Here in Chicago, we have just begun out annual city Civil War – that between the North Side Cub fans and the South Side White Sox fans. Over the past couple of decades, the “friendly” rivalry has turned uglier with the Cubs winning a couple of divisions but being unable to make the World Series, and of course, the Sox’ title in 2005. But I can’t remember anyone being hospitalized, yet.
The same cannot be said for the rivalry between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the San Francisco Giants. Before the game, a Giants fan hired a plane to fly over the stadium waving a banner that read: “Dodgers still suck. From SF champs fans,” which apparently got the crowd really going.
The home team delivered a 2-1 victory which should have fueled the general good feelings that come with Opening Day all over the country, but two cretins wearing Dodger gear attacked three Giants fans and one was critically beaten.
According to police reports, two men attacked the trio in the parking lot after the game, kicking and punching them and shouting expletives about the Giants during the beating. The attack left one victim hospitalized in critical but stable condition with a serious head injury. The attackers are still at large, and the mayors of the two cities condemned the violence (as you would expect they would).
Two points here – first, I’ve been to San Francisco and even been to Giants games and the stereotype that SF fans are of the wine and brie set isn’t far from the truth. I can’t see them being very unruly. (I should also say that I’ve been to an NFL game in Oakland, and that is a scary experience if you’re not rooting for the home team. I’ve said that it’s like going to a college football game, but at a college where all of the students are Hell’s Angels.)
Second, it is different having both teams in not only the same league, but in the same division. If the Cubs and Sox were in the same division, the emotions that are high during the season and heightened during the Cubs Sox interleague series, would be even greater.
Anyway, I know that there have been fights over the Cubs and White Sox. I guess we have to be lucky that no one has been seriously hurt (to my knowledge; if I’m wrong, let me know.) Still, I am as emotional as any fan with my favorite teams and hated rivals, but it isn’t worth a fight (although the Indignant Wife is chuckling – she has seen me nearly physically restrained at Northwestern football games).

I was extremely busy last week and the Indignant Oldest Daughter is on spring break so the family and I were out of town earlier this week, but while I was away, I saw the USA Today print something that had to come directly from the NCAA.
Wednesday’s paper (which was free in the hotel we were staying in) had a front page article saying that the free throw that Arizona’s Derrick Williams made at the end of the school’s last game to propel them into the Final Four earned the school and the Pac-10 Conference $1.4 million, and should he be entitled to some of it? A valid point and one that I have raised here and my other sports outlets for years; the players are unpaid “help” and “room and board” are not enough when the colleges, universities, and conferences make millions off tickets, television, parking, food, jerseys and souvenirs. The article points out that while the NCAA’s new president Mark Emmert is against paying players, he is for “boosting” benefits, like perhaps getting to own their images used in video games and other revenues.
It was an OK article, but in the sports section, the paper did an “analysis” that players average the equivalent of $120,000 per year including scholarships. Of course, this “analysis” counts $70,000 in “coaching” meaning that the players are getting this amount of value from the coaching they receive. But these coaches are not doing this from the goodness of their hearts, they are multimillionaires who benefit from the work that the players put in, but none of the money they reap from the games.
Then, last night, I saw a little bit of HBO’s “REAL Sports with Bryant Gumbel” and they had a panel discussion with former Michigan head football coach Rich Rodriguez, CBS college basketball analyst Billy Packer, and sportswriter Jason Whitlock. I didn’t see it all, but Whitlock said what is obvious – that the players see the huge money, but don’t receive any of it, and many of them are not prepared for college other than their sport (and probably wouldn’t be there if there weren’t age limits in the NBA and NFL). The model isn’t working – people are not being educated; coaches and schools are reaping enormous rewards, and if the player doesn’t make the pros, when their eligibility is done – see ya! Packer stood up for the status quo and Rodriguez said very little, which is to be expected since he is out of work and looking for another coaching job.
What I always fail to count in my argument is that these kids, and they are kids, have their images on magazines and programs, but I forgot things like NCAA Football video games, where these kids are depicted, just like the pros are, but unlike pros, they don’t get any money for it. The schools get money for licensing their logos. Jerseys, etc., but the players get nothing, or they get to barter jerseys and other items in return for “services” like the Ohio State five.
The current huge money grab that the conferences and universities is unprecedented only is its size and in the way the monetary numbers are public knowledge. The kids see the numbers thrown around, and they aren’t stupid (and often neither are their parents). That’s why I didn’t come down on Cam Newton, the Auburn quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner whose father reportedly asked and received over $100,000 to get the young man to enroll. The money’s there; and you should get your share of it. Besides, you get hurt, and it’s over.

