From Tony Cucurullo

If your paper didn't publish the list of the Bush Cabinet appointments, as
mine didn't. Here they are for you to know.
tony c

THE BUSH CABINET:

Andrew Card (Chief of Staff)

Robert Zoellick (U.S. Trade Representative)
Elaine Chao (Secretary of Labor)
Spencer Abraham (Secretary of Energy)
Norman Mineta (Secretary of Transportation)
Anthony Principi (Secretary of Veterans Affairs)
Rod Paige (Secretary of Education)
Tommy Thompson (Scty Health & Human Services)
Gale Norton (Secretary of the Interior)
Donald Rumsfeld (Secretary of Defense)
John Ashcroft (Attorney General)
Christine Whitman (EPA Administrator)
Paul O'Neill (Secretary of Treasury)
Colin Powell (Secretary of State)
Don Evans (Secretary of Commerce)
Mel Martinez (Secretary of HUD)
Ann Veneman (Secretary of Agriculture)

From Gayle DePoli

very sweet....thank you very much Papa.  Happy Valentine's Day to you as well.

I'm off to Salt Lake City tomorrow for two days.  Followed by two days in Raleigh where I will see Mark Ganguzza and David Graham.  Then two days in New Orleans.  I will come home and then three weeks in Mexico City for a game
show.  OH brother...do I know how to pick them or what?

From Tony Landry

Working in the CBS Lab 

When I was loaned to the CBS's General Engineering Group in New York City, I was told that     in between R.F. assignments I would work in the Lab.                        

Howard A Chinn, CBS's top authority on all technical matters, explained to me that they were interested in upgrading and modernizing all their studio equipment to handle all foreseeable conditions that could occur. 

Chinn kept asking all the tech reps that visited him from time to time, when were they going to upgrade their equipment?  How about plug-in amplifiers for fast servicing?  They were all of one opinion, that it was not advisable.  Chinn thought otherwise 

My first assignment was to design and build a pre-amp that was plug-in for fast servicing.  A firm bar of angle iron was necessary, into which the plug-inn amp was plugged.  The receptacle was a large Jones Power type.   The Plug mounted on the pre-amp was a matching Jones Power type.  When the plug-in amp was finished Chinn said "that looks fine, now, we want you to design and build a plug-in line amplifier."

 At that time, we were using vacuum tubes.  Transistors came later.  These amplifiers were smaller, lighter and easier to handle for fast servicing.   This was a great new innovation for the broadcast industry.

 My next assignment was to make a list of all General Engineering equipment for a yearly accountability report.   Chinn mentioned that time was getting short, Bill Fitch and I would be leaving for a trip south for a period of one month, and if at all possible could he have the report before we left.  He also mentioned that the last two reports could not account for a missing oscilloscope and stated "see what you can do about that."  I made one phone call and located the missing oscilloscope.  It really was easy, I knew where to look for it.  The oscilloscope was at Wayne NJ's 10KW transmitter, and that was where Wilfred Scherer W2AEF was assigned.  Scherer was a busy guy, he needed the oscilloscope as he was writing technical articles for CQ Radio Magazine; to which he contributed many fine articles.   Remember the Antenna Scope? The Magnetometer? Or the Grid Dip Meter?   When he retired he, Wilfred Scherer became the CQ Radio Magazine Technical Editor.  

I did not have much time to get the accountability report typed.  Our pool secretary, Jean Carey, was up to her ears with work; no help there.  Across the hall was Bill Lodge's secretary, Miss Kraus, who did not seem busy.  So I wondered if a little "flower power" would help me.  In the springtime we had a large plot of lilac bush blooms.  Every day I would bring in two large bunches of lilacs.  One was for Jean Carey and the other one for Miss Kraus.  Lilacs being very fragrant, everyone enjoyed them.   I wandered into Miss Kraus's office and asked if she could help me.  She said "sure".  After this was done I exited Miss Kraus office and saw Chinn and handed him the report he requested.  He asked "how did you do it?" I said Miss Kraus did it for me.  He asked "you asked Miss Kraus?"  I said "not only did she do it for me but she was glad to do it."   We left for our trip south on time and Chinn had his complete report.

