Photograph courtesy of Michael J’s Photography
The Dave Glover Show on KFTK (97.1 FM) is the top-rated afternoon-drive talk-radio show in St. Louis. It may be the only talk-radio show in the nation to fuse zombies, law enforcement, erectile dysfunction, rabbinical wisdom, political provocation, and plain silliness. Glover’s the master of poking the brain just a little, then relaxing into goofball. He comes off cool, the kid who sat in the back of class and made everybody laugh, but he swears he’s a nerd. He hangs out at home with his wife, 16-year-old son, and 6-year-old daughter, and when he knows about a restaurant opening, it’s usually an Applebee’s.
You go to Applebee’s?
People think I have this jet-set lifestyle. I’m sitting at home watching a zombie show, or something about Bigfoot. My wife watches The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, and we’re constantly critiquing each other’s choices. But the reason I can’t watch hers is, they’re like crack. Reality TV is just pure evil; they know how to get you hooked in. We’re drama junkies.
How do you create drama on-air?
You can’t manufacture it. When I started in radio, I assumed, OK, I’ll create a character that is Dave Glover, ’cause that’s what you do. But I didn’t have the skills to do that—so the only thing I could do is be myself. And I am genuinely strange, and I say the things most people are afraid to say.
For example?
Four years into my show, I said that I was a failure as an attorney. No one ever says that. It was cathartic. We all have these things we are terrified to say out loud, because then it’ll be true. Then we realize life keeps going.
Not to dwell, but why were you a failure?
I hated it. I did well in law school, graduated with honors. I loved the debate, the intellectual deconstruction of everything. And then I came out and realized that being a lawyer had nothing to do with that. It was just constant bickering.
What sent you to law school in the first place?
I took the LSAT on a drunken bar bet and did great. I had very average college grades—I majored in business and psychology at SIU Edwardsville, and I only went to college at all because I got a scholarship to run track.
You didn’t know you were smart?
My parents’ thing was always to be normal, keep your head low, get a normal job, don’t stand out. They were fine if I brought home C’s, and being inherently lazy, why would I do more? My junior year in college, I took a test, and it turned out I had a very high IQ.
Do you regret not knowing earlier?
Had I been nurtured and encouraged my entire life, I might be somewhere higher, but I might be miserable. I’m pretty happy doing this.
Why’s there so much fodder for talk radio these days?
I think we’ve never been more forced into having opinions. My dad’s generation said it’s not polite to talk about religion and politics.
Which way do you prefer?
Either not talking about it or talking about it long-form. Let’s spend four hours and four bottles of wine. I hate—and this is ironic, because it’s what talk radio is—I hate sound-bite arguments.
It must be fun to destroy them, though.
That’s where my $100,000 legal education went: being able to deconstruct someone on-air. It takes so few pokes to pop someone’s balloon, it’s disappointing. And then you have people—and these are the ones I’m really frightened of—who absolutely refuse to think it through. A lady called in, Linda, talking about religion, and I said, “Let’s do a thought experiment. Let’s imagine you die, and you go to heaven, and you meet Muhammad.” She said, “I can’t. I absolutely refuse to let that thought into my mind.” I think all beliefs should be somewhat malleable. I’ve always loved being proven wrong, because it gets you that much closer to what’s true.
What you do must work—yours is one of the most popular shows around.
Yeah, but whenever I’ve taken a shot at national syndication, they’ve said, “You are the lazy river of radio. I never know which way you’re going to go. People don’t want to think that much.”
You like guns, barbecue, wrestling, and motorcycles. Where’s your feminine side?
Oh my gosh, I’m way more of a girl than any girl I’ve ever been with. I can outtalk; I can outfeel. I’ve never had a girl not throw up her hands and say, “OK, you win.”
So you combine both extremes.
Oh yeah. I’m a study in extremes, no doubt about it. I’m either completely into something or I couldn’t care less.
You got way into barbecue, entering all sorts of competitions.
I won first place in the very first one. I almost quit then. I was going to try to get into quick-draw [shooting] competitions, but my son told me, “You’ve finally hit your dork limit.”
Why do you dim the lights when broadcasting?
I think bright fluorescent lighting just sucks the life out of people.
How are you different off the air?
I’m painfully shy. I’ve never been the funniest guy at a table. I always thought everyone else was smarter and funnier than me. Maybe now it’s an interesting mix of insecure and competent. I no longer have the need to prove myself—I’m getting paid to be funny. But when I fill in for Glenn Beck, I never think, “I’m going to be the best ever.” I think, “Don’t f—k this up.”
You’ve alluded to your dark side—what is it?
I’m probably a selfish person—a charmingly selfish person. My wife calls me the steamroller. She says, “If there are six people going to dinner, somehow we’ll end up where you want to go with everyone thinking it’s their idea.”
