Palin and Hannity: What a joke

Sean Hannity sure does make us get kind of sick. He thinks Charlie Daniels and Phyllis Schlafly and John Leboutillier are good role models. He and the callers on his radio show keep calling each other "Great Americans." What the fuck makes him a "great American"? He was a radio jock who took up conservatism as a shtick and then rode it to success... he's no better than a TV preacher because he lies. He lies about Barack Obama and he lies about his life just like Howard Stern lied about his life when he was on the radio. And he yells so much on his radio show now that it's no fun listening.

Hannity's a GOP lapdog, which is why they let him sit with Sarah Palin for an interview that made not a blip on the national scene.

We'll leave it to comedy legend Chris Bearde, the satirist who's been coming out with The Daily McCain, to take on Hannity, who's full of it:

In her Fox interview with Sean Hannity... Palin came across as somebody who recently spent time with Christopher Nance renovating her trailer.

Sean Hannity had tough questions about the economy... unfortunately he didn't ask her any of them...but he did find out that she'd recently discovered lip gloss.

She's so shallow that standing up she looked like she was sitting down.

She didn't look like a deer because Fox turned off the headlights.

She didn't have trouble answering any tough questions because Rachael Maddow is on MSNBC.

Palin refused to talk about Bristol's baby daddy but did say the marriage would take place when everyone is locked and loaded.

Palin makes Hillary Clinton look like a woman!

Sean Hannity's questions were so soft only Viagra could have changed them.

Palin is so white she broke the tanning machine.

McCain and Palin: It's to laugh

Tomorrow we go to the polls and vote in a whole new American era with the election of President Barack Obama. You've got to admit, the guy proved over the past two years that he's got what it takes, he's got a vision for the future, the economy and ending the war, and he kept his focus on the real issues while his cynical, crotchety opponent, with his dangerously unqualified demagogue running mate and the dark forces behind them, couldn't do much more than try to make everyone afraid of him. One of our favorite things about Barack Obama is how he simply brushes off the phony outrage too many of us fall back on, a falseness as fake as the enthusiasm supposedly intelligent conservative displayed over Sarah Palin.


This weekend, old John McCain showed that he'd given up, thrown in the towel, when he appeared on Saturday Night Live. The New York Times writes today about how he's whiling the final days by telling Henny Youngman jokes in quick succession. So let's go to the master, Chris Bearde, for a few days worth of McCain-Palin-Bush one-liners, just to rub it in, because those motherf*ckers deserve it:

McCain campaigns in 5 states, Joe the plumber campaigns in 5 agent’s offices and Palin campaigns with 5 couturiers.

McCain and Obama on Monday Night Football... John will use his long bomb bomb bomb.

Because McCain’s was funnier than Palin on Saturday Night live, she has hired writer Dennis Miller who lost his sense of humor during the sale of his integrity.

Desperate McCain accusing the entire Eastern Seaboard of being next to the sea.

Desperate Palin accuses Obama of being pals with people who have never worn American flag lapel pins.

After a Bush loyalist said of W: “He’s a good man who got a bad rap”… police arrested him for being under the influence of Dick Cheney.

Truth about Obama kicking Washington Times reporters off his plane: Not political... Bean Burritos.

Palin tells Hannity:
“Sean, where’s the really hard news …?”
Sean taken to the showers!!

Mormons put big bucks into anti gay amendment, they think marriage should only be between a man and lots of women.

McCain/Palin/Joe trailing in polls and brains.

Palin’s claims her first amendment rights violated... Sean Hannity goers crazy over Sarah being violated!

When McCain said Joe the Plumber was his “hero” it confirmed reports his new medications hasn’t kicked in.

McCain will use the “Twinkie Defense” when he loses.

A converted beer truck will be on its way to Arizona Tuesday night with a full load of anti depressants and a straight jacket.

Until her prime time interviews Palin thought syntax was something the IRS charged the Porno Industry.

Arnold stumping for McCain was praised for having a better understanding of English than Palin.

Palin accuses Joe of pimping her ride.

New revelations show that Chuck Norris, Hank Williams Jr, and Dennis Miller will join forces for the first “Joe the Plumber Lollapalooza Toilet Bowl.”

Joe’s first major concert appearance sees him lip syncing to any voice other than his own. In his honor Ted Nugent will bite the head off as life sized dummy of Keith Olberman.

59% think Palin is not qualified to be president and 96% say she’s not qualified to act like she thinks she is qualified.

A quarter of the people in Texas think Obama is a Muslim, this is the same quarter of the people in Texas who think Pamela Anderson is a virgin.

