The Skip Mahaffey Morning Show With Sunny Leigh

is pleased to announce the return of:

YOU CAN’T WIN THIS!

The Most Exasperating (for you!) and Fun (for us!) Game on the Radio.

It’s really quite simple:

We have five questions, any subject, each one a little more difficult than the other. All you have to do is be the first person to answer all five and you win!

Here’s How We Play:

Once a day, we solicit one person to call in. We ask question #1, if they get the answer correct, we move on to question #2 and so on. If they are incorrect, they get a complimentary dial tone or the “Willy Wonka Treatment.” Every day we will add another prize from the KVOO prize closet until we have a winner!

Here are some of the answers given so far for Question #1:

“What comes immediately before today?”

KVOO

A bunch of people calling with the wrong answers

Nothing

An Elvis Album

Laugh

Today

Room

U.S.A.

A Vowel

Opportunity

One Day

11:59 pm

11:59:59

One Day

The News (as if ‘Today’ refers to ‘The Today Show on NBC)

‘T’

‘e’

Space

Now

Immediately

Tomorrow

Tulsa

Yesterday

Before

Sunrise

Wednesday (or whatever the previous day to ‘today’ was)

Midnight

Toboggon

Tobo

What

Some of the Prizes up for grabs (list not complete and subject to change)

A 6 DVD set of Elvis Presley movies from the private collection of Skip Mahaffey

A stack O’CD’s (some good, some not so) from the KVOO prize closet.

Sunny’s Tecate boot-shaped combination keychain bottle opener

Sunny’s Grandma Aggie’s Toilet Paper Cozy

A one of a kind Rascal Flatts ‘Stuff I Stole From Backstage’ including Gary LeVox’s chewed gum!

An old ‘Bourbon Street’ refrigerator magnet

An autographed picture from Australian Superstar Adam Brand

Stuff we aquired from the Easton Corbin Show at Cain’s

Sunny’s Old Make-up bag (trailer not included)

A River Spirit Casino t-shirt

An autographed poster from Trick Pony

A gigantic roll of Christmas wrapping paper circa 1985! Woo-hoo!

A Limited Edition “I Won This on You Can’t Win This” KVOO T-shirt

False eyelashes from Sunny’s old make-up bag (unused)

Several cases of Bud Lite Lime

A stack of Arby’s promotional stuff we found in the kitchen!

2 Hula Hoops from the prize closet

The 2010 Limited Edition PBR Media Guide and t-shirt

And much much more!

Here are your clues for Q#1:

“Don’t look for the answer on a calender or on a clock. Time is not of the essence”

“The answer won’t be found in the dictionary or in the sentence.”

FAQ’s about YCWT:

A: Are you joking?

Q: Will you give us any hints?

A: Hints will be given if, and only if, we get weeks into the question with no right answer.

Q: How many weeks until ’if’?

A: Usually after about 4 weeks of wrong answers.

Q: If someone gives an answer that’s already been given, will you give them another chance?

A: No way Jose! All you’ll get is silent scorn from the other YCWT players.

Q: Can I play more than once?

A: Play all you want to and good luck…you’re gonna need it!

Q: Are you making up these rules as we go along?

A: Yep.

READ THIS: Consider this a reward for checking out this website.  Now that we’re almost a month into Q#1, it may be time to give a little help. How about this?

You leave a comment/reply at the bottom of this page or send it directly to me at Skip@SkipShow.com. I will randomly choose one and answer it in the comment section on this website. I won’t mention this on the air but I will tell people to consult the web page. It’s up to them to find this.

A couple of things:

1 - I won’t answer questions like: “Is the answer____?” or anything like that. The only way you can find out if your answer is correct is by being caller #9 on the air!

2 - Your questions can only be “yes” or “no.” Don’t ask me “Where can I go to find the answer?” I won’t reply to those.

3 - I won’t limit the number of questions I will answer, it could be one a day, it could be one a week.

