Flashback: “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)” by Kate Bush

A beautiful little song that hit the US charts in the fall of 1985.

The Pastime

Don’t look now, but baseball season begins today.

I had previously said during my 2018 Predictions that I thought this was going to be a good year for the Yankees and the Dodgers, and I stick to those two clubs for my World Series forecast. Three other teams worth keeping an eye on would be the Red Sox, the Cubbies, and the defending titleholders, the Houston Astros.

Locally here in Tampa Bay, it could be a long campaign with all these matchups with Boston and the Yankees. It’ll be a good year for the Rays if they complete 2018 at the .500 mark of 81 wins and 81 losses.

Best of success to all 30 organizations, and may the best team hold the prize sometime in late October or early November.

Freedom At 432 Hertz

Going back to the early 1990’s, I’ve been a bit interested in how there are certain frequencies out there that can be used to help our bodies and minds with whatever it is they went to accomplish.

This goes back to when I worked at WTAN in Clearwater working the overnight shift. The one weird thing I found out about working odd hours is how life is totally geared to the “normies” who either work first or second shifts and sleep conventional hours. Sleeping could at times be a bit difficult, though I did have a cheat available to me.

Most of the time I worked I was the sole operator at the station, and I would go 30 to 45-minute ranges of time without anything to do. When that happened, I brought in a digital timer with me and took some catnaps, setting all the commercial “carts” up ready to go at a moment’s notice. If I knew the cassette tape I was running would be on for, say 30 minutes – I’d set a timer for 28. If I had 45 minutes, I’d set my digital timer for 43. Remember, this was WAY before the iPhone made all of this possible by verbal request with Siri. I think I got my trusty timer at an Ace Hardware store – then later I’d get them at Radio Shack.

One day in 1990, a caller to one of the talk shows I was a board operator for heard me discuss my sleeping woes, and sent me a tape of delta waves designed to help me sleep. For me, it worked – though I’m sure that there are people out there who are skeptical about the whole thing.

Here I am in 2018 reconnecting with the power of waves and music at 432 Hertz. The YouTube clip I’ve posted with this entry helped me immensely, and has been a great coping aide for me in the week or so I’ve been off of Facebook – that is, keeping me away from it.

Anyway, give it a try if you wish. It served for me, but for some of you, I imagine your mileage can and will vary.

Stormy And The Donald

I know some of you are asking if I watched that whole Stormy Daniels saga on 60 Minutes Sunday night. My answer would be: nope. Footnote: it’s probably safe to say now that Daniels has now eclipsed Linda Lovelace and Marilyn Chambers as the most well-known porn star of all time, for those who keep track of such things. Another footnote: what was up with those dilated pupils of hers? Was she on meds or some recreational drugs?

I’m not one of these “blind faith” followers of the President who believes he’s incapable of doing anything wrong. It’s the total opposite of that: I believe that it did happen, and it makes perfect sense to me that it did occur. What I’ve understood about Mr. Trump for years is that he’s a germophobe, so if you’re going to have an entanglement with someone, why not somebody from the porn industry – a profession that regularly tests for sexually transmitted diseases out of necessity?

My vote for Trump didn’t go to him because he was some sort of choir boy. My vote went to him because what was wrong with our country could be settled by a businessman. There’s a built-in amount of professional possessiveness amongst his fellow politicians and the media itself to take down Mr. Trump, to which I have no problem with if that’s what they want to waste their time and air with.

But when we have porn stars (who are primarily prostitutes) trying to teach us all about morality without exposing the hypocrisy of that – that’s where you lose me. It should also be noted that it is not a necessity that 60 Minutes, CBS, or any other show or network out there has to keep or gain my interest. It has to keep enough people interested to be a financially viable entity. They don’t even have to tell you the truth – and that’s what most people don’t seem to surmise.

The news media “sold out” a long time ago. It took this presidency to make the various means of their decay much more evident.

Oil’s Well That Ends Well

Put this story in the “when they think they have you, you have them” category.

I’m living in the southwest part of Largo in the early 1990’s. There’s a local Goodyear tire dealership that offers customers an oil change among the other wares they sell, so one day I go to the store and request one.

With my car elevated on their jack, they tell me that there’s someone other problem with the car. Maybe the tires needed rotating, something like that. I tell them I just came in here for the oil change, so that’s what I will be getting.

Then the repair guy hits me with his scare tactic. He implied that it was against state law not to have these repairs done.

I told the guy to either show me the law in writing (which he didn’t, oddly enough) or to report me to whichever agency is in charge of such transgressions should one exist. Either way, an oil change is what I requested, and an oil change is all I will be getting this given day.

I didn’t bother telling him I worked in radio at the time – I was confident I had him beat right then and there. Why play all of your cards when you can get away with playing just one?

With that, he walked away without speaking another word. It just goes to show you that there are times in life when it’s easy to think certain people and situations have you. When those times come, never stop probing for a way out.

 

Aircheck: WABC Radio (New York), 7/13/1971

With some added computer hobby time with my newfound exclusion of Facebook, I thought it’d be a good time to bring back the Saturday “Aircheck” feature.

Howard Cosell would have turned 100 on Sunday.

Not too much tape exists of his “Speaking Of Sports” broadcasts that aired several times daily over the ABC radio network. Here is one such clip of the “The Gifted One” the day of the Major League Baseball All-Star Game of that year, famous for Reggie Jackson’s bodacious home run blast that hit Tiger Stadium’s roof.

