Tonight's nightly dumbass

Since JJ can't give us the nightly dumbass that so entertained us weeknights, we thought we'd fill in.  Tonight's nightly dumbass is not one, but two people - Crank and JJ.

Let's back it up a bit.  We rarely listen to the morning show.  After our initial excitement and hopes for an entertaining show, we ended up with a toned down version of the old morning show.  The personalities are a little bit more likable than in the old format, but bigots are still bigots and bigotry as humor is a bygone fad of almost forty years ago.  It just plain ain't funny no more.

We listened once, last week.  We were amused at the segment, "Acoustics at eight" that came on at five til nine.  The critic writing to you likes the acoustic segment, having somewheres in the neighborhood of seven CDs of acoustic versions of songs by popular bands. 

We listened again, today, and the "Acoustics at eight" segment came on somewheres around eight-thirty.  Amusement has now transformed into befuddlement.  Are there any clocks at the station?

Last week's daily dumbass was a man in Oklahoma who fired his gun at fire fighting helicopters dipping into his pond to fight the wildfires in Texas.  All five of us are in agreement that the man should've been the daily hero and JJ and Crank the dumbasses.  All five of us agree that anyone - and especially government employees - who doesn't want an ass full of buckshot had better ask us before stepping foot on our land much less helping themselves to the resources we own on the land. 

How hard would it have been for the fire fighting commander or local sheriff to pick up the phone and tell the landowner they needed his water to fight neighboring wild fires?  Oklahoma is also in a severe drought.  What if the man relied on that pond to irrigate his fields or water his livestock, wouldn't you expect him to shoot first, ask questions later?  If that pond goes dry, he could lose his livlihood.  Who's going to pay his bills then?

Again, we can't stress it enough.  Do your homework and think outside of the box before making yourself the dumbass.

Today's dumbass was not one, but three people holding up the express checkoout at the Walmart while Crank and JJ were trying to get through the line as quickly as possible. 

First person up - an old lady who paid by <gasp> a check.  There goes that subtle bigotry.  What did her age have to do with how she chose to pay?  Oh yeah, old people are feeble and slow. 

All five of us at the Critics Page have shopped at Walmart and have paid by check.  There's nothing to fill out.  You hand a blank check to the cashier, the cashier feeds it through the machine, which takes less than ten seconds, and then you sign the electronic pad facing you.  Either Crank and JJ are telling us that Delawareans are more backwards than we give them credit for or they completely fabricated the little old lady paying by check.

Second person up - a Mexican who chose to pay with coins for one portion of his order, and a twenty for the other portion.  Again, there goes that subtle bigotry.  What did his ethnicity have to do with how he paid for his order?  In fact, we're willing to bet that while he was probably Hispanic, most likely Latino, he probably wasn't Mexican.  We fully expect that analysis to go whoosh right over Crank and JJ's heads.  Bigots have a hard time understanding that people with brown skin speaking Spanish does not automatically equate to Mexican.

So he shopped for two people.  One was poor and had coins to pay for the order.  The other was rich and had a twenty to pay for the order.  Whether one person pays for both orders separately or two people are ahead of you paying for their own orders, the time standing in line is the same.  And since none of us at the Critics Page are rich like Crank and JJ, we do consider payment in coins as cash payment.  Between paychecks, we're always paying in coins.

Third person up - Mom.  Bashing women through Moms is a favorite pasttime of JJ's.  He'll never bash men through Dads, but he loves to bash women through the incompetent Moms.  What was her stupidity?  Asking the cashier about two different types of cigarettes and which one had more cigarettes. 

Yes, JJ, every smoker and many nonsmokers know there are twenty cigarettes to a pack, no matter which brand.  Every smoker and many nonsmokers also know that a pack of camels isn't the same amount of cigarettes as a pack of Virginia Slims.  Try really hard to think about that one.  We have confidence that you can tell us why both packs have twenty cigarettes, but both packs don't have an equal amount of cigarettes.

Since we are convinced that the first shopper was made up, or at least the story was embellished like a good fish tale, we have our doubts about the other two shoppers, too.  The story was a good yarn to bash the elderly, Latinos (specifically Mexicans), and women.

