Posted on 06/30/2014 6:45:39 PM PDT by kristinn
As was the case every Halloween, on October 31, 1989, a couple of Washington Post reporters were sent to cover the festivities in Georgetown, where thousands of mostly white and affluent revelers partied through the night. I was dispatched to the other side of town—Potomac Gardens, a rundown public housing project a mile east of the Capitol, where Mayor Marion Barry was scheduled to make nice with the residents. My job was to take notes and contribute a few paragraphs to an innocuous story about how Washingtonians celebrated the holiday.
I had already been to Potomac Gardens a handful of times to cover shootings during my first month at the Post, where I was on the night crime beat. The complex was a collection of boxy concrete buildings between three and six stories high, surrounded by a tall wrought-iron fence that reminded me of a penitentiary. At one crime scene near the project, I had overheard a street cop joke that the fence was there not to protect the residents but to keep the rest of the city safe from Gardens inhabitants. A violent drug crew operated in and near the housing complex. At night, it was a forbidding, dangerous place.
arrived early and staked out a spot at the edge of a concrete courtyard inside the complex. A few minutes later, a black Lincoln pulled up. A security man in a dark suit hopped out of the shotgun seat and opened the rear passenger door for the mayor. Barry stepped out and smoothed the lapels of his charcoal-gray suit coat.
Some people in the courtyard saw him and cried, “Mr. Mayor, Mr. Mayor!” and “We love you, Marion!” Barry smiled. He waved. He sauntered toward the courtyard.
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
X Minus One? They used to play that a lot on XM.
I too was surprised at how good the Jack Benny program is. It holds up very well, much better than Bob Hope or Red Skelton's radio shows, or Duffy's Tavern. Bob's 1940 movies are still great though.
Dragnet's still good, and I also liked those earlier Jack Webb private eye shows.
Thanks. Good to see you, too.
To be fair, there’s not that bright a line between the two. Except that there are some things that crackheads simply will not do.
Oh, crap. I was just kidding about there not being a bright line. That explains a few things.
Ruben Castaneda covers the federal courthouse in Greenbelt and the Prince George’s County court system for the local staff. From the latter part of 1989 through the mid-1990s, Ruben covered the D.C. police and crime beat. He was born and grew up in Los Angeles and worked for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner before joining the Post.
I think the Johnny Dollar scripts are as good or better than what TV is doing now. Some of the best writers and producers in film and television in the 70’s , 80’s and 90’s came out of postwar radio. People like Gene Roddenberry, Rod Serling and Jack Webb. Gene Roddenberry wrote scripts by night while working as a motorcycle cop for the LAPD, BTW.
CC
Wait, does this mean that not ALL WaPo reporters are on crack?!
Yes, some of that Bob Hope stuff, you just can’t get it. I don’t know why, it doesn’t even sound that topical, like making a joke about some long gone politician. It’s just banter of the day and you know if you’d lived then you’d be chuckling too, but as it is it just goes right past me.
X minus one, I think I’ve heard that one too, but I’m not sure it’s the one I’m thinking of.
Johnny Dollar is good too, I’d never heard that until recently. As a bookkeeper I’m amused by the expense account angle.
Say, do you know what they mean when they say “transcribed”? Like “this transcribed radio drama is brought to you by XYZ Co.”
Hubby and I used to listen a lot, but I never remember hearing that, now when I listen I hear it all the time.
I can’t figure out what they mean by that.
-PJ
The best expense account item on "Johnny Dollar" was his bill for a night in the hospital after being beaten up. Eighteen dollars.
The Bob Hope jokes have a snarky meanness to them, which is thankfully absent from Jack Benny's shows.
AH! Thank you, that makes sense.
I heard one Johnny Dollar show and he paid some big bucks to basically throw a little get together for the press. Really a lot for those days, like $50-75!
do I really have to say it???
(Veering wildly off topic) Johnny Dollar with Bob Bailey is the best of radio shows — not just my opinion, but as voted by SiriusXM listeners. I don’t know why. Perhaps it’s because he seems so human, so modern.
It’s my favorite anyway. Great plots, great pacing and production values, great leading actor.
In other news, Dog Bites Man.
Confirming the fact that members of the media think everything is about THEM and nothing about journalism should get in the way of either :
1) Changing society to be more liberal
2) Calling attention to themselves - hey how about another award show.
I remember that from tv. Was it on radio too?
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