What Happens in Vegas: A Grumble from a Long-Time Resident

One weird thing about living in Las Vegas is that though our city is decidedly blue (as is the state in Presidential elections of late), political talk on the radio is exclusively from the red. [And just a side-note, isn't it funny how conservatives have come to be called "red," when the "reds" used to be their outright enemy? Anyway. . .] Liberal talk radio is a rare animal I'll grant you, a genre that includes only a handful of programs, but we don't get any of them in Las Vegas. I'm always amused that so often "the media" is depicted as a liberal entity, where underdog conservatives have to fight to have their voices heard.

So, if I want to listen to news commentary in the car, I have to resort to some Bluetooth/podcast setup, or I have to tune in to conservotalk on the terrestrial radio. And since I'm only in the car for 15-20 minute stretches, I can manage to do that without going completely nuts. The most popular station in this format is KXNT (with both an AM and FM version), and they run Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity as you'd expect. But in drive-time, they scuttled the unlistenable Mark Levin to tape delay at night, in favor of a series of local hosts. There was a young team of "Radio Star" winners who were later dumped, a long-timer who got unceremoniously fired, and the current guy, a dolt named Kevin Wall.

Click image to embiggen.

Wall is clearly a pro at talking on the radio, I'll give him that. He can vamp to fill time. He can bail out of a phone call, or ill-thought-out train of thought. And if you're not paying attention to the actual sequence of words coming out of his mouth, he sounds just fine. But in my listening experience, I've yet to discover his area of expertise. His depth of knowledge on any particular subject is. . .well. . .shallow. When he interviews a guest on the phone, things go well as long as the guest is basically let go to talk about their subject. Things go somewhat awry when he starts peppering them with questions, veering into tangents that invariably lead to blind alleys. But like I said, he's good at steering back on course, when he realizes he's hit a pot hole.

On Thursday, the interview subject was most friendly, the honorable former mayor of Las Vegas, Oscar Goodman. On this occasion, I found myself annoyed several times in the course of a couple of sentences. First up, Goodman and his wife Carolyn (the current mayor) are loathe to disabuse anyone of the false notion that the city of Las Vegas is the entire valley, including the strip. It's not. The Goodmans' jurisdiction ends north of the Las Vegas Strip, including the Stratosphere and downtown, but not the megaresorts. Kevin Wall on the other hand, seemingly isn't even aware of this fact. When talking to Goodman (or other city officials), he regularly tosses in references to areas clearly outside the city, cluelessly. 

Wall, of course, eventually turns everything back around to something negative about President Obama, and I guess that's a talent too. So, he asked Goodman about his "run-ins" with the President. And just as Goodman rarely admits he wasn't the mayor of the MGM Grand, he continues to perpetuate the myth that Obama told people not to come to Las Vegas. I've covered this subject before, because with Goodman, it is well-traveled. As you can see if you go to that link, what Obama actually said was both conservative and true. Both statements Obama made were about fiscal responsibility! Not taking a junket on the taxpayer's dime, and not blowing money you don't have. Yes, "Vegas" was in both quotes, but the context wasn't just glossed over, it was ignored.

These things were annoying enough for me to remember them hours later, and decide to write this post. But I really wasn't surprised by them. Kevin Wall is a guy hired to perform the role of "conservative talk radio host," and does it ably if not smartly. Smarts are obviously not a job requirement. Oscar Goodman is a fast-talking mob lawyer turned politician; a self-promoter who is selling a book about those things. He's always played loosey-goosey with facts, preferring truthiness instead.

What Happens in Vegas: Bill Maher Tells Joke, Right Wing World Goes Insane

Bill Maher appeared at The Palms here in Las Vegas this past weekend. During his set, he told a joke about Sarah Palin. Or Trig Palin. Or both of them. In any event, he used the word "retarded" or "retard" along the way (no one seems to have nailed that part down). A former local sportscaster, a conservative, was at the show on free passes. He heckled Maher over the joke, and was ejected from the auditorium. Those are the facts, such as they are, as far as I know them.

Bill Maher, from Wikipedia

Now, I realize that over the past decade or two, the "r" word as it is often called, has slid further and further out of acceptable use, and I'm all for that. I excised it from my own syntax a long time ago (though will cop to having used "celebutard" and other mashups, but I've cut that out too). Comedians still use it. I'm sure if you did an exhaustive search, you'd find many, many of them having used it either in their written material or an ad lib. I'm sure if you tried just a little, you could find examples of prominent conservatives using it too (but good luck finding a conservative comic, they're apparently an endangered species).

