Milestone

Saving all my link love for Dave, whose first half century of near anonymous toil will surely be eclipsed by an even more robust and charming second half.

Hello to readers of the Sydney Morning Herald. I'm actually Canadian but my podcast brothers over at techpodcasts.com seem to accept this with little fanfare. My thanks to Rob O'Neill of SMH for his mentions in this article about podcasting:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/Next/Podcasts-make-waves-for-radio/2005/04/18/1113676683378.html

My complete comments to Rob about the commercialization of podcasting were:
"The obvious first stage models are being built around offering services to podcasters themselves. Efforts like Odeo and Podshow are targeted primarily at the podcasting community, offering software and bandwidth. These are service businesses, not real commercialization vehicles. Podcasters will need to develop groups in order to aggregate listenership and collect listener statistics. With numbers you can attract advertisers, so it may be possible to follow the commercial radio model. I'm also hopeful that premium content like training information or reference type podcasts can be sold on a pay-per-download basis. People listen to audio books. Why not distribute them via a podcast model?"

And which groups do I think are great places to get aggregated content? I told Rob that podcasting's "best shows right now are in the technology area with networks like techpodcasts.com and Doug Kaye's itconversations.com.

Your attention please! I have awarded myself the 2005 Stanley Cup. You are requested to address me as "2005 Stanley Cup Winner, Brad Gibson".

Thank you.

Steve Allen, Jack Paar, Johnny Carson. All of the Tonight Show.

Each of these men projected a self-effacing urbanity and hipness that resonated across generational lines. Are these men of a bygone era, of a type we will never see again? Well yes they are no longer alive but we see the brilliance of the archetypical, connected American male in their progeny -- Seinfeld, Stewart -- just as it was there before them in the likes of Benny and Burns. It is true that the tradition of the Tonight Show host being one of the coolest guys in America has been erased -- that mantle having been transferred to Letterman -- or rather replaced by one of a continuous work ethic, typified by Leno's relentless appearance every weeknight. That, more than anything, is the telling sign of our times. Johnny took vacations and enjoyed life, in turn sharing the chair with others, most notably for me; another hipster, Gary Shandling.

I've read the obits and some of the tributes to Carson. Many of them seem to lack the substance of the man. Carson was an exquisite comedy writer. He was a conversationalist of such an extraordinary bent that he could turn the show on a dime; being able to sense momentum in mining a vein of talk. Carson was a prototypical American persona for three generations of viewers. While Cronkite may have been the authoritative voice of America, Carson projected it's heart and soul. Nobody much cared that he had some relationship baggage -- it wasn't really our business -- even though he could joke about it routinely. Much has been said about his supposed shyness. Carson was not shy. You can't do what he did for 40 years or so in television and be shy. Most probably he was deliberate in maintaining a persona for the show and himself that would be impervious to conceit. Longevity is forged from self-knowledge and an understanding of your audience. The private Carson was for him and his closest confreres, we got enough of what we needed with his 90 minutes on weeknights.

What Mr. Carson gave was his unadorned devotion to his craft along with a comedic brilliance that was nearly matchless and, from the cross-generational giggles I've witnessed while watching video clips, perhaps timeless.

We have been missing him for almost 13 years and now he's gone.

I was living in St. Catharines in the fall of 1981. My radio dial was invariably tuned to WBLK -- "the House that Hound Built". '81 was the year of "Superfreak" and for a time Rick James was one of the biggest acts around.

James' career was not quite the bottle-rocket that is typically portrayed. From late 50's Buffalo, he ended up playing with Neil Young in the Yorkville scene of the 60's. From there it was talent, ambition and drugs that fueled a career that peaked with the landmark "Street Songs". The opening riff of "Ghetto Life" defines an era and a genre of music; it is the Jamesian equivalent of a John Paul Jones or Brian May classic, except he did it with a bass. Make no mistake, James was glitter, heavy metal, Philly Soul, P-Funk, rock, disco, glam and hair-cut. In 1981 he was a doped-up, egotistical show-man of absurdly energetic creativity. A small group of regular listeners to my radio show accompanied me to James' Buffalo show. Of course you would expect the Buffalo show to be a tour-de-force, it was his home town. Many were there to hear "Give it to Me" or "Superfreak", he did "You and I" and "Big Time" but the killer was the opener.

It's dark. The band's on stage, but no Rick James. Then boom! A blast at center stage and James appears genie-like out of no where, stroking his guitar. "Ghetto Life" starts -- the riff an anthem, the crowd a frenzied bunch of funked up kids. Everywhere lights; blindingly messmerizing. Still one of the greatest concert openers I have ever witnessed; matched only in power, expectation and imagery by U2 during the Joshua Tree and Zoo City tours.

James descent to an earthly hell is well documented and was probably inevitable. With the passing of two of my former musical zeitgeists within the last year or so -- Robert Palmer and now James -- I'm feeling particularly obsolete these days.

UPDATE: Found this link from soul-patrol.net featuring Rick James and band from the 1981 tour recorded in Long Beach. A great bonus is the performance of Teena Marie on some of the tracks. This show was earlier in the tour and it sure sounds like it at times.

There

I'm saddened to learn of the death of Brian Linehan. (Celebrity interviewer Brian Linehan dead at 58). Brian was a tower of wit and intelligence in the world of celebrity. His level of  preparation and in-depth research of his subjects left them wondering how he became the proverbial fly-on-the-wall in their lives. He was quintessentially charming and mesmerizing -- his greatest strength as an interviewer. His extended questions often became soliloquies, prompting  me to wonder if Brian liked listening to himself sometimes more than he preferred listening to his guest of the moment.

I'll never forget the extended interview with Brian, conducted by my then girlfriend, on McMaster student radio CFMU-FM in  1978. She turned the tables on Brian, having visited his old neighbourhood in Hamilton, spending hours tracking through archives and old newspapers to uncover never before told stories about Mr. Linehan. He was delighted and truly surprised. I wonder if the station still has that archived.