The Radio Kitchen

As much as I love DXing, I still have a place in my heart for the local AM stations. The low power and low budget radio operations that don’t have the transmitter muscle to be heard much further than the county line. And when I travel I always hope to find that unique truly local station, that has that low power community magic. And it’s an extra bonus if you happen to like the music they play, but it’s almost always interesting to hear how local folks program radio for each other.

In the past, I’ve mentioned a couple of low watt gems (like WHVW and WCXI), but I never think to look into some of the lesser AM stations here in New York City. And if you don’t live here, it’s easy to think of America’s biggest city as a monolithic unified whole. But it’s not like that at all on the ground. It’s a whole bunch of communities all stuffed into five boroughs (as well as a few surrounding counties). And a number of them have staked their claim on the AM dial.

And the medium wave territory in New York here has got to be as crowded as anywhere in the world. Besides the big "blowtorch" clear channel AM stations everyone knows (WABC, WCBS, WFAN…), there are a lot of little "sparklers" across the dial. And it seems that most of them are on the right side of the band. While WLIB is a gospel station these days, I don’t think any AM’ers in the city have a real music format. (Okay, a few stations play oldies and "music of your life" fodder out past the perimeter.) What most of the little AM stations in NYC offer is either religious or "ethnic" programming. Most are "brokered" They sell time on their transmitter. And in New York City, it’s not cheap. It’s much less expensive to just have your own radio station. Until you get busted…

However, the bottom line for me is that they’re all speaking another language on most of those little AM stations crowded around the top half of the AM dial. And I have to admit that Spanish or Chinese or Russian talk shows don’t do much for a poor unilingual American bastard like myself. Then again, like listening to the world via shortwave, music is compelling beyond language or ethnicity (at least to me). And over the years, almost by accident, I have run into sublime gospel and quirky 60’s Asian rock and all sorts of Carribean things when I was turning the dial to find something else. And when I do try to go back to that same area of the dial I often find the programming is totally different than what I had enjoyed the last time around. But brokered radio stations are especially like that– very different animals by the day and by the hour. I suppose I need to prowl the schedules online more often.

Thus, the point of this post. Sometime you miss some really interesting that’s always been right there– in your own backyard. Like this oddball pirate radio station that up until a just recently was broadcasting at 1710kHz here in Brooklyn.

Radio Moshiach & Redemption is a rarity here in the states, a illegal religious broadcasting operation and just another tentacle of the massive Lubavitcher media machine. The Lubavitchers (or Chabadniks) are one of the oldest and most well-known tribes of the ultra-orthodox and mystical Jewish Hasidim. And why do they have a radio station? Let’s just say they do a lot of outreach. In other words, they actually proselytize like the kooky born-again Christians. Sort of…

Actually, the Lubavitchers are only looking for Jews who have strayed from their faith. They’re a little infamous here in the city for going out on the streets (and into the subways) and approaching people who look like they might be Jewish (and might not be practicing enough…). A little annoying, but it’s gotta be less pathetic than those glassy-eyed Jehovah’s Witnesses holding that dopey magazine in front of their faces.

From what I understand, most of the Brooklyn Lubavitchers are clustered around the Crown Heights neighborhood here in Brooklyn. And most assume that’s where their broadcasts originate. The "programming" I’ve heard has alternately been in English or Yiddish (and perhaps Hebrew, I’m not sure…). More significantly, the actual audio product of Radio Moshiach is outrageously awful– distorted and noisy. Yet, the raw and unprofessional urgency on Radio Moshiach was often kind of intriguing. I recall one particular time I heard them in the car (where I usually listened to them) and, like usual, I was struggling to understand what was being discussed (Even when speaking English they use so many Hebraic words that outsiders like me are left constantly trying to decipher the topic at hand). But what kept me glued to 1710 was the chronic coughing fit the old fellah on mic couldn’t get under control. At a real radio station, there would usually be a "cough button" to work around a situation like that, and a real hacking fit would be usurped by commercials or music But this elderly Hasidic gentlemen was determined to finish his lecture. And he just kept going– endlessly forward though so much choking and gagging and wheezing. It was quite a display of some strange fortitude. And no, I have no recordings of that. But I do have this little piece of history.

