I’m taking—and offering you—a much-needed respite from fixation on the bitter propaganda hoo-ha over Charlie Kirk (about which I’ll be posting soon), in hopes that it will lighten up your day a little bit, as it has mine. (I just found the audiotape in my archives.)
For several years in the late Eighties and early Nineties, I had a weekly radio spot on WJHU, Baltimore’s then NPR affiliate, owned by my employer at the time, Johns Hopkins University. I came on every Friday to join Lisa Simeone, whose afternoon show I would end by offering some timely commentary, in a 20-minute conversation with the host. (At times of national crisis, I also would do evening call-in shows, which Lisa moderated. We did it throughout Operation Desert Storm, during the Hill-Thomas hearings, and at other such fraught moments.)
On April Fool’s Day in 1992 or thereabouts, Lisa and I decided to observe the day by doing the bit that’s posted here. The station was flooded with phone calls, by people who thought those two characters were real; and the powers at JHU freaked out, because they thought it made the university look bad. (Lisa announced that those two characters were in town for a confab at JHU.) That unhappiness on high immediately moved the station manager to lecture Lisa sternly (or hysterically) about the impropriety of what we’d done.
In any case, I got some good laughs hearing it again (and also found it rather prescient), and am hoping you will, too.
This one is for paid subscribers only—as I noted I would do with any audio or video that I might post from time to time, just as I’ve been doing with my essays. (I’m economically dependent on my writings here, but will continue making all our compilations free to read.) I announced this policy in June of 2024:
