Radio Daze, Part Duh Or: Don't Be a Sec-Toneless Asshole!

Author's note:  Many of the following images were created using Ai and my fertilized imagination, and do not necessarily reflect historical accuracy. Any resemblance to actual persons, living, dead or undead, or actual events, is purely coincidental.  You'll figure it out, eventually.  Maybe. 

Back in 1992, I briefly entertained the delusion that I might make a living in the wonderful world of radio broadcasting.

This was after my adventures in the United States Marine Corps and a subsequent stint in a warehouse that ended with my being invited to seek employment elsewhere.

I needed a career.

I liked music. I liked radio. I liked writing. I had a reasonable command of the English language, although my speaking voice sounded to me like a Hoosier hill-rod with his nuts caught in a vise.

RADIO!

What could possibly go wrong?

As it turned out, just about everything. But along the way I met some interesting characters, learned a few things, and acquired a collection of memories that have somehow survived more than three decades of abuse.

I wrote about some of this in my original Radio Daze post. But there was another chapter to the story, involving a big Indianapolis rock station, a lunatic drummer, a catastrophic commercial break, a party full of drunken Cleveland Browns fans, and an unpaid intern who apparently fancied himself the guardian of American aviation.

That intern, of course, was me.

And here, gentle reader, is the rest of the sordid tale.

Professional Broadcasters Institute: The Making of a Radio God

I enrolled in the now-defunct Professional Broadcasters Institute in Indianapolis, where I spent three months learning the ins and outs of radio broadcasting.

(PBI was located in The Pyramids, which was cool.  I'd never been inside them before PBI.)

The main instructors were two guys who were on-air talent at big stations in Indy.  They knew their stuff, and they were good.

We learned announcing, production, writing, and the operation of equipment that would today be regarded as exhibits in a technological archaeology museum.

Reel-to-reel tape machines. Turntables. Cartridge machines. Modern mixing boards. CD players. Splicing blocks. Razor blades.

Actual razor blades!  No "Pro Tools" or computers anywhere to be seen.

Editing audio required cutting magnetic tape at precisely the right location and joining the pieces with splicing tape. Make a mistake and you couldn't just click UNDO.

You had to physically repair your fuckup.

I particularly enjoyed production and writing. I put together elaborate radio histories of Led Zeppelin and Aerosmith, complete with narration, musical excerpts, and carefully assembled transitions.

I was pretty good at it, too.

Announcing was another matter.

I could read copy competently enough, but I was painfully aware of my own voice, which possessed a certain high-pitched Hoosier twang that did not exactly suggest the Voice of God.

Nevertheless, I persevered.

After graduation, I managed to secure an unpaid internship at Indianapolis rock station WFXF, 103.3 FM, known as The Fox.

During that period, the station underwent its transformation into WRZX, Solid Rock X-103.

For a young dude hoping to break into broadcasting, this was a pretty exciting place to be.

And that's where I met Sam Cornette.

Slammin' Sam and the Production Room of Doom

Sam was the station's production director, and I was assigned to work with him.

He was a talented broadcaster with a terrific voice, an experienced production guy, and, as I soon discovered, a certifiable fucking madman.

Sam had a FULL DRUM SET in the main production studio.

Not a little practice pad.

Not a couple of bongos.

A full goddamned drum kit.

Periodically, Sam would sit down behind the drums and go absolutely ape-shit, pounding away like a man possessed.

And when beating the drums no longer satisfied his artistic urges, he would leap up and run around the studio, BEATING THE WALLS WITH HIS DRUMSTICKS AND SCREAMING LIKE A BANSHEE!

I stood there watching this spectacle, probably wondering whether the station's insurance carrier was aware of the situation.

I mentioned to Sam that I'd always been interested in learning to play drums.

He immediately offered to let me try his kit.

I politely declined, not wanting to embarrass myself in front of this man...plus I figured the walls had suffered enough.

Another funny story about Sam.  He chewed tobacco/used snuff...think Skoal.  I don't remember which.  One day in his office I was sipping on a can of Pepsi, and I had put it down for a moment.

Unbeknownst to me, Sam used my half-finished Pepsi as a spittoon.  I later took a big slug from it.  He was horrified and apologetic.  

I almost puked.  

Almost.

I'm sure my initial response, after gagging, was, "You motherfucker!"

We got along well and we were bullshitting around with one another pretty early in the relationship, so I knew me calling him an MFer wasn't going to piss him off.

For all his eccentricities, Sam treated me very well. He took me seriously, gave me real work to do, and allowed me to participate in actual commercial production.

I wrote a couple of spots that made it onto the air, and even contributed a little voice work to a commercial for a golf store.