But that's not why we award the nightly dumbass award to Crank and JJ.  They get the award because they chose to shop at Walmart and support both the Chinese economy and Chinese worker at the expense of our American economy and American worker.

Not a good enough reason?  Don't fret, there's more.

We've noticed the younger generation, particularly those under thirty-five, are impertinent and impatient seekers of instant gratification.  We can thank the Internet, drive thrus, and express checkout lines for the ingrained attitude of instant gratification among the snot-nosed, bratty younger crowd.

Not fun when the group you belong to is singled out for ridicule, is it?  Sad truth is that those of us over thirty-five have more patience, understanding, and compassion for others who operate at a bit slower speed than the seekers of instant gratification. 

Still not good enough reason to award Crank and JJ the nightly dumbass award?  Yup.  There's more.

You both were shopping at Walmart.  If you want prompt service and speed, shop at a high end store where the clerks will annoint your feet as they take your money and usher you out the door.  You shop with poor people, you get treated like poor people.  Shop with rich people, you get treated like rich people.  Very simple equation.  You both were the dumbasses for being in a hurry because you didn't plan ahead of when and where to shop to get the service you think you deserve.  The truth is you deserved the service poor people get and that's what you got.  Dumbasses.

Award of the week goes to listener Drew

(Bear with us, Drew.  Your award comes at the end of our segment.  You know how award shows go.  You have to trudge through to the end to see the important part.)

Despite our busy spring, we have caught bits and pieces of WZBH programming this week.  Christ Steele and JJ are going strong and both steer clear of potentially inflammatory comment.  Sure, JJ still vehemently denies wanting to get married, much less have kids, but we at the Critics Page strongly feel that a sizeable portion of our population should refrain from breeding - and probably marrying, too.  We mention this because we feel JJ should at least be acknowledged for his positive contribution to Delmarva, and the world, for spreading the message to leave the breeding to those who are more qualified than he to have children.  We certainly don't view his commentary as being anti-marriage or anti-kids.

 Matt and Crank bored us with more mundane, adolescent gibberish all week.  One serious topic they hit upon dealt with hate crime legislation.  Innae Park reported on the case of someone being charged with a hate crime for beating up a transsexual in a local fast food joint.  Matt felt a need to protest the idea of hate crime legislation, claiming that if someone is beaten up in a mugging, that crime of assault is no different than the transsexual who was beaten up for no reason other than being different.  The gist of his argument was that if we're all are to be treated equally, why is the person who beats someone out of hatred treated differently than the person who beats someone in a robbery scenario.

  

On the surface, the argument sounds good, but we ask, "Why does someone, who is speeding ten miles over the speed limit, given a lesser fine than someone who is speeding twenty-five miles over the speed limit? Speeding is, after all, speeding, whether it is one mile per hour over the limit or a hundred."

  

We could go further.  Killing someone is killing someone, yet the law breaks killing someone down into different degrees: first, second, third, involuntary manslaughter, and voluntary manslaughter.  The penalties for the different charges vary greatly.  Some first degree murders are eligible for the death penalty while others aren't.  But killing is killing.  By Matt and Crank's reasoning, whether you're a serial killer butchering hundreds of people or the drunk driver who drank three beers and is over the legal limit, if you kill someone, face the lethal injection.

  

Intelligent people know the reason the law is so varied in any crime is because of the motive, intent, and impact on the community.  Someone speeding a few miles over the limit is a good excuse to make the state more money, because we know politicians can't balance a budget and they need the extra cash.  Someone speeding twenty-five miles over the limit is probably an aggressive driver and an accident waiting to happen.  He/she needs to be punished more severely in hopes he/she will slow down and make the roads safer.  If you've ever been pulled over for speeding, depending on how fast you were going and the flow of the traffic, the officer will often lower the speed he/she quotes to you so you get the lesser fine and points.  After all, their job is to make the state money - not to get speeders off the road.

Intuitively, we know there is a world of difference between a serial killer, someone who carefully plans a murder, someone who acts in a crime of passion, someone who meant to intimidate or scare someone and the action resulted in a death, someone who did something stupid that resulted in a death, and someone who got behind the wheel feeling perfectly sober, but an accident that may or may not have been his/her fault resulted in a death.  Should all these people who killed someone be treated the same?  By Matt and Crank's logic, killing is killing so why aren't they all given a death penalty trial or a slap on the wrist of temporary insanity?

