R I P Bill Guffey

I opened my email today to this:

Hi Randy. I hope this is still a good e-mail address for you.
I met you at the KY 25th anniversary concert a few years back and introduced myself as a friend of Bill Guffey from Shooting Star.
In case you haven't heard, Bill has been in poor health for a year or so and he passed away this past Thursday afternoon. He had a liver transplant back in September and had been experiencing ongoing complications from it. I'm really sorry to be bearing such bad news, but I figured you would want to know.I don't know anything yet as to funeral arrangements or any other details.

I hope all is well with you. I miss hearing you on KC's airwaves.


How sad, Bill was a great guy. One of my favorite people. he pounded that hammond B3 in "You've Got What I Need", "Bring It On" and "Last Chance". One night in KC many years ago at Memorial Hall, I doused him with a glass of cold water during the encore of a Shooting Star show, hey I was drunk. He immediately stopped playing and pounded me live on stage then went back to playing. It was awesome. You were a good guy, Bill, Godspeed to you and your family.

COOL DEAL!

My accountant and I were discussing music while I was over filing my taxes and the discussion got to the Ipod. He was fascinated by the idea but had yet to purchase one. I told him that I had an early 15GB model and I didn't have enough room to put ALL of the songs I wanted on it but I got most of them. He then asked me if we could barter the cost of the taxes. If he went and bought an 80GB Ipod, would I put MY collection on his Ipod? He'd then do my taxes for free. Well, what an interesting concept, loading whatever I want with no restrictions on time, MY own personal radio station for someone else to hear, everything from The Beatles, everything from Bruce, everything from Frank Sinatra, everything from John Fogerty (solo and CCR), Steve Goodman, John Prine and Bonnie Raitt would be the obvious place to start. This is very interesting.



While loading stuff that didn't make the first cut, I stumbled upon what I consider THE best band of the "new wave" music era. The Fixx was a band that came out of the chute with "Stand or Fall" and "Red Skies", two songs that I thought were exceptional from the first album "Shuttered Room". The Fixx also had a great song in one of my favorite movies ever "Streets of Fire". "Deeper and Deeper" was featured over the ending credits. With that in mind, here are my five favorite Fixx songs:

1. "Secret Separation"- I was going through a bad time when this song came out. With the lyrics.."you touched my heart so deeply, you rescued me, now free me." nailed exactly where I was at that time.
2. "Red Skies", what a great song, a great rock tune and it sounded great on the radio.
3. "One Thing Leads To Another"- I have an 8 minute version that just rocks the dance floor
4. "Deeper and Deeper"-this was the perfect song to end that movie. Six minutes of killer 80s rock
5. "Stand or Fall"-I remember the first time I played this new song from this new band. It stood head and shoulders over the Flock of Seagulls crap that had dominated radio at that time.

According to their website, the original five guys are still playing. Very good, I hope they come around here.

My Itunes just segued Joe Walsh To Dave Brubeck to Al Stweart to Roy Orbison.
This oughtta be a cool list.

R I P Johnny Hart

Loved this guy's work, with BC and The Wizard of Id. Can't remember a time in my life when BC wasn't in the funnies. We have a couple of his things on the refrigerator door.


Here's his story.

R I P Kurt Vonnegut

The closest we have ever been to Mark Twain. Thanks, Kurt for Slaughterhouse Five. I have never felt more like Billy Pilgrim than I do now. As a matter of fact, I think I'm going to get out the old hardback and spend the weekend being 16 again.

You were wiser than your years and I hope to be as young as you someday

So it goes.....

Stage Pass Number 1

David and Graham were on, Stephen was not. Forgot the words to "Dark Star". Shame.
August 2003 Sedalia MO.
Neil Young was playing 50 miles away at Starlight Theatre the very same night.

