Sunday, September 04, 2011

The Art of Watching Radio.


I was listening to the radio today.

Years ago we use to watch the radio.

By that I mean, our family would sit in the living room and watch the old console radio at night.

My mother would be knitting, father would be reading the newspaper and my brother and I would be looking at the radio. We only got a TV set in the mid 50's but still watch a lot of radio.

We saw the Lone Ranger, Matt Dillon on the Gunsmoke program, Harry Von Zell on the Burns and Allen radio show and Jack Benny all on the radio.

Imaginations was much better in those days, by listening to radio you could transport yourself on to the main street of Dodge City or Hollywood with daffy Gracie Allen, Arthur Godfrey and Art Linkletter.

The words painted pictures and the pictures lifted you out of the living room and transported you wherever you wanted to be.

That no longer happens anymore.

Now you see on the screen via the Internet or television people and places you could only imagine before.

With that, you no longer have to imagine anything much.

You no longer need to imagine yourself achieving a goal as you did decades ago.
I wonder how that impacts the whole growing up thing?
Years ago you could imagine you could grow up and be anything you wanted to be.
It seems we didn't have self esteem problems then, just poor imagination skills.

Tuning the radio dial I notice that about 40% of the radios stations are spuing Spanish commercials.....Growing up that was unheard of except late at night when we would hear Tijuana staions or XERB with Wolfman Jack.

Now, you don't have to wait for evening.



12 comments:

Michael Dickson said...

I assume you're still in the U.S.

Spanish commercials on the radio down in Mexico are the norm, of course, nothing worth mentioning.

I read just last week that more than half of the babies born in the U.S. these days are nonwhite, that it is rapidly becoming a "minority" nation and, in some areas, non-English-speaking to boot.

Is this a good thing? Time will tell.

Anonymous said...

Remember how engaging Roosevelt could be? Not so impressive in re-runs.

Jens

Tancho said...

Yes we are, one retirement party to go to today, one last wedding next Saturday and we are coming back, none too soon. It's a madhouse up here!
Yes those statistics are not uncommon in other parts of the world, it appears that whities are not longer producing the 2 or 3 kids world wide as was a norm years ago, therefore the minorities will no longer be so and the whites will. It is already calculated that most of the Western society will have a dynamic shift in less than 50 years. What is interesting is that like Chapala, where signs are in English, there are whole neighborhoods up here that the signs are in Spanish.
Any change is a good thing, right? Just ask Washington...

Anonymous said...

Come down to San Jose, Ca. If you didn't have California plated cars driving around it would look like a big city in Mexico. Growing up we had Italian stores and shops but the signs were in English, my parents would speak Italian at home but never out in Public. They always said it wasn't polite to do so.
M.B.

JerryL said...

Funny that you were talking about radio and listening. I happen to find a old tape of a radio show that I had taped in the early 60's. The tape was so captivating that I couldn't push the stop and wound up listening to it for over 2 hours.
It was a local production of War of the Worlds which I had taped in 1962, a remake of the old Mercury Theater broadcast that caused havoc throughout the country.
It was a reel to reel tape, anyone remember those?

Calypso said...

We still like to listen to those old radio dramas. Many of then still 'holdup' today ;-)

Tancho said...

M.B. Many of the cities now have "diversity" signs which have signs in tons of other languages. Hopefully those people learn enough English to talk to the Police and Firemen.
Jerry, War of the Worlds was indeed a great production I believe it was Orson Wells that was the mastermind behind that.
Calypso,
I have a whole bunch of old radio programs on CD's that we listen to on our drive from NOB to SOB, much better than static or even sat radio. And kids will never know the enjoyment of those programs.

Steve Cotton said...

I have read several studies that the learning processes of the minds of young Americans have been hardwired in a way far different than our generation. Part of that is due to computer usage. Part due to teaching methods in public schools. They are far more data-oriented rather than critical-thinking-oriented. I have no way to know if that is true. But it certainly seems to be so from my limited conversations with young Americans. A failure to understand the economy of America is the most disturbing to me. But even the president seems to suffer that disability.

Tancho said...

Steve,
Funny that you mention Critical Thinking.
My last dozen or so years in business I noticed that the kids that were entering the work force had no idea of how to put common sense thinking together in a logical rational form. We had rudimentary tests to see what they knew and didn't know. A extremely large percentage of them first of all had no idea of spelling skills, sentence structure and could not work out simple "if you had this and added this with this but couldn't find this what results could you end up with test". I also think that people coming our of the arts are diminishing for exactly the same reason.....

Don Cuevas said...

The shoe was always greener on the other side of the border back when I was a boy walking uphill through the snow drifts to our one room schoolhouse in our knee britches.

Saludos,
Don Cuevas

Tancho said...

Sr, Cuevas,
If only would have had shoes then, maybe your life would have been different?
Look at the bright side, now you know you are in the land of leche y miel....

The Dodson's said...

Good idea about the CD of old radio shows; I'm going to look into that.