fwee wadicals
Friday, April 20, 2001
The other evening I was driving home from work when I noticed a large handmade two-color spray painted stenciled sign nailed way up high on a telephone pole: “104.1 FM”. Ah, Free Radio Berkeley.
I immediately punched out the tape I was playing of my favorite bluegrass show which I tape nearly every Saturday afternoon I can off of KALW (I record Peter Thompson's ninety minute program Bluegrass Signal nearly every Sat. at 6:30 p.m. and play in endlessly in the car all week, except on the way home when I occasionally listen to CBC’s As It Happens, which is on KALW from 5-6:00, or if it’s later I listen to Fresh Air, which comes on at 6:00; but mostly I just let that bluegrass tape auto-reverse over and over…and what am I listening to as I type this? The Stanley Brothers - Angel Band: The Classic Mercury Recordings. I can’t explain how I’ve become a bluegrass fiend. Well, I probably could, but that’s another story, but it happened very suddenly, and was the coming together of rock, jazz, Irish and Brit Isles folk, country, porch music, and a not insubstantial amount of gospel and the hymns I remember hearing and singing in church as a kid.) and dialed into 1.04.1.
Playing on the radio was Neil Young’s Ordinary People, a two hundred or so line song which is a tribute to, well, ordinary working folks, and their honesty and endurance as opposed to those who profit from and abuse ordinary working folks. Perfect song for free radio, illegal radio, homegrown radio, micro radio. Ordinary People is not on an official Young record. It’s on numerous bootlegs, in fact, I think I have at least one version, but possibly two. It's a highly regarded song among NY afficionados, only existing on bootlegs, a bit of a rarity.
What I was hearing on free radio was a live recording, a bootleg, in a murky legal area, a vibrant, spirited, passionate performance, at least twelve minutes or so long, the signal crackling as I took my little shortcut off Telegraph through the neighborhood over to Claremont, and as I drove up the onramp the antenna of my car rose over the roofs of the houses and the signal came back real strong and I continued listening to this song you’d never hear on the radio and can’t buy blasting loud over not merely commercial-free but totally free-free-free airwaves from a little micro-radio station operated by people who just want to serve their local community, get information out, have fun.
The signal faded before getting home, where I live around Lake Merritt, maybe three miles from where I first picked it up. I wasn't disappointed. Free. Radio. Radical. Quiet, unassuming, all action. Goodness, just look at their program schedule.
All of this leads me to something else on my mind. Segue: "revolt" does not ususally come to my mind when I hear "radical" ("revolt" sounds violent), and I especially resist its application to a situation that necessarily means extreme and obvious political action. No, “radical” makes me think of, who, like... the Dalai Lama, Julia Butterfly living in Luna, Rosa Parks, John Coltrane, my high school art and english teacher, and a list that goes on and on, and so when I read this at genug about the Free Radical:
Revolt, of course, is what comes to mind when taking the closer political meaning of radical - that of investigating the fundamental causes, the roots (here is the etymological link) of inequality and poverty. Not being happy with surface descriptions, received wisdom or humanist and charitable attitudes, but questioning it all, democracy, market, freedom (of what, for whom, to what end), 'good deeds' - you name it.
I'm thinking, OK, so go ahead question it all, but I will look for it in actions, not in words, not in investigations, and I will value these actions of all sizes and shapes, and I will especially value those that are kind and compassionate and unbiased and accepting. Anyone can walk in a demonstration, anyone can profess radical inclinations, anyone can use the word, it's easy to adopt the vocabulary of radical literature, but few can live it, and even fewer live it quietly and graciously.
The word I’ve always focused on regarding The Free Radical is “free”: unattached and moving, but not unengaged; neutral, fair, reasonable, and true but also passionate and insightful; unencumbered and able to react and respond; not beholden to but responsible and dedicated.
Typically, many uses of the word “radical” seem pretty gratuitous; when I see that word used I either challenge it, sarcastically dismiss it, or ignore it. Which is why I’m glad Lloyd chooses a scientific explanation for the label "The Free Radical." I know Lloyd doesn't need me to help explain him. The explanation is in a year's acculumation of blogs that demonstrate his actions. Not just in the writing about himself, but the inclusion of, pointing to the value of, and support of others.
To be truly, selflessly, responsively free is a radical act when the action in which it results makes others free, empowered, shapes community, and reflects back the goodness, struggles, and triumphs of others. The ATDP blog community, like 104.1, is beyond commercial-free to a free-free-free righteous use of the airwaves, the power of words and friendship, the power of caring, the radicalism found in the simple freedom of communication and information flowing.
If each of us is a little blog disk jockey daily programming our own content for those who come across it to read, then Lloyd is the Master DJ, spinning and scratching several diverse tables at once, all the while encouraging others to spin, pointing to the spinning, finding threads among the spinning many, spinning those spins into his own to reflect back out to the community and be used as new riffs. For free. Because it’s a good thing to do. That’s radical. Quiet, unassuming, all action. Und für mich, ist das genug (and for me, that is enough).
I thought Laura's explanation of what makes The Free Radical so radical was excellent, showing real understanding and providing some necessary background to the atdpblogcommunity:
When I see my dear friend and colleague as radical, I think of putting down roots rather than tugging them up. I think of "roots," as in commitment, being rooted in a mission... what he mainly does is challenge the peculiar American view that young people are disposable and that adults shouldn't take their concerns seriously. Our weblog community and his web of friendships transcends the barriers that our culture erects to marginalize teens and keep adults separate from them.
I believe every word of that, and for me it's an incredibly moving statement.
(For some reason, when I started writing today, I wanted to sound like Elmer Fudd, so I started by writing all the "r"s and "l"s as "w"s, but then the writing started getting serious, and I fixed the first paragraph, because I saw I couldn't write all I had to say like that. But, if you're curious, here is the final version all Elmer Fudded. Of course to do it I used a text replace, so now even the URLs have been Fudderized.)
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