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Ron & Jen’s Great Escape, November 8, 2023 – Ron St. Pierre and Jen Brien
by Ron St. Pierre and Jen Brien, commentary
“6 signs you’re a borderline alcoholic: Many don’t know where the line is”
Yep. That’s a headline this week. I shook my head. Not in judgement (necessarily) but rather, because that last part of it is so incredibly stupid.
Unless you’re a 15-year-old “party animal”, you know if you drink too much. If you need some clues and you’re unsure let me help you out:
1.) Everyone is whispering about you as you walk into the office after the company “Holiday Party”.
2.) You get taken away in a ambulance from work because of “severe dehydration”.
3.) You have to peek out your window in the morning to make sure your car is in the driveway after a banger because you can’t remember how you got home.
4.) You wake up next to a total stranger in your bed.
5.) You frantically search for your phone to review your texts from the night before.
6.) You have been drinking EVERY DAY for the past year… years.
7.) YOUR FRIENDS suggest you dry out at a yoga retreat.
8.) You lose your dream job and get fired.
9.) You never get invited to anything.
10.) People keep sharp objects from you at the dinner table.
Not that I know first hand about any of this (snarky comment)… but you know your truth. You gotta be real with yourself before you can be real in the world.
Till next week my friends,
Jen
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SOME GOOD, SOME BAD
Sure the extra hour of sleep was nice over the weekend as we “fell back” an hour but the gloom of darkness settling in at 4:30 wiped out the joy of 60 minutes more shut eye. So, how do Americans really feel about the time change? While 22% say they welcome the practice of moving clocks an hour forward or backward every fall and every spring, 21% are neutral and 57% don’t like it at all. How can you be neutral? 75% of the respondents say it’s unnecessary. 83% believe Daylight Savings Time fails to achieve its primary goal of conserving energy. 70% think the practice is a waste of time and money. The top reason Americans oppose DST? It disrupts their sleep.
THANKSCHRISTMAS
Yes, we made up the word. The day after Halloween is considered to be the kickoff of the holiday season for some of us, which is WAY too soon for others. Research shows that thanks to Christmas ads starting as early as right after Labor Day, the majority of Americans feel burned out by the time Santa’s squeezing himself down the chimney. 82% experience “Christmas Fatigue” from all the advertisements, decorations and sales events by the time December 25th rolls around. 48% feel stores should wait until November to put up decorations, while 21% think they should wait until December. The survey also had some bad news for all the radio stations that go wall-to-wall Christmas music before Thanksgiving, with 75% saying they find the tunes “annoying”. Let’s label that Burl Ives Burnout!
PATHETIC PATS
The Patriots haul their 2-7 fannies to Frankfurt, Germany for game 10 Sunday to play the 4-5 Indianapolis Colts. The game will air at 9:30 EST and is only available on the NFL NETWORK. Look at the bright side, another loss is likely to be over early so you can get it out of your system. The Pats, by the way, are the only team in the NFL not to win a game out of their conference.
SPORTS LINGO
Don’t you get a kick out of athletes who say “we take it one game at a time?”… as if there’s an option.
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Egon Spengler Was Right
The Pawtucket Times and Woonsocket Call… both owned by the Triboro Massachusetts News Bureau (who?) are now combined as THE BLACKSTONE VALLEY CALL & TIMES. The Pro-Jo’s (owned by life-sucking Gannet) Sunday headline story was about mushrooms and was several pages long (I counted 5, Charlie Bakst counted 3) WTF is going on with our local newspapers? As the Journal digressed, Cianci on radio started calling it the “pamphlet” (one of the few good lines he didn’t steal from me… LOL) Phillipe and Jorge (man, I miss the Phoenix) called it “THE URINAL”… Buddy, Rudy and Chip (God rest) were right.
Local print is virtually dead…..or as Buddy would spell it in a rage D-E-D!
FALLING BACK
So, once again we “fell back” an hour last weekend. We gain an hour of sleep and lose an hour of daylight. Our question is WHY are we told to set the clock back an hour (or ahead an hour, come March 10th 2024) at 2am? Does anyone actually stay up til then to adjust the cukoo? It’s all thanks to the railroads, Amtrak specifically. When the country first experimented with Daylight Savings time in 1918 during WWI, there were actually no trains that left New York City at 2 am on Sunday. “Sunday mornings at 2 am was when they would interrupt the least amount of train travel around the country. There were even fewer freight trains in the early 20th century than there are today, so it made most sense changing the clocks at 2am would not be disruptive.
HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL
Major League Baseball general managers meetings are underway in Scottsdale Arizona with the Red Sox’ freshly hired head of baseball operations, Craig Breslow at the helm. He’s tasked with not only making this team better on the team but also with making them relevant again. Under fired top ops guy Chaim Bloom, the Sox ownership mantra was to build up the farm system while keeping the on-field product competitive. Well, he achieved half on his marching orders and was shown the door. The Red Sox need to look to the World Champion Texas Rangers as a template. Open the checkbook for free agents and also be gutsy enough to trade some of the surplus of prospects Bloom piled up. The Sox have a cornucopia of mid-level prospects to deal plus a BIG checkbook. A return to relevancy is just a John Henry signature and Breslow’s testicular fortitude away.
A VIEW FROM THE SNOUT
Hazel here! There are MANY things I love about my mom and dad (Patti and Ron) but I think the most is how they appreciate the fact that it’s MY walk. I’m sure they’d prefer our daily romps would be at a brisk pace for their challenging waistline needs, but they recognize this is MY time to stop and sniff. I’m sure they don’t understand why a certain spot in a pile of leaves, or one bush out of ten draws my interest and we need to stop… but they respect my NEED TO SNIFF and it doesn’t go without my appreciation. This month marks 8 years since my adoptive parents rescued me from some puppy mill ogre who tried selling me and my six siblings out of the back of a van before his despicable practice was sniffed out by Rhode Island authorities and we were put in the hands of the RISPCA for adoption. Not a day goes by I don’t look at them and wag my tail in appreciation… and, of course, look for a treat. Adoption’s the way to go folks, so if you looking for some canine companionship, please adopt! I’m sure glad they did! Woof!
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Read all of Ron & Jen’s columns, here: https://rinewstoday.com/ron-st-pierre-jen-brien/
Ron St. Pierre is a veteran broadcaster whose career has spanned over four decades. Ron has programmed, performed on and managed WHJJ, WPRO, WWRX, 790 The Score in Providence, as well as WBZT and WKGR in West Palm Beach and WABC in New York City. Ron also anchored sports on WPRI Ch 12 in Providence. He is a member of both the Rhode Island Radio and Television and the City of Pawtucket Halls of Fame. He was born and raised in Pawtucket.
Jen Brien has over 20 years of radio broadcast experience having hosted shows on WPRO and WHJJ with Ron as well as her own shows on WRKO and WBZ in Boston, WXTK on Cape Cod and WHAM in Rochester, New York. Jen was born and raised in Woonsocket and served six years in the Army MP Canine Unit.
Hazel, Ron’s dog, makes regular appearances.
“Ron and Jen’s Great Escape” podcast, a more lighthearted look at the events happening around us, can be found on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts, with new episodes premiering each Wednesday and listen to Ron and Jen’s Great Escape on NewsRadio 920 and 104-7 FM, Saturday morning, 7am!