The first thing that the NCAA schools say is that the scholarship athletes get an education and room-and-board, and today, even state schools cost $20,000 per year. Add the housing and food, and your talking about $40,000 or much more. However, I have never been able to understand how the schools put a value on the room and board? They own the properties; they are non-for-profit organizations, so they save money there. They have to pay for food, and electric, and staff to keep everything running, but I think that they schools are making money on “room and board” it isn’t just a zero-sum situation.
The more important issue is the hypocrisy that schools are teaching their students: it’s OK to let athletes into a school knowing full well that they don’t have the teaching required to stay in school. So, the schools cheat – giving them easy courses, tutors (including those who do work in the students’ names) – anything to keep them eligible and playing. And the NCAA is like Sisyphus – rolling that rock up the hill only to watch it roll down again. Understaffed (purposefully?), the NCAA can’t police the universities effectively, which is convenient for the schools. Boosters can make sure money makes it to students and their parents. The better the talent – Cam Newton, Reggie Bush, the more money flows, hidden.
So, money is flowing under the table, let’s get it out in the open, and it’s long past time the archaic NCAA rules are updated. What would happen if there were simple, up-to-date rules to follow and enough NCAA investigators to “police” the schools?
Rick Telander’s ideas in his book “The Hundred Yard Lie” were simple – instead of making athletes go to class, admit that at many schools, sports is their job or subject of study. So, let them play, but for every year the play, they get a voucher of one year of school. Then, if they don’t make the NBA, or NFL, they could come back to their school and get the education they are owed. At 18, these young men don’t understand the value of an education; and with the voucher plan, they schools would be forced to educate their athletes, either today or someday.
Will change actually happen? I don’t know. You have the big money schools who have the money to make the rules. On the other side, young athletes, often from poor backgrounds; they have neither the money nor resources to challenge the rules. They can’t fight except with their labor (and they can’t unionize). And we, the college sports fans pay for tickets, watch the games; buy the merchandise that greases this unholy wheel. Yes, I support Northwestern – they graduate their athletes, play according to the rules, etc. But we’re playing in the same pool with the other Division I schools,. Perhaps the cleanest programs are those in the League, no scholarships, all club sports. No huge money there. The rest of the schools are as dirty as the poor animals in the Gulf of Mexico.

I have an iPhone and I have a few apps on it. One that gets a lot of action from me when I have a few minutes on downtime is a Solitaire card program (I won’t mention the manufacturer). Just like real cards, the “cards” don’t’ get shuffled well after you win, so, you often have to “shuffle” the deck several times before you get a playable game. I win about 13% of the time, which I would think is about common.
Anyway, phone apps have updates, and I routinely update the applications on my phone when they show up. So, I did that this week for my applications, and the Solitaire was also updated. OK , fine – usually I don’t pay much attention (nor take the time to write about something so banal). But now, this game has a new button when you want to “shuffle the deck” – it is called “Winning Deal.” What is this? A “guaranteed winning deal?” How can they guarantee that? How do you know the person can play well enough to win?
More important, is this another example of people needing instant gratification? Do we need to win immediately instead of working for it?
A minute thing, but is this another sign of the endless ego boost that modern man needs? Just askin’.

