Radio radio - update from the airwaves!

At left: Efia Nwangaza at the Multicultural Festival on June 27th.


Local Occupier, powerhouse Civil Rights attorney and director of the Malcolm X Center for Self Determination, Efia was on our July 4th radio show -- #Restorethe4th -- wherein we discussed reclaiming the 4th Amendment.





Efia was also on yesterday's show, greatly assisting us in our interview with Ralph Poynter, spouse of activist lawyer Lynne Stewart, who is suffering from advanced-stage cancer and currently seeking compassionate release from federal prison. There are two national support rallies for Lynne today (in New York City and Los Angeles) and one on Friday (in Washington, DC); please go to LynneStewart.org to sign the petition and learn more about her case. There are names and numbers to call, and much work to do.

We thank Ralph for being on our show and laying out the case so well.

Today: Bradley Manning, Ariel Castro, force-feeding Muslims during Ramadan at Guantanamo, and other timely topics on OCCUPY THE MICROPHONE, live at five!

Broadcasting from McAlister Square in Greenville, to all points of upstate South Carolina, all the way to Gaffney. Live streaming available at WOLI AM, so give us a listen.

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Radio Update

We are moving our show, Occupy the Microphone, to WOLI, sister station of WOLT. After six weeks of shows at WOLT, yesterday was our last show there, although we may continue to use their studio for broadcast (not sure yet). After 14+ months on WFIS and 6 weeks at WOLT, I am finally feeling a wee bit like a pro!

Below, Jack Logan of Put the Guns Down, Young People talks about his organization with my co-host, Gregg. (as always, you can click to enlarge the photos)



Yesterday's show rocked, and we kept the pace going throughout. Our special guests were Jack Logan, Eric Wood of Another Voice with Jason and Eric and the legendary Sylvain Sylvain (of the New York Dolls) -- the latter interview was particularly exciting for me and Double A, the rock and roll diehard.

Below, co-host Double A (the magnificent) and Eric Wood.



We will be going DAILY after we move to WOLI on March 1st. We hope all of you will join us! ADVENTURE! PASSION! PROVOCATION! MOVIN ON UP! (screams for emphasis)

We'll be doing drive-time radio hour (Gregg's dream, finally come true) at 5-6pm, so tune in.

Below, my new Facebook photo. Can you tell it was three minutes before airtime?!? (EEEEEEEEP!)



~*~

The Second Annual Occupy Film Series continues tonight, totally and absolutely free, at the Hughes Library in Downtown Greenville, South Carolina. Tonight we will be showing Food, Inc.-- a film very close to my heart. Yall come!

And more importantly, watch the movie and learn to hate Monsanto with the rest of us lefties.

Having some vehicle issues, so I may be late or absent. Therefore hoping some intrepid folks take my place and make some noise. Get that Q-and-A started, peoples. Somebody has to do it!

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Radio show poster

How do I look? I love it! (you can click to enlarge)

Check us out, if you haven't yet.

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On the radio

Today was our second OCCUPY THE MICROPHONE show in our new radio digs. (At left: my talented radio co-hosts, Double A and Gorgeous Gregg.)







Last week was our first show at WOLT-FM (103.3 FM on your radio dial in Greenville, SC), so I deliberately did not link it, because it was a bit frenzied and I was not at my best. In fact, I was a nervous wreck. We are now broadcasting to a much larger audience; you can hear us in most of the upstate.

Unfortunately, I missed my cue today and started out with "Now?" (sigh) I carried on though, and overall it was a pretty good show. We interviewed Christopher Williams, author of The Killer Job and friend of the old Daisy Deadhead Show on WFIS-AM. We hope you will give us a listen.

I'd also like to give a shout-out for the RAISIN KANE benefit for young Kane DeGeorgis at the Handlebar, tomorrow night at 8pm, featuring my very favorite local band, Mac Arnold and Plate Full O' Blues. Other local artists participating include: Benton Blount, Craig Sorrells, Greg Payne (of The Piedmont Boys), Chuck Beattie, Caesar, Taylor Moore, JJ Woolbright, George Grady, Stacy Bruns, Cynthia Brashier, Jim Peterman, Tez Sherard, Scram, Teresa DeGeer, Gene Brashier, Tom Peterson, Greg Hodges, Jeff Holland and possibly even more. Your $10 ticket goes to a very good cause. Kane has Batten disease, which is so rare that in all my years of medical transcription, I cannot recall typing up a single case. (It occurs in an estimated 2 to 4 out of every 100,000 births in the United States.)

We wish Kane and his family all the very best.

If you'd like to advertise with us, contact Gorgeous Gregg at OccupyTheMicrophone@Yahoo.com.

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Occupy the Microphone!

