My name is Henry

October 21, 2006 4:31 PM

My name is Henry, and I am addicted to public radio. It's pledge drive time again here. If the 1-800 number for your local public radio station scrolls through your consciousness for weeks after the drive is over, or you have bad dreams about contribution gifts, you might want to see this site for a diagnosis. As for treatment, no support groups have yet been found.
posted by localhuman (29 comments total)

I love NPR, but this is not the best of the web.
posted by gsteff at 4:43 PM on October 21, 2006

Pledge drives make me change the station.
posted by smackfu at 5:11 PM on October 21, 2006

Paula Poundstone did a similar thing on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me this morning. It's funny, but kind of like an inside joke. If you don't listen to NPR this will suck!

Has anyone actually watched the Prarie Home Companion movie yet? I haven't, but hear there's an awesome love scene with Garrison Keillor and Meryl Streep and Lindsay Lohan! Woo hoo!
posted by snsranch at 5:19 PM on October 21, 2006

That list was, um, really lame.
posted by c:\awesome at 5:36 PM on October 21, 2006

That list was, um, really lame.

I agree. And remember, this lameness can only come to you through your generous support of Metafilter. The high quality FPPs you see are thanks to our volunteers here. Don't you think it's time you made your pledge to MeFi? Call now.

And remember, for $75 you will receive our very fashionable MeFi t-shirt. You can wear it to Whole Foods, an Americans United board meeting, or your next LARP with the full knowledge that everyone will acknowledge your utter and complete kickassedness.

For $100, you will receive the MeFi umbrella -- perfect for keeping the rain off if you live in the Northwest, perhaps in full sight of mathowie's palatial mansion in metro Portland.

And at the $365 level -- that's just $1 a day, you spend more every morning on your soy latte and subscription to DailySnarkyComeback.com -- you'll get the t-shirt, umbrella, and "The Wit and Witticism of Jessamyn West" -- a brand-new two volume illustrated set of all her posts and comments of the last six years. Not even at Costco yet! Illustrated by famed comics graphic novel illustrator Kevin O'Neill!

You depend on MeFi for all the intellegence, bile, anger, religion-baiting, politics-baiting, and occasional interesting and insightful FPP you look for every single day of the week! Contribute now!

And remember, every person that gives right now gets the "I AM laughing at you -- I'm posting to MeFi!" license plate frame!!
posted by dw at 5:55 PM on October 21, 2006 [3 favorites]

::changes station:::
posted by Atreides at 6:31 PM on October 21, 2006

So can we expect a post during PBS pledge drives with links to a PBS station in Minnesota too?

I love NPR. I hate the pledge drives. I already gave them $.
posted by birdherder at 6:46 PM on October 21, 2006

Sorry, dw, but I made it only partway through your post before switching to a new-rock Web site for a few minutes.

And I heard the Paula Poundstone thing too, and her lines were all so funny that I can't remember any of them. I laughed at the time, though.
posted by diddlegnome at 7:31 PM on October 21, 2006

I love, love, love public radio, but I hate, hate, hate when they try to be funny.
posted by pdb at 8:13 PM on October 21, 2006

Given that this post is dying on the vine, I will take the opportunity to say that Wait Wait Don't Tell Me is the single most painfuly middle-brow radio experience ever concocted. The whole show, as far as I can tell, is directed at congratulating the Saturday morning NPR audience on just how much NPR they've listened to during the week. Answering all of the quiz questions proves only that you've spent many hours listening to NPR; not that you're smart or even particularly well-informed. And the comedic "talent" is almost uniformly horrible -- a bunch of Clinton-got-a-blowjob jokes and "topical" riffs on news items that would actually be crushingly depressing if you stoped to think about them.

Viva la Feldman!
posted by Mid at 8:22 PM on October 21, 2006 [7 favorites]

And This American Life sucks too!!!

(Have I gone too far?)
posted by smackfu at 8:31 PM on October 21, 2006

Some of us like both Whad'ya Know? and Wait Wait. Whad'ya Know is a more home town old timey radio show, a little like Prarie Home Companion, but sharper and with quizzes. Wait Wait is a news-oriented quiz show with amusing commentary. You don't have to take my word for it, though. Listen to archives of Wait Wait and Whad'ya Know? and decide for yourself.
posted by booksherpa at 8:37 PM on October 21, 2006 [1 favorite]

I'll contribute to NPR again *ONLY* when they hire Bob Edwards back. Until then, I'll not lift a finger next time the wingnutz come a knockin' to defund them.

.

