Today, Monday, I'll be starting the week behind the Golden EIB Microphone on America's Number One radio show. Three hours of substitute-host-level excellence in broadcasting starts at 12 noon Eastern/9am Pacific. If you're in possession of the necessary receiving apparatus, I hope you'll dial us up, either on one of 600 Rush affiliate stations across the US or via iHeartRadio livestream.
~I'm still digesting the sudden death of a great cartoonist and a magnificent free-speech warrior, The Australian's Bill Leak. Tim Blair has an interesting vignette on how the totalitarian enforcers police their own:
Rather than join the left-wing online hatefest against artist Bill Leak, who died on Friday, Marlton actually wrote something nice, touching and true.
"Oh Bill. This is very sad," [Guardian leftie Andrew Marlton] tweeted about his fellow Walkley Award-winning cartoonist. "We didn't agree on much, but he was a lovely bloke in person."
Indeed he was, as Bill's huge number of friends will attest. But that brief yet heartfelt farewell was too much for Marlton's leftie followers, who raged that Leak was a terrible racist, homophobe and misogynist who deserves no respect even in death. "F ... right off," seethed one respondent to Marlton's post, damning Leak as "a racist c ...".
So what did Marlton do? Did he stand by his words? Did he argue with the hostile Twitter legions? Did he defend himself? Did he insist that in his personal experience Bill Leak was in fact a lovely bloke? No. In a spectacular act of absolute cowardice, Marlton caved. He wimped it. He melted like the fragile little snowflake that he is. He deleted the post.
Worse still, he then indicated his agreement with the piece of garbage who smeared Bill as a racist c ... "Yeah fair point," Marlton wrote, of a man he'd just described as "lovely".
That's where the left is today. They'll write all manner of savage and inaccurate slurs but censor themselves when they express something pleasant. Even if they sincerely believe in something, they won't say it if it risks upsetting their group-thinking comrades.
Who would wish to belong to such a side? The left professes to be "scared" of Trumpists and racists and fascists and transphobes. But, as Andrew Marlton's behavior reveals, in the end what they're really scared of is their own thuggish enforcers. I'll have an appalling American example of the same psychosis on Rush in an hour or two.
~Later in the week I'll be joining Robert Davi on his radio show. Yes, aside from being an actor and singer and all-round entertainer and unusually creepy Bond villain (License To Kill), Robert is also a radio host. On this weekend's Song of the Week, the 007 villain joined me and longtime 007 lyricist Don Black to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first British song to win an Oscar: "Born Free." Don talks about writing the famous film theme, after which, in a world premiere performance, Robert sings it with the Mark Steyn Show Band. You can watch the episode here.
PS Speaking of all-round entertainers, I woke up this Monday morning to find that I'm Amazon's Number One bestselling jazz vocalist. I'm stunned, humbled, and a little relieved - because, since I got fired by CRTV, I'm pretty much living off my cat album royalties. If you haven't yet picked up a copy of Feline Groovy: Songs for Swingin' Cats, dedicated to my own groovy feline Marvin, it's available on CD - or, for instant gratification, via digital download from Amazon or iTunes.
On the other hand, if you're saying "Nuts to your cats album, Steyn!", I am currently working on a new book on a big-picture civilizational theme, and I've got quite a few ones I made earlier (as they say on the cooking shows) that still stand up quite well. If you know a would-be Steyn reader, they might appreciate a SteynOnline gift certificate, starting at $25 and going up from there. On the subject of books, should hockey-stick huckster Michael Mann's interminable lawsuit against me succeed, it would be the worst setback for the First Amendment in half-a-century. Such unlikely Steyn allies as NBC, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, etc, all agree on that - in their amicus briefs - as does The New York Post in this editorial: "DC Court of Appeals' Global Warming Decision Threatens First Amendment". If you're interested in keeping me in the game until this outrageous case comes to trial, well, I wrote a whole book on this subject.
~Re my above-mentioned firing by CRTV, among the responses from their subscribers was this one, by John Morgan:
Dear CRTV,
Just allowed my CRTV subscription to expire; may or may not renew. So, here's my summation of THE STATE OF FLEDGLING "CRTV":
umm . . it is mostly a few shows of guys sitting in front of microphones (sorry, but that's a format called radio, not TV; --yes, Levin's microphone is fake, but it's still very visible on his awesome set).
Michelle Malkin's show started strong, but then it mostly went away (and we can glean the show is clearly going to be very periodic).
Stephen Crowder's show is great--and it appeals to my son and his generation as well--hooray!-- still, most days it's Stephen and his great crew in front of--wait for it-- microphones!
Steve Deace, (watch --or, er, listened???) just once––he was decent; i agreed with him, but nothing exciting to watch (to be kind) and-- once again-- clearly a radio guy with a big old microphone in front of him.
Again, there is nothing visually interesting about a host and their cohorts sitting in front of microphones talking--this is simply filmed radio. I realize it must be cheap to do, but CRTV is supposed to be "Television" (It's in your brand name, for God sake).
Now we get to the recently deceased --but many of us are praying-- eventually resurrected--"Mark Steyn Show". This was actually television--in fact it was a Variety Television Show (and probably should've been labeled "the Marc Steyn Variety Show"--as it was much in the format of that well-known genre)... the big shows often featured live performance, interesting guests, movie and art discussion (BTW, newsflash--many conservatives actually value art and culture!), plus they offered Mark's unique political insight and humor. And, other than the host or his guests singing into microphones, I don't believe I saw one on the set; this was clearly a TV SHOW!!
In case you can't figure it out--people like me felt this was a POSITIVE to your CRTV lineup of shows, not a NEGATIVE! CRTV minus the Marc Steyn show IS a negative--because CRTV is simply way less interesting. Bring him back; I will gladly resubscribe--with gusto! I want you guys to succeed. TRULY.
However, I recommend being careful about adding any more shows featuring guy/gals sitting behind microphones (... because we can listen to radio for free).
You can listen to America's Number One radio show for free starting at noon Eastern. See you then!
