BlatherWatch

Being sicilian

RAGUSA — I'm trying to convert to "real Siciliano," as most travelers to Sicily do; to blend into the human surroundings so as to not attract more mockery from the natives or seem gullibly available to their attempts to sell me something.

(photo: Alessandro & me)

I'm doing pretty good job of it, if I don't say so mice elf.

Meat with heat- it can't be beat: welcome larry o’donnell

Meat and heat, that’s what we like in talk media, right or left. Do they have to be mutually exclusive?

We’re bound to get both as Blatherwatch’s special friend, Lawrence O’Donnell gets his own MSNBC hour after Rachel Maddow. O’Donnell, 54, is a passionate progressive known for tiger-like responses to conservative foolishness on the teevee. He also can deliver the pith and feck- drawing on years of staff experience in the US Senate committees in the Clinton years. He can deliver unique insight on the legislative process. We’re always glad to see him as fill-ins for Keith Olbermann or Chris Matthews.

Wow! here's the guy we voted for...

This is the one we've been waiting for- the speech is great, but the debate with the R's is uh, remarkable! 

What do you want from rachel maddow?

When it was announced that Rachel Maddow (KPTK m-f, 3-6p) was to have her own MSNBC show, she asked the audience to shout out suggestions. We've been so busy, what with the conventions, Vacation Bible School, and the zucchini harvest, we've not been able to think about it much.

Next Monday is the day: so here are some suggestions, and advisements jotted on a scrap of paper we found in a bathrobe pocket:

1. Kent Jones ...now!
It would be so lovely to have his comic writing and off-beat voice on your show again. You did so well together before he was rif-ed by Air America from radio show. He could help make The Rachel Maddow Show de MSNBC sparkly.

Who killed bryant park project? a post mortem

No matter we had it first. It's just sad.

The New York Times is now reporting that NPR suits will tell staffers Monday morning that Bryant Park Project is being canceled.

The last day will be July 25.

(photo: Stewart & Burbank. by Piotr Redlinski for The New York Times)

The experimental weekday morning news for a younger audiences, launched with co-hosts teevee news reporter Alison Stewart and localite Luke Burbank was an expensive attempt to lure listeners who had moved online to public radio.

The live, two-hour show was a conversational and off-beat treatment of news and culture and is said to have fallen prey to an economy that's hurt public radio underwriting as much as commercial radio's advertising shortfalls.

But there's a lot more.

Bryant park project is dead according to NPR sources

Rumors are flying in New York media that NPR's experimental Bryant Park Project will be cancelled sooner than later.

The staff may be told as early as Monday.

The off-beat newscast which was launched last October was morning news to bring a lighter 'tude, and reflecting a target 28-40 demo that wants news in new ways in the digital age. BPP is carried in the Seattle market on public ra dio's KXOT m-f, 5-8a).

The New York Observer and The New York Times were about to publish dueling features on the show, causing NPR suits to announce the plug-pulling earlier than planned.

The off-beat show ran into political problems within the NPR power structure after the departures of its champions former CEO Ken Stern, and senior veep for programming Jay Kernis, departed.

Host Alison Stewart, off on maternity leave can't confirm or deny anything except to say that rumors she's been shopping around her rèsumè are apocryphal. "Frankly all I have been doing is taking care of my newborn," she told Blatherwatch.

KIRO's Luke Burbank, Stewart's former co-host says, told BlatherWatch: "I'm sad if it's true, but I'm really out of the loop at NPR these days."

Stay tuned for further developments.

Xmas weeek! oddems: woofing the pfeferneuse, photos of killed squirrels; fa-la-la-la-la-afil; elvis decoded, genital grooming, and the war on lawn decorations

    BlatherWatch holi-diddled in Canada, a foreign country that fails to celebrate Xmas with the religiou$ fervor that we all do. It's un-American, and we told them so. The laid-back Canucks are so calm about the holiday, the War on Xmas that threatens its very extinction around here, rages on unbeknownst to them. We got caught up in the torporific chaos and spent the Day of Days absorbing the spiritual seasonal vibes in the prone position in a medium hotel with maximum take-out from Vij's. Our favorite in the lavish gift exchange: an Uncle Booger's Bumper Dumper® to be used on one of our many hunting and camping trips.

~ Auld fave from the Blather Xmas song bucket: Ding Fries Are Done!

~ How much is a Duckworth? the price may be going down. Paul Duckworth, former KVI/KOMO Program Director, who takes some to the credit for making KVI what it was, is retiring- effective January 1- from DC's WMAL where's he's PD. He says he's "... always suspect of any radio guy who says that he's going to retire... I could never promise that, at some point, I won't re-surface somewhere in the biz ... right now the plan is to sleep a little later, spend more time with family and pursue a few things that I haven't been able to get to over the last 35 years." Sounds fishy...

Luke Burbank is returning to Seattle

Luke Burbank, co-host of NPR's groundbreaking Bryant Park Project, is returning to Seattle.

He says he needs to spend more time with his family.

In a video , Burbank, a Seattle native, and Nathan Hale alum announced his decision to quit New York and his $4000 a month  crappy apartment to spend more time with his daughter, Addie, who will be 14 in February.

"Living 3000 miles aways from your kid really sucks; you miss her all the time; wonder if you have your priorities straight. All this makes your getting up at 3a.m.particularly unpleasant."

Luke will stay on at BPP until mid-December.

Bryant park project, the launch: “...for people who take the news seriously but not themselves..."

(photo: Luke Burbank, The New York Times)
We've been blabbing for months about NPR's experimental Bryant Park Project, a new NPR morning news attempting to bring a lighter 'tude, and reflecting a target 28-40 demo that wants news in different ways in the digital age.

It launches today on six stations nationwide (some on digital signals, but none in New York) and on Sirius Satellite radio. But most important, it'll be streamed on the interweb and podcasted.

KUOW's Arvid Hokansen says BPP will appear on their Olympia station, KXOT from 4 to 6 ayem. That's as close to our terrestrial market that it will get. (We're hearing BPP is pushing KXOT to run it in the more civilized (and listened to) hours from 7-9a).

Seattle homey, Luke Burbank is co-hosting with Alison Stewart late of MSNBC and MTV.

NPR: a conversation with bryant park project's alison stewart

We got to sit down recently and talk to the Peabody Award winning chica Alison Stewart, the former MSNB reporter and host, now hired for the Bryant Park Project to co-host with Luke Burbank.

It's NPR's brave new morning show still in the rough, but scheduled to be up and running Oct. 1.

Stewart, 41, won a coveted Peabody Award for her pioneering MTV coverage of the 1992 Presidential election. (as opposed to Billo Reilly who tells women he has a Peabody when he wants to distract them from his turkey neck)