TOUCHING HEAVEN

"REALLY? You're STILL DOING RADIO?"

Its a question I get often enough it benefited me to examine why this is.

Answer: I love radio. I love the whole conceptual IDEA of broadcast radio to the brick and mortar established studios from which the magic comes. I segued from teen to twenties immersed in broadcasting. It was my first professionally claimed affinity in this version of our society.

When I first became interested in being the guy on the radio, I was emulating others who had managed to sit in that chair before me. Then, the popular DJs were fresh out of the 50s and barging with enthusiastic gusto into the new generation's world, looked like they were much younger than my other favorites from the established pop media voices, comedians, maybe all the way into their creaking mid-30s. Like John Kennedy, young. Closer to my status and representing all the music I recognized as mine.

When I started out in professional broadcast radio, the typical DJ "look" was horned rim glasses, maybe a cardigan sweater, slacks and hip shows like white bucks or penny loafers. The Van Dyke goatee and mustachio were ubiquitous, as was the wacky, zany, rhyming speech patterns. Looking back, they looked like hip nerds.

I went right out and acquired an appropriate sweater, slacks and never stopped buying cool shoes.

I saved up my money and laid it all down for MY OWN EARPHONES. I began collecting movie instrumental albums when no one else had anything but 45 RPM discs, exciting and emotional without lyrics to interfere, that I could use under promotional announcements.

And I crossed the threshold into the fourth, and other dimensions. Once out of my three dimensional restraints, ANYTHING was possible.

What was most magical of all to me was the pictures that seemed to accompany the audio. They were individual for each listener. To accomplish that feat on TV or on film, I would have to have an incredible budget. But, when I needed a few bulldozers, an airplane or a fancy race car, money was not the problem. Rather, the task was to comb through sound effect LPs for the sound -or- make your own.

Then, suddenly the music amped up, was imported from England and the entire radio carnival I had joined changed into a more exciting, colorful non-stop performance. Listeners would be as keenly focused on the next Dylan song, the next Beach Boys masterpiece, the upcoming magical mystery Beatles updates - as we were delivering the information.

We young DJs were so proud if our station was one of those that had the courage and budget to run with a live person 24 hours a day! A never-ending story, a mobius audio trip that spiraled ever-upward in such a manner as to let us all feel its pulse as radio actually evolved.

Having experienced, in my radio times, the refreshing nourishment and awe of the Continuous, Living, Creative, Imaginative, nourishing and loving imagination, the unending supply, of course I'm still involved in commercial broadcast radio. It is the audio platform upon which I build my other activities such as online studies and social media marketing. It is the background without which there would be no foreground, the stillness required to her sound, the universal vibration, the Buddhist may call KYO.

See you in the air this week. I'm filling in for one of the regulars who sometimes gets a case of stay-at-home just so she can listen to Bobby Ocean again.

Yay.

WHAT GROWS UP

ODDS AND ENDS CONCERNING YOUR YES VOTE

I'm just sayin' --

It's legal in 14 other States than ours. People in Vermont agree with Golden State voters that, safety and moderation forefront, choosing to alter our own consciousness is our own business, our evolutionary right. Hawaii thinks so too, as does New Jersey. The Sesame Street letters go like this: AK, CO, HI, MI, MT, NV, NJ, NM, OR, RI, VT, VI and WA all pro medical hemp. So we in CA have nearly a third of our fellow States as constituents right now.

This agreement will grow exponentially and the Feds will HAVE to finally tag along with We The People, whom are in every part of the Federation now and that's that. It will become as commonly acceptable as it is ubiquitous now. Yes, there will be problems. There will be the balance of knowing people in need are greatly benefiting. All kinds of stuff will happen. But, all in all, it's going to be just fine.

Besides - Good For What Ails Ya, including glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, fibromyalgia, chronic pain, cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, HIV, Tourette's syndrome, gastrointestinal disorders, and Alzheimer's disease, and there are numerous other conditions on which it seems to have a positive effect.

Medical Marijuana Is Also Good For The Economy; makes a Hefty Profit. In my adopted State, California, Medical Indica and Sativa hybrids generated $100 million in state sales taxes in one year (I get to adopt States because, as a young lad, born in a US Air Force Base, I was made to feel the fort was home. As the family traveled to more than one AFB, each became home. So later, when I Huck Finned my way across and through most of our States by thumb power, it was almost as if shopping through my vast home for a neighborhood or two in which to headquarter. California caught MY heart's fancy, I planted my career here, and I'm still very glad about that very early decision...)
 
