Edwards’ Way With Issues: Smart, Quiet

KABC-AM(790) radio has some interesting talkers, but none more so than Steve Edwards. Shocking? No. Compared to sizzling, sordid Howard Stern, Edwards is comatose. Pull the plug and let him die with dignity, his detractors would probably say.

Yet. . . .

Bumped from KABC-AM’s coveted afternoon drive-time slot by glibber, glossier Peter Tilden in the station’s latest upheaval, Edwards remains sneaky smart from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. weekdays, generating a brand of brainy, civilized conversation about topical issues that, given the industry’s growing appetite for noise, may someday become radio’s endangered species.

Edwards is especially adept at stripping back the layers of issues or framing them in unconventional ways. On Monday, for example, he wondered about the legal culpability of HIV-positive people or those with AIDS having unprotected sex without informing their partners of the peril. And even should the unsuspecting partner not get AIDS, Edwards wondered, would this still be attempted murder?

Later in the same broadcast, Edwards wondered if there was a moral equivalency between exposing unsuspecting people to AIDS through sex and growing and selling tobacco even if those buying the tobacco knew the danger.

An interesting question on a show that poses many interesting questions.

On another recent afternoon, Edwards tackled those boycott threats against Colorado because of a recently passed initiative overturning gay-rights ordinances there. This hot issue naturally attracted callers from both sides. And, without being flashy or condescending or confrontational or jerky, Edwards affirmed his status as the refreshingly unslick and unmannered maestro of dialogue. He even got one caller--a fundamentalist Christian in favor of the anti-gay initiative--to admit he was in denial about his own homosexuality.

It may not have registered on radio’s Richter Scale, but it was nonetheless a remarkable moment.

As always, the host of “The Steve Edwards Show”--or “the big broadcast,” as he mockingly labels his program--gave no hint of a swollen ego. As always, there was no shouting, anger, wild combat or name-calling. He was fair without being soft, strong without being overbearing. And once again it all worked, proving there’s something very seductive about intelligence.

The Learning Medium: Barry Dutter has written and Rick Parker has illustrated a softcover book titled “Everything I Really Need to Know I Learned From Television.”

This is a very wise book. For example:

* “If you’re a private eye and you fall in love while looking for a killer, the person you fall in love with will turn out to be the killer.”

* “Most high school students are about 30 years old, and some attend high school for up to five or six years.”

* “Your car will always start whenever you need it to--unless you’re being chased by a deranged killer!”

* “The high point of any courtroom trial is the announcement of the surprise witness.”

* “If a woman is running away from someone, she will trip and fall every single time.”

All very true. However, there is another book to be written about television. I would title it “Everything I Really Need to Know I Learned From Television Talk Shows During Ratings Sweeps.” For example:

* There are lots of conservative teen-age girls who think their mothers dress too sexily, and they will go on national television and argue with their mothers about this while a concerned talk-show host tries to calm them.

* There are also lots of thin teen-age girls who claim their fat mothers are jealous of them, and these mothers will stuff their mouths with food while rebutting their daughters’ complaints.

* Women whose husbands attempt to murder them still love these husbands and will jump at the chance to tell America why.

* There are many, many 75-year-old women who are married to 21-year-old men who wear bolo ties, and they all have great sex.

* Big-breasted women and average-breasted women are natural enemies, and they are anxious to shake their breasts at each other and call each other names while America watches.

* White supremacists and African-Americans do not get along and will scream at each other, shocking aghast talk-show hosts whose quests for knowledge, illumination and peace on Earth sometimes go awry.

* Many men like to wear skirts in public.

* When a woman who has been separated from her sister for 45 years is a guest on a talk show, that sister will surprise her on the show and make her and the show’s host cry.

* Psychologists spend all their time appearing on talk shows and advising guests how to straighten out their lives.

* Many women like to wear skirts in public. But no tops.

The Gripe Line: No-Brainer Visuals Dept.: If I see any more news footage of Bill Clinton jogging, I’ll dynamite my set.

* “The Richard Bey Show.” Not middle brow, not low brow, but no brow, typified by a recent “Big Butt Contest” episode. Bey, who hosts this syndicated talk series on KCOP-TV Channel 13, also appears in a TV infomercial that utilizes the talk-show format, thus potentially adding to viewer confusion over the two types of programs.

Big butt, small brain.