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For Talk Radio, It’s Miller Time: Dennis Miller Brings His Unique Style To Talk Radio (05/07/07)
Since his days as host of the venerable Weekend Update segment on NBC’s Saturday Night Live, Dennis Miller has been known for his razor-sharp wit, biting humor, and prodigious intellect. His unique brand of comedy has carried him to great success as a stand-up comedian, talk show host on both the HBO and CNBC cable networks, and even a stint in the broadcast booth on ABC’s Monday Night Football. But until now, Miller had never tried his hand at radio.
He first considered the idea of radio a few years back, but it was fatigue from years of touring with his stand-up show that finally convinced Miller it may be time to try something new. “I remember thinking: I gotta get off the road,” he says, recalling an especially tough stop in one small town. “Plus, I don’t think my political views are easily encapsulated; I think they’re an eclectic brew, and I like the wider horizon line of the radio.”
While Miller recalls hearing and later seeing on TV some of the medium’s earliest instigators, he says he’s not interested in shock radio. “As a young kid I remember the blue light of the black-and-white Joe Pyne show falling on me, and I remember not really understanding that,” he says. “Wally George never made sense to me really; I could see that this was a three-ring circus. And I always admired Morton Downey because I knew he was a huckster and didn’t have much else to sell. But, it’s not something I aspire to. I don’t want to cast stones, and if that was a pre-condition for staying on, I’d be fine in not doing it.”
Rather, Miller hopes to blend the divergent talents that have brought him to this point into one radio mixture. “I’d like it to lurch back and forth between arcane pop culture, pretty decent Q&A, weird and lucid phone calls, and some jokes, some laughs.”
RADIO INK: Why did you decide to try radio?
DENNIS MILLER: I was in Pennsylvania over the summer doing stand-up a gig; very nice town for very nice people — but a small town. The main hotel was not even a chain hotel, it was a small, rough-around-the-edges hotel. My night table had a rotary phone on it! I was looking at it like it was a relic from days gone yore and I remember thinking: I gotta get off the road. And the best way for me to do that living in Santa Barbara is radio. Plus, I don’t think my political views are easily encapsulated; I think they’re an eclectic brew, and I like the wider horizon line of the radio.
RI: How did it all come together?
DM: I had met with Westwood One founder Norm Pattiz a couple of years ago, just putting in a feeler at that time. I like Norm; he was funny, and anybody who knows him knows he talks Lakers. I remember thinking he seemed like a cool guy to work for. So when I came back from that summer trip, I said to my manager, we gotta call that Norm guy and see if he’s interested.
RI: You’re part of a long string of people who have moved from TV to radio. What are the differences between working in TV and radio?
DM: In TV, everything is hurry up, hurry up, hurry up. In radio, it’s a different rhythm. You have a little more time to explain yourself — indeed, you have three hours a day to fill. So the rhythm is a little more restive, you can be more contemplative on radio than you are on television, where everything is reduced down to a bullet point.
RI: So you're adapting well to radio's long-form format?
DM: I find it invigorating. As a stand-up comedian, I don’t get really talked to by people unless they’re heckling me, so to just talk to people on the phone is interesting. I like interviewing people. I see things in the paper that draw my eye, and I now have a forum to express that anger. I find it cathartic, in addition to being enjoyable.
RI: What will set you apart from the many other radio hosts out there?
DM: I’m as different as my personality. You’re not going to reinvent the wheel here, but I have a specific sense of humor. I’m as different as Dennis Miller is, but to elaborate on that gets a little tedious and self-absorbed. My sense of humor is mine specifically; some people are drawn to it, some people are repulsed by it, but it obviously differentiates me.
RI: Some say you've shifted from being a liberal to a conservative. How do you react to those claims?
