George's Blog

Another Great Day

georgespink@gmail.com (George Spink) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:48:00 +0000

I don't have any children, but I have taken care of my cousins' kids from time to time.

I remember when I took my cousins Barbara and Donna's daughters to see "An American Tail" in the late 1980's. Elise and Rachelle were 5 and 7 years old at the time. They sat in the back seat of my car and fought the entire time on our way to the theater. How ironic, I thought. My cousin, Billie, who is two years older than me, and I always fought in the back seat when we were kids. So did Barbara and Donna.

"If you two don't stop fighting," I told Elise and Rachelle, "I'm turning around and taking you home." Words I had learned from my mother long ago....

"We'll be good!" they promised.

And they were -- for about a minute!

When we arrived at the movie theater, Elise and Rachelle kept arguing while we waited in line for a few minutes. A few adults gave me dirty looks. I ignored their glances and remarks. I knew what was about to happen. I had taken Elise and Rachelle to the movies before.

From the beginning to the end of "An American Tail," Elise and Rachelle sat next to me like two little angels. The three of us loved the movie.

I thought back to all of those Saturdays in the late 1940's and early 1950's when my cousin Billie and I fought on the way to see westerns. Then we were spellbound watching Hopalong Cassidy, Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, or the Lone Ranger and Tonto. Of course, we resumed fighting on our way home.

And so did Elise and Rachelle.

Their mothers were waiting in the kitchen at Barbara's house when I dropped off the girls. They told their moms how much they loved the movie.

"What do you say?" Barbara asked them.

Elise and Rachelle turned to me, smiled, and said, "Thank you, Cousin Georgie."

It was another great day.

George Spink
Los Angeles

It's That Time!

georgespink@gmail.com (George Spink) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 06:07:00 +0000

Dave Barry is the Pulitzer Prize-winning humor columnist for the Miami Herald. This column about his colonoscopy was originally published on Feb. 22, 2008.

I called my friend Andy Sable, a gastroenterologist, to make an appointment for a colonoscopy.

A few days later, in his office, Andy showed me a color diagram of the colon, a lengthy organ that appears to go all over the place, at one point passing briefly through Minneapolis.

Then Andy explained the colonoscopy procedure to me in a thorough, reassuring and patient manner.

I nodded thoughtfully, but I didn't really hear anything he said, because my brain was shrieking, 'HE'S GOING TO STICK A TUBE 17,000 FEET UP YOUR BEHIND!'

I left Andy's office with some written instructions, and a prescription for a product called 'MoviPrep,' which comes in a box large enough to hold a microwave oven. I will discuss MoviPrep in detail later; for now suffice it to say that we must never allow it to fall into the hands of America's enemies.

I spent the next several days productively sitting around being nervous.

Then, on the day before my colonoscopy, I began my preparation. In accordance with my instructions, I didn't eat any solid food that day; all I had was chicken broth, which is basically water, only with less flavor.

Then, in the evening, I took the MoviPrep. You mix two packets of powder together in a one-liter plastic jug, then you fill it with lukewarm water. (For those unfamiliar with the metric system, a liter is about 32 gallons). Then you have to drink the whole jug. This takes about an hour, because MoviPrep tastes - and here I am being kind - like a mixture of goat spit and urinal cleanser, with just a hint of lemon.

The instructions for MoviPrep, clearly written by somebody with a great sense of humor, state that after you drink it, 'a loose, watery bowel movement may result.'

This is kind of like saying that after you jump off your roof, you may experience contact with the ground.

MoviPrep is a nuclear laxative. I don't want to be too graphic, here, but, have you ever seen a space-shuttle launch? This is pretty much the MoviPrep experience, with you as the shuttle. There are times when you wish the commode had a seat belt. You spend several hours pretty much confined to the bathroom, spurting violently. You eliminate everything. And then, when you figure you must be totally empty, you have to drink another liter of MoviPrep, at which point, as far as I can tell, your bowels travel into the future and start eliminating food that you have not even eaten yet.

After an action-packed evening, I finally got to sleep.

The next morning my wife drove me to the clinic. I was very nervous. Not only was I worried about the procedure, but I had been experiencing occasional return bouts of MoviPrep spurtage. I was thinking, 'What if I spurt on Andy?' How do you apologize to a friend for something like that? Flowers would not be enough.

At the clinic I had to sign many forms acknowledging that I understood and totally agreed with whatever the heck the forms said. Then they led me to a room full of other colonoscopy people, where I went inside a little curtained space and took off my clothes and put on one of those hospital garments designed by sadist perverts, the kind that, when you put it on, makes you feel even more naked than when you are actually naked.

