A Nation Of Chumps

Creginald, here. As with the first two posts, I am just “getting my feet wet” with this post. But I wanted to add another “thought” or note for the record: My archives are incomplete! This is to say that what I have in my collection of 1990s era air checks is about ten audio cassettes (of various quality) along with some VHS cassettes. With the audiotapes, there are typically anywhere from thirty minute to ninety minute segments of “Chumps” broadcasts.  With VHS it is audio-only of course, but there are and were some longer segments of the program (typically one to three hours, with one or two complete shows) recorded. BUT!  The show ran for three years, and so I am missing quite a bit of the broadcasts and air checks.   And that’s (potentially) where you come in. I want open this blog and the Archive to submissions from members of the original audience, should there actually happen to BE any that have stumbled blindly into the intersectional nature of the blog/social med...

Greetings internet friends, family, and web bots. Creginald here, signing in from glamourous SEATTLE, home of coffee and grunge! After many years of thinking about digitally archiving (“digitizing”) the available material from the era, I have finally made baby steps in that bright, new direction. A few thoughts going forward: 1. I’M AN OLD MAN! This means I forget things, a little more often than you younger folks (and too often if you ask me, personally.)  Mainly, I may have forgotten the exact dates involved.  Did the program begin earlier than December of 1992?  Maybe so!  My air checks begin then, and end somewhere in late 1994. Most of the tapes have approximate dates, but I am not 100% certain about all of those. 2. I AM PRE-DIGITAL! Sure, you youngsters with your Virtual Reality goggles and your chiptunes and your gabber-house might have the hang of all of this stuff, but I’m just getting my feet wet (to use an archaic figure of speech) when it comes to this h...

  A Nation Of Chumps Program Host: Walter Kovacs  Co-Host: Sandy Lathers Radio Station: KFAI 90.3 FM Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota  Original Airdate: December, 1992  About The Program: A Nation Of Chumps was an experimental and resolutely non-traditional radio program.   Broadcast overnight, it examined aspects of the broader American culture through the lens of the nation’s subcultural and countercultural movements.   Hosts Kovaks and Lathers took regular calls from listeners, which in turn garnered engaged, active audience participation. In reflecting upon their regular examinations, the hosts would inject ample amounts of both studio-created and audience-sourced audio verite. Its blend of “talk radio” and free-form music selection struck a chord of immediacy, and the program often intertwined with the local community in unpredictable ways, becoming as much an experiment in human nature as a form of entertainment. Engaging and sometimes contr...