One Person’s Forum Is Another’s Intrusion

Talk. Talk. Talk. Personally, I hear enough of it. My kids talk a lot, my colleagues talk a lot, my friends carry on, and I can pretty much talk a person into a stupor. Once I climb into my car, I look forward to either total silence or a numbing wall of music to accompany me on my drive home. The idea of punching in yet another nattering voice is about as appealing as mohair in August.

Apparently, I’m not the only one who feels this way. Even staff writer Jeff Meyers, who wrote this week’s Centerpiece on the local talk radio scene, finds all that conversation daunting.

“Personally, I never listen to talk radio,” he said. “If it isn’t accompanied by music, no human voice is allowed on my car radio. I consider commercials an invasion of my privacy. I have the quickest station-changing finger in the West. Even deejays get the ax if they talk for longer than five seconds. I never understood why stations let deejays blab on and on.”

And that’s just the on-air personalities on the music stations. The people on talk radio never shut up. So what’s the appeal?

“Local issue-oriented talk radio like ‘The Carl Haeberle Show’ serves an important function in the community, providing listeners with a forum for topics they really care about,” Meyers said. “It’s very democratic, almost like an old-fashioned town hall meeting with differences of opinion and give-and-take. So many people feel alienated from society, but talk radio gives them a chance to participate.”

But in this area, much of that participation is more silly than civic.

“The other talk radio, as practiced by Dave and Bob and Dick Whittington, is basically nonsensical background noise,” Meyers said. “But it serves a useful purpose, keeping people company as they prepare for work or drive the lonely freeways.”

One radio personality who makes a lot of noise even when he’s off the air is K-HAY’s drive-time deejay Ray Taylor, who is also a national free-standing black powder muzzle-loader champion. He’ll be participating in the target competition at this year’s Sespe Rendezvous from Oct. 12 to 16, an annual family-oriented event that features camping, historical costumes, barbecue and a country-western dance with live music. For more details on that event and some local dance workshops and competitions, check out Robyn Loewenthal’s Country Roundup column.