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Another Perspective
The I-Man’s Last Stand
If you’re not listening to Don Imus, then you’re missing something special: the final act of morning radio’s last great artist.
From the perspective of the media tent, there emerged a true star out of this summer’s debt-deal crisis. And no, it wasn’t Paul Ryan. For us, rather, it was craggy-faced old Don Imus, who gave Neil Cavuto the perfect interview for News Alert on July 30 — one that gleefully pushed the debt-ceiling debate from Continental Congress-like July into the dog days of D.C. August.
Cavuto treated him like America’s dirty uncle, and Imus played along perfectly. “This is nonsense! It’s a television show!” he ranted of the Capitol Hill proceedings. And when asked if he thought the credit-downgrade was imminent, he made a false prediction that seemed perfectly sensible: “I don’t think they’re going to do it to us. It’s not in the spirit of doing business.”
Imus in the Morning remains the last great example of the metropolitan American art form of morning radio. It’s old-school New York media culture in caricature, with “Cardinal Egan over from the Archdiocese” to read lottery numbers. Imus makes high, bitter comedy out of the tropes of Old Broadcasting. And he does it when city people of all ethnicities are bumping into each other at their most off-the-record: during the morning commute.
Unless he’s away “on the ranch,” he does his show from the Fox Business Network studios in Rockefeller Center: his home since signing a simulcast deal with FBN in September 2009. On the heels of his “nappy-headed hos” comment and ouster from MSNBC, Imus-to-Fox seemed like one of those Roger Ailes hirings borne of political indignation (like Fox News’ later embrace of Juan Williams after he was canned by NPR). The ratings reflect that.
While Imus in the Morning remains one of the ten highest-rated programs in New York morning radio with a 3.5 share (justifying to some degree the $8 million a year Imus currently makes from WABC), his television ratings are sub-test signal. He averaged 65,000 viewers on Fox Business in the first quarter of 2011 (down 45 percent from the same period in 2010, and down from a competitive 361,000 viewers when he was on MSNBC in 2007). From a television perspective, Imus isn’t worth his own Rockefeller Center studio, and his show isn’t exactly a venue for guests to reach a mass audience.
So there’s something else still bringing senators and bestselling authors to Imus’ daily boys’ club. Something else that makes his show a hotspot for snide male political commentators like Bill Maher and Matt Taibbi. And it might just be that Imus in the Morning, in the absence of ratings, is the most honest depiction of political discourse in all of media.
While cable news trots out young model-anchors and actor-pundits, Imus reminds us that politics is still a game played by cursing old men over cocktails. And he makes them seem like regular guys. Where else can you hear Paul Begala get called a “numbnuts” or someone like Joe Lieberman say, “May all your sabbaths be peaceful” with a coarse, genuine chuckle? Even after all his P.C. trouble, Imus’ notable guests didn’t abandon him. That wouldn’t be in the spirit of doing business.
For the past two years, Imus, 71, has been battling stage 2 prostate cancer. Though September marks Prostate Cancer Awareness Month, Imus will stay tight-lipped on the issue. He hasn’t spoken publicly on his condition in over a year — funny, considering that his on-air staff used to give him such a hard time for talking about it (“Do you think anyone cares about your urinary tract defects?” mustachioed newsreader Charles McCord yelled at him during their Fox Business launch. “You’ve killed sympathy for yourself!”) But the prolonged silence, coupled with the I-Man’s age and his younger brother Fred’s death on August 10, gives us grim thoughts.
On August 14, former WNBC New York executive vice president and Imus mentor Bob Sherman died of cancer himself. When Sherman joined WNBC in 1979 his first move was to re-hire Imus — then a New York radio expat serving his exile in Cleveland. With Sherman’s blessing, Imus carved out a style all his own, mocking political America with over-the-top characters like evangelist “Rev. Billy Sol Hargus” and a recurring Jesse Jackson impersonator. Imus understood just how middlebrow the political game seems to the average American, and he talked about it accordingly. Even as his profile expanded with national syndication and an off-color Clinton-era Correspondents’ Dinner performance, Imus never lost his smirking nihilism. When Charlie Rose congratulated him in 1997 for making a Time shortlist of the most influential people in America, Imus joked that somebody at Time must have a book coming out that they want to promote on his show.
