Friday the 13th oddems: knives to our foreskins; the live womb concert; rosie pistola & lesbian street gangs; the styble papers; t-rex at the t-dome with frank; mullets that kill; floyd brown will shoot your dog

~~Talk radio spent days bitching about Live Earth, Al Gore's 24-hour, 7-continent, concert series to raise public awareness about global warming over the weekend. Everybody attacked- U-2 wasn't there; Gore did not announce his presidential candidacy; it didn't reach TV billions as hyped, (only 10's of millions) and Madonna said, "motherfucker," on the air. But if the awareness to the issue was raised 6 inches, that's good enough for us. Two years ago, the issue was little more than a title of an Al Gore speech. That the good guys can do such a massive musical outreach is a great strength. Can you imagine a conservative cause or effort even coming close to rallying people on this scale? S'pose they could have Live Womb, a global anti choice concert with  MC Hammer, and the Mormon Naberclacle Choir- we'd watch that... at least until Top Chef came on.

~ That's gotta be a pistol in your pocket! Violent gangs of lesbians? what a great idea! Certainly an upgrade on the usual, tawdry groupings of street thugs who typically lack self-awareness and gym memberships. Billo Reilly shot off his big mouth about this culture war atrocity which had a nationwide underground network of urban street dikes recruiting our little girls for violent sapphic street crime. We were getting all het up about this on several levels, but turns out- o darn- it was only the wet dream of a Christianist homophobe and "Fox News Analyst" and... apocryphal. Orcinus' Dave Niewert has the video, and the rest of the story.

~ WTF?! Air America has cut Seder on Sunday (KPTK 1-4p) to two hours, and surrounded it with rehashed replays of previously aired material... looks to Sam's fans like a slow push out the door. Sam's always been treated like the red-headed step sister by the network's new ownership.

~ Great radio last week: Michael Medved's three-hour interview with Christopher Hitchins, author of the bestselling, must-read (according to Medved) god is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. (he refuses to capitalize god, God damn it!) Hitchens sums up religion: “[It] offers either annihilation in the name of god, or else the false promise that if we take a knife to our foreskin, or pray in the right direction, or ingest pieces of wafer, we shall be ‘saved.’” (photo: Mr. Hitchens on a bed of lettuce) These two religious crackpots with polar opposite positions on God, battled substantively without, it seemed, losing much respect for each other. They were well-matched for the duel: it was Hitchens' gadflying via Oxford vs Medved's godflying via Yale (with a stop at the Heritage Foundation). They both appeared to get off on the erudite brabbling, and we certainly did.      

~ God is not a great talk radio topic, usually. However, Bryan Styble's lecture on his personal toilet paper preferences on KIRO's 50,000 watts last week made us google frantically for the Hour of Power. Bryan is mad that the only papier hygiénique you can get these days is unscented white- "I used to prefer the light blue or pink," he explained. He blames the environmentalists for this outrageous slippage in his quality of life. Bryan has even more opinions than we.

~ Not to worry, they won't follow us there... Turns out that while our troops have been busy kicking over the Middle East beehive for Bush over there, we've apparently been left wide open to attack over here. 

~ Jesus Frank, Dep't: We've been trying to let up on Frank "Shudder" Shiers lately for some long-forgotten altruistic reason. When we heard he'd be filling in for Dori Monson (KIRO m-f, 1-4p) this week, we thought it might be nice to have a hubris break. But Frank's long, Wednesday segment, "Should I take my 5-year-old daughter to Walking With Dinosaurs at the T-Dome?" made us cry out for hubris, what with all the self-indulgent bragging/complaining. The bragadacio was about being such a good daddy and spending all this time with his kid, but couched in the facile complaint that it's somehow controversial, or risky (or interesting to callers, we'd add). The sin turned mortal when he devoted even more hours Thursday with the much promo-ed topic, "I took my 5-year-old daughter to Walking With Dinosaurs at the T-Dome." Thank god they wouldn't let him do that live remote from Tacoma. Frank needs more kids to smooth out the preciousness, and to shut up about his child-rearing on the radio. And one more thing, Frank: please stop already about how large your "bottom" is. 'kay?

~ He's comfortably insured, himself; but The Bad Lieutenant Bryan Suits, (KVI, m-f, 3-6p) has not seen Michael Moore's new documentary, Sicko, about the U.S. healthcare crisis, and probably won't. Despite his diversity of chins, Bryan shot off his bazoo Wednesday that Moore couldn't be trusted to know anything about healthcare because he's fat.
(photo: Bryan at summer weight)

~ "Downtown" Floyd Brown is back. Thanks to Postman, for alerting us to the excellent News Tribune piece on Floyd Brown, the evil, mean and nasty right-wing hatchet who, with his infamous Willie Horton ad, seminal in slash & burn politics helped sink Dukakis in 1988. He's back home in the Northwest after a stint in California. He and his psychic twin Dick Morris are busy with a  slasher movie about Hillary Clinton to be released when it can do maximum damage. Seattle talk radio listeners will remember Floyd as a KVI talk host back in the early '90's. He took Kirby's old evening slot when The Kirb went to mornings. Brown went to UW in the 1970's and was in the reactionary Young Americans for Freedom with Kirby and John Carlson (future Attorney General Rob McKenna was around there too, somewhere). We'll never forget Brown and his cohort Dave Bossie telling us at a KVI event about scudding around Arkansas in 1993 on Richard Mellon Scaiffe's American Spectator dime trying to dig up the mudhoney on Clinton. Wonder when he'll start practicing his dark craft for the hapless state GOP?  You oughta give him a call, Stefan...

