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January 03, 2006

It Was Twenty Years Ago Today, Part XXII

I'd been at KSTP a little over two weeks. The job was settling into a bit of a routine. I got up at 8:30 or 9AM, got to work around 10:30, ran the board for two hours during the syndicated Owen Span show (a classic "Fairness Doctrine"-era talk show, simultaneously about everything and nothing, mushy-left but unwilling to say it), then into the "production meeting" with Don Vogel and Dave Elvin.

The meeting usually involved listening to Don bitch about his latest travails (the unreliability of his Metro Mobility driver was constant theme) and gush about his latest joys (food was a big, constant one) for about an hour, and then a frantic hour of getting stuff together for the show.

Thursday, January 3, 1985 was no exception.

"I got this tape in the mail", said producer Dave Elvin. "It's from a guy who claims Elvis is alive".

The letter was from a "Colonel Bill Smith", a Dallas man who claimed to have evidence that Elvis faked his death; the tape was from 1981, and purported to prove that Elvis was alive and well, and in hiding.

He popped the cassette into a player. There was some crowd noise, and then the sound of Elvis Presley over a strummed guitar:

I will spend my whole life through
loving you, loving you.
Winter, summer, spring-time, too,
loving you, loving you...
The guitar stopped. There were a few seconds of silence, broken only by a few mutterings from the crowd and what sounded like glasses tinkling.

Then, the voice of Elvis (?), speaking this time...:

I'm sorry...

I...

Uh...

I can't go on.

I just heard that President Reagan...

...has been SHOT...

The tape ended.

Don erupted in his deep-in-the-belly chuckle. "We gotta book this guy!"

"I'll do it", I said. It sounded interesting.

I walked out to my little desk - it was a little larger than a cutting board, its right wall was a rack of satellite demodulators, and I shared it with the morning show's producer - and called the number on the "Colonel Bill Smith" letterhead.

Answering machine. I left a message.

The rest of the day? Do the show, get home around 7PM.

My biggest challenge, of course, was figuring out how to stretch my $3.35 an hour to cover my bills; $212.50 a month rent, probably $100 for gas (I put "move to Saint Paul", a much shorter commute, high on my list of to-dos - once I could afford it), and that left about $100 of my $420 monthly take-home for food, clothing, and everything else.

I started scouting around for ways to supplement my income.

Posted by Mitch at January 3, 2006 05:26 AM | TrackBack
Comments

Speaking of talk radio... I thought you might enjoy this...

Hypocrisy, Deceit and Exploitation
... and Other 2005 Streetwalkers of Talk Radio
by Steve Young

Steve Young

Jan. 1, 2006 /apj.us (Hollywood)/ "Hey, Freeper, me love you LONG time."

No disrespect to the working girls, but if the 2005 edition of the Lords of Loud could figure a way to turn what they do into sex, hookers would be out of business.

All this year, talk radio tricks got the hot satisfaction they paid for while deluding themselves into thinking that it was really love. But don't try to tell that to a talk radio junkie who's gone so long without real truthin' that he wouldn't know it if it was laying there naked beside him.

"My whore wouldn't lie to me!" slobbers the convinced dittohead caressing his radio host of ill repute, refusing to understand that it's a whore's job to make you think it was good for her too. Who needs the truth when this feels SO much better? But believe me, when the whores get together after work to gargle a couple gallons of mouthwash, they laugh at the suckers who pay for the hour's worth of lies. What they're putting out might sound like the real thing, but these pros know damn well it's what your want to hear that puts their kids through college, and more often than not, that's anything but the truth.

The broadcast bimbos dress up hypocrisy and deception in f@%#-me pumps and low-cut integrity and whisper in your ear that it's really virtue. They might as well be wearing red, white and blue mini-pants wedged up the yin-yang when they tell you that they back the military to the ends of the earth, but never take the Republican Congress to task for shorting the needs of the boys who come back less than they were. Giving passes to "The insurgency is in its last throes," "You're doing a helluva job, Brownie," and "If anyone in this administration was involved in [revealing Valerie Plame's covert CIA status], they would no longer be in this administration" shows that these harlots are willing to swallow anything if it keeps them in hip-highs and high ratings.

