Real Media

I rarely blog about mainstream entertainment media.
There are two reasons for this.
The first reason is: I hate it.
The second: I don't know jack about it.

Not all of it- I like some TV shows (House, Stewart/Colbert, NFL games, Buffy, etc) and would undoubtedly like others ( Weeds!) if I had the time and cable to watch them.
I like movies, but I never watch them unless someone else wants to- I used to rent a lot of movies when I was drinking, but I sorta renting stopped after I quit drinking. Hadn't really thought about it like that...hmmm.

I love radio. Independent radio.
It was nice to get back to the station and get actual lovin' hugs from the lovin' people who volunteer there. We have an all-volunteer staff and operate on a shoestring budget of donations and underwriters, but we are in our second year and getting bigger and better all the time- it's a minor miracle we made it two months, much less two years. I was there in the beginning- it was chaos! Fun chaos, but chaos nonetheless. Now , it's easy. We are a model station.

Forget about Jack and Corporate radio. Don't support them. Support your local stations- if you don't have one , start one. Here is how.

We bring our community national programs like Democracy Now, News and Notes, and Talk of the Nation, as well as our own locally produced news and interview shows. Sometimes I engineer these- evenings and weekends it's all music- here's a schedule.


We are what radio should be- by the people, for the people, supported by the people. It's organized anarchy at it's best- volunteers gravitate towards things that they are good at and care about- this is why we have such great people working for free- things get done well because when people care they do better work. (Corporations often ignore this simple concept and consequently wonder why they have unhappy workers)
We operate on funds given to us by our audience, because, believe it or not , people like having a local station to call their own. We listen to our audience and create shows for them.
That is our mission. Serve the best interests of the community.
Our DJ's are just regular folk, ranging from high school students to retirees. They live here. They aren't pre-recorded voices on a computer in LA.

Our DJ's take considerable time, thought and expense preparing for their shows- we don't have any playlist handed down from corporate headquarters- we aren't doing the robo-jack shuffle- each host has a particular style or genre and between them we cover a lot of ground, but in a sensible , coherent format.

Without ads. And we aren't NPR.

My next show is Sunday , Oct 1, 7 am- to 9am EST , which'll be afternoon for the discriminating European listener. I'm flirting with the idea of calling it "Tom Waits for no one" and playing two hours of Tom Waits but I'll probably save that idea for a late night show- if I ever do one.

Anyway, it's great fun being able to play whatever I feel like - I play actual vinyl from my own collection. Old school!
I can play Captain Beefheart's Safe as Milk, Clash's London Calling and X's Wild Gift on Sunday morning.
I like Gong in the morning. Original drummer Pip Pyle has recently died, so I think some Banana Moon is in order- Floating Anarchy !

What do you like in the morning?