New RFNY Site Update! - 8-18-06

Two BIG NEW SHOWS are now up for your listening enjoyment at the Radio Free New York Web Site.

From October 22, 1983: WHOT kicks off their FOURTH year with a FUN show! It's "Nothing But Oldies" night, and Hank and Jim are going wild!

From February 28, 1986: WHOT is now heating up the AM Band in full force, and the East Coast of America checks in early and often!

For more info & sounds, visit the Radio Free New York show archive at http://rfny.hankhayes.com/13_shows.html

Last (but not least), the Show Archive has been updated to include the newest additions. You can have a look-see at http://rfny.hankhayes.com/12_archive.html

Thanks again for stopping by Radio Free New York - we love ya!

Successful Perseids Tonight!

Hey Kats and Kittens!

First of all - Happy Birthday, Mon! :)

Most pleased with tonight's Perseid Meteor Shower viewing! Between 8:30PM and 10:30PM ET, I saw eight (count 'em - eight!) meteors - six of them of the streaking fireball variety! Most awesome. I wasn't expecting much since all the pre-Perseid buzz has been that the show would be kind of weak because of the full moon - but I wrapped up my sky watching just as the moon came up, pretty satisfied with eight meteors!

Hope you got to see some nice ones too!

In other news...the Yankees lost tonight to the freaking Angels - a team I truly dislike -cutting the AL East lead down to two games. A lead is a lead, so I guess I shouldn't complain.

Nightly Bitch: You know what? I don't think we have enough card games on TV. I think we need a few more channels carrying card games. I love when I see ESPN running "The World Series of Poker" (which apparently takes 365 days to play). Um, in case anyone didn't notice, card games are games of chance - NOT a SPORT.

Now with ESPN, ESPN2, Spike TV, TNT, Game Show Network and who knows who else showing a bunch of fat guys sitting around a table playing cards, I think we need to have "The World Series of Uno". Maybe "The World Series of Monopoly". You know, something EQUALLY as exciting.

I can't wait for TV Food Network to start up "The World Series of Deal-a-Meal".

Breaking News

For those of you just waking up this morning, serious news coming out of London...Scotland Yard has foiled a major terrorist plot to blow up 'as many as ten' planes in mid-flight which would have caused massive death and destruction. Thank goodness for our English friends and the heroes at MI-5.

This is just another terrible reminder of how far Islamofascist terrorists will go to in their attempts to steer western civilization back to the stone age (where they feel most comfortable). Make no mistake. We are fighting an evil that may surpass Nazism in sheer barbarism before all is said and done, if it hasn't already.

Check out the latest at the BBC's web site here:

'Airlines terror plot foiled'

Kind of ironic that this story breaks so soon after Joe Lieberman gets 'purged' by anti-war Moonbats in Connecticut, isn't it?

Look...George W may drive me crazy with the way he spends like a drunken sailor, and his inability to fully grasp the seriousness of the illegal immigration problem, but one place where he's 100% correct is in the War on Terror. When I try to explain to my goofy Lefty friends the importance of a pre-emptive strike in Iraq and establishing a presence in the Middle East, they just don't get it. To them, he's just "Bush", object of ridicule...either a moron or evil genius, depending on what day it is.

If thousands dead throughout the world isn't enough to make some people see the forest for the trees, I fear they never will. But hey, maybe the Dixie Chicks can write some more cute songs about their unrepentant Bush hatred! Wouldn't THAT be special???

Havin' a Heat Wave

Guten Tag,

As most of you already know, the East Coast is boiling under a massive heat wave for the fourth consecutive day now. Temperatures around the area topped 100 for the third day in a row, and today is expected to be the "peak" before a cooling front moves through later today (with the obligatory accompanying thunder storms, I'm sure).

