Steve Gleason had an unremarkable NFL career. He played for the New Orleans Saints for 7 years. He wasn’t drafted out of college – during his career, he averaged less than one tackle a game, mainly playing on special teams.
He has one claim to fame – after the Superdome reopened after Katrina, he blocked a punt, which one of his team mates picked up and ran for a touchdown. That’s it. Because of the symbolism in someone’s mind that “New Orleans is back!”, they put up a statue of him at the Superdome.
Gleason is now in his 30s and has ALS “Lou Gehrig’s disease”, which destroys your muscles and kills you in a few years. Some people get it from genetic defects, but the most common cause is head trauma from playing contact sports – ring a bell?
Monday, three sports talkers at WQXI-AM (owned by an insurance company) – the ESPN affiliate in Atlanta (which is not New Orleans!), did a “bit” with a computerized voice pretending to be an interview with Gleason. Radio stations constantly do this “bit”, poking fun at physicist Stephen Hawkings – including national radio talk show hosts. Tasteless? Sure.
http://www.sbnation.com/nfl/2013/6/17/4439610/steve-gleason-audio-790-the-zone-atlanta
So some Fox Sports guy tweets out that he was offended and joins in a big campaign to tell the world how offended he is and demanding justice. The three DJs have been fired.
The first amendment limits Congress – the radio station is entirely in its rights to fire them. However, if we keep doing this, radio will devolve into just playing Montevani elevator music
bot-suggested soundtrack for this post:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8zuqsqdCAQ
non-bot suggested track……..Doris Day singin’ “Blue Skies”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K01YNsa_8m8
That is good, but I believe this original Josephine Baker hit is better. I saw it used as a sound track to an outstanding documentary on the roaring 20s and the great depression that followed. This recording was a big radio hit two years before the 1929 stock market crash and the Great Depression that followed until the end of World War II.
Knowing what we know happened – the decades of impending doom – after this 1927 recording was a hit, makes it chilling to hear, even 86 years after it was recorded. If there was only some way to warn the singer and her listeners of what what on their immediate horizon…Enjoy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUdUk0EjTEo
Wow, the bot needs some tweaks – it is living in the 1970s
1920s 😉
And, you have a problem with Montevani elevator music? Hells Bells, a number of convenience stores run Montevani elevator music 24/7 outside their stores claiming it limits the number of hoodlums congregating around the store. See? It has benefits.
I actually love elevator music. Sincerely. I watch Lawrence Welk reruns on PBS.
This story is sad. Those DJ’s were jackoffs and I’m glad they are out of work. The bit they did wasn’t even funny, so they deserved to lose their jobs for being shitty entertainers at the very least.
I heard not long back that there is now reasonable suspicion that Lou Gehrig did not really have his own disease.