As of today, the Daisy Deadhead show (archives here) is no longer on WFIS-AM in Fountain Inn, South Carolina. (Our final show on that radio station was last Saturday.) I am proud to report that our show has now evolved into Occupy the Microphone.

At present, we are an online podcast, but after the first of the year, our plucky broadcast crew will move to WOLT-FM here in Greenville, South Carolina. Onward and Upward! Hopefully, the podcasts AND the radio shows will simultaneously continue.

Double A and Gregg Jocoy have been doing Occupy the Microphone podcasts Monday thru Wednesday at 8:30-9:30pm EST, with Scotty Reid of the indispensable Black Talk Radio Network doing Political Prisoner Radio on Thursdays (also at 8:30pm). Yesterday, I tried my hand at the podcast for the first time at 3pm, and it seemed to go well. I reviewed Damien Echols' fabulous book about being unfairly sentenced to Death Row in Arkansas (as one of the West Memphis Three), titled Life After Death. We talked about prisons and prisoners, the death penalty, the factors of race, class and mental disability in sentencing, and much more. Check it out.

We are getting our act together to take it on the road.

Although I enjoyed having a radio show named after me for well over a year, many folks expected something called "the Daisy Deadhead show" to feature Deadhead-type music instead of political yammering, which is our collective specialty. I figured it was a good idea to change the name. The amazing input (and hard work) of Double A and Gregg make it much more than a show named after ME, and it is important to acknowledge them... as well as the crucial role of the Occupy Wall Street movement in changing the leftist political landscape.

We have much more to say, do, attempt and express... and we very much hope you will join us.

Stay tuned!

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On the Radio

This Saturday's radio show was taped today, and it's a BANG UP SHOW which you should all listen to. Very proud!

We are finally getting into the groove of the pre-recorded thing, and it's actually a lot of fun. As I have written here before, I don't get that horrible insomnia and awful case of nerves when I know my mistakes can be edited... and there is also the matter of the rather formal radio station environment vs Gregg's inviting home amidst lovely trees, full of nice people and dogs. I hope we can continue to do it there. I just love the overall vibe.

We have special guests on the show and I'm sure it will sound more like a cozy progressive conversation rather than a typical talk-radio show. We have a Green Party candidate (Joseph Martin) and a Green Party columnist (Liz Smith Anderson) and we have Mitt Romney for lunch... yum yum! A bit of a nasty aftertaste.

THIS is the kind of thing I am going for! YEAH! Finally hitting my stride, 10 months after starting! Hey, better late than never, okay?

~*~

One ongoing problem I have had is finding my radio voice vs my blogging voice.

The two are the same voice, yet very different. My radio voice is "the real me"--whereas my blogging self is my writerly voice, the one that provides narrative and extended observation.

I have often believed that I should cover things on the blog that I have covered on the radio and vice versa, only to discover that the issue(s) under discussion are better suited to the "other" voice. Some things are "radio material" (great showbiz), and some things are better-suited for the blog, where various qualifications and endless delineations can be made. It will take time for me to sort that out; most talk-radio people started on the radio first, and then branched out to blogging, whereas I started the other way around.

But I am starting to get it, and I think I can keep both voices strong. For awhile, I worried I was compromising or short-changing one or the other. If we can keep up the "conversation" format, that will be very good for my blogging. The conversation we taped for the show today was just like a conversation I would have in real life (since that's what it was!) and shared the wisdom borne of a group-process. This is a nice departure from regular talk-radio formats. Since we are lefties, we SHOULD have a group/collective approach, instead of a top-down approach, to the show.

Stay tuned, sports fans!

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Weekend update

At left: a fabulous vintage Chevy Bel Air, which I saw parked nearby yesterday. Any estimates on the year? I am thinking maybe 1957 or 58, which makes it as old as I am. It was bee-yoo-ti-full!

As I was taking the photos, people passed by and nodded approvingly, one announcing that it was right purty. It sure is. ((swoons)) A small consolation prize for no pink Packard, though! (I am still kicking myself for not being able to get that photo.)

~*~

Yesterday, I attended the WXMP Community Radio Meet and Greet at the Malcolm X Center for Self-Determination. (photos here) I would love for Community Radio to become a reality in the upstate. We watched a video about the Prometheus Radio Project, which was exciting and got my hopes all stoked up. In addition, we learned about the Media Access Project and the series of cases known as Prometheus Radio Project v. FCC -- which challenged radio-monopolies, making community radio a real possibility.

Efia Nwangaza, director of the Center, has the transmitter already and basically just needs to get it moved... but the costs can be staggering.

