He's one of the morning zoo keepers on the T-Man Show KUBE m-f, 6-10a) named Gay Phone Operator.
He and a friend were walking out of the Northgate QFC on Jan 15, when a couple of teenagers ran up, yelled FAG!, and threw eggs at them, messing up their clothes and of course, freaking them out.
Mr. Operator (real name, Chris Sterling, 39, says the cretins recognized him, went back into the grocery store, bought eggs, and came back to pelt him.
(Photo: Gay Phone Operator)
(Like most straight, white people in Seattle: we're shocked when shit like this happens in this liberal paradise. Northgate is a tough neighborhood, though, and sexual differentness particularly rattles small people).
GPO is a very out guy, his license plate says GAYFNOP and he was wearing a hat with GPO. He writes on his Livejournal page: "I am on a local radio show... i have been for 11 years.. that is the
name they gave me [because] i used to work for the phone company... they used to call me Gay Microsoft Employee when i worked there."
We'll hear from readers that getting hit by eggs isn't the worst thing you could be hit by. Hell, it could have been rocks, or acid, or gasoline... We'll hear that he deserved the attention he brings to himself.
It's a Seattle-nice version (the eggs were free range, of course) of public scorn; tar & feathering... humiliation, disrespect. A hate crime.
We have a constitutional right to flame -- and it's been backed up with some very succinct statutes.
GPO writes: "I don't mind getting called names cuz of the radio show.. i am used to that and expect it for the role i play .. but for them to call me a fag and attack me physically.. that is what is bothering me so much."
(Photo: T-Man, lowest common dominator)
This was all mocked on-air by T-Man and his guffaw-gang, and shit-pitching team, Pasty Dave, Hot Shot Scott, Vinnie the Pooh, and Ol' Piss in His Pants. There's Tari Free, a woman paid to laugh at every word out of T-Man's mouth.
No loyalty for GPO, of course and we wouldn't expect it of this crowd. GPO's attack was just another soft-spot to stick a finger into on the FM. (Is there anything besides a sports team that would inspire loyalty with these poltroons?)
Mr. Operator rolled with it, too -- radio jobs are hard to come by, we guess. He didn't call the cops, or allow so much as one dissenting/supportive voice on the air after the mawkish crew mooned him so publicly for being such a girly-man as to have been the target of this indignity.
(photo: Hot Shot Scott)
(We'd direct you to the (Jan 17) podcast but it's conveniently missing from the T-Man site)
Guess we shouldn't expect much from these over-caffeinated drivelers: disrespect, insensitivity, insensibility, incivility, meanness are bits, and laugh lines in this special world. Mostly it's just forced laughter, sexual intenuendo, sports talk, and inane minutiae.
This radio format will work as long as there are humans with dicks.
(We love the 'nothing is sacred' school of humor, but frankly, when it's all body-functions, date-rape, booze-news, bikini-kill, and ganging up on the weakest one in the room, just because you can, it bores hell out of us -- we've done our time in high school, and frat houses).
T-man, whose real name is Rob Tepper, stirred fair-minded people up last summer in a down-home Don Imus moment when he called all Native American women "ho's."
(Photo: Ol' Piss in His Pants)
Unfortunately for the T-man (the T is for toilet, he says) some of the fair-minded people bridling at his remarks were the Tulalip Tribe, who spend a lot of casino ad money with Clear Channel who owns KUBE.
Oops, said CC suits, and slapped the T-man's hand. (we're still looking for that "one-hour community affairs program celebrating Native American cultural heritage they promised).
This incident with the GPO is just another morning on FM -- we shouldn't expect more or different... but it makes us think: maybe radio deserves to die...
When young people are exposed to conservative concepts like a constitutional ammendment to outlaw gay marriage they get it in their head that gay people are a mennace to society and so they feel free to call them names and throw eggs at them.
The conservatives who outlaw gay marriage won't egg a gay person but the kids who show much less restraint have no problem picking up where their elders leave off.
Posted by: AuthenticAndrew | January 29, 2009 at 01:21 AM
In other news, America is going out of business.
Posted by: Rachel | January 29, 2009 at 06:38 AM
This is a hate crime. Were the police called? Why am I not hearing this story on the radio? And what's up with a show mocking homosexuals by "outing him" as a gay phone screener?
Posted by: where's waldo | January 29, 2009 at 06:39 AM
This kind of shit is what comes of this kind of radio. How can this guy be part of it and look at himself in the mirror every day?
Posted by: Sandor | January 29, 2009 at 11:10 AM
liberal paradise? are you serious?
Posted by: hosea | January 29, 2009 at 01:19 PM
George Bush tells a story about the first time he met Joanie:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXuRlcUjoAE
Posted by: JoanieWatch Fan | January 29, 2009 at 04:33 PM
Sr is somewhat funny...jr couldn't have pulled that off because he can't pronounce 'womb'.
Posted by: Duffman | January 29, 2009 at 05:10 PM
wow, i'm a fan of joaniewatchfan
of course, now joanie will somehow translate that into her brain as bush sr. wanting to get into her womb...
Posted by: Puget Sound | January 29, 2009 at 05:28 PM
It's no wonder the King, Howard Stern got out of radio to be replaced by the spare parts of the likes of these.
Posted by: Coiler | January 29, 2009 at 08:22 PM
Is there a mirror around? These guys need to look into it.
Posted by: sophie | January 29, 2009 at 10:44 PM
Sparky, did you let the kids watch President Obama on this historic day or has the novelty wore off already.
Posted by: Nevets | January 29, 2009 at 11:06 PM
This blog used to be interesting. Commentaries are still good. But which sewer did these posters crawl out of?
Posted by: jkl | January 29, 2009 at 11:14 PM
Read me here.
Posted by: Ted | January 30, 2009 at 12:31 AM
"Here’s the deal. They don’t want you knowing what they are doing. They don’t want people like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and others to express any dissent. The President HIMSELF has stated there IS not dissent. That’s the kind of talk of any Communist government. You might see and hear it, but they’ll tell you its not there. Just ask anyone who has lived under Stalin, Castro or other Communist leaders."
This is a good friend of mine. Read her, too.
Posted by: Ted | January 30, 2009 at 12:39 AM
This blog again shows it has a personal problem with T man. He has been doing his act successufully on 93.3 for a long time. GPO has made a career as a hanger on to the show and supports himself from it. When your license plate and personal clothing brand you to a show that mistreats you for money what the hell do u expect? Michael i ask you, why do u again repeat the lie that T man called native american women hos, when he was reading an email from a listener that carried that sentence, not his personal view?
Posted by: Dave (not dave ross) | January 31, 2009 at 12:33 PM
He makes a living by playing a character just like you make a living by writing about people like him, you both use and need each other
He is the joker to your batman
Posted by: Big T | July 27, 2009 at 11:28 AM