“The first Sunday I sang in the church choir, two hundred people changed their religion.” -Ethan Allen

Happy Sunday! No blue laws in Vermont that I know of, so let’s open the bar. Warning: we’re drinking, smoking, playing loud music, and thumbing our nose at the Establishment, so check your sanctimony at the frickin’ door. First round’s on the house.
The ale is cold below the fold.

I was cruising Seven Days, as I frequently do, (looking for a job as often as not) and found this piece about a litle bitty radio station in Bridport.

Having a passing interest in radio myself, I read on and discovered, to my delight and surprise, that I KNOW the guy, from years and years ago. From CALIFORNIA. So Vermont is where you ended up, huh, Chip? Smart man.

^{Photo credit: Matthew Thorsen at Seven Days}

When I was in my late twenties, I was doing the night shift at an AM oldies station in Stockton, CA. The engineer there was a guy by the name of Chip Morgan. One of the best engineers I’d ever known. Over the years, I’d seen him pop up here and there, writing technical columns for a little engineering trade called Radio Guide , formerly Radio Shopper.

Imagine my delight and surprise to discover that he’d settled in the Green Mountain State and created what I would call a dream existence, were it me.

“You will become as small as your controlling desire; as great as your dominant aspiration.” -Ethan Allen

On the one hand, Chip operates Wood Creek Farm.

Named for the southern section of Lake Champlain, Wood Creek Farm was originally a 1000 acre British land grant, and has been the home of generations of cattle since before the Revolution. Today it hosts a herd of Black Angus beef – the source of the most tender, juicy and flavorful meat money can buy. The farm is located in Vermont, across the lake from Crown Point – the Northernmost outpost of Revolutionary era America.

As if that wasn’t cool enough, Wood Creek Farm is also home to a radio station!

Talk about operating on another wavelength. But for Morgan and his wife Kathy, it’s commercial-free business as usual. At 89.3 FM (or www.wmud.org for the stream-inclined), this 24-hour station – a.k.a. “Mud” – has been intriguing listeners across the Champlain Valley and the Internet since 2003. And thanks to the on-site solar grid and wind turbine, WMUD’s console powers itself.

Acoustically Oriented Music
WMUD features acoustic Blues, Folk, Jazz and World Music, played continuously 24 hours a day. All of our music is based on acoustic instruments and/or traditional vocal styles. Well, most of it.

WMUD is on 89.3 FM and covers this area:

and can also be checked out through the tubes. Your listen links are here.

A sampling of what you’ll hear when you listen to WMUD:

  Atlantic Crossing, Rani Arbo and Daisey Mahem, Aztec Two-Step, Joan Baez, Mary Black, Rory Block, Eric Bogle, Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, Greg Brown, Capercaillie, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Tracy Chapman, Clifton Chenier, The Chieftains,Slaid Cleaves, David Coffin, Leonard Cohen, Judy Collins, Ry Cooder, Cowboy Junkies, Cox Family, Bob Dylan, Fred Eaglesmith, Steve Earle, Bela Fleck, Jeffrey Foucault, Jerry Garcia, Steve Goodman, Patty Griffin, David Grisman, Arlo Guthrie, Woody Guthrie, Emmylou Harris, John Hartford, John Hiatt, Sara Hickman, Holmes Brothers, Hot Club of Cowtown, Jorma Kaukonen, Leo Kottke, Alison Krauss, Leadbelly, Laura Love, Lyle Lovett, Taj Majal, Ashley MacIsaac, Dougie MacLean, David Mallett, Del McCoury, Suzanne McDermott, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, Lori McKenna, Loreena McKennitt (w00t!), Keb’ Mo’, Bill Monroe, Van Morrison, Geoff Muldaur, Maria Muldaur, Nickel Creek, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Northern Lights, Laura Nyro, Bonnie Raitt, The Roches, Richard Ruane, Tom Rush, John Sebastian, Pete Seeger, Richard Shindell, Chris Smither, Son Volt, Steeleye Span, Richard Thompson, Dave Van Ronk, Suzanne Vega, Jerry Jeff Walker, Doc Watson, Gillian Welch, Dar Williams.

Sweet.

Here’s a sampling of what you WON’T hear when you listen to WMUD. None of this sort of thing either. At least at WMUD, creatures such as myself have been rendered obsolete.
Oh well.
WMUD is listener-supported. Once you listen, you’ll see that is worth supporting, Underwritings are available and it seems to me this’d be great for a progressive-owned business to throw a little bit of change at. Take a listen. It’s quite addictive.

