Crutches! Foiled again!

I have become plant life. I can’t really move on my own, yet I need to be fed and watered daily. My ability to do things is extremely limited. A no-glory skiing accident transformed me for the next ten weeks into a rehabilitating crutch-dependent cripple. Just call me ‘Hop-along Karl!’

Disaster struck early on a Saturday night. At the end of a very easy run, my right ski hit a patch of slushy snow and twisted my right knee out about 90 degrees. No ligament damage occurred, but I did smash one side of my tibial plateau pretty nicely. I walked out of my bindings! I didn’t even fall! I skied down the rest of the run and then hopped to my mini-van and eventually made it home. After seeing my CAT scans and MRIs, I am amazed at the power of my adrenalin!

A week later, I left The Hospital for Special Surgery with a plate and several screws more than I arrived with. Now I must adapt and learn to walk again. This requires great thought and agility. The basic things we most take for granted sometimes can become the most precious. How humble injury can make you. Thank God that you woke up this morning and that you can breathe and walk and eat by yourself. How helpless you feel when these freedoms are taken away!

With surgery sutures, you can’t shower anymore. You learn new techniques to wash yourself, to shampoo your hair, to brush your teeth and shave all without the balance of one leg. I have a new appreciation for my elbows and how much they can offer during my morning ritual. Any point of balance becomes a valuable asset. I am very proud that I can still maintain reasonable dignity with some autonomy. My best advice: Don’t get old!

Of course, theatrical elements are included as part of the experience. My favorite is the one I like to call “The Big Crash.” This is when you lose balance on your crutches and head south really fast. People around you will hear the loud bang followed closely by some vulgar expletive and some repositioning of crutches. Warning: They will very often yelp themselves and run to save you. Now, don’t you feel stupid?

I’m getting better at this skill. If you need to crash, crash against something solid or, even better, crash into a hallway corner or a solid wall. You’ll gain much better support! Crashing into flimsy closet doors or other tentative objects is just not polite (or effective!)

Crutches are also useful as extension devices to control or grab things at a distance. Manipulation of light switches become no problem. Getting a blanket over an uncovered toe? Easy! Crutches make great air guitars, too, but reserve those moments when you have privacy and you are really, really bored!

How do you spend your weeks in asylum? One passive method is the use of a Continuous Passive Motion (CPM) device. In my case, my bad leg rests in on a mechanical contraption driven by a fractional horsepower motor. Using an ingenious high-tech control box, I can adjust the speed and degree my knee will bend. Place your heel in the fuzzy cloth boot and away you go for hours at a time. CPM machines are a gift. They keep your wounded extremities flexible and help you increase your range of motion. Have a nice ride on a daily basis!

Not being a Blackberry or iPhone/iTouch person, there is only so much time I can spend on the Internet. At only a couple of weeks into this debacle, I have now looked up and researched every person I have ever known, cared about or seen in a movie. My e-mails get answered with blazing speed. I enter into dialogues with friends about all sorts of cerebral thoughts. You experience an entirely new outlook on life. It’s very interesting!

Another plus: Plenty of time to read. I am catching up on all sorts of literature I have always wanted to read or re-read. I have discovered some remarkable new technologies to study. I have time to experiment with authors I have never enjoyed before. I have time to write for myself! It could be a lot worse!

After you get past the initial despair, anger, and resignment and settle in, it is good for your soul to think about the positive things that occurred after this major event. I had a great conversation with my cardiologist about the meaning of life and other metaphysical matters. Through amazing coincidence, I met some old friends I haven’t seen in decades. I’ve solidified casual acquaintances into life-long friendships. My conversations have brought me much closer to all the people in my life. I see my family continually (a remarkable and wonderful blessing on its own!) I have had time to think and feel somehow blessed that I am still here and with everyone that I love. What more could you ask?

So, the journey begins. April is not that far away! They tell me I will walk again and I’ll be doing everything I can to get there. I’m used to long drives across America. I have patience! Wish me well!

I've Got the Blues!

