WRONG-O, MARY LOU
Marcia Froelke Coburn’s excellent interview of "This American Life" creator and host Ira Glass in the March issue of Chicago magazine opens with an intro that really rankles -- because it's total BS: “Ten years ago, in the first interview of his career, Ira Glass, a producer and on-air reporter for National Public Radio’s idiosyncratic news and features program "All Things Considered," sat down and told me about the idea he had for a new kind of radio program. It was going to concentrate on everyday life, with fiction or poems sandwiched between strangely ordinary people telling strange stories. Glass wanted to apply novelistic techniques to radio reporting.”
Actually, Glass’s first professional interview dates back to at least November of 1993, when I, Satya Cacananda, interviewed him for my first Illinois Entertainer media column. It was a piece on the WBEZ program "The Wild Room", a then-new kind of radio program that he co-hosted with NPR producer Gary Covino. “I like to think of it as the only show on public radio other than ‘Car Talk’ that both [NPR news analyst] Daniel Schorr and Kurt Cobain could listen to,” Glass told me. He added, “I think it’s appropriate that the show [which aired on Friday evenings] is on a station that most people don’t listen to at a time when most people won’t hear it. And the fact that public radio never puts a new show on the air or takes any off is definitely to our advantage.”
The latter is no longer true and Kurt Cobain is long dead. But the interviews went so well I became a guest – Gary’s guest – on the show several times. And I found the apartment where I still live through Ira – who last year loaned his own pad to The New Orleans Evacugees for a few months. And now he's moving to NYC (to which Covino fled before fleeing to Massachusetts), making Chicago yet again fall short of its pathetic, longstanding boast of being a world class city.
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Sadly, the above photo is what you get when you do a Google image search for "Wild Room."
I think the only way to truly settle this issue is with a good old fashioned chick-on-chick wrestling match in a kiddie pool filled with vanilla pudding in Ira Glass' old apartment. Proceeds from the pay-per-view showing can be used to help fund public television. Who is with me on this?
ReplyDeleteI can see that working except for the fact is the apartment is much too small.
ReplyDeleteAnd I like the idea of chocolate pudding.
So I suggest a venue in Lakemoor Illinois where they host monthly ultimate fighting matches.
Lakemoor Banquet Hall. 28874 W. Route 120, Lakemoor.
It could be fun fun fun!!!
Steve Dahl has a good piece in the Tribune today about portion control, food and eating.
ReplyDeleteI think he is a better writer at this stage of his life than a radio personality.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/services/newspaper/premium/printedition/Thursday/atplay/chi-0602220324feb23,1,763883.column
Is Gary Meier still breathing?
And nowadays I'm better on radio than in print.
ReplyDeleteThen use your vast contacts and get hooked up with a radio gig.
ReplyDeleteCome on, you could be 1/2 asleep and still be light years ahead of Dahl's female sidekick Wendy.
I like Buzz the best, he knows when to sit in the backround and be timely. He is brilliant.
I lost interest in the Dahl show last summer when all they could do was talk about how f-ing great OnStar is. I wanted to hurl listening to them with their constant marketing gab fest.
It was real hell to have to get out of the pool and switch stations, but I rectified that situation by installing a new radio system with a remote, so now I can float and change channels or cd's or whatever until my skin gets pruny.
It's tough out here in the Super Boonies.
I've seen Dreyfuss when he's DRY and he looks pruny. I can't imagine the sight of him wet in a pool. Hey Dreyfuss - did the Super Boonies' police ever find the rampaging snowmobilers who killed all those geese a few months back? I can't help but think that the cops out there are all Barney Fife clones. The other question is whether you'd be able to hear Satya Cacananda's radio show that far out in the stix.
ReplyDeleteDon't know about the goose situation other than they make a big mess.
ReplyDeleteEver step in goose shit in barefeet?
Ask Satya about life on the farm.
Besides, Chinese eateries need road/river kill sometimes, other times stray cats and dogs.
Other times they just call it the meat special of the day.
No one knows what that means.
Speaking of 'big crimes' how are they doing slowing down on the seemingly daily murders in Daleytown?
Oh yeah, they put up cameras everywhere, like an Orwelian nightmare.
Have you seen a robo cop cam up close?
http://www.securityinfowatch.com/article/article.jsp?siteSection=306&id=4628
But I digress.
Mr D. has high power info gathering technology out in the Super Boonies, and is in the 2nd highest spot in the 6 county area, so be careful what you say and do.
And Mr. Dreyfuss declines commnet on his being somewhat 'dry'.
Can you guys please tell me the origin of the phrase, "Wrong-o, Mary Lou"??????
ReplyDeletePlease?! It is driving me wild.
I think it's from a TV commercial.
ReplyDeleteI'm quite certain it was indeed a TV commercial. Somewhere in the mid to late 70s the Kellogg company was trying to sell Frosted Rice. They used Tony Jr. to hype it and initially he was correcting kids that thought he was talking about Frosted Flakes. I'm pretty sure that is where it came from.
ReplyDelete