Fraters Libertas

I’m Also Very Big In Japan

It ain’t easy to be entertaining on the radio. From my own experience as a mere caller, it ain’t even easy to be coherent. A few weeks ago I wrote about my misadventures with Frank Pastore, when he was filling in on the Hugh Hewitt show.

My other on-air lowlight was a call to the Jason Lewis program a couple of years ago. His topic was public financing of a stadium for the Twins. Jason was against it and so was I. But in his prepared remarks I felt Jason was being a little too loose with the facts. Specifically, something about all revenues produced from such a stadium would be a result of a substitution effect. That is, the spending would merely be transferred from other entertainment options in the Twin Cities. I had some picayune evidence to the contrary, and even though I agreed with 99% of his argument, it was that one point of disagreement that motivated me to call in. Why? I think it has something to do with the competitive nature of talk radio, or perhaps the overly competitive nature of this particular host and this particular listener.

So after hearing whatever mildly objectionable point he made, I leapt off the couch, dialed in and within 30 seconds I was on the air with the man himself. I made my narrowly focused little rebuke, without even qualifying it by telling him I generally agreed with him. Then Jason, master debator (?) that he is, dismissed my argument, subtly changed the subject to a facet of the stadium debate I didn’t comment on, and confronted me with a new set of unarguable facts – all in about two sentences.

Needless to say I became flustered. So sure was I that I was right and that the brilliance of my argument would render him helpless and begging me for forgiveness, I hadn’t bothered to think of counter arguments or the broader context of the debate. So after he turned the tables on me and fired off an accusatory question .... I stuttered, hemmed, hawed, paused, and then merely restated my original point. While I suppose I deserve credit for staying “on message,” it now sounded to the casual listener like I was changing the subject and avoiding the main question at hand.

After allowing me to languish about, spewing nonsense for a few more seconds, Jason landed another couple crushing blows to the straw man of an argument he had created of me, then he threw it to commercial by laughing at me and shouting “Nice try Saint Paul!”

Lesson learned the hard way: think before you call.

Brad Jones over at Infinite Monkeys does think before he calls talk shows. In fact, often times he thinks in Latin. But even that doesn’t mean things go exactly as you plan. Today he writes about his experience calling the Hugh Hewitt show.

The key sentences:

It's become painfully obvious that co-Monkey Ben and I sit in front of our respective computers all day listening to the Salem Radio Network talk line up. (At least we're in good company alongside James Lileks, and St. Paul of Fraters Libertas.)

It’s all true, even cool guys like me and James listen to a lot of talk radio. Although to be fair, we’re not always sitting side-by-side. Sometimes he’s in the house tidying up, while I’m in the back yard, christening a new case of James Page.

So Brad in Phoenix and chronic talk radio listeners all over the country you have nothing to be ashamed of. (Unless you’re listening to Mike Gallagher – then you have a lot to be ashamed of).