Today, Imus’ name is inextricable from the 2007 racial controversy he incited. Author Sophia A. Nelson is currently touring the country with her book Black Woman Redefined, which she claims was inspired by an “open season on accomplished black women” that reached a tipping point with the I-Man’s crude joke about Rutgers women’s basketball players. As recently as August 15, Huffington Post speech-policer Max Perry Mueller called for some negligible little Cal Thomas quote in USA Today to “move fingers to keyboards to type messages of repudiation for (Thomas’) Don Imus-like racial slur.” A group of black women has created a Facebook sorority, seemingly in direct belated response to Imus, with the aim of turning the word “nappy” into “happy” and to “educate, inspire, and uplift” by…
Imus doesn’t care. Unlike fellow cancerous rogue Christopher Hitchens, Imus is too gruff and formally uneducated to win media redemption in his final years. My only hope is that a young cult audience will tune in to him now and witness an urban American collective unconscious tapped into…before it’s too late.
“The only people following this are sitting at home wearing their ‘Pinheads and Patriots’ T-shirts, mouthbreathers, eating up macaroni in the microwave and waiting for you to tell them what’s going on!” Imus yelled at Cavuto during the debt debacle. Though forced to keep the old man at arm’s length for the sake of his own reputation, Cavuto nonetheless couldn’t stifle a laugh. Ratings or respect aside, even the suits at Fox know deep down that there’s no accounting for style.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (71) | Leave a comment
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Teaghan| 9.9.11 @ 6:21AM
In our house, Don is on every weekday morning and sometimes on Saturday when they show reruns. I bristle sometimes at his misogynistic attitudes but know that his lovely wife Diedra (sp) is really in charge in their house. His ranch that he uses as a place for kids with cancer is another indication that he is really a big softy and is all bluff.
I will truely miss him and his show when it ends.
sinanju| 9.9.11 @ 12:02PM
I heard Imus in the nineties only by accident. It was obvious to me then that he was one of those supposedly fearless curmudgeons who, in fact, carefully trod a line so as not to offend the Great and Good.
I do however, have treasured memories of him from another era when I was a youngster at Orlando Naval Training Center in 1985. Imus was one of MTV's newly-fledged companion network VH-1's first veejays at the time and he afforded me and the guys endless amusement watching him work. Hee! Hee! He was so obviously stoned to the gills that one would watch him for hours wondering if this was the moment he would slide out of his chair and go to sleep on the studio floor.
How that man has made it to the age of 71 after his chemical history, I'll never know.
Alan Brooks| 9.10.11 @ 11:46AM
"Imus is too gruff and formally uneducated"
So are most radio hosts, they are entertainment- no substance to them.
Alan Brooks| 9.10.11 @ 11:50AM
...they are infotainment:
99% tainment
1% percent info
Alan Brooks| 9.11.11 @ 3:02PM
"How that man has made it to the age of 71 after his chemical history, I'll never know."
He's pickled!
Teaghan| 9.9.11 @ 6:21AM
In our house, Don is on every weekday morning and sometimes on Saturday when they show reruns. I bristle sometimes at his misogynistic attitudes but know that his lovely wife Diedra (sp) is really in charge in their house. His ranch that he uses as a place for kids with cancer is another indication that he is really a big softy and is all bluff.
I will truely miss him and his show when it ends.
R Martin| 9.9.11 @ 8:23AM
"...his lovely wife Diedra..."
Gasp. She is a humorless, rancorous old sow who is only semi happy when she's complaining about everything and telling others how to eat, behave and live. Lovely? Don't get me started.
maximumrandb| 9.9.11 @ 9:44AM
She's only 46 years old.
Alan Brooks| 9.11.11 @ 3:03PM
"(sp)"
Dierdra.
Alan Brooks| 9.11.11 @ 3:05PM
or maybe her name is Dra, and he says Dear Dra?
(groan)
Alan Brooks| 9.11.11 @ 3:08PM
no wait, it must be Dierdre.
