WPKN and the AP Machine

From 1982 to 1995 I hosted a radio show at WPKN in Bridgeport, Connecticut. WPKN ("The Purple Knight Network") is non-commercial and listener-supported, not unlike a certain radio station here in Jersey City. It's located on the second floor of the Student Center on the campus of the University of Bridgeport, a school I briefly attended in the early 80's while pursuing an ill-fated filmmaking career. Even though we all know FMU is the cats pyjamas, there are certain things I miss about about PKN. Their HUGE library is a massively sick room to behold. Every LP ever released since 1963 can be found in mind-numbingly chronological, non-alphabetical order. (You could walk up to a certain wall containing releases from the fall of 1965 and pull out no less than 300 LPs with covers of "Yesterday.") In a perplexing move, compact discs are filed in the same way--crammed in the wall in the order in which they arrived at the station.

In my early years there, I'd frequently slap on some album side of jazzbo or folk-rock crappity-crap and meander through the deserted Student Center hallways--a labyrinth of coffee-stained indoor/outdoor carpeting and concrete murals depicting the sad mascot of the basketball team, the indomitable Shmoo. Bridgeport's curious litany of hometown talent throughout the ages includes Robert Mitchum, Bill Haley, Bob Crane and right wing nutjob/genius cartoonist Al Capp, who donated the use of his Shmoo in a fit of nostalgic pride. When I returned to the studio, if I was feeling particularly creative, I'd play Kraftwerk and the Archies and early King Crimson at the same time backwards and forwards for five hours at a clip. I can't say I pre-dated the "mash-up" but I certainly perfected the "train-wreck." I'm indebted to PKN for letting me get that nonsense out of my system at a relatively early age. Similar to FMU, PKN shares a commitment to freeform broadcasting and dedication to the DJ's whims, which is all too rare in today's high stakes radio game.

At a certain point it became inevitable that my regular forays to Bridgeport would prove unfeasible and too expensive travel-wise, so I reluctantly resigned from the station. I miss the 10,000 watts of power (that's some decent coverage) and I miss that time that DJ "Dead Bob" Chamenko dropped a Caesar salad on the studio floor and in a spark of ingenuity, poured Thousand Island dressing on it and ate the damn thing right off the carpet. More than anything, I miss those rattling, twin appliances of breaking apocalyptic events: the Associated Press and the Reuters machines. Behind a pane of glass from the main studio was the transmitter room and behind that was a closet-sized cubicle where the ancient newswires chugged ceaselessly into the night, typing out a hiccupping blur of news items both great and mundane. I read the news on the air when I felt like reminding myself that I was actually broadcasting on a radio station. Tearing that low-grade accordion-folded paper off the wire made me feel like a news reporter with a capital "R"--the kind of swaggering Clark Kent loser who would run around with a card in his hatband that said "Press." Sports, weather, world events, economic reports--I mispronounced them all. When a story came in on the AP machine, a bell would ring out once or twice amid the ka-chunking and wheezing noises emanating from the rear of the transmitter room. One time the bell rang four times. That was when Sam Kinison totaled his Trans Am in the middle of the night. If the bell ever rang five times you were instructed to interrupt the broadcast with the breaking news and if it ever rang six times it was generally acknowledged that you could go home and kiss your ass goodbye.

While looking for a clean shirt the other day, a notebook fell out of my closet and opened up on a page with one of the strangest news items ever to cross the wire (at least in my experience). I'm as perplexed today as I was when I first clipped this item. I don't recall if I read this on the air or merely stuck it in my notebook in the hopes that I would stumble across it one day and glean its meaning. That day hasn't come yet. In the meantime, when in Washington DC, don't forget to visit the Smithsonian Institution!

Comments

[paul]

WPKN forever!!!!!!

[davo]

wpkn viva!

good lookin,Dave!

