Or, my worlds are colliding again.
If you’ve got yourself a decent Adam Carolla jones, listen to Adam on my favorite imaginary radio show – Too Beautiful to Live with Luke Burbank. (5/28/10 episode)
If you’re not from Germany or Florida, you should be listening to TBTL anyway because it’s an amazing combination of FM Talk and NPR with newsy-talk, personal stories, and nonsense. Perfect.
(Plus, long-time TBTL producer Jen Andrews and I are totally soul mates.)
I’ve received some requests to explain exactly what happened in the HTLA/PGP schism of 2010. Keeping in mind I don’t have any real inside information, here is my best interpretation…
Brian Whitman did a show (#5) with a couple members of The Single Life TM where the main topic was – When did Sam Phillips start going crazy? (I listened to show #5 and it wasn’t anything that hasn’t been said before.)
Sam complained to Jack Sullivan.
Jack Sullivan pulled show #5 and prevented the release of show #6.
Jack Sullivan suspended Brian Whitman from HTLA.
Randy Wang and Jack Sullivan had creative differences about the future of HTLA.
Randy Wang decided to leave HTLA, bringing with him his own show - Pretty Good Podcast – as well as the Brian Whitman Podcast, the Crysta and Corona podcast, the PotCast, and (now) the Dangerous Dick Podcast.
HTLA went on hiatus for a couple weeks, relaunching Monday with a whole run of shows about drinking, drugs, and sex.
So that’s about it.
Team PGP!
Or does the new lineup on HotTalkLA seem completely unappealing?
Hungover radio? Porn star pals? Eh…
I think perhaps this “station” just isn’t for me. (By the way, what are we calling these podcasting empires? I guess Internet radio station is OK, but there should be something better, right?)
Maybe I’m too old or too conservative or too nerdy or too sober or too…something. But – hey – if this station is attracting new listeners to talk radio, then I guess I’m for it.
P.S. to Jack Sullivan – Email me. You need a copy editor. STAT.
When you were in high school did you have summer homework? Like a list of books you were supposed to read at the beach, or brainteasers you should solve during your long flight to Europe?
Well, my school did not give us summer assignments. BUT…I was on the Academic Decathlon team. Oh nothing.
Anyway, it was strongly suggested we spend our time studying for the coming year’s competition. This was pre-Internet, gang. (Oh, and by the way, my best friend on the team was actually in a gang. It was, like, a smart gang though. But our teacher/advisor did have to intervene in our relationship, lest I accidentally go out with him.)
So I spent a decent amount of time at the library. One summer I read every book about Gregor Mendel our local library owned and decided I was going to be a geneticist. I even majored in Biology my first two years of college.
So…yeah…why didn’t anyone tell me I should be listening to The Nerdist?
It’s totally awesome. And I’m totally counting it as my summer homework.
It’s Saturday night. It’s summer (almost). And that means I’m at Disneyland. No, I’m not engaging in “pin-trading” or hunting for Hidden Mickeys.
I’m sitting in the Plaza Gardens, where I always am, listening to Doc Anello and the Swing Machine, wishing I had thought to bring my iPad MacBook, because now I have to kick it Ernest Hemingway-style and write this by hand in my Moleskine.
Plaza Gardens on summer Saturday nights is a cool place. And very different than the rest of the park. An oasis of awesomeness.
While some most people are busy waiting in line for Space Mountain, arguing with their spouse, corralling their children, and basically making mischief of one kind and another, the super rad people (or “weirdos” you may call them) have gathered in this odd paradise.
There are the old couples, sometimes in matching outfits, who head out to the dance floor straightaway. There are the hipsters, dressed in their retro finery, eager to show off their wicked dance skills.
(Oddly, tonight there is also a guy with a bowling bag and a huge trophy. As far as I know, there isn’t a bowling alley at Disneyland….)
And then there are the rest of us.
We’re wearing our normal Orange County uniform – shorts, flip-flops, hoodies, and fake Chanel sunglasses.
Some of us (not me, so please don’t ask) will get up and dance even though they don’t know what they’re doing. Some will pull chairs up to the edge of the dance floor, watching and wishing they had the courage to join in.
The remainder (this is where I am) sit at the umbrellaed tables, drinking coffee, reading, talking, writing, eating…whatever. It doesn’t matter what you do. You can just sit here.
So…yeah…it’s summer (almost) and this is where I’ll be.
This other eden, demi-paradise,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
This earth, this realm, this magic kingdom.
(It was totally either William Shakespeare or Steve Martin who said that. )
Or, why live and local radio is way better than un-live (non-live? dead?) national radio.
Two seemingly unrelated things…
1. Remember that scene in Private Parts when Howard Stern decided to go for it? Hold nothing back, put everything out there? Turned out to be a key moment in his career.
2. My favorite things at the Nixon Library are a couple of brown padded binders. They’re usually laying on an exhibit table, which houses dozens of “keys to the city” awarded to Nixon throughout the years. Meh…I’m not too interested in keys to the city. But I’m totally into the binders.
Inside the binders are letters. (Like email – only on paper.) There’s the letter he wrote in 1985 relinquishing his secret service protection. And there’s a letter to Ray Kroc praising the deliciousness of the Big Mac. (I’ve never had a Big Mac, but he makes it sound good.)
OK, so what do these things have to do with radio? (Hang on, I’ll pull it together…hopefully.)
