Summer Bounty

Some of the WCLV Garden's zinnias, blooming away in a pitcher. It's the closest to a Martha Stewart flower arrangement I'll ever get.

You radio guys know that when on-air people take a vacation, they mostly sleep. For you non-radio guys who wonder why, when you spend your working life condensing 8 hours of work into 4, forgetting the clock is heaven.

I'm vacating Radio Ranch for a few days. Check this blog while I'm gone for evidence of summer adventure. I'll be back in the saddle Thursday, September 9th.

The New Guy

The Cleveland Museum of Art's newly-named director, David Franklin, during an informal press session Friday afternoon. He'll be leaving his position as deputy director of the National Gallery of Canada to start at CMA September 20th.

In his casual remarks about taking the job, Mr. Franklin, a scholar in Italian Renaissance and baroque art, emphasized CMA's reputation for the quality of both its collection and its acquisitions. He's no stranger to Cleveland, which he has visited while traveling to cities along the Great Lakes. His wife will be happy to know that WCLV is 24-hour classical at 104.9 FM. His two boys, ages 8 and 12, who play guitar and drum, may feel more at home at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Happy-Faced Flora

There's an old saying, "Bloom where you're planted." If that's so, these sunflowers must love it at Radio Ranch. There are 4 varieties in WCLV's Sunflower Forest.

Guenveur Burnell of Kent was the Grand Prize Winner in WCLV's Pet Poetry Contest, for the verse about the aging cat Dupree. I'll read the poems again tomorrow morning between 6 & 10 a.m. At our website, wclv.com, you'll find the poems and photos of the WCLV-listening pets that inspired them.

Broadcasters-in-Progress

When your professional life is spent speaking in 30- to 60-second bursts, it feels like water over a dam to talk for an hour. Today I got that rare opportunity at the Ohio Center for Broadcasting. The students saw what a WCLV playlist looks like, and a few of the students were game enough to try some pronunciations. One fellow in the front row will never forget how to say "Dmitri Kabalevsky." I bet he'll use that skill to pick up girls at bars.

Listen to WCLV 104.9 & wclv.com tomorrow from 6 to 10 a.m. E.T. for the winning Pet Poems.

Pet Poetry Winners Selected

A thin spire of white smoke has appeared above the doghouse. That means the winners of the Pet Poetry contest have been chosen. Thursday and Friday during WCLV's "First Program" from 6 to 10 a.m. ET on 104.9 FM & wclv.com, I'll read the names of the top 10 finishers, including the grand prize winner.

Uh -- Are We On?

Radio is invisible. For anyone outside the studio, it's impossible to know that master control isn't at all leisurely. Like many of you in the morning as you prepare for work and school, DJs are doing many other things during Mozart and Beethoven, such as preparing news and traffic, working out the next break, and taking calls from listeners.

I describe morning drive as "holding a conversation while diapering triplets."

I've also described the difference between listening to morning drive radio and hosting it as "equivalent to the difference between attending a dinner party and giving one."

For those of you who have worn the headphones, how do you describe it?

Gov. Coiffure

On WCLV's "First Program," 6-10 a.m., I try to work current events in with the music, weather and traffic. One of my favorite features is "As the Coiffure Turns," the radio soap opera about the former governor of my home state, who was convicted yesterday on one count of lying to the FBI. A mistrial was granted on the other 23 counts, but they will be re-tried, with the first meeting to prepare the new trial scheduled for next week.

An internet listener from Chicago writes: "Well, excuse me, but if the White Sox lose to the Twins, they can't do the game over. Why should a new trial be allowed?"

Dear Chicago listener: Major League Baseball rules don't allow do-overs. Federal criminal procedure allows a new trial.

Who's to say, since MLB now allows limited instant replay, that Bud Selig and his moneyed cohorts could be persuaded to allow a finite number of do-overs, at the discretion of the losing team? It would be similar in procedure to the peremptory challenges lawyers have when choosing a jury.

This could extend the baseball season like snow days extend the school year. It would mean more revenue for the teams, more face-time for sports broadcasters, more dollar dog nights, and unending sports talk radio drivel about what might have been if only the re-played game could be played again and again until our nausea is complete.

Call for Zucchini

In 2003, when Robert Conrad first proposed that I could have a garden at WCLV, he had only one emphatic restriction: No zucchini.

I have faithfully held to that rule -- until now.

Here's the "Emma Lazarus" pitch: Give me your tired, your poor -- zucchini, your huddled masses of baseball bat- and kayak-size squash hiding under the sheltering leaves in the recesses of your vegetable patch.

Drop off point for your unwanted zucchini is WCLV, 26501 Renaissance Parkway, Warrensville Heights, just east of the intersection of Richmond and Emery Roads.

You may drop it off during regular business hours Monday through Friday, or you may leave it in a basket out front. All foundling zucchini will be taken in. Each squash will be wanted, especially in the form of zucchini bread.

Orange Tree

Not fruit as such, but a tree-like array of orange zinnias in profusion at Radio Ranch. The magenta flowers got in there somehow.

This time of year, I shamelessly imitate Martha Stewart by arranging loads of zinnias in my white ceramic pitcher. Exhibit A to come.

Your announcer has not been as communicative as she usually is, due to a case of "work inundation." Recovery is imminent. It does bring Martha Stewart to mind, however. Remember, dear Reader: Nothing is impossible as long as you have staff.

A New Radio Ranch

Yesterday it was announced that WCLV will be relocating its offices and studios to a currently unused part of the Idea Center in the Playhouse Square distict of downtown Cleveland. Construction has begun on the space, which is currently unfinished and unoccupied. Only our offices will move; our transmitter in Avon will remain firmly in the same place. The construction is expected to last until the end of this year, with occupancy thereafter.

WCLV has been in Warrensville Heights since 1986. Before that, at Terminal Tower downtown, and originally, in Eastgate Shopping Center at Mayfield and SOM Center Roads.

How do you move a radio station? Very gradually. Stay tuned.

"Music and the Spoken Word" in the Radio Hall of Fame

"Music and the Spoken Word," heard Sunday nights at 8:30 ET on WCLV 104.9 & wclv.com, has been selected for induction into the National Radio Hall of Fame. It's the longest-running radio broadcast in America, first airing July 15, 1929.

The program's commentator is Lloyd Newell, who has hosted all of WCLV's live broadcasts of the Jubilation Church Choir finals since the festival's inception.

When Lloyd Newell came to Cleveland for the first Jubilation in 2008, he revealed at lunch with the WCLV brass that the 360 choir members aren't paid. Then he revealed that he isn't paid either, and that it's the most rewarding job he's ever had.

The honor was announced yesterday by Chicago's Museum of Broadcast Communications, which administers the program. The national broadcast of the inducation ceremony will take place November 6 in Chicago. You can find more information at www.radiohof.org.