Dispatches from the Lost Moon

Fair Wind, Blowin' Warm

2011-06-11T15:45:00.000-07:00

Well, friends, it's been almost a year exactly since I quit my job at KTSH in a dramatic gesture of principle. Have these been the smoothest eleven months of my life? No. But they've been full of rediscovery and opportunity, and I have to say the future is really looking bright.

Case in point: I've been asked to do a guest DJ spot this week on Orange County's favorite classic rock station KXOJ (The Juice!). As you know, I've been lining up more and more of this subbing gigs, and this summer's going to be a great time for them, as a lot of the more steadily employed disc jockeys will be taking off on vacation. I think it's only a matter of time before Lost Moon Radio and I find a new permanent home.

I'm especially excited about this week's job because I'll be broadcasting live from the KXOJ Tent at the Orange County Fair. (Stop by and grab a bumper sticker!) So I'm loading up the ol' rocket with travel snacks and plotting a return course for Earth. As always, I'm looking forward to visiting the mother planet, and particularly the OC Fair. I haven't been in a number of years, but as a kid the fair was always one of the highlights of summer for me. I remember it like yesterday: tromping around in a the scorching heat, losing two month's allowance on the carnival games, betting on the pig races while eating chocolate-dipped bacon, and forcing my little brother David onto the tilt-a-whirl. He never wanted to go, but I know deep down he really loved it. The whole place was a kid's dream. I felt like Pinocchio on Pleasure Island, but no one tried to turn me into a donkey.

I also always love the fair for being the site of my first ever rock and roll concert: the Kingston Trio, who I saw under the stars in the open-air amphitheater when I was just seven or eight years old. I can still remember those perfect harmonies, calling my juvenile heart south of the border....

Speaking of musical guests, on the day of my broadcast the OC Fair is going to feature a very exciting pair of them, Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart! The Wilson sisters are old friends of mine from before I left Planet Earth, so I'm really looking forward to seeing their show. I'm hoping I can even convince them to drop by the KXOJ tent for a quick hello on the air. Fingers crossed.

Anyway, you should get tickets to Heart's show at the Pacific Amphitheatre, and you should be sure to check out their new album, Red Velvet Car, which debuted at #11 on the Billboard Album Chart a few months ago. (Not bad for a band that first charted back in 1976.) It's a terrific record, and it continues Heart's triumphant return to their hard rock roots, following up on 2004's underappreciated Jupiters Darling (an album that I won't claim to have inspired ... though I certainly consider myself a member of its target audience).

So tune in this week! In the spirit of the season (and my return trip to Earth) I'm dedicating my broadcast to the theme of Travel, and I'm putting together a set list of terrific tracks. I'll see you at the fair!

Coming soon...

2011-05-03T16:37:00.000-07:00

Gearing up for a new broadcast. Details to follow, but I've got the cover art ready....

Ready to take a trip?

A Little Faith Healing

2011-04-05T17:59:00.000-07:00

It's a cold, blustery night here on the Lost Moon of Jupiter, but here inside my interstellar radio booth, the aliens and I abound with warmth and gratitude. Why, you might ask? Because this past week, Lost Moon Radio made its triumphant return to commercial FM radio!

Those in my erstwhile hometown of Los Angeles probably heard a familiar voice when scanning past SoCal's favorite praise-rock station, KRST, between midnight and 1 am. Yep, that was yours truly preaching the gospel of rock 'n roll on Christian radio, and I think it was a big success-- my inextricable agnosticism notwithstanding.

We heard tracks about karma and tracks about fate... tracks about God and about the Devil... about long-dead Greek deities and about a living one named Leroy. I also learned that my late mother's relationship with Catholicism makes Madonna look like the Pope. And I got more information about Dave Chappelle in a three-minute phone call than Viacom's private detectives have gotten in the past four years of searching his trash bins.

Now a bit of sad news. Despite a highly fulfilling evening back on the commercial airwaves, I won't be returning to KRST. My station contact, Pastor Gary Thompson, and I agreed that Lost Moon Radio wasn't quite the right fit for Christian radio. Specifically, Gary objected to the content of some of my more mind-expanding records, and (privately) I objected to the station's policy of playing Creed at 5, 25, and 45 minutes past each hour.

So the odyssey continues. Lost Moon Radio won't be back on KRST, but it will find a permanent home even if that means DJ-ing a test of the emergency broadcast system. Or even worse... working on AM.

The Prodigal Son Returns!

2011-03-21T00:55:00.000-07:00

Hello, Earth! Sound the trumpets, because I'm coming at you with some tremendous news! After nine months wandering in the wilderness, far from the light of the FM dial, this intergalactic DJ has finally found a new home for Lost Moon Radio!

I'm pleased to report that my show will be returning to Los Angeles's airwaves for good. My new permanent home: KRST FM: The Lamb of God and Greater Los Angeles.

Now those of you are familiar with the station may be thinking, "Jack, isn't KRST a Christian music station? Since when do you do religious radio?"

Well, you're right. I'm more or less a dyed-in-the-wool agnostic, and KRST will definitely be a format shift. The truth is I've been mailing resumes and proposals down to all the Earthside stations I could think of, and KRST's the first one to get back to me and actually offer me a spot (for reasons that I won't go into at the moment).

So I'm going to try to make it work. I guess my feeling is that religion's really about the search for truth and meaning in this crazy galaxy of ours, and isn't that what Lost Moon Radio's always been about, too?

Now I'm off to sort through my records! I want to make sure I've got the perfect setlist for this new debut. So check the KRST listings and tune in this weekend! They haven't told me my exact timeslot yet, but I'm probably going to filling one of the late-night hours previously occupied by a computer reading selections from First Corinthians.

Jupiter Jack and the Seven Dwarves

2011-03-14T15:09:00.000-07:00

Well friends, it probably comes as no surprise that my current transitional employment status has led this extraplanetary disc jockey to reflect on the highs and lows of the ol' curriculum vitae. Though I've spent the better part of my adult life in the Steel Tower of Radio, I've also held my share of odd jobs here and there. Some of you may recall my mentioning, in a Tweet of Solidarity with the costumed characters rousted from Hollywood Boulevard last summer, that I once spent two months portraying Happy the Dwarf at Disneyland. I figure I owe you the story.

Like many boys and girls of the 1950s, I spent a large portion of my childhood engaged in a fervent love affair with all things Disney. I was a committed Mouseketeer, an avid collector of Uncle Scrooge comics, and a dedicated viewer of the Disneyland TV series. (I was a little young for the height of the Crockett craze, but I was a great fan of some of their subsequent frontier serials, particularly the ones about Elfego Baca, a Mexican-American lawman portrayed surprisingly convincingly by Robert Loggia.) My preteen imaginative romantic energies were entirely focused, in succession, on Annette Funicello, Haley Mills, and Julie Andrews. And I was fascinated by the feature films about boy genius college student Merlin Jones, whose experiments inspired many failed invention attempts on my part: hovercraft, robot servants, hypnorays. (I also liked that Annette Funicello played his girlfriend.)

By the late sixties, however, my Disney loyalties had been supplanted by a new fixation on rock n' roll and the thriving counterculture. From my parents' Southern California living room, I jealously watched the Summer of Love play out on The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite. I vowed that the following June I'd be making my own way to San Francisco, as many flowers as possible in my hair. It was only when the next school year ended, and I discovered how much a bus ticket alone would cost, that I realized I was going to need to save up some money. I volunteered to mow our neighbor Mr. Sanderson's lawn, and he paid me a generous fifty cents. When I showed up the next afternoon offering to mow his lawn again, I think he realized I was looking for a more long-term sort of employment. Turned out his brother was mid-level management at Disneyland, and he put in a good word for me. And that's how I, somewhat reluctantly, took a summer job at the Happiest Place on Earth.

