3/24/08
Thursday the Phillies leave Florida to come north. The new baseball season is looming and I am so excited. No more crying that there isn't anything good on TV tonight....Harry and Wheels will be there for me! Unfortuntely Gary Mathews will be there for me too, but thats just my personal taste I guess. One of the most attractive things about major league baseball is that its such a long run from beginning to end of season....162 games. Starting out, you'll be going to the park all bundled up, hoping the concessions stands haven't run out of hot chocolate. Then before you know it, the goal is to wear as little as possible without getting arrested cause its going to be 99 in the shade. Through it all, Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, J-Roll, and company will be pounding that ball and we'll be praying the pitchers can hold them. My optimism on the new season is guarded I must confess. I fear that J=Roll is not going to have the year he did last year. Of course, I think Ryan might hit 60 homers this year while batting .300 and driving in 150 or so. Chase should put up great numbers, and I think Phillies fans are going to like Pedro Feliz at 3rd a lot. He's not much of an average hitter, but he's clutch and hit 20 home runs every year in San Francisco, where its not easy to hit dingers. Heck, I even think Pat Burrell is going to shock everyone with one of his "up" seasons...after all it is a contract year for him, and the light seemed to go on for him after the all-star break last year. Hopefully it was one of those CFL lights so it will stay one for a long time. Still there is nagging dread clawing at my soul when it comes to this year's team. The pitching looks frightengly similar to last year. Believe me, last year was the worst pitching staff to make it into the playoffs, and with the improvements to the Mets (and Atlanta always hanging tough), the same results as last year will doom us to 2nd or even 3rd place! Oh the drama's to be played out!! They are just a few days away...starting with exhibition games this weekend at Citizen's Bank Park and up at the brand new Lehigh Stadium...home of your Allentown Iron Pigs. They're certainly not MY Allentown Iron Pigs....I wouldn't let some nice innocent ballplayers take the field with that Albatross hanging around their necks! Hey....the Allentown Albatross...i like that much better. Do we know who coined that Iron Pig name?? You bring the tar and I'll bring the feathers!! Aaaaah, baseball!
3/9/08
March is one of my favorite months. Things start happening again in March.
This week we wave bye-bye to WOGL Listener Club President Cindy Webster as she spends a week in Florida at Phil's spring training camp. Even up here the fact that another baseball year is crankling up and that daily drama will once again return. Soon it will take yet another half-hour to get going on the morning as I will have box scores to pour over with a fine tooth comb. Plus, I'll have my fantasy team to worry about. In honor of the steroid scandal,
this year in my league, I bring pro-ball to Montana by creating the BUTTE Injectors. Every year I try to go for a topical theme in my team, so I was pretty proud of that name. The draft for players is Saturday, wish me luck! Another very time consuming chore this month will be the good old NCAA March Madness Collge basketball tournament.....featuring the feel good story of the whole darn season this year....THE DRAKE BULLDOGS from my home town of Des Moines, Iowa. Drake is a nice quiet little 5,000 student business college where smart kids go to get a top-notch education at a decent price in exchange for not often getting to chant "we're # 1" at a sporting event. Imagine the shock back home when this years unhearalded squad started 1-1 and then ripped off a 21 game win-streak, finished the year 28-4, won the Missouri Valley tourney, and now charge into the NCAA tourney for the first time since 1971 nationally ranked #20. Cinderella has struck Drake before....back in 1968 they made the final four and almost beat # 1 UCLA.
It was my junior year in high school and mom and I lived about a block a way from the street where the Frat Houses were all lined up in a row. When the games were on, it sounded like a jet plane was landing in the parking lot after every Drake basket. With apologies to ST. JOE's, NOVA, TEMPLE , etc.etc., this boy is going with the old 'hood! When you fill out your March Madness bracket this year...keep in mind my Drake Bulldogs. They are on fire!
3/3/08
Everybody at the station is so excited about giving away tickets to STAR WARS at the FRANKLIN INSTITUE, it would be nice if we could do more. That's why I have taken the liberty of sending the following letter to them.
DEAR FRANKLIN INSTITUE,
Here at WOGL, we not only love giving away tickets to your fine exhibition. The show might be even better if
characters from the movie could mingle amongst the crowds adding to the experience. Our staff is uniquely qualified to offer assistance. Let me volunteer the following people.
BOB KELLY...CBS 3's ace traffic reporter is a natural to play LUKE SKYWALKER. His boyish good looks and charm match that of the young Jedi warrior, plus he's got the best hair in town. Every hero needs good hair. And if you keep a 12 pack of Coors Light just out of reach, he could play the hero on a quest role very convincingly.
VALERIE KNIGHT actually wore the PRINCESS LEIA cinnamon bun hair-do for several years in the late 70s and is a tireless crusader for goodness and light. Plus, dialogue like "FOUL STENCH" and "SERVANT OF EEEE-VILLE" roll effortlessly off her toungue.
