HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_025328

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For Radio Host
Of the Counterculture,
It Was a Strange Trip
By COREY KILGANNON
For a half century, Bob Fass, 85,
has presided over the late-night
airwaves of New York City with a
radio show named “Radio Unnameable,”
which has aired since
1963 on WBAI-FM, the listenersupported
haven for the radical
left.
As a self-described “midwife at
the birth of the counterculture,”
Mr. Fass, in his time behind the
microphone, has borne witness to
some unusual episodes.
The second night his show
aired, a listener set the tone by delivering
marijuana to the station.
There was the time, in 1966, when
Bob Dylan showed up in the studio
and began taking callers and
cracking jokes. In 1971, Mr. Fass
essentially talked a caller out of
committing suicide while on the
air.
But lately, Mr. Fass’s life has begun
imitating the craziness of his
show, ever since he and his wife,
Lynnie, attempted to move out of
their Staten Island home to a new
house in Danbury, Conn., setting
off a misadventure worthy of one
of his distressed late night callers.
Last month, moments after he
entered his new home, as the
movers were carrying in his belongings,
Mr. Fass casually flicked
on a gas fireplace, which promptly
malfunctioned and set the house
on fire.
It was a two-alarm blaze that
left Mr. Fass, who uses a wheelchair,
inhaling smoke for several
minutes until the movers rushed
in and carried him out.
“I could have been roast D.J.,”
said Mr. Fass. “Have you ever
heard the Warren Zevon song ‘I
was in the House When the House
Burned Down?’”
And so the “Unnameable” radio
host now faces an unknowable future.
Even in adversity, though, Mr.
Fass, whose show airs Thursday
nights at midnight, can be counted
on for a pithy take on things. His
improvisational monologues and
his mix of guests and music
helped pioneer free-form radio,
and his show was a vital forum for
activists, musicians, and everyday
people to come together
around issues including the Vietnam
War, drugs and social justice.
After the fire, with no

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