by Peter Boyles | Sep 26, 2023 | Blasting with Boyles
Blasting with Boyles
Opinion
As most of you read the October edition of the award-winning Glendale Cherry Creek Chronicle, I will either have turned 80 or about to become 80 years of age. I can’t get over that, and neither can a lot of my associates, friends, in-laws, and outlaws.
For God’s sake how did I get to be 80? Years ago, I had heart surgery and when the surgeon and his team looked at my health history, I proudly proclaimed no one in my family dies of cancer. To which they retorted no one in your family lives long enough to get cancer.
The things that I’ve thought so much about these last couple of months, having had a couple of pretty major health scares myself, and now, of course, with grandchildren of my own, still with one foot in the radio business, being able to spend time with Chuck and Julie and Mark Smiley, I somewhat remain active. Back in the gym, looking forward to ski season, but for Christs’ sake, how can I be turning 80?
As I say in my prayers, “It’s me God, Peter Boyles, one of your favorite people.” How did I get to 80. And all of the people that I respected and loved and, in many cases, despised and hated are now gone. I can cite names of wonderful radio disc jockeys and talk show hosts, newspaper columnists, television news anchors the likes of Bob Palmer, Bob Martin, Alan Berg, Hal Moore, and Charlie Martin. Columnists like Gene Amole, John Coit, they are now gone and as the Wiffenpoof said, “And forgotten like the rest.”
One thing is for sure it’s been one hell of a ride. Been fired off of jobs, hired on to jobs, married and divorced more than once, gained my sobriety, was in a couple of car wrecks, rode motorcycles with some pretty amazing characters, went to rodeo school and bucked out bulls, jumped out of airplanes, and had my last couple of fights in the ring. And now 80 looms.
I believe that there are people who work for insurance companies that are sort of like bookies, but they’re betting life expectancies after all the things I’ve done to my body. I can always envision one sitting next to another in a big office in New York, and giving the other guy the elbow and saying, “Look at this joker we got in Denver. What are the overs and unders on him?”
When you read what the great minds and philosophers and historians tell us about our lives, some people live them big, and some live them small. Living life big doesn’t necessarily mean good, and living small has its own rewards. I think a lot about my dad who was gone at 63. Most of his brothers went out young as well. Now I’m gonna be 80. This just isn’t fair but I’m not sure to whom. I remember a time in my 30s doing radio where I had the answer to any question any caller would ask. Now I don’t even know what the question is. I don’t know if that’s wisdom or dementia. But for God’s sake, don’t let me turn into Joe Biden.
Happy birthday to me.
— Peter Boyles
by Peter Boyles | Aug 28, 2023 | Blasting with Boyles
OPINION
John Bandimere and Peter Boyles
We’ve seen the final Mile High National Drag Races at the legendary Bandimere Speedway. After all of these years and all of the racing that took place, John Bandimere, by the way one of the best guys I’ve ever known, announced that piece of American drag racing in Colorado is over.
There was a time in my life that I think I could have eaten grease. We knew cars. Chronicle publisher Chuck Bonniwell and I have many times talked about our love affair with cars and both of us remember car dealers making big deals about the new models that came out in the fall. The local Chevy dealer, A to Z Chevrolet on Allegheny Boulevard, would cover the windows with newspaper and say how many days before the new models were revealed. And it was a Saturday, and they would tear the paper down, and we’d be all lined up in the street to see. Car magazines like Car and Driver would come and we seriously studied the ’57 Chevys versus ’57 Fords.
Last Sunday I went to a car show, believe it or not, in Fairmount Cemetery. A perfect place. There were ’58, ’59 Cadillacs, Broughams, convertibles, and such wonderful automotive products like Larks, Gremlins, and the ever-popular Dodge Dart. Who bought those?
We were carheads and we talked about cars, and I’ve said this on the television show that I did with John Bandimere. One of the guys that I grew up with, we’ve reconnected. His name is Tom Holmes. His dad owned the Atlantic gas station and tragically passed away young. Tom was a tough kid and now we talk and one of the questions I’ve pondered is, who did we look up to? Who did we, in the early ’60s in Pittsburgh, look up to? The kid with the cooler car. And Tom and I have asked each other what was it that we wanted when we graduated from high school and we wanted a nice car, mind you, not a new car. A girlfriend and a little bit of money in our pockets. Not $10,000 in the bank, or a hundred dollars in your wallet.