I was an unpaid intern, yes, but I was doing genuine broadcasting work.

And learning a hell of a lot.

The Sec-Toneless Asshole

One of my regular duties was transferring commercials from reel-to-reel tape onto broadcast cartridges, commonly called carts.

For the uninitiated, a broadcast cart resembled an eight-track cartridge, although its operation was different. These things were the workhorses of commercial radio.

A spot would arrive on tape, and we'd transfer it onto a cart for use in the broadcast studio.

There were a couple of important steps in this process.

First, because the carts were reusable, you had to bulk erase the old recording before dubbing the new one. Otherwise, you risked hearing remnants of the previous recording bleeding into the new commercial.

Second, you had to manually place a secondary cue tone, or sec tone, near the end of the commercial.

That tone would tell the next cart machine to start playing the following spot.

Forget the tone, and the cart could loop around and play itself again instead of properly advancing the commercial sequence.

I took this stuff seriously.

Whenever I dubbed a commercial, I would play the finished cart back and listen to it before delivering it to the broadcast studio.

If something was wrong, I'd erase it and start over.

Simple enough.

Unfortunately, another PBI graduate who was interning alongside me apparently had a slightly different philosophy.

His philosophy seemed to be:

Fuck it. Ship it.

One day, while listening to 103.3, I heard a commercial break that sounded like somebody had thrown three radio stations, a cement mixer, and a bag of cats down a flight of stairs.

Multiple commercials were bleeding into one another.

The cart wasn't properly advancing.

It was an absolutely spectacular audio atrocity.

JESUS H. CHRIST!

I immediately called the station and got Sam on the phone.

I explained what I was hearing, and he was able to get the problem corrected.

As it turned out, my fellow intern had committed not one but TWO fundamental errors.

He hadn't bulk erased the cart.

And he hadn't inserted the secondary cue tone.

A DOUBLE FUCKUP!

I didn't throw the guy under the bus. I simply reported the problem.

Besides, we were required to put our initials on the labels of the carts we produced.

My initials weren't on the offending cartridge.

I was safe.

My buddy didn't stick around much longer after that.

As for me, I made a note in the little scratch pad I carried:

"DON'T BE A SEC TONELESS ASSHOLE!"

Words to live by.

A Tale of Two Radio Stations

Here's something I'd nearly forgotten until recently.

While I was interning at 103.3, I was ALSO working as a part-time weekend disc jockey at WIRE Country 101 in Lebanon, Indiana.

That's right.

By day, I was helping produce commercials at a major Indianapolis rock station.

On weekends, I was spinning country records on a thousand-watt blowtorch in Lebanon.

Two stations. Two formats. Two very different worlds.

And at one point, the worlds actually collided.

I remember sitting at WIRE, dubbing a commercial onto a cart, and realizing that I HAD HELPED PRODUCE THAT VERY SAME COMMERCIAL AT 103.3!

There I was, handling the same spot at both ends of its journey through the broadcasting business.

I thought that was pretty cool.

I was learning the business from the production side while simultaneously gaining actual on-air experience.

I had a foot in both doors.

Unfortunately, neither door led to a decent full-time paycheck.

More about that later.

The Cleveland Browns, the Strippers, and Sammy Johns

One day, Sam asked whether I'd be interested in helping him with an outside gig.

He was going to provide music and entertainment for an outfit called the Central Indiana Browns Backers, a collection of Cleveland Browns football fans living in Indiana.

These people apparently enjoyed football, alcohol, and the opportunity to combine the two in public.

The occasion was a preseason game between the Browns and the Indianapolis Colts at the Hoosier Dome, later known as the RCA Dome.

The festivities were to take place, as I recall, at Pan-Am Plaza in downtown Indianapolis.

Sam needed somebody to help transport, unload, assemble, operate, disassemble, and reload his sound equipment.

In other words, he needed a roadie.

I readily agreed.

Especially when Sam told me HE WAS GOING TO PAY ME!

After all those unpaid hours at the station, the prospect of actual money was almost intoxicating.

Little did I know that the job would involve enough heavy lifting to make a prior service Marine reconsider his career choices.

We loaded Sam's van with a mountain of equipment and headed downtown.

But first, we had to pick up a couple of young ladies who were apparently going to serve as decorative accessories for the Browns Backers festivities.

I would describe them as glorified strippers.

They were dressed for the occasion, heavily perfumed, and gave the general impression that wholesome family entertainment was not their primary professional specialty.

With the van already packed to the rafters, seating arrangements became somewhat creative.

At least one of these young ladies wound up riding on my lap.

