WA2K Radio is now on the air

And stalactite.

Sittin' here in my cave
Just chillin' after a rave
Turned on the TV, and nix-
Something seems wrong with the pix
Or maybe it's the satellite
Can't get my favorite programs tonight
Causing me great frustration
Considerable consternation
Jumped up, as anyone might
Bumped my head on a stalactite
Which made me see stars for a while
Hope my Xmas pome raises a smile

Good morning WA2K radio fans and contributors and a Happy Boxing Day to all. <smile>We needed that reminder, Walter.

Thanks to dj for the Paul McCartney song. One I haven't heard.

edgar, Ray was outstanding, no? and we all love Georgia on my Mind.

Hey, Brit. I thought your cave poem was delightful, and we got several calls for you to do some more originals.

Your PD will be traveling to more familiar territory today, folks. So keep us on the air.

Speaking of movies, The Brothers Grimm was an unusual and provocative film. If you get a chance, watch it.

Good Morning WA2K.

I hope you all enjoyed the holiday. PA looks like a Winter Wonderland at the moment.

On this date in history:

1933 - FM radio is patented.

1947 - 26 inches of snowfall in 16 hours in New York City.

1982 - TIME magazine's Man of the Year was for the first time given to a non-human; the personal computer.

and a Happy Birthday to Richard Widmark born on this day in 1914:



I can't think of a nastier villain than Tommy Udo in the Kiss of Death (giggling as he pushed a little old lady in a wheelchair down a flight of stairs to her death - get goosebumps remembering it.) I was so pleased when Mr. Widmark mellowed and helped win the west.

George Harrison
What is Life

What I feel, I can't say
But my love is there for you anytime of day
But if it's not love that you need
Then I'll try my best to make everything succeed

Tell me, what is my life without your love
Tell me, who am I without you, by my side

What I know, I can do
If I give my love now to everyone like you
But if it's not love that you need
Then I'll try my best to make ev'rything succeed

Tell me, what is my life without your love
Tell me, who am I without you, by my side
Tell me, what is my life without your love
Tell me, who am I without you, by my side

What I feel, I can't say
But my love is there for you any time of day
But if it's not love that you need
Then I'll try my best to make everything succeed

Tell me, what is my life without your love
Tell me, who am I without you, by my side
Oh tell me, what is my life without your love
Tell me, who am I without you, by my side

What is my life without your love
Tell me, who am I without you, by my side

(fade:)
Oh tell me, what is my life without your love
Tell me who am I without you by my side

Henry Miller
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.


Henry Valentine Miller (December 26, 1891, Manhattan, New York City-June 7, 1980, Pacific Palisades, California), was an American writer and, to a lesser extent, painter of German Catholic heritage. He is particularly known for breaking with existing literary forms and developing a new sort of "novel" that is a mixture of novel, autobiography, social criticism, philosophical reflection, surrealist free association, and mysticism, one that is distinctly always about and expressive of the real-life Henry Miller and yet is also an imaginative construct. His most characteristic works of this kind are Tropic of Cancer, Tropic of Capricorn, and Black Spring. He also wrote travel memoirs and essays of literary criticism and analysis.


Biography

Miller was born to Heinrich Miller, a tailor, and Louise Marie Neiting. As a young man, he tried a variety of jobs and briefly attended the City College of New York. In both 1928 and 1929, he spent several months in Paris with his second wife, June Edith Smith (June Miller). He moved to Paris the next year unaccompanied, where he lived until the outbreak of World War II. He lived an impecunious lifestyle that depended on the benevolence of friends, such as Anaïs Nin, who became his lover and financed the first printing of Tropic of Cancer in 1934.

In the fall of 1931, Miller got a job with the Chicago Tribune (Paris edition) as a proofreader, thanks to his friend Alfred Perlès who worked there. Miller took the opportunity to submit some of his articles under Perlès name, since only the editorial staff were permitted to publish in the paper in 1934.

