Jerry Seinfeld And I Lay In Our Beds, Listening

When I was a teenager, my ritual was to be in bed every Sunday night by nine o’clock.  I would tune my radio to WOR, and listen.

At the same time on Sunday nights, Jerry Seinfeld (who lived 21 miles away from me) lay in his bed, listening to his radio tuned to WOR.

And Dee Snider, when he was a teenager, lay in his bed, listening.  Dee Snider would become the lead singer of Twisted Sister

And Harry Shearer, who grew up to write the script for the movie “This Is Spinal Tap”, would lay in bed when he was a teenager, listening to his radio tuned to WOR.

So did Dan Fagen (lead singer of Steely Dan) and Bill Griffith (creator of the Zippy comic strip) and John Cassavetes (director of Alice Does Not Live Here Anymore).

On Sunday night at nine o'clock, we all listened to Jean Shepherd when we were teenagers.

We listened to Jean Shepherd because there was no other radio show like his.  Shepherd told stories.  Actually, he spun stories.

For example, at 9 PM, he would start telling the story about the drum major in his hometown of Hammond, Indiana.  The drum major was a senior in high school and was leading the final parade of his career on Memorial Day, which would remind Shepherd of the two well-dressed women who he saw outside Rockefeller Center on his way to the radio studio, who would remind Shepherd of how his mother always wore her hair up in curlers, which would remind Shepherd that his grade school teacher, Miss Shields, had hair that looked like a Brillo pad, and he would come back to his mother explaining that she kept her hair up in curlers in case something important happened but nothing important ever happened, and he would come back to the two well-dressed ladies who decided to have lunch at a hot dog cart, and he would come back, finally, to the drum major who, in front of the reviewing stand at the Memorial Day parade, tossed his baton skillfully into the air so that it landed across the trolley wires on the main street and shorted out the entire electric grid of Hammond, Indiana. 

Whew, it was 10 PM; it took an hour for Jean Shepherd to tell a story.

But it was more than a story.  It was a journey into the fabric of the mundane things in life, a journey exploring all the quirks of humanity, a journey celebrating people who are unique.

All over the New York City metropolitan area, people shared this journey, listening  to WOR on the radio on a Sunday night.

Luckily, most of America has been on a Jean Shepherd journey, a journey describing the disappointment of  Ovaltine decoder rings, the strange dusting accidents that happen to leg lamps, the agony of getting your mouth washed out with Lifebuoy soap, and the persistent desire for Red Ryder BB guns.  Yes, most Americans have watched A Christmas Story.  Not only did Jean Shepherd dip into his life to write the script, but he narrated the movie as well.  Now most of America is familiar with Jean Shepherd’s voice.

Jean Shepherd's voice entranced me – so much so that I became more observant and I tried to savor all the little moments in life. Jean Shepherd's voice also entranced Jerry Seinfeld – so much so that Jerry named his third child “Shepherd Seinfeld”.

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Here, on YouTube, is Jean Shepherd focusing on the winter night when the family car was stopped at a railroad crossing in Indiana:  (14 minutes long)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Spe7jrDUHBM

Here on YouTube is an excerpt from a typical Jean Shepherd Sunday night radio program, where the focus switches rather frequently.  Shepherd did his radio program without notes; he just sat down and started talking: (44 minutes long)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDbDXnMkOdo

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com

His Keyboard Delayed My Flight

While I was eating lunch in the company cafeteria, an auditor walked by and said, "Ray Manzarek has died."

The name did not ring a bell with me.  Was Ray Manzarek a company auditor?  Or was he a salesman?  Did he work in the mail room?

Seeing the puzzled look on my face, the auditor explained: "Ray Manzarek was the keyboardist for The Doors."

The Doors!  A flash of anger came over me, as I remembered sitting on an airplane many years ago at LaGuardia Airport in New York.  All the passengers were on the plane, but the plane wasn't leaving.  I was anxious to be on my way to Cleveland to see my brother and his family.  

I looked out the airplane window and saw a baggage wagon pull up with musical instruments on board.  As the instruments were being loaded onto the plane, the two guys sitting next to me (who were wearing Nehru jackets) pointed and said: "Those are the instruments for The Doors".

I was about to say that I didn't care whose instruments they were.  They could have easily been put on the next flight to Cleveland and not delayed my flight.

Then the two guys bragged that they had seen The Doors’ concert last night at Flushing Meadows, they were going to see The Doors in Cleveland, and they had tickets to see the Doors in Indianapolis and Chicago as well.

I had read about groupies, and here I was sitting next to two Doors groupies.  

I itched to ask them why they would ever want to see more than one concert by the same band.  Yes, “Light My Fire” is a wonderful song, but why burn up money on plane tickets to hear it played in different cities?  However, since these guys were fanatics, I decided that I better not ask those questions.