Then a nurse named Eddie put a little needle in a vein in my left hand. Ordinarily I would have fainted, but Eddie was very good, and I was already lying down. Eddie also told me that some people put vodka in their MoviPrep.
At first I was ticked off that I hadn't thought of this, but then I pondered what would happen if you got yourself too tipsy to make it to the bathroom, so you were staggering around in full Fire Hose Mode. You would have no choice but to burn your house.

When everything was ready, Eddie wheeled me into the procedure room, where Andy was waiting with a nurse and an anesthesiologist. I did not see the 17,000-foot tube, but I knew Andy had it hidden around there somewhere. I was seriously nervous at this point.

Andy had me roll over on my left side, and the anesthesiologist began hooking something up to the needle in my hand.

There was music playing in the room, and I realized that the song was 'Dancing Queen' by ABBA. I remarked to Andy that, of all the songs that could be playing during this particular procedure, 'Dancing Queen' had to be the least appropriate.

'You want me to turn it up?' said Andy, from somewhere behind me.

'Ha ha,' I said. And then it was time, the moment I had been dreading for more than a decade. If you are squeamish, prepare yourself, because I am going to tell you, in explicit detail, exactly what it was like.

I have no idea. Really. I slept through it. One moment, ABBA was yelling 'Dancing Queen, feel the beat of the tambourine,' and the next moment, I was back in the other room, waking up in a very mellow mood.

Andy was looking down at me and asking me how I felt. I felt excellent. I felt even more excellent when Andy told me that It was all over, and that my colon had passed with flying colors. I have never been prouder of an internal organ.

On the subject of Colonoscopies...

Colonoscopies are no joke, but these comments during the exam were quite humorous..... A physician claimed that the following are actual comments made by his patients (predominately male) while he was performing their colonoscopies:

1. 'Take it easy, Doc. You're boldly going where no man has gone before!'

2. 'Find Amelia Earhart yet?'

3. 'Can you hear me NOW?'

4. 'Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?'

5. 'You know, in Arkansas, we're now legally married.'

6. 'Any sign of the trapped miners, Chief?'

7. 'You put your left hand in, you take your left hand out.'

8. 'Hey! Now I know how a Muppet feels!'

9. 'If your hand doesn't fit, you must quit!'

10. 'Hey Doc, let me know if you find my dignity.'

11. 'You used to be an executive at Enron, didn't you?'

12. 'God, now I know why I am not gay.'

And the best one of all:

13. 'Could you write a note for my wife saying that my head is not up there?'

Chicago: Hog Butcher for the World

georgespink@gmail.com (George Spink) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 18:47:00 +0000

George Spink
Los Angeles, California
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The Dark Side of California Dreamin'

georgespink@gmail.com (George Spink) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 19:48:00 +0000

Until a couple of weeks ago, California Dreamin' was one of my favorite songs from the '60s. Then Mackenzie Phillips told Oprah that she and her father, John Phillips, who co-wrote California Dreamin', had an ongoing sexual relationship. Now it's hard for me to listen to that song.

Until a few weeks ago, Chinatown was my favorite movie. I must have watched it dozens of times. Then I heard that Roman Polanski, who directed Chinatown, drugged a 13-year old girl with Quaaludes in her champagne so he could take sexual advantage of her. This was in 1977, eight years after Polanski's wife Sharon Tate was murdered by the Manson family. I knew before about the sex with a minor charge and the fact that Polanski had fled the country, but had never heard about the drug and alcohol aspect of it. It's hard for me to think about watching Chinatown again.

Until 2003, I loved many of the records Phil Spector produced. I even bought a box set of LPs Spector released on his own label that constituted a history of the music he'd produced over the years. After I found out Phil Spector could have and likely did murder actress Lana Clarkson at his home in Alhambra, I never listened to those records again.

I know there's a lot of euphoria right now about Woodstock during its 40th anniversary celebration, but for me, the 2000s have been a decade of increasing disillusionment about '60s culture, just because so many of the people from the '60s I've admired over the years have fallen from grace.

Alan Morrison
Santa Clara, California
Email: Email Me

Songs of 1967

Sputnik

georgespink@gmail.com (George Spink) — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 18:47:00 +0000

Those of us who were born before 1950 remember Oct. 4, 1957 very, very well. It was the day the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first satellite. The U.S.S.R. showed the world that they had outpaced the U.S. in space technology, if only for a short while. The Space Race was underway.

