Sunshine News

We have all asked ourselves why the news is all most exclusively bad news. I have recently read of a news program that aired only good news. Sadly it no longer exists. Even more sadly references to it are few and spare. Totally stumped on further research I am posting all three hoping for a little reader participation. The first quote comes by way of a book I didn't expect to have anything to say about radio. Saul D. Alinsky wrote Rules For Radicals in 1971, updating and combining some of his earlier writing. In a foot note he mentions a program on 1410 KRML-AM.

"In one of America's Shangri-Las of escape from the world as it is, Carmel-By-The-Sea, California, on the coast of the beautiful Monterey Peninsula, radio station KRML used to broadcast the Sunshine News —which headlines the positive, only the good news of the world!  Intellectuals, who would scoff at Sunshine News, are no exception to the preference for already formulated answers."

Our next quote is from The Hammer Of The Lord: Signs Of Hope by Colin Morris. It was printed in 1974. Morris is a an English Methodist minister who helped form the United Church of Zambia. He was also a regular speaker on the BBC Radio 4 program "Thought for the Day." The program is still running today, though without Mr. Morris. He's 82 now and apparently still alive. He was still authoring books as recently as 2007. His quote is as follows:

"What makes station KRML interesting is that until recently, and right up to the present day for all I know, its declared policy was to broadcast only what it termed "Sunshine News." Every morning an announcer with a happy-happy voice would open the transmission with the words 'Here is the good news of the world!' and proceed to read a bulletin from which all mention of wars, tragedies, and disasters was rigorously excluded and in particular death was out"

The last quote comes by way of Mr. Alinsky again. This time in an earlier book, The Professional Radical: Conversations With Saul Alinsky. It was printed in 1970, and he probably was in the process of writing his  "Rules" book  at the time. It is perhaps even the source of the quote at the start of the post.

"I've got a little house near Carmel, which is really a Brigadoon fantasy place where people go to get away from everything. Well, for years radio station KRML gave Carmel a special morning news report called the sunshine news, only the good news! And boy, they had to stretch to get it. This middle-class, Madison Avenue hygienic approach to life is frightening."

In sum all I know is that it was on KRML-AM, very positive, and aired in the mornings and was broadcast for an unknown period of time in the late 1960s to early 1970s. The lack of information tells me that there is no way it was syndicated. The station was acquired by Samuel and D.R. Salerno in 1968. Prior to that it was owned by KRML Inc. as it had been since 1965. They had a license for a KRML-FM on 101.7 which was then not yet on air.  I had assumed the program aired on KRML-AM but it's possible it was on the FM side. We cannot assume they were a pure simulcast at any time. Before them the Carmel Broadcasting Co. owned the station from 1960-1965. They had purchased it from the original licensee, the Seaside Electronic Association,  in 1957 under the original calls KTEE-AM.

What we have there is a string of independent owners that only box in the time frame of the Sunshine News to between 1960 and 1970. It may have aired later than that but not earlier. I did also find a news service in a 1939 directory. WTMJ-AM in Milwaukee had just signed up for programs from the Sunshine News reporter. They were one of 28 stations carrying the program. The 1940 Broadcasting yearbook lists it as a set of 10 minute programs of that branding sponsored by the Loose-Wiles Biscuit Company out of Long Island City. they were plugging their product... Sunshine Biscuits. The product and the program predate the references by 20 to 25 years. I can't connect the two with any confidence.

Clint Eastwood on KRML

It's not every radio station that gets to be in a major motion picture. In the film Play Misty for Me, 1410 KRML-AM is the radio station where Clint Eastwood plays a DJ harassed by a caller who wants him to play "Misty" for her. The KRML-AM studio appears in the movie. They even still have the DJ console that Clint used in the film.

Broadcasting from Carmel-by-the-Sea, KRML has filled the airwaves of Carmel, Santa Cruz, Salinas, and the Monterrey Bay with quality programming since 1957.  In January this year it was reported the station was up for sale. Various publications put the price at anywhere from 1 to 1.8 million dollars. [It's worth it] It's record collection is up for sale separately for $400,000.  [It's not worth it.] This is the second time it's been for sale in the last 5 years. Wisdom broadcasting attempted to negotiate a partnership with the city of Carmel-by-the-Sea to use KRML as an emergency broadcast station.  But the city could not acquire the grant money to make it happen.

At it's peak, it was a mult-platform media company much like WXPN. The arrangement was so novel they were profiled in the book: The specialty shop: how to create your own unique and profitable retail business By Dorothy Finell. They had a jazz museum, a retail store, and a  concert venue. They broadcast on 1410 AM and 3 FM repeaters encircling the Monterrey-Salinas-Santa Cruz metro.  Then something went wrong. Earlier this year KRML closed its retail shop, The Jazz and Blues Co. Then they began broadcasting at reduced wattage. The newspaper the Monterey County Weekly wrote:

 “The former radio station studio and jazz store on Carmel’s San Carlos Street are shuttered. The phone line is out of service, and the website’s 'listen online' link is defunct. But like a Hollywood ghost that sings beyond the grave, KRML radio continues broadcasting jazz 24/7 on 1410 AM.”

