The Dave Glover Show

Dave Glover is something of a local talk show phenomenon. He is on 97.1 from to 4 to 7 PM every weekday. A lot of people love him. A lot of people, as he puts it, "get it."

I don't get it.

Well, not all the way.

I usually cannot listen to all 3 hours of his show, even if I had the time at the radio, which I don't.
A lot of people think he's funny. That's the part I don't get. However, I will say that I think he often does a great job interviewing guests. He has had on some very interesting people, from a woman who thought there were aliens on Mars to a woman who survived the Holocaust.

Sometimes he goes off on terrific rants. I recall the one he did a few years ago after that guy in California sued to have the words "under God" removed from the Pledge of Allegiance.

He does do a lot of varied things through the week, but my favorite is Paranormal Tuesday. He (usually) spends an hour that afternoon on some type of weird topic. Usually this is with a professor in the paranormal at Washington University Dr. Michael Lynch. He hasn't been on lately so they've used other people.

Several weeks ago they had on a guy who believed that aliens in flying saucers are evil angels such as the ones in the Bible. Last night they talked to the editor of SKEPTIC magazine.

And every Halloween they do a special show. Most have taken place at the Lemp Mansion, a local haunted house. Last Halloween they found a farm in southern Illinois that is supposedly haunted. Whether you believe they're doing what they say (and I don't know whether they're deliberately faking some of the stuff or not), it's interesting and fun radio.

on offending restaurant workers

Heard a funny thing on the Dave Glover show the other afternoon. The National Restaurant Association is trying to get a TV commercial for an insurance company taken off the air. Why's the National Restaurant Association caring about an insurance company commercial? Why, because it's offensive to restaurant workers.

Seems Kevin Federline is shown working in a fast food joint but dreaming of being a rap star . . . when he's really just selling fries.

Oh my, is that offensive.

Look, I've worked in several pizza places. And I HATE rap. But if I had some magic power to choose between a fast food restaurant job and being a rap star making lots of money, it'd be a no-brainer. Who in their right mind would not prefer to be a star.

As long as I didn't have to listen to my own songs!

move to Cuba?

To me, sheer entertainment is a secondary reason to listen to talk radio. I don't want it boring, but a lot of what some hosts do is just designed as human interest, and usually it loses my interest. Sometimes it's okay -- Laura Ingraham took the formula from Don Imus of interacting with her producer and others and it works somewhat for her since she's engaging.

But usually I want the host to either give good commentary or get on a good interviewer or a good caller.

Medved is really good at engaging with hostile callers in a way that educates the listeners. He tries hard to educate the callers but it's obvious most of them have closed minds.

I remember one guy who called Medved and said Cuba was a better country than the US. Turns out he was some type of skilled worked, electrician or something like that. So Medved asked him why he didn't move to Cuba -- after all, they could no doubt use someone with his skills.

He hung up.

So much for putting his body where his mouth is. Yet I have no doubt that he still likes to run down America and praise Castro and Cuba!

But move there? Err . . . no, it's more fun to just talk about Cuba.

Michael Medved

97.1 FM Talk is the station I like to listen to for talk radio. Most of it's conservative talk, though its afternoon rush hour host mixes up a lot of stuff. However, it used to be better.

The best conservative talk show host I've ever heard is Michael Medved. I first remember him from when he and Jeffrey Lyons reviewed movies together on some cable show back in the early to mid 80s. I and my wife used to watch it. I didn't know anything about Cisco and Ebert. When people referred to two guys reviewing movies, I thought they meant Lyons and Medved.

Medved also goes back to affecting my life in October and November 1969, because he was on the national committee that put on the Moratoriums against the war in Vietnam. By avoiding the extremes of radical outbursts and rhetoric, the Moratoriums succeeding in making being against the war a middle class option. Since then, he's become quite a conservative.

As far as entertainment value goes, he's too serious and intent to compete with Sean Hannity, which is why I suppose he's not as popular or well-known. He knows a tremendous amount about history and current politics and people in it, and has a lot of opinions about what's going on.

Smash on the radio

One interesting local radio personality just goes by the moniker of "Smash." I think he's originally from Greece, but anyway his real name is apparently real ethnic and/or hard to pronounce.

I first heard him on 103.3 when he had their afternoon show. Although the basic format was simply playing the oldies, he managed to go way beyond that. He had a lot of long running jokes, skits, imaginary characters and so. Some of the funniest such stuff on St Louis radio since Johnny Rabbit was the night dj on KXOK back around 1964 when I was a kid, and was always fighting with his imaginary sidekick, Bruno J. Grunion.

One afternoon around August 2000 I was listening to Smash when he announced that he was going to have Senator John Ashcroft on next. I started laughing, wondering what a gag that was.

Senator Ashcroft was running for re-election in a heated campaign with Governor Mel Carnahan.

At that time I was a political agnostic. My convictions were changing. I was conservative enough that I now hated Democrats, but also still hated Republicans. And John Ashcroft was long known to Missourians as a conservative villain.