Naturally, it didn't take long for the moonbats to start crawling out from under thier collective rocks and start hemming and hawing about the old "global warming" chestnut. I have to admit, I admire the moxie used to futher the "global warming" hysteria. We get a heat wave? It's global warming. We get a blizzard? It's global warming. We get a lot of hurricanes? It's global warming.

A memo to all the global warming Chicken Littles out there: SOMETIMES IT GETS HOT...SOMETIMES IT GETS COLD. SOMETIMES IT RAINS...SOMETIMES IT DOESN'T. It's been this way since the freaking lava cooled and crap crawled out of the resulting muck and evolved over tens of thousands of years so that we could have diet soda and porn! OK?

On a serious note...yesterday markes the 27th anniversary of the death of former Yankee captain Thurman Munson in a place crash. Hard to believe it's been 27 years. I can remember the day like it happened yesterday. I came in from a backyard barbecue to fetch something off the table and at that moment, the bulletin came on the TV. I was in shock. Who expected a guy like Munson to be taken from us in such a way...and so young.

YES re-ran the Thurman Munson Yankeeography after the game last night, which brought back all the emotions again. I still think about all the "what-if's": What if he'd just gotten a summer home in North Jersey like everyone else? What if he'd just not taken that "one more" landing practice run? Sadly, we'll never know. It's a shame that we don't get to see Thurm at Old-Timer's Day, busting balls and having fun, like he should be.

But we have the memories, and based on comments made by current Yankees on what his his legacy means to this team, Thurman is still around - showing the young'uns just how a ballplayer should play the game. Jorge Posada keeps a picture of Munson in his locker, and hit a huge home run last night to keep the Yankees percentage points ahead of the Red Sox...just the way Thurman would have liked it.

Last, but certainly not least, Hobbes is back home. The finest minds in the veterinary world can't figure him out, so I'm not even gonna bother trying. He's doing well, eating and drinking and being Hobbes - a blessing on four paws.

Stay cool, y'all.

Just Checking In

Hey Everyone,

It's been a while since the last blog, however that has more to do with MySpace's issues than my laziness (sorry, Blogger.com readers - although truth be told, it's been a combination of both).

The back's acting up, and it's been a crazy couple of days, and rather than rework her sentiments, I'll just borrow from Monica's Blog, as her thoughts very much echo mine right now:

I am not going to ask you to pray for me. Instead, I am going to ask you to pray for those I love.

I wish for you to pray for my wonderful cat, Hobbes, who got sick yesterday and is in the hospital. Pray that it's just a tummy ache. I would be lost without him and wrecked if something was wrong with him.

I wish for you to pray for my brother, Brian, who was deployed to Iraq on 12 hours notice to the James E. Williams, a guided missle destroyer. The man who told me, "No I am not afraid. This is what I do".

I wish for you to pray for his wife and kids so he comes home safely and returns to being the most wonderful husband and father I know.

I wish for you to pray for my mom. My mom who is the rock of this family. The woman that makes everything better. The woman who stood before me yesterday crying for her son.

And, I wish for you to pray for all of those who are risking their lives everyday so we can sit on myspace bitching about mundane crap that seems so important but in retrospect really isn't as disastrous as we think at the time.

Please, pray for them all...

Thanks, all.

Poisoned at Work

Good evening. Right now, I'm just happy to be not bent over and wretching. They ordered pizza for us at work today, and I thought, "wow, cool deal - free pizza on a Friday!". Little did I know that I was gonna get poisoned by what was probably some bad ricotta cheese on what was supposed to have been a white pizza. I should have known something was up because I never saw white pizza with tomatoes and basil on it (FWIW, that's a margherita pizza, folks).

Even BEFORE that, I should have been suspicious of any pizza that comes in boxes bearing advertisements for Manhattan mini storage.

The funny thing is, as I was eating the offending pizza my taste buds were sending up flares to my brain, trying in vain to warn me that something was amiss. But you know how it is...you see everyone else eating the pizza, so you rationalize that it MUST be OK. And hey, it's free, right? So I eat it anyway.

