Friday, April 14, 2017

Visiting the Shrine

We're closing the NW suburban office of Eckhartz Press today. I'm going to my first Cubs game of the year with my constant Cub-panion these past few years...son #3. Looking forward to it!

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Thursday, April 13, 2017

25 Years Ago

I can't believe this is already 25 years old. It came out in 1992. The 25th anniversary edition comes out on Blue Ray next week. RIP Gary Marshall, who played the fictional version of Phillip K. Wrigley...

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They'll let anyone in the White House these days



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Peabody Awards


One of the winners this year is totally deserving. Congrats to Norman Lear, creator of some of the biggest groundbreaking television shows in history like "All in the Family", "The Jeffersons", "Maude", and many more.
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The Ring

Cubs lost 2-0 last night, but they did win this gaudy little piece of jewelry...


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Minutia Men, Episode 46


EP46 – Rick and Dave discuss buttons you shouldn’t push, decomposed bat salad, stick shift mishaps, a Cubs movie star, and Rick’s brush with Jay Leno.

You can listen to it here.
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Wednesday, April 12, 2017

New United Commercial

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Bill O'Reilly


Bill O'Reilly decided to go on a two-week vacation. Do you think his show will ever air on Fox News again?

Professional Fox-scribe Gabriel Sherman tackles the subject in New York magazine.
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Borussia Bomb

This is a scary story. Among the players on Borussia Dortmund is American superstar Christian Pulisic. Glad no-one was seriously hurt.

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Blitzer Skewers Spicer

You can hear the palpable anger in Blitzer's voice. He is the son of Holocaust survivors...



I give Spicer credit for throwing himself at the mercy of the public. Totally and appropriately apologetic. His boss would never do the same.

Jimmy Kimmel tackled the subject last night too...

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RIP J Geils

From this morning's RAMP Newsletter...

The Associated Press reports Groton police officers had responded to Geils' home around 4pm yesterday for a well-being check and found him unresponsive. He was later pronounced dead at the scene. In a statement, the Groton Police Department said, "A preliminary investigation indicates that Geils died of natural causes."

Geils formed the band in 1967 while attending Worcester Polytechnic Institute. The J. Geils Blues Band, as it was originally called, also featured bassist Danny Klein, "Magic Dick" Salwitz on harmonica, trumpet and sax, drummer Stephen Jo Bladd and lead singer Peter Wolf, who was a DJ on WBCN/Boston. Keyboardist Seth Justman was the final piece of the puzzle, joining the band shortly before they released their Atlantic Records' debut album in 1970. The J. Geils Band was initially influenced by soul and R&B music, but had moved more toward pop and rock by the time Love Stinks was released in 1980. The band's 12th album, Freeze Frame, hit No. 1 on the Billboard chart for four weeks in 1981 and remained on the chart for 70 weeks. The single "Centerfold" reached No. 1 for six weeks and the title track, "Freeze Frame" made it to No. 4.

The J. Geils Band famously broke up and reunited several times in various incarnations since the mid-'80s, but Geils' involvement with his namesake band ended badly in 2012 -- The J Geils Band was scheduled to embark on a short U.S. tour in August and September 2012. However, the band left on the tour minus Geils, who filed an unsuccessful lawsuit against his bandmates, claiming they "planned and conspired" to continue touring without him, and were unlawfully using the group's trademarked name. After this incident, Geils permanently left the band.

Obviously, the band was never the same after the departure of Peter Wolf. I was the PD at WPGU in Champaign when the first post-Wolf J Geils band album appeared. I knew it was all over for them right then and there.

To me, this is my favorite JGeils Band song. It got me through some rough times in college...


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Tuesday, April 11, 2017

Sex Strike

In the latest issue of Marie Claire magazine, actress Janelle Monae has endorsed the ol' Lysistrata technique of getting men to care about women's rights. She is calling for a sex strike.

"People have to start respecting the vagina,” she told Marie Claire. “Until every man is fighting for our rights, we should consider stopping having sex. I love men. But evil men? I will not tolerate that. You don’t deserve to be in my presence.”

