If I hadn’t known rock radio was cool before I saw Gentleman Jim Hunter, drivetime disc jockey for KRKT Radio in Albany Oregon, lean out and wave to the crowd which had gathered beneath the huge T&R sign, I would have known it then. The sign was HUGE, the main section trucked in on a double-flatbed , and was the talk of the Willamette Valley as it was erected right next to Interstate 5, then a fairly new project itself.
I am going to send everyone a “He went to the computer shop and all I got was this lousy column” button because most of you will have little clue as to whom I am writing about and also because Bill Gates and his shit company has sent my other computer to the repair shop courtesy of their “this will be a snap and your files will be right where you left them” update hypocrisy. I am only assuming that my files are where I left them because when I tried to get into my computer the day after the update all I got was this little circle of swirling dots on a pale blue screen and while I used to like pale blue, it fast became a color of doom.
It’s that time of year again, sports fans. Santa has been on the radio for the past two months, robot disc jockeys and purveyors of everything muzak beating us senseless with varying renditions of Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree and Jolly Old Saint Nicholas, hoping to lighten our mood enough to loosen the old purse strings. Hallmark Channel have kicked into full Christmas mode, plastering their channels with their cookie-cutter movies which vary mostly by the changing of leading ladies (this year’s favorite, by far, is Hilarie Burton, whom I saw in an old Castle episode and was floored by not only her beauty but the fact that the casting could not have been more right). I wish they had more creativity over at Hallmark, their overuse of the five plots and rotating stars coming very close to consumer abuse. But, hey, I’m a sap.
One thing about history. Given enough time, it is a shadow of its former self. No matter what happens, importance of virtually everything is either magnified or diminished depending upon a number of factors. By the time it has been filtered over the years, it is not even remotely what it started out to be. The Twenties obviously weren’t all Gatsby and The Thirties weren’t all dust bowl and depression. There was so much more than the War (that would be of the Second World variety, sports fans) and recovery from to the Forties and if the US had lived the Fifties like Hollywood said, we would have fought like hell to stay there. Of course, by the time it got to us, it was Cliff’s Notes all over again.
Bullseye Records of Canada
Segarini: Don't Believe a Word I Say 