Saturday, January 31, 2009

The Curse of Having Once Been a Program Director

Keep hearing an ID for WRAY-TV "WOOL'son Raleigh Durham"
Is this the town of my youth that was pronounced by locals as "Weeyilt-son?"
(spelled Wilson?)
Pronunciation in broadcasting and in the Triangle Area has changed significantly in thirty years. It was not uncommon for me to hear someone tell me "Yer nut frum aroun' her, err ye?"
Now, a new strange pronunciation is manifest. In broadcasting the nation formerly known as Australia (aw-STRAYL'-yuh) is often pronounced "aw-STRELL'-yuh" I saw examples of this in a pronunciation guide book as far back as 1980 when I took a book away from one of my rookie disc jockeys.
Yes, I have trained people to be on-air for years.
Another mis-pronunciation is the mis-use of the word "sell"
We're having a SALE...not a "sell." (cell) It comes from southerners trying not to say "SAY'-yull" but it's still a mis-pronunciation
Another thing that bugs me is the confusion and misuse of fewer versus less.
A popular medicine advertises "less interruptions." That is grammatically incorrect and should have made the copywriter cringe before ever writing it, but the dumming down of America goes on. It's FEWER interruptions. When you can measure the thing described, you use "less." When it cannot be measured, the proper word is "fewer"

Friday, January 23, 2009


The photo in this post represents the typical Barmuda Triangle customer...the result of promotions like that taking place tonight at Locked & Loaded.

Karaoke is what works, but I can't find a single place any more that is consistent in having it. Tonight at Locked & Loaded, it's a so called "Cougar Night. "

There IS an alternative, that I will tell you about in a second, but first...

The working definition of "cougar" for THIS event is a woman over thirty, but as I understand the street defininition, it means "an older woman in search of a younger man" (the chronology thing AGAIN) So tonight, with the prizes to be awarded and stuff, L&L is trying to appeal to their idea of older women.
An older man, interested in younger women, either gets the reaction, "EW!" or is called a dirty old man, unless he's some muscular dude who owns a gym (Wayne) CC, or some RICH older dude or one who PRESENTS himself as being wealthy.
Traditionally, only people like Elvis or Bing Crosby would be tolerated with this behavior because of fame and fortune.
Since by definition, a cougar is only interested in men younger than herself, only guys between fifteen and say, twenty-eight should feel welcome tonight. So that, and the interruption of karaoke, leaves me and any other male singers above that age out of it.
So people outside that demographic shouldn't feel welcome tonight and should examine alternatives for karaoke. Pipsqueeks between fifteen and twenty-eight will be the only males feeling welcome, (except CC and Tony Stone, who's hosting this bonanza)
So, by way of review, Locked and Loaded is appealing to 1) Women over thirty and 2) Males between fifteen and twenty-eight
There will also be the "OH! Are they havin' kerr rocky tonight? Hot Dag Alighty, me an' Agnes jess decided to git sumthin' te-eet and a berrr! Yew wanna stay ferr kerr rocky, Agnes?" (Agnes won't say much except with her eyes)

With that said, I will be just outside Locked & Loaded tonight with a rented tour bus, to carry any female karaoke singers to Pastimes near Clayton that is having normal (whatever THAT is) karaoke. I will not charge for this service, but if any of the lovelies feels such gratitude that they wish to show their affection, I totally understand and will NOT be offended.
My pal, Scott EE is hosting it tonight, but I warn you, you may be a little hoarse tomorrow if you're not used to singing more than one or two songs of a Friday.

Pastimes was once "The Sandtrap Lounge" and after that, "Vic's" and is owned by a man named Henry, who used to own "Breakers" in Garner on Tryon Road.
From Garner, the easiest way there is take Hwy 70 toward Clayton, left at the light at Penny Road, across the tracks. You'll "tee" into Old Garner Road. Take a right and Pastimes is less than a mile on the left. If you get to the Course, you've overshot it. Scott will do karaoke with a minimal amount of dance breaks, because Henry won't tolerate a lot of them from about eight until two. Someone's always willing to sign you in as a guest. You may wish to get a membership for the next time L&L decides your demographic is not welcome.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Heck Freezes Over!


