Year
Three – Popping Balloons
John
Chapman
Milo is one of the strongest proponents of the KGGV station
being integral with and an asset to the community. Milo has an amazing ability to stay up and
positive five days a week, about his show, “Touch.”
We are all much impressed after seeing “Midnight Sun”
perform on New Year’s Eve – an electrifying band.
“Liquid
Mudd”
Butch Blache, who hosts “Liquid Mudd” has been through all
the birthing pangs before at a station up north of here that grew from scratch
just like KGGV is growing. When he can
free up some time, he’s going to be a great resource for planning our future.
“Psych Talk”
I knew Sheila Koren before the radio station opening,
through activities with the library and the Senior Center. Holly Vick was also in a writing class that
we all three took together. Holly and
Jim Vick are also members of the GCC and I saw them in that context while we
were building “the shed.”
Gaia Groovz with Zoe Puckett
Zoe and underwriting
Connection with Women’s Week
We had a distant connection ,well she lives down the street
from me, but that’s not what I meant.
She and I came from the same part of San Francisco, now much changed, to
wit, Bernal Heights; specifically …
Woman’s
Magazine
I was in the Church office next door while they were doing
their show. The walls were paper-thin.
Neither of them were natural-born radio engineers, so I
would proffer advice from time to time.
I came to know that Lois and I shared the same birthday – from then on,
for a decade, she made me muffins and wished me a happy birthday.
You are Here with Nancy Jo Wood
Nancy
Jo had been around and helping KGGV for a while now, had guest anchored The Morning Show for a while.
The
FOL Readers Theater
I recorded many of the Friend’s play productions and then
re-play them on-air. I’m planning to air
several of these as promotional teasers for future productions. Jim Fullmer and John Beaman have purchased a
sound system for the Maggie Boynton Forum Room, which I am able to plug into for
improved quality of my recordings.
Childrens Story Time
In the continuing search for broader balance in our
programming mix, I put out feelers for someone to read children’s stories. My concept was to put on-air, a 10-15 minute
segment, early in the morning, one day a week.
I picked Tuesday at 8:30. My
thought was that child-care providers, or even stay-at-home moms with multiple
small children at home could use a break period, for a cup of coffee or a
cigarette. I’m not sure if this has
worked the way I intended. There has
been some positive feedback, indicating that moms do listen. I record Carol Franck reading 2-4 new stories
every week, right there at the library.
KGGV’s growing library of audio recordings of Carol Franck
now covers most of the holiday occasions and totals over fifty titles. Sometime in 2007, I hope to have enough
titles to make it a Party-Shuffle Source option for the now two time slots. I’ve incorporated Carol’s readings into a
“Children’s Hour” on Saturday mornings.
Lee Meryl Senior’s plays usually take half an hour or less, so I fill
the eleven o’clock program hour with a random selection of Carol’s readings,
calling it “Story Time.”
DJ-Damien
What can I say about Damien?
I have such high hopes for Damien – He has such potential. He wants to do a lot more than he is doing
and Damien gets frustrated that he’s not accomplishing more.
He has the time and the talent to be doing so much.
Damien is another like Jim & Nancy Fullmer, that I knew
from FOL Reader’s Theater group, before joining the radio station. He and I have acted in plays together. He and I staged that “Rods
at the Rio how together.
Jerry Louis presents Singer Songwriters
I probably mention over a hundred names in this memoir. There were many fights and feuds, even some
with me involved. But the group ethos
was, radio station first – suck it up.
Only two DJs were cut from the herd in these years.
Bryce Youngberg
This is indicative that things were growing beyond my
book-keeper’s mentality.
DJ-Triple A
So much talent there with Adaria, but we couldn’t tap into
any of it in 2006/7. I almost thought we
were going to lose her because of her frequent absences. She missed several scheduled shows and she
never attended even one meeting or KGGV event.
For most of the year, I was one of the few people who had ever met
her. Not a team player, at least in
2006. She promises a better record in
2007.
Armstrong
Woods Big Band Recital
This was another of those sorts of events where KGGV staff
got an opportunity to show off their considerable depth and talent. KGGV was the opening show to a packed
audience up at the outdoor venue. Armstrong Woods Big Band
This was a wonderful occasion – everyone had fun and it was
a sell-out, partially, I’m sure, to our KGGV heavy promotion of the event.
Our KGGV performance company was the warm up group for a
traveling Big Band Orchestra.