WXRT Morning DJ Lin Brehmer responded to my posts and here is his comments unedited:

“Many of your assessments are erroneous. Hyperbole masquerading as facts. I understand why you would do that but don’t expect people to react well. Here’s the problem. We play more music than any other commercial station in any major market anywhere. The impetus to change is difficult when we are enjoying the best ratings and audience response in our 37 year history.

Close to one million people will tune into XRT next week.”

Lin – I love you – you’re great and funny. BUT, as an astute viewer of pop culture like yourself knows – JUST BECAUSE SOMETHING’S POPULAR, DOESN’T MAKE IT GOOD!!! (i.e. “American Idol,” the “Twilight” books and movies)

Sincerely,

Tony

Long time readers know that I have been a critic of WXRT for a very long time; however, I had not posted anything here on the subject recently. Part of my continued rants at the station was personal – I had sent two different letters to Norm Winer at the station and never received any reply. Like Glenn Close’s character in “Lethal Attraction,” “I will not be ignored here!”
Anyway, over the past few weeks, it seems like more people have found the site here and have read what I had to say and agreed. What’s more, three different people have e-mailed me in the past few weeks telling me that they agree with my opinion on the station. One of my correspondents gave me the e-mail address of John Farneda, program director at the station. After my first comment, he sent me a message thanking me for my comments and nothing more. OK – I figured, I have gotten my message across, end of story. But, as I’ve gotten a couple more correspondents, I figured I would copy Mr. Farneda so that he could see that I was not the only person who was passionately disappointed in the station. My e-mail friend Ira, who gave me John’s e-mail address also wrote a five page letter to the CBS corporate offices in New York and urged me to do the same, but I refused because: first, he had no contact person to write to at CBS, so it was going to end up in a wastebasket somewhere. Furthermore, the corporation wasn’t going to listen to us. They “knew better” and nothing would change and I have more important things to do than be a radio Don Quixote tilting at windmills.
Cut to last Tuesday, March 15th. I received an e-mail from an attorney (I’ll call him “Attorney Tony”) who had read my rants, agreed and wanted to tell me so. I have been forwarding my comments to John Farneda (and occasionally DJ Lin Brehmer) because I felt that it might be good for Farneda to see that I wasn’t the only person who feels the pay I do – disappointed but passionate enough about the station to want it to improve. This time, however, we had quite the e-mail pissing match, which I will print for you here with limited editing and an occasional comment by me in parentheses….
ATTORNEY TONY: From one ‘Tony’ to another, I very much agree with your sentiments about XRT. However, I think they were really good in the mid-80s. The featured artist card was very cool and they did play some great new music back then. I suspect that they loop their music now as it seems you hear the same djs every day at different times. Do you have any insights on this? (I know that this is not the case.)Most importantly, I don’t think a day goes by where they don’t play Billy Idol at least once (either “White Wedding” or “Dancin’ with myself”) and something by Peter Gabriel but only from the Red Rain album twice (actually the album was titled “So”). Like WLUP, it seems they stopped buying records at some point in the 80s. It is amazing that a city like Chicago has two really lame alternative stations. I am not sure what xrt would even classify itself as now. Finally the number of commercials is extremely lame. Sorry, one more: enough with the Beatles already. Write some more on this as they need to be beaten with sticks, as Roger Simon used to say in the Sun Times, many years ago.
ME: Thanks for reading and contacting me. I don’t know what’s happening – I wrote my blogs about the station over a year ago, but people are finding them. As I’ve said, the suits have taken over and the listeners are too cozy not being challenged to really make a fuss. I think the problem is that the station only plays the same 3-4 songs by every artists on their playlist (with the exception of the Beatles, of course). With all of the old and new material by people like Elvis Costello, Graham Parker, Marshall Crenshaw and so many others, there is so many songs that they could play – surprise and delight the listeners instead of being rock and roll wallpaper.Maybe it’s time to post another comment on my site. I will be forwarding your message to WXRT management. Maybe we are starting the radio equivalent of the Wisconsin protests? (OK – not that serious).
