ALOHA AHMET

The Biggest Kahuna

Everyone's been buzzing about the new biography of Ahmet Ertegun, released earlier this month: The Last Sultan: The Life and Times of Ahmet Ertegun by Robert Greenfield. Amazing Amazon lets you search to see if you are in a book! DNS (Digital Narcissism Syndrome.) Let's face it: who does not do that thing first off with the arrival of a book and new ink smell?

There are two paragraphs about how our KHJ "exclusives" had radio people from all over the country screaming at him and Atlantic. He always acknowledged that KHJ launched Sonny & Cher just after they were Caesar & Cleo. Ahmet mentions Bill Drake once "because he was fun to drink with" or some such.

When Charlie Greene and Brian Stone took me with them to NYC at the peak of the S&C craze; FIVE hits on Billboard charts. We spent a week a week at The Plaza and who knows how much those guys spent in Manhattan’s jewelry district alone. Not to mention wine-women-and-song.

Or how Nesuhi Ertegun and I were the only haole (Caucasians) at the debut introduction of American Top 40, which Tom Rounds and I crashed as unregistered guerrilla ops. We had snuck into a convention in Majorca in the summer of 1970 and did our pitch (using Wollensak tape recorder in the basement of a little Catholic church with a handful of young girl students in their uniforms our audience. The name Casey Kasem might have been only thing that they could comprehend. To them it probably sounded like a food dish.

Ahmet was most intense genius record guy I ever knew. And he always credited KHJ and his hours drinking with Drake at Martoni's for much of Atlantic Records mid-60’s rise to the top.

This excerpt is from my book KHJ: Inside Boss Radio (2002.)

Sonny & Cher and The Real Don Steele. KHJ 1965.

Ron Jacobs: In the beginning, we had no superstar group to endorse the station by association. When I arrived from Honolulu in 1965 a friend from there, Judy Moll, told me that her bosses Charlie Greene and Brian Stone were down to selling their office equipment to keep going. So, Caesar & Cleo became Sonny & Cher. We did little promotions and they would do whatever we asked them to do. Sonny was confident that if he just came up with something good, KHJ would give his record his shot.

Sonny Bono: Actually, the song came to me quickly, as did most of my songs. Sitting at the kitchen table, I began scribbling lyrics on the back of a sheet of cardboard from some laundry just back from the cleaners. When it was half done, and I completed the song in about an hour, I sprung it on Cher, who grabbed the cardboard from the piano and grinned, “I’m going to save this forever.”

Sometimes you write a song and don’t think much of it. Then, surprise, it explodes. But other times, you know absolutely that the song is solid gold, waiting to happen. That’s the enthusiasm Cher and I had about, “I Got You Babe.” We couldn’t race to the studio fast enough. At the sessions, the electricity flowed at even higher voltage. Everybody from Charlie and Brian to our pianist, Leon Russell, was blown away. When everyone, from the artists to the writers to the musicians on down to the studio receptionist can’t stop singing and dancing when hearing a song being created, it’s amazing! But Ahmet Ertegun, head of the record company, disagreed on which song to release as the single. He really loved, “It’s Gonna Rain.” I liked, “I Got You Babe.” I tried to persuade him otherwise, but he wouldn’t change his opinion. After arguing unsuccessfully with Ahmet, I decided to go out on a limb and prove I was right. Atco was already promoting “Rain” when I cut acetate of “Babe.”

Charlie Greene: I remember the first time I heard “I Got You Babe” coming out of KHJ. Shit, man, it sounded so fucking good. It sounded incredible and that was it, the ballgame was over. The next day it virtually was a hit. The KHJ switchboard lit up and we weren’t doing it! We had everybody ready to start calling in when they heard it, you know, everybody call. But we couldn’t get through to the switchboard, man. KHJ was getting absolutely swamped with requests. Sonny and Cher became the Beatles of Boss Radio, so to speak. They would come down to the station whenever KHJ wanted them to. Any time. We would do all kinds of shtick ’cause Jacobs was coming up with new ideas that somehow included Sonny and Cher. They were impressed with everything about the station. Loved The Real Don Steele. I mean, they were happening and Boss Radio was happening. It all broke loose with KHJ, I’m telling you. There’s no question about it. As far as I’m concerned, KHJ helped make, or made, Sonny and Cher.

