The Agenda - Comments

Do you remember taking me out to Boston for my Birthday?

jen Corey — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 21:07:36 -0700

And then telling me that outfit was " shmaltzy" ???

What has reality to do with U.S. politics?

Adam Bradley — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 09:21:33 -0700

"What ID proponents either refuse to accept or fail to grasp is the understanding that science education is meant to teach a way of studying the natural world..."

Yet they've convinced over 60 percent of Americans that their nonsense should be taught in schools, according to a 2005 poll. And that percentage is probably higher among Republicans (60 percent of whom are young-earth creationists) and right-leaning independents. I have trouble understanding how believing something, no matter how stupid, that's in agreement with the majority of the voters he's pandering to hurts Jindal's electability.

"To advance this policy from the office of the Vice President -- the head of NASA, also -- casts an ominous shadow over the future of American education,..."

More so than supporting it from the Oval Office?

aw jeez

wess — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 18:39:13 -0700

Your description of how BRU worked before Abrams changed it all comes pretty close to how things worked at my very first station. It was pretty chill, but then a new PD came in and shook things up by tightening up the rotations. It wasn't anything like the choke-hold you describe Abrams putting on BRU, which is to say it wasn't 100%, but there was some tightening that some of us chafed under. I had some heated discussions with the guy, but looking back, I want to say that I genuinely liked him, and still do, and I also learned a lot from him, much of which proved valuable early on.

Anyway, that guy went on to a very successful career, and is still sucking Clear Channel's cock to this day. Well, good for him. I followed a different path, and I wish well for both of us.

Having said all that, I still disagree vehemently with various notions that seem popular in most of radio, such as this notion of consistency in sound. I think that's bullshit. I give listeners much more credit than that. If you want consistency, load up your iTunes and sit back and don't expect to be challenged. Any radio station that makes all their listeners happy all the time just isn't trying hard enough. Radio should educate, inform, and challenge, not just entertain.

I've long described radio as the most squandered medium in history. For all the incredible things it could do, it's staggeringly depressing how little of that it actually does do. I expect that almost any given teenager's iTunes library is better than just about any commercial radio station.

Well thank you for the info.

ted — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 12:44:35 -0700

Well thank you for the info. But my point was more about how WBRU and stations like WHJY started merging their playlists, which was surely a national phenomenon as bands like Nirvana and RHCP got mainstream success. I always knew that WBRU had playlists and songs in regular rotation. But again, good info to have.

When did WBRU start sucking?

Joe H. — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 09:54:30 -0700

I can help answer that!

Back in the early 80s, the station's music was still programmed by its student staff. Various methods of steering its direction were used, including "the Book" (AKA "the Lardbook") introduced by the program director at the time, Hunt Blair. It consisted of a book full of band names with grids corresponding to the days of the week and on-air timeslots, and you'd check off when you played a track by a certain band. Each band had a quota, so hopefully no one would play too much Clash (for example) on a particular day. Other than having to play a certain number of bands from the Lardbook in a shift, and a certain number of tracks from the New Bin in a shift, the DJ (or as we were called then, programmers) had a lot of latitude in deciding what to play.

It was cumbersome, but it worked fairly well. The station had a pretty consistent sound (at least Mon-Sat between 6 AM and midnight) and you'd often hear stuff you wouldn't hear anywhere else.

Then they hired Lee Abrams. Lorded as the Father of FM radio, he was hired by WBRU in '82 or '83 to boost their ratings. He implemented a strict rotation of what to play, and no deviations from the couple of hundred songs in the index card file was permitted.

I attended a meeting or two with him in which he presented himself as a hip guy who understood where we were coming from, but I had my doubts about the whole rotation thing.

The rotation was implemented for the very first time on a Saturday @ 6:00 AM - which happened to be my timeslot. Now, I was not a Brown student, but a local with a bunch of college radio experience under my belt who happened to be insane enough to get up every Saturday morning at 5:00 AM to head into Providence so I could play music on the air for 4 hours, indulging my tastes and finding out about all this great new music that was coming out.

I was right in my trepidation - the 4 hours I spent that Saturday morning as the very first BRU DJ to play the rotation sucked monkey balls. Something I thought was so much fun had its essence sucked dry as the decision of what to play next was wrenched away from me. It was no fun at all to see that after playing a song from the A1 category, next was B2, and just play the song listed on the next index card. It was mechanical and dull, and I quit after that one shift.

