Alec Baldwin, Kevin Allison, Ophira Eisenberg and Julie Klausner

In the beginning there was radio, and everyone tuned in collectively. Satellite radio changed the equation slightly as listeners moved to create their own sound experiences, free of commercials and all those unwanted stations. Then, along came podcasts, and it seems there’s one for every listener these days. Now you can personalize your own aural space as never before, and there are so many podcasts to choose from.

Here’s a list of some of our favorite New York podcasts for your listening pleasure. The topics of these shows range from cabaret to poetry to fairy tales to comic books, not to mention the celebrity personality-driven shows. We think you’ll see what we mean when we say there is truly a podcast for everyone.

HERE'S THE THING
wnyc.org
Alec Baldwin has a loose tongue—just think of all the Twitter wars he’s gotten himself into—so you might not think he’d be fit to host a talk show. But the former star of 30 Rock’s acerbic wit and dry, hilarious asides are exactly what make his WNYC podcast, Here’s the Thing, such a delight. The show, it seems, is as much about Mr. Baldwin as it is the people he talks to—from Girls star Lena Dunham to New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson—but with a host so entertaining, and with such a calming voice, that’s hardly a problem.

RISK!
risk-show.com
RISK! is a weekly podcast presented by Maximum Fun, the radio show organization, and associated with the live feature of the same name in which people get up before an audience and tell a story that they would not normally want to reveal. The podcast is hosted by Kevin Allison, formerly of the ’90s-era MTV sketch comedy show The State, and the show’s description might remind you of The Moth, the nonprofit storytelling organization that puts out its own podcast. But RISK! is raunchier and more laugh-out-loud funny; the idea is, you’re taking a risk by telling your story.

DRUNK COMIC BOOK CHAT
drunkcomics.tumblr.com
“We’re talking about comic books and we’re also drunk,” reads the show’s spare description, which pretty much says it all. Drunk Comic Book Chat often feels like Drunk History, the popular web series recently picked up by Comedy Central: The hosts sometimes get their facts wrong—on purpose, it seems; they meander; they’re frivolous. And even if comic book arcana is not your thing, Drunk Comic Book Chat is oddball enough that you just might enjoy it, even while you’re furrowing your brow.

54 BELOW
54belowpodcast.wordpress.com
54 Below, billed as Broadway’s nightclub, opened last year as the Oak Room was closing, and it’s a bastion of cabaret performance in a city where that music can sometimes feel like an embattled art form. As it happens, the club also puts out a weekly podcast featuring interviews with, and clips of live performances by, some of cabaret’s most exalted figures, including Ben Vereen, Barbara Carroll and Patti LuPone.

Julie Klausner

HOW WAS YOUR WEEK?
howwasyourweek.com
Julie Klausner likes to complain. And if you didn’t know that already, you certainly will after you listen to the author and comedian’s weekly, hour-long feature, How Was Your Week?, which New York Times comedy critic Jason Zinoman has called “one of the few essential podcasts.” Ms. Klausner delivers monologues, interviews and cultural critiques in an off-the-cuff manner that can sometimes feel kvetchy but is most often hilarious and just right.

ASK ROULETTE
askroulette.net
Ask Roulette is hosted by Jody Avirgan, a producer for WNYC Radio, and the series first appeared on the Brian Lehrer Show. The premise of the podcast is simple: Strangers ask other strangers random questions before a live audience. There’s no way to know what question you’ll be asked or even the type of question that will be lobbed at you—hence the “Roulette” in the show’s title. Questions range from heavy (like “Is it immoral to have sex with your sibling, even if it’s mutual?”) to frivolous (for instance, “Have you ever licked an armpit?”).

THE BOWERY BOYS
theboweryboys.blogspot.com
Gregory Young and Thomas Meyers, hosts of The Bowery Boys, are not native New Yorkers, but they know more about the intricacies of the Big Apple than most would dream of. The subjects of recent episodes on this travel and history podcast include a look at the Great Blizzard of 1888 and an examination of the secret history of Herald Square. The Bowery Boys is delightfully old-fashioned without feeling recondite, like an episode of Car Talk without the car talk.

