Some more thoughts on the Carr deal
First, so much for "frivolous lawsuits," eh?: ["Carr files suit against WRKO for trying to stop deal with rival"].
Next, Dan Kennedy has a great overview of the decline at WRKO here: ["WRKO's long, painful decline"]. I agree with his point that giving Eagan and Braude the morning slot would have been a better move. This way, they could have offered Howie the Noon to 3 p.m. slot, where he would have easily creamed 'RKO's drug-dealing addict hypocrite Rush Limbaugh. WTKK would be a more powerful station than it already will be with Carr's morning show.

Lastly, before getting back to work, I'm going to rant a bit. I would be remiss if I didn't give Kennedy [and myself] a pat on the back for talking about this issue and the problems with talk radio more than 10 years ago: ["The Death of Talk Radio"]. Yours truly is quoted below:

Teaching people to think and act for themselves, and to take charge of a political process that they normally look at as something done to them, is a powerful thing. And in today's decadent talk-radio environment, that's happening less and less.

Take Anthony Schinella, who wants to talk about empowerment but finds himself shut out. Schinella got involved in talk radio through Jerry Brown's 1992 presidential campaign and the 1993 debate over the North American Free Trade Agreement. He's a bright, articulate guy, and he espouses a hard-edged political view that's seldom heard these days. He's beside himself, for instance, that not one Boston talk show chose to focus on the recently announced layoff of more than 100 workers at Osram Sylvania, in Danvers, whose jobs are being moved to Mexico thanks to NAFTA.

But Schinella can't break in. He just left a once-a-week gig at Tufts University's tiny WMFO, and is starting a Sunday-morning show at the slightly larger WUNR (AM 1600). Yet he has few illusions about breaking into the big time. "There's no Triple A farm system," he says. "There's no place for me to go. There's a wall there." And he wonders who, in the post-Jerry Williams era, will talk about the Big Dig, a new baseball stadium, or any of a host of local issues. "When you limit the number of voices, you limit the real news that people get," he says. "You don't get news from Dr. Laura."

If I may say so, I think I made a good point back then and it only rings that much louder today. The chickens, as they say, have come home to roost. It just took a bit longer to happen. No farm teaming of local talk talent has left a shell of a station and has kept competition in talk broadcasting in the Boston area, the cradle of liberty, the Athens of America, from fomenting.
It may seem like tooting my own horn by running this quote again, but whatever. The point is this: Programmers could have given me - or many others in the Boston area - the opportunity to compete way back when, even on a small scale. But they didn't, despite the quality programming I/we had to offer. If they had, they might not be in a hole right now, mighten they?
There are holes everywhere, as Kennedy notes.
Instead of continuing to bang my head against a wall in Boston's radio business, I delved more into politics and later, got into the newspaper business and started working in that medium [I never really gave up radio or talk. I looked at every possible opportunity, from leasing local time to leasing satellite time to offering to sub for free, trying to come up with some way to get on the air. Nothing worked. It just wasn't meant to be, as they say].
When I found out about blogging in 2002, I started this site, which has been a ton of fun. All this work led me back to radio in New Hampshire, as a reporter, news director, program director and then, station manager, all in 2.5 years. And now, thankfully, I'm back in newspapers.
In the end, it all worked out. But for us radio fans out here, what shortsightedness, eh? Maybe I should copy and paste the entire "The Death of Talk Radio" article for posterity's sake on the site. It is a great example of media journalism.

Pen fetish follow up 1

Late last night, before heading off to bed, I decided to go into my home office and look at the big box of pens I described here: ["Six 'weird' things about me"]. I took a quick gander through the box, to see how many actual pens and pencils were in there, and I was astonished but what I found: 47 pencils, four with blue lead and one with red lead [I threw away three which were down to no eraser and not much lead]; 31 markers, including 20 Papermate felt tips and three thick-pointed sharpies; 12 ball points; four Uniball pens; two calligraphy pens, and two India ink Penstixs, my favorite, from Austria. Over the weekend, I will take a few minutes and find out which pens still work and throw away the rest. There was also sidewalk chalk, a container of pencil lead for a mechanical pencil which is missing, a slew of guitar picks, a 3-hold punch hand unit, 10 wrenches for a guitar I no longer own, a few fortune cookie slips, paper clips, a mile measurer, and one die.
I will follow up with more information about how many pens I have as I look about my house and find out.