GLORIOUS!

The things a dedicated broadcasting professional must endure in pursuit of his craft.

We arrived at Pan-Am Plaza, where I proceeded to unload and assemble the sound system.

This equipment weighed approximately 47,000 pounds.

At least that's what my back told me.

Once everything was hooked up, I needed to test the system.

So I reached into the CD rack, grabbed whatever happened to be handy, and pressed PLAY.

The song?

"Chevy Van" by Sammy Johns.

LOLz!

Think about that.

We'd just transported a couple of scantily clad young ladies in Sam's overcrowded van, and the first song I played was Chevy Van.

Sometimes the universe writes its own jokes.

The event hadn't even started yet. I was simply checking the sound.

I walked out into the plaza to hear how the system sounded from the audience area, signaling Sam to adjust the volume, bass, and treble.

And that's when a thoroughly lubricated female Browns fan approached me.

She was not pleased.

"What is this shit? Where are you from? This isn't what we want to hear!"

I explained that we were merely testing the equipment.

"It'll get better."

Which, under the circumstances, may have been the most optimistic statement ever uttered at a Cleveland Browns function.

I don't remember much more about the festivities.

I do remember that by the time we finished, I'd damn near destroyed my back moving Sam's equipment.

I also remember needing a shower to remove the industrial-strength stripper perfume that had transferred itself to my person during our earlier journey.

My wife was none the wiser.

And before anybody gets any ideas, no, nothing untoward happened.

I was simply an innocent victim of overcrowded transportation and aggressive fragrance application.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

Walter Zoomie Saves American Aviation

Another evening, I was leaving the 103.3 station after completing my duties.

The station's radio tower/transmitter stood nearby in a small field.

As I walked toward my car, I happened to look up.

Something was wrong.

The red obstruction lights on the tower weren't functioning.

Now, I knew those lights weren't there for decoration.

Radio towers can present a hazard to aircraft, and the required obstruction lighting is an important safety feature.

So I turned around, went back inside, and informed the engineer on duty.

He was able to take it from there.

And that was that.

No medal.

No ceremony.

No ticker-tape parade.

Just another day's work for WALTER ZOOMIE, UNPAID INTERN AND GUARDIAN OF THE NATIONAL AIRSPACE SYSTEM!

You're welcome, America.

The People Behind the Microphones

One of the more interesting things about interning at 103.3 was encountering people whose voices I'd heard on the radio.

I met Don Fischer, the legendary Indiana University football and basketball announcer, who had an office at the station.

I was impressed, but I didn't fan-boy, and I didn't make an ass of myself.

I had work to do, and so did he.

I also remember a local television sports personality who had a radio show at the station.

Unfortunately, I can't remember his name.

One day, I was reading the station's teletype machine when I noticed a breaking story involving a prominent Indiana high-school basketball coach.

I recognized that this was something the sports guy would want to know about, so I brought him the information.

He appreciated it, and thanked me on-air before he read the piece.  That made me feel good.

I also always made it a point of double-checking the illuminated ON AIR sign before entering the studio, which he seemed to appreciate as well.

After some digging, I've discovered who this guy was.  His name is Ed Sorenson.  He is an Indy broadcast legend for real.  Great set of pipes and delivery. Animated just enough to make him interesting and not aggravating to listen to.

Thanks Ed.

These may sound like small things.

They were.

But broadcasting is full of small things that become rather large things when somebody neglects them.

Just ask the sec-toneless asshole.

I've spent a fair amount of time recently trying to identify that sports broadcaster.

The name escaped me.

And here's a particularly sad twist.

I thought Sam Cornette might remember him.

So I started looking for Sam.

I found photographs of him on Facebook, including pictures from the old Solid Rock X-103 days.

And I learned that Sam had died in April 2024.

That hit me harder than I expected.

I hadn't seen him in more than thirty years, but I remembered him clearly.

The voice.

The production room.

The drums.

The maniac running around beating the walls with drumsticks.

The Skoal...

And, most importantly, the way he treated a young, inexperienced guy who was trying to learn the business.

Sam was good to me.

I wish I'd had the opportunity to tell him that again.

Rest in peace, Slammin' Sam.

And thanks.

Hundreds of Airchecks, Zero Nibbles

So what became of my grand broadcasting ambitions?

Well, I tried.

GODDAMN, DID I TRY.

I sent out hundreds of airchecks and resumes to radio stations all over the United States.

Hundreds.

I wasn't restricting my search to Indianapolis or even Indiana.

My wife was willing to relocate anywhere if I could find a decent opportunity.

I had some good references.

I had training.

I had production experience.

I had written commercials that aired on a major-market station.

