Whither KIRO, KTTH...ad yawneum

Here we go again. After Allan Prell's momentous departure and aftershocks that keep resounding like a dog barking in the afterlife, Entercommies keep opening up and spilling their guts to Blathering Man.

The KIRO help can't help themselves wondering why Program Director Tom Clendening still has a job. We've asked it since last March (!) and have greatly exaggerated rumors of his demise.

Suits trooped in from Bala Cynwyd (but not CEO David Field) Monday & Tuesday of last week, but no apparent shoes dropped, although everyone was quivering. The PD is like Kenny from South Park, just when you think he's really dead, there he is again. Rumors are that Entercom honchos rented Clendening a shaman (they're for rent on the back page of The Stranger) put him in a sweat lodge, smudged his office with healing herbs and purged him of all his evil decision-making demons.  Reportedly he's good to go.

There was a cleansing colonic procedure as well, and Frank Shiers reportedly manned the hose-bag, familiar as he is with Tom's posterior. Not a great favorite with his fellows, he reportedly bops into Tom's orifice, (oops, office) from the newsroom all day long. Maybe that's how he keeps getting all the key fill-in work he has so little experience with. BJ Shea (KQBZ m-f, 10a-3p) always says program directors are lazy--they often take the line of least resistance. Shiers, who does KBSG voice-overs, is always right there and ready to go (though we hear Tom sometimes peeks out his door to see if the coast is clear before going to the john to avoid being button-holed by Shiers).
 
Word on the street is that NY Vinnie isn't packing it in Ventrella's spot on the 6-9p. It's generally agreed that Ventrella will disappear entirely after the Seahawks are over. People are still amazed in the difference in how Prell and Ventrella were terminated. Tony got a swan song show, where he got to read a poem and say good bye; a quaint fable was crafted about how he wanted to get re-involved in his business. Prell was unceremoniously dumped one morning after his shift and no explanation was made to listeners, even though they wrote by the hundreds or thousands even.

Vinnie hasn't much passion for issues. His heart's in the right place and his politics; but he's a get-along guy who'd rather tell stories or lead the chorus than mix it up with callers. The other night he led one of those tsk-tsk fests about the lack of civility anymore--you know how nobody holds doors for the ladies or says please & thank-you, and that danged Jerry Springer and South Park that's ruined us all, etc.,etc., ad yawneum...He's a sports guy and always falls back on sports.

The thrill mill still insists that Siegel producer Dave Boze and Medved producer Dan Sytman will wrench the KTTH morning drive (m-f 6-9a) out of Siegel's hands and send him to afternoons--maybe to that odd 5-7p spot where O'Reilly tells his lies. (O'Reilly to Siegel? that's a lateral move, Tom).

Dave & Dan (we call 'em Dumb & Meaner) have been filling in for Siegel during his multious holidays and perked up the mornings while they did. They're frisky and loud, and fast moving in that mocking, politically incorrect gotcha way of Young Republican quick studies. They've gotten good reception from listeners, at least the ones who write to us. After Siegel's hackneyed schtick, anyone might seem fresh, though.

We've heard Boze may be resistant to taking the slot, though he denies everything to us. He's from Hillsdale College by way of Stanwood, so his hippy ambivalence runs deep. He may be afraid the morning commitment would interfere with elk season. 

Sytman, a Seattle boy who gets his kicks interviewing homeless people and asking them questions on economics, applied several years ago for a sense of humor, but so far it hasn't come though. He's done a fair job of fashioning one out of old Michael Medved shows and Peter Weissbach one-liners from the '90's. (Michael Medved only acquired his sense of humor after the Republican takeover in 1994).

We'd love it if the new team got the spot, but why, Tom, not send Siegel back to the farm team?

