Stick a fork in it, it's almost done

I went back for a second helping of answering the pledge drive phones at my local public radio station, WETS, yesterday evening. Why did I go back you ask? Because it's fun, there was free food, I wanted more free CD's, and I got to hang with my home girl and partner in crime Snad for a few hours.

Also along for the ride was a dude from Bristol, a guy in a leather tam o' shanter, and a cute young gal named Angela who was as smart and nice as she was pretty. The usual assortment of WETS staff were there as well.

The calls came pouring in during the 5 o'clock hour when they had an education challenge. Anyone remotely connected with the profession of education, be you a student, former student, teacher, retired teacher, school system employee, or even if you rolled "old school" style, you got $200 added to your pledge courtesy of a grant given to the station. I took calls from all over during that hour, I got calls from TN, VA, and NC. It was great. We really raked in the bucks during that hour and it made up for the slack times.

I must admit however I was not on my best behavior due to my being in an enclosed area with Snad. She enticed me to wise crack more than I normally would have and she also egged me on by laughing at my stupid one liners and tossing off a few zingers herself as well. At one point during my time there Sand sat down for a live interview with station manager Wayne Winkler. Being the trouble maker I am I passed her a note that said, "Shut the fuck up." She smiled sweetly and she wrote on the back of my note, "Fuck you, you fucking fuck" and she handed it back to me. Ahhh, good times, good times.

This pledge drive is going swimmingly and I can only attribute it to one thing, my participation. People not only want to keep Democracy Now! on the air, they also want to support me in my volunteer endeavors. It's very flattering to be so beloved, as I am sure some of you know. But unlike others I have not let the fact that I have legions of admirers go to my head. I may be beloved and worshipped as a demi god, but I still remain as humble as the day is long in Alaska in the summer time.

I'll be giving these CD's I picked up at the station a listen over the next few days:
Look for my reviews of them coming up in a few days as well.

Seriously, it's an honor for me to get to help my local public radio station out during pledge week. I've been listening to them for years and they've given me so much in terms of entertainment and unbiased news programs that answering phones for six hours over two days is the least I could do to help them keep the programs I love on the air.

Give me your money or I'll send Amy Goodman away

Well kids, I broke my public radio pledge week cherry today. And you know what? I had a great time doing it. It was a blast helping out during pledge week. I loved talking to listeners, taking their pledges, hearing them say how much they loved Democracy Now! and WETS in general, and it was a hoot to meet some of the guys who's voices I've heard for years. What they say is true, the DJ's always look different than you think they will.

I manned the pledge phones from 4 PM to 7 Pm yesterday. The calls were a shade scarce in the 4 to 5 time slot but after 5 things picked up. But when the dulcet tones of the Democracy Now! music began wafting the calls came pouring in. Well, I say pouring in but my friend Keith says that it's usually even busier when the show is on. I'm thinking it might have been slow because today was the first day.
Speaking of Keith, here he is in all his volunteer glory chugging a cup of yerba matte.

One of the perks of volunteering to answer the phones during the pledge drive is free food. Yeah I know the spread in the above picture looks anemic and it was when I first got there but when dinner time rolled around a local Chinese restaurant really delivered so to speak. They sent over about 1o or so to go boxes packed with all kinds of good food. I probably got my week's worth of sodium in what I ate and I know I got my yearly dose of MSG. But am I going to whine when it was free? Oh hells no.

********

Another perk of helping out was getting some swag from the guys at WETS. I scored four free CD's and I'll listen to them in the next few days. If I don't like them I'll take them back and swap them out for some different ones next Monday when I answer phones with my friend Snad and some other folks.

********

But the best perk of all was getting to talk to the grateful Democracy Now! listeners. I could hear the gratitude in people's voices as they gave me their pledge information. One woman who I talked to lived in Florida and she had heard the program on our local station last year when she was up here visiting friends and relatives in the mountains of western NC. She said that even though she lives in the Tampa Fla area she wanted to make sure that Democracy Now! stayed on the air in our area and so she pledged $200. It was amazing hearing something like that. Others called in with pledges of $10, $30, and other amounts but the one thing that ran through all the calls was a deep appreciation for the Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!, and our local public radio station.

This guy is the genius known as Joseph F. He's the brains behind Democracy Now! Tri Cities. And yes ladies, he is all of that and a pallet of chips. He's not only the smartest guy in the world, he's also a swarthy Greek who was born on the island of Crete. He's got a doctorate in political science and his speciality is in the area of military/political/international intelligence. He's also a damn funny and super nice guy. But unfortunately for all of you gals, he's married. And the woman who he's married to is the smartest woman in the world. I kid you not.

