Archive | radio RSS feed for this section

Gangsters, Rabbits, and Radio.

15 Nov

from July 12, 2008

I am a fan of Old Time Radio, usually known simply as OTR. (This is part of the same silly trend of using initials that has turned the venerable old, bourbon-swilling Kentucky Colonel-led, Kentucky Fried Chicken to become simply known as KFC. Pretty soon KFC will just be another acronym no one understands, kind of like LASER or LHS. But I digress.)

Anyway, OTR is easy to find. Go to eBay and do a search and you’ll find tons of cheap discs full of hundreds of MP3’s for about $1 each, so it isn’t what you’d call an expensive hobby. Unless you don’t want to listen to hours of scratches, pops, and hiss, in which case you’ll go to Radio Spirits and spend $30 for a digitally remastered set, about 10 hours.

Bonnie (whose MySpace page is cleverly hidden under the name “Bonnie”) once told me that I remind her of her father. I never met her father. If I did I may have a serious question or two. (But I digress again.) This hobby may be a reason why.

I’ve got a lot of OTR. There’s first and foremost Superman, with nearly 1,200 episodes available. Sadly, most of the WWII episodes were wiped so the reels could be reused- wartime rationing was worse than kryptonite, I guess. This is too bad, because the wartime episodes were pretty over the top, propaganda-wise, with Superman managing to find “Jap” spies in the basement of The Daily Planet, dynamiting Metropolis’ vital harbors, putting listening devices in Jimmy Olsen’s bow tie, and so on and so on. (Maybe it is better that these remain missing, now that I read that back.) And it seems like every twelfth or thirteenth episode featured a dam bursting. Why would anyone live in a city surrounded by so many dams? Sounds like a deathtrap to me. Good thing Superman was always around. Too bad he and Clark were never in the same place in the same time. Some “investigative reporter” Lois Lane was. However, Lois could afford to be thick as a brick. This show aired in the 40’s and 50’s so the toughest assignment she was given was to find out why the Metropolis Annual Flower Show had no daisies. (It was a Japanese plot.)

There are thousands of episodes of various detectives, tough guys with tough-sounding names, like Richard Diamond, Johnny Dollar, Hollywood Russell, the Saint, and Sam Spade. (One of you will appreciate that. 99% of you will not get that joke. But it is an in-joke and somebody is getting a nice chuckle right now.) They were tough guys, rough guys, and nothing-else-rhymes-with-tough guys. They carried big rods in their pockets (and big guns too). Real man’s man types who never seemed to have serious girlfriends for some strange reason. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but if you spent all day in an old office with nothing but a bottle of whiskey I might want to come home to more than just my P.I. manual.

Spooky narrators abounded- The Whistler, the Hermit, The Old Witch, The Mysterious Traveler. These guys (And they were nearly always guys. Even the Old Witch from The Witch’s Tale seemed pretty butch.) didn’t seem to do anything. The Hermit lived in a cave. The Whistler hung around and whistled. God only knows what the Mysterious Traveler did but if I ever sat next to him on a long flight I’d parachute out because everyone he knows seems to die under strange circumstances. (Sort of like Jessica Fletcher from Murder She Wrote. No matter where she went someone died. “Hey, it’s my old friend Jessica! I haven’t seen you since- urk! Argh! (Thud.)” “Oh no, it happened again.” And that show went on for like a decade. By the end of the run everyone from her pizza delivery guy to her grandchildren kicked the bucket. In the last season she investigated the death of a guy she saw across a crowded theater in 1973, there was just no one left.)

Here’s a useless nugget of information. “Soap operas” got their name from the fact that they started on the radio and were sponsored by soap companies. Now go on Jeopardy, champ!

There were comedies too. There was the one with the guy who opened his closet and everything fell out. There was the guy whose neighbor was an undertaker. There was the Irish guy whose wife beat him. Ha ha, not a fan.

Old time radio was full of detectives, crime solving corpses, old women with pet sheep, stately underwater mansions, downtrodden husbands, over-the-top narrators, doctors recommending certain brands of cigarettes, and most famously, an invisible man with a celibate girlfriend.

I refer, of course, to The Shadow, perhaps the most famous show OTR ever produced.

