March 18, 2004

Valley Advocate

Bill’s Excellent Adventure

Bill Dwight is a big fellow, and amiable. But can he fill the shoes of

The River's popular radio morning show host Rachel Maddow?

by Andrew Varnon

It's 6:18 in the morning. A few hardy commuters are heading up and down Interstate 91, nursing their big gulp coffees. Somewhere, a hand strikes out from under the covers to hit the snooze button on the bedside alarm clock for the second time. In WRSI's basement studio in downtown Northampton, Bill Dwight puts his headphones on for the last chords of a Slaid Cleaves song and leans up to the microphone.

"Good Morning," he says. "It's the Big Breakfast, I'm Bill Dwight. I'm wrestling with consciousness, I'm going to win -- I'm pretty sure."

He's got no technician, no producer, and right now, he has no guests in the studio. It's just him, a 6' 4" middle-aged white guy in a Carhart vest, talking into the microphone. Three and a half weeks ago, he had no idea he'd be doing this. Now, he's finishing up his second week on the air, and he's still working out the kinks.

He's brought in a number of news stories that he's saved as text files on a laptop computer: things that have caught his eye and he'd like to talk about. On a piece of paper, he's sketched out what in the radio business they call "the clock." That is, the schedule of when music plays, when advertising runs and when he, "the jock," has to fill in the gaps with, well, talk. This morning, he's starting the day talking about Forbes Magazine’s annual list of billionaires.

"It's apparently a very good year to be a billionaire," Dwight says. "That makes me feel better about things. Probably helps you with your breakfast. One of the new ones actually is J.K. Rowlings, the author of the Harry Potter series. Ah, so." He fumbles for words a little. "Uh, you know. That's nice. If you're going to have a billionaire, she's better than most."

Dwight looks back down to the laptop; his hands are in his pockets. He rattles off a few names from the top ten: Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, the Walton family.

"There are 587 billionaires around the world," he says. "That's great. Out of all of them, I don't know a one."

Now he's on a roll. He notes that billionaires in the U.S. have benefited from a rise in stock prices, coupled with a favorable tax climate, with reduced taxes on dividends, capital gains and estate taxes. Not to be pulling numbers out of thin air, he highlights one of Forbes's sources: Mike Zandi, chief economist at economy.com.

"He's quoted as saying 'high income, high net worth households have done very well under the Bush administration'... adding that 'technological advances and trends toward globalization also tend to benefit the rich.' Well, thank goodness. This is the Big Breakfast. With billionaires. I'm Bill."

WRSI, 93.9 on the FM radio dial or simply "The River" to its listeners, is a radio station that could really only exist in the Valley. It's eclectic, it's laid back, it's homegrown and it has stayed true to the spirit (and the music) of FM radio as it was initially conceived, as it took shape on The River when the station came to life 23 years ago. It's mostly known as a music station for people whose musical tastes range outside of the formulaic bounds of most rock radio. But the show that Dwight inherited was something new.

His predecessor, Rachel Maddow, molded the Big Breakfast into a blend of music, news and commentary from a progressive, community-oriented perspective. It didn't hurt that she was an openly lesbian DJ broadcasting from the city known as a lesbian haven during the rising action of the same-sex marriage debate. But she was also unafraid to be herself, wearing her politics on her sleeve, but having a laugh-out-loud good time doing it.

But then, after two years on the air, stardom came calling for Maddow. She got called up to the big leagues, signed by a group called Progress Media to be an on-air personality for its new "Air America Radio" project. Headquartered in New York City, Air America Radio aims to launch a nation-wide progressive talk radio network to do battle with the conservative talk radio hegemony, with noted liberal humorist Al Franken as its anchor host.

That left Sean O'Mealy, program director at WRSI, with a pretty big hole to fill. He had helped Maddow craft the show, with a radio executive's instinct to find a way to grab the listener. For O'Mealy, the Big Breakfast's aim was to give listeners "a compelling reason to begin your day with us." Maddow had done that, and now she was leaving. When Maddow came to give her notice, O'Mealy poised the question to her: who should take her place? Maddow's first choice was regular guest Bill Dwight, Pleasant Street Video clerk and Northampton city councilor for Ward 1.

