When Radio Personalities Attack

I thought I'd seen a cat fight go nasty before, but the one going on between Mark Belling and Steve "The Homer" True really takes the cake.

Belling decided on Thursday to thrash Homer and Marquette for the University's decision to go with WAUK-AM as opposed to WISN-AM for basketball coverage. In typical Belling-tirade fashion, his comments escalated like the crescendo of a Beethoven symphony. Here are the highlights:

"As you know, the Marquette play-by-play guy, Steve 'The Homer' True, has been a Marquette whore for 10 years and has altered his positions and thrown softballs at Marquette, and defended them for years and years and years even if in the face of idiotic decisions," Belling said. "So they go to a station where they know that the on-air talent is going to defend their every move and get off the station where the on-air talent, like me, was critical of them.

"In return, however, in exchange for getting this money and going into a station where the on-air talent consists largely of a bunch of whores, they are going to have a much lower profile in the community.

"So we wish Marquette the best of luck as they go into the black hole of local radio," Belling said. "They get what they want - a station they can control, even if it has no listeners and a play-by-play guy who is just a whore."

Vintage Belling. Accordingly, Homer made his rebuttal on Friday. He claims Belling used the word "whore" intentionally, and cited Belling's unwillingness to let other personalities have bobbleheads or cruises as evidence of Belling being nothing but a fraud.

Most harsh, perhaps, was the Victors quip at the end. Ouch.

"Mark Belling has made a career out of saying he will tell the truth while everyone else is selling out. So while he will say publicly that I am a whore, he will privately. . . (try to) see that the whore remains at his radio station. He also speaks as a defender of competition and free enterprise. Open discussion of ideas, publicly. Privately. . . he is exactly the opposite, as any fraud is.

"The Mark Belling cruise - no one else at his station can have a cruise. Why? Because Mark Belling says so. He can be the only one that has a cruise. That, of course, by the edict of free enterprise and open competition.

"Now, I wish his station success without Marquette and no ill will here. I want to emphasize that. . . I assume since he is on the air he can't hear (what I've said), but you can e-mail him or visit him at Victor's every night."

I wonder if Belling is going to key Homer's car this week, or if Homer is going to teepee Belling's house. That would be awesome! I'll be sure to tune in to see if any more fireworks fly. This is better than daytime tv.