Salinas Travel Missive

The radio programming today (and the TV) is the worst I have seen in my life: worse than Xmas, worse than the Macy's Parade... worse than election Night. All channels, all stations are talking about 9/11. Even NPR was guilty. Yes, even Garrison Keilor was roped into it. [for shame!] The 5 year anniversary is inescapable.

Every station was fixated on two people reading a long list of names and the George W. Bush trying to look humble for ten minutes. The hype was unbearable. Only Randy Rhodes had anything intelligent to say . If you don't like the way things are, blame the party in power. It's not that complicated. http://www.therandirhodesshow.com/live/

What does this gratuitous grief, serve at the Grand Guignol?
It's hype. I was a promoter and I know hype. It's hype to distract you from one story and to fixate you on another. Yes forget all that and please watch the following patriotic montage:

The purpose to coax some guilty patriotism out of the ignorant masses with the idea that it makes you more likely to vote Republican in 60 days. anyway, political railing aside...

Marina is foggy every day apparently. No one mentioned that to me before I booked the trip. I am on East Coast Time in my brain and woke at 5:3o AM which is actually late for work on EST. I had breakfast because I was hungry, then at 8:30 when I could begin thinking about going to work... I was hungry for lunch... I am so messed up. It was 55 degrees until the fog finally rolled back around noon. Then it jumped up to 85 in 3o minutes. Apparently 10 miles up Route 1 in either direction and the fog goes away. bizarre.

So anyway the politics sent me scanning down the dial for anything that wasn't about Bush, Towers or self flagellation. I found KKUP actually playing music. For years I've assumed KKUP was wildly eclectic with their lefty logo and reputation but no. they seem in practice to be a 24 hr Reggae station. Oh well. "The People's Radio" apparently was meant mostly for Jamaican people. http://www.magic63.com/home.php

I spent some time listening to 700 KMBX-AM expecting a Regional Mexican station but instead found an eclectic mix of mid 70s Spanish pop; I think. It had lots of keyboards and reverb. It's Jose-AM, a deep catalog Spanish format, I think it's an Entravision experiment: Adult Hits En Espanol! 600 KIDD-AM continued to play a kind of fruity mix of Nostalgia skewing away from big band and toward Broadway show tunes. I couldn't stomach most of it. http://www.magic63.com/ 1460 is KABL-AM but they skew Soft AC which is even worse. http://www.kablradio.com/

RECOMMENDED: I got a ruben at Mecca, a German Deli and it was so strong tasting I am still wrangling with the idea of what a ruben is and what it can be. Read about it here
NOT RECOMMENDED: Also hit the Steinbeck Museum. It was aimed at 9 year old and I was kind of let down. FYI: if you do go with the kids, Do not park on the street. You wont be able to back out for 17 hours. Park in the municipal lot and pay the dude.

Monterey Travel Missive #1

I landed at Monterey Peninsula Airport airport yesterday, and after accidentally driving into the high security lot behind the air traffic control tower I eventually found my way down to Rte 1. I drove past Sand city which as far as I can tell is a big beach and Home Depot... possibly a Berkley art project representing the two halves of the male brain. I got a cheap hotel in Marina in walking distance of the beach and got used to the idea. I heard some fantastic radio already. On the AM band I caught the last half of Radio Ranch, a program on 1240 KNRY-AM. http://www.knry.com/Programs/RadioRanch.htm

Host J.P. Mick Vernon reads cowboy poetry by himself and others in between obscure and not-so-obscure country oldies tunes. It is a totally unparalleled program in all of radio land. He told a story about a young girl riding colts and developing a preference for a very old mare, then played some Dale Evans ...and it totally worked. He was included in the 2005 Nevada County Poetry Anthology and is also the author of The Lyrical Lawman Rides, a book of original cowboy poetry.

90.3 KAZU used to be a local scene powerhouse, with a morning show that often beat out Nic at KCRW in local polls. But Melanie was ousted from that slot when management decided that Monterey needed a third NPR news outlet in the market... I often wonder if she picked up a show somewhere down the road. This afternoon they were running something that ran simultaneously on 88.9 KUSP. They seemed impotent and dull.

Still in market are 88.1 KZSC the U. or Santa Cruz and 91.9 KSPB at Robert Louis Stevenson H.S. I am sure I'll check those out during the week ahead.

