West Coast Live

Helen's not having all the fun, just the most outlandish varieties.

This morning I ventured to the San Francisco Ferry Building,  for a broadcast of the wonderful public radio show West Coast Live. I'd never heard of the show, which is hosted by Sedge Thomson, until we moved here to the West Coast.  Each week there's an interesting mixture of authors, musicians, and other performing artists. It's a mellow, more intimate alternative to the sometimes excessive boisterous Prairie Home Companion.

Helen and I saw Prairie Home in New York a few years ago, and had a wonderful time.  But now I prefer West Coast, because it offers the same stimulation in a much more relaxed setting.  Garrison Keillor presented Prairie Home at the grand Town Hall in New York, while Thomson plays to a small room where you can see everybody in the audience.

There's much more time for conversation on West Coast, since Thomson doesn't perform rehearsed sketches like Keillor. Today we heard from the director of the Ferry Terminal's farmers market, David Stockdale; the actor John O'Keefe, who intensely recited part of Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself"; and the liberal economist Robert Reich (the same man who I saw at the movies in Berkeley). There was lots of music too, and even a brief poetry reading by Thomson himself.

All in all, a lovely way to spend the morning.