A small number of his works contain detailed accounts of sexual experiences, and his books did much to free the discussion of sexual subjects in American writing from both legal and social restrictions. He continued to write novels that were banned in the United States on grounds of obscenity. Along with Tropic of Cancer, his Black Spring (1936), and Tropic of Capricorn (1939), were smuggled into his native country, building Miller an underground reputation. One of the first acknowledgements of Henry Miller as a major modern writer was by George Orwell in his essay Inside the Whale [1], where he wrote in 1940, "Here in my opinion is the only imaginative prose-writer of the slightest value who has appeared among the English-speaking races for some years past. Even if that is objected to as an overstatement, it will probably be admitted that Miller is a writer out of the ordinary, worth more than a single glance; and after all, he is a completely negative, unconstructive, amoral writer, a mere Jonah, a passive acceptor of evil, a sort of Whitman among the corpses."

In 1940, he returned to the United States settling in Big Sur, California. He continued to produce his vividly written works that challenged contemporary American cultural values and moral attitudes. He spent the last years of his life in Pacific Palisades.

The publication of Miller's Tropic of Cancer in the United States in 1961 led to a series of obscenity trials that tested American laws on pornography. The US Supreme Court, in Grove Press, Inc., v. Gerstein, citing Jacobellis v. Ohio (which was decided the same day in 1964), overruled the state court findings of obscenity and declared the book a work of literature; it was one of the notable events in what has come to be known as the sexual revolution.

Miller was also a painter and wrote books about his painting. He was also an amateur pianist.

After his death, Henry Miller was cremated and his ashes scattered off Big Sur. There are two museums holding Henry Miller's watercolors: The Henry Miller Museum of Art in Omachi City in Nagano, Japan and The Henry Miller Art Museum at Coast Gallery in Big Sur.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Miller

Richard Widmark
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Richard Widmark (born December 26, 1914 in Sunrise, Minnesota) is an American film actor. He grew up in Princeton, Illinois and attended Lake Forest College, where he studied acting. He taught acting at the college after graduation, before debuting on radio in 1938 in Aunt Jenny's Real Life Stories. He appeared on Broadway in 1943 in Kiss and Tell. He was unable to join the military during World War II because of a perforated eardrum.

Widmark first appeared in movies in 1947's Kiss of Death (in which he giggles as he pushes a wheelchair-bound old woman (played by Mildred Dunnock) down a flight of stairs), which started his seven year contract with 20th Century Fox. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for the performance. Widmark's character in this film was the inspiration for the song, "The Ballad of Tommy Udo" by the band Kaleidoscope.

Widmark became so popular so fast that it was only two years later that he had his handprints cast in cement at Grauman's Chinese Theater. In the intervening two years, he had appeared in Slattery's Hurricane, Down to the Sea in Ships, Yellow Sky, Road House and The Street with No Name.

His first wife, Jean Hazlewood, to whom he was married from April 5, 1942 until her death on March 2, 1997 was the mother of his daughter, Anne Heath Widmark who married baseball legend Sandy Koufax on January 1, 1969. He is happily remarried to Henry Fonda's third ex-wife, Susan Blanchard since September of 1999.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Widmark

Steve Allen
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Stephen Valentine Patrick William Allen (December 26, 1921 - October 30, 2000) was a musician, comedian and writer, who was instrumental in innovating the concept of the television talk show. Allen is called the Father of TV Talk Shows.


Biography

Allen was born to Carroll Allen and Belle Montrose, Irish-Americans. Milton Berle once called Belle Montrose the funniest woman in vaudeville.

After years in radio, Allen conceived a local New York talk-variety program in 1953 for what is now WNBC-TV. The following year, on September 27, 1954, the show went on the full NBC network as The Tonight Show, with fellow radio personality Gene Rayburn as the original announcer/sidekick. The show ran from 11:15 p.m. to 1 a.m. on the East Coast.