Right now, my show is on WFIS, which is commercial radio. Community radio is much more free-form, and as long as you keep the FCC rules (no cussing!), you can say any kind of crazed radical stuff you want. Then again, the wattage is not usually too high, so the listening-area isn't as large as commercial radio.

I'd love to try both, but that is likely over-extending myself.

Speaking of over-extending, just came from the dentist (ugh) and will not be making it to the meeting with Rep. Bakari Sellars; I am hoping mainstream media will cover the event halfway decently. (But if they don't, I certainly won't be surprised.) Recently, there has been a huge discussion about the various versions of Stand Your Ground laws across the USA, and I am very pleased my show was part of that. Folks are busy evaluating and re-evaluating South Carolina's Protection of Persons and Property Act (which has a "Stand Your Ground" provision included), and lots of ideas and alternatives are currently being proposed and exchanged.

I have heard from several people that our Saturday show was the best yet! You be the judge.

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Peter Bergman 1939-2012

I really wanted to title this obituary, "Waiting for Peter Bergman, or someone like him," which I think he would have appreciated.




Instead, decided to be properly respectful and just reprint the New York Times obit:

Peter Bergman, Satirist With the Firesign Theater, Dies at 72
By PAUL VITELLO
Published: March 9, 2012

Peter Bergman, a founding member of the surrealist comedy troupe Firesign Theater, whose albums became cult favorites among college students in the late 1960s and ’70s for a brand of sly, multilayered satire so dense it seemed riddled with non sequiturs until the second, third or 30th listening, died on Friday in Santa Monica, Calif. He was 72.

The cause was complications of leukemia, said Jeff Abraham, a spokesman for the group.

Mr. Bergman hosted an all-night radio call-in show on KPFK in Los Angeles beginning in 1966, “Radio Free Oz,” which served as the testing ground for the high-spirited Firesign sensibility. Phil Austin and David Ossman, two other founders of the four-man group, were the producer and director of the show; the fourth founder, Phil Proctor, was a frequent guest.

“We started out as four friends, up all night, taking calls from people on bad acid trips and having the time of our lives,” Mr. Austin said in a phone interview Friday. “And that’s what we always were: four friends talking.”

Mr. Bergman and his friends recorded their first album, “Waiting for the Electrician or Someone Like Him,” in 1968, followed the next year by “How Can You Be in Two Places at Once When You’re Not Anywhere At All?”

By 1970, their mordant humor and their mastery of stereophonic recording techniques had made them to their generation of 20-somethings what Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are to today’s (if Mr. Colbert and Mr. Stewart had a weakness for literary wordplay, psychedelic references and jokes about the Counter-Reformation).

Their records employed sound effects in ways considered pioneering in audio comedy at the time. More generally, they were considered important forerunners of comedy shows like “Saturday Night Live.”

Ed Ward, writing in The New York Times in 1972, described the third Firesign album, “Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers,” as “a mind-boggling sound drama” and a “work of almost Joycean complexity.”

“It’s almost impossible to summarize any Firesign album,” Mr. Ward wrote, because most of their albums were so filled with “intricate wordplay, stunning engineering and use of sound effects, breakneck pacing and, of course, a terribly complex story line.”

When the Library of Congress placed “Don’t Crush That Dwarf” in its National Recording Registry in 2005, The Los Angeles Times described Firesign Theater as “the Beatles of comedy.”

Mr. Bergman told people the ensemble’s albums, unlike most comedy records, were never made to be listened to just once or twice. “He said our records were made to be heard about 80 times,” Mr. Austin said.

While the ensemble continued making albums for three decades, Mr. Bergman also wrote and produced several one-man shows, including “Help Me Out of This Head,” a 1986 monologue-memoir that drew on his childhood in Cleveland. He also wrote interactive games, including a CD-ROM parody of the popular adventure video game Myst.

Mr. Bergman was born on Nov. 29, 1939, in Cleveland, one of two children of Oscar and Rita Bergman. His parents hosted a radio show in Cleveland when he was growing up, “Breakfast With the Bergmans.” His father also worked as a reporter for The Plain Dealer.

Mr. Bergman graduated from Yale and taught economics there as a Carnegie Fellow. He later attended the Yale School of Drama as a Eugene O’Neill playwriting fellow. He moved to Los Angeles in the early 1960s to pursue a writing career.

He is survived by a daughter, Lily Oscar Bergman, and his sister, Wendy Kleckner.

Mr. Bergman got a taste of radio work when he was in high school, according to a biography on Firesign Theater’s official Web site. But he lost his job as an announcer on the school radio system, it said, “after his unauthorized announcement that the Chinese Communists had taken over the school and that a ‘mandatory voluntary assembly was to take place immediately.’ Russell Rupp, the school principal, promptly relieved Peter of his announcing gig. Rupp was the inspiration for the Principal Poop character on ‘Don’t Crush That Dwarf.’ ”

For good or ill, I hold Bergman and Company responsible for much of my rather bizarre sense of humor.

