i was planning on writing this rant right before i heard a conversational transition that made me want to punch my fucking radio. yesterday sports talk radio failed me as it wasn't its usual form of escapist mental masturbation and instead was something else: shock and awe radio. you see, our society as a whole thrives on these HORRIBLE STORIES OF PREDATORY EVIL and the massmedia has a vested interest in shoving them down our throats because as rahm emanuel once famously pointed out in a speech, you can't let a tragedy/crisis go by without taking advantage of it to get legislation pushed through the system.

therefore, this penn state scandal in (invoking my inner SHARK) (UN)happy vally brings out the epitome of the sensationalism fundamentally inherent to our contemporary system of massmedia: sanctimony. horrible stuff like a college essentially having an old creepy pederast as a veritable mascot welcomes all of the sports media talking heads to ascend atop their soapboxes and suddenly do something IMPORTANT with their lives; reminding us that child rape and any and all subsequent coverups are BAD. like we didn't know.

the fucked up part is that all of these guys have noticeable elation in their voices because much like people love to tell you when someone famous died, got arrested, or some other form of bad news (bad news; it travels fast // people talk shit, their minds reinforce it, spitting out words and thoughts that are amorphous, pushing that sloppy shit out their verbal orifice" -- lateef the truth speaker from the official theme song of this post, bad news by latyrx --- people LOVE to tell you about OTHER PEOPLE'S tragedy, misfortune, and/or any form of bad news. it makes people feel important, relevant, and therefore validated. when i was growing up there was a song that i wanna say was by someone like don hensley called dirty laundry that spoke of this phenomenon, with a lyric that spoke of something like news reporters telling you about a horrible tragedy with a twinkle in their eye.... that's totally what's going on here.

so in the wake of all of this, we get a prime example of this duality from our guy mike mulligan. some dumbass lawyer from boston was on their show this morning, and as they fire up THE HOME RUN IN PIZZA HOTLINE (cuz no segment discussing the legal process in the wake of 30+ years of rape should EVER go unsponsored) they welcome in this lawyer, who is clearly glad to be relevant enough to be on a 50k watt sports radio powerhouse in chicago, and when asked how he's doing he must've been zestfully clean when he replied that HE'S DOING GREAT!!!! he returned serve to ask how the guys in the studio are doing. mulligan responds in part that, gasp, it's raining out here and OMFG IT LOOKS LIKE IT'S NIGHTTIME..... IN THE MORNING!!! (stormwatch 2012)

then, in the wake of all of this sanctimonious bullshit that we've been conditioned to feel HORRIBLE AND OUTRAGED about to the point when some goofy massive legislature that figuratively rapes our dwindling zombified remains of the illusion of "privacy" is rushed through (preventing the everyday occurrence of 15-30 year coverup of college mascot pederasts. it's like dan bernstein says, WE DON'T KNOW WHAT THE OTHER SCHOOLS ARE COVERING UP. although i do, LSU has an occult ritual sacrifice ring that every football head coach is a part of, seeing as the black mass ritual that fully enables each coach to have power over the university requires the coach to drink the blood of a freshly sacrificed virgin on the first moon after the press conference -- don't worry guys, DAN BERNSTEIN WILL PUT AN END TO THIS.... AS LONG AS IT'S NOT SYRACUSE BECAUSE WE'RE NOT TALKING ABOUT SYRACUSE WE HAVE NEVER BEEN TALKING ABOUT SYRACUSE CUZ WE ARE AT WAR WITH EASTASIA)

wow, i tangented myself out of making my point.... so yeah basically in the wake of the massmedia overcoverage of all this crap (i can't even turn on mike and mike and get a training camp report on the jacksonville jaguars... it's all penn state crap ad nauseum) where we've been conditioned to feel outraged about child rape and the issue is forced down our throats so much (which is a touch ironic if you think about it) that we demand that more of our privacy be taken away to prevent child rape, you HAVE to be serious about it and accept it and even though the media perpetuates it 24/7/365 we're told that it's what the people want to talk about in a chicken and the egg syndrome --- so in the wake of all of this, mulligan goes from talking about how it's raining in chicago to literally saying "SPEAKING OF, YOU COULD SAY THERE'S A CLOUD OVER PENN STATE RIGHT NOW" invoking the lawyer to chuckle and then go on to have his segment of relative fame.

so which way does der schnorr want it? the bernstein-championed way where it's serious business that has them intentionally picking out dumbass callers who don't share THE ONLY CORRECT VIEWPOINT ON THIS SUBJECT, AKA THEIRS, so they can make a spectacle of "mouth breathing morons" and reinforce the sanctity of their position -- or is it this lighthearted stuff where lawyers are laughing and belting out I'M DOING GREAT!!! and mulligan is making horrible weather pun transitions with a chuckle IN THE WAKE OF THE MOST HORRIBLE UNTHINKABLE SERIOUS ISSUE THAT TRANSCENDS SPORTS?!?!!

seriously, if we're going to be told all day (with the oasis that is a good % of mac's show, although i didn't really listen yesterday cuz i figured there's a stationwide mandate to be at least 75% penn state intensive because it came down from corporate that the people want to hear about child rape and as les said last night, that's what [they] do) that this issue is SERIOUS BUSINESS that transcends sports, why is everyone laughing and giggling and happy to be talking about it? it's fucked... even behind his rage you know bernstein feels good that he can do some SERIOUS HARD NEWS stuff here, and he'd tell you that he takes a lot of pride in "reporting" this story (at least that's what the callers in his ALS were saying yesterday) because he's "making a difference" cuz you know, i'm sure there's some pantsless cretin listener who knows of some high school coach who has been raping kids for 20 years and he'll go "you know what? dan bernstein reminded me what's really important here, I'M GOING STRAIGHT TO THE POLICE!!!!"

