"He instinctively can find the shining greatness of our American culture and does a good job of highlighting it (although he also does have those rare lapses when he writes about hockey, but that is something caused by impurities in the Eastern waters or something)." Erik Keilholtz
Under the patronage of St. Tammany
Mark C. N. Sullivan is an editor at a Massachusetts university. He is married and the father of three children. Email
Wednesday, December 10, 2003 John Tesh? When you think PBS viewing audience you think Cambridge and Volvos and the Boston Pops and, all right, Pete Seeger and Peter, Paul and Mary. But John Tesh? During pledge week? John Tesh, the former Entertainment Tonight anchor-turned Yanni-Zamfir lounge pianist whose Muzak with Jack Handy lyrics is performed amid temple ruins and sun-washed Mediterranean villas, thus qualifying as "World Music?"
As it happens, PBS pledge-drive programming hereabouts has come to be dominated by self-affirming self-help personalities, greatest-hit shows for the long-in-the-tooth and, remarkably, Lawrence Welk. How many in the Sixties Generation would have been caught dead at the time listening to the favored polka-playing bandleader of Geritol-drinking Republican aunts nationwide? Now they're in their Sixties they do.
Maybe perceptions of the PBS viewing demographic bear changing. Or maybe a distinct segment of the Baby Boomers in the PBS clientele really does have a taste for vacuous John Tesh lyricism on inner children released to chase the spirit light.
![[SMMMHDH]](http://www.mgilleland.com/music/smmmhdh.png){kind=small}
