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O.J. Simpson was “acquitted”. The word “acquitted” doesn’t mean “not guilty”. There is a legal difference. Michael Jackson, a writer tells me, was “acquitted” twice. Then he went on TV and chatted about sleeping in the same beds with little boys. This is a man who wasn’t unfamiliar with social mores. He understood clearly how his behavior would be viewed. His callousness is evidenced in the video of the man hanging one of his infant children over a balcony in Berlin. Had he been a poor man, Jackson would’ve been imprisoned and segregated for his own protection from other inmates. Last night a Washington Post columnist wrote Jackson benefited from the dawn of the music video and the tight production of Quincy Jones. When the video fad waned so did Jackson’s career.

Now, earlier I stated Ed McMahon was a role model. He left a budding broadcast career to return to the Marine Corp and dodged flack over North career on 85 distinct occasions. Ed McMahon was a great man. His TV obituaries reduced him to some sad clown guffawing at Johnny Carson’s jokes. For the record, Carson flew no missions over North Korea.

I’m also hearing comparisons between Jackson and Elvis Presley. The latter walked away from his career when it was at its peak and gave his country two years in the Army. Then he returned and had two distinct and successful careers before dying.

In an earlier note I mentioned I live a short drive from Dover Air Force Base. It houses a mortuary where fallen heroes come home for the last time. It was recently in the news as mainstream news media demanded they be given access to some very private family (relatives and military family) moments. Partial access was granted; the media showed up for a couple of days and then vanished. Most of the young men and women come home from their final battles and their names are rarely remembered beyond some urban neighborhood or small Nebraska town. Some came from hardscrabble backgrounds even more trying than anything the wealthy Mister Jackson endured. Yet they didn’t complain, they instead put on uniforms and sought more hardship. Past generations of Americans were almost wholly that way, taking depression in stride and then still offering to do a duty for their country.

There are no apologies I’ll make about my feelings for Michael Jackson. He was a media creation. The current media frenzy tells us a great deal about where we’re headed culturally and why there is so little hope for the future. Jackson could dance, sing and fellow a choreographer’s directions. Apparently far better than most people but what does he leave us culturally? The circus has left town and perhaps we need to take stock of what it really means to be an idol. A hero, for a much better description, and next week a large plane will land at Dover. Then how will you define greatness?

I’ve read comments at Facebook from cousins and old friends calling me a monster for suggesting Jackson was anything less than a demigod. He was just a man given great gifts, which then were squandered for some inexplicable reason. He’ll deal now with God as the rest of us will. Alone, carrying nothing from the temporal world.

Beth Cayhall, is competing for a spot to open for Little Big Town (fantastic modern country band). The deadline to vote for her is this Friday, Feb. 27th She is currently at number eight, but needs your votes to help her fly to the top!!! (Vote now - and vote often!!)

For those who don’t know - or haven’t heard her music occasionally on the Dan Gaffney Show - Beth is a country singer, but also a local girl - and daughter to State Representative Gerald Hocker.

http://eventful.com/littlebigtown

Judy Mangini joined us on-air on Friday, December 05, 2008.  Judy hosts a “Cookie Exchange” every year.  Participants bake cookies, which are then shipped to our troops overseas.  She suggests others can do the same.  The care packages are sent to the following address:

Trina Gardner

at:  Cartina Hill

KBR

APO AE 09391

Judy offers that if you can bake the cookies she can also ship them.  Cookies can be dropped off at the WGMD studios during daytime business hours and Judy will pick them up before the end of the business day on Friday, December 12, 2008.  Wrap them well!  She has also recorded a Christmas CD and for a small donation you can pick up a copy at our studios.  Money raised from donations for CDs will be used to provide a Christmas for a needy Delmarva family.  Every year Judy and her husband anonymously provide for one family.  The CD is a delight.  Judy has a fine voice, recently winning a talent contest at Long Neck. 

 

 Podcast Video: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The first record I ever owned was Weird Al’s “Eat It” — My Uncle Randy sat on it the first day that I got it.. Christmas 1983.. I’ve continued to listen to Al and I even play his music on the air at times.. For the first time in his career Al has released a song that is a parody of a song still topping the charts, a song called “Whatever You Like” by TI — (I should disclose, that until today, I’d never heard the original song) — However, even though this song is funny as most of Al’s hits are.. It’s also sort of sad..

Weird Al In Wildwood, NJ 2007

It starts out with the line, “Hey Girl, Even though our economy is in the toilet, I’m still gonna treat you right” — then he goes on to tell the girl in the song that he’ll take her to Burger King and serve her Ramen Noodles… “Whatever You Like” — maybe this song hits too close to home.. As one commenter on iTunes writes: “I do find it difficult to laugh at how Yankovic predicts America’s, and perhaps my own, spending habits will decrease as the result of the economy.”

I say Kudos to Al, however, for writing a song topical and pertinent to what’s directly going on today, and still being as funny as ever.

