Friday, September 01, 2017

Mitch Michaels Release Party

We had a blast at Mitch Michaels book release party last night at Lloyds Chicago. A who's who of Chicago media was there including John Landecker, Catherine Johns, Pat Cassidy, Bart Shore, Jimmy Mac McInerny, Leslie Harris, Joe Cicero, Bob Malkowski, David Berner, Barry Butler, Bernie Tafoya, Bob Stern, Lisa Greene, John Calhoun, Ray Stevens, Matt Bisbee, and more.

Here are a few photos from the event...

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Big Upcoming Week for Eckhartz Press

If you aren't hearing, seeing, or reading about Eckhartz Press authors this week in the Chicago area, you aren't trying very hard. Here's just a sampling...


JOHN RECORDS LANDECKER/September 8th
Robert Feder reported this in his column this morning..."The honors keep piling up for John Records Landecker, the legendary Chicago radio personality and 2017 inductee in the National Radio Hall of Fame. On September 8 it’ll be proclaimed “John Records Landecker Day” in Michigan City, Indiana (where he lives). He’ll also receive the Sagamore of the Wabash Honorary Award, decreed by Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb. Introducing Landecker at the ceremony will be Rick Kaempfer, his longtime radio producer and collaborator on his memoir, Records Truly Is My Middle Name."
Rick's note: The new Hall of Fame limited edition of "Records Truly Is My Middle Name" was completed by John and I this past week, and is now in the hands of talented designers. That will be available by early October.

MITCH MICHAELS/September 6th
Mitch will appearing on WGN Radio with Bill Leff and Wendy Snyder (who appears in the book "Doin' the Cruise"). Look for future Mitch appearances on Indiana Public Radio with Tom Lounges (September 15) and on the Car Con Carne podcast with James VanOsdol. Mitch's book "Doin the Cruise: Memories from a Lifetime in Radio and Rock and Roll" has just arrived in our offices and will be shipping next week. Get your copy today.

LEE KINGSMILL/Featured in Madison Cap Times
Dan McGrath has written a wonderful piece about Eckhartz Press author Lee Kingsmill. Before he retired and became a novelist, Lee was an esteemed teacher. McGrath compares and contrasts the behavior of his former colleague Lee during trying, tense, and difficult moments, with the behavior of our current president under similar stress. It really shows what a great human being Lee is. Lee's book "Safe Inside" also arrived in our offices this week. Get your copy today.

BOB SHANNON/September 3rd
The author of "Turn it Up: American Radio Tales 1946-1996" will be appearing on the nationally syndicated (Westwood One) Walter Sterling show at 10:30pm. The show airs here locally on WLS AM 890. The e-book is an Eckhartz Press production and became a best seller on Amazon. You can get your copy right here.

BILL PAIGE/September 3rd
Bill is the writer of "Everything I Know I Learned from Rock Stars" and he and his book will be featured on Rick Kogan's show on WGN Radio Sunday night. The book came out at the end of July is available NOW at Eckhartz Press.



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Mitch Michaels and Ken Churilla on WGN-TV

Mitch and Ken arrived around 10:45 to gear up for their segment on WGN-TV news yesterday. They were appearing on the midday show with Steve Sanders, and before the trio went on the air, Sanders chatted with Mitch about his own radio days and how much he missed it. They were breezily chatting while the director counted down the time...3 seconds...2 seconds...1 second.

And then Steve Sanders calmly turned to the camera and knocked this interview out of the park.

Watch the video here.

The book "Doin the Cruise: Memories From a Lifetime in Radio and Rock and Roll" ships this coming week. Get your copy today.

Mitch and Ken at WGN 4

Mitch at WGN 2

Mitch and Ken WGN 3

Mitch and Ken WGN 2

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Mitch and Ken WGN

Mitch at WGN

Mitch and Ken WGN
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Thursday, August 31, 2017

Mitch-TV



Tune in today to WGN-TV Midday News to see Eckhartz Press authors Mitch Michaels and Ken Churilla talking to Dina Bair about their new book Doin' the Cruise, which is available for pre-order now!

I'll tag along to take some pictures. They expect the boys to be on the air sometime between 11:15--Noon.

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Javy Steals Home


The video is here.

Man, he is an exciting player.
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Princess Diana

Princess Diana died 20 years ago today.

I was backstage at a Landecker & The Legends concert, waiting to go on stage, when I heard the news. Part of the show was a song about Diana, written in honor of her visit to Chicago in 1996 (to the tune of the Paul Anka song). We obviously opted not to do the song that night, and never did it again. At the time it felt like one of those "you'll never forget where you were" moments.

When Elton John released this version of his song for Diana it became (and remains) the best selling chart single all-time...





