DIALSCAN: CLEVELAND, MAY 30, 2009

As far as good radio goes, in Cleveland, Ohio, there ain’t much; it figures that Cleveland is the home of the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame. But that’s no reason not to talk about what little there is.

Both big sports radio stations in Cleveland are owned by the same conglomerate, the ironically named Good Karma Broadcasting, Inc. I start at the high end of the dial, WWGK-AM 1540, commonly known as KNR2. I encounter a NASCAR race and am immediately baffled; how it is five guys with light Southern accents can make the tedious act of driving around an ovular track exciting for radio listeners is beyond me. Just to give you an idea as to NASCAR’s target audience, the race being run in Dover is called the Heluva Good 200, after the ranch dip. I could go on and on about NASCAR, but let it just be said that I hope my mind goes faster than these cars do.

At WKNR-AM 850, the ESPN Radio affiliate, two chipper-sounding young guys are talking about the Cleveland Cavaliers basketball team when they’re not antagonizing audience members. Apparently the Cavaliers are on the brink of elimination from their playoff series with the Orlando Magic, and these two fellows (Cameron & Wood, I guess they’re called) are doing the alpha-male equivalent of reading tea leaves and bird entrails, predicting the outcome of the game. I almost can’t listen; why should people worry about the outcome of a sporting event? It’s wasted energy. There are more important things in sports and in the rest of life. But I guess it all depends on when and where you listen. (By the way—doesn’t it seem to you that half the radio commercials sell you ways to get out of debt? How much more debt do the schmendricks want you to get into so that you, dear Reader and Listener, can get out? Just a thought.)

With unseemly alacrity, I switch to the FM dial, where the pickings are just as slim. At WCPN-FM 90.3, the NPR station, it’s On the Media, where an attorney is being interviewed about journalist’s rights. I run screaming from the lawyer; in the course of my line of work (process service), I hear enough about lawyers and subpoenas and summonses every single day. I do stick around long enough to hear pseudo-intellectual babble about rating agencies, conflicts of interest, etc.

The last grape on the tree, I am pleased to report, belongs to the classical music station, WCLV-FM 104.9, the radio home of the Cleveland Orchestra. And it brings to mind a memory. Many was the Tuesday night where I could sit on my bed in my bedroom in Malvern, PA.—my boyhood home—and hear the Cleveland Orchestra under Christoph von Dohnanyi wafting out of my old clock radio, being beamed through WFLN-FM 95.7 in Philadelphia. Whatever Maestro von Dohnanyi and his men were playing at Severance Hall, I always felt like I was at the seventeenth row of the orchestra, dead center. I was always just a wee bit sad to see the broadcast end, because then it meant I had to turn off the radio and go to sleep. In many ways, I am still that would-be patron of the arts, sitting in the concert hall, hoping to be swept off my feet.

But it won’t happen now; they’re airing the 2007 Cleveland International Piano Competition on WCLV. It’s a classical music station—not ESPN Classic. Oh, well.

DIALSCAN DOES DALLAS: MAY 25, 2009 (MEMORIAL DAY)

You knew and I knew I couldn’t stay away from radio criticism forever. I’ve been observing the Cannes Film Festival; I don’t know about you, but I’ve seen enough tuxedoes, evening gowns, red carpet arrivals, press conferences and paparazzi over the past eleven days to last me probably forever. Seeing one premiere is one thing; after observing all or part of sixteen over a week-and-a half, I wonder how they do it and still keep their heads above water. But that’s all in the rearview mirror; the Yankees have been torrid, from what I understand, and now find themselves in the Metroplex on Memorial Day.

We start at a jazz station this trip; KNTU-FM 88.1 to be specific. I’m greeted by the sound of an organ and I wonder if this isn’t Miles from his electric period. Very possible. I can’t help but wonder if on a hot Memorial Day in North Texas, folks don’t just stay in their bedrooms and put this music on. Who needs barbeques when you’ve got this. I just found out; it’s called Everyday People. The Announcer says it’s by three guys, but he rattles their names off like they’re in a law firm. Furthermore, it sounds like the dude is outside. The traffic commentator comes on—she doesn’t have any urgency in her voice, and she thinks that by nearly whispering into the mike, she can get more people subscribing for membership; KNTU is a public station, after all. She does take care to tell me there will be a lot of traffic around Rangers Ballpark; I’m sure the Rangers fans fleeing in horror from the whipping the Yankees are giving them. Better give them a mulligan and get back with them—I can’t blame them too much for not wanting to work on a national holiday.