Patti Blaylock’s Soul Café
The Seniors Show with Diane Spain
My original idea was a Saturday morning show, from 6-9 am,
focusing on the organizations and events with whom I already participated Library events, mostly through the Friends of
the Library (FOL), Senior Center events – the Scoop and the Memoir Writing
class.
Like many of the other novice hosts and DJs, my concepts
required getting interactive feedback from a listening audience. I soon realized that was not to be and I
integrated the Seniors Show with the Morning Show, which I only back-doored
into.
Brian Martens’ Tales
from Gypsy Campfires
Sonia Tubridy’s River Choir
I hadn’t run across Sonia Tubridy before this year and I
don’t understand why not, because there should have been many paths that we
both walked that should have crossed.
Anyway, now that I am aware of her many activities, I look
forward to continued path crossings in the future.
I recorded her Winter Holiday performance and put many of
the pieces in the Bridge Mix, more so when we did The Holiday Bridge Mix.
The Klezmer Ensemble pieces will stay in the mix all year
long – I think I’ve got three CDs in there now.
Linda Jennings is Shakin’ The River
Kaleidescape – Megan & Kit
Food Talk Shows
“Noon on Saturdays is the perfect time for a food
preparation show,” I said to Anne Fischer-Silva. I was obsessed with certain time slots requiring
specific content: weekdays, six, noon, and six for a few hours should be news,
talk, and light music. Saturday morning
was the time for local history, seniors’ updates, and food shows. I convinced three chefs, over the years, into
trying the Saturday noon time slot:
2007 “Healthwise” put on by Anne
Fischer-Silva
Talk about preaching to the choir; I was so on to Anne
Fischer-Silva’s wavelength when it came to her approach to nutrition and a
healthy life-style in general. I
switched to the alternative side 35 years ago when I faced cancer surgery and
declined medical post-op therapies in favor of a year of holistic healing at a
clinic in Mill Valley. Now I may have
strayed over the intervening years – that’s how I grew to 180+ pounds, but I
didn’t stray that far – even my masseuse training was at a holistic school. I listened to Anne’s Healthwise program at least once a week, sometimes twice since I
was initially there at recording time and playback time.
Healthwise was a phenomenal success. It was Anne’s sincerity about sharing her
knowledge of healthy food. One hour
wasn’t enough – the listeners wanted more; and she didn’t take calls! I recorded all thirty episodes and replayed
them after she moved away from the River.
There were still constant call-ins about the program. Listeners taped it themselves, just to listen
a second time and take notes. It was
that kind of show that could be a thirty chapter book.
Like each of the food hosts, she hated the noon on Saturday
time slot. Most of our KGGV radio
program hosts lead lives that are far too comfortable. KGGV maintains equality along gender lines,
but the other social-economic factors indicate a white, upper middle class,
artistic and aging group of volunteers.
This is an exact reflection of the west county river residents, so no
one complains, except for the hosts themselves, who do complain about time
slots. Of the hundred hosts who passed
through the doors on my watch, 90% of them wanted a time slot on weekdays
between 7:00 and 9:00 pm, not upsetting their other schedules. This was not a group of radiophiles waiting
for any chance to be on-air.
2008 “Helena’s Kitchen” with Helena Gustavson
Giesen
Helena tried, as many of our novitiates do, to integrate her
radio show with her business. KGGV
didn’t mind this, in fact, I encouraged it, the implication being that it was a
local business and that’s what we were here for, stimulating the
community. We didn’t let it get
commercial; we were a nonprofit and had a restrictive LPFM broadcast
license.
Helena was the perfect food show host. She had recently opened a restaurant in
Guerneville; her life-long dream. She
trained thoroughly in cooking schools across the continents. She and her husband, a design artist, moved
up here from San Francisco to actualize her dream. Over her first year in town, she cultivated
relationships with other chefs and restaurateurs. Helena was non-threatening because of her
Swedish background and accent; so besides chefs, she grew to know the local
food and wine purveyors. When her radio
show was at its peak, she had segments from John Haggert at Sophie’s Cellars,
and interviews from chefs up and down the river. As only a foreigner could, she spoke of
European recipes as they related to American tastes. Helena did take telephone calls and some of
the fusion which took place in mixing, matching, and merging recipes was
awesome. Helena ran her radio program,
like her restaurant, with the energy and drive of three people, each working
twelve hour days. Unfortunately, that
adds up to thirty-six hours in a twenty-four hour day; she burned out ! –
flamed out – trying to do it all. When
she first came on board, I was so happy to have a food program again at noon on
Saturday, I dedicated my best spot in the new Church garden to Helena as an
herb garden. She seemed interested in
having a spot in town to grow her own herbs and vegetables. After a few weeks of fighting off other
growers in this new Church/KGGV garden, I began planting herbs for Helena,
hoping she would pick up the scent and utilize the space. It didn’t happen. Reality for Helena was time. Time to cook, time to plan, time to serve,
time to buy, time for husband, time to grow, time to advertise. This is part of the human condition currently
of internet time and global reality. The
restaurant didn’t make it and Helena was off to Jenner. Onward and upward, check out her website.
