871...Stephen Harper's Calendar

Tomorrow evening Prime Minister Stephen Harper addresses the Canadian American Business Council and Canadian Association of New York.

The reception is at 5:30 p.m.; Mr. Harper's speech is at 6 p.m. It is at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, 109 East 42 St., Manhattan, New York City, New York. I will be the one in the Canadian Flag sombrero.

The subject is one near and dear to the heart of our beloved Prime Minister:

Winning Hockey Pool Strategies

Draft To Win

WFDS

837...Elxn News: Naked Cowboy Not Running

Associated Press running with the story that the New York City mayoralty race has one less candidate.

Robert Burck, The Naked Cowboy, who is a tourist attraction in Times Square, playing country tunes whilst [almost] naked, has decided to drop out of the mayoralty race citing the fact that there is too much paper work involved.

He sadly pointed out that the only way to get taken seriously is by wearing a suit and a tie. As opposed to his work clothes: tighty whiteys, cowboy boots and a cowboy hat.

WFDS

574...And Baby Makes 44 000 Dollars

Associated Press moves the heartwarming story of Milkshake girl Kelis' new baby boy, Knight, born Wednesday in New York City and the equally heartwarming story of a Los Angeles judge awarding her 44 000 USD a month in child support from her ex husband, Nas.

WFDS

389...Michael Jackson Died Thursday

Ladies and gentlemen, Michael Jackson died Thursday.

Radio died right along with him. Most radio stations just kept John Tesh rolling, Ryan Seacrest babbling and voice tracking mindlessly ploughing through the playlist.

When John Lennon and Elvis Presley died, decades before consolidation, national program directors and big chains controlling everything from Toronto, Montreal, New York and Los Angeles most stations were immediately broadcasting on-air tributes, news accounts and playing wall-to-wall dead guy music.

In my town the only station that I heard going wall to wall Michael was the station that I am with, 93.1CKCU, which has, and this is a positive, a laissez faire attitude towards programming. Although the hit stations in town, TAG FM, KISS and HOT did talk about Michael Jackson they also played the songs that were programmed weeks, days, months ago. If anything, CFRA, the local right wing news talker and CBC ONE, the lefty news talker, were more on the story than the contemporary stations.

Not hating, just stating.

Score one for local TV, like Local4 in Detroit, stations that were out on the street in their towns and a big one for the Internet.

WFDS

236...Tony Awards, Last Night

On CBS. Or may be NBC. Perhaps FOX. Definitely not on ABC coz that is where Kobe was.

You missed it too? Thought so.

When you break it down, the Tony Awards are a throw back to the olden days of TV, like really olden, 1940's, 1950's, when TV, American TV, was a reflection of New York City[and later, Los Angeles] popular culture to those in the hinterlands.

Canadian TV is still in that stage, reflecting, on English TV, Toronto or a Toronto centric view of the Canada, to those in the hinterlands; for French TV substitute Montreal for Toronto.

Breaking out of that construct is key.

WFDS