Ted Turner

Ted Turner died on May 6 at the age of 87.

Major league baseball owners today seem like a mostly faceless, bloodless lot, incorporated and data driven. There was a time, however, when an MLB owner meeting resembled field day at Arkham Asylum, a miserable crew including bullies (George Steinbrenner, Yankees), racists both obvious (Clark Griffith, Twins, and Marge Schott, Reds), and closeted (Tom Yawkey, Red Sox), the mercurial nouveau riche (Charlie Finley, A’s) and clueless traditionalists (Philip Wrigley, Cubs).

In 1976 they made room for Turner, who’d purchased the Atlanta Braves to a) keep them in Atlanta and b) provide content for his WTBS cable superstation, eventually giving them a nationwide audience and allowing them to be marketed as “The Atlanta Braves: America’s Team.”

Turner may at first have come off like a vulgar frat boy; sportswriters were quick to name him “The Mouth of the South,” but he brought a sense of humor and clever marketing. Braves players had their nicknames stitched on the backs of their uniforms. All except pitcher Andy Messersmith, who agreed to have the word CHANNEL over his number 17, a walking promotion for Turner’s UHF station on channel 17. The commissioner’s office put a quick end to that. In 1977, he took over as temporary manager of the Braves, complete with tobacco chaw, for one game (they were on an epic 16-game losing streak). The commissioner ended that move just as quickly.

Media magnate as manager

But even if you weren’t a fan of the Braves or baseball it was hard not to like Turner. He built a media empire that included for better or for worse CNN (thus creating the 24/7 news cycle we can no longer escape), WTBS (with its Saturday and Sunday afternoon marathons of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and The Wild, Wild West), the Cartoon Network (reviving the old Hanna Barbera cartoons) and, best of all, Turner Classic Movies.

He was also an ex-Republican who saw the light and went blue, publicly feuded with Rupert Murdoch, challenged the World Wrestling Federation (owned by Trump suck-ups the McMahons) with a rival league World Championship Wrestling, married Jane Fonda, championed healthcare reform, nature conservation and alternative energy resources.

Wait, you mean there was a time when you could actually admire a billionaire?

Masters of UHF

Before cable television there was UHF.

Usually accessed on portable televisions with a secondary UHF channel dial and rabbit ears – which seemed to make UHF viewing synonymous with childhood bedrooms and cramped first apartments – requiring one to navigate, Admiral Peary-like, through staticky snow while adjusting the antenna just so.

UHF was the bargain basement of television and an often-interesting alternative to what the networks had to offer. There were some UHF shows available to viewers in New Jersey that were not just fun to watch but offered a strong homemade vibe that made them feel like labors of love, an enthusiasm transcending their inexpensive sets, wobbly camera work and visible boom mics.

When the UHF Hall of Fame gets launched, The Uncle Floyd Show will be among the first class of inductees. Billed as a kid’s show (if “kid” means over the age of 15), it was a daily half-hour of puppets, sketches, corny jokes, double entendres, insider humor and Floyd’s barrelhouse piano playing. Floyd’s cast of regulars lit a fuse of anarchy that threatened every show with collapse before its thirty minutes was up.

In 1982, Zacherle, another king of the UHF dial, appeared on The Uncle Floyd Show:

After his host gig on Chiller Theatre on New York’s WPIX ended, the Cool Ghoul returned to the airwaves (albeit UHF) from 1965 to 1967 with Disc-O-Teen which answered the question, “What if American Bandstand had no budget and was hosted by a crypt-keeping undertaker instead of the clean-cut Dick Clark?”

Disc-O-Teen ran on weekday afternoons, broadcasting from a theatre in Newark. Kids danced to the latest records and hung homemade bedsheet banners around the studio while Zach introduced lip-synching bands like the Box Tops and Every Mother’s Son, asking them non-sequitur questions, addressing the girls as “my dear” and the boys as “old boy.”

The kids looked like the those you'd see in high school hallways between classes, not the Stepford-teens with clothing allowances of American Bandstand or the professional dancers found on Soul Train.

