another year

Well I hope that 2006 is treating you fairly well so far. I hope the new year bodes great things for all of you and for all of my friends, family, and acquaintances. I also hope that Democrats will sweep the mid-term election this fall. And with things like Jack Abramoff agreeing to spill all on all of the prominent politicians he bribed, I think they can. By the way, I'm not so daft and nieve not to realize that some Democratic politicians names are being mentioned. Easy fix: the Democrats should disassociate with those people, if the allegations prove to be true. If those Democrats were bribed, then they should be punished. I don't tow party lines just because a crime is committed. If you're guilty, you're guilty and should have to face the music.

WTYB-FM here in Savannah is stunting because they're flipping formats - again. The Cumulus Broadcasting-owned station was first Urban Adult Contemporary as Kiss 104 from 1997-2003. Then Clear Channel made noise because of the station's name (Kiss is the registered trademark for their Top 40 stations). So Cumulus rebranded the station as V103.9. It still didn't matter, as Clear Channel's *own* Urban AC, WLVH Love 101.1 was the dominant station in that format and still ranks in the top three in the city's Arbitron ratings. So after stunting with barnyard animals and the like, WSIS-FM became WTYB-FM and was now Cool 103.9 - Big Hits! Big Fun!

Several months later, Triad Broadcasting flipped their heritage Oldies station (which had retained the format for more than 15 years) to Adult Hits as 98.3 JACK FM. With no Oldies station in the market and an opportunity to garner all of Oldies 98.3's displaced audience, does Cumulus realize this? Hell, no! Of course not! They fired all of the station's airstaff in mid-December, then started playing Christmas music. Rumor has it they're going to try Urban AC yet *again*! Does that make any sense? Of course not. But now they're playing nothing but Johnny Cash songs. A misdirection or just plain diversion? I certainly hope Cumulus brings an interesting station to this market. Besides Air America Radio, I'd *love* to see them take on Triad's boring-as-hell Rock 106.1 with a more alternative-based alt-rock station. It'd be great. But I highly doubt that as the company never makes a sound business decision. Cumulus's Top 40 station Z102 is so schizophrenic, it's sad and also quite transparent in the ratings. I'll keep you posted.

Last night, I missed television history. For the great splotchy one, Bill O'Reilly, was on the Late Show with David Letterman. And from what I hear, it was amazing. Letterman read him the riot act and basically tore him apart. I'm still waiting for the entire video of the altercation to be uploaded at http://www.crooksandliars.com


Casanova and Munich starts playing at Savannah 10 this weekend. I might check them out but I'm looking forward to Eli Roth's Hostel, playing at Wynnsong this Friday. I'm a horror movie fanatic as we all know. Holy shit! I just checked Fandango....Brokeback Mountain starts playing at Eisenhower Square 6 this weekend! What are the odds?! The film's website states that it'll also be playing at Wynnsong yet Carmike's website doesn't say anything about that - yet. Everyone says Brokeback Mountain is the movie of the year, the lock for Best Picture at the Oscars and a tender love story. I can't wait to see it!


I saw Me and You and Everyone We Know the other night. Miranda July's debut feature was beautiful, haunting, lyrical, and a shining testament to how creativity and uniqueness can make a someone a truly wonderful individual yet an utterly undefinable person to others, until that one person that speaks our language comes along. It's one of the best films of 2005.

Arrested Development made me laugh harder than anything I've laughed at in years. It was a total in-joke about how the show's getting cancelled and how alot of people aren't watching their show. It was a masterpiece.