At least you’re charming.
I’m very nonconfrontational. If I ask for extra dressing and they don’t bring it, I would never ask again. Whereas my dad would yell, “Where’s the goddamned dressing?” I’ll just swallow, swallow, swallow until I eventually erupt—usually at someone who did nothing to me. I really respect people who are appropriately firm.
What do you take more seriously than you appear to?
It takes me about six hours of show prep every day to appear completely unprepared. One of my recurring nightmares is showing up and having nothing. Today, I’ll have 30 pieces of paper with possible topics. They’ll have maybe 10 keywords —everything has to be in bullets…otherwise, my ADD kicks in.
You do hours of research—why?
Our world is a macrocosm of a 16-year-old. When you’re 16, you never know less, but you are never so sure of what you know. I think our whole world is like that. Ninety-nine percent of people, on the left or the right, really don’t know what they’re talking about. They’re just saying shit.
What do you take less seriously than you appear to?
It’s really walking a line to do the kind of show I do. Sometimes I overthink it, and I have to remember, “I’m not getting paid to be that guy. I’m getting paid to be everybody’s funny friend who makes you think every now and again.”
Is it fair to call your humor sophomoric?
Oh yeah. I think most men—and more and more women, I’m learning—their sense of humor sort of develops and stops at about eighth grade. The kinds of things I would have laughed at in eighth grade, I still find hilarious. It’s the same fart joke, but with intellectual polishing.
On a recent show, the topics were steak, guns, sports, Fast Eddie’s, scary stuff, toilet seats, and sharpshooters to kill feral dogs for a buck a bullet. I know I’m stereotyping here, but does your audience skew male?
It’s 60-40 male. I probably have the most female audience in talk radio; it’s mostly middle-aged males. Media in general and radio in particular, we’re misjudging women. We are catering to our mothers. Women are dirtier and funnier than men are. They just hide it.
Is it pressure to know you’ve got to make 200,000 people laugh on their drive home?
It’s like being a tightrope walker—you can’t look down. That’s why I love meeting human beings, but at the same time, it’s scary: “Oh shit. That’s a real person.” Talking to that amorphous person in their car is very different. Which is why I’m not very good live. People say, “Why don’t you do stand-up?” I shrink in person. There’s a great protection in the studio that allows you to be bigger than you actually are.
You’re a gun guy—why?
I had zero interest in guns until a few years ago. My brother shot himself 10 years ago, so I had an inherent dread of guns. But at any given point in time, I’ll have half a dozen creepy stalker people. We got one particular one, and people in law enforcement said, “Get your concealed carry.”
How do you modulate so smoothly between silly and serious, between a bit on aliens and an FBI agent talking about a missing little girl?
It’s not intentional. Again, it’s just being honest. Really great things happen right after really shitty things. When I found out my brother had killed himself, we were at home playing with a new puppy. I’ve always hated those announcers, like on the Today show, who say, “On a much lighter note…” Well, duh. People know it’s a lighter note. They understand.
I have a hunch your job’s harder than it looks.
I had a classical argument with a comedian once who had this bit about how stupid and easy a radio job is. I said, “You’ll spend a year putting together a bit, working on it, improving it. I have three hours. If I say something funny, I can never say it again—especially if it’s really funny. And if I do something genius at 4:35 p.m. and you tune in at 4:40, you’ll never know.
On a much lighter note…I get your fear of flying monkeys. But you were scared of the road grader as a kid?
I’m a scaredy-cat. Being a middle-aged man, I get up several times at night to go to the bathroom, and sometimes I’ll lie in bed and hold it, thinking, “What if that little girl from The Exorcist is in the bathroom?”
Is there really a Glover family sausage-casing fortune?
No. It’s funny, though: We come from Scottish royalty. One side was propertied, with castles, and the other side broke off to do vaudeville. Guess which one I come from.
Tell me about your earlier careers as a marionettist and a shepherd.
I don’t even remember saying this stuff! I remember my brother one time calling himself a master of the absurd. If there’s anything I’m good at, it’s that. Monty Python, that’s funny to me. But you know, a lot of people don’t get it.
No sense of humor.
I feel sorry for people who aren’t funny; I really do. People will say, “How are you so funny?” and I want to say, “How are you not?” My brother, two days after his suicide—I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to move human remains across the country, but it’s hard. There are all these rules. So I had him shipped back here in a box labeled “antique lamp.” He would have loved that. But I told the story and people were just horrified.
Is humor just perspective, in the end?
I think so. I think humor is setting up an expectation and then going somewhere else. Fastball, fastball, fastball, curveball.
How would you define your show?
It’s really smart people acting stupid. At some point, you just have to get stupid during the day. You have to let off steam. I’m a smart person, I have the credentials, and by acting stupid, it gives other people permission. It’s sad that we need permission to just be silly.
