Dr. Tim and the Subliminal Seductress

Dedicated to Deanna Love Burgess.

In 1971 a pirate radio station called WUCK-FM was broadcasting from the top floor of a three-story Victorian-era house located at 2737 Halifax Avenue South that was rented and inhabited by four young men in their early to mid twenties. The radio station was strung together by a long haired, bearded 24-year-old engineering student who called himself "Doctor" Tim Treeman, with a hand-built makeshift transmitter set up in one of the third floor rooms, a studio in an adjacent room that included a hand-built mixing board, microphone, two turntables and a reel-to-reel tape deck all set up on two old wooden desks, all of this wired to a rooftop antenna that could broadcast from a radius of several blocks to a few miles, depending on conditions. The station broadcast on the 107.3 frequency and didn't interfere with any legitimate radio stations, so it stayed under the radar of the Federal Communications Commission.

Programming was mostly progressive album rock. Everything from Mott the Hoople to Frank Zappa to Quicksilver Messenger Service to the Grateful Dead was played. But program director/operations manager/disc jockey Dr. Tim didn't have any real set limits on music, as he also played obscure pop singles and B sides if he liked them, plus a little jazz and blues. Music was supplied by a local store, Karma-Mantra Records, in exchange for frequent mentions on the air. In addition to music, Dr. Tim would do a little psychedelic poetry, much of it jotted down moments before he read it on the air. There was also editorial content about such things as the Vietnam War (against), pot (for), the draft (against), the brotherhood of man (for), the Establishment press (or "pig press") (against), the Underground press (for), plus public service announcements for such services as the free clinic and suicide prevention hotline. All in all, it was a pretty professional-sounding operation.

"This is WUCK-FM, I'm Dr. Tim and I'm here to play phonograph records," he would say in his deep voice, up close to the microphone, before hitting the start button on an already cued-up record on one of the turntables. When that song played through and ended, he'd go straight to another cued-up record on the other turntable, put a different record on the first one and cue it up, and so forth. At least once every half hour came an announcement that would go something like, "Music on WUCK-FM comes courtesy of Karma-Mantra Records, 1605 Roosevelt Avenue. Karma-Mantra is now your eight-track headquarters with the widest selection of eight-track tapes, plus eight-track car stereos. Get an eight-track stereo for your car. It's what's happening, baby!"

Elsewhere in the house on Halifax Avenue, there was usually a party going on. Dr. Tim and his roommates Barry S. Wilson, Kevin Leer and Eric Carlsberg turned it into quite a psychedelic mansion with colorfully mismatched furniture on the hard-wood floors, colored lighting, posters on the walls and a constant supply of beer and booze, and maybe some decent marijuana and other substances to make guests feel at home. And if somebody brought their own stuff and wanted to share it, that was beautiful, man.

There were other voices heard on WUCK-FM besides Dr. Tim. Barry, Kevin or Eric would often go up there and do a show for a couple hours, or a houseguest who was interested in trying it out, or someone who wanted to say something to the community at large. And then there was a mysterious, sultry female voice who would take over the airwaves from time to time, calling herself Renee the Subliminal Seductress. People within listening range of WUCK-FM wondered who she was, and whether she was affecting their subconscious minds broadcasting subliminal messages. Rumors began to spread that she, in fact, was.

The mysterious Subliminal Seductress was actually Renee Swensen, the 21-year-old youngest daughter of well-known local businessman, Larry Swensen. Renee was blonde, blue-eyed and gorgeous, and in case you didn't notice she was gorgeous, she'd tell you so. She enjoyed a comfortable upper-middle class upbringing in a lake front home, although she was sent to public school. Growing up, she was close to her father and coddled by him when he was home, which usually wasn't often enough with all the business trips, conventions and long meetings he had to attend. Meanwhile, her mother was more aloof, and was the one who kept her in line.

Renee was going to college with the goal of becoming a school guidance counselor, mostly at the behest of her parents. But upon getting there and being away from home for the first time, she felt the need to rebel, at least a little bit. Her new friends in the women's dorm, mostly from well-off families, introduced her to such things as alcohol, cigarettes and parties. She was much enamored with 1920s-era art deco fashion and so she liked to wear twenties-style dresses and smoke using a cigarette holder, fancying herself more as a modern-day flapper than a contemporary hippie. She had helped her father campaign for Richard Nixon in 1968 and continued to share his Republican leanings.

