Rush Is Still A Druggie?

Rush Limbaugh (Pictured at left from his 1400 AM KQV days when he used the name "Jeff Christie") was arrested today on prescription drug charges. Am I the only one with a sense of deja vu here? I'm sure Rush has already been through this before! Will he ever learn? On another note, the act to perform live on The Ed Sullivan Show on today's date in 1957 was Bill Haley & His Comets! Sweet! Go! Go! Go! I bet it was a real gone show, very boss! I think I could listen to Bill Haley and His Comets any day over Rush Limbaugh...

Sad

What a sad sight. Gone but not forgotten. This was the Big Ways AM 610/WROQ 95.1 studios on 400 Radio Road in Charlotte. It was demolished this week. Sigh. See more on my main site at www.thatwasradio.com.

How much does gasoline cost now?

I just had to post this! I am keeping my fingers crossed that it does not go above $3.00 a gallon like last year during the hurricanes, I made a rare road trip to the Carolinas back then in my car (I normally fly but this was a rush), and the gasoline to get there and back from Louisiana ended up costing TWICE what a flight would have cost!

Live, Live, ALL THE WAY LIVE!

I suppose there is some hope for music radio to go back to live jocks 24/7. Chicago's 103.5 KISS-FM is now live on overnights (a time slot now automated on virtually 99.9% of all music stations in The U.S.) with market veteran COCO CORTEZ!!! Kiss overnights has been voice tracked and/or automated with segues for years now, and this might be a move that will get other markets back into the "live" phase 24 hours a day. I'll keep my fingers crossed, but I'm not holding my breath.

Cy Bahakel Gone But Not Forgotten

I used to watch his commentaries on WCCB Channel 18 in Charlotte (before it was a Fox affiliate) in the afternoons, and I used to think "...come on, man, get on with the show, Superman will be late to save Lois and Jimmy!" Later I wish I had paid more attention to a communications guru that obviously knew what he was doing and he knew that little kids had to grow out of Superman, Ultra Man and The Monkees reruns, and someone should instill something into their pee brains other than 16mm reruns from the '50's and '60's. Bahekel (pictured above, left) died last Thursday at age 87 from a stroke. DAMN THE STROKE GODS.
And a good friend of mine, Jack Murphy, (Mornings on WKZL in Greensboro, pictured below) has been sued by some pee-brained convict who feels public knowledge of her record has ruined her business and Murphy is at fault. Geeze Louise. You can read all the dirt here and there, or, you can peruse through all the wonderful broadcasting concepts Murphy has created and/or is involved in here, and his voice over stuff here, he does a GREAT southern hick voice that is serious enough for sweepers!

Pennies worth more!

The New York Times reported this morning that the U.S. Penny is now worth more than 1 cent, it costs the United States Mint 1.4 cents to make one penny, and they made 7.7 billion pennies last year, more than any other coins made last year in America, GOOT GOSH! Good thing I've been saving my pennies every day in spitoons for the past 26 years... now I'm waiting for that rainy day/week/year to count 'em and cash in! I'll have to take a year, I guess, 'cause I have mostly REAL COPPER pennies made before 1982, when the value of the penny rose then too, and the mint resorted to zinc pennies coated with a thin layer of copper, so I have a lot of sorting to do. And for any collector who may want to inquire, no, I do not have many of the old steel pennies made during World War II, but I do have a hoard of weat-back pennies, they are still in abundance and in use daily in Southern Louisiana.
Oh, and Ray Nagin won the Mayoral race this morning by 38% in New Orleans, and is headed for the May 20th run off. I guess the hurricane-hit people of New Orleans are not ready for a change. Either that or the lack of political advertisements in outer areas where the evacuees moved to (and they were allowed to vote as absentees) caused the only mayor-elect they knew of to stick in their minds. I heard not one single Mayoral race ad on radio in Southern or Central Louisiana in the past three weeks, and we are still bombarded with evacuees here.

