Friday, September 5, 2014

Fass beats the hum drum... or does he?


In case you missed this morning's Radio Unnameable, here is the first hour. You will marvel at the speed with which Bob Fass talks. He announces with pride and joy that the dreaded 60-cycle hum is gone, a technical miracle has taken place and it's time for, time for, time for, time for.....

You won't sit through the whole hour, but you might want to spot check and wonder—as I do—why this was not stopped. Bill Propp was at the studio console, dumbfounded and perhaps even in shock. Was anybody from the station tuned in? Did anyone call Propp or Bob? Have all the listeners now finally gone?

The next time one of these bozos tells you that WBAI offers you something you can't hear on any other station, believe them.

23 comments:

  1. Did this post get through through through..? Or did did it...? What... Am I here..? Am I on on..? Am I off..? Psyche... psychedelic... But it's probably very pervasive... I don't know how how far this perfect post reaches... WBAI you're on on the air... one ringy dingy... The right hand is on the mouse mouse and.. OK... voicemail... the left hand on the the the... coffee... Danger Will Robinson! Danger! OK... OK... Was that Don? I want to talk a little bit about incompe compe tence... beep beep beep beep...

    This has to be the single most inept broadcasting I have ever heard. Even a lowly college DJ knows to throw on some music while trying to fix things. If the music doesn't play right, shut down the transmitter. However, You don't let utter crap like this go over the air, let alone making smart remarks during the silence, as Propp did.

    What made it worse was how Fass just couldn't focus on anything and was going from one subject to another with every other sentence

    SD it's in the voicemail LL LL beep L LLL

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  2. C'mon- when you get to be Bob's age, you'll all be dead.

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    1. I reached Bob's current age two years ago, and I am about to pinch myself....

      OUCH!. :)

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  3. (JAL)
    Free form radio in it's ultimate form!

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    1. More like No Form Radio.

      Maybe Fass has hit on something inadvertently?

      SDL

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  4. "It was probably.... It was probably.... It was probably... It was probably... It was probably.... It was probably... It was probably... It was probably... It was probably... It was probably.... It was probably.... It was probably... It was probably... It was probably... It was probably... It was probably....

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  5. No, Kevin, but his show is way past its expiry date and ego blocks his exit. It's sad, really, but symptomatic of the decayed WBAI.

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  6. Hey. If he has some sort of dementing process going on, why shouldn't he keep trying to push a little and produce something? Like the Special Olympics. I think it's therapeutic.

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  7. So I wasn't drifting off to sleep after all. That's sad or scary or both.

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    1. No, Justine, the nightmare was real--a pathetic way to exit after a long and once successful run. I recall listening with dismay to Marion Anderson when she continued singing after age gave her voice a wobble. Ditto, Anita O'Day. There comes a time in most careers when it is wise to make a graceful exit. Bob was ready for that when the flower necklaces withered, but he went on and on and on. The documentary film was his last chance to leave without fizzling, but he blew it.

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  8. I seldom listen to Fass but tuned in last night just in time to hear this debacle. It was friggin' unreal. Wasn't his show pre-recorded -- I thought I heard the 'engineer' doofus say something about a "loop". Chris, what the hell was going on there?

    On another note, I tuned in this morning -- thinking maybe Fass was still at it -- in time to hear Haskins speaking with the black-centric radical du jour. Haskins repeated this phrase a few times with much emphasis: "This is *OUR* station." hmm....

    rj

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    1. The show is live, but what you hear is pre-recorded, because it is on delay and, ergo, subject to digital "mishaps." The loop is formed in the delay and Bill Propp has been in radio long enough to know that you don't just sit there for over an hour while such crap is going on. The studio is in upper Manhattan, Bob is at his house on Staten Island---both locations have telephones that allow off-the-air communication. Besides, this was the worst case, but there have been many technical problems (including the hum) every week, so they should be prepared to switch to an alternate program source.

      The whole thing was as ridiculous as it was avoidable. The experiment has failed and they should move on. If there was real management, this would not have been allowed to go on week after week.