But, I'm just sayin'...

Doc's orders...

It's not just here in California, although this State plays a huge part as a National Trend Setter, but saturated through consciousness all across America. A national survey found that close to 50% of physicians support legalizing medical marijuana. I'm sure each and every one of them are all rock stars to their patients. Still. I'm just sayin'...

Science, also making very rapid advances is sayin' they have data to back it up: Therapeutic Ingredients in Cannabis contain hundreds of Therapeutic Compounds. Many of these are Cannabinoids, which sound like creatures from another planet, but, no - just Earth's chemistry, which can serve as appetite stimulants, anti-emetics, antispasmodics, and have some analgesic effects.

Survey Says - and yes indeed, they poll these things - the Number One use for Organic Cannabinoids is Severe Pain. Coming in second, the Survey is sayin' Persistent Muscle Spasms, such as those accompanying Multiple Sclerosis. Scanning it, I see nothing in the survey about those who simply want to get toasted. And, no side effects anywhere near as scary as the stuff I see them try to speed-read in TV commercials.

Bill Clinton didn't HAVE to inhale. A Pot Pill is in existence. It is called Marinol, available by prescription throughout the U.S.; it contains a synthetic form of THC (the psychoactive substance in marijuana). They've sequenced the Human DNA, why not pot?

Scientist/Researcher/Futurist Ray Kurzweil predicts that by 2020 or so we'll not only have self correcting and updating software (possessive of its own intelligence) but we will have traveled further down the miniaturization trail, with computers and other media machines shrinking past current boundaries imposed by current materials to newer, organic models. Medical dispensers smaller than white blood cells will be floating around in our veins, releasing healing chemical poofs within us, making us smarter, more than naturally enhanced, and what do you wanna bet some of them might contain Marinol.

I'm just sayin'...

--0--

BOOM TOWN NEWS

Sure Sorry Your Energy Supplier Is Inept...
Again, all I'm doing here in the iPhone Gen, is looking at the paper like Mort Sahl would do in San Francisco's Hungry I, in the early 60s, and "raring," a combo of ranting and sharing.

But good stuff. Like this headline: "We could blow up at any time."

It already happened once, very recently, in San Bruno.



PACIFIC GAS AND ELECTRIC Co.'s president has JUST ADMITTED that the utility under his watch CANNOT FIND RECORDS that support pressure levels ON NEARLY A THIRD of its natural-gas transmission system IN POPULATED AREAS.



It is either good news or bad news that he confessed the above to a Member of Congress. THERE'S a House loaded with felons, the U.S. Congress; do a little search and see staggering lawlessness of those who make laws for the rest of us to follow.

So, PG&E Prez, Chris Johns shame-facedly says that PG&E, with its now characteristic poor record keeping skills, has been unable to produce key manufacturing and installation documents for 30 percent of its pipelines in and around urban areas in Northern and Central California. This info comes to us on the heels of the revelation that PG&E had erroneous documents about the pipeline that exploded in San Bruno on Sept. 9, taking the lives of eight of their customers.



Now, the California Public Utilities Commission, which has ordered the state's utilities to produce reliable records for their gas transmission lines by mid-March has an early answer, which, in effect says, "At PG&E, we're clueless."

The records show deferred maintenence, sloppy workmanship, unrelieble safety measures. All the symptoms of cutting costs for the sake of sucking up to shareholders, and upper executive incentive bonus building. Been going on for YEARS...

The member of congress was "appalled." It went on record that there is genuine concerned about the possibility there could similar problems elsewhere in PG&E's system. And now, the PG&E president's response is cause for more immediate concern.

"They don't know what's underground," said the Congressperson, while parts of San Bruno, now reduced to charcoal still smolders.

A spokesman for the energy supplier, however, jumped in and stated he would NEITHER CONFIRM NOR DENY THE CONGRESSIONAL'S REPORT of the utility president's estimate. "We continue to review and validate our records," said the PG&E byte-spitting talking head, whose very records are reportedly "scattered all over the place." by the Public Utilities Commission's Consumer Protection and Safety Division.

