KDWB's War of the Roses is fake

The first clue that the feature entitled “War of the Roses” on local Top 40 station 101.3 KDWB-FM is fake is that when a station calls someone they must inform the person they are calling that they are being recorded. That alone should tip people off that the insanity that ensues when a suspicious woman sets up her man to see who he will send a dozen roses to is entirely fabricated. But some people fail to see the truth.

It’s been discussed back and forth in the inner circles of media insiders

and media watchers but this week it all came bubbling to the surface. Gawker specifically names the faked bit as “War of the Roses”. The name is used nationally and while it’s best known here in the Twin Cities as being a weekly staple of the Dave Ryan Show on KDWB, even the over-exposed Ryan Seacrest in Los Angeles uses the bit on his morning show.

In short, the callers are provided by a company called United Stations Radio Networks (helmed by Dick Clark). The bulk of the talent used for this bit and other pot-stirring radio bits on a number of large Top 40 radio stations are actors plucked from New York City among other places across the country. They are given talking points and a basic outline but the majority is ad libbed and done so quite well.

But it doesn’t stop at staged bits to expose supposedly cheating spouses. When a ludicrous topic is posed by a morning DJ, often times a caller conveniently pops up with an equally ludicrous take on the topic. Many of those scenarios are staged by Dick Clark’s United Stations Radio Network as well. The bottom line is if it sounds too crazy to be real then it’s probably bullshit.

Now while I’m not saying that every wacky bit Dave Ryan (Kibler if you’re all for realism and truth) does on his KDWB morning show is straight up bullshit I think that this company set up by Dick Clark and Premiere Radio Networks (a company under the Clear Channel umbrella) to provide actors for radio bits and calls should be proof enough to be at least skeptical about what you hear during your favorite morning show. Just take t hings with a grain of salt and remember that radio was originally billed as theater of the mind -- not everything you hear is real.

The Gosselins won't go away

Are Jon and Kate Gosselin (of TLC's Jon & Kate Plus Eight) getting divorced? Are they together? Or is this whole circus surrounding them a huge, elaborate, sprawling promotional stunt?

The timing of Jon Gosselin's supposed cheating surfacing is rather convenient. The rather forced drama surrounding the premiere episode (last night) seemed to be beyond contrived. All of the controversy surrounding the family of 10 seems a bit too convenient to me. I don't know about the few people reading this but I am sick of seeing them. That damn Gosselin family is everywhere. They are plastered across the Discovery Television Channels on cable, salacious headlines regarding Kate's past, her attitude, her behavior, Jon's behavior, his past, their tumultuous marriage, separation and now their supposed divorce are on the cover of every celebrity-obsessed waste of paper at every damn checkout stand in America. They need to go away. But they won't.

The Gosselin family is a product of their own making. A mom who saw a way to fund her life, sold the soul of her children to a television channel and is at their mercy and she loves it. Oh, so what if it ruins the lives of everyone who is a part of it outside of her? I find her over-the-top behavior nauseating and if the whole thing is a publicity stunt coordinated by some faceless person behind tshe show, kudos to them for basically bringing the entire country to a screeching halt over the aupposed antics of a couple of non-celebrities from Pissant-Nowhere, Pennsylvania and actually making casual fans of the show turn in to rabid, frothing jackals who are starting flame wars and opposing blogs online.

If TLC pulled the plug on this show tomorrow, America would forget about the fmae whore known as Kate Gosselin and they'd all slip in to obscurity by summer's end - and I'd be happier for it happening. They are a product of manufactured fame and with the youngest six kids going off to school in the fall (they turned five in last night's premiere) that fame is about to end. Hopefully TLC has someone with half of a brain running things and realizes that filming a show that revolves around the fabulous and exciting adventures of a brood of pre-schoolers will lose something when they have homework to do and begin to become actual people who are less and less influenced by their power-hungry mommy.

They are essentially singing their swan song for the next couple months and if a divorce is actually in the works for Jon and Kate Gosselin, her desire for more fame will ultimately be their own undoing.

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I can smell a fake from a mile away

I sat down last night after the missus reminded me that the trainwreck called 'Kid Nation' was airing its first episode. I am vehemently opposed to the bile billed as 'reality' television but this show had some some promise. It promised to suck... hard!

Lucky for me, it didn't disappoint. While it showed on film the lesson that even kids thrown together in a faux western town can cooperate and work together seemingly for nothing at all (at first) it fell just short of scripted. Obviously there are camera crews and producers crawling about the soundstage billed as 'Bonanza City' who aren't going as far as writing lines for the kids but are blatantly coaching the kids on what to say and what to do. The buildings of the fake Bonanza City are quite obviously a set and, this one is the deal breaker for me, those little kids have electricity and probably showers as well because they didn't have scraggly, oily, matted down hair by day four.

I just wish that the millions who were sucked in to this bullshit would wise the hell up and realize that so-called reality shows are anything but real. While the show did have a couple standouts, one that stuck in my mind was the 14 year-old Sophia who was the winner of $20,000 last night, it has little in redeeming value. What really smelled fishy, though, was the moment when Sophia called her mom to share her "surprise" win... there was conveniently enough a camera crew in mom's house when the phone rang. Sure, it may have been a re-enactment but as my wife said, she's calling shenanignas on the whole damn thing. I, though, am not as nice and prefer to pull the bullshit flag on this sorry excuse for programming.

America, enjoy your slow descent to hell.