Radio on.

To the surprise of all who know him, Alan announced one day a couple weeks ago that the time had come for him to get an iPhone. He’s no Luddite, but he is the most phone-indifferent man I know. He forgets his phone, or leaves it in the car, or in the boat bag, or in a pair of pants he hasn’t worn in a while. If I had a nickel for all the times we’ve looked for it by calling it and seeking out the ringing from the dry-cleaning pile, I’d be writing this from Barbados. He doesn’t want to be one of those guys with a holster on his belt and the constant yap-yap-yapping, and I’d say he’s succeeded.

But then he lost his iPod, and the dirt-cheap clamshell spent the night on the deck of the boat during a shower, and he had a mixed-signals night trying to find Kate that would have been aided by text messaging, and the day finally came. Down we went to the AT&T store, re-upped with the Death Star for another two years, exchanged my dying 3G for a 3GS and got the same for Alan. And now I know if I call him, he’ll answer, because that sucker hasn’t gotten far from his hand since last weekend, and here’s why:

The radio. My poor husband has a musically adventurous soul at a time when radio has been turned over to corporate monsters to squeeze of every extant dollar. There is satellite, true, but hello, I DO NOT NEED ANOTHER MONTHLY BILL, and the sub- sub- sub- sub-nicheification of the market, while gratifying for people who are into that sort of thing, doesn’t help much. Maybe I like dubstep-influenced hip-hop, who knows, but I can’t find it, I can’t spend hours tracking it down and I’m not going to spend hours listening to a station devoted to it.

Fortunately, there are a few radio stations out there that still cater to people whose tastes run beyond sales charts and Grammy nominees, and almost all of them have web streams now. One is CJAM, a Canadian station from the University of Windsor that Alan picks up when he’s driving home from work at 1 a.m. or so, but only for a few minutes. Is there anything more evocative than a radio station playing great music in the middle of the night? I can’t tell you how many mornings I’ve found him scouring the internet for clues on some unidentified track that faded out before it was ID’d. I’m not sure if we ever put a label on the selection he described as “Jimi Hendrix at 50 fathoms,” but lord knows we tried. Another is KCRW, the public station out of Los Angeles, and its “Morning Becomes Eclectic” show, which exposed David Chase to A3 and “Woke Up This Morning,” which became the theme for “The Sopranos.” Still another is WWOZ, out of New Orleans and specializing in the music of that city; we had it on for a few hours the other night, and it was a revelation.

We turn ’em on, plug the iPhone into the stereo, and forget all about Clear Channel and the rest of those bastards, if only for a little while.

“Can I plug this in on the boat and not go over my data limit?” he asked the other day. Criminy. Have I unleashed a monster? He might need an upgrade to the higher-use plan. Speaking of monthly bills.

By the way, if you know the answer to that question, I’m all ears. What is the data use of streaming radio?

I have a car repair scheduled this morning, so off I go. First, bloggage:

I’m staying away from Weinergate, having had my fill, for the moment, of stories that involve or suggest bulging underwear. Someone else tell me if I need to care about this.

While we’re at New York magazine, three more tiny photos of the next lavishly photographed Princess Clotheshorse, Charlene Wittstock, whom I will continue to refer to as the Teutonic blonde giantess. Because if the shoe fits, etc.

Granny finally passed, at 106. Another Detroitblog gem on her banner year.

Mind your manners on the airplanes, please.

And I’m outta here. Happy Wednesday.

Posted at 9:06 am in Same ol' same ol' |
 

48 responses to “Radio on.”

  1. 4dbirds said on June 1, 2011 at 9:24 am

    This AT&T employee thanks you. 🙂

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  2. LAMary said on June 1, 2011 at 9:31 am

    KCRW has influenced so many TV shows, so many commercials. I had a running correspondence with Rob Walker at the NYT about this for a couple of years. This and how much we both hate Sheryl Crow.

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  3. Mindy said on June 1, 2011 at 9:46 am

    Not an iPhone owner as of yet – that monthly bill thing – but I do own an iPod Touch. Got the TuneIn app right away. Love. It. You and Alan will, too.

    EDIT: Thanks for the recommendations. Got three more on my list of favorites. I like BBC 2. They play great late-night stuff, and it starts early since late night in London is five hours ahead of me.

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  4. Mark P. said on June 1, 2011 at 10:01 am

    I got an iPhone a few weeks after Verizon got it. There are some really neat things you can do with it (and other smartphones, too). My wife and I were in Lowes the other day when a piece of one of her teeth broke off. She said, “If I knew the dentist’s phone number, I would call and make an appointment.” I pulled out my iPhone and said, “Here, let me help.” We couldn’t remember his name, so I looked up dentists in our city, got the phone number and dialed it for her. It makes a decent temporary fill-in for a GPS. It plays music in the car. I keep my business-related mileage, lodging and hours on a spreadsheet app. I like it.