“Years ago in the Orient, The Shadow learned a strange and mysterious secret, the ability to cloud men’s minds so they cannot see him” Or “using advanced techniques that may one day be available to law-enforcement, The Shadow fights crime as invisible as the wind, as inevitable as a guilty conscience.” In his everyday identity, The Shadow is “Lamont Cranston, wealthy young man about town.” Or an amateur criminologist. Or sometimes he was the best friend of the police commissioner. Usually he was just some rich guy who stumbled into plot to rob a bank, or spent the night in a haunted mansion, or ran into his double, who just happened to be newly released from prison and planned to frame Cranston for war crimes, or something. The show ran for almost three decades so the quality depends on when the episode was made. It could be a supernatural show with ghosts one season, a show where Cranston foils attempts at art forgers the next season.

But it doesn’t matter. An invisible man is the perfect character on radio- everyone is invisible. It’s radio, everyone is a disembodied voice. No special effects were needed. All they did was give his voice some echo and poof! He’s The Shadow.

BAD GUY 1: We got the Cranston locked up in the vault. No one can get in or out, see?
BAD GUY 2: Hey! The vault is empty! What happened?
SHADOW: Ha ha ha, Cranston is gone, I am the Shadow!
BAD GUY 1: How did you get in? And what happened to Cranston? He was here just one second ago.
SHADOW: Heh heh heh!

Many of the poorer shows are kind of like Scooby Doo. Cranston would investigate rumors of bootleggers, or saboteurs, and at the climax he would turn into the Shadow for no particular reason and trap the crooks when it would so much simpler to just stay visible and call the cops. There was one episode where Lamont and his chaste girlfriend Margo were the only passengers on a hijacked train. Then Lamont disappeared and The Shadow hit the bad guy over the head with a wrench from behind.

Which also just goes to show how stupid the police commissioner was. Commissioner Weston would go to lunch with Lamont. Lamont would excuse himself and slip over to a phone. Weston would get a call.

WESTON: Hello?
LAMONT: Hello commissioner.
WESTON: Oh, it’s you Shadow. I’m having lunch with Lamont Cranston, you just missed him.
LAMONT: I know. I’m the Shadow!

Now remember- Lamont and The Shadow sounded exactly the same. How did the commissioner know who he was talking to over the phone?

WESTON: Hello?
LAMONT: Hello commissioner.
WESTON: Lamont? What kind of a game is this? I thought you went to the bathroom.
LAMONT: I am The Shadow!
WESTON: Stop fooling around, Cranston. This is silly,
LAMONT: I am The Shadow! Can’t you hear the slight echo on the line? (mysterious laugh)
WESTON: Fuck you. (Click.)

Once you suspend a ton of disbelief, this is a really good show. (Please discount the story where the guy thought he was a gorilla simply because he was hairy, thank you very much.)

His alleged girlfriend was “the lovely Margot Lane, the only one who knew to whom the voice of the mysterious Shadow belonged.” (I can only dream of working with grammar like that. Proper use of “whom,” improper placement of “belonged.”) She was always referred to as “his constant friend and companion.” That is the first clue. Whenever they went on a trip they stayed in separate rooms, and at least once in separate hotels. In nearly three decades on the air they never even exchanged so much as a kiss. A lot of times they would go on big shopping sprees. Can it be any more obvious? She was his beard.

On the radio, The Shadow was played by a whole lot of actors, but the first one was the best, Orson Welles. He only stayed for one season but he is the voice everyone remembers. There is a story I heard once about Welles, or maybe I read it, or maybe I overheard it, or it could be that I am just imagining this. Any way you look at it, I’m going to tell the story and totally get it wrong, probably.

Welles was an amateur magician and liked to show off. One time he was invited to a party and anticipated being asked to do a few tricks. This was the 1930’s where guys would wear top hats and tails to buy a Big Mac at McDonalds. So he decided he’d really wow the crowd- when asked to perform a trick he’d pull a rabbit out of his hat.

Orson Welles got dressed and damn if he didn’t put a real live rabbit under his top hat. He went to the party and rudely never took off his hat. He waited and waited and no one asked for a trick. No matter how often and how suavely he tried to steer the conversation in that direction, no one took the bait. (“Know that Houdini? I bet I could pull a rabbit out of my hat just like him.” Yeah, he was that unsubtle.) So hours passed and he never took off the hat. He sat through dinner with the rabbit gnawing at his head. A couple of people wondered why his hat sometimes seemed to hop around on his head a bit, but they were too polite to ask.

Welles got home and took off his hat, and damn if his hair was not full of rabbit shit. Oh, and the rabbit had died. So there was Orson, hair full of rabbit shit and a dead rabbit on his head. Not his finest hour, but one that perfectly summed up his career.

The Shadow was so popular they made a series of movies about the character. For some reason they never turned him invisible. He was just a silly looking guy in a hat that was too big for him and long black cape that he almost tripped over. Why he didn’t turn invisible is anybody’s guess. Roll film, stop film, actor walks off set, start film, hey! He turned invisible!

