Kris Welch is infamous for many things and, in the last years, they haven't been good things. She interviewed war resister Lt. Ehren Watada's mother in 2006 and that's a good thing. Of course, getting the woman's name rightis a basic for an interview. Despite the woman's name being Carolyn Ho, Kris repeatedly called her Carolyn Oh. She loves to quote lyrics to songs, it's a shame she's so often wrong about what song she's quoting (as when she chose to 'quote' the Beatles "Come Together" -- specifically the line, "Boy, you're going to carry that weight" -- a line not in the song). She's got her war-on dripping over the hopes of war with Syria and quotes mainstream media reports with not even a pretense of objectivity or questioning the administration's position or motives. And, of course, as she's demonstrated so well since Barack Obama was sworn in as US president, nobody does hate speech like Kris Welch.
So we are thankful that her four hours a week of KPFA time has been reduced to three. But, thing is, after yesterday's Saturday Morning Talkies with Kris Welch, we'd recommend it be reduced further -- say, to zero.
It wasn't just the fact that after her decades with KPFA, she should know which button to push to get her theme music to play and not unintentionally entertain listeners with cries of, "Oops! Why did it do that?" 10 seconds of silence in the second half of the show because she didn't know which button to push for music
And it wasn't just the repeated "uh"s and "uh-uhs" as she read from Reuters wire reports -- Reuters wire reports which, for the record, did not contain even one "uh" or "uh-uh" in the text.
It wasn't the long pause followed by "wow" as she read the copy she printed up before her show -- apparently read it for the first time while in front of the microphone. Or when she repeatedly stumbled through a bad prose reading of "" -- she also apparently read it for the first time while in front of the microphone.
It wasn't the shoddy work that produces an embarrassing show.
Nor was it her never ending sexist efforts to blame Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for Barack Obama's actions. To listen to Kris on Saturday, was to cheer at the thought of St. Barack but, when it was time to boo the Drone War, to boo Hillary who, Kris hissed, "has another apology in her future" for the Drone War.
It's not that Iraq's on fire with violence and a political crisis and Kris can't take her head out of her ass long enough to see what's going on, let alone talk about it. As we noted in October 2009's "Editorial: The Ringing Bells of Justice," KPFA began having problems getting donations as they rushed away from Iraq.
It wasn't even the way she slaughtered Jesse Kellerman's Potboiler with a 15 minute reading she stumbled through as she alternated between scold and whine -- the only two voices now left in her repertoire. A 15 minute reading, we should note, that had bad marching band music at the start and at the abrupt end.
No, it's the fact that with everything going on in the world -- most of which she ignored, Kris Welch decided to open her show with a program change.
With protesting a program change.
KPFA needs to get clear on something real damn quick: Listeners aren't entertained by your squabbles at the station. The general attitude is, "We saved the station before, when are you going to do your job." Kris Welch appears to believe that a nine a.m. Saturday program being moved to six a.m. is the most important story in the world. Before any real news could be badly delivered by Kris, listeners had to hear her whine and moan that The Gospel Experience -- yet another bad jukebox show on KPFA -- had been moved to six a.m.
It's always hilarious to hear Kris kiss Emmit Powell's ass because when not sucking up to the Gospel Experience, Kris can be found trashing Christians on Living Room and the Saturday Morning Talkies.
Here's a question: Why is KPFA even offering a gospel music show? Who does it serve? Mahalia Jackson's been dead since 1972. Her old recordings and those of so many others serve who?
The Bay Area has a number of radio stations -- including KDYA, KFAX and KDIA -- which serve that community.
So why in the world is KPFA wasting two hours on a jukebox show each week instead of producing needed and original content?
And why in the world would they chose to air Gospel Experience on Saturday and not Sunday, if they had to air it to begin with?
KPFA is better than many Pacifica Radio stations in that it has evening news on Saturday and Sunday. For thirty minutes, starting at six p.m., you get news.
That's it. That's really it. The rest of the day it's embarrassments like Kris Welch or jukebox shows that are such garbage that when a holiday falls, they're done ahead of time and the listeners don't even know they're listening to a recorded program and not a live one.
KPFA and all of Pacifica need to seriously consider dropping all of these jukebox shows. They offer nothing. If they want to do music shows, bring someone into the KPFA studio and let them perform. Which used to happen all the time, by the way. These jukebox shows are garbage and exist usually because someone had a friend in programming. They've out lived their purpose and serve no one. Not just because they're niche music but mainly because if you're listening to music, you're listening to another station. No one's saying, "Oh, one hour of rock music in a foreign language! Better switch from KITS to KPFA!" Or, "Oh! It's time for straight-ahead jazz! Better flip to KPFA!" But what these awful programs by awful programmers do accomplish is sending KPFA's ratings into the toilet each weekend.
And if Kris Welch thinks the most 'tragic' 'news' in the world is that any KPFA show was moved three hours ahead of its usual time, then she needs to go. Listeners don't need to hear her advocating that they write the station and that they attend this meeting and all the other crap.
KPFA is not your vanity station. It exists for more than you and you need to stop taking all your petty, personal problems onto the airwaves. Petty is whining that a nine a.m. Saturday show has been moved to six a.m. and attempting to lead a revolt over that programming change. Petty is Kris Welch.
