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The news is a commercial-free comedy channel is on local radio: Is the joke on us?

It isn’t the OJ trial. It isn’t even the local case of Calvin Walker, the electrician who allegedly bilked the Beaumont school district out of several million dollars. But one would think that when the programming of one area radio station for the past month consists of nothing but comedy — not even commercials — isn’t that worth a story?

This little blurb on a site called radio-info.com explains all that I have heard about “Comedy 103.3” in Beaumont, Texas. Radio mega-owner Clear Channel Radio apparently owns the FM translator in question. Just what a translator does is explained here, which makes it for the tech challenged such as me, clear as mud. In its most basic sense, a TV or FM translator allows broadcast signals into places that cannot receive the primary signal of a radio or TV station.

In older days, I might just walk next door to the building that houses five or maybe six Clear Channel stations, walk in the door and just ask those who work there what in the hell is up? Maybe I’ll go ask tomorrow. But judging the multi-stations these days — which probably has one person announcing — you are likely to get a pat on the head and a kick in the ass out of the facility.

What drips in irony is that one of only a few TV stations in the area that does local news sits next door to the building housing all of the Clear Channel stations. Of course, the Clear Channel group also has a “news-talk” station in its facility. KLVI 560 AM also does local news, though not a hell of a lot. Going local for news where I live isn’t as sure a bet as it once was.

In the meantime, I am pretty happy with the comedy I’ve heard lately on this newly configured frequency. Some of it gets played over and over, of course. But there are some pretty hilarious bits — some even raunchy and very un-PC these days — for one to hear. The bits played might range from Jerry Clower’s deep-country tales to Cheech and Chong’s hilarious “song” “Earache My Eye.”

I have no idea how far geograhically this comedy channel, 103.3 on the FM dial, reaches. I listed to it for a good 30 miles or more when I was driving on Texas 105 last week coming back from Dallas. Since they never talk on the station — too good to be true, I know — my crystal ball sees a short lifespan for this funny bidness.

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Media news: Paywall fever continues, live blogging and tweeting in court

Lately I have tried to keep up a bit more with media news. That is — should one find it difficult to differentiate similar terms — news about the media.

Several reasons exist why I am making an effort to follow the goings on of the country’s TV, radio, newspapers and Internet sites which deliver news. Primarily I do so because I have found myself freelancing for newspapers more than for other types of business since I departed my last full-time job some seven years ago. I suspect if something comes up I will still freelance for newspapers in the future unless I either find myself rich or I don’t write anymore. Both of those seem highly unlikely anytime soon as long as I am still able to put a word or two together.

But I admit I don’t read as many sites dedicated to journalism as I once did. I do read Romensko, which is linked here, fairly religiously. I don’t know whether “fairly religiously” would put me on par with what they used to call a “back row Baptist.” I also couldn’t tell you if they still use that term. Likewise, I also read the Poynter Media Wire. It is e-mailed to me every day and took up where Romensko left off. That is when he was aggregating media news while still affiliated with Poynter Institute.

Here are a couple of stories that piqued my interest today that I gleaned from one or more of these sites. They might be of interest to a passing reader here for one reason or the other, or not. But, if you like these and you know it slap your ham, or whatever it is you do for a show of approval.

Paywall fever. Something I don’t relish even with a hot dog.

More sad paywall news from the Windy City. Makes you want to go butcher hogs.

Great advice to those who lurk on street corners hawking their papers. Don’t be a “click whore.”

Here is some interesting news about media access to the Jerry Sandusky trial. Live blogging and tweeting. Just don’t tweet too loudly.

 

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What I am not writing about today

Just now I zapped about six paragraphs I had written on political polling. I figured I would write something about politics since today is Primary day in Texas, where I live. The truth is, my heart isn’t in the election nor is writing about politics particularly appealing today. The reason why this is so is also complicated therefore I don’t want to write about that either.

I don’t want to write about Napoleon today. You hardly ever find me wasting time here in this space with comments about Kim Kardashian, whoever she might be.

The thought of chickens doesn’t particularly interest me at the moment. Anyone who has ever raised or taken care of those feathered crap machines — and don’t get me started on the smell and especially its effect on a bastard of a hangover — know that anyone who wants an egg would be well-advised to get it at the store.

Road graders are particularly fascinating, especially if you happen upon one in the woods after working hours and start it up and begin to drive it around. Bulldozers also have held a great place in my heart since I somehow managed to bring one to life when I was maybe 4 or 5 years old while my Daddy was painting a sign on a grader, or “maintainer” as they were called, parked next to it. My Dad dropped what he was doing and jumped on the tractor and got it to stop. It seems as if that was also the time I got stung on the leg by a yellowjacket and my Dad told me to piss on it. Or put some wet tobacco on it. But that couldn’t be. Such memorable times can’t happen in tandem like that, can they? Nonetheless, I don’t really want to write about any kind of heavy duty equipment.

The A/C I would really like to talk about. Not. Certainly a boring ass topic. That is unless the A/C fell on someone 13 floors below. Why 13 floors? Think of the symbolism. Some tall buildings don’t even have a 13th floor.

