-----Original Message-----
FROM: Helga Mohammed el-Salami
SENT: Apr 13 2007 6:25PM
SUBJECT:Don Imus Gets Fired, Mainstream Radio Should Be Next
Dear Proctor & Gamble, Staples, American Express, Bigelow Tea, and all you other sponsors who pulled advertising from MSNBC/CBS in your successful bid to get Don Imus fired, I salute you. Not for your misguided attempt to stamp out racism over the American airwaves, but for your contribution to the coffin of mainstream radio. It’s not dead yet, but certainly being given its last rights.
First of all, I thought Imus was a blithering idiot. He sat there with an ugly hat and even uglier face and prattle for hours about whatever was pissing him off. Never had I heard him offer a single original, intelligent or creative idea. Shock-jock my ass. I never heard anything on his show that I couldn’t hear by going to the nearest suburban shopping mall and eavesdropping on the geriatrics that bus in from their retirement homes. But, for 30 or so years, there he sat, with a big microphone in front of him until calling a mostly black basketball team “nappy-headed hos” crafted his doom. And he wasn’t even smart enough to exit with grace. He apologized 10,000 times to 10,000 people. This foppery made a week of news cycles which goes to show how little news there ever actually is. And what’s with this business of apologies? Do they really make things better? If I were Donny Imus, I would have gotten everyone together for a big dramatic apology, asked them all to lift their right hand and slowly extend their middle finger. That’s what I think of their thin skin. Then I would invite everyone to use said finger to push another station pre-set. Now that would be funny. Imus should have known that once the black race, which strangely allows itself to be represented by the Jackson-Sharpton Moral Juggernaut, smelled blood, all concerned would need to move to the back of the bus.
I wrote earlier of Imus’ doom. I apologize. I wrote a stupid thing (I’m still a good person). Anyway, I was being sarcastically ironical. Soon, Imus will re-surface on Sirius or XM and begin preaching his gospel to the morning commuters with no holds barred. Will people pay to hear him talk? Will his show still suck in as much revenue when it’s not subsidized by consumer packaged goods giants who keep the interruption-ad-model out of bankruptcy for no apparent reason? I doubt it. Paying money is much different than paying attention. It generates a line item on your pathetic 29% credit card bill. Money makes you choose actively and I doubt that many would actively choose Don Imus. He’d be wise to retire. He had a great run and should now do like James Cameron and find the radio equivalent of filming fishies before the market does it for him. Either way, he’s going to be offering up his jewels of curmudgeonly wisdom in the context that it should have always lived within: in between country western songs.
Love,
Helga