Last week when I posted about This American Life someone suggested to me Benjamen Walker’s Theory of Everything as something else that fills that quirky, brilliant, edgy niche. I subscribed and I really do like the show. I see on his blog that he posts about picking up a new station. He gives some clues where he says:
So I am not going to name names, but lets just say that starting March 5th I will be on all THREE coasts. And one more hint: this station is the best of the big stations in the network, its innovative, visionary and wholly dedicated to airing great radio (I am sure this partnership will last at best 3 weeks).
Can there really be much mystery in this? As much as I’d like to think he’s talking about the Gulf Coast and that it’s KRVS in Lafayette LA, this has to be WBEZ in Chicago. It’s is the flagship of TAL and Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me and fits all the criteria he lists. It sure was pleasant living in Evanston and having WBEZ as my local NPR affiliate since the station actually originates a lot of programming that I love.
Dave, I’m really happy you found this show and liked it. I was planning to one day send you an email about the show, but someone beat me to it. So far, I’ve really, really liked the episodes entitled “Through a Window, Death” and “Cost of Living”. “Harold and the Hark” was pretty powerful too.
Benjamen actually called me this morning since we were planning to meet for a drink in Beijing. He called me as he was on the highway from the airport into the city, but alas, I was on the same highway going the other direction, about to leave on vacation. So all we could do was a symbolic wave to each other on the highway. It would have been cool to meet him. In any case, I’m looking forward to hearing the stories that come about from his travels in Asia. Keep listening. I’m sure it’ll be great.
The only problem I have is his reference to a 1956 Ford Mustang. 1964 1/2 was the first one. Not nit-picking, just pointing to a fact that is very important to me.
I thought the episode “Cost Of living” was tremendous. As for the NPR affiliate I’m kind thinking it might be WBUR here in Boston. Benjamin lives here I think, at least he’s done shows about Boston and WBUR is ceratinly one of the big NPR stations. I’m not sure how visionary WBUR is though. Hmmm.
Chicago Public Radio WBEZ Schedule dave called it correctly – congrat’s again benjamen…
It’s such a small world.
I’m from lafayette, and worked at krvs for 3 years while going to school at USL (oops, I’m mean ULL). I’m really into radio, and have been attending the third coast audio festival in chicago (hosted by wbez) for a few years now. Benjamen Walker’s been there every time, and he seems like a cool guy — I’m so excited for him that wbez has picked TOE up, although I suppose it’s always been just a matter of time.
Anyhow, nice site! 🙂
Wendy,
I emailed Judith at KRVS today, just to say hi and keep in touch. I get their emails and capture shows from the MP3 stream. I really like them a lot, both from an artistic radio standpoint and as cool people. What years did you work there? I was around from 1995 to 1997.
I’m really liking TOE. It has some of the same aspects I love about TAL, but without the navel gazing. I listened to “A Man Without a Country” today, which was phenomenal.