/Is there a way for Americans to contribute to BBC instead?
posted by RavinDave at 8:52 PM on October 21, 2006

I'm sure a UK mefite would let you pay their TV charge.
posted by smackfu at 8:55 PM on October 21, 2006

The CBC can't be beat.
posted by Twang at 9:31 PM on October 21, 2006

I hate the membership drives and don't know how something so annoying can be successful. I guess it's like spam and telemarketing - if it didn't work people wouldn't continue to do it.
posted by Nathanial Hörnblowér at 9:45 PM on October 21, 2006

Whad'ya know and WWDTM are anti-humor. Absolutely excruciating to listen to. There are more laughs in the very worst WB sitcom, than in a month of these shows.
posted by Arch_Stanton at 9:50 PM on October 21, 2006 [1 favorite]

"With your donation, you'll receive this classic PBS tote bag."

"Or this umbrella -- featuring a picture of our classic tote bag."
posted by killy willy at 11:27 PM on October 21, 2006 [1 favorite]

My local station (WUWM) has stopped doing at least one pledge drive a year, though they spend that time reminding you they no longer do the pledge drive.
posted by drezdn at 8:22 AM on October 22, 2006 [1 favorite]

RavinDave, by contributing to my local NPR station, they can afford to play BBC programming all night.

I still love Car Talk, Wait, Wait, Terry Gross (and, she does a hysterical hard boiled detective noir knock-off pledge drive thingie), but am so disgusted by how their news coverage has moved to the right in the past 15 years or so. Shameful. Even Nina has drunk the Republican kool aid.
posted by QIbHom at 2:12 PM on October 22, 2006

Given that this post is dying on the vine, I will take the opportunity to say that Wait Wait Don't Tell Me is the single most painfuly middle-brow radio experience ever concocted.

I take it you've never heard Le Show* then?

I'll contribute to NPR again *ONLY* when they hire Bob Edwards back.

Not enough they also need to publicly fire his fucking useless replacements. Steve Inscape and whatshername are a pair of annoying embarrassments, especially those "wacky" news items they use to kick off each half hour.


NPR needs to find some way to make the pledge breaks interesting: Maybe hire an improv troup to do little dramas about pledging

("Oh Jonny! If you really loved me you'd call 1-800-456-WGAS now and pledge 60 dollars!"

"But Kim, if I pledge 60 dollars now it will be matched by the law firm of Scrimson and Scramson, my mortal enemies! I won't give them the satisfaction! I can't give them the satisfaction!"

"Jonny, you're such a hothead! A principled hothead! The kind of man I want to give my life to, and the kind of man WGAS wants to give a totebag to for you pledge of just five dollars a month if you call 1-800-456-WGAS now!")

or something. Instead, my local station thinks it's somehow compelling to bring in theads of local cultural groups to beg with their on air staff. Oh yes, one more mealy mouthed middle aged white guy droning on and on about needing my support is surely the push I needed. Idiots.

*Technically not NPR, I suppose, but it might as well be.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 3:58 PM on October 22, 2006

PST: I always want to like Le Show, but often it just seems like Harry Shearer alone in a studio talking to himself and an audience of 7 or so. I don't think it's as middle-brow as WWDTM, though.
posted by Mid at 4:56 PM on October 22, 2006

If the 1-800 number for your local public radio station scrolls through your consciousness for weeks after the drive is over...

1-800-227-2811.

Yes. It's one of the few numbers I haven't forgotten since I lived through my first pledge drive season years ago.
posted by taursir at 10:11 PM on October 22, 2006

I must add to the chorus of "NPR is cool, but this link sucks"
posted by Target Practice at 10:36 PM on October 22, 2006

Also, the only shows I really actively dislike are the Diane Rehms Show (can't stand her voice, and yes I know she has some tragic disease that made it that way), and The Splendid Table, because all the snobby food talk annoys me.
posted by Target Practice at 10:52 PM on October 22, 2006

I always figured the pledge drives worked like extortion tactics by the Mafia. You pay 'em to go away.
posted by Atreides at 5:32 AM on October 23, 2006

though i can't stand "wait wait," i love when my station plays fresh air, car talk, this american life, day to day, the golden age of radio, and echoes. i was more than happy to contribute earlier this year.

i'm not aware of any "right-wing bias," and the station's programming hasn't yet come into conflict with my left-leaning predilections.

i do wish that so much of the station's time wasn't devoted to the pledge, during the weeks they have it though.
posted by lotsofno at 5:46 AM on October 23, 2006

My local station (WNYC) has a week long pledge drive a few times a year. The rest of the time, there are no ads. I figure I can live with the pledge drive or turn it off if it really annoys me. It's still a lot better than commercial radio.
posted by booksherpa at 9:20 AM on October 24, 2006

The rest of the time, there are no ads.

That's a bit of a sham too. The distinction between their spots and the ones on the regular radio are getting pretty fine.
posted by smackfu at 9:35 AM on October 24, 2006 [1 favorite]