I had actual on-air experience at WIRE.

And I had enough enthusiasm to choke a horse.

The response?

NOTHING.

Not one nibble.

Not one promising lead.

Not one offer that might allow me to support my growing family.

I don't know why.

Maybe my airchecks sucked.  (They did)

Maybe I had the wrong voice. (I did)

Maybe there were ten thousand other guys just like me, all chasing the same handful of jobs.

Maybe I was simply unlucky.

Whatever the reason, the doors remained closed.

Meanwhile, I was married, and we had a family to think about.

Five bucks an hour for weekend shifts at a little country station wasn't going to pay the bills.

Eventually, I decided I'd had enough.

As I related in the original Radio Daze, I concluded my final shift at WIRE by announcing my departure over the air, thanking the listeners and my boss, and signing off.

Then I shut down the transmitter, as was customary at the end of the broadcast day.

The telephone started ringing.

I didn't answer it.

I locked up the station and walked away.

Thus endeth my short-lived professional radio career.

Or so I thought.

You Can Take the Man Out of Radio...

More than thirty years have passed.

I went on to make my living doing other things, eventually spending a great deal of my working life driving trucks.

But here's the funny thing.

I NEVER STOPPED STUDYING RADIO.

I still listen with the ears of somebody who has worked behind the microphone and on the other side of the production board.

And I hear things that make my skin crawl.

Dead air.

Bad announcing.

Awful pacing.

Forced delivery.

Unnatural emphasis.

People who apparently believe that being a professional broadcaster requires sounding like a carnival barker suffering a massive head injury.

I call it PUKING ON THE MICROPHONE.

Some announcers seem determined to puke on the microphone, the mixing board, the studio walls, and anybody unfortunate enough to be listening.

But when I hear somebody who genuinely knows what they're doing, I appreciate it.

And sometimes I tell them.

A few years ago, I heard a young woman reading the news on WIBC 93.1 in Indianapolis.

She sounded terrible.

Not because she lacked a good voice, but because her delivery seemed stiff, unnatural, and forced.

I got curious and looked her up.

I found an old YouTube video she'd made during her college days.

And in that video, she sounded GREAT.

Relaxed.

Confident.

Conversational.

Like a normal human being.

So I left a comment suggesting that she approach her WIBC news reading the same way she had narrated that video.

A few months later, I heard her on WIBC again.

And I'll be damned.

She sounded like the girl in the YouTube video.

Natural. Comfortable. Professional.

Now, I have absolutely no way of knowing whether my comment had anything to do with her improvement.

Maybe she saw it.

Maybe somebody at the station coached her.

Maybe she simply became more comfortable behind the microphone.

Whatever happened, the transformation was remarkable.

I was delighted.

Then there was a guy, I'll call Jimmy Rattfink, at WHIO in Dayton, Ohio.

Good GOD.

His delivery reminded me of the clown who voices those relentlessly enthusiastic Menards commercials.

Every syllable seemed to be auditioning for its own exclamation point.

I couldn't change the station fast enough.

So naturally, I contacted him on Facebook.

I asked whether he was the Menards announcer.

He said he wasn't, but that he shopped there frequently.

HAHAHAHA!

I told him he ought to audition for the job, since the previous announcer had recently died.

He apparently had no idea I was trolling him.

At another point, I referred to him directly as a BROADCAST LEGEND.

Right to his face.

Yes, I know.

I'm a terrible person.

I said what I said.

The Last Broadcast

Looking back, I don't regret attending PBI.

I don't regret the unpaid internship.

I don't regret the weekend shifts at WIRE.

I don't even regret hauling Sam Cornette's 47-thousand-pound sound system around Pan-Am Plaza, although my lower back might have a different opinion.

I learned things.

I met people.

I made mistakes, watched other people make considerably more spectacular mistakes, and occasionally managed to prevent a small disaster.

I got to experience a little piece of the radio business at a time when the equipment was still gloriously mechanical, when editing required a razor blade, and when a missing cue tone could turn an ordinary commercial break into an auditory train wreck.

And I got to work with Sam.

That's worth something.

Would I have enjoyed a full-time career in broadcasting?

Probably.

Would I have been any good at it?

I like to think so.

But I never got the opportunity to find out.

Instead, life took me in another direction.

I raised a family, earned a living, and accumulated a few million miles of observations about the world and the peculiar creatures inhabiting it.

And all these years later, I still recognize a good broadcaster when I hear one.

I still appreciate a well-written commercial.

I still notice when somebody gets the little things right.

And I still remember the most important lesson I learned in the production room at 103.3 FM.

