3/8: The Best Of RIGHT-WING RADIO (Part I)
If you’re a fan of RIGHT-WING RADIO, then this is the place for you. If not, I'm sure there's an Air America station within 1,000 miles or so of your residence.
Talkers magazine recently released its list of top hosts for 2006. Now, from what I seem to remember, previous lists used to just have the top 100 hosts in a random order. Well now the list appears to have these people ranked in order of importance or some shit. Also, they increased the list to 250 and separated hosts by subject matter. Cool
Even though I have listened to RIGHT-WING RADIO since 1994, there’s no way I know every one of these people, but there are a number on this list that I have heard to over the years or feel like commenting on. Time to go down the list:
• Howard Stern is number one? Eh, I’ll accept it, even though I haven’t listened to him in years. I’ve talked about him recently, so I’ll refrain from repeating my opinion of him. I guess the whole move to satellite radio is one of the driving reasons for him to be at the top for this year.
• Rush, Hannity and Savage are 2-4, no surprises there.
• Dr. Laura is number 5? In every market I have had her in, she has either been cancelled or moved around to several different time slots. She’s not on in the Shittsburgh market (although she made a brief appearance back in the mid-90s). I liked her show, but it wasn’t because of her moral preaching. I always loved it when the idiot callers would ask for her opinion on their relationship problems. You could tell these callers had already made up their minds regarding what they wanted to do in their relationship, and it was always the opposite of what a rational person would do.
“Dr. Laura, my husband beats me, does drugs in front of my three kids from a previous boyfriend and stays out all night.”
“Why haven’t you had him arrested?”
“Because I love him.”
“You’re an idiot.”
It’s like the Maurey Povich Show for radio.
• Don Imus is number 6 – did I miss something here? I’ve listened to him a few times on MSNBC when I have stayed up all night and needed some sleep relief.
• For the love of God, Laura Inghram does not deserve to be number 7. My area carriers some of her show in the early morning, and the few times I listened to her show it was so unfunny, not to mention tedious.
• Mike Gallagher is number 8 – I guess he’s doing well. When I got to listen to him, he wasn’t one of my favorites. In fact, I’d put him on the bottom tier of my preferred RIGHT-WING RADIO hosts. However, I do like him for other reasons, which I will explain below. Back in the late 1990s I listened to him in the Sappy Valley market. At the time he had a chat room where fans could go to and gab while the show was on. The cool thing about this was if someone made a witty comment to a topic he was discussing he would say it on-air and name the person who said it. Well, obviously if I’m making real-time comments to a RIGHT-WING RADIO show, my remarks would undoubtedly make it on the air, which they did. However, he didn’t know what my user name “kkktookmybabyaway” meant; it was funny listening to him goof on the name to his nationwide audience. One time, however, after saying my name (and prefacing it with he had no idea why I called myself this) he got a caller that explained it’s meaning. As it turns out Gallagher was a Ramones fan but he never heard that song, which has me questioning whether or not he really was a fan to begin with.
Here’s another story about Mike. He was originally on the “main” Sappy Valley RIGHT-WING RADIO station in the area, and this station sucked. (I could spend a week bitching about this station, and at some point I probably will.) Not only would this station always lose its feeds, but also it would play shows from other networks, among other technical screw-ups. Well one time after Gallagher’s show ended, they stayed with his studio and spent about 20 minutes broadcasting him making “teasers” for his show that were sent to markets that had the show on tape delay. A few days later when he was chatting with us online after his show ended at noon, I told him about how his State College affiliate was screwing up his shows and played him reading “tape delay teasers.” A short while later his show moved to the other station in town.
• Neal Boortz cracked the Top 10. Awesome. This guy is based out of Atlanta and is by far my favorite host. I first got to listen to him on WPGB in the Shittsburgh area back in early 2004 when the station switched from urban music to a RIGHT-WING RADIO format. He was on tape delay from 1-3 p.m., and many times I would listen to his show over Rush’s. Unfortunately, when Rush’s show moved from KDKA to WPGB, Boortz got bumped. However, a smaller talk station in the area (WPTT) picked up his show, but only for a while. A short time later WPTT took him off the air because they were going with a more “independent” lineup. Some local harpy named Lynn Cullen who is just horrid took over his time slot, and I haven’t listened to that piece of shit station since. Sadly, since my work computer is a Mac, I can’t listen to Boortz’s show on-line (or at least I haven’t figured out how). If his show would ever move to satellite radio, I’d be a subscriber.
To be continued.
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