It so happened she and her college girlfriends went to a party at the house on Halifax Avenue, where she met Tim Treeman, and she immediately found him alluring. He was so completely different from the kind of guy her parents envisioned for her. He had long hair, a beard and wore dark glasses. His background was blue collar, his education was from trade schools, and yet he was a deep, intelligent thinker. She listened intently as he spoke on a wide range of subjects while most everyone else there was babbling nonsense. When she saw the radio station he built, she was all the more impressed. She quickly became infatuated with him and she was coming over to see him as often as she could. Tim's roommates started referring to her as his groupie.

It didn't take long, however, for her to win them over. When she saw how little food they actually had in the house, she started bringing some over and making them dinner, and if she spent the night, she'd make breakfast. Soon, she talked the guys into letting her host a fondue party at the house, making her very popular with the crowd that hung out there. She was also rather artistic, and so she brought paints over and started painting colorful flowers, hearts and other designs on the walls, putting her feminine touch in the bachelor pad, and giving everyone something fun to look at when they were using recreational substances.

The "Subliminal Seductress" thing came about the first evening Dr. Tim had Renee in the studio with him as he did his radio program. They talked together while the records played, and when Tim put on the headphones and started speaking on the air, she continued to talk in the background and it was picked up by the microphone. In an attempt to go with the flow, Tim told his listeners, "Renee the Subliminal Seductress is here, sending good vibes into your subconscious mind."

"I'm so sorry," Renee said after Tim removed his headphones, as another record was playing.

"No, that's cool, baby," Tim told her. "It adds to the atmosphere." A bit later, he opened the microphone while a record was playing, and had her say in a soft voice at a distance, "Sex, sex, sex, sex, sex." First at an even pace, then slower, then he told her to pick it up and say it faster and faster with more breath. Then he turned off the microphone and they busted out laughing.

Before long, Renee talked him into letting her do her own radio show. Women disc jockeys were fairly uncommon then, and Dr. Tim thought of it as another "revolutionary" thing for his station to do. He advised her to speak slowly and softly to sound a little less like a bubbly teenybopper, and he let her select the music she wanted to play. Her musical tastes leaned more toward Joni Mitchell and Judy Collins than hard rock. She called herself Renee the Subliminal Seductress on the air but refrained from whispering too many messages during the music because, Tim figured, "it might get us into trouble."

"Subliminal Seductress" was intended as a joke, a social satire on allegations being made at the time that marketers were slyly slipping sex-related subliminal messages into advertising to influence the subconscious minds of unsuspecting consumers. But to some people, just the suggestion of anything subliminal was no joke and from there, things started to snowball.

A few WUCK-FM listeners were claiming the broadcasts were having a strange effect on them, causing everything from weird dreams to desires to do things they wouldn't normally do. A man who was arrested in a home invasion just a few blocks from the house on Halifax Avenue blamed it on subliminal messages being sent over the airwaves by the station. Police, who knew the man, chalked it up to his mental illness and drug use, and being unaware of the existence of WUCK-FM, assumed it was part of his hallucinations as well. But the call-letters did appear in the police report.

Then a letter to the editor appeared in the daily newspaper mentioning the call-letters and expressing outrage that an unlicensed broadcaster somewhere within city limits was corrupting the minds of unsuspecting citizens with "subliminal messaging technique," suggesting it was a communist plot.

As city officials and law enforcement slowly became aware of WUCK-FM, they started monitoring broadcasts. The station did not broadcast on a set schedule, only when Dr. Tim felt like turning on the transmitter, and when it was on, the signal could only be heard in certain parts of town, which somewhat confounded attempts by authorities to investigate. When they were able to pick up the signal, officials listened closely for any potential subliminal messaging, as well as to song lyrics and spoken commentaries on the station for any obscenities or promotion of drug use and other illegal activity, such as draft dodging. Every questionable bit of content was jotted down in a log book, along with the date and time.

