THE RADIO SHOW
Please join me on the radio this Sunday between 7:00 and 10:00 PM at WPRB.com or, if you are within 35 miles of Princeton, New Jersey, at 103.3 FM for three hours of songs and tunes, new and old, chosen with the aim of enlivening and elevating the evening.
If you are looking for gift ideas, you might consider a great CD, tickets to an upcoming concert, or even a Music You Can't Hear On The Radio t-shirt. Check out the list of Recommended Music, the ever-expanding concert calendar, or the T-Shirt pages.
Also, in case you missed this remarkably perceptive column that appeared in the Star-Ledger on the day of the New Hampshire primary last January, here it is:
'West Wing' Writers Are Looking Like Prophets
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
By John Weingart
The television show "The West Wing" was criticized by some for painting an unrealistically positive portrait of life within the White House. A smart, talented, well-informed president surrounded by a similarly qualified staff grapple with complex issues and do a pretty good job of arriving at policies and strategies in the best interests of the country.
Others thought the show captured government at its best even if it romanticized how often those admirable moments occur. But the final year of "The West Wing," centered around the campaign to succeed President Jed Bartlett (Martin Sheen), did seem just an entertaining fairy tale, valuable perhaps for showing how far modern politics has strayed from some ideal but not a useful frame of reference for anything likely to happen.
Yet if the latest polls in New Hampshire showing Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama in the lead are confirmed today and those choices are endorsed by voters in the primaries and caucuses to follow, "The West Wing" writers are going to seem like modern-day Nostradamuses.
The television campaign began during the program's penultimate year in 2005 and concluded with its final episode in May 2006. On the show, a tall, lanky, charismatic, Hispanic congressman with no national experience unexpectedly overcomes much better-known and more experienced opponents to win the Democratic nomination.
The Republicans select a significantly older senator who is considered a maverick with wide national appeal though he is distrusted by many within his party's base.
The candidates, Matt Santos and Arnold Vinick, are played by Jimmy Smits and Alan Alda. The physical resemblance between Smits and Obama is stronger than that of Alda and McCain, but the political profiles of both characters are strikingly similar to those of the apparent front-runners in New Hampshire. Once nominated, the two candidates agree to run a civil, issue-oriented campaign and then, amazingly enough, that is what they do. They even confer during the fall when they fear their advisers may be tamping down their best instincts.
How does the campaign end? Well, it is very close. By all accounts, the writers had a change of heart and altered the planned outcome after the sudden death of John Spencer, the actor playing the part of Matt Santos' running mate, Leo McGarry. In the end, viewers experience Santos winning by a narrow margin, but the real surprise comes when the president-elect then asks his opponent to serve as secretary of state. After some hesitation, he agrees.
Of course, that was all just a television fantasy. With the screen writers still out on strike, who could even imagine such a plot in real life?
John Weingart is associate director of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University. This essay also appeared on NJVoices.com.
(Continue at archive of previous blog entries)
| "the best radio program in the universe..." - (George and Linda Griffin, Golden, Colorado, listeners on WPRB.com) "...always very wide-ranging, unpredictable and fun." - (Princeton Folk Music Society News) "among Philly's best and most unusual radio programs" - (RJforever.com/radiodirectory) |
Music You Can't Hear On The Radio is a radio show begun in February 1974 by John Weingart to weave folk music, string band music, bluegrass blues, humor, the Grateful Dead and occasional news clippings and readings into a whole that is, as often as possible, bigger than the sum of its parts. The program usually includes a mix of CDs and LPs each often linked to the ones that came before and follow in a way intended to evoke interest, amusement, surprise, profound educational experiences or bewilderment. The opening song and other parts of the program may refer to particularly current news or seasonal events.
Music You Can't Hear On The Radio will be on the air live this Sunday from 7:00 to 10:00 p.m. on WPRB which broadcasts to a 45-mile radius from Princeton, New Jersey, at 103.3 FM and to the world at WPRB.com.
Every Sunday evening, usually between 8:45 and 9:15 p.m., Music You Can't Hear On The Radio includes a selected listing of concerts in the central New Jersey, Bucks County and Philadelphia area. This list and more is available at the Concert Calendar page. Also, please e-mail any concert information you would like included in the on-air listing.
Comments from listeners are encouraged and welcomed. Listeners with a quick question or comment may call WPRB during the show at 609-258-1033 but the DJ is often too busy and distracted to talk or listen coherently. E-mail comments will be read and replied to after the show.