Bad Joke: What do you get when Tinkerbelle has a wild night out with The Blue Man Group? An Avatar!

Worse Joke: What may be the biggest grossing movie of all time? Avatar!

It’s 20^th Century Fox that should get an award! Never in the history of American pop culture has something so light become something so heavy. If my twelve year old daughter can call all the shots ahead of time, there’s not much plot. Everyone’s seen motion tracking of computer graphics before (even if they are tall and blue!) Never has hype gone so high! All hail hype!

Avatar is a lot of things. It’s long. It’s really long. Long? Let’s just say it’s endless! It’s secretly a comedy. In one ending scene, the lead insane military bad guy (representing the entire human race) rightly envisions the Avatars as Viet Cong flashbacks from his youth. He will kill, kill, kill, kill them and never ever die! Stephen Lang should get an award for playing the undeniable Colonel Quaritch with a straight face. His annihilation of the Avatar race will be the fodder of parody for generations!

There isn’t a whole lot more to like. Sigourney Weaver plays Sigourney Weaver again. (Where is Melanie Griffith when you need her?) George Lucas has nothing to worry about when it comes to amazing portals to fantasy worlds. With a zillion dollar budget, they couldn’t get anything better than a minimalist coffin made from injected plastic to transport you to the land of blue? I need some good electrodes and lightning ladders, guys!

Can anything save the Avatar world? Oh, my little blue meanie, there is l-o-v-e. Of course, at least one human falls in love with an Avatar and converts to Avartism. (Oy Vey!) Doesn’t everyone look good in blue (with Polynesian ornamentation?) Spoiler: After all the groom’s doubts are gone, ‘I Got the Blues’ lives happily ever after with the indigo girl. Time to roll the credits! (Even they last twenty minutes!)

If you have to see this misguided epic, pay the extra $3 and see it in 3D (even better – IMAX 3D!) This way, you’ll have silly black rimmed glasses to wear with your friends at Applebee’s after the movie is over. Come on! You need to have some fun tonight! I can’t wait for the sequel: ‘Neytiri Gets The Blues’ shot entirely in Chicago featuring Buddy Guy as the bride’s father.

There’s no sense in my attempts of dissuasion. I know you are going to see this movie. Just go when you are really tired and need a long nap. You won’t miss anything in the first eight reels and you’ll feel like you have accomplished something! There you are: This is Avatar! Oh me, oh my. Why? Why? Why?

Hunting Pirates

Back in the early 1970s, the FCC mandated that broadcasters could no longer simulcast their AM stations on FM, so wild experimentation began. FM became a new and popular medium filled with free-form radio. Many young broadcasters suddenly had the opportunity to be on the air and create an all-new listening experience! Somebody was listening, right? Great adventure awaited!

My earliest memories of FM were received via my family’s first TV set. My Dad brought home a Pilot 15 inch black and white TV back in 1950. Connected to a classic V-beam antenna in our attic, it featured continuous tuning in three bands: VHF low (channels 2 through 6), VHF high (channels 7 through 13) and FM. This TV was my only connection to FM radio when I started listening around 1966. It was primitive, but it opened a whole new world of radio!

The very first New York City station to enter this new world was WOR-FM or simply OR-FM. Their lead personality was the legendary Scott Muni who later went on to rule the roost at WNEW-FM. NEW-FM had a lock on rock radio for years and years. If you were into radio, you wanted to be a high-profile DJ like Muni. With very limited amounts of jobs available at local stations and no public access to the airwaves, many, many people entered the fray by setting up personal radio stations of their own.

Personal broadcasting, without a license, was, of course, illegal. Pirate stations often waited until late night when professional stations would sign off (and FCC inspectors were sound asleep) to go on the air. The New York City Board of Education station, WNYE on 91.5 MHz, signed off nightly around 10 pm. From ten until dawn, this frequency was alive with pirates. 87.9, one frequency below the bottom of the American FM band, also served as roost to many pirates. Any open frequency was an invitation to go on the air!

