The Sentinel, Missoula 1997
 Photo by Josh Mahan
|
Radio-Free Roselle
By Josh Mahan
You know, a lot of people told us we
were wasting our time
when we started Lowbagger. They were
always concerned with the logistics of it all. How would we launch a
major
website without paying some internet technology firm $6,000? How would
we
advertise ourselves? Wouldn’t we need to hire consultants just to make
sure we
googled well? People always looked at Mike and I incredulously when we
answered
that we were going to do it all from an apartment above Charlie’s with
no
advertising. Dammit we're Lowbaggers.
Mike wanted us to go on the air in the same
fashion as Saturday
Night Live. No hype. No announcements. Not even a mass e-mail. So, we
did just
that. We showed up on the web-waves, hoping that you would tell your
friends
about us. Even now, as we get thousands of hits a day, the majority of
those
have no referral. No electronic referral, that is. Roselle,
the superstitious Lowbagger that he is, refuses to change his underwear
until
we reach 100,000 hits. And he wonders why he can’t get a date. Call us
the Wayne’s
World of the environmental movement. Of course, we couldn’t do it
without Floyd
swaggering around the office, monopolizing phone lines, taking naps,
and making sure that our take-out chow is
healthy
enough.
To our chagrin, though, the guerrilla advertising paid off. We’ve
found allies throughout the net, and recently we hit the airwaves. A
few days
ago Chuck Mertz, a host for Northwestern
University’s
student station WNUR
89.3, dropped us a line, looking for an interview. Of course, Roselle
won’t turn down a chance to speak, especially to the radio station that
the
Chicago Tribune calls “a feisty little radio station”.
So we responded that we were willing to reschedule our
interview with Bill Moyers, and agreed to be reached. The interview was
this mornings. After sixteen cups of coffee and much talk of how he
enjoys the Montana writer lifestyle, Roselle took to the air. It all
went well. The DJ
was on target with his questions, and Roselle
rattled on like the great tactician and political philosophizer he is.
Some points to listen for in the interview. When Roselle
responded, “That’s a very good question, could you please repeat that?”
Fifteen
minutes into the interview he shined with, “What was I talking about?”
and
wrapped the piece up some ten minutes later with, “It was good to be
here,
wherever this is.”
In between those definitive declarations the DJ peppered Roselle
with an array of questions, many of which were derived from the
readings right
here on the site. We hope you get a chance to poke through the archives
of WNUR
and listen to the recording. The date of the broadcast was March 12, 2005. And the time
is approximately 2
hours and 25 minutes into the show.
Northwestern University’s Student Radio
Interview With Lowbagger
Publisher Mike Roselle |