Ron Jacobs: And so Sonny and Cher — of course it was really Charlie — were standing by with a bunch of people ready to call KHJ the first time we played the record. The lines lit up so much legit that their callers couldn’t even get through! So Charlie and Brian and Sonny were going nuts and all of a sudden, ba-boom!

And KHJ went all out to establish the Sonny & Cher-Boss Radio connection. We commissioned Sandy Barron, the hip graphics designer, to do a special KHJ Sonny & Cher-KHJ logo and we ran those on bus benches all around town, you know, the kind that advertise funeral homes. Sure, “I Got You Babe” was a dynamite commercial hit. But the big push nationally came after KHJ got on the record. And that happened only because Sonny Bono and Charlie Greene would not take “no” for an answer. And, I like to think, because Drake and Jacobs could hear a hit.

Dexter Young: I remember when Sonny and Cher came to the studio to do on-air interviews. Jacobs had brought them directly from LAX where they had just returned from a European tour. Jacobs asked Sonny to get rid of a briefcase he was carrying and he said no, that it contained the cash, their percentage from the European tour.

Ron Jacobs: In the beginning, we had no superstar group to endorse the station by association. Judy Moll told me that her bosses Charlie Greene and Brian Stone were down to selling their office equipment to keep going. So, Caesar & Cleo became Sonny & Cher. We did little promotions and they would do whatever we asked them to do. Sonny was confident that if he just came up with something good, KHJ would give his record his shot.

Sonny Bono: Actually, the song came to me quickly, as did most of my songs. Sitting at the kitchen table, I began scribbling lyrics on the back of a sheet of cardboard from some laundry just back from the cleaners. When it was half done, and I completed the song in about an hour, I sprung it on Cher, who grabbed the cardboard from the piano and grinned, “I’m going to save this forever.”

Sometimes you write a song and don’t think much of it. Then, surprise, it explodes. But other times, you know absolutely that the song is solid gold, waiting to happen. That’s the enthusiasm Cher and I had about, “I Got You Babe.” We couldn’t race to the studio fast enough. At the sessions, the electricity flowed at even higher voltage. Everybody from Charlie and Brian to our pianist, Leon Russell, was blown away. When everyone, from the artists to the writers to the musicians on down to the studio receptionist can’t stop singing and dancing when hearing a song being created, it’s amazing! But Ahmet Ertegun, head of the record company, disagreed on which song to release as the single. He really loved, “It’s Gonna Rain.” I liked, “I Got You Babe.” I tried to persuade him otherwise, but he wouldn’t change his opinion. After arguing unsuccessfully with Ahmet, I decided to go out on a limb and prove I was right. Atco was already promoting “Rain” when I cut acetate of “Babe.”

Charlie Greene: I remember the first time I heard “I Got You Babe” coming out of KHJ. Shit, man, it sounded so fucking good. It sounded incredible and that was it, the ballgame was over. The next day it virtually was a hit. The KHJ switchboard lit up and we weren’t doing it! We had everybody ready to start calling in when they heard it, you know, everybody call. But we couldn’t get through to the switchboard, man. KHJ was getting absolutely swamped with requests. Sonny and Cher became the Beatles of Boss Radio, so to speak. They would come down to the station whenever KHJ wanted them to. Any time. We would do all kinds of shtick ’cause Jacobs was coming up with new ideas that somehow included Sonny and Cher. They were impressed with everything about the station. Loved The Real Don Steele. I mean, they were happening and Boss Radio was happening. It all broke loose with KHJ, I’m telling you. There’s no question about it. As far as I’m concerned, KHJ helped make, or made, Sonny and Cher.

Ron Jacobs: And so Sonny and Cher — of course it was really Charlie — were standing by with a bunch of people ready to call KHJ the first time we played the record. The lines lit up so much legit that their callers couldn’t even get through! So Charlie and Brian and Sonny were going nuts and all of a sudden, ba-boom!

And KHJ went all out to establish the Sonny & Cher-Boss Radio connection. We commissioned Sandy Barron, the hip graphics designer, to do a special KHJ Sonny & Cher-KHJ logo and we ran those on bus benches all around town, you know, the kind that advertise funeral homes. Sure, “I Got You Babe” was a dynamite commercial hit. But the big push nationally came after KHJ got on the record. And that happened only because Sonny Bono and Charlie Greene would not take “no” for an answer. And, I like to think, because Drake and Jacobs could hear a hit.

