The Biggest Little City

Or so they say...
The rental car agency, in a fit of strange humor rented me a white 2007 Mustang instead of the Grand Prix I requested. The auto fits in better in this weirdly country city. Althought the antennas and hardware do not fit at all well in the goddamned gas-guzzling 2-door muscle machine... Anyway, the presets on the car radio were all to country stations or static except one. 105.7 KOZZ.

A station that any other day of the week, any other hour of they day would have bored me to tears was at that hour of the day running the Doctor Demento show. the man is a modern day Count Saint Germain seeming to live forever. His program has been running for more than 4 decades now, having spawned compilation albums, and even the careers of various novelty artists.

About 100 stations carry his program, I dont know what onces since he refusees to post them on his site mysteriously... The fine Doctor beggan his career not all that far from here on 106.7 KPPC back in 1970 while working Los Angeles. [KPPC is known as KROQ these days]

I stopped by a small guitar shop on 6th Street and head about some local color and the fine manufacture of a through-neck guitar. There is no community radio station in Reno, there are two NPR outlets KUNR and KKTO but both are talk heavy. A few miles away in Truckee, CA a repeater on 105.1 called K286AN-FM brings the eclectic KVMR tantalizingly close to Reno.
But these people want to change that, and good luck to them.

I wandered away from the casinos.. or I thought I did I keep finding more. they damn things are everywhere. There are slot machines in the damn grocery store. But in this wandering I found a nice eclectic music shop; The Antique Rocker on 454 Washington Street. They had a great collection of steel guitars, random LPs, and discount mandolins. behind the counter mixed in with the guitar strings was a random mutoscope disc... just sitting there. Well worth a visit.

More Traveling

This shouldn't take long supposing there's no trouble. Posting may be late or interrupted depending on the reliability of air travel, rental cars etc.

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...and there's a good reason.

Spocko Vs. KSFO-AM

What a comedy this was.

in summary: Nerdy treckie turned Blogger decides he doesn't like the racist jib-jabber and pro-violence blather on some talk programs on KSFO-AM. So he decides to fix it himself. He tapes the program for a few months. He edits together a "best-of reel" containing of some of the most violent, racist, and vile moments from the hundreds of hours of tape and then SENT IT TO THE SPONSORS!. Some Audio here, and here, of the offending remarks.

The sponsors yanked their ads. That got everybodys attention.

The best-of audio montage becomes a popular downloadable. Liberal blogs across the world mock the crap out of hosts like Melanie Morgan, Brian Susman, Lee Rodgers and others. Much fun is had by all. While the quotes are all out of context, they are all actual quotes... the mocking stung in the deep wound of the lost advertisers. The Bay Area-based blogger's days were numbered. http://www.spockosbrain.com/

My tale now approaches current events. Over the x-mas break ABC (the owners of KSFO) Issued a cease-and-desist letter that ultimately led Spocko's ISP to shut down his blog. On the morning of January 11th, on the KSFO Morning Show, co-host Ms.Morgan launched an assault on Mr. Spocko. More here.

Ms. Morgan admitted that advertizers have pulled their advertising from KSFO. And responded as follows "We have been under attack here at KSFO radio... It is something that has been quite disturbing to us at a number of levels but we are prepared to fight back against people who are trying to get us fired here at KSFO radio and who are trying to deprive us of a livelihood and who are trying to deprive us of our free speech rights... these audio clips which are out of context, old, or in some cases just outright lies." They went on to lambast Spocko for using a psedonym... despite the fact that many radio personalsities do the same thing.

The part that amuses me is the accusation that the audio is essentialy fake. It's abundantly clear that while the audio is out of context, it is real. Morgan clearly got her britches burned. Actually the following companies have pulled out: Aetna Insurance, Borders Books , Bank of America, California State AAA , In-N-Out Burger and MasterCard

In it's heyday in the 1950's KSFO was owned by Gene Autry, and it's morning show had the modern equivalent of a 30 share. That programs host Don Sherwood , was another bad boy of radio. Since those wonderful pioneering days, KSFO has gone talk and become just another outlet for right talk radio. You can read about it's history here with audio clips.

In my opinion... That program didn't like the taste of their own medicine. Djs' regularly use pseudonyms and take quotes out of context, and will gleefully will spur the verbal lynching of any public figure major or minor for the sake of their own ego or fame. Spocko got the best of them, and Ms. Morgan & co. threw a tantrum. ABC was withing their rights insisting that the ISP pull down the audio, but the ISP overreacted by yanking the site entirely. I don't think it's all played out yet. We'll see what it did for their ratings in 60 days.

The Pirates of Girdwood

In certain parts of the old American west there were no laws. As manifest destiny rolled over frontiersmen, indians, and the like law (for whatever it was worth) rolled right over top of them. Today there are no truly lawless lands in the U.S. [except New Jersey] But in Alaska, some laws are taken a little less seriously.

Ordinarily a pirate broadcaster is shut down, his hardware seized and then fined. In Girdwood Alaska it went a little differently. KEUL began as Glacier City Radio a project of the Girdwood Community Club. They fired up their illegal tansmitter on February 26, 1997 on 88.5 FM.

In every sense of the word, they were a pirate radio station. But unlike a large 96.9 in San Diego, this small community of 1500 was thrilled, as were its own 70+ DJs. . There were no other local stations to interfere with and as they say... what's a crime if nobody ges hurt? The FCC decided their "feelings" were hurt and delivered unto them a cease and desist order. No fine. No seizure of hardware. just the waggling finger.

As I was told, KEUL was able to convince the agency that their services were needed in their community. At the urging of the FCC agents themselves, KEUL pulled themselves together and in mere months, had themselves a CP. Within a year they were back on air; this time legally. http://glaciercity.us/KEUL/index.html Today they continue to serve Girdwood Alaska with news, talk, bluegrass, triple A and a variety of other fare.

To me its ironic that only a few years later in the discussion of licensing Low Power stations it is suggested that convicted pirates be prohibited from holding licences...