Asked to reflect on the choice of Dwight, Maddow said she noticed something when she went back through her clips. When you're a radio personality, one of the things you do is assemble a sort of "best of" tape, collecting all your best on-air moments. Dwight was a regular guest, but he wasn't on too much, maybe he'd come by for an hour a week. Yet he was all over her clips.

"He took up a hugely disproportional part of the Best of Maddow," she said. "Maybe 50 percent [of the clips] involve me talking to Bill."

So O'Mealy called Dwight up and offered him the job. A few days later, Dwight was trailing Maddow around the studio, trying to soak up the routine as much as possible. It was an unusual transition for radio, because Maddow told her listeners on air that she was leaving and Dwight was taking her place and her last week was kind of a farewell party and a way to introduce Dwight as the new host. Usually the way it's done for DJ's on the radio is you announce you're leaving and the next day, you're gone.

Although he sputters a little with his words, Dwight does seem to have a presence on air, in part because of his easy-going manner -- he recovers quickly -- and in part because he has a richly textured radio voice. Almost a baseball play-by-play caller's voice, it sounds well-worn and comfortable. But Dwight shrugs that off, saying he doesn't actually like the sound of his own voice much.

"That was accomplished by quitting smoking and putting on about 50 pounds," he says.

Coming up on the 6:30 news break, Dwight is looking at the computer screen that shows the programming as it goes out over the air. He talked a little long on the billionaires and there are one too many songs programmed in before the news slot. With a click of the mouse, he pulls out a song from the Subdudes and throws it out of the roster. It's about then that footsteps can be heard coming down the stairs and Kelsey Flynn appears.

Upstairs from The River's Main Street studio is the studio of its sister country radio station, 95.3 The Bear. Flynn spends most of her morning upstairs in The Bear's studio, but runs downstairs on the half hour to read news for The River. An old hand on sound boards and microphones, Flynn treats her time downstairs not only for her strict purpose of reading the news, but also shepherding along the newbie. She checks the programming screen and approves of Dwight's edit. Then, while they're waiting to go on the air, she and Dwight start riffing on the story out that morning that Rosie O'Donnell got married in San Francisco. Off the air, apparently, O'Donnell doesn't have a reputation for playing nice.

But then it's time for the news and Flynn puts on her headphones and reads into the guest mic. She rambles through the morning's news: the renegade mayor of New Paltz, N.Y., is conducting gay marriages; there's unrest in Haiti and veterans are endorsing an idea to rename the Route 116 bridge between South Deerfield and Sunderland for Gregory Belanger, a local Guardsman killed in Iraq. She closes with the weather.

"It is 6:33 and 18 degrees on 93.9 The River," she says.

That's Dwight's cue, but he misses it. "Eh, uh, sports," he says.

Flynn says, with a sisterly tone, "It's your turn, Bill."

"You always drop it," he protests.

"What do you want me to hand you?"

"I don't know, probably a hug or..."

She cuts back in, deliberately slowly: "Bill, now, with sports," and launches into a mimic of an old news ticker, "didi, di, didi."

"Yeah, we're going to have to work on that," Dwight says, grinning sheepishly now.

Flynn sees her job is now done. Humor has overcome error. "All right, I'm going to leave you now."

"Thank you, Kelsey."

And with that, Bill launches into sports and Flynn bounds back upstairs.

Dwight realizes that in some ways, he's crashing a party that Maddow hosted. He was there in the studio for much of her final week, when people would call in on the phones and cry. Maddow was a hero and a symbol to the lesbian community in Northampton, a voice for them on the radio airwaves, balancing the serious events happening out in the world with enough belly laughs to get them through.

When you're a radio DJ, Dwight explains, thinking back to his own listening days, you're there in the room with people as they're getting ready to start their day. The DJ becomes part of your routine, part of your world. And when that routine gets broken, you notice.

"I'm like Lyndon Johnson, coming in after Kennedy was shot," he says. "Hey, I know I'm ugly and I'm not as endearing as he was and maybe I had something to do with his assassination."