At this point – Mr. Farneda makes his presence known:
FARNEDA: Could I ask where you two Tonys work?
ME: I work for a bank. Why?
FARNEDA: My real point is that I have a job. I go to work, do what I am expected to do and then I go home and live my life. How wrong would it be for me to criticize how you do your job? Especially since you don’t work for me and I don’t even know you. I just don’t think it’s very nice. My opinion.
ME: Yes, you have a job, and how many complaints have been lobbied at the banking industry over the past several years? That said, you are in a public media, and maybe it’s the people about you that make the station suck? However, it is far short of what it could be. We pass on these comments it the hope, however misguided, that something can be done. If not, we will watch the station’s continued descent into further irrelevance and eventual decay. So, if you don’t want to hear complaints from the customers, get out of the people business.
ATTORNEY TONY: Hello John. I only sent my first e-mail to Tony F. I did not send to the Station. However, I don’t think our first two emails were out of line. I have only sent XRT an e-mail once before about ten years ago and it was about the same in tone. No response then. So I was kind of excited when I got your response, but then disappointed when I read the content.
I am probably a bit idealistic or naive, but I still feel that FM radio should ascribe to be an artistic form. When I listen to K-EXP out of Seattle, oftentimes I will buy something that I hear. I have been turned on to so much new music by that station. I would like to think that a city like Chicago, a much better city that Seattle, should have a truly great Rock/Indie/Alt station, other than a college station. It is not like a restaurant. I realize that the station wants and needs to make a profit, but I think the margins that Westinghouse (if they still own it) (actually CBS) seeks, which I believe is a 20% increase in revenue a year, is unrealistic and causes damage to the station. it can’t be achieved without destroying the format. I think the format has been trashed but no one will admit it.
You guys still ascribe to be ‘Chicago’s finest rock”, which is impossible probably under the constraints that Group W imposes on you. I used to be a DJ for WPGU Rock 107, Urbana Champaign for about a year back in college in the late 80s. It really woke me up to what a petty business the radio business had morphed into by that time. I imagine it is ten times worse now. I found it offensive and misleading to the public that we had to play music picked out by some consulting group that had nothing to do with the DJs. We all remember WKRP Cincinnati. What a great show that was. I really thought djs would pick all their own music and try to set the mood for their listeners. They probably did pick all their own music back in the 70s and 80s, and you guys probably did up until you were bought out by Westinghouse in the mid 90s.
I know it is your job and such and I can understand your feelings getting hurt by our comments. It was not my intent to do so. It would be great to hear a DJ rip the needle across an overplayed song, like “White Wedding” and say the station has now been reconquered by the Independents. Remember when Johnny Fever did that on an KRP episode when they got rid of disco? Maybe if I get really rich someday I will buy the station back with some friends and play some cool music again that no one has ever heard before. That would be nice, wouldn’t it?
“FM, no static at all!!!”
I still have some great memories associated with XRT from the old days. It did convince me to buy a lot of albums back in the day. I think the first three R.E.M.s albums, I went out and bought in ’84 with my first paycheck from K-Mart. Those were the days.
FARNEDA: If we suck so much, why not turn us off and listen to something better? If I go to a favorite restaurant and the food quality begins to slide, I might say something to management about it. If it doesn’t change, I’ll find another place to eat. I won’t keep bothering management in the hopes they will change their entire menu based on the complaints of a few people. That is unrealistic. for every person that doesn’t like something, there is someone who does. No need for me to get out of the business anymore than I would suggest YOU get out of your business. It’s my job and I’m pretty good at it. If you persist; I’ll just have your emails labeled as spam and I won’t have to read your weekly negative comments.
“maybe it’s the people about you that make the station suck? (is that even a sentence?)
