FUNDRAISING TIME (NO, NOT FOR ME)

...it's for the Maria Fareri Children's Hospital at Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla. My colleagues from WHUD are down there today and tomorrow for the annual radiothon benefitting the hospital.


Noodle did have a brush with a tough situation a few years back, with a condition that presents almost exactly like leukemia - which wasn't (can we get an "amen"?), but which was still plenty nasty and required more long hospital trips, tubes and needle-pokes than any little one should have to handle. She was dealt a lousy hand, but by no means the worst. So far there's been no need for her for a facility as advanced as MFCH, but one scary experience is more than enough to get this particular dad the rest of his life worrying about the what-ifs. There are far more harrowing stories involving kids from all over the Hudson Valley - thankfully, a great many of them have ended happily, and you've been hearing some of them on WHUD.


Having that hospital there in Westchester means sick kids in the Hudson Valley and their families don't have to add to their worries trying to negotiate New York City. MFCH doesn't even look much like a hospital...



Which is a highly reassuring first impression, both for parents and kids.


At any rate, the station is down there until Friday afternoon, the number to call to pledge is 1-888-499-KIDS, and here's the link to donate.

OKAY THEN

A

We've been having one of those evenings where I sit down to the computer thinking finally there'll be a nap or at least a bit of down time, but what winds up here on the screen is the letter A and then I have to get up and attend to business, three hours go by and the A is still sitting there.

Mocking me, because I no longer remember what I was going to write after the A; however one of the interruptions was most pleasant, as a local person of some standing (and that's as specific as I'll get) actually took the time to come by the house and tell me in person how much he appreciated my radio work.

Good thing he didn't come by on one of those days spent doing housework in the nude. (KIDDING, he said in capital letters, knowing that there are some things that should not be envisioned let alone depicted in reality. Of course I don't do all that much housework.)

At any rate, my recollection of the encounter is available over at my sibling blog, Brian's Bag-Letter Bonanza.

HELLO, CLEVELAND! (psst - that's Schenectady) HELLO, SCHENECTADY! ARE YOU READY TO RRROCK?

The kids, they have this annoying habit of growing all the time. And since they can't work in the mines any more...(homer) stupid child labor laws (/homer)...it falls to Her Awesomeness and I to keep them clothed, and fed, and even housed. Until they're, like, eighteen. Can you believe it? I thought it was going to be okay to turn Noodle out of the house when she turned four and let her forage for grubs or whatever, but apparently that's also frowned upon. Sigh.

Me, I'm the one genius in my family who decided to forgo the teacher's life in favor of the thrilling world of small-town radio. Tenure? summers off? benefits? Regular raises? No dumb phone calls at 2 in the morning? Feh.

The usual radio nomad's life of pulling up roots every two years to move hither and yon, that was not for me when I was younger, and it sure as heck isn't for me now. So the chance of Stern-level money landing in my lap is about the same as that for the Reds winning the World Series this year and every year until 2023. And yet the children insist on having pants when they leave for school in the morning, the little ingrates. Something's gotta give.

Bottom line: I'm beating the bushes for additional giggery and I'm turning first to voice-over work since I've come this far running my yap for a living, and voice work is something I can do sitting on my tuches here in the kitchen. I started on this new path earlier today by spending the entire day in beautiful downtown Schenectady, hobnobbing with people whose mighty pipes could shatter granite from 20 miles off. Repeatedly I opened my mouth to introduce myself and out came this feeble mewl that make the guy from Scritti Politti sound like Barry White.

Y'know, this guy:



More to come soon on this thrilling leap forward mildly exciting venture probable catastrophe...

YOU DON'T HAVE TO GO TO THE MOUNTAIN TOP FOR MARTIN LUTHER KING DAY SAVINGS, FOLKS!

I have a dream...of 40 percent off replacement windows!

KEZK's Kris Kelly will be at Champion Windows, Siding, and Patio Rooms for their Martin Luther King Day Sale. Martin Luther King Day Sale runs January 19th-21st with incredible savings like...

As the good Doctor might say...oy.

I thought that MLK Day ads were merely the stuff of parody, but now you can start to see that I am very wrong. Extremely wrong. (Torrid plus sizes?! Thou dost oversell and provide too much of the information.)

It shouldn't surprise a jaded radio guy like me that we're starting to see more King Day ads, but still. The cheese level is so high I'm starting to get chest pains just reading the ads.

It's only a matter of time before Gandhi impersonators start doing plugs for our local Indian restaurants, except maybe that's too high-end for the target demo considering how many college students still can't even spell Gandhi, let alone tell the difference between him and Ben Kingsley.

TRENDY HAS A SHELF LIFE, MOM

Babycenter.com has released its list of the top 100 baby names of 2007. Mind you, it's a list of people who stop by babycenter.com, so it's self-selecting and not fully representative like a Census Bureau list would be, but it's the hand we're dealt at the moment.

And it looks safe to say that the nation is well and truly "-aden"ed out.

For the boys we have Aiden, Jayden, Caden and Brayden in the top 15, not to mention the bounty of increasingly ridiculous spinoffs and alternate spellings that will be driving schoolteachers around the bend until the next trendy batch of names makes its way into the demographic pipeline.

For the baby girls, it appears that moms are choosing between Grey's Anatomy characters, the 400-odd alternate spellings of "Caitlin", and...well...how to be delicate about this?

Strippers.

When you first work in radio, one of the things you don't expect to learn about are the customs and intricacies of the adult-entertainment industry - but the knowledge comes to you, willingly or no, even if your own particular show is as pure and wholesome as Pat Boone playing a pastors' convention in Branson. If you work in radio news as I do, you will have the knowledge inflicted upon you at a most inopportune time, because Mess With The News Guy is a time-honored morning DJ pastime. It often happens in the form of the DJ having their special guest Miss Cinnamon Rose perform her Dance of the Seven Riding Crops while the newsman is trying to get through a story on Condoleezza Rice's trip to Libya.

Bottom line, there are men to turn to when it comes to avoiding saddling your baby daughter with a name that'll be big trouble 18 years or so down the road.

I am one of those men.

And for the moms who chose names like Savannah (#37) or Trinity (#95) for their daughters I can only urge you to get down to the courthouse and pick out a Mary or a Susan or even a Mildred before it's too late.

Dads, you're not off the hook here either. Chris Rock may have said your only job is to keep her off the pole, but that job starts when the baby is on the way. If the mom-to-be comes to you saying "I want to choose something unique", that's line-in-the-sand time - because while mom was looking around for a "unique" name, so were many other young ladies looking for unique names to use on stage down at that tawdry little joint out by the airport.

And this is where you come in, dad.

You doubt my theories? Ponder this factoid: for much of the late 90's and as recently as four years ago, one of the top 30 most popular baby girl's names was...Britney.

I rest my case.