Reasons to Keep a Writer Around

I thought this was pretty spot on...

RT @PaperFury: REASONS TO KEEP A WRITER IN YOUR HOME
• they know weird facts
• they're low maintenance because all they do is eat and write
• great for midnight chats because they don't sleep
• if they have to edit they'll procrastinate by cleaning your whole house

— The Fussy Librarian (@FussyLibrarian) January 16, 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...

239 pounds, my ass

Trump's medical exam says he's 6'3" and 239 pounds. Albert Pujols is 6'3" and 240 pounds. If the dementia tests are equally accurate, we are doomed. pic.twitter.com/fn0u1xzzjI

— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) January 17, 2018

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.

We are terribly saddened by the passing of the great Jo Jo White. He was a champion and a gentleman; supremely talented and brilliant on the court, and endlessly gracious off of it.

Full statement: https://t.co/sYgSvZJu0A pic.twitter.com/1Eu8G2Qr8a

— Boston Celtics (@celtics) January 17, 2018

Installing this in Hawaii right now

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.

Jimmy Fallon Channels Jimmy Taylor

Classy

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

Pittsburgh.My Home.My Fans.My City. The placed that raised me and helped mold me into the man I am today. You will 4ever be in my heart.A tip of the cap to all who have been on this journey with me. With Love and respect,
Cutch pic.twitter.com/QB0n9vuBuZ

— andrew mccutchen (@TheCUTCH22) January 15, 2018

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...

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.

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.

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.

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...

Willson's Advice to Jon Lester

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

That amazing Jon Lester pick-off? He's got an profanity-laced Willson Contreras mound visit to thank for it. pic.twitter.com/c00L55UGzb

— Bleacher Nation (@BleacherNation) January 13, 2018

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.”

MLK Day

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.”

Fire and Fury on SNL

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.

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.