So in answer to the question "When did WBRU start sucking?" It was at the beginning of that Saturday morning back in '83 or so. And I've always regretted the small part I played in its downfall.

I'm sorry, Providence.

2nd primary is local stuff, not national

wess — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 22:49:27 -0700

I actually had to go down in person to the Board of Canvassers to get the low-down on this, which would have been much more embarrassing if they didn't have to spend fifteen minutes and talk to three higher-ups to get the low-down themselves to answer my question.

The second primary is for state and local offices, not national. We're all done with the national stuff: The official national candidates are, uh, officialised at the national party conventions over the summer, so there'd be no point in us voting on them much later on.

The September primary is for selecting party candidates for state and local offices, like Mr. Morris's.

If you are affiliated with a statewide party, you may only vote in that party's primary. If you are unaffiliated, you may choose one party; you are also then automatically affiliated with that party, but you may file a disaffiliation immediately afterwards, which takes effect after 30 days. (This is the same as registering as 'unaffiliated'.)

If you are not registered at all, you must do so at least 30 calendar days before any primary or election you wish to vote in.

As with any election, your choices are not limited to the names appearing on the ballot.

Possibly unrelated, I'm pretty sick of my current job.

What about the Loutz?

Jack Tobler — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 08:05:58 -0700

The Loutz were/are my favorite Providence band.

reply to nik

Anonymous — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 08:24:29 -0800

Nik, try

I Remember 4local favorites from the last 25 years or so

Anonymous — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 22:52:49 -0800

10.) Maryann Roberge and the Tits (they had local plastic out called "Love Doll"

09.) The Joe Hebert Band-became popular at BRU and small frat gigs at Brown with "I Don't Wanna Be a Preppy" 1980 (Their 45 was done with backing music from The original Tits band-who also recorded with Lou Miami around that time.

08.) The Delinquents had a great 45 called "I Wanna Be The Vice President" Great song. I wish I had the 45.

07.) The DC10's with fantastic (but now deceased drummer Skippy Powers and the beautiful Carlotta Christy.

06.) Outrage. Lots of pop covers here, but Tuesday nights at The Living room weren't the same without them in 1980 when you were drinking beer at the Living Room using your older brother's ID.

hello

nik — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 00:45:00 -0800

can anybody here get me in contact with michelle lolli? iam an old friend of her's from LA back in the urb days! thanks nik

Where in the world is Ted Rao???!!!

LuLu — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 19:37:51 -0800

Where has Ted been? Is he in Law School? When is he done??!!! I need a lawyer!

Is this paper still active?

Anonymous — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 22:26:31 -0800

Is this paper still active?

Dropout Factory article in The Agenda

D. DeCesare — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 16:28:35 -0800

As a teacher I've come to realize that these startling figures regarding minority dropout rates are mostly a reflection on poverty and family. With poverty comes the breakdown, or absence of, family. This seems absurdly obvious, but it's routinely overlooked.

The struggle for basic needs and the effort to rise above an overwhelmingly negative environment leads to students who are not ready to learn in our current educational institutions. They are as capable of learning as any of their more affluent contemporaries, yet they have never had access to the basic building blocks of an early educational foundation.
The problem has never been about Black, White, Hispanic or Asian, but rather about economic and social status. (Which group of people is currently at the bottom of the economic scale.)

So, I feel it is crucial for our citizens and politicians to stop blaming teachers, administrators, superintendents and parents. Our educational crisis won't improve until we take a long, intense look at the root causes that are incessantly present. Then, we need to enact a systematic and community-based attack on the social and economic causes we see. This is not for the squeamish, as we may have to endeavor to create revolutionary changes in our current society. Are we ready to do that?

Nice letter, but...

Anonymous — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 03:35:12 -0700

Ann,

While the City of Providence and the state of Rhode Island are very tough when it comes to zoning and fire safety, anyone truely familiar with FH13 knows that it was INCREDIBLY mismanaged from the start, and has to take a some of the blame for the delays associated with its developement.

Wake up

Anonymous — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 03:22:35 -0700

Get a life. It is easy to play the victim card. How about looking at yourself first? Fort Thunder was gentrification. Brown, RISD and Johnson Wales are the biggest forces for gentrification in Providence. Take a shower.