After our stint eating, joking, and chatting, which we did when the phones weren't ringing, we all went down and heard Joseph give a lecture entitled "Why The US Can't Win In Iraq." He gave this lecture, complete with power point presentation, at the Acoustic Coffee House, which is a local hipster bar/coffeehouse/live music venue. The main thrust of his lecture was that the idiots in the power in Washington DC insist on fighting a conventional war against an unconventional enemy. We're stuck using the old model of fighting a war where armies meet on a field of battle. Our "enemies," or more correctly, the Iraqi resistance is not going to engage us in a head to head fight, they're going to use guerrilla tactics that can enable them to fight indefinitely. It's like we're using a shotgun to kill mosquitoes. It's a stupid strategy that is doomed to fail. And we could change but the corporations who supply the Department of Defense with war material won't let us. And neither will the idiots in our government because if they try to change it's an admission that everything that they've done thus far is wrong.

********

I've heard Joseph give lectures before and I always learn something new and I always come away smarter than I was before. If only we could get the idiots in Washington DC to listen to my man Joseph. Or better yet, if only we could get him elected President of the World, then maybe he'd set all the bullshit right and we could finally move in a new prosperous direction.

Amy and me

I first became aware of Amy Goodman and her great TV/radio show Democracy Now! in the fall of 2004. Sparky and I were supposed to make our yearly pilgrimage to the beach in North Carolina but we chose to go to Knoxville so I could get my quadruple bypass done instead. When the days of searing pain stopped we decided to get away for a long weekend around election day, so we rented a house on a lake near Hickory, NC and we arrived there on Saturday and we left on Tuesday morning, election day. During our stay we stumbled across something called Free Speech TV on the satellite system they had in the rental house.

We had never seen anything like it. There on TV was someone who sounded like us, someone who was doing news stories about the things we cared about. There was someone, and a whole network too as a matter of fact, who was devoted to telling the kinds of truths we didn't often hear on the news we get on our local cable system. It was a revelation to us. When we weren't out enjoying the lake or the local scenery, we watched this wondrous woman Amy Goodman do her thing. We watched other shows on Free Speech TV about how we can achieve true democracy and shows about history that we never would have seen in corporate media outlets. Sparky and I both fell hard for the charms of that honey voiced progressive babe Amy Goodman.

We were very sad when we had to go because leaving meant that we would no longer get Free Speech TV and we couldn't see our new beacon of hope and progressive news, Ms. Goodman. Then later as the events of election night 2004 unfolded we became more depressed and sad. The Idiot Boy King got reelected and we would no longer be able to see or hear Amy.

But as luck would have it the universe conspired to even things out for us. Not too long after Bush got reelected our local public radio station picked up the radio show version of Democracy Now! and they began airing it at 6:00 PM every week night. We usually go for our nightly walk on weeknights around 6 so we got to listen to the show on our way to the park. We'd listen to the show on our way home and we'd finish listening to it when we got back to Monkey Central. We'd cheered when Amy socked it to the corporate media for not doing their jobs in keeping the ass hats in Washington DC honest. We cried with delight when they did stories that no other media would touch. We were overjoyed when Amy kept us informed of all the shenanigans that the Bush junta was trying to get away with.

It was a courageous thing for our local public radio station, WETS 89.5 on my FM dial and online at wets.org, to put this show on in our area at that time of the evening. I've said before how conservative this area is, they'd elect Adolf Hitler to Congress if he ran as a Republican, and the decision to air Democracy Now! ruffled more than a few feathers. WETS lost some members because some people didn't want to hear Amy tell the truth and to do the kinds of stories she does on her show. They wanted our local public radio station to be nice and safe and quiet and comfortable and not to rock the boat or make waves. The more they ran the show the angrier some people got. But something odd began to happen, other voices sprang up and these voices were in support of the show.

Then something even more unexpected happened, someone, my friend Joseph F., the smartest guy in the world, started a group in support of the show called "Democracy Now Tri Cities." The purpose of this group was to make sure Amy Goodman stayed on the air. My friend Joseph then did something radical for this area, he began a progressive blog in conjunction with Democracy Now Tri Cities and he used this blog as a clearing house of information about all the progressive events that happen in our area of east TN/sw VA/western NC. And it was because of Joseph and his support of our local public radio station that many people in our area began organizing and reaching out to one another. Amy Goodman and her show brought progressive people around here together and together we've put on many anti war protests and done many other things to raise the consciousness in this area about progressive and peace related things. Sparky and I met and became friends with Joseph and his wife, Sand and her husband John, Rev. Shuck, and many others because of Democracy Now! and Amy Goodman.

So now it's that time of year I used to dread around here, spring pledge week on WETS, click here to give our local NPR station some money if you like. I became a member last year because of Democracy Now! and this year I'll donate my time during pledge week. I'll be answering the pledge phones from 4 to 7 tonight and one day next week as well. I used to hate pledge week because it interrupts all the programming, but now I gladly put up with it if it means we can keep Amy on our local airwaves. So if you're in the WETS listening area and you call and make a pledge later this evening or next Monday evening from 4 to 7, then you might get lucky and I may answer your phone call. If you talk to me real nice and make a nice size pledge, who knows, I may even write about you on here.

Support your local NPR station, especially if they air Democracy Now! And your local station doesn't air the show, then pester them until they do.