Skip to main contentFive sisters, same parents, one really pointless radio show.
"How was your week?" the sisters ask each other every Saturday afternoon? "Who cares?" I grouse, as NPR switches from pleasant weekend company to the intellectual equivalent of fingers on a blackboard.
I can't stand Satellite Sisters. I don't want to hear about cancer survival, grief management or financial planning from any of their fascinating friends who do duty as guest stars. I am not interested in their insecurities, their weekly personal victories or their struggles with their kids. The only thing the Sisters could tell me that might even be remotely interesting is how their ridiculous show got on the air in the first place and why anyone listens to it.
The Sisters may be perfectly nice people, but they have allowed themselves, and their relationships, to become spooned pablum for listeners. That makes sense when you remember that dynamo sister and inspiration for the show is Liz Dolan, a former Nike exec. Indeed, in the same way Nike has branded tennis shoes, the sisters are branding female friendships.
Now, of course, they have a book, Satellite Sisters' UnCommon Senses, that outlines how to be a Satellite Sister just like them, even though you weren't born into their wacky-yet-loving family and don't have a fabulous, exciting career that takes you to New York and Bangkok. But, it's all in the book: a set of rules for sisterhood that one could exchange with the dictums from All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten without noticing much difference. Be nice. Listen. Laugh with your friends. Really.
One night sometime in the late '80s, a girlfriend and I killed off two bottles of Chianti, all the while talking about life and love as old friends do. As the evening progressed, we began to believe that we were having one hell of a conversation and that we, and possibly others, would benefit if it were saved for posterity. So we taped it. The next week I listened to that tape for about 3 minutes. It was all I could stand. There was nothing worth hearing on the tape and no reason there should have been. It was just a private conversation that was satisfying at the time but not important enough to have any life outside the moment.
Learn from that, Sisters.
--Patty Wentz
Thanks to those pesky Y-chromosomes, I can never be a Satellite Sister, but I can still eavesdrop--which I do regularly. I'm not such a fan that I will make a point of listening, but if I happen to have a paintbrush or sheetrock saw in my hand come Saturday morning, I won't go dial hopping after Click and Clack sign off at 11 am.
I agree with all the complaints Ms. Wentz has listed above, but, still, I listen to SS. In part, it's because one of the sisters and I go way back.
When I first came to town, Phil Knight was king and Liz Dolan (second oldest, for those keeping score at home) was the Nike kingdom's public voice. In the days before people realized that "sweatshop" comes just before "swoosh," Knight's biggest PR problem was a certain Baptist preacher man named Jesse. Mr. Jackson pointed out that the millions of dollars paid to Michael Jordan came from a lot of poor kids who were paying $100 for a pair of tennis shoes. He wanted to know how many black employees worked at Nike. Phil said it was none of his business, and Liz had no trouble telling me the same. Repeatedly. Now that voice, so brisk and curt over the phone 10 years ago, is so calm and soothing coming from my portable radio.
But mainly, I tune in because as the youngest (and only boy) in a family of seven, I often was shut out of what I knew must have been great conversations among my four older sisters. And while the Car Talk Tappet brothers' laughter and good-natured ribbing is far more genuine than the Dolan sisters' highly scripted week-in-review, the women do occasionally break through with real conversation. And, given what else is on the dial, that's enough to keep me listening.
--John Schrag
by Julie, Liz, Sheila, Monica and Lian Dolan (Riverhead Books, 384 pages, $24.95)
airs 11 am Saturdays on KOPB-91.5 FM.
Three of the Dolans (Liz, Lian and Monica) will read Thursday, Nov. 8, at 7 pm at the First Unitarian Church, 1011 SW 12th Ave.
WWeek 2015