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ESPN Football Analyst Walks Away, Disturbed by Brain Trauma on the Field


You get the feeling the sport of football could be in trouble. Not yet, but it's on the horizon. This is one of the canaries in the coalmine.

From the New York Times...


If Ed Cunningham had not already seen enough, he would be back in a broadcast booth on Saturday afternoon, serving as the color analyst for another top college football game televised on ABC or ESPN. It is the work he has done each fall for nearly 20 years.

But Cunningham, 48, resigned from one of the top jobs in sports broadcasting because of his growing discomfort with the damage being inflicted on the players he was watching each week. The hits kept coming, right in front of him, until Cunningham said he could not, in good conscience, continue his supporting role in football’s multibillion-dollar apparatus.

“I take full ownership of my alignment with the sport,” he said. “I can just no longer be in that cheerleader’s spot.”
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Wednesday, August 30, 2017

CNN Reporter Saves Man

Drew Griffin, my old classmate from University of Illinois, was doing a live shot in Houston when he had to save a man...



Looks like my old girlfriend Margy made the right call by dumping me and going out with Drew. She later married him. I think they're still married today.
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Cartoon Villain

Already hated the guy. Glad to see he grew the mustache to delve more deeply into his cartoony villain role. "Snidely Whiplash drops back to pass..."

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Love this story

Ian Happ and Tommy LaStella have been "fake interviewing" their teammates after they hit home runs. Good sign that the boys are having fun again. Details are here.

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Trump in Houston

Not exactly winning any empathy awards. Worst president at expressing it since Nixon.

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Cable News Ratings

Say what you want about our president, but you can't say he's bad for cable news ratings.

Top 5 Basic Cable Networks of August 2017 (Prime Time)
1. Fox News (2,206,000)
2. MSNBC (1,835,000)
3. USA (1,499,000)
4. HGTV (1,429,000)
5. TBS (1,258,000)

I see that people are tuning in to the most partisan versions of the news too. Fox and MSNBC may both be covering the news, but believe me, other than the constant mentions of Trump, their reports don't even remotely resemble each other. One could change their motto to "Trump Bad" and the other to "Trump Good".

By the way, Fox News does not play well in the UK. Rupert Murdoch has been pushing it through his Sky network there and the British people have roundly rejected it. This week he made the call to pull it off the air there.
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Justin Bieber’s testicles spark lawsuit

That's a real headline from the New York Post (Page 6). Here are the details...

Back in May, Justin Bieber made an emergency visit to Northwell Health on Long Island to have his balls examined after he thought a soccer injury might have left one of his testicles twisted.

Fortunately, Bieber’s balls are just fine, but a staffer working at the hospital can’t say the same. A woman named Kelly Lombardo allegedly accessed Bieber’s medical files after hearing rumors he was admitted for an STD instead of a testicle injury and was subsequently fired.

She is suing because she says she never accessed the file. The case will probably be next year's version of the Taylor Swift groping trial (a chance for reporters to constantly mention Justin Bieber's balls), although this time Bieber won't have to testify.

Didn't realize that the Biebs was a soccer fan.
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Milwaukee Media Supports Houston

Former WGN-Radio GM Tom Langmyer's the man behind this fundraiser. From the RAMP Newsletter...

Relief efforts for all of those affected by the ongoing damage caused by the former Hurricane Harvey extend far beyond Texas. The fine folks at Scripps Milwaukee organized a fundraiser on Monday afternoon to collect much-needed funds for disaster relief. Staffers from WTMJ-TV (Today's TMJ4), News-Talk WTMJ-AM and WKTI (94.5 KTI Country) manned the phone bank from 4-7pm to collect donations for the American Red Cross.

"People in Wisconsin are looking for a way that they can help the victims of the hurricane," said Tom Langmyer, VP/GM for Scripps Radio in Milwaukee and VP of News/Talk/Sports for E.W. Scripps. "Using the power of local media we can combine our efforts to enable giving on a large scale and truly make a difference to support the American Red Cross." And make a difference they did.

People helping people. This is the best of America in action.
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Chicago Radio Supports Houston

Another unified gesture from Chicago's radio stations, this time in support of Houston's flood victims. From Radio Ink...

Over 30 Chicago stations will simultaneously air a :60 second spot to support the Red Cross as they work to help those affected by Hurricane Harvey in Houston and across the Gulf Coast. The spot will air Wednesday at 4:29 p.m.

Illinois Broadcasters Association Radio Broadcasters of Chicagoland Committee Chairman Matt Scarano said, “The Radio Broadcasters of Chicagoland are proud to unite as a group to help the people of Houston impacted by the devastating floods. We urge all Chicagoans to contribute to the relief efforts that are so desperately needed. We are using the power of radio in both English and Spanish, to help out those in need. In a time of crisis, Chicago radio is willing to help in any way we can.”