4 - Once Q#1 is answered, this deal is suspended. We’ll start taking questions for Q#2 at a later date.

Good Luck!

Autographed Copies are Available! $19.95+$5 S&H. Email me directly at Skip@skipshow.com

Adventures With My Father: Childhood Recollections of Divorce, Dysfunction and the Summer of Love is now available!

To order a copy, click on the link below!

http://www.outskirtspress.com/SkipMahaffey

Or you can order direct:

Barnes and Noble: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbninquiry.asp?r=1&ISBN=1432743929

Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&submit.x=46&keywords=9781432743925&tag=outskirtspres-20&index=books&submit.y=11&link_code=qs

Portions of the profits from the sale of Adventures With My Father will go directly to the Police Unity Tour.

The Police Unity Tour is a 250 mile bicycle ride which begins each year on May 10th in Portsmouth, Virginia and concludes at the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial in Washington D.C. The National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial was dedicated in 1991 by President George Bush. Inscribed on the Memorial’s marble walls are the names of the nearly 18,000 officers who have died in the line of duty. The memorial is located on E Street between 4th & 5th Streets, NW, in Washington D.C. Your participation in this event will help us continue our ride to honor fellow officers and support the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund. The motto of the Police Unity Tour is simple …”We ride for those who died”

For more information on the Police Unity Tour, please click the link below:

www.policeunitytourviii.org

A lot of people have been wondering  how the book will be made available once it’s ready for purchase. Good question! In a sense, I’m trying to figure that out right now!

Unless an honest-to-gawd book store decides to take a chance on a new author and give up shelf space (unless any of you know a book-seller or happen to be related to Barnes and/or Noble, I’m doubting that seriously) Adventures With My Father will be available primarily through online bookstores. Once I get a clear picture of how that’s going to shake out, I will most certainly let you know.

I do know for a fact that there will be a place here on SkipShow.com as well as a book-specific website where you can order a physical copy or even download the manuscript (I will also have a Kindle version available). Amazon.com BarnesandNoble.com and Borders.com should also have the book available…we’ll see!

For the last sneak preview, I chose a passage from the Chapter “If You’re Goin’ to San Fransisco” for two reasons;  I’ve had several friends suggest it specifically and a majority of the Adventures With My Father took place while he was living in the Bay Area.

For those of you who have been paying attention, you’ve noticed that a majority of the Adventures With My Father take place without my father…good for you! (That’s kind of the gist of the whole story!)

Here’s the set-up: Summer, 1967. My brother and I have just been sentanced to spend the summer with my father and his other family in San Fransisco. What follows occured almost literally the day after we rolled into town. Careful: there is some salty language!

(Incidentally, the cover picture was taken the same day this happened)

Within the first few days of our incarceration, we were informed by one of the other inmates that there was quite the playground nearby complete with a small petting zoo. Only problem was both were located seventy-five feet above us on top of the bluff immediately behind the apartments. Since there was absolutely no adult supervision (shocking, I know) we decided to have a bash and check it out. This proved to be quite the undertaking given we had only two options; we could either walk out the back door, go to the end of the dead end road and take a shot at climbing up the steep slope or we could walk to the bottom of the hill, cross several major intersections (one uncontrolled) and hike for what was approximately two miles up a winding hillside road. Naturally, my brother decided we should climb.

Great.

Let me share a basic foundation of “Fat Kid 101”. There are things that little fat kids can’t do very well. Gymnastics comes to mind right away. Unicycles? No. Keeping a shirt-tail tucked in? Forget it. Climbing straight up half a football field without the aid of a block and tackle or at least a rope ladder? Uh, no. The prospect was daunting at best but when I considered the alternative (hanging with Purple Lips at Stalag 13), I became a willing participant. So up we went.

The first few feet really weren’t that bad. The incline wasn’t steep and there was plenty of brush to hang on to. About thirty feet up, it got a little rough. The topography gave way to nothing but scattered ice plant and run-off culverts cut into the dirt. I knew I was in for a rough run so I did what any fat kid would have done. I sat down and commenced to bitching.