Twenty minutes later, I'm starting to feel some rumblings down below. Thirty minutes later, I knew I was in serious trouble. If not for being alone at work, I would have bolted right then. But I stuck it out until 6PM, and on the way home suddenly found myself in a moving bus restroom throwing up a Volkswagen van. I think I left my spleen in there.

Thankfully, here I am, a little over six hours later, and I'm alive and NOT hurling projectiles anymore. The lesson to be learned here is two-fold: if something doesn't taste right, down't eat it. In addition, unless you pizza comes in a white box with a stereotypical drawing of an Italian chef saying "You've tried all the rest, now try the best"...DON'T EAT IT.

Speedy Alka Seltzer, I love you.

A Few Minutes Without Thunder

Hey kids...just wanted to post a quick bloggie update before bed. Another day, another round of massive storms. We had the power going on and off all freaking night, as usual. Guess I should be used to it by now. The poor cats are gonna lose thier minds soon from all this racket.

The power was kind enough to come back on in time for me to see Pat DiNizio's "7th Inning Stretch" special on ESPN2, which was great. I learned a lot of things about Pat (and the Smithereens) that I never knew. I have to meet Pat one day so I can tell him all about how WHOT used to play The Smithereens before anyone else. We were wearing out "Especially For You" before ANYBODY, man!

I then went ahead and did the stupidest thing I could have done before bed - I sat down with a calculator to figure out how much I have to shell out in bills this week, only to find out the bill-to-money ratio is waaaay out of wack. So now I have agita and I'm borderline manic depressive. Plus, I'm still bent out of shape about the friggin' tax hike boloney.

On a positive note, last night's MLB All-Star Game was pretty decent for a change. As much as I hate using a glorified exhibition game to decide home field advantage in the World Series, at least they didn't have a tie after nine innings that needed to be settled with a SHOOTOUT!

Soccer. What a retarded sport.

Alright, since I'm good and agitaged, let me go try and get some "quality" sleep,

Petezs

Still Fest-ering After All These Years

I'm sitting here this morning trying to figure out how I managed to instigate an argument last night about something that happened four years ago. I finally concede that all people (including myself) are crazy, and in the words of Paul Anka, That's just the (bleeping) way it is.

Here's the proof: about four or five years ago (I forget), the folks that participate in the Saturday Night Jam at Beatlefest (or whatever it is they're calling it these days), made an effort to try and prevent the thing from turning into the discordant, ear-splitting train wreck it had increasingly become over the last few years. The previous year's shenanigans challenged The Who at Shea Stadium for sheer blood-splattering decibels and The Clash for sheer lack of musicianship. It was an unmitigated disaster. Even the Red Cross refused to show up with blankets. You know it's bad when other Fest guests actually call the lobby to complain about the noise. But that's exactly what happened. No one really enjoyed themselves.

After much discussion between many of the jam regulars, right up until that Saturday night, it was decided that rather than have 100 people with AC-30s and Fender Champs bitch-slapping each other into permanent tinnitus, a professional P.A. system would be set up and people could sign up to take turns jamming for a few songs, a couple at a time, plugged into already-supplied amps and everyone would get a chance to play for a bit instead of turning the evening into another Hindenburg.

Sounded like a beautiful idea, except that as with anything and everything, there were a handful of people that got pissed off because they couldnt set their amps up and play all night. Wouldnt listen to reason, just stormed out. "Whatever", I thought. Screw you, I want to be able to hear when Im 50. Good riddance.

After the initial brouhaha calmed down, one member of the group stepped up to try and organize the sign-up. It could have been ANY of the 20 or so people already assembled there, but it just happened that this one guy stepped up first and tried to keep things organized. People signed up, people played, the jam went on until the wee hours of the morning and no one bled from the ears, no one called security - everything was beautiful. Or so it seemed.