The Very First Time ever, even

Right around the time I was fifteen, I was a pretty miserable kid. My mom was a kind, wonderful mother but she just wasn't all there. Alcohol had pretty much consumed her life and to this day, I understand why. There wasn't a whole lot of love shown by my dad because that was just the way he was, I think it was passed down the Raley ancestry. Early 1971 was a tough time, lots of butter beans and bread, remember that, Vick? but hey many have had worse. Stuck on a farm in the fucking middle of nowhere when the world was spinning around me. My brother had just returned from Vietnam an absolute mess. There wasn't much to take comfort in around that time in Ava, Mo. Just about the only thing that saved me was the radio.
Whether it was WLS fading in and out of the distance, or KAAY from Little Rock and once in a while WLAC from Nashville with "John R.".


We had a small radio station in Ava. The call letters were KSOA. By some strange designation, it was supposed to mean "Keeping South Ozarks Alerted." I guess it was some weather slogan, but whenever they said that, I wondered if they knew something I didn't. Alerted from what? I had a very good friend in high school named Steve Faszholz. Steve was the all american guy who is now a anesthesiologist somewhere here in St. Louis. Steve's brother Chuck happened to do afternoons at the little 5,000 watt daytime AM station. I became curious and before you knew it, I was in the studio a lot. One spring day, Chuck let me make a segue. Although I transposed the order in which he told me to do things(before you turn off the turntable, pot it down or it will sound like shit), he let me hang around. Later that week, for whatever reason, they needed someone to read the news. Chuck looked at me and said..."you've got five minutes, read this" and handed me some copy. Five minutes later, on an April day in 1971, I read the news and absolutely, unequivicably, without a doubt nailed it. I remember the overpowering rush of adreneline that hit me after that. It was a high a never felt before but five years later, I felt again. We moved away a month later and I never did appear on the station again. The station is now KKOZ AM/FM and is no longer on the town square.

Woe is Mr. Imus

I remember when Don Imus was a top 40 jock. Funny, profane, rude and about as creative with a 13.5 second intro to a song as anyone. Funny dude, used to refer to MTV as MVD.

Well, he's done gone and did it. he called the Rutgers basketball team a bunch of "nappy headed 'ho's". Now he's facing the wrath of Al Sharpton and everyone else. So, does that mean when rappers and hip hoppers call women 'ho's and bitches that they will feel the wrath of Reverend Al?

Didn't think so. Double standard. I am so tired of playing that game. Hip hop and rap artists can deface and defile women all they want and that's OK. When Imus does it, he almost loses his job. Don't get it.

UPdate: Thank you Bonnie for your comments and your unique perspective. Imus is done. Noone is gonna go near this guy. He's toast. It saddens me. He was wrong, he knows it. Maybe on a bright side it will start a dialogue on this being a double standard. Let's get riled up about disrespecting women. I hope that happens.

Randy's College of Musical Knowledge

Hey, kids, we're back and this time here's a few little known facts about
"Higher Ground" by Stevie Wonder.


The lyrics deal with getting a second chance ("So darn glad he let me try it again") and making the most of it. Strangely, Wonder recorded it 3 months before he was almost killed on his way to a concert in a car accident. The accident put Wonder in a coma, and his road manager Ira Tucker Jr sang this to him in the hospital. When Wonder began moving his fingers in time with the song, it was clear he was going to recover. After leaving Motown Records, Wonder took control of his recordings and did most of the work on his songs. He did all the vocals on this and played all the instruments and had it tracked in three hours at Electricladyland studio. Engineers Malcom and Robert Margouleff did the synthesizer programming and helped put the song together. Wonder was a huge influence on The Red Hot Chili Peppers, who remade this with a more uptempo beat on their Mother's Milk album. They even thank him in the lyrics by adding the phrase "You know what Stevie says." Their version helped introduce many listeners to Wonder.

"Higher Ground" got as high as number 4 on the Billborad charts for the week of October 13, 1973. The number one song that week was "Half Breed" by Cher.

