When I was a boy of seven or so in Louisiana, I built a crystal radio set. My first port of call was the AM station WLCS 910 in Baton Rouge. I have been using radio ever since with undiminished enthusiasm.
The use of my grandfather’s Zenith Marine Shortwave at his cabin on the Gulf of Mexico introduced me to the world at large and the wonderful sounds that are the various human languages. My father’s short-wave transmissions covered with loud music while we children were banished outside added a mystic quality that has remained with me.
I have been a little boy playing air guitar and banging pencil drums on my desk lamp’s metal shade to the unfathomable funk of Wilson Pickett. I have been a youth at a red-checkered table cloth scouring marine bands, laughing at tow boat chatter up and down the Intra-Coastal canal. I have strained to translate undulating voices coming over the Gulf from Cuba in Spanish and in Russian. I have been a blue-collar party of one phoning in late night song requests to my best friend at the time, a DJ I never met. Through those things, I wasn’t alone for I could feel the presence of a tribe.
The telegraph carried our words over vast distances at rates of speed to stagger the captains of mail boats and pilots of mail planes. The telephone carried our voices and the television carried our images. The internet carries all these in addition to our most personal data. Somewhere near the beginning of this technology curve, the telefunken, the radio, carried our voices and our music. If we subscribe to the anthropological notions of speech being a form of grooming and music, particularly rhythms, being processed in an area of the brain previously devoted to chasing down food and mates – we might again return our focus to the radio with a renewed interest.
The staccato syntax of the telegram, punctuated by abbreviated code existed in a Dictatorship of Brevity imposed by nothing more complex than a well considered business structure from the sole point of view of the party owning the equipment and profiting from the transmission. Here was a clear case of wealth or the lack of it driving the formation of a style of communication. Work better left to poets and if you want my opinion, to the Celts in particular.
We revisited the telegram a few decades ago when it was integrated with the portable phone and texting begat a bestiary of wordlets that have reached the archival plateau of Scrabble dictionaries and still abide on various incarnations of internet capable phones. The sender has now been given temporary, paid access to the telegraph infrastructure in a “DIY” scenario not unlike the self-checkouts in some mega-grocery chains. Icons are interchanged with newly coined acronyms. Wealth generation by this arrangement is maintained by providing places where customers can engage in various forms of communication, obtain digital information and conduct financial business as buyers and/or sellers.
Our cerebral architecture responds to the sights and sounds received today much as it did at the dawn of our species. It matters not if the stimuli are separate or are combined, as is the case today. The imprint made upon us is tethered in large part to the relative antiquity of the area of our brain that hosts the processing of it. Thus, we remember musical jingles, song lyrics and melodies with far more longevity than we do the written word. Further, by combining primal impulses with grooming, the owners of the infrastructure easily control supply and demand while also ensuring a healthy bottom line.
Significantly, the radio is the sole device discussed above that carries both words and music but does not carry images. We are free to see what we will, regardless of what is conveyed to our ears. The practice produces a tall, healthy imagination, bettering the human path of development and adaptation. This is the key to the longevity of the radio and I am personally pleased to see the internet being used to stream and archive radio, be it classic transmissions or podcasts.
Sadly, multi-media has engaged our attention in an addictive bulimic feedback loop of privacy purging and all-you-can-eat information. Like any money machine, communication technologies provide shelter and sustenance for an array of symbiotic opportunists attracted by her sheer robustness. This is tolerated on the part of the providers and their barnacles simply because of the upward pressure exerted on the revenues of both. It is tolerated by the users due to its addictive quality.
The radio along with all forms of mass communication available to us carries hope and danger in equal proportions while remaining inherently innocent. The combination of human psychology and the artificial systems of civilization that have been devised naturally form an amalgam that can be wielded by the worst of us for the most ignoble reasons of control and gain. It is for this reason that non-profit, volunteer radio and personal podcasts have sprung into the fray and are deserving of the support of those fortunate enough to partake of them.
I am very appreciative of the opportunity I have had to broadcast in the non-commercial radio medium over the last few years and on the internet via text and audio over the last couple of decades. While I say simply what is on my mind with no agenda or profit from the saying, I have always kept a brace of hard won eagle’s feathers standing sentinel over my keyboard and mike as a reminder of the awesome responsibility one has when communicating to a mass due to the built-in misunderstanding that is always experienced between people of various neurological types within any population sampling.
The experience I have had of being a live DJ revealed the warp and weft of how culture is managed by those placed in a position to do so by a smaller number of those who’s continued luxurious survival make this vital. A case in point is the required content proportions of the country you are broadcasting in. In my case this was Canada and the irony wasn’t lost on me. This is a country with the population of perhaps California. Because of this, the lions’ share of performing artists usually migrate in order to make a living and thus come to be associated with other cultures after achieving fame and fortune.
Cultural protectionism is understandable precisely because the protected cultures are usually artificially manufactured for the use of and exploitation by powerful men. Naturally occurring slow growing cultures are generally destroyed relatively quickly by contrast if no use can be found for them and they straddle any resources coveted by powerful groups. The plight of the Albigensian population of Languedoc, who enjoyed the friendship, tolerance and patronage of the Dukes of that region until such time as the Pope’s teeth and claws caught up with his growls, can show us an example of protection and its withdrawal which ended with the massacre at Montségur.