We would have been more than happy. But it had to do with having that car.
I actually had a 1955 Chevrolet convertible. And I saw one at this car show and you instantly trip back to that time period.
And Detroit knew to put a beautiful woman in their car ads and she was known as “the promise.” “You buy this car you’ll get this woman.” And she always had on a prom dress or a one-piece bathing suit in high heels. Go figure.
And you wonder why all these guys that are my age are nuts today.
And now I think it’s coming to an end. The greens hate internal combustion, they intensely dislike automobile racing on any and all levels.
I had the ability at one time to tell you any car I saw on the road — what engine was in it, what year it was, and who made it. Today in parking lots they all seem, I hesitate to say this, they all look alike to me. We have a running gag how do you tell a Tesla driver? The answer is don’t worry he’ll tell you. I’m still driving a pickup truck and getting a new motorcycle and going out to get louder pipes for it, the legendary neighbor hater pipes.
It’s sad to see the end of an era. Both of my children drive sensible cars. One of the things I can say when Tom and I were kids, nobody had a sensible car. In the words of the legend Chuck Bonniwell, “I never had a sensible car till I was 50.”
So long John Bandimere, goodbye to a golden era.
— Peter Boyles
by Peter Boyles | Jul 20, 2023 | Blasting with Boyles
OPINION
This is one of the few times that I’ve had arguments with myself on what to title our award-winning column that appears here in the Glendale Cherry Creek Chronicle. I first wanted to call it The Organ Recital. Next, I wanted to dub it Polishing the Brass on the Titanic. And I settled on He Has Good Color.
When my father passed away due to a massive third heart attack in Saint Margaret’s Hospital in Pittsburgh, there was a waiting room with a gaggle of women whose husbands had had cardiac arrests and were probably waiting for the Reaper. But they always made a point of going in and looking at the other women’s husbands and coming back offering words of encouragement, “He has good color.” And that poor old bastard would go climb Space Mountain by the next day.
I just had a very frightening medical experience. Mind you I’m pushing 80, as legendary biker builder Jeff Decker said to me, name another person who has a radio show when they’re almost 80, and all I could think of was Bob Hope.
I’d been having a very hard time physically these last couple of months and for whatever reason I was choosing to ignore it. What I didn’t realize at the time, I was headed into congestive heart failure.
I’ve always been very close to Dr. Julie McCallen at Cenegenics. She’s been such a wonderful healer in my life but has taken semi-retirement. She was in her clinic on a day that sh
e wasn’t really supposed to be there. In fact, she was supposed to be in Europe. I pretty much had enough of my hard time functioning and went to see the folks at the clinic and lo and behold, Julie McCallen was there. They sent me immediately to the ER.
The publisher of this newspaper and I share, and have dubbed him, “cardiologist to the stars,” Dr. Nelson Prager. Dr. Prager and the staff at Medical Center of Aurora, after a nine-day stay, really did put together a diagnosis of everything that was going on with me.
I can’t fix cars anymore. When I open the hood of the truck or look at a motorcycle engine I’m totally baffled. But there was a time when we could do points and plugs and oil change, a new condenser, and we could do our own tune-up in the backyard,
I firmly believe that all of us do need that tune-up and I’m lucky I caught mine in time. Things look good.
The next thing I realized is with my inner circle of friends, I’ve dubbed it the organ recital. A group of men, we used to talk about women, politics, music, sports, using intoxicants, often times illicit. Now it begins with, “How’s your liver? How’s your colon? How’s your heart and are you breathing well enough?” We’re reciting the conditions that our organs are in. And hence, as Patsy Ramsey wrote, it’s the organ recital.
And finally, when my daughter picked me up from the hospital, and I got in her car, and we’re driving home I said to myself, “Am I just polishing the brass on the Titanic?” I’m clearly on the back nine.
I made even more changes in my life ,and something that I never thought I would do — I ordered a three-wheeled motorcycle. And I’m gonna live forever. I’m gonna learn to fly. And we can’t make Denver and Colorado politicians crazy if we don’t have this column and a weekly radio show.
I dodged a bullet and once again I call myself the luckiest guy I’ve ever known.
— Peter Boyles
by Peter Boyles | Jun 23, 2023 | Blasting with Boyles
Johnston
Former Colorado Democrat Progressive State Senator Mike Johnston is now the Mayor of Denver. Did anybody really take the time to look at the promises that this man made on ending homelessness?
