I posted this uncut audio of the April 20 meeting without having had time to do more than spot check it, but now—the day after—I have listened to the whole thing.
I won't go into details, but there are obviously members present who attempt to do the right thing, but—as always—that ends up being an exercise in futility. Here, as so often in the past, it is WBAI blocker, Cerene Robertson who pours water in the gas tank. This being a phone conference, she is unable to get physical, but she interrupts again and again in her characteristic hostile way, eventually igniting and fueling a shouting match of impressive decibels. As close followers of the current Pacifica board game know, Cerene is not there legitimately, but rather as an obstruction planted in the path of progress. It is a role she was born to play and she does so rather well, albeit without finesse. When her seat on the Board is rightly questioned, she explodes into a telling hissy fit, throwing a tantrum at Chair pro tem George Reiter (KPFT), and essentially bringing the curtain down on another embarrassing, unproductive Pacifica skit. You will notice that Tony Johnson, the WPFW Siegel simpatico jumps in to boost Cerene and derail this meeting.
If this is governance, Spam is a festive holiday meal.
I won't go into details, but there are obviously members present who attempt to do the right thing, but—as always—that ends up being an exercise in futility. Here, as so often in the past, it is WBAI blocker, Cerene Robertson who pours water in the gas tank. This being a phone conference, she is unable to get physical, but she interrupts again and again in her characteristic hostile way, eventually igniting and fueling a shouting match of impressive decibels. As close followers of the current Pacifica board game know, Cerene is not there legitimately, but rather as an obstruction planted in the path of progress. It is a role she was born to play and she does so rather well, albeit without finesse. When her seat on the Board is rightly questioned, she explodes into a telling hissy fit, throwing a tantrum at Chair pro tem George Reiter (KPFT), and essentially bringing the curtain down on another embarrassing, unproductive Pacifica skit. You will notice that Tony Johnson, the WPFW Siegel simpatico jumps in to boost Cerene and derail this meeting.
If this is governance, Spam is a festive holiday meal.
The April 20, 2016 Governance meeting in full.
I have listened to parts of this, and, to borrow a reference in a comment to an earlier blog entry, this sounds exactly like the Royal Society for Putting Things on Top of Other Things. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1f-kfRREA8M
ReplyDeleteA random hop is all I could do. They are so blatantly transparent. No one objects before or during the meeting to discuss removing the bogus affiliate directors. When they do get to the item, they unleash a verbal barrage before Grace can even finish a sentence. They use parliamentary maneuvers, insults, complaints about conduct, appeals for legal advice, anything and everything they could think of and it worked. The meeting was completely derailed.
ReplyDeleteI just want to hear one of these idiots have a heart attack or stroke during one of these teleconferences one day. I want to see if anyone even notices or cares.
ReplyDeleteSDL
Kim Jung-Un for Pacifica CEO.
DeleteKGT
He already has a better and easier job.
DeleteSDL
He also gets paid regularly.
DeleteKGT
Basir Mchawi is particularly inspiring tonight.
ReplyDeleteKGT
I listened to the entire shindig, and my one question is what kind of family did Cerene Roberts come from to learn such behavior?
ReplyDeleteSDL
You might well wonder, SDL, her act is atrocious, but she's on a mission. I would like to know what her objective is, because she lives in NYC and her affiliation is with WBAI, the very station she seems bent on shutting down.
DeleteDoes she have a plan? Is she getting paid? Or is it plain old stupidity?
Don't underestimate her Chris. She is really smart. She knows the rules and she knows the history and procedures of the station and seems to be on every conference call of every committee. I once heard her go over the program grid by memory in great detail. Her knowledge and ability to state her case alone intimidates most of PNB members who show up to meetings completely unprepared and sometimes sounding distracted. For example, in this meeting, she argues that the committee can't discuss the motion to remove the bogus affiliate directors because it is the subject of litigation. This sounds perfectly rational until you realize her faction abused the process and selected these people without notice, without consultation and without confirming that they are even Pacifica affiliates. She also knows how not to let facts get in the way of making a good point. She regularly criticizes the Indys for boycotting LSB meetings without mentioning the deliberate hour long late arrivals of her faction. She definitely has a plan and it involves maintaining control of the PNB at all costs.
DeleteI agree, Cerene knows the rules—a prerequisite if one is going to play the games she plays. And, yes, she deals the "perfectly rational" card as a matter of routine. I recall how rational she sounded when I first came across her—she convincingly made it sound as if she were being railroaded by fellow LSB members... so much so that I posted in her defense (she must had a good laugh out of that one). However, it did not take me long to see where she was coming from. I thought of that as she won over a new member at this committee meeting. He made a point of mentioning his inexperience and I clearly saw how easily he could be persuaded by Cerene's portrayal of the victimized.