      Yes, Haskins has a consistent problem expressing himself, so he routinely repeats what some one just said, then often repeats his own words. Here, the glitch is human, and they named it Michael Haskins.

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  9. It was audio surrealism taken to the max. Too bad that nobody, not even WBAI management, heard it. I captured it from the archive, because I assumed that it would' be left there long. Obviously I forgot all about WBAI's chronic amateurism.

    Your video captures Haskins perfectly. By gum, ain't nobody gone move him. Heston had his rifle, Haskins has his dying station... you know, the one in the middle of the dial, the "community" voice. Will he ever wonder how it can be that you paint something black and it comes out red?

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  10. What is so absurd about the Bob Fass Wrecking Crew Catastrophe is that it can be easily and cheaply avoided - have Fass on via telephone! For decades this is how it was done on radio and generally worked well. Buy him a $30 headset and it's problem solved. Trying to be all techy has proven to be a flop.

    I forgot to mention how near the end of the show Arnold was talking about "sabotage." Yeah, right. No one is going to sabotage Fass' show. Hell, besides us here, only about 10 Fass ass kissers even know the show exists. I wonder if "Adriana Forlano" is even one of them.

    SDL

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  11. Yes, that was a stupid remark Bill Propp made. Do they really think that show has retained more than a handful of listeners? That's how WBAI operates these days: in a dream world. The "sabotage," if that term applies, comes from within. All those years on the air, and on stage before that, have taught Bob nothing about audiences--like Knight, he is the delusional Norma Desmond descending the grand staircase, pausing to face an imaginary sea of paparazzi and adoring fans.

    That scene gave me goosebumps when I saw it on the big screen, but the emotion was dwarfed by the one I felt many years later, when Gloria Swanson re-enacted the moment in her living room, aiming those incredible eyes straight at me.

    Of course, Gloria suffered no such delusions.

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  12. Gloria slept with Joe Kennedy.

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  13. Yes, they had an affair, She had a framed photo of him on a a small round table that also included a picture of her former husband, Wallace Beery. She did not have a problem with such things. Do you?

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  14. FYI: Went to the archives to see if Sydney Smith was on and got Out FM instead. Hope he's OK. Maybe he's be fired...

    SDL

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    1. Last night, I learned from a totally reliable inside source that Sydney has been barred from entering the premises, because someone made an unsubstantiated accusation against him to Berthold Reimers, whose reaction was to sic sledgehammer Tony Ryan on Sydney and permanently bar him from any WBAI-occupied premises, including, of course, the broadcast studio.

      I do not for a minute believe that charge to be valid, but any location WBAI settles into soon develops a putrid atmosphere of hate and racism. Someone obviously had it in for Sydney, who has never traveled the path taken by these narrow minds. He is better off in the long run, WBAI is not.

      Bear in mind that this is the same Berthold Reimers who had to be forced to dismiss Tony Bates when the latter was accused of sexual abuse, at least one incident of which was witnessed. Over 100 signatures on a petition forced Reimers to make the right decision, but he continued to praise Bates, and even brought him back for a fund drive.

      Little by little, WBAI's management peels away the remnants of good radio. This is one way, a second step, one might say, because Sydney and others were first exiled to air times when listenership is at its lowest.

      We should be supporting the good people who are left at WBAI—the morale is as low as it can get, and I think it will take media attention to expose people like Reimers, the hard-core racist faction, and the schemers on the Pacifica National Board. It will undoubtedly hasten the demise of Lew Hill's noble experiment, but that has already been killed in spirit, if not in body.

      NOTE: My original comment on this incident included the nature of the original accusation, but I have been advised by a couple of clearer-thinking blog visitors that this was a mistake on my part. If Sydney wants to expand on this, he is more than welcome to do so, either by adding a his comment here or making it a more prominent post.

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  15. Glad you removed the offensive post - be careful that you may be used by Berthold himself to get rid of people. Be wary of your "sources" - your "sources" may have an agenda!

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    1. I would not put anything past Berthold Reimers, but I can assure you that my source for this information is impeccable.

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