THD - "evolution of our decay" album

[manny at garfieldartworks.com]

> Ah, so they kicked you out and instructed new DJs to call the cops if
> anyone sees you near the station because you were just too good for
> them. Good story.

They kicked me out because two people there (not the whole staff, or even
remotely most of it)
were offended by aspects of my personality & action enough to collude,
cobble together some real and/or imagined peccadilloes, and then convince
three other people to back them. If what I did for the station, as well as
for the scene at large, was really taken into account, they wouldn't have
had a shot at doing so - most of the station staff was either on my side
(I got 15 signatures from station staff within a couple days of my
banning) or didn't care one way or the other.

Let's review a bit of what I was doing at the time I was banned, and what
I was supposedly accused of:

1) I was both PSA director and concert calendar director. I had served in
both of those volunteer positions for at least two years and faithfully
executed my function week in and week out. I used the office to make the
calendars and PSA cards etc. And in the course of using the office I
designed some show flyers on their computer and printed them out. Not
copies, just originals. A couple of sheets per week, in other words. At
the time, others at the station were using the same computer to do their
*homework*, generating dozens of sheets per week, and also to print up
other show flyers for their own shows. None of them were banned, of
course.

2) Also, it was accused that I was using the station to take calls from
people. That was patently untrue. I had a home phone and I had a message
machine there, so i was not using the station as an office. I made calls
to venues and others during the course of making calendar listings. Some
people from venues may have called the station while I wasn't there,
asking to speak to me. (In fact, one of the two people who concocted the
ban plot claimed to have received a handful of calls asking for me, as if
it was such a big deal just to tell someone 'he's not here'). But how is
that different from anyone calling the station and asking for someone who
works at the station, but doesn' t happen to be there at the time?
Remember, this was in an area before everyone had cellphones. Station
staffers used the phone all the time to call out from it.

3) I had provided the station with hundreds of hard-to-find import/indie
experimental/industrial
albums and CD at rockbottom wholesale prices, for which the station never
even had to spend a dime for out of their Student Senate budget. Instead,
the station paid for them by trading in unwanted promos, which they would
have taken to Paul's or Dave's anyway if they didn't trade them with me
for cool albums. If you go to WRCT's library and look under experimental,
you'll still find those releases there that I provided to the station. The
music director, with whom i had no issues and who was not part of the five
people who banned me, had an understanding with me which worked quite well
as it enabled me to order records for myself from wholesalers while also
supplying them to the station at wholesale rates. Nobody was being hurt
(except the shitty bands whose CD were going to be traded away, anyway)
and  everyone was being helped.

Meanwhile, a simple misunderstanding about a single record (a Rasputina
promo CD), which I thought was up for grabs, totally owned up to taking
(even though no one knew who had taken it - you've got to ask, why would I
finger myself for no reason, if it wasn't an honest mistake?) and
returned, was brought up as the *only* *one* *clear* evidence of supposed
'theft', which simply never happened. No theft ever occurred - merely
transfer of unwanted albums in equal measure for desired albums. All of
which the music director was OK with. No theft was ever proven. No
examples were given. It was just merely *accused*, without any proof or
citations, and would never have stood up in any court other than a
kangaroo one.

4) I had tried to get the station to run concert announcement carts (not
just for me but for concerts all around town) which would be the impetus
for being able to give away many concert tickets to shows. In other words,
I was trying to serve as the function of promotions director, a position
which the station had not had for many years due to its total lack of
caring about connecting with the outside community. I was trying to give
the station some real promotional weight and significance in the music
scene. At the time of being banned, I had recently been rebuffed from
using the production facilities at WRCT by one of the very two people who
started this plan. That is no coincidence.

5) I had been accused of 'threatening' people. However the only instance
that could be brought up
is that one of the two people who started the plot said that one time,
years before, i said something about wanting to 'snap their neck'. I
didn't deny doing it (it was so long ago that how could I possibly
remember a tossed off comment like that, and as far as I know I could have
been quoting the Prong lyrics 'snap your fingers, snap your neck') but I
asked the kangaroo assemblage if they could think of any other instances
of supposed 'threats' and no one had anything to add except one instance
of a wrestling altercation many years ago. Which just so happened to be
with the friendly, on-my-side music director with whom I had the
understanding about the CDs. The music director no longer cared about our
fight from long ago, but apparently to the other people who had nothing do
with it, it was an issue for them and therefore somehow another example.
So, a vastly trumped up charge. Practically a lie.

6) Finally, I had been accused of missing the beginning of my show by the
program director.
This was in fact the only true accusation. I had in fact been warned about
it before, and that was
grounds for losing my show for the semester. Which I would have been
perfectly willing to accept
as due punishment. Losing my show for a semester, however, was certainly
not grounds for
being banned from station, especially when I was serving other useful
functions. There were certainly other people who were on the station staff
who did things (such as engineering etc)
who didn't have a show that semester.

So that's pretty much it. I got accused of theft, threatening people,
printing flyers on their printer, and having people call me at the
station. All of that was either trumped up to make it look like a way
bigger deal than it was, or not even true at all. The only true accusation
was that I had repeatedly been late to my show for most of that semester.
And that's it.

THAT is the 'story', as you like to call it.

Also, regarding the dictum to new DJs and the cops -
That is a standard procedure they did for anyone they banned from the
station.
It applies to anyone they banned, and they banned other people as well for
doing things a lot more odious than anything i had either actually done or
was falsely accused of.

I didn't do anything to insinuate that I would come back to the station
and doing anything untoward. I never said threats, I never typed threats.
(In fact, the only thing I did do was circulate a petition amongst WRCT
staff, off station grounds). Therefore, the haters were merely following
procedure, plus hating me as they did, and their justification for banning
me being so flimsy and unwarranted, they were simply so afraid that I
would cause trouble. Which I did not.

'New DJs', ten years later, would have no idea what I looked like, nor
would they possibly care to follow that dictum anyway, so that part of it
is pretty useless at this point, and just a relic of that particular
incident and nothing more.

If you recall correctly, I was a DJ on WRCT for 12 years before the ban,
from 1986 on. Obviously I could have been banned any other time. I had
been doing promotions for the station in the past, and I had been
providing the hard-to-find records for many years previous. But I wasn't
banned until 1998. So it didn't have to do with what I did over that time,
so much as how this particular group of five people (and mostly the two
who hatched the plot) perceived me as a hated threat
at that exact particular time.

Conjecture: Had I not done a show that summer (1998) on the station, or
quit my summer show saying I couldn't handle it, and returned, say, two
years later, the people who hatched the plot would no longer have been in
the positions they were, and I would probably still be happily involved at
WRCT in some respect, with people at the station who didn't hate me having
my back. I present the following evidence: the year after I was banned,
one of the two plotters became General Manager (hence, a power grab). Then
the year after that, this person (and the other original plotter) left the
station and never was heard from since.

In retrospect, I do wish I had walked away at that particular time, but
there was no way of knowing
that, because the banning dictum came upon me suddenly, without warning
and without recourse.
So, that can only be hindsight.  I was there in the wrong place at the
wrong time, mixing it up
with the wrong people.