I tend to think it's merely another case of WBAI incompetence (after half a century), after all, Fass just turned 83. But it sure sounds as if a porn video is running in the room while he throws pieces of music at his cats and 3 listeners. What do you make of this brief excerpt from this morning's Radio Unlistenable?
Mind you, a little adult porn never hurt anyone, but this—intentional or not—made a painfully bad show even worse.
Cool! Sadomasochistic porn, to boot! Maybe Bob is cooler than I thought? Too bad he messed it up with music. Unless, of course, it was someone piping it in from the station as a prank. Maybe an engineer watching it on a computer at WBAI?
ReplyDeleteSDL
Sadomasochistic to BOOT.... cool! What might he whip up next? :)
DeleteNotice that he wasn't getting callers with birthday greetings and—except for that boring guy with the hydro-driven radio station, who used to be a regular—I have yet to hear anyone call from those little stations.
We joke about it, but I knew Bob when the show was the cat's meow and what he has allowed it and himself to become is very sad. Somewhere on this morning's show, he mumbles the reality that things don't always come out as hoped for. He names his own career path as a first-hand experience of this—true, but he could have steered more wisely.
"On your knees, slut... It's time to get fracked!"
DeleteI'm really going to hold out on saying Bob did it. I just don't see it being something he would think of or do. Right now, I'd bet it originated at WBAI, and the person playing it didn't know it went over the air, at the time, at least.
Listen, the only reason Bob is on those stations is because the owners think he's still cool. However, he really has no listeners from those low power, boonies stations. I know for a fact that Randi Ripley of the Woodstock station grew up listening to Bob when he was a kid. It's nostalgia, know what I mean?
As for the callers, they seemingly don't even listen to him half the time. They just know what time he's on so they can call in and ramble their usually useless nonsense on Bob's time. The sad thing is that Bob either won't accept that or is too stupid to understand he's being used by them.
As we all agree, I think, Bob let his ego get in his way. He could have been the left wing mage of talk radio, if he played his cards properly, but he didn't. This is the result - "friends" not even wishing him a simple happy birthday. I wish Bob a happy birthday just out of cordiality!
SDL
I am inclined to agree with your theory, SDL. We know how klutzy even the so-called engineers are at WBAI and how many times have we heard host/producers complain over the previous closet operator having left the bargain basement audio board in disarray?
DeleteI am deeply offended....that he did not play "Je T'aime,...Moi Non Plus".
ReplyDeleteKGT
It did originate from Bob Fass. Purposely. He wants to "retire", but he does not want to resign. He wants to be fired as a martyr to the cause (whatever that is now).
ReplyDeleteBerthold: Here's your chance. Axe him. You did it to Sidney for less of a reason. Do you want the listeners (all ten of them) to think that you wouldn't fire a white guy? Go ahead. Do what Fass wants.
KGT
What should be done with Fass's airtime is open it up to listeners to talk to each other on various topics. Read a poem. Sing a song. Wouldn't people support a show in which they could get a few minutes to express an opinion or feeling over the radio...to become a voice over the airwaves. That surely would bring some money in, each talker contributing a small way to his voice being heard over the radio along with the rest. Imagine that.
ReplyDeleteIt seems some of the problems people had and still have against BAI is that it allowed amateurs or semi-professionals or talented people to get a shot at it without going through the corporate hoop selection process. Some moved on to better more money making opportunities after learning on the job as it were and some stayed on because they couldn't make it in the mainstream even if the mainstream was just NPR or behind the scenes in some non-celebrity type work in the entertainment or media business. Certainly BAI makes them a bit famous if not super-famous, a few anyway. So BAI is amateur hour not polished but certainly not like the slicks, corporate ad driven sensiblity. So they hold on even as the station falls apart around them. I wonder why the hosts, programmers don't unite to save WBAI themselves with the help of their army of listeners?
