Trailer Trash, Bums, and Talk Radio
The Casey Bartholomew Show featured on WSCC-FM in Charleston, SC is at it again. It is more often than not that Casey Bartholomew turns my stomach with his rants and name calling. I am becoming less of a fan of his by the day. It was not enough to make fun of folks who live in mobile homes a couple of months ago. Now Casey is after the homeless. I sent an email to Casey ands asked for a transcript or audio copy of the show that included his rants on people living in mobile homes, but my email went unanswered. So, I will have to go with what I remember which should at least give you a good feel for my impression of Casey Bartholomew’s opinions as I heard it.
A couple of months ago Casey had a segment of his afternoon talk show dedicated to mobile home residents. Casey went off on people who live in mobile homes. If I remember correctly Casey believes that if you live in a mobile home you are basically stupid, ignorant, and the scum of society. I take offense to that attitude towards folks living in mobile homes. I have lived over 25% of my 38 years in mobile homes and have a number of friends and family members who still live in mobile homes. I now live in a neighborhood much like the one Casey Bartholomew lives in, but I have not forgot where I came from. I have lived in a single wide trailer on private land as well as in trailer parks. I am here to tell you that the physical structure of your home does not have anything to do with your intelligence, character, or criminal status. If anything, a trailer park may have more of a sense of community than most neighborhoods like the one in Summerville, SC where Casey Bartholomew lives today.
My wife taught 3rd grade in a public school in the same town where Casey Bartholomew lives. The best student to ever step foot into her classroom lived in a mobile home in a trailer park. This little girl and her family would fit into Casey’s trailer trash scum category. This beautiful and intelligent little girl was reading at least two grade levels ahead of the next best student in any class my wife ever taught. So, how will Casey’s young daughter feel when she sits down next to one of these trailer trash child geniuses? How will his daughter feel when the little trailer trash girl asks his daughter, “why does your daddy go on the radio and call my family scum, ignorant, and stupid?” I would not want to put my child in that situation, but it appears that Casey Bartholomew has no problem with it.
Casey now is exploiting the misfortune of the homeless to increase his pathetic ratings which I will get to in a minute. He claims that he is doing this to help the homeless the way Ben Rogovy from Seattle is doing. Casey’s help amounts to giving a homeless person a T-shirt for carrying a sign advertising for his show. He then goes on the air and tells his listeners how worthless and stupid he thinks homeless people are for living life the way they do . He believes it is their choice to live that way. I have never official been homeless so I can not argue that point, but I have come pretty close a few times and it was not by choice. Casey even posts a picture on the station web site titled “Bum-Vertising”. How can this possibly be a good advertising strategy? It is by far a bad deal for the homeless people that Casey uses. Casey makes a deal with someone to advertise for him and then takes a picture of them to be used to exploit their situation on the radio show’s web site. Here is what the WSCC-FM web site has to say about the Bum-Vertising project idea that Casey admittedly stole from Ben Rogovy:
We here at The Casey Bartholomew Show believe that any good idea is worth stealing. Following in the footsteps of budding Seattle entrepreneur Ben Rogovy, we have done some of our own Bum-vertising. We agree with Ben that the homeless and panhandlers are an untapped labor force. So, we enlisted the aid of Leroy to help advertise the show by walking around down town Charleston with his sign. Don’t worry; we gave him a t-shirt for payment.
It would not be so bad if Casey just made a deal and moved on, but he had to take it a step farther and start making fun of the people. At least Ben Rogovy let them keep their panhandler sign to continue to gather extra cash while advertising. There are details on the www.bumvertising.com web site and pictures of some of Ben Rogovy’s “bum-vertisers”. You can read more about Ben Rogovy’s original idea on bum-vertising from ABC-NEWS and learn that the original idea includes a little more than a T-shirt in return for advertisement. I don’t think it is a total bad idea since they homeless are doing something in return for the money being given to them. At least Ben Rogovy is not going on a talk show ranting about how stupid these homeless people are. Casey Bartholomew needs to choke up some food, water, and cash if he really wants to copy Ben Rogovy. He might also consider piping down on his name calling when referring to his little pet project on the air if he really wants to compare himself to Ben Rogovy. Not everyone agrees with this idea of bum-vertising. Read more comments from the Mises Economics Blog, Catallarchy, and MIT. MIT also reports that this type of idea has also been used by nuns in Holland.
