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The boss at WWOZ asked us tree elves to write about a 2010 WWOZ highlight:
Don't tell my sister this but I had Gemma, my 14 year old niece, tally sober versus drunk callers during my Saturday midnight until 3am show. The ratio of sobers to drunks was two and a half drunks to one sober with two self-proclaimed "insanes" that went uncategorized.
The most memorable drunk caller of 2010 was driving over the monotonous Causeway bridge and called to hear wake-up music. She wanted, "Stairway to, Sweet Home, Freebird" or something like that. There wasn't a single element of those two sentences that should have been uttered.
The most memorable sober caller said he was "Lyle Lovett" calling from Texas. I figured it was at least a 2.5 : 1 chance that this caller wasn't Lyle. He probably should be in the outside-the-ratio-count category of "insane."
"Lyle" called a couple more times and both the caller id and our conversation got me believing this guy really is Lyle Lovett. Who am I to call him insane, he's talking to me on the phone. I'm the guy gesticulating and talking loud in an empty room.
Next time the phone rang, Ms. Mockingbird happened to walk into the studio.
I give her the non-sequitar, "You gotta talk to this guy and tell me if you think I'm insane."
They talk and talk and talk. She's giving me the thumbs up which I interpret as a strong vote in favor of my sanity. Whew.
She swears it was him. I don't know. I actually don't want to know.
I like the mystery of radio. Talking and listening without seeing an image reintroduces all of us to our imaginations. We create our own unique images in our own minds. Nobody is stuffing their desired images into our eyes.
Your imagination has been the best element of radio for the past year and for the preceding 114 years since its invention. Mixing imagination and media - that's something that all the new technology has not improved upon.
A toast to all my invisible friends of Saturday night - let's never meet. Let's never be photographed.
Ms. Mockingbird's show is Monday at midnight until Tuesday at 3am
The drunk versus sober show:
http://www.wwoz.org/programs/playlists/2010/07/25/12+00am/89070
For sample streaming shows go to:
http://www.prx.org/series/31889-new-orleans-saturday-night-on-wwoz
Comments
That is hilarious. You must
That is hilarious. You must be a pretty cool uncle.
Uh oh, these photos put Gemma in a horribly false light
The damning phrase, "monkey's uncle" doesn't help.
And the Smoking Chimp...
...has gotta be an incognito Mockingbird, puffin away on the locally grown tobacco, chattin up the Mystery Man...while topless.
(hey, wait a second...)
The anonymity of radio goes both ways, of course. I choose to believe it was totally Mista Lovett on the telephone, though I'm still kinda horrified we couldn't find a single track he wanted to hear.
Actors
Keeping with the "no photographs" approach to radio, I hired the first black and white chimps I could download for free.
Of course, those who've witnessed the beautiful Ms. Mockingbird in the visual world would recognize why I am banned from casting anyone in the visual arts. Yep, even got fired from cable television's public access channel.