BlatherWatch

The commentators- schram & carlson: must see radio!

Nobody could believe it (least of all us) but BlatherWatch talked our way into Fisher Plaza's studios and the inaugural show of "The Commentators," Monday morning.

We have a feeling there were plenty of listeners, but in case you weren't one of them, "The Commentators" is KOMOAM's (1000 KHz) first in years, foray into political talk. It's a weekdaily (10a-12p) hard-scrabble debate between KVI's veteran talker John Carlson (m-f, 3-5p) and KOMO TV's resident lip, Ken Schram.

(Don't confuse this with KKOL's upcoming cooking show, "The Common 'Taters" to hopefully compete with Tom Douglas' elitist, foodie Saturday (4-6p) show on KIRO that deals with truffle oil and the kind of leeks you can't take behind the garage).

We were scuttled through tunnels and funny stairwells into the labyrinthine building by KOMO drones we'd bribed with promises that we'd humiliatingly blog-trash their bosses. We were sat down on a folding chair, a glass separating us from the mics behind which sat Schram, Carlson and much to our delight, the mighty mouth of Christian thought and action: Rev. Ken Hutcherson, who was seated next to the diminutive Schram. (Ok, Schram is not that small- anyone seems puny next to Hutcherson, who once played hockey or one of those violent pro-sports where you have to pray to survive- hurting people gave him his spiritual edge).

Schram and Carlson sat directly across from each other at a "decent distance" and separated by a "cone of silence." The 50-something Schram wearing a turtle neck and jeans, the 40-something Carlson, of course, wore a tie.

Schram came out punching, a brave act considering the weight difference and that he was in easy reach of the giant, shave-headed Rev (did we mention he's black?) who looked like one of Michael Jackson's security posse. Schram said something like: last time we talked, I called you a bigot, and Hutch said yes, you did.

The argument ensued with Hutcherson jabbing the air with all manner of "finger pointing," like the R's are always accusing us liberals of.

Schram put up a strong offense to which Hutcherson responded deftly with his usual provocative, but predictable talking points. ("I know many ex-gays," he said," but there's never been an ex-blackman- Michael Jackson doesn't count.")

Hutcherson's politics go only so deep. Push him past the glib sound-bites (as Schram did)- and you get the B-I-B-L-E. He, like many of his evangelical cohorts, are not really political- they have a religious agenda they're trying to make us all dance to, or as Schram put it- [they're] "trying to make the community at large be bigoted." But when it comes to the consensus-building that's our political system, they don't buy it. Giving up a half a loaf doesn't pack it if it's God's bread, they say. Click here for some of our favorite Hutcherson sound-bites.

After some Seahawk talk, Hutcherson left and during the break, we ventured into the studio where Carlson greeted us and asked if we'd like to stay in the real studio and catch the rest of he show in the seat Hutcherson had just vacated. 

There are no callers on "The Commentators," just the play between Schram, the unpredictable libertarian liberal and Carlson, a doctrinaire conservative and the guests. What makes it compelling is the chemistry between these two. It's obvious they genuinely like each other, which creates a tension not unlike family dinner table argument where everyone pounds the table but gets up still liking each other.

Schram & Carlson look each other in the eye, and the insults are as much for each other's enjoyment as the audience's. Heated exchanges are always with smile, and subtext is like, "Gotcha, motherfucker," and, "Not bad, sucker, now take this..."

We must note: Carlson would NEVER say motherfucker (even if his mouth was full of it) and Schram, it's fair to say, would.

rabbi daniel lapin, 2002-2006 R.I.P.

Your rabbi and ours did his last show on KTTH and the Seattle market Sunday night.

In February, Lapin will begin broadcasting a 3-hour Sunday afternoon show (1-4p) on San Francisco's conservative talker, KSFO. He'll replace David Gold, who is on tape over the weekend. Lapin will be one of the few live hosts KSFO's Sunday schedule, which, like most talk stations is a mishmash of tape delay, gardening shows, and Matt Drudge who isn't dead even though he sounds like he's been embalmed.

The didactic right-wing Lapin will do essentially the same show in Baghdad by the Bay as he does in Seattle. "I'm a one trick guy," he told a listener Sunday. The KSFO show will be streamed on the Net.

(We're not sure if it's a case of the rat deserting the ship or vice versa. Neither Lapin nor Entercom's KTTH have had a great year- the station is nearly moribund, even Rush Limbaugh is in the tank; and Lapin has been more than touched by the Abramoff scandal).