I don’t really want to talk about nice butts. Being a butt-man, I normally could talk half the day and into the wee hours about the really fine butts out there. Holy moley …

Speaking of butts, let’s not talk about that 4th of July when driving away from Crystal Beach with Warren to buy more beer I made the comment, I didn’t think anyone would hear us, “CL’s butt is getting a little big.” CL and some other friends were playing volleyball and, well, I just happened to make an observation. Unfortunately, when we returned I discovered everyone had heard the comment, not the least being CL. I understand that to this day she is still pissed. Sorry about that. See, I shouldn’t talk about it.

I could talk about that night, the one some called “the coldest night of the century,” when first my friend Waldo and then Suzie came out to the shotgun shack in which I lived. It was so cold the toilet was frozen and we all had to go outside, though not all at once. I don’t think that’s particularly relevant on this warm late, spring day. Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t.

Who knows what and when and where and why? We all know how. And how. And how not. There is an infinite list of what I could say, what I have said or what I wished I said. But my fingers are getting tired and it’s time for the news and suppertime. I am not “talking” anyway. I’m writing. I am thinking and it comes out of my head and into my fingers, kind of like what takes place each times your brain tells your fingers what to do or what not to do.

It’s another day gone. Shot to hell. Time to watch the news and bitch about something. Then it is time to eat supper, go to bed and then do it all over again, perhaps.

 

 

 

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National Moment of Remembrance: A thought inside a thought

“Ten,” “nine” “eight …”

I have been counting down the minutes to the National Moment of Remembrance this Memorial Day. Not familiar with the National Moment of Remembrance? I wasn’t until some 11, no make that 13 minutes ago. The minutes now quickly pass until this nationwide observance is set to take place. That time is 3 p.m. Eastern time each Memorial Day. I even found a countdown clock to help me watch the minutes tick, tick, tick away. Passed by Congress — “Two minutes, 11 seconds, 10 seconds … ” — and signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 2000 the national moment:

Department of Defense photo

  ” … was established to remind Americans of the sacrifices made by members of the Armed Forces as well as others who have died as a result of service to this nation. Americans around the world should pause and remember these heroes in a symbolic act of unity.”

“54 seconds, 53 … 29, 28 … ” Okay, enough. It’s officially here.

Bang a gong, blow a horn, be pensive, let loose a rebel yell, drink a shot of Rebel Yell, do whatever you want to do but remember. That’s the purpose of Memorial Day and the moment: to remember.

The Web site for the organization “No Greater Love” (NGL) — the one with the countdown clock — explains that the remembrance to remember event came about when NGL founder Carmella LaSpada received a unsettling answer to a question about the meaning of Memorial Day.

A group of school kids were touring Washington, D.C., in 1996 and one of the children replied to LaSpada’s question: “That’s the day the pool opens.”

That called for a moment of silence, if you ask me.

Then again, most of the population these days hardly know anyone who has served in uniform much less a service member who was killed in the line of duty. Even I, who grew up during the Vietnam War and served in the military at the tail end of the conflict, fortunately have known few who made that ultimate sacrifice in the nation’s wars. In fact, I only remember having met one of several guys from my small school who were killed in Vietnam. I also covered two military funerals as a reporter. One was for a helicopter pilot who was killed shortly after the end of Gulf War I. The other honored a Marine who had been missing for more than 30 years in Vietnam and whose remains were returned to his east Central Texas soil.

Any act that sparks thoughts of our fellow Americans concerning war and its unrecoverable costs is worthwhile, I suppose. But it is as well sad on some level that we have to be reminded the reason for the holiday we are celebrating with a remembrance on that day, don’t you think?

I would imagine that family and friends of those who were killed in America’s battles whom I have known or, at least, knew their families pause to think of that person more than once or twice a year. And I am not preaching from some high horse here. There are as many practical reasons as many as sentimental ones why John Doe or Jane Doe or little Johnny Doe should think about those who fight and die in the name of our country and its qualities. One only has to think of the great numbers of young American lives that were lost — some thousands or tens of thousands in the Civil War — in the name of liberty. As well we must remember those who died in our questionable uses of force.

These thoughts should guide our collective conscience as a freedom-loving and civilized society. For, once we fully realize the true, agonizingly sorrowful cost of war, we as well have to give our leaders their full support for or steadfast opposition against the use of force and our most beloved resource.

Think about it.

 

 

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All the news too disturbing to print

On the road tomorrow back to, somewhere. While I am heading back from a week of business. Here are a couple of glimpses from the world in which I was once employed full time. It’s not all that great news, indeed.

The New Orleans Times-Picayune has announced it will cut back to publishing three days a week. It will become the largest U.S. city without a daily newspaper.

And although I have had a love-hate relationship with newspaper copy desks, this news about the Denver Post is nonetheless disquieting. Is that the right word?

Well, what does it matter to me, the person who reads newspapers? Everything. Everything in the world, my friend.