Public radio
rogerWILLIAMS rwilliams@florida-weekly.com

There's something missing from public radio.

Certainly not civility, good manners, self-congratulatory cheer or mild elitism. Nor well-reasoned reporting, nor incisive storytelling, sometimes.

Instead, something...unrestrained.

Not that I don't love public radio. The hardened veneer of sanity and cool rationality appeals to me, more than the veneer that also hides the intestinal foment of life: the blood and guts in the car bomb; the tortured lives of those who composed elegant architectures of classical sound; or the cathartic surge of circulatory joy in the pulse-firing sex of a wedding story, especially when it's sweetened in a ferment of love. The unrestrained stuff.

Pubic radio, in other words, doesn't sweat, or even perspire. It's a glass of white wine and a wedge of cheese in a great room overlooking a garden. It's not two cold beers and a shot of Jack following four weeks in the swamp with hundreds of heavily armed, calorie challenged young men.

All this occurred to me as I listened public radio's fundraiser this week (half the operating budget has to come from donations).

Although public radio doesn't advertise, public radio definitely advertises. Chico's, for example, gave WGCU $3,000, in return for about 6,000 on-air citations, usually with the words "community," "generosity," and "matching grant" waiting in ambush nearby.

The people who volunteer to raise money on the air - bankers, doctors, lawyers, writers, corporate bureaucrats - prove to be some of the greatest talkers I've ever heard. They're picked because they know a lot of somebodies who will presumably lift the phone and fork over cash. And they seem to catch a selling fever. This is a country of salesmen after all (I'm using the term generically), and these untutored bumpkins of the airways step into it like they were born barking - carnival barking.

The slogan for the campaign they're using this week is cute: "Put your money where your mind is."

Well, in my case maybe we just better not go there.

They host "power hours" - 40 calls of at least $100 in 60 minutes - and they deliver pleading exhortations of need that truly put the beg in begging.

Barkers appeal to the religious ("It fills your spirit and nurtures your soul"); to interior designers ("Classical music is not wallpaper"); to the defensive ("You can get fair and honest news reporting here; I can't say that for the rest of them"); or to the onefor all Musketeers club ("You are the public in public broadcasting, we are all the public in public broadcasting").

They also appeal to those with strident morning expectations: "I cannot IMAGINE starting my day without incisive..."

Which gives me the urge to talk back. What kind of adult American says she cannot imagine starting her day any other way? Where has this woman been living? Not on this planet.

Admittedly, there are many worse ways to start your day than by listening to public radio, and they're all painfully imaginable.

Pointing this out might be considered bad manners. Criticize public radio? Might as well belch loudly at the Queen's tea party.

One of the well-intentioned barkers noted that public radio here (WGCU Fort Myers, 90.1, or WMKO Marco, 91.7) "touches more than 100,000 people a week. There are probably more than 10,000 people out there listening to us (at this moment). We know that. Where would you be without WGCU in the morning?"

"Every day," added his on-air colleague, "you get the best seat in the house, from the comfort of your Barcalounger, or in the kitchen where (maybe) you're tidying up, or on the lanai or wherever."

Especially Wherever, I figure. Except that in Wherever (wherever that is) nobody seems to be listening. Lee, Charlotte and Collier Counties, together, have about a million potential listeners. Only 10,000 or so of them are tuned in?

That's pitiful.

But I have a solution that could garner WGCU a million listeners and a load of dollars. It's simple: just show an occasional lack of restraint, which, after all, is the human condition.

For example, why not punctuate the sober march of air-time tradition with 60 seconds of unrestrained sound, twice an hour. Maybe an M-60 machine gun firing; or somebody singing in a shower; or distant, indefinable screaming; or a person breathing while making love; or the unrestrained exchanges of public radio anchors while completely drunk.

Then, I'd really feel that this was "an investment in the community, an investment in life," and we could "put the power in the power hour," and "keep it comin' (because) we're really cookin' now."

With them, I would then happily intone, "Can you feel the infectious momentum?" And I'd even answer, "Yes, O Yes, brother Yes!"

So please, if you haven't contributed already, do so. You rely on public radio, just like I do, right? Just call 1- 800-533-WGCU, and ask them where you can deliver a bottle of Jack Daniels along with your cash donation, today.

Note: the columnist's wife, Amy

Bennett Williams, is a pro-bono essayist

for WGCU FM 90.1 who can be

decidedly unrestrained.