Reports in April had Owner David  Kimball on the verge of personal bankruptcy.  The part of the Eastwood building that housed the station featured in Clint Eastwood's movie Play Misty For Me is vacant. The lender keeping them afloat, the Monterey County Bank, was pressuring (helping) Kimball to find a buyer.Things were looking bad and KRML lacked the funds to build a new studio a reserved location on Dolores Street. The stations Operations Manager George Fuller is manually changing the programming at the transmitter on Rio Road. Here they are 6 months later still limping forward. Maybe next year the money will come. You can donate here.

Monterey Travel Missive #3

I was too dismissive of 1410 KRML-AM yesterday. I've spent more time listening to them than any other local station at this point. While KKUP may hav esome stand out programs, it really is reggae all damn day, KRML-AM is varied but in an intelligent programmed way. I also noticed that they also offer cable radio (a medium I thought was extinct) on Comcast at 93.7. That pipes their signal loud and clear into 90,000 homes. They also claim to be the only radio station broadcasting jazz 24 hours a day. While that claim is somewhat spurious, they are still a great jazz station. They also were featured in the 1971 Clint Eastwood flick Play Misty for Me, for whatever that's worth.

While I'm on the Jazz tip, I finally caught a music show that held my attention on 88.9 KUSP. http://www.kusp.org/ I'd written them off as a NPR talk outlet until I caught this one show today around noon. The program Cintinental drift was truly inspired. It was a mix of old and new blues, jazz and even funk. But it was kind of tied together in an organic way. Leon Red Bone, 30 s blues, the meters and Jimmy Smith aren;'t normally in the same program... but hey can be. It's beginning to make sense that Monterey is the home of the Monterey Jazz Festival.

I got into Recycled Records today and picked up a copy of an older Bakomono record. I paid $8.00 and just realized I could have bought it used online for 3 cents + shipping... This is why small record stores are going out of buisness. But it's a good band, and a long out of print record, it was worth the 8 clams.

Today I ate lunch at El Torito and sat in the bar overlooking Monterey Bay. The food was largely unimpressive but the view was great. I sat a a table smaller than half a newspaper and overlooked the incoming waves. The Pacific was very active and would shake the building at times as it rushed over and under the rock that Monterey sits upon. It is very striking how much more active the Pacific is than the Atlantic. I was warned many times by many locals about the tourists that get swept out to sea right off th ebeach because they didn't know how violent and powerful El Océano Pacífico is. The salsa was good and used excellent tomatos which made me remember harvesting them, and made me hungry for good vegetables.

Montery Travel Missive #2

The Juniper trees by Sloat Ave. are massive and gnarled like overly muscular arms cranked from steroids. ...and the Hickory Trees have left shells all the way to Hawthorne. It was a strange thing to fixate on after a walk through Cannery Row, but it's what I remember now. I also recall vividly that the street signs were carved out of wood. I walked to the aquarium to check out the otters, and at first saw none. Then I noticed one fat sea otter lying on a rock facing away from me. It did nothing cute like the ones on TV. It's just looked fat and somewhat bored.

KNRY-AM turns out to have a studio on the row. The rest was dull tourist shops and restaurants that smelled like wine and fish. (I like neither) I met two men who used to have a show on KNRY-AM who were very funny and charming and knew just where to get a good sandwich. We went to a local joint called Randy's (10th street & church?) It's only open for lunch 11:30 -1:30 Monday thru Friday. I had the Jaws2 hoagie which had turkey, ham, salami, bologna, provolone mayo and was on a soft sesame roll. Truly a sandwich to be reckoned with. I ate that sandwich in the park and then got a ride in a Ferrari at about 90 mph in that little tunnel before Lighthouse St. Fun people out here.

I bought a couple books at Bookbuyers used books on the same street. We were only going 35 when we passed it, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to read the sign. Tremendously knowledgeable and engaging bibliophiles in there. Next door is recycled records, a viny shop, which sadly was closed for a dinner break when I finally happened by. www.bookbuyers.com

In related Monterrey News, I noticed that Melanie Walker, former morning show host of KAZU has reappeared as MD of KCMP in Minneapolis replacing Thorn. We she here I would have coughed her show, in liu I spent some time listening to a Tropical show on KKUP, their first break from the reggae. It was a set of Venezuelan harp rock. Host Cristina Boyd presided over a st of music like nothing I have ever heard before. It began with recognizable Afro-cuban jazz and ended with surreal call-and-response music with the call consisting of Hammond B3 Organ and the response being the same line etched in harp picking. The program is called Amenidades Latino Americans and only airs every other week.

I also discovered 1410 KRML-AM which runs all jazz and blues but leaning nostalgia across both. It's much less fruity than the two standards outlets KIDD-AM and KABL-AM running zero show tunes and zero Streisand. It was a relaxing discovery this evening. http://www.krmlradio.com/