My First Death Threat

Wednesday August 19th, 2009 - Lake Villa, IL

Well, it looks like I’m FINALLY starting to climb the golden ladder of big time success in show business! I know that because I received my very first death threat in a disjointed email today written by a psychotic imbecile with atrocious grammar skills. It was a poorly worded rant on about a third grade level and apparently capitalization wasn’t a priority.

I’ve always heard a person hasn’t really arrived in the entertainment business until hate mail and death threats start coming in and I’ve already had my share of hate mail. When I first started doing mornings on 97.9 ‘The Loop’ in Chicago I used to get all kinds of radio critics firing off emails with brilliant content like ‘You SUCK’ or ‘You REALLY suck.’

Most of those were just blue collar rock apes blowing off steam. I used to answer most of them back and try to be funny and self effacing. Some of them got pretty nasty and that was fun for me because I love vaporizing hecklers and that was like electronic heckling.

One of the recipients of my scathing wit took the time to forward my retorts to my boss and I got yelled at for it even though he thought they were hilarious. Our owners weren’t too keen on getting in the face of our customers so I had to stop it or face losing my job.

After a few weeks the hate mail stopped and the fan mail started, some of which I’ll still get to this day. That’s how radio is and it’s a matter of what people are used to. I’ve had a lot of hate mail at most of the stations I’ve worked but then when I get fired I seem to get fan mail telling the station they blew it. It never got me hired back but I’m still grateful.

This one was different. It was sent on an address which uses my name and that doesn’t sound kosher to me. Then it said to “get a life” followed immediately by “kill yourself“. That’s a tiny bit confusing because I couldn’t do both. I’d have to choose one or the other.

Then it got a little more direct and said things like “i’m watching you” and “watch your back”, none of it in capital letters or punctuated in any way. This kind of thing is probably mindless psychobabble babbled by a mindless psycho but I really don’t appreciate the fact that my name is being used as his moniker on the outgoing email address. It needs to stop.

I have WAY better things to do than deal with this kind of infantile prattle but when it’s a veiled threat I think I need to put it out there so if I do take a bullet to the chest after my next show a few clues will already be in place. I have no idea if this is serious or a joke.

If it is a joke I don’t find it funny. At first I thought it was my ex business partner doing it to get under my skin but at least he knows how to use English as his first language. This bonehead has the creative writing skills of Paris Hilton’s lap dog. I just want it all to end.

But it probably won’t. I will leave it alone and not fan any flames but if it continues I’ll have no choice but to call the police and deal with it that way. It’s amazing that anyone on Earth would want to pose as ME. What kind of halfwit would do THAT? A clueless one.