Flowers and beads are one thing

[austin_dern]

Dad got into a good little grumbling, sighing fit of pique while I was still more or less asleep, but awake enough to hear the morning chat shows turned up loud and him rattling around the recyclable cans. He was, it turns out, upset that I wasn't taking the kitchen bag of empty soda cans out to the garage, and explaining this at length to Mom. But it was morning, and I had things to sleep through, so I didn't get up to press the issue. Besides, he's always getting off into sighing fits of piques, usually with rattling around the recyclables or slamming shut the kitchen cabinet doors.

When I did finally get up Dad was out. So I pointed out to Mom that I would have been much quicker to get the bags out to the garage if I had at any point been told he wanted me to take them out. However, I might have not done that every night since not every night was the kitchen bag anywhere near full. And that it might be more efficient getting me to do something if he'd spoken to me at any of the six hours a day we're in the house together than if he grumbled the Mom while I was more or less asleep.

She agreed, but pointed out that Dad will grumble and sigh and bang around the recyclables and the plates and all that anyway. So she leaves recyclables out or dirty dishes out of the dishwasher or so on, so that when he does go on these grumbling and sulking fits it's at least about a real, tangible, actual issue. I'm amazed that I've grown up as normal as I have.

Trivia: Cecil B De Mille donated the rubber squid used in Reap the Wild Wind to the war effort. Don't You Know There's A War On?, Richard Lingeman.

Currently Reading: Currently Reading: Inside ABC: American Broadcasting Company's Rise to Power, Sterling Quinlan. It's a corporate biography of the Blue Network. These are hard to write without falling into grandiose titles like that. It's frustratingly vague in parts, talking about revitalizing the network lineup without giving examples of what the lineup was before and after, for example; while I can believe the description of corporate cultural evolution I like having hard-and-fast data points (``In September 1956 the ABC television networks averaged a nationwide viewership of nearly more than twelve people for the 10 pm/9 pm Eastern timeslot weekdays''). It also barely mentions the ABC radio network, home of fine shows like ... well, that may be why they're vague about it.

Comments

[porsupah.livejournal.com]

it's at least about a real, tangible, actual issue

That puts me in mind of little more than a bug, with a documented workaround. =:)

Very odd they'd gloss over the origin of the network like that, but maybe "radio" is a deathly word to include in a title, or anywhere else, much as "healthy" on food puts people in mind of "without taste", rather than simply omitting the tablespoon of lard per teaspoon serving.

Did you snag that "origin of Alexandra Palace" short I put up a while back? Rather interesting, seeing the effective gutting of the original building, to be replaced with a far sturdier inner structure to support the weight of all the equipment to be installed, leading to the Corporation's first television transmissions, using both mechanical and electronic formats on a trial basis. (And such a legendarily cool mast design, too - very powerful looking)

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Well, Quinlan does have the problem that ABC's golden-age-of-radio days were really not as interesting as NBC or CBS. Even when they had an outstandingly popular program like Amos and Andy (as the Blue Network) it would get moved to the Red or just sort of not really adhere any glory to them. Even the great CBS star snag barely touched ABC.

I missed the short, though, I'm sorry. I'll go looking when I have a bit of spare time.

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

Well, I'd figure there'd be at least a good chapter's worth on the ABC radio network, but that to be one chapter of 7 or 8, as the majority of them would cfocus on the TV shows up until ABC's most current popular show, whenever this was written.

--Chiaroscuro

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

It comes out to about 23 chapters, most of them based more around some impossible business quandary the network was in at one point or other, so that actual radio operations are given less attention than the government action that split the Blue Network off of the Red, or how Edward J Noble got his fortune and bought LifeSavers twice, or getting through the Paramount Merger, or the fuss of the ITT merger that wasn't. It's not as though all the corporate activity isn't fundamentally interesting; just that it would be nice to have something more solid than ``ABC put on more color programs than it had before'' for what people actually saw.