Let's go to the phones... Talk Radio
This is probably the latest fad I've abandoned. I'm not quite sure why I picked it up in the first place. I mean, when I was a whippersnapper, I used to look down upon talk radio. The big local talk station, WGN, was definitely for old fogeys. I also grew to dislike the "wacky morning deejays" who would fill my favorite stations with inane chatter. I wanted my music... at least back then.Anyway, I first fell under talk radio's charm a few years back. (Don't ask me to get specific. Mid-nineties sometime.) At first it was the Issues, Etc. radio program. It's a weekday show out of St. Louis, with a nationwide broadcast on Sunday nights, that is put out by my denomination. It looks at current theological and social issues from a perspective that's close to my own. My wife and I especially loved the fact that many of the shows were inspired by books which we could get from the library and read in depth.
Ironically, what led me to stop listening to Issues, Etc. regularily was that it was talk radio. I hated having a good conversation interrupted by commercials. Also, the host, Don Matzat, had a typical radio host personality. He spoke from a position of confidence and authority. He was certainly polite with callers or a guest who would disagree with him, but like any radio show, he controlled the conversation and he got in the final word. This was quite enjoyable when I agreed with him, but horribly annoying when he was wrong,... I mean, when our opinions differed. Finally, all of the interesting topics that attracted me to the show weren't as interesting when they were touched on again. Especially those that I had read about in depth. So after a year or so, our listening kind of dropped off.
My own listening, however, shifted to other times and stations. (Again, don't ask for specifics. I don't recall if I listened to other shows after or concurrently with my Issues, Etc. craze.) I started tuning in talk radio on my commute home from work. My AM radio at the time didn't work but a station that was then KIRO-FM carried the Gil Gross show. He had a nice variety of guests and was a pleasant host, so I started listening more regularily despite all of the ads for Gold Bond Medicated Powder and those amazing Sunsource products. A number of months later, Gil was gone from the Seattle airwaves and I had to look around for a fix. I struggled with the AM, but Coast to Coast with Art Bell was too weird and Bill Gallant was too annoying. In '98 I got a new car (the old one had failed to drive through an Oldsmobile) with a functioning AM radio. I pretty much switched between KIRO-AM and their now renamed FM station, the Buzz. I didn't quite like the fare as much as before, but I was hooked. I also started listening on the drive in to work. The problem was that half of the year, KIRO carried baseball games, which often preempted my shows. There was always the Buzz, but it was/is as spiritually vile as Issues, Etc. was edifying. I gave up on them, and stuck to the AM for a while. Finally, with help from my wife's scornful attitude, I gave up talk radio when baseball season started this year, 2001. I may get into it again, but for now it's music, music, music.
So why did I ever bother with this fad? I don't know. I like to hear the pros and cons of issues as well as what people think. However, we don't have a society where you can sit down at the city gate/the town square/the general store and just shoot the breeze with your neighbors. Talk radio is an echo of that, but of course, it's artificial. The radio station decides on who gets to talk and what is said. In some cases it can be a blessing, but the bottom line is that it gets in the way of true dialogue. So what's a boy to do? If I inherit a fortune, I may try to buy my own talk radio show. Barring that, I suppose I can keep looking at internet message boards. All the intelligence of talk radio with half the oppression.
Back to Nostalgia.updated 8/30/2001, with fixes on 7/27/2003