UHF was also the home of Rockers 80, as Jamaican deejay/veejay Earl “Rootsman” Chin showed reggae music videos and scored several impressive interviewing coups, including Bob Marley, and Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.

Parts of Chin’s interview with Marley can be found online, although it can be difficult to understand without closed captioning, given Chin and Marley's heavy Jamaican patois and it’s seriously laidback (aka sluggish) vibe, no doubt courtesy of ganja smoked before filming. The video clips omit the end of the interview as I remember it, with Chin telling Marley that he’s “the greatest,” to which Marley replies, “No, Jah is the greatest.”

The Jagger-Richards interview, circa 1978, is remarkable in that both seem to be enjoying themselves, possibly thanks to the Heinekens they’re knocking back throughout. It also marks one of those rare occasions when Jagger’s been filmed with a beard (which is pretty impressive):

Rockers 80 was sponsored by the Kew Motor Inn, which still exists in Kew Gardens, Queens. Nice to know that its "theme rooms', including the Safari Room, Chin would list in the ad copy are still available at, according to the hotel's website, “very reasonable short-stay rates” – a wink/wink, nod/nod phrase that could explain the allure of UHF TV: the potential for inexpensive fun.

Two-minute warning

Listening to a playlist of songs that last no more than 120 seconds was a terrain marked by rockabilly, surf instrumentals, British Invasion hits, the Elvises Presley and Costello, Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs’ Stay, the shortest song (1:34!) to hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and the punk novelty of speeding up old songs (U.K. Subs’ 1:41 version of She’s Not There).

Not surprisingly, Lennon-McCartney and Brian Wilson are good at this type of minimalism (And Your Bird Can Sing, For No One, I’ll Cry Instead, Dance, Dance, Dance, most of the Wild Honey album). Buddy Holly too (Rave On, Not Fade Away).

There are short stories like the Coasters’ Love Potion Number Nine and Willie Nelson’s The Troublemaker. The Stones’ I Wanna Be Your Man (1:43), the Boxtops’ The Letter (1:58), the Clash’s Career Opportunities (1:53) and the Byrds’ Girl With No Name (1:56). Each over in a couple of hundred heartbeats.

Three other songs jumped out as well for their sudden timeliness.

The singer in Mushroom Cloud (1961, 1:57) isn’t losing sleep over school or because he’s bugged at his old man or that his girlfriend’s parents don’t approve. It’s the specter of nuclear annihilation and the powerlessness that comes with it: “We party, we laugh, and we pray again/And we play it cool and try not to think of the mess we're in.”

The lyrics, written by Boudleaux Bryant and sung by Sammy Salvo, fall opposite to the song’s poppy 50s standard format, complete with Ray Conniff-style backing vocals. Bryant, along with wife Felice, wrote Love Hurts and most of the Everly Brothers’ hits, including All I Have to Do Is Dream, Bird Dog, Bye Bye Love and Wake Up Little Susie. Salvo was a regionally well-known Alabama pop singer who later left show business to own a meat-supply business.

Held Up Without a Gun (1981, 1:21) by Bruce Springsteen and the B-side of Hungry Heart, was inspired by the 1979 oil crisis (or at least the first stanza is): “I was out driving, just taking it slow/Looked at my tank, it was reading low/Pulled in an Exxon station out on Highway One/Held up without a gun.”

Never minding the rest of the song (in this case the last 40 seconds), autobiographical lyrics about a “damn fool with a guitar” signing a bad management contract. Heard today it’s yet another reminder of the endless loop of economic realities we're trapped in. 

Shape of Things to Come (1968, 1:54) from the teen-exploitation flick Wild in the Streets always had an ominous feel, from the fascistic name of the fictious band (Max Frost and The Troopers) to its lyrics darkly promising the wrong kind of change ("There's a new sun/Risin' up angry in the sky").

