Fire Island Pines

Dancing till Dawn

It's so good to see the "return" of Barry White, although I never realized he was gone.

To me, Barry and Love Unlimited were the first crossover of Disco to broadcast radio and main stream American culture. Broadcast radio has remained uneasy with Disco's intrusions.

I recall the stirring of a sort of tribal sense of group as a young Gay man of the early 70's. Moving onto the dance floor at the Pines Boatel, or the Ice Palace dance floor at Cherry Grove, or the itinerant clubs of Greenwich Village and Soho, or Flamingo, The River Club, Le Jardin, or Twelve West.

Still raising the median age

The music was fulfilling. The rhythm invigorating and inviting. The sense of community was confidence building for the work week ahead when one had to re-enter the heterosexual world we lived in.

For good or bad, I'm a gray-haired geezer who is still dancing -- raising the median age of most venues I frequent.

We "Believed" in Cher

Cher's success with "Believe" proved to me that some old prejudices exist today -- in RADIO. Times are changing but for many years most of the industry existed in a homophobic white-male culture.

Ever hear of a self-proclaimed Gay man in radio? Times are changing but radio is still; lagging. Who hasn't heard homophobic radio personalities making insulting remarks.

The radio culture was so sure of its towering position over Disco, Gay culture and a Diva like Cher, that it could not "believe" that her hit was a hit.

We began dancing to it at the clubs in the late summer of 1998. But until she sang it on the Grammys in December, 1998, and the rest of America heard it, few radio stations had the courage to play it.

My radio career

Just after high school, in furtherance of my journalism career, I worked at KWTO (Keep Watching the Ozarks) a 50,000-watt AM daytime station in Springfield, Mo.

This station had religion and agriculture -- you could hear about pork belly futures beginning at 4:30 a.m. But after dark when the wattage shrank to a tenth of the daytime power, filling time was the rule. My news reporting was part of the fill.

But my exposure to radio people was an education.

300 pound poetry

My favorite character was 300-pound mellifluous-voiced Sam McWhorter who produced a show every night called Moonlight Serenade. He played romantic music and read poetry to his perceived female audience.

I recall standing there in the studio as he read a gushy poem over the music. He'd snap off the microphone and then utter something like, "That will make their twats wet."

I've probably cleaned it up in my recollection because Sam reveled in defiling his on-air image.

The future?

Will Internet broadcasting or satellite radio change things? Of course it will. How soon can programming change? Not soon enough.

The only "reality" radio can be found on America's right-wing religious radio -- something we have plenty of here in the Southwest.

One of my most exciting radio experiences was in the fall of 2000 listening to radio counselor Dr. Randy Carlson.

Father of two at 16

To set the scene -- Dr. Carlson at first counseled a 30-year-old man who was divorced but was wondering if he could ever have sex again. Since sex outside of marriage is verboten and divorce is a sin, post-divorce means celibacy.

But the next caller really got his goat.

She was a very sincere divorced mother from San Antonio. Her 16-year-old son lived with his father.

Her question: Does she owe the two illegitimate children sired by her son with two different high school girls any duty as a grandparent?

Her extreme sincerity caused Dr. Carlson to be hoisted on his own petard.

The ferry conveyed me to weekends full of HiNRG music. As you see, my card was completely punched.

Fire Island Pines

Disco Links

A to Z Disco

And We Danced eZine

Dance Link - Dance Music Directory

1974 -- A gala affaire pour les monsieurs

©2000-2001 Dan Farrell Davis