WIXY's Gone Bananas

Tonight's show at Jackson was cancelled due to the weather. At least we didn't have to travel too far tonight. Would have been nice though since we don't see most of the bands that were scheduled to appear tonight. Message for Barberton: Yes I'm referring to our friends from the Magic City. Last time we were to be in a show with you folks was the Medina show in 2002. That was also cancelled because of the weather, after Rittman played one number. If Barberton truly is the magic city, then use your magic to do something about the weather. I hope to be able to enjoy your show sometime.

Going through the forums last night, I discovered on the T&A, err, television forum on Cleveland.com a tribute site for Big Chuck and lil John . Another link to our past. I love it when I can use modern technology to go down memory lane. Site has forum on it also. All you need to do to be able to discuss your favorite Big Chuck and Lil John memories, or for that matter, Houlihan and Big Chuck, or even Ghoulardi memories, is register with a valid e-mail address. Now we have a place to go when we want to discuss skits, such as Ben Crazy, the Kielbasi Kid, Soul Man, and many others.

In the past several months, I've been communicating with folks who are or have been in either radio, television, or both. I've had some dialogue with disc jockeys, board operators, producers, salespeople, etc. I've gotten insights that I wouldn't otherwise have gotten. No matter what capacity these folks are or were in, they were in love with the business, and show a definite passion for it. I was checking the comments on my blog today and noticed one from Mike Dane, who is one of the dedicated volunteers who do a very professional job on the Sunday Oldies Jukebox. That's a group of folks who love what they are doing, and do their absolute best at it. And speaking of work to love, my wife started her new job this week as a home health aide. She had done this kind of work before, but the kids were young and she was needed at home more at the time. Now with the kids all grown and either in college or married, she can devote time to this work. She had been a retail cle...

As mentioned in my previous post, the WIXYmobile will be heading to Massillon with the Rittman Indians Marching Band for the Jackson festival of bands this weekend. Come see marching bands from Barberton, Wadsworth, Garfield, Sandy Valley, Stow, United, Warren G. Harding, and your host band Jackson. Hopefully the weather will hold out and a good time will be had by all.

This weekend,I drove the WIXYmobile to Whitehouse, Ohio for the 20th Annual Showcase of Bands at Anthony Wayne High School. This was my first trip there, though the Rittman Band had been there in years past. My daughter had told me that the Anthony Wayne show was one of the best. The host band has 132 members, and has one of the best "high stepping" marching styles that I have had the privilege of seeing. Rittman was one of 8 bands participating this past Saturday night, and was the first guest band to perform. A first happened to me as an announcer-I was "turned down". Well, I do have a habit of overmodulating. I was complimented by other announcers for the amount of excitement I put in my presentation. One of the complimenters was Ron Finn , morning host on Toledo radio station WRQN. He was there as guest announcer, and is also a former Anthony Wayne band parent. The Rittman Band gave their best performance of the season Saturday night. It's easy to show excit...

I don't usually dwell on media here in my blog, but I want to touch on some media items of a Christian nature. On Monday, October 2 , WCRF will be rearranging some of their afternoon broadcast schedule. Those of you that are like myself, and miss Dave Ramsey on our drive home will get some financial advice from Crown Financial Ministries as Money Matters will air at 4:00pm. Money Matters is hosted by Steve Moore and Howard Dayton, pictured to your right. Crown Ministries was also the ministry of the late Larry Burkette, whose teachings Dave Ramsey followed when he was coming out of bankruptcy some twenty years ago. Prime Time America , Moody Broadcasting's program which covers news from a Christian perspective will expand to two hours from 5:00 to 7:00 pm. Podcasts: Several Moody programs, including Prime Time America, Proclaim! , Midday Connection , and Open Line is available as downloadable podcasts. More on Christian podcasts at a later date.

Checking in during a busy weekend... From the Pressbox: Friday's halftime went well at Rittman Stadium. The new song in the routine this week was the Ramones' "Blitzkreig Bop". Next Friday is an away game for the football team, which means that I have the evening off. Next Saturday, we travel to northwest Ohio for the Anthony Wayne Band Festival. About the Rittman Football Team: The Rittman team dropped to a 1-3 record after a 47-21 loss to Hillsdale this past Friday night. Rittman is basically fielding a junior varsity team after a playoff season last year. Because there was uncertainty during the off season(levy issues), there was a complete turnover in the coaching staff, and two of the remaining starters from last season transferred to another school. The Hillsdale team is having what looks to be like a good season in the early going. They normally have one of the weaker teams in the Wayne County Athletic League, so maybe they can go ahead and make their school p...

