Crystal Cat Whisker

At the dawn of radio, people discovered that by using household items, they could build a simple radio receiver to pick up news, weather, farm reports and other broadcasts at very little expense. No power source was needed as the radio waves picked up by a long wire antenna provided the induction. A crystal acted as the diode and a thin wire which touched the crystal bestowed the feline sobriquet which provided this post's title. They became very popular in the 20s & 30s.

I remember my Dad telling me the story of building one with his Boy Scout troop. He fondly looked back on nights listening to faraway transmissions. Imagination spurred me into action. With my "life savings", I purchased an old transmitter at an Army/Navy surplus store, ran a wire from my third floor bedroom window across the backyard to the garage roof. The crusty ol'coot who owned the surplus store had fashioned an AC plug out of an extension cord which gave the receiver power.


Looking out the kitchen window, Mom saw me precariously perched on the eave of the garage. Upon completion, she sat me down to await Dad's wrath for my recklessness. He came home, Mom explained the situation and up to my room we went. I expected chastisement until I saw his smile. Nodding his head, he examined the receiver and my rigged antenna. After dinner, we went up to my room, turned on the power and spent the rest of the evening tuning in Radio Free Europe, and other foreign broadcasts. Mom was less than thrilled with the outcome.


During the day, on Philly AM radio, I'd listen to Joe "The Rockin Bird" Niagara, Hi Lit and Jerry "The Geator with the Heater" Blavat. This was the early 60s before FM and AOR formats. In the evenings, I could tune in R&B and Blues stations from Chicago, Memphis and New Orleans. Music's nefarious influence began weaving it's magic spell on me.

The naivete of nostalgia produces rose-colored memories. My rambling recollections have extended this blog's brief intro into a mess of meandering, multi-paragraph musings.

The blurred focus of this missive was to be Internet radio. Webcast, streaming, whatever buzzword you wish to use, is taking the radio format to new frontiers. Wresting the airways from commercial hands, anyone with some digital savvy can now broadcast worldwide.

A good friend and blogbenefactor, Dave Custy, launched Baltimore Internet Radio this week. BIR will be Baltimore's global gateway. The programs will explore business, tourism, history, and shows of local interest including the music scene.  
****Shameless Self Promotion Warning****  My band, Without a Net, is the first interview on the Music Scene segment.

Here's the link:  http://baltimoreinternetradio.com/    Check it out! You wont be disappointed and won't have to climb onto a garage roof to listen. Though that would be cool. As ever - BB

"...my style was too erratic and hard to pigeonhole for the radio..." - Bob Dylan

Prognostication Woolgathering

In the summer of 1972, Springfield Creamery, owned by Chuck Kesey (brother of author, Ken) and his wife, almost lost the business due a competitor's heavy-handed tactics. The Grateful Dead came to the rescue with a concert. Bootlegs have emerged over the years, but this past Tuesday, the official DVD and CD were released.
 
In true "Musings & Doggerel" form, this blog does not concern itself with that.

Searching for a solution to their predicament, the Keseys turned to the Merry Pranksters who turned to the I Ching. This is considered one of the most ancient Chinese texts dating back several millennia. The I Ching does not foretell the future, but gauges the yin-yang of a situation to guide decisions.

During my mind-expanding past, I often referred to the Book of Changes. Tossing the three coins six times reveals hexagrams which refer to descriptions that you contemplate. I cannot say whether I received any true inspiration from the I Ching, but I did find the text thought provoking and heartening.

I also dabbled with the Tarot. Curiously, the card that emerged most frequently in my readings was the Fool. (Insert obvious joke/dig here)

Many would think these soothsaying shenanigans foolish. But the Fool is also a seeker of crazy wisdom, in Buddhist terms yeshe chölwa. This translates as "wisdom gone wild" - think Aristotle, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer and Foucault dressed in Hawaiian shirts drinking Jagerbombs with topless women in Cancun. 

During my first college sortie,  I studied metaphysics, epistemology, and ontology. That was followed by my "lost" period, but the search continued in the aforementioned unconventional areas.


Eventually the responsibilities and demands of the "real world" squelched my cerebral curiosity. I'm still not sure if that was maturity or cowardice. Regardless, it's now water washed under the bridge of time. 


Several years ago, I read an article in the Smithsonian. The author, a statistician, compared the success rate of modern prognosticators (weather and financial markets) to ancient prophecies like the Oracle of Delphi. Their track records were virtually identical. 


Perhaps my augury experimentation was not in vain. With that in mind, this morning I read dove entrails and the signs portend an auspicious outcome. As ever - BB


"Try another approach." - the I Ching 

Let Your Fingers Do the Walking

Last Friday evening I drove home, found a good parking spot (urban denizens who depend on street
parking understand the serendipity in this) and was ready for a weekend in Fells Point. Right there on the front stoop was the new phone book - a large paper anachronism.

Gone are the days when a jerk would leap in joy exclaiming, "The new phone book is here! The new phone book is here!"

Obsolete now, though for some reason they insist on printing it. Another piece of antiquated telecommunication equipment is the telephone booth. Known as a place to cram college students and as Superman's changing room, they have become virtually impossible to find. I'm not talking about the aluminum and plastic shells, but those four-walled, collapsing door sarcophagi.

The phone booth holds a special place in my heart. Well not exactly in my heart. For explanation, enter my way-back machine and travel to the summer of 1967.

It's a sultry July night. Myself and a motley congregation of like-minded, bored 13-year-olds, wander the empty streets of Haddonfield looking for something to occupy our time. One of the group mentioned an older brother who had to "light a fart" as part of a college fraternity initiation. A pack of matches appear. We soon discover that flatulence is indeed flammable.

This provided one night of amusement, but mid-summer tedium was ubiquitous. Our ingenious, yet
perilous, imaginations devise a game to occupy our time - Fart Baseball. The playing field was a phone booth located in the center of town by the A&P market.

We divided into two teams. The back corner of the booth opposite the telephone was marked with four lines - single, double, triple and home run. The batter, well really the farter, would bend over with his posterior pointing at the delineated corner.  He would signal the on-deck farter when he was prepared to expel his "hit". The match was lit, and the height of the ensuing blaze measured against the aforementioned lines. If the flame did not reach a single, or if the gas did not arise before the match extinguished, that was an out. As the "runners" advance by other "hits," scores were tabulated. The abridged game was four innings.

We embraced the competition. Days were spent eating beans, broccoli, cabbage and other ammo-fueled foods. Evenings were spent in camaraderie scented by methane and sulfur. Our amusement generated more players, a league was planned with playoffs and a World Series scheduled for Labor Day weekend.

Eventually, a mob of teenagers hanging in front of a closed grocery accompanied by occasional fiery eruptions attracted the local constabulary. I will never forget the looks on their faces as we described our newly invented American pastime. Haddonfield is a small town, so the officer in charge knew most of us and our parents. Shaking his head, he told us to disperse. He would be too embarrassed to explain this stupidity to our parents, but warned dire circumstances should he see us "playing" again.

We tried a few games in other locations, but our pastime fizzled out...gone with the wind you might say. As ever - BB

"Surprising, given the impact of the fart on the life of the American boy, how little you still hear about it..." - Phillip Roth from The Great American Novel