James Rising

Radio DaZe:

So after an interminable amount of “instruction” by Mr.PD who to be kind was probably horrified in anticipation of the reaction to come when the rest of the WJNC met the new long haired, bearded midday announcer, I was led to our new abode.

Housing was pretty good and fairly cheap in Jacksonville. For both the Marines and the support staff there were thousands of rental townhouses. He had secured me one and it wasn’t bad. By this time it was late Saturday afternoon and I now knew that I would be working 12 hours the next day.

12 hours?

When I agreed to the job for the princely sum of $150 weekly I assumed (a mistake I NEVER made again) that it would be your typical radio 40 hour week, which probably meant more like 44 or so. The PD evidentially justified my salary by losing a part-timer and saddling me with a split shift on Sundays. 6am-12 noon, 6pm to 12 midnight.

When he explained this to me he must have noticed the shocked look on my face.
Oh, it’s easy, son,” he drawled. “The first part is a regular shift but the second part is mostly public service shows and the last two hours you play jest play classical music. You could read a book or whatever.”

What choice did I have?

We got the U-Haul trailer unpacked and returned and the apartment more or less set up. My buddy Jeff was to take off the next day while I was working the morning part of my marathon. So we celebrated like we were back in college by consuming mass quantities of alcohol.

The next day I awoke with hangover that would have killed a lesser man. I looked at the alarm clock and swore at it. 5:45 am and I had to be at the station at 6 am.

I am sure in my mind it looked something like this scene from “FM-The movie”

But the truth is the big bellied Sheriff who ARRESTED me for going 70 mph in a 25 mph school zone (SCHOOL ZONE? It was SUNDAY morning!) saw no glamor in it. All he saw was some long-haired Yankee kid, stinking of gin and breaking his balls was his job. He was good at it.

In North Carolina, I was to find out, exceeding the speed limit by more than 25 mph was considered “intent to commit homicide.” I was well and truly screwed.

They threw me in a cell, one of two times I was ever incarcerated, this being the only time it was legitimate. As I recall, and the whole incident is a little hazy by this time, my wife and drinking buddy Jeff bailed me out with every last cent we had between us. I was to appear in court the next week.

How we managed to get me out in only an hour I will never know. But I made it to the station only about 90minutes late and oddly enough never heard anything about it other than the ration of shit I caught from the guy I was relieving.
I will never know how I made it through that first shift. My head was pounding. I was working a new board and trying to program that nasty FM automation system in between records (no automation system on the AM) was a challenge.
Plus the cops had my license so my wife had transport duty. She was less than pleased about the idea of hauling my ass home at midnight. As I recall she was less than pleased with most everything.

My punishment was a stiff fine, equaling every cent we had and more, plus a six month suspension of my driver’s license. On reflection I often wonder why my employers didn’t question the fact that I rode a bike to work most days. Even when it rained. I must have smelled like a wet dog.

I hated everything about WJNC. The program director had outright lied to me about the format, calling it close to a top 40 station. I quickly discovered that the most recent records on the playlist were over a year old. Most of what I had to choose from were moldy old LPs from what we called “Middle of the Road” artists, like Jack Jones , Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Tony Bennett, Dionne Warwick, Astrud Gilberto, Matt Monro, Robert Goulet , Jerry Vale and so on.

It was pure hell for a 19 year old, one job out of college radio and playing 8 minute “Yes” tracks.

The stations equipment was old and balky. A good example was the “silence sense” alarm for the FM station. This was supposed to go off with an annoying tone when the FM had dead air, which was quite often. The darn thing was supposed to mute when the AM station’s microphone was open but it didn’t. So quite often in the middle of a 15 minute long newscast where you were trapped with a live mic, this tone would be your background.

When I pointed this out to the PD he just shrugged and said “Well son, make sure the FM doesn’t go off the air.” Thanks. Thanks a lot.

Another good equipment foible was the reel to reel machine. Because they were expensive there was only one reel machine in the control room. The Sunday night public service marathon required the back to back airing of taped programs, one of which was the General Managers (and owner’s) weekly tirade of politics and religion. The other reel to reel machine was downstairs in a production room and could be remote started from the control room. It was a brisk walk to get there and a pain in the ass. The production machine recorded fine, but on playback it was sensitive to the size of the feed reel, speeding up as the tape spooled off. So I made sure that the GM’s rant always played on that machine. The last few minutes of his weekly epistle sounded like he was channeling Alvin and the Chipmunks. No one ever mentioned this to me and I knew better than to bother telling the PD about it.