The Shadow on film was played, I swear I am not making this up, by a guy named Rod LaRoque. A better porn name is difficult to find. “Rod LaRock.” I suppose Long Cockman comes close. And while we are on the subject, the radio Margot was first played by Agnes Moorehead.

As the series went on it became harder and harder to be original. By the 1950’s The Shadow had foiled the 137th attempt to set New York on fire and it was getting pretty repetitive.

WESTON: Shadow, we have to give gangster Big Jim Johnson $20,000 or he’ll kidnap the mayor.
SHADOW: Didn’t we just give Big John James $20,000 last week not to kidnap the mayor?
WESTON: Who writes this shit?

Radio today has a lot of characters. There is Rush Limbaugh, who just signed a kazillion dollar contract to be loud. There is his democratic counterpart on Air America. (Aren’t they bankrupt again? Are they still in business? Who is doing drive time this week? Ha ha, I’m just teasing. Air America is only heard by out of work liberals hanging out on the Boston Common. Take that Philadelphia!) You’ve got your Howard Stern (who is pretty much irrelevant nowadays) and your Don Imus (and I do a great Imus impression but you have to actually hear me. Just typing “get in here McCord, you weasel” doesn’t work.) Modern radio has lots of characters but no real character. Say what you want about OTR, it was full of it.

Tags: , , , , , , ,

I wrote a blog! (OK, I’m out of titles.)

14 Nov

from March 23, 2008

Nothing good comes in the mail. Wanna prove it? Go to your mail right now. Look what comes in the mail: credit card bills, pre-approved credit card offers, American Teacher magazines that you throw out unopened, coupons for restaurants you don’t go to and leave on a neighbor’s doorstep, draft notices, etc. Now, the good stuff comes over the internet- emails from friends, spam, notices of my new blog, spam, spam from friends, spam spam spam, and sometimes an interesting link. And lots of unsolicited spam. OK, so email may be worse. But you don’t have to walk to the mailbox to get email. And nothing good comes from walking to your mailbox. I live on the fourth floor of an apartment building. So if I go to get my mail that means that I am OUT OF MY HOUSE and can POSSIBLY RUN  INTO A NEIGHBOR. (Motivational caps, btw.) Notice that I didn’t’ say “run into someone I know,” I said “run into a neighbor.” I don’t know my neighbors, they move out too fast. I’ve had old neighbors, young neighbors, short neighbors, fat neighbors, the whole deal, but none of them spoke English. I’ve had one of these neighbors offer me an “all-access” date with his daughter, if you know what I mean, (I blogged it, go back to my brush with marriage) and I’ve had neighbors who stole my garbage. (Yep, garbage.) (I once had a very cute Russian neighbor who lived upstairs on the sixth floor. She was young-ish and took care of a baby. I don’t think it was hers. I’d always run into her in the elevator. I’d be coming home and she’d be going to the park with the baby. I don’t think she spoke any English but we had a nodding acquaintance. I’d get on the elevator. I’d nod. She’d nod back. I’d say hi. She’d nod  I’d smile at the baby. She’d smile and nod. (The girl, not the baby.) I’d get off the elevator. She’d nod. I’d say goodbye. She nodded. I nodded. She nodded. Somewhere along the line the baby nodded too. Like everything else in my George Costanza-like life, there had to be something off about her. Something that made her “wrong.” (Aside from the fact that she spoke no English and had a baby that may or may not have been hers.) Every time I saw her, and it may have been anywhere from 30-40 times, she was wearing the exact same short orange skirt. Now I’m not complaining because she had the legs for a short skirt- and did I mention that it was shooooort?- but it was always the SAME short orange skirt. Didn’t end up mattering one way or another because she (and the baby) moved out soon anyway. I’m still sorry I never got the chance to nod goodbye. We were so close.)

[Now “why,” you are wondering, “did he write such a short and meandering paragraph? He’s an English teacher. He knows that’s crap. And besides, I know his style by now. Short paragraphs separated by a skipped line. So what’s up with that? And why the brackets?” Wonder no more. The brackets are to show that this is an aside having nothing at all to do with the main point of the blog. As if I have one. The long paragraph is because that paragraph has nothing to do with the point of the blog, which can be read below and has in common with the first paragraph only the fact that it has to do with something that came in the mail. And since I know what you are all wondering, and can read all of your minds, I won’t blow up your game, but I know that one of you is thinking some very dirty thoughts about me.]

