Thomas Toscano sometimes looks to me like what I imagine the Prophet Isaiah might have looked like,  and he has the made eyes of Arturo Toscanini. who he worshipped as a child and then as an opera singer, composer and conductor.

He is also, to me, a historic figure, the face of Community Radio, a once vibrant but now struggling form of media, fighting for its life against the Corporate Juggernaut that is devouring our media.

Thomas is the Executive Director of WBTNAM1370, a community radio station in Bennington, Vt. It is one of the few remaining community radio stations in the country, it is non-profit media organization dedicated to giving voice to the people, not just the stockholders.

When these stations are gone, we will be left entirely at the mercy of the mega-media corporations that our destroying our news culture, and not incidentally, damaging our democracy as well.

Free speech lives on Community Radio, and I think it is a powerful testament to our animal show that  neither Thomas nor I could ever be hired on a corporate media radio outlet, which almost all radio stations now are.

I love my weekly two hour broadcast, Talking To Animals, I’ve wanted to do a radio show like this for a long time. But one reason I decided to do it at this time was WBTN and the idea that perhaps we could forestall or prevent the Corporarte Onslaught from devouring this little radio station as well.

Thomas, who helps me get “Talking To Animals” on the air every Wednesday is outspoken, outrageous, brilliant, passionate and tired. He practically lives in the radio station doing 50 or 60 hours of programming a week.

He is a refugee from New York City. He worked in the opera there, was a composer and conductor.  He left the city after his girlfriend told him he had to leave their condo. “I am the worst boy friend in the world,” he concedes.

When I took out my camera – I love taking his picture – he held up his hand – ever the diva – and said “wait, I have to put my conductor face on.”

I take a portrait shot of Thomas every week, that face is a living gallery.

I think Thomas and I are friends, if you count trading late-night texts about one of our joint obsessions, British mysteries on streaming channels. We each know the name of every British DCI and DC on Netflix or Amazon Prime or Hulu.

So he did, and there it is. No smiling, just those blazing furnace like eyes. (Thanks Eileen, for sending those White House subs from Atlantic City. He told me today that his favorite food is Memphis Ribs.)

Thomas is a dinosaur, the last of a breed, a fierce individualistic who has renounced every single thing we are told we must have – money, security. convention free wisdom. In a country that invented the free-thinker, they are now a vanishing breed, humbled by health care costs and corporate blandness, hunted down like refugees, silenced by greed,  pushed to the edge of our world.

Listening to Thomas talk politics can single the rest of my hair right off. “I am Sicilian,” he says haughtily. Yes, he is. And a child prodigy Sicilian at that.

This radio station feels like a last stand to me, kind of like the Alamo. You know they will come for us sooner or later, but in the meantime, it is a hell of a ride.

I think one day I will get to the station and find Thomas molded into his chair in front of his radio programming computer. He needs a few days off.

When I do interviews on other radio stations, they are swarming with staff – somebody to get coffee, escort guests, monitor phone calls, cue ads and  announcements, write copy. At WBTN it is just Thomas, there is no one else but Suzanne, a part-time producer who come in in the mornings out of love and loyalty, not money.

I am going to fight hard to help make the show work, and it does seem to be working, but I also hope to fight for this station, build during the Korean War, and forgotten almost ever since.

Community radio is the last stop for the voices of real people. The screaming head and Barbie Men and Women on cable news are ready and willing to take over. Just look at their news and shudder.

This radio station has to survive. You can help here.

As for my show, it’s good and hard work. I’m getting more calls, and they are very good calls. Anyone who gets through is a kind of hero to me, brave and determined.

There are lots of media out there for people to consume, and this station will have to fight hard for it’s nice in the world. I think we are on the way, and I hope that me and the Army Of Good can help Thomas and his station survive. They are trying some exciting things, and they claim I am one of them.

We’ll see. Thanks for your interest. I told Thomas today that I have never met anyone like him.

“Really?,” he replied,  raising a bushy eyebrow. “I bet you’ve met a lot of people.”

“I have,” I said, “but no one quite like you.”