Click this image to learn more about space exploration.
I had just begun my senior year at Morton High School in Cicero, Illinois, a Chicago suburb made infamous by one of its deceased residents, Al Capone, a generation earlier. Some of my buddies were sons of mobsters. Their parents were always kind to me. I loved their mom's Sicilian cooking! They always called my mom to ask if I could stay for dinner! She always said, "Yes!"

Many of our teachers at Morton were WW II veterans who went to college after the war on the G.I. Bill. They were serious students who became excellent teachers.

I already was studying math and science when Sputnik went into orbit. I loved my courses. My classes at Morton were from 7:45 to 12:20. Freshmen and sophomores attended classes in the afternoons; juniors and seniors attended in the mornings. There were more than 5,000 students at Morton. Morton West did not open in Berwyn (closer to my home) until September 1958. Morton also had a two-year junior college. It was a busy place! I loved going to Morton!

And, like many of my classmates, I worked part-time after school. I was a file clerk at Western Electric's gigantic Hawthorn Plant along Cicero Avenue from 1 to 5 pm M-F. The Hawthorn Plant employed 48,000 people. The plant operated around the clock, three shifts a day, seven days a week. It made Bell telephones and switching equipment for Bell Telephone Companies around the nation. Western Electric operated a similar plant of the same size in Kearny, New Jersey -- which, incidentally, had an ethnic mix like Cicero's. Kearny was often used for outdoor shots on the HBO series, The Sopranos.

Everyone at Morton, at Western, and among my family and friends in Berwyn was amazed by Sputnik. Did this mean the Soviets would soon be able to fire missiles carrying nuclear warheads? How come we weren't the first country to launch a satellite?

These questions haunted us for the next decade. JFK promised us that we would land a man on the moon by the end of the 1960's -- and we did!

Those were exciting times! I am glad I lived through them. I am glad we all lived through them....

George Spink
Los Angeles, California
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Röyksopp

georgespink@gmail.com (George Spink) — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 06:01:00 +0000

Who's That Girl in the Rosetta Stone Commercial?

georgespink@gmail.com (George Spink) — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 02:56:00 +0000

Every time I see the Rosetta Stone commercial, I wonder the same thing: Who is that beautiful spokeswoman who appears in it?

Today, I visited Ask.com and asked that very question. I learned instantly that she is Lesley Ann Machado, a married mom here in L.A. who is very, very good at her work -- and so very, very easy on the eyes....

Lesley Ann has a My Space Page that tells us about herself and has some terrific photos!

Learning who she is and a little about Lesley Ann made my day!

George Spink
Los Angeles
Email Me

My Romance with Computers and the Internet

georgespink@gmail.com (George Spink) — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 14:48:00 +0000

As a high school student, I developed a love of mathematics, thanks to some terrific teachers at J. Sterling Morton High School in Cicero, Illinois. They were World War Two veterans who went to college on the G.I. Bill and did well in their studies. Their enthusiasm for math was inspiring and contagious.

The size of the shaded area "S" under the curve in the above graph can be calculated exactly using calculus. This is an integration problem. In high school and college, I loved math problems like this!

In college, I took almost enough math courses to constitute a major. But it was the early 1960's. John Fitzgerald Kennedy was President. I became intrigued by politics at home and abroad. I majored and graduated with honors in political science from Northwestern in 1963.

I went to Stanford for graduate work in political science. I took more math courses as well, including advanced social statistics and advanced probability theory. In the 1970's, my background in higher math helped me as I worked on and eventually earned an MBA with a specialization in finance from the Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago. Some of its faculty applied efficient markets theory to finance. Three of them -- Merton Miller, Myron Scholes, and Eugene Fama -- later earned Nobel Prizes in Economics for their efforts. I studied with Miller and Scholes; Fama was on leave that year (1975-1976).

Going hand-in-hand with my mathematics courses at Stanford and my finance courses at Chicago was learning how to use computers to solve statistical problems.

At Stanford in 1963-1964, I learned how to use a keypunch machine to enter statistical data on IBM cards. I then dropped off my "batch" of IBM cards at the "batch" processing center. Everyone waited in turn for the employees at the center to process their cards. Sometimes the wait was only a few minutes, sometimes hours, and sometimes overnight, depending on how busy they were.

An IBM keypunch machine circa 1963
When you received your IBM cards back and checked the accompanying computer printout, sometimes you caught an error in the data you entered. You had to make a replacement IBM card and then submit the whole batch of cards to be processed again.

This was tedious, to say the least, but it sure beat doing and re-doing all the calculations manually on a Frieden calculator -- a good backup in any case.

