WBEZ and I go way back. In the mid-1980s, when I was freshly fired from the Wheaton Daily Journal and looking for any kind of work, Ken Davis gave a whistle and I started filing live reports on his Studio A program.
I didn't get paid, of course — taking advantage of the ambitious young is a venerable media tradition. But it was reporting on the radio.
I broadcast from inside the scoreboard at Wrigley Field, watching attendants slide big numbers into place. From a live poultry store, watching a chicken, its throat cut, upside down in a metal funnel, blood running out the bottoms, talons scratching uselessly against the galvanized metal.
Awkward situations made good radio. I broadcast naked from a sensory deprivation tank — quite the thing in the mid-1980s — on Lincoln Avenue.
After floating peacefully on heavily salted water in total darkness for nearly an hour, imagining myself an amoeba on an ancient sea, the door was ripped open and phone receiver receiver into my hands. Ken asked what I was thinking about at the moment he called. "How much I have to pee," I replied, blinking.
As the years passed, I'd circle back to WBEZ, first in the creepy old Bankers Building at Clark and Adams, with the radio tower on the roof, and then at their new digs at Navy Pier. For several years, the Tribune's ace columnist Eric Zorn and I would meet on Michigan Avenue every Friday and walk over to the pier to do a run-down of the week's news.
Or I'd be a guest on particular programs — Scott Simon's "Weekend Edition" or "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" or Jim Nayder's "Magnificent Obsession" — a quirky early morning show on addiction and recovery. It was periodically rebroadcast, and now and then I'd hear from someone who caught my segment and was braced in their struggle.
And that's just being on the station. I haven't even touched upon my experience as a listener. WBEZ reflected life in Chicago. Jazz at night in the city that practically invented jazz. Live feeds of important historical events — hearings, trials.
Plus lots of fun — Garrison Keillor's folksy "A Prairie Home Companion," a mix of humor and music. "Car Talk" with Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers — and if listeners today have a hard time imagining WBEZ running a show dedicated to car repair, well, let's say that station didn't take itself quite so seriously.
Then again, these are more serious times.
Last week, the U.S. House chainsawed $1.1 billion intended for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, NPR's parent. The good news is WBEZ only gets 6% of its budget from the feds.
It's much worse nationwide. In swaths of the rural countryside, the NPR station is the only game in town, a key source of important local and emergency news. More than 120 stations get more than a quarter of their funding from the federal government.
I broadcast from inside the scoreboard at Wrigley Field, watching attendants slide big numbers into place. From a live poultry store, watching a chicken, its throat cut, upside down in a metal funnel, blood running out the bottoms, talons scratching uselessly against the galvanized metal.
Awkward situations made good radio. I broadcast naked from a sensory deprivation tank — quite the thing in the mid-1980s — on Lincoln Avenue.
After floating peacefully on heavily salted water in total darkness for nearly an hour, imagining myself an amoeba on an ancient sea, the door was ripped open and phone receiver receiver into my hands. Ken asked what I was thinking about at the moment he called. "How much I have to pee," I replied, blinking.
As the years passed, I'd circle back to WBEZ, first in the creepy old Bankers Building at Clark and Adams, with the radio tower on the roof, and then at their new digs at Navy Pier. For several years, the Tribune's ace columnist Eric Zorn and I would meet on Michigan Avenue every Friday and walk over to the pier to do a run-down of the week's news.
Or I'd be a guest on particular programs — Scott Simon's "Weekend Edition" or "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" or Jim Nayder's "Magnificent Obsession" — a quirky early morning show on addiction and recovery. It was periodically rebroadcast, and now and then I'd hear from someone who caught my segment and was braced in their struggle.
And that's just being on the station. I haven't even touched upon my experience as a listener. WBEZ reflected life in Chicago. Jazz at night in the city that practically invented jazz. Live feeds of important historical events — hearings, trials.
Plus lots of fun — Garrison Keillor's folksy "A Prairie Home Companion," a mix of humor and music. "Car Talk" with Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers — and if listeners today have a hard time imagining WBEZ running a show dedicated to car repair, well, let's say that station didn't take itself quite so seriously.
Then again, these are more serious times.
