BlatherWatch

corrections, predilections, allan prell, john carlson, david dreier, bill o'reilly, ny vinnie, paul duckworth, bill o'reilly

~All right awready, we were wrong or so thou sayest, John Carlson (KVI m-f, 3-6p). We'll give him the benefit of the doubt, when he writes to say, "I was not on the payroll of the I-200 initiative campaign when I was given involuntary paternity leave seven years ago. That entire signature gathering drive was done on a volunteer basis." We would like a little more information about "involuntary paternity leave", however.

~We were anxious the other night to hear if our friend, the authoritative but deluded Brian Maloney and our erstwhile flame, Michelle Malkin (she kissed us once at Bookfest) had anything new on Air America in an overpromo-ed segment of the O'Reilly Factor. O'Reilly, (who lives to see Al Franken die a painful death) was hilarious playing an objective reporter while he "interviewed" Maloney who was billed as a "radio industry analyst" (he's really a former right-wing KVI and KIRO talk host and conservative blogger) and the delightful Ms Malkin who, besides being a mom and the object of some of our fondest fantasies, is really an armed counter-revolutionary nag raised by sadistic nuns. We were disappointed to hear they only had the usual tediously debunked stuff about AAR stealing from boys and girls; that they're simultaneously bankrolled by George Soros, and on the verge of bankruptcy; their ratings are in the tank and the left wing media is covering all of it up.

an open letter to KIRO management: mr. clendening? mr. pridemore?

Dear Tom & Dave:
We know you guys don't like BlatherWatch much, and we don't blame you--we've been pretty harsh on you and your decisions. But we're getting 1000's of hits a day from Allan Prell's loyal listeners and  lots of letters from them like this one from Keira:

What are the chances of KIRO management joining us here & offering an explanation of what they were thinking of when they dispensed with Allan? Was it the decision of one person? How can I contact the fool?! I want to protest! Kiro isn't fun anymore! I am enjoying all the comments about Dori & Lou for now I know I'm not the only one who thinks they are obnoxious. After the morning news, it is now on to a day of either silence or music.

We weren't very supportive of Allan Prell, but we're finding that the listeners he won over are loyal to the death and now they're really mad...AT YOU! (you guys just can't win, can you?)

If you'd wish to address this, BlatherWatch would love to prominently post your thoughts and the explanations that our readers are asking to hear.

Hoping to hear from you (email us at [email protected]) This could be the first step on a beautiful journey together.

bests, Blathering Michael

allen prell fan-tsunami rises up, inundates tukwila

We were inundated for another day with hits, inquiries and comments about Allan Prell, the former 9 to noon KIRO talk host that everyone hated until he suddenly went missing.

Loyal reader Umo suggests, "If the number of people posting about the firing of Alan Prell actually listened to his show...he would still be on the air."

We were never very nice to Prell around here. He had the smell of death about him from the beginning. We knew he was the disaster he turned out to be. We weren't happy to see a disaster for KIRO, the only talk station in town with local liberal talkers.

wednesday oddems: wheredeego? whydeego? the mystery of allan prell, the nerve of lou pate, KIRO, KIRO, KIRO!