I’m pleased to turn you onto this website. Wilson’s Almanac is a progressive almanac that comes from Australia. Great to browse through while you’re listening to WMUD and drinking Magic Hat. Wilson’s Almanac features a Book of Days with birthdays, a progressive perspective on history, pagan holidays and more, including a Word Of The Day:

Serendipity

Definition: [n]  pure luck in discovering things you were not looking for

See also: fortune, luck

1754 Horace Walpole, in a letter to Sir Horace Mann, explained how he coined the word `serendipity’. He said that he based it on the

title of a fairy story, The Three Princes of Serendip, because the princes “were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity,

of things they were not in quest of”.

I like that. I wasn’t looking for Wilson’s Almanac when I found it, but you ought to take a look. Satisfaction guaranteed or your bookmark back.

2003: The case of the talking carp

According to two fish-cutters at the New Square (30 miles north of Manhattan, New York) Fish Market, they were about the slaughter a 20-pound carp to make into gefilte fish for Sabbath dinner, when it suddenly began shouting apocalyptic warnings in Hebrew.

At 4 pm, Zalmen Rosen, a 57-year-old Hasidic father of eleven, and his co-worker, Luis Nivelo, a Gentile who does not understand Hebrew, were about to club the carp on the head when it began yelling “Tzaruch shemirah” and “Hasof bah”, which, according to the shop owner, essentially means that everyone must account for themselves because the end is near.

Nivelo was understandably so shocked at the sight of a talking fish that he fell over, then ran into the front of the store screaming: “It’s the Devil! The Devil is here!” Not all, however, believe that the talking fish was Satanic.
The Observer reported that many of the 7,000-member Skver sect of Hasidim in New Square believed that God revealed himself in fish form, or else the loquacious carp was channelling the troubled soul of a revered community elder who had recently died.

Just don’t carp at me if you don’t like it. But I can’t imagine that you wouldn’t.
Wilson’s also features a big compendium of Iraq War lies that’s worth looking at. It’s here.

And finally…uh..a checkup from the neck up. This one is a little…..edgy……but here goes.
One of the columnists I enjoy at SevenDays is Mistress Maeve. If you like that sort of thing, it’s just the sort of thing you’ll like. A
little easier on the sensibilities than, say, Dan Savage.
Now the Mistress writes with abandon about a website she recently discovered:

But what if you prefer something more subtle and erotic? It can be overwhelming and discouraging to sift through….to find something more soft and intimate.

As for me….well…….being a guy with a strong libido, I’d discovered this site while still in Bennington. But I’d forgotten about it, and was
happy to rediscover it. Imagine, if you will, the most titillating thing you could think of……all without going below the neck.
It’s a Mistress Maeve piece, so you either know what you’re in for, or you oughta. All you’ll see here is faces….but……wow. Just..wow.
(wipes brow)
OK, the bar, and the floor, is open. Use this as one of those open thread thingies. 
If this Tavern piece seems a little bit edgy, there’s a reason for that. I’m projecting. Our conservative Christian landlords are tired of inviting us to church and church functions, either personally or by proxy, and being rebuffed each time. Therefore, we have been asked to move. Over the last three weks, Amy and I have been almost singlehandedly running two radio stations while breaking in a new program director, and in fact, I’m on the air as I write this. The weekend guy called in sick. This is my 23rd consecutive day without a break, and I’m a little..weird. And this is ME talking.
Drink up, and smoke ’em if you got ’em. If I had ’em, I would………

“I have generally been denominated a Deist, the reality of which I never disputed, being conscious I am no Christian, except mere infant baptism make me one; and as to being a Deist, I know not, strictly speaking, whether I am one or not, for I have never read their writings; mine will therefore determine the matter; for I have not in the least disguised my sentiments, but have written freely without any conscious knowledge of prejudice for, or against any man, sectary or party whatever; but wish that good sense, truth and virtue may be promoted and flourish in the world, to the detection of delusion, superstition, and false religion; and therefore my errors in the succeeding treatise, which may be rationally pointed out, will be readily rescinded.” -Ethan Allen

“General Ethan Allen of Vermont died and went to Hell this day.”
  -Reverend Doctor Ezra Stiles, president of Yale College, on learning of the death of Allen. Diary entry (12 February 1789)

“Passed by Ethan Allyn’s grave. An awful Infidel, one of ye wickedest men ye ever walked this guilty globe. I stopped & looked at his grave with a pious horror.”
  -Rev. Nathan Perkins in his Narrative Of A Tour Through The State Of Vermont on 25 May 1789.

“Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.”
– Denis Diderot