A complaint was filed with the Federal Communications Commission in Washington, DC, which promised to investigate. But other priorities for the government agency took precedence over some tiny unlicensed radio station run by a bunch of hippies that wasn't causing interference with other stations. So the police, in conjunction with the city council and mayor's office, decided to take things into their own hands.

On November 16, 1971, under the pretenses of complaints of a noisy party, police raided the house on Halifax Avenue. They arrested everyone they could get their hands on, while many others ran out the back door. They made their way up to the third floor of the house and confiscated the broadcasting equipment, as well as drug paraphernalia and other items found elsewhere in the house as "evidence." TV film crews were there and the raid made the top of the local Action News and Eyewitness News broadcasts.

Tim, Barry, Kevin, Eric and Renee were taken downtown, booked and charged with a number of alleged crimes, including disorderly conduct, conspiracy to provoke unrest, conspiracy to promote unlawful activity, possession of drugs and drug paraphernalia, and "broadcasting obscenities in violation of city code, using subliminal messaging technique."

The raid became an even bigger news story when it came out that the daughter of Larry and Lois Swensen had been among those arrested, and that she was, in fact, "Renee the Subliminal Seductress." People who knew the Swensens shook their heads in pity. "And she seemed like such a nice girl, too," they said.

The raid stirred a tremendous amount of controversy locally and on a national scale, as the story got picked up by the Associated Press, and thus made it into newspapers across the country, and film footage from the local affiliates appeared on the ABC Evening News, and on the NBC newsmagazine program "First Tuesday."

Ultimately, most of the charges were dropped, at least those pertaining to the radio station. Tim Treeman got his equipment back, but by that time he had received a warning letter from the Federal Communications Commission threatening fines if the station returned to the air, not because of the content of broadcasts, but because the agency's investigation found that it was an illegal operation, operating without a license and at higher power than would be allotted for such a station.

By 1972 the house on Halifax Avenue was vacated and the guys all went their own ways. Renee returned to a more "normal" life, graduated from college and became a school guidance counselor, until she realized she could make a lot more money with far less stress as a commercial voice talent. Her experience as a disc jockey at the underground radio station paid off quite comfortably in the end.

Big Eddie and the Ice Cream Man

(F-bombs, crude language)

It was Saturday, early afternoon at the city park. Big Eddie, his girlfriend Lisa and five other friends were having a cookout in one of the picnic areas, grilling hamburgers and hot dogs, and drinking beer, while a portable radio on the picnic table blared an FM album rock station. There were other gatherings of families and such elsewhere in the park, with kids playing. A good time was being had by all.

Then, from the distance, the chimes of an ice cream truck were heard. The music, playing “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” over and over got louder as the ice cream truck slowly moved in to the picnic area. It stopped right next to where Big Eddie and his pals were partying. Kids from all over ran to the truck with quarters and dollar bills given to them by their parents, ready for frozen treats.

Big Eddie was annoyed with the intrusion. He was particularly annoyed with the amplified chime music playing “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” over and over.

After about ten minutes, Eddie started saying to his friends, loud enough to be heard, “God, when is that asshole gonna leave? That stupid music is starting to piss me off. I can’t even hear the fucking radio, and they’re playing ‘Stairway to Heaven,’ one of my favorite fucking tunes!”

The ice cream man, standing outside the truck and puffing on a stogie as he served his young customers, reached in and turned the music up in response to Eddie’s griping.

“I’ve had enough of this shit,” Big Eddie said, slamming his fist on the picnic table. He walked right up to the ice cream man and said, “Hey! Fuck you!”

“Fuck YOU!” the ice cream man said back.

“Fuck you!” said Big Eddie.

“Fuck you!” said the ice cream man.

The two men went back and forth until Big Eddie’s girlfriend Lisa finally approached.

“Guys, can you please just stop this,” she said. “There are children around!”

“Well he’s pissing me off with that fucking stupid music,” Big Eddie said. “De-de-de-de-de-de-de, over and over…”

“I’ve got just as much right to be here as you, asshole,” the ice cream man retorted.

“Fuck you,” Big Eddie shot back.

“Eddie, just calm down,” Lisa said to him. “Go back to the picnic table, have another beer, smoke another bowl, do whatever, but please stop yelling and swearing around all these kids. This is not cool. Not cool at all.”