POETRY OFF THE SHELF
poetryfoundation.org
Curtis Fox, who has produced podcasts for The New Yorker and Parents magazine, hosts this weekly installment in association with The Poetry Foundation. Poetry Off the Shelf features interviews with authors, professors and, of course, poets. If you’re intimidated by poetry, this podcast might be for you: it’s short, easy to absorb and without a trace of highbrow didacticism. “Nothing is off limits,” reads the podcasts’s description, “and nobody is taken too seriously.”

ASK ME ANOTHER
npr.org
This weekly, hour-long podcast is hosted by the writer and comedian Ophira Eisenberg—who tours regularly with The Moth—and it’s recorded live at the Bell House in the Gowanus section of Brooklyn with a rotating cast of guests. A whimsical game show, serious and playful, full of amusing trivia and word games and puzzles and homages to popular shows like Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune, the show feels like Peter Sagal’s Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me! recast for a younger audience. Ask Me Another refers to its question makers as “puzzle gurus,” some of whom have written for Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? The stakes, of course, are not as high on Ask Me Another, which is what makes the show so charming.

TABLED FABLES
tabledfables.tumblr.com
Have you ever thought that maybe Jack shouldn’t have sold the family cow for those magic beans? And when you think of Beauty and the Beast, do you imagine more than just the Disney movie? Also, how did Cinderella’s slipper fall off if it fit so well in the end? New York City producers Sophie Bushwick and Amy Kraft spend a lot of their time thinking about this stuff and discuss it on their monthly podcast, Tabled Fables, in which they investigate the history behind, the evolution of and the meaning to be found in fairy tales.

THE WORLD IN TIME
bloomberg.com/podcasts/lapham
The legendary Lewis Lapham--former longtime editor of Harper's and founder of Lapham's Quarterly--hosts this podcast of social criticism and historical inquiry for Bloomberg News. Mr. Lapham has a deep voice, with a cadence not unlike Edward R. Murrow's. This lends an appropriate air of seriousness to The World in Time, which takes on serious subjects--in a recent episode, Mr. Lapham discusses the philosophical significance of islands with author J. Edward Chamberlin. But don't be intimidated: Mr. Lapham's weekly, 20-minute podcast is both easily digestible and mentally nutritious.

The quip caused Minaj, a headliner, to pull out of the concert just a few hours before her appearance, on the orders of her Young Money label-head, Lil' Wayne. Funkmaster Flex—the most famous DJ on Hot 97's roster—noted:

"We don't fuck with commercial artists no more. We don't give a shit if you commercial or pop and you afraid to touch down in Jersey."

He then went on to antagonize (or: "go in on") Ms. Minaj further, promising to ruin her career tonight on his show, which he often peppers with long rants on various matters of the day, punctuated by his trademark "bomb" sound effect. For tonight's show, he has promised to "stop the city," and it has since been revealed that Minaj will be a guest on his show this evening to confront the fracas.

Needless to say, this is an exciting moment in New York City radio, something probably rarer than it should be. At play, you have impossibly high expectations, and feuding across racial lines and gender lines, which is all beside the looming questions of what tastemakers argue belongs on radio versus what actually ends up on the radio, and what arguments about authenticity actually concern these days. Much of the public ennui surrounding all of this has found its way into Funkmaster Flex's Twitter feed over the course of the day: People—even those at the New York Times—have feelings about this, and strong ones.

7:39 PM

[BOMB]

[In unusually subdued voice.] "New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, what's going on? So, today, New York City, I'm going to talk to Nicki Minaj. And I'm going to ask her everything we need to know. And we're going to talk about this to the end."

"I was tight, yesterday. New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, I was in a place. I was seeing a color, a shade of—it was like a combination of burgandy and orange, at the time, if you can visualize that."

"So: I then calmed down a little bit. Put another plan in action. Which we're going to get to today. So we're going to speak to Nicki Minaj in a little while. We're going to play this Chris Brown?"

[In trademark scream.] "ALRIGHT, IF YOU WERE AT SUMMER JAM HIT ME UP ON TWITTER AT FUNKMASTER FLEX. (You see how my whole voice thing changed?)"

