Ruminating over a collection of slightly related subjects as a theme for this article. Art and artisan are featured here, and artful living in an age of late stage capitalism with its lure of artifice. Writing about a time in the past when creativity was rampant, life more carefree, aspirations communal, inevitably leads to contemplation Read More
Category Archives: smARTy
Human Endeavor Writ (Very) Large
Once in a while, in the deluge of “information” washing over us every day, we encounter something that is immediately unforgettable, something so staggering, perplexing, or simply stunning to behold that we can’t let go of it. It demands contemplation. It happened to me when I was a young man riding a motorcycle in Western Read More
Monocropping Culture
You start with seeds of one type or another, maybe corn or wheat or whatever serves your market, and they are genetically modified. They are built to withstand the pesticides and herbicides you will apply to them at several stages of the crop’s development. You have water rights sufficient to spray copious amounts on even Read More
Medium As Message Maker
Wow! Does it seem to you it’s hard to get through a day without confronting tragedy? The morning mayhem, the afternoon upheaval, the evening disaster. The chaos keeps coming. What to make of it all? The well regulated militia continues to slaughter innocents, big business jacks up prices because it can, rents are unaffordable, homeless Read More
Deejays Blazing
Tom Donahue is listening to rock & roll on LSD in 1967 San Francisco and says to himself, “This music has to be heard in stereo. AM radio is a rotting corpse stinking up the airwaves.” He starts calling FM stations listed in the phone book. When he finds one that’s disconnected, he says to Read More
Poster Boy
A few people over the years have asked me how I became a columnist at The Denver Post at such a young age. It’s one of those right place, right time tales, but with enough curiosities to make it (hopefully) interesting. Early 1968. You’re just back from the East Coast, with a detour to San Read More
Maybe Again
Maybe again. That’s what we were thinking when we considered the subject of this particular article. Maybe we can write about our freeform radio project again. We’ve been at it for a while now and haven’t been especially shy about sharing the experience with you. There’s that. Then, too, we don’t want to overstay our Read More
The Alchemist’s Cookbook
Here’s a recipe for pleasure and one of those glorious moments in life when something you want to believe in is confirmed as scientific fact. It turns out that sex, drugs, and rock & roll are in fact good for you. Well, wow, like tell us something we don’t know. First thought, best thought, and all Read More
Tough Talent
There is so much to say about all the talent that has come our way in this lifetime. We’ve spent quite a bit of time here talking about When the Music Mattered, that classic era of rock & roll, an unprecedented time of proliferating creativity that we enjoyed when we were young. Still do, for Read More
Corporate Underground
Corporate underground? An oxymoron you might say. Yet the origins of underground radio in the latter half of the Sixties was at least partly the result of corporate initiative. Or, perhaps, corporate perplexion. The consequences of that curiosity reverberated through the years in very different directions. New FCC regulations in 1966 were intended to develop Read More