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I shouldn't have laughed

J

johnbasalla

Michael Savage made me laugh out loud on Friday 04/16/2010, but it was his short temper and negativity that did it. The first two callers he took on his show were not to his liking. First was a high-end tenor voiced guy from New York City who was agreeing with Savage, but he was hard to understand, so after maybe 15 seconds, Savage just went to the next caller, without any explanation. Then this second caller also had a strange, but different voice. He seemed to have made a half-statement about NASA. Savage asked him to finish his thought to try to figure out what this guy was talking about. They guy said something, after which Savage asked him if he worked for NASA. Then the guy, stammering and stuttering, said no, no, no. Then Savage hit him with another question which elicited dead air from the caller. Well, that was the straw that broke the camels back. Savage hangs up saying, "What the hell's wrong with my radio program?... Have I got a bunch of idiots listening today? What the hell's going on here? I'm gonna to take a break".
If you can "visualize" his delivery, then you know how it sounded. I laughed pretty hard, and was entertained enough that I tuned into another out-of-town station who runs the show on delay from 9pm - midnight, just so I could hear that segment again. I am not proud to say, that I laughed just has hard the second time around, and now wish I would have taped it. After the break, the next caller was literate. I wonder if during the break Savage might have gone over to his screeners and told them, don't send me somebody I can't understand.
 
Re: I can't laugh at this one...

... because the clip has been yanked off of YouTube by the syndicator who has ownership. Here's another laugh-out-loud moment. After hanging up on his first two callers and going to a break, soon the announcement is made "Call Michael now at ... 1-800..." . Unless it's all an act, Savage must be the hardest guy in radio to work for. How would you like him to be your boss?
 
I've always thought Savage was putting on an act. Just something about the show that struck me that way.

The other thing I notice is the abrupt cuts and obviously taped interviews. Its like they don't even try to make the taped bits sound like the live show.
 
I have noticed scanning by Savage lately he fills a lot of time with the taped interviews. Sometimes it doesn't even sound like it's an "interview" but just more of him with recorded questions interspersed [sometimes accurately, sometimes not that well] with recorded answers from the guest. I've even heard the occasional "I see" or "You don't say" thrown in during a reply, some of which are almost comedic in the way they don't fit any form of natural conversation I've ever heard.
 
Whew. So I'm not going crazy. I had the impression that some of those long-form "reports" Savage has were the person talking, and someone with a Savage "soundboard" with different phrases to make it sound like he's reacting. I swear I've heard the same "This is unbelievable to me" phrase a few times.
 
Yeah the Savage "interviews" are the political talk equivalent of a Tahiti Village ad.

I tend to like most of the guys in his genre, but Savage always rubbed me the wrong way for some reason.
 
Awhile ago I posted about his long-form interview segments, and no one responded. Glad to see that others notice them as well. They happen in his third hour. His interspersed generic comments like "This is unbelievable to me" do "feel" like he's not even there. However, occasionally he asks a specific question making me believe that" (A), he is there or (B), he cut questions that were dubbed in later. I wonder if this third hour is for the network feed, and he does something specifically local and live for San Fransicko (his description, not mine) from his perch in that city?
 
Re: A semi-answer to my question

I went on Michael Savage's website and noticed a scroll that informs visitors that he is on from 3pm - 5pm on AM 860 in San Fran. Then he is also heard from 6AM to 9AM. Savage in morning drive?!!, and is it a re-run from the day before? (To steal a phrase)...This is unbelievable to me!
 
Considering I cannot stand most conservative talkers, some might find it odd that I like Savage.

Do you know why that is?

It's because the personality is, and has always been, what atrracted me to certain talk shows vs. other ones.

Lazy radio people decided that the easy ticket is all-conservative all-the-time. For people like me, that's boring-and-predictable-radio-all-the-time.

I like Stephanie Miller, Savage, Randi Rhodes, Curtis Sliwa, Ed Shulz, Bob Grant in his prime, Phil Hendrie (in small doses), even Dr. Laura. Ideology never mattered as much as the person. John Mainelli, former PD of WABC, when they had their highest numbers as a talk station, reaching #2 in NYC, used to prgram just like that. He'd have great personalities like Bob Grant and Lynn Sammuels on the same schedule. Great radio ruined by lazy and idealistic PD's.

After force feeding the Limbaugh wannabes to talk audiences for 2 decades now, unfortunately, most of the audience has been skewed to the far right, and they have no tolerance for differing views and often couldn't care less about the personality as much as the ideology.

Just listen to these shows: Hannity, Limbaugh, Ingraham, Gallagher, Levin, etc. etc. I find it sad that these dime-a-dozen copycats who just repeat the same political nonsense hour after hour, day after day, are the norm now. Pitiful. You've heard one, you've literally heard them all.

Ho-hum.
 
While I might agree that guys like Rusty Humphries and Gallagher are "copycats", it's unfair to put a guy like Levin in that category. If anything he's probably the most qualified to comment on this topic, and certainly a unique personality. And let's not pretend that the conservative side is the only one with copycats. For every Ed Shultz there are 10 smaller shows who do the same "angry liberal" shtick, they're just not as well known because no one listens to them.

In the end, all of the "angry" shows on either side are the same. What sets some apart from others is a combination of personality and credibility. Levin and Savage have both.
 
You can't put Rush Limbaugh in the category of "copy-cat". He was the originator. The copy-cats tend to not be as cleverly entertaining as Mr. Limbaugh. I remember even Bill Clinton remarking that Rush can be entertaining, even though he disagrees with him almost all the time. It's interesting that the previous person brought up Mark Levin as an original. To me he's a weaker and less effective Michael Savage.
 
johnbasalla said:
You can't put Rush Limbaugh in the category of "copy-cat". He was the originator. The copy-cats tend to not be as cleverly entertaining as Mr. Limbaugh. I remember even Bill Clinton remarking that Rush can be entertaining, even though he disagrees with him almost all the time. It's interesting that the previous person brought up Mark Levin as an original. To me he's a weaker and less effective Michael Savage.
Click to expand...

My guess is the putting of Rush in the "copy cat" category was just a backhanded swipe at him. I could be wrong of course. There seems to be a lot of that kind of thing around here. You can disagree with Rush, but he pretty much single-handedly saved the entire AM band. That speaks volumes for the guy's talent.

As for Levin, his hosting style may not be to everyone's taste, but there's no disputing his qualifications to speak on most political subjects. The guy has been a Constitutional attorney for over 30 years. Savage, on the other hand, is a biologist (or something like that) by education, but is very well read on a wide variety of subjects. That's why he can go off on tangents about music or science and hold his own. They're similar in hosting style, but that's about all that Levin and Savage have in common.
 
And, for what it's worth, Gallagher has been in talk radio since the mid-1970's well before Rush or any of the current group of talkers. Perhaps he's altering his "schtick" on air, I don't know, so I wouldn't be sure if he's intentionally being a copy cat or not...
 
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