Lee Dresselhaus / L’Observateur / November 21, 1999

So..if you’re unfortunate enough to have to get up early, really early in themorning every Monday through Friday, you just may have heard the Walton and Johnson show on your radio as you claw your way through the nightmare traffic of the commute to New Orleans.

If you haven’t heard these two, you’ve missed out. They’re the class andsome say the classless clowns of our local talk radio. Their repartee isquick and clever to the point of brilliance at times, and at times irritating and offensive to the more sensitive types. They make fun of just abouteveryone, and satirize anything that gets their attention. Walton is the onewith just one personality, abrasive and annoying as it is to some. Johnsonis the schizo of the two who divides himself into four different, very distinctive personalities each day. At the drop of a one liner he becomesthe foppish Mr. Kenneth, a liberal gay flamer who quickly takes thesensitive side of most issues being beat up by Walton.

Then, pivoting as quickly as Kirstie Alley when a pizza is brought into the room, he becomes Billy Ed Hatfield. Billy Ed is a slack-jawed redneck wholives in a trailer park somewhere on the West Bank with his immensely fat wife, Praline, who he has to slap around sometimes just to keep her in line. He has trouble with his reading, writing and arithmetic, and likesJohn Wayne, football, and anything else macho.

Then, out of nowhere, the ever radical Mr. Eaux speaks up with his opinionof white people. He feels its his duty to keep the listeners abreast of theWhite Devil and the ongoing oppression of his people.

Sometimes in the early morning Johnson is just himself. I think it takestime for the medications to kick in.

Anyway, these two seem to have stirred up quite a controversy by criticizing the politicians of one of our local municipalities. It seems thatJohnson has a problem with some of the police in that area, or rather, some of the policies of those police and has been very vocal in his criticism. And since he has the bully pulpit of radio, a lot of people haveheard what he has to say. And now, that particular municipality is upsetand is fighting back through the auspices of some of what Walton and Johnson consider to be the more politically correct local media. I havejust one question: Why? I’m having a hard time understanding why anything these guys say should upset anyone. They’re funny, sometimes hilarious, but they are probablythe two most clueless people ever to speak into a microphone. In fact,they have often served as a role model for me because if they can succeed, so can I. They’re living proof that you don’t have to have the slightestnotion what you’re talking about to have a half-baked opinion. And haveopinions they do, which they seem to make up as they go along.

And that’s just it. What they do is express opinion and do satire of eventsand people. It’s not news. It’s not broadcast journalism. That’s notCronkite and Rather behind those microphones. It’s Walton and Johnson.It’s comedy. Taking those two seriously enough to be personally offendedby them is like being offended by the things a stand up comic has to say.

Why bother? It’s an act, and not necessarily the way the comedian really feels about an issue. If the expression of whatever is offensive to thelisteners gets the comedian an audience and they get a laugh and get paid for it too, then they’ve accomplished what they set out to do. It’s theirjob.

They don’t want to have a heart to heart talk with their listeners about touchy feely, warm and fuzzy my-father-molested-my-teddy-bear things each day. Dr. Laura does that with her audience of neurotics. They don’twant their political opinion to be gospel. Rush Limbaugh does that with hisaudience of right-wing maniacs. And Howard Stern seems to have corneredthe market on radio sleaze and explores that area with his audience of social misfits. Walton and Johnson want to tweak people with theiroffensive, uninformed opinions, and they do.

Walton and Johnson are equal opportunity offenders. Where others seesacred cows, they see chopped beef, and they like to let us know that. Andthat’s what makes them fun.

It ain’t the Billy Graham Crusade, it’s radio talk show entertainment. Andto take it for anything else, or to be personally offended by it borders on the foolish.

I’m not in the habit of coming to anyone’s defense usually, especially when they set themselves up to get kicked. Being an equal opportunity offendermyself, I’m not shy about calling and idiot an idiot, and if you’ve read this column in the past you know that. But, as the old saying goes, I calls ’emas I sees ’em, and so do these guys. And the way I see it, anybody whopokes the Politically Correct Cyclops were forced to live with in the eye is all right in my book. I think they’re class clowns.In every sense of the phrase.

Lee Dresselhaus is a regular columnist for L’Observateur.

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