After some shaming and cajoling by my brother I gave up my spot (dubbed “Base Camp Alpha”) and with the agility of a boulder, continued my ascent up the summit. I took great caution, planting my feet in the prints of my trusty Sherpa Chucky. I was very surprised by my progress, that was until my ass-hole of a brother said the one thing he should never have said;

“Don’t look down.”

That’s all it took. In a mater of seconds, I tumbled through Base Camp Alpha and came to an abrupt stop with my head wedged between a bush and a Dead End guardrail.

Nice.

It must have looked like a pretty bad tumble. Before I could figure out what in the hell had just happened, Sonny was on top of me making sure I was okay and laughing his ass off. The bastard.

Surprisingly, my tumble served only to shore up my resolve. I checked for any protruding bones and headed back to base camp. After a quick break to catch my breath and admire what was really a beautiful view, it was back to work. Sonny offered to let me go up first but we quickly determined that that would only serve to provide me a cushion for the next time I fell. We chose to tie one end of his belt to his belt loop and the other to my wrist. Rather brilliant we thought.

While it felt to us like the better part of our day was just getting up that freaking hill, in reality it was probably less than half an hour. As we got closer to the top, I was hit with this strange sensation. Something just didn’t seem right.

“What is that smell?” Suddenly, I wasn’t concerned with the climb or even falling again. I was more concerned about my brother’s digestive tract and just what in the name of all things holy would create such a noxious gas.

It was a rather (“rather” one of my favorite words) anti-climactic moment when Sonny finally reached the top of the cliff. He stood, dusted himself off, took time to survey the area and as outlined in the “Shitty Things to Do to Your Little Brother” handbook, he was required to lean over the ledge of the cliff and spit at me as I was nearing the top. Such a card, that Sonny.

I managed to dodge the barrage of saliva and pulled myself up the last yard or so to where he stood (having long since given up on the belt thing). When I pulled myself to my feet, what I saw certainly explained the foul stench I was smelling. What was billed as a “cool little petting zoo” was more like the San Francisco Satellite Campus of The Island of Dr. Moreau.

 

Thank you to everyone who commented on what you’ve read so far. I have had SO much fun reading and hearing about YOUR dysfunctional family! It’s nice to know I’m not the Lone Ranger.

I don’t know if you saw my Face Book posting but I need your help.

I’m wrapping up the pre-production phase of publishing and I need a headline for the back cover. A “headline” is one brief (less than 8 words) sentence that sums up the contents of the story. It’s purpose obviously is to get people to pick up the book and read it.

I decided to have a bit of a contest. Read both Sneak Preview postings here and then send me your headline. The headline chosen will actually go on the back cover of the book. Hurry, I need to wrap this up ASAP.

Sneak Preview, Part II is from Chapter II “Our First Adventure”. Enjoy.

 

I can’t begin to tell you what it’s like for a 3 year old when he sees the Pacific Ocean for the first time. I think it was actually the smell of the ocean that I noticed first. It was unlike anything I had ever sensed before. I could almost taste the salt as I drew the dampness of the air into my little lungs. There was that inexplicable sense of calming excitement that washed over me from the inside out that only those who have been there can ever truly appreciate. I remember my mother pulling me out of the car, trying to pull off my shoes as I was using every ounce of my strength to tear away from her to reach this magnificent expanse of water. I felt for the first time something that to this day is one of the purest, most simple pleasures in life: the ocean’s breeze. The air was full of the sound of roller skates and skateboards, buoy bells and boat engines, screaming kids ordering ice creams and burgers from the drive-in across the street and that unbelievable roar of the waves crashing in front of me. I was a little more than frightened but a lot more than exhilarated by the swarms of seagulls that swooped over, swirled about and gathered around me, looking for a hand-out.

