Central Daylight Shifting Time

Monday July 31, 2023

6:01 PM -- Truthful Portrayal of the State of the Radio Frequency Spectrum --

2:58 PM -- Universal Time --

Sunday July 30, 2023

2:46 PM -- Man Becomes Dog --

Wednesday July 26, 2023

1:14 PM -- ON STORM ALERT --

We took the radio station offline earlier after a war-like BANG! sounded like it was inside the building. It was thunder from an ultra close lightning bolt that snuck up on us. Now, hours later, ominous clouds have again moved overhead casting a dark shadow in rising temperatures on the way toward 100^o.

11:56 AM -- Stop Blocking My View of the Printed Page --


7:26 AM -- The Morning Shift --

Rule No. 1 - Grass must be no longer than 7";  Rule No. 2 - Cans must be on the curb by 7 AM on the day of pickup.  So, it was 6:45 this morning as I rolled the can toward the street while finding relief in seeing that the grass was topping about 3" given today's predicted 3-digit temperature. Thunder rolled around the sky as memory took me back to a morning shift in the distant past when a consultant hired to boost the station's ratings called me into his office. He was very loudly listening to 45-RPM records to select choice songs to attract more listeners, and over this din he instructed me to listen to KMOX, jot down their traffic report, use it to make our own traffic report, upon which he turned the volume up even louder to indicate that I should leave the room. I went back to my routine and never did a traffic report. He faded into obscurity but I will say that before meeting this fellow I considered him a fairly good disc jockey who used good naturedness in lieu of humor. Sad to find out he wasn't good natured. Not being a big fan of nostalgia I bring my thoughts back to the present where I still do morning radio and have no reservations about doing traffic, except that at the moment I am the only traffic in sight, looking up and down the roads and sidewalks seeing no movement to report. Of course I could check KMOX, which seems to know where to look.

Tuesday July 25, 2023

1 PM -- Passing Time --

9:30 AM -- Find a Parking Space and Stay Put --

I watch the never ending videos on YouTube by crafty individuals live streaming as they walk and show the streets of New York City saving us the long trip of going there ourselves. Many of the people seen publicly walking and gawking at the canyons of giant buildings could have saved themselves the long journey and attendant expenses of going there in person to be in the picture. By natural human curiosity I wonder at the crowd, estimating whether they have carted their entire family all that distance just to see at first hand what they might have watched from Cabool, Missouri on their computer, or are perhaps walking about seeking a job now having relocated to a place with infinite low level employment opportunities but increasingly fewer openings moving up the ladder of prime career positions. If it was me trotting along Madison Avenue it would be the distance between my private railroad car on a nearby siding and the executive suite at WQXR or WABC, hired by remote to avoid traveling there prior to landing the job. It makes a brief daydream, but in fact there's one open space on a New York sidewalk permanently relinquished by my eternal inattendance for being perfectly content as group owner of several miniature radio properties on an offstreet somewhere below a coast-to-coast jetpath in the flatlands of middle America where I can be critical of mass humanity ever moving about in search of whatever it is they never find. 

Monday July 24, 2023

Finding specialty radio programs gets complicated. Two program areas in particular have their difficulties. At KDX we would like to have informed programs about homelessness and railroading. With a massive and growing homeless problem around the world we would like to hear from the heart of the matter to understand what is contributing to the burdgeoning number of homeless encampments, learn from the outcasts themselves their own narratives of plight, and from social services the plans and methods for dealing with the situation. But hearing testimony from homeless persons is often strewn with F words and S words triggering radio self-censorship policed by FCC authoritarianism, and bureaucratic reports on political efforts to cap the situation tend to be statistical lists telling numbers of beds in shelters, objectives for future points in time, while in fact the Shutz-Staffel police push the encampments out of sight as far as possible. Railroads have tensions between freight and passenger services, and between management and rail-workers. Freight traffic is the golden money maker while passenger trains always operate at a loss but both depend on the same trackage. Management wants to boost profit by running 3-mile long trains with a crew of one while worker's safety is compromised through short-staffing. Radio programs giving a clear view of all sides are in short supply.   

