You Can't Say @#$% on the Radio

I'm not sure if this has ever happened to you, but you know when you go into a radio station to play some children's music with your buddy and one of the engineers hands you a piece of paper to sign and you read it and the paper has so many swears on it that there is very little white space left on the paper?
You know that?
It happened to me again.
Last Saturday, I was supposed to go to Boston to be on the radio with Steve Blunt and our special guests, The Spaghetti Cats (my daughter Tori and her friend Leea).
The weather, as has happened so often this winter, did not care for our plans and forced us to reschedule to Sunday night.
Super Bowl Sunday.
I, and I realize I am a minority in this, do not care for football. I do not care for sports in any form, except for a very occasional hockey game. I enjoy doing things like hiking and biking, but watching a bunch of guys chase after a ball, or hit a ball, or kick a ball, or bounce a ball holds very little interest for me.
I know, I am in the minority in this mind-set. Many of the people I know are brought to toe-curling shrieks of ecstasy by the thought of sweaty guys throwing balls to each other.
I sincerely hope that the unfortunate coincidence of us being on the radio at the same time as the Super Bowl didn't have too great a negative impact on the Super Bowl's ratings.
Those of you fortunate enough to have listened to our show were richly rewarded by that fact that you did not hear any foul language.
At all.
And there's a good reason for that.
First, the very notion of going on live radio during a children's music show and firing off a few F-bombs seems like a counter-productive move from a career building point of view.
But just in case we thought that swearing for 15 minutes on a kid's music show would be a good idea, one of the helpful engineers in the studio handed us this agreement to sign:

I have taken the liberty of spending a few dozen hours laboriously removing all the foul language from the form.
If you choose to use this altered document as a sort of x-rated Mad-Lib, then I can't stop you, but I also won't be held responsible for the results.
This is not the first time I have seen and signed this particular agreement. The first time I saw it, I laughed so hard that I got a stomache ache and had a hard time playing the harmonica.
The engineer who handed me the agreement last Sunday remembered me this time. He said, "You're the guy who thought the on-air language agreement was so funny, aren't you?"
I would have answered him if I hadn't been laughing so hard as I read it again.
The language in this agreement is awesome in its breadth and scope and stunning in its precision. The very concise nature of it make me think that there is an "incident" behind every word on it. A black radio moment when engineers, hosts, and staff stared at each other in horror and thousands of listeners rolled around on the floor laughing and screaming, "Did that guy just say @#$% on the radio?"
I scanned the agreement again, making a mental note of some of the juicier expressions.
"Do the kids have to sign this?" I joked.
The engineer scratched his head for a minute. "I don't know," he answered, "I'll go check."
He strolled out of the studio, leaving me to wonder what sort of cosmic retribution would await me should my daughter and her friend catch even the slightest glimpse of this encyclopedia of obscenity.
I am happy to report that they were not required to sign the paper and even happier to report that neither of them did any sort of swearing.
When they are ready to start swearing, however, I'll make sure that they have access to this paper so they can be sure to get the spelling and usage correct.

Fail 2.0

Yesterday was a thrilling day filled with music, laughter, tasty food, and unimaginable personal humiliation.

Steve and I were busy with two performances. Our first gig was at St. Joseph's Hospital in Nashua. The hospital has occasional community outreach programs to let people know that you don't need to wait until you are desperately ill and coughing up internal organs to come to the hospital. You can come for some family fun, too.

After the hospital show, Steve had to grab some milk at the store. True fact: Even Rock & Roll superstars like Steve Blunt like a tall glass of milk now and then. As we were exiting the grocery store, we passed a beautiful young lady entering the store. She saw me and her eyes lit up and she stopped and gave me an effusive greeting. "Hey! How are you?" she asked. Steve was very impressed that I was being greeted by such a lovely young lady.

I totally panicked. I didn't recognize her and I mentally scrambled for a few desperate seconds trying to place her and not wind up looking completely foolish. I failed.

I feel that I must offer some feeble excuses and explanations for what happened next.