When I decided to work at Disneyland, my main anxiety was that some classmate of mine was going to show up to see me loading little kids onto the Flying Elephants. (It was a task I had a really hard time imagining Jimi Hendrix or Bob Dylan performing.) In my interview, I suggested myself for more of a behind-the-scenes role, perhaps something that involved patrolling the vast underground network of tunnels rumored to exist under the park. The supervisor interviewing me, however, had different plans. I guess he liked my height (gangly) and my clean-cut appearance (a regretful product of my high school's dress code), because he said to me, "Son, how'd you like to be an astronaut?"

It was too good an opportunity to pass up. This was 1968 after all. And anyway, Tomorrowland had always been my favorite as a kid. So I donned a shiny suit and a helmet and went to work that very day.

It turned out being an spaceman was a lot easier than all those NASA officials had led us to believe. Basically, I just had to stride around Tomorrowland, greet the park guests, and occasionally point the way to the People Mover or the Flight to the Moon ride. That first day, I was very disappointed to learn that at some point they'd torn down the TWA Moonliner rocket that had made such an impression on me as a youngster, but I cheered up as soon as a met the lovely Diane Stackhouse, who had just completed her freshman year at UC Irvine and was working as a spacewoman for the summer.

The job only really had a couple of challenges. The first was the vertigo that could take hold of you surprisingly quickly after you'd spent a few hours in the sun with a fishbowl over your head. (The closest Diane and I came to a romantic moment was when she held my hand while I recovered from a dizzy spell in the shade of the Matterhorn.) The second challenge was how to deal with the questions younger parkgoers would ask about space and the future.

We'd been given some simple, pre-scripted responses, but they didn't really cut it in the face of relentlessly inquisitive children. My second afternoon, a seven-year-old girl walked up to me and demanded to know why I was I wearing my helmet. "To breathe in space," I replied confidently. "But we're on Earth," she explained. I looked around desperately for Diane to intervene, but she was posing for a photo under the Monorail twenty yards away. "Well," I began, grasping at straws, "I just want to be prepared. The air around here could go at any time."

It rapidly became clear that the Disney-sanctioned answers were not going to satisfy questions like that girl's, not to mention those that followed from other kids, everything from "How do you go to the bathroom in a rocket?" to "Are there wars in the future?" I was going to have to come up with my own material. So I did.

I based my descriptions of my spaceman's life largely on the sources I was familiar with, like Robert A. Heinlein and Star Trek. I cribbed from the best in a fluid and freeform way, lifting details where I needed them as my conversations with my juvenile interrogators progressed. Before long, a consistent vision had taken shape. My spaceman hailed from the only human future that really made sense: a fantastically advanced socialist utopia based on the principles of scientific exploration, racial harmony, gender equality, and free love.

Anyway, my stint as an astronaut lasted about a week-and-a-half. I arrived at my locker one morning to find a note requesting my presence in my supervisor's office, where he informed me that they didn't think I was so cut out for Tomorrowland after all: "But we think you could do great things as a dwarf." He clearly wasn't joking. "Aren't I little tall for a dwarf?" "Oh no," he smiled, "We've got that all figured out." I handed over my helmet with as much dignity as I could muster and headed over to Fantasyland.

The dwarf costumes, I discovered, were actually quite large. The Imagineers had employed a kind of crazy forced perspective in the design. When I put on the suit, Happy's enormous, bearded face covered my chest and arms, and his waist rested somewhere around my knees. To move from place to place, I could sort of waddle around, Happy's dummy arms dangling limply from my sides. My head and shoulders were swallowed up by Happy's hat, and my sole connection to the world outside was a small, gauzy window in the fabric.

"How do I talk?" I asked the young man climbing into a Grumpy suit next to me. "You don't," he replied.

So that's how I spent the following ten weeks: silently, inside a dwarf. All in all, it was still a good time, and I made good money for '68, almost $1.50 an hour. Unfortunately, I spent a large portion of my newfound wealth inside the park. I could ride the rides for free, but I had to pay for food, and I probably dined too regularly and too extravagantly at Aunt Jemima's Kitchen in New Orleans Square. Most of the rest I spent on records. I never made it up to San Francisco that summer, but I rode It's a Small World about a hundred times, so I felt pretty traveled. And I made some good friends and learned some valuable lessons about crowd mechanics. Oh, and one time I met Richard Nixon. But that's another story.

Deep Space Cuisine

2011-02-28T23:25:00.000-08:00

People often ask me, "Jack, do you eat sushi on the Lost Moon of Jupiter?"

As you may know, I was present in Southern California for the birth of the American sushi craze, and I rapidly embraced the phenomenon. As a young bachelor DJ, my diet already consisted of a lot of Rice-A-Roni and Gorton's Fish Sticks, so I relished the opportunity to translate those ingredients into a more upscale culinary experience. I recommended the tempura bar at the sublime Tokyo Kaikan restaurant (since closed) numerous times on the air, and I actually introduced Supertramp's Roger Hodgson to his first California Roll. (In gratitude, he presented me with my first tin of kippers.)

But it probably won't surprise you to hear that sushi has been harder to come by in the years since I've moved to space. Contrary to popular belief, there are fish on the Lost Moon, but they live two miles below the surface in a massive subterranean ocean that's very hard to get to. Also, unlike most of the inhabitants of the Lost Moon, the fish tend to be pretty hostile.

So the concept of eating seafood is basically unknown around these parts. (I've introduced the aliens to Mungo Jerry's "In the Summertime," and they're big fans, but the lyrics about "fishing" are totally lost on them.) And while I've repeatedly written to the Gorton's company about having some frozen entrees shipped up here, they've yet to oblige. Apparently, fish doesn't keep very well on a 365 million mile journey across the vacuum of space.

Basically, as far as sushi goes, this interplanetary traveler's learned to live without.

But it looks like my luck's about to change, friends! The brilliant minds at Japanese cosmetics, pharmaceutical, and food product conglomerate Kracie Holdings, Ltd., have finally done for sushi what NASA did for ice cream!

Popin' Cookin'! As soon as I get 258 yen together, you better believe I'm going to get my hands on this intellectual education candy.

Death & Rebirth

2011-02-21T21:20:00.000-08:00

For us vintage record collectors, there's always a list of fabled vinyl relics that urges us onward, whether our treasure hunts take us to the garage sales of Boyle Heights or the flea markets of Titan. Every time we flip through a stack of cardboard sleeves, at least some small part of us is hoping, against all odds, to find one of these Golden Fleeces or Holy Grails. Some of them are rare editions of well-known masterpieces, like an original track pressing of The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan or a Butcher Cover edition of The Beatles' Yesterday and Today. But my personal quest visions have always revolved around more obscure 45s, garage rock rarities like the Hush Puppies' "Hey, Stop Messing Around" or Denise and Company's "Boy, What'll You Do Then," singles on forgotten record labels that only ever printed a few hundred (or dozen) copies to begin with.

For many years, one of my favorite, nearly-impossible-to-find records was a 7-inch called "Politicians in My Eyes" by the band Death. Death was a visionary protopunk trio from Detroit, made up of the brothers David, Bobby, and Dannis Hackney. They recorded an album's worth of tracks in the mid-seventies, but their iconoclastic sound (and, according to legend, their refusal to change their decidedly non-commercial name) alienated them to record labels. In 1976, Death put two songs from its studio sessions on a self-released single ("Politicians" and its B-side, "Keep on Knocking"). 500 copies were pressed.

The Hackney brothers moved to Vermont in 1977, switched to a gospel rock sound, and began performing under a new name. For thirty years, Death disappeared into obscurity. Their audacious sound, however, could not be suppressed, and gradually their single developed a cult following among record hounds. Those of us who managed to discover the record were treated to a raucous, hard-driving sound that seemed to defy all established geographic and historical narratives of the birth of punk.