Sunday July 23. 2023

4:55 PM -- A Beautiful Symphony Not Well Known --

8:46 AM -- Excess Deaths, the Silence --

Saturday July 22, 2023

4:29 PM -- I'm Taken --

In mid afternoon I took a casual campus tour to admire the natural beauty and as I stood facing the bamboo grove I was approached by a female rabbit who came face to face 4-feet in front of me. I was carrying the MMR-99 Radio tuned to KDX, and as voices turned to music she tilted one ear toward the sound and munched clover. We stood like that for 5-minutes, when she gingerly hopped to a spot 12-feet downhill and dug in at the clover at that spot. She had chosen me as her pet, and I am swept into submission.

7:04 AM -- What the Strike Is All About --

Friday July 21, 2023

3:32 PM -- Days of Sun and Green --

For some reason the hours of programming on KDX have expanded dramatically over the rinky dink schedule kept during the dark days of winter. Instead of deep analysis as to 'why' let's skip to the topic of unions. As a hobby radio station with no finances nor employees, KDX is not unionized but I was a member of AFTRA during professional years (American Federation of Television and Radio Artists). But tales of those times can be told some other day as for now I will tell you why the subject comes to mind.

As Bloggadiers know (Bloggadiers = people who read this Blog) I spend time watching live camera streaming from the streets of NYC (New York City). By chance the camera roved upon a long parade of picketers with their WGA-SAG-AFTRA picket signs parading round and round a block or two in Manhattan, most likely blocking the way to a building where one or the other unionized employer is housed. Could have been a television network, a radio network, or any of a number of other organizations that hire members of the three unions. The unions include the Writers Guild, Screen Actors Guild, and the afore mention broadcast talent union. Seeing all those people carrying picket placards on the concrete streets among the shadows of towering skyscrapers gave my arms goose bumps. I could be there with them as a veteran member, but there are enough of them and The Blog supports their movement.  

Thursday July 20, 2023

9:43 -- Weather All Over the Map --

Weather forecasts have been changing from hour to hour as violent storm potential is first here then there next
east moving south popping up in the northwest and doing a very schitzy dance. 

Wednesday July 19, 2023

6:37 PM -- Special Editorial Commentary by My Barber --

From South St. Louis Missouri Carl Blare's barber, Buster Boatrocker, presents a commentary on 'Being Cooked Alive':


Thank you Buster. I'll have my people call your people after things cool down.

6:28 PM -- If You Never Watch Another Movie --
This is Carl Blare's favorite movie!

10:35 AM -- New York Walking Tour --
I've recently gotten hooked on live streamed video walks through the streets, avenues, boulevards, byways, pathways, and bridges of New York City, many times more impressive and flabbergasting than anything in other cities, towns, municipalities, burgs, suburbs or truck stops anywhere else. This one claims to be online all the time, day and night. A very clever media startup, I would say. 

Sunday July 16, 2023

8:42 AM -- When the Grid Goes Down and the Infrastructure Collapses --

Friday July 14, 2023

1:02 PM -- Unscheduled Thunder --

All set up to get some work done out on the lovely campus when the sky darkens and thunder starts advancing. The fact that storms are not in the forecast seems to mean little.

Thursday July 13, 2023

3:55 PM -- A Pleasant Moment in the Course of the Day --

With the Alpine Symphony resounding on KDX we stood on the Parade Review Stand (formerly the front porch) and played an eye contact game with the rabbit, took awe at the aerial showmanship of the hummingbird, attracted Mr. & Mrs cardinal to soar into the vista to see what was going on, and the sky filled with billowing white clouds that look like they mean business. It was one of life's well choreographed moments.

2:47 PM -- Shock Jock in the Stix --

A 'shock jock' heads from NYC to LA but breaks down somewhere in between and gets involved with a rural radio station.

Shock Jock Gets Shocked

7:12 AM -- We Were Gone and Now We're Back --

Anyone who looked for us overnight saw our place-holding message that we were off due to storms. At the moment we inacted the shutdown procedure thunder was already rattling the walls and and the weather department was warning of possible damaging winds. No sooner had we disconnected than the storm subsided but not much later another storm passed by and a parade of storms through the night. Fortunately, the main event turned out to be a good drenching with no violence, but other locations all over the middle of the country experienced severe battering. 

