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10.21.4

Jeff Rense : My Loathing Wakes for Thee

Despite all of my multifarious pot shots, double jabs, and overall snide backstabbing of our foppy moppy haired friend, I've always been a Jeff Rense supporter. It's true! No matter how teethgrindingly bad the three hour Peter Davenport performances would be, despite the shoddy productions values, regardless the lack of promising a call in number four atleast the last four years, in the face of suspiciously saying he wouldn't post who his affiliates were for fear they would be harassed, and, finally, in the midst of this Club Rense/Rense Radio debacle.

In the end, no matter how much cheap heat I threw his way, I was always secretly routing for Rense. So desperately I wanted this Club Rense thing to meet Jeff's own prediction of success. Sure, it might be hard on a grad student's budget, but I figured some how, some way, I could swing it; I imagined, silly me, that after the first two or so months of seeing how awesome Club Rense was, I'd be chomping at the bit to sign up. But that didn't quite happen. Club Rense was a disaster from the get go. The projected date of lunch saw Club Rense crash; no new members could sign up, and those who could were unable to access the archives. Then the magazine was canceled. Then there was a falling out with the network, this after a previous falling out that forced the show onto this low budget network in the first place. Then the archives were reduced. This was the mightiest sting, as the sell for what is now being called Rense Radio was that all of the show's history would be online, not just the past ninety days, like someother esoteric minded radio shows! Now, Jeff Rense would be just like the other esoteric radio show; ninety days only, it seems there was a threat of people making mp3s out of these episodes and selling them. Oh, and you still can't sign up for Rense Radio, but new members will be admitted soon, they promise!

Through a plethora of excuses ranging from network triffles demanding Jeff take the whole operation in-house, to disputes with the original Clube Rense designers, necessitating the internet subscription service being taken in-house, and even the unflattering admission that Jeff and crew had severely underestimated the technical equipment, hours of service, and overall production cost it would take to get the Club Rense/Rense Radio operation up and running, and this before the additional tolls of having to switch everything to an in-house operation.

Make no mistake, my friends, from August 15th of this year, the Rense radio program has been in one big unremitting debacle. Debacle, debacle, debacle, I say! Whether or not Jeff himself calculated how disastrous this move would be is debatable. Regardless, this was a misfire from the beginning.

Yet, hope always springs eternal. So, even though the stress of trying to get his show back on solid ground has increased his intense anti-zionism to crypto anti-semetism, there was still a little bit of me that wanted Jeff to turn this all around. Can you really blame me? Afterall, gross, greasy hair and a distinct resemblance to everyone's stoner or ex-alcoholic uncle aside, Jeff Rense was a far sweeter taste to the ears than George Noory's vanilla radio.

So it was that yesterday, five minutes after successfully reconnecting our home internet, I immediately thought, "Rense!" I could listen to the low bandwith live feed of the Jeff Rense show everynight at 10pm! O'happy day! Or was it? Indeed, truly unfortunate is the man who, like Rense when he originally conceived of Club Rense, counts his eggs before they've hatched. I log on at 10pm: "we are having trouble with the live feed, stand by." 11pm:"we are having trouble with the live feed, stand by." 12am:"we are having trouble with the fucking live feed, stand by!" Oh for the love of.....!!!!!

Look, it's been nearly four months since Jeff decided to reformat the program, and the hole he inadvertently dug himself into just got deeper. Why, o why, would you piss off the low budget radio network that's keeping you on the air? Why o why would you not let people sign up for the subscription service? Just exactly how many listeners does Jeff really want?

Well, Jeff, it was a fun ride while it lasted. You'll always be better than George Noory any day of the week, but I've damn well lost whatever patientce I had left. Instead of telling us how there's methodical forces out to keep you off the air, sign a reasonable contract with a reasonable network and got on the air to begin with, because right now there really isn't much of a show left for all of your shadowy opponents to surpress.


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