What's the matter can't find your manual

An announcement, dear friend
You are about to receive on Paulie Zizzo,
Getting shocked, and the transmission of noise....

I think every job or profession has identified a moment labeled as the "worst-case scenario," something someone once dreamt up that would indicate major deficiencies or spell utter disaster for the people involved, but because the situation was so random, unbelievable, and totally out of the ordinary that the need for preventive training was just as ridiculous as the conceived event. Surely the combined knowledge, skills, and abilities of the staff would preclude the need for even worrying about such an affair. Even if those things failed, wouldn't common sense and competence reign?

In short, no – never assume anything.

It happened on a Saturday. I was at home listening to the radio station, half pretending to be critiquing how things sounded, and half pretending to be working on class assignments.

Every week I tried to go through the traffic log and put in one “random” weekly test of the Emergency Alert System (EAS). While there was one test marked ahead of time, it wasn’t unusual for me to call up the station out of the blue (or purple) and ask whoever was there to perform a test just to see how prepared they were. I enjoyed these spur-of-the-moment calls though I’m sure the staff found it somewhat annoying (see Nervous children making millions: you owe it all to them). When I distributed the logs earlier in this week I had set aside one weekly test on Saturday morning because I felt that the weekend people hadn’t had enough exposure to the EAS. I probably also scheduled it during Paulie’s shift just to see how well he would get through such a test. While I knew he would make an attempt – one or two people in the past had known blown it off, much to their mistake - I wasn’t sure if he would be confident in his execution.

However when Saturday rolled around I had forgotten my plan. Then the phone rang. I left the bedroom/office and went into the other room to talk with someone – family? Friends? Who knows. I returned a few minutes later and picked up where I left off. Then the phone rang again.

It was Dina, the station pariah-in-training: “Did you just hear that?” she snapped. No, I answered, I was in the other room. “Well, you’ve got to say something to Paulie.” Why, I asked. “Because,” Dina sputtered, “he just blew through the EAS test.”

Hesitantly I asked what Paulie did. I wasn’t at all ready for the answer.

“He mouthed the tones!”
“What?”
“He mouthed the t--”
“Whadya mean, ‘He mouthed the tones?’”
“He mouthed the tones, Marty!”

Yes, the one thing that I never would have dreamed anybody would have thought to do did in fact happen. Paulie, unable to pull off a successful EAS test, muddled his way through by making the test sound effects with his mouth. As I tried to imagine how this must have sounded, I cringed again – there were no tones to an EAS test, just electronic pulses and signals.

Ah, perfect – Paulie had mouthed the old EBS tones (see Electronic Behavior Control System). For sure, the FCC would love us now. Plus this didn’t bode well for me and my ability to train the staff.

Hanging up on Dina, I called Paulie and casually asked, “So, Paulie....what’s happening?”

Paulie rambled through a story about getting confused and making the decision to come up with something to satisfy the requirement as shown in the traffic log when he couldn’t think of anything to do. With a heavy sigh, I explained that I would have rather he called someone and ask for assistance than do what he did. The FCC probably wouldn’t be too keen on such things, and what listening audience was enjoying this week’s edition of “Nuggets’ Sounds of the Sixties” (see Cause it's home, the only life I've ever known) probably didn’t appreciate the unprofessionalism. Neither did I for that matter.

How does one’s mind come up with the idea of doing this? Why would someone get notion that it would be okay to do this? Who would want to imitate a noise live on the radio? Didn’t he pay attention during training? Couldn’t he find the manual? Didn’t he know his noises would call unwanted attention? Man, I wished I had the tape deck going on this one.

I added to this my complaint file – the facts that I had gathered and requested the faculty advisor look at – about Paulie that had come from both students and listeners. However the faculty advisor came back with a response that blew me away, one almost as bad as Paulie mouthing the tones: “But he plays such good music.”

That floored me. Yes, the boy shouldn't be on the air 6 to 8 hours straight and his performance has been critiqued by everyone in the county and now he’s broken FCC regulations by making noises with his mouth to emulate an EAS test but, darn it, that is sure some good music he's playing.

All in all, it was the first of many things there that made me want to tell these people to “SHUT UP!”