Post 665-Quote

..."ignorance doesn't make stuff not exist".-Bucky Katt

Easter Vigil

This maybe my favorite service of the year. It's held in spring and it welcomes a new birth in the seasons and in the church. The service starts outside with the lighting of the candles and the procession into a dark church. When everyone gets inside, it is quite the spectacle. This is the service that we welcome new members to the congregation that have gone through the "training" required. Since joining the Catholic church four years ago, they have asked me to speak at stewardship and have asked me to read at Midnight Mass at Christmas and Easter vigil.
I had the big, important part this year, I read the epistle to the flock.
It was so awesome to see Father Osbourne at the service. A while ago, some charges were leveled at the Father claiming abuse in the past. This was incredibly shocking to us and we were happy and relieved that those charges were later dropped. He is an incredibly funny man and one we enjoy listening to. It was a great service that clocked in at just under three hours. Happy Easter!

Everything Must Go!!!

I am clearing out all of the stuff that I used to rely on when I was on the air. I have found 19 notebooks of morning show bits, countless CDs of comedy, parody songs and the like. One entire box of "Flashback" shows. "Flashback' was agreat show that was very well produced. Research, playlists and all sorts of stuff from the consultancy and some old tapes, vidoes, books and whatever. IT ALL MUST GO!!!

My friend Ken Dillon has agreed to take this stuff off my hands, but I found this in all the mess....

This was my first programming job ever. I was in charge of programming an AM station after 7pm. Given free reign to put together a show that featured music "that no one else was playing at the time". It's hard to read but from A/M 77 (April May 1977 to April May 78), I increased the audience by over 200%. The station was always pretty strong during the day, but after 7pm, it sucked. KSTT was the big top 40 giant. It featured all the stuff that AM stations did at that time with the hyped delivery and all that. It was one of the stations I grew up listening to. So, we unveiled this...


The station played Abba and Barry Manilow during the day, then after 7,we would be broadcasting "under the Quad Cities"... it would be The Who, Ted Nugent, Rush, Alan Parsons, Beatles, Stones, etc. I modeled it after visiting St.Louis and spending some qulity time with KSHE 95. We were so successful that an FM station in town fired up and copied our format right about the time these numbers came out. I was then fired for the second time in my career. 97X in the Quad Cities is still on the air.

So, Kenny, it's a car load of stuff, but you are welcome to it.

Botched Wrestling Moves

I used to live for "All Star Wrestling". We had a different version in Springfield than we did in the Quad Cities. "Cowboy" Bob Watts was huge in the Ozarks but no one ever heard of him in the Quad Cities. The show was out of Minneapolis with mean Gene doing the interviews way back then. I remember when I was a young boy of 9 or 10 going to the Wharton Field House in Moline to see Mad Dog Vashon and the Crusher with his hundred megaton biceps. RIP "Crusher" (1926-2005) Used to scream at the top of my lungs..."Mad Dog Needs A Milkbone...Mad Dog Needs A Milkbone!" Ahem. Anyway, my favorite wrestler in the world at that time was George "Scrap Iron" Gadaski. He.never.won. Ever. Later, I learned that they were "Jobbers" and paid well to lose. Every night. By some calamity. What do you mean the refs never saw the foreign object in his trunks? Whoa. Put that away, big boy. On the farm, every Saturday night the routine was to watch "Star Trek" at 10:30, then All Star Wrestling at 11:30. It was magical to stay up that late when you were that young. After Danny Williams would say..."that's it from here, be good and watch out for flying chairs"...it would be time to hit the sack late and tired on Saturday night. Gotta love it! God bless Dusty Rhodes for all the fun. Uh..wrestling..oh yeah, here's 7 minutes of what happens when wrestlers fake moves cause a few real problems