DeleteIf control of the PNB is what she aims at,there must be something in it for her... I don't see money as a motivating factor... more likely the race-based "Mumia" syndrome.
Considering some of Cerene's antics, I consider her to be a psychopath.
DeleteSDL
She is very clever - she used to work for Utrice many years ago @ BAI, but she was fired by her. She has many behind the scenes supporters. She was an acolyte of Samori - Samori brought that bitch to the station too. Samori is still killing the station from the great beyond.
ReplyDeleteThese people think that they are fighting for control of an organization that will bring revolution to the United States. They are Lenin against the Mensheviks at the 1903 convention of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party. People at Pacifica see spending 45 minutes debating the agenda of a committee meeting as a brilliant parliamentary maneuver, a tactic that brings them closer to control of the organization. And with the opposing faction finally defeated (hopefully imprisoned),the organization of the masses for the final victory of the oppressed can begin.
ReplyDeleteAll these people are delusional. The problem really goes back to Samori Marksman, who having failed to bring communism to the Caribbean and to Africa, thought he could bring it to New York. By the time of his death the only people left at BAI were the Marxists and the snake-oil salesmen he was using to fund his revolution. I would say it was sad, but I think evil is better word for it.
Marksman simply reflected the preferences of the Pacifica National Board circa the mid-1970’s, and the WBAI local board accordingly coming to be dominated by Percy Sutton’s people by 1976 or thereabouts.
DeleteThe then-existing staff, for all its foibles and differences, attempted to resist these moves toward overt politicization and advocacy at the expense of Pacific’s foundational principles, even if only for reasons of self-interest, but they were defeated and driven out, and in due course the advocacy represented by Marksman was put in place.
Marksman represented what Pacifica management wanted – no more, and no less. In that sense he was simply a tool.
~ ‘indigopirate’
At the time that the search for the new PD was happening and Samori would be chosen, I used to talk to Paul Wunder a bit, as I was fairly new to soundtracks and had questions, etc. He told me, before Samori was chosen, that he expected him to be chosen. I really didn't understand all the internal politics and Pacifica stuff at the time, but he thought WBAI needed someone stronger and more focused than they had for the past few years. I don't really think he understood Samori completely, however. What I do know is that when Samori came in, Wunder's Soundtracks show had its time slot cut drastically.
DeleteWunder also told me a fifteen year old girl had applied for the job.
SDL
Starting meetings late and then arguing over the agenda for over an half hour is in no way a parliamentary maneuver. It is a sign of lack of communication and lack of respect. Organizations in the real world do not act this way. Even other left wing groups do not act this way. Setting agendas is normally a routine matter with ideas included by everyone regardless of views. By the time the meeting starts, the proposed agenda has already taken shape and just needs a little tweaking for time. It is clear to anyone who shows up to a PNB or LSB meeting that there is no communication between meetings. They can barely tolerate each other during the meeting. Its a sad commentary when this behavior is accepted as just the way things are done. It is clearly not the case in the real world. I will leave it to others to consider the Menshevik comparison but no organization of any size can run things in this manner.
Delete"The problem really goes back to Samori Marksman"- I started listening to BAI in 1978 so I don't remember "Yoruba" Guzmans tenure, but from what little I can glean, he was the initial "Lobo in sheep's clothing". Can anybody give me a history lesson.
DeleteKGT
I didn't tune in during Marksman's reign, but it is my understanding that the current, fatal ersatz nationalism problem was either started or made a fixture via his zeal. Still, I sense that Bernard White, Guzman, Clayton Riley and other amateurs took this race-based mission drift onto some kind of a beaten afriquish never-never path to nowhere.
DeleteAs I have said before, the kick was when ego-handicapped walking selfies like Steve Post and Larry Josephson rushed into the opening made by misfit mescaline Millspaugh.
The answer would certainly have to include the sinkhole that swallowed a well-functioning Pacifica Board and turned it into a stall for Robert's mules. Samori Marksman definitely had an agenda, but he was not the dummy in this succession—he did not close the old door shut when he opened the new one ajar. He might ultimately have done that, but we'll never know.
Glad after all these years, people see who the REAL culprit behind WBAI's current troubles - Samori Marksman. He created a toxic atmosphere - he once called a colleague a "light-skinned negress". People used to cross the street when they saw him - he was evil!!