 When we came back one month later, Chinn had checked out the plug-in amplifiers and had installed them in a small covered space alongside his desk.  The tech reps had been invited to bring a speaker if they had one for a test and evaluation report.  They were asked to evaluate a new speaker for RCA that had been delivered recently.  He particularly wanted their opinion on it.  A number of speakers were submitted.  They were placed on a small stage and hidden from view by a light screen.  Each speaker was numbered and only Chinn knew which speaker belonged to whom.  Each speaker that was being tested would show a lighted number.  When that speaker was finished with the test a new number would light up, and so on until all of the speakers were listened to and evaluated.  Each tech rep was given a pad and pencil to record his evaluation and urged to make comments (good/bad) about the speakers.   One tech rep was particularly vocal about one certain speaker.   Chinn then said they could relax and listen to some good classical music while the results were compiled.   After a few minutes Chinn opened the little door on the left side of his desk, reached in and pulled out a plug-in pre-amp and placed it on his desktop.  The music had stopped playing through the speakers,  all eyes were fixed on that amplifier. No one said a word.  Chinn then shoved the amplifier back in and in about 20 seconds the music resumed coming from the speakers.   The music continued for a few minutes, then Chinn removed the line amplifier and placed it on his desktop.   The music from the speakers again stopped.  This time, however, everyone got up and closely examined the line amplifier without saying a word.  Chinn then announced that both of the amplifier s were designed and built in the General Engineering Lab.  He then replaced the line amplifier and again the music resumed.

 By this time all tech reps received a compiled copy of their evaluation and comments.  One person was very unhappy,  his disparaging remarks were about his own speaker.  After that all tech reps visiting Chinn were very cautious in making remarks about the product they represented.

 About three months later and old-time manufacturer of studio broadcast equipment announced a new product, a plug-in amplifier for fast servicing.  This was the start of a new era of reliability in the industry.   Chinn had won his argument.

Note from Les:  Spoke with Tony the other day, he will be celebrating his 94th Birthday the 25th of this month.

From Tony Cucurullo

February 8, 2001   
        I listened to a story today about how Woody Allen produces his movies. He uses a mix-media technique. It isn't new, but it is at least innovative. He shoots the scenes in video format then transfers them digitally to film for distribution to the theatres. 
           Right here I should end this story at let your juices flow. Mine reached the boiling point.  We come from an industry that is mired down in the quagmire of penurious and stifled  thinkers. They can't see the forest for the trees. The profit motive is the driving force behind the production of television shows.
            Men, such as Joe Flaherty had the verve and foresight to propel the industry forward to the point that it is today. But there needed to be a William Fox, Jack Warner, DeMille, even gutsy guys like Busby Berkley, to come into television and create the quality and enduring artwork as they did in the movie industry. True though, money, budgets...is really the secret ingredient to the success.  Our failure was too not have a research and development department that did not only improve technically and electronically…but we missed the boat in not developing talent, and writing techniques for television. It would have been another department where we produced movies for the theaters using television talent and techniques. As the movie industry now does.
        Did we have the ideas? You bet your ass we did! When Tisch brought in his movie people to brain wash the unions at a meeting, I spoke out, and proclaimed that we could do what they needed only we would do it with television people.
            I spoke for at least ten minutes, naming the crew that could turn out a quality production at half the cost. It got their attention, but the theme of the meeting was already preordained, and orchestrated by that sycophant, and budget wizard Ed Greedy Grebow.
        This is the guy that came to his first meeting and proudly proclaimed that he was the one that fired, Joe DiMaggio, (he was doing a Bowery Bank commercial at the time, and Grebow was in the bank system).  I stunned the crap outta him by screaming in the middle of his speech," you did what you son-of-bitch, you are proud that you fired an
icon?" Well he leaned over from the podium and asked Mr. Jim Sirmons,"Who is that?" Jim replied, "He is the president of the union." He took that to mean the head of the international union, Mr. John Barry. After, his opening, and when it was time for lunch, he sent one of the vice-presidents of CBS over to me and asked me to have a private lunch with him. I agreed and took Keith Morris with me. We were enjoying lunch and exchanging ideas when he asked me if he could visit me in my office in Washington, DC. I told him I didn't have an office there, but he could reach me in the equipment crib where I was working at the time. I told him I was a technician, and also the President of the local union in New York.  
           He was a brilliant accountant, but the wrong person to lead a company that required a dynamic, and imaginative leader. We wasted a lot of time with him and Tisch. Now the plant isn't anything as I imagined it would be. But the potential is there still. The need to grow with the advent of wide screen, and 3-dimensional television just down the road. Digital editing, and all the wonders yet to behold.  The union will eventually be representing mostly per-diems, as does the IA the movie industry union.
         It is going to take some giant leap in faith by a visionary to move along with the rest of the television/movie business, if CBS is to be a player in the future.
Tony C