I was subversive and hated authority. I began to find ways to aggravate the management without getting caught. It would eventually lead to me being fired for…stealing!

NEXT: WJNC PD has to earn his pay and hates it. I get the “Star” treatment at a bar and I find out there is more than one meaning to “on the beach.”

The Rant D’Jour is one big cliche. Enjoy.

I have a love hate affair with clichés. If one more person comes up and says to me “hot enough for you?” they will…Rant D’Jour

I have a love hate affair with clichés. If one more person comes up and says to me “hot enough for you?” they will be “pushing up daisies.” “On the other hand” (that’s a cliché too, right?) I am the king of the pithy saying in these parts.

That’s mostly because I am “older than dirt.” I can’t help myself. “Old habits die hard.” I don’t mean to be an “old fuddy duddy” but “there’s no fool like an old fool.” See what I mean? “It’s all downhill from here.”

One of the better definitions I have seen is a cliché is a phrase that is used excessively and has become a bit meaningless and even irritating. Well for “crying out loud!” I certainly don’t mean to be meaningless or most of the time a “pain in the neck”, but I love my clichés even though “there is a thin line between love and hate.”

Sometimes I will throw out one of my older chestnuts and I will get a look like I am “crazy as a bed bug.” Here’s an example. “who’ll bell the cat?” I know what I mean but when I say it people look at me like I am “dumber than homemade dirt.” This is fun but “it’s all fun and games till someone loses any eye.” You have to wonder where some of these come from. I mean “funny as a fart in church” is easy enough that even someone who is “one brick short of a load” can get it. But “go bananas?” The first time I heard that “It was like having one foot on shore and one foot in the canoe.” What the heck does it mean? I guess I am just “as thick as a brick.”

You don’t have to tell me “the check is in the mail.” I can “read between the lines.” My life “is an open book”, “worn threadbare” By people “reading me the riot act.” I don’t know if I am “ready for the funny farm”,”your guess is as good as mine.” In any case “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” and “your mileage may vary.” “Good bad or indifferent” you have to agree “a good time was had by all”.”

Well before “the cows come home” and I am “late for my own funeral” I had better put the “finishing touches” on this. “It’s too late to plow, might as well dance.” Even though I am “busier than a one armed paper hanger with the crabs”, “more nervous than a long tailed cat in a room full of rockers” I have to say “Alls well that ends well.”

“Or then again I could be wrong.”

WEEKENDER Column:

Just another drive up the spine of the Back Mountain on the Memorial Highway. Then, out of the blue, twin flashes of blinding light.

Fireworks? It was really bright. Like arc welding, avert your eyes, bright. It was in two spots simultaneously. Seemed like it was a pyrotechnic display. But then I saw wires whipping around and tree branches falling on passing cars. Something bad electrical had happened. It raised the hair on back of my neck. We have very little idea about the power passes over our heads. All the time.

You don’t stop or slow on the Memorial Highway unless you want to become a stain on the road surface. So my glimpse of the aftermath was just that, a glimpse.

I tried to do the right thing. On my tombstone it will say: “No Good Deed Goes Unpunished.”
“911 whatisyouremergancy?”
“Something happened to the power lines on the Memorial Highway between Sheets and the animal hospital. Explosions.”
“Your name?”
I told him, wondering why.
“Cell phone?”
Now I was concerned. So far most of the conversation had not been about the emergency. Did he need to know my name? AND 911 DOESN’T HAVE CALLER ID? I live in Lehman Township. We barely have roads and we have it. But I told him.
“Where?”
“Southbound on the Memorial Highway near Sheets.”
“Town?’
“Town? I dunno. Shavertown. Dallas maybe.”
“Address?”
“Address? I dunno. Between the Sheets and the animal hospital.”
If you are keeping score that was the THIRD time I told him where .
“Which Sheets?”
“There is only one here.”
“Power lines are in the road?”
Now to be fair: 911 guys work long hours. They are underpaid. They get loads of prank calls.
But, I had been on the phone for a while and now we were just getting to what happened and he had it wrong.
“No, I didn’t say that. I don’t know because I am long past there now. I know there was debris in the road.”
“Debris?”
My instinct was to go all “Airplane” on the guy. Debris, yeah, you know: rubble, wreckage, ruins, litter and discarded garbage/refuse/trash, scattered remains of something destroyed. I didn’t.
“Yeah, tree branches maybe.”
“I’ll alert them.” Click.

