Livin' On the Dial...

Like a lot of people my age, I have an enormous soft spot in my heart for the sitcom WKRP in Cincinatti. It ran from 1978-1982, and like Star Trek, enjoyed greater success in syndication than it did in its original airings. 

Set at a midwestern radio station transitioning from an easy-listening to rock radio format, the show had so many great characters and interactions that it is hard to have a favourite. The writing was sharp, self-aware, and shifted from laughs to pathos without missing a beat, like when black disc jockey Venus Flytrap, coming to face the music as an army deserter, introduces the white station manager who's joined him for moral support as his father.

And the music! Rock that ran the gamut from classic to new wave, and all legitimate tracks by known artists. Debbie Harry's band Blondie actually credited the show playing their single Heart of Glass with helping to break it out, and presented the show with a gold record.

But that same verisimilitude was what ended up costing WKRP syndication immortality, as rebroadcast rights shifted or lapsed, and made it impossible to show the episodes without frankly brutal and nonsensical edits, and nixed home video releases.

With syndication now replaced by streaming, and access being limited wither outright piracy or the DVDs released a decade ago by Shout Factory with most of the original music (ooh, and on sale for $59.00 CAD as I write this! hmm...), I am surprised how WKRP remains relevant and maintains a fandom, but somehow it does.

In fact, one of those fans has done something marvelous as part of their Radio Retrofit project: they have stitched together three hours of ersatz radio content, hosted by the show's morning DJ, Dr. Johnny Fever (Howard Hesseman) working a simulated triple-shift. It opens with the choppy dial tuning and static from the show's intro ("-but the senator, while insisting he was not intoxicated, could not explain his nudity-") before launching into the wonderful theme song.

The other music is eclectic and solid, the intros and outros funny ("That's Bo Diddley playing a song called Bo Diddly, and why not? I can't imagine anyone doing it better..."), and best of all, they've included advertisements and news breaks with Les Nessman "...WINNER OF THE BUCKEYE NEWSHAWK AWARD," (Richard Sanders). 

It is a real labour of love that the individual has made available to play or download for free from their blog here. I listened through it today while we had company, and but even that intermittent exposure was enough to convince me to buy the producer a cup of coffee via PayPal. 

Music streaming means I don't listen to the radio a whole lot any more, and when I do it is often news or the listener-supported stations like CKUA with their extremely eclectic mixes. I still tune into the local modern rock/alternative station periodically but their playlist comes off as fairly repetitive even with my limited listens.

Make no mistake, listening to a fake DJ spin real music is nothing if not nostalgic, but maybe that's okay once in a while. The songs played range from 1955 to 1982, and both the time range as well as the variety of styles and tones remind me of a radio ecosystem that simply hasn't existed since. I'm amazed it existed at all, actually, and feel privileged to have experienced it.

In the meantime, I am fully aware of the irony of using a pocket digital computer to digitally play analog radio wirelessly in my vehicle, but that hasn't stopped me from doing it, and looking forward to my next long drive.

The Teardown Shift

It takes three weeks to build the immense site for the Edmonton Folk Music Festival, and another thre weeks to tear it all down and pack it back into sea cans for storage. Folk Fest Volunteers are expected to help with teardown their first year and each alternating year thereafter, but my team (Greetings, aka the Tarp Lottery) has a plum gig where none of our shifts overlap with performances, we pitch in every single year. 

My tendency has to book the Monday off after the festival, sleep in a bit after a couple of egregiously early mornings, and then do the teardown shift on Monday afternoon, thus maximizing my use of days off from work. But it does mean I am usually pretty bedraggled and footsore when my four-hour shift begins, and this year it was beastly hot to boot.

Teardown duties for unskilled hands like myself usually involves taking down  and packing up the multitude of tents, collecting scaffolding and stage parts for later collection, and removing the perimeter snowfence.

Gallagher Park (home of the Edmonton Ski Club) is pretty big, so there is a lot of fence to take down. This involves a crew of 8-10 people first using snips to cut the top level of snow fence off of the metal posts, then rolling up that mesh (about 4' wide and up to 30' long) and zip-tying it for later collection, then repeating this process with the bottom mesh. Next, the zip ties holding the top half and bottom half of the fence posts is snipped by one person while another keeps that top post from swinging loose and clobbering another volunteer. 

The last step is using a post removal tool, a simple but clever lever sort of affair that weighs about 35 pounds to remove the 6' picket post that has been driven 2'-3' deep into the ground. This year the clips went very quickly and I knew rolling the mesh on the ground would devastate my back, so I lugged over the post remover and started uprooting them. 

It is sweaty but strangely satisfying work, especially when a stubborn post has been driven particularly deep, or into a hidden seam of clay. I got about a dozen out by myself, then another volunteer came over to assist so we could take out the other half a bit more quickly.

When I was done, our crew boss, Ross, asked how I felt about doing the opposite - with the perimeter fence down in our area, another fence was needed to keep people from wandering onto the site while disassembly continued.

I said I'd never put the posts in before, but was willing to learn, so Ross got me to grab a hardhat and ear protection, as well as the post driver. This is a capped pipe with handles that feels like it weighs about 25-30 lbs. Ross broke down the process for me - a partner holds the post in place and leans it towards you so you can put the pounder onto the end of it, you then straighten the post out to your E-W perspective  while your partner keeps an eye on the N-S angle. Then you lift the driver up a couple three fet and let it drop - no downward motion required. 

But you will need to lift that hefty bugger up and drop it about a half-dozen times per post, and there were about twenty posts to drive, each about five fet apart.