“we will watch the station’s continued descent into further irrelevance and eventual decay” really? Don’t you have better use of your time?
Hope you find a station you like to listen to.
ME: As I commented in my earlier e-mail to you, I have over 30 years invested in this station (more I dare say than you have) I have an iPod which I listen to at work, but I don’t (use it) in the car nor in the morning when I want to hear the news and weather.
Besides, I’ve met Lin, and I’ve been on XRT trips with TM and Teri, and they know how calcified the station is, but, like you, have jobs to protect. Simply put, we would like the station to better than it is. If we could find a better station or regular radio, we’d find it. But we’d rather support our local old station. Obviously, you care nothing about your listeners. Trust me, I will make sure that lots of people learn about your attitude by posting these letters, your e-mail address and the corporate address on my website and put that out on Facebook.
The station has a very loyal listenership, maybe dulled into submission. Another correspondent, who got me your e-mail address in the first place took time to write a 5 page letter to CBS corporate to suggest improvements. I am copying him on this e-mail as well. Ira had pushed me to write the corporate headquarters myself, but I thought that it was a useless exercise. Obviously, with middle management like you unwilling to listen, commenting is a waste of time and energy.
Maybe you are pretty good at your job – I never made it personal about you, I thought that you’d like to know. Still, playing the same 300 songs every day, or only being adventurous at night when your older demographic is sleeping or doing something else (isn’t taking care of your customers). Make it (my e-mails) spam; stop listening to anyone who doesn’t caress your ego. (Broken off when I accidentally hit send button.)
FARNEDA: WOW. You’re pretty rude to someone you don’t even know and you HAVE personally attacked me.
To quote you….
“I have over 30 years invested in this station (more I dare say than you have).” I’ve worked here for over 25 years and listened even longer.
“Obviously, with middle management like you unwilling to listen, commenting is a waste of time and energy.” Dismissive
“Maybe you are pretty good at your job” – I never made it personal about you,
“stop listening to anyone who doesn’t caress your ego.” You don’t think that is a personal attack?
Forward my emails to anyone you like. Are you hoping to get me in some kind of trouble? When you are my boss at XRT, I’ll be happy to program it as you direct me to.
Until then, thanks for your well written and constructive e-mails. Sorry that we are not the station you want us to be. we’ll try harder.
ME: WOW – you’d think that everyone loves the station so much – the ratings would be higher if that were true. Anyway, let’s take them one at a time….
You have over 25 years with the station, so you remember the bad old days when every third song was by Tom Petty or the Pretenders, and the black music ban. Now, as Jim DeRogadis has written, the station is never more than 10 minutes away from a Talking Heads song (and one of your DJs intimated to me that it hurt him more than it did me, the listener).
My comments about middle management were after you attacked me. I think that the “conventional wisdom” of 21st Century radio is the problem and how much you can do is probably limited, but I wanted to let you know what some people are saying.
I’ll never have the millions of dollars required to own a major radio station. I would think that you would appreciate people who care enough about the station to want to say something.
No matter how good the station is, you can’t please everybody. However, as I’ve written before, can’t someone please open up the playlist? I saw the request website and it’s three songs by each artist. Maybe one of the DJs will play something different, but how about the Drive (which isn’t good) with their no repeat days or weeks? I love Joe Jackson, but I can’t listen to “Is She Really Going Out With Him” again.
How disrespectful is that?
FARNEDA: There is no artist that gets played every third song. (unless they are the feature for the day on Fridays).
“10 minutes away from the next Talking Heads song” is a gross exaggeration. Simply not true.
One of our DJs intimated you? Ok…….
I do appreciate feedback from listeners however your comments are getting offensive.
So with that. I will stop now.
ME: “Seems like” every third song. And the DJ intimated TO me that….
And I thought particularly my last couple of comments were an attempt to pull away from being offensive….
Oh well,….