My consigliere posted the following quote from Bergman on Facebook (originally posted on the Firesign website), and I certainly can't improve on it... could any of us improve on Peter Bergman?:

Take heart, dear friends. We are passing through the darkening of the light. We're gonna make it and we're going to make it together. Don't get ground down by cynicism. Don't let depression darken the glass through which you look. This is a garden we live in. A garden seeded with unconditional love. And the tears of the oppressed, and the tears of the frustrated, and the tears of the good will spring those seeds. The flag has been waived. It says occupy. Occupy Wall Street. Occupy the banks. Occupy the nursing homes. Occupy Congress. Occupy the big law offices. Occupy the lobbyists. Occupy...yourself. Because that's where it all comes together. I pledge to you, from this moment on, whatever it means, I'm going to occupy myself.

I love you. See ya tomorrow.

Ah, he's no fun. He fell right over!

Goodbye old friend. We shall not see your like again.

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Coming Attractions

Going in to the seventh month of the radio show, and I haven't collapsed yet. I am very nearly respectable; I have business cards and everything! (If you would like to advertise with us, speak to my overworked on-air host and talented consigliere, Gregg Jocoy.)

Tomorrow's show will be a bit irreverent and rude; I shall politely refrain from a rousing chorus of "Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead"--but only because I already sang it yesterday, upon hearing the news of Andrew Breitbart's passing. Please don't miss our fabulous March 3rd show, where I will be repeating some of my nastier Tweets about Andrew, one of which got me called names by Ronald Reagan's clone! (And I can honestly say, I have never been so proud!) It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it.

I figure, if Rush Limbaugh can enthusiastically label women sluts and conservatives continue to take him seriously, I suppose I can openly speculate about conservative blogger (and shameless media-whore) Andrew Breitbart screaming like a deranged, whacked-out cokehead, and then suddenly dropping dead three weeks later. Toxicology report, please!

We will be reviewing Breitbart the pest, and some of his more disgusting, evil stunts. So stay tuned, sports fans!

~*~

Last week's show is here, have a listen. My interview with Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein is pretty good, but the overall broadcast-quality of our telephone interviews still needs improvement. (If you call in, please try a land-line and BE STILL, stop pacing around!)

When I am as famous as Rush Limbaugh, I will have well-paid assistants to take care of all of this technological stuff for me, of course. (Gregg is terribly overworked!)

Give us a call tomorrow morning, 9-10am, bright and early on WFIS-radio, 1600AM and/or 94.9FM in upstate South Carolina. We are in Fountain Inn, so the closer to the Golden Strip you are, the better. (I have noticed in downtown Greenville, the AM station comes in better than the FM, which is rather odd.)

Call 864-228-9347 to be on the air live. To listen to the show on your phone, call 724-444-7444 and enter Call ID: 112747#

I am also very proud to report that we are now on BlackTalk Radio Network and TalkShoe. Yall come visit.

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Jeanne van den Hurk for 3rd Congressional District

Jeanne van den Hurk for Congress! GOOD LUCK, JEANNE!



~*~

Also see New York Times piece: Occupy Movement Regroups, Preparing for Its Next Phase

And our podcast is up. Yall have a listen.

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Noam Chomsky update

We are planning a taped interview with Noam Chomsky tomorrow, and intending to run it on the Saturday morning show.

Needless to say, this has made me a nervous wreck.

As Mr Daisy told me, "Well, you'll be talking to a living legend, but don't let that intimidate you."

Ohhh, I wouldn't dream of it!

I am hoping to transcribe the interview for the blog. (It occurred to me a day or so ago, that I used to transcribe silly doctors and lawyers for a living, so I think I know how to do that!) Stay tuned!

Or as Don Cornelius (R.I.P.) would have said, its gonna be a stone gas. (We'll miss you, Don.)

~*~

I had a longish post in the works about left-wing talk radio, or rather, the lack of it. It kind of fizzled... and for that you have my profound apologies. Like Stanley Kubrick, I had intended to go back to the Dawn of Radio and explain how this unfortunate state-of-affairs came to be, but as it turns out... I only knew the semi-official explanation.

Yesterday, I went to an organizational meeting for Deb Morrow, fabulous 4th District congressional candidate and Spartanburg Occupier. I met up with my friend Tom Davies, an experienced campaign consultant who once wrote a dissertation on the rise of right-wing talk radio (which made me feel rather stupid on the subject). He positively overflowed with information and ideas, so I put my post on hold. He started riffing impressively on the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine (in 1987), which he said was the genesis of the trend. It was? So, the government GAVE BIRTH to right-wing talk radio?

