RADIO REVIEW:WHY AM I HERE? Have you ever woken up just before first light when the rest of the world was still sound asleep and asked yourself that? asks Quentin Fottrell.
With the silly season now gagged, bound and parcelled up and Fedex-ed to some remote island in the Pacific by the grave issues of state, I have asked myself that very question this week while desperately turning the sundial on the radio.
During the first few precious moments of the day, with Maxi's soothing voice on Risin' Time (RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays), I sometimes feel the presence of loved ones who have passed to the other side standing in the shadows of the room. This week, they formed a surprisingly orderly queue. And you know what they said? "This is an intervention. It is time for you to book a goddamn holiday!" They have a point. Why I am still here? Especially when so many radio presenters are on their holliers. Why am I not lying on a sandy beach?
When Maxi opened her show on Tuesday with James Last's muzak version of Abba's Super Trouper, it was time to call JWT. Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Whatever sins we may have committed in our lifetime, we did not deserve the James Last instrumental version.
In fairness to Maxi, she followed up with Don't Cry For Me, Argentina sung by Madonna from Alan Parker's Evita. Now that is the kind of song that rouses you from your slumber. I once met Parker on the steps of RTÉ Radio. He said that Michelle Pfeiffer would have been a better actress, but he chose Madonna as she was the better singer. Listening on Tuesday morning, he made the right choice.
RTÉ presenters are falling like flies. Pat Kenny is away until September. I'd rather they feck off all at once and not in dribs and drabs, so we can enjoy daring choices and new voices. Like, um, Myles Dungan on Today With Pat Kenny (RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays) giving hourly stock updates on Thursday ("Is the ISEQ going to take another bath this afternoon?") and Dave Fanning filling in for Ryan Tubridy. However, Rachael English is perfect to replace Marian Finucane today. She has her own well-earned gravitas, plus that extra tickle of mischief in her voice. She hosted 5-7 Live (RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays), which morphed into Mary Wilson's Drivetime, the show that is to radio what guests are to fish: after a while they both go off. Drivetime goes on forever. I long to turn it off, but it gradually wears you down like a religious cult.
But enough already about RTÉ. Most other talk radio is obsessed with the housing market, the latest exchequer figures and the government's revised growth forecasts. Downwards, obviously. On The Last Word (Today FM, weekdays) Matt Cooper was telling listeners who were complaining about the bad news that he wouldn't lie to them just to make them feel better. Quite right, too.
A passionate Ivan Yates said many people were still in denial. (I can't hear you!) I did catch some snooze-inducing snippets. Here is a condensed version: "You take things like local government finance . . . The government must turn around the ship of public expenditure . . . There has to be a curb on pay . . . Social partners need to ask how to avoid 300,000 unemployed." (I'm still not listening!)
Not everyone has the same take on the 1980s. Aidan Cooney's Awesome 80s (Q102, weekdays) plays all your guilty pleasures. Taxi drivers love Q102. Easy listening keeps drunken passengers from attacking en route home. "I bought a horse," one Q102-loving taxi driver told me on Monday, as he sang along, "because that's how I'll be getting around soon." So much for the great escape.
The Right Hook (Newstalk, weekdays) also has a softer touch. George is like a grizzly bear who's been shot in the ass with a tranquilliser gun: he can be sore at his guests, but happily so. After giving the text number - "53106. Costs 30 cents" - for the umpteenth time, he said of his resident movie expert, "Philip Molloy is sunning himself in Bologna on his holiday." What? I oughta give him a shot in the other cheek for that.
Doug Muzzio was the replacement. His forthcoming book, Decent People Shouldn't Live Here, takes its quote from the Joker in Batman. Doug says Hollywood portrays American cities as asphalt jungles and apocalyptic hell-holes, especially Detroit, yet they are full of possibility and adventure: "Joe Buck in Midnight Cowboy comes to New York because he's seen it on the big screen."
George first went to New York in 1987. "I was like a kind of Joe Buck. I thought New York was different from any other city in the world. I was thinking of nightclubs like Maxwell's Plum. These were all movie images." Actually, he would have been just in time. The original Maxwell's Plum restaurant and singles bar on First Avenue and 64th closed its doors exactly 20 years ago, in July 1988.
He added, "By the way, listeners, is there a favourite movie destination for you? 53106. Costs 30 cents." Again with the texts.
New York is one city that lives up to its reputation in the movies, even if they are filmed on a soundstage. Internet radio is similarly deceptive. You just never know. I could be in Portugal right now kicking a beach ball with Pat Kenny. Or eating ice-cream in Bologna with Philip Molloy.