Radio Moshiach & Redemption (Brooklyn, NY) 1710kHz – 11-15-06

(download)

From what I little I’ve heard of this station over the years, the "lecture" on the recording is rather typical. Lots of talk on how to live a more sacred life, and extended discourse on the ruminations of their holy men. But like their Christian cousins, they have a fascination with a coming "end times" and are a little obsessed with the coming of the Moshiach (their messiah). And that what you get in this aircheck, some messiah anticipation and a little music.

And you might not believe it to hear it, but I actually performed a bit of digital hoodoo on this tape to up the fidelity. Yes it was worse, knee deep in a thick rich hiss before I did some tweaking and filtering. It’s still crappy, but believe the clip here is certainly better than the actual reception at the time. (You still here some nasty distortion during the musical interludes on this tape that I couldn’t fix.)

I’m not going to pretend that I really know much about the Lubavitchers or the Hasidim in general. Although I do live in Brooklyn, and run into quite a few Hasidic folks in my travels, the local tribe here in the Williamsburg area are the Satmars, who differ in many beliefs and practices from the Lubavitchers and their obsessions with the end times, and the messiah, and converting wayward jews. And I wouldn’t be the first to say that most of the public interactions I’ve had with the Satmars are rarely warm or friendly. And apparently I’m not quite Jewish looking enough to get the attention of the roving Lubavitcher missionaries.

However, in the cursory research I did do before writing this post I came across a couple points that caught my interest. There’s no fire and brimstone in the Hassidic world. They don’t go for all the eternal damnation business that makes Christians so scary and ridiculous. But I gotta admit, that a few things I came across on the web regarding the Lubavitchers that made a lot of sense to me– specifically the wisdom of one of their big thinkers: Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz. For example, he believes that God is too great to be understood by any one religion, and he really believes in science. Besides his Rabbinical studies he also took in big education doses of physics, chemistry, mathematics, and sociology. In 1988, Time magazine praised him as an "once-in-a-millennium scholar.

Of course, I suppose it’s not really all that unusual that so much intellectual thought and so much religious thought can do so much good together in the brain of one person. It’s a habit from all the exposure to the pseudo-holy hucksters and parasites I run across on shortwave radio, I suppose. And it’s important to remember that the religious goofballs you hear on the radio (or see on TV) are not necessarily representative of the faith they might espouse. Yet, all that said, there’s plenty of things Steinsaltz and other Hasidim believe that I find a completely wacky and wrong-headed, but the point is there’s a lot of real thinking going on in Lubavitchers-land. And then there’s all that mystical Kabbalah business. That’s a deep topic I’m not going to address (but Madonna may cover some points on her last album). And did I mention that old lead-larynx himself, Bob Dylan, is a practicing Lubavitcher these days. (Although I’ve never heard his music on Radio Moshiach.)

I guess what impressed me, is how much more thoughtful the religious discussion was on 1710kHz than ninety percent of the Christian broadcasters I come across on the radio. I’m not saying I was ever impressed by the eloquence or narrative power of anything I heard on this odd pirate station (It’s some esoteric stuff), at least they never claim to talk to any supernatural beings. And don’t seem to feel a need to point out how evil other people or other religions might be. And while they may have their agents out on the streets to looking for wayward Jews to bring back to the faith, they don’t get on the radio to convert anyone. And they don’t ask for money so they can pray for you either. None of that crap. And, they’re outlaws!

I guess what I’m trying to say is that there’s nothing really wrong with "religious radio."In fact, wouldn’t it be interesting if all sorts of believers and thinkers and religious types were on the radio having intelligent conversations about spirituality and wisdom and the human condition. Instead, almost all the thousands of religious broadcasters on radio and TV are malignant Christians preaching intolerance and ignorance and damnation. Although I have to admit that some of the Catholic broadcasting I come across on AM and shortwave is a little more thoughtful. At least they talk about real some human topics, and don’t talk about hell and blood all the time.

