While he was still in high school, he was the lead actor on a radio show that aired in Cincinnati and later nationally on NBC. One of his high school friends was crooner Andy Williams.
In college, he was a drum major who gained renown for twirling lighted torches.
He toured the world with the Harlem Globetrotters, and was roommates with Olympic gold medalist Jesse Owens for a few days.
He made and operated puppets on a kids TV show.
He worked in advertising and directed the first TV commercial for the Easy-Bake Oven… and cast his daughter Molly in it.
He borrowed $10,000 from a college fraternity brother to make whiskey-flavored toothpaste, and wound up on “What’s My Line?”
Life magazine sent a photographer to his assembly line, but Poynter didn’t have one. He was mostly a one-man operation. So, he enlisted some friends to play-act in a warehouse with empty boxes in the background because he had nearly sold out of the toothpaste.
He invented dozens of novelty toys, including a Little Black Box – when you turned it on, gears would move inside the box and a hand would emerge to turn it off… this same mechanism was later used to make a hand that grabbed coins, marketed as “Thing” from “The Addams Family” TV show.
He dreamt up dry cleaning bags printed with dresses from Disney Characters so kids could use them as costumes. Walt Disney called it “the best promotion I have ever seen.”
He invented this:
And this:
His toys were featured on The Tonight Show and Late Night with David Letterman.
“Almost everything I’ve ever done is either making someone laugh or giving them pleasure, and if I didn’t, I’d be out of business.”
It’s an “off year” for voting. No big names at the top of the ticket. No president to elect. Ho-hum.
In Cincinnati, today’s election will only determine the new mayor. And the new members of City Council. And the school board. Oh, and there are a couple of proposed tax levies, and one charter amendment. NBD.
Actually, it’s a very big deal. The new mayor and City Council members will help determine the direction of our city. The school board will have a huge influence on the education of our children. The tax levies will come out of our pockets. The amendment proposal would make eight (count ’em) major changes to the city charter.
Voting may not be as exciting this year, but it’s just as important.
Geez, it’s mid-October already? I can’t believe more than a month has passed and I’ve yet to encourage you to feast your eyeballs upon the glorious wonderment of my stellar writing in the September issue of Cincinnati Magazine. (Ouch! I just broke my arm trying to pat myself on the back.)
OK, I know I need to pump the brakes on the “glorious” and the “stellar” and any other sort of superlatives. But as a wannabe writer, it’s pretty darn cool to get a byline.
The assignment (courtesy of my old friend John Fox, the editor of Cincinnati Magazine) was a fun one: walk a new hike/bike path and share some observations and pointers.
My piece was part of their September issue cover package on “Walking” (a timely topic during yet another pandemic wave).
The full article is online here. If you like it, let me know. If you don’t like it… take a hike!
My buddy Dave and I have been doing a podcast for nearly three years. It’s called “97X Rumblings from the Big Bush,” and it’s about a dearly departed modern rock/alternative/college rock/indie (pick any of those) radio station. Dave and I both worked there in the 90s. The station never made a scratch in the Cincinnati market ratings, much less a dent. But the few folks who did tune in weren’t just casual listeners, they were truly passionate about the music. And 97X was their tribe, the place where they belonged.
The terrestrial station (97.7 FM in Oxford, Ohio) gave up the ghost in 2004. The online version (woxy.com) was lost to the ether in 2010. But it still holds a very special place in the hearts of those who remember it. And that’s the target audience for our podcast. It’s too small to even be a niche, but we don’t mind.
We publish a new episode roughly every two weeks, and we probably average around 160 downloads.
Joe Rogan is not in danger of losing his podcasting crown, that’s for sure.
Over the three years, we’ve published 66 episodes. Each one requires scheduling a call, doing the interview, editing each episode down to roughly 20 minutes, uploading and posting it. (We probably should promote it too, but we stink at that!). So it’s easily two hours of work per episode. We’ve made the princely sum of zero dollars and zero cents for our efforts. (Actually it’s a loss leader – we have to pay for podcast hosting.) But as Dave and I like to say, “we’ve made 150 people very happy” because we’re helping them reconnect with a station that meant a lot to them, and reconnect with the people who made it so special.