The station is abuzz. KIRO staffers can't figure out wha hoppened to 9 to noon host, Allan Prell who disappeared into dead air so suddenly in the middle of last week. As we reported, staff was surprised he was fired on a Wednesday; not a Friday, customary for this kind of termination. This has the appearance of a sudden punishment or purge for something embarrassing or compromising. Why was he fired just two days before the Arbitron trends came out?  It's more logical, and customary to boot somebody after bad numbers. They were amazed he was fired so soon after the major promotional event, the Battle of the Talk Show Hosts. Did management know his days were numbered, employees wonder, even as they promo-ed him?
~~
Today at BlatherWatch, Prell's disappearance and firing rivaled the buzz and the hits we got when in April we reported on Rev. Ken Hutcherson, the Kirkland evangelical mega-preacher who stared down Microsoft last year in the name of the Lord, and defeated the landmark gay rights bill before the Legislature. We were surprised at this intense interest in Prell--KIRO's firing of local sports icon Tony Ventrella Monday didn't generate anywhere near the interest. (A reader wrote today that Ventrella "made the mostly benign Dave Ross, seem like a wild man.") Ventrella's picture and bio is still on the KIRO website, Prell's was wiped before anyone missed him. Prell just disappeared, Ventrella was fired, then allowed to stay for one last show last night and he bid the listeners adieu. That's rare on radio--also rare was the memo in the employee mailboxes saying that Ventrella was returning to the business world or some such.
~~
If BlatherWatch commenters had anything to say about it, Prell would have been saved and Dori Monson would have been booted.
~~
The name on everyone's lips is Ciscoe Morris, the quirky ex-lawnboy and who does the gardening show on Saturdays. He keeps popping up in conversations as the next 9 to nooner to replace Prell. His Wisconsin accent may be a liability, but on the upside, he  still speaks better English than New York Vinnie and has more broadcasting experience than Frank Shiers.
~~
Last week, while we were porking out in the Palouse, we missed that the vote on the union contract at KIRO and KTTH was completed and the AFTRA contract was decertified. In other words, the fools led by Lou Pate, (KIRO m-f, 1-5a) threw out their own union representation. The first vote was in May and it was a tie, with three votes in dispute. The NLRB examined the questioned votes, and disqualified two, leaving one to decide: union, yes; or union, no. An email from the union, identified to all concerned that the person who cast the disputed vote was none other than Michael Medved (KTTH m-f, 12-3p), the nationally syndicated neocon who broadcasts from Seattle. Medved is one of those who made no public stance on the union. Now, of course, everyone knows that he voted for decertification of the union he'd been a member of for nearly 30 years. At least he was true to his conservative union-hating principles. Not so true to his alleged progressive principals was Lexus liberal Mike Webb (KIRO m-f, 9p-1a) who favored the union-busting, even as he class-baits and decries "corporate masters," while hypocritically blowing off his own right to collective bargaining. 
~~
Speaking of blow-jobs, a quick-fingered producer cut conservative overnighter Lou Pate's remarks at the Battle of the Talk Show Hosts, when he reportedly said  that blow-jobs were the only thing about Bill Clinton he could identify with. The audience at home didn't get to hear that, but they did catch Pate's remark suggesting  KY Jelly for Mike Webb's penetrating problems. Mr. Clendening was not amused.
~~
Got any inside radio poop to scoop? Discretion assured. Send us an email at [email protected]

tony ventrella, 2005-2005 R.I.P.

People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered...
forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish ulterior motives...
be kind anyway. --In the Final Analysis by Mother Theresa

Tony Ventrella won't be back tomorrow.

The Big KIRO Purge that began last week with 9 to nooner Allen Prell, continued tonight with Ventrella's well-shorn head falling in the basket. No warning, no party, just the sad sound of a desk being cleaned out and the smell of flop sweat around the tense cubicle ranch ravaged by rumors, paranoia and intenuendo.

Who's next?

Mike Webb, directly following Ventrella and his brave-hearted swan song, stirred out of his usual ennui and acted actually interested and energetic on-air as the landscape literally shifted around him--nothing like the smell of death to perk a guy up...

After a normal show packed with inside baseball about football, Tony Ventrella, like the motivational speaker he is, read In the Final Analysis, a corny but uplifting bit of poesy by Mother Theresa. He then said goodbye to his few good listeners and that he'd be around for his Seahawk's Huddle Thursdays (7-9p) and would otherwise be doing TV, and finishing his second book.

We missed his first one, Smile in the Mirror, a primer for his positive energy work which might give you a toothache if you don't brush right after reading.

Ventrella, the collegial Mr. Nice who has graced the KIRO airwaves since January, never really clicked-in with the snarly talk radio audience who loves to see blood in the water at least once a day. Ventrella, a barber and a son of a barber, treated listeners like they were haircutting customers asking after their mothers or if they'd like a little more off the top. It didn't work. Listeners said, "Hell, if I want nice-nice, I'll just talk to my barber."

Who's next?