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  5. coozledad said on June 1, 2011 at 10:09 am

    You’d think by now the story would be how many times are media outlets going to let themselves get played by Breitbart. CNN has already inadvertently disclosed its institutional and editorial racism by including him in their programming.
    What they need to start doing, in addition to providing awards for real journalism, is institute a system of public sanctions for carrying Breitbart and O’Keefe’s joint colostomy bag- some substitute for the sense of shame they’re unable to muster.

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  6. John C. said on June 1, 2011 at 10:26 am

    Don’t know the answer to Alan’s question re: the boat and the Iphone. But – and you probably already know this – watch out on Lake St. Clair. The phone often thinks you are in Canada (which sometimes you are), and international roaming and data charges can kick in. This is an especially annoying issue for GP Parkers, where the Great White North is just across the river to the south.
    Also, I thought I’d hate XM radio for all the reasons you describe. It’s still no substitute for that great oddball radio station. But its way better than I thought. I’m an Underground Garage fan myself. It’s Sylvio, er, Stevie Van Zandt’s station devoted to whatever he likes, which is more or less garage rock and roll, with a heavy dollop of girl bands old and new. Really, though, the most awesome thing about XM is MLB network, which gives you local broadcasts of every baseball game.

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  7. Julie Robinson said on June 1, 2011 at 11:11 am

    Just yesterday Arbitron called to ask if we would participate in their survey next month. I told them I didn’t think they wanted us since we don’t listen to any commercial radio, but she assured me they still did.

    Time was NPR was on all day, but then they sent the classical music over to a frequency we can’t get, so it goes off after the BBC news, and I switch over to the stream of Performance Today, an audiobook, or something I’ve found on Napster. There are days when I don’t even listen to All Things Considered, which is a habit I’ve had since day two of college. Neither of my kids listen either; they use Napster and Pandora. Since my dad was in radio most of his career this saddens me but who needs a buggy whip anyway?

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  8. beb said on June 1, 2011 at 11:39 am

    I work in a windowless room inside a large steel and brick building so the only radio I get is one classic rock station. While I like classic rock I do tire of the same 40 songs being played every day. I’ve got an tiny MP3 player with more variety then their play list.

    But —

    I will not listen to Sweet Home Alabama. It calls out by name another musican, which I think is wrong. And when they sing “we all love the governa” you know they have to mean Lester Maddox, of segregation infamy. I turn off the radio when I hear the opening chords. And then I’ll forget to turn it back on.

    Corporate ownership. They probablky don’t even notice my little act of defiance but I feel better for doing it.

    Coolzedad apts sums up CNN and Breitbart.

    I’ve been ignoring Weinergate as well but what I’ve noticed from the lefty blogs I read is that the young woman the alleged picture was reportedly sent to is displaying unusual amounts of grace under fire and is not blaming Weiner himself but some stalker that’s been bothering her. Personally I think when all is said and done Breitbart’s fingerprints will be all over this story. It’s just the kind of smear he’s good at.

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  9. Moe99 said on June 1, 2011 at 11:58 am

    Daily kos had a thorough debunking of this. Weiner’s fb acct was hacked. I thinkthe reason he is not discussing it with the media is he’s trying to pursue a criminal action against an Internet presence named patriot76, or Dan Wolfe who has a direct pipeline to Breitbart.

    And if you haven’t heard of it, I recommend radio station KEXP. Eclectic interesting and fun. You can stream it on your computer.

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  10. nancy said on June 1, 2011 at 12:01 pm

    We were just listening to this station — over the air — on the way back from the car place. They were playing the Velvets’ “Pale Blue Eyes.” Not bad for a bunch of high-school kids. Maybe this business has a future after all.

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  11. Kevin said on June 1, 2011 at 12:03 pm

    I’m a longtime Internet radio fan, but it hasn’t always been convenient… it probably would have stayed a niche product if smartphones hadn’t come along.

    Alan should probably be OK with any Internet plan as long as he doesn’t leave the radio on when he’s not listening to it. Think of it as leaving a tap running, rather than leaving the TV on. I think AT&T sends you a warning if you get close to overtopping your monthly usage. Plus he can always see how much bandwidth he’s consumed by checking the phone itself: Settings -> General -> Usage.

    It sounds like he’s enjoying terrestrial radio streamed over the Internet instead of Internet radio itself, and that second category is enormous. There’s Pandora and Slacker, both of which can replicate satellite radio pretty well. And I’m crazy about soma.fm, which is 18 channels of 24-hour, high-quality, commercial-free, listener-supported music selected by people with great taste. For fun, I like Luxuria Radio, which is all lounge, tiki, Sixties easy listening, etc.

    If you have a smartphone, there’s no reason to be hamstrung by whatever crap Clear Channel is putting out over your car radio or your home stereo. Plus: hey, you’re paying enough for that data plan. What better use for it than music?

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  12. brian stouder said on June 1, 2011 at 12:10 pm

    I missed commenting yesterday; so first, here’s hoping all is as well as can possibly be for our northwest coast friend Moe. (You go, Moe!!)

