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Blame It on David Lee Roth
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 So what brought me back to blogging? It's all David Lee Roth's fault. As previously mentioned, Diamond Dave has always been a fount of inspiration for me since I was 15. Recently he took over Howard Stern's radio show.
It had slipped my mind until my pal Scroll reminded me and said he had become hooked on the daily MP3 digest available from iTunes. I found a link to the entire archive of Roth shows and downloaded three or four. Though the execution was bumpy, seat-of-pants and clearly needed fine-tuning, Dave's 100-mile-an-hour raps got my engines revving again. Forget his "Dude, I'm sooo stoned!" image, the guy can tell you all about the history of Israel and the Balfour Declaration and put it into a nutshell so a guy like me can get it. The day he interviewed Ted Nugent and discussed bow hunting and Fred Bear was orgasmic. `Nuge convinced me I should spend some time reading Scientific American.
Roth got me so excited, I even flirted with the idea of starting a petition to bring his show to Atlanta. Unfortunately the program was scrapped before I even got to Kinko's. Dave prides himself on being a hip 52 year old, but the direction he wanted to take the show was heavily influenced by dated ideas from the early `60's radio he grew up with, before the concept of niche marketing arose. He was playing Latin bumper music and throwing in Spanish and Portruguese phrases (he speaks both fluently) saying, "I'm gonna make a radio show for everybody!" Sorry, Dave, but those execs at CBS who cut your show short were right. Spanish guys are going to turn on the local Viva station and hear Latin music played by real Latins. Your audience is exactly who those CBS guys told you it was: 35 year old white guys who like Lynrd Skynrd. Though I ate up the Balfour Convention and Cafe Wha? discussions, I'm afraid most of your fans are just looking to hear some good, loud farts. Got any?
 Deprived of that dose of David Lee adrenalin, bereft of incentive to buy an iPod, I turned to E-Bay and bought Roth's 1997 autobiography, Crazy from the Heat. More great stuff. Not just boring tour tales, but advice on the right way to see Edinburgh Castle and Huntsville, Alabama (at night, by bicycle), and how to pick an accountant and attorney.
A prolonged dose of Diamond Dave convinces those who are susceptible that there's a big, wide, colorful world of high adventure out there, and if you're not diving in you're just a prisoner of your own mind. So here I am on the diving board. "I've been to the edge/and there I stood and looked down." And now...I leap.
Enjoy a clip of vintage Dave!
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Posted by Art | 10:15 PM EST |
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http://ghostofxmaspast.blogspot.com/
Meanwhile, here is a guy who will never work in radio. Sues college station and burns every bridge in sight. According to his legal brief, he was doing a show called The Rant and Rave. A show that relied on "political satire, parody, provocative humor and 'shock jock' programming." He was also on the student body and had major altercations with other students. He pretended to take Vicodin on-air for a highly promoted "show" (a la Rush) and ridiculed a few enemies. He graduated, then sued.
Wikipedia posting here (Occidental College). Pull up a chair, get a cup of coffee and laugh your arses off!
Legal brief: http://www.thefire.org/pdfs/d9455ac37b5fef73f20d26389b9c6f5d.pdf
Current programming (KOXY 104.7):
http://koxy.org/shows.cgi
All I can say is bring back David Lee Roth.