Im pretty sure, besides that radio station in Mexico City that alternates starting each hour…read morebooming either Autograph's Turn Up The Radio twith the Rocky Theme this is the best radio station in the universe anywhere.
I am a busy man, I have a dog to play fetch with, and these gin drinks won't just mix themselves. Modern New Orleans isn't an easy place to live in...do I read the comics (fun) or mop the floor (less so)? Well there's a chance Ill bring a hot babe home (I suppose) so the floor has gotta be mopped, but damn, who knows what kinda thing Beatle Bailey may get into today. Maybe him and Sarge will actually come out together this week? I gotta check the comics...but I gotta impress an imaginary girl also, just in case she turns out to exist.
This is where WRBH comes in. 6:30 PM every Sunday, sure as the sun rises, the comics get read; for the sightless, for the illiterate, those unable to hold or afford newspapers, and me. That's a pretty healthy slice of the city for which Haggars horribleness is described with details I sometimes miss myself; Snuffy Smiths bottle of moonshine described so clearly, I can see the 3 x's on the label. I can mop away, with no fear of missing out on the other joys of my life, whatever is in the daily paper.
They don't just read the comics...every morning, for 2 hours, the Times Picayune. Then Weekly Magazines, Books (fiction/non and local), and when you are lucky, the incredibly awesome Constance McEnany. From England to Gretna and reading the hits in her unmistakable British accent at 82, the Uncle Lionel of the reading radio scene, really. If I was sitting in a bar she ordered a gimlet next to me, I would freak, I would recognize her voice anywhere. My friends neighbor named a chicken after her...she's that awesome.
Wanna know the price of Ham? That'll be Friday at noon when they read the grocery ads. The always odd reading of the death notices makes you just sit and ponder those others listening; are they hoping to hear a name? Not hear a name? What the heck would I do if I was listening at 6:53 PM and theymentioned someone I knew and liked passed and just jumped to the next name?
With the loss of the Times Picayune, some of the best shows will be gone...but they really do have lots of awesome programs, local authors, chef interviews, replays of old time radio, even a Vietnamese show (which I always listen too, since I can't read Vietnamese at all).
200 volunteers, 24 hours a day. A great community resource, I am a proud donator.