Tag: Memories

Gridiron for Leg Irons

In the winter of
Nineteen hundred and sixty-four
Something was going on,
Called the Vietnam War.

But all we could hear,
At the stadium that night
Was the roar of the crowd,
As we continued our fight.

But older friends
Had joined the fray,
And died in a swamp
Many worlds away.

The play was called.
And I started my run.
As another friend died
Under the gun.

The play I remember
Was Buck- forty-five
As the government kept telling
Us, lie after lie.

Then came the day
They said I must go.
But I stood on the line and shouted
My NO!!

They locked me in chains,
Both hands and
Both feet.
But the mind of the boy
Would not face defeat.

The judge said,
Son, “what will you do?”
I said, “Your honor.
It is all up to you.”

If you think I was wrong, then
To jail, I must go.
If you believe I was right
There’s a great Broadway show.
Perhaps we could go.

And with those words
In the blink of an eye
I traded the gridiron
For leg irons
And two years
At Danbury FCI.

Rating: 1 out of 5.

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The Night

On my wall, the shadows play.
Shifting shapes with every sway.
Through the forest, deep and dark
The wolf’s howl pierces like a spark.
Across the moon, the dove flies high
A fleeting glimpse in night skies.
As I brush tears from my eyes.

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Midnight and Me

A wonderful world happens after Midnight.
Lonely and creative hearts come out to play
No longer hushed by the glare of an unforgiving day.

The graveyard shift,
Or so some call it.
A place where
The dead are laid to rest.
With other undesirables.

In radio
And other lonely places
Time passes slowly.
Midnight creeps to 1, then 2
Then to 6 a.m.
It’s where people drift
When there’s no place left to go.

For me, it was my voice, my opinions,
And my music that was my shovel.
Losing myself in thoughts
Alone in the middle of the night.
Ideas and music flowed like wine.
And I lost all track of time.

Then the phone would ring.
Oh no, not a ring!
You can’t have things ringing
In the On-Air studio.
A red flashing light,
Endlessly flashing, flashing, flashing.
Becoming a silent scream
Refusing to be ignored.
Answer me,
Answer me, answer me.
Phone call,
Phone call.
And many flashes later
I answer.

The voice said
“My name is Midnight.
Would you play a song for me?”

A wonderful world happens after Midnight.
Lonely and creative hearts come out to play
No longer hushed by the glare of an unforgiving day.
So do the strange
and the deranged.
A cross-section of life begins to drift
In and out
On the graveyard shift.

The musicians finishing up their gigs.
Dropping by
Because
Where do you go after 2 a.m.
When there is no place to go but home
And home is no place to go.
We had that in common,
The night people
And I,
As we tried to
Be glad to be alone
When all we wanted was to cry.
Sometimes it worked.

Midnight was neither a lonely heart
Nor a musician.
Just a night soul on a quest for tomorrow’s meaning
And yesterday’s reasons.
A late-night spirit who came to listen
Not just to the show
But to the lonely gravedigger.

And then Midnight would listen more
More from this lonely
Drifting vagabond
Wandering through town.
Both the ringmaster
And the clown.

Through so many passages
In my life, Midnight came to listen
Again, and then again.
Helping me through the
The dark dances of a searching soul
The journey of one growing old.
Dreading the dimming of the light.
Cursing the flickering flame
Fading in the middle of a winter’s night.

And many years later
Midnight came and cared again.
I guess I never really let Midnight know
How much they helped to make my life
A possible dream
Keeping me from going too far adrift
there on the graveyard shift.

It’s time I let you know
You gave my life a special glow
Pushing time along.
Your memory travels where I go.
Thank you for all that could have been.
And for what was.
Lost in the glow of life’s footlight.
Now dimming.

Goodnight, Midnight, goodnight.

Rating: 1 out of 5.

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Mentors

He wore an ascot.  Even in the early 1960s, very few people wore ascots and none I had ever known. It takes a certain flair and a lot of chutzpah and mounds of dignity to wear an ascot, and wearing an ascot in New York City in the early 1960s could only be accomplished by the cream of class.

Mentors

He wore an ascot.  Even in the early 1960s, very few people wore ascots and none I had ever known. It takes a certain flair and a lot of chutzpah and mounds of dignity to wear an ascot, and wearing an ascot in New York City in the early 1960s could only be accomplished by the cream of class.

Standing on a windy corner in Manhattan in the middle of January as I had done on many mornings, waiting for the man who had become my mentor, it seemed the wind did not bite as much and the cold did not cut as deep.  I knew he would round the corner at any moment, sporting his brightly colored ascot and scarf and warm smile. He was never late, and I was there to learn my craft from someone who knew what it would take to make it.

Henry Bartel taught voice in New York City, and he was an on-air working professional at no less than a classical music station, a classical music station in the world’s largest city, New York!  Henry taught me how to properly pronounce names like Igor Stravinsky (you must roll that name), although  I aspired to be more like Wolfman Jack, Murray the K, Cousin Brucie Morrow, and Arnie “Woo Woo” Ginsburg, the Big Jocks who helped make Rock and Roll what it is.  It’s easier to say Lennon than Stravinsky.

