Things Radio People Like Number 13

Outside of a dark production studio or dank, smelly on-air studio, a Radio Person feels most at home at Outback Steakhouse. It is risqué since its foreign but accessible since they speak English in Australia. When Outback Steakhouse was founded in 1998 in Tampa, FL few knew what a mark it would leave on the radio industry. But since it was well placed within driving distance to the legendary WFLZ, its culinary stranglehold on Radio People began to bloom.

Since then, Outback has become a place for Radio People to hold jock meetings, celebrate ratings, meet with their sales people, or record company reps. It’s also a great place to drown their sorrows after a period of “poor diary placement”, discuss HD Radio, have a send off to a downsized comrade, or just to ogle waitresses (since there isn’t a Hooters in their market).
While the theme of Outback restaurants are Australian (stuffed crocodiles, boomerangs, sting ray jokes, etc.) Radio People seem to flock to these restaurants not for the decor, but for the menu featuring reasonably priced steaks and most importantly, the infamous “Bloomin’ Onion".

A “Bloomin Onion” is the signature dish at Outback, and what better way to wet one’s appetite than with an onion that has been breaded, deep fried and blossomed to the tune of 2200 calories and 134 grams of fat. Radio people like nothing more than being able to ingest the maximum amount of calories in the shortest amount of time (they are lazy by nature), and the Bloomin Onion is the best way to accomplish this outside of the Triple Big Mac. This monstrous item is also a great centerpiece for meetings. You can always spot the Radio People in an Outback Steakhouse, they’re the ones in the back corner wondering who notices them and who average 1 “Bloomin’ Onion” per 2 Radio People (unless they are in sales or production…in that case double the average), and are usually asking their waitress for extra Cajun mayo aioli (usually referred to by Radio People as “the sauce”). Radio People love to follow up a freshly fried “Bloomin’ Onion” with one of Outback’s signature steaks. What could be a better way to wash down a battered and fried whole onion? Obviously, a steak that’s been grilled in butter!



So if you find yourself navigating any of our countries major highways or biways, take comfort in knowing that you’re only one or two exits from the next Outback Steakhouse, and there’s a damn good chance that it will be filled with Radio People hogging all the aioli.

I'm A Man...M-A-N...

Today, while the weather was fine, I decided to tackle a manly chore that, in the past, I hired someone to do. I gave my lawn mover it's every other year checkup. I drained the tank, grabbed a newly gapped spark plug, washed and changed the filter, took off every wheel, oiled the axles and washers and put it all back together again.
I pulled the string........ and it stated on the very first pull. I'm up to changing my own oil next weekend. Uh, where do you put the old oil?

Sports Illustrated Lists The Top 25 Toughest Athletes

Yep, she's on the list.

Overlooked Gem

On the heels of "New Girl Now" (3 minutes of great power pop), I liked this song much better.
Pretty cool video for it's day, too.

Honeymoon Suite website

April 5th

Here comes the sun, here comes the sun

And I say it's all right

Little darlin' it's been a long cold lonely winter

Little darlin' it feels like years since it's been here

Here comes the sun, here comes the sun

And I say it's all right

Little darlin' the smiles returning to their faces

Little darlin' it seems like years since it's been here

Here comes the sun, here comes the sun

And I say it's all right

The end of the world part 134, Mariah Carey now has more number one songs than Elvis, I'm afraid I can't name one...

The Clinton's made over $109 million dollars in the last 7 years, and gave away a lot to charity. The charity was the Clinton foundation. I don't think I can take another four years of these guys. I voted for Bill twice. The drama was unending, please go away.

The Atlanta Braves have put Scott Spiezio on their roster, this is all that's wrong in sports. So, Scott will not only draw the $2 million the Cardinals owe him, but will be double dipping with The Braves, too. What a country.

Elizabeth Hasselbeck, who, somehow landed a plump role with the other hissy "View" gals, (because she was a"Survivor") has made some strange connection to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Jeffrey Dahmer and peanut butter sandwiches. Journalism circa 2008.