Keep in mind my statistics course assignments usually involved three to five problems, three times a week, so I spent quite a bit of time keypunching, take my cards to the batch processing center, waiting, checking, and sometimes doing it all over. This was state of the art in 1963 and 1964.

All that changed by the early 1970's, when I began working on my MBA at the University of Chicago. A statistics professor at the University, Harry Roberts, developed an ingenuous computer program called IDA, short for "Interactive Data Analysis," in the late 1960's. In a short time, Roberts had licensed the use of IDA to dozens of colleges and universities around the nation. IDA was a spreadsheet program with 110 columns and 19 rows and contained a number of built-in mathematical and statistical functions. All a user had to do was enter the data, double-check it, and then enter the corresponding formula in a cell.

Voila! The result appeared instantly!

In the early 1970's at the University of Chicago, we entered data using Teletype terminals connected to a mainframe, a real improvement over keypunch equipment. By 1975 these were replaced by dedicated IBM computer terminals that students and faculty could use in computer facilities located around campus. These terminals featured an advanced version of IDA and a word-processing program students and faculty could use for research papers and homework. Students often saw future Nobel Prize winners hunting and pecking away, but in time, professors farmed this work out to eager graduate students.

In the mid-1970's, Apple Computer introduced their first model. Although Apple was the pioneer, other companies soon entered the picture, including IBM, whose PC soon became the preferred brand for corporations from coast to coast and around the world. But Apple and IBM clones, such as Osborne, Compaq, and Hewlett-Packard, fought for their shares of the business and the growing personal computer market.

On St. Patrick's Day in 1983, I bought my first home computer, an Apple IIe, which sits on the computer desk behind me and still works beautifully some 26 years later!

I had a Hayes 300 baud modem installed in my Apple IIe when I bought it. I had been reading home computer magazines for months and knew I would like having a modem. At the time, a 300 baud modem was state of the art. A few months later, Hayes introduced a much faster 1200 baud modem, but I kept my 300 baud unit.

When I bought my Apple IIe, I also purchased two software programs, WordStar, a word-processing program, and VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet program. Each cost $250, increasing the total purchase of my Apple IIe to $3,000! Remember, I bought these items in March 1983 -- using my income tax refund that I received on March 16th!

Throughout the 1980's, I used my Apple IIe for many personal and business projects, adding software as I went along. I took advantage of the modem capability to send out press releases as emails to the PR Newswire, AP, and UPI in Chicago. In time, my boss bought me an identical Apple IIe for my office because he appreciated all the work I was doing at home in the evenings. Sending copy for press releases, quarterly and annual reports, corporate fact books, and brochures to clients both in Chicago and around the nation cut down the costs dramatically of messenger services such as Federal Express and their local counterpart in Chicago.

I subscribed to three online services in the 1980's using my Apple IIe: CompuServe, The Source, and Dow Jones. These services were forerunners of the Internet, which wasn't introduced until the early 1990's and really took off as that decade unfolded.

In the late 1980's, Apple introduced the Macintosh, or Mac for short, which really challenged IBM supremacy.

An early Apple Mac
I used it at work because of its superb desktop publishing capabilities, thanks to the Mac's terrific graphics capability and a desktop publishing software program called PageMaker.

I'm writing this on a Compaq Presario I bought four years ago to replace my first PC, made by a small Illinois company called Proteva, which I bought as a lark in July 1999 while watching the Home Shopping Network. Over the six-and-a-half years I owned my Proteva, I used it so much that I finally wore it out. My Compaq Presario still works like a charm!

A Compaq Presario
Personal computers and the Internet have changed my life immeasurably, making it more enjoyable and productive. As a writer and editor, I've come to take for granted word-processing programs and a free online blogging software program, Blogger, which I've been using for about six years.

Blogging is an easy way for people
to create their own online presence.
Today, I also enjoy using Twitter and Facebook.

I no longer pay for software such as Microsoft Office, which I once used constantly. Instead, for the past three years, I have been using a comparable free program from OpenOffice.

In September 2000, a friend of mine gave me a copy of Microsoft's FrontPage program, one of the first issued for building web sites. A month later, using FrontPage, I launched my big band web site, Tuxedo Junction. Like a model railroad, Tuxedo Junction has grown ... and grown ... and grown. Today, it has visitors from more than 55 nations and always ranks among the top big band sites on the Internet.

It is the combination of advances in personal computers and in the Internet that make all of this possible. Here is an excellent video that shows so beautifully how the Internet developed.

