​I got a note yesterday from my friend Eric Boardman who sent me the unfortunate news that Dick Orkin passed away the other day, at the age of 84. 

Many of you may know of Dick Orkin without knowing it, but he was wildly popular in Chicago for decades.  It began in the late-60s/early-70s when he created (and did most of the voices for) the often-hilarious parody Chickenman for WCFL radio.  The radio series, with 3-4 minute episodes, later branched out on its own and was syndicated on 326 radio stations in six countries.  It told the misadventures of an oddball shoe salesman named Benton Harbor who lived with his mother, but freelanced when it was convenient as the Wonderful White-Winged Warrior to help Midland City, but usually screwed things up.

Later, Orkin and his partner Bert Berdis created wildly successful and wonderfully radio ads that were heard through the country, but Chicago was their centerpiece.  They were so fun (sort of in the Stan Freberg mode, but with their own unique twists) that my folks -- especially my mother -- who were generally annoyed at having to listen to ads would actually hope to hear one of their commercials, notable for Orkin's recognizable voice, when listening to the WBBM All News station, and would often tell me about the latest one.  My mother's favorites were for the First American Bank, but she loved them all.  (Eventually Orkin and Berdis went their separate ways, but Orkin had his own ad agency that continues to work today.  His daughter Lisa is carrying the company on, and Orkin was still working having recorded a new one only a couple weeks ago.)  Side note:  Eric Boardman worked with Orkin and Berdis for several years.

​
Here's a nice obituary on Dick Orkin in the Chicago Tribune.

In case you've never heard the show, here's an episode of Chickenman.  No explanation is necessary, it should all be pretty clear.  The only thing to note is that the Commissioner's secretary was this world-weary the whole time.  She was voiced by Jane Roberts (later Runyon), and the show's narrator was her subsequent husband, Jim Runyon, both who worked at WCFL. 

(Trivia note: their daughter Jennifer has had a fairly successful career as an actress, mainly on television, such as the soap opera Another World for a few years, but also some film work, including a small role in Ghostbusters.  In fact, has a film credit as recently as last year.)

​And though I couldn't find a radio spot for First American Bank (yet -- I'll keep looking), this is a typical Orkin-Berdis radio ad for K-Mart.  Orkin plays the manager.

You may recall two weeks ago when I had my "Taking the Class Out of Classical" rant here about the generally very-good KUSC classical music station, and how they are dumbing down aspects of their broadcasting.

I also went off onto a side-tangent, bringing up their similarly-annoying "Off to School" Requests in the morning -- and how after six weeks it became clear that these had virtually nothing to do with kids making classical request.  Or kids.  Or even classical (but rather movie themes).  Yet they've continued this way, as "Off to School" Requests for the past year.  And I noted how twisted the station's effort have become to justify calling these "Off to School" Requests, rather than just simply Morning Requests.

I explained what their convoluted introduction now was when time for their "Off to School" requests -- but I did it from memory, and knew that I didn't do it justice, only mentioning a small portion of how bizarre the introduction had become.  Besides which, I suspected most people probably thought I was joking that it not only was this stupid, but actually even worse.  So, to be fair, I carefully listened to the introduction and took notes and marked it all down.  I've corrected and updated the original post, and this is now how it reads --

Peter Sagal's guest contestant on Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me! is Hannah Kearney, Olympic Gold Medalist in hot dog skiing, officially referred to as "freestyle."  One of the leading mogul skiers in the event, she's won two Olympic medals in addition to her 43 World Cup medals.  Because her sport is so...well, offbeat, the panelists jump in with far more bewildered questions than usual -- and because she's so self-effacing and charming, the interview is especially funny.  In particular, keep an ear open for their discussion about the Olympic Village.  Also, when they get to the answer to the first question, for the first time that I can recall, the two incorrect answers are actually real quotes and host Sagal gives their gobsmacking attribution.  All in all, this is a hoot.
​

I was going to post a Media Alert here today about a town hall meeting that Sen. Al Franken was doing on Sirius/XM radio, for those of you who subscribed to the service.  Unfortunately, I screwed up the day (and even time), and it was actually broadcast on Wednesday.

This is a bad news / good news tale.

That's the bad news.  The good news is that it turns out that the entire event was recorded on video, and here it is below!  So not only can everyone hear it, but you can all watch it.  (If you choose to, of course...)  I believe that the correct response is -- O huzzah!