The rumblings and cataclysms heard around the once-mighty KIRO are not the pitiful seismics of the lame Eastlake management. An insider wrote us today and said, "What you need to know is that the decision to fire Prell came from way over Clendening and Pridemore's head. They did not want to make this move right now."

Who's next?

Apparently the slow-moving suits at Entercom headquarters in Bala Cynwyd, PA. finally began the inevitable for the foundering station. Our guy wrote, "Radical changes are needed in the line up and management structure, and most of us hope this comes soon."

There's real turmoil at Entercom, they don't need this right now. Today, they also fired Peter Blute, a former GOP Congressman and morning co-host at Boston's WRKO where there was a major recent management upheaval. 

We're hoping that the Entercom makes management replacements as well as offing the talent so mishired and mismanaged. That means Clendening must go or... something. It'll happen--as an insider wrote: "Bottom line is, when your programming decisions start coming from corporate, you are in deep shit."

We've been writing about and predicting this since March. When we got into this talk radio blog, we never dreamed that KIRO, our favorite station, and the only remotely liberal one in the market at the time, would ever be the object of our intense scrutiny and criticism. But we've watched the programming slide, the ratings tank and good staffers become disillusioned, dejected, fired and flown.

A not untypical remark we hear is like the one we heard today from a longtime Eastlake employee: "Most of us are dumbfounded, depressed, and disgusted that the station has been taken into the toilet like this."

Who's next?

allan prell, 2005-2005 R.I.P.

While BlatherWatch was careering through Oregon with a deadweight laptop on a wine country press junket and foodie glutfest, the first shoe, that is to say, talk host, was dropped like a peach pit in the upcoming the KIRO see-change.

As the story unfolded, (and the hopelessly unplugged Blathering Michael was blithely mange-ing his way through oregonic cheeseries, orchards and wine chateaux) readers wrote to tell us that Allan Prell (KIRO m-f, 9-12) had gone missing, and that his photo had been expunged overnight from the KIRO website like that of a misbehaving Bolshevick from Stalin's high school yearbook.

This was no surprise to those who read BlatherWatch or have an ounce of Seattle intuitive talk radio sense. Prell's schtick was that of the playful ass-hat; the self-deprecating fool with a smart mouth. He was liberal, and did his homework, but his style was too quirky for Seattle to swallow in one bite, especially in the hallowed space left by the infinitely reasonable and absurdly mature Dave Ross (KIRO m-f, 3-6p).

Prell was an acquired taste; and there was evidence he was beginning to wiggle his way into audience hearts just as he was frog-walked off the air. Perhaps if he'd been gently shown in through the side door of evenings and given a longer run at winning the hearts and minds of Seattleites, more of them might have acquired a taste for what he did.

Instead, he was pushed out into the glaring kliegs of KIRO's key morning slot, the one that should provide an anchor for the rest of the day. Prell was no anchor. As a matter of fact, says a now-former colleague, "He killed the momentum for the rest of the day." Ross's listeners fled in droves finding Al Franken and Thom Hartmann just around the corner at KPTK; or discovering anew "Weekday," KUOW's local NPR wonk-fest.

Staffers are as baffled as you and we--not that he was fired, mind you--he'd never done well since he started in January and got only a pathetic 2.3 share in the last book.

They're surprised he was fired on a Wednesday; when Fridays, with their weekend padding is usually the day to off somebody. They were surprised he was fired just two days before the Arbitron trends were coming out-- it's more logical to boot somebody after bad numbers. They were amazed he was fired so soon after a major promotional event, the "Battle of the Talk Show Hosts." Did management know his days were numbered, employees wonder, as they shamelessly promo-ed him?

Some claim there must have been something else which speeded Prell's quick demise, but no one can guess what that might be.

Some were surprised that Tony Ventrella (m-f, 6-9p) or/and Mike Webb (m-f, 9p-1a) hadn't been booted first, they with their 1.9 share, the lowest numbers at Eastlake.

