SPECIAL GUEST HOSTESS:

Elvira, Mistress of the Dark

Special guest hostess Cassandra Peterson, known to the world as Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, takes us into the deep, dark (and haunted???)corners of the Pacifica Radio Archives, this week on From the Vault. After all, it is the week of All Hallows’ Eve and we have a ton of scary stuff in the Pacifica Radio Archives, so who better to present some of the very scariest radio drama ever recorded? Sit back, relax, and join Elvira as we hear two of the most ghoulish and ghastly stories in our collection, taken from a radio production produced in 1972 by Charles Potter and David Rapkin of the horror stories “The Monkey’s Paw” and “The Cask of Amontillado” by WW Jacobs and Edgar Allen Poe, respectively.

The second half of this week’s episode features a delightfully frightful interview with Elvira… Join Archives Director Brian DeShazor and FTV Writer and Producer Christopher Sprinkle as they speak with The Mistress of the Dark about the origins of Elvira, the war in Iraq, PETA, and Elvis. Happy Halloween!!!

Archival recordings used in this week’s episode, Halloween Special!:

BC0825.03 Two Horror Adaptations MORE INFO

KZ0282 Children of the Corn by Stephen King MORE INFO

BB0760 Boris Karloff MORE INFO

BB2118 Elsa Lanchester Herself MORE INFO

Click here to purchase a copy of this program or learn more about and purchase copies of the historic archival recordings used within this episode. To purchase a CD copy of this program by phone, please call Pacifica Radio Archives at 800.735.0230 x 262.

Click here to send an email to From the Vault.

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“Well, heart disease is already a major public health problem in this country, and a major source of death. In thirty years — after 30 years of a generation eating this kind of food, what is the public health profile of the American population going to look like?”
~Interviewer Abraham Aig
“Its going to continue to be of epidemic proportions.”
~George Christakis, Royal Palm Cardiovascular Clinic – Florida

Taken from “Junk Food Junket,” a 1976 radio documentary.

This fall, the movie adaptation of Eric Schlosser’s best-selling book “Fast Food Nation” will hit theaters around the country. There will be interviews with Schlosser and the actors attached to the project, and they will undoubtedly talk about the ‘evils’ of fast food — the calories, the fat, the rampant obesity in America, and the huge corporations behind it all. It is not the first movie to explore this topic, and it certainly won’t be the last, as this issue is once again pushed to the forefront of the American conscious.

Of course, remember, we’ve heard these arguments before in one form or another for the last couple of decades; mostly in movies or print, and sometimes on the radio. While the cry for action may have been getting louder and louder in more recent years, all along Pacifica Radio has been exploring the fast food and obesity dilemma with clarity and balance, resulting in some really fantastic radio programming, programming that was wisely filed away in the Pacifica Radio Archives for special occasions just like this. So, this week on From the Vault, its time to cash in on that posterity and preview our savory collection of recordings from decades past that address the ideas of food and health sciences in America. Indeed, the message hasn’t changed…

The first half of this week’s episode will feature selections from Junk Food Junket(1976), and You Are What You Eat (1972); the premonition of these recordings is absolutely astounding! The second half features a recording entitled A Healthy Diet for the New Millennium (2000) by “The Mad Cowboy” Howard Lymon, a cattle rancher who grabbed international attention with his accusations of unsafe meat in the United States– particularly the peculiarities Mad Cow Disease. So sit back, relax, and enjoy a super-sized helping of classic inflammatory Pacifica Radio!

Archival recordings used in this week’s episode, Our Fast Food Nation:

BC2938 Junk Food Junket MORE INFO

BC1126.01-.04 You Are What You Eat MORE INFO

PZ0365 Howard Lyman: A Healthy Diet for the New Millennium MORE INFO

Click here to purchase a copy of this program or learn more about and purchase copies of the historic archival recordings used within this episode. To purchase a CD copy of this program by phone, please call Pacifica Radio Archives at 800.735.0230 x 262.

Click here to send an email to From the Vault.

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“This is ‘A Chicken Ain’t Nothing but a Bird,’ the radio program that dares to explore the long and intimate relationship between humans and chickens… For reasons that I don’t really understand, I’m fascinated by chickens. But I’ll confess that it’s an affection from afar. I’ve never really had a special relationship with particular chickens.”
~Adi Gevins, narrating the opening to her program “A Chicken Ain’t Nothing but a Bird.”

Every week when producing From the Vault, we comb through hour after hour of historic audio looking for the perfect sound to incorporate into the show that week. Certain names seem to appear time and again on some the very best audio we discover: Elsa Knight Thomspson, Mike Hodel, and Dale Minor, among many others. We thought it was nigh time to celebrate the contributions of these Pacifica producers, starting with a tribute to the ‘Fairy Godmother of Community Radio,’ legendary producer Miss Adi Gevins.

Adi Gevins has produced more that 70 programs that are preserved within the Pacifica Radio Archives vault, and many of those have won awards. In fact, Adi has won virtually every major award given for radio documentary production: an Ohio State Award, an American Bar Asoociation Silver Gavel, numerous Golden Reels form the National Federation of Community Broadcasters, and two George Foster Peabody Awards- considered the highest accolade one can receive in journalism. This week we’ll explore a few of her programs that have generated so much critical praise.