Lapin's show, whose broadcast time was in part purchased by his non-profit Toward Tradition, has never made it in the real radio marketplace. The show, over the years, has meandered around the right-wing dial from KVI to KKOL to KGNW to KTTH. It was syndicated for a short time.

He's always had a small but loyal audience of mostly fundamentalist Christians for his lectures on morality and human behavior that usually ended in a political lesson or a screed against "secular fundamentalists."

It was pretty boring radio. He's much more interesting off the air. Here's BlatherWatch's extensive file on the rebbe.

Seattle times: rabbi daniel lapin abramoff connections
Rabbi Daniel Lapin: show rabbi of the racists
Rabbi Daniel Lapin: "The Man Who Stands By His Scandal-Ridden Friends"
Rabbi Daniel Lapin: More National Embarrassment
Rabbi daniel lapin, a long look backward
The rabbi with the tinfoil yarmulke (and we thought he was just boring...)

OPEN THREAD: should democrats filibuster the Alito nomination?

Is Alito an extremist who will help take away our God-given abortion rights?

Will he continue the conservative Supreme Court trend of giving away the farm to the corporations? (as in the recent eminent demain decision?)

Will he help Thomas and Scalia restore Christian prayers in the schools?

Will a new conservative court restore the sodomy laws that make blowjobs a criminal offense even between married couples?

Are individual rights in America in big trouble?

erin hart, 1999-2006 R.I.P.

Another liberal talk host is gone from the Seattle market.

"There is no easy way to say this," KIRO's Erin Hart begins her farewell letter apparently sent out to her email list. She goes on to announce the elimination of her live  Saturday & Sunday talk show. 

The liberal talk host says the split is amicable and due to "cost-cutting at Entercom." She says several others will be eliminated or will change format.

She will continue, she says, doing fill-in for KIRO and sources say she'll continue to have access to KIRO studios to do her Denver show.

Frank Shiers, (Sat. 7-10p;  Sun. 4-7p) apparently is safe. Stay tuned.

KIRO programming and public relations management is not returning BlatherWatch phone calls.

Read the entire text of Hart's letter after the bump...

JACK OLSEN SPEAKS: oprah, james frey, and fictional nonfiction

The dizzying fall of James Frey and his fictional memoir, A Million Little Pieces, ended Thursday when it hit the pavement with a splat! as Oprah Winfrey dressed the author down on the air before millions of her loyal fans.

Press and television, as the New York Times Max Frankel has observed, “are in a heroic battle to preserve the meaning of fact and the sanctity of quotation marks. Reporters have been losing their jobs for committing fiction, a crime that is no crime at all in too many other media.”

Whether the exposure of the self-aggrandizing liar Frey and the public embarrassment of Oprah will make any difference to the publishing world and the reading public is yet to be revealed.

But the subject of fictional non-fiction is not a new one and reminded us of one of the favorite rants of our late friend, Bainbridge Island author Jack Olsen, who died a few years ago.

Jack would have laughed and laughed at Frey, and the pickle he got Oprah into, but we don't think he would have been surprised.

The curmudgeonly and outspoken Olsen was a real reporter and the author of over 30 non-fiction books, many of which could be categorized "true crime." He was the best of those writing in that genre, though he hated to be identified as a true crime writer, if for no other reason that he never wanted to be mentioned in the same breath as Ann Rule, who was more successful than he, and whom he despised.

He always differentiated his work from true crime writing, most of which, he said, typified the decline of nonfiction. The problem presented itself in the inventive conjecture and made-up quotes in Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, the extravagantly successful nonfiction novel about the 1957 Clutter family murders, which was considered the first true crime book.

“In Cold Blood did two things, it made true crime an interesting, successful, commercial genre, but it also began the process of tearing it down.”

Olsen spoke of the success of the nonfiction book, Sleepers, by Lorenzo Carcaterra which was made into a successful 1996 movie starring Kevin Bacon, Billy Crudup, Robert De Niro, Minnie Driver, and Dustin Hoffman.

“Here was an $9 million book: a story of injustice in Hell’s Kitchen,” he said “Very sensational: a priest suborning perjury, the DA putting in the fix, two heroic boys getting even for a year in a reformatory where they were sodomized. It was 100 percent bullshit. Carcaterras didn't do 5 minutes of research on Sleepers and it got him $7 or 8 million. ”

Olsen and six other nonfiction writers unsuccessfully petitioned the publisher, Ballantine, to withdraw the book, refund the money of those who bought it under its pretense of nonfiction, and reissue it as a novel- just as critics are demanding of Anchor, the publisher, of A Million Little Pieces.   