Finally I got it right, must have been the coke I snorted at Studio 54 in 1977.
But lots of you guys were misbehaving in the '70s. yeah, you! the one with the old polyester trousers in your closet!
Paul| 9.9.11 @ 6:52AM
Self important old coke head / alcoholic, he can not be gone soon enoough.
Gary| 9.9.11 @ 10:37AM
As a square guy who never even smoked and is vanilla as they come, I like Imus. He's a hoot and he is real and no phony.
beebop| 9.9.11 @ 9:54PM
Really? Wishing someone dead? I love love love your humanity.
Kenny| 9.9.11 @ 6:59AM
"Imus in the Morning remains the last great example of the metropolitan American art form of morning radio. "
That doesn't say much for metropolitan American art form of morning radio. The funniest this about Imus is him looking like an old gramdma in an oversized cowboy hat.
debbie| 9.9.11 @ 1:10PM
Kenny
The title of the article left a lot to be desired.
When was the last time you watched Imus?
He hasn't worn his cowboy hat FOR A VERY LONG TIME. And it was never "oversized" in fact it was the exact correct size (in his opinion and that of the owner's of the Man's Hat Shop in New Mexico).
Herb| 9.9.11 @ 7:17AM
Whatever people think of Imus (sad to hear of the death of his brother Fred; the I-Man always ended their phone talk with "I love you"), he was PC-railroaded in 2007 by supreme moralist Al Sharpton and should have gone out with a roar at that racebaiting pimp.
As for his appearance, it was the late great Tim Russert who delivered a withering counterpunch when Imus kidded him about his overweight:
"Well, at least I don't look like a stuffed MUMMY in a cowboy museum!"
Imus is one of a kind and the last of his kind.
maximumrandb| 9.9.11 @ 9:45AM
Remember when Russert called him "spackle-face?"
Kilgore Trout| 9.9.11 @ 4:37PM
Yeah? Guess which one of em is dead.
coal carrier| 9.9.11 @ 7:46AM
Don Imus is another limousine liberal. He uses the US tax code to hide his money (The Ranch) from the same progressive politicians that he supports and defends.
Bob K.| 9.9.11 @ 7:54AM
I would have listened to him more but for his irritating penchant for mumbling rather than speaking.
career soldier| 9.9.11 @ 7:55AM
A thoughtfull man of America, with all her faults and charms. We will all be a little worse off when we lose him.
Chef Schnauzer| 9.9.11 @ 8:46AM
The Frank Capra portion of me hopes that undernieth that gruff, impulsive, 10 miles-of-bad-road-face lies the classic American lovable rogue but I don't know him. Thanks for all the laughs, you Ihole.
Grzmlyk| 9.9.11 @ 8:53AM
Can't say I quite have the same hagiographic take on Imus - I listened to him for a couple of years - up until he was fired for the "nappy-headed ho" comment.
I thought he was ok, but I think his inner gyroscope was messed up - he didn't know whether he was a liberal or a conservative, and I think he squelched a lot of his own common-sense (i.e., conservative) impluses because he wanted so badly to be included in the liberal media's pantheon of politically acceptable curmudgeons (his wife similarly tries to play both sides of that game with her stupid "green" initiatives). In short, he wanted to be loved by the Beautiful People.
Imus may have talent, but he is not a man who has the courage of his political convictions. Sure, he says some outrageous things for effect, but he toes the line when it comes to liberal platitudes most of the time.
However, that brouhaha kicked up by the infamous comment crystalized for me everything that's wrong with race relations in America. I heard him say it live, and I didn't bat an eyelash. It was a harmless comment tossed off, utterly inconsequential and devoid of any meaning beyond Imus filling a couple of dead seconds.
I mean, Imus, a racist? Come on! He only said it because he took for granted that "the brothuhs" knew he was one of them, he was an Upper West Side dilettante who was down for the struggle - he could talk black smack because he himself was an honorary brothuh. Or so he thought. Alas, he did not understand the economics of the race industry.
