It's How I'm Geared

My brother Gary - the mechanic in the family

I like to think of myself as a reasonably intelligent and capable person.  My wife tells me I should go on Jeopardy!  Go ahead, ask me any state capital, radio station location or historical fact from World War II.   Ask me to fix something that inevitably breaks down in real life and I'm usually stumped.   I admit it; I am not a handy man.   For some reason dating back to my childhood, those types of things never penetrate into my head.   Even when I worked at gas stations, I really didn't get far beyond fixing a flat or, when they were shorthanded, changing somebody's oil.   I was the guy who kept the place spotless and was pretty good at greeting the customers.   On the other hand, my younger brother Gary takes after my father.   Once they changed the engine in my '67 Plymouth Satellite.   When I saw what they went through, I felt guilty putting them through that while it reaffirmed my desire to stay the hell as far away from a wrench as I possibly could.

In today's society, mechanical aptitude can earn you a decent living.   I am in awe of the talent some people have working with their hands.   I do like some painting and gardening around the house, but that doesn't require handyman status.   There are urgent times when my limited abilities as Mr. Fix-It are required, but that's a last resort.    With the car, I have peace of mind knowing AAA is a phone call away.   There are instances when I surprise myself.   I have actually put IKEA-type furniture together following the detailed directions... with only a couple of parts left.   A recent plumbing emergency seemed like a quick fix, but after struggling with pipes to no avail I got my brother to come down.   He still gets royally ticked off at plastic parts being made so cheaply, but the third try was the charm.   This past weekend, a grill I actually assembled two years ago was not heating up past 200 degrees.   Our friend Betty said her husband fixed theirs by pounding on it a few times.   That did the trick!    Mechanically challenged prople like yours truly love solutions like this... very satisfying.

Who's Number One?

What hasn't been said about David Letterman ending his run on late night TV?   I agree with most of it.   Leno was OK, but Letterman was one of a kind.    Once Dave was passed over for Johnny Carson's spot I always felt watching Letterman was like rooting for the underdog.   Dave did start out number one in the late night ratings, but Jay's O.J. Simpson jokes ushered in a long period when NBC's Tonight Show could not be caught.   Still, Dave leaves in a sea of accolades while Jay's departure seemed almost after the fact even though Leno was ratings gold.   As with so many things, the numbers don't tell the whole story.   

Dave was certainly not a perfect person.   His embarassing sex scandal revealed that.   On the other hand, his emotional reaction to his heart surgery and 9/11 plus his ability to handle the most difficult guests and take part in the most ridiculous situations only strengthened our connection with this man who only reluctantly shared his private life.   Jay was generally considered a nice guy, yet the tension over the Tonight Show succession left a bad feeling with a lot of people... twice.

This storied late night competition is yet another example of how "the numbers" don't tell the whole story.   Leno may have been the winner to Madison Avenue ad agencies, but on Broadway it was Letterman.   He'll be considered the iconic showman for years to come.   He leaves have a legacy like Carson.  Just ask Jimmy Kimmel or Conan O'Brien.  Something can be a flash in the pan (Leno was bigger than that), but Letterman set a pop culture gold standard.       

In both print and broadcast aspects of my media background, it's not about how much circulation your direct mail publication has or how your radio station shows in the ratings.   It's about what works.   When I worked across town in radio, we were told to often interject that our station was "number one in the ratings."   How does the listener relate to that?   "We've got the most power!"   Who cares?     If a record hit number one for six weeks in 1977, does that mean we ever want to hear it again?   Ratings/rankings are a snapshot of what was... nothing more, nothing less.   Letterman blazed the trail beyond that. 

Various Thoughts...

Our transit infrastructure is woefully inadequate compared with most developed countries, yet House Speaker John Boehner is quick to dismiss a reporter's question about adequate Amtrak funding as "stupid".  He does this while rushing to lay the blame on one engineer's error before all the facts come out as to the cause of the fatal Philadelphia train derailment.   The afternoon after the crash, the Republican House actually cut funding for Amtrak.   Do Republicans really expect big business to come in and update infrastructure without government investment and reasonable profit?   The GOP is clearly tone deaf on this one, to say the least.

The Iraq War threatens to turn the 2016 Presidential election upside down.   Hilary Clinton has at least admitted her mistake in supporting an invasion that came back ruin her 2008 prospects. She still has to be more forthcoming in dealing head on with the Iraq consequences embodied in ISIS.   The money may still be leaning toward Jeb Bush on the Republican side, but I still find it shocking how unprepared he was to consistently answer the inevitable question over whether he would have taken the same action his brother did in 2003 based on faulty intelligence.   On foreign policy, Republicans need to get over their fear of the Dick Cheney unrepentent right wing and come to grips with perhaps our biggest mistake in a century.

