Mike's On
Talk radio is uniquely
American, it's democratic, it's interactive, it's ... OK, OK, it's mostly Rush
talking to wack-jobs on Social Security about the budget and Howard jawing with
lowlifes on weed about breasts. But not completely. Further up the yak food
chain, past the local politics and sports gabbers, you can find Garrison
Keillor and the Car Talk guys and, if you're lucky, the gentle wit of
Whad'Ya Know? and its host, Michael Feldman.
This is talk radio for the
rest of us--people who like information and words, have the conventional
concerns of family and work, and enjoy a little innuendo now and then.
"Our listeners read," says
Feldman, a 47-year-old former English teacher who looks and sounds fully
capable of being beaten up by Woody Allen. "They play racquetball. They
disproportionately own foreign cars. They carry dental insurance."
When asked if his marketing
people are satisfied with this following (after 10 years of national
broadcasts, the show, syndicated by Public Radio International, now reaches a
total of 1 million people every week via more than 200 stations), Feldman
responds, "What are marketing people?"
Although
such comments reflect Whad'Ya Know? 's
let's-go-in-the-barn-and-put-on-a-show feel, the show is a full-time gig for
Feldman, who describes his salary as "about .4 Keillor units."
The two-hour Saturday morning show airs live, usually from
a 175-seat classroom at the University of Wisconsin (in Madison, where Feldman
attended college and now lives with his wife and two young daughters). But
sometimes Feldman takes it on the road to places like Northfield, Minn., and
Springfield, Mo. The show always opens with a five-minute topical monologue
("One thing you gotta say about Congress: They can't run the government, but
they've made it a federal offense to fire your travel agent.") and then segues
to an interview with a guest or two (recent visitors included novelist Jane
Smiley and a Democratic Party adviser who witnessed Bill Clinton and Helmut
Kohl's glutton-off at a Milwaukee diner). Next comes the Whad'Ya Know?
Quiz, which pairs a member of the studio audience with a caller. Quiz
categories include "People," "Science," "Odds and Ends," and "Things You Should
Have Learned in School (Had You Been Paying Attention)." (Sample question: Are
more people injured by clothing or by razors? Answer: Clothing.) Kitschy
prizes--like a book called Songs for Dogs and the People Who Love Them
or a pair of underwear with the "Contract With America" printed on them--go to
the winners.
There's also the phone call
to an inhabitant of the "Town of the Week." The town is selected by a dart
thrown at a map, and Feldman dials the town randomly until someone answers and
chats with him (the feature ran eight years before he lighted upon an
inhabitant who'd heard of the show). But most of the show is just Feldman
pacing the audience and being funny. "It's sort of like Donahue without
the issues," Feldman once told a Wisconsin magazine. "Or better yet, without
Donahue."
[BLOCK QUOTE] WOMAN AUDIENCE
MEMBER: How can I wean myself from sleeping with a fan?
FELDMAN:
I say marry him. [END BLOCK QUOTE]
In an age when even the most seemingly
spontaneous public events are in fact preceded by stacks of memos and weeks of
meetings, extemporaneous entertainment like this is no mean feat. And it's no
mean feat either. Unlike Howard Stern and Dave Letterman, Feldman sees
to it that his foils have as much fun as he does.
[BLOCK QUOTE] FELDMAN:
What's your name?
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hankus
Netsky.
FELDMAN: Is that the Pig
Latin version? I'm being serious with you, now give me a serious answer. What's
your name?
HANKUS: That's really it.
...
FELDMAN: Hankus is your
actual name?
HANKUS: It's true. I was
actually named Hankus because my mother ...
FELDMAN: Why?
HANKUS' GIRLFRIEND: Tell
him the truth.
FELDMAN: There can't be a
good reason for it.
HANKUS: Well, let's see.
... There's a Jewish tradition of naming kids after ...
FELDMAN: Of giving kids
lousy names ...
HANKUS: Actually, my
mother had to name me after a relative whose name started with an "H" and she
didn't like any of the American names like Howard or Harry or any of that sort
of stuff, so she got this name from a cartoon show, as a matter of fact.
...
FELDMAN: What cartoon had
a character named "Hankus"?
HANKUS: There was a
cartoon in Philadelphia called Hankus the Horse. END BLOCK QUOTE]
At this point Feldman dials
Hankus' mother in Philadelphia.
[BLOCK QUOTE] FELDMAN:
Hello, Mrs. Netsky, this is Mike Feldman calling from the radio show
Whad'Ya Know? with Mike Feldman. If you can answer a simple question, we
have a wonderful prize for you. Got a minute?
HANKUS' MOM: Just a
minute, yes.
FELDMAN: OK--the question
is, "What famous cartoon horse is your son named after?"
HANKUS' MOM: Hankus the
Horse . ... The nurses in the hospital when I had to fill in the certificate
didn't like that. They said you've got to give him a proper name. ...
FELDMAN:
They didn't think Hankus the Horse was a proper name for a baby?
[END BLOCK QUOTE]
Playing the man from Mars, agog at Earthling ways, Feldman
listens skeptically to a guy in the studio audience who describes himself as a
"community planner" busy "coordinating a community's relationships with the
state and federal government." Bearing down, Feldman gets him to admit that his
real duties are to "beg for money for sewers."
But the Madison Martian will
gladly play the butt of a joke if it'll help him figure out the locals.
Acclimating himself to the online world in one show, he required callers to tap
their words into a keyboard as they spoke. Meanwhile, he did the same with his
manual typewriter.
"It's-very-nice-to-meet-you-over-the-Internet-What-do-you-look-like?"
spoke/typed a caller named Julia.
"Parentheses-smiling-broadly-six-foot-four-and-a-half-blond-Lutheran-type-you?"
Feldman spoke/typed back.
"To communicate using only
your typing skills--to me, that's a special level in hell." Besides, he
confesses, "I don't like to be accessed."
Which makes public radio the
perfect medium for him--and explains why the TV pilots he made failed to
sell.
"The concept was for me to be
a white Arsenio Hall," he says of one pilot. "I had the hardest time figuring
out what that would be--not hip, not black, not up that late. It came out as
Art Linkletter.
"To tell you the truth," he
sighs, summing up his of life on public radio, "I don't see any way out of
this."
Illustration by Nina
Frenkel