How could this happen? After all, he worked diligently for years to be a liberal in good standing; like every liberal in good standing, he paid obeisance to all of the mindless, empty bromides about race that warm the cockles of the grievance industry's heart and reinforce the lie that victim groups - blacks chief among them - are really very, very special, gifted people, more equal than others (to borrow Orwell's phrase) who deserve special consideration and automatic respect and deference simply because of the color of their skin - regardless of the character contained within each individual vessel.
It was the race hustlers who saw gold in that little inconsequential nothing uttered by Imus, and who mined it for far, far more than it was worth. It was this incident that completed my education about the truth of race relations in America; it is not Martin Luther King's dream that anyone cares about - it's Al Sharpton's grift. Hey, you can't put a price on absolution for white guilt - on second thought, of course you can. It's what made Jesse Jackson, a punk opportunist, a multi-millionaire.
The tempest in a teapot that followed Imus's comment illustrated perfectly why racism will never go away in this country.
It's because blacks and liberals love it too much. Imus's comment wasn't what racism sounds like. It was what a cash register sounds like.
Margie| 9.10.11 @ 1:55AM
Wow, that was right on, Gryz.
Sad, but oh so true, good sir.
Bill| 9.9.11 @ 9:04AM
Charles McCord is still with him? I go back far enough with Don Imus to remember "Chucka, do the news!"
jomo2009| 9.9.11 @ 4:31PM
Charles Mccord retired from the show in June and is currently in retirement in Arkansas.
Jack in Wi.| 9.9.11 @ 9:10AM
I watch him fairly frequently. He never was the a great intellect. He has always kissed the rear end of people in power be it in the media or politics. He is good for a few minutes while I eat my cereal. I kind of will miss him when he is gone but, he is long past his prime.
Anthony| 9.9.11 @ 9:15AM
Imus was outre 20 years ago. He had a resurgence, sort of speak, when MSLSD had his program on t.v.
It was sickening watching the conga line of libs fawning all over the I Man in order to get face time, like the butt boy Dan Rather.
But I lost all respect for Imus after Imus made his ribald comment about the Rutger's woman's basketball team and had to suck up to the reprehensible POS, cum MSLSD host, Al Sharpton, who still cut Imus off at the knees, as did the rest of the lib media. One lib knocked off by even more phony libs.
Suddenly, Imus was abandoned by the fawning flock of phony libs. No more cudos for the I Man!! He has never recovered.
Sorry to hear about Fred, he was the only genuine guy of the whole bunch.
Stormzeye| 9.9.11 @ 9:41AM
Imus lost me when he abandoned Bush and the Iraq war and started calling Dick Cheney "pork chop boy". His liberalism was infuriating. If it wasn't for Bernard McGurk (a truly smart and funny man I had the pleasure of meeting in a Boston pub) his show wouldn't be worth five minutes of anyone's time. His sucking up to John Kerry for years was enough to make anyone puke. And, by the way, his wife Dierdra is a first rate haridan who epitomizes NY liberal women.
emilio lizardo, PhD| 9.9.11 @ 10:07AM
Word. Imus is nothing more than a shill for bogus causes (childhood vaccines=autism etiology), bullshit household products and skin creams and a suckup to skunks like John Kerry and McCain. When the going gets tough-like in the aftermath of his stupid comments re the Rutgers women- no more tough guy. Another pampered limousine-riding lizard. The IRS needs to look into his ranch. Mitigating factor? The shrew the poor suffering bastard has to live with.
AMF, I-man.
Grzmlyk| 9.9.11 @ 9:54AM
Well said, Stormzeye. I'd forgotten some of his pandering to the liberal glitterati. And John Kerry - John Kerry!!!! The only man in DC who may be more vacuous than Obama.
I guess he lived by the code of liberal hypersensitivity and ultimately died by it when he was fired for his comments.
And I could not agree more about Dierdra.
Imus threw money at the Hackensack Hospital so they'd give her an office and a pretend job hawking "green products" so that she would feel like more than the trophy wife she really was.
Petronius| 9.9.11 @ 9:57AM
Imus is a Clinton wannabe. He has the nads to say things that are proscribed by the Liberal pharisees, but lacks the cachet to get away with it like Bill and Hil. So he's not really in "the club" by a long shit.
