Frost Bites #2 -- From Ringo To Doritos and More

Grandpa Rich's new coffee cup

Ringo Star…Yoko Ono….Doritos and Sliders….and Grandpa’s birthday cup that’s filled with love….In the dot-dot-dot tradition of late Detroit Free Press columnist Bob Talbert and Larry King’s old USA Today column – I bring you another edition of things rattling around in my head with “Frost Bites”.

I’m not biting Ringo and more importantly – I’m not going to buy it! The legendary Beatles drummer, Ringo Starr, has just released a new CD and he’s popping up on TV shows from “The Daily Show” to “The Jay Leno Show” to whet your appetite enough to go out and purchase it. It’s filled with stars galore – including fellow Beatle Paul McCartney who shares a cut on the CD with the ring’ed one…but even with star power like that…it doesn’t make this turd smell any sweeter. Critics have panned this CD and I can understand why if the rest of the album is anything like the song that he’s singing on these television appearances. The song is bad and Ringo, whose vocal abilities have always been somewhat limited, are being stretched to the point of making it uncomfortable for people listening to it to enjoy it. Ringo – do the world a huge favor to and live out the rest of your years on the residuals from the Beatles records and your cut from the Rock Band Beatles game and let kids from American Idol and elsewhere handle the music these days.

It should be noted that a few months back – I watched Yoko Ono and her son Sean do a guest appearance on the ABC morning show “The View”. Just seeing Yoko on the show is somewhat surreal – especially when you have folks like Barbara Walters and Sherry Sheppard asking her questions that don’t make her sound like a total whack job and then she and Sean performed a song for their new album. Needless to say, Yoko’s singing abilities haven’t changed over the years and my two dogs were literally nipping at my feet urging me to turn the channel over to Rachel Ray so that their ears could quick bleeding.

It looks like I’m going to have to replace my favorite coffee cup now. Being a creature of habit – for the last few years if I have had a cup of coffee or hot chocolate I had to drink it from my white WPHM coffee cup or I wouldn’t drink it all. On January 15^th, I was surprised when my girlfriend’s son came over with our two grandchildren to present me with a birthday gift – a brand new coffee mug. Instead of a coffee mug with a radio station’s logo – I’ll be enjoying my coffee out of a mug that has a picture of the two cutest grandchildren on the planet today (or at least in the St. Clair County area).

A friend that I use to work with at WTAC in Flint now works for Frito-Lay as one of their sales/delivery persons and during a recent conversation about some of the products that he delivers – he told me that a new flavor of Doritos was about to come out – Late Night Cheeseburger. It took about three weeks or so after our conversation for this new flavor to hit grocery store chip racks shelves in the St. Clair County area. Naturally, I had to grab a bag as soon as I seen them and to be truthfully honest with you, I wasn’t all of that impressed with it. They don’t taste bad – but the aroma of the chips is somewhat off-putting. In my opinion, when it comes to Doritos newest flavors – Sweet Spicy Chili is the best.

Another guilty pleasure – the all you can eat slider hamburgers at Golden Coral. There’s just something about these tasty little burgers that when I see them at Golden Coral I will load up my plate with four or five of them – they are that damn good. So, imagine my disappointment when I went there on the night of my birthday and found out that they only serve them during the day.

And for my money – when it comes to pure fast food junk food that I can’t get enough of -- it's the Baja Fish Tacos at Long John Silvers. The people at LJS could add a bit more lettuce – but what really grabs you about these 99¢ tacos is the spicy sauce and the crunchy fish bits. The next time you drive by a Long John Silver’s – reel in two or three of these fish tacos and enjoy them for yourself – you’ll thank me later.