Then, lost in the bright light of reality, he snuck back to evasive tactics of speaking from the darkened past, murmuring, "We still have more work to do to validate the percentage. We will have a final report on March 15."

Can't wait for that report, Mark. Explosive content, those "validated percentage reports," no doubt. They'll do a world of good for grieving families.

A pipeline safety consultant in a neighboring State said of California's giant Gas and electric monopoly, "...it would be "really, really sad" if PG&E were missing that much documentation. "This is stuff that can kill in a heartbeat, you don't lose control of it."  

Sad? Yes, also the height of incompetence.

So, here's a question - will the guy who didn't get those inspections done right seven years ago keep his job after the San Bruno masacre? Oh, probably. My understanding is the entire affair is going to be smoothed over and covered up - in GOVERNMENT COMMITTEES. They're going to look at the event for possible regulation.

Ahead you and I can expect expensive underground pipe tests which can range from $125,000 to $500,000 per mile (who else do you suppose will be paying for these?) and involvement from, among many others - --The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, --Congress, which should rewrite the stronger rules, --The National Transportation Safety Board --More PG&E spokesmen --The federal Minerals Management Service

All this, while PG&E continues "staggering around in the dark" while working with explosives.

NO FAKE AND SHALLOW FOR ME PLEASE

It's natural that I would begin a blog or two.

I have been writing since I was able to pick up a crayon and make it go in the direction I had in mind. Seems I started drawing and otherwise expressing my imagination as far back as memory serves.

I sat nearby when my father would tell his friends stories. When dad started in on a tale, usually a long joke, it wasn't like anywhere else when someone told a story or told a joke. Dad had them truly engaged in his tale, held them rapt. Even mom and any available sibling would stop as they were passing through, fall in and listen to a story they had already heard many times. It was always so entertaining.

Dad was a natural story teller. Luckily, much of that interest and ability made it through the DNA encrypting process and was passed along to me. And naturally, I extrapolated.

Later, in my radio career, a real, genuine Program Director, whose job included not only overseeing programming and performers, but the ability to 'read' talent, described me as "having content," which I would have to learn to edit on the fly and simplify for the modern '60s' radio audiences.

That was when I was first introduced to the broadcast craft called an "economy of words," which HAD to be easy-to-follow, compelling, and fit over a 12 second music portion (before the star stated singing) in a hit record. Cut the unnecessary fat. Get the idea across in leaner bytes.

That was one lesson in a Lifetime Portfolio of what I call "Universals." Universals are tricks of controlling attention - with words, drawings, videos, music - that are as viable today as they were when I was first clued in over 45 years ago. Will be tomorrow, in all probability, unless Google decides* differently. Specific things like style, timing, contrast, composition all belong in that file. There are millions of different directions one can go from each of these strong foundations.
[*inside joke for Social media marketers]

Sky's the limit - IF you know about Universals. If someone told you.

They don't have real Program Directors that can do that anymore. As the 70s came on, so did the younger broadcaster gen, with their then-newer PDs, who thought the title was old-fashioned and readily accepted loftier position names such as Operations Director, Manager of Operations and other brightly colored feathers for their headbands.

But, in this small feast of self serving, the age-old Me First process, those hot new Programmer/Operator/Manager entities did manage one thing - to leave out Passing The Important Entertainment Shortcuts, Tips And Tricks Along to the newer members. Eventually, no one was there to make sure the Universals were explained or upheld as the standards they are.

Consequently, we have become saturated with Pretenders To The Titles, just so scared they're scrambling over one another in their eager yelpings, their intent to say the say word, "yes" to the Pretender above them. Now, Yes-Men and Yes-Women abound, accepting substandard conditions, saying yes to replacing entire staffs and damned glad to have a job. "Yes," indeed.

Our memories will recall this as an era of those who will work for extremely low pay and do the jobs of 20 people, partially, without understanding and poorly, of course. We saw the years go by and we witnessed this practice become accelerated, the Universals more and more dimly lit, and finally the calendar rolls around to turning on the radio today.

My dad was infinitely more interesting just telling stories through his tobacco smoke, believe me.

