Normalcy Shall Persevere
Life As We Know It Goes On. Whew!
Yesterday the issue at hand was this: if there would be a meeting in the World Series of The Chicago Cubs and The Boston Red Sox, then life as we know it would cease to exist.
Birds would no longer fly, gravity would stop working, there would be peace in the Middle East, and Bill & Hillary would go back to sleeping in the same bed.
Now that the sad event has come once more for long-suffering Cubs fans, we can rest assured that there will not be a Series in which neither of the two teams can possibly win.
I guess those predictions of mine bit the dust big time, eh? Recent guest blogger Len Scafiddi [1] gets big time kudos. He's the only one I know who predicted the Marlins over the Cubs in 7.
We Agree To Disagree
In the last post to this blog I pointed out how it seems that almost 100% of the time, when I read Natalie Davis' blog [2], I am agrement with Natalie's take on the issues of the day.
Oops. I spoke too soon. Not so this time.
Now we are diametrically opposed on something near and dear to my heart. A matter of great importance to me. A matter I take seriously, and is of great concern. Although I can respect Natalie's opinion, it was shocking, actually appalling to see it take up space over in her otherwise excellent blog.
But in the interest of fairness and the right to express opinions even if they make one quake to the bone, you can look here [3] and see what Natalie said.
Who woulda thunk?
Rush To Judgment
Noted Big Fat Idiot [4] Rush Limbaugh had a bad week. This is the guy who almost single-handedly revived hundreds of failing AM radio stations. His brand of truly entertaining talk show radio, in which he espouses conservative politics couched in lies and hyperbole [5], has earned him a remarkable amount of fame and fortune.
Obviously, for Rush, money isn't everything. It didn't buy him health or happiness.
Although his political positions are anathema to me, I have always held him in great respect as a Radio Guy. Rush uses Top 40 Formatics in his talk presentation. He plays the hits over and over, and has a good sense of which oldies to repeat, and what stories are "recurrent" in popularity.
Agree or disagree with him, the man is entertaining and a wonderful communicator.
His spectacular rise to fame and fortune --albeit with the help, guidance and business sense of a former ABC Radio exec named Ed McLaughlin [6], who took Rush under his wing and transformed him from a one-station/small pond bigfish to the big markets, and managed to syndicate him all over the country and paved the way for Rush to originate his show from the WABC studios in New York City-- gave him the tools and the exposure to expand in to all sorts of ventures.
There was the Limbaugh Letter, a syndicated TV show, and all those public appearances. He was out on the road all the time, speaking to audiences, entertaining them and making wonderful money in speaker fees. He published a couple [7] of books [8] (both of which are out of print, while books debunking [9] his BS remain in print!), and built a small empire.
This is the man who proudly repeated the boast, day after day, over the airwaves of hundreds of radio stations, that he was one with formerly nicoteine stained fingers. Yes, Rush the paragon of virtue, the strong-willed man who had beaten the devil, and quit smoking cigarettes.
He grew larger than the show, and was able to move out of New York to a huge spread in Palm Beach County, Florida. Custom studios were built for the show, and the Rush Machine just continued and continued.
Then came the football fiasco. Limbaugh claimed a black player was coddled by the liberal media. What a gaffe on his part. Liberal, shmiberal! Outside of the normal confines of his network, his show, his loyal and partisan audience, Rush blew it big-time. Sports fans were not so quick to just accept anything the big man had to say. Nor were some of his fellow on-air commentators (although they did keep their mouths shut a little embarrassingly too long, clearly worried over the political fallout of a scandal and dissension among the on-air ranks).
So he loses the football gig. No big deal, really, this could be great fuel for the fire and content for his radio program. That audience would just eat up the whole "liberals are the enemy, they are why I lost the football gig" hokum.
About two years ago the radio industry was all abuzz regarding a big change in the timbre of Rush's voice. He sounded unusual, and there was also a stir regarding some talk stations using special equipment to speed up voice content yet not so much that it would sound odd ... all this to squeeze in some extra commercial time without having to sacrifice any of the content.
Turns out that most stations running the show did so without such equipment. And Rush still sounded pretty weird. The opinions and the banter were the same, but the voice quality was different. A pronounced, stark difference.
Big, bold Rush made a statement [10]. He had an unusual auto-immune malady, and was going deaf. "There's something more going on than that," he said. "I have been through every conceivable medical test and exam this summer you can imagine. All those times that you thought I was on vacation or playing golf, I've been in an MRI machine or getting blood drawn, or on a stress EKG machine or at a cardiologist, wherever, hearing aid doctor, the hearing doctor, where have you."
Special surgery was in order, to remedy the situation. A few months after the deafness announcement, Limbaugh told his faithful that he would undergo cochlear implant surgery. The surgery was done and declared a major success. There was some controversy over the procedure [11], but in the long run, it restored his voice to a more normal tone, and enabled him to do the show and resume much of the life he'd had before the problem arose.
Rush the Hero! The man who not only quit smoking, but also had risky surgery and could hear again! What a guy!
Rush the entertainer who damned Jerry Garcia as a no-good druggie, who lambasted the addict and Baseball player Daryl Strawberry as a hopeless, overpaid nogoodnik. Rush who took Bill Clinton to task for being a liar. He used his daily forum to trash these and other people who fell from what he might consider grace.
Looks like Rush was an expert on all those things. He knew of what he spoke.
Druggie, Addict, Liar.
Rush Limbaugh. What goes around comes around.
Rush will be back. His media skills will prove out, and that loyal audience will welcome his return, and forgive him his transgressions. He will not be the first to come back from The Hall of Shame or infamy. Marv Albert came back from personal scandal. New York TV weatherman Tex Antoinne managed to come back after managing to offend nearly every woman in the audience with a warped attempt at rape humor.
Even Rush's nemesis, Bill Clinton, the scandalized President, is enjoying a healthy run as a statesman, party leader, and all-around bon vivant and highly sought public speaker.
The public forgives its heroes. Even a big fat liar drug-addicted hypocrite like Rush Limbaugh.
But it remains a good bet he won't be returning anytime soon as a football commentator.