Speak, Memory

Mike Licht confesses transistor transgressions of a misspent youth.

The pocket transistor radio is thought to have been crucial to mid 20th century American pop music, but it was really more important to the idea of music, to talk and thought about pop music and US culture. Truth be told, after riding AM radio waves and squeezing through skimpy circuits and tiny speakers, music didn’t really sound like much.

Yet ubiquitous trannies, reeking slightly of nine-volt battery acid, piped out sibilant suggestions of the melodies and rhythms that gut-punched their way out of Seeburg, Rock-Ola, and Wurlitzer jukeboxes or rattled car dashboards. Do we fault a charcoal drawing for not being a photograph? Hardly. Which engages the imagination more? No contest.

Pop song lyrics, tales of tortured teen angst and adolescent abandon, were clearly intelligible; so was the poetic patter of DJs. Pocket radios delivered suggestions of current pop hits anywhere and everywhere, making them available as social symbols and conversational subjects, to be analyzed, debated and appreciated, used strategically for flirtation and humor, seduction and courtship.

Boys ushered in the school year with transistor radios in the ’50s and ’60s. Each class had a kid with a tranny tucked in his long-sleeved shirt,  the earplug wire snaking up through the cuff. He sat, elbow on desk, leaning on the hand which cupped his ear and hid the earplug, listening to playoff games and the Series, whispering scores to classmates. Teachers let kids watch space shots on classroom TV, but kids met their own real-time information needs.

My Zenith Royal 50 was red and tan, and spent nights under my pillow with the earphone plugged in. I kept the radio in its cheap brown leather case, which had a chemical smell from the adhesive behind the thin fluff lining.

If I didn’t get brain damage from the glue, I got it from listening to Jean Shepherd on WOR-AM.

Listening to Shep’s radio monologues over the years, hearing him repeat favorite stories and polish them like pebbles in the stream of speech; what an ear- and mind-opening education in narrative, language, and American culture. I would lie in the dark with my radio under my pillow, and the earplug pumped tales of World War II, the Great Depression, tavern talk, and Village jive though my pint-sized brain and straight to my imagination.

There are websites, audio streams  and mp3s of Jean Shepherd airchecks and live performances, a biography, Shep’s own short stories and books, his Mad Magazine story, and tributes galore. You can purchase CDs, audio tapes, and other formats of Shep’s monologues.

Hear the audio recordings first. Whatever format you choose, don’t multitask. Listen to Shep’s voice in the dark, alone. You owe it to your imagination.

 

Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.