Banjo-playing comedian Richard Stockton shows some love for a live radio music show. Other readers chime in about the state of our weekly cartoons.
Sleepy Knows The Way
On July 1 I substituted for “Sleepy” John Sandidge as host of “Please Stand By,” his live music show on KPIG 107.5-FM. As he traveled in his RV that week, I fundamentally got to live John Sandidge's life for two hours in the control room called The Pigsty.
I dropped into a live radio show that creates magic. Starting at 10am, each half-hour segment starts with the musical acts shuffling in during the commercial break; they’re lost in their heads, nervous about performing in front of a huge radio audience. They retune, touch the microphones and retune. Then they look up to see a handful of grinning KPIG broadcasters assuring them that they are all going to have the time of their lives. As Geoff Childers mixes their microphone levels he dryly sails one-liners through the room with show director Arden Eaton topping each joke. People at KPIG just never really do stop laughing. You can see the bodies of the musicians relax, their eyes light up, they reveal personal secrets and then sing with eyes closed from deep inside.
With his partners Arden and Geoff, John Sandidge has created a live radio gem built on his love of old-time radio. And with it he gives us a model for future live radio. As media conglomerates steal every last frequency, John Sandidge has somehow reclaimed two hours of airwaves every week to be used for what they are meant to be used for, for the people to connect and inspire each other. I think John Sandidge figured it out a long time ago: real music is authentic, real revolution is local.
Richard Stockton
Santa Cruz
Lazy Tom
Being a wretched drawer, I normally hesitate criticizing any cartoonist, but I must say bravo to the letter from Rachell Summers (“Since You Asked,” Posts, July 11.html). In it she complained of the overly wordy and “talking heads” style of “This Modern World” by Tom Tomorrow. The installment below her letter made her point, consisting of a character called “The Invisible Hand,” which seemed to be the same drawing repeated in six panels, with the only variation being in size, and the pupils moved slightly to the side in the first panel. That's just plain lazy, but even more tedious is the strip's one-note samba of consistently leftist attacks on the evils of capitalism, conservatism and all things non-progressive.
This might be a sensitive subject for the paper, but I have to admit how much I miss the cartoons of DeCinzo. He was very unpredictable, often outrageous and a master at puncturing buffoonery on both the left and right. Hopefully he will someday return so readers can once more enjoy his bipartisan pen and ink IEDs.
Steve Bankhead
Watsonville
Tom’s Tops
Couldn’t have made a better choice! Great comic, much better, imho, than “Life in Hell,” with which I had become totally bored and stopped reading altogether. Now, maybe take a look at that lame comic “Open Letters.” “SlowPoke” is wonderful, so keep that one.
Steven Frazier
Santa Cruz County