It's this idea of the amateur getting a shot that I wonder might not also be what
bothers people who feel that only professionals or more experienced people should be
on the air. Listeners can become hosts. Where do you find what would be called potential professionals or semi-professionals? Schools, nightclubs, subway platforms...? To me what was always refreshing about it was it didn't sound phony even if it was ideological and crazy. The mainstream, despite it chit chat style, still seems phony and prefer the awkwardness anytime over polish and smoothness.
Let's look at Jim Freund, a case example, he tells the story of how he got his position sometimes. It seemed he was in the right place at the right time and knew people and got his shot that way as a very young man, barely out of his teens, if I recall correctly. He didn't go through, if I'm not mistaken, any kind of official hiring process based on prior credentials from any terrifying Wizard. He already had his diploma, he already had his brain even if was a bunch of straw. The idea of the office boy moving up to head and run the newspaper. In his case he took over from Adler who took over what Baird Searles, drama and Literature director at WBAI, was doing with science and fantasy.
But of course it all changed when the dark lords, the lords of misrule, the blacks came and started the struggle to rest power from the white mages and gain control of the airwaves to expose their sense of racial pride, struggles and history. The station has never been the same since.
African Americans should never be allowed to take a racial identity position on mass media since whites the presumptive race supreme cannot express any sense of racial superiority being the victimizers according to blacks. Do what intellectual want to express superiority over blacks in terms intellectual prowess? The sensitivity to and difference to black racialism on its head negates each individuals right to be judged as an individual. But what else have they got but their struggle as the key to their understanding of themselves. Whites on the other hand have a broader, freer universal experience of life limited to decree by education, class and employment.
wce
Your suggestion that Bob's time slot be turned into an audition stage of the air, a place where everybody has an opportunity to express his or her talent, is in keeping with Lew Hill's original intent. He wanted KPFA to open the door to talent and opinion, thus providing an alternative to the commercial media's unwillingness/inability to take chances on the untried. However, while that sounds like the right track for WBAI to take, it is an open invitation to potential problems. There has to be a screening, however light.
DeleteWe used to encourage people to come in and discuss their program ideas, bringing a tape or recording one with our help. This was possible because we maintained a flexible program schedule and—via the Folio—gave our listeners a notion of what to expect. I recall receiving a letter from Charles Hobson, then working in the carpet department of Klein's. He wrote that he didn't think many non-black listeners were aware of Negro vocal quartets, as he put it, added that he had an extensive collection, and proposed doing a weekly program devoted to this form of music. I invited him to make a tape in our studio (we had a staff recording engineer). Based on that demo, Charles was given a weekly program, which he named, "Negro Music." He went on to work on PBS's "Black Journal" and produced an original series for them, "From Jump Street."
We had Music, Arts and Literature, and Public Affairs departments, each headed by a director who knew the field and regularly conferred with each other to avoid duplication and share projects. They also maintained contact with their counterparts at our other stations. This approach was only possible because we had a common goal and there wasn't room for inflated egos. An important part of that goal was to keep the door open to fresh voices.
As I have pointed out several times in the past few years, we had highly talented staffers, such as Chris Koch, Baird Searles, John Corigliano and Dale Minor, all of whom enriched what went out over our air, but they were also regarded as enablers—talent scouts, of sorts.
Had WBAI not been vandalized beyond recognition, I bet that it would be enjoying fundraising help from illustrious alumni, of which there are/were many. They don't come back, they don't even call. I know that Yoko Ono—who worked briefly as a volunteer assistant in our Music Department—recently contributed $10,000, but I seriously doubt that she knows what WBAI has become. The listeners are all but gone, driven away by the station's misdirected focus, moral bankruptcy and spineless management. Who would want to help them when they show no realistic desire to help themselves and only acknowledge the existence of their listener-sponsors when heir own blunders have taken WBAI to the brink of obscurity?