- - - - - - - - - - - -
Shut Up
(Here Are the Facts You Requested)
Here Are the Facts You Requested
From the album Shocks and Struts
1998

Shut up you got such a mad mouth
Shut up what you got inside
wake up walk it to the shower
your warm soapy water don't lie
take me to the farm. take me now

what do you need beyond this vibration?
I got three you can have em for free
all that yin yang sittin in your shelf
wanna taste wealth try pawnin off yourself
take me to the farm. take take me to the pawnshop
take me to the farm. take take me to the pawnshop
take me to the pawnshop
take me to the pawnshop, pawnshop allright

forget what you got in mind
nobody hears what you yell inside
a dollar and a dime just ain't gonna buy
anything but a sigh and just a taste of love
such a taste of love
such a taste of love
such a taste of love
take me to the farm. take it sell this guy my ganga hangin in the pawnshop
take me to the farm. take it sell this guy my ganga hangin in the pawnshop
take me to the farm. take it sell this guy my ganga standin in the pornshop
take me to the farm. take it take me to the pawnshop buy myself some ganga

what's the matter can't find your manual
you own the map but you left it at home
pickup a phone, but you ain't got a phonebook
and you cry like a weasel though you taste like an eagle - no!
benefit for pawnshops such a taste of love y'all
better git your porkchop gonna harvest ganga
benefit for pawnshops sick myself a bag full
when I buy some ganga then I take it to the pawnshop

I'm having a good time, patching holes in my head

If you've ever seen the Red Elvises then you probably remember them as the group that had the red triangle thing that one guy plays as an instrument. That, and you've probably made the connection between "Red," in reference to old Russia, and "Elvis," for the rock-n-roll, in their moniker. Hailing from ex-Soviet states, the band began in California in the 1990s and has been together since in various incarnations and never really sagging in popularity. Of course, with a name like “Red Elvises” you expect that the band enjoys a good party.

I had never heard of them but a copy of I Wanna See You Belly Dance was in the main studio and it was revered as a good album by a lot of people on staff. I admit it wasn't my cup of tea, but I was usually not in the majority during my stint as station manager. Some of the station staff had some fun with their name, jokingly calling them Rush n' Radio, Red Can Too, Soviet Rock, Red Con Tiki, Czech it Out, and so on (I never got most of the names, but that’s me...). After a few listens I was able to appreciate it and thought the album wasn't bad. Still, I wasn't prepared for the roar of excitement that was to come when it was announced that the Red Elvises were touring the country and would be on campus during the spring semester. I had to chuckle at the bands that toured this backwater city - Luther Campbell's 2 Live Crew (two or three years prior to my time), Vanilla Ice (one or two years after my time, see This is a hell of a concept: we make it hype and you want to step with this), Garbage, and now the Red Elvises.

Now the Red Elvises were signed to play Spring Fest, some sort of collegiate-sponsored Saturday when all the student organizations met and setup in and around the football field. The radio station was there to cover the event, as well as broadcast from the event to allow others to see us in action. It was a given that I would have to help setup; I hung around after we got settled, even going on air a few times in what, I realize now, were probably some of my last live radio moments.

Paulie Zizzo was on the air for most of this Saturday, as he was every Saturday (see Cause it's home, the only life I've ever known). When his shift was over, though, he arrived on the scene and started interacting with the small crowd hanging around the remote equipment. Quickly I learned Paulie treated everyone as a friend and, for the most part, everyone treated him as one of his or her gang. He'd go and talk to one crowd of people, disappear, and then come back from another direction engrossed in discussion with someone else. Whether or not these people knew him well or just recognized him as the kid with the bizarre appearance is hard to say, but, long story short, Paulie was popular.

Here is where it got weird: toward the end of the event the mediocre music that had been playing for most of the day was replaced the loud, rocking sounds of the Red Elvises. Most of the events had wound down anyway, allowing things to turn into a large, outdoor concert. As we were done with the remote, I hauled things to my car – and stopped short when I saw Paulie dancing on stage with the Red Elvises. Talk about flashbacks to Woodstock: Paulie's interpretive dance consisted of swaying, air guitars, and free love. Well...not the free love – mostly just the swaying and air guitars.

I turned to Lois, the news director and part time DJ, as we packed and asked how Paulie ended up on stage. Unbeknownst to me, the previous night the Red Elvises had shown up at the station wanting to plug their show. Paulie had been hanging around...and one thing to led to another...and he was in. They recognized the Young Dude from the radio station and brought him up to the stage for a few numbers. As I said, he really knew how to fit in with people.

