Sorry for the mass emailing but due to troubling times at WFMU I have to make a first time non-Nigerian scam request for your help. I hate asking for anything. If I were to ask for anything it would be an egg and cheese on a hard roll with french fries and a coffee but unfortunately I'm not here...

  In November of 1924, while attending the Stamps School of Music in Jacksonville, Texas, Otis Denton and M. L. Yandell were each paid five bucks cash by Dean of the School Virgil Oliver Stamps to write the topic of today's blog, Give the World a Smile. In 1925, Frank Stamps and the Wheele...

Bad business decisions practically defined Buddy Holly as much as his role as a rock n' roll icon/pioneer/visionary/legend/statue/freakish cult figure (for some). During his short musical career, Holly ended up on the losing end of many legal entanglements (like signing away co-writing credit to...

In the spring of 1372 the Ming Dynasty kick-started the modern karate kraze by bringing old school martial arts to the Ryukyu Islands of Japan. It was a relaxing hobby until 1609 when the Shimazu clan (the first cats to use firearms) got in everybody's business and the Okinawa Elders did thus decree...

I know--those are four words that should never be uttered at once but it's too late now. I've already said way too much about about Joe Franklin so I'll just invite you to enjoy this raw nostalgic footage of the iconic talk show host's big adventure: "Glamazons On Parade."...

It ain't over till it's over and Astro Bowl was over for keeps when it finally shuttered its doors in the spring of '99. I was offered a ride out to Jersey to roll some games a few weeks before the business went south and I jumped at the chance. Astro Bowl was located about 15 minutes outside of the...

"Lucie--you sounded great. No sense in doing another take. No, really, kid. This is the one, I'm tellin' ya. The glitch at the end? What glitch at the end? I didn't hear any glitch. What the hell's a glitch? Came out perfect, baby. Yeah, someone bumped into the machine but it's fine. Vinnie's s...

Scraping around from one odd job to another lately has me pondering this burning question: what was the crummiest job I ever held down? Was it the "candid camera" photography counselor gig at Breezemont Day Camp? Maybe it was the Sears paint department in the ghetto end of Bridgeport, Conn...

This week marks the arrival (April 29, 1937) and unfortunately the departure (April 25, 2005) of The Wildest One Man Band Hunch Machine that ever stalked the planet. Hasil "The Haze" Adkins wrote, performed and lived out his wild-ass rock & roll dreams with a sincere ferocity unmatched...

It was during the heady mechanical man creating years of the late 1930s when a walking, talking, 78 rpm record playing robot emerged from the dank appliance division of the Westinghouse Electric Corporation in Mansfield, Ohio. Deemed unsuitable for doing dishes or even trimming the hedges, the pluck...