Texas… a state with its head in the sand and it’s asshole in Crawford.

McCain had to bring in a bus load of people to fill up the empty spaces at his rally at Starbucks.

Sarah Palin’s crowds have dwindled down to religious fanatics, race baiters and fashion designers.

The last black guy at a Palin stadium rally got the day of the ballgame wrong.

With such a short time before the elections McCain is using Joe the Plumber to bring in the frontal lobotomy crowd.

LAST MINUTE ACCUSATIONS!!

Palin has accused the entire state of California of being kinda gay looking and untrustworthy.

McCain is accusing everybody about everything he can think of.

Joe the Plumber accused Giuliani of being an ugly woman.

Palin accused Joe the Plumber of getting an agent and a recording contract before she does.

The Obscure Radical Professors of America Society accuse McCain of cherry picking.

I’m accusing McCain, Palin and Joe the Plumber of being “The New Three Stooges!”

Palin accuses the kids of Democrats of being the spawn of Satan.

Elvira accuses Cindy McCain of stealing her makeup.

And be sure to check out The Chris Bearde School of Comedy!

Why do the Fox News gasbags fear the Palin story?

So now the Republican National Committee and its toadies at Fox News and other news organizations are trying to spin the headline from dangerous Sarah Palin's low-rent scandals to the so-called "liberal" media that's chasing them down.

What a crock. And what panicky little operatives these big media machers turn out to be. Sarah Palin, her fake pregnancy, and all the other petty crimes that the GOP powers didn't bother to find out about in advance is a great story, as nonpartisan and politically neutral as John Edwards' lovechild or Bill O'Reilly's phone sex.


It was funny, listening to Sean Hannity on the radio this afternoon, foaming at the mouth and shouting like one of those radio priests in the 1950s, running doubletime on his hamster wheel trying to spin away the Sarah scandals, forgiving Bristol her religious and sexual trespasses by bragging about his own "wild life" between the ages of 16 and when he found religion at 21. What a crock. Hannity was a nerd who discovered conservatism as radio schtik, who pals with the likes of Charlie Daniels and Phyllis Schlafly and has squandered his likability with demagoguery.


But once again, doofus extreme Bill O'Reilly, who's so perverted by his Catholic upbringing and paternal sadism that when he cheats on his wife with his subordinates he can only do it over the phone, takes the cake with his criticism of the Daily Kos, which did some nifty investigating of the Palin pregnancy story over the weekend:

"...Internet hate sites have made it easy for emotionally disturbed individuals to say just about anything they want to the entire world, and some of these nuts even get mainstream media exposure. The Daily Kos is the absolute worse, routinely printing defamation and hatred at a level never before seen in the United States.

"The latest from these guttersnipes is that Governor Palin did not give birth to a Down syndrome baby; her teenage daughter did. We can find no evidence to support that, and there are pictures of Mrs. Palin herself pregnant. But it doesn't matter to the Daily Kos?..."

Smarmy O'Reilly's got a lot of balls talking about hate sites. Kos was reinvigorating debate that raged through Alaska in April when Palin surprised everyone with the pregnancy announcement.

You know, the tabloid journalism that Rupert Murdoch nurtured in his career was among the best in history.

It's a shame that his legacy is being tarnished by these buffoons on his new front lines.

(All the photos above are real...)

Why Judith Regan got fired

Rupert Murdoch has fired Judith Regan.

Word came tonight, meant to be buried as a weekend begins, just as Rupert's NewsCorp Christmas party was getting into swing, with Bill O'Reilly whispering in the ears of grudging production assistants about loofahs, and Sean Hannity telling yet another associate producer that he really does know Charlie Daniels. The brilliant, toxic editrix, who made writers out of Hannity and Howard Stern alike, went too far with her scheme to create and promote the OJ Simpson If I Did It, Here's How It Happened book and informercials.

We told you the firing was in the cards:

She embarrassed the boss.

On Nov 18, we asked What came first? OJ Simpson or the manuscript? and brought up the possibility that the "ghostwriter" for the Simpson book--Regan's former lover and murder trial witness, Pablo Fenjves--had concocted the book, then sold it to Simpson:

"Consider the 'evidence': Fenjves has made a living by using his imagination and, he was involved in the Simpson case, he works in the imaginary crime genre, he conjures crime scenes for the small screen, and he writes in other people's voices. This sounds to be right up his alley. And Regan, the genius packager, could have seen this as a way to right all those wrongs she wrote about in her own very disturbing Drudge Report "confession"...

