What a huge day. It was a year ago
today that I walked into work and found myself
jobless....
What were you thinking? The
election? This journal is about ME - ME - ME - ME! Who
cares about the "election"?
The truth of the matter is, I've
been planning this entry for a full year now, and then
a truly historic event falls right into the spotlight.
As a former talk show host, I've been salivating at
the chance to get on the air and yell at
everyone...because EVERYONE is PISSING - ME -
OFF. People spouting their beliefs SOLELY along party
lines is just getting pathetic. Am I the only
person on the planet with no party affiliation? Am
I the only one seeing through every accusation
and theory? Who knows.
So the true reason for this entry,
but now just the first reason....CD101. It's amazing,
a full year later, and it still haunts me. Every
aspect of the situation has effected me long after
most people have let it go. I will admit I am
overanalytical to a fault many times. I have never
gotten into the specifics of what happened, nor will I
because I still feel some responsibility to the
station, and the individuals involved, BUT -
I finally had to let people understand it was not
my choice to come out here. When I did that last
April, I got serious heat from my family, as well as
some people at CD101. Everyone felt there was no need
to "air my dirty laundry". As well, we had all agreed
(the station and I) to say I chose to leave, and me
changing my story brought all sorts of questions to a
head. The truth of the matter is what I did to get
fired was wrong. Unfortunately I told a fellow
co-worker what I had done, and he in turn told the GM.
I've never been mad at him "speaking his conscience",
I've never been mad at his honesty...hell I've never
been truly that upset at his motives. The fact of the
matter is, he didn't say a word to me. He could've
easily come to me and told me he felt uneasy about
what I had told him. Though what I did was wrong,
it was not done malisciously, and I've always felt
that it could have been dealt with. I just wanted him
to talk to me. I was ALWAYS in this guy's corner.
Constantly telling my boss how good he was at his job,
how incredibly talented he was, and how my job
would've been hell without him on the staff. I even
offered sacrifices to him in confidence to keep things
going at CD101. So to walk into work on November 10th,
1999 and feel a bombshell explode in my chest was the
shock of all shocks.
Of course that's just part of it.
Because of the quickness of the events, I was
never able to fully explain my position to some people
there. I loved CD101. They were the closest thing to a
second family I've ever had. We were the little guy
fighting the big bad corporate radio giant. We were
friends, and we cared about our employees. Coming from
Jaycor country definitely made THAT difference
glaring. So to have to leave CD101 knowing many felt
betrayed by my actions, killed me. And still kills me.
Amazingly I can't shake it. I still dream about it,
and still feel that it's unresolved. That may just be
the harsh reality of this. More than anything a year
ago...I lost control. I lost the control of my
future. As it stands now - WHEW. Thank God. I'd be
doing Columbus radio right now. Not working on
TV sets and performing in LA. So the question is
not sour grapes. I'm not whining a year later because
I was dealt such a bad deal. You know
(GREAT ANALOGY HERE),
I was dealt a bad deal, but I was
also the dealer and even stacked one of the cards. I'm
still talking about it because it's still passionate
to me. So THAT is why I bring it up a year
later. It's, at this moment, the singlemost important
event in my career, and will most likely stay that
way. Had I stayed in Columbus....I would've stayed in
Columbus. The comfort of radio would've kept me there,
and the allure of a family would've done me in. Not
that that would be BAD mind you, still want some kids
- but now...NOW I have the opportunity to pull
off something really big. I promise you when all
parties involved in this are no longer involved with
the station, I'll tell you the whole
story.
Now, completely overshadowing any
of my pissy problems, this whole election debacle. I
have been yelling at the tv screen for 2 days now.
What has been absolutely incomprehensible to me is how
party lines dictate people's logic.
I'll first tell you I wasn't
able to vote because of some mail snafu. Jess got her
registration card, and I did not. We think it's
because she got her license changed from canoga park
to sherman oaks, and thus was able to register.
Doesn't make sense since of course I have
a California license...but it's neither here nor
there. I'd have voted for the smallest no-name
candidate on the ballot. If Elmer Fudd was on it, that
would've been my man. In '96 I voted for Harry
Browne. I am completely sick of the political system,
and I almost wrote a huge entry a few days ago urging
people NOT to vote. Hoping that maybe a
SMALL voter turnout would bring about some CHANGE
in this country. What if we had a war and nobody came?
What if we had an election and no one voted? Gore's an
arrogant slimeball, and Bush is truly a buffoon. I'm
hoping Bush wins just because Will Farrell does the
funniest parody on Saturday Night Live.