For iTunes users, the song was released on iTunes yesterday and can be purchased at the following URL for 99 cents…

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?id=292862894&s=143441

Youtube users can hear the song on youtube here… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRVi0paZlfI

A few years back, Dan Gaffney and I started a project with local Rehoboth musician Xavier Alexander. Here’s how it happened… Xavier had been in and out of mental hospitals for the last few years, being involuntarily committed by his family, he began showing up at WGMD radio broadcasts with his guitar and singing songs that has written.

He eventually came on the radio on Dan’s morning show to be interviewed and to tell his story. A year or two later, we decided that I would produce an album for Xavier that included new interview segments, in a way to tell his story.

Though we never finished an entire album, 5 songs were recorded and about 26 minutes of interview audio were captured that spring day at WGMD studios in Rehoboth Beach. Shortly after these sessions were taped, Xavier found himself back in the hospital (after a brief stint of moving some of his possessions including his guitar to the radio station).

Though we haven’t worked with Xavier since, these following recording tell a powerful and haunting, beautiful and scary portrait of a tortured artist at work. I recently unearthed these recordings, and not knowing what to do with them, since the album project is not happening, I’ve decided to post them here and at a few other sites. Although I own these sound recordings, the songs are owned by Xavier and I would not in any way try to make anything from them. I just want you to hear them. Therefore, I’ve uploaded these songs to playlist.com and below you can listen to the complete session the way we envisioned it that day.

Here’s the link to the Playlist.com playlist…

http://www.playlist.com/standalone/34398795

Here’s the direct URLs to the MP3s –

“Backwards Dreams: The Music and Words of Xavier Alexander”
By: Xavier Alexander

Words and Music written by Xavier Alexander
Acoustic Guitar and Vocals by Xavier Alexander
Interview by Dan Gaffney
Recorded and Produced by Jared Morris
Concept: Dan Gaffney/Jared Morris
Recorded at WGMD Studios in Rehoboth Beach, DE 2005

1. Backwards Dream
2. About Backwards Dream
3. About Mother Earth
4. Mother Earth
5. About Cover Your Smiles
6. Cover Your Smiles
7. About Keep Chasing Pretty Face
8. Keep Chasing Pretty Face
9. About On The Right Track
10. On The Right Track
11. About Xavier Alexander

Heard this morning on the WGMD Dan Gaffney morning show - “Dover” by John Flynn of Hockessin

Hear it again - John Flynn - MySpace

John Flynn website

Here are the lyrics -

Dover                                    By John Flynn

 Elijah was a sergeant, 42 years old
from Mesa Arizona, Elijah won’t grow old
Patrick was with C Troop, Second Armored Cav
His buddies all remember how Patrick loved to laugh
Seth was from East Brunswick, just a newly wed
Somewhere in New Jersey a young widow bows her head
Daniel was from Boston shipped out from Fort Bragg
His mother got back Daniel with a folded flag  

Chorus:
Oh big airplane bring’em down easy
Out of the Delaware skies
Oh big airplane Dover is waiting
to welcome the  heroes you fly… home

William was in Anbar, combat engineer
1^st Marine Division, William isn’t here
Alan rebuilt bridges for Battalion B
Next to cause of death they wrote the letters I E D
Gussie was a scrub nurse hailing from Fort Bliss
Gussie had a spirit this world’s gonna miss
Jeremiah’s son cries on his mamma’s knee
There was no armor plating on his dad’s humvee

Chorus 

Scrubbed wooden pallets with white straps cinched over
Long boxes of flag draped aluminum
The C-5 is crowded when it lands in Dover
The honor guard boards and makes room again

Making straight for Nineveh, just like Jonah’s whale
Holy truth you swallow, overseas you sail
Precious is the cargo sacred was the gift
offered in the sandstorm from which your wings lift
Those who would pay homage can’t watch you set down
Behind barbed wire sentries miles from their town
No one breathes to question this silent parade
Except for the anguished loved ones left to say

© 2005 Flying Stone Music

I’m always interested in tech stories. I’m a little bit of techie, I suppose. I like to read about the newest contraptions, the new trends, new improvements in technology. I don’t often do the topics about technology on the air, so, maybe I’ll post some on here… I mean you’re on our Web site, so you at least have a computer, so they may be interest to you.

The Record Industry, RIAA, is angering everybody today with the latest story about unauthorized music copying. Now, I fully agree that trading, giving away, stealing people’s mp3s, bitTorrent-ing songs, copying mp3s off of other peoples computers, iPods, giving away CD-r copies of songs and e-mailing mp3s is stealing and for the most part wrong. It’s so easy these days with record stores online, amazon.com, Best Buy, Walmart, half.com, iTunes, CDbaby.com, and countless other services and stores to get music, and get it cheap, that trading songs amongst your friends is wrong. CD sales are down again 20% this holiday season because kids, adults and everyone seems to be trading music. To curb this trend, the RIAA is now saying that copying/ripping a CD that you purchased into your computer is illegal.

 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/28/AR2007122800693.html

So, according to the RIAA, if you go to Walmart(s) and buy the new Barry Manilow Christmas CD, take it home, put it in your PC, rip it to iTunes and jam it on your mp3 player or iPod, you are “Breaking the law” - cue Judas Priest.

