How Kane keeps in political shape

Given his

basso profundo

pipes, his inability to tell a joke and his predilection for hyperbole, Larry Kane was born to be an anchorman.

Holy hair gel, even Will Ferrell asked him for tips before filming Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy.

This election season, however, Citizen Kane is no Ronabie. At 66 and out of the anchor game since 2002, he's deconstructing politics as if he were still, well, Larry Kane.

He analyzes it several times a day on KYW Newsradio, where he's a special contributor and elder statesman among the 64-person staff.

He discusses it weekly on his Voice of Reason on CN8, which reaches nine million homes in 13 states. He blogs it whenever the mood strikes on larrykane.com.

And today, he'll be breathing it on KYW-AM (1060) from late afternoon until the fat poll lady sings.

To Kane, a star here for 40 years, politics is "the blood sport of Philadelphia. This year is the apex. There's nothing like it. There are so many angles. I love that politics affects everything we do. The whole world is run by politics."

Kane covered both national conventions for KYW and CN8, interviewing such heavyweights as Tom Ridge, Sen. Robert Casey and Gov. Corzine. With no field producer, Kane had to wrangle them himself.

"He's as energetic as anybody on my staff," says Steve Butler, 52, programming director at Newsradio. "In a lot of ways, I think of Larry as a big kid. He gets enthusiastic in an almost boyish way."

The big kid keeps in shape, swimming a mile most days and lifting weights. Red meat has not passed his lips in 30 years. "I feel more fit now than I was at 20," he says.

Flexing nonpolitical muscles, Kane is writing a murder mystery set in a Philadelphia TV station. And there's a new Beatles project, of course: Lennon Revealed, an audiobook he narrates himself.

But it's politics that gets Kane pumped. His Rolodex includes 975 names, by his count. "I can reach anybody at any time," he says with his usual understatement.

Butler has his own theory about what makes Larry run. "Like most people on the air, Larry likes the soapbox. It's hard for him to give that up. He loves the news so much, he finds a way to remain relevant."

For four decades, Miami-born Kane found a way to remain relevant at all three major stations in Philadelphia, a rare local trifecta that requires sharp political instincts and survival skills.

During his tenure at WPVI's Action News (1966-77), WCAU's Channel 10 News (1978-93) and KYW's Eyewitness News (1993-02), he outlasted 19 news directors and 16 general managers.

That doesn't include his controversial 18-month hiccup at New York's WABC in the late 1970s, commuting daily from his Rydal home.

"The whole thing was a mistake," Kane says now. "If I had to do it over again, I would have stayed at Channel 6 forever."

Forever is not an overstatement for Kane, who describes himself - quite seriously - as "the hardest-working newsman in America." He has an absolute opinion about absolutely everything.

Paul McCartney, for example, "is the best stage entertainer in the history of entertainment," he recently told an audience of Beatles fans at the University of the Arts.

Minutes later, he described Cirque de Soleil's Beatles-themed Love in Las Vegas as "the greatest 90 minutes of entertainment in the history of live entertainment."

To some, such certainty comes from personal hubris. To Kane's friends, it is an endearing, almost comical, trait. Kane is rarely funny on purpose. Moreover, he's always the last one to get the joke.

"I can remember sitting across from Larry in the newsroom the night he had the best omelet ever made," recalls Temple professor Paul Gluck, 55, former news boss at KYW and WCAU.

"He knows when he does it. 'This is the most spectacular single M & M I've ever had in my life.' For a guy with Larry's austere demeanor, that's his way of celebrating life."

Retired WCAU veteran Orien Reid, 63, says her friend of 30 years "is always over-the-top when he's excited. That's just his personality."

Beneath the bravado, Kane is not blind to his shortcomings.

In a rare moment of introspection, he acknowledges that he's "a little crazy. Anybody who loves to be right can overcompensate by being excessive. Sometimes, I lose perspective on reality."

Kane's level of intensity "is too much for some people," Reid says, "but Larry is the most loyal friend I know."

Kane says he has been gullible his entire life. This, along with his Anchor Voice, makes him an absurdly easy target.

Nowhere was this more glaring than with the Beatles, a cottage industry for Kane since he accompanied the Fab Four on their first U.S. tours, in '64 and '65.

As evidenced in Kane's extensive video and audio interviews from the time, the lads treated the uber-earnest young radio reporter like an annoying kid brother.

"I was a serious news guy, and they were rock stars," Kane says. "They had fun with me, imitating my voice and mimicking me. That's the reason it worked out so well."

Kane was so clueless that when the Beatles introduced him to marijuana in 1965, he thought he was smoking some weird-smelling cigarette. Really.

"I didn't like the taste of it, and I never smoked it again," he insists. "All kinds of things looked funny."

Kane's connection with the Beatles began "purely by accident." His boss at Miami's WFUN asked him to get an interview with the boys when they hit Jacksonville.

Kane wrote to their manager, Brian Epstein, in London, enclosing perfumed mash notes sent by Beatles fans to the Top 40 station.

He also included his business card listing all seven stations owned by Rounsaville Radio. Epstein, not knowing that six of the seven were small gospel outlets, assumed Kane was a major player.

Next thing Kane knew, Epstein invited him on the 31-day, 24-city tour. Kane didn't want to go. "I thought it wouldn't be a big story. To me, news was politics and the exodus from Castro's Cuba."

Not his best call. When Kane returned to Miami, he drew large crowds at station promotions billed as a chance "to meet the man who met the Beatles."

The man who met the Beatles is a bona-fide senior citizen now, collecting Social Security and riding SEPTA for a buck. He's working as hard as ever, he says, but on his own schedule and mostly from home. And he plays more golf.

"I worried about him when he left CBS3," says Gluck. "Being in TV news is so addictive, I thought there might be an emptiness. He's found the perfect balance, the perfect life."

For Larry Kane, the Magical Mystery Tour continues.