RIP 100.7 The Beat

My morning routine normally consists of dragging myself out of bed, into the shower, and then out to the car for my mundane commute to that fucking hellhole they call work.

This morning however, in the quest to chisel an improved and granite-like ‘new’ me from my already perfectly-sculpted form battle my professional pieman lifestyle, I dragged myself out of bed, and instead of silently cursing my way to the shower, I noisily cursed my way into throwing some weights around for 30 minutes and doing a load of situps. The quest for the Usher-like six pack started this morning (nh).

My attempt to Mr Muscle myself into another dimension (no Blue Oyster Club) was not the only strange event of the morning to have me cursing though – y’see, during my 45 minutes on the road to hell work everyday, I like to flip through the radio stations like a maniac, frantically trying to avoid another replay of ‘Why U Wanna’ in favor of some listenable chatter. Mindless drivel is usually the order of the day, so its a button pushing exercise between 96.1 Jamz, home of the Tom Joyner Morning Show; Clear Channel’s 100.7 The Beat, home of Russ Parr’s Morning Show; and Blazin’ 102.3, home of Doug Banks In The Morning.

(And yes, I know all the arguments about Clear Channel being ‘of the devil’ and how syndicated shows are taking away jobs from local morning jocks etc etc – but face it – Jay Anthony Brown’s jokes, and Marcel’s Michael Jackson impressions are funnier than Larry & Crazy Bobby or whatever the fuck your local wack presenter is called. The music generally sets the tone for the rest of the daytime anyway – frequently bad, always commerical Hiphop… but that’s not why we listen. Strange as it may seem, you start to look forward to these clowns making that ride to work just that little bit easier each day.)

Anyway…

Today Russ Parr was nowhere to be found on 100.7 The Beat. Shit, 100.7 The Beat wasn’t even 100.7 The Beat anymore – it was now 100.7 WFLA Talk Radio!

“Calm down…. don’t panic. Some clampet has obviously tripped over a wire and pulled the plug on Russ Parr, so mindnumbingly boring presenter #1 and mindnumbingly boring presenter #2, are just two local cats trying to patch things together until normal service is resumed… right?”

Then they start talking about how I can look forward to hearing RUSH FUCKING LIMBAUGH later that day.

Woah, Nelly. WTFIGO? Of course me being an international superstar DJ who yo-yo’s in and out of 100.7 all the time, I have the studio number. So I call it. And it rings… and rings… and rings… and rings…

Then Chad or Quentin or Gareth or whoever the fuck is talking shite on the radio gives out a different number, saying they’re taking calls. I punch it in (no Wilhelm von Homburg) and someone answered before the first ring had even finished…

“100.7 WFLA Talk Radio”, he smarmed…

“Hey, whats up with 100.7 The Beat?”, I menaced (cos I was holding it down for the streets, you understand.)

“Oh yeah, we’re on here now. Its Talk Radio all day now. There’s no more Hiphop here. Although some of the things we talk about are hip… and some are……………………… hop………”.

He tailed off. He fucking better had, after a weak fucking line like that. Larry & Crazy Bobby are like the Richard Pryors of morning radio compared to this clown.

But he spoke the truth about one thing – 100.7 The Beat was dead.

Later that day, my wide network of contacts (big up Gremlock) informed me that management dropped the bomb on Friday, that the station was changing format on Monday morning. Nice move huh? Two days notice that you’re out of a job? The station with arguably the MOST influence and one of the hardest working in the local community is wound up, because some suit decides he likes his talk radio in FM format. Nice work, tool.

So now Tallahassee is served by just one ‘urban’ radio station – Blazin’ 102.3. Its certainly not a bad station – they have some great DJs working there. But 100.7 was ‘home’… it was where my friends worked… it was where some of them were decent enough to give me a little opening to get music out to the people after I arrived here. Some good people got fucked over badly by the good folks at Clear Channel. And it won’t be forgotten.

Fuck Clear Channel.