You see the radio tower blinking red at the top and the blinking red is the warning to aircraft and the warning to aircraft is the tower telling the sky it exists. The radio tower is a lattice of steel rising from the ground and the lattice of steel holds nothing. The radio tower has no walls. The radio tower has no rooms. The radio tower has no purpose that you can see because the purpose of the radio tower is invisible. The radio tower broadcasts. The radio tower sends signals into the air and the signals in the air are the music and the news and the voices and the voices travel at the speed of light and the speed of light means the voice leaves the tower and reaches your radio before the singer finishes the note.

KDKA in Pittsburgh broadcast the first commercial radio signal on November second nineteen twenty and the first commercial signal was the results of the Harding-Cox presidential election and the results of the Harding-Cox presidential election traveling through the air to living rooms was the beginning of broadcasting. Before KDKA you had to be present to hear something. After KDKA you could be anywhere. The radio tower eliminated distance for sound. The radio tower made it possible to sit in your kitchen in Pittsburgh and hear a voice that was miles away and the hearing a voice that was miles away was the miracle that became ordinary so fast that no one remembers it was a miracle. The radio tower changed the relationship between the speaker and the listener and the changing of the relationship between the speaker and the listener changed everything.

The Voice of America broadcast from a tower in Greenville North Carolina that was the most powerful radio transmitter in the Western Hemisphere and the most powerful meant the signal reached behind the Iron Curtain and the reaching behind the Iron Curtain was the point. The radio tower as weapon. The radio tower as propaganda. The Cold War was fought partly through radio towers because the radio tower can cross a border that a soldier cannot. Radio Free Europe broadcast from Munich to Eastern Europe and the broadcasting from Munich to Eastern Europe was the tower reaching over the wall and the reaching over the wall was the message and the message was there is another world. The radio tower does not need a visa. The radio tower does not need permission. The radio tower sends and the sending is unstoppable because you cannot build a wall against a radio wave.

In Sinclair's Detroit the radio tower at WJBK and WCHB and WJLB broadcast the music that became Motown and the broadcasting that became Motown meant the radio tower in Detroit sent the sound of Berry Gordy's basement to the world. The radio tower took the Supremes and the Temptations and Marvin Gaye and sent them through the air to every car radio on every highway in America and the every car radio on every highway was the audience and the audience was built by the tower. John Sinclair knew the radio tower. Sinclair ran Radio Free Ann Arbor from a transmitter that could reach the campus and the reaching the campus was enough because the campus was the revolution and the revolution needed a radio tower and the radio tower was the voice.

You drive at night and the radio tower blinks on the horizon and the blinking on the horizon is the pulse and the pulse is the tower breathing. The tower is always broadcasting. The tower does not sleep. The tower sends at three in the morning when no one is listening and the sending at three in the morning when no one is listening is the faith and the faith is that someone is awake. Someone is driving. Someone has the radio on. Someone is hearing the signal that left the tower and traveled through the dark and arrived in the car and the arriving in the car at three in the morning is the companionship and the companionship is the radio tower's gift. You are not alone. The tower is blinking. The signal is in the air. The voice is traveling. The radio tower. The tallest building with no rooms. The building that holds nothing but sends everything. Blinking. Broadcasting. Now.