The paper said the next day that a tree fell on some power lines in the Back Mountain. Not sure if that was my incident or not. I’ll probably never know.

The Rant D’Jour is about word usage in a fowl manner.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised at anything anymore. I guess my shock-o-meter by this time of my life should be pretty well…Rant D’Jour

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised at anything anymore. I guess my shock-o-meter by this time of my life should be pretty well disconnected. My “been there, done that, got the t-shirt” world weary attitude should protect me from anything like a delicate sensibility.

But I have to admit I was a little taken aback by the seven foot high sign at the gas station that sells subs and soup too. What’s that line from National Lampoons Vacation? Clark W. Griswold says “I’m so hungry I could eat a gas station sandwich?”

The sign reads something like “try our new Crispy Frickin’ Chicken Sandwich.” Excuse me? FRICKIN? Chicken? I get that Frickin’ and chicken rhyme but holy cow! I mean I know Doctor Evil said “Mini-me, fire the Frickin” laser” but that was in a R-rated movie. I know there is a band called “Frickin’ A” but somehow that seems different.

Now we are advertising a food item by using the word that, lets face it, is short for a slang word for, well you know what. I will admit it makes me laugh when I hear Peter Griffin say “Frickin’ Sweet” on Family Guy. And I don’t mind it when Todd Rundgren sings “I hate my Frickin” ISP”. But for some reason this bothers me.

A little on-line research shows that Frickin’ may have come from a guy named Henry Clay Frick, who is infamous for busting a union up in the 1890’s in Southwestern PA by having people murdered. So the theory is Frick became a dirty word and then morphed into Frickin’.

I don’t buy it. I guess I should count my blessings that I don’t live in Ohio where the restaurant chain called “Frickers” invites you to “End your Frickin’ week with us” and boasts menu items like Frickin’ chicken pizza, Frickin’ shrimp and even a big Frickin’ bologna and cheese sandwich for the Frickin’ kids. I am not making any of this up.

Let’s try a little test. Fill in the blank in the following phrase. Mother (blank). Try “Mother Fricken”. See what I mean? George Carlin has his list of the seven words you can’t say on radio or television. I know that Frickin’ is not among them. But I am having some trouble with the image that F@#$ing chicken puts in my mind.

I saw a picture once of a Hells Angel type guy “wearing” a cooked chicken and nothing else. I mean he was using the chicken in a way that some might call unnatural. So with all due apologies to the advertising genius that came up with the idea, I don’t want any of your mother Frickin’ chicken.

Tuesday Review:

Directed by Barry Ptolemy

You have to love Ray Kurzweil. He is SO goofy and yet so sincere. Plus he is a flat out genius, so he has that goin’ for him.

Look in the dictionary ( HA! a leetle joke there. You don’t HAVE a dictionary, do you?) under “Mad Scientist”. You will probably not find a picture of Kurzweil but you should. But he is no bomb making anarchist. No, quite the opposite – He wants you and himself to live forever. Judging from his track record he might be on to something.

Kurweil, during his sophomore year at MIT dreamed up the the Select College Consulting Program and sold the idea for $100,000. He was integral in the invention of the CCD flatbed scanner and the text-to-speech synthesizer.
His friendship with Stevie Wonder led him to build a music synthesizer so good that in tests musicians were unable to discern the difference between the Kurzweil K250 on piano mode from a normal grand piano. He invented and perfected a speech recognition program and the Kurzweil-National Federation of the Blind Reader” (K-NFB Reader).

Plus he is a prolific and best selling author:
Kurzweil’s first book, The Age of Intelligent Machines, was published in 1990.
Kurzweil published a book on nutrition in 1993 called The 10% Solution for a Healthy Life.
In 1998, Kurzweil published The Age of Spiritual Machines
Kurzweil’s next book published in 2004, returned to the subject of human health and nutrition. Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever was co-authored by Kurzweil and Terry Grossman
The Singularity Is Near was published in 2005. The book is currently being made into a movie starring Pauley Perrette.
Kurzweil’s newest book, Transcend: Nine Steps to Living Well Forever a follow-up on Fantastic Voyage, was released on April 28, 2009.
His current book project is titled How The Mind Works and How To Build One.

