Happy Hare's Idea Garage Sale

It is my sincere belief that ideas should not be allowed to lie fallow. Someone gets a terrific idea and just lets it lie there, unused,. nor passed on to someone who can take it and use it, as a benefit to mankind, or equally important, to him/herself.

My contention is that he or she should sell their idea , not for a fortune but for maybe like in a garage sale, five or ten dollars tops. Ideas are a dime a dozen, unless utilized. Of course, if you have a great concept, cocked and ready, fire in the hole!

I often think about stuff like this: Did it ever occur to you that, during the days of Moses’ trek through the desert, that there was, maybe, an ancestor of Steve Jobs, who had already invented the iPod and was too lazy to do anything with it?

There is a name for this practice of conjuring up great concepts, and not doing anything about them. The word is ”valleity,” meaning, a collective, lingering desire to do something, without actually doing anything about it.

What if Moses schlepped all those stone tablets down the mountain, not knowing that a savant in his ragged bunch had invented an iPod and not done anything about it. It was the difference between hefting ten stone tablets down a steep mountain vs. asking God to download the Ten Commandments for easy handling.

A savvy marketer would have grabbed this device, maybe, traded it for a sheep, and branded it, naming it - say.– the “iGOD”- and then leased it to Moses –say, for two sheep - for his trip up the mountain to download the Ten Commandments.

Come to think of it: The Ten Commandments in an iGOD would been too easy to delete. Most people mentally delete two or three of them, anyway.

History records that Moses spent forty years leading thousands of liberated Hebrew slaves through the desert in an ordeal comparable to watching “American Idol’s early contestants It’s a shame he wasn’t more like Will Ferrell , instead of Charlton Heston.

To make the wandering more fun, Will would have led them in choruses of “99 bottles of Schlibevits.” mingled with, “Row Row Row Your Ark” and just to keep them jazzed, “I Love a Parade.”

He would have done shtick. Instead of struggling down the mountain with a scowl on his face, reminiscent of Heston, he would have prat fallen down to the throng,. blown his chofar and said ”I just came down from the mountain schlepping these stone tablets and “vey ist mir” Are my arms tired!”

Drum roll, no laugh

“Those are the jokes, folks What are you, an audience or a bunch of stone icons?”

Drum roll, a laugh ripples through the crowd.

He pulls out one of the ten tablets, and holds it up to the crowd.

“See this commandment? “Thos shalt not commit adultery,” which reminds me of the one where Sol comes home and finds his wife Sarah in bed with Abe.

Abe!! he exclaims, “You! My best friend… in bed with my wife .(takes a beat) “Abe, I have to…..but you ?”

Would I use any of that material in a radio show? No, but I often think like this, free associating, opening up my mind.

Scientists using brain scans recently discovered that creativity originates in a separate part of the brain, often never found or accessed. If you don’t use it, you don’t live as long, or have as much fun.

This discovery was made when experiments were conducted on jazz musicians. who were hooked up to a scanner. When they play creatively, you can watch dark areas of their brain actually light up under that stimulus.

Think of all the famous people in creative fields who live into their 90’s and beyond.

Now…..for my next act, I am about to tell you something I bet you didn’t know.

One of our long time family friends is Dr Pat Hess, now renowned as one of the world’s premier authorities on healthy aging, and ya ready? Death and dying. Her text books are used in major medical school around the world.

Dr. Hess says that when a person dies, the body loses weight. That leads to speculation.: What left? That person’s soul?

Okay, that’s settled,. but is there a Heaven?. There is a joke about this.

Joe and Eddie were fanatical softball players., and after a long life of playing their favorite sport, Joe’s was dying and his best friend, Eddie, made him promise to come back and notify him if there is softball in Heaven.

Joe dies and that very week, Eddie was awakened by Joes’s cheery voice. “Eddie! Eddie! It’s me, Joe. Hey pal, Great news! They got softball in Heaven.. It’s always spring up here, so we play every day, and Eddie, the good news is that all of our old buddies are up here, young again and playing great softball And, there is slightly bad news.