“What a great idea for the Radio Broadcasters of Chicagoland to apply their winning roadblock formula in building instantaneous public awareness to the immediate needs of the Red Cross in helping victims of Hurricane Harvey,” said Dennis Lyle, president and CEO of the Illinois Broadcasters Association. “Doing so is yet another reflection of the care and concern local broadcasters have for their community and communities beyond.”

Great gesture. I have no snarky comments.
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Tuesday, August 29, 2017

Everything that is wrong with this country in two sentences

When I find myself beginning to feel hopeful about our community spirit (like I've been seeing in Houston), I get reminded that Ann Coulter still exists and continues to pollute America.

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The Cubs



Bridget and I went to the Cubs game last night and enjoyed a big Cubs win. We also got to see Gary Pressey's big night. They even let him sing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame"

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Mitch Michaels

Thanks to Robert Feder for this shout out this morning...

Mitch Michaels will be toasted Thursday at a gathering to honor the release of his new memoir, Doin’ the Cruise: Memories From A Lifetime in Radio and Rock & Roll. Written with Ken Churilla and published by Eckhartz Press, it’s a straightforward account of the ups and downs of a Chicago radio career spanning nearly five decades and encompassing such iconic call letters as WXRT, WDAI, WKQX, WLUP and WCKG. Most interesting are insights Michaels shares about his personal life, including growing up as an only child of adoptive parents in a Cleveland suburb, and coping with the death of a 21-year-old son, who fell victim to drug addiction. Still rocking at 69, Michaels now hosts afternoons at Alpha Media classic hits WERV FM 95.9.
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Trump Welcomes New Network

In his press conference yesterday, one of the three questions was taken from a brand new television network. From TV Newser...

Typically, these news conferences include two journalists from each country. But this afternoon, three journalists from each were called on. The third U.S. reporter was Trey Yingst from One America News, who asked about what cutting FEMA’s budget might mean to the recovery efforts in Texas. In his answer, Trump gave a shout-out to the nascent right-leaning TV news network: “Right now we have the money necessary for Texas and Louisiana if we need, but the real number, which will be many billions of dollars, will go through congress. I think it will happen very quickly. And I want to congratulate you on the network of the. It’s a great network.”

We know one thing about this network. If Trump likes it, they never criticize him. No need to watch it.
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Monday, August 28, 2017

City Underwater

This is worse than I thought...



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Houston Media

During tough times our local media often perform their best work...


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Nielsen To Reissue Chicago’s July Book After Ratings Snafu

From Inside Radio...

Nielsen will reissue the July 2017 ratings for Chicago on Tuesday, Aug. 29, at noon Central, after it left out listening data from one of a pair of Univision Radio FMs that simulcast and qualify for Total Line Reporting (TLR). The company says audience shares for other stations may be “slightly affected.”

In a notice to clients on Friday, Nielsen said that in the July numbers (released Aug. 7), audience estimates for the TLR combo of Univision’s Spanish urban “Latino Mix 93.5 & 103.1” WVIV and WVIX-FM did not reflect combined listening to both stations. The ratings reflected listening to only one of the stations.

The original ratings, reported with the call letters WVIV-FM, showed it had a 0.6 share of listeners aged 6+, down from a 1.0 share in June and a 1.3 share in May.

In the new numbers coming out Tuesday, listening data from both simulcast partners will be combined and reported with the call letters of the “primary” station, Nielsen said.

“Audience shares for other stations may be slightly affected, as the under-reported listening to the WVIV-FM/WVIX-FM combo was not included in Market totals in the originally released report,” the company explained.

It probably won't make too big of a difference, but it's a big deal when the ratings need to be re-released. Stations have been selling those numbers for the last month.
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Art Vuolo's Tribute to Jay Thomas

Art Vuolo is radio's best friend. He goes around the country and records radio personalities on video, and has amassed a treasure trove of material. He dipped into that treasure trove to create this tribute to the recently departed Jay Thomas...



Ken Levine was one of the writers of Cheers, and he writes one of my favorite blogs. About ten years ago he told the tale of how Jay Thomas' big mouth got him fired from Cheers. Great story.
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Friday, August 25, 2017

Minutia Men, Episode 63


EP63 – Rick and Dave discuss secret birth control, nuclear minutia, making chowder with sailor Ned, the man called Fear, and Rick’s brush with Penn & Teller.

Listen to it here.
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Chip off the old block

I wore #9 when I played for Prospect High School's soccer team 37 years ago.