Dexter Young: I remember when Sonny and Cher came to the studio to do on-air interviews. Jacobs had brought them directly from LAX where they had just returned from a European tour. Jacobs asked Sonny to get rid of a briefcase he was carrying and he said no, that it contained the cash, their percentage from the European tour.

OOPS: IGNORE PREVIOUS BLOG!

I am NOT dictating this into any software or to a human stenographer. All the wowsie stuff about Nuance turned into a hellish 72-hours when the DragonDictate software turned softer than a day-old manapua. Blew the top off the Snowy Leopard.

Before I could even type this onto another limp software program - Blogger - which is 100-years-0ld in MacYears. Like turning a crank in front of the radiator to start your car engine. But first The Wrong Brothers of posted programs requires that I reset my password each time I compose a new post. But - before doing that one must type in those "security words" to prove that you are not a bot. Words like fleezrty and nortish and bwplyph and zazzzltu. Who doesn't enjoy going through that shit?

Then after the umpteenth email to me allowing me to Change Your Password I do that drill. I am

typing this one letter at a time. Nuance is an oxymoronic name for a company that looks slick online but whose customer service (extreme oxymoron!) call center offers one the chance to wait on hold for any hour - or more. If one is fortunate to reach someone whose English than Ilocano at their Manilla boiler room.

Affable and sincere reps are polite and eager to help - if they only knew something about their products. If NASA operated like this bogus company they would never been able to launch Walter If NASA operated like this bogus company they would never been able to launch Walter

Cronkite himself rather than send rockets to the universe.

Mabuhay: We have a problem. I better stop this before Blogger craps out or my password changes faster than Clark Kent in an iPhone booth.

I read the first chapter of Walter Isaacson's best-selling bio of Steve Jobs. Sucked in for a while until it occurred to me that the dude was on a roller coaster - never leaving the track. Yes he could be boorish and impossible in his attempts to deal with others and the comparisons with Jobs to Einstein/Edison etc. are absurd. It was their building an electronic DNA that allowed them to grow Apples in Job's garage.

Most "radio people" have never even read a biography of Guglielmo Marconi who actually followed in the footsteps of Tesla/Faraday/De Forest and others. Steve Jobs rat-in-a-cage

"focus" certainly contributed to the ways and means by which you are reading this? You are seeing it right? Have you noticed yet that their are no commas in this text? That is because the keyboard will not print a comma - hence the hyphens.

Jobs loved to pull tricks both digital and on people. So now thanks to a whiz-bang tech who came here to straighten things out after an Apple Support guy in North Carolina spent an hour with me on the phone (after waiting on their sonorous hold for 45-minutes) informed me that he and no one there had heard of what happened to my iMac desktop: I could hit the keys but only hear them click. Nothing came up on the screen - just the clackety-click of keyboard sound effects.

Imagine inserting the key in your car's ignition but the motor won't move; instead the speakers blast stereo sounds of the vroom-vrooming vehicle. Or putting a pencil to paper and while nothing appears on the page you hear the scratching of the pencil. Cute little trick Steve-O.

From my earliest days in radio 60 years ago I posited: "The biggest problem in the communications industry is Lack of Communication." So what else is new?

WARNING: Stay away from this dictator stuff. Worse than Hitler or Mussolini or Saddam Hussein.

OLD DOG, SEMI-NEW TRICKS

This is my first “writing” using the DragonDictate™ software program from Nuance. It allows me the time to actually get out my thoughts much faster than I can “talk” them. Having dropped out of typing class during summer school in ninth grade, my hunt-and-p-p peck method has yielded several books and many magazine articles since I started to write for money. The death of radio was so obvious while outlets for writing for print and publication somehow managed to appear––and may stuff bcame somewhat well received.

You are looking live at my first dictated blog. Playing while in the big leagues of corporate radio I always had access to someone who could "take dictation”---the best of whom was my administrative assistant, Mrs. Shelly Morgan, when she was Shelley Gordon— someone every bit as responsible for the success of 93/KHJ Boss Radio as any of those more publicized players.

So here I sit looking like millions of folks wearing a headset with microphone attached just like your basic customer service rep, phone operator or someone dictating orders about where and when the next drone strike should occur.

I have been fortunate to know and associate with noted writers, authors, journalist, etc. And I’m amazed at their productivity considering that they most often use a typewriter, word processor or pencil and paper (like Cameron Crowe has always done). Plus whatever it took to produce the Dead Sea Scrolls or carve Hawaiian petroglyphs. Wow! This thing actually typed out the word “petroglyphs” correctly and without my looking it up for the umpteenth time.