In 2008, Bobby Hackney's son Julian heard "Politicians in My Eyes" at a party in San Francisco. Though neither his father nor his uncles had ever told him about their original band, he recognized his father's voice on the record and set out to learn more about Death. When a Google search revealed the single's cult status, he told his father. Bobby Hackney had no idea that the record had become a sought-after collector's item.

Bobby dug the Death master tapes out of his attic and listened to them for the first time in three decades. When his son described the tapes' existence on a punk rock message board, a record producer named Robert Manis (who had paid $900 for a copy of "Politicians" just a few months earlier) seized on the opportunity. Together, Manis and the Hackneys arranged for all of the original Death tracks to be released by Drag City records under the title "... For the Whole World to See." Thirty-five years after they were recorded, Death's songs finally made it onto an album.

This weekend, Death will be playing Los Angeles for the very first time. The gifted Bobbie Duncan will be subbing on guitar for David Hackney, who died in 2000. (Before he passed away, David entrusted his brothers with the Death master tapes, telling them, "The world's going to come looking" for them one day.) You can see Death, along with Sic Alps and RTX, at Echoplex this Saturday, February 26th.

For more on the story of Death, check out:
This Band Was Punk Before Punk Was Punk, The New York Times
Detroit Punk Band Death's First LA Show, Off-Ramp with John Rabe

Happy Valentine's Day from the Lost Moon

2011-02-14T14:23:00.000-08:00

Well folks, I had a blast this weekend subbing in as host of the popular romantic call-in show Love Notes with Veronica. For a thrilling hour on Saturday night, I calibrated the Lost Moon's radio transmitter for Southern California's KUPD and beamed down a line-up of my all-time favorite love tracks. It felt great to be on FM radio again, even if just for one evening, and the whole experience only heightened my resolve to get Lost Moon Radio back on the air in a permanent way in 2011!

I took some listener calls between the tracks (boy, have I missed those!) and while dispensing a bit of encouragement to a Lonely Heart in Encino, I ended up relating an anecdote about my old friend Mary Jankowski and our personal Valentine's Day tradition.

It all started back in the 8th Grade when I decided to ask Mary to the big dance with a homemade Valentine: a picture of Rod Serling glued onto a construction paper heart, upon which I'd written, "Submitted for your approval: will you go to the St. Michael's 8th Grade Cotillion with me?" I slipped it under her desk during morning roll call. At the end of the day she told me she was already going to the dance with Kevin Donnelly, but that my card was the weirdest thing anybody had ever given her.

The next day in my locker I found a construction paper heart just like mine, except glued on the front was a photo of Stalin and Roosevelt at Yalta, and Roosevelt was saying, "Will you go to cotillion with me?" And Stalin was responding, "I wish I could, but I have a pogrom tomorrow." And then under that it said, "Happy Valentine's Day from Mary."

I ended up going to the dance with Shelby Kolcek, my neighbor's niece from another school. She was kind of a nightmare. But Mary and I ended up becoming really good friends. We kept in touch when she moved away in high school, and every year in February, we've each sent the other the weirdest, creepiest Valentine we can think of.

Some of them have been strange and desperate, like the one Mary sent the year after she got married that was just a picture of the cord from a vacuum cleaner tied into a noose, under which she'd scrawled, "Can we please hang out?" Others were a bit more spontaneous, like when I sent her one that said, "I don't want to miss a thing," over a photo of Steven Tyler sustaining a pretty serious injury from a microphone stand. Last year, she sent me a graphic illustration of a giraffe giving birth to twins, and she had just written, "Let's do this." This year I mailed her an opened deck of erotic playing cards with a note that said, "I found these in a bus station."

The whole time I was doing Saturday's broadcast, I had Mary's Valentine for this year with me, still sealed in its envelope. It had just arrived on the Lost Moon by space mail that morning, but I was trying to resist the temptation to open it before the actual holiday.

Anyway, right before the end of the show, I got one last listener call from a woman who at first presented herself as a sexually aggressive Ukrainian, but who then revealed her true identity: Mary! It turned out she'd been listening to the whole broadcast (on the internet, from her current home in Cincinnati). She thanked me for the playing cards, which she described as "truly disgusting" and smelling "like a hobo," and then she told me to open her Valentine. Well, Mary had really outdone herself. She'd somehow found a photo of me and Shelby at the 8th Grade Cotillion, and in the background Mary had Photoshopped a picture of herself leering through a window and saying, "You've got a pretty mouth." (A subtle request for another Steven Tyler card?) And to top it off she'd included one of those little candy hearts that just said "McCain Palin." Bizarre... but tastier than you might think.

It was a terrific surprise ending to a delightful night, and it reminded me of an important lesson about Valentine's Day. You know, it's a day that often gets a bad rap. People say it's a Hallmark Holiday, or that Geoffrey Chaucer invented the whole thing because he needed a rhyme in a poem about birds, or that it's just an occasion to make all the singletons feel bad. But I think all that's missing the point. Valentine's Day doesn't have to be about just boyfriends and girlfriends. It's about all the love in your life. And I think the best thing we can do is to find a way to celebrate that love, whatever fun or strange way that is, and to find a friend to share it with.

So Happy Valentine's Day, Mary. And Happy Valentine's Day, Earth!

Preparing for a One-Night Stand

2011-02-07T08:00:00.000-08:00

Friends, Valentine's Day will be here before we know it, and as such, it's time for me to reveal a lifelong crush of mine...

I'm talking about commercial radio. And I'm not ashamed to admit it. True, commercial radio is the beast that brought us shock jocks, Rush Limbaugh, and the ludicrous concept of a Top 40. But she also brought us War of the Worlds, Wolfman Jack, and Jim Ladd. For 30-some odd years, I was proud to call her my special lady.

But as my regular Lost Moon Radio listeners know, this love affair has been on the skids since this past June, and it's been a humbling experience. Sure, I've had my dalliances in the meantime, broadcasting from a high school basement, ruminating into a dictaphone up here on the Lost Moon ... but they're just not the same. Just as Dick Burton couldn't stay long away from Liz, I can't resist the siren's call of wide-band FM. A love as grand as mine can only be measured in megahertz! I've gotta channel my broadcasts through the most powerful transistor towers outside of a U2 concert!

Well, I'm happy to say that I'm finally getting my chance! That's right, in just a few days, I'll be making a one-night stand with commercial radio.

On Saturday night, February 12, I'll be filling for my old industry buddy Ronnie Krantz (better known to many of you simply as "Veronica") on the home of Southern California's softest love hits, KUPD: The Cupid. Ronnie's got an unmissable date that night and she asked me if I could sub for her. Obviously, Love Notes with Veronica's usual blend of easy listening and power ballads is a little different from my regular format, but I'm confident that her base of female adult contemporary fans ages 25 to 54 will adapt comfortably to Lost Moon Radio's brand of psychedelic freeform rock. In the spirit of the approaching holiday, I'm building a set around the theme of "Love."

So set your dial to KUPD this Saturday, Angelenos! Or, if you prefer a communal listening experience, head down to Café-Club Fais Do-Do, where I know they'll be tuned into the broadcast. They charge a small admission, but I have it on good authority that all proceeds from the evening will go to benefit the advocacy and outreach organization Autism Speaks.

I hope you catch the show. While I'm only preparing for a one-night stand, I could be ready for a relationship in the right situation. I'm putting myself out there.

The Turning Point

2010-12-18T14:55:00.000-08:00

Last night I sat down to write my memoirs.

You see, it's been 177 days since I quit my job at KTSH (not that I've been obsessively counting). And even though I've e-mailed quite a few résumés down to that spinning blue marble called Earth, I'm still not back on the air. These past few weeks I caught myself turning a phrase over in my mind, one I never expected: "I'm retired."

