Will You Love Me Tomorrow?

Our friend Q-SKY checked in with an article from Radio and Records, an industry trade magazine, about a part-time jock in Chicago who got fired for expressing, in a letter to a Chicago media columnist, some sentiments familiar to readers of this blog.

"It's unbelievable how many Chicago radio icons are not currently on the air in this town," [Cara] Carriveau wrote. "It's amazing that we can no longer flip through the dial and hear Mancow, John Landecker, Fred Winston, Dick Biondi, Bobby Skafish, among many others. My heart goes out to those talented personalities, and I am empathetic to the many disappointed listeners. This situation is sad. Very, very sad."

Innocuous enough, right? Wrong. Carriveau, who'd moved from full-timer to part-timer at WLUP at her request last spring, was promptly sacked. The station's general manager, Marv Nyren, insisted that there were other reasons for Carriveau's ouster, and that this was merely "the last straw." If you've been around the radio biz at all, you know that this is plausibly true--although previous other "straws" may have included such egregious violations as getting back late from lunch and taking ballpoint pens from the studio.

Nyren also indicated his displeasure that Carriveau's not down with the enlightened management philosophy being practiced by the leading executives of the broadcasting industry today. But then, the universe laughed: Nyren commented on possible replacements for Carriveau, who include somebody named Jeff "Turd" Renzetti. Said Nyren: "I'm a big fan of Turd." If enlightened management philosophy suggests that one of the keys to a station's continuing success is somebody named Turd, karma has exacted its revenge.

Tune of the Day: Last night, the Mrs. and I caught up on taped episodes of NBC's new series Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, created by Aaron Sorkin, whose previous TV series, The West Wing and Sports Night, are two of the greatest TV shows of all time. Sorkin has always been good at using pop songs to punctuate episodes. The most recent Studio 60, which aired last Monday night, concluded with Dave Mason's cover of "Will You Love Me Tomorrow"--and it may have been Sorkin's greatest use of a hit song to date. I hadn't heard Mason's version in 20 years, maybe, and I'd forgotten just how beautiful it sounds in his hands. I don't have it to post, but when I get it, I will. (By the way: the ratings for Studio 60 have been falling since the premiere three weeks ago. So I beg you to watch it, Monday nights at 9PM Central. The failure of Studio 60 would be disastrous to the concept of TV for smart people--so if only to stave off more damn reality TV, you have a moral responsibility to watch.)

Downloadable: From >bounce/oz (look closely at the title; it's a sinker), a mix of 80s R&B records with a telephone theme. The list includes Midnight Star's "Operator." When we started playing it on WKAI in Macomb, Illinois, in 1985, it was probably the blackest record ever played on the radio in that town.