Ah, so no wonder there wasn't (and consequently, isn't) a huge wave of LEFT WING talk radio.

My concern is: how cheap and available radio-time is, compared to television. Shouldn't it therefore be a bastion of LEFT WING sympathies? Why isn't it? Aren't we all about providing the poorest people with information and arming them with facts? (Radio is free to whoever has a radio, unlike cable TV, and is therefore a poor-people's medium, especially as satellite-radio gains popularity.)

Is the dearth of left-wing talk radio another salient example of how the American Left lost the working classes? Or as Tom said, is it simply that the Right rushed in to buy the cheap airwaves, since they had the loot on hand (and the necessary, additional financial backing) to do so?

Opinions welcome. How did the Right-wing take over talk radio?

~*~

And of course, in answering that last question, there is the irreverence factor. As an ex-Yippie, I possess the necessary irreverence and iconoclasm for talk radio... but I do wonder if I have the necessary THICK SKIN.

Recent theoretical brawls in Blogdonia have left me exhausted and bloodied, and even more than that, remembering what I wrote back in October about Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin. Again, I ask: How do they do it? I wish they'd give us a nonpartisan workshop: How not to care what people say about you, a Workshop for Political Women. Something like that.

When they start trashing political women in a specifically sexist and personal way, saying "Man Coulter" and calling Malkin racist, anti-Asian names--how do they handle this stuff? Do they just turn it off and refuse to read the insults? Does it ever keep them awake at night? Do they have bodyguards? Have they had stalkers? Inquiring minds want to know!

I have recently had the experience of being called all kinds of vicious names by total strangers who have not interacted with me, ever. This is patently weird. I am used to people who have interacted with me (or claim they have), announcing I am full of shit and/or evillll, but total strangers? This is a new phenomenon in my life; it means I am getting semi-famous, or at least, infamous. (Am I ready for that?)

Eeeeep! I would appreciate a workshop on what will happen as we take my radio show to the next level, and how I should gird my loins for the umm, FANS, who might come out of the woodwork.

Going into the six month of the show! Can you believe it? WHOEVER THOUGHT we would continue this long? The Green Party (my current sponsor) appreciates my blather, and I appreciate that they appreciate me.

As stated before, stay tuned. Its gonna be a stone gas.

And happy Groundhog Day!

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Moment of Panic

Uncle Dave played this great tune last night on the radio-inspired namesake of this blog, Uncle Dave's Dead Air.

Airplane - Widespread Panic

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How do I look?

My new radio show logo and graphic!

(clicking on image takes you to radio show page)

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Weekend update

The Daisy Deadhead Show continues to inspire and amaze! At left, Gregg Jocoy (producer and consigliere) talked about the ongoing Occupation, credit unions, Governor Nikki Haley's continuing shenanigans... and so much more, with Daisy at WFIS radio this morning.



Today's podcast is up, which was brought to you, as always, by the South Carolina Green Party.

Due to circumstances beyond our control (i.e. Gregg's flat tire), we arrived somewhat late for the Occupy Your State Capitol rally, but stayed to picket and connect with other Occupiers. The encampment in Columbia, on the Statehouse lawn, is impressive. Free information, food and water is available for everyone.

More to come.

Occupy Columbia LiveStream

Occupy Columbia (Facebook page)

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Radio radio (update)

Today on the ever-fabulous Daisy Deadhead show, we covered the following:


>>Is the 'Occupy Wall Street' movement being hijacked by newcomers? More people and organizations are joining Occupy Wall Street or expressing solidarity every day. Whether it's an infusion of vital energy or a force that tears at cohesion is up to the movement.

>>Governor Haley uses the South Carolina Governor's Mansion as a Motel 6 for Republican millionaires campaigning for president. You'd think millionaires wouldn't have to ask the poor people of SC to foot the bill for their ridiculous, ego-ridden presidential campaigns... but you'd think wrong. Newt Gingrich stayed there this week (en route to Hilton Head), Michele Bachmann has racked up two visits, and Mitt's spouse, Ann Romney, stayed overnight once. And the campaign season isn't even in full swing yet!

Mitt and Ann Tomney have a net worth of between $190-250 million (I guess its too much to count accurately, at those levels) and yet, can't afford to pay for their own Hampton Inn bill. Do you trust him to be the president? Think of what ELSE he will charge to us.

Meanwhile, Governor Haley continues pretending she is a "fiscal conservative"--while spending our money on her friends. Nice work if you can get it!

>>Three women's rights activists win the Nobel Peace Prize! Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, activist Leymah Gbowee of Liberia and rights activist Tawakkul Karman of Yemen share this year's Nobel Peace Prize, the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced Friday. These women were chosen "for their nonviolent struggle for the safety of women and for women's rights to full participation in peace-building work," the Nobel committee said in Oslo, Norway.

