Musings, observations, and written works from the publisher of Eckhartz Press, the media critic for the Illinois Entertainer, co-host of Minutia Men, Minutia Men Celebrity Interview and Free Kicks, and the author of "The Loop Files", "Back in the D.D.R", "EveryCubEver", "The Living Wills", "$everance," "Father Knows Nothing," "The Radio Producer's Handbook," "Records Truly Is My Middle Name", and "Gruen Weiss Vor".
A curation of news items
about the media from this past week, with a particular emphasis on Chicago.
Readers,
Based on the number of hits this column gets, and the number of e-mails and texts I receive, I can tell that a lot of people read Media Notebook. Thanks for your support over the past three years. I really do appreciate it.
Unfortunately, I won't be posting any more columns this year. I have a book project I'm writing that needs to be finished, I'm president of a local soccer club, I'm on the board of the Chicago Writers Association, I'm running a publishing company (Eckhartz Press), I host three podcasts, and it turns out, there are only 24 hours in a day. Something had to give.
I'm hoping to return to writing about the media in 2025. In the meantime, my Illinois Entertainer media column still comes out the first of every month.
This year marks my 20th year as a professional writer. Over the course of 2024, I'll be sharing a few of those offerings you may have missed along the way.
This is an excerpt from my book The Radio Producer's Handbook. It's about something that happened 36 years ago this week. It provides a good lesson to the other radio producers of the world. After you read it, I'm sure I don't need to tell you what that lesson is.
This excerpt from "The Radio Producer's Handbook" details the single worst moment of my broadcasting career. It shaped me for years to come...
Depending on the number of shows on your station, the secret in-studio phone number (commonly called the hotline) may not exactly be a secret. During the 1988 presidential election, Michael Dukakis was in Chicago attending a fundraiser. One of the writers of this book (OK—it was Rick) had unsuccessfully attempted to get him on the show he was producing.
As the traffic reporter was discussing the traffic created by the Dukakis motorcade, the hotline rang. It was someone claiming to be in the limo with Dukakis. He said that Dukakis wanted to get on the air to let Chicago know he was sorry for the traffic delay. Because Rick had made several calls to the Dukakis campaign, he believed the caller.
The hosts (Steve Dahl & Garry Meier) were pleasantly flattered that a presidential candidate would be calling the show, and they believed it too. However, about three seconds into the Dukakis call it became obvious that isn’t wasn’t Dukakis. It was a hoax. If Rick had insisted on speaking to Dukakis himself on the phone before he told the host, the entire situation could have been avoided.
I was lucky that Steve & Garry made a bit out of my stupidity that day. The show wasn't ruined (only my reputation was). However, that moment also turned me into a different producer. I vowed never to let anything like that ever happen again.
About a month later when Steve & Garry were at a live broadcast somewhere, the hotline rang again. I was back at the studio running the controls.
"Hey, who's this?" the caller asked.
"Who's this?" I challenged.
"It's Jim Belushi," he said.
"Right."
"No, really. It's me. Jim Belushi."
"Yeah, and I'm Michael Dukakis."
I hung up on him. He sounded like an imposter to me.
About twenty minutes later I was listening off the air to Steve and Garry during a commercial break. (The sound still came back to the studio, but it wasn't going over the air).
"Hey Garry," Steve said. "Look, it's Jim Belushi."
"Hey guys," Belushi said. "I tried to call you at the station to find out the address of this place, and some guy hung up on me."
Sigh.
I got much better with experience, but every time I hear someone mention the names Michael Dukakis or Jim Belushi the hair still stands up on my neck.
And it's been over 35 years.
***
A few historical notes.
This week in 1991 (November 5), I returned to produce the Steve & Garry show for the last time. (It was the third time they asked me back after someone else hadn't worked out).
This week in 2013 (November 9), Steve and Garry were inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame. Garry attended the ceremony. Steve did not.
=In 2002, John Landecker's dad had just passed away, so John brought his ashes to work on Take Your Parents to Work Day. It was a memorably hilarious moment.
=If it happened in the 90s, I wrote a parody song about it. Our Landecker and the Legends song that election was called "Big Macarena." Will we play it on this week's show?
November
6, 2001—Mickey’s Magical Christmas released
=Johnny Kaempfer (age 3) memorably reviewed the film on the air. Will we play it on this week's show?
November
8, 2006—First Chick Fil A opens in San Diego.
Birthed by Chicago natives Carl and Larry Rosenbaum, “The Flip Side” grew from an idea into a store and then into a chain. Somewhere along the way, those stores sprouted an entire second identity as Chicago’s premier concert promoter, putting on some of the biggest rock shows Chicago saw in the ‘70s and ‘80s.
In so many ways, Flip Side defined music for hundreds of thousands of Chicagoland music fans.
The Flip Side: Where Chicago Rocked takes you through the lifespans of both the record store chain as well as their concert business. We’ll give you a look ‘behind the counter’ and show you how everything was built, how it all lived and breathed, and we’ll share many of the fun and not-so-fun stories that took place. More than that, we’ll give you a warm look back and a chance to revisit what was a great time in Chicago and an even better time in rock and roll.