Pirates followed irregular schedules and often switched broadcast frequencies to avoid being caught. It seemed like the FCC was always listening. FCC busts would occur regularly, sometimes arriving at your door during the daytime when your station was not even on the air. News of a bust would travel fast: All unofficial stations would disappear for weeks until the heat was off.

Pirate programming varied from highly distorted incongruous nonsense to quite professional stereo broadcasts with phone-in request lines and jingle packages. Obscene and randy records were often aired and much of the DJ chatter was of a personal nature towards local friends. It was harmless and innovative. Many stations had quite a following. I remember one station, operating in lower Manhattan, claiming to not only moving from night to night but actually broadcasting mobile from time to time to avert being caught.

Many of my friends and I were great fans of pirate radio and budding radio nerds ourselves. We had begun on Citizen’s Band. Our first move to the dark side was realizing that if you swapped the receive and transmit crystals on a Lafayette walkie-talkie set for Channel 10 you would find yourself on a Civil Air Patrol channel (26.620 MHz.) Unlike CB, this frequency was crystal clear and we could talk to each other much, much farther instead of fighting the continuous drone of CB heterodynes. One day, a booming voice came to us on 26.620 yelling “Hey, who are you kids?” We were never really good with authority!

Some of us built little FM transmitter kits made by companies like EICO. One or two of my pals actually went legit and became licensed radio amateurs. Some of their ham radio transmitters found their way down to 1620 kHz (at the very top of the AM band) broadcasting from time to time to impress local girlfriends and mates. All of our experimentation was minor league using, at best, small battery-powered microphone mixers or simply microphones aimed at stereo speakers. We were all fascinated by ‘the big boys’ with powerful transmitters and fancy equipment.

Late at night, we would listen and listen and listen. I kept a pencil and paper log of who I had heard and when. Stations would come and go and you never knew what you would hear. Things became really interesting after we became old enough to go to college. Some of us managed to get our own cars, or borrow our parent’s. Our first move would be installing FM converters (typically the Audiovox variety) that would opening up factory-installed AM pushbutton car radios to the new world of FM.

Having FM in the car was the beginning of a new sport: FM pirate hunting. For excitement and adventure, it could not be beat! The first step would be listening carefully to your target. Chances are they would make references to local high schools, colleges or other landmarks. Find a friend or two, hop into a car with FM radio and start driving! Armed with a good street map book of New York City, you could localize the pirate in quick stead.

The real fun was locating the exact location and obtaining verification. I had an Antenna Specialists FM antenna booster wired to my car’s FM converter. This device served dual purpose. I could really pull in DX, like Channel 6 audio on 87.75 MHz, when it was on. Turned off, the amplifier module acted as a useful attenuator pad for traveling in Manhattan where field strength was enormous. It also helped greatly when locating pirates.

My friends and I did not have anything that would qualify as authentic radio location equipment. Along with my souped-up FM car converter, we would use a very simple hand-held FM transistor radio to continue to localize when you were close to the target station. We would ride around making circle after circle around blocks in a neighborhood until we had a really good idea of where the signal was unstoppable. It took a little time, but we always had results.

Hot on the trail, we would park our car and set out on foot. Every roof top and garage would be viewed and studied during a slow walk around the neighborhood. Most often, a very new-looking omni-directional crossed dipole or two would be seen as the signal became powerful. Discovery was always sweet. Our method of verification was clever. We would drive our car to the front of the suspect house and wait for the homebrew DJ to open his microphone. If we could hear our car horn beep over the air, we knew we had found our catch! QSL!

Time and time again we would hunt down pirates for our own amusement. Finally, I decided to take it to the next step! I had a summer job in a public library’s reference room. I learned how to research nearly anything, including telephone numbers! In the days before the Internet, a huge volume was published in the New York City area called Cole’s Directory. This was a meticulous cross-reference of the standard telephone directory by phone number and address. What a wonderful reference material!

