Stuff I missed while sleeping

Been a while, huh?

Yeah, I took a little time off. A week to be exact. In doing a blog such as this, I feel it is a wise idea to back away from it once in a while and recharge my engines. I'll even go so far as to go out into the real world. So, please do not be alarmed if this place gets a little quiet once in a while. All in all, it makes for a much better reading experience overall.

And no, I wasn't sleeping, but I thought it would make for a cool article title.

So, in the meantime, Dan Rather grew a set and rightfully filed suit against his former bosses at CBS, Bill O'Reilly realized he couldn't make a go of radio, O.J. Simpson switched from knives to guns in his hunt for the real killers er his sports mementos, and Congressional Democrats wimped out and rolled over as the Republicans turned their war on free speech into a wedge issue in condemning the recent MoveOn.org criticism on General Petraeus. And in this little corner of the world...

First on the agenda is a big story/non-story from last week, this one concerning Cenk Uyger of Air America's The Young Turks (or is that The Young Turk, since everybody else left?). He claims Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert stole a joke from him and used it on The Colbert Report, and, just like O.J. Simpson bum-rushing a sports memorabilia swap meet with guns-a-blazin, he's out for blood. Well, okay, $65 million. I was really tempted to make mention of this last week, but it all reeks of a silly publicity stunt.

And what was the joke? Something about Klingons. Yes, you heard that right - Klingons! Sorry, but a Klingon joke isn't worth 65 cents, let alone $65 mil. Cenk's obviously a sharp guy, and I just wished he could come up with a better publicity stunt. Hiring Mike Stark was a cool move. This, unfortunately, is not.

Hey, people crib my shit all the time. All I ask is a return link and the whole 'fair use' thing. But if anyone wants to kick $65 mil my way, contact me and we'll talk.

Radio listeners in Washington, DC, saddled by the horrible signal and questionable programming moves of local progressive talker WWRC, now have another option. In this overcrowded talk radio market, the newly reformatted WWWT (3WT) is mixing it up a bit after ending its "Washington Post Radio" endeavor. This new talk station pledges to carry conservative, liberal, middle-of-the-road and nonpolitical talk. We already knew that Stephanie Miller's show, currently on WWRC, would be joining the station. Well, that's forthcoming. In the meantime, Air America's Randi Rhodes is part of the station's lineup in afternoon drive, 4-7P ET. WWRC does not currently carry her show, but does carry other programs from Air America. And ESPN's Tony Kornheiser, who hosts a pretty good nonpolitical show (when he's actually on, of course) that isn't really about sports, is on weekday mornings. Of course, tuning in for progressive talk options also means occasionally tuning in for the likes of Bill O'Reilly (until his show buys the farm), Neal Boortz and eventually Glen Beck. But hey, at least they have a great signal. And are on both AM and FM, on 50,000 watt 1500AM in Washington (with a signal reaching Baltimore), 107.7FM in Northeastern Virginia and 820AM in Fredrick, MD. Should be interesting to watch.

Many people have emailed me about the recent changes to Air America's schedule. As stated before, The Air Americans has crashed and burned. Replacing it is Richard Greene's "Every Breath You Take" er Clout. The show airs from 8-10P ET. Following it is now Jon Elliot's show, followed by a repeat of the previous day's Lionel show. But wait - wasn't Bree Walker supposed to get a show on Air America? Well, that was the original line. But evidently, that did not come to fruition, for reasons nobody really knows, including me. She still has her weekend show on KTLK (1150AM) in Los Angeles.

Progressive talk station KOKE (1600AM) in Austin will soon be under new ownership. The station, along with two other local AM stations owned by Border Media Properties, will be sold to Jose J. Garcia for $5.5 million. BMP will keep their five FM stations in the market. No word on what this means for the future of KOKE. It could be nothing.

And remember KOMY? That little AM station outside of Santa Cruz owned by the rather colorful Zwerling family? The same ones that added Air America programming to the station and spent more time trying to kill it and threaten to remove it than actually try to make it work? Well, the Zwerlings are hanging it up. Michael Zwerling announced that they're cashing in their chips and selling both KOMY (which now programs a golden oldies format) and conservotalk station KSCO.

I do have to confess. After writing the final "pulling the plug" article, Zwerling himself sent me an email, and actually had a good laugh as I ripped him a new one. I gotta say, I respect him for that. And in the day and age of bland, corporate radio, perhaps a few eccentric local broadcast owners, no matter how irritating they can be, is overall a good thing. Best of luck to Michael and his mother Kay in their future endeavors. It's been a ride, I'll say that much.

And as a change of pace, I will open up the comments below in this article to an open thread. Normally, a common pet peeve of mine is when posters go off topic on an article to post their own stuff (such as the cut-and-paste astroturf jobs by our resident freeper, raccoonradio). You know, stuff that has absolutely nothing to do with the article. In this instance, and this instance only, post whatever you want in this article, and this thread only. Got a scoop? A rant? Whatever, just add a comment below. All I ask is no flame wars, no personal attacks, etc. Keep it rational, kids.