Cat Mother and The All Night Newsboys

As discussed earlier on this here blog, I come from a pretty rough family. My mother's family would just as soon kick your ass as look at you. One of my relatives was a junkie and shall we say had very eclectic tastes in music. He shared a house with my other cousin who was about my best friend. I spent a lot of time at that house. His record collection was full of stuff up until that time that was unheard of. People like Potliquor, Spooky Tooth, Wishbone Ash, Love Sculpture and Cat Mother and the all Night Newsboys. I know these guys fueled late night speed induced thought about the universe and our place in it. According to this, I am not alone in my appreciation for the band. I have exactly three songs. "Theme In A" "Turkish Taffy" and "Theme From Albion DooWah". That's it. All poor quality and scratched, taken from Napster. If you hear anything about this band......thanks.

Randy's College of Musical Knowledge

Hey kids, lesson one here, we'll be back with more knowledgeable tidbits soon.

Here's a little known fact:
"Call Me" written by Giorgio Moroder for the "American Gigalo" soundtrack was first offered to Stevie Nicks. European Disco producer Giorgio Moroder wrote this with Blondie lead singer Debbie Harry, who thus became the first woman in British chart history to write three #1 hits. However she hadn't been Moroder's first choice. The Italian disco king had originally wanted Stevie Nicks to provide vocals on the track but the Fleetwood Mac vocalist declined the offer.

The song went to number one in 1980.

Keith, Keith, Keith

He is the embodiment of rock and roll excess. But Keith Richards' latest admission is likely to surprise even his most hardened fans. The Rolling Stones guitarist has told how he snorted his own father's ashes in a drugs binge.
"The strangest thing I've tried to snort? My father. I snorted my father," he said.
The 63-year-old detailed in a magazine interview how he mixed the ashes with cocaine and inhaled them. "He was cremated and I couldn't resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow. "My dad wouldn't have cared - he didn't give a s***. It went down pretty well. And I'm still alive." Richards's father Bert died in 2002 aged 84. The news may not be met with too much enthusiasm by Richards' mother Doris.

The star also recounted his worst drugs experience. "It was when someone put strychnine in my dope," he said. "It was in Switzerland. I was totally comatose but I was totally awake. "I could listen to everyone, and they were like, 'He's dead, he's dead!', waving their fingers and pushing me about, and I was thinking, 'I'm not dead!'," he recalled. He went on: "I've no pretensions about immortality - I'm the same as everyone else - same as you, same as everybody, I'm the same old b******, just kind of lucky. "I was number one on the Who's Likely To Die list for ten years. I mean, I was really disappointed when I fell off the list," he told NME. Richards added: "Some doctor told me I had six months to live and I went to their funeral. The obit columns are of quite an interest to me these days. I don't trust doctors.
"It's not to say there ain't some good ones, but on a general level, no, I wouldn't trust 'em at all."

Richards predicted that Pete Doherty could be the next drugs casualty - and told him to leave supermodel Kate Moss alone. "My advice for Pete Doherty is that he should shut the f*** up and leave her," he said. "I don't know the man. All I know is he's pushing his luck and there it is, but so is Kate, who I know very well. "Kate wants to play with bad boys, and she's done one, and then another one, and then another one. Badabing, badabang, badaboom. She'll live, the boys will die." And he warned rock stars not to emulate his fabled drug-taking. "I did it because that was the way I did it. Now people think it's a way of life," he said.

Of today's musicians, he said: "Everyone's a load of c***. They're trying to be somebody else and they ain't being themselves. Libertines, Arctic Monkeys, Bloc Party? Load of c***, load of c***. Posers, rubbish." The Rolling Stones will kick off the European leg of their A Bigger Bang tour in June. Last year their touring was interrupted when Richards reportedly fell out of a palm tree while on holiday in Fiji. He said of the incident: "I wasn't climbing a tree. I was sitting on a f***ing shrub. I was sitting on that shrub again today, but I happened to fall off it the wrong way that day." He had brain surgery after the accident and revealed: "I've been trepanned. That's quite an interesting experience, especially for my brain surgeon, who saw my thoughts flying around in my brain. "I've got pictures of it, mate. They cut my head, brain, skull open, went in and pulled out the c***, and put some of it back again.
"But that's the way it is. I mean, s*** , Keith Richards has got to do everything once."