DON'T BE A SEC TONELESS ASSHOLE!

(...and check that Pepsi can)

It's good advice for radio.

Come to think of it, it's pretty good advice for life.

Elements of MY Style

The following are people, TV shows, publications, and other media, some famous, some not so, who influenced my writing style and demented sense of humor.  I've listed them in some sort of chronological order.

Maybe.

1-My family, especially my father 

The sarcasm would drip from his lips, and could destroy you.

He died in 2002. 

A few years after that was when I started pouring over his body of work. 

The photos were easy. 

Reading all the printed material, both published, unpublished, and rough-drafts, took a considerable amount of time. 

There were/are mountains of it dating back to 1958 when he started his career with the now defunct Indianapolis Times. 

His investigative reporting was good, and he won several awards for it. 

It was his human interest stuff, some of it never published, that got my attention.

His mother, my grandmother. 

She had a subtle way of insulting people. 

Years ago, there was a race driver named Steve Krisiloff. He was NOT attractive. He looked like Alfred E. Neuman from Mad Magazine. 

One day she said, "He's unfortunate-looking." A family legend was born that day.

2-1960s and 70s Mad Magazine 

Everybody read it, even Mom and Dad. 

My favorite cartoonist at Mad was Al Jaffee. 

He would insert tiny (often delightfully gross) details into a panel that one would have to look for...and then you'd shit your pants laughing. 

Mad would also put tiny Jaffee vignettes in the margins of a page and BETWEEN panels. 

If he wanted to depict someone or something barfing, the vomit would contain complete chicken bones, eyeballs, insects, veins and arteries. You get the picture. 

Perfect content for juvenile boy with juvenile tastes and interests. 

One of my faves was a piece called, "A photo of a jackal retching." It still makes me piss myself. 

The vomit is pouring outta the poor sick animal and hitting the ground. 

On the ground is a small animal...maybe a mouse...running thru the stream of puke using a leaf as an umbrella. 

Now that's attention to detail I can admire! 

If he was depicting a drunken dirty slob, there would be several flies buzzing around his head. 

My buddies and I folded up with laughter about this shit even during our high school days, which at the time Mad Magazine was a shadow of its former self. 

If you look at my blog's right hand panel...up at the top is an ode to Mad. "Our Price 50 cents. Cheap" 

Mad did that on their front cover where the price tag was.  

Another thing about Mad. It was an introduction to political satire, current events, and pop culture...even though I didn't understand much of it at the time. 

Vietnam, Nixon and politicians, hippies and protests, race relations and civil rights, recreational drug use, women's rights, the sexual revolution, current cinema. 

Big stuff for a kid to digest.

3-National Lampoon

...the magazine, not the movies...but the movies came much later and were definitely a part of my development too. 

The magazine itself was like Mad all grown up and at college. Party like a frat boy, and nothing's scared. 

The throwback parody of a typical edition of a Sunday newspaper was legend with my older brother and I. 

We both delivered newspapers as kids, so we knew all about the extra heavy Sunday edition with all its extra content and advertising. 

Lampoon's version was exactly the same, but with a more mature version of Mad Magazine treatment to every page. 

A few years ago, my brother found a complete original version of it online in pristine condition and bought it. 

Youdda thunk he'd discovered the Rosetta Stone with his excitement!

4-Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In

...a weekly TV comedy show. Like Mad Magazine on TV, but a little bit more mature. 

Politics, pop culture, sex, current events. 

The entire family would gather and watch it. 

Again...I didn't understand a lot of it, but I knew that for some reason Goldie Hawn's writhing, painted, bikini clad visage was something special!

5-The Tonight Show/Johnny Carson

As we got older, we (my brother and I specifically) were allowed to stay up later. 

I enjoyed the standup comedians the most. 

Sometimes if it got too late on a school night and we couldn't afford to lose so much sleep, my brother and I would set up a tape recorder next to the TV speaker and record the audio for later. 

I can remember my father saying he hated Don Rickles, which I found particularly odd coming from him. 

 I LOVED Rickles! What a talent. 

He destroyed people, but I knew he wasn't serious. 

I think there was a lot of love in Don Rickles people didn't see.

6-Monty Python's Flying Circus 

My father's mother, previously mentioned, watched A LOT of PBS. 

I generally found PBS to be stuffy, sterile, and mind-numbingly boring....Something only nerds and people who think they are smarter and better than the unwashed masses consume. 

Then I discovered these absurd Brits and a different, foreign worldview. 

My dad howled with laughter. Mom love it too. 

I don't recall my sisters taking to it like my brother and I did. 

My brother and I had a couple of their 33 1/3 record albums, and we could recite the bits by heart! 

