WFNX basically moved online here:
http://www.boston.com/ae/radio/
BCN also has an online presence but I think the format is a bit looser now.
And there’s satellite radio, MP3 players, podcasts, and all kinds of other new shit here in the 21st century that they didn’t have back in the OP’s vacuum-tube youth. Radio? That’s for your car if you don’t feel like plugging in your iPod or paying for XM or popping in a CD (yes, they still make those).
I’m still in mourning for WQXR in NYC. I’ve taken to listening to books on tape instead of my car radio.
Apparently his dial doesn’t go as low as 88.9. WERS rules, at least until that goddamn reggae comes on.
WQXR is at 105.9.
Anyway, you’ll get no sympathy from me, OP. At least Boston had modern rock until this summer. NYC had none, then a few months of it, then none again. We have two FM sports talk stations.
And, I disagree about AM. The only time people listen to radio anyway is in their car, and every car that I’ve ever seen has AM radio, so why not stick the talk radio there? What does it have to have “no static at all”? Save that for music.
My car doesn’t have an aux in, so no luck with the various online radio services. I may just get an HD radio for the car – there are several good HD stations in NYC.
My question is, is rock and roll as a music style really dead? NYC doesn’t have a station (only a classic rock station, that has a really limited playlist considering it has 40 years of music to choose from). It can’t help a genre to have no commercial outlet in a radio market like NYC.
I haven’t actually been in a coma for a few years, you fucking dumbass. I was using a rhetorical device to frame my rant. I was pointing out how “shocking” it would be for someone to see all the changes of the last few years all at once on the radio dial.
I can’t believe that I actually need to explain this to you.
As to your other points: Yes, of course, not being a fucking complete moron I realize that there are many reasons for the decline of terrestrial radio. I’m absolutely part of the problem, being a person who has a smartphone and listens to online radio and even listed to Sirius for a while.
That’s not what this fucking thread is about you shit licking fucksnapper. If I wanted to have a calculated discussion of the various factors in the decline of the radio market I would have opened a GD thread. The purpose of this thread was to rant and lament the loss of beloved radio stations that I miss and that’s it.
Is anything he’s writing in that article not true?
Do you think Frank is likely to get the position he covets? It’s been widely reported that he wants it. I don’t think that’s likely and I think Howie is dead on as to the reason why.
Patrick did give Marian Walsh’s husband a $113,000 a year job and did try to give her a $175,000 job.
If you think that jobs like that are handed out without favors and back scratching in mind, I have a nice bridge that I can sell you.
As to the column’s length: Brevity is the soul of wit.
Nobody thought you were actually in a coma, but you gave the distinct impression that you hadn’t listened to the radio in a while. Calm the fuck down already.
Yes, but he literally thought I was tuning in to the radio once after four years away. He even said it twice, making a big stink about it.
That’s just plain stupid, and worth mocking.
Do you agree that every government employee is a “hack”?
I don’t care about anybody’s butthurt over being passed over for a position, even if they have a media source they can go whine to and get the pleasure of seeing it in print. But that’s his act - easy, cheap, juvenile carping, going for entertainment value, not actual journalism. *That *stuff is hard.
Now: Why do *you *care? And why the *hell *do you feel *informed *by it? 
But not stupid nicknames and ethnic jokes? No, friend, brevity is the soul of having nothing to say.
First of all even Howie doesn’t call “every government employee” a hack. The term generally refers to the bureaucratic layer of government. The administrators and politicians, not the street sweepers and cops.
But yes, I think that given the high level of corruption and cronyism in MA politics I think it’s reasonable to use the term hack when referring to government officials. It’s insulting to them, but a well deserved insult.
Let’s look at the last four speakers of the House in MA:
Charles Flaherty Democratic 1991 – April 9, 1996
27th Middlesex District
Resigned - pleaded guilty to tax evasion
Thomas Finneran Democratic April 9, 1996 – September 28, 2004
12th Suffolk District
Resigned due to allegations of perjury and obstruction of justice
Salvatore DiMasi Democratic September 28, 2004 – January 27, 2009
3rd Suffolk District
Resigned - convicted of conspiracy, honest services fraud, and extortion
Robert DeLeo Democratic January 27, 2009 – Present
19th Suffolk District
Current Speaker - Hasn’t been convicted of anything yet, but give him time.
From wikipedia.
Of course his act is juvenile and entertaining. I’m not denying that. But he definitely also digs for the truth. Whitey Bulger sent a hit man to kill him who only passed up on the shot because he was with his daughter (taking her to school). You don’t get put on a hit list by the Bulger crew unless you are speaking truth to power. This was back at a time when the Boston Globe was intimidated by the Bulgers into silence.
I care because it’s good to know how our tax dollars are being wasted in MA by the corrupt and incompetent politicians. I feel informed, because without Howie there would certainly be less sunlight being shined on the shady dealings such as the Big Dig, Turnpike Authority and the recent Parole scandal.
What’s this every so offensive ethnic joke you keep referring to? Irish Alzheimers? C’mon, man. Get a sense of humor.
