One Year Later

Today would have been my mother's 88th birthday, but she died exactly one year ago on her 87th.        Unlike my father, my mom lived to what most people would consider a ripe old age.   Even so, the passage of a year hasn't diminished that sense of loss.   A year doesn't seem that long ago, but somehow it makes memories of my own childhood seem much more remote.   I try to keep busy, but often feel less focused not having her around.   It's also one of those times in my life when many friends seem more distant, and I miss them.   Through some sadness and period of adjustment, I am always mindful of the lucky breaks that have come along in the past twelve months.   This one year anniversary serves as a reminder to move on, but it has already been an ongoing process that I know she would want for me and my brother.    Just because we move on doesn't mean we forget.    I couldn't do that; nor would I want to.

Radio Flashback: WCNX - My WKRP

In December 1976 I was just wrapping up college in Keene, New Hampshire and needed a job back in Connecticut.   David Parnigoni, the owner of the station where I'd been working part-time - WKVT in Brattleboro, VT - had just bought 1150 AM WCNX in Middletown, CT.    I landed the music director and midday host position.  Since I grew up 20 miles from WCNX, I already knew it wasn't a big-time sounding flamethrower even though its signal blanketed a good chunk of Connecticut.    What I walked into reminded me of the sleepy, complacent atmosphere that greeted Andy Travis, the new program director (and my hero) on WKRP in Cincinnati.   WCNX had been underperforming on so many levels.    Before Tom McCormack was hired as news director, local news was just read straight out of the Middletown Press.   The music format varied depending on who was on the air.   The most exciting part of the presentation was the Ed Henry Sunday Polka Show, which continues to this day.   The scene was set for some excitement to hit central Connecticut that wasn't emanating from Hartford or New Haven.   After putting a consistently upbeat adult contemporary music format together, they added program director to my duties.   We added jingles.   Billboards with a big "X" popped up around town.   The audio got cleaned up.   We pushed the phone lines and they lit up.   Ad rates had to be raised as we sold out.   General manager Ken Smith summed it up as a "regional sound with local information."    Eager staffers like this young program director often cringed at what junk passed for local, and I eventually let my idealism get the best of me.   All in all, WCNX in 1977 was a worthy effort, and I met some terrific people.    I was now headed for a big-time FM!

Minority Rights vs. Majority Votes

President Obama has become the first U.S. President to openly support gay marriage.   Like any issue in an election year, you can claim political motivation all you want.  I think it was a risky move on his part.   For all the surveys that show increasing acceptance of same sex marriage, there is enough of a fired up electorate who are so intolerant that they can vote to use state law to deny basic rights to a lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender minority.  The North Carolina vote to ban gay marriage officially relegates one group of American citizens to second class status.   If we left civil rights issues in the sixties up to a popular vote, we know what would have happened: little or nothing.   Ironically, racial and ethnic minorities affected by the civil rights movement tend to be even less tolerant of same sex marriage.   Defenders of the status quo shrewdly and cynically seized upon this divide to keep traditional Democratic voters away from the polls in urban areas of Ohio, a key state in the 2004 Presidential election.   There is every evidence we can expect more of the same this time around.   As I pointed out before, we've made progress in race relations but have a considerable way to go despite all the laws, political correctness and good intentions.   The same can be said about gay rights..   Mayor Corey Booker of Newark, a man who impresses me more each day, said it's not a gay rights issue - it's about human rights.   You are entitled to your convictions about whom somebody else wants to love, but we can't make them any less of a citizen because of it.

Rock Evolution

The Beastie Boys

When founding member Adam Yauch from the Beastie Boys died the other day, I can't say I could come up with the titles of more than one or two of their songs, yet they were huge to alt rock and hip hop audiences in recent decades.  Being in radio, I try to keep up with new music (and pop culture in general) but it's easier for Baby Boomers like yours truly to recall entire albums released back when we were 18 or 21. That was when we had more time to take in a change in music that contrasted so sharply with that of our parents.   This Baby Boomer is reluctant to give up the music and memories of my youth even as it gradually fades from mainstream commercial media, but I refuse to believe that nothing of any quality or significance has come out since 1974.  To me, that would be a big surrender to the aging process.   Back in the day, most of the music our parents didn't understand fell under the general category of "rock".    Rock has evolved to become more of a niche as opposed to that all-encompassing genre I grew up with and remember so well.   For all the attempts to categorize - "ghettoize" if you will - rock n' roll and rhythm n' blues have been intertwined from the start and so much since then has been variations on a theme.   I may not latch onto as many new songs now, it still bugs parents and to quote Billy Joel, "It's Still Rock n' Roll to Me."

Another Inconvenient Truth

Al Mayo (New London Patch)

Al Mayo had been a regular listener to Glenn & Rebecca on WBMW and I had a chance to meet and talk with him just two or three years ago. He struck me as a nice guy and hardly a lightning rod for controversy. Mayo's reinstatement into the New London Fire Department complete with back pay and attorneys' fees signals some closure to a less than stellar chapter in the city's recent turbulent history. Mayo was the first African American hired by the department since 1978. Given the racial makeup of New London and the shaky ground on which the firing had been based, allegations of racial discrimination still seemed to come as a surprise to callers on this morning's Stu Bryer Show on WICH AM 1310. Even the show's host couldn't shake the feeling that the story "had something more to it." The callers I heard were indeed intelligent and thoughtful, but you could sense the real frustration that we were still discussing race after all the social changes some of these people had lived through since the fifties and sixties. Have we made strides in civil rights and race relations over the decades? Of course, as attitudes evolve with new generations. Despite the reforms and good intentions, we still have a considerable way to go and we have to be willing to acknowledge that. Being open about our problems is a major source of what has made America great. Nobody should feel uncomfortable about discussing this "work in progress" we all live in.