Fayd's Favorite Songs of the Season

Since today is December 25th, here is my list of songs that I enjoy hearing this time of the year, in no particular order:

















If you've made it down this far, I wonder if you've figured out the common thread among all these songs.

If you haven't, I'll go ahead and tell you. In all of these songs, there is not a single mention of Christmas, Santa Claus, Jesus or even the holidays. However, if you still want to hear something a little more traditional, I do have this to offer:



The photographs featured in the video actually show my entire face. Those of you who are friends of mine on Facebook will probably be shocked at its inclusion.

Anyway, I hope you all have a really great weekend and the rest of the year. I'll be taking another break from the blog for the time being, but I'll be back on January 2nd, 2015 with a Friday video. I hope you're looking forward to it.

Christmas now comes later

There was one thing that would frequently irritate me around Christmastime when I was growing up. I would watch the news and see stories about Christmas coming early for some local poor kids. (And by local, I mean Roswell because we didn't really have a TV station in Artesia.) These kids GOT TOYS BEFORE CHRISTMAS DAY! And they got great ones. Some were things that I desired, but never received myself. Mom and Dad kept saying we were poor, but I guess we weren't poor enough. All I could think was, "Those kids are so lucky to be poor. How do I get in on this?" And I didn't know this at the time, but there was no way Mom and Dad would even think about us taking advantage of the program. They were very proud people and would not accept charity. I think they would have rather starved to death before accepting a handout that they couldn't repay later.

All I could think was, "Those kids are so lucky to be poor. How do I get in on this?" And I didn't know this at the time, but there was no way Mom and Dad would even think about us taking advantage of the program. They were very proud people and would not accept charity.

Personally, I didn't care about getting stuff for free. What I wanted was to be able to get the toys before December 25th. It was agony having to be tempted by the gifts under the tree every year. However, Loyd and I were better about it than some other children. I remember in 1976, our family went out with another family to get a tree. We were actually going to go into the forest and cut down our trees as opposed to buying one at a lot. This was the first weekend in December and up to that point, it was the earliest we had ever gotten a Christmas tree. First, we had to stop by the house of the father's friend to pick up the permits. We got there, but no one was home. The person had left the permits out along with gifts for the family. The father put the gifts in the back seat, where we kids were sitting. The other kids kept picking up and examining the wrapped gifts.

We chopped the trees down, loaded them on the car and headed back. By the time we had gotten home, the girl had torn the corner off one of the gifts. She REALLY couldn't wait. I couldn't blame her. We normally didn't start seeing the gifts under the tree until about two weeks before Christmas. To have a gift in your hands that early would have been agonizing. I couldn't imagine having to wait three weeks to open a gift.

As I've mentioned before, I enjoyed being a single adult around Christmastime because it meant I didn't have to wait until December 25th to open my gifts. Mom would counter this by post-dating the checks she sent me. This really hurt me on Christmas Eve of 1993 when I had a flat tire and couldn't go anywhere until I got the money to buy a new one. Christmas fell on a Saturday that year, so I had to wait the whole weekend before I could get the money. But I still had enough money on Christmas Day to see "Schindler's List." Everyone else in the theatre was Jewish.

So now that I have a family, that means I have to wait until Christmas again to open up any packages. Mom told me ahead of time that she and her husband had bought my son a gift this year and that it would be arriving soon. She told us not to open it until Christmas. However, she was not aware that the box would not be wrapped prior to shipping, so when it arrived, we knew exactly what was inside it. It's nice when there are outside forces that allow you to avoid the traditions of the holiday season.

Christmas Metaphors

I get so caught up in writing this blog, I sometimes forget that the holidays are here. I completely forgot to post something about Thanksgiving last month. These next few days will be some thoughts about the season.

Around this time of year, people like to resort to name-calling when someone they know just isn't in the right mood for Christmas. The most common names are "Scrooge" and "Grinch." These come from classic Christmas tales that have long outlived their authors.

However, people don't always use the right metaphor when referring to someone who's being a real downer when everyone else is expecting lots of good cheer around this time of year. To be certain, Ebenezer Scrooge had a lot of really bad stuff happen to him during Christmas. He wanted to make everyone else feel his misery during the holidays. And going only by the book, the Grinch didn't like all the noise that took place and just wanted everyone to be quiet that day.