ROSS BRITTAIN as HAN SOLO. Another natural for the part.
He's wise-cracking with a sparkle in is eye, always ready for adventure, and spent several years frozen in Carbonite before joining WOGL. Also, he used to drive a FORD when he lived in HARRISON, Indiana.
BILL ZIMPFER as CHEWBACCA. Okay, we will need to stick lots of hair on his face to pull this off...but when he plays the accordion, it does sound just like CHEWBACCA's voice.
FRANK LEWIS as JAR JAR BINKS. Its a shame for Frank to play a minor character that did not appear till movie #4, but let's face it...the walk, the voice, the appearance..FRANK and JAR JAR could have been identical twins!!
HARVEY HOLIDAY as YODA. Okay, he's not a midget, and he ain't green...but he wields a mean light saber, and has the voice and the syntax of the Jedi Master. His dispensing of sage advice is also unequalled in the Philly broadcasting community.
BOB CHARGER is DARTH VADER. As the city's premiere evening DJ, Bob knows the power of the dark side and isn't afraid to crush all who get in his way. Plus, there is goodness in him yet, we all have felt it. Oh..and he's BOB KELLY's real father, so that dovetails nicely into the STAR WARS universe.
ROCKIN' RON CADE, our overnight and "Elvis & Friends" guy could play a variety of roles. In fact C3PO and the STORM TROOPER's costumes are reminiscent of Elvis album covers from back in the day. Hope you don't mind a few sequins and scarves thrown in for affect.
ANGELA MASON is half-Italian and Half-EWOK. Nuff said.
JACK SEVILLE...LANDO CALRISSIAN. A romantic rogue with a checkered past who is hiding away on his own planet. Hmmmmm, the irony is staggering!
BOB PANTANO is JOBBA THE HUT. We'll need some make-up for this one, but the wild party lifestyle and scantily clad go-go dancers certainly link these two!
Finally, I am very fortunate that an actual STAR WARS Character is based on my experiences as a young rebel back in the 60's and '70s...so much so that George Lucas and the boys hardly even changed my name. During your STAR WARS Exhibit, it would be an honor to relive my younger days as.....OBIG RON KENOBI!
2/24/08
Its great having the passes to the STAR WARS Exhibition to give away on the show. Let me point out that I was a sci-fi geek long before it became fashionable. George Lucas was already on my sci-fi radar when STAR WARS came out. Before hitting it big with "AMERICAN GRAFFITI," he put out an obscure little sci-fi film called "THX 1138," which was actually his project for his final grade at UCLA film school.
He somehow got Robert Duvall for it, it was awesome, and he managed to do it on about $30,000. Nobody saw it but me. When STAR WARS arrived I was pumped. I asked all my friends to check it out the very first screening the day it opened. I got absolutely no takers. Sure, the people who had day jobs did have an excellent excuse, but even the slackers we evening dj's hung out with back in the day (I was doing 6-10P at WFIL) had better things to do.
Understandable. STAR WARS was also made with NOOOOO budget, and very little hype or advertising announced its arrival. So, there I was all by myself at 11:30 AM with about 20 other wannabe aliens. The movie knocked it out of the park. Not so much for the special effects, they did the movie proud, but it was the movie around those effects that was so revolutionary. The young man on a spiritual quest plot and all the wise cracking word play didn't all come together seamlessly in a sci-fi movie till STAR WARS. I left the theater thinking it would be such a shame if the general public never heard of this movie because they had no money to promote it. Guess, I didn't need to worry. Those 20 people who saw that first screening with me must have had very big mouths. By the next weekend, they were lining up around the block and an Empire (in more ways that one) was born. Props to STAR WARS and its follow up, the best sci-fi movie ever made THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK. If seeing the STAR WARS Exhibit at the Franklin Institue on your WOGL tickets gives you the sci-fi itch, plan a Saturday party and show DVDs all day! Here are some other more obscure space movies you could put on your menu.....
BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS--Richard Thomas and Robert Vaughn are a hoot in this STAR WARS wanna-be movie. John Boy Walton meets the MAN FROM UNCLE with scantily clad amazon star fighters. Gotta love that!!
THE LAST STARFIGHTER--Robert Preston stars in this one. THE MUSIC MAN is in my all time top 2 musicals, so this is another guilty pleasure.
EARTH vs THE FLYING SAUCERS. Campy 50s stuff, but theres something very compelling about the special effects.
THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL--50 years old and still the ultimate thinking man's sci-movie. Slightly dated, but still relevant in its look into the "us" and "them" politics of planet earth. In the day it was America against the Russians being slyly parodied, but such things have survived with different labels into this day. GORT KLAATU BARADDA NITKOS!
