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Gene Burns has died

Howie is actually 61. He was born in Jan of 1952; I know he is about 10 yrs and 1 month older than me.

Globe article from '02 on JerryWillians.org:
>>Carr says he has not seen or spoken with Williams for years. Being on Williams's show "was special because I'd grown up listening to him." Radio changed, Carr says, but the man who taught him how to keep listeners from tuning out did not. "Everything is blended together -- entertainment and journalism. That always bothered Jerry, when I never thought it should." He insists that Williams's demise was not his doing: "My name's Howie Carr, not Father Time."

http://www.jerrywilliams.org/article-detail.php?article=6&articlename=Sounding off

I'm reminded of a moment on the Simpsons when Grandpa Abe Simpson tells Homer about what
growing old has done to him: "and it'll happen to you, too!"

Howie is growing old, too... but he hasn't hit his mid 60s yet
 
It's clear that "Father Time " has caught up with the fast aging Howie Carr mentally and physically..
 
I remember when a once great talk show host ended his career doing overnights in this market. The show was so dull and the callers so few that the host took to reading stories in their entirety from the Globe and Herald American. I remember at the age of 12 or 13 thinking this bad radio even at 3:15am.

Although Carr was at times entertaining, I never considered him a good host or a good newspaper writer for that matter. He is so clueless that he doesn't realize how awful it sounds when he reads other writers columns word for word at 3:15pm.

Please don't give me the line about him being unhappy with Entercom and just running out the clock. He's a fat lazy media personality who really gets his rocks off kicking someone when they are down.
 
You should hear how Howie Carr attacks his parents on-air. I think his father who ws born in 1905 died several years ago...probably to get away from his ungreatful son.
 
I haven't heard Howie attack his parents; he barely mentions them but occasionally mentions how he was able to get into UNC under the "state resident" category despite not living in NC at the time (used parents' address) and he mentions working for his dad at a resort in Florida. Howard Carr Sr. died at 103 in 2008; he went to his funeral but didn't mention on air why he was taking a long weekend. (His self published "Rifleman" is from "Frandel LLC"--his mother is Fran(ces) and his father was Howard Louis "Del" Carr hence the name.)

>>ungreatful
think that would be "ungrateful" as in "grateful dead"... :)
 
WRKO can claim it's the best all talk station in Boston--as it's the ONLY all talk station. For now.

btw the Jeff Santos "Revolution Boston" site, etc is still up despite it no longer airing on WUFC 1510
(it may be on for one hour on a small station in the area). But hey, the big news is.. "Romney Picks Ryan!" :) Well maybe they forgot the password to change the site. As for 'RKO, I guess they are making just enough money to justify the talk format, thus no "ESPN Deportes", True Oldies Channel,
Brother Stair, etc. Maybe the aging audience would like some music too, put Bob Bittner on there! :)

Up next on WRKO... Percy Faith.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSsiS-v6_6M
 
Up next on WRKO... Percy Faith.

Do you have any idea of how tiresome this 24/7 onslought of EDS has become?

I would have thought that after Wolfe made Howie his bitch, that you would have figured out you'd been had by this clown and let him carry his own water.

Alas, it was not to be.

13,000 times.

Regards,
TSB
 
Something wrong with Percy Faith?

Would rather his music than listen to the dreck on WRKO.

Bring back Alan Dary and Bob Clayton. I know they were on the real WHDH Radio 850.

Where is Fred B. Cole and the Fred B. Cole Road Show in A&P parking lots when you need him.... :)
 
Hey I like Entercom, but sometimes I give it a shot...for fun. The Percy Faith line was poking fun at aging demos, old fellas like me (51)

>>Would rather his music than listen to the dreck on WRKO.

Henry Mancini, or Jeff Kuhner? Hmm...
Maybe RKO can dig up reruns of Jerry, Gene, et al. I will say I have, recorded on cassette,
Jerry's last show on RKO (that Sat afternoon they brought him back) and post-passing tributes
hosted by Howie and by Pat Whitley. jerrywilliams.org and his bio are also great. Yet I still
know that when I tuned in to Jerry and heard "Good afternoon New England this is Howie Carr
of the Boston Herald and I'm filling in for the Dean today", it was nice.

EDS tiresome? Maybe so. Actually I've been thinking lately that maybe they should put on
some fourth-rate syndicated network nobody's ever heard of, or maybe pirate radio is a good
thing after all, or Howie Carr is a boring old guy nobody listens to (yet somehow keeps his
show). Have I been had by Mr Death Pool? Maybe, but I still enjoy his show. And hey,
Death Pool coming up tomorrow (Karen Black passed on) though if Mr Bulger's verdict comes
in, that may be postponed. (And wasn't it weird how Mr Loan Depot may have poisoned
Stephen Rakes' coffee the day after he was dismissed from the trial--there's a name from the
past; and apparently the crime had nothing to do with Whitey after all.)
 