What’s more frustrating – A) You call a business or government office and instead of the phone being answered by a human – it’s answered by one of those robo-operators that supposedly directs your call to the person that you need to speak with. It’s nice when the robo-operator works – but nine times out of ten it directs you to someone who can’t help you and doesn’t have the time or patience to even give a shit. Or there’s B) You call a business – let’s say Verizon, for example – and their robo operator asks about the problem that you may be having with your phone or phone line before it directs you to a live representative – only to have you waiting on line for over an hour and fifteen minutes and being forced to listen to the on-hold music, which sounds like the theme to “St. Elsewhere”, repeat itself endlessly. I’ll choose B and maybe just maybe they can do something to clear up my phone line so that my dial-up internet service can stay online longer than five minute bursts. It’s moments like these that you just want to throw in the towel and shout out “what the hell!”

My Facebook 25 Things You Didn't Know About Me List

It seems like a week doesn't go by when I don't recieve one of those "25 Things You Didn't Know About Me" list from someone on my Facebook page. Well, I was recently tagged -- which means that you have to do a 25 Things list or you'll go to hell or something...so, I cranked out my list over a two hour period last night and I thought I would also post it on my blog for even more people to read (and wonder out loud why I did it).


"25 Things You Didn't Know About Me"

1. I was born at 4:30 in the morning on January 15, 1954 at St. Joe's Hospital in Flint. (The hospital – once a teaching hospital – is now closed).

2. I wet the bed until I was about four years old. I was "cured" when my Mom told our neighbor to get the scissors out because she wanted to "cut my thing" off so I wouldn’t do it anymore. As soon as I heard that – I ran and hid underneath the bunk bed that my sister and I shared and cried myself to sleep. As ugly as this story may sound – I never peed the bed again.

3. My parents got a divorce when I was eight years old. The day that my father left us – my sister and I helped him pack his clothes.

4. This surprises a lot of people: I was once an altar boy at St. Leo The Great in Flint (another place that played a part in my life that is also closed).

5. The unique thing about my first communion photo is that, unbeknownst to me at the time, the zipper on my pants was wide open and you can see the white of my shirt popping out of my trousers.

6. Although there was at least seven of them – I can’t remember celebrating Christmas with my father as a part of the family unit.

7. The first car that I ever owned was given to me by legendary Flint broadcaster, Peter C. Cavenaugh and the car even had a name "The Rock N’ Roll Mobile". If that car could talk – it would have some stories to tell – and some of my exploits added to its legend.

8. Some schools in Flint that I have attended: Lewis Elementary (torn down), Lowell Jr. High (closed and may be torn down in the not too distant future), and Flint Northern (I was the first graduating class from the new Flint Northern building on Mackin Road ). (A theme running through these 25 questions – the old Flint Northern building was torn down.)

9. I took one college course at Mott Community College in Flint. It was an English course (my worse subject) and the only reason that I took it was because of a girl who I would ride to and from school with. I had an extreme crush on this girl (but could never act on it) – not only did she have huge breasts – but she also had these beautiful and mysterious eyes that you felt could zero in on what you were thinking. (Note: A picture of this girl can be found on Peter C’s wildwednesday.com web page – she’s one of the people in the production crew at Wild Wednesday).

10. Growing up – I had fantasies of being a writer, but here’s where my fantasies get weird I visualized writing great stories in a booth at some coney island in Flint while I drank coffee and smoked cigarettes – and some waitress (unlike your normal coney island waitress - she’d have brains along to go along with her beauty) would fall in love with me and we would live happily ever after.

11. In high school – I was a member of the school newspaper – and it was there that I acquired a love for journalism.

12. Probably the most fun that I ever had in radio had to be at WTAC. I worked at the station when it was rock n’ roll, country and talk – and each one of the eras there had some great moments. In a period of maybe six years – I got to work with people like Peter C., Fred "Boogie" Brian, Jim Kramer, Ed Brown, Gary Raymond, Dave Barber, Ray Nelson, Van VanDeWalker, Chris Pavelich and Pete Sark (just to name a few). I was incredibly lucky to be able to work with some incredible Michigan broadcasting legends.