Remember my upbringing. I mean the "H" word in that system is nearly as dreaded as, should I say it? The dreaded "N" WORD! I know people so uptight about THAT that they call the California Governornator, Arnold "ShwartzenBLACK!" but I digress.
I was honored to be "recruited" (THAT'LL look good on a resume) to work again for my former Station Manager of WRDT, Randy Jordan to do the afternoon-drive shift (3 to 7) at WKXU in Louisburg.
I haven't been on air since 2001 and have to apply huge amounts of WD-40 to my on-air skills!
At present we don't do an internet cast, but in the Northern Triangle Area of North Carolina I'm on Your FAVORITE Country, Country 102.5!

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

The ULTIMATE in Affirmative Action


MLK stands for "Martin some Love to King." That being said, the orgy continues for newly-elected Barack Obama, or as he refers to himself, holder of the "Office of President-Elect!"
It is a far cry from the late Rev Dr King's rhetoric of judging a man "by the content of his character, rather than the color of his skin."
Barack Obama, whose only accomplishment so far, is being elected to the Senate and only Senatorial "accomplishment" is to successfully run for President. He is untested, and unproven and very vague in policies...the proverbial pig in a poke and was elected predominately because of the color of his skin.
The liberals, who display near orgasmic ecstacy for their wannabe "messiah," are in for a real disappointment. Even as we speak, the Obama people are working to exagerate the condition of the country in order to claim major accomplishments at the end of his first four years in office.
It is, the epitome of the worst characteristic of so called "Affirmative Action."
Change usually means that somewhere there's a soiled diaper. After today, the crying begins.
I don't envy Mr Obama. Rather, I wish him the best and unlike the Dems and Bush haters, I shal subject myself to his leadership and support him with my prayers. God KNOWS he shall need them.
It is very fitting to see snow on this day, because America has not only gotten a snow job...it's effectively had the wool pulled over its eyes!

Monday, January 12, 2009

It Didn't Say Duet on the Sign Up Sheet, Did It?

So Saturday night, a band I'd heard umpteen times was playing at Locked & Loaded, so I headed out to karaoke land a little drive to a place I've only been to like a couple times for that purpose.
I TOLD you about the young man who befriended me with the refreshing world view. Well I had just arrived and sang "Clean Up Your Own Back Yard," and Elvis classic and took my seat and before long, did the Doors' "Roadhouse Blues."
My new friend went up and did a heavy metal tune. Sorry, I don't really know one from the other because it's not my genre, and I was again called up to the mic.
"Kentucky Rain" always goes over well in that particular place, so I start in on the first couple of bars and this, in the vernacular of today, "random dude" comes up, gets the other mic, at which point, I handed mine to the karaoke host and went and took my seat. People were visibly and audibly disappointed, but the buttinske didn't sing a note. Next thing I know, he's at my side calling me everything but a Child of God, with references to my Mom being a female dog. I shrugged and sipped my tea.
My new friend asked what the deal was and I said, "I'm fully capable of messing up that song by myself. I surely don't need help." He asked if I wanted him to "get him," and I said, "No, no, no,no. There's no need for all of that. It's not important." When my tea was finished I casually walked back over to the host and he said, "Sorry, Man. I thought he was your bud!"
I said, "Just so you know, if I'm ever back here again and I'm going to do a duet, I'll put two names on the sign up sheet. I am perfectly capable of messing the song up by myself."
The host again, said, "Sorry, Dude."
"Don't worry about it" and I was on my way back to more familiar surroundings.
I can't figure out why the guy didn't just sing, if he thought he was so good. I found out quickly, I don't have the personality, or lack thereof to be a karaoke host. Unlike many, I AM a deejay, having worked on radio in that capacity, but I always had little patience for the food draggers, who when called, milked the spotlight for all they could get. Some of them like to make long, boring announcements for extra time. A popular, predictable bore is the jerk who'll come up and say, "How you all doin',"or, if say, it's Locked & Loaded, say, "Hey, Locked & Loaded, wuzzup?"or the ever so original, "Be sure to tip your bartender, I'm gonna take you back with this one now..."
I always cut the mic off until the first phrase of the song on jokers like that. Often they'd say, "Hey man...I had something to SAY!"
I'd say, "This isn't Charlie Goodnights. This is karaoke." The ones who'd light a cigarette or finish a drink before approaching the stage would get, "Billy going once, Billy going twice, Okay, we're going to skip Billy until later." About a good forty percent more singers got their opportunity to sing when I was there. Legitimate singers LOVED me at karaoke. I NEVER did so called "dance breaks" or "deejay breaks."
Karaoke brings out the best in some...the worst in others. I'm too impatient to tolerate these turkeys, most of which have no clue that they're totally tone deaf!