ONE particular bit, amongst many, has been part of my repertoire for decades. 

In the original bit, a couple meets another couple for the first time. 

After knocking and being welcomed in, the homeowner's wife (actually a man in drag) greets the new visitors and says, "I'd shake hands, but I've just wiped lard on the cat's boil."

Motherfucker! 

I use that same line all the time when I'm taking part in a family cookout/gathering, and I'm handling the food!  

Python's movies were great also. The Life Of Brian. The Holy Grail. The Meaning of Life. All gut busters, and provided countless one liners for a lifetime.

7-Firesign Theater

Not sure how my brother got exposed to this, but glad he did. 

Also a source of many one-liners, and also content I didn't fully understand.

It has been said that Firesign Theater is best enjoyed whilst under the influence of LSD.

I wouldn't know of such matters.

8-Saturday Night Live

...the classic early years cast, Ackroyd, Belushi, Murray... but also including Eddie Murphy, Steve Martin...especially Martin's first two comedy records. 

We memorized these summbitches too! 

Mom and Dad were along for the ride with this one. 

Not so much for Firesign. 

I don't think I could have handled my parents on an acid trip.

9- P.J O'Rourke 

I could have included him with National Lampoon, but I think he deserves his personal place in my history. 

He did the Lampoon thing. 

He did automobiles with Car & Driver magazine. 

He did Rolling Stone magazine. 

I read all of it. 

He wrote "Give War a Chance," which was about his coverage of the Gulf War, which, as you know...I wuz thar. 

Looking back on it now, he may have influenced my decision to leave the Corps. 

I loved his style. 

It was "me"...if I was more intelligent.

10-Bob and Tom

Fucking obvious. 

I grew up in Indy. I was here before them. 

I was here for all of it, even before syndication.  

I wanted to be in radio. I wanted to be a part of B&T. 

I admittedly wasn't good enough. I sounded terrible on-air, and I knew it. 

My forte was production and writing...I could have been of service to them in that aspect, but it never happened. 

I got over it rather quickly, though. 

To me, I always believed the strengths of B&T lay with the producers and bit players...who were oftentimes the same people! 

Bob was goofy, and all he seemingly talked about was tits, beer, the Beatles, and cigarettes. 

Apparently a good man, and obviously there was more to him than that, but he was not especially interesting to me. 

Tom's always been a fucking neurotic basket case...especially now. 

Reportedly very generous, but I'm sure I couldn't have dealt with his many mental quirks, and it might have come to blows between us!

11-Rush Limbaugh

 

I know. 

A completely divisive character. 

Loud. Sure of himself. Obnoxious sometimes. (I don't give a fuck. I loved him.) 

But it ain't braggin' if you can do it. 

Woke me up to conservatism and politics. 

Reported about the early stages of Iraqi tomfoolery in Kuwait with an ominous tone. I just knew it would swallow me up. 

Two of my favorite quotes from him: "Brevity is the soul of wit."-may not have originally been his. I don't know, nor do I care, and I can't be arsed to look it up. 

"Illustrating absurdity by being absurd." -golden

12-Andrew Dice Clay's comedy CD The Diceman Cometh

 

Whilst getting bounced around in a 5-ton (6-wheeled troop-carrying truck) I overheard a small group of Marines discussing a comedian and describing some of his bits. 

I thought, "That sounds like something right up my alley." 

I asked the jarheads who they were talking about, and the rest is history. 

Talk about absurdity. This guy had it all. 

Sexism, racism, homophobia, xenophobia....every gottdamned phobia there was, this guy was sounding off about it and making liberal PC heads explode...all while doing it in an accent/attitude that I have always loved. 

The New York/Jersey/Boston/East Coast/Italian/Jewish/Irish...fuck me...who knows what amalgamation of shit it was. 

I found it gut-bustingly funny and entertaining...But it was all there, and I was gonna consume every fucking drop of it. 

An innocuous, "Hey buddy. Got the time?" 

Got a reply of, "Eh? You can't afford a fucking watch? What do I look like? Big fucking Ben to you? Go fuck yourself. Your mother's a whore did I ever tell you that?" 

I needed oxygen after that.

I have a friend who I met thru work who eventually came to be like a little brother I never had. 

I love this dude. We both had a demented sense of humor. 

Anyhoo, I used Dice one-liners with him all the time. 

When I told him to go fuck himself, he'd reply, "MY mother's a whore.!" 

Turning it around...instead of calling my mother a whore he was calling his OWN mother a whore.

Doing two things at once...avoiding all possibility of offending me (wasn't EVER going to happen), and insulting his own mother, with whom he had a terrible relationship.

