Deja-vu all over again...

Wednesday morning on your Champlain Valley FM radio dial: Louie Manno & Jim Condon, the star radio duo who took the town by storm in 1986 on Q-99 will be together again - though only for a day.

Manno's recently slid in behind the mike at 102.3 FM "Best Country" WLFE as the replacement for the late, great G.G. Griggs, killed in an untimely single-vehicle accident in Swanton a couple weeks ago. His pickup slammed into a tree. No seat belt, said the police.

Manno & Condon hit The People's Republic of Burlington during Bernie Sanders' third term as mayor in 1986. The boys were the hot morning duo on Burlington's radio dial well into the 1990s. They finished up on the AM dial at1390 WKDR with former Burlington Free Press city hall scribe and talk-show man Mark Johnson in 2001.

Jim and Louie next started up and operated the Radio Deli on Pearl Street in Burlington for a few years. They sold the deli.  Condon [whose almost 20-year-old intro still prefaces Mark's morning talker on WDEV, 550 AM and 96.1 FM] has found a second life in politics - he's a successful Democratic state representative from Colchester!

Wednesday morning it'll be Louie & Jim - together again on WLFE/St. Albans, Vermont...

Comments

[Gay Bob]

When I first arrived in Burlington in August of 1987 I surfed the dial trying to find a morning show I could get in to. I found Manno & Condon and stayed with them. Fun, local, intelligent, wacky, outrageous - along with Mark Johnson there was also Joy Hopkins and others... a great group of people - on air and off. And their audience was as diverse as any one you could ask for.

[sandy ward]

I loved Manno in the morning.

Hey, Mr. Campbell from the DEA, Sir, I spy Rutland DEA agent justjoey...should have taken me up on the offer, dude.

[JPC]

Sandy go check yourself in in Waterbury.

[sandy ward]

Hey Mr. Campbell from the DEA, Sir, I came across an interesting article in the Boston Globe in April, I think, about Iraq vet Fred Swallow of Sutton, VT, having issues with VA care. Intrigging how his face was obscured/hidden in the photo accompanying the article...available on line.

[vermonter]

What is the above gibberish about?

And what does "intrigging" mean?

[sandy ward]

Vermonter, sit down and shut the f*** up.

Come out, come out where ever you are, Mr. Campbell from the DEA, Sir. This is the phone number Rutland DEA agent justjoey gave to me....probably out of service now, eh? 747-8686.

[JPC]

Sandy, go see someone about getting some meds to take care of your delusion and paranoia before you hurt yourself and/or someone else. Or are you smarter then we think you are? Maybe you are making a case so that when you get busted again you claim insanity. "It was the voices in my head that told me to smoke marijuana I swear judge, just look at the posts I made on Freyneland"

But since you can't seem to figure out that I am not a DEA agent. Here a little test. Sandy I will be at your home this evening at 3pm to arrest you again. Maybe when no one shows up will you reason it out that I am not Joe Campbell of the DEA.

[vermonter]

"Vermonter, sit down and shut the f*** up."

Charming. I thought pot was supposed to make you mellow?

[vermont222]

Mr. Freyne, you have got to be one of the most critical persons I have seen before. Do you not have a life, to be criticizing WCAX, WPTZ, and other media outlets? I'm sure if you ran a news station, you would have the audience of a local access cable channel. You're not even close to being a good media tracker. If you knew anything, WFFF is starting a newscast at 10PM on December 3rd, and you have not mentioned one word. Well, I guess you know now, and it's another station that you can incorrectly criticize. I bet they CANT WAIT until they get your pointless emails full of BS criticism. Let's knock some sense into you Mr. Fryndemocrat, you ARE NOT GOOD at your job/blog.

[Doug Hoffer]

Interesting post. You made it clear that you don't like or approve of Peter's work. But other than his being "critical", you didn't tell us why. What exactly is "incorrect" about his perspective?

I guess I'm confused. Just as you have the right to criticize him, so too he has the right to criticize mainstream media. It's called free speech. But if you hope to persuade readers, you need to do more than say he's not good at his job.

As for WCAX and WPTZ, I can assure you that virtually everyone I know finds serious fault with both. Does that make all of us bad too?

[JPC]

I do find it interesting that Freyne criticizes media outlets that are slanted to the left so much that slide right into his territory. I would expect him to criticize the so called right wing radio and TV. All in all the one thing that Mr Freyne is very good on is the historical view of politics and media in this area of the state. Kudos on that. I do wish that his reporting was slightly more unbiased but hey it's his blog.

[Doug Hoffer]

JPC

I'm curious. Please indicate which mainstream media in VT you think are "slanted to the left".

Thanks

[vermonter]

You say "virtually everyone you know finds serious fault with both" CAX and PTZ. Interesting, though, that Mr. Freyne regularly criticizes CAX but I don't recall him ever criticizing PTZ.

In any event, whatever perceived political slant Mr. Freyne seems to like to make fun of at CAX, I believe it provides better local news coverage than PTZ. PTZ news is essentially a 30-minute weather report with a sensationalistic "Big Story" (murder, robbery, or another weather alert) thrown in somewhere, and then back to the weather. CAX has Andy Potter. 'Nuff said.

[jpc]

Well Doug the free press for one.

[Doug Hoffer]

JPC: You seriously think the Free Press is "slanted to the Left"? I'm afraid you've lost me.

[JPC]

Doug seriously, if you don't think the free press is left slanted there is no use going on with this conversation. Look at the number of leftist letter to the editor's they publish. It isn't because that's all they get.....