End of an era

I'm not sure how many of you still listen to Loveline (or ever did in the first place), but tonight is Adam Carolla's last show before he moves onto doing the KLSX morning show in L.A. (and a number of other "Free FM" west coast stations. As a quick tangent, I think it's hilarious that Infinity Broadcasting has decided to combat the impending move of Howard Stern to Sirius, as well as Satellite radio in general, by putting "Free" in their stations' names. Literally, 97.1 is now referred to as "L.A.'s Free FM talk station." Ridiculous...). I listened to a Loveline a bit during high school and college, but I didn't really become a fan until a little over a year ago when I moved into my single apartment in Santa Monica. I had no TV and no roommates, so I quickly adopted the habit of keeping the radio on at all times to keep me company. I discovered a number of new favorite shoes in that time:

• Conway and Steckler on 97.1 from 8-11 pm, M-F. How do you not love a show that plays "What did Jesse Jackson say?" (they do it on Thursdays. Check it out - it's awesome). Conway is Tim Conway, Jr. If any of you watched ESPN back in the 90's, you'll remember the commercials for "Dorf Goes Fishing," (I swear those commercials were run for at least five years) starring Tim Conway Sr. His kid is pretty funny as well. Steckler was also entertaining, but he was replaced a few months back by Brian Whitman, who may be even funnier, especially his impression of Tom Leykis.
• All Night with Todd Wright, on ESPN radio, 10pm-3am. I really enjoyed Todd's show, but unfortunately he was canned back in September. Then they replaced his with a guy named Jason Smith who does the same damn show, except not as good. Idiots. Must have been something personal...
• Jon and Jeff, on 97.1, 11pm-3am. I like these guys because they talk about the most random, non-important topics out there. This show is like the radio equivalent of Seinfeld - a show about nothing. It's a great show to fall asleep to, because it doesn't get me riled up and the topics change every five minutes so I'm not kept up listening.

The best of them all, though, was Loveline. There were a number of reasons for that: (1) There's nothing quite like listening to a bunch of messed-up people talk about their problems to help you put your problems into proper perspective. "Hmm, well, I'm not a 16 year-old chick with a history of parental abuse, a meth addiction, and a kid on the way with a 29 year-old dad. I guess not working out during the last two weeks and not doing my reading really isn't that big of a deal." (2) Adam and Drew are amazing at profiling callers' histories (abuse, addiction, junior college, etc) based on their current problems. My personal favorite is the little girl voice. The theory (which may have scientific/medical backing) is that if a girl is abused at a young age, certain parts of her psyche stop developing and remain at that state for the rest of her life. One of those is parts is her voice tonality, meaning that if a girl gets abused at age six, her voice will have (roughly) the same tone as that of a six year-old. They get this one every time. On a higher level, I find the connections between causes during youth (usually various forms of trauma) and effects in adulthood (usually destructive behaviors) fascinating. (3) I think Adam Carolla is hilarious on Loveline, and it's unfortunate that he's going to leave the Loveline format. Sure, he may end up being a great morning show host (somewhat reminiscent of the T-Man's move from the late-night KJR slot to Kube 93's morning drive back in '95). Then again, the Loveline format may have made him as much as he made Loveline, and his morning show may suck. I'm going to use his work on The Man Show and Crank Yankers as evidence that he has talent beyond Loveline, so with any luck he'll put on a good morning show. Regardless, I don't think Loveline will ever quite be the same. It could very well continue to be good, and possibly, with a little warm-up time, could be even better with the yet-unknown new host, but it will never be the same as it was with Adam and Drew. I'm going to miss it.