What Do I Know? The Crew

Lyle
Let me tell you about the guys on the show. Let's start for no particular reason with Lyle. He's a Renaissance man (French poetry, where he's left his thesis undefended), although the powdered wigs are getting a little old. Still if you're feeling up to snuff Lyle's your man. I have to tell you he's one of my favorite people on earth, which is not his home. When I came back to Madison to do this, Lyle was the first person I called to work on it, even though we had to invent his job. He has seven other jobs besides letting anybody who can dial a phone on my show (screening they call it) including carilloneur (-iste? He rings dem bells), weather forecasting office worker (don't know what he does there--cartography? Cartwheels?) He also plays the organ for one of them--was it the Episcopalians? I forget, I'll ask him. He has the sweetest parents in the world. Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Anderson of Dorchester (or is it Colby?), Wisconsin!

Jim
Jim looks taller than he is because all his lines run vertical-he has no lines running east west, like I do. Women are always telling Jim they love his voice and Jim is always on the verge of giving them even more to love, but for his lovely wife Deb. By the way, if you think I give Jim a hard time you should hear Deb: she's good! Jim still has the better portion of his hair (although the part's just a wee bit wider) and thank god he's stopped putting the stuff into it which sometimes came out brass and sometimes came out bronze. Jim is the voice of Wisconsin Public Radio. I'm not sure which of the other organs he is. Back when we used to share hotel rooms (except me, natch) Jim used to find himself rooming with Clyde and there was a lot of fighting over the toiletries and towels, as in who got to pack them. Jim no longer--after years of deadly sarcasm not just from me--irons his jeans. Jim, Lyle and I ("the old farts") are most often abandoned by the younger contingent of the crew on remotes and left for dead in places without a Younkers. Jim said the strangest thing on the air not too long ago--people had been wanting to hear more from him, so when I told him to say whatever he wanted, he said, "I have a dog. With a tuxedo."

John
I don't remember where I first met John, but I do remember tripping over him. The old Hide-Away bar in Madison, I think. He was just bending down in the doorway to sleep in his shoe. He drinks much less now on most occasions and only sometimes falls asleep with his back against a steam pipe. He's gotten better and better over the years, I only wish it was at the piano. He's actually very good, does all styles, can perform at any kind of entertainment, ceremony, or moment of repose and can be contacted through this web site. John does do all styles, although I keep telling him: show tunes. People love show tunes. John is a likeable old duffer-right up until beer number five, at which time he turns into an unlikeable old duffer, although he doesn't hit that hard (Rick says.) Really he has a heart a gold, which is putting another ten-twelve pounds on him. We all would like to see John to have another job to fall back on but no one so much as his dear mother in Platteville.

Jeff
Jeff is the subject of more scuttlebutt, innuendo, complaints, and annoyed references from the crew than any one of the rest of us (although I don't hear (all) of the stuff about me). Some of it, I must tell you, is true. The cattle mutilations--he was home in Bayfield when those happened. Even though this is the Internet I will say no more. Now that he's had his Bar Mitzvah (just recently! Mazel Tov, Bar Mitzvah boy, today, 28 years late, you are a man!) we all hope he'll begin to see some things a little differently and other things at all. His hair continues to defy logic as that which there's less and less of gets longer and longer, but his bass playing speaks for itself, as, fortunately, he no longer does on air. You think you would like to hear from Jeff, but you're wrong. Since he hasn't talked on the show (after I accidentally insulted his bass) he hasn't said many wonderful things. Never order behind him in a restaurant; Jeff asks the origin of all ingredients and always for special (a little extra this, could you substitute a some of that, particularly if it's unavailable) favors from the wait staff. Jeff may be the only American who didn't know about baseball. When we took him to a Royals game in Kansas City, Jeff pointed to the batting cages and asked, "do those stay on the field?"

Clyde
Clyde Stubblefield is my black step-child, or so he claims I (and everybody else) have been treating him as. He hates James Brown because when he worked for him he had to pay five dollars for every mistake he made, and Clyde, well, never mind. He invented the popcorn beat on the drums after growing up in Chattanooga hearing the echo of the train chugging atop the canyon, or was it the kerchunk of his mother's Maytag? Ask him, he'll tell you. Clyde is fun to watch play, but never so much as on radio. On radio, I could look at him all day. We call him the salt lick, since he plays the salt shakers like maracas over his every dish. Well not every dish. (It would melt the ice cream.) Clyde dresses like what Carla Thomas was complaining about in Otis Reddings's "Tramp." If we're lucky, on the road, we get him to come out from watching television and eating chicken wings in his room long enough to go out to a restaurant with us where he orders chicken wings.

You gotta love these guys!