It's Just Like Riding a Bicycle

Monday night at midnight, amid champagne, snacks, and thoughts of Dick Clark and Guy Lombardo, WCLV became the nation's newest public radio station. The most noticeable change is the absence of commercials as we have known them in WCLV's first 50 years. In public radio, they're called underwriting announcements. They're either 15 or 30 seconds. Like Jack Webb in "Dragnet," they're limited to "just the facts." The "First Program" is still on 104.9. So are the Pet News, the Movie Quiz, news, traffic, and the other items you hear on WCLV between 6 and 10 a.m. Our first pledge drive will be in February. Before I came to WCLV in 2001, my checkered radio career included stints at three public radio stations. How to host a pledge drive will come back to me. It's just like riding a bicycle.

WCLV 50th Anniversary Performance Rundown - Part 2

From 2-3, Apollo's Fire performs Baroque madrigals. The Cleveland State Jazz Ensemble is featured from 3 to 4. Two ensembles from the Baldwin-Wallace University Conservatory will be hosted by yours truly from 4 to 5, and I'll also host the Oberlin Trio from 5 to 6. Quire Cleveland offers Baroque and Classical vocal selections between 6 and 7. The Music Settlement's Almeda Trio will present a recital from 7 to 8, and the Big Finale is the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra in the Westfield Theater from 8 to 9. You're welcome to attend at the Idea Center at Playhouse Square, at 14th and Euclid in downtown Cleveland. Seating for some concerts is outside the studio, during which time you can chat with WCLV announcers, take tours of the Radioquarium and WCLV's office, have coffee and a cupcake, and just hang out with the DJs. That's Thursday, Nov. 1 -- be there or be square.

WCLV 50th Anniversary Performance Rundown - Part 1

WCLV's "First Program" will air as usual Thursday, Nov. 1 from 6-10 a.m. Beginning at 10, WCLV will present live recitals from the three Idea Center studios. At 10, an ensemble from CIM, plus a pre-recorded performance by students in the Rainey Institute's "El Sistema" program. At 11, the Cavani String Quaret, and at noon, Bill Rudman and the Musical Theater Project. The Big Work at One is a digitized recording of the first Cleveland Orchestra broadcast on Oct. 12, 1965. All day, you'll hear interviews with performers and local musical luminaries on 104.9 & wclv.com. Part 2 of the day's broadcasts will be posted soon.

WCLV at 50 - Be There or Be Square

Are you coming to the Idea Center at Playhouse Square Thursday, Nov. 1 to celebrate WCLV's 50th anniversary? We'll have live performances from local ensembles, including the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra, Oberlin, Baldwin-Wallace, and CIM, from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Stop by, register to win prizes in our drawing, and have a seat while you watch and listen to the live concerts. The voices you hear will be on duty, not only hosting the live broadcasts, but chatting you up at the cupcake table and giving tours of the Radioquarium. WCLV's "First Program" will still take place that morning from 6 to 10 a.m., followed by "WCLV at 50." Watch this blog or my Facebook page, www.facebook.com/Queen of the Morn, for specifics, including parking information. At a pre-broadcast meeting this week, WCLV's co-founder and President, Robert Conrad, introduced himself this way: "I'm Robert Conrad, and we're here because of something I did 50 years ago." I told Bob I wasn't sure if the Statute of Limitations had run on what he did 50 years ago. He laughed.

My WCLV 50th Anniversary Radio Diary

As WCLV and its listeners remember 50 years of broadcasting in Cleveland, culminating in our official November 1st anniversary, here's a memory from my Radio Diary. Morning drive announcers live life 4 hours earlier than the audience does. For example, if most people get up at 6:30, the morning announcer gets up 4 hours earlier. This differential also means that you hit the sack 4 hours earlier than your audience does. For anyone who works other than the day shift, you know how disorienting it can be. The rest of the world is 9-to-5, and when Clevelanders are getting ready to go out to dinner and take in a show at Playhouse Square, morning announcers have just arrived in the boudoir for a cheap date with the Sandman. It takes two years to get used to this schedule. Until then, you live in a state of jet lag every day of the week. A few months after I started as WCLV's morning drive announcer, profound fatigue caught up with me one afternoon at home when I'd fallen into a deep sleep. I woke suddenly, and after a few fog-filled seconds, I realized I was talking to a woman on my bedside phone. I had no idea why. I didn't recognize her voice. I was too embarrassed to ask the woman why we were talking. She seemed rather amused. Hastily, I said, "Well, I'd better get going," and rang off. This had to have been an incoming call. I vaguely remembered hearing the phone ring and answering it. I doubt I would have called someone in my sleep. "Sleep-dialing?" Moi? Although I was certain the caller was a telemarketer, nothing ever was charged to a credit card, and nothing was shipped to me, so I think I got off rather lucky.

50 Shades of Alma

This week on WCLV, I'm spoofing the best-selling erotic novel "50 Shades of Grey," by adding the musical tale of Alma Mahler, a woman whose juicy romantic exploits reportedly included much of musical Vienna, before and after her marriage to Gustav Mahler. She subsequently married the architect Walter Gropius and the author Franz Werfel, as deliciously set out in Tom Lehrer's satirical song, "Alma," which you heard last Friday on 104.9.

You can hear "50 Shades of Alma" at 8:20 this week on WCLV. You can read the episodes on this blog begining Wednesday, August 1st.

Summer Color

How about these hydrangeas? They look like cotton candy gone wild.