    Today I had my first checkup in…probably 15 years(!), in advance of a yet-to-be-scheduled colonoscopy. (not too much of a digression from the riff-raff flim-flam Breitbart antics, as Cooz and Moe already pointed out!)

    Aside from that, and regarding over-the-air radios, one thing about them is that weather warnings (and the like) are easily spread by that avenue. I suppose i-phones and the like can be configured to do the same…or else, we really are losing something in the bargain.

    One thing about i-phones that doesn’t bother me, but which does intrigue me, is precisely that gps aspect. At a recent meeting at our son’s large (large) high school, we learned that the district issued the principal and assistant principals i-phones. A key part of their (re-defined) jobs is to continuously circulate all around the school, leading the teachers (rather than managing the building).

    As the school year has been rolling toward the end, two weeks ago they (the principal and his assistants) were on other tasks and fell away from making their rounds quite as regularly….and their i-phones rang, and it was “downtown” wanting to know what the deal was.

    (a thing that made me say “hmmmmm”)

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  13. Mark P. said on June 1, 2011 at 12:17 pm

    Beb, I think the governor referred to in the Lynyrd Skynyrd song is George Wallace, that other well-known racist. He was governor of Alabama. Lester Maddox, the pick-handle wielder, was governor of Georgia.

    According to the wiki:

    In 1975, Ronnie Van Zant said: “The lyrics about the governor of Alabama were misunderstood. The general public didn’t notice the words ‘Boo! Boo! Boo!’ after that particular line, and the media picked up only on the reference to the people loving the governor.”

    Here are the lyrics as given in the same article:

    In Birmingham, they love the governor (boo boo boo)
    Now we all did what we could do
    Now Watergate does not bother me
    Does your conscience bother you?

    Tell the truth

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  14. a different Connie said on June 1, 2011 at 12:20 pm

    Agree, no one needs another monthly bill, but my XM radio sub can be paid yearly for about $160. And it’s pretty worth it.

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  15. coozledad said on June 1, 2011 at 12:45 pm

    On the rare occasions we can tune it in, XDU has pretty good stuff. DISCLAIMER:I used to volunteer there when hurricane Fran had temporarily reduced their effective broadcast radius to the size of most modern kitchens.
    http://www.wxdu.org/

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  16. Bitter Scribe said on June 1, 2011 at 1:19 pm

    Regarding the airplane fiasco: I’ve often felt that all seats in coach should be equipped with a button that ejects the passenger in the seat in front of you. That button would be armed if the person in front crams his or her stupid, inconsiderate, rude, boorish head and body into your space by reclining the seat.

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  17. John G. Wallace said on June 1, 2011 at 1:30 pm

    Reclining seats in coach should go the way of the direct flights, meals, and other niceties we once enjoyed. People who are so desperate for that additional 1.5 inches irritate me if I want to read, work on my laptop, or just not smell them from that much closer.
    I know there is another camp of thought – I paid for it so it’s mine. Does that permit someone to crush their fellow passenger’s knees, recline without warning if someone has a drink, or actually wants to work. The polite way to handle it if you must recline is to at least look, even if you don’t intend to ask.

    The people who make knee defenders are on to something. I prefer to use my right knee and strong legs as a buffer, and just ignore their banging and muttering. A sneezing and coughing fit work well too. I also prefer to glare at the parents if a kid behind me keeps kicking away – manners folks. Looking like I’m about to lower the kid some lotion in a basket or describe a Kaiser blade is very effective.

    I have to plug Allegiant Air – the low cost carrier that serves Fort Wayne and other Midwestern under-served airports with direct flights to Florida. I don’t mind driving to Sanford to catch a flight – it’s a little closer to me than Orlando, and people here tend to drive 2 hours to get a better fare anyway. Melbourne is a delightful small airport but not worth 50% more and a change or regional jets to go to Fort Wayne or Indy. Allegiant has disabled the recline on all their seats, and about half their fleet had nicely designed new leather seats with the magazine pouch relocated to the top of the seat back, so they have better legroom than most legacy carriers.

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  18. Judybusy said on June 1, 2011 at 2:10 pm

    At 5’2″, I am one of the 3% or so of the population who is comfortable on a plane. A reclining seat has never bothered me, so I will confess that I never gave a thought to reclining mine. I will definitely check the next time I fly, and hereby apologize to all the people for whom I’ve cut off circulation.

    Speaking of flying, in 26 days my niece and I will be heading to Italy. I’m just really excited and had to share the fun news! She’s never been outside of the country and is very interested in architechture/ruins.

