THROWBACK THURSDAY

This one is a little fuzzy.

But it's a historial moment (for me at least). In a television studio at KFYR-TV in Bismarck, North Dakota, 1968, after an interview with presidential candidate and Vice-President Hubert Horatio Humphrey. 

From left to right, the late Bob MacLeod, Wes Haugen, yours truly, and Humphrey. 

We had an exclusive. 'Course there was only one other television station in town but still.

STRICTLY MENTAL

I spent 30 years working as a broadcast journalist. That's a fancy term for a news reporter on radio and/or television. I started out as a disc jockey in my college days, then worked for a newspaper for about 6 months, then went back to radio in the same town: Minot, North Dakota. A couple of years later I found a job at a television station in Aberdeen, South Dakota. I did everything there - news, weather, sports, MC'ed the weekly Polka Party, and broadcast our live coverage of a bowling tournament. I had bowled a bit in my youth but I was extremely bad at identifying the splits in this tournament. I'd say "well, it looks like a 4-8 split for him," and a spectator sitting right next to me would murmur "no, that's a 7-10," and I'd make a correction on air. Mortifying.

When the Fischer quintuplets were born soon after I had taken over the one-man news department, I was awakened by a call from UPI in Chicago asking me for news about them. It was the first I had heard about the multiple births. Later, NBC called wanting film of the new kids and I had to confess that our television station didn't have a movie camera! Regardless of all that I managed to parlay the massive (for Aberdeen, South Dakota) news onslaught into a job back in my home state in Bismarck, North Dakota.

I spent six years there and became news director when the guy who had hired me found a new job in San Francisco. Nice advancement I thought: Bismarck, North Dakota to San Francisco, California. But my turn came later, when a disc jockey friend of mine from the radio part of the radio and television combine I was working for got a new job in Indianapolis, Indiana. A few months later he called me and said his new station was looking for a newsman and I should apply. I was concerned about the move to a 50,000 watt radio station in a market of a million or more from my job in a market of maybe 50,000 souls. Would I be good enough? What if I couldn't cut it? My friend assured me that if I didn't I could always go back to a station in North Dakota or Minnesota with the Indy experience on my resume. I thought about it for awhile but finally sent off a tape and resume and forgot about it. Several weeks later I received a call and a job offer. With some trepidation I said yes.

When I arrived, I quickly learned that I was the only person on the staff who could write a complete sentence. And quickly. So I stayed for three years, had a great time, met the lady who became SWMBO, and also made a friend I've hung onto for 45 years.

Later I moved to Phoenix and worked for a television station there for 13 years before taking a break of 16 years before winding up with several years at a tiny AM radio station in Prescott, Arizona.

Well. I've bored you all with that lengthy story in order to explain something about yesterday's blog post. I was checking Facebook in the morning and saw that it was the birthday of a former news director of mine, Jim Willi, and also the 70th birthday of Eric Clapton. Somehow, in my first-cup-of-coffee-of-the-day mental meanderings, I reasoned that BOTH men were turning 70. Oops! I later learned from the somewhat outraged Mr. Willi that he was only 67!

One of the first rules of news gathering is: get it fast and get it right. The old reporter had failed that rule. "They" say: once a reporter, always a reporter. What they don't say is: everyone makes a mistake occasionally. But needless to say, I was embarrassed.

I've been wondering for some time how to use this photo. I think this is the time and place.

"...This is Bruce Taylor, reporting from oblivion."

AUTUMN THOUGHTS

There is no question about it.  Autumn has arrived.  Tree leaves are either changing color or dropping to the ground or both.  The temperature has nose-dived.  Here in Prescott Valley at 11:15 on this Friday morning the temperature outside is 53 degrees Fahrenheit.  There are water puddles on the ground from an overnight rain.  A friend who lives in Flagstaff, which is a couple of thousand feet higher than here, says she turned on her furnace for the first time last night.  And a mountain near her has snow on it for the first time this year.

I love cold, rainy days if I can stay inside.  When I was a teenager in North Dakota, I had a tiny room with a steam radiator, an old armchair by a window that looked out on the outside world, books and my short wave radio.  I would tune the bands and listen to stations from London, from Moscow, from Quito, Ecuador, and, of course, the Voice of America.  I escaped that cold rainy (or more likely, snowy) world outside.

