WPRR 1680 AM Reality Radio, a Pacifica affiliate in Grand Rapids, Michigan, has added Madness Radio to their regular lineup!

Programming Director David Fletcher writes: Thanks for the quality programming, we at WPRR are proud to air your show.

You can listen to WPRR online at www.publicrealityradio.org

A listener from the Icarus Project website writes:

Thanks so much for all the awesome work you do! Madness Radio is like a huge amazing radio gem within the radical alternative mental health treasure chest of Freedom Center, The Icarus Project and the mad pride movement overall, and I’m profoundly grateful to have it in my life.

A listener emailed this:

Hi Will,
I caught your show one night on KAOS radio here in Olympia. Great program! Keep up the good work!

S

kaosradio.org

That’s right, Madness Radio got started in winter of 2005, with the launch of WXOJ-LP, Valley Free Radio in Northampton MA. When I found out about low-power FM radio licenses offered by the FCC, and joined forces with local activist and ham radio operator Ed Russell to get Valley Free Radio started, I only had a dim idea that I’d end up hosting a show. Madness Radio went on the air the first week VFR went live, and since then it’s broadcast non-stop every week for 3 years. Along the way we got syndicated in Alaska and joined the Pacifica Network, so today thousands of people listen to Madness Radio every week.

As if this weren’t enough, astonishingly, while developing the new website and moving all the files over, I realized that Madness Radio just recorded its 100th show!

Wow!

A hundred freaking shows!

But wait, you ask — three years, broadcast every week — where are the missing shows?

Some shows sadly did not get recorded, and some weeks we re-broadcast choice selections from our Archives so I can have a break and can catch my breath, dive down into some mad netherworld, or just be lazy. Without any budget or salary, it’s up to inspiration to get things moving.

“Hey Will, congratulations on 3 years and 100 shows, that’s great, we love Madness Radio, so what can we do?”

I’m glad you asked, I was just thinking that.

Head over to the Get Involved page for an enticing list of possibilities. Talk to your local community station; send money; suggest show topics, send me some email… there’s plenty of ways to get involved.

Thanks to all the great guests over the years. It’s been a rare privilege to be able to call people up out of the blue and have a deep conversation about their experiences and work. Looking forward to more to come.

— Will Hall

Madness Radio is a labor of love but it is a labor. Thanksgiving and the holidays, filled with family memories and ‘issues,’ are a good time to get my mind off people and focus on technology, and the results are a new website for Madness Radio — long overdue.

I fast on Thanksgiving as an observation of my heritage, my mom is of American Indian descent. My housemate was away, and though we had probems with the heat, I was swept up into a frenzy of work that ended up being a wonderful way to celebrate the day. I know I know, how about meditating or walking in the forest, certainly things I also love to do on the holidays, but I have a dedication to my creative muses, and when I am inspired, I follow. The results are this Drupal 6 website, soon to be launched in the world.

My own work pace fluctuates with my inspiration with or withdrawal from the world in general, so the site didn’t show up on a set schedule. I’m also not sure when it will go live (since the current page on freedom-center.org works fine, there’s no pressure of deadline other than what my inner fire seems to want). The Drupal theme and configuration are shaping up nicely, but if you have any suggestions or problems or spot any technical glitches please take a moment to get in touch and let me know.

Right now I’ve got a lot of great shows in the works, so stay tuned as Madness Radio continues…

Also if you are a listener can I ask you to do something for Madness Radio in return? Head over to the Get Involved page and help out in some way. Just a few minutes of your time could help spread the show to community radio stations and help build our listener base. Thanks and happy holidays

— Will Hall

I was really excited to get this email from a listener in Prague Czech Republic! Here’s the email she sent — and also check out her powerful poem…

Dear Will,

I’m an avid listener to Madness Radio from afar – from Prague in the Czech Republic to be precise. I’m also an editor and poet and a psychiatric survivor.

I am writing because I thought you might be pleased to hear how far and how potently your work travels. The interviews and resources in the Madness Radio archives are just terrific. They have been particularly helpful to me over the past few months while I’ve been dealing with learning the details of my official diagnosis. As much as I have wanted to question and criticise the authority of this label, I have fallen into self-doubt and hopelessness, often only compounded by information (from mental health charities, message boards, etc.) I’ve seen online.

I see now that part of the problem has been that I have been trying to take on the injustices I see around me on my own. Your show has helped me to counter this with a wonderful sense of (often like-minded) community and support. I am hoping that it will become easier in time for me to deal with the trauma of my classification and treatment by mental health professionals. (It’s only recently that I’ve begun using the word ‘trauma’ and speaking openly about the label I was given, and this itself feels like progress).

Thanks once again for your tremendous show.

WHERE
Home (hohm) n., adj., adv., v.
3. an institution for people with special needs

If X is born at a place (P_______) without a shriek at 7.14 a.m. in the year 19__, and it is there that she has her first bath and watches her fist turn to a blunt-headed fish under the water

if R is a room – her bedroom – of dimensions 10 x 8 x 4 (Do not take into account any windows) with a thick muslin curtain

if there is the thinnest of all possible trees outside

if F– X’s father– bites his lip nervously when talking to strangers

if F is held still by the invisible wire of the T.V.  set until 3 each morning, that is for 6.3 hours most nights a week (Only calculate for non-leap years)

if P – X’s mother- burns the stovetop

and, at that very moment, F looks up and says could I just have some peace for 5 minutes I love this show.

if a farmer is attempting to install an electrical fence around his compound in France

or, say, a team of medical experimenters is doing a study of cancerous cells, and two-thirds of the participants have something to worry about

if all trains always travel north

confidently – in that way of trains – at something miles per hour

and Sam in Cincinnati is painting a room of unknown volume

and Martha, the last of the billions of passenger pigeons, died slowly in a zoo in 1914 aged 29

(Assume that X does not equal 29)

if X is as tired as zero, or

if she leaves P at 4.12 pm heading to a restaurant

when she can sit alone with a coffee

and stuff 4 sugar sachets into her purse

(Always steal things in even numbers)

if it is almost raining here

(Consider the misery of an asymptote)

and there are problems with X’s nervous system

(that is to say, her system is nervous)

or if she is best approached on the other side

of a time difference (minus 10 hours or plus 8),

If, in other words, X is a somewhat negative number

like a bead dropped from the abacus, unreachable

tonight through fax or phone

or your thin limbic algebra

then what is the probability of

the possibility of

what is the area of

what is the product of

how far and how wide

how long

please how much longer

at what white angle

will it happen

who will ever find X?

(Provide workings for your answer.)