Have you ever been on the radio?

by Danny Tyree on March 15, 2023

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Tyrades! by Danny Tyree

Everyone should do it at least once in their life.

Speak on the radio, I mean.

While promoting my new book (search for my name on Amazon if you’re curious), I had the honor of being interviewed live (via telephone) on Nashville’s Super Talk 99.7.

(Not that I haven’t broadcast live from a studio before. Forty-something years ago, my career as a DJ came to a screeching halt after a single comedy-of-errors weekend. In the weeks following that catastrophe, when the word “frequency” came up locally, it had less to do with signal modulation than “Just how often will the sheriff let us tar and feather someone?”)

I’m glad I built up the nerve to do the interview.

Like many people, I am self-conscious about my voice. Sure, when my utterances go straight from my mouth to my ears, I imagine myself subbing for Patrick Stewart onstage in “Macbeth” or exchanging urbane witticisms with the fabled Algonquin Round Table. But when I hear my voice on a tape recorder or other such device, I remind myself of Huckleberry Hound with his bow tie on too tight.

Some people have a face made for radio. I have a voice made for hieroglyphs.

I’ll admit that I overprepared for the interview. Sure, the cough drops IV unit was marginally defensible, and I may yet find a venue for the six-act hand puppet biography of Guglielmo Marconi; but I could still face litigation for disabling every toilet within the range of hearing and simultaneously gagging the Ty-D-Bol Man.

The genial host invited me to relax and treat it like a normal one-on-one conversation, but my brain has a built-in translator. A benign query such as “What inspired you to write this book?” becomes as stressful as “When you sign this 40-year mortgage, you do realize we’ll know where you live, right?” or “Just what are your intentions with my virgin daughter, you young punk?”

On the other hand, it’s hard to take yourself too seriously when you know that while half the listeners are hanging on your every word, the thoughts of the other half drift toward, “Oooo, I hope they rerun the jingle with the yodeling vinyl siding today!”

All in all, it was a great experience. I hope you seize your own radio opportunities.

Voice your opinion on a political show. Phone in and prognosticate on a sports show. Compete in a trivia contest. Announce a birthday or anniversary. Publicize your civic organization. Don’t be a wallflower when an on-air personality does a remote broadcast from one of your favorite businesses.

You’ll get a priceless ego boost when friends and acquaintances laud you as a celebrity. But remain vigilant as you enjoy your 15 minutes of fame. I keep expecting the IRS to connect the dots. (“Hmm. 15 minutes of fame. Time is money. Audit time! KA-CHING!”)

And it might be even more than 15 minutes of fame. We tend to think of radio broadcasts as having less permanence than a book, but those radio waves just keep traveling through the universe.

Perhaps someday they’ll reach intelligent life thousands of light-years away.

“Dude! It’s just like those earth signals I picked up forty-something years ago. Huckleberry Hound is still their leader! Have they never heard of term limits??? Somebody just go ahead and give me an alien autopsy right now!”

–

Copyright 2023 Danny Tyree, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Danny Tyree welcomes email responses at [email protected] and visits to his Facebook fan page “Tyree’s Tyrades.”

Danny Tyree

Controversial author Harlan Ellison once described the work of Danny Tyree as "wonkily extrapolative" and said Tyree's mind "works like a demented cuckoo clock."

Ellison was speaking primarily of Tyree’s 1983-2000 stint on the "Dan T’s Inferno" column for “Comics Buyer’s Guide” hobby magazine, but the description would also fit his weekly "Tyree’s Tyrades" column for mainstream newspapers.

Inspired by Dave Barry, Al "Li'l Abner" Capp, Lewis Grizzard, David Letterman, and "Saturday Night Live," "Tyree's Tyrades" has been taking a humorous look at politics and popular culture since 1998.

Tyree has written on topics as varied as Rent-A-Friend.com, the Lincoln bicentennial, "Woodstock At 40," worm ranching, the Vatican conference on extraterrestrials, violent video games, synthetic meat, the decline of soap operas, robotic soldiers, the nation's first marijuana café, Sen. Joe Wilson’s "You lie!" outburst at President Obama, Internet addiction, "Is marriage obsolete?," electronic cigarettes, 8-minute sermons, early puberty, the Civil War sesquicentennial, Arizona's immigration law, the 50th anniversary of the Andy Griffith Show, armed teachers, "Are women smarter than men?," Archie Andrews' proposal to Veronica, 2012 and the Mayan calendar, ACLU school lawsuits, cutbacks at ABC News, and the 30th anniversary of the death of John Lennon.

Tyree generated a particular buzz on the Internet with his column spoofing real-life Christian nudist camps.

Most of the editors carrying "Tyree’s Tyrades" keep it firmly in place on the opinion page, but the column is very versatile. It can also anchor the lifestyles section or float throughout the paper.

Nancy Brewer, assistant editor of the "Lawrence County (TN) Advocate" says she "really appreciates" what Tyree contributes to the paper. Tyree has appeared in Tennesee newspapers continuously since 1998.

Tyree is a lifelong small-town southerner. He graduated from Middle Tennessee State University in 1982 with a bachelor's degree in Mass Communications. In addition to writing the weekly "Tyree’s Tyrades," he writes freelance articles for MegaBucks Marketing of Elkhart, Indiana.

Tyree wears many hats (but still falls back on that lame comb-over). He is a warehousing and communications specialist for his hometown farmers cooperative, a church deacon, a comic book collector, a husband (wife Melissa is a college biology teacher), and a late-in-life father. (Six-year-old son Gideon frequently pops up in the columns.)

Bringing the formerly self-syndicated "Tyree's Tyrades" to Cagle Cartoons is part of Tyree's mid-life crisis master plan. Look for things to get even crazier if you use his columns.