As Steve Moos has kindly noted, I do have a bit of history in radio, a track record of timely innovation, and pushing the envelope. The status quo bores the hell out of me, no, it scares me! Run or rust. The common wisdom of any age is generally not so “wise” as it is just the safe cop-out of the current establishment. In the long run, these “safe” approaches are unprofitable by any measure: artistically, socially, and, yes, financially!

Adapt, change, or die.

American commercial radio was, for many years, taken over and run by accountants and B-School grads. Beginning in the mid 1980s the programmers began to be infected by the beaners’ utterly risk-averse approach to this art-business. Happily, recently, for various reasons including the challenges of IPods, Internet and satellite radio, more creative and enlightened senior managers are beginning to reassert themselves. Perhaps most exciting, right in "the belly of the beast," in Washington DC, CBS Radio has launched "The Globe," bringing together eclectic multi-generation Rock-based music with powerful sustainable environment content. Make no mistake, radio, like all entertainment media, is an “art-business.” Absolutely no question, the artist part of the team must understand and accommodate the straight business side; but, likewise, the GMs, SMs, CFOs, and CEOs must realize they haven’t got any business without the art and the artists. Art can’t evolve and keep the public engaged without taking smart chances based on gut! Why gut? Simple, you can’t do valid research on an idea or product that the public has yet to hear or see!

My latest “be involved in the world” entertainment concoction is “Sam's Jams .” It's just one modest idea which, by itself, is surely not radio’s salvation; but is, I firmly believe, one example of what we should present the public. I am proud to say that it utterly flies in the face of the radio’s current common wisdom. It must. It could well be a full-time radio station format. For now, it's a once-a-week show, essentially a fully 21st Century variation on what I wrote up and helped to invent and execute in the late 1960s, along with many other radio visionaries of that time. Change or die.

Brief (HA!) relevant aside…

Perhaps my favorite historical figure, Thomas Jefferson was a true visionary. He lived in the future, but knew the past like few of his contemporaries. TJ’s concern for future generations drove his thinking, writing, and public service. True, he failed to apply some of his high thought to his personal life. As outstanding as he was, he was also just a man, with human failings. He was, in any case, a true Renaissance Man: a scientist, an architect, a man of letters, a politician, and, yes, something of a musician too!  Late in his life he was asked which was his favorite title, out of all he had earned: co-author [with my 4greats grandfather Richard Henry Lee of the Declaration of Independence, Secretary of State, President of The United States, Founder and President of the University of Virginia, and more. He answered that his most prized title was simply “Citizen.”

We can only aspire to be anywhere near the citizen that Jefferson was, but, for me that means precisely that the arts and science, music and politics, and living in the future are all central to life as I wish to live it. BTW – for those who focus on “living in the now,” don’t worry, my interpretation is that the future comes on so fast that the next second  becomes "now" so quickly that now and the future are essentially the same. I’d put a smiley face here but I hate ‘em.

You cannot securely live in the future if you don’t know, study, and remember the past. T.J. sure did! “Securely”? Yes, we’ve all heard, “Those who do not remember the lessons and mistakes of the past are condemned to repeat them.

I don’t hold a candle to Jefferson but, more importantly neither do our present national leaders. Today’s captains of government and industry, particularly the media industries, show us every day, by their words and actions, that they are utterly unable to think and plan into the future. Whether in public policy, business strategy, or the arts, they are reactionary in ways that not only bore us, but even threaten our futures!

So, my historical and future conception of radio, music, politics, religion…everything, is what combines to make the citizen I am. I love old, new, and evolving music. I know the great days of radio and I always believe in its wonderful potential. I care about politics at all levels. Presently the captains of American politics and business are a bunch of “emperors with no clothes on.”  We're being "led" by numerous naked Neros. The Roman Emperor, Nero was said to have played his violin while his city and nation burned down around him. How do you say in Latin, “Yoh dude, not to worry. I’ll just groove on these tunes and maybe that fire will just go away.” The term “bread and circus” refers to the Roman political leadership’s idea that, if you keep the people well fed and well entertained, they won’t pay attention to what really matters to them; they won't attend to their own basic well-being. So the average American man and woman gets fatter and fatter. The average American man knows and cares much more about NASCAR and the box scores than he does about the political and economic facts that will make all the difference in the security and happiness of his own and his children’s lives. The average American woman knows and cares more about whom some bimbo starlet is sleeping with than she knows about the very politics and economics that will save or destroy her and her children’s futures. Fat, dumb, and happy, couch potatoes with suicidally diverted interests and blank minds.

Music and media can both entertain and enlighten. Music can both relieve the stress of a caring and hectic life, and, in the next song fire us up to care and act. I’ve heard many people observe recently that there seems to be more politics and social commentary appearing in a lot of the new music. Great! The artists are waking up again. Now all we need is for the media mogals (and those in other industries as well) to realize that their own enlightened self-interest is inexorably connected to the rest of us citizens. We’re all in this together. The greatest radio, back in the day, brought people together. For the last two decades modern radio formatting has been designed to split people apart. It's marketing-driven; divide up the population into smaller and smaller slices, split them apart for more effective targeted advertising. Hey, diversity is a wonderful and beautiful thing, but our shared culture, our common good, and our common wealth is what holds us together.

Let’s grab the best of the past, dispense with the worst, rock while we rock the boat into the future! “Time keeps on slippin’ slippin’ slippin’ into the future.” Thank you Steve. I love ya John Mayer (and I love the tune) but we cannot simply be “waiting on the world to change.” Your parents and ancestors didn’t fight and/or protest for a better world just so you can suck down another Bud Lite in front of your 42 inch LCD.

The new show “Sam's Jams ” is mostly music, by far. Some of it is escapist music and some is no-escape expand your heart and mind music. I try to succinctly speak thoughts on the world, life, politics, etc. I don’t want you to just sit there and listen. I want you to take part! We want to laugh, sing, argue, agree, respect one another, dance, march, have a blast pushing the envelope, testing the limits, ockin into the future.