Staffers were surprised to hear Don O'Neill's voice filling-in Prell's vacancy. Described by one Entercomer as "a Neanderthal weightlifter," O'Neill is a former morning shock jock whose "Ron & Don Show" failed abysmally a few years ago on Entercom's The Buzz ("Radio For Guys," KQBZ-FM, 100.7)  After leaving Seattle, he blew up quickly in a job in Grand Rapids and eventually got to a New Orleans Entercom station. Lately, he's gotten some corporate attention by doing "hits," (short on-location news spots) from the hurricane disaster area.

O'Neill and his homey, Ron used to drive around Seattle in a white truck with painted orange flames and "Chick Chaser" written on it, yelling "hola!" at wenchola. That this guy is sitting in the Dave Ross Chair is a sad marker of how far down KIRO has fallen.

We can only pray to our Deity of Choice that Program Genius Tom Clendening is the next to go. That's the only way to be absolutely sure that another loser like Prell, O'Neill, Mike Webb or Frank Shiers won't be put into Prell's spot.

Rumors, as always, are rife. A KIRO staffer who's privy to not much of anything, says Ross is coming back to the 9-noon. A KOMO exec, privy to even less is sure that Rush Limbaugh is waiting in the wings to be moved in from KTTH, Entercom's other failing talk station. We've heard that before, and if it happened, it'd cut KTTH off its life support and put the station into free fall.

Meanwhile, Clendening is running this hurry-up ad on Craig's List Seattle--who the hell runs an ad for a talk show host on Craig's List?

Seattle’s number one radio station is looking for a talk show host with a ratings track record. Must be passionate, creative and entertaining. If you have a sense of humor, a wide breadth of knowledge and can debate people with an opposing point of view send application/tape/resume to:

Tom Clendening
1820 Eastlake Ave East
Seattle, WA 98102
No phone calls please. EOE

Of course he's lying through his teeth about KIRO being the No.1 radio station--even in its glory days back in the '90's, it was No. 3. KIRO has slid to an overall 19 in the 25-54 money demo.

Stayed tuned, as always it promises to be, if nothing else, entertaining to watch.

we kid mike webb...

You stupid fuck, Tom C wasn't even there. You're a fuckin liar. Don't ever cross my path, you got me?--Mike Webb to BlatherWatch. 9.15.05

We kid Mike Webb.

He's a self-described "Liberal with a Capital L" (KIRO m-f, 9p-1a) and one of the longest running, and lowest rated liberal talkers in Seattle.

We kid Mike Webb, whose anger management problem is bigger than Hurricane Katrina's and humor deficit large enough to fill the canyon of George Bush's curiosity deficiency.

We kidded Mike Webb in our critical review ofKIRO's  "Battle of the Talk Show Hosts,"   last week-- that's why Webb's is making those threats and swearing at us.

He can dish it out, but he can't take it.

Off-line, we often email with the conservative talk-hosts upon whom we're pooping, and not one has ever threatened us, or gotten so pissed off as Mike Webb.

Oh, Sean Hannity called us BlunderingWatch; we get some haughty, passive aggressive stuff from the Michael Medved staff, and a few on-air insults from Mike Siegel fill-ins...but these are merit badges we wear proudly.

Webb's conservative colleague Dori Monson, (KIRO m-f,12-3p) who we've kicked around as unmercifully as we have Webb, writes: ITAL"I find it very funny that other hosts get so pissed off at your blog - you're just doing what we do."

The seriously deluded rightie, John Carlson (KVI m-f, 3-6p) who we trash repeatedly, writes lengthy and collegial emails discussing political topics.

We kid The Bad Lieutenant, Bryan Suits, (KVI m-f, 6-9p) who actually engages readers in our lively comments columns and is generous with his sarcasm and alleged wit.

But when we kid the liberal, we get threats and the f-bomb. We're embarrassed by him.

We kid, but this isn't the first time Webb's come after us. Back in 2003, after we wrote a talk radio piece for a local magazine that didn't give him enough ink (he thought the song was about him), he wrote: "Fuck You. Don't come near me. That would be regretful." Then he tried to murder us with the publisher, the editor, and threatened to report us for harassment to our Internet provider.

Recently, he wrote: "So, please, just leave me the fuck alone and have fun on your little 'website.' Let me be clear: the next email from you will be considered harassment."