Last week, the U.S. House chainsawed $1.1 billion intended for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, NPR's parent. The good news is WBEZ only gets 6% of its budget from the feds.
It's much worse nationwide. In swaths of the rural countryside, the NPR station is the only game in town, a key source of important local and emergency news. More than 120 stations get more than a quarter of their funding from the federal government.
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I think I know the sensory deprivation tank place you mean. For a while I kept meaning to try it and then eventually forgot all about it. Years later I developed pretty intense claustrophobia so I suspect the experience is one I’ll never have.
ReplyDelete“A Prairie Home Companion” and "Car Talk" as well as “Metropolis” with Aaron Freeman are all fond memories for me. I rarely listen to radio any more but perhaps this is the time to remedy that. Right now I’m going to send a donation to WBEZ.
I'm a fairly new listener to WBEZ compared to others, about 15 years or so. I became a sustaining member (monthly) when tRump threatened to slash funding during his first term. I enjoyed the in-depth and factual news coverage on WBEZ and didn't want that to go away. Little did I know we'd be in a worse situation now. I've got coffee mugs, tshirts and a license plate holder from previous donations but feel I no longer need anymore "stuff". I just give my donation without the tchotchkes. The only complaint I have is the exorbitant salary of the former and current CEOs. I still donate as there's no point in being stubborn to prove a point about, IMO, overpaid higher ups. Thank you for this timely column. I hope it brings in tons of money for WBEZ. They deserve it! Judy
ReplyDeleteWe are all in a tough spot. With the budget cuts, so many organizations will need donations. I chose the National Parks Foundation. That said, I do not freeload on WBEZ because I don't listen to it. I prefer print for news. I do subscribe to the Sun-Times. Does that help?
ReplyDeleteI discovered public radio in 1996 while visiting a college buddy during the Olympics in Atlanta. We stayed downtown in his bachelor condo, no TV. He had NPR on the radio all day and I got hooked to the varied programming, music and news. We now happily contribute to the public radio stations in Chicago, Tucson and Northern Wisconsin. WXPR in Rhinelander, Wisconsin has the best music programming I have found anywhere on the radio waves. I recognize many feel NPR has a liberal slant but....so what? It seems every journalistic source leans one way or the other, why not sample different viewpoints as you formulate yours. I hope Bob will step up and do his share to support public radio and TV wherever he enjoys the programming. Now, more than ever, we need to do our part.
ReplyDeleteI live in Arkansas but contribute to WBEZ as well as WDCB and WTTW. I’m not a huge contributor but consumer the programming while in the metropolitan area frequently.
ReplyDeleteWe all need to dig a little deeper to help keep the public in public broadcasting and keep our stations viable (sorry for stealing an often used phrase).
Neil,
ReplyDeleteThe weekend has reminded me of my failed ability to illicit change in how (and what) the New York Times does. Their sane washing and refusal to cover anything properly continue to irk me and push the country farther to the right, closer to civil war, and bastardize the concept of fair and balanced.
I suppose the rantings of a sole liberal madman will never change anyone's mind, but i thought maybe i was special.
That being said, I would like to begin donating to NPR, but i would feel bad not donating to the Sun-Times. What is the best way to donate? Is there a single place i can donate to both, or is it best to donate to each separately?
Well, Chicago Public Media runs both the Sun-Times and WBEZ, so I suppose a donation to CPM would benefit both.
DeleteIs that the best course of action?
Deleteis it better to donate the same total to either CPM or the Sun Times and WBEZ separately?
New Orleans is going to give Chicago a run for its money in the "practically invented jazz" sweepstakes!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed some of the old shows on WBEZ back in the day: "Prairie Home Companion," "Car Talk," "Morning Edition" with Bob Edwards (with Red Barber as a regular feature), a folk music show Sunday nights called The Flea Market...
ReplyDeleteAnd "Studio A" with Ken Davis was a favorite. I can't say that I actually recall any of the broadcasts of yours that you refer to, but I wonder if that was the place where I was introduced to your work, long before I became a big fan of your column, books and Bobwatch.
I hardly listen to the radio at all any more, though I guess we may need to add WBEZ to our donation list, anyway, if only to support "regard(ing) the individual differences among (people) with respect and joy rather than derision and hate." There's certainly not enough of that going around in this benighted nation.