This pregnant guy story has made me queesy. I am not sure what to feel here, other than utter comtempt and sorriness for a person so begging for attention.

The retro MLK tributes take me back to a time, living in Rock Island and going to school in East Moline. My parents were apart (again) and being twelve, I didn't quite grasp what was happening except the country was coming apart at the seams. I feel that way again now. The oil companies get richer becuase price of gasoline is going through the roof and now, in St. Louis the water company wants a lot more money every month. Not to be outdone, our local electric outlet wants more than the $310 million pure profit they made last year. They have announced they want a 12 percent increase. My escrow payments went up $80 a month. I feel again like I did when I was twelve. I keep hanging on, but the perch is dwindling day by day.

Thank God for music and a sunny day. We have new "Indiana Jones", "Batman" and "James Bond" movies coming, something to look forward to. I have to rescue my back yard. There isn't much left of it after this winter and spring.

Another Grey Morning

cloudy (again) 42 degrees

When I feel as though my love is sinking down

The sun doesn't want to shine

When it feels like she won't face another day

Life is unkind

She's frozen in time

And here comes another grey morning

A not so good morning after all

She says "well, what am I to do today

With too much time and so much sorrow"

She hears the baby waking up downstairs

She hears the foghorn calling out across the sound

Repetition in the morning air

Is just too much to bear

And no one seems to care

If another day goes creeping by

Empty and ashamed

Like an old unwanted memory

That no one will claim

The clouds with their heads on the ground

She's gonna have to come down

She said "move me, move me

I'm locked up inside"

Well, I didn't understand her

Though God knows I tried

She said "make me angry

But just make me cry

But no more grey morning

I think I'd rather die"

Refrigerator art

From the mind of babes...
Of course they are scissors

Thanks Beth

The Latest Entry Into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Even though her album "Hard Candy" doesn’t come out until April 28th, the Telegraph UK says that Madonna has already made millions off it by selling tracks for commercials and advertising.

Nice, we are all so proud. Good job RandR Hall of Fame, nothing like corporate greed that defines what we were all about, huh? Keith Moon is spinning so fast...

Things Radio People Like Number 14

14) The Spring Book
04/03/2008

Today marks the start of the only real “official” Radio Person holiday, The Spring Book. For a Radio Person the Spring Book is like Chanukah except longer and has less candles or any religious connotation. The Spring Book is when Radio People drastically change everything they are doing in order to make a stellar impression on the listener for the next three months and ultimately get the Holy Grail for Radio People…”A Good Spring Book.”

The first thing a good Radio Person does to prepare for a Spring Book is to tighten up. You will hear all sorts of Radio People say they are dropping music, adding music, changing formats, adding talking animals, shifting air shifts around, maybe even air-checking their DJs to make sure everything is tight.
In fact, the cornerstone of a good Spring Book is that everything is tight and once the level of “tightness” is established, the Radio Person then gets to pick their catch phrase de jour for the next three months all of which sound like sexual euphemisms:

“Tight is Right”
“Gonna Tighten Here Down This Weekend”
“If It Ain’t Tight, It Ain’t Right”
“Got to Tighten Down Before My Competition Does”


It is actually a pretty fun exercise, even if you aren’t a troglodyte. All you have to do is take something you would do on a daily basis that might be for recreation and replace that action with the word “tight” or “tighten” and you can create your own Radio Person Spring Book Catch Phrase, which I think the Nintendo Wii version is coming out in 2009.


