Less than a month, from bad to worse.

My last post described my fear that the current economic situation will become the new American paradigm...one where the generally accepted rules simply don't apply. Looks like I'm right. Witness the following recent Holy Shit! moments:
1. Today, OPEC made the biggest production cut ever...2.2 million barrels a day. What happens to oil prices? They hit a 5 1/2 year low despite the dollar plunging vs. the Euro. Remember, oil is priced in dollars and a weaker greenback means you need more of them to buy it.
2. For the second day in a row, the price of platinum is below the price of gold. Six months ago platinum was approaching two grand an ounce, with gold about half that. Today it's three dollars cheaper than gold.
3. Chrysler is stopping production of all vehicles for at least the next 30 days. Every model. Every factory.
4. The Fed Funds rate is now .25%. It's never been this low. Conventional economics says this is inflationary. But "core " prices, which exclude volatile food and oil, have been flat two months in a row. I remind you, dear reader, that the Japanese government lowered their equivalent of the Fed funds rate to zero...while stuck in an economic meltdown lasting more than 10 years. Didn't help.
5. There are almost 180 banks on the FDIC's list of troubled banks. There were about 20 last year.
These things, according to every economic rule in the book, can't happen. But yet they have. I always said those bean-counting MBA's were full of lukewarm shit. I called this better than they did.

It's a vicious circle. No or shaky job means no buying. Those that want to buy can't get a loan. No buying means no production. This leads to layoffs. Lather, rinse, repeat. All the TARP programs in the world won't help if Economics 101 doesn't work. I'll make another prediction here: We as a country will never be the same. Even when/if things pick up we'll never see things as good as they were.

Maybe the "good old days" really were.

How could it get worse? According to US Government reports issued today, new unemployment claims reached a 16 year high. Claims lasting more than one week are at a 25 year high. New home construction hasn't been this slow since 1959. That's no typo. 1959. The Dow is under 8000. GMAC won't lend you money without a 700 credit score. The Detroit Three CEOs flew into DC yesterday (in private jets, mind you) to beg Congress for $25 billion as bankruptcy rumors circle like vultures around GM and Chrysler. Loan delinquency rates are at an all-time high. OK, I think you get the picture. The only bright side is oil is at a 4 year low-it closed at $49.62. Some bright side. Our Fed funds rate is 1% and credit is flowing slower than cold creamed gravy. I'm afraid this is the big one, as Fred Sanford used to say.
Truthfully, I never worried much about recessions. Things slowed for a year or two and then got better. I'm afraid that won't happen this time. How do you recover from losing your home? What about the 45 year old autoworker whose industry has been so downsized he has no hope of ever working there again? How does his family recover? Go back to school, right? Right. Where will he get the tuition? He can't pay it back even if he could find a willing lender. Even if he does, where will he work? What industries are going to absorb the torrent of the newly jobless? Even McDonalds doesn't need that many people. Have we peaked as a country?

RIP Circuit Shitty

If you haven't heard, Circuit City filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy today. One of two things will probably happen: they'll survive for a while as a vastly downsized company then fail or they'll get bought out by some private equity firm that'll screw it up so bad they'll have to bring in the liquidators. Why, you ask?
It's funny that you and I know why, but the so-called experts have run the company straight in to the ground. Service, plain and simple. To wit:
1. Last years stunning mass firing of thousands of (mostly) fairly knowledgable non-commissioned salespeople, replacing them with 8$ an hour cashiers who don't know XM from HD, 7.1 surround from star 69, or megabytes from microwaves. If I wanted that level of "service" I can go to Walmart. Customers? Fuck 'em.
2. High pressure pitches to buy overpriced "protection plans" that were an exercise in futility in that nothing was covered, complete with....
3. Indian call centers. Nothing says contempt for the customer like a script-reading automaton you can't understand.
4. Service departments that don't service. Even if it was covered they couldn't fix it. I had a Tivo that had to go back three times before they gave up trying and replaced it. They spent more than the Tivo's cost on shipping alone.

CC claims the credit crunch, liquidity issues, and competition have forced them into Chapter 11. Bull. Best Buy is doing fine, thank you very much.
Why? The salestaff (usually) has a clue. Their management thought "Gee, customers LIKE to talk to someone who can actually find their ass with both hands and knows a pixel from a pixie stick." Voila! Profits.
Few people can walk into a big box store, face a wall of dozens of (item name here) and make an informed purchase decision. Buying a $2500 Flat screen TV isn't anywhere near the same as buying batteries. Radio Shack has forgotten that, and so has CC. I'm not betting on either of them remembering anytime soon.

One strike and you're out. Works for me.

Not sure what else I can say about this other than it's a great idea. Really. There are far too many professional baby machines that litter the landscape with their crotch-droppings only for the additional welfare benefits and then the kids end up frequently horribly abused by them, their gone-with-the-wind dads and/or other morons, crackheads, perverts, and others. Then they and their ultra bleeding-heart legal aiders plug up the court system trying to get the kids back just to start the cycle all over again. Think of the savings in welfare costs alone! The fact that I as a Libertarian agree with a Socialist, however, is giving me a migraine.
PS-don't bother with the "draft bill" link-it's in Dutch.


Women in the Netherlands deemed "unfit mothers" may soon be forced to take contraception, if a draft bill currently before the Dutch parliament is passed. The bill "targets women who have been the subject of judicial intervention due to their bad parenting," says its author, a member of the Netherlands' socialist Labour Party.

Under the proposed legislation, a woman judged unfit who refuses to take contraception and becomes pregnant would have her child taken away at birth. The infant then would be placed in a foster home.

If children really are the future we're screwed

I weep for the future. I was surfing the Net recently and spent some time on Yahoo! Answers. Just when you think you've seen everything...The italics are mine...the rest I just pasted in red.

I have blue hair. Will this negatively affect my hireability? What stores, if any, would be least likely to care? (I'm willing to dye my hair back to brown, but I'd rather not IF I can get hired with my hair dyed...)
Sweet frakking Universe. The tides of stupidity are rising fast.

Only in Florida, part 2

BRADENTON, Fla. – Authorities said a man tried to steal several bags of frozen shrimp from a supermarket by hiding them down his pants. The Manatee County Sheriff's Office reported that an off-duty detective was shopping at a Sweetbay supermarket Sunday when he noticed what appeared to be a man with groceries stuffed in his pants.
The detective approached the 32-year-old man and ordered him to stop. Authorities said the man then removed several bags of shrimp from his pants and promised to put them back.
When the man fled for the store's exit, the detective tackled and restrained him until patrol deputies arrived.
The man was charged with shoplifting, battery on an officer and resisting arrest. He was being held on $2,600 bail.

Home of the hanging chad and dinner at 4:30pm

Only in Florida could people screw up a paper ballot. I guess the old folks aren't strong enough to punch a piece of paper. Yet they drive....
The hilarious website http://www.fark.com/ brings together real news stories about "morons, psychopaths, and mental defectives" (of all ages) from all over the world. They're tagged with different descriptive terms such as Ironic, Sad, Strange, etc. But only one state has enough of these knuckle-dragging mouth breathers to warrant it's own tag. That's right kids...Florida. When you see the Florida tag...look out. Much like when you see a Crown Vic with Florida plates. They're usually doing about 35 MPH in the left lane with the turn signal on. Anyway, here's a perfect example. I saw this story's headline and said "I bet this is in Florida". I was right, and here it is, presented with a silent prayer that this dingleberry doesn't vote. She'd probably screw it up anyway.

FORT PIERCE, Fla. – A woman decided to go to jail rather than pay her bill at a Fort Pierce Waffle House restaurant. The total she went to jail over: $7.45. According to a police report, Maryanne O'Neill, 66, ordered coffee and a sandwich at a Waffle House restaurant on Saturday but refused to pay the bill.
The report said an officer asked her to pay or go to jail and she refused.
A jail official said she was released Monday from the St. Lucie County Jail. She was charged with obtaining food or lodging with intent to defraud, a second degree misdemeanor. If convicted of a second degree misdemeanor she could face up to 60 days in jail and a fine of $500.

God beats the rap on a technicality

In every group of people there are a few who that...well...make the rest of us wish for legalized euthanasia. In a group to which I belong (Libertarian athiests) there are more than a few. Allow me to aquaint you with one.
Nebraska state senator Ernie Chambers has been in office 38 years and according to reports been actively anti-religion all of that time. He obviously has nothing better to do so he decided to sue God. No typo. This mental midget sued God. Mr. Chambers wanted a permanent injunction against the Big Guy because "God has made terroristic threats against the senator and his constituents in Omaha, inspired fear and caused "widespread death, destruction and terrorization of millions upon millions of the Earth's inhabitants." Suing God for "terroristic threats"? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot??? Methinks his tinfoil hat is too tight.
However, the county court judge threw out the suit saying under NE law you must have "access" to a defendant. In other words how do you serve them with notice of the suit if you don't have their home address? By all accounts, God's address is unlisted. Mr. Chambers, in a hilarious answer said "The court itself acknowledges the existence of God. A consequence of that acknowledgment is a recognition of God's omniscience. Therefore, since God knows everything, God has notice of this lawsuit."
A- for effort, but F- for doing nothing more than pissing off Christians (who seem to be perpetually pissed off about something) and making the rest of us look like fatigue-wearing survivalists waiting for a racial holy war.
Thanks for setting our efforts back 20 years, dipshit.

Nuff said.

Time's up for the debt clock.

Back in the good old days of 1989, a visionary developer named Seymour Durst wanted to call attention to our mounting national debt, which at the time was about 2.7 TRILLION dollars.
He designed a "national debt clock" which advanced as our national debt did. Now it's obsolete. Remember when gas pumps had to be replaced because they weren't designed to handle prices over a buck a gallon? Yup.
The national debt clock has run out of digits. I doubt the erstwhile Mr. Durst (or anyone else) imagined a 10+ trillion dollar debt, but we have one now. The current maintainers of the clock say they'll add more digits next year. I was always told as a kid the Democrats were the tax-and-spenders, but since Reagan the Republicans have become tax cutters-and-spenders. Vote Libertarian.