>>Secret panel can put Americans on "kill list'. American militants like [recently assassinated] Anwar al-Awlaki are placed on a kill or capture list by a secretive panel of senior government officials, which then informs the president of its decisions, according to officials. According to Reuters: There is no public record of the operations or decisions of the panel, which is a subset of the White House's National Security Council, several current and former officials said. Neither is there any law establishing its existence or setting out the rules by which it is supposed to operate.


And we wrapped up with earnest exhortations to join local OCCUPY TOGETHER demonstrations: Thursday, October 13th, noon, Bowman's Field at Clemson University, ... and at about the same time, MoveOn is sponsoring one in Daniel Morgan Square, Spartanburg, which will be going on all day.

Your humble narrator will be in attendance at the latter event, so come on down!

And please join us on the air next Saturday morning at 9-10am, streaming on WFISradio.com or locally at 1600am or 94.9fm on your radio dial. (The podcast is up!)

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Wall Street Mocks Protesters By Drinking Champagne

I think this pretty much sums it up, doesn't it? Thanks to Bint for the video.



Also: Occupy Asheville has kicked off.

And: My radio podcast from WFIS today.

Hope your weekend is good!

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Grandma Daisy's: "We don't dial 911"

I see Renegade Evolution's existential question... and I raise her one! At left, photo reads: Grandma Daisy's: "We don't dial 911" and is punctuated with a nice old-school firearm. (This is an antique store in Fredericksburg, Texas, and of course, I could not resist taking the photo for my blog!)

Not coincidentally, various folks over the years have joked to your humble narrator, that I probably didn't need 911, and they are probably right about that. ;)

Speaking of which: Suitably adorable Grandma photos of my trip, for anyone interested. I loved seeing my grandbabies! (I worried that photos of me and Barbie would ruin my feminist cred, but hey, I think that was already compromised a long time ago!)

~*~

A sort of all-purpose post, as I create links for the Daisy Deadhead show tomorrow. (Commercial: LIKE US ON FACEBOOK!) I suppose I could bring my laptop to the radio station (WFIS, tomorrow, 9-10am), but trying to fiddle with the keyboard and talk, at the same time? Sounds risky to me. I am NOT Wolfman Jack. Maybe when I get a little more proficient at this stuff.

First up, will be the illuminating story in the Austin Statesman, Personal ties key to Rick Perry's wealth:

Gov. Rick Perry might like for people to believe he made more than $1 million while holding elective office in Texas through shrewd business decisions, but in almost every case he was steered to his investments.

From his father-in-law renting space in a building Perry owned back home in Haskell to a high school buddy from Future Farmers of America helping him make a million in a Horseshoe Bay land deal, Perry has been more than just lucky or shrewd. He has been a man with friends.

The question of whether Perry's real estate windfalls have been a result of friends helping friends or are evidence of some sort of corruption has been fodder for some of his past campaign opponents.

"From abusing his power over appointments to getting sweetheart real estate deals from supporters, he's a regular get-rich-quick icon," U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison's campaign manager said of Perry before last year's gubernatorial primary.

During the general election campaign last year, Democratic opponent Bill White said of one deal, "Perry's investment was enhanced by a series of professional courtesies and personal favors."

Over the course of about 18 years , Perry and his wife, Anita, grew from struggling to make ends meet in Haskell County to having a comfortable retirement nest egg built primarily from real estate deals Perry made while he was a statewide elected official.

And rest assured, there is plenty more dirt where THAT came from. Tune in for my personal assessment of Rick Perry's business acumen! NOTE: I DO have my all-purpose, FCC-approved, NO CUSSING sign, as I mentioned HERE, so I am required to keep my anti-Perry commentary squeaky clean. (It's a challenge, but I am up to it.)

On the local front, we will be peeling and digesting State Senator David Thomas (R-of course), who opposes "government spending"--except when the spending is on David Thomas. Another faker, like Governor Haley.

He carefully voted himself a cushy pension for working only A SCANT FEW YEARS:

At age 55, South Carolina state Sen. David Thomas began collecting a pension for his legislative service without leaving office.

Most workers must retire from their jobs before getting retirement benefits. But Thomas used a one-sentence law that he and his colleagues passed in 2002 to let legislators receive a taxpayer-funded pension instead of a salary after serving for 30 years.

Thomas' $32,390 annual retirement benefit — paid for the rest of his life — is more than triple the $10,400 salary he gave up. His pension exceeds the salary because of another perk: Lawmakers voted to count their expenses in the salary used to calculate their pensions.