2009 “Non Pompous Food Talk” with host Maria
Vieages
Maria blew into town on the hurricane winds of Katrina; she
could handle any sort of man-made storm.
Maria has that same energy Helena had, but it’s extremely focused –
laser focused. Maria is in control and apportions her time as to which might be
more profitable to her. Maria has an
infectious personality. It’s subtle but:
you must love Maria; you want to love Anne and/or
Helena. In the end, you love all three
of them, but for different reasons.
Maria has, by maturity, established a wonderful balance of community
service with her personal aspirations. I
think KGGV has finally struck a perfect balance between programming interest
and community goals. Maria has fun with
her show, and it seems, with her life.
She’s the consummate party girl for Sonoma County – she enjoys her food
and wine. Maria’s web site is http://www.mariasmrc.com/Maria_s_Bio.html
To Kill a Mockingbird – radio production
As a part of the NEA-sponsored The Big Read, I pulled together a film script adaptation of
this great book/play/movie. We had a cast of a dozen; cobbled together a mic
for every person and went live, with no rehearsals. It was electric. We did it in an hour.
The year before, we did Fahrenheit
451 with long series of readings from all sorts of school groups. This was good radio. We tirelessly plugged the book and got $600
from the NEA.
Laura Mueller Anecdotal Evidence
Laura put together the perfect
show for a lazy Saturday morning --- a senior’s interview show. I had wanted one of these going on-air from
the very beginning. It tied in the
nostalgic nature of most of our listeners --- old jazz, old residents, and interesting
stories from the “old” days.
Doug
Fogel’s Health and Wealth
“The Green Baron”
No one is going to argue that Peter isn’t an a** at times; possibly he argument is over just how often. I made Dustin Gooler jump
through a hoop, incurring his disfavor, but making my point by my leaving the
studio at 3:10 when he was supposed to be there at 3:00 for an initial
interview to become a host. Timing is
critical for radio programs, and I didn’t want him to think he could just wander
in whenever he wanted. Oh, well.
Christmas Eve Service
I was thoroughly impressed with this year’s evening service
on Dec 24th. Joining the two
congregations, the GCC and the MCC, was a wonderful idea since the next day
many of us were to work together on the Holiday Dinner at the Guerneville
Veterans Hall. After sharing the service
together, the next day’s event seemed like a pleasant reunion.
This was the first time I had seen the Sanctuary filled with
over a hundred people. I even had some
new, young KGGV friends come and sit with me and my recording equipment in the
front center pew. I recorded the entire
evening (72 minutes – a full CD) and it turned out well. I have already delivered several copies to
the MCC people. There are copies of the
CD available from KGGV for a $5 donation.
The alternating readings and hymns made the evening
fast-paced and it was over far too quickly.
Singing what I call Christmas carols brought my voice out strongly and
the candle lighting ceremony, singing Silent Night, was a moving grand finale. Everyone went home happy and smiling.
“Christine Lowry”
To:
thebridge@kggvfm.org
I moved to Guerneville four months ago and am
enjoying discovering KGGV amongst other Guerneville delights. I (think you heard this coming) used to be in
radio and would be interested in seeing if I could be a fit for KGGV either
on-air or otherwise. Could you let me
know if there are any positions open, or if I could come to the station (a
programmers meeting?) to introduce myself.
Thanks
Christine Lowry
This
September 2010 was the second memorial walk around the Church garden at
KGGV. She only spent a brief year and a
half with us, but her strong personality left an indelible imprint on the
scores of people at our community radio station who came to know her. It began with the above e-mail, March 23rd,
2007. I always jumped at the chance to
add real experienced DJs to the staff of the station.
Christine had recently “retired” and moved to
Guerneville. She was in her fifties and
had been a full-time legal secretary and part-time radio DJ in the Bay Area for
many years. She was in the final stages
of inoperable cancer. It had spread
throughout her body. Her doctors had
given up on her. They encouraged her to
spend her time doing something she enjoyed.
