Rant-Man's Notebook

By Jim "Rant-Man" MacQuarrie

Caller Ten, Call Now

First order of business: A couple of weeks ago, I did a cartoon for The Fourth Wall showing Daredevil, the blind superhero. Being the unthinking lout that I am, I neglected to give proper credit for it. Just so everyone knows, my daughter Ashley is the one who thought up that gag. Thanks, Ash.

One of the surprising things about living in Los Angeles is the selection of radio stations, or rather, the lack thereof. One would think that the largest (or second-largest; it's damn big, let's not quibble) radio market in the US of A would have a wide variety of stations from which to choose. One would think that, but one would be wrong. There are a lot of stations, but they all play pretty much the same thing. There are a whole slew of spanish-language stations, a bunch of urban/hip-hop ones, a couple of top 40 ones, some easy listening stations, maybe two jazz stations and one classical, and various degrees of the alternative-to-rock spectrum. Also a bunch of talk stations. All the stations are owned by the same three or four corporations, so there's constant cross-promotion and all the playlists are carefully calculated to reach their target demographic. Depending on your tastes and language, there may be two or three stations total that you would listen to regularly.

The thing that annoys me about this is, when I was a kid, the radio stations played a wide variety of stuff. If you were listening to, say, KHJ, you might hear the Beach Boys, followed by Johnny Cash, followed by Little Stevie Wonder, then Strawberry Alarm Clock, followed by Iron Butterfly, then the Four Tops.... There was variety. It wasn't all packaged and balkanized like today.

So I've been looking for a radio station that doesn't blow. I can't listen to rap, I'm not keen on "all rock and roll oldies" or "the smooth sound" or "the radio station everybody in the office can agree on." Among the stations that I like, the morning deejays get on my nerves in a big way. What to do....

Fortunately, one of the heartless corporations that own all the radio stations decided to try something new a few months back. They dumped one of their talk stations and replaced it with standards. You can listen online at the Fabulous 570. They play a lot of Sinatra, Rosemary Clooney, Ella Fitzgerald (did I ever mention that my wife owns one of Ella's old dresses?), Bobby Darin, and all the rest of the Rat Pack-era singers, along with newer performers like Diana Krall, Steve Tyrell, Norah Jones, and Rod Stewart (he just put out an album of standards). Now if they'd just add Eva Cassidy and some of Rickie Lee Jones' standards, I'd be a happy man.

I love this music. Always have. When my brothers were listening to the Beatles, I was listening to Harry Belafonte. When they were Led Zepplin fans, I was playing stuff from before we were born. Maybe I was accidentally born in the wrong decade. I like a good melody instead of all that thumping, and lyrics that actually have something to say and a clever way of saying it. Cole Porter, Harold Arlen, Irving Berlin, the Gershwyn brothers, these guys could write.

Anyhow, last Wednesday, I was driving to work listening to my favorite radio station (the one my kids loathe) and the deejay announced that Caller Ten would win two free tickets to see Steve Tyrell at the Catalina Bar & Grill on Cahuenga. (If you've never heard of him, he sang "The Way You Look Tonight" in the wedding scene of Steve Martin's "Father of the Bride.") So I called. I won the tickets. It was for that night, the 10:30 show. The wife and I drove down and went to the show. Steve (I got introduced to him, so I can call him Steve) tends to skew to an older crowd, so the 10:30 show was a bit sparsely populated. We had a great table, and the music was great.

About halfway through the second song, my wife nudges me and says "isn't that Punchy?" Punchy is a bass player that I know. He's called Punchy because he's Hawaiian. We hadn't seen him in a while, and this guy had a little goatee that Punchy never had, so I wasn't sure at first. I kept waiting for some sign of recognition from him, but I figured he couldn't see us with the light in his face. Finally, about halfway through the set, he recognized Terri and waved to her.

It turned out that he hadn't recognized me because I had shaved off my own facial hair. His first comment was "I hope you didn't pay to get in, because I could have put you on the guest list, no problem." Of course, it turned out that somebody at the bar made an error and put the cover charge on our bill anyway, so we DID pay to get in, but a phone call to the manager the next day got that straightened out.

We ran out the next day and did some Valentine's shopping. I got Terri two of Steve's CDs, and she got me Diana Krall's Live in Paris CD, among other things. So now I'm happy, but the kids are going nuts. "Can we PLEASE play some Barenaked Ladies?!!??!" I never knew that music had such power to torment.

Philistines.

Okay, to be completely accurate, they don't really hate this music. They just hate it when I sing along. They're still Philistines.

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