Great Chanukah show this Sunday

Join me for a special Chanukah preview show this Sunday, 12/18, from 10-11am Pacific Time on the Portland Yiddish Hour on 90.7fm KBOO. I'll be playing really cool Chanukah tunes from Y-Love and Yasmin Levy. I'll also be featuring Chanukah songs from the Klezmatics' Woody Guthrie Chanukah album, which came out in 2006. If you have no idea how the Klezmatics tie in with Woody Guthrie, you can find out on Sunday! hint, hint...
The Klezmatics will be in town next Tuesday, 12/20, playing at the Aladdin Theatre, btw, and you might want to check out the show if you're in the Portland area. It's going to be a great start to Chanukah.

If you're outside Portland, you can stream the show live online at http://kboo.fm.

Hope you can tune in! Please send a link to this blog entry to everyone you know who might be interested.

A toiznt dank!

Thank you to everyone who called in to KBOO to support the Yiddish Hour this past Sunday during our membership drive. We more than doubled our goal for the show; in fact, we brought in more money than any other show that aired on Sunday.

A thousand thanks.

BTW, if you didn't get a chance to become a member, you can go to KBOO's website and join online, or tune in this coming Sunday for another special show hosted by my friend Ed Kraus. I'll be on the air as well, in a support capacity.

Special Yiddish Hour this Sunday

For those of you who celebrated the holidays, a sweet and healthy new year.

This Sunday, Oct. 4, I hope you can tune in to a special edition of the Yiddish Hour at 10am on KBOO 90.7fm (for those of you outside the Portland area, you can stream the program live online at http://kboo.fm). I'll be featuring performances from "Happy Hour with Sholom Aleichem," stories by the incomparable SA read by actors from the Jewish Theatre Collaborative, directed by Sacha Reich. Sacha herself will be on the air for a special story about Sukkot, and will fill us in on the JTC's upcoming programs for Jewish Book Month in November and December.

This program is part of KBOO's fall membership drive. I know, I know, nobody wants to listen to a radio show during a membership drive, with its constant demand that you, the audience, step up and support the station. Believe me, as a 20+ year non-commercial radio listener and member, I get it. I'd be happy to never be subjected to another membership drive again, either as a listener or a host.

Except...

Without audience support during the membership drive, programs like the Yiddish Hour and radio stations like KBOO will cease to exist. That is not hyberbole, just an inconvenient truth (sorry, Al). These are desperate times for grass-roots-run organizations like KBOO, which gets more than 80% of its funding directly from listeners who become members. I know that many of you tune in regularly, whether or not I am hosting, to hear the music and interviews we present on the Yiddish Hour every week. I know that you value the unique programming we offer on the Yiddish Hour. A lot of you have gone out of your way to tell me how much you enjoy listening to the show, and that you have made us "destination radio" on Sunday mornings. That means a lot to me, and to my co-hosts. Without KBOO, a whole lot of unique programs will disappear, including the Yiddish Hour.

Here's the thing: what we offer on the Yiddish Hour can't be found anywhere else in NW Oregon. If that matters to you, please make a point of calling us during the drive on Sunday and becoming a member of KBOO. The specific amount is unimportant; it could be as little as $5 or as much as your personal financial situation allows. What matters is that you show your support for the show and the station. If you're in Portland, you can call us at (503) 232-8818; if you're outside of the Portland metro area, you can call us toll-free at 1-877-500-5266. We'd prefer you to call if you can, because the ringing phones really give a boost to those of us at the station, not to mention all the volunteers who are waiting to take your call, but you can also become a member online at https://kboo.fm/membershipform. If you join online, please mention the Yiddish Hour in the comments section.

For those of you who have issues with some of KBOO's other programs, I understand and share your concerns. My co-host, Ed Kraus, is working on a new show about Jewish news and current events to offer different perspectives about Jewish issues than what is presently available on KBOO. I encourage you to listen to his debut show, Shalom Portland, and let the Program Director, Chris Merrick, know that you'd like it to stay on the air. You can contact him at chrism_8032@yahoo.com.

In addition, I think it's important to remember that KBOO is a community radio station, which means it presents all kinds of programs with all kinds of viewpoints. I don't agree with or even like a fair amount of what I hear on KBOO, but I look at it this way: Bernice Johnson Reagon, co-founder of Sweet Honey in the Rock, once said, with regard to building coalitions, "If you're comfortable with everyone in your coalition, then your coalition isn't big enough." The same is true of community. You don't have to agree with everything KBOO puts out on the air; I certainly don't. But I don't need to agree with or even like everyone in my community to support and value the uniqueness of that community.

