I participated in a panel on KPSU's The Debate Hour last weekend. Among the issues discussed: should women in the military be allowed to serve on submarines, was PPD's actions in the death of Aaron Campbell racially motivated, should pole dancing become an Olympic sport and what's the best way to cure Greece's lagging economy. The panel's verdicts: yep, nope, yep and...I can only remember my own lame suggestion (that the former owner of Greek Cusina and the restaurant's inflatable octopus head overseas to host a bake sale).

It was interesting to compare KPSU's studio to the one I used as a KWVA DJ at the University of Oregon back in the day. Both have fairly spartan setups. KWVA is housed in a former bathroom on the nearly forgotten mezzanine level of U of O's EMU. KPSU is buried in the basement of the downtown campus' SMU. Students "run the board" while hosting shows and seem to have the same trouble operating each station's call-in system. I volunteered at KWVA for something like three years and never really got the hang of putting listeners on the air.

A tip of the hat goes out to The Debate Hour's host, Captain AP (the bloke in the Giants' cap). All sixty-two minutes of the show can be downloaded over here on KPSU's website. Like a lot of people, I can't stand the sound of my own voice so I only managed to make it through the first three minutes.

Labels: politics, radio

I just heard the news on Twitter a few minutes ago that the Cort & Fatboy Show was canceled today by the suits over at Alpha Broadcasting. Despite the co-host's cheesy moniker, the show was a geeky oasis in Portland's endless sea of boring, bland corporate radio. Each week, the hosts brought in local media figures like Byron Beck, Mike Russell, David Walker and W.M. Steven Humphrey to chat about everything from the Sam Adams scandal to exactly how painful it is to sit through Transformers 2. Cort and Fatboy's podcasts have served as a soundtrack for plenty of my tedious jogging treks through Tryon Creek State Park. Without the show to serve as my exercise fuel, I'll surely become a 700 pound shut-in by Christmas.

Believe it or not, The Cort & Fatboy Show was the most consistently entertaining and witty program on Portland radio. Their lengthy conversations with Russell about movies always nailed each week's biggest Hollywood release. Their evisceration of Inglorious Basterds back in August perfectly outlined all the problems with Quentin Tarantino's near masterpiece.

The show will be missed but hopefully the hosts' monthly late night movie series at the Bagdad Theatre will continue. October's screening of Beetlejuice, with a pre-show reel of '80s commercials and cartoons, was a blast. Last winter, they also arranged a series of live-screenings of the final season of Battlestar Galactica and even managed to get co-star Katee Sackhoff to appear at one of them. There were plans to screen the final season of Lost at the theater as well in 2010 but there's no telling what will become of that.

This is a huge mistake on the part of the powers-that-be and here's hoping that Cort and Fatboy will be able to find another home on Portland's FM dial.

Further eulogies for the show can be found over on Blogtown and Portland Sucks.

Labels: radio