Several listeners call in during the course of the morning. They are supportive overall, but they miss Maddow. By this point, two weeks into it, most regular listeners have realized that Maddow is gone and it's Dwight's show now. One, who was one of Maddow's regular callers, calls in to tell Dwight that if somebody had to take over for Maddow, she's glad it was him.

The trick, for Dwight, is to take what Maddow did well on the show and yet take it in his own direction. He has adopted some of Maddow's old guests -- for instance, Northampton resident Jeff Waggenheim, who commutes several times a week out to Boston for a job as a sports editor for The Globe. Waggenheim helped Maddow broaden her repertoire, but with Dwight, he comes on to banter. Today, they banter about Red Sox center fielder Johnny Damon's long hair and how General Manager Theo Epstein doesn't seem to mind -- perhaps precisely because his Yankees counterpart, George Steinbrenner, would.

In one breath, Dwight is on-air saying Damon's new look, complete with full beard, makes the center fielder look like an "Australopithecine or a Cro-Magnon man." In another, he reflects on his own chin whiskers and knows that part of Maddow's magic was that she was a voice on the radio taking political stands (many that he shares) and she didn't sound like all the rest of them.

"Let's face it, is there a shortage of middle-aged white guys bitching on the radio? I don't think so," he says.

But there he goes.

There are few people in Northampton who could step up to the morning microphone with the potential built-in fan base that Dwight has. To many, Dwight is one of those characters that makes Northampton Northampton. He has spent the past 16 years behind the counter at Pleasant Street Video, an institution in a city that prides itself as being the cultural hub of the valley. Although he was born in Holyoke and spent a number of years in Boston driving around in a delivery truck, Dwight is definitely a townie. "The unofficial mayor of Northampton" is a name frequently attached to him.

That's not an appellation that surprises the city's official mayor, Clare Higgins. She sees the Ward 1 councilor as one of the more accessible people in the city.

"I often think of him as the modern-day bartender," she said. "He stands behind that counter at the video store and offers you a movie for what ails you."

And while Dwight skipped college and his resume is peppered with jobs like carpenter, truck driver, bouncer and video store clerk, he also has pedigree. His father was the publisher and owner of the Holyoke Transcript-Telegram and he grew up around the newsroom. Between that, his education on the city council, and the fact that you can't have a conversation with him at a café without being interrupted every five minutes by people who want to tell him something, Dwight has a solid grasp of what's going on in Northampton and its surroundings.

Being simultaneously a radio show host, a video store clerk and a city councilor is a lot of hats to wear at once. Dwight says he's figured it out and between council meetings, subcommittee meetings, the video store and his time in the studio, he could pull 80 or 90 hours a week. But for now, Dwight is intent on keeping all three. He recognizes the potential concern of a sitting city councilor having the sizeable soap box of a morning radio show to stand on, but thinks for now, he can balance the two ethically.

Former City Councilor Michael Kirby, who gave up his Ward 1 seat to Dwight six years ago, isn't so sure. Kirby, who can almost see Dwight's house out of his window, has worked together with Dwight on community issues and he's also spoken out against him. He thinks Dwight is crossing a line.

"I called him and told him I thought it was a bad idea," Kirby said. "Politicians, probably, if they're planning to get into the media, they should get out of their role in politics."

The dual role doesn't bother Higgins, who sees Dwight as being responsible enough to handle it. Sean O'Mealy said he sat down with Dwight in The River's offices and talked about the dual role and was satisfied that it wouldn't be a problem. But Kirby thinks opposition voices, like his, won't get a fair hearing with Dwight on the radio.

"You've got a small town, you've got the conventional wisdom. Bill's always got the conventional wisdom. You've got the conventional wisdom getting its way. It's just too much power," Kirby said. "I feel at the gut level, it's wrong."

For his part, Dwight says he'll probably steer away from Northampton issues.

"I do have a bully pulpit as councilor," he said. "It does worry me; I'm working it out with myself. If it does become insurmountable, I'll quit one or the other. I don't want either of these jobs to jeopardize the integrity of the other one."