Eddie let out a loud sign. “Ohh-kay!”

“Love you, sweetie,” Lisa told him as she reached up to peck him on the lips. “I’ll be with you in a sec.” Then she turned her indignation toward the ice cream man.

“And you’re just as bad as he is,” she told him. “You’re the ice cream man. You’ve got children around, children who look up to you, and all you can say is ‘fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,’ just like him.”

“Yeah. So?” the ice cream man responded as he puffed his cigar toward her, sending smoke into her face.

“And you shouldn’t be smoking around the children either! What kind of example are you setting?” she added, pointing her finger at him.

“I don’t give a flying fuck,” the ice cream man told her. “I only care about selling fucking ice cream bars! And if you’re not going to buy one, get the fuck out of my face!”

Lisa just sighed and shook her head. “I don’t believe this. This is, like, so pathetic.” She took Eddie’s arm and started walking back to the picnic area.

“Goodbye, lady,” the ice cream man said while waving her away. “Take your asshole boyfriend with you!”

“Fuck you!” Eddie yelled back at him.

“Fuck you!” the ice cream man responded.

Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue

(Caution: F-bombs, crude language)

It was the summer of 1973, a particularly hot, humid day. The Delaney family was having their annual family get-together. While music played from the living room stereo, all the doors and windows were wide open, people filled the house, the front and back yards. Adults were drinking and socializing and kids were playing and chasing one another.

Tom Delaney and his cousin Terry Stone, meanwhile, were up in the attic, sitting on the floor and listening to a David Bowie album on a record player they brought up there. The two teenagers were getting themselves high sniffing model airplane glue. The boys made models together when they were younger and had since enjoyed the pleasant effects of glue.

"Wow. This is good shit," said the long, blond-haired Tom.

Droopy-eyed Terry took another sniff from the tube. "Yeah, it's great. I'm floatin' now!"

With Bowie rockin' and glue fumes penetrating their brains, they found profound things to talk about.

"Man you shoulda seen this chick I saw at the drug store the other day," said Tom. "She had tits like you wouldn't believe. They were mega-tits, man!"

"Shit, I woulda love to see that," replied Terry. "But I did see this chick on TV the other day with tits that practically stuck right out of her fuckin' shirt! I bet she weren't even wearing no bra!"

"No foolin'? Oh wow."

They continued to listen to the David Bowie album, talk about "tits" and sniff more glue when a young visitor came up and caught the two in action.

"Hi guys!" said the chirpy 13-year-old Diane, a cousin of the two boys.

Terry had the tube of glue up to his nose and was just a little stunned by the invasion. "The hell you doin' here?"

"I just heard some music and talking up here and I wanted to see what was going on."

"Well this ain't no place for kids," said 15-year-old Tom. "Just us big guys can be up here."

Diane noticed the lead tube in Terry's hand. "You're sniffing glue?!" she blurted out loudly and began to laugh.

"SHHH! Not so loud!"

Diane continued to laugh. "I can't believe it. You guys are hiding all the way up here just to sniff glue!"

The guys did not appreciate being laughed at by a precocious 13-year-old girl.  "Well what do you expect us to be doin'? Smokin' pot?" replied Tom.

"That's a lot better than that shit," Diane retorted.

The boys were at first irritated by their younger cousin but then they began to notice something about her. Her body was beginning to take shape, for one thing, and her clothing did much to emphasize it. She wore a sleeveless shirt with a decal depicting hearts, flowers and clouds, along with very short shorts, revealing her tanned legs and white sandals, showing off her painted toenails. With her soft brown hair framing her maturing face, Diane suddenly didn't seem to be the pesky kid that Tom and Terry had known her to be.

Diane noticed there were several empty Shasta soda-pop cans of various flavors around the boys. "Is that all you guys are drinking is pop?" she asked with mild amusement.

"Well, they won't let us have a beer," Tom replied.

"I could get a whole six-pack up here without anybody noticing," she bragged.

"Yeah, I'd like to see you try!" said Terry.

"Okay, I will!" she said with a smirk as she headed downstairs where the party continued to roll on.

