I mentioned on the show today about the problems people are having getting those converter boxes for their old analog TV sets–my comment was, “anything that makes it harder to watch TV, I’m all in favor of!”  Now, it’s not that I hate TV, it’s just that I think people watch way too MUCH of it. 

I’ve read a lot of studies about TV-watching, and there’s really nothing GOOD about it, health-wise.  It slows the body’s metabolism down–and not only that, a lot of people EAT while they watch, which is a guarantee for weight-gain!  Mentally, your brain comes to a stand-still.  Even the so-called “educational” shows do very little to stimulate actual learning.  (I have to laugh when I hear parents talking about how their kids only watch the “educational” shows.  It would be far better to actually DO something educational, like go to a museum or on a nature walk, than to WATCH something educational!)

This is a constant struggle at my house.  My wife is a “TV-watcher,” she comes from a FAMILY of “TV watchers.”  Her Mom and Dad turn the TV on very first thing in the morning to watch the news and get the weather, and they just LEAVE it on all day.  To them, the drone of the TV part of the fabric of their every day life.  I, on the other hand, have never been a “TV watcher.”  I think this is mostly because I grew up in a small town, back in the 1960s and ’70s, and there were only two channels available.  I played outside a lot when the weather was good, and when it wasn’t, I did a lot of reading.  I read most of the Nancy Drew and “Three Investigator” mysteries, as well as the “We Were There” historical fiction books.  When I wasn’t reading, me and my friends were playing games.  Board games, card games, you name it.  

Later, as an adult, when I started my radio career, I was working at night, when all the popular prime time TV shows were on.  So, I just never got into the TV habit.  However, I also know that when something is on TV, I tend to get “sucked into it.”  It really is addictive.  And with 100+ channels of cable TV, there’s always SOMETHING interesting to entangle my interest and keep me from doing something productive.  That’s why I prefer the TV to be OFF!

However, my kids are more like my wife.  TV and video games, that’s what they enjoy.  I think they’d watch TV all day, if I let them.  My wife and I agree that’s not a good thing, but we have trouble enforcing the limits.  It’s just so EASY to let them sit and vegetate, rather than police other activities.  I confess, the TV makes a great “babysitter” when I’m doing something around the house and don’t want to be interrupted. 

Anyway, that’s my “take” on TV.  Sometimes I seriously think about cancelling our cable subscription and just having NO television.  When my son was first born, back in 1995, my wife and I agreed to go an entire YEAR without televsion!  We un-plugged the TV on New Year’s Day, 1996, put it in the closet, and went the entire YEAR, without watching ANY television!  People are shocked when they hear me say that, like it’s impossible to do, but we did it.  My wife has often said that it was a lot harder on HER than it was on ME!   Could we do it again, go a whole year TV-free?  I don’t know…I’ve THOUGHT about it, though!… 

Friday I played Queen’s song, “Another One Bits The Dust,” and made reference to what happens when you play the song backwards.  I got several e-mails from people asking what I meant–I guess I thought EVERYONE remembered/knew the story!

Back in the 60s and 70s, and even the early 80s, there was quite a bit of controversy over “backward-masking” of lyrics, where artists–supposedly–inserted subliminal messages in their songs by recording the messages backwards.   Well, when you played “Another One Bites The Dust” backwards, it sounded like they were saying “it’s good to smoke marijuana!”  I was a Top 40 DJ in those days, and, after hearing the rumor from some high school kid who called up on the request line,  me and one of the other jocks recorded the song onto a reel-to-reel tape recorder, then reversed the reels, and–sure enough–that’s EXACTLY what it sounded like Freddy Mercury was saying!  It was creepy!  

You might wonder how this is possible, but if you remember, in the song, he kinds of says “another one bites the DUST-UHH!” By adding that last syllable, it makes the phrase pretty distinct when you play it backwards.

Now, I doubt that Queen INTENDED it to come out that way–just one of those crazy rock-n-roll coincidences!  But anyway, now you KNOW about it! 

There’s an “open house” this weekend at the Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport, 9a-4p Saturday.  If you like vintage aircraft, you’ll LOVE this!  [Too bad my father-in-law lives in Houston, he’d be all OVER this!]  There’s gonna be fly-overs from Air Force and Navy jet squadrons, plus a bunch of vintage aircraft on display on the ground.  They’ve even got one of the FEW remaining B-17 bombers from WWII.  Best of all–it’s FREE!  Get more info at their website, flyrmma.com!  Tell ‘em you heard about it on KOOL 105!

I mentioned this THURS on the show–but forgot to post the information!  Fortunately, there’s still time to participate, if you’d like…

The “Reader’s Digest” people are putting on a big book sale, to raise money for the Windsor tornado victims.  It’s at their warehouse–call Marilyn Hartig to get information and directions, (970)226-4332.

 BTW, there’s ALREADY been almost three quarters of a million dollars donated to help the tornado victims–nice work!  You have been VERY generous!

Got out the SCRABBLE game last night with the kids, we probably hadn’t played in a couple years.  It can be a frustrating game if you don’t know how to spell that well, and last time we played the kids were younger–I’m thinking second, third grade.  They were much more into it this time. 

I’ll tell you, SCRABBLE is a great game for family bonding.  (If you can get past the squabbling, which I supposed is part of every family!)  We played a kind of co-op version, where everybody helped everybody else get the best word.  It was a good game for me, I scored the fifty point bonus for using all seven tiles, TWICE!  I got “p-a-t-r-i-o-t,” and “n-o-o-g-i-e-s!”  Everybody laughed at that one! (I mentioned on the radio that I thought I did it THREE times, but I forgot that I came up short once, with “q-u-o-t-e-d,” although on THAT one I played the “Q” on a double letter score, and got the double WORD score square, too–BIG score!) 

It’s interesting to me which words strike a chord with the kids.  I helped my daughter make the word “naive,” and then she later added “-te” to it, to make “naivete!”  They all thought THAT was a funny word, too, and were using it for the rest of the night.  Cool that playing a game can improve your kids’ vocabulary!

Wouldn’t it be fun to have a KOOL 105 Scrabble night somewhere?  Anybody wanna take me on?

Have you ever heard of this movie?  Tom Hanks wrote it and stars in it, it came out in the mid 1990s.  My wife and I pulled this movie out of the VHS drawer Friday night, we’d already watched it a few times, but I got the urge to watch it again, so we did.  What a GREAT movie.  If you’re a fan of the music scene from the 1960s–and I’m thinking if you listen to KOOL 105, you probably are–I can’t see ANY way you won’t absolutely LOVE this movie!  For me, it’s sort of bittersweet, in that there are several scenes where radio stations are involved with the story line.  It reminds me of the “golden days” of music radio, when stations were “bigger than life,” and they played such an important role in launching the careers of unknown bands.  Today, that role has been swiped by the internet! 

The movie is really sweet and fun, it avoids any of the “dark” stuff from the ’60s and paints a rather idyllic picture–light, innocent and joyful.  But the best–and most amazing–part of the movie is the soundtrack.  Instead of using actual hit songs from the 1960s, Tom Hanks wrote NEW songs in the style of the era, and wrote them into the storyline.  So you have the Chantrellines, Diane Dane, Del Paxton and many more, from the Play Tone Records Caravan of Stars!  The songs are AWESOME, and SOUND like they could have been on the charts in the mid 60s…it’s just incredible.

 Anyway–HIGHLY recommended!