"I read the news today...oh boy..."
Those lyrics, from The Beatles' "A Day In The Life" are ones that I will so sadly be saying to myself more and more in the coming years when it comes to the people who have all played instrumental roles in the creation of who I am, from my earliest days to existing in this very moment and who I will continue to be until my own final moments.
Today, as I was listening to Terri Hemmert's weekly Sunday morning "Breakfast With The Beatles" broadcast on my beloved WXRT FM from Chicago (thank you internet for live streaming), and soon thereafter the program's conclusion, the inimitable Hemmert, whose voice I have listened to for nearly 40 years upon the airwaves of the greatest radio station in the world, as far as I am concerned, made an announcement that completely upended whatever sense of possibility a new day in the world would have: WXRT's Lin Brehmer, legendary on air host and Chicago radio fixture, had passed away early this morning after a fight with cancer. His wife and son were by his side at his moment of transition. For the rest of Chicago and for anyone, anywhere who ever had the gift of hearing him, he was, as he always professed, "our best friend in the whole world."
He was 68.
LIN BREHMER
AUGUST 19, 1954-JANUARY 22, 2023
Throughout the morning as I continued to listened to WXRT, Terri Hemmert intermittently re-appeared to alert listeners to the sad news and expertly guide us throughout the day as we all processed. I wrote a personal message of condolence to WXRT's Lara Mondae, the station's outstanding Saturday overnight DJ, as we have developed a friendship over these past six years. I read Chicago newspaper articles and tributes throughout the day and flowing through my Twitter feed was one remembrance after another and another and another from Brehmer's colleagues, personal friends, musicians, representatives of the Chicago music community and devoted and heartbroken listeners, all sharing the exact same sense of sorrow on this Sunday, freshly adorned with a small amount of new fallen snow.
Interweaved, were gorgeous sets of music that truly felt to be personally chosen selections representing songs Lin Brehmer may have loved himself or songs of grief, mourning, solace and grace in this time of utter sadness. Leave it to Lin Brehmer, that even (or especially) in his passing, he represented the very best of what radio could actually be--to exist as this form of communication and communion, where you could feel the human hands behind the technology selecting songs to channel the emotions we are all feeling, as well as simultaneously attempting to adhere to Brehmer's daily sign off during his on air broadcasts: "Never take anything for granted. It's great to be alive."
And for me, hearing tracks like The Rolling Stones' "Moonlight Mile," Led Zeppelin's "Thank You" and The Flaming Lips' "Do You Realize??" (a song I played on my own radio show to begin my on-air tribute to my Dad after his passing in 2018) among so many others, cemented the solemnity of the day and the feelings that emerge when someone cherished departs.
What is so fascinating to me regarding Lin Brehmer's passing is how deeply I am feeling the hurt, the ache and loss as he was a radio figure that I actually never really heard on air very much at all. My connection to him rests in the tremendous realization of how deeply he figured into my life without ever really knowing it at the time. You see, Lin Brehmer began broadcasting as an on-air personality for WXRT in 1991, the same year I had graduated from the University Of Wisconsin-Madison and began my life in earnest in my adopted city. This was a time period in which the internet, such as it was, was so young and live streaming was unheard of, making it then impossible for me to hear my favorite station in the world let alone Lin Brehmer's morning show.
I was born and raised in Chicago and my allegiance to WXRT began possibly around 1984, when I was 15 years old. I remember the television advertisements for WXRT back in the early 1980's, commercials during which the spokesperson would announce matter-of-factly, that WXRT was a rock station but "not for 14 year olds"--something I bristled with initially until I turned to the station for the first time for a spell and quickly realized they were correct. I just was not ready for what WXRT had to offer and how they offered it.
By the time I was 15, I was itching for new sounds, new musical horizons to investigate as I was maybe beginning to feel a certain set of limitations to hearing the exact same songs from artists I was treasuring on the AOR stations. WXRT was the one radio station that felt to break boundaries, to extend itself further, to provide what I had already loved but to challenge any pre-conceived musical perceptions I may have been housing and all of it was delivered through a collective of DJs that just sounded different from any other station in the city.
