Tag Archives: KRKO Tim Hunter

Well, Here We Go

I debated as to whether I should tackle this particular topic in this rather intimate space. But I have tried to be an open book here, with my honest feelings, opinions, while also passing along the events and adventures that have gone on in my life, both good and bad.

So, yeah, it’s time to talk about a little bad.

Now, before I pass along the breaking news, this is not a plea for pity. I’ve known several people to go down this road and while we touched the surface of their experience, I’m finding out there’s a lot more when they move you to the front lines. It’s not going to be the only thing I talk about from now on, but there will probably a week or two where I share something that could be beneficial to know for someone fighting prostate cancer.

Up until my diagnosis 10 days ago or so, to me, prostate cancer was that, “Oh, it’s no big deal” cancer.

  • Sure, these days, they cure it all the time.
  • Yeah, a couple of rounds of radiation and it’ll all be behind you.
  • I know lots of people who have had it and they’re now cancer-free!

And so on….

It’s a bit more complicated than that, because no two diagnosis, patients, treatments and results are alike.

We’ve (that referring to me and my personal physician) have been keeping an eye on my situation because of my rising PSA numbers over the past 5 or so years. Since we’re making this an educational class and you may put in for college credit, the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test is a blood test that measures the level of PSA in a sample of your blood. They use the numbers as a measurement that may indicate if there is cancer present. If your doctor notices your number has exceeded X, he sends you to a urologist who tells you that an increased number is natural for men as they get older. That happens a couple of times, the PSA continues to go up, so then they do a prostate biopsy. Yes, the fun-filled task of taking a dozen plugs out of various parts of your prostate, to see if they can strike cancer. In recent years, I’ve had two of those with no cancer to be found.

But in my most recent blood work, I must have hit a magic number, which trigged getting an MRI and undergoing an “Artemis Biopsy”, which includes the traditional 12 plugs plus 3 bonus plugs that are taken out of the area where the MRI showed as suspicious. Once again, the 12 were fine, but the bonus plugs put me in that fast-growing club nobody wants to belong to.

The really good news: the cancer appeared to be confined to the prostate and I somehow managed to get the slowest growing cancer available. If you were going to have cancer, this is the one to get.

What’s next? Homework. My urologist ran through all of the treatment possibilities and instructed me to set up consults with two different doctors–one, in case I wanted to go the surgery route and the other, for radiation. Those are in the works.

An almost-relative and retired Seattle urologist graciously offered to look at my lab results and come to our home (yeah, a doctor making an actual house call), taking my wife and I through each possible procedure, the pro’s and con’s of each and answered all of our questions. I’m sure there will be more.

I also wanted to talk to people I knew who had been down this road before. I have a high school buddy that I’ve stayed in touch with, as well as another friend, all of us the same age, both who had to deal with this challenge. They each were diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer but, after Proton treatments, they appeared to have beaten it. Or, so I thought. After having lunch today with my high school buddy, even though he was zapped 6 years ago and considered cured, the cancer came back with a vengeance. Once again, he’s fighting stage 4.

I don’t need to go into details on what happens with the surgery or the radiation treatments, but as one friend said, “Things just aren’t going to be the same again.” The first couple of days after finding out I actually had it, I went from sad, to angry, to depressed, to overwhelmed. There are a lot of decisions to come over the next couple of weeks and then, whatever happens with treatment. Again, with having the slowest-growing variety, I don’t have to rush my decision. But when you’re hearing about the after-effects of which ever direction I go and hear things like “incontinence” and “impotence” and other i-words, frankly, it rattles your world.

My dad had prostate cancer very late in life. So late, the doctor said that he would die of something else before the prostate cancer took him and they were right. He was diagnosed in his late 80s, I’m in my late 60s. I don’t understand why my prostate was in such a hurry.

At this point, I’m going to do everything in my power to continue doing all the things I do and then deal with this in my spare time. It’s therapeutic to dive into my comedy-writing, advertising, video production and all the things I love to do because I actually forget this is even going on. Until I notice that piece of paper to my left which reminds me of the appointments I still need to set up.

I’ve still got a Julebord to emcee this Friday, an annual Christmas CD to put together and I’m working on another holiday parody song with Alana Baxter, plus getting out the annual Christmas letter, the Christmas cards, gotta grab a tree and do some shopping. There’s a lot of really good, fun, positive stuff coming and I’m going to enjoy every minute of it.