The groupies told me, in reverent tones, that The Doors were on the same plane as we were.  The delayed plane was the Holy of Holies.

But it was still a delayed plane.  I was angry.

A few years later I signed a three-year teaching contract and moved to Africa.  I took a tape player with me, one that would work on 220 volt current.  I knew it would be impossible to buy contemporary American pop music in Africa, so I also took 10 cassette tapes with me: Carole King, The Moody Blues, Joe Cocker, and The Doors. 

These tapes were wise choices; the artists were top-notch and there wasn't a single bad song on any of the 10 cassettes.  I listened to the tapes daily and never grew tired of them.

With Ray Manzarek’s death, I guess it is time to forgive his keyboard for delaying my flight to Cleveland, and it is now time to publically thank Ray Manzarek and his fellow Doormates for their artistry and their music and their cassette tapes, which sustained me for three straight years.

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Here is an HD video of "Light My Fire", live at the Hollywood Bowl in 1968.  You can easily hear how Ray Manzarek's keyboard wizardry is the driving force of the 9-minute song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhqQlmtrLyA

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com

Transfixed By Wolves

I was 30 years old and living in London, England, when I told some friends that I would take their five-year-old daughter to the zoo.  They said fine, but they noted that their daughter was fascinated by the wolves at the zoo.

The girl's name was Melania, and we took the Underground to the Regents' Park.  From the tube stop, we had a fairly long walk to the zoo.  I was intent on getting to the zoo.  The five-year-old, however, was intent on examining every shop window we passed.

Finally, we reached the zoo entrance.  For some reason, the wolf exhibit was outside the zoo, right before you got to the ticket booth.  I stopped and looked at the wolves.  Melania stopped and stared at the wolves.  Her eyes were focused and she did not move a muscle.  She was transfixed.

Was she transfixed because she knew about Little Red Riding Hood or The Three Little Pigs or Peter And The Wolf?  Was she transfixed because she was face-to-face with predators?  I did not know the answer, but I did know that we had a lot more animals to see once I managed to get Melania inside the zoo.

I cajoled and nagged and finally got her to leave the wolves and move toward the ticket booth.  Inside the zoo, I showed Melania the giraffes, the komodo dragons, the giant tortoises.  She looked politely at each animal, but I could tell that nothing had the same impact as the wolves.  

I realized that I could have saved the admission fee.  No need to go inside the zoo; Melanie would have been perfectly happy to look at shop windows and to stare at wolves.

I live in Valley Park, Missouri, now --- just a few miles from the Endangered Wolf Center, founded by Marlin Perkins.  The Center focuses on keeping endangered wolf species from becoming extinct.  They breed wolves and release them back into their native habitats.  

The Center sits on land once used to store ammunition during World War II.  The hills are dotted with abandoned ammunition bunkers.  The endangered wolves are kept in fenced-in areas amidst the bunkers.  

The Center earns some income by inviting the public to come for daytime visits or nighttime howls.  It was about twelve years ago when I decided to go for a howl.

We were seated in an old Quonset hut.  A ranger talked about wolves and then taught us how to howl like each of the three endangered species living at the Center.  Once the group finished practicing their howling, the ranger led us down a path.  The path was sandy and muffled our footsteps as we headed for a spot surrounded by hills and illuminated only by moonlight. 

Each person in the group got a chance to howl.  I did my best Mexican grey wolf howl, hoping to trick some Mexican grey wolves into howling back at me.  Nobody had any luck, until it was the ranger’s turn to howl.

The ranger’s howl worked.  Out of the darkness came responses from the surrounding hills.  The hills became alive.  Real wolves, somewhere out there in the dark, were howling at us.  I stood there; I did not move a muscle.  

I was transfixed.  I was 57 years old, and I was having a Melania moment.

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A very urban interpretation of Who’s Afraid Of The Big Bad Wolf, sung by LL Cool J.  It is a 4-minute excerpt from the movie "Simply Mad About The Mouse":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDucj50eQYs

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com

The Guinness Is Good For You Suitcase

When I first moved to Kano, Nigeria, I was looking for opportunities to learn how to speak Hausa - the language spoken by most of the population of northern Nigeria.

So, I would head to the City Market at the end of the day, as business was winding down.  I would talk to various vendors, noting which ones seemed willing to listen to an American mangle their language.

I would stop and talk with a money changer in the market named Aliyu:

I would stop and talk with a hat cleaner in the market named Danladi (in the red shirt):

I would stop and talk with a whitesmith in the market named Nasidi.  

African whitesmiths work with metal.  However, they do not use fire like blacksmiths do.  They basically beat metal into shapes.

Nigerians do not throw metal away.  Instead, scrap metal is turned into everyday objects by the whitesmiths.  Metal barrels become woks or they become rainspouts.  Metal scraps become knives. 

