Radio Days: Santa and the Fire Truck
November 23, 2024 (Vol. 18 No. 49) - Everyone who has worked in commercial radio has a story - at least one story - about some of the dumb things they had to do to please station management. Everyone remembers the famous WKRP Turkey Drop. One of my stories has to do with the "traditional" arrival of Santa Claus in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, on the day after Thanksgiving. Local lore was that Jolly Old Nick would kick off the holiday shopping season by arriving at the local mall in a fire truck. Sounds strange, but the kids loved it. After all, we are talking about fire trucks and Santa. However, for some Godforsaken reason, the Jolly Ol' Elf's arrival was simulcast live over each of the town's three AM radio stations. Which station broadcast the arrival rotated every year. One year, it was my station's turn and our crack programing director's idea was to put News Director David Guth "live" in the fire truck with Santa as he rode through town. With today's technology, that sounds easy. But this was 1978. To pull off that little bit of magic required a broadcast transmitting unit called a "Marti." It was big, bulky and required a power source. The only place we could place it on the fire engine was on one side of the open bay - the place where the firefighters jump out of the truck to battle a blaze. There's no door - just the street below. However, the microphone, other necessary equipment and Santa were placed on the opposite side of side of the open bay. For technical reasons too boring to explain here, when I got my cues to go "live," I would have to cross the open bay to turn on the Marti before I could broadcast live from the fire truck. At first, the system worked just fine. The only "problems" with the broadcast was that the Santa I interviewed was monosyllabic and spoke in a thick Southern accent. (Maybe he lived at the South Pole?) However, there was one moment of shear terror. At the very moment I got my cue to cross the open bay, turn on the Marti and start broadcasting, the fire truck made sharp left turn. Next thing I know is that I am halfway out the door on my way to the street. With one foot inside the engine and one foot out, I grabbed onto a fireman's hand railing. With a microphone in one hand and me holding on for dear life in the other, I calmly broadcast live that Santa was getting closer to the mall. I survived and Santa arrived. And I made sure that I was out-of-town every Thanksgiving thereafter. That's it for now. Happy Thanksgiving. And Fear the Turtle.An Appeal for Sanity
November 13, 2024 (Vol. 18 No. 48) - In our nation's founding document, we asserted this country's most basic values: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and pursuit of happiness." Eleven years later, those same Founders created a governing architecture that more than 237 years later remains the nation's guiding principals. They wrote the Constitution of the United States, a remarkable document that national around the world emulate, "to form a more perfect union, establish justices, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and to ensure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." From its very beginnings, the United States has been an aspirational nation, one always striving to improve itself morally and materially. From these founding documents, a number of core American cultural values have emerged, including individualism, equalitarianism, optimism, and a society that embraces free enterprise, directness/honesty an an orientation toward taking action an engaging in hard work. At least these are some of the values we profess when we speak of American Exceptionalism, that America is a unique, even morally superior country. But are we? Is today's American Mythology true to those same founding values upon which we stake our claim?
There is a gap between the American values we tell the world we embrace and those we actually practice. After all, even the Founders acknowledged this disparity in admitting that our union was not perfect. They spoke of what we, as Americans, should aspire to be. However, by the recent vote of the people, we now appear to be ready to steer a course that abandons the very constructs we claim as essential to our national identity. Is there truly equality in our tax laws, our criminal justice system, or the manner in which we govern women? How does our expressed belief in liberty square with the incoming administration's desire to detain and deport more than 10 million undocumented citizens? Does it make sense to appoint a man who has been under investigation of sex trafficking, illicit drug use and obstruction of justice as your new attorney general? Of course - the president-elect, himself, is a convicted felon. The incoming administration's cabinet picks clearly demonstrate that loyalty to the new president is more highly valued than competence. Have we become a nation that embraces a leadership that routinely lies to the people, demeans and dehumanizes those who oppose it, circumvents the very constitutional safeguards it has sworn to protect, and enriches itself at the expense of the very people who put it in power?
We are in need of a new American Revolution, not one born of violence but spiritual in nature. We need to acknowledge who we really are and work toward become the nation we say we want to be. Maybe aspiring to be Ronald Reagan's "Shinning City on the Hill" is unrealistic. After all, the very concept of American Exceptionalism is in conflict with our most basic founding principle that "all men are created equal." Who knows? Maybe we are special. But before we make that claim, we must act like it. We need to develop a tax code where everyone pays his or her fair share. We have to respect the rights of women to make their own financial and health care decisions. Rather than treat those who seek refuge on our shores as criminals, we should welcome them in helping us grow our economy and culture. And we need to lower the temperature in our political discourse. But that political and social sea change must come from those we choose to lead us. Simply put: Those who claim to lead the country need to do so in their deeds, not their words. If they are not willing to do so, we, the people, have the power. If this recent election has shown us anything, the American people have the power to effect change. Hopefully they do so wisely. Yes, I know my words will seem to some as being naive. Others, still pent up in partisan battle mode, will see these thoughts as dangerous. I see them as an appeal to sanity and as a challenge to become the people and nation we have always said we are.
Election Hangover
November 12, 2024 (Vol. 18 No. 47) - Election season is a lot like the Christmas season - after months of build-up and frenzied activity, it comes and it goes. And then it is over. The commercials (thank God) are gone. The intrusive emails (for the most part) are done. And, perhaps best of all, the uncertainty has disappeared. Just like knowing exactly what Santa left you under the tree, the voters know exactly what they got once the votes are counted. (Of course, one week out, there are some races where those votes are still being counted.) Whether your side won or lost, a certain sense of relief comes over us that allows us to take a deep breath. Of course, after the results of this particular election, some of us will be taking even deeper breaths. The newly elected or reelected officials will not take the oath of office until after the new year, which will give us six weeks of some small measure of relief. Once the new year arrives and the new crowd is handed the keys to the kingdom, the din of the political strife will rise once again. In the meantime, it is a time for planning for the winners and a time of introspection for the losers. And, assuming the Constitution is still in force after the next four years, politicians on both sides of the aisle will spend their time jockeying for position in the 2028 presidential sweepstakes. Yes, there is a period of post-election hangover. But the truth is that in 21st century America, election season never ends. That's it for now. Fear the Turtle.American Carnage - Part II
November 6, 2024 (Vol. 18 No. 46) - After Donald Trump completed his inaugural address on January 20, 2017, Former President George W. Bush turned to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and said "That was some weird shit." That was Trump's infamous "American Carnage" speech, a dark vision of an America being driven to destruction by self-serving political elites. Well, you ain't seen nothing yet. With his election to another term as president, we can expect nothing less than American Carnage II - The Retribution. During his vile, disoriented, off-the-rails run to reclaim the White House, Failure 45 made it perfectly clear what his number one agenda item will be in his second term - getting even. After Trump takes control of the Justice Department, he plans to weaponize it to "hold accountable" those who dared to try and hold him accountable for the January 6, 2021, Capitol Insurrection. Those are his words, not mine. Are you ready for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. directing this nation's health care policies? Looking forward to the return of Steve Bannon as a White House advisor? How about fascist and convicted felon Michael Flynn as National Security Adviser? And speaking of convicted felons (and convicted sexual offender), I can't wait to see the once and future president's unique vision of moral authority as he once again infests the Oval Office. On the morning after the January 6 Capitol Insurrection, I quoted Abraham Lincoln from his 1838 Lyceum Address: "If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time or die by suicide." Only time will tell whether the reelection of a doddering and mentally unstable oligarch will mark the end of the nearly 250-year American experiment in democracy. But to quote the 43rd President of the United States, we are in for some weird shit. That's it for now. Fear the Turtle.