Eddie hesitantly asked, “What do you mean by slightly bad?”?

Joe said, “Eddie, next Tuesday, you’re pitching.”

This brings me around to the living: specifically to the greatest living American, former Yankee 2nd baseman, war hero and now a scorching play by play man for the San Diego Padres, Jerry Coleman.

I credit Jerry’s long vital life to his practice of geometry. He flew dive bombers in WW2 and Korea, It took creativity to maneuver a plane into a vertical dive and hit something. Colonel Coleman earned two Distinguished Flying Crosses, and many other awards.

When he played baseball, creative geometry also came into play. Years ago, as a young man watching at Yankee Stadium, I saw him jump some four feet in the air, snare a line drive and while he was at the apex of his leap, throw a strike to home plate to nail an onrushing player.

Calculating the height of the leap and the angle of the throw while suspended in mid air requires not only great prowess, but a lot of creativity. That is why he is so young, physically and mentally.

There is a new book out about his life. It is called “An American Journey.” published by Triumph Books. Buy it and soak up his philosophy.

Mark Ramsey will appear on my last Radio Show on SignOnRadio,com . Mark is the brightest “techie” savant in the game. . He comes on at. 2p PST.

I am signing off of SignOn, because I’m overcommitted in helping launch the movie, “Kings of the Evening.” for Picture Palace Films. The film is in great demand in the trade, and now, I find that even my one day show is going that one bridge too far.

When San Diego Union Tribute Editor, Ron James, asked me to go full time some months ago I knew I was too jammed to go M-F, but still wanted to play radio. He gave me the nod to do one show a week, Wednesdays from 1-3p, and it has been pure fun.

I thank Ron and Vice President Chris Jennewein for giving me the liberties not given anyone else in internet radio, to do my show as I saw fit. I broke all the rules. Lordie! It was fun.

Now, if we can only persuade Paul Newman to star in our next project.

Yippee! for chums Randy Michaels and Lee Abrams.

Randy, now the media’s most powerful figure, just brought Lee Abrams aboard to join him at the Tribune Properties Chicago HQ, and gave him free rein to innovate 13 newspapers, 71 websites, 3 cables companies and 40 TV stations.

Idle speculation : What with Randy’s love of radio and with Lee on board, can a big radio buy be far off? Lee starts April 1st.

Next week, I take on a topic that has never been explored. We all know that Howard Stern has made a fortune out of verbalizing bawdy things others are only thinking. How do he and other raunchy jocks do it so cleverly day after day?

How about Ann Coulter who practices the same black art, writing controversial books that become best sellers Example: She said that the widows of 911 were exploiting the national grief by pitching for money.

This statement drew an outraged reaction from John’s Edward’s wife. Elizabeth, during a Coulter MSNBC “Hardball” appearance.

Edwards phoned while Coulter was on camera with Chris Matthews. She excoriated Ms Coulter publicly for such cruelty regarding the 911 widows.

One would have expected Ms Coulter to melt under such a heated rebuke. .Instead, while listening to this brilliant woman’s attack, Coulter, in a camera close up, began stroking her long golden hair and preening, actually grinning while Ms Edwards, usually spiritually intact, lost it.

This was what she was fishing for, and she hooked a big one Ca-ching!

Re: unused ideas., An open message to anyone who wants to use my promotion aimed toward finding the best looking keaster in town.

I call it,” The Keaster Parade” and didn’t use it because…well… it is too icky for me….. butt ….just right for someone else. There is another reason I didn’t use it…valleity.

I am consigning “The Keaster Parade” to Happy Hare’s Idea Garage Sale. If you want to use it, send $5.00. Ca--ching!


Randy Michaels on my installment in the 2005 Radio and TV Hall of Fame of Ohio.

“I was a jock in Ohio, but I was no Harry Martin.”


Me on Randy’s recent installment as the head of Tribune Properties in Chicago.

“I’m a jock, but I’m no Randy Michaels”


Show me a lowly tiller of the soil who has labored lo! these many years picking cotton, and I will show you a dirty cotton picker…..Hare