There’s a meanness to so much of the Protestant preaching and teaching I hear on the radio, and a very willful ignorance– and enough dogma to clog up a weak-will thinker’s brain for life. Of course, there’s a long tradition of colorful and ridiculous bible bangers on the radio (like Gene Scott), but most are neither interesting or humorous. And the worst of it– it’s always been about trolling the countryside with a transmitter and a line of bullshit looking for weak and downtrodden listeners who might have a few bucks they can filch in the name of Jesus.

While I can no longer pick up Radio Moshiach in Northern Brooklyn, David Goren lives much deeper into the borough and he’s still picking up some Lubavitcher broadcasting, but not at 1710kHz. He says they seem to capable of running a few little transmitters in the x-band (the new USA upper extension to medium wave beyond 1600kHz), sometimes several at once and different programs on each "station." And are currently still broadcasting at 1640kHz., and perhaps on FM as well. But it’s the 1710 signal that was the heartiest of them all. And it’s the one most DXers run into. And I’ll bet it sounds REALLY bad from far away. But all that hackin’ and coughin’ I heard probably cut through the North Atlantic skynoise for some DXer out there…

Speaking of that, what led me to post this aircheck in the first place was just to share Radio Moshiach with as much clarity as I could muster from my New York City outpost. I’m sure a lot of DXers have never heard what the station actually sounded like (with some degree of clarity), other than a shaggy little heterodyne or maybe some lo-fi Yiddish accented words wedged sideways into a noise floor. I have another tape I recorded around here somewhere, which featured a lot of old and interesting Yiddish music. If I find it one day I might attach it to the this post as well.

And just to be clear, I’m not looking to pick a fight with Christians or Protestants any believer really. Actually, most of the time when I come across the way these religious are being expressed on the radio, it’s the sound of fighting words to my ears. That’s why I rag on radio evangelism. Most of these (supposedly) "Christian" broadcasters I come across on my radio are vile examples of humanity. And I stand by that. Yet, the truth is, all in all, I find Christianity rather interesting– even if it’s not my belief system. And if you wanna make me mad– just waste my time by going to great lengths to convince me of something unbelievable that you can’t prove. What could be more annoying?

And when I dig into a shortwave band, I get annoyed that way quite often. Or worse. And while Radio Moshiach could be quite boring and occasionally unintelligible. It never was never annoying. And never stupid or mean. Unlike Harold Camping, who is always boring and always annoying. And although he doesn’t look so healthy, he is still alive.

And wouldn’t that be awful– when he does give up the ghost, if they give his tapes the Gene Scott "immortality treatment, and Family Radio kept playing those awful and dim-witted "Open Forum" shows for all of eternity?

Or wait a minute. That can’t happen.

When you make it your career to predict the end of time over and over again, any show mentioning all those missed apocalypses wouldn’t be good candidates for future encore presentations, if you know what I mean. Meanwhile, Camping’s latest prediction is that it’s all over by 2011. Then again, most of us survived 1994. But perhaps, for Camping himself 2011 might really be the last dance. (But then again, there’s all that bad news…)

Of course the Lubavitchers have their own obsession with a coming apocalypse too. But they’re smart enough not to pick a date. When you’re predicting the end of human existence, it’s probably not a bad idea to keep your options open.

Want to hear some really bland talk radio? Check out WNYC here in New York from 10 to noon weekdays. It’s the home of "The Brian Lehrer Show," a program so uncharismatic that it’s hard to believe that it’s broadcast on two powerful transmitters to the biggest city in America. With monotonous tooty groove bumper music and a host who doesn’t seem to stand for anything in particular, it’s what you’d expect to hear in less popular slot on a small town public radio station. It’s kinda sad.