MATT M.| 9.9.11 @ 10:25AM
That ranch of his is a big tax dodge. So they fly a few dozen kids with cancer out there for a week or two and have their minions entertain them then write-off a several million dollar residence.
IRS where are you?
When he ran into that little PC dustup he fell all over himself to make reparations. What a lily livered pussy.
Drake| 9.9.11 @ 10:38AM
Easy to say when it's not your career twisting in the wind.
I hate the fake apologies that have been wrung out of Imus, Tracey Morgan, Opie and Anthony, everyone else. But I understand.
Anthony| 9.9.11 @ 11:43AM
Drake, your point is well taken. It's not that I begrudge the man the chance to make his mea culpa and save his career, it's the way and did it, and with whom.
I had no problem with his apologies to the ONLY people who counted, the Rutgers team and their coach, albeit, if memory serves, it became a bit obsessive.
Afterall, it was a funny flippant comment (which could have been taken in stride but for the cottage industry of race hustlers), and some of the Rutgers team were lilly white & straight haired to boot!!! And didn't some file lawsuits?
Rather, it was disgusting watching this man grovel to race baiters and pimps and other sordid leftist characters in hope of assuaging their bloodlust.
When the hand writing was on the wall, he should have told all of his former pals to go to hell.
I'll admit to a bit of shadenfreude watching this pompus ass and master of the ad hominen on bended knee with fellow cowardly lefties.
Gary| 9.9.11 @ 10:44AM
I agree but like the man. Remember poor "Jimmy the Greek" being run out of town on a rail because of a similar "racial" comment? The man died without ever making any comeback. Name me one person who hasn't made some ethnic or racial joke, comment or slur in in his life and give me his address because he must be Jesus. Murder, kill, rape, maim, you're worthy of redemption, but even the mildest racial"slur" and your are sent to Hell. Ask Mel Gibson, Michael Kennedy, and the aforementioned Jimmy the Greek.
Kilgore Trout| 9.9.11 @ 4:44PM
But that nappy headed dingbat in the WH is changing all that. Theyz a lot more racists than they wuz in Jan 2009.
Gary| 9.9.11 @ 10:34AM
I tape Imus everyday and watch most of it and love it. No "PC" stuff here and the banter between him, his guests and staff resonates as real and not the phony stuff we get on most newscasts. At age 65 I guess I relate being a grumpy "old man" who has little use for polite prattle and shallow sentiment. Complement Imus in an email and he insults you, what a guy!
Joe R| 9.9.11 @ 10:48AM
Imus is a boorish clod who's about twenty years past his prime. It's amazing that none of his peers came to his defense during the "nappy headed ho's" incident. That should tell you what the industry itself thinks about this senile old cadaver (to use the words of Rush Limbaugh). The sooner this guy retires to his ranch, the better for the airwaves of radio.
jomo2009| 9.9.11 @ 4:43PM
Of all the luminaries that threw him under the bus after the Rutgers business, the one that probably hurt the most for Imus was Tim Russert's abandonment. After he got the gig on FBC he went out of his way to explain to his audience why he was accepting Russert back into his friendship. Russert (may he rest in peace) didn't display much honor in doing to Imus what he did.
Kilgore Trout| 9.9.11 @ 4:45PM
demRATZ have zero, zip, nada honor.
Seek| 9.12.11 @ 12:18PM
By the way, did Rush Limbaugh come to Imus' defense in the Al Sharpton dustup? I don't recall that happening.
A. C. Santore| 9.9.11 @ 10:58AM
I used to listen to his show and laugh, shame on me because his humor usually came from insulting others.
Until I discovered the range of his crudeness and tasteless ego.
He lost me when in almost successive shows, he excoriated someone who had sent a gift to his newborn child and "misspelled" the child's name, when, in reality, the gift-giver had spelled it in the normal way, but Imus and family had spelled it in some cute but non-traditional way. That's a "thank you" from an ego.