9:23 PM

FF: Time-Out. Summer Jam is not based on morales. This show is built on who's bringing out celebrities, who's coming out, and who's getting dissed.

NM: But we're not coming out.

FF: I've already said to you: Rosenberg might not have picked the best moment to do it. That's the time for it. When you're getting read to perform. It's his opinion. He maybe shouldn't have given that opinion.

NM: I'm going to answer your question but you gotta stop talking.

FF: That's the first time you've ever told me that Wayne has ever overruled you. It happens. It's a label. We couldn't do anything to fix the situation.

NM: Flex.

FF: I'm here.

NM: Flex. I need you to breathe. You're not even listening and I need you to simma. For three hours, we emailed [Hot 97 manager Ebro Darden], and actually, my manager was the first person to tell me: Yo, you're not going on that stage. Wayne was the second person. For three hours, we could not get a resolution. [CEO of Hip Hop Since 1978] G. Roberson emailed me, and said: Hey, I need you on the phone. Ebro said 'Let me get to the bottom of this.' You know I love Ebro. After he sent that email, we never heard back.

FF: But you know something?

NM: Can I finish?

FF: Damn, okay.

NM: Flex. Flex. My label and program was reaching out to the manager.

FF: Now I understand the reason that you did it. And I'm listening to you. When you went to Twitter, and you did that, we felt that you were making an issue, and you were trying to put us on Front Street.

NM: Ohhhhh. Ohhh. Okay. He tried to embarrass me, but I can't embarrass you.

9:31 PM

NM:  Flex, if you're gonna just say wrong information blatantly like that, then ask me a question, because I'm not here to play games.

FF: That's a nice way of calling me a liar.

NM: Well, I want you to know that we wanted to do the show.

FF: Well, now that you said that....[Cuts in on Interview] [BOMB] We'll be back, we'll be back. I'm gonna rewind that.

9:39 PM

FF: Everyone was wondering if you were really gonna touch the stage. I'm just keeping it real with you. Nicki, look: There were people who were wondering if you were afraid to step on the stage. I'm not saying that's how I feel, but people feel that way.

NM: Do you see the kind of places I've gone to? Did you see how many people we were with yesterday? We were two-hundred deep. Let's not go there. There isn't a bitch alive—and when I say bitch, I include men, because you're a bitch when you act like that—that could scare me from performing a show. I get money. I get money. Flex...

FF: [Interrupting]

NM: Flex...I'm not even going to say what could've happened yesterday, and please don't interrupt. Relax. Relax. This is the real reason why I called you. You said something about my record sales.

FF: Yes, I did.

NM: And I want you to pull up your roster from everyone who was performing on your show. My first album sold 375,000 copies in its first week. My first album has gone on to sell 3.5 million records. My second album is at 900,000 worldwide, plus a three million selling single. If you don't know, call Matt Voss at Universal, Flex, do the math, m-a-t-h, that's one-point-two-million on my second album. Even without the single, I've sold. Three. Point. Five. Million. Albums. In Two Years. I want you before you ever open your mouth—it's so misleading, when I saw Foxy Brown, she said, Nic, why are they saying things about your sales when you've gone number one in four countries? You know who the last one to do that was, Flex? The person previous to me was Eminem in 2010.

FF: But you know what? We're not talking about LAST NIGHT, IN JERSEY, AT SUMMER JAM. I didn't go at you because you're a woman, I didn't go at you because of that, I went at you because you're an artist performing at Summer Jam. I'm not going at Wayne. What did you think? Did you think all that was gonna happen and nobody was gonna say nothing?

9:47 PM

FF: We're being attacked, by your team, so I'm expressing myself, I'm not going to go tit-for-tat with you.

NM: I appreciate that you owned that.

FF: I didn't say your albums are trash.

NM: I appreciate that. But let me say this: In the history of the hip hop world...there has been one, single, solitary human being in the history of the world. One female rapper to sell more albums than me in the first week.

