"that is still one of my more embarassing moments because you know i can't sing at all" Dan Rather joining R.E.M. at a soundcheck and singing (sorta) 'What's the Frequency Kenneth?"
on October 4th, 1986, Dan Rather who was 54 at the time, was walking home in Manhatten after dinner with an associate. while walking, 2 men in their 30s followed Dan and starring beating Dan up, repeating the sentence 'Kenneth, What is the Frequency'? Dan told them they had the wrong man, which only made the men more agressive, Dan ran into a building where the superintendent interfered which is when the 2 men fled the scene. he was not robbed either, tho having money on him in 1994 one of the 2 men struck again, at the today show studios, he stormed in with a rifel and killed nbc stagehand Campbell Montgomery. the shooter was arrested and identified as being 46 year old William Tager, when he was interviewed he claimed NBC had been beaming transmissions into his brain for years, in prison, he told staff he was a time traveler and admitted he was one of the 2 men who attacked Dan Rather and explained that the reason for his attack was that he looked like 'his time lines vice president' known as Kenneth Burrows, Dan Rather's second attacker has never been identified. theres another theory why Tager committed the the attack on Rather. Kenneth Shafer, a former music publicist, had figured out a way to hijack Russian television and broadcasts using U.S. satellite receivers. this is how Americans could watch Soviet TV during the cold war. Shafer had these available at Columbia University, who visited the project earlier on the day of his attack. Kenneth Shafer himself believed he was the actual target and that Dan Rather was mistaken for him. Shafer had been questioned about the Frequency before, and kept it a mystery could Tager have been a Russian spy? send out to find out the Frequency Shafer used to shut it down? and that his paranoia was just a cover up? (probably not). Michael Stipe was writing a song about a character who was trying to understand a younger generations perspective, no one knew what it meant, its inscrutibility