True, a few are his friends - the ones who feed him gossip he can turn into “reporting”, as your example shows.
Yep, you’re one of his target demographic, all right - the deliberately ignorant broadbrushers who equate entertainment with information.
Some have been corrupt, therefore they’re all hacks. :rolleyes: That’s just fucking lazy and stupid.
“The Bulger crew” etc.? So Billy is just as evil as his brother Whitey? He was in the Winter Hill Gang too? Or what the hell do you mean by that? What makes you say that - some actual evidence, or just more fucking stupid and lazy innuendo-that-passes-for-thought crap you got from talk radio? You might actually look into why Whitey killed or had killed those 19+ people - for crossing his mob, not for “speaking the truth”. Puh-leeze.
Maybe if you actually knew or talked to any, or paid attention to actual news sources instead of entertainers, you would have a right to make that claim. Oh, right, sorry - you only claim to *feel *informed, not to *be *informed. Got it. You only want to be *told *you’re smart, not actually make the effort to really get that way.
That’s the sort of humor most people grow out of by the time they get to high school. And it’s all he knows how to do to pad a column up into even the short-attention-span length of the one you cite as being among his best work.
What a fool you are. Fortunately there aren’t many more like you. You’re part of the problem and don’t even know it.
Jez, Fuck…… I want those public phone booths back, that I never used since I got a Mobil (cellphone) and no one else uses either……
Create your own fucking radio station, where you can play your dipshit-wave your hair-crap-fuckin have a shower-pseudo music that no one else listens to anyhow.
However, I’ll give you that Justin Bieber sucks …… however, he’s not techno whatsoever
Easier than that: Set up your own Pandora feed.
Yes, it’s the 21st century now. Deal with it.
As I’ve shown, the problem is far from just being “a few” that are corrupted. There is widespread corruption in MA politics. Do you dispute this? How else do you explain the last three speakers of the house all having been criminals?
There’s so much wrong here it’s difficult to know where to start.
Yes, Bulger had a “crew”. Mainly Meeks, Flemmi and others. This was separate from the Winter Hill Gang where he started his criminal career early on. By the time Whitey reached the peak of his power the Winter Hill Gang was mostly dead or in jail.
I said nothing about Billy being “just as evil” as Whitey. You just made that up.
But Billy was definitely part of the problem. He and his brother both helped eachother despite Billy’s later insistence that he was unaware of the “more horrible” crimes as he called it.
You don’t like his voice being out there because it’s a political opinion you disagree with. Just be honest and admit it. I get plenty of news from plenty of sources. Howie is one of them. Yes, he entertains, but he also informs.
Give it a rest with the faux outrage already. My grandfather was off the boat from Ireland and he had Alzheimers. If I’m not offended by the “Irish Alzheimers” line I doubt anyone would be. It’s funny. You just can’t see humor in anything Howie says because you are so blinded by your partisan hatred of him.
How many books on Whitey and Billy have you read? Have you read Hitman? The Brother’s Bulger? Black Mass? Brutal?
I’ve read them all. It’s obvious from reading your posts you don’t have the first clue what you are talking about.
I’m glad we can all at least agree on this.
But I didn’t say he was techno. He’s dance-pop. That’s what I thought and I just checked and that’s what wikipedia says too. There are two example songs on the “dance-pop” page of wikipedia and one of them is his.
I’m listening to Pandora right now. I highly recommend making a station of comprised of the Bad Brains and Orianthi. I like to give them a challenge.
I should also specifically address this:
Kevin Weeks in Brutal, p. 206.
Congratulations. You are 100% completely wrong in just about every word of that post. Well done, sir.
Your claim is “I think it’s reasonable to use the term hack when referring to government officials”. To wit, all of them. Hence my pointing out your broad brush and ignorant use thereof.
You made no distinction at all between them by ignorantly and lazily referring to “the Bulger crew” in your discussion of politics. Or are you really so ignorant that you don’t know which one was the mobster and which was the politician?
No doubt you have a fact-checkable cite for that. What’s that? You don’t? You just made that shit up, ignorantly and lazily as always?
You’re really having trouble with the concept, aren’t you? *Carr’s show is not about politics. *You’d have to be extremely ignorant and lazy to think so. But you are.
Who are the others? Dennis and Callahan? 
[quoteGive it a rest with the faux outrage already.[/quote]
It’s not outrage, merely sadness that so many are so easily fooled that they literally cannot differentiate between cheap, juvenile chuckles and investigative journalism. Like you, obviously. But it’s also sadness that someone who is probably smart enough to make a less-juvenile joke chooses not to, because it would be over the heads of his few fans.
Did you actually read your own fucking cite? Nowhere does it actually show a connection between the actions of Whitey and Billy. Nowhere. It does draw that innuendo, surely, and the ignorant and lazy no doubt think that makes it a statement of fact, but it’s still wrong.
Have you ever been diagnosed with a cognitive disorder?
That cite was in response to your claim that Whitey only killed people "for crossing his mob, not for “speaking the truth”. You know, that part that I quoted from you when I posted it, you fucking imbecile.