Fred Watch
Pastor Mac
Fred's afternoon drive show. JDI explicitly mentioned that he laid the
blame on Fred for the loss of ABX and about 4 million bucks. I suspect
that is why Fred never appears any more.
--
Pax,
Pastor Mac
On OSX
"I'd be a better Calvinist if they didn't have such a need to be right
about everything." --author Calvin Miller
rg
news:pastormac1usa-451...@news06.east.earthlink.net...
> JDI mentioned this morning a big spread in a Tucson newspaper about
> Fred's afternoon drive show. JDI explicitly mentioned that he laid
the
> blame on Fred for the loss of ABX and about 4 million bucks. I
suspect
> that is why Fred never appears any more.
Fred appeared yesterday morning. But was then told to call back in
the next hour.
4 million, on a mail order company? Where the Andrew Brothers asleep
at the switch?
Declining syndication stations should equal a decrease in
visitors/buyers of ABX goods. It sure has meant a decrease in
alt.fan.
Not counting all the trolls, of course.
rg
JunkyardBallerina
>"Pastor Mac" <pastor...@yahoo.com>
>> Fred's afternoon drive show. JDI explicitly mentioned that he laid
>the blame on Fred for the loss of ABX and about 4 million bucks. I
>suspect that is why Fred never appears any more.
>
>Fred appeared yesterday morning. But was then told to call back in
>the next hour.
>
>4 million, on a mail order company? Where the Andrew Brothers asleep
>at the switch?
>Declining syndication stations should equal a decrease in visitors/buyers of
ABX goods. It sure has meant a decrease in
>alt.fan.
>
>Not counting all the trolls, of course.
>rg
Imus and his scapegoats. He can't take that his name didn't fly with that
overpriced stuff.
He always liked pointing out what a loyal friend he is, yet he said something
like that on national radio about his own brother.
Low and mean.
JunkyardBallerina
>Date: 7/13/2004 11:11 AM Pacific Daylight Time
>Message-id: <jps-66C442.1...@news2.west.earthlink.net>
>
>X-No-Archive: Yes
>In article <20040713132745...@mb-m28.aol.com>,
> imagi...@aol.comnofunk (JunkyardBallerina) wrote:
>```````````
>> Imus and his scapegoats. He can't take that his name didn't fly with that
>> overpriced stuff.
>> He always liked pointing out what a loyal friend he is, yet he said
>something
>> like that on national radio about his own brother.
>> Low and mean.
>
>suspect that in the mind of don Don, this passes as humor.
>
>there is, after all, no accounting for....well, you know the routine.
```````````
From The Yabbut Dept:
Yer mind reading skills are sorely lacking, as has been demonstrated time an'
time again.
JunkyardBallerina
>Date: 7/14/2004 8:24 AM Pacific Daylight Time
>Message-id: <jps-0072B9.0...@news2.west.earthlink.net>
>
>X-No-Archive: Yes
>
>In article <20040713220518...@mb-m14.aol.com>,
> imagi...@aol.comnofunk (JunkyardBallerina) wrote:
>
>`````
>> From The Yabbut Dept:
>>
>> Yer mind reading skills are sorely lacking, as has been demonstrated time
>an'
>> time again.
>
>
>lisZa, you went and did it. you dignified me again! don't you know
>what you're doing to my self-esteem????
>
Not to worry. I'll get yerself steamed again soon.
Pat Alder
http://www.dailystar.com/dailystar/accent/29208.php
Don's brother lives in a Tucson 'barking-dog trailer park' and hosts a
show with Nicole Cox, who does all the work
By Tom Beal
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
Meeting the faces behind those suave male and sexy female voices on
the radio can be disappointing.
With Fred Imus, whose voice is heard on KJLL (1330-AM) every weekday
from 1 to 3 p.m., what you hear matches the man you meet in person.
His face, like his voice, is cured in sun, dust and cigarette smoke.
The off-air personality matches the on-air persona. He's a somewhat
premature (age 62) codger - laconic, homespun, occasionally
outrageous.
The curmudgeonly Western image he exuded for years in regular phone
calls from his home in Santa Fe to his brother Don's nationally
syndicated radio show is what attracted Lynn Wade to him.
"I just thought he sounded so cute," said Wade, who was painting horse
pictures from her studio in Taos when she first heard his voice.
She also saw a commercial opportunity and drove to Santa Fe to leave a
business card, offering to paint a horse portrait for Fred's famous
brother. She ended up painting the horses of Don, his wife and his
son. And she hooked up with Fred, marrying him two years later.
The two are now separated by geography and meteorological preference.
She loves humidity, so she lives and paints in Ocala, Fla. Imus loves
the dryness of the Southwest and wandered first to Texas and New
Mexico after his mail-order business in Santa Fe - salsa, chips,
T-shirts and other "Auto Body Express" artifacts shamelessly promoted
on his brother's show - went belly-up.