By the way, one feature of the Internet, packet switching, is based on a concept patented by the beautiful, Austian-born -- and very bright -- actress and scientist Hedy Lamarr and her husband in the early 1940's. Yes, women have played an important role in all this from the start!

Hedy Lamarr

I began thinking about all of this today after reading an excellent, brief article on this subject on the always-intriguing Bit Rebels web site.

If you have any questions or comments, please email me.

George Spink
Los Angeles
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Olga Kay Plus Two in Bed

georgespink@gmail.com (George Spink) — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 23:33:00 +0000

September

georgespink@gmail.com (George Spink) — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 07:01:00 +0000

How to Super Chill Coca Cola in Two Minutes!

georgespink@gmail.com (George Spink) — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 05:47:00 +0000

Do You Wanna Date My Avatar?

georgespink@gmail.com (George Spink) — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 01:20:00 +0000

Felicia Day posted her "Do You Wanna Date My Avatar?" video on You Tube on Monday, Aug. 17, 2009.

Today is Friday, Aug. 21, 2007. Felicia's You Tube video had 1,778,806 views as of 3 PM Pacific Time). That is phenomenal!

To see why, just watch (I recommend Full Screen):

Visit Felicia's web site to learn more about this sexy, imaginative, creative, talented, and beautiful young woman:

http://feliciaday.com/

George Spink
Los Angeles

Let Freedom Ring

georgespink@gmail.com (George Spink) — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 16:08:00 +0000

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Chicago The Beautiful (1948)

georgespink@gmail.com (George Spink) — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 14:08:00 +0000

Chicago
Tommy Dorsey, Sy Oliver and The Sentimentalists

To Each His Own

georgespink@gmail.com (George Spink) — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 15:42:00 +0000

Like many families during the 1940's, my family consisted of my parents, my mom's father, her two younger sisters, her youngest brother, and me. We lived in an old, two-story frame house in Berwyn, Illinois, about eight miles southwest of downtown Chicago, that my parents bought in 1944 from my mother's father, who bought it in 1922. His name was William Miller. Born and raised in Dublin, his parents emigrated with him to the United States around 1900. Grandpa and Grandma Miller had seven children, five girls and two boys.

I entered this world in September 1940 and grew up hearing music all the time. My mother and my Aunt Dorothea, whom everyone except me called Mike because Grandpa Miller was hoping for another son, listened to the radio all day long. Aunt Ruth, who worked as a telephone operator for Illinois Bell, began collecting 78's around 1937. She bought two or three records a week and stored them safely in albums that held 10 records each. Her albums are now stored in my cool, dark hall closet.

In 1946, Eddy Howard recorded a song that everyone in my home loved, including me. Aunt Ruth was especially fond of it. It is called To Each His Own:

Eddy Howard
All across America, millions of others loved this song, too. I'm sure many of you are familiar with it, but perhaps you haven't heard it for awhile. I feel it is one of the most beautiful songs of the 1940's....

George Spink
Los Angeles, California
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Here's My Latest Twitter Mosaic

georgespink@gmail.com (George Spink) — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 15:55:00 +0000

Get your twitter mosaic here.

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The Eagle Has Landed

georgespink@gmail.com (George Spink) — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 20:12:00 +0000

On July 20, 1969, my wife and I were living in an apartment near Belmont and Broadway in Chicago's Midtown neighborhood, a block west of Sheridan Road and two blocks west of beautiful Belmont Harbor, where so many yachts were docked. We had been married the previous October.

My mother shared a flat with a woman she used to work with in Berwyn, the town where I was born and raised. Mom managed the Burny Brothers Bakery Store at the Oak Brook Shopping Mall. She drove in from Berwyn to watch the moon landing with us. When she arrived, she told us that traffic was unusually heavy for a Sunday because so many others also were visiting loved ones around the city that day to watch the moon landing with them.

I would turn 29 that September. I had been interested in outer space since I was a boy, when my dad bought me an atlas that explained our solar system in great detail. In 1950, the year after my parents bought our first TV, I watched "Tom Corbett - Space Cadet" and "Captain Video" every afternoon. I loved the old Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers serials from the 1930's shown on WGN-TV.

One movie came out in 1950 that I'll never forget: "Destination Moon." It was about man's first trip to the moon. TCM showed it earlier today, along with other films about space travel. In 1950, I hoped but never dreamed man would walk on the moon in my lifetime. In 1961, our new President John Fitzgerald Kennedy promised us that man would indeed walk on the moon by the end of the decade.

Listen to the BBC coverage:

And we did! We made it to the moon! Unbelievable!

