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Eclectic Outpost

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Today is the first day of the fall membership drive at the little radio station where I direct most of my time and energy these days.

KFAI Fresh Air Radio is in its 37th year and has, over the decades, been home to some of the most unusual, creative, soulful, earnest, nonsensical, transcendent and impractical radio programs ever made. There is a history buried under the worn-out carpet and hidden behind the dusty racks of obsolete technology, fondly recalled by old-timers when they sift through a program names graveyard that includes provocative titles like Little City in Space, Ideal Cafe Jukebox, Frogucci, Root of All Evil, Radio Rumpus Room, Musica Mundana, One Bubble Off Plumb and Indian Uprising. And lest you think those out-of-the-mainstream days are gone, consider some of the current programs like Strictly Butter, Fubar Omniverse, Rocket Ship Ska Trip, and Crap From The Past.

Experts say the radio business is personality-driven but there are only a few personality types permitted in commercial broadcasting, all fitting a certain vocal quality standard and each of them turning out to be a slightly different flavor of loudmouth. On KFAI you can hear shouters, sweet talkers, mumblers, whisperers and people who sit quietly in front of the microphone waiting for the sound of a needle to drop. Yes, there are still turntables. And people who walk in off the street can wind up with a show someday if they demonstrate persistence and creativity. Try that at KSTP and let me know how it works out. Twelve languages are heard on the station, and no, there are no translations. When there is an Oromo, Somali, Eritrean or Hmong program on the air you either already get it, or you sit back and enjoy the sound of the words as a form of music, which, of course, it is.

Every show host works for love and freedom of expression. Even staff members who do shows are “off the clock” when they’re on the air. The rest of the time staff supports the volunteers, who struggle mightily against the tendency of all things electronic to eventually short out, break down or freeze up. In this way the place continues to run in spite of all odds and completely against the accepted theories of what radio stations should do. Among programmers there is a passionate devotion to that oddball listener who can’t find what she wants anywhere else and doesn’t even know what that is until she hears it. And because there is very little money for traditional marketing, the audience recruitment strategy relies heavily on chance. We fill the bird feeder with seed and hope customers will wander past and have their heads turned by an exotic flavor.

As you might imagine, that approach requires a zen-like patience interspersed with moments of panic..

So I invite you to tune in, stream the audio at your desk or download the app for your smart phone and give us a chance. Fair warning, though – with most radio stations, you’ll be able to get the gist of what they’re trying to do in about ten minutes. Commercial formats are designed to transparent and easily digested. But if you really want to figure out what’s going on at KFAI, it would help to set aside a few years.

When has investing extra time in a project proven to be worth it?

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Head Slap Moment

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Today’s post comes from idea man and dealmaker Spin Williams, who is always in residence at The Meeting That Never Ends.

I’m really excited to be alive today and grateful that I’ve never had a concussion!

I work primarily with my brain and my mouth. If either one becomes damaged or disabled, even for a little while, I’m out of business for sure. It’s a good thing I’ve managed to stay healthy, and an even better thing that people in corporate meetings who want to have the attention of the whole group typically don’t run at the person who’s talking, grab at the microphone with their fingernails and with pounding biceps and flailing elbows do everything in their power to claw away the PowerPoint clicker.

But of course for N.F.L. players that scenario describes what is simply another day on the job. And sometimes they pay the price for it with terribly jangled brains.

At The Meeting That Never Ends, we found these new concussion statistics appalling – and we responded by immediately doubling our bets on last Sunday’s games because it all suddenly became crystal clear what is about to happen. The key signs are there and it all adds up.

  1. The cost of providing the product is outpacing the ability of customers to pay for it.
  2. Yet fans are showing an inexplicable appreciation of on and off-field mayhem and an unshakeable loyalty to certain nicknames and color schemes.
  3. Technology is quickly developing new capabilities lead us to wonder why it’s necessary to use human labor at all.