Anyway, last night seemed like a good time to finally buckle down and write my book, Riding the Waves: The Story of One Disc Jockey's Four-Decade Journey through the Solar System and FM Radio, by Jupiter Jack. (Introduction by Don Henley). I dusted off my old Dictaphone and sat down to compose.

I wasn't sure where to begin. My birth? The first time I heard Big Joe Turner? Starting points, sure, but they were things that happened to me. As I sat there in my captain's chair, Dictaphone microphone clutched in my hand, a winter wind was blowing across the surface of the Lost Moon, and I suddenly vividly remembered a very specific night, long ago, from my early days in radio. Maybe there's something in the December air that makes a person want to look back on the choices that he's made -- the moments where he adjusted the course of his own destiny, for better or worse -- George Bailey style.

I decided at last to tell the story of December 31st, 1976, maybe the biggest turning point in my whole career. Among other things, it was my first time broadcasting at night. I'd been on the air before, but I'd been doing my show in the morning, 8:00 to 10:00am, not exactly the hippest time slot. (This was back in the days before the morning show craze.) I played rock and roll for the morning drive, while the more established DJs were sleeping off their Sunset Strip adventures of the night before. My show wasn't called "Lost Moon Radio," and I had a distinctly less space-age handle. They called me "Jalopy Jack," and I "blasted out the rockingest records to all the congestion cats on our fabulously freaky freeways." I had a bunch of car horn sound effects, revving engines, the whole deal. The truth is, in those days I was just a young, idealistic DJ with a head full of dreams, but no idea what to do with them.

Back in the seventies, KTSH had a New Year's Eve tradition, the annual holiday bash, where we threw open the doors and invited all the luminaries and misfits of the Los Angeles music scene to an all-night shindig right at the station.

Walter Tishman, KTSH's original owner and my personal mentor, conceived of the event. He always believed that all those rock stars and groupies, for all their noise and attitude and talent, were also lost kids, orphans and runaways who needed a warm and friendly place to hang their guitars. I think he saw the Holiday Bash as a kind of surrogate family yuletide gathering.

In any case, it was a wild party. Walter always took over DJ duties for the night, so all his employees could join the festivities. That night, however, Walter started to feel under the weather. He called me an hour before the show and asked if I could get the broadcast started for him while he ran to the drug store for some Alka-Seltzer. That's how I found myself doing my first-ever nighttime broadcast.

At first, it was very exciting. I loved being on after the sun had gone down, my voice and music blazing a trail into the darkness with only the stars and moonlight to guide them. It felt like a big step forward in my young career. But there were some bumps in the road. I wanted to do justice to the mix of holiday tunes and stories that Oliver usually played -- he often pointed out that Dec. 31st was the seventh day of Christmas -- but all his records were with him in the trunk of his car, so I had to make do with whatever seasonal numbers I could scrounge out of my own collection. I was proud of what I cobbled together, but I can understand how some of the selections -- Stewart and Morgenstern's arguably unsuccessful jingle "Donna the Christmas Girl," Roger Wodehouse's erotically charged Hanukkah ballad "Personal Menorah," the surprisingly detailed 19th century nativity carol "Christ His Head Is Crowning" -- might have seemed a little unorthodox. My colleagues who popped their heads into the booth over the course of the evening invariably labeled my line-up "pretty weird" but attempted to reassure me with statements like, "Nobody really listens to tonight's broadcast anyway. They're all out partying!"

Meanwhile, the social gathering of the century seemed to be raging just outside my door, and I was missing it, as a couple of hours ticked by and Walter still hadn't arrived. All my favorite musicians were there, having a blast, playing impromptu sets together. (David Bowie and Marvin Gaye did a cover of "High Hopes" that is still talked about.) I'd also hoped the evening would finally give me a chance to hang out off-the-clock with my work crush, KTSH's assistant office manager, Allison. Unfortunately, not only was I stuck in the booth, but Allison was there on a date with another DJ, the very popular Coyote Joe.

Somewhere around ten o'clock, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young crowded their way into the booth and attempted to make small talk in the middle of my broadcast. Somehow Stephen Stills, under the guise of friendly conversation, wheedled me into admitting my feelings for Allison, and then the four of them proceeded to improvise a kind of embarrassing schoolyard love ode to the two of us on the air! It was extremely humiliating, though I will admit that the harmonies were flawless.

Then came the most shocking blow of all. Mrs. Tishman called the station with the news that the reason Walter had never shown up at the station was that they'd taken him to Cedars-Sinai, and he was there now being treated for a possible coronary.

My first night on the air hadn't turned out the way I'd planned, that was for sure.

But then things started to turn a corner. Allison snuck out of the party to visit me in my booth. (She brought a bottle of whiskey she'd swiped from the Chateau Marmont earlier in the evening.) While my records played, we sat there and talked and watched the stars through the skylight in the booth's ceiling (an architectural eccentricity Walter had installed and which I'd never fully appreciated before that moment). I pointed out Jupiter and told her about the planet's many moons. She hadn't realized I knew so much about space, and I told her how into astronomy I was as a kid. She asked why I never talked about that stuff on my show and I ... well, I didn't really have an answer. It just didn't seem very rock and roll.

After she left, I kept hoping she'd come back. As I led the on-air countdown to midnight, I kept hoping she'd come bursting through that door, so I could sweep her up and kiss her. But the hour passed and she didn't appear.

She showed up at about 12:03, dragging the office telephone. Walter was calling. He was okay, for the time being, and throughout the evening's medical crisis he'd kept a transistor radio by his side. It turned out he'd heard most of my show! I was about to apologize for what a jumbled mess it was, but before I could, he started praising it, praising it for the eclectic stew that it was, praising it for the way it felt like me. "Not too weird?" I asked.

And Walter -- and I'll forget it -- Walter told me: "We're all weird, Jack. That's why I love radio. It's your own particular voice in the darkness, reaching out, and somewhere out there, an audience made just for you will be listening. And they might be weirdos. But you know what? The weirdos need a home too."

Walter said goodnight and got off the phone. And that's when I kissed Allison.

Why do I find myself thinking back on that night? New Year's Eve, 1976? Because that was the night I dreamed up Lost Moon Radio. I doodled a rocket on a scrap of paper, whispered the name "Jupiter Jack" for the first time, realized what a show that was really my own would sound like. A few months later Allison and I were married. She was the one who helped me build my rocket, out of scrap metal and love. And she was the one seeing me off on April 1st, 1977, when I blasted off from a makeshift launchpad in our backyard, and sent my first broadcast down to the planet I'd left behind.

Why is this so important? Because it reminds of the thing I'd really let myself forget, these past months. I did it. I built this show, out of nothing but stardust and dreams, for all the weirdos out there who needed some radio of their own. And I can do it again. Retired? You must be joking. There's work to be done.

So here's my New Year's Resolution for 2011:
LOST MOON RADIO IS GETTING BACK ON THE AIR!

Soviet Kitsch

2010-11-06T12:42:00.000-07:00

One of my goals for my (temporary?) unemployment period was to finally get the moonbase a little more organized. This project started ambitiously enough. I spent the first week taking all my records down from their shelves. Then I spread them all out on the floor of the largest cargo bay and spent most of August trying out different cataloging systems: alphabetical (by artist), chronological, thematic, philosophical, reverse chronological, alphabetical (by title), by genre, by run time, by record label, by album sleeve color, Dewey decimal, folksonomic, analytico-synthetic, and alphabetical (by feeling).

I have yet to decide on a cataloging system.

These last couple of weeks I've spent a lot of time wandering the moonbase corridors, digging out various odds and ends: galactic bric-à-brac I've accumulated in my time on the Lost Moon, keepsakes from Earth I brought up in my rocket, etc.