There’s obviously a lot of work that goes into the Lehrer’s show, but the end product is so invertebrate that it’s telling of the leadership and vision of WNYC, and indicative of the lack of bravery in general at NPR. Although they often have big name guests, there are almost no great moments on Lehrer’s program. They try so hard that you feel sorry everybody behind the scenes. For a while, Lehrer was host of NPR’s "On The Media," and it turned out to be one of NPR’s best shows, AFTER he left. While Lehrer is no longer a national NPR figure, he does a high profile program on one of NPR’s most important stations, and his show is the only talk show on WNYC focusing exclusively on current events. You’d think it would make for good listening, but instead it’s a lame balancing act, often lacking courage and at times as compelling as a traffic update.

It’s not that Lehrer’s show is without content or occasionally energy, but it chronically comes across as a utilitarian effort that never seems to inspire. And the program suffers from the same two-dimensional vision that has affected news and issues programing in television and radio– you have to match pro with con, left with right, and yes with no. It’s a methodology that was forged with the onset of cable TV pundit packed panel shows in the 1980’s, and now that same kind of thinking goes into much of the programming of NPR and their affiliates.

In this era of Bush II and the rise of Fox News, NPR in general is feeling even more pressure to be "fair and balanced." Along with PBS, the network has been under fire from Bush lackey and former editor of the heralded Reader’s Digest Kenneth Tomlinson, who was head of the Corporation For Public Broadcasting before he resigned yesterday. (Like Libby, Rove, Delay, and Frist, Tomlinson has been under investigation for shady practices.) Tomlinson has been fighting a multi-front war against NPR and PBS in hopes of not only limiting government money to our public TV and radio networks, but also to reduce the actual hours of news programming they feature. Why? It’s that pesky liberal bias. And while Tomlinson stepping down would seem to be good news for public broadcasting, there’s still plenty of like-minded Republicans at the CPB who wish the network ill.

It’s damn sad that it’s come to this. Compare the situation to what’s happened in Britain. The BBC, the best government-funded news network in the world, is able to criticize the Blair government and their partners in crime (the Bush administration) without similar threats, NPR has been trying to appease the American right wing for years. Of course, the neo-cons and the religious right aren’t going to approve of any government funds going to NPR until they parrot their views without giving the opposition credence or coverage in any meaningful way. Of course, they won’t do THAT, but what NPR has done is comprise their journalism in the name of survival. To quote former NPR host Bob Edwards– "In today’s media, we seem to bring on the liars in order to balance the truth." It’s enough to make your stomach hurt.

While you hear the worst of NPR’s "balance" efforts in their high-profile national news programs, Brian Lehrer’s local show on NPR’s biggest station is a great example of spineless radio. When you do hear some guest making a case against corruption, torture or war, you’re probably also be subjected to some apologist explaining that corruption, torture or war is really okay (or they’ll just deny it’s happening at all). And if there’s not an opposing guest, Lehrer himself will play devil’s advocate and challenge the person with material his staff has grabbed off the web from writers or politicians who defend corruption, torture or war. The net effect is that Lehrer totally cloaks his own opinion on almost every issue, and the content further encrypts him as a journalist or political thinker.

And if that isn’t bad enough, the show rarely gives more than a dozen minutes to most issues and guests. I suppose Lehrer and his staff think it makes for a fast paced show, but instead it’s a superficial herky-jerky two hours of radio which neither enlightens nor entertains. Too many segments on the show end with Lehrer cutting off a guest in mid-sentence because he is "out of time."

On Wednesday, progressive scholar and curmudgeon Gore Vidal was his first guest. The initial topic was his involvement in a National Day of Protest against the Iraq War. But what you hear in this interview is Lehrer attempting to neuter the opinions of the eloquent Mr. Vidal, and then bragging how comprehensive his radio show is. When Vidal brought up the fact that he believes that Bush stole both elections, Lehrer tried to steer him away from the controversies by saying that his show already covered those elections and there’s nothing new to talk about regarding them. Vidal nails him by pointing out that the war and the obscene foreign policies of the Bush regime were all made possible by stealing elections.