The first half of the program will feature audio from the Ohio State Award winner One Billion Seconds Later, a mind-bending sound experience documenting the invention, rise, and appeal of LSD. And, we’ll explore the world of chickens, taken from “A Chicken Ain’t Nothing but a Bird,” a deliciously bizarre and funny documentary produced by Adi all about the feathered farm fowl. Finally, we’ll come full-circle with clips from the critically-acclaimed programs The Voices Inside Our Head and Me and My Shadow– a documentary about Cointelpro. While it was difficult trying to narrow our choices, because all of Adi’s 70 or so programs are so masterfully produced, we feel these four recordings are the most diverse and representative of her body of work.

The second half of From the Vault will find ourselves in conversation with Adi Gevins herself. Adi discusses the art of producing audio documentaries with a razor and tape, before the age of digital editing, and how the standard of ‘perfection’ within audio production has transformed over the years. Adi Gevins truly proves her claim to the title ‘The Fairy Godmother of Community Radio’ with her wonderful insight and understanding into the world of radio as art.

Archival recordings used in this week’s episode, Adi Gevins – The Fairy Godmother of Community Radio:

BC2215a-b One Billion Seconds Later: The Social History of LSD MORE INFO

SZ0467 A Chicken Ain’t Nothing but a Bird MORE INFO

SZ0543.01 The Voices Inside Your Head MORE INFO

BC2700 Me and My Shadow MORE INFO

Click here to purchase a copy of this program or learn more about and purchase copies of the historic archival recordings used within this episode. To purchase a CD copy of this program by phone, please call Pacifica Radio Archives at 800.735.0230 x 262.

Click here to send an email to From the Vault.

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“And bastard you can say, and hell, and damn, so I have to figure out which ones you couldn’t ever — and it came down to seven, but the list is open to amendment, and in fact, has been changed; by now, a lot of people have pointed things out to me, and I noticed some myself. The original seven words were: [expletives omitted]. Those are the ones that will curve your spine, grow hair on your hands, and maybe even bring us- God help us- peace without honor and a bourbon.”
~George Carlin performing his “Filthy Words” routine in 1973.

At 2:00 pm on Tuesday, October 30, 1973, WBAI 99.5 FM host Paul Gorman broadcast, unedited, George Carlin’s “Filthy Words” monologue, and Pacifica Radio listeners in New York City were treated that autumn day to a bold and controversial test of the First Amendment. Rich- very rich- with expletives, that first unedited public broadcast of “Filthy Words” would be become the genesis for one of the most important landmark Supreme Court decisions on free speech in the last 30 years. The fallout from that historic broadcast, as documented and preserved in the vault of the Pacifica Radio Archives, provides the inspiration for this week’s episode of From the Vault.

F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, or the ‘Carlin Case’ as it is now commonly called, was really born from the action of a lone radio listener whom filed a complaint with FCC some weeks after the original “Filthy Words” broadcast in 1973 on WBAI. After a volley of threats from the FCC, Pacifica Foundation (which owns and operates WBAI) dug in its heels and fought back, in the name of protecting its Mission and the interests of free speech in the United States. After an initial court victory by Pacifica, the FCC appealed to the Supreme Court, which in 1978 rejected Pacifica’s arguments and effectively established itself as a moral authority on what’s decent and what’s not.

In the first half hour, we’ll dig through the vault and explore our wonderful collection of ‘Carlin Case’ interviews, produced for WBAI in 1978 by Joe Cuomo and Mickey Waldman. The interviews are with host Paul Gorman, former FCC Commissioners, a lawyer for the National Association of Broadcasters, and a minister. Then, we’ll hear a reading of the letter that started it all, followed by a healthy dose of Carlin’s “Filthy Words” (edited for language, of course!).

In the second half hour we will hear from George Carlin himself, in excerpts from two wonderful interviews he gave – one in 1970 before his “Filthy Words” routine was broadcast on WBAI, and the other conducted by Larry Bensky at KPFA in June 1997, nearly 30 years later. Together, they provide an interesting time-lapse perspective of one of the more controversial and brilliant comedians alive today.

Archival recordings used in this week’s episode, George Carlin, Pacifica, and the F.C.C.:

BB2893 Comedian in Transition / George Carlin MORE INFO

IZ0115 The Carlin Case MORE INFO

KZ0212 The Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television MORE INFO

PZ0315.46 Living Room: Interview with Comedian George Carlin MORE INFO

Click here to purchase a copy of this program or learn more about and purchase copies of the historic archival recordings used within this episode. To purchase a CD copy of this program by phone, please call Pacifica Radio Archives at 800.735.0230 x 262.

Click here to send an email to From the Vault.

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Pacifica Radio Archives’ Director Brian DeShazor and From the Vault Writer, Editor, and Producer Christopher Sprinkle join Sound Exchange’s Jay Kugelman for a discussion on the Pacifica Radio’s latest nationally syndicated program, From the Vault.

LISTEN to Sound Exchange

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