Friday, February 27, 2009

Mrs. Polly On the Air: KPFT's the Inner Side

Scooter, Host of the Innerside on KPFT, the Houston Pacifica station, said, "I've been thinking of having a Ladies' Night for the women of Rumproast. What do y'all think?" The women of Rumproast (America's Meatiest Blog) looked at each other, gulped, and said, "Yer on, Scooter!"


"This ain't no BS Blogtalk radio either, this is a 100,000 watt antenna, we go out all over Texas and the Gulf Coast," Scooter reminded us. "It'll be fun, we'll crunch some bones."


Rumproast first met Scooter through the mewls and hisses of diehard Hillary Clintoniacs known as PUMAs. One of them had bid on an hour of airtime at KPFT. The PUMAs used their hour to alternately scream at and dump startled KPFT callers who disagreed with them. Since they had "proudly voted a straight Republican ticket", and KPFT is a Pacifica station, that meant everybody.

To Scooter, host of his own weekly satirical program scheduled immediately after, this was a gorgeous, gift-wrapped box of crazy, delivered right to his doorstep.

He immediately put together a montage of PUMA screeches which he called "Five Minutes of Hate from the Daughters of the Democratic Confederacy." That, plus a surreal pitched battle between forces of PUMA and Rumproast on the KPFT program director's blog, led to Scooter's and the Meaty Blog's alliance.


Scooter invited two Rumproast personages to guest on his show: proprietor Kevin K, and RR's foremost practitioner of both gravity and waggery, billed intriguingly as "in the dark robes, the mysterious Dr. Strange." The show went well, and no KPFT callers were harmed during the broadcast.


Rumproast has, besides Kevin, three active posters, all women, including me, Mrs. Polly. It has an audience of mixed genders and sexual orientations. The PUMAs, incredulous that anyone with female body parts would not follow in their wandering pawprints, tastefully branded the women of Rumproast as "little female house slaves."


So I found it immensely satisfying to be invited on the radio instead of, as Scooter called her," Icepick Voice," PUMA's "Five Minutes of Hate" headliner (who artlessly expected to be asked back for more of her squeaky wisdom).

What was not so satisfying was the powerful case of nerves I developed. "It's a conversation, not an interview," Scooter said, but I worked myself up to a fever pitch nevertheless. It was the sort of neurotic mania that I could cure when I was ten by lying on the cool patch of rug under the piano. Now lying under the piano wouldn't have the same effect unless I added a bottle of Scotch. So I scoured the papers, made notes, and ate chocolate instead.

I also studied Kevin's and Strange's program. Jesus. They talked knowledeably about cabinet nominations. They had a world-view. They quipped. (Strange, on Obama's speechwriter, who had been photographed groping a cut-out of Hillary: "Kevin, you shouldn't publicize that--there are people who have cardboard family members.")

The show was how long? I listened again, and was slightly cheered on the second hearing. That was a bunch of time spent on Jennifer Aniston posing in nothing but a necktie! And Tina Fey. Yes, yes, brains, beauty, total package, what man wouldn't admire her, yes. I smiled, reserved to myself the right to think of George Clooney, and felt like a much calmer little female house slave. I stopped cramming for the test, and relaxed a bit. Aren't men wonderful, though.


On Thursday, 11:30 P.M. East coast time, our phone rang, I picked it up, and said, "Hello Scooter!" Instantly, my thoughts flipped over like beetles on their backs, their little legs wiggling helplessly. Scooter tried leading the witness, asking me about subjects I'd said I could discourse on. I shamelessly let my fellow guest, Denise Williams, take the first few questions.

About ten minutes into the show, my brain stopped flat-lining and began to function in a halting kind of way. I'm not entirely sure what I said, but I seem to remember "Arabic naughty lingerie parties." And telling a story about snarfing communion wafers as if they were potato chips.


If KPFT thought it had gotten angry calls from the PUMA invasion, I'm pretty sure they paled in comparison to the inadvertant combo crusade and fatwa that have probably been declared on that station. A crufatwasade.


Always happy to bring people together.


Here it is, the half-hour Innerside production of what we're calling Prime Rib Radio.


Next Thursday will be the second half of the Prime Rib Radio series, 10:30 PM Houston Time, 11:30 PM Eastern Time, with Scooter, marindenver and Betty Cracker, the other little female house slaves of Rumproast.


Scooter's Website is AcksisofEvil.org, where he has all his shows archived, and pictures of his family, his atheist friends, and his ferrets.

After the show was over, I hung up, and entered a state of absolute liquifaction. I sank into bed like syrup into a waffle, and allowed Mr. Polly to overindulge me terribly. In other words, life returned to normal.Mrs. Polly recuperates

2 comments:

  1. It was an enjoyable show that flew by for this lisstener, Mrs. Polly, and both you and Denise have voices made for radio (the anti-Icepicks, if you will).

    I suspect this won't be the last you hear from Scooter.

    YAFB

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  2. Thanks, YAFB. Scooter was a great host: friendly, bouncy, and very good at covering for panicky amateurs.

    I would say I learned what intestinal fortitude means. Let's just leave it at that.

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