Earlier today while following another blogger’s link to Radio & Records’ website, I came accross this story about the deteriorating health of WBZ radio’s David Brudnoy.



Tuning into the late news tonight. I hear that he passed away earlier this evening.



For many years he has hosted an talk show on WBZ radio in Boston. Although I really hadn’t listened to him much in the past few years, I used to listen to him with great regularity. Either sitting in the office, when I worked late, or listening when driving out on the road for one reason or another, I listened to David as he interviewed authors, newsmakers, and politicians, and more than a few segments where he just spoke directly to the audience talking about the issues of the day. I enjoyed his personable interviewing style, and his intellegence.



He challenged people he interviewed without denegrating into the shouting matches such as in Crossfire. When Jon Stewart chewed out Crossfire for being Crossfire, to much acclaim, I thought it was grandstanding, and that the solution was not to put down Crossfire, but to praise better forms of debate. David Brudnoy provided that better forum, if I was to ever find myself in radio, I would hold his show as the standard to be upheld against.



Although labeled conservative by most, he is a Libertarian, a fact I didn’t know until well until after I was one myself. In hindsight, I’m sure that some of his political beliefs as expressed on his show had influenced me. Particularly as I listened to him a lot during the time my political beliefs were beginning to gel. That influence seems more evident now in the post 9/11 era as I find myself a Libertarian “hawk”, which I think David could accurately be described as well. I’ve often jokingly referred to my support for the war on terror as supporting the “Brudnoy wing” of the Libertarian Party.



In the early to mid 90’s David went through a bad patch of health…. Well, as it started that was how he’d have dismissed it. He was in a state of denial about how AIDS related diseases were effecting him.



It resulted in some of the scariest, horrific radio ever broadcasted. For a stretch of a few weeks, David was making liberal use of the cough button… Not liberal enough, as some of the coughing fits were so violent and so long… Stephen King couldn’t ever put the chills that went through me as David went through one long coughing fit that I could swear lasted for two minutes. At least it seemed that way as I sat shocked in my office afraid I was hearing a man who had no business being on the radio, sounding like he was heading for the morgue.



I wasn’t too far off from the truth. Shortly thereafter he was off the air, getting treatment. Being up here in Maine, I missed the Boston media frenzy when the public learned about David having AIDS. I pieced it together over time, after he was back on the air. He nearly died from a variety of diseases at that time.



Once he was back on the air, he was stunned about the outpouring of good wishes from listeners. Hey, after hearing what we feared was an on air death, we were overjoyed to hear him in vastly improved health. In the past decade, he’s opened up to his audience like never before, especially in his autobiography, “Life is not a Rehearsal”



Last night was the “last David Brudnoy show”, it featured WBZ’s Garry Lapierre’s taped interview with David from the hospital. I’ve never heard anyone who was set and ready to pass away speak before, much less still cracking jokes, (amusing to hear Lapierre sounding so solemn and concerned, while David was relaxed and still as witty as ever, even poking a bit of fun at Garry at times)



I heard that interview off of WBZ’s website. Not knowing about his impending death, I didn’t hear the full show. I only heard that interview, and clips of calls phoned in by Massachusetts politicians. I really wish I could have heard all the other callers, the regular listeners. I wished that I could have been one of those callers last night, as David listened in from the hospital, and thanked him.



As a devout agnostic, he didn’t believe in an afterlife. I’m not so sure myself (and in no rush to find out). If there is, I hope he gets my belated thanks, and farewell….