try and choke ME, you punk.

Star, the infamous erstwhile morning host of NY's legendary Hot97 has inspired a wrath and rage within that i haven't felt in months.

now that his profane disrespect is syndicated in several cities including nearby philadelphia, this p.o.s. "radio personality" decided to threaten (with choking) and berate ("dirty rat-eating bitch") a helpless indian woman who was working at a call center for conair. "star" phoned her, broadcast their exchange on-air and offered her humiliation to his listeners as entertainment, while his staff laughed.

star: you do not get to abuse us for pleasure.

:+:

What we need is awareness,
we can't get careless
You say what is this?
My beloved, lets get down to business
Mental self defensive fitness

I'm ready and hyped plus I'm amped
Most of my heroes don't appear on no stamps

(Yo) bum rush the show
You gotta go for what you know
Make everybody see,
in order to fight the powers that be
Lemme hear you say...
Fight the Power
Fight the Power
Fight the power
Fight the power
Fight the power
Fight the power
Fight the power
We've got to Fight the powers that be.

:+:

we must rage against the racist machine:

UPDATE! Sonjie DeCaires no longer works at Power99.
PLEASE address your correspondence to Richard Lewis and Thea Mitchem

Attention: Richard Lewis / Thea Mitchem
Power99 WUSL-FM
440 Domino Lane
Philadelphia, PA 19128

General/Business Line: 215.483.8900

Studio Hotlines:

Philly: 215.263.6699
Worldwide: 800.669.99FM

if you're too lazy to write your own damn piece of snail mail, you need coffee and better priorities. this call-to-fingers may be coming to you via new media, and email may be how you do what you do, but nothing beats the impact of a physical letter (or several hundred of them). put it in writing. then it's real.

also, though turbanhead said it in a much nicer way, don't write like an illiterate jAcKaSs (LoL!). this is not AIM.

this is important.

THIS is you, standing up for your mother (country, tongue, culture).

my ire shall continue (albeit with a more professional, less derivative tone) at Sepia Mutiny tomorrow...

YOUR ire should flow in the form of the aforementioned letter. if you blog, mo' better. where's your post on this? i'm calling you out...if you don't have something to tell your readers, like SAS said, don't come around here no more.

you see, we will not get respect by being quiet.

we will get respect when we demand it. so let the demands begin.

:+:

all praise to
the head turban,
cookie,
krusty and
the geometrist for telling me and the world...

Comments

[easter egg champ]

i caught the public enemy reference, and i must say, it was brilliant.

"fight the power".

it took me a moment before i remembered that all of the radio stations involved are "power 99", 'power 105", etc,

[cswt]

if i had a blog, i'd totally blog about it. what an outrage.

[A N N A]

uh, write a letter about it. get your friends to, as well. that's even more valuable.

[sm]

i wonder if sending this in as a news tip on the drudgereport will help..

[Desi]

Sad, but dont expect much from a creature of Popular American Culture. Sooner or later this was bound to happen. In how many ways are you going to fight this??
How many times??

[A N N A]

i'm dying to know exactly where your defeatist attitude takes you, and where you think it would get us.

to answer your questions: i'll fight it infinite ways, 'til the bitter end of these days.

feel free to stand by and do nothing, that's your right, and i mean that in the kindest way possible.

the rest of us are more than ready to step up and do something about "sad", it bothers us that much.

[WHY did you take it down]

Aha

It's dead real

Yo, when it comes to us, why are all the rules bent
why is the industry designed to pay this bullshit star's rent
and why our readers ain't ridin' if they part of our set
why is it okay to insult one of ours on a bet
why you call her at work, where she can't give like she get.
why you threaten and insult a woman you ain't met.

