You know, I was expecting to get more complaints about how much stuff is on that one page but it's not nearly as big as the Los Angeles Radio People Page. That thing takes my older Power Mac about 6-7 minutes to download. I don't use java (except for some of the webring endorsements, which haven't been working lately). I test all my pages on a Microsoft Internet Explorer 2.0, which uses neither java nor frames. I don't like frames, myself. I wish I knew how to do that thing where you click on a link and you get a new page without losing the one that got you there (this doesn't work on Internet Explorer 2.0, either!) Anyway, the only things from my website which don't work on the older browser are the webring endorsement on the front page, the wave files, and the cake recipe (it uses Shockwave). Maybe you're one of those people who have been praying for patience and this is the way God is giving it to you!
I'm sorry, but I am the only person who makes my webpage go. I'm trying to clean up some of the stuff. Come back in a couple of months and I bet you'll really like it. MY MOM STILL SAYS IT'S THE BEST ON THE INTERNET! You can click this link and tell her what's wrong with my 'site!
Sometimes I continue answering the letters even after they've been put up. Dating them won't help that.
I always have a car radio button set to KNX, 1070 kHz AM.
It is one of two all news stations in Los Angeles. Actually, KNX
does not only have news, but sporting events and old time radio programs.
The other station KFWB, 980 kHz AM (which has the same owner as
KNX!), used to broadcast 24 hours of news, repeating 20 minute news capsules
with updates (meaning a grand total of 48 daily news programs!) But
KFWB now airs the audio portion of Larry King Live from CNN.
Larry King does not fall into the same boat as talkradio people.
He listens, he educates, and he bends. That isn't what talkradio
is. He reminds me of what Johnny Carson was to the Tonight Show,
before Jay Leno took over. He just doesn't have the music.
Other things I like to hear on the radio are nostalgia formats, serious
music (like operas and symphonies), and Public Radio. For a long
time my favorite station was KPCC, 89.3 MHz, in Pasadena.
KPCC had a daytime format called, Classic American Music.
It was music that was popular from about 1925 through 1955 (without rock
'n' roll). About two years ago they dropped that format to be a talkradio
station during those hours (9:00 a.m. to about 3:00 p.m.) They continued
a couple of original programs (Same Time, Same Station, an OTR showwith
the Gassman Brothers and the Sunday Polka Show) but these were dropped
in January 2000 when the station was sold to Minnesota Public Radio.
If you're like me and you like public radio but you hate
talkradio, you have no reason to tune into KPCC. So I won't.
I like general nostalgia stations. There is a new radio station in
Rancho Cucamonga,
KMXN, 1510 kHz AM. This station has just
been playing standard tunes without an announcer but for the past month
they started a morning disc jockey. I have liked KLAC (570
kHZ AM), especially when
Charlie Tuna
worked as a DJ there until last year. KLAC seemed to be a good replacement
for the old KMPC (owned by Gene Autry, which was sold to Disney in 1994
and eventually became KDZN, Radio Disney). But now KLAC is changing
slowly into a talk station. I e-mailed KLAC to complain about this
fact. The reply was that the station can make more revenue from talk
than music. "The station is not in the business
for the listeners, but for the business of making money (paraphrased
quote)" There is an AM
radio station in Hesperia (KRAK at 910 kHz, known as "Stardust
910") which until a few months ago simulcasted KRTH, 101.1 MHz FM,
an "oldies" station in Los Angeles, which I sometimes like to hear.
But they have returned to their former format of nostalgia with a group
of disc jockeys I grew to love when I was a graduate student in Texas (and
these disc jockeys heard on KRAK work from Dallas!) I enjoy serious
music (most people call it classical music), particularly heavy
symphony stuff from the Romantic period (about 1820-the early 20th century).
The best stations here are KUSC, KMZT (K-Mozart), and some
of the local college stations (such as KUCR and KVCR).
A good serious station to hear on the internet (for background music) is
XLNC-1 in Tijuana, which is heard
in the San Diego area on the FM dial at 90.7MHz. Mostly,
I like to listen to old time radio shows! [FLASH:
"Same Time, Same Station" is now heard on KCSN, 88.5 FM, in Northridge
(in the northernmost part of the city of Los Angeles), on Sundays from
Noon to 2:00 p.m. The station doesn't reach here but it may be heard
on the Windows Media Player at http://www.kcsn.org/.
Unfortunately for those of us who use a Macintosh computer, the Mac version
of this application crashes before it can go on line. It also does
not work on Windows 95 or earlier! I wish everyone would use the
RealPlayer! Chuck Cecil's "Swingin'
Years" airs on KCSN Saturday afternoons.]