“I’ve reached the point," Olsen said, "where if my next door neighbor turned out to be the goddamndest quadruple murderer involving sex, incest, serial murder, I wouldnt write about it. It would go right on the true-crime shelf, in between this piece of crap and that piece of crap- the average reader would say, ‘There are three pieces of crap’.”

“Other forms of journalism insist on things be true, but the one form that’ll be around a hundred years from now- books!- nobody cares. With computers, this should be the heyday of truth and accuracy in journalism. I’ve suggested book publishers have fact-checking departments like newspapers, but they say it’s too expensive.”

He also pointed to another a very successful true crime book, one that crosses over into different genres, Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil.  It was 4 years on the NY Times bestseller list and made into a movie directed by Clint Eastwood, and starring John Cusack, and Kevin Spacey.

"It’s an amazing story," Jack said.  "As I was reading it I was saying to myself--'[author] John Berendt goes down to Savannah, Georgia, he meets all these fantastic people, he meets the killer, he gets intimately involved in this whole murder and he writes about it.' I’m saying to myself, 'why can’t this happen to me?'"

Jack met Berendt at a writers’ conference and learned that he hadn’t been involved in it at all- he had merely inserted himself into it as a vehicle for telling the story.

"So there’s perhaps your best selling hard cover book in modern history and the main thrust of it is faked. He wasn’t even in Savannah when the murder happened, he came down later and constructed the whole thing with him in it.--it was a literary device he never let us in on. He's a good writer- the mood stuff and the setting stuff was excellent.

I have to say it was  good craftsmanship --except it was not true.

But what’s happened now is like Gresham’s Law: Bad writing, bad reporting drives out good. Apparently it's no longer important to the reading public if you go out and bust your ass to get the facts right or if you just make it up. It’s no longer important. That completely wipes out the main tools we journalists have--technique, journalism, research- you don’t need that any more."

Give us more, sheriff dave or give us darcy burner

Sheriff Dave, the 8th District Congressional placeholder, wearing his signature pink pumps did KUOW's Weekday (m-f 9-11a) for an hour of blanc mange and high-toned nice-nice.

Haven't heard anyone talk so much and say so little since Jennifer Dunn was caught with Newt Gingrich's shorts in her laundry basket.

Wading through the tofu with the genteel Steve Scher, we couldn't really say what Reichert said, only that we were comatose at the end of it- exactly the state of bliss we'd been praying for.

How could anyone become such a hack in one two-year Congressional term?

His tactic is to steer every question back to a) his heroics catching the Green River killer, b) his heroics avoiding getting anything on him during the WTO riots, c) his heroics voting against tanker traffic in Puget Sound.

Once you're past the hero part, it's all mush-mouthed tropes and dithering syntax about Freedom, The Environment and The American Way. The fact is, despite all his moderate, independent lip service, he votes with the hard right Republican House leadership 97% of the time.

Folks in the 8th had a chance in 2004 to elect Dave Ross, one of the bright stars of local radio over the smarmy Sheriff. Ross went back to KIRO (m-f, 3-6p) and is now, unfortunately, ensnared in an exasperating 3-hour talk trap sharing equal time with "Traffic and Weather Together on the 3's." He'd have had more talking time in one of our marriages than he's getting on this so-called talk show...

Republicans like Reichert from moderate districts, business moderates like Senate candidate Mike McGavick or whiny Seattle urban Republicans as celebrated last year in Matt Rosenberg's Seattle Weekly cover piece must face the music that their choice of political party puts them naked and in bed with the likes of anti-choice, anti-gay, anti-sex, extra-Christians like Ken Hutcherson and Joe Fuiton; and extreme social conservatives like Pam Roach, Daniel Lapin, John Carlson, Val Stevens, Carol Cassaday, Dan Swecker, and Jabba the Hut. Not to speak of Tom Delay and George W.Bush. The state GOP base ran off the Dan Evans wing long ago and only lets so-called mainstreamers like Sam Reed and Rob McKenna run for what they hope are non-political offices like Sec. of State and Attorney General.

Had us yearning for the action-specific talk of Darcy Burner, the hot young Democrat who's running against Sheriff Dave.

There's a lot of buzz about the bright, accomplished Burner as well there should be- she's a Harvard grad and ex-Microsoftie the likes of whom we rarely see drawn into politics.

She's in Jay Inslee's league- a young, solution-specific policy cruncher- a stark contrast to Reicher's obfuscating nice guy who must create a fog of verbiage to distract voters away from his troubling allegiance to a troubled, scandal-ridden Bush administration.

