Friday, October 23, 2020

The Actual Crime Family

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The Bottom Line

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The Gold Glove

 7 Cubs are finalists for a Gold Glove this year. Some big surprises on this list, and a few not so big surprises...


C--Willson Contreras

1B--Anthony Rizzo

2B--Nico Hoerner

SS--Javier Baez

RF--Jason Heyward

P--Kyle Hendricks & Alec Mills


I think the only one who will get it is Hendricks. Rizzo or Baez might too, but they both had down hititng seasons, and even though that shouldn't factor in the voting it always does.  The others are up against some pretty stiff competition.

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Free Kicks--More than an injury

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Thursday, October 22, 2020

The Atlantic Nails It

 Here is what the Atlantic says in it's endorsement of Joe Biden: 

The president of the United States poses a threat to our collective existence. The choice voters face is spectacularly obvious.

Yup.

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RIP Joel Daly

 Sad news to report. Our old friend Joel Daly has passed away. Joel was an icon in Chicago--a famous newsman at ABC Channel 7 for nearly 40 years. But he was also an attorney, an actor, a singer, a pilot, and in the last decade of his life he also became an author for us at Eckhartz Press. Dave and I went down to Joel's hood every few months (until recently, when he became too ill) to have breakfast with him. We really enjoyed his company. Joel always had some great stories to share. Our condolences to his daughter Kelly, and to everyone else who will miss this great man. We will miss him dearly. His colleagues at Channel 7 did a nice tribute to him today. You can read/watch it here





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Wednesday, October 21, 2020

Minutia Men Celebrity Interview--Bad Astronomer Dr. Phil Plait

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Getting Close to Coming Back

I'm sure they aren't doing this for me (or people like me), but I applaud it anyway. I grew up a Catholic. I raised my kids Catholic. But I haven't been to church in a few years because I can no longer stomach the church's stance on a few important issues. This takes care of one of those concerns...
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I'm with Mel

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Leslie Stahl

I can't wait to see the 60 Minutes interview between Leslie Stahl and Donald Trump. He had a complete meltdown and walked out. How afraid of it is he? He's pre-emptively ripping her at all of his rallies and on Twitter. What was it really like? This was the last quote of the incredibly intricately sourced Washington Post story about it...

“The interview was not that bad,” a White House staff member said. “It wasn’t a bad interview. She just had a tone he didn’t like.”

Remember this, Trump CANNOT handle smart women. He loses it every time. A thousand years of therapy won't be able to undo whatever caused his ridiculously fragile ego.

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Jennifer Keiper

 Congrats to Jennifer Keiper for being named a news anchor for CBS News. Robert Feder has the details...

Come November a lot more people will be hearing Jennifer Keiper every day.

The highly regarded Chicago radio news veteran, who now works for Entercom all-news WBBM 780-AM/WCFS 105.9-FM, has been hired as a national news anchor for CBS News Radio, starting November 9.

Based in Chicago, Keiper will be heard on the network’s hourly newscasts, which air on WBBM Newsradio and more than 1,000 affiliates nationwide.

I've previously interviewed Jennifer for Chicago Radio Spotlight.

I've also met her a few times, including recently at a live taping of the Steve Dahl podcast. A very nice lady. I wish her the best.




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Tuesday, October 20, 2020

RIP Spencer Davis

Spencer Davis passed away yesterday at the age of 81. Sad news. I met him toward the end of my time with Landecker at WJMK. He was a great guy--spent the whole morning show with us. I remember him telling us that he had been trying to convince Steve Winwood to reunite the Spencer Davis Group and do one last tour, but Steve's wife thought it was beneath him. Too bad. That was a hell of a band.
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Jeffrey Toobin

 This is quite a story in today's New York Times. I don't think the headline does the story justice: New Yorker Suspends Jeffrey Toobin After Zoom Incident

What was the incident? Oh no biggie. He was just masturbating on camera...on a work-related Zoom call.

In fairness to him, I've been in a few meetings where management was doing that. Not literally. But let's just say, only one person was satisfied with the outcome. And it was never me.

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Sad News

 Jim Johnson is one of the good guys in radio. Sorry to hear about this news, reported by Robert Feder this morning...

Jim Johnson, the veteran newsman who retired in 2013 after 45 years with Cumulus Media news/talk WLS 890-AM, is battling Alzheimer’s Disease. In a Facebook post Monday, his daughter, San Antonio news anchor Alexis Del Cid, wrote: “Two summers ago, my dad, my world, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease. It is something I’ve kept private until now. With my dad’s blessing I’m posting it here because my family and I are participating in the Walk to End Alzheimer’s this Saturday, and my family is also participating in the global fundraiser to help find a cure. . . . It’s likely too late to find a cure that changes the course of my dad’s life, but if we can change the course of another life, and another family in the future, that is what matters.” Johnson, 75, who grew up in Chicago and graduated from the University of Illinois, began his career in 1968.