One particular pirate really snagged my interest. An inventive guy named Tony had built a great sounding station in his home in Springfield Gardens, a modest neighborhood of small one-family houses in southeastern Queens. He had a great sounding station and a lot of equipment and he was in stereo. This was a big deal back in 1970. Some of the ‘real’ stations did not have stereo!

We triangulated Tony and found he was using a five-element Yagi antenna. The car horn test verified our catch. He must have been using a reasonable amount of power because he could be heard over a huge area for miles and miles around. We wondered why he decided on a directional antenna and then it occurred to us that he was aiming towards Manhattan to maximize his audience. We had his address and he gave a phone number over-the-air for requests. Cole’s Directory? Here I come!

I now had his full name and verified his address. Even better, we had a second telephone number for his house. Friday night came and we waited for him to go back on the air and there he was. It was time for fun! His broadcast got going and he finally called out for requests and listener comments. I called his other house telephone number and I could hear the phone ring over the air. He answered immediately putting a record on the air. Tony’s request line did not ring over the air, but his house phone did. I had entered the belly of the beast!

“Hi, Tony? Jeez, I love your station. What kind of a transmitter and stereo generator do you have? Man, it sounds great!” Response: “WHO IS THIS? HOW DID YOU GET THIS NUMBER?” Check and checkmate! The station immediately went off the air and we laughed until we cried. Oh, did we make this poor soul paranoid! We might as well have been formal FCC inspectors. It was weeks before we heard him on the air again. By then, we suspect, he thought the heat was off!

The FCC were celebrities on their own. Inspectors Judah Mansbach and Al Zimny were very well known within the New York City pirate community. These were the men in the bad suits who would knock on your door when you were about to be busted. They were the personification of all evil and authority seizing your equipment and delivering your summons. These were people you did not want to meet in person.

Adding to their notoriety, many pirates also worked in legitimate broadcasting and would encounter Mr. Zimny and Mr. Mansbach as they inspected licensed facilities. This would be a double heart-stopper for those engineers that led double lives! They were tough inspectors. Every wire needed to be in place and every FCC commandment had to be met. Those who did not comply received citations hard to explain to upper management.

Some people grew to know the FCC more than others. Most notable was the dynamic duo: Al Weiner and J.P. Ferraro. Prolific broadcasters, Al and J.P. pushed the limit many times and actually found themselves locked up briefly. Later, this team (along with a pack of followers) became legendary by building a radio station aboard the good ship Sarah and broadcasting from the open seas off Long Island’s south shore. Their adventures even made the front page of The New York Times!

Much later, in the 1990s, Al and J.P. eventually went legitimate. J.P Ferraro now manages a delightful and eccentric AM station in the mid-Hudson valley: WHVW 950 AM. Al built an impressive international shortwave station, WBCQ in Monticello, Maine, broadcasting on several frequencies daily. Lately it occurs to me: What a long, strange trip it’s been!

To this day, a pirate broadcaster pops up from time to time and the urge to hunt grabs me again. You never forget how much fun it can be, but now I am armed with tight-pattern long Yagi antennas, radios with signal meters and useful attenuator switch boxes all packed into a mini-van with lots of room for gear. Unlike an amateur radio fox hunt with short transmission lengths, FM pirates just stay on and on. An easier catch you’ll never find! My only request: Put on some good tunes while I am hunting you down! My advice to casual listeners: Just keep tuning! You don’t know what you might hear! Radio Free Peekskill might be on right now!

Happy Halloween!

Looking for new adventures in Halloween fun? Anyone can carve a pumpkin but sculpting a drawing onto one is even better. Search the Internet for your favorite pumpkin design or draw one yourself. They all look good in pictures, but how do you transfer it?

I eyeballed a picture of Elmo with a great big smile. After a few minutes of thought, I discovered new use for my Dremel tool. Using a fine #192 high speed cutter, I slowly and patiently created a rough outline of the drawing freehand. Then I followed through by carving away the larger areas. Anyone who knows me well knows I am no artist! If I can do it, so can you!