As to the late Mel Miller - cigarettes and gin did him in. Hardly ever sober behind the pall of cigarette smoke he created. Of course, working for the also dead Bob Fish would drive anyone to drink. The man was a maniac. His favorite topic was comparing the ad executive he bedded on his frequent trips to New York without his wife and kid knowing about it to whoever would be forced to listen. Not gossip. Frequent topic in meetings with him. Anthony Weiner and the mayor of San Diego look like paragons of virtue next to this now late and not lamted leper.
 
btw some old memories of RKO, inside stories, can be found at Moe Lauzier's Issues of the Day blog including his full book You're On The Air

http://moeissuesoftheday.blogspot.com/2008/07/what-feeling.html

>>As I drove home from Boston on February 25th of this year I was filled with self-pity. After nearly 25 years I had been fired from my job without as much as an explanation. During the time I had worked for WRKO some of the most talented people ever to perform in the business had been there, and for much of that time I was their designated hitter. Jerry Williams, Gene Burns, David Brudnoy and a host of others who ranked at the top of the profession called WRKO home – all at once. That was the time WRKO was the premier station in talk anywhere in the country.

--
One of the chapters mentions when they moved to talk they had the choice of keeping or dumping the WRKO calls. Someone decided to keep them, as they were "heritage". Otherwise we would have heard something like "This is Jerry Williams on 680 AM, WBTS--Boston's Talk Station"

(imaginary jingle) WBTS...Boston!
 
One thing you will never hear Howe mention is his children from his first marriage. Like The pill popping windbag that precedes him, Howe believes marriage should be between one man and one woman until a divorce and then you have what the Romney campaign referred to as an etch a sketch moment, that wipes the slate clean.

Has Howie ever mentioned that he is a Grandfather?

El Rushbo stopped dumping on drug addicts after his own battle with substance abuse was made public. Howie noticeably curtailed his belittling of GBH after his daughter, who now works at BUR, took a job working for Emily Rooney.

Carr did not use his parents address to fraudulently claim undeserved resident rate tuition at UNC. When Howie applied to UNC his father was still working as the bookstore manager at his High School. He used an Aunt and Uncles address.

Lets not forget that Howie wrote several columns about the rich Harvard faculty members living it up in rent controlled apartments from his own Cambridge rent controlled pad he occupied after his wife showed him the door.
 
Howie indeed doesn't mention the first 2 kids, although the obit for his father does. (Howie on occasion mentions he has a brother)

I don't think he mentioned he's a grandpa; as in, from the first group of daughters? Yup did know
of his daughter working for BUR

>>He used an Aunt and Uncles address.
OK thanks for that, but he has mentioned using a NC address for the resident rate.

http://obituaries.news-record.com/o...tuary.aspx?pid=118605036#sthash.RgKE6DXt.dpbs
From the obit for Howie's father:

>>Surviving are his wife of 65 years, Frances; two sons, Jonathan Sutton Carr of Greensboro and Howard Louis Carr, Jr. of Wellesley, Mass.; and five grandchildren, Suzanna, Frances, Charlotte, Carolyn, and Christina.
 
Charlie put the whole original talk format together and hired the staff while Bob Fish was screwing around - literally. Van Dyke finally left when he couldn't take anymore of Fish's erratic and irrational behavior. Fish was known to throw coffee pots and other objects at WRKO employees. WRKO started its long decline when Charlie Van Dyke left to be replaced by Fish and later Mel Miller who did everything he could to antagonize Jerry Williams. Apparently, the two started together but Miller always resented he was a second string minor leaguer next to the Dean. Bob Fish was a thug whose bad karma finally caught up to him or in the immortal words of Jerry Williams, "Bob Fish is not a nice guy." An understatement !
 
Couldn't agree more about Bob Fish. I was at another station at the time, we began doing a Celtics report from the Garden. Mind you the report ran around 10:30p, long after the game ended. Fish called me up yelling at the top of his lungs that he owned the Celtics rights and we had to include the phrase "in a game just heard on 680 AM WRKO." I laughed remined him that he had the play by play rights but we had every right to air a report about the game using one of our people, I politely ended the conversation. We continued the feature and even sold it to a car dealer. Never heard from Fish again

I never worked for Mel Miller at WRKO but was at EEI AM 590 when it was at CBS owned news station and he was a very good PD.

I loved listening to RKO in the 80's Jerry, Gene, Bruce Williams The C's, NBC Talknet, Moe Lauizer did Sat and Sin mornings. Moe was a perfect utility guy and good soldier who was shafted by Entercom.

Lets not forget Dick Syatt's Hotline dating show. This was one of the funniest shows on at the time. Dick is alive, well and very happy to be working as a Cruise ship host based in Florida.


As always just my 2 cents.
 
Glad to hear Dick Syatt is well.
Probably "bowling on the beach" which only makes sense if you heard his dating show.

As to Bob Fish you are spot on. He was a legend in his own mind.

Nice to know Fish left in disgrace from WRKO for some unethical behavior.

One intern too many perhaps...from both teams... ::)
 
You apparently didn't see the fine print on that quote, " It is great that Bob Fish is dead."
Did a jealous lover do him in or was it an uncontrolled STD ?
 
Omnibus said:
Charlie put the whole original talk format together and hired the staff WRKO started its long decline when Charlie Van Dyke left to be replaced by Fish and later Mel Miller who did everything he could to antagonize Jerry Williams.
Click to expand...

Wrong on a lot but right on Fish.

The "original talk format" was godawful; it featured shrinks and lifestyle nonsense through the midday hours. It was under Griffin as GM and Miller as PD that RKO became a force in the market with issue-oriented talk. Griffin had been PD at CBS's WEEI when it went to No. 1 as a talker. Miller worked for Richmond Bros. (although I don't know if he adopted any of Mac's propensities for use of the hotline) as well as at all-news WEEI and added a music radio formatics and momentum to the station's sound
 
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