Here’s an email we got about a month ago — I think it sums up why Dave and I continue to do the podcast:
Hey Dave and Damian!
I discovered 97X: Rumblings from the Big Bush on Spotify, and have been binge listening for weeks to get caught up! This past weekend I listened all the way down to Nashville and again all the way back, and you made the trip go by so fast.
I love this podcast so much. Hearing your voices and your guests take me right back. This is going to be a long email.
I grew up in Crosby Township, just south of Ross Ohio, surrounded by cornfields, with a view of the Fernald uranium plant in the distance.
My family wasn’t really into music. As a kid their idea of good entertainment was “Hee Haw”. My older siblings listened to 70s lite rock and country music. I knew none of this was for me, but I didn’t know what was.
I was in middle school in 1983 when my brother came home from college one weekend and played some new music he’d heard from friends. When I heard The Go-Gos for the first time, I thought it was the weirdest thing I ever heard — and I LOVED IT. Around that time too my just older sister and her high school friends were listening to British pop. I went to a friend’s house for a sleepover, and they had cable tv. We watched the U2 Red Rocks concert on MTV, and I was amazed. I was getting closer, but I still couldn’t find anything in any steady stream that was for me. All I heard was Q102.
Then one day about 1985, I was in my room flipping through my collection of Star Hits magazines, looking at photos of Depeche Mode and other British bands, wondering what they sounded like, and scrolling through the radio dial…when all of a sudden I heard the most outrageous sounds coming from the speakers. I found 97X!
That was about the only good thing about where I lived: 97X came in crystal clear and was like an oasis among the fields of corn. The music you played opened my mind and heart to soundscapes so different than anything I’d ever known. You took me to places I was sure I’d never get to go. How lucky was I!
I remember the summers in high school listening to 97X. I always had leftover notebooks at the end of the school year. So I ripped out all my biology and algebra notes, and used up the remaining pages keeping lists of songs I heard and liked on the radio. I filled pages and pages. I hung on every note, counted each song, waiting for you to backsell what you just played so I could write it down. (Gosh I wish I still had those lists!)
Whenever I could, I kept a Memorex 90 minute cassette in the player so I could spring from my bed in time to hit record/play and catch those songs and make mix tapes. And I waited all week for Saturday overnights when you’d play an album in its entirety. I struggled to stay awake til midnight just to hit record, then turned the volume low so I could sleep. In the morning I rewound to listen back, and was either happy or bummed to find out if the entire album fit on one side. I remember getting XTC “Apples and Oranges” that way, and The Indigo Girls and The Smithereens. Then later I would make my own album covers from a collage of pictures and patterns I’d find in magazines.
I didn’t have an allowance or a job, so I’d save my lunch money up to buy used albums whenever I could. In anticipation of The Smiths’ “Louder Than Bombs” I saved and rolled coins for weeks and weeks til I had enough plus tax to buy it brand new at Camelot Music in Northgate Mall. (I think the clerk hated me for my rolls of taped up coins, but I was too excited to care.)
I also didn’t get to go to shows, but did manage two unforgettable ones I heard about on 97X. I got to see Echo & the Bunnymen at Millett Hall, and Gene Loves Jezebel at Bogart’s (I think RedMath opened for them there?)
After I graduated high school in 1989, I went to a little Christian college in Kentucky. The kids there tried to get me into their Christian music, but most of it stunk, bad. Then someone suggested I give the band The Choir a try, and finally I was like, “These are my people!” Bands like The Choir, The Prayer Chain, The Seventy Sevens, and anything by Michael Knott would have fit so well with 97X’s format! I’m still a fan of them and all the music from 97X to this day.
I wish I could say you inspired me to pursue a creative career in music or art or something that would have made me an interesting adult. I’m just a music fan, is all, but can’t play or sing or anything. I got married and became a stay at home mom. But a freaking cool one. (My kids have turned out cool too, they dig all my music and introduce me to theirs.)
Really I just wanted to let you know how much 97X meant to me in my teen years. You truly saved me. I can’t fully express how much you did. But I am Here in large part because of this station. You gave me hope and an outlet. I heard you, and my spirit felt heard in return.