From Lee Levy

Do you remember Joe the Hot Dog Vendor under the West Side Highway ?  He used to sell  from spring through fall then go back to Greece and and count all the singles he made.  A cash business that brought him Cab Drivers, Cops, Garbage Men and the CBS crowd.  On a nice day even the CBS Executives would take a walk over and have a hot dog. This little stand made the best Hamburgers on the grill with onions.. I can smell them now.  As a matter of fact every now and then they still repeat on me.  It's funny how we remember small things that make us smile today... Keep up the good works and don't let the alligators get you down.    Lee Levy the kid from West Palm Beach  

From Les Burkhardt

I had penned the following bit for the site the other day and little did I know that Tony Cucurullo would pen something in the same area of thought.

Father Flannigan and the Helicopter Pilot

During the last period of the 80's CBS went through many changes.   Majority controlling interest of the company had changed when a "White Knight in Shining Armor" (as quoted in one of the New York dailies) purchased a good portion of the company and became Chairman of the Board.   He also brought in an individual from a banking arena to sit as Executive Vice-President.

One of their first moves was to hire Cooper-Liebrant (sp) to evaluate the company and make its operation more cost effective.   The two persons representing C/L was a Mr. Flannigan and an Israelli Military Helicopter pilot (I just can't recall his name but do recall that he was real proud of this Military position).  These two persons had just completed a study at some Can Company and were quite successful in creating a cost saving revamped operation there. 

I along with Jergen Kirleis and John Karpus had an office on the 6^th (again I think) floor of the 518 building.  Mind you that all three of us were Managers of the Technical Maintenance Groups, who were located in the 530 building on the first floor.  That kept us right in the center of all our maintenance operations (sic).  The two representatives from C/L also had offices on the 6^th floor, directly across the hallway from us.

We would receive daily reports from our respective maintenance groups and then have to sit with the C/L reps and explain each and all hours entered on time cards plus explain the time periods for resolution of any malfunctions that created air failures.  They wanted to pigeon hole the maintenance time to correct a failure into time frames.  Little did they realize the amount of wiring and the distances that had to be considered when performing maintenance to just try and recreate the cause of the failure. These two individuals were trying to assimilate our operation into the same operation as would be used in a Can Factory.  I would never back down and try to cut overtime within my groups, others took the calculated risk and went short on coverage.  I feel that, luckily for the company, no major problems occurred during this period of study while some areas operated shorthanded.  I generally arrived for work at the Broadcast Center earlier than most other management persons and had the first daily discussion with the C/L reps   The one area of operation that drove these reps up a wall was the Stage Hands operation.  I guess there were a lot of sweetheart perks for the lead men in the crews that Father Flannigan could do nothing about.  I mean persons were given hours worked and they did not even show up for that assignment.  Another that they would get excited about was a crew assigned to one show and sitting idle was not allowed to perform any work for another show. 

I really don't know what changes these C/L reps had suggested to the upper executive levels, but I do know that I was the only manager who was allowed to hire personnel at he end of the C/L study.  I also don't feel that we never got to that Can Factory type operation.

