I was remiss (overwhelmed with life, really) in not noting last week the big local media news – Bob Collins of MPR has retired after 27 years at the Taj Ma Klling and 45 in radio all together. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bob worked at MPR, so it’s an absolute given we’d disagree on…well, most things. We sparred a time or two over at the “NewsCut” blog he ran for many years over at MPR. Which says something – Bob would spar. Most MPR figures hid behind the organization’s magisterial facade and didn’t bother engaging the peasantry. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Not Bob. He was the only MPR staffer – and one of very few mainstream media figures – to ever appear at a MOB party, back in blogging’s heyday. The image of Collins talking, I think, sports with Gary Miller was one of the highlights of that whole time of my history doing this blog thing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And I would be lying if I didn’t admit that he wrote two of the things that I’ve been proudest of in all my years of doing this. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2007, I wrote a piece<\/a> o the death of Bo Diddley, about which Bob wrote<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mitch Berg, author of the Shot in the Dark<\/a> blog, pens a tribute (by the way, to see why Berg is, perhaps, the best blog writer in Minnesota when it comes to music, see his post<\/a> on Bruce Springsteen.), invoking some long-forgotten images of when rock married politics, as in the 1989 George Bush inaugural<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n I’ve gotten a lot of compliments writing this blog – notably, the fact that so many of you spend time reading it every day – but yeah, that one coming out of the blue stuck with me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n