The most surreal experience of the weekend (and there are a few to choose from) came Friday night when I and OUTline (www.tulsaoutline.com) publisher Andrew Hicks went to see T-Town's loudest and greatest band, the mighty Billy Joe Winghead (www.winghead.com) at Curly's. The night before, Winghead bassist Steve Jones (no relation to the Sex Pistol guitarist except in spirit) called me and mentioned that Purple Overdose would be on the bill, which I knew was young Mr. Woodward's band. I can not describe the sensation of hanging out with Lee Woodward in the Brady district as Winghead blew the roof off the place with their theremin version of "The Peter Gunn Theme" (not to mention their hardcore/thrash version of the Bobby Goldboro death classic "Honey").

My favorite moment was when Jones shook hands with Lee and said "I ought to know you." I said "Imagine him with a lion puppet on his hand." You could see the look of excitement on Jones' face as he screamed "AND THAT WAS THE HAND!" Jones also noted that Winghead is really into eating hard-boiled eggs (you don't know what a relief it was to finally see Cool Hand Luke again recently - I hadn't seen it since I was a child - now every week I'm finding a reference to it on everything from The Simpsons -"takin' it off, Boss" - to Billy Joe Winghead humor). Winghead will be one of the main bands at Mayfest 2002 if you missed them at the Curly's show.

Purple Overdose has an intense sound based in the later day style of the British Invasion (post-Sgt. Pepper) with an alternative/metal edge mixed into the paisley gum. I only got to hear a few songs (yes, Virginia, writers and publishers have meetings at midnight) but I liked what I heard and I'm looking forward to their CD.

Totally off the subject: My friend Roy Lee - who went to school with David Bagsby - and I were sitting around listening to David's Jethro Tulsa-The Magic Empire Strikes Back. We were trying to figure out all of the puns on the disc, and suddenly realized that we are the same age, from the same part of Tulsa, and from the same punk rock scene as Bagsby and WE were having trouble figuring it out. Maybe that would be a good contest - see who can get the most of Bagsby's puns (we got caught up on "Primate Control Institute" (Shadow Mountain + Monkey Island?) and "Swooty Crawdads" (no clue).

Even more off the subject: Jethro Tull (The Real Deal) is coming to Tulsa in June. I'm interviewing Ian Anderson Tuesday for OUTline. If you've ever wanted to ask the man a question, here's your chance; shoot me an email. Until Next Time - Wilhelm

Thanks for the report, Wilhelm. I would have gone, too, but had to work. Purple Overdose has three free downloadable songs in MP3 available from their website. I'm listening as I type this, and I like it very much.

I thought Winghead was the most entertaining band at Mayfest 2001. I can just imagine the pathos oozing from their version of "Honey".

Cool Hand Luke featured Lee's brother/Merritt's uncle Morgan in the role of Boss Godfrey, aka The Man With No Eyes. According to the IMDb, Paul Newman really did eat all 50 of those hard-boiled eggs.

Well - we lost another TV comedy icon from TV's formative years with Milton Berle's passing this week at 93. Someone said he never met someone else's joke that he didn't like...Someone told me once that he had been at ORU one time but forgot the occasion. Anyone know more about this??? I presume too that if his show initially aired in Tulsey, it was probably on KOTV - can anyone confirm seeing this way way back when?

This is in response to Frank Morrow's story about the two students who didn't "get" the imagery from the radio dramas. Some people, for whatever reason, aren't able to visualize things. It's not lack of imagination so much as it's the person being too "literal minded". I am acquainted with a guy who can't get a mental picture when he is reading something. He says he "hates to read because all it is is words on a page..." It's sad when you stop to think about some folks having that problem. I love to read and I love the old radio dramas for the same reason: The mental pics I get are better than anything I could see on a screen!

Jim, I was obviously wrong about how many movies you were in. Probably I saw the same movie twice. Are you sure you weren't in UHF? OK, I didn't think so.

I am enjoying the guestbook and it was good to hear from Dr. Kraus. Being a former Scot, I remember him from McLain.

Dan Call gave me tickets to the Lou Rawls concert last week. Pretty decent concert. Tight rhythm section and the Tulsa Philamonic was brilliant.

When I was in graduate school at the University of Texas at Austin in the 1970s and ‘80s, I had a class where we compared and contrasted all the various media. I chose to make a presentation on radio drama, using excerpts of “Gunsmoke” and “Inner Sanctum” as examples.

What was curious was that, because the younger students in the class had grown up only watching TV for drama and only listening to the radio for music, some of them expressed difficulty in comprehending how radio could present drama. I explained how radio drama let you form the pictures in your mind, making the experience very vivid, because your mind produced the most ideal and perfect images. Some of them expressed doubt about this.

After we darkened the room, I played the tape. When the lights went on I noticed the wide-eyed reaction to almost all the students. They couldn’t believe what they had experienced. What an impact!

And yet, there were two students who had strange looks on their faces. All they had heard were a bunch of rather unrelated, disconnected sounds. They explained that they had not been able to put all the sounds together in their mind in order to make the experience comprehensible.

And, this was incomprehensible to me.

Lee's son, Merritt Woodward, is in a "psychedelic dream pop" band called "Purple Overdose". John Wooley interviewed Merritt for an article in the Spot section of today's Tulsa World. The band plays at Curly's@The East End (216 E. Elgin) in the renascent Brady district tonight at 9:30. This is their third appearance at Curly's; a CD on Buddah Records is due out in late April.

The article mentions that Merritt's brother, Stan Woodward, is a drummer with the Dallas Jazz Orchestra.

Archived Guestbook 104...

National newsman Jim Hartz visited for the first time. He started at KOTV in the early 60s on "Sun Up" and as news anchor.

New grad David Reynolds asks for advice about breaking into the radio business. Several books about radio were discussed. National talker Art Bell was mentioned. Joe Riddle at KRMG has an old-time radio show from 8:10-10:00 p.m. on Saturday nights. Legendary Johnny Martin of KRMG was remembered.

This year's Easter Pageant was cancelled, but we learned that it has not always been a staid event. Weird Al's "UHF" is coming out on DVD 6/4/2002. Upside-down yodeler and guitar player Charles Marsh was in "UHF" and a subject of conversation in this Guestbook. We heard from several new readers and many regular contributors.