With the Dremel tool rotating at its slowest speed, make gentle light strokes with your cutter. Remove just the tough top orange skin of the pumpkin revealing the bright yellow meat. No need to cut holes deep into the interior like a jack-o-lantern. Without the opaque skin, light will shine right through from the inside of the pumpkin. It may take a while to complete your masterpiece, but the final product proved it was worth the effort. I never knew Elmo could be look so spooky!

You Know You Are From Newfoundland When...

1. You never meet any celebrities except Buddy Wasisname and Toni Marie Wiseman.

2. Your idea of a traffic jam is ten cars waiting to pass a tractor-trailer on the "TCH".

3. "Vacation" means going to St. John's for the weekend.

4. You've seen all the biggest bands 10 years after they were popular everywhere else.

5. You measure distance in hours when traveling across the province, and full days when measuring distance across the country.

6. You know several people who have hit moose more than once.

7. Your classes were often cancelled because of snow.

8. You often switch from "heat" to "A/C" in the same day.

9. You use a down comforter in the summer.

10. Your grandparents drive at 100/km per hour through 13 feet of snow in a raging blizzard - without flinching.

11. Your social life consists of drinking at parties, in the woods or downtown, and bingo, darts, cards & fishing after 30.

12. You see people wear hunting clothes or jogging suits to social events.

13. You install security lights on your house and garage and leave both unlocked.

14. You think of the major four food groups as moose meat, beer, fish and berries and a typical meal portion for you would feed a European for two days.

15. You carry jumper cables in your car and you know how to use them.

16. There are 4 empty cars running in the parking lot at the convenience store at any given time.

17. You only own three spices: Salt, Pepper and Ketchup.

18. You design your kid's Halloween costume to fit over a snowsuit.

19. Driving is better in the winter because the potholes are filled with snow.

20. You think everyone from a bigger city has an accent and dresses funny.

21. You think lingerie is a short flannel night dress.

22. You know all 4 seasons: Almost Winter, Winter, Still Winter and Construction.

23. It takes 3 hours to go to the store for one item when you're in a rush because you have to stop and talk to everyone you know.

24. You have a satellite dish/cable with 500 channels and still watch NTV.

25. You consider a snow blower a recreational vehicle.

26. Everyone knows a snowmobile in the back of a new truck is the sign of a well off person.

27. You have your own rubber boots & ball cap for picking berries and fishing.

28. The shed or the barn are acceptable places for grown men and sometimes women to drink and socialize.

29. You actually understand these jokes, smile, and forward them to all your friends from Newfoundland.

Pictured: NTV's Toni-Marie Wiseman

Fun For Fall !

This Fall’s fun starts with a Pixar party. Look for their amazing re-release of Toy Story and Toy Story II now digitally re-rendered in 3D coming to theatres on October 2^nd. If the return of Buzz and Woody are not enough, November 10th will bring the home video release of the latest Disney – Pixar masterpiece: Up. Carl and Ellie will finally appear on the small screen and the search for Paradise Falls will begin again.

As a long-time fan of Pixar, I went to see Up out of loyalty expecting just another animated feature. Two hours later, I walked away moved and stunned with its quality. It’s hard to imagine a movie better than this. I made a point of seeing it the next night in 3D. If you haven’t seen Up, pre-order the DVD now! Money back guarantee!

Have Mercy

My only bet for the 2009 Fall TV schedule is NBC’s new hospital drama called Mercy. Newcomer Taylor Schilling leads the cast as nurse Veronica Callahan, part of a troika of women meeting the demands of modern medicine. You may recognize one of the other nurses supporting Taylor played by Michelle Trachtenberg. Michelle is a now-grown-up teen icon best known for her roles in Gossip Girl, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the movie Ice Princess. NBC has heavily promoted Mercy with multiple free iTunes video clips and on-air spots. It seems to have a better-than-average appeal with fresh and edgy writing. It premieres nationwide on NBC-TV September 23^rd.

See The World !