From Emilly (Carl) Paulson

From Tony Cucurullo

I was just checking my e-mail when I received a thing about snow white and the dwarfs.......my virus protection kicked in and it was a bad one...lucky I got out of it. So be careful.  If you don't know the source don't accept anything
Tony

From George Smith

Hi Tony:

You're right; I had a hunch it might be a virus so I deleted it immediately.  Will catch up with you guys as soon as I get things squared away here.  Will try to get to the next CBS bash.  Got the bad news about Stan Mitchell. Let's all pray that he can make a speedy recovery. All the best, Tony.  73's George Smith

Note from Les:  This morning's newspaper made reference to another virus attached to a JPEG of Anna Kournikova.  The email generally comes with this in the subject line "Annakournikova.jpg.vbs" and carries the message "Check this".  Please for your own sake get a anti-virus program and keep the data base updated.

The following is a cut and paste of an email that I received this morning.  It is part of the reason to which I am creating this entry for the web site right now.  I have removed her email address from the correspondence but will add it to our growing list.

From Gayle O'Donnell (Tony Landry's daughter)

Dear Mr. Burkhardt

My Name is Gayle O'Donnell, the daughter of Tony Landry.  I just have to tell you what joy and excitement you and Tony Cucurello have brought to his life right now.  He's even talking about taking a computer course at the local college.  He truly enjoys writing his stories and hearing feedback from them.   I am now of the impression that those early days in CBS provided the best of memories for my Dad and he loves to share his experiences.   

My main reason for writing to you now is his 94th birthday on February 25th.   Last year I sent some money down to his local QCWA (quarter century wireless association) group to celebrate his birthday with cake at the monthly luncheon.  He was so surprised by their rendition of Happy Birthday that he had to call me right after getting home that day.  I was wondering if perhaps some of the folks who are on the Ham net, could be persuaded to offer some special birthday greetings on the air.  I know this would really perk him up.    Dad's radio is very important to him, and it's all he worries about when we visit.  My husband is always climbing trees or poles to add wires or adjust the ones already in place. 

My husband has accompanied Dad to a couple of your luncheons, whenever we could get him up here.  He always thoroughly enjoyed seeing the attendees as well as a few who actually remembered him.

Anyway, I'd like to keep in touch, and if there is anything you could do to make his birthday extra special this year, I'd really appreciate it.

Thank you very much...

Gayle O'Donnell

From Bill Murtough

Tony posted some interesting material about our early days at CBS. Henry Grossman hired me before I applied. That is another story. I had known Henry for many years. Talked about a Sunday morning musical program but could not recall the name. The name of the program was "New Voices In Song" featuring up and coming concert artists. Walberg Brown ("Brownie") was the conductor. As I recall, it was a string ensemble. A "Joe College" type kid, with a large "library  of jokes,  was the assigned staff announcer. His name was Sandy Becker. One Sunday someone in the studio was asking for the announcer. The AD advised them that it was the kid telling jokes in the studio. I ran into Sandy at an old time radio affair several years ago, not long before he died and he talked about the incident.

I was originally assigned to short wave studios and short wave master control. However one Sunday  morning the regular engineer on the program had called in sick so the gal on the schedule desk asked me to cover. When she found how much I enjoyed doing the program, I became the regular engineer on it. However, after a number of weeks, a "tattletale" complained that due to me being on the short-wave staff I should not be doing the show so I lost it. No, he didn't want the show, just a troublemaker.

I didn't run into the "tattletale" syndrome again until I went into television where it was quite prominent!

Sunday morning in those days was quite busy. Two "Church of the Air" broadcasts, one from a New York studio, the other from another city. The Mormon Choir from Salt Lake City with the "spoken word" by Richard Evans, organist Frank Asper, and J. Spencer Cornwall conducting the choir. I got to know the whole group while supervising their broadcast when they originated it one Sunday from  a Methodist church in San Bernardino. A real fun group with lots of laughs.

