For Radio Host Of the Counterculture, It Was a Strange Trip By COREY KILGANNON For a half century, Bob Fass, 85, has presided over the late-night airwaves of New York City with a radio show named “Radio Unnameable,” which has aired since 1963 on WBAI-FM, the listenersupported haven for the radical left. As a self-described “midwife at the birth of the counterculture,” Mr. Fass, in his time behind the microphone, has borne witness to some unusual episodes. The second night his show aired, a listener set the tone by delivering marijuana to the station. There was the time, in 1966, when Bob Dylan showed up in the studio and began taking callers and cracking jokes. In 1971, Mr. Fass essentially talked a caller out of committing suicide while on the air. But lately, Mr. Fass’s life has begun imitating the craziness of his show, ever since he and his wife, Lynnie, attempted to move out of their Staten Island home to a new house in Danbury, Conn., setting off a misadventure worthy of one of his distressed late night callers. Last month, moments after he entered his new home, as the movers were carrying in his belongings, Mr. Fass casually flicked on a gas fireplace, which promptly malfunctioned and set the house on fire. It was a two-alarm blaze that left Mr. Fass, who uses a wheelchair, inhaling smoke for several minutes until the movers rushed in and carried him out. “I could have been roast D.J.,” said Mr. Fass. “Have you ever heard the Warren Zevon song ‘I was in the House When the House Burned Down?’” And so the “Unnameable” radio host now faces an unknowable future. Even in adversity, though, Mr. Fass, whose show airs Thursday nights at midnight, can be counted on for a pithy take on things. His improvisational monologues and his mix of guests and music helped pioneer free-form radio, and his show was a vital forum for activists, musicians, and everyday people to come together around issues including the Vietnam War, drugs and social justice. After the fire, with no