The next thing you have to do is “Make A Big Splash.” This involves giving something away to your listener that you don’t do for the rest of the year. Could be cash, a car, a boat, or even somebody’s child… The ideal formula involves a big-ticket item (like a car) surrounded by a contest that would get you exposure on some other media (like TV or Perez Hilton) and has at least a slight probability to land you in jail even if it is for rigging that same contest.
A good one that leaps to mind might be:

“Kill A Konvict for a Korvette”

(make sure to change all the letters to “k” for the alliteration)

Then before you execute the contest, after you have gotten the exposure you reveal that it is just a highly trumped up version of Whack-A-Mole for a chance to drive away in a new car and your Spring Promotion is in the bag The final thing you have to do is some “Spring Cleaning” of your imaging and positioner, because if you don’t reinvent the station from the ground up for these pivotal three months, you are going to have a bad year my friend. Start by taking all the imaging you currently have and get rid of it and then replace it with new imaging preferably done by the Space Ghost guy, the Master Shake guy, or Don Lafontaine. Then have them say really obscure things like “putting the “o” in iPhone” and sandwich it between those guys reading your new positioner which should be like “The Best Mix of the 80’s, 90’s and Today for the Springtime with more than 96 minutes of music an hour.”


To see it in context it should look like this:
The Best Mix of the 80’s, 90’s and Today for the Springtime with more than 96 minutes of music an hour, we’re putting the “o” in iPhone… The Best Mix of the 80’s, 90’s and Today for the Springtime with more than 96 minutes of music an hour 108.97 WGRR


And that should do it.

Radio People love this time of year when they take the 9 months leading up to today and call it practice in order to completely change the format and feel of the radio station so as to insure having “A Good Spring Book” so they can pitch that to their clients.

See, it really is all about the listeners after all.

Cool stuff

rain and more rain

"And it's rainin' all over the world
It's raining all over the world
Tonight, the longest night"

The Master of the Telecaster

there is a reason why he is still the greatest, 38 years after his death.

Song In My Head

Yesterday a child came out to wonder

Caught a dragonfly inside a jar

Fearful when the sky was full of thunder

And tearful at the falling of a star

Then the child moved ten times round the seasons

Skated over ten clear frozen streams

Words like, when youre older, must appease him

And promises of someday make his dreams

And the seasons they go round and round

And the painted ponies go up and dawn

Were captive on the carousel of time

We cant return we con only look behind

From where we came

And go round and round and round

In the circle game.

Sixteen springs and sixteen summers gone now

Cartwheels turn to car wheels thru the town

And they tell him,

Take your time, it wont be long now

Till you drag your feet to slow the circles down

And the seasons they go round and round

And the painted ponies go up and dawn

Were captive on the carousel of time

We cant return we can only look behind

From where we came

And go round and round and round

In the circle game

So the years spin by and now the boy is twenty

Though his dreams have lost some grandeur

Coming true

There'll be new dreams, maybe better dreams and plenty

Before the last revolving year is through.

And the seasons they go round and round

And the painted ponies go up and down

Were captive on the carousel of time

We cant return, we can only look behind

From where we came

And go round and round and round

In the circle game

She knows my life better than I do, Thanks Joni

Mad Magazine Rules!

Al Jaffee's fold-ins for Mad magazine were maybe the best part of the magazine. I always enjoyed getting to the end of my weekly Mad magazine just to see what perverted fold ins might await. I always tried to figure them out, did a pretty good job with some of them but whiffed badly on most. Guys, for your enjoyment, here are the fold ins from the 1960s to the present, in interactive form. Enjoy the ride back to your childhood. You are so welcome!

Link here.

More Rain Coming

This was the wettest March in recorded history. We are supposed to get another two to three inches of rain here on Thursday. This is NOT good.