But to my amazement, the guess on Smash's show really WAS Senator John Ashcroft. And I have to admit that the guy talking on the radio did not seem like the rabid right winger I'd always thought he was.

They played several tracks where Ashcroft and a few other senators sang some old doo wop songs they'd released as a CD by "The Singing Senators" procedes of which were donated to an Alzheimer's charity.

In a small way, that marked part of my own conversion into a conservative right-winger or libertarian.

Later, Smash had on as guest the Republican candidate running against Representative Richard Gephardt for the Missouri 3rd district house seat.

Smash made sure to let people know that he'd also invited John Ashcroft's opponent, Governor Mel Carnahan, to be a guest with him also, but that he'd never gotten a reply. (Also, he invited Richard Gephardt who didn't go on his show either.)

Several months or so later, Governor Mel Carnahan died in plane crash while on the campaign trail. He won the election against John Ashcroft in spite of being dead, and his widow Jean Carnahan took his seat and was in the senator for two years until defeated by Jim Talent in 2002.

I didn't vote in that election -- I was still against both parties.

But after George W. Bush won the presidency, of course he appointed John Ashcroft as Attorney General and he became a hated rabid right winger to the entire political left wing.

When 103.3 fired JC Corcoran from The Breakfast Club morning show, they moved Smash to the morning and he hosted that show with Karen for a time, I think long enough to eventually compete with JC Corcoran when he went back on the air.

Then he was teamed up with Jamie Allman, who's more consciously political, for 97.1 morning show -- and often provides a good humor balance, and adds some common sense or observation.

By the time Jim Talent ran against Jean Carnahan, 9/11 had occurred and I'd started listening to 97.1 a lot and was now convinced we needed Republicans to protect us from the Islamo-Nazis. I'm not for the entire conservative agenda -- but rule by sharia would be much worse.

supporting the troops on air

This morning I listened mainly to Allman and Smash in the Morning on 97.1 FM Talk.

This is a local show that's mainly politically conservative, as 97.1 is, though mostly through nationally syndicated talk show hosts such as Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham.

Anyway, today Jamie Allman and Smash were at the USO at Lambert Airport, since many service men and women and passing through the airport on the way home or someplace else for Christmas. They were doing a fundraiser for this great organization that is doing what they can to help the people protecting our country.

I support this and encourage anybody to donate money to the USO, since it receives no government funding. Also, while I listened, a woman came on from a group whose name I didn't catch, but it's Missouri military mothers raising money and sending packages to the troops. So it's great somebody is doing that.

Also, Jamie mentioned an organization Adopt a Platoon which gives you a chance to send things to troops overseas.

No repeat repetititon

The local rock oldies station recently revamped their format. Facing competition from 106.50 the Arch which bragged that it didn't play the same song twice in one day -- 96.36 KHITS decided to do them one better.

Now KHITS won't play the same song twice in one WEEK. To get a playlist that long, they're playing a fair number of songs from rock albums, and including stuff that dropped off the playlists many years ago.

The DJs seem to really like it, since they're playing a much larger variety of stuff than they used to. They keep saying, "Man, I haven't played that one in 20 years. It's great to hear it again." And I believe they're sincere.

My feelings are mixed. I do enjoy hearing a lot of the songs they never played before . . . but I also sometimes miss the familiarity. Some of what I hear is new to me -- there're a lot of songs I missed as singles and a lot of albums I've never heard. Yet some of it, I just don't care much about.

I'd like to weed out some of the songs -- including almost everything by Elton John -- and focus only on the ones I like.

How about a no repeat every 3 days?

JC Corcoran on the East Side

This morning I listened to JC Corcoran, John Hulett, Jennifer Sparks and Laurie Mack of the Showgram. JC has been the "bad boy" of St Louis morning radio for over 20 years. Sometimes I like him, sometimes I don't. But I admit that I often wind up listening to him.

So this morning I learned that the Missouri Supreme Court has struck down a ban on strip clubs and lap dancing in the state of Missouri. Speculation about whether such clubs would open up in St Louis turned to a recent trip JC made to the club on the East Side in Illinois, and how they're much cleaner and nicer than they were on his last visit about 15 years ago.

Heard It on the Radio

This blog's dedicated to comments and commentary about whatever I might happen to hear on the radio, talk, radio or anything else. While so many of you are wandering around with iPod earpieces, I'm in my car still listening to the radio.

I flip channels a lot, because I get impatient with boring talk, commercials and music I don't like.
Right now, my channels selectors are tuned to KY 98.1 which is modern music, WARCH 106.5 the Arch which is mostly oldies of a wide variety plus some modern stuff -- officially, it's 70s, 80s and "whatever we want." KWMU 99.1 classical music. KHITS 96.1 rock oldies and 97.1 talk radio.

When I flipped through the stations more than I do now, I would sometimes stop at 103.3 which is oldies but more from the 60s which would be good except they focus too much on crap from that period, 88.1 KDHX the nonprofit station which sometimes plays good stuff, and 93.7 the public education All Things Considered etc which sometimes has interesting shows on.