Murphy
Recently, through a grave misstep, my car radio got tuned to an AM talk station. Upon discovering this, I panicked and started pushing buttons in an effort to find anything that resembled music, which is no easy feat these days. When calm was finally restored, I began feeling a little bit lonesome for Mike Murphy.
I hate talk radio, but the Murphy program, which ran for years and years on various Kansas City stations, wasn’t really talk radio. Listening to it was like lounging in a basement rec room while your know-nothing uncle and a few Humphrey Democrats played bumper pool and spoke disjointedly on topics they knew little about.
The show’s strength was not its quality, which was spotty, but its originality. And I found the show especially unique when he worked with John Wozniak (the Woz) around 1999 to 2001. It was not intense, important, or in your face. Sometimes there were guests—snake-oil salesmen or assassination experts or B-team celebrities. Sometimes there were callers. Often there was free food. When food was brought in, the wheels fell off the show. You’d hear lip smacking and not a lot else. It was good radio.
Murphy often ran the show from restaurants, and his most loyal listeners tended to join him there. This custom led to at least one humorous misunderstanding. One morning, a caller spoke her piece about Marilyn Maye or crop circles and then said, “Oh, by the way, what’s going down this Thursday?” Murphy was stumped. She continued: “I caught the end of that call with Genevieve, and she said she’d see you Thursday.” He said, “Oh, Genevieve. She's coming over to my house to groom my dog. You’re welcome to join us.”
Murphy once said he saw a mosquito so large that it was standing on its hind legs and French-kissing a turkey. He said his biggest regret in life was not taking tap-dance lessons as a kid. On I-70, returning from Colorado one summer, Murphy and his wife saw the face of an alien through big storm clouds. It stared them down for half an hour.
Woz was his perfect complement. A seasoned reporter and radio guy, he was a square peg in the round hole of life, with more than one ex-wife to prove it. Like Murphy, he had curmudgeon tendencies, but what he loved he loved, and he never made you feel crummy about life.
Woz, too, had his share of offbeat stories. For instance, one night some buddies and he got drunk with Thomas Hart Benton and they all went outside and tossed around the original Persephone—the painting, not the woman. Another time, he said he believed Jesus looks like Robert Duvall.
Often Murphy asked Woz totally dense questions. “What’d they call that villain on Batman that looked like a penguin?” he might ask. Or “What’s the name of those little tomatoes that look like cherries?”
Then his questions would turn epistemological: “Why are people always tryin' to get you to ride wild animals?" or “Who’s the greatest?” Sometimes Woz replied that Darryl Hannah was the greatest. He liked leggy blondes.
Murphy has said there’s nothing dumber than drinking beer from anything that’s not glass. This remark got some buddies and I to thinking about his tastes. I proposed he was a Bud man, but that his allegiance floundered based on ad blitzes. In the early 80s he probably drank Olympia, while later he gave Keystone a fighting chance. One friend said Murphy probably smuggled in his share of “Colorado Kool-Aid” in the 70s.
Like beer, Murphy was something of an acquired taste, and something to be consumed in moderation. When taken in doses, his show could really hit the spot and make you feel a good kind of silly.
One of my fondest memories is of the time Murphy claimed a polar bear could whup any other creature on dry land. Somehow, Woz thought he’d said panda bear, and this made for an unusual debate. As I listened that morning, I knew it would all end too soon. No corporate accountant or media consultant will put up with that stuff for long.
Indeed, the home offices soon brought in a boy wonder from Texas to run the station. Murphy got kicked to a time slot that was less accommodating to my schedule, and Woz got kicked out. They were replaced by a breakfast team called Hickman and Doyle. In their promotional ad, they went “Whazzuppp!”
I hate talk radio, but the Murphy program, which ran for years and years on various Kansas City stations, wasn’t really talk radio. Listening to it was like lounging in a basement rec room while your know-nothing uncle and a few Humphrey Democrats played bumper pool and spoke disjointedly on topics they knew little about.
The show’s strength was not its quality, which was spotty, but its originality. And I found the show especially unique when he worked with John Wozniak (the Woz) around 1999 to 2001. It was not intense, important, or in your face. Sometimes there were guests—snake-oil salesmen or assassination experts or B-team celebrities. Sometimes there were callers. Often there was free food. When food was brought in, the wheels fell off the show. You’d hear lip smacking and not a lot else. It was good radio.
Murphy often ran the show from restaurants, and his most loyal listeners tended to join him there. This custom led to at least one humorous misunderstanding. One morning, a caller spoke her piece about Marilyn Maye or crop circles and then said, “Oh, by the way, what’s going down this Thursday?” Murphy was stumped. She continued: “I caught the end of that call with Genevieve, and she said she’d see you Thursday.” He said, “Oh, Genevieve. She's coming over to my house to groom my dog. You’re welcome to join us.”
Murphy once said he saw a mosquito so large that it was standing on its hind legs and French-kissing a turkey. He said his biggest regret in life was not taking tap-dance lessons as a kid. On I-70, returning from Colorado one summer, Murphy and his wife saw the face of an alien through big storm clouds. It stared them down for half an hour.
Woz was his perfect complement. A seasoned reporter and radio guy, he was a square peg in the round hole of life, with more than one ex-wife to prove it. Like Murphy, he had curmudgeon tendencies, but what he loved he loved, and he never made you feel crummy about life.
Woz, too, had his share of offbeat stories. For instance, one night some buddies and he got drunk with Thomas Hart Benton and they all went outside and tossed around the original Persephone—the painting, not the woman. Another time, he said he believed Jesus looks like Robert Duvall.
Often Murphy asked Woz totally dense questions. “What’d they call that villain on Batman that looked like a penguin?” he might ask. Or “What’s the name of those little tomatoes that look like cherries?”
Then his questions would turn epistemological: “Why are people always tryin' to get you to ride wild animals?" or “Who’s the greatest?” Sometimes Woz replied that Darryl Hannah was the greatest. He liked leggy blondes.
Murphy has said there’s nothing dumber than drinking beer from anything that’s not glass. This remark got some buddies and I to thinking about his tastes. I proposed he was a Bud man, but that his allegiance floundered based on ad blitzes. In the early 80s he probably drank Olympia, while later he gave Keystone a fighting chance. One friend said Murphy probably smuggled in his share of “Colorado Kool-Aid” in the 70s.
Like beer, Murphy was something of an acquired taste, and something to be consumed in moderation. When taken in doses, his show could really hit the spot and make you feel a good kind of silly.
One of my fondest memories is of the time Murphy claimed a polar bear could whup any other creature on dry land. Somehow, Woz thought he’d said panda bear, and this made for an unusual debate. As I listened that morning, I knew it would all end too soon. No corporate accountant or media consultant will put up with that stuff for long.
Indeed, the home offices soon brought in a boy wonder from Texas to run the station. Murphy got kicked to a time slot that was less accommodating to my schedule, and Woz got kicked out. They were replaced by a breakfast team called Hickman and Doyle. In their promotional ad, they went “Whazzuppp!”
posted by JW at jwopks@gmail.com at 5:11 PM