I love the guy, he always says what he thinks and the rest of us can piss off. And I absolutely believe he snorted his dad. If Ozzy can snort a line of live ants, why not? And what better way to say "I love you" than by snorting your remains? How funny. The line about seeing thoughts fly through his head is priceless.

Saturday Morning

After the first week, still trying to figure the sales part of radio out, Saturday morning arrives just in time. Probably my favorite part of the week. Took the daughters car (1992 Honda with 156,000 miles on it) to my mechanic and he did an oil change, replaced a brake light and put a good used tire on it for $51.00.
Now that's a great mechanic.

Got back to the Ponderosa and wanted to hear some Brad Delp for some reason. Didn't want to play Boston, but I remember a release he had in 1991 with his group RTZ (for all of us on radio who worked with reel to reels, RTZ means "Return To Zero"). This is Brad and Barry Goodreau whose claim to fame was: he was the rhythm guitar player for Boston, who basically had one guitar player.



Overall, it's pretty mediocre but there are a few songs that are noteworthy. "Face The Music","All You've Got", "Devil To Pay", "Until Your Love Comes Back Around" is very sweet and "Return To Zero" are all tracks that would make a Boston fan happy. Did me. On one hand, I still don't know how any can take their own life, but on the other hand I can.
Off to clean out the garage. Wish me luck on that.

Simple Pleasure

An almost frozen Heineken on a Friday night.

Not So Fast, Broadcasting Breath

Part of my training at KMOX is to sit in with the hosts throughout the first few weeks of the deal. It is supposed to provide me the chance to see them work. Today was my day with Charlie Brennan. Charlie's a good guy, very involved in the community and a great team player. We have a few mutual friends and it's all good. As I was walking down the narrow hall at KMOX, Charlie popped out of the studio and informed me that his guest was late and asked me if I had I done anything really stupid in high school or college? Duh! I told him about a couple of things and he said to me "Good, you're my guest." We started talking on the air about Spike Odell, a high school friend of mine from East Moline. I worked with Spike at the International Harvester Farmall plant. He was the security guard and I was a grinder. Spike has made it really big. We then talked about how some guys I knew burned down the frat hall in an unamed city. Streaking while on motorcycles (bugs hurt). I was then followed on the air by a personal trainer and her boyfriend that ate a ten pound Pointer's pizza in one hour and won 500 dollars. After winning the prize, they both threw up in a barrel right in front of paying customers. Now, I love radio like that!
SOOOOO.....the last day on the air ever was NOT last Friday night as we thought...but mysteriously, today. The last day of my career was today on KMOX. Can't top that.

Bunch O Crap

Conan O Brien morphs into a comic book. Very creative.



Here is a list of the people banned from performing on Saturday Night Live

In Praise of Kansas

I haven't done one of these in a while.
My first exposure to the band Kansas was in early 1974. I was working at a Team Electronics store at Ridgeview Mall in East Moline. We would get cool releases from the record companies and the first thing I noticed about this record was that it was on the "Kirshner" label. I knew of Don Kirshner and yes it was one in the same. At the time, I dug finding something new and I put it on one of our demo systems. "Can I Tell You" came blaring out of the speakers and once I got to the third song, "Lonely Wind", I was nailed. Being a fan of Yes and King Crimson and all the other prog-rock stuff, this was something that sounded new but familiar. The album went nowhere. "Song For America" was next in 1975, it did marginally better in sales but didn't garner much more of a midwest following. The third album "Masque" was a bit of a letdown but with album number four "Leftoverture", the rest is history. After I heard "Carry On Wayward Son" for the first time, I knew they weren't our Kansas any more but everyone else's.
My favorite radio story about Kansas was the time that Al Hofer refused the chance to interview Steve Walsh and passed it to me. Apparently, Steve was a dick to Al in the past and Al wasn't going to speak to him. Steve has had that reputation in the rock circles. It went OK. With that in mind, my top seven Kansas tunes...

