Earlier this month, I found myself in an unusual situation while helping cover the fire at Whatcom Middle School.
First of all, I have to admit it was hard to watch the old school burn. I went to Whatcom for all 3 years of that awkward transition known as middle school.
I even got to relive some of that awkwardness when I described on a KGMI Morning News Extra segment how I used to fit inside the lockers of WMS.
But earlier that morning, around 4 a.m., I was asked to deliver some much-needed coffee and gasoline to Tracy Ellis and the KGMI News van, who were both running on-empty at the scene of the fire. So I grabbed the official KGMI gas can and bought every kind of coffee drink I could get on my way.
As I approached the school, the pre-dawn air was filled with a smoky haze lit dimly by the orange flames and the lights of the fire trucks. Police cars were blocking the streets nearest the school, so I parked a couple blocks away and proceeded to look for the van with the coffee and the gas can in hand.
Then it suddenly dawned on me: I was bringing a can of FUEL toward the scene of a MAJOR FIRE!!!
Of course it didn’t take long for one of the officers to pull up beside me and say something like, “you know, you’d have to be pretty stupid to walk up to the scene of a fire carrying a gas can!” I couldn’t argue that point, but somehow I was able to summon enough wits to explain my situation.
And that’s the story of the time I, your humble writer, was suspected of literally adding fuel to the fire.

Well, due to an overwhelming lack of a better idea, my Scariest Person of 2009 is … Michael Jackson! This Jackson-o-lantern was based on Michael’s infamous mug shot. I know this guy’s not really scary, but he did sing Thriller, became ghostly pale, and now he’s made one of the top grossing music documentaries of all time, and he’s dead!!! Ahhhhh!!!! Still the greatest entertainer of all time, even from beyond the grave!

Now for some news that really is scary… I recently cut my hair! Yes, I know I’ll lose my talent as a radio producer until my ponytail grows back, but it was for a good cause. I donated my hair to Locks of Love, a non-profit that makes real human-hair wigs for children suffering from medically-caused hair loss. If you’re also looking to chop off your ponytail, it’s easy to donate. Go to www.locksoflove.org for more information.

Well, Fall is in the air, Halloween approaches and its time to pick 2009’s Scariest Person of the Year! The chosen person will have the distinct dishonor of getting his/her grimace carved into a jack-o-lantern by yours truly.
So should it be Glenn Beck? He sure managed to get the good people of Mount Vernon all riled up when he recently came to visit.
Or is Kanye West the spookiest public figure in the news? Kim Komando was calling him “the most hated man on the Internet” due to the chatter over his recent conduct at the MTV music awards.
Or do you have a better idea?

Everybody on the Internet seems to be required to comment on Kanye West’s latest blunder at the MTV Music Awards. Well, as an official baccalaurean of the fine and performing arts, my reaction may surprise some of you. First of all, I think people should take it easy on the guy. When Kanye took the microphone away from Taylor Swift during her acceptance speech, I’m sure he thought it would be just another example of the arrogant behavior typical of the modern rap music culture. Let’s face it, rap battles and “dissing” the competition have become so commonplace in today’s popular music, that I think Kanye was genuinely surprised when his actions actually hurt another artist’s dignity. Thankfully, Beyonce Knowles displayed true class toward the end of the ceremony by sharing the stage and allowing Taylor to “have her moment.” But the reaction from the crowd, some sections noticeably jeering whenever Kanye was nominated, reflected what may possibly be the beginning of the end of rap music’s reign over pop music. Maybe now MTV will consider playing something else on one of its pay-for-play stations.

The mayor of Bellingham recently created some buzz by offering the key to the city to Comedy Central host Jon Stewart, an apparent response to the mayor of Mount Vernon’s offer of the key to their city to Fox host Glenn Beck. Our good mayor explained this act of real-life satire on an episode of The Morning Show on KGMI. I must admit, the whole incident brought back memories of an embarrassing time in this young writer’s career. Since I haven’t posted anything for a while, I’ll share with you the following story:
During Election Day of 2008, I was trying to cover the results all while broadcasting updates live on my cell phone. It was my first time localizing a major national event, and I was sweating bullets. I had just finished a live update from Whatcom County’s Republican headquarters where the scene was rather somber, when our News Director Tracy Ellis asked me to run to the Lakeway Inn Convention Center where the Democrats were gathered.
The scene there was near pandemonium, as the national election results increasingly titillated that Barack Obama would be the winner. After attempting to describe the scene in another cell phone broadcast, Tracy asks me off-the-air to get an interview about the results from State Rep. Kelli Linville. So I hung up, and looked around the crowded room. I had no idea what Rep. Linville looks like! I didn’t even know where to begin looking or who to ask, and just when the gravity of the situation finished sinking into my brain, I spotted a familiar face out of the crowd. Before I could even think, the man says to me, “you’re Mike from KGMI.” So I asked, “I’m sorry, what was your name?” And he says, “Dan Pike!”
It was the mayor! My face instantly turned pink. I had failed to recognize the mayor of Bellingham, and worst of all, he actually recognized me! He kindly led me to where Rep. Linville was standing, and I tried to cover my indecorum by saying “thank you Mayor Pike,” but the embarrassment was already incurable.
To this day, I am still humbled by that story. For a reporter, I have a terrible memory. And for a politician, Dan Pike must have an exceptional memory! He’s a friend of the station, he’s always willing to grant an interview, and so I say Mayor Pike should be allowed to give the key to the city to anyone he deems fit.