As Emerson, Lake & Palmer so famously once said, welcome back my friends to the show that never ends. We’re so glad you could attend, come inside, come inside…
=Don't forget to mark your calendar for the upcoming book launch party for Eric Litt's Worth a Second Look. He'll be at Sketchbook in Skokie (4901 Main Street, Skokie) on Tuesday night November 12th at 7:30pm. Sketchbook is a great local brewery and tap room with a biergarten, live music, and visiting food trucks.
=In addition, this week in 1995 (November 3), the Toronto Raptors played their first game in franchise history. The man behind the play-by-play microphone was Chuck Swirsky. He talked about that story in this podcast.
=And finally, this week is the birthday (November 5) of the late great basketball titan, Bill Walton. Chuck wrote about him in his book as well.
=This week in 2022 (November 4), Rick Kaempfer kicked off the publicity campaign to his coming-of-age spy novel Back in the DDR with an interview on WGN Radio. That interview is here.
=It's not a coincidence that the book came out the same week the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 (November 9). Rick took this first photo of the wall in 1976, the year the book takes place. It appears on the back cover of the book. The second photo was taken just a few weeks after the wall came down. That's Rick and his brother Peter. Lots of stretches like this still existed. It's completely gone now. The third photo is from this summer. Rick is standing outside the East German secret police headquarters (STASI), which has been turned into a museum.
=This week in 2021, Grammar Moses author Jim Baumann was making the rounds promoting his book. He appeared on this podcast with Steve Cochran (November 3), and the Minutia Men Celebrity Interview the next day (November 4). Two days later he was in Elgin, signing and selling copies of Grammar Moses. The pandemic was still raging, and our intrepid author was out there fully masked.
=This week in 2016, Bobby Skafish made two public appearances selling and promoting his book. The first stop was in Des Plaines, Il (November 7). The second stop (November 9) was at the legendary Red Lion pub on Lincoln Avenue in Chicago.
=This week in 1882, the Dow Jones was founded. Not many people know this, but early in his career, John Landecker actually went by the name Dow Jones on the air. This is the only known picture of Dow Jones, taken outside the radio station in Michigan.
=This week in 2013, John Landecker appeared on Pete McMurray's show on WGN Radio to talk about the book.
=This week in 2017, John was on the air at WBEZ Radio, and WGN-TV talking about the new Hall of Fame edition of the book. His daughter Amy joined him on the WGN TV set.
=One of the contributors to Records Truly Is My Middle Name, Catherine Johns, is celebrating a birthday this week (November 3). She tells a few very memorable stories about Landecker in the book.
=One of the joys of the book Mob Adjacent is the way it intersects the world of the mafia with the world of Hollywood. One of the big stars of the era who is discussed in the book, Art Carney, was born this week in 1918 (November
4).
=This week in 2018 (November 5), Chet Coppock had the single-biggest-selling day in the life of his book. He spoke at the Polish American Alliance in Westmont, and every single attendee (over 200) bought a copy of the book. Chet was in rare form that day.
=The Eckhartz Press book Righteous Might takes place on the USS Gerald R. Ford. Now, if you happen to go on that ship, you can read Righteous Might in the ship's library. We got a letter this week (November 6) in 2020 from the ship's Captain. What an honor. Congrats to author Keith Conrad!
=This week in 2016, Eckhartz Press author Mark Gelinas was featured on a local television station in Atlanta (WSB-TV). Mark passed away a few years later, but this interview, and the book lives on. Mark's story will always remain an inspiration.
=This week in 2014 (November 4), Rick Kaempfer was out and about promoting his humor book Father Knows Nothing. As a bonus for the readers of the book, he released these bonus audio tracks on our website. Two of the boys featured in the book (Tommy & Johnny) come to life via these timeless audio clips.
=This week in 2018 (November 9), Windy City Reviews came out with a review of the Eckhartz Press book Cameo. Here's what they had to say about the book....
Cameo, by Beth Jacobellis, is an interweaving of the past, its impact on the present, and how our feelings can get in the way of understanding what is pulling us through to the future. The book begins in the present, but we are quickly transported to the cameo’s present life in 1994 and then again through vignettes from 1885, 1976 and 1989. Cameo is a charming story to read. It is not a long book, but this type of love story, with layers of the past all playing out at the same time, draws us into Samantha’s quest and carries us through a briskly-paced read. I enjoyed this book for its clear storytelling and mysterious overtones. I also found it refreshing that the past is not always looking to punish but merely to resolve.
=This week in 2021, during the height of the pandemic, Bob Boone gave a talk about his collection of short stories, City U, via zoom. The virtual author event actually took place in Glencoe, but this was around the time we started figuring out that we are no longer confined by our location.
=This week in 2023, two of the stars from the book Grun Weiss Vor! were inducted into the Illinois Soccer Hall of Fame. Marcus Laxgang was a Herman Award Winner as the best college soccer player in America, and Joe Filian played along the likes of Franz Beckenbauer on the New York Cosmos. Both players got their start at Green White Soccer Club.
