Dick Summer Connection

Screw the cynics. I don’t care if Christ was born on December 25^th or not. I don’t want to hear the “We know it couldn’t have been in the winter because the shepherds were in the fields with their flocks and so it must have been in the spring…blah, blah, blah.” I’ve got a great looking Christmas tree up; our very old home made star is shining at the top; and the living room smells like Santa’s after shave. So Merry Christmas. And I open presents on Christmas Eve, because ever since Santa brought me a flying toy airplane when I was a kid, I lose control of my eyebrows. They tend to flip up and down under that kind of pressure. They also do that when my Lady Wonder Wench walks into the room wearing something she says is “a little more comfortable.” Cynics say you’ve got to be kidding after you’ve been together all this time. Stupid cynics. Cynics are dumb. Now they’re saying “radio’s dead, and the podcasts did it.” Sounds like the same song they were singing in the fifties when TV turned on. But a couple of guys by the name of Alan Freed and Murray Kauffman introduced rock and roll to “the kids.” TV only showed Elvis from the waist up. But radio “got down.” So far down that the cynics who called themselves “forces for GOOD in the community” had public destructions of rock records. Reminded me of Hitler burning books. Then in the 80s, AM radio was dead, until Rush Limbaugh lit the fuse on political talk. Cynics say he’s a right wing fascist, homophobic psychopath who should be SILENCED ! He’s everything they say he is, just like Sean Hannity, Dr. Laura, and all their imitators. But “Silence them!” ? Why ? They’re better than Saturday Night Live for laughs. Dumb cynics. Get a life.Cynics don’t think. They tell us there’s no way out of the Iraq mess. Sure there is. When all else fails, THINK. Shouldn’t be too hard to out think these guys. They’re a bunch of macho idiots who are ready to commit suicide to “have 74 virgins.” To me that shows a definite lack of thinking things through. Can you imagine 74 women in the same house ? All of them intent on being virginal ? I say bury an 800 gazillion megaton hydrogen bomb under downtown Baghdad, with a triggering device in some safe house in my home town Brooklyn, where people have lots of experience with dangerous weapons. Then bring all our troops home, and tell the entire region, we don’t care what kind of religion you want to follow, or what language you want to speak, or even if you want to let some other Hitler wannabe like Saddam take over your government, but one false move on our oil supply and it’s Lake Iraq. The bad guy’s cynics wouldn’t believe me, and they’d mess with the pipelines. So I’d tell all the civilians they had 24 hours to get out, and I’d push the button. And when the dust settled in a year or so, I’d ask the cynics running the rest of the countries in the world to guess if I’d hidden one of our 800 gazillion megaton hydrogen bombs in their countries too. We wouldn’t have to actually DO it. All we’d have to do is make them THINK.Cynics don’t really think things through. For example: “Boiled milk ??? LOUIE…are you nuts ?” “George Herman Ruth, you put that baseball away right this instant. Come in here and study so you can make something of yourself!” “Those nutty bicycle builders Wilbur and Orville were in here at the bank again looking for a loan. I told them to go fly a kite.” It’s safer being a cynic. They figure, “Why take chances ?” Most new and different ideas fail. So if you’re a cynic you get to say, “Ha…I told you so.” And if it doesn’t fail, you get to point out that it’s not perfect. “Hey… did you hear…there was another plane crash. Those guys should be STOPPED.”

“You have to “Grow Up” to get it.”And screw WDM, I still have faith that we’ll eventually find Xray glasses that really work….

And realize that Bosco is far superior to CocoMarsh…

And the ’59 Chevy was the best car ever…

And Sandy Becker would’ve made a better Pope than that German guy…

And Yoohoo in bottles…

And Three Musketeers bars for a nickel…

And nickels…

And singing harmony on a warm summer evening out on the stoop…

And nuthin’ to do…

And no guilt about doin’ it.

Merry All them holidays.