After much delay and self-generated media hype, the FCC is officially putting the ax to analog television signals in the U.S. starting today, June 12^th, making your old TV with the rabbit ears officially useless. Our analog AM and FM radio signals are next up on the chopping block. The Digital Audio Broadcast (DAB) Transition hopes to make your radio receiver obsolete as well, although the FCC currently says it “will not establish a deadline for radio stations to convert to digital broadcasting.”
The reason for the transition is because they say non-directional high-powered signals like traditional TV and radio are wasteful of the electromagnetic spectrum, and could instead be used for low-power transmissions such as cell-phones and wireless internet. But according to the Fermi paradox, the transition away from analog communication could cost us a chance of making contact with other intelligent life. High-powered wasteful radio signals like KGMI’s can be heard across the universe, so that means all the horrible-sounding broadcasts I made as an intern are still out there somewhere! But even if an advanced alien civilization does exist light years away, if our species is any indication they would have already gone through their own digital transition. So we may never hear them, and now they will probably never hear us.

Woohoo!! KGMI is finally streaming on the Internet! I understand that nearly all the kinks have been worked out. You can check it out from our home page if you haven’t already. But I can’t help but ponder the potential consequences of this brave new medium.
Specifically how the Internet might affect syndicated radio programming. I wouldn’t doubt that Rush Limbaugh and the other traditionally syndicated talk show hosts are in a position to profit no matter where they are broadcast from, after all most of them have agreed to let KGMI and nearly every other technically-advanced radio station put their shows online. But nearly every technically-advanced radio listener knows that this means KGMI is no longer their only source for Rush. They can now choose from more than 400 different streaming radio stations (according to RadioTime.com) that carry Rush’s show, and they can even choose different times to listen to it.
On the other hand, I think online streaming could provide greater opportunities for local talk show programming. As online streaming gradually makes the big syndicated shows less exclusive to any regional radio station, I think that local programs, whether listeners hear them on the radio or the Internet, will be the only shows that local advertisers can guarantee are being heard in their region. Search the Internet over, and you will find nothing that targets Whatcom County better than shows like “The Morning Show with Joe & Patti,” “Radio Real Estate,” “The Whatcom Report,” or “P.M. Bellingham.” And now that anybody with a modem can tune in, could local shows like ours even become the next wave of “syndicated” programming?

Today, the U.S. Senate adopted two seemingly-conflicting amendments related to the Fairness Doctrine (an FCC policy that mandated fairness on the airwaves from 1949 to 1987). One amendment called the “Broadcaster Freedom Act,” which was offered by Republican Sen. Jim DeMint and passed 87-11, would basically block the FCC from reinstating the Fairness Doctrine. Another amendment, which was offered by Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin and passed 57-41, says the FCC “shall take action to encourage and promote diversity in communication media ownership,” and would basically bring back the goals of the Doctrine without reinstating it.

I don’t know how to feel about mandated fairness on the airwaves. Like the Senate, I seem to be conflicted on the issue- I like the idea of requiring more local programming but I don’t like being told what to say. All good broadcasters are already trained to seek a balance and diversity of viewpoints as a matter of self-preservation. To do anything less would be a disservice to the democracy that gives us the freedom to broadcast in the first place. But should broadcasters have sanctions hanging over their heads if they fail to provide a balance of views?

Recently my co-workers asked me about the tragic polyphony accident that I describe on my profile here on KGMI’s fine Web site; the accident that I claim rendered me permanently unable to hear diminished 13^th chords. Many of them struggled to conceive what horrible abuse of harmony could possibly leave a musician without the ability to hear a dim13. I had to confess that I can still hear dim13 chords just fine, but I haven’t blogged in a while so I decided to come up the following explanation…

It happened in a smoke-filled jazz bar back in the pre-9/11 days. I was on the stage with a surly bebop trio experimenting with avant-garde chord-combinations. I don’t remember the event very well, but the boys tell me I was hunched over my piano pouring with sweat, obsessed with finding even more radical and bizarre ways to pound the keys. After six sleepless days and nights of pushing the limits of discord, we stumbled upon what is now known as the “brown chord,” and I instantly fell on the keyboard screaming with blood pouring out of my ears. As I recovered from the accident, the doctors told me I had gained the ability to taste colors, but I would be cursed with horrible flashbacks every time I hear a diminished 13^th chord.

Every Saturday morning, I get the pleasure of producing the President’s Weekly Radio Address and the opposing party’s response for KGMI. While I was waiting for the January 17 address to upload at www.whitehouse.gov, I scrolled down and found an archived message from December 29, 2007, about the U.S. economy by our outgoing President George Herbert Hoover Bush, I- I mean George Walker Bush. In the message from just over a year ago, Bush briefly mentions the “high oil prices and softness in the housing market,” but then goes straight into his spiel that “the fundamentals of our economy are strong.” I don’t want to play the game of Kick the Lame Duck here, but I think the recording speaks for itself. What I will say is that I hope our more tech-savvy incoming president will continue to post his addresses in a more timely fashion each Saturday morning than our outgoing president did.

January 20th, 2009 UPDATE

Well, I certainly got more than I wished for from our new tech-savvy President Barack Obama. Within moments of being sworn in, the Obama administration completely revamped the President’s Web site at www.whitehouse.gov and took down all of Bush’s archived radio addresses, making the link above useless right after I posted it (it’s fixed now). Obama’s transition Web site at change.gov is already obsolete. And the President has officially replaced the traditional Weekly Radio Address with a YouTube-style Weekly Video Address. KGMI will continue to broadcast the audio portion of the President’s address each week during The Saturday Morning Show with Joe & Patti. But at this time, the less internet-fluent Republican Party is giving no sign as to where or what form their weekly response will be. Stay tuned this Saturday morning to find out if they come up with something.