While also dealing with the elephant in my prostate.

Well, here we go!

Tim Hunter

OK, This Time I Agree

Maybe this is why we’re only meant to live so long. From the day you’re born to the time you start dreaming of retirement, the world changes a lot. The longer we stick around, the more we are told the things we know are wrong and that we should feel bad for it.

Oh, you know what I’m talking about.

I want to focus on one of those items in that collection of corrected thought, brought to my attention last week when the Rolling Stones announced they had dropped the song, “Brown Sugar’ from the playlist of their current “No Filter” tour. I have to say, that is one of my all-time favorite Rolling Stones songs and to see it performed live two years ago at what was known as Qwest Field, it was part of an amazing night of rock ‘n roll that I’ll never forget.

But I guess now, I’m suppose to forget about it.

So, what’s the deal about “Brown Sugar?” Here’s the story, for those who want all the details. The first I heard about it, I thought to myself, “Oh, for God’s sake! What’s so bad about that song?” I found the lyrics online and I didn’t even make it past the first paragraph before I completely understood. In fact, I wondered how it had survived this long.

Here’s the first verse of “Brown Sugar”:

Gold Coast slave ship bound for cotton fields
Sold in the market down in New Orleans
Skydog slaver knows he’s doin’ all right
Hear him whip the women just around midnight.

I mean, outside of slave ships, cotton fields, being sold into slavery, a slavemaster and whipping women, what’s not to love?

I had no idea, as I reflected in this break from my morning show on KRKO.

For those of you who didn’t listen to that break, yeah, back when the song came out in 1969, I was a freshmen in high school and mom was about to make her weekly trip to Foods, our go-to grocery store for the big spend. Back in those days, they sold 45’s in the grocery store for, I think, 79-cents (I remember them being as low as 49-cents each). So, I asked mom if she would pick up the Rolling Stones’ song, “Brown Sugar” and she said she would.

I was so excited for her to return home so I could put it on my record player. But as she handed it to me, she said, “You know, I almost didn’t buy this for you, because of the song on the other side.”

It turns out they had chosen the song “Bitch” to put on the flip side.

Most of the people I have talked with about this “controversy” admit, once they’ve heard the lyrics, that yeah, it should probably go away. Everyone I chatted with had no idea that’s what Mick was singing about. I sure didn’t.

But the melody is so great, here’s hoping the Stones take some time and rewrite the lyrics to make it something that doesn’t offend anyone. In fact, I’m going to offer them a rewrite for the first verse absolutely free. However, if you want me to tackle the rest of the song, boys, it’s gonna cost you:

Gold Bond treatment for hurting feet
It’s on sale over at Walgreens
William Shatner knows he’s doin’ all right
‘Till he has to go and get up around midnight.

Let me know if I’ve got the gig, Mick.

Tim Hunter

The Great AdVenture

As you know, I’m a busy guy. So when I have the opportunity to take on one more project, well, you know my answer is going to be, “Yes!”

The latest addition to my crazy weekly schedule has been as a writer for a new animated series, “The Great AdVenture.” It’s a series based on the main characters of a couple of phone games, “Adventure Capitalist” and “Adventure Communist.”

It’s pretty amazing how everything in my life contributed to me being able to play in this arena.

I’ve always wanted to be a screenwriter. When KLSY dropped me off on the front porch of unemployment, I thought, “Well, there’s never been a better time to get writing.” So, each day, I got up at 7 and spent the entire day writing, like it was my job. During that time, I managed to get a couple of screenplays done. Then, later, I teamed up with a partner and we wrote both a screenplay and a couple of scripts for a possible TV series. None went anywhere, but please, make an offer.

So, as I honed that skill, I stayed in touch with a woman that had interned at KLSY and went on to do a lot of show biz things, including attending Jim Henson’s school, she interned on “Saturday Night Live” and then headed to Hollywood to became quite the accomplished writer for movies and TV, especially for her passion, animation. Meet Libby Ward.

At the same time I found myself out of work and started writing movie scripts, I eventually found a job with a local advertising agency. While there, I met a driven person named Kevin Urie. He was an account manager, but had bigger things in mind. He was the president of Seattle’s Social Media Club, when that was all starting out. At that time, it was the largest chapter in the U.S.! Through that, he made lots of biz connections and went through a series of job that included a gig at Microsoft and eventually, landing a position with the above-mentioned Canadian game company, Hyperhippo. Knowing I was a comedy-writing guy, he put me in touch with the folks in the company who were trying to launch this new animated series.

