[Kzyxtalk] A minor correction or two of John's kzyxtalk post of Thursday, September 24.

[Marco McClean]

     John [Sakowicz], when you address Stuart as having been standing 
next to you when Mary Aigner, at the board, had screwed things up to the 
point that you, frustrated, waiting across the room, said a magic swear 
word that, because Mary hadn't turned the board's mic down, went out on 
the air --horrors! the end of the world!-- and then she used that as an 
excuse to take away your airtime forever, because that's the standard 
procedure at KZYX to get rid of people, you're confusing Stuart Campbell 
for the Stuart who wrote the letter you're replying to, who's really a 
guitar player in Fort Bragg and not Stuart Campbell, and who (guitar 
player Stuart) is really mostly on your side in this but he's 
encouraging you to focus. Reread his letter and see that. Other than 
that, okay.

     ...Except you also say that I was purged from the air at KZYX 
before I even had a show there, and that's not quite right. I had a show 
on KZYX when it first started. Sean Donovan hated me with a hot hate, 
and I only was granted airtime because Sean had glommed onto and needed 
all the North Coast support for local radio that Tim Givon and I had 
amassed in our failed bid to put up a commercial but open station in 
Caspar. (The FCC instead gave the frequency to a Fort Bragg station that 
went on to play a rack of six-hour tapes of pre-programmed music and 
automated advertising for ten years and failed.) (They failed as radio 
from the get-go but also, of course, failed financially.) Also I had 
just become editor/typesetter of the Mendocino Commentary newspaper, and 
I printed a column suggesting that readers and radiophiles contact Sean 
before giving any money to KZYX and make sure you're getting the kind of 
open station that you think you're paying for. (Result, after a few 
people called him: Sean operatically squeal-bellowed at me in rage, 
"/God DAMMIT, Marco! You don't know how much DAMAGE you DO!/") And he 
waited until KZYX was sufficiently paying off for him and I said the 
word /bullshit/ on the air at 2am, and then used that as an excuse to 
off me, sealing the pattern for a quarter-century of management that's 
been in place ever since at KZYX. So Mary Aigner didn't purge me, though 
the effect is the same-- my show, though worthwhile, will never be 
scheduled on KZYX as long as she's in power.
     Now, Doug McKenty and Norman de Vall and so on were actually purged 
by Mary, as you say --Doug in the same way as you, except he didn't say 
a magic word; he was the one at the board and someone else did --on the 
phone, yet! But where Mary Aigner, in the same position, blamed and 
punished and purged you from the air, she blamed and punished and purged 
Doug McKenty from the air rather than punish herself. That's part of the 
double standard that Mary Massey and you pointed out. I get all that. 
And that part about Mary Aigner firehosing Norman out the door because 
he started the kzyxtalk listserv to allow people to communicate about 
the operation and management in ways she can't abide, and then lying 
that that's what she did and why she did it; that's exactly what happened.

     Also, thanks for the kind words about the high quality of the 
nearly eighteen-year run (early 1997 to the present, with one year off) 
of my /Memo of the Air/ show on KMFB and now KNYO, but you say that it's 
"Marco's 3-4 entertaining and informative hours of programming at KNYO 
in Fort Bragg every two weeks."  In fact my show is every Friday night 
and runs rather five to eight hours-- usually six or seven hours-- 
lately a pretty consistent six-and-a-half hours, including the episode 
of /Boston Blackie/.

     Every two weeks I /am/ away from Fort Bragg, but then I do my show 
in real time by live remote from my wife's kitchen, through the web to 
the transmitter. You can tell where I am by the sound-- Juanita's in an 
apartment with daytime-working nighttime-sleeping neighbors through the 
wall and the floor, and as it gets late I murmur very quietly very close 
to the mic so not to disturb them. The studio in Fort Bragg is next to 
the Tip Top bar, so there I can cut loose and speak in comparatively 
wilder low-normal conversational tones. Also, Juanita's near a fire 
station and, a little farther along, a police station, so there are more 
sirens.

---------
Marco McClean
memo at mcn.org
http://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com