RADIO FREE I’ON
Mt. Pleasant’s emerald city, a.k.a. I’On, got a bit quirkier last weekend when the community’s young radio station (AM 1640) broadcast Suspense Theatre’s The Doctor Prescribed Death. The show probably won’t ring many bells for the majority of readers — it originally hit the airwaves in 1940, when the family hearth was a three-foot-tall radio. But I’On resident Fred DeFillipo remembers it, and he wants to keep the memory of the Golden Age of radio alive. His Old Time Radio Show, which began airing last weekend via the internet and a short-range AM broadcast, grew out of a youthful love affair with the radio programs he grew up with, from the crusading adventures of the Green Hornet to the dramatic westerns of the Lone Ranger.
The format for DeFillipo’s show includes broadcasts of old-time originals and interviews with locals who’ll wax nostalgic with their own memories of the classic shows. DeFillipo also plans to incorporate a historical backbone to the show. Dragnet and Flash Gordon both had their start on radio, he says.
Fred’s Old Time Radio will present a new program each Saturday at 11 a.m., with encores on Sundays at 3 p.m., Tuesdays at 10 a.m., and Wednesdays at 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. If you live outside of the station’s tiny 100 watt range, visit www.ionradio1640.com for a live feed over the internet. —Neal Sakash
BLACK ART TOUR
With Black History Month officially upon us, the Gibbes Museum of Art is launching a new self-guided tour of African-American art in the museum’s permanent collection. A glossy two-sided flyer showcases nine select pieces, including Jonathan Green’s vibrant and breezy “Corene,” Hale Woodruff’s Depression-era photo “Old Church,” and a charcoal portrait of Denmark Vesey created by Charles White, a recent acquisition now mounted in the gallery’s main hallway. Gibbes executive assistant Jesse Hendrix says the flyers are an alternative for visitors who have missed the staff guided tour, which is offered just once or twice a day. If the experiment proves popular, curators may expand the fact sheets to include other permanent exhibits. —NS
CULTURE CLASH
In Jane magazine this month, Strokes drummer Fabrizio Moretti hilariously reports that he was busted bonking wild-child actress Drew Barrymore in the bathroom of the Metropolitan Opera last December during a performance of La Boheme. The best part: it was the women’s bathroom, and a surprised, tinkling matron turned informer. Who knew arias were such an aphrodisiac? —PS
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