New nickname...Ailin' Palin

She's done it again, kids. Recently Katie Couric asked what newspapers she (Palin) read, she replied "all of 'em".
Palin has outdone herself in the stupidity sweepstakes. An AP story (which you can read here) http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081004/ap_on_el_pr/palin_obama;_ylt=Akgh776ZO24UhFQXMnXhbY5H2ocA
has her claiming Obama is "palling around with terrorists" because a former Weather Underground member lived in the same neighborhood. The mind reels at the naked stupidity of this woman. Can McCain take a mulligan and pick another VP? Vote Libertarian.

Part 4...the storm clouds gather.

Nothing prepares you for the moment of love at first sight, especially when you don’t think it exists. I barely heard a word she said as I was too busy trying to process a torrent of raw emotion. I had no clue what the hell was going on...only there was no one else in the world except her at that moment. I mumbled through some pleasantries and went back to my seat. Jesus, I thought, I need a drink. Badly.
I asked the club owner and bartender if anyone had seen her before. Nope. Great, no one who could introduce me. I’ll give you an idea of how affected I was...I asked her to dance. Now anyone who’s known me for more than 5 minutes knows there are a few things I just don’t do...and dancing is at the top of the list. It was the only way I knew to start a conversation with her. So we danced, and just before the end of the song I slipped her a note with my name and number. She took it without looking at it, but did ask me to sit down. I remember asking about the guy she came in with, but she said he was just a friend. (He was...one I never managed to get along with, but anyhow). We talked very briefly about nothing much as I had to go backstage and introduce the next act, but she mentioned she listened to my show in the afternoons. I told her I was glad I met her, went backstage, and had another drink. As I walked onstage I had the weirdest feeling...a hunch that I’d be here again...with her. Turns out I was right, but that comes later.
The next couple of days were hell. The only thing I wanted was for her to call me. Every time the phone rang I said a silent prayer it was her (and praying is another one of the things I don’t do). On top of all that I had to deal with these new feelings. I’d met people before, obviously. Why was this one so different? What the hell was going on? Was I going nuts?
Finally, it happened. I was in the middle of my airshift when she called on the request line.
Never had I been so happy to hear a voice. We talked for awhile and I threw caution to the wind and asked her out. We went to my favorite Chinese restaurant that night and from there hardly left each others sight. In fact, we moved in together 3 weeks later.
I had it ALL. Programming a radio station and the most beautiful girl in the world. I brought her home for Thanksgiving and was really surprised that no one seemed to feel the same way toward her as I did. My friends shared my family’s opinion. They were happy for me but didn’t care for her much. I blithely ignored these alarm bells and settled into one of the happiest periods in my life.
Her family, on the other hand, was a swirling morass of dysfunction. Mom was a narcissistic manipulator and Dad was rooted in a deep angry depression that made him a mean, bitter and sarcastic asshole after a fatal car accident in which he was driving killed his wife. Her brother was just a spoiled over-entitled idiot struggling with his then-latent homosexuality.
So what did I do? Yup, I allowed Dad and Brother to move in with us. Smart, huh? Even so, I was happy.
A couple paragraphs ago I wrote of the hunch I had that I’d be on that nightclub stage again, and she’d be with me. I was right. As we headed in to the 1990 holiday season I wanted to throw our station a first birthday party. It was quite a bash, with a couple live bands, catered food, cheap drinks and about 500 people. We carried the party live on air. A couple minutes before midnight I was onstage to lead the crowd in a New Years toast.
I often spoke on air about things in my life, including her. In fact I referred to her as "the cherry on my sundae". Most, if not all listeners had heard me mention this as I did it often.
So I grab the mic and ask if they’d like to meet the cherry on my sundae. The crowd, well lubricated by this time, roared yes. I asked her to come up with me and introduced her to a packed nightclub. As we stood onstage I told the crowd I had to do one more thing. I pulled a ring from my pocket and live on the air asked her to marry me. The applause was deafening but I didn’t hear it. She said yes. That started a roller coaster ride that was to end in disaster about 6 months later.

Cut the cheese, go to jail.

Recently I posted about police officers who have little if any respect for the people they supposedly protect. If I do 75mph on a highway I'm treated like I mugged the President, ticketed, and then made to sit through a preachy doublethinkful (read Orwell's 1984) roadside soliloquy about safe driving. Police, however can travel at any speed they like even when off duty or on routine patrol. Who's going to ticket them?
Contempt toward others and the feeling of superiority that comes with a badge is a toxic combination.
Allow me to tell you about 34 year old Jose Cruz. He was stopped for drunk driving and taken to the Kanawha County VA station to be processed. So far so good.
Mr. Cruz then farts and fans it toward officer T.E. Parsons as they sit in an interrogation room. Officer Parsons then decides he's a far more valuable member of society than everyone else and tacks onto Mr. Cruz another charge. What could it be, you ask?
Battery on a police officer. No, I'm not kidding. I wish I was. The mind boggles as to how self-important one armed idiot can be. Thankfully cooler heads prevailed as the Kanawha county prosecutor dropped the charge. I'll bet my next paycheck Officer Parsons faces no discipline for this incident. Mr. Cruz still faces DUI charges. I hope they convict the SOB...and he doesn't fart in court.

Some companies just don't get it.

A Reuters story today says Ebay may cut up to 1500 jobs. A whopping 10% of their employees. Why? A report by investment firm Wedge Partners says the business is "deteriorating". No shit. Anyone who's had trouble with the brain-dead morons at Paypal, had an auction pulled for no apparent reason with no recourse, tried in vain to get Ebay to answer a simple emailed question, had to deal with their "dispute resolution" (which is code for "give the buyer whatever he wants even if he lies like a rug and you the seller are screwed), or balked at ever-increasing fees knows what the problems are.
I just described them. They're slowly kiling the golden goose, and no one at Ebay has enough common sense to see it.

The Russians aren't alone in their delusions.

This comes from Al-Jazeera's English website. Any italics are mine.


'Many still have doubts' over 9/11
By Alex Sehmer

Many find it hard to accept the official version of what happened on 9/11
More than 50 per cent of people reject the official belief that the attacks on the World Trade Centre on September 11, 2001, were carried out by al-Qaeda, a new survey has revealed.
The findings, released late on Wednesday, suggest that the official version of events - that the attacks, which killed more than 2,900 people and sparked the US so-called "war on terror", were carried out by al-Qaeda - is still a long way from being generally accepted.
Only 46 per cent of respondents named al-Qaeda, while 25 per cent said they did not know and 15 per cent said the US government was behind the attacks.
Steven Kull, the director of WorldPublicOpinion.org, which carried out the survey, told Al Jazeera: "Broadly what this says is that there is a lack of confidence with the United States and so people mistrust the narrative the US puts forward."Officially, hijackers took control of four passenger aircraft in the September 11 attacks. Two of the aeroplanes crashed into the World Trade Centre in New York and the "Twin Towers" subsequently collapsed, bringing down two other buildings nearby. The third aircraft hit the Pentagon while the fourth is said to have crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. Kull's organisation asked more than 16,000 people world wide "Who do you think was behind the 9/11 attacks?", leaving the question open-ended.
While a substantial number of those polled believed the US government was in some way behind the attacks, seven per cent point the finger at Israel.
The 2001 attacks prompted the so-called US 'war on terror'. Of the countries surveyed, Egypt and Jordan had the highest percentages of people who believed Israel was behind the attack, polling 43 and 31 per cent respectively. Nineteen per cent of those polled in the Palestinian territories claimed Israel was in some way responsible.

Building a new Iron Curtain

Unlike a great many Americans, I spend quite a bit of time on foreign news English language sites, especially Russia, North Korea, and Cuba as it's always fascinating (to me) how they bend the facts like so many coat hangers. (NO MORE WIRE HANGERS...EVER! Sorry, had a Joan Crawford moment.)
So today on the website Russia Today http://www.russiatoday.com/en
there was the daily poll. It was a good one. It asked "Do you believe the report of the official commission on 9/11?" I literally choked on the answer. I figured the number of "No" answers would be high...but would you believe 86%?
Now, I understand this site is used generally by non-Russians as it's in English. It's a safe bet most of these answers came from Canada, the US and English-speaking Europe. Who else, right?
I guess we Americans haven't cornered the market on paranoid delusions. Gee, I'll sleep better tonight.

Another September 11th

For the moment, let's ignore the fact that many Americans (probably a majority) believe we're no safer than we were on that excruciatingly painful day 7 years ago despite the evisceration of the Constitution and the spending of hundreds of billions of dollars by a president bent on Orwellian domination of the country and a Congress too busy trying not to look "soft on terrorism" to stop him. Whew...quite a long sentence, hmm?
Almost all of us recall in great detail what we were doing on September 11th, 2001. I was on my way to work when I heard a bulletin on the radio a plane had hit the WTC. I thought it was someone in a Cessna who got lost or had mechanical problems. I popped in a CD and forgot about it....until
I walked into chaos. There are few places as busy as a radio station when "the big one" hits the fan. It took me a minute or two to get up to speed, then we broke format and started covering the story best we could.
I'll always feel guilty about this. I shouldn't admit it, but I really enjoyed the first couple of hours...I was thinking that this is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to shine and maybe we could win some awards. About 1130 or so, it just hit me. Don't know how, but all of a sudden the whole weight of what were doing hit me at 100mph. At that point I became just one of the hundreds of millions of people watching TV and wondering not only what happened, how it could have happened, and of course, what now?
I was born after JFK was shot. I can only understand the event through the lens of history. People still remember that event in razor-sharp detail 45 years later but find it hard to explain to "the rest of us" the emotional toll of that day.
I have no doubt we will have the same problem explaining 9/11 to the next generation. Never before have we seen the entire country literally grind to a screeching halt. No planes, no sports, no comedians...nothing. Most of us didn't want those things anyway. All we wanted were answers..and Bin Laden's head. The answers we got, (even if the tin foil hat bunch disbelieve) with the added bonus of an Iraq war to ratchet up the death toll and balloon our national debt. Bin Laden's head? Even if we got it, was it worth thousands of dead and a staggering amount of money? That's for you to decide, but before you do ask yourself this...would Bin Laden's death make us safer or just fuel a sense of patriotic vengeance?

Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of...broadband?

I see the brain trust that calls themselves the FCC is at it again, and they've got other lawmakers drinking the Kool-Aid.
The FCC will soon auction off a bunch of radio spectrum that is particularly suited for things like wireless broadband (think Wi-Fi on a much bigger scale). One of the conditions Chairman Kevin Martin (who is slightly to the left of Jerry "Moonbeam" Brown) wants to attach is requiring the winner to offer free wireless broadband to 95% of the country. Yes, really. In the 90's many companies came and went trying to offer products and services in an ad-supported model. None survived. Obviously history isn't a strong point for Mr. Martin.
Then Anna Eshoo, D-where-else-but California weighs in and says broadband is "a national asset". Huh? Look, I love broadband...the faster the better. That said, when did Americans become entitled to it? Bad enough taxpayers are subsidizing analog converter boxes for a small sliver of people too cheap to get cable or buy a new TV.
Ms. Eshoo and Mr. Martin: please remember one thing. The world was around for millions of years before the Internet. Broadband is much like good pizza..a very nice thing but not a requirement for human life.
You could argue food, shelter, even medical care. Internet access? Not even in the same ballpark. Stop trying to establish a legacy and do your damn job.

Smilin' Bob ain't smiling anymore.

Who says there's no good news? Today a Federal court convicted Steve Warshak of 93 (!!) criminal counts, sentenced him  to 25 years in jail and a fined him 93 grand. His company is looking at another 500 million in fines. Who the hell, you ask, is Steve Warshak? He founded Berkeley Premium Nutraceuticals, the makers of Enzyte.  For the few who don't know it's an herbal weiner-builder heavily advertised on TV.

It seems there were a LOT of stupid people who actually believed Smilin' Bob's pitch. When the stuff didn't work as advertised (surprise!) the company required (how funny is this?) a notarized doctors letter basically saying that your stuff is below-average before they'd offer a refund.

So to get the refund you must:

1. Be so dumb as to actually think this shit could work.

2. Call an 800 number and give your name/address/credit card info. See number one.

3. Take the stuff. See number one.

4. Go to your doctor, admit you're a grade-A moron and ask for him to write a letter telling the world you don't measure up. See number one.

5. Send this letter to the same people who swindled you in the first place and hope they actually send your money. See number one.

According to the AP story (read it HERE) http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iRwWKqK8FgMRhFIP8bgARsaYx54wD92QONF00

the company will be allowed to stay in business.  Reminds me of the now-defunct Psychic Friends Network and Miss Cleo when they got their turn in front of the judge.

Too bad Enzyte doesn't work...he could really use it at his new home for the next 25 years.

In the words of Nelson Muntz "ha ha".

Above the law

I'm the first to admit I have a lead foot, and the speeding tickets to prove it. Today, however, reinforced my theory that people who enforce the law don't feel they have to obey it.
I live in Central NH, and the stretch of I93 from Tilton to Concord is one of the most-patrolled roads I've ever seen. I'm driving to Concord today and saw 3 (yes, 3!) police cruisers speed past me all at seperate times. Really flying too. I was doing about 70 and 2 of them passed me like I was standing still. Two were unmarked and one was a Belknap County (Laconia area) sheriff. Now if they're on a call that's one thing...but when people see cruisers without the blue lights on ignoring the law it just makes their admittedly difficult job harder. Police already have a major lack of respect problem in our society..and it appears the feeling is mutual.
Maybe our limited police resources should focus on drunk driving and crime prevention instead of being used as both an ATM and guarantee of employment by the state employees tying up our court system with speeding tickets and ruining the life of some poor bastard over a quarter ounce of pot.
Speed doesn't kill...bad driving kills. Alcohol's cost to society is already staggering but filling our jails and clogging our courts with harmless recreational drug users just increases the cost and solves nothing.

Part 3...before the storm.

January 1990 couldn’t have been better except for the Allison thing. Turned out she decided that my friend Tom was more her style. Problem was, no one told ME until long after they hooked up. The beginning of February brought more bad news.
My phone rang about 7am. After thinking the usual "who the hell is calling me at this hour?", I found it was a Bellows Falls police officer! There's a special kind of awake that you only feel when you hear things on the other end of a phone like "I'm from the IRS" and "Officer Whoever from the Anytown Police". The kind that turns whatever you ate last night to liquid and then threatens to find the quickest escape route south of the border. I'm now that kind of awake. He told me the station had never signed on this morning (how he had my unlisted phone I’ll never know) and the reason was Mike was in an accident. Seems his car wouldn’t start so he was walking to work, and while walking he was hit by a snowplow and killed. To make things worse, his wife Marge was 7 months pregnant with their first child. We organized an on-air benefit that weekend and raised about 7000 dollars for the baby girl named Michaela who was born in early April 1990. (As I update this in late 2008, Michaela is in TN, graduated high school with honors and will be starting college.)
Mike’s death forced me to find another morning guy. After sorting through 14 million more demo tapes I hired John from the small town of Red Wing, MN. I don’t know how it happened, but I hired two of the nuttiest people I’ve ever run across in an industry known for strange people. John was not only extremely private, it turned out he was a serious drinker. I don’t know if he was gay or not, but I watched multiple attractive young women practically throw themselves at him and get nowhere. I think the worst part was when I was doing a live broadcast at a local supermarket and he showed up...more than a bit drunk and very obnoxious. Why I didn’t fire him I can’t remember, especially after he got Kayla so upset one morning she quit on the spot. Probably because I just can't get used to being happy and peppy at 5AM.
Neither he nor Neil had a drivers license. Every so often you find someone without one, but what are the odds of finding 2 people in the same small business without them? John’s may have had his revoked due to alcohol but all I knew from Neil is he had no wish to drive. Both had really weird quirks. John would arrive early every morning and clean the studio. I mean CLEAN. Vacuum, counters, everything. Neil had his routine of eating the exact same thing for breakfast at the same time every day, he even scheduled his....restroom visits at the same time each day.
Neil lived above me in the same apartment building so we’d hang out occasionally, but his thing for routine and wrestling was...disconcerting.
Despit eall the drama, there was something incredible about the way I felt then. Every time I’d flip the radio on I’d think "this is mine". I was responsible for everything that came out of the speakers. It felt great, but the bad part was I had never lived alone and it was taking some getting used to. It wasn’t long before that changed in a hurry. Thats what I mean by "the best of times, the worst of times".
I had a very good relationship with a local nightclub and frequently had special concerts or other events there, and of course we gave away tickets on air. At one show a young woman came up to me and thanked me for the tickets she had won. Love at first sight exists, my friends...make no mistake about it.

How I got into radio, Part 2

So where were we? Oh yes...Bellows Falls VT. I referred in the first part to it being the best of times and the worst of times. It was.
I started the job December 15th 1989. Why do I remember it so well? Not only did I have to build a radio station from scratch to launch in 2 weeks (and we made it with just a couple of hours to go) I had to solve the staff problem. They had to go.
So I get there, fresh from my 2 ½ hour drive to meet the staff , whom I then had to fire. It’s all too common in radio for this type of housecleaning and it’s almost never personal, but that didn’t make it easier...especially since the only 2 people who knew about the format change was the owner and myself.
I did keep one jock...his name was Mike. He had a fascinating life, including a period of time as a carny. But he knew quite a bit about rock and roll and his wife was pregnant with their first child. That becomes relevant later on. Boy, does it become relevant.
So here we are, with me still literally sleeping in my office as I didn’t want to waste valuable sleeping time driving to Lawrence MA where my apartment was. I was working 18 hour days anyway. Hell, I was 26 and loving the whole experience. I was going to launch the new format at the stroke of midnight on New Years Eve, ushering in 1990 with a mission to show these hicks what a real rock station sounded like. Yes, that’s how I thought at the time. Ah youth, thy name is arrogance.
During the final 2 weeks of December, Mike, Brad (the owner) and myself kept the country format on the air while I waded through literally piles of resumes and demo tapes to find a decent airstaff, create program clocks, categorize music, write imaging pieces, sign syndication agreements and all 4 gazillion other things it takes to launch a format. I’ll never forget the resume that came handwritten (in pencil!) on notebook paper. I should’ve saved that.
After listening to what felt like the 2986th demo tape, Neil agreed to come up from Florida and be my night guy. OK, we had Mike in AM drive, a honey-voiced girl with the killer airname of Kayla Christie from Rutland doing mid-days, me in PM drive, and Neil at night. We signed off at midnight as an overnight jock was an expense we couldn’t afford and reliable automation was still 6 or 7 years off.
During all of this I had to find an apartment, especially as the 100+ mile commute sucked and my fiancee and I were breaking up. Allison was supposed to come with me to VT but due to reasons that don’t matter anymore she decided I wasn’t the right person to spend her life with. Little did I know why...yet. Thanks to friends I moved into a new place right before Christmas.
The last week of December passed in a blur. Then came New Years Eve. The plan was to air the "American Country Countdown best of the 80's" show from 5pm til midnight, where I would play our new kick-ass Legal ID and hit our first song, "Spirit of Radio" by Rush. During that evening we played an announcement recorded by the owner basically saying we were changing formats but not saying which one or when. That last couple of hours felt like forever. I had never attended the birth of a radio station before but the only thing better than that was the birth of my daughter. At the stroke of midnight I unveiled the new "B107" playing "real rock and roll". I spun until about 3AM, signed off and went home feeling great. The phones were ringing and most people liked the new format.

Justice? We don't need no stinkin' justice!