[Kimberly Massengill]

Though I'm still on staff at WPKN, the shlep from Manhattan has kicked my ass, too. Someone there got pissy with me once for calling it the 'FMU of Bridgeport, but I do see it as a more than able outpost, limited only by its distance from NYC and its complete lack of a gallery of velvet paintings. The similarity is no wonder. When I did an hour on WFMU a few years ago, I learned of all the DJs the two stations have shared in common.

I, too, miss the library (complete with a "Thou shalt not steal" poster), the wildly sophisticated listeners, and the cast of on-air characters. And Harry. Never noticed the Caesar salad stain, though. But I'm sure it's still there.

The photo of that yellowed AP item taped to the dated notebook paper belongs in the Smithsonian. Thanks for the affectionate look back, Dave.

[Dominick]

I was librarian at WPKN 1967-1969 and plead guilty to setting up that chronological order library with the card catalogue. It made more sense than shuffling thousands of records around just because there were a lot of releases in a week by acts whose name started with the letter "C".
In 2004, I returned to the studios after 30 years, found the 1968 area, randomly pulled a LP and came up with:
http://www.puddingbench.com/Blue%20Love%20Monkey/pages/Producer-Librarian-Programm.htm

The AP machine is gone. The space behind the racks now filled with bottled water and cans of coffee:
http://www.puddingbench.com/Blue%20Love%20Monkey/pages/WPKN-Power-Source.htm

[paul]

nice pick.... will have to check to see if that LP's still there next time i'm there for my show (4th sundays 10pm-2am! former time slot of davo, who also posted a comment in this thread!)... except that the lp's have recently been moved around a bit, so that rack of lp's in that picture is right when you walk into the library from the tally room.
card catalog's still there tho!!!
and i still use it sometimes to look for lp's that somehow aren't in the 2 phonebook sized printout catalogs listing the contents of the library.
also, the carpet in fm was replaced a few years back, so maybe the caesar salad stain is gone... maybe....
and also, i live in jersey and i still do a show at pkn every month! and i don't have a real job yet! i don't know how i manage to do it!

[yazoo]

Oh Boy.

You know, it ALL started for me with WPKN. I started listening around 1981. I would stay in on Saturday and Sunday nights to listen to Brad Morrison. The Saturday show was called "Capitol Radio" The Fall, Crippled Pilgrims, The Passions, that guy set the stage for everything that still matters to me. I have volumes of air checks from that show. Remarkably that 10KW of power made it all the way down to Lindenhurst, NY (Ask Chris T.)

I was crushed to find out that I could not get the PKN signal in NJ, so I had to settle for another station, WFMU. Whatever.

To this day, I occasionally Google Brad's name to see how he may be doing. And to think the Spazz was there only makes it that much sweeter!

cheers

mikeS
nashville,tn

[Dale Hazelton]

You guys have me salivating, but the religious broadcasters own those frequencies by me. I'm s.o.l....

[DaveG]

I miss the old teletypes. One bell--no big deal. Four bells--big story. Ten bells--the apocalypse. The AP NewsDesk software just doesn't convey the drama.

Dave, are you still producing the Ahunka Elvis booklets?

I have always loved the random discoveries made possible by the chronological library.

[Brad Morrison]

Hi Yazoo,
So you're the guy that keeps googling me! The hair on the back of my neck stands up every time you do it. I guess that that is better than the ear ringing I used to get. Wow, what a thrill after all these years to hear that someone, was listening. I just started a facebook page for the show to see if any of my listners actually exist or remember. I would love to hear those airchecks. I only have two or three left. I believe most of my hundreds of airchecks got trashed when I moved in 89.
Thanks for listening all those years ago............
Brad Morrison
PS I have a facebook page and a myspace page. Contact me I would love to hear some of those airchecks.

[Fran Fried]

Well, Dave, your legacy lived on for a long time after you left -- I forget just how long your Sea Monkeys poster was taped to the wall of the air studio; I think well into my exile in California in the mid-2000s ...

But I never knew that Chamenko story. I can't believe he lived to talk about it. God knows what's been on that floor ...