What’s the story here, chief? What the hell’s going on with this site?

Well, I’m not sure what accounts for the mildly hostile tone from the get-go. But this site aims to be a repository for all kinds of writing, cutting across various categories-- from rock ‘n’ roll, to travel, to TV and film and books and media, to all kinds of dining experiences--along with the occasional bit of photography both directly tied to the text and unrelated to it.

Hmm. And what’s with this so-called Oddio section?

Right now, at least, that’ll be two-fold, reflecting our great love for the radio medium. One fold, as it were, will feature archived or otherwise recorded radio programs I’ve done in recent months at KDVS, a 9000-watt freeform fiercely-independent radio station in Davis, California. It began life some 30 years ago as just another college radio station--tied to the University of California at Davis--but over the years transcended that status by virtue of such factors as its geographical location, its signal strength (campus-related stations often boast 50 or maybe 500 watts; 9000 is pretty unprecedented) and its programming, a wildly diverse slate featuring, say, a cooking show and a legal- issues call in interspersed with music spanning every single genre, and then some.

KDVS Station photo

Back in November of 2001, I did my first KDVS show in numerous years, and it was a truly rugged affair: I was rather rusty, bedeviled by some of the equipment, sorely lacking in confidence (rightly so, it turned out), and--for these and other reasons-- experiencing enough cumulative stress to unintentionally re-create Albert Brooks’ flop-sweat scene from “Broadcast News.” There were plenty of mistakes, plenty of dead air--this is why I dubbed my subsequent KDVS shows “The Dead Air Zone.” Of course, that name has ended up being ironic to varying degrees, including not at all. For more on those shaky shifts on KDVS, head to Oddio. For more on KDVS-- including listening online--www.KDVS.org.

Yeah, OK, and the other “fold”?

The other fold in Oddio will be a far more active and steadily growing area, consisting of so-called audio essays--the best ones may evoke NPR-like commentaries, though more typically, they may just sound like an annoying guy blabbing about one thing or another. Either way, we will try to mix it up: Many may be tied to the text found elsewhere on the site--as either longer or shorter aural counterparts of written pieces about a band, film, play, book, TV show, restaurant, travel destination, whatever--but some will simply be freestanding observations and editorials.

When you mention the text, it reminds me:
Why should we care what you write about a CD or band--anything else, for that matter?

Frankly, I’m not sure you should. I’m just a guy with a web site and a keyboard (or microphone) weighing in on things that interest me for one reason or another. It’s certainly nothing more than that, though it may well be something less.

I don’t know if you can go home again--or even how aptly that cliché applies here-- but many years and at least one career ago, I used to do this kind of thing for a living, working for more than a decade as a writer-critic primarily for The Los Angeles Times, but also contributing to Musician (considered The New Yorker of music magazines, it folded some years ago), Rolling Stone, Trouser Press (a peppy, sharp-edged alternative to Rolling Stone and Musician, often focusing on “new wave”/punk artists; folded), LA Weekly, BAM (a regional publication--the acronym stood for Bay Area Music--that expanded from its Northern California base to all of California, briefly went national, then folded), the Sacramento Bee, and other publications, including The California Aggie, the UC Davis student newspaper where I started the whole writing thing . . .

The chief topics I wrote about during my professional writing days were rock ‘n’ roll and comedy, but I also wandered onto all kinds of other journalistic ground, from television to restaurants (not only reviewing eateries, but also doing features including an L.A. Times Magazine profile of Marie Callender and her namesake restaurant chain). I’d like to think it’s just coincidental that at least three of the publications I wrote for subsequently went out of business.


All this blather about your past writing experience sort of begs the question:
What’s this “Past Pontificating” thing?

That’s pretty much just a catch-all for certain previous pieces, whether they’re as recent as ones done in the last year or so--including for the KDVS program guide/’zine KDViationS and new stuff written specifically for this site--to selected ancient items that, over time, may be plucked from the dusty shelves of the vault and added to this section. In addition to recently-written, newly-archived site text, this may well end up including a 1988 Rolling Stone opus on the world of comedy clubs and comedians (remember that comedy issue with Carson & Letterman on the cover?), as well as select articles from Musician, the Los Angeles Times and maybe others.

What’s with the black cat in the window?

That’s Otis, clearly the brains of the Strauss-McGarr operation. In fact, he does have extremely impressive problem-solving skills (some of which, unfortunately, are occasionally applied to his very successful hunting efforts), and often sits on my desk, providing inspiration and disdainful looks in approximately equal measure. Much of the time, he’s purring, and for a small cat, Otis has a very big purr...

Anything else we should know?

Well, yeah. Among other things, you should know that this site was designed by John Taylor, who’s obviously tremendously skillful and gifted at creating web sites and, not coincidentally, is also a topnotch graphic artist. If you’d like to contact John about web sites or other graphic art-type projects, click here.

And, perhaps giving new meaning to the term “multitasking,” John’s additionally an enormously talented and prolific singer-songwriter-guitarist, who as the leader of Whisper Machine or under his own name, has (home)made a bunch of great records. They mostly consist of wonderful songs traversing a handful of styles, but also include instrumentals and pieces of soundtracks-waiting-to-happen. To find out more about John’s musical side--and hear some of his music--head over here.

OK, that’s it for now...