1. "The Wall"-the best song they have ever done, bar none.
2. "Lonely Wind"-this band was very centered around native culture, great song.
3. "He Knew"-very spiritual, too.
4. "On The Other Side"-heard this for the first time at about 4am. woof.
5. "What's On My Mind"-good, midwest rock and roll
6. "Hold On"-the best of the "later" stuff
7. "People of the Southwind"-played that on am radio in 1979

A Couple Of Things...

Marshall Faulk retired from football yesterday. A lot of people in this town are calling him a hero. He has 6 kids from three different women and didn't marry any of them. I understand why he must work. I live in a glass house here, but man...six kids? I must admit I thought less of him afetr hearing that and I liked him very much as a player
*********************************************************************************
It's pretty much a blur getting into a new gig. It's like the first day of school and all of your teachers give you five page essays to write. I live in the suburbs, I drive downtown and home every rush hour. It is really cool, though to look out the window at the arch. I think for the most part it's a good bunch of people there and I am excited to get a routine down.
*********************************************************************************
I played basketball Monday night and then again yesterday morning. I will play tomorrow morning and Friday night. I couldn't wait. Exercise is so addicting.
.................................................................................
Since the team I picked to win it all is out (Kansas), I think Florida will take it all. Just too much of a team, big guys and shooters. Tough combination.

The Last Day

...4:27 pm March 23 2007



It was an early morning yesterday
I was up before the dawn
And I really have enjoyed my stay
But I must be moving on

Like a king without a castle
Like a queen without a throne
Im an early morning lover
And I must be moving on

Now I believe in what you say
Is the undisputed truth
But I have to have things my own way
To keep me in my youth

Like a ship without an achor
Like a slave without a chain
Just the thought of those sweet ladies
Sends a shiver through my veins

And I will go on shining
Shining like brand new
Ill never look behind me
My troubles will be few

Goodbye strange its been nice
Hope you find your paradise
Tried to see your point of view
Hope your dreams will all come true
Goodbye mary, goodbye jane
Will we ever meet again
Feel no sorrow, feel no shame
Come tomorrow, feel no pain

Now some they do and some they dont
And some you just cant tell
And some they will and some they wont
With some its just as well

You can laugh at my behavior
Thatll never bother me
Say the devil is my savior
But I dont pay no heed

And I will go on shining
Shining like brand new
Ill never look behind me
My troubles will be few
Goodbye stranger its been nice etc...


Someone here wanted to know the song I have played most in my life...that is an interesting question, there is no real way to know but it's probably one of these three..."LaGrange" by ZZ Top, "More Than A feeling" by Boston or "Black Dog" by Led Zeppelin. Those are the ones that stand out top of mind. I'll put my money on ZZ.

..6:03 pm March 23 2007
The last hour starts with "Night Moves" by Bob Seger

...Aint it funny how the night moves
When you just dont seem to have as much to lose
Strange how the night moves...
..6:07 pm March 23 2007
...When it all gets too heavy
Thats when they come and go
With only one thing in common
They got the fire down below

It happens out in vegas happens in moline
On the blue blood streets of boston
Up in berkeley and out in queens
And it went on yesterday and its going on tonight
Somewhere theres somebody aint treatin somebody right

One of my favorite Seger songs, just because it talks about "Moline".

..6:22pm March 23 2007
...Ah but sooner or later you sleep in your own space
Either way it's O.K. you wake up with yourself...My Life from Billy Joel, not one of my personal faves, but it gets the point across.

...6:26 pm March 23 2007
..."A bottle of white, a bottle of red
Perhaps a bottle of rose instead
Well get a table near the street
In our old familiar place You and I - face to face"
...his masterpiece really, and an honor to have it be one of the last three.

