What's the Frequency, Kenneth?!


Posted On: Saturday - June 3rd 2017 9:56PM MST
In Topics: 
  Music  TV, aka Gov't Media  Humor

This post is necessary to lighten things up after the gloomy previous one about the US Police State apparatus and the curmudgeonly one before that. If you haven't heard this true story, you'll enjoy it. Even it you have, this is to refresh your memory and put on a good rock "piece" to end the day.

Dan Rather, is a former member of the Lyin' Press as anchorman of CBS news for 25 long years, having taken over from Walter Cronkite (that's how long ago). This guy is most known reasonably recently from such doctored documents as a supposed memo about President George W. Bush's Air Guard service record in 2004 (hey, we have ZERO admiration for the Bushes, but the truth will suffice). Here's probably more than you'd want to know about that.

Anyhoo, while walking around Manhattan, NYC on or about (sounds professional, right?) Oct. 4th of 1986, Mr. Rather was assaulted by a crazyman who, while punching him nicely about the head and body, kept shouting "Kenneth, what's the frequency!" Besides the funny part about the well-deserved beating up of this Lyin' Press piece-of-work, that line cracks me up. Nobody knew who the guy was till a decade later when a guy named William Tager was jailed for murder of a stagehand of the Today Show on a different network, NBC. Rather identified the guy as his assailant from a decade past.

What's the Frequency, Kenneth!? Hahaa, it never gets old. Mr. Rather would end his 1/2 hour TV broadcast with "Courage" for a short period just after the time of his beat-down. It sounded pretty damn nutty, but I guess it WAS kind of courageous of him to not give out the frequency.

What DID this Mr. Tager mean about the frequency? Apparently he was under the impression that he was having signals beamed directly into his head. He needed to know the frequency to jam it, I suppose, and I guess he mistook Dan Rather for this "Kenneth", an honest mistake. Though I appreciate the unsuccessful effort by Mr. Tager in trying to put the kibosh on the Lyin Press early in the game, I could have saved him some effort: Yes, you ARE getting signals beamed into your brain, and this particular frequency is Channel 10, least where I live. You know what to do about it. Anything else, guys, just click at the bottom to comments for your questions.

REM sings "What's the Frequency Kenneth" from their 1994 album Monster, and again, the songs (especially REM!) are good no matter what the steeenkin' lyrics:




Here's the part where Peak Stupidity explains in detail how this REM song relates to the What's the frequency, Kenneth incident. We'd be glad to, could we understand a damn thing Michael Stipe was singing there!

Suggested follow-up work for readers: With the many readers of Peak Stupidity all around this world, we request a small favor. Could anyone living in close proximity to the perp Mr. Tager - I'm sure he's out on good behavior by now (possibly the 1/2-way house or even a 90% house by now) - slip him a note from Peak Stupidity? He needs to know that one Ms. Rachel Maddow of New York City has all of the frequencies he's been looking for. Yes Rachel emm ... ay .. double-dee, yeah you got it, ... yes, New York City.


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UPDATE [6/5/17]: Added reader suggestion.
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