KTTH: all sports?

We always seem to be in the conduit for some of the most fascinating rumors in the business.

As we reported yesterday, KTTH, the mostly moribund Seattle Entercom talker got the bid to be the voice of the Sonics starting next (2006-07) season; taking it from KJR after 21 years! Read all about it in Bill Virgin's weekly PI column "Radio Beat, which also had this piece of fascinatia:   

Dave Pridemore, vice president and general manager for KTTH and KIRO-AM (710), said landing the Sonics doesn't mean massive change to sports talk. "Our format on KTTH is going to remain the same as it's been," he said. KTTH will do a weekly coach's show and other features during the season, and will look for opportunities to add programming, but those additions will be within the talk format.

One interesting wrinkle is that Limbaugh's contract with KTTH expires this year. Entercom grabbed Limbaugh away from KVI-AM (570), and KVI would like him back. "Rush is a perfect fit on KVI," said Dennis Kelly, Fisher Radio's AM group program director.

But Pridemore said KTTH intends to continue the relationship with Limbaugh, and he has a one-word answer to the occasional conjecture that Limbaugh might be moved to KIRO: "No." He added, "We feel Rush has a strong following on KTTH."

Of course, Rush has been limping badly on KTTH, and we're not sure how he'd do much better on KVI, but it's a fascinating thought. (Boy those were the days when Rush and Dave Ross punched it out every day and Dave came up good most of the time- we were so proud of KIRO then...)

Another heavy rumor that's going around- from our readers (thanks JDB) and now in an email from a Seattle radio exec:

Wednesday oddems: mike webb, the sonics, rush limp-baugh, willy horton

~~Will Rush Limbaugh "retire" before 2006 is out? Some wiser, more experienced heads than ours are predicting it. He's in a downhill slide all over the country-(radio in general is in a steep slump) and our guy claims he'll say he has won or lost the battle or that there are so many voices that now share his opinion, so his work is done. Or it could be the legal thing, or a new marriage, or his golf game. With Limbaugh's falling numbers across the country, Premiere, he says, will want to get out of that multimillion $ contract one way or another. Small stations in mid-sized markets can't pay the freight for someone who "it can be said is on a downhill slide- read plummet." KTTH is paying Limbaugh $350,000 a year and a chunk of the ad revenue and the failing KTTH, with little more going for it than Limbaugh can ill afford it.

~~It's Willy Horton all over again. The State Republicans unabashed dirty trick sending post cards with a photo of a scary child rapist and a description of his crimes to at-risk Democrats' districts all over the state has been exposed and has backfired. The postcard implied the guy was in the neighborhood and the local Democrat had voted to put him there- even though it was the same guy in the photo in every district. Darryl over at Hominid Views has the real story. (The sex offender was not, as viciously rumored, BlatherWatch's Michael Hood, but rather a convict living under strict supervision in Pierce County. Hood has never been  arrested or implicated in any sex crimes, though at one point in his life, he laughably considered himself "the gangster of love)."

~~KTTH will be the voice of the Sonics starting in the 2006-07 season. It's further evidence after automating last month that Entercom is pulling the station away from political talk.The Seahawks saved this Book for KIRO, so maybe Entercom suits believe they can can juice up the numbers with basketball. Bet they're praying the Legislature will cooperate and build the Sonics a new stadium- a labor of love we taxpayers go through about every 10 years. The Sonics are threatening to leave if that doesn't happen- the Legislature will capitulate if we can glean anything from light 20th century history.

~~Mike Webb, former KIRO talk host charged in December with felony insurance fraud was scheduled Tuesday to appear in Superior Court to have the calendar set for his trial: he requested it be postponed until mid-February. This is the second time he's postponed it. Legal sources say he may be considering a guilty plea in what appears to be a strong case against him. Our lawyer friend says, "If I were defending him, I'd be advising him to plea it out." Webb has proclaimed his innocence repeatedly and famously told Seattle Times reporter, Christine Clarridge: "It would take an absolute idiot to try to defraud someone like that." Look for Mike to plead guilty while vociferously maintaining his innocence.