Wednesday July 12, 2023

1:24 PM -- Having Fun At the Keyboard and Screen --

My longtime interest in live streaming video has grown recently with awareness of live 'walking' tours hosted by individuals who wander around with high-quality cameras uploading in realtime complete with chatbox to interact with viewers. I've found three regularly scheduled walking videos from the streets of New York City by persons who narrate their observations, one in the morning sub-titled a 'commute', the afternoon guy with too much camera movement rendering everything as dizzyingly smeary, and the evening starting at 7:30 EDT with a competent camera operator and very well-informed voicing. The only problem for me is that I spend too much time in New York and not so much here in the steamy itchy midwaste. Still, this morning's indepth tour of Central Park was supremely interesting and now I have a clear idea why the park is so well praised. When I think about doing a video tour of the home neighborhood I realize how much less we have to brag about compared to the BigApple, but I do wonder about the camera models and cellphone systems that enable going live in realtime from anywhere. 

Tuesday July 11, 2023

11:01 AM -- The Simbiosis --

I have long held an untuitive hunch that radio and railroading are somehow siblings of a closely paired kind. Now I know, based on a brain-moment when I realized that both mediums are in the same business. They are haulers. Railroads haul physical objects, radio hauls informational freight. The merging of the two has already been percieved in the fictional transporter, by which solid objects could be relayed at the speed of radio (beam me up, Scotty).

Monday July 10, 2023

1:20 PM -- I Just Logged Into the Wrong Place --

I have something to add to our ongoing thread at part15.org about radio receivers suitable for outdoor use which will continue expanding until we find what we're looking for. So, I'm logging in over there and you can follow if you like.

7:24 AM -- Lame Brain Syndrome --

A local newscaster this morning reported that Illinois is going to invest in "fixing and repairing" infrastructure. What we don't know is whether the news person wrote the story or simply quoted from a State news release, but either way the story should have been not only edited but also corrected to cut down on redundant verbiage. It almost reminds me of another case of thoughtless wording in the newsletter of a nearby municipality with their headline in all-caps: NATIONAL COMMUNITY SURVEY. Must be important if it's 'national', except that the survey was mailed to town residents only, asking for input regarding a COMPREHENSIVE PLAN, which, it turned out, was already viewable in draft form putting the survey 'after the fact' as decisions had already been made rendering the survey impotent. Another 'comprehensive plan' that comes to mind was Germany's in 1933. Gentrification is the new Nazification.

7:14 AM -- Beyond the Edges of Spectrum --

Experimental Radio News

Saturday July 8, 2023

1:56 PM -- Blare For the Defense --

In our last blog we made a prosecutorial case against a lovely Peruvian woman bagging groceries, making her a person of interest in the damage of peaches during the checkout process. Since than a new theory has come to light lifting suspicions and raising a plausible defense. As the witness for both sides in the case I recall pools of water on the conveyor belt that moves the groceries toward the checkout person, a consequence of rushed surface cleansing dating back to the Pandemic. At times the belt continues moving when a package comes to a stop at the end of the conveyor's reach and a pool of water could possibly have been pulled across the bottom-side of a bag of peaches. Later in the process the bagger may have lifted the bag without anticipating that some peaches would drop through torn wet paper and land on the hard surface. She then set the torn paper bag into a re-enforcing plastic bag and the checkout was finalized. Also, as we said we would, three ripe tomatoes were examined and found to be in perfect condition, making the peaches an isolated event. Stepping next into my role as transcendent judge I hereby dismiss all suspician against the lovely woman and grant full aquittal. 

Judge Blare would have it that calling a woman 'lovely' is not sexist but is a matter of biology for over which Blare holds no authority.

Friday July 7, 2023

11:09 AM -- Was I the Victim of Border Backlash? --

This morning when I lifted my bag of peaches a peach fell out of the bottom and plopped to the floor. It was then discovered that the paper bag had ripped open because the bottom was soggy. It was soggy, as I found, because the peaches at the bottom had been subjected to trauma and developed dripping wounds. That could only have happened at the checkout counter when the lovely Peruvian woman bagged my groceries and set them in my cart. Forensic evidence suggests she 'dropped' the bag rather than properly setting it in the hard-wire cart. It could have been an accident, careless inexperience, or intentional as revenge for Former President Trump having kidnapped her child at a border crossing. In the interest of fairness I will inspect the fat ripe tomatoes still in the hatchback and if they are also squished I'll view it as a 'preponderance of evidence' and be on the lookout for the same bagger the next time, except that if her performance continues to be slip-shod she may not hold the job for long. We'll be back after viewing the tomatoes. 