The documentary does a cursory exam of Kurzweil’s life and then follows him to various speaking engagements as he expounds on his theories. He predicts soon there will be a new civilization in which we will no longer be dependent on our physical bodies, intelligent will expand exponentially and there will be no clear distinction between human and machine, real reality and virtual reality.

From Wikipedia:

Kurzweil’s first book, The Age of Intelligent Machines, presented his ideas about the future. It was written from 1986 to 1989 and published in 1990. In the book Kurzweil also extrapolated preexisting trends in the improvement of computer chess software performance to predict correctly that computers would beat the best human players by 1998, and most likely in that year. In fact, the event occurred in May 1997 when chess World Champion Garry Kasparov was defeated by IBM’s Deep Blue computer in a well-publicized chess tournament. Perhaps most significantly, Kurzweil foresaw the explosive growth in worldwide Internet use that began in the 1990s. At the time of the publication of The Age of Intelligent Machines, there were only 2.6 million Internet users in the world, and the medium was unreliable, difficult to use, and deficient in content, making Kurzweil’s realization of its future potential especially prescient, given the technology’s limits at that time. He also stated that the Internet would explode not only in the number of users but in content as well, eventually granting users access “to international networks of libraries, data bases, and information services”. Additionally, Kurzweil claims to have correctly foreseen that the preferred mode of Internet access would inevitably be through wireless systems, and he was also correct to estimate that the latter would become practical for widespread use in the early 21st century.

So when it comes to predictions, I wouldn’t bet against him.

Director Barry Ptolemy (The Catch) (I) (2001) does a workmanlike job on the film. No new ground is broken but the material is so compelling that he wisely just keeps out of the way.

The Rant D’Jour is about hopelessly old technology and the people who love it.

We have not one but two land line phone numbers at the Rising ranch. I know that seems positively anachronistic…Rant D’Jour

We have not one but two land line phone numbers at the Rising ranch. I know that seems positively anachronistic in this age of cell phones and voice over internet protocol but there is a reason. Sort of. The main house phone is used by a family member who prefers it. The second line was installed for my “business” and was also a fax line. Remember faxes? I keep it because it’s in the yellow pages and two or three times a month I get a call from that.

I also keep it for a sadistic form of entertainment. I have a vice. I like to torture telemarketers. I know it’s bad. They are just trying to do a job. When I die and go to whatever circle of hell I am doomed for, the guy with the horns and pitchfork will have me making phone calls to complete strangers at dinnertime. It’s only fair.

The house phone is do-not-call protected. Works like a charm. The business line is not. I get on average five calls a day. So I can do things like repeat every word they say back to them.

Or pretend that I know them.

“Karem, my old friend! You rascal you. How’s the harem?”

Or I can do the old call and response:

Me: Hello – ANNOYING TELEMARKETING COMPANY: Hello, this is ANNOYING TELEMARKETING COMPANY – Me: Is this A. T. C.? – A. T. C.: Yes, this is A. T. C – Me:- This is A. T. C.? -A. T. C.: Yes This is A. T. C -Me: Is this A. T. C.? – A. T. C.: YES! This is A. T. C., may I speak to Mr. Rising please? – Me: May I ask who is calling? – A. T. C. This is A. T. C… (Repeat until they hang up.)

Or I just keep repeating, “I knew you were going to say that…”

But now in the age of computers you can get high tech. There exist “Soundboards” on the interwebs that can give you short sound clips of almost any famous person , categorized by replies, insults, questions, exclamations, sounds. Well you get the drift. With a few of these open and a speaker phone you can really do some psychic damage to a telemarketer. Think Stewie Griffin. “What the deuce?” Or Robert De Niro. “You talkin’ to me?”

Funny as all this is I do try to remember that telemarketers aren’t actually the spawn of Satan, that they are real people just doing a job and being cruel to them isn’t right. So afterwards I tell them “Please put me on your Do Not Call list.” I could be lying.

UPDATE: I have terminated the “Business” line. Karem will have to find someone else to annoy.

I am at a loss to explain this one.

This is off the entrance to the Wyoming Valley Mall that has the “Food Court” if you can call the crap served at those places food.

I examined it for a few minutes.

Without actually going inside I can ask the following questions:

1. Why? Other than the thrill of being in front of a big freaking fan what is the point? It’s not a real thrill ride. It just…blows.

2. How do they protect users against getting stuff in their eyes. I know I have lots of sand in the cuffs of my pants ( I don’t, but let us suppose I do) and I sure would hate that getting in my orifices.