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  19. prospero said on June 1, 2011 at 2:38 pm

    Public radio from MIT, WMBR (http://wmbr.org/), is a wonderful station I’ve been listening to since about 1980. Back in the day, I couldn’t always tune it in, despite the mere five miles or so separating my office from the tower across the river. Now I’ve got perfect reception on my Mac. Noon to 2pm weekdays is a show called Lost & Found that plays mostly 60’s and 70′ music. Wednesdays are devoted to obscure soul music, with a very knowledgeable DJ. The Friday guy is Alex McNeil, that was on WXYZ or WKNR in Detroit back in the late 60’s when they started playing Underground Radio. WFUV from Fordham has extensive contemporary folk music shows. Both of these stations have extensive World Music programming on weekends, which is very agreeable accompaniment to lazy Sunday morning brunch preparation, and MBR, in particular, has very good jazz shows, with both vintage and more modern tenor-driven modern leanings.I’ve got a bunch of great T-shirts and compilation albums from both for financial support. When Republicans start talking about screwing over NPR, it gets me more pissed off than usual. Both these stations are worth checking out.

    There’s a great show on MBR right now, Gorilla Got Me, both a fine pun and a good indication of the sort of music the DJ, Sara J, likes. She’s been on seemingly for 25 years. Serious, obscure rock ‘n’ roll.

    The airplane seats thing has always perplexed me. I’m 6′-1″ and it has always mystified me that I’m apparently much taller than what airline designers expect to accomodate at all, much less remotely comfortably. For a flight more than two hours duration, I’m likkely to pay for a bigger chair, which I gess is the design intent.

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  20. basset said on June 1, 2011 at 2:50 pm

    In 26 days Judybusy will be heading to Italy, in 20 days my AT&T contract will be up and I will finally get an iPhone from Verizon. AT&T is notorious around here for dropped calls and dead spots, and during the flood last May their cel service went out entirely for most of a week, at least in the flooded part of town where we were.

    Sirius, on the other hand, has been good to us; I would not want to have done this past weekend’s 1503-mile Nashville to Cadillac round trip without satellite radio.

    We went to Mad Anthony’s in Auburn for lunch on the way up, based on a recommendation from someone here; they make a decent tenderloin but nothing really special, certainly not the best anywhere as it was described to us a few days ago. Way too hard a crust, and they put some kind of half-sweet pickle slices on it instead of dills; not that bad overall but not even in the running with the gold standard of tenderloin down in Gnaw Bone.

    The ACD Museum was memorable, though – had never seen a Graham Hollywood in person before. Now, who can tell me the connection between the Hollywood and the Nissan Leaf? Thin, but it’s there.

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  21. alex said on June 1, 2011 at 3:46 pm

    My apologies, basset, if the tenderloin was meh. It’s been a while since I’ve had one.

    As for the Nissan Leaf, I have no idea, but I do know that Graham sold some of its tooling to Nissan pre-WWII.

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  22. Jeff Borden said on June 1, 2011 at 4:43 pm

    I’m addicted to my XM radio and have been since we began subscribing in the summer of 2004. (My wife bought it for me right after I got the boot from my old job.) My favorite channel also is Little Steven’s Underground Garage, but I also greatly enjoy Siriusly Sinatra, Bluesville, Outlaw Country, the 40’s and 50’s channel, the reggae and bluegrass channels and, yes baby, all the MLB games.

    Like John C., I consider the monthly payments more than fair for all the pleasure it brings. Commercial radio is in a terrible state and is not going to get any better.

    BTW, I have not signed on to the computer since Saturday and was blissfully unaware of the Weiner issue. Unfortunately, the mighty shadow of Moosezilla was not so easy to avoid even away from the intertubes. I can only add an “amen” to Coozledad. At least this time, however, Breitbart’s crew of slime masters are targeting a white guy. Usually, his M.O. is all about race. And SheWho is playing both media and her followers for suckers –again– attracting attention and building her brand. She won’t run because she has neither the guts or the work ethic to run.

    And finally, it is because CNN feels it must emulate Faux News that I no longer watch it. Ever. That and the fact that they employ creepy ideologues like Erick Erickson and that they give prominent time to race-baiting hunks of shit like Breitbart.

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  23. mark said on June 1, 2011 at 5:20 pm

    It’s nice that Weiner wants to go easy on Breitbart, and avoid involving the federal authorities. And also fortunate for Breitbart that there are enough turgid crotch shots of the Congressman floating around that Weiner can’t say the one in question isn’t him. What does he do, hand that shot out at fundraisers?

    http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/06/01/6764247-weiner-cant-say-with-certitude-that-lewd-photo-isnt-of-him?GT1=43001

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  24. coozledad said on June 1, 2011 at 5:26 pm

    Well we know it’s not a Republican cock, because it doesn’t appear to be stuck in a child.

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  25. Jeff Borden said on June 1, 2011 at 5:35 pm

    Or a mistress. . .(ba-dum-dum!)

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  26. coozledad said on June 1, 2011 at 5:51 pm

    There’s only one way to flash your junk, and that’s in a codpiece, on a flight deck. CNN eats that shit up.