So in the mail I got a notice from the Brooklyn Technical High School Alumni Association. It is time for the twentieth anniversary reunion of  my class.

I usually throw these things out. Brooklyn Tech is always looking for money and they won’t get it from me. I had a totally lousy high school experience. I hated every day of it, from the train ride downtown to the students to the teachers to the classes to the size of the school to the train ride home. So naturally I became a high school teacher.  My chance for revenge!

Anyhow, the first time I walked through Brooklyn Tech I was not impressed. For a school whose middle name is literally “technical” this was a dump. As we walked to the swimming pool we were directed to walk against the wall opposite a panel of exposed wiring. Exposed LIVE and SPARKING wiring with no technician in sight. We also had to walk up  four or five floors because the elevator was out. I later found out that Tech has an old-fashioned foundry spanning the top two floors. Yes, a foundry, like in the 18th century. I dug dirt and put stuff into hot kilns, like the sort of deal that Upton Sinclair railed about in the turn of the century.

At this point I will not- WILL NOT (man I like those caps tonight) point out that it is the twentieth freakin anniversary of my high school graduation. Twenty years! OK, I know that I am 37 years old, but mentally, let’s all face it, I’m still about eight. I like fart jokes and Godzilla. Ladies, any wonder that I’m still available? (Hint hint.) [37 year old English teacher, likes Larry, Moe and Curly, staying at home, seeks woman…… you get the idea.]

So. The Eighties. Here’s some stuff from the 1980’s, when I was a teen and, well, just read on.

These were among the top songs of the Eighties:

Come on Eileen, by Dexy’s Midnight Runners.It wasn’t until, like, last year, that I found out that “Dexy” was a drug reference about Dexedrine.

Pour Some Sugar on Me, by some annoying hair band.

Africa, by Toto. In summer camp, back in the seventies, I got into a fight with a kid named James Toto and that totally colored my view of that song. I’ve since then gone back and re-listened. Shouldn’t have bothered. Song blows.

When I was in junior high, Mark Twain JHS won some silly radio contest and Duran Duran came to our school. “Human Numan” or some other radio tool from Z100 hosted the event. Nothing got done that day since the appearance was a total secret, meaning everyone knew. We were herded into the auditorium, 80’s music blasted, the Duran Duraners came on stage, the kids went nuts. Everyone stood up, jumped up, and screamed . I pointedly complained about all the noise, stood up, faced the back and made a show of how little I thought of the whole thing. What a friendless tool I was.

These were among the top movies of the Eighties:

The Breakfast Club. I have never seen this movie all the way through. In the eighties I was the quiet loner type who was anti-whatever everyone was for. Just like now. Everyone liked this film, so I automatically hated it. Now I won’t see it out of pure stubbornness.

Dream A Little Dream. Never heard of it, but it stars three or four guys named “Corey.”

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Another film I never saw all the way through. What did I like about that film? The Beatles song Ferris sang. Even then I was a man out of time.

Raiders of the Lost Ark. OK, one of the BEST FREAKIN’ FILMS EVER MADE (in your face Kathy!)

Platoon. Gave us the immortal line “Me so horney! Me love you long time!” and just for that deserves it’s spot in history. BTW- It is about some little conflict called Vietnam or something.

Back to the Future. Just to prove that Raiders wasn’t the only good film of the 80’s, here is an absolute classic by anyone’s standard. What, you disagree? You are wrong. I love this film!

And finally, Star Trek II, the Wrath of Khan. The best Trek film ever!

These were among the tip TV shows of the 80’s:

There are only two TV shows worth mentioning here- The A-TEAM! and some show called Dallas where somebody shot somebody else shot named JR but it was all a dream or something?

And world events of the 1980’s:

Well, I don’t know, but I do remember parachute pants and MC Hammer. Or was that the 90’s?

Now that I have wandered through the 1980’s I don’t need to go to my reunion.

This is from the BTHS Alumni website:

THROUGH THE POWER OF TECH ALUMNI, THE BROOKLYN TECH ALUMNI FOUNDATION SUPPORTS THE EXTRAORDINARY EDUCATION AND TRADITIONS OF BROOKLYN TECHNICAL HIGH SCHOOL AND STRENGTHENS THE COMMON BONDS SHARED BY AND AMONG STUDENTS ALUMNI AND STAFF.

This is from me:

HATED YOUR SCHOOL. HATED THE EIGHTIES. GOODBYE.

What did I like about the eighties?

Bill and Ted’s Excellent Cereal. Totally not bogus, filled with marshmallows and sugar. Mmmmmmmmmmm. 

Tags: , , , , , ,

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →