Growing Old With Colorforms

I had to laugh the other morning when I clicked on Facebook and read my friend Van’s status. You see, Van (who is the same age that I am) came to the conclusion that he’s old and it was confirmed when he discovered that one of his co-workers at Macon (Georgia) Animal Control had never heard of, and had never seen, the classic kid’s toy “Colorforms”. Naturally, Van’s co-worker was born in 1982 – which means that he probably doesn’t know that toys didn’t always come with the warnings like “Assembly required” or “Needs batteries”. You see, Colorforms was a toy that required the little ones playing with it to use their imagination….imagine that…using your imagination during playtime!

Colorforms have always had a soft spot in my heart. It’s one of the few toys that I had as a kid that I still remember to this day. For those who have never experience the joy of playing with Colorforms – let me tell you a little bit about them. Most of the big cartoon shows of the late 50s and 60s were converted into Colorforms for kids to play with. I think I got my first box of Colorforms – the Popeye the Sailor edition – from Santa Claus one Christmas.

Colorforms are little pieces of vinyl that are cut out in the shapes of cartoon characters, clothes or even things associated with the cartoon characters – such as Popeye’s can of spinach. You would take the different Colorforms character shapes and place them on this black vinyl covered piece of cardboard using while your young mind concocted some story to go with the placement of the Colorforms cartoon characters. They also made “dress up” Colorforms that you would put Colorforms clothes on a picture of a boy or a girl in their underwear on a vinyl covered piece of cardboard..

If there ever was a low tech toy – it was Colorforms. There’s another thing about Colorforms that I remember and that’s that vinyl smell you got when you opened the box. There’s no finer scent to a child growing up in the 60s than that of Colorforms (and maybe the smell of those freshly printed off ditto test sheets that your teacher passed out to you in school).

If my buddy Van really wants to feel old – maybe he could sit his young co-worker down at lunch one day and discuss another low tech toy with him –like the Slinky. Those of us old enough to remember Slinky are probably humming Slinky’s commercial jingle to yourself as you read this. Explain to a kid in 2010 – who is shouting for his parents to buy a Gameboy, Game Box or Wii that we use to play with a wound up piece of metal that would climb down steps – and I guarantee you that the kid will think you’re nuts.

And what is one of the hottest toys on the market today? It's a toy hamster that is pretty damn life-like. When we grew up – we had real hamsters and unlike the kids of today who just put batteries in theirs – our hamsters actually died and shit where he slept. And there’s the “Guitar Hero” game that make you feel like you’re playing guitar in a rock n’ roll band. When we grew up – we didn’t play guitar – we took lessons – and if we were good – we got to be in a rock n’ roll band. Imagine that concept.

Times have changed and so have the toys that we played with growing up. I’m sure that, in the not too distant future, my buddy Van is going to come across someone other than a younger co-worker, who has never heard of Colorforms, a Slinky or even Hula Hoops, and he’ll feel old once again. Admit it, Van – you’re getting old – but you’re not alone – there are a lot of us right behind you keeping a close eye on how you handle it. Maybe someday someone will cheer up a old man like you with a special Animal Control Officer Edition box of Colorforms – wouldn't that be nice?

Elvis, DVRs and Fast Food Value Menus -- It's A February Editon of Frost Bites

Elvis Presley….DVRs…..Fast food value menus….The return of free form radio…and a shout-out to a good friend. In the time honored dot-dot-dot tradition of the late Bob Talbert of the Detroit Free Press and Larry King’s of USA Today – I now present a few quick takes on things going on in my world with February Frost Bites:

A Hunk A Hunk Of Burning Book: I should have bought it when I seen it on the shelf in the book department at my local Meijer store – but I didn’t and now I’m beating myself up for it – I’m talking about the book “Baby, Let’s Play House: Elvis Presley and the Women Who Loved Him” by Alanna Nash. When I cracked open the book in the store, the first thing that hit my eye was a story about how Elvis had a hard time dealing with a famous Hollywood starlet in bed because she was somewhat loud and vocal in the bedroom. It peaked my interest at that point – but I didn’t want to put down the twenty plus bucks at the time – but now I really want to read it and its no longer in stock in the book department. Damn! I’m getting even more worked up about not having purchased this book after I read the review of it by Janet Maslin of the New York Times. In her review of the book, Ms. Maslin says, “she (Nash) manages to collect all the madness, badness and sadness of the Elvis myth in one exhaustive and (let's face it) embarrassingly tempting volume.” I want this book and I want it now!!!!

It’s Made TV Even Better: I never could understand why people with TiVos and DVRs praised them so much until I got one of my own. Before I got a DVR – I thought that it was just a glorified version of a VCR and nothing more. We have all have lived through the Beta and VHS stages of a VCR – so another video recording format didn’t seem like it would be any different – boy, was I wrong! A DVR makes time-shifting TV so much easier. DVRs are so easy to use you’ll record things and discover later that just don’t have time to watch everything that you have stockpiled on the DVRs hard-drive.

One of the nicest things about a DVR is that you can quickly replay something that you didn’t catch the first time around and being able to zip through commercials in a few pushes of a button is another added plus. I’m addicted to my DVR I’ll be driving around town listening to something on public radio and something will be said that I wish I had my DVR remote with me to replay it back. That’s when I tell myself, “Hey stupid – you’re in your car driving and they don’t make DVRs for radios!” Maybe that could be the next feature on car radios in the future.

Speaking of Radio – CBS Radio is doing something right – On the internet: There was once a time when the only thing you could find on FM radio was beautiful music and then something called “underground radio” was born in cities such as San Francisco, Detroit, and Boston. One such station that I can remember listening to as a kid growing up in the late 60s was WABX-FM in Detroit. When you tuned in to WABX – you could hear everything from B.B. King to The Beatles….Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention to Chick Corea….David Bowie to Bachman Turner Overdrive….and comedy from the National Lampoon Radio Hour, the Firesign Theater and Cheech and Chong. After hearing shouting Top 40 jocks on AM radio – it was a treat to the ears to listen to an underground radio station with disc-jockeys who were creative in their ability to take diverse styles of music and blend them into one enjoyable format. Well… underground radio is back in a new form – on the internet with Free Form WBCN out of Boston.

A CBS owned and operated Radio station -- Free Form WBCN is actually one of the HD channels of WZLX in Boston that is now being streamed on the internet. It’s one of the stations that you can find on AOL Radio and Yahoo Radio or you can click on their line at http://player.play.it/player/player.html?v=4.7.124b&id=20630&onestat=wzlxhd3 and a CBS Radio player will pop up with the station preset for you. At the present time the music being played is computer generated with some announcer drops…but they are gradually adding live announcers to the streaming broadcasts. It’s great to click on this station and hear music from Joni Mitchell, Ray Charles, The Rolling Stones , Jefferson Airplane, Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin, Cheap Trick, Curtis Mayfield, The Kinks, Marvin Gaye and the Beatles. If you grew up listening to underground radio stations in the 60s and 70s – I urge you to click on the Free Form WBCN link and enjoy free form radio once again.

I was just thinking – CBS owns WYCD in Detroit – which happens to be the frequency of the old WABX. Wouldn’t it be sweet if CBS Radio Detroit did a local version of Free Form Radio in Detroit with a Free Form ‘ABX on one of WYCD’s HD channels? New programming like that on an HD channel could entice more people to go out and by HD radio receivers.

I’m Your Fast Food Value Menu Bitch, I will admit to you that Madison Avenue has me by the balls when it comes to fast food restaurant advertising. If I see something new advertised on the tube at any one of the fast food places – I’m there – and this week Madison Avenue has me visiting my local Wendy’s. Right now – the big value menu promotional push at Wendy’s is with their Spicy Hot Chicken Nuggets….well, I like spicy chicken nuggets and priced at five nuggets for 99¢ -- I had to try them. They aren’t as spicy as I thought they would be – but they’re pretty damn tasty for the price and you can’t beat them with the ranch dipping sauce. (One order is good to whet your chicken nugget appetite, but the smart thing is order two – hey, what’s ten nuggets between friends, right?)

And if you haven’t noticed -- there’s another big battle going on at your favorite fast food restaurant with each of them wanting you to buy their value menu double cheeseburger. I have tried the double cheeseburgers from the Big 3 (McDonald’s, Burger King and Wendy’s) and my least favorite is the one that McDonald’s offers. The Burger King value menu double cheeseburger is a lot more meatier than McD and Wendy’s and with the flame broiled taste – I give this burger high marks. Wendy’s, on the other hand, has a meaty burger and the plus that it has going for it is that is has that hot off the grill greasy flavor that none of the other fast fooders offer.

It helps to have computer geeks as friends. The modem on my computer died this weekend. This modem has performed admirably through out the years – in not one, but two different computers. There will be no funeral or memorial services for the modem – you are just asked to worship at the altar of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs and do what you can to make these two gentlemen happy. Despite what they might tell you – those two geek bastards do control our world and everything in it.

All jokes aside, when it comes to the modem on my computer I am grateful to Sean Richardson – my old radio buddy from my years at RadioFirst in Port Huron – who took the time out of his busy day to install a new modem in my computer. I sometimes kid Sean about the computer world that he lives in, but he’s always been there to help make using the computer a lot easier for me. He doesn’t have to do what he does – but this computer geek has a heart – and a big one at that. Thank you for all of your help, Sean.

A Little Something About Nothing

Hello.

It’s time for me to write another entry in this blog – the problem is trying to figure out what I want to write about. It’s been pretty cold in Michigan these last few days. I could write about the weather, but there’s not a lot to say after you establish that it’s cold and I haven’t seen any dogs frozen to a fire hydrant to illustrate just how darn cold it is – so, pick another topic to write about, fat boy.

I could write about President Obama and his State of the Union speech. I said, I could, but I can’t because I didn’t watch it and the last thing I really want to write about is some speech. C’mon – there’s not a whole lot of difference between one State of the Union speech and another State of the Union speech – and even the Presidents who are giving these speeches are pretty much interchangeable.

Next topic.

Maybe I’ll browse through the daily newspaper and see if there’s anything happening locally that might be of interest to write about. Then again… have you see the daily newspaper here? The Port Huron Times Herald is not one of the nation’s best newspapers…it’s so bad…it makes those penny saver newspapers that every community has look like the New York Times…now that’s bad. Plus…there are not a whole lot of things happening locally that’s going to be of interest to anyone. I mean, let’s be realistic, I live in a rural community that’s near a tourist community that’s right across a lake from Canada… and it’s not even a really cool part of Canada either. (Yeah, there are some parts of Canada that aren’t cool and Sarnia, Ontario, Canada is one of them. I don’t see anybody disagreeing with me, so what does that say?)

So, what’s there to write about? I could share my recipe for sugar free sweet kettle corn popcorn. It’s easy to make and tasty as all get out. All you have to do is pop up a bag of popcorn in the microwave…and when you open up the bag…..pour a bunch of Splenda powdered sweetener (the Splenda that is granulated like sugar) and sprinkle some salt over the popped popcorn, shake the bag and then eat. Pretty easy, huh…do you think this recipe will get me a spot on a future episode of Food Channel’s “Chopped” or “Iron Chef America”? Not likely.

I know what I can write about – how about dumb web sites? How about this one -- what do you get when you combine everyone’s love for cats with the most despised man ever to walk the planet earth? You get --- www.catsthatlooklikehitler.com. How can you go wrong with a web site that asks you up front – “Does your cat look like Adolf Hitler? Do you wake up in a cold sweat every night wondering if he's going to up and invade Poland? Does he keep putting his right paw in the air while making a noise that sounds suspiciously like "Sieg Miaow"?”

Need a website that’s a total gas – then click on www.fartjoke.com and marvel at an entire website dedicated to what came out of your ass that you always blame the dog for. It’s all here – There’s a link with thirty-one different examples of what kind of farter you are and a link to a piece about farting at work – which I’m sure that everyone who is reading this has done at one time or another. I betcha anything…you’ll probably go to the fart website before you go to a website with kitties that look like Hitler.

If web sites about farts and cats that look like Hitler aren’t your cup of tea – thanks to Google© you can find all sorts of weird and goofy websites and blogs dedicated to things like yo’ mama jokes, pictures of celebrity butt cracks and the dumbest things you ever done. Yup, all you got to do is type your favorite depravity in the Google© search box and within fractions of a second – you’ll have loads of stupid reading material and pictures to pass the time away in front of your computer. I’m sure, thanks to Google© , you can find detailed instructions on how to put in a light bulb, for those are light bulb challenged.

So, there you have it – a blog about nothing when you really don’t have anything to say and now that I have said what I was going to say about nothing – I think that I’ll go and take nap.

An Open Letter To Local 4

Ok, Local 4 WDIV, we have accepted the fact that you are the big event television station in Detroit. When we want to feel like we know everything there is to know about the Detroit Auto Show – it’s Local 4 that we turn to. Local 4 – I’ll even go as far as saying that no television station in the Detroit area can bring us closer to the fireworks and the Thanksgiving day parade than you – and with that said I have but one request – class up your act a little bit and get the hell out of Haiti!

Local 4, there is enough tragedy and pain in Haiti right now from the earthquake. Please don’t insult this country and its people by using them as a back drop to promote your news team. It’s one thing for Dr. George to go to Haiti and help to heal the people – but does he have to do everything in front of the cameras? Dr. George’s reports aren’t enough – you literally have to beat the fact that he’s reporting from Haiti with the same thirty second promo running at least three times in one-half hour news segment that I watched recently.

And, it wasn’t enough for you to send Dr. George to Haiti – now Carmen Harlan is on her way to Haiti. Why? Is Carmen Harlen’s presence in this country really going to accomplish anything more than another “event” for your promotional department to exploit. Carmen Harlen is not going to ease the pain of that little boy or girl who’s parents were found underneath all of the rubble and are now buried in some mass grave. More mouths aren’t going to be fed and the clean up and rebuilding of homes, hospitals and schools is not going to happen any faster just because Carmen Harlen is there – so why send her? If it’s because you’ll be able to send back thirty second promos of her down there to air throughout the day – then you should be ashamed of yourself.

If you’re going to exploit this tragedy with promos featuring Carmen Harlen – what’s next? Can we expect Chuck Gadica forecasting a “cuddle alert” while feeding an infant left orphaned by the quake? Maybe you can do an “Earthquake Weekend At Bernie’s” during the sports – anything’s possible, right?

It's probably costing the news department at Local 4 a pretty penny to send Carmen and Dr. George to Haiti. It’s probably costing you as much or even more than what it would cost to have paid to have another local reporter in your newsroom -- like the ones that you have had to let go due to budget cuts – which is why you’re using your traffic reporters as anchors and reporters in your newscasts now.

But who are we to tell you how to do your business -- we're just viewers -- and you're just a local television station with another tragedy to exploit -- and you'll go to all ends of this earth to do it.

A Look Back At When Big 600 WTAC Went Country

Back in the 50s and 60s – There was no bigger radio station in the Flint and Mid-Michigan area than “The Home of The Good Guys – Big 600 WTAC”. The station’s line-up of disc-jockeys (Bob Dell, Peter C. Cavenaugh, Wild Willie, Gary Raymond, Johnny Cole, Bill Pearson, Ed Berryman and more) were the jocks you listened to on the radio and who you wanted spinning records at your high school sock hop or dance at the Knights of Columbus Hall. WTAC was so popular and was such a driving force in the life of mid-Michigan teenagers that makers of everything from soft drinks to pimple cream wanted to advertise on the station. WTAC was so popular that the calendars of the WTAC disc jocks were booked as much as a year in advance. In the 50s and 60s, if you wanted your event to be a success – you wanted a WTAC jock there spinning the records and entertaining the crowds.

What made the station different from other radio stations in the area at that time? All you had to do was look at the music play lists and you would get your answer. WTAC was more interested in blazing new trails and not following the safe and acceptable music trends of the era. While other stations played the safe pop acts like Bobby Vinton singing “Red Roses For A Blue Lady”, WTAC cranked up the decibels and was the first station in the United States to play The Who and that’s not all.

The same time that Motown was leaving its imprint on the music world – Michigan’s rock n’ roll scene began to make a lot of noise and WTAC was the station that people tuned in to hear groups like Ted Nugent and the Amboy Dukes, the Bob Seger System, Brownsville Station, Frigid Pink, Question Mark and the Mysterians, the MC5, Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels, Dick Wagner and The Frost, Terry Knight and The Pack, and Alice Cooper. It was because of WTAC influence that other radio stations across the country picked up on the music from these Michigan artists and made them hits in their area.

With a signal that beamed from Flint to as far north as the Mackinac Bridge and into parts of Canada, WTAC was untouchable in the 50s and through part of 70s and they took on all challengers – but like other AM radio stations in the country there was no way it was going to survive the arrival of FM radio. The beginning of the end for WTAC came when the Methodist Radio Parish sold their AM and FM station on Lapeer Road and one of the first things that the new owners did was to convince two of WTAC’s long-time disc jockeys (Bill Pearson and Bill Gibson) to join them. The station’s call letters were changed to from WMRP to WWCK and that began the change in radio listenership in the Flint area from the AM signal to FM.

There were other factors in WTAC’s demise other than FM radio. The people that owned WTAC – a out-of-town multi-national corporation who’s main business was making a well-known brand of lawn tractor – was getting out of the broadcasting business and they cut their operating budget for the station to a bare minimum. WTAC’s corporate parent had sold all of the television stations that they owned and had about sold all of their radio stations, but one – WTAC – and they were having a hard time getting buyers interested in what was a stand alone AM station in a market where more and more people were listening to their favorite music on the FM band.

The once unstoppable WTAC was seeing its ratings diminish with each and every new ratings book and they found it harder to get people to listen to rock n’ roll on the AM band in this new brand new FM world. Something had to be done to make the station more attractive to advertisers and to any potential new owners. It was determined under a new general manager – former radio and tv ad salesman Ray Nelson – that a format change would happen. With the approval of the station’s out-of-town corporate owner – WTAC would switch from a Top 40 radio format to country – directly challenging Flint’s long establish country music station – 1470 WKMF.

There were some at WTAC who didn’t think that the station should switch formats, but during a staff meeting with everyone in attendance, Ray Nelson assured everyone that it would work. And to those the people who didn’t like country music, Ray Nelson asked everyone to give it a chance, because he believed in his heart that before long everyone would love the music so much that they wouldn’t work for a station with any other format.

It was after that staff meeting that the real work on the format change began. Before any radio station can make a format change – you have to acquire a new music library – which can be expensive. When your corporate owner doesn’t want to dig deep to purchase a new music library – you have to make do with what you can get your hands on and that’s exactly what they did at WTAC – getting a few records here, there and everywhere, including from some of their listeners’ record collections..

For about a week before the date of the format switch – an emphasis was placed on getting the new country songs recorded on carts (which is how music at that time was played on the air by the jocks) and into the studio. You might find this hard to believe – but there was probably only two hundred songs at the most recorded on to cart for the jocks to play by the time of the format change. When you consider that most country songs at that time were about two and a half minutes in length – those two hundred songs would be repeated about eight hours – which meant that they had to get more music into the studios before the quick turnaround in the station’s music turned people off.

Everyone who worked at the station wanted to be there for that moment when the last rock record was played and the first country song aired signaling a change in format. It was with the start of Johnny Cole’s midnight to five am shift that WTAC switched formats to country with absolutely no warning whatsoever. You would have thought that there would have been angry listeners phoning the station to protest the change from AC/DC and Led Zepplin to The Judds and Dave and Sugar, but to be honest with you, the phones didn’t light up like a Christmas tree and there were very few angry listeners. Rock n’ roll radio didn’t die – it just switched over to the FM band.

On the night of the format change – Ray Nelson and the entire staff at WTAC had a party to celebrate and like all good parties – one or two people consumed a little more alcohol than some others. The late Gary Raymond was one of those people who had a little “too much party” and added to the confusion of the format switch. Having fallen asleep in his car in the station’s parking lot after the party – Gary didn’t want to wake up and go on the air for his shift at five am. After all of his years in broadcasting, Gary was afraid that he couldn’t be as entertaining playing country music as he was as a rock jock and he thought that his audience might not accept him as a country disc-jockey. It took a bit of work and a lot of convincing to get him out of his car and on the air – but once he did get on the air – he was the consummate professional – and was quickly accepted by the country music audience in the Flint area who grew up listening to him play rock n’ roll..

WTAC’s switch to country was not an immediate success, but it did make a bit of an impact. With WTAC playing country music (and on a much more powerful signal) WKMF had to work a little harder at keeping their share of the radio listening audience and they had to work hard to keep their advertisers, because there were some advertisers who made the switch to WTAC.

The switch to country didn’t last long though. The station was eventually sold and the format changed once again. Although it’s era as a country station was brief – WTAC’s switch to Country was a success. With no budget whatsoever for promotion – Country WTAC nipped mightily at the boot heels of WKMF and ate away at their total audience share. Who knows what could have happened had the new owners allowed the country format to continue? One thing is for sure – it would have made for some interesting Flint radio listening.

I was one of the people who is proud to say that he has worked for WTAC in not one, but three different formats, as the station’s continuity director and later the producer of Dave Barber’s Flint Feedback and Morning Magazine programs. And of all of the formats at WTAC – the country format was probably the most enjoyable to be a part of, thanks in large part because of the leadership of Ray Nelson. Everyone at the station worked hard and played hard and we cherished our victories because a lot of people didn’t think we had a snowball’s chance in hell of succeeding.

It’s been some twenty-eight years or more since WTAC switched from Top 40 – what has become of some of WTAC’s country jocks?

Jim Kramer (who was the program director for WTAC’s switch to country) is and has been the host of the morning show at WKCQ in Saginaw, Michigan.

Dan Richards has pretty much worked for every country station in Flint having worked for WKMF and WFBE and he still hosts what many consider one of the best country classics show on the radio today every Sunday night debut on WKCQ.

Downtown Ed Brown works for an online music promotion company called “All Access” and still keeps his on-air chops fresh doing as an oldies but goodies jock for a station in the south.

Dave Barber, who hosted “Flint Feedback” for two hours weekdays during WTAC’s Country period, is now the program director and host of “Capital Television” in Rhode Island.

And two of WTAC’s most popular country jocks are no longer with us – Gary Raymond, died along with his daughter, in a holiday fire in his home while still a disc-jockey at WTAC and a few years ago, morning man Big Bill Anderson (who joined the station from WKMF) died.

And WTAC – well – that’s gone, too. The building that it broadcast from was razed and the land it was on is now the site of one of Grand Blanc’s newest sub-divisions. The people who now own what was WTAC has changed its call letters to WSNL and the station is now the shining star in a group of faith-based radio stations of its corporate parent.

TV Frost Bites With Conan, Leno, Kimmel, Letterman and More

(Andy Dick in his "does my ass look big in this" orange jail jumpsuit)

Late Night Frost Bite: The last two weeks of late night television has been exciting to watch. Everyone knew that Conan O’Brien’s “Tonight Show” days were numbered at NBC, but it was how the network pulled the plug on the show and how the other talk show hosts reacted to it that made for interesting viewing.

First, NBC pulls the plug on Jay Leno’s 10pm fiasco and instead of just letting him walk (like they would any other star of any other show), they give Jay the option of doing a half-hour show in his old time slot and then they inform Conan O’Brien that his “Tonight Show” will begin at 12:05 (which would in reality make it the “Tomorrow Show”). How did Conan react? He informed NBC that he wouldn’t do the show if they pushed it up a half hour for he felt that to do so he would be participating in the destruction of a legendary TV franchise. So, now the ball was in NBC’s court and their next move was to fire Conan and rehire Jay Leno to do the Tonight Show once again and that’s when the other talk show hosts got involved in the controversy.

It has long been rumored that there was some bad blood between David Letterman and Jay Leno, but it never became more public than these last two weeks. Letterman has taken every opportunity he could to make fun of NBC executives and then went to work on Jay Leno with some stinging “inside baseball” comments that painted a picture of that Leno isn’t “Mr. Nice Guy” that he wants everyone to believe he is.

One of the more awkward moments over the last couple of weeks happened when ABC talk show host Jimmy Kimmel was a guest on the “10 @ 10” segment on Leno’s prime-time program the night after he did his entire show in Jay Leno make-up. During the writer’s strike of a couple of years back, you would have thought that Leno and Kimmel were the best of friends with each of them appearing on each other’s show – but the whole late night mess at NBC and what was happening with Conan changed all of that. Some of the responses to Leno’s 10 questions had the audience literally gasping and at one point it even looked as if Leno was getting pissed by what Kimmel was saying. At times it was even uncomfortable to watch, only because we usually don’t get to see emotions this raw being played out like this on national television.

Conan did his final “Tonight Show” on Friday and NBC will be re-running some of the programs that he did in the last seven months until their coverage of the Winter Olympics begin.

And Jay Leno – he’s going to be doing what any famous person would do when their career and reputation is damaged – he’s going to appear on Oprah this week. Will Leno be honest about his relationship with Letterman? Will he address his uncomfortable moment with Kimmel on his show? And will he address some of the mistakes that he made going to 10pm? About the only thing that we can expect from Leno’s appearance on Oprah will be that Oprah will throw more softball (questions) at Leno in one hour than your kid’s little league team throws in an entire week.

