Radio | The Gad About Town

A Face for …

Posted on July 13, 2015 by Mark Aldrich

“You should be on the radio.”
Read More

Insert Important Words Here to Attract Attention

Posted on April 1, 2015 by Mark Aldrich

“Son. May I call you that? No? Complete stranger, they say ‘you must give it away to keep it,’ and while I do not know what they mean by ‘it’ or even who ‘they’ might be, I just know that they keep telling me this. Again and again and again. But what do I have to give away? Pray tell, what? My wisdom, that’s what. My easy-won wisdom. And my encouragement.

“They also tell me that life should be worn like a loose Garmin, which I do not pretend to understand. Is it loose on the dashboard? That might be dangerous. You have to keep your GPS on a mount of some kind. You should wear your life like a fully charged GPS or phone—don’t want to get too hung up on terms and technology, because it is the philosophy I am getting at here that is important—wear your life like a portable device that you keep charged up and then hide in the glove compartment when you leave your car in a public parking lot. So don’t wear it at all. Carry your life like an electronic device that requires a two-year contract for you to use it, one that you would consider purchasing a protection plan for, but you ultimately do not, and you chance it.
Read More

A Life in Comedy

Posted on March 18, 2015 by Mark Aldrich

For reasons that bore me, I am one of those lucky few whose brain does not retain jokes. Neither knock-knock groaners nor shaggy-dog tales; there are not many punchlines that are still connected to the matching set-up.

Which is in itself funny, as I have written and performed radio comedy on and off for as long as I have been an adult. A quarter of a freakin’ century.

Each Wednesday night at 7:30 p.m. (alert: this is tonight), the Magnificent Glass Pelican half-hour is broadcast on 88.7 FM WFNP (“The Edge”) in the Rosendale-New Paltz, New York, area. The Pelican is a live half-hour radio comedy show that my friends and I have written, produced, and acted in since 1990. Lately, it has been an improvised half-hour, produced by us and scripted live on-air. We have an unwritten rule that no rules should be written.

For those who do not live there, the radio station streams the show live here at this link. Click on it and turn down your volume, as the station usually has its settings maxed out. This is at 7:30 p.m. Eastern time, and the broadcasts are not archived, so if you can check us out live tonight, thank you.

I no longer live in New Paltz, NY, so I have not been a live participant in a year. But the show still goes on.
Read More