Alastair Sim (Image via RottenTomatoes.com)

If you read nothing else in this post before you click “Play”, read this: As an actor, I make a helluva deejay.

It was 1998 when the idea first struck me: Create a one-hour version of the Dickens classic, “A Christmas Carol“, to be done as an old-school radio drama, that took listeners back to the days of The Shadow and War Of The Worlds; so I took Dickens’ original text, the Alistair Sim version of the film, a script produced by WABC in the early 1970′s, and my own love for the story, and came up with my own version.

I recreated this script with new actors every year as I moved from radio station to radio station all over North America.  In fact, Christmas 2011 will be the first time in a LONG time that a version of this play hasn’t run somewhere.

But it’s running here.

The version below was created in 2010 by the on-air people and the office staff of CJOT-FM in Ottawa, Ontario.  Thanks to the whims of an impatient industry, the station goes by a different name now than when we produced this a year ago, but many of the voices you hear are still at the station.

Our narrator is legendary Canadian TV personality Max Keeping, and that’s yours truly butchering the role of Scrooge.

Hope you enjoy it.

If you’d rather download the file for later listening (it’s an hour long, and a 57MB download), right-click here and select “Save Link As..”

This one’s been making the rounds for years, but usually only pops up around Christmas.  But in an interview recently, I was asked about the moments that stuck out for me; this one always comes to mind.

It’s from the 1970′s; the announcer you’ll hear is Gary Owens.  It’s a snapshot from radio’s past, back when the announcers used to read commercials live; Gary is reading one of the dreaded “Christmas Greetings” we all used to do.  You’ve heard them too – the script usually goes something like,

Here’s to another year of happiness and good cheer.  Your friends at Fred’s Garage wish you a very Merry Christmas, and all the best in the new year.

We used to run hundreds of these things every Christmas.  In fact, when I was a young radio station creative director (in the early 80′s), we used to have a file folder full of pre-written greetings, where all we had to do is fill in the blanks with the sponsor’s name.  (This should have signaled the beginning of the end to me, but that’s for another day.)

Gary was about to read one of these, and learned the hard way that you should always – always – pre-read the copy.

I’ve written over a thousand of them, recorded hundreds. Over the 30 years I was in radio, sometimes people even paid for them.  (And I guess if a station comes to me and asks me to produce one for them, that’s doable.)

This one premiered on my radio show last month (it played three times before I had to pull it off the air).

It’s dedicated to anyone who’s had to sit through any kind of delay caused by road construction, and called “Tearin’ Up The Roadways”.

Hope you like it.

This time around, we’ve called the band that does songs for my show “The EZ Breakfast Show Band” (it changes from station to station).

The one thing that had always remained the same was that I was the lead singer for every song we ever did.  Sometimes it was an actual band, sometimes a karaoke track, sometimes me playing the parts on a keyboard.

The only exception to the “I sing everything” trend was the time that Tracy Byrd sang a parody I had written for his massive hit “I’m From The Country”, a parody that helped us plug a fundraising stunt we were doing for Foodshare in Connecticut.

THIS song is the second one I ever write sung by someone other than me, and there’s good reason.  It’s written as a “response song”, sung by the woman who’s the object of the singer’s affections in the Bruno Mars song “Grenade”.  The singer?  Doing her best impression of a disgruntled housewife, it’s Michelle Cruise from EZ Rock’s afternoon show.

Full explanation (and the song) at this link that’ll take you to my radio station’s website in a new window.  Personally, I like hearing the original first and THEN the parody, but YMMV.

Would LOVE your thoughts in the comments section.

Bon Jovi was in my city last night, and by all accounts, rocked the sold-out house with 18,000 strong (with my old friend Phil X subbing on lead guitar for Richie).  One person remarked that Jon “can still bring it, even at his age.”

Seriously?  Come on now.  He’s only 49.  As the relative age of a rock star is measured inversely to that of a dog, I think 49 “to you and me” is something like 26 in rock star years.

Jon Bon Jovi is far from being a person whose age we should be concerned with, although we are entering the time of year when some of his let’s say more seasoned counterparts will be taking to the road on what I like to refer to as “the Geezer Tours.”

It’s with Geezer Tours in mind that I bring you an old, dusty favourite from one of my old morning shows.  A song I wrote and recorded in 2006 while I was at WRKI-FM in CT, I hope you enjoy this parody of a Grand Funk Railroad classic.

Related articles

• Bon Jovi and Big Freedia bring showmanship to Jazz Fest (cnn.com)
• Bon Jovi Deliver Classic Set at New Orleans Jazz Fest 2011 (spinner.com)

Al Gore

It was a Wednesday night – December 13th, 2000 – and I was driving through Downtown Hartford CT on Interstate 84.  I was listening to WWYZ – the country station where at the time, I had the #1 morning show in the city.  There was breaking news – Al Gore had just made a concession speech, giving the White House to George W. Bush in a hotly contested election that gave rise to such memorable terms as “hanging chad“.

About an hour or so later, a parody song was born.

To give you context, here’s the video of the song that I parodied – “All Things Considered”, by Yankee Grey:

And here’s the parody, called “Al Gore Conceded” – it is literally the fastest song I’ve ever written; took about an hour from the moment I found out Gore had stepped aside, until I was starting to record the vocals.  (And yes, for expediency’s sake, it was done with a terrible karaoke bed. Maybe I should recut it one day.)

This is a song I did during the run-up to the 2008 Presidential Election in the United States. I was working in Maryland at the time, pretty much within earshot of Washington DC.

The song was designed to sum up how the people felt about ridiculous political campaigns; judging from the response it received, mission accomplished.  It’s a parody of “Wake Me Up When September Ends” by Green Day.

Why post this now?  Well… it’s worth noting that Canadian politicians voted to officially make Canada more politically unstable over the last ten years than Iraq, calling for yet another Federal election this May.

The song below slams American politicians to the pavement in a way that got some pretty significant traction south of the border.  If you’re guessing I have a similar song in the works for the Canadian hacks who pretend they’re working for their constituents, you’d be right.

Related articles

• Canadian PM sets May 2 as federal election date (reuters.com)

Some people have heard of the famous Budweiser ad campaign, “Real Men Of Genius”.

Some have merely heard parodies of the famous ad campaign from clowns like me.  Here’s one such parody I did while I was working in Maryland.

In their drooling sycophancy during the 2008 Presidential election and subsequent Obama victory, the press found it beyond the dreams of avarice that there would be sooooo many porta-potties available for those who wanted to attend his inauguration (note the small “h” on “his”, much to the dismay of most of the American press).

I saw the other end of that stick.  And so I humbly present an oldie for your entertainment; Real Men Of Genius: Mr. Porta-Potty Cleaner-Outer.