On Nov. 20, it was reported: "O.J. Simpson says his ill-fated 'If I Did It' book was not a confession and that the title wasn't his idea. In a telephone interview Wednesday with WTPS-AM radio, Simpson said that he told the writer he had 'nothing to confess.'"

Earlier that day, wrote: "Rupert Murdoch is a very forgiving boss. He'll shrug off scandal, he'll laugh off journalistic crimes, he'll ignore breaches in social etiquette, he considers 'ethics' to be a county outside London. But he does not like to be embarrassed in front of his friends or become a mockery to his colleagues on that Mister Burnsian level of power. The fact that he gave up all those ratings and all those book sales from Judith Regan’s brainstorm... means that Regan embarrassed him greatly with her scheme..."

Had she played it right, had she been more respectful of the public's intelligence, had she not come up with that unhinged and obviously cynical explanation of her motivations, and had she not so lied so blatantly in claiming that she didn't pay Simpson, Judith Regan might be clinking glasses with Mike Darnell in Century City tonight.

But she'll be back...

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/.")

Dunleavy postscript: Once were warriors

Most apparent from the crowd at Steve Dunleavy’s retirement party earlier this month was its substantiality in terms of journalistic background and accomplishment. The number of editors, writers, reporters, media professionals, tabloid journos and pop culture stars was a reminder that the tabloid television genre began as something very different than what was mutated from its drippings, as show business and network news bystanders insinuated themselves into the mix, leaving a legacy of having, as The New York Times pointed out partially erroneously in its Dunleavy tribute, “inspired a lot of what is on television today, like TMZ.com, Court TV and Fox News Channel.”

True enough that Roger Ailes appropriated the tabloid template stamped by Peter Brennan and perverted it for sordid political ends that gave the world the war in Iraq and the increasingly desperate and hysteric GOP talking point parrot Sean Hannity, and though the Times erred in stating that Court TV is “on television today”-- it was replaced by truTV nine and a half months ago-- it’s saddest to think that what was begun in New York City’s grittiest and most legendary local television news operation and what shook the television newsworld to its very core would be reduced in Timesian arrogance to the slime of the corporate porn-pushing gossip site TMZ.com and its inconsequential whitewashed syndicated television sister, who work in an amoral, immoral celeb-sucking netherworld that runs absolutely counter to the taboid teachings of the giants who gathered in the Bourbon Street Bar on West 46th Street on the evening of October 6th to say goodbye or at least pay tribute to the greatest giant among many.

TMZ? Read Tabloid Baby to learn the background of its shaved bronzed midget frontman and the women who nurtured his rise. And read Tabloid Baby to find what The Times and others in the "mainstream" dare not admit: that the true influence of Steve Dunleavy, A Current Affair and the tabloid revolution is reflected in the pages of the New York Times, the staffing and coverage of the network news organizations and stories and news that envelope our culture in a 24/7 cycle.

At that party earlier this month, Dunleavy himself sat with his back to the bar, roped off from the crowd at a high table with his wife Gloria at his side and behind her, always deep in conversation, Rupert Murdoch, looking very much like a rumpled newspaper boss, not the international billionaire mogul with the exotic young bride; his hair streaked Grecian Formula black and not the orange or aubergine we’d read about in the Vanity Fair article on the flight from LA a few hour earlier.

Jim Brady was a step ahead of us as we pushed through the crowd to greet Steve. Brady took Dunleavy’s hand, gave his shoulder a squeeze, told Steve he’d be missed and that now was the time for him to write the autobiography. Brady, a former Murdoch man who writes the celeb profiles for Parade and Forbes, broke the story of Steve’s infirmities. He wrote a belated tribute in Forbes last week which we reprint even more belatedly:

Brady On Media
Dunleavy And The Boss
James Brady 10.09.08, 6:00 AM ET

He's one of the last of the old-time big city newspaper leg men, and now the legs are shot, so last Tuesday, a rainy night at a vintage gin mill in Manhattan's theater district, a bunch of us got together to serenade the outrageous Steve Dunleavy into hard-earned retirement at age 70.

I don't know that many of the old press lords--Luce or Hearst or Joe Pulitzer or Jock Whitne--attended goodbye parties for booze-lubricated reporters in their employ, but Rupert Murdoch did. The Dow had plummeted by 777 points the day before, the Jewish holidays had just begun, Murdoch's New York Post was cheerleading for McCain and Palin, and there was Murdoch in a gray suit, coming in from the rain, past the bagpipers and firemen, the movers and shakers, the cops, the pretty girls and half the Post's city room, to say goodbye to a man who'd worked for him 40 years.