Past the litany of Christian rock stations and country music stations we go, up and up the FM dial until we land at WRR-FM 101.1, the classical music station. Just now, we’re hearing Anton Rubinstein’s Violin Concerto in G, Opus 60. I may have heard of Anton Rubinstein or not; having been marinated in classical music for the past two decades or more, I couldn’t tell you where or when. But it does sound lovely. Give me a moment while I lie in the lavender…

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A piece by Leroy Anderson is next on the playlist, according to the avuncular-sounding Announcer. But not before a few commercials—the commercial classical music station is a dying breed, hanging in as slowly and surely as this guy seems to be talking. I’m told that this Anderson piece is actually fairly popular, but this is the first time I think I’ve heard it. If I had five dollars for every time I am going to have to hear Sleigh Ride come Christmas, I would buy Dancer, Prancer and Blitzen. But I don’t want to even contemplate Christmas just now.

A couple more healthy spins on the knob lands me at KESN-FM 103.3, which is an ESPN-owned station. I can hardly wait until I get to 105.5. Evidently someone or other has taken the day off out there, as well. A commercial just came on for a previous sporting event—I don’t care if it’s Memorial Day or not. Radio is, it bears repeating, the medium of the “hear and now”. What if Derek Jeter gets traded to Kansas City in the next five minutes? I have no patience for radio laziness.

Let’s get over to the AM radio dial, starting with KVCE-AM 1160. I’m promptly greeted with a cheerful Announcer heralding “an encore presentation of the Biz Radio Network.” Nobody at Cannes demanded an encore, so why should I want one from a radio station in Dallas? While I’ve been typing that, nothing but commercials have been airing. The hell with ‘em.

At KFSR-AM 1190, I’m greeted with the only thing worse than an encore presentation, and that is silence. Dead air where the audio feed of CNN Headline News should be. Not even Simon and Garfunkel’s The Sounds of Silence, just good old-fashioned silence. That’s probably a blessing in disguise; from what I understand, this station has gone through more format changes than Eva Peron probably had shoes.

So one full turn of the dial later, we find ourselves at KTCK-AM 1310, where instead of the sports talk that the station promises, some whiny twit wants to know why he has to work today, or anyone else for that matter. He wants America to shut down on Memorial Day, the way it does at Christmas. One of his partners wonders why there are not mandatory flower-laying ceremonies for every American. It could be argued that they do not want to talk about the crib job the Texas Rangers just put forth (an 11-1 loss to the Bombers). But I would hate to be stealing their thunder. They seem like upright, well-meaning, ramrod-straight Americans to me. But when you get down to brass tacks, all they’re doing is killing time. A chap who works at a country club calls to tell the hosts that there were 180 players on his golf course this morning; he is summarily dismissed from the air by these ramrod, straight arrow Americans apparently for not being reverent enough. I neither know nor care. All that matters is that their broadcast is two minutes behind.

Let’s move on to Rational Radio, KMNY-AM 1360. Rational Radio is subtitled Progressive Talk Radio, which really means Screw George Bush Without a Condom Radio. Some chap called Richard Hunter (I hope that’s who this is; I’m deathly afraid that he’s taking the day off, too) is talking to his engineer or producer –I forget which—about his cell phone ringtone. Must be a slow news day. I look at his show’s website; he does not seem like a man I want to screw around with, what with his long, scarlet-streaked hair, his black fingernails, and his assassin’s stare. But the good news for now, anyway, is that he’s working today and not complaining. In this way, Richard seems like my antithesis. All that being said, would someone please tell the producers and owners of Progressive Talk Radio that George W. Bush can’t hurt them anymore? Wait a minute—someone just broke in with a traffic update to say that there are no problems on the highways. When I started this, there were; there’s no traffic anymore? You watch. At another station, I’ll find a hell of a hassle on one of the highways. What’s more, you can actually watch this Richard chap host his show, and it’s actually live, not the minute or so behind that the station’s audio has apparently been. So I purse my jaw and change stations.

All the way down at the other end of the dial from Rational Radio (depending who you ask), we find KLIF-AM 570. Aha! There’s at least two traffic accidents in the Metroplex, according to the traffic reporter. Someone has been yanking my chain! So I guess Rational Radio is also Lying Bastard Radio! HA! My buzz deflates when I find out that Jon-David Wells, who is normally on by now, is off today. His replacement, some dolt named Chris, is coming on like one of those third-rate preachers you see on teevee every Sunday morning. That’s probably appropriate, given the fact that he’s defending the First Baptist Church of Dallas from some hitherto unpardonable sin. Alas, he’s a mere replacement, given a microphone and three hours to make his case for fleeting glory.

Last stop on the tour: WBAP-AM 820, the supposed News and Talk of Texas. Sean Hannity may or may not be doing his show live. Don’t put it past him not to be. His guest thinks Barack Obama has a great smile. We’ll see how great it is on January 20, 2013, and that’s all I have to say…

D'un admirateur Americain

Folks, I hope you'll indulge me for a few minutes. I should have done this last week, but I seem to recall promising to tell you why a certain French actor has me under such a spell. Her body of work comes under the "guilty pleasure" file, like chocolate for some and pasta for others. Here, then, is the text of an open letter I wrote last week.

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D'un admirateur Américain: An Open Letter

May 22, 2009

Mme. Isabelle Huppert
Exact Address Unknown
Paris
FRANCE

Dear Mme. Huppert:

The odds are that you may never read this letter—the Good Lord knows you have more important things to do, even at this moment. I have ruminated long and hard over what to tell you that other, far smarter and far deeper people have told you untold numbers of times before, in nearly every language.

The plain fact is that I am a thirty-year old man living in a house trailer in semi-rural Florida, which means I am not the target audience, I’m sure, for your prodigious body of work. I could go on and on about La Pianiste, Nue Propertie, and any number of films and the effect each of them had on me; I won’t here. However, let it just be said that beginning with only the most cursory viewing of La Pianiste some years ago and really going into overdrive in the past year, my admiration for you and your work has only expanded, and shall continue, I have no doubt.

Although I am an admirer of world cinema in general, I do not regularly follow the Cannes Film Festival. 2009 marks the first year that I have followed Cannes the way I normally do baseball. If the President of the Jury were virtually anyone else, I would turn the page of the newspaper, click the back button on the browser, or turn back to the classical music station. Mme. Huppert, you are not just anyone else. And this is the larger point. It seems to me that you occupy a higher state of being, and it makes you and your work stronger and richer than any actor now working in the world. The Dalai Lama speaks of three types of faith; my faith in you, Mme. Huppert, is the second type, aspiring faith. I wish I could attain the state of being that you and those like you occupy; that of apparent creative and spiritual invincibility.

Someone here in Florida asked me very recently who my favorite actor was. I could not bring myself to answer the question, not because I knew it was you, but because if I did tell that person, I’d be greeted at best with a blank stare. My wish for you, Madame Huppert, is that you and your films receive greater notice in these States. I wish people could talk about you, Depardieu, Deneuve, Ardant and the rest of the brilliant roster of French actors and filmmakers with the same reverence and love that greets most American and certain English actors here in this country.

Knowing that your work and you exist, Madame Huppert, has enriched my life and its experience in the same way that having and loving my family and my friends enrich them. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for being.

Very truly yours,

Matthew McIlvain
Tampa, Florida.

Practical Destiny

May 24, 2009

I’m a big believer in the law of consequences. That is, I believe that if one thing did not happen in the past, then another thing would not have happened later. Let me give you a few examples.

I’m sure some of you have heard of Carlton Fisk, a catcher for the Boston Red Sox and later of the Chicago White Sox. Because of his home run in the twelfth inning of the sixth game of the 1975 World Series, it went seven games. Now think of this: six days earlier, Fisk’s batterymate that night, Luis Tiant, pitched a complete game in Game 4 against the Reds. Had the Red Sox not won that game, there would not be a sixth game in the first place. Extrapolate that just a bit further. If three days of rain had not interrupted the World Series, that sixth game would not have been played at night. The odds are more distant that the iconic image of Fisk waving the ball fair would even exist and become one the most enduring moments in sports television history. And had the ball not bounced fair off the left field foul pole in Fenway Park, it would not have just recently been rededicated in Carlton Fisk’s honor. Think about all that. Amazing, isn’t it?

Here’s a more recent example; there is an Austrian filmmaker called Michael Haneke. You’ll be reading about him soon enough. In 2000, he made a film called The Piano Teacher. Had Haneke never read the Elfriede Jelinek novel on which the film was based, he would never have made it, and my current idol, French actor Isabelle Huppert, would only have one Best Actress prize at Cannes and not two. Go a little further with this. If Haneke had never made The Piano Teacher, much less had the worldwide success with it that he did, he probably would not have had the ability or wherewithal to make a film called The White Ribbon. Two hours ago, Isabelle Huppert, the President of the Jury at the 62nd Cannes Film Festival, gave Michael Haneke the Palme D’Or for The White Ribbon. That exchange would never have happened if The Piano Teacher did not exist.