     To this day I can still clearly see my pudgy little toes peeking up at me from the warm sand. For what seemed an eternity, I scrambled across the beach to reach my brothers on the shore. I was so fascinated by the water rushing toward me and then retreating from me at the same time as I retreated from it. I was mesmerized by how my feet left perfect impressions and equally mesmerized by how the incoming waves would wash them away. Over and over and over I scooped up tiny handfuls of wet sand, crushed it in my fist and then let it slip away between my fingers. The water would then rush in immediately to put the sand back seemingly right where it belonged. I watched in awe as my big brothers jumped in to and dove over the incoming waves that seemed so strong and immense. They would disappear into the water and I would wonder where they went. My fears would disappear when I would see them explode from the below the surface of the water, kicking, spitting salt water and screaming with unbridled laughter. At that moment, I looked behind me and saw my mother in a way that I would keep and treasure with me for the rest of my life.

     She stood on a small dune covered in vines of ice plant a few yards from me. Like all little boys, she was my mom and I thought she was the most beautiful mom in the world. The wind blew her long black hair behind her. She stood holding her shoes by the straps, hand on her hip and the other hand was above her brow, shading the sun so she could see her boys. It was the first time I had seen her smile in a while. I ran to her as fast as I could. With the grace of a dancer, she pulled me up and held me close to her. I put my head on her shoulder and presented her with a perfectly scalloped shell I had found on the beach. “Honey, it’s beautiful. Can I keep it?” I shook my head and took a deep breath. The ocean mixing with her perfume, having her all to myself, the absolute perfection of that instant lulled me into a place that I could only call warmth. I would give anything to have her hold me like that again today.

     Throughout my childhood, into my rebellious teen years and even into my adult life, I would occasionally sneak into my mom’s room. In a drawer next to her bed, among the nail clippers, the latest Harlequin romance, the Parker pens and crossword puzzles, I would always find a fiber-thin faded blue Kleenex. Neatly wrapped up inside was a small perfectly scalloped shell. Inside that shell, in her distinct printing, she had written; SKIPPER, SEAL BEACH. JULY ’65.

 

Adventures With My Father: Childhood Recollections of Divorce, Dysfunction and the Summer of Love, in it’s simplest definition, is the story of part of my life growing up in Southern California in the 60’s.

When I started writing this, it was as a present for my brother Sonny. Being the old coots we are (he much older and coot-ier), we’d sit on the phone talking about the weird crap our parents put us through and how we managed to survive it all. Considering he’s in the throes of senility, he had ask me to write these stories and “childhood recollections” down so he’d remember them.

Silly rabbits, we thought we were the only ones to go through this kinda stuff, but as these stories started to circulate, we discovered that there are a lot of us who had messed up upbringings! Dysfunction does not run in my family, it gallops!

Warning: In order to maintain authenticity, there’s some “flowery” language. Read it first before the kids do…

So, here’s a little excerpt from Chapter 1: “That Sonofabitch Father of Yours” (see what I mean?)

I can tell you one thing; the man knew how to fly a plane. My mother always said “That sonofabitch father of yours can circumnavigate the globe with nothing but a compass, an altimeter and a stop-watch but get him on the ground and he can’t find his ass with both hands and radar…but he sure as hell knows where the local liquor store is”. I think that’s a compliment. It’s really true though. We lived in the same house for nearly thirteen years and he could never, ever remember how to get there. But the boy could fly. He used his VA to go to flight school and upon graduation, started his professional career dusting crops in Texas and Louisiana. I would like to point out here that his prowess for flying was not passed down to my dear brother Sonny. It seems Sonny had a penchant for turning off the engines mid-flight when he’d go dusting with Pop. Had we only known how strange our lives would get, maybe we would have tried harder to end it all before kindergarten.