Dunleavy had commandeered for himself a familiar bit of bar, where he stood, sober if somewhat shaky, greeting well-wishers but refusing to rest his skinny butt on a bar stool. Steve, long ago, worked for me back on the National Star, a supermarket tabloid Murdoch launched in 1974, but I told that story in this column months ago, when Dunleavy first confessed his legs were going and he might have to pack in his column for the Post. (See "'Dirt' On TV.")

Steve's last week began in extraordinary fashion when The New York Times ran a thousand-word feature on him. The Post and the Times have been feuding so bitterly in recent years, this was the equivalent of a Tass editorial in praise of Capitalism. Tim Arango wrote the Times piece, quoting not only Murdoch but old rivals Jimmy Breslin and Pete Hamill, Post editor Col Allan, and Jonathan Mahler, author of Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx Is Burning.

I especially liked Jimmy's line, "Steve is one of the three people in America who loves Rupert Murdoch. In a time of listless reporting, he climbed stairs. And he wrote simple declarative sentences that people could read." Breslin then derided today's newspaper sentences, "52-word gems that moan, I went to college! I went to graduate school college! Where do I put the period?" Hamill, who once shared with Dunleavy a mutual distaste, appeared to have mellowed, saying of Steve, "He always had this energy. I always thought he was writing his columns like he was double-parked."

After I chatted up Dunleavy, urging him to write another best-selling potboiler while he was still alive, and demanding had he been, in Aussie slang, a "wanker" or a "poofter"? "I was a wanker, mate, but never a poofter." Then, with a bottle of Corona, I worked the room, chatting up editor Col Allan, who may not own a necktie, but who was actually jotting notes, covering the story; columnist Cindy Adams; lanky, red-haired reporter Cynthia Fagen ("the carrot"); and rock critic Dan Aquilante ("You gave me my start on Page Six!"). Also in attendance were firefighters' union leader Steve Cassidy; Ed Burns, the retired cop whose sons Ed and Brian make movies; PR guru Howard Rubenstein; former Post publisher Marty Singerman; Richard Johnson and Paula Froelich of Page Six; restaurateur Elaine Kaufman; some TV types and a gent from Bamberger's in Newark.

At the door, they were handing out eight-page mock-ups of the Post, packed with stories and pics of the evening's hero: Steve with Reagan; with Castro; holding the gun that shot Lennon; with Joey Buttafuoco; Mike Tyson; the Boston Strangler; Bill O'Reilly; at home with Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate; arm-wrestling with Mike Bloomberg; with Geraldo; asleep in a city room chair. Ray Kerrison, who was our racetrack columnist from those first days at the Star, wrote a loving reminiscence, headlined, "50 wild years of news and booze with the man who's king of both.

It's probably my fault for leaving the party early, but when I went out into West 46th Street, not a single punch had yet been thrown, a cop or fireman thrown out, an editor or publisher pummeled, an ear bitten off, or Rupert--standing there happily amid the scrum--cornered by any number of bores, but not being chewed by anyone. Not with Steve Dunleavy, shakily but faithfully, there at his side.

Loyalty most places is pretty rare, so it was nice being at the Bourbon Street Bar, remembering 1974 when I was broke, writing and hosting a New York magazine cable TV talk show for nothing, when Murdoch came to America to stay, hiring me to run his new tabloid, and nothing ever again would be the same. For me or for any of us.

"Dunleavy will be your chief reporter," Rupert said then. "Just don't go drinking with him." A week later, my "chief reporter" and I were having the first of many at Tim Costello's bar. As Dunleavy was quoted in the Times: "I always had dreams of dying at the desk. It's frustrating not doing what I love best, and serving--I know it sounds corny--the one who I admire the most. Murdoch. The boss."

Steve Friess attacked Rich Little twice the weekend before Little's wife committed suicide

In a stunningly unfortunate case of bad timing, it turns out that Las Vegas blogger, New York Times stringer, Gay Vegas author, concert promoter and comp queen Steve Friess published a pair of vicious, politically-motivated attacks on the legendary comic impersonator Rich Little, just days before Little's wife committed suicide. "The Friesster," who has exerted an influence on Vegas entertainment scene through his many media connections and outlets (not to mention his relationships with Vegas moguls like Steve Wynn), slammed the 71-year-old Little on his Vegas blogsite on Saturday, July 10th, for allegedly referring to gay Congressman Barney Frank as a "queen" in a punchline during a comedy routine the previous evening at the Nevada Republican Party's annual convention.

