The New Dominion is a fledgling Virginia magazine/website with circulation around the state. It describes itself as “a quarterly news journal … (offering) readers in-depth coverage of issues in local and regional politics, society, economic trends, pop culture, sports and more.” Arguably, GMD front pager kestrel9000 (aka Ed Garcia) fits into any of those categories (well, that is if harassing Republicans can be considered a sport). From the latest issue:
People never look the same in person as you would assume they would by listening to them on the radio, but Eddie Garcia comes closer to the image that I’d had in my head than most – average height, slight build, understated, casual dress, words coming out of his head and mouth 1,000 miles a minute, like he’s had way, way too much of the caffeine.
Heh heh. You go Ed. More of my favorite bits from the piece below the fold…
“The way you phrase that sounds as if you’re proceeding on the assumption that I have adjusted (to life in Virginia). I haven’t. And I don’t see how it’s possible,” Garcia says.
Life in Vermont, his most recent tour stop before Virginia, was even more like home than Northern California.
“Our whole life was different. For instance, in Bennington, our house was like a social center. We had a bunch of friends, most of them younger than us, and the issue used to be, How are we going to get these people out of here on Friday nights so we can get the kids to sleep now?” Garcia says.
heh heh again.
Which isn’t to say that his blogging hasn’t led management at Magic 95.5 to their own rubber rooms from time to time.
“You can’t please everybody all the time. You can’t do it. So we’re not even going to try,” says Joe Collins, the program director at Magic 95.5, who has taken more than his share of calls from listeners irate over a particular Garcia rant on the air.
Garcia admits to wanting to push buttons in that respect.
“I perceive this country to be in a crisis right now,” he says. “We have a president who has defied the will of the American people, defied the results of the election, is not supporting the troops, is denying them the money they need to complete the mission. Very realistic timetables, flexible withdrawal dates were set, and this guy is just stomping his foot and throwing a tantrum like a little spoiled child – and he’s going to do whatever the heck he wants.
“I think George Walker Bush is probably the most impeachable president in the history of this country – him and (Vice President Dick) Cheney both. And I frankly will not be silent. I say as much as I can get away with. And I’ve been chewed out for it more than once,” Garcia says.
It’s not just conservatives who are in Garcia’s crosshairs. No, Fast Eddie gets “hacked off,” as he told me between oldies, at liberals and local Shenandoah Valley Democrats just as easily – and readily.
woo-hoo!
“I’m sick of his left-wing views on the radio,” a listener complained to Magic 95.5 program director Joe Collins in January – after Garcia dedicated his daily “Top 5 at 5″ list to “America at War,” finishing up the selections of oldies but goodies with John Lennon’s “Give Peace a Chance” and The Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil.”
“He’s insulting the veterans, and now he’s playing satanic music!” the caller continued, before raising issue with Garcia’s on-air defense from several months before of a liberal activist who had been roughed up by a staffer of former senator George Allen.
I almost wonder if Garcia isn’t somehow bothered by this – if he isn’t energized by the occasional outburst from the political right, if he wonders if he might be getting stale, and that’s why people aren’t calling anymore.
I mention this to him – and the cauldron reignites.
“This is the fourth state that I’ve lived in – and the politics of division, the hatred, the pointing the fingers. Democrats are traitors, homosexuals will destroy your marriage, the Muslims will kill you when you sleep – and people take this seriously. I find it disgusting. It’s revolting,” Garcia says.
“It goes against everything that I believe in, everything that I was raised to believe was right, proper, true and correct. Bigotry and hatred in this area seems to have a license – and all I can do is stand against it.
“If there are consequences, then there are consequences – but I am who I am. I have my values, and I compromise them for no one.”
Well said, Ed.