c.
2018 Rod Ice
All
rights reserved
(8-18)
Ithaca
High School, Ithaca, New York
September,
1978
Miss
Nolan: “Attention, class. Our assignment today is to explore your
career goals, after graduation. I would like each of you to write an
essay about where you see yourself in 20 years. But first, let’s
get an idea of what paths you would like to choose. I want to have
volunteers give their plans for tomorrow!”
Johnny
Falko: “I want to be an astronaut. That would be awesome! Like
Major Tom, you know.”
Cheryl
De Sayle: “I like art. I want to travel the world and paint what I
see. Like making a diary on canvas.”
Don
Cortelli: “I am joining the Army next year. America needs people to
defend our liberty!”
Audrey
Ainge: “I enjoy working with books. I want to study library
sciences in college.”
Sharon
Hrezick: “I want to design clothes. And work with pretty runway
models.”
Rod
Ice: “I want to be a newspaper columnist. You know, write about
what is happening on a regular basis. Maybe have my work syndicated
around the country. I enjoy reading the words of Mike Royko, Jimmy
Breslin and Erma Bombeck...”
Cult
Radio A Go-Go, California
September
2018
Tiffany
May DuFoe: “I would like to welcome our guest for the evening, Rod
‘Swindle’ Ice from Cleveland, Ohio.”
Rod
Ice: “Greetings from Lake Erie!”
Tiffany
May DuFoe: “Rod, how did you get started as a creative writer?”
Rod
Ice: “Well, I always wanted to be a newspaper columnist. That
section of the paper was always my favorite as a kid… and
the comics, of course.”
Tiffany
May DuFoe: “HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!”
Rod
Ice: (With embarrassment) “Okay, I have gotten that kind of
reaction before...”
Tiffany
May DuFoe: “A newspaper columnist? Really?”
Rod
Ice: “It sounds a bit nerdish, right? But one of my earliest
memories is sitting in my Dad’s office at home, when he was away. I
would put a sheet of paper in his Underwood typewriter and try to
make up a story about my day at school. He wrote all the time and
watching him work set the pattern for me as a junior scribe.”
Tiffany
May DuFoe: “So, you started writing at what age?”
Rod
Ice: “Well, I remember drawing pictures and jotting down prose
ideas while visiting my grandparents in the 60’s. I was just a
little kid. When I had turned nine years old, my parents got me a
functional, plastic typewriter for Christmas. I used that to set up
my own office, the next summer. My desk was a square of plywood on
top of a steel trash barrel.”
Tiffany
May DuFoe: (Snorting) “That sounds crazy!”
Rod
Ice: “It worked. This was in the basement, across from our washer
and dryer. I would wait until nobody was around and then the ideas
would appear. I wrote adventure stories with stuffed animals in the
household as characters. My younger sister and brother thought it was
stupid.”
Tiffany
May DuFoe: “Do they write?”
Rod
Ice: “No.”
Tiffany
May DuFoe: “So you were ten years old and reading Mike Royko in the
newspaper?”
Rod
Ice: “Yeah.”
Tiffany
May DuFoe: “Did your friends think that was strange?”
Rod
Ice: “Of course. I had a lot of interests. Old cars and
motorcycles, music, comic books, even radio broadcasting. My father
did a five-minute devotional program that got run on one of our local
stations. I recall going there with him to deliver the tapes. It was
on reel-to-reel, you know. I enjoyed being in the studio with all
that electronic equipment. One of my friends knew how to make a crude
transmitter and I set it up with a homemade microphone, also in the
basement. I would play records and create my own shows. I called the
station WOLF after Wolfman Jack, one of my heroes.”
Tiffany
May DuFoe: “So how did you get into television?”
Rod
Ice: “I happened to find an apprenticeship program sponsored by
Cornell University. Studies in radio & television production. Of
course I wanted to be a disc jockey. But the wait list was long for
that opportunity, apparently everyone had the same idea. I could get
right into the TV part of the program, at Channel 13, our cable
access station.”