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  27. Jolene said on June 1, 2011 at 6:09 pm

    Matt Yglesias has a theory that the way for public officials to get through sex scandals is to simply not resign. He contrasts, for instance, David Vitter and Eliot Spitzer, who committed more or less equal offenses by consorting w/ prostitutes. It’s not clear that Spitzer could have withstood the pressure to resign, but it’s not clear that he couldn’t either. Ensign was brought down not by his affair, but by the financial shenanigans surrounding it.

    Weiner seems to have read Yglesias’s advice. He doesn’t seem able to say, flat out, “It’s not me. I’ve never taken or allowed anyone to take a picture of me in my underwear,” a sort of non-denial denial strategy. We’ll see how it works out for him.

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  28. LAMary said on June 1, 2011 at 6:55 pm

    With everyone having a cellphone that can take pictures and send any photo instantly, lots of people have found a way to express their inner stupid adolescent without thinking twice.

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  29. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on June 1, 2011 at 6:59 pm

    So between Roger Simon and Willie Geist, I suddenly realized something. Like her or loathe her, Sarah Palin has made me aware of something I guess I should have known, knew on some level, but just never let myself think about.

    The scam apparently is that as long as any one candidate does this, they all (but for the fringe of the fringe) have to do it: have their campaign dollars pay for the buses, planes, and hotel/meals of reporters “assigned” to the candidate. Ron Paul, maybe Alan Keyes (I wonder about Ralph Nader); some don’t have a press plane or a food & lodgings deal for press/media, but they pay a price in less or no coverage other than at debates which bring everyone together (and the major candidates’ budgets indirectly subsidizing even those), or the occasional press conference if done close to a DC or NYC studio. In essence, it’s pay to play.

    What seems to have many media operations nervous, confused, or nervous AND confused is how to handle Sarah Palin. Dana Milbank tried to push a “Palin fast,” vowing to not mention or address her for 30 days . . . as far as I know, he pulled it off (barely), but went right back to coverage & analysis at 31. The conundrum is: what happens if Palin does virtually all bus tour “campaigning”, now or after a likely declaration of candidacy, and opts not to provide media “support”?

    If there’s no press bus, no hallway of rooms or buffet at the hotel, just “hey, if you want to follow us, feel free!” — then media operations already cash-strapped have to decide “do we cover her, or pretend she doesn’t exist?” Which won’t work, any more than the NYTimes’ page-view-pay plan is working (go ahead, ask them how it’s going; I’d rather try to get a straight answer from Anthony Weiner right now).

    With social media and other online outlets, can Palin keep on doing stops, drawing crowds, and build a campaign on her own terms — and force press/TV to pay out of their own pockets, retail, for rooms and cars and plane tickets? And how do they even cry foul over that?

    For many of you here, I know the answer seems obvious: just stop feeding the troll, and she’ll go away. From where I sit in Ohio, I don’t know. I just don’t know. I still think she will run up to a point, quit the race, and gear up for 2016. But my wife just laughs and laughs and laughs. “Oh, she’s running. You watch.” I am.

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  30. Jolene said on June 1, 2011 at 7:29 pm

    Jeff, are you sure about the “candidates must pay” idea? My impression was that when press people travel, for instance, on candidate buses or planes or on Air Force One, the press organization reimburses the candidate’s organization or the government for the reporter’s expenses.

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  31. coozledad said on June 1, 2011 at 7:56 pm

    The most interesting thing will be watching the battle between the Grifter and government-subsidized infant commodifier Michelle Bachmann. Things are going to get downright nasty when the fight turns on who gets the RNC swag. I expect Sarah will haul out little Swallow or Pup-Tent to hang on a cross for a few days after the first exchange concerning Sarah’s lack of true snake-handling Christian child rearing.
    But you never know, they might work out a deal, and split the big dumbass baby portion of the electorate that keeps letting them swipe their wallets and watches.

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  32. nancy said on June 1, 2011 at 8:59 pm

    Jolene’s right, Jeff. Unless there’s some special arrangement here, news outlets pay quite a lot to cover campaigns. IIRC, the campaign will hire the buses, planes, etc., and the cost is divvied up and billed to CNN, Fox, the papers, etc. There’s a day rate for people who want to pop off and on — for, say, a Florida paper that wants to be at all three stops in the state — but the media gets billed for pretty much everything.

    That’s one of the things they mention at fundraising time on NPR.

    The execution of Tim McVeigh had one press tent, Tent A, with electricity, ethernet, food, privacy (i.e., walls), etc. A seat in that one cost $1,200 for two days. Tent B was army-green, had no walls, tables or anything else — shelter if it rained, basically — and was free. My friend Ron and I split the cost of a rental table ($8) and worked from there. Ron was trying to write on his laptop in the dark, with moths bombing his screen. The citronella candle didn’t help much.

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  33. John G. Wallace said on June 1, 2011 at 8:59 pm

    Jeff the MMO,

    They reimburse based on first class air service rates but I’d still take Air Force One over Domestic First Class. The president even as a candidate is usually accompanied by a press charter, perhaps two. For a while the Pace Air 757 that was once the Hooters Air jet was a campaign ride – not sure for who. North American Airlines was popular too, nice red white and blue livery with a flag motiff.