     I’m not exactly sure how things progressed from crop dusting to airline captaining (if that’s actually a word) but I can tell you at one point my father was a pilot chauffeur for Battista when he still ran things in Cuba. In fact several years later, during a Wild Turkey and egg-nog induced diatribe, Mom told me that my father was on his way to Havana to get his employer the night Castro and his buddies decided to overthrow his government. Unfortunately for El Presidente, he was too hung over to fly. Still, I thought that was kind of cool in a James-Bondish sort of way, even though at the time I learned this I had no idea who Battista was and I thought Castro was one of the guys on the cough drops box.

     Turns out the story really was he had come up with yet another one of his famous get rich quick schemes. Seriously, if he spent half as much time trying to make a million dollars as he did thinking of ways to make a million dollars, he would have had a million dollars. He had made a deal with a wealthy Cuban plantation owner to dust his crops for a substantial amount of money. Sensing immediate fame and fortune, he flew his Stearman to a tiny airfield outside Havana where he was then promptly arrested by the Cuban Federales. It seemed neither he nor the plantation owner obtained the proper clearance for this little project with the appropriate Cuban authorities. His plane was immediately confiscated.

     According to the folk song, my mother then had to appear before the Cuban Embassy in the States to get “that sonofabitch father of yours” released from jail and get his plane released from the authorities. The release was granted but only under one condition; he was not allowed to fly the plane out of the country. This was no doubt my father’s biggest punishment due to the fact that he was the cheapest human being ever to walk the planet. He was forced to hire a ship and a crew to disassemble his Stearman and ship it back to the States. His get rich quick scheme netted him a stay in jail in a third world soon-to-be-Communist country and a butt load of money out of his pocket. So much for fame and fortune.

     (Just a side note, I never really researched the authenticity of either one of these tales. I was happy to believe the folk lore).

     By the time I showed up, we had left Louisiana for Midwest City, Oklahoma where Pop began flying for the now-defunct Capital Airways. It was the late summer of 1961. John Kennedy ruled over Camelot and Americans had just seen the first images of the Berlin Wall. The New York Yankees were well on the way to defending their World Series Championship, Patsy Cline and “Moon River” were on the radio. “West Side Story” was the summer blockbuster and somewhere in the middle of an Oklahoma City suburb, my mother and father pretty much couldn’t stand each other. I can’t tell you much about those days in regards to my father because frankly, I never saw the man. He was constantly flying somewhere, someplace or at home blasted to the gills with Old Crow seeping from his pores. Even as a toddler, I could find it amusing that the man who fell off the toilet the night before was off to carry your relatives and mine thousands of miles away thousands of feet in the air with a full blown hangover the next morning. Since decades have passed and I’m sure regulations as well, I feel comfortable enough to tell you that just about every pilot I ever met from birth to my teenage years were raging alcoholics. Two things that my father always had in his flight bag were a fifth of Old Crow and a .38. (By the way, I was a little shocked in the aftermath of 9/11 that they were considering letting pilots carry guns in the cockpit, from what I knew most of them were armed to the teeth already). Over the years when I see stories of pilots being detained from a flight because they were inebriated, I always double check their names to see if they are by chance relatives.

Who are these guys and why are they on the SkipShow web site?

You’ll find out soon enough!

Pre-production is almost complete for my first book. It should be out in early fall.

Watch for excerpts here in the next few days!

Hey…

First and foremost, we have to say “thank you” to everyone who has called, texted, IMd and especially the SkipShow FaceBook Army for the amazing show of support you have given us since our firing in April. I am truly humbled.

I’m sorry it’s taken so long for this website to get put together but for obvious reasons, we (read: me) have been pretty pre-occupied with getting on with life.

A lot of you have been asking so I thought I would give you an update on what’s happening.

Melissa - She is currently visiting with her mom. Actually her mom is here from Michigan. Melissa posted a great video of her surprising mom with an unexpected visit from Melissa’s sister Jackie. You can see it  on her FaceBook page. I’d tell you what the link is but I’m pretty lame at this and have no idea how to do that!