It runs about 51 minutes and is hosted by Julie Mason, host of “The Press Pool” on SiriusXM’s POTUS Politics channel, and Bob Cusack, editor in chief of The Hill.  The event is all quite enjoyable, and often pretty funny.  It is largely serious, but even at that Franken is an engaging conversationalist -- however, there are also some light questions.

(As he notes, because he only won his first election by just 312 votes, he felt it important to show the people of Minnesota that he was a "work horse, not a show horse," and stuck to being a very serious during his first term.  Having won his re-election by a much more comfortable margin, he says here that while he remains a hard worker, it's allowed him to let his humorous side out more.)

Again, this isn't a comedy monologue, it's a serious discussion.  It's just a very enjoyable one.  And it's at its best, for my taste, when the floor is opened up to questions from the audience around what seemed to be the 25-minute mark.

Since I've been posting a audio segments of Peter Sagal's radio show, Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me! regularly for a while, I thought this was appropriate.  Plus it will likely make Nell Minow happy.  So, it's a twofer.  And it's an especially good day when you can make Nell Minow happy.

This is, apparently, the very first "video" that OK GO -- the most-favorite group of Ms. Minow -- ever made.  It's not a stand-alone video per so, but was taped on a local public access music TV show in Chicago in 1999.  What's additionally fun about it is that the aforementioned Peter Sagal is playing "fake bass" in the video.  And if you're a fan of the NPR show, This American Life, its host Ira Glass is playing "fake drums."  In fact, all the fake musicians are NPR hosts.

Unfortunately, I can't embed it here, but if click this link, you can read an article by Peter Sagal about the whole, and the video is embedded there.

​This week, host Peter Sagal's guest contestant for the "Not My Job" segment of the NPR comedy-quiz show Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me! is the great singer-songwriter John Prine.  There's a nice bit of connection here, since the show is done is Chicago, and Chicago is where John Prine came to fame -- and even started as a mailman.  (He talks about that here, although leaves out the story about how he occasionally would lock himself in a mailbox for the privacy so that he could write there.)  There's no discussion of his close friend Steve Goodman, but he does talk about folk singer Ed Holstein, who's still performing, and with his brother Fred -- a folksinger, as well -- owned the prominent club Holsteins, which was the center of the folk scene in Chicago.  And Prine also tells the story about how he got his start thanks to, of all people, Roger Ebert.  It's a very affectionate and funny chat.

I had a somewhat unexpected occurrence yesterday, but much-appreciated because it helped assuage an awkward feeling I had.

I don't think it's really possible for most people, if anyone to adequate the feelings one has when a tragic massacre happens like that in Manchester.   You can use the same cliched words because the feeling in universal, but that's about as far as one can go.

And you turn on the television to get some coverage of what happened.  But for me, that generally tends to last about 20 minutes, because at that point in the news no one has anything more to report.  It's just the same words over and over, the same videos, the same experts and nothing new is being said.  I understand the need that many feel for a sense of community, but I still want news, and if there isn't anything different to say, then I don't want it said over and over, for five hours.  That's me.  When there's news to report, report it.  But there is other news happening, and I want to know it, to not only keep informed, but to keep it all in perspective.

And the day after -- yesterday -- there was even more of the same, still going on, nothing new, but still being reported.  Though as the day progressed, there finally was something new, with the investigation leading to an arrest.  But mostly, the same things were being repeated.  Out of curiosity, and with that sense of perspective, because I was in my car that has Sirius/XM Radio, I decided to put on the BBC World Service.  If I was going to hear news about Manchester, I at least wanted to hear it from England.

And to my surprise -- unlike in the U.S. on television...the story they were covering wasn't about Manchester!  Nor was the next one!  They did address it with the third story, but then I had reached my destination and left for lunch.

When I got back an hour later, I put the BBC back on -- and again, they were covering something else.  The next story was about the attack, but from a completely different angle than anything I'd heard on American TV -- it was a report on how to deal with children at such times.  It was interesting and profoundly low-key.

And then when that was over --

They went to a program about technology!  And did a story on government innovation.  

There, in the middle of the storm, life was going on.  The story was being covered.  And being covered well.  And in detail.  But it was being covered when they had something to report and talk about.  And done in a mature, thoughtful way that respected the listener.  Yes, I know, this was "the Beeb," and that's their style, even during a tragic bombing in their country.  But they covered it as Really Important News -- not the only news.

​And it was done wonderfully.