George Spink
Los Angeles
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Walter Cronkite (1916-2009)

georgespink@gmail.com (George Spink) — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 04:26:00 +0000

On the morning of Friday, Nov. 22, 1963, I was in my first-year of graduate school at Stanford. My class in advanced probability theory began at 11 o'clock.

About ten minutes into the class, one of my classmates came running into the class crying, saying "The President's been shot! The President's been shot." She was a cute, red-haired, freckled-face girl who often sat by me. Our professor, Emanuel Parzen, asked her to calm down. Instead, she turned and ran out of class. Professor Parzen then reminded us that it was the weekend of the big Stanford-Cal football game. He said that rumors ran rampant every year on this weekend and then showed us mathematically how unlikely it was that the President had been shot.

After class, some friends and I headed to the Student Union. We saw that the TV lounge was jammed. CBS-TV's Walter Cronkite was talking about what had happened in Dallas. Then he paused.... Hesitantly, Cronkite told us that President Kennedy had died. He removed his eye glasses and wiped tears from his eyes. Like almost every one in America, Cronkite was deeply saddened by the assassination of President Kennedy.

On the following Monday, Professor Parzen openly apologized to our classmate for not believing her when she told us JFK had been shot.

Walter Cronkite will be missed by so many of us. If you are old enough to remember his broadcasts, think of all the news he brought to us over the years. He had a low-key, natural way of delivering the news.

In the late-1960's, I joined a group in Chicago called Businessmen Move Against the War in Viet Nam. I was glad to meet others who shared my opposition to the war. Cronkite, I later learned, shared our views. If you're too young to remember the 1960's, you should know that most Americans supported the Viet Nam war and resented anyone who opposed it.

I am only one among many, many people who are glad that Walter Cronkite was here while we were and did such an amazing job bringing us the news.

Goodbye, Walter! Thank you for enriching our lives....

George Spink
Los Angeles

So Long for Awhile....

georgespink@gmail.com (George Spink) — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 15:41:00 +0000

One of the many, many joys of living in Chicago was listening to Chuck Schaden's wonderful radio show, "Those Were the Days" every Saturday afternoon. Chuck began doing this show in 1970.

Anyone who loves old-time radio, as I do, loves Chuck's show. And, thanks to the Internet, old-time radio fans everywhere have been able to listen to Chuck's show beginning on the Tuesday after it aired for the following week by visiting Chuck's online Nostalgia Digest.

Chuck Schaden

I loved hearing the Chicago references on Those Were the Days. Everyone brought back warm memories to me. And I loved hearing the old radio shows. Born in 1940, I heard so many of them on the radio when I was a boy.

My favorites were Sky King, The Lone Ranger, and Gangbusters. I also liked Your Hit Parade on Saturday nights. I also remember my mother and my aunt Dorothea, who lived with us, listening to the soaps every weekday at noontime. My mother's favorite was The Romance of Helen Trent.

In recent years, Chuck's Those Were the Days has aired on WDCB-FM in Glen Ellyn, Illinois from 1 to 5 PM every Saturday. Now 75, Chuck has decided to retire. After all, 39 years has been a long run!

Chuck has given me his kind permission to feature his last broadcast, which aired on Saturday, June 27th.

The show continues with a new producer and host, Steve Darnall. And it wouldn't surprise me if Chuck returns to host Those Were the Days once in a great while.

Thanks for the memories, Chuck!

George Spink
Los Angeles, California
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Michael Jackson: Thanks for the Memories

georgespink@gmail.com (George Spink) — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 01:17:00 +0000

I was returning from a doctor's visit this afternoon here in L.A. when a woman boarded my bus and announced that Michael Jackson had died a few minutes earlier.

At first, no one believed her. After all, Farrah Fawcett died this morning and Ed McMahon died on Tuesday.

But could it be true that Michael Jackson died as well?

A couple of minutes later, two more women boarded and said the same thing.

Rock With You - Michael Jackson

When I arrived home about 20 minutes later, my roommate and I watched the crowd growing outside UCLA Medical Center where he had died. We thought about going to the Center for a vigil.

As we watched the reports about Michael Jackson's death, I thought back to the day in 1993 when I met Michael Jackson. I was working as a salesman at Allied Model Trains in Culver City, then the world's largest toy train store. Michael Jackson was in Los Angeles, on trial for allegations of child abuse. About 2:45 PM, to my surprise, Michael Jackson and a friend of his walked into Allied and back to my area of the store where we sold LGB and Lionel trains. I often waited on celebrity customers, including Bruce Springsteen, Donald Sutherland, Rod Stewart, Mel Harris, Harold Ramis, and Richard Crenna, but seeing Michael Jackson in person was still a big thrill for me.

