Rock Around the Clock

A friend of mine was a DJ at a radio station in Calgary in 1955. He said the best part of the day was when new music arrived. All the DJ's would crowd around in the library and listen, deciding which records were good and which were bad.

He especially remembers "Bill Haley and the Comets". "Rock Around the Clock" was getting a lot of press and the DJ's headed down the hall to put it on the air right away.

The production manager said "Hey, just a minute! We're going to have to run this by the station manager. This music isn't what we usually play!" He was right. In many ways, this was still the era of Frankie, and Dean Martin and Dinah Shore! What could be more different than Bill Haley and the Comets! The music shocked many people. They thought it loud, and tacky, and even inflammatory. (“Rock Around the Clock” became the anthem for rebellious 50's youth. It was used for the movie "Blackboard Jungle")

This seems very funny in hindsight, and I said as much to my friend. "I know. After what music has become today, this seems like "much ado about nothing". Rock Around the Clock was rejected by management. The MGM Studio Orchestra used to record softer versions of upstart music, and "this is what we were told to play" says my friend. "It was painful. Our young listeners would call us and sneer".

Not for long. Everyone was playing it. "Rock Around the Clock" stayed at #1 for 8 weeks and sold an estimated 25 million copies worldwide.

Rock n' Roll. Bill Haley has been called the father of it all.

Here's a picture of the MGM record. It's a "78".

Used Cars

Phoenix is a big town. There's always something going on.
On a sunny Saturday we head for the Barret Jackson Collector Car Auction.
Held in huge tents and huge buildings at their Phoenix exhibition site, this is an awesome event - filled with the pounding sound of the auctioneers urging yet another $1000 or $5000 from the bidders. Beautifully restored vehicles sell for $50,000 all the way up to $200,000! When you watch it on television, you get close and personal with the people who bid this kind of money. They all look like working class folks. Everyone wears jeans and well-worn shirts and jackets. Their wives smile encouragement and a sort of "look, this has nothing to do with me" attitude. I don't think either of them get behind the wheel and drive it home. As near as I can figure, these vehicles are rarely on the road. They are too valuable. The cameras peer into every nook and cranny. Everything is spotless. The motor looks as if the key has never turned. The seats look as no one has ever sat on them.
Another intriguing aspect of the auction is the guys on the floor encouraging customers to make another bid. They each have their own little nod, or smile, or arm action. A woman is inclined to touch the sleeve, and squeeze the shoulder, or in some way "get close". The guy bidders seem to react to this. A man uses encouraging noises, or hand in the air "let's go" gestures - or a sort of "You ready? You ready? You ready? kind of stance. I'm sure someone has analyzed these movements - which ones work and which ones don't.
You can tell which bidders have done this before. They betray very little of their emotions, and when they are no longer interested, the cheerleader guys know. They just know, and they are gone - on to someone else who is still bidding. It's fascinating to watch. The Auctioneers are likely the best in the business - they will not hesitate to stop their sing-song, point to a bidder and say "Sir, is your bid of $100,000 a legitimate bid? I just want to confirm". When the bidder nods his head he starts his auctioneering again.
When we left in the late afternoon, they were still coming in by the hundreds. Traffic handlers were pointing to the latest parking areas, the walk to the action was getting a bit longer by the hour. I heard that it went on till midnight.
When I think of the starving of the world, this scenario seems a little out of whack.
But so goes life. It's always imperfect.

On and Off

Whatever happened to "on" and "off"?
Remember when you walked into a motel room, clicked the "power" button on the TV set, and you got TV?
Not any more.
We've just moved into an apartment for awhile. On the coffee table is a huge remote with a VERY large plastic-covered "direction" card underneath. I'm impressed. Needless to say the most noticeable item is the large, red "ON" button.
I pick up the remote and press this button. Nothing. So I press the "tv" button. Nothing. I press the "sat" button. Nothing.
In frustration, I try more buttons.
I discover the "Input" menu which lists the following:
TV
AV1
AV2
S-Video1
S-Video2
Component1
Component2
HDMI1
HDMI2
HDMI3
VGA
Because of one of the "black boxes" sitting there, I know we have HDTV. So I go down the list, and click HDMI1.
To my delight, big white letters on the screen say "please wait". So I do.
In 4 seconds the words "no signal" appear. "no signal" jumps from one part of the screen to the other, as if trying to make the point that there is no signal all over the screen - not just in one spot!
By this time, Merv appears, and I leave.
Later on in the evening, when making adjustments, I notice that he uses the tiny little controls at the back of the TV! not the remote. These little controls seem to accomplish everything he wants. Just about. He has to pick up the other remotes at different stages of the process.
Next day, I decide to get the TV working in the other bedroom. I also use these little buttons instead of the remotes, and I get along pretty good, but I still can't get my program.
"Well, this TV uses a different setting" Merv says. "Go to the inputs, and use AV1 instead of HDMI1. Remember to use this other remote for audio and point it to that other black box under the big one."
Whew! Such is TV technology today.
We all get used to our own. And when the grandchildren have left, we patiently put all the settings back where they belong.
Whatever happened to "on" and "off"? Gone. Gone the way of the dodo bird.