You might think that Henry, a man of accomplishment in an ego-infested industry, would have such a big ego he would not have time to teach a young upstart, but just the opposite was true, and it was not an easy task. Born in the south, I had a slight southern accent, not the kind of sound that would be accepted in the major markets of our country.  Added to that, I was one of the most timid people on earth, and most professional teachers/broadcasters would probably have suggested I get a job in a library.

One morning I waited for his arrival, expecting to see that big smile and brightly colored ascot come around the corner, and Henry was late.  Henry was never late and was the first to tell me there is no word for “late” in Broadcasting, and I have lived by that my entire life.

As time passed, another professor walked by and asked “Dan, why are you here today?” I began to answer, and he stopped me and said, “Henry had a heart attack in the back of his cab this morning. I’m sorry, Dan, he is dead.” During the rest of my time in New York, the wind was harsher, the cold relentless, and the days a darker gray.  I never had a chance to tell Henry Bartel what he had meant to me and how much I had appreciated his help, but I went on to live my dream.  The shy kid with the southern accent worked in some of the best and biggest cities, including New York.

I don’t think there have been many times just before throwing the mic switch to “ON” and “GO UP, LIVE! ON AIR!” that I do not remember the man who helped make it all possible.  I will always remember Henry.

A Radio Christmas Remembered

As keeper of the light, I maintain contact with others who dwell in the darkest part of day, the night people. I love night people. They walk on the other side of life, often by choice,

I suppose everyone gets nostalgic around holidays. I certainly do, and I’m not even a big participant in what has become holiday madness instead of holiday joy. I love the ads that tell me how much money I can save by spending twice as much as I would have spent.

New Year’s Day especially has always been a time of reflection, gladness, and regret for me. Even as a young person, I always had that special someone or moment to look back on. As we grow older those moments become greater in importance.

I have not done live radio since 2006, and sometimes I miss it. After all, how can you not miss something you yearned for from boyhood and once had. Then I talk to friends who confirm what I already know. Radio is not the radio of my day but a homogenized, programmed system of corporate brainwashing that keeps personalities under control. I am grateful I worked in radio when it really did mean something when underground FM radio broadcasting was fun and creative.

The story that follows I wrote two years ago, but it happened over 40 years ago. I am republishing it here because it is real, and it matters, and people tell me it is one of their favorite pieces. And it is one of my special memories of Christmas.

December, around the year of ’82, 1982, wind-blown snow, middle of the night (or morning. After all, what is 3 a.m.?). The snow, the kind that sneaks up on you, slowly drifts, quietly getting deeper. It moves across a large, deserted parking lot, transforming this lonely place. This deserted piece of asphalt is being molded into the Montana or Wyoming Prairie, a perfect backdrop as Merle Haggard asks the Big City to turn him loose. Though not that far from the city of Boston, it is easy to feel cut off from the rest of the world, watching this snow fashioning beauty from desolation. I will likely not see another human for at least three more hours. I am the keeper of the light from midnight to 6 a.m. I can still see most of my car, but whether or not I’ll be able to move it when the morning comes is doubtful, even if relief is able to get to me.

As keeper of the light, I maintain contact with others who dwell in the darkest part of day, the night people. I love night people. They walk on the other side of life, often by choice, and my way of reaching them is from a country radio station operating from the basement of a small strip mall in the middle of nowhere but reaching everywhere, an AM signal that sails across flat lands and water, especially at night, and I am the only show in town, the only one playing music on the AM dial in the middle of a lost time zone.

About once a week I get a call from a cross country trucker. As he enters Rhode Island and starts to pick up my signal he calls— “The California Kid is on the line”—and this time wishes me a Happy Holiday and as usual requests a few tunes to help him reach the state of Maine a few hours away. I am his traveling companion.

I also get calls from Alice. Alice drives all over the area maintaining ATM machines, and she calls once or twice a week as she makes her rounds. I never meet Alice as she is a little like the coyotes that patrol the prairie parking lot, preferring to remain elusive. I call her Dallas Alice, from the Little Feat tune “Willin’,” which goes out to her each time she calls.

On this snowy night, Alice calls to wish me a Merry Christmas and says to wait a few minutes then look outside the door.  We end the call, I queue up “Willin’,” and go up the few steps to the door. There waiting for me, already collecting snow, is a small prelit Christmas tree and a card that says, “Merry Christmas from Dallas Alice.” I see her footprints across the snow. She had parked near the entrance so she could easily get back on the main road.

I never met Alice, but she left footprints in my mind, and I never met the California Kid, but we road many a lonely highway together. A woman named Alice, Dallas Alice, and the lonely trucker, the California Kid, on a cold snowy night so many years ago, gave me a lifetime of Christmas smiles.

Rating: 1 out of 5.