  

So a transsexual walks into a fast food joint and is beaten up by someone who has a problem with transsexuals.  At the same time a couple of blocks away, someone else is beaten up by someone who is trying to rob the victim.  What's the difference? 

  

Simple.  Motive and impact on the community.  Everyone living in a community knows they may be a victim of a robbery.  No one expects to be a victim of a crime simply because of who they are.  Black, White, Christian, Muslim, male, female, able-bodied, disabled, young, old, straight, gay, reasonable weight, obese - doesn't matter.  We all expect to be able to walk in public and not be beaten up simply because we don't meet someone else's standards.  Hate crime laws address the difference - and seriousness - in crimes motivated out of one's prejudices and bigotry.

Matt and Crank were, in effect, saying that a transsexual getting beaten up for being a transsexual was the transexual's fault for being a transsexual.  The transexual should've taken his beaten and the offender should've been charged with an assault charge that could've resulted in two to three years prison time instead of the added five to ten years the hate crime legislation may add to the sentence.  Beating up someone because of who they are isn't a serious crime warranting more jail time.

  

One thing we do agree with Matt and Crank is that hate crime legislation protects one group of people that shouldn't be protetected..  Every protected group is protected because the individuals were born with their skin color, ethnic background, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability (or became disabled through genetics or accident), and, of course, age.  One protected group, however, is purely choice, that choice being religion.  One's religious choice should not be a protected group.

  

As the beers keep flowing, here, we all agree that one's religion should not be protected under the discrimination laws or the hate crime laws.  Religion is a choice.  One isn't born a Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Spaghetti Monster in the Sky, Christian, or...   One's religion is chosen.  You make the choice and if we decide to beat the crap out of you for your choice, oh, well, simple assault and no added ten years for the hate crime.  Matt and Crank, we're sure, would agree with this as long as the religious person getting the crap beaten out of them was any religion other than Christian. 

  

Fact is, at the Critics Page, we're all for the sport of bringing back the time honored tradition of feeding the Christians to the lions.  Tickets to that event would outsell the Superbowl.  That wouldn't be a hate crime, would it?  We're only talking about feeding the lions the holier-than-thou Christians, not real Christians, so there shouldn't be any objections, right?  C'mon, Matt and Crank.  Help us out here.

  

Now to our award for the week.  All week, at least during the parts we listened to, Matt and Crank preached to us heathens about heaven and our childish views of it.  They lambasted Steven Hawkins for his claim that there is no heaven.  Matt and Crank offered no insights as to how we should view heaven.  They only ridiculed those who held the childish views of spirits floating in the sky or those who claimed there was no heaven.

  

Now, we're faced with the end of the world in about another fourteen hours, a story Matt and Crank ridiculed for at least two days, and yet we still have no idea of what heaven is as described by Matt and Crank.  We only know whom we're supposed to laugh at for their silliness of claiming the Rapture is coming - at least, we know because Matt and Crank has told us whom to laugh at.  Today, they came up with their Rapture-Rama type game where callers could answer some questions, and this "machine" would determine if the caller would be raptured or doomed.

 Chad was the first caller, and failed.  He's doomed. 

  

Drew called in and made rapture.   He was saved, hallelujah!  When Matt asked him how he got through life without enslaving a whole race of people, Drew answered that he was an atheist, so he didn't get drawn into all that organized religion bullshit. 

Drew, if you are reading this blog, you have won an all expense paid trip (and we mean an unlimited credit card for a full seven days) to anywhere you want to go.  You made Matt and Crank look like idiots in that suave, calm manner we all can appreciate.  To claim your prize, Drew, please read the fine print below.

The Critics Page offers one unlimited credit card for a full seven days to be spent by recipient known as Drew on the contingency that either one or all of the following named agree to pay for the credit card in full:  Bill Gates, Donald Trump, Hugh Hefner, Matt Walsh, Andrew Murr, leading drug cartel dude down in Mexico (cash only for him).

