2010-06 Dennis' Deliberations

Well, just as the school year was winding down and my substitute teaching jobs were drying up, I got a fulltime job. Finally! A “gig” if you will! It isn’t teaching. It is a continuation of an old career in one of my other job skills since there are no openings in Education here. Most school systems across the nation are anemic and struggling to stay afloat as property taxes and their income base shrinks.

I am a morning radio newsman at WSVA Radio and the other four stations in the group here in Harrisonburg. It is a lot of fun getting back into radio. The basic skill of writing and reporting hasn’t changed but the production now is high tech and all done on computer. I still read live during the prime time broadcasts. We just posted our new WSVA Radio website and we are now streaming to the Internet live 24-7. Streaming via the Internet is redefining “Broadcasting”. Now YOU are in our coverage area! To hear me, our website, is http://www.wsvaonline.com/ . When you go on to the site you will see a “Listen Live” bar on the upper right. When you click on it, it will open the “Live” window and play a one-time-only 15 second video commercial and then you are linked to the live radio audio stream.

My daily schedule for reporting the radio news is Mornings from 5AM! (Top and bottom of the hour) until 9AM and then top-of-the-hour through Noon. Afternoons I do 12:05,1:03, 2:03 pm, Monday through Friday. Yes, I have to be there at 4AM to prepare! I get up at 3AM, slop down some oatmeal with walnuts and blueberries and head out for the station which is 3 miles away. I can see the towers from my house. I greet the night manager who usually has pulled the Associated Press updates for me from the dedicated computer and I go to work.

I pull mp3 feeds from the Virginia News Network and put together the newscasts for Lite 96.1 FM. In my best Walter Cronkite voice I try to make the latest local Tupperware Party sound like a significant International event if that is all that is happening. Every once in a while there is some “big” news like a fire or wreck overnight. I also rework press releases and whatever else is newsworthy. H.L. Mencken, the great newspaper reporter, once defined a good news story as anything that makes your 80 year old grandmother say, “what???” The town just jailed a multiple offender for being a Peeping Tom. I led with “A Peeping Tom will be peeping out from behind bars for 5 years!” Much of this area is as bucolic as Mayberry R.F.D. We are innocents from a previous age. In my past broadcast news environment we had signs around the newsroom, “If it bleeds, it leads!” and “If you’ve got the time, we’ve got the crime!” That formula does not work here. This is not Orlando. There just isn’t enough blood, guts and gore. Every once in a while there is some carnage in I-81. The big story one day last week was a “log laying” ceremony as they celebrating reconstructing and old Mennonite log farmhouse at a heritage museum. It was big news because historical heritage is huge around here.

At 5AM the news cycle on 550 AM Radio begins. All morning long I am rewriting and fishing for news from Associated Press, websites, E-Mails, tips and press releases. Every story gets a Virginia and local slant. In between all this, I am bantering with the 2 man morning team both on and off the air. One of the guys got back today from a cruise vacation to the Caribbean…”See any oil slicks?” “I just found out that BP stands for “Broken Pipe”. “See any magicians on the cruise ship?”

I am the oldest person on the staff at age 62, so my age has become a running gag. “Come on Mike, I am into Heavy Metal!” “Dennis, at your age you gotta be kidding!” “No, I am not kidding, I am into Heavy Metal: gold teeth, silver hair and lead in the bottom!” You can see the people I work with at the radio stations if you watch this short video.


Now, with Internet Streaming, it is like I am local in Florida again. The Internet is changing the reach and style of radio. It is a brand new world!  Speaking of a shrinking world, you can now catch former Orlando illusionist Joe Conrad .He seems a bit physically heavier. He is based in Thailand according to the clip. You may enjoy reading all of what he says about himself.

Well, both Jon and Charlotte Pendragon are performing again! At this point they are not working together. I really think that they will get back together again eventually. They have to. They are a team and both need each other. When a team breaks up, rarely do they each have individual success. Perhaps Martin and Lewis did? Ha, all you young guys are saying, “He means Martin Lewis?” No, I mean Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. They were a two man comedy team who eventually broke up and each found individual success. I don’t believe that the Pendragons will be so lucky. Both he and her will have to work until they have their “Assdragon”? If for nothing more than pure monetary reasons! As Tina Turner says, “What’s Love got to do with it?”

A local magician in my Ring recently gifted Wes Iseli and me with a hundred or so VHS magic tapes. This guy was a card freak. Most of the tapes are on card magic. After watching 90 hours of all the greats, Bruce Cervon, Dai Vernon and many more, I am blind! The lingo is baffling! “Vernon used the Fred Black stack with an Elmsley move and a combined Buckle and reverse shuffle. Now if you do the Pass and just the Hamman’ Flustration count after the slop shuffle you will find that it works as well. I prefer to do the Biddle Grip and just do a Glide and push off… but Vernon was a little more technical”……Sheeze! I enjoy card stuff but I am lost. I also like watching medical TV shows but I could never actually do the brain surgery they do or explain it. Never the less, I am trying to improve all of my card skills. Cards are cheaper to lug around than a ton and a half of illusion crates.  Steve Wyrick of Las Vegas fame has declared bankruptcy. It was like 54 Millions dollars worth of plop! How could a person lose that much money? It reminds me of the old line: “Do you know how to make a million dollars as an illusionist? Start with 10 million!” You can check out the story for yourself  here.  Paul Osborne told me that there was more to this story that simple failure and he says that Wyrick has other things in the works.

Finally, RIP Martin Gardner. He was a genius and I used to exchange E-mails with him. His math magic was incredible. I will miss him. There will be no other like him…

It is 8:32 PM and I have to be up at 3AM…..zzzzzzzz

Dennis