After I became an adult and had to work during holidays, I wasn't able to go home to see my family. My Mom once called me a "Grinch" because of this. I said, "Mom, the Grinch went out of his way to wreck Christmas for everyone. I'm not acting like the Grinch." "Well, then you're Scrooge." "No, Scrooge was hesitant to give his employee the day off. If anything, my boss is being Scrooge, but I know he enjoys Christmas, so that's not really the case."

Of course, the inevitable "You ruined Christmas, you Scrooge!" will be drummed up. Well, Scrooge didn't really ruin Christmas. He snapped at everybody, but they just went about their business and didn't let him get in the way of having a good time. And of course, Scrooge changed his ways in time for the big day. Come to think of it, the Grinch had a change of heart as well.

I think it's time we came up with a new metaphor that can be more aptly applied to people who just never get in the holiday spirit. We need a classic story about somebody who completely hates Christmas and never changes their mind about it. The only problem is that a story about someone who goes to their grave without celebrating the spirit of Christmas really won't become popular like "A Christmas Carol" or "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas."

It's interesting to note that Charles Dickens, one of literature's most important writers ever and Dr. Seuss, one of the most important children's authors, came up with these two characters who are as closely associated with Christmas as Jesus and Santa Claus. Not even William Shakespeare was able to do that. It's too bad he didn't center "Hamlet" around the holidays. That would give us a whole new Christmas metaphor to describe people who go bonkers and kill their relatives at Christmas.

A crush I owe an apology to: Terz

I first became aware of Terz when I was a senior in high school. In 1982, my Drama club had gone to the Drama Festival at Eastern New Mexico University. We got there in time for the first play, which was "The Tea Cup Tree," presented by Clovis High School. She played the lead role of a woman who was being forced to take down her tree, from which she hung a collection of tea cups. It was pretty terrible, probably worse than the play we were originally set to put on, but cancelled at the last minute.

I would see Terz again when I was a sophomore at ENMU. She was a freshman. She was very skinny with light brown skin and thick black hair. Her hair was done in such a fashion that it made her appear about four inches taller. She was from Panama, but I never got the full story about how she got from Panama to the United States. Chances are that she was born in Panama to US citizens who were working at the canal. This would have been 1965. I never met her parents, so I don't know if she was maybe adopted from there or the whole family came up. Her last name is European and she speaks perfect English.

She was very cute and clever. I became smitten with her. However, I never got up the courage to ask her out because I would usually start out by asking her what she was up to over the weekend. She always had distinct plans, which mostly involved going home to Clovis. I just wasn't going to be able to catch a break with her, so I stopped trying to start something up. We often had lunch together with other students from the Theatre Department and in all that time, I never got any indication that she was the least bit attracted to me.

We appeared onstage in minor roles in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and "The King and I." But we had larger roles together in "Deathtrap." In that play, I portrayed Porter Milgrim and she was Helga ten Dorp. We were in the last scene together. I gave an understated performance and she stole the show.

The next year, her parents offered to help her move into an apartment off-campus. It was their idea. She was shocked, but did have her own apartment that year. I never got invited over.

It was around this time that I started suspecting that she might be a lesbian. As I've written earlier, I found I was somewhat pre-disposed to find some lesbians attractive. At the same time, I also felt like I never got an opportunity to let her know how crazy I was about her and regretted that I had never let her know soon after we had met. By the end of my third year in college, it felt like it was too late for me to express this and get her to like me. I figured that the only way I could get my message across was by working somewhat suggestive things into our conversation as a form of flirting.

I honestly don't remember any of the things I said. I know that they were relatively mild, but still clear enough to indicate what I had on my mind. I know it got so bad that once, I asked her what she was going to do after rehearsal one night and she said she was going to go home and go to bed. And then she added, "And NO, you can't join me!" I actually was going to ask if I could join her. I stopped the flirting after that because it was rather apparent it wasn't getting me anywhere. At the time, I thought it was all innocent fun. But now that I'm older and have learned more about the subject, I realize that I was indeed sexually harassing her. I feel terrible. I shouldn't have done that. I understand why I did it, but it's not really an excuse. However, it does give me a little insight into why some other guys sexually harass women, but I can't say I sympathize with them. I was able to figure out when to quit.