Our work here is about done

Since our last review the Friday before last, we have continued listening to WZBH primarily during the workdays from as early as five-thirty in the morning to as late as midnight.  Most of our listening was sporadic being about a half hour to an hour here and there.  Last week, we skipped the Matt and Crank program altogether.

During this two week period, the inflammatory programming and inciteful rhetoric prevalent during the day a couple of months ago was all but gone.  Promos during the day for the Matt and Crank program remained nuetral in tone and none of the other DJs, particularly JJ and Chris Steele, slipped in their off-hand remarks that added to the White- Christian- heterosexual- male-centric Matt and Crank promos.  That was until Tuesday.

Matt was absent on Tuesday.  Crank filled the show with past prank phone calls that, somehow, they really believe are funny.  For the first time we heard the Holiday Inn call.  The premise of the "prank" and the phony accent was so God-awful that we came to the conclusion that either the call was real and Holiday inn hires people with the intelligence God gave an oyster to run their front desk or the whole call was staged.  We tend to believe it was staged.  Maybe one of Matt or Crank's friends needed five bucks for a bottle of Boones Farm so agreed to play along with Matt.

The other two prank calls we have previously reviewed: Matt and Crank takes aim at gays and ends up shooting the entire military, One racist at his finest and his boy at his finest.  Hearing both of the clips on the replay only made them sound worse than when we first heard them.  Too bad Crank chose to replay the prank calls.  Of the two, we believe Crank is the more intelligent and funny personality, but, unfortunately, lacks the confidence to step out from behind Matt's dark shadow and shine in his own right.

That evening, Chris Steele shocked us with his reference to "chicks."  After giving out the station's number, he made the comment that a "hot chick" could feel free to call him.  In the past, we would have found the use of such derogatory slang as further accentuating the White- Christian- heterosexual- male-centric tone of WZBH's programming.  Now we simply see the slang as an idiot kid using an archaic slang term because he feels it makes him sound more macho.  Maybe some day Chris Steele will mature into a man and drop "chick" from his repertoire of words.  If this last sentence sounds harsh, it was meant to be.  He should've used "chick" a month ago so this critic could've won his beer money.

We were also shocked by another quick blurb on this morning's Matt and Crank show.  The station requested that anyone considering a lawsuit against them should give the station a call.  That blurb was the funniest segment of the whole show, probably because Matt and Crank didn't have anything to do with putting it together.  We're all tempted to call because we really want to know what prank is behind the message.  Would we win free tickets to a concert if we called?  Or would we win a bag of WZBH junk promo items like coffee mugs, beer huggers, and pens?  Concert tickets we would take, but we doubt we could make a buck and a quarter selling the promo items on eBay.  We don't want to risk winning junk so none of us at The Critics Page has the nerve to call.  Maybe someone else could call and fill us in on what the prize really is.

We have decided to occasionally listen to WZBH, but as long as the programming continues as is, we really won't have much of anything to review.  Thank you for everyone who has been using the blog and our companion FaceBook page.

One racist at his finest and his boy at his finest

Tuesday's programming (01 Mar) provided the usual adolescent fare with a surprise two segments during the eight o'clock hour. 

Prior to the eight o'clock news with Innae Park, Matt and Crank aired their latest prank call.  The call, made to a hotel, had Matt using a contrived, old man's voice trying to make a reservation.  As any listener has come to expect, the character Matt developed in the old man was a cardboard cutout of stale stereotypes.  At least we know Matt can cut along the dotted lines with precision.

The old man portrayed was a forgetful, sleepy, racist.  During the call, he'd forget what he just said, he fell asleep during the call, and he ended the call with wanting a room where the Blacks, Hispanics, and Koreans couldn't get a room.  The call ended when the clerk on the other end hung up after Matt asked if a hose would be available so he could hose down any Canadians who may be there.

Like typical ninth-grade boys, Matt and Crank thought the segment was hilarious.  There are two ways the segment could've been funny.  The clerk could've reacted with witty counter comments to the banal stereotype he was faced with or Matt and Crank could've created an endearing character with depth to his personality.  Sadly, neither happened.  If it weren't for the two segments that followed, The Critics Page wouldn't even have mentioned this prank call as it was only worthy for the septic system.  Eerily, we believe Matt was giving us a glimpse of his future.

