Current.org | 'Been There Done That'

Been There/Done That
Their target audience has marinated in life

Originally published in Current, May 14, 2001
By Steve Behrens

Did you know that the Rock & Roll Lobe of the brain permits many Baby Boomers to recognize a Top 40 song from the first two notes? Did you think you'd live so long that a guessing game that tests the Rock & Roll Lobe would become a recurring feature of a public radio program about aging?

You have lived so long.

Since March [2001], Philadelphia's WHYY-FM has been airing a weekly hour for aging Boomers and others who have passed 40 and are trying (many of us desperately) to making it cool or at least tolerable to be old. This week, the station begins flacking Been There/Done That at a dinner for selected programmers at the Public Radio Conference.

Anna Kosof, executive director of WHYY's national radio productions and executive producer of the show, said she wanted to shape a program for pubradio's existing audience instead of chasing after younger listeners. "I wanted to give the feeling of people who have lived a little — not necessarily senior citizens — where the stew has marinated a little bit."

To spice it up, she hired Marty Goldensohn, a restlessly inventive pubradio veteran, who was news director at Pacifica's WBAI when she was g.m. in the '70s. Goldensohn has worked as news director at WNYC as well as WBAI, as host of Currents for WNET, and as New York bureau chief for Marketplace for six years. To prepare for weekly launch in March, Kosof brought on Elisabeth Perez-Luna, an experienced indie who produced Crossroads for nine years and Art Beat for two.

Kosof wanted to "speak to Boomers about life, about age, in a way that was not a downer," says Goldensohn. The program is full of his humor.

Though the program has segments about the problems of aging (segments on retirement finance and a recurring feature, "Failing Body Part of the Week"), it's more than "Old Things Considered," says Goldensohn. The producers aim at a range of mature generations, Boomers and up, with music and topics to interest them, such as life after menopause, and an update on the Doobie Brothers. Goldensohn wants to create "a friendly salon ... for grownups."

"I like this to be as alive and curious and diverse as we are today," says Perez-Luna. "I don't live in a world of old rock 'n roll only. I don't think our listeners do, either." The program's title isn't meant seriously, she admits. "In reality, we haven't been everywhere. We're seeing new things all the time."

The program gets four-fifths of its funding from AARP, which also has its beady eyes on the Boomers.

But the material isn't always what the Geriatric Establishment would want its wards to hear. Goldensohn took a tape recorder to his colonoscopy, for instance. The bad news, as listeners discovered, was that the intrusive examination hurts — you hear a groggy journalist protesting to the doctor. The good news, Goldensohn says later, is that you're so drugged that you can't remember the pain.

Instead of unreeling a lengthy minidoc on a core subject each week, the producers chunk it into segments of newsmag length, up to six or seven minutes, so the show keeps its pace and variety. In one program, the microphone visits intermittently with lively Florida retirees, chatting thoughtfully about the pros and cons of snowbirdhood.

Another features segments about sleep, including an emphatic defense of the siesta by a Spanish woman.
That was one of Goldensohn's "Strangers on a Train" items, which he tapes during his daily trip from New York City to WHYY ("harnessing the commute for peaceful purposes").

Goldensohn remembers those earlier years when his Amtrak seat-selection goal was to sit next to a pretty girl. Now he tries to sit next to someone who looks like they might make a good interview. Looks deceive in many cases, which he doesn't tape, but among the 18 that he did interview, all but one made it into the show. He said his tight directional mike catches just enough train sound for the interviews that it seems a producer has delicately added the ambiance.

Two sisters practicing gospel harmony on the train ended up in a transitional segment following a piece on Holocaust recollections.

Other recurring features include "Second Read," with writer Gwenda Blair re-reading classics; and bits by commentators like Kurt Vonnegut, Bill Geist, Victoria Secunda, Jules Feiffer, Jim Bouton and Stanley Mieses (WNYC's Mr. First Nighter).

The show feeds on Thursdays. WHYY airs it Saturday afternoons.

Posted Nov. 12, 2003
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