Of course, there's another name for a sex strike.

Marriage.

(Rimshot)

My wife loves that joke.
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Louie Louie


Today is supposedly International "Louie Louie" Day (h/t Pee Wee Herman...seriously). I'm a little too young for this story, but in the early 60s America's youth believed that the words to "Louie Louie" were secretly dirty. Indiana's Governor actually banned the song. Of course, they were wrong. But that's the power of slurring your words, boys and girls.



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You thought *you* were having a bad day

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United Airlines New Slogan

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Focus, Rossy, Focus

Don't think that David Ross had his mind on his dance routine last night...

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O'Reilly's Ratings

This is the truth about America's underbelly. We like watching train crashes. Take this headline as an example: As Advertisers Flee, O’Reilly Sees Double Digit Ratings Growth.

Fox News and O'Reilly won't admit this, and maybe they don't care, but part of that ratings growth is curiosity from people who never watch Fox News. Will he talk about the investigation of sexual harrassment? Will he talk about his advertisers leaving? Who is actually still advertising on his show? Has he lost any of that cocky smirky swagger? Is he bringing on people to defend him? Is he going to cry on the air? Is he going to say "I never had sexual relations with that woman"? Will he have a meltdown/freakout like the famous "We're going live!" moment from years ago?
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Champs



I stayed up until midnight to watch the whole game. Cubs win 3-2.
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The Pulitzer Prize

The winners of the Pulitzer Prize were announced yesterday afternoon. Here's the full list. Congrats to the winners, including this one from the Chicago Tribune...

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Monday, April 10, 2017

Bon Appetit!

Here's a headline (and story) that you will never forget: Decomposed bat is found inside bag of organic salad at Walmart.

The bag DID say organic.
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Fox Investigating O'Reilly

More than 70 sponsors have left the show, and now Fox News is confirming that they are formally investigating the sexual harrassment charges against Bill O'Reilly.

He could still survive this, but it's not looking good right now.
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Worst Job in the World Today

The worst job in the world today: P.R. person for United Airlines.

Passengers being physically removed (by force) so that airline employees could fly standby? And there's video?

Oy.
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Google Fact Checks Fake News

I'm not sure they'll remain ahead of the fake news writers (technologically), but it's a good first step. Google has rolled out a fact-checking feature worldwide.

You'll see a "Fact Check" tag in your Google search results telling you which claim is being checked, who made it, who did the fact check and a short summary of the fact check, like "mostly true" or "false."

And on Google News, articles that have been checked for facts will be labelled "Fact Check."

In practice, the tag will only show up on some stories — those that have been fact-checked by organizations such as PolitiFact and Snopes. Furthermore, Google says that on some search pages you might get conflicting results, as different fact-checking sites may have judged the same page differently.
If you're a publisher and want to be included in the program, there's a couple of rules you must adhere to; plus, Google will only include publishers that are "algorithmically determined to be an authoritative source of information".

Mashable has more details.
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Tomi Lahren Sues Glenn Beck

Milennial Conservative talker Tomi Lahren was fired a few weeks ago by Glenn Beck after she adopted a public pro-choice position.

Over the weekend she responded by suing him for wrongful termination. The Dallas News has the details.
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Ross & Rizz

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Golf on the Radio?

I listened to golf on the radio yesterday. In fact, I stayed in my car after I arrived at my destination and waited to hear the results of Sergio Garcia's putt because I didn't want to miss it.

Add that to the list of things I never thought I would do.

Enjoyed it too.
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Le$ Moonve$

Les Moonves is among the highest paid CEOs in the world. From Tom Taylor's NOW column...

CBS makes Les Moonves the $70 million Man. Well, almost – the Chairman/President/CEO’s just-revealed 2016 compensation amounted to about $69.55 million. That’s a long way up from his base salary of $3.5 million, which was unchanged from 2015. But his bonus jumps from $19 million to $32 million. And his stock awards soared from $25.5 million to $31.945 million.
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