13-Robin Miller 

A local racing journalist. 

Worked for the Indianapolis Star newspaper, same as my dad, but I think Dad was on his way out as Robin was on his way in. 

A good friend knew him personally very well. 

I asked him to ask Robin if he knew my dad. I never heard back about the subject, so I don't know. 

What I DO know is that I was EXTREMELY jealous of my friend's relationship with Robin, but I didn't try to force my way into it. 

They would meet up with absolute, bona fide racing legends at a local diner that sat in the shadows of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and have epic bench racing sessions. 

I desperately wanted into that circle but it never happened...maybe because I didn't push the issue like a fangurl asshole about with my friend. 

 Anyhoo...Robin was a hardcore CART guy, and he wasn't afraid of saying it. 

Most of the IRL folks hated Robin with a passion. 

I didn't care for him at the time, but I appreciated his style. 

As the years went on Robin did a lot of TV work also. 

When the two series merged, Robin was still reporting and commenting. 

As he got older, he became a fixture in the IndyCar paddock, embraced the series, drivers and fans, and everybody, including me, came to love him. 

His death in 2021 rocked the racing community, and left a huge hole that, to this day, hasn't been filled. 

I wish I could have met him.

 

 

I Want To Fly Jets! Really? My Grandmama Wants To Fly Jets Too!

 

Another IU story, but this time with a little different twist.

Ever since I can remember, I have been fascinated with flying, and I thought being a fighter pilot was just about the bestest thing a guy could do.

The idea of being blown to pieces by a SAM (surface-to-air missile) never entered my mind.

Gregory "Pappy" Boyington, Richard Bong, Francis "Gabby" Gabreski, and Chuck Yeager were all heroes of mine, and I devoured any material I could find about them and their contemporaries. 

The way things ought to be

Charles Lindberg was on my list as well.

So, second year first semester, while I was at IU/Bloomington, I had the brilliant idea to check out their U.S. Air Force ROTC program.

In order to be a fighter pilot you had to have 20/20 uncorrected vision. This I learned at IU ROTC. 

My eyes were/are fucked. 

I could be a navigator, but hell...with my math aptitude? Forget that. 

I could be a refueling boom operator, but that didn't appeal to me at the time. Glorified gas station attendant. 

In the Marines I could shoot the tits off a mosquito at 500 yards. 

Fuck being a pilot! 

Sorta.

Anyhoo...I took the first year class.  I had no idea what I was getting into.

They gave us uniforms, but not much training on how to wear them, customs and courtesies, etc.

The Marine that I would later become would have been amused and horrified at my ROTC behavior whilst in uniform.

We had a few lessons about Air Force history with an Air Force officer as the instructor, but I remember thinking that I could have given a better lecture.

I also remember thinking, "I shouldn't have smoked that bowl of weed before walking over here from the dorm...in uniform.  I can't handle this shit right now."

An officer/instructor once asked me what was wrong with my eyes.  There was nothing wrong with my eyes, because I hosed them down with Visine before I came into class.  I replied something about allergies or having just left the swimming pool and the chlorine and all...

He knew better I'm sure.

I often blew off a ROTC classes, and when I did show up, I was ordered to write an explanation.

(Ordered is funny because I was not obligated to do shit at this point.  I had signed nothing, and nobody was gonna tell me what to do.  Not even me!)  

I said I was running late and I thought it would be rude to barge in and interrupt the class. 

How thoughtful of me, right?  

It was all bullshit of course.  

The real reason was that I had gotten a snoot-full of beer and weed with my buddies back in the dorm, and I blew ROTC class off.

Now, some of you might be saying at this point, "Gawt Damn Zoomie!  You were a gargantuan fuck-up!  Stoned outta yer mind and yer gonna fly F4s and kill commies for Christ?  Nobody's ever gonna even let you get near a pushback tug.  Kill yourself!"

Guilty as charged!

I took the above picture, in 1982, with the same camera my dad used in Vietnam in 1966, where he took the below picture.  It's probably the same F4!

The occasion was an ROTC "field trip." 

We rode in vans from Bloomington Indiana to Grissom Air Force Base near Peru Indiana. 

Then we hopped on a KC-135 refueling aircraft (think Boeing 707) and headed for March Air Force base in California. 

 

On the way, we refueled the flight of F4s. 

Up to that point, I had NEVER flown in an airplane before!

We arrived at March AFB California, got up close and personal with various mesmerizing aircraft, and then settled in. 

By "settled in" I mean I and few buds got into some cheap government subsidized beer...but nothing crazy or outta hand.