What is truly incredible to me is
that people can't just WAIT. Why can't we take our
time, wait the ten days until ALLLLLLL the votes come
in overseas, and just CHILL. It will not kill us to
wait another week before we know. It doesn't make us
look STUPID, it makes us look prudent. The fact of the
matter is the vote in Florida is soooo close, we need
to count everything. What kills me is the republicans
want it over immediately (so their candidate
wins), the democrats want it drawn out (so they
can figure a way to get their candidate to win),
and the public wants it over immediately (because
we're an instant gratifcation society who wanted to
know at 9 PM on Tuesday night, and we have no
patience). "Why isn't this all done by
computers!!! DAMNIT! THIS IS THE YEAR
2000!!! I DONT LIKE WAITING!!!" Chill.
Calm down. There's no reason to speed this up. Didn't
we learn from the election night that faster isn't
better?
AND STOP BLAMING THE MEDIA.
This is the same media we LOVE because
they can tell us the winning candidate
before we go to bed.
WE PUT THIS PRESSURE on
them. If it wasn't for their projections,
we'd lose more precious sleeeeeeeep.
WAAAAAH - Besides, there's never been a
race this close in history so it's bound
to screw up their exit polling. Again, the
media is a representation of US, so shut
up. Oh, but feel free to bitch about Dan
Rather. I've never laughed so hard at a
broadcaster in my life. Throughout the
entire night he kept saying the stupidest
things. I caught one of them and am
happily posting
it. This has to
be his last election.
YouTube
link added
12.20.07
"DO AWAY
WITH THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE!!!" Well
then you better pray I'm still in LA so I can tell you
what it's like to have candidates in your STATE,
because you'll never see them again. The system now is
working. It's just taking time. The candidates
CAMPAIGNED knowing about the 270 electoral votes
needed to win, and simply giving it to Gore because he
won the popular vote is wrong. They all would've
campaigned completely different. Now for future
elections, there's probably going to be some
changes.
"WHAT ABOUT THE
PALM BEACH/BUCHANNAN PROBLEM!?" First of
all, what a bunch of morons. That ballot is NOT that
confusing. If these are the type of idiots voting for
the president, we're in more trouble than I thought.
Yes, it is misleading that it looks like Gore was the
2nd name and he was the 3rd hole - BUT there's a big
ass ARROW pointing from his name TO the hole. It
would take roughly 2 seconds to look at that balot and
see what's happening. You can't have an entire re-vote
because of this. It sucks because it TRULY looks
like these morons screwed up and DID vote for
Buchannan. Buchannan himself even admitted that he
thought there was something wrong, but again - you
can't have a revote. And the drunk bastards that
punched it twice? Shoot them. Take them to the beach
and shoot them into the ocean. You can't have a revote
because of this. On top of that, if there WERE a
revote - you KNOW the NADER vote would diminish
incredibly because everyone now knows how close it is.
A re-vote would be completely unfair. The only true
solution is waiting for all the votes to come in -
recount them ONE MORE TIME, and go from
there. You cannot have a re-vote now. The democrats
are getting whiny now, and they need to let it go. Let
me also say that if the roles were changed the
REPUBLICANS would be JUST as whiny. They'd be pulling
the same things.
What is truly wonderful about all
of this, is we're getting a good look at the flaws of
the election process. The discrepancies from precinct
to precinct are all skewed a few votes here and there.
If you recounted 100 times, you'd get 100 different
numbers. Guaranteed. That is a problem. A problem
we'll probably always have to deal with as long as
there's volunteers running our election process. The
Republicans have a point here. You can't just keep
recounting the votes until it comes up the way you
like. Then again, it truly should never change right?
How the hell were there 3,600 new votes on the
recount? I'm assuming absentee ballots, but
WOW.
And finally, can you believe it's
this close? I mean good GOD. 327 votes? And with
this butterfly ballot, a president is gonna be elected
on a technicality? This is nuts, and it's certainly
not over yet. Lawsuits pending, lawyers
salivating....it's incredible. I'll tell you this
much. I'm taping this like CRAZY. I want my kids to be
able to watch this, because it's NEVER gonna
happen again. EVER. This has huge historic meaning in
our country. They'll be talking about the year 2000
for quite some time. HA! I'm surprised they haven't
blamed it on the Y2K bug. It probably is a
Y2K bug...there's votes from 1900 being
tabulated. LOL.
So I ask you all, to try and watch
this logically and not by your party affiliation.
A politician is a politician. Imagine yourself
alone in a room with this challenge ahead of you.
Bring it down to the smallest variables. You'll see
the answers are obvious. You do not have a re-vote,
you wait for a week or so until every vote is IN, and
you take your time and recount them - by hand if
necessary. You announce the winner, and move on. It
doesn't matter if it's 1 vote difference. Now if a
judge says Palm Beach gets to re-vote...step-back. You
may wanna leave the country. Because it's gonna get
crazy. There is no doubt Gore would win the revote,
and the Republicans will get crazy - and as we all
know, they've got the good guns. LOL.