My (Long) Trip To Outlaw Radio

13709720_10102318257580286_399623514_o

I needed out of the house. I needed travel therapy. I hopped in the car Saturday afternoon and drove to the San Fernando Valley, home of Outlaw Radio.

Thursday (in the middle of-the-night) Google assured me the trip was one hour two minutes. It took an hour and a half going and one twenty coming home.

There is no time of the day-or-night when there isn’t traffic in Los Angeles. It’s a given. You plan for it.

I set up a little camera on the windscreen between my car’s two seats and let the top fold itself into the trunk. The timelapse that resulted won’t be posted. It was a reminder, parts of SoCal are beautiful, but nothing on this route!

It was worth it because of the destination.

Every Saturday at 3 PM PST, esteemed radio host Magic Matt Alan gathers in the legendary Lighten Up Lounge, accompanied by his famed Demons of Decadence. There, in the 1876 Virginia City, Nevada-style bar, in the hills of Encino, California, a rapacious evening of smoking, drinking, and interrupting commences! From celebrities to cigars, anything can happen on the program… and usually does!

Outlaw Radio’s slogan is “We smoke, we drink, we interrupt.” Stogies were lit, the hardest drink was beer and I did a s**tload of interrupting.

Outlaw Radio is streamed on-the-Internet. And we just talked. Over the course of the afternoon we had six or seven participants. Everyone had an opinion or two or more.

At one point Matt’s brother, Marty, told me how much he “hated” Irvine, where I live. Even I admit it’s a little… err… repetitive. But it’s an amazing place designed for living. We traded words.

13699439_10102318257590266_205502692_o

Holy crap! Working at home I’d forgotten all about arguing and how much fun it is. Matt Allen (our esteemed host) and I are diametrically opposed politically. And it was great fighting it out because he too is passionate and fact based.

In fact I brought home a new appreciation how similar the right and left feel about each other’s candidate! An election driven by passionate hatred. How does this end well?

If Matt’s name is familiar, it’s because he’s the morning man on SiriusXM’s 70s on 7. He was on Saturday as I drove north to his home.

13711687_10102318257565316_818220850_o

I know Matt because of Howard Lapides, our best man and my friend since college. Howard is a manager who brought more front line big name stars to TV than anyone I can think of.

Am I allowed to name drop? Probably not.

This trip was therapeutic. Just a chance to get away and blow off a little steam. It’s good to have good friends. If they only lived closer.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *