Friday, August 5, 2005

The Meanest Man on Radio

The other day, I made an outta-left-field reference here to Joe Pyne. This brought the following e-mail from Brad Kohler...

I realize that you did not really give him a favorable mention, but it amazes me that, even though he has been dead for over 30 years, just the mention of that man's name raises my blood pressure. To me, he was a venomous snake who, among his many sins, laid the foundation for today's hate radio.

I think that was the idea, Brad. Joe Pyne inspired a couple of generations of TV and especially radio personalities who learned that getting people pissed off was good for the ratings. I never met Mr. Pyne but the guy who used to cut my hair used to cut his, and you tend to trust your barber. He said that Pyne was, indeed, an angry, one-legged man who was always yelling about everything, but that the guy clearly laid it on thick and deliberately for his broadcasts. Like a lot of folks in radio, he found an act that worked for him and he worked that act for all it was worth.

Pyne was big on TV and radio in Los Angeles in the sixties, and I could never understand why some people went on his show or called in. He was generally Conservative but his overwhelming concern seemed to be contempt for his guests, no matter what they said. To the extent he had a political philosophy, it seemed to be mostly anti-freeloader. He was pro-police, pro-military, pro-gun ownership, etc., but he was also pro-union, at least when the union was actually representing the interests of working men and women. I don't think anything enraged him more than the concept of welfare...and not just for the poor or minorities. Unlike a lot of people who loathe welfare, he was also against various government subsidy programs that he thought functioned as welfare for the wealthy, and quite willing to rip even Republican leaders who were responsible for that kind of thing.

For a time when my father was dropping me off at school on his way to work, we used to listen to Pyne on the car radio. Even though I was pretty Conservative in those days, I thought Pyne was a jerk on many fronts, seeing Commies where they weren't any and presuming that if you were under the age of 21, you were almost certainly a worthless, dope-smoking hippie. It amused me that he was always railing against people (especially young people) who allegedly shunned honest work...this, while he was making a small fortune via what struck me as very easy, dishonest work. Pyne then did his A.M. radio show from a little studio in his bedroom at home. Often, he was lying in bed in his jammies, yammering insults and telling people to go out and get a real job. My father did not see the irony or amusement. Pyne simply enraged him...but he listened, and I guess that was the point.

The best thing about Pyne's TV shows was a local businessman named Ozzie Whiffletree. That, obviously, was not his real name. It was an identity he adopted because he was afraid of reprisals against his family and/or business. He began showing up in Pyne's "dock," where audience members could get up and debate him. Mr. Whiffletree, whom I recall looking like Gavin MacLeod on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, was a Liberal and a good arguer, and he put Pyne in his place a few times, playing Joseph Welch to the host's Joe McCarthy-like rants. Pyne and/or his producers apparently realized it was good television because they made Ozzie a regular on the show, promising to maintain his anonymity. I suspect Pyne came to regret that decision because he was sometimes reduced to stammering insults, and it began to seem like he was trying to make the show run long so there'd be no time for the bald guy. When Pyne's show finally went off the air, I don't think very many people missed him. But a lot of us missed Ozzie Whiffletree.

• Posted at 4:10 PM · LINK

Must See TeeVee

Still the funniest, cleverest thing on my TV: The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. If you didn't catch last night, they had a wonderful segment about Mr. Novak's outburst on CNN, and followed it with a piece about the news coverage of that Toronto airport accident. You can view a video with one bit after another here. (If that link doesn't work — and it might not — go the Comedy Central website and look for a video entitled "It's a Miracle.")

For some reason, they bleeped Novak's expletive in the online video even though it ran unmarred on the show.

• Posted at 3:53 PM · LINK

Take a Hike!

Bloggers are making way too big a deal about the incident today on CNN when Robert Novak uttered an obscenity and walked out. (If you didn't see it, the video's all over the 'net. Here's a good place to view it.) Since the rhetoric preceding his little outburst was pretty much the norm for years on Crossfire, everyone wants to know why he stormed off the set. A better question would be why this man was ever allowed on the set in the first place.

He's a dreadful reporter and always has been. Back when he was teamed with Rowland Evans, people called them "Errors and No Facts," and the surviving member of that partnership has kept their record intact. No one expects reporters to get everything right or for all a pundit's predictions to be on target but there's such a thing as being so consistently wrong that you just shouldn't have the job. A week or two ago, Novak was proclaiming he had inside info that the retirement of Chief Justice Rehnquist would come in a day or two. It didn't, and I'm afraid that's pretty typical.

For years, he's been touted as a major Conservative commentator but you rarely see any true Conservatives quote the man, and many seem to be embarrassed that he has so many forums to so badly represent their views. Actually, his conservatism seems to start and stop with one issue: That wealthy people should make more money and pay less tax. One suspects that given the choice of outlawing abortion, achieving victory in Iraq and having ten bucks shaved off his I.R.S. bill, he'd instantly go for the third option. It is in no way surprising that Novak loves the Bush administration and has been willing to shill for it and repeat any damn thing they told him to report, including the identity of someone who may have been a covert C.I.A. operative. The Bush administration has lowered his taxes.

There are all sorts of theories for his little outburst today: He knew questions were coming about his involvement in the CIA/Plame story and was looking for a way to get out before them. He knew CNN was ready to can him and wanted it to seem to be for a reason other than controversy and the fact that every show he's done for them lately has been cancelled. He's under stress because he knows the case is about to blow wide open and he's in the middle with some embarrassing (and perhaps, criminal) revelations looming. Some or all of these may be true...but I don't think it's outrageous that he walked off CNN. I think the outrage is that he was there in the first place.

• Posted at 12:04 AM · LINK