Jason Sandford
Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.
Le up, Le down
Normally we save Jon “Punnyman” Le for last, but we thought we’d lead off with him this time ’round.
The Punnyman is erratic, as we’ve noted before. Sometimes spot on, most times just spotty. The past two nights sum it up.
Wednesday night, Le did some lame story about a white guy from up north who plays the blues and opened up for the legendary Buddy Guy, who played the Orange Peel.
Le had everything – an interview, video, music – of the white guy. Not Buddy Guy. Everything about the white guy. Nothing but some vid of Buddy Guy. Who cares about some white guy not even from around here? Could you just not score the interview with Buddy? Was that it?
But the Punnyman bounced back Thursday night with a feel-good classic – the nudie cancer calendar that’s not really nudie. Seems that, for the second year in a row, a bunch of cancer survivors in Hooterville posed topless – but with some well-placed cupcakes – for a calendar sold to raise money for cancer research. Le handled the story and his subjects with dignity and respect, including a fellow WLOSer who happens to grace the calendar cover (gee, wonder where he got the story idea). Nice job.
Tammy does Chewy
Tallahassee Tammy, whom we normally enjoy for her vivacious personality, crossed the line Thursday at 5:30 when she tried a Star Wars Chewbacca impression.
The story was about the actor who played the famous Star Wars character becoming an American citizen. But Tammy took it too far, first asking co-anchor Scottie2Hottie to give it a try. When he wouldn’t take the hairy bait, Tammy had to do her impression, some pitiful noise that sounded like a constipated Cuervo. When her joke bombed, Scottie just shot us all a knowing look, like “How ya like me now – I just totally tricked Tammy into a Chewbacca impression!”
Nice one, Swickman.
The ‘hand-thingy’
Speaking of Scottie, he must have been feeling it, because he also tweaked Cuervo after Cuervo’s self-serving report on himself visiting a local school to talk about – of all things – accuracy and weather forecasting. (Bwwwaaaaa-ha-ha!)
So after the report, Scottie asks Cabana Boy, “Did you show them how to do that hand-thingy,” and moves his hand around, pointing. Cabana Boy just looked at the camera and didn’t say a word. No bait swallowed there.
Soapbox
There was a nice little soapbox report Thursday, only nobody got up on the damn soapbox.
First, there was a cute little old lady named Edna sitting on a bench who barely got her feet up on the box. Then there was some guy in a wheelchair who wasn’t on the box at all, so they propped it up in front of him. I guess there were one or two others on the box, but still.
Weak. At least give ’em a mike or something if they can’t have the power of the box.