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The battle for the bottom

Rush Limbaugh began his show on Monday by updating his audience about his cancer prognosis. It's still grim, but he is happy to still be alive.

I should note that I consider Rush to be one of the reasons this country is in the place it is in today, and that's not a compliment. He is toxic. He is poison. But he's a human being, and I don't wish ill on him.

But here's the thing about Rush and his right-wing talk radio ilk. It's a battle to see who can be the meanest and most cruel. One guy even changed his name to Michael Savage. And here's what that toxic right wing yahoo said after the head toxic right wing yahoo poured out his heart (for the first time ever) to his audience. From Radio Ink...

 Not long after Rush gave his listeners a health update, Michael Savage went on Twitter to criticize radio’s most listened to talk show host for doing so. Savage tweeted that Rush was ‘crying about his cancer,” and it was the worst ’15 minutes in radio history.’ 

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Guess who I voted for

 In my e-mail box this morning...



RICHARD KAEMPFER:


We have received your voted ballot. However, no ballots are counted until Election Day when all ballot types are tallied.


Thank you for participating in our democracy.  If you wish to vote by mail in a future election, please apply at cookcountyclerk.com/votebymail


Sincerely,


Cook County Clerk's Office

Mail Ballot Team

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Monday, October 19, 2020

The Single Greatest Problem in America

Fox News. If it went away tomorrow, America would immediately be a better place.
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America needs an enema

 This is terrible. What is wrong with this country?


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Masks

 Two of my all-time favorites...Bill Kurtis & Zorro.


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Tommy Kaempfer

My oldest son is 25 years old today. Proud of the lad. He is a music reviewer, focusing on his passion, EDM music. You can find him on YouTube under the handle, The Wonky Angle. More than 10,000 fans follow him there.

Happy birthday kid!




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Minutia Men--200th Episode

 It's hard to believe we've been doing this show for four years, but it's true. Minutia Men has just released our 200th episode.

I approached Tony Lossano with this idea after appearing on his podcast Lossano & Friends when I was promoting my book "Father Knows Nothing". I thought it was a longshot, but I pitched it to him anyway.

"My co-publisher Dave and I used to do a show together many years ago (in the mid-80s)," I said, "and we still basically do a show together on the phone every single day. Is there any way we can convert that into a podcast?"

"What would it be about?" he asked.

"Nothing important. Just two best friends telling each other about things they've discovered in the news, or things that have happened to them this week, or reminiscing about old stories. We know virtually everything about each other, and at the very least, we'd have great chemistry."

Tony knew my background and that I could do it, but he hadn't met Dave. I introduced them over lunch, and after watching us banter in person and with the waitress, Tony realized there was something there. He noticed we spent an inordinate amount of time bickering about minutia, and thought that should be the focus of the show.

Now *that* was something we could do.

I was really worried whether or not I could handle the technical end of it (it had been more than a decade since I left radio), so I insisted that we do a few test shows to see if it worked. Tony lent us the equipment, and we did about four or five test shows, before officially launching in 2016.

The vision of the show remains essentially the same. Dave and I each bring "minutia" news stories that we've discovered that week. These are the kind of stories we are naturally drawn to, and used to share with each other on the phone, because it would lead to banter and shtick. We've been doing this so long (35 years), we have a giant archive of similar things that we've written, published, recorded, and/or created over the years, and we share a few of those as well. Dave likes my celebrity stories (from my long radio career), so he makes me tell one of those a week. 

And then we interview someone in the creative world that interests us, like actors, writers, comedians, musicians, voice over arists, directors, television stars, news anchors, radio personalities, authors, rock stars, or even bonafide movie stars. Those interviews always get into the weeds, because that's what we do. Minutia. The interview subjects are either an obscure celebrity that we want to highlight, or a big celebrity that we want to mine for more obscure moments of their career. 

Earlier this year, the interview part of our show was spun off into it's own show. It's called the Minutia Men Celebrity Interview.

Anyway, this is a long-winded way of saying our 200th episode is out now. Take a listen if you're interested. You can find us on all the podcast outlets, including amazon audible, spotify, stitcher, or our flagship network, the Radio Misfits Podcast Network. Thanks so much to Tony Lossano (from Oppih Shows) for taking a chance on us and producing the show. Thanks to Ed Silha of the Radio Misfits for distributing it.

And thanks to the more than 300 people who have given us 5-star reviews on the various podcast platforms. We appreciate your support.

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This is a great idea

MeTV has a great idea. They are bringing back the Ray Rayner model for morning cartoon watching. Bill Leff, a very funny guy, has been tapped to host the show, and they'll be showing Looney Tunes cartoons and doing little sketch comedy bits between the cartoons--mainly aimed at kids.

Count me in. I can't believe no-one has thought of doing this before. Bill is the perfect host for it.

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