It seems like the Patriots Deflategate saga has already taken a break from public awareness for now.   Haters outside New England are gonna hate no matter what, but as a Pats and Tom Brady fan I still have to admit that it does sound like Brady at least had some inside knowledge of the tampering.   That said, does this warrant a stiffer penalty than one to another NFL player caught on video knocking out his wife in an elevator?    Also, is there any doubt that the Patriots played a great season with or without Deflategate?

The death of B.B. King reminds us of how iconic a musician can be even without big hits on the radio.   It also reminds people like me who deal with type II diabetes about the need to take this condition seriously.

They said pollen allergies would be severe this year, and they were right!   When my car stops showing all the yellow stuff I hope my eyes will stop tearing up uncontrollably.    

Pop Culture Back in the Day

Science fiction movies and comics sprang from the early days of nuclear proliferation.   Spy themed television and movies really took off in the sixties as the Cold War intensified.   Much of this seemed to capitalize on certain societal fears.   Even though I wasn't born yet during the Second War War, as a young child I remember countless images and bits of information from this most terrible conflict in history.   I'm not sure if they were always accurate ones, but one thing was universally clear: we Americans really felt righteous in our might.   

I recall two things from getting my haircuts as a kid at Vinnie's Barber Shop in North Branford, CT.   One was the sound of a breed of country music on WFIF-1500 AM out of Milford that seems so far removed from today's country.   The other was the pile of comic books he had that seemed to be always about seemingly superhuman heroes facing down evil Nazis and Japanese in WWII.   It made me wonder even back then whether an American Indian riding on a horse could really shoot down a divebombing Messerschmitt fighter with a pistol.  It didn't matter; we were the good guys.   As the Vietnam War got more controversial and I started forming my own opinions, the roles of good and bad guy seemed to blur as the goal of our mission was never defined. 

As we face one of the most evil forces in decades in the form of ISIS, I don't see the same dichotemy between good and bad portrayed as widely in pop culture.   Perhaps that in itself is a good thing, but I also wonder how much of it is based on a disconnect from the conflict as Americans know more about the Kardashians than the whole Middle East while some distrust our own government so much that they question its constituionality or legitimacy.   We should have a natural reluctance to demonize people not of our group while questioning authority, but some basic allegiance to a greater good shouldn't go the way of WWII comics - or the sound of yesterday's country music.      

AM Radio Changes

Fifty years ago, RKO-owned AM station 93-KHJ in Los Angeles revolutionized a still young Top 40 format as "Boss Radio."   It was a fast-paced, music intensive approach that was emulated in varying degrees by stations across the country and Canada, including WPOP 1410 in Hartford.   WPOP gave rival WDRC a run for its money in an era of music, personalities and promotions most Baby Boomer listeners wouldn't forget.   A generation later, the music had pretty much died on AM with the exception of adult standards nostalgia formats.   Talk and sports in the 80s and 90s gave many traditionally dominant AM's a much needed infusion of Baby Boomer adult listeners, but now sports has migrated successfully to the FM band while syndicated talk's move in that direction has been slowed largely because of an aging audience.   

In Hartford, heritage signal WTIC-AM 1080 has jettisoned political talk in afternoon drive time in favor of local sports talk, but 'TIC is exceptional in several ways.  WTIC's 50,000 watt signal and their lineup of major sports team play-by-play cover the market far better any other local AM or even the one existing FM sports outlet on 97.9.   Hartford, unlike many markets its size, is not over-radioed.   Even so, WPOP now struggles to get a .1 share of total audience with syndicated Fox Sports.    If profitable sports talk has largely abandoned the AM dial, how long can WTIC keep it as their AM cash cow?

Is talk toast in medium and major markets?    I can point to Providence, where Cumulus Media's WPRO beats the Rush Limbaugh affiliate WHJJ three to one with a very live and local approach, but even local celebrities don't come cheap.     CBS Radio shows less interest in hanging on to any radio stations beyond the top markets, which may also explain why they saw sports as an easier route to relatively young male demographics while they let WTIC-AM's longtime news director Dana Whalen go.    As a child of the sixties now in my sixties, I'm really in the last generation to grow up listening mostly to AM radio.   Does anyone under 55 care about AM?     As a lover of AM, I have to wonder where these stations are headed.