I use a broadcast working model because I'm familiar with it. What you hear on the radio this very day reflects the way ALL businesses, from mortuaries to muffin shops seem to run these very days, with less experience, direction and awareness nor sensitivity to clients, customers, listeners -- and, instead, a hypno-focus on their bottom line (which is always their real Mission Statement).

Stockholders trump customers and audiences, is the message we're all hearing. First one to the trough is the winner, we see them teach us by example.

Yes, this loss is not just in the field of broadcasting, but along all vocations and activities. All Universals have been stunted, from every walk or slime trail of life, from the hard working honest citizen, to the bilking banking scoundrel. And our country and its denizens are no better for it. You really gotta search for those Universals now.

And, horror! - this plastic, fake posing, all issuing forth from the mistakenly motivated process of pretending to be some concocted inner mental identity, includes blogs: <http://tinyurl.com/4usa8mz> Now we need firewall plugs for BS in costume appearing to be information or entertainment?

Not here, though. I couldn't do that and still blink straight. My own father, and a host of broadcast predecessors I was fortunate to have been at the party with, passed along too many Universals for me to even consider cutting costs or words. I do my own writing. All blithering my own. All stolen ideas re-written by my thumb and index finger. All mistakes my own. I learn that way. I enjoy the learning process; keeps me in touch with the Divine, in that in never ends.

When I'm learning, my heart is open, not filled with answers - and I get the unspeakable-because-words-won't-do thrill of just plain BEing. Kids know all about this. So do dogs. You do, too, when you don't think so much.

These days here? These are are nothing like "the good old days." These ARE OUR good old days - to create with our own wits, NOW.

We'll be remembering these times and we'll be much happier keeping it real.

WONDEROUS AND OUTSPOKEN

Spin the wheel and see if it leads to fortune!

Lazy Little Money Maker!

Thousands of avid web users have discovered a free little gadget
-- the Google Wonder Wheel -- that, since its fairly recent
launch, has benefitted them in many more ways than just being a
free doodad on Google to play with.

Sure, it can show you how products and topics are related and by
how many degrees, separated. But it has this wonderous ability...

Oh, sure, sure, yes, look! It can help you find what's missing,
and more specifically than ever before, where you need to search
for it. Not only will it lead you to better define an idea or
subject, but perhaps give it more than literal meaning, a synonym
or less sought antonym, maybe.

I have been waitin for the wonder wheel all my life. It does
something... HUH? Why, yes, it DOES make Mind Mapping easier --
even fun. Might take that map to previously not thought of places.

But here is the button for which I have been looking - in every new
car or kitchen appliance I've purchased. You know, the one that you
can push that will then make all the payments.

Well, it's kinda like that. By simply putting in words and pushing
the wonder wheel button, it CAN help you make money!

People who are on line a lot see the value from their varied
perspective right away. Finally a gadget - a freebee at that -
that is rich in possibilities which it can benefit those using it.

The advertiser uses the wheel to discover what’s hot and related
to the product he advertises. He can make money from related
products and get more mileage out of his advertising budget.

Pretty hot feature for something Google just added at no cost to
its rapidly growing universe

Those responsible for the pages we see online, the webmasters –
can increase their revenue by discovering related keywords they
wish to focus on while your tweaking their target niche.

The most efficient and effortless way online marketers achieve
success is to choose an area of attention and stay there,
developing focus on a main keyword or phrase which usually gets a
lot of guesses when searchers enter queries into constantly
traveling "spider" engines, crawling the web and looking for
relevent matches.

But it gets more dynamic than that. Additionally, there are other
keywords, that when carefully selected, coordinate with the
search, resulting in even more traffic. This flow is then
cunningly guided to the webmasters' sites, each page carefully
"optimized," arranged or rewriten to improve efficiency of
retrieval, and so convert more visitors to cash. From that POV, people
become "traffic." A common tenet is "Traffic equals Money," and they
never forget it.

Like the Web Master, the Data Manager saves some time and
money, even makes herself and her company a little more by
using the Google Wonder wheel for data mining on ongoing
projects like Mind Mapping.

Just plain users are exploring relevant corresponsing results with the
wonder wheel related to the original keyword searched for. Whether
for a term paper, a research being done, or just about anything
else costly, time eating research is cut down considerably with
this simple, wonderous spiked wheel of associated word kin.