DeleteI've always known what a scumbag Samori was, but I was listening at the time and could hear what he was doing. No, Samori wasn't an idiot like they have now. He had enough brains to keep fixtures of WBAI that didn't fit into his world view for the money they brought in, or to just not rock the boat too much. However, he'd cut their on-air time and use that now free time to slip in his compatriots.
DeleteRemember that no matter what, Samori still came out of the previous era of WBAI. How much of that rubbed off on him, we can debate. However, the people there now only know the Samori era at most. They know nothing before the early 1980s. They really don't know what WBAI was.
Chris, you may well be right about Post and Josephson, but that is before my time, so I can't say. However, as you can see over the years of this blog, it's unanimous when people say Samori was the big turning point from what WBAI was to what WBAI has become.
SDL
Open letter to Chris -
ReplyDeleteAs one of the many readers of this blog, we appreciate you. Your blog is needed, sometimes a bit too strong when you assess people of color, but needed. Some of us feel you are a bit limited in your view of the station because you did not listen during the Era of Samori. Had you listened, you would have organized DAILY protests against the station. Imagine, if you will, this daily morning show; Hosts - Bernard White, Janice K. Bryant, Errol Maitland, Dred Scott Keyes & Robert Knight. Bernard would sleep on the air, Janice was an ignorant and narrow minded BLACK bigot, Errol Maitland WAS THE WORST BROADCASTER IN THE HISTORY OF THE STATION, Dred was the Station thief and of course, the son of MLK and Chris's close buddy, Robert Knight. Amy Goodman would pop in for a few words, but a narrow world view was the theme. Chris, you would have been cursing @ the radio ALL DAY. Talk to a few more people and verify this letter. You will see - this was the creation of Samori - his stench is still with us. A professional radio exterminator is needed.
Thank you. Marksman was not in the original demolition lineup, but he saw it, lap after lap, so he picked up the baton and ran with it.... all the way to the Cathedral of St. John.
DeleteI firmly believe that black presence is a must at WBAI, which is why one of my first moves as GM was to integrate the all-white staff. However, riffraff and imbecility (of any ancestry) has no place at a station that professes to adhere to Lew Hill's alternative concept, and therein lies my objection to this downgraded version of WBAI.
I wasn't familiar with Marksman so I googled the name. After reading about him, I begin to understand why Chris has such strong feelings about WBAI. Marksman was the perfect fit ideologically but a non-starter from a managerial and development point of view.
ReplyDeleteSamori Tarik Marksman (Stanley Theodolph Marksman) won the Croix of Chivalry for his work with revolution in Guinea, wrote for Covert Action Quarterly which outed CIA agents, worked as a publicist for the Bishop government in Grenada. He became program director in 1994. According to Democracy Now, He strongly advocated that "a bigger audience can only be achieved when programming is organically linked to the community." As host of "Behind the News,", he was able to link the realities in Harlem and the South Bronx to the struggles in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. This vision shaped WBAI, which became the vehicle for voices not heard in the mainstream media.
Wikipedia is sometimes useful, but, of course, is far from reliable. If you look at the History of that particular Wikipedia entry you’ll see that its content was provided overwhelmingly by friends of the family, and that it was challenged as to whether or not it ought even be in Wikipedia.
DeleteIt’s essentially the equivalent of an in memoriam, and was very nearly deleted for Marksman’s lack of ‘notability’.
The sole factor that resulted in its survival was – literally – the fact that a number of names attended the memorial service.
Marksman was not, upon discussion and debate, found to be in any other way notable per Wikipedia criteria.
Feel free to verify the history.
~ ‘indigopirate’
He was on the right track, it seems, but he lost the broader picture that could have made it work—the WBAI "community" includes more than Harlem and the South Bronx, so he obviously aimed at only two segments of the area's population. The original aim was not based on race or ancestry, it was directed at the intellect, which comes in all shapes and hues, without common background. The station should never solely serve or focus on anybody's personal ideology, nor should it exclude any.
DeleteThanks for pointing that out, Indigopirate, it should have occurred to me that Wiki was the source. They try to keep it free of embellishments, but often do not succeed. All bios on Wiki, especially those dealing with contemporary people risk becoming PR pieces, with all that entails.
DeleteMarksman was a teacher-propagandist for the Touré government in Guinea at the time of Touré’s further increasing the number of internal arrests and summary executions – as such he was awarded the Croix de Chivalry for his services in support of that government.