Then after twice trying to divert Vidal, Lehrer pulls out a New York Times Magazine piece that paints Vidal as an "America hater" with Harold Pinter. And then Lehrer uses Pinter’s opinions expressed in the piece to see if he can get Vidal to equate the dual invasions of the Bush presidency with the UN military action in Kosova during the Clinton administration. Gotta keep that "balance" after all.

And then after Lehrer isn’t able to successfully counter Vidal in any appreciable way, BOOM– another interview comes to a screeching halt. Total time, just over 11 minutes. The listener learns almost nothing, except that Lehrer is an incompetent talk host with an inflated opinion of his own program. It’s pointless radio with a great guest. Have a listen…

WNYC – Gore Vidal on the Brian Lehrer Show – 11-02-05  12:38

(download)

And if you want to hear another brilliant old fart really chew up Lehrer, you ought to hear his interview with Mort Sahl from April, 2004. I’m not sure if I’ve ever heard a talk host slammed so hard on their own program. Sure, Sahl is a grouchy contrarian and it sounds like he’s just gotten out of bed in this clip, but whether he’s fully awake or not he takes aim at the alleged balance of Lehrer and NPR with deadly accuracy. He outs them both for what they really are–  a closeted liberal talk host and a liberal radio network too afraid show anything but chronic and disengenious moderation to the public at large.

In the interview, Sahl brings up Air America and says if NPR had done its job they wouldn’t have had to create a commercial liberal talk network in the first place. While that’s an arguable idea, he makes a valid point. By their constant balancing act, NPR and hosts at their affiliates like Lehrer aren’t just hypocritical, but they’re polluting the news intake of the millions of NPR listeners by putting on liars and conservative apologists and taking extra effort to not irritate the Republicans who hold the purse strings for the government dough they depend on.

This clip is rather amazing and unlike anything I’ve ever heard. It’s kind of a host roast…

WNYC – Mort Sahl on the Brian Lehrer Show – 04-29-04  18:01

(download)

To be fair, there’s some fine programming on WNYC. Leonard Lopate, who follows Lehrer every day, has some compelling moments. While it can get a little precious now and then, he does have some great guests from time to time and you never feel like they’re being cut off before you get hear them complete a few thoughts. Unlike Lehrer, Lopate has interesting bumper music and never masks his political leanings. And if he happens to challenges a guest you know it’s coming from the heart and not some exercise in balance. Speaking of a lack of balance, you oughtta check out Steve Post’s "No Show" on WNYC. Dark, hilarious and as real as anybody you’ll ever hear on the radio, his one hour show is a real jewel in the WNYC schedule.

And at least two national NPR programs that originate from WNYC are actually quite good. I already mentioned "On The Media," the only real dirt digging news magazine in the NPR line-up. And "Selected Shorts" is a wonderful way to ingest some literature via the radio.

However, two others– "Studio 360," and "The Next Big Thing" are just awful. They’re both wine and cheese car wrecks, with so much shiny urbane smugness that you just want to grab your palm pilot and London Fog and take a spin in your new Jaguar after a good listen.

And that’s the thing about WNYC in general. There’s an elitist air to the whole station that reminds me of a Mac ad campaign. Their promos constantly tell you how smart, deep, and worldly WNYC and NPR is, and when they’re begging for money they coddle their listeners with similar praise exclaiming how you’re an erudite individual who demands great radio and comprehensive coverage of every important issue and event of the day. Barf.

During their fundraisers, WNYC’s appointed beggars are as bad as the evangelist shysters who crowd the radio dial pleading for prayer offerings and fleecing their radio flock. In short, they’ve been trained to manipulate and guilt their audience into giving their money. In general, public radio across the board has a parasitical relationship with their own audience, constantly hitting them up for cash while they continue to take huge sums from corporations, advertisers and the government. It’s disgusting. It didn’t used to be this way.

