Those of us who are very talented achieve milestones in our lives regularly, and so we become accustomed to it. But simply because accomplishment is commonplace for me doesn't mean that my various triumphs shouldn't be celebrated by you. So it is for that reason that I share with you now the tale of the time that a post originally published here on The Spoonbender was co-opted by the thieving wannabes and pretenders of NPR.

It should be said that I do not work in radio. I did host a radio show in college which was quite remarkable. Finding it hard imagine? Picture this in your mind's ear: The kind of brilliance found here, except delivered in the most honeyed, resonant, and pants-dampeningly sexy voice ever for four hours a week. Now add the occasional concert ticket or Frederick's of Hollywood $10 gift certificate giveaway, and you're in the ballpark.

Bafflingly great as it was, my brief, brilliant career in college radio was not actual, professional experience, and so I'll admit that I'm not totally familiar with "professional" radio's manner of mining material for broadcast. Nonetheless, something about the below comment struck me as odd:


I'm writing from Open Source, a new public radio show that aims to bring the spirit of the web onto the radio each night, to let you know that we included this post in last night's show, something we called Blogsday, in honor of James Joyce and "Bloomsday."

We combed through hundreds and hundreds of posts that were all written on June 14, 2005, stuff we found all over the web, and then read excerpts of our favorites for an hour of live radio. It was a bit of an experiment, but we were thrilled with the results.

We didn't have time to alert any of the bloggers whose posts we included in advance, since we were producing the show until the second we went live, but I wanted to let you know now that this post -- or at least a part of it -- was read live on the air. Now that we finally have time to catch our breaths, we'd love to hear what you have to say.

Best regards,
Dave Miller
Senior Producer, Open Source

Sure enough, I visited the link he provided, downloaded the show, fast-forwarded past all of the other dreck in the way of my genius until I heard it -- my post being read and pauses for emphasis being inserted by some very important-sounding man. It's a weak post, which for me still means far stronger than two chapters of the Bible, but I can understand NPR's attraction to it -- it's almost completely inoffensive.

Now I certainly can't blame this Miller fellow for wanting to capture the spirit of the web, which is me, of course, and trying to put it into a radio or whatever. Believe me, if I could figure out a way to distill what it is I've got and imbue various other products with the magic, I would have done so long ago. But I must admit that I find the off-handed way in which he mentions that he'd helped himself to my material without even an email, let along one asking for my permission, to be a little offputting.

But if at any point the show appears on CD offered as a pledge drive gift, I'll be leaving Dave a presumptuous thank you note of my own -- in ball point pen on his wife's forehead thanking him for use of her mouth.

Analogcabin @ 1:06 PM
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