The next morning at breakfast, everyone seemed pretty happy about the previous night's affair. I had missed the real bulk of it, but the folks that had stayed were very pleased with the resulting quality of the music and the crowds enjoyment thereof.

Some time between bacon and eggs and the start of Sundays festivities, things took a nasty turn. Word started spreading through the place via the 'Devil's Radio' that people had been prevented from playing, or were only allowed to do one song. I had seen just the opposite before turning in, but I checked with some of the gang that had remained after I left. "Thats not what happened at all", "Not true", and "No way" were the general responses.

It didnt matter. By the middle of the afternoon, the guy that had foolishly volunteered to manage the sign-up sheet (and it really could have been ANYBODY) was being vilified. Childish cartoon characterizations of the guy started appearing all over the hotel and the place was abuzz with bad vibes. None of the bullshit came remotely close to the truth, but once you start an avalanche, it cant be stopped. Things got so bad, the guy stopped coming to the Fest for a couple of years. All this because some people got their nuts in a twist because things weren't being done "their" way anymore. As a result, the organized jam idea was abandoned, and the next year, chaos and deafness ruled once again.

Now, fast-forward to last Wednesday. I'm on vacation with some friends and one of the guys has a CD of the audio from the ill-fated organized jam. I was taken aback by just HOW good it was. Musically, it was superb. No clashing amps on full volume. No sharp and flat guitars dueling like the 200 Spastic Musketeers.

So last night, I'm chatting with a bunch of friends and one of the guys there happens to be the one that (foolishly) volunteered to manage the jam sign-up. I off-handedly mentioned that I'd JUST heard tapes from that night a few days earlier, and that I was surprised at just how good it actually was, and how sad it was that a few people had to ruin a good thing.

We're talking back and forth about all the crap that had gone on when suddenly, without warning, someone jumps in and starts arguing about it! Four years later, and theres STILL crap going on about what supposedly went on that night - and heres the punch line - mostly by people that weren't even there.

I felt bad that the whole thing got re-hashed again, and I was sorry I'd even brought it up. But in the aftermath, I was mostly dumbfounded by how much info from that night is STILL 100 percent WRONG, and how people are still clinging to the phony-baloney bullshit version like it was Moses clutching the tablets.

Oh yeah - so at this LAST Fest back in March, I ran into a guy who no longer participates in the Saturday Night Jam. I asked him why, and he said because its become a train wreck that gets crashed into by a plane wreck.

What can you do.

Back Just In Time (For A Tax Hike)

Hey Eveyone,

Good weekend greetings to one and all. Mon and I are back from our very relaxing week up in the country and I must say, I am feeling revitalized. Nothing quite like a week of doing nothing other than swimming, kicking back and having a few adult beverages by the fire pit to recharge the ole batteries.

I picked an interesting week to disappear. While we were gone, the nation celebrated its' birthday, NASA launced a Space Shuttle, North Korea launched a few bottle rockets, the Deleware River receeded and the State Sales Tax went up a whole percent.

What a shock. Jon (Two Sheds) Corzine, billionaire, who owns a mansion and a yacht, pulled the ultimate temper tantrum and shut the whole state down to force the state legislature to enact his $1.1 Billion sales tax increase. What a guy.

Those of you that may have forgotten, Corzine ran for Governor on the platform of NOT raising taxes, and here he is - raising taxes. Is anyone really surprised?

Look, most New Jerseyans - especially those of us out here in the "Red" part of an otherwise aimless Blue state - love it. But more and more people are starting to leave because they just can't afford to live here. Since 2002, we've had to endure 3 billion dollars in tax and fee increases. It's re-God-damn-diculous. People continue to leave the Garden State in droves every year. It's a damn shame.

Unfortunately, the scoundrels in Trenton lacked the BALLS to stand up to a lowlife like Corzine and tell him to go eff himself. Instead, they went ahead with this budget "compromise" , which was nothing more than a gift-wrapped piece of pork for Corzine to show off to his special-interest cronies.

