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JAMIE DUPREE DESERVES BETTER 6/19/2010 5:31:03 AM
I have developed a disgusting habit, which if I don’t break soon Dr. Oz insists may well do me in. And it has nothing to do with alcohol, tobacco or porn.
When the digital clock across the bedroom reflects its oversized-illuminated-numbers as 3:57, I wake up and reach for my miniscule hand-held-battery-operated BoomBox radio. In the dark I click it on and catch the tail end of the last commercial before the 4 AM news:
WSB News/Talk Radio, 750 Amplitude Modulation—Depend on it!
“Is that the only station you listen to?” Dr. Oz’s website asks.
“Yes,” I nod, as if the computer monitor can actually see me; I wonder what relevance, if any, this inquiry signifies.
Yes, WSB is the only radio station I listen to—and have, faithfully, since arriving in Atlanta in 1993—it is set permanently on the Splash-O-Matic in my shower, the bathroom vanity Shave & Listen Mirror, my den/study/office Bulldog Game Day Monitor, the battery-operated bedroom Mini-BoomBox—and also in my ancient Oldsmobile Cutlass. From the moment I first drove a rented stick-shift pick-up from the airport seventeen years ago, I knew I had finally found the only radio station I would ever work for again, if indeed I ever decided to go back into broadcasting (which I haven’t nor won’t.)
WSB is an unique 50,000 watt blowtorch that plays no music and has 5,000 commercials per hour, except when broadcasting the University of Georgia Bulldogs. It boasts such icons as Capt. Herb Emory (traffic), Kirk Mellish (weather), Scott Slade (news), Clark Howard (consumer stuff), Neal Boortz, Sean Hannity, Kim Komando, Bill Handel, Elise Klink—plus a dramatis personae of assorted major and minor cast players (including a couple of embarrassingly amateurish wannabees) who, for one reason or another, command enough airtime to attract attention.
They are all, however, a diverse mixture chosen, I’m sure, to fill a heterogeneous broadcast schedule—some eloquent and profound, others idiotic airheads, blowhards and spear-carriers—but none, alas, able to hold a candle to the station’s erudite Washington correspondent, Jamie Dupree.
Let me quickly point out I do not know Mr. Dupree personally. I have never met him nor know anything about him, other than what he says when he’s on WSB. I know he writes a blog and lives somewhere in the D.C. area; he may be tall or short, skinny or fat, blond and fair or swarthy and dark. A high school dropout or a Ph.D. It doesn’t matter. He once wanted to buy a quantity of colorful vuvuzelas* with decibel ranges higher than chain saws and sell them at high school soccer games to make his fortune. He is the best and the brightest, and he deserves better than he gets.
He is usually on the air with either Scott Slade or Neal Boortz, paired with the latter, logically, as the voice of reason that tries to keep Mr. Boortz from making a complete horse’s patootie of himself. It’s often an exercise in futility, as the self-proclaimed “Talk Master” habitually goes out of his way to prove that he is, actually, a superb horse’s patootie. While occupying a pew in the “Church of the Painful Truth,” as Boortz often bills his show, Mr. Dupree somehow manages to refrain from puking in his pew when presented with Boortz’s frequent banal pronouncements. Oh, how I wish Jamie might occasionally throw down the gauntlet in disgust and expose Boortz for precisely what he is! It will, of course, never happen.
During July 2009 I wrote a blog called THE NATIONAL RADIO HALL OF FAME. This was prompted by Neal Boortz’s nomination for membership in that illustrious fraternity, and I went to great lengths to explain that my vote for him was in every respect a vote solely for Jamie Dupree— because Jamie would, in all likelihood, never get any closer to that deserved recognition than his juxtaposition to Mr. Boortz, as odious as that may be.
If you are an aficionado of WSB, pay careful attention to how Mr. Dupree responds to Boortz’s inanities. Note that he rarely criticizes or reprimands; it’s as if his role is to bring correct enlightenment to the idiocy of the “star’s” biased political positions. Neal Boortz, despite obvious comments to the contrary, says he is a Libertarian, not a Republican. Hogwash! He is no more a Libertarian than he is a Buddhist (come to think of it, what School of Theravāda would have him?).
Were I a major stockholder in Cox Broadcasting (WSB’s parent,) I would like to see Jamie Dupree teamed with, say, Sean Hannity. As “far right” as is Neal Boortz, Hannity has rocketed off the runway and plummeted into the abyss of hopeless ideology to the point where his only return to sanity is to scale the cliffs of reality. Sean needs a helping hand from Jamie far more than the inconsequential Boortz.
Of course, he (Dupree) could do the most good for the likes of Rush Limbaugh. The “godfather” of Talk Radio does not appear on WSB—for reasons I can only guess ($$$$.) But if he did, what a boon the listener would enjoy if Jamie Dupree were given the task of keeping Limbaugh from strangling himself on political absurdities and ideological hyperbole. The “godfather’s” biographer Zev Chafets says, “God help us, Rush Limbaugh is Glenn Beck’s idol!” According to Mr. Chafets, “Sarah Palin’s biggest current applause line — ‘Republicans are not just the party of no, but the party of hell no’ — came courtesy of Mr. Limbaugh.” Figures.
The best of all possible worlds, of course, is to award Jamie his own show on the Fox News Network, just ahead of, or just after, Sean Hannity. Will it ever happen? As the Scotsman John Withal wrote, “Yeah, buster, when pigs fly!”
* if the FIFA were to impose a surcharge of $2 for every fan entering the World Cup stadium with a dreaded vuvuzela, they could garner a minimum of $100,000 PER GAME for Haitian Relief. Haiti is arguably the planet’s No. One soccer enthusiast, and they sure could use the money.