I’ve never illegally downloaded a song, call me an mp3 saint. Everything that I have was purchased legitimately at a record store, online, at iTunes or actually given to me by the artist. However, I have copied CDs to my iPod, to listen to in my car, so that these rare CDs I just bought don’t get scuffed. According to the RIAA, that is “unauthorized” - Even if no one besides myself ever touches my iPod or even hears it. It’s not illegal to listen to a CD in my car, but, it is illegal to listen to a copy of that CD. It’s akin to the debate in the 1980s regarding copying that Air Supply record to a tape and listening to it in your car.

A similar debate came about regarding the ownership of Roms of video games about 10 years ago. A lot of people figured out how to “rip” the rom images of old Nintendo and Atari games. Nintendo of America threatened lawsuits and shut down a myriad of Web sites offering free download of Roms of old Nintendo Games. Their legal said “it’s only legal to own a backup rom if you already own the cartridge” - that you could, in effect, own one backup copy, anything else was illegal. It was actually the same problem as the problem facing the music industry. Lots of unscrupulous people were downloading Rom images of brand new Playstation games and Nintendo 64 games, and either playing them on video game emulators on their computers or creating a CD-rom and playing them on mod-ed Playstations, or later, Gamecubes and Wiis.

It’s essentially the same problem. People want to own the content without paying for the right to own it. Whether it be DVD movies, music or video games…. The digital revolution, the lack or a hard copy, has created a generation of people who feel entitled and don’t want to dish out any cash for other people’s work. Bands just starting out feel like they have to give away their music to get any attention, established bands like Radiohead are offering their music for “whatever you want to pay for it” for publicity because their real CDs aren’t selling. The RIAA thinks that telling people that creating back-ups is illegal will help curb this behavior. But it won’t.

It’s a losing battle, but thousand of digital thieves have caused these reactionary tactics.

Who was it that said that a decline in culture will ultimately bring an end to that society? Do you remember hearing that American Idol were in talks to bring Paul McCartney on the program as a celebrity judge? Sir Paul declined their generous offer. Well, what would’ve been the point? No one would have known who he was anyway.

What? Jared you’re insane. I remember hearing a story about a 15-year-old girl, whom after the Wings retrospective CD “Wingspan” was released, was asked if she knew who The Beatles were. Her response “No,” then she was asked have you ever heard of Paul McCartney, “Oh, isn’t he the guy from Wings?” 

Today I did an informal poll of all young looking clerks at different area stores today, all within the ages of 19-22, and (hold your breath) none of them could name the Four Beatles. 

“The Beatles saved the world from boredom,” George Harrison. 

How soon the world forgets, Dark Horse. The best I was able to conjure was one 19-year-old at the Bose outlet who could name “John Lennon and Ringo.” Just as a basic music knowledge quiz, I asked him if he knew who Bob Dylan was. He responded, “of course I do… I’m in a rock band.” (YOU’RE IN A ROCK BAND AND YOU DON’T KNOW WHO THE BEATLES WERE???) …calm down…

You may often wonder why music has become so inane in the last decade or so. There’s your answer. I shudder to think about what the next generation of music will be like. Those who’ve never heard of The Beatles. The Beatles, only the band that every single pop and rock band owes everything to. 

How can school, parents and media have failed these children? It’s an important piece of pop culture, nay, social history to be informed about the fab four. If you don’t know the material, at least know the names. 

It’s easy guys, it’s just like remembering the gospels. Ringo, George, John and Paul. I mean heck… If you know the name of the last pope, you’ve got two of them. (Next Step: there’s George Martin, Phil Spector, Billy Preston, Ravi Shankar, Dhani Harrison, Linda McCartney, Yoko Ono, Pete Best, etc etc etc.)

There’s no hope for the music industry and there’s no hope for culture. You’ve forgotten The Beatles.

It is, isn’t it?? Guess I slept through February and March only to awaken this morning with little but farce in the news. A candy bar is banned from the airwaves and now Prince is being accused of questionable behavior during his half-time SB show. LOLOL! Please!

Hands up those who thought his ’symbol’ guitar was suspiciously transformed into a phallic symbol? Okay…look in the mirror. See your arm? Better put it down…now. It is…was…a guitar and the most interesting thing about it is the unique design. Looked more like a banjo with pony-tails, I thought…and how easy was this to play, anyway? How about the marching band…with fluorescent piping outlining their bodies? Anybody think they magically were not wearing any clothes?

The only flaw in his/their performance or attire was his doo-rag-doo-rag-doo-rag-do, which was more of a “don’t”. Otherwise, his performance was brilliant, the marching band (and their uniforms) terrific…geez, it didn’t even look as though the rain touched any of them. The only reason I even watched the SB and well worth the wait.

But…if there is anyone who sees the guitar in a like-manner as the clothing/equipment police maybe you’d best check your own and if it does look like that guitar run…do not walk…to your nearest emergency room.