Of course, I then asked why I wasn't told the station had guests the night before – but that's another story.

Oh – the red, big triangle I mentioned earlier was a balalaika, a stringed musical instrument of Russian origin. It looked bigger than the guy playing it, a guy that a number of people dubbed Triangle Man. Triangle Man, Triangle Man, Triangle Man meets Young Dude Man. They have a dance, Triangle wins. Go figure, Young Dude Man.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
Voodoo Doll
(Zhenya Kolykhanov)
The Red Elvises
From the album I Wanna See You Belly Dance
1998

Small voodoo doll, looks like me, that's what she's got in her hand,
Sitting and thinking what went wrong, how did we get to the end?
I say, small voodoo doll, don't touch my soul, let me rock'n'roll.

I'm having a good time, patching holes in my head,
I'm having a good time, can't get better than that,
I say, small voodoo doll, don't touch my soul, let me rock'n'roll.

There she goes, grabs a needle, shoves it through my heart,
I don't understand the way she giggles, I think she went little far,
I say, small voodoo doll, don't touch my soul, let me rock'n'roll.

I'm having a good time, patching holes in my head,
I'm having a good time, can't get better than that,
I say, small voodoo doll, don't touch my soul, let me rock'n'roll.

Give me something I can rely on

Here’s another of those songs that apparently came out of nowhere. I always assumed Monaco was popular somewhere – why else would it have been included on a weekly preview disc? Maybe we made it popular after our continuous airings? Well, at least popular to the campus listening audience. It certainly was somewhat popular with station staff, as I recall it found its way onto many 1997-era playlists, including mine on those occasions I filled in on the rock shifts.

While I liked the song I didn’t immediately understand its importance. Then down the road a bit I discovered that Monaco was a side project of Peter Hook. This tidbit meant precious little to me, until it was explained to me that Hook was a one-time member of New Order. This, then, surely explained why the overall affect of Monaco was lost on me. I knew very little about New Order. Those people on staff who had grown up with New Order and Joy Division were ecstatic about playing the bouncy pop tune. Some people, like myself, didn’t necessarily hate the song but found it didn’t have much of an effect on us - except for the galloping “Sha-la la la la-la la” chorus, easily the most memorable part of the song.

We didn't play any other Monaco songs because as far as we knew no others existed. As usual, it wasn't until writing this I discovered that Hook and band mate David Potts had released a second Monaco album in 2000. I was also previously unaware that Hook and Potts had worked together in Hook’s other project, Revenge, a few years prior to their Monaco years.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
What Do You Want from Me
( Peter Hook/David Potts)
Monaco
From the album Music for Pleasure
1997

Sha-la la la la-la la
Sha-la la la la-la la
Sha-la la la la-la la
Sha-la la la la-la la

There is one thing that I would die for
It's when you say: "My life is in your hands"
'Cause when you're near me your love is all I need
Now I can't imagine

What do you want from me
It's not how it used to be
You've taken my life away
Ruining everything

What do you want from me (sha-la la la la-la la)
It's not how it used to be (sha-la la la la-la la)
You've taken my life away (sha-la la la la-la la)
Ruining everything (sha-la la la la-la la)

Give me something I can rely on
Far away from the life that I once knew
What does it matter, that's all I have to say
And I can't imagine

What do you want from me
It's not how it used to be
You've taken my life away
Ruining everything

What do you want from me
It's not how it used to be
You've taken my life away
Ruining everything

Sha-la la la la-la la
Sha-la la la la-la la
Sha-la la la la-la la
Sha-la la la la-la la

(BREAK)

What do you want from me (sha-la la la la-la la)
It's not how it used to be (sha-la la la la-la la)
You've taken my life away (sha-la la la la-la la)
Ruining everything (sha-la la la la-la la)
(REPEAT TO FADE)

Cause it's home, the only life I've ever known

I’ve sort of mentioned the fun involved with students picking their music shift at my undergraduate station (see Let's flip the track, bring the old school back); at the station in my post-graduate days, they did it differently – and by a method that made more sense that anything we did when we were sophomores or seniors. Seniority – what a concept. There were x number of shifts (music, news, and sports) that had to be filled and y number of students in class. Each student was to pick one shift at a time, and those first to pick were those that had gone through this routine the longest. Paulie Zizzo, even in this mixed-up, muddled, shook-up world, managed to be one of the two or three students who had seniority (see We never got it off on that revolution stuff, what a drag too many snags).

