Cooler in the 70s: Rednecks with Radios - Part One

In a world of blogs, internet radio, podcasts, instant messaging, online gaming and message boards, it's hard to remember a time when the ramblings of the average joe could only be projected roughly 20 miles, on a good day, from a hill top, from behind the hand held microphone of a Citizen's Band radio. Yet, for many people, whether alone in their bedrooms, or on the road in their long-haul trucks and cars, the CB was the only way to reach out to others nearby behind the cover of an anonymous handle.

Yes, CB radio was the first attempt at electronic social networking.

One of the appeals of CB radio was the inherent anti-establishment nature of the device. You could say what you wanted, without being subject to FCC rules or regulations. It was commercial-free. It allowed for instant feedback, both good and bad. Most of all, it was used a tool primarily by people who didn't want the law to know what they were talking about. CB radio had its own rules, its own language, its own way of starting and ending conversations, it could be used as a way of warning other drivers of a speed trap up ahead, or as a way for people to catch up with nearby friends. Most of the time, though, yeah, it was used to warn people of speed traps.

In the UK, CB radio wasn't made legal until 1981. There had been a campaign running for about 6 years prior to that, and strangely, as soon as we got what we wanted, the fad quickly died. Like Usenet, it devolved into a mess of pointless roger-beeping and people playing their own records over other people's attempts to hold a conversation. CB radio wasn't meant to be your own pirate radio station, it was meant for you to tell us where the pigs are.

So, despite my own memories of CB being from the 80's in London, the dream belonged to the golden age of CB radio, about 1976 to 1979.

There were two small movies in 1975 called Moonrunners and White Line Fever, both of which outlined the outlaw aspect of trucking and smuggling which fed into the Rednecks with Radios genre. The core principle was that, like many other genres in a post-Watergate 70s, the government, and by extension, the cops, were corrupt and couldn't be trusted. They were agents of mild totalitarianism, and, like rebellious Robin Hoods, the outlaw truckers and moonshine runners were the good guys, just doing what they have to do to make ends meet in a world where the man is trying to keep them down.

In the same year, C. W. McCall released the awesome novelty single, Convoy, the story of three truckers driving from Los Angeles to Tulsa, who start a convoy, quickly picking up a long line of trucks, buses, cars and vans, until the authorities try to take them down with a roadblock. They bust through the roadblock, and now they're all outlaws, careening across the US with no real destination until their convoy has over a thousand vehicles following behind lead trucker Rubber Duck. By the time Rubber Duck enters New Jersey, Pig Pen, a hog carrying truck that began the convoy as the third truck, has been forced back by people complaining about the smell so far that he's still in Omaha. The song was a huge hit both in the US and the UK, and brought the language and romanticism of the new knights of the road and their CB radios to a whole new level of popularity.

Cashing in on the success of the single came the movie Convoy in 1978. Smokey and the Bandit, Citizens Band and the Chuck Norris movie Breaker! Breaker! had beat them to the punch in 1977, but Convoy had all the main ingredients: trucks, fascist cops, corrupt politicians, hot chicks, and plenty of CB radio action.

It's said that during the making of this movie, director Sam Peckinpah was so out of it on coke and booze that James Coburn, who had been brought in as second unit director, actually directed much of the principal photography while Sam was 'sick' in his trailer.

For all the setbacks that besieged it, Convoy is a much better film than you would expect it to be. Kristofferson is a charming and charismatic image of masculinity as lead trucker Rubber Duck, and Ali McGraw, who previously worked with Peckinpah in The Getaway, looks as stunning and sexy as always, even with a perm. The film's ending is a little contrived and corny, but the ride from the original fight with Ernest Borgnine's Sheriff Wallace, to the Thelma and Louise style leap of faith is well worth jumping aboard for.