Six 'weird' things about me
Alright, my good friend and former co-worker Kristina over at Wicked Words blog has posted a few weird things about herself. What I found striking about the post was how alike the two of us truly are: ["Six Weird Things About Me"].
I already kinda knew that we agreed on a lot of things since we had a very good editor/reporter relationship while working at The Winchester Star back in 2003-2004. While we didn't agree on everything, she was a tenacious reporter and we did a great job producing the paper. I didn't know, however, that she loved Brussels Sprouts!
Seriously though, in reaction to her post, I'm posting a few "weird" things about myself here, just for the fun of it. I say, "weird," in quotes, because I don't necessarily think they are all that weird - although some people might. So, here it goes.

1) While I didn't start biting my nails because a book told me not to, I did bite them when I was younger and now, as an adult, I'm obsessed with how they look. At least once a day, usually at night, I look at them for whatever reason ... to cut, to file, or figure out a way to make them look better. I don't know why I obsess about them but I do and I always have, from as long as I can remember.
As a guitar player, I have to worry a bit about my fingernails. The ones on my left hand need to be trimmed as to not get in the way of forming notes on the fretboard. On my right hand, it is alright to have them long or short, unless you are trying to finger-pick the strings. Then, they need to be long.
Playing guitar, I've always been a strummer and not much of a soloist. I like rhythms and the rhythm of strumming. When I do play leads, they are often of a rhythmic or sound-scape nature, not arpeggio wanking, for lack of a better term.
A while back, I tried to start learning to finger-pick better on the guitar. In order to do that, I had to grow out the nails on my right hand. But, after about a few millimeters of growth, they would crack or bend back which was really annoying. I couldn't get them to grow strong enough. I tried mineral supplements which said they would strengthen my nails, but didn't. I even tried wearing nail gloss - an old guitar player's trick - and that didn't work either. I guess it is a DNA thing.
After a lot of practice, more than two decades worth, I have been able to learn to pick the guitar with my finger tips. It doesn't quite sound the same as finger-picking with your nails but it comes close. Guitarists out there will understand what I'm saying even though it may seem like I'm rambling about fingernails.

2) I won't steal your pens but I think I have a pen fetish of sorts. I only realized this back in January when I had to go to Staples for some resume paper and to look at fax machines because my wife hates the one we have, which prints out the faxes on this funky ribbon ink thing which keeps jamming and is a total disaster. After looking at a bunch of stuff at the store, and checking out the new computers with Vista on them, I found myself browsing the pen aisle ... like I always do. I was walking around looking at all the pens and, for whatever reason, I kept thinking that I needed to leave the store with some new pens.
But the fact is that I don't need any new pens. I have scads of pens, probably close to 100 of them, lying around in various places in my house. I have them in my office supply box, in a box by the phone, in a box in our home office area, in a plastic tool container, in gig bags and kitchen drawers. There are pens everywhere! I don't need any new pens. So, why do I also end up in the pen aisle looking to buy pens when I don't need them? I honestly don't know.
As an aside, pencils were always my preferred writing tool until someone told me that shrinks believe that people who use pencils are afraid to write anything which is permanent. Pencil lead can be erased and pen ink can't, the thinking goes. That's an interesting perception of sorts and probably is accurate in some way, shape or form. But what does that say for people who use a delete button on a computer?

