When David Brudnoy returned to the airwaves as the evening talk show host for WBZ radio in Boston, the show opened with the usual introduction; "The David Brudnoy show - on WBZ - Boston's most informed talk show." For years, a growing audience of people in the Eastern United States had tuned in to listen to this man who made sense. Fair-minded people sought his perspective because he seemed uniquely capable of untangling social challenge, offering solutions and exerting expectation. Nothing is accomplished, he would suggest, without personal responsibility, great effort, and commitment to consequence.

	It had been months since David had opened his own show. He had left the airwaves abruptly on October 24, 1994. In the ensuing months, he had endured a slow climb back to relative health. His sudden departure from the radio talk show confirmed suspicion for some listeners that he was quite ill - he had been sounding awful for some time. But the chilling revelation that he had nearly succumbed to AIDS-related illness was terrifically saddening and shocking to many thousands of his listeners. And they listened as he confirmed it on this first night back.
	For the first time in his airwaves career, David spoke frankly not only about living secretly, as he had, with AIDS, but about being homosexual as well. There was no way to address one without addressing the other. In form, he presented his show with uncompromising dignity. David spoke on the night of his return with a familiar clarity. How ironic that this clarity was in the effort to describe a muddy period during which his life was in a very delicate balance.
	By 8:00, listeners who might not have given rapt attention to the topic of HIV/AIDS at any other time, were leaning close to their radios.