13. Getting married live on the radio was probably the dumbest thing that I ever done on radio (as well as in my life). The judge who Dave Barber arranged to perform the marriage ceremony had to get special permission from the Michigan Supreme Court to perform the ceremony. The marriage tanked after two-hundred and ninety-seven days and I ended getting a do-it-yourself divorce. Afterwards -- I was always afraid of bumping into the judge who performed the ceremony because I thought that he might ask about how "me and the missus were doing".....but I found out that this judge’s marriage did a turn in the toilet, too – so, I didn’t feel so bad.

14. Although my marriage lasted less than three hundred days – it’s been going on fifteen years that Marty and I have been together.

15. When it comes to sex - I was a late bloomer - and I can remember the first time that I ever had sex – and the only reason why I can remember it is because it happened on the afternoon of the day that Elvis Presley died. While driving the girl home from my house – I turned the car radio on to WTAC and heard the news about the King’s death. Hearing the news surprised me, because I always thought that he was dead! I could have sworn that I saw a picture of him dead on the cover of the National Enquirer long before he died while trying to "pinch a loaf" on the toilet at Graceland.

16. My longest stint in radio (some 13 years) was working at WHLS-AM and WSAQ-FM in Port Huron (which later merged with WBTI-FM and WPHM-AM and a stand-alone station in Marine City).

17. My shortest stint in broadcasting was working in the traffic department at Fox66 Television in Flint. I hated the job and it was the only job in that I was ever fired from. I was the wrong person for the wrong job – but I need the job at the time.

18. I would have to say that my very best friend is Van VanDeWalker. Van now lives in Macon, GA with his lovely wife, Tracie, and a whole bunch of dogs – but I met Van when he came to work at WTAC when David Leyton (now Genesee County Prosecutor) purchased the station. I arrived at the station early to produce "Morning Magazine with Dave Barber" and the first thing that Van asked me was whether or not I wanted a cup of coffee. I told Van that I only drank decaffeinated coffee (which the station didn’t have) and his response to me was "drinking decaf coffee is like eating hairless pussy". I think I mentioned some of the merits of "the hairless" and we became fast friends from that very moment.

19. To show you how much of a pathetic fuck both Van and I are – we play Scrabble with each other online. We don’t just play – we have Scrabble seasons of a hundred and sixty games – and we’re currently in our eighth season. We connect (audio-wise) with Google Talk and we talk trash to each other as we play. Van is the better Scrabble player having won six of seven complete seasons.

20. I use to joke around that "the only good kid is one that you could pop into a microwave oven" – but that was before I became a "Grandpa" to Marty’s son Bill and daughter-in-law Beth’s two children. You haven’t experienced life until you receive the unconditional love that comes from a grandchild. About once every six weeks or so – I’ll e-mail grand baby pictures to some twenty-five plus people in my address book. I know that some people must think I’m nuts about these babies – but I can’t help not sharing my love of these beautiful babies with everyone that I know.

21. When it comes to food – I could eat barbequed ribs seven days a week. But, please don’t try to feed me sauerkraut and sausage, bean soup, or oatmeal without raisins – that’s unless you enjoy the sight of a man doing some projectile vomiting.

22. The first movie that I ever remember seeing was "Ben Hur" at the Northland Drive-In in Flint (which no longer exists). The first movie that I can remember seeing (by myself) in a theater was "Viva Las Vegas" with Elvis Presley that was showing at the Capital Theater (now closed – but the marquee was used in the Will Farrell movie "Semi-Pro").

23. The dumbest habit I ever had was smoking....which I did for nearly thirty years.

24. The hardest thing that I ever had to deal with was the death of my Mother and having to tell her on Thanksgiving Day 2001 that my sister and I would understand if she didn’t want to take any more chemo cancer treatments. For those interested – I write about that day on my blog – that you can link on to at: http://lostinavoca.blogspot.com/2005/11/mom.html

25. And last but not least – here’s the 25th thing that you may have not known about me: I have cried a few times while watching a movie on Lifetime with Marty. Are you happy now?