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Glenn Beck: ”Context Matters!” unless you are talking about Mark Williams…
Apparently I somehow wound up part of conversation on today’s Glenn Beck show. We missed it and our DVR was otherwise engaged, but several people emailed me to express concern over whatever was said.
Glenn Beck is perhaps the greatest satirist of our time, so less overt and more subtle than for example Jon Stewart. It is so subtle in fact that Glenn’s punchline is only apparent when you take a step back and see the influence of the likes of Wally George and Glenn’s own shock jock act.

Click on the photo to learn more about what the tea parties are all about and just how much Glenn Beck did NOT have to do with them
The big difference is that the late George and the early Beck let their audience in on the joke. For today’s Glenn Beck the joke is on those who take him seriously as anything more than a wonderful entertainer.
I am a huge fan, love his work, think highly of him personally and appreciate his humor but also keep him in that perspective. To paraphrase something that Jerry Springer said to me following a 1996 or ’97 episode of his show on which I was a ringer guest… at the end of the hour it is simply a brilliantly executed, satirical and entertaining rant on our times.
Maybe more to say later, maybe not.
Update, Saturday morning
Still haven’t seen the video or spoken with Amy (Kremer – who was also a direct victim of Glenn’s humor last night) or Glenn (probably won’t, got a busy weekend and traveling next week) but several more of you have told me that Beck and his writing staff made up some outrageous and racist quotes, combined them with bits and pieces of things that I have indeed said over the years and created entirely new and over the top, insanely racist ideas that he then attributed to me. It also seems like Amy fell victim to an invitation to participate in a “discussion” that was in fact a ruse to add a depth of credibility to the joke. The joke doesn’t work with just Glenn and Jenny Beth Martin, both of whom were in on the gag.
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For the record; I would not have accepted an invitation to appear on the show (if offered) unless I was in Jenny Beth’s position of playing Larry to Glenn’s Moe. And nobody from Glenn’s show – or from any show on Fox other than Geraldo’s for that matter – have contacted me to ask about the accuracy of any of their reporting on the things that I have said or done, either before during or after any of their shows. Neither did Glenn or his people give me a heads up that I would be the punchline of their nightly humor. They did what the other media have been doing, which is to keep repeating the same falsehoods over and over again with the story becoming more and more outrageous with each telling. The only difference here being that Beck’s show did not act out of being lazy but (if what you are telling me is accurate) rather they truly did manufacture material on purpose and place it into my mouth.
This story has reached such silly proportions that at one point Arianna Huffington actually published that I was a leader of entire apartment communities’ “witchcraft” ceremonies’ featuring “clouds of pot smoke” around.
In Awe of Shock
As Glenn will be the first to tell you he is a shock jock. He and I came out of the same Tampa Shock Jock school at Jacor Radio (now part of Clear Channel). Other than Glenn my class alumni include Lionel, Mark Larsen (not the one in San Diego – this one in Tampa) who is podcasting these days and (like me) filling in on the air for other broadcast hosts from time to time and Bubba the Love Sponge (Todd Clemm) who is a major Florida star and Todd Schnitt (aka MJ in the Morning on the Power Pig) and for whom I fill in from time to time. There was also a whole host of extraordinarily talented producers and production wizards with a mixed record of success since. We were all trained and taught to do whatever it took – the more outrageous the better – to get ratings that were then transformed into advertising revenue. By way of example, at one point we even re-branded one of our stations (News Radio 970 WFLA) as NUDE Radio 970 WFLA, repainted one of our vans with that slogan and hired strippers to ride on the roof – buck-ass naked – in a community parade.
Most if not all of us other than Glenn and Bubba have since abandoned the shock element from our acts.
I flunked the “shock jock” course, was fired and went on to continue my journalistic career after retiring literally to the beach (Clearwater) for a year.

Glenn Beck. Went to the same Tampa Shock Jock school that I attended. I flunked out, Glenn was the valecdictorian
When Howard Stern bolted from broadcast radio to the obscurity of satellite Glenn Beck became the last real shock jock standing, and a clean-cut version that you wouldn’t mind your daughter dating toboot.
It has always been part of Glenn’s act to make things up. Not entirely mind you, but make them up nonetheless while leaving just enough truth to be able to claim credibility. As you know he is an accomplished stand up comedian and that is also part of how a comic comes up with material… they take the truth, give it a twist and find a laugh.
Clear Channel was able to use the troops and support for them to build him a national radio following.
CNN mistook what Glenn does as “journalism” and his audience as supportive of him and not actually supportive of the troops. That led to his first real ratings disaster with Turner Broadcasting.
Fox on the other hand recognized that Glenn was a unique practitioner of a form of using news and issues as bread and circuses for the masses. They built him a show and staff that reflected that, gave him the creative freedom to fly or fail and he has flown like an eagle.
Stephen Colbert uses a flying eagle as his show’s symbol in what could almost be an open parody of Glenn Beck’s act.
Last week, as Beck was defending Shirley Sherrod by throwing Andrew Brietbart under the bus he railed on for a full hour, using the phrase “CONTEXT MATTERS!” over and over and over again (click here for that story). His point being that it was his opinion that Breitbart had puposely presented Sherrod’s statements out of context to make her appear to be a racist when she and her point were quite the opposite.
Nobody was more surprised when just days later Beck came after me; stripped my story of all context, warped my intent and did exactly to me that which he accused Breitbart of doing to Sherrod.
Decide for yourself whether or not Beck was right in his damnation of Breitbart but do no let go unnoticed that for purposes of his own Glenn Beck DID present things that I wrote and replaced their context with a fabricated context more suited to his narrative.
Glenn, you were right last week – context DOES matter and in my case you had to create a false context or your gag of the day would not work.
Folks, Glenn is leaning back in his chair, grinning widely and saying to his staff about his viewers “Got ‘em again”, meaning you.
Repeat after me: The operative word in the phrase”‘Glenn Beck Show” is “‘Show”.

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