If we look at the government entrenched Francophone culture of the Province of Quebec, for example, and compare it with the Cajun people of Louisiana, who enjoy no special protections that I am aware of, we can attempt to draw some fair conclusions. In my opinion and observation, the Cajuns have preserved their own culture by using their language and somewhat restricting their gene pool. This was not due to any agenda, rather it was a matter of geography more than anything else. Just as the least culturally affected tribesmen anywhere on the earth through written history are those that live in forests, dark swamps, remote deserts and such places. If the group to be culturally preserved lives in a topographically choice temperate area or one that harbours a wealth of resources, they well may need some assistance via legal codes to aid in this endeavour.
The Basque of the Pyrenees have done the most admirable job of preserving their culture, while at the same time adjusting and adapting to an ever changing array of pressures from without and within. One example of their deep wisdom was evident in their request to the incoming Roman conquerors that they be left their language, their laws and their land. Further, that they not be taxed by a Roman directly. If taxes were deemed crucial, a Basque leader could be shown the proof of that necessity and collect it on behalf of the Emperor. Lastly, they demanded that they not be used as cannon fodder for foreign adventures. In return they vowed to fight to the death to protect the mountains they already occupied from any invader. To their great credit, as far as my research has shown, the Romans agreed to this wholly sane and just scenario. I do not think this was totally altruistic on the part of Rome.
It was rather similar to the Mexican government’s lenience toward foreign colonists and remnants of vanquished tribes in the area that is now Texas. The semi-autonomous Mexican immigrant populations provided a handy human buffer against those who would threaten the control of Mexico City.
If a semi-autonomous region under question is mountainous and difficult to administrate logistically, much time and money is saved by the conquerors. As with most unequal contests, making a good stand right at the onset generally ensures a better outcome for the disadvantaged. Thus while culture protection in radio is understandable, it is many times at odds with immigration practices, history and seemingly unacquainted with the current classroom or street-corner.
Radio can carry propaganda if the operators wish this. History can furnish us with the examples of Tokyo Rose, whose sultry voice sought to undermine the confidence of the US servicemen in the Pacific Theatre during the 1940s. The Nazi Third Reich used radio long prior to the opening hostilities in Poland, mostly preparing the hearts and minds of their German base population for social transformation and the attitude shift deemed necessary for the dreams of the architects of control to flourish on that prepared emotional ground. Hate is many times more repugnant and effectively destructive when one is not the author of it.
We may also take instruction and a warning from the more recent historical example of the use of radio for premeditated heinous purposes. The radio campaigns conducted in Rwanda prior to the holocaust spring to mind. Seemingly simple things like substituting the word “cockroach” for the name of one of the tribes, fanned smouldering sparks of civil discontent into raging grass fires of blood-letting.
I have personally met a few and read of many more operatives of various intelligence services. Multiple passports, relationship destroying vows of secrecy and self medication to soothe eroded Christian consciences were common to all. Work in or proficiency with radio was in the experience of many but their continued access to money was contingent upon the details of such work remaining classified. Radio stations regularly top the list of priority targets in times of war, be it guerrilla, civil or conventional and be it declared or otherwise. Interestingly, there exists at this time, a radio station broadcasting from the International Space Station.
Occasionally we see the application of those old propaganda and agitprop techniques being put to use for the perceived good of a population. Good, that is, in the eye of the operator. A case in point that I witnessed personally occurred in 1980s Morocco. I was travelling with no real itinerary and had landed in Tangiers from Algeciras. As I moved through the urban centre’s oleander lined streets and beyond to the more remote tourist beaches lining the South Shore of the Mediterranean and a bit beyond that, I noticed something extraordinary to me at the time.
In any given place where a foreigner may stray and have contact with a local resident, loudspeakers and the largest television sets I had seen up to that date were set up. Indoors and out. The show was the same on all of the screens. An Imam in a white head-dress extolling the virtues of the Faith, admonishing the Faithful, disparaging the Infidel and quoting the Book. The loudspeakers vented the same audio as the televisions as well as the five daily calls to prayer of the Muezzin.
Salted throughout were very shady expat Frenchmen and a sprinkling of other Euro ne’er-do-wells. Ostensibly, these people lived off the drug and prostitution business at its least dangerous (to themselves) level. One could sense that it would not take much scratching to uncover deeper things, impossible to forget should one encounter them and survive.
The bosses employed an army of lesser beings armed with four to six languages and consummate snake-charmer skills who were strategically stationed in cafes, in bars, on the streets, on the buses, on the trains and on the ferries. Their task was to bring marks to the establishment of their employer for assessment and subsequent relief of the burden of their honestly gotten funds, their dignity if possible, and their life if necessary.
The constant susurration of the Imams and caterwauling of the Muezzins was an obvious buzz-kill to these nefarious entrepreneurs and their motley supernumeraries in that fly-blown borderland hell. Like all borders, material or spiritual, there occur splash-overs on both sides. These cross-contaminated cultural fronts are always the richest feeding zones for human sharks where ever they exist.
