Mike Porcaro, Where Are You?

Mike Porcaro is a radio host with an afternoon drive program in Anchorage. His show was on 4 -6pm, so I would make a point of listening as I drove home. The format was talk. It's probably his show that got me really hooked on local talk radio. I like to hear intelligent thought, debate and especially what people are thinking about the issues. Silly me, though, thinking that talk radio would be the same wherever you want. That is to say intelligent, thoughtful and interesting. Ha!

Talk radio in this town stinks. It sucks. Yes, it really sucks. The only local talk shows I find are on the same station. The noon show is hosted by the mayor. One would think a show hosted by the mayor would be intelligent, thoughtful and interesting. Besides reading the newspaper ala FDR, he insists on going to a second class website (hosted by a local TV station) for "other news". And he's biased to the point that I wonder just who pays his salary. I wonder if the rest of the town agrees with me since there are very few call-ins to his show.

The other show comes on at 5pm. It's hosted by the Village Idiot. This man loves to hear the sound of his own voice. Since he likes the sound of his own voice, he plays in the background (quite frequently) a loop of people applauding. He, too, likes to quote the newspaper and the wanna-be website. He, at least, has more callers since he likes to discuss entertainment issues. In addition to the TV station he likes to encourage viewership to, he also must be cable's-- scratch that, on a satellite dish company's payroll too.

What brought this particular blog entry about was a "news event" that happened over the weekend. A state legislator was hit over the head with a beer bottle by a former employee at his flower shop. The incident occured at a news anchor's house and the legislator was hospitalized for it. All three participants in this -- this, what? Menage a trois? Lovers quarrel? are men. And yet there is hardly a mention of it on talk radio. The mayor practically called it a non issue today. Thank God someone called him to ask about that very issues. Will there, or won't there be charges brought against the agitator? It's all very interesting (I admit, a morbid curiousity and even if it's never settled, I'll sleep at night) but it's being ignored.

So, I hereby resolve to turn to another station. I will not write the letter I was planning to write to the station owner. And I'll get over my addiction to talk radio. At least until the next duty station.