Classical Music on the Radio

NOT long ago I got to hang out at the Hollywood Bowl in the middle of the day -- which was a decadent pleasure in itself -- while talking to Brian Lauritzen, the KUSC deejay who has come to dominate classical broadcasting in town.

Brian is still young yet, but he has several decades of commitment to both music and public radio, and he has a deep feeling for the sometimes complex role that music can play in people's lives. I enjoyed his utter lack of cynicism and hope LA doesn't destroy his low-key southern charm.

Brian just started his broadcasting of Bowl concerts, which will continue for another couple of months.

Here's my story. See ya at the Hollywood Bowl.

Pres. Obama and the Plight of the Middle Class

FOLKS, I'll be appearing on KCRW's To the Point with Warren Olney, which will broadcast today at noon on 89.9 FM in Los Angeles and later, presumably, elsewhere around the country on the PRI network.


We'll be talking about Obama's jobs speech and the larger issue of the middle class during the economic downturn. I'm there to discuss my experience as a laid off newspaper reporter who's struggled with the collapsed economy.


One bit of Obama's speech was especially resonant for me: 

These men and women grew up with faith in an America where hard work and responsibility paid off. They believed in a country where everyone gets a fair shake and does their fair share -- where if you stepped up, did your job, and were loyal to your company, that loyalty would be rewarded with a decent salary and good benefits; maybe a raise once in a while. If you did the right thing, you could make it. Anybody could make it in America.

Anyway, we'll be discussing this and more shortly.

Update: With the show now up and broadcasting from KCRW, I want to recommend a very intelligent discussion in which your humble blogger was just okay.

One point: Chicago small business owner Jay Goltz, who wrote a smart piece for the New York Times about hiring, took issue with something I said about taxes and the rich. He made the point that someone making $250,000 is in very different shape than a billionaire hedge fund guy. I did not have time to respond, but I agree completely. (We need more small business owners like him and fewer too-big-to-fail corporations.)

Finally, this matter connects to a larger point which I did not get time to make, but: The most affluent 400 people in this country hold as much wealth as the bottom 150 million. So to even talk about the middle class is a bit of a nostalgic fiction, at least in the way we used to discuss it as a robust center of American life.

These days, politics dances to the tune of the top 1 percent, not the middle class. There is class warfare in this country: It's that very richest tier against the rest of us -- and they're winning. Bigtime.

Kurt Andersen vs. Art Center

THE writer, public radio host (of the eclectic culture show "studio 360") and SPY magazine co-founder kurt andersen has been at pasadena's art center college of design over the last few months. his title -- this gives him the appropriate degree of embarrassment -- is "visionary in residence." (art center is a very cool design school, in a stunning hillside/modernist setting, that has experienced some turmoil recently.)

HERE is my piece on andersen and his time in socal in sunday's LAT. i found him about as i expected -- smart, cool, somewhat midwestern. in high school and early college i was a spy fanatic so was a kick to meet one of the guys behind it.

also really enjoyed his piece "the end of excess: is this crisis good for america?" this is a long, thoughtful and somewhat speculative cover story of the kind american magazines almost never run: it makes absolutely clear that we can no longer dismiss time magazine, where it appeared, as mere middlebrow fluff. (as the whole culture has sunk, middlebrow has become increasingly valuable.)

his piece takes as its premise that the '80s -- with its worship of unregulated capitalism, material pleasures, celebrity and so on -- never ended, until last fall. he asks, what was that long weekend about and what comes next?

Photo credit: kurtandersen.com