I just found another, better example. Take Helio Castroneves, a Brazilian who drives open-wheel race cars. Had he not won the Indianapolis 500 in back-to-back years (2001 and 2002), I might never have heard of him; he’d be one of thirty-three drivers in thirty-three cars running round and round the oval at Indianapolis. And if I didn’t know his name, I would never have known he won a celebrity ballroom dancing competition in 2007. Now consider this. In 2008, Castroneves was charged with tax evasion and tried. Had he been convicted, Castroneves would not have competed in, or even won, his third Indianapolis 500… one hour ago. He’d be in a cell, contemplating his fate.

My point, since I can practically feel the words on your tongue, is that if you study people you admire closely enough, you can see how the greatest moments of their lives were shaped. Nothing separates the great from the small quite like destiny; it’s the great intangible, greater than luck or chance. Our lives are planned for us long before we are born, but watching the course get charted is so much fun. Destiny is such a powerful force that I catch myself slack-jawed, and even at a loss for words. Which is what I am right now. I guess the amount I don’t understand about destiny could fill the Grand Canyon…

Odds and Ends

-- At the Cannes Film Festival, I'll tell you who I wonder about: the manager of the Haagen-Dazs shop across the street from the Palais du Festival, where all the competition films are shown. The managers of the Festival, in their infinite wisdom, have built bleaches across the street for onlookers, leavng the ice cream store obstructed. I wonder how business is at that store these days. Also, I wonder if employees of the shop are able to even see the arrivals. Maybe, if they had stepladders or giraffe's necks. But alas, probably not.

-- Last night, at the competition screening of Jane Campion's new film Bright Star, Juliette Binoche (whose name I'm sure Lauren Bacall still curses in her sleep) attended, leading an entourage conservatively of ten. Ostensibly, Binoche was there representing the Cinema du Monde foundation. An entourage of ten sounds about right for someone of Binoche's stature. Later that rainy night, the President of the Jury, Isabelle Huppert, attended a screening of a vampire film from South Korea (I think) called Thirst. Isabelle's entourage? Her assistant, carrying an umbrella. True greatness, I guess, travels very light. By the way, faithful readers will note that this is at least the third time I've referenced Isabelle in a blog entry. As soon as I can shape it into something that you are prepared to read, I will let you know why that this is so.

-- Today marks the annual running of the Preakness Stakes, the only horse race that's worth watching. The Kentucky Derby winner, as I''m sure you know, has to win this race in order to pursue horse racing's Triple Crown, which has never been done in my life. (Affirmed was the last to do this, when my mother was, I think, starting her second trimester with me.) My life will feel ever so slightly cocmplete if this ever comes to pass. I felt the same way about the Daytime Emmys, until Susan Lucci finally won hers in 1999. But that's another song, for later singing.

-- Here's today's grammar lesson: Tampa is to Orlando as Philadelphia to New York.

--Back to Cannes for a moment: I realize virtually everyone there is a charter member of the Mutual Admiration Society, but the first actor to ask his or her filmmaker if he wants to buy rhem a drink and take them somewhere private should get Honorable Mention.

--NYU held commencement excerises the other day at the new Yankee Stadium. Secretary of State Clinton received an Honorary Doctorate of Laws. For all of that, they still couldn't fill the joint--not even those thousand-dollar seats near the field.

--Going back to Juliette Binoche for a moment (this is stream-of-consciousness writing, don't you know): At Cannes, she declared herself to be a "citizen of the world." That's actually a very therapeutic way of living. One of the best things you can do for yourself is to free yourself of rigid borders and preconceptions, whether emotionally or physically. It doesn't matter if you travel to Tuscany or listen to its radio stations. Seeing how other people enjoy the world helps you become a citizen of the world,

--Get off the sandbox, Matthew. But be careful. Both Mme. Huppert and Mme. Binoche would notice if you broke your foot.

HAPPIEST DAY

The happiest day of my life
Was the day I realized
How special I am.

The happiest day in the World
Was when I was sure
There was no one like me.

No one thinks quite like me
Talks quite like me.
Acts the way I do.
Thinks the way I do.

On this happy day
The skies were the most beautiful blue.
The grass was the most gorgeous green.
The sun shone brighter.
The wind blew the briskest.

And God was smiling.

He had given me the greatest gift in the world.
He wanted me to know how much
He loved me.

And on this day,
I truly loved him back.

The happiest day of my life…was today.

The Dream

I dreamt the most
Beautiful Dream I’d ever
Dreamt last night.

I dreamt that I was doing
The most wonderful thing
A human being can do.

I saw myself
Making love
To a gorgeous, wondrous
Woman.

Only I know what
She looked like.
What she felt like.

But that smile
Could have lasted
An eternity.

I shall never forget that.

My dream went by
In a moment.

My memory will
Keep my dream
For always
And forever.