(We've seen his show's "cumes" and we can assure you, our "little website" has more readers on a Sunday than he does his little talk show 'most any day. We kid Mike Webb, but his ratings are lower than Mike Siegel's).

At least one major blogger has been scared off of even mentioning Webb's name after such threats. 

Criticizing a public figure is "fair comment" and protected speech, as Mike well knows, he does it every day. Approaching a public figure on their published email address is not even close to harassment.

He's known around KIRO for threatening litigation and many give him wide berth on account of it.

Being an asshole isn't illegal, but we expect more from liberals...although, we're not so sure Webb isn't just playing one on the radio. He told us in a 2003 email that he put Rush Limbaugh on KVI and is proud of that. He's also worked hard to unseat his own union at KIRO, even though he champions "stakeholders" over "stockholders." He denigrates yuppies, and rich people, but drives a black Lexus he never talks about on-air because it would mess with his radical lefty image. He denigrates callers who disagree with him--talks over them, makes fun of their rurality (he even plays bluegrass music over them when they're talking.)

He packs a gun for "protection." He's the only armed gay liberal we know.  Gay columnist and Stranger editor, Dan Savage who actually is famous, and has lived with death threats for years, and walks among us armed only with his formidable wit.

Webb uses Sean Hannity's unliberal technique of lecturing a caller or guest, then asking them a do-you-still-beat-your-wife-question, then, when they start answering, he starts interrupting, then yells something like "you're delusional!," and hangs up on them. He not only does that to dopey callers, he does it when he's losing the argument.

We kid Mike Webb but we expect more from progressives. Hell, we expect more from Sean Hannity...

His is the overcompensation of a bully; and like all bullying, its roots are in weakness. His inability to hold up his end of a debate for righteous causes with righteous arguments usually ends with a show of power that bottom lines: I've got a dump button and you don't.

Webb says he's passionate and the right can't handle it. His passion, however, is an anger that he apparently can't handle and serves only to make his opponents seem reasonable.

It's bad radio and bad politics and his bad ratings reflect it--he dropped from 15th to 25th place in the last book.

Webb typifies the state of desperate state of local progressive talk in Seattle. We've got Dave Ross. Period.The rest--Webb, Allan Prell, Tony Ventrella, and Erin Hart are missing one or more of the necessary ingredients for talk radio success: talent, skills, the inclination, the energy, or the je ne sais quoi to be anything but local niche-midgets who are either taking up valuable band space or are comfortably stuck in ratings ghettos like late night and weekends.

Prell has taken the time to get up to speed on local issues; Webb and Hart have not. They indulge themselves with repetitious silliness, b-list guests and their ratings are rivaled only by tiny rural stations reading school lunch menus to tiny rural audiences.

Webb told us in 2003 that local politics are "BOR-ing." He'd apparently rather spend hours on his true love: spinning oldies from the golden days of his 1970's youth. 

Meanwhile, because of local conservative talkers doing local issues, Republicans have driven the media on local issues such the Un-lect Governor Gregoire distraction and the anti-roads repair initiative, I-912.

And they do it in drive-time and they lead newstalk ratings in Seattle.

We kid Mike Webb, but when will someone grab that microphone out of his face and give it to someone who's got talent, new energy and gravitas? Meanwhile, we'll be watching our back--what's scarier than an angry talk show host with a gun?

where's rossi?

Goldy over at Horse's ass.org is doing a media vigil called "Where's Rossi?"

It's about the irresponsible initiative that would veto the bipartisan highways package passed by the 2005 Legislature because it rases gas taxes to fund itself. KVI drive time talk hosts, John Carlson and Kirby Wilbur miraculously got this on the ballot in a very short period of time.

The miracle was more than a little mitigated by them using the questionable loudspeaker of their top-rated talk shows on the public airwaves to organize and direct the campaign. Dino Rossi, of course,  is the disgruntled loser in the squeaky tight gubernatorial contest won by Christine Gregoire and demogogued by talk radio.

Goldy explains:

John and Kirby cleverly launched I-912 at the peak of their election contest trial ratings-bump, tapping into the anger and disappointment of the hardcore Republican base. This initiative has always been more about sending a message than about rational public policy; it’s about sticking it to “Queen Christine” and the Democrats… consequences be damned. While almost-governor Rossi has never publicly endorsed the initiative, he hasn’t disabused the public of that notion either, passively allowing himself to be adopted as I-912’s martyred patron saint.

The Republicans are in a bind. The transportation bill passed with GOP legislators' help and their business base is very much opposed to its repeal.

Businesses overwhelming oppose I-912 because they understand how vital these transportation improvements are to the economy of the region and the state. They understand that if I-912 passes, the only alternative that could possibly enable urban voters to meet their own needs would be to devolve transportation spending to the regional level, a shortsighted and small-picture policy that would transform WA into a state of haves and have-nots, and undermine the stability on which future economic growth depends. Businesses oppose I-912 because they understand that it is recipe for gridlock, both political and actual.

Now his patrons in the business community need to make Rossi understand what they understand. And they need to make him understand that unless he supports them on this vital issue, they won’t be his patrons any longer. They need to ask him… “Where’s Rossi?”

Note that Scarlet Charmansky, The Stranger's Hem-Aphrodite sex columnist and Republican operative has been strangely quiet on this subject...odd because Carlson and Wilbur are her natural allies and have always supported his blogging efforts. This is an example of the secret transgender/Republican alliance against I-912. They should come out of the closet--everyone's seen them together anyway.

Goldy conitinues:

Sources tell me that the official no campaign, Keep Washington Rolling, http://www.keepwashingtonrolling.org/has secured $2 million in commitments, mostly from the business community, and that an intensive paid media campaign should be forthcoming by the end of the month. Apparently, I-912 opponents have managed to screw their courage bolstered by recent polls that show the initiative much more vulnerable than expected. But hidden in the details of the polling data is a tidbit that nicely sums up what I-912 is really all about. Pollsters tried pushing a number of issues to sway opinion, but only one managed to substantially swing voters from one side to the other.

The conclusion is clear: if Dino Rossi publicly opposes I-912… it loses.

Join Goldy on his daily vigil. Light a candle--it should be fun to watch.

god to george w. bush, “take a hint.”

Bill Maher speaks for us:

Now, I kid, but seriously, Mr. President, this job can't be fun for you anymore. There's no more money to spend. You used up all of that. You can't start another war because you also used up the army. And now, darn the luck, the rest of your term has become the Bush family nightmare: helping poor people.

Yeah, listen to your mom. The cupboard's bare, the credit card's maxed out, and no one is speaking to you: mission accomplished! Now it's time to do what you've always done best: lose interest and walk away.  Like you did with your military service. And the oil company. And the baseball team. It's time. Time to move on and try the next fantasy job. How about cowboy or spaceman?!

Now, I know what you're saying. You're saying that there's so many other things that you, as president, could involve yourself in…Please don't.

I know, I know, there's a lot left to do. There's a war with Venezuela, and eliminating the sales tax on yachts. Turning the space program over to the church.  And Social Security to Fannie Mae. Giving embryos the vote.

But, sir, none of that is going to happen now. Why? Because you govern like Billy Joel drives. You've performed so poorly I'm surprised you haven't given yourself a medal. You're a catastrophe that walks like a man. 

Herbert Hoover was a shitty president, but even he never conceded an entire metropolis to rising water and snakes.

On your watch, we've lost almost all of our allies, the surplus, four airliners, two Trade Centers, a piece of the Pentagon and the City of New Orleans…Maybe you're just not lucky! 

I'm not saying you don't love this country. I'm just wondering how much worse it could be if you were on the other side.  So, yes, God does speak to you, and what he's saying is, “Take a hint.”

UPDATE: kiro's "ping-pong tourney of the talk show hosts"...

Feeling deeply deserving and generally underappreciated, BlatherWatch treated ourselves to a night out tonight, hoofing it down to McCaw Hall to view KIRO's "Battle of the Talk Show Hosts."

(It was a bust compared to "Battles" past. We found ourselves wishing we'd stayed home to play Scrabble on the Mac...a scenario only too typical of our pathetic lives).