We had E. Power Biggs playing Bach on an organ in Boston. Lyman Bryson with "Invitation to Learning" interviewing authors. In the afternoon the New York Philharmonic from Carnegie Hall (Carl Schutzman and Harold Bridges were two of the engineers). Remind me to relate sometime about the incident on Invitation to Learning that overloaded the CBS
switchboard.

Bill Murtough

From Ted Perzeszty

                  NAIL IN THE FENCE

There once was a little boy who had a bad temper.  His Father gave him a bag of nails and told him that every time he lost his temper, he must hammer a nail into the back of the fence.
The first day the boy had driven 37 nails into the fence. Over the next few weeks, as he learned to control his anger, the number of nails hammered daily gradually dwindled down. He discovered it was easier to hold his temper than to drive those nails into the fence. Finally the day came when the boy didn't lose his temper at all. He boy now pull out one nail for each day that he was able to hold his temper.
The days passed and the young boy was finally able to tell his father that all the nails were gone. The father took his son by the hand and led him to the fence. He said, "You have done well, my son, but look at the holes in the fence. The fence will never be the same. When you say things in anger, they leave a scar just like this one. You can put a knife in a man and draw it out. It won't matter how many times you say I'm sorry, the wound is still there."  A verbal wound is as bad as a physical one. Friends are very rare jewels, indeed. They make you smile and encourage you to succeed. They lend an ear, they share words of praise and they always want to open their hearts to us."

HAPPY FRIENDSHIP WEEK TO YOU!!!!!!
YOU ARE MY FRIEND AND I AM HONORED!

Please forgive me if I have ever left a hole in your fence.    Best regards ----------------- Teddy   

From Tony Cucurullo

   We have touched on the subject about CBS women before. Traipsing lightly about their contributions to the overall corporate effort. Mentioning the grace and beauty of the stars, and performers. Making  mention that we had as technicians some ladies that could make a cameraman glow with a winsome smile.

 And even on some rare occasion or two, a wife, or family member would grace the set or office with a personal appearance delighting the staff with their charm and wit and thereby overcoming the stereo profiling that cloaked their mundane, and innocuous existence as housewives, mothers, and the sobriquet, "significant other."

 But for the, historical evolution from Og, the club bearing caveman, to the present, women would be more recognized, and would consequentially be assimilated into the homo sapiens society, "as equals" and go just as unnoticed as their club bearing counter-parts.

          But until all that changes and Betty Freidan, and her cohorts have  their ways, that all men would then be  castrated,…. after a sample of sperm was medically removed and stored for future insemination in the event, "A," certain male exhibited genetic traits thereby making him acceptable and viable as a eunuch, or even less a husband
          It is sad to an old geezer (such as I,) that some of the old fashioned female delights to the eye and mind have been shunted aside for the advancement of the woman's cause.
          I accept, and enjoy whatever front the  female species portrays.  For, even if they were as stagnant as Og enjoyed, they still titillate, and excite, to this day, the few remaining senses that haven't gone to repose as yet.
          But what the feminist can't legislate, or ban is the dreams and memories of the past. Hollywood and daytime TV present a picture of a lady that doesn't exist. Voluptuous, and manicured and coifed.  Life, presents a different picture. A woman, marked by the ravages of time, elements, and child bearing. These are the true images that abound, not the Hollywood or commercial girls.
 Yet, with all these physical changes, life has prepared all of us to accept the hand that was dealt to each of us. There is so much pleasure in looking past the surface of people and seeing the innate beauty that is the foundation of their being.  But it sure would be nice to see the ladies coming to work along 57th street, dressed to the nines. And seeing their smiling faces, and knowing that today by there very presence they will soften the blow of the corporate wind that erodes.
If GOD didn't create them, I don't remember seeing  anything to replace them in the Crib or any other stock room around CBS. Goodnight, Doris, Betty, Gayle, Anita, Karen, Lisa, Melanie, Susan, Linda, and Mary U U. I didn't leave any of you out. I claim a senior privilege, but you are all there firmly ensconced on the back porch of  my mind.