Saturday, January 20, 2018

The Rally Against Trump



Washington...



New York...




Chicago...



Texas...




Oakland...



Reno...





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Friday, January 19, 2018

A Stormy Night

In Touch Magazine has the full interview with Stormy Daniels, and yes, I just spent 15 minutes of my life reading it. Here's the part about the actual act. It's really romantic...

Stormy: I had to use the bathroom and I went to the restroom, which was in the bedroom. Like I said, it was a big suite. I could describe the suite perfectly. When I came out, he was sitting on the bed and he was like, “Come here.” And I was like, “Ugh, here we go.” And we started kissing. I actually don’t even know why I did it but I do remember while we were having sex, I was like, “Please don’t try to pay me.” And then I remember thinking, “But I bet if he did, it would be a lot.”

IT: This is what you were thinking during sex?

Stormy: Yeah, isn’t that horrible? But I remember thinking, “I hope he doesn’t think I’m a hooker.” Not that I have anything against hookers. I just personally have never done it. Still, I have no idea why I did it. Honestly, I really don’t.

IT: Were you attracted to him?

Stormy: Would you be?

And here's the part that will haunt my dreams...

So anyway, the sex was nothing crazy. He wasn’t like, chain me to the bed or anything. It was one position. I can definitely describe his junk perfectly, if I ever have to.

Please don't.
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Huffington Post Stops Using Unpaid Writers

This is a huge change for the Huffington Post. They have decided to stop using unpaid contributors. Since it began, unpaid writers have made a significant contribution to the Huffington Post. (They currently have more than 100,000 of them).

They published one of my pieces about ten years ago, and didn't pay me. They wanted to publish a bunch of my Just One Bad Century stuff after that, and I said no way. Their pitch was always "but we give you great exposure!" I tried to use that exposure to pay my mortgage. Apparently the banks don't accept that as payment anymore.
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Howard Stern to Induct Bon Jovi into HOF

From this morning's RAMP newsletter...
Howard Stern will have the honor of inducting Bon Jovi into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at the Hall's annual ceremony on April 14 in Cleveland. That's the word from Rolling Stone, which reports that Jon Bon Jovi visited The Howard Stern Show on Wednesday morning to discuss why Howard was his top choice. "The truth is, I had hoped this day was going to come, and... initially you think about these big rock stars and the truth is, I only had one choice," Bon Jovi said to Stern. "Our careers have paralleled in a lot of ways -- whether it was the ups or the downs -- we've come through everything together and we do this at this point because we love the people we work with... and the truth is, nobody knows not only me but the members of the band as well as Howard."

Stern replied, "I'm so honored that you asked me. I'm thrilled to do it," while joking that he still wished the ceremony was happening in New York. Bon Jovi laughed and confirmed that subject of the induction being in Cleveland did come up in conversation with manager, Irving Azoff. As Bon Jovi recounted, "Irving did say to me, 'does Howard know it's in Cleveland?'"
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Cumulus drops Sox, Bulls, WKQX, and the Loop

This is a bit of a bombshell in the hallways at Cumulus today. Robert Feder reports...

Struggling to emerge from bankruptcy, Cumulus Media announced plans Thursday to drop its money-losing multiyear contracts to broadcast White Sox baseball and Bulls basketball on news/talk WLS AM 890. The company also moved to cancel its deal with Merlin Media to acquire alternative rock WKQX FM 101.1 and classic rock WLUP FM 97.9. Cumulus has been operating the two stations since 2014 under a local marketing agreement. “As part of our operational turnaround, we have been focused on taking proactive steps to address unprofitable areas of our business,” Mary Berner, president and chief executive officer of Cumulus Media, said in a statement. “We are taking this action because the economic terms of these legacy contracts guarantee that we lose money and, as such, continuing them in their current form is not in Cumulus’s best interests.” U.S. Bankruptcy Court is scheduled to rule February 1 on the company’s plan to reject the contracts. It’s not known where the White Sox and Bulls will go or who will operate 101 WKQX and The Loop after Cumulus.