While Pat Weaver, the developer of The Today Show, is often credited as Tonight's creator as well, Allen often pointed out that the show had already been "created" -- by Allen -- as a local show.

"This is Tonight, and I can't think of too much to tell you about it except I want to give you the bad news first -- this program is going to go on FOREVER," Allen told his nationwide audience that first evening . "Boy, you think you're tired now. Wait until you see one o'clock roll around."

Allen also joked that they selected the Hudson Theatre on 44th Street in Manhattan for the program because "I think it sleeps around 800 people."

It was as host of The Tonight Show that Allen pioneered the "man on the street" and audience-participation comedy bits that have become commonplace in late-night TV.

In 1956, while still hosting Tonight, Allen added a Sunday-evening variety show. The Allen programs helped nurture the careers of singers Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme and Sammy Davis Jr.. Allen also provided a nationwide audience for his famous "men on the street" -- comics such as Ernie Kovacs, Pat Harrington, Jr., Don Knotts, Louis Nye, Bill Dana, Dayton Allen and Tom Poston.

Allen remained host of Tonight until 1957, when he left. (After an ill-fated nightlife-oriented replacement, Tonight! America After Dark, the old Tonight format returned later in the year with Jack Paar at the helm.) Allen amassed a huge windfall for his work because he had opted to be paid in Polaroid stock.

Allen went on to host a slew of television programs up until the 1980s, including the game show I've Got a Secret and The New Steve Allen Show in 1961. He was a regular on the extremely popular panel game show What's My Line? from 1953 to 1954 and returning as a guest panelist until the series' end in 1967.

Allen was also a composer who supposedly wrote over 7000 songs. In one famous stunt, Allen wrote 400 simple tunes in a single day. Allen's best known songs are This Could Be The Start of Something Big and The Gravy Waltz, which won a Grammy Award in 1963 for best jazz composition. Allen was also an actor, appearing in such films as The Benny Goodman Story (1955).

Allen was also the producer of the award-winning PBS series Meeting of Minds, a "talk show" with notable historical figures, with Steve Allen serving as host. This series pitted Socrates, Marie Antoinette, Thomas Paine, Sir Thomas More, Attila the Hun, Karl Marx, Emily Dickinson, Charles Darwin, Galileo Galilei, and other historical figures in dialogue and argument. A proposed revival of this show was rejected as "too cerebral".

He was also an accomplished comedy writer, and author of over 50 books, including Dumbth, a commentary on the American educational system, and Steve Allen on the Bible, Religion, and Morality.

Allen was a secular humanist and Humanist Laureate for the Academy of Humanism, a member of CSICOP and the Council for Secular Humanism. He was a student and supporter of general semantics, recommending it in Dumbth, and giving the Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture in 1992. Allen was a supporter of world government and served on the World Federalist Association Board of Advisers [1]. In spite of his liberal position on free speech, his later concerns about the smuttiness he observed on television caused him to make proposals restricting the content of programs.

Allen's second wife was actress Jayne Meadows, by whom he had one son. They were married from 1954 until his death in 2000. He died of a cardiac disease triggered by a previous minor traffic accident the same day (October 30, 2000) at the age of 78, and is interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park at Hollywood Hills in Los Angeles, California.

Steve Allen has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame: a TV star at 1720 Vine St. and a radio star at 1537 Vine St.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Allen

Well, listeners and contributors, Letty is back in her familiar studio.

Great to see Bob, edgar, and our Raggedy with us as well.

Back later with a song and an update, folks.

See ya later, alligator
It's a kind of crocodile
Alligator's found in Flor'da
Crocs in Ganges or in Nile

Either way, they're not too friendly
When you're feeling like a swim
Find a friend, go with your buddy
And then paddle after him

If a gator's out there lurking
And your buddy's big and fat
And your guardian angel's working
You'll be safe because of that.