I showed them around the store. They admired all the merchandise and the dozen or so operating train layouts, especially the large LGB and Lionel layouts in my my area.

At one point, I began asking Michael Jackson about his music, about Quincy Jones, whom I first heard about in the early 1960's (I still have Jones' first LP). Michael Jackson could not have been more polite or cordial to me. I mentioned how much I loved jazz and big band music, rock and blues. And being from Chicago originally, I knew nearby Gary (his hometown) fairly well. We talked about an hour.

Now Michael Jackson is gone. I can't believe it. I am stunned.

Looking back, I am glad that we shared a few moments together.

Rest in peace, Michael. And Farrah. And Ed.

Thanks for the memories, Michael....

George Spink
Los Angeles
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The Whole World Is Watching!

georgespink@gmail.com (George Spink) — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 20:47:00 +0000

Neda Soltan (1983-2009)

The Chicago Transit Authority - Aug. 29, 1968

Peter Paul and Mary

George Spink
Los Angeles
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Do You Use Twitter?

georgespink@gmail.com (George Spink) — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 05:58:00 +0000

Do you use Twitter?

I'be been doing so for about six months and get a big kick out of it. Here are some photos of Twitter friends I've made since I joined.

Get your twitter mosaic here.

Visit my Twitter Page to see what it's like!

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George Spink
Los Angeles
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INVASION!

georgespink@gmail.com (George Spink) — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 17:59:00 +0000

I was a little boy on D-Day, about three months before my fourth birthday. But I remember my father showing me the above one-word headline in the Chicago newspapers:

"This is the day we've been waiting for," he said.
D-Day - June 6, 1944

Some of the men in my hometown -- Berwyn, Illinois -- fought and died on D-Day. We later prayed for them on Decoration Day (now Memorial Day).

Whether the D-Day invasion would succeed was by no means certain. That we eventually defeated the entrenched, well-armed, and well-trained German army was a miracle.

D-Day was the beginning of the end of World War Two. We must always remember and pray for our brave young men who fought so valiantly on Omaha Beach.

Ten thousand of them died on D-Day.
Goin' Home
The Largo from the Second Movement
of Anton Dvorak's New World Symphony
Major Glenn Miller and His Band of the Allied Expeditionary Force

Thanks to their bravery, and the bravery of all of our soldiers and our Allies, I can remember what happened 65 years ago on the beaches of Normandy. We should all say prayers of remembrance and gratitude.

George Spink
June 6, 2009

The Music in Glee is Awesome!

georgespink@gmail.com (George Spink) — Sat, 23 May 2009 08:09:00 +0000

CrossCurrents, a local culture program on San Francisco PBS station KALW, had a piece on vocal harmony groups and the annual Harmony Sweepstakes the other day. There are some great Bay Area vocal harmony/a capella groups. One of the ones featured on the program was the LoveNotes. They do a version of Bohemian Rhapsody. I think they were inspired by Artists in Resonance, a UC Berkeley group that changes as the students flow in and out of college there--I vaguely recall them doing a version of this often-covered Queen classic.

Anyway, the summary of the Harmony Sweepstakes competition got me searching on Google News for a capella items, and up near the top in the search results was this Entertainment Weekly item on Fox's new TV program Glee, which will begin in earnest in the fall. The first pilot of Glee aired on May 19th. The plot, shades of Mr. Holland's Opus, involves a teacher who takes over responsibility for a high school's despondent glee club. The plot seems a bit trite on the face of it, but the show's actually good, and I was blown away by this last scene (try it in full screen--it's Fox's own YouTube post, so better quality than most, and you can click on a link to go to some clips of deleted scenes and songs near the end):

Fox has the full episode of this pilot here, but you'll need a high-bandwidth connection and will have to install the Move player Fox uses first. I've just got basic DSL, and it stalls on my machine as a result.

Amazon also has the full episode, and I just watched the whole thing with a basic DSL connection without it stalling.

One of the deleted songs is a cover of Bon Jovi's "It's My Life." I'd never heard the song before, but YouTube has an authorized version of the original here. Great song and a great lyric too. I wasn't a Bon Jovi fan before.

