Dick Summer Connection

I’m sitting here scratching my head…and trying to figure out… how come every nation in the world can have a financial crisis all at the same time. I mean…what happened to all the money ? When you find yourself scratching your head over stuff like that, it’s time for a vacation.

 

I have a globe…you know…a map of the world on a ball, that turns so you can see all those countries that don’t have any money any more. Some of them, like Australia, are hanging down there hoping they don’t fall off. I have found myself wondering…if I held my canary up over my globe of the world, would the bird start thinking…oh my God, I’m way too high…it’s time for a vacation.

 

I volunteered to be the designated driver for a bunch of buddies who were going to a party last week. They all had a wonderful time…but they got really drunk…and I had a hard time resisting the urge to drop them off at 2am but at the wrong houses…it’s time for a vacation.

 

When you see a light at the end of a tunnel, and your only thought is, “God, I hope that’s the bathroom”…you’re either getting old, or it’s time for a vacation.

 

Growing old sneaks up on you an inch at a time. You start reading instruction manuals instead of just putting stuff together…you start listening to books on tape because all the songs on the top 40 all sound the same…you order stationary that has your name printed on it…you don’t go to day baseball games because you can’t take all that sun…and you realize it has been a long time…a very long time…since you actually played  a baseball game.

 

When you look in the bathroom mirror and you realize that anything that isn’t sticking out is hanging down…right. It’s time for a vacation.

 

I’ll bet you get the idea of where this is going. It is going on vacation. And so am I. The biggest problem with a vacation is you never have enough time to do all the nothing you want to do.

 

My Lady Wonder Wench and I haven’t really taken many vacations. That’s the way it is when there are lots of kids, lots of concerns, and lots of getting fired because you’re in the broadcasting business.

 

We’ll be staying in a hotel right next to a seafood restaurant again this time, because both my Lady Wonder Wench and I plan on doing away with a good percentage of this year’s lobster catch. I’ve often thought about how we began eating lobsters. I mean picture some cave guy…maybe one of those guys who were doing those tv commercials a while ago…anyhow…Mr. Ogg the Cave Guy comes home after a day of fishing at the beach, and he tosses a lobster down on the cave floor and says to Mrs. Og, “here cook this tonight.” Look…he’s lucky she didn’t say, “What are you nuts ? Get out of here with that thing and come back when you’ve evolved a little more.”

 

Have you ever really looked at a lobster? They have some of Howard Stern’s dna. They have lots more legs than they need, and eyeballs shooting out in all directions…and huge feelers that are always flipping around…they look like the really big ones could pose a threat to a nuclear submarine. You would never pet a lobster. And I’m convinced that it wouldn’t come if you said, “Here boy.”

 

Dick’s Details Quiz…all the answers are in the current Podcast at www.dicksummer.com

 

1-    What was it that started the “Lorena Bobbitt Movement ?”

2-    What effect does a bed partner have on the average man?

3-    What causes sheep to snore ?

 

 

Lobbsters aren’t the only thing you can find when you go down to the ocean. There’s a story in the Night Connections 2 personal audio cd about a guy who found a lot more than he was expecting down at a beach. The story is called The Head Hunter’s Woman.

 

If you like it, you can just keep the podcast. Or if you want a fresh copy, just go back to the home page, and download it from the Night Connections 2 icon.

 

We’re going away on vacation tomorrow. And you know how sometimes a song starts playing in your head over and over and over again…and you tell it to stop…and it won’t. Lots of time when you think about it, either the name of the song, or one of the important lines in it has to do with something that’s really been on your mind. That happened to me tonight when I was thinking about going on vacation with my Lady Wonder Wench.

 

It’s been a tough year. She had a terrible accident this year…and she’s been worried about a couple of the kids…and I’m threatening to retire at the end of the year…can you imagine if she has to put up with having me around all the time…anyway…it’s been a nasty year for her. So I guess it’s appropriate that the tune that’s been going around in my head for the last couple of hours, is an old song…and it’s an appropriate old song for a couple of Louie-Louie Generations lovers like us. It’s called…”There’s A Time For Us.”

DICKIE’s QUICKIE – 3-25-09

I |NEED A VACATION !

N  O   W !!!!!!!!!

 

 

Some things just work out for guys. Occasionally we win…even when we screw up and we should go down to bitter defeat. A little while ago, my Lady Wonder Wench said…”eee-youuu.” That’s Lady Wonder Wench talk for “Please come over here and kill this bug for me.”  So I did…without thinking that this particular bug happened to be walking on the kitchen table at the time…and that was NOT exactly where Lady Wonder Wench intended for me to do the deed.  