2/19/08
Philadelphia is a city with a chip on it's shoulder. It's been the butt of jokes and fodder for ridicule going back to the days of W. C. Fields. Not for this boy! I'm back from a week's vacation in Las Vegas. It's an awesome place to visit, the weather is great this time of year, but Philly is lookin' real good to me about now. When I do the Vegas thing, I stay at my cousin's place in suburban Henderson, Nevada. If all you've seen of Vegas is the strip, I understand you may have been dazzled by it, but the city itself does nothing for me.
A city of 2 million people has sprung up around a road system designed for about 250, 000. There are a couple of freeways running around town, but none designed to take the people of the city where they need to go. So they've made a bunch of 8 lane wide streets with stop lights every block. You think I-95 and the Schuykill are bad during rush hour? You ain't seen nothin! Then there's what I call the stucco suck-o. Everything in a 50 mile radius of Las Vegas is part of a homeowners association that has tried to make their turf look like a charming desert hacienda. Everything is done in varying shades of adobe tan. That is cute for a few developments here and there....for everything in sight for 50 miles? Not so cute. Profoundly ugly if you ask me. Don't even get me started on the vast fields of rubble all over town where they tore something down for a new project...only to have the funding for that project die. And then there's the fact that when I see my family in Vegas....I go in Febuary to escape a little of the Philly winter. I can only imagine how charming all that stuff that irritates me is when its 115 degrees every day in the summer. So Yo...give me Philadelphia, PA. The kids in Bristol are sharp as a pistol, there are big green trees all over the place, moisture falls from the sky, AND you can paint your house any color you durn well please!!
2/5/08
OK, I admit it WAS a great Super Bowl game....one for the ages. Still, I will take one shot at the empty spectacle of pre-packeged hype which surrounds it. In my 40 years in the music business, I've gotten pretty good at spotting when a singer is performing live and when they're lip-synching, and I garauntee you there wasn't a live michrophone with in 200 yards of Jordan Sparks singing the national anthem. And THAT ticks me off!! The anthem isn't supposed to be about looking great so people will buy your friggin record...it's about hanging your talent out on the line to salute those brave people who are dying out there to make sure your people are free to make your make-up look fabulous. Just lip-synching the words while you wiggle your butt around in your designer gown falls a little short of that in my book.
Now let's kiss football goodbye. Winter is on the run and springtime soon will come. Thursday is the day the Phillies equipment truck leaves for spring training! Woo-hoo!! Pitchers and catchers are in camp next week. I think the Phillies are going to have an awesome year, and I wish the empty suits down at Citizens Bank Park would just pay Ryan Howard the money. How can they be so blind as to not see its going to be a whole lot cheaper to sign him for a bunch of years now, rather that a few years down the road? I'd say Howard is the first person since Mike Schmidt to put fannies in the seats in Phillie land...but actually, Mike Schmidt looks a lot better in the rear view mirror than he did as a player. Even with his hall-of-fame credentials, I don't think the Phillies faithful went to games to see him, like we do now for Ryan Howard.
Pay the man!! The Phillies have been around town for 125 years, and this is by far the most likeable team they've ever had. Wouldn't it be great if a little bit of that would rub off on the people in the front office. No chance, I guess.
2/1/08
NEWS FLASH!!!
In a hastily called news conference, a spokesman for Big Ron O'Brien announced the afternoon buffoon had agreed in principle to a two year contract extension with 98.1 WOGL. Once ratified, WOGL would allow the journeyman broadcaster to continue on in the twilight of a mediocre career until 2010. Details of the pact were hammered out during a tense 10 minute negotiating session, many minutes taken up with the telling of dirty "knock-knock" jokes and extensive testing of the official CBS corporate Whoopie Cushion. Although specific details remain confidential, inside sources report Mr. O'Brien successfully held out for minimum wage and his duties scrubbing the executive washrooms with a toothbrush were reduced to once a week from their current daily basis. Mr. O'Brien expressed profound relief and gratitude to WOGL as other career options were blocked by his recurring failure to determine which size fries go with the extra-value meal. Also, an inspection in Center City revealed most of the really good sleeping spaces next to the heat vents in Suburban Station were already taken, so he is delighted to remain on the air serving the greatest audience in the world at 98.1 WOGL. When asked for comment on Big Ron's contract extention, a WOGL spokesperson said, "who? Uh.....Oh! He's the guy who comes on after Harvey, right? He said what??!?"
1/22/08
No one has invited me to their super bowl party yet, and it shouldn't surprise me. Being older than 42, I remember the days when we all got along with out it just fine. Of all the great American celebrations, this one has a big hole in the middle where it's heart ought to be. As the championship game for professional football it's fine, but the World Series and Stanley Cup are more my speed.