–Paul

Paul Berge
Ahquabi House Publishing, LLC www.ailerona.com
podcast: http://feeds.feedburner.com/rejectionsliptheater
blog: rejectionsliptheater.blogspot.com

My first girlfriend’s name was Margaret. She died Wednesday and I was going to cancel this blog, because I never got over loving her, and I’m not thinking very clearly right now. But she expected better things of the men in her life. Her name was Margaret. She was directly responsible for getting me drunk at a very early age. She was a beautiful blue eyed blonde. And a much older woman. She was my aunt. My mom’s kid sister.When I was about five years old, she married one of the world’s nicest guys. His name was Jim. When I was 5, I had just discovered olives. I loved olives. So did my 6-year-old cousin Herb. So Herb and I spent most of Margaret and Jim’s wedding reception sneaking the olives out of those funny glasses all the grownups had by their plates. I don’t remember exactly how the reception ended. But I dimly recall that my dad was laughing a lot as he carried me out to the car.Margaret knew I had a crush on her, and she cruelly fed my childish infatuation with milk, homemade chocolate chip cookies, and stories. Mom and Margaret both loved poetry and music. I told you that my mother read me poems, and my dad would read me stories when they put me to sleep. And when she came to visit, Margaret would always come into my room, give me a kiss, and a smile, and sing a little song. She had a high soft soprano voice.My Lady Wonder Wench and Margaret were good friends. Mom and her sisters and Wonder Wench were the only people in the world who were allowed to call Margaret “Margie.” Margaret had a wicked sense of humor, and she was anything but stuffy. But if you called her “Margie,” she would remind you in her firm but very ladylike way that “My name is Margaret.”

 

This blog got lost. I had it done several days ago and went to upload it on Sunday morning like I always do, and it was GONE. I did what any self respecting guy would do, I panicked. “Oh my God, I’ve got a flight in an hour, and there’s no way I can redo it in that time. I’ve been so busy I don’t remember what it was all about. Oh my God, I’ve got….” “STOP” says my lady Wonder Wench. She’s an accomplished horsewoman, and when she says “Ho,” horses stop for miles around. She has successfully translated that ability to the word “Stop.” Actually, I think she learned to say “Stop” with so much authority when she was a good Catholic girl, and she started dating. Won’t go there right now.So I came to a screeching halt. “All the people who read this blog and are counting on me to get it published on Sunday morning are going to be disappointed,” I said. She smiled that Wonder Wench Wifey smile. “Name two of them,” she said. Wives have a certain ability to put things into perspective. The one thing I remember putting in the original blog is the top five Christmas songs this year as reported by the radio stations. They are:1- Holly Jolly Christmas. – Burl Ives2- Christmas Song – Nat “King” Cole3- Feliz Navidad – Jose Feliciano

The Dick Summer Connection – Chapter 23.

The Rockefeller Center Christmas tree lighting is a national television event. It’s as “New York” as the Empire State Building. What a thrill it was walking under it every night when I worked at WNBC. But Boston Common at Christmas is where you want to be if you catch yourself falling in love. Been there, done that one long, long ago Christmas Eve. My lady Wonder Wench was my secretary then. We were falling in love, but Santa might not have approved. There’s a story about it in the current PodProgram, if you’re interested. I spent a lot of Christmas Eves broadcasting from the Common, so it’s very special to me that Oldies 103.3 FM in Boston is making the PodPrograms available on their website, just in time for this Christmas. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Boston, the Common is a park right in the middle of the city. Every Christmas, they put lights on almost every tree in the park. It’s not spectacular, like Rock Center. It’s quiet, and gentle. It’s a place for lovers, music and Christmas. Every year at Christmas when I was on the air in Boston, I asked people to write to me, and tell me what the season really means. And some of the answers were like…music. Some of the music was sad. Some was funny. And I had to record some of those letters, because I occasionally get choked up when I’m around something so beautiful. If you feel like sending an email to add your comments, my address is dick@dicksummer.com or you can simply add a comment at the bottom of this blog.This blog Connection has put me back in touch with some very old friends. People like Len Segal who was with me on the Common one of those magic Christmas Eve nights. This is what he wrote about it: “You asked listeners to write to you with their personal thoughts on ‘What Christmas Means To Me.’ You were struck by how much your listeners opened up their hearts and souls in those letters, and since you were doing the Christmas Eve broadcast from the remote studio on the Common you decided to read the letters outside the studio with the people who had come to see the broadcast. I thought you might have had one or two of your children with you. (I did. One of them grew up to be the guy who now runs the PodProgram page for me.) Your Producer, a fellow co-op student and (Northeastern University radio station) WNEU staffer had a fit at the thought of you going outside and broadcasting live. You over ruled him and did it any way, although he threatened if there was one swear word spoken he’d cut the mic and send the broadcast back to the studio. So then you and I scouted the area for a suitable burn barrel which we needed because when we went outside with the letters and everyone who was standing around gathered in a large circle holding hands, as you read the letters…one by one…you were going to throw the letters into the fire. That’s all I remember. By the way, I am Jewish, but spent many a Christmas Day with my Christian friends. It’s a spirit of good will that makes Christmas.”