Thanks for your help; hope you'll join me on Sunday.

Does sustainable food stack up?

Heard this earlier today on NPR's Talk of the Nation. An interesting discussion, worth listening to.

Tune in this Sunday

I'll be hosting a special Mother's Day edition of the Yiddish Hour this Sunday (actually, the fact that it's Mother's Day is incidental), featuring a Catskills musical retrospective-Mickey Katz, the Barry Sisters, etc. etc. You definitely won't hear this stuff anywhere else on the radio, so I hope you can join me and tune in.

Jews, Food & Ethics show now online

I am happy to announce that my radio show, Jews, Food and Ethics is now available online. When you visit the Yiddish Hour page at KBOO, click on the "Audio" tab at the top. Scroll down to the second audio file and you'll find it. You can stream it from the site or download it to listen to at your convenience.

If you know anyone you think would be interested in hearing this show, please forward them the link to the Yiddish Hour site, rather than sending the audio file itself. For one thing, the file is quite large and would take awhile to send by itself, but more importantly, this show is part of the Yiddish Hour and I'd like people who may not have visited our site before to check it out.

I look forward to hearing your feedback. I've never done a show of this type before, and I must say, after conceiving, planning and recording it over a period of nine months or so, I feel like I got as close as I ever will to experiencing the miracle of birth. The best part of it is no stretch marks and no 2am feedings!

Jews, Food and Ethics radio show-an update

Thanks to all of you who tuned in to listen to my Jews, Food and Ethics show on KBOO last weekend. I appreciate the support, particularly as this was my first-ever foray into a public affairs/interview-type show. I think, all things considered, that it went fairly well. I certainly learned a lot about how to do this kind of radio, and will put it to good use next time.

If you weren't able to catch the show live, it will be available on the Yiddish Hour site. I have to edit the show a bit before I can put it online, but because Passover is next week, I probably won't be able to get it up on our site before next weekend. However, I do want to assure you that the show will be available to download, and I'll post here when it's ready.

If you're interested in more information about any of the topics I discussed on the show, you can find links to my guests, the eco-kashrut movement and the Hekhsher Tzedek Initiative at our site. Click on the Playlists tab at the top of the page and you'll find a list of the music I played, along with the aforementioned links.

If you're Jewish, chag sameach. If not, happy spring.

Special Yiddish Hour show on Jews, food and ethics

Hope you all can join me this Sunday, March 29, at 10am PDT for a special edition of the Yiddish Hour on KBOO, 90.7 fm. This week I'll be focusing on the intersection of Jews, food and ethics, just in time for Passover. I'll discuss the concepts of eco-kashrut with Rabbi Arthur Waskow, founder of the Shalom Center in Philadelphia, PA, and I'll also be speaking with Rabbi Morris Allen, founder of the Hechsher Tzedek Initiative. In addition, I'll be interviewing two local Jewish organic farmers, Shari Raider of Sauvie Island Organics and Lyle Stanley of Gee Creek Farm.

Eco-kashrut is a growing movement in Jewish circles to re-interpret the Jewish dietary laws of kashrut (kosher). Eco-kashrut expands on traditional kosher practice by incorporating the ethics of sustainable growing systems, as well as humane, healthy animal production and fair treatment for farm workers and meat processors.

The Hechsher Tzedek Initiative has created the Magen Tzedek (Righteous Shield), a new ethical certification seal. Kosher food companies who successfully apply for ethical certification from the Hekhsher Tzedek commission will display the Magen Tzedek seal on their products.

Please tell anyone you think would be interested in a discussion of food, values and ethics from a Jewish perspective. Out of town folks can stream the show live online for free at www.kboo.fm.

If you can't listen to the show this Sunday, it will be available for downloading at the Yiddish Hour site at KBOO (http://kboo.fm/PortlandYiddishHour). We can't usually do this because there are copyright issues pertaining to music that prevent us from podcasting the show, but since this show is original material, we can post it on our site.

Thanks! Hope you can tune in this Sunday.

catching up

Okay, I can't possibly post about everything that's been going on, so I'll do it as I can. Top of my list: radio training.

I spent 7 hours at KBOO last weekend attending two different trainings on how to host music shows and also how to host public affairs shows (I'm planning a public affairs-style show on the Yiddish Hour later this month about the eco-kashrut movement; more on that later).  I find myself thinking a lot about one thing our intrepid trainer, Marilyn Pittman, kept saying, which is that as hosts our responsibility is to take care of our audience. 

