I Love you,Taco Bell

By Anita Garner

Taco Bell I love you, yes I do.  This isn’t a commercial. It’s a love song. Every once in a while, I have to park near the sign with the bell. In the beginning, the bell was bright yellow. In Southern California, my brother and I drove from wherever we were to the first location in Downey and walked up to the order window in the tiny, distinctive hut. We surrendered that day.

Original location on the right, today’s look on the left.

I can say no to some things, but with Taco Bell, I don’t even try. It’s not a matter of if, but when I’ll stop by. Taco Bell calls me even when I’m headed in the other direction. I resist and resist but once in a while, when the day is full and the stomach is empty, I turn around.

So many reasons to love Taco Bell. some crunchy, some soft. This won’t take long because a very few ingredients are responsible for fulfilling all the promises of the menu. Ground beef.  Cheese. Lettuce. Tomatoes. Tortillas. Beans. Sour Cream. Red sauce. And also now chicken.I love that so many things can be assembled from these magic ingredients and served in different shapes.

The drink bar at most locations offers power to the button pusher. Fill the cup with ice and here’s my choice. Push the iced tea spigot. Move along and push for lemonade.  Mix them together. In California we call this drink Arnold Palmer. I call the whole Taco Bell experience perfect.


 

The Warmest Spot

By Anita Garner.

This week it’s the kitchen, the place where everybody gathers, and it’s not just because of the stove. The coffee pot’s in there too.

In the kitchen, several old things are new again. In the 70’s we went to each other’s houses for dinner, which was often potluck, and our Crock Pots ® stayed on the counter because we used them so often.

Then the Crock Pot was relegated to a shelf in the garage and last time I went to a potluck supper, many of the dishes were store-bought. Not a single tuna and noodle and peas casserole in sight.

Crock Pots returned in sleek versions we call slow cookers and we’re all exchanging recipes. Here’s mine: put one onion in a crock pot and the house smells like home all day.

Casseroles are now known as one-dish meals with many more than the three or four ingredients we relied on.

We’ll need to buy some new casserole dishes.  I gave away the last one a long time ago and I don’t know where we stored the Pyrex. ?

“Tea For Two”  performed by Australian guitarist, Gilbertt Kat.

Here’s his YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/gilbkat

Artwork above generously loaned by Susan Branch, whose blog and books I read faithfully. www.susanbranch.com

Kinky Boots

Listen to this blog here.

I love to tell this story. It’s about generous performers, actors and singers, and four degrees of separation.  Greg (North) Zerkle directed a reading of my musical, The Glory Road in Los Angeles.

At the last minute, one of our actors had to drop out to take another role.  


Brent Schindele  said, “An actor I know is in town right now appearing in The Lion King at the Pantages.  Let’s see if he can do it.”

Brent Schindele

Brent contacted Eugene Ware-Hill, who came over from The Lion King and without rehearsal, performed at our reading.  He was magnificent.

                                                             Eugene Ware-Hill

Fast forward. Eugene is in Kinky Boots on Broadway. The Grand has a crush on a rock star, Brendon Urie  who sang a lead role in the show this summer. Her girlfriend was traveling to New York and would get to see the show.  The Grand couldn’t go. Heartbreak.

I asked Eugene if he could please get her an autograph. He did even more. He sent a Kinky Boots playbill with a personal note from Brendon addressed to the Grand. This treasure occupies the place of honor in her room.

              Playbill from Kinky Boots

I think about how these four degrees of gorgeous proved what our grammas used to say, “Pretty is as pretty does.”

And wait  – one more.

The musician playing this ukulele version of Lullaby of Broadway is Colin Tribe. Colin lives in England where he teaches, arranges and performs.

                                           Edward and his grandpa, Colin Tribe

Colin’s YouTube channel is linked below.

Or reach him here:

colinrtribe@btinternet.com

Halloween For The Costume Impaired

By Anita Garner

I’m not so good at Halloween preparations, but fortunately my daughter is, so I get to be the appreciator while the Grand and her mother concoct elaborate costumes.  Last year the young one was Flo from Progressive, with her hair sprayed black and that little hump on the top just like Flo’s teased hairdo.