So, yay Google. With the WonderWheel's "Search" icon, they came up
with the results for my search for the perfect button.

TIMES OF THE SIGNS

Where I live, Marin County, just above the Golden Gate Bridge, the people really band together to keep the place from becoming too overpopulated looking. When it comes to hilltop development, environmental integrity and billboards, they have raised the NIMBY standard to heights of new precedent.

County looks great, too. Not all overcrowded seeming as in other parts of the state.

While untold slices of the counties' population pie is involved in involved in new and better ways to be seen online, there remains one old school method for attracting attention to one's business that still works just fine - a sign.

Provided you follow all the proper procedures.

Which brings us to the issue of that new Manka's sign In West Marin's Inverness. Forever, it seems their old billboard has been pointing the way to their nearly one hundred year old country inn, (http://www.mankas.com/mankas/home.html), a favorite of food lovers around the world. Among the many other feathers in its headband, Manka's was rated one of the top 50 hotel restaurants by Food & Wine magazine, and was announced "the best restaurant in the United States" by London's Telegraph newspaper.

People seem comfortable with and love the place along with its accompanying charming, rustic cabins. Well, most people.

The sign was really old, however, and I guess someone, from within this imagined world-wide sphere of likability and comfort, decided it needed to be replaced with a new one.

OOps! That little decision  - to erect a new sign - an 8-foot, stainless steel, bright yellow "M" barely six months ago - has jolted the 1,400-resident community of Inverness, where Manka's has been in business since the early 1900s.

There are those in County of Marin, and in Inverness, who, acting very much like a bitter, jilted ex-spouse, have gotten in a snit about this sign. It's as if they suddenly noticed.

I guess so. The old one was crumbling away and looked like part of a Kinkaid painting, I suppose, while Manka's new one looks...well, bright. and yellow. and new. And way noticeable.

So, now, the county, after scores of decades, has suddenly decreed this sign is "a billboard," which is against the rules. No billboards in the bucolic backwoods of unincorporated Marin County are allowed. The deplorable new "M" has been ordered reMoved from its location on Sir Francis Drake Boulevard.

I have a good friend with whom I started out in radio, and watched gravitate into the arena of the courts, becoming a fine lawyer, specializing in this signage niche (http://www.signlaw.com/billboards.html). He really knows his stuff.

I shared with Randall Morrison, my old pal, our county's controversy and immediately he responded.

Says my friend, now super attorney for all things legal regarding billboards and signs, "Assuming the old sign was legal when installed, and further assuming that later the local government prohibited off-site commercial signs (as often happens), then the old sign became “legal, non-conforming,” commonly known as “grandfathered.”

"That means the sign could continue in use, but could not be changed..." (Other than enhancing it's now rustic position as "artwork," intrinsic to the landscape's scene, with patchwork, similar paint and retro-strengthening, I muse.)

That's not what happened, though. They made a new sign, painted it bright yellow and suddenly it did what a good sign should do. It made everyone notice. And that was its undoing.

"Unless state or local law provides otherwise, expansion of a nonconformity extinguishes a nonconforming right. This principle applies to any use of land, not just signs.," say Randall. "The sign owners should have sought permission to update / modernize the sign before making any changes." It could have been an even better piece of art.

Now, things are all different. Unless the town or the county is willing to reach into its collective heart and cut them some slack, century-old Manka's, an Inverness institution to the planet, is out of options. Visitors from around the globe, looking for Manka's praised gourmet eats, rustic atmosphere and hospitality may have a difficult time locating it while driving along Sir Francis Drake Boulevard. Without our hard core County law makers considering more than one point of view, we'll get a one-group, power-trip decision, automatically creating frustration and confusion.

Sadly, Marin has a history of bufoonery, recently refusing to allow a Marie Callenders Pie restaurant in unless they changed their franchise color scheme for this California county. Marie took her pies elsewhere.

Randy says the law is clear, "They (Manka's) do not have a legal right to return to the original sign. Their only shot now is through the political process, not the court process."

Fore sight, undertanding and negotiation might work here. Adhering to the idea of laws younger than the sign to which they apply isn't the intelligence of leadership, isn't even vision, misses the value of even hindsight

When one's perspective lags behind Hindsight can it be clarifying? Can it move forward? Can it contribute meaningfully to the population it is sworn to serve?