it's fucked up and mental.... it's theatre of the mind cuz honestly, what can we as a people do? is this all a thing to get us to donate money to child rape charities? what are we, average schmucks in the chicagoland area, supposed to do with this penn state information overload? what good does knowing every fucking detail about this stuff do for us? does it change our enjoyment of sports? i mean we've been told we can't watch penn state and anyone who ever roots for penn state should be blacklisted from our social lives, but other than that, what does shoving this crap down our throat 24/7/365 accomplish? i can see telling us in the first place and maybe having a few discussions of it, but it's like we're having a candlelight vigil here.... and now it's not even for the victims, really, as they're just a crutch to prop all of the sanctimonious stuff...

now it's about all of the "good" aka "moral" people being righteous crusaders of justice and imposing their will over the "bad" aka "amoral" or "immoral" people who range from closing their eyes and wishing this pederast thing went away to actively trying to sweep it under the rug or even just contain it to the helpless loser orphan kids, you know, the guys who are going to go to jail for a very sizeable portion of their midlife to senior years.

the justice system will get those who need to get got. there's feds on the case and even tho the b&b ploy is to say that NONE OF THE NATIONAL MEDIA TALKS ABOUT IT LIKE WE DO, the national media is there.... following the intrepid lead of dan bernstein, who i hear looks quite good with a torch and a pitchfork (which is really what he's doing.... validating his career choice in life by grabbing his trusty torch//pitchfork and leading the mob to..... do what exactly? call up his show and emote that childrape is bad? that people who condone or enable childrape is bad? we all know that.... and like, with their show lately it's half dumb callers intentionally let through to be trounced by bernstein while terry says yeah, or it's half dittohead bernstein ALS calls to perpetuate the illusion that everyone wants to hear penn state all day long.

i reckon if there was a poll here it'd be 80/20 that people are sick of hearing WPEN radio, and i'm surprised that the score hasn't ponied up to have a b&b remote LIVE from the area where the paterno statue once stood. that'd be some "great radio" like some guy in the bernstein ALS said.

in closing, and forgive the length and disorganized nature of this rant as i'm on 2hrs of sleep and about to run out the door here.... but like, i'm absolutely sick of this penn state shit and the chicken and the egg logic fallacy that props it up as SOMETHING THAT THE PEOPLE WANT TO HEAR. no we don't, i guarantee it, but when every piece of sports talk radio you turn on is WPEN radio 24/7/365 of course you're going to call up and talk about it.... not the other way around. this isn't people calling up doing the TALK MORE HOCKEY / DON'T TALK HOCKEY stuff.... this is some weird massmedia mandate to shove it down our throat and then have the audacity to tell us that it's what we want to hear cuz we're talking about it nonstop. the massmedia dictates the average watercooler conversation in this country/world/etc.... that's one of the facts of life like corky thatcher.

i'm just sick of hearing about all this penn state shit by now. at least we're past the graphic details of childrape being transmitted on a 50k watt station all day long.... but now we're in the pitchfork wielding mob phase and quite honestly, i think this stuff brings out one of the absolute most hypocritical facets of human nature.... when we use bad news in the wake of unthinkable horror and tragedy to assuage our egos and transmit our vanity that we're some great moral crusaders because, really, it's not about us being better than everyone on at penn state (....it is though), oh no, it's about the victims! it's all about the victims! * hides behind them *

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You had me at hello. I am sure there was a hello somewhere in that wall of text.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

Don Henley, not Don Hensley, wrote Dirty Laundry.....you fuckwad.

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Don't take it personally.

its too bad the whole hanley rating system thing never took off

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

Im happy that its still referenced every so often.


We need to add it as a smilie.

i was briefly awake circa 5:05am and they were playing the show intro and it featured some of the "BEST OF" hanley-isms and mulligan puns, and man, i swear to god i facepalmed through my forehead and massaged my brain back to sleep. it was "awefull" proof that the show not only likes the hanley scale, moreover it revels in it as it sees that as what seperates it from MIKE AND MIKE

still tho, can't knock mike and mike cuz... heh heh.... one of them is like, smart, and the other is like, a big fat dumb jock! and they're BOTH named mike! and they have a radio show.... get this guys, hehehehhe, TOGETHER!!! hijinks ensue!

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also, mully and hanley has a guest on who's telling us what the freeh report is. literally, they need to have experts on at 8:05am on tuesday july 24th 2012 to tell us what this "free report" is all about. turns out it's spelled F-R-E-E-H.

idk, i need at least 3-4 more days of nonstop penn state coverage to digest all of this information that is highly relevant to my day to day life.

EDIT: as i was clicking on "reply" i heard mully let loose a big hearty HEH HEH HEH HEH to some zinger the guest dropped right before getting back into the SERIOUS BUSINESS that is this matter. what a crock of shit. pick a lane guys.

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They had Jeff Passan on today.

He said the Sox never had a chance with the Tigers in the division.

He is a moron.

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Was he speaking in past tense? There is quite a bit of season to go.

Also, he is an idiot which means he fits in just fine with Mully.

Jeff Santo on Ron Santo's HOF induction: "His timing was a little bit off on this"

Is Jeff Santo solely in the business of his dad, or does "Santo Films" produce some quality low-budget arthouse flicks that we need to be aware of? If he gets Zooey Deschanel for them i'm SOOOOO in for a Santo Films tat.

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