This year she’s going as her favorite rock star who sometimes dresses as a ringmaster.  Red coat with black trim, vest, white gloves, top hat, eyeliner, the whole thing.

Picture this worn by a young lady.

Once I did paint the Grand’s toenails orange and black and made a messy job of it, but my contribution to the season was no less heartfelt, so I took a picture.

I’m good at Halloween treat selection, especially when confronted with bags of bite size candy bars. One caution for fellow treat shoppers: Pre-Halloween sampling.

Flannel Season

By Anita Garner

“Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.”

-George Eliot

Hello, October!

I hear October arriving without checking the calendar. There are just enough leaves collecting in small drifts to make an autumn sound and just enough leaves moving around so I can look out the window and follow the progress of one leaf floating down. When leaves leave, it’s an occasion for celebration around here.

October is the start of flannel season in Northern California.  Everything’s in place. Plaid shirts are in the closet.  Flannel sheets are on the bed. The down comforter came out of storage and took a few turns in the dryer, fluffing up for  the next few months.

Some say Spring is renewal time, but for me autumn promises everything good.

It’s not just the fragrance of pumpkin and cinnamon and nutmeg, though I will never underestimate their impact. There’s also the anticipation of fireplaces and rainstorms. I wouldn’t mind if autumn stayed around forever.

******

Dear Coffee

I wonder how coffee got to be known as cuppa Joe or java?  Well now I do want to know.  Be right back.  Here’s what Google says.

Coffee is known as Joe because Joe is slang for a common fellow and coffee was considered a common man’s drink. As for java, when coffee became popular in ye olden times, the main source of the world’s coffee was the island of Java. 

This light-up reminder for my bookshelf was a gift. Even Elvis seems pleased about it. 

By all its names I love caffeine.  I love it hot or iced, sweet or not, straight or creamy.  I will finish this with a love note.  It’s no ode, but then what is these days?

Dear Coffee,

You know how I feel about you.  Though some think we should see less of each other, I treasure the hours we’ve spent together, talking on the radio, writing, running into each other mid-afternoons at random places. I may drink fewer cups per day but nothing can diminish the memories of our frequent over-indulgences.  See you here again next week.

                                                 Anita

 

 

 

This light-up reminder for my bookshelf was a gift. Even Elvis seems pleased about it.

Dear Coffee

I wonder how coffee got to be known as cuppa Joe or java?  Well now I really do want to know. Be right back…

Here’s what Google says.

Coffee is known as Joe because Joe is slang for a common fellow and coffee was considered a common man’s drink. As for java, when coffee became popular in ye olden times, the main source of the world’s coffee was the island of Java.

This light-up reminder for my bookshelf was a gift. Even Elvis seems pleased about it.

?By all its names I love caffeine.  I love it hot or iced, sweet or not, straight or creamy.  I will finish this with a love note.  It’s no ode, but then what is these days?

 

Dear Coffee,

You know how I feel about you.  Though some think we should see less of each other, I treasure the hours we’ve spent together, talking on the radio, writing, running into each other mid-afternoons at random places. I may drink fewer cups per day but nothing can diminish the memories of our frequent over-indulgences.  See you here again next week.

                                             Anita

 

 

Facebook Birds Of A Feather

Broadcasting is familial. We accept each other, enjoy each other, tolerate each other, and miss each other when circumstances change. Facebook is  often a broadcast yearbook in motion. It contains our “remember when” and also sends us updates and photos.  We learn of special events in the lives of people we treasure.  Sometimes we learn from a post on a Facebook page about the passing of colleagues.

I’m grateful someone lets us know on Facebook, not because we can do anything, but so we can honor the life. We can acknowledge the loss, even if all there is to say is, rest in peace. Prayers and sympathy and empathy are not nothing because they can’t arrive in person.  A life matters.  A passing matters.