Technology in itself being without an agenda and devoid of personality became a tool in the hands of those sharks. Amplifiers, turntables and concert style speakers were set up on every beach and in every European run establishment. They spewed forth Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin and Rolling Stones music at medically unsafe levels of volume. The effect was meritorious in direct proportion to one’s proximity to these clarions of Pan. A walk of a few hundred yards would negate the effects of the music as the Revealed Word of Allah took over one’s attention. In my opinion, they cancelled each other out. Both had definite agendas and the only noble thing I found in either was the nakedness by which they operated. Quite unlike what happened on American radios in 1939.
From Wikipedia we learn that The War of the Worlds was the 17th episode of the CBS Radio series, The Mercury Theatre on the Air, which was broadcast at 8 pm ET on Sunday, October 30, 1938. H. G. Wells' original novel tells the story of a Martian invasion of Earth. The novel was adapted for radio by Howard Koch, who changed the primary setting from 19th-century England to the contemporary United States, with the landing point of the first Martian spacecraft changed to rural Grover's Mill, an unincorporated village in West Windsor Township, New Jersey. The show began with an Orson Welles’ paraphrase of the beginning of the novel.
“We know now that in the early years of the 20th century, this world was being watched closely by intelligence greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own. We know now that as human beings busied themselves about their various concerns, they were scrutinized and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinize the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacence, people went to and fro over the earth about their little affairs, serene in the assurance of their dominion over this small spinning fragment of solar driftwood which by chance or design man has inherited out of the dark mystery of Time and Space. Yet across an immense ethereal gulf, minds that are to our minds as ours are to the beasts in the jungle, intellects vast, cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. In the 39th year of the 20th century came the great disillusionment. It was near the end of October. Business was better. The war scare was over. More men were back at work. Sales were picking up. On this particular evening, October 30th, the Crossley service estimated that 32 million people were listening in on radios.”
Wiki tells us that the program began as a simulation of a normal evening radio broadcast featuring a weather report and music by Ramon Raquello and His Orchestra live from a local hotel ballroom. After a few minutes, the music began to be interrupted by several news flashes about strange gas explosions on Mars. An interview was arranged with reporter Carl Phillips and Princeton-based Professor of Astronomy Richard Pierson, who dismissed speculation about life on Mars. The musical program returned temporarily but was interrupted again by news of a strange meteorite landing in Grover's Mill, New Jersey. Phillips and Pierson were dispatched to the site, where a large crowd had gathered. Philips described the chaotic atmosphere around the strange cylindrical object, and Pierson admitted that he did not know exactly what it was, but that it seemed to be made of an extraterrestrial metal. The cylinder unscrewed and Phillips described the tentacle waving horrific monster that emerged from inside. Police officers approached the Martian waving a flag of truce but the invader responded by firing a heat ray, which incinerated the delegation and ignited nearby woods and cars as the crowd screamed. Phillips' shouts about incoming flames were cut off mid-sentence and after a moment of dead air, an announcer explained that the remote broadcast was interrupted due to some difficulty with the field transmission.
There was much ado and confusion during and after this historic broadcast. A year later, H. G. Wells and Orson Welles, who had never met, curiously happened to both be lecturing in San Antonio, Texas. They met in radio station KTSA in San Antonio and were interviewed by Mr. Charles C. Shaw on October 28, 1940, two days shy of the anniversary of the show.
H. G. Wells, the British author of the original story, downplayed the panic that had been created by the production and was quoted as saying, “You aren't quite serious in America, yet. You haven't got the war right under your chins. And the consequence is you can still play with ideas of terror and conflict. It's a natural thing to do until you're right up against it."
"Until it ceases to be a game," replied Orson Welles.
"Until it ceases to be a game," repeated H. G. Wells.
Britain, Canada and France had then been at war with Nazi Germany for more than a year.
Today, anyone with an internet connection can tune into SomaFM or Third Rock radio. Both of which broadcast from low Earth orbit. Amateur radio operators can speak directly to astronauts via handheld, mobile or home radio stations. Low power radios and small antennas can be used. Digital data may be sent to the space station via laptop computers hooked up to the same radio and antenna.
It is nice to know that music is accompanying us as we explore farther and farther from the crib. It is well to not forget Orson Welles’ little experiment as we move forward and trade communications with those in orbit. Imagine a re-reading of the paraphrased beginning of the novel, War Of The Worlds where the phrase “intelligence greater than man's and yet as mortal” is understood to refer to human corporate oil barons and eugenicists, rather than to Martians and where the words “intellects vast, cool and unsympathetic regarded this earth with envious eyes and slowly and surely drew their plans against us” are understood to refer instead to the human scientific elite’s drive toward the singularity rather than an extraterrestrial threat. Such a reading could go far in unveiling the warning contained within the traditionally safe and acceptable guise of science fiction. It is well if those employed on the Space Stations remember that the quicksilver spirit of radio, whose virtue lies in its inherent respect of our imaginations, can really pull your leg if you let it.
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