Glenn Mitchell, local public radio personality, passed away this weekend. I always enjoyed his show when I caught it. He was a very intelligent guy and always had an interesting show, even when his guest was some boring dude who wrote some boring book about some boring crap. However, one of my last memories of Glenn’s show is probably not one he’d like to be remembered by.
When B, Taylor and I were on our way to Beaumont for my cousin’s wedding, it was a Friday, so he was doing his “Anything You Ever Wanted to Know” segment. Every Friday, for an hour, he would open up the email and the phones for folks to call in and ask questions. Questions about anything. He himself would rarely answer the questions, but he would moderate other callers, both expert and novice, who called in with their attempts to answer the questions. It was fun, even when people had the wrong answers. I particularly enjoyed his monthly shows from the Dallas Public Library, where his team of Professional Smart People, aka research and reference librarians, would come up with quick, definitive answers to many of the callers’ questions. This always tickled me, because I imagined my lovely B one day being one of those PSPs.
Well, on this particular day, a woman called in asking if there were any women’s rugby teams in the DFW area. Glenn did not know, but he entreated his listeners to call in with any relevant information. About fifteen minutes later, a guy called in with an answer to that question. The guy must have at least had some sort of seemingly-helpful information, as he was able to get by Glenn’s screeners. However, as soon as Glenn answered the call, the smartguy on the other end had this to say:
“Hi, I wanted to respond to the caller asking about female rugby teams. There are in fact quite a few teams and leagues, but unfortunately there’s a tremendous amount of carpet-munching–”
And at that moment, Glenn cut off the call with some quick reprimand, such as “Oh come on, don’t do this to me.” I screamed in uncontrollable laughter. I pissed off B because I was very loud, but I couldn’t quit laughing.
Funny shit, that was. I’ll certainly miss Glenn’s show.
But not the stupid theme music.
Me and you… tonight… let’s get drunk and play the GMTS until our fingers bleed.
this makes me sad. i always looked forward to listening to his show whenever i was in dallas.
-a