I heard the most extraordinary radio last night. WBZ's longtime evening talkshow show David Brudnoy is near death. I have listened to WBZ from the Ottawa Valley to the Martimes for the last ten years pretty faithfully and for most of my life since I was a kid looking for long distance listening. Brudnoy has shared his battle with AIDS and cancer and has now decided to pass on further medical treatment. Here is a discussion of his decision. So last night the station make the evening a tribute to him in life and callers phoned in to basically cry and say how much they loved him and how he had affected their live - regardless of whether they shared his fiscally conservative strict libertarian socially free views. He apparently lay in his hospital bed listening.

Eight years his emotional counterpart, Norm Nathan, died unexpectedly. Norm was all heart, would phone a confused senior back during a break to explain how to get to the right social services office or just to let someone who was lonely cry. Brudnoy would listen to anyone but a fool and even then give him a shot. It is his logic and patience that most people admire: not just a rational kind voice in the evening but a consistent and interested one. Sort of Trudeau meets Ayn Rand - not a combination I would ever to have expected to find given I think the latter was a fraud but you get my point. In a world of talk radio bombast and vacuity, WBZ stands out with a few - like KMOX in St. Louis - as real local quality radio. Brudnoy has been a cornerstone of that and will be greatly missed.