Several years after Nikola Tesla's death, it was ruled that he indeed had invented Radio, but the work Marconi did to further Tesla's much larger and less practical vision cannot be discounted. The "short sightedness" of inventors like Edison and Marconi are surely what reigned in a vision which far outreached Tesla's lifetime or his comprehension of even his own divine genius. In fact Tesla's dreams of pictures and information, music and movies sent over the air is all real now. We have just about all of what he predicted and imagined for wireless, except wireless electric delivery. (And I'm sure someone is working on that too!)
And as the 1985 Starship song "We Built this City" suggests, more than one generation in this country was raised on Radio, shaped and inspired by its mysteries, its music, its unwavering presence. The lyric, "Marconi plays the mamba" evokes a big part of my childhood. The radio was always there, especially in the car. I don't think I ever thought there were tiny people in there, as little children often do. I was always aware that it was some far away voice talking or singing. Electric Light Orchestra is still my favorite band ever because when I was very young, they were just always there... on the radio. On the way to school the bus driver listened to the the radio and the song "Hold on Tight" by ELO was everyone's favorite. We would cheer when its opening guitar lick came over the speaker. I recall one Saturday morning in the fall, washing the car to the sound of Casey Kasem's American Top 40. He played the theme from "Chariots of Fire.' It was one of the most amazing things I'd ever heard on the radio, A pop song without words!
But it wasn't until 1982 when I was given my first boom box - a Sanyo radio/cassette player - that I began to really listen. I knew every song on 94 WQID, our local Top 40 powerhouse. My sister and I even slept with the radio on all night every night that summer, except that one night they decided to play "Ina Gada Davida," and it freaked us out so bad we turned the radio off!
By high school I had a sizable record collection and was always on the phone in the evenings trying to win something on the radio. I won records, tapes, cases of coke, free pizza, money, basketball tickets... but when I called to request a song, good luck! "Who's Johnny" was so last year, and that was all I wanted them to play, epsecially the 12 inch version. I called Mickey Coulter, the morning DJ, to request it one day, and he told me it was just too long (6 minutes!). It didn't fit in with all the commercials and news and weather. So one afternoon some friends drove me to the station to pick up my latest prize and we asked if the evening DJ T.C. McGuire, was around. They pulled him out of production and I requested the 12 inch version of "Who's Johnny" IN PERSON! It was a stunt of epic proportion, one of my great teenage victories.
And he played it that night at exactly 8:00 pm, as promised, dedicated to "The Breakfast Club" at Long Beach High School! I made a tape of it and nearly wore the thing out. In fact I started making copies of it so I wouldn't ruin it. Years later I found the 12 inch version of "Who's Johnny" at a record store in San Jose, California! I still have it! Now I listen to a copy I downloaded on WINMX over a decade ago. But for me the best was always the radio. Some nights when the ducting was just right, I would hear some unexpected station on FM. And on AM there might be one from REALLY far, Kansas City or somewhere in Texas or Mexico, even thoguh they turned their power down at night.
I remember one night we were driving along the beach on Highway 90 in the wee hours of the morning. It was after one of those crises which make one not feel right about staying at home, so we were heading to stay the rest of the night with a friend. And mom had an AM station on the car radio. I looked out over the gulf and saw a distant thunderstorm. It was so far out that it was silent, except that each time it was illuminated by lightning, I could hear the static crash on the radio. It ws one of those occasions that called for silence, so I said nothing about my discovery, but at that moment a light went on. A dim little light that never went out. I knew radio was a mysterious thing!
And I wonder about Marconi and Tesla, and what they would think now.... satisfied, vindicated, still amazed that human beings have the creativity, genius..., divinity to make the elctromagnetic spectrum talk? ...in our own voices! Radio!
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