One fine California dusk we were gathered outside the barracks smoking and joking when evening colors was called.

"Evening colors" is when the post flag is lowered and "retreat" is played.

At this time, all persons are required to stop whatever they are doing, stand at attention facing the colors or the bugle music, and render a proper hand salute until the bugle music ends.

We never got the memo, and we continued with our shenanigans during colors, so a salty and attentive staff NCO Airforce bubbuh made sure we got the good news.

IU ROTC was very lax, and they didn't really give much attention to customs and courtesies. 

It was, "Here's a uniform. Wear it." 

Very little practical instruction on how to do anything properly. I guess we were supposed to absorb such knowledge thru osmosis or some shit. 

 

The USMC was wildly different. That shit was pounded into us daily for a solid three months. 

Later as a Marine...whenever I was on a base and colors sounded, I absolutely LOVED rendering the proper respect to the event. 

It was an honor and privilege. The history of it, the folks who served and sacrificed before me all came to mind. 

 

I absolutely DESPISED the Marines who "ducked colors." Those are the shit-birds who would run into a building to avoid having to stand at attention for 30 seconds and salute.

Anyhoo...Even with all this glorious immersion into flying and the Air Force, I was still drinking too much and smoking weed.

I was spiraling outta control.

I said goodbye to ROTC, and dropped out of university. 

I had dead-end, shitty jobs making fuck-all-nuthin' for money.

I was getting depressed, and I felt terrible about myself and my current station in life.

I didn't like what I had become, and it was nobody's fault but mine.

I guess the good thing is that I actually realized all of it, and I knew I had to make some changes.

Drastic changes, or I was gonna end up dead or in jail.

I needed discipline and structure.

So I found myself in a strip mall parking lot that contained a multi-services recruiting center.

"Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines!  What a great place to start!"

I didn't have any idea which branch, and didn't care either.  I just knew I had to go.

I wasn't all gung ho, Semper Fi do or die, goodnight Chesty Puller where ever you are.

I sat in my vehicle for quite some time, then I went in.

I looked at a few brochures of all the branches for a few minutes...and I was being totally ignored by pretty much all of them.

While the Army, Navy, and Airforce recruiters were smoking and joking and jerking off, the only guy who bothered to come out of his office and approach me was a Marine.

His name was Staff Sergeant Stanfield.  

I'll never forget him.

He never lied to me.  He told me it'd be tough, and that it wasn't for everybody.  He didn't make any promises.  He said the change would be forever, and he was right.

I signed on the dotted line.  It was November 1983, and I would ship for boot camp in January 1984.

In the meantime, I had one more wrong mistake to make.

Wearing my old IU ROTC shirt...

When it came time to ship, I wore my IU Air Force ROTC t-shirt to USMC boot camp! 

THAT went over real well. 

I was still a moron at that point.

Now, some of you might be saying, "Zoomie!  You can't POSSIBLY be that stupid!  Please say you're joking and you really didn't do that!"

On the contrary.

I was, and I did!  

I actually gave it some thought. 

I figured it would show them that I was a fellow traveler and supporter of the military. 

That I was on THEIR side, and we could be pals! 

 

About 30 seconds after stepping onto the yellow footprints and seeing that nothing ANY one of us recruits did would stop the coming hell-storm, I was clawing at that goddamn t-shirt with my bare hands trying to rip it apart so it wasn't legible! 

 

Mission failed.

Louis Cameron Gossett Jr. is not amused

Anyhoo...

As the plane rotated and went wheels up from Indy to San Diego, I thought of Led Zeppelin and "Going to California."

Spent my days with a woman unkind,
Smoked my stuff and drank all my wine.

 

Made up my mind to make a new start,
Going To California with an aching in my heart.

 

Someone told me there's a girl out there
With love in her eyes and flowers in her hair.

 

Took my chances on a big jet plane,
Never let them tell you that they're all the same.

 

The sea was red and the sky was grey,
Wondered how tomorrow could ever follow today.

 

The mountains and the canyons started to tremble and shake
As the children of the sun began to awake.

 

Seems that the wrath of the Gods
Got a punch on the nose and it started to flow;
I think I might be sinking.

 

Throw me a line if I reach it in time
I'll meet you up there where the path
Runs straight and high.

 

To find a queen without a king;
They say she plays guitar and cries and sings.
La la la la

 

Ride a white mare in the footsteps of dawn
Tryin' to find a woman who's never, never, never been born.

 

Standing on a hill in my mountain of dreams,
Telling myself it's not as hard, hard, hard as it seems.

Right.

I also thought, "This is my last chance.  If I fail at this, I'm done, and I won't return to Indiana ever again."