One of the great things about this moment in time is we’re saying goodbye to undoubtedly one of the worst mayors in the history of Denver, Michael Hancock. The growth of crime, filth, rot, decay, and principally homelessness, and its two handmaidens crime and drug abuse, skyrocketed under Hancock.
The tremendous damage that was done to the Denver Police Department occurred under Michael Hancock. If you can remember back with us when we were at KHOW Radio, and we first exposed his involvement in Denver Players and Denver Sugar, only to watch the massive cover up by almost every branch of Denver media. The things that he did with women on the staff, but more so the greater effect of what he did to Denver itself.
So now moving into the job is Mike Johnston who, like John Hickenlooper, said he was going to end homelessness. But tightening the noose there ain’t no 10-year plan. This is a one year I will end homelessness plan. Does anybody in their right mind sucking air believe that? And what are the alternatives if he doesn’t? Another 11 more years as Mayor.
Not that I was shocked because Kelly Brough crowed that she worked for Hickenlooper the creator of all this nonsense to begin with, and that she was good friends with Bill Ritter. Why would you tell anybody that? At long last, Kelly, have you no shame.
Now Denver chooses a guy that had been the principal of a school and a classroom teacher. Isn’t the teacher’s union one of the mainstays of why people are mad at Denver? So, here’s a question. Whose side is he on? My educated guess is if you pay the band you get to tell them what to play. We’re in a really bad place.
Denver has to be the only place outside of Ukraine where you have a victory parade and people shoot each other. And a firetruck runs over a cop.
Didn’t you all think it was really interesting how the TV outlets were playing this down as though the shootings really didn’t happen or the cop didn’t get run over because of the happy Nuggets news? And the beauty of it is that team had been up for 24 hours and they were dead drunk.
And so here we are. Do you honestly believe that Denver, Colorado, is better off now than it was 12 years ago? And if you answer yes to that question, than you seriously need help. Get back on the meds quickly. And we know the direction the city is going in. And if you think this guy Mike Johnston is going to bring the city back to the salad days of Bill McNichols and early days of Federico Pena there’s just not a chance in hell.
Unfortunately, Candi CdeBaca, an avowed communist will not be around to help.
— Peter Boyles
by Peter Boyles | May 22, 2023 | Blasting with Boyles
AM Radio Being Removed From Cars
Blasting With Boyles
OPINION
Tesla, Mazda, Volkswagen, and BMW are no longer going to have AM radios in their electric vehicles because electric engines interfere with the sound of AM radio. Ford Motor Company, according to The Washington Post, is taking an even bigger step and eliminating AM radio from all of its vehicles, electric or gas operated.
Are we witnessing the end of a golden era? We were raised on the radio. My love affair with radio goes far beyond the time when I first came into a radio studio and sat down and punched the start button to begin to play Engelbert Humperdinck.
We were raised on AM disc jockeys. We all had our stations that were like, I suspect, baseball teams. When you meet kids from other cities their team was the Reds, another kid’s team was the Yankees, or another kid, his team was Boston. My team was the Pittsburgh Pirates, and my radio station was WAMO. It was a principally black station that played the kind of music that made sense to a bunch of blue-collar working class white and black kids. It introduced us to women and cars, and now has the time come? We no longer sell buggy whips, rotary phones, or transistor radios. Or call your favorite disc jockey on Friday night and request a song.
It’s bittersweet to read these stories. I love the promos that the radio station I’m working for now is running, asking the government to preserve AM radio. It’s like these are people who normally don’t want the government within a thousand yards of their personal lives. Now asking the Biden administration to save five thousand directional AM radio stations because they protect us.
Radio had great renewal when music went to FM for sound and fury leaving the void of what was on AM to talk radio. And a sidebar to that, it has now become dominant in sports talk and sports betting radio. A lot of what’s diminished AM talk radio is the conservative tribal approach that seems to want to exclude rather than include so many audiences.
A golden era has come, and a golden era has gone. What do we have now? What offerings are out there for us now? We are diminished.
We on this side of the microphone have long asked, “are we giving people what they want, or are we giving them what we think they want?” There’s been a whole lot of — this is what we think you want — and the ratings and revenue reflect that might not be the right choice.
With the explosion at Fox News what is to come next for CNN? Maybe radio finds its place again as others in the business have pointed out with podcasting and on-demand radio. And maybe the little engine that could, can in fact, like the wolf, survive.
But I tell you I would miss it.
— Peter Boyles
