Eclectic Company: Bragging Rights and Pirate Radio

My late friend Mary Herczog regularly used her blogs and e-blasts to brag on the exploits of her best beloveds, so that she could both sing their praises to the rest of us, and kvell (Yiddish for beaming with pride and pleasure) and shep nachas (pronounced nah-chuss, with the “ch” pronounced “Loch” as in “Ness,” meaning to derive joy and gratification) over their successes. And some of the listservs I read regularly receive “shameless promotion” missives from list members about their own or others’ publications and productions, suggesting, not entirely subtly, that we should partake or buy or acknowledge the quality of said works.

Well, this past weekend, my mother had dozens of opportunities to kvell and shep nachas from all five of her children, following her shameless promotion to her whole posse and then some of my sister Allison’s participation in an outdoor fine art show put on by our mom’s town, Long Beach, New York. Alli’s abstract and Puzzleart viewer transformed works were wonderful as always, as the friendly crowd of lookie lous assured us, and topping off our enjoyment of the weekend, Alli won the first prize ribbon (and a $100 check) in the acrylic paintings category (much to her surprise, as she hadn’t known there was a jury or prizes attached to the show). Many of our mom’s pals from her senior citizen social center and her apartment building – and even more unexpectedly, a surprising number of acquaintances from more than 50 years of living in the area — came by to see Alli’s artworks, and to praise mom for raising such a clever child, which gave her the chance to brag about all of us. Overhearing her enthusiastic encomiums I was put to the blush more than once, and so drifted away to the stage where local musicians were putting on their own art show. Which is where I was charmed by the Long Island Harmonica Club, performing to an enthusiastic crowd.

I have known harmonicists before — many years ago I dated a fine country blues harmonica man — and have always loved the inclusion of harmonica solos in many of my fave musical genres. But I had never before seen a harmonica band, blowing harp on one-inch minis, chromatics (harmonicas that can change keys by pressing internal levers that alter the direction of the wind across the reeds and through the blow holes) of different sizes (one was as big as a piano keyboard, it seemed to me), and the standard Hohner Marine Band harmonica in many keys. At one point they played a medley of “Sound of Music” numbers, and I could barely contain my joy. Apart from one young fellow, every other man in the band was elderly. But my, how they could blow! I recognized one of the gents playing a one-inch “little lady” instrument as a neighbor of my mom’s. His name is Elmer, and as I walked on to see the rest of the artworks, I suddenly found the music and lyrics of “Elmer’s Tune” running through my head, remembered from an old Andrews Sisters or Glenn Miller recording. The lyrics by Sammy Gallop are choice, including this verse: “What makes a lady of eighty go out on the loose? / Why does a gander meander in search of a goose? /?What puts the kick in a chicken, the magic in June? /?It's just Elmer's tune.” Magical. Must be June, or something.

Kicking back on another hot June Friday, I went with Pam Spees and Lisa Rozas on our standing Fridays-when-I’m-in-New York Indian food dinner date (this week, three unequivocal thumbs up for the Jackson Heights (Queens) Diner). After dinner, stuffed as always on chicken korma and a fantastic shrimp and spinach dish, and after promising ourselves we would go easy on stuffing ourselves (but we never do), we settled down in front of the TV with healthy heapings of Chocolate and Peanut Butter Chocolate ice creams and Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy and Rhys Ifans starring in Pirate Radio on instant download. Lisa was ambivalent about the film, and eventually went off to read a book, but Pam and I laughed at the imagined antics of the stars of British pirate radio stations, and sang along to the genius music soundtrack of the ‘60s (and my teens), from Jimi Hendrix’s “The Wind Cries Mary” to Cat Stevens’ “Father and Son,” stopping at most important points between (just some of those I remember: The Easybeats’ “Friday On My Mind,” The Who’s “I Can See For Miles,” The Moody Blues’ “Knights In White Satin,” Procol Harum’s “Whiter Shade of Pale,” and The Turtles’ [You Know] “She’d Rather Be With Me”).

By the time I moved to London to lick my post-separation wounds in 1984 (yes, the year of George Orwell’s classic tale of Big Brother paranoia), the heyday and excitement of pirate radio beamed to England from abroad — stations called Radio London, Radio Caroline, Radio Luxembourg — were all mythic memories, though a few punk-oriented pirate stations operated in small local markets from basements and transit vans. Broadcasting during the 1960s from old tubs and marine platforms anchored outside the three-mile territorial boundary off the English coastline, pirate radio was the people’s answer to staid BBC radio programming, and the only way for Britons to hear rock and roll around the clock. It was also the only way to advertise on radio, because the BBC, which is owned by the government, was entirely commercial free, paid for by taxes (if you wanted to use a radio you bought, you had to pay an annual fee to the government, like a car license). Eventually the Brits backed off their no rock stance, BBC1 became an all rock station, and many of the pirate radio DJs were hired to staff the station. Today, www.radiocaroline.co.uk and satellite radio caroline continue to broadcast album-oriented rock, but their competition is legion, including government-sponsored BBC1 and dozens of commercial terrestrial stations now legally broadcasting around Britain. But for a while there, as the pseudo-documentary “Pirate Radio” happily makes plain, rock and roll was transgressive in every way — including making lawbreakers out of its listeners.