Category Archives: Jeff Morris

Jim Manion, Raw

A few years ago, perhaps 2018, give a take a year, I was sitting in the reception area at WFHB waiting for my Big Talk guest to show up for recording that day when the station’s music director, Jim Manion, strolled in. He carefully noted that we were alone and proceeded to confide a secret. He was thinking of retiring, he told me. No one was to know.

To that end, Manion added, he wondered if I’d consider interviewing him on Big Talk when the time came and after he’d made his announcement. Well sure, I replied. Heck, Manion’s one of founding members of the WFHB family. He was in at the very beginning, ab ovo as it were, when a crew of young dreamers came up with the bright idea to start a community radio station here in Bloomington, Indiana.

People like Brian Kearney and Jeffrey Morris and others were excited to start an FM station that’d add the the tiny but growing list of other such radio outlets, supported by listeners, without commercials, and playing something more — a whole hell of a lot more — than the two-minute, 30-second bubble gum pop hits the Top 40 stations had been airing throughout the 1950s and ’60s. “There was a real creative renaissance going on at the time,” Manion has been quoted as saying regarding the FM radio revolution of the late 1960s and early ’70s. That crew formed a nonprofit organization in the mid-’70s and started the byzantine application process for an FCC license. It’d take them nearly 20 years to get approved and go on the air.

That’s Manion, 3rd from the right, with (gasp) dark hair, in WFHB’s early days.

When WFHB went on the air in December 1992 for a test run and in January 1993 for real, the station’s headquarters and studio were crammed into a tiny cinderblock shack underneath the WFHB broadcast tower off Rockport Road southwest of the city proper. It’d be another year before the station found a proper home in the city’s old firehouse behind what is now known as the Waldron Center. Ergo our corporate moniker, Firehouse Broadcasting.

I could have rubbed my hands together in greedy glee at the thought of steering Manion through the history of WFHB as well as his own colorful life. Manion reminded me the day was years off before he retreated into his grotto-like office. I never forgot about his proposal but, as the years passed, the idea became more and more just that — an idea, a wisp, a dream. Retirement, for me and my contemporaries, remained a distance prospect, something we knew was to come, but, like kids, we could still pretend it was in the far future.

At our age, Manion’s and mine, the years pass as months or even weeks did when we were in our teens and twenties. Next thing I knew, earlier this spring, an email came from Manion telling me the day was at last approaching. He would retire at the end of May 2021.

It was time to set up that Big Talk he’d suggested, his valedictory.

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And so we aired Part 1 of the life and times of Jim Manion and of the radio station, WFHB, a week ago, Thursday, May 20th. Today, we aired Part 2. As with all my recordings, I carefully snipped out all the ums and ahs and ers, all the coughs and belches and lip smackings, all the “Oops, did I say that? I meant to say….” misspeaks and recants. But the more I thought about it, the more I became convinced I ought to put up the raw audio of Jim’s and my conversation. It took place, via Zoom, on Wednesday, May 12th, 2021, starting at 12:30pm. Jim had to squeeze the interview in between a scheduled meeting he’d had with station general manager Jar Turner and a doctor’s appointment. I was afraid we’d be rushed but, no, Jim was voluble and expansive. We went on and on and, of course, I was able to turn the interview into a two-parter.

So, give a listen to the unedited chat. If you love WFHB, if you love Bloomington, if you love Jim Manion, you’ll love it.

Hot Air

Bim Bam Boom

Quickies today because I’m running late.

Hot Breakfast — Real Hot!

Because I was running late, I squealed out of the Soma Coffee parking lot but before I could burn rubber on Grant St. who should I see but Bob Costello, owner of the same as well as the Laughing Planet and the Village Deli.

The V.D., as all Bloomington knows by now, suffered an almost catastrophic fire yesterday at about noon. The thick black smoke emanating from the rear of the joint indicated to some that the B-ton institution would be a total loss, with neighboring businesses like Cafe Pizzaria (sic) perhaps suffering severe damage as well.

Appearances, natch, can be deceiving. The recycling and trash area of the restaurant was fairly well destroyed as was, apparently, the big walk-in cooler — which, thus far, seems to have been the origin point of the blaze.

Anyway, Costello was walking from the Deli to Soma, speaking meaningfully on the phone and carrying a sheaf of official looking papers — insurance docs, maybe. In any case, I honked and waved and Bob flashed a brilliant smile. I yelled out “Good luck” and he responded with a thumbs up.

So, either Bob feels he’s dodged a life-changing bullet or he’s the most sanguine guy in town. Here’s hoping the Deli reopens soon.

Old Man Music

I don’t know about you but I had the time of my life last night at Jeff Morris’s 70th birthday party, held at the Player’s Pub.

The old bird danced like a 69-year-old to some mighty fine music. Morris founded Bloomington’s community radio station, WFHB, back in the early ’90s. He’s still the guy who shinnies up the tower to tweak the station’s antenna. Shoot, he’s got 21 years on me yet he makes me look like his granddaddy.

Now then, it must be said: one of the acts, an ad hoc band comprised of, among others, Jeff Isaac on keyboards, Dave Baas on rhythm guitar, and Emily Jackson pounding the drums just might be, for my money, the best thing making noise in this town. Trust me, if you hear of them playing around anywhere again, catch ’em.

Freedom?

The bitter party had themselves a confab in corn heaven this past weekend under the risible moniker the Iowa Freedom Summit. A passel of contenders and pretenders for the 2016 Republican nomination for president squawked at the crowd. Even Donald Trump was there, ensuring that no sentient person can take the GOP seriously just yet — even if the party is indeed in charge of Congress.

Anyhow, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, who fancies herself presidential timber mainly because she’s anointed herself the Hillary Clinton Critic-in-Chief, wowed the crowd with these words:

Like Hillary Clinton, I too have traveled hundreds of thousands of miles around the globe. But unlike her, I have actually accomplished something. Mrs. Clinton, flying is an activity not an accomplishment.

Personal to Carly: I don’t think you fully grasp what it is the Secretary of State of the United States of America does. Until you do, you really aren’t prez timber yet. Maybe never.

A Man Of Joy & A Man Of Peace

Alright, kiddies, I heard this morning what just may be the greatest quote ever uttered by a professional athlete. NPR’s Steve Inskeep had interviewed baseball Hall of Famer Ernie Banks back in 2009. Here’s part of the exchange:

Banks: And my life is like a miracle. I mean, I don’t even know how I got into baseball. And I always felt bad about attention coming my way, for some reason. Something happened to me, I do something pretty exciting, and I didn’t want the spot light on me. I got an award the other day, at the Library of Congress, and I said, gosh, I’m getting an award for doing nothing. I haven’t done anything yet. Nothing.

Inskeep: Well, I think that record book would dispute you there.

Banks: No, but me personally, I mean. I always had a bigger goal, when I was 15, and that was to win the Nobel Peace Prize. And I think about that a lot. I dream about it. I see myself in Stockholm. That has been my journey. I mean I’ve been chasing the footsteps of my life to do something worthwhile. I haven’t done anything yet. I have not done anything yet.

Imagine that! His goal in life from the time he was a (not-so) dopey teenager was to win the Nobel Peace Prize. And because he never did that, he felt he’d not accomplished anything worthwhile.

Again, a pro athlete said that.

How could you not love Ernie?

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