"It seems like Little wants to make himself relevant again by stealing material, resorting to incredibly simplistic homophobic humor and polarizing audiences." --Steve Friess

The next day, Friess hit again, publishing an accusation from a "reader" who supposedly "attended Rich Little's stand-up performance at The Cannery in North Las Vegas on Saturday night," that Little had "introduced a woman in the audience who he said was the best female impersonator besides for Barney Frank." Friess also repeated the accusation from the "reader" that "Little's best impression was of Andy Rooney but that the jokes themselves were lifted verbatim from Steven Wright." Despite his reputation for cadging free show tickets, Friess did not attend either performance. In the Sunday attack, the activist Friesster revealed that his problems with Little may have less to do with the use of a "slur" than with Little's conservative political leanings and contributions to Sean Hannity events. "Rich Little is an interesting figure because he was called upon in 2007 to perform at the White House Correspondents Dinner the year after Steven Colbert's scorcher embarrassed President Bush. The reviews were brutal but he didn't do much current-event political humor then. "I'm not one to write off someone just because they're old or they've been out of the public eye for a while... But it seems like Little wants to make himself relevant again by stealing material, resorting to incredibly simplistic homophobic humor and polarizing audiences who aren't expecting to be polarized." Four days after the broadsides, Little's wife Marie Marotta was found dead in an apparent suicide. Norm Clarke of the Las Vegas Review-Journal on Sunday quoted "a friend" saying that Marie's health issues were compounded by "a tough year" for the couple, including "a dropoff in his headliner bookings in the last decade." While there is no evidence that Friess' screed contributed to the tragedy on Thursday, the postings, which are widely read among Las Vegas' business class, would certainly add to Rich Little's difficulties obtaining future headlining bookings in the city. As of this posting, Friess has not commented on Rich Little's tragedy. (Leaving aside a comedian's license to offend-- what of the word "Queen"? In a rare case in which a negative comment on Friess's site has not been censored and removed, a commenter to Friess's posts challenged the activist for holding the "old" Little to the political-correctness expected of young performers. He also questioned Friess' hypocrisy: "In 'Gay Vegas', you say 'there is nothing queer about the Four Queens, except its name'. This makes me see 'Queen' as not being insulting, yet your post about the Barney Frank joke makes me think it may be an insult. So, now I am wondering when it is OK to use 'Queen' and when it is an insult? I am especially afraid that it is never OK to use 'Queen' if the user is not gay." (Friess responded: "The use of terms/slurs by people who are part of the community or friendly to it is different.")

Message to Sean Hannity

John Gibson apologized for the wrong offense

We can’t fault John Gibson too much for his silly comments about the death of Heath Ledger. Gibson’s just a journeyman show biz reporter who struck gold when he was recruited by Fox News and found out he’d get ratings if he began to spout the conservative party line-- the more outrageous the better. He doesn’t believe what he says. He’s like Dennis Miller, Sean Hannity or Jerry Springer— he’s pandering for a paycheck. Just look at his poufy hair. That’s no anti-gay conservative. It’s a twenty five dollar haircut on a twenty five cent head. Give the guy a break.

And remember that when a Fox News-paid talking head like Gibson gets news that a star of Brokeback Mountain is dead, he’s duty-bound to make a Brokeback Mountain joke. And he’s bound to be callous because the rulebook says he’s got to mock Hollywood celebrities, especially a celeb that's become an icon for the gay rights crowd. His comments weren’t too offensive. And despite his awkward attempts at Sternian adlibs, his brief statements about Ledger’s seeming obsession with death at his young age and with a daughter, was food for thought. Gibson was onto something there. But he’s not a wit or a wag. He's a newsreader dogpaddling in the Roger Ailes trout pond.

Where Gibson really went wrong and offended all, was when he read out an inaccurate report on Ledger’s death from corporate porn-pushing gossip site TMZ.com, then stated that “TMZ is right about everything, about 90 percent of the time.”

That’s offensive! And that’s something Gibson, and all mainstream news organizations who cite TMZ as a source, should really apologize for.

Geraldo's Angel?

Ha! Geraldo Rivera’s old-style tabloid TV series, Geraldo At Large, is looking to the show it replaced in a last-ditch bid for survival.

News has crept out that Geraldo’s producers have hired Arthel Neville, the former West Coast correspondent for A Current Affair and a major presence on the show, as Geraldo’s West Coast correspondent!

