"Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast"
-Oscar Wilde		 Brilliant at Breakfast title banner "The liberal soul shall be made fat, and he that watereth, shall be watered also himself."
-- Proverbs 11:25
"...you have a choice: be a fighting liberal or sit quietly. I know what I am, what are you?" -- Steve Gilliard, 1964 - 2007

"For straight up monster-stomping goodness, nothing makes smoke shoot out my ears like Brilliant@Breakfast" -- Tata

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"I came here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And I'm all out of bubblegum." -- "Rowdy" Roddy Piper (1954-2015), They Live
Saturday, June 04, 2005

Now maybe I can do my gardening in peace
Posted by Jill | 10:57 AM

There is a fellow on my block who loves to blare the local oldies radio station, WCBS-FM, loud enough for the entire neighborhood to hear it, all day, every day. I've been known to respond by taking a boombox outside with me when I garden and playing some particularly nasty, edgy and cynical Elvis Costello -- something like Live at the El Mocambo. Mr. Brilliant has threatened to use Miles Davis' Agharta or King Crimson's Thrak as an even more aggressive counterassault. This guy, who regards himself, along with the guy who lives next door to me, as King of the Neighborhood, has always refused to turn it down, and we've all kind of had to live with it, since you can make as much noise as you like between 7 AM and 9 PM.

Until now.

Oldies radio is dead in New York City.
After more than three decades as the top oldies station in the country, WCBS-FM (101.1 FM) abruptly scrapped its format yesterday for a concept called Jack.

As Frank Sinatra's "Summer Wind" trailed off at 5 p.m., a voice intoned: "Why don't we play what we want? There's a whole world of songs out there."

The first song under the new format was the Beastie Boys' "Fight for Your Right." Soon after, CBS played Bruce Springsteen's "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out" and James Brown's "I Got You (I Feel Good)."

The station had been home to some of the most famous names of New York radio, including Cousin Bruce Morrow, Harry Harrison, Dan Ingram and Ron Lundy, many of whom shifted from WABC-AM when it went from music to talk.

"I've expected something like this," Morrow said yesterday. "They have every right to try what they want to try. My audience won't be without me for long."

The move stunned longtime listeners.


I'll just bet it did. But Oscar Wilde's quote, "There are two tragedies in life. One is not getting what you want. The other is getting it" -- is echoing in my head....
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