On the show yesterday, Jeremy Rivas of the Bricklayers came in and we talked about getting dirty with mud and bricks. It attracts an earthy, athletic type.
Amazing grace,
How sweet the sound,
that saved a wretch like me…
You’ve heard it at funerals for veterans and fallen officers. It’s at its sweetest when you hear it out of a bagpipe, in person or on the radio. There is beauty in the morning show. Sometimes you have to dig to find it among the hate and vitriol that runs the world these days.
An invasive
Japanese grass
grows through the slats of an
old house that no
longer holds joy.
Instead of writing to the three or four of you, I should be doing my final project for Digital Marketing 590 at Purdue Northwest. I’ve got an A going, so if I didn’t do the final project I’d probably still get a B. This is a real possibility in that I’m working like hell to keep radio, streaming video, podcasts and websites all straight - and do the morning show. Most of what I do is move information. If I sit on my hands for a day – or study for a final – information gets backed up like trucks on the Borman.
And no one likes to be near trucks on the Borman. As the three or four of you know, we have the most truck-travelled road in America. It cuts right through the center of the Calumet Region. As much as I romanticize about the cool, soothing sounding sound the Borman makes in the middle of the night – like right now – it’s still a trip filled with fear.
There is nothing like a semi on either side and steel coils in front of you. In your rearview mirror, there’s headlights the height of a basketball hoop. You have nowhere to go.
Sun, moon, dots on
a table. Tell
me a joke, a poem, a
made-up fable. Please, just
don’t freaking lie.
In a couple of hours, I’ll take a shower and do a morning show. It is my destiny. I look forward to it every day.
But there is an ugly air, not in the shower but in the world. I have told the three or four of you this before – I sense that the hate that runs America is approaching capitulation. Something must happen or we will destroy parts of what we have built – the good parts.
This is just a feeling I get as the operator of a couple of local radio stations. For the past few years, I have taken pleasure in watching the hate play out at the national level. It’s fun. Donald Trump is the best showman on earth. I watch him every night. He’s only part of the hate.
But now, it's different. The greed, hate and defiance that we watch on TV every night and follow on social media and radio lives among us. It’s real in our neighborhoods. And for local talk radio, this is a dangerous thing.
Silent, scraping
leaves on a
sidewalk. I can see them
but not hear. It meant more
before the war.