Sunday, January 11, 2009

21st Century Blind Eyes


Last night I met a twenty-five-year-old young man who's breaking the mold. He moved down from Pennsylvania to assert his independence, having recently gotten a discharge from the US military.
He also used to sing for a heavy metal group. He complimented my treatment of the Doors' "Roadhouse Blues," telling me that anything I wanted would be on HIS tab. (Sometimes, it's really tempting to drink something other that unsweet tea.)
So the guy says, "What's this fascination of white girls with rap?" Sounded more like a question from a guy my age to maybe a thirteen-year-old. Come to think of it, I asked a similar question when Josh was that age. My answer was, "You tell ME!"
The young man is not fond of dating or marriage between African Americans (blacks) and Caucasians...rare for a young man of his age, or at least rare for someone that age to have the boldness to vocalize such an opinion.
I am sick to death of the painting of your and my ancestors as some sort of ignorant, and racist animals. About a year ago, I used the phrase "negroid features" to a similarly aged young man, and his head whipped around as if someone had told a racist joke. How DARE I use ANY word starting with the letter "n" in that context? Ignorance. Nothing but ignorance. It is a totally legitimate word.
Maybe I'm the only one, but I LIKE the fact that God made us different and I think HE had a purpose for it and I don't think it's anointed by Him for us to try to undo that. There's a big difference between interracial dating and marriage being acceptable and no big deal, and urging people to do it because it's somehow STYLISH!
I had a crush on a girl I thought was Latino, and learned later she was partially African American.
I don't shun black folk. Heck, I LIVE with them and some of my best neighbors and friends are not of the Caucasian persuasion.
CBS' "Cold Case" shows overwhelmingly paint a US as racist, but it is WAY overblown. The fifties are always depicted as an ignorant time, even though that is not the case.
There was no hatred in the young man's voice who questioned me...rather an attempt to try to understand. Somehow the indoctrination of VH-1, MTV and the Soviet-style, so called "public" schools have not gotten to this young man, who despite it all, thinks for himSELF!
Sorry, if you start the rhetoric that my ancestors were racist, since you have no clue, you need to SHUT UP!

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Seventy-Four Years Ago TODAY!