Tiffany
May DuFoe: “So you hosted a ‘Punk Rock’ show?”
Rod
Ice: “Eventually. But first, I learned about putting a broadcast
together. I started stringing cables, setting up lights and
microphones, and then doing camera work. After that, I moved to the
control room. At one time, I worked on everything produced at the
channel. About a dozen different shows. On subjects from world music
to community affairs to local history.”
Tiffany
May DuFoe: “How did people react when you brought ‘Punk’ music
to the channel?”
Rod
Ice: (Laughing) “They reacted badly at first. There were different
organizations who wanted us off the air. My father was a member of
one group, so that did not help.”
Tiffany
May DuFoe: “WOW! So where did the ‘Swindle’ name come from?”
Rod
Ice: “I was told that my antics on television were soiling the
family name. So I took inspiration from the Sex Pistols. From their
movie, ‘The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle.’ I thought it
sounded good.”
Tiffany
May DuFoe: “So, outrage helped make the show a success?”
Rod
Ice: “Right. We used to take live phone calls and averaged 75 –
100 per night. This was on Friday at 11:30 p.m. right after the local
news. We had a live studio audience and things could get raucous. The
police visited sometimes, although they were very professional. We
had local students in the audience, kids from Cornell and Ithaca
College. The atmosphere was unpredictable. Once, a guy approached me
on the set and handed off a quart of Miller High Life beer. I did not
know what to do, so I chugged it and gave him back the empty bottle.
That got us in trouble. Some regulation about consuming alcoholic
beverages on the air.”
Tiffany
May DuFoe: “Hee hee!”
Rod
Ice: “Nelson Rockefeller died, he had been governor of New York.
There was some controversy about him having been with a mistress or
something like that... I saluted him on the air and the mainstream
citizens went nuts. There were a lot of angry letters to the station.
But the audience cheered my comments.”
Tiffany
May DuFoe: “Sounds ‘Punk’ to me!”
Rod
Ice: “The show lasted 14 months. After that, I worked on a band
project called ‘Absolute Zero.’ Our bassist was a younger brother
of Tommy Hilfiger, the fashion designer. We made two 45 rpm singles
and were working on a third when I ended up homeless, and living
under a bridge.”
Tiffany
May DuFoe: “Then what did you do?”
Rod
Ice: “The family had returned to Ohio. I crawled home at the end of
1983. Earlier that year, I had begun to write for a west-coast
magazine called ‘Biker Lifestyle.’ My editor was Robert Lipkin,
who went by the moniker of Bob Bitchin. When I crashed back in the
Midwest, the typewriter provided therapy for me… that brought my
life back to the beginning.”
Tiffany
May DuFoe: “Back to being a writer. And a newspaper columnist?”
Rod
Ice: “I wrote a letter to the editor of our local newspaper in 1998
and he reacted by asking if I had more content for the publication.
That started a series of columns called ‘Thoughts At Large’ that
ran for 16 years.”
Tiffany
May DuFoe: “What was the column about?”
Rod
Ice: “I used to say it was like the ‘Seinfeld’ show. A column
about nothing. But more specifically, it drew energy from my everyday
life, like Harvey Pekar’s “American Splendor’ series. My
editors at the paper never suggested any subject matter. I made it up
every week.”
Tiffany
May DuFoe: “So, what are you doing now?”
Rod
Ice: “I published five books. The last in 2015. Now, I am doing a
new column series called ‘Words On The Loose.’ It is online and
also at Facebook.”
Tiffany
May DuFoe: “Okay, Rod, we are out of time. Thanks for joining us
here on CRAGG Live! Goodnight everybody and ‘happy trails’ to
you!”
Comments
about ‘Words On The loose’ may be sent to:
icewritesforyou@gmail.com
Write
us at: P. O. Box 365 Chardon, OH 44024
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