Radio Ink has more information about this situation...

According to Cumulus, the company operating the stations formerly owned by Randy Michaels, WLUP-FM and WKQX-FM in Chicago have lost $8.4 Million since 2014. Cumulus says the two stations, net of LMA fees to Michaels, lost $1.5 million in 2014, $800,000 in 2015, $1.1 million in 2016 and $5.1 million in 2017. The LMA fee Cumulus was paying to Merlin was $600,000 per month.

In a Cumulus court filing Thursday, the company says “The Merlin agreements are economically detrimental to the Debtors’ estates and operating the Merlin Stations, net of the LMA Fee, has proved unprofitable for the Debtors since the LMA’s execution.” Cumulus has asked the court to nullify the agreements.

In 2017, Cumulus announced it would be purchasing the stations for approximately $50 million. That was obviously before the company decided to file for bankruptcy protection.

We asked Michaels if this would lead to him getting the stations back and his answer was “yes.”
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Thursday, January 18, 2018

Minutia Men, Episode 80


EP80 – Rick and Dave trace flatulence, unite sh**holers, admonish Jenkins, play Just One Bad Century roulette, and recount Rick’s brush with songwriter Jimmy Webb.

Listen to it here.
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Fire & Fury TV

Fire & Fury TV rights have been purchased for millions. They plan to make it into a television series.

I don't know if I can handle watching this, watching the nightly news is hard enough.

Although...I suppose it depends on the casting.

Oh, and it's going international now too...


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Why Don't People Visit Moscow in December?

Guess how many minutes of sunlight they had in Moscow in December this year.

Would you believe six?

No wonder they drink so much vodka.
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The Fake News Awards

With a government shutdown looming, and half of America reeling from confirmation that their president is a stone cold racist, the president did what anyone would do in his shoes.

He staged a Fake News Award show.

Oh, and the awards he gave out were for stories that were actually corrected by the people who initially reported them. The way it's supposed to work.

(Sigh)
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RIP Hugh Wilson

You may not know his name, but Hugh Wilson was the creator of one of the great television sitcoms of all-time, WKRP in Cincinnati. He also writer/director of films like "Police Academy", "First Wives Club", "Guarding Tess" and many more.

I didn't know this until I read it in his obit in the Hollywood Reporter this morning, but Wilson came up with the idea for WKRP when he worked as a salesman at a top 40 station in Atlanta. I'm guessing he didn't base the character of Herb Tarlek on himself...



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Stormy Daniels

To get a real glimpse into how weird our world has become, consider this.

Stormy Daniels, a porn star, confirmed that she had an affair with Donald Trump in 2006--while he was married to Melania. The first lady had just given birth to their son. The reason the story hadn't come out until yesterday is that Trump paid her $130,000 in hush money. Not only is it confirmed that the current president of the U.S. cheated on his wife...there are details about the actual sex. It's in the current issue of In Touch. You can read the abbreviated on line version here, which includes this paragraph...

At one point, Stormy told In Touch, she excused herself to go to the bathroom. “When I came out, he was sitting on the bed and he was like, ‘Come here.’ And I was like, ‘Ugh, here we go.’ And we started kissing.” After having sex, Stormy said, “We hung out for a little while and he just kept saying, ‘I’m gonna call you, I’m gonna call you. I have to see you again. You’re amazing. We have to get you on The Apprentice.’”

I'm told the hard copy includes details about chasing her around in his tighty whities, that she reminded him of Ivanka, and the absolutely generic nature of the actual sex (unlike Marla Maples claims in the New York Post years ago).

And yet...this story is getting almost ZERO press.

The president cheated on his current wife with a porn star and paid hush money to keep it out of the press during the election...and it's barely registering a blip in the coverage.

That's how much this country has changed in one year. Gary Hart must be sitting in his house screaming "What the hell?"
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Reasons to Keep a Writer Around

I thought this was pretty spot on...


