Thomas Toscano, my companion on Talking To Animals, is an opinionated and headstrong man, he describes himself as “volcanic,” and that is true, he easily surpasses me in intensity. I feel quiet and soft-spoken around him, something I know is not true, and rarely feel.

Thomas and I have a lot in common – we are both independently minded creatives, he is a conductor at heart, but we see the world and our lives in very different ways. He has original ideas about the world, they are startling sometimes, but always compelling.

It would be an easy thing for our big egos to bang into each other, or to spark conflict and confusion. On my first broadcast, Thomas answered the very first question, cutting me off before I spoke on my first broadcast. Whoops, I thought, this is going to be trouble.

But I was wrong. There has been no trouble.

Thomas and I have a very strong chemistry together. We are coming to trust and respect one another, I think. We work together in close quarters for  two hours every week and are working to carry out the impossible – build a viable radio broadcast that functions locally and nationwide in 2019  with virtually no marketing or financial or promotional support of any kind.

I sometimes think our quirky little broadcast is powered by two very stubborn men and a small but loyal band of dog and animal lovers who want to talk and listen and learn about the animals they love. I work very hard on research for the show, Thomas is more internal and intuitive. I think we compliment one another well, and the chemistry between us is evident, it is not something either of us can fake.

When I can, I bring lunch to the studio and we eat together. Thomas fills me on on his life and his struggle to build up the station. He is a fighter, perhaps like me, too much of one. I am learning to fight less and do good more.

Corporations have destroyed local radio, gobbling up stations by the thousands and turning them over to hateful fear mongers and bigots, fuel for the angry and increasingly displaced white men of the world. Cable news is a cesspool of conflict and rage that makes billions for greedy stockholders and media barons.

There are few survivors, and WBTN, the community radio station where my broadcast is, is one of them. The only reason it hasn’t been gobbled up yet it because it is too small and broke, and because Thomas is too stubborn and mule-headed. One day it might just be devoured.

I respect Thomas for following his heart, and hope our show can support his struggle to keep the station alive. Without community radio, ordinary people will have no access to commercial radio or television.

I was very pleased with todays broadcast, we talked about the dreams of dogs and animal subconscious, there was a steady steam of callers with interesting questions and observations and stories. I feel strongly that the show works  well when people call us, and we are not just talking for hours. I work hard to document and explain my ideas, I always seek to back them up with credible research. But I never presume to always be right.

You might also considering getting a free radio app, you can hear the station from anywhere with a WI-FI.

I use Simple Radio.

As I told Thomas today, there are a thousand ways to look at dogs and animals, and I hope we can explore every one of them on our show. I am pushing Thomas to build his own blog, he is a natural, full of passion and riveting  experience. He ran an opera company in Brooklyn, was a composer for many years, and then upended his life to flee New York and live alone in Vermont.

That’s not a story I hear every day. So today I felt we are beginning to do what I thought was almost certainly impossible. I feel the audience building up there, I feel the chemistry between me and Thomas deepening, I am grateful that people are figuring out how to call and talk to us.

Thomas looks like the fiery Sicilian he is, he has the mad eyes of his hero, Arturo Toscanini. I love taking his portrait.

One wondrous innovation has been to bring Maria on the show every week in the second hour.

She is a natural, bright and articulate and passionate about animals. Each week we choose a topic – this week and next is the dreams of dogs and we talk about our lives with animals together on Bedlam Farm. It is a natural thing, and she is exceptionally good at it. As always, we talk easily with one another. She adds greatly to the warm and open chemistry of the show.

None of us agree all the time, and should, but we all have interesting things to offer.

So this is good news.

At first, I pleaded with people to listen – WBTNAM1370 – but now, my message is changing a bit. I think you will enjoy this broadcast, I think it is something unique and special and helpful. There is great respect and affection between Thomas and the people who call, we are good to each other. We are, in fact, becoming the antithesis of corporate media.

You can hear the show re-broadcast every Wednesday night from 8 to 10 p.m.

I learned from my TV producer  days that everything on any broadcast that really matters is chemistry, then content. I think we are delivering both.

There is always something to think about. I will continue to work hard on my research and thought – I never just want to walk in there and wing it. And I want to hear about  you and  your stories. We all need help understanding the lives of our animals.

There are hundreds of millions of domestic animals in America, they raise a profound number of questions and issues for those of us who love them and live with them.

One caller today asked what drives Maria and I to live with animals. They are essential to us to our humanity, our health and our healing. Humans were meant to live with animals, they are our partners on the earth, we are broken without them.

Perhaps this can be the first genuine place in the country where we can all do that. And if we can also help keep community radio alive, that would be yet another miracle.

See you next Wednesday, one to three p.m. WBTNAM. 802 442-1010 or 866, 406-9281. And I’m going to stay on Thomas until he gets his blog up.