Now Let Me Get This Straight...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Don't blame us, oil industry chiefs told a skeptical Congress. Top executives of the country's five biggest oil companies said Tuesday they know record fuel prices are hurting people, but they argued it's not their fault and their huge profits are in line with other industries.
Appearing before a House committee, the executives were pressed to explain why they should continue to get billions of dollars in tax breaks when they made $123 billion last year and motorists are paying record gasoline prices at the pump.
"On April Fool's Day, the biggest joke of all is being played on American families by Big Oil," Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., said, aiming his remarks at the five executives sitting shoulder-to-shoulder in a congressional hearing room.
"Our earnings, although high in absolute terms, need to be viewed in the context of the scale and cyclical, long-term nature of our industry as well as the huge investment requirements," said J.S. Simon, senior vice president of Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM), which made a record $40 billion last year. "We depend on high earnings during the up cycle to sustain ... investment over the long term, including the down cycles," he continued.
The up cycle has been going on too long, suggested Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo. "The anger level is rising significantly."
Alluding to the fact that Congress often doesn't rate very high in opinion polls, Cleaver told the executives: "Your approval rating is lower than ours, and that means you're down low."
Several lawmakers noted the rising price of gasoline at the pump, now averaging $3.29 a gallon amid talk of $4 a gallon this summer.
"I heard what you are hearing. Americans are very worried about the rising price of energy," said John Hofmeister, president of Shell Oil Co., echoing remarks by the other four executives including representatives of BP America Inc., Chevron Corp. (CVX) and ConocoPhillips.
Democrats hammered the executives for their profits and demanded they do more to develop alternative energy sources such as wind, solar and biofuels, Republican lawmakers called for opening more areas for drilling to boost domestic production of oil and gas.
What would bring lower prices? asked Rep. James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin, the committee's ranking Republican
"We need access to all kinds of energy supply," replied Robert Malone, chairman of BP America, adding that 85 percent of the country's coastal waters are off limits to drilling.
But Markey wanted to know why the companies aren't investing more in energy projects other than oil and gas - or giving up some tax breaks so the money could be directed to promote renewable fuels and conservation and take pressure off oil and gas supplies.
"Why is Exxon Mobil resisting the renewable revolution," asked Markey, noting that the other four companies together have invested $3.5 billion in solar, wind and biodiesel projects.
Exxon is spending $100 million on research into climate change at Stanford University, replied Simon, but current alternative energy technologies "just do not have an appreciable impact" in addressing "the challenge we're trying to meet."
The appearance Tuesday before the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming was not the first time that oil executives had faced the harsh words of a lawmakers frustrated over their inability to do anything about soaring oil and gasoline costs.
In November 2005, executives of the same companies sought to explain high energy costs at a Senate hearing at which Hofmeister emphasized the cyclical nature of his industry. "What goes up almost always comes down," he told the senators on a day when oil cost $60 a barrel.
About six months later, the executives were grilled again on Capitol Hill when a barrel of oil cost $75. As the three-hour House hearing came to a close Tuesday, the price of oil settled at just over $100 a barrel on the New York exchange.
"We face a new reality, volatility, high prices, greater competition for resources," said Peter Robertson, vice president of Chevron Corp., adding that he understands that "Americans see the pain" of $100-a-barrel oil.
Markey challenged the executives to pledge to invest 10 percent of their profits to develop renewable energy and give up $18 billion in tax breaks over 10 years so money could be funneled to support other energy and conservation.
They responded that their companies already are spending on alternative energy projects and argued that new taxes would dampen investment and could lead to even higher prices.
"Imposing punitive taxes on American energy companies, which already pay record taxes, will discourage the sustained investment needed to continue safeguarding U.S. energy security," said Simon. He said over the past five years Exxon Mobil's U.S. tax bill exceeded its U.S. earnings by $19 billion. Markey was not impressed.
"These companies are defending billions of federal subsidies ... while reaping over a hundred billion dollars in profits in just the last year alone," he said. The companies are reaping "a windfall of revenue" while poor people have to choose between heating and eating because of high energy prices.
Elsewhere on Tuesday, many independent truckers parked their rigs and others slowed to a crawl on highways to protest high fuel prices. The demonstrations were only scattered, but long lines of trucks were moving at about 20 mph on the New Jersey Turnpike, and three drivers were ticketed for impeding traffic on Interstate 55 outside Chicago, driving three abreast at low speeds.

