Category: Life with Pratts

WABC, PTT, and Me

Twenty years ago, while stopped at a red light in my little ’89 Honda Civic, behind a couple of other cars, this happened. I was a little late for work that day.

An elderly Russian guy came flying down the Mass Pike exit ramp behind me. I saw him in the rearview mirror, heading towards me fast. I knew he was going to crash and braced for impact. The collision pushed the Civic into the car ahead of me with so much force that it, in turn, hit the car in front of it.

The old guy was taken to a hospital where, as I was told later, he accused me of causing the accident. The Massachusetts State Police didn’t agree. I escaped with a mild concussion, and a badly sprained right ankle.

So began my Posterior Tibial Tendon troubles. I had forced the brake pedal down with so much strength the brake lines blew out upon impact. But a couple of other things also blew out. A blood vessel in my calf split open, and I didn’t know until later that some of the fibers in my PTT had been torn. The damage progressed once I returned to my running schedule.

I was almost home from a 25-mile training run for the Lowell Marathon when suddenly, mid-stride, my right foot literally just stopped working! I could feel something sticking out that shouldn’t have been. My PTT had slipped out of position. After popping it back into place I was able to hobble home the last half-mile.

That white area in the MRI seen along the PTT is tendinosis. There’s a bulge there to this day. With a lot careful attention to that area, along with motion control running shoes and orthotics, the tendon has held all these years. I dread the day if and (probably) when it finally breaks. The PTT in my left ankle is perfectly fine.

What does any of this have to do with WABC? As I have said many times, I was very fortunate to have grown up listening to WABC during its Musicradio ascendency. Its influence on me was so great that it led to my relatively brief but memorable stint working in AM radio. (Technology paid much better, believe me.) The man who transformed 77 WABC into the Musicradio powerhouse was program director Rick Sklar.

Rick Sklar with a Musicradio 77 WABC listener

https://musicradio77.com/Sklar.html

Rick was a marathon runner in his spare time and in June of 1992 he entered the hospital for minor foot surgery to repair a torn tendon in his left ankle. He never returned home. An unfortunate anesthesia complication took his life on June 22, 1992. He was 62 years old.

Whether the torn tendon was Sklar’s PTT, or his Achilles, that was a terribly lousy thing to happen to him. I continue to be careful with my PTT, in the hope that I can keep running without needing foot surgery.

He Goes “Ahhhhh….”

The temperature fell closer to 80 than to 90, I went running, then cooled off with a quick shower and poured a cold IPA from the craft brewery in town. Such a nice evening to relax and listen to music. Ahhh….

Prue once called Lia my “little girlfriend in Spain,” causing me to sputter and cough up my drink. Prue now lives in Spain herself. Both friendships came about from having this website.

Lia Pamina

Lia Pamina

Time-Tested Tables and Tonearms

Micro-Trak Corporation, Holyoke, MA

Telling the tale from my radio days about the transmitter fuse made me nostalgic and got me searching for information about the turntables I loved using. Especially for slip-cueing* singles!

The two tables we had in the DJ studio at the station were 3-speed Russco Cue-Masters. They were manufactured in California and available as late as 1981 — with 78 rpm! — only a couple of years before Compact Disc appeared in the U.S.

Russco Cue-Master broadcast turntable

As you can see, no assumption was made regarding the choice of tonearm. I was working just west of Simpsons City, aka Springfield. Micro-Trak, a company located just north of Springfield, manufactured tonearms. The legendary model 303 had a wooden wand. Yes, wood!

Micro-Trak 303 and 306 tonearms

Micro-Trak sourced its turntables from Russco, and offered them as complete packages with their tonearms factory installed. We had the 720 model — a Russco Cue-Master “Drilled for Micro-Trak Model 303.”