Merv and I have lived in the most astonishing time span of history.
As a little boy, Merv's grandfather listened to news of the Great War on one of the first radios.
As a teenager Merv got a short wave radio and listened "live" to nightclub entertainment from New York City.
A disk jockey at a radio station, he was actually part of the whole "record" industry. Completely smitten by broadcasting and technology. he used to say "After you've worked in broadcasting, everything else seems boring".
A "record" was a vinyl disk about 12 inches round. You put it on a revolving table, gently placed the needle arm on it and music filled the air! Eventually we all had "record players" in our homes with our own collections of "78's" as they were called. Girlfriends at our house listened over and over to Mel Torme singing "The Little White Cloud That Cried". At the back of the local drug store, we'd go into a little booth and listen to the record that we wanted to buy. It became a gathering place for the high school crowd.
The "stereo" era was phenomenal. The very word was everyone's favorite topic of conversation. The stereo was the most important piece of furniture in the house. It played "LP's". Huge disks with music from a whole movie or many songs from one artist. I clearly remember "Jesus Christ Superstar". Don't know how our kids ever slept through a party at our house.


We were young marrieds when television appeared. It was frustrating at the start. The signal was so "here one minute and gone the next" that many an evening we would just get a few minutes of a show, and then the screen would go snowy. And then "Hurry, it's on again!" Everyone ran.
Saturday night and "The Honeymooners" was perfect bliss.


By the time our kids were watching, TV was well under way, and many an evening was spent with the Moms and Dads and all the kids in front of the black and white TV set. For some reason it was a "rec room/basement" item at first, and we would all troop down there and cuddle together under blankets.
When we bought our first computer it cost $8000! Merv bought it so that he could file his flight plans and they would go straight to the airport terminal. I remember spending hours and hours on this computer, feeling absolutely exhilarated - not quite sure what I accomplished except that I couldn't stay away from it! No one could. And I don't think it's really changed!
And what can I say about the internet! Of all the things I have mentioned in this post, the Internet has to be the most phenomenal. The growing conversation that humanity is having with each other is the seminal event of the planet.
This script couldn't have been dreamed up by anyone. And it's all been on our watch. I don't know what'll happen tomorrow!

War Planes

Every Sunday the F18's roar by us on the golf course. The noise is deafening. We stop in the middle of the backswing, and stare upward in awe. It's a dramatic sight. They seem gone before we can even take it all in. Next Sunday, they are back again.
Our golfing companions wait patiently for us to continue the game - "Oh, they come by every Sunday. It's fun".
We do some research. F18 veteran pilots need to keep up-to-date with their flying skills because the US military wants to have them available if need be. So they leave from a military airport, land at a smaller one, and take off again - enough so that that they keep familiar with any changes in the machines. It seems like an efficient plan .
But there's something here that doesn't seem to make sense. Here we are in a war against terrorists. People who are blowing up varying amounts of other people all over the place. It's a small scale type of activity that can't be stopped by a huge war plane. Terrorists make roadside bombs for $1.98 that kill a lot of people, while a $90 million dollar F18 flies by overhead. A war plane is for a war with one army against another, one country against another. With lots of chances to do damage with bombs. A terrorist war doesn't work that way. We don't know who, or what, or where the enemy is. One terrorist doesn't seem to know what the other terrorist is doing. They don't even know each other's names. This is the power of the movement. An F18? A thousand of these planes wouldn't make one bit of difference to this war. The very word "fighter plane" seems out of date. It's puzzling.