Thank you so much for doing this podcast. Also excited to find playlists on Spotify, and I tuned-in to Inhailer radio for the first time today. And I just ordered a 97X t-shirt from Unsung Salvage Design in Hamilton that I will proudly wear wherever I go.
Please let me know if you are on Facebook. An episode I heard this weekend mentioned “WOXY Forever” but I couldn’t find it. I found the 97X WOXY Alums closed group, but I wasn’t an employee so… The only other page I could find is WOXY.COM The Future of Rock and Roll, which hasn’t been posted to since 2011.
Thanks! Jen
See? I told you it was more than just a radio station. And it was more than a home for independent music… it was a refuge for whole bunch of folks like Jen who felt like they didn’t fit in anywhere else…. and 97X became their home.
Really I just wanted to let you know how much 97X meant to me in my teen years. You truly saved me. I can’t fully express how much you did. But I am here in large part because of this station. You gave me hope and an outlet. I heard you, and my spirit felt heard in return.
(We got Jen’s permission to print her email, in case you were wondering.)
The station and its programming was driven by the idea that true independence is possible only when practiced with and for other people. The book argues that this idea of independence is what we need to fight the 21st century corporate mainstream, which is driven by the false idea that real independence is being left to fend for yourself.
Robin James, describing the book she’s writing about 97X. Read more here.
The Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County have partnered with Dean Regas, an astronomer with the Cincinnati Observatory, to offer telescopes for free to library patrons.
The library has five Orion StarBlast 4.5-inch astronomical telescopes available for checkout at branches around the city. Each telescope can be reserved for 21 days, and comes with two eye pieces, an Orion EZ Finder II Reflex Sight, a star chart and two of Regas’ books—”100 Things to See in the Night Sky” and “Facts from Space!”— to guide viewers through their star-viewing experience.
I think it’s really cool that the library is doing this. Most kids — and adults — spend way too much time with their heads down, staring at their phones. Looking up can reveal whole new worlds – literally and figuratively.
Speaking of telescopes, one plays a prominent role in an excellent short story by John Young, who lives in Cincinnati.
From John Young’s “A Membrook Man”
The story appears in his book Fire in the Field and Other Stories, which is a collection of 16 of his short stories, all of which are thoroughly engaging. Highly recommended – check it out… and maybe check out a telescope while you’re at it.
“The 2021 Presidential Scholars represent extraordinary achievements for our extraordinary times,” U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said in a news release. “I am delighted to join President Biden in saluting these outstanding young people for their achievements, service, character and continued pursuit of excellence. Their examples make me proud and hopeful about the future. Honoring them can remind us all of the great potential in each new generation and renew our commitment to helping them achieve their dreams.”
Like the Secretary of Education, I’m proud and hopeful about the future too. I’m also proud that half of the Presidential Scholars semifinalists in the entire state of Ohio — 11 kids — hail from the Cincinnati area. Two of these scholars (Aidan Finn and Anna Rahner) started their scholarly journey in the same Montessori classrooms as my kids. Three of the semifinalists attended Walnut Hills High School, where all four of our kids attended junior high, and three attended (or are still attending) high school. Another semifinalist went to McNicholas High School, also the alma mater of our oldest child and my lovely bride.
I’m not claiming any sort of transitive property that makes my kids super-scholars by association. But I do think grade schools like Sands Montessori lay a strong foundation for all the kids going to school there, and high schools like Walnut Hills and McNicholas help them blossom. The kids get the awards, but the teachers deserve a ton of credit for bringing out the best in their students.
“Our chief want in life is someone who shall make us do what we can.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
You can read more about the semifinalists in this story from Cincinnati.com. And you can read about the two area Presidential Scholars in this article. Aidan Finn, who started at Sands Montessori, is one of them. We know his family well, and couldn’t be happier for them. The qualities cited by the Secretary of Education include “service” and “character” and Aidan and his younger sister have that in spades.
Aidan founded Tutor Teens with his sister, Erin, at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. The volunteer tutoring program matches Cincinnati area high school tutors to students across the region. There are tutors from more than a dozen local high schools in the program tutoring students from more than 70 local schools. The program is virtual and free.
A few years from now, no one will care what these Presidential Scholars got on their ACT or SAT… but “service” and “character” will matter for the rest of their lives.
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You done said…