Thursday July, 6, 2023

6:59 PM --

No matter how much you get, there'll be something more you'll wish you'd gotten.
- Carl Blare, late that afternoon

Wednesday July 5, 2023

12:30 NOON -- Religion As a Military Weapon Against Its Own Members --

Religious Facism in the Ranks

6:38 AM -- New Audio Mixing Console to Know About --

Angry Audio Rave

Tuesday July 4, 2023

4:20 PM -- Journey By Eleven Trains --

Neil Shaw Takes Us On a Journey from Cape to Cairo

YouTube

1:35 AM -- The Greatest Inventions of All Time --

This blog is mostly about radio broadcasting but another great invention comes into it every so often as we are also railroad buffs. That doesn't mean we ride the rails naked, but you can by booking your own compartment which is something unavailable on airplanes or busses. Among my regular daily pastimes, in addition to programming and listening to KDX Worldround Radio which shares living quarters here at the Internet Building, is also watching train ride videos generously and continuingly posted on YouTube by train enthusiasts. We've enjoyed viewing journeys aboard the California Zephyr, Empire Builder, Vermonter, Andean Express, Lapland Express, Orient Express, Rocky Mountaineer, Eurostar, Trans-Siberian Express, Lakeshore Limited, Coast Starlight, Capitol Limited, The Ghan, and many other passenger routes.

As a fantasy I envision starting a rail line dedicated to residential living. We'd have apartment coaches rented by mobile clients, private varnish permanent living luxury cars, community dining and observation cars, office cars, and rolling conference rooms. Like a cruise ship the residential train would follow an itinerary and do stopovers in scheduled cities. I think we could even negotiate cross-border arrangements as a multi-national enterprise and enjoy Canada, Mexico, and much of South America. The radio car would provide an onboard radio station also distributed by satellite and Wi-Fi across the internet and receivable by part 15 at each port of destination.

10:04 AM -- The Big Boss Dops By the Office --

Being one's own boss is the dream of some but can have unexpected pitfalls. I've been owning a group of low power radio stations since 2007 and on infrequent occasion stop by to operate them. As the only staff member in charge of running the operation I tend to pile things up in a back room awaiting later attention and repair. Holidays would be a time to catch up, today being a U.S. holiday, but during a holiday it seems more sensible to schedule catching up for the restart of the workweek, using the holiday as an opportunity to dabble and poke around. However, at long last, when almost everything is broken or malfunctioning, it comes time to crack a whip and give the worker an ultimatum. I am composing a memo to let my authority take a stand against laziness:

Dear Carl Blare:

KDX Radio is most fortunate to have someone with your highly qualified talent and skill level, and management has extended extraordinary leniency regarding your deliberative, laid back style in which no waste can be attributed to haste on your part, but we are close to being completely atrophied and stalled on the tracks amid almost total disrepair. So comes now a firm and irreversible direct order from the highest level of management commanding you to expend all effort to return this radio station to a fully functioning status. Failure to respond with immediate progress will result in your removal by security escort from this campus. Since you are the head of security it will be your responsibility to walk yourself out the door being sure to have all the locks changed.
With sincerity,

Carl Blare, Top Chief in Charge of Myself

After almost a week cooped up inside our modern well appointed building I this morning donned a security hat and patrolled the campus to be sure everything was acceptable, in particularly the public walkway used by dog walkers and baby buggy strollers. Recent rains left concern that bamboo trees might have slumped toward the ground perhaps blocking egress but it turns out the way is clear and I am free of concern for now. Come on by.

