WMNR Fine Arts Radio

Here are a few recent fan emails.

Dear Turntable For One. Will you keep it down? I’m trying to sleep. (That guy is a regular.)

Dear Turntable For One - Help. I forget how to turn off my radio. Signed, Desperate on Saturday Night. (I wasn't able to help her.)

Dear H. William Stine. I keep asking Alexa to play quietly and she keeps saying she doesn’t know that one.

Sense a pattern here? I did. If it's quiet they want, it's quiet they got this week.

What do these things have in common?

• I'd rather have a root canal!
• It's like putting lipstick on a pig!
• It's totally gone off the tracks!

No, these are not descriptions of my show. They're Cliches - which I wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole and, the end of the day, I bend over backwards not to use them as if my life depended on it. Except last Saturday when I gave a Clinic In Cliches!

Time for the WMNR Spring Fundraising Drive and in the past, I have asked, suggested, requested, and urged; I’ve begged, pleaded, and beseeched my audience to call me or go on line to support Turntable For One and WMNR. You’re probably thinking, there’s nothing left, Bill. You’ve done it all. Wrong! And this week I went for something different: Pandering. Yes, abject and unabashed pandering! Totally sucking up to what I like to call, the best damned audience in radio. For once it wasn't all about me.It was all about you this week on Turntable For One.

April is Jazz Appreciation Month. So I thought my audience would appreciate a couple hours of songs about jazz, great jazz singers, and a salute to iconic jazz orchestras and venues.

What do these people have in common? Franklin & Eleanor Roosevelt...Frankenstein & the Bride of Frankenstein...Bonnie & Clyde...Marilyn & Alan Bergman? If you said that all of them are famous husband and wife songwriting teams - I really want to see you record collection! I chose to spend a couple hours playing the songs of my two favorites of that bunch.

I thought I'd give the audience a break this week - a Spring Break!

I've tried asking and urging and pleading and cajoling and bribing to get people to listen to my show. This week I tried something new: offering a formal invitation, actually a couple dozen of them (with a warning or two about uninvited guests).

My traditional Pre-Academy Awards show when I play Oscar winner and losers. This year I wanted to do something different...maybe feature the music of Oscar Hammerstein, or Oscar Peterson or Oscar Levant...or list 101 things you can do with an Oscar Myer wiener. (The WMNR legal team gave that a "thumbs down" in a nano-second.) Then I thought, what about songs that didn't get nominated? Don't they need some love? So this year I featured Winners (W), and Losers (L), plus great songs that got Snubbed (S)!

I’ve always believed in rules - rules of etiquette, Robert’s rules, the infield fly rule,and on and on. I know it’s out of fashion these days, but on this week's show, we’re going to follow the rules.

What is always your friend...until it isn't? What is something you keep with you...until you don't? No, the answer isn't Mexican food! It's your memory! I may have don'e this theme before, but I can't remember.

Everyone on the show has either won or been nominated for a Grammy Award...except me. Oh, well, there's always next year.

Last week I did a show with the musical theme, "Uh-Oh Moments!" (If you missed the show, I strongly advise you borrow someone's notes before the final exam.) So I was trying to think of what to do this week. What to do? What to do? Then, out of the blue, I had an "Ah-Ha Moment!" (At this stage of the game, I can't afford to pass up any errant thought or idea.)