Here is her highness, Pudding the Tat, lolling in the sun. She really likes that red brick. Pet photos tell you it has been a slow day. Jeff has been in touch, this is the Dr. Sports guy. He’s got a Sunday 12:30 PM slot opening at a Ft. Lauderdale AM station. I believe it is 1230 AM call letters WZBT. The show is “live” even though we produce it on a computer well in advance. If you can think of anything except sex, religion, politics and sports, I’d like to hear from you. Pudding-Tat couldn’t care less and that’s the general mood of our audience.
It would not be the first time one of my ideas was scooped, but today I saw a band doing my act. A trio with drums, lead & bass doing a Karaoke show. These guys were fully funded by a beer company and had everything I’m shooting for. That includes two large flat-screen monitors facing the audience. Like my plan, it was not really Karaoke because no band can do a good job of a thousand pieces. This makes for a rather limited song list but it was noteworthy that so many of my top numbers were on it, including a disproportionate number of the chick tunes I prefer. These guys were strictly one-at-a-time Karaoke, so my concept of audience participation with multiple microphones remains somewhat novel. You can go see this band at the corner of Hollywood and 19th, or at least a similar show. The Karaoke monitors are permanently placed and the work needed to match up all the lyrics is too much for this to be a single show. I would like to point out that despite this discovery, my original idea was independently derived in my own head without external input from any source, and that I intend to continue as planned.
I ran into Eddie, who still has not learned any of my material. It’s been what, four months? I keep telling him I am putting nothing more into the project (I learned all twelve tunes he input) until he shows some progress. But Eddie keeps wanting to add more of his favorites without learning my material. Gee, Eddie, you should start a band.
Wallace made it into town, safe and sound. Millie is here, and this time with a far more sensible crew cut. We got out the roadmap and traced the trip from Seattle. The waypoints on this excursion were Boise, Salt Lake City, Rawlins, Hurricane, Flagstaff, Little Rock, Memphis, and Tallahassee. I've never been to Mempis.
Ah, asks the sharp-eyed reader, how could Wallace go through Rawlins, Wyoming, and then Hurricane, a tiny town in southern Utah? Right you are, a blizzard caused him to retreat to Salt Lake and head for warmer weather*. He got it in the form of a two-day rainstorm all the way to Memphis. Of course, I am jealous because I’ve never seen much of that country except from the freeways. Wallace stopped and saw Zion, the park, and says it was fantastic. He also stopped at Crater Lake, but reports it is surrounded by a 12-foot high wire fence and there is an admission charge. Wish I could get money for people to see a hole in the ground. (He neglected to say it was also private property with signage to fake tourists into thinking it was a national monument. See November 2013.)
He met a few lively lasses along the way, another reason I like to travel. In my characteristically opportunistic approach to meeting women, I find it far easier to converse with strangers in a new place than take a chance in my own neighborhood. More about the trip once we get caught up on things.
Here’s the oddball idea of the day. My interactive entertaining style is legendary and bingo is not immune to innovation. The game is awfully one-sided, so what can be done to unfreeze that? I want to add sound effects. I can tell when the critical point is crossed and each number could be the winner. How about a drum roll? The theme from Jaws would build tension. Taking a queue from Seinfeld, I should find a distinctive sound for a bingo. Doorbell? Tarzan yell? I’ll look for a sound to signal the start of each new game, such as the post bugle. And for that dead spot while we are confirming numbers, the Jeopardy Jingle, you do the do-do-do-do.
[Author's note 2016-10-15: little did I know that less than four years later, I would make a similar trip, and be forced south due to early cold weather. But remember, I was dying faster in 2009 than I was a few years later.]
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