Initially I wrote some commercials for the games. But finally, the big moment arrived when they started assembling the team that would make their dream of an animated series happen.

That’s when I dragged in Libby to the project. She had lots of actor contacts and grabbed some key folks to bring the characters to life, vocally. I brought in Scott Burns, a Seattle-based voice actor who is also a radio brother. For years, we had worked across the dial from each other but never together. When Scott became the audio production director at the ad agency where I worked, we became fast friends.

This truly is a modern-day effort. With producers up in Canada, actors in Hollywood and Seattle, a Hollywood/Seattle writing team and animators in Nebraska, we’re all cyber-connected and acting as if we were in the same studio.

The idea of the series is to make them very reflective of the times. So, even though an episode was written several weeks before, once the animation is done, we’ll insert a couple of lines that refer to things that happened this week. In our first episode, we had a few. But over time, we’ll get this down to a science.

On October 3rd, 2020, we put out our first episode, which is done in a three-part style so they can use each of the parts as free-standing contributions to their social media efforts. And so, the great experiment has begun.

Will it continue? We were signed for an initial agreement of ten scripts. The plan is to produce those and then weigh in if they’re considered successful. If so, this could be a year-round effort, with multiple ten-week seasons. We shall see.

In the meantime, my great adventure with being a writer for an animated series is off. Each trio of episodes are under five minutes long, so it won’t be a major time commitment. Here’s episode one, see what you think.

https://youtu.be/kJ26QMpxj-I

Thanks for watching and now you know one more thing that I’m up to these days. Yeah, I’m a busy guy.

Tim Hunter

Roger Murtaugh Really Said It All

As fans of the “Lethal Weapon” movies, my wife and I occasionally find ourselves re-watching those fun films. We’re also excited to hear that the boys have at least one more movie coming our way.

And when we sit down to watch the next “Weapon”, we know that at some point in the film, Danny Glover’s character, Roger Murtaugh, is going to utter his famous catch phrase, “I’m gettin’ too old for this shit.”

Truer words were never spoken and as I continue staying heavily involved in the world around me, including social media, I know there’s a time coming where I’m going to just flat be too old.

And it’s getting closer.

The other morning, while multi-tasking my brains out as I often do, I came across an article in the New York Post about Jasmin Bleeth. It was basically a “here she is now” and I found it fascinating. It showed her in the 1980s during her Baywatch hey day, side-by-side with a phot of her walking her dog recently. Not thinking anything beyond, “Wow, that’s interesting!” I thought others might want to see this, too, so I posted it on Facebook. The only word I added to the picture was, “Huh.”

In fact, here’s the photo.

Boy, remember when Baywatch was THE show on TV?  Those slow-motion jogging scenes, Pamela Anderson, David Hasselhoff and yes, Jasmine Bleeth. To me, the photo was a reminder of just how ago that was–it first debuted in 1989. Using a calculator and doing some quick math, that’s 31 friggin’ years ago. Wow.

I expected to see some entertaining comments, so I kept working while occasionally checking back on the post. I worked on my contribution to Daily Show Prep (that I write every morning), chatted with my wife during our morning hangout, listened to my tracks play on KRKO, even chatted with my son about one of their dogs and how it ate a bunch of rocks.

Eventually, I returned to the post and realized that I’m just not woke enough.

The responses ranged from “apparently its wrong for women to age” to “WTAF”.  I PM’d some of the respondents that appeared offended by this photo. One had a sister with a weight gain problem, and so it reminded it of her. My intent was never to be mean or offend or irritate anyone, I just thought it was interesting. The phrase “fat shaming” came up. OK, I’m done and so I deleted the post.

I know people who have gladly given up Facebook and this experience definitely pushed me a step closer. I suppose as long as I have a public persona to keep out there, I need to use it, but there will come a day when I will definitely disappear. Or, at least cut back to a very small club.

They way I understand Facebook is that it’s supposed to bring us all together. When I post something to my FB friends, it’s supposed to be like they were sitting next to me and I was just showing them something. It is and has never been my intent to offend, tick off or mislead anyone. Maybe its my fault for accepting too many borderline Facebook connections who are more acquaintances than friends.

I’m a big fan of hiding posts and ‘friends’ who put up stupid stuff, especially in the political arena.  I swear, every six months, this one shows up.

