*KCBS real-estate saleswoman, Lisa Chan, was back on the air Sunday and managed to sound halfway decent. Looks like she scheduled her open houses later in the day and not while she was announcing the news. How wonderful, let's all just cheer and go nuts.
*To think we have posers and rank amatuers on the air where people like Bob Melrose, Barbara Taylor, Dave McElhatton, Bob Donnelly and Don Klein reported, is a travesty.
*One of the most onerous reminders of yahoos who don't even study their own geography where they broadcast: the mispronounciations and mislabelings of city streets and locales like "Sutro Tower" (and not Mountain Sutro Tower) and Doyle Drive, not Doyle avenue. There's more, of course, but those stand out.
*I've described KGO talker, John Rothmann, as duplicitious and disingenuous. It caught me off guard because I used to really like him but Rothmann's act has become tiresome. His "outrage" is not really the deal. He's doing shtick and ramping up the volume to engage, (falsely) with people all the while laughing and pretending off the mic. His over fawning of people, most recently, the newswoman who moved to the morning and desperately wanted to get away from him , is well noted at KGO.
*The Sunday SF Chronicle long ago sunk into a lousy fish wrap of a newspaper; I still read it because I enjoy the casual Sunday experience of coffee and relaxation perusing the sports page and reading Mike Bauer's food and restaurant reviews.
The Sunday paper is a bore. A thin bore.
Bauer is gone; the sports page is more a two-three page fish wrap magazine; (with no scores) it's migrated into mundane and the Pink Section has been marginalized into a skinny relic of what it used to be. Thank God for Mick LaSalle and that's about it.
The little man has vacated the chair.
*The old KSFO theme song was about as cool as it gets. I wasn't around in those great days but I have a fond appreciation of a legacy station that was the KING of the hill, TOP of the list, A-Number 1, San Francisco/415 style.
So sit back and listen to a classic.
I can't wait for the LA yahoos to start saying.
ReplyDeleteThe 101
The 580
The 880
The 17
The 92
Valley-Jo
Sauce-al-a-toe
"Sig Alert"...
DeleteGet used to it once they start hubbing KCBS out of KNX.
I was surprised to hear "The 580" said on KCBS last week.
DeleteI agree w/your take on recent versions of KGO's "The John Rothmann Show." Even last year it was pretty good listening, lots of callers of all persuasions got their say, and the conversation flowed naturally; now the show feels like it is being steered.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree. Callers cannot utter a complete sentence before Mr. Rothmann interrupts to grill them on meaningless details or reminding them of the date on which he already discussed something. John acts as if he is the professor emeritus of all knowledge, claiming to have read widely on every subject under the sun, and chastising callers for being absent from class (his nightly "progrum"). Weren't you listing??? Don't you agree???
DeleteI’ve heard him say he doesn’t interrupt, mere seconds before interrupting and hanging up on people. You have to follow his myopic flow chart of conversation, otherwise he’ll say that’s not what I want to talk about… goodbye! The longer you listen, the more obvious it is that he can’t actually debate.
DeleteAmen on the fog. The good old "nature's air conditioning" used to be one of the best things about the Bay Area. And it seemed like there was always at least one storm a week during winter, so there was always fresh powder up at Tahoe.
ReplyDeleteAstounding! Unbelievable! With all due respect,
ReplyDeleteLoved the KSFO "Sounds of the City" Station ID. Then, I came across this... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3t0FUn0iQI Wonder how many other stations used the Johnny Mann Singers?
ReplyDeleteYou know KSFO actually put out a small promotional record with five of their theme songs on one side and some Don Sherwood, Jack Carney bits of the other. It's a wonderful bit of time travel to listen to.
ReplyDeleteKSFO theme song was like the San Francisco Bay Area version of the National Anthem. Classic!
ReplyDeleteAnd yes I do miss the big old thick Sunday San Francisco Chronicle. I use to spread it out on the kitchen table and read it section by section.
