That's my crazy radio DJ face.
Very frightening. It's a fun job, no money in it, but for a type like me that enjoys a wide swath of music it fits me.
When I first started in radio in 1986 there were at that moment no Michael Jackson hits getting played in tight rotation on the station I interned at. That would all change when he released the first single from his "Bad" album, "I Just Can't Stop Loving You", a duet he did with Siedah Garrett. After that there were number one hits with "Bad", "The Way You Make Me Feel", "Man in the Mirror", (the next single, "Another Part of Me", from the Disneyland ride Captain Eo peaked in the top ten but not at number one) "Dirty Diana", and "Smooth Criminal."
After that I start to lose track of what went number one for him. I know he had a very intricate "live action mixed with animation" video that MTV used to play all the time called "Leave Me Alone" but that hardly got played on the radio. When his next huge hit "Black and White" came out I was working formats that didn't play him much (or didn't play his fast songs, just his ballads like "Will You Be There" and "Heal the World"). Meanwhile, his sister Janet was all over the radio and had pretty much been so since her 1985 album "Control".
Today's WHAT THE HECK? What the heck is wrong with us, with anyone, for slamming this man now at his shocking untimely death? We all know he lead a life that most of us question, but look at what will be his REAL legacy, his two amazing albums "Off the Wall" and "Thriller". Both those albums taught us how to let loose and have fun. Michael was not ashamed of his high falsetto. Eddie Murphy and others poked fun at it, but he knew he could rock like the best guitar gods in his own uncompromising way (he even enlisted a guitar god, Eddie VanHalen, to play the crazy solo on "Beat It"). Without him, I doubt we would have been so willing to open the doors for Justin Timberlake and others who sing high and dance like we wish we all could.
In the months and years to follow, we'll get the whole story on why he died so young. We'll maybe hear of even more controversies: What did he do while staying in the middle east? Why did he hit such economic hard times? What is the legacy of his children? How many plastic surgeries were ultimately involved in the expanse of his entire life and why was he so vane?
He is the first of the 80's pop generation to leave us so soon. He had such a lasting impact: He is like an Elvis or a Sinatra though there will be those who call that blasphemy. Those people have their ears in the sand and have no idea what greatness we were listening to from Michael's earliest years playing with his family to 1995 when he enjoyed his last number one hit ("You Are Not Alone" which broke records for making it to number one so quickly).
When you work in radio, especially a top 40 station, that plays the same songs over and over again, you get to know each and every note of certain songs. I am honored I got to hear every note of Michael's.
Everybody wave high to Buddy! Buddy's a French Bulldog/Boston Terrier mix (according to the owners who are fairly certain of his origins). My wife loves this dog and we would be taking him with us to California if the whole exodus wasn't going to be so cumbersome already.
We will be moving our own stuff across the 5 or so states back to Cali. Yeah, stagecoach style. Honestly, I'm not looking forward to it. I like to travel, but moving traveling is not the same.
So keeping my mind off that, I've been watching and thoroughly enjoying the new Conan Tonight Show. Yes! I'm sure everyone 60 plus has stopped watching, but Conan knew that and even did a funny bit about it. Everything that guy does makes me laugh. Even stuff that looks like it's falling flat busts me up. His interviews are engaging and long enough to get to the point before either the guest becomes boring or before they infringe on the time of the next guest. I was prepared for the William Shatner interview to be dumb and mindless, but the interview went a hilarious direction when we found out Bill can't make the Vulcan peace sign! He ended up flipping Conan off. Coco jumped up and ran around the stage like he had just set off a bomb, but it was just Conando knocking it out of the park again!
Compare this to Jimmy Fallon. Jimmy can't listen to his guests. Why he doesn't, I have no idea, he would only get a much better interview out of his guests. Instead he's talking over his guest with the latest funniest thing he's come up with . This turns the guest off and they shut down. Jenean Garafalo had a great solution: She just came out and never stopped talking. Jimmy didn't have a chance so he shut down and we could hear every bit of JC's bizarre and twisted rant.
Jimmy needs to learn how to edit like Conan. His comedy staff does not know when to cut rope and move on. If my wife and I watch Late Night we fast forward through his first segments. That is where he shows his lamest "hey, I'm funny and so are my writers" bits. I don't understand: He has the best band on television. The Roots are phenomenal and the only great bits are when Jimmy incorporates them in some way. I wish the band had its own show.