Braden - Is spending every spare moment he has with Barrett and preparing for the arrival of his little sister. ‘Nuff said.

Lester - Lester has probably been the busiest. As you know, he is dealing with his mom and her Alzheimer’s. For the past few weeks, he’s been up in Illinois making arrangements for her to be moved into a home where she can get round the clock care. Good old Lester has been spending his nights at probably his favorite place on earth (outside of his place in Parrish); his father’s cabin on the Illinois River.

Lester has been very busy writing new Cowboy Poetry, some of which will be making it’s way on to skipshow.com in the near future. (There’s some exciting news for Cowboy Poetry fans on the was as well!)

As for me…well, I’ve been very busy myself. After trying to get myself back in order (Try waking up one morning and suddenly be without your phone, your contacts and your laptop…it’s very unsettling), I am frenetically working at keeping the SkipShow alive and well and geared up for what ever may be coming next.

If you read my postings on FaceBook, you know that I spent last week in Washington DC as part of the Police Unity Tour. We rode bicycles through the Virginia countryside for three days in honor of those in law enforcement who gave their lives to protect our families.

I have never been more proud to be associated with a group of people than I am my PUT sisters and brothers. Read more about the PUT by logging on to www.policeunitytourviii.org.

Since returning home, priority one has been finding a new home for the Skip Mahaffey Morning Show. But I am also taking the opportunity to concentrate on developing my writing. My first book; Adventures With My Father: Childhood Memories of Divorce, Dysfunction and the Summer of Love is finished. It’s the story of two brothers who were children of divorce when divorce was just a word Tammy Wynette spelled about. It’s a strange story but then again, I’m a strange person…what else would you expect. It started off as a 50th birthday present for my big brother and turned into something much bigger. I am currently in search of a Literary Agent to help me find a publisher (if you know any, send me their contact info!). Excerpts of the book will be appearing on my blog page on Skipshow.com

We are also in the process of putting together two books of Lester’s Cowboy Poetry. Keep an eye out on Lester’s page for further developments!

As for the future of the SMMS, I wish I had an answer for you, but I don’t. Every one of us knows somebody who has been affected by the recent problems in the economy. Sadly, there are some amazingly talented people in radio who are without a job. I was arrogant enough to think I was immune.

I thought wrong.

I want to take a minute to address something in a very public forum…about Clear Channel.

I hold no ill will toward Dan DiLoreto (CC Tampa Bay General Manager) whatsoever. He did what he had to do. This could have fallen a number of ways and Dan was kind enough to choose the path the would negatively impact my family the least.

I will always be grateful for his consideration. I consider this a blessing in disguise.

I wish I could sit here and tell you that we will be back on the air together again in the near future, but I can’t. Honestly I have not clue one as to where this path might lead.

I do know this, I miss you all terribly. For 11 years, we rode to work together every day. We shared amazing high’s and terrible low’s. We were all together when the Bucs made the Super Bowl, the Rays made the World Series and on 9/11 when our world changed forever.

Together, we created and delivered over 250,000 holiday cards for our troops overseas. We found homes for over 1,000 dogs and cats.  We have raised millions of dollars for St. Jude, The Angelus and hundreds of other worthy causes. We have celebrated births and mourned the loss of family and friends.

We played Battle of the Sexes, Impossible Trivia and You Can’t Win This. We interviewed an amazing list of celebrities, big and small, and more than anything else…we laughed. A lot!

So, I hope you have a chance to check out the web site from time to time. It’s far from finished but I’m working on that. I’ll be adding to it almost daily and I’ll be beating up Brady, Lester and Melissa to please do the same.

I encourage you to please email me with any thoughts or suggestions you may have. My email is still skip@skipshow.com.

God Bless and be Brilliant!

S-

Many thanks need to go to John Tackett at www.usaamerica.com for the design of this website and to Tim Hunt at www.gulfcoastnetworking.com for essentially keeping me alive in cyberspace. Any business you have in these realms, please at least consult these folks.