5 posts tagged “radio”

I chatted with Dean Conlon of Groove 107­·7 FM yesterday—as I have mentioned before, it’s by some margin my favourite radio station not just in Wellington, but the whole country, with its decent mix of music.
   As Dean minimizes the chit-chat and concentrates on the music, sometimes you don’t always get to know who the artist is. There was a great piano cover of ‘Life on Mars’ a while back and Dean revealed to me that the group is called the Bad Plus. Here they are, with their EPK:

Since I posted about the use of the word coon on radio in New Zealand, I did get a reply from the plumbing firm which it advertised.
   It was very short:

It is raccoons the ones in the woods. Of course there is no limit to the number of interpretations.

   Fair enough: we now know the intent. I would have written more in response (e.g. signed the thing with my name), but that is another issue. I still wonder if the alternative, racist interpretation was in the back of the copywriter’s mind. I guess we won’t know.
   However, every time I have talked about this radio commercial, most people are shocked. No one seems to come up with the raccoon explanation. It’s a 100 per cent response to the notion that the advertisement is racist.
   Sure, this is nowhere near scientific. I must have mentioned it to about 15 people. That’s hardly representative of the population. And on this blog, opinion was divided among an international audience.
   A check back then did reveal that the word was also a racist term used to describe Aboriginals in Australia by certain Australians, and it came up again when Lucire covered Naomi Campbell’s sentence last Friday.:

Capt Doug Maughan, a pilot of 28 years, had filed a complaint [against British Airways] after the use of the word coon during a training session. He also claimed Saudi Arabians were referred to as ‘rag-heads’ on one flight.

   This was in relation to Campbell allegedly being called a ‘gollywog supermodel’ by airline staff.
   In this context I don’t think I was being too sensitive, since I get the feeling the racist interpretation is more commonplace than the animal one, even in the British Commonwealth.
   It’s hard to believe the ‘gollywog’ comment, too. Campbell’s words could have been dismissed if it had not been for Capt Maughan’s own evidence that British Airways allegedly, and casually, used racist epithets. (The airline denies the allegations.)
   I won’t add more as I think the two points of view were well covered in the earlier post’s comments.

There is a commercial for either the Yellow Pages or a company called Southern Plumbing here in Wellington. Now, it doesn’t give a phone number (kind of ironic if it is for the Yellow Pages) otherwise I’d have called them the minute I heard this on the radio.
   The ad begins with a southern American woman talking about how she had coons, and she threw the Yellow Pages at them. It goes on with her complaining about coons and how she has to get rid of them, and the last sound in the scene is her priming her shotgun.
   I can’t see the connection to plumbing because for most of the broadcast I am in total shock.
   Yes, she uses the word coon.
   I know you can be ignorant and assume that coon is short for raccoon, which is bound to be what they will say, but why then did the woman need to have a southern US accent? Maybe the Americans reading this can inform me if there more raccoons in the south.
   I just thought of the Ku Klux Klan.
   The Yellow Pages company in New Zealand was recently bought by an American corporation so I don’t buy the argument that with the new management no one knew about the racial connotations.
   It paints the whole image of the Klan, lynchings and murders of black Americans.
   If the Southern Plumbing I linked is the firm that has put this ad out in conjunction with the Yellow Pages, then I would be seriously worried.
   I have written to the firm. I would like to think this ad was done out of sheer ignorance but there are way too many coincidences here. If they realize they have few African-ethnicity clients on their database it sure won’t be down to the small number of people of African descent in New Zealand.

PS.: The term is used in Australia, too, referring to Aboriginals:

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,22931249-5001021,00.html

which makes me wonder just how many New Zealanders made the same connection.—JY

This is probably one of my favourite Bob Newhart gags, from the radio days. Back then, humour didn’t need four-letter words.
   I also think this is why the Americans so embraced Flight of the Conchords. I equate their self-deprecating style to Newhart’s.

   While on YouTube, I found the bomb disposal gag, which I had not heard before. I think this might be my new favourite.

A very nice chap by the name of Apollo introduced me to Dizzler, a media player that allows one to stream (legally) music, video and radio. It’s pretty good and I incorporated it into my Facebook page, after programming in a bunch of songs, two videos and one radio station (Rix FM in Sweden).
   It’s not without its faults. Monica Zetterlund, one of Sweden’s top jazz artists, isn’t even represented on Dizzler. Sacha Distel has four songs, and one of them doesn’t even sound like him. KCSM-FM, the jazz station in the Bay Area, is not among the radio choices. On Facebook, I can’t see the search box words (black text on a black background is not a very good idea) and when I can see them, they’re set in Arial or Arial Rounded—two typeface families I intentionally uninstall from all our company computers as they breach notions of good taste and common decency.
   Apollo does admit it is more geared toward pop songs and the US, however. And despite its shortcomings, it does have enough songs for me to have a wee playlist of favourites. I’d still recommend it and hope that its catalogue becomes more comprehensive. Having the complete songs on my Facebook page is a nice touch.