It does not stop there. Casey Bartholomew believes that the listeners of his show are responsible for the resignation of the Charleston, SC police chief. Has he not looked at the poll on WSCC-FM web site? A majority of the people who took the poll believe that Greenberg was effective and it is a shame to see him go . Casey cheered on the air as he played the announcement of Greenberg’s retirement. He then goes on to apologize for doing what needed to be done to get Greenberg out of the police chief position. Casey Bartholomew actually believes he is some kind of hero in this deal. He even referred to himself as the great one yesterday on the air during his boasting over the outing of Chief Greenberg. Also during the segment on Chief Greenberg, Casey took a phone call where he yelled at the caller for disagreeing with him. I gathered that this was another critic of Casey’s from what I could tell, but I did not get his full name. I beleive it was Sam. The caller accused Casey of being power hungry with his microphone. Casey a;; but agreed with that point. I think Casey does often go overboard and become offensive with his comments.
One other show recently talked about parents who gave their high school graduating seniors breast implants for a graduation present. I agree that this was not an appropriate present for a teenage girl, but Casey Bartholomew took it a step farther. He called the young girls sluts and whores. The name calling is one thing, but what really disturbed me most about this rant by Casey was that the commercial break during this segment featured a Promise Keepers commercial. I wonder if the folks from Promise Keepers knew that their advertisement for the Christian Men’s conference was running within minutes of Casey Bartholomew ranting about these teenage girls as being sluts and whores simply because their parents made a dumb decision.
Now lets talk about ratings for the Casey Bartholomew Show and WSCC-FM. Casey has been bragging about the recent ratings that have his show on top as the number one afternoon talk radio show in Charleston, SC. Well, it’s not hard to be number one out of a total of one FM talk radio stations in Charleston, SC. The only other real contender is an AM talk radio station WTAM-AM which actually comes in ahead of WSCC-FM in the most recent Radio Online ratings. I would argue that The Casey Bartholomew Show probably comes in behind Rush Limbaugh on a show by show comparison, but that is just my guess since I could not find specific ratings for the Casey Bartholomew Show.
I find myself only listening to The Casey Bartholomew Show to give me something to write about lately. It appears that I am not the only one with less than stellar reviews of The Casey Bartholomew Show. I was leaving a parking garage in downtown Charleston, SC yesterday, when an attendant overheard Casey Bartholomew on my car radio. The attendant wanted to know how I could listen to that jerk as he referred to Casey Bartholomew. My response was to the attendant was that I do find some of Casey’s stuff to be interesting. I more often than not get turned off by his ranting and name calling. Casey considers all of his rants to be entertainment. Radio is an odd medium and a person can come in an just pick up some pieces out of context that can really be offensive. I am sure that this is the case for me at times. I recommend that the Casey Bartholomew Show start making show material available on MP3 for download. Heck, I will even help them get it done. I think it would be a great way for people like me to go back and get the whole story instead of just relying on a few pieces that may not represent the true views of the station or The Casey Bartholomew Show.
I will let Casey have the last word in this posting with a response to an email exchange between Casey and me over my Maximum Age Drivers post recently. Casey wrote to me, “I hope I didn’t offend you, too much. The show is all about entertainment, sharing ideas, and starting a dialogue. Just the fact that it got you to write something, even if you don’t agree with me, makes me happy.”
Update: Found an local news papaer article from back when Casey Bartholomew come on the scene in Charleston.