DeleteHe was then a paid advocate/propagandist for the revolutionary government of Grenada and as such promoted a film for that government, Grenada, The Future Coming Toward Us.
At this time and in this capacity he also worked with Percy Sutton’s people, who had come to control the WBAI local station board, and The Amsterdam News, and thus moved to further shape and direct WBAI along the lines of ‘appropriate’ Marxist advocacy, albeit largely under the ‘progressive’ and ‘community’ banners.
Marksman was on record and explicit in his contempt for ‘bourgeois’ programming concerned with arts or education in any way and therefore moved to marginalize it as much as possible, considering it only useful for fund-raising purposes.
He saw anything other than advocacy for the revolution as only for ‘useful idiots’ to be eliminated come the inevitable day of the revolution.
That was Samori Marksman.
~ ‘indigopirate’
Excellent! That explains the trail he left for the gimme generation of race-absorbed opportunists.
DeleteI had forgotten about Percy Sutton and that basked of eels. Hugh Hamilton is, of course, a not=so-well-turned imitation of the mini-Marcus wannabes. What a sorry bunch these lemmings are.
The Sutton machine and its cronies were an enormous factor – indeed, as the power center, arguably the driving force, the dominant factor, to which other, lesser players were simply derivative factors.
DeleteJosephson had floundered very badly as station manager, even by his own account, and in any case Josephson was dedicated to attempting to strengthen the station’s coverage of arts, entertainment, and the life of the mind at the expense of political advocacy.
Such an approach was of no interest to the advocates and Sutton people on the board, nor at Pacifica, whether attempted by Josephson or anyone else.
Indeed, they actively opposed it, as they defined WBAI/Pacifica’s purpose as one of political advocacy.
Anna Kosof was then put in position in 1976, and Pablo ‘Yoruba’ Guzman shortly thereafter, as the choice of new direction and new programming directed by the Sutton-controlled board. At a party held at Margot Adler’s place, shortly before the planned transition was to take place, it was impossible even to move without bumping into one or another of Sutton’s and/or Inner City Broadcasting’s people.
~ ‘indigopirate’
Not surprised to hear what you say about Sutton, he was a sleaze. A group of them, including Bill Tatum of the Amsterdam News was fueled by greed and a need for power. Their game could not be played without political implications, but I think it was of the local kind and totally self-serving. I can't see them turn WBAI into the street corner soap box it has become, but it was a useful tool. Tatum has been touted as a respectable journalist, but he certainly wasn't that in the 60s-70s. He had the mindset of a Mumia-Maddox tabloid sensationalist—no perceivable integrity, no detectable concern for the poor.
DeleteWBAI was there of the taking, I guess, but they didn't succeed in doing more than knock it down some more. I wasn't following this back then, having become thoroughly disgusted by the Millspaugh-Post-Josephson wrecking crew.
You say that Josephson wanted to focus the station on arts and entertainment more so than politics, but I have to disagree with you there—he may have undergone a change, but the Larry I knew and saw at work was far too egotistical to consider anything but his own imagined celebrity. He and Post were a perfect match with Bob Fass tagging along as his success began to dissipate. They managed to destroy the image of WBAI, but their own climb to the top hit an impenetrable block—the me-me-me-me wall.
I would love to know what turned the PNB into a soggy dishrag. Wasn't Koch (no friend of Tatum's) somehow involved in WBAI losing the church?
I've rambled again, rather incoherently. Thanks for your sobering history lessons.
Good information yield here. This is what Robert Knight and his two women, Pamela Somers and Paulette Spencer tried to intimidate Chris from publishing - the TRUE history of BAI. Samori was a henchman. Important to know the background of people. More need to be shed on his role in Guinea and Grenada -did he kill anyone or order people to be killed. Same of Robert Knight - they like to keep people in the dark and cover them with bull!!
ReplyDeleteI never had any contact with Paulette Spencer. In fact, I did not know she existed until they had that little memorial service. Pamela Somers, on the other hand, pounced on me (out of nowhere, where she lodged) the first time I posted a negative critique of Knight, whom I had also not heard of before. Somers is not a good liar, but that has never stopped her—she's the one who posted that Knight was very possibly a love child of MLK and that she saw his genius on par with the greatest minds in the world. I understand that she's still as delusional and morally bankrupt as ever.
DeleteWBAI can attract them, can't it?
However one interprets Josephson, I think it’s safe to say he wasn’t a particularly political animal other than being of a general liberal/leftist inclination. During his tenure as manager he actively sought out lectures at universities, cultural centers, and the like – by that I mean actual lectures, of intellectual and/or artistic/aesthetic merit.
