Hats off to for unearthing this music video. Brought back memories of both my misspent youth and my early days as one of those “Low Key FM Rock Jocks.”
Monthly Archive for September, 2003
Came across someone else’s blog when searching for information on a particular song. If you’re curious, click here.
This is a subject I’m going to have to visit later on when I have some time. In the meantime, I’ll ask everyone here: what do you want played at YOUR wake?
Jurors get paid less per day than many people make per hour….
…and yet they are still required to watch Live With Regis and Kelly.
I think hazard pay is called for.
I’m a member of a long-standing, well-disrespected online community known as “ByteBrothers.” I would provide a link, but unless you are already a ByteBrother (or had been one in the past), you either wouldn’t understand or wouldn’t fit in. For any long-last ByteBrothers out there, there are a few shibboleths, so if you can prove to me that you are one, I’ll point you toward the current location and you can try to get past the person in charge of the membership. 
The objective of ByteBrothers is to be as offensive to each other (and any other reasonable people out there) as inhumanly possible. I’ve found it to be a great catharsis over the ten years that I’ve been in and out of it. After all, it lets me get anything I have pent up out of my system before opening a microphone.
Anyway, before I get too distracted, we have a tradition in ByteBrothers. When someone famous dies, it’s announced with a “Welcome To Hell” message. Today, I logged on to read “Welcome to Hell, Gordon Jump.” A pit opened in my stomach. Gordon Jump had a big influence in my life and career. After all, he was Mister Carlson, the one of the last half-decent, non-corporate-controlled, Radio GM’s out there.
Don’t laugh. Yes, Mr. Carlson never existed. And yes, WKRP (at least the television version) never existed. But what people who have never been in broadcasting don’t realize is that WKRP was more real than you might imagine. A good many episodes (including “Turkeys Away” and “The Contest Nobody Could Win” believe it or not) are based upon real incidents at real stations. Watching some of the hilarity on that show helped push me into broadcasting. And I’ve never regretted it. I may have gotten in just as all the fun was beginning to be sucked out of radio, but I did get to experience some of it. (Maybe I’ll write a book.)
Gordon also stuck around for “The New WKRP In Cincinnati,” which didn’t last very long. I didn’t even discover it until it was on VH1! The New WKRP wasn’t as much fun as the original, but broadcasting wasn’t as much fun anymore, either. But it was more real, and that’s why I appreciated it. (I also liked the interplay between the old morning man, Johnny – played again by Howard Hesseman, and the new kid, Razor – played by French Stewart before he was annoying! It resonated very much with me years later in a situation I will not discuss now to protect the guilty.)
Now, with Mr. Carlson no longer with us, I can safely say that one era of Broadcasting has finally officially passed away.
Well, I’ve gotten my ass covered as far as radio goes. Kayo Myers has agreed to fill in for me as needed. So even if I end up sequestered or just too exhausted after a day of “nolo contendere” this and “ipso facto” shoveitupyourassa, The Pab Sungenis Project shall go on with new episodes.
I’m still hoping for the best, but I am prepared for the worst.
By the way, you will definitely want to check out the show on October 3, as we’re taking a look at the California recall, and will have new stuff from Tom Smith (a song inspired by both H.P. Lovecraft and The Lion King if you can believe it) and Logan Whitehurst. Don’t miss it!
By the way, looking at the subject line I picked for this entry, I had a weird thought. Since Johnny Carson spent so much of his career letting other people guest-host The Tonight Show, wouldn’t it be a kick to get Johnny to guest host my show some time? Maybe when I’m on 100 stations or so I’ll approach him.
Inspired by similar lists found in Bryan Irrera’s and pomobarney’s blogs….
“They tell me it’s good, but it’s not.”
* Quiche
* The Sopranos
* Patriotism
* New York City
* Anything with “MTV’s” at the beginning of the title
* Star Wars Episode (fill in the blank)
* Microbrew beer
* Starbuck’s
* The Philadelphia Eagles
* Cellphone text messaging
* The Sims
* TechTV
* The West Wing
* Andrew Lloyd Webber
* Any book Oprah has ever read, let alone pushed on the air.
* Oprah herself.
* Sarah McLachlan
* The Family Circus
* Volkswagen Beetles
* The Designated Hitter rule.
I’m sure more will follow over time.
Thought you all might enjoy a sneak preview of my new webtoon/game before I add it to my main page. Click on the graphic to play it.
As I said on The Pab Sungenis Project page, I’m going in for jury duty next week. To celebrate this, I pulled out a piece I wrote when I was on jury duty in 1997, and first published when I was on jury duty again in 2000. (Yes, I get called every three years without fail. Random sampling my ass.)
It follows:
It used to be that serving on a jury was the last thing any
person would ever want to do. Imagine sitting locked in a
courtroom with eleven other people who, like you, were too stupid
to think of a good excuse.
“Your honor, I cannot serve on this jury because I am not
expected to live through this week….”
“Sit down, and keep that drip bag out of the defendant’s
face.”
“Your honor, I cannot sit on this jury because I have to
catch the flight back to my home planet of Neptune.”
“Skin color is not sufficient reason to excuse a juror. Sit
down.”
