Brokeback TV

I was home a little early tonight and got to see some of the evening newscasts. It reminded me of why I spend so little time watching local TV news. After about 7 minutes of commercials, 5-6 minutes of happy talk, teasers and recaps and another 3 minutes of the weather guy playing with all his high-tech toys, you get about 11 minutes of news.

Then tonight on TV 6 Sports Director Doug Sherman does a story about some kid playing for Mike Dean at Wagner. His justification for doing his second story in about 10 days on a really bad Division I program 150 miles from Albany was that Coach Deane once coached at Siena (about 15 years ago) and the kid he featured, who is not from the area, has some of his extended family living here. Wow, how lame. How about actually doing some story on local kids playing at college programs outside the area, or better yet local kids at LOCAL colleges and high schools.

The other laugher on that newscast came at 5:40 when they went to Fred Dicker for some political analysis. You know him, the commentator guy that pisses and moans about all the corruption in Albany and takes money for speaking to groups that spend lots of money to Lobby in Albany. Did TV 6 or WROW do any stories on that? I don't know, but would like to hear from anyone who saw that mentioned on the air.

Anyway, Fred shows up on camera in a cowboyesque string tie, a shirt with what looked like suede patches on the shoulders and a darker colored suede vest over the top of it all. It looked like something outa Buffalo Bob meets The Producers. If I had not seen it, I would never have believed it. Here is a hard-working political reporter who has clearly let the national and statewide attention go to his shiny little head. Come on Freddy, you aren't Truman Capote.
Stu.