Speaking of J&J

I enjoy reading your blog daily. I think that that “C” list guy just might be me due to the comment I made last week about their show. One thing I can say that they can’t, at least I have tried to make a difference in the city by running for office, and am proud that I did. More people in the city need to get active in city government and not let the system get hold of them and do what is right for the people of the city and not special interest groups. Lincoln is run by special interest groups and a clique of people who push the agenda their way so as to benefit them or their business.
At least I’m on a list. LOL I will make sure to be listening to my favorite radio station in the morning like I always do, KFAB radio in Omaha.

I wasn’t going to jump in here, but after reading this, I’m going to.

We said “B” list. That actually wasn’t even meant to be a slight. I just started to say ‘celebrity’ and thought that might not be the best way to tease it. I would have rather said ‘former political candidate’ (and did in future teases). The way it’s described here indicates there was more of a mocking tone than there was (or was meant to be). I’d be glad to forward the audio. One of my biggest pet peeves is people who respond to things they heard ‘second hand’ on the radio without hearing it themselves.

Disappointed to read your comments, Roger. City politics are a small part of our show. The vast majority of Lincoln isn’t talking about them unless there are huge issues going on like the arena. We’re not Coby’s show and don’t try to be that in terms of content.

I assume you’re basing your position that we want to be ‘in the in crowd’ and ‘part of the establishment’ mainly on the fact that we strongly believed the arena was the right thing for Lincoln and said as much, a position that happened to also be shared by the ‘establishment’ (and plenty of non-establishment, per the vote totals). That’s fairly short sighted. To wit, like you, we thought moving the fair was a stupid idea and we said it on the show and still continued to do so even after visiting the fair. I’m not sure if that constitutes laying down for “the man”, but if so, we were together on that at the outset.

Beyond that, honestly, in the times that I or we have been passionate about city or state governmental issues (times that frankly aren’t incredibly frequent), I think you’d be hard-pressed to show any sort of pro-“establishment” bent or agenda. Hell, there are times I try and follow some of the city news that Deena used to cover and it bores me to tears (the events/issues, not her stories). I’m impressed with people that do have such a passion for it. If you disagreed with us on the arena and the way we went about stating our position, and don’t want to listen to us because of it, fine. But if you’re familiar with the show at all, and I know you are since I’ve taken calls from you several times, it’s pretty clear your generalization is off-base.

I thought we were quite fair to you when you ran for Mayor, in fact I remember touting some of the things you said as quite refreshing, and talking at length about your promise to give out your cell number. I certainly don’t recall bringing a pro-establishment agenda to our coverage of that agenda.

If you like KFAB’s morning show, however, it’s pretty clear you won’t like ours, and that’s fine. Two different animals completely. I could do ‘conservative local radio’ and our ratings might skyrocket, but it’s not who I am. Political/Government news is on the forefront of most Lincolnites’ mind only a small part of the time, not to mention usually divisive, so it’s important to me that we don’t over-cover it. In the times when we are talking about issues of widespread interest regarding local or state government (or national for that matter), we praise or rip people when we think they deserve it, whether they’re left, right, D, R, establishment or non-establishment (perhaps you remember me talking about how non-establishment hero Terry Kubicek had the best interview of any of our city council candidates the last time around). Most pundits on the radio and TV contort their content to position their political ideology as in infallible, that what we do probably sounds odd.

As for your comments above, I’ve never claimed that I’ve got some higher call of trying to reform broken city government on or off the air, so no, I’ve never run for office. The ins and outs of city governance are important, but fall way down on my list of priorities and passions in life. So no, I really don’t have an agenda that I’d like to promulgate by seeking office. I applaud you for taking actions you did purusant to your strong beliefs about special interest groups and city government.

As for ‘childish’, we’ve certainly had a lot of the old-guard KLIN listeners make this claim, and have lost them, but at the same time we’ve added a whole lot more listeners from different demographics as well. I don’t pretend to believe that everyone will like us, but I think there’s enough dead serious AM radio in the world to go around, and I think there are a decent amount of people who like to hear local news and talk along with some lighter fare and humor that’s actually funny rather than going-through-the-motions AM humor. Some have called it ‘childish’, others hillarious. Now I know where you stand.

Sorry, that was way longer than I anticipated. As this blog’s author knows, when your work is criticized, sometimes it’s hard to sit quietly on the sidelines.

The defendant stands guilty as charged of toying with the social rankings in the local ‘who was seen, wearing what, at whose event’ scene. And the most substantial piece of evidence, has nothing to do with what defendant said on the air, but rather circumstances over which he has no control at this point, flowing as they do from the parental decision to ensconce said defendant in the extreme south east tier of Lincoln Society. A ‘military brat’, that would be a person like myself, or your former co-host, Ashley, who grew up moving from town to town every year or two, never knowing what part of town he or she might end up in, can spot you guys from the other side of the room, without even saying a word. That’s why you’ve got John on your show. A leopard can’t change his spots, don’t worry about it, you’ve got talent, go with it. LOL