Back of the Book

Back of the Book is celebrating 38 years on the air!

The format of the program is what is known, at WBAI at least, as Free Form Live Radio. Basically, it's whatever Pickles of the North and I think is good radio to put on the air in that one hour time slot. Back of the Book now airs weekly on Saturday mornings at 5:00 AM. Due to the pandemic and lockdowns the program has been airing as a pre-recorded program since March 2020. Maybe it's Free Form Pre-recorded Radio now.

Web page for the December 14, 2024, program.

Web pages for previous Back of the Book programs.

We have a Web stream operating these days. This is the official WBAI Web stream. It's usually working but if it isn't please let me know.

WBAI has managed to lurch toward the current century by providing not only the Web stream of what's on the air at any one time but also an archive. Unfortunately, WBAI's archives are now on a page that doesn't allow easy access to any one program. Quite a step backward from the previous archives page. Here's the current official WBAI archive page of all of WBAI's programs. Currently, to go right to the latest Back of the Book program in this version of the archive you'll need to use the Display drop down menu and scroll to Back of the Book. I have found that in the latest incarnation of the archive each program's archive has a unique address. I have been putting that address on every program's Web page so that listeners can get to the archive more easily. Since WBAI's General Manager has told our pal Sidney Smith that he's banned for life from WBAI, for no stated reason, Sidney's program Saturday Morning With the Radio On isn't in the archives anymore.

Any resemblance between WBAI and anything stable is purely a figment of someone's imagination. As I type this we are more than 20 years past one phase of our big crisis and are currently mired in what may be the end of the following phase of it. In the mid-Autumn of 2019, WBAI was pirated by now former iED John Vernile and some rogue PNB members along with some armed men. We reversed that underhanded action, but there are still other underhanded plots being hatched in Pacifica. Some years ago the General Manager abusively banned Sidney Smith from WBAI and has refused to say why he's banned him! This ties in with the fact that in 1999, WBAI/Pacifica Management got the NLRB to order the Unpaid Staff out of the Union at WBAI, which also destabilized things. I'm a bit amazed that WBAI and Pacifica have survived for the past 20+ years.

Here are the dates when Back of the Book should air for the next little while, according to the WBAI General Manager. All programs run from 5:00 AM (ET) to 6:00 AM (ET) on WBAI 99.5 FM, and the program is carried on the WBAI live stream. The programs are numbered consecutively for the year they're in.

On June 9, 2024, we were informed by the Executive Director of the Pacifica Foundation, which owns WBAI and four other radio stations, that WBAI's Management personnel had, been placed on administrative leave and that, Bob Hennelly will be serving as iGM/PD during this transition.

I contacted Mr. Hennelly before our June 15, program and asked if the previous Management's 52-week schedule was still in effect. He said that no, it wasn't. So from what I gather weekly programs are now not going to be preempted on a regular basis for pitching specials. Thus we have the following schedule.

This is all subject to change, of course. There's no guarantee that Back of the Book will even remain on the air at all for the entire rest of 2024. But here's the schedule based on what Interim General Manager/interim Program Director Hennelly has told us.

† This program, on which we celebrated the 38^th anniversary of Back of the Book, aired a week later than planned due to technical issues at WBAI.

We generally talk about our lives and what's going on, and these days since the gag rule has been revoked we get to talk about WBAI issues as well as the scientific and social things that seem important to us and to which we think we can bring a perspective different from what folks generally hear in the mass media.

We love to get mail on Back of the Book. You can reach us through the following means:

Our postal mailing address is:

R. Paul Martin
℅ WBAI
388 Atlantic Ave.
Brooklyn, NY 11217

We have not been to 388 Atlantic Ave. since March 7, 2020, and mail sent there is not forwarded to us. We probably will never see any snail mail sent to us at WBAI until further notice.

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Email: R. Paul Martin

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It used to be that I referred visitors to my local WBAI Folio page for details on Back of the Book. Unfortunately, our Folio is no longer being published.

Back to my home page.