You might also enjoy a very interesting experiment being conducted daily by ABC News. Their World News Webcast represents a completely new wave of news broadcasting. You’ll see a refreshing new spin on content tailored for the under 50 crowd including great features like New Music Monday and Friday At The Movies. Someone at ABC is obviously thinking about the future. World News Webcast is technically anchored by their broadcast icon Charles Gibson but frequently replaced by a farm team of ABC correspondents on their way up. Many of the field reporters are testing their wings, as well. Make a point to watch this free daily download, available from iTunes or directly at http://abcnews.go.com/WN/Webcast.

Play Your Kazoo !

If you happen to be awake during the wee hours, try your radio for entertainment. One show should not be missed. Check out The Steve LeVeille Broadcast on the air on WBZ 1030 AM from Boston weeknights from midnight until 5 am. You’ll hear radio like it really should be: It’s fun. It’s local-oriented. It’s very informative. It’s habit-forming and – warning – it can be really silly. Steve is a wonderful combination of seasoned newsman, talented interviewer, insightful commentator and musical performer (he plays sax and a mean kazoo.) WBZ reached 38 states at night, but if your radio can’t pull him in listen on-line at: http://player.play.it/player/player.html?v=4.7.124&id=92&onestat=wbz.

Sweet Sounds

Musically, Colbie Caillat recently defied a sophomore slump with her tasty second full CD ‘Breakthrough,’ featuring her latest single ‘Fallin’ For You.’ Also look for a hidden gem ‘Hoy Me Voy,’ a duet with Colombian superstar Juanes. You’ll find it on Colbie’s EP ‘Coco Summer Sessions’ released last November. It’s hard to get Colbie out of a recording studio: Look forward to a handful of new Christmas songs to be released in the next few weeks. One for fun and fun for fall!

Are We Human?

It’s my favorite song of the year, but it leaves a lot for interpretation. The Killers, a Las Vegas based rock band, are enjoying well-deserved success from nearly everything they do including the mega-hit ‘Human.’ At first listen, it’s a 80s retro dance tune with a great beat and a wacky keyboard riff in the right channel. It’s got enough compression for AM Top 40. Warning: After a couple of listens, the lyrics will grab you!

Just what are they trying to convey? Their lead singer, Brandon Flowers, asks us ‘Are we human…or are we dancer?’ That’s ‘dancer’ singular. Possibly a new type of life form or discipline? We’ll see! It’s supposed to be all about a reference made by Rolling Stone guru Hunter Thompson that society is decaying into a bunch of directionless dancers. OK, sure.

Maybe the vision should be of a newborn coming to life: ‘I did my best to notice - When the call came down the line - Up to the platform of surrender - I was brought but I was kind - And sometimes I get nervous - When I see an open door…’ Another faction of Killers fans likens the song to the attributes of a puppet with the lyrics: ‘close your eyes – clear your heart – cut the cord.’ Indeed, maybe we are inanimate: ‘My sign is vital – my hands are cold – and I’m on my knees looking for the answer…’ What does it all mean?

Is something evil about to happen? Human sadness, defeat and resignment come next: ‘Pay my respects to grace and virtue - Send my condolences to good - Give my regards to soul and romance - They always did the best they could - And so long to devotion - You taught me everything I know - Wave goodbye - Wish me well.. - You've gotta let me go’ (Maybe even suicidal?) There is also a sense of departure reminiscent of David Bowie’s classic ‘Space Oddity:’ ‘Will your system be alright - when you dream of home tonight? - There is no message we're receiving - Let me know is your heart still beating!’ By the way, did Major Tom ever make it home?

You could think about this for days. I have! No matter how far you go in thought, it’s a great song musically and lyrically. You can even be silly: Maybe The Killers long to be Santa’s reindeer! ‘Are we human or are we Dancer?’ Onward Prancer! Onward Vixen! Give them a listen at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6r4KT8-VX0. The Killers’ CD Day & Age, including ‘Human,’ is available on iTunes and everywhere. Their three other CDs are killers, as well!