The Fox News-controlled Geraldo show hasn't even had a West Coast bureau since its debut in November 2005, when it was rushed into creation and production after newly-appointed Fox Television boss Roger Ailes yanked the new A Current Affair in part because it was competing with, and beating his Fox News Channel on stories like the honeymoon cruise death and the Natalee Holloway disappearance.

With its tawdry mix of sex abuse, incest, rape, murder and consumer stories (and lacking A Current Affair’s sense of humour and ability to lead the news pack), the Geraldo show has been a turd in the ratings pool. In recent weeks, it’s been criticized for getting lower ratings than Affair, and for tawdry promo spots during prime time, family-oriented shows on Fox.

Unfortunately for Geraldo, Arthel has a habit of jumping aboard sinking ships, arriving at A Current Affair the Monday after the axing of her Good Day Live show, and now stepping onto Captain Geraldo’s Titanic tomorrow (a show they’ve resorted to promoting with images of the early-70s Geraldo, as they revive his Willowbrook retarded home expose), exactly a year after she joined the unexpectedly-murdered A Current Affair.

Ironically, Arthel had found her footing on A Current Affair in its final weeks, with her first-person coverage of the Katrina devastation in her hometown, New Orleans. TV veteran Arthel was shown for the first time without makeup, in very uncomfortable humid conditions, and more than once lost her composure in witnessing events in the place where she’d grown up. (She’s kept her stripped-down image with a New Orleans aid foundation-- first announced on this site-- called Arthel’s Angels.)

Geraldo, meanwhile, made a fool of himself during the Katrina tragedy. He showed up in New Orleans days late, grabbed babies from mothers in front of the Convention Center and held them up to the camera while blubbering on Sean Hannity's show, and then got into a nasty spat over his showboating with a woman from the New York Times.

(You can read about Geraldo's tabloid television influence and adventures in Tabloid Baby. Enjoyment guaranteed!)

Tabloid Baby's Person of The Year for 2005: Anderson Cooper, Brokeback Anchor

Anderson Cooper is Tabloid Baby’s Person of the Year!

It is a year in which the era of the pompous, macho “Network Anchorman” ended in death, disgrace and the takeover of Nightline by Michael Jackson’s Oompaloompalike betrayer.

It’s also a year in which Harvey Fierstein and Rosie O’Donnell played husband and wife in Fiddler On The Roof, Elton John married his boyfriend, the new Superman is reportedly planning to leap out of the closet, and Brokeback Mountain leads the Oscar contenders.

Who better to represent 2005 than America’s first openly gay TV news anchorman?

Okay, Anderson Cooper plays it coy when fellow journalists ask about his sexuality (and they ask all the time), and fellow journalists who know better compromise by referring to him with a wink as “metrosexual” (a bitchslap because of the “sissy” implications, and Coop’s no sissy even though he cries on TV).

But in the offices where he works, in the public spaces in which he plays, Anderson Cooper is known to be gay. That’s not important. There have been, and are, gay network reporters. Even NBC’s wise John Chancellor reportedly had a men’s room arrest in his past (though he popped out of his closet only sporadically in later years, demanding his name be pronounced Chancel-LOR, not CHANCE-eler).

What makes Anderson Cooper different, special and Tabloid Baby's Person of The Year, is that Anderson Cooper reads “gay” on the air. Not “flaming,” like most all of the cloned male correspondents on the ET-Access-Extra infotainment shows, not “screaming,” as he was when he hosted The Mole (back when newsreader kingship seemed as realistic a dream as his mom marrying her consort Bobby Short), but so undeniably that everyone refers to him as “metrosexual.”

It’s revolutionary-- as revolutionary as Maury Povich leading A Current Affair, and points to the future of television news.

Uneasily wearing the crown on CNN, Anderson Cooper is the standard bearer as eternal boy-- a poor little rich boy at that-- fleeing personal tragedy and demons by running toward the world’s danger zones; an inquisitive silver-haired manboy who mixes with the common folk like Truman Capote in Kansas; an otherworldly Little Prince who can be politely indignant when he’s lied to; a youthful visitor who leads with his heart and isn’t afraid to show Earthlings how to cry. He’s Michael Jackson, circa Thriller.

And he’s leading Ted Turner’s old news network! Person of the Year!

It’s fitting that Coop broke out in the coverage of the New Orleans disaster, days before the Southern Decadence weekend.