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Wednesday, January 17, 2018

CWA Book Awards

The CWA posted a few photos from their Book of the Year award ceremony on Saturday night. Here are the ones that captured yours truly. In the second photo (with author Richard Reeder), he and I are actually making a book deal. Details will be announced soon...

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239 pounds, my ass


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RIP JoJo White

I always hated the Celtics, but I never hated JoJo White. He was one of my favs when I was a kid. I remember my dad pointing out that White was the only non-White on the Celtics in those days. Irony.


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Installing this in Hawaii right now

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John Fisher

My old colleague at the Loop, John Fisher, has been killin' it in Seattle for many years now. He just switched to a new station there. Radio Insight has the info...
Entercom’s recently launched Soft AC “94.1 The Sound” KSWD Seattle has appointed John Fisher as its new morning host starting January 22.

Fisher returns to Entercom after previously spending over two decades as morning host on AAA “103.7 The Mountain” KMTT from 1992 until the station flipped to Rhythmic Hot AC “Hot 103.7” in 2013. He most recently spent three years in various shifts at Hubbard AC “Warm 106.9” KWRM.

John was married to the woman who gave me my first break in the big time--Sandy Stahl. (She unfortunately passed away a few years ago.)

I've always respected John. He's the real deal. When I first began my Chicago Radio Spotlight blog back in 2007, John was the first person I interviewed. You can read that here. I wish him nothing but the best.
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Tuesday, January 16, 2018

Jimmy Fallon Channels Jimmy Taylor

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Classy

Andrew McCutcheon was traded by the Pirates to the Giants yesterday. This is what he tweeted upon hearing the news...


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If Only Millennials Voted

There are now more voting-age Millennials than Baby Boomers. Here's what the last election would have looked like if only Millennial votes counted...

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Imus

Not a fan of Fox and Friends, but I'm on their side on this one. From Radio Online...

"Fox & Friends" host and multiple sclerosis survivor Janice Dean, 47, told Moneyish about having her legs called disgusting in a Facebook comment recently that threw her off balance. The Fox News senior meteorologist was asked to "please stop allowing fox to dress you in those short skirts... Your [sic] an attractive lady but your legs are distracting every time you walk on screen."

She says the Facebook incident is not the first time Dean has been publicly shamed for her body. Before joining Fox over a decade ago, she worked with syndicated talk host Don Imus as a news editor. "On a daily basis, on and off air, he would comment that I was fat" or that they should hire a personal trainer, she says. "He brought in a trainer one time on-air and said, ‘Stand up. She needs to get rid of that... her hips and her butt.' I was just so ashamed. So ashamed."

"I live with an illness that could take away [my legs] at any moment," she tells Moneyish. Dean added that if she were to face Imus today, she'd tell him that he couldn't do that to her. "I've always been conscious about what body part I'd like to change, but I'm comfortable in that I know what I'm good at. I want to say to young girls ‘it's OK to be yourself, to show who you are.'"

Imus is such a good looking man, you can see how he feels superior. His eyebrows weigh approximately the same as Janice Dean's entire body.
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That's a LOT of golfing

I love golfing. I would do it more if i could, but I'm busy. I'm a business owner, a free lance writer, and a soccer coach, so it's almost impossible to find days where I have five full hours of free time available. If all the stars align, I might get out twice this coming year, and that would make me very happy.

President Trump's schedule should make my schedule look like a piece of cake. How many times do you think he has golfed this past year? Would you believe 94 times? That's not a typo. He golfed 94 times. That's basically every three days. Retired people who live on golf courses golf less. Tiger Woods golfs less.

All presidents golf a lot. It's a stressful job, and they need to blow off steam. I get that. But before he became president, Trump tweeted 27 times bitching about Obama golfing because it infuriated him that Obama was golfing so much.

If Trump continues at his current pace, he will surpass Obama's total number of times on the golf course (over the full two terms), before the end of his first term...by about the number of times I have golfed since becoming a father.
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Monday, January 15, 2018

RIP Dolores O'Riordan

This is a shocker. The lead singer of the Cranberries, Dolores O'Riordan, has passed away at the age of 46. The cause of death hasn't been released.



