOTE!
Here's how: Go to HTTP://www.quantumsails.com/Dream2009/Vote.aspx
Click on Andrew's essay and vote for him.
Andrew will thank you and I know Dayle will be forever in your debt. She has most likely scheduled a heavy makeout session with her current boyfriend during Andrew's absense.

That's why I do this. TO SERVE HYSTERICAL MOTHERS EVERYWHERE!

Vote NOW; vote OFTEN.