Like a lot of Louie-Louie Generation guys, sometimes I just don’t think things through. That’s why we need guidance from Big Louie…his own bad self…the Chief Mustard Cutter of the Louie-Louie Generation. He makes things so simple. He says, “Just figure out what you don’t do well, and don’t do those things.” Brilliant. He says, “Deep down we’re all pretty superficial”…and he’s right. He says “Why make things complicated. The answer to the common cold is gesundheidt.” Danke schon ! is all I can say. But his explanation for why a guy is attracted to a particular woman is one of his top ten best. He says, “Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder”…that’s one of my favorites.

 

Big Louie’s philosophy is based in part, on his own personal experiences. He had a tough childhood. He claims his father brought him home from the maternity ward strapped to the fender of the family car. When he grew up he met a girl and promised to swim the deepest river for her, and climb the highest mountain…and cross the widest desert for her. They got married, but then she divorced him after a couple of months because she said he was never home. So in order to deal with certain personal cravings, he bought an inflatable woman, and when he blew her up, it looked just like his ex wife.

 

Big Louie became a scholar…and an expert on the musings of the philosopher known as Popeye the Sailor Man…who always said, “I yam who I yam who I yam.” And I am delighted to report that

Proud Podcast Participant Steve Crowley has followed Big Louie’s example. Steve has posted his own web site…and it’s really a fine piece of work. He says his site is broad band for the broad minded.” I like that. It’s honest and it’s to the point. You can check out Steve’s site at http://mono-cheese-factory.com

 

Steve got me to thinking that it’s been a while since I told you what the weekly podcast and this blog is all about. It’s about connection, company, and a kick in the butt.

 

Here’s what I mean: Lots of people helped me get through lots of nights for lots of years while I was on the air. And I hope that worked around the other way too. I don’t want to lose a connection with those people. They were important to me then, and they’ll always be important to me as long as there are nights to get through. That’s the main reason I call the podcast GoodNight. Nights can be tough. That’s the connection part of the podcast.

 

The company part works like this. There are lots of people who hear this podcast who never heard me on the air. I like keeping company with them too. One of the toughest things about nights…one of the biggest reasons we need some company… is that nights can be Godawful lonely. I’m not quite so egotistical to think that just a few minutes of conversation on the podcast, or a few sentences in this blog is any kind of adequate substitute for an in person…person… in anybody’s life. But hey…it’s a genuine human interaction. It’s company. It’s better than nothing.

 

And the kick in the butt works like this. Quite a few Louie-Louie Generation people have limp limbic systems. Your limbic system is the part of your brain that lights up when a guy walks into a room and a woman’s eyebrow…twitches…and he notices and understands. And some heat ensues. Or a woman thoughtfully puts some padding on her headboard when she invites a gentleman friend over for a late dinner…just in case.

 

Louie-Louie lit our limbic systems when we were kids. All the guys had the “absolutely and completely authentic official lyrics” on slips of paper that we kept in our wallets…and the more popular girls didn’t mind if we sang them softly into one ear at the record hops. You remember record hops. Yes you do.

 

It’s easy to let your limbic system go limp when times get tough…when you’ve had to join groups like Parents Without Paychecks…and some days it seems like it takes all you’ve got to keep up with the losers. Once you moved like a cat. You were the Fonz of the disco…now you move as little as possible, and you dance a little like the Pope probably dances.

 

Part of that comes from a lot of years of being disappointed and deceived. Louie-Louie Generation people have been around for a while. Some of us haven’t trusted any body since we found out that ice cream cones aren’t filled all the way to the bottom. And getting your heart broken and your head cracked over and over again really louses up your limbic system.

 

So lots of Louie-Louie Generation women cope by always having pms…which is why some guys cope by always having espn.  And sometimes all of us seem to forget that life is just a phase we’re going through…and we’ll be over it soon enough. That’s why I want to give us all a kick in the butt. I say when you catch yourself saying things like…”Don’t tell ME what kind of a day to have,” it’s time to pay attention to Big Louie when he says…”Of course the world sucks. But if it didn’t we’d all fall off.”

 

Dick’s Details quiz. All the answers are in the current podcast at www.dicksummer.com/podcast/latest

 

1- Why couldn’t the Inca Indians write their entire long history ?

2- Why do giraffes have such clean ears?

3 If you get a phone call in the middle of the night, and all you hear is heavy breathing…how do you know you have probably been contacted by a giraffe who wants to kiss you?

 

 Dick’s Details. They take your mind off your mind.

