At the end of the 8th grade, a school friend of my son Eric recommended the 24-part Animé series Last Exile. Eric urged me and his mother to watch it with him, and we got hooked right away.
It became our “Last Exile Summer,” with Eric getting two of his cousins wrapped up in the show, as well. My wife and I particularly enjoyed the often humorous little teasers at the end of each episode. Here is one of them.
Between 1962 and 1968 my family lived in Norwalk, Connecticut. Fortunately, those years coincided with the ascendency and supremecy of radio station WABC in New York. ABC disk jockeys Cousin Brucie and Dan Ingram inspired me to become a radio announcer. I had a short, but memorable, 2-year stint in the business.
Here begins a video series from 1990 on the history of New York Rock and Roll radio. Part one starts with the effect of TV in the 50’s on the radio business, and goes to the end of Alan Freed’s career, without specifically mentioning the payola scandal that ended it.
[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/NYDJ/NYDJ1.flv 400 300]
You can learn a lot from reading old comic-books.
On April 12, 2003, not too long after “Operation: Iraqi Freedom” began, my son Eric was 11 and he came up with this idea. I don’t know if it’s some sort of war commentary, or just a pun on the Folgers coffee slogan inspired by current events, but I would like to say that Folgers has a winner with its Half Caff coffee.
The original National Lampoon magazine had some good writing and cartooning, up to the release of Animal House, when the emphasis switched to movies. Cartoonist Gahan Wilson, known for his macabre humor, had a regular feature in NatLamp called “Nuts.” The installment I remember best is perhaps the least macabre. I felt exactly this way after making a drawing board for myself when I was 11 years old.
Not too long before Buddy Holly died, he recorded three, and only three, absolutely delightful songs in glorious sounding stereo. Here they are, transferred for maximum audio fidelity.
