Unabashed

I really liked the show Northern Exposure, particularly the Chris in the Morning radio bits. One of the primary reasons for this, of course, is because the show had really, really excellent writers, who were philosophers at heart. Wikipedia instructs us:

Northern Exposure’s flavor came from a combination of various influences. The show’s creators, Joshua Brand and John Falsey, were members of the Esalen Institute in California where an eclectically “spiritual” worldview was presented, best exemplified in the writings of Swiss psychologist Carl Jung and American anthropologist/mythologist Joseph Campbell (whose works are frequently referenced in the series). There are also fantasy elements inherited from the works of Carlos Castaneda and the magical realism novels and stories of Latin American author Gabriel Garc’a M’rquez. Both creators were also conversant with classical Russian Literature. This characteristic is evident in the satirical elements from the show that are hallmarks of the Russian literary grotesque style of such authors as Gogol and Dostoevsky.

I won’t lie; I don’t know who half of those people are, but it still sounds cool, especially when you consider those are the influences on a (purely fiction) low-power AM morning radio program.

Now I’m also a Sirius radio subscriber, although I’m kind of wishing for better content there. Sure, I like a lot of the music channels, but I don’t listen to Howard Stern and I really don’t like the quality of today’s morning radio in general. I wonder that nobody emulates what the NEx writers did with the KBHR skits. It seems like a no-brainer to me, of course I can certainly understand that there aren’t many philosophers out there waiting in the wing to work on a morning radio program. I’m caught up in a morning radio funk, I guess. All the local channels are filled with guffawing idiots, Sirius is strictly music unless you like Stern or political talk (I don’t), and that leaves sports radio, which is fine sometimes but gets old after awhile (especially during the off season). I won’t go on about what a great idea it would be for Sirius to emulate Chris in the Morning radio show on Cicely, Alaska’s KBHR from the television program Northern Exposure… :-)

Maybe a podcast? I would love to find a quality podcast, but so far I’ve had zero luck with podcasting. Well, maybe not zero, because I do like Escape Pod. But that’s the only one so far. If anyone knows of any good podcasts or radio shows I might pick up on the internet, I’m listening.

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: Alaska, Chris, Cicely, Escape Pod, Exposure, KBHR, morning, NEx, Northern, Podcast, Radio, show