I'm working this morning, playing the "best variety of yesterday and today." That's another post.
Anyway I had a couple minutes so I picked up this weeks Time magazine. There it was. In black and white. On the Verbatim page.
Before I tell you what it was, allow me a tangent about the Justice department. The name strikes me in the Orwellian sense as it now stands for the exact opposite. From Ashcroft to Gonzales to Mukasey the neo-con Attorneys General have played fast and loose with the Constituition. Vote Libertarian. Now back to our regularly scheduled program.
The quote is from Michael Mukasey and it reads "Not every wrong, or even every violation of the law is a crime." (italics mine). WTF????? Oh, thats right...it's only against the law if Justice says it is. Obviously the reverse is true also, regardless of what the law is.
If you think "well, maybe you're taking it out of context" consider this...how else could this be interpreted?? It used to be the boogeyman in Washington was the IRS. Justice makes those guys look like Santa's elves. I've always thought of "1984" as a book everyone should read, but to the Justice department it's more like a blueprint. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

How I got into Radio, Part 1

Many people ask how I got into the radio business. It's actually a bunch of coincidences that came together at exactly the right time. On the off chance you really want to hear it, here it is.

It really started at age 5, when my grandfather (who was part-owner of a station in the early 50's-way before I was born... and lost a ton of money on it I'm told) bought me a Radio Shack Flavorradio as a present for learning to read. If you've never seen one, it was a 6 dollar pocket AM radio that came in different colors and sounded, well, like a 6 dollar AM radio. I wore out dozens of 9 volt batteries listening to the AM's of the early 70's-1510 WMEX, 680 WRKO, and full service AM's 850 WHDH and 1030 WBZ, which wasn't Top 40 but had the great Dave Maynard and still played music. It was also the Boston affiliate for American Top 40 with the incredible Casey Kasem. My 2002 interview with him was a highlight of my career.
The radio fascinated me, as did the music, the jingles, and most of all, the DJ's. Even the seriously deep voice of late newsman John Masters on WRKO filled me with wonder (and envy). About a year or so later I got a record player. It was from Sears, a Silvertone with a polka dot vinyl covering, 7 inch platter, a small 4 or 5 inch speaker, and a plastic handle and tonearm. When the needle got dull I'd put a nickel on it to get a few more plays (!) before bugging my father to make yet another trip to Sears to buy another needle. Why he never bought more than one at a time I'll never know-they were only a dollar or 2. I played it so much the tonearm snapped because the plastic had fatigued. My Dad melted the 2 ends together with a soldering iron. Ugly, but it worked. Then it happened. I bought a cassette player and small AM transmitter kit at Radio Shack. Now, to my 9 or 10 year old mind, I had everything a radio station does. I did hundreds of radio shows in my room, hoping I'd be a DJ someday. I doubt anyone heard them since the transmitter had about a 30 foot range, but I was on the air, and that's what mattered.
Coincidence number one was when I joined the Boy Scouts. My first Scoutmaster's name was Dean French-and he worked for, if memory serves, WHUE-FM Boston. He took me to work with him one day. I remember a large building (possibly the Prudential Building for you Bostonians, but my memory is hazy) and a bunch of glass- walled studios. One jock was swigging from a quart carton of OJ. I clearly remember asking myself "Wow, that's a lot of OJ! Wonder why he's so thirsty". Anyone who has ever spent time behind a mic knows the answer. That visit set my resolve to grow up to be on the radio.

In roughly 1976 (age 11), I bought a portable AM/FM radio from Sears and discovered the then-new FM Rock formats as well as the Boston AM's and now the big New York station 66 WNNNNNNNNNBC at night. Many a night I woke up to dead batteries because I fell asleep with the earphone in my ear and the radio on. A very large part of my allowance and odd job money went to Radio Shack and Sears electronic departments for batteries, tape, and styli. Some kids build models-I built electronic project kits. Later, I had a "real" stereo system (with detachable speakers!), with a cassette deck and turntable (with real diamond stylus!) Seriously, that's what the box said. I kept doing my radio shows to an audience of no one and kept dreaming.

Coincidence number two happened at age 15 (1980).
For what reason I can't recall I called in to the Larry Glick show on WBZ. He was a talk host then, who also was a DJ/hypnotist at parties. He told me I sounded young and asked how I old I was . I told him, and to his credit seemed interested, asking me what I wanted to do when I got older. I blurted out "I want your job". Now, for those who don't know, WBZ is a 50 thousand watt blowtorch, and can be heard in 38 states at night. Hundreds of thousands of people heard me make a complete idiot of myself that night. He was amused, and asked me to hold on and talk to his producer Joy. Here it gets funny. Not funny funny, but you have to wonder how all the right cosmic things aligned the way they did.

Joy Berger, when not working for WBZ, hosted a weekly ethnic Jewish show on 1600 WUNR in Boston. She asked me if I'd like to come see the show being done. There are very few moments of pure exultation in life...and this was a biggie. I was going to see a radio station! The show aired Tuesday nights from 9 to 10 or 1030pm and was called the Ruach Hour. Ruach is a Yiddish word meaning joy. Get it?

A minute here to digress about my father Cyril. Here was a man struggling to keep his airline job during the deregulation era, and I'm sure he worried a lot. Airlines were shrinking drastically, and layoffs were common, forcing him to take jobs I'm sure he hated. My father had a job, a wife, a mortgage, 3 kids to feed, and was also in night school learning another career. Worst of all, he actually drove what may be the worst-built car on the planet, a very rusty 1973 Pinto. None of that stopped him from carting my teenage butt into Boston every week and sitting in the lobby, tired and bored, racking up parking tickets, while his oldest son lived his dream. We also made a habit of stopping on the way home at this little donut shop in Everett. They made the best (read: greasiest) fries I've ever had. I'd order some, and my dad would have coffee or something and we'd just hang out together. I'll forever treasure those nights, and will always be grateful to him for the time and sleep he gave up to feed my obsession. In return, I totalled his Pinto on the way to the station one night about a year later, having had my license all of 5 or 6 weeks. He was in the car with me and thankfully wasn't hurt, and I sometimes think he was secretly grateful he needed a new car....which I totaled a few months after he bought it. My beloved Dad died a few months back but without him the story may have ended here. Now back to the story.

The Ruach Hour was a show for Orthodox Jews, and done in Yiddish, Hebrew, and even some English. The studios were on North Washington street in Boston, and both WUNR and sister FM WBOS were on the 6th floor. As the weeks progressed, I found the show to be rather boring, and decided to talk to the engineer on duty- the incredibly kind and smart Norm Ruby. He sat for hours patiently answering what, to him, must have been stupid questions, and telling war stories of his long career in Boston radio. It was from him I learned about transmitters, signal processing, FCC rules and the imposing-looking electronic things with blinking lights and meters all mounted in tall racks everywhere I looked. His teaching was invaluable, and has always been helpful to me getting work in the industry.

Sometimes I'd go peek in at the FM studio and talk to the DJ. Eventually, (because I was there at least once a week), I'd do little jobs like pulling records (yes, records) and answering the request line. WBOS had just become a Rock station, thus becoming a large Eric-magnet, especially as a lot of kids in my high school listened to it. I'd watch the guys cue up records and run the board, even getting the occasional thrill of doing a segue or 2 on the air myself when the jock was in the bathroom. Some would refer to me on the air sometimes, having me read the the weather or something. Not much, you think, but I was totally thrilled just be in the studio, and doing something people could hear was, to me, a dream come true.

The demands of high school, work, a breakdown-prone 1976 Cougar and girls put a stop to my nights in Boston. About a year later, another incredible set of coincidences came together.
I started college in Haverhill Mass, passing up a much closer campus because this one had a radio station. Not only did I meet lifelong friends, but I met my best friend Bill there. He worked for a radio station in Lawrence as a part-time DJ. I spent more time at the station than in class, with a GPA fit for a Delta House member, but learned a ton about radio. One day a class I was in took a field trip to the local radio station in Haverhill, which was then 1490 WHAV and 92.5 WLYT. As we walked past the AM studio, the DJ (the incredibly talented and beautiful Liz Solar-I had a crush on her for years) mentioned the station needed a new overnight person. I couldn't wait to get out of school and head back there. I was shown in the Program Director's office and, with a confidence I didn't feel, told him I was his new overnighter. After telling him my "experience", he hired me. I found out later the work at WUNR/WBOS is what got me the job...which paid the huge sum of $3.50 an hour. The job was so menial, the janitor was higher up on the ladder than I was. It went like this...

At the top of the hour, I'd bring up the network news for 5 minutes, play a commercial, read the weather, bring up the talk network, then do nothing for 55 minutes except make sure the music tapes didn't run out in the FM studio. It gave me time to study the FCC rules when I should've been studying English Comp. At 5am, though, it got good. After the news, I would have my own radio show until 6am! I played records and generally did some very bad radio. I went through a series of bosses, but one stands out. His name is Michael B. and he's still on the air at WMJX Boston. Michael taught me everything he could, even taking me on some of his private party gigs, where I learned a little about working weddings, bar mitzvahs, etc. He came on at 6am, but would often "oversleep" so I could be on the air longer, and during morning drive! His boss hated when he'd do it, and he took some heat, but he always did it again. Thanks, Mike.

My friend Bill had snagged the overnight job in Lawrence, and we'd talk for hours during our shifts, bragging about our latest accomplishments and talking shop and girls-mostly shop.

Unfortunately, I learned early about the bad side of working in radio. The station's management treated employees very poorly and Ieft after about a year and a half after being repeatedly being passed over for promotion. I got a weekend gig playing music at 980 WCAP in Lowell, but was justifiably fired after about 6 months. Simply put, I sucked. Being fired in this business is fairly common, and frequently for no other reason than the ownership/management/format changes. In fact, there is an old expression in radio, "You haven't paid your dues until you've been fired a few times". It's true, and it wasn't the last time I got canned. That didn't make this first one any easier. It was the winter of 1985, and bowing to the constant parental chorus of "get a real job", I did-collecting overdue credit cards for Sears and later car loans and mortgages for a large New England bank. For a while, I thought I'd made the right decision...I had enough money to get my own apartment, a fiancee and a new car (a gremlin-filled 1986 Camaro). I resisted the siren call of broadcasting...for a while.