Of course, Corzine and the Trentonites are attempting to off-set this latest tax scam by promising property tax relief. Yeah, right. New Jerseyans were promised the same "property tax relief" for years now with only a phoney-baloney "rebate" - which is nothing more than a payback of OUR OWN MONEY - to show for it.

At last check, Atlantic City casinos and parks were STILL closed, despite the "11th-hour" shenannigans that took place yesterday. Let's see if any New Jersey paper puts a cartoon of Corzine in a diaper crying like a baby. Probably won't happen. The News media is too busy leaking information about active investigations to worry about little old us.

Remember what I've always said, folks. Repeat after me: Democrats raise taxes. Again. Democrats raise taxes. High taxes stagnate growth. Stagnant growth means downward spiraling economy.

Evantually, the rest of New Jersey will get hip to this. You would think they would have learned something after the elections of Brendan Byrne, Flim-Flam Florio and Jim "Special Circumstances" McGreedy. But I guess not.

More details (and some pictures) of the vacation after I get to relax and calm down.

Independence Day Greetings!

It's Fourth of July once again and as we celebrate the most important day in our country's history, let's take a few moments to thank the brave men and women that fight to keep us safe and allow us to live free. God bless them all.

Please have a safe and sound holiday. We'll be away on vacation for the rest of the week, but I'll fill you in on all the fun when I get back.

Ciao for now!

V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N...In The Summertime!

Yes friends, as of 6PM this fine day of June, yours truly is FINALLY on vacation! I've been is sore need of some time off for quite a while, and I intend on doing pretty much nothing for the next 7 to 10 days.

In OTHER good news, the flood waters here in NJ are starting to recede finally. We had about 24 hours of non-stop rain, which caused the Deleware River to GO WILD and overflow its' banks in many spots, both here is Joisey and on the Pennsy side.

Hoping everyone has a nice dry weekend on tap and we'll talk again on (or before) the 4th.

Happy trails!

This 'n That

Hey Kats and Kittens...thanks a mil for all the birthday greetings, that was very cool of all of ya! Much appreciated! :)

As you know by now, finally got some new shows up on the RFNY Archive Page, which makes me pleased as punch. Hope you enjoy 'em!

Got so much good stuff in the last batch of tapes I don't know where to begin. I've decided to concentrate on finishing up the rest of September and October of 1985, which were badly water damaged and need to be cleaned by hand. It's very time consuming, so I try to do some things at once. Or, as the kids say, "multi-task".

What a grand time at the Yankee game Friday night - good times had be all, even though it was about 150 degrees! Nice of the Yankees to win, too I might add!

Archive Update - 6/16/06

Hey eveybody! It's the WHEEKEND!

Good news re: the WHOT Archive Project. A trip this week to the Tape Storage Wharehaus (in Hank's basement) has yielded a treasure-trove of early tapes that I had feared lost. The FIRST-EVER WFAT broadcast is now accounted for, along with several other "previously-MIA" things, like a pair of WQXQ broadcasts, Several WGUT shows (circa 1981 to 1983) and a TON of WWCR-era Radio Free New York shows!

There were lots of other nice bits and pieces recovered, all of which I will begin cataloging at some point this weekend, most likely following tomorrow's Father's Day festivities up at the in-lawses in PA.

Details to follow!

Pete

It's Been a Good Day

You know it's going to be a good one when you wake up to the news that a murdering, demonic thug has been sent to meet Allah via being on the receiving end of a U.S.-made-and-delivered 500-pound bomb:

Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi Killed in Air Raid

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the most-wanted terrorist in Iraq who waged a bloody campaign of beheadings and suicide bombings, was killed when U.S. warplanes dropped 500-pound bombs on his isolated safehouse, officials said Thursday. His death was a long-sought victory in the war in Iraq.

