The Radio Kitchen

Yes, I’m still around.

While I never intended to let this blog lie fallow for so long, that’s how circumstances have affected my life over the last few months. It was never my intention to stop blogging (or even to pause all this time), but a reality check or two has gotten in the way. And survival instincts.

As I mentioned before, I’ve taken on a project or two. And with family duties and everything in between, the spare time I actually require to post here has been hard to squirrel away. The truth told, I have half-written a couple of posts this year. But I fear the subject matter has probably passed its expiration date by now.

And so, here’s the news– I’ve actually been working on a new post, which should be up within a week. And with any luck there might be a few more published here before the year is out.

When I started the Radio Kitchen, my employment situation was a little better, and for some reason I assumed there would be some trickling income from the blog itself. And although there have been a few charitable readers out there (one in particular, and thank you very much Doug), I wouldn’t call the income here much of a trickle. Although there has been a continuing steady readership here, even without recent new content. And I appreciate your readership. And listenership.

Even without a plausible business mode, I’m probably at fault in other ways too. I tend to carry on. Despite the short-attention span demands of the web itself and blogging in general, I seem to be chronically long form in my expositions. And I don’t tweet either. Or text. At least not yet.

The truth is I’m a magazine writer at heart: One who had already fell off the freelance train by the time the web paradigm changed everything. And I still miss having editors and editorial meetings. So the end result has been that most posts here have ended up being serious commitments of time. And perhaps some of have been too long for some of you to plow through. I don’t know, but I do know that without a specific assignment I tend to dig deep more often than not.. And to ruminate…

I always tell myself that my next post will be a more truncated affair, but that rarely seems to happen. Yet, what I have done here so far stands as a body of work I’m proud of. And for better or worse, I think what I present at the Radio Kitchen is a unique spin on the world of audio broadcasting, if nothing else.

I suppose I should mention what has stirred me to attend to this blog again. Out of the blue, I received a twenty-five dollar donation in my PayPal tip jar the other day. In the attached note he said:

Your radio musings are certainly worth at least what I pledge to my local public radio station every month. I enjoy the enthusiasm and sheer love of radio you bring to your blog.”

Nice, right? I almost blushed. Thank you James.

So for now, I’ll continue on here. But no promises. If anyone has some inkling of a business model I could apply here or a way I could incorporate what I do into something more profitable, I’m open to suggestions and I'd like to hear from ya. (And you can always write me here, whatever you have to say.) Meanwhile, this blog will hopefully continue to be one of the things I “do.”And if you like what I’ve done here so far (and what I do), utilization of the PayPal tip jar can certainly wield some influence over my posting behavior in the future. As I’ve said before, I love working on this blog. But unfortunately, I come to the realization that I only have so much “free” time.

Meanwhile, I’ve ordered one of those new “ultralight” radios from ebay. The Tecsun PL-310, which is supposed to be the best of the bunch for shortwave reception. I'm kind of excited, for some reason. And hopefully I’ll be telling you all about it here in the near future.

By the way, did you know there’s an internet radio station associated with this site? It’s a non-stop audio stream of hand-picked airchecks and bandscans. All radio all the time. And here’s a few links, clicking on one of them should start sending some audio packets to your computer within seconds. If you recognize one of these symbols of our age, that might just be the one to click…

RADIO KITCHEN RADIO

Actually, there’s been a couple links in the sidebar for quite a while. There’s an embedded flash player that should show up in most browsers and there’s a separate one that may well open up your audio player of choice.

I’ve come to the blog to promote my web stream for a couple of reasons. Over the last few months I’ve added a bunch of new content and I think it’s starting to get really interesting. I suppose I’m biased, but I really enjoy listening to it. I wish I wasn’t the only one. Because that’s the way it’s been just lately (thus, reason number two).

Of course, it didn’t start out that way. When I first put “Radio Kitchen Radio” online I had a few regular customers checking in. I even got a few fan letters in my inbox. While it costs me a little money, it is free for you– the listener. And if you’ve visited this blog more than a couple times, there’s a good chance that you’ll find some audio entertainment in the mix. And it is a real mixed bag. And that’s what I like about it.

What will you hear? Well, most of the audio embedded in this blog, and so many more recordings in the same vein that I’ll never have time to incorporate into entries on the blog. As well, there’s plenty of late night episodes of dial nudging, a nice assortment of airchecks of quirky and forgotten AM stations, some shortwave broadcasts from the other side of the world, and quite a bit of compelling talk radio, include some choice clips from golden age of Tampa talk radio including the magnificent Bob Lassiter.