Flashback: “Do You Know What I Mean” by Lee Michaels

I thought for sure this was a song from the 1960s. Nope. It was released in the summer of 1971, peaking at #6 on the Billboard charts.

Probably heard this one in my womb, being born in September of that year.

Let’s Try This Again

Maybe it’s possible I had the right idea a bit too early, but I’m going to try it again. I’m going to try again to part ways with Facebook in light of the most recent news headlines concerning how OUR information has been sold to third-parties by the social media organization.

Common sense dictates you don’t trust a fox with a henhouse, so why trust the same fox (Mark Zuckerburg) with the same henhouse (us) over and over?

The last time I tried this, I lasted 11 days. I don’t think I’ve ever talked about what triggered my return. Basically, when I “tapped out” on March 10th, I made the mistake of logging into Facebook. When you look at the scores of notifications that accumulate in ten days and see how “life goes on” somehow without you on there, it creates a sense of belonging and a desire to get back in with the in-crowd of “cool people” on Facebook.

Hopefully, I learn from my mistake this time. I started a new Instagram account, and I think I’ll keep that around so those looking for me have a means to find me.

Urban Myths Of My Youth

I was in the seventh grade in 1984, and on one spring Thursday morning I picked on a green shirt and walked to my bus stop. The only problem is that one of the girls at my bus stop needled me over it to no end.

“If you wear green on Thursday,” she sneered, “it means you’re a horny bastard.”

I tend to take things said as they’re literally said unless someone lets me in on the joke. So, I sat on the bus heading to Largo Middle, wondering why this geeky girl was casting aspersions as to whether or not I was conceived in our out of the wedlock of my parents? It just didn’t make sense to me.

There was another big urban legend of my childhood, and come to think of it, this one doesn’t make a hell of a lot of sense looking back at it, either. You have to remember that this was back in the 1980s when tight-fitting pants were still the rage. The “myth” (for a lack of a better term) was that the more a girl’s butt formed a reverse “U” in tight pants, it would mean that it was more likely the girl you were looking at wasn’t a virgin.

Crazy, right?

Just remember, don’t kill the messenger. This was the stuff we thought up to keep ourselves occupied. We didn’t have cell phones and social media to keep us occupied, so we had these myths that didn’t really make a lot of sense.

Breaking Backboards

Another feel-good story emanating from the NCAA basketball tournament is that of Loyola of Chicago’s Ramblers. They’ve now made the “Sweet 16” phase of the tournament with wins over Miami of Florida and Tennessee, making a folk hero out of 98-year-old Sister Jean, perhaps the biggest fan of the Ramblers there is.

Loyola’s no stranger to the NCAA tournament, actually winning the whole shebang in 1963 defeating then basketball powerhouse Cincinnati. My first memories of seeing the school play go back to watching them play on WGN in 1979 against Bradley and watching a forward named Kevin Sprewer.

In late 1979, there was a lot of talk about dunking the ball so hard that the glass backboards holding the rims in place were breaking. Darryl Dawkins of the Philadelphia 76ers had famously broken two backboards, one in Kansas City versus the Kings, then again a few weeks later when the Sixers entertained San Antonio.

The dunk against Kansas City was and remains the most impressive dunk I’ve ever seen, not only breaking the backboard but shattering all of the glass entirely. The rim somehow remained intact: I guess it was somehow bolted to its support base.

Move ahead to Christmas time of 1979 and this Loyola-Bradley game. Loyola forward Kevin Sprewer stole a pass and went in for the point-blank dunk shot. Off came the rim as the glass backboard crystalized, signifying it’s newly found redundancy. It’s the first and only time I’ve ever seen a dunk break a backboard either in person or on TV as it happened. The game was held up as a new goal could be found and assembled.

The eight-year-old version of myself watched in awe, and to be honest, a bit horrified. All those of shards of glass from these broken backboards could hurt somebody, I must have thought. Over the next few years, technology allowed stronger rims were constructed, making backboard shattering a bit of a lost art, thankfully. There was the talk of the NCAA once again banning the dunk shot as they did in the 1960s, but nothing ever came of that. The art of dunking proved popular, and college basketball would soon be riding the wave of popularity they still enjoy here in 2018.

Once in a while, you see a high school or a college player shatter a backboard and getting their 15 minutes of fame. Let them have it. I still say the dunk “Chocolate Thunder” pulled off in Kansas City was the greatest of them all.

One? Done!

Cross another item off of my sports bucket list. I lived long enough to see a 16 seed beat a 1 seed in the men’s NCAA hoops tournament.

When I think of the greatest three upsets in American sports history, three events usually come to mind. The United States defeating the Soviets in a medal round game in the 1980 Winter Olympics, Mike Tyson getting knocked out to lose the heavyweight boxing title to Buster Douglas in 1990, and Virginia;s loss to Chaminade in a 1982 college basketball game when Virginia had a dominant team led by Ralph Sampson. Ironically, UMBC’s stunning win replaces Virginia’s loss to Chaminade on that list for me.

It was such a big upset, I missed watching it. That’s how big it was.

Bravo to UMBC. You’ll be part of sports history forever.

 

Flashback: “Winning” by Santana

With March Madness upon us, I hope your college basketball team of choice does some of this over the weekend. This peaked at #17 on the US charts back in 1981 and probably is a favorite song of Charlie Sheen.