Yesterday, in a broom closet under the starboard solar array, I found a shoebox containing a handful of postcards from my old broadcasting buddy Graham Fernwood. Graham had done the news and weather reports at KTSH for a few years before I got a job at the station. By the time I was introduced to him, however, he was mostly living in Munich, working for Radio Free Europe, sneaking the U.S. government's feel-good message about democracy and capitalism under the ol' Iron Curtain. He and I only met a couple of times, but we hit it off. (I used to ask him if he could hook my show up with any secret CIA funding.)

Graham had a strange sense of humor, and he used to mail me the occasional Eastern Bloc postcard, always with handwritten notes in Czech or Russian or German (languages I do not read or speak) and no other explanation. I think he embraced these little treasures from across the Berlin Wall with the same kind of joy that wells up in me when I discover a particularly rare EP at a rummage sale.

Here's one that's appropriate for the upcoming holiday season:

Just what exactly is going on in this one? The child is apparently some kind of juvenile cosmonaut (Graham liked to send me the space-themed ones), and he's either just completed or is about to begin a space journey with a large man who appears to be Santa Claus. (I know that Sister Margaret May, the fourth grade teacher who impressed upon me that Russia was a land of godless atheists, would be shocked by the amount of Christmas imagery on this card.) I eventually learned (from Peter Falk, of all people) that "С Новым годом!" is Russian for "Happy New Year," so I can only conclude the jolly old man here depicted is some kind of wild amalgam of St. Nick, Father Time, and (based on his snowflake pistol) Jack Frost.

Here's another I like:

I'm pretty confident that these two are Belka and Strelka, the dynamic duo of the Soviet canine space program and the first two Earthlings to successfully return from space. (I can't tell if this postcard actually features their autographs or just another cryptic note from Graham.) My favorite Strelka story is a romantic one. When she returned to Earth, she settled down with another space dog named Pushok, and the two of them had six puppies. Nikita Khruschchev presented one of those pups, Pushinka, to little Caroline Kennedy as a gift. A number of presidential advisers believed that Pushinka was a spy, but after thoroughly searching her for hidden microphones, JFK decided to let her stay at the White House. Pushinka struck up a romance with the Kennedy's Welsh terrier Charlie (this was right around the time Lady and the Tramp was re-released, so love was in the air) and the two of them had four puppies of their own. I often think that union was the real moment that the Cold War began to thaw.

Man, the Cold War, huh? What a weird time. I lived two-thirds of my life during it, and it still feels totally surreal. Up here in space, staring down at the spinning blue marble called Earth, it's hard to imagine that for all those years so much of the world was totally cut off from so much of the rest. It's hard to believe that for all those decades we were just minutes away from blowing up the whole planet. And I say that as someone who saw Planet of the Apes at least four times in the theater.

I know there's still no shortage of war and conflict and borders down there, but I can't help but think that things have gotten a little bit better. A little more open at least. I mean, thirty years ago, would Mikhail Gorbachev have been able to release an album of love ballads? And if he had, would you have been able to hear it?

Farewell Roosevelt High School

2010-10-24T22:16:00.000-07:00

Well friends, I had a highly memorable Monday broadcasting psychedelic radio to the wonderful students and faculty of Torrance, California's own Roosevelt High School. (Go Mascots!) It was truly a pleasure to spend a morning riding the signal from 87.5 FM: The Sound of Roosevelt High. If you'll indulge me half a pun, the experience was truly educational-- from the radio booth to the principal's office and back. Many thanks to the day's co-pilot, Josh Redman, and to my niece Chelsea, who made the entire broadcast possible. After three months spent off the radio, it was just a blast to be back on the air.

Granted, the Roosevelt High station has a pretty low wattage, so I believe my transmission was mainly confined to the school campus, most of its parking lot, and a couple of adjoining Torrance side streets. (Although I was told later that apparently they'd been able to tune into my broadcast, with just a bit of static, at Café-Club Fais Do-Do, a full 13 miles away, a stroke of reception luck I chalk up to the vagaries of the FM band and to the conductive power of Fais Do-Do's aluminum superstructure.) But I've never been one to quibble over the size of an audience. As I don't currently have a 50,000 watt tower of corporate power to disseminate my broadcasts, I welcome any group of listeners with open arms.

I made a rare return trip to Earth for the show, and it was great to see Chelsea face to face (she's really growing up!) as well as to join my brother David and the rest of the family for dinner at the Olive Garden. But now it's time to pack up my microphone and turntable, hop into my little rocket, and head home to the Lost Moon of Jupiter. As fun as it was to be back in high school for the day, I'm eager to get back to the moonbase and resume my job hunt. Three months is a long time for a disc jockey to be out of work. I really should be sending out some more CVs, making calls, pounding the pavement, that sort of thing. I mean, the Lost Moon may be a Jovian utopia where the idea of money is as foreign a concept as table tennis -- you wouldn't believe how many times I've tried and failed to teach the aliens ping pong -- but that doesn't mean I don't have bills to pay. It's more expensive than you might think to maintain a functioning space station, and if you want to hit the really good vintage record sales around the gas giants, you've gotta spend an arm and a leg on rocket fuel. Plus all the major carriers really screw you on cell phone coverage in the Outer Solar System.

But I'm confident that with a little bit of ambition and leg work I can definitely find a station to carry Lost Moon Radio by December. After all, my annual Holiday Show is one of my favorite broadcasts of the year, and I can't imagine this temporary unemployment hiccup getting in the way of that tradition.

In the meantime, if anyone reading this works for the City of Torrance and can do something about a citation for parking in a school zone, please contact me directly.

I've Found a New Frequency

2010-10-14T13:52:00.000-07:00

As my loyal listeners know, I recently had to disconnect from the satellite that was beaming my broadcast down to Earth every Thursday night from 12-1. That's right, I resigned my slot at KTSH-FM, and I've spent the summer wandering the cosmos, looking for that magic new frequency.

Well I'm here to announce that I have found one. Now I'm going to warn you it's a little untraditional, but hey, so was Chunga's Revenge by Frank Zappa-- the first and only LP named for a vacuum cleaner. Remember that scat-vocal "drum solo"?

So if you happen to be in Torrance, California, this Monday morning, tune your radio to 87.5 FM and sample my latest transmission via this unorthodox conduit. I'll be meditating on a theme appropriate to the locale: Childhood. Will the broadcast be as ground-breaking as Zappa? No, but then again neither was Devo. And unlike them, I can live with that.

And So I Quit the Police Department...

2010-07-01T14:54:00.000-07:00

Well folks, if you missed last week's broadcast, I should probably catch you up. Still reeling from the abrupt rescheduling of my annual Independence Day Show -- which had been moved to make room for the four-day programming block dubbed "Larry and Munch's Fart of July Extravaganza" -- I ended up making a few unplanned departures from my set list. One of those departures involved calling KTSH's media conglomerate owner, Corporacorp, and leaving the CEO a voicemail message, the content of which probably fell somewhere between thoughtful list of grievances and vitriolic personal attack. Much to this spacefaring DJ's surprise, the CEO called me back -- via the satellite phone on her zeppelin -- and offered to reward my apparently marketable insubordination with an improved timeslot and probable syndication opportunities. After a brief and unsettling chat, I politely declined her thirty pieces of silver and handed in my verbal resignation.

That's right, friends. I quit. I joined the ranks of Edward VIII, Patrick McGoohan, David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar in requesting that my employer kindly take this job and shove it. (R.I.P. Johnny Paycheck.)

Quitting takes its toll, folks. I got off the air, marched straight down to my lunar storage module, dug out an old bottle of Christian Brothers brandy (a gift from Harry Nilsson with the instructions "For Emergencies Only"), drew the curtains, threw on a Billie Holiday record, and set to nursing my wounds while the lady sang the blues. I had some reflecting to do, and reflect I did.

