If you scroll down far enough on this page, you can see links to many of the Blogs I visit, web pages that may be of interest to people living in or wanting to visit San Antonio, and I also have link to my oldest brother's web page for his radio show called, The Dream Clinic. 
88.5 WMNF is a community radio station and an affiliate of NPR. In Tampa, the station has been very successful and in fact, thanks to donations from listeners, the station has built a state of the art facility next door to the old house that it was originally housed in. The facility is completely Green (as in NPR / Al Gore friendly - not the color) and there are several spacious studios where large groups can be interviewed or an entire band can perform.
On Saturday, my brother Dennis gave us the tour of the place, and we were mighty impressed. You can head over to Flickr to see all the pictures if you are someone who enjoys all the excitement of radio and what it takes to make it get from the DJ to your morning commute.
If you are a fan of vinyl, you will appreciate the huge wall of albums for the volunteers to select from for their assorted shows. I have often thought of my own personal collection of singles (45 RPM records) as impressive because it is probably a thousand. I could fit my golden oldies (okay, mostly Top-40 hits from the 80's) on just a few of these shelves. And of course, the rolling shelves containing CD's is simply amazing. The library is has numerous listening stations to allow the DJ's to do show prep.
While the on air studio was occupied by local personality, Dr. J doing his show, we went into a second studio to pose for pictures.
These are pictures of my sister Sharon doing her Nancy Grace impersonation, and me pretending to be, well, me.
And look at the awesome equipment in the studio. This stuff is not cheap.
The cool thing about community radio, at least in the case of WMNF is that they hold these marathons where the listeners make contributions to keep the station going. The volunteers who produce and present the shows, usually a specific musical genre build an audience and those people put their money where their ears are (to borrow from an inscription on a thousand dollar pledge brick).
My brother has been doing his show for years and continues to have a fairly faithful and generous audience. The Dream Clinic plays music from my brother's youth in the 60's and early 70's, most often live recordings from the bands as opposed to the standard two and a half minute Top-40 radio version you might have heard. And because of the technology available today, he has many followers from beyond the broadcast airwaves in the greater Tampa Bay area, thanks to people who listen live or via podcasts on the Internet.
The Dream Clinic on WMNF 88.5FM in Tampa, Florida, USA...also available online at www.wmnf.org The Dream Clinic airs every Wednesday 7-9pm locally and is posted online for your review at www.wmnf.org
With an encyclopedic knowledge of music coupled with genuine love of the bands and their performances, Dennis does a well researched and thoughtfully produced show, providing his listeners with more than just the music you might download from your mom's 8-track tapes. Give it a listen if you like. And if you do like, hit the Tip Jar. How's that for a shameless plug?
Please don't be offended by this, but if I were to stand outside of most health food stores trying to come up with a broad description of the people who shop there, in a single word, I'd have to choose weird.
Please don't misunderstand; I am all for healthy eating and in fact, over the last year or more have changed my own personal eating habits to include more healthful choices like fresh fruits, grains, less red meat and more fish. I actually do eat organic waffles containing flax, and even have a shaker of flaxseed that I sprinkle on top of fruit and yogurt. But for the most part, I have been able to make these personal changes, without changing the place I buy food, because I don't feel the need to arbitrarily pay double the price for things.
Okay, so if you aren't pissed off yet, I'll tell you why I went to Sun Harvest.
A friend at work let me try these Pita Chips that he says he got at Whole Foods or some place like that. These puppies seem to be deep fried in something, then covered with various seasonings. Healthy or not, they taste great! So, I told my wife we ought to go buy a bucket of them, sit in front of the TV and eat them.
All.
Once again, San Antonio experienced another Noah's Ark-worth of rain, and I decided that instead of driving all over town trying to find Whole Foods, I'd go to this Sun Harvest off IH-10 and Callaghan. If they sell healthy stuff, certainly they would have the healthy junk food, right?
