Note: In the same way WHFS ushered in the weekend with this tune each Friday afternoon back in the 80s, I'm going to begin doing the same thing on this blog. That's why you see it here now. It'll be up each Friday afternoon for the foreseeable future.

--dan

Happy Friday the 13th, everybody!

I doubt  that many of you spent much time around the Washington, D.C. media market in the 1980s. But if you did, and if you liked "alternative" FM music, there was one station, and one station only, that you likely listened to: The legendary WHFS.

It's hard to describe, and to do any justice, to this revolutionary Bethesda-based rock music station (they later moved to Annapolis). It was founded by a radio innovator named Jake Einstein. They were low power from Bethesda and didn't have a lot of reach, but had many, many diehard fans in that densely populated area.

WHFS was distinctive in many ways. It invented, at least in the DC market, the album-oriented or alternative format. Rarely, if ever, did it play any TOP 40. They were the only local radio station that played recordings by local artists, such as Root Boy Slim and The Slickee Boys, and the station had live  interviews and performances with rock stars who visited town -- they were always eager to sit down with DJ Damian (Einstein's son) or Weasel (Jonathan Gilbert)  or Bob Here or Cerphe (pronounced Surf) or some of the others.

Here's a nifty, live-in-the-studio duet of "Willin' " by Lowell George and Linda Ronstadt the station broadcast back in 1975.

None of the WHFS deejays had the smooth, slick-sounding radio voices you heard on regular stations. Damian, who had been crippled in a car crash years earlier, often slurred his words. He sounded drunk, but it was actually due to the disability he suffered as a result of that accident. Weasel had a voice like Alvin the Chipmunk, only just a little lower -- no lie. Bob Showacre ("Bob Here") had a laid-back and easygoing voice that sounded like an announcer on National Public Radio (who had just smoked a joint). These guys often made public appearances at local clubs to introduce D.C. musical acts. They were DC-rock-scene celebrities.

In short, WHFS was the anti-station of Washington D.C. radio.

Einstein ultimately sold WHFS to a corporation that took it in a more commercial direction. Years later, it changed into a Spanish-language station. But he bought another station, rechristened it WRNR and repeated the formula -- and it worked again. WRNR is still on the air, broadcasting from Annapolis. (Einstein, who died in 2007, sold the station in 1998 to Annapolis-area resident and "Wheel of Fortune" host Pat Sajak.)

Okay, here's the point of all this: Every Friday afternoon at 5 p.m. WHFS always played the same set of 4, 5 or 6 songs (I can't remember exactly how many it was). It started with Joe King Carrasco's "Party Weekend," moved on to The GoGos "We Got the Beat." It included a Dead Milkmen song, "Instant Club Hit (You'll Dance to Anything)" and some others as well.

You'd be heading home from work, stuck in D.C.-area traffic, tired after a hard week, and that set would come on the radio and change your mood and your energy level and get you bopping and ready for anything that was going on that weekend.

So here's the lead-off tune, folks. Have a great weekend!

Marion G."Pat" Robertson / AP

As promised, here is part 3 of my little serial about Pat Robertson, his great big house up on Warm Springs Mountain, and the day his bodyguard pulled a gun on me.

If you haven't read them yet, please read Part 1 and Part 2 first. This will make a lot more sense with those under your belt.

Below is the actual story that ran in The Roanoke Times & World News on Sunday, Jan. 8, 1995 -- without the million-dollar photo that Stephanie Klein Davis shot of that house.

As I've mentioned before, I can't find that picture of the house in The Roanoke Times files. But you can find it yourself with Google Earth. Here are the coordinates: Latitude 37°54'48.95"N; longitude  79°51'46.36"W.

Pat named this place Higher Ground.

And by the way folks, I learned some years ago that Pat had this place on the market. It's entirely possible that he sold it, and that I'm unaware of that transaction. So he may not be the owner anymore.

Pat Robertson's hideaway

Summary: A PRIVATE RETREAT is how TV evangelist Pat Robertson describes the house. With 11,000 square feet, it has given Bath County folks a lot to talk about.

They say faith can move mountains. If the Rev. Pat Robertson is any example, perhaps it also can build mansions on top of them.

When he grows weary from feeding the hungry, saving souls, collecting millions for his Christian ministry and charting a conservative political course for the future, the nation's leading televangelist unwinds in a stately mountaintop villa high over U.S. 220 in Bath County.

Read more »

Marion G.

Note: If you haven't read part 1, please read that first. This part will make a lot more sense with that under your belt.

