Full text of Murillo Report.
A comment from another planet...
An unvarnished blog that dips into the past and comments on the present of WBAI-FM, a once significant, intelligent New York radio station that for years has suffered chronic abuse from within and now nears extinction. Your comments are welcomed and will not be censored.
(JustAListener)
ReplyDeleteWow! information, communication, stuff not seen since Andrew Phillips.
Nice to see Mr Murillo filling us in.
Almost makes station management sound competent. Of course Murillo will be gone next month...
This will not have set in by next month, when another fund drive begins, so there is a very real danger of Berthold Reimers craving out from under his desk and dousing it all with Nullerypjowder and miracle "cures."
DeleteLet's hope Pacifica's National Board gets properly scrubbed, wakes up, and throws these wreckers out!
That said, I like much of what Murillo is finally putting into place. He now needs to give us more confidence through the elimination of ignorant, harmful on-the-air dross.
He's really updating programming for the new decade; the perpetual dry drunk Malachy McCourt is being resurrected.
ReplyDeleteI like Malachi and often enjoy his great sense of humor as well as his intellect. Malachi's association with WBAI goes back to the time I was there. He used to own/run a bar and there was always a collection bowl for WBAI upon it.
DeleteI think I have an idea of where you are going with this, your reference to "resurrection." That points out a potential danger, but it is a good idea to bring good people back--James Irsay and Doug Henwood are good example of this.
If WBAI gets back to a meaningful, well crafted schedule, I think it will once again start attracting interesting fresh voices. It is a slow process that has no chance unless properly funded, so I think a new, real manager's priority should be to take what Mario Murillo is doing and use it to raise real money off the air, money that is earmarked for maintaining the station on the air and further develop quality programming.
Removing some of the most glaring hiring mistakes cannot but help in that process.
This is great news but for a word of caution. While I would love to send most of KPFT's programmers on an expense paid, yet one way, trip to Appalachia, to save the baby I'd carefully remove the bathwater. Go Slow. Remember the amazing Summer Reese tried to change things too quickly and a fund drive kinda blew up.
ReplyDeleteAnd we all know what happened to her...
By the way, since this is WBAI, there's this amazing health product I want to tell you about. It's called Vita-Air. You simply breathe it in and feel the energy of its amazing curing powers. It takes years off. And it's sold in convenient Tupperware containers that are also re-usable, re-purposed and completely re-sealable. And it's a steal at only forty-two thousand dollars; twenty of which goes to support this great WBAI program.
Even after all the Vita-Air has been absorbed into your system, it still keeps foods fresh.
Please return container back to the station.
Kevin White
Re the amazing properties of Vita-Air™, you've been talking to Berthold Reimers, haven't you?
DeleteHave you, perchance a spot for him on that Appalachia passenger list? He can't spell, but he sometimes weaves a good one.
A big "Eh..." Slightly better ideas. However, Murillo doesn't seem to know WBAI broadcasts between 12:00 AM and 6:00 AM.
ReplyDeleteAnyway. I wasn't feeling to good today, so I did lots of radio tuning. Pretty funny the couple of times I ran across WBAI. Once I heard Null and guests talking about angels, like it was the "Cake" Davis show. The other time, I heard Prescod yammering about how Haiti, after its revolution[sic], sent lots of troops to help during The American Revolution. I remember Jack Anderson years ago pushing that same canard. Sorry to burst bubbles but the troops that came to the Colonies via Haiti (before Haiti's revolution!) were French troops stationed in Haiti.
Still way to much crap on the station to warrant admiration.
Someone let Murillo know WBAI broadcasts after midnight, OK?
SDL
P.S. Anyone interested in slave revolt films should check out the Gillo Pontecorvo film Queimada (Burn!) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burn!
Putting Mimi Rosenberg in a morning slot is definitively a retrogressive move. Her scolding, condescending tone to listeners as if she is the reincarnation of John Brown is something I will not listen to or support.
ReplyDeleteKGT
I hope Murillo catches a moment when Haskins blabbers his way into John Kanes' hopelessly bigoted opportunistic blather. Hear them this morning... it was painful. Heard Allen's "Sound Archeology" yesterday, it was delightfully insightful and authoritative as well as entertaining.
DeleteThere should be more to program direction than just bringing back a bunch of tired assholes. Why is Mimi (I am wearing Black Face) Rosenberg even allowed near a microphone?
ReplyDeleteKevin White
Years ago, Isabel Washington, the first Mrs. Adam Clayton Powell, told me how she came to play opposite Bessie Smith in a 1929 two-reeler. "They wanted my sister, Fredi, who was already in pictures, but she had the flu and recommended me. When I auditioned, they said I was too light, so I told them that I could be dipped. They agreed and I got the part."
DeleteMimi has not been dipped, but such conversions are easier on radio.
Has Mimi ever castigated Al Jolson?
ReplyDeleteKGT
His only redeeming value as an entertainer is that he was an excellent singer. Good for radio. :)
DeleteMimi is just one of those "tagger-on" as we used to call them. She's looking to belong so badly that she tries to out-do the crowd she tagged onto. She still has to get the ghetto jive down, though. However, to me she still sounds like a bitch 1st grade school teacher who was just condescending to the kids. Yes, I say that from personal experience.
ReplyDeleteAs I typed the above I realize something. Juliana Forlano is going to be the next Mimi. She's the same personality type to want to be a tagger-on. Add to that her holier than thou shit. Give her a few years and she'll go from imbecile to crackpot.
Anyway, here is a very old video of Mimi singing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7Y2Ll24GRU
SDL (who is a misanthrope, not a racist. I hate all humanoids equally. Get it right!)
Desperately wanting to belong is often a problem. I don't know John Kane's lineage, but I suspect that his nonsense is, at least in part, driven by the wannabe affliction.
DeleteAs for the film clip, I can see brown going well with ruby slippers and yellow bricks, but I'll have none of her lip!
Chris - I sincerely hope you do some research about Mario- he does not have clean hands!
ReplyDelete