Author: DOuG pRATt

Swift Boating

The wordplay in the title is somewhat misleading, because this post is coming from a different direction than I had originally intended, due to an item in today’s New York Times.

Xuxa with two of the most popular Paquitas, Bianca Rinaldi, in blue, and Ana Paula Almeida, in red.

Xuxa was once Brazil’s biggest TV star. Now many are wondering whether a thin, blond, white woman was the right idol for such a diverse country.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/15/world/americas/brazil-barbie-xuxa.html

Bianca Rinaldi, in blue, and Ana Paula Almeida, in red.
Cultural norms of the past are inevitably reconsidered by contemporary standards. Cigarettes were ubiquitous for most of the 20th century. People would ask if it was all right to smoke in social situations, but saying “of course” was a formality. Of course it was all right. For the purpose of this post, whether it’s cigarettes or a standard of beauty that doesn’t reflect the population at large, it’s a matter of personal health and well-being.

“And like Barbie, she became an idol to her fans, who grew up wanting to be just like Xuxa and her all-white cast of teenage dancers, the Paquitas.”

Xuxa is now questioning her own popularity as having been unhealthy for the girls who were her fans. Are Xuxa’s Portuguese and Spanish-speaking fans, who are much older now, as is Xuxa herself, supposed to think it was wrong for them to admire her?

“But in her interview with The New York Times, she assumed more responsibility and lamented the mark it may have left on young viewers who don’t look like her. “God, what trauma I put in the heads of some children,” she said.”

Honestly, you may as well ask the same question of today’s Swifties. Is the effect of tall, blonde, gorgeous Taylor Swift’s massive popularity different in any essential way than Xuxa’s was 30-35 years ago?

The premise of the NYTimes piece begs the question, shouldn’t we be questioning the success of the Barbie movie? Girls are flocking to see it, which is good for long-suffering movie theaters, but is it good for the self-image of girls who aren’t tall, blonde and beautiful, like Margot Robbie?

No Static at All – 3

Transmitting element for the Alford FM Antenna Array on the Empire State Building

I think of the 1965 installation of the Master FM Antenna on the Empire State Building as another example of the 60’s being the most happening of decades.

“… for the first time multiple FM stations could operate at full power from a single shared antenna system…”

https://www.aes.org/blog/2019/7/empire-state-buildings-historic-alford

Three things happened in the 60’s that brought about the FM radio revolution. First, adding stereo sound.

https://www.radioworld.com/columns-and-views/roots-of-radio/how-fm-stereo-came-to-life

Second, as covered in a 2019 post, transistorized Japanese stereo receivers of high quality were being brought home by returning Vietnam vets. Which quickly transformed the home audio market.

The Vietnam War in Hi-Fi

Third, on January 1, 1967 the FCC’s non-duplication rule, written in 1964, finally took effect. Stations in larger cities that were licensed to operate both AM and FM transmitters had to offer unique FM programming. The easiest, and by far the cheapest, way to do that was to let kids from college stations bring free-form programming to commercial radio.

Three days after the FCC edict, there was an event of cosmic serendipity. The Doors released their first album. “Light My Fire” had a single version for AM stations…

… and the hippies who would soon be at the mics of newly liberated FM stations played the album version. Underground Radio was born.

In a few months there was Jimi Hendrix, the Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Underground Radio ushered in the Summer of Love.

In Boston, as I have mentioned numerous times, we had the legendary WBCN. I was fortunate to listen to BCN during its first five years, while it was truly revolutionary.

A couple of FM engineering nods:

  • A colleague and friend of Boss Radio 66 founder Debbie Daughtry is Steve Shultis, CTO of New York Public Radio. When the Master FM Antenna was being decommissioned, Shultis was one of the people who claimed dibs on an array element before it went on the scrap heap.

https://www.radioworld.com/news-and-business/news-makers/shultis-helps-put-radios-best-face-forward

  • Closer to home, Christopher Kelly is the transmitter engineer for Boston Public Radio station GBH.

https://www.wgbh.org/foundation/highlights/2023-08-06/by-air-land-and-sea-a-radio-transmitter-tour-with-christopher-kelly

No Static at All – 2

My parents’ General Electric 408 AM/FM Radio from 1950, the year they were married. Dig that Atomic Age tuning dial!

My bedside radio as a kid in Connecticut was my parents’ old GE 408 that I rescued from the attic. It was introduced in 1950, only a few years after the FCC’s mandated change in FM frequencies, from 42-50 MHz to 88-108 MHz.

Edwin Howard Armstrong invented and patented FM. Armstrong had a very difficult time getting broadcasters to embrace his cutting-edge technology, despite the fact his inventions had made AM broadcasting possible. So Armstrong started his own radio network.

“In the war’s final year, big industry, led principally by RCA, was working quietly behind the scenes to undermine FM’s position… The interests aligned against FM were concealing a strong poker hand, and they planned to play their cards as soon as the war ended.”

http://www.theradiohistorian.org/fm/fm.html

The war stopped Armstrong just as FM was gaining in popularity. Then the post-war frequency band change rendered his FM radios obsolete. His consolation prize was FM being mandated by the FCC for TV sound.

Ad for Zenith radios with “Genuine Armstrong Frequency Modulation,” from the December 6, 1941 issue of The Saturday Evening Post

No Static at All – 1

Something I failed to spot in 2015 was the 50th anniversary of the Master FM Antenna installation on top of the Empire State Building. There was a light show, commemorating the date, synchronized to Steely Dan’s “FM”.

The song was from the 1978 movie of the same name.

Ironically or not, we played “FM” on the AM station where I worked. In 1978, for a $15/week raise, I became a one-man news department, like Les Nessman on the fictitious AM station WKRP in Cincinatti, which premiered that same year. Loni Anderson was a breakout star on the show, but for me the one to watch was Jan Smithers.

https://youtu.be/gHNHj6Kg5gs?t=1094

Cartoonomics

“By Word of Mouse” is a Warner Brothers cartoon I watched as a kid. Perhaps it had more of an influence on me than I realized, beyond Hawley Pratt being the layout artist.

https://pinkpanther.fandom.com/wiki/Hawley_Pratt

This video cuts out part of the cartoon in an attempt to keep YouTube from deleting it.

This video includes the parts about Microeconomics that are missing. The 1950’s emphasis on mass production and consumption doesn’t mention the corollary, planned obsolescence.

What He Said

I’m in tough shape and laying low for the duration. A tooth extraction isn’t an appendectomy, but it’s still surgery. By the end of the lengthy procedure, the dentist was scraping infection out of my jaw bone. I’m taking an antibiotic to clear the rest of the infection. My jaw hurts from having kept my mouth wide open for so long, and I’m wondering if I had a negative reaction to receiving so many Novacain injections.