Books Talk

            Not to brag, but I run with a pretty literate crowd. Not just the current bestsellers, but classics, even nonfiction. There’s a couple librarians in the group, an English teacher so you know it’s a bunch that knows and understands books. We don’t have like, a book club or anything but we do like to talk about what we’ve read. There are always things from the bestseller lists and from celebrities’ books clubs and that kind of thing. I do like to read books like that from time to time but they aren’t really my forte. Just in case you happen to be a reader outside the lists I thought I’d mention some of my tastes.

            First off, I like mysteries. Not those numbered or wittily titled series and not melodrama, romance or pornography masquerading as mystery. I like real mysteries and for me the apex was reached with Colin Dexter’s Inspector Morse books. I know mysteries are sometimes sniffed at, along with science fiction, which I also love. I think I enjoy the mind games that go on with these genres. The PBS series of Inspector Morse was excellent as well. I am less enthusiastic about the spinoffs, Inspector Lewis and Endeavor.

            The book/movie connections is another one of my book interests. Sometimes there’s a strong confluence but sometimes not. Usually the book is better, but there’s a few where I prefer the movie. The Natural is an uplifting movie but a dark and rather nasty novel. Jaws the movie is more enjoyable than the book. I Am Legend is quite different from all the movie versions  (I don’t say better or worse, but different). Planet of the Apes is also a fascinating but very different story from the movie (I refer only to the original. I do not acknowledge the existence of the remake). In particular I like it when I find out a recent movie was based on some old book, that always piques my interest.

            I also read a lot of nonfiction. It tends toward science, as that is my background but I love history too. I tend to mention these books less when we’re talking about what we’ve read. Once we were talking about what we were currently reading and I excitedly described the book I was on- one about the exact manifestations of random and nonrandom events and how we often perceive them completely wrong. My friend listened to my explanation and replied, “Wow. That sounds incredibly dull.” I followed that book up with one about traffic (cars, not drugs or human). I keep a running list of things I’d like to understand and keep an eye out for books that promise to explain them to me. I like those books about happiness. Not because I think I’m an especially happy or unhappy person, but because I think it’s interesting to see how the researchers attempt to quantify such an elusive concept. I also like books about the science of music, combining two of main interests.

            Which brings us to what I would have to consider my guilty pleasure, book-wise. I just love musician biographies. Because of my age I lean toward classic rock musicians, but I’ve read about Ludwig Beethoven, Duke Ellington, Jerry Lee Lewis, Buck Owens, Richard Farina, George Gershwin all over the gamut. Their stories are not only a tribute to the power of music in our lives but also give a slice of time history lesson.

            So don’t let anyone give you a hard time about your book selections. Unless of course, you aren’t a reader. In that case, shame on you, but more importantly you don’t know what you’re missing and how you’re depriving yourself. Vampires, zombies and bodice-rippers aren’t my cup of tea but lots of people love them and good for them! Don’t hide that trashy thing you’re considering about those tv personalities, read proudly, at least you’re reading. And sometime I’d love to tell you about that book on traffic.

Underground Radio

            When I was a kid, radio was AM (no, not morning-amplitude modulation). AM had some interesting quirks, some of which have returned in the form of satellite radio. It would cut out when you drove through a tunnel or a deep valley. It would go all staticky when you drove under power lines. The actual stations you could bring in on your transistor radio would change during the time of day. All day it would be the local stations, as you would expect. But at night-whoa- at night! I was in upstate New York, pretty close to the geographical center of the state. But at night, for reasons that have remained elusive to me, the local stations wouldn’t come in clearly. Instead, I would pull in stations from Buffalo, Wheeling, West Virginia and Nashville.

            The geographical oddity wasn’t the only quirk. The music selection was another. I listened to what was called Top Forty radio. In other words, the popular music of the day. The playlists weren’t fine-tuned to their audience like they are today. If the record was selling, it was on the air. What this meant was that I might hear, in sequence, the Beatles, Frank Sinatra, the Archies or the Percy Faith orchestra. On the one hand it could drive you crazy waiting for the songs you really wanted to hear. But it also gave me a background in lots of styles of music. Over the long passage of years, I’ve developed an appreciation (or maybe just nostalgia) for some of the music that used to send me screaming out of the room.

            But then, in the late sixties a new phenomenon occurred. It was late at night and I was roaming the FM dial (frequency modulation), at that time home to only classical music and news channels. Out of nowhere I heard rock and roll. Not just sort of, but the real thing and the full cut not just the AM, two-minutes-thirty edit. When the song was over, the DJ came on and wow. He spoke low and conversationally, he wasn’t shouting at me or talking over the end of the song. I continued to listen and he played more great music and between songs would continue to chat as if he was in the room. Sometimes he’d get real philosophical which I thought was definitely cool. I stayed up listening til about 2:00 in the morning.

            Next morning, I tuned in the same station and was horrified to find it was all religious programming. What was the deal? I couldn’t figure it. But that night, again much later I scanned in again and found my rock and roll. It was the same thing-music, laid-back monologuing and I now realized, no commercials! This time, the DJ mentioned the name of his show, it was called “Forerunner.” Among his musings he also mentioned that he’d be back tomorrow at midnight. Ah, now I got it. Religious programming by day, underground radio rock by night. I spread the news.

            Over the next months this station began expanding its rock show, first to earlier hours on the weekends, then every day. They started to come on after supper. More DJs were added, all cool guys and gals who knew a lot about rock and rebellion “against the Man.” The religious programming disappeared. During the day it became canned easy-listening and oldies. (Years later, I was privy to see the room where the big tape machines were kept that endlessly played during the time the rock music was not on). And then, one summer, they went full-time rock and roll. Those were heady times, radio-listeningwise. But like all good things, the end of those glory days came. Eventually the station decided they needed to go commercial. It was a huge controversy and I remember my favorite DJ, Carlos, giving a long, heartfelt explanation of why he felt he needed to leave if the station was going to have commercials. The station exists to this day and has been a dependable, if commercial, source of rock and roll.

            At the time we didn’t even know we were listening to “underground” radio (called pirate radio in England’s version). It turned out that it was a somewhat unique situation and I’m often reminding myself how lucky I was to be in on it.