Christine's Church Garden

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 (perhaps 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. She was devoted to Simon, her dog; 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 was allowed to 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 truly 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 also 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 into any of the internecine radio station struggles. From her years of Bay Area DJ experience, she knew how radio stations were and/or should be run. 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 what was envisioned as an English contemplative garden: organic, considerably wild, 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.

Bob Linden on Air America

A struggling new radio station needs fresh money all the time and of any amount. I got a call one day in 2006 from a man calling himself Bob Linden, a radio personality. You are a radio personality as long as you say so and act brazenly enough. I invited him to come up from San Francisco for our first session. Bob wanted to rent the studio with an engineer for $75 for a one-hour program to be broadcast on Air America (AA), a new liberal, nationwide hookup. I had said great, not knowing what I was about to get into.
He was a captivating guy – lots of radio war stories. He did his time with small time stations across the country. He was too-old for DJ-ing at 60-ish, so he picked up the banner for vegans and animal rights activists. http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=568616575
Our local KGGV patter-pace was “river time” – start at 8-ish, end at 9-ish and babble between music cuts. At our first session, Bob scribbled out a sort of script with four segments, each with differing, but exact lengths, e.g., interview segment 12:36 (mm:ss); three commercials 2:54. He wanted an under layer of voiceless music for transitional fade-ins and fade-outs of specific durations. We were pre-recording a show, the final product to be four sound files that we would upload to New York (NYC). The four files had to total exactly 48:00 minutes. The engineer was me most of the time, although I did try and “baptize” many new radio wannabes with doing this session. We did it weekly for a little over a year. The “engineer” was a producer (in-charge and calling the shots), screener (making and handling the guest phone call-ins), recording engineer, and special effects guy (his 5-yr-old grand-daughter’s cute quip library).
We got to know the PETA lady, Ingrid Newkirk, and were fascinated to be able to discuss the Michael Vick – dog fighting – pro football situation with her as it was happening; Bob Barker, elder statesman – TV Host; Pamela Anderson, behind the scenes friend of animals and the nicest “star” you’d ever want to meet and have to deal with; and Dennis Kucinich, a major Vegan, who spoke with us often, even while he was running a presidential campaign (our secret favorite for 2008).
The “we” above was mostly me, but I hooked in Christine Lowry almost right away. She was in a death dance with cancer at the time and investigating all health possibilities slightly off the medically beaten path. Christine was one of KGGV’s few true professional radio people, so she was aware of what was required to keep the AA folks in NYC happy. These were highly stressful recording sessions, however. Linden was often late and/or not ready and he was overjoyed to turn over all the technical aspects to KGGV. The AA producers in NYC were always complaining that the fades were too short and the segments too long. The stress was anathema to Christine’s situation: her pain level was high and she preferred the slower-paced, medicated state.
I tried Sophie Weiner in the role – she was one of KGGV’s second wave of interns from El Molino High School. Brilliant and talented HS Senior – she could run circles around both Bob and I, probably Randy as well. She did the sessions for a while because he was an entrée to Indie bands that she swooned over. That passed eventually and I tried Sharon Wikoff, but the pace was too frantic. I ran out of candidates who could match the energy of this dervish. It was a great learning experience: the segmented wheel of time allocation for a one-hour bit; the absolute insistence of timings being exact to the second; the value of voiceless fadeouts (and ins) for making up for the mistakes of others; the importance of “We’re live!” when you’re hooked in nationwide; and the thrill (every third or fourth week) when NYC says, “Good one, that’s a wrap (it’s in the can)”. I still get a respectful chill when the hour ticks over and I hear, “This, is the BBC – it’s 8:00 am” -- masterful – I know that I can set my watch by their pronouncement.

it was the time

Only a few days after my father drove away at my new University of Arizona, Greenlee Hall dormitory in Tucson, the leadership light-bulb clicked on in my head and has been burning brightly ever since. My father had been such a dominant personality, that I spent my first eighteen years as a quiet nerd; college let the gregarious me burst into bloom. But it was the time when, five years later, I led a mini-revolt at my Army accounting office, by staging a work-in on a Saturday morning that landed me in my life-long career with computers.
The year was 1963; I was the new whiz kid in the Heidelberg payroll department – fastest hand on the adding machine and a lightening memory for numbers to go with it. I had fun in the Army – It was easy for me to stay several steps ahead of the lumbering plans of the Army brass. In Germany, I ran a black market business to keep in cash enough to pay my way out of all the odious parts of Army life. During Fort Ord’s basic training, where we were supposed to be isolated for six weeks, I found a way out. At the end of the first week our CO called us together and proudly announced that, the next day being Sunday, there were complete facilities to accommodate all religions. He passed around a signup sheet to so that we could show our choice of religion as Catholic, Protestant, or Jewish. As the list was going around, he gave directions to each meeting place and their time of services. He got to the end of the list and said, "For those of you who may be Buddhist, there is a bus leaving at ten-thirty in the morning. It will take you to Monterey and return at twelve-thirty. I was on the bus the next morning with three Asians. When we got to town, I walked down the path with the others to the temple. When I saw the bus pull away, I went back outside and walked the few blocks to the downtown area. I drank a beer at a bar and had an idea so I stopped at a liquor store and bought three little half-pints of whiskey. These went to the highest bidders when I got back to camp. Next week, I took orders.
My small Heidelberg office group was being punished for some unjustified, trivial Army infraction and made to work all day Saturday by Sergeant Webb. I organized an assembly line and we finished all the work by one o’clock. I bought everyone a beer at the camp pub, and then we all went to the movies. The sergeant pulled me out of the movie an hour later. “How dare you countermand my orders!” he shouted. He was red in the face, “I could have you court-martialed for insubordination!” I tried to politely point out, “But we finished all the work, Sergeant Webb. We even cleaned up the office.” Back at Fort Ord, I had learned my way around the payroll system such that I helped my friends and hampered my enemies, while keeping the office running smoothly. Same sort of thing was true of the Personnel guys; I was three years in the Army; went on leave many times; and yet was fully paid for all three year’s worth of “untaken” leave time when I was discharged. The sergeant continued shouting, “You don’t decide when you’re done,” he was pounding on a table, “I make the decisions.”
He explained that he knew I was bright and he saw, as I probably did too, that there was an irresolvable organizational conflict between him and me. He had decided to transfer me to a new group, the data processing center, where, “You can conflict with machines instead of an Army chain of command.” It turned out that I was being sent to heaven. I mastered every machine the Army threw at me and was an electronics prima-donna within a year. I learned enough to get a job at IBM when I left the Army. Fifty years later, I am still an active computer guru.

