Happy 97th Birthday, Jackie!; Jackie Gleason was South Florida's best Ambassador of Goodwill just by being himself; "Melancholy Serenade" by Jackie Gleason & his concert orchestra

LittleMissLounge YouTube Channel video: Jackie Gleason - Melancholy Serenade Uploaded January 14, 2010. http://youtu.be/UOw0qDQLPn8

I'll never forget driving to Florida from Chicago in the summer of 1987, and just as I did while home in Evanston on Mutual's WCFL, flipping on Larry King's midnight radio show on Mutual somewhere north of Gainesville or so.

(I think it was 50,000-watt flamethrower WOAI-AM out of San Antoinio, my birthplace, that I listened to south of Orlando.)

By the time I got near Port Charlotte to visit my friend Robert for a few days, on my way back for a visit with my family down here, Larry broke the news to his coast-to-coast audience of news junkies, students and up-all-nighters that the sad news had just been confirmed -Jackie Gleason had died.

I was on some dark and lonely stretch of some Florida highway about 40 minutes away from where I was supposed to be, and many hours late because of bad weather driving down thru Tennessee and Georgia.

And I do mean as dark and empty as empty could be.

Twilight Zone dark.

Knowing Larry as well as I did from having watched and listened to him since I was a kid, when he was at Channel 4 and doing color commentary for the Dolphins, I knew the stories were going to start flowing, and from someone who knew them first-hand.

And then I pulled over to the side of the highway and started crying.

A man whose genius had brought me so much enjoyment since I was a kid -and been able to be an extra on his TV show in 1969 when it was still being broadcast from the Miami Beach Convention Center- and an iconic symbol of the South Florida I'd grown-up with, was gone for good.

ABC-TV 20/20 piece from 1981 on Jackie Gleason, narrated by host Hugh Downs

Part I http://youtu.be/GXyii3AyvAI 

Part II http://youtu.be/HdbzJ8bZSgA

And I sat in that empty car along the side of the road for at least a good hour if not more, listening to Larry tell the stories he knew in that way that, of course, only Larry King could.

Most were stories and anecdotes that I'd heard before over the previous 18 years and laughed at, but whose retelling now only made me very sad, and only made more stark that an American original like him, who chose to live in South Florida, was something that would never happen again.

And then it dawned on me that if if wasn't for the bad weather that had made me late, I'd probably have been asleep by midnight on Robert's living room couch, crashed from all the driving, and would never have heard those great Jackie stories one last time by someone who knew how truly significant Jackie Gleason really was.

Bittersweet, indeed.

wolfsonarchive·YouTube Channel video: Happy Birthday, Jackie! 1965: How Sweet It Is! Uploaded February 26, 2013. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuFbCTmeiIw

They're not Identified on video but you can clearly see actor/comedian Jimmy Durante and former Miami Beach and Dade County Mayor Chuck Hall in this video.

Four years later, at an American Cancer Society party fundraiser in Washington, D.C. one night at the Washington Hilton & Towers, when I found myself next to Larry because his wife and my date were talking to other people, I finally had the chance to tell him how much I appreciated not only hearing the sad news come from him, but also the wonderful stories, even the ones I'd heard him tell before because they were so deeply embedded in my memories.

We ended up talking for about 10 minutes, mostly reminiscing about Miami, local radio here in the '70's, sports and the way things had once been and now were in Miami, for better or worse.

Photo of taping of Jackie Gleason and his American Scene magazine show in 1966 at Gulfstream Park, Hallandale, Florida: http://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/58634

"And away we go..."

The Village at Gulfstream Park's website has the year wrong on their website.
-----

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0205/03/lkl.00.html

It's like a tourism ad for Miami: DJ M.E.G. - Moscow to California ft. Сергей Лазарев & Тимати - Moscow to California -with a water pit-stop in Miami!

https://youtu.be/b2kRM46QYls

DJ M.E.G. - Moscow to California ft. Сергей Лазарев & Тимати - Moscow to California -with a water pit-stop in Miami!

What's surprising is not that this video was done or even that it's so damn catchy, but rather that Moscow to California has a pit-stop in Miami.

But then you remember that there's a good reason why I've left that 'anchor' labeled The South Florida I Grew Up In with quotes from Joan Didion's Miami, 1987, Simon & Schuster, which has this line that I end with: 

In this mood Miami seemed not a city at all but a tale, a romance of the tropics, a kind of waking dream in which any possibility could and would be accommodated... 

I know, I know, it's not the sort of music I usually listen to, or which you regular readers of the blog have come to expect from me, but it's got a real "hook," and both the cinematography and shots of Miami and Miami Beach are imaginative and exciting.
I'm sure it beats to hell whatever video the folks at the Greater Miami Convention Bureau currently have.