The film’s plot is about a rewrite of the Constitution that lowers the age requirement for voting to 14, creating a youth bloc that gets Max Frost (Christopher Jones), a narcissistic rock star, elected president. Frost runs as a Republican.

It’s still a pretty cool song.

The Ballad of the Green Berets

Sixty years ago this month, the most popular record in America was The Ballad of the Green Berets, written and sung by Sgt. Barry Sadler. It was the #1 record on Billboard’s Hot 100 for an astounding five weeks, at a time when there was still a wave of patriotism over U.S. involvement in Vietnam – the idea that the war was an immoral quicksand pit sucking up American lives had yet to hit home.

Lyndon Johnson’s approval rating was 67 percent in early ’66; it would drop steadily from there, as would the 48 percent of American college students in favor of the war.

Sadler was a Green Beret medic wounded in Vietnam, so there was a whiff of authenticity about The Ballad of the Green Berets, which he wrote during his convalescence. Performing the song on The Ed Sullivan Show launch pad, the record took off, selling nine million copies and becoming the top-selling record of the year. Sadler also recorded what amounted to a concept album, Ballads of the Green Berets, that sold a million copies during the first five weeks of its release.

The record’s success was a reminder that while the Top 40 was mostly reflective of the musical tastes of teenagers, occasionally adults flexed their wallets and had some say. Some other examples: Everybody Loves Somebody and Hello Dolly in the middle of 1964’s Beatlemania, and later in 1966, Strangers in the Night. All #1 records.

Younger kids may have helped with The Ballad of the Green Berets as well, the eight- and nine-year olds pretending to be Vic Morrow and Rick Jason in their backyards playing with toy guns.

The irony of The Ballad of the Green Berets at the top of the charts is that it created a logjam of songs in the top ten that, at least in their titles and universal themes, spoke more powerfully about the emotional churn of soldiers trapped overseas and their families: California Dreamin’, My World Is Empty Without You, Homeward Bound, Nowhere Man, Daydream.

The song didn’t sit well with on the British pop charts. Mick Jagger called it “terribly sick,” and various Beatles offered up words like “crap” and “propaganda.” Paul Jones, of Manfred Mann, said, “The main point is that the American State Department is clearly annoyed because they cannot get people to volunteer to fight in Vietnam.”

Emotionally manipulative and jingoistic, The Ballad of the Green Berets, coupled with the moronic Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., whose run as one of the top three network shows pretty much ran parallel to the war and was filmed with the cooperation of the Marines, were a low-key recruitment effort that missed the mark badly.

After The Ballad of the Green Berets, Sadler did some television acting, wrote a series of men’s adventure paperbacks, then was found guilty of manslaughter when he shot an unarmed man in an argument over a woman. He met up with more violence after moving to Guatemala and was shot in the head while sitting in a cab. Left with brain damage and quadriplegic, he died in 1989.

On Spotify, The Ballad of the Green Berets has more than 9.7 million total plays and songs by Sadler are played more than 53,000 times a month.

Burke's Law: Who Killed Mr. X?

(This post is part of the 12th Annual Favourite TV Show Episode blogathon hosted by A Shroud of Thoughts)

Amos Burke (Gene Barry) is captain of the LAPD homicide division, and thanks to an inheritance lives in an 18-room mansion in Beverly Hills, wearing ascots around the house and tuxedos on dates with an endless string of girlfriends. He’s suave and sophisticated, although chaste (always flirting – with the occasional double entendre – never kissing), and shuns police cars for his chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud.

Nearly all of the 64 episodes of Burke’s Law (1963 – 64) followed the same outline: someone either a) wealthy or b) famous is murdered, Burke is called in to investigate, he and his detective colleagues Tim (Gary Conway) and Les (Regis Toomey) question a list of quirky suspects with the means and motives for killing before Burke solves the crime and wraps up the loose ends.

(I could have chosen just about any episode of Burke’s Law since the show seldom strayed far from formula. A nicely colorized version of Who Killed Mr. X can be found on YouTube).

