5/01/2005
Geek En La Ciudad.
We will be forever in the debt of Geek In the City for his unwavering devotion to the mental health of radical Rick Emerson fans everywhere! It is now very possible that we might not have to shuffle around in our slippers, unbathed and unkempt, doing shots of cheap Tequila to cope, forever:
(oregonlive.com) HEY! WHAT HAPPENED TO MY RADIO TUNES, DUDE? Fans give corporate owners plenty of static over format changes and dial moves.
Fans of Don Imus, Rick Emerson and Clyde Lewis are ticked that the MAX 910 "talk radio for guys" format on 910 AM (KOTK) got canned. Golden-oldies lovers are miffed that KISN (KKSN) got bounced from it's 97.1 FM berth to the squawkier 910 AM band. Local-radio partisans are perturbed that the 97.1 FM spot was taken by "CharlieFM" (KYCH), a random-hits format they decry as corporate radio with no Portland flavor or personalities.
But a passel of peeved Portlanders aren't taking the recent format switches made by Entercom Portland lying down. That static you hear? The sound of angry listeners. Let us count the ways they're mad:
Leading the torches-and-pitchforks brigade is Aaron Duran, 29-year-old freelance writer, film-and-video production worker and energetic blogger of Geekinthecity.com. A longtime fan of Emerson's 9 a.m.-to-noon talk/politics/pop culture show on the MAX 910 format, Duran was horrified to learn Emerson got the boot April 21, the day the format changes suddenly happened. "Corporate America has again taken something that I took real joy in listening to," Duran posted on his blog.
But, like the proud geeks whose grass-roots campaign helped bring back the animated series "Family Guy" to Fox, Duran decided to mount a crusade.
The Coffee Cup Crusade, to be exact. His effort includes asking fans to place notes inside coffee mugs asking that Emerson and Co. be brought back (along the lines of "I need my fix") and then mail or bring the mugs to the Entercom studios in Southwest Portland, the local office for the Pennsylvania-based company. Duran also encouraged fans to contact Entercom advertisers "in a civil and polite manner" about the change.