Margin Notes: Names, Introductions, Passings

TORONTO, ONTARIO - One of the most clever transit marketing brands I've ever encountered is Tempe, Arizona's "Orbit" free shuttle buses. The Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, and Jupiter routes serve portions of the city, mostly near the Arizona State University campus, with "Forward" buses running clockwise and "Back" buses running counter-clockwise on the routes. I particularly like the signs on the "Earth Back" route which seem to promise bringing one back to Earth. However, the planetary analogy is not perfect--the routes are not concentric loops and instead radiate out from the Tempe Transit Center, and one route (Mars) didn't start at the same place as the other ones. The routes are changing effective 25-January-2010, and will soon all serve the Tempe Transit Center, so I see no reason not to rank "Orbit" up with other great transit names I blogged about recently.

* * * * * *

Jimmy Winkelmann certainly thought he had a great name when he came up with the South Butt line of clothing as a comedic take on the ever-present North Face brand. However, as Winkelmann started making enough money off the South Butt to pay his way through college, the North Face has decided to sue. If the humorous but legally questionable response to the lawsuit posted on the smaller company's web site is any indication, saying that people can tell difference between a face and a butt may not be enough to save it from at least having to change its visual imaging.

* * * * * *

CBS News has changed its audio imaging at the beginning of the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric, as was immediately apparent to me upon seeing the show while traveling. Since Couric's premier as anchor, the voice of legendary newsman Walter Cronkite had been voicing the introduction. Leave it to the CBC's As It Happens to point out that perhaps having a deceased person do the introduction was a bit too much gravity for the broadcast. Whatever the reason, the introduction to the CBS Evening News is now voiced by actor Morgan Freeman. There's nothing wrong with Freeman's voice, but I didn't recognize it. I recognized Walter Cronkite's. That doesn't strike me as an improvement.

* * * * * *

The Dave Ross show on KIRO-FM in Seattle has also changed its introduction, again, and this time I think it is an improvement. Now, the theme music is the Don Henley song "Dirty Laundry". This may be the perfect song for a talk show, with lyrics like:

Kick'em when they're up
Kick'em when they're down
Kick'em when they up
Kick'em all around

and

I make my living off the evening news
Just give me something-something I can use
Please love it when you lose
They love dirty laundry

Is there a more perfect description of a radio talk show? Using this song for a talk show theme ranks right up there in my mind with using Gary Numan's "Cars" as the theme for traffic reports, something I first heard on WMMB-AM in Melbourne, Florida.

* * * * * *

I may not miss the old Dave Ross theme, but I will miss Mike Pulsipher, who died last Sunday. For most of my childhood, Pulsipher was a CBS news anchor, amongst other things the host of the Saturday edition of the World News Roundup. If you heard continuous live coverage on the radio of the Gulf War in 1990, most likely you were listening to Pulsipher, who did an amazing job when I was listening. After I moved to California, he turned up as the afternoon anchor on legendary local news station KCBS in San Francisco, and remained as an afternoon or evening anchor there until his retirement about two years ago. Ever the trooper, I remember one afternoon when I was visiting the area in 2005 when Pulsipher worked his own shift as well as that of Jeff Bell and Patti Reising, right through 2 pm to 9 pm practically solo. With anyone else, I would have been listening for a screw-up in the marathon; with Pulsipher, I kept listening because I knew it would stay good, and it did. He was 61.