State Senator Stan Rosenberg (D-Amherst) comes into the studio a little after eight to talk about the constitutional convention. Earlier, Dwight opined on the air about John Kerry and his support for a constitutional ban on gay marriage in the state, so long as there was a strong civil unions compromise. Rosenberg talks at length about the significant differences to the gay community between the right to marry and the provisions that might be afforded under a civil union. The key difference is that civil unions would restrict whatever benefits were afforded to gay couples to the state, and marriage would at least allow for the possibility that those benefits might be acknowledged elsewhere.

After Rosenberg runs off to go get a haircut, Dwight finds himself running a little off the clock again. He needs another song in a music block to last him until his next spot. So he browses through his list of options on the screen and grabs "Waiting for the Bus" by the Violent Femmes.

It's the one song he chooses that morning. The music programming, generally, is keyed in the day before by Sean O'Mealy. Dwight thinks of himself as having a little edgier taste. And indeed, O'Mealy calls the station shortly after the Violent Femmes song comes on and asks if it was in the log. No, Dwight says, he inserted it. After hanging up the phone, Dwight wonders if his boss isn't looking a little too closely over his shoulder.

Later, O'Mealy explains that his concern wasn't for the choice of the song, but he thought he had programmed that particular song later in the day, and wanted to make sure it wasn't a duplicate. But the episode shows Dwight and O'Mealy still figuring out what their relationship will be. Dwight isn't exactly the next Howard Stern, looking to get censored by a media culture still skittish after the Janet Jackson Super Bowl exposure. And yet, The River, along with its sister station, The Bear, is in the process of being bought by Saga Communications, based out of Gross Pointe, Mich. Saga already owns a series of stations in the Valley, including WHAI and WHMP.

Saga is generally thought of as being a benevolent parent company. Former WHAI owner Ann Banash says she has nothing but good things to say about Saga and what it's done for her old station. The River's studio will be moving over across Armory Street to the building where WHMP's studio now is. But it's uncertain what the long term effects of Saga's ownership will be on the station's sound and its character.

Maddow referred to The River as "the soundtrack to Northampton." Although The River's listening audience stretches all the way up to Brattleboro, she said she figured that her listeners always wanted to hear that city's soundtrack, because it was the cultural heart of the Valley. O'Mealy agrees that the station made a conscious decision to move to Northampton, after spending much of its life in Greenfield. Northampton, he said, was the center of the spirit, the vibe running through the Valley.

The show slows down after nine o'clock rolls around. Although the show is on the air until 10, there are some days where people can walk by the video store at quarter till and see Dwight restocking videos.

"It's a little disorienting," Dwight admits. "They hear me on the air and then they pull up to the video store and see me and say, 'What the hell?'"

That double take is due to a little trick of pre-recording. This morning, he records two spots ahead of time to run after he takes off for the video store. By this time, the sun is streaming through the vertical blinds of the two windows in the studio, looking out into the Armory Street parking lot. The schedule sheet on the counter has checks next to just about everything. He looks over to the programming screen and, using the mouse, scoots ahead to one of the empty slots and begins to record.

"That's Air... uh... oh blah, blah blah," he says. He reaches over to the mouse and aborts the take.

"That's Air? Do it over," he says to himself.

He does. He reads from a story about a manager at a Wendy's store in Boston, who after getting a phone call from a supposed authority, strip-searched his employees, without a second thought to their civil liberties.

"It's not a huge stretch from that to the Third Reich, if you think about it. Wendy's, they got rid of the salad bar. Not sure if it connects."

No, didn't like that take.

In the next one, he goes with a different conclusion: " Big Breakfast tip of the day: question authority. Okay, it's a bumper sticker, I didn't make it up, but hey. It's the Big Breakfast. Good morning."

"Well, that one worked a little better," he says, and moves on to the final spot.

He takes several takes on that one, too. He's trying to sum up where he's at after two weeks of taking his lumps and figuring out just what he wants to do with this radio show, where he wants to take it. He'll bring on some people he knows, people who know him and moreover, just try not to "make you do a spit take with your coffee."

In one take, he says, "I'm glad to be part of your morning blather."

But that's no good. In the next one, he says this:

"It's the end of week two for me and I'm enjoying this immensely right now," he says. "I'm having a blast."

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