It is, in my opinion, now beyond possibility to restore significance to WBAI and, very likely, the Pacifica Foundation as a whole. It is also beyond reason to maintain what is left of the station. Even a return to square one is out of the question, but yanking that plug is not—in fact, it is the only sensible solution.
I have long said there should be a show where listeners get to come in and talk about the issues in their neighborhoods, as that would be true community radio. However, you do need a host to keep it all under control or people will talk over each other and fist will fly.
DeleteI know this is redundant, but not having the listener volunteers answering the phones during beg-a-thons, like the old days, has cut out the potential pool of on-air producers.
Unfortunately, for the past thirty years, getting a slot at WBAI is almost a guaranteed life time slot, so why bother putting any effort into supporting the station, especially if you get in with the right clique(s)?
SDL
So many factors have gone into the alienation of WBAI's listenership, including Inferior programing, totally inept management, racism, political propaganda, open tenure for a favorite few (those who play the game), chronic duplicity and fatally warped priorities.
DeleteSecrecy, practiced defensively by Reimers, can no longer hide what is going on. Reimers is an imbecile, but he knows that many of his destructive manipulations would not have been long lived if the Pacifica tradition of airing live listener reports/dialogue had been observed.
This is a totally corrupt organization, from the Foundation level to local management. It no longer deserves any honest person's support.
Reimers is smart in one way. He knows how to collect a good salary for doing nothing but station destruction. Do you realize that he probably makes more money than 99% of The Remnants?
DeleteSDL
My annual salary as manager of WBAI was $12,000 with no health benefits. That was in the mid-Sixties. What would that be equivalent to?
DeleteAccording to one website I checked, about $80,000. However, let's add actually doing a job to that.
DeleteSDL
Thanks, that's better than I thought. I don't recall what my medical expenses were, but I'm sure it was a negligible expense in my younger days. I should add that I was negotiating to get group insurance for the paid staff. I may be wrong, but something tells me that we signed with HIP.
DeleteIn those days, Pacifica station managers were more or less autonomous. We submitted an annual report and budget to the Board and met with it regularly, about once a month. This was also when three of us had a managers' meeting for the purpose of exchanging experiences and discussing ways in which we might cooperate on program or managerial projects.
Things ran rather smoothly without all these amateur boards and committees. We did have the one national and three local boards, but its members were helpful rather than disruptive. One exception was Harold Taylor, a former President of Sarah Lawrence College who headed up the WBAI local board. He was an excellent cocktail party host who surrounded himself with celebrities, but he only contacted me for a social get-together or when he saw an opportunity for personal publicity.
I am not sure that any of the local board members actually listened to the station, but none of the local board ever showed up at the station. That suited us fine.
I have again digressed—sorry about that. :)
Interesting information, actually.
DeleteSDL
SDL said getting a slot at WBAI is almost a guaranteed life time slot, so why bother putting any effort into supporting the station, especially if you get in with the right clique(s)?
ReplyDeleteThis pretty much sums it up for me as far as programming. There are no station IDs, no pitching and in fact very little to promote the station giving them air time. In at least one case (Bob Fass), it actually costs the station money to broadcast a program.
My answer to wce's question is no. I don't want to hear SDL reading a poem. I want to hear news, intelligent conversation that is engaging to different types of views and artists of different genres. We need to grow the audience in order to increase the revenue. How does SDL reading a poem help pay for the transmitter or the rent at the station or the phone bill?
Because I will send them mystical, blessed by the voodoo priest, self addressed stamped envelopes that, when they return their pledges to WBAI in them, will return them good karmic financial success and lots of sex.
DeleteSDL
That should be enough for anyone. :)
Deletetuned in to see if anything worth listening to ... Asia pacific forum has Gerald Horne on talking about ,you know what . African slave trade . You just can't get away from it on this station.
ReplyDeleteIt just never stops . Number one reason that bai is going down the toilet. imo
No surprise there. Horne has many people fooled. A sprinkle of actual fact lends a veneer of veracity to these opportunists and obligatory political correctness serves them as a shield.