Then, in another howler, he scheduled a show to be broadcast from the Scranton/Wilkes Barre area, an area with very strong support for him. When he discovered that his hotel had not allowed a call through to him from his wife the night before (trying to respect his privacy), he retaliated by canceling the show at the very last minute, leaving his "fans" sitting there adrift on a sea of maliciousness.
Yeah, he probably should have been upset by the hotel's action, but to take it out on those "fans" who had done nothing wrong but come to see him live?
I wasn't there, but I still felt insulated. And it still annoys me after all these years.
The Bishop| 9.9.11 @ 11:07AM
Okay, as a Mid-Westerner out here in flyover country, I hold no opinion regarding Imus. But the radio personality that I truly miss is Larry Lujack. Curse you, Steve Dahl!
cuban pete| 9.9.11 @ 5:18PM
Years ago someone suggested I listen to Steve Dahl. The next day I turned on his show and he was mocking some kid who suffered from a premature aging disease. I don't recall the medical name of the condition.
In any event here's some pissant who makes lot's of money playing records yukking it up about some little guy who is about to die of an extremely rare and deadly illness.
That was the first and last time I listened to Dahl.
Elgordo| 9.9.11 @ 11:20AM
RACISM vs RACE BAITING
Imus was once unjustly accused of racism.
We need to popularize an everyday term to identify those who unreasonably accuse others of RACISM... That term is RACE BAITER .. We should make the term RACE BAITER as well known as the term "racism" .. It should be that when one hears the word racism, the term RACE BAITER comes to mind immediately .......We should make those who accuse others of racism fearful of being labelled RACE BAITERS ...
RACE BAITERS include: David Gregory, Joy Behar, Chris Matthews, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Louis Farrakhan, Father Pfleger, Maxine Waters, Congr. John Conyers, Congr. Clyburn, Harry Belafonte,.. Congr. Sheila Jackson Lee, Julian Bond, Keith Olberman, Sen. Dick Durbin , Rosie O'Donnell, Whoopi Goldberg , Martin Bashir , Bryan Williams
Grzmlyk| 9.9.11 @ 11:41AM
All liberals are race baiters.
It's in the DNA as the residue of white guilt. In their view, all black people are superior human beings and should not be judged by who they are but by what they represent to the vanity of the liberal mind.
Liberals embrace the philosophy espoused by the pigs in Orwell's Animal Farm: All of the animals on the farm are equal, but some are more equal than others.
Today, any member of a vetted victim group - and blacks are at the front of the line - is now inherently superior to, and more authentic than, we evil, abusive, greedy, selfish, bigoted white people of European descent.
Affirmative action, both official and cultural, will never, ever go away.
Just look at who we've got as president. A guy who, if he were white, would be struggling to keep his job as assistant grill man on the graveyard shift at a McDonald's outside of Muncie, Indiana.
Wait till our oh-so compassionate liberals start becoming serious "activists" for reparations to the mythic "black community."
I have no doubt that these fools will be proposing that whites be forced into slavery to blacks for the next 400 years, just to even the score.
And the media will take up the cause, touting it as the best idea to come down the pike since Keynesian economics.
Matthew Quigley| 9.9.11 @ 11:38AM
One of the local stations runs Imus. His show is a mix of stupidity, crudity and self-promotion. I dislike his treatment of Dagen McDowell, whom I like because she's one of the few financial reporters who can present that subject without getting into technical jargon, and his constant self-referencing when he actually allows a guest to speak. I suppose the snideness is acceptable in NY, but it doesn't play well in the United States. Since that station also dropped agricultural news AND plays that revolting "I-man," you can bet I no longer listen to them.
Uli Kunkel| 9.9.11 @ 2:42PM
Dagen McDowell -- oh you must mean Mammy Yokum or is it Daisy Mae???
Who Cares?| 9.9.11 @ 12:03PM
Imus will be missed?
HA HA!!!
Now, Paul Harvey---there is someone who's missed.
Chef Schnauzer| 9.9.11 @ 4:45PM
Paul Harvey - different league. I don't think a week goes by that I don't think of Paul Harvey, Johnny Carson, Dean Martin and real stars. Harvey, like Ronald Raegan, made being the best possible seem effortless.
