This is that time of the year when I am inundated with work, school projects, and more work and school projects. I will be done with school two weeks from tomorrow! After that, it’s fun, sun, and taking my GMAT for my Master’s.

Now, back to a hot word processor. Later tonight I might tell you about the awesome trip to Chicago that Tracy and I took over the weekend. But right now… I’ve got isht to do.

On your way to work this morning, come watch my show live at the Mineshaft on Main Street in Downtown Hartford. Bring in a non-perishable food item for the Full Shelf Food Pantry - or a cash donation for the Exodus House Transitional Living Facility - and we’ll give you a pair of promotional tickets to Country USA in Oshkosh.

Oh… and the ‘Shaft has 2-for-1 breakfasts… so… bring a friend.

I’ll be there from 6 until 10am.

Sue Tupper, one of my station’s account executives, is a great bowler. About six months ago, we were on a remote broadcast when she started talking about how she was going to Vegas to bowl in the Nationals bowling tournament. I said, “My aunt was on Bowling with the Champs, once, but she and I don’t share any blood. I could hardly make it on Bowling with the Chumps.”

Eureka!!! A little light bulb popped up above my head.

I take part in a celebrity trap shoot for Women For MACC each year at the Hartford Gun Club. Women For MACC is a non-profit that supports Midwest Athletes Against Childhood Cancer.

I told Sue, “we should take my bad bowling skills, and the bad bowling skills of Josh Golberg (my afternoon guy), and put on a charity bowling event called `Bowling With The Chumps.`”

I didn’t underestimate Sue. She has put together a tight event that is going to take place tomorrow morning, starting at 11am, at Lighthouse Lanes in West Bend. I encourage you all to stop by and help raise money for childhood cancer research.

A few years ago, I pointed out that country music had an all-of-the-sudden fascination with singing about babies. Then… it was kids. The new trend in country music is singing about other country artists. You can pass your own judgment on the issue (or not care about it either way) - but I think it’s friggin’ lame.

First -> Taylor Swift sang a song called, “Tim McGraw.” It’s a well-written song (especially since Swift was only like 16 when she wrote it).

Next -> Jason Aldean sang, “Johnny Cash.” Okay, Mr. Name Dropper, I’ll give you a pass, but only because Mr. Cash passed away not too long ago.

Then -> Just last week I added, “Kristofferson” (meaning Kris Kristofferson) by Tim McGraw to our station’s music rotation.

Today -> In the mail I received a new single from Heidi Newfield (formerly of the group, Trick Pony) called, “Johnny and June.” Hey, I don’t know if you got the memo, Heidi, but there was a) already a song about Johnny Cash and b) singing about other country artists has already been done.

This isn’t, of course, the first time that country music has played the name-dropping game. Here are some other titles:

• “Are You Sure Hank Done it This Way” - Waylon Jennings
• “Bob Wills is Still the King” - Waylon Jennings
• “Hank Williams, You Wrote My Life” - Moe Bandy
• “Willie, Waylon, and Me” - David Allan Coe
• “Weed With Willie” - Toby Keith

And I’m sure there are more that I couldn’t think of off the top of my head.

During one of my on-air contests this morning, a West Bend middle-school student got through as my contestant. I asked her if she was excited to go back to school this morning, and her reply was, “yes, we’re going bowling.”

Now, I know this caller goes to Silverbook Middle School in West Bend. My question is this, if the school district is so hard up for money that they are forcing kids to have class in trailers, then why the hell are they wasting time and tax-payer dollars taking kids friggin’ bowling when they should be learning? Pat Herdrich, can you answer this, please?

Yesterday, on the air, one of the school-board members was talking about how West Bend School District is not competing with Slinger or Hartford schools, but rather with China and India. Okay, so do you think the Chinese students take time out from learning four different languages in order to go bowling? I’m guessing not.

The student’s mom did call me and tell me that the kids were being rewarded for good work and that the parents paid for the bus, the bowling, and the shoes. The parents, however, are not solely paying for the teachers’ salaries or the fixed costs of the heat/lights in the school building while these select kids are out breaking pins.

They could easily hold this “reward” at night after school or even on a weekend. I know that some schools have deals with places like Pizza Hut or McDonald’s that give the students a gift card when they do well. Why can’t the kids get a “bowling party” gift card or something like that?

Seriously, the school board can’t talk about how badly they need money when they are spending some of ours at the bowling lanes. Furthermore, don’t talk about “competing with China” when we’re taking our kids out of the classroom and putting them in a bowling alley/bar during normal learning hours.

Outside of the radio station, I sometimes do voiceover work for certain companies. The voiceovers are mostly for commercial videos and such. I have never done any sort of voiceover work as a telemarketer, however.