    I was fortunate enough to staff a Bill Clinton trip to NJ as a volunteer very early in his presidency, I want to say April 1, 1993. We were all speculating he would go to the WTC site because the first bombing was a few days before. We went to Rutgers University for him to give a speech introducing his national service plan, we went to a head start center in New Brunswick, and we all had to be at Newark Airport hours before the President arrived.

    I was struck at how haphazard it all was – We picked up ten identical white vans that were in a parking garage, the girl behind me almost rear ended me on the way back to the airport. I was assigned to drive a van carrying the radio pool reporters. My friend got to drive the Zapruder Car, a station wagon with a camera man on the roof. He had Wolf Blitzer in the car, said he was actually pretty cool but that was a long time ago. Blitzer told the camera man to get back in the f’ing car, he was more likely to fall off on the NJ Turnpike than capture the president being killed.

    My friend’s car was the last vehicle in the “secure package.” If they boogied that car went, the rest of us were told to leave our vehicles in place and wait. I’m sure things require more screening now, but then it was just a matter of getting a phone call from someone we knew from DCCC.

    Clinton was already adept at pissing off the secret service detail. They’d get him loaded into the limo after a lot of flesh pressing and the guy would slide across the seat and exit on the other side. The ones who were beserk about that move was the NJ State Troopers, who had naive beliefs that the schedule would be followed, after all we had a large stretch of the turnpike shut down for the duration.

    Clinton spent two and a half hours in the MTV Choose or lose bus, much of it alone with Tabitha Soren. We were five hours behind schedule when we got back to the tarmac.

    We each got a meet and greet on the receiving line as he boarded Air Force One, in that case a Gulfstream. I still have the autograph on the White House envelope marked radio 1. Bill said to us, “it’s been a great day, hasn’t it?”

    I always felt the use of the smaller aircraft was a sham, there were two C-141’s to carry the cars, a press charter, and over at Maguire AFB the E4B doomsday plane was waiting.

    My friend and I did befriend a Clinton staffer and a few weeks later we interviewed for a job in the travel office. Got to go to the old executive office building, didn’t get the job, but a few weeks later the travel office scandal broke and they cleaned house, including our friend. It would have been a short lived but great career.

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  34. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on June 1, 2011 at 9:01 pm

    Jolene, excellent question, and I’m hoping for illumination from those about these halls who would know. Roger Simon at Politico made it sound as if a “press-plane-free” campaign was not unprecedented, but usually meant “therefore not covered.” Both stories I read left the implication that the ongoing coverage depends in some very tangible way on campaign support, and that traveling entirely on their own could cost a fortune to news businesses.

    Of course, it might mean they need to band together in a new way and be truly independent of the campaign bubble . . .

    Note: I wrote the above just after Jolene’s comment, then spent a stretch outside with a couple of neighborhood kids where one had thrown a rock and hit another (neither my son, hallelu) opening up the proverbial scalp wound. Just got back from first aid and trundling said child & mom off to Urgent Care for skin glue, and hit “Submit” without refreshing. Thanks to John and Nancy, and now I’ll more carefully read what y’all have said. Plus, I need to get the blood off my toes, I see!

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  35. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on June 1, 2011 at 9:08 pm

    So (blood having been Lady Macbethed down the drain), is the issue that a campaign that willfully doesn’t share plans & schedules, or facilitates chartering, creates a higher expense for the media groups? That’s making even more sense to me: if you don’t know until today where tomorrow is (or even more abruptly), then you’re paying the steepest commercial rate for travel & lodgings.

    Mind you, I suspect this is all spite and she’s enjoying tormenting the very folks who are keeping her fires fed with fuel and oxygen, but I’m trying to figure out how the game is played on that level.

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  36. nancy said on June 1, 2011 at 9:12 pm

    That’s my guess, Jeff. She’s not even handing out a schedule. I think everyone could handle their own travel arrangements if they had to. She’s just being a lying, dissembling twit.

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  37. coozledad said on June 1, 2011 at 9:34 pm

    That’s alright. Chris Christie’s going to swoop in on his Hoveround to turn things around.
    I sure could use a po’ boy
    though my story’s seldom told
    I have squandered Federal money
    For a pocket full of cufflinks from “associates”.
    All liars and thieves
    Still a man must eat liguine
    To get cream sauce on his sleeves.
    When I left my home and my family
    I weighed in three twenty five
    They had shut the Norge with padlocks
    But I quietly brought it with me in the moving van.
    Wouldn’t you know
    Shifty bastards they had emptied it
    Before they let it go
    With barely half a jar of Hellmann’s
    and some melted Jello
    Pudding pops
    Pu-pu-pu-pu-pudding pops
    Pu-pu-pu-pu-pu
    Pu-pu-pudding pops.
    Asking only Palin’s wages
    And a bulletproof limo
    I’ve gotten offers
    And a come-on from the whores from K-street and Fox News
    I do declare, there have been times I was so hungry
    I would eat a bear’s ass there
    Um um um.
    In the clearing stands a walrus
    And a governor by his trade
    And he carries the reminders of every block of cream cheese he unwrapped and
    Just devoured
    Moaning “Jesus I can’t stop.”
    And the pilot of his chopper
    Wonders if it’s got the chop.
    Pudding Pops
    Pu-pu-pu-pu-pu…..