 

There’s a story in the Night Connections Personal Audio cd about a woman whose limbic light got lit up pretty good when she was hit with a quick and surprising power surge, while she was just sitting in her living room, minding her own business, looking at her husband. It’s about three magic words…”anything you want.”

 

When you say, “anything you want”…you’re jumping off an emotional cliff. The story is called, “The Chance Taking Wife.” If you like it you can just keep the podcast. Or if you want a fresh copy, just go back to the opening page of the website, and download it from the Night Connections icon.

 

Sometimes…guys luck out. Even when we have no right to win. Here’s what I mean: I think as far as you women are concerned, guys are mostly like big dogs who can talk. Most of us really like to curl up in bed with you, we like to lick you, and we tend to be very messy.  But I think that deep down, lots of women have a hunch that they could get along just fine without us. Somebody once said that if there were no men in the world, we would have no wars, we would have no organized crime, and we would have lots and lots of fat, happy, women. Somebody else once said, “A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.” Well…maybe so.

 

But here’s why guys win. What would you do without a guy when a big ugly bug lands on your kitchen table.

 

Ha !

I have become an expert at sitting here in my big, comfortable black leather pappa chair in my living room. I never knew I had such a knack for resting. I haven’t let myself go to the point that my knees buckle and my belt doesn’t. But…I used to be buff…and lithe. I try not to tell lithe, so I can no longer tell you that I am buff these days.

I’ve got to face it. I am a Louie-Louie Generation guy, with the kind of body that I have developed from using an exercise system that was developed by Big Louie his own bad self…the Chief Mustard Cutter of the Louie-Louie Generation. Big Louie always says, “Remember when exercising, no pain… Good.” It is the kind of body that you shouldn’t pour into a black shirt open to the navel, and go jumping up and down at a televised convention of conservative political figures… like a certain radio mouth we know. 

A long…long time ago, my Lady Wonder Wench told me that when I walked into the room, her lower reptilian brain went on maximum overload red alert, and she experienced a highly elevated pulse, plus salivation and the sweats. I recently overheard her describing me to one of her friends on the phone…and the description went something like, “He has life in his face. He has kind of a  rugged look, especially when he’s wearing his pilot sun glasses. He has a nice smile and he has a warped sense of humor that’s kind of neat.” Her reptilian brain was not part of the conversation.

Now, I like having a nice smile, and rugged looks while I’m wearing my pilot sun glasses. But I must admit I’d be more than willing to swap the smile and the sunglasses for at least a drop or two of sweat and saliva.

I was invisible. I was an invisible man. Actually, becoming invisible might be interesting…like The Shadow. Remember…”who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?” In those days, the answer was, “the Shadow knows”….and then there was a long…dracula kind of laugh. These days if you asked the same question, maybe the answer would be Oprah Winfrey.

 The Shadow could cloud men’s minds so that they could not see him. Notice he didn’t cloud women’s minds. He liked them to see him. He probably had a good butt. His girlfriend was Margo Layne. Since all the guy’s minds were clouded they couldn’t see what The Shadow was up to with Margo. That’s why they all wondered why she was always wiggling around like that.

Actually, even if a guy could be invisible, if he took a shower, you’d be able to see his shape because of the water. He wouldn’t really be invisible…he’d look kind of transparent. My Lady Wonder Wench says we are anyway. Transparent I mean. I guess that’s ok. But I wouldn’t want it around the other way. I think if you’re looking right through a woman, you’re missing some of the world’s best sights. 

I remember when I was on the air at WNBC in New York, I asked what physical attributes a man has that elevate a woman’s pulse. A few women said his voice, lots of women said his eyes…but tons said…buns. I remember thinking…”Is it true that some women put their hair up in buns?” But seriously…bun worship is not a good development for a Louie-Louie Generation guy like me.

Dick’s Details Quiz – All answers are in the current podcast at www.dicksummer.com/podcast/latest
1- How do we know how sexy you were on New Year’s Eve ?
2- What do sexy people have in common with hummingbirds ?
3- What happens to a guy’s eyes when he looks at Catherine Zeta Jones ?
Dick’s Details. They take your mind off your mind. 

 Ladies do like to laugh though. And some guys…like proud podcast participant Jim King doubtless scores some points with his “twisted sense of humor.” He sent a story you may enjoy. It’s about the modern kid who asks his father “How was I born?” And his father figures the time has come for the traditional father and son talk so he says, “Your mom and I got together in a chat room on Yahoo. Then I set up a date via Email with your mom, and we met at a cyber café. We sneaked into a secluded room, where your mother agreed to a download from my hard drive. When I was ready to upload, we discovered that neither one of us had used a firewall…and since it was too late to hit the delete button, nine months later a little pop up appeared that said…you’ve got male.” By the way, my email address is dick@dicksummer.com if you feel like dropping me a note.