Oh yeah, so today's WHAT THE HECK?!? Why don't the Roots get their own show? Why didn't Conan get the Tonight Show, like TEN YEARS AGO! And Conan, thank you thank you thank you for bringing Andy back (and keeping Max Weinberg and the whole band just changing the name). Andy is being used in a much better capacity than he did when he first started with Conan back in 1993. Then he was tyring to be an Ed McMahon. Now he's like a crazy heckler from the audience. He's being himself and Conan and the rest of us love him for it.
By the way, as I have mentioned in previous blogs, I don't watch TV on TV. I watch it off the Internet. Less commercials. I watch when I want to. I don't have to mess with all the minutia of TiVo. Yes, admit it, all those recording systems are a FREAKIN' HEADACHE! You end up becoming a slave to them: Too many shows, some activate and take over the TV, plus it COSTS DOUGH!
So thank you Buddy for starting us off on this blog today. You may not even understand what TV is, but in the end your precious face is what amuses us more than anything! Please go chew up someone's TiVo!
What am I doing?
Oh, in this picture, I'm eating my vegetables. Actually, this is a wall outside of a store in Huntsville called Anthropology. This picture was taken almost 2 years ago. Now the wall is brown with dead plants and soil falling out. It's a metaphor for Huntsville: Businesses open and then 1 to 2 years later are dead and falling out.
Aside from that darling hat, you might be wondering a couple things: First, Mike doesn't get enough fiber? Also, Huntsville has an Anthropology? Isn't that a store found in BIG sophisticated cities like New York and San Francisco?
Yes! That's what I thought, too! It opened shortly after I arrived here, so I was feeling optimistic about picking Huntsville to live in: Even though the ACTUAL job was located 45 miles to the west in Athens, yet I was told this was a Huntville job (and this was supposed to be a Huntsville radio station servicing Huntsville--from 45 miles away?!?).
Let's just say a LOT of false pretenses came into play when I took this job. My wife and I did all the research we could, and some of it was right: Houses ARE less expensive. It is VERY humid. There are LOTS and LOTS of engineers and phd's here. However, my general manager NEGLECTED to fill me in about important logistical truths: That the transmitter for the radio station DIDN'T EVEN EXIST yet. That I would be required to drive a HUGE TRUCK all over the territory sometimes covering hundreds of miles in ONE day (Huntsville and its surrounding cities are completely spread out). That I would have virtually NO SAY in who I could hire for my staff. That he, the general manager who should be focused on selling advertising, dictated to me how the station should sound even telling me HOW I SHOULD SOUND.
Today's one minute WHAT THE HECK?...What Am I Doing?
I am GETTING THE HECK OUT OF HERE! And by "heck" I definitely mean HELL!
This town is far too hot, too conservative, and too interested in church for me to stay here. A study of people who voted for Obama found that 67 percent said they don't go to church. That compares to 64 percent who voted for Bush in 2004 who said they went to church MORE THAN ONCE A WEEK! I guarantee that ENTIRE 64 percent came from Alabama, home of the biggest gaudiest churches in the south...or maybe not, since I hear Texas wins that award. And I have done some church research: I found people who go are either looking for a love interest or are frustrated American Idol wannabees who want to go to a "rock concert" every Sunday. Then there are those who are replacing a crutch: drugs, drinking, smoking. Or there are those trying to bury their homosexual feelings: If I go to church with my (husband/wife) and am seen in public with them and my kids then I MUST BE HETERO! And Jesus said homosexuality is an abomination (that verse still missing from the original text).
And people love their Rick and Bubba morning radio show here (see one of the previous blogs for a full explanation of their show). And I am so sick of the word "Bubba." Yes, Alabamans are proud of this word because they invented it, but it's just a variation on the word "Baby." Just say "baby" over and over again real fast until it devolves into "bubba." Very innovative, AL! And I am tired of all the fast food and no nice bike paths and no public transportation and the spoiled unruly kids and all the stupid red t-shirts promoting the state's college football team and the never ending hype of college football and the good ole boys club and the golfing and the non-descript southern accent that sounds like a mix of Texas and Georgia and the long lines to new restaurants that are owned by national chains and the blank stare you get when you tell people you're moving back to California "AND I CAN'T FREAKIN' WAIT!!!"