My friend Bill tipped me off that a weekend shift was opening up at WCCM where he worked. He convinced the Program Director, Bruce Arnold, to give it to me. It was the very end of the full-service radio era, and I worked from noon until sign-off (which changed every month due to FCC rules and the way AM travels at night) playing music and even airing the race results from nearby Rockingham Park. Bruce continues to be one of the best people I've ever worked for in what is now 25 years of radio.
Like most AM's at the time, WCCM had a sister FM, then WCGY-which had more issues than the Desperate Housewives with both employees and management. Most of the FM jocks had seen better days career-wise, but almost all were happy to help a couple of idealistic young kids (Bill and I) with advice, great war stories, and critiques. I'll always be grateful to many people who passed through that building, including Bruce Arnold (still on the air at WCCM as I update this in late 2008), Ben Mevorach (now News Director at 1010 WINS in New York), John "Spider" Spence (now at WMLL Manchester NH), Harvey Wharfield, Mike Morin (now at WZID Manchester), Jerry "Duke of Madness" Goodwin (teaching at NE Institute of Art), Julie Devereaux (WROR), and John Bassett. I also learned what NOT to do from certain people who I won't name, but one of them was the owner's son. I did everything from on-air work to news…even changing transmitter tubes one Christmas morning. You couldn't ask for better on-the-job training. Then, a phone call changed everything forever.

Then as now, Radio and Records magazine is a must-read for radio people regardless of job or format. Long before the Internet, their Job Openings and Jobs Wanted pages were the first ones most jocks looked at-much like some people check the Sports or Obits first when they pick up a paper. I had placed an ad there looking for full-time work. I should've been careful what I wished for.

I got a call from Brad Weeks, owner of a small station in Bellows Falls, VT. Brad knew the current Country format wasn't working and he was looking for someone to change the format and put the station on the map. I said I'd be up that weekend to talk about it. It sounded like the chance of a lifetime.

Let's move back a minute here. I grew up in suburban Boston, and spent lots of time in the city. I had never even seen a town as small as Bellows Falls, and the way of life in places like that was unlike anything I had ever imagined. Driving up to the studios for the first time, I felt like I had stepped off the Earth onto a strange planet complete with dirt roads and funny accents.

I met with Brad and we seemed to communicate well. He needed someone to shake up the station and was thinking of some kind of rock format. I had worked in a few rock stations so naturally I thought I knew everything there was to know about it. I got the job-my first programming gig.

To quote the old book “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times”. We did indeed go to 1st place in our target audience in less than 6 months but the recession and lack of good salespeople doomed us to financial failure.
I never felt comfortable in the little village of Bellows Falls, and they weren’t too happy with me and most of my staff being from “away” as they called it. Oh yes, my staff…that’s a story for another post.

Res Ipsa Loquitor

It's a legal term meaning "it speaks for itself".

Will Walmart respect you in the morning? Hardly. Another WTF moment.

A previous post took GM to task for trying to spin a cut in the Saab warranty length as a way to "better compete with our competitors".
Now Walmart's done the "doublespeak shuffle". In a story from consumerist.com they've laid off 3000 Sam's Club managers. Why? "To improve customer service"(!!!!) Yes, that's a quote. How can laying off 3000 people improve service from a company known for poor service and staffing stores at sub-skeleton levels?
All I know is this. Walmart has always had a healthy contempt for their customers, and to actually claim that 3000 fewer people could improve service is beyond galling. The only things improved are their bottom line and my utter disgust at this company.
Why do I hate them? Not for the reasons you'd think. I have no issue with their pay scales, benefits and such...they're fairly competitive. My problem is no one in any store I've ever been in seems to know anything about anything. The answer to everything is "let me get a manager" or "I don't know". They call for a manager and no one comes. Quick story...I went into the Tilton NH store to buy a LCD computer monitor. They had an open box model on their clearance shelf. It had 3 different price labels on it. 3 different people couldn't tell me what the right price was or even why there were different prices on it. Not even the so-called manager had enough brains to figure out this conundrum. I left and haven't been back...about 2 1/2 years now. There are more than enough fucking idiots in the world without me having to subsidize them.

Today's various WTF moments of staggering ignorance

It's been quite a day. I was sitting in a doctor's office this afternoon and while there I was listening to a couple 65+ gentlemen discuss the state of the world. I was, in the words of Gordan Ramsay, gobsmacked. Man #1 said if Obama was elected the country would sink so low that "we'll all be praying someone shoots him". Then they started on why there were so many natural disasters and why "all the polar ice has melted". Why, you ask? You guessed it...God. Specifically because he hates homosexuals. Really. Tornados blow through mobile home parks because of Anne and Eve or Adam and Steve. But wait...there's more! Easter, according to Man #2, is a pagan holiday. True Christians, said the butthead ignoramus, should be celebrating Passover to symbolize the covenant. Hold the phone. I'm not religious, but Passover is a Jewish holiday to remember and celebrate God's covenant with Moses and the Jews. It was around a couple of thousand years before Jesus was a twinkle is Mary's eye. The celebration of the pagan (!!!) Easter is (I can't make this stuff up) "an insult to Jesus". By this point my lip is actually bleeding from biting it in a Herculean effort to keep my big Libertarian mouth shut. How the fabulous flying fuck does this pantload know what insults Jesus? Did he a convo while the rest of us weren't looking? They sat there agreeing with each other as I fought the urge to blast them both with a high-caliber verbal barrage. Finally I was shown into the doctors office with a blood pressure about 497 over 245 (or so it felt) so I missed out on any more revelations.
I come home, and as is my custom I check the news, broadcasting and business headlines online along with the price of oil ($124.73 today, up $1.74). Of course the broadcast wires were humming with the FCC approval of the XM/Sirius merger DESPITE their licenses specifically stating they were not to merge. The FCC decided to waive its own rules and condemn millions of subscribers to the arrogance and hubris of a money-hemorrhaging colassus. As an XM subscriber for 5 or 6 years now, their "customer service" is truly atrocious (complete with offshore call centers) and have had so many billing errors I've lost track.
But that wasn't what caught my attention today. In one of the most egregious examples of doublespeak bullshit I've ever seen, GM announced today that they were reducing the warranty length of new Saabs. Why would they do this? "To better compete against competitors" (Who else would one compete against?) So said the AP story today which you can find at the end of this post. Seriously. It's not a typo. There's enough spin in the story to make you dizzy.
Did you ever read Orwell's 1984? When the chocolate ration was reduced the Party just changed the past so it looked as if the ration had increased?
I don't have an MBA, but even I know cutting back on a product makes you less competitive, not more. The worst part is the overpaid GM hack that wrote the release actually believes what it says...and thinks you will too. In a company that can't layoff workers or burn cash fast enough you'd think making cars less atractive to buyers would be wrong.

AP
GM reduces length of 2009 Saab warranty
Monday July 28, 5:34 pm ET
By Dan Strumpf, AP Business Writer
General Motors cuts length of US warranty on 2009 Saab models, says measure will cut costs

NEW YORK (AP) -- General Motors Corp.'s Saab unit is cutting the length of its warranty on its 2009 U.S. models to reduce costs while remaining competitive with other luxury brands, the company said Monday.
Saab will now offer a four-year powertrain warranty for up to 50,000 miles in place of the five-year, 100,000-mile warranty offered on other GM brands, Saab spokeswoman Joanne Krell said.

Krell said Saab will continue to offer free scheduled maintenance on its cars for three years or 36,000 miles.

"There's no other GM brand that does the three-year, 36,000-mile scheduled maintenance," she said. "That's a very nice offering that definitely makes sense for a premium import."

Krell declined to say how much money the warranty change will save the company, but she said lower costs and a more competitive edge over other importers were factors in the decision.

"One, we think it's a cost-effective way to go to market and, two, we think the four-year, 50,000 and the three-year, 36,000 are the kind that cover Saab customers well, competitive with the kinds of import brands that Saab competes against," Krell said.

Audi, BMW and Volvo offer four-year, 50,000-mile warranties on their vehicles.

GM has owned Saab since 2000, when the Detroit automaker purchased it from Swedish aerospace and defense company Saab AB.

GM started offering five-year, 100,000-mile powertrain warranties on all 2007 model year passenger vehicles in an effort to help it sell more autos by boosting its reputation for quality. The automaker previously provided a three-year, 36,000-mile warranty.

The reduced warranty on Saab models is the latest in a string of cost-cutting measures at GM, as the company tries to navigate a downturn brought on by a weak economy, higher fuel prices and a shift in demand away from its traditionally popular trucks and sport utility vehicles.

GM also announced Monday that it will cut production by another 117,000 vehicles, bringing the automaker's total production cuts to just under the 300,000 units company officials had hoped to cut this year.

The new cuts include eliminating one shift each at its Moraine, Ohio, plant, where Saab 9-7x midsize SUVs are produced.

Shares of GM fell 90 cents, or 7.6 percent, to $11.

And now for something completely different

Few people have fun at the supermarket. My last trip was the proverbial last straw and so I'm writing:

THE SUPERMARKET 10 COMMANDMENTS

1. Thou shalt not leave thy cart in the middle of the aisle.

2. Thou shalt allow others access to an item while you stand there for 20 minutes deciding what flavor of fucking toothpaste thy wanteth.

3. Thou shalt control thy bratty children. It's not a playground.

4. Thou shalt not get pissy about the thickness of deli meat. If it's "too thin" then thou shalt puteth on another slice and not bitch.

5. Verily, thou shalt know what thy wanteth when the deli clerk calleth upon you.

6. Thou shalt not whineth to an employee if something's out of stock. If it's not on the shelf there "ain't no mo". Goeth somewhere else to buyeth it.

7. Thou shalt putteth back unwanted items in thy proper place.

8. Free samples maketh not your lunch.

9. Thou shalt insureth all coupons are not expired and actually for products thy have boughteth.

10. Thou shalt not bitch aboout how thine groceries are bagged. If thy don't like it redoeth it thyself.

Do as I say...or maybe not.

