There is something wonderful about being the shining knight on the big white horse. Some damsel of a radio station is in trouble and the call goes out to someone...anyone....to ride forth, lance in hand, to smite smite the black knight and gather unto your bosom those Arbitron-bearing peasants.

Several places in My Story I have tried to describe how fun it is to listen to a radio station, list the perceived deficiencies, and swoop in to make wholesale changes. I will tell you this; it's easier to fix than it is to begin from scratch. In the theater I've thought about it often. I've gone to in-execrable productions that would have been fixable. Replace a character here, improve a set design, spend some time with stage business and voila!...a mistake is a triumph. There's a show I watch often called Holmes On Homes. This Canadian guy fixes the mistakes of previous contractors. He takes a Yugo and turns it into a Mercedes. Wonderful fun.

All this comes to mind because I have decided I would like to have a "do-over". This is not to say I'm disappointed in my life, but if it is fun to do over a radio station, a stage production, or a Toronto bungalow, think how much fun it would be to fix up your life.

At the top of things to fix: Be nicer to chimpanzees.

I met my first chimp in Austin, Minnesota. I was doing the Uncle Rob Show on KMMT-TV and the chimp was part of a petting zoo, or exotic traveling show at the local county fair. It's easy to be up-staged by a chimp. The in-studio audience was enthralled, I was enthralled...come to think about it....I think the chimp was enthralled. When the interview was over, the hairy thing leaned over, patted my cheek, and planted a huge chimp-lipped kiss on my mouth. It was at that moment when I truly understood how people can fall in love with the 'inner-person' and that the out-ward appearance is only skin deep. Don't get ahead of yourself. I didn't want to breed little chimp-Robs. I just think in a long-term relationship, I could have talked to her and she would have understood me.

Jump ahead twenty years or so. I was a regular at the San Francisco Zoo before they made their animal-friendly-improvements. They had a big cement island with a chimp family in residence. A 30-foot moat separated them from the gawking humans. They hated me. Seriously. I would do nothing and they would see me and (as Eugene Cussins on Escape to Chimp Eden says) begin to display. Their fur would fluff up, they'd begin rocking side to side, and sooner rather than later, they start ripping pieces of bark and scraps of wood from the logs scattered about for playing. They'd throw things at me and I'd laugh like a fool and they screech and...display. When I was really feeling silly, I would rock back in forth in imitation and not only would the chimps toss things at me, and screech, but they'd dash nasty notes on their typewriters and beg for Valium. Well, one time all the noise attracted a huge crowd. My chimp intimidation was so subtle only I (and the animals) knew the cause. This was when a couple of the hairy beasts decided to up the ante. When they disappeared into their hut, my suspicions were aroused to the point that I moved from the front row ground zero to farther back in the crowd. I was right! These two chimps had gone inside to visit some chimp-loo and came out the door armed with monkey shit. Next thing you know the shit was flying, the audience was scattering in panic, and much to the credit of our simian cousins...direct hits were being scored.

It was at this point the zoo keepers arrived and lured the chimps away from public view. Worrying that they might be getting a description of the serial chimp-teaser, I moved away to tease the giraffes. The last I remember hearing were the sounds of a mother berating a father for abandoning the baby in the stroller to the chimp-shit-deluge. (She was wiping the baby's face with a tissue!)

So...another thing to fix. First, I would have been more realistic about my future with the County Fair chimp. What chance does anyone have for true love with a carnie. Next, I would realize, no matter how nice you are, not everyone is going to like you...so I would have spent more time with the lemurs and left the chimps alone. And finally, I would have sacrificed my own body to prevent the chimp-poop assault on that little baby, saving it from growing up, the child of divorce.

It would be nice to fix a few things.

