November 21, 2008
Sports of all sorts: bad sports and good sports
I have a talk radio problem, which I've noted to friends, family and students. Why it is that I wind up listening to 20-minutes of Lou Dobbs during the evening hours, I just don't know. Why my finger pushes 1120 AM during Rush Limbaugh's show, I cannot tell you. But it happens. Relatively often.
Not as often as I find myself shaking my head over sports talk programming. The recent loss of my first iPod and the bike's-staying-inside-kinda-temperatures has stimulated more in-car radio listening.
Now, I love the Foxhole on 1380 AM, from 10 a.m.-noon. Nominated them for a Kick Ass Award, in fact. But that's because the trio of hosts only use sports as a jumping off point for multiple other topics. According to Dan Caeser of the Post-Dispatch, the show may be on the move. Come next April, my clock/radio alarm might find a new home. Wherever the show turns up, we wish the Foxhole boys well.
On the other hand, I never feel particularly good about myself when tuning into the Kevin Slaten Show on the same station. This nightmare of a human being keeps it simple: bang on three or four topics a day, incite the angry-man contingent of listeners and take on beloved icons, whether it's logical, or not, to target them.
Yesterday, around 2:45, I happened to catch the balance of his show, which included listeners responding to his daily "rant," a feature he's been running with for quite a time. During the segment, a caller named "Trevor" (clearly affecting a stereotypically "gay" voice quality) rang up and said that Rams coach Jim Haslett was sexy, as was Slaten's voice. This, of course, lead to the predictable banter you'd expect, with Slaten eventually noting that he doesn't like gays calling and doesn't like gays.
I'd love to point to the audio clips of the show for direct confirmation of this, but links into Slaten's archive are dead today. Yesterday, the clips were up, but wouldn't play. (A common scenario with 1380's site.) Alas, as I wanted to pass along the clips to some local GLBT activists, along with the digits to KSLG's "fan line," 314-969-1380. So that people could, you know, call during noon - 3 p.m.
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As our comments section has been on the fritz for some time, the local GLBT rights organization ShowMeNoHate passed along this note for publication.
From: ShowMeNoHate
Email: ShowMeNoHate@Gmail.com
Website: ShowMeNoHate.com
Comment
I have a call into the Station Manager John Helmkamp telling him he lost a listener and will lose more listeners to his station if folks like Mr. Slaten continue their tone of hate speech.
Now before you go and jump on my back about Mr. Slaten's rights to speak freely I totally agree Mr. Slaten can use his First Amendment here - it is a talk show, I understand. But the station must weigh in if they subscribe to Mr. Slaten's policy of not liking gay people to call in the show. Just substitute Mr. Slaten's word "gay" to "Jew", "Irish" or "I just don't like Catholics." People would raise their eyebrows.
We have Free Speech but we must remember "if we make a bigot's bed, we got to sleep with them too." Kevin Slaten just opened a can of worms for the advertisers (some who many are gay friendly, I know because I frequent them); the other listeners who have gay siblings, family members or who are maybe - gay! Call the station manager John Helmkamp 314-436-3283 and tell him this leaves a bad mark on their station.
Thanks.