Yea, and why you gotta harass someone doin' a job they deserve
why when you tried to diss her, you the one who got served
Why you hate on yourself so hard, on a scale it can't rate
Why can't "Stina" crash your capitalist party at the gate

Why my people don't stand up for one of our own
Why they think they so different from a girl on the phone.
Why is it okay to carry us "rat-eaters" but not "niggers" or "spics"
star, Why you so insecure about the size of your dick
Why you threatening our girl with all kinds of hurt
why you say we eat vermin, why you slingin' dirt
why your bitch-ass staff laugh at your bit
and why you some pscychopath? chokin' people and shit?

why you lie. why you front, about your daughter so white
why you all annoying bark, b/c you got no skills right?
why you give a shit about the outsourcing debate
why you think your dumb fortune give you license to hate
why you act all proud when you hang up the phone
why you had to take that disrespectful tone
why you pick on us, and then add insult to hate
saying we all bitches, good at taking your bait

Why does your punk-ass get away with this shit
Why we support your crimes by makin' you a hit
why the violent mouth and the unnecessary threats
b/c an indian's the reason you rock them baguettes?
why you diss a good girl and act like you better
when if you saw her in a club you know you would sweat her

why you front like you intelligent, name-check ayn rand
why have people fed your ego, so that it's out of hand...

why?

Come on, pay attention

[:)]

no email addy?

www.power99.com = @power99.com

obviously the email admin will want to follow a standard naming convention. In this case, for the most part, the professional staff of power99 use:

firstnamelastname@power99.com

so possibly theamitchem@power99.com

for special people/promotional email addys they use things like :

gboy@power99.com or sol@power99.com etc

at least that appears to be the naming convention.

I was a philly native for 20 years. I used to listen to power99 once in a while. I once in a while pass through the city. no longer shall I listen.

[A N N A]

dear :),

of course they have email addies.

tell me, do you read all of YOUR emails? if you're anything like me, you get several hundred of them a day...it's easy to ignore them. it's even easier to "select all" + "delete".

i used to work in politics-- there's nothing like a giant, dirty bag that empties dozens of irate, tangible, physically-available letters on someone's desk. has a *bit* more impact than an-email. trust me.

better yet, fax them. they pay for that shit.

have i made the strategy clear? we want them to notice us-- email, though much easier for us, is also too easy for them.

thanks!

p.s. i read all my mail, i promise. i never delete anything that one of YOU took the time and kindness to write.

[Desi]

I didnt mean to be a defeatist. JUST LET THE INDIANS HANDLE THE MAN IN THEIR OWN WAY. Your calling the station up and making a ruckus is going to add publicity to this little known event. I'm sure the agency knows to deal with such talk and people. After all every call to India good/bad gets them some money. There are sufficient DIPLOMATIC WAYS in place to put people like STAR in his place. If he was man enough he would also play the other tapes where he may have gotten lamblasted!

Viel Gluck

[Confused]

That DJStar is obviously black right? Why does he keep refering to his daughter as white in the offensive call?

[andrea]

he's making fun of THAT, too.. apparently the commercial has a white girl in it, and the machine puts beads in your hair "like Venus Williams," he says, who is black. Ever TRY to put beads in straight hair on a white girl? it's so fine it doesn't hold ANYTHING. you NEED a machine for it. Ask me how I know ;)

He doesn't have a white daughter. He's just making fun of the premise of the ad, which he sees as'white people need mechanical help to wear their hair like black people' AND abusing outsourced employees, at the same time. if he'd just left it at the former without resorting to the latter, it would just be good-natured fun, even resorting to racial sterotypes, it would not be OFFENSIVE. what was offensive is how he treated the woman on the other end of the line. You just don't do that - I don't care what color you or they are.

[Payal]

In response to Viel Gluck, aka DESI's remark:

Just let the Indians handle it? Are you proposing that only that minority group that has been targeted will fight? To me that's ridiculous. I'm sure that there were only black people in the Million Man March...? "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere," it's SO true. Who will be the next minority group? Are we going to sit back and just let it happen to them, too? Not only is your attitude defeatist, it's individualistic and reactive. I'm from Boston, and found all this out through a friend - and as far as I'm concerned, I'll work my ass off to make sure Boston's buzzing about it. First Hilary CLinton, now this - people should NOT be getting away with saying this type of crap.

[rajesh]

I agree with whomever suggested here or somewhere else that attacking the advertisers would probably hurt these guys where it most counts, from their perspective. I wonder if there is a list of Power 99 advertisers out there? I see some on their web site, but I don't get the actual station where I live so I don't know what gets on the air.

Unless these actions cause some negative financial impact to this station, I'm afraid all Star'll get out of this is a slap on the wrist and some attention.

