Time
was you could tune your radio to a FM station and listen to about an hour of
uninterrupted music. If I recall correctly, that was about the time that FM was
just coming out on the market and was fairly rare throughout the country. My
first radio days as a kid was centered on building AM radio sets from some kits
that I bought out of Chicago. As I recall, none of these were stellar performers
and all depended upon where you were sitting or the time of day. I can still
remember sitting on the steps of our house at night and being able to tune in to
big AM stations all over the country. I suppose you can still do this, but as I
grew, my interest died and was replaced by cars and girls.
Of course, having a radio in your car for dates was an
essential item along with that stuff you needed to slick your hair into place.
Obviously, if you’ve seen my picture, you’ll know this was a long time ago
when I still had hair. Back then all of the cars only had AM radios, since FM
wasn’t around. You can pretty much tell how old a radio is by the fact that if
it had 2 little triangles located somewhere on the dial, it’s from the 50’s
and 60’s. These were Civil Defense locators. As I remember, in the event of an
atomic bombing, we were to tune our radios to these two spots and we’d receive
vital information on what we should expect when the big one hit. Luckily we
never had to use these and so I can’t report to you what that vital
information might have been. I’m fairly sure it would have been along the
lines of some excited newscaster saying something profound
like…"RUN!"
Anyway, my first transistor radio was purchased in about
1957 for some huge sum of money. Or at least it was to me at that time. Portable
radios were just coming out on the market and you were sitting in high cotton if
you could get your tunes from a radio that didn’t have a power cord attached
to it. Still, AM radio was full of commercials. You got maybe 30 minutes of
music and had to suffer through 30 minutes of commercial breaks from sponsors.
As I said earlier, when FM first hit the scene, everyone loved it since it was
virtually commercial free. Today, we are back in the same old rut of 30 minutes
of commercials for each 30 minutes of music. If you read my column from a week
or so ago, you may recall that I told you about going on vacation a few weeks
back. About the only thing really boring on this vacation was the commercials.
On a small island like the one we were on, there aren’t that many sponsors for
radio or television. Thus, we just about had all of the commercials memorized by
the time we left. It’s really boring when anyone of us could lip synch any
part of any commercial regardless of what channel it was on. We obviously had
way too much free time on our hands. I suppose commercials aren’t really bad
things, and are obviously necessary for the financial survival of the
broadcasting station. For me, radio commercials are usually easier to deal with.
Since I normally listen to the radio in the car, I can turn the thing down long
enough for the commercial period to pass.
Television has it’s own different set of complexities.
Most commercials are fairly easy to follow. However the newer ones leave me
completely clueless. It seems as though they are going to great lengths to keep
you confused. Now, you know it’s fairly easy to sell soap or personal grooming
stuff like toothpaste. We can all get the message that using this or that will
result in your having cleaner clothes or brighter, whiter teeth. But, some of
the other advertisements just leave me dumbfounded. You see these commercials
where some car is driving down the road and invisible people step out and seem
to swim in front of it. Then the announcer tells you stuff like driving this car
will make everyone think you’re better than they are. What kind of stuff is
this? Some of the weirdest ones are for banks or financial companies. Are they
loaning money, wanting money or what? I have a difficult time figuring out what
they are selling. I tend to think I’m an average person and have a fair amount
of intelligence, but when commercials come on and go off and you’re sitting
there saying to yourself…"What was that all about?" Then in my mind
someone spent a lot of money and didn’t get the results they intended.
I know commercials, whether they’re on the radio;
television or even in our newspapers are all psychology driven. They tend to
appeal to something in our souls that creates a desire to go out and buy
something or another. What I can’t figure out, is am I just weird because I
can’t understand the concept or is it designed for some other consumer than
me? Perhaps they’ll come out with some new radio or television station that is
commercial free. I thought cable tv was supposed to be this way, but we all know
that’s not true. We get it any way you turn…I think the best way to avoid
all o this stress is to hit the hammock again with a good book. At least books
are commercial free, at least for the time being. I don’t have any sponsors,
but if you want to hire me, notify me at www.pearyperry.com.
If you don’t then just keep reading this space next week, I’ll be back.