Not exactly a reptilian brain revver, but better than nothing Jim.
But Jim I hate to tell you but according to the calls from women I got at WNBC all those years ago, it wasn’t a sense of humor…it was a guy’s eyes that they thought was the next sexiest thing about a guy. But hey…the next night on the air, I asked guys what they thought made a woman sexy. And here’s what they said…in order…their intelligence, their hair and their eyes. Now I know nothing about women. But I know a little about guys. And here’s one thing about guys my little poll proves. Guys lie. Guys are not going to chase girls who went to Weight Watchers on a scholarship. And I don’t think women go gaga over a guy whose feet disappear when he takes his belt off.

That’s why both men and women who want to see a maximum of reptilian brain activity when they walk into a room spend time working out. There’s a story about that in the Night Connections personal audio cd. It’s called the Workout Woman. It’s from the Night Connections personal audio cd. If you like it, you can just keep the podcast…or if you want a fresh copy, just go back to the home page  and download it from the Night Connections icon.

Hey…for all us Louie-Louie Generation people…the hands on our biological clocks are giving us the finger. But remember what Big Louie…his own bad self always says: “Don’t throw your whole life away because it’s a little banged up.”

My buns may be going bad, but some other stuff in my life is going pretty nicely. My Lady Wonder Wench gave me a world class back scratch a little while ago…and when I turned around…she was smiling at me. We’ve been together for a long time. She was some babe when I met her, and somehow she has managed to hold on to her babe-hood.

 

The only words that get your attention faster than “Once Upon A Time” are “I love you.” Once upon a time. You want to curl up in front of a fire, light a few candles, put on some nice music…maybe a little wine…and close your eyes and listen.

Well, it’s once upon a time time tonight. Time for a story. Actually three stories. Two of them are love stories…one of them is dying and one of them is very much alive… and the third one is kind of a thread that connects the other two.

 

Let’s start with the connection thread story. Once upon a time, I had a cup of coffee with a young performer by the name of Tom Rush. It was in a diner, down the block from where I did the late night show on WBZ radio in Boston. Tom was tall and skinny…he had about 84 pounds of slightly un-tamed dark blonde hair…and he was wearing an old blue pea jacket and jeans. He was just in from a long road trip…mostly small to medium coffee house gigs in New England. He had kind of an easy George Clooney smile and that comfortable but careful way musicians have of laughing.

 

He looked like what he was… a talented young guy, who had just spent an exhausting month or so on the road.  He was slugging that thick New England coffee down pretty fast…trying to keep his eyes open and his mouth moving. Until he started talking about the tape. That’s when he lit up…and he stood up…and he rummaged around in his back pack for a small, battered reel to reel tape.

 

On it was his recording of a song that was written by an 18 year old Canadian girl…and he said both the girl and the song were the most beautiful things he’d ever met. There was something about him that made me promise to listen. So when I got back to the station…I did. And he was right. The song was called the Urge For Going. And the girl was Joni Mitchell. I played the tape so often it almost wore out. And it became a big hit in New England. Tom went on to become one of the top folk performers in the country. Even if you don’t remember his name, if you’re a member of the Louie-Louie Generation, you’ll probably remember his voice. So I played the title cut from his new album called “What I Know” on the current podcast.

 

The first of our Once Upon A Time love stories is really sad. Because the love affair is dying. It started one Christmas a long, long time ago, when Santa brought me an Emerson transistor radio. I turned it on, on Christmas day, and I don’t think I ever turned it off, except to change the batteries. I was just a little kid growing up in Brooklyn New York, but all these smart, sophisticated, famous people on the radio were glad to talk to me. There was Arthur Godfrey, and Jean Shepard, and William B. Williams. Especially William B. Williams. He was the evening voice on WNEW when I was a kid. He was your uncle, Hugh Heffner, Martin Luther King, and Robin Williams all rolled up into one voice. He called his show The Bachelor’s Apartment. And his guests were an endless parade of famous people and beautiful women. Willie’s was the voice I tucked under my pillow every night. And from the first time I heard him…I wanted to BE Willie.

 

That was the once upon a time start of the love affair that has to do with radio. Of course there could only be one Willie B. And it wasn’t me. But I did get to work at WNEW. And my first morning on the air, about a half hour before the show was over, the studio door opened, and there he stood. Willie B. He was such a classy guy. He smiled, shook my hand, and in that same Uncle Hugh Heffner, Martin Luther King, Robin Williams voice that used to hide under my pillow when I was a kid… he said…”Welcome to the staff. You sound fine.” It was a World Series ring, the Nobel Prize and an evening with Catherine Zeta Jones and her twin sister all rolled up into one.