That’s why we believe the day is drawing near when all N.F.L. games will be played by robots!

Don’t believe me? It took 10 seconds to find this compelling bit of evidence on You Tube.

Once there is a robot model that can run, jump, throw, catch, spit, swear, and pat the behinds of the other robots on the sidelines, people will be completely removed from the equation and the machines will be sent in to battle it out. In fact, we predict the N.F.L. will dress the robots in throwback gear and old-style helmets, just to humanize them a bit.

Thats why our group just bought a leather hat manufacturer!

The Coming Thing
The Coming Thing

Now we realize that some fans will resist this advance, arguing that the physiological and mental differences between individuals is what keeps the game interesting. But don’t you worry – in the world we envision, each mechanized player will still have a human operator on the sideline, or in a Star Box or someplace where we can watch them push buttons and twiddle joysticks to control their alter ego out on the field.

That way we’re convinced the N.F.L. will be able to maintain professional football’s reputation as a game played by human jackasses!

In my business, you win by figuring out how things will change just a little bit before everyone else gets it.   In this case, we at The Meeting That Never Ends were so sure we called this one correctly, we sent our mechanized avatars out on the town to have a drunken celebration!

A few of them did get arrested, but what a party!

Your foresighted fanboy,
Spin

When have you correctly predicted the future?

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Machine vs. Mountain

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The Curiosity Rover has arrived at the base of Mount Sharp in the middle of the Gale Crater on the planet Mars. It has taken our intrepid contraption two Earth years to get there, but the journey will be worth it once the machine completes its mission to dig a hole and sample some foothill soil.

This is a historic meeting between a tiny piece of human technology and a massive off-world landmark, akin to the time Apollo astronaut Alan Shepard hit a golf ball into Javelin Crater on the moon.

If it is our destiny to send an expedition to the red planet, this is a memorable moment – qualified for immortality in legend and song.

If we take the time to write the legend or song, that is.

So I asked Trail Baboon poet laureate Schuyler Tyler Wyler to come up with some heroic something to mark the occasion, and he said he would only do it if he could steal “The Kalevala” from the Finns. I said I was uneasy with that, but he could certainly swipe “The Song of Hiawatha” from Longfellow if he wanted to, and a deal was struck.

By the looming Martian mountain,
in the greater reddish crater,
sat an Earthly metal Rover.
Curiosity the Rover.

Said the mountain to the roller,
“Who are you to dare approach me?
You who are a shiny tiny
pile of nuts and bolts and washers?”

“Don’t be such a self-important
feature of the Martian landscape,”
said the Rover to the mountain.
“You are nice, but no Mt. Shasta.”

Darkly, then, the mountain grumbled.
Grumbled with the voice of ages,
calling out this cheeky gizmo
with its wheels all bent and dusty.

“Who are you to dare approach me?”
called the bulge of crimson boulders
in an atmosphere so wimpy
as it loomed above the Rover

“I am but the first of many,”
said the Rover to the mountain.
“More machines and then some people.
They will make you miss me sorely.”

“People here will scale your summit.
In your valleys, they’ll go bowling.
They’ll have picnics in your meadows
leaving trash that lasts forever.”

“Aeolis Mons will not be taken
by such silly, messy Earthlings.
I’m gigantic. Did you notice?
Far too big to be diminished.”

“Aeolis Mons may be a name that
sounds to you like that’s your label
But when humans take this planet
you’ll become Mt. Sharp forever.”

“And what’s more,” said the contraption
“on this spot will be a marker
to commemorate my journey
and my name will be emblazoned
high above your rosy foothills
on a neon sign announcing
the location of a strip mall
widely known as ‘Rover Plaza’.”

Where’s your favorite historical marker?

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Ask Dr. Babooner – Yoga Pants Edition

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We are ALL Dr. Babooner.

Dear Dr. Babooner,

I don’t intend to be rude, but sometimes the truth hurts.