DeleteWhen universally hated movie mogul Harry Cohn died, Columbia Pictures held a memorial service on their largest sound stage, drawing a capacity crowd. When someone marveled at the size of the crowd, Graucho Marx said, "Give them what they want and they will show up."
Like John Henrik Clarke, "Dr. Ben" and several WBAI regulars, Horne gives the groping credulous what they want to hear.
I have noticed that they do this kind of thing alot . Where they will announce at the beginning of the show the topics that will be talked about , and you say to yourself , hmmm that sounds like it could be interesting . Only to find out soon after they start talking about it , it somehow turns into a racial conversation.
ReplyDeleteOr better yet, is completely unrelated to the shows intended purpose , or at least the perceived purpose. This was a perfect example of that .
You would think on a show called Asia Pacific Forum , that you would hear things related to ,well the Asia Pacific region . Stupid me.
That kind of "mission creep," as they call it, is common on WBAI these days. I don't know it happens on non-black shows, but the producers ma well believe that it makes their allotted air time more secure. Not that Reimers listens to their show, he probably doesn't, but because the more vocal, obsessed racists seem able to play him.
DeleteWhatever the underlaying factor is, it's a sorry state of affairs that is.likely to continue and worsen until WBAI ceases to exist in these very wrong hands.
Is race and a sort of left wing political correctness the key problem to the demise of the station? I'm still not convinced and I'm still not convinced it cannot be saved if people cared about the idea of live non-commercial radio as a concept in of itself. l believe its shortsightedness, ignorance, bad taste and the internet as an Alice's Restaurant, You can get any thing you want etc, that's the real culprit. I'm reading this book on inventions, none of what we take for granted today was necessarily fated to happen. A lot happens because of accident. These people have not driven away blacks so much as whites have fled from the station like white flight to the suburbs. White flight to the suburbs they say wasn't just racial or because of crime but also for the greenery and the space, the appeal of malls maybe. There is still a possibility of a non-racist gentrification of the station if people thought it was worth fighting for by subscribing to gain control of the LSB. The opposition to BAI is more like a Harlem Book-fair auditorium. If you look at many C-Span Booktv Harlem book fairs panel discussions there are very few people in the audience attending them. I suppose even this website is not attended to as it should be for the same reasons. Not enough care. Not enough know. It is well made and articulate. Mostly older blacks with a political agenda already in mind or unpublished authors, generally people interested and more knowledgeable about a given subject matter than a general uninformed audience show up at these fairs. You see more whites at other bookfairs. Maybe Frank LeFever is right about getting people to become aware of the station if not for the first time, then again but with the added idea that they can help restore it to a non-racist, non-factional agenda. We'll need a lot of door to door salesmen then.
ReplyDeleteSince the idea apocryphal but likely true that inner city blacks for the most shun reading (after school) as a white thing, blacks are not really even interested in black intellectual culture such as Horne's historical revisionism. Are white general listeners similarly disinclined to care about WBAI. Gary Null played a fellow asking people about American Independence, the level of ignorance recorded could be the same when it comes to radio. What's radio? The idea that blacks don't read was told by this African American young woman at the lecture of the author of Ghetto Nation. She can talk to her white workmates about a variety of books and topics but when she gets home to the inner city she can't because reading is a white thing with the exception of black romance novels.
wce
You're overanalyzing. The programming is stagnant because they're only talking to people that already completely agree with them. Even mild differences of opinion are problematic. Since they have effectively guaranteed slots, there is no incentive to change or even promote the station. Listeners left because the programming doesn't interest them. They don't even talk about the major news stories. Everyone else is talking about Brexit, health care, the economy etc. WBAI is talking about reparations for slavery. That's not racism. That's incompetence.