And that’s not all. There’s all sorts of unedited recordings of New York Radio that I recorded on September 11, 2001. And I’ve just added some strange bandscans from later that month as well, and a bunch of talk radio and news reports from the beginning of the Iraq War in 2003. And there’s all sorts of historic odds and ends, including some Long John Nebel programs from the late 50′s and a bunch of the incredible Larry Glick on WBZ in the 1970′s. And there’s more of the Road Gang with John Parker on WWL. More WHVW. More WCXI. And David Goren has been offering some interesting contributions from his “Shortwaveology” archives too. Yes, it’s a veritable treasure trove.

I guess it goes without saying that if you think you have something compelling to throw into the pot, I’m all ears. It always seems so sad and fruitless to hoard recordings, at least that’s how I look at it. I like to share. And one more thing that occurs to me as I close out this plea for a bigger audience for my little project. If you’re one of those stubborn radio believers who insists on getting all your radio the old-fashioned way (via the modulation of electromagnetic waves), Radio Kitchen Radio may be the only web stream you’ll ever need or ever love. The imperfections and flavors and limitations of amplitude modulation are built right into the data stream.

There’s lots of ways to listen to Radio Kitchen Radio, depending on your computer setup. It’s a Shoutcast MP3 stream, and most players should show the title of each file as it’s playing, in case you wonder what’s on. And if you have trouble tuning in you can drop me an email.

So I hate to beg, but as usual I will profess. If you listen to this stream it might not directly improve my life, but it would make me happy. I have more goodies to throw into the machine, and If I could get a spike in listenership that would certainly be an incentive to encode some more tapes. And if you like what you hear, I’m open to suggestions on how to promote it a bit. I can’t afford the bandwidth for hundreds of listeners at one time, but I wouldn’t mind getting a few dozen a day. I don’t know of any other place where you can hear such a wide variety of airchecks online, or any stream that lets you DX vicariously while sitting at your computer. I think it’s a cool thing, and I’d hate to give up on it. And I’m not ready to yet…

Try it. It’s unusual. It’s analog. It’s radio. The real thing.

I don’t do this well. In fact, I’ve never done it. And it’s something I’d rather not have to do at all. Although, considering all the options I really don’t think there’s any shame in asking. So, I’ll try to be brief and honest. If you’ve spent some time at this site, and have found something of interest or at least had a good laugh over the last few years, it would be awful nice if you could toss a few bucks my way.

Whether or not you can tell, I’ve spent a lot of time bangin’ away at this blog this year. I always feel like I need to apologize for not slapping up more quick and succinct posts– the way they say blogs should operate. But I tend to fuss around with a bunch of recordings until I find one to post, then I tweak them for the web and take some notes on the contents. Once I put in some research on the topics at hand, I start putting all my thoughts and reflections into a big pile and pound away until what I’m writing starts to make sense (at least to me…). Then I finish up the whole opus with a bunch of links and pictures and tags, and after a round of proofreading I finally publish something.

I guess I got accustomed to long-form writing when I was doing magazine cover stories years ago. It’s how I have fun, and how I usually end up really learning something in the process. And I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I’ve really enjoyed working on this blog. I know the esoteric and exotic radio topics I cover here aren’t for everyone. And my epic style goes against the short-attention span of the web. Then again, you don’t have to read it all at once. I just did a quick word count, and this year I’ve easily typed over tapped out over thirty-thousand words here so far this year. And some of you read some of them…

I don’t like to beg. And I won’t. But if you can afford it, and if you do enjoy this site, it sure would be swell if you’d toss a little bit of cash into the PayPal tip jar in the sidebar to the right. And then maybe once again on a day you’re so inclined. And if you don’t or can’t use PayPal, but you’d like to help, you can send me an email here. It would make a huge difference in what I do here.

No, I don’t have a good business model. I wish I did. And without offering details, I’ll just say that I’ve been struggling for work over the last couple years. And so far, this year has been more financially painful than any in recent memory. Yes, times are tough.

I’ll try to keep posting here, and certainly some level of cash flow into this blog would make be encouraging in that regard. As usual, I have a few posts in the pipeline, and one in particular is over half-done.

I like to think I’m offering something unique here, and perhaps there’s something quixotic to the whole idea of writing about a hobby that’s quite obviously in decline. But for some reason or other, it seems to come natural to me. Oh well.

Other than all that, thanks for coming to the Radio Kitchen to visit. I do notice. And I do appreciate it.