Oakland Tribune from Oakland, California • 39

'4 tv-- 1 Oafilanfc (Tribune March 12, 1978 39 know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death. Patrick Henry, March 23, 1775. Fiset Jazz could be the i first fatality in the battle for a radio station They can use. the regulatory process of our government to beat me to death. They trying to grind inie into the ground.

Pat Henry March 10, 1978. The Solar Philosopher By GEORGE ROSS Staff Writer of broadcasters to operate In the public interest and to afford reasonable opportunities for the discussion of conflicting views on issues of public importance. Everybody in sight and beyond the horizon loves KJAZ. This so-called access obligation is seen by and ii FCC as an affirmative and independent Everybody within earshot wants to keep on the air. KJAZ KJAZ.

A nice slice of the listening audience ratings up 35 percent in a year stay tuned to KJAZ. Everybody with a few exceptions wants to keep spinning, unaltered, its library of Your normal, everyday American male is a working stiff, caught up in cost of living and taxes, harassed and tired, who struggles to put a few bucks away so he can take a much-needed The vacation, of course, costs him 'so much nowadays that he has to go back to work with a vengeance after its over Just to keep his head above water. By the first week back Its like he never went And what does he have? A straw hat that says Acapulco on it that seemed a necessary bargain in Acapulco, but which he wouldnt consider wearing back here. He has ticket stubs from his flight and he idly wonders if somehow he could keep them as documentation for some future tax deduction a business trip, maybe. But after a week back he throws them away.

No point in getting IRS after him for some phony claim. So what does he really have from his vacation? He wanted desperately to come home with a suntan. Thats proof and something he can look at in the mirror, but suntans acquired on winter vacations are fleeting things. They usually disappear just as his plane touches down' at the airport coming home. No matter whether they were acquired in the Hawaiian Islands (those tans turn yellowish for a day before fading, giving the poor guy a Jaundiced look,) or from Mexico (fast tan, fast fade) or from the Caribbean (sunburn and peel,) your American working stiff is back at his labors looking like hed never been away.

KJAZ Jazz. the statutory obligation, so that radio can be maintained as a medium of freedom of speech for the people as a whole. There is a. thing called the Six Percent Rule, Henry explained. A licensee Is asked to provide six percent of his airtime to public affairs programming." 6 Everybody even agrees that Henry has cleaned up his act to satisfy federal provisos So much for Pat Henry as redrawn by Horatio Alger.

The life and times of Pat Henry, to hear him paraphrase his illustrious ancestor, would go uke this: If this be success, let me proceed with it; why do they so wring me unto bankruptcy? For Pat Henry is on a rack. affecting broadcasters. So what in hell is all th hoorah about? Such programming icarefully delineated to everyone In the game knows what qualifies and what does not. With that question, listeners-in, you open Pandora's Box. To build a radio station is more than a thing of sweat and dollars and turntables and good voices and persuasive salesmen and a format attractive to listeners.

1 promised to provide two percent of public affairs and four percent of all other, which includes religion and some Interviews, he said. And Im doing more than double what was specified. But, ah, say detractors, that is now; there was a period in the early 70s in which it is claimed that KJAZ did not meet the requirement for such use of its airwaves. And there were people out there armed with petitions to deny. It is also a thing of government licensing, and there's the rub.

A broadcasting license is renewable every three years. KJAZ is a one-of-a-kind jazz-only FM station operating from a kind of campy remodeled second-floor walkup over a used furniture store and across from Tiuies Ham and Street in Alameda, the creation the Latter. He built it from surplus parts' and Mratcfied-up funds, developed it to national prominence, kept it on the air against laws of economic probability from 1959 to this very instant But it is challengdable simply by filing a ild i Petition to Deny, by those who would convince Enter the for Open Media, here. And its legal spear-point, Citizen's Communications Center, in Washington. the Federal Communications Commission that the current licensee is running a bummer, not living up to the specifics of his license or of the laws which regulate ui use of the public airwaves.

He keeps some sounds off of his airwaves, defying an unwritten rule of the broadcast industry that says success demands a mix of jazz with rhythm and blues or jazz with soul. But theres only ly minor contention about this format. In the extreme, the FCC can lift a license and kill a station, or, if it chooses, reissue the license and the frequency to someone else. There is, on the other hand, a flow of rivers of approbation: In 1974 the FCC renewed Henrys, license over objections of a petition to deny filed by COM. When COMs petition for reconsideration was also denied, the committee sent the matter to the U.S.Court of Appeals and the FCC called it back for further study and, possibly, yet a third commission ruling.

Quite soon, it is expected, FCC will Issue a. Designation Older, setting up the third hearing and specifying what is to be heard. Pat Henry became vulnerable, a target He made some hard-headed decisions, said Hell, no, to people who hoped to i time. THUS IT WAS WITH YOUR BELOVED. On last weeks minivacation I was going to beat the system, starting with a Caribbean burn and ending with a Mexican fade.