 

It was a long love affair with radio. And a guy by the name of Matt Seinberg got me started thinking about it, when he put a bunch of air checks up on his wonderful Big Apple Airchecks web site. If you’re a radio junkie…or you’re just curious about the way things were with radio…go to www.bigappleairchecks.com and check it out. Fascinating stuff up there. Including lots of material from my time on the air. Matt’s doing a huge service…preserving the actual voices and sounds that dragged us out of bed in the morning, or hid under our pillows at night. Those sounds are mostly gone now. There are lots of screaming voices on the radio…shouting political venom, and lots of sound alike voices promising to play a half hour of your favorite songs, and lots of authoritative voices reading the news. But the voices and the sounds that Matt is preserving…are mostly gone.

 

That’s the way it has to be. The poet said the moving hand of time has writ, and having writ moves on. But a trip to Big Apple Air Checks would be a good move for members of the Louie Louie Generation…especially those of us who like to remember.  

 

If you’re new to this podcast, the Louie-Louie Generation is made up of people with almost constant headaches…because that’s what you get when you’re constantly pounding your head against a wall because of things someone directly related to you keeps doing…people who used to go skinny dipping, and now have to settle for an occasional clunky dunky…former members of the National Scholastic Hormone Association who are now doing graduate work at the Louie-Louie Institute for the Completely Bewildered. We used to throw open the window at 5am, and climb in…now…if it were not for the wisdom of Big Louie…his own bad self…the chief mustard cutters of the Louie-Louie generation, we’re just be a bunch of struggling hair farmers and hot flash dancers. Louie keeps us hopeful, and focused with words of wisdom like, “If at first you DO succeed, try not to look astonished.” And, Of course it’s lonely at the top. But it’s lonely at the bottom too. And you eat better at the top.” We’ve been around.

 

There’s a once upon a time story about a Louie-Louie Generation guy who’s been around in the Bedtime Stories personal audio cd. It’s called On The Prowl. That’s also in the current podcast.

 

If you like it you can just keep the podcast. Or if you want a fresh copy, just go back to the opening page at dick summer dot com, and download it from the Bedtime Stories icon.

 

Dick’s Details Quiz…all answers are in the current podcast at www.dicksummer.com

 

1- Why would you want to keep Pasi Pesonen out of your neighborhood?

2- What did one cow say to her friend about “The Gripper?”

3- Why would two Russian guys never want to face each other again ? Dick’s Details. They take your mind off your mind.

 

So, you’ve heard the story about the love affair that’s dying, and you’ve heard about the string that connects our stories tonight. And now it’s time for the other love story. It’s an old love story, but it’s getting hotter every day.

 

Once upon a time, a long time ago…there was a beautiful young woman…long soft brown hair…eyes the color the sky tries to imitate in June…a voice that you want to put your arms around and hold very close to your heart…kind of an easy, gentle laugh…a pair of glasses with blue frames and little rhinestones at the edges…and the most dangerous curves ever seen in Boston. She was a secretary, a ski-er a sexy smiler, and the person in charge of the program log at WBZ while I was there.

 

There’s a picture of her that was taken a few years later…while I was working at WNBC in New York.  It’s on the big apple air checks web site. She’s standing in front of the WNBC studios with our daughter Kris. Her name is Barbara Ann…my lady Wonder Wench. The love story we started…once upon a very long time ago…well…the last line of Tom’s new song ties thes old love stories together. It goes:

 

“I’m gonna love you love you love you till the day I die.”

 

Dickie – Quickie

File this under EGO I suppose. But I want to thank Matt Seinberg of Big Apple Airchecks for his incredible feature based on some of my air checks. It was a real head trip to listen to stuff from so long ago. My Lady Wonder Wench giggled a lot, but there was a little misty eyed stuff going on too. If you’re curious, go to www.bigappleairchecks.com

DICKIE – QUICKIE

Ok, so it snowed. I slogged over the the shed, got the shovel out…did some grunting and groaning…got the driveway done…AND PUT THE SHOVEL BACK IN THE DAMN SHED !!

DICKIE – QUICKIE

I would like to thank all of you who e-mailed and phoned to point out that this week’s podcast, which is all about spring, was posted on the day when the entire East Coast was hit with the nastiest snow storm of the winter. As “Big Louie…His Own Bad Self” always says…”OH YEAH ?”