After the news with Innae Park, Matt and Crank launched into a rant about the coming extinction of the Western European Anglo-Saxon race generated from a story out of Texas that predicted White people would be a minority in Texas within a few years.  The first segment starts with a poorly constructed analogy of how we get upset over the impending extinction of a bird - using an eagle, a sparrow, and some made up bird as an example - yet we don't get upset about the impending extinction of the "White culture."  Matt carefully tried to avoid using the phrase, "White culture" and, instead, substituted "West European Angl-Saxon culture", but any half-educated listener knows what he meant. 

It is apparent that either Matt thinks of the races of people as different species or he is a product of a failed education system and really doesn't understand the concept.  An eagle and a sparrow are about as related as a dog and a cat.  And while Matt may like to think of himself as an eagle, the sparrow serves an equally important role in the ecological system.  The disappearance of either one upsets the natural balance of the ecological system and can contribute to extinctions of other animals that directly or indirectly depends on either one for survival.

This may come as a surprise to Matt, but people are people regardless of the color of their skin.  White people aren't the eagles and everyone else aren't the sparrows.  It is clear from the analogy Matt chose to use that his beliefs are founded in the notion of the superiority of the White race.

The two segments warrant no further comment from The Critics Page.  We decided that we didn't want to add any legitimacy to Matt's claims by debating them point-for-point.  We are greatly disappointed in Crank's peerformance, though.  We have deduced that he is married to a non-White woman and he tried feebly to counter Matt's comments.  Yes, Crank is still Matt's little boy.  Crank didn't stand up like a man and call out Matt for his racist comments and end the segment before Matt dug them both neck deep in a quagmire of sludge.

Readers of this review can judge for themselves with the two clips below.  We challenge anyone to listen to what Matt said and compare it to what is plastered over any White supremacist website or the well-known White supremacist discussion board, Stormfront, and explain to us how what they have to say about the extinction of the White race and culture is racist, but Matt's claims are not.

A shining glimmer of change overshadowed by an old, Black homeless guy

In what may be an unprecedented move, Matt, of the Matt and Crank Show, uttered a profound statement.  In a segment about Crank finding a lost dog, a caller, using a bad Asian accent, tried to claim the dog.  Matt reprimanded the caller for using stale stereotypes of Koreans in a vain attempt at humor.

What a break through!  If only Matt and Crank - and a couple of other DJs - would discard stereotypes when trying to make a point or be funny, the overall programming on WZBH would be more palatable.  For the listener, the change would be like scrapping the McDonald's happy meal for an Olive Garden pasta feast.  Then, if Matt and Crank and a couple of the other DJs moved from scrapping the stereotypes to interjecting originality, for the listener, that would be like moving from the Olive Garden to Chef Ramsey's five-star restaurant.

But, alas, Matt's reprimand for using stale stereotypes to be funny was lost on him an hour later.  He, Crank, and Intern A produced a rap song, "Teach me to be a hippie."  Throughout the morning show, Matt stated he didn't think the song turned out as funny as he imagined it.  Before playing the song, he told listeners to imagine an old, Black homeless man singing.  Why old?  Why Black?  Why homeless?  And why tell the listeners what to imagine as they listened?

Matt was right.  The song sucked.  Something about incest with cousins, hugging trees, and protecting animals.  There were parts of the song where this critic could imagine an aging Cheech spewing his drug-warped philosophy, but that's only because Cheech played the part so well on That 70's Show.  For all of Bill Gate's money combined with all of that FaceBook founder's money, this critic couldn't even pretend to have imagined an old, Black homeless guy rapping the song. 

When listeners started texting praise for the song, Matt commented something to the effect that the rap song wasn't that bad for a bunch of White guys at a rock station.  No.  It wasn't that bad.  It was worse than you thought.  The stereotypes used to preface the song, used throughout the song, and used after the song served no purpose other than to denigrate those who don't belong to the group of  good ol' young White guys down at the local rock station.

Below is the segment about the lost dog and Matt's reprimand to the caller for using stale stereotypes in an attempt to be funny.  Unfortunately, after recording, this critic had to leave for work and was unable to record the rap song segment.