Another good place to start is the news organizations in the Philadelphia area. As someone who has worked in radio and television news as well as newspapers in the past, I can tell you that these folks HATE that type of publicity. Why? Once again, because it hurts their ability to sell ads.

This kind of stuff should never be allowed to slide. The folks that he attacked do not have the opportunity to fight back, and even if they did, it leaves me a little cold to think that there are people out there that are already tired of fighting for this type of thing. Obviously daily life keeps everyone extremely busy, but being resigned to statements like "how many ways are you going to fight this??" is, as mentioned, defeatist and outright lazy. And I don't mean to single out that one post; this is an attitude that pervades Desi culture. The real question is, how many times are we not going to fight things like this?

[Desi]

Payal and Rajesh,

Guys, I may sound lazy and an outright moron, but you guys have started a chain reaction that you cannot control. Today its STAR and then under the garb of some patriotic Americanism, every jackass DJ here is going to try to pull that stunt. Have you guys ever asked the Indians how many of these calls they get from irate regular Joe's leave alone these specific public nutcases? Dont go high and mighty with your letters and marches, cause they are quick to apologize and repeat the damn thing again.
Let the real Jats take care of it. Please do not tie their hands behind their backs. Please!

[coolchap]

http://www.starandbucwild.com/starandbucflash.htm

u get to see the assholes and their contact..just left a message sayin charecterless idiots!

i am just too pissed off.i need something to kick badly now!

[Joe]

Today's Double Dose of Irony:

Today, Star and Buc reenter the NY market on Power 105. Today is Martin Luther King Day, who took his cues from that rat-eater Ghandi. Power 105, purveyors of hiphop and African American culture is owned by Clear Channel, that lovable media giant with a penchant for running indepndent radio stations into the ground, run by a white Texan family (with their compulsory connection to the other white Texan family that runs the White House), with no backrground in the music or the entertainment industry.

[Yash]

Here’s what the Review & Outlook Editorial of Friday January 14, 2005 Weekend Journal of the Wall Street Journal had to say about the Star and Buc Wild show:

A nasty radio-show phone prank directed at a call center in India is the latest proof that abusive language is the last resort of the impotent. Something to remember when any of us is confronted on the low road to incivility.

The call in question was played Dec. 15 on Philadelphia’s WUSL-FM, which bills itself as “Banging’ Hip-Hop and R&B” Power 99. Morning DJ Star, aka Troi Torain, dialed the number of a company advertising a hair-beading device for kids and was connected to a lady at an ordering service in India. After ranting rudely about outsourcing, the DJ turned on the operator, calling her a “dirty rat-catcher” and a “bitch” before threatening to “come out there and choke the eff out of you.”

Just another day for the lead host of the syndicated “Star and Buc Wild” show, who promotes himself as “The Hater.” But when a station employee posted the recording on WUSL’s Web site this month, it spread like wildfire among Indians around the world. On sites like Turbanhead and SepiaMutiny, people got their first taste of American shock-jockery, and were appalled.

For those in the U.S. sadly accustomed to daily bombardments of such crudeness – not only on the airwaves but in the streets and most every venue of public life -=what stands out in this incident is something else, though. It is the witlessness of the caller.

Star describes himself as a “powerfully enigmatic individual” with “the audacity to be unconstrained by neo-conservative intellectual influence.” But there is nothing enigmatic about his call to India, which reveals a man desperately flailing, and failing to score a hit. The Indian lady never loses her poise. Star, growing shriller with frustration over his inability to get a rise, sounds panicky. Not hip at all.

The redounding, self-diminishing effect of incivility is perfectly encapsulated in Tom Wolfe’s 1976 book, “Mauve Gloves & Madmen, Clutter & Vine.” In an essay called “The Street Fighters,” he describes a battle he observed between two Wall Street types-over a cab. There they were, prosperous middle-aged men, decked out in felt hats with creases down the center, semi-homburg style, the old Wall Street crash helmet” and “terrific overcoats with shirt collars that fit,” bashing each other with briefcases and screaming a vulgar word until they were both out of breath and could hardly say it anymore” “assuh is the way it comes out.