Comments

[tim]

hey I watch O'Reilly and some time listen to him. Can you tell me where his lies or is this you blabbing again. You sure don't make remarks like that with no examples or is this how you blog with your lies

[Bryan Styble]

Dear Mr. Hood:

I'm a bit reluctant to reply to the latest Blatherwatch coverage of my KIRO work. I say this not because your own signed critiques, Mr. Hood, have to date several times dismissed various Bryan Styble performances on KIRO as worse than substandard. (In your latest slam against my broadcasting, you called me "fast-talking but slow-thinking." While the former assertion is indisputable, the latter one is...well, it's something with which surely too many--but I hope not most--of my KIRO listeners agree.)

Nor am I loath to respond herein merely because your blog is often critical of certain colleagues whose work I admire, and whose talent sometimes amazes me.

No, the principal reason this fellow who relishes nothing more than discussing, writing about and (obviously) conducting call-in newstalk radio is hesitant to participate in BlatherWatch posting is because you, Mr. Hood (and some of your posters), are often downright scurrilous about KIRO management. Regarding my various superiors, you'll not be, ahem, surprised to learn they hold my total respect. (Of course, I wouldn't join in your dissin' of them even if that WASN'T the case; however dimwitted their son, my parents didn't raise a fool.)

But I'm afraid your readers were somewhat misled by your report regarding certain of my Friday morning, October 14th on-air comments, so here I am again posting to BlatherWatch. You (contemptuously) observed that I nominated Bill O'Reilly to the Supreme Court while noting that I did it "quite seriously", and that's correct. On the same broadcast I also lamented that Dubya hadn't nominated Judge Reinhold, one of my favorite comic actors, and you didn't try to discredit me by claiming that was serious, which is commendable, I guess.)

But while, unlike the Reinhold gag, my O'Reilly statement was not a joke, your presentation of it was rather unfair, especially to someone like me, whom you consider slow-witted. (I always cut additional intellectual slack to anyone who I figure isn't my mental match, and wish you'd the same.) That's because you failed to mention the context in which I made the unorthodox O'Reilly suggestion, something which I went to considerable length to establish on the air.

To wit: I made clear that I was suggesting that Bush might have considered not merely a non-judge (such as Justice-designate Miers, or the previous Justices Douglas, Frankfurter and Warren), but perhaps even a non-LAWYER. That is, I was proposing a "citizen justice", a distinguished individual who could bring a formidable combination of professional accomplishment, intellect and common-sense judgment to the Court and thus serve as but a one-eighth counterweight to the leaden elite legal backgrounds of the other justices.

While this is admittedly an unorthodox idea, nothing in the Constitution prohibits it, and indeed, I am hardly the first radio talker to suggest it. (Michael Medved also recently floated the idea, without advocating it, for instance.) Of course, one might challenge O'Reilly as being a lousy choice for such an appointment, but that hardly undermines the idea in principle.

By the way, I was disappointed to see you, a presumably diligent Internet journalist, misspell my first name, inasmuch as I had previously posted to BlatherWatch in response to that imposter who was for unclear reasons posing as me herein. (Thanks for banishing him/her, incidentally.) Showbiz folk often insist that there's "no such thing as bad publicity", provided "they spell your name correctly". So I guess this is an example of bonafide negative publicity!

Lastly, regarding your lampooning of my admittedly too-frequent citing that my surname rhymes with Bible: if you worked in an aural medium and were cursed with a frequently-misheard name--if, say, your fine name sounded like "Hood" but was spelled "Hod"--might not you also mention that it "rhymes with wood"?

Sincerely (if slow-thinkingly),
BRYAN STYBLE/Seattle

[John Babarovich II]

Bryan, just off the cuff, and it really doesn't concern anything you are trying to say, but anyone, and I mean anyone, who actually types an "ahem" into their rant, is a A-1 pretentious sissy-mary. I had to hurry to the end of youe message to amke sure it hadn't been typed by the ghost of Truman Capote.

Have a nice day.

[sclub]

Isn't your real name Brian Stible anyway? How the hell did you get on KIRO? How does this kind of crapola happen?

[sparky]

wow...the conserves are sure getting grouchy now that their Georgie Boy's numbers are in the crapper!

[chris]

I would say "desperate"