I Could Have Been More Wrong

“Well, that was a giant fuck you, wasn’t it?” So questioned one of the people who sat with me and watched the Nude Hippo 15th Anniversary Special. In a way she was right. After all I’ve spent 15 years, on and off, donating my time to Nude Hippo so to be rewarded with 2 1/2 seconds of silent screen time seemed a bit harsh. I don’t count the 5 seconds of, also silent, screen time where I was wearing a mask. Not even a woman who has been intimate with me knew that was me. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t expecting a “Bill McCormick” segment or anything like that. But a mention would have been nice. Especially since I was surrounded by the Hippoteers, some friends and one guy I’d never met before who opined “I’ve seen this show. It used to be funny.” Yes, buddy, it was.

Sadly, last night’s show did nothing to support that statement.

The 45 minute collection of uncredited, seemingly random, clips offered no insight into anything at all. If it was meant to be a career building love letter to the hostess Amy Zanglin, whom I like, then it missed wildly. Simply put, a lady to my right summed it up thusly, “I don’t know her but why would she announce that she likes to drink heavily, has turned puking into her mouth into an art form and doesn’t have a sense of humor?”

Actually, Amy has a wicked sense of humor but you’d have to take my word on it.

Getting back to the opening statement, it doesn’t just apply to me. Almost everyone who has donated their time and effort over the years was slighted. Even the ones who got some screen time were, by and large, uncredited. People who spent a few weeks hanging around were given prominent segments and everyone else was roundly ignored. It was revisionist history on a Stalin-esque scale.

For example, if all you knew about Nude Hippo came from last night’s show then you wouldn’t know that the show once won a local Emmy or that WBIG-AM (1280) has donated ten minutes a week of their air time for the last couple years. I have been the beneficiary of that air time for the last year or so but the main thrust of all the air time has been to promote all things Hippo. In fact the General Manager of the station, and convivial host, Ryan Gatenby, spent the week mentioning the impending anniversary show and we talked about it when I was on last Friday morning.

There wasn’t even a glancing edit with the station logo in a segue.

What this all comes down to is this; (1) this site, and its domain name, are owned by Ed Silha so they will continue to operate, just sans a Hippo logo; (2) I will continue to write here whether or not I am able to continue doing the radio show. I have no idea what type of contract WBIG has with Nude Hippo and am not about to ask anyone to violate anything.

Lastly, yesterday I said I was a Nude Hippo for life. I was wrong. It seems I wasn’t even one for ten silent seconds.