LOST MUSKET DIARY” Thursday July 10, 2014

Sunny, Slight Haze 78F/ 26C in Rancho Las Musket

I’ve always wanted to write something that would get published rather than languishing for eternity at the bottom of my sock drawer. Oh yeah, I was seen on TV and listened to on the radio. You could even catch a glimpse of me, usually playing a reporter, on a TV show or a movie. The problem is that kind of creativity is extremely volatile, as fans of silent movies shot on nitrate film or listeners to live network radio or early live television can attest. It goes into a microphone or camera and comes out the other end and then flies off into the ether, never to be heard again. I’m sure that the last of my thirty years of live radio and TV broadcasts is just now passing the planet Uranus on its way to the Andromeda Galaxy.  Finally, my dream was realized with the introduction of my web site www.mikebotula.com a few years ago. Then, last November, I started posting my Rome Diary on Facebook. Now, I’m under way on a new venture with my new blog at http://mikebotula.blogspot.com/  I invite you to check it out. Once again, that’s http://mikebotula.blogspot.com/ My place in history seems to be growing, and I can check on it through “Dr. Google.” Stay tuned.

I’m a big fan of other writers. I’ve been reading Don Barrett’s stuff about radio on his www.LARadio.com web site for years, and, have even contributed a few radio stories of my own. First thing in the morning, right after I check out the new Dick Tracy comic strip, I click onto Ken Levine’s blog http://kenlevine.blogspot.com/ Ken got his start working on the KMPC Sportswire during his student days at UCLA. Over the years he’s been a disc jockey, sports broadcaster and has built a huge reputation as a writer for “Cheers, M.A.S.H., and any number of other top television series along with his partner, David Isaacs. Ken worked at KMPC Radio several years before I started there, so our paths have yet to cross. But, to this day, Roger Carroll still sings Levine’s praises. Al Martinez, formerly of the L.A. Times has just come back from a near-death experience to continue with his own blog. Al is very special in my book. He once called me when he was doing a column about his mechanic who had become the victim of mistaken identity when our child support computer mistook him for the “Deadbeat Dad” who owed ten years back child support for an out of wedlock child. But, that’s a story of its own. Of course there are political writers that I follow, like Roger Simon of Politico. I love to follow politics, but the field is overrun with “political pundits and Pooh-Bahs,” as Spiro Agnew called them.

But, I had challenges to overcome before I could enter the Pantheon of American Writers. First, I’d have to come up with something that other people would want to read, and, secondly, I’d have to persuade a publisher to make that happen. Learning the basics was pretty easy. My mom gave me a love of reading, and had me read aloud to her day after day. I didn’t realize it then, but she was also teaching me to be a radio announcer.

Long before I started first grade at Aquebogue Elementary School, I used to listen to the folks’ big G.E. console radio in the living room.  All during my school years, thanks to great teachers, I enjoyed English, Social Studies and even Latin.  By the time I got to high school my goal was set and I made a pest out of myself at the local radio station until they gave me a job. As time passed, however, I noticed that all of my creativity would get pumped into a microphone and be processed in an electronic contraption in a way I didn’t understand, and get pushed out of a loudspeaker in some far away some place…roll around the ear drums of a crowd of people I didn’t even know and finally disappear into the ether never to be heard from again. On the other hand, the guys that wrote it down on paper, or painted it on canvas or carved on wood or marble, could have people enjoy their work for eternity, and I wanted some of that.

I hope that explains why I post on Facebook and now have a new blog with my name on it. I’m going to continue writing about stuff that interests me and share it with you. Every once in a while, I’ll share one of my “war stories” with my friends and I light up when someone will ask, “Great story, Mike! When are you going to write your book?” My usual response is, “When I retire.” Well guess what, gentle reader, I’m retired. It’s time to get to work.

Ciao,

MikeBo