One of the things I never liked about being a talk show host was some people always had their panties in a wad over something I said. Seems people have forgotten there's no Constitutional right to not be offended. If you don't like what I say, fine. Want to bitch about it? Fine. I recognize your right to free speech, but you conveniently forget mine.
Anyway, here we go again. It was bad enough that Imus was railroaded over the "ho" comments but this one is up there in the hypocrisy meter.
MIchael Savage is a very conservative national radio host. Recently he went off on a rant about autism. He said "You know what autism is? I'll tell you what autism is in 99% of cases. It's a brat who hasn't been told to cut his act out. That's what autism is". He also went on to call them idiots and morons.
Now, I'd expect no less from this verbal bomb-throwing hate-spewing dipshit, but the outcry has made the news wires. Here's where the hypocrisy comes in...one of the comments on myfoxny.com was this gem: "Nothing in his comments make any sense. He needs to get informed before he starts another ignorant, meaningless rant.”
Exactly. If it's truly meaningless then why the outrage over something that's "meaningless"? I'm starting to think some people live to offended by something so they can bitch, whine, and complain to their heart's content while holding the delusion they're actually doing something positive. Who would call the writer of that comment (the mother of an autistic boy) a crackpot? Me. She should look up the word meaningless in a dictionary, and realize it applies to Savage's comments...and hers as well.

For once, the good guys win.

Everyone remembers what "wardrobe malunction" means. Those of us in broadcasting saw an almost about-face when it came to what's acceptable to say on air due to the almost schizophrenic nature of the FCC's enforcement. What few people knew is the "obscenity" fines from that event were being appealed in court, and I say with great pleasure the 3rd circuit court of appeals finally slapped the FCC's peepee. Here is the news story courtesy of the Associated Press:


A federal appeals court on Monday threw out a $550,000 indecency fine against CBS Corp. for the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show that ended with Janet Jackson's breast-baring "wardrobe malfunction."

The three-judge panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Federal Communications Commission "acted arbitrarily and capriciously" in issuing the fine for the fleeting image of nudity.

The 90 million people watching the Super Bowl, many of them children, heard Justin Timberlake sing, "Gonna have you naked by the end of this song," as he reached for Jackson's bustier.

The court found that the FCC deviated from its nearly 30-year practice of fining indecent broadcast programming only when it was so "pervasive as to amount to 'shock treatment' for the audience."

"Like any agency, the FCC may change its policies without judicial second-guessing," the court said. "But it cannot change a well-established course of action without supplying notice of and a reasoned explanation for its policy departure."

The 3rd Circuit judges — Chief Judge Anthony J. Scirica, Judge Marjorie O. Rendell and Judge Julio M. Fuentes — also ruled that the FCC deviated from its long-held approach of applying identical standards to words and images when reviewing complaints of indecency.

"The Commission's determination that CBS's broadcast of a nine-sixteenths of one second glimpse of a bare female breast was actionably indecent evidenced the agency's departure from its prior policy," the court found. "Its orders constituted the announcement of a policy change — that fleeting images would no longer be excluded from the scope of actionable indecency."

In a statement Monday, CBS said it hoped the decision "will lead the FCC to return to the policy of restrained indecency enforcement it followed for decades."

"This is an important win for the entire broadcasting industry because it recognizes that there are rare instances, particularly during live programming, when it may not be possible to block unfortunate fleeting material, despite best efforts," the network said.

Messages left for an FCC spokesman were not immediately returned.

Andrew Jay Schwartzman of the Media Access Project, which filed a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of a group of TV writers, directors and producers, said the ruling "is an important advance for preserving creative freedom on the air."

"The court agreed with us: the FCC's inconsistent and unexplained departure from prior decisions leaves artists and journalists confused as to what is, and is not, permissible," Schwartzman said in a statement Monday.

The FCC had argued that Jackson's nudity, albeit fleeting, was graphic and explicit and CBS should have been forewarned. Jackson has said the decision to add a costume reveal — exposing her right breast, which had only a silver sunburst "shield" covering her nipple — came after the final rehearsal.

At the time, broadcasters did not employ a video delay for live events, a policy remedied within a week of the game.

In challenging the fine, CBS said that "fleeting, isolated or unintended" images should not automatically be considered indecent.

But the FCC said Jackson and Timberlake were employees of CBS and that the network should have to pay for their "willful" actions, given its lack of oversight.

The $550,000 fine represents the maximum $27,500 levied against each of the network's 20 owned-and-operated stations.

Shortly after the 2004 Super Bowl, the FCC changed its policy on fleeting indecency following an NBC broadcast of the Golden Globes awards show on which U2 lead singer Bono uttered an unscripted expletive. The FCC said at the time that the "F-word" in any context "inherently has a sexual connotation" and can trigger enforcement.

NBC challenged the decision, but that case has yet to be resolved.

In June 2007, a federal appeals court in New York invalidated the government's policy on fleeting profanities uttered over the airwaves. The case involved remarks by Cher and Nicole Richie on awards shows carried on Fox stations.

___

Where it's fun to find out

This is the Van deGraff generator at the Museum of Science in Boston.


Cool, huh? It's the biggest one in the world according to the people who do the electricity show at the Museum. But, you ask, what does this have to do with radio? Ahhh, grasshopper...be patient.
The first radio transmitters were "spark gap" transmitters. They used a spark jumping an air gap between 2 conductors as a way to transmit morse code. Only problem was the signals it put out were across literally thousands of different frequencies. If you want to hear what it sounded like, turn on an AM radio in a lightning storm...doesn't matter which station but the weaker the better. You'll hear it when the lightning flashes. As the show went on it came to me. The first radio signals were sent with a gizmo much like this one, and not only did it change the world forever but it sparked (pun intended) the dreams of thousands of people...including me.

The listener has a name!

The world welcomed a brand-new member yesteday and now she has a name. My brother Ross and his wife Tara have named their bundle of joy Piper Lily Grace. Not only is Piper a great name (I had a crush on a girl with that name in junior high) they picked it as a tribute to our father who was a licensed pipefitter (among a million other things he could do..and did). He'll always be missed, but whenever I hear the name Piper I'll be reminded of both him and my beautiful new niece. Not bad at all.

Another new Radio listener

Congrats to my brother Ross and his wife Tara on my new niece...or their new baby girl, who evidently is a player to be named later as I guess they haven't gotten around to it as I write this. I just hope it's not something like Strawberry Pomegranate or Dust Cloud. She was a bit early, clocking in at 4 lbs 6 oz and a thundering 18 inches. If she's anything like her parents the WNBA should pay her a visit.

400,000 people ignored by radio station. Figures.

A few days ago, another Bike Week came to a close in Laconia. There's probably no better place for a rock station to be, and yet the local station couldn't have screwed it up more...all because no one dares tell the bean counters they're killing the business.
Much like GM who makes great cars but then tries to save a measly 20 bucks a car by cheapening out on the interiors (leading to people buying Japanese), Nassau Broadcasting takes the award for farthest heads up their ass.
Their same-as-in-every-other-market "Hawk" stations should have been all over Laconia like white on rice. Instead they had a NON-JOCK cell-phoning in reports every hour or so. Wow...compelling.
Any manager with half a brain cell should've had a complete on-air setup with airstaff, prizes, and anything else to get people to stop by and sample your station. Remember, a lot of people have summer homes or vacation here...and they make a lovely audience for advertisers.
Would it have cost money? Yeah...it's called marketing...but "return on investment" is trumped by "don't spend it". That's why Nassau will always be an also-ran in the radio business and a shining example of mediocrity.
Yes, it's a business...and the product you're selling is art-not paint by numbers.

Web-1,Broadcasting-0

It had to happen sometime...a webcast making more money than a TV show. Recently CBS streamed the NCAA March Madness games for free and raked in an impressive $4.83 in ad revenue for each of the 4.8 million viewers. But here's the interesting part...they took "only" $4.12 per person from TV. Granted, there were 132 million people who watched, so the broadcast took in far more cash-but for the first time a pair of eyeballs was worth more on the web than the same pair watching TV. I've said before that the line between the web and broadcast is blurring rapidly, and the recent FCC spectrum auctions dedicating former UHF channel 56 to mobile broadcasting as well as the explosive growth of Wi-Fi will eventually make the difference between webcasters and broadcasters go away. Maybe those "500 channel universe" predictions may be far more conservative than we think.

Even what you don't say can hurt you

There is the edge of insanity and there is the abyss, and Air America radio has jumped into it with both feet. The just-turned-4-year-old network has suspended host Randi Rhodes for something she said OFF AIR. Evidently she called Hillary Clinton and former VP candidate Geraldine Ferraro a "fucking whore" during an appearance in San Francisco. I don't disagree with the statement but that's another post. Air America says it “does not condone such abusive, ad hominem language by our hosts.” Remember, this was an OFF AIR comment. If it was on-air then I could understand, even agree with suspension or even termination.
You'd think in the hotbed of moonbeam liberalism that is SF, there'd be someone who believes in free speech...but being "PC" seems to be more important nowdays, even when liberals attack other liberals.
Shame on you, Air America.

It's good to be right...for a change

Despite the claims of my wife, I do get to be right once in awhile. A few months ago, I wrote about bruising staff cuts at CBS Radio (history repeated itself this week at the CBS-owned TV stations) and mentioned that the big corporations responsible for fucking up the radio industry could be its savior if they wished. CBS took a couple of baby steps toward that as they've launched some interesting new programming that's as "out of the box" as anything ever on radio.
How about psychic radio? Yup. It's online for now at http://www.psychiconair.com/ and is designed to be run on a stations' HD2 (or 3) channel. It's live, too. Really.
CBS also has a "Pride Radio" HD2 channel that's running in Chicago and Dallas that I know of. Look for it to expand in 2008. HD Radios are getting cheaper and better-click on the radio at top of the page to get one and check out the neat stuff on HD2 and HD3 channels.
Mad props to CBS for actually trying something new and different on the radio dial. Whether it works or not is another matter, but its damn nice to know they're trying.