FF: Nicki, I'm gonna reel this in for you. We're talking about album sales. A lot of the people that bought those albums last night were in Summer Jam.

NM: That's right. So I'm gonna have a free show, for my fans, sometime this summer, in New York.

FF: BUT DID WAYNE DO THE RIGHT THING?

NM: I need you to simma. Listen, Flex. I need you to calm down.

FF: DID LIL' WAYNE MAKE THE RIGHT DECISION? YES OR NO?

NM: I...I....

FF: UH-UH. YES OR NO. DID LIL' WAYNE MAKE THE RIGHT DECISION TO PULL YOU FROM THE SHOW?

NM: Capital Y. Capital E. Capital S. R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

FF: YES? YES? ARE YOU SAYING YES?

NM: I just spelled it out for you. People are gonna know the truth. And every woman is going to know. People are laughing, Flex. They're gonna know the truth.

9:53 PM

FF: Hot 97 does a concert.

NM: Yes, but Flex...[Flex talks over her.]

FF: We're known around the world. And you're known around the world.

NM: Flex, I'm getting off the phone. All you're doing is talking over me. [Flex talks over her.]

FF: I am not talking over you. You are at fault and we are at fault too. We are both at fault. Egos were involved. Not just in the beginning part of it—and I will speak for myself as well—my ego, your ego, Wayne's ego, Ebro's ego, all of our egos were involved, and the people suffered and DID NOT SEE Nicki Minaj, Wayne, and DJ Khalid. And Foxy and Kim.

[BOMB]

10:01 PM

[BOMB]

FF: Look, you gotta kinda rock with me on this. I already said Rosenberg didn't pick the right time and place to say that. But Wayne should not have taken his artist.

NM: I love my team. And you gotta respect that.

FF: But now I take it to Wayne. And he should not have made that call. If people are on the phone when they already know that Nicki's not performing, we feel like we're up against the wall. But how're we gonna fix this? Wayne's wearing two hats. He's artist and label. Wayne was a featured guest. The fans didn't buy the tickets to see Wayne, they bought them to see Nicki Minaj. As the label guy, I was diappointed.

NM: I got it, I got your feelings. Are you gonna let me talk? You've already made your opinion clear, and nobody's opinions seem to be changing. I just want to apologize to my fans for what happened last night, and like I said on Twitter, I'm going to make it up to them with a free concert. And they said you know what Hot 97? When you want our team to come to your show, treat us with respect. And that's all we're asking. We're not asking for any special treatment. Just respect. And I'm very proud of my team, and the way they stood behind me—and I'm very happy to show my female fans in that audience, and even my gay fans in that audience, when I'm coming to your home, respect me. It's no longer comedy. Wayne doesn't take me as a joke.

FF: I'm asking you a question before you get off the phone. Last night's issues between all of us has not been just about last night. Can we agree?

NM: Yes! Flex, I'm telling you the response to that was it got to an all-time level of disrespect.

FF: Does Hot 97 deserve an apology Nicki?

NM: I stand behind it! No, no radio station that allows someone to disrespect me before I go on stage deserves an apology. And I know you respect it. Say it.

FF: No! (Laughs) You're trying to bully me. I know what you're trying to do.

NM: Flex, we're talking in circles.

FF: But can we agree that we'll respect each other?

NM: Yes. We can do that. All I ask is next time we go forward, we get respected. We need to know that the person who disrespected me is going to apologize—I don't need an apology, I just need....

FF: BUT CAN WE SAY YOU'RE GOING TO DO SUMMER JAM NEXT YEAR?

NM: I'm gonna have to talk to Wayne, and Baby, and....

10:14

FF: You know what, Nicki? I want to be honest with you. I think you're putting me in a position at this particular moment. You're putting me in a position [by asking Rosenberg to apologize]. I don't think I should get off the phone with you right now, I don't want to be in a position to say sorry.

NM: Were you wrong, or not?

FF: You know what, Nicki? I'm not wrong in defending my team.

NM: When you said something about the streets, and sales, I just want you to know that I'm never mad when you don't like something, but when you give facts to the world, they take what you say as the truth.