Al-Zarqawi and several aides, including spiritual adviser Sheik Abdul Rahman, were killed Wednesday evening in a remote area 30 miles from Baghdad in the volatile province of Diyala, just east of the provincial capital of Baqouba, officials said.

"Al-Zarqawi was eliminated," Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said.

It's more than a good day. It's a very good day. Good riddance.

Boogey Boogey Boogey...it's 6-6-06!

Not EXACTLY "666", the way it's being played up all over the place (because, well, actually - it's 06-06-06, which, if flipped upside down would be 90-90-90, which has NOTHING to do with the apocalypse OR this week's Pick 10 drawing). Still - enough to make the overly-superstitious shift their rumps uncomfortably in their seats, and make the uncomfortably religious pull out the ole rosaries and hum many novenas.

Don't worry...you can all go back to being miserable human beings tomorrow.

Unrelatedly...you all know my experience with diet soda was less-that-successful. Knowing that, I think I finally found a useful excuse to buy Diet Coke, other than drinking that nasty whizz water:

The Extreme Diet Coke & Mentos Experiment.

Enjoy!

What Goes Around...

I like when I pick up the paper and see things that amuse me.

You see, it's not good to be a total bullshit artist, because sometimes that bullshit comes back to bite you in the ass:

A double-amputee Iraq-war vet is suing Michael Moore for $85 million, claiming the portly peacenik recycled an old interview and used it out of context to make him appear anti-war in "Fahrenheit 9/11."

I hope this guy takes that fat, lying bastard to the cleaners.

Memorial Day

It's Memorial Day. Be sure to take some time out to remember the men and women that fight to keep this country free. The toughest thing to do is defend something you believe in, and if not for the brave men and women of our fighting forces, instead of enjoying a beer and a barbecue today, we'd either be a member of the Axis, suffering under Communism or dodging Allah-bound 747s today.

I have been dragged kicking and screaming into MySpace world. You can go visit my page at http://www.myspace.com/peterfny. I'm still gonna keep the main blog over here at BlogSpot, so I'll mirror the two for a while unless I decide to dump one of them (not likely).

So, feel free to check over there or here, whatever. Also, remember to visit the Radio Free New York site to enjoy the fruits of my blood, sweat and beers.

In the words of Phil Leotardo, I love you all like a brother...in law.

Just waiting to enjoy the freedoms we have here in the good old US of A and fire up the BBQ and open a beer myself. Loving the WABC Rewound right now.

And in closing, big thanks to Reverend Greg for the sugary soda treats in glinting glass bottles that were smuggled into his local bodega via happy Mexican guest workers.

Love, luck and lollipops,
Pete

Archive Update

Just a quick update to let you know what's going on with the WHOT archive since things have been quiet on the ole RFNY site lately.

Tapes are being digitized at a frantic pace. I'm well into 1986 now and going steady. There's a ton of stuff on the old hard drive waiting for FLAC and MP3 archiving. All in due time, my children.

I will be sure to get new shows up soon, I promise. Fifty lashes with a wet gnocchi.

They're Ba-a-a-a-ck...

...and I don't mean Poltergeists in the television. I'm talking of course about the ever-dreadful Dixie Twits. You know - the ersatz-country-music trio of bleached-blonde bombettes that have decided to use their music to showcase their politics, or vice-versa (both of which are of equally dubious quality). The 'Head Twit' (and self-confessed catalyst for the music-politics crossover) is Named Natalie, in case you forgot. She's hard to miss, but could easily be mistaken for your Grandmother's lucky Bingo Troll.

When politics and music mix, nothing good can ever happen. Especially naive politics and bad music.

I look at it this way: I don't suddenly interrupt political discussions to sing country music, so I expect the same courtesy. If you're gonna put that bullsh*t in people's faces, be prepared to get bullsh*t right back. And don't complain about it.

Twits.

Miracles DO Happen!

Sometimes, all you need is the proper motivation to create a miracle.

Saints be praised!