Was leaving the station that's broadcast my signal for the better part of four decades a momentous decision? Sure. And like most of the momentous decisions in my life, it was made impulsively just before one o'clock on a weeknight. But that doesn't mean it was a bad decision. Of course there's some nervousness and uncertainty that comes with stepping out into the unknown. Even now, days later, I've got my share of butterflies flapping around in the ol' kettle drum. But I'll tell ya, in the week since I packed up my proverbial cubicle, I've also felt an exhilarating sense of liberation. The stars above the Lost Moon haven't looked so full of possibility in a long time.

Now if any of you are asking, "But Jack, what's going to become of your show?" -- don't worry. The rights to Lost Moon Radio, and all associated trademarks, patents, and freak-outs, belong to one individual: Yours Truly. The attorney Leonard Weinglass managed to negotiate the rights for me, pro bono, at a 1977 cocktail party attended by the Tishman heirs, long before KTSH's corporate buyout and shortly before I left for space. The contract is hand-written on the back of a Chinese takeout menu, but it's legally binding (Leonard found a notary in the hot tub) and safely tucked away in the album sleeve of my copy of The Who Sell Out. So though I may have left KTSH's call letters behind, I've taken Lost Moon Radio with me, and these broadcasts will be coming back your way just as soon as I can find another Earthside antenna set to receive.

In the meantime, I'm embracing my newly vacant schedule. I've set about some long overdue moonbase maintenance: reorganizing my record collection, finally installing those porthole miniblinds, and catching up on my reading (either Jim Ladd's Radio Waves or that one where the Brontës fight zombies). I've emailed KTSH's manager Kevin asking if he could look around for some personal belongings I believe I left at the office during the Ford administration. (I'm hoping he can send them my way aboard the Juno probe next year, though he has yet to reply.) And I'm digging out my trusty Rolodex of established FM contacts, so I can figure out just who I'll shop an hour of late-night psychedelic radio to first. Fingers crossed!

Will I miss KTSH? You bet. She's the place I learned everything I know about radio, and all these years she's been my home. But we've all got to leave home eventually, even if some of us don't get around to it until middle age. A DJ's a music man and a storyteller, and like the troubadours of old he really ought to ramble from time to time, riding the rails, surfing the galaxy. I'll keep you posted on my journey. As always, thanks for listening.

Happening NOW: All-New Lost Moon Radio at the Hollywood Fringe Festival

2010-06-21T17:08:00.001-07:00

Thanks to everyone who caught my sold-out live broadcast at the Hollywood Fringe Festival last Friday. We made beautiful music, we made beautiful comedy, we made dirty comedy, we made abstract expressionist music. It was a wonderful night.

And now we're going to do it again! And again after that! And then again still! And then one more time for good measure!

LOST MOON RADIO @ THE HOLLYWOOD FRINGE FESTIVAL

remaining dates

WEDNESDAY June 23 (8pm)

THURSDAY June 24 (8pm)

FRIDAY June 25 (11pm)

SATURDAY June 26 (4:30pm)

Reserve your tickets online today! The theater has a strictly-enforced capacity, and I always keep one seat reserved for Grace Slick, in the event that she and I ever decide to visit Earth on the same day.

All performances are at:

Theatre of Arts

1625 N. Las Palmas Blvd.

Los Angeles, CA

(1 block south of Hollywood Blvd.)

http://www.hollywoodfringe.org/project/view/105

Moon Units Rock R Bar

2010-06-06T10:44:00.000-07:00

To those of you who saw my favorite band, The Moon Units, rock R Bar in Koreatown last night, thanks for visiting my page! I'm Jupiter Jack, rock n' roll DJ, and I want to let you know about my mainstage act, Lost Moon Radio.

It's going up at the Hollywood Fringe Festival from June 18-June 26. All relevant information (including ticket reservations) can be found here: http://www.hollywoodfringe.org/project/view/105

If you're wondering just what Lost Moon Radio is, here's a description folks have used in the past. (I don't endorse it.)

Lost Moon Radio is a one hour "radio show" from DJ Jupiter Jack, who claims to broadcast from outer space, but actually is stuck on a tasteless Top 40 station in the San Fernando Valley. When Jack spins tracks, what we hear are comic sketches and songs, performed live by a team of actors and a genre-jumping band. To Jack, they're profound; to us, they're hilarious. Lost Moon Radio, now in its 6th installment, won Live Comedy LA's Show of the Year for 2009.

So come check it out... I guarantee an evening of fun and laughs.
Or if you're just looking to book The Moon Units, you can do so here.

Follow Me On Twitter

2010-06-04T14:07:00.000-07:00

As my next live show draws near, I've been pirating high speed bandwidth from the Hubble telescope, so I can update my Twitter feed regularly.

NASA really could have picked a more creative password than tomwolfesucks. I guessed it on my third try.

Anyway, check out my feed: http://twitter.com/lostmoonradio

Punching Coordinates for the Hollywood Fringe Festival

2010-05-22T01:36:00.001-07:00

Well friends, it looks like the magical time is rapidly approaching. I'm talking about those moments when I aim my rocket of rock toward my earthly hometown of Los Angeles, California-- armed with a new live show.

And this one is extra special folks, because I will be performing at the inaugural run of the Hollywood Fringe Festival from June 18th to the 26th! We're talking theatre, music, circus, comedy... maybe even some neo-fascist politics, depending on how literally people interpret the festival's title.

WHAT: Lost Moon Radio, Episode 6... a brand-new show with a brand-new theme: American History and Culture!

WHERE: Fringe Central @ the Hollywood Fringe Festival: Theatre of Arts 1625 N. Las Palmas Avenue, Los Angeles (1/2 block south of Hollywood Blvd.)

WHEN: Friday June 18 (9:30pm), Wednesday June 23 (8pm), Thursday June 24 (8pm), Friday June 25 (11pm), Saturday June 26 (4:30pm)

TICKETS: $12, available via the Hollywood Fringe ticketing service https://www.ovationtix.com/trs/pr/734625

These shows sell out, and unlike my past venues, Theatre of Arts has a strict seating capacity, so you'll want to reserve your tickets right away!

Back On Earth Starting March 18th

2010-03-07T01:30:00.000-08:00

As my returning listeners know, I left Earth on April 1st, 1977 in a small rocket ship of my own construction. Now, to honor my 33 years here on the Lost Moon of Jupiter, I'm making a special journey back to that spinning blue marble (Earth) for the 5th installment of Lost Moon Radio. And I want you to be there!

WHAT: Lost Moon Radio, Episode 5... An entirely new program on the twin topics of love and death! Followed by live-band karaoke!

WHEN: 4 Shows Only! Thursday March 18, Friday March 19, Saturday March 27, Thursday April 1 (all shows at 8:30pm, doors at 7:45)

WHERE: All new location: Club Fais Do-Do, 5257 Adams Blvd, Los Angeles, CA (1 block south of the 10 freeway, between Fairfax and La Brea)

TICKETS: Available for $10 in advance (strongly suggested) or $12 at the door. Buy them here: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/102600

Come see the show that Live Comedy LA named their 2009 Show of the Year. Buy your tickets today!

Live Band Karaoke With The Moon Units

2010-02-15T23:33:00.000-08:00

Friends, it's no secret that my favorite band of all time is the Moon Units, a hard-rocking combo that accompanies me at every live show I give down on Earth.

Now you already know that the Moon Units perform live-band karaoke following every Lost Moon Radio show, but did you know that they also play private parties and clubs? Well they do, and you can hire them!

That's right, you can recruit the Moon Units to perform live-band karaoke for private events. They play the tunes; you and your guests sing them. Maybe you want to belt out Bowie's "Ziggy Stardust" at your glam bar. Or The Cars' "Just What I Needed" at your wedding. Or Cher's "If I Could Turn Back Time" at your divorce proceeding. Whatever the event, the Moon Units can be your backing band.

The Moon Units can come packaged in anything from a quartet to a ten-piece ensemble replete with horns and textured backing vocals. The exact line-up is your choice.