Whoa, time for some commercials, be right back....

...6:40 pm March 23 2007

...."Im stranded in the jungle
Taking all the heat they was giving
The night is dark but the sidewalks bright
And lined with the light of the living
From a tenement window a transistor blasts
Turn around the corner things got real quiet real fast..."

What a poet. If he was a film maker, he'd be Scorcese, Speilberg, and Coppola all rolled into one.


...6:44, the last one, the last day, ever.
...."The girls comb their hair in rearview mirrors
And the boys try to look so hard
The amusement park rises bold and stark
Kids are huddled on the beach in a mist
I wanna die with you wendy on the streets tonight
In an everlasting kiss..."

It can all be boiled down to one 5 minute exhaustive ride. A song that features not one or two but three mind blowing, screaming orgasms. It's a song that changed my life and the one that will go down in my own made up history as the end.

"Thank you and Goodnight Nashville, and goodnight Mr. and Mrs. America, wherever you are."

Skyline Number 10

Seoul, South Korea. Any place with seoul is OK with me. I used to play football in Soule Bowl, but it had no seoul. I don't think it's a Muscle Seoul, but OK, it's still skyline number 10.

A Whimper Rather Than A Bang

When I was younger, I thought it would be cool to die on the air.
(AP)"Local radio personality Randy Raley was found dead on the air today. His death was called into the front desk of the station by one of his numerous and rabid fans who heard him say..."grffffhtyuiffdd" as his last words. His passing leaves a huge void in the radio landscape and his funeral will be broadcast on the local CBS affiliate pre-empting the Cardinals home opener."
As much as that would be cool, it ain't gonna end like that. I am now one day out from the end of a career as I know it. How will it end? With a whimper and not a bang, that's for sure. What will be the last song, ever? I'd like to play the "Abbey Road" medley starting at "Mean Mr. Mustard" and finishing with "The End". It will most likely be "Born To Run" (a song that doesn't test well, so we are not playing it). I will say "thanks for listening" and then that's it. I will hope to have it saved for posterity. I will do stage announcements for Eddie Money on Saturday night, fill up the tank and head back.


And then a new life starts on Monday morning.

I look damn fine in a three piece suit, too.

March Madness Commercials

When it comes to watching march madness on TV, the only bad part about it is the excessive commercials. Now, in a few days, I will realize how wonderful thoses spots are, but my problem most of the times is not the frequency, but the quality. Some, I don't even understand how the particular ad campaign got started and who signed off on them. Here are five of those campaigns. Really, really bad ideas, especailly the esurance ones.

Web Spiders On Drugs

This video is very very funny. I used it on the air when I was allowed to do stuff like that. You'll need sound.

This Is So True...

Recently, I was diagnosed with A. A. A. D. D.
Age Activated Attention Deficit Disorder.