If the DJs on our classic rock stations were rambunctious kids and shock jocks filled with on air bravado and outsized personalities, the DJs of WXRT felt like their even cooler and more sophisticated older siblings or wiser Uncles and Aunts. These DJs were the ones who loved the music for music's sake, ones who clearly loved any good times the city of Chicago could offer yet they didn't seem terribly interested in the circus aspect of things. These DJs felt to be the fans who grew up into being the curators--curators of the music as well as the art form of radio itself, simply by providing the listener with an extension of their authentic selves through their voices and the music they genuinely loved.
From 1984, through the remaining years of the decade and beginning of the next, Lin Brehmer was the Music Director of WXRT, a position he held until 1990. These were, coincidentally, the exact years I was a faithful daily listener and WXRT became my #1 favorite radio station--as previously stated, an opinion I hold to this very day. or me, WXRT remains the station whose bar is set at a superior height all other stations strain to reach. It also represents the gold standard that I always strain reach for during my own radio adventures at WVMO and I lovingly keep trying each and every week.
But, during my adolescence and college years, Lin Brehmer's work was demonstrably behind the scenes. He was profoundly instrumental with helping to shape my musical tastes, as his work introduced me to artists, genres and musical outlooks that I would have otherwise never had been exposed to. In that way, much like the late filmmaker and music aficionado John Hughes, and also without ever having met him, Lin Brehmer utilized his personal musical passions to seismically open doors inside of me.
Through his influence, and the WXRT DJs who collaborated with him, it always felt as if Lin Brehmer was personally handing me the keys to the kingdom of music itself with open hearted purity, child like excitement and in the same way achieved between personal friends, family members and even the young, aspiring DJs I would meet upon my arrival in college.
During this same time period, circa 1987, I began my life in Madison, WI as a college Freshman. One of my very first thoughts was to investigate if the campus possessed its own radio station, which they did in the moldy smelling basement located in the bowels of the J. F. Friedrick Center named WLHA FM, and sporting a booming watt and a half of power. I interviewed and was soon invited to join the 'LHA ranks and my radio adventures began.
Certainly, and due to my over the moon excitement, my earliest shows--three hours every Friday mid morning--were more than self indulgent as I tried to play whatever I wished to play almost regardless of whatever audience that may have been listening. I wanted to play Pink Floyd's side long 1977 epic "Dogs" and so I did. Not that there's anything wrong with that, in and of itself. Yet over time, and when my show eventually moved to late Saturday nights from 10 pm to 1 am, for my remaining three years on air, I realized that actions like those were more than self serving and truthfully, do nothing to create the relationship that I adored so much from radio but didn't quite understand just yet.
But, I was learning...
Again, and still without even having heard his voice yet, Lin Brehmer was directly beside me during my WLHA years, giving me as much counsel as the DJs I revered on WXRT at that time, including Frank E. Lee, Johnny Mars, Spinnin' Marty Lennartz, Wendy Rice and of course, the aforementioned Terri Hemmert.
What was it about the radio that had enraptured me from the very beginning? What was the mystery on the other side of the radio speakers that captivated me so powerfully and completely? The more I listened and the more I did my own shows on college radio as well as currently, I have learned more and more that maybe what I was responding to was that sense of connection that is forged when the spirit within the voice at the microphone reaches the spirit of the ear, and therefore, the heart of the listener. How that connection is made is still so ephemeral, so ethereal and yet, exactly like when you and I respond to a piece of music or a song...no matter when it was originally recorded and released to the world.
With WXRT, I now know that what kept me returning to this station in addition to the exemplary music, were these figures, these faceless voices who became my teachers, and even moreso, somehow, my friends.