To book the Moon Units for your bar or private event, send an e-mail to dris79@gmail.com. Or call 213-973-9526 and they'll get back to you.

They know untold billions of songs, but feel free to make requests. Just promise me, as your favorite DJ, that it won't be Jefferson Airplane. Some jewels are too sacred to touch.

Space Junk

2010-02-12T19:16:00.000-08:00

Before I left Earth in 1977, I made my home in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, California. My listeners know this as the home of KTSH-FM, which beams my interplanetary broadcasts Thursday nights from 12-1am.

But California is known for more than just mind-expanding radio. In fact, I consider it no small coincidence that the state was a leader in Earth's exploration of outer space. That's why I found this New York Times article so satisfying.

According to the article, my home state's Historical Commission has endowed preservation status on the following:

- 2 small urine collection devices
- 4 space sickness bags
- "dozens of other pieces of detritus"

Now you might be asking yourself why the Commission would take action to protect items that can be found everywhere from Greyhound stations to Axl Rose's front lawn. The reason... is that these particular items are located on the moon!

Milford Wayne Donaldson, the state historic preservation officer, said the reasoning behind the first-of-its-kind designation was simple: Scores of California companies worked on the Apollo mission, and much of their handiwork remains of major historical value to the state, regardless of where it is now or what it was for used for then.

Now when the Times speaks of "the moon," I assume the reference is to Earth's moon, not the Lost Moon of Jupiter, where I make my home.

But should the historical commission want to preserve some space junk located a bit farther out into the galaxy, I'm pretty sure I could round up some Burger King wrappers and Mick Jagger solo albums to contribute toward their cause.

Happy Birthday, Captain Beefheart

2010-01-15T14:39:00.000-08:00

A lot of great people were born on January 15. Martin Luther King, Jr. comes to mind. So does Grover Lowdermilk-- a member of the infamous Chicago Black Sox and owner of the greatest name in baseball history.

But the name that's most synonymous with this date in my mind is Captain Beefheart-- a singer, composer, artist and harmonica player extraordinaire. When I finally get around to ranking the San Fernando Valley's all-time best contributions to culture at large, Captain Beefheart is going to be on that list.

I can still remember the first time I heard Trout Mask Replica when it came out in June 1969. As those first crashing chords pummeled through the hi-fi, it was like being transported to a magical world where the lava lamps glowed the color of mud, and when the birds opened their beaks to chirp, experimental noise-rock came out instead. It was incredible-- enough to make you no longer care that the tabs of acid you bought on Vineland Avenue turned out to be Guatemalan postage stamps.

Although it would be 8 more years before I left Earth for the Lost Moon of Jupiter, I'd like to think that in some small way, Captain Beefheart inspired that journey.

And if not... well I do know his name inspired me to enter a Slim Jim-eating contest later that summer.

Live Comedy LA Sends a Love Rocket to Jupiter

2009-12-21T13:41:00.000-08:00

Well friends, I'm pleased to report that my latest dalliance with my erstwhile home planet (Earth) was a rousing success.

I brought my live show from the Lost Moon of Jupiter to the upstairs theater at St. Nick's Pub, and all the love and awesome rock power made me feel like I was back in the glory days of yore. I couldn't have had more fun if I'd been necking with Barbarella in a wood-paneled basement with Jefferson Airplane on the hi-fi.

I want to particularly thank the good people at Live Comedy LA, who named Lost Moon Radio their Show of the Year for 2009! Critic Brendon Mulvihill writes...

Show of the Year.

And Lost Moon Radio ran away with it on Friday night at St. Nick’s Pub. I see a lot of comedy and this was by far the most creative show I’ve seen in 2009...

The writing was off the charts. A show like SNL should just scoop up the entire cast of Lost Moon Radio. It would be 100x better.

Thank you, Live Comedy LA! Praise like that puts a Great Red Spot on both my cheeks. You can expect a signed copy of my ill-fated 1968 demo tape for KROQ in your Christmas stockings.

The Daily Candy Is On To Me

2009-12-11T12:02:00.000-08:00

Earthbound friends, I stopped subscribing to the Daily Candy back in 2006, when my local delivery boy cut his route short at Io. Just couldn't justify the commute to pick up a copy, as much as I do love candy.

But thankfully the good people at the Daily Candy haven't punished me for my failings. To the contrary, they've made my live show their top pick for a weekend music outing in Los Angeles.

So come join these veritable Willy Wonkas for my ongoing run at St. Nick's Pub. Last night was yet another sellout, so reserve your seats online. It's live comedy, rock n' roll and a heaping holiday helping of yours truly. Plus live band karaoke after every show.

I'll see you there tonight 12/11, Saturday 12/12, Wednesday 12/16, Friday 12/18 and Saturday 12/19!

-Jupiter Jack

A Christmas Carol

2009-12-07T11:35:00.000-08:00

You know friends, up here on the Lost Moon of Jupiter, nothing warms my heart more than gazing down at the spinning blue marble we call Earth, and thinking that somewhere, at any given moment, a messiah is being born.

So light up your hearth, take a quaff of glogg, and carol along with me:

And then come join me at St. Nick's Pub's Cabaret Theater for my much-anticipated holiday show, running December 10-19. Tickets here!

My Next Broadcast

2009-12-03T09:29:00.000-08:00

Hello Earth, am I coming in clear? And more importantly, have you cleared your calendars for December 10-19? That's when I make my triumphant return to the St. Nick's Pub Cabaret Stage. Although the front row of seating is reserved for the ghosts of Timothy Leary, Nikola Tesla, and Keith Moon-- in that order-- the rest of the house can be reserved by following this link.

The specific show dates are:

Thursday, December 10 (8pm)

Friday, December 11 (8pm)

Saturday, December 12 (8pm)

Wednesday, December 16 (8pm)

Friday, December 18 (8pm)

Saturday, December 19 (8pm)

Again, get your tickets here, and I'll see you at St. Nick's Pub.

Historic Occasions

2009-11-02T01:36:00.000-08:00

Friends, I don't know about you, but every year I've barely shaken off my post-Halloween sugar headache when it's time to celebrate again. Today, of course, marks the 89th anniversary of American commercial radio, an institution that came swinging and crackling into the world on November 2nd, 1920, when KDKA, "The Voice of Pittsburg," began broadcasting as the first officially licensed radio station in the United States. I don't know how you to plan to commemorate the milestone back on Earth, but I can tell you that up here on the Lost Moon, it's a solitary, reverent observance. An old spice-running buddy of mine recently smuggled me a bottle of Saturnian Schnapps from the ice floes of Titan, and I plan to pour myself a glass, lay a Jelly Roll Morton record on the turntable, and think about the dawn of a Golden Age.

But before I proceed with the memorial, I'd like to extend a warm, intergalactic thanks to all the local Earthlings who made it out to Lost Moon Radio's special live broadcast from Spaceland on Halloween night. It was a pleasure to share the bill with bands as talented as Jean Paul Yamamoto, the Peculiar Pretzelmen, and the headlining Fuxedos (to whom I owe special gratitude for inviting me to the event in the first place). The costumes, the crowd, and the company all added up to my favorite-ever Halloween party not hosted by Frank Zappa.

Attendees and returning listeners will be pleased to note that Lost Moon Radio's next live shows have also now been scheduled, and we'll be sending out the signal once again from St. Nick's Pub for two weekends in December: the 10th, 11th, and 12th and the 16th, 18th, and 19th. So mark your space calendars, folks. More details to follow.

Now let's raise a glass to Radio. It's like Jelly Roll says, "I'd rather be there than any place I know. Yes, I'd rather be there than any place I know. It's gonna take the sergeant for to make me go."

