Posted on 07/09/2003 8:17:37 AM PDT by republicofdavis
Bob Foster, the rural Yolo County man who has taken to terrorizing TV and radio shows with prank phone calls, says his hobby "is all about getting a reaction."
But this may be more than he bargained for. On Saturday, Foster called Michael Savage's live MSNBC show to mention a favorite radio duo, Don and Mike.
Savage was apparently not amused and made a series of homophobic comments to Foster on the air.
On Monday, news broke that the controversial broadcast personality had been fired by MSNBC. And it wasn't long before Foster began to feel the wrath of Savage fans, who have taken to the Internet to spew invective his way.
"I've been getting so much hate e-mail from the Savage Nation," Foster says. "It's kind of frightening, actually. People are saying, 'Look behind your back.' And they're making anti-gay statements.
"I'm not gay. But they're calling me derogatory gay names. It goes on and on. They're disregarding what Savage said and putting the blame on me for him losing his job. It's ridiculous.
"I don't like to see a guy lose his job. But he made a mistake. His comments were way out of line."
The comments in question came after Foster called and began telling Savage about a flight he took from New York.
"Half-hour into the flight," Foster is heard saying on a tape of the incident, "I need to suggest that Don and Mike take your (inaudible) ... 'cause your teeth are real bad."
Savage fumes at the remarks and says:
"Oh, you're one of the sodomites. You should only get AIDS and die, you pig. How's that? Why don't you see if you can sue me, you pig? You got nothing better than to put me down, you piece of garbage? You've got nothing to do today? Go eat a sausage and choke on it. Get trichinosis."
Savage then asks to speak to a caller who "didn't have a nice night in the bathhouse who's angry at me today. These bums mean nothing to me."
During the exchange, somebody off-camera in Savage's studio can be heard gasping.
MSNBC spokesman Jeremy Gaines says Savage was fired immediately after the broadcast.
"In reaction to a hostile caller, Savage made an extremely inappropriate comment," Gaines says. "The decision to cancel the program ('Savage Nation') was not difficult."
Savage remains on the radio, where his show is syndicated in more than 200 markets -- including Sacramento, where it airs on KSTE (650 AM).
KSTE's operations manager, Ken Kohl, could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
Savage, too, has been unavailable for comment.
But Foster was readily available to talk about Savage, whose TV show he'd phoned once before.
"I called him a racist that time, and he went off," Foster says. "It was such an overwhelming reaction, I had to do it again.
"Some people think I was out to get him. But I wasn't. I'm a talk-radio fan. I appreciate what he does, despite his opinions. But he was taking phone calls on national TV, and I wanted to mention Don and Mike."
Foster, who has prank-called everybody from Larry King to Don Imus, says while the response from Savage fans has been brutal ("They hate me," he says), he's also received more than a few words of support.
"I've actually gotten more mail in favor of what I did," he says. "I've been getting a lot of thank-you mail from gay-rights advocates.
"Savage definitely has issues with the gay-rights movement. What I said had nothing to do with gays. He just interjected that. He has a lot of gay protesters, and I think that was on his mind."
Cathy Renna of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation says that with gay issues in the forefront of the national news, "Savage's behavior and his attacks violate even the minimal journalistic standards and have no place on a reputable news network like MSNBC."
Savage was hired by MSNBC in early March. His Saturday talk show boosted MSNBC's ratings marginally in the 2 p.m. time slot, but in 14 outings it still ran a distant third to shows on Fox News and CNN.
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About the Writer ---------------------------
The Bee's J. Freedom du Lac can be reached at (916) 321-1115 or jdulac@sacbee.com. USA Today contributed to this report.
Maybe not a "death threat" technically. Wow, you really got me there. I clearly was wrong; Savage was only joking with the man! Next time I have a disagreement with someone, I'll just say, "You should get AIDS and die, you pig", and we'll all just have a big laugh over it. < /sarcasm >
Go ahead and listen to your idol Savage. I'm guessing you're the type of person that doesn't see anything wrong with wishing someone would contract a horrible disease in any circumstance; you two make a perfect couple.