There were lots of older folks shopping at Sun Harvest. I don't attribute shopping there to them trying to be healthy, I suspect that this store is simply a neighborhood grocery to them. Much like in some urban areas, people shop at 7-Eleven simply because they don't have a car, and it is the closest place to purchase a $4.75 gallon of milk and some rolling papers.
Moving away from the normal-seeming old people, now we have the generic weird people I described earlier. These are people who would give anything to live in Austin, and would fit in nicely, but circumstances have kept them here in San Antonio. These people most likely listen to NPR, drive a VW with a flower mounted in the dashboard, have a bumper sticker that says, "Impeach Bush" on their car, and have only dated other ugly people.
But I mean all this in a good way.
As my wife and I strolled through the aisles looking for the Fried Pita Chips Slathered in Herbs I so desperately wanted, I saw one gentleman who was fully decked out in safari clothing. Is that standard issue for a trip to the grocery store on a rainy day, or do you suppose he was simply purchasing a box of frozen Tofurky for his big expedition to The Shoppes at La Canterra?
Another handsome lady was prepared for shopping duty in her Hemp jeans and tie-dyed t-shirt as though at any moment, she expected to meet Peter, Paul and Mary at the check-out line.
Perhaps I'm too harsh, but I make no illusions about why I was there. I was looking for junk food and it just happened to be at a healthy food store I was looking for it in. The interesting thing was, not only did they sport two full aisles of junk-food, but by simply applying the label "Organic" or "Healthy" to a product, people felt free to dig in.
They had set-up an end cap with a two plates of cookies, and not one person (myself included) walked by without trying a few samples. That's fine, but why didn't these people jump on a treadmill and walk for a few minutes after eating? I'll tell you why - because they don't really care about their health, they just like the idea of appearing to care about their health, the environment, and this good feeling gives them an excuse to wear goofy clothing styles.
In the end, I did not find the chips I was looking for so it was pretty much a bust, but my wife did purchase a pound of walnuts and she found them a lot cheaper than what we could get from HEB.
* Please don't be offended; I'm just poking fun - and why not? There really was a goofy guy in a safari outfit.
88.5 WMNF is a community radio station and an affiliate of NPR. In Tampa, the station has been very successful and in fact, thanks to donations from listeners, the station has built a state of the art facility next door to the old house that it was originally housed in. The facility is completely Green (as in NPR / Al Gore friendly - not the color) and there are several spacious studios where large groups can be interviewed or an entire band can perform.
On Saturday, my brother Dennis gave us the tour of the place, and we were mighty impressed. You can head over to Flickr to see all the pictures if you are someone who enjoys all the excitement of radio and what it takes to make it get from the DJ to your morning commute.
If you are a fan of vinyl, you will appreciate the huge wall of albums for the volunteers to select from for their assorted shows. I have often thought of my own personal collection of singles (45 RPM records) as impressive because it is probably a thousand. I could fit my golden oldies (okay, mostly Top-40 hits from the 80's) on just a few of these shelves. And of course, the rolling shelves containing CD's is simply amazing. The library is has numerous listening stations to allow the DJ's to do show prep.
While the on air studio was occupied by local personality, Dr. J doing his show, we went into a second studio to pose for pictures.
These are pictures of my sister Sharon doing her Nancy Grace impersonation, and me pretending to be, well, me.
And look at the awesome equipment in the studio. This stuff is not cheap.
The cool thing about community radio, at least in the case of WMNF is that they hold these marathons where the listeners make contributions to keep the station going. The volunteers who produce and present the shows, usually a specific musical genre build an audience and those people put their money where their ears are (to borrow from an inscription on a thousand dollar pledge brick).
My brother has been doing his show for years and continues to have a fairly faithful and generous audience. The Dream Clinic plays music from my brother's youth in the 60's and early 70's, most often live recordings from the bands as opposed to the standard two and a half minute Top-40 radio version you might have heard. And because of the technology available today, he has many followers from beyond the broadcast airwaves in the greater Tampa Bay area, thanks to people who listen live or via podcasts on the Internet.
