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Wednesday, September 19, 2001
The People's Medium 
| | I'm a deep and abiding fan of Larry Josephson. Nobody has entertained or taught me more by means of radio than Larry — from his "In The Beginning" morning show on New York's WBAI in the Sixties and Seventies, to his national programs "Modern Times" and "Bridges" in the Eighties and Nineties. That he remains off the air is one matter that remains persistently wrong about, well, modern times. |
| | Not long after Modern Times went off the air, I weaseled Larry's home number out of a mutual friend and gave him a call. He was in a cranky mood, still grieving for what had been (and remains) the best program of his whole career. When I asked him something about radio and what's right and/or wrong with it, he interrupted and said, "I'll tell you my whole philosophy of radio. It's personal. That's it." |
| | He remains ahead of his time. |
| | Because radio as we know it has become corporatized and bureaucratized far beyond anything envisioned even by the barons of its heyday in the Thirties and Forties. |
| | Yet lately I've been listening more and more to Webio stations like Radio Paradise, which I wrote about yesterday. I like the way Webio stations exemplify what Larry has been all about since the Johnson administration. They're personal. Like blogs, in fact. Not real complicated, but a lot more charming every time another station snatcher turns a familiar signal into yet another "good times, great oldies" outlet. |
| | So I'm wondering about the rest of ya'll. |
| | And I'll take your calls off the air, because afer about three hours of sleep I fly (bravely) to San Francisco for a day of meetings. I'm likely to be blogless the duration. |
Healing at sea level
| | The meetings are over and I'm back at SFO — the airport by The Bay — sitting in a waiting area that a week ago would have been SRO. It's nearly empty. The shops, able to sell only to ticketed travelers, are empty. Three quarters of United's counters are closed, and the lines at the remaining ones are short. Security is tight, but not ill-humored. Everybody is very friendly and courteous. There is an equally sad and committed back-to-business feeling. |
| | Now all we need are customers. I'd guess that United is flying with maybe 30% of its normal passenger traffic. But hats off to them for at least flying the planes. The busses are running, and they're on schedule. And we carry on. Literally. |
| | Between the last paragraph and this one I took the picture above with my camcorder, grabbed a frame, shrank it down, posted it, and suddenly realized that the plane had begun boarding and that perhaps I had neglected to get a boarding pass as well. So I shut the lid, putting the computer to sleep, found I had the pass, walked on board, and carried on, after a disconnected fashion. |
| | By which I mean that I'm writing this in Radio Userland even though I'm not connected to the Web. When I'm connnected later, I'll hit Save and there we'll be. |
| | If it works. And if you're reading this, it probably has. |
| | Meanwhile we're waaay out over the ocean, with a sunset view of Monterey Bay, now covered with low clouds that look like a vast mattress cover. From this vantage it's easy to see where the Salinian Block, carrying the Santa Cruz Mountains, Big Sur and the whole mountain rainge behind it, creeps northward along the East edge of the Pacific plate. In the waning sunlight the mountains look like rows of buff-colored teeth. Behind them the Salinas Valley, the passage through which the Central Valley emptied to the sea for millions of years before the Temblor Range rose to halt the flow (moving California's drain northward to the Golden Gate) rests in hazy shadow. It's already twilight down there. |
| | Now Lakes Naciamento and San Antonio come into view. Soon Hearst Castle, San Simeon, will slide beneath the wing to my left. There it is. Amazing to think that Hearst once owned all the land that could be seen from his hiltop mansion. |
| | Now we've turned, giving me a better view of Mission San Antonio, which from 29,000 feet almost looks like a ruins. Is it? I have no idea. (Making a mental note to check when I get back.) |
Condition: sorta normal
| | I flew from Santa Barbara to San Francisco this morning on United. The whole airline is up and running. The schedule board shows a few cancellations, but nothing unusual. Security is tight and lines are long. They're not even letting you carry those tiny keychain knives on board. |
| | Unrelated: the new Red Carpet Club at SFO is terrific. The only thing missing is 802.11b wireless access. Significantly, I'm going to a meeting where we'll talk about just getting you fat bandwidth over cellular connections (imagine a cell card in your PCMCIA slot). Very do-able. Stay tuned. |
Perspective
| | Marek: Yesterday afternoon at 4pm my father died. |
Still learning
| | I look at the number of reads on my Discuss page, and at the sources of links at my Referers page, and sometimes I get a bit... confused. Yesterday morning I wrote The New Game, which I thought was one of the best — or at least one of the most important — pieces I've written since 9-11. And nobody pointed to it. |
| | Monday's blog got about twice the readers because Dave pointed to my (eventual) lead item that day, a brief thing titled Rift Zones. Others did too. I guess both pieces are good (they got several positive emails apiece). One just had a bit more humanity to it. More of a story. |
| | And so: Hey, maybe that's what's really important. |
| | Mostly I'm amazed right now that I'm market-analysing stuff I wrote without proofreading or copy editing in scant time that isn't really spare. And that I'd certainly change that stuff almost completely if I really did have the time. |
| | It's easy for both writer and reader to forget that blogging is, with a few familiar exceptions, avocational. Most of us have other jobs. That's why, in my case, I try not to spend more than half an hour a day on it. Lately it's been more, because I'm trying to buck the Tides of War, which involves reading and writing about what the rest of us are doing to make sense out of last week's brutal experience — stuff you're not going to get out of TV. Beats being numb. |
| | Anyway, just blogging out loud, I guess. |
| | Okay, the half hour's up. Gotta pack for the trip. |
Speaking of people
| | David Scott Williams has a blog of his own hackation, still very much a work in progress. I'm glad to expose it, since David is one of the thoughtful sources of stuff I've written about but credited insufficiently for lack of a place on the Web to point. |
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