The following Q and A has former Pacifica Board member (KPFT) Bill Cosier attempting to make sense of figures seemingly pulled out of the air by Chief Finance Officer Raul Salvador (the resurrected one).
Thank you Tracy Rosenberg.
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.
Pacifica’s, its member stations, and the archives have long been shambolic in all respects.
ReplyDeleteTheir finances and financial controls have long been shambolic.
A great deal of internal energy such as it is has long been devoted to contesting these simple realities.
There will never, ever, be a coherent accounting of Pacifica’s, its member stations, and the archive’s finances until and unless one of the following occurs:
1) The California AG’s enquiry chooses to appoint a special master.
2) Pacifica is forced to enter voluntary bankruptcy in an attempt to survive, which would also require the appointment of a special master.
Neither of these eventualties would miraculously, as some hope, create a structure, management, and programming to save Pacifica and its member stations from themselves – that is not the concern of regulatory authorities or the courts. That responsibility lay with Pacifica, its member stations, and the archives.
Is any of this complicated? Difficult to grasp?
On the evidence, for some, it is. For most of the planet, it isn’t.
Whether or not anyone at Pacifica, the stations, and the archives ‘gets’ this is by now long irrelevant.
As this unravels Pacifica will lose everything, by which of course I mean the licenses.
The only part of Pacifica that might survive is the archives, handed over to a university or foundation.
LOL OMG I just realized an old buddy of mine is president of a California foundation that would actually fit the bill perfectly. I kid you not.
No, I’m not going to pick up the phone or shoot him an email.
Let them die.
~ ‘indigopirate’
If I were in charge of WBAI, I would play 24 hours Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy, Bobby Darin. WNEW never had a clear FM signal. What think y'all?
ReplyDeleteYour comment is off topic, but I can think of many currently programmed hours that would be vastly improved by your tongue-in-cheek suggested substitution.
DeleteSeriously, any subject or person can be appropriate Pacifica fare if presented intelligently and from a thought-provoking viewpoint. How and why you tell the story can make all the difference. Most of the current presenters are of little substance. Some of them will play ethnic music that is rarely, if ever, aired on NY radio, but they do so to convince us--and themselves--that they are down with it, genuine members of the "community," as they define it.
Contrast that with someone like the late British actor, James Mason, who not only had a genuine love for ethnic music, the people who performed it, and the instruments involved, but also had made a point of learning its history. Mr. Mason came by WBAI to share with our listeners the joy he felt when listening to his impressive collection of sound and knowledge gathered during location filming around the world. His programs were remarkable and I hope some of what he left us has found its way to the Pacifica Archive.
James Mason did radio on WBAI? When was that? His voice must have been amazing on radio.
DeleteSpeaking of music, there's no folk music show on WBAI, is there? Also, there's no comedy/novelty show. These were two genres that had representation for much of WBAI's history.
SDL
Mason came to us sometime in the mid-Sixties. As I recall, he did two one-hour programs and we must have offered them to KPFA and K, which we did routinely. I doubt that they didn't order them, which increases the chance that the tapes still exist somewhere.
DeleteNo, WBAI has no folk music program today. Fass occasionally throws in an authentic one, but I do mean throws in, and he often interrupts the music for nonsense, like reciting those station IDs. Of course, the proper way is to have the individual stations identify themselves, locally, but Bob likes to give a false impression of the size of his listenership. After all these years, that ego remains inflated!
Janet Coleman, et al, think they are doing comedy, but it is painfully humorless and ever so strained.
This isn't the WBAI listeners used to be attracted to.
Most of the music on Fass show is country and bluegrass, really. I think his personally announcing the station IDs is to make the one listener each station has feel that personal quality, like Fass is speaking directly to them. He sure isn't speaking to anyone else...
DeleteWhen I said comedy I meant pre-recorded stuff from albums, old live club/concert tapes, etc. Kathy O'Connell and Dennis Coleman (I think that was his name) used to do that. It would be nice to have a couple of hours a week of someone spinning Carlin, Bruce, Foxx, etc. I miss the old Laugh Day WBAI used to do at the end of the beg-a-thons.
For any original comedy on Pacifica, I'll stick with Twit Wit Radio.
SDL
I see what you mean. I wasn't just thinking about stand-up comedy. We also used to have original and genuinely funny stuff like, for example, our live and taped in studio coverage of the National Conventions, which aired when the networks were carrying the real thing. Ours featured some of the funniest people around, from Taylor Meade and Elaine May to Barbara Harris and the Second City Group. Fantastic stuff. We also played PDQ Bach and I recall running some choice Anna Russell during breaks in our annual broadcast of the complete Wagner Ring Cycle.
DeleteYou know I like Twit Wit.
I read somewhere once that Severn Darden did some stuff at WBAI. Know when or what it was?
DeleteSDL
I thought Severn Darden was the real star of our National Convention "coverage," (it was called "The Big Tune-out" and aired live during both political conventions. Many of the ideas came from Severn and I think he served as an inspiration. I think he made a movie called "The President's Analyst" after that, but the big career I predicted never came.
DeleteBy the way, David Amram had a cameo appearance as Ladybird Johnson.
Yes, The President's Analyst, where Darden played the Russian spy V.I. Kydor Kropotkin (Say the first three fast and realize it sounds like Victor). It's one of the great "60s" satires.
DeleteDarden never moved beyond character actor, but he did play in some good, quirky films. Another one of my favorites is Vanishing Point, where he plays the hippie preacher leader in the desert. Then there was the super low budget biker horror film Werewolves on Wheels, where he's the satanic priest. Sadly, he is probably best known as the irradiated Governor in Battle for the Planet of the Apes.
I think, like many character actors, he was thought to be too odd a personality for the mainstream lead roles. Too bad, as I always sensed there was a depth and satirical sense to him.
SDL
A very talented and thoughtful man. I had much fun with him off mike.
DeleteFlicker’s first, and Evans’ first greenlit – at the very least a minor gem.
DeleteDarden’s last was if memory serves a small part as Dean in Real Genius.
There is no more shattering emotional insight into racism than God’s few minutes on the couch early in that pic.
~ ‘indigopirate’