Micro-Trak 720 and 740 turntable packages

The Stanton 500 was a broadcast standard phono cartridge. The 500-E with elliptical stylus was well-suited for stereo records played on FM stations. The 500-E was one of the first cartridges I ever owned, while in high school. At the AM station, the 500-AL with conical stylus was installed in the 303 tonearms, and wired for mono use.**

Stanton 500 Series phono cartridge

This setup was an absolute sure-footed — or armed — delight to use! I have indelible memories of exactly how it felt and sounded handling those turntables and cueing up records. The clutch for changing speeds took some effort to move! That little notch seen in the picture above between the 33 and 45 speeds was where you could park the lever to disengage the drive so the platter would spin freely for swapping records.*** For all the love club DJ’s have for the direct-drive Technics SL-1200, they would be amazed by the tank-like build quality and mechanical strength of those old, idler/rim-drive professional turntables.

The radio biz is nothing like it was, of course. I am very glad that I was able to experience radio broadcasting as it was, when I did. Especially considering the opportunity came from an unsolicited offer that was dropped in my lap.

Continue reading Time-Tested Tables and Tonearms

Bend It, Shape It (Stream-of-Consciousness Blog Post)

This is something I started working on six months ago, following an e-mail exchange with good, ol’ Denro. Something that’s an inescapable interest for us, as well as the re-issue professionals we have contact with — Steve Hoffman, Bob Irwin, Andrew Sandoval, and Steve Stanley — is 1960’s record production (with Hoffman going further afield, in both directions).

After the introduction of tape recorders (thank you, Nazi Germany) made overdubs and editing possible, recording studios evolved into becoming instruments themselves. It became more likely that the difference between a hit and a flop could be determined not only by who performed the song, but how the record was produced and engineered.

Here’s an example. “Bend Me, Shape Me” by the American Breed debuted on December 2, 1967, and in early ’68 it became a top 5 hit. But that wasn’t the first time someone had taken a bash at the tune.

There was a very Psychedelic version by an obscure girl group, as produced by Tom Wilson, whose many credits included Bob Dylan and Simon & Garfunkel.

The Outsiders, whose “Time Won’t Let Me” in ’66 was also a #5 hit, put “Bend Me, Shape Me” on their third album.

Within a couple of tom-tom beats, I recognize American Breed’s hit record. I would characterize the sound as nudging its way into Bubblegum Land.

Music Mike provides some background on the single vs. the album version of the song.

Music Mike has one of those classic Top 40 DJ deliveries that I have always admired, but wasn’t able to master myself during my stint at an AM radio mic. So let’s give a listen to Mike talking-up one of my all-time favorite singles.

Here’s Music Mike’s online station: https://www.kvkvi.com/

Tech sidebar: Curiously, Music Mike’s site behaves the way mine used to do here. By default it’s presented to the Net as unencrypted HTTP, but if you specify HTTPS the encryption works. Which is good, except his pop-up player isn’t working with HTTPS, only HTTP. I checked TuneIn, and because it sees HTTP for the stream it won’t play the station through most browsers. This isn’t the sort of technical trouble that FCC-licensed radio station engineers used to handle.

Continue reading Bend It, Shape It (Stream-of-Consciousness Blog Post)

Breaking BA5

I attended a small comic book show today, and was one of the very few people wearing a mask. Well, that’s not correct. There were cosplay fans wearing superhero masks. I wore a mask intended to prevent contracting Covid-Omicron BA.5, the most communicable mutation yet.

https://bonafidemasks.com/Powecom-kn-95/

My Moderna booster was back on November 4, and it’s safe to assume that its protection has worn off, so wearing a mask is my only protection against BA.5. For the first time, I’m going against the CDC recommendation on vaccination. For my age, they’re saying don’t wait for a Omicron-specific vaccine, get a shot now, but I’ve decided to wait.

Creative Financing

The 10th anniversary of paying off my mortgage is coming up. Here is an accounting from my former employer of what made it possible for me to buy this place.

Date: 07/29/1998
Principal: 48,000.00
Interest: 65.03
Payment: 48,065.03
Type: Personal Check

There is a story behind this check. It was during an unbelievably stressful time. I was preparing to sell my house and buy the house I’m in right now, when I was told my mother was near death.

