Playing in the FM Band: The Steve Post Story

Steve Post, a Jewish kid born in 1944 in the Bronx, was an overweight, hapless nebbish who had a complicated childhood. His mother died of cancer when he was 10 years old, after which he and his older brother spent two years in a Dickensian boarding school, where he was taunted and mercilessly bullied. And he never did well in any school environment; his academic record was one of near total failure.
Back at home, he found escape from his dreary existence in radio, and discovered a new passion. Ignoring strict parental prohibitions, Post surreptitiously used his father’s Webcor reel-to-reel tape recorder to create and host “radio” programs, employing pseudonyms like “Luke Warm” and “Paige Turner.” Eventually, in 1966, he realized his childhood dream at Pacifica Radio’s WBAI-FM in New York City, becoming a successful cult radio personality with “The Outside,” an innovative all-night live “free form” broadcast heard Saturday nights for some fifteen years. During that time, Post also produced several serious radio documentaries whose subjects included Richard Nixon, Debbie the Blind Transsexual, and civil rights icon Bayard Rustin.