John & Ken: Dangerous douchebags

LOS ANGELES (TB) We don’t sign petitions. We don’t jump on bandwagons. Let’s start a petition and start the bandwagon rolling to remove those racist buffoons “John & Ken” from Los Angeles radio.

The afternoon drive team on KFI 640 AM are dangerously out of touch. They’re dangerous. They actively spread hate toward the majority of our Los Angeles-area neighbors.

And they suck!

Back in November, we referred to them as "a couple of assholes, boobs who like to pick on poor people: Chardonnay racists, cappuccino bigots, cynical blue collar blockheads who cater to the misplaced anger of middle-class male commuters in Mercedes, while kissing Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ass because he’s in power."

Not bad. And though profanity appeared in the book, Tabloid Baby, we can only be provoked to use it in this public forum. However, "John & Ken," radio performers on reactionary KFI radio, continue to stir hate, and deserve the most basic description.

Their performance this evening, amid immigrant demonstrations in their city, took them over the top and down the drain. They've proven themselves to be shameful, hateful douchebags.

What's worse? They're phonies.

As we know by now, the demonstrations went off with almost nary a hitch. Hundreds of thousands of immigrants, undocumented immigrants, illegal aliens-- whatever you want to call them -- people who help raise our kids, wash our dishes, blow our leaves, pick our fruit, people who are a vital part of the reality economy of Southern California-- took to the street in an All-American rally to protest the prospect of being treated as felons. We raise our glass.

Like many Angelenos, we'd approached the day with caution, expecting traffic jams and riots in the streets on the drive to the office. We’ve lived through riots and traffic jams, quakes and thunder showers. In what turned out to be the best case scenario, we found the 10 freeway from the beach into Hollywood was a clean shot this morning, because many of our neighbors took the day off, in solidarity or because they were afraid of what they might confront in “town.”

Mornings, we live on car radio. This morning, Mexican immigrant and hero (and Cloud 9 star) Paul Rodriguez tried to get a word in edgewise with Adam Carolla. Mark & Brian played their weird pop quiz, two guys waiting for a train.

At 8:59, Paul Harvey covered the protests in his final “For what it’s worth” item: angry, making it clear that non-citizens did not deserve his lead story while citizens die in Iraq. He’s old. He’s Paul Harvey. He was drummed out of the Army on a Section 8. Something's happening here and we can't expect him to know what it is. We hit the Herb Alpert CD.

Yeah, the traffic was light. Because the rest of us altered our driving schedules and routes.

Heading home: AM radio. No excuse for scumbags “John & Ken,” who dedicated important airtime to ridiculing the protesters, Mexicans, Mexican culture, Mexican Americans, and our neighbors-- and encouraging KFI newspeople to do the same. Two rich white wimpy radio stars making fun of the families who took to the streets in defense of their livelihoods and worth, people who make John & Ken's upper class lives so comfortable (“John,” the straightman of the pair, once rode in our town’s July Fourth parade, so we know of his comfort and its support).

The “callers” they put on the air were despicable; especially the woman who identified herself as a school teacher, happy she could teach a class on a day the Spanish-speaking kids stayed home.

What’s most disgusting is that these two wimpy pot-bellied balding nerds don’t mean it.. They’re doing hate radio for ratings. Dividing the city and inflaming someone to possibly drive a pickup truck into a crowd of families for ratings Michael Savage is good radio because he’ s gloriously unhinged. Same with Janeane Garafalo. Phil Hendrie is a legitimate politically incorrect angry genius. These two guys are punks.

Proof? Tune in Fridays when Ken, or maybe John, reads his “movie review” of the week. He or someone who works for him writes a high-school-level movie review and he reads it like a kid trying not even to be Ebert but Roeper, all sincere and revealing his white middlebrow not-even-radical tastes and views. Mr. Big Hatemonger is simply a Hollywood wannabe nerd.

That about says it all.

Do we need this hate in Los Angeles today?

KFI AM 640
3400 W Olive Ave Ste 550
Burbank CA 91505
Business Office: (818) 559-2252