Some years later, a ham radio operator in New Mexico told me he used to like to turn off the lights in his room, lean back in his comfortable recliner and listen to tunes from Radio Tahiti.  It helped him wipe out the stresses from his job.

Nowadays I no longer have a short wave radio but I've got something even better - the Internet.  There are thousands of radio stations I can connect with and listen to their programming as if it were a local station.  No fading, no static.  Of course, that kind of takes some of the romance out of it but I still like it better than the old "analog" days.

And there are Internet radio sources.  One of my favorites is Pandora.  Right now I have it on and am listening to some soft jazz on French Cafe Radio.  I also have Brazilian Radio, the Hot Club of San Francisco, the Turtle Island String Quartet, and Le Surdoue on my favorites list.  One can search by artist, genre or composer to find just the type of music you like.  As you can probably tell, I favor soft sounds at home  When I'm in my car the radio is usually tuned to NPR although sometimes I tune in a Classic Rock station.

Radio has always been a big part of my life.  It began with a big floor model Philco in our living room on which I listened to the Lone Ranger, Fibber McGee and Molly, the Great Gildersleeve and Amos and Andy.  Then I moved on to my short wave period.  Then I became a ham radio operator.  Later I went to work at several radio stations, work that finally took me away from North Dakota to Indianapolis.  I had also worked for some television stations in North Dakota and that experience helped me land a t.v. job in Phoenix.  Almost 20 years later I found myself out of work and a couple of years from Social Security.  I landed a job with a radio station in Prescott and spent three years there.

Oh, I should include our period in the late 80's/early 90's when we took an early retirement and moved to Mexico.  My ham radio "rig" kept us in touch with family and friends back in the United States.

Well.  This has covered a lot of territory since I began writing about autumn.  I've been meaning to take some pictures of the pumpkins everywhere, of the fall flower displays at stores, and probably some of my  immediate surroundings.  But today, I'm just going to stay inside where it's warm, listening to Louis Armstrong singing and playing "A Kiss to Build a Dream On" on Pandora.

MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES

I don't know if it's because the Academy Awards are coming up or just coincidence but I've been watching more movies lately.  Herewith, my amateur reviews.

"The Kids Are All Right".  I thought this one was kind of ehhhh.  Annette Benning was great as one half of a lesbian couple with two teenagers.  And Mark Rufalo was handsome and appealing.  But otherwise it kind of left me cold.

Next, a documentary on "Sacco and Vanzetti".  I was curious about this one because SWMBO, many years ago, got so intrigued with their case that she read the entire trial transcript.  It was pretty well done and left me feeling a bit outraged at the racism that I feel led to their executions.

"The Rum Diary", with Johnny Depp playing a drunken Hunter S. Thompson character in Puerto Rico . . . which of course was based entirely on Thompson was fairly good because I like both Depp and Hunter.

"The Village Barbershop" with John Ratzenberger as a cantankerous beer drinking barber whose partner has just died was a delight.  He is forced into hiring Shelly Cole to save his dying barbershop.  It's very funny, melancholy at times but well worth seeing.

And then I charged into our DVR'd collection of movies.  I started with "The Maiden Heist" today.  Christopher Walken, Morgan Freeman and William H. Macy are all hilarious as they play against their strengths.  Marcia Gay Harden is equally funny as Walken's wife.  The three guys are all security guards at an art museum.  Each one is in love with a different piece of art.  When they are sold to a museum in Denmark they conspire to steal them during the move.

And finally, I finished today with an oldie but a goodie "12 Angry Men" with an incredible cast of Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb, Ed Begley, E.G. Marshall, Jack Warden, Martin Balsam, Jack Klugman, and Robert Webber and others are fantastic in this 1957 movie that was Sidney Lumet's film directing debut.  The 12 are jurors in a murder trial that seems open and shut as the first vote is 11 to 1 for conviction.  But Fonda works his magic and the final verdict is aquittal.  Highly, highly recommended.

And that's where we are right now.  Some goodies in there but some stinkers, too.  The next thing coming from Netflix is the second season of "Treme."  I can't wait.