Noam Chomsky update

We are planning a taped interview with Noam Chomsky tomorrow, and intending to run it on the Saturday morning show.

Needless to say, this has made me a nervous wreck.

As Mr Daisy told me, "Well, you'll be talking to a living legend, but don't let that intimidate you."

Ohhh, I wouldn't dream of it!

I am hoping to transcribe the interview for the blog. (It occurred to me a day or so ago, that I used to transcribe silly doctors and lawyers for a living, so I think I know how to do that!) Stay tuned!

Or as Don Cornelius (R.I.P.) would have said, its gonna be a stone gas. (We'll miss you, Don.)

~*~

I had a longish post in the works about left-wing talk radio, or rather, the lack of it. It kind of fizzled... and for that you have my profound apologies. Like Stanley Kubrick, I had intended to go back to the Dawn of Radio and explain how this unfortunate state-of-affairs came to be, but as it turns out... I only knew the semi-official explanation.

Yesterday, I went to an organizational meeting for Deb Morrow, fabulous 4th District congressional candidate and Spartanburg Occupier. I met up with my friend Tom Davies, an experienced campaign consultant who once wrote a dissertation on the rise of right-wing talk radio (which made me feel rather stupid on the subject). He positively overflowed with information and ideas, so I put my post on hold. He started riffing impressively on the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine (in 1987), which he said was the genesis of the trend. It was? So, the government GAVE BIRTH to right-wing talk radio?

Ah, so no wonder there wasn't (and consequently, isn't) a huge wave of LEFT WING talk radio.

My concern is: how cheap and available radio-time is, compared to television. Shouldn't it therefore be a bastion of LEFT WING sympathies? Why isn't it? Aren't we all about providing the poorest people with information and arming them with facts? (Radio is free to whoever has a radio, unlike cable TV, and is therefore a poor-people's medium, especially as satellite-radio gains popularity.)

Is the dearth of left-wing talk radio another salient example of how the American Left lost the working classes? Or as Tom said, is it simply that the Right rushed in to buy the cheap airwaves, since they had the loot on hand (and the necessary, additional financial backing) to do so?

Opinions welcome. How did the Right-wing take over talk radio?

~*~

And of course, in answering that last question, there is the irreverence factor. As an ex-Yippie, I possess the necessary irreverence and iconoclasm for talk radio... but I do wonder if I have the necessary THICK SKIN.

Recent theoretical brawls in Blogdonia have left me exhausted and bloodied, and even more than that, remembering what I wrote back in October about Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin. Again, I ask: How do they do it? I wish they'd give us a nonpartisan workshop: How not to care what people say about you, a Workshop for Political Women. Something like that.

When they start trashing political women in a specifically sexist and personal way, saying "Man Coulter" and calling Malkin racist, anti-Asian names--how do they handle this stuff? Do they just turn it off and refuse to read the insults? Does it ever keep them awake at night? Do they have bodyguards? Have they had stalkers? Inquiring minds want to know!

I have recently had the experience of being called all kinds of vicious names by total strangers who have not interacted with me, ever. This is patently weird. I am used to people who have interacted with me (or claim they have), announcing I am full of shit and/or evillll, but total strangers? This is a new phenomenon in my life; it means I am getting semi-famous, or at least, infamous. (Am I ready for that?)

Eeeeep! I would appreciate a workshop on what will happen as we take my radio show to the next level, and how I should gird my loins for the umm, FANS, who might come out of the woodwork.

Going into the six month of the show! Can you believe it? WHOEVER THOUGHT we would continue this long? The Green Party (my current sponsor) appreciates my blather, and I appreciate that they appreciate me.

As stated before, stay tuned. Its gonna be a stone gas.

And happy Groundhog Day!