Don't feel left out jya...think of yrself as Syria,or better,as you are a
nutcase...Libya.
Dell shuns Microsoft's hate-radio toilet shockjock
By Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco
Posted: 13/03/2003 at 22:15 GMT
A hate-radio shockjock whose toilet
rants have proved too deranged even for readers of the extreme
right-wing Free Republic has received a massive career boost
thanks to Microsoft here in the United States.
The self-styled "Michael Savage" debuted on the MSNBC TV
channel last week, a station jointly owned by General Electric, which
owns NBC, and Microsoft. Which owns the personal computer industry.
Advertisers have voted with their feet, and lurched away from the
controversial slot in droves.
Dell Computer told us today that no more ads for the computer company
will air during the show, "Savage Nation".
And it's not hard to see why.
"[It's] like watching a train wreck," is how one freeper
describes "Savage"'s toxic ramblings.
"The tendency to assign any real value to any of these guys is
strange, let alone breathlessly hanging on their every word," writes
another, more level-headed freep contributor.
But the poor chap, who fills his hate-radio slot with vile homophobic and
racist diatribes against gays and brown-skinned people - or any flavor of
"commies pinkos and perverts" - he doesn't discriminate - is
right now on top of the New York Times bestseller list. And the
middle-management drones who man these media outlets stations seem to be
in awe of this opportunist trash-talker. They think his toilet
contributions are "invigorating". Just like a good lynching.
He isn't funny, like PJ O'Rourke. He isn't iconoclastic, like the old
Rush Limbaugh, He's just nasty, but he has made a success out of
complaining about brown-skinned people, and he's commercialized his own
pathologies and repressions (which are quite delicious, as we'll see)
into a lucrative career.
So who is this "Michael Savage", and what makes him
irresistible to blue-chip sponsors such as Microsoft?
Herbalist
The 60-year old "Savage" (who improbably insists that he's 39
years old) was born Michael Alan Weiner, and spent most of his life as a
freewheeling beatnik bum - at one point befriending San Francisco beat
legends such as poet Laurence Ferlinghetti. But the North Beach crowd
found the tiny Weiner too needy for comfortable companionship. So,
after several years of moderate success punting herbalist remedies the
resourceful Weiner decided to reinvent himself, only this time, with a
toilet mouth.
But his train-wreck rants - which impel a voyeuristic frisson even
amongst the most devoted listeners - have brought in the dollars for
Weiner. The tiny fellow with the Napoleon complex wants to go mad! Before
your eyes!
His career path mirrors the trajectory of former woolly Carnegie Mellon
liberal Declan McCullagh, now a lavishly-paid writer at CNET. Both
realized the value of relentless self-publicity. And both - McCullagh,
like Weiner - decided that principles are for fools.
You don't stay poor for very long if you can defend rich guys' their
right to keep their money, each followed the dollar trail to arrive at
their own, personal epiphany. Each advocates the gazillionaires'
"freedom" to spend their gazillions. The knack to pulling off
this stunt is in persuading us, dear readers, that it's our
freedoms that are a stake. In all, it's a very simple equation, and one
so alluring that it's never short of fresh McCullaghs or Weiners to heed
the cry. There's one born every minute.
So what drives the tiny Weiner? In a fascinating profile at Salon written
by David Gilson, we learn that Weiner, as a novelist, had some pretty
interesting impulses:-
"Inner voice screaming at me for years, first rational, then crazy,
telling me to do mad things. Every form of relief tried, painting,
psychotherapy, running, diet, vitamins, etc., etc. Almost uncontrollable
now. Impulses to stab children, strangers, wife, self with
scissors."
Err, thank you. I think we have quite enough evidence. You don't need to
be Wilhelm Reich to see the connection between personal sexual repression
and fascism, but thanks for spelling it out so unambiguously for us,
Professor Toilet.
The USA's fascination with vile-mouthed hatemongers causes
dyed-in-the-wool Americanophiles (and I am one, so sue me) no end of
difficulties. It's the safest, sweetest and most reasonable place in the
world, then you realize that some people really get off on this, and the
suburbs resonate to the sound of steering wheels being thumped in
vigorous agreement with some toilet rant about the poor, or brown skinned
people, or both.
But this vile phenomenon is only mainstream thanks to the corporate
sponsorship of the USA's largest corporations, who bless it with their
dollars. Now Dell Computer has followed Proctor and Gamble in promising
to remove its advertising from "Savage Nation."
Good call, Dell.
A spokesman told The Register:-
"We never make judgement calls on the content - but based on the
fact that it limited our ability to communicate with all our customers,
we asked our agency to make sure our ads did not run in those programs in
the future." �
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/7/29754.html