    I owe Paul Simon residuals.

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  38. MarkH said on June 1, 2011 at 9:37 pm

    “Clinton spent two and half hours in the MTV Choose or lose bus, much of it alone with Tabitha Soren.”

    Geez, John, talk about burying the lede…

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  39. nancy said on June 1, 2011 at 9:37 pm

    No, you owe me for a pair of pants. I think I just peed.

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  40. baldheadeddork said on June 1, 2011 at 9:58 pm

    Bravo, Coozledad, bravo.

    Nance – AT&T has a calculator to show how far their plans go (http://www.att.com/standalone/data-calculator/index.html). Streaming audio doesn’t chew up a ton of bandwidth, but AT&T’s base plan has so little that you’re going to get hosed with even a little listening. The 200MB base plan won’t cover 15 minutes of streaming audio per day even if you don’t get a single email or surf the web once. Get the 2GB plan now.

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  41. basset said on June 1, 2011 at 10:01 pm

    >>As for the Nissan Leaf, I have no idea, but I do know that Graham sold some of its tooling to Nissan pre-WWII.

    as I said, it’s a thin connection. good catch, and you win the day. the Graham family also kept a cheese factory going till a year or so ago, at Elnora in Daviess County.

    the tenderloin wasn’t bad, just not outstanding. the Reuben at Shapiro’s in Indianapolis, now, that’s another story.

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  42. brian stouder said on June 1, 2011 at 10:59 pm

    Jeff asked – (with emphasis added by me)

    With social media and other online outlets, can Palin keep on doing stops, drawing crowds, and build a campaign on her own terms — and force press/TV to pay out of their own pockets, retail, for rooms and cars and plane tickets?

    If I was in the gaggle following her around, I’d have asked her what her reaction was, after seeing the rolling, quiet fields (and the innumerable memorials and markers and statues and graves) just beyond the southern edge of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

    What thoughts crossed her mind, when she saw all those markers from states like North Carolina and Georgia and Tennessee and Virginia along Seminary Ridge; while other markers, from states like Pennsylvania and New York and Michigan and Ohio loomed up on Cemetery Ridge, to the east?

    Did she reflect upon her “One Nation” livery on her bus, as she visited the site of the single most catastrophic American battlefield?

    Did she reflect on what the deeply disliked (by some) then-president said, at that place, after the battle? What he might have meant when he referred to “us the living” taking “increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion”?

    Maybe the question to ask her – and it would be a softball question for any other similar national political figure: What is Sarah Palin devoted to? Or, to use Jeff’s word – what are Sarah Palin’s “terms”?

    Basset – best pizza in Indiana is from Brunos in Logansport. Write it down. Guaranteed

    edit: here’s an interesting article about Sarah at Gettysburg:

    http://www.gettysburgtimes.com/news/article_3459b6a8-8b23-11e0-8f44-001cc4c002e0.html

    an excerpt or two:

    Sarah Palin scurried around Gettysburg like a mouse Monday in a large bus built to gather attention as media, supporters and interested people chased her like cats.

    No one seems to know where a rumor originated from that claimed Palin would appear at the Pennsylvania Monument on the Gettysburg National Military Park, but by 10:30 a.m., Monday that rumor had spread like wildfire. Hundreds of people gathered at the monument wearing Palin tee shirts and buttons or holding signs. “A lot of them (people waiting for Palin) have been here all day, and some of them left and came back,” Tull said at 6 p.m. She said she supports Palin because of her “Christian morals.”

    and

    Members of the media toiled with the question of why they were standing in 90 degree temperatures with no concrete evidence that Palin would appear. Since there was such a large crowd at the Monument, her visit was in the public interest and the media would be there to get the story if it ever happened.

    and the there’s this – which ocurred in the parking lot at the hotel where she was staying:

    Palin briefly made some candid remarks when she returned from a run with her family. Those who were present said she did say she would visit the Gettysburg National Military Park Tuesday and needed to go shopping for socks Monday evening.

    edit 2 – and not for nothing, but several thousand Palin e-mails from her abortive term as governor of Alaska are about to be released. Possibly this Palin-palooza across the eastern US is a a smokey diversion from will probably look like a smoke-and-mirrors record of political “accomplishment” in Alaska

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  43. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on June 1, 2011 at 11:17 pm

    The editorial function of mainstream media, the process of sorting out what’s mainstream and what’s a backwater rivulet (or as Cooze might say, a burbling cesspool), is really under some shear pressures here. There’s a general working consensus that most of what Palin is doing isn’t news, anymore than the Jeff, Joyce, & Chris trip to Mount Vernon, DC, & Gettysburg was last summer. There’s a significant amount of interest in *not* covering her un-campaign.

