The TV Generation

[Lightning Rod]

When I was a ten year old kid my mother and my father were both local TV stars. Only the localities were different. My parents were divorced and my father lived in Dallas and my mother had been remarried to a geologist and we had moved to Abilene in West Texas where the oil was. My mother applied her theater training and her native good looks to become an on-camera person at the local TV station. Every evening she did a live commercial during the weather show for West Texas Utilities. This was before the days of teleprompters so one of my jobs was to make her cue cards. I would write the copy in large letters on the back of one of the maps that the weatherman used (this was back in the days when the weatherman drew the fronts and high and low pressure systems on a map with a magic marker.)

My father was a TV cowboy. He wore a black outfit with twin pearl handled six guns. He had a kid show. He showed episodes of Hopalong Cassidy and Little Beaver and in between he would do schtick. The set was the front porch of an old ranch house and his only foil was an old crank telephone on which he would talk to various imaginary people like the sheriff or the boys down at the bunk house. These were the early, pioneering days of television. It was not nearly as slick and full of technology as it is today. Ernie Kovacs was on the air at the time.

After a few years of doing live commercials, my mom invented a show for herself. It was a novel blend of exercise and beauty tips and talk. It was called Peg's Board. From doing that show, she got backers to open up one of the first Heath Club/Spas for women called First Lady Health Club.

My dad's TV name was Alvarado. This was taken from the name of a small town south of Ft. Worth. This was during the heyday of local kid shows. WFAA in Dallas had six or seven of them. Since my dad was the Creative Director there, I got to go pal around with the local celebs. My favorite was Mark Wilson, who had a magic show. He would do sleight of hand tricks for me and his lovely assistant (all magicians had lovely assistants in those days. They were all blondes wearing fishnet hose) Nonny Darnell would spoil and indulge me. Mark later went on to National syndication with "The Magic Land of Alacazam."

So, as a child, I spent a good deal of time in TV stations. I knew that it was all illusion and paper mache and masking tape and there were old coffee cups behind the sets but also that those TV cameras, that were as big as refrigerators back then, could work magic. Still, even having seen the man behind the curtain and all the wires in the illusion, I bought into it. I was in awe of my parents when I saw them on TV.

I knew them in two ways. One was the way they were on TV and the other was when they were waking up in the morning with sleep in their eyes. It was a strange contrast. These were my parents, regular people, but they also had this other persona as faces and voices on television.

One time I was bragging to my friends that my dad was Alvarado. "yeah, he is." "no 'e ain't" ....that sort of thing.

It was a Sunday and my dad was taking a nap on the couch in his underwear.

"Yeah, he is." "No, he ain't"

"C'mon, I'll show you."

So I marched the whole posse into the room where my dad was snoozing. "See," I said, "there he is."

Of course he didn't have his black cowboy suit or his six guns on, so they all said, "that ain't him."

[izeveryboyin]

"That's ain't him." Could the ending line have been more real. I can remember identity fights in my ghetto suburban neighborhood of years passed. Of course back then we'd already gotten special effects, and weathermen were now weatherwomen, who'd gotten their spots on laps of various TV execs, and went to school to learn how to point, click, and suck. At any rate, Harvey, Illinois, in all it's frank tragedy was full of "No it ain't"s and "Yeah he is"s and eyes rolling on little dark-skinned girls who learned their bitch-mode from their mamas. Life was sweet as a kid. Marvelous oblivion. Candy fights, and mud puddles. Red jumpers and beauty parlors where we had to sit in the back and watch the Mickey Mouse Club on TV. I ain't no TV star. My mama ain't raise me like no TV star. I got my knowlege from the hospital, man, where the peoples was brown and agitated. "Bitch u betta gie mah baby his medicine for I woop yo ass." Barbie doll's w/bleached faces, and skipper had just come out. I had one little baby doll with her left eye missing. I named her Sandra D. Good Story L.
--K

[stilltrucking]

It was not nearly as slick and full of technology as it is today. Ernie Kovacs was on the air at the time.

We sure have come a long way.

Good story clay. You are a fortunate son. My childhood not so happy but happy enough.

Our only brush with fame came in the fifties during the McCarthy communist witch hunts. My dad playin in chess tournament got his picture snaped playing with another chess master.
The picture was on the front page of the Baltimore Sun. Years later my brother, a flight surgeon, needed a security clearance. Damn if that picture wasn't in his file.

First tv in our house was about 1952. Up until then I used to lie and tell everyone we had a TV. But some of the guys started to get suspicious. because I would make up episodes of their favorite shows.

[jimboloco]

I saw LRod's Alvaredo
between shots of piss and moan
and izeveryboyin's acute vernacular
hit me in the groin
i got blue balls
and st's checkmate
somewhere on file, too.

LRod
do you always wear a hat?
Me too.