Paul McGrath| 9.9.11 @ 12:52PM
When Sam Tanenhaus published his biography of Whittaker Chambers in the nineties, Imus spent about two weeks on it and he talked about practically nothing else. Whatever else he was or did, this was a bright shining moment for him, and I will never forget him because of it.
wolflen| 9.9.11 @ 2:31PM
"Even as his profile expanded with national syndication and an off-color Clinton-era Correspondents' Dinner performance, Imus never lost his smirking nihilism."
to insult the President inside the bounds of on-air commentary or opinion is one accepted standard but to do it to his face, with the "first lady" next to him. under the guise of satire is quite another..Don made Billy & Hilly stop breathing until his "routine" was over..and to say it was "no sweat" performance for the IMan..well he was sweating like a pig, as he threw every thing he could think of at Clinton...even the astro turf truck-bed that clinton reportedly had, was not safe and if it could it would have blushed..
Kilgore Trout| 9.9.11 @ 4:50PM
Insulting the Klinktons WAS his SHINING HOUR!
I just wish I could have been there to cheer him on.
Uli Kunkel| 9.9.11 @ 2:34PM
I always got a kick out of Imus's take on Wilford Brimley's Thanksgiving, Quaker Oats recipes, although the attached example is somewhat tamer than older versions, that related to zippers and what are you basting that turkey with???!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qZHJ0LM3uQ
DBW| 9.9.11 @ 3:44PM
Tried to listen to him to see what the big deal was. He bored me to death. Aimless, meandering banter, stupid insults, annoying voice... what IS the big deal?
Dave | 9.9.11 @ 5:57PM
Well, love him, despise him or look at him with ambivalence, but ol' Don Imus has been around since before I landed my first radio job as a jock back in the '60s.
A story ...
When I moved to Sacramento, California in the summer of '74 to begin a new morning radio show of my own, a few stories of Don's infamous stunts during a short stint at a local station in town were pretty funny to hear. Matter of fact, for those among us today with a full face of gray in the beards, the bits are still a kick to recall.
So, what's funniest, most outrageous Imus story that comes to mind? Well, apparently before he landed in Sacramento, Don did the morning show at a small station in Stockton Calif. where he was promptly handed his walking papers after an on-air promotion he'd dreamed up didn't go quite as planned. It seems some in his listening audience got their undies in a wad and protested to the boss. And exactly what WAS that promotion? The title tells you all you really need to know ...
"The *Eldridge Cleaver Look Alike Contest."
(*ask your grandpa.)
Meanwhile, for those still of the opinion that Don Imus was NEVER that funny, do yourself a favor and (if you can find one) pick up a copy of the record album Don put out about 40 years ago called "1200 Hamburgers to Go" After a few spins, get back to me back and tell me again how ... Imus was NEVER all that funny. But, maybe it's just me.
In the end, you might wind up like the liberal who, suddenly, became a conservative ... overnight. Sometimes, all it takes is getting mugged to make that conversion. Then again, I know folks still think *Danny Partridge was a hoot.
(*again, ask your grandpa.)
Anyway,enjoy your evening. And don't forget to put your flag out this weekend.
sharewhut| 9.9.11 @ 8:16PM
First record I bought for myself, at 12/13 years old, was "Son of Checkers/Billy Sol Hargus".
Sure miss those days of the wisea$$ DJ poking fun, doing 'compilation' songs/interviews, and doing doubleplays of top 40 songs.
Followed up by the Wolfman!
Ahhh, the innocence of youth! Oblivious to the coke & payola...
somnolence| 9.9.11 @ 6:10PM
Outside of Rush, the only one I have really liked over the last 25 years in that radio format was Morton Downey, Jr.
Vito LaBella| 9.9.11 @ 6:37PM
Don Imus is an equal opportunity "pisser-offer". He succeeds because he is a true maverick - like him or not, he clearly doesn't care - quite unlike the coterie of mainstream media waterboys who pander to the left and defy you to even think that they're somehow not better than sliced bread and Swiss cheese, let alone dare say it out loud.