Ironically, Coop’s cable news nemesis (another man with two last names) was already in place for the festivities, set up in a small hotel in the French Quarter, enjoying breakfast, serenaded by a pianist, when the levees broke and the city began to flood. With other TV reporters cut off from the action, Shepard Smith was blocks from the convention center, where, in a bizarre parallel to Cooper’s performance, he briefly “came out,” unleashing his Blanche DuBois accent, emoting, raging, and even snapping back on air at Sean Hannity.

All Shep got for his trouble was an outing by the editor of the Washington Blade.

Credit due

Credit for the Coop coup goes to Jon Klein, the new president of CNN, who made the bold move of dumping Aaron Brown and replacing the fey with the gay.

Klein has always been known for a sense of humor that’s both wicked and puckish. He even appears in Tabloid Baby, Chapter 20, in a story about the time he recommended a female producer to Hard Copy. She turned out to be a ticking timebomb who exploded all over Elton John, who in turn exploded all over Hard Copy. (For those with an interest in how the news business really works, both story and book are worth the read.)

The future

There is method behind the move. Jon Klein has big plans.

Stay tuned for 2006. There will be a time, soon, when Anderson Cooper will “come out.” It will probably take another big story, a 9/11- or Katrina-sized story that all the honchos will feel the need to stamp with brand personification, and then, Anderson Cooper will drop his guard and let us in on who he is.

By then, America, even those who don’t watch CNN, will be comfortable enough with his presence onscreen and in the media, that no one will care.

That’s the culture shift we’re looking at, those are the barriers he is breaking, and that’s why we salute Anderson Cooper, Tabloid Baby’s Person of the Year for 2005!

Life after Howard

Howard Stern has five radio shows to go before he possibly disappears from the mainstream public eye and ear (I’ve checked out some of that Sirius equipment at Best Buy and it looks like a lot of work that only a month of bad car radio will force us to look into). Howard's goodbye seemed to peak the week before his Thanksgiving vacation, but this last week of shows will be historic in any case.

We’ll miss him. In the meantime, what’s the future of radio?

The view from LA:

THE GOOD

Phil Hendrie: He may be the most brilliant talent in all of show business right now.

And his take on the talk show never gets boring.

The best.




Michael Savage: The most hilarious radio personality out there.

Savage is a lunatic, and his hair-trigger ascents to screaming rants are hysterical.

It doesn’t matter what side of the political spectrum he’s from.

The fact that his real name is Michael Weiner and that he once ran a flower shop and wrote love letters to Allen Ginsberg only adds to the wackiness.








Johnny Wendell: Punk rocker turned music journalist turned smart liberal radio talk show host.

Johnny works himself up into his own rages on the air, but it’s absurdity and unfairness that gets him going. He’s on the local Air America station, and his audience and scope will grow.



Steve Jones: Punk rocker turned Sunset Strip guitarist turned rock ‘n’ roll deejay. They give him a sidekick to translate his Cockney mumblings, but his snorting, farting, gurgling amateurishness is part of what keeps us tuned in. He plays old music hall & Benny Hill 45s, then picks up an acoustic guitar and bangs out a rock ‘n’ roll parody in the key of the original that follows. Inspired casting.

Stephanie Miller: Nice Sixties-style comedy lady does a funny, smart morning show with a good impressionist.







THE BAD

Mancow: First of all, that name is very disturbing. Man Cow. Supposedly it’s a nickname from college, but it brings to mind a hermaphroditic guy with breasts (which, photos indicate, he does indeed resemble). I don’t get it. And I don’t get the Mancow act. His show reeks of racist, homophobic, jock-sniffing, evangelical Christian right wing creepiness, it’s always got this Nazi heavy metal guitar crunching in the background, he’s got a guy who imitates Lewis Black, prank phone calls that aren’t funny, and when he’s not picking on poor people like New Orleans victims, he’s saying degrading things about his wife. He tries to be Howard, but he’s the anti-Howard. This guy really blows.

John & Ken: These reactionary nitwits play up racism and anti-immigrant hysteria for ratings. We hope Tookie Williams escapes from prison and climbs into their bedroom windows. That would make good radio.

Sean Hannity: I don’t believe this guy is a true conservative. I think he’s a college radio dork who jumped on the conservative bandwagon because he didn’t fit in with the music hipsters and came up with an angle. When he slips in references to his good pals Ollie North, Charlie Daniels and Phyllis Schlafly, this literal lowbrow reveals how out of touch and stupid he is.



Larry Elder: Listen to his show and realize he’s the one major league talk show host who yells at, then hangs up on, his listeners when they make good points that disagree with his. He seems to be afraid of real debate and his bits with his mother are not revealing. Dull.




THE SAD...