My youngest son Sean is wearing #8. Same as his Uncle Peter 30 years ago.

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Praying for Texas



I have a lot of friends and relatives in Texas. Hope this Hurricane Harvey doesn't meet expectations. Sounds like it could do major damage. Praying for the best.

(Photo: Our last visit to Texas a few summers ago)
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Draining the Swamp

It's almost as if Mel Brooks suggested this as a bit. It's good to be the king.



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A great analysis of our president

This comes from David Roth (not David Lee Roth) of the Baffler. This literally explains everything he has said or done since he became president (and before)...
The most significant thing to know about Donald Trump’s politics or process, his beliefs or his calculations, is that he is an asshole; the only salient factor in any decision he makes is that he absolutely does not care about the interests of the parties involved except as they reflect upon him. Start with this, and you already know a lot. Start with this, and you already know that there are no real answers to any of these questions...

He watches a lot of cable news, but he struggles to follow even stories that have been custom built for people like him—old, uninformed, amorphously if deeply aggrieved. There’s a reason for this. Trump doesn’t know anything or really believe anything about any topic beyond himself, because he has no interest in any topic beyond himself; his evident cognitive decline and hyperactive laziness and towering monomania ensure that he will never again learn a new thing in his life...

Trump now “executes” by way of the The Junior Soprano Method. When he senses that his staff is trying to get him to do one thing, Trump defiantly does the opposite; otherwise he bathes in the commodified reactionary grievance of partisan media, looking for stories about himself. It takes days for his oafish and overmatched handlers to coax him into even a coded and qualified criticism of neo-Nazis, and an instant for him to willfully undo it. Of course he brings more vigor to the latter than the former; he doesn’t really understand why he had to do the first thing, but he innately and deeply understands why he did the second. The first is invariably about someone else—some woman, there was a car accident, like during or maybe after that thing—and therefore, as an asshole, he does not and cannot really care about it. The second is about him and therefore, as an asshole, he really, really does.
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Deep Thoughts

Made me laugh...

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REM Anniversary

35 years ago today REM released their debut EP, "Chronic Town". I was working at WPGU radio at that time and immediately loved this record. When I went to Spring Break in 1982 (Daytona Beach), my buddies and I saw them playing on the beach. I made everyone stay and listen--and they fell in love with REM too. Their first two full length albums were also great.

Unfortunately, I loved REM less and less with each successive release, and by the time they broke up, I only casually listened to them. I never disliked them, but the thrill was gone.

But that doesn't diminish the brilliance of that first one. I have an autographed copy of it in my office.





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Bears Radio

First the Cubs left longtime home WGN. Could the Bears follow and leave WBBM? Robert Feder reports this morning...

After 18 years on CBS Radio all-news WBBM AM 780/WCFS FM 105.9, the Chicago Bears could be on the move. The team’s radio broadcast rights are up for grabs after the upcoming season, and insiders say WBBM Newsradio’s bid to secure a renewal may fall short this time. It’s been the voice of the Bears since 2000. Also in the running is Tribune Broadcasting news/talk WGN AM 720, which last aired Bears football in 1996. A new broadcast agreement — to start in the 2018 season — is expected to be announced in September.
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RIP Jay Thomas

Jay Thomas was a radio star, but I never heard his show because he was never in the same market as me. I knew him from his acting career, most memorably as the hockey star who dated Carla in Cheers. He passed away yesterday at the age of 69. RIP.

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Thursday, August 24, 2017

Radio Folks love Eckhartz Press

Currently on the best seller list at amazon (#48!)...

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Doin' The Cruise

Most people writing their memoirs have a tendency to round off their edges a bit. Mitch Michaels is not most people. That's why "Doin' the Cruise: Memories from a Lifetime in Radio and Rock and Roll" is destined to be voted the memoir "most likely to give you a papercut." Mitch doesn't round off his edges and doesn't pull his punches as he tells his incredible radio and rock & roll stories.

The book ships in a few weeks, but it's available for pre-order right now.
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Mitch and co-author Ken Churilla are also holding a book release party on Thursday August 31 at Lloyds Chicago (1 S. Wacker) from 4-7pm. You can buy your copy there that day and they'll happily sign it for you.
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Boys, this is how you pass

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Losing a No-Hitter

Cubs great Hippo Vaughn lost a no-hitter to another pitcher throwing a no-hitter in 1917. It doesn't get any rougher than that, although it came close yesterday.

Last night Dodgers pitcher Rich Hill gave up his first hit of the game in the 10th, and lost the game 1-0. The hit was a homer.

Yes, Rich Hill is an ex-Cub.
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When the Germans Say It

I'm very hesitant to bring up the "H" word when I refer to our president. I don't do it. I'm obviously not a fan (really Rick?), but that's a step too far for me even if there are some eery reminders like when he does his rallies. He's clearly not the "H" word as far as I'm concerned.