Seeing that some people take issue in greeting others on the Listening Party forum, I thought I would make my blog available for greetings this day. If you meet some who dont speak English, click here for alternatives . If you want a more highbrow greeting, click here. I just think that it's a sad state of affairs when you can't say "hello" to some without it being overanalyzed. But this is my blog and I will post what I want, and these are my thoughts. I don't claim to be an expert, just a long ago student. The world is getting smaller, but we as a people are getting farther and farther apart. What's wrong with that picture? If you're a first time visitor to my blog, welcome. Stay awhile and make comments if you wish.

A forum friend and moral supporter of this blog had sent me an e-mail a few weeks back. In the last sentence he had asked me to pray for him, which I did as I was answering his message. This is one of the most powerful things anyone can ask me to do, and it also makes me glad that I don't keep my faith under wraps. I am also glad that I have connected with other Christians with this endeavor of mine here as I ask you to pray for my son as he is getting ready to go to college on Saturday. also pray for his mother as she is going to be worrying herself silly over him being away from home. There will be more to come about my son in the next few days.

Been airing my brain out the past few days. I took my handicapped brother and sister to the Wayne County Fair yesterday, and been spending some time with my wife. I hope to be back with some thoughts in the next couple of days.

After opening our show this evening with "Lakshmi", we continue by asking you to focus your attention on our majorettes, Aimee......and Brooke, as they present their distinct twirling styles while we play the 2004 hit by the Australian band Jet. Here's "Are You Gonna Be My Girl". And with that introduction, we are well into the second halftime band performance of the season, for the Rittman Indians Marching Band, as we don't do away games. The band this year sound about the best that I've heard any Rittman band at this point of any season. I noticed that last week during the performance of the national anthem. And being only the third performance, I see even better things ahead. The visiting school, Tuscawaras Central Catholic, did not have a band, so we had all of halftime to perform, and the Rittman Band played five tunes, which would be what is played during a band show performance. One of the tunes was "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" featuring a ...

Whats wrong with the picture on the season 10 cover? Mike Farrell, as B.J. Hunnicut, is pictured without a mustache, when he has had one since season 7.

If you are in Rittman on Saturday September 9, come over to the South Main Street Church of God, home church of WGB, for their monthly fund raiser, country breakfast. You get eggs, bacon, sausage, potatoes, biscuits, gravy, fried apples, coffee, juice. All you can eat for a donation of $6.00 for adults, $4.00 for children 12 and under. You can also get it to go for a donation of $4.00. The address of the church is 261 S. Main St. in Rittman. Breakfast will be served from 6:30am to 11:00am. Come hungry, go happy. Forum reminders: For those looking for a civil alternative to some of the nonsense that has a tendency to go on in the Cleveland.com television board , let me remind you that Radioinsight.com has an Ohio television board that is well moderated, and there has been some good discussion going on between a few posters. If youve not been there give it a look-see. There is also a classic television board on the site.

This will be a serious post This coming Monday will be the fifth anniversary of 9/11. There was a question on a discussion forum about how to handle radio programming that day. My response was that we shouldn't forget, but we shouldn't also be saturated with constant programming about what happened that day. I feel that we are overloaded with that much content. How many times do we need to see the planes ram into the World Trade Center? One poster said that a moment of silence would be adequate. Personally, I didn't know anybody who lost their lives on that day. The company that I work for had a customer who lost employees that day. One of the exectutives in my company, a retired army officer, lost a friend when the Pentagon was attacked. Yes it was horrific, many lives were lost that day, and we still have not captured the perpetrator of the events of that day. God (who was expelled from school almost 40 years before that) made a cameo appearance in the classroom, the off...