What does that mean? Well, several things. For one, it means that you need to give your audience a reason to tune in and a reason to keep listening to you. You need to sound competent and comfortable and conversational but the irony is that you can't actually talk the way you do in regular conversation because THIS IS RADIO. You just have to SOUND like you're having a regular conversation, but there's a whole lotta craft that goes into sounding conversational. It doesn't happen by accident. It takes preparation and warming up and a lot of time. It takes training, and being serious about your work, even if your show is comedy. Maybe even especially if your show is comedy.

Another thing about taking care of the audience is to remember that only 1 in 100 people actually calls a radio show. In other words, the callers are not your audience. Your audience is the other 99 people listening; it's easy to assume the callers represent the audience, but they don't, esp. on public affairs and news shows. At KBOO that's an important point to remember, because people who tend to call KBOO shows think they have a right to rant and ramble simply because it's community radio, and everyone should have a right to weigh in.

So now I'm going to say something that won't go over well in some circles, but this is my blog, so what the hell. Being a host is a privilege. Being on the radio is a privilege. I take that seriously. And I take a lot of time to prepare my show, both because I'm still pretty new at it and also because the audience deserves to hear a quality product. I'm a radio consumer as well as a host; I listen to the radio many hours a day. I'm trying to make the kind of show I'd like to hear (I hope other people like to hear it too).

What isn't going to go over with some folks is my beef with people who don't take their hosting duties that seriously, who pride themselves on not sounding "professional," (and they say it like that, with finger quotes), who ramble and um and er and clearly just rolled out of bed and into the air room. Their shows sound like crap, and even if the content is interesting I find it really annoying, bordering on disrespectful. I'm not referring to anyone in particular, but if you tune into KBOO at any given time, particularly on the weekday public affairs shows, you'll hear what I mean. The audience deserves better. I'm the audience. So are you. If the prime job of the host is to take care of the audience, then the audience for these shoddily-done shows is ill-served indeed.

Jewish Renaissance music

I'll be hosting the Yiddish Hour Sunday at 10 a.m on KBOO. This week I'll be temporarily renaming the show the Sephardic Hour, and I'll be playing Jewish music from the Renaissance, as well as a lot of Sephardic and Ladino tunes.

If you're wondering what the heck Jewish Renaissance music is, well, it's Jewish music written during the Renaissance. Wanna know more? Great! Tune in Sunday. 

If you know anyone outside the Portland area who would enjoy the show, please let them know they can hear it free online at www.kboo.fm. The show cannot be podcasted or downloaded for copyright reasons.

Remember, all you devotees of This American Life in Portland who are conflicted because TAL is on at the same time as The Yiddish Hour, you can catch that show on Wednesday nights at 8pm on OPB, or download it as a free podcast to listen to anytime you like. So you have no (legitimate) excuse for not checking out the Yiddish Hour. How's that for a little Jewish guilt?

Hope you can join me this Sunday. If you do catch the show, I and the other hosts would really appreciate it if you could take a moment to check out our Web site and let us know what you think of the show, the site, the new hosts, etc. etc. We also post playlists and links to musicians and CDs, if you want to know more about the music. All comments, positive and otherwise (although we prefer the negatives be constructive, please), are welcome.

Zei gezunt!

Tune in this Sunday, Oct. 26

I'll be hosting the Yiddish Hour Sunday at 10 a.m. and playing music from all over the Jewish map, both geographically and musically speaking.

If you know anyone outside the Portland area who would enjoy the show, please let them know they can hear it free online at www.kboo.fm. The show cannot be podcasted or downloaded for copyright reasons.

Remember, all you devotees of This American Life in Portland who are conflicted because TAL is on at the same time as The Yiddish Hour, you can catch that show on Wednesday nights at 8pm on OPB, or download it as a free podcast to listen to anytime you like. So you have no (legitimate) excuse for not checking out the Yiddish Hour. How's that for a little Jewish guilt?

Hope you can join me this Sunday.

Tune in this Sunday, Oct. 5

I'll be hosting the Yiddish Hour again this Sunday at 10 a.m. on KBOO and playing a terrific story. It's a retelling of Peter and the Wolf, called Pincus and the Pig, written and narrated by Maurice Sendak. Any of you with kids over five will enjoy this one, and adults will like it as well.