I'm really just posting my thoughts on Savage in the hopes that the more rational FReepers and the lurkers out there can see he's really not worth the time, unless you want to spend the rest of your life simply filled with hate. And by the way, if you want to have a "leg to stand on" to criticise the liberal comments as documented in bmwcyle's post #26 of this thread, you have to be consistent and criticise when some hothead does the same thing on the "right" side.
Maybe you're comfortable with being so hypocritical, but I'm not.
What garbage! I just downloaded the audio stream and he madeno death threat. I've listened to Savage for a long time on the radio. Never heard him make anything like a death threat.
All this "death threat" stuff is moot anyway. Savage does not know who he was talking to in the first place! Suppose I said the same thing to you here or said "I'm going to kill you JennysCool". I would not, of course. But how would I do that anyway? You could be in China for all I know. So? I go to China and start yelling your screen name? Don't know your real one.
Interesting comments here. I've listened to Savage on the radio for some time. Most nights. I have never seen his TV show. I'm amazed it was live without any delay. Savage can be very acerbic and sarcastic. He takes some getting used to. The accent grates on most of us Texans. But I know people from New York and New Jersey and some of them make Savage seem like a wimp language wise. One person I know was on a TV show about some older ladies. The show had the word "Golden" in it. In real life you would not believe the mouth on her. Oh my!
BTW, who here has been around TV productions? They are all so scripted it's boring. It appears that at least Savage's TV show had some zing to it. But he went off on the wrong group. Or seemed to. There are too many queers in the "biz" to let what he said (which was kind of funny) slide. So, he got politically corrected off the TV.
We might as well just all agree the only thing that can be shown on TV is a bowl of milk. But then THAT would bother somebody too.
Sticks and stones......
Exactly.
It's like hiring Salvador Dali to paint and then firing him for painting something too surrealistic.
They are the same people who would claim saying, "take a long walk on a short pier" is a death threat if it involved views contrary to theirs.
If Savage wants to be a shock jock, fine, more power to him. But with the strides we've made, I don't want to see Conservatism's enemies given a cudgel to strike us with. And you just KNOW the stories intimating that ALL conservatives are intolerant based upon this Michael Savage incident are just a breath away. That's something we simply don't need.
I'm not a big Savage fan. He is not my idol. He is not conservative. I don't agree with all his comments. In fact his comments are all over the board and contradict each other from day to day.
But I see you have devolved in to ad hominum -- and false one at that -- that Savage is "my idol".
Would you say "take a long walk on a short pier is a death threat?" Would it be worth being fired over?
This article pretty much proves the whole thing is a big nothing, distorted and taken out of context. The guy called with his harrassment, Savage figured it out, he then responded in kind with insults and asking if the caller has nothing better to do?
Apparently not, because he was fired.
Utterly predicatble.
Who predicted it?
And, you are marching the liberal kool-aid parade. If you are not aware of that, you should become more self aware.
Extremely inappropriate comments -- yes you have the lemming talking points down pat.
They hired him to make extremeley inappropriate comments.
Do you or anyone else know if Savage gets the dough owed by MSNBC? My guess is yes.
Savage has never been conservative and to his credit has gone out of his way to say he isn't. You are doing their guilt by association work for them.
This sort of media hysteria is documented in Coulter's book Slander well. This is a text book case -- and you are playing along all the way.
You have bought into the lefts BS. Some people react to the left as if they have been trained the same way you would a dog. Sit. Speak. Roll over. Good doggie. Here is a milk bone. Be a good puppy to us liberals and we won't hit you with our rolled up newspaper.
Count me out.
Keeping with the dog metaphor. Savage made a comment that the male doggies that hump each others legs, lick each others places and sniff each others backsides didn't like. So what!
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