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MLK Day

I post this song every year on Martin Luther King Day. It was put together by a DJ in Detroit named Tom Clay after the assassinations of JFK, MLK, and RFK, and it has a timeless message...

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Willson's Advice to Jon Lester

My favorite moment from this weekend's Cubs convention...


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Is it really OK to say "Shithole" on the air?

I'd say no, but then again, I heard it many many times over the past week. Tom Taylor's NOW column looks at the issue from an FCC perspective...

Language issues are back at the FCC – from the White House to “Saturday Night Live.” SNL host Sam Rockwell blurted out the gerund version of the f-word in an opening skit and immediately covered his mouth. That may’ve happened only in the East coast live feed (and in “safe harbor” time, after 10pm). But it’ll produce complaints to the FCC. Later in that same episode, “Weekend Update” host Colin Jost intentionally used the News-Cycle Word of the Week – the “s-hole” word reportedly uttered by the President in a meeting with Congressional leaders. That could also result in FCC complaints, since Jost’s comment may not fit under the “fleeting expletive” rule. Then there were all the news executives making judgment calls about whether to use the exact eight-letter word allegedly employed by Trump. NBC News anchor Lester Holt said it, once. His evening news counterparts at ABC and CBS didn’t. The AP reports that there are viewer complaints at the FCC already about both NBC and CNN – though the easy answer about CNN is that the FCC doesn’t regulate language on cable channels. Attorney David Oxenford blogs about the history of profanity over broadcast outlets. He says in the case of newscasts, “the FCC has said repeatedly that there is no blanket rule exempting news programming from its indecency rule.” Though the agency “has recognized that the decisions made about the language in newscasts are subject to a different level of First Amendment protection than language included in an entertainment program.” But as Oxenford cautions – “there no blank check, even in news reports.”
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MLK Day

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Look Who is In the News

This morning's Robert Feder column leads with this little tidbit...

It’s only the middle of January, but courtesy of President Donald Trump, we already may know the word of the year: “Shithole,” of course. A Chicago area publisher has secured the online domain WeAreAllShitholers.com and released a line of merchandise bearing the logo he designed featuring the Statue of Liberty. (ImAShitholer.com was already taken.) “Ultimately, I’d like to create a website that highlights the contributions of immigrants from those so-called shithole countries,” said David Stern, co-founder and publisher of Eckhartz Press. “Until then, all profits from any merchandise sold on WeAreAllShitholers.com [T-shirts, sweatshirts, mugs, tote bags, etc.] will be donated to charities that improve the lives of people in those areas.” Added Stern: “My parents emigrated from Berlin in 1949. I imagine there wasn’t a bigger ‘shithole’ on Earth back then.”
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Fire and Fury on SNL

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Out the Door

Award winning Eckhartz Press author M.L. Collins. Her book “Out the Door” was named CWA Book of the Year Saturday night. So proud of her! Happy to be there to see her receive the award and applause!





Who is M.L?
M.L. Collins has been in love with Door County ever since spending summers in Juddville with her grandparents who moved there in the 1930s after retiring from the circus.

M.L. has worked as a free-lance writer and lectured extensively on the history of sex, fashion and culture at various institutions in Chicago including the School of the Art Institute, the University of Chicago Graham School and most recently, Columbia College.

She divides her time between the big city of Chicago and a small town on the Door Peninsula in Wisconsin where she recently fell for a sailor named Smee.

What is "Out the Door" about?
A story about a little of everything: geology, sex, politics, the environment, prairie voles, cheese curds, casinos, aphrodisiacs, sturgeon, trilobites, gulls, Hat Island, bit of mystery – and much more!

You can get your copy at Eckhartz Press.

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Another Creep Revealed?


This one doesn't sound quite as bad as the others, but it certainly appears to have crossed the line.

Comedian Aziz Ansari.
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