There are good things to be said about Nuance, the company that distributes Dragon Dictate. Some thoughts are quite good; others involve the non-nuanced, nightmarish experiences I have endured since attempting to use this thing back in October. This software is not particularly friendly, even to myself, someone who began using computers in 1979.

How do these ultra-prolific writers do it? One can go back to Prof. Marshall McLuhan’s works and read his 1960s distinction between oral and aural. Shoot, if this thing can distinguish between the last two words in the previous sentence it is indeed pretty amazing. Yeah, considering I have only been at this for thirty-minutes. Sorry about any typos but at least they are being “typed” almost as fast as I think and pronounce them. And surely easier and more direct–from-the brain, which is why broadcasting, MC work, one flawless Bar Mitzvah speech and hustling on the street never have been a problem. Those of you who have dealt with my interminable telephone rants, raves and redundancy know this well.

It took two months for the correct "nuance"product to arrive after three misses. Today, following a record one-hour wait on hold, I connected with Gavin in Manila who talked me through the entire process as if it were NASA giving instructions to the astronauts. Now, I can finally say, “Houston, we no longer have a problem!”

Kindly indulge my desire to post a blog straight from my mouse (not my mouse) to your monitor. It is an otherworldly experience for someone who began with carbon microphones, shortwave and 78-RPM records. The original intent of computer dictate programs was to assist people with physical disabilities, some of which are happening to me, like difficulty reading and typing. I have a kilo of ideas about how to apply this thing to my future work.

I am, by the way, dictating directly into a word processing device called Scrivener™, which can be difficult to learn. But is the choice of many professional writers because of its versatility. I have been working since 1994 on an autobiography entitled “From Doo-Wop to Duopoly.” I doubt that it will ever see the light of day or the glimmer of its contents on a computer screen or an-book, but I visited audio-dictate from time to time. Some of it strikes me as well done and arduously researched while other sections seems like they were written by a dummy.

That reflective manuscript, only takes me through the 1970s. It is on the burner behind my treatise on the death of radio, which hopefully will be concluded and my conclusions will be seen by those who pontificate and kvetch about the sorry state of a medium that many of us love as much as life itself. This is painful to someone whose FCC license is dated Christmas Eve 1952 and has seen so many changes it boggles what is left of my mind.

While hoping and praying that this thing actually would work I contemplated how I would do things that have hereto been impossible. My initial application of Dragon was to send an e-mail to Gavin thanking them for teaching me something that is deeper than Excel, more refined than MegaSeg™––the best kept secret in radio––and all the other stuff that I began learning with my 1979 purchase of the notorious RadioShack TRS–80, now the equivalent of a hand-cranked ice cream maker or images captured on Edison reels.

“Running at the mouth,” has been my problem since the moment I was born and the doctor asked me, “ What is your mother’s maiden name?” Thereafter I lived and several times nearly died by the tongue. Now, using a combination of mind-boggling soft and hardware, I am able to DLOG or whatever you call dictating into a computer. Steve Jobs rest in iPeace.

This post begins with the photo of me strapped in and ready to Dragon taken after the installation was successful and I can send it to Gavin, the tech rep in the Manilla. Ever been there? Hi-tech amidst low-tech. Growing up in Hawaii, I respect those who arrived from the Philippines for their diligence, grace and respect for authority. There would be no Aloha State without their soul and strength. RAMBLING!

Perhaps most of you this is just more high-tech razzmatazz, but my fellow writers and/or folks with disabilities should at least know of this option. Sure, I went through digital Hell to get this far. The time I put in to reach this point will pay dividends as I learn how to rap into this THING. I calculate that I have read 930 posts, reviews, comments and all da kine rabble/babble about using the confusing Dragon Dictate. But hey now, it is slowly learning Hawaiian pidgin English, my first language. I will dictate, “Hello, how are you today?” in pidgin. Let’s see what comes out! “ House and knowledge you doing how you stay today line that.” Well they only advertised English not our unique and wonderful local slang talk.

Never could I have produced what are now 1200-plus words in this short a time. Thanks to all who encouraged me to see this through; there is still so much to get down before I make, which is Hawaiian for “ death or dying.”

