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Is this what the new economy looks like? Edward T. has held more jobs than Carter has pills, and he´s still scrambling to find the right niche.

Ed, sober since July 4, 1990, thinks he may have finally found it-on the cutting edge of the Internet. He and his partner have developed an elaborate podcast, partly for fun but mainly as a route to a big time career in broadcasting. The podcast is a free-ranging commentary on everything from women´s liberation to the makeup of the medial temporal lobes of the brain.

(Editor´s note: for readers under 50, the Carter´s reference is to a patent medicine that was used so widely it became embedded in the language.)

For most of his life, Ed has been aiming at a career in broadcasting. He studied broadcast journalism at the University of Colorado while supporting himself with a fulltime job as a medical equipment driver and drinking a fifth of vodka and a 12-pak of beer a day.

"I met my wife when I was drunk, proposed when I was hung over, and got married when I was drunk," Ed recalled. They lived in Denver, so he had a 40-mile roundtrip to the university at Boulder. That went on for two years. Toward the end of that time, he was blacking out regularly, but miraculously never had an accident or a DUI.Going to school at night and working fulltime during the day, he still managed a B average.

He was still married when he got out of school, but "there were lots of fights." The marriage was winding down when he got out of school in 1990 and they were divorced in 1994. He quit his job with the medical equipment company when he finished school and quit drinking that same year, in May, and got a part time job with the NBC station in Denver, Channel 4. Although his original goal was to be "the next Andy Rooney and comment on society," he worked for NBC as an engineer and cameraman.

"It was a great job-covering football, spot news, all kinds of live broadcasting. I was sober and playing around with A.A. all that time. Early on, I signed on for outpatient rehab. The aim was to get me serious about A.A. I went to meetings reluctantly, but A.A. wasn´t for me. Everyone was happy, talking about God-pollyanish. I thought they were out of their minds."

The NBC job lasted until 1996, until a massive shakeup in which CBS acquired Channel 4, NBC became Channel 9 and ABC became Channel 7. CBS promptly fired him, but rehired him as a part time contractor with no benefits, and at half his old salary. He quit and went to work for Blue Cross in membership services. "That was the best department to work in. We were helping people, not figuring out how to avoid paying claims."

That job lasted two years. From there, he became assistant manager of a movie theater that specialized in art films, a job which taught him a lot about movies, knowledge which has been carried forward to his current podcast. It wasn´t a good fit, though. "I was 38, sober, no drugs, working out at the gym. Everyone else was younger, including my boss, smoking pot on the job, dying their hair, the whole scene. I was too energetic, and became a threat to my boss. She fired me."

He caught on with another theater, a leading edge platform for the Denver Film Society and film festivals. "I managed a lot of those festivals," Ed said, "but it was the same story as before. I got canned."

From there, he got a job on the ticket counter and baggage ramp with Frontier Airlines. After two years, he was transferred to Seattle, and that´s how he came here. The job lasted another two years before he was cut loose because of a knee injury that prevented him from working on the baggage ramp. Compensation? "Yeah, they let me fly free for two years."

It´s 2006 now, and Ed is at leisure in a new city. A friend in A.A. came to his rescue at this point with a tip about a job at Microsoft, which lasted until the end of last year. Since then, it´s been thin going.

Another friend told him about a part time job as a traffic reporter for KIRO and KOMO, on different nights, so Ed became a live on-air radio reporter for the first time since his college days. It´s only one night a week, but it´s a foot in the door, and the view from the 73rd floor of the Columbia Tower is magnificent. That´s where the city´s traffic reporters are based.

"I jumped at this job," Ed said. "I don´t like the traffic in this town. It´s worse by far than Denver´s, which has almost exactly the same population. (Denver 598,707, Seattle 598,541.) No one has the backbone to do anything about it, although Mayor Nickels has a viable alternative in the tunnel through downtown. Denver has a fantastic transit system, had it for 15 years. Here, it´s in its infancy. It´s a step in the right direction, but there´s no parking for commuters. Denver has plenty of big parking lots.

"We´re not thinking straight, thinking of the future. This town wants to get rid of cars, and that won´t happen. There´s an unspoken understanding that cars are bad. That´s just B.S. There´s no incentive to ride the bus except poverty.

"So this is the perfect job for me. I get to help keep traffic moving as much as possible. I´d like to editorialize a little, but that´s a firing offense."

Working for two stations can be tricky. Ed said he´s come close a time or two to saying "KIRO" when he´s working for KOMO, but it hasn´t happened yet.

"I love my job, but the most important thing in the world for me is my podcast. It´s an on-line show that you can download on your computer and listen to any time of the day or night. There´s no set format-any topic we can think of, and anywhere from 45 minutes to two hours. But we´re trying to chop it to one hour."

Ed hopes to support it with advertising so that it can be a fulltime career. To listen and watch, Google "edwardt podcast."

Ed´s life began in Detroit and its suburbs, where he learned to drink at age 13. He never quit for the next nearly 20 years. His relationship with his father was rocky. "Mostly, he just yelled at me, and sometimes used a piece of wood that was known to us kids (he has three brothers) as The Board. There was an insignia on it which explained its purpose, which was to keep us kids in line. A few whacks on the ass-I can´t forget it. If I ever get the chance, I´ll burn that thing."

He moved out at 17 and attended Western State in Gunnison, Colorado, for a while, dropped out and returned to Detroit and then Denver, all the while drinking more and more.

Question: why did you quit drinking?

"I just had enough, like everybody else," Ed said. As noted above, he wasn´t an enthusiastic member of the fellowship for some years, but over time became a dedicated member. His home group is Queen Anne Study, but he attends six meetings a week, sometimes two a day. He´s also a member of Debtors Anonymous. Working one day a week has put a strain on his budget.

Ed has done his share of service work too. Treasurer and secretary of his home group, GSR and phone duty at the Intergroup office.

"A.A. means everything to me. I´d be lost without it. I´d have no friends, no podcast, nothing. A.A. saved my life. It´s the only place I know where everyone wants you to win. There´s no place like it. Family, churches, school, the world of business-they all let me down. But not here. I´m home."

Interviewed and written by Dick S.