3) Some of my life experiences could easily be adapted to long-form television or feature films but probably never will. And frankly, that's OK. The last thing I want to be is the subject of some cheesy Movie of the Week or something like that. Although, I wouldn't mind the payday of a screenplay concept or two. But publishing? Well, that's a different story. And after 28 months in radio, I do miss the publishing side of the media business in so many ways I can't even begin to explain.
However, publishing - books, newspapers, and magazines - is getting hammered these days. In some ways, they are becoming so lost in the wake of technology. Everyone should truly fear for the future, especially since so much important information is transferred to the public via these formats. But who has the time anymore to read? I surely don't and I love books, newspapers, and magazines.
I've pretty much completely stopped all book purchases in the last nine months or so. I did buy one - the 2007 edition of Censored which I buy every year to, a) see what stories they have in it and b) to support this really important project. But that's it. Before that, I started limiting my book purchases to paperbacks because I'm running out of space. I just don't have room for anymore hardcovers. Since I buy mostly non-fiction books, the paperbacks are often updated with new information which was not included in first edition hardcover versions. They are also less expensive to purchase which means I can buy more of them.
I do still subscribe to a bunch of magazines but I do so mostly for professional reasons, not leisure reasons. I currently get the following:
Vanity Fair, Columbia Journalism Review, Consumer Reports, and PC World, all of which are excellent reads;
New Hampshire Magazine, which is pretty good and I know and like the editor [Disclaimer: I also blog sometimes for NH Mag's Area603];
The Progressive and Mother Jones, which I bought on a beg whim and have good journalism in them but will let lapse when renewal comes since I don't take the time to read them;
Campaigns & Elections, a political business trade publication which I continue to subscribe to because I never know when I will have to go back to working on a campaign. Media work is so spotty and fickle these days, it's always best to try and have something as a backup.
There are truly too many stories to tell out there and it is a shame that none of them will be told. As I move on into the later stages of life, I may tell some more stories and may even try to sell them. I've told a bunch of them here already. But there is always room for more.

4) If I'm not exhausted, I can wake up on time without an alarm clock and often end up waking up before the alarm is set to go off. It's pretty strange thing to need to wake up at a certain time and then, poof, it happens. I'm often amazed about it actually. In September, I needed to wake up very early, around 3:30 a.m., to prepare for a flight to Texas. I was up two minutes before the alarm went off and was shocked that I was able to wake up! Since starting to workout regularly last October, I fall asleep earlier and get up earlier and tend to sleep longer, which is a good thing. And even though I have the alarm set most days to get up in time to get a good workout in, I wake up before the alarm goes off.

5) I live my life by mottos taken from two Frank Capra movies and I'm not ashamed to admit this even though it may sound corny. "The only causes worth fighting for are the lost causes," stated Sen. Jefferson Smith, from the Senate floor during the filibuster scene in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. If you haven't seen the movie, you should, it is worth the time. I slightly alter the quote when sharing it with people, usually saying, "Lost causes are the only ones worth fighting for." It's a tad shorter but says the same thing. I'm also not ashamed to admit that I cry at the end of It's A Wonderful Life ... every time. After I watch it, I also tell myself that not matter how bad things may be at any given time, it's great to be alive. "Remember no man is a failure who has friends," is the line which the angel Clarence writes to George Bailey at the end. Interestingly, Jimmy Stewart played the leads in both movies. Other sappy mottos to live by? No one is a failure if they try. Another? "The only vote wasted is the vote not cast." Sorry, took that one from Ralph Nader.

6) I too love Brussels Sprouts. In fact, the more boiled and mushy they are, the better! I love almost all vegetables and try to find new ways of preparing veggies in order to keep them interesting. Of late, food has become very boring to me. It is even more boring as the daily meal has become more mundane - steak, hamburger, chicken, pasta, pork, steak, chicken, pasta, hamburger, pizza, etc. Boring. The key is time. Do you have the ability to try and make the bland and ordinary interesting and and worthwhile? Since we live by food, it might be worth the time. So, my main goal for the future is to try and cook new things and make food less boring, truly a worthy goal.