Conway & Whitman: Tim Conway Jr. and his partner Doug Steckler worked a long time to develop a very dry comedy chemistry that even took the edge off their “What the hell is Jesse Jackson saying?” bit. It worked because Steckler was a weird old guy who’d last touched the big time writing for SCTV more than twenty years ago, and Conway was, well, Tim Conway’s kid who spent his days at the racetrack. Then, weirdly, Steckler quit or was fired and Conway just carried on with a new partner, radio voice man Brian Whitman. They still do the Jesse Jackson bit (and for some reason they use this really heavy compression on their voices, making them sound like they’re caught in Cousin Brucie’s echo chamber). But they're just a dull radio team, two contemporaries teamed arbitrarily like "Frosty, Heidi & Frank" or Peter Tilden and his cohorts on the country station.

(NOT SAD)

At least Tilden is a lesson in how not to lose your dignity or patronize your audience when your situation changes. He made his reputation doing smart talk radio. He became a morning country music jock. And he doesn't sound like a country jock. He sounds like a smart talk radio guy. But he plays it straight. And funny. Too bad most of the music is terrible. But that's a different story and it's coming from a country fan.

Scheer's back-- in a Huff!

We got an email this morning from Robert Scheer, the lefty columnist fired by the LA Times a few weeks ago.

He's bounced back with another lefty "web magazine."

"Truthdig" looks to be a lot like his pal Arianna Huffington's blogsite, without all the annoying, moronic celebrities.


Random words from the inaugural homepage:

Iraq... Saddam... Venezuela... Fidel Castro... white phosphorous... agonistes... sexual freedom... homosexuality... Alito... Frist... China... athiest... toxic spill...

You get the picture. Village Voice stuff. And lots of journalists who don't get on Fox News. So good for Scheer. He's always been sincere. He's a good read. And he sticks up for the little guy. Unlike those assholes, John & Ken. And Sean Hannity!

Best of luck. The more points of view the better.

Here's a link to Truthdig.

And here's the email release:

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Truthdig.com - Drilling Beneath the Headline
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NEW WEB MAGAZINE LAUNCHES
truthdig.com focuses on in-depth coverage of current affairs

Los Angeles... This morning at the stroke of midnight, truthdig.com, a new Web magazine, launched its inaugural issue promising to provide its readers with provocative content and in-depth coverage of current affairs.

Co-Founder and Editor Robert Scheer, the award winning journalist, commented on the launch: "In this hyper-linked, blog-filled, talk-show-dominated world, it is increasingly difficult to find stories with depth, told by those who know their topic best." "We know that there will always be people who are digging for the truth and if we respect a story and present it in a clear way, it will find an audience."

Truthdig.com is the brainchild of Scheer and co-founder Zuade Kaufman, a former journalist who has long wanted to create a new publication. "A media outlet that is free to dig deep -- to ask the questions that remain unasked -- to raise the issues that remain hidden --- to bring attention to the stories that remain invisible -- that's what we are trying to create."

The site's purpose is to provide a variety of thoughtful, provocative content assembled from a progressive point of view. The site is built around major "digs," led by authorities in their fields, who will "drill" down into contemporary topics and assemble packages of content -- text, links, audio, video -- that will grow richer with time and user participation. The inaugural issue's featured Dig is China: Boom or Boomerang? by Asia expert Orville Schell.

To offer frequent change to its readers, truthdig.com also presents a diversity of original reporting and aggregated content culled by the site's editors and staff. This material is divided into categories.

The inaugural issue offers the following compelling selections:

UNCOVERED -- Dossiers of ongoing news subjects -- including GOP supporter Jack Abramoff, the Alito Nomination and the Frist File.

EAR TO THE GROUND -- Robert Scheer's weekly column and his take on other issues in the news.

REPORTS -- Original articles and opinion pieces unique to truthdig. com. This week's features include Iraq expert Juan Cole's article Hussein's Facing Charges, But Will Rumsfield Be on Trial? a behind the story look at Saddam Hussein's trial and Chicago Agonistes: The Plight of the Los Angeles Times, by former Times Editor Steve Wasserman.

A/V BOOTH -- Audio interviews, video clips, photo essays and more. Features include Inside Chavez's Venezuela by Sharmini Peries, journalist turned foreign policy advisor to Venezuela President Hugo Chavez and It's War, Not Hollywood by former Florida Guardsman and author John Crawford.

Editor Bob Scheer, when asked what motivated the creation of the site, refers to legendary media critic A.J. Liebling's quote, "Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one."

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