4 posts tagged “radio”
Today on WORT's noon time show, A Public Affair, host Chris Dols had a much needed conversation by phone with Bob Quellos, an architect and Chicago citizen who is helping with the activist effort No Games Chicago. This was the first time I've heard in Madison a critical discussion of the City of Chicago's effort to woo the International Olympic Committee and the 2016 Summer Games. The reason it is important that this analysis be heard in Madison is because our city has become part of Chicago's official Olympic bid, having officially been named as the site of several competitive events. The governor and the mayor are on board. There has been virtually no voice on the issue other than that of those who are already sold on the idea. Predictably, from the get-go they have deployed the usual boilerplate about tourism and economic boons.
Missing is any analysis that takes into account what hosting the Games will probably mean for Chicago, and, in turn, how the crushing fiscal burden left on Chicago by the Games might affect the surrounding region. Including Madison. This lack of analysis is major problem given the anxiety bourgeois Madison feels regarding poor and working class people moving to Madison from the nearby big cities of Milwaukee and Chicago. How the economic and living conditions in those cities are managed and, in this case, maybe worsened substantially, should be of concern to people (and activists) here precisely because the demographic shifts in Madison probably correspond to those changing conditions.
Instead of blindly considering a Chicago Summer Games an automatic good, and, in the worse cases, simultaneously bemoaning the outsiders who are bringing to Madison new levels of violence and lawlessness, we should be thinking through the operations that make the nearby big cities unlivable, driving poor people out. This would include such strikingly neoliberal developments like hosting a summer Olympics. Unfortunately, even during the conversation on-air there wasn't much time spent on the regional ramifications, but it was a good start.
I just read this profile of Rush Limbaugh in Vanity Fair. It reminded me of a supervisor I once worked for, about sixteen or seventeen years ago, back when I did trail maintenance for a summer for the Minnesota DNR. This guy introduced me to the joys of dittoheadom. I couldn't get with it. Rush sounded like a big cry baby to me. But if you're crying with him, I suppose, Rush is music to the ears. My supervisor was exactly the contradiction that fueled the Republicans for the couple decades: the working class conservative. My supervisor was homophobe and sexist pig, really into the whole Rush-led complaints about those 'feminazis.' But he was also the president of the union local! He was really down on 'big government,' but he worked for the government in what many would call a pork-filled department, the DNR! He complained about regulations, but was a super-responsible outdoorsman who called others out on unsafe and irresponsible fishing practices. He was a very complex man, but frustrating to be around because he sometimes even wore his contradictions on his sleeve, seemingly boastful of his disloyalty to the whole public establishment he'd devoted his working life to servicing.
One of my bad habits related to doing a once-weekly long commute by car is indulging in talk radio. As in, calling in and having my say. Or, at least, trying to have my say. Or, at least, trying to not sound like an idiot. The other day, for example, I called in twice. In the afternoon I called in to the inaugural broadcast of WBEZ's Right Now with Richard Steele. That show was about wrongful convictions (a real problem in Illinois, especially at the capital offense level!), and all related problems such as evidence tampering and untruthful testimony. As some people know, I happened to have been an eyewitness to a murder more than ten years ago, around the time I first moved to Chicago. So I called in to share my story.
My basic point was that even eyewitness testimony, the supposed gold standard of evidence, is not reliable. But the words that came out were not terribly coherent, to put it mildly! For one thing, the show was in its last minutes and I was rushing to get my words in. And then, I was mixing up the information. One the one hand I was telling the story of how I felt somewhat railroaded by the coaching of the state's attorney, and, on the other, I was emphasizing the fact that uninvolved witnesses to an act of violence are almost never, in that moment, paying attention to the kinds of details that prosecutors are looking for, and have to do quite a bit of memory reconstruction. It came out jumbled, so if the Richard Steele's inaugural show went a little lame at the end, I'll take the blame.
On the way home to Madison that evening in heavy traffic, I called up Bruce DuMont's Beyond the Beltway show, which was a special 'instant reactions' broadcast following the ABC Clinton/Obama debate. The topic at hand: the Rev Jeremiah Wright controversy. My point: the mass media's fixation on the Rev Wright video clips reveals some serious ignorance about black church life, and, further, proves that we still live in a segregated society in which black and white don't really know much about the details of each other's cultural and religious lives. This time it came out more coherently: "Anybody with any knowledge or experience with black church life would recognize the Rev Wright clips (even taken out of context!) as belonging to the black Christian prophetic tradition, which is in the mainstream of black church life!" Maybe I was too coherent–Bruce DuMont, who didn't seem to like the several consecutive calls defending Barack Obama's association with Trinity Church, went straight to a break, without comment.
One of the pleasures of living in Madison is being around a lot of different kinds of music, but not having to deal with the crowds and traffic of a much larger city. But it turns out I still don't have the time to take in all the shows that catch my attention. Last weekend I had a plan to see two shows. We had a foursome set for Steve Earle at the Barrymore, and then I intended to see M.O.T.O by myself afterward at the Crystal Corner, a place I still haven't been. But adventurous, full nights of shows are just so easily derailed these days. I think I came home and just went to work, on some grant proposal or drawing. Fortunately–and maybe this is part of the problem–the listening station at home is sounding better than ever, after having recently invested in new a Music Hall turntable. So much more signal comes through that sometimes it sounds like I got a whole new record collection. And to be fair to myself, Steve Earle played quite a long show.
Speaking of records, I believe I will be buying more LPs in Madison. Or else on travels, like how the recent trip to Columbus netted me a couple of Country Gentlemen records. (Not the classic line-up, but still, it's the Country Gentlemen!) What can I say? The new 10.25% sales tax in Chicago has created a newly price-sensitive consumer out of me.
And, finally, there is WORT, which, after ten months in this town, I have come to love. Especially the Leopard Print Lounge on Tuesday nights. Today on the Friday drive time show Blues Cruise–wait, I know what you are thinking: there are so many lame public and community radio blues shows. Yes, you are right.
