A Dysfunctional Tale from The 'Duped' One About KGOne and Cumulus

 I BEGAN LAUGHING.


Seriously, out-of-control, serious, gosh-darn laughter so heavy-duty that I chugged an extra-hefty liter of that expensive water in the blue bottle for which I'm inexplicably hooked on--maybe it's the color but it seems colder. When you're thirsty and giddy, it's cool, literally.


So I'm thinking about what's been going on--the local station on the dial which used to be relevant. Those were the days ...long, long ago, in a deep dark forest with real competent air talent, real executives and staff who did things logically and were rewarded with great books, advertising galore, listener-bond and loyalty and everything associated with a quality operation. Now, and which accelerated my gargantuan laughter, is the following: a Mt. Everest-sized palate of triple-extreme incompetency and misdirection from all point: a virtual inmates-running-the-asylum carnival only literal inmates in an asylum are more level-headed than the prisoners and their captives at 55 Hawthorne, home of the audio mental case known as KGO, KGOne, KGooGoo, pick your poison.


This is part of the Cumulus Cluster, a real cluster-fuck actually --an honest-to-goodness madhouse with a few people who trudge forward through the asylum, somehow, someway--good people, mind you, with families and good intentions all the while waiting for fate to take over. Most are resigned to the fact that the station was killed moons ago and they're just waiting to escape the carcass. It's the newbies; the rented-out tripe and willing; the radio grifters with their internal giddiness: Oh golly, I'm on the air in San Francisco! Reminds me of the scene in "The Big Chill": the mental case, William Hurt's character, Nick Carlton mocking a heritage station, "K-S-F-O ...in San Francisco." Nick would have had an orgasm with KGO.


We've been down this road before, remember? Those were the days when things were mildly affected with a fungus. We're in surgery now but the patient's prognosis is not good. By way of accidental communication and further chit-chit a story made its way that the current model isn't working, (No shit, Sherlock!) and that one of the Cumulus black-helicopter suits had conceded to an advertiser you know, we really fucked up here and decided to try to revive the corpse. Mind you it took almost three years for the dickheads and their henchmen to figure it out. Feral cats would have known from day one. But that's besides the point. It got me to thinking and eventually laughing in the middle of the night. Who cares anymore? Well, some of us do because we still believe --have been in denial mode and cannot comprehend, to this day, the change from normal to the mental asylum.


This is the latest series of Bizarro 55 Hawthorne: radio yentas posing as producers spewing forward unmitigated bullshit with the assistance, or not, from incompetent managers who couldn't run a business if their life depended on it. Then again, in an asylum, where direction-less is a form of functionality, the 810 carcass would be given a gold medal. Nobody literally knows what the hell is going on. Seriously. I thought it was all part of a plan against the press and local bloggers but truth be told, the incompetency and well-leveled degree of mis-fucking management is system-wide. Kenneth, what is the frequency? permeates from the newsroom to the studios to the offices and beyond. Wanton employee insubordination, massive employee-management malaise and bewilderment supreme, miscommunication, broadcast chaos all the way around. No wonder some of the inmates need xanex.


Now the yentas are gossiping, they're good at that. We're not going to name names now, for one, we're still hiking through the weeds and haven't fumigated enough to finger the perpetrator(s), (and boy do we have a lot of names and info to sift through); but the bottom line still exists: changes are coming, as if that's going to do any good, after all as we've indicated, and which induced my laughter, the patient is brain-dead. The old guy was great. The new incarnation will amount to a hologram. Too many tattered strips. A House of Prime Rib a few years ago to Burger King.


We, I, here at 415 Media are both humbled and confounded to be the subject of your current hijinks, boys and girls of the KGOne regime. We never figured to get under your skin nor were we looking for a fight; if we have managed to become the source of inter-office bullshit, (and, by the way, your ruse, bs, misinformation, whatever the fuck you want to call it isn't working); then our laughter is well-warranted. It wasn't me who began this shit. I hear a certain talk host of color is in on the gossip too with a giggly, morning news anchor to boot. Damn! Here's something to ponder: what if I told you that the managers would be in all of this? I'd have to have my head examined. Wait, I'm laughing again.


In a normal business, mangers would manage and workers would work. Meetings with rank and file would take place and business would exist. KGOne is not your normal business and Cumulus is not your normal enterprise. Confusion is the operative word. Befuddle your workforce. Create daily mini-crisis. Chop heads when needed. Reward the loyal zombies with Sweet Jack coupons. Hire entertainers on the weekend and provide 4th-tier comedians late-night Sunday slots. Run ticket give-a-waves for a demo that doesn't listen to you and never have and never will; hire a chef to do cooking shows on the radio, (can you hold the arugula up to the microphone?); have out-sourced traffic and news anchors in Dallas pretend as if they're in SF and mispronounce the name of the Em-Baka-Dario. This is seriously funny. I think as long as you're duping me please get a memo to some of the part-time crackheads who double as your traffic tonsils on the weekend to at least try to pronounce the names right because dupes like me on "North 13" need direction every now and then.


BREAKING from Cumulus!!: Attention!! All Interns, producers, staffers, producers-posing as board ops, producers who used to work for Mike Huckabee --time to call all bloggers and dupe!


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