It’s like this. The talk radio I like is honest. Like Mr. KABC always said – no scripts, no planted callers, no contrived viewpoints. I don’t really care what you’re saying, as long as it’s authentic. This is what leads me to listen to radio shows about cigars and gardening, when I don’t smoke cigars or garden.
It’s also personal. I mean, you don’t have to tell me all your deep, dark secrets, but I would like to feel as through I know you. (Wait…am I turning into the creepy one now?) If I know you, I’m interested in what you want to tell me.
OK, so not ALL local shows are honest and personal. But un-live national shows universally lack these qualities. They’re a talk radio mirage. It seems like talk radio but, when you look closely, you discover it isn’t real.
It’s totally the Mirror of Erised, yo. There’s a reason Dumbledore doesn’t want us to go looking for it.
And I trust Dumbledore.
So it’s 1981. I’m 8, my brother is 4. We’re laying on sleeping bags spread out on the totally ’70s linoleum floor. (Strategically placed so as not to touch and, therefore, annoy the other person.)
Oh, why were we laying on the floor in the kitchen?
1. Because in the early ’80s kids weren’t allowed in the living room (wouldn’t want them to mess up the shag carpeting).
2. Because kids weren’t allowed to sit on the kitchen couch (still not sure why there was a couch in the kitchen anyway).
3. Because we only had one TV (and why wouldn’t you put it in the kitchen?)
4. Because my brother had to watch The Dukes of Hazzard (and brothers and sisters used to watch TV together).
My brother had one very specific rule relating to The Dukes of Hazzard. He would NOT go to bed until Rosco said, “Kew-kew-kew-kew,” at the end of the closing credits.
I was thinking about this today while listening to old episodes of This American Life on the super-cool iPhone app.
(By the way, if I only had $2.99 but I still had a computer and an iPhone or iPod Touch and wireless Internet, I would spend the $2.99 on the TAL app. Remember on Sex and the City when Carrie said sometimes she would buy Vogue instead of dinner because it fed her soul more than any food could? It’s like that. Only nerdier.)
Anyway…
I realized that I absolutely can not turn off a TAL episode until Ira says, “I’m Ira Glass, back next week with more stories of This American Life.”
And then I realized:
1. I might have a slight case of OCD.
2. I’m probably the only person to ever compare Ira Glass to Rosco P. Coltrane.
I used to think that no one could make Marc Germain laugh louder, more authentically, and just – more – than April Winchell. The two of them together was always radio magic.
But in recent years it seems they’ve grown apart. You know how it goes. First you start using separate blankets in bed and before you know it you’re staying up late and “falling asleep on the couch while watching TV” nearly every night.
Enter Dina Losito.
Last summer Dina (in this metaphor, the new chick at work who thinks you’re all smart and sexy* and interesting) joined Marc’s show – reinvigorating Marc and making him laugh again.
It’s 11:00pm Saturday night and I’m listening to a Marc-April reunion on Red Eye Radio (streaming from some station in Alabama – WAPI).
Dina, you’ve got nothing to worry about. Marc likes his new girl better.
They always do.
*This is obviously a misguided metaphor because we all know Dina doesn’t find Marc sexy. At. All. No, not because she’s a lesbian. It’s the powder blue Crocs and Vasovagal response. Duh.
Remember the last couple months of the reign of terror on the Adam Carolla show? (Also known as the Danny Bonaduce era.) As often as possible, Adam would send Danny out “on assignment” to various places – like the homes of creepy Craigslist dudes.
The point of this plan was simply to get Danny out of the studio.
Interesting that the Bill Handel show has recently kicked Hanna Scott out of the studio. And Michelle is trying to explain it away as a new “plan” – you know, that they want a reporter out in the field. At 5:00 in the morning.
I’m calling BS on this plan.
Because it’s not like they don’t have a news person in the studio. They do. Steve Kindred. But they’re not really welcoming him to the morning show as part of the team. He’s just sitting there.
Sooooo…for my very tech writer-ish conclusion:
1. Yay for Hanna flaming out. She was never a good fit.
2. Gina Grad has been doing a lot of newsy fill-in stuff lately…and we know Handel has a big boobs preference for the morning news person.
Just saying…
3. If we can’t have Gina, can we please have Michael Clarke? He’s totally hot.
I mean, I know he’s the Assistant News Director and sitting in with those degenerates in the morning would be a major step down, but if you never ask…
Look what I got today…
(Please ignore the tired, bobby-pinned hair, no-makeup look I’ve got going on. I’ve been staying up WAY too late. But still getting up for that Bill Handel 5am hour. A girl has to have priorities…)
So remember when KFI used to let people be funny? I know, it’s been a while. But it’s true. Really.
One of the funniest people to ever to host a show on KFI is April Winchell. So funny, in fact, that I used to tune in every week and think – Does KFI know this show is on their station?
Anyway, April is super smart, funny, talented, majorly hot fiance…blah, blah, blah…the whole run. But at one point not too long ago, she was so hard up for cash that she was forced to play Internet truth-or-dare.
You know…you send her money and she’ll do stuff. Like tell devastating personal stories about her father* or flash the butcher at Gelson’s. (Hey, don’t judge. It’s what we all would do.)
So I’m totally happy that her website, Regretsy, has become, like, an Internet sensation. Snarky comments about crappy crafts and poor grammar? Yes, please! And no one does that better than April.
It’s like they invented Etsy just for her.
*Please don’t ask her about her father.