Hate radio gives way to Sinatra & company

For about a year now, the sixth radio button in our car was set to KGIL 1260 AM in Los Angeles. That's where, while punching among Randi Rhodes, Sean Hannity, Michael Medved, Ron Reagan Jr. and Stephanie Miller, we'd get our doses of hate from Glenn Beck and Lars Larson and settle in for old school jazzman hilarity from Michael Savage, the crackpot hipster who offers the most inspired, personal, nuttiest radio since the passing of the late Howard Stern.

On weekends, when the other stations were selling nutritional aids, KGIL would switch to standards-- songs of people like Frank Sinatra, Louis Prima, Rosemary Clooney, Diana Krall and Mel Torme.

Now, suddenly, the hate is gone and only the songs remain. For the past week or so, the station's been switched to an all-standards format, and while much has been written about the all-news station KFWB switching this month to all-talk and Dr. Laura, we haven't seen any word of this revolution, which should have made big news amid the Savage British ban and Glenn Beck boycott alone.


In any case, it's brilliant, and with our AM radio buttons bookended by Radio Disney and Radio Dino, the only real downside is that it doesn't come with FM audio. On a ride to the store tonight, we heard Sammy Davis Jr., Lou Rawls & Dianne Reeves and Sinatra singing That's Life, while a couple of nights ago we heard a great guitar tune and used Shazam to identify it as Off Key, the English language version of Antonio Carlos Jobim's Desifinado performed by John Pizzarelli. We bought it on iTunes.

It turns out the official changeover takes place tomorrow.

(Wikipedia says: "KGIL (1260 AM) is a radio station licensed to Beverly Hills, California... On August 27, 2009, the station switched to a mix of oldies and adult standards as "Retro 1260." As of August 31, Mike Sakellarides, heard for 25 years on KOST-FM, is the new morning man, followed in middays by former KKGO DJ Nick Tyler. Jeff Serr, formerly of KMGG, KBIG, and KODJ, does afternoons. Retro 1260 emphasizes vocals and plays Elvis Presley, Sam Cooke, the Beatles, and the Beach Boys, as well as Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Steve Tyrell, and Michael Feinstein. As of September 4, 2009, KGIL streams online at http://1260.am/.")

On the breakup of Conway & Whitman

Don't we know how to pick 'em? Only weeks after we praised Tim Conway Jr. and Brian Whitman's nightly radio show on the creaky KLSX in Los Angeles comes word that Whitman has quit, leaving Conway Jr. and fans in the lurch.

Some of those fans have set up a tribute board (here) to memorialize Whitman, who came on board to replace Conway Jr.'s first partner, cranky old man Doug Steckler, and over the course of two years managed to, as we wrote:

"...settle into a rare, classic talk radio groove... two guys cracking each other up, and in the process, entertaining a wide audience..."

Word is that Whitman's got depression or something, though the resignation comes in wake of the recent and disturbing on-air fantasizing and virtual stalking of Whitman by Frosty Stilwell (right), who plays the celibate eunuch on the station's midday talk show on which he, a raunchy younger male and a recently-announced "lesbian" (collectively "The Triplets") trade mundane insights punctuated by mirthless fake laughter.

We'd hoped that the break-up announcement was the precursor to an April Fool's Day joke, but apparently it's not, and it's all the more disheartening in light of the continued presence of Adam Carolla's failed morning radio show on the same station.

In a last-ditch attempt to boost ratings,management is apparently switching gears and feminizing the boorish, luggish Carolla and aiming his show away from the beer-belching frat boy crowd and toward the LGBT community, with a slant toward queer-friendly guests and topics, a movie collaboration with the star and director of the lesbian romantic comedy Kissing Jessica Stein, a stint on Dancing with the Stars, and a new gossipy gay bent to the show, like this morning's dishing of Kimora Lee Simmons (Carolla did manage to insert his more familiar racism into the "rant"). And where he once could, if he hadn't been so insecure, bounce off the testosterone-pumped brilliance of Danny Bonaduce, Carolla is now egged on by encouraging one-line squeaks from the wispy, estrogenic voice of someone called "Bald Brian" and and the self-pitying "smartypants" whining of pre-Feminine Mystique-styled "girl" Teresa Strasser. We realize we'd said we probably weren't going to be writing about the passe Carolla any more, but this doesn't count because we're really writing about Conway and Whitman.