A continuing look down memory lane by checking out old desk calendars I found not all that long ago:
My second semester of my sophomore year in college included a change in majors … from the 14,892 I thought about at Madison to Mass Communications (Radio/TV) at Milwaukee. Even though I was a sophomore, I had to take the freshmen Mass Comm classes since I hadn’t taken any yet.
I wish I could say I recall a lot from those early Mass Comm classes. But I don’t think my professors are around anymore, so I wouldn’t be hurting their feelings to say I don’t recall much.
Some of what I do recall are the hands-on types of things we did. Playing DJ and recording our own radio commercials in the Mass Comm radio studio was pretty cool. I did mine as a play off some commercials we used to hear back in the day. There was a guy called Crazy TV Lenny out of Madison, who used to do these real loud, fast commercials spouting the bargains you could get as his stores. So my parody was Crazy TV Lenin. I did this whole Soviet thing (it was still the Soviet Union back then). I slowed the reel-to-reel tape down when I talked into the microphone. So, when you played it at normal speed later, it sounded almost like you were one of David Seville’s chipmunks. I also know I played the Split Enz’s “I See Red” at the end, a Communist reference.
I also wrote a series of radio and/or TV spots for Miller Genuine Draft using Doors songs behind the voice over. And I wrote a script for a radio play on the history of the Doors, even so much as timing every portion of every song to the second. It was a lot easier to do the work when it was something I was interested in.
Then, there was TV Production. Everyone in class had to produce a TV news broadcast, using people in class to do the various parts of the show, from the anchor to the weatherman to each camera position, and the guy who typed the graphics onto the TV screen. Wow, what a lot there is to direct. We had one guy who was hilarious as a weatherman, and everyone wanted him to do it. He’d put on a scarf and pretend he was being blown about, and other tomfoolery. A black guy, he used to tell us he went to tanning salons now and then just to freak the white people out.
In one class, I had to write a letter to the editor. I wrote to one of the local sportswriters and told him I thought he did a great job. I later found out that this guy was the professor’s son’s best friend. I had no idea! No, really!
Other than that, it was a lot of theory, a lot of the FCC and stuff like that.
One of my favorite classes that semester, though, was a basic philosophy class. It was quite interesting, although I thought I failed the final exam right up until the time I got my report card in the mail. I think I may have had a B or B+ average heading into the final. In the final, we were asked to discuss certain philosophies, who purported to philosophize in such a fashion, and when they lived and crud like that. I had no idea. I could discuss the ideas, though. So, I talked about each viewpoint, said what arguments could be made for and against each viewpoint, and left it at that. No names, no dates, no nothing. I do recall that one of the questions was that old tree in the forest one … you know, if nobody is there to hear it, does it make a sound? My answer was “it doesn’t matter.” Of course, I did expound upon that statement, explaining why. And I also explained the two viewpoints on the matter. But I thought because I hadn’t mentioned the names of the dudes who were the main dudes known for such things, I was cooked. But neigh, I was not. I got an A for the final grade. I almost went back to the professor to ask him what I did on the final that was so right. But then I thought that he might have seen he had made a mistake and given me a grade that I wasn’t supposed to get. So, I didn’t go back.
Holy cow! I just realized I forgot to put one of the best concerts I’ve ever seen … in fact I do have to rank this No. 1 on my all-time concert list … on the 1983 Part 2 post where I listed all sorts of concerts I went to. On St. Patrick’s Day 1983 at the Milwaukee Eagles Club, I saw Those XCleavers open for the Bus Boys. That was the best show ever. The Bus Boys were awesome. They did some tunes in “48 Hours,” the Eddie Murphy/Nick Nolte movie. And it was the firts time I’d seen the local band, Those XCleavers. Very excellent also.