Aside from the gimmick of Burke’s wealth, the weekly slate of guest stars made Burke’s Law unique, a cornucopia of casting that blended veterans of the Golden Age of Hollywood along with current stars in roles that allowed for plenty of theatricality and over-the-top performances.

The list of guest stars for the show’s two-year run totals more than 100, from A (Mary Astor) to Z (ZaSu Pitts) and includes fathers and sons (Ed and Keenan Wynn), sisters (Zsa Zsa and Eva Gabor) stars of silent films (Gloria Swanson and Buster Keaton) and beach party flicks (Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello), future Batman villains (Cesar Romero, Burgess Meredith, David Wayne, Ida Lupino, Eartha Kitt), Sherlock Holmes (Basil Rathbone) and the Bride of Frankenstein (Elsa Lanchester).

In Who Killed Mr. X Elizabeth Montgomery, Barrie Chase and Dina Merrill play three kept women who’ve been signed to “exclusive” contracts by the late Mr. X, who has essentially locked them away in expensive homes and beach houses.

Montgomery flirts and trades snappy banter with Burke; Chase (Dick Shawn’s go-go girlfriend in It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World) guzzles martinis non-stop; Merrill (another future Batman villain) has turned to picking up strangers off the street and gets a big dramatic scene, smashing a mirror with a fireplace poker.

Barry and Montgomery: I'm sure this was unintentional positioning

The rest of the cast – suspects all – includes Ann Harding (nominated for a Best Actress Oscar in 1931 for Holiday), Soupy Sales (at the time host of a local Los Angeles kids’ program), Charles Ruggles (with a film career dating back to 1915) and Jim Backus (ubiquitous on television and movies in 1963).

Amos Burke questions Soupy 

Shades of Sunset Boulevard color Who Killed Mr. X, and the murderer turns out to be the least likely of suspects who, in a clever turn, is done in by a studio headshot of Robert Mitchum hanging on a wall.

Before Burke’s Law, Gene Barry spent four years starring in the Bat Masterson series, another debonair crime fighter. It’s not much of a stretch to imagine that in some fictional crossover universe, Amos Burke is related to Masterson, possibly even his grandson. Did Bat Masterson and Annie Oakley ever cross paths?

But watching the show today makes one think more of Batman than Bat Masterson: the often tongue-in-cheek campiness, a rich guy alter ego, Gary Conway as Tim, the boy wonder detective, and the Rolls, as much of a uncredited major character in Burke’s Law as was the Batmobile. In Who Killed Mr. X, the plot moves along in the car’s backseat as Burke takes a call on his clunky car phone, interrogates suspects and offers Elizabeth Montgomery her choice of music on tape.

Jazz or classical?

Burke’s Law died a sudden death in 1965 when it was rebranded at ABC’s insistence with a new format, titled Amos Burke, Secret Agent. The show was about as awful as the title suggests and was cancelled midway through the season. A revival in of Burke’s Law in 1994, with a 76-year-old Barry, lasted 25 episodes.

The Day New York Went Dry

Intrigued by the cover art, 59 years ago I bought a paperback copy of The Day New York Went Dry at a second-hand bookstore. Over the years it was moved from box to box with other paperbacks and, for some reason, I overlooked it until now. It’s a good thing I didn’t attempt to read it at age 13 because I wouldn’t have lasted past the first few pages.

The Day New York Went Dry, published in 1964 and written by Charles Einstein, is – despite the cool cover – not science fiction but something more along the lines of social satire. The premise is real and somewhat scary: there hasn’t been any measurable rainfall in more than a year and the reservoir levels that serve New York City are dropping.

But the story revolves around several bureaucrats and politicians who are trying to solve the problem, none of whom are very appealing or sympathetic, speaking in self-aware shorthand, quoting lines from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner in casual conversation.

The book is just 160 pages, and one gets the impression that the author was researching a comprehensive piece about the New York City water supply infrastructure, something that would have been at home in The New Yorker and, looking over his notes, decided to turn it into a novel.