I had work to do at this point so here is where the correspondence ended. My final comment is below

After the online shouting ended, I was going to come here and write a post titled “Talkin’ ‘Bout a Revolution?” I was going to urge everyone who used to listen to WXRT, or who were getting tired the same old station to e-mail Mr. Farneda (john@wxrt.com) or write CBS like my online pen pal Ira did (CBS Corporation, 40 West 57th Street, New York, NY 10019). But this is pointless – they aren’t going to listen. The radio like Elvis Costello sang about 33 years ago is there to “anesthetize the way that you feel.”
But before I end, I just want to make two points. We complain because, much like a sports franchise, is a public trust. These are the public airways, and therefore, we have a right to comment, even though we don’t know the people there personally. When Mike Quade or Ozzie Guillen make a bad decision on the field, or we disagree with the Wirtz family for something the Blackhawks did, or something John Paxson did with the Bulls, we complain. Some do via letters and e-mails; some call radio sports shows; most just curse at the morning paper or commiserate with their friends and coworkers. We don’t know Mike Quade, or Ozzie Guillen (although I did know him a little when he was a player). We don’t know Rocky Wirtz or Jerry Reinsdorf or John Paxson, or any of the other sports players and front office people. But we complain, and they know that this goes with the territory.
Mr. Farneda has over 25 years with the same station, as do many of the staff and DJs of WXRT. That is unprecedented in the radio industry – no one ever stays with one station that long, and like so many of us, they want to hold on to their jobs until they retire, and the best way to do that is to put in your time, do what you’re told, keep your mouth shut and make no waves. (Reminds me of the “Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2” segment in the film “Pink Floyd; The Wall” – grinding the children through huge meat grinders making people mush.)
This of course, reminds me of the old ladies who worked at the school cafeteria in their little hair nets. They knew the food they served every day was bland at best; horrible at worst, but it was their job to serve up the slop – eat it or go away. Unless there were restaurants nearby that you could walk to, or if you had access to a car to drive and get lunch, or brought lunch from home, you had no choice.
And that’s where we are long time fans of WXRT – listen or find something else, because we have to keep our phony baloney jobs. But there is nothing else on free radio. The other stations have just as restrictive number of songs, but with fewer artists to pull from. We could go to satellite radio, or use our iPods, or just keep on listening to WXRT. Those are our choices unless we have the millions of dollars to buy WXRT.
I know that I will never have enough money to buy the station. If I did win the lottery, I would probably buy a small station and program it in the way I want (like the film “Pirate Radio” – Public Enemy and Parliament and James Brown interspersed with Elvis Costello and The Who and lots of rock. My station would never play the same song for days. We would thoroughly play lots of songs that never get played on the radio. Of course, if I did win enough to buy a small station like this, I would have to make sure that I have enough to keep it going on my own because I wouldn’t want input from record companies or sponsors. It might not survive long – but by God, it wouldn’t be boring.
But, if anything this has taught me is, you can’t fight city hall, or CBS Corporation. They don’t want to hear what we have to say, and neither do their local employees who hold on to their jobs. As long as the bottom line remains black, that’s the point. And, as I said, WXRT has very loyal customers who think that the radio version of an old comfy blanket, even if the blanket is frayed and full of holes, is better than nothing. “WXRT could be turned into a country station tomorrow, and then what would we do” they cry.
The ultimate fault lays with us, the listeners. We allow them to program the slop; they tell us what we want. Ira and I and Attorney Tony and others have tried to comment to no avail. Until we DIRECTLY sign the staff’s paychecks, we have a choice – take it or leave it.
I know of a few people who live and die by WXRT and I want to scream at them don’t you get tired of the same songs over and over again with only an occasional difference? They look at me like they don’t know what I’m talking about – radio zombies.
So John, you win. I will never bother you again. I hope you continue in your position until you retire and all your bills get paid.
But I will take your advice – I will no longer listen and I will no longer complain to you, Lin, or anyone else about WXRT.
CLICK!