This morning, I received a phone call on the studio line from a recorded telemarketer telling me how I can save credit-card interest by switching to some other company. The man doing the voiceover had a great voice and delivery. The only thing I could think was, “wow, this guy could be doing voiceovers for Jaguar or something like that, but instead he’s making himself look like a schmuck by recording a telemarketing piece.”

I know first hand that we don’t make a ton of money in this industry (well, moreso in voiceovers than in radio)… but at the end of the day you still have to look at yourself in the mirror. I don’t think that recording telemarketing voiceovers is something that I’d want anybody to know I did. I’m quite certain that he made some money on the deal, but how embarrassing for him.

On November 13th, 2000, I accepted a full-time copywriting position at WBKV/WBWI. Seven years and a few added responsibilities later ( ), I am still here, and still loving it. Thanks for making my stay comfortably challenging, everybody.

I don’t want to get on a soapbox, here, but there is a radio station in Milwaukee that is playing Christmas music already. There are a few things about this that really get my goat:

1. They started playing the music November 1st. I thought, at first, they were just making a mockery of stations that start playing Christmas music earlier and earlier every year, but then realized that they were just making a mockery of themselves… and they were actually going to stick with it.
2. The station in question only plays a nonsecular Christmas song once every couple hours. And… it’s usually the same tired version of Celine Dion singing, “O Holy Night.”
3.  There’s something to be said for being a first mover in a market… but whoring religion isn’t a great P.R. move. (of course, this will still end up working for them, monetarily.)

Again, you won’t hear Christmas music on my station until Thanksgiving. I’m sorry, but one month is as far out as I’ll start.

I don’t normally pimp work stuff on my personal website… mostly because, well, it’s my personal website… but we’ve got a cool new feature at the radio station, and I’m excited to let everybody to know about it.

You can now text message your requests and take part in text-to-win contests at 92.5 WBWI!  In order to do so, though, you have to sign up on the website. Go to WBWIFM.com and follow the instructions. Then, anytime you want to request a song, simply text your request to this number: 49330.

So… go sign up right now!!!! DO IT!

So, the chick that tried to hock liqueur on my radio station by way of “breast cancer awareness” decided not even to contest the bullshit website. Thick! Of course, a sleaze that knows she’s a sleaze doesn’t really need to defend herself.

Click on the photo to see the end of our e-mail exchange:

After my show, yesterday, I received a call from a booking agent looking to book a young woman to speak about breast cancer. The 25-year-old woman, Lindsay Avner, underwent a double mastectomy as a preventative way of making sure that she didn’t suffer from the same disease that killed her grandmother and great grandmother, and that her mother developed when Lindsay was just 12 years old.

I said, “sure, I’ll do the interview.” I mean, why not, right? She’s got a good story and a good message, so I’ll put her on the air and let her talk about breast cancer awareness.

Then I received an e-mail regarding the details of the call in. In it was a link that the agent had mentioned in her phone call, pink-promise.com. I clicked on the link and it forwarded me to Vanilleroyale.com (a liqueur website). Figuring it was a mistake, I e-mailed the rep back to ask her for the real web address. She replied, “no, that’s it, the information is in there.”

The agent had mentioned nothing of the beverage in the initial phone call, and she was obviously hoping that I wouldn’t do any research. Unfortunately for her, I get up pretty early in the morning… so she’d have to get up even earlier to pull the wool over my eyes.

The part that I feel the worst about is that Lindsay Avner is being pimped out by a booze company in the guise of promoting breast cancer awareness. I snooped through the liqueur website and found the link to BeBrightPink.com, which is really the website that contains all of the information relating to breast cancer.

Shame on the liqueur company and the booking agent for being deceptive. That’s all I’m sayin’. If Lindsay ever wants to do an interview promoting Be Bright Pink, I’m all about it, but I’ll never take another call from the booking agent involved with this. That’s for damn sure.

I know… I know… I supposed to be a grown up, but it’s hard not to chuckle when I’m supposed to read a live national commercial on the air that is written like this:

Stuck in traffic with a touch of diarrhea? No problem if you used [product name].  You did use [product name], didn’t you? …

Yeah yeah yeah… poo commercials are funny, no matter how old you are.

Alt version:

When you’re stuck in traffic, it’s no time for diarrhea. [Product name] works fast, shutting down diarrhea…

I love my job.

So… uhm… do you think it will be funny if I tell everybody that I have a job interview today? (For the record, I don’t!) Everybody gets a little on edge when I throw on a suit. I love it.

It looks like Faith Hill was purty upset that a fan in the front row grabbed her husband’s junk… not that I blame her…

Somebody needs to teach you some class, my friend. You don’t go grabbin’ somebody else’s — somebody’s husband’s balls, you understand me? That’s very disrespectful.

Jim Hodges (my GM), Collin Raye, and Me at the Washington County Fair

Here are some tips for getting your self-produced CD on the radio.