Funny, McTag. Right, folks? Did you know that crocodiles have been seen here in Florida, Brit?

Has anyone every heard this group?

Here is a sample song by them:

Flowing - 311
(Chorus)
along the way to close my eyes
i lost where i was going
the more it will spin the more that i try
to stop my mind flowing
away away
to all that i despise
along the way to close my eyes

you can't be let down if you don't expect the world
expect to lay awake there by your sleeping girl
if somebody cares then there is no way you can tell
cursed consciousness it's your private hell

(Chorus)

tick tick tick the clock bludgeons your mind
endlessly replaying times that were unkind

go away sun i'm not prepared for you today
it seems you are it seems you are

(Chorus)

Donovan


Turquoise


Your smile beams like sunlight on a gull's wing
And the leaves dance and play after you
Take my hand and hold it as you would a flower
Take care with my heart, oh darling, she's made of glass

Your eyes feel like silence resting on me
And the birds cease to sing when you rise
Ride easy your fairy stallion you have mounted
Take care how you ride, my precious, you might fall down

In the pastel skies a sunset I have wandered
With my eyes and ears and heart stained to the full
I know I tasted the essence in the few days
Take care who you love, my precious, he might not know

edgar, that is such a lovely song. I love it, and located this one that is the antithesis to yours:


Looking for a penny on an empty beach
I've been looking for a lover who has eyes to see
While I'm here I wanna walk with you, hold you hand
In the sun, in the sun, in the sun, in the sun

Turquoise is the color I need to get clean
The forest burned, and with it something inside me

Looking for a way to leave the world today
But the world is gonna leave itself anyway
While I'm here I wanna walk with you, hold your hand
In the sun, in the sun, in the sun

Turquoise is the color I need to get clean
The forest burned, and with it something inside me

Together, together, together, together
Together, in the sun

I need to get clean
I need, I need, I need

Turquoise is the color I need to get clean
The forest burns, and with it something inside me

Looking for a way to leave the world today

i'd like to present my musical collection for the evening. it's "anything goes" by cole porter from the cole porter centennial collection :
"you're the top : cole porter in the 1930's ".
(it'll be playing here at about 10:30 pm). i have to admit that 'm a sucker for these old songs , particularly if they are being presented well. these cd's have some of the great popular vocalists of their times, such as : judy garland, rosemary clooney, ethel merman ... and of course cole porter .

here goes "anything goes"

Times have changed,
And we've often rewound the clock,
Since the Puritans got a shock,
When they landed on Plymouth Rock,
If today, any shock they should try to stand,
Steada' landing on Plymouth Rock,
Plymouth Rock would land on them.

In olden days a glimpse of stockings,
Was looked on as something shocking,
Now heaven knows,
Anything goes.

Good authors too who once knew better words,
Now only use four-letter words,
Writting prose,
Anything Goes.

The world has gone mad today,
And goods bad today,
And blacks white today,
And days night today,
When most guys today,
That women prize today,
Are just silly jigalo's.

So though I'm not a great romance,
I know that I'm bound to answer,
When you propose,
Anything goes.

The world has gone mad today,
And goods bad today,
And blacks white today,
And days night today,
When most guys today,
That women prize today,
Are just silly jigalo's.

So though I'm not a great romance,
I know that I'm bound to answer,
When you propose,
Anything goes,
Anything goes.

and for hamburger and all our listeners, a point-counterpoint song:

» My Baby Only Cares For Me

Diamonds and pearls, black silk stockings
In her own world when she's rockin'
She don't hang out with anyone else in the crowd
Stiletto heels on the dance floor
Does what she feels as the crowd roars
She doesn't care what anyone else thinks of her
My baby only cares for me
We're a ship in the night
All alone on the sea
My baby only cares for me
Give her a wink, exchange glances
She doesn't give second chances
Hey loverboy, you ain't got nothing she needs
Barons and earls would love to date her
Better you should know sooner than later
Hey just one dance and you'll be caught in her trance
My baby only cares for me
We're a ship in the night
All alone on the sea
My baby only cares for me
Silently waiting for love to explode on the scene
Secretly wishing for someone to sweep her away
What can I say?
It could happen.
Black caviar, champagne cocktails
Come as you are if all else fails
Hey here's the thing, she's got the world on a string
My baby only cares for me
We're a ship in the night
All alone on the sea
My baby only cares for me

letty :...Black caviar, champagne cocktails...
it's a tough job, but somebody has to do it !