When this first showed up in my feed a couple of years ago because my cousin posted it, I took the time to inform him that Trump never said that. It was a hoax, fake news, whatever you want to call. And his response was, “Well, it’s like something he would say.”

So, rather than letting people know it was fake, it was passed on to other Facebookers, who most likely reposted it, assuming it was true.  If you’d like to read the story of that post, here you go.

And for the record, I’m not a President Trump fan. I’m following our political process and anxious to see if a viable candidate can emerge from the other side.

But look at those two examples. The Jasmin Bleeth was factual, the Trump story a hoax, and yet the Trump story is Facebook re-post gold.

It’s becoming obvious to me that the first step in making a gradual withdrawal from Facebook is to cut down my ‘friends’ list to only include people I know and can actually remember talking with in the past decade. I’ve been accepting anyone who would ask (except for a Nigerian prince. He still owes me that money) and now have 1,482 FB friends.  With almost 1500 people seeing my posts, I guess the odds are pretty good that something I post could offend someone.

And that’s a game you never win. Post a picture of a dog and someone could write, “Oh, I see, you hate cats.”  Show a sunset and someone else could post, “Oh, sure, flaunt your good weather. Back here, we’ve got three feet of snow.”

Look, if you truly know me, I’m all about positive and fun and being happy. It’s finally starting to sink in that maybe Facebook and I have different goals and expectations. I just know if I don’t have the time or energy to get caught up in a debate about something I post being mean-spirited or ill-intended. I just don’t do that.

My frustration is probably rooted in the fact that I’m just getting too old for this shit.

Tim Hunter

 

 

Here We Go Again

I’m not Norwegian. But I married into it. And that’s OK.

As we approach another 17th of May (Norwegian Constitution Day), we’ll be doing the traditional stay in the Ballard Hotel for two nights, attending the big luncheon, stopping by the Leif Erikson Lodge, I will announce the parade while Victoria marches in it and so on.

It’s an all-out celebration of Norwegian heritage and good for them. But they are WAY more concerned about where their parts came from than I am. I’m a rag-tag collection of ethnicities from around the globe.  In fact, here’s what 23andme.com had to say about my make-up:

Yep, that’s what it takes to create your very own Tim Hunter. It was me before you knew that, it’s still me after you read that data. A lot of Northern European, with a splash of Eastern European that I surmise resulted from some relative’s wild weekend away.

Heritage is nice to know. Some people embrace it, while others like me say, “Eh, good to know.”

Who we are is the result of what we’ve been, our experiences, our influences. In other words, we have existed.

I look at my life’s journey and I’m extremely appreciative and happy for everything. Oh, that’s not to say there were pretty rough spots along the way, but everything resulted in my present being, in who I am today and all things considered, I’ll take it.

This summer, we’re heading to Scotland to visit the town where my dad was born, I look forward to feeling a closer connection to those roots. However, I will still be this Tim Hunter guy I’ve become.

And I’m really liking that.

Tim Hunter

 

You Don’t Know How Lucky You Are

I was doing one of my many multi-tasking days last weekend, where I went there, decided while I was there to go there, and so on…and next thing you know, I was grabbing a freeway on-ramp to go south on I-5 and head home.

As I approached the on-ramp, the flashing ramp-metering flashing yellow light was on–meaning, I was going to have to slow down and come to a stop, to a point where the ramp-metering gods would decide it was OK for me to merge on the freeway.

I awaited my turn and then, the golden moment arrived. OK, the green moment. It was my turn to go. As I gave it the gas, I head off to the sound of a horn honking behind me. As I looked in the rear-view mirror, I saw a young 20-something with an angry look on her face, hitting the brakes and laying her hand on the horn.

As I drove away, I realized what had happened. She was pissed. Pissed that I had stopped on the freeway on-ramp (as required by law) because of the on-ramp metering system. (A quick side-note–my college roommate’s brother actually helped design the ramp-metering system. You may cheer or boo as you wish) 

As I merged on to the freeway, I glanced occasionally in my rear-view mirror to see if she had joined the rest of us on the freeway. As I suspected. she had laid on the horn honking in anger. But as I pulled away, she realized she had screwed up and vented when she should have been humble.

She had screwed up.

Maybe she was looking down, distracted by a text or a phone call. No matter. She came around the curve of that on-ramp and barely braked in time to avoid rear-ending me, giving me a nice case of whiplash and giving her insurance rates that would make Antonio Brown sweat.

