When I was on the Cultural Affairs Commission for the City of Oakland, I convinced the city to televise our meetings and give me a call-in show which I entitled “Speak Up for Oakland Arts. There were generally 2 or 3 people in the audience at CIty Hall, one of them being my buddy Dan Fontes. I’d give a bit of news, then open up the line for callers, “Tell me what you think!”…..silence- long silence. Sometimes it would stay silent till Dan ran outside to the phone booth, called in, we’d talk for a while then he’d run back in. It was pretty pitiful, but hilarious in retrospect that I’d subject myself to such humiliation for the greater good.