DM: I’m fine. I’m a 53-year-old man, I can’t really shoot my self-esteem through the prism of strangers anymore. I say what I believe; I’m a Libertarian on most things, but after 9/11 I became hawkish about the war on radical Islamic fundamental terrorism. I thought that most of the country would go that way. They haven’t, but they might after the next episode. At this point, I feel a little bit further out there in confronting the issue than some people. I thought everybody would see that we’re in the war of our lives, but they haven’t at this point. I can’t really modify my beliefs to fit theirs, I can just say what I believe.
RI: How do you feel about how the war on terrorism is going?
DM: War always goes horribly until you win it. War is one of the horrific mistakes that you push through because you have to conquer the enemy. It’s like Rudy Giuliani says: It doesn’t matter if we declare war on the terrorists, because they’ve declared it on us. I don’t know what option we have other than to fight it, be indefatigable, and win.
RI: It is winnable?
DM: What is the option? Is it losable? Yes, I do think it is winnable. I’m not willing at this point in my life to say that rather than fight a war I want to willingly acquiesce to Syrian law. Maybe, to avoid a war, you would just say, "OK, let them have what they want, I just don’t want war." I’m not in that camp, I think we have to win.
RI: Why is the nation so divided? What can be done to bring people together?
DM: Bush is doing his part, but if you don’t have the whole country behind you, you obviously can’t go into fifth gear with it. I assume there will be another terrorist incident - I think we’ll probably get struck again - and I don’t think I’m being a pessimist. I think I’m probably being a pragmatist. If we don’t tend to terror, at some point terrorists do what they do. It’s like that old joke about the tiger that eats a person after promising he wouldn’t — well, he says, I'm a tiger, and that’s what tigers do. I’d like to think that [Iranian President] Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wants to be our friend and that he’s going to plant trees in Israel — but I don’t! I think he wants to vaporize us! Most of the country will probably be on board after the next unfortunate episode. Eventually, people will say, wow, I guess being nice to them isn’t going to work. Meanwhile, Israel cannot afford the luxury we have of talking about it, because they live in the same weird cul-de-sac. I believe that the Mossad at some point will say, well, we’ve talked, the UN has talked, but we’re the ones who live next door. We’re the ones he says the Holocaust didn’t happen to. We’re the ones he said he wants to destroy so he can get into his heaven. So Israel will probably have to drop a bomb on some major junction of commerce or factory where things that are being built that enrich isotopes. Now, some people would say it is irresponsible to talk like that, but what do you expect Israel to do? Do they owe it to the peacekeepers in this world to allow themselves to be bombed? I don’t think so. I’m just trying to be a pragmatist here. I don’t think I could look Israel straight in the face and say, listen you gotta do the right thing and allow them to drop a bomb on you. That seems silly to me. I’d rather they drop a bomb on the bad guys.
RI: You call yourself a pragmatist. Talk radio hosts often say they're just telling it like it is, but is there really any such thing as impartiality in Talk Radio or news? Isn’t everybody colored by some form of bias?
DM: Everybody I meet in my daily life is biased, but that’s life. There is no impartiality. There are people who feign it, but they reveal it in more eloquent ways by attempting to feign it than they do if they actually pronounced it.
RI: What, then, should audiences do?
DM: Find the voice in their own head. I tried listening to Air America for a while, and it began to irk me. I wasn’t as conspiracy-driven as they were. I don’t think George Bush blew up the World Trade Center. I listened to that for a day or two out of curiosity and in a state of bewildered bemusement, and then after a couple of days I don’t want to hear it because it seems like madness to me and I find somebody who thinks more like I do. And isn’t that what you look for in a radio show? I’m going to try to be informative and interesting. I’m not going to try to ride the fence, but I’m not aspiring to be hated. If that’s a side effect, fine, I’m just speaking my mind. I don’t want to cast stones.
RI: In your dream world, what do you want the show to be?
DM: A bit of chuck-a-block, eclectic hodgepodge. I’d like it to lurch back and forth between arcane pop culture, pretty decent Q&A, weird and lucid phone calls, and some jokes, some laughs.
RI: Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update, which you hosted for years, paved the way for shows like The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report. These shows are comedy, and they're taking shots at the newsmakers rather than reporting straight news. But this is where people are getting their news. What effect is that having on the populace?