But when the Germans say it, they do have a little more credibility...

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Trump Word Cloud

Quinnipiac University did a poll asking people to describe President Trump in one word. The Washington Post made this word cloud with the results. Looks about right to me...

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Ben Zobrist's Seinfeld Moment

I feel his pain. Didn't think this sort of thing happened to World Series MVPs, but apparently they do. It was Seinfeldian. From the Kansas City Star...

Zobrist was late to the Cubs’ game in Cincinnati on Tuesday night, because he went home during Monday’s off-day, then flew into Nashville, rented a car and drove to the ballpark.

One problem: there was no car when he first got to Nashville.

“Zo made it into a ‘Seinfeld’ episode today where he had a reservation for a vehicle in Nashville,” Cubs manager Joe Maddon explained to the Chicago Tribune. “When he got there, they failed to hold the reservation. Thus he was late getting the vehicle, thus he got caught in traffic.”

In season three of “Seinfeld,” Jerry reserves a car only to find out that the vehicle he wanted (a mid-size car) is not there when he arrives. That led to his quote (“See, you know how to take the reservation. You just don’t know how to hold the reservation, and that’s really the most important part of the reservation — the holding. Anybody can just take ’em.”)

Zobrist’s situation was worse: there were no cars at all. Zobrist blamed Monday’s solar eclipse for his predicament. People in Nashville traveled to be in the path of totality and didn’t return their vehicles before he arrived, Zobrist said in an interview with reporters.

“And every other place we went, there was nothing,” Zobrist told the Tribune’s Mark Gonzales. “It took about 1 1/2 hours to get anything available.”

He got to Cincinnati just in time to pinch hit and delivered a two-run single.

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Ryen Rusillo Found Naked

From this morning's Radio Ink...

The Jackson Hole News & Guide is reporting that ESPN Radio host Ryen Russillo was found naked in a stranger’s condo early Wednesday. The owner of the condo first thought it was a family member only to discover it was apparently Russillo lying in a bed with his pants around his ankles. The paper says Rusillo was charged with criminal trespassing after just walking into the condo after having too much too drink.

Police were called to the condo about a “highly intoxicated male who was refusing to leave.” The two occupants asked him to leave but he did not. Police say Russillo didn’t know where he was and thought maybe he was staying in the condo. “He appears to have just walked in,” one officer told the newspaper. “He didn’t force entry.” Police say he was too intoxicated to follow through with a request to leave and he couldn’t coherently answer questions.

An ESPN spokesperson told Radio Ink last night the company “is looking into it.

I've been drunk before, but I've never been THAT drunk.
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Wednesday, August 23, 2017

Rooney's National Team Days are Over

He says he's retiring from the team, but it's probably safe to say he wouldn't be picked anymore, either.

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Turn it Up!

Thanks so much to the NOW newsletter for this piece about Bob Shannon's new Eckhartz Press e-book...

Bob Shannon tells radio stories about Casey Kasem, Dick Biondi, Larry Lujack, Rick Dees, and a bunch more bold-face names, in a newly-expanded book titled “Turn It Up! American Radio Tales 1946-1996.” That time-frame lets Bob range from the dawn of what would become rock & roll to the late 20th century. Shannon’s the Minneapolis-based president of SpotMedia Services and executive director of The Conclave, and a onetime jock, PD, writer, and executive at TM Century. More about the latest edition of his “Turn It Up!” from Chicago-based Eckhartz Press here.

Turn it Up is now in the Top 100 on Amazon!
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Safe Inside: An Excerpt

We get so many manuscripts sent to Eckhartz Press, that we literally don't have enough time in the day/week/year to read them all. It's a rare manuscript that gets and steals my attention from the very beginning. When the manuscript of "Safe Inside" reached my desk, it immediately jumped off the page to me. This beautifully written story is complex and serious, and it's so vivid, it's like taking a trip in a time machine to 1940s Chicago. I know I don't do it justice, so here's an example of what I mean. In this excerpt, the lead character, a little boy named "Shorty", takes the reader inside the beautiful Avalon movie palace on Chicago's south side....


All traces of 79th Street, indeed, of America itself, fell away as they pushed into the outer lobby. Such was the power of this small room to suggest what awaited them. Crammed with extraordinary shapes and oddly painted tiles, it did not contain a familiar sight from one end to the other. It was nothing compared to the extravagance of the vast main lobby they were about to enter, which, in turn, paled in comparison with the staggering auditorium itself. Still, he knew it served an important function of its own, like the decompression chamber he had seen in a newsreel about submarines. Without this little room, you would step unprepared from the street to the main lobby and lose all reason. At least he felt he would.