The hats may be gone, but the guys in their gentlemanly uniforms are still with us, yelling four-letter words into their cellphones on Amtrak’s Acela Express. Like the soccer moms screaming road-rage expletives out of the windows of their SUVs-like DJ Star, in fact-they’re all advertising an incoherent rage and a lack of dignity that belies their pretensions of being somebodies.

As for the response to the abusive call to India, many people have bombarded the radio station with protest e-mails and calls. Others are writing to the FCC, hoping that paren’t company, Clear Channel will get fined. The best idea involves contacting advertisers for the “Star and Buc Wild” show. Some of them, like most of us, might have an image they think is worth protecting.

[Ank G]

Here's the latest...I wonder if the letter I sent had anything to do with this? :)

...the question remains....is this enough....? ;)

WQHT/Hot 97 and Emmis Communications Terminate Two Members of Morning Show Crew for Displaying Gross Insensitivity and Making Offensive Remarks

Emmis Donates $1 Million to Charities to Aid in Tsunami Relief & Recovery

New York – February 1, 2005: WQHT/Hot 97-FM and Emmis Communications announced today that they have terminated the employment of morning show producer Rick Del Gado for his role in writing, producing and airing “The Tsunami Song,” a highly insensitive parody of the 1985 single “We Are the World.” Hot 97 and Emmis also terminated morning show personality Todd Lynn for making offensive, racially insensitive comments while on the air. Both terminations are effective immediately.

Simultaneously, Emmis announced that it will make a lump-sum donation of $1 million to Give2Asia to aid the organization in its Tsunami relief and recovery effort.

An internal investigation by Hot 97 and Emmis determined that the singularly egregious actions of Lynn and Delgado warranted termination from their employment at the station. Other members of the morning show crew: Miss Jones, DJ Envy and Tasha Hightower have each been given two-week suspensions. The salaries of these individuals will be redirected to Give2Asia for the duration of their suspensions, which will end on Wednesday, February 9. Another member of the morning show crew, Miss Info, has not been suspended.

“The actions of the morning show crew were socially and morally indefensible and the entire Emmis family is ashamed by this,” said Rick Cummings, President of Emmis Radio “Emmis and Hot 97 have investigated this matter thoroughly over the course of the last week. Our decision to terminate Mr. Del Gado and Mr. Lynn while suspending the other members of the morning crew sends a message that this type of insensitivity is utterly unacceptable.”

[Phil O.Sipher]

leave star alone he is a talented person no matter waht he does and says either you love him or hate him but he is entertaining and thats why he is not going to dissapear from the air ways im happy for his success and for all u conservitive republican bush loving steak eating characters out there aprecciate that we have inovative ppl like star fearless.dosent care what people think and is a straight shooter you can only but respect that cat.ny loves him and of course ny is majority liberals we think outside the box.relax is all im saying

[anon]

phil:

you are an idiot. go away. it's not even WORTH reasoning with you, because that would presuppose that you CAN reason.

[NZ Alex]

mmm... steak :)
stumbled on this... conversation by accident. was quite interesting but it's late and i'm tired so I skipped to the end.
I realise that the last post is exactly a year old (freaky coincidence?) but when i read it, and the preceding one by Phil, I had to say I find his comments quite fightning. There is a difference between a "straight shooter" and a "blatently rude asshole". He mentions Stars talent "no matter what he does and says", as long as he can spell eh phil?
Seriously tho', what is your problem with steak eaters? Or is that NY code for Texans? I don't know?

[Keith]

I was an avid listener ro the Star and Buc wild show. Star's comments about Dj Envy's child were repulsive yes but I truly wonder what threats Dj Envy made to Star to make him go on a stupid rant such as this. Let us also remember that Dj Envy made the Tsunami song and his wife is Asian. All of these shock jocks thrive off of response and everyone falls into it. Off course, any race off individuals will take offense when comments are directed towards them but, Star got at everyone on his show, Black, White, Spanish, whatever. Just remember when one shock jock goes off the air, 10 more are waiting to go into their place. Just ask Opie and Anthony. These guys were fired after they convinced a couple to have sex in public in a church. Opie and Anthony were just hired on 92.3 to replace David Lee Roth because off poor ratings. I feel you just have not heard the last of Star. I really believe he will be hired by satellite radio next. Just ask Howard Stern about his deal.