DeleteIra Weitzman – feel free to google – who had run the extremely successful Free Music Store at the Church, as well as the enormously successful Crafts Fair every winter at Columbia, was moving on from WBAI at the point that the activist regime was being put in place, and he had also I believe helped arrange for WBAI to have a unique tie-in to events at the then newly-reborn Symphony Space. One of Marksman’s earlier moves was to dump the tie-in with Symphony Space.
Samori was no assassin, I assure you. Nor was he in a position of any actual power either in Africa or Grenada – he was after all, merely a teacher and an occasional flak. He was strictly of the coffee-house revolutionary mold, though I’m sure that if others were willing to do the deed in some revolutionary government he’d be more than happy to name names. He was that sort of ‘revolutionary’, as have been so very many.
The Sutton people weren’t dedicated to any particular cause, though of course they had their inclinations and their preferences. At that point in their careers they were purely interested in cashing in. The effect that that process had on WBAI’s founding ideals was catastrophic, but that wasn’t part of any plan or calculation, it was simply a side effect.
The Church was sold for two reasons: 1) The financial situation continued to worsen after Kosof/Guzman and their successors; 2) It was an opportunity for money to be siphoned off in certain directions – feel free to browse real estate and loan records, it’s more than obvious.
~ ‘indigo’
Didn't the loss of the church have something to do with a deliberately misinterpreted real estate law?
DeleteSome very good information coming out here. It's what I have wanted to see for ages, as it fills in holes, since there is no documented history of WBAI, especially in the 1970s to early 1980s. Most of what I have is memories of what I heard during my time listening.
ReplyDeleteNow various unrelated thoughts:
I'm not casting any blame here by saying this. Let's not fall into the trap of over-analyzing Samori. He was simply a political fanatic, brute and hypocrite with no tolerance for anyone who didn't agree with his world view. He would use people, like any good politico, but that was the limit. In the end, he may have been a step above in intelligence to what the current crop of idiots at WBAI are now, but just a step above. He was truly a victim of what I call "1979 syndrome."
It's kind of interesting to me how Josephson and Post went on to success but Fass... Well, he went on to having a weekly hangout on the air with six drug burnout buddies.
Guzman may have been a short term disaster at WBAI, but he went on to being a perennial TV news reporter. No doubt he's made good money at it. Fucking up big time at WBAI was probably the best thing that ever happened to him.
Chris, you're wrong about something. WBAI doesn't attract them, it actively pulls them in.
SDL
@Chris I’ve heard that story, and there seem to be a few versions of it. I don’t know if there was a misinterpretation, a correct interpretation, or if it was a stratagem on the part of the people who wanted to see the church sold, or if there was really nothing to it other than post-hoc rationalization and paranoia – I mean all this literally. I simply don’t know. If it were possible to piece it together, it would take work and people willing to talk, and records to consult, and then to attempt to weigh the information objectively.
DeleteI do know it’s pretty clear that monies go missing.
@SDL I essentially agree as to your take on Marksman. He was a wannabe authoritarian who found a niche at WBAI, where he was of some consequence with respect to the particular details of the ongoing devolution of the place, but of no consequence to the real world. Those facts fairly clearly demonstrate his level of competence as a revolutionary.
I agree also with respect to your takes on Post, Josephson, and Fass.
It isn’t too surprising that Guzman went on to commercial success. I say that as a neutral observation, not as a put-down. He wasn’t an idiot, and one of the reservations that people had about him at WBAI from moment one was that he was perceived as a guy looking to use WBAI as a stepping stone to other things. He left very shortly after ‘The Crisis’ and went on to some success. More power to him, so far as I’m concerned. I’m fine with that.
~ ‘indigo’
Post did not go on to success... he wanted to be a star. The book he wrote was an irrelevant distortion of the truth and quickly remaindered. Playing classical records at WQXR is what failures do—he was probably heard by more people when he made the lingerie sales announcements over the PA system at E. J. Korvettes. He never rose above the level Fass sank to in the Seventies. Millspaugh made it to the Pacifica Board and somehow managed to get temporary tenure, then he ended up "producing" Post's lackluster WNYC show. Josephson apparently did better than the rest, but I'd still like to know why he was working for and what he was doing at the Heritage Foundation, a Conservative think tank. Millspaugh and Chris Koch were students working covertly for the CIA when they met... Dale Minor began censoring political programs after I left, pretended twice to have lost Barbara Dane's taped interview with the N. Vietnam rep in Cuba, threatened to kill me when I joined protesters in front of the station, and—in one of his drunken stupors—blurted out that WBAI does not "need any goddam Communist propaganda." It all adds up to a tangled mix of armchair ideology and ineptitude. We'll probably never learn the truth, but it's intriguing.