A few steps ahead of them rose an array of golden doors, each hollowed out to frame its own tall window in a shape that suggested to Shorty a caped palace guard in a pointed hood. They had only to choose one to enter and present their tickets, but this was not a space to be hurried through.

Unsurprised, his mother let him crisscross the room, drawing her to the gallery of coming attractions that hung about the sidewalls. On the right, below the sign “Friday for One Week,” was a large poster for Anchors Aweigh. The grinning faces of Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly in sailor hats flanked Kathryn Grayson in a high white headdress, pursing her mouth into a pretty, smiling heart. “That looks good,”, he said aloud. He could tell that the people who ran the Avalon expected it to be popular because in the adjoining glass case was not a poster, but a plain white sheet lettered “Added Feature”: Hollywood Caravan, whatever that was. Clearly, it was so short, or so crummy, that nobody bothered to make a poster of it. Shorty was annoyed. Movies (except when they first came out downtown) were meant to be seen in pairs, setting each other off.

The left wall, thankfully, presented the rightful order of things. Under the words “Week After Next”, two posters in starkly contrasting moods confronted each other. Striding toward you from the Pride of the Marines poster were John Garfield, Eleanor Parker, and Dane Clark. Arm in arm and smiling their faces off, they looked like they were at the head of a victory parade because they had just won the war triple handedly. It looked too cheerful to be a war movie, and the lettering bragged that it was an inspiring true story, something that Shorty did not automatically consider a recommendation. No, this one could be skipped without pain. The second poster made him reconsider. It too showed three figures, but what a difference. George Sanders, who could usually be counted on to be in movies where people were up to no good, stood looking grim and troubled. At his feet, looking up with her arms around his legs, was Ella Raines. What was going on here? To make things even more interesting, a big Geraldine Fitzgerald was leaning back and looking like when she was through causing trouble for them, she might start in on you. The very title drew him in: The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry. For Shorty, “strange” was a spicy seasoning, certain to improve the flavor of whatever was being offered. The lettering heightened his enthusiasm. “The shocking play that stunned Broadway!” If “strange” was good, “shocking” was even better, and “stunned”! He had to see it. He hid his excitement from his mother. They wouldn’t take him to this blindfolded unless he could think up a truly clever plan.

“Okay, Momma, let’s go in.”

As they neared a door, a uniformed arm on the other side drew it open for them, and once again, he felt pitched headlong into a kaleidoscope, beset from top to bottom and on all sides with dense layers of elaborate and richly colored designs that had no counterpart in the rest of his universe. No inch of this immense hall had been left undecorated. Nowhere could Shorty’s eye escape, or penetrate the mysterious plan of the architect. Only in the sheer size and openness of this spectacular lobby was mercy to be found. In a smaller room, he could imagine such visual intensity driving people to cry out or flee.

The gentle splashing of a fountain drew his eyes to a tiled pool on their left. He felt his mother slipping the ticket stubs into his pocket, and they began to move easily across the length of a shimmering marble floor so reflective that its farthest edges seemed to lie under a thin film of water. On a weekend night, their swift progress would have been impossible. Then, they would have stood penned in long lanes, inching ahead only when an usher would emerge from the auditorium, unhook the velvet restraining rope at the front of one of the lanes, and call out “Two together on aisle four in the balcony,” or whatever location had just been vacated. If you were at the head of the lane and the seats sounded good, or you were just tired of waiting, you would follow him through the dark as he shined his flashlight on the floor and led you to the exact spot.

Even though they had just finished supper, his mother would know that he would want popcorn for his “separate popcorn stomach” as she called it. In their current circumstances, however, he wasn’t sure it was right to ask. Shorty kept silent as they passed the silver machine whose eruptions filled the glass case with popcorn enough for the Blue Leopard to dive into and splash around. “Wait right here for me, Shorty.” Parking him at a marble bench, she descended one of the wide, twisting staircases that led to the restrooms.

The sleek black and white bathrooms in the Avalon, and the lounges that surrounded them, were the worst places in the world for someone like his mother, given to chronic lolligagging, to be turned loose. Even a speedy washroom visitor would find interesting distractions there, like the pond with the jumbo goldfishes, the fountains, or the writing room. If you were watching a movie and suddenly realized you needed to write a letter, or send a secret message, you could do it here. A writing desk with pens, ink, envelopes, and special stationery waited for you, though he had never observed anyone using them. The management of the Avalon thought of everything! Luckily, for some reason, his mother never kept him waiting as long here as she did most places. Or if she did, he didn’t notice; there was too much to see, and he would never be done examining it.

