I’ve always felt that in many ways I am still thirteen. Back then I used to sit at a desk and write and draw comic books, dreaming up crazy stories. Today I sit at a desk dreaming up stories for scripts and plays.
When I was thirteen I watched THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW. Today I still watch THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW.
When I was thirteen I loved Bob’s Big Boy hamburgers. Nothing’s changed there either… except that they now go to my hips.
And of course my crush on Natalie Wood still seems to linger.
Back when I was thirteen I was a radio freak. Still am. In those days I would do bedroom shows. On Saturday nights my parents would go out for the evening. My younger brother would go to sleep and I would set up my record player and Wollensak tape recorder, grab the latest copy of LOOK magazine for commercial copy, and go “on the air.” I would introduce records but mostly I tried to do funny voices and zany comedy bits. None of those tapes exist today, which I’m sure is just as well. Jonathan Winters I was not. Shelley Winters I was not.
But I had my bedroom station. And I would bet that by noon there will be a bunch of comments from other radio freaks who also had bedroom stations in their formative years.
Mine went nowhere. But some had stations way more elaborate. A few even had low power transmitters and were actually
broadcasting. I was content to stick the tapes in a drawer (where they shared space with my homemade comic books).
That was then. And now I’m doing a weekly podcast. Not much has changed. I’m not doing it out of my bedroom – I do it out of my office – but I’m still talking into a tape recorder hoping to make people laugh. The big difference of course is that people can hear this. And LOOK magazine is history.
This is amazing to me. Anybody today can “broadcast” all over the world. 24/7 internet radio stations are just computers sitting in bedrooms. Thank GOD these options didn’t exist when I was thirteen. I’d still be living it down.
But the pressure is on, with so many audio options available, I’ve got to really up my game. No interviews with my mailman or discussions about shopping for tires. I’ve got to go out of my way to impress. It’s like when I first tried to attract girls. God, I
am thirteen again.
Episode 2 should now be available for downloading. Stories about MASH, why I got fired so often from radio jobs, and FQ's. Check it out and please subscribe. Thanks.