Where You Least Expect It

I'm spending today and tomorrow making the long drive back to Minneapolis from the East Coast, and at the moment, I've stopped for coffee and a nostalgic look around at my old college town of Oberlin, Ohio. From what I've seen so far, not much has changed, although the downtown storefronts look like they could use a lick of paint, and the hummus plate at the coffee shop at the corner of Main and College Streets has gone severely downhill since my time.

I didn't actually intend to write a blog post here, but driving in from Cleveland, I had one of those fun, unexpected on-the-road experiences, and thought I'd share. Back in the day, when I was an idealistic college student obsessed with radio in all forms, I was a secret fan of a talk radio host at Cleveland's WTAM-AM named Mike Trivisonno. Triv wasn't exactly the most erudite guy on Ohio's air - in fact, he pretty much reveled in being the least, filling the familiar talk radio role of championing the uneducated, blue collar white guy (for you Minnesotans, think of an aggressively Italian version of Joe Soucheray.) But he was damned entertaining, for the most part, and captured the spirit of the decaying but scrappy Cleveland perfectly, to my mind.

Anyway. There I am, earlier today, cruising by downtown Cleveland on Interstate 90, when I realized that it was just about the time of day that Triv used to come on the air. Out of pure curiosity, I tuned in AM1100, assuming that his slot was probably no longer his, and that I'd shortly be listening to Sean Hannity, or some other syndicated loudmouth. But there was Triv, right on schedule, and sounding like he was still doing more or less the exact same show he did when I was in college - two parts sour old coot, one part stand-up comic, and about eight parts professional contrarian. Nothing you'd want to listen to for hours on end, but I was happy to stay tuned for a bit.

And then, without warning, it happened. Coming back from a commercial break. Triv told one of his interns to turn on his mic and introduce himself. The kid, who sounded about 19, did, and Triv then asked him to describe what he'd done the previous evening. "Oh!" said the intern. "I was down at Public Square, watching the Cleveland Orchestra!"

I cringed. I've heard hard-boiled talk radio types bring up classical music before, and while it's not always a guarantee that they're about to go on a populist rant against snobbery and boredom, it's a surefire thing that they aren't going to have the slightest clue what they're talking about. So I was shocked to hear Triv immediately come back with, "Now, I heard they had about 80,000 people out there, which is just awesome, 'cause you know, that orchestra of ours, they say it's one of the best in the world!" (Which it is.) He went on to ask the intern about the racial and economic makeup of the crowd, and was audibly pleased to hear that it wasn't "the kind of snobby ties and suits crowd you might probably see when they're playing at Severance Hall."

At this point, one of the producers jumped in to point out that, actually, the crowd at Severance tends to be pretty diverse and casual, as well, and the intern confirmed it. I figured this would be the end of the conversation, but instead, Triv wanted to know when the intern had gotten into listening to classical music, and what he liked about it. This went on for ten minutes, an eternity in drive-time talk radio, as the self-professed "dumb Italian guy" of Cleveland radio extolled the virtues of, arguably, America's greatest symphony orchestra. And the fact that he went right back to talking about his poker weekend in Vegas and the local idiots who think Travis Hafner has been taking steroids after the next break just made the whole thing more satisfying.

One of the toughest things about selling classical music as a general interest entertainment these days is getting past the fact that it's just not even on the cultural radar screen for a large percentage of the public anymore, at least not in the way that movies, pop music, and Christie Brinkley's divorce are. (Many orchestra subscribers would probably prefer that it remain that way, too, which is one of the major reasons that it does.) And while I don't want to imply that ten minutes of relatively lightly informed music talk on a news/talk station equates to progress, it makes me happy.

And, hopefully, it's awakened me enough that I've got another few hours of driving in me before this day is over. Have a good holiday weekend, all, and if you don't have plans for the 4th, you might consider catching Sarah and the orchestra just before the fireworks on the shore of Lake Minnetonka out in Excelsior tomorrow night...