I hope that the I-man has some more good years left in him and that he'll keep on doing what he does best - calling it as HE sees it.
DG in GA| 9.9.11 @ 6:45PM
It's too bad Imus is on the Fox Business Channel, since it's not part of the cable package we have, and I'm not willing to spend 50% MORE money every month to get it. I used to listen to him in the morning when I lived somewhere that carried his show, and I would watch on BSNBC when I traveled. I miss hearing him, even though I did not always agree with him. I was really upset when he was crucified for the stupid remark about the Rutgers womens' basketball team. You know, that ill-considered, off-the-cuff comment made them more famous than they could have ever hoped to be without it. And anyone who listened to Imus knew it wasn't racist. Frankly, anyone who saw a picture of the team knew it was true.
So I am sorry to hear that Imus has cancer, and sorry to hear that Fred has passed. Imus has certainly lived way past his sell-by date, but, for the most part, he has lived life on his own terms. And he has made a lot of people laugh along the way.
Dave| 9.9.11 @ 7:01PM
Who cares?
Imus should have been cancelled years ago. He's as exciting as watching grass grow.
Leroi| 9.9.11 @ 9:37PM
what DBW| 9.9.11 @ 3:44PM said
boring, east coast leftie, boring
POST American| 9.9.11 @ 10:26PM
----------------------FINAL WORD----------------------
"There's only one man in ALLLL talk
radio who really is --somewhat-- a genuine
maverick ---and that's MICHAEL SAVAGE."
-ALEX JONES
(Infowars.com)
Afraid the FACT IS Imus BALKED the RED
China TREASON OP when it mattered and
seems content now to recycle the same
stale list of guests, one and all serving the
party line.
ALL this might be excused were America
not being, undeniably, taken down 'by design'
before our very eyes --even as the CHEM-tailed
fskies are now saturated with fallout
from the greatest world nuclear disaster of
ALLL time ---the media buried FUKISHIMA.
IF Imus were the 'maverick' truth teller
he styles himself ---he'd be ALLLLL over these
issues. GE's Jeff I-Meltdown would not be
able to show his face anywhere in the western
world.
Again ---IMUS BALKS.
---BTW, Infowars is expanding and is now the
#2 news site for the world, right after Drudge Report.
scythe| 9.10.11 @ 9:10AM
The problem with Imus is that his "sterling moments" happen too infrequently and inconsistently to make listening on a daily basis worthwhile. For the most part he is a mumbling aging frat boy with the voice of a slurring drunk. You could listen for days and not hear anything worth the effort. His cheesy promotions of his wife's latest foray into attempted relevancy and money grubbing are obnoxious and for all his counter-cultural vibe and hipness he sure made a jackass out of himself after that "nappy headed" incident. He was taken to the woodshed by some black woman who "counseled" him on air while he sat under the Klieg lights and confessed to being...white. It was painful to listen to and certainly caused some of his listeners to questions his pose of coolness and disregard for all those many years. He just turned out to be another stupid white man who was perfectly willing to get down on his creaking knees to arse kiss and boot lick the fascist black brigades in order to keep the fame and fortune in tact. It was loathsome. He groveled with the best of them and at least for me, he is a fake in a 10 gallon chapeau. Can't listen to him anymore.
Seek| 9.12.11 @ 12:23PM
Most white "conservatives" are timid like that. Ann Coulter, for example, will bait "liberals" from sunup to sundown, but will never put herself in a position where she might be called a racist.
I prefer the term "race realist." And I am one.
Wayne| 9.10.11 @ 4:32PM
This article makes no sense - much like Imus.
Tex Expatriate| 9.10.11 @ 9:21PM
Your hope that Imus will be discovered by youth is a pipe dream. I have learned that in person, off radio, he is a fine man. On radio he is a lout, and not very funny. When one has to dig to find something admirable to say about a person, that person ain't much.
Chris Pedersen| 9.11.11 @ 3:20AM
R.I.P. Fred Imus.
bluecollarbytes| 9.12.11 @ 11:58PM
Imus has some good moments here and there but the act can get 'tedious'. He does have a talent for getting politicos to embarrass themselves. That's worth something.