On Wednesday, Ron Futrell, the heckler, appeared on Live and Local with Kevin Wall on KXNT, one of several right-wing Vegas radio stations (there are no liberal ones). He related the story to Wall, both of them having a whale of a time telling it, but it was very short on details. Since then, I haven't been able to glean much more, with every source saying pretty much the same thing. And, since then, Palin predictably fired back via Twitter. And since it's Palin--a right-wing hero for reasons utterly lost on me--the right-wing blogosphere is enraged at Bill Maher.

Ron Futrell, ex-sportscaster, Mormon, heckler.
Image from Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Ironically, their commentary toward him is several shades beyond calling Palin (either or both of them) "retard." Twitter, Facebook, blogs and message boards are filled with venom toward Maher, or I guess I should say, more than usual. But here's the really weird part: unless I've missed it, nobody has relayed the joke. All of this outrage is a) based on Futrell's sketchy story, b) assuming Futrell's side of the story is accurate, and c) assumes that the joke/punchline/"r" word was directed at Trig Palin, rather than Sarah Palin.

I'll admit, I'm a Bill Maher fan. I watch Real Time on HBO every week, and usually run his Over Time web-only clips on my blog. I'm nearly 100% on board with his religious beliefs as he's expressed them, and probably 75%-80% with him on political topics. But sometimes, I think he misses the point of a story, focusing on the wrong aspect. Sometimes I think he can be a dick, if the audience isn't going his way. And sometimes--like a lot of edgy, adult comics--he can cross a line. He's been known to ruffle feathers, it's kind of his thing.

This column isn't a defense of what he said at The Palms this weekend. Because I don't know what he said. Who does know? Bill Maher does. His audience that night does. Ron Futrell might, but it sounds like he was spoiling for a fight, and was heckling Maher for more than just that joke. But again, unless I missed it, I've yet to see the actual wording of the joke. Until I do, I find all of this hyperventilating from Right Wing World to be ridiculous. To be pissed off about what he said, don't you have to know what he said?

But you know, for a group that likes to throw around the term "libtard," I'm not sure there's a lot of room for them to talk anyway.

And Sarah Palin has never uttered an offensive word. . .
Image from source, Huffington Post.

[Excerpt]

Sarah Palin Hopes Bill Maher's 'White Wimpy A#*' Gets Flattened After Trig Palin Slur

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin blasted comedian Bill Maher on Twitter Wednesday after learning of a slur he directed at her special needs son, Trig Palin. . .

Read more at: Huffington Post


[Excerpt]

Ex-sports anchor chides Bill Maher

Former Las Vegas TV personality Ron Futrell was escorted out of liberal comedian Bill Maher’s show at the Palms on Saturday after a heckling incident. . .

Read more at: Las Vegas Review-Journal

Would a Patriot Secede?

I know I've already talked about this subject, but it's irking me. Okay, it's a fairly new meme, at most a couple of days old. But already, I'm sick of the "20 states are petitioning the government to secede from the United States." It was a cute little protest movement by people who were butt-hurt over an election that didn't go their way. There is a section on whitehouse.gov that lets anyone start a petition. If you get enough signatories, you get a response from the White House. And--big whoop--if any of these 20 (probably more than 20 by now) gets enough people to sign on, presumably an embarrassed President Obama meekly saying "please don't do it!" in front of a joint session of Congress or something.

It isn't surprising that the secession "movement" has caught a bit of buzz. It's funny in an odd way that anyone would take it even half-seriously. The reason this bugged me again, is today on our local Vegas right-wing chatter AM station (one of them anyway), the host--a dolt named Kevin Wall--did several segments on the story as if it were a terrific idea. Think of all those federal taxes that would instead go to our state! Our schools! Yeah, except it would mean no federal support. On anything. It would require a passport for tourists to come to Las Vegas. It would require a currency exchange too. Not to mention the fact that Nevada went for Obama. Those are just three of hundreds of reasons why it's a bad idea. Strike that, it's a ridiculous idea, made doubly so by the fact that the same people that profess patriotism would so casually separate from the country.

President Obama won, and will be President until January 2017. Live with it you whiny little faux "patriots."