~ we were fascinated hearing Don of the Ron & Don Show (KIRO m-f, 4-7-) talk about a UCLA study that proves women are attracted to bulky musclemen such as Don himself. They like the guys with the big "guns" (biceps) for one-night stands, said the researchers, but think they're too self-absorbed for the long haul. Who could argue with that? That's kind of why we couldn't listen to them for much longer than it took us to find Rachel Maddow (KPTK m-f, 3-5p) But you gotta wonder: these guys replaced Dave Ross in afternoon drive???

~ we have a study of our own: Dr. Edgar "Choch" Manaña, psych researcher at the Hair University For Men has data that suggests that mullet cuts causes a significant degeneration of cognitive powers. In other words, stupid men don't cause mullets- mullets cause stupid men.
(photo: Don O'Neill in a youthful, self-destructive do).

Comments

[sparky]

Check out www.mulletsgalore.com

[Tommy008]

What about Shiers, Monson and Sytman on the same show as a team? The Priss, The Prig, and The Prick! This morning Sytman admitted to growing up on Mercer Island. Ths explains his insufferable air of superiority. The twerp probably doesn't even know that his precious, pampered upbringing has imbued him with this obnoxious trait.

[seattlejew]

If others are interested, next Thursday at Pratt Park there will be a community gathering against violence sponsored by Robert Jeffries of New Hope Baptist Church. For those who do not know him, Dr. Jeffries is a phenomenal civil rights leader with a commitment to raising raising the economic standing of poor people. he is a very koving speaker.

Details are at SeattleJew

[sarge]

Finally, violence will be over. why didn't we have a meeting about it years ago?

[cowpotpi3]

Chuck this link is for you. If you've heard of Blackstone (the biggest private equity company who basically buy and sell other companies for a profit) or even if you haven't, this is a pretty interesting read vis a vis corporate (non) tax payments:

If these tax savings were paid as a lump sum this year, the partners would get about $751 million, which is $198 million more than the taxes the partners will pay on the $3.7 billion of good will.

Basically, the company investors will make 3.7 billion on their IPO (good will shares) and over the next 15 years they will actually MAKE $553 million in taxes due to the loophole.

Now I don't know about you but I don't get those kids of loopholes for my business, and even though I employ a lot fewer people and have much less revenue, I actually have to PAY taxes.

[sclub]

Why pay attention to a no ratings dork like Bryan Suits? I forgot he existed.

[sarge]

Can someone tell me how Bryan Suits survives? He is so fucking dry and boring. Don't bad ratings mean anything? He has been in the dumpster for years now. Don't Fisher suits have the nerve to fire him? They sure were quick to fire April Zapata and Joe Furia.

[Paul&Pam]

It's posts like this one, Mr. Hood, that keep me coming back to this site. You're funny and I always learn something. Keep listening so I won't have to.

[joanie]

Frank: please stop already about how large your "bottom" is. 'kay?

I always figured Frank had a fat ass. Now I know. . .

Love your column today. Laughed all the way through it. When Billo was on ??? with James Carville, you could see and hear the deferance Billo had for the truth-telling and intellect of Carville. His demeanor was quite subdued.

As for Hitchens, I have the book but haven't read it yet. Hitchens is a puzzle to me. Perhaps the driest wit I've heard. I think I'd serve him up in the middle of potato salad myself. Perhaps one teased with a little gin.

"U.S. is building database on Iraqis" Weren't most of the 9-11 attackers Saudis? Just askin' . . .

[joanie]

Michael, didn't you used to have a spell checker that underlined incorrectly spelled words? As in "deference?" I think you should get one, dear. :)

[sparky]

It depends on whether or not Hitchens was sober when he wrote that book.....

[joanie]

You mean Hitchens is sometimes sober?

[chucks]

cpp3
Just read it. You are right, it sucks.
Flat tax anyone?

[joanie]

How would that solve the tax issue regarding corporations?

[joanie]

Sorry, chucks. I jumped the gun here. Your flat tax sounds good relative to this article.

cowpot: what do you think of a flat tax. There was a time I thought maybe okay but I still don't see how it captures this money. chucks, a flat tax doesn't automatically eliminate capital gains and estate taxes etc. all at different rates and levels. At least, that's the way I understand it.

Kind of like the debate in WA state about income tax vs. sales tax. They won't promise to eliminate the sales tax, just reduce it. Nobody is going for that even though I've come around and support an income tax mostly because I can deduct it from the Fed tax.

[pugetSound]

ph(J)oanie sez:
"You mean Hitchens is sometimes sober?

Posted by: joanie | July 13, 2007 at 02:02 "

AFTER you have read the book 'god is not great' you may have a little more understanding of the man and the depth of his own struggles.
a very compelling read as our his other books. try the ones on mother teresa or henry kissenger. i've been waiting for the medved vs hitchens meet up and will have to pod it.
regarding bryan suits, the fact that he packed on a few pounds after coming back from Iraq doesn't take away from the fact that he is a damn funny dude and when he is on target can provide great entertainment.

[joanie]

I find you pretentious, putsie. Always trying to prove your intellect. Well, keep trying.

[pugetSound]

ph(J)oanie sez
"I find you pretentious, putsie. Always trying to prove your intellect. Well, keep trying."

hey, i'm not the one who use to assign 'grades' to different posts as some wannabe professorial type.
at least Audioslave cured you of that.

[joanie]

"cured" - what does that mean? Again, I don't know what you are talking about.

No wonder you and nevetS have a bond. You both talk in riddles. Except he is more charming.

You remind me of Jim Bohannon. Another blabber who loves to hear himself talk. Always trying to impress people with his intellect. I can listen to him for about as long as I can exchange with you. A matter of minutes.