He now lives in Tucson, in a blankety-blank (not his words) "fifth
wheel in a little barking-dog trailer park" near Interstate 10, having
parted ways, not broken vows, with Wade.
"She's a bull-headed woman," said Fred Imus, "and I guess I am, too.
We just out-bullheaded each other. She doesn't like the desert and, as
some people point out, maybe she doesn't like me."
When he soured on Santa Fe - "Those yuppie bastards up there, for
God's sake, it's the worst place on the planet" - Imus want back into
radio, spinning country tunes in Ruidoso, N.M. Then he wrangled a deal
to co-host "Out West" with Tucson radio personality Nicole Cox on the
scrappy independent station that calls itself "The Jolt."
Tune in the Jolt in the morning and you'll hear Don Imus presiding
over a drive-time mix of off-beat comedy, commentary and interviews
with nationally prominent media and political guests. "Imus in the
Morning" broadcasts from New York City to an estimated 15 million
listeners at 100 radio stations.
Tune back in at 1 p.m. and you get Fred Imus and Nicole Cox, chatting
with Tucson City Council members Fred Ronstadt or Kathleen Dunbar
about garbage fees and potholes.
"We're not ever gonna get the guests that Don gets," Imus said. "Oh,
they'll do it once for a favor, but they'll never do it again." Fred
Imus knows he's riding Don's coattails and that kind of thing only
goes so far.
Syndication of "Out West," something station manager Pat Johnston
thinks is possible, would improve his draw, Imus said, but he has some
doubts about whether that will happen, despite the plugs he gets on
his big brother's show.
That's part of the reason he's living in that fifth wheel out by
Houghton and I-10. "I can see the Interstate," he said. "I know if I
want to get out of town, I can do it in 15 minutes."
In the meantime, he's enjoying his daily dose of local radio fame,
jousting with Cox, wandering off subject, ignoring his guests and
occasionally spouting language the Federal Communications Commission
has begun cracking down on since that little Super Bowl incident with
Janet Jackson's breast.
A couple weeks back, Imus and Cox began their show with an apology for
the language they'd used the day before. Imus had tried to lure a
junior CNN correspondent he was interviewing into agreeing with him
that CNN anchor Paula Zahn is a famous "witch," or a word something
like that. Ultimately, Cox joined in, saying at one point that station
manager Johnston could "just shove it. . . ." Well, you get the
picture.
"Thank God, Pat (Johnston) has a great sense of humor," said Cox, who
blamed Imus' influence for her outburst. "Fred has this attitude where
he wants you to look at him and say (something else we can't say in
the newspaper)."
Listen to Cox and Imus banter, and you get the impression that Cox is
carrying the show - doing all the homework, lining up the guests,
asking the intelligent questions and keeping track of the clock.
That impression would be substantially correct.
"Sometimes," said Imus, "you're interviewing people I have no interest
in. You know what I'm able to do. I can think about something else and
not hear a word they're saying. I like to think that's one of my
talents."
Each day's show is a work in progress. You'll hear Imus asking Cox
what to do next. You'll hear the show bleed over into the news
broadcast and you'll occasionally hear dead air.
"Fred has cured me of my desire to have radio as a career," said Cox,
who continually chides her co-host for being unprepared and often
quizzes him on who today's guests will be, with predictable results.
Talk radio isn't easy, said Imus. He has a natural inclination toward
laziness and he doesn't get a lot of help. While his brother has a
staff of comedy writers, Fred's show doesn't even have a producer. Cox
has to leave her mic to answer and screen the phone calls.
She had to field a lot of them after Imus, in talking about Michael
Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11," called President Bush a "criminal." When a
man called to say that was the stupidest of many stupid things Imus
had said, Imus called him a "moron" and hung up.
Imus, meanwhile, is muddling through his new vocation. He's done about
15 years in radio, but that was spinning country records.
"Doing talk radio is a stretch," he said. "You have to have someone
like Nicole, even though I pretty much hate her. Sometimes she yells
at me just for no reason, but I know she's probably just retaining
water that day. She's made me lazier than I already am," Imus said.
It's part shtick and part genuine. Both will soften their comments
about each other, at least briefly.
"Don't let Fred fool you," she said. "He is a news junkie. He watches
TV all the time. Of course, he has nothing else to do."
That's certainly the case this summer. Fred has jammed his earthly
possessions into the fifth wheel parked in an unshaded corner of a
"resort" RV park that has mostly emptied for the summer. Some of his
possessions have spilled outside in boxes tucked beneath the trailer.
On the air, prodded by Cox and Western actor Don Collier, who is a
regular guest, Imus blamed the condition of his trailer on his German
shepherd "attack" dog, P'sok. He's just not keeping up his side of the
trailer, Imus said.
Despite the rather bleak existence, Imus said he likes Tucson so far,
complimenting it as "a place where you can fit in."