One of the qualities that puts me on a higher level than other people is my exquisite fashion sense. I have been consistently ahead of the trend curve for at least fifteen years, starting out in the late ’90’s when I figured out the whole flashy Y2K style thing (mesh tops, box-pleated skirts, sequined pants, sparkly shoes) long before anyone else had decided to put a single rhinestone on their favorite rock band t-shirt.

When 9/11 happened and attitudes changed, but I got there first with every possible variation on distressed denim.

I did the ’80’s revival just before it went mainstream in the mid-2000’s, and dropped it while others were still popping their collars. Then I went to a full pirate thing while Johnny Depp was still figuring out how to do his eyeliner.

In short, you can’t out-trend me. That’s how good I am.

But lately I’ve had a real lack of enthusiasm when it comes to yoga pants. And this is a problem because I’ve been hearing that there’s a pants war breaking out in the aisles of some clothing stores because shoppers want Yoga Pants and Leggings instead of jeans.

Dr. Babooner, I really like my skinny-leg jeans, but the pendulum of fashion seems to be swinging in a different direction. That leaves me conflicted, because being at the leading edge of What’s Next has always been a large part my personality. So in a rational world, I would already have 20 pairs of Yoga Pants waiting to go.

But the sad truth is that Yoga Pants strike me as silly, and you really shouldn’t be seen wearing them in public, or without a cushy mat under your arm. And in any case, if I’m not wearing jeans I feel like I’m pretending to be someone else.

My fashion success has always been about getting to the Next Big Thing Before Anyone Else, and then telling people how I just beat them. But now I’m starting to think my trailblazing instinct is leading me to resist a popular trend and to tell other people they must avoid it as well if they don’t want to run the risk of falling flat on their rounded, stretchy-garbed cheeks.

Sincerely,
Clothes Hoarse

I told Clothes Hoarse it’s my impression that the Denim vs. Yoga Pants showdown is definitely ON, and if she really thinks her trailblazing fashion sense is pointing her away from it she might want to consider the alternate possibility that she is just getting old.

Old people like what they like and don’t care for the new. That’s one of the great perks of aging – you don’t have to ask yourself whether you’ll go with every new idea – the answer is almost always “NO!”, and people won’t fault you for it. That’s just the way old people are.

But that’s just one opinion.
What do YOU think, Dr. Babooner?

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On The iWatch Watch

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Today’s commentary comes from disgraced former journalist Bud Buck, who is a plagiarist, a liar, a serial exaggerator and a sensationalist. But still not a bad person.

I wanted to be at Apple’s Big Reveal in Cupertino, California today, but I stayed home instead.

The tension that comes from the knowledge that Great Expectations are about to meet and totally exceed (or be completely dashed by) mundane reality is just too much for me. The next frontier is said to be “The Internet of Everything,” particularly wearable objects that seamlessly interface with your life in ways that will be extremely valuable and thoroughly indispensable in the future but at this point, they are utterly impossible to imagine.

Until after the announcement is made, that is.

I don’t have enough energy for this. Plus, I couldn’t get an invitation.

But I am exhausted from the relentless build-up and all the uninformed chatter. The Apple-obsessed Geek Army that rules our technological conversation expects to see an iWatch that is absolutely wonderful and world-altering, and as soon as the announcement is made they will stand in single file to wait for the chance to buy theirs regardless of the price or the time required to get to the head of the line.

Equally enthralled Apple followers expect to be bitterly disappointed. And in some cases these are the same people!

But for this reporter, it is not too much to wait for tomorrow, or the next day. I’m already convinced that everything will change. Either Apple will do it again, or Apple will cease to be Apple. Either way – different world.

It reminds me of the night I graduated from high school. After the ceremony in our bunting-bedecked gym, all my classmates had gone off to their celebrations but I lingered, handcuffing myself to my former locker, certain that everything I knew would soon be gone and determined to hang on to every moment for as long as I possibly could. When the fire department and police officers arrived with bolt cutters and a straight jacket, I knew I had already made the transition into a new phase of life.

