Six months ago, longtime WBZ-Boston morning drive-time radio announcer Gary Lapierre retired. At that time it was known that WBZ evening talk show host Paul Sullivan wouldn’t be holding court forever, having had three surgeries for brain cancer that was diagnosed in December 2004.
Sullivan recently underwent a fourth operation, and today he announced that he’s quitting his show, in the time slot that was vacated by the death of David Brudnoy, also in December 2004. Previously, he had followed Brudnoy. In a letter released today, Sullivan said, “The toll my surgeries and treatments have taken on me makes it unlikely that I will ever have the energy to return to a four-hour daily talk radio program.”
Here’s ten minutes of audio from a Paul Sullivan show last February to give you an idea of his style. The topic was Al Gore’s movie An Inconvenient Truth, which I’ve covered here previously.
[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/JUN07/PaulSullivanOnGore.mp3]Sullivan’s guest was from a political action committee that claimed Al Gore uses 20 times the amount of energy at his house as the average American home. [Link] The actual percentage is somewhat less than that [Link], but Sullivan ran with the number that was given to him by his guest.
At one time I’d have given Sullivan the benefit of the doubt and said he didn’t want to quibble with the details, because he wanted to focus on Gore’s apparent hypocrisy. But I’ve heard Sullivan over the years often enough to know that sometimes he doesn’t have enough facts at his fingertips.
Tonight, Sullivan was a caller to his own show, and I think that’s both funny and sad. Here’s a 10-minute clip. Note: The audio stream cuts out for a few moments in the middle.
[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/JUN07/PaulSullivanWBZ.mp3]In the radio biz, Paul is a former minor league guy who made it to the major leagues and held his own. He’s a writer for The Lowell Sun, a small city newspaper, and while he’s not as well-read as Brudnoy the college professor was, Sullivan is smart and quick, with plenty of fight, and a good sense of humor to boot. It’s a real shame that Sullivan fell ill right when he was hitting his stride.