~~Another juicy theory that has a little credibility is Entercom's talkers are in trouble nationwide
because CEO David Field has taken his eye off the ball. He's obsessed, they're saying, with building a grand empire that includes ABC Radio and has taken his focus off of the stations he currently owns. Any energy not devoted to that is going to HD 2, the new digital radio format that the public is almost totally unaware of. (All of this is why, go the rumors, Tom Clendening and David Pridemore still have their jobs). When we looked into what's going on nationally with Entercom we found some merit to the theory that the company trend is toward infomericals and "lifestyle" talk, which really don't make a lot of money or get ratings. They're letting the sales departments take over a lot of the stations. It's why excreable Ron & Don are back in town, why Bryan Styble's (rhymes with unlistenable) star is rising at KIRO.

~~Entercom has apparently lost its bid to take over Disney's ABC Radio, to Citadel Broadcasting Corp. according to Reuters. It would have made Entercom the largest radio conglmerate in the country.

Rabbi Daniel Lapin: show rabbi of the racists

Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful. --Nietzsche

Meet Rabbi Daniel Lapin- David Duke's favorite Jew.

But, you ask, where could this anti-semitic, racist, white separatist possibly find common ground with this Jewish man of God?

(You're right- it's downright counter-intuitive. Lapin is an Orthodox rabbi from the enlightened Pacific Northwest, and an influential voice of the religious right. Nazi-but-nice David Duke with his blow-dried Republican "statesman" haircut is a racist, and anti-Semite who traded his KKK percale for custom 2-buttons from Barney's of Baton Rouge).

As it turns out, they have lots in common. Both have been Republicans, (Lapin still is one) and both agree with Adolf Hitler that Jews are largely responsible for "filth and debasement" of Western culture.

Duke is a holocaust denier; Lapin has stood up for holocaust deniers and says "enough already" about all this Holocaust stuff.

Both have multi-syllabic rationales resounding with truthiness for the God-given superiority of Western Civilization and disdain for those (mostly colored) peoples who hadn't foresight to be born into the Judeo-Christian tradition. 

(OK, OK, Duke would take strong exception to the "Judeo" part of that equation, but Lapin's specialty is "strengthening understanding between Christians and Jews" and ecumenical "bridge-building" between secular wackos. Maybe he could look beyond Duke's Christian Identity belief that Jews are the "Children of Satan." Or, in the interest of shared values, overlook Duke's dark bayou dreams of lampshades made out of such as the good rebbe.)

We're not sure how Rabbi Lapin feels about Duke, but Duke really likes Rabbi Lapin- as Duke has written, "...there are so few honest voices like that of Rabbi Lapin."

BlatherWatch has long chronicled the strange case of Rabbi Daniel Lapin, the clergyman whose life and work has been muddied lately by revelations of his long and deep ties to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Until this scandal, Lapin for us was but a long-winded didact whose haughty South African-accented voice has frequented Seattle talk radio over the years in fill-ins for right-wing talkers; his own briefly syndicated Sunday evening shows; and presently on his weekly kulturkampf he buys onto local right-wing talker, KTTH (Sundays, 7=10p).

NWPI to begin broadcasts of podcasts

That compendium of liberal grassroots heat and light, The Northwest Progressive Institute has gone, multimedia, having posted their inaugural podcast on Jan.18.

What we're excited about is that they're also broadcasting them over the radio starting today on 94.5 FM in Seattle (104.5 in Fall City, Snoqualmie, and Carnation). No blowtorch, this, but we suspect this is only the beginning for these progressive activists' broadcasting.

(The Institute, under the direction of Andrew Villenueve, has played large parts defeating various Tim Eyman initiatives and was instrumental in the resounding defeat of the anarchic anti-roads initiative 912 last Fall).

"We're hopeful other stations will air our podcasts." Villeneuve says. "We'll likely break future podcasts into two shorter segments for radio, which means we'll be delivering four "mini episodes," or segments for airplay each month, running each audio segment several times on air."

They'll drill down on local politics and the Pacific Northwest.

"Our regular episodes will focus on important issues and campaigns, offering vital information and what we hope will be refreshing perspectives," Villeneuve says. He promises they'll listen to feed back and take input from listeners.

Examples of possible topics range from defending transportation funding from attacks by right wing anti-tax zealots to focusing attention on key campaigns for elected office, such as the race for Washington's 8th Congressional District.

In the NWPI audio archives are some of Villeneuve's appearances on KVI and a bunch of David "Goldy" Goldstein's (horsesass.org) entertaining appearances on the John Carlson show punching the rhetorical lights out of various opponents on questions as diverse as 'Is Intelligent Design intelligent or just design?' to 'Will Dino Rossi's hair piece survive a wet winter?'

"We have a long way to go to take our country back from the Republican right," says Villeneuve, "Every piece of media infrastructure we create helps us as a movement and as a Party."