The strange thing is that I have never done that with any other woman that I wasn't dating. I guess it was pretty clear that was just not the way to get a woman to like me. But I have seen that approach work for some guys, but they were always a whole lot better looking than me.

The last time I saw Terz was in 1987 when she was performing her Senior Recital. I know she pursued some sort of career in acting, but probably was not able to make a living at it. I saw a mutual friend about seven years later and she had been to ENMU to see the new Theatre building that had been constructed after we left. She saw rehearsals for one of the productions and thought to herself that one of the actresses looked like Terz. It turned out it was Terz, who had come by invitation to take part in a production as a visiting artist.

Around 2008, I started looking up Terz on the Internet. I found that she had become the Unit Assistant Director at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in Amarillo. She works in the library and research department. She has a profile at imdb.com, but didn't to a lot of work in film or television and probably did more stuff on stage. She recently had the lead role in a play produced by Amarillo Little Theatre.

In recent photographs, she has put on a little weight (maybe 30 pounds) and has a few strands of grey hair. I would recognize her today if I ran into her.

And if I ever did, the first words out of my mouth would be an apology. I don't know if I'll ever get to do that.

Part 2 for Tod and Daz

In the last two posts, I detailed my experiences with one of my college friends and a woman I tried to hook up with. They hooked up with each other. This is the colliding conclusion.

After Tod and Daz moved to Roswell, NM, I made frequent attempts to stop by and see them. I knew their address, but every single time I came by on my way to and from Artesia. They were never home. Once, I stopped by and the apartment appeared to be empty. They had moved up to Albuquerque, NM. He had gotten a job at KIVA-FM and worked the overnight shift. Before he went on the air, he was told by the Program Director that he would be going by the on-air handle of "Truckin' Tod."

After awhile, Tod started hanging around after his shift and contributing to the station's morning show. This allowed him to graduate into the morning slot after the host left. He worked that for awhile and then moved to Findlay, OH. I was living in Denver at the time. He encouraged me to try to get a job there, although he admitted that Toledo was the closest large city and there really wasn't a lot going on. I sent in a resume and an air check, but no one responded.

I lost track of them for awhile and moved to San Diego. Then, I reconnected with a friend from college who lived in Santa Fe. When I tried to call that friend, I got a recording that the line had been disconnected and it gave a different number to call. I called that number. The woman who answered was not the person I was looking for. I identified myself and went into this long spiel about trying to find my friend from Santa Fe. The woman identified herself as Daz. She told me that another mutual friend had listed her number as someone to contact and that's how I wound up getting her number.

She was living in Cincinnati and working radio there. She told me she and Tod had gotten divorced some time ago and that he had remarried. She gave me his phone number. I called him and reconnected. At one point, he stopped doing radio and started driving a truck, so he did indeed become "Truckin' Tod." He told me that one of the hard things about being divorced from Daz was that she did voiceovers for Sears commercials in Ohio, so he would frequently have to hear her voice while he was watching TV.

I got both their addresses and sent them my music releases. (More on that phase of my life MUCH later.) For a couple of years, Daz sent me Christmas cards, but she always sent them after I had done all my cards for the year, so I kept forgetting to reciprocate. I never heard from her again. I also lost contact with Tod.

A few years later, I moved to San Jose and got a job with a newsradio station. The station's sister FM is a country station and has a morning host named Gard. Gard and I were in the break room together one morning and he asked me about my past radio experience. I told him I had worked in New Mexico and Denver. He told me he used to work in Albuquerque at KIVA. I asked him when he was there. He said it was the late 1980s. I asked him if he knew a DJ who went by the name of "Truckin' Tod." His eyes widened. "THAT WAS OUR OVERNIGHT GUY!" Yes, he remembered Tod. He added, "Yeah, his wife was a real psycho. I mean, I never met her, but just the stuff he told me about her."

I caught back up with Tod on Facebook and we became "friends." He currently lives in Bowling Green, OH and works as a nurse. He remarried again and recently had another child. Daz still lives in Cincinnati. Judging by the parts of her profile that I can see on Facebook, she may have remarried and had a couple of kids. She's worked at several radio stations over the years there, but doesn't now. She works as a Director of Development with a disabled services organization.

I probably won't hear from her again, unless Tod tells her about these posts. I'll let you know if I get a response about that.

Lostop #2: Daz, Part 1

(What's a Lostop? Click here!)