It was our good fortune that she loved being on the radio. Simon, her dog, received Christine’s total
devotion; and he to her. He was a
valiant guard dog, and in the waning months it was often difficult to take him
away from her, even for a needed exercise walk.
In the earlier days, Simon would dutifully wait outside the studio door,
listening to her broadcast, until the red light went out and he could rejoin
her.
Christine was a physically powerful woman: tall and
muscular. She had been an Olympic level
swimmer and a solid tennis player. The
strength and dedicated focus that goes along with sports served her well in her
struggle with cancer. She had an
endearing accent and was instantly recognizable on-air. It wasn’t just the accent; she was a
professional and compared to our local volunteer staff of DJ talent, she was a
God-sent, radio-adept on the air. She
was quiet and humble – didn’t want to get involved in management or committees
or any other aspect of day-to-day operations at the station. She was willing to pitch in on anything, but genuinely
loved her solo time on-air.
She took over the morning show, Mondays to Fridays, 7-9
a.m.: music, news, and talk. Christine
had trouble sleeping so she was up early, every day. She lived by the library, only a few blocks
from the radio station. Early mornings
were a good opportunity for Christine to medicate and steel herself for the
day. During this time, she maintained a
blog mostly about her cancer. You can still view the blog at: http://christinelowry.wordpress.com/ . The blog is her diary and a chronicle of her battles with
pain, medications, doctors; and her joyous moments with people, food, and the
town.
She was quite vocal in her opinions and she continued in her
search for a better prognosis. She
couldn’t abide drama queens, of either gender; kept to herself and didn’t enter
any of the internecine radio station struggles.
Christine had years of Bay Area DJ experience. She knew how to run radio stations. Ours didn’t fit well into any mold. We were an all-volunteer, community station
staffed by dozens upon dozens of amateur entertainers.
Her pain level became severe in the spring of 2008. A community amalgamation of KGGV, Church, and
friends formed a “Share the Care” group to support
Christine in a hospice program. She
spent less time on-air but continued to sit in and enjoy the Church garden at
KGGV. The Church was in its second year
of landscaping. The vision was an
English contemplative garden: organic, bird and bug busy. There was a maze of pathways leading to nooks
and crannies. She spent many hours in
that English garden, Simon by her side, enjoying its declaration of life. I renamed it Christine’s Church Garden in
early 2008. Her father scattered her
ashes throughout the garden that fall.
Nic Proctor hosts “You Don’t actually eat
it.”
The Garden
Natasha & Gregorio
Natasha and Gregorio are a pair
of mainsails for the radio station.
They’re a good sounding board for how things are going with the staff
and with the listening audience.
They seem to listen to every show and they both call in
often to several shows. They’ve got
talent and energy and we’re lucky to have them involved so closely.
Programming Director’s Choices Year Three
The third year, besides the past criteria, I wanted to pay
homage to two programs of the first caliber, that were each focused on a niche
listening audience.
Laura Mueller’s Anecdotal Evidence is a program
that should be (and is, I think) saved in the historical annals of Guerneville
lore buffs. These recorded stories and interviews of people’s lives are an
asset to the community. This is one of
the reasons to have a low power community station.
Gregorio Pehrson’s Freilach-Jewish music program has a far higher
listenership than even I imagine. As it
should be, because this music program exemplifies the highest level of production
and creativity.
Beth Hearn
Always a bridesmaid.
Beth has done a lot of guest spots on shows but will never wind up
hosting one of her own. She has too many
other things to do like functioning as a General-Manager of both the Church and
the radio station. She works tirelessly
on both organizations, plus a few other groups in her “spare” time.
Beth and I worked on many projects together in 2006/9; me as
a sort of Iron Fist and she as the Soft Heart – it worked.
Developing “The Bridge Mix”
I’ve had great fun that second season building up “The Bridge Mix.”
We started in May 2006 with about 2,500 tunes, mostly 1940’s Big Band
Jazz. There were another 2,500 tunes in
other genres stored in the main Library, available but unused.
I’ve learned much from researching other artists of the
1940’s and then broadening the mix into the 30’s and the 50’s. I watched the PBS Ken Burns 9-video special
on the History of Jazz to pick up other names from these eras. Some were obscure like Valaida and Ina Ray
Hutton, some just ignored even though famous at the time like Chick Webb.
I took a class at Sonoma State in 2007 titled, “Exploring
Jazz: The History of an American Music.”
I hope to develop even more leads into interesting Jazz artists.
