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Beck expounds on spirituality, family values, and politics. He says he uses truth like a shield. "I truly believe if I play every single one of my cards face up on the table they can never be taken from me and played against me. I'm not hiding anything. I never feel I've exposed too much," Beck says. "I'm not smart enough to lie. I'd never be able to cover my tracks." Although he has mentioned his children from his prior marriage, 8-year-old Hannah and 11-year-old Mary who live with their mother in Connecticut, he says he tries to be discreet. Same with his new wife, Tania. "Listeners can be extremely brutal. I expect that, that's part of my job. It's not part of her job being married to me." As a kid living in Washington, Beck used to make audio tapes of himself pretending to be a disc jockey. When he was 13, his hobby helped him win the "Be on the Air for an Hour" contest at a local station. Soon after, he got his first real radio job, working six-hour shifts on the weekends. He'd pedal his bike to the station, or get a ride with his dad, who would wait in the parking lot until his son's shift was over. When he was 14, Beck's mother killed herself. His family never discussed it, and neither did Beck until, as an adult, he talked about it on the air. Today, he says her death made him grow up in a hurry. "I became an adult the day she died," Beck says. After graduation from high school, Beck opted for marriage at 18 and a radio career. He skipped college until age 30, when he spent a semester at Yale studying philosophy and theology. Although he was doing Top 40 morning shows in Baltimore, Houston, Phoenix, Washington, D.C., and New Haven, Conn., his favorite radio guys were intelligent talkers such as Garrison Keillor, Phil Hendrie and Don Imus. "I absolutely hated it. It was not me at all," Beck says about Top 40 morning radio. "I was going against almost everything I truly believed in. I couldn't come out and speak what I thought was true." Now, during his two-hour talk show on KLIF, Beck is able to debate the merits of Scientology, discuss politics with Chris Matthews, host of MSNBC's Hardball, and get callers to reveal their most intimate secrets in exchange for free concert tickets. "If you like me and if you like hanging out with me then you'll love the show," he says. "It is life through my eyes. It's life with Glenn." |