When it came time for the students to pick their shifts, everyone knew what Paulie was going to choose (except me, but I was new and hadn’t heard him in action yet). I soon discovered that his usual shift was weekend Classic Hits. I inadvertently identified the shift as “Classic Rock” a few times that day and was steadily corrected by Paulie as to the true nature of the music. Was there really a difference? We played the same decades-old junk when I was an undergrad and we called it “Classic Rock.” The difference, I suppose, turned out to be the amount of music this other station had. As an undergrad, our weekend Classic Rock shifts were somewhat limited because we didn’t have a very large library of music. As station manager working on post-graduate work, I listened in amazement at the number of CDs and LPs available to fill the eight hours of Classic Hits, with music ranging anywhere from the crush-stomping sounds of Kashmir to the lightweight Cyndi Lauper, something called Girlschool, Gary Numan’s Cars, and some Creedence.

As on weekdays, the station didn’t sign-on until 10AM and students were regulated to two-hour shifts. In the end, Paulie’s air shift picks resulted in him being on the air from 10AM to 4PM, which was later explained to me to be the same schedule he’d had in past semesters.

Now the term “Classic Hits” tends to imply the music was popular on some sort of grand scale. As such, during this format you’re not going to be playing music from those local guys who won the Battle of the Bands contest four years ago. Paulie really dug the “classic” music, but it was usually regulated to pre-1974 and then the stuff he liked – not so much what the audience wanted, or expected, to hear. Numerous times that first fall semester I listened to his “Nuggets Weekend,” where he played and discussed the pop garage-rock tunes from Nuggets – “Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era, 1965-1968.” This compilation was right up his alley – he knew the songs inside and out and had scoured the liner notes and Internet for information on the bands to give him something to talk about on the air. Talk about show prep (see Boy, you can't play me that way)....

Here lie the problem – nothing on the compilation was a “hit” by the weak definition of the format “Classic Hits.” Sure, some of these songs had hit the Top 40 thirty years prior and probably deserved the additional recognition and airplay, but I always questioned why six solid hours were devoted to music college students had never heard before. As station manager I tried a few times to drop subtle hints that while I enjoyed learning about music I wasn’t familiar with – such as the Blues Magoos performing a cover of the classic John Loudermilk tune, Tobacco Road – that maybe he could drop in some better known non-Nuggets material to sort of balance his playlist. Especially since someone else had to come in for two hours afterwards (4 to 6PM) and who would most certainly shift the style drastically – like going for two bloody hours of 1980s New Wave.

His answer was classic: he didn’t know the music. His mind set in 1974, Paulie claimed to know nothing about contemporary music, much less the rest of the 1970s. Sadly, I never thought he was kidding. And maybe that wasn’t a bad thing. Still, when I mentioned to the faculty advisor (my boss) about some of the comments I had heard badgering his weekly air shifts, I was simply told “but he plays such good music.”

Tobacco Road was originally written by Loudermilk in the early 1960s and has long since been covered by numerous artists across multiple genres. Besides the Blue Magoos, notable cover versions have included Lou Rawls (1963), Jefferson Airplane (1966), and David Lee Roth (1986), as well as a version by Bruce Springsteen (!), Toto (?), and by the Rodney Crowell one-off side-project, the Cicadas.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
Tobacco Road
( John D. Loudermilk)
The Cicadas
From the album The Cicadas
1997

I was born in a bunk
Mother died and my daddy got drunk
Left me here to die or grow
In the middle of Tobacco Road

Grew up in a dusty shack
And all I had was a'hangin' on my back
Only you know how I loathe
This place called Tobacco Road

But it's home
The only life I've ever known
Only you know how I loathe
Tobacco Road

I'm gonna leave and get a job
With the help and the grace from above
Save some money, get rich I know
Bring it back to Tobacco Road

Bring Dynamite and a crane
Blow you up, start all over again
Build a town be proud to show
Give the name Tobacco Road

Cause it's home
The only life I've ever known
Oh I despise and disapprove you
But I love ya, 'cause it's home

We never got it off on that revolution stuff, what a drag too many snags

You meet a lot of interesting characters in life and easily one of the most memorable from my days in graduate school is the Young Dude, an undergraduate physically in the 1990s but mentally residing in the 1970s, if that.

