[PREV - FIRSTIMP]    [TOP]

WBAI

                                        January 8, 1995
                                        April   6, 2012

Once upon a time, in a pre-internet
civilization long ago, one of my only contacts
with an intelligent world (while growing up in
the suburban wilderness-- nearly an hour away
from Manhatten), was the listener-sponsored,
non-commercial Pacifica station, WBAI....
                                                   99.5 FM.
This was a great influence on my
intellectual development, for good                     http://wbai.org/
or for ill.
                                                       More recently, I
I spent much of my young teen-age years                became an internet
with this station playing in the                       listener for a while
background, spewing mostly left-wing                   but gave up on them
doctrine of one sort or another, with                  when they replaced
occasional breaks for music, and lots                  the late-night
of "marathon" pledge drives,                           anarchist show with
frantically begging for money.                         narc radio.

As a kid, while my older brothers                                  WEINBERG
listened to WBAI all night, I used
to camp out on top of a refrigerator
standing outside the door of their
basement lair.  Later, after they'd
all moved out and I'd taken over the
big room down in the basement, I           (I remember one summer I
spent many nights on my own, during        knocked off another
some of the loneliest periods of my        Carter Dickson novel
life, reading various things while         every night before dawn.)
BAI's strange night time programming
chattered on.

I deeply resented the barrier that
long-distance charges posed to my           Obviously, I was doomed
joining in the call-in chat sessions.       to the internet from
                                            an early age.
I really wanted to head in to the city
to become a volunteer to work for the
station (they always needed people to
work the phones during pledge drives).
For some reason, I wouldn't go there by
myself, and didn't succeed in talking
anyone else into going there with me.

   Steve Post,
   Bob Fass,
   Mickey Waldeman,
   Larry Josephson,
   Julius Lester,
   Margo Adler....

   Techy-Time,
   by David Rapkin         (Negativland before
   and Peter Zanger.       there was negativland.)

   Paul MacIssac, and his very earnest
   anti-tech (or at least anti-nuke)          ANTI-PROMETHIAN
   screeds.

   Some great radio drama, like
   the production of Delany's
   "The Star Pit".


I hated the fact that there were
other Pacifica stations around
the country that I couldn't hear
in New York.  I used to dream            But when I finally got to the
about driving around the country         West coast, it was after I'd
just to listen to the radio.             become addicted to the college
                                         station ghetto at the bottom of
                                         the dial, and it was years
                                         before I developed the habit of
                                         tuning up as high as 94.1 FM
                                         where KPFA resides.






--------
[NEXT - KPFA]