"Man, is that chick for real?" asked Terry. Tom simply shrugged his shoulders and took another whiff of glue.

"She is getting some nice looking tits," he said.

A few minutes later, Diane returned with the promised six-pack.

"How the hell did'ja do that?" asked Tom.

"It was easy. A cinch," she said with a giggle.

The three each grabbed a can and as they were lifting and tearing off the ring tabs, Diane said, "Okay, before we even take a sip, let's have a chug-a-lug contest!"

"Oh my god," blurted Tom. The boys could not believe how wild this girl really was.

"On your mark, get set, GO!" called out Diane as the three downed the contents of the cans. While the two boys had to continuously drink and swallow, with foam sometimes shooting from their mouths, Diane was able to suck down almost half the contents at once, although her brown eyes seemed to pop out of her face as she did this.

"Shit! Where'd you learn to guzzle like that?" asked Terry as they took a rest.

I have experience," replied the 13-year-old with a smile. "I can drink wine or beer without any problem at all. I've even smoked pot before, which is a hell of a lot better than sniffing glue, I can tell you that!"

The truth was she had only tried pot once at age 12, and then it made her hack and cough to the point of tears, although she figured at this point she could try it again since she was beginning to smoke cigarettes without too much problem.

"You wanna try it again?" asked Diane, as the three still had about half a can of beer left. The boys agreed and once again, Diane sucked down the remaining contents of her can before the boys could get in four swallows.

"I guess I win!" exclaimed Diane with a big smile as she set down her empty can. Tom and Terry could hardly stand up, loaded with so much beer and glue vapors.

The David Bowie album on the record player had ended. "Want me to flip it over?" asked Diane.

"Go for it," replied Tom as she walked up, turned the record over and set the needle on the first song. She walked back over and sat right between the two boys, making things rather cozy.

There were three cans of beer left and they each had one, this time drinking them slowly. As the album played, Diane chattered away like the pubescent girl she was, while Tom and Terry sat, almost speechless.

When they finished their beers, Diane said, "Let's go downstairs and join the party." She stood up and the boys followed, now more intoxicated than they had ever been before.

Throughout the house and outside as well, the boys followed Diane as she mingled with the relatives. She had hugs and kisses for all of them and they thought she was just the sweetest little girl. And they didn't even notice the beer on her breath.

The boys, meanwhile, had a terrible case of  "the munchies" and before long grabbed a big bag of Frito's corn chips off the large table outside and chomped on them as though their life depended on it. When Diane saw them, she reached into the bag and took a handful.

Among everyone, as usual, was old Uncle Mel and his infamous camera. Every year at the family get-together, Uncle Mel was there snapping pictures wherever he turned and he seemed to have an endless supply of film.

"Hi Uncle Mel!" chirped Diane as she waved.

"Hello, Diane. You sure are looking lovely. Let me take a picture of yuh." As usual, Mel was wearing a loud suit and was wasted.

"I have my favorite cousins, Tom and Terry with me. You can take a picture of all three of us."

"I'd be delighted," said Mel. He set up his camera while Diane stood directly in front of the two boys, who towered over her. She gave a big smile as the two just stood there, mesmerized by Mel's colorful polyester suit.

Mel held the camera to his face. "Ready. . .say cheese. . ."

Just as he snapped the picture, Diane grabbed the two boys in a certain place which gave them a rather shocked look as she continued to smile. The picture was shot above the waist so nobody really saw what happened.

"Thanks a million," said Mel as he staggered off to take a picture of the half-eaten potato salad.

Tom and Terry continued to follow their cousin around as she charmed everyone with her cuteness until her mother finally said "Diane, honey, it's time for us to go."

"Okay, Mom!" she said as she joined her parents and they all left the party.

A few minutes later, Tom and Terry looked at each other.

"What hit us just now?" asked Terry.

"I don't know, man, I don't know."

The next summer there was another family gathering at the Delaney's. Tom and Terry were anxious to see their cousin again, to see how hot she was now. And sure enough she did show up, with her parents and her boyfriend, a soon-to-be high school senior who played on the football team.

"Well fuck this shit," said Tom as the two boys went back upstairs to the attic, played a Led Zeppelin album and yes, sniffed some more glue.