I recalled how in 1951 Jack Kerouac took a continuous 120-foot roll of teletype paper (above). jammed it into his manual typewriter and began to write his masterpiece, "On The Road." How about the most amazing chapter on sports ever published, “Ice,” from the David Maraniss classic, “ When Pride Still Mattered.” It was produced by him non-stop, fueled on coffee, in a day and night marathon. If you've not read the book then dig up a copy of this fantastic piece and perhaps you’ll see why I am so stoked about Dragon––and I don’t mean my street racing days in the infamous 1958 deviously souped-up draggin' Pontiac Bonneville!

All I just said was “new paragraph” to begin this one. Being neither Jack Kerouac nor David Maraniss I decided to resume my autobio by word-of-mouth, so to speak. Perhaps it will sometimes see the light of day a glint of a pixilated screen. Mega-mahalo to Todd Hewitt, world’s greatest equipment manager and the one who convinced me that this is a winning program, unlike a certain NFL team that ignominiously let him go––he and his dad served the team for 44 seasons. Ah, Todd is now with a winning program, head equipment manager for the California Golden Bears.

For old times sake I’ll sign off with my standard DJ show closing riff: “Keep your lukewarm spoon adjacent to your electric bowling bag, bunkie.” Tell me what that means and I will tell you Tina Delgado’s middle name! Meanwhile I must learn not to speak to people in this manner. One ends up sounding like a computer, barking out commands.

Happy Birthday to my oldest off-island friend, Mitch Fisher, KHJ accomplice and the real Zelig. What times we had, brother.

The previous blog goes on and on about me and written words.

BOOK 'EM

The first piece that I wrote was published during eighth grade in KA PUNAHOU, the school's paper. Sadly, it was an obituary for my lifelong friend, and one of the few Jews in the place, Donald Milbauer. It was a shock to us all; Donnie being the first of my young peers to pass away. Before that I drew juvenile cartoons In the elementary school paper NA OPIO .

Later, I wrote at least 93,000 one-liners for what was then called “radio.” As the form died I became more interested in writing. My heroes were/are Poe, Whitman, Mencken, Hemingway, Mailer, Ginsberg, Roth, Tom Wolfe, Maraniss, Lord Buckley and on and on. I played music on the air ... but the printed word has more meaning than what is writ to be merely heard. Once.

Reminds me of an all-night session while I was at KGB-San Diego in 1972. “Mr. Pipes,” Michael C. Gwynne, and I were stonily speculating about things, specifically radio. I said, not for the first time, that one major head hassle with the medium that bothered me was that once one’s jock shift was over, there was nothing to show for it. Gwynne is both a gifted announcer and also a fine actor. Plus, the man is a suave big band jazz music man, a drummer mostly. He and I were employed in the 1960s by the company that owned KPOI-Honolulu and a few stations in Southern California. Through a series of circumstances that are bizarre albeit nonfiction, Gwynne worked in Honolulu as a "Poi Boy."

Mike first encontered Frank Terry at KMAK-Fresno. Terry’s infamous KMEN-San Bernardino "Drum-A-Thon" inspired KPOI PD Tom Rounds to stage one here in the islands with Gwynne on the sticks. And shticks. Both drew huge ratings. Ah yes, before I made it to Hollywood and KHJ in 1965. More than anyone knows our “Circus Radio” (as Art Laboe called our KPOI on-air shenanigans when he first visited KPOI in 1959).

Back to Mike and me in La Jolla in ’72 and our brain-wired rap. I bitched about radio’s SDS (Simultaneous Disappearance Syndrome.) He said, mellifluously, “Well let me tell you something, Ronny boy.” He told me of radio astrolnomers at the London Royal Observatory, who back in the 1950s were doing round the clock surveys of all they could see and logging that results. About three in the morning the scientists saw and logged something unseen for the record. Several days later during follow up on the records, it was discovered that the “thing” they saw was actually a radio station in Texas… which had signed off ten years earlier.

Hmm, spooky and “chicken skin” (Hawaii slang for “goose pimples.”) Anyone who ever performed on radio should contemplate the physics and universalpuzzlement over this tale told me in all honesty some 40 years or so before,

Mike worked with me on some of my most important works: “The KGB Documentary,” the “Child’s Garden of Grass” album on Elektra, to this day a "cult classic." It is rare to find someone as diversely talented as Gwynne. Mega-mahalo to Uncle Ricky Irwin’s ReelRadio.com, a gift to the future for folks curious about was once called radio much of the best of Top 40, a total labor of love. Go there and check out sample of Michael C. Gwynne’s collaborative work with me. versatile, he once was employed on a “R&B” station in Oakland, the only white dude on the staff. Cool old school radioman.)

