What's Goin' On???
Lou Rawls Jr. is suing Marvin Gaye III...over copyright infringements?, endorsements?, plagiarism? What? None of the above is the answer to those questions. The son of Lou Rawls is suing the son of Marvin Gaye, claiming he was attacked by "four large dogs" during a visit to Gaye's Hollywood home in 2005. Rawls claims the dogs "bit, clawed and physically and mentally injured" him, causing him to suffer "loss of blood, tearing of flesh, multiple dog bite wounds, fear of disease" and other injuries. He is seeking unspecified damages. Rawls attorney said "I have no comment at this time". This really happened...
Bizarro story #2: CNN apologizes for mistakenly promoting a story on the search for Osama bin Laden with the headline "Where's Obama?" Wolf Blitzer added, "We want to apologize for that bad typo. We also want to apologize personally to Senator Barack Obama. I'm going to be making a call to him later this morning to offer my personal apology." Obama's press secretary thanked bloggers and activists who brought the error to light so quickly and helped make sure it was corrected. He also said this, "I'd note that the 's' and 'b' keys aren't that close to each other, I assume it was just an unfortunate mistake, and don't think there was any truly malicious intent."...
I won't even approach a comment on either of these two stories that ran on AP yesterday...Today's video link is a classic to mark the occasion of Fats Domino recording his version of "I'm Walkin" on January 3rd, 1957. Ricky Nelson covered this tune and also had a hit of the tune. The video shows both artists performing the song together live in later years: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWfsJx1ycY0
What New York radio station just changed format again? Find out by reading my commentary...
Timeline Memories...
"Happy Trails": 1967] Jack Ruby, 55, the man that shot Lee Harvey Oswald, dies in a Dallas hospital of a pulmonary embolism (whatever he knew died with him)...
Debuted on this date: 1938] The March of Dimes is established to fight Polio...1952] "Dragnet", a radio show since 1949 moves to TV...1957] The Hamilton Watch Company introduces the 1st electric watch...1964] The Beatles make their 1st appearance on U.S. television in a film clip shown on "The Jack Paar Show" (they sang "She Loves You"). The first known footage of the Beatles was seen on December 7, 1963 as a news event on Walter Cronkite's CBS Evening News...
"The Name Game": 1847] Yerba Buena (CA) is renamed San Francisco (much to Tony Bennett's relief ( otherwise we would've had "I left my heart in Yerba Buena")...
"It's not what you know but who you know": 1929] 27-year old William S. Paley becomes CBS President (he inherited the company from his father)...
Recorded on this date: 1957] Fats Domino records "I'm Walkin'"...
"SOLD": 1973] CBS sells the Yankees to George Steinbrenner for $10 million (they bought it for $13.2 million which is far worse than the Red Sox selling Babe Ruth to the Yankees)...
The Final Curtain: 1990] Ousted Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega surrenders to U.S. forces (but escapes the Saddam Hussein necktie) and is now making license plates in a Miami prison...
Comeback Kids: 1993] Backup Buffalo QB Frank Reich overcomes a 32-point deficit to beat Houston 41-38 in OT in a wild card playoff game (it's the biggest comeback in NFL history)...
"Tonight we have a really big shew": 1960] Bobby Darin and Connie Francis appear together on "The Ed Sullivan Show"...
Strange Bedfellows: 2005] The President taps his father, former President George H.W. Bush and former President Bill Clinton to help raise tsunami relief funds (strangely enough, the 2 former presidents become friends)...
[To ensure accuracy of dates and content, multiple reference sources are used in each timeline]...
Commentary...
Legendary call letters WNEW are no more. They've been replaced by the descriptive "Fresh 102.7" and the call letters will be changed to WWFS presumably (I'm listening to them now and they're just using a jingle using "Fresh 102.7". Fresh replaces dance formatted Mix 102.7, although "Fresh" doesn't exactly spell it out, does it? Fresh what? They are positioning themselves somewhere between CD101.9 and LITE (WLTW) and their roster of music artists will include Norah Jones (she's on now), John Mayer, James Blunt, Alicia Keys, Matchbox 20, Marc Anthony, Dido and The Fray. I just heard them refer to their format as "Today's Soft Music". GM and friend Maire Mason (ex-CBS-FM) and PD Rick Martini will remain but all the jocks have been fired. My guess is that they won't make a dent in LITE because they're not playing any uptempo stuff, something LITE does and they might take a few numbers from CD101.9 but those are not the numbers you want because they have half the shares of LITE...
"Happy Trails" to former Knicks, Bullets and Cosmos play-by-play man Jim Karvellas who passed away on January 1st in Tampa after a lengthy battle with prostate cancer. Karvellas was 71...
January 3rd Birthdays:
Eli Manning (26), Mel Gibson (51), Stephen Stills (62), Bobby Hull (68), Dabney Coleman (75), Robert Loggia (77) and George Martin (81)...
Timeline Countdown: 3 days until the NFL playoffs, 5 days until the BCS championship game, 32 days until Super Bowl XLI and 43 days until 'pitchers and catchers'...
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