Mondo news from the TV box

Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

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Dang, that toilet seat was cold this morning! How ’bout y’all? O, and speaking of toilets, lets get a mondo download on the WLOSer news…

Freeze warnings and frost advisories and something called ‘thunder snow’
Julie Blunder, reporting from the station parking lot Friday, told us that it was going to get downright cold Friday and Saturday night. She said the freeze warning would have “positive and negative” effects. O re-heel-lly?

She quoted one dude who said, yep, it’s fall and he likes it crisp. Then she noted that the West Asheville BB&T called the fire department because after they kicked on the furnace for the first time this year, they thought they smelled smoke. It was just dust, the fireman said. Guess the false alarm was a negative. Then she said that the cold weather would end an active allergy season. Then she went out to the farmer’s market and told us to bring our container plants in.

Mike “Cabana Boy” Cuevas confirmed everything, noting that there was a freeze warning and frost advisory around. He didn’t explain it. He also noted all the snow that Buffalo got – like two feet in one of the earliest snowfalls ever – and said it was “thunder snow.” WTF? No explanation. Every other weatherman we heard said it was “lake-effect snow,” and we know what that means.

Breaking news: Screamyard is open
Pinhead’s Graveyard is open. It’s the best spookfest in town. Anybody want to go with us?

More breaking news: ‘I feel sad…’
WLOSers had audio problems all day Friday. The most glaring booboo was when the show at 6 started witha producer who could be overheard saying, “I feel sad about…”

Still more breaking news: Friday was Friday the 13th
WLOSers interviewed some weirdo with a web site, claiming he runs a “stress management center” in Ashvegas. His name is Dr. Donald Dossey, and he just wrote some folklore book. This is is web site. He told WLOSers to take any socks with holes in them to a high place, burn them and toss them. Julie Blunder said she was going to try it.

Holy wood
Terrie Foster, ever on the lookout for an angle on a story, went out to Maggie Valley to do a follow-up on a fire that destroyed the Soco Mountain Rustics chocke shop. The store sold homemade wooden crafts, but the owner said there was one special piece of wood that wasn’t destroyed – a piece of wood that had an image of the Virgin Mary in it.

A year or so ago, WLOSers ran with this lame story, which really sounded like a marketing ploy on the part of the owner. He found a piece of wood, sanded it a little, and said hey, this looks like the Virgin Mary – then ran and told the teevee box people. Whatever. It looks like a woman in a robe. Get over it.

It’s official: Kassandra Pride has no pride, dresses like a gorilla
Yep, that’s right. It didn’t take long for Kassandra “Special K” Pride to toss her pride aside like a cheap bag and don a full-body gorilla suit for a dumb story on why retailers are selling Christmas stuff already.

Special K went out to Lowe’s, noting all the blow-up Santas and dancing penguins for sale. She also went to Target, where they were still trying to get their stuff out. Call it “Christmas creep,” she said. No, we’ll call it a dumb story idea. It told us nothing.

So Pride noted that all the Christmas stuff is going out on shelves, even though there’s lots of Halloween stuff out. Then she walked down a store aisle with the gorilla suit, and even put on the facemask. Ugh!

Mistrial
A second mistrial was declared in the trial of Billy Ray Byrd, a former rodeo star accused of second-degree murder in the shooting of his wife. The jury deadlocked 7-5 in favor of conviction, said Michelle Boudin, but that’s not good enough.

The jury forewoman said she clearly believed Billy Ray, who does look like he took some hooves to the head, had planned to murder his wife. But another jury member said she just didn’t think he was mentally capable of that type of pre-meditation and planning. After 12 hours of deliberations, the judge threw in the towel.

The same thing happened last year, although the jury did convict him of assualt with a deadly weapon with intent to kill. But at trial, Billy Ray’s wife got up on the stand and cried and said she still loved the big lunk. And Sean Devereaux, the public defender, is a frackin’ master at mesmerizing the women of a jury with his smart looks, nice tan and expensive cologne.

Note to Ron Moore: stop wasting my tax money. You’re not going to win this one. Billy Ray will do his 10 or 15 years on the lesser charge. Let it go.

In other news…
This weekend is Vance-Aycock weekend. Vance-Aycock is the big, statewide Democratic Party fundraiser that’s held each year up at the Grove Park Inn. So if you notice a bunch of people walking around wanting to shake your hand and give you a flyer, roll with it. Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue was over at UNCA to announce some sort of a new prescription drug plan for old people. And state Treasurer Richard Moore was at a local high school to talk about personal finance… That tainted spinach was tracked down to a cattle ranch in California… People are concerned about speeding traffic on Lakewood Road in Hendersonville, especially now that a new shopping center and Sam’s Club is opening Oct. 19. Sheraldo said a number of mailboxes have been taken out along the road that has tight curves and a 25 mph speed limit.

In celebrity news…
Sara Evans quit Dancing with the Stars to divorce her husband… Usher has sore throat and has to quit a Broadway show… and *Jennifer Anniston says she’s still kickin’ it with Vince Vaughan.

WLOS does not endorse Charles Taylor
WLOSers are wicked pissed over U.S. Rep. Charles Taylor ripping off a part of one of their stories for use in a television ad. Taylor used part of a lame Pat Simon “truth check” report about some other television ads, looking at the back-and-forth claims in Taylor’s ads and challenger Heath Shuler’s ads.

So Pat Simon had another story stressing that the teevee station was not endorsing the congressman. Simon said Taylor didn’t have the station’s permission to use its copyrighted video. Simon even went to McDowell County to track down Taylor and ask him about it. Taylor, standing on a school stage, told Simon that the video was “public domain” and open for fair use. It’s all about the First Amendment, Taylor said.

Simon then went to UNCA politicial scientist Dwight Mullen, who showed the commerciall to his class and said it appeared unethical and designed to confuse people. WLOS can’t refuse to air the ad because of election laws.

So that left Larry “Smoka” Bunt to end the report by thanking Pat, then righteously noting, “Clearly, it was taken out of context.”

In other news…
There’s a new mayor in Saluda. Not sure what happened to the old one… Ashvegas City Council wants to keep people riding buses even after the free rides end next month. Councilman Brownie Newman wants to lower fares to keep people riding, but Councilman Carl Mumpower said that’s stupid – we’re already spending mondo amounts of taxpayers’ dollars to run the buses. Newman says its dumb to spend all that money on something nobody will use… City leaders want you to change a light bulb. Use one with an Energy Star logo. Mayor Terry Bellamy even passed a proclamation. Change a light bulb, save the world.