But now they have a new, novel, way of getting people to
clamor to sit in the box and listen to lawyers pretend to be more
clever than you. It’s called Bill Pullman.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Back in December, I received the dreaded blue slip:
Dear Mr. Songenus:
Do not bother correcting the spelling of your
name; it is deliberately misspelled to help destroy
your individual identity and sense of well-being. Do
not think this is sufficient reason to escape your
servitude, either, since we have your house under
surveillance, and will find you no matter where you go
or what your name is.We have reviewed your juror questionnaire. We
don’t really use them to determine eligibility, we just
wanted a cheap laugh. Anyhow, since the words
“spurting blood” were not found in your job
description, you WILL go to the Courthouse the morning
of January 27, and you will not be scared. Capisce?Signed,
Someone More Important Than You
Step One: dehumanize your victim.
This gave me barely enough time to rearrange my work
schedule, before the phone call came.
“Mr. Songenus?”
“Close enough.”
“How are you today?”
“Tired. I just got home from work two hours ago, and am in
bed. And you?”
“Oh, I’m feeling great today. Because remember that jury
summons?”
“Yes?”
“Telling you to be here next week?”
“Yes?”
“We lied. Get here in twenty minutes.”
Cumberland County Courthouse is a wonderful old civic
building built in the neo-Masochist style, designed by the
renowned architect B.F. Skinner. There is only one door open at
any given time, and it’s not the one you are at. The trick is to
hide behind a mailbox, lying in wait, hoping that a policeman
opens one of the doors to go out and Defend The Public. You then
have to dash in while he isn’t looking, and are given a piece of
cheese before you are strip searched and told where the secret
door to the jury room is.
Step Two: disorient your victim.
You are herded into a small room with other tired people,
some of whom are still jumpy from finding their way into the
building. You are given an “orientation lecture” about how the
jury system works. (“Remember that Simpson thing? Don’t do
that.”) Then, the final blow.
“While we are waiting for the judges, we have some
entertainment for you. We are pleased to present the major
motion picture: While You Were Sleeping, starring Bill Pullman.”
Step Three: destroy your victim’s will to live.
By the time we were brought into the first courtroom, people
were clamoring to be put onto a jury, and thus have at least the
day finished for them.
“No, your honor, I can be completely impartial.”
“But the defendant is your mother.”
“That doesn’t matter. She’s guilty as sin. I’ve always
thought she was a criminal.”
“Sorry. You are excused. Bailiff, take him back to While
You Were Sleeping.”
Screams fill the courtroom, as the condemned man is taken
off to meet his fate.
“Juror number 17….”
“I CONFESS!”
“Obviously unstable. Bailiff….”
Don’t misunderstand me. I think the jury system is one of
the great things about this nation. It is the only way to get a
truly impartial decision of guilt or innocence. But perhaps we
are going about it the wrong way. Maybe the old concept of Trial
by Ordeal would work again. If the defendant is capable of
sitting through a showing of The Brothers McMullen, then even if
he has committed a crime, he is too senseless to understand it.
For those who are found guilty, the VCR can again be put to use.
Petty thieves can be sentenced to repeated showings of Ice
Pirates, while rapists can be doomed to the hell which is Mystic Pizza. Murderers? They shall be Gumped to death, no appeal
needed.
What the heck, if Hollywood is going to keep making movies
out of crimes, maybe the time has come to make crimes out of
movies as well. Write your Congressman today, unless his name
happens to be Tom Servo.
Going through some floppies to take pictures of a few eBay items I hope to unload, I came across some photos from this spring.
Back when I was at St. Bonaventure, I fell into the gravity well of the campus theater group, The Garret Theatre. It was there that I met a very good friend, and occasional comedy and writing partner named Ronnie Motta.
This spring, Garret’s long (LONG) time director, Dr. Stephen W. Gray-Lewis retired, and a group of us went up to visit SBU, see Doc, and watch the last performance of his last show.
The photos we took ended up extremely dark (it was a theater after all, designed to be dark), and I had forgotten about them. Coming across the floppy today, however, I thought I’d see if I could touch a couple of them up.
Here we see Ronnie (left) and me (right). Ronnie created a lot of memorable characters both for my radio show and for our stage productions as “Please Stand By” (whose cast also included Jeffe Boats). He later went on to co-write and co-star with me and our friends Alex Chavin and Mike Nelson in our local TV show Edited For Television.
For those who are curious, having decided TV just wasn’t for him, Ronnie now works as a fact-checker for a well-respected American magazine and recently married a very beautiful and funny woman named Jill. Hats off to both of them for finding each other.
This shot is of (left to right) myself, Ronnie, Rob Graham, and Daisy Medina. Rob and Daisy were two of our fellow Garretteers during my senior year at SBU. Rob was also a fellow traveller in “Please Stand By” and Daisy was pretty much Sparky The Wonder Techie at Garret. Anything you needed done, she’d find a way.
Makes me nostalgic. Maybe I should go update the Proto-Pab page.
Of course, it happens on a Thursday the week I ship the show out early! Never when I can be timely.
You will be missed, o king of the Purple People.
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