That goes double for you know who up in Ft. Lauderdale, Nicki Grossman, she of the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau, i.e Sunny.org, http://www.sunny.org/ who judging from the marketing efforts friends and I have seen over the past ten years, seem to only be targeting affluent, effete tourists with artistic pretentions for visits to Broward County.
The more pretentiou$, the better. (As if the locals like that were not already too much to bear.)

 

Especially if they are from Europe and have more money than sense -and don't know when they are being taken advantage of.  

Here's another classic view of Miami Beach by boat, Old School which I grew-up with living elsewhere, and posted here a few weeks ago...


The Jackie Gleason Show opening
http://youtu.be/E4b_-iwJwic

Hat tip to Europopped blog's March 8th entry, which a friend tipped me off to within 24 hours of it appearing online:

Summer Anthem Arrives Early in Russia! Timati, Sergey & DJ M.E.G. Drop "Moscow To California" Clip

http://europopped.com/summer-anthem-arrives-early-in-russia-timatio

Official Timati You Tube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/TimatiOfficial 

Newt Gingrich's delicious win in South Carolina will soon flood Florida with Beltway reporters who will ask hard questions about state's Romney-loving GOP Establishment -unlike FL's own MSM

Winning Our Future video: Reagan campaign manager Ed Rollins: Mitt Romney Wasn't Conservative Until He Ran For President. January 21, 2012.
http://youtu.be/qvM64Wl5yNo


Being a Newt Gingrich supporter who expected last night's result- and who predicted as much to many of you weeks ago in emails- and feeling and thinking as I do, I can hardly wait until we start seeing something that's been strangely missing from campaign coverage in Florida.


What's been MIA are fact-filled articles and columns in Florida newspapers, segments on evening network TV newscasts, and pithy posts on knowing nationally-read blogs, on what Florida's GOP Establishment of elected officials and pooh-bahs who endorsed John Huntsman and Rick Perry for president -or desperately wished for Jeb Bush!- are going to be doing over the next ten days to try to rehabilitate their greatly-damaged reputation and image within the state, given how badly that has  worked out for some of them. 


Especially some of the unctuous ones I, well, personally dislike, many of whom have that whole Silver Spoon thing going on that makes them seem even more phony and detached from reality than you-know-who.


Will they now suck-up to and salute the GOP Beltway/Northeast Establishment and now support Mitt Romney?
Well, what do you think?!!!


And speaking of Silver Spoons, or more factually, Sons of Silver Spoons, when are we going to start seeing some in-depth newspaper articles and columns in the Miami Herald, Tampa Tribune, Tampa Bay Times, Tallahassee Democrat, Orlando Sentinel -i.e. the Florida Mainstream Media that creates the state's Conventional Wisdom out of froth that's so often wrong- on what Mitt Romney supporters like Lighter-than-Lite Connie Mack the Quatro are going to ACTUALLY DO to turn around Romney's slumping prospects here?


No, not what his father, the former Florida Senator with the same name will strongly suggest, what will the young U.S. Senate wannabe Quatro himself DO?


You know, something concrete and tangible to prove that they are not all just well-known drones in the state's not-too-bright and all-too self-serving political hype machine that is also Home Sweet Home along the I-4 Corridor?
Something besides just recommending that he spend more money on ads?
Hmm-m...


(I mean, if Mack's really that formidable a candidate, and those polls numbers we've seen for weeks aren't just name ID numbers, as I've always argued they were, we ought to start seeing something from him right away, right? 
And not just in the usual places?!
Me, well, as you know from my past posts, I think Mack has a glass jaw and I will NOT vote for him. I greatly prefer Adam Hasner hands down.)


Some of us will be watching very, very carefully.


The state's journos better figure it out damn quick, because with a few exceptions I can name, it's crystal clear that the vast majority of Florida-based TV and print reporters WONT suddenly develop a spine and become responsible.


WON'T be forthright enough to question the previously-swallowed Conventional Wisdom of the Romney "Inevitability" argument," or write articles that dare to ask in their headlines "Can Connie Mack IV actually help deliver Florida for Romney, or will he fail?," there is a veritable army of print and TV reporters based in the Beltway and the Northeast U.S. that are about to start invading the Sunshine State on Monday morning to do just that, and ask questions the state's journos have largely refused to ask, despite the fact that it's low-hanging fruit indeed.


And if you think the Beltway/Northeast MSM won't take advantage of the chance to get away from cold weather for a week, forget it...

Excerpt from the iconic early 1980's Florida Dept. of Tourism TV ad - "When You Need It Bad We've Got It Good"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxB0kjqO6SI

Old-style tourism ad rules!!


This was by far the most-successful tourism campaign for the state ever.
When I was attending IU, there wasn't anyone I knew there who didn't know this ad and who couldn't sing or hum the jingle.


Which, naturally enough, leads to this classic that was marketing genius... 
every week.



CBS-TV's The Jackie Gleason Show -open (color, late 1960's)
http://youtu.be/E4b_-iwJwic
Yes, back when South Florida seemed magical and sophisticated to 7-year old me living in Memphis!