Jim Bartlett
July 18, 2015
When I was growing up, we were took a vacation almost every summer, at least for a few days. The first vacation I can remember must have been in the late ’60s or maybe 1970. We visited Mark Twain’s hometown, Hannibal, Missouri, where my mother bought a copy of Tom Sawyer. The sole memory I […]
June 15, 2015
“The Bud Song,” well known to everybody around these parts, began as one of the most famous advertising jingles in history, ending with “When you say Budweiser, you’ve said it all.” The original commercial was first broadcast sometime around 1970, and it wasn’t long before the song was adopted by college marching bands. The UW […]
April 23, 2015
During his lifetime, Casey Kasem had millions of fans around the world. Most of them were like you and me: normal, well adjusted, and conscious of the true nature of the relationship between radio DJ and listener–it’s friendly, but it’s not the same kind of relationship you have with family members, friends, and other people […]
April 4, 2015
Record Store Day is coming up on April 18th. It’s become quite a big deal in recent years, a day to celebrate the unique culture of independently owned record stores, both in the United States and around the world. Vinyl has made a tremendous comeback in popularity over the last few years–and Record Store Day […]
March 16, 2015
It’s said that a significant percentage of success lies in simply showing up. It’s not something a person can necessarily put on a resumé, but I’m really good at showing up. Here at Magic, I’m the guy who gets the call to fill in if somebody else goes on vacation or gets sick. Like today, […]
February 3, 2015
Fans of American Top 40 are split on the Long Distance Dedications. Some people love them, and others find them terribly sappy and dumb. (An American Top 40 researcher once told me the AT40 staff was split on them, too.) Although AT40 didn’t start doing them until 1978, Casey been sharing listener letters on his […]
December 18, 2014
The year was 1997. I was out of radio, working for a publishing company. My wife, who had spent the last several years managing a retail store, was working for an insurance company. For many years before, Christmas Eve had been a regular working day for both of us. I would almost always be on […]
December 1, 2014
Consider the office Christmas party. Your employer forks out for dinner and drinks at a nice restaurant, and you can let your hair down for a while with your fellow compadres. Sounds like a good thing—so how come so many parties are so awful? Maybe 25 years ago, the owner of the radio station I worked for […]
November 17, 2014
(Pictured: the La Bahn Arena Zamboni, as seen from the public address announcer’s position on the ice.) I have a personal blog that’s mostly about music but sometimes about radio and occasionally about other things, and I hope you’ll click over and read it sometime. I wrote a post there this week about my experiences […]
November 1, 2014
The most popular costume for Halloween 2014 was Elsa from Frozen, and it wasn’t even close. Lots of news stories this week noted how expensive Halloween costumes have gotten–you could pay upwards of $150 bucks for an Elsa if you wanted to—and although you probably got a more sophisticated look, it’s doubtful whether anyone got […]