Never Ever Interrupt Laughter. (new geo Blog for the week of March 12/18)

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My old friend and legendary Detroit morning man Jim Harper and I were exchanging radio rants the other day as we are want to do. Jim (pictured above) was complaining about the fact that morning show folks are just reading the stuff they find on the internet today and don’t even bother to rewrite it, so it’s radio friendly. Not only do they just read it he went on to say, they act like it’s their exclusive content which is stupid because if they found it on the internet, so did everybody else. I couldn’t agree with Jim more because we know what the definition of art is. “Observing life and then commenting on it.” 
Back in the day when Jim was tearing up Detroit on WNIC, “Detroit’s Nicest Rock” I was his driver and the guy who got him coffee, we spent a lot of time discussing concepts and philosophy. In those days, finding content was a little tougher than it is today because there was no internet but we did have USA Today. The good thing about USA Today was that the local folks didn’t read it, they instead read the Detroit Free Press which of course Jim also had. Unfortunately, though, we didn’t have either exclusive so it was Jim’s comments about a story that we assumed his listeners already knew that made the difference. Jim put his own spin on it kinda like Johnny Carson did.
Not only did Jim add his comments to the story, but he also added exaggerated emotion and localized it. Then he would hand his prepared killer close to the story to one of his team members which when delivered correctly would cause Jim to fall off his stool laughing. Luckily, just before hitting the ground he would manage to hit the button that started the next commercial but unfortunately for the client, you couldn’t hear the beginning because of the laughter.
The first rule of showbiz may be that you need to be noticed first but a close second is, “Never ever interrupt laughter unless you’re paid to do so.”
 
OK, BACK TO THE FRIVOLOUS STUFF.
 
I was formally educated in a pool hall on my way home from school.
 
The worst person you can lie to is yourself.
 
How does Nassar molest 150 girls over the years and we’re only now learning about it?
 
In Britain, like in Canada and America, everything is left to the spouse. Yoko, for example, owns everything created by John Lennon and John’s son Julien receives nothing. However, just down the road in Buckingham Palace, the Queen’s son Charles gets it all, and Prince Phillip is out of luck. How does that work?
 
When I became a Father, all I cared about was my kid’s happiness, but unfortunately, they don’t appear to be that happy. Color me sad.
 
Free money fixes nothing.
 
So if white people only listened to white music and watched white athletes play, how well would that work?
 
When I started out in radio in the mid-sixties, I was making $15.00, but the auto workers my age in Detroit were making $210 – $250 a week with bennies. What the hell did they do with the money?
 
Beware of people bearing signs.
 
Thankfully all the members of my band The Jury are still alive which is not true of most of the younger groups that followed us in Winnipeg. My daughter Candis claims that it’s because we were ahead of the drug era.
 
My folks sure had more to protest than we do but didn’t because they were too busy working.
 
When my Dad retired in Canada, he was eligible to collect unemployment insurance for a year but unfortunately, I couldn’t get him to apply for it. He said, “Son I’ve gone through my whole life including the depression without welfare, I’m sure as hell not starting now.” No matter how hard I tried to convince him that it wasn’t welfare, he wasn’t listening. Not much of that pride around anymore.
 
I am totally against someone having one more right than I do. I want them all!
 
Back in the day, musicians made records so they could get off the road. Now they make them so they can get back on it. 
 
Everybody is gifted, in fact, there are at least seven intellectual gifts, and all you have to figure out is what yours is and take it for a nice long ride. 
 

It seems that every week is daughters week and having two of them I’m all for it, but I was wondering if anybody knows when son week is?

Speaking of kids, even though she claimed that she was having your baby, only she gets to leave with it, you only get to pay for it. Marry on!

They say that this may be the last time that we have to change the clocks because it looks like daylight saving time may become permanent in Florida.
 
Much much more @ GeorgeJohns.com. On Twitter @GeoOfTheRadio. Sharing and commenting appreciated.
 
 
 
 
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9 thoughts on “Never Ever Interrupt Laughter. (new geo Blog for the week of March 12/18)

  1. Maybe those in Michigan around Nassar’s home base (Lansing) know more, but I keep wondering why the teenage girls did not talk amongst themselves or to their parents (or guardians). Please understand, I am not trying to blame the victims with this question, but were the parents of the girls totally ignored by Michigan State AND U.S.A. Gymnastics. I understand the blind-eyes and ears at U.S.A. Gymnastics, but 150+ children is unbelievable in its magnitude. I always thought that girls talk…or is the level of competition between contestants so great that each girls was compartmentalized and did not talk amongst her fellow athletes and their parents ?

  2. You and Jed need to read the girl’s comments at the trial. He was a god damn doctor doing his “special treatments”. It had nothing to do with sex, he wasn’t having sex with them, he was molesting them with his “treatments”.

  3. Not to argue here, Bob, but the series began here in Indianapolis where U.S.A. Gymnastics is / was headquartered. There were questions dating back several years, to the point where Nasser was even required to have a nurse or fellow doctor present during his “special” treatments. There was even a situation where Nasser was being interviewed during one of his treatment sessions with Nasser’s attorney present with the student-athlete treated under a sheet and the doc allegedly puts his hands on the girl’s groin area while the reporter starts asking his questions about some of the rumored allegations, at which point Nasser’s attorney stops everything and the reporter is ushered out of the room. A couple years later in the course of doing the story, the reporter realizes the doc was molesting the girl right in front of the lawyer and the reporter ! Sick, sick, sick.

  4. Those from Michigan, OF Michigan, (unless they are Spartan Blind) know MSU owns a history of to be polite, “shortcuts.” Read “Behind The Green Curtain” written by two former MSU athletes (and no, I’m not a UM grad). Nassers madness is beyond comprehension, not unlike a serial murder with lesser consequences.

  5. I spent about five hours each day writing original material for my next show. Your description sounded so familiar. I used Boardroom publications…can’t remember the monthly newsletter title. Spin magazine, SF Chron and San Jose paper to inform, educate, localize and write that punchline and at least one artist tidbit and hour. It’s damn hard work but my PD told me that he couldn’t wait to hear me Crack the mic. I was also paid the lowest full-time salary…which made the work even harder. But when the psychological abuse started, I quit.

    • We would have kicked some major ass together Robin. One of my favorite jocks is Bill Gardner who memorized the punch lines of every joke he’d ever heard. Then he’d go to the local newspaper to find the perfect beginning which made him not only very funny but also very local.

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