Posted on 03/13/2011 7:48:37 AM PDT by izzatzo
You’re absolutely right; Fred is a truly humorous and affable guy, and I really miss his voice each morning.
When Andy Parks was his co-host, and he and Fred would get going with the banter and the back-and-forth it was a rollicking blast of political and social commentary. They weren’t raunchy at all, ever, just frank and funny as hell.
I don't know if you remember, but in the late 90s Billy Bush was on Z104 in the morning and he was really, really funny.
I was stationed at Andrews AFB(guarding Air Force One) in the mid-late 80s and my radio diet consisted mainly of WHFS’ Weasel and “Bob here,” when HFS was a truly remarkable station. Of course, the ingenious “Greaseman” was in his heyday at DC101 then, and I love his old bits even more now than I did then. And Rush Limbaugh was just launching his syndicated career!
But I left the D.C. area in 1988, and didn’t return until 2001. The last eleven years, talk radio has literally helped keep me alive—especially while I sat in a vehicle, every day, on a protective surveillance post outside AG John Ashcroft’s private residence in the years following the 9/11 and anthrax events. No idea what I would have done to stay alert and sane without WMAL, C-span, and WTNT(which now has some sports b.s. programming)
There have been protests launched against WMAL, but I can’t figure out what the goal is. There has been talk by Jim Lafferty of the Virginia Anti-Sharia Task Force of using FCC regs to get their license yanked, based on call logs not being maintained and so forth, but why do that? WMAL still is the home of the marvelous Chris Plante, of Rush, Hannity, Levin, and other great programs.
I certainly don’t want to see them lose their license, either. What in the world would that achieve? I think they want to force them to take back Grandy, but I seriously doubt that is going to happen. Too bad.
Ah, yes, those were the days. And don't forget Damien at HFS. I learned so much about music listening to that station. They played stuff nobody else did.
And, yes, Grease was hilarious. Why Howard Stern is rich beyond belief and Grease is bumping along is beyond me. Stern is just gross, appealing to the common denominator. In contrast, Grease was/is very clever and creative. A couple of faux pas did him in.
Was Damien the guy who mumbled, sounded developmentally disabled even, but played incredibly good stuff? What a treasure that station was!
I found the Grease on some obscure, weak AM signal after I returned to this area, he was paying for his own air time or something and he was taking calls—I got on the air when I called in, it was awesome, and he was playing all his usual bits.
Nino Greasemanelli was far better than Stern!!
Yeah, that was Damien. His father owned the station. He had been in a horrific car accident which caused a brain injury resulting in the speech problem.
>> WTNT(which now has some sports b.s. programming) <<
Almost, but not quite.
You’re correct that WTNT’s old spot on the dial, 570, is now sports-talk. But it’s no longer WTNT. It’s now WSPZ.
In the meantime, the call letters for WTNT have been transferred to 730, which now has mostly conservative talk programming. Their daytime signal is good, at 8000 watts. But almost nobody can pick them up at night since their nighttime power is only 25 watts.
Hey thanks for informing me on that, I did not know!
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