Once a Closet ... ..

Our broadcast studio at KGGV had been a tool closet for as long as anyone could remember; a builder’s afterthought – 5 by 10 feet on the other side of the bathrooms. The tools needed a home: garden, plumbing and electrical for the GCC. The Guerneville Community Church (GCC) sprawled across 2-1/2 acres, north of Guerneville. The Church had taken up, along with a few thousand other churches and schools, the offer of Bill Clinton to open up the radio airwaves to community broadcasting. Just like “twenty acres and a mule” in the nineteenth century, the FCC issued low power licenses (1-100 watts) for community-based, free radio. The licenses are non-transferable and to be owned by a nonprofit institution with established physical property in the community.
The paperwork took three years to come through, but finally we received call letters and a frequency. We also had twelve months to begin broadcasting to keep the license in force. The Church raised $500 to buy a do-it-yourself shed for the tools. This turned out to be one of those activities that straddle a grey line – Is it a Church thing? or something for the radio? It wasn’t clear. I only achieved clarity when I joined the Church and it became a non-issue, as it was at the time for Beth Hearn, who was leading us.
The “team” crossed the grey lines – Wayne Rieke, Bill Hearn and Micah Andretich pitched in from the Church side. Ferd Sabino, myself and Giselle were clearly radio. Beth Hearn and Damien Olsen were straddling the fence between both organizations. Most of these people became friends during the ensuing year. It turned into one of those bonding experiences that characterized 2006 for me. Everyone pitched in to the best of their abilities. We were novices at “shed-building,” but we finally finished. It took an unplanned second day with a sustaining effort by Wayne Rieke to keep moving forward.
It amazes me now that the structure still stands and keeps the tools, etc. dry and safe as planned. When I retired to Monte Rio in 2001, I became involved in mostly solitary activities; the library and my memoir groups were mainly reading and writing. But with the Church/Radio group, I became involved in group doings, and of doing positive things for the community.
After re-housing the tools, we cleaned down the walls, floors, and ceiling. It looked big when it was empty – a cement slab on the floor. Wiring was important and that came first, followed by egg carton Styrofoam along all the walls for echo-proofing. A large kitchen-counter type “desk” was the major hub for radio equipment. We chopped out a window over the desk area so the DJ could look out on the gardens. The wiring was like a modern automobile or airplane: big lines out to the transmitter and back in from the remote antenna; telephone lines in and out for voice and another set for streaming; a dozen source devices, each needing power along with battery backup power and the sound streams wending through a rat’s maze of processing boxes to control the ultimate signals. Speakers, headsets, and chairs for three people were the final steps and we were ready.
It was now an electronic closet.

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 bring to mind 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 often equated with 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.
The back wall is no longer covered in egg cartons to deaden the sound echoes; have echoes died away? The “folder” system of mail baskets for all the DJs has been re-oriented 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 have to 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, 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.

Food Shows on the Radio

“Noon on Saturdays is the perfect time for a food preparation show,” I said to Anne Fischer-Silva. I had an obsession with certain time slots being programmed with specific content: weekdays, six, noon, and six for a few hours should be news, talk, and light music. Saturday mornings were 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
2008 “Helena’s Kitchen” with Helena Gustavson Giesen
2009 “Non Pompous Food Talk” with host Maria Vieages
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 favour 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 should have been published in a thirty chapter book. Visit Anne on http://www.linkedin.com
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 to be on weekdays between 7:00 and 9:00 pm, so as to not upset their other schedules. This was not a group of radiophiles waiting for any chance to be on-air.
Helena tried, as many of our novitiates do, to integrate her radio show with her restaurant business, Charisma. KGGV didn’t mind this, in fact, I encouraged it, the implication being that it was a local business and our mission was to stimulate 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 her restaurant in Guerneville; her life-long dream. She was thoroughly well trained in cooking schools across the continents. She and her hubby, a computer 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 maybe 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 hubby, time to grow, time to advertise. This is part of the human condition in this day and age of internet time and global reality. The restaurant didn’t make it and Helena was off to Jenner and now beyond. Onward and upward, check out her website.
http://www.chefhelena.blogspot.com/
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 very 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 have to 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 working 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