Copyright 2003, Chris Tsakis, All Rights Reserved

 My name's Chris T. and the phone-in talkshow I've been hosting since 1989 - "Aerial View" - is now off the air. My new podcast - Communication Breakdown - is available here, and my Communication Breakdown blog is here. The last Aerial View show was Friday, March 18. Long story short: I'm no longer able to make it to WFMU by 6 PM on Fridays. As disappointed as I am that the show has to end, I've had an amazing run of nearly sixteen years. It hardly seems possible - then I look at the wall of aircheck tapes in my living room and remember how I'd been DJ'ing for two years, after having co-hosted "Nightmare Lounge" with Kaz for three. I was also working in the WFMU office with Ken Freedman and David Newgarden, down in the basement of Froeburg Hall on the Upsala College campus. I'd first been to FMU in 1984, with Kaz.

We did a Fourth of July barbecue, running long microphone cables out the studio, down the hall and outside via the parking lot entrance to get the real sizzling sound on the air. That's been my mission ever since: to keep it real and sizzling.

Aerial View came about on short notice. I don't remember the chain of events exactly but a show was needed from Noon to 1 PM on Tuesdays. I joked with David Newgarden that I'd like to take phone calls, do a talkshow. I wasn't happy being an overnight DJ. Don't get me wrong - I could put together a set that would rock your world. But what I enjoyed most were the times when people called in and I got to interact with them on the air, in real time, with no call screener. Maybe I'm perverse but I truly enjoy the immediacy, the spontaneity, never knowing where it will go next.. I must've been convincing because David let me do it.

The first "Aerial View" show employed what I thought at the time was a clever gimmick: a split-topic: THE B-1 BOMBER/HIGH HEELS. If you wanted to be serious, you could speak your mind on a bill that was then on the table, to seriously up the budget for the military. If you didn't want to be serious, you could talk about high heels. What happened, of course, was that the thing began to transmute and we found ourselves talking about the military-industrial complex in a joking way and about high heels very seriously. I kept the dual-topic thing going for as long as I could before it began to seem like an artificial construction for an essentially organic show.

If you've never heard "Aerial View" the most important thing I can tell you about it is that it's all HAPPENING RIGHT NOW, LIVE AND IN THE MOMENT. Very little about the show is pre-planned or synthetic. I do use a pre-recorded introduction for the show, one that's constantly changing. It's there to smooth the transition between my show and the one just ending.

"Aerial View" has changed through the years, as everything does. As I have. One constant has been the name, which was supposed to be another clever shot at duality: "Aerial" as in an overview and "Aerial" as in "antenna". At times I've thought of ditching the name and going with "The Chris T. Show" or something equally ego-stroking. But I just can't do it. Call me sentimental.

Another constant is the personal nature of the show. I've tried being different people on the air but have found being myself works best. (It's easiest to remember, anyway.) The show reflects the things I believe, the way I think, what I'm interested in. You either like that stuff or you don't. You either find me entertaining when presenting that stuff or you don't. But I'll never ask you to discuss something I wouldn't. I'll always leap into the void first.