Well! Well! I just got back from my Northern Minnesota Round Table. Lots of politics tonight with a couple of our younger ones still beating the Obama drum. Damn the University of Duluth (Minnesota) for filling these heads with such mush. I am convinced that all the weed and LSD taken by the parents of the current generation has caused the head-bones of humans to finally knit together much later than in generations past. Being so prone to serious brain trauma has caused fuzzy political thinking, a sense of entitlement, and the total inability to get a Taco Bell Drive-thru order correct. Eventually, I feel like all the "seniors" are beating up on the "whipper-snappers" and if that keeps up my Round Table will quickly devolve into a Mall Food-Court Seniors Table. Before I go to bed tonight I want to watch a couple of episodes of Escape to Chimp Eden. That is a very good TV show and if I can scrape together the money I would love to visit South Africa and the Jane Goodall Ape Thingy. When you get older you find hair growing in the most unusual places. If it weren't for regular and dedicated clipping, scissoring, and plucking, all the fur would make the inmates of Chimp Eden welcome me as their American cousin. Jane Goodall would touch me inappropriately. It would be an unfortunate situation. Remember last year when the "pet" chimp ate the woman's face? I was sick about it. Not only did I feel sorry for the innocent woman (friend of owner) who suffered the attack, but I felt so sorry for that innocent animal. If I weren't so tired I would tell you about my San Francisco Zoo chimpanzee story. I'll do it later. So, we talked politics, Chimp Eden, travel to South Africa, train rides between South African and Zimbabwe ..or some other dark continental country, and Ricky Martin has come out and admitted he is gay.

....in other news, Angelina Jolie is nuts and the sky is blue.

"And he bangs, he bangs Oh baby When he moves, he moves I go crazy 'Cause he looks like a flower but he stings like a bee Like every BOY in history he bangs, he bangs....................."

Can it get any better? I am sorry, my friends, but there was cheering and standing O's at tonight's Glee Watching Party. There's another really good show...Justified. On FX.....and one of my favorites but the scheduling is all fucked up and I just don't understand what they are thinking....but Escape to Chimp Eden. I just realized that I have stories. (I hate your damn stories - Moon) It is only 10:30 but I'm tired and I've got a good book...so....to bed. Maybe I'll remember to do the stories tomorrow. Or not

I know....I know. I go on and on and on ad nauseum but I can't help it. Granted, I can do without Olivia Newton John and Let's Get Physical...but, she popped by KSTP in 1977 and she was very nice and incredibly pretty. In fact, now that I think about it, I saw ONJ a couple of times. Sometime in 1975 I went to a radio convention of some sort in Las Vegas. Damn! I was just thinking about it and I haven't been back to Las Vegas since. What a change. The hotel-casino I stayed at was one of the oldies and I think it was torn down, rebuilt, and torn down again. Anyway...the 'big show' at the time was The Smothers Brothers with Olivia Newton John as the opening act. Maybe it was 1974? Of course some record promoter took a bunch to see her show. "Please Mr. Please ..don't play B-17". I did and I am still ashamed. What the fuck was "B-17" doing on U100? You see...all you U100 fans only remember the Jethro Tull and bad-ass rock and forget Olivia Newton John. What else do I remember from that radio convention? I rented a car and drove to Hoover Dam. I drove across it. Can you still drive across it or are there some terrorist restrictions now? I played roulette and actually won about 500 dollars. I cashed in my chips and (drunkenly) fell asleep on the bed in my hotel room at four in the afternoon. I was pretty high while I was playing the roulette too and it wasn't until a couple of years later I learned that I had really lost but some record guy kept replenishing my stack of chips. That's probably why I played that f'ing "Please Mr. Please...." A couple of hundreds fell out of my pocket during my nap and when the maid came to turn down the bed and put some chocolate on my pillow she found the money and turned it in to security. I got the money back and the maid offered to put a sheet on my bed and I told if she sheet on my bed I would Keeel her. (ha ha ha...heard that the first time when I was in the 2nd grade). Wait a minute! I just realized the other big GLEE song was Run Joey Run and that was another U100 mistake in 1975! This is getting serious. I'm looking at 50-75,000 extra years in purgatory. Seriously, I think we played Run Joey Run more as a joke than as a serious thing. Or not. We used to have a live studio audience at FM104 on Fridays and I think I dance around the studio to You Can't Touch This. (I think I have embarrassed myself in ever city I've been) I can't write anymore. It's 12:13am...I'm tired and I have to go to iTunes and download the GLEE songs....."Daddy please don't..." Later!

Sorry I haven't been around for a week or so...no excuses. If something interesting happens in the next 5 hours....I'll add something before I head off to bed.