BAI, from bad to badder...

The other say, when SDL posted this assertion on the BlueBoard, R. Paul Martin, who harbors no love for Berthold Reimers, said he was being "mean." This morning, SDL responded:

"Wrong, I'm not being mean. I am being realistic. Your management doesn't trust its own producers/hosts to make as much money as all these garbage infomercials can. Why? Because they know most of the programming doesn't have any support and few listeners. That is a simple truth. It's all about friends getting air time with no consideration for the listeners or what they would like to hear.

I have no problem offering premiums if they are serious ones relevant to politics and arts or what one sees on specialized programs like The Personal Computer Show and Off The Hook. I DO have a problem with premiums lacking any scientific or medical oversight, mysticism/occult-ism/religion, hypnotism, how to get rich or laid, etc. However, I think producers/hosts should have to raise their own money to demonstrate that their programs have listener support.

I have long said that there should be a minimum donation level set for shows to raise or they are cancelled. Mornings and day time should be $800 and night time $400. You know most shows would never make even that minimum. Crackpot infomercials are meant not only to make money, but to cover up the fact that most shows on WBAI simply don't have even minimal support from the listeners.

You have had cancer cures for years? OK. One question then: Can WBAI show me one single person who has been cured of cancer by any of these? Just one verifiable case of a person being cured of cancer by the cancer cures you offer? Come on, there must be ONE. Maybe I should add one person who actually even received their premium to begin with.

Say what you wish, but you know WBAI is a dishonest station. You don't care about the listeners in any way, shape or form. What you people care about is getting your buddies on the air, regardless as to whether the listeners want to hear them or not."

That provides me with a fitting introduction to a post I was formulating after a week of grueling ear abuse at 99.5.

In case you haven't heard, another four-week fund raiser is on and—belying the rosy outlook described by Reimers and his Propagandist-in-Chief, Mitchel Cohen—the money does not appear to be pouring in. Reimers is desperate, which means that he has called for the return of some of the irrelevant infomercials that, although they didn't impress in the past, at least generated more than, shall we say, all that homegrown humbug. 

These bunker bozos—and I think that may be a kind description—never learn from their mistakes, so they repeat them and repeat them and repeat them. One of the doozies that has resurfaced in this round is Earl Caldwell's shameful hawking of cancer "cures," sold in the form of a DVD/book package that glorifies a perp walk of con artists and quacks, some of whose disciples do business on WBAI’s air. As is his wont, Caldwell goes overboard, understandably upset by the then recent death of his sister, who received conventional treatment before dying. All the more reason why Caldwell should want people to look into the alternatives he believes in. If he really believes there are WBAI listeners at death’s door who can be given longer life through this premium’s curative methods, he ought to direct them to a place like Amazon, where the price is $2 to $6 and quick delivery is guaranteed. Instead, he tries to sell them this product for $125 with odds against their ever receiving what they paid for. That is unconscionable, as is the assistance by Michael Haskins, who seems to possess neither conscience nor reason when it comes to having listeners pay for his salary.

On the attached audio excerpt, you can listen to Haskins as he sounded earlier this week on the morning show, introducing and pushing a new intangible kind of premium: "Revolutionary Fitness." Rather than being  a physical item, it is a politicized physical workout—a little like bringing prison activity home. The personal trainer/founder is one Shawn Garcia and, not surprisingly, this appears is an offering concocted by Mario Murillo, whose tenure as iPD is coming to an end.

Don’t worry, Murillo will keep one foot in the door, thus fulfilling what appears to have been the real purpose of his revisit. While Haskins and the other misguided Mumia worshippers were busy painting the station a decidedly basic black, Mr. Mario strode in like La Mara in heat, and with each move he and the agenda-driven one-trackers made, WBAI became more alienated from its original, principled concept.

It is fair to say that, in the months since Murillo's return, there have been some signs of program improvement—mostly time shuffles—but he has not put the trash out, so the positive is negated by the negative. Truly disgraceful tabloid stuff is still aired as were it the truth; Chri$t is now adored in the guise of a disgusting, commercial "gospel show"; homespun guru, the new-age-old-con Kathy Davis was sensibly fired a couple of years back, but now she has more air time for her nonsense than ever before; the shallow disc jockeys are still wasting air time with their generously apportioned bland recall blends of BLS; the agonizingly inarticulate John Kane, who advocates the sale of reservation-based cigarettes and sat in for the indicted (now freed) Ghosthorse, gets an hour of his own; and WBAI maintains its downward trajectory without a safety net or a mentionable net income. As you will hear, there is a good reason why the Haskins, Haskins, Haskins, and more Haskins morning show ought to be renamed "Dummies at Dawn."

Besides the afore-mentioned Revolution Fitness "premium", the attached audio clip contains a remarkably tedious phone interview with one the new regular contributors. A Haskins protegé, this New Jersey activist is heard describing in agonizing detail a personally humiliating non-event in South Jersey. The protest in question was probably not a frivolous one, but it only gets incidental mention as the man on the phone keeps the focus on himself, in a blurry sort of way. It borders on farce, but that escapes Haskins, who wants to hear more next week.

If you think I am exaggerating when I say that these studio "radicals" use the term "community" as a metaphor for people of color, I suggest that you retrieve the entire program from the archive (wbai.org). You will notice how everything on this two-hour show is strenuously monochrome (black and brown) and never rises to a measurable level of intelligence. I should note that I cut out a couple of forgettable musical interludes, a dozen or so auto IDs by Haskins (like Knight, he loves to mention his own name), and all mention of the "number to call." I don't wish to be regarded as an accomplice in WBAI's demise.

The bunker bozos like to tell us that the morning hours are WBAI's most listened-to time slots, but that raises important questions: Why do they then target but a miniscule segment within a segment of the area’s population and how can they continue to wonder why the overwhelming majority of the station’s listener-supporters disappeared? They may also ask themselves why people only respond to pleas for money when a product is offered, and if the nature of these “gifts” isn’t saying a mouthful about the nature of the purchasers.

Among the many excuses invented by Berthold Reimers and the Atlantic Avenue bunker group, is that WBAI’s listeners grew old and that many of them simply “transitioned” (they don’t like to say “died”). Well, that’s life, isn’t it? But we have been dying since the day the first of us were born, and it is remarkable how long and seamlessly our replacements keep tried and true values.

That said, death does indeed play a role here, but it is the death of a radio station, not its listeners.