This may sound a bit unbelievable but on the morning of 9/11 my wife and I got ready to go to work and we didn’t turn on the radio. We may have had cell phones I really don’t recall. If we did, we weren’t attached to them like we are now in this 24 x 7 news psycho(sic).
It was a crystal-clear perfect Portland September morning, and all seemed quite ordinary. We both hopped in the car turned on the radio. It was our local Public Station and All Things Considered. We sat there in the car, sat and listed to the commentator recording from a basement of a church about debris falling from the sky. We had no idea what was happening. It didn’t sound like radio overdubs. It sounded raw, and I don’t like to admit this, it sounded like a verse out of Neil Young’s After the Gold Rush.
It feels like it was so much similar to the people tuning in to Orson Welles, radio broadcast of War of the Worlds. I can see in context how people panicked back then. The radio podcast had actual interlude to real life with music and interjection from the commentators. However, there were no search engines to see the local news in Woking, New Jersey. Sorry, that is not a typo.
Until recently, there was a radio show in Seattle, once again public radio, which was called” The Swing Years and Beyond.” The first time I heard this show, I had the same type of out of cranium experience. They played actual newscasts from the year, I believe it was 1939, smack dab in the middle of the radio show. I tuned in not knowing that was their format. The news broadcast talked of going to war, rationing food and what you can do for your country? I thought to myself, what type of alternative universe was I living? And how did that happen so fast. And for about five minutes I had that perfect accidental suspension of belief, which is kind of cool. It’s kind of like getting lost in a dense forest, being scared for a while and then finding your way out.
And then again, you learn something along the way.
So tonight, I got to see a radio re-broadcast of War of the Worlds at the Kiggins Theatre in downtown Vancouver, Washington. It was very interesting, and it reminded me of watching a Garrison Keillor production. Rather interesting, does the broadcast a disservice. It was a piece of artwork worth seeking out. The radio sounds effects are a side show worth exploring. Radio told the story back then.
However, the story itself is the story. I sat there and listened to the radio re-broadcast, and I found myself getting lost again, which which can be spectacularly a lot of fun. Especially if I don’t have Martians chasing me down Sixth Avenue in the middle of New York City.
The Side Effects of Endorphins 