that's a brian setzer song, isn't it ? great lyrics !
.hbg

Heh! Heh! yes, it is, Canada via Germany. Well, New Year's Eve is coming up, so let's play this one:

Maybe it's much too early in the game
Ah, but I thought I'd ask you just the same
What are you doing New Year's
New Year's Eve?

Wonder whose arms will hold you good and tight
When it's exactly twelve o'clock that night
Welcoming in the New Year
New Year's Eve

Maybe I'm crazy to suppose
I'd ever be the one you chose
Out of a thousand invitations
You'd receive

Ah, but in case I stand one little chance
Here comes the jackpot question in advance
What are you doing New Year's
New Year's Eve?

Wonder whose arms will hold you good and tight
When it's exactly twelve o'clock that night
Welcoming in the New Year
New Year's Eve

What are you doing New Year's Eve?

and, listeners, what will YOU being doing New Year's Eve?

Hmmm, folks. Wonder what this fellow will be doing New Year's Eve?

With a sign saying "Could you Love Me?" strapped to his back and 18 boxes of chocolates trailing behind him on string tied to his wrists and ankles, Mark McGowan began his unusual quest to find a girlfriend.
His route will take him from the site of the Tabard Inn, in Southwark, south London, to Canterbury Cathedral, following the pilgrims' trail made famous in 14th century author Geoffrey Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales".
The 37-year-old performance artist, who said he is also hoping to raise awareness of people left lonely and isolated during the festive period, is hoping to complete the back-breaking task within 30 days.
"I can remember one Christmas I wasn't in a relationship and didn't want to spend it with my family. I ended up cooking two fish fingers. I'm sure a lot of people have had that experience," he said during a well-earned break en-route.
"Some people can spend Christmas in utter desperation and misery and find it difficult to cope with. I hope this encourages people to maybe invite someone over."
McGowan, from Peckham, south London, is no stranger to bizarre stunts or being so close to the tarmac: in 2003 he spent two weeks rolling a monkey nut with his nose seven miles to Downing Street to protest against student debt.
Earlier this year he attempted to cartwheel 57 miles from Brighton to London to highlight the problem of people taking stones from beaches to decorate their gardens. He was forced to give up with a twisted back after four days.
And in 2002, he rolled across London singing "We Wish You A Merry Christmas" in an attempt to get people to be nicer to cleaners.
On May 5 this year -- polling day for Britain's general election -- he planted 100,000 kisses on a laminated picture of Prime Minister


McGowan is single.

Hats off to this Brit.

laying low, as i do most new years

The Ice Of Boston

we'll be staying up until about 12:30 to toast the new year . an old german custom suggests that the front door be opened just shortly before midnight
" to let in good luck and the new year " - we've faithfully been following that custom ... and it hasn't failed yet : the new year always arrived precisely at 12 midnight ! ... we better keep it up ...
we are also looking forward to celebrating "50 years in canada" later in 2006 . hbg

btw one of our canadian friends has adopted the system of opening the door ; he confirms that the new year always arrived on time !

dj, that is a great song, Canada. Somehow it gave me a laugh. Thanks for that, buddy.

Well, Letty will be visiting friends on New Year's Eve, cause my dear friend has a birthday then. That's my way of keeping a low profile, buddy.

Wow! I am tired, so I guess I had better say "goodnight."

Blowing all of you a kiss.

From Letty with love.