I drove up the road a bit and bought some supplies for the traveling I'll be doing over the week. two boxes of low-cal snack bars, an apple, a 6 pack of water, a six pack of Dew, a bag of bagels etc. Across the way on reservation road I found a consignment shoppe of called Del Monte Bargains. It was run by some middle-aged Slavic woman, possibly Russian with corn rows. Her accent was thick, and it made her explaining too viscous. I bought 4 books, supposedly at a dollar each but she took about 3.50 when I turned out my pockets:

Burma Road by Nicol Smith
The Fall by Samuel R. Delany (ironically a Philly Local)
A Winter Walk by Tolbert McCarroll
Solomons House by the Cowell College History Workshop... some kind of hippie college let the class of 1970 print a book. It's spectacularly fragmented so far.

I had brought A movable feast with me. I like reading Hemingway when I travel, as he reminds me why it is good to do so. But I think it may go back in the duffel. I have so many options now.

More Travel & More News

I will be traveling 9/10 thru 9/16 posting may be erratic.

I've been researching more about the WQAQ fandango and found some interesting facts.
1. Quinnipiac only bought their AM outlet in 1996. NERW Archive here

"Small Connecticut AM signal has been sold. WXCT 1220 in Hamden, a suburb of New Haven, is being sold by Milstar Broadcasting to Quinnipiac College in Hamden... WXCT has a long and colorful history, including stints as WDEE, WCDQ, WOMN ..., WSCR, and WNNR...and just about every format in the book, including multiple tries at top 40, country, and oldies. Most recently, WXCT has been a Spanish-language broadcaster. An educated guess is that WXCT will become WQAQ-AM, simulcasting Quinnipiac's WQAQ-FM 88.3."

Oh how things have changed...

2. As recently as 2003 Southwestern Bell Mobile Systems was trying to improve that tower, not tear it down: http://www.ct.gov/csc/lib/csc/petition_staff_reports/p629sr.doc

Telegraph Stamps

These are the precursor to QSL stamps etc. These are most often encountered by mistaken and beuddled postal stamp collectors.

Telegraph stamps are service fee stamps that prove payment for delivery of a telegraphic message. They are first cousins of postage stamps, which prepay a very similar service: delivery of a message through the postal system.

Initially postage or revenue stamps were used to indicate payment of the government telegraphy fee. (Yes a telegraph tax. why not, Syria taxed urination in Roman times... ) Over time, many governments began to issue separate telegraph stamps.

Sending a prepaid telegram was quite similar to posting a letter. The telegraph stamp was applied to a telegraph form containing the message to be sent and dropped into a telegraph collection box. Couriers emptied the boxes and took the forms to the servicing telegraph office from which the message was sent. At the receiving end, messengers delivered the telegram to the recipient. Literature on telegraph stamps is rare nd is limited to a few specialized catalogs listing telegraph stamps by their respective country of origin.

Stephen Hiscocks, an amazingly dedicated nerd compiled a book of them in 1982 called Telegraph and Telephone Stamps of the World.. It's a little hard to find as it was self-published...

But as Telegraph wires came down and wireless stations came up the telegraph stamp started to seem so quaint, and eventually they expired.

Hey Kids! Surprise! We took down your tower!

I guess he would rather have then start a lacrosse club... Here I am sticking my nose into current events but this one is just so damn odd. http://www.wqaq.org/

WQAQ, Connecticut college station and one of a handful of remaining Class D licenses was shut down recently. The station went silent this summer on May 1, 2006. (as they often do) with the intention of returning in the fall. But this year they returned and found that
Quinnipiac University President, John. L. Lahey decided to have their transmitting tower torn down over the summer months. SURPRISE!

Their reasoning?
"The decision to remove the tower seems to have been an executive decision by Quinnipiac University President, John. L. Lahey. (picture left) "The University removed the tower, which primarily served as a Cingular cell tower, because it was an unsightly eyesore right in the center of campus..." In my experience Universities just airbrush towers out of promo photos. No real reason to tear them down. This appears to have been personal. www.wqaq.com

The decision appears to have been made without consultation of advisors, faculty, or student affairs staff. If they do not get back on the air by April 30, 2007 they forefit their license. Quinnipiac also owns WQUN-AM which airs canned adult standards and runs carries Red Sox games and some University Sports. There is no student involvement in that station.

It's a shame that some stations get to grow under the capable hands of devoted staff like WVPH/RLC (who is currently raising money for a new tower) and some stations langish with Class D licenses without even the basic necessisty of a protected contour. Why do some grow and some wither? It's a question I've been asked and a question I've asked others. http://thecore.rutgers.edu/

I remember Colin helms fomer EIC of CMJ asking me Why WPUR shut down in 1998. (They were a cable station at Purchase college) I didn't have a good answer for him then. It's the collapse of a large support network that is organic and delicate. Why that support network collapses I dont know. Sometimes it's assasinated. Other times it dies of natural causes. Let see if this one pulls through.