Free Kicks, Episode 8

EP8: Adam and Rick ride an emotional World Cup roller coaster, including a live session during the Germany game…in which Rick can be heard vomiting and weeping (metaphorically).

You can listen to it here.

Whoopsie

Telemundo has suspended two of their morning hosts for making an insensitve gesture on their show when they were discussing the South Korean soccer team. They made their eyes slanty.

Really?

I grew up in a time when Mickey Rooney played Charlie Chan and did it with slanty eyes and a ridiculous Asian accent, and even I know not do the the slanty eye thing.

It's really not that hard not to be racist.

The Foxification of America

President Trump has named Bill Shine, former Hannity producer and former Fox News president, as deputy director of communications.

You may remember Shine--he was forced out during the sexual harassment scandals of Roger Ailes and Bill O'Reilly--because he didn't exactly police them.

Perfect guy for this new job.

The World Cup...

...is dead to me.

Way to suck up the joint, Germany.

Now with my two favorite teams gone (USA, Krautland), who do I root for?

Tony Sarabia Leaving WBEZ

The host of the Morning Shift, Tony Sarabia, is leaving WBEZ radio at the end of the year.

Robert Feder has the details.

I've appeared on Tony's show three or four times--great interviewer. Sad to see him go, but happy for him. It sounds like this is 100% his decision.

Ich War Noch Nicht Da

Today is the anniversary of JFK's "Ich Bin Ein Berliner" speech. A few notes--he was not saying he was a jelly donut. Germans don't call them Berliners. He was saying he was one of them...a resident of Berlin (A Berliner). Secondly, the headline above is translated as: "I was not around yet". That's because I was born one month and two days after this famous JFK speech. Hittin' double-nickles this next birthday.

JFK: “Ich bin ein Berliner”—near Berlin Wall, 55 years ago today: #JFKLibrary pic.twitter.com/OSb4GdWenm

— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) June 26, 2018

Jimmy Fallon Responds to President's Tweet

Yesterday the President of the United States took time out of his day to rip late night comedian Jimmy Fallon. First he hate-tweeted about him. Then he ripped him again at a rally in South Carolina, because you know, he's classy.

Last night Jimmy responded...

RIP Dan Ingram

Dan Ingram was one of the all-time great top 40 jocks. The Hall of Famer became famous in New York, so many people in Chicago never really heard his show, but he was institution in the top market in the country.

I never heard his show, but I heard about him. Al Rosen is a Chicago radio engineer who worked with John Landecker at WLS, and he and I have become friends over the years. Al worked with Dan in New York before coming to Chicago, and he told me some great stories about him.

Ken Levine writes one of my favorite blogs. Ken was a writer for Cheers, Frasier, and just about every funny sitcom from the 70s, 80s, and 90s. He's also a radio fanatic, and this is part of the tribue he wrote about Dan on his blog this morning...

I first heard Dan in the mid ‘60s. Growing up in Los Angeles I knew of WABC but had never heard them. So I wrote a letter to the station asking for a sample of their programming. They sent a one-hour tape of a recent Dan Ingram show. Within ten minutes my head almost exploded. This guy was so funny, so quick, so fearless (he often goofed on commercials and the music), had such a great voice, precision timing weaving his content into the intro of records, and somehow managed to communicate as if he were talking only to me. I had heard some great disc jockeys. The Real Don Steele, Robert W. Morgan, Larry Lujack, Gary Owens, Don McKinnon, but I’m sorry, Dan Ingram was the best. He said more funny things in one hour (and all off the cuff) than anyone else did in a week. And he continued doing that for almost fifty years. It’s utterly mind-boggling. And if you thought he was funny on the air -- when he turned that mic off that's when the real hilarity took place.

Art Vuolo, radio's best friend, has posted this tribute video of Dan in action from 1992...



RIP, Mr. Ingram. He passed away over the weekend.

Russell Crowe as Roger Ailes

Showtime is producing a limited-run series about the life of Roger Ailes called "The Loudest Voice in the Room". It's based on the Gabriel Sherman bio of the former Fox News boss.

When I heard that Russell Crowe would be playing the lead role, I thought "perfect!"

Crowe can be very creepy, and with his weight gain over the past decade or two, he can really pull it off.

Richard Reeder

The moment the author receives his first copy of his book is the best part of being a publisher. Congratulations to Richard Reeder. His book is coming out very soon on Eckhartz Press.

