XM Radio Softball Interview Team [Archive]

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marcpsych

02-18-2006, 12:03 AM

You may agree or disagree with me on this, but I find myself getting annoyed when it seems that O&A (mainly) or R&F do "softball" interviews with very famous people, or people who are currently "it," or people who they may share some philosophical or political agreements with but with whom many others may disagree or find lame or less talented than the hype says they are. I guess the only time I got really annoyed at R&F for this was with the whole James Frey thing.  I love Ron, but I felt that Ron was really kissing his ass during their radio interview.  Then later after Frey's veil of bullshit was removed, Ron continued to defend his behavior and didn’t seem to find anything wrong with what Frey did or how he portrayed himself and his past (perhaps I missed something).  In the interests of full disclosure, I did not read Frey's book.  However, if I was an addict, especially one who actually DID go through painful experiences similar to ones that Frey claims in his book, I would be less than thrilled with Frey profiting from his "accounts." In terms of O&A, perhaps I am just in a pissy mood concerning their long and tedious "Ferrall radio war" segments this week, but O&A especially seem to be quite "softballish" sometimes (not all the time) with those who are seen as "hip" or those who might give them a publicity boost from being on the show.  What stood out to me in this regard was their recent studio visit by Damian from MTV TRL.  Maybe I just have a hard-on in general against MTV and TRL and the general crappiness of today's rock and hip-hop mainstream music.  However, I felt that they were really going out of their way to put him and TRL over in their interactions and were making Damian and (even worse) Carson Daly seem like Edward R. Murrow for what they have done on TRL.  Not that they should have been a dick to the guy, but I definitely got the sense that they were trying to ingratiate themselves to the whole MTV and TRL scene. The other time I remember O&A doing this that REALLY annoyed me was when they did a lengthy segment with Kelly Osbourne at Ozzfest in 2001 or 2002.  Granted, they were being hosted by Ozzfest and, indirectly, Ozzie himself, and Norton worships Ozzie, but Kelly seemed like a perfect target (either overtly or covertly) for the sorts of criticisms they have often leveled effectively at less than stellar musicians and celebrities.  They basically treated her like a queen (Opie even said he felt “intimidated” by her) and did not at all call her out about the crappiness of her music or her MTV "performances."  Ron and Fez, in contrast, did a lengthy and very humorous big ass simulcast of her terrible MTV Music Awards “Like a Virgin” performance. Ron and Fez are my favorites, and I am a fairly big O&A fan, but this sort of thing has been annoying me as of late.   <img height="100" src="http://home.comcast.net/~bob80/RFnetmarcpsych.jpg" width="300" border="0" />

HBox

02-18-2006, 12:43 AM

You don't got to CNN for dick jokes, you don't go to XM 202 for hard hitting interviews.As far as the Frey interview, at the time it was assumed that the book was accurate. Are R&F supposed to be their own Smoking Gun and start investigating everything?As far as the O&A TRL thing, the guy was meshing really well with the flow of the show, are O&A supposed to throw that all away and bring the show to a screeching halt just to stick a few jabs at him and MTV? O&A would like to have guests occasionally, and the trade off is not firing off crazily at everybody they manage to actually get an interview with.EDIT: I just reread this, and it came off asshole-ish and confrontational. I did not mean it that way, and I'm too tired to rewrite, so sorry. 

This message was edited by HBox on 2-18-06 @ 5:22 AM

Stankfoot

02-18-2006, 04:56 AM

<img src="http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a350/stankfoot/softball.jpg" border="0" />so wait ... this isn't? nevermind .......

Sheeplovr

02-18-2006, 05:35 AM

What stood out to me in this regard was their recent studio visit by Damian from MTV TRL thats what hit you?not the sucking off G Gordon Liddy while he just makes up crapjacking off Sean Hannity but some nobody from Mtv is what got your goat?

marcpsych

02-18-2006, 10:20 AM

HBox wrote: You don't got to CNN for dick jokes, you don't go to XM 202 for hard hitting interviews.As far as the Frey interview, at the time it was assumed that the book was accurate. Are R&F supposed to be their own Smoking Gun and start investigating everything?As far as the O&A TRL thing, the guy was meshing really well with the flow of the show, are O&A supposed to throw that all away and bring the show to a screeching halt just to stick a few jabs at him and MTV? O&A would like to have guests occasionally, and the trade off is not firing off crazily at everybody they manage to actually get an interview with.EDIT: I just reread this, and it came off asshole-ish and confrontational. I did not mean it that way, and I'm too tired to rewrite, so sorry. This message was edited by HBox on 2-18-06 @ 5:22 AM Points well taken.  I guess you are right in terms of the Frey interview.  Perhaps I was letting Ron's later defense of Frey's deception color my perception of the original interview.In terms of Damian, I see your point about meshing well with the show.  Maybe they need to appeal to younger listeners as well, but sometimes it seems like they let MTV types slide when there is potential for humor, even good-natured busting around, when they might hammer or joke with others from different venues. <img height="100" src="http://home.comcast.net/~bob80/RFnetmarcpsych.jpg" width="300" border="0" />

marcpsych

02-18-2006, 10:30 AM

Sheeplovr wrote:  What stood out to me in this regard was their recent studio visit by Damian from MTV TRL   thats what hit you?not the sucking off G Gordon Liddy while he just makes up crapjacking off Sean Hannity but some nobody from Mtv is what got your goat? I did not hear the G. Gordon Liddy interview.I heard part of the Sean Hannity interview.  And yes, they could have called him out on a few things.  I think that Hannity regularly omits important facts and is basically and unfortunately a Republican shill (just as Al Franken is a Democrat shill).  But keep in mind that Anthony seems to generally agree with him politically, and they are probably both esyablished a decent rapport with Hannity when he was actually really nice to them when they went on his show before going back on XM and discussing the whole Sex for Sam stupid messup.I guess I also just contrast it to five or 6 years back, when O&A would regularly bash MTV for their lame programming.Also, I am becoming very tired of their whole "radio wars" gimmick, so I am tending to be more critical of their show as a whole.  <img height="100" src="http://home.comcast.net/~bob80/RFnetmarcpsych.jpg" width="300" border="0" />