Lou Pickney's Online Commentary
LL Cool
Wednesday
February 19, 2003
"Do you know what it feels like being alone?
I'll find someone new..."
-All-American Rejects "Swing Swing"
Hello hello. It's been an interesting week. A fast-moving week, to be sure. And tomorrow the fast pace continues with the trip to Jacksonville.
I have to pack tonight so I'll be ready to get on the bus directly at work when we leave tomorrow afternoon. I can't wait. In many ways I don't know what to expect, but I know that I'll be along for the ride. Which is alright by me. I hear the tour bus is nice. The last long bus trip I took was in 1999 when I was broadcasting women's basketball for the University of Evansville's WUEV radio. We hit Southwest Missouri State and then Wichita State; the team flew back, while I rode back with the bus driver. Saw lots of open road in Kansas, Missouri, etc., just me and the bus driver. I expect this experience to be much different.
If you live in the Tampa area, I invite you to come out for lunch at the YaYa's restaurant on 2514 W. Kennedy on Friday, February 28, 2003. The BTLS crew is going to be there, and my friend Neal Boling says he'll make it there. I'm looking forward to trying their famous chicken.
If you ever want to get a bead on music trends across the country, check out
mediabase.com/mmrweb/rronline/StationsMenu.asp. Strongly recommended. If you're into dance music, give WPYM Miami a look. Why Cox radio (which owns WPYM) doesn't put a similar format on here in Tampa in beyond me.
Here's hoping that Carli can hook me up with tickets to the Something Corporate show on Friday in Tampa. Those guys rock. Worse come to worse I'll buy a ticket. They're definitely worth seeing live in concert.
I ate at Hardee's today for the first time in a LONG time. And my, how the place has changed. They've gone hamburger crazy. I used to think of it as a roast beef place. And they still have a Big Roast Beef combo, but that's buried way down at the #10 spot on the combo chart. #1-9 are all hamburgers, higher end meat (from what they say). No mention of the "Frisco Burger", which was the source of endless teasing for Rob Johnson at WSAZ back in the day from some production folks (for reasons I don't quite recall two years later).
Anyway, they were giving out numbers, and you took a number and went to your table. Then they brought you the food out. Somewhat different I guess. The girl at the counter (who I thought was digging me, but wasn't quite what I was looking for) ended up bringing the food out and supplying me with ketchup and sauce for the roast beef. Is this normal for Hardee's? It's starting to cross toward that fine line of waitress service -- i.e. the implied need to tip. If I wanted that, I'd go to one of the 10,000 Chinese buffets near Dale Mabry and Gandy.
I'm not a fan of the packets of ketchup. Yes, they're portable, but they're not nearly enough. The taste of deep fried just isn't enough; let's douse it in tomato concentrate and vinegar. Seriously though, I love my ketchup. And I want plenty of it. Give me the pump deal and I'll decide how much is enough. I don't want to open 30 packets like they're those plastic easter eggs with the candy inside.
One thing that hasn't changed is that their french fries still have that fish taste to them. Hard to explain. I remember about 15 years ago a girl named Melissa Adams, who's the daughter of my Mom's college friend Pam, commenting at a Hardee's in Tennessee about that, how the fries had that slight fish taste to them. It stuck with me, and I still notice it today.
I forgot to mention that I saw Ian, the security guard from Channel 10, guarding the live truck at Gasparilla last Saturday night. He spotted me and called me over. I explained to him (in slurred speech, no doubt) that I'd been fired from 10 (actually "my contract wasn't renewed"); he asked why and I did my best to capsulize it for him without going into too much detail.
Let me emphasize again that I still have much love for Channel 10. It's just a few select people who I have a problem with. But by and large, the people who work there are wonderful, intelligent, hard-working diligent folks who I consider friends. And I wish them all the luck in the world. And I'm still a Gannett stockholder (the parent company of WTSP).
PressEx can't get those promo packs done soon enough. I've got stations that are wanting them ASAP. Gotta lean on them hard to get that lined up pronto...
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