I like to watch old movies. When I had cable (I gave it up because I found myself attracted to things I shouldn't be watching and it cost so much) I loved to watch TCM. Years ago, there was another cable channel I enjoyed called FXM but I don't think it's around anymore. It showed old movies from 20th Century-Fox (the companies prior to its creation which formed it). [By the way, 20th Century-Fox should be commended for not changing its name because the century changed!] It's actually cheaper for me to buy movies at Wal-Mart, Kmart, and Target than pay for the cable. My favorite TV show is a locally produced one from KVCR-TV in San Bernardino (the local PBS affiliate) called "I Remember Television." It is hosted by a retired San Bernardino Valley College English professor named Ed Rothhaar, who also hosts a similar show on KVCR-FM called "I Remember Radio." Kinescopes or tape recordings of complete old TV shows (or radio shows, for the radio version) are aired, sometimes with original commercials! (I vaguely remember that the radio show aired over the Armed Forces Network in Germany when I was there.) When my wife and I first married and we were living in New Jersey, WHYY-TV in Philadelphia (another PBS affiliate) just showed old TV shows with original commercials and no host (I liked that better!) Perry Mason has always been a favorite of mine. Modern shows--I like clever situation comedies like "Dharma and Gregg" on ABC, but not "Will and Grace" on NBC. I like Jeopardy! (I've tried out several times) but I'm not really crazy about Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? I don't like the idea of multiple answer quiz shows (the teacher in me.) You can use me as a lifeline, though, if you go on.
The official name of the band was the Colored WAC Band. I know
the term Colored is degrading, but it shows what the status of people of
African ancestry was in the Second World War. The term should stay
in the website as it also bothers me, but it reflects a time when most
white people weren't only prejudiced; they were bigots!
I'm glad you brought that up. The Santa Fe Railroad, at first,
made some awful, derrogatory images of Indians at first, when the whole
idea of the railroad was to make more room for white people who were all
crowded on the East Coast. Most of the route of the Santa Fe, from
Chicago to California, was barren, some of which passed through the Navajo
Reservation in New Mexico and Arizona. Santa Fe was very careful
where the tracks were laid; well away from where the Navajos lived, worked,
and played. This gave them a great deal of privacy. The railroad
also gave the Indians jobs which lifted many families out of poverty.
Scholarships especially designated for Indians were given by Santa Fe (I
think this program still exists, though I'm not sure). To say that
the Santa Fe Railroad degraded the Indians is almost as bad as the Disney
version of the story of Pocahontas. Another thing, I prefer
to cling to using the word Indian. I find both terms native
and American derrogatory to the original people who lived in this
part of the world. Unanimously, all Christian missionary organizations
have ceased (about 30 years ago) from use of the word native and
now use the word national. The former word was seen by all
as a way of controlling people and no one uses it except those in literature
circles who never noticed this happened. The term American
pays homage to Amerigo Vespucci, an Italian mapmaker who
never set foot outside Europe. To include his name in the name of
the original peoples of this part of the world is the ultimate putdown.
Christopher Columbus was innocently trying to find a new way to China when
he arrived on October 12, 1492. He thought hewas in
China. Asian people during this time were referred to as Indians.
While this seems a tragic mistake to some people, to get the terms for
Native Americans and the people of India mixed up, most anthropologists
consider American Indians to be ethnically connected to the Chinese, much
like the Filipinos, the Javanese, and other ethnic groups of Asia.
What's wrong with that? (Some prominent tribal leaders agree
with this opinion and it isn't original on my behalf!) Furthermore,
I'll bet that the person who wrote this letter is white and he's not reading
what I have to say anymore. (He quit reading at the part about the
railroad.) Incidentally, I am not overly
fond of the idea of using the hyphenation between a foreign place and "American"
to create a racial identity. When my wife and I first got married
we had to fill out some kind of application which asked our races.
Mine was no problem, I just checked off CAUCASIAN. But other races
listed were: AFRICAN-AMERICAN; ASIAN-AMERICAN; LATINO-AMERICAN; NATIVE
AMERICAN (including native peoples of Alaska and Northrn Canada); FILIPINO;
PACIFIC ISLANDER (not Asian); AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINAL. My wife could
not list herself as an Asian-American because she was not (and is not yet)
an American citizen. There was no space marked OTHER, so she made
one on her own. (How did Filipinos rate having their own entry?
Aren't they Asians?) I remember hearing some of the students from
Africa at Southwestern Seminary being introduced as "African-Americans,"
because someone told this person that people of African origin aren't called
black anymore! Frankly, and many white and black people agree with
me on this one, I resent being called a European-American, because, having
lived in Europe, I don't act very European. Consequently, I know
black people who resent being called African-American because they went
to Africa and didn't exactly fit in. Asians are different.
I am married to one. Being Asian is not merely a look but it is also
a culture. Most Asians who transplant themselves far from the continent
(and marry other Asians) will teach their children their language and culture,
which has survived in some locales for many generations without ever returning
to the mother country! Even if the language is lost, as is in the
case of those Asians who marry non-Asians, an element of Asian culture
is left which does not exist in other cultures. The whole issue of
race intrigues me and it does not scare me to talk about it, except around
those folks who consider one race to be superior than all the others.