David Lee Roth out of radio

David Lee Roth said Friday that he was "booted and tossed", well, WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF RADIO DIAMOND DAVE!!! Actually his show was not bad at all, even after CBS instructed Roth to use different music beds and a different approach. While riding in a car to the WFNY-FM in Manhattan studios Friday, Roth was told by CBS that he was terminated from the morning shift, how surprisingly, just a few days before the ratings will come out, AND, just in time for Opie & Anthony to become available to work on the air again, FOR THE SAME COMPANY THAT FIRED THEM! That's radio. Barely three months as Howard Stern's replacement on a few CBS stations and Roth is booted. As John Walton (Of "Walton & Johnson" radio fame) once told me: "Radio is the beast that eats it's children."

Helooooooooo Henry

As mentioned on my thatwasradio.com website, Henry Boggan (pictured at left) passed away yesterday morning, he was a legend on WBT in Charlotte. Gone but not forgotten. His was the very first "talk" show I listened to on a regular basis, how time flies.

Crazy Guggenheim

Crazy Guggenheim would have been 86 years old today. Who? His real name was Frank Fontaine, Jackie Gleason often called him "Frankie" on his show when Fontaine would segue from his antics as Crazy Guggenheim to the smooth velvet voice of Frank Fontaine, this guy could sing. Fontaine's comical Guggenheim character made you say "oh wow" when he slid into a mellow, soft as silk song, it was so unsuspecting the first time I saw him get into a serious song. Yes, this picture of him does look a bit goofy, but he had a few albums out with a more pleasant picture on the cover. Happy Birthday Frankie, where ever you are, I'll play one of your albums tonight, thanks for the memories, tell Jackie Gleason that HE was the greatest... "and awayyyy we go!!!"

Hangin' Out

My good friend and industry professional James Gilmore from the Louisiana News Network took time to get together and get caught up on stuff today, like Houma radio, e-bay, Ultimix, Hotmixx, amps and i-pods, we must have talked about every meaningful cultural element that has been a part of broadcasting and radio in the past 20 years! James has a great radio voice, we need to hear him on more Louisiana Network stuff!
And happy birthday today to Todd Pettengill, the creator of THE BEST radio comedy bits EVER throughout the '90's, especially his Clinton/Monica masterpieces (Cannonball!!!!!... Put your coolie up against the window Monica...), and the master-mind behind "THE TUBE ON THE TABLE WITH NO LABEL" for Frank Gifford, THE BEST! Todd works at WPLJ in New York and also has his own syndicated '80's radio show, that's Todd below with John Mellencamp.

It's a Monday

Art Bell (pictured at right) is moving to the Philippines, criminy, just got the word. So his show (Coast To Coast A.M.) will no longer originate from Pahrump, Nevada... ahhh, those nightly broadcasts "From the high desert in the middle of the night" will soon be long gone. I wonder if he will say "LIVE FROM THE MIDDLE OF THE PHILIPPINES..."? I doubt it. Bell's wife Ramona passed away just this past January from an asthma attack and he has already remarried, quick!
It's a Monday, temperatures in Louisiana are supposed to be up over 90 degrees today, as long as it's over 80 I'm o.k.!!!

EASTER DAY

What a day, normally I spend Easter alone, listening to the radio or playing records, especially Sundays in general, a day all to myself, to get things done while the radio plays that the long work week does not allow. Today was different, but it was good. Dear friends of mine, Cora and Gary (Pictured with me in the middle), and Libby and Ron (Pictured below posing as such a mushy Canadian couple), invited me to Cora and Gary's Family soiree complete with a bevy of cooked animal flesh and sugar-filled deserts. My weight is where it should be now and it is my day to do what I want, so I divulged into the food I would normally avoid and never partake in. I am stuffed. Gluttony. One of the deadly sins. Aren't we all sinners anyway? Here's that mushy Canadian couple:
Upon entering my humble abode this afternoon I find a spider in the bathroom, THE GLUTTONY GODS HAVE CURSED ME!!! And today I read where they are recycling old cell phones and selling them cheap, didn't Bell Corp. do this with land-line phones 50 years ago? I miss the Princess Phone with the lighted rotary dial. Sigh.