So I’ve decided to spend today in quiet reflection – taking a proper amount of time to carefully observe the life that I know and love before it all disappears forever. Cradling my 2nd generation iPhone in trembling hands and shedding tears for my dumb surroundings – the washer/dryer that isn’t aware of my location via GPS, the cufflinks that don’t know my current heartbeat and blood pressure, the toothbrush that has not already downloaded a list of what I’ve eaten today, and the socks that are blissfully ignorant of what I weigh, and also what I’m supposed to weigh.

I will draw out these waning moments as long as possible, for I believe we are in the last Days of Innocence, before Everything Changes.

Time Will Tell,
Bud Buck

What new thing do you look forward to?

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Ursine Epistemology

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Today’s post comes from Bart, the bear who found a smart phone in the woods.

H’lo, Bart here.

I’ve been reading a lot of self-improvement stuff.

I know that surprises people – us bears are supposed to be happy with who we are and not too interested in losing weight, being smarter, and all that. Maybe it’s having the phone that changed my mind about it.

There’s lots of apps to make you a better you, whoever you are.

And now that I have what I need to take a selfie, there’s a lot of improvement ideas that just come to mind every time I look at one.

Having better hair would be the first thing I’d work on, but the hair care websites I see don’t say much about matting and dealing with pear-sized ticks. There is some useful advice, though. So next time I break into a camper there’s a list of shampoos I’m looking for.

He Found a Smart Phone in the Woods
He Found a Smart Phone in the Woods

And by the way – I’m unclothed in all my selfies, just like a celebrity. It’s not that big a deal – so hack away, hackers. You won’t have to try too hard to get a shot of me naked.

So far, I think my best chance for self-improvement is in the brain department. I like this article about the mental virtues. It’s talks about a way to size up your character, taken from a book, called “Intellectual Virtues.”

The virtues are:

  • Love of Learning
  • Courage
  • Firmness
  • Humility
  • Autonomy
  • Generosity
  • Practical Wisdom

I have no idea what this book is about.

The title says it’s “An Essay in Regulative Epistemology“. At first I thought this had to do with your timetable for emptying yourself in the woods, which, if you’ve ever heard the popular question about bears, is definitely the place where we do it, so always answer ‘yes’. I like questions where I know the answer from my real-life experience, and that’s definitely one of them.

But I think this “epistemology” stuff is really about all the different ways of knowing things, and it’s full of tricky questions like:

  • What is knowledge and what are its limits?
  • Can we know anything?
  • How do we know what we know?
  • Can we know something without knowing that we know it?

I don’t have any of these answers, and so I thought maybe getting this book would give me something distracting to do while I lie low during the bear hunting season and maybe all the way through hibernation too. But then I saw that on Amazon, it costs $99.36. So I figured one way to apply that section called “Practical Wisdom” without even reading it was to skip buying the book all together.

Anyway, Amazon doesn’t have a very good track record of shipping stuff to “Hollow Beneath A Log, The North Woods, Minnesota, MN”, which is the best address I can come up with. Maybe once they start delivering stuff with drones it will work better, I don’t know.

I’d still like to improve my mind, though. And have cleaner, silkier hair.

Your pal,
Bart

What do you do to improve your mind?

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The Evolution of Coffee

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Sometimes, the latest news has a way of confirming emerging trends and verifying possibilities we imagined long ago. So it is with this week’s news that scientists have plotted the coffee genome and brought us another step closer to a supermarket beverage aisle that features a vast array of genetically tailored coffees.

This section of our show is brought to you by Genway, the supermarket for genetically engineered food.

This weekend, be sure to check out Genway’s special price on it’s finest coffee, Sumatran Rush.

Dr. Kyle and the gene grocers of Genway have found a way to boost the jolt that you normally get from coffee by re-thinking caffeine and it’s reason for being there in the first place.