Bon Jovi

We just got our tickets for the Bon Jovi concert in Phoenix.
It wasn't that long ago that I couldn't spell his name. But last year, I discovered YouTube. I would put on my high-priced earphones (the tools of an earlier career) and rock back and forth in front of my computer listening to music I'd never heard before. Bon Jovi was one of them. I loved him. Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Kris Kristopherson, Sting, Rod Stewart. It's somewhat embarrassing to admit to never having watched or listened to them.
Janis Joplin and Melissa Etheridge. And there's a girl called Joss Stone who really intrigues me. In one of her clips she wonders around a huge auditorium in a sort of nightie and bare feet singing "Son of a Preacher Man" at the top of her voice. It's mesmerizing.
Nora Jones is such a lady. Tentative, and somewhat vulnerable, her music is full of the sweet small gems of genius. Diana Krall went to Paris to become famous. Much easier than trying to do it in Canada. I've seen this girl in concert in Calgary. Her "Little Girl Blue" is masterful. (Janis Joplin's? Whew!) Diana Krall, her husband Elvis Costello, and Willie Nelson sing together ("Crazy") in a concert and it's fun. She keeps giving her husband sexy little smiles.
I prefer songs in a minor key with a story line that breaks your heart. "You Don't Bring Me Flowers Anymore". I was amazed to "search" this song on YouTube and discover that no one does it but Barbara Streisand! Mind you, if she got to it first, and it became a part of her repertoire - who in their right mind would attempt to upstage her. She and Neil Diamond do it as a duet if they find themselves on stage together. I've grown into and out of Barbara as the years have gone by, but let's face it - she's an extraordinary artist. And when Celine Dion arrived, "Barbra" seemed such a relief.
"Somewhere Over the Rainbow". Even Eric Clapton does this. And for opposites, check out a sensational and very dramatic concert pianist named Keith Jarret. His rendition will leave you gasping.
There's a songster in Norway - Sissel - she's been called one of the finest sopranos of the world. (What Child is This) Her voice is astonishing. The vocal chords of an angel or a saint.
Leonard Cohen. When I discovered YouTube and was still unaware of all that was out there, I listened to "Hallelujah" over and over again. His recent London concert revealed a true hero. He's very deep. His lyrics are very deep.
I listened to a concert pianist from China - "Lang Lang".
The "Punch Brothers" - the lead mandolin/banjo player makes Steve Martin and Earl Scruggs sound a bit weak. Ever heard mandolins and banjos do Mozart? These guys are magicians.
Simon and Garfunkle's concert in Central Park is another favorite. I've golfed many a game humming "Scarborough Fair". Paul Simon is on my list for further study.
12 years ago Bon Jovi and Pavarotti performed together in London - a fund raiser for Liberia. Jon is dressed all in leather. He looks great - much better than Pavarotti.
I like most kinds of music. Except opera. It seems to me that the artists I've mentioned can do more quiet, subtle and spine-tingling things to a set of notes than a whole stage full of opera singers ever could.

Not in Kansas anymore

One year we did Mexico in winter - a couple of weeks. I did a photo album and called it "Going to the Sun". I rather liked the title. When you're from the Prairies of North America, spending part of winter in a warm climate really feels like you're entering a new land.
Yesterday, I was looking at photos from friends who are visiting Punta Cana in the Dominion Republic. Now, that would be warm, very warm. We're talking tropical flowers in the hair, bare feet in the sand, big big drinks with lots of fruit.
We're relocating to Phoenix, Arizona in a couple of weeks. Talking on the phone with friends from Alberta who will be joining us for a few days. "We'll travel light" they said "shorts and shirts". I'll have to chat with them.
There's "going to the sun/01" and "going to the sun/02". They can be quite different. The Dominion Republic sun is not the Phoenix Arizona sun. North America is still North. In Palm Springs we have lots of sun, but this doesn't mean it's hot. We start golf at noon. It can be warm then. 75 degrees Fahrenheit is 23 degrees Celsius. It can stay that way for 2 hours, at most. Then you start adding the little sweater, and then the bigger sweater. On the 18th hole, I'm looking pretty bundled up!
You'll still see shorts and shirts - not looking very warm mind you, but coping.
The black people here seem the least inclined to cope with winter. They do their work in hoodies a lot and the girls who drive the beer wagons on the golf course say they find winter here very cold.
Winter in this town is great but it's still North America. It's not Saskatchewan, but it's still North.
Changing topic to close: We drive a convertible now. Still pretty keen so on our "road trips" we usually have the top down, and get lots of waves and smiles. We also have GPS. The road trips go like this. We have a list of places we've heard about, read about, or listed on the 'point of interest' in the GPS itself. Yesterday, we put the "Arnold Palmer" restaurant into the GPS. It took some looking. (the neat thing about the GPS is that she's doing the looking. We just turn the corners when she tells us to!) Tucked into a small nook out of the way. Small sign on canopy. Small but important looking door. Another sign half hidden behind a sort of newstand. Two vehicles parked in front. You would have to be feeling particularly adventuresome to walk in there! Looked as if it were designed for some sort of personal friends - "Yeah, I know we have a sign out front but that doesn't mean we want you to come in!"