DeleteWBAI became a black station because of the misguided views of the PNB, who decided that greater black participation would automatically lead to greater democracy and greater diversity; and because of the exuberant intolerance of thugs like Bernard White and his posse that included Cerene Roberts, Ayo Harrington, and other henchmen. They kicked people at local board meetings, threatened others, and attempted to provoke fights
DeleteGun-toting bullies like Father Lawrence Lucas, Greg Keyes, and Tony Ryan—who wielded a baseball bat or tire iron, were an intimidating presence at meetings.
Bernard and his posse liked to follow people into the bathrooms and intimidate them.
Valerie Van Isler announced that the Pacifica station in Washington D.C. had attained diversity—“It’s 100% black.”
Bob Fass and other white producers had their mailboxes looted.
The Wall Street studio was filled with scary looking people all day and all night. I have no idea who all these people were, but their presence was intimidating. Fass used to talk about coming in on Thursday nights and hearing people mutter, “The Jew is back.”
Mr. Water Closet Effluvia, please stop inverting the situation and squawking about white racism. It was white management that decided the station needed more diversity—which was a good idea. It was a racist group of mean-spirited black criminals who robbed the station blind and ended diversity. Your ruminations are just that—a bovinely stupid know-nothing chewing his cud loudly.
TPM
I haven't really read Horne to critique him as an historian. Dr. Ben and Clark I saw on Like It Is. Given the amount of rabid racism against blacks I found their ideas and claims plausible. At least the idea that Europeans would deny the contributions of Africans while they are enslaving them just as science was in its infancy. I can't say I've read enough now on either side of the debate to feel contemptuous of them. Martin Bernal thought there was something in it to do a careful study of such claims. Horne seem to be a careful academic type but racially motivated obviously, embittered perhaps, fighting it seems the injustices done to his ancestors. Perhaps his tone offends? Not so much different say from the Irish in the past, fighting for their culture and language, say. But as a threat to reeducate blacks to be racially antagonistic Pan Africans, against whites, Horne, if that was his agenda, has failed. Maybe it's just something on the record they want. To have their say and to have it broadcast. What threat did Horne, Ben etc really pose then to whites generally if this racist agenda has failed, was failing--given that working and poor blacks generally spend money on entertainment culture rather than books,and given these shameful Harlem Book-fair panel discussions with mostly empty seats, it seems whites need not have abandoned the station at that point for fear of what exactly unless they feared Horne's influence would promote anti-white bias in the poor and working class or were they just annoyed to hear it, tired of black complaints and lamentations. Did the station in anyway contribute to black mobilizations in terms of serious demonstrations, mass movements against white people. Is it sticks and stones versus words. Offensive rhetoric? So I'm skeptical. The antisemitism and support for Palestinians? Perhaps a righteous move but tactically a stupid one. They support because of it. The criticism of Europe but not of African states? It seems a few blacks hosts were willing it's true to ignore the corrupt bribe taking strongmen and puppets of Africa to rail against Israel and America's leaders and policies. But should that have been enough to abandon the station?
ReplyDeleteThe disaffected partisans here perhaps conflate their own disenchantment with the station with that of the general potential audience already ignorant of BAI and distracted by mainstream entertainments who couldn't tell you what WBAI stood for? It seems a missed opportunity then not to try to save the station by gaining power over
it. I'll admit that may be futile too given the power of mainstream mass entertainment escapism to waste people's time.
wce
wce
WBAI became a black station because of the misguided views of the PNB, who decided that greater black participation would automatically lead to greater democracy and greater diversity; and because of the exuberant intolerance of thugs like Bernard White and his posse that included Cerene Roberts, Ayo Harrington, and other henchmen. They kicked people at local board meetings, threatened others, and attempted to provoke fights
DeleteGun-toting bullies like Father Lawrence Lucas, Greg Keyes, and Tony Ryan—who wielded a baseball bat or tire iron, were an intimidating presence at meetings.
Bernard and his posse liked to follow people into the bathrooms and intimidate them.