Caffeine is useful for overcoming sleep deprivation by giving you that “awake” look that’s so useful when you’re trying to make an impression.

But for a lot of people, just appearing awake isn’t enough. They want to be awake, be alert, and be in a heightened state of readiness for whatever may come their way, whether it’s an important meeting, a difficult procedure, a big game, a fun evening or a tough day with the kids …

… that’s why the beans that make Genway’s Sumatran Rush are enhanced with ADRENALINE!

DrKyle

You thought caffine was addictive? Get a load of this!

Thanks to special methods used by Genway technicians for frightening laboratory rats, we are able to harvest key secretions and splice those genetic instructions directly into coffee plants. The result? Sumatran Rush is a drink that will immediately put your whole body on RED ALERT!

The beans actually glisten with a distilled ADRENALINE that will have your eyes open wide, your nose twitching, and every hair on your body standing at attention, as if you were about to be stuck with a needle by a creature much larger than yourself for a purpose you didn’t fully understand.

Adrenaline! It’s a completely natural way to focus all your senses for full participation in class, standing up for yourself in that crucial morning meeting, getting into the mood for an evening of dancing, or should you simply need to lift up a car or jump over a house.

Adrenaline is miraculous! There was a time when you had to make every drop yourself, but now it’s in the coffee!

And be sure to ask about our flavored versions, such as vanilla, almond, mocha and FEAR. If you haven’t tasted them all, you don’t know what you’re missing.

Pick up some Sumatran Rush … At Genway, the supermarket for genetically altered foods.

What do you like in your coffee?

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Excavations in Education

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Today’s post comes from perennial Sophomore Bubby Spamden of Wendell Willkie High School.

Hi Mr. C.!

Well, today is the re-beginning of school, and in spite of everything I’ve thought and felt over the past few months and the complaints I’ve made and the different ways I’ve tried to get out of returning to Willkie High, I have to say I’m excited to be going back!

Why?

Well, people like making connections and having routines and seeing old friends and making new ones. And the daily rhythm of being a high school sophomore is a pattern I have perfected! I’ve got my backpack and my notebooks and all my pens and pencils and stuff and I’m ready to go. I’ll collect all the papers my teachers hand out and I’ll take their assignments and bring them home. By this time I know them all by heart. My favorite one is the unit on Stonehenge. We do it every September and I get a real kick out of the idea that Druids dragged huge heavy rocks hundreds of miles to make something big that we still don’t understand and when we look at it all we can do is scratch our heads.

The lesson? People have always done stuff that’s kinda weird.

Anyway, I’ll really try to play by the rules this time and get my work done and handed in on time, but before long I know I’ll start to wonder why I have to study so hard for all these standardized tests and I’m sure I’ll get tired of it, because that’s what I do.

And then around the middle of October, I’ll go into my backyard at home, sneak behind the equipment shed where we keep the lawnmowers and rakes and stuff, and I’ll dig a deep pit.

And then I’ll dump all my assignments and papers and materials into the hole and I’ll cover them up with dirt. And I’ll do this every single week all the way through to the end of school, so when Mr. Boozenporn and all my other teachers ask “Bubby, where’s your homework,” and “Bubby, didn’t you take that assignment home?” and “Bubby, why don’t you get things done?”, I can shrug and say “Oh yeah, it’s probably just buried under some other stuff somewhere.”

That’s how I manage to stay a sophomore year after year at Willke High!

I know it seems like kind of a waste, but the way I see it, someday some cultural archaeologists will come along and dig up all that stuff so they can piece together the history of education in America! Or at least the history of education during this particular time in America, which is bound to seem as strange and mysterious to them as Stonehenge seems to us today.

Your predictable pal,
Bubby

How does your routine change after Labor Day?

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Ask Dr. Babooner – Trendy Vice Edition

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Dear Dr. Babooner,

I admit I’m a gambler, and there are times when I get carried away. I feel kinda bad about that!