Satire? There’s a senator from Alabama who suggests that black professionals migrate from New York City to Africa (less people to consume water), the notion of the disenfranchised turning on all their taps and running water as an act of civil disobedience and a professor who cites in mind-numbing detail why water shouldn’t be served with meals.

Along the way there’s also a fair amount of padding, including (for three unforgivable pages) blackjack strategies.

It isn’t until the final chapters that The Day New York Went Dry starts to feel like science fiction. An apocalyptic gloom settles on New York City as rationing takes over, travel drops off the charts, a plan is drafted to move schoolchildren out of the city and the Pennsylvania National Guard is mobilized to protect that state’s waterways.

Author Charles Einstein was a San Francisco sportswriter, serving for many years as editor of The Fireside Book of Baseball, a ubiquitous compendium found in nearly every library in America. He wrote a couple of books about Willie Mays, dabbled in fiction and wrote How to Win at Blackjack: The Einstein System.

His father was Harry Einstein, the radio comedian known as Parkyakarkus, remembered today mostly for his very public death in 1958, suffering a fatal heart attack on the dais during a Friar’s Club roast of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.

After Einstein delivered his monologue, he returned to his seat, ad-libbed a joke then slumped down. Everyone laughed when Milton Berle, who was seated next to Einstein, called out, "Is there a doctor in the house?" Einstein never regained consciousness.

Comedians Albert Brooks (yeah, he named his son Albert Einstein) and Super Dave Osborne were Charles Einstein’s half-brothers. Einstein died in 2007.

Flipside (2023)

In the feature documentary Flipside (2023), filmmaker Chris Wilcha tries making sense of a spaghetti plate of unfinished film projects left hanging when he made the transition from documentary maker to television commercial director.

Flipside is Wilcha’s attempt at tying these loose ends together while seeking answers to bigger mid-life questions about the purpose of work and about letting go of a lifetime of accumulated stuff. Yeah, these are third-world problems and at times the narrative grows a little too self-absorbed, but Flipside’s main attraction is its documentary-within-a-documentary about the record store Wilcha worked in as a teenager, Flipside Records in Pompton Lakes, N.J.

Chris Wilcha outside Flipside Records

Shopping at Flipside, which I sometimes did way back when, took persistence as you worked your way through its overwhelming crush of inventory. Described in the film as a “hoarder’s runaway train,” if Flipside Records was a Brooklyn storefront instead of in suburban Pompton Lakes, vinyl freaks from throughout the tri-state area would be beating a path to its door.

The store, as Wilcha says, preserves a piece of the world that’s gone and it’s no surprise that Uncle Floyd Vivino, the New Jersey entertainer with one foot in the modern world and the other in a long-lost land of vaudeville and pre-war American pop, was a Flipside customer. He’s shown kibitzing around the store and, dramatically lit, improvising a Flipside Records theme song; a touching moment now that Floyd has left us.

Uncle Floyd improvises

(At one point Floyd comes across an ancient-looking Sesame Street busy box sitting among the records and wonders out loud when the toy was last cleaned. I took my three-year old son to Flipside once – he’s 35 now – and I swear the owner brought out the same toy for him to play with).

By movie’s end, Wilcha has found new homes for much of his childhood and teenage stuff and weaved together a satisfying ending to several of the parallel storylines and unfinished projects that have plagued him over the years. As we watch him close the closet door on his childhood bedroom, it’s a literal and figurative closet cleaning.

(Tellingly, when he sells off his record collection it’s not to Flipside, where he fears his records will be lost forever, but to a rival shop also located in Pompton Lakes).

I’ve been making steady progress on also reducing a lifetime of accumulations which, as he says, “can “transport you back but simultaneously make a suffocating mess that reminds you of how much time has passed,” says Wilcha.

I can totally agree. Recently I sold more than 300 LPs that I’d been hunting and gathering since middle school. It took more than a year to clear that mental runway, but when I was ready, I didn’t hesitate. Now to face down the four cartons of old sports magazines in the attic.