EppsNet Archive: Radio

Who Listens to Sports Talk?

 

I had a sports talk station on the car radio this afternoon . . . based on the the advertisements, the target demographic is low-testosterone bald guys whose dicks don’t work . . . Read more →

Lover of Life, Singer of Songs

 

I know the lyrics to a lot of songs . . . not current hits so much but if we’re listening to an oldies type of radio station, which we, the Epps family, are doing in the car right now, I pretty much know every song they play. “I should be a singer,” I announce. “I would have a tremendous repertoire of songs.” “But you can’t sing,” my son says. “Hmmm . . . that’s a legitimate point that I don’t really have an answer for.” Read more →

It’s Election Season in Irvine

 

It’s election season . . . campaign signs dot the Irvine landscape. As I drove to lunch with co-workers, one of them pointed out a sign for Ira Glasky, who’s running for school board or city council or something. “He’s probably trying to cash in on the name recognition of Ira Glass,” he said. “Who’s Ira Glass?” I asked, and he told me but I’ve since forgotten. A person on the radio, I think. If I were a campaign manager, I wouldn’t be advising my clients to coattail on the popularity of people no one’s heard of. “Maybe he’s trying to play into the popularity of Dashiell Hammett’s 1930s crime novel The Glass Key,” I suggested. Another Irvine candidate, Lynn Schott, is in a local women’s networking group that my wife belongs to. I offered her a free campaign slogan — “Lynn-sanity!” — but she’s not using it. Read more →

Geoff Edwards, 1931-2014

 

LOS ANGELES (AP) – Geoff Edwards, the hip-looking 1970s and ’80s host of TV game shows including “Jackpot!” and two incarnations of “Treasure Hunt” died Wednesday, his agent said. He was 83. “Geoff was one of the cleverest, funniest radio and television personalities I’ve worked with,” said fellow game show host Wink Martindale. The two were DJs at pop radio station KMPC in Los Angeles. — Game show host Geoff Edwards dies at 83 – MSN TV News Shocking, shocking news . . . Wink Martindale is still alive?! RIP Geoff Edwards Read more →

What’s on Your Nightstand?

 

Lamp Clock radio Extra pair of reading glasses Business cards, mostly my own 1 pen, 2 pencils Post-Its Vaccination record Schedule of classes for LA Fitness Two or three dollars in change Nine dollars in Candian coins 440 Indian rupees Read more →

Two Things I Noticed

 

Our boy is home for winter break . . . he’s been driving the car that I usually drive. When I drove that car today, the second thing I noticed was that he’d run the gas tank down to empty. The first thing I noticed like a bomb detonation is that he’d left the radio turned on at full volume . . . Read more →

“Now . . . This”

 

“Now . . . this” is commonly used on radio and television newscasts to indicate that what one has just heard or seen has no relevance to what one is about to hear or see, or possibly to anything one is likely to hear or see. . . . There is no murder so brutal, no earthquake so devastating, no political blunder so costly–for that matter, no ball score so tantalizing or weather report so threatening–that it cannot be erased from our minds by a newscaster saying “Now . . . this.” The newscaster means that you have thought long enough on the previous matter (approximately forty-five seconds), that you must not be morbidly preoccupied with it (let us say, for ninety seconds), and that you must now give your attention to another fragment of news or a commercial. — Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death Read more →

A Couple of Schillers

 

A couple of Schillers resigned from NPR after one of them said (among other things): Tea Party people aren’t just Islamaphobic, but really xenophobic, I mean basically they are, they believe in sort of white, middle-America gun-toting. I mean, it’s scary. They’re seriously racist, racist people. Well really . . . I haven’t been this shocked since Claude Rains discovered gambling at Rick’s Cafe. It shakes my belief system to the core to think that someone who works at NPR believes that Tea Party members are scary white gun-toting racists. Although come to think of it, everyone I know who listens to NPR believes that Tea Party members are scary white gun-toting racists. These guys really need to give up the federal funding. They could go full bore in promoting their mission and stop pretending to respect the common folk, who in turn would be relieved of the burden of… Read more →