Sean Hannity was broadcasting for weeks outside of Terri Schiavo's hospice, advocating for one poor brain-dead woman -- but he didn't take so much as one second to speak from outside a Veteran's Administration hospital where thousands of living are begging to be heard.

Oliver North will tell you that the so-called "death" tax hurts you -- but will never tell you that unless you'll be leaving $2 million to your kiddies, you're just cheering a tax cut that will fatten the North family pockets.

Bill O'Reilly will tell you he is the bestest children's advocate and that you can buy his "O'Reilly Factor for Kids" to send them the right message, and he'll harass judges whom he claims don't protect the youngsters -- but he won't utter one word about the sexually-harassing advocate HE played on the phone with a youngster half his age. As any lady of the night would say, O'Reilly claims he does it for you. In both cases, "to you" might be a better fit.

Bill Bennett pompously tells you that you should live your life virtuously -- then gambles away millions and blames black babies for our crimes rate.

Rush Limbaugh tells you that addicts should be placed in jail and the key thrown away, and that the ACLU is dangerous to the American way of life -- but uses the ACLU to keep him out of jail for doing drugs and dragging his housekeeper into his crimes and addiction.

Dennis Prager defends heterosexual marriage (and your homophobia), telling you how divorce is not the threat to marriage that gay marriage -- then, just to show you he means it, announces he's getting a divorce from his wife of 17 years.

G. Gordon Liddy will say the New York Times is a bastion of liberal bias (the same Times that held back the story about the NSA having spied on Americans, news that could have been the death knell to the 2004 Bush campaign) -- yet ignores the fact that they offered a platform for all the timely White House war propaganda that Judy Miller could fit to print.

Hannity, O'Reilly and the usual suspects ripped Al Franken for not supporting our military -- but vacation in the safety of their luxury digs while Franken uses his time off to entertain the troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Talk radio may make you think it loves you, but once you're finished, you're left with nothing but a lie and perhaps an STD (Severe Truth Distortion) or two.

Screwed?

Sure.

Loved?

Not on your dial.

It's your choice to do with your life what you want. But risky behavior has consequences. If you plan to continue listening, be careful. And for God's sake, wear protection.

Posted by: Doug at January 3, 2006 08:13 AM

"STDs" aren't limited to conservative media hosts.

In his book "Do As I Say," Peter Schweizer reports:

Air America radio host Al Franken calls conservatives "racists because they lack diversity and oppose affirmative action." Yet fewer than 1 percent of the people he has hired over the last 15 years have been African-American.

Filmmaker Michael Moore insists that corporations are evil and claims he doesn't invest in the stock market due to moral principals, but his IRS forms viewed by Schweizer show that he has owned shares in such corporate giants as Halliburton, Merck, Pfizer, Sunoco, Tenet Health Care, Ford, General Electric and McDonald's.

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2005/11/4/110948.shtml

--------

Mitch, my first job in radio was $3.35 an hour in 1981. I moonlit as a cocktail waitress to eke by -- but got a raise thanks to a patron scolding my GM there one night about my working two jobs. But, I was living in St. Peter. I can't imagine living that wage in Mpls./St. Paul.

Posted by: Nancy at January 3, 2006 09:46 AM

The reason any conservative's failing is always major news is that it allows liberals to engage in their very favorite taunt: Hypocrisy! Hypocrisy is the only sin that really inflames them. Inasmuch as liberals have no morals, they can sit back and criticize other people for failing to meet the standards that liberals simply renounce. It's an intriguing strategy. By openly admitting to being philanderers, draft dodgers, liars, weasels and cowards, liberals avoid ever being hypocrites.

At least Rush wasn't walking into church carrying a 10-pound Bible before rushing back to the Oval Office for sodomy with Monica Lewinsky. He wasn't enforcing absurd sexual harassment guidelines while dropping his pants in front of a half-dozen subordinates. (Evidently, Clinton wasn't a hypocrite because no one was supposed to take seriously the notion that he respected women or believed in God.)

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