    On the other hand, there’s this current running along one side of the channel since last year which flows like this: tweets and Facebook notes do not constitute a plan or a platform or a communications strategy, anchors and on-air reporters and pundits keep saying, as they talk about each tweet and FB note. It’s a self-refuting argument, or at least it becomes one the second time they do it. Meanwhile, people start to notice that folders neatly collated with position papers from the candidate’s central office, faxed press releases, and carefully worded statements from the front of the plane — they often don’t add up to a coherent plan or platform either. So what’s wrong with tweets and posts? That’s how I know if Johnny loves me, or where I learn about what I need to have from Best Buy, so a candidate mainly communicates thru a FailWhale or red notice box declaring “1” — so what?

    And the general media nervously . . . agrees, and covers the social media online the way they once did tears in the snow on a Maine stairway. I don’t know if the question anymore is “should that happen?” It’s really just “if so, what will that drive as to coverage?”

    Meanwhile, a blogger has managed to do a better job defending Weiner than he’s been able to muster: http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2011/06/weiner-affair-close-to-solution-but-i.html

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  44. Mark P. said on June 1, 2011 at 11:20 pm

    Palin is a shallow, little person, one of those genuine American originals who is blissfully unaware of her profound ignorance and limited intelligence. But if you tried to choose the bigger fool, it would be John McCain, who shoved this true Yahoo onto a wider public stage where she continues to debase public discourse.

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  45. Bill said on June 2, 2011 at 12:34 am

    SP games the system. Most of her bus tour coverage was on a slow news day (Memorial Day Monday). She sucked all the oxygen out of the room and the casual viewer was left with the impression that she is a viable candidate when she is only a viable attention getter.

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  46. Dexter said on June 2, 2011 at 8:04 am

    Some satellite channels are available for smart phones, just pay for another ap, but since I have no smart phone, I don’t know if you must already have a sat-sub or not.

    I am OK without a lot of stuff I would like to have, like a i-pad, and I will never have a 3-D TV like my daughter just got, a 65 inch TV that dwarfs my nice Sharp Aquos HDTV that fills my TV room. HDTV has been around a long, long time, but it took me until 2010 to get one, so I guess I am not a Luddite, just selective.

    My family upgrades phones every couple years but this last time I just bought a new battery, from an outfit in Santa Ana,California, for $15. They have a LOT of phone batteries; what the hell, I will plug them: EMTC, Inc. Fast service via USPS, too, just a few days, a PayPal deal, a new battery in your mailbox.

    A person should get what s/he needs, and in 2011, a working person away from home, on the go, needs a smart phone. SOme of us just don’t need one. However, I need my satellite radio like we used to need cigarettes…I “need it bad.”

    Monday, I couldn’t get my radio to turn on. As I went through the process, checking the cords and connections, it was becoming apparent something was wrong—and my show was about to start, and panic was setting in. It takes a few days to get a replacement, and the looming reality I was about to be without XM for a week was too much. Well, it turned out to be a simple fix, as I had somehow turned off the radio with a different button (I use a Sporstcaster plugged into an XM boombox), something I never had done.
    I listen to all the channels mentioned by others in this thread, but especially I listen to The Ron and Fez show every day, and record what I can’t listen to on a little digital voice recorder and then listen to the show at my leisure during the day. I posted a link to Ron Bennington Interviews here last week; the insight that man has to know what questions to ask people is uncanny. I am truly addicted to XM Radio, and along with my having no qualms about loving HDTV , that is enough for me.

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  47. basset said on June 2, 2011 at 8:26 am

    >>best pizza in Indiana is from Brunos in Logansport. Write it down. Guaranteed

    Thanks, will look for it next time I’m there. Best pizza I have ever personally encountered was at Apizza Scholl’s in Portland, Oregon.

    Some thirty years ago, or actually a little more now, I used to pass through Logansport pretty regularly to go see Mrs. B. before we were married – Greyhound from Terre Haute to Indy, Indiana Motor Bus from Indy to South Bend with a stop at the home office in Logansport where we all had to get off so they could wash the bus inside and out, then Indian Trails to Kalamazoo.

    Deep Tracks, Willie’s Roadhouse, and Blue Collar Comedy are my main Sirius channels, then 60s, BBC, and NPR Talk. I have not yet figured out how to lock out the Howard Stern and Bruce Springsteen channels.

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  48. Kim said on June 3, 2011 at 12:27 pm

    Regarding your sentence ‘I can’t tell you how many mornings I’ve found him scouring the internet for clues on some unidentified track that faded out before it was ID’d.’ There is an app you can download called ‘Shazam’ that will tell you the name of the artist and song you are listening if you hold your phone (with app open) up to your radio. The free version gives you 5 free id’s a month.

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