Monday July 3, 2023

8:48 AM -- Moving Through the Universe --

An enormous gravity hum

Quantamagazine

6:59 AM -- The AM Radio Band in the News --

Why the AM Band is Essential 

TheProgressive

Sunday July 2, 2023

2:44 PM -- The Way I Figure It --

Unless I'm forgetting something, there are mainly two serious sides to otherwise legal broadcasting under the FCC's regulations: the first, obviously, is knowing and adherring to the technical rules, and the other is taking care to honor licensing, copyright, and permissions to legally transmit the audio material presented over your station. This came to mind recently when I was looking to see what kind of classical concerts are available from one of my regular sources. Many of the concert programs require signing up with costly licensing agencies to acquire rights to certain works composed within recent years, performance rights benefitting the musicians and reproduction rights toward the recording engineers. I am sometimes lucky to find programs that will cost my poor station nothing with merely simple requirements, such as not making changes to the program and discontinuing use following an expiration date. How is this possible? It's in the details. Some older works are in the public domain, and recordings made by the originating radio station or producer are owned by that entity which retains the right to grant permissions. But, in the end, I only think I know something about these things. I also know that well paid legal counsel is apt to misinterpret the intricate laws and just as often fail to understand what they are expected to know.

8:00 AM -- Carl's Take --

No matter how good things are,
we can always find a reason to be unhappy about it.
- Carl Blare, another off-putting insight

6:15 AM -- Morning Coffee Break --

How'd you sleep? Things were very quiet and restful around here although we had the place offline for a 30 % chance of violent weather, but now everything's started back up. The website is online, the streaming channels have a test tone running, and I'm hearing an elongated infommercial for magnesium on the local AM station which was tuned in last night during a baseball rain delay as we listened for storm updates. I don't want to downplay the fact that some nearby locations had significant storm damage with roofs torn off, trees down, and power outages. Taking a look at today's weather outlook we see there's a 20% chance of 'weak thunderstorms' with no mention of extreme heat or bad air, so I guess we can expect a smooth day of broadcasting and blogging. We'll take special care to avoid posting 'misinformation', with Bill DeFelice on the watch. 

Saturday July 1, 2023

6:24 PM -- Worse Than a Bad Storm --

The website and radio servers were closed for three hours of intense storming during which I took a nap. When I slowly awakened I was hearing something far worse than bad weather and thought at first I was having a nightmare, but it turned out to be a gaggle of women on NPR aiming extreme voice-fry in my direction and telling me how to have lucid dreams. I reverted to religion and asked please, please, give me back the storm and make these women stop talking, but again I was ignored so I resumed atheism.

12:01 NOON -- Boiler Plate Claimers and Disclaimers --

The opinions expressed here or anywhere else by Carl Blare are those of his and his alone except to the degree he may not remember expressing them or possibly may have changed his mind or developed reservations subject to reconsideration but only to the extent those opinions collate with other instances of having extended points of view along the same lines regarding similar circumstances, situations and occurances taken as an average and constituting an amalgam. 

8:27 AM -- The Emensities --

The awe experienced at gazing into the constellations is in direct proportion to the magnitude of what we don't know. But standing back for a closer look the vastness speaks a silent message telling that the greater spacial territory of all existence consists of nothing whatsoever, known as empty space. There's mostly nothing there; nothing to know. It comes down to local contests over who is more ignorant than another.

7:50 AM -- Recent Recollections --

This website was closed overnight after a thunderstorm snuck up on us last night. For awhile I'd been hearing what sounded like large sheets of tin roofing material falling off a truck on a nearby highway, but when a blasty clap of thunder shook the walls we woke and invoked the shutdown procedure. Through the night further storms came and went, luckily none of them as serious as the weather bureau said they might be. There were no damaging winds nor golf-ball sized hail, although a brief outburst of small hail tinkled around.

This morning is still with filtered sunlight through fouled air. We cranked up our outputs, amounting to streaming radio programs and this Blare Blog and started sipping the coffee cup. Our station, KDX, no longer follows a set sign-on time. Instead, we just start whenever it's handy, but the programs we air follow the posted schedule unless they don't. We're actively trying to add programs about homelessness and the railroad situation and not infrequently bring unscheduled classical music performances to follow dark emotions into the lateness. Oh, and that's right, we'll be sending book reading from Arthur Rimbaud, maybe Sunday or on the 4th.

Might there be any other questions?