The plane no sooner landed in Aruba before I racked out in the sun to get over my Jet lag, oiled myself with worth of lotion and fell asleep. That night at dinner I was beet red, glowing softly in. the Caribbean moonlight, and a lady I adore looked at my nose, which was about 200 watts of brightness, and sang to me the. current hit, You Light Up My Life. I wanted to take her into my arms (the Caribbean is romantic) but I hurt so much I was untouchable.

"You still have a few only a handful, unfortunately fulltime Jan radio stations and the foremost of these has to be the almost legendary KJAZ managed by Pat Henry," Billboard, Jy 9, 1977. At a time when public interest groups have zeroed in on radio stations, armed with petitions to deny unless portions of air time are made available to democratize the airwaves, Pat was soon up to his whiskers in turmoil. Henry says the costs of all this could run from $50,000 to $100,000 and break him. Meanwhile, because the license Is under challenge, be cannot sell the station, if that was his intent Best FM station for what it tries to do, year after year KJAZ" Herb Caen, December, 1976. "KJAZ stands alone no radio station In the country quite like It" John Wasserman.

Pandora, it aint all black-and-white, good-and-bad, right-or-wroog. People do have a claim on air time." The FCC Invites it, under a thing' Im the only Individual who owns one of these things and Ive turned down considerably more than $1 -million for it Musicians love KJAZ. Jazz columnists, par-' called the Fairness Doctrine, ticularly The Chronicles Wassermanjove KJAZ. It has been decided twice in my favor, but a hearing now would break me and they can still go to a higher court with it and bang me up again if In 1959 Congress amended section 315 of the Communications Act to recognize the obligation Several leaders of the black community including for Congressman Ron Dellunu speak out forcibly for I get a third favorable FCC ruling. he said.

They can use the regulatory process to beat me to death. "I just dont want to make KJAZ a political instrument except as political people choose to buy time at election time. I've had this i i station for I 19 'years and have only been required to perform what I promise in my FCC license renewal Drexeri MILY 3 ID) AYS HJEIFTT "I've been trying for three-and-a-half years to get these people off of myjback. They're toying kvv nuvvv wwwav vaa va to grind me Into the ground. Now, its a trying to hang on to the station, Henry said.

There is some difficulty trying to understand motives and accusations iq all of this, but it begins to come clear that Prof. Philip Jacklih of TIME WAS OF THE ESSENCE. Cruising through the Panama Canal I slathered myself with twice as much lotion (and the red skin beneath gave the lotion an eerie, luminous glow) and took my favorite deck chair, right by the swimming pool, for the six-hour transit As the deck steward would peel off (me sheet of burned skin, the exposed layer below would turn crimson. To say I was burning to a crisp is an understatement. I burned to a cinder.

The lady looked at me across the breakfast table the next Running and told the dining steward: "Ive just decided not to have bacon. I cant stand the sight of anything burned beyond recognition. Between Panama and El Salvador I experimented with new areas, rolling the belt of my swim trunks down precisely one-half inch in order to suffer new pain that evening, and rolling.the bottom of the swim trunk legs up an inch closer to ground zero in order to get a new line in a different shade of red. At all times I used caution, laying the old bones out in meticulous order, turning than over at intervals, basting them as one would a roast, simmering slowly in the tropic sun. And in Acapulco the same.

One last, exquisitely painful burn, making the cab ride to the Acapulco airport sheer torture. As I entered the terminal there the lady looked at me in astonishment Are you ill? she asked. Not at alL Its amazing, she said. We havent eyen taken of for home yet and youre fading. Youre getting white as a sheet Sob.

Im back home now and I dont light up her life any more. San Jose State Universitys philosophy faculty, of a birthing ne Charles Bill Hartman of a birthing new news-called San Francisco Bay Times, and Larry TO MAKE BIG SAVINGS ON osky, news reporter on another bay area do not see themselves so much as adver saries of Pat Henry as of advocates of the rights of unheard voices. Famous Droxel and Heritage Bedroom Groups, Dining Rooms and Living Room Tables. Immediate delivery. Henry and KJAZ were, like mountains climbers, simply there.

1 Hartman, 30, came to this battle from a more volatile campaign, the civil rights move ment I was a journalism student at Old Miss until the paper came out with a page one editorial congratulating the assassin of Martin Luther King, Hartman said. VI started an alternative aper, but as soon as it got started, I got drafted. Continued oa Page 44, CoL I 20 OFF ON Custom Order Heritage Sofas, Love, Seats: and Chairs" 20 TO 40 OFF ON Floor sample Living Room Furniture in decorator fabrics. 20 TO 33 OFF ON Floor Sample Leather Sofas, Love Seats, and Chairs. Be here for the final hours! Time is short, but our choice of magnificent Drexel and Heritage furniture is still most impressive.

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