FF: That criticism comes with the game. Once the crossover stations, even if they take one of your gutterist hip hop records and play it, we've seen this with Tupac, Biggie, everybody, if we're going to have this conversation, Nicki, you are particularly sensitive to it.

NM: What, the whole pop thing?

FF: Yeah. They say it about every rapper.

NM: It's not about pop, Flex. It's about disrespecting an artist.

FF: Are we fleshed out? Are we cool?

NM: Just run the entire interview. Don't chop nothing else. I will tell you this one last thing: When I sat in the restaurant last night with my team, Beanie said, Nicki: Do you know what would happen if someone in Jamaica went on stage last night before I performed to the crowd? He said niggas would be in the hos-pit-al. But let me tell you: Nothing is worse than going home and having not played a gig. I just wanna leave with saying this: I'm gonna make this up to my fans. And I want my fans to know, nothing, no radio station, no one can alter our relationship. I have a very personal relationship with my fans, and I'm truly sorry that people's nights were ruined. You guys have no idea, I've gone through hell and back. I'm not a quitter. I show up and perform. I went with my team's decision, and I made history, and the next time I come out, people won't disrespect me. And for once, I feel like I've really really shown the world, I love and respect myself, and people aren't gonna go there any more. And you know what, Flex? Hit me on the email, it's all good.

FF: We rocked out, we're gonna continue to rock out. Okay?

NM: Okay. Just put up this whole interview and we're fine. Okay?

FF: (Laughs) Okay.

NM: Bye.

FF: Bye.

[BOMB]

De Blasio's spokesman:

Today, House Republicans are calling an emergency meeting to cut 100% of federal funding to public broadcasting.

If they have their way, New York City just might lose WNYC, our flagship public radio station.

Every week, over one million New Yorkers rely on WNYC for trusted news and programming. We must keep it on air.

Now, public radio stations like WNYC are relying on listeners like you to help pressure Congress to restore their funding.

Keep public broadcasting alive by contacting by clicking here to send an e-mail to your Congress Members.

Thank you,

Matt Wing

Communications Director

Office of the Public Advocate

He wouldn't discuss the terms of the agreement, but given that his first deal, in 2004, got him $500 million in cash and stock it's probably some serious Fuck-You Money.

Sirius is trading 6.5 percent higher today, which The Wall Street Journal tells us equates to $315 million added to the company's evaluation.

nfreeman [at] observer.com | @nfreeman1234

Norris told the Tampa Bay Tribune that she was "disappointed" by her omission from the book.

"You have to ask NPR why it happened," Norris said.

The "All Things Considered" host was invited to contribute an essay to NPR's anniversary tome, but she was busy writing her memoirs and her name wasn't included anywhere in the 272 pages of This Is NPR.

NPR spokeswoman Dana Davis Rehm told the Tribune that it "was an inexcusable mistake."

"She should have been in the book," Rehm said.

Norris joined "All Things Considered" in 2002. The incident comes as the public radio network faces a firestorm of criticism following the firing of senior news analyst Juan Williams.

Williams, who is African-American, was given the axe after making controversial comments about Muslims on Fox News' "O'Reilly Factor." Following his ouster, Williams wrote an angry, 1,529 word essay that criticized NPR for a lack of "diversity of opinion, ideas or a diversity of staff."

"I was the only black male on the air," Williams wrote.

Williams is now a full-time contributor at Fox News.

Well, Kurt Andersen — Spy magazine founder and current host of public radio program Studio 360, as well as the co-founder of The Observer's own Very Short List — isn't going to take any shit either. This morning he fired out a tweet that called out presumptive guests James Franco and Aaron Sorkin: both the in-demand "Howl" star and the in-demand "Social Network" writer gave Anderson the old "Fuck you!" not 24 hours before each of them were supposed to come on Studio 360 and talk about their current projects.

We reached out to flacks for both entertainment figures to seek out their non-emergency reasons for backing out. A spokesperson for Rubenstein, who represents Sorkin, told The Observer that "due to a scheduling conflict, we asked the show to reschedule for next week, and we were told they were booked next week."

