Turn and face the strain

What in the fuck is going on?

We've all known for a long time that Howard is leaving the terrestrial airwaves, but when I heard David Lee Roth on Stern this morning... it fucking hit me. That's it. He's gone. I still plan on making the leap to Sirius, but money's tight. My folks give me some dough for Xmas each year, so I think I'll ask them for the radio hardware instead. I was still half asleep when DLR was on the show this morning, but what woke my ass up was a really bad promo where a fake Blink 182 is singing about Howard... and then some jackass named Rover interrupts them and tells us oh-so-lucky Chicagoans that he's our new morning guy. Rover? Gawddamn. I have some friends in Ohio ([sarcasm]a bastion of innovative radio[/sarcasm]), and am curious if they have even heard of him. He looks like fucking Mancow Junior. And speaking of Mancow, his fucking PR machine was in overdrive and was actually getting him press... but he got abolute-lay nothing in the deal. Fucking Rover got like 5 markets, and Mancow got jack shit. Let me predict now that the next air war will be Rover vs. Mancow... and no one will care. And check out the updated WCKG website. After Howard signs off, so do I. They lost my radio presets. In the face of the inevitable threat of satellite and internet radio, Infinity comes up with "Free FM"... a network of shitty talk programming from coast to coast. Out of all the Stern replacements, Adam Corolla could work... but the rest will fall. It's amazing enough that they need 3 radio teams to carve up Howard's empire... so why even try? Genius move, Hollander. I could work for half of what your execs are making, and I came up with better ideas while taking a shit tonight.

Anyway, I must acknowledge that the purpose of this blog has been fulfilled. Feder confirmed this morning that Brandmeier is back soon, and Byrd is taking his rightful place in the evenings... where he will Get the Led Out every fucking night! So even though I digress like crazy around here, I've gotta come up with another mission statement.

Here's the catch though, and something that's getting very little press... Steve Seaver is OUT. He's off the WLUP website already, even though they forgot to remove his name from Get the Led Out. He used to take a beating from me here, but dammit the big lug really grew on me. The man is a solid jock. And if that's not bad enough, the guy they didn't shitcan is that zookeeper wannabe Zakk Tyler (nice spelling, you dick). They continue to trust the afternoon drive to that jackoff. How can you counter a brilliant move like hiring Brandmeier with keeping Zakk on board? If the Loop had a full brain, they'd make it Brandmeier, Cara, Seaver, Byrd, and motherfucking Allan Stagg! There's a dream lineup there.

So come mid-December, what else will there be to listen to? Not counting college radio... Q101 sounds great (minus the Manfuck), 'XRT is good from 10pm-12am on Tuesday nights, The Loop will be awesome most of the time, B96 is a guilty pleasure (Holla!), and Nick Digilio fucking rules on WGN-AM. I've completely given up on WBEZ (a long time ago) and WLS (Roe Conn was their only asset and he's become a fucking bore), and in a matter of weeks... WCKG can suck it.

Howard Stern is dead. Long live Howard Stern!