Also, if you know anyone outside the Portland area who would enjoy the show, please encourage them to listen for free online at www.kboo.fm. As I mentioned earlier, for reasons of copyright we cannot podcast the show. 

I've heard from a few folks who are diehard listeners to This American Life that it's a conflict for them because TAL and the Yiddish Hour are on at the same time here. There is a solution: you can download TAL as a free podcast and listen to it whenever you like. If that doesn't work for you, TAL is rebroadcast locally on Wednesdays at 8pm. 

So please tune in this Sunday and enjoy the longest continuously running Yiddish radio program west of the Mississippi.  Thanks!

On the air

Today I made my debut as a host for The Yiddish Hour, a radio show broadcast on KBOO 90.7FM, our local community radio station. I didn't mention it beforehand because I was kinda nervous and didn't really want anyone to listen, in case I totally messed up (at KBOO the music program hosts are also engineering the show, so I'm responsible for all the technical stuff as well as the program content).

The Yiddish Hour is hosted by a revolving crew of folks. It was begun 30 years ago by Jack and Reva Falk, along with some other folks, and it's been on the air every Sunday morning at 10 am ever since. Despite its name, the show is not Yiddish-centric; we play anything connected to Jewish music, be it Ashkenazic, Sephardic or whatever. We also do interviews with local folks in the Jewish community, and sometimes read recipes connected to certain holidays (hamentaschen for Purim, for example). We tend to avoid politics and concentrate on culture.

I'm a professionally trained singer and I taught music to groups of kids and adults for 12 years, so being "on" isn't really issue for me, nor is talking into a mike. Hosting a radio show is just another kind of performance. I was more worried that I'd have technical issues with the equipment, since this is all new to me and there's a lot to remember. However, it seems I did fine, two small glitches notwithstanding. The few people I did tell about it said I sounded good, which is always nice to hear. And now I've been bit by the radio bug and am really looking forward to my next show, which will be in two weeks, Sunday, Oct. 5. Interested listeners can tune in locally at 90.7 FM, and you non-Portlanders can listen live online by going to KBOO's Web site (for reasons of copyright, we cannot podcast our show; you have to listen to it live).

If you can tune in on Oct. 5, I'd love to hear from you. And if you can't, hope you can tune in some other Sunday. I'll try to remember to post when I'll be on next, so stay tuned.

Busy busy

Spring has sprung, at least as far as the calendar is concerned (here in Oregon the weather hasn't quite figured it out yet). I've been running around doing all kinds of unrelated things: yesterday I spent four hours getting trained on radio production at KBOO, our local community radio station. Why the sudden interest in radio? I was strongarmed asked by my pal Jack, who, along with his wife Reva, has been producing a show called The Yiddish Hour on  for the last 29 years. They'd like a break from the weekly obligation of hosting a show (ie, they wanna go away for the weekend occasionally), so I, along with three other folks, will be stepping in to co-host the show as soon as we get trained. 

Intro to Studio Production (as taught at KBOO) is interesting because it's all old-school. We're learning on boards that may be older than I am (well, perhaps not, but it's not a bad guess), and we're learning how to use all the old-school technology, including turntables, because KBOO has a huge library full of LPs and they're still perfectly usable. KBOO also has tons of CDs and computer files and the capability to use them as well, but I haven't learned the digital stuff yet; yesterday was all analog and obsolete technology but it was cool learning how to use it nonetheless. I didn't think I'd be able to retain what I learned at first, but we did a lot of hands-on practice stuff and we even have a homework assignment or two to prove we know how to use the equipment without destroying it. Intro to Digital Production is next on my list.

Also put in much of our veggies, both seeds and starts. I'll be uploading pictures later today or tomorrow. I admit I'm not a huge fan of the physical labor of gardening; I'm not one of those who waxes rhapsodically about raising food with only a shovel and the honest sweat of my brow. I think this is because, while I'm not averse to sweating (I go to the gym regularly and work out hard when I'm there), my knees are averse to anything that involves bending over or squatting. According to a sports medicine doctor I saw in grad school, my knees are 15-20 years older than I am (that would put them in their mid-50s), so I think their crankiness is kinda justified here. 

What I do love about gardening is the act of growing the food, watching and being involved in the process of bringing it out of the ground (minus the squatting stuff), sharing it with friends, subverting the industrial food market by opting out of it, and, oh, yeah, eating. 

Speaking of food, I'm off to the Farmer's Market to meet friends and buy tasty locally grown stuff, asparagus, strawberries, salad greens, and perhaps some more veggie starts if I see something that tempts me.