Wednesday, May 28, 2014

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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8 comments:

  1. I just learned you know what a "tale" is.

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  2. "...can you hold the arugula up to the microphone?" Classic! :)

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  3. Very interesting article. I like Your blog so much! Thanks!

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  4. God post, Rich. You missed one or two important points, however. First, up-and-coming "media" types like at KGO are different. One works directly as the pilot of the Cumulus black programming helicopter. This malcontent has the benefit of the title "Executive" and was hand picked by a sliding host to keep him above the tabeltop at KGO.

    Further, this misfit fast talked Cumulus right in and right out of "Huckabee" due to his discomfort for "exactness" and other-stabs-in-the dark programming dares from LA to NY from Dallas and SF are on the job app as well. Wow - "Clock evaluation".

    Oh, and a full sheet of daily topic points for producers and talent to follow to exacting measure because, "I'M RIGHT GODDAMMIT!".

    Oh, yeah. We're going talk with a little news (the resume evokes this experince, too) and it happens just as soon as the "Exec" can get it together to figure out how those "clocks" are evaluated and those "airchecks" full and parttime really fit into the mainstay of what's to be. "exactness."

    Also, the inflaming of staffers in news, board opping, talent and "upper" management comes with the fact that "Clock Evaluation" and "Aircheck Evaluation" are on the resume as well. It has not worked so well here or anywhere.

    We are, however, trying.

    Clock Evaluation is what killed Barbara Simpson at KSFO. Aircheck Evaluation will be what does Savage, Geraldo, and downwards to Weintraub (a HUGE suck-up I hear,) to Karel, to John & Jeff, to Casey Bartholomew to even the Chef.

    Bring your towels. It's going to be quite a bath.

    Don't lighten up. There's a poser in KGO stirring shit and it's now been revealed with "The Rest Of The Story" very soon. Welcome back to SF. Thanks for all you didn't quite accomplish for Cumulus in Dallas, namely, "success". Good luck.

    You'll need it..

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  5. Wow......Is sweet-jack still in business? ....LOL....no more of those ads.
    Kars-for-Kids has gone country with its spot.
    The faux-traffic & news let me down.... : (
    Not reporting ANY caltrans work or lane shutdowns.... : (
    KGO ......YOU SUCK
    Comical how the Texas faux news & traffic keeps saying "Chance of rain" tonight.
    Once they reported a completely different east coast stations news & traffic. on KGO.... Arrest in Worchester county....LOL
    Hahahahahaha.....you suck.

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  6. KGO is dead. No amount of chest pounding is ever going to bring it back. Cumulus, you fucked up major league and as a result you can count on me as a life long avoider of anything related to your brand. I would tell the folks at HQ in Atlanta to kiss my ass but they aren't worthy to lick snail shit off of the base of Gene Burns headstone.

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  7. Rich you must expand on your last part of the post "Breaking". I know the story of what you are referencing about the Huckabee "producer" from Dallas but for those who don't you have to clue them in. How this person could have been hired again by KGO is exactly what is wrong with Cumulus. They obviously did not check her references very well, did not test her to see if she actually knew what she was doing within a radio station and definitely didn't ask any long term KGO employees if they remembered her or why she was "let go" years ago. She was incompetent then, she is incompetent now and the stories I heard about her, even if only one quarter of them are true, are awesome. More Rich!

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  8. Try the alkaline water. I hear it's better for your mental health.

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