DM: Jon is much more intelligent than a lot of newscasters I see, so the effect is positive. Jon’s a brilliant guy, he’s a friend. If you’re asking, would you rather they get their news from him or the nightly news on the networks, I wouldn’t be embarrassed to say Jon Stewart. When you watch Katie Couric, do you find that any more or less scripted than Jon Stewart? I watch Jon, and I get a pretty good take on the news. He is a little more left-leaning than I am, but he is a good truth teller. I’m encouraged that Jon Stewart has become a source for news.
RI: Can Jon be so comfortable in his shoes because everybody knows where he’s coming from?
DM: I know much more about Katie Couric’s politics than I do Jon’s after watching her on the Today Show all these years. There are certain areas where Jon is still an enigma to me; I don’t know all his beliefs. He’s got a good poker face, but I definitely know what Katie Couric’s politics are. She is much further to the left than Jon Stewart. But you also can’t completely tell where he stands because he rips everybody a new one, which I find endearing. I know exactly where Katie Couric stands, and I see where she is going to have to contort herself to not look like she’s to the left. That awkward straddle will probably do her in sooner than later. They’ll support you to the max until the millisecond they decide to whack you, and then you know it comes swiftly.
RI: Let’s discuss the various news outlets. What kind of job are they doing?
DM: Let's see, CNN just lost Jeff Greenfield, and I don’t quite know how to perceive that because Greenfield’s a pro; you don’t want to be losing guys like Jeff Greenfield. I haven’t quite gleaned its exact meaning, but to lose a pro like that, something’s amiss over there. Fox I've worked for, and I can tell you that while people say that [Fox News Channel President] Roger Ailes issues marching orders on a daily basis, it couldn’t be further from the truth. Nobody at Fox has ever asked me what I’m gonna say on any given topic or put qualifiers on it. I couldn’t get Roger on the phone tomorrow if I wanted to; they completely let me go. And anybody who says that O’Reilly is a purveyor of right wing ideology just doesn’t watch him, because he is the ultimate pragmatist. I admire Bill. To me, he’s like a big Irish beat cop swinging that baton, you step out of line he’s like Sean Connery in the Untouchables. "That’s the Factor way." I like the way he kicks ass over there; I’ll tell you what, I’ve been interviewed by a lot of people in my life, and when you sit across the desk from him, he looks you right in the eye and listens to what you’re saying. Invariably, the next question is a back up question of something you’ve said. A lot of guys are just in the Q&Q business, not the Q&A. They’re on to their next question before you even get your response out. They just want to see your lips stop so they can ask the next thing. So I think he’s a great interviewer. And MSNBC seems to be on the come here a little. Listen, to me it’s all fun. It’s not serious, it’s not the real world, it’s the news, you know what I mean? It’s sort of like rotisserie league baseball for guys in bowties.
RI: How do you prepare for your radio show?
DM: I read a lot the night before, and then it’s osmosis. I’m on from 7 to 10 on the west coast. I’m not going to tell you I’m up at 4 in the morning; can’t do that. I read the night before and let it settle into my head; then you’ve got to hatch that first eight minutes out of the box to get you lurched into the show. I try to load it up with a couple of jokes, observations, things from my day-to-day life. After you get past the initial fear of it, the first couple of days, it goes rather quickly.
RI: Do you think there is anything missing in Talk radio right now?
DM: No. I don’t think like that. If you think about it, everything’s been done in every medium almost. Do you see anybody out there who’s making you forget Van Gogh? Any songs on the radio making you forget Mozart? It’s all been done; it’s all a variation on a theme. It is what it is. If you interest enough people over a three-hour period over a two-rating book time, they keep you; if you don’t, they whack you. I’d like to be proficient enough at it to attract enough sets of human ears — and even one eared people as we go back to the Van Gogh thing — but I’d just like to stay on. I’ll try to be as interesting as I can, and they’ll let me know.
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