No other South Carolina state workers get those perks.

Since January 2005, Thomas, a Republican, has made $148,435 more than a legislative salary would have paid, his financial-disclosure records show. At least four other South Carolina lawmakers are getting pensions instead of salaries, netting an extra $292,000 since 2005, records show.

And finally, I will try to include Anna's comments at Mills River Progressive, which came courtesy of Onyx Lynx. (THANK YOU!)

It just seems so obvious, but sometimes, people have to spell out the obvious:

All the Politicos Yapping About "Creating Jobs" Avoid the REAL Solution

Which is to stop sending the jobs overseas. Duh. That would be the logical course of action, if the U.S. Congress actually worked on behalf of the citizenry. Obviously they don't, and therefore none of them will propose the only lasting solutions to our massive unemployment. End our destructive trade policies, restore fair trade policies and practices, invest in new sustainable industries on the domestic front (other than weapons), and sweet pygmy Jeebus STOP REWARDING CORPORATIONS THAT SEND JOBS OVERSEAS!

There. That's not too difficult, is it? It's not rocket science. And it's well within the realm of the possible. But *they* won't do it. They won't discuss it. Almost no one will mention it on the floor of Congress. Why? Why won't the people who supposedly represent our interests do the things that will lead to a reversal of our crumbling fortunes and dismal futures? Because their handlers - their actual bosses, the financial elite, the investor class, the 1% - don't want that.

The reality is that our lives are of no importance to them. In fact, we're obsolete. They make enormous amounts of money by sending our industries, our (former) work to the third world. They're profiting like never before; why on earth would they want to return to the bad old days, when profits were hampered by trade policy, by benefit packages, by paying a middle-class wage?

I will try to quote the whole thing, if there is time. We hope to be hearing directly via telephone from Green Party members who are currently occupying Wall Street. YEAH!

I will also slip in a mention of Duke Energy's intention to raise our utility-rates, and the necessary information about the local public hearings. The print on the teeny-tiny postcard recently mailed out by Duke Energy is nearly microscopic, and very difficult to read.

I'm sure that's only a coincidence. They wouldn't try to dissuade people from coming to the hearings, now would they?

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Radio radio

I got through my second radio broadcast! (((pants))) We still don't have a podcast yet, but I am assured it is in the works. (Commercial: The South Carolina Green Party presents THE DAISY DEADHEAD SHOW!!! Every Saturday at 9-10am on WFIS radio! You can listen online.)

Yeesh, Kathy Griffin isn't kidding about that flop sweat. After we were finished and exiting the radio station... suddenly wondered why I was so wet. I also get awful insomnia the night before. I think it will take awhile before these symptoms subside. As my late grandma would say, I have "a case of the nerves."

The good news: We had TWO phone calls! Yeah!

Gregg took these photos while I was actively running my mouth, so a bit blurry. (I was talking about the commemoration of 9/11 in the second photo.) I did not have a death grip on the Notre Dame rosary this time (as I did last week), but as you can see, I DID find it necessary to slip it over my head, just in case.

Today, we trashed the governor. It was FUN! Update: Thursday, Governor Nikki Haley called Renee Dudley (the reporter who exposed her pricey European junket in the Charleston Post and Courier) a "little girl". (Exact quote: "God bless that little girl at the Post and Courier.") I asked how she would like it if someone called HER a little girl? I then segued into criticizing Republican presidential candidate, Governor Rick Perry, for cutting funding for rural Fire Departments in Texas (from $30 million to $7 million), which is the whole reason the place is currently burning up.

We also covered the case of Troy Anthony Davis, a likely-innocent man who is scheduled to be executed by the state of Georgia on September 21. I addressed the pro-death penalty people directly (probably 95% of listeners in SC) and said it does not help their cause when innocent people (or even possibly-innocent people) are executed, and that they should be in the forefront, trying to get Davis off Death Row. (It was an unexpected comment right off the top of my head, and I was proud of it.) Not sure how that went over, but I said it anyway.

Notably, I always write out a sign, NO CUSSING, right before the show. The FCC fine is $10,000 a pop for every one of these you say. (Ordinarily, I would be madly cussing over alla this stuff, of course, as DEAD AIR regulars know.)

I got through it, but another double mocha Frappucino was required. I will never get down to a single vanilla at this rate.

~*~

I wanna bite the hand that feeds me
I wanna bite that hand so badly
I wanna make them wish they'd never seen me


Radio Radio - Elvis Costello and the Attractions

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Sing Out Louise! Smile, Baby!

Graphic from Yellowdog Granny.