THE LIBERATION WAKE UP CALL

You've heard it before ... you recognize it. From long ago. Went something like this..

"Wake up little Enn Joy, there is much to realize.

You are one with Life itself, still pulsing with Divine Rhythm, one with Being.

Take shape, and you are always smaller or larger to others. Take credit and receive stress. Give, instead of take, and you have infinite possibilities.

Don't give 'stuff,' Enn, give 'you.' What part of you? Be still and listen. You'll know what You wants of you when you get back to where you left your whence. It's on the side of your bed, right between Sound Asleep and "Zzz-zz - huh!? I don't know who I am."

There was a numbed over moment of terror there, remember Enn? Where you figured you had to BE more or DO more in order to be worth something. That was a mind thought, a mental scribble, a fantasy and not you or who you are. You are worth something without doing or being any more than you are.

And, believe me, you're not THAT easy to define.

Wake up, my heart's Enn, there is much to see.

You can look at those notions and Fear Vampires as orphan flower-a-likes or weeds, but, either way, they are NOT YOU, Ennie, only inclinations. They're unable to live in the Now like you do so Joyfully, so always try to lure you away.

Wake and know, in your actual essence, you are, naturally unlimited, neither fearful nor needing to control, but loving and soaring in the wondrous experience of Being free, as therein lies your Boundless Turf, Bean of Joy.

While Self Confidence and Modesty seem, as ideas, to conflict, witnessed as unlabeled, not data, they are self evident as same. YOU get that, Enn. As a result of that comprehension, you know honest Self-Honor and genuine Meekness are one and the same.

And you my little Enn Joy, you are my darling."

[Names have been changed to protect the numbed-over feelings occasionally arising in a zombie with whom you may carpool.]

Our World, As A Crumbcake

Soon we can truly say we live in a Digital Age.

It becomes our reality with each passing moment. Remember, this world of ours, as we think we know it, is always moving. (BTW, that's a possible reason the pictures you take of the world can come out blurry.)

As a rule of thumb, the very same thumb I text with, I prefer to ADD the new thing to my Bag Of Endless Possibilities, and would have voted inclusive, but paper makers are slacking off.

The unstable quality of paper today helps ramp up the pace towards an exclusively All-Digital world. Paper isn't made the same ways it always was, which turns out to mean its strength and durability has gone way down. It's been reported that stuff printed on it will probably biodegrade within 25 - 35 years. Better bave a backup data CD or thumb drive of those Family getaways.

I can easily see the Sci-Fi B Horror Movies getting a good run from the fear generated by this natural fact of decelerating motion, or decaying molecular orbits.

Pulp filled Libraries, once bastions against ignorance, fallen into the hands of evil developers and paper mache crafters. No one cares because they are now literally plugged into the Matrix on high bandwidth, thanks for asking.

Then, come the aliens from across space, who, seeing our dependence on electricity to make digital go, eliminate it. Pow, the populace suffers. Three generatins later, our brightest cave dwellers find a way to make ancient digital devices go again with pond scum and ponder a thumb drive, labeled "Backup Data, Family." and this is just the first four minutes...

Here's REALITY 25 years ago: According to the massive Bobby Ocean Folders of Facts, nearly half the books in the New York Public Library were reported to be crumbling away, while there are books printed in the Middle Ages that have endured a thousand years, and counting.

And, THAT explains why I have all VO scripts delivered in papyrus...

RADIO YOU CAN LOVE

What a time warp treat! So many of my friends wish for Radio the way it USED to be, but I get to do it! 

How'd this happen?       

Well, first, it IS happening, so: Jot the times: Starting Sunday morning at 9AM on ReelRadio, and continuing for AN ENTIRE WEEK! Wow...  

Sorry for the overly excited mood, but - zap - there went nearly forty years. I'm feeling young and frisky.  And oh so retro, don'cha know...  

Lemme 'splain: I was, at one time, employed as a Disc Jockey. Liked  it so much I swam ferociously upstream toward Boss Jock craftsmanship. I would commute to my job, then play.  

I played all the songs you grew up with, that fit perfectly into and changed with your life's situations. I was the guy on the radio that put all the hits on the air that made your heart's beat thump happily, ticking like it belonged.

