JIMM McIVER
&
DR. SUSAN FINKEL
From ANDRAS JONES: This visit to the Radio8Vault finds us traveling back to June 13th, 2008 when Radio8Ball was broadcasting on Alternative Talk 1150AM in Seattle (Bellevue actually). Our musical guest is JIMM McIVER promoting his concept album “Sweet Petunia Modern and The Holograms of Doom” with our featured guest Dr. SUSAN FINKEL. The good doctor brings her expertise as a child psychologist to bear on this reading, as well as her insight into the host. The Finkels were good friends of my family when I was growing up in Olympia. As far as I knew, at the time, their oldest daughter and I were the only Jews our age in the Olympia school district. I would come to realize later in life how this sense of otherness and isolation colored my school experience but as a kid I just knew that times spent with the Finkels were good times. The question in this segment comes from Jimm. The inner child therapy session however, was all mine.
There are two compelling syncs that accompany this post. The first is that it’s being released on July 11th, which would have been my 26th wedding anniversary and since I have not re-married and that’s the only wedding I’ve had, it still kind of is. The other nifty sync is that this is just about a week before KAOS cancelled Radio8Ball in response to my reporting being harassed by my ex-co-host Tammy T., her fiancee Merwyn Haskett and the programmers they were able to enlist in their campaign of terror aimed at me in response to my choosing to do the show without Tammy. This harassment included threatening e-mails from anonymous accounts, hateful graffiti about me at KAOS and around town, calls to the station in Seattle trying to get my show cancelled, and a campaign of gossip that led to many angry and threatening calls from fellow programmers. It was a scary time when it felt like there was a large and invisible gang arrayed against me and no one would believe me. (Years later Tammy would admit to all of it in an a letter published in my book “Accidental Initiations”). KAOS management knew about all of this and chose to “solve” the issue by following the tried and true script known all to well by those who have been targeted for harassment; they made up lies about my performance and used these lies as a pretext for cancelling my show and refusing to address my initial report of abuse. It’s been ten years but the wound is still fresh, as readers who follow this blog can probably tell by this and other examples of my word vomit on the topic. Knowing all of this, can we find some hints as to the events which were to come? Or of my distressed mental state? You may not hear the strain in my voice, or maybe you will. All I can say is, from where I stand those holograms were very real.
