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Clear Channel has done it again. After DJs in Houston and Cleveland made comments and jokes on air about running cyclists off the road while driving your car, they had another situation crop up in Raleigh, North Carolina. So far, the past incidents have been followed up with big, lavish public apologies, and even pledges to give some money to a few small groups, but come on, who really buys that song and dance? Of course you're gonna go out and apologize after you get flamed to hell for publicly demonstrating that you're a bunch of bastards. A lavish apology is exactly what's expected from a gigantic megacorp who needs to kiss the public's ass as much as possible (they do, after all, own many different radio stations across the country). Anyway, I decided that I'm sick of this nonsense, so I just wrote the following email to the Clear Channel Public Relations group (pr@clearchannel.com), and then CC'ed Lowry Mays (LLowrymays@clearchannel.com), Mark Mays (markpmays@clearchannel.com), and Randall Mays (randalltmays@clearchannel.com) Subject: a few suggestions for you guys Clear Channel PR folks, After hearing about the most recent incident of Clear Channel radio DJs chatting humorously about running cyclists off the road (aired September 22 and 23 on G105 in Raleigh, North Carolina), I'd like to offer a suggestion for other funny topics that DJs could discuss. To: pr@clearchannel.com Subject: a few suggestions for you guys Clear Channel PR folks, After hearing about the most recent incident of Clear Channel radio DJs chatting humorously about running cyclists off the road (aired September 22 and 23 on G105 in Raleigh, North Carolina), I'd like to offer a suggestion for other funny topics that DJs could discuss. Here are some other topics that DJs could talk about, thanks to the precedent established by Clear Channel that radio conversation topics don't really matter. So who can I talk to about throwing these suggestions onto the airwaves? 1) talk about different ways that the DJs could sexually abuse children, perhaps posing as Catholic priests in order to lure young boys? 2) lament how long it's been since we've seen anyone "go postal" in the U.S. Postal Service offices, so could somebody who works for USPS just please pick up a gun and kill a few co-workers? 3) perhaps they could mix up their suggestions for violence against cyclists, and discuss various notable personalities riding bikes, taking listener calls as to which notable should be run off the road in what manner. I like the third option myself. Here's one I'd like to send out to the different Clear Channel DJs as a possible conversation topic while on air. (Note: just like none of the Clear Channel DJs really meant anything serious when they made various comments against folks riding bicycles, I too do not mean anything serious in the following suggestion. It's all just light-hearted banter. It's just a bunch of words, right? What's in an idea anyway? I mean hey, if I happen to send this email to a few of my pals, and then somebody reads it and decides to act on it, then who cares, right? I guess if anyone does care, we can just apologize later and that'll be good enough.) So here's my suggestion for future DJ conversation starter, with a few possible answers thrown in: "If you were to see Lowry Mays (Chairman and CEO of Clear Channel, LLowrymays@clearchannel.com) riding a bicycle on the road, would you: a) drive along side him, then turn sharply into his path so that he's forced to crash into your vehicle, possibly falling underneath your wheels where he would get run over, quite likely breaking bones and incurring serious injury? b) drive up behind Lowry Mays at a high rate of speed and run straight into him, sending him sailing through the air, possibly into on-coming traffic? (Note: be sure to have a friend nearby to see how high in the air Mr. Mays goes before he falls back down to the ground, possibly getting run over by other vehicles once he's hit the ground and broken a few bones) c) from the side of the road, wait until Lowry Mays approaches you on his bike before you shoot a few arrows into his legs (remember, try to go for his knee caps!) and then film the ensuing accident? d) do the old classic: grab that frame pump and shove it into the spokes of the front wheel on Mr. Mays' bicycle? (Note to Clear Channel executivies, a "pump" is the mechanism that is used to inflate an "innertube", which is the piece that holds air within a bicycle "tire"; just wanted to clarify this, since Clear Channel keeps trying to prove to the country that they're fairly bike-stupid) e) how about any listener suggestions? Callers, phone lines are open to hear your ideas for how to best and most humorously run Lowry Mays off the road! BONUS: what if you see Lowry Mays, Mark Mays (Pres., COO) and Randall Mays (Executive V.P. and CFO) ALL riding bicycles on the road? How could you best run ALL THREE of them off the road? This one would be fun! As for the various PR events that Clear Channel has engaged in to undo the hugely negative press involved with advocating violence toward any other members of society, I call "b.s.". When are you guys going to realize that you can "talk the talk" all you want, but until you start walking to a different tune, you're not going to fool people? I'm sure that you're PR crew is hard at work trying to cover up these cycling violence (and quite presumably many other) fiascos, but I'm telling you right now that you're not pulling any wool over our eyes. I'm more than happy to send out mass emails to the world with pictures of the Mays executives, and humorously write about things like where they live and where they work. And then I could go ahead and make a few suggestions for various semi-violent actions that people could take against these three. Wouldn't that be fun! And thanks to the Clear Channel website, we know exactly what they look like! (http://clearchannel.com/company_exec.php) As a closing comment, I'd like to say that if this email has offended any of you (hopefully it did, but sadly you guys might be too dense to take offense at direct provocation), just let me know and I'll send out another email and say I was just kidding or something. Or maybe I'll say that I didn't mean it. That's pretty much what each of the Clear Channel DJs has done after telling listeners to run bikes off the road, right? Shouldn't that work for me, too? Cordially, PS. Do you guys have any openings for DJs in the Austin, Texas area? Perhaps my creative skills could be put to better use by advocating violence directly over the airwaves instead of messing with this whole "internet" thing? Please get in touch because I think this might work out. Plus, I have a great speaking voice and I've always wanted to be on the radio. |