My "job" involved playing the most popular songs and artists of our world, enhancing the shared dream, making memories. I loved my job. Like others in my frequency, you could hear I was having fun.  

Unfortunately, it's all changed. Commercial Broadcast Radio, for the price they were asking, has gone to the dark side. The fun was lost and fear was the new currency.  

How could it be fun anymore? Great stations were sold to people who paid far too much for them and didn't know the business.  

New bosses - stupid people, lousy businessmen and, of course, not a one with a clue about entertainment (one fairly well-known programmer had to be taught the names of the Beatles, and this was 20 years ago) Adding to this chaos, these leaders are also terribly afraid. 

PLUS, losing large and feeling ugly. 

But, before this mess, it sure was fun once!  

Lucky for us, many of those good times were recorded on magnetic reel-to-reel tape, and are available to hear online where everyone can not only enjoy them, but share recordings from their own collections. ReelRadio.com has been making the internet populace smile broadly broadband in this manner for a decade and a half.  

To celebrate their 15 years, the Aircheck Channel is having an Anniversary Countdown Special, replaying forty of the hottest radio people and stations ever recorded. I'm Beside-Myself Excited because they chose me to act as the Special's host. And, for a solid block of calendar time, too - a week, the 6th through the 12th.  

Not only do I get to play again, but WITH the world's best DJs, Good Guys, Boss Jocks, invisible friends...  the best Sonic Souls that ever put headphones on their imaginations and cracked a mic.

So - that's my thrill on internet hill.  Starting this Sunday morning.

Tell yer maw, tell yer paw: Bobby Ocean in Motion -- ooh wah, ooh wah.

ONE WHOLE WEEK I'll be online hosting airchecks and hits at ReelRadio.com from nine AM, all day for seven days, the sixth thru the 12th!

Pass it on, and do not Bogart it.

BROKEN IN MOTION

I was pretty young when I found out that life goes on when you have broken parts. You don't die. You just make it on through with that design flaw.

I crashed my bike into a palm tree and busted my front tooth. As a seven year old, I had to learn to live with the chipped look. And a wobbly front wheel.  

Chip Ocean at seven

By the time I forgot it was there, my grandfather took his vagabond kin to the dentist. Perhaps it was that trip that led me into another dangerous obsession.

That is, now that I had a smile, girls were starting to notice. Me-e-e too. That young ladies had me in their charm radar did not go overlooked, and I liked it. Suddenly there were a lot more smiles mapping my face. They just naturally popped up since I had become much more involved in that other kind of human body.

Fascinating.

As was my visit to the sacred shrine of magic --the limitless  landscape within a building of no boundarys, the source of MY SONGS, the sounds of my burgeoning world, my first real live radio station!

Didn't take me long -- how long is an instant? -- to discover I had the same stuff in my blood as these broadcast carnies in theirs, both these veterans and this newbie - pulled and motivated to plunk the harp strings of imagination.

Again, I was hooked. Life continued. The hits kept coming.

One by one, these steep attractions have allowed me to realize that life goes on after important parts get busted up. The palm tree had its turn. The girls had their spells. Radio used what it needed then sold out to the highest bidder.

Well, THAT all hurt. Surprising, but, OK; they get to each make their own choices.

Tree was just being tree wen it met my bicycle. The girls, and I, were just chasing dreams that, by now, we have watched evaporate before our very highest hopes.

And, if I wanted more from the radio stations, perhaps I should have purchased one myself. I did not. Owners can do with their property whatever they choose.

All of them still in motion. And, gone, all of them, gone.


I can still hear the songs, see old photos, feel the experiences, almost smell them, but they have slipped beyond my clutches.

One by one, these things that had such an impact, in and on my consciousness, have shown me their temporal nature, the transitory way of all things in motion outside in the realm of perception. They keep moving. Like an object in an orbit, they can't help it. Just like these "Once Upon A Times," either can you and I; all of us - still in motion.

Each episode in its time left a lesson in passing: One goes on, just as these precious increments in our stories have, just as the songs do. Even though such an intrinsic part is fragmented - as a heart.  

But it still beats, cares, even loves. Maybe it's not really broken, as in beyond repair, but instead, is in motion, collecting itself and evolving. ...readying itself for what's next.  

I am.
--0--