The day after my telephone call to Pat, photographer Stephanie Klein-Davis and I got an early start on our jaunt up to Bath County. Even though Pat Robertson had sharply objected to us taking pictures of his mansion (which I could understand), we still needed that photo.

A story about a mansion without a picture of it is about as useful as a car with no tires, you know?

We took the newspaper's white Ford Explorer, which sported signs on each side with "The Roanoke Times & World News" in large, hard-not-to read letters. Bath County is about two hours north of Roanoke by car.

The only problem was, we didn't know exactly where Pat's 11,000-square-foot house was. All we knew was it was off the road that ran along the spine of the Warm Springs Mountain.

A little geography lesson is in order here: Warm Springs Mountain tops out at a little more than 4,000 feet above sea level. It's a long damn mountain -- 20 or more miles long, and it runs kind of southwest to northeast, more or less.

On the west side is the valley through which U.S. 220 passes. This is the main drag through most populated part of Bath County, and it touches the unincorporated and incorporated villages of (from south to north) Carloover, Healing Springs, Hot Springs, Mitchelltown and Warm Springs.

On the mountain's east side is another valley -- this is where the lower elevation sections of Virginia's Douthat State Park are located.

Read more »

Marion G."Pat" Robertson / AP

This is one of my favorite "war stories" from journalism.

It took place at the end of 1994 and continued  into 1995, and involves televangelist and Christian Broadcasting Network founder Marion G. "Pat" Robertson, a mansion he built on a mountain north of Roanoke, and the extreme efforts he took to keep The Roanoke Times from taking a picture of it.

It also involves the National Enquirer and one of its ace reporters, the late, great David Duffy. He was one of the most extraordinary characters I've  met in this business (mostly, we're a hideously boring lot). But we'll get to that part a bit later.

I and my wife and our (then) three kids moved to Roanoke from Annapolis in June 1994, when I started my new job as the City Hall reporter for The Roanoke Times. A few months after we arrived, Donna and I got away for a few nights up in Bath County, (i.e. Deeds Country) at a bed and breakfast in Warm Springs. It is a bit more than a 2-hour drive north of Roanoke.

This was in October of 1994, and Bath County at that time had zero stoplights, a population of about 5,100, gorgeous mountains and valleys, and the grand old hotel and golf resort known as The Homestead, in Hot Springs. (Donna and I were back there in September -- nothing in Bath has changed). More than 80 percent of the county is national forest. Here is a map.

Read more »

LSD blotter sheet, William Rafti / Wikimedia Commons

Enough with politics, and Fox News, and Rush and Ken Cuccinelli. Let's talk about something fun, eh?

Let's talk about LSD.

It's been a little more than 40 years since lysergic acid diethylamide burst over the counter-cultural scene and became the scourge of society and object No. 1 in the War on Drugs.

That was due to a variety of factors. Among them were Timothy Leary's egotism, news-media hype, governmental authorities' fear and the general public's ignorance.

Now, a handful of reputable research institutions are undertaking promising medical research into the psychedelic drug's usefulness as a treatment in a variety of hard-to-treat medical conditions.

Those include crippling cluster headaches, eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and anxiety related to terminal illnesses. Anecdotal evidence of the drug's effects on cluster headaches is substantial (and not particularly surprising, because a key LSD precursor has been used in migraine medication for years).

Soon, the scientific community may begin seriously re-examining LSD's potential in treating alcoholism and perhaps some other addictions. Intriguing evidence that it can be a powerful tool for good in that realm has existed since the 1950s.

It's about time. Read more »

Mark Shields / Creators Syndicate

Those of you stewing a bit about the billions in bonuses paid to bailed-out Wall Street bankers (and AIG bigwigs) should check out the most recent essay by Mark Shields: Outrage at socialism for the rich:

Listen to the good news for Goldman Sachs: In 2008, to save that New York investment firm from collapse, the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) of the national government — underwritten by the tax dollars of waitresses, machinists and firefighters — came up with an emergency loan of $10 billion to keep Goldman afloat. But the insolence of wealth was not shaken. In that year when Goldman earned $2.3 billion — while tin-cupping $10 billion from the U.S. treasury — it still rewarded its top employees with  bonuses  of $4.8 billion.

If I'm reading that right, it sounds like almost half the taxpayer bailout funded those Wall Streeters' bonus checks. (Goldman Sachs paid the money back with interest this year).

Shields goes on to note that the same bailouts-for-bonuses occurred at Citgroup, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley. It's worth a read.

For a more detailed explanation of Goldman Sachs' remarkable turnaround, watch Dylan Ratigan's explanation below.

Cries of 'class envy' are welcome as comments!