I don't know, something about my looks, but I can walk into a convenience
store in certain parts of the country wearing a white T-shirt, baseball
cap, faded jeans, and sneakers or work shoes, and people from White Supremacist
groups start giving me literature. (Don't I look like a public school
teacher and professional musician?)
I do a lot of business in L.A., but Orange County is just for fun for me. Philippe's is smack dab in the middle of what I do in Los Angeles so I really wouldn't make a special trip to go to Philippe's (although my parents used my dad's Santa Fe employee passenger pass to ride the train for free, from either San Diego or Oceanside to Los Angeles Union Station, just so we could eat at Philippe's!) By the way, would you rather go to Riverside or L.A. to eat out?
Why? Didn't it register your visit?
I missed the counter. Why is she asking about it? (from another school teacher)
You mean you want me to dig it out? Oh,
well, all right... Here
it is...
I think I've always been interested in history. I've always loved museums. And my favorite subject in school was history! If one incident did it for me, it was the Colton Homecoming Picnic in June 1970. It was an event in which my band, the Colton Junior High School Band, played. There were photographs of Colton all over the park of what it looked like 5, 10, 20, 30, and 40 years before this. I was really impressed with how much the Colton of 1930 seemed more progressive than the Colton of 1970. That isn't to say I'd rather be around 40 years earlier but that we can learn from the past what we need to do for the future. The only specific professional training I have in popular history is the musicology classes I took in graduate school.
Do you ever wish you could go back to another time and live out your life that way? (from another of my elementary students)
You probably remember me saying in class that there were a lot more jobs for tuba players about 50 or 60 years ago, even though there were fewer players. I don't think I could go back in time like that, even if it were possible. I could not be married to my wife (she's Chinese and I'm white, which used to be illegal in the state of California). I've had a lot of illnesses in my life for which there was no cure only a few years ago. Yeah, I could have made a fantastic living playing the tuba for the radio in some Podunk town out in the middle of nowhere or maybe even in a major city, such as Los Angeles. But life was a lot tougher for so many underprivileged people and I don't think I could stand it.
Are you one of those people who, when you're driving your family on vacation, stop at all the historical sites along the way? (from a fellow school teacher)
I haven't done a trip like that in years, but yeah! A lot of it is nothing more than a way of selling a 50 cent can of root beer for a dollar but a lot of it is fun. Some places I really like include the Territorial Prison in Yuma, AZ, Calico Ghost Town in Yermo, CA, the city of Dodge City, KS, Cannery Row in Monterey, CA, and the site of the internment center at Manzanar, CA.
Will you ever say anything about your family? (anonymous e-mail)
They're wonderful. Their lives are not going to be posted on the internet unless they do it themselves.
What are your politics? (anonymous e-mail)
I grew up as a party-line Democrat and registered as was such from 1975 through 1994. At that time I joined the Green Party and was with them until I quit voting absentee in California, when I moved from Indonesia to the U.S. Territory of Guam and registered to vote there in 1997. Since that time I have not affiliated myself with any party. I can find something wrong with all of them. I found that by my belonging to a political party I would often bend my own way of natural thinking over to whatever the party believed. I am now about as independent as can be. I disagree about as much with the Democrats as I do the Republicans. I believe in high morals, the sanctity of life (of both unborn fetuses and criminals), a strong national defense (not a personal arsenal), work ethics, the right for workers to bargain for their own contracts, and international free trade. I am not usually a fan of boycotts, as many of those harmed by boycotts who work for boycotted companies are those who don't have an inkling of what's being protested. Generally, I try to keep a low profile on everything political. Whereas many people who call themselves conservative often seem blatantly bigoted to liberals, I contend that many liberals are similarly bigoted in the way that labels are created for a people group without coming to a national concensus. To prove this, ask anyone who either came from, or whose ancestors came from south of the U.S. border (or whose family lived in California prior to 1846), how they wished to referred racially and they will almost always say by the country of their ancestors! I contend that in their concern over demographics the liberals have lost concern over people. Politically, I'm smack dab in the middle, on the fence.
If you had any trouble reading the previous paragraph, it was intentional. Part of the reason why I hate talkradio so much is that it divides people by political ideologies. Love or hate me for who I am, not my politics! By the way, you can join my fight against talkradio: E-mail your least favorite chatterbox station (KLAC, KFI, KABC, KPLS, KRLA, KLSX, or a similar station) and say, "We want music!" (And remember, music is not my hobby... It is a great professional part of my life!)
FINALLY...
All of the above comments were generated by word of mouth or by personal
friends to my personal e-mail address (which you won't get unless you write
me!) Please sign my guest book and
your comments may appear on this page!
Last updated July 28, 2001
Did you know I have a collection of cereal boxes from all over the world?