1.) If you aren’t Tim McGraw, Toby Keith, or Hank Williams himself, please don’t sign 10 copies of a CD that nobody’s ever heard of and give them to the program director at the radio station. It makes you look small time and silly. If I took a bunch of homemade CD’s and signed, “Aloysius Muckaluck,” it would have the same amount of credibility as your unknown name. So… just make the CD look professional, drop it off somewhere, and hope for the best.

2.) If you drop off hats that say “Minnesota Rock & Country Hall of Fame,” but they do not have YOUR name on them somewhere, I can only assume that you stopped there as a tourist and bought some hats before you stopped by the radio station. If you want to buy me a random hat, pick up something that I’m more likely to enjoy, like a Packers cap.

3.) Here’s a biggie. If you have t-shirts made up with the logo of your new CD, DO NOT BUY ANY MEDIUMS! As you can see from the above photo (click to enlarge), I may have lost weight, but I haven’t worn a medium since 5th grade. If the program director or music director at the radio station you want to have your CD played at is a male, there is virtually no way that he will fit into a medium. Just skip them all together. I’d even venture to say anything smaller than XL is a waste of your money. And, since we’re talking t-shirts, the PD/MD is not even going to consider wearing your t-shirt unless it has some kind of witty slogan on it. So, don’t come up in here with a boring photocopy of your CD cover ironed onto an off white t-shirt.

That’s all I got.

It’s not often that the National Weather Service sends us a bulk e-mail regarding weather, but today we received the following:

Alerts & Announcements
National Weather Service Predicts Severe Storms Approaching State

The Wisconsin Emergency Management staff and National Weather Service have announced that they are expecting severe weather in the next 48 plus hours.

These storms are expected to impact most of the state. The first wave is predicted to begin late Wednesday night and will continue throughout the night with possible strong winds, golf ball size hail, heavy rain, and isolated tornadoes. This will continue until Thursday morning and then things will calm down for a few hours before a stronger system moves in Thursday afternoon and evening.

The second system of severe weather is predicted to bring hurricane force winds, hail and tornadoes. Early indications from the NWS state that these tornadoes could be very strong (F2-F3 range). These are the predictions and hopefully they won’t be as severe.

Please, please, please take care and be safe.

Most of you know by now that I am an avid photographer. I wouldn’t call myself a professional, though I have a good amount of professional gear. I just call it a, “hobby that pays.”

Yesterday, while at a remote broadcast with Mario Andretti, I ran into a guy who happened to have, by far, the coolest camera that I have ever seen in person. In fact, the only camera currently on the planet cooler than the Hassleblad 22MP H2D that he was carrying is the 39MP version of the same camera. I was in complete awe.

The photographer, who hails from Detroit, went on to tell me that he shoots for Getty Images, and that he has done shoots with Eminem and a host of other celebrities. He told me to check out his website, JoeVaughn.com, to see a smidgen of his portfolio. I encourage you to do the same. It is phenomenal.

In the end, I was more impressed with the down-to-earth Joe Vaughn than his camera - even though the camera was friggin’ awesome. I expected Vaughn, a professional photographer, to slam me, a paid hobbyist, for submitting on a microstock website (iStockPhoto.com). He didn’t though. He seemed to encourage me. It was pretty cool.

So, in the span of a week, I have introduced two new members to the FuzzMartin.com Friends of the Show links. Hey, how ’bout that.

Now if I could only scrounge up the $30,000 for a Hassleblad. Well, maybe I’ll shoot for a Canon 5D first.

Hey… this whole radio thing isn’t all that bad. First I landed an endorsement with Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow…. and now I am an official endorser for Charter Communications - purveyors of fine cable broadcasting, high speed internet, and now Charter Telephone.

Now I have to go rid my home of my satellite dish and DSL modem. (sorry, Jess )

As a young child, I would never sleep. If there was any sign of life roaming around my house, I had to be awake; I needed to know what was going on.

I don’t know whose bright idea it was, but either my mom or my dad figured out that if they turned the radio on, I would stay in my bed and eventually fall asleep. (coincidentally, the station that they used to turn on, W-cough-K-T-cough-I, still puts me to sleep. )

To this day, I can still see that ugly, baby blue clock radio. The digital display had a horrendous orange glow to it, and the colon between the hour and the minutes would flash an annoying flash that looked like a strobe light in my dark bedroom. Still, it put me to sleep every night. I finally tossed it out when I was about twelve-years-old, right after it electrocuted me.

Flash forward twenty years. My daughter now asks me every night, AND every afternoon when it’s nap time, to “turn the radio on, Daddy.” She will listen to anything. Talk radio. Country. Classic rock. The only thing I can’t turn on is jazz, because instead of sleeping she immediately starts to dance.

My girl has good taste.

Maybe I’d better start prepping for her to take over my show in 16 years.