So few people were walking around in the lobby that, for once, he could get a really good look at the floor. It didn’t seem like a floor at all, and it was certainly too pretty to be walked on. Tonight it looked to Shorty more like a giant board game, backgammon maybe, if people from another planet had designed it. His eyes rode the patterns to the far edge of the floor and moved upward. A dark border of busily splashed marble as high as his waist, and inset with squares and rectangles of contrasting colors, ran the length of the hall. Here and there, the wall receded and the border became a bench with room enough for him to scoot back and sit among the tall columns that rose from it to support stone walls bursting with carved and painted images that might be flowers, but weren’t exactly. Cut into these walls were rows of the pointy hooded arches. Behind the pillars and under the arches were painted scenes of Arabians lounging about in an oasis or at a bazaar. Shorty could even see a naked lady from the back. She was stretched out relaxing and none of the Arabians were paying any attention to her. Enclosing each of these areas were borders studded with jewels as big as your fist. In between, and up above were jutting balconies and wonderful tall windows screened by stone arches with holes cut into them and so many curves and scrolls and zigzags that it made his head spin. If this was what Arabia was truly like, he would move there in a minute and say goodbye to everything he knew.

His head leaned back against a pillar and his eyes reached the ceiling. A gigantic oriental rug of stone spread out upon an even larger and more complicated stone carpet. This should have been the floor. It was though he were hanging upside down. He blinked his eyes but still felt dizzy.

“Are you ready?”

Through a side door, he followed his mother into the darkness.

#

He could make out only a few empty seats, no two of them together. The audience was completely silent. One of the pictures was already in progress. He knew it was Christmas in Connecticut because there was snow and no soldiers. People were inside a wonderful home with a fireplace so huge you could stand up in it, and the biggest window he had ever seen . It took up most of the wall and looked like they put about a dozen normal windows together. This was going to be a great house, and he couldn’t wait to see the rest of it. The music, too, let him know that this couldn’t be Back to Bataan. That was RKO, and this was definitely Warner Brothers music. In a Warner Brothers movie, the music didn’t leave any empty spaces. It was louder and ran all over the place helping you figure out what the characters were really up to, and what was going to happen later on.

“Shorty,” his mother whispered and tugged at his sleeve. It was always a big mistake for him to look at the screen before he got to his seat.

When they’d settled in, he looked back up and the softest of sounds escaped his lips. “Ohh….” It was his first glimpse of Barbara Stanwyck. He had seen her photograph, and heard her voice on the radio, but here she was, twenty feet tall, moving about in front of him, wearing a checked aprony sort of dress with white sleeves and collar, her long dark hair bouncing around her shoulders, and looking – well, absolutely perfect. She was so pretty, but friendly, and kind of flirty. She seemed to be keeping a really good joke to herself, but at the same time, you knew she needed your help, and you wanted to give it. Her smile would make a cat purr, and at the moment he was feeling very catlike. There were some people you wanted to get to know the moment you saw them, and she was certainly one.

The help she needed involved flapjacks or “flip flops” as S.Z. Sakall, in a tall chef’s hat, kept calling them. For some reason, which would be made clear when they saw the beginning of the movie, it was very important that she flip a pancake for Sidney Greenstreet; otherwise, he would find out that everybody had been telling him a pack of lies, and terrible things would happen. But she couldn’t do it, not even with S. Z. Sakall helping her practice, and telling her how easy it was. It certainly didn’t look easy, and she was making a terrible mess of the kitchen, flipping them on the stove, on the ceiling, and just about everywhere except the frying pan where they were supposed to go. Finally, Sidney Greenstreet arrived for the flap jack showdown, and Barbara Stanwyck tried all kinds of feeble excuses to get out of it, but nothing would work. Shorty wished he could be with her in the kitchen to try to help her out, but he knew he couldn’t think of anything either. With a hopeless shrug she picked up the frying pan, closed her eyes, and flipped. Shorty couldn’t stand it when people made fools of themselves in public, and he squirmed in his seat looking at the screen though the fingers of his right hand. But then, an amazing thing happened: the pancake came down out of the air and landed exactly where it was supposed to. People in the audience laughed, and some of them clapped. They were as relieved as he was. He felt glad to be part of this mass reaction. It was so good not to be peculiar for a little while, and here in the dark he was just like everybody else. It was a feeling he longed to carry back outside with him, but he knew it would evaporate before he could reach the sidewalk.

Safe Inside is available fo pre-order now at Eckhartz Press. It ships in early September.

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Say it ain't so, Louis CK

One of the reasons my family finally broke down and got Netflix is because I wanted to see the most recent Louis CK comedy special. He's the only comedian I've paid to see (other than my good buddy Dobie Maxwell) in the past decade or so. He's that good.