Ever since that San Diego flash I always think about permanence vis-a-vis. flashes in the pan. Now, with some of my work is in the Bishop Museum and the Library of Hawaii are preserved for the ages wthin thick cement and lava rock structures. If you get high on a whiff of new ink on a printed page might relate to this sensory sensation.

After doing “stage, screen, TV and radio” I was drawn to my IBM Selectric typewriter and began writng poetry about my days back in Waikiki where I was born before it became Tijuana-Tokyo-Tsurisville. Poetry? Hey, gotta grab it when the muse strikes. Titled “Back Door Waikiki," it was published it in 1986. Now out of print, the slim paperback still brings back fond memories to us keiki o ka ‘aina (child born in the islands). It was composed with the invaluable aid and comfort of Mac Simpson, who produced it on the first Apple computer (Mac’s Mac) in his kitchen. Mac has been with me on my subsequent books.

In 2002, when I was asked 93.000 times to publish my KHJ jock memos, meticulously saved by Carol Williams, wife of Boss Radio’s first all-night man, jovial Johnny Williams. Carol sent them to me in the 1970s when Johnny was at WTAE-Pittsburgh. I had them bound in a leather volume and everyone wanted a peek at “how we did” 93/KHJ during my term as PD, 1965-69. After loaning this volume to a trusted friends, the material became the nucleus of “KHJ: Inside Boss Radio.” When I backed away from radio in the 1980s I became a free lance writer with over 300 pieces published in various magazines here and on the Mainland. The KHJ book, even at $93 for 455-pages it resulted in a second edition, published by Mr. Magic, San Berdoo’s own Don McCoy. Now out of print the boss book sometimes shows up on eBay.

My most ambitious effort, it began in 2008 when Carl Hebenstreit, owner of Trade Publishing in Kalihi (between Republican and Democrat streets) and the first face on Hawaii TV in 1952. He was known as “Kini Popo,” more local pidgin English for “right on,” bought my concept of a heavily illustrated history of Barack Obama’s first 18 years when he was born in Kapiolani Hospital until he left for college in 1979. And yes, this is the first work to pront both the 44^th President’s BIRTH CERTIFICATE and BIRTH ANNOUNCEMENT in Honolulu newspapers. It happened because of dozens of friends/colleagues here and off-island. It became the #1 best-selling nonfiction book in Hawaii, selling out 15.000 copies, mostly all in Hawaii. For more info, reviews, photos, etc., check: http://tinyurl.com/7lnyd9m.

Then a funny thing happened on the way to national sales: Litigation regarding the book shut everything down until recently. Now I finally own my own book! "Copyright 2008 by Ron Jacobs."

I won’t go through the hideous mess for two years. Now it's time to tell the world that the book is now available for $20 plus $5 shipping for a BRAND NEW PRISTINE COPY of the book, which I will happily inscribe to you. (Used on eBay the book sells for as much as $108. It is collectible: the first book published about Obama on Inauguration Day 2008. All volumes about our nation’s leaders grow in value. And I am told this is the case with "OBAMALAND: Who Is Barack Obama?”

Payment please by PayPal only to rj@hawaii.rr.com. Kindly contact me with any questions about the book, how you wish it inscribed or group prices.

So, what I have been “saying” in twelve-hundred WORDS is: My book is back and my girl friend’s got it. (See: The Angels, 1963.) And now it is ready for you, a perfect Christmas gift or keepsake for future generations when we are alll gone, Obama included. Nice ending, good karma, after two years of anguish for me. We are now delivering copies arond Honolulu for the huge Obama-hosted APEC Convention (esimated 20,000 coming) starting November 10, 2011, at the Honolulu International Convention Center so please allow one week for delivery. And remember, radio’s past, but OBAMALAND will last.

Warmest regards from Kaneohe, Oahu, Hawaii …currently 77-degrees. Below: your "best-selling author" in action at the Kamehameha Swap Meet last Sunday. Retail, on da street is where it's at! Just ask The Big Kahuna.

Apologies to the hundreds of folks, dead and alive, who have aided, assisted,

put up with and supported me since I started in 1952: you know who you are.

THANK YOU for your invaluable contributions, memories and wonderful creative input.