I am hoping to make it down to Columbia for the Republican CNN dog-and-pony-show (debate, I mean), but so far, no vehicular luck. Still panhandling for a ride, if any of you brave souls plan to go down there tomorrow to check out the Democratic Process In Action (grunts for emphasis). The Ron Paul people are having their rally directly afterwards, and that sounds like a good place to start witnessing the Third Party Gospel. I'm on it! Well okay, I would ordinarily be on it, if I had a car that could safely sustain a hundred-mile round trip without a thorough examination, which I don't.

Yes, yes, I know, if I had been a conscientious DoBee [1] I would have gotten my oil changed and tires rotated and what-all, but as an unemployed person I have not seen THE POINT. (See, she pauses to point out, HOW UNEMPLOYMENT NEGATIVELY INFLUENCES THE ECONOMY?!?) At any rate, here I am, send notes and emails and Twitters and Facebook IMs and what-have-you, if you are going down to our illustrious state capital to protest or hang out with the Ron Paul people tomorrow.

My first radio excursion on Saturday morning went well. Gregg roused himself from his cardiologist's floor and aided me wonderfully! I was scared to death, and had the proverbial death-grip on my old wooden antique rosary from Notre Dame (Indiana, not France), which was left to me by a deceased female neighbor named Butch, so its very lucky. In addition, I inexplicably required a huge Double Mocha Frappucino to get it done, but I did it! (Next week, will probably be able to make do with a regular single Vanilla.)

PLEASE DROP IN AND LISTEN! WFISradio.com, 1600 AM or 94.9 FM on your radio dial... or online. 9:00 AM on Saturday mornings, which is an ungodly weekend hour, and I apologize for that.

~*~

Be-bopping around the internet today, whilst watching Doris Day (yall know how much I love Doris) in With Six You Get Eggroll. A bad movie that nonetheless fascinated me as a wide-eyed, gullible youngster... as Single Mom-with-kids marries Single Dad-with-kids, and they wholesomely "blend" their families. As many of you know, I desperately wanted my mother to get married and behave in this wonderfully-domestic fashion, particularly if it meant she would stop wearing the bubble hairdos, popping amphetamines, singing in the country and western bands every night, drinking and smoking like a rat-pack member, marrying people she had just met and dammit, ACT LIKE SHE WAS SUPPOSED TO. [2] Ha.

Of course, now I realize, neither did Doris. If I had only known!

Will somebody tell me: Did wholesome TV-dad Brian Keith die of AIDS or is that just a rumor? Am I mixing him up with Robert Reed, since the plot of this movie is where they obviously came up with THE BRADY BUNCH? (It seemed that after Robert Reed died, it was suddenly open season on the nice TV-dads and magically, they all became gay overnight.)

Okay, checked Wikipedia: No, not true. Suicide. I knew it was something uncommon.

A shame. I always liked him.

The sweet, precocious little child-star, Anissa Jones, whom I liked so much on Brian Keith's old show, Family Affair, was an accidental drug death at age 18. We were only 6 months apart in age. The other child on the show, Johnny Whitaker, has spoken at length about his addiction problems, also, and is now a drug counselor.

I guess these Hollywood-fantasy families really were fake, weren't they?

~*~

[1] To the non-baby boomers, this is from the children's TV show Romper Room and has no relationship to the word DOOBIE as a joint or the Doobie Brothers. There were Do Bees and Don't Bees, and of course, we all tried to be good DO BEES! (We marginally succeeded.)

[2] Mama! Get out your white dress/you've done it before/without much success (Stephen Sondheim to the rescue). When I first heard this song as a kid, at maybe 8 years old, I sobbed my little heart out. (And it's where we get today's blog post title.)

See, I thought, the stipper's children understand!

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This is Radio Clash

On the air in less than 24 hours, and my nerves are shot. It doesn't help that Mr Daisy has (unavoidably) had to leave the state on the weekend of my radio debut. In addition, my Green Party guru (and radio co-host) passed out on his cardiologist's floor this afternoon; my internet flickers in and out for no apparent reason that the bemused AT&T man can figure out, and I am suddenly worried that I will need to change my blog motto-- from Ain't Skeered to Skeered.



Gah!



I remember I used to get this nervous when doing AA talks, and I have to remember: talk-radio isn't nearly as unnervingly personal as that was. As I think Richard Pryor once said, even if you're funny, talking about yourself is always scary... unless you're lying.



Politics, one fervently hopes, will be a far easier topic.



Why do I find sending words over the internet (in blog or Facebook form) so easy, yet find the idea of speaking on airwaves (about many of the same subjects!) so daunting? I have been talking to the public, in various forms of customer service, for many years, so it isn't that. I think just a general lack of experience in radio, has given me pause. I am going where I have never gone before (or only a few times, long ago).



Wish me luck.



~*~



This is Radio Clash - The Clash

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