I used to go to the Showboat in Atlantic City, NJ. But now the place is closing! So is Revel, another hotel/resort that was opened just 2 years ago, and it was built at the cost of 2 billion dollars.

Talk about coming up a big loser on a risky bet!

In another few weeks, a third casino will close, leaving Atlantic City with only 8 gambling establishments compared with the 12 they had at the start of the year.

I wish I had made a wager on that back in January. Hindsight!

Some experts say it’s necessary for Atlantic City’s survival to reduce the number of casinos, because the traffic just can’t support all of them. Habitual gamblers, they say, will just go to one of the establishments that remains open, so little economic activity will be lost.

Maybe so, but over the years I’ve learned that misery does, in fact, love company. That’s why it grieves me that my favorite vice is not experiencing the kind of growth that can support 12 and even more fancy casinos in Atlantic City.

I mean, it’s bad enough to be stuck in a pattern of behavior that brings you feelings of deep regret, but when I realize it’s not even popular anymore, that leaves me feeling like an even bigger loser!

When I look around at all the different soul-crushing, life-wrecking things I could do, I see that drinking is still a big deal, though I’ve never had much interest in that. Even beer consumption is gaining traction as a bad behavior sub-group. Cocaine, Heroin and meth addiction all continue to bring growing levels of misery to many helpless people. What can I say? They’re not my thing. In the catalog of social ills, even accumulating student debt is getting more attention than problem gambling right now.

Dr. Babooner, up until now it has been an important part of my self-image that I engage in socially destructive behavior. But I feel like I’ve lost my edge. Should I abandon gambling for a more trendy vice?

Sincerely,
Lucky

I told “Lucky” to stop worrying about the popularity of one’s vices. Problem gambling is still plenty bad and it creates more than enough misery to lead any practitioner to feel that he or she is afflicted with something major that is worthy of alarm and attention. I doubt that it is in decline. The news that Atlantic City is closing casinos has more to do with another set of social ill – bad investment decisions and misguided marketing choices. Not to mention plain old hubris, which will always be with us.

But that’s just one opinion. What do YOU think, Dr. Babooner?

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A Non-Strategic Strategy

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Today’s post is a press release from 9th District Congressman Loomis Beechly, who represents all the water surface area in Minnesota.

From the Office of Congressman Loomis Beechly
August 30, 2014

WASHINGTON – Today, Minnesota Congressman Loomis Beechly joined forces with the many critics of President Obama who are outraged over comments last week in which the President admitted his administration has “no strategy yet” to deal with the ISIS militants organizing in Syria and fighting in Iraq.

“I am appalled,” the Congressman said. “It is non-strategic to admit that you have no strategy.”

Beechly says that when faced with difficult questions about a complicated military situation like the one in Iraq and Syria,  a decisive leader must “take immediate verbal action”.

“You launch a word-strike at the enemy,” Beechly said.  “That’s geo-politics 101.  Say stuff that sounds angry,  Drop a few sentences that are loaded with resolve.  Shoot some threatening verbiage their way and follow it up with a vague ultimatum.”

The Congressman was also clear about what NOT to do .

“Don’t give the appearance of thinking,” he said.  “The American people are not fans of thought.  Option-weighing is for losers, so just start doing some things and react to how it works out.”

Beechly says he is proud of the fact that he has never given the people of the 9th district the impression that he is thinking about something.

“I’m pretty sure Americans like a decider,” he said. “They favor action over analysis.”

“That’s the situation my constituents face every two years when they step into the voting booth,” added the Congressman, who represents only water surface area and so very few voters actually live in his district on Election Day.

“They have no real knowledge of what’s going on and no time to consider possible outcomes, so they pick a familiar name  off the ballot and get on with their lives.  That’s bold.  It’s brazen.  And when you see the Congress we get as a result it’s clear how this kind of reflexive, instinctive action leads our enemies to despair!”

“Sowing that despair,” he said, “… is the job of leader.  And that’s the job I was elected to do.”

How decisive are you?