NO MORE CHEZ (in the morning at least)

July 27th, 2004

It's happened...

I reached my breaking point this morning. I knew it was bound to happen. I was getting more and more irritated by the CHEZ 106 morning show that I listen to when my alarm goes off and while in the shower but I wasn't quite sure if they'd ever piss me off so much that I would actually be forced to change the dial. Well, they did... I have... and it feels good.

Being a fan of classic rock, I generally like the music CHEZ plays (I have to admit I immensely prefer the new 101.5 The Fox, but my bathroom radio is cheap so I don't get it unfortunately... trust me, I've tried... many times) but the morning show has really been getting increasingly on my nerves over the last couple of months. First off, the morning show barely plays any music at all. You're lucky if you hear 4 songs in a half hour block, and two of those will undoubtedly be such Cancon titans as Kim Mitchell, Tom Cochrane or Nickelback (I'm not sure when they qualified as "rock" either, let alone the "classic" variety). Secondly, the two morning show hosts, Doc and Woody, have become so watered down and predictable in their "humour" I just about want to run my Mach 3 across my wrists when they announce that "Go Ahead and Stump Us" is coming up next. The final straw was when they added the deliberately stupid sidekick, Eric the Intern. I have to be honest here, I thought – like the bigwigs at CHEZ probably thought – things might take a turn for the better with the addition of a big oaf like Eric. After all, having a 250 pound brain dead puppet at the total mercy of two aging rockers might infuse some much needed humour into this bloated corpse of a radio show.

Let’s just say I was dead wrong. Things went downhill. Fast. It was almost as if Eric was the 2nd torpedo fired into the side of an already doomed vessel. I hate to choose a single person that really pushed me over the edge when the entire production is such a piece of steaming shit, but I really have to put the bulk of the blame squarely on Eric. Not fair? Consider this – as I finally cracked this morning and abandoned CHEZ for the foreseeable future, Doc and Woody weren’t even on the air. They’re both on vacation. Eric is assisting their replacement, fellow jockey-saurus Robert W. Knight, during their week off.

Bottom line – I have my bathroom radio on CBC Radio 1 right now. I'm not sure why I chose that station and I'm not sure if I'll change it... tomorrow, the next day, or ever. All I know is I need a serious break from CHEZ's morning show.

If anybody out there sees Eric the Intern on the street, please kick him in the balls hard for me. Please... for me.

-steve