Monthly Archives: February 2006

7/21/1924-2/24/2006

We are interested in hearing your memories about Don Knotts. Even if they seem too weird to mention.

My memory is something that is odd, we had a UPS truck driver that always delivered around my block as a kid. I sware it was Don Knotts. One day while waiting for the bus, all the kids gathered together and shouted, “Hey, you look like Don Knotts” as he drove bye. He actually made one of those classic Mr Furley type faces.

GREECE, N.Y. (AP) – Jason McElwain had done everything he was asked to do for the Greece Athena High School basketball team – keep the stats, run the clock, hand out water bottles. That all changed last week for the team manager in the final home game of the season. The 17-year-old senior, who is autistic and usually sits on the bench in a white shirt and black tie, put on a uniform and entered the game with his team way ahead. McElwain proceeded to hit six 3-point shots, finished with 20 points and was carried off the court on his teammates’ shoulders. McElwain, 5-foot-6, was considered too small to make the junior varsity, so he signed on as team manager. He took up the same role with the varsity, doing anything to stay near the sport he loves. Coach Jim Johnson was impressed with his dedication, and thought about suiting up McElwain for the home finale. His performance was jaw-dropping: 20 points in four minutes, making 6-of-10 3-point shots. The crowd went wild.

McElwain didn’t begin speaking until he was 5. He lacked social skills but things got easier as he got older. He found many friends and made his way through school in this Rochester suburb, although many of his classes were limited to a half-dozen students. And he found basketball. Even though McElwain was in uniform for the Feb. 15 game, there was no guarantee he would play – Athena was battling for a division title. The fans, however, came prepared. One section of students held up signs bearing his nickname “J-MAC” and cutouts of his face placed on Popsicle sticks. McElwain will soon be done with high school basketball, then enroll in business management this fall at Monroe Community College. “I’ll go on to college and I’ll try to hoop there,” he said. “I just love it, it’s one of the greatest sports in the world.”

WAY TO GO JASON

Henry Rollins has been getting a lot of attention these days from the Australian media — after all, it’s not every day that some American punk icon calls Australia’s prime minister a “sissy.” Prime Minister John Howard caught Hank‘s wrath during the rocker’s most recent trip to Australia. On the flight from New Zealand, Rollins said he was reading a copy of Wall Street Journal correspondent Ahmed Rashid‘s book “Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia.” The man sitting next to him took objection to the book and reported Rollins to the Australian government. Now, here comes the part where you say to yourself that stupidity isn’t ONLY running amuck in our government.
“The guy phoned me in to their, like, anti-terrorist board, and they found me — they looked me up,” he said. “They looked up the flight and found out who was sitting in seat 10A and they got to me. And they said, ‘OK, you’re now a person of interest. The man next to you does not agree with your politics and he didn’t like the book you were reading.’ This kind of provocation, I don’t respond very well to. I was furious. And so I wrote back, ‘You can tell everyone at your office, including your boss, to go f— themselves. This book has been read by a ton of people — I am not a threat to your state or any state or any republic.’ ” In the actual text of his online response, Rollins added: “Baghdad‘s safer than my hometown, and your PM is a sissy.”

–note to self, only read comic books on airliners

SAN FRANCISCO–In 1970, 20-year-old student Bill Sagan had his first real brush with rock and roll history at an early Led Zeppelin concert at Chicago’s fabled Aragon Ballroom.

Now the entrepreneur owns one of rock’s biggest treasure troves of recorded shows by Zeppelin and other history-making bands, and he’s beginning to share it freely online. Since 2002, Sagan has owned the full archives of legendary promoter Bill Graham, whose concerts featuring performers such as the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix and others helped define the late 1960s and early ’70s. Late last week, Sagan began putting excerpts from these concerts, many of which have never been released, online by way of a free Internet radio station on his company’s Wolfgang’s Vault site.
Sagan is a businessman, on the surface very different from the bushy-bearded, long-haired artists depicted in the black-and-white photographs lining the walls of his warehouse office. But Graham was a businessman too, with a reputation for being hard-nosed about making money as he promoted the peace-and-love generation’s soundtrack.
The warehouse itself is a rock history buff’s dream. Three floors are lined with shelves, which are stacked full of boxes of posters, pristine tickets for the Fillmore West and Fillmore East shows, postcards, T-shirts and original photographic negatives. Sagan estimates there are more than 20 million individual pieces here. In the basement of the warehouse is the room that holds close to 5,000 hours of videotaped concerts, and a comparable quantity of audio. Nobody’s quite sure what Graham had intended to do with all the footage, Sagan says. The vast majority of it is unseen and unheard, with the exception of occasional bootlegs of the same shows. http://www.wolfgangsvault.com/

We all know that you and you are waiting to know which pooch won the Westminster Kennel Club highest honor of America’s top dog. A colored bull terrier called Rufus used his head Tuesday night at the Madison Square Garden Arena. Rufus’ selling point? His head – perfectly shaped like an egg. Rufus was the first dog in his breed to win at the nation’s most prestigious show. Handler Kathy Kirk said she was “ready to pass out” from the pressure, but her nearly 6-year-old dog that she playfully calls “Puppyhead” seemed to take it all in stride.
At a show that drew 2,622 entries in 165 breeds and varieties, Rufus really earned this victory. He beat out a favorite Norfolk terrier named Coco and a Dandie Dinmont co-owned by Bill Cosby just to reach the final ring. When it got down to Best in Show, Rufus was picked over a popular golden retriever, a Rottweiler handled by a former Florida State linebacker, a prize pug and a spirited Dalmatian.

Rufus left the Garden around midnight. He’ll certainly be dog tired by Wednesday night.

“I was supposed to tell someone?”

“WHY?”

From the Wednesday 2-5am time slot, where sleep and awake crossed and just waved. Then we held down the Wednesday5-7am with much laughter and cobwebs. NOW, we are going to be in the best time slot out there. Saturday Mornings from 9am until 12 Noon. Greenarrowradio will have 3, yes THREE hours of the airwaves to fill up your thirsty earholes.

So bring your working gloves, your back braces and a bottle or two of elbow grease cuz……

And I must admit, change is a good thing for us creatures of habit. I doubt I will FORGET and wake up before the sun on any Wednesday morning and proceed to the station. HIGHLY DOUBTFUL.
Really. What would you prefer? Waking up at 0′ dark 30 or getting an extra hour of programming time for a saturday gig that doesn’t take away the afternoon or evening?
Either way, GreenArrowRadio looks to bring its random music for the thirst earhole…and we realize that everyone does hear with the same ears, soooo we tend to highly ADHD when programming. We always conjure up some new music to keep the listening ears learning and fresh. We blend in something for the crowd of ears that like it a little loud and raucus. Bluegrass…Every now and again, there is even a reminder of where many of our tunes originated….and a dabbling of world music to remind us how far we have made it…at least musically.
Something I feel is very important is hearing from artists first hand, therefore, I spend a large amount of time trying to interview people I feel have something to say and people I have always wanted to talk to. I am interested to hear of an artist that you have always wished of speaking to.

We cater to all kinds of thirsty ears…tune and and you’ll hear for yourself.

Saturday Mornings 9-Noon. WHUS 91.7FM Radio for the People.

a friend, a teammate, someone I hope to be.