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Imus In The Morning Is More Than A Hot Cup Of Jive

Read more articles on The Thoughts Of A Writer In New York City.

July 21, 2006

Posted by neillevine

About This Editor: I am a writer. Have been writing for other sites, but expect to do most of my future work HERE! My expertise extends from the esoteric such as burning hydrogen to the unpredictability of the stock market and my writing makes me a jack of all trades and exasperated master of none. I have had some influence over national wildfire and water policy and there are hints of a change in energy policy, BUT as Samuel Goldwyn once said, "A verbal promise is not worth the paper it is written on."

         

I confess. It is true. I listen to the “Imus In The Morning” radio show a lot.

He’s rude. He is crude. Sometimes he’s even lewd. But like that little ditty that starts, “Tobacco is an evil weed. It fills no moral human need. It’s bitter and vile. It smells like spit. But I like it.”

Perhaps because polite chatter gets tedious and I have grown rather cynical over the years. So I find the grousing and callous remarks to be uplifting in this unmitigatedly cold world.

Actually, when Imus likes a guest, particularly big name politicians like Senators Joe Lieberman and Rick Santorum, Congressman Harold Ford, Jr., of Tennessee, who is running for the Senate, he makes nice, but still has an annoying edge to his interview.

He also talks to first team broadcasters like Tim Russert, Pat Buchanan and “Rush Limbaugh” who always sounds like he is having a unpleasant time getting up in the morning and is trying to escape from some sort of Limbo. There are also interviews with people who sound like Bill Clinton, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, New York Mets General Manager Omar Minaya and even New York’s Cardinal Egan, but these guests have a strange habit of sounding like they had words put in their collective mouths and are none the better for the experience.

He also has a revolving crew of syncophants like comic Rob Bartlett, Charles McCord, Bernard McGuirk and Larry Kenney, who sounds amazingly like he’s been there and done that.

There is even straight sports reporting with Chris Carlin, the latest in a long line of jock news reporters who is able to keep the score straight despite the pressure put on him by the shows loose guidelines.

Finally, there are the CJ Foundation For Sids, The Tomorrow’s Children Fund and The Imus Ranch, charitable groups that the show, meaning Imus and his wife, Deidre, raise money for inspite of his sour disposition and dour demeanor and disarming uncharming approach to human relations that somehow manages to warm the cockles of my and other hard core listeners hearts.

As the witty ditty goes, “Tobacco is an evil weed,.. . It smells likespit, but I like it.”