Swing away the gantry

Radio people are as susceptible to their fantasy lives as anyone else. There are three basic fantasies endemic to the public radio crowd. There is the hot DJ fantasy—“Just let me have my own show and I can put together all that great music that gets lost in the shuffle. Etruscan nose-yodeling just doesn’t get the airplay it deserves.” Then there’s the Ira Glass fantasy—the pernicious desire to put together long-form essays that are witty, ironic, hip, intimate and surprising. How hard can it be? (Don’t make us play the demos.) But the most serious condition arises from the Garrison Keillor fantasy. “Let’s put together a two-hour variety program, with a studio audience, aired live. Garrison does it once a week; surely we can do it once. Doesn’t it always turn out great when Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney and the kids put together a show in the barn in those movies from the ‘30s?”

Weeks of sweat and panic later, drafting help from anyone unwise enough to come in range, we’re finally almost ready for tomorrow night’s live Open Studio special. Now we know how Garrison does it—decades of experience, scores of bodies, tractor trailers full of equipment, and a limitless supply of nerve. Maybe we’ll tackle Ira next; or maybe it’s time to launch Bagpipe Fever.