Radio Nights (and Weekends) -

Radio Nights (and Weekends) - As noted in my article on Monday about local talk radio, I only covered mainstream talk shows between 6AM and 9ish PM. I had several reasons for this: I don't listen to a whole lot of weekend or overnight radio, plus the piece I wrote was plenty big enough already, plus there's a dizzying variety of shows available on the weekends, and I was focusing on current-events/political talk shows on mainstream stations.

But as the Fraters noted, I did omit quite a swathe of talk radio by sticking to weekday prime-time stuff. So I'll set that all straight right now:

• Laura Ingraham(WWTC (Various Times) ) - I really can't criticize Ingraham - and it's only partly because of her impeccable conservative credentials and incisive logic. Oh, her delivery sounds like a barely-reconstructed Valley Girl, and her show has a sort of herky-jerky quality to it (careening between guests, callers and regular bits with little apparent rhyme or reason), and her producer/on-air sidekick is a fairly irritating presence. But if I do criticize her, it'd jeopardize my chance of ever getting a date with her, and that would not do.
  
• Dave Thompson (KSTP (Weekend Afternoons) ) - In my original piece, I wrote that Jason Lewis was the host I wanted to be when I grew up. Dave Thompson, on the other hand, was the host I actually was. I like Dave's show - he's reasonable without being MPR-fodder, funny without distracting, conservative without beating anyone over the head with it. He's a smart, solid, meat 'n potatoes conservative talk show host, a perfect antidote to accidental Michael Weiner Savage exposure. Back in 1987, Lileks wrote a piece about teh KSTP-AM lineup of the day, in which he referred to me as "...an unreconstructed rock-and-roller and painfully polite man...". Well, Thompon's not painfully polite, but you get the idea.
  
• Bob Davis ((KSTP, Weeknights 10-12 )) - If Mischke is like dropping acid, Davis is like snorting coke. It's fast. It's furious. Jokes seem funnier, ups seem uppier, lags seem laggier, and eventually everything gets sorta disjointed. Which, if snorting coke or listening to middlin' conservatism through a heavy-metal filter is what you're looking for, is perfectly fine!
  
• Dark Star ((WCCO, Weeknights 9-12) ) - Star got where he is by being the most skilled, talented and relentless butt-kisser in radio history. Some might take that as a slam - it's not, I swear. Dark Star's rise to prominence in the '80s - from constant gadfly caller on sportstalk shows, to guest, to cable-access sportstalk producer/host, to weekend host on edge-of-metro stations, to WCCO nightside host in a matter of just a few years - is a model of networking, persistence, and self-directed development of talent. Star is a radio Horatio Alger. Unfortunately, his show makes me pray for the sweet release of death.
  
• A Prairie Home Companion ((MPR, Weekends) ) - Garrison Keillor is an archetype that's verging on self-parody. And the parody is sneaking into his show, which is more and more becoming a mouthpiece for Keillor's condescending Democrat sympathies. And yet I still love the show. The writing's just about as good as ever, the "acting company" of Tim Russell and Sue Scott is pretty good, his "News from Lake Wobegone" is still all right, and the show still books a pretty good, eclectic collection of great musical guests. So when one of the bits launches into condescending anti-Bush/anti-Republican jape, I merely say to my radio, in a measured tone: "We won. You lost. That's the news from Lake Wobegone, where all the men have carry permits, all the women voted Pawlenty, and all the children think Roger Moe looks like a muppet".
  
• Josh Arnold's Money Talk ((Weekends, WWTC) ) - This about sums it up.
  
• Sean Hannity((Weekends, KSTP) ) - Hannity combines all of Limbaugh's calculated button-pushing, with none of Limbaugh's sense of humor.
  
• Coast To Coast with George Noory ((KSTP, Graveyard Shift) ) - Whever I hear this program, I give a silent prayer of thanks that I'm normally sleeping at night.
  

OK. Back to news and current events.

Posted by Mitch at May 23, 2003 08:57 AM