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Who needs a year in review when there's Leykis?
By: RANDY DOTINGA - For the North County Times | ∞
What's a good word to describe Tom Leykis, the L.A.-based shock jock now heard weekdays on San Diego's 103.7 Free FM? Here are a few hints:
Just about any sentient being would say this all makes Leykis one thing ---- a misogynist. God's gift to womankind he ain't. Being a master of the obvious, I pointed this out last week, inadvertently giving Leykis an early Christmas present: yet another morally outraged journalist to mock.
"Unbelievable," he chortled on Thursday after reading the column on the air. He devoted much of his three-hour show to a counterattack, calling me a "moron," "frustrated," "a man of little talent," and "a bitter and probably broke individual."
Well, yeah ---- so?
Seriously, the four-times-married Leykis knows about bitter. In 2001, he revealed the name of a woman who survived after trying to kill herself by jumping off a Seattle-area bridge. The woman's suicide attempt made the news because it snarled traffic; according to a news report, Leykis posted a photo of her fall and asked listeners for "funny" captions.
"This is a business, and my job is to get the largest number of listeners I can get," Leykis helpfully explained to the Seattle Times.
What a delightful charmer! A columnist for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer put it this way: "There's an extra-hot room reserved in hell for Tom Leykis."
But Leykis didn't devote his entire show last Thursday to this column. He spent plenty of time taking calls from listeners who welcomed him to San Diego and raved about how wonderful he is, proving that while he may not like women, he's very much in love with himself. He also made sure to mention that he makes a seven-figure salary.
According to Leykis, his ratings in San Diego are fantastic. That's good news for him, bad news for anyone with a pair of X chromosomes, and a sure sign that 103.7 Free FM isn't going to dump him anytime soon.
And now back to your regularly scheduled programming: a look back at more of 2005's winners and losers on the San Diego radio scene.
Winner: Jack 100.7 FM, which proved that listeners ---- at least for the moment ---- like the idea of a disc-jockey-less station that sounds like an iPod on shuffle.
The station's ratings dipped after it dropped its old name (Star 100.7 FM) and its old pop-rock format last spring. Still, plenty of listeners are tuning in to strange juxtapositions of songs. My own head nearly exploded the other day when I heard the Kinks classic "All Day and All of the Night" followed by the '80s fluff tune "Take on Me."
Loser: North County investment adviser Gabriel Wisdom, who managed a triple play: He embarrassed himself, KPBS-FM and the public radio show "Marketplace."
Wisdom, a local rock disc jockey in the late 1960s, later became a radio business reporter, contributing to KPBS-FM. But he got sacked from "Marketplace" and KPBS-FM after plagiarizing an online article on the air.
"I'm not a journalist. I don't know the journalistic standards," Wisdom told this column, as if plagiarism is an obscure concept you only pick up in journalism school.
Wisdom remains a major sponsor of KPBS.
Losers: Robin Roth and Jim McInnes. They're two of San Diego's best and most distinctive disc jockeys. But that didn't stop 91X and 103.7 The Planet, respectively, from sacking them.
Mixed decision: You could call it the Battle of the Radio Egos.
In one corner was Kenny Weissberg, host of the eclectic "Music Without Boundaries" show, who got royally miffed when KPRI dropped one of its two weekly airings.
In the other corner was KPRI co-owner Bob Hughes, who went ballistic on the air after a local weekly paper reported ---- based on Weissberg's own e-mail message ---- that the show's days on KPRI were numbered.
Well, they were. "Music Without Boundaries" ended up leaving KPRI, but it's returned at an ungodly hour ---- 7 to 9 a.m. Saturdays ---- on 91X.
Randy Dotinga is afraid he's made Tom Leykis' day once again. E-mail him at NCTimesRadio@aol.com.
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William wrote on Dec 29, 2005 12:42 AM:I'd rather listen to silence....than listen to the garbage they promote as entertainment on 103.7 fm.....
SID wrote on Dec 29, 2005 12:05 PM:tom leykis is a breath of very fresh air after all the right wing crap we have to listen to all day every day..hate radio of the political variety has taken over every station in the country it seems and it's a real bore since they all pretty much say the same thing.
Michael wrote on Dec 31, 2005 12:21 AM:If you want a true alternative to Right Wing Radio, try KLSD, particularly Randi Rhodes. She IS funny.
Robert wrote on Dec 31, 2005 4:28 PM:If you want a TRUE alternative, listen to Pulic Radio KPBS.
Dude wrote on Apr 5, 2006 10:10 PM:Tom Leykis rocks.
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