Shortly after the semester began was the first meeting of the entire radio station staff. At this station everyone had to actually be enrolled in a particular section of a class and therefore receive credit for their work. Everybody in the class knew each other in some way – either from previous classes or working at the radio station – and so naturally eyes focused on the new guy at the head of the class. In turn, the new guy (me) eyed the students, trying to interpret attitudes from non-verbal clues or muffled comments. It was a typical looking group of students until Paulie Zizzo sauntered into the room.

Let me preface any perceived hostility by saying that Paulie was a genuinely good-hearted person. He was courteous, he was extremely friendly, he got along with everyone, and would try to help out whoever needed a hand. However, more than anything, what made Paulie stand out from everyone else on that campus was his penchant for the 1970s. Not just quoting television (which he did) or listening to music (which he did) but dressing like it was the 1970s – 1974, specifically. In Paulie's world it was 1974 and everyone else was just visiting from the future (at least, that's how I took it).

Young Mr. Zizzo – who identified himself on the air as the Young Dude, thanks in part that Mott the Hoople song from two years prior (meaning 1972) – was a short, skinny kid with a mane of long, wavy brown hair; other facial hair included sideburns and what was built up under his nose in the form of a moustache. Tinted glasses shielded his eyes, and he walked with a pronounced gait that made him look overly relaxed. His wardrobe consisted of high collars, earth tones, and high water pants – nothing remotely en vogue for 1998.

Of course, radio is not a visual medium so listeners totally missed out on this get-up. Listeners could get an earful of Paulie's minor speech impediment – the more he talked the more he tended to slur his words – which wasn’t really a detractor but unfortunately didn't help sell the Zizzo package. I have no idea what instigated this attitude – be it because of mental illness or his way to fit into life. Frankly, it never really seemed like it was my business. While he may have been a bit clueless on modern advances and wished he was living his life in 1974, he at least showed on time for his shifts and tried to better himself in his craft.

Speaking of Clueless, there was a movie of that name released a few years prior to this (meaning 1995), and on the soundtrack were a number of songs that got scant airplay back during my undergraduate days. I don’t think we did much with the compilation as I recall the disc stayed in the office a lot. Evidently the tracks, such as World Party’s cover of the David Bowie song, really weren’t our thing.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
All the Young Dudes
(David Bowie)
World Party
From the original motion picture soundtrack Clueless
1995

Well Billy rapped all night about his suicide
How he kick it in the head when he was twenty-five
Speed jive don't want to stay alive
When you're twenty-five
And Wendy's stealing clothes from Marks and Sparks
And Freedy's got spots from ripping off the stars from his face
Funky little boat race
Television man is crazy saying we're juvenile deliquent wrecks
Oh man I need TV when I got T Rex
Oh brother you guessed
I'm a dude dad
All the young dudes (Hey dudes)
Carry the news (Where are ya)
Boogaloo dudes (Stand up Come on)
Carry the news
All the young dudes (I want to hear you)
Carry the news (I want to see you)
Boogaloo dudes (And I want to talk to you all of you)
Carry the news

Now Lucy looks sweet cause he dresses like a queen
But he can kick like a mule it's a real mean team
But we can love oh yes we can love
And my brother's back at home with his Beatles and his Stones
We never got it off on that revolution stuff
What a drag too many snags
Now I've drunk a lot of wine and I'm feeling fine
Got to race some cat to bed
Oh is there concrete all around
Or is it in my head
Yeah
I'm a dude dad
All the young dudes (Hey dudes)
Carry the news (Where are ya)
Boogaloo dudes (Stand up)
Carry the news
All the young dudes (I want to hear ya)
Carry the news (I want to see you)
Boogaloo dudes (And I want to relate to you)
Carry the news
All the young dudes (What dudes)

Carry the news (Let's hear the news come on)
Boogaloo dudes (I want to kick you)
Carry the news
All the young dudes (Hey you there with the glasses)
Carry the news (I want you)
Boogaloo dudes (I want you at the front)
Carry the news (Now you all his friends)
All the young dudes (Now you bring him down cause I want him)
Carry the news
Boogaloo dudes (I want him right here bring him come on)
Carry the news (Bring him here you go)
All the young dudes (I've wanted to do this for years)
Carry the news (There you go)
Boogaloo dudes (How do you feel)
Carry the news