3. Now that I think on it, how do they prevent someone from being malicious and dumping a pound or so of…kitty litter or Pizza sauce or ground glass on the floor of said gizmo and waiting for the next victim? Hmmm?

4.Two words: Marilyn Monroe. Although that could be interesting with the right subject and the appropriate attire.

5. Does it rain? What self-respecting hurricane doesn’t include rain?

6. How do they prevent multiple people from jamming themselves in the deal?

7. What if: A: It blows your contacts out? B: It destroys your glasses? C: It removes clothing? (I am thinking of bikini tops but you go where you want to here.)

8. How did they come up with the Idea?

9. Why not an Tsunami machine. Much more timely.

10. Or a Tornado machine. Even better.

I didn’t try it. I also hung around it for quite a while and didn’t see any else try it. I was going to ask someone to try it and I would pay (see 7, C, above) but there was Mall Security checking me out so I beat a hasty retreat.

I have to wonder, at $2 pop how much business it really does.

Main reason NOT to use the “Hurricane Machine” ?

Don’t be these guys:

The Rant D’Jour is about maps and places gone.

Ever lived in a place so small that it doesn’t appear on a map? The old joke is that the “you are now entering” and…more

Ever lived in a place so small that it doesn’t appear on a map? The old joke is that the “you are now entering” and “you are now leaving” sign is the same sign.

I am talking about towns so small they don’t even have a flashing traffic light. Well the folks who make maps in Georgia have decided to do something about these little towns. And the solution? Drop them like a bad habit from the newly published maps. So towns like Between and Climax for all intents and purposes have disappeared from the face of the earth. Except of course they haven’t really gone anywhere, they just have been deleted from the map.

When the mapmakers in Georgia got together to work on a new state map this year they decided to clean things up a bit. In the process they axed 519 communities from the map that they hand out in gas stations and rest stops statewide.

Gone are Gum Branch and Ty Ty as well as Poetry Tulip (which sounds like a charming place) and Talking Rock. I think I would take a side trip to see Talking Rock and find out how it got its name.

The folks in these towns are understandably a little upset by their deletion. I think my main problem with the place I live in being removed from a map is the continued insistence that I pay taxes on my non existent place. Although if this idea creeps north and the mapmakers decide to axe some places out of the local area I can think of a few that we can live without.

Shickshinny comes to mind as does Warrior Run if for no reason other than I am never sure where those places are anyway. The good news here is that the major mapmaker Rand McNally has said they will not get into the business of taking towns off their maps. The solution they have said is simple. Just vary the size and style of the print so all the places can fit. So if you ever need to find Gay Georgia in a hurry, just consult your Rand McNally.

But don’t look for it using a Gas Station map. You can’t get there from here.

Sunday Wrap:

That's a wrap

Monday 6/20/11:

Rant D’Jour

Blog Post

Tuesday 6/21/11:

Rant D’Jour

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Wednesday 6/22/11:

Rant D’Jour

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Thursday 6/23/11:

Rant D’Jour

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Friday 6/24/11:

Rant D’Jour

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Saturday 6/25/11:

Rant D’Jour

Blog Post

The Rant D’Jour features my ex-wife’s divorce lawyer.

Have you noticed the new digital signs? They have been sprouting like mushrooms up and down our…Rant D’Jour

Have you noticed the new digital signs? They have been sprouting like mushrooms up and down our highways. The biggest ones are of course owned by the billboard companies but there are bright ever changing ones in front of car dealers and even some in front of drug stores.

The difference between these electronic marvels and regular old signs is two fold. First of all they can be changed as fast as the owners of the sign want. The messages can be timed for various times of day. If someone wants to sell coffee in the am hours and beer in the pm it’s just a flick of the switch. The second feature of these digital signs is the shout-out loud-oh-my-gosh lookit that brightness of the things. I mean they really pop out at you and you really can’t help but notice them.

That’s a great thing for the advertisers but some states have decided that it’s not such a good thing for your average highly distracted motorist. 12 states have banned them altogether.

Of course some states like Vermont don’t allow any billboards at all. I don’t really know how I feel about digital billboards or even billboards in general. I have used them to advertise some of my radio stations in the past and it’s been a pretty effective way to do that.

But my big problem with the huge bright digital billboard that grabs my eye on the way home every night? The fact that I have to look at the ugly puss of my ex-wife’s divorce lawyer in vivid Technicolor. Every day. It’s enough to see his big mug on regular billboards but this living color thing has got to go.