RELIEF AND DISBELIEF


1. PHEW!

They've moved Dharma's 500 hour teacher training from this spring/summer to next winter. Maybe I'll be able to go to India this year after all, God willing....

Maybe now that the pressure to decide is gone I'll be able to live again.




2. I'M READY FOR MY RADIO SHOW, MR. HAYES

Starting Monday, Garry Meier's new show will air weekdays from 8-11AM on WCKG (105.9).

Interestingly, the guy he chose as a sidekick is my age -- and also writes for the Ilinois Entertainer.

In fact, he subbed my media column for me when I was in India last year.

The Tribune's Phil Rosenthal quoted from it today:

Among the critics to take a shot at WCKG and the state of local radio of late has been . . . Jim Turano. "Chicago radio used to crackle," he wrote in a June 2006 essay in the Illinois Entertainer. "It used to excite, entertain, energize, influence, and order its listeners. Now it's white noise."

According to Rosenthal, Turano is a local writer and actor Meier has known 14 years and who used to help him on his solo show years ago on WLUP-FM 97.9. The hiring was unofficially announced Tuesday on Dahl's WCKG afternoon show by programming exec Drew Hayes, who teamed Meier with Conn at WLS.


Yeah, so? I did radio with Ira Glass in the early 90's. (Actually I was a recurring guest of his partner, Gary Covino, on "The Wild Room").

And Garry Meier and I go back nearly 30 years.

I asked him to my high school's Sadie Hawkins dance when I was 15.

He actually called me to decline.

I was out of my mind for days.

The following year, when I was 16, I met him and Steve for the first time. They did an awesome live show, complete with band (Teenage Radiation), in the round, at the Mill Run Theatre. And I got to go backstage (see photo above, by Dreyfus).

In those days they were invincible.

But they could be back:

"I want to work," Meier said. "That's the main thing. I love doing radio. . . . I don't have any agenda. When I sat down with Steve in August, it showed me, at least, that we did some really, really good stuff because we could put it back together in an instant."

He's not ruling out working with Dahl again "if there are projects along the way for both of us that make sense," but he also thinks "it's good to have the separate programs."

Dahl may have indicated his feelings in the official announcement of Meier's hiring. "I think it's great that Garry can end his career here with us at WCKG and not selling StreetWise," he said in a statement.

"He said that?" Meier said. "There you go. We're off and running."