On a smaller scale, evaporated milk containers are turned into kerosene lamps.  I was always impressed that my students managed to do their homework at night by the weak light of these small lamps.

 

Kano’s extreme climate was not kind to paper or to wood.  So, breweries that wanted to advertise their products used metal signs to put their ads on the walls of Kano’s pubs.  Guinness had signs that proclaimed how their product would enhance your health “Guinness is good for you” and how their product would enhance your sex life “Guinness gives you power” --- where 'power’ is a thinly veiled reference to 'virility'.

Many of these metal signs did not make it to the walls of a pub; they wound up in the hands of a whitesmith, who would ingeniously turn the signs into suitcases.

The Guinness signs were beaten into the shape of a rectangular box.  A clasp and a handle were added.  Then the suitcases were painted.

One day I saw a whitesmith about to paint a suitcase.  I asked Nasidi to make him stop.  Nasidi told the fellow that the American who is learning Hausa wants to buy a suitcase that is unpainted.  The fellow probably thought I was a bit crazy, but he sold it to me as is. 

I got a thrill out of owning a Guinness Is Good For You suitcase.

Nowadays, the suitcase sits in the back of a closet in our house.  I think I need to display it more prominently.  It is not a work of art, but it is a tribute to African ingenuity: a clever handmade African object from the 1960s --- a suitcase that proclaims you can improve your health and your sex life simply by drinking a beer.

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To view a current 2-minute ad for Guinness in Africa:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uoB_YPIFr0

Here is the LANDFILL HARMONIC, showing what whitesmiths in the slums of Paraguay can do.  The video is 11 minutes long:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJxxdQox7n0

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com

The Phenomenon In The Valley

I drove through the green rolling hills of the Ozarks in southern Missouri.  Farmhouses, small towns, livestock...typical rural scenery until the highway crested at the top of a hill and I gazed into the valley below.  There, I saw the Titanic.

Not the real Titanic, of course, whose wreckage is at the bottom of the ocean, but a half-scale replica of the Titanic, which is at the bottom of a valley in the Ozark Mountains.  This Titanic sits in water, complete with a replica of an iceberg.

The Titanic is surrounded by a town called Branson, Missouri, with 10,000 people and 36 live music theaters.  I had lived in Missouri for sixteen years, and I thought it was time to visit this town.

I was there on a Thursday in April.  The 36 theaters usually put on two shows a day (matinee and evening), and I had 62 shows to choose from.  Choosing which show to attend was difficult...not because there are so many, but because they are all wholesome family entertainment.

Some of the shows on that Thursday in April were: Hank Williams Revisited, the Baldknobbers Jubilee Show, Roy Rogers Jr, and the High Riders, Breakfast With Mark Twain, The Sons Of The Pioneers, The Texas Tenors, New Jersey Nights, The Johnny Cash Songbook.  As I drove around town, a number of intersections sported a statue of a pharaoh --- a reminder that Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat was another choice.

Many of the theaters had been built by a performer specifically for their own performances: Jim Stafford performs at the Jim Stafford Theater; Shoji Tabuchi performs at the Shoji Tabuchi Theater; The Oak Ridge Boys perform at the Oak Ridge Boys Theater; Yakov  Smirnoff performs at the Yakov Smirnoff Theater; Andy Williams died in 2012, but the Andy Williams Moon River Theater is still going strong and featured A Musical Tribute To Frankie Valli.

I decided on a show at the New Shanghai Circus Theater, featuring some amazing acrobats.  This way I avoided anything syrupy or corny.

Besides the myriad shows, Branson had other forms of entertainment: Lost Canyon Mini-Golf, Dinosaur Canyon Mini-Golf, Pirates' Cove Mini-Golf, the Adventure Zipline, Parakeet Pete's Zipline, the world's largest toy museum, a branch of Stone Hill Winery. the Hollywood Wax Museum, Castle Rock Water Park, Ripley's Believe It Or Not, Talking Rock Cavern, and go-karts that drove down a vertical spiral rather than on a flat oval.

I could also have visited the Titanic, which is a museum built by John Joslyn, who led a 1987 expedition to the wreckage of the ship at the bottom of the ocean.

I skipped all these temptations, and went to the Veterans Memorial Museum.  There, I saw - shudder - Hermann Goering's sterling silver tea set and Eva Braun's hairbrush.

I only spent a day there, but clearly Branson is a phenomenon --- a phenomenon in a valley, in the Ozark Mountains, a few miles north of Arkansas.

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A 1-minute ad for the New Shanghai Circus on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJ5qPHehXH4

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com

There Are Sixty Born Every Hour

 The topic at lunchtime in our company cafeteria was ‘scams’.

A co-worker said, “If someone sent me an email saying that they need to move millions of dollars out of Nigeria, I would not be stupid and answer the email.”

