Weekly Mail November 19, 2017

Hey:

It's Thanksgiving week. Which means the holiday season is upon us. The good (getting together with family and friends) the bad (24 hours of Christmas music) and the ugly (competitive shopping)

Buckle up!

In other news....


MEDIA: WFAN Unveils New Shows

With the pending departure of Mike Francesca and the arrest of Craig Carton, those of us who listen to WFAN (in spite of ourselves mostly) have been eagerly awaiting the decision as to who will replace the morning and afternoon blowhards.

Those decisions came down this week, Francesca will be replaced by Chris Carlin, Maggie Gray and Bart Scott. Carton will be replaced by Greg Giannotti.

Please try to contain your excitement.

Carlin is all right, to me no more talented than Joe Beningo, Evan Roberts or Steve Sommers. Joe and Evan probably should have been moved to afternoon drive, if truth be told. I don't know much about Gray, but all reviews on her have been positive so I'm willing to give her a chance. I would have preferred Kim Jones if the FAN was hell bent on a female perspective in afternoon drive, but she'd reportedly turned down the gig.

My beef with all this is with Bart Scott. Another ex football player getting his own show? WTF? I'm looking for less football talk on the FAN, not more.

I realize that the other ex-football player on the FAN, Boomer Esiason has been a success. But he pretty much forced his trade to the Jets in 1993 from the Bengals looking to hone his skills as a broadcaster in his post playing career. I also realize that Boomer can hold his own talking hoops, more than hold his own talking baseball, and let's face it, he's pretty much by default the FAN's hockey expert.

But Scott hasn't proven he can do any of that. His broadcast experience has been the NFL Today and that's about it. Is the FAN now going to be a 365 day a year football station? That will make it un-listenable.

Giannotti replacing Carton doesn't exactly quicken my pulse either, but I give the FAN props for not catering to the lowest common denominator with their selection. I always thought they were hypocrites, replacing Don Imus who was fired for insulting the Rutgers Women's Basketball Team, with a guy who every year had a "tournament of babes" on the FAN, who encouraged female fans to wear nothing but a team jersey to please their man (then have the women call and report about it). If that's what they were going to do, why not give Imus a 6 month RIP and bring him back?  In any event, I didn't see anything wrong with the morning show just promoting Jerry Recco to full time co-host. Is he that much worse than Giannotti? I don't think so.

When the FAN was talking about auditioning the likes of Chris Christie to replace Francesca, I thought they were nuts, but I kind of like the fact they were thinking outside the box a bit. I'd almost would have rather had someone outside the sports world than someone who is strictly into one sport. Especially if that sport is football. Boomer and Carton was a successful show, which I know I didn't give much of a chance either. Maybe I'll be wrong about The Afternoon Drive with Carlin, Bart and Maggie too.

I just can't see it working.


POLITICS: Trump to the rescue!!!!!

Who said President Trump was useless?

Last week, he came to the rescue of three UCLA basketball players who were facing weeks of confinement in a Shanghai jail after being arrested for shoplifting. Our fearless leader asked Chinese President Xi Jinping to step in and have the three players released. Sure enough they were back on a plane to Los Angeles hours later. Crisis averted. Our hero!

All the $h-t going on in the world, people far more deserving of freedom, he gets these 3 knuckleheads sprung?

How stupid do you have to be to go to a foreign country, a communist country at that, and steal? One of the thieves was LiAngelo Ball, brother of Lonzo Ball of the Lakers and son of loudmouth LaVar Ball. Obviously this Ball has no brains They were caught stealing from Louis Vuitton, Gucci and Yves St. Laurent. How did they think they wouldn't be caught?

The latest development in this sorry story os that Trump is now saying he wishes he had left the three dopes in China because of Ball's father saying that Trump wasn't the reason his kid got sprung. Don't know what rump expected, LaVar Ball might be the one man in America who says more ridiculous crap than does the President.

As I mentioned on Facebook last weekend, if I were a college coach and I had to play a game in a foreign country, I'd make the in-flight movie Midnight Express. Show these spoiled bastards what can happen if you run afoul of the law in a foreign country.



I will spare you my annual rant about Black Friday. Unless you want to take a guess as to which city will report the first serious injury/death. Feel free to respond. Otherwise, and especially this year, make sure you tell someone you love how thankful you are for them in your life.

Happy Thanksgiving

and Have a Great Week