John Rothmann VIP's part 7 (discovered another new list he claims to know personally or interviewed or is related to)
ReplyDeleteGrant Goodeve, Vanessa Del Rio, Buddy Ebsen,Barbara Broadcast,Art Spander,the doorman at the mark Hopkins hotel between 1960-66, Carl Williams,Norris Paulson,Bruce Dern,Marty Balsam,Greg Minton,Herbert Hoover's barber,Harold Stassens podiatrist Jan Wall's 4th cousin, Steve Moskovitz mailman and the auto mechanic who used to tune dick Nixon's limos
Thanks, Rich, I grew up to that sound and the monster that was KSFO. Used to almost fill the Cow Palace with their annual softball game, and Sorkin's Chief Santa had me on the floor laughing during Christmas.
ReplyDeleteLisa still does not annunciate correctly. I only understood half the weather as she fades away. It was such a relief to hear the Pecker do the weather around 9:20. I can hear what he’s saying.
ReplyDeleteDear 9:43, Why on earth would Lisa "annunciate"? Did you think she was a Catholic religious figure or blessed virgin? The word you are searching for is not "annunciate". Try again.
DeleteWhen I was in High School, back in the 50's, I worked on Saturday's at Harper Aviation in San Carlos. Some Saturdays a certain DJ from KSFO whose initials were DS would show up at Harper's with a bottle of Bordeaux under one arm and an ingenue under the other. One of the pilots would fly them up to their pied-a-terre at Clear Lake, where they could enjoy their weekend tete-a-tete. On Sunday afternoon they would be flown back to San Carlos minus the Bordeaux. Later, while cleaning the bugs off the front of the Cessna I would think to myself, even though I had not seen my first French film, that somehow I was playing a small role in one...
ReplyDeleteYou're preaching to the choir on the weather! Here in San Jose it's becoming common to hit 90 or close to that weekly! While San Diego it's in the 70's and even the LA area is in lower 80's. Have no idea why this fucking heat is confined to the Bay Area!
ReplyDeleteIt's true. I also live in San Jose, and I've been bummed out by the lack of rain here compared to everywhere else. When it rains anywhere else in the Bay Area, San Jose stays dry. In recent years, a lot of the storms which are headed our way end up blowing down to SoCal instead. I have friends in SoCal, and they're constantly talking about how much rain they're getting, while we're bone dry here in SJ. It used to be the other way around! I love rain, and it's very depressing that I live in a place which gets almost no rain at all, while even SoCal seems to get big storms every year. We used to get storms in San Jose, but now we're lucky if we get a light sprinkle a couple times a year. And the HEAT. It used to be unusual for the temperature to reach 100 in San Jose, but now it's not uncommon for the temp to hit 105 or higher. Why is SoCal getting all the rain now? Are we going to continue to send them water if they're getting rain and we're not?
DeleteI worked at KCBS and the decay and disharmony was quite evident as I watched numerous veterans either shoved out the door or leave shaking their heads. The news director is totally I overwhelmed and not at all qualified to run what used to be a premiere news operation, but she’s a corporate shill who works long hours for little pay and is no doubt, Brie beaten by the bean counters and the no know nothings who act as if they I invented radio.
ReplyDeleteIt really was "The World's Greatest Radio Station".
ReplyDeleteAmen -- who else had the audience back then to play Beatles and Sinatra? Back before programmers got involved finding smaller market segments to "own".
DeleteAgree with you completely that "The Sunday SF Chronicle long ago sunk into a lousy fish wrap of a newspaper," though would add every edition is a lousy fish wrap. One of the last times I bought a Chronicle I had gone through it after just a few sips of my morning coffee. Most of its best reporters have fled for greener pastures, it has little content and it's not just uber-liberal, but grossly
ReplyDeletebiased and irresponsibly liberal. Look how out of touch it was with the city's residents in the Boudin recall. Hearst keeps it afloat because it's one of its flagship newspapers, but as a newspaper The Chronicle is slipping deeper into the tarpits of dead and dying news outlets.
Fortunate to grow up with KSFO around (my Dad loved the station--Giants, 49ers, Sherwood, Sorkin, Lange et. al). Besides the great Johnny Mann singers jingle, I used to love the Saturday afternoon 'Tales of Old San Francisco'--brought to you by Fisherman's Grotto No. 9--believe that show had a nice SF jingle too.
ReplyDelete