Christiern

I have known Cosby to be a two-faced fraud since 1960, when I was a DJ in Philly. I'm pretty sure the I mentioned it here, but nobody took me seriously. Well?

There is hope for Peter Bochan and a handful of other intelligent voices on WBAI, but you are being naïve if you think there is any hope for the station itself. For all intents and purposes, WBAI died a few years back... a corpse with good hair is still a corpse. Making a sow's ear....

Yes, she's even begging for reparations! I'm afraid poor Mimi has become somewhat of a joke.

I, too, wish I were wrong, but only if there is a radical change in the how the station is run and what it airs. With very few exceptions (of which Simon was one) WBAI is for all intents and purposes already brain dead. In other words, it is not worth saving in its present state and nothing short of a top to bottom change warrants another donation. Someone whose identity is unknown to me posted the following in a WBAI-oriented forum last week. I'm afraid the opinion and assessment it contains reflects common thinking, "I have subscribed to WBAI since the early 1970s, and I'll probably continue to give the minimum 25 bucks to the station, but i'm not too happy about it. WBAI has changed its format and agenda, and it's become mostly irrelevant for me, and many like me.BAI has become an entirely black radio station. virtually every time I tune in, it's in my face with the 'white supremacy' or slavery, or racial injustices, or white racism, or reparations, or 'white privilege', etc etc ad nauseum. everything is BLACK. and that's ok if all your listeners are black. it's also ok for these issues to be an important part of the station's agenda. but constantly, all day and all night? jesus christ, it's become predictably annoying. what? I'm supposed to feel guilty 24 hours a day for being a white guy? so, most of this programming has nothing to do with me, so why should i continue to support the station? in a city of 7 million, BAI has a pathetic 24,000 subscribers. that's ridiculous. there are plenty of wealthy white people out there who would probably donate big bucks to the station if BAI had more relevant shows. I suspect that most of them tune right out as soon as they hear the same old crap . I wish things were the same as back in the 60s when we were all on the same page. the progressive movement included all races. it was a political thing, not a racial thing. and btw...police brutality isn't limited to black victims. it's about bad cops. stop making EVERYthing racial."

Truth be told, all is actually lost when the listenership dwindles down to a its lowest number ever. That's what has happened at WBAI.Even Bob Fass (who was re-hired by me when I became manager) is less than a shadow of what he once was. Time has passed him by and I think he made a big mistake by not moving with it—he should have written a book about his experience in days of yore when so many people who shaped our culture found their way to WBAI's microphones. It was quite extraordinary, but he stagnated a few decades back. Sad to say, WBAI is, essentially, dead and that plug will be pulled before 2016 has completed its run. For details, go to http://wbai-nowthen.blogspot.com

Simon Loekle passed away this month. He was among the few left who knew what Pacifica's original mandate was, and he lived up to it. Like Ibrahim Gonzales and like Knight, his presence on the air will be missed. WBAI has now become a third-rate, exceedingly racist black station, but it will not last much longer. A do-nothing manager has pushed WBAI to the edge of oblivion with bad programs and a huge debt. Every month, they owe the Empire State Building another $40,000 and that debt alone is approaching a million dollars. The listener-sponsors were ripped off for several years, paying outrageous amounts for so-called "thank you gifts" (premiums) that often were not shipped. A product for which the station charge 100-200 dollars for could be had at Amazon for $15-25 (with guaranteed delivery). Bogus cure-alls were sold at every fundraising marathon, which now have become 1-2-hour infomercials and are given almost as much air time as regular programming. Not surprisingly, the audience has reached an all-time low, now consisting mostly of the sort of disenchanted ignoramuses one used to see with a sidewalk table on 125th Street. It is appalling and beyond repair. It would not surprise me if the Feds pull the plug and some of the perpetrators (at WBAI and the Pacifica Foundation) see some jail time. It's that bad. Check out some of the recent entries here http://wbai-nowthen.blogspot.com

A carrot?

I'm afraid that we have today, John, is too many people writing about the arts whose likes and dislikes are based upon unrelated factors. I have read a plethora of anticipatory pieces on the Latifah movie, written by people who "can't wait to see it," "know it's going to be great," etc. Their premature enthusiasm is sparked by ethnic and/or sexual considerations—nothing more. We have had reviewers like that for decades, but the internet has escalated such meaningless nonsense. Apropos insincere praise, I recall a middle-aged lady who reviewed films for After Dark magazine. She was a familiar figure at press screenings and parties and she never saw a film she didn't love. In fact, she always included some line or paragraph that she knew was likely to be quoted in an ad... it often was.

I told the Times reporter how I feel about the film. HBO told her that it was ok to mention that I approved of the music! What happened to free speech? I hope perceptive readers will understand that my mentioning the music indicates how I feel about the rest of this mistreatment. It amazes me that Latifah and the cast didn't object to the shallow portrayal of black people and the writer/director's amateur work. I was always afraid that Bessie would get this kind of bland treatment if a film were made, but I must confess that I never expected it to be a third-rate lesbian film.

Yes, Jim, I did say that and I haven't changed my opinion since recommending her to Zanuck over 20 years ago. Unfortunately, however, they have wasted her talent on a sinfully bad script and direction is banal beyond belief. I just read an article in tomorrow's (May 10) NY Times Arts & Leisure section that credits Latifah with bringing this "writer/director" (Dee Rees) into the project. That is a big disappointment to me. I recall attending a meeting at HBO where everybody seated around the conference table (including Rees) headed a copy of my book in front of them. I really have to wonder if any of them read it—or anything else on Bessie Smith, for that matter.

If ever there was a movie that could make me feel less disgusted with "Lady Sings the Blues," this is it. Have you ever cringed for two hours? I did, in an HBO screening room. That said, Latifah does a good job with Bessie's songs and Music Dir. Evyen J. Klean was, as far as I could tell, the only person involved who truly cared when it came to authenticity. The writer/director (I use the terms loosely) is a clueless amateur who is hung up on her own lesbianism. What she has done to Bessie Smith is shameful. By the way, I would express exactly the same opinion had I not written a book upon this travesty is allegedly based. I hope I have answered your question, jhoots.

In the '80s, Flo Kennedy sometimes asked me to host her Public TV show. Many of these shows were recently digitized by the Schlesinger Collection at Harvard and made available for viewing and download at archive.org Here are a couple of mine... Abbey Lincoln and I Thirty Years Ago... 1989 Interview with Valerie Wilmer

That is true, Scott, but I discovered, first-hand, Cosby's not-so-admirable side over 50 years ago. Since then, I have often seen it exposed and heard it discussed among jazz performers who personally experienced his hypocrisy. It so happens, that I also have a female business contact who was among his rape victims. So, I guess I answered my own question as to why this man's behavior did not surprise me.

Why did none of Cosby's newly surfaced behavior surprise me?