This ain't a song for the brokenhearted
No silent prayer for the faith departed
And I ain't gonna be just a face in the crowd
You're gonna hear my voice when I shout it out loud

It's my life
It's now or never
I ain't gonna live forever
I just wanna live while I'm alive

(It's my life)
My heart is like an open highway
Like Frankie said, "I did it my way"
I just wanna live while I'm alive
'Cause it's my life

This is for the ones who stood their ground
For Tommy and Gina who never backed down
Tomorrow's getting harder, make no mistake
Luck ain't even lucky, gotta make your own breaks

It's my life
And it's now or never
I ain't gonna live forever
I just wanna live while I'm alive

(It's my life)
My heart is like an open highway
Like Frankie said, "I did it my way"
I just wanna live while I'm alive
'Cause it's my life

You better stand tall
When they're calling you out
Don't bend, don't break
Baby, don't back down

It's my life
It's now or never
'Cause I ain't gonna live forever
I just wanna live while I'm alive

(It's my life)
My heart is like an open highway
Like Frankie said, "I did it my way"
I just wanna live while I'm alive

(It's my life)
And it's now or never
I ain't gonna live forever
I just wanna live while I'm alive

(It's my life)
My heart is like an open highway
Like Frankie said, "I did it my way"
I just wanna live while I'm alive
'Cause it's my life!

Source: elyrics.net

John Mellencamp's "Cherry Bomb"

georgespink@gmail.com (George Spink) — Fri, 15 May 2009 03:15:00 +0000

John Mellencamp's "Cherry Bomb" is one of my favorite recordings. When It came out in 1987, it knocked my socks off!

John Mellencamp
Cherry Bomb

Here are the lyrics (don't be bashful - sing along!):

Well I lived on the outskirts of town
In an eight room farmhouse, baby
When my brothers and friends were around
There was always somethin doin
had me a couple of real nice girlfriends
Stopped by to see me every once in a while
When I think back about those days
All I can do is sit and smile

Chorus:
Thats when sport was a sport
And groovin was groovin
and dancin meant everything
We were young and we were improvin
laughtin laughtin with our friends
Holding hands meant somethin baby
Outside the club cherry bomb
Where our hearts were really thumpin
say yeah yeah yeah
Say yeah yeah yeah

The winter days they last forever
And the weekends went by so quick
We ridin around this little country town
We were goin nuts, girl, out in the stick
One night me with my big mouth
A couple guys had to put me in my place
When I see those guys these days
We just laugh and say
Remember when

Chorus:
Thats when sport was a sport
And groovin was groovin
and dancin meant everything
We were young and we were improvin
laughtin laughtin with our friends
Holding hands meant somethin baby
Outside the club cherry bomb
Where our hearts were really thumpin
say yeah yeah yeah
Say yeah yeah yeah

Seventeen has turned thirty-five
Im surprised that were still livin
if weve done any wrong
I hope that were forgiven
Got a few kids on my own
And some days I still dont know
What to do
I hope that theyre not laughtin too
Loud, when they hear me talkin like this to you

Chorus:
Thats when sport was a sport
And groovin was groovin
and dancin meant everything
We were young and we were improvin
laughtin laughtin with our friends
Holding hands meant so much baby
Outside the club cherry bomb
Where our hearts were really thumpin
say yeah yeah yeah
Say yeah yeah yeah

Source: Lyrics Freak

I bet most of us had a Club Cherry Bomb in our lives when we were young. I know I did. Mine was called Big John's, a blues club in the Old Town neighborhood of Chicago two miles due north of the Loop. Big John's featured blues bands led by Paul Butterfield, Mike Bloomfield, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Corky Siegel and Jim Schwall, Otis Rush, Buddy Guy, Barry Goldberg and Steve Miller, and others.

That was when "groovin' was groovin." That was when we were young....

When was this? Between 1964 and 1966, two short years that seemed much longer to me. I finished a year of graduate school at Stanford in August 1964, stuck around for a couple of months, then drove back to Chicago, my hometown. My friend, Pam, took me to Big John's on my first night back. The music, the crowd, everything about Big John's mesmerized me. I went back the next night, and the next, and every night for the next two years -- until the powers that be closed it down.

Not long after I began hanging out at Big John's, I struck up a friendship with the manager, Bobby Wettlaufer. He offered me a job at Big John's checking ID's, serving as a bouncer, and working as maitre'd. How could I refuse? I worked Wednesday through Sunday from 9 PM until closing at 4 AM (5 AM on Sunday mornings).

What a time it was! Listening to John Mellencamp's "Cherry Bomb" always brings back good memories of those days. I am so glad I had them....

You can hear some of the great music I heard at Big John's and learn much more about the fun I had working there by visiting my Big John's web page.

George Spink
Los Angeles
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