OP-ED -- New Year’s Eve is almost upon us. As the CEO of San Narciso’s premier radio station, I don’t focus a lot of attention on television. Moving images take away from the sound spectra that surround us, the chords and frequencies and timbers and harmonics. But old films, the classics, now that’s where it’s at. Where it’s always been, right? Where the writing mattered. Where it was about the words, people, not the visual distractions. And it seems the only time we get to partake is around the holidays.

So what the hell is going on here? I’m speaking to you, Rolf Funch, president of RJ Fletcher Communications. What kind of world makes us sit through Dick Clark’s loathsome post-stroke aphasia during every New Year’s Eve special from now until the End Time, out of some misguided notion of tradition? I recall the first time I had to see it. Nearly put me off my lunch. It was one of those horrific and intolerable moments where I was forced to feel embarrassment for another human being. But it was Dick Clark. And that’s a tradition. An American tradition.