Meet Hank Rosenfeld of SANTA MONICA

Today we’d like to introduce you to Hank Rosenfeld.

Hi Hank, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I wrote my first story in 4th grade at MacDowell Elementary in Detroit, As an adult in cities like NYC, MPLS, SF and LA, I worked as a folk journalist, hearing the voices of Americans and publishing their stories in newspapers, magazines and on radio shows across the country. I also spun records aboard “The Voice of Peace,” a pirate-radio ship broadcasting to nations in the Middle East, “from somewhere in the Mediterranean.” In Athens, I wrote a newspaper column for The Times and was arrested for robbing the National Bank of Greece (found innocent, I was given a dynamite recipe for tzatziki and sent out of the country.)

I learned some of my craft driving a Good Humor Ice Cream truck after my sophomore year at Wesleyan University, where I played varsity football as an undersized defensive back. A side gig as an English major led to becoming a taxicabbist in San Francisco where I was held up my second night driving. There was hosting a Saturday 1pm show in Minneapolis called “Wake Up and Smell,” and “The Morning Product” producing wild and crazy Stephen “Coyote” Capen on KSAN-San Francisco, known as “The Jive 95,” the first underground FM in the land.. (In 2023, an oral history of the station that I compiled, ironically called, “The Jive 95,” was published by Backbeat Books.

Still following? In New York I was on staff at Spy Magazine during their early, funnier
years (1987-92) and wrote plays for troupes likeThe Bond Street Theatre Coalition, traveling with productions to Germany, Holland, Minneapolis, and New Jersey.

Okay, enough about me (unless you’d like to know about teaching ESL to Russians, Koreans and Taiwanese at the New York Association of New Americans (NYANA) while also contributing jokes to a long running play, “Catskills on Broadway “at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre.

I’m the author of as-told-to memoirs, including. The Wicked Wit of the West with Irving Brecher, who wrote two Marx Brothers and many movie musicals including “Meet Me In St. Louis,” and “Bye Bye Birdie,” and created TV’s first Emmy-winning half-hour comedy, “The Life of Riley.” Iconic critic Leonard Maltin called the book “a must read.” Other published tomes were about a Holocaust suvivor, and a hippie violinist. “The Jive 95” was selected by the Library of Congress for their audio histories collection.

My stories and humorous essays have appeared in places like The Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Magazine, California Lawyer, the Village Voice, The NY Post, the Detroit News, and the Forward, Additional tales have been told on NPR’s All Things Considered, Marketplace, Savvy Traveler and Public Radio Weekend. Some can even be heard on their websites or mine: www.hankrosenfeld.com.

I enjoy plays, movies, reading, bicycling, hiking, redwood forests, furry animals, and taking short leaps off long piers….

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Writers always struggle with their words. Red Smith of the NY Times said you must sit at the typewrite until “little drops of blood appear on your forehead.” Yeah, it’s tough.. You need to be supremely confident of your ability, even though you feel you are treated poorly—for good reason you think, because after all, your stuff is no good.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I call myself a “folk journalist,” specializing in sticking microphones in the faces of fellow Americans. Everyone has a unique story that deserves to be heard via the media, whether on radio shows or in newspapers, magazines, websites. etc. The media shops where I have contributed stories and humor include: NPR, APR, PRI and Pacifica networks; and press like the Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Magazine, California Lawyer, the Village Voice, The NY Post, and the Detroit News,

I’ll always cherish the time in the 1980’s when I spent a winter playing DJ (mostly I did character voices and produced other content that went into making a daily four-hour radio show, not spinning records) aboard “The Voice of Peace,” a pirate-radio ship broadcasting to nations in the Middle East, “from somewhere in the Mediterranean.” I wrote about some of these adventures on the high seas for The Jerusalem Post and elsewhere.

My most recent work has been compiling an oral history of KSAN, America’s first underground FM station. “The Jive 95,” (nickname for KSAN) was published by Backbeat Books, now an imprint of Bloomsbury Books in 2023. It was accented by the Library of Congress in D.C. for their audio section. The book contained QR codes that directed readers to hear on-air selections from KSAN. (Hey, it’s radio, the reader has to hear what it was like, right?!)

You ask what sets me apart from others? You can tell me: read my writing or listen to some radio stories at www.hankrosenfeld.com

How do you define success?
I like Springsteen’s definition. He said he knew he was a success when he didn’t have to work at a 9-5 job. At 30 I was working a 9 to 5 gig at a midtown Manhattan ad firm. By 39, I was producing four hours every afternoon at K=Rock (WXRK), also in midtown. Great hours, right? Success!

Pricing:

• Pricing for books? Dog/cat/goat sitting? I use Rover.com and can direct folks in that direction….

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.hankrosenfeld.com
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNSjvsorp3M
• Other: https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/jive-95-9781493070862/