I write things and talk about stuff. Sometimes I swim.
So, I see that Shirley Bassey’s birthday is today. She’s 76, and really only known in the U.S. for singing the theme from “Goldfinger,” arguably the tune that set the standard for big Bondian opening themes that continues today with Adele and “Skyfall.” (Sergio Mendes’ “The Look of Love” actually preceded Goldfinger, as it was […]
I recently spoke to the Interact club at Washington High School. Interact is the high school extension of Rotary, and it’s been my pleasure to have visited this club several times as a member of Cedar Rapids Rotary West. On this day, however, I was there to talk about my day job. A lot of […]
It was with “mixed” feelings I read the news that my radio alma mater, “Mix 96. 5” WMT-FM has switched formats to country. Now, radio format changes are nothing new, and not limited to the corporations that now control much of what you hear. Even in the days when most stations were locally owned, demographic and […]
The following is a guest opinion run in the Iowa City Press-Citizen on April 11, 2011. Read it on their site. Much of the dialogue regarding proposals in the U.S. Congress to reduce or restrict funding for public broadcasting has focused on the impact those cuts will have on news and information stations such as […]
I just returned from the Public Radio Music Conference, which despite it’s encompassing name, is really just about Classical stations. In fact, I was the only non-classical person there! That said, music stations of any stripe have much more in common than they have differences, be they classical, jazz, AAA, or for that matter, commercial […]
I’ve been in New York for a couple of days attending the Music Personnel in Public Radio conference. Because… Well, KCCK is a jazz radio station, and jazz is music, right? It probably won’t come as a surprise to you that most public music stations ate classical music stations, and to say that this group […]
We all love to hear the musical sound of our own names, which perhaps can partly explain why, when I first saw an episode of “Boston Legal,” many years ago, my hero William Shatner had to repeat his character’s name several times (which as I recall, was also an intrinsic dialogue element), before I realized he […]
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An article is making the Twitter rounds which discusses “implicit egotism.” The authors suggest that implicit egotism leads us to prefer things that are connected to ourselves, that might have the same letters as those in our names, for example. The writers’ research turned up the fact that the city of St. Louis has a […]
We are playing a particularly cool version of “Subterranean Homesick Blues” on KCCK these days, which reminded me of something that has been disturbing me for awhile. Has anyone else noticed that the older Bob Dylan gets, the more he looks like Salvador Dali? Just sayin’.