I stopped everything and rushed out to Phoenix, where Mom’s doctor had given up on her. The family was told to prepare for the end, but Mom was saved thanks to the arrival and intervention of two of my sisters — an MD and an RN — and she lived for another seven years. (After Mom’s recovery her doctor provided good care for her. He passed away recently.)

Returning home that summer, I wanted to accommodate the house sellers, who had asked if they could stay for two weeks after the closing. The lawyer said that required rent to be paid, and we agreed on an amount. The buyers of the house I was selling agreed to the closing date, and the mortgage loan application clearly stated that I would need to own both houses for two weeks.

Not being the trusting sort myself, I called the underwriter at my bank regularly to confirm that everything was okay, but I never heard back from her. The bank was BankBoston, later acquired by Fleet, which was in turn acquired by Bank of America.

If that condition had been rejected at the outset, I would have told the seller, “sorry, the bank won’t let me do it.” But I heard nothing from the underwriter, so finally I demanded to speak with her boss. When at last I received a return call, I was astounded to hear it was too late for them to approve that particular condition. The delay was their fault, but nevertheless they wouldn’t write the mortgage!

The underwriter’s boss admitted that money wasn’t the problem, as I had that covered for the two weeks. But he said Washington Mutual had to approve the conditions of the mortgage, and that was why there wasn’t enough time for them to work through the process. I thought I was dealing with BankBoston, and not Washington Mutual, but the mortgage had already been slated for sale to WaMu!

Very distinctly I remember my heart pounding and me yelling at the guy on the phone, “YOU’RE LEAVING ME NO OPTIONS!” His reply was, “There’s nothing I can do. Good-bye.”

So in desperation I turned to the founder of my employer, the CEO (now Chairman), for help. I explained the situation, and asked if I could sell back my shares of private company stock. He said there was no need for me to do that. Having once been screwed by a Boston bank himself in the company’s early years, with a smile he said, “You know what we’re going to do? We’re gonna f*ck ’em!”

The CEO explained to the CFO that he would loan me the money personally to pay off the mortgage on the house I was selling, and he wanted the CFO to contact the bank on my behalf. After providing all of the mortgage details, the CFO handed me a standard short-term loan contract and then called someone at BankBoston.

I don’t know who that certain someone was the CFO called, or what was said, but after sitting anxiously for a while I was paged to pick up a call. It was the underwriter boss at BankBoston. This time he was yelling at me.

“WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO?!?!”
“Hey, I told you I needed an option.”
“YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT’S GOING ON HERE!”
“Oh, I can imagine.”
“I HAVE BEEN INSTRUCTED TO TELL YOU THAT WE AGREE TO ALL TERMS! GOOD-BYE!”

I can’t imagine any other company where the CEO and the CFO would stop everything on a busy work day and go to bat to such an extent for an employee.

Once everything was set for the closing on the purchase, I told the real estate agent, a major developer in town, what had happened. He said, “I’ve been doing this for a long time.” Then, with a bemused chuckle his take on what I did was, “You know, I’m sure you got them fired.” Hey, the big boss did say we were going to f*ck them. Assuming the underwriter and her boss were fired, I can’t say I have ever felt sorry about the outcome.

BankBoston did indeed sell the mortgage, and my loan payments went to WaMu until I refinanced a 15-year, 5% mortgage with a local bank that holds onto its mortgages. The irony is that, after Dubya became president a couple of years later, Washington Mutual dropped all of its underwriting requirements and was one of the worst culprits in the sub-prime mortgage mess. It went bankrupt ten years after making my life miserable, when the financial crisis hit in September, 2008.

There’s another story, about the couple who bought my house. Their bank’s lawyer screwed them, they called me in desperation, and I stepped in to help them. I’ll save that tale for another post.

P.S. WaMu CEO could get $13.65 million for 18 days work https://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSTRE48P8LG20080926