I got to hear Dennis on the radio this morning; one of his friends let him sit in on his show on KALX. Snappy the Alligator (your radio pal) rode again. He used to have a couple of regular shows on KALX, but stopped doing it shortly before we met.
I've heard the tapes of his shows...boy was good. Good at putting together music, and good on the interview shows where he talked to writers and filmakers. The interview skills are still getting used for his writing (he talked to Phil Lesh of the Grateful Dead yesterday!), but there was something happening for him while he was on the radio today that made me see that he has a gift that is sitting dormant right now.
If Irenaeus of Lyons was right, and the glory of God is a human being fully alive, then I think the Dennis needs to get back on the radio. I called the studio during a break and told him that, because I could hear in his voice, coming over the crackly realaudio stream, that something was happening to him. There's this wonderful lilt in his voice when he's doing what he loves, and it was bursting out of my speakers.
The thing about a Snappy the Alligator show is, it's not "I am so very cool and I'm on college radio and here's all this music you don't know about because you're not as hip as I am;" it's more of a celebration of this music, this music which obviously touches him in a deep way, and he brings it to you and lays it at your feet and says, "look at this shiny thing here because it might make you feel what I feel, and I hope it does. "
There's so much joy in my Dennis. He doesn't always see that it's there, but it is, bubbling beneath the surface. It gets obscured sometimes by the day-to-day stuff - the awkwardness of having a body and having to keep it fed and clothed and sheltered, the challenge of living with a sometimes silly woman, the endless maintenance of relationships - but it is always there, as long as he's doing what matters to him. I think he's pretty darn neat, myself.
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