The End Of Youth

The End Of Youth surprised me one morning. It didn’t sneak up on me gradually, the way friends have related their own revelatory experiences with mirrors. For me, it came all of a sudden and I was hugely, comically surprised at the face in the mirror. It was as if the wrong person had jumped out of a cake in a sitcom. What? Who is that?

I’d ignored previous clues. Now they all piled on together. The checkout counter. Any given cash register where senior discounts were figured.

In the past, I’d ask for the discount and the person in charge made a fuss of saying, “No, you can’t be.” Some were sincere, others not, but I was fine with their reaction and fine with pulling out I.D. to prove I deserved the discount.

You can guess what’s coming. One day, everything changed. As I presented my merchandise, the cashier asked “And are you a member of our Senior Club?” That was the first time nobody said, “You can’t be,” and from that day forward, it happened more frequently.

It’s not a specific age. It happens to some of us  decades too soon, because an observer isn’t really observant or doesn’t know what aging looks like, or isn’t paying attention. It also happens the other way around for some of us, years later than we really deserve, and we are offered a grace period, while we pretend not to notice the changes in the mirror.

But it will arrive. It will come in some way at some time to you, personally, and that will be the beginning of many other things, some of them very good. It can be the beginning of figuring out the next stage, of deciding our own worth based not just on a set of physical markers.

This isn’t to say that I have the answers yet, but only to remind you, as a friend, that day is coming, the day you fully accept you are no longer young and that it’s okay.

(Writing partner, Dave, shares his thoughts on the subject. Dave’s Blog)

Old dog, new tricks (Stayin’ Alive)

By Anita Garner

My broadcast buddy, Dave Williams, and I decided to write a book together about what life is like for former rock and roll disc jockeys who are now more mature in years, if not behavior.  We’re grandparents now.  We’re both still working, and everything about the way we work has changed. We haven’t written the book, but we talk about it a lot, which is almost the same thing.

We’re on opposite ends of the Boomer curve.  I’m the older one.  He’s the former high school student who stood outside the window at the radio station where I played rock and roll music (KROY, Sacramento, CA) where fans lined up before heading off to join the local cruise, with their car radios turned up loud. Somebody ushered Dave in to say hello and it wasn’t long after I left that Dave took up that same chair alongside those same turntables (yes, turntables) at the station.  We became friends back then and we’re still friends, decades later.

A career spent talking into microphones is nomadic.  When we began, we had to be in the same physical location as our audience.  We moved home and hearth and families to the next town (“markets” in broadcast-speak) with the goal being to eventually occupy a chair in front of a microphone in one of the major markets.  Both of us accomplished that.

It would be impossible to overstate how drastically technology changed our industry.  Those of us who worked in radio, television and print, ran fast just to keep up.  In order to survive on the air, we had to learn new skills overnight, and we’re still adjusting.

When we began, we launched our records from a slip-cue position (you can see the slip-cue technique demonstrated online) with one hand holding the record while the other hand twirled knobs or slid controls up and down to regulate our microphones, our music, and our commercials (spots) which ran in a separate cartridge machine and often got stuck or completely failed, requiring a new plan.

Both hands were engaged, along with head, voice, and yes, heart, all required to fast-pedal in order to sound either upbeat and party-ready or mellow, depending on the station’s music.  In larger markets, we sometimes had engineers who did the twirling and regulating, but much of our time on the air was spent with us doing all of it at once and never letting it show in our voices.

Technology altered all that, and moving from music into talk radio also required a different set of skills, but through it all, it’s been the “air personality” as we were called, who had the biggest, fastest adjustments to make, just to stay employed.

I don’t talk for a living anymore, but Dave still does (KLIF/ Dallas every morning.)  The studio in the picture above is where I learned to slip-cue a song before moving into a whole new world.  (Thanks Gary Avey, KHSL, Chico, CA.) The studio below in this “after” picture is similar to where Dave works now.

Today I write in Northern California, connected to my computer, and if I have something to say on the air, I don’t have to leave this room to do it. Dreams we never could have dreamed during the Age of Aquarius.