We should say: the costumes were good. We're not sure whose idea it was for everybody to get dressed up, but it added to the performance quality of the otherwise room temperature two-couched struggle by the toothsome pack of mouths we love so much.

New York Vinnie, one of the least appreciated talents around KIRO, was resplendent in dark brown. He went as a leather couch (the 3rd one on the stage) and was the picture of a "host of hosts," a sort of Bob Barker with a furniture theme.

The "music" was by Blue Thunder, the Seahawks drum corps adding outlandish electronic percussion sounds to the proceedings and adding to the sense of disreality. 

We have to admit, after all our scorn of Allan Prell--dressed as a Good Humor man in a white suit  fright wig and pork pie hat--he was very good tonight--especially in the first half, but uncharacteristically reticent in the second. He was quick on his feet, had reasoned things to say, and certainly was a favorite with the crowd.   

On the other hand Mike Webb was not. In other Battles, when he couldn't make a rhetorical score,  he whippped the audience up by making loud demogogic one-liners, the cheering then drowning out his opponents. (It's lkind of like his use of the dump button on his show). He killed Michael Medved that way once; but tonight, the audience was tepid, mirroring his own performance. He'd make those same kind of incendiary pronouncements, but the crowd didn't ignite. In his ignorance of local issues, he'd connect every one with blaming Bush; which didn't so well on issues like the anti-roads initiative 9-12 or the Monorail. It was only weird--and everyone said so.

(Webb worked hard to get his skin cleared up for this special evening. He was in his reverse drag duds with a t-shirt that said,  BUSH IS A TERRORIST AND ALL I GOT WAS A 1.3 SHARE. The rumor that he's gone full transgender circle by having two consecutive sex change operations is apochryphal).

Dave Ross, dressed in a little rat-suit, and speaking in stentorian tones, was the best. His tactic was to only speak when he had something to say. It served him well.

Another star tonight was conservative overnighter, Lou Pate who's quite the hunk with his long hair and clear, clear skin-- we wouldn't be surprised if he'd used some of Webb's moisterizer. He could whip up the crowd with his Bronx smart-ass insults--there were boos, but that's what he meant to rouse and it worked.

(The costumes, the make-up and the obsession with skin, teeth, and hair typify radio talent's legendary insecurity about their looks. The old TV slam that someone "has the looks for radio" runs deep within these homely, loudmouthed, deeply-troubled egotists. There's that old dichotomy of being "the piece of shit the world revolves around.") Putting them onstage in front of their fans is a traumatic occasion and many hours are spent not only in front of the mirror, but also in therapy sessions both before and after these events).

We're sure that part of the reason Tony Ventrella seems so normal in this crowd is because he's spent many years in front of TV cams. He was great tonight--he almost got passionate in the second half. He's good with the one-liners and is actually humble, a refreshing trait in this crowd, but probably the reason he's not making it on the radio.

He's reported to have been contemplating running for political office and when asked, he said, "The only reason I'd consider it is because it'd be the only job I haven't had in Seattle."

He, like Dori Monson was dressed as a sports announcer--the golf shirt, the plaid pants, the white shoes. Dori, of course, was predictably conservative, and sort of the parental to Pate--they worked in tandem like father and son. Seems like only yesterday Dori was the brash punk...

It was an OK night--they didn't disagree enough by our lights. Nobody got red in the face (it might have been the make-up); no one raised a fist or finger in anger.

We did get to shake some hands tonight, though BlatherWatch never identifies ourselves to the radio folk we write about--we like to enjoy the same kind of anonymity they do, and besides we wouldn't wanna inspire an angry finger or fist. We did shake Mr. Clendening's hand and told Mike Webb he was the best. (We were lying, but it seemed to mean so much to him.)

On the way home, we heard Erin Hart and Frank Shiers doing the post-game debriefing, except, as always, they talked only about themselves.

KIRO has a men-only policy for these little skirmishes, and anyway, Erin's on probation for talking too much about her dog. We were grateful we didn't have to listen to Frank, who was at his smarmy least, as always.