In other words, she dodged a HUGE bullet.

My hope is that she accepted all that came her way. The realization that she avoided a mistake that would have followed her for life, if nothing else, for a couple of years. Young lady, you may not realize how close you came to really screwing up your life. And mine, for that matter.

But the timing couldn’t have been more perfect. I was hitting acceleration and avoiding the collision as she was realizing that she needed to stop and barely pulled it off. It was one of those rare life moments where everyone got out of it unscathed.

Young lady, whoever you are: you don’t realize how lucky you are!

Tim Hunter

One of the Last of the Locals

Back in September, I returned to the Seattle-area radio airwaves on 1380AM, KRKO. Their consultant, Terry Patrick, crafted a blend of songs that have been largely missing from the radio around Seattle and have been gone long enough, that they’re a lot of fun to hear again.

They began playing that music and fine-tuning the songs in July and it wasn’t until mid-August before we embarked on our Norway trip that I confirmed, upon my return, I’d take on morning show duties for them.

To be clear, this was an add-on. The only thing I dropped from my hectic routine was my weekly podcast, which I had been doing to satisfy my radio Jones. Otherwise, I continued my life-as-normal routine as a writer for Radio-Online, operating Tim Hunter Creative Services, being the Chief Creative Officer for Create Impulse, doing auctions and events, being a member and on the board of the Bothell Kenmore Chamber of Commerce, a member of the Northshore School District‘s General Advisory Committee, plus taking care of my comedy clients–a ventriloquist, a comic strip and a political cartoonist.

Basically, I said I could offer so much time and they excitedly accepted. It took some fine-tuning to my schedule and getting a rhythm going, but I think we’re there. It’s funny, but some people I talked with about my opportunity after 14 years of radio silence thought this decision was based on the money. Hardly. In fact, that is in the description of my salary. “Tim Hunter shall be paid hardly anything.” Says so right on the contract.

I have to say the thing that drew me most to KRKO was the fact they were and remain being a local station. Oh, you’re probably saying to yourself, “But Tim, there are lots of local radio stations.” Not true. I’ll rattle off a few: WARM, Movin’, KOMO, STAR, KIRO, KJR. All are owned by godless, bottom-line out-of-town corporations and some of those stations have even gone through a couple of ownership changes from the time I left radio until my return.
KRKO is owned and operated by the Skotdahl family. I’ve known Andy, the “Big Guy”, for decades and he is one committed hardcore set on preserving his local station. You’ll hear what some might call “small town radio” things, like carry the AquaSox and Silvertips games, high school football and basketball and such. Some of the clients you’ll hear advertising on the air you may not recognize, because they’re primarily in and around Snohomish County. But besides being among Washington State’s first radio stations, KRKO (and it’s sister station, KXA) are the last of a dying breed. Local.

Their broadcast signals don’t travel far. AM will stalk you out of the county, but the FM’s are low power versions that are pretty much heard only in Everett.

But it’s their online streaming capabilities that really got me excited. There are multiple ways to listen to KRKO, no matter where in the world you live. On the website, KRKO.com, just click the LISTEN LIVE button, click the play button and there we are!  Got an Alexa or Google home?  Just say the trigger phrase and “Play KRKO” or even “Play Everett’s Greatest Hits” and start enjoying the music. You can even go to our Facebook page and on the left is a STREAM LIVE button. If you don’t see it, click on the SEE MORE to the left and you’ll find it.  Oh, if you have Bluetooth in your car, just stream the station on your phone and you can enjoy the music in your car while driving. It beats the heck out of a scratchy FM signal in hilly Seattle.

Well, if it’s in Wikipedia, it must be true.

The result has been incredible. This morning, my sister in Arkansas wrote a quick note to say, “She’s loving that Christopher Cross.”   Cousins Judy & Bill down in Santa Barbara are listening, as well as relatives and friends in West Virginia, South Dakota, Florida, Nevada….oh, and yes, you, too, Dagny, in Norway.

2019 feels like a year of change. Maybe that will include how you listen to the radio and who you tune in. I honestly think you’ll find the mix of music we play on KRKO fairly addictive and pretty soon, you’ll have a new favorite radio station. We just might actually change the way you listen to radio.

And I actually think their morning guy is kinda funny. Well, at least kinda.

Consider this your invitation.

Tim Hunter