By Sean Sullivan Lagniappe columnist

I know this is taboo for a radio guy like me, but I’m about to discuss another radio station for some 600 to 700 words. Actually it’s not just one station but also a whole network of stations.

When I started in the broadcast business they taught you to never mention any other radio station ever and deny they existed if you were ever questioned about them. Luckily for us I’ve never been particularly good at following that caveat, or I’d have nothing to write about this week.

The network actually I’m talking about is NPR, which is National Public Radio. This federally funded, listener-supported radio product is distributed nationwide amongst non-commercial stations usually affiliated with some sort of institution of higher learning. These local stations carry some sort of local content and varying amounts of the national product. This national product is what I have the love/hate relationship with.

The love comes in the quality of the news reporting on NPR. Even though the reporting leans more left than a car in the first turn at Talledega, it is of the highest quality. Not actually having to make a profit frees up lots of time to report stories in detail as well as reporting on stories that are a little off the beaten path of the mainstream news world.

The reporters, on the whole, are educated and worldly and provide a pretty satisfying product. In addition to the news, I like many of the weekend shows on NPR and there I will start my beef with public radio. My favorite show on all of the weekend broadcasts is called “A Prairie Home Companion.” Maybe you’ve heard of it, with its recent foray into the world of movies. The host of this show is named Garrison Keillor and he may have one of the most normal names you will hear in a week of listening to public radio.

To begin with I understand commercial radio has its share of names that demand ridicule, but at least they are easy to identify and lampoon. Disc jockeys who feel the need to have smiling, rocking, jammin’ and groovin’ as adjectives modifying their names are as blight as are the cutesy names like Just-in Case, Rick-O-Shea, Sandy Beach and so many other stupid radio names.

I suffer the shame of these people every time I tell someone who doesn’t know me what I do for a living. The first question is always “so what’s your radio name?” At that query I cringe and launch into a memorized speech about how I use my real name and that I don’t have a satin jacket with the 92 ZEW logo and my name airbrushed on it.

At least though “radio names” are clownish enough that you know it’s OK to make fun of them and have no confidence in anything that they tell you. That is the opposite of the commentators on NPR.

Their weird names come with an air of distinction and authority, and they’re also names you’ve never heard before in your life, so they must be cooler than all of us regular name people. Here is a list of just a few of the names you’d hear in a given day’s programming, in addition to Garrison Keillor; Kai Ryssdal, Snigdha Prakash, Nate Dimeo, Tess Vigeland, Mara Liasson, Lakshmi Singh. And that’s barely a glancing blow at the tip of the name iceberg.

There are some people on the payroll at NPR or in affiliated networks who have tamer monikers where just the surname or first name was unpronounceable, but their careers never seem to take off. Over the years I’ve had daydreams about getting into the national radio scene, but quick dash of name reality lets me know “No normal name people need apply.”

Oddly enough my ethnic surname that probably gave my grandparents trouble when they sought work or housing many years ago just ain’t ethnic enough for the weird name club at NPR command central in Washington D.C. Sean Sullivan just isn’t Irish and odd enough for public radio, I would need a name that sounded like I was Celtic chieftain from the time of Brain Boru to be able to be able to report a heart warming story about a Vermont maple syrup farmer who is exporting his product to China in exchange for bamboo wind chimes, to a national audience. Only as Ailin Mac McDermott Collins O’Sullivan would I even have a chance at getting an interview at the nation’s radio network.

So being stuck between the radio name worlds of public radio and the Justin-Cases of the world, I’ll just keep making do with the plain name my parents gave me and try to do the best broadcasting job a plain named guy can.

Sean Sullivan is Lagniappe lagniappe columnist. Contact him at ssullivan@lagniappemobile.com.

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