Ross went over to the crew dismantling a tent to get me a partner and came back with Sage, a girl who was maybe 15-16 years old and maybe 105 lbs counting the hardhat and water bottle. She gamely picked up the first post and leaned it over for me, and we got down to it.

By about the fourth post, my sheen of perspiration had reasserted itself, and by the tenth, I was not lifting the driver as highly nor as swiftly as I had been at the start. Sage, bless her heart, said, "if you're getting tired, we can switch out," which sounded like a grand idea.

I grabbed the next post and leaned it away from me like James Brown with a mic stand, and she boosted the driver up to chest-height, adjusted her grip and placed it onto the post. We straightened it out, and she lifted the driver, dropped it, and then repeated it with a little bit more height. 

About five posts later, the awkward driver was not coming up off her chest with its initial alacrity either, but without a word of complaint. Against my better judgement, I suggested I was probably rested enough to switch back, and so we did. 

By the time we finished, the crew attaching the mesh had caught up to us and were able to secure the new, smaller perimeter with this shorter (4' instead of 8') fence.

After a short hydration break, I was paired up with someone else to remove more posts around main stage, and that accounted for pretty much the other two hours of my shift.

The whole time working out in the 29 degree (humidex) heat, I expressed gratitude that this was not my chosen profession, and apologized to my body for what I felt was sure to be agonizing recovery the next day, or perhaps the day after. 

Surprisingly though, there was only a little bit of stiffness the following day and nearly none the day after.

But gratitude for having a desk job remained unwavering.

More Folk Than Fest

As I write this, literally thousands of people on Gallagher Hill have probably just finished singing Ian Tyson's "Four Strong Winds" to bring the 2025 Edmonton Folk Music Festival to a close. 

Not only was I not there for it, this year was a low-water mark for my participation, having only stayed for one main stage act (Aysanabee, who was wonderful).

I had a very hard time keeping my energy and mood up this year. This is probably due in part to having had a fractured molar extracted two weeks ago on Thursday, then having the resulting dry socket (ugh) treated twice last week. Don't let anyone poo-poo it, the dry socket experience is generally a miserable one.

To cap things off, I had brought clothing on the first day to sort out being cold or being wet, but was one layer shy of being okay with cold and wet. Once I established that this was my condition (midway through Aysanabee's set), I resolved to go home early to prevent getting miserable or ill early in the festival.

I didn't even bring my tarp on Friday, intending to hit the sack early so I could rise at 5 am for my volunteer shift and see all the main stage acts on Saturday night. But then I forgot to bring my tarp on Saturday, and after returning home for my traditional Folk Fest siesta, I lacked the energy to return. 

And with Glory just starting her orientation shifts (and first casual call-in), I missed having my hill-buddy with me. Hopefully she is able to get back on the team next year.

Wih rain predicted for Sunday (which turned out to be quite the deluge!), I decided this year would be less about music and more about service, and you know what? That worked out just fine.

Heading home early Thursday meant I could see Fenya for the first time in three weeks as she returned from Japan. My early morning shifts on Saturday and Sunday wern't nearly as debilitating as they have been in some prior years, with 3-4 hrs sleep at best.

Friday morning, I saw a coyote traipsing languidly through the parking lot at Re/Max Field where I catch the volunter shuttle.

The food is still amazing, especially considering they feed about 3000 per meal in what is basically an army kitchen.

And most critically, the team I work with (Greetings East) is full of great people who are easy to work with. All hackers, no slackers, and the new crew took to the work very quickly - setting up fencing for a corral for the tarp lottery, managing a crowd of up to 2000 people for a couple hours and then lining them up for three city blocks so they can get marched on to the field and place their tarps before the public gate even opens.

It's very tiring work (more so every year, it seeems!) with early hours on the weekend but that means we are done before the first acts even hit the stage - and next year I will be sure to see more of them!

Mutually Acquaintanced

If friends are a blessing (and this point is not actually up for debate), how much more of a blessing are friends who are friends with your friends?

I have known Island Mike since junior high school, and we have remained friends and confidants throughout the years, despite running in drastically different social circles in high school, and despite not having lived in the same area code since 1993. We were best men at each other's weddings and despite only connecting sporadically, his wife and children feel like family to me. 

And in my local friends group, the usual G&G and Geekquinox suspects, at least three other couples have been out to visit Mike and Kelly on the island over the years.

At the Riverhawks game Friday night

With the two of them in town for a family wedding, I offered up our place for a get-together pot luck and smoked a brisket, thinking that at some point maybe the lads could sneak off for a board game or some such while the ladies chatted - but the gaming never started because the chatting never stopped.

People came and people went (with commitments of their own), literal bread was broken and libations shared, and the patio table remained occupied for about eight hours, from half past two to half past ten. Peak attendance was around 11, with two regrets.

It was glorious.

There was no agenda, and at a couple points, smaller groups wandered off to visit the dog park with Canéla or tour the Crystal Palace, but the table was never abandoned throughout a third of the day. 

We talked about everything and nothing, from family and health challenges to games and television. About our impending retirements (some sooner than others) and how we intended to spend our time, because we all agreed, as appealing as doing nothing might sound, Covid taught us all how unsatisfactory it can be in the long term. But I could have done nothing at that table, with those people,  for a good while longer than I did.

These brief intersections are so precious, and the dynamics at work are so intriguing when the larger group gets together - the geometry quickly becomes ungraphable and you simply have to let it draw you in. I am so grateful that Glory was around to take part in it.

Because sitting here now and typing this at 11 pm with a work day looming and a dirty kitchen upstairs and an extracted molar giving me grief, and yes, maybe a few too many servings of reposado on a school night that I may find regrettable tomorrow morning - I still feel like the luckiest man on Earth.

Thank you, friends!