Halley Stone, owner of the Amsterdam Café, and Brad Hales, owner of People’s Records, will be guests on Detroit Today this morning, probably anytime between 10:00-11:00am. If you miss it, WDET usually posts an mp3 of the show later in the day and makes it available for a month or so.

As a Detroit resident, I have been waiting since last Wednesday for Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick to come out of hiding and break his silence about the Free Press text message investigation.

Finally, a week after the story broke, the mayor will finally address the public. It happens this evening at 7:30. The mayor’s address will be televised on local stations and on WWJ, WJR and WDET.

The mayor will be speaking from his church at 7 Mile and Schaeffer. The public will not be allowed in the church while the mayor gives his speech and he will not give any interviews to media. Top aides assure Kilpatrick will not be resign.

It seems as though Michigan’s Republican Senate, with its slimy leader Mike Bishop at the helm, will refuse to take up a measure to force four Democratic Presidential candidates–Barack Obama, Bill Richardson, John Edwards, and Christopher Dodd–back onto the ballot after they pulled their names from the running when Michigan announced an early primary date of January 15.

On WDET today, I heard the pompous Bishop say that it’s not the job of the Senate to get in the middle of Democrat’s affairs and that such a vote would be keeping the legislature from discussing more pressing issues, like the never-ending state budget negotiations. Like most political talk meant to divert citizens from understanding the true motives behind a decision, Bishop makes a somewhat-valid point. However, the Republicans have something to gain by not allowing the Democrats to have a primary with a full slate of candidates.

Michigan election laws allow citizens to vote in either party primary, regardless of one’s party affiliation. Since Hillary is basically a lock to beat Dennis Kucinich, many Independents and Democrats may spend their votes on the Republican primary. Thus Republicans can argue that higher poll numbers shows that Michigan is leaning Republican. In addition, the Republicans will be able to flout the fact that they provided Michigan citizens with a true primary, that Republicans were unafraid to challenge Iowa and New Hampshire by coming to Michigan. They can claim that the Democrats really don’t care as much about Michigan’s people as the Republicans do. Based on recent Republican policies and actions, this is patently untrue to me, but they will make the argument nonetheless.

I certainly would have liked to have had a true Democratic primary here in Michigan with all of the candidates on the ballot. However, four candidates decided that they couldn’t suffer the backlash from Iowans and New Hampshirites should they leave their small, un-diverse populations to run in a state that actually matters in the general election and better represents the country as a whole. As much as I respect all four candidates (and I’m rather partial to Richardson), I feel that this was an act of political cowardice.

I was kind of on the fence about Hillary, but at least she didn’t chicken out, and it doesn’t seem as though there has been any backlash in Iowa or New Hampshire (although she has refrained from paying the Mitten a visit). She’s got guts, she’s smart, and she’ll make a good president.

So on the 15th, I’m going to go into the voting booth and press my pointer finger on the electronic screen next to the “Hillary Clinton” box with pride. I’m not a betting man, but I’ll put my odds on Hillary by a landslide.

Last night I was lucky enough to be at the premier of the short film “The Secret of Jonny Strange” by Detroit artist Jon Strand at the Max Fisher Centre. The original score, by Judy Adams formerly of WDET, was performed last night on a grand piano to an audience of a few hundred. I very much want to get a copy of the score which is very Nightmare Before Christmasesque. The animated film features Strand’s signature ink point creations. Strand’s work is up at the Max Fisher Center till the end of July for appreciators to wonder how he has the patience to create with millions of dots. The film will be on loop during the DSO’s upcoming Eight Days in June Festival.

I learned today that WDET is changing some of their overnight programming. They’re canceling Liz Copeland’s show outright and pushing Ed Love from 9 to midnight rather than from 7 to midnight.

I don’t really know what is going on in the management at WDET (I know there were some shake-ups) but it appears they are slowly changing format to more news/talk oriented programming. In fact, over the past two years, their programming has gone from music and creative programming to almost an exact duplicate of what is aired on Michigan Radio (91.7), which is based out of Ann Arbor but reaches all of Metro Detroit.

This sucks. I’ve gotten attached to listening to Ed Love on my drive home from work (usually around 7ish) - his musical tastes are way more eclectic than the jazz programming on 90.7. Why is WDET trying to duplicate Michigan Radio? I know that Michigan Radio has been successful but isn’t Public Radio supposed to be about programming and not ratings? Shouldn’t public radio target niche audiences that commercial radio doesn’t program for because it’s commericially impossible to get enough listeners, like jazz, classical, independent radio, and so on? I can get news programming on about a dozen stations, why is WDET trying to be yet another boring news station? Is broadcasting syndicated PRI programming from Washington DC really that much cheaper than producing new and unique content?

Those of you who live in Michigan know that today’s weather was very Seattle. The temperatures were cool and in the 60s and it rained all day. Not really a downpour, but a slow foggy sprinkle with occasional showers. I have compiled a short list of the pros and cons of Seattle in Detroit.
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This Sunday I caught a few minutes of a new show on WDET, Front Row Center. Its a local show hosted by Celeste Headlee and directed right at Detroit. The few minutes I caught were about teaming up the private and public parts of the Eastern Market as well as the future of non-profs in the metro area.

Hoping to find it available as a podcast I went to the website to hear it in full. Unfortunately, it is only available streaming on-demand (I wanted to put it on my portable player), but it is still worth listening to. Last Sunday’s show also talked much about Detroit’s infamous Purple Gang with commentary by a man who grew up with the families.

The show takes on a format similar to Here and Now, but also has a ’round-table’ feel where several experts not only debate on matters but brainstorm and build upon each others ideas. Of course this is all from the one episode I’ve heard so far, but it seems to be a very promising program.

You can hear it Sunday’s 11am-Noon on WDET or in wdetfm.org’s on-demand section.

I have a question for all you Metro Detroiters out there. After 7pm, the place to find jazz on the radio dial here is WDET, where Ed Love hosts probably the best jazz show in the United States and WRCJ plays some jazz too. However, I can’t seem to find any jazz on the FM dial before 7pm. Any suggestions? WRCJ plays classical during the day and WDET is an NPR affiliate during the day. (V98.7 doesn’t count)

WDET is usually a hot topic here, so I am wondering what you think of WDET’s Be a friend, bring a friend campaign? I am barely listening to WDET right now since the fund drives drive me batty.

There may be more listeners but why then aren’t they contributing?

This morning, WDET was advertising the fact they have two new openings available if you want to join the WDET Team. WHAT? They just laid off a bunch of people and now they are hiring? They didn’t say what kinds of positions were open but a quick search of the WDET site brings up these:

Development Director

Morning Edition Host