Now I am just as anxious as the next guy to see if those Patsies can make it 19-0 over the Giants, but think back over those 41 Super Bowl games that have already taken place. How many of them were really great football games? To say there were 6 of them is being extremely generous, and here in Philadelphia the highlight of our S.B. experience is Donovan McNabb throwing up. Yawn!
Then we get to the even less attractive aspects of the big day. Rate the commercials!! Whoo-hoo!!! Granted, there are a few creative little moments each year, but they are few and far between. How many variations of the smart wife running the household in spite of her stupid husband do we need?? What are the cubicle dwelling corporate drones having for lunch this year?? Who cares! And the year that just about every ad featured chimpanzees was really swell.
Then of course there is the extravagent half-time show. Where Brittney Spears frolicks with Aerosmith (do they really need the money bad enough to cheapen their legacy?), Justin Timberlake gives Janet Jackson some air, or Prince proves that he is very talented, but a dwarf. Okay, the McCartney show a few years ago was really cool, but he was only there because he had product to promote.
This year musically, we are expected to wait in breathless anticipation for the new recordings of Paula Abdul. While she's a nice girl...as far as singing talent goes....she is an excellent choreographer. Back in the day, rumors were hot and heavy that her voice was mixed along with a bevvy of back-up singers to disguise her lack of singing ability...and she still never met a key she couldn't be flat on. So park it for 6 hours in front of the tube for Paula's first new record in 13 years. Mindlessly wallow in the hype and don't ever think that maybe there's a REASON Paula hasn't made a record in 13 years.
I must confess I will be watching the game. However, I will be muting the sound during game breaks and my only food will be plain triscuits and egg salad. Wanna come over?
1/14/08
My radio career started before high school, but at this time of year I remember my high school radio station. Most such stations can only be received on the school's campus or have a 10 watt signal that covers a mile or so. In 1968, I was a junior at Des Moines Technical High, a school with a TV station (Channel 11) and a 5,000 watt radio station which covered 2/3rds of the state of Iowa. These were non-commercial stations doing educational programs during the day, but in the evening high school students rotated shifts playing the top 40 hits of the day. Because of the power of the radio station, we were promoted by the record distributors out of Minneapolis. One day one of those distributors called my main teacher Mr. Herbert and asked if we wanted a celebrity interview with Dino Danelli of The Young Rascals. As luck would have it, Dino would be calling in during one of my shifts.
So there I was on April 4, 1968. His call came in right on schedule at 7:45. Here was the big rock star talking to the 16 year old DJ who had never done an interview in his life. One the other end of the phone he was probably rolling his eyes dealing with the "whats your favorite color" questions from his inexperienced host. Just as his moment of suffering was just about to be over, the teletype machine in the corner of our little studio started buzzing and dinging and chirping....which meant a major news bulletin was coming in. I said, "Hold on Dino, I better check this out." I came back with my voice shaking an announced to Dino and whoever was listening that the news was bad, Dr. Martin Luther King had been shot in Memphis and was critically injured. We didn't know how that drama was fated to play out at the time, so we both said a little prayer at Dino's urging. Dino stayed on the air for another 45 minutes talking about Dr. King and how much his words had inspired their new album, "Freedom Suite," especially songs like "People Got To Be Free" and "A Ray Of Hope." This kid from Iowa learned much that night. The radio lesson in how to interview seems petty today. The real lesson is how much Dr. Martin Luther King inspired good people of all creeds and colors to judge each other by character and not superficial appearances. Now that his life is celebrated with a federal holiday, many of us will not work on January 21 this year. Personally, I prefer to be at my post, as usual at 3pm. For all the progress we've made in my life, Dr. King's work is not yet done. It is left to us to do that work, thanks to the tragic events of April 4, 1968....the night of my first celebrity interview.
12/11/08
Raise your candy cane if your Christmas is shrinking. Mine certainly is. In my childhood, we'd all go to grandma and grampa's house. All the aunts and uncles would be there....20 plus people all together.
Then grandma passed and grampa moved to an apartment at the senior center....so the celebration moved to my mom's condo. About that time, my cousins were going off to college and they didn't make it back every Christmas and the shrinkage was on, until this Christmas it will just be me and mom.
Luckily, the memories grow bigger to compenstate for the loss in attendance. Grampa's house was a 3 story affair with stairs up to the attic. At some point during Christmas eve, we kids would hear the sound of thumping up in the attic and we raced up to catch Santa in the act of delivering the presents. We never caught him, but we were so sure that all the aunts and uncles were downstairs with us, who else could it have been? That magic has never left me...I still believe in Santa Claus.
I also believe in green bean casserole, 7 layer salad, punch made from 7-up and sorbet, cinnamon roles on Christmas morning...and my aunts "roll up" cookies...in 2 flavors, of couse...date and chocolate. Don't remind me of how many years its been since I had any of that stuff...it seems like only yesterday.
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