I know somewhere someone is reading this and saying, "Don't let the AL door hit you on the way out!" Well, thank you. I tried loving your state. I tried loving your relaxed cholesterol heavy way of life. I tried getting into saying roll tide or war eagle and I tried liking your culture. BUT ALL I GOT WAS A PINK SLIP IN RETURN! All I got was HIGH CHOLESTEROL! All I got was BUG BITES BUG BITES BUG BITES! And all I got was extremely jaded.
I tried. When I get back to the state of the continuous sunshine and traffic jams, and am finally able to wear shorts without gallons of Off sprayed on them, I will tell folks the south is a wonderful place to live. And I'll say move there now!
And when they leave I'll think about how they're setting out upon a fantastic adventure...and how I'll be able to get their parking spot.
"Saturday Night Live" has been busting me up lately. I will never watch it on TV, though. I love watching it on Hulu, where they strip it down to just the main skits.
Kristin Wiig is the reason for the resurgence. She is the most talented comedy actor I have seen in a long while, and she is brilliant with her observations of how certain types of people act. Her impression of a crazy, older Target cashier is amazing! She does a fantastic Nancy Pelosi. If a skit is lagging, she immediately jump starts it with her presence.
The rest of the cast is fantastic and the return of Jimmy Fallon once in a while for the "Barry Gibb Talk Show" with Justin Timberlake is strange and hilarious. Of course, Andy Samberg is doing a tremendous job, too.
Today's WHAT THE HECK has to do with why I won't watch the show on TV...too many commercials! On Hulu or if you go directly to NBC's website you can watch the main skits of the show with maybe a one minute commercial at the most. Why do people even watch TV anymore? I heard Brian Williams talking in his whiny voice during Jay Leno's last week (also online) that "guys like us" are into the way things used to be. We don't want change. Let's look at the benefits of watching shows online: very few commercials (something that Brian's show is full of, he admitted as much on Jay's show) and I HAVE CONTROL (except for when the TV network decides to pull a show). I have not had my TV on in over a year and you know what? I don't have to. All you need is a nice big computer screen and you're set (what once was a "monitor" is now a canvas).
Oh, 2 more WHAT THE HECK's. As you've read right here on this blog, it is this blogger's opinion that at some point in the not s0 distant future that there will come to fruition the GREAT RADIO UNIFICATION THEORY. This is where all radio stations will just rebroadcast feed from one of what I see is 5 main sources. I'm not sure what these sources are, but there will be NO local radio dj's to broadcast their shows. It will all come from these "networks" similar to the way TV works now with the 4 major networks. I see this happening due to the shrinking advertising income radio stations are getting today and how people have so many better choices for media at their disposal.
This theory took a step closer to coming true this week when one of the mainstays of the radio business, the newspaper where all dj's looked for the latest news and jobs, Radio & Records, folded (or will fold tomorrow). All those die-hard conservative old fogies who populate the dial today are shaking in their record-company-bought boots for what this means. All these guys had this paper on their desk, whether they read it or not. Now it's gone. I'm serious, this is like we as Americans waking up one day and finding the Lincoln Memorial gone. An integral part of what it means to be an American would be lost. Radio is going through something like this now.
However, radio NEEDS TO CHANGE. Earlier this week, from out of nowhere, a weather microburst hit my house. Rain, hail, lightning, the wind swirling like a tornado taking shape, and the local media SAID NOTHING. We tuned to all the local radio stations...nothing. We checked out the local TV stations...nothing. We looked at all the websites that belong to the local media...nothing. The only way I had to find out about this disastrous weather was by accessing a local doplar radar. As I have said in past blogs, the Internet is the fastest, easiest way to get information in time of need. You don't have to wait to hear what's going on, you get it instantly. Of course, that assumes your power and your Internet connection stay on. A perfect situation would be radio giving us information, but since it's busy running a computer program with no dj's in the studio, we must rely on the Internet. Radio and TV have taken away the last important reason (and, in reality, the foremost reason) for their existence.
Wow, from Kristin Wiig to the death of all known media. This blog covered a gamut.
Don't forget that you live in the digital age! You can get information and entertainment whenever YOU want! Get familiar with your computer and your search engine, and speaking of which, a new search engine just launched so now you have even MORE ways to find what you want. If you don't know how, your next search should be this topic..."HOW TO SEARCH ON THE INTERNET!"