DeleteAnd let us not forget Hallock Hoffman, the son of a former Studebaker Corp. president, Rockefeller Foundation head and FDR cabinet member. He brought in Millspaugh and did so on the recommendation of Koch, who had become persona non grate at Pacifica. Furthermore, Millspaugh, who was eminently unqualified for the position, was pushed into place on a day when Hallock had me cancel his interviews with all the candidates he had asked me to screen. Compared to all that, rotten fish smells like a fresh bouquet of roses.
Yes, SDL, WBAI does pull them in, but many come of their own volition, because they know that for people of their ilk and shortcomings, WBAI is the only game in town.
One can’t but be reminded of the old quip about academic politics, that it’s so very nasty because there’s so very little at stake.
Delete~ ‘indigo’
Well, when I heard Josephson circa 1980 (on Sunday mornings?) on WBAI, I remember he once said that he was the most right wing person at the station. Maybe over time his views shifted to the right and/or maybe money talked. I just remember him being boring always complaining about his weight.
DeletePost got a paycheck at other stations when WBAI on-air staff no longer did. Take that as you will. I'm not defending him at all. I read his book because I got it on the cheap on ebay. I was looking for some sort of 1960s WBAI history, but found it rather dull and superficial.
"...threatened to kill me when I joined protesters in front of the station..." Now this is a story I want to hear! What was the protest about? I guess this is before violence became accepted at WBAI.
Chris, I learned at an early age what most people never learn - most people are ultimately bullshit, and the few real ones usually turn out to be psychotics!
Well, one thing the attracting/pulling in comments made me think about was something I think we underestimate now. Until modern times, most WBAI people came to the station as marathon phone volunteers, or at least volunteers of some sort. They worked and learned and, eventually, got a show. Was it a better system than what we have now where people get on the air because they are someone's friend? I don't know, but the old system made them pay some dues.
SDL
SDL, I'll answer your questions later, when my head is clearer. Now I need some sleep :)
DeleteThe first threat came from Dale when I joined a group of protesting listener-supporters in front of the station. This group included producers whose programs had been "lost" by the Programming Dept., which Dale headed. All they wanted was an opportunity to discuss the situation on the air... Millspaugh cronies like Post and Josephson were already devoting part of their air time to baseless put-downs of this group and the victims of censorship, like Barbara Dane, Bob Bisom and Tana deGamez.
DeleteThis is long, but skimming through it may give you an idea of what was going on.
http://wbai-nowthen.blogspot.com/2011/09/final-scraps.html
I should add that we did not have marathon phone volunteers in the early years. People called, wrote or walked in if they had a program idea. We made it quite clear that we had an open microphone for intelligent, original contributors. Our various departments also solicited new voices—no technical knowledge was required, because we had a board operator/announcer in the control room at all times.
It was a radically different station with a very different attitude. No idiots need apply :)
Beginning to wonder if Paulette Spencer and/or Pamela Somers are the same person? Pamela Somers is an evil woman, but Paulette? BTW, what happened to Diabel Faye and Jerry Edwin? Jerry Edwin used to work for Samori, part of a sound gathering group.
ReplyDeleteIf they are one and the same, we have a serious case of split personality--Paulette sounds like a good person, I hope she is being polite when she appears to take Kathy Davis' nonsense sans salt. Of course she put up with Knight, which must no have been easy..
DeletePamela told someone that Robert was extremely difficult to deal with - very erratic and nervous all the time. Jose Santiago banned him from the newsroom for years because of his behavior, including destroying station equipment.
ReplyDeleteThat does not surprise me. Didn't he have a drinking problem? That's what I was told by a couple of people at the station, and his behavior on the air sometimes bore that out—not to mention the hateful posts he made on Pamela's list, before he handed that task over to her. He was a mess, a highly overrated mess.
DeleteIt was a cocaine problem, which caused, in part, the destruction of a fine program when Robert was at his best called Undercurrents.. Cocaine was his downfall, not alcohol. Speaking truth here.
ReplyDeleteThat fits. I was always told that he actually came down to the level I experience him at from having been a good producer. I've seen it happen to a few with whom I crossed paths.
Delete