Another co-worker said, “If someone sent me an email saying that he found Saddam Hussein’s stash of gold and needed to move the gold out of Iraq, I would not be stupid and answer the email.”

A third co-worker said, “If someone sent me an email saying that I won the UK Lotto and he was going to help me collect my jackpot, I would not be stupid and answer the email.”

Then I chimed in:

I got an email saying that eight people are flying from Europe to St. Louis because they want to take dance lessons from me to get ready for an upcoming family wedding.  They will be in St. Louis for a week, and they will send me their credit card number so I can book a dance studio for that week.

My co-workers’ eyes lit up.  “You are going to answer that email, aren’t you?”

I said, “No.”

My co-workers were outraged.  “Doug, you would be stupid NOT to answer that email.”

Some co-workers pointed out how much money I would rake in.  Some co-workers started to fantasize on what they could do with someone else’s credit card number.  One co-worker suggested that the Europeans could cut their expenses by sending two people to St. Louis instead of eight, and those two could go back to Europe and teach the others.

Three minutes ago, these co-workers had said they would never fall for a scam, and now they had all fallen for this one.

I feel flattered that my co-workers think that my reputation as a Scottish country dance teacher in St. Louis has spread to Europe and people are willing to spend thousands of dollars to fly here for some dance instruction from me.

However, answering the email would mean receiving a stolen credit card number, with instructions to pay for the studio rental with a few thousand left over, and please remit the excess to Europe.  Then I would face debt and possibly jail time.

I told my co-workers that they were gullible….and did they know that the word gullible is not in the dictionary.

“Really, 'gullible' is not in the dictionary?”  I am sure they left the lunchroom and proceeded to google the word 'gullible'.

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NOT A SCAM: a touching 4-minute version of Forever Young at the memorial service for Steve Jobs, sung outdoors by Norah Jones.  Notice the audience's faces reflected in her piano:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jEKY-3eNZc

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com

Thursday Night Is The New Friday Night

About eighteen years ago, I was the only person riding in the shuttle from the airport terminal to the airport parking lot.  I said to the driver, “The shuttle is pretty empty for a Friday night.”  The driver had an explanation.  He said that people who go away on business trips try to fit all their work into four days so they can go home on Thursday, rather than Friday.  That’s why I was the only passenger on the shuttle.

So, Thursday night is the new Friday night.

That was evident at the St. Louis airport last month as I waited to board a plane on a Thursday night.  I wanted to have dinner before I got on my plane; all the airport dining spots were jammed and the waiting lines were very long.  I got in line for a tapas restaurant, and started chatting with the woman behind me.  I noticed that the restaurant was seating solo diners at tables for two.  I got clever and suggested to the woman that we should share a table so we would get seated quicker.  My suggestion worked.

The woman having dinner with me was from Charleston, South Carolina.  She told me she was an attorney --- a mesothelioma attorney.  Dinner at the airport tapas restaurant suddenly became somber.

I had a high school classmate named Nancy who died of mesothelioma.  Her sister told me that Nancy suffered greatly: her sister called the disease "a deadly form of lung cancer -- asbestos related -- a virtual death sentence”.

And I had a friend in the St. Louis area named Dennis who died of mesothelioma.  Dennis had grown up in Libby, Montana, which calls itself the pride of the Kootenai Valley.  As a teenager, Dennis worked at the open-pit vermiculite mine; it was the best job a teenager could have in Libby.  However, the townspeople were not told that the vermiculite was contaminated with asbestos.  There were heaps of vermiculite waiting to be shipped out of town by railroad.  Kids played in those vermiculite heaps, located right next to the baseball fields in Libby, and there is now a memorial outside of town - a cross for every resident who died from asbestos.

I knew the answer, but I asked the attorney anyway: has the statute of limitations expired for my friends?  “Yes,” she said.

When Dennis was on his deathbed, his voice was weak, and people had difficulty hearing him.  The solution: an Aker MR1506 personal amplifier, which draped around his neck while a microphone hung from an ear piece.  People could then hear him.

After Dennis died, I was honored to be given his MR1506 personal amplifier.  When he was healthy he had been on some of my walking tours.  I was unamplified then, but I am amplified now.

Sometimes I tell people on my tours the story of how I got the device that drapes around my neck.  I think Dennis would be pleased to know that his legacy helps me show people the history and the architecture of St. Louis.

And I think Dennis would be tickled to hear that I had tapas in the airport on a busy Thursday night, which is the new Friday night, and  I dined with an attorney who works to get compensation for people who suffer from the disease that struck Dennis down.

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A 4-minute YouTube video made by Janelle Bedel, a mesothelioma survivor in Indiana.  The beauty of Jason Mraz's song I Won't Give Up contrasts with Janelle's no-holds-barred photographs.
  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_DRd0KzJ24

(The photo of Doug Schneider giving a tour using the Aker MR1506 was taken by Jess Newbury.)

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com