Excuse #1 - I was with Steve, at an unfamiliar grocery store in Nashua. I was out of my element.

Excuse #2 - When I'm with Steve, we tend to talk a lot about visits and performances we have done. From that mindset, I assumed that she was a teacher at one of the many schools I have visited. It happens on rare occasions that people will come up to me in public places and say hi, explaining that I had visited their school. It's always flattering, but I visit a lot of school. Try as I might, I can't remember everyone.

Excuse #3 - I am a dork.

She continued to chat amiably and comfortably for a few more gut wrenching seconds. When it finally became clear to me that I was not going to be able to figure out who she was in time to save any shred of self-respect, I broke down and said, "I'm so sorry. You're going to have to help me out. Where do I know you from?"

She stared at me, aghast. She cocked a hip to one side and gave me an incredulous look. "You've got to be kidding," she said, "I'm related to you."

Excuse #4 - It has been quite some time since I've seen my cousin, Christine.

So, the beautiful young lady was my cousin. I got it then, and I feel the need to emphasize the excuses I put forth before. I had not seen her in some time. I have been old and ugly for a long time, but these kids grow up and change and, doggonit, it's hard to recognize them sometimes.
She was not in her usual habitat (so, really, as she was not in a place where I expected to see her, she should have worn a name tag that said "Hello, I'm Marty's cousin, Christine.")

So, properly humiliated, I introduced her to Steve - who, I might mention, thought this amazing social gaffe on my part was one of the funniest things he's ever seen - and we chatted for a few more minutes and went our separate ways.

Steve and I drove off to his house where we ate sandwiches and contemplated what a total bozo I am and whether Christine might ever be able to forgive me. The sandwiches were tasty, but the forgiveness is still somewhat up in the air.

Our next big show for the day was at WERS, the radio station at Emerson College in Boston. with the taste of sandwich and humiliation still in my mouth, we drove down to the studios and started setting up.

Last year, Steve invited me to perform on the same radio show and it was a lot of fun. We were to be on the air for about 15 minutes, during which we would play a few songs and shamelessly promote our music, books, and upcoming events. While we were setting up and doing sound checks, one of the students who run the station came up to me with a paper and a pen. "You've got to read this and sign it, please," he said.

It was a sort of contract, assuring the station that I would not use any foul language while on the air. Considering that we were on a family show called "The Playground", and cutting loose with a barrage of obscenity would be a sure invitation to commercial and professional suicide, the contract seemed somewhat superfluous.

My favorite part of the contract was that fact that it not only warned against foul language, it provided dozens and dozens of specific examples of unacceptable vocabulary. The scope and specificity of the list was breathtaking. As a result, the contract I was was signing to prevent me from using obscenities, was full of more foul language than any printed document I have ever seen in my life. It had words, phrases, and combinations of words and phrases so exotic that they seemed to be a foreign language at times. It was really a good read and I should have asked for a copy, but I didn't think of it in time.

After we had assured the lawyers that we had no intention of filling the airwaves with naughty words, the host of the show, Andy, came into the studio and we went on the air. We chatted for a few minutes then went into our first song. Steve, I have mentioned in previous posts, likes to keep me on my toes by adding new songs to our sets mid-show and changing songs during performances. Things were rolling smoothly during our first song, Steve was strumming and singing, and I was banging on the djembe drum. As we neared the end of the song, Steve evidently decided that things were too easy for me and I was having too much fun. He made the executive decision to change the ending of the song. As a result, he suddenly stopped playing while my drumming continued for a measure or two until I realized that the song had ended.
"Hey, nice ending, there, Marty." Steve pointed out.

I was sad that I had signed the language contract then, because it had given me much verbal ammunition that I could have fired at Steve at that point. "Ha. Ha." I laughed, "I was having so much fun, I didn't want it to end."

After the show, we scorched our digestive tracts with some delicious Indian food and made our way homeward. Our next gig together is also in Boston. We'll be at the Read and Romp on November 14th. If you see us, come up and say hello.

If you are related to me or are someone I should know, please wear a nametag.