Live Show HALLOWEEN NIGHT

2009-10-15T19:16:00.000-07:00

Exciting news, friends. Lost Moon Radio has a special live Halloween show scheduled this October 31st at Spaceland in Silver Lake, California, the "Williamsburg of the West."*

This extra-spooky live broadcast will be part of a line-up of theatrical music stylings, with the bill as follows:

9:00pm - the dance rock of Jean Paul Yamamoto (with Devo's Alan Myers on drums)

10:00pm - a LOST MOON RADIO HALLOWEEN with host Jupiter Jack

11:00pm - the old-timey, stomping, hollering, fire-and-brimstone, bloody-roots-medicine of the Peculiar Pretzelmen

MIDNIGHT - THE FUXEDOS (who apparently may make love to a pumpkin)

Spaceland
1717 Silver Lake Blvd., LA 90026 get directions
Doors open at 8:30.

Tickets are $10 at the door ($8 in advance) and a mere $5 if you arrive in costume. That's the sort of discount that only the spirit of the Great Pumpkin can bring you.

The best news is that because the show doesn't start until late, you can stay home for all your favorite holiday TV specials, and then head out later for the rock n' roll!

*Not to be confused with Frontierland, the Colonial Williamsburg of the West.

Live Performances THIS WEEK

2009-09-15T13:29:00.000-07:00

Don't forget that an all-new episode of Lost Moon Radio opens TOMORROW NIGHT!

4 shows only! Wednesday, September 16 through Saturday, September 19. (8pm all nights)

WHERE: St. Nick's Pub 8450 W. 3rd Street, Los Angeles, CA 90048

And the price is $9. This includes the show and a live-band karaoke party immediately afterward! (All abilities welcome.)

Get your tickets online to guarantee admission!

If you've never seen the show and you're curious what's in store, here's an excerpt from Lost Moon Radio's last live broadcast, featuring one of my favorite old school rap battles:

Golden Record

2009-09-05T13:20:00.000-07:00

If you'll indulge my observing another aerospace anniversary, I'd like to point out that it was on this date 32 years ago that NASA launched the unmanned robotic probe Voyager 1. It was Voyager's mission to photograph Jupiter and Saturn, and then to continue onward out of our solar system entirely, becoming Earth's first truly interstellar spacecraft.

Placed on board Voyager 1 was a Golden Record, a compilation LP produced by Carl Sagan and a special team of writers, artists, and astrophysicists. They designed the Golden Record to contain the signature sounds of our planet and civilization at the end of the twentieth century: the surf, the wind, the birds, the whales, and ninety minutes of music from around the globe. America got three songs ’cause we built the rocket. They were ”Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground” by Blind Willie Johnson, ”Melancholy Blues” by Louis Armstrong and his Hot Seven, and Chuck Berry’s ”Johnny B. Goode.”

(Sagan and his team, which included Rolling Stone editor Timothy Ferris, also intended to place "Here Comes the Sun" on the record, a decision favored by the Beatles themselves. But EMI, apparently wary of space pirates and galactic bootleggers, refused to allow NASA license to use the song, in what was probably the first instance of deep space copyright enforcement.)

Today, Voyager 1's trajectory has taken it well past the gas giants and their moons, beyond Pluto and Sedna and the rest of the dwarf planets, through the brutal termination shock and into the heliosheath, home to only a few very lonely comets, 10 billion miles from the sun. In 2015, the spacecraft will push beyond the heliopause, the final breath of our sun's solar winds, and "Johnny B. Goode" will become the first rock n' roll single to journey into interstellar space.

If and when Voyager 1 is finally intercepted by a spacefaring extraterrestrial intelligence (probably an alien race of living machines, according to our most reliable forecasts), what will those aliens make of the Golden Record? If they can decode this time capsule of our world and society, will they take pleasure in our noble intentions, or scorn our folly?

Whatever their verdict, I know one thing for certain. When Chuck Berry's guitar and Lafayette Leake's piano sound out to some distant star, whoever is listening will be hearing humanity at its very best.

Listen to the full Golden Record.

Next Live Show: September 16-19

2009-08-27T13:55:00.000-07:00

Hello, Earth. This is Jupiter Jack, just dropping a line down the ol' interplanetary internet to announce the next live performances of Lost Moon Radio.

Wednesday, Sept. 16 (8:00 pm)
Thursday, Sept. 17 (8:00 pm)
Friday, Sept. 18 (8:00 pm)
Saturday, Sept. 19 (8:00 pm)

All FOUR performances will be at

St. Nick's Pub
8450 W. 3rd Street
Los Angeles, CA 90048
Earth get directions

Buy tickets for Lost Moon Radio - Episode 3

Just stroll through the pub's front doors and up her back stairs to the St. Nick's Theater, a punk rock attic space that's the closest thing to Max's Kansas City you'll find within walking distance of the Beverly Center. There you'll be treated to an ALL NEW HOUR of my late night radio broadcast, featuring the finest songs and psychedelic selections from my personal library. Then stick around for LIVE BAND KARAOKE, where you and your fellow audience members get the chance to wail the night away accompanied by our celebrated house band, the Moon Units.

That's a show and a party, all for a mere $9. Because rock n' roll is a recession-proof commodity.

Until then, friends.

Telescopes

2009-08-25T13:59:00.000-07:00

If you're like me, you won't let this evening pass without raising a glass to old Galileo Galilei, on tonight's 400th anniversary of his remarkable telescope's debut.

It was this ingenious device that enabled the Father of Modern Science to first observe the Mountains of the Moon (see The Grateful Dead's Aoxomoxoa) and, most relevantly to my own explorations, discover the moons of Jupiter.

Of course, Galileo didn't invent the telescope. The first telescopes were built by illiterate sixteenth century craftsmen -- imaginative, resourceful, their names now lost to history -- basically the session musicians of the early Renaissance. The lenses of these early telescopes were aimed around the surface the world, spotting land from crow's nests, spying on Medici armies, peering into the windows of attractive Tuscan neighbors. But it was Galileo who first thought to point the telescope up, into the heavens, and perfected its design with the stars in mind. In just a few short months he had mapped Earth's moon and identified the four largest of Jupiter's sixtysome satellites, which he named, with all the poetry of a Led Zeppelin album title, "Jupiter 1," "Jupiter 2," "Jupiter 3," and "Jupiter 4."

It was actually Galileo's contemporary, rival, and alleged plagiarist Simon Marius who gave the Jovian moons the names we use today: Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto, after four of the Roman god Jupiter's mythological squeezes.

And it was Simon Marius who, in what was dismissed at the time as only a syphilitic hallucination, first spotted the Lost Moon of Jupiter, the quiet little rock where I now make my home.

So here's to Galileo, Simon Marius, and all the other stargazers of the past four hundred years. Keep watching the skies, friends.

Live Show June 17-20

2009-06-07T14:40:00.000-07:00

Exciting news, Earth! I will be hosting 3 live performances on the following dates:

Wednesday, June 17 (8pm)
Thursday, June 18 (8pm)
Saturday, June 20 (8pm)

All performances are at St. Nick's Pub, 8450 W. 3rd Street, Los Angeles, CA, just east of La Cienega.

The show will feature my hour-long radio program followed by live karaoke with my house band, the Moon Units. The price is still just $8. It's the best deal in town!

Buy tickets here!

Note that there is no show on Friday, June 19, when I will be hosting a visiting delegation from Alpha Centauri.

New Klan

2009-06-07T14:36:00.000-07:00

An ad that's been in heavy rotation on my station, KTSH.

As Far As Your Brain Can Think

2009-06-07T14:29:00.000-07:00

Here's a little ditty that was sung to me by many a math teacher growing up:

Hello Earth. Am I Coming In Clear?

2009-06-06T12:06:00.000-07:00

Welcome, Earth travelers, to my makeshift web page. Although Lost Moon Radio will soon be launching a full-featured interactive website, for now you'll have to settle for this free blog I got via a contact at my radio station, KTSH.

Until the new site is finished, you can catch up with me right here to access podcasts, metaphysical ramblings and the latest info about my next live show.