But..wait a minute, didn't Congress haul these guys in front them two years ago...three years ago and what happened? Nothing. That's because these Congressmen have had oil money in their wallets for years now. Nothing will change, nothing. I say bring back Teddy Roosevelt who would have busted these conglomerates up, turning them into little oil companies that might have ...(gasp) competition. Well, now these guys have pissed the truckers off and I can't wait to see who wins that battle. I can tell you, I don't see good things happening down the road unless somebody comes in and reforms there bastards. But, it won't happen. The White House is occupied by oil men whose portfolios only get richer when the price goes up. I can just see ol Dick Cheney smirking out of the side of his mouth..."heh heh". The rich get richer and the underclass steams. Not a good recipe for the future.

Monday Morning

64 degrees and cloudy (again).

Big storms coming, just about in time for opening day. This has been the dreariest, coldest, cloudiest winter ever. The sun has rarely shone and my yard is an absolute mess. This will be a wet spring they say. Not sure where the water will go.

"ruh roh"

Dave Munday's Service

i left from St. Louis at 12 noon. at mile marker 179, the road was down to one lane. traffic started backing up at mile marker 192. at mile marker 137, the road was down to one lane. traffic started backing up at mile marker 151. at six thirty, i was in columbia and the service started 30 minutes ago. i didn't make it. i spent all day on the road and got nowhere

Ch-ch-ch changes

Well, I'm not done, but I am overhauling this thing. I am trying to figure out how to podcast (I had a remarkable interview with Rita Coolidge) and I am adding some cool, groovy new stuff to the site. Hang with me, it'll all rock when I'm done and I decide to blow it up again.

Boston and Styx

Boston and Styx are coming to St. Louis. In my career, I have probably played these two artists more than most. While I have a very long connection to Styx, (I saw them live at the Quad City Raceway in 1972 for a buck and a half) and a fond feeeling for Boston, I wonder when a group should just call it quits.

Boston is NOT Boston without Brad Delp.Styx is less Styx without Dennis DeYoung. I saw Boston at Comiskey Park in Chicago in 1978 opening for Steve Miller and The Eagles. They were very good. They pretty much pulled off the stuff from the albums although I could swear there were some things that were added electronically. Who cared, we were all buzzed anywho. But when you lose one of the two most identified members of a band...it would be like the Stones going on tour without Keith.

Good luck with all that.

Basketball Jones

I can't believe that I am just about basketballed out. It's my favorite time of the year because after the tournament...opening day. I am boycotting the Cardinals this year because as a lifelong fan, I have had enough with broken promises of things that they had no intention of doing...

Ballpark Village :

and their ubiquitous greed. I won't be going to the ball park this year. I will watch them on TV but won't spend a dime in Busch Stadium. This is coming from a guy who still has his 1967 and 1968 Cardinals yearbooks neatly stashed away. I don't remember a time when the Cardinals have not been a prominent figure in the family. I won't root against them for sure but will stand on the sidelines this year and quietly be a fan.

On the other hand, the games in the tournament this weekend have pretty much sucked except today's where little Davidson almost did it. I hope they all come back to school next year. Four number one seeds make it to the final four. I have said for the past few weeks that the best teams I have seen this year were Kansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina. UCLA and Memphis look pretty good, too. I'll take UNC over Memphis in the final...

I hope to see more of Davidson next year. They look like they could be one of the elite programs if they all stay in school. I hope that happens.

The Tide Is Turning

I found this on Steve Mays' website. Steve is about as good as it gets when putting together a website. I need to do more to turn mine into one as good as his. I'm working on it.

This was originally done by Bob Cesca on his blog: I have no idea who Roger Waters is supporting in this thing (and I hasten to note that this video was created without his permission), but when I heard Senator Obama's historic Philadelphia address last week, this song, "The Tide Is Turning," from Waters' underrated 1987 album Radio KAOS kept running on a loop in my head.

The song and the speech compelled me to take a break from the snark to assemble this mash-up as a tribute to everyone who has endured this seven-year-long dark ride; and to everyone who hopes that America can and will change for the better.

Buzz up!on Yahoo!Until recently, I honestly didn't think it was possible. And even though it's only the beginning, Senator Obama's campaign is clearly our best shot to, at the very least, turn the tide against this seemingly interminable darkness.

Bob Cesca's Goddamn Awesome Blog! GO!