This is how it manifests: I decide to water my garden.
As I turn on the hose in the driveway, I look over at my car and decide my car needs washing.
As I start toward the garage, I notice that there is mail on the porch table that I brought up from the mailbox earlier. I decide to go through the mail before I wash the car.I lay my car keys down on the table, put the junk mail in the garbage can under the table, and notice that the can is full. So, I decide to put the bills back on the table and take out the garbage first.
But then I think, since I'm going to be near the mailbox when I take out the garbage anyway, I may as well pay the bills first.
I take my checkbook off the table, and see that there is only one check left.
My extra checks are in my desk in the study, so I go inside the house to my desk, where I find the can of Coke that I had been drinking. I'm going to look for my checks, but first I need to push the Coke aside so that I don't accidentally knock it over. I realize the Coke is getting warm, and I decide I should put it in the refrigerator to keep it cold.
As I head toward the kitchen with the Coke, a vase of flowers on the counter catches my eye--they need to be watered. I set the Coke down on the counter, and I discover my reading glasses that I've been searching for all morning.
I decide I better put them back on my desk, but first I'm going to water the flowers.
I set the glasses back down on the counter, fill a container with water, and suddenly I spot the TV remote. Someone left it on the kitchen table.
I realize that tonight when we go to watch TV, I will be looking for the remote, but I won't remember that it's on the kitchen table, so I decide to put it back in the den where it belongs, but first I'll water the flowers.
I pour some water in the flowers, but quite a bit of it spills on the floor.
So, I set the remote back down on the table, get some towels and wipe up the spill.
Then I head down the hall trying to remember what I was planning to do.
At the end of the day:the driveway is flooded,the car isn't washed,the bills aren't
paid,there is a warm can of Coke sitting on the counter,there is still only one check in my check book,I can't find the remote,I can't find my glasses,and I don't remember what I did with the car keys.
Then, when I try to figure out why nothing got done today, I'm really baffled, because I know I was busy all day long, and I'm really tired.
I realize this is a serious problem, and I'll try to get some help for it, but first I'll check my e-mail.
Do me a favor, will you? Forward this message to everyone you know,
because I don't remember who I have sent it to.

Don't laugh -- if this isn't you yet, your day is coming!

Great Joke

When I was married 25 years, I took a look at my wife one day and said, "Honey, 25 years ago, we had a cheap apartment, a cheap car, slept on a sofa bed and watched a 10 inch black and white TV, but I got to sleep every night with a hot 25 year old blonde.
Now, we have a nice house, nice car, big bed and a plasma TV, but I'm sleeping with a 50 year old woman. It seems to me that you are not holding up your side of things."
My wife is a very reasonable woman. She told me to go out and find a hot 25 year old blonde, and she would make sure that I would once again be living in a cheap apartment, driving a cheap car, sleeping on a sofa bed, watching a black and white TV.

Aren't older women great? They really know how to solve your mid-life crisis

God Bless YouTube

This video features 'Dickey Betts and Great Southern' with friends Elvin Bishop,
Charlie Daniels, and Bonnie Bramlett doing 'Southbound' on the 'Midnight Special' 5/12/78.
Video isn't the greatest, audio isn't either, but what fun this must have been.



And this version of one of my all time favorites is awesome. Both of the Caldwell brothers were alive. I think this version just cooks. RIP Toy and Tommy Caldwell, your version of Marshall Tucker was never surpassed.

EXTRA ADDED BONUS;; The Marshall Tucker Band on The Tomorrow Show with Tom Snyder. That's not Tommy Caldwell on bass, so I would say 1980 or so...

Shelly Grafman

There is a movement on the St. Louis media website (to your upper right)to get Shelly Grafman's name on the "St. Louis Walk of Fame". How fitting. Shelly was the guy responsible for running of KSHE from 1967-1984. Here is a copy on an email that I sent Mike Anderson, who runs that site:

Mike,

I first heard KSHE in 1972 while visiting cousins who lived in St. Charles. I knew right then that this was a trailblazing station because where I lived, they didn't play that kind of music on the radio. KSHE is responsible for most of my musical taste and I can't thank Shelly Grafman (and the people he hired)enough for what they brought to my life. While listening to his station in St. Louis, he forced me to go exploring when it came to great unheard artists. The first time I heard Bruce Springsteen was on KSHE, the same for Jackson Browne, Robert Palmer, etc. After finishing radio school in the Quad Cities in 1976, we were all asked where we would like to be in ten years. My answer was "doing afternoons at KSHE". Through the grace of God and John Beck, I made it with a year to spare. I met Mr. Grafman a couple of times and he told me once he really liked what I did. That comment means as much to me today as it did then.

KSHE was (and is) revered all over the country as how radio should be done. Mr. Grafman had his hands all over that station and if anyone deserves their place in the St. Louis walk of fame, it's Shelly Grafman.

Let me know when the ceremony is.



Sincerely,

Randy Raley