14/11/2025
As the years fly by, it gets harder to convey the meaning of WBAI fm in NYC to the counter culture that was..and the culture of now..,and the futures invented by WBAI colleagues when they left.
i thought about it last night, after reading that one of those colleagues, David Lerner, had died.
Back in the day, David was one of the brilliant techs that populated the station. ( One time, when i got access to the VA hospital on 23rd street, i wanted to produce the piece in stereo....David secured a brand new Sony stereo cassette recorder and brought it to the VA..to make sure the recording came out well. It did. Another time, when my apartment was broken into and burglarized...and i discovered this when i got home...David showed up at 3 in the morning to change the locks on my apartment so i wouldn't feel sol vulnerable.
So that was the David Lerner i knew...years later he found and sent me a recording he had in his stash of me reporting from a demonstration where i was caught in a tear gas barrage ( those were the days).
Here's is the David Lerner more people are familiar with..or what he did after WBAI.
This is from an NPR piece from 2016...about David...and most of the people you hear here..in addition to David..are former BAI people:
SHAPIRO: Here's something that is disappearing - independent computer repair shops. Manhattan is saying goodbye to one that has something of a cult following. Tekserve has rescued Apple device owners for nearly 30 years well before the first official Apple store opened in New York City. Today the shop closes its doors for good, a victim of high rents and retail competition. Here's reporter Jon Kalish.
JON KALISH, BYLINE: Step into Tekserve and marvel at the antique radios, microphones and electrical meters lining the walls. In the back of the spacious store, every model of the Mac that was made is displayed, and you can still buy a bottle of coke for a nickel from a 1950s vending machine. Tekserve was started by two radio engineers in 1987. That's 14 years before the first Apple store opened. David Lerner is one of the co-founders.
DAVID LERNER: For a long time, we were a Mac destination in New York, and as Apple started opening their stores, which - they're temples really. You know, there are six within - what? - 2 miles of us now. It's more convenient to go closer.
KALISH: The Apple stores may be more convenient, but Tekserve co-founder Dick Demenus is no fan of their uncluttered, spotless decor.
DICK DEMENUS: Everything is forward looking. It's all new. It's all clean. There's no hint of history. I want to respect those who came before.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Blue ticket 53...
KALISH: Customers take a decidedly analog deli-counter ticket and wait for their number to be displayed on old Macs kept alive from the 1980s. One of the owners once hacked an iMac installing a second monitor on its base. Asher Rapkin worked at the store when the two-headed iMac was put on display.
ASHER RAPKIN: It was just awesome. And this is so much of why I think people would come in because while you were sitting there, stressed out, waiting to find out if your term paper was going to get saved, you could play with a two-headed iMac.
KALISH: Tekserve was so well-known in New York that it had a cameo on the hit TV show "S*x And The City." When Carrie Bradshaw's PowerBook crashed, she brought it here.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "S*X AND THE CITY")
SARAH JESSICA PARKER: (As Carrie Bradshaw) I was just typing, and then there was a mean, little man who popped up. And he had Xs where his eyes should be.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) That's a sad Mac. You should've told me that before.
KALISH: The techs here have been known to discover problems and fixes for Macs before Apple does. The store's diverse workforce includes white-haired baby boomers, tattooed millennials, women techs. Deb Travis has worked here for 20 years. She says many of her co-workers were touring musicians.
DEB TRAVIS: People who would go off for two or three months and then come back. That was one of the big perks of working here. Most of the people who worked here had other things they were doing.
KALISH: Other perks include health insurance and free lunch for the store's hundred or so employees. Many say it's the best place they ever worked. For NPR News, I'm Jon Kalish in New York.
Thanks, NPR. R.I.P David Lerner
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