It’s about time NPR sprouted some testicles and just got off the government dole. Sure, it works in Canada and Europe but there’s rampant mental illness in America that seems to rule out being able to fund a brave or excellent public radio network. It has something to do with rampant Christianity and some inherent super-greed that prevents us from having a mature republic that takes care of itself and helps other countries in any meaningful way. The fact that we’re the richest country in the world and we don’t have national health care, we have a failing infrastructure and a hopelessly inept disaster relief program, AND we contribute a shamefully microscopic portion of our GNP in foreign aid to poor nations are ALL symptoms of our pray-and-pay way of doing things in the states, which has ultimately led to the corruption of journalism at NPR.

So it’s sad, but NPR needs to get real. Their affiliates need to quit running the polite little advertisements they call "underwriting" and just run real commercials. Sure ads are disgusting, but they’re real. Radio is a dirty business, and it’s really expensive. But the dance that NPR does every day, pretending that you’re not hearing advertising and that you are so damn smart for listening to the ads and pretending you’re not, is absurd. And the constant begging for money is very tiresome. If all the pleading will hold an audience that advertisers will pay for, then go ahead and beg away. But it’s just plain embarrassing. BBC, CBC, Radio Netherlands, and any other western public radio network I could name doesn’t get on their knees and weep at their audience.

And as far as WNYC goes, it seems like they could do a little trimming to get their budget in check if the government cash dries up. Did I mention the $400,000 salary of their General Manager Laura Walker? I meant to.

Of course, WNYC isn’t all bad. And I’ve heard Brian Lehrer is a swell guy to work with, but being nice doesn’t necessarily translate to good radio. The real tragedy is that WNYC is NPR’s main affiliate in the biggest radio market in America, and it oughtta be better, much better. But more importantly, the NPR mothership, needs a serious retooling if they want to survive and be relevant into this new century. And I don’t think that firing their long-standing morning host or creating a mid-day magazine program that’s even softer than "All Things Considered" has done anything to improve the outlook for NPR. Every programming move the network makes smells of the efforts of demographic number crunchers, and they only seem able to do more of what they’ve done before, with extra balance of course.

There was a time when "Morning Edition" and "All Things Considered" were essential portions of my media intake. Nowadays I can’t listen to either without eventually having to either turning the volume to zero, or switching the station. Why is it that NEVER happens when I listen to similar shows on BBC or CBC? For every interesting deep news story I hear on NPR I’m subjected to some warm and fuzzy anecdote about grandma’s kitchen or a story about stuffing the kids in the station wagon and heading to the box store. There’s almost no edge or guts to NPR anymore. Okay, there’s Daniel Schorr.

Am I suffering from memory loss, or didn’t public radio in this country used to be creating a superior product without pandering to make itself more popular? These days, NPR is in the business of super-tweaking their programing across the board to make it’s programming more attractive to suburban college educated homemakers, young white collar dudes, or some other type of human being that I am obviously not (and don’t want to be). I want information, entertainment and cogent opinion now and then, but when I hear some inane commentary on NPR I wanna scream– "Take the goddamn pink fuzzy blanket of feel-good radio off me, NOW!"

Just to end this critical rant on an up note, let me mention a really great NPR program. If Harry Shearer’s "Le Show" isn’t the best show on NPR, it’s damn sure the funniest. It’s a packed hour of Music, comedy and cutting commentary that doesn’t suffer from weak-kneed "balance" and is never cute or cuddly. In fact, it’s so good that it isn’t even on WNYC. Apparently they tossed it into a late night time slot and pissed off Shearer, who took it from the station. It can be heard locally on WNYE (91.5 fm) on Monday nights at 9 p.m. You can also stream it or podcast it. Check his site for details.

Meanwhile, if after reading this you want to check out Lehrer’s show, it’s on WNYC (93.9 fm and 820 am) Monday through Friday from 10 to noon, and is rebroadcast from 1 to 3 a.m. on 820 am. You can also podcast it or listen to individual segments at WNYC’s website. There’s also an official blog for his show which you can check here. Last time I looked it featured a menu from the White House dinner being held for Prince Charles. But don’t be planning to leave any comments on his blog. Balance is best left to the experts.