What I was just beginning to learn back in the 1980's, and without question, what I am still learning in 2023 is in order to make the connection that is so crucial to the relationship a DJ is trying to formulate with the listener is to just exist as your most authentic self in voice and spirit. There was no sense of artifice with the DJs of WXRT. No frills or fabrication. These are people wo are always speaking to us and not at us. And even though they cannot hear us, what they created always felt like a conversation.
Lin Brehmer became an on air DJ for WXRT in 1991 and over the years, I truthfully only heard him sporadically, again and due to my residence and the means of technology at the time. On visits to family in Chicago, my radio dial would turn back to WXRT upon arrival and I sometimes heard his on air banter with Mary Dixon, now of WBEZ. Other than these occasions, I was in Madison with no means to hear him. Once technology caught up, and I with it, my life as a preschool teacher certainly prevented me from hearing Brehmer throughout the day, when he would normally be on air. Yet, I have been catching up a bit in more recent years, especially with his treasured and exceedingly well written and composed "Lin's Bin" series, thankfully archived upon the station's website.
What I hear when I listen to Lin Brehmer's voice is the confirmation of every lesson given during my upbringing. He was authentic. He was real. He just was himself. Seeing the a mount of love flowing back in full reciprocation has been more emotional than I could have anticipated. I have spent much of the week listening to WXRT's beautiful tribute broadcast, as led by Terri Hemmert, which aired the day after his passing and I have been brought to tears repeatedly by the stories and songs that illustrated this man and this lifetime in radio, friendship and family. I have been reading one remembrance after another and another and another, across decades at that, from close friends and colleagues to long established musical artists to acquaintances to those who interacted with him perhaps just one time, I have been absolutely struck that every memory expresses the exact same sentiment regardless of who is sharing the memory.
Lin Brehmer was the real deal who was genuine in word, deed, energy, enthusiasm and affection and in doing so, he ingratiated himself resoundingly throughout the city of Chicago, and further with a reach that extended throughout the world.
Without any sense of disrespect to his 'XRT DJs colleagues and friends, Lin Brehmer became the identifying voice of the station itself. It was as synonymous as it was symbiotic. You could not think of one without the other from Brehmer to WXRT to Chicago. Even as radio became even more corporate and machine driven, Brehmer seemed to extend his humanity to combat the sea change, ensuring WXRT would never lose its foundation, its human touch. No wonder it is Lin Brehmer's voice that opened an episode of last year's tremendous set-in-Chicago series, "The Bear." When I saw that scene, all I could think of was..."HOME."
Lin Brehmer was Chicago and Chicago clearly embraced him in return, truly making him everybody's best friend in the whole world--precisely as he proclaimed himself. He lived the part because, by every single account that I have heard, read and seen, this is just the man he was...joyously, gregariously, authentically and humanely.
Listening to the tribute broadcast. Reading the veritable ocean of gratitude for the his life throughout my Twitter feed. Experiencing the archived installments of "Lin's Bin," and being completely awash by the undeniable poetry contained in his loquacious, personal style, allowing me to see that he was a modern day bard, as he truly was as gifted as they come in the oral tradition.
And then, what really broke me were the public displays upon marquees and landmarks through out Chicago.
Pictured above are just two examples of the public outpouring of love and mourning over the passing of Lin Brehmer. The key words in that sentence are simply "just two" as the amount of theater and restaurant marquees moving all the way up to the very top of the Sears Tower (no, I will NEVER call it "Willis"--thank you very much) in lights and entirely in tribute to Lin Brehmer...I am unsure of the exact words I could put into place for what sights like those meant to me as I think of and remember this man.
Yet, perhaps, I could express it this way...
Frank Capra's "It's A Wonderful Life" (1946) is a film that I have had an evolving relationship with throughout my life. As a child, the film's ubiquity at Christmastime on every conceivable channel, and cemented by its climax, was more than I could tolerate as it all felt to exist within this old fashioned snow globe devoid of anything that did not instantly strike me as overwrought in its corniness.
By the time I was 18, I watched the film in full for the first time during my Journalism class as we were studying the topic of "public domain," the period after a copyright expires and anyone, anywhere has access to the work without restriction (the reason for the film's ubiquity at the time). I was not at all pleased with the prospect of having to sit through this film that I had already rejected--albeit fully sight unseen.
