Mea Culpa. Parts of high school are a blur as I was really out living not staying home listening to music or studying unfortunately–except for Eleventh Grade American History as it was easy for me and my Senior Class Thesis. Murray the K was an important part of my life in elementary school through whenever. I listened to WOR but don’t remember it as distinctly as WNEW FM.
These last few posts have been filling in words and I apologize for the lack of quality. Being in New York means being out most of the time. Little Luce will henceforth be called Luceanna Mae as she graduated high school today. Happy graduation girl who owns my heart. May your youth be filled with wonder and adventure
I look at the books here and think “wow this person has great taste.” Then I remember they’re my books. I was looking at a book by Rollo May and thought back to the time a teacher asked if anybody knew of him. I thought that was an odd question as this was grad school but i was the only one to raise my hand. He asked what I knew of him and how. I talked a bit about him–I used to desire becoming an existential something preferably poet but didn’t dare say it. I said my father had introduced me to him as he had followed him from NYU to The New School. My teacher asked if my father was a psychologist. “No an accountant.” We got into a bit of an argument as no accountant could have been a student of…I don’t know if that’s the day I began to realize my grad education was bogus or not.
My test is eclectic and my books reflect that. The realtors asked me to leave my CD’s which make me seem as if ten people inhabit my body. I took many of the actual CD’s and left the jewel cases. If I’m not making much sense lately forgive me. This is a difficult move and summer is my favorite time in New York. I will be back for Labor Day week and I guess part of the week before. It’s the single best time to be in the city.
This is an article about the station that defended George Carlin’s “Seven Words.”
It’s a more important article than it seems to be on the surface as it shows how much we have regressed as a society and as people in the past 35 years.
It talks about Larry Josephson who was the program manager then. When I was in the early years of high school he was the DJ who had the morning shift. His program was supposed to start at 7 AM but he often didn’t get to the station until 7:30 or slightly before. As my clock radio was set to the station I would sleep late and have to wake one of my parents to drive me to school.
“Larry’s late,” was an acceptable lateness in my house though I doubt in my school. My father slept until 9;30. He believed in kids paying dues, working from the bottom up etc., but he thought everybody should be able to sleep late.
I’m sure Larry played music but i don’t remember most of it. i remember him talking about rancid bagel juice or butter.
Then WNEW FM, the first album oriented station began and I stopped listening to BAI. There was no contest. I was a rock chick not a folkie. The morning DJ and I forget who it was, wasn’t late so I almost never missed the bus again. My idol Murray The K was the evening DJ. Allison Steele who had a voice I emulate was the nightbird, but Roscoe (the first big Black msm DJ was too, I’m a bit confused but not going to look this up.)
The most difficult part of becoming an adult was realizing that unlike my parents I needed two hours at least in the morning, not fifteen minutes to get ready. Most of the time i spaced out to the mirror in my bathroom and held my coffee cup.
I would listen to BAI once a year–the Thanksgiving Song “Alice’s Restaurant,” but FUV took over or continued that tradtion. I always feel bad that I’m an FUV person not a BAI one but I like rock.
My father was a closet BAI listener. He claimed to hate music but would tell long long long anecdotes about Carly Simon, for example. It was in character for a man who went to Stockbridge to get a ticket from Officer Oppie who was a real person and a character in “Alice’s Restaurant.”
WOR-FM was the first AOR station (the first FM rock station, in fact), and it was there that Murray — as program director and primetime evening DJ — joined forces with Scott Muni
and Rosko (as well as Johnny Michaels — along with John Gambling on an AM/FM simulcast — in the morning). Alison Steele was, indeed, on WNEW-FM, but she was already there when Scottso and Rosko arrived. Murray was never on WNEW.