Goodnight, Sweet Kid Jersey
There are so many tributes to The Best Show on WFMU today, and all of them are amazing. Friends of Tom are a fiercely loyal bunch and are almost competitive in showing their love, and as I've scribbled out attempt after attempt at something of my own, I've long since given up on it offering any original insights or unique poignancy. On the other hand, that's not why we do it - we do it because frankly, Tom and Jon and Mike deserve it all and then some. So here are my words to toss onto the pile of accolades.
I'm going to miss the hell out of this show. I never became a terribly notable FOT during my time listening - I chatted sporadically, called twice, and made some very funny Twitter friends. I never got an FOT card, only got in on the last 3 or 4 premiums, and really only started listening more than halfway through the show's run, sometime around 2007. But on Tuesday night (or #BestShowWednesday, or whenever you were able to listen), none of that mattered. Everyone belonged, and was a part of something bigger.
The details, as I try to recall favorite moments and all-time bests, are kind of a blur. Part of that is that a good chunk of my listening was accompaniment to law school study, muddled in with unrelated cases and controversies from my textbooks (though I did manage to read Campbell v. Acuff Rose in Copyright Law at roughly the same time that Tom achieved the coup of getting plaintiff and 1st Amendment champion Luther "Uncle Luke" Campbell to call in, which was neat). But seriously- how long ago was Milo calling in? When did the feltdown occur? How long has laser whips been a thing, and when did someone last light up a batch of Emerald Nightmare? How did handmade, lisping, rambling Vance cede control to a loudmouth squirrel off the rack from Barnes and Noble? How did we arrive at any of this? And yet, all of it is unmistakably The Best Show - often imitated, but never duplicated.
Tonight, the freeflowing tap of mirth, music, and mayhem goes is shut off. I have no doubt that somewhere, sometime, it will bubble up again, and those who have gathered around it will gather once more (and in the meantime, will gather around all the great things discovered because of it). Until then, I'll just be greatful that I was here, in whatever small way, for the weird little world that grew up around this show.