Dad Gum, that's some good public radio

We're mired in one of the thrice-yearly fund drives for the public radio station down here in South of Everywhere, and it's really got my moral compass all torqued up.

My problem is this: I am a devoted, dorked out fan of NPR. Renee Montagne and Steve Inskeep of "Morning Edition" are my erudite a.m. commute buddies, and Michelle ("Mee-shell!") Norris and Melissa Block use their soothing, caramel-textured voices to bring me the day's bad news on "All Things Considered" during my afternoon commute. Meeting any one of them, or, my God, Terry Gross, who's been doing "Fresh Air" since I was a kid, would be like anyone else's meeting Jennifer Aniston or Lance Armstrong. Naked. On Christmas.

So it's not that I don't want to support public radio with my generous financial contribution... I just... don't.

I've been listening to public radio since I was a wee little thing, though initially it wasn't by choice. My mom would blast it in the car in the mornings during our crosstown commute to school, and then in the afternoons on the way home. Often it got turned on again on the little kitchen radio while she fixed dinner. In fact, the theme music to "All Things Considered" still doesn't sound right to me without the chattering of a pressure cooker gauge in the background.

By the time I was old enough to figure out what was going on during the pledge drives, the idea would panic me. They need money? Or else what-- they'll die? Go off the air? They need money from US? This was a problem. As a kid, I worried about everything, and always at the top of the list was our family's imminent descent into abject poverty, and I was always sure we were teetering on the brink. I squirmed in guilt and angst during the pledge drives. Part of me wanted to make sure we'd contributed because it was good and because we were supposed to, but another part resented the pressure and pathos being applied to solicit the donations. I can recall a particularly obnoxious pledge drive take-off of Willie Nelson's song "If You've Got the Money, I've Got the Time," where the public radio host sang something like "Give Us Your Money, Honey, and We'll Give You Our Time."

Over the years, I've come to appreciate public radio stations in the various places I've lived as reliable sources of un-Fox-ified news, and welcome respites from the rampant commercial pandering that marks everything else I see, hear, and touch. The various local stations have done a great job of promoting cultural events (when there were any to promote) that have added depth to my understanding of wherever I was. NPR programming has also been a merciful constant when we keep relocating.

But, like anyone in a longstanding relationship, I have my complaints. Once I drove from Pensacola to Austin listening to public radio the whole way. I noticed that the further you get from a major city, the more brutal the transition from local programming to national programming.

Biloxi, Mississippi (a brief case study):

As I navigated the town's mini-marts and Quickie Stops looking for a coherent set of directions back to I-10, I got to hear a local reporter deliver a story on the oyster shortage resulting from a recent batch of hurricanes. The interview consisted of a long list of ways one can eat oysters, delivered at a snail's pace drawl from a toothless-sounding old woman ("way-ull... you can have 'em shcalloped, you can have 'em shtewed, you can have 'em shteemed, you can have 'em on a half shell..."). Seriously, nearly two full, unedited minutes of oyster variations. It was like the shrimp scene from Forrest Gump. This brilliant monologue was followed by an exchange with the proprietor of an oyster bar called Shuckers, where the interviewer breathlessly asked him what he would say if he was told he couldn't serve oysters anymore (!).

"Well," he replied slowly, "I guess I'd say that wudn't any good."

End of piece. Then, a brief shuffling of papers, a few metal crunching sounds, a high squeal, and then a late connection into the NPR feed. I tried to imagine what the Biloxi studio must have looked like in those moments, and all I could come up with was a frightened animal bashing its forehead into the array of blinking lights and dials in front of it.

Here in South of Everywhere, the situation isn't quite as bleak. There are even a few local hosts I've come to like. Unfortunately, the one I can't stand runs the station, and is currently running the pledge drive. A former TV news broadcaster quite enamored of his own halting, folksy delivery, he loves to reminder us, "Remember, we are your ONLY source of NPR programming in this area!"

I know it's supposed to make me feel grateful, but instead I hear it as a hostage negotiator might. This cheeseball guy who laughs long and heartily at his own jokes has his arm hooked around the neck of my NPR shows, and instead of a gun, he's wielding a microphone and threatening to talk MORE, share more excruciating cutesy anecdotes from his own life and career, unless I call and give him money.

I could go on at considerable length about what I consider to be the blatant abuses of air time that the South of Everywhere public radio station regularly visits on its listeners. Let it suffice to say that as much as I love NPR programming, I hate with equal fervor at least 85% of the local programming. That, more than anything, is the reason I haven't called in my pledge of support. I can only imagine how it would go-- some poor volunteer would pick up the phone and have to hear my reverse-hostage negotiation:

"I will pledge my generous financial support if, and only if, your cheeseball station manager promises right now to commit hara-kiri on the air. This offer has a time limit: five minutes, and I close the wallet forever."