But this story about him in the Daily Beast is really disturbing. It strongly implies that Louis is known for forcibly making female comedians watch him masturbate. There are a few examples in the article. I hope it's not true, but after the Bill Cosby story, I suspect it is.
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Heartwarming story

100 police officers escort the son of a fallen officer to his first day of kindergarten.

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Trump Ratings

The president's speech about Afghanistan on Monday night drew about 17 million viewers. That's a pretty respectable audience, although lower than his last televised speech in front of Congress. (Also, don't tell him Obama regularly got more. His head will explode.)

I'm curious to see the ratings for last night's unhinged rally, in which he re-litigated (again!) his words about Charlottesville (by quoting his prepared text and ignoring his off-the-cuff remarks that completely offset those remarks), before once again undermining every word he said with further dogwhistles to racists including a promise to protect "our culture" (clearly meaning white culture), and a promise to pardon former Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

It doesn't take an expert in human behavior to see his heart. Those who don't see it now are willfully not seeing it.
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Tuesday, August 22, 2017

Love this

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Total Eclipse (Literal Video)

Seems like an appropriate time to post this. Pretty funny...

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Mark Your Calendars

Got this from the co-author Ken Churilla. Everyone is welcome!

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Barry Butler Nabs Best Eclipse Photo

He's the best. Really he is. Great photographer Barry Butler was in Carbondale and scored this shot...

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Bob Shannon's "Turn it Up"

Thanks so much to the RAMP Newsletter for posting this story today...

Radio History Comes To Life In Turn It Up

Eckhartz Press just released an updated version of Bob Shannon's awesome book, Turn it Up: American Radio Tales 1946-1996 as an e-book. Turn It Up features amazing true stories about 58 radio greats -- Lee Abrams, Jack Armstrong, Dick Biondi, Chuck Blore, Jerry Boulding, Scotty Brink, Kent Burkhardt, Al Casey, Ron Chapman, Dick Clark, Frank Cody, Larry Daniels, Rick Dees, Tom Donahue, Ken Dow, Bill Drake, Paul Drew, Chuck Dunaway, Bill Figenshu, Alan Freed, Jack Gale, Les Garland, Bob Henabery, Dan Ingram, Ron Jacobs, Tom Joyner, Casey Kasem, Murray the K, Art Laboe and Larry Lujack.

But wait! There's more! There are also stories about Bill Mack, Gordon McLendon, John McRea, Ruth Meyer, Robert W. Morgan, "Cousin Brucie" Morrow, Pat O'Day, Gary Owens, Dewey Phillips, Dick Purtan, Bobby Rich, Steve Rivers, Art Roberts, John Rook, Dr. Don Rose, Tom Rounds, Ed Salamon, John Sebastian, Scott Shannon, Rick Sklar, Michael Spears, Gary Stevens, Todd Storz, Charlie Tuna, Rusty Walker, Todd Wallace, Fred Winston and Wolfman Jack.

The updated Kindle version of Turn It Up is now available for only $5.99 (the paperback is $17.25) at Amazon.com. And as a special bonus, enjoy an audio feature about Dewey Phillips, the first jock to play Elvis Presley, which is posted on the Eckhartz Press website
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The Hallmark Channel

The Hallmark Channel is experiencing incredible ratings growth. From the Washington Post...
Ratings are booming. Hallmark was the only non-news channel in the top 15 to see substantial viewership growth last year. In November and December, when Hallmark aired Christmas movies almost nonstop, the channel often ran neck-and-neck with Fox News and ESPN for the title of most-watched TV network on basic cable. Ratings are up another 9 percent so far this year, Nielsen says, and the Christmas movie marathon hasn't even started yet.
What is the reason for this boom? Bill Abbott is the CEO, and he has his own theory. “The environment is undeniably contentious. We are a place you can go and feel good."

Yup, I get it. Bridget and I watched an hour long show on the National Geographic channel last night about the jungles in Columbia. The two nights before that we binge-watched "Fawlty Towers" and "Arrested Development".

We used to watch the news. The news sucks now. It's exhausting. It causes headaches and agita. The news desperately needs a new leading man.
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My Eyes, They Burn

I saw this live. He really only did look up for a second, but I think this tweet captures it nicely...

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Monday, August 21, 2017

Your Total Eclipse Playlist

The Guardian has put together a Top Ten list of songs about (at least tangentially) eclipses.

I'm sure you can guess #1 on the list. The first one I thought of was #3. His scarf was apricot.
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Happy birthday Joel Daly!

Happy birthday to Eckhartz Press author and Renaissance Man Joel Daly. We're proud to be your publisher...

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