Talk radio fires up the airways
Radio's most contravercial personalities have some redical opinions
The longest running radio talk show in North America has been steaming up the airways in Canada's capital city for decades.
Talk radio has people listening. It's not surprising then that some talk radio personalities are garnering rock star status in their markets.
In Canada there is no bigger Lowell Green's is considered the grandaddy of talk radio. His market is conservative, older and not so time-strapped that they can't mosey up to the phone to share their opinions. To them, Lowell Green is more than just a guy on the radio.
He’s a tough talking public personality with a soft spot for the underdog and a talent for making things happen; a father whose eyes twinkle when his grandchildren are mentioned; a journalist with a diploma from an agricultural college; and a boy from a family of colourful characters who once dove into a plate of pork chops and lived to tell the tale.
Sitting across from him in our very first meeting, Lowell is everything I imagined he wouldn’t be. He’s patient, gracious, and charming, with a hearty laugh and a generous spirit.
Gone is the Green whose voice on CFRA Talk Radio seems to me, at times, like nails scratching on a blackboard.
“There are few public personalities in Ottawa and the Valley with as large, loyal and committed a constituency as Lowell Green,” noted Canada's political icon, the late Pierre Trudeau.
On the day we meet he has just finished his show, a three-hour marathon of friendly and not so friendly banter that might bring a lesser broadcaster to his knees. His loyal listeners have opinions to share and pent up rants to unleash. Lowell engages some, humours others, and cuts short those whose dialogue is mostly incoherent.
Its “showbiz” the master of improv reminds me.
Lowell Green is a force to be reckoned with in the broadcasting industry. He’s well informed, thoughtful, courageous, and intriguing. He’s an ideas man. A thinker. An unabashed conservative, of both the small and large “c” variety, with what he says is a common sense view of the issues.
“A conservative in my mind, ideology aside, is someone who believes in what works, not in what could be or should be,” he tells me. “Complaining about conservative bias on my show is like calling a home renovation show and saying you guys only talk about fixing houses.”
Clearly, Green’s opinions are sought after. Why else would his be the longest running on-line talk show in North America?
Lowell Green is also a best-selling author.
The Pork Chop and Other Stories: A Memoir has been flying off bookstore shelves since its fall 2005 debut.
The hundreds of people who have lined up to meet Lowell at book signings throughout the Ottawa Valley amaze and delight him. At one signing in a small Ottawa suburb 700 eager fans waited for an opportunity to shake his hand.
The book recounts an interesting tale, full of twists and turns, risks and rewards. Over 250 pages that tell the story of a farm boy’s life, entwined with his connection to the American Civil Rights Movement and Dr. Martin Luther King, a syndicated radio program hosted by his father called the “Old Cynic”, the Springhill Mine Disaster, Peter Gozowski on the farm, the FLQ Crisis, and romantic rumours about his relationship with former City of Ottawa mayor Charlotte Whitton.
It’s the story of a farm boy whose first paying job was picking potato bugs at one cent per 100 bugs – just enough to buy a couple of ice cream Mello Roll’s. It’s the story of a little boy whose father sometimes called him “buggerlugs”, and for a time was known as “gag pot.”
The book, like the radio personality, takes you through a rainbow of emotions, but it doesn’t linger on any one. For a boy who was kidnapped by his mother and became fixated on her mailbox, trying to will letters to appear, this might seem odd. But Lowell explains his philosophy on life like this: “Several readers have noted that, given the way my story starts, I seem to have had a life remarkably devoid of troubled times. This, of course, is not true. It’s just that life is far too great an adventure, far too much fun, to spend much effort or ink rooting around in the bad times.”
Born in Anne Arbor, Michigan in 1936 and raised in small town Ontario, mostly by his grandparents, whom he called Mom and Dad, Lowell sees his as the quintessential North American story. A rags to riches tale.
His job, he says, is emotionally and mentally draining.
In 30 years at CFRA Green doubts that he has missed 10 days of work. “That’s the work ethic,” he explains. “I’m old school. It requires discipline. I have to get to bed around 9:30 p.m. I have to be sharp. People expect me to be good every day.”
He rises early five days a week, arriving at his downtown Ottawa office by 6:45 a.m. During the two hours before his show begins he reads at least five papers. Using a technique he says he learned from Al Chandler, his boss at his first radio gig, he attacks the papers with a razor, cutting out stories he thinks his readers will be eager to discuss.
He scoffs at the notion of retirement. “I’m going to die in the saddle,” he says with a chuckle. “At age 70 maybe I’ll start a whole new career. I would never just stay home. There are a million things to do out there.”
During his lifetime Lowell has rarely been confined to just one job anyway. While piecing together modern day talk radio he and Kitty founded Little Farm Pet Shop. He is one of four partners who started Algonquin Travel. And the Sunday Herald, today’s Ottawa Sun, was born of his entrepreneurial spirit.
It seems fitting now that an almost certain career as a pilot in the Royal Canadian Air Force was halted before it had even began by a job offer at a radio station in Brampton. He was only 20 years old and fresh out of MacDonald Agricultural College when he threw caution to the wind, following a path that led him to broadcasting stints in Sudbury and Montreal.
And to this very day he loves investigative journalism. Not afraid to call a spade a spade, he continues to ask questions and break new stories. It’s not unusual for some of his more than 100 emails a day to contain news tips.
So far Lowell has published two books and he predicts that writing will play an important part in his plans for the future.
Years ago he wrote a whole series of historical vignettes, broadcast them and even sold them to other radio stations, but never published them.
The underlining humour and empathy that peppers both Green’s books and his radio show tell a lot about the person he really is.
Green was the brains and the brawn behind the original Help Santa Toy Parade, an annual event that is still responsible for putting presents under the Christmas trees of thousands of needy Ottawa area children. When Canada's Centennial Flame in front of the Parliament buildings looked like it might be snuffed out, he successfully lobbied to keep it alive. And when Rev. Norm Johnson approached him after his show one day and asked, “Do you just talk, or do you mean it?” Lowell became co-founder of Big Brothers in Ottawa.
He says he works as hard as he does because he cares about the country. Indeed, he is passionate about it.
His latest book, released in October 2006, is a testament to Lowell’s deeply held convictions about what he calls, “the defining social policies of Canadian life.” How the Granola Crunching, Cappuccino Sucking, Tree Hugging, Thug Huggers are Ruining this Country is a well-researched look at such issues as needle exchange programs, crime, recycling, global warming, and Canada’s refuge policies.
If you dare to read it, expect a no-holds barred sizzling look at Canada from the eyes of an experienced journalist, whose thought-provoking opinions get people talking.
Let the sparring begin!