I first became aware of Daz during my freshman year at Eastern New Mexico University. She had blonde hair and striking green eyes and came from Chicago. I know I had seen her on campus from time to time, but I really didn't start taking notice of her until the Spring semester. I had a Theatrical Lighting class that began at 10am, but no other classes before that. I decided to check our Dr. R's Beginning Acting class to see what happened on the first day and what I missed out on. Daz and Scod were in that class with some other students. (Pad took the class during the Fall semester.) Daz was a Radio/TV major, but I did not find that out until later.

During that class, Dr. R asked for volunteers to come up and do prepared monologues. Scod offered to go up on stage first and show off his best stuff. He did Snoopy's WWI Flying Ace monologue from "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown." Scod performed it with a lot of energy and jumping around on the stage, but Dr. R was quick to point out that it wasn't acting. Dr. R had him do the entire monologue again, but this time, he had to act like he was telling a regular story while he was sitting down and drinking a cup of coffee. Dr. R spent 20 minutes of class time getting him to actually act the monologue. After he was done, class time was almost over. Dr. R asked for another volunteer. Daz went up and performed a piece I was not familiar with, but it involved a lot of anger. After she was done, Dr. R praised her and said that was more like what the class would be working toward.

During sophomore year, she auditioned for "A Midsummer Night's Dream." She was cast as a member of the entourage. We were only on stage together for the end, when the mechanicals present their play. We didn't really hang out much together during the production. It almost appeared as if she had started up something with Toilethead, but I couldn't really tell for certain if they were a couple or if she was just draping her arms around him while he was doing make-up as a kind of fooling around manuver. It didn't really matter to me. I thought she was out of my league.

The next semester, if I was around the lobby when she finished a class she had there, she would ask me if I wanted to walk her back to her dorm. The first couple of times, I didn't think much of it. But once, when she was leaving, she looked at me in disbelief and asked, "Fayd, aren't you coming with me?" This was when I started to think maybe she liked me somewhat.

I started sitting down and having lunch with her from time to time. She introduced me to all of her friends, so it looked like she really did feel something for me. So yes, I got up the nerve to ask her out. However, every single time I asked her if she wanted to go do something, she would say, "Oh, I'm doing something with the sorority that weekend," or "Oh, I promised my friend I would hang out with her Saturday night" and any other number of excuses. It made me wonder if she really did like me. After awhile, I gave up.

The first time I mentioned Daz in this blog, she was hoping to get a job from our Announcing Techniques instructor, who was one of the owners of KTQM-FM/KDKA-AM in Clovis. She managed to get that job. And somewhere along the way, she got a local reputation as a country music singer. I don't know how that happened. I never did see her perform.

We graduated the same year. She was hired to temporarily run the promotions for the ENMU Arts Departments for the summer of 1986. Afterward, she got a part-time position working at my radio station, KZZO-FM. I was a little upset at first because she told the Program Director that she wasn't going to work the overnight shift for more than a month. I thought that if I was the Program Director and a potential part-timer made that demand before I even hired her, I'd be saying, "That's okay. I'll hire someone else." I'm sorry, but with all the overnight shifts I had to put up with, and knowing I couldn't have made that demand and gotten away with it, I sure the heck wasn't going to let someone else think they were better than the rest of the staff.

I went to visit her on one of her overnight shifts. Tod (from yesterday's post) was there when I arrived. Daz made some comment about how she liked having two cute guys keep her company during the shift. I was still smarting from her putting me off three years earlier, so I decided not to take the bait this time. Tod wound up dating her and after awhile, they started living together.

Eventually, Daz started working full time as our morning newsperson and graduated into the role of the co-host of the station's morning program. Tod was the Program Director and afternoon drive guy. By this time, I was working the 6pm to midnight shift. One Monday, I came to the station a couple of hours before my shift and saw that Tod was playing a song that was not part of the normal roster. He was breaking format. (When I go into more detail about working at the station, you'll realize what a big deal that is.) I asked Tod why he was playing that song. He said it was his last day to work at the station, so it didn't matter what he played. The comment about this being his last day was rather shocking, but not as much as his format-breaking.

Tod told me that the station's co-owner yelled at Daz about something literally minutes before she did the news. She was in tears when she was on the air. Tod and Daz decided to put in their two weeks' notice. After submitting the notices, the co-owner told them not to bother with the two weeks and that would be their last day of work.