By the time I was 18, I watched the film in full for the first time during my Journalism class as we were studying the topic of "public domain," the period after a copyright expires and anyone, anywhere has access to the work without restriction (the reason for the film's ubiquity at the time). I was not at all pleased with the prospect of having to sit through this film that I had already rejected--albeit fully sight unseen.
Strikingly, I found myself very quickly being drawn into the life odyssey of George Bailey (beautifully portrayed by James Stewart) and his hometown of Bedford Falls, the place he desperately wishes to leave for world travels yet never does as one event after another compels him to remain thus building his own sense of resentment, failure and ultimately existential desperation leading to potential suicide. It is through the divine intervention of Clarence the Guardian Angel (Henry Travers) who shows George what the world would have been like did he not exist. This disturbing vision compounded by the film's aforementioned climax, affords George the ability to see that not only does his life possess meaning, but that because he exits, he is not a failure. And because he has been generous, giving, selfless, and genuinely concerned about the well being of his fellow members of his community, the community reciprocates in turn.
The conclusion, now completely understood, was extremely moving to me then. In all of the years since that first viewing, the power of the film, especially that climax, just shakes me to my core, bringing me to well earned tears each time I am caught in that flood of angst and despair to be rescued by community and kindness.
Maybe as I think about Lin Brehmer, this is why his death has upended me so very much. That through everything he taught me about music and about radio, I think what his life has taught me the most is what he clearly had been teaching all of us all along: what it means to just be a good person, especially, crucially within a dark 21st century that feels to reward all manner of bad behaviors to just plain evil.
Decades upon decades of photos and remembrances from all manner of individuals, all extolling nothing but the highest praise for this man who just treated everyone he encountered with decency and dignity. A man who always seemed to provide a sense of uplift to whomever he was in communication with--in person or through the radio. All of the photos bearing Lin in a broad smile, and often in some manner of an embrace, exude supreme warmth. And the words of his friends, from that first announcement, through the tribute and every day thereafter, were humbling in their transparency and fragility.
Lin Brehmer was a man who genuinely loved--his family, his friends, his community, the city of Chicago and of course, music--and was loved in return.
What does it mean to be a good person? And what does it mean when that person one day disappears from our everyday lives? It always goes back to the words he said every day on the air, his personal mantra, the one lesson he was teaching us every single time he said it.
"Take nothing for granted. It's great to be alive."
We live in a sad, cynical world. But, beauty exists. The times are fraught with uncertainty and unease. But, we are here and with each other. We are all wrapped up within our own trials, traumas and triggers. Yet, what it would means to reach out instead of folding inwards. No one should ever feel to be a failure and we can be each other's guardian angels just through the virtue of our own kindness that we can extend every day. Tell the people that you love, that you do indeed love them. Tell them today and do not hesitate for tomorrow is not promised. Why are the words "I love you" so difficult to say yet everyone seems to have no qualms expressing the harshest of vitriolic platitudes?
Lin Brehmer could have easily remained a private figure who did not engage in the world around him but he chose to perform the opposite. But, then again, this was not a performance. Lin gave us himself and that level of openness and goodness is so difficult to lose.
But, what we had and for so long...and now, we get to keep his spirit alive by extending what he began...and listening to our favorite music as loudly as possible.
Lin Brehmer's life, and now, his passing, feels to be the completion of a story. One that has been unfolding in front of us for years upon years and now that the story is finished, we realize exactly what has been told to us from the beginning. In this case, I feel such gratitude to have been alive during the same time as Lin Brehmer because even in his death, he is still teaching me about music, radio, and most importantly, about what it means to be a human being.
It is up to us to continue the story he was telling to us by having us tell it to others. Let us never take his life for granted.
Bless you, Lin. Blessings to his wife and son, his WXRT family, his friends and every life he touched through the goodness of himself.
Thank you, Lin. For everything...