Another mix addition that second year was inserting CDs from
our local artists, if the genre fits the tone of our “Bridge Mix.” We’ve got Elena Welch,
Gael Reed, Leah Van Dyke,
Sonia Tubridy, Sister Glitz’s band, and half a dozen more that aren’t right now
on the tip of my tongue.
We grew to well over 10,0000 titles.
Ed DeChant The Law and You
Weekend Gardner Bruce Robinson
Rooted by Jamie Hart’s “Dirty Talk”
Mark Gregory
Like several others on the radio station, I first met Mark
through the Friends of the Library when he and I were in cast together in a FOL
Reader’s Theater play.
I didn’t know then that we shared a passion for classical
music. When I started with the radio
station, my collection of 100 CDs was 90% classical, piano, opera, symphonic
and chamber recordings. Yes, each of the
three genres in which Mark Gregory has launched shows. He let me sub for him hosting an opera one
afternoon and I had fun reading the liner notes. I even shed a tear when the diva hit a
sustained high note in the final scene..
Jacking In
It must be a genetic something, going back eons, which
provides people with such comfort, building nests. Over my three year tenure at
KGGV from 2006-2010, I spent 3,000 hours in that fifty square foot enclosure. I
swear that I can recall every square inch of the place, much, as I imagine, as
the recollections of long-term, isolation-cell prisoners. My imprint is on
everything in the place, if not because I put it there, with a tale to tell,
but also on those spots where something else now resides; for at one time or
another, I touched each spot: the story may be in the replacement of a
“Peter-ism” with something new and better.
Now, in exile, I still come in to the studio an hour each
month, the first Sunday night at 8pm, to ramble with a friend on a long term
passion: books, authors, and the library.
The manipulation of the equipment comes back to me in a minute, like
bicycle-riding. I always think it
strange to see little notes on equipment operation, which I scotch-taped here
and there, years ago.
Sitting at “the big board” is like working on the deck of
the Starship Enterprise; you could also use the metaphor of football
quarterback. Right-side of the line are
the devices: CD, tape, and other radio equipment; on the left are the guest
mics, telephone, speakers, and the all-important red-light, on-air signal
switch. Directly in front of the radio
host is a 16-fader master panel, which allows control over all the
afore-mentioned devices. It is a
daunting array of potential audio sources.
If we were to rate the adeptness of our KGGV DJs at this menagerie on a
1-5 scale, they’d mostly come out about 1 or 2, a not surprising amateur level,
considering they are only in studio for an hour or two a week. Community radio is a volunteer sport. The larger radio stations divvy up the tasks
of being on-air to at least four different people: producer, call handler,
engineer, and host. If you listen to NPR
at a show sign-off, you’ll hear over a dozen names, mostly interns, but also
many specialty engineers. Our guys do it
all, including dumping the wastebasket – jacks of all trades, masters of none.
Computers, computers – I check to the far left wall, where
the streaming computers reside. Four
computers in the room; fifty square feet – two for streaming, one for the
music, an iTunes repository, and one for e-mail and other DJ shenanigans. The little Acer for email supports webcam
streaming the studio while live and on-air, but no one does it. I check out the bookcase for signs of another
reader – no change – a Don Sherwood biography, a History of Jazz, Vol. 1,
1928-48 – vol. 2 never written – is Jazz dead? Probably – still, that’s what I
always listed us as – a jazz station.
No longer do egg cartons cover the back wall to deaden the
sound echoes; have the echoes died away?
The “folder” system of mail baskets for all the DJs is now in one long
line rather than a top-to-bottom arrangement.
Up above on the wall is the “atomic” clock – another computer that
checks in with a satellite every day to adjust the time. There’s also one facing outside to let the
next show’s host know when they’ll be on; no green room for us, they wait out
in the rain. We’re at 3 minutes to eight
and Pat Nolan, my co-host, has coughed and is mumbling something. I don the headphones, go offline from the
“Party-Shuffle-Mix”, and listen to myself and Pat Nolan in my headset,
balancing the sound levels. From this
point on, Pat and I talk to each other in “pseudo-on-air” mode. Getting an OK nod from my co-host Pat Nolan,
I click into live mode and launch into a standard station, signal, and time
check, introducing our show and our sponsor.
I’m home – any questions have evaporated – I’ve switched into ramble
mode, and for the next hour, Pat Nolan and I exchange thoughts on three books
each. We never compare notes ahead of
time, it’s live, real-time, ad-lib radio.