In 1954 he made history blending gospel, country, and the blues and had the nerve to rock. There have been a lot of faux rockers since, a lot who've used the term "rock' in lyrics who wouldn't know rock if it bit them on their hip pocket! Most musicians are so innate today, they feel they have to fall into one of the founding building blocks or into genres unknown in 1977 when Elvis left us that bore me to tears for their repetition and lack of originality. Crackers, trying to sound like they're from "da hood," including the little whiney spoiled bratt Matthers, who's stage name sounds like the candy that doesn't melt in your hands. There's a "kid" who doesn't rock, who started out that way and is trying to cling to an audience, repackaging a Skynrd classic and getting away with it.
But enough about them. This is the day Elvis was born. Hard to believe that was seventy-four years ago.
The "Grand Ole" Opry still owes his family an apology for the words of stupidity that flowed from a clueless Jack Dempsy, "Why don't you go back to driving a truck!" Elvis Presely is and always will be the King of Rock 'n' Roll, but the magic is, he was not liminted to ANY genre. He could sing it all and every song became his own and no other artist should have dared to touch that song, once the Elvis touch had so electrified it. There's no other artist that can be said about living or dead!
Music is once again a polarized joke without Elvis around. You got rap and country. Combine them and you have CRAP. Oh yeah, they come up for other words to try to get you to listen to the junk. It's all marketing now...the art, if there IS any is drowned out in a sea of mediocrity.
They call some stuff "hip hop" that's neither hip, nor does it hop. R&B USED to stand for rhythm and blues, but you listen to what's labeled that and there is no rhythm...no blues.
For gosh sakes, country isn't even country any more. It's just old pop with hick-accent singers. Just as when I first heard Hank Williams, SENIOR, I say again now, "Why would anyone sound like that on PURPOSE?" Some genius will say, "To make MONEY!"
It's not really that good authentic music is not being recorded, it's just that record labels and promoters are dishing out this material suitable, possibly for growing some world class tomatoes, when mixed into the soil. No, it's worse than that...it's audio pollution!
McCartney still writes and records good stuff as does Clapton, when he strays a little from the blues rut he continually falls into, but hey, he loves the stuff! At least he's being true to himself.
Gwen Stefanie has shown a talent vocally, but often sells out to the "hip hop" crowd with a touch of cheerleader thrown in. There was Fiona Apple's "Criminal" that borrowed heavily from Cher's phrasing that dropped at the end.
Cher her self is arguably one of the most talented females of all time, but she has resorted to displaying parts of her body that had BETTER be shaved on a Navy destroyer in a video. There we were, saying, as the expression goes, "REPRESENT, girl!" But she fell into the recycled disco trap.
No, Elvis, I'm glad I have your stuff to listen when all around me is manure!
The world is quite ripe for a rockabilly revival. It always comes along when we least expect it. I agree with (John) Lennon when he said, "Before Elvis, there was nothing!"(musically speaking)
When rock'n'roll went corporate with the sellouts like Bobby Darin and Fabian, along came the Beatles, just in time, recycling old Carl Perkins tunes and songs of Chuck Berry.
When the next lull came, there was Creedence Clearwater Revival with the original Sun studio sound and Scotty Moore-like guitar licks. Robert Gordon, TRIED to give it to us, but RCA didn't promote him well enough back in 1978, right after EP died.
Brian Setzer did it with the Stray Cats. I'm sure there've been others.
Elvis "tribute artists" have become a cottage industry. There's a reason for that.
The saddest thing, is the prostitution of Elvis legacy by those who give us the ultimate pablum, American Idol(atry). The cow-eyed French-Canadian bone rack, Celine Dion defiling Elvis' hit "IF I Can Dream"on that disgusting show. I did not see it, but was YouTubed it incessantly by those rubbing it in like salt in a fresh road rash wound. I would almost SWEAR I heard a primal scream eminating from Graceland late that night, "PLEASE! That's not what I MEANT!"
Christmas saw videos and an album of equally talent-free wannabes singing duets to recordings of the King.
As Les Nessman proclaimed when the live turkeys were plummeting to earth from the WKRP in Cincinatti helicopter, "Oh, the humanity."
But we can't let the mishandlers of Elvis' Legacy and the pablum-pushing corporate recording industry get us down. We STILL can listen to the original and say, "Good gracious, that man could SING!"
He's in a place where none of that matters, now. Having, according to his half brother Rick Stanley "rededicated his life to Jesus Christ in January of 1977." Elvis' last words to Rick, "Those people who tell you about Jesus are the ones who CARE about you!"
I shall always remember the man, who when approached with a crown that a woman presented, when she said, "...'cause you're the KING!"
He said, "No, Honey...I'm not the King...CHRIST is King. I'm Elvis."
Need I say more?
The preceding was opinion...MY opinion! If you want to give YOURS, get your own blog!
By the way...HAPPY BIRTHDAY, E!

Monday, January 5, 2009

"...Life Goes on...BRA!"




I've chronicled on this blog how we evangelicals and especially those of us reared in the Pentecostal and Holiness movements suffered because our folks get more tied up with HOW something is said, as opposed to the intent of the heart of the person speaking...so much UN-like our Lord Who does the exact opposite.
So, I can just see them out there when they see something titled "Save the Ta Tas" and their aghast expression. Then they'll wonder why those outside our ranks thing we're stupid. Guess what? When we act like that, we ARE stupid!
On a personal note, when I was eleven years old, my mother had a radical mastectomy and was told if she survived ten years, she was pretty much home free. I not only began to cling to my Mom, but I did a lot of growing up. Mom told me horror stories of being a well endowed young woman in a world of horn toads.
Suddenly, these delightful fleshly adornments became part of a living, breathing human being and not a future toy I longed to play with. (The evangeliscals will LOVE THAT honesty, but hey, let the Pharasees be the Pharasees)
I see grown men now going gah gah over breasts and referring to them as "titties" and only laugh at the lack of maturity. But they haven't walked in mine or my Mom's moccasins, so I have to cut them some slack.
Mom lived on another forty-one years and I cherished every second with her. Needless to say, breast cancer awareness is close to my heart