Sirius getting serious

Today the Justice Department approved the purchase (merger) of XM satellite radio by its little brother Sirius, creating a company with almost 13 million subscribers, never made a profit, and will have 1.6 billion in debt. See previous posts for some background on the finances of the sat radio industry. Where is the money going to come from? Remember, these companies are losing more than a million dollars a day....each. Oh yeah...it's an all-stock transaction. (today Sirius is $3.70 a share, while XM is worth $13.98) Who needs money anymore?
Somehow, Justice thinks having only one sat radio provider won't be a problem as satellite radio competes with broadcast, CD's, MP3's etc etc. The fact that Sirius/XM will be a monopoly seems to have been lost on them. Sat radio is a unique product, and if anyone believes this merger will be good for us subscribers you need to take a mental health day or 2...or 3.
Let us look at some recent mergers that have bombed...Daimler Benz, AOL Time-Warner, HP Compaq, Glaxo Smith-Kline, Sprint Nextel just to name a few.
The last barrier to the merger is the FCC. If I remember my history, when XM and Sirius were licensed in 1995, it specifically mentioned the companies would not merge. FCC chairman and self-styled morality czar Kevin Martin said "the companies would need to demonstrate that consumers would clearly be better off with both more choice and affordable prices" and "The hurdle here, however, would be high."
That said, the FCC seems far more interested in filling its wallet by collecting fines over Nipplegate than caring about the wallets and blood pressure of 13+million subscribers...who will be on hold for 90 minutes waiting to talk to a script-reading automaton at an Indian call center when their accounts get screwed up. Not if...when. When you're a monopoly, why invest in customer service? Where are the customers going to go, the competition? That's right...there won't be any. Executives claim they'll be 7 billion a year in savings. Isn't that what they said at AOL, Chrysler and Sprint? Of course I'll respect you in the morning.

Live from New York...

I'm typing this from mid-town Manhattan, as the Intercollegiate Broadcasters convention is here. Imagine roughly 1200 young, bright-eyed high school and college radio folk from all over the country, and quite a few industry heavy-hitters to learn from. Besides bringing out my inner radio geek, I've observed a couple of things.
First, it seems like every college radio person is a manager of something. One station even had an assistant sports director! Way too many chiefs and damn few indians. Also, almost no one wore a watch. Big deal you say? Maybe, but I saw many kids checking their phones for the time. These things are more like lifestyle devices than phones. Internet, MP3, IM, and even FM are built into these things. I get nervous when I'm away from my email for a day or so, but these kids visibly suffer when they're forced to turn them off for a 90 minute seminar. Give them a Wi-fi connection and they can listen to streaming audio or watch TV. Much like cable made the differences between VHF and UHF TV go away, the lines between terrestrial and Internet radio are blurring fast.
Of course, one of the more popular seminars was on performance royalties. While I'm not opposed to artists being paid for their work per se, the fees can be out of reach for the little guys. For those who don't know, radio stations (and to an extent, nightclubs, stores etc) pay writers and publishers, not artists. There are 2 bills currently in the House. One would sign into law the current exemption radio enjoys and forbid any new fees or taxes. The resolution reads, "Congress should not impose any new performance fee, tax, royalty, or other charge relating to the public performance of sound recordings on a local radio station for broadcasting sound recordings over-the-air, or on any business for such public performance of sound recordings." One hundred and five Republicans and 65 Democrats are now supporting the resolution. Wait..."SHOULD not"? What about "WILL not"? There's a world of difference there. And what,exactly, is a "local" radio station? See my previous "WGOD" post for my take on that. The other would repeal the exemption (thank uber-liberal Pat Lahey of VT for this one) and force heavy fee hikes on precisely the people who can afford them the least-college stations and mom-and-pop local station owners. Clear Channel, Entercom, Saga, etc won't choke on another thousand bucks a year, but try getting another grand from a college thats level-funded you for the last 10 years. ASACP/BMI/SESAC already have a minimum fee that rises as your revenue does. Maybe Soundexchange should consider giving educational and LPFM stations, especially in very small markets, a break by offering an affordable blanket license as opposed to the current clusterfuck of a system involving tuning hours and other dense metrics. Forcing them off the air will bring them less revenue, not more.

The shaky ground XM sits on

First off, an admission. I've been an XM subscriber for more than 6 years. I've seen the company grow from a few hundred thousand subscribers to now more than 9 million.
Their product is excellent despite the fact their customer service is beyond atrocious. But the latest financial results make me question how long they'll stay in business. When the company went public they said the break-even point was 4 million subscribers. Now, despite a $3 a month increase, 9 million subscribers AND commercials on their non-music channels they lost a staggering 682 million in 2007 on top of losing 719 million in 2006. That's 1.4 billion dollars in just 2 years. To give you some perspective that's a bigger annual deficit than the US Government, even with that money pit called Iraq. Then, with a straight face, their CEO says "XM substantially improved its business operations in 2007". Huh? This company has lost roughly 1.85 MILLION DOLLARS A DAY for the last 2 years, not to mention all the previous years losses. I didn't bother to look up the loss figures at Sirius, but you have to wonder how long these companies can do this. Eventually the credit lines will run out. I hope satellite radio won't be relegated to a half-forgotten "how satellite radio flamed out" wikipedia article like Pets.com or AOL's dialup business.

Seacrest out....please

So I'm reading one of the radio trade mags, and he's done it again. This guy Seacrest must have sold his soul to Satan. There's no other reason this Clay Aiken look-a-like takes over for such radio icons as Messrs. Casem, Clark, and Dees in one lifetime. Not only does he have a morning show in market #2, but also does a syndicated Top 40 countdown, New Years Eve, and he hosts the (yechhh) Idol. Today Clear Channel (his radio employer and syndicator of the countdown show) said "Clay...I mean Ryan, baby...you're not busy nor rich enough". Now the rest of the country will be subjected to more Seacrest. Really. Clear Channel, through its syndication arm called Premiere, will be condensing his LA morning show into a 3 hour midday or PM drive show for the rest of the country to launch this spring.
Here's where the Satan thing comes in again. Not only will he do all those things, not only will he own a part of the commercial time in his radio show ($$$), but will sell (for $eriou$ dinero)part of the inventory on his countdown show which is on about 4 grillion stations.
Alright, maybe there is a touch of the green-eyed monster here...but how much can one human being of questionable talent accomplish in one friggin' lifetime? If he keeps this up, look for him to replace Rush Limbaugh and run for President in his spare time. With this guys luck, he might even win.

WGOD

A fascinating study was released today by the Pew Forum on religion and public life. It found 51% of Americans are Protestant. 24% are Catholic with 2% Jews and 1.7% Muslims (?!!) As with any survey a quick look between the lines show something truly amazing. 16.1% of Americans (of which I'm one) have no religion at all...most of them younger than 35.
What, you ask, does this have to do with radio? I'll explain. Religion and Radio have been joined at the hip since the 1930's. It is one of the few things heard on English language shortwave stations, and many radio stations devote most or all of their broadcast day to it.
Since the Communications Act of 1934, radio stations must be operated in the "public interest, convenience, and neccesity". What exactly IS the public interest can be debated from now until St. Swithens Day, but do religious stations serve the public interest? In my opinion, frequently not. Religion, as if you didn't know, has become big business. Salem Communications owns 92 stations, of which most are religious music or talk. EMF owns far more stations than that, all airing national feeds of either what they call K-Love or Air1, which are Christian music formats. Let's focus on these for now. How does one serve the public interest when there's not ONE SCRAP of local information on these stations? It's the same feed from Salem NH to Salem OR.
I can hear it now....Shel, you're just anti-religion. Absolutely not true. While I'm against religion FOR ME...if anyone else wants it, great. I'm just not convinced these large radio companies are doing God's work so much as stroking some inflated corporate ego-the one that thinks He (pun intended) with the most staions wins. No one wins. These stations employ virtually no one, and will never again air anything that doesn't come off a satellite signal hundreds or thousands of miles away. No news (except for a few minutes of national headlines occasionally), no weather, not even local commercials. This benefits us how, exactly? This is all designed to do only one thing...get you to write them a check so they can continue to "do the Lord's work". You REALLY want to do the Lord's work? Build homes for the homeless. Run a food pantry. Help people who are in spiritual or other crisis. Fix a church roof. Do something other than play another Amy Grant record.
There are many good, kind, and devoted people who work in local religious radio stations that work to make their local markets better. It's a damn shame they don't work for Salem or EMF. They continue to thumb their nose at the FCC (who's too busy levying fines to enforce their own rules) and get rich in the process. I doubt that's what a certain Jewish carpenter had in mind.

HDTV, DTV, NTIA, and m-o-n-e-y.

Most of us have heard something about the upcoming change from analog to digital TV in April 2009. Like the breakup of AT&T back in 1984 there are lots of people crying "the sky is falling" and even more people who have got the story completely wrong. Here's the scoop...
An aside here-HDTV and digital TV or DTV are NOT the same thing. DTV is simply the new digital method of transmitting TV signals. Those can be in standard definition (SD) or high definition (HD). You do not need to buy a new TV for this transition if you don't want to.
First off, anyone who subscribes to cable or satellite TV will NOT be affected-the set-top boxes already do the required conversion.
If you're one of the roughly 10% of Americans who use an antenna to watch TV you will need a converter box to continue watching TV after April 2009 unless you already have (or will buy before April 2009) a TV with a digital tuner. The boxes are already in Best Buy and will be in other stores very soon. The National Telecommunications Information Administration (a ridiculous waste of government time and money) is giving away $40 coupons good for the purchase of a converter-the rationale being people who still use antennas can't afford the price of a converter box. Yeah, right.
From the "why aren't I surprised department" comes a study done by MASSPIRG recently on the DTV transition. It secretly shopped 132 electronics stores in MA and found:
81% didn't know about or gave wrong info about converter boxes.
78% gave wrong info about the NTIA $40 coupon plan.
42% gave wrong info about the digital TV conversion date.
Shameful, isn't it? For more info on the digital transition go to www.ntia.doc.gov.

NPR and PBS might fend for themselves...maybe.