Prior to their departure from the station, Tod and Daz had made plans to get married at the Clovis Zoo. They still went through with the ceremony, even though they didn't have any jobs. Her parents actually came down to see them get married. I was not there.

A couple of weeks later, I got a call from Daz telling me that they needed my help at their apartment. Something went wrong with Tod's back and he couldn't get off the floor. I came and helped pick up Tod and drive them to the doctor's office. While talking to the staff, Daz mentioned that they had just gotten back from their honeymoon and the women started giggling. After the visit, Tod was able to walk again and I guess he was okay after that.

A couple of weeks later, I saw in the trade publication "The Gavin Report" that KBIM-AM in Roswell was hiring for two positions, one full time and the other part-time. I saw this at midnight and immediately called Tod. I don't think he liked me waking him up, but he was appreciative of the information. The next day, they drove down to Roswell and landed those jobs. Tod got the full-time slot.

And that turned out to be the last time I saw them. But I still kept in contact with them after that. I'll have the rest of the story tomorrow.

College Friend: Tod, Part 1

I first met Tod during the Eastern New Mexico University summer session in 1983. He was in my Introduction to Communications class. Tod swears he saw me during Freshman Orientation in the Fall of 1982. He says I was sitting right in front of him and my big hair was blocking his view. I told him time and again that it wasn't me because I went to the orientation during the summer pre-registration. To this day, I'm pretty certain he still thinks that was me.

Tod was from Florida was pretty much like me. He had blond hair and wore glasses. He also wore t-shirts most of the time that summer. Two main differences were he had short hair and he came from a large family with five brothers and sisters. Judging by his class presentations, we were at about the same intelligence level. I didn't encounter him much during my freshman year. I guess he spent his first year focusing on his General Education requirements before getting full swing into broadcasting.

I encountered Tod in several broadcasting classes over the next couple of years, but I really didn't start becoming friends with him until around January of 1985. I was working at KZZO-FM in Clovis, NM. The Program Manager often left his office door open and employment applications from prospective DJs were on his desk. I saw one submitted by Tod. At the time, I didn't think we were hiring, so I didn't read too much into its presence. The next day, I came into the station and he was there getting trained by one of the other part-timers. (When I go more into detail about working at the radio station, you'll understand why I was suddenly concerned he was there.) I assisted in the training. I was actually rather thankful to have a friendly face at the station.

Several months passed and the station's afternoon drive time guy left to work at a station in Abilene, TX. Tod was asked to become a full-timer and he worked the mid-day shift. This didn't really bug me because I knew the Program Director didn't like me and I was trying to concentrate on getting my degree. However, I still didn't like that I was working the overnight shift on the weekends. Tod dropped out of college because work interfered with his class schedule. In fact, he left one of his classes in a lurch. His partner on a project in a class we were taking together wrote on the handout that he couldn't get a hold of Tod to finish the project and had to do everything himself. He wrote this in a pre-Internet ALL CAPS RAGE so that the entire class would see it.

A few months later, the Program Director quit and the station hired that afternoon drive guy to come back from Abilene to take his place. But he knew he was destined for larger things than working a small market radio station and in January of 1986, he got a job at a station in Lubbock. Tod was then named Program Director. The good news about this was that I was asked to work full-time at the station. I don't know for certain that Tod helped me to attain that position, but it's nice to think that he did.

Very soon, I believe Tod found out that one of the bad things about being the Program Director was that he wasn't really in charge of anything. The station owner was really kind of a puppet master and micromanaged everything from staffing to programming to the music that we played. After a few months, Tod decided he wanted to go back to college and get his degree. He went home to Florida for a brief period of time. He said he was going to be working as a DJ at a strip club, but that didn't happen. He came back for the Summer 1986 session. He was in for a shock when he returned to the airport in Albuquerque and found out he had parked in the short-term lot instead of the long-term and had to pay a lot of money to get his back. In addition to school, he was able to come back and work part-time at the station.

We then went through two more program directors: The one who replaced Tod and the one who replaced him. They both wound up working at the same station in Lubbock. Tod regained the Program Director position again and stopped going back to school.

Under normal circumstances, this would go into Part 2 tomorrow. However, he will be entwined with the person I am writing about next. Tod's Part 2 will be on Thursday.