Putting the Youngster to Work

My son Tommy graduated from Columbia College and is doing freelance video editing, including this one he did for the old man...

Sarah Huckabee Sanders

Over the weekend the press secretary Sarah Sanders made news when she tweeted that a restaurant in Virginia asked her to leave. This started a firestorm over the weekend in the ("Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen") conservative media world, which once again has a single anecdotal episode to slam 60% of the country. (Look how "mean" the left is!)

I have a few comments about this.

1) The restaurant owner in Virginia is NOT the Left.
2) This was impolite, but NOT babies in cages impolite.
3) When you support Trump, you lose the right to complain about impoliteness. Period. Read a tweet or two.
4) There are consequences to lying to the American people every day.

I wouldn't have done it, and I don't approve of it, but I'm not surprised by it. This is exactly the country you voted for.

Not me.

Glenn Beck

Not sure what's happening with Glenn Beck, but he had a bit of a hissy fit over the weekend. From Tom Taylor's NOW column...

Glenn Beck walks off a Sunday CNN show. Beck detached his lapel mic after Brian Stelter asked about a Daily Beast report that his “media empire is imploding, again.” Beck talked a bit more, says the Washington Post – then stood up and walked off-camera. That left CNN interviewer Brian Stelter asking “What game did I just play?” The Daily Beast piece centers on Beck’s TheBlaze, which supposedly just “fired another round of staffers.” There were supposedly sale talks with the backers of Ben Shapiro’s “The Daily Wire” website, but the Daily Beast says discussions “broke down and the sale is now effectively dead.” Beck was doing the interview with Stelter from his Dallas-area facility of TheBlaze. Last week Beck – who’s known for dramatic moves – told his Premiere radio show that he’s putting his house in the Dallas suburbs up for sale, because “I fear this economy, as we are headed for trouble, and I don’t want to be sitting with a big huge house.”

Radio Hall of Fame

Johnny B is in the class of 2018. Several others have Chicago connections, including Jim Kerr (WLS), Mark Levin (WLS), Dr. Laura (WLS), Mike & Mike (ESPN), and the Fabulous Sports Babe (ESPN). From the RAMP Newsletter...

The votes have been tabulated; the results for the 2018 National Radio Hall of Fame's 24 nominations in six categories are in. Four of the categories were decided by a voting panel comprised of nearly 1,000 industry professionals, while the other two categories were voted on by the public.
Listener voting was administered by Votem and overseen by the accounting firm of Miller Kaplan Arase, and they report an unprecedented level of listener participation this year, with over half a million votes cast for the two public voting categories -- Music Format On-Air Personality and Spoken Word Format On-Air Personality. This increase is attributed to the competitive and creative campaigning waged by the nominees.

The inductees by Public Vote:
• Kid Kelly, host of Backtrax USA with Kid Kelly, syndicated by Westwood One; and on-air host and programmer, SiriusXM Hits 1 -- (Music Format On-Air Personality)
• Mark Levin, host of The Mark Levin Show, syndicated by Westwood One -- (Spoken Word Format On-Air Personality)

The inductees by Industry Panel:
• Jonathon Brandmeier, The Jonathon Brandmeier Show, Chicago -- (Active Local/Regional, 10+ years)
• Jim Kerr, host of The Jim Kerr Rock and Roll Morning Show, WAXQ (Q104.3)/New York -- (Longstanding Local/Regional, 20+ years)
• Mike Golic and Mike Greenberg, Mike & Mike, ESPN Radio -- (Active Network/Syndication, 10+ years)
• Dr. Laura Schlessinger, Dr. Laura, SiriusXM Stars 109 -- Longstanding Network/Syndication, 20+ years

The NRHOF nominating committee also voted to induct four other individuals for their contributions to the industry: Nanci Donnellan , a.k.a. The Fabulous Sports Babe, a pioneering voice in local and national sports-talk radio; Mike Francesa, longtime afternoon host on WFAN-AM/FM (The Fan)/New York; Joan Hamburg , host of The Joan Hamburg Show on WABC/New York, and before that, WOR-AM -- known as New York's "First Lady of Radio," and Fred Jacobs, of Jacobs Media, a creator of the Classic Rock format, as well as a consultant to both commercial and public radio stations.

I got a little verklempt

No idea why...but this was emotional for me. I think I'm getting soft in my old age.