An Open Letter to the Lonesome L.A. Cowboy.

Dear Jim Ladd:

First of all, I love you. I love you because I love rock 'n' roll, and I love radio. I believe in what you've done for both the art of music and the medium of broadcast radio over the years.

And your voice is as lovely as ever; it's a mystery to me how a guy can live a rich, full life in the Los Angeles counterculture and yet preserve those dulcet tones that make the long-legged ponies swoon.

And I love to listen to your shows on KLOS. Mostly. More on that in a moment.

There are a lot of us—both here in L.A. and across the nation—who are deeply saddened by what's happened to commercial radio, and wonder how it could possibly have drifted as far from its original mission as it has. We believe that there is an audience for free-form rock 'n' roll, if only the corporate powers would seek it out. We don't believe in playlists, in computer-generated "radio stations" that use idiot tests to determine what will sell.

You're the real deal, Jim. You're an amazing man and a force for creativity over the airwaves.

And I listen to you whenever I can. I listen to you until you start to insult me so much that I have to turn the radio off.

I'm a libertarian, Jim. That means I often vote with the Republican party. That means that despite having some disagreements with him, I voted for George W. Bush twice.

I'm a great believer in liberal democracy, and I think it's under threat from Islamists (not Muslims in general, mind you—radical fundamentalists). The geopolitical chess game that will be required to defeat it or contain it is a complicated one that you disregard in your glib "analyses" of the war in Iraq, which seems to boil down to: "Bush lied; he's a bad guy. Anyone who supports him in any way is an idiot."

I'm not suggesting that you stay away from politics, but for you to reduce very complicated issues down to black-and-white thinking and then insult the beliefs of those who disagree with you is going to lead to a lot of people voting with their radio dials. Your ratings will stay high, of course, but you will have alienated some of the Southland's most independent thinkers.

There has to be a way to express your beliefs without putting down your fans who support the war in Iraq—who did see a legal and moral justification for our military action there.

Please believe me, Jim: there are people in Los Angeles who think the way I do, and we want independent voices on the air. We love music. We may not speak up in media or artistic circles as much as we should, because most of us have already lost jobs because we voted for the President, or because we want to take a hard line against Islamo-fascism. We aren't all "out."

But we are out there. Listening. We want to listen. Please don't make us turn your show off. Be as kind to your audience as you have been to the real talents who undergird the music business over all the years that you've graced the airwaves.

You're the last DJ, Jim. For real. Don't shut us out.

Sincerely,

Joy McCann
Little Miss Attila
http://attila.mu.nu