We have yet to hear back from a representative for Franco.

Regardless of the reasoning, the "dickishness" of the two preening too-good-for-radio stars proves one thing: don't fuck with Kurt Andersen. He'll fire mad shots at you over Twitter. Bitch.

The show is called Both Sides Now and the idea is for the two idealogically opposed, though very respectful, women to have it out on different issues and Mr. Green to play middle man.

In the first episode, Mr. Green asked the pair about the strong showing that women had in primary results earlier this month. Ms. Matalin paraphrased Margaret Thacher, saying "if you want something talked about give it to a man, if you want something done, give it to a woman."

Unless that thing that you want done is a radio show, in which case women will talk about things, too.

The Times has a front page article this morning about Governor David Paterson's love affair with the radio. Mr. Paterson, an avid sports fan, began listening to the radio as a boy becuase it was the easiest way for him to follow sports.

When he wakes up, when he falls asleep, when he's in the car  — Mr. Paterson is always listening. The governor tunes in to WOR, WNYC and WABC, WCBS, WINS and the BBC at night as he's going to sleep. And he seems to be an avid Tony Paige listener (boxing chat, all night long!) on WFAN.

He often calls the shows, too, and goes into radio studios for interviews. (Sometimes he just wants to talk about the Mets.)

Just yesterday Mr. Paterson was on WNYC's The Brian Lehrer Show to respond to remarks from Senate Majority Leader Pedro Espada Jr.

“It’s sort of a perfect medium for me," Mr. Paterson told The Times. 

As speculation builds that another New York governor is preparing for a career in broadcast, Mr. Paterson said that he would "probably consider" hosting a radio show after he leaves office.

And then there’s AC/DC. Bloggers largely scoffed at the Aussie warhorses when they decided to bypass digital sales of their new album Black Ice (their first since 2000’s Stiff Upper Lip) and offer it up exclusively as a CD through Wal-Mart. (Though indie stores would get exclusive rights to sell the vinyl version.) For AC/DC, consumers can have the whole album, or nothing it all, even though most casual fans know the band for their riff-heavy singles. As Angus, AC/DC’s schoolboy guitarist, told the Times, “It’s like an artist who does a painting. If he thinks it’s a great piece of work, he protects it.” Right… Picasso, AC/DC—same thing.

And yet, according to Coolfer, Black Ice has done ludicrously well since its October 20th release. Despite bypassing the most lucrative arm of the music industry (iTunes), the record is on pace to sell 800,000 copies in the U.S. alone during its first week of sales. (That’s just 150,000 less that Kanye’s Graduation managed during its first week last year.) It’s also #1 in the UK and Australia at the moment. As Coolfer points out, AC/DC’s situation is by no means typical—they have a reliable fan-base, a reliable sound, and a consistent track record of CD sales. Still, we can’ help but wonder, weren’t CDs supposed to be dead or dying? Wasn’t the album format supposed to go the way of the dodo? Well, maybe not… that is, if the CD is priced under $12 and has an exclusive corporate marketing plan to back it up.

Mr. Imus was indeed back on the radio at 6 a.m. (he himself first spoke at 6:06) on WABC and several other Citadel Radio-owned stations across the nation. His first show was broadcast live—with a 21-second delay—from Town Hall off Times Square to an audience which paid $100 a head and which lined up as early as 4:30 a.m. The money went to Mr. Imus' Imus Ranch for Kids with Cancer.

Eight months earlier, Mr. Imus had disappeared slowly, but still, for fans, abruptly -- offed by a nervous WCBS and MSNBC (which simulcast the show on TV) after referring to the members of the Rutgers women's basketball team as "nappy-headed hos." At 6:18 this morning, he addressed that controversy, talking of his meeting with the team back in April, after his firing, as close to a "life-changing experience."

I'd been looking forward to this day since Mr. Imus' return to the air was first announced. I started listening to Mr. Imus about nine years ago, on a friend's suggestion, via a station out of Raleigh, while living and working in the middle of North Carolina. Like any decent Imus fan, around 10 percent of the show made me squeamish; another 10 percent bored me (his wife Deirdre is a lovely person I'm sure, but enough with the green cleaning wares); and the other 90 percent enthralled me. I followed Mr. Imus up the East Coast to the show's flagship station at WFAN, an affiliate of CBS Radio.