Valerie Van Isler announced that the Pacifica station in Washington D.C. had attained diversity—“It’s 100% black.”
Bob Fass and other white producers had their mailboxes looted.
The Wall Street studio was filled with scary looking people all day and all night. I have no idea who all these people were, but their presence was intimidating. Fass used to talk about coming in on Thursday nights and hearing people mutter, “The Jew is back.”
Mr. Water Closet Effluvia, please stop inverting the situation and squawking about white racism. It was white management that decided the station needed more diversity—which was a good idea. It was a racist group of mean-spirited black criminals who robbed the station blind and ended diversity. Your ruminations are just that—a bovinely stupid know-nothing chewing his cud loudly.
TPM
@TPM - Thanks for your lucid comments. I think the last chance to stop the maniacs, who are now in command of the sinking ship, was when the PNB didn't have the guts to fire and ban anyone who commuted illegal acts or just acts of intimidation. I think Pacifica and its stations are a microcosm of what these people really believe in. Is it really anything any decent person would want?
DeleteSDL
speaking of race talk ... Mitch Jessirich giving us his share again today.
ReplyDeleteAre my making this stuff up ? How much is too much?
Maybe you are right after all and it's useless to try. I don't know if I stated this here anonymously before I started signing my post with wce but I think I wrote here that white liberals or moderates didn't want to get in a fight over the station to avoid being called racists during the last coupe or one of them. Any attempt to moderate the station or change the minority hosts with middle of the roaders would play into black paranoia--whites are denying them their voice or access. Now I think this could galvanize enough Black Lives Matter type mass support to make any opposition look bad at least briefly in the media. Since impolite behavior and bully tactics is acceptable in pursuit of justice by them. If this is true many white liberals or leftists from other activist organizations have declined to get involved in reforming the station having jumped ship to FSTV because they don't want to be tainted by this madness or are sensitive to black racialism as other liberals are in defending passive Islam despite its obvious connections to terrorism. Let the blacks have it, it is there day, there age, it may teach them a lesson when the station is no more. Who knows. Even Ono wants to avoid the hate. It would embarrass them. All speculative on my part.
ReplyDeleteBlack racialism among intellectuals seems self destructive. Is this an old fight from the Sixties. The split in the movement when blacks generally thought white comrades could be potential patronizing or overbearing rivals and bosses and having to prove themselves macho, smart and free from white control this led to outright rejection of white leadership roles or white involvement and support at the merest hint of some disagreement or criticism? With the men was it also the fear of competition over women? It's a lack of trust. Mutual.
Yet despite the idea of wanting to save themselves, black spokespeople generally seem to expect white people do something on their behalf as well. Just the other day a young mixed race actor lambasted Hollywood or America with racialist rhetoric in defense of Black Lives Matter. They want change yet at the same time saying that whites for the most part are racists. Then why should whites change or do anything on your behalf. Yelling at people won't make them like you.
Yes, white leaders in the movement would only remind them of the slave position. In this sense it is hopeless. Black people cannot really expect to participate in leadership roles with whites if black consciousness is their default belief system because it is based on the idea that whites are consciously or not and with coded language supremacists, ridiculously all whites it appears--I think in some respects the problem is between white intellectualism and ideological thinking. How wonder how FSTV will protect itself from blacks who will make similar demands there to air a racialist viewpoint that will drive viewers away? How can these people ever accept a non-racist station? The station will die and blacks will be blamed for it by whites more so then the left activist types or radicals, silent too for fear of the charge of racism as with Islamic phobia. The sad irony is that black leadership so often fails here and in other countries where they treat their people even worse. I remember being terribly disappointed in Samori's response to what happened in Grenada and Maurice Bishop. It was the fullest realization of their romantic revolutionary rhetoric and fantasies. Even Nelsen Mandela or the ANC sold out. BAI will be more proof of the failure of black nationalistic fantasies.
wce