No subject

show.
This radio show will be an unframed eargasm known as Radio Utopia. Radio
Utopia will appear on WEFT Noon Saturdays this July.
Radio Utopia is a program of the spoken and performable arts.
Radio Utopia wants to bring you nondepressing alternative news,
spotlighting incidences of artists and activists working toward a better
world.
Radio Utopia will confuse realty and hope.
Radio Utopia will bring you live and preproduced songs and poems about
hope and sustainable living.

Radio Free Utopia is a celebration of alternative radio. It is an
attempt to create an alternative news show featuring good news -
focusing on points in art and news which contain the seeds of a better
possible world.

Where history is news and art is politics.

The good news.

Radio Utopia is all of the above.

We will read excerpts from utopian writing of all flavors. We will play
music that seems to point to a better world, by describing one or by
being indescribably lovely.

We will read Monique Wittig. We will read Bernadette Mayer. We will
focus shows around existing intentional communities. We will search the
papers for good news. After the Revolution. Writing from the School
1993. Alternatives to capitalism. Happy songs. Alternative uses of radio
in a desirable society: a radio play that is the sound of someone
searching the dial and finding alternative uses of radio.

There should be a few sounds and musics we use again and again. Camper
Van Beethoven. Ukelele.


“That was Golden Slippers and you're listening to the first minute ever
of a new radio show: Radio Utopia.”


MORE IDEAS FOR RADIO UTOPIA BY PAUL KOTHEIMER


M. STENTZ searches out the perfect food co-op.
Talking Fabulous Work with S. GOLD
W. GILLESPIE recycles the military
P. KOTHEIMER (covering Burkhardt) takes a bite out of your car
Sky Hall in conversation with pre-teen financial wizard Asher, about
living without money.

plus words from
Susan Parenti,
Michael Pastore,
the WEFTie Lefties,
and (of course) PATCH ADAMS!

if we think our radio show needs to have organizational HEADINGS which
could be repeated from day to day or week to week, we could have things
like:

VISIBLE CITIES (which could focus on issues like car-free culture, urban

gardens, anti-poverty work, community building, ethnicities at the
margins, situationist/cybernetic urban redesign, etc.)

albany-bucks

YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT  (permaculture, veganism, food co-ops, CSA, etc.)

MEDIABUSTERS (indie culture--film/music/DIY, 'zines, anti-advertisement,

micro-radio, info-shops, other ways of subverting big media$)

DEMOCRATIZING DEMOCRACY (reporting on 3rd 4th 5th and 6th parties in the

U.S. and elsewhere, progress for and by the Left in State/Provincial and

local
governments, community based alternatives to Being Governed)

UNGENDERINGS/UNSTRAIGHTENINGS (busting the BOY-GIRL-BOY-GIRL paradigm by

any means necessary)

DECOLONIZING THE WORLD (slowing the tide of globalized capital &
economic
imperialism; founding sustainable economies and effective resistance in
the nations of the South)

SMALL PLANET RADIO (alternative energy sources, conservation, recycling,

un-trashing, sustainable economies)

STOPPING THE VIOLENCE  (from the public schools to the Pentagon and back

again).

the NEWSPOETRY MINUTE (late breaking words from the AP [Associated
Poets,
that is] staff--could include any "audio art" project with a political
bent if necessary.)

the DYSTOPIAN MINUTE (a show that's all positive might need a little bit

of news about just-how-bad-it's-gotten....maybe)


IN MY MIND'S EAR, i imagine i can hear one of the most interesting radio

programs i've ever heard.  call me crazy, but i say let's do it.



MORE IDEAS FOR RADIO UTOPIA BY DANIELLE CHYNOWETH

Content Ideas:

"Daily dose of clown:" Feature one clown per day in a short background
sentence and quote.

Good Newsbroadcasting:

- ...bringing you inspiring stories from all over
the world.  These stories feature innovative and eclectic projects in
social change and/or social benevolence.  They open with the sound
effects
of searching mountains and deserts for those few pieces of good news
which
become the days featured stories.

- In the wake of the Clinton-Lewinski affair and impeachment trials, the

media is discredited for digging up trash despite public opinion polls
begging them to do otherwise, the public is tired of scandal searching,
and bad news is just not interesting enough anymore.  The Good News show

is timely in this regard.  Its an injection of hope, laughter, and
information about creative approaches to difficult social problems in
the
midst of scandal, war, and despair.

- The staff makes sure to contact and feature groups in those countries
which have been targeted by the United States government: Iraq,
Yugoslavia, Cuba, Lybia and groups which are working to ameliorate
problems caused by U.S. businesses. [In this way we subtly put a human
face on the nations "enemies" and indirectly bring to light information
about the consequences of U.S. business ventures]

- Each show opens and closes with a featured good news songwriter.

- Another approach: good news could be approached as the norm.  At
times,
certain "bad news" can be broadcast:  for example, the failure of the
"patients right to know" act in congress.  Such bad news would be
proceeded by bad news music: "And now for some bad news:  wa   wa   wa
waaaah"

[aside:  "good news" is a very American (and slightly Christian) way of
bringing stories of social change projects that have political content
to
a mass audience]

False Statements:  "Although it is not the case, I desire it to be the
case:"

- The show's staff elicits false statements from communities, schools,
and
organizations all over the world.  Either one of us would visit the site

and hold a design session or one of the point people in that group would

host a design session.  The result would be a broadcast of false
statements and design ideas from that group concerning their position or

situation.  Possible groups include: a high school class, a kindergarden

class, a convent, workers from the Cheeze Whiz assembly line in the
Kraft
factory, all the secretaries for Nike, employees from a Wall Street
brokerage, all the rabbis at one Hebrew College, strawberry farmworkers,

death row inmates, workfare participants, members of the Kosovo
Liberation
Army, Zapatistas, soup kitchen volunteers, Vietnam veterans, an artists
collective, the New Party, Twin Oaks commune... Demonstrate the breadth
of
existing groups.

- Link to Patchs community crganizing around health care issues:
As Patch travels around the country organizing focus groups around
health care issues he can elicit false statements from the people with
whom he works.  These statements would state gripes and needed changes
in
the form of visionary desires.  These statements would then be
broadcast,
along with recorded jokes and quips from Patch.

- The staff makes extra effort to contact groups in countries targeted
by
the U.S. government.

- Have children interview adults about their projects, desires,
healthcare
issues, social change ideas.

- Have clowns interview people.

- Ecelectic Seizure archives (maybe re-performed for high quality
recording)

- Michael Moore style gags

- Labor News

- Interview 3rd party candidates

- Poetry book reviews

- Live music recorded on the street

- Newspoetry

- Person on the Street Interviews

- Pacifist Minute

- Follow a dollar bill around all day with a portable mini-disc recorder

and interview everyone whose hands it passes through.