drudge blog

Matt Drudge has left the airwaves. At least for the regularly scheduled Sunday night slot. If you’ve liked Drudge’s radio show, the swan song was a good one. He chose to have no guests but opened the lines for questions about anything, him included, and spent a generous amount of time explaining the logistics of the show and other assorted whatnot. While it was the typical replayed clips, he didn’t ramble and he kept things positive.

The first Sunday night I listened to Matt Drudge in 2004, I fell asleep. I’m not into talk radio, particularly not conservative talk radio, so this is it for me and rancid ear candy. I can’t even evaluate Drudge Report Radio as a typical consumer, because I’ve multitasked Drudge with either a notebook or a keyboard. During that first year, those last three hours of Sunday were a niche of very limited time to focus on the novel manuscript that his presence in the news helped inspire.  I thought at the time that I’d done all the research my project really needed, but was still curious about how this personality, which came alive in print via raw interviews and news stories, translated onto radio. The short answer is that I tuned in out of curiosity to see what I’d get out of it.

Drudge is a conservative-slash-libertarian-slash populist who straddles the edge of party lines, who forced me out of my political comfort zone and nudged me toward trains of thought I’d never other wise hop onto.  Three years later, my values and tastes haven’t changed. I’m still concerned that humans do have an effect on global warming. I’m still not impressed with his idol Pat Buchanan, nor do I read any occult implications into Harry Potter. 

Something about him was entertaining – both intentionally and unintentionally – in a way that most radio ga-ga isn’t. He made Dick Morris and Ann Coulter digestible (in tablet-sized sound bites) and Nikki Finke palatable. A chat with Camille Paglia made her as fabulous as ever.

Given a mike and a three-hour daypart, Drudge is often a good servant but a bad master. He can be annoying, inane, kneejerk, shortsighted, repetitive, disrespectful, and oblivious. But, dang it, dude has verve. When he’s good, he’s very, very good. When he’s bad, he’s still worth the time.

Matt well earned his nickname of “Dead Air Drudge” when I first began listening (not so much recently). When I hear the same clips for the fifth time, I can totally envision him as a babbling grandpa rehashing the same tired story ad infinitum. He must have known as he called Walter Cronkite “old goat,” that he wasn’t immune to the same disease. Nor was he above criticizing an invited guest post-interview with whom he disagreed. But what I did regret about Drudge was the occasional lack of sensitivity and humility toward callers who deserved – well, at least a little better.

CALLER: Mr. Drudge, it’s the Christmas season, and I’ll give you a chance to take back the terrible things you said about retarded people….(explains a previous show in which Matt said that Spider Man 2 was a movie “for the retarded”.) I raised a 19-year-old retarded son, and you did not.

DRUDGE (with an edge of irritation): Well, then, what should I say, sir?  (Quickly, as the station break sounds go off) Spider Man is a movie for all races, creeds and colors…

But usually he could hold his own at nobody else’s expense:

CALLER WITH SUPPRESSED VOICE: What is the percentage of neocons who are Jewish?

DRUDGE (who’s Jewish): I think I saw you in the Borat movie this weekend. (Plays a clip of Sacha Baron Cohen’s “Throw the Jew Down the Well”). This one’s for you, Mel.

Drudge’s show was the most fun when he was caught off-guard.  Women with soft voices seemed to gelatinize his steel armor.

FEMALE CALLER (after a few sentences of gushing) You should win the Nobel Peace Prize! Are you married?

DRUDGE(softening, a little nervous): Thank you…you’re embarrassing me a little.

FEMALE CALLER (after another sentence of gushing) Are you married?

DRUDGE: Um, no.

It’s never been 100% clear to me how much of the on-air persona was really Matt.  He’s gone off on the occasional tirade – most notably, a William Buffett quote in which his voice morphed into a peculiar snarl – when I wondered if he might be slightly losing it. Or maybe it’s like a high school friend told the Washington City Paper – he has a knack for coming off the wrong way. When he went off on the Mark Foley jag about teenage “beasts”, I knew how it would come off. But even as I poked holes in his fallacious reasoning, I knew where he was coming from, and I developed a respect for him.

And then, the one-liners:

“I’m in that wonderful Drudge cynical mood.”

“News is where you find it.  Don’t you agree, you Internet pioneer, you?”

“I’m a sucker for a cheap cry.”

 “I find comfort in historical context – that we’ve been through this before.” 

 “To me, it’s comforting for someone to wear their politics on their sleeve…”

Re: suggestion of doing another TV show: “I am so not on the market right now. I’m allergic to the pancake makeup.”

On Dan Rather: “I think he’s a patriot, I really do.” 

On Washington: “The real stinky fishbowl.”

(Clapping his hands underneath the mike, reminding me of a monkey playing cymbals) “Oh, and I’m so proud of these kids getting all cleaned up.”

Drudge Radio, in many ways, was an extension of the website, but it was also an outlet for an inherently creative person to flesh out ideas, tones, and attitudes that translated differently on the page. What got him fired up on-air wasn’t necessarily apparent on the site, and vice versa. It was compelling on a more intellectual plane. Perhaps like observing wildlife in their natural habitat: either you appreciate what you observed or you didn’t. Either you had the patience to sit still and listen, or you didn’t. If you’re staking out the scene with a cocked gun and listening only for what you want, you’ll only come away with what you want: a dead shell of something vibrant.

What I’ll definitely miss is that direct communication that translates only through an autonomous radio show. News consumers see and hear from Drudge what they want to see and hear. Conservatives want someone to affirm their values, liberals want confirmation that he’s a buffoon or a slimeball. But if you lowered your expectations, and your guard, and listened without prejudice, something interesting happened.

On a more personal level, Matt Drudge has been the most fascinating research project I’ve taken on. The end of the show means that there really is nothing left to glean, at least insofar as my book goes. It’s the end of a three-year routine, of turning over every possible stone, keeping my eyes and ears alert for every conceivable source of useful information. For three and a half years, if it wasn’t a Jewish holiday and I was in the United States, Drudge was my plans on Sunday night…whether I was in the mood or not.

My archives are complete. The research is done. All there is now to do is move forward with the finished manuscript. For Drudge and for me, it’s the end of an era.

Damn, that was fun. 

As Spanky and Our Gang sang, “Sundays will never be the same.”

RegoPark is a freelance writer with a background in marketing communications. She has recently completed a novel on the relationship between PR and new media. She can be reached at regopark@arcticmail.com .