Finally, after 7 years in office the President actually did something right. Really. Yeah...I was amazed too. What was it? To the horror of uber-liberals everywhere, he chopped the 2009 budget allocation (handout) to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (in their own words, a private company funded by the American people...much like jumbo shrimp or military intelligence) from 820 million to 420 million. There's no money at all after 2011. According to the LA Times and the CPB, the money is about 16% of an average stations budget, and of course they're already whining about having to shut down stations. Yeah, sure...like the televangelists who beg for money are always on the verge of going off the air. We've been down this road before...Congress will no doubt reverse all or most of the cuts but it begs the question "Why are we supporting mass media with our tax dollars?" If you really believe NPR/PBS should be funded publicly, how about a check box on our tax forms like the one that asks if you want to give $3 to finance elections? Public broadcasting needs to find other revenue sources than the interminable beg-a-thons twice a year. That would, however, require a totally different approach to raising money as well as massive listener support and I don't see the will to do that on either side.

5 years later, it's deja vu all over again

Last week ABC-TV appealed a 1.4 million dollar FCC fine against it for indecency. Why? You'll love this. 5 years ago (!!) an episode of "NYPD Blue" showed buttocks and one side of a breast. Oh, the horror!
But here's where it descends even further into madness...they're only fining the network for the Central and Mountain timezones, which aired the show at 9pm as opposed to 10pm in the East and West. The FCC's "safe harbor" indecency provision starts at 10, but all this is nothing but a naked (pun intended) cash grab on the part of the Commission. Where's the indecency? How many children watch that show? Even if they did, I doubt they suffered any harm.
A better question is why would it take 5 years for the FCC to act on this? What changed? The crusading FCC commissioner Michael Copps, who has let his power corrupt him into substituting his morals for the entire TV audience. Let's not forget the premiere episode of "Blue" (15 years ago) also showed buttocks...at 9pm Central/Mountain. The world is still spinning on its axis last I checked. ABC released a statement saying in part "when the brief scene in question was telecast almost five years ago, this critically acclaimed drama had been on the air for a decade and the realistic nature of its story lines were well known to the viewing public."
Remember, after the "wardrobe malfunction" 99.1% of complaints came from one source-the Parents Television Council. It was a form letter campaign from people who for the most part didn't see the show themselves. These people are free to have their opinions, but they have no right to determine what we can and can't see on television. And in my opinion, neither does the FCC. If the show was that obscene, it wouldn't get viewers and get cancelled. The free market has a way of handling these things, and maybe the FCC should back the hell off and stop standing in loco parentis...loco being the operative word.

Your tax dollars at work...

I've written before about Clear Channel trying to sell itself to a couple of private equity firms. Today, our Department of Justice, until recently run by Albert Gonzales, the demon spawn of John we-don't-need-the stinkin'-Constitution Ashcroft and now in the infirm hands of Michael no-opinion-on-torture Mukasey has decided CC must sell off stations in Cincinnati, Houston, San Francisco and Las Vegas as a condition of approving the deal. This is "to assure continued competition in markets where the transaction would otherwise result in a significant loss of competition." Oh, please. I'll still respect you in the morning and the check is in the mail. Turns out Bain Capitol and Thomas Lee Partners (the equity firms) have radio interests in those markets.
Let me see if I've got this right. The largest Radio owners in the world will be sold to a new company that will make IT the largest owner in the world and the DOJ thinks selling a dozen stations out of roughly 1000 makes a friggin' difference? As if somehow one big corporate owner is somehow better than another?
This could very well be the time when we look back and say this was the beginning of the end. Equity firms do one thing-buy companies and sell them for profit...usually by slashing costs (read: jobs) hence the term "strip and flip".
Radio has plenty of owners that don't give a shit about how good the station is as long as they make the numbers. Does anyone really believe an equity firm will invest in the stations to grow their value? No. They'll slash and burn them and then sell to another big company...assuming station values continue to rise. I'm not an economist, but I bet they won't. That could mean selling off the stations at fire-sale prices...to another big company. And the hits just keep on comin'.

The wheels on the bus to nowhere go round and round...

Just recently, Clear Channel, the nation's biggest radio company with over 1100 stations, announced budget cuts that stunned everyone. The company is trying to sell itself to a couple of private equity firms, but the stock is down about 10 bucks from where it was when the deal was announced last fall.
I admit I know as much about the stock market as I know about nuclear physics-none. But, I'd like to think I know a few things about the radio business and these cuts, in my opinion,will make things worse.
CC has slashed all research and promotion money and put a hiring freeze in place, right after a bruising round of staff cuts in December. Great for morale, huh? It's hard to do great work when you're afraid you'll be unemployed next month. The promotion budget thing makes me laugh. Radio's whole business model is convincing businesses to promote themselves. How hypocritical is it that a station refuses to do that? What message does it send to advertisers? Without a marketing effort, the station fades away in a sea of competing media. Budweiser, despite being the number 1 beer,advertises heavily. Why? To stay that way.
Worse yet, other large radio companies are playing follow the leader. CBS Radio just laid off over 140 people last week, with cuts at other companies also. Look, I understand the need to control expenses, but these kind of draconian slash-and-burn tactics (for no other reason than to prop up a lagging stock price) will further degrade the product (which is what comes out of the speakers!) Poor product causes fewer listeners and advertisers, causing more cuts. I've lived this cycle...I've seen it destroy station owners profit and people's lives. Executives need to realize that investing in your product pays big dividends. Tell Wall Street and their quarterly earnings expectations to take a hike for a couple quarters and rebuild the station. Everyone wins. Even the CEO's and stockholders. There's more to the radio business than making the numbers.

Here we go again

A St. Louis jock has been suspended for 2 weeks without pay by Emmis-owned KIHT for what I agree were some incredibly insensitive comments. I won't comment on the suspension as that's a matter between JC Corcoran and his employer. In a rant against the local power company, Corcoran said "You publicity-obsessed public relations nightmare people, who I swear I am going to get on top of your building with an AK-47 and just start picking people off" and using the term "dickless wonder". I understand his frustration and will confess that I feel that way sometimes when dealing with unaccountable bureaucracies. That wasn't the worst of it. Referring to a black executive at the company, he stared using a (for lack of a better term) "ghetto" voice when mocking the man. OK, now we've turned the corner into inappropriate. I do not claim to be an expert in FCC regulations, but I don't see how any of these comments warrant an FCC fine. Inappropriate? Yes. Legally obscene? No fuc-ing way.

But...there is a radio gadfly in that city who has made it his personal cause to persuade the FCC to fine the station and fire Mr. Corcoran because "children might be listening". Bullshit. How many kids listen to classic rock morning shows? This guy (who obviously has too much free time on his hands) has started a web page and online petition for FCC complaints. No, I'm not going to give this crank any free publicity, but as the crank says on his web page " I am tired of one radio personality getting away with something like this while another has to go through firings, public humiliation, fines from the FCC, etc."
So...besides the fact that he is just plain wrong (he's referring to Imus-gate and there were no FCC fines levied from that) he then furthers his hypocrisy by saying "As well, I always preach about Freedom Of Speech. Its a belief I hold dearly within my heart that this Country allows us all to express ourselves freely."
Yeah, right...everyone has free speech until HE doesn't like something. That sentence directly contradicts everything else he's written.

People like Imus or Corcoran aren't the problem. It's these self-appointed "morality Nazis" who claim to speak for vast numbers of people because they weren't in line when the Creator handed out tolerance. In the words of William Shatner "get a life, will ya?"

Free the word "free"!

We've all seen them, usually on TV but radio has them also. The newest miracle product that solves a problem you didn't even know you had. In fact we're so confident you'll love this product so much, we're going to GIVE it to you FREE! All you need to do is pay for "shipping and handling". Bullshit. Does anyone really fall for this crap?
Let's take an example: The guy who sells the CD's about how to use computers says you pay NOTHING except a small handling charge. That charge is 6.95. A blank CD is about 10 cents. A mailer and 1st Class postage to mail a CD is 93 cents. (Yes, I asked at the post office). Where does the other $5.92 go? Free my ass. You can get a free 30 day supply of the new herbal weiner-builder for just 6.95 postage and handling. I got something you can handle, guys.
My other favorite(!) is that Billy Mays putz who screams at me about Miracle Putty, OxyClean and Lord knows what else. He'll DOUBLE your putty order FREE-just pay seperate shipping and handling. Hold the phone, there, Captain. It's bad enough you want $8.95 to send a 2 ounce package, but you want ANOTHER 8.95 for another 2 ounces? Bite me. I've now spent almost 18 bucks to send a 4 ounce package. The USPS gets $1.22. I realize you have to feed your family,but be honest about what something costs. As a Libertarian, I detest the thought of more laws, but here's one I'd support...to use the word "free" in any advertisement, there must be absolutely no charge made to the consumer. Free plus an overinflated "shipping and handling" charge is not free.

HD may or may not mean Happy Days

There's been quite a bit of buzz lately on HD radio, also called IBOC (in band on channel). HD radio is a digital stream embedded in the regular broadcast signal, and you need a radio that's HD capable to listen to it. There are some huge advantages to HD radio...
1. It makes AM sound like FM. Seriously, it's night and day.
2. FM stations can have up to 2 additional channels (HD-2 and HD-3) in addition to its regular (HD-1) programming in CD quality. Most big market FM's have commercial-free HD2's, while many NPR affiliates have HD2 and HD3 signals. HD2 and 3 channels are totally seperate from the main FM signal.
3. You don't have to pay for it.

BUT...there are a few problems...
1. You need a new radio (on the bright side, they're not expensive...100 to 200 bucks).
2. HD signals don't seem to travel as far as analog signals do.
3. There are no Walkman-type HD radios I'm aware of yet, and very few car models. Some excellent table-style radios are available.
4. There is some evidence of increased interference to other AM stations due to HD broadcasts.

It's kind of like where TV was in the late 1940's-there was little programming to justify buying a set, and TV stations didn't want to add programs until more TV's were sold. AM Stereo flopped badly in the 1980's but this seems to have wide support among broadcasters. Will listeners support this? Will radio eventually go all-digital like TV will in April 2009? And what about Naomi? :)
If you'd like more info about HD Radio, go to http://www.hdradio.com or if you'd like one, click on the radio at the top of the page to get one from my friends at Radiosophy.