I have a confession to make. I watch very little TV news(OMW, you can breathe a sigh of relief. I'm not taking your job anytime soon.) I used to watch it alot when the news reported the news and was not the news. In the 70's you watched a half hour of local news, and guess what? You got a half hour of news. Nowadays you have what? Several hours of local news? And what do you get? About a half hour of news. I get all the news I need driving home from work every night, and that's like in a five minute block. In the 70's it was rare for a newscaster to make the news, and most of the time, it wasn't their choice. Take for example Dorothy Fuldheim throwing Jerry Rubin out of the studio. I'm sure that "Jerry Springer" moment wasn't planned. Or when the afore mentioned Fuldheim got a pie in the face. And from the forums, hey Fox 8! Even though I watched it, "American Idol" is not news. It's entertainment. Don't show it during the adverti...

A question was posted on my comments. Does anybody know what the prior name of Charter One Bank was? I don't know since I bank with FirstMerit, and before 1995 it was known as Old Phoenix National Bank.

Rich from Medina brings up a good point with his comment abour the below item. I think we are slowly beoming our parents. Sometimes I talk about going to Lawson's for milk, Sohio for gas, Dog-N Suds for their world's creamiest root beer. I can go through Laurel Square shopping center in Brunswick, which is near where I grew up and point out where Fisher Foods, Woolworths, Fisher Big Wheel, Kroger, and Marshall Drugs used to be. What's the old joke? You didn't study history, you lived it. Folks, we are now there.

I took a trip this afternoon to the vast no-man's land that once was the Rolling Acres Mall in Akron. I noticed that the "Kaufmanns" sign was about to be changed, as the name of the store in the next few days will become Macy's. More proof that this country of ours is becoming either a suburb of New York City or Los Angeles. It also shows me one thing. The only thing constant anymore is change. Lets see, in my lifetime Fisher Foods became Fazios, which was sold to Stop-N-Shop, who was sold to Giant Eagle. Pick-N-Pay became Finast, then became Tops, and now is leaving the area. Kroger left, came back, and left again. Zayre sold out to Ames, who closed their stores in the area. Gold Circle became Hills, was sold to Ames who then went out of business. Click is gone, Clarkins is gone, Woolworths is gone. W.T. Grants went bankrupt over 30 years ago. The list goes on. One of the best times I have had as a poster on the Cleveland.com Listening Party board was this past sprin...

As we mark the last official day of Summer, let us reflect on the efforts of the American worker. To those who provides the goods and services that provide all of us with a more comfortable life. To the servers that make sure we get a good warm meal when we go out to eat, to those who provide us with a clean theater, stadium, or arena when we seek entertainment, to those who make sure that the movie we want to rent is sitting on the shelf, in the proper place, we salute you. To those who are up all hours of the night to restore power during outages, to those who go out in treacherous weather to ensure our safety, to the postal, and delivery services that makes sure our mail and packages are delivered promptly we salute you. To those of you who provide the education for our children to help them in the transition in becoming responsible adults, we salute you. To those who perform the tasks that no one else cares to perform for a meager pay, we salute you. And to ...

A book I'd like to recommend is called "48 Days to the Work You Love" by Dan Miller. Dan Miller, was raised in a Mennonite family in Amish Country, and now is a career coach in Nashville. The book gives many good ideas in utilizing your talents and skills to find the job of your dreams and gives you a 48 day plan of action. Dan Miller is also the host of a weekly call-in show called I Love My Work, live 7-10pm EDT. It's on "Super Talk" 99.7 FM WWTN, Nashville. The show is also available as a downloaded podcast. Check for details of the program ands the book at 48days.com

"We close our show tonight with a quiz: What do academy award winning actor Art Carney, Jerry Mathers of Leave it to Beaver, horror film great Vincent Price, TV legend Dick Clark, comedian Jerry Lewis, and singer Cher all have in common? They were guests on the same 1960's TV series. The name of that series? BATMAN" With that intro, I trip all over my tongue, and the Rittman Indians Marching Band have officially started their halftime performances for 2006. But the 35 or so students that make up the band did a fantastic job in entertaining the home fans last night. Their performance of the national anthem during pregame was thwe best that I've heard in the 6 plus years that I've been announcing. All the marching formations look to be close to mid-season form. I am really looking forward to the next two months of home halftimes and band shows. If any read this and have October 21 free, make the trip to Rittman and see this year's Indian Band Revue.

A large thank you to Ohio Media Watch as this blog has received the endorsement from the "Mighty Blog of Fun(tm)" And a special thank you to all who have given me encouragement and ideas in the past few days. And if you have just stumbled unto this work in progress, welcome to "My Parallel Universe(tm)" More to come...