Fan Mail

At my high school, there was a radio station, WNTH 88.1 FM “La Voz of Nueva Trier”. My senior year, I was the music director of the station, which was pretty sweet gig mainly because every day was like Christmas. My co-music director, Ross, and I would receive a stack of packages which we would then rip open with all the delicacy of lions killing a zebra. But, the fun didn’t end there. We had our own office, the ubiquitous “C Room” for which only we had keys. And we spent most of ninth period sitting in that room, shooting the shit and “reviewing” (aka divvying up) all the cds that we had received. Some of my fondest memories from high school involve listening to records with Ross at the station. I distinctly recall getting yelled at for running around and singing Bad Religion’s “American Jesus”. That song just had such great hooks and harmonies.

Anyhow, when I got to college, I decided to get involved in radio. I was pretty impressed with Columbia’s station, WKCR because 1) it had an 80 mile broadcast radius stemming from a transmitter stationed atop the World Trade Center and 2) it broadcast virtually everything but rock music. I was all into “expanding my musical horizons” and I signed up to expand in the direction of country music. Now, when I say country music, I don’t mean Travis Tritt, Shania Twain, Garth Brooks country music. I mean pre-1960, post-old timey country music like Hank Williams and Jimmie Rodgers and Moon Mullican and Bob Wills: cowboys and trainmen. After undertaking a semester of technical training and a country music education by a middle-aged gentleman who booked country and bluegrass shows in Mamaroneck, NY, I became the host of Honky Tonkin’ which aired every Tuesday night from 9:30-11:00 p.m.

It was a pretty sweet time slot, and I had loyal followers who had been listening to the show longer than I had been alive. There were crazy old men who requested Roy Acuff songs every week. And there were some younger guys who would call up and flirt with me. I guess it seemed safe.

When Valentine’s Day weekend rolled around, so did the station’s annual Country Music Festival, a 72 hour event featuring time slots dedicated to the likes of trucking songs and Patsy Cline. There were only three deejays who actually knew anything about country music, but we enlisted another two to cover the endless broadcast. Being the newest to the station of all the deejays, I drew some of the worst time slots like the 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. shifts. However, the one thing that I was really excited about was the opportunity to host the first two hours of a six hour stint of Hank Williams songs.

Throughout the entire festival, I was bogged down with a brutal cold. I would arrive at the station with a thermos of hot tea, a box of kleenex, a bag of Riccola cough drops, a bottle of water, and more cold medicine than might be legally allowable for one individual to ingest.
Despite my illness, the show needed to go on. So, deejay I did, incessantly apologizing for the nasal voice and the cough that sounded more like a 50 year old smoker with a 30 year habit than a college freshman with bronchitis. I survived the endless weekend. Barely.

A couple of weeks later, there was some mail at the station for me. I had fan mail! I don’t know why, but I did. Some were short notes thanking me for playing a particular song and one was an entire set of lyrics about me and my illness called “Ali Gold has a Cold” to the tune of Hank Williams’ “Tear in my Beer.”. But, there was a letter that stood out from all the rest. The front of it was rubber stamped with an ominous warning which made me chuckle and a bit wary: “MAILED FROM NORTHERN STATE PRISON NEWARK, NEW JERSEY.” This is what it said:

2-14-99

Dear Ms. Ali Gold,

I’m sitting here in my cell at Northern State Prison listening to your fine Hank Williams special and I just had to write to thank you. At least 80% of the time a man sits in prison is composed of staring out of the two by four plexiglass cell window. You have no idea what a tender mercy it is to have Hank’s tunes as a soundtrack while I watch the freight trains roll by the prison towards Newark.

I’ve spent the weekend listening to the country festival and reading Steinbeck’s East of Eden. Such books are tougher to come by than drugs in this place. Gov. Witman in her wisdom has cut off our access to literature unless the books are deemed ‘educational’ or ‘religious’. My mom tried to send me a copy of Dostoyevski’s Brothers Karamazov but it was sent back as it was judged to be ‘non-educational’.

I don’t think the ‘world’ out there has much of an idea of how bad things are getting in Jersey’s prison system. I’m not crying about having to serve time. I stole some stuff and by the ruler of society I owe the state a little chunk of my life. What is so frustrating is that the state seems to be making a deliberate effort to keep those of us who would like to try and improve themselves while they are here. I did a radio show back in the early ‘90s...It was called ‘The Cool Water Canteen’. I loved doing it. I played a lot of Hank, Woody Guthrie, John Prine, Neville Brothers, Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, that sort of stuff.

I have to tell you it was a tough decision for me to stick with WKCR tonight after 8 p.m. I’m a big fan of Vince Skelsarh’s “Idiot’s Delight” on 102.7 WNEW 8 p.m.-2a.m. Sunday nights. If you haven’t checked out his show you really should he matches his sets and segues so brilliantly it’s almost like he plays his CD player as a musical instrument.

I’ll be tuning into your Tuesday show. Since this can’t possibly reach you in time for this week’s show, I wonder if you could dig up a Leadbetter version of “Birmingham Jail” or Woody Guthrie’s “Pastures of Plenty” for me next week. Maybe John Prine and Bonnie Raitt’s “Angel from Montgomery”?

Let me finish this with a quick Woody Guthrie story.

After my dad died in ‘88 I got it into my head to ride my thumb across America to San Francisco. I’d just got out of the Air Force and I wanted to get one adventure in before I checked into college.

I made it out to Frisco in about seven days. I t was a really great trip. On my way back East I ducked down to New Orleans for a few days. Well there’s no such thing as a few days in new Orleans. I stayed at a little hole in the wall called Bonaparte’s Retreat. I won’t go into the madness that went on down there, suffice to say I went through $2,300 like it was play money. I was down to my last $20. It was going to take at least four days to hitch a ride home, one day just to walk far enough out of town so I could even start hitching. Long story short, I ran into a cat who had eleven Wood Guthrie albums for sale for $100. I offered him my last $20 and he gave me the albums and a booklet of McDonald’s coupons for the trip. It took me nine days to make it home to Jersey, those McDonald’s coupons saved my butt. Got Woody home safely as well.

Well thanks again for the Hank. You will have a loyal Tuesday night listener from here on out.

I know nobody writes letters anymore but feel free to do so if you ever need a convict’s perspective for a sociology class or something.

Very truly yours,
Paul