Moe, John 1968(?)-

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Moe, John 1968(?)-

PERSONAL:

Born c. 1968; married, with children. Education: Whitman College, B.A., 1990.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Seattle, WA.

CAREER:

Humorist, critic, actor, and broadcaster. Commentator for public radio programs, including All Things Considered and Weekend America. KUOW, Seattle, WA, host of radio programs, including The Works and Power of Voice.

WRITINGS:

Conservatize Me: How I Tried to Become a Righty with the Help of Richard Nixon, Sean Hannity, Toby Keith, & Beef Jerky, William Morrow (New York, NY), 2006.

Contributor to anthologies, including Created in Darkness by Troubled Americans, Mountain Man Dance Moves, and More Mirth of a Nation. Author of column "John Moe's Pop-Song Correspondences," McSweeneys.net.

ADAPTATIONS:

Conservatize Me: How I Tried to Become a Righty with the Help of Richard Nixon, Sean Hannity, Toby Keith, & Beef Jerky was adapted to audio cassette, Harper Audio, 2006.

SIDELIGHTS:

Humorist and radio personality John Moe is an author and commentator whose interests range throughout business, popular culture, and politics. The host of a regular program on KUOW radio in Seattle, Washington, Moe reports on local Washington state business and technological issues. Explaining his impetus for creating the show, Moe commented to a Seattlest interviewer that "after a while I realized that business stories are just people stories. People who get an idea to open an ice cream shop or make hats or try to make a rocket to space or whatever. It's just people's lives plus an investment of capital."

Moe applies this appreciation of the human side of business to his first book, Conservatize Me: How I Tried to Become a Righty with the Help of Richard Nixon, Sean Hannity, Toby Keith, & Beef Jerky. As a political liberal, Moe has wondered about the motivations of conservatives and what drives them toward their behavior and opinions. In Conservatize Me, Moe undertakes a thirty-day immersion in conservative Republican culture, politics, icons, and entertainment to see whether he will adopt their views. He interviewed a number of conservative personalities and opinion-makers, including National Review editor Rich Lowry, controversial White House reporter Jeff Gannon, and numerous others. He listened to music that resonates with right-wing listeners, fires guns at a shooting range, attends a Toby Keith concert, visits the Ronald Reagan museum, watches movies that portray conservative values and ideals, and in general delves deeply into the attitudes of conservatives.

Moe's "commentary is good-natured and amusing" throughout, and in the end the "book does not produce insights so much as pop-culture commentary on its march to the conclusion that conservatives are people, too," observed a Kirkus Reviews contributor. In an interview in the Seattle Times, Moe stated: "It's not intended to change anyone's mind. It's intended to stretch everybody's mind." Moe concluded: "I think we can all hate each other less if we listen to each other more."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Kirkus Reviews, September 1, 2006, review of Conservatize Me: How I Tried to Become a Righty with the Help of Richard Nixon, Sean Hannity, Toby Keith, & Beef Jerky, p. 889.

Seattle Times, October 4, 2006, Mark Rahner, "My Fellow Americans: A Liberal Learns It's Not So Wrong to Be Right," interview with John Moe.