Smash on the radio

One interesting local radio personality just goes by the moniker of "Smash." I think he's originally from Greece, but anyway his real name is apparently real ethnic and/or hard to pronounce.

I first heard him on 103.3 when he had their afternoon show. Although the basic format was simply playing the oldies, he managed to go way beyond that. He had a lot of long running jokes, skits, imaginary characters and so. Some of the funniest such stuff on St Louis radio since Johnny Rabbit was the night dj on KXOK back around 1964 when I was a kid, and was always fighting with his imaginary sidekick, Bruno J. Grunion.

One afternoon around August 2000 I was listening to Smash when he announced that he was going to have Senator John Ashcroft on next. I started laughing, wondering what a gag that was.

Senator Ashcroft was running for re-election in a heated campaign with Governor Mel Carnahan.

At that time I was a political agnostic. My convictions were changing. I was conservative enough that I now hated Democrats, but also still hated Republicans. And John Ashcroft was long known to Missourians as a conservative villain.

But to my amazement, the guess on Smash's show really WAS Senator John Ashcroft. And I have to admit that the guy talking on the radio did not seem like the rabid right winger I'd always thought he was.

They played several tracks where Ashcroft and a few other senators sang some old doo wop songs they'd released as a CD by "The Singing Senators" procedes of which were donated to an Alzheimer's charity.

In a small way, that marked part of my own conversion into a conservative right-winger or libertarian.

Later, Smash had on as guest the Republican candidate running against Representative Richard Gephardt for the Missouri 3rd district house seat.

Smash made sure to let people know that he'd also invited John Ashcroft's opponent, Governor Mel Carnahan, to be a guest with him also, but that he'd never gotten a reply. (Also, he invited Richard Gephardt who didn't go on his show either.)

Several months or so later, Governor Mel Carnahan died in plane crash while on the campaign trail. He won the election against John Ashcroft in spite of being dead, and his widow Jean Carnahan took his seat and was in the senator for two years until defeated by Jim Talent in 2002.

I didn't vote in that election -- I was still against both parties.

But after George W. Bush won the presidency, of course he appointed John Ashcroft as Attorney General and he became a hated rabid right winger to the entire political left wing.

When 103.3 fired JC Corcoran from The Breakfast Club morning show, they moved Smash to the morning and he hosted that show with Karen for a time, I think long enough to eventually compete with JC Corcoran when he went back on the air.

Then he was teamed up with Jamie Allman, who's more consciously political, for 97.1 morning show -- and often provides a good humor balance, and adds some common sense or observation.

By the time Jim Talent ran against Jean Carnahan, 9/11 had occurred and I'd started listening to 97.1 a lot and was now convinced we needed Republicans to protect us from the Islamo-Nazis. I'm not for the entire conservative agenda -- but rule by sharia would be much worse.

supporting the troops on air

This morning I listened mainly to Allman and Smash in the Morning on 97.1 FM Talk.

This is a local show that's mainly politically conservative, as 97.1 is, though mostly through nationally syndicated talk show hosts such as Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham.

Anyway, today Jamie Allman and Smash were at the USO at Lambert Airport, since many service men and women and passing through the airport on the way home or someplace else for Christmas. They were doing a fundraiser for this great organization that is doing what they can to help the people protecting our country.

I support this and encourage anybody to donate money to the USO, since it receives no government funding. Also, while I listened, a woman came on from a group whose name I didn't catch, but it's Missouri military mothers raising money and sending packages to the troops. So it's great somebody is doing that.

Also, Jamie mentioned an organization Adopt a Platoon which gives you a chance to send things to troops overseas.

No repeat repetititon

The local rock oldies station recently revamped their format. Facing competition from 106.50 the Arch which bragged that it didn't play the same song twice in one day -- 96.36 KHITS decided to do them one better.

Now KHITS won't play the same song twice in one WEEK. To get a playlist that long, they're playing a fair number of songs from rock albums, and including stuff that dropped off the playlists many years ago.

The DJs seem to really like it, since they're playing a much larger variety of stuff than they used to. They keep saying, "Man, I haven't played that one in 20 years. It's great to hear it again." And I believe they're sincere.

My feelings are mixed. I do enjoy hearing a lot of the songs they never played before . . . but I also sometimes miss the familiarity. Some of what I hear is new to me -- there're a lot of songs I missed as singles and a lot of albums I've never heard. Yet some of it, I just don't care much about.

I'd like to weed out some of the songs -- including almost everything by Elton John -- and focus only on the ones I like.

How about a no repeat every 3 days?