As the decade wore on, Mr. Imus' opposition to the Iraq war, his support of John Kerry (a frequent guest in 2004), and his championship of veterans' care made him an unlikely hero to many on the left. Here was an avowed Republican (he often said he was probably the only registered one on the Upper West Side) slapping around war apologists and fence-sitters—as well as calling attention to environmental crises, and generally bemoaning the nation's priorities under President Bush.

One of the last great WFAN Imus moments was his tete-a-tete in March of this year with New York senator Chuck Schumer. Mr. Imus had been lamenting the conditions that recuperating veterans of the Iraq war faced at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington. Senator Schumer responded by blaming President Bush for everything, vowing some sort of civic vengeance upon the administration if things at the hospital didn't get better, and blah blah blah.

Mr. Imus would have none of it. Here below is the crux of their exchange, via conservative news site NewsMax.

Mr. Imus: So, we have elected you — first in the Congress and now in the Senate — and you’ve got a bill now to do something we’ll get to in a minute; but you haven’t even been to Walter Reed Hospital.

Senator Schumer: No, no, no. But I have visited regularly the veterans' hospitals throughout my state. That’s where I have focused on . . .

Mr. Imus: Well, you must have seen the state of affairs there . . .

Senator Schumer: I did.

Mr. Imus: Well why didn’t you do something about it?

Senator Schumer: We did . . . I did . . . I tried, I have been pushing . . .
Mr. Imus: Well nothing happened, Senator.

Senator Schumer: No, nothing happened, I agree with you. It’s a shame. It’s a disgrace.

Mr. Imus: Did you vote to authorize the president to go to war in Iraq?

Senator Schumer: Yes.

You could almost hear the wind wheeze out of the bag. A top United States senator belted off his spit-shined pedestal by an old man in a cowboy hat who, thanks to ongoing health problems, could barely breathe without an oxygen tank some mornings. In its truth-to-power appeal, it could hardly have been more American.

Memories of such exchanges only heightened the anticipation of Mr. Imus' return this morning: Specifically, would the real Don Imus -- simultaneously befuddled and sharp-witted, alternately self-deprecating and shamelessly preening -- really be back? Would the man who elevated acerbity to an art form again declare the vice president of the United States a "pork-chop licking war criminal"? Would the most elegantly cantankerous man on radio -- a dying medium for, oh, the last half-century -- generate more daily headlines than every blog, TV talk show and newspaper front page combined, in a single minutes-long exchange with just one guest?

And, ah, the guests? In particular, the luminaries of the broadly liberal world of New York/DC media: Tim Russert, Frank Rich, Maureen Dowd, Thomas Friedman, Brian Williams, et al. Would they be back? And what about the politicians— including 2008 presidential candidates like John Edwards, John McCain, Chris Dodd and Rudy Giuliani, as well as big-name senators like Mr. Kerry and Joe Lieberman?

The first guest on the new WABC Imus in the Morning show was Levon Helm, the former drummer for The Band who now rocks a solo act from his home in upstate New York. Mr. Helm and his band played the Town Hall stage.

Several minutes after Mr. Helm's initial appearance, historian Doris Kearns Goodwin came on. That was when the show's familiar texture truly re-established itself -- a mélange of banter, and Bill Clinton impersonations, and interviews (Senators McCain and Dodd were scheduled guests later) and weather reports, and traffic reports, and Charles McCord reading the news, and producer Bernard McGuirk's side comments (along with those of newcomers Tony Powell and Karith Foster), and musical fade-ins and -outs, and those ads for Hackensack University Medical Center, and over it all the same grumpy, gravelly voice like sand tossed on a sore throat.

In its very familiarity, the new show managed to convey the most important news of all: That Mr. Imus was back, and not in any sort of extraordinary way; just his old self with the same on-air neuroses and nemeses and quirks and obsessions. And thank God for that.