In the surprise that it doesn’t surprise you news department: Comedian Andy Dick was arrested this past weekend in West Virginia on two counts of felony sexual abuse for allegedly grabbing the crotch of a bouncer in a bar. Andy Dick was recently one of the celebrities “cleaning up their act” on one of Dr. Drew’s VH-1 Rehab shows and is no stranger to things like he’s being accused of doing in West Virginia. In 2008, Dick pleaded guilty to misdemeanor battery and pot possession after he pulled down a 17-year old girl’s top at a chicken wing restaurant. My prediction is that chances are pretty good we’ll be seeing Dick on Dr. Drew’s Celebrity Rehab next season – only because he doesn’t have the mojo in his career to warrant an Oprah appearance.

“What you say, Willard?” TMZ is reporting that Gary Coleman, the diminutive star of TV’s “Different Strokes”, was arrested this weekend in Utah on a misdemeanor charge of domestic assault. Like Andy Dick, Gary Coleman isn’t immune to a brush or two with the law within the last couple of years. He recently settled a lawsuit after he allegedly hit a man’s car at a bowling alley in Utah. Then Gary Coleman’s wife was arrested after an incident of domestic violence that was later chronicled when they both appeared on a 2008 episode of “Divorce Court”. And like me, you’re wondering, where’s Dr. Phil when it comes to someone like Gary Coleman….well, Gary’s career doesn’t have enough mojo in it to warrant a Dr. Phil appearance…but it’s big enough to warrant a mention here….what the hell.

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!”

Love Means Having To Pay For It....Literally

For the last thirty-eight years I have held a grudge against someone who I have never met and never will, because I just read that he died. Who is the person who I will forever hold in contempt? It was Erich Segal, the author of the sappiest novel in the world “Love Story” and the man responsible for putting the phrase “Love means never having to say you’re sorry” into American pop culture. (He should not have had such a full life – someone should have bitch slapped him then and there after making such a dumb statement.) Depending on what obit you read, Segal died of a heart attack in London on Sunday at the age of 72 or after a long struggle with Parkinson ’s disease, but as far as I’m concerned he was dead in 1972 because of that damn book.

For a minute, step with into Mr. Peabody’s Way Back machine and let me take you back to the early 70s when the book “Love Story” was published. There was no such thing as cable television with a Lifetime channel – a place where “Love Story” would fit right in – you just had this critically panned but incredibly successful novel. You literally could not go anywhere without seeing someone (mostly women) reading it, and even those who never read it knows that the twenty-five year old girl in the story dies in the end. The book was an all assault on commercial pop culture that was quickly followed by the release of the movie starring Ryan O’ Neal and Ali MacGraw.

I was in high school at Flint Northern during the period when the book and the movie “Love Story” were released and I guarantee you that this was one of those books and movies that I would not have anything to do with. Back in the 70s, I was reading things like Abbie Hoffman’s “Steal This Book”, Alex Haley’s “The Autobiography of Malcom X” and Eldridge Cleaver’s “Soul On Ice”. I was worried about getting drafted and sent to Vietnam right out of high school – so I was also reading books and pamphlets on applying for of conscious objector status should Uncle Sam want me. I had no desire whatsoever to waste my time with something like “Love Story”, plus let’s be real, a guy would be branded “a pussy” if someone were to catch them reading such a book.

Fast forward to June of 1972 and it’s time to graduate. I’m called down to the school office one morning for a meeting and I’m told that they won’t allow me to graduate unless I pay for a book that they said I checked out of the school’s library. Well, I never checked out any books from the school library – the books that I wanted to read I usually purchased them – so couldn't figure out where they had me with some overdue book. I explained that I never checked out anything from the library and they said that I did and that I wouldn't graduate unless I brought the book back in or that I pay (the full hardcover retail price) to replace it. What was the book in question? It was “Love Story” and needless to say -- I was pissed!

Someone, and I don’t know who, checked out “Love Story” from the school library in my name and never brought it back. Who would do something like that to me? Knowing that someone checked out “Love Story” and used my name is just about as damning to one’s reputation as reading the god-damn book and I curse Erich Segal for having written the damn thing. It cost me something like twelve dollars to replace the book and with a receipt that I paid for the book I was allowed to graduate.

Rest in peace, Mr. Segal, but remember I’m gonna come after you in the afterlife. You can expect to be strong armed for the twelve bucks that I had to pay because of your lousy book. I know its been thirty-eight years…but I hold grudges.