‘Wee for a Wii’ 3 returns

Water Torture: Ex-KDND/The End disc jockeys Lukas Cox and Steve Maney boldly emerged from their media cocoons last week to announce they remained very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very sorry for January’s drinking-water death of 28-year-old mother of three Jennifer Strange—as a result of their Morning Rave “Hold Your Wee for a Wii” contest—and, oh yes, one other thing: the deejays are suing their former employer.

Freed by their highly paid mouthpieces to squawk to any and all microphones and notetakers, the pair first gave their scoop to the Bee (curses, earlier daily newspaper deadlines!) then blabbed to anyone and everyone, especially local and national television.

Sure, it seemed to some unseemly—not that Bites wouldn’t have been all over it like urine on a computer-game console if we coulda got it first. After all, who could resist teary-eyed media junk food like Cox’s pleadings to KCRA-TV?

“It’s been the hardest six months of my life,” he told rapt viewers. “I’ve never been fired from a job like this before, for something I didn’t do—that wasn’t my fault.” He claimed the same station management that fired him made him hold the contest (what, with a Wiimote to his head?), which he figured had to be approved by the KDND legal department (after all, they did greenlight the crew’s earlier “Hold Your Fart for a Dodge Dart” contest).

What on God’s green terra firma bothered Cox the most?

Losing a listener.

Yep, that’s one miniscule percentage of a rating point that ain’t never coming back, Bucky!

Just ask Jennifer Strange’s kids.

All things considered, she’d rather be in Orlando: While the boys were doing their thing in Sacramento—where, get this, they hope to someday return to the radio airwaves (in some other fashion than being the subject of a crime investigation broadcast, presumably)—the third member of the Morning Rave on-air trifecta also gave an interview.

On the opposite The End of the continent, the Orlando Sentinel’s radio columnist interviewed Jayde, the relatively new brassy and upbeat female foil to WXXL’s Johnny Magic. Before taking the Florida gig, Jayde was KDND’s Trish, short for her real name, Patricia Sweet.

“It’s not something I like to talk about,” Sweet/Jayde/Trish told the Sentinel of the infamous Wee/Wii incident. “I mean, there’s not a day goes by that I don’t think about it … and her. It’s something I’m going to take with me the rest of my life.”

Yes, especially when enterprising reporters track you down despite the name change and ask you about it over and over and over again, as they will do when her former morning jokers keep going public, the case takes major twists and turns or on the anniversary of that tragic day. (Unlike reasons for going to war, the media doesn’t forget this shit!)

Indeed, Sweet represents the holder of the smoking gun that January day, as tapes reveal her questioning her co-hosts about the contest:

“Can’t you get water poisoning and, like, die?”

Ouch!

“Maybe we should have researched this.”

Double ouch!

Sweet was but one of 10 KDND employees fired because of the stunt, and her overlords at the Orlando ClearChannel station defend her hiring, saying her new job is unrelated to the last one and she deserves a second chance.

Just ask Jennifer Strange’s kids.

Parting is such sweet sorrow: Remember that first Krispy Kreme encounter? Remember the lines of cars circling around the place that made you wonder what all the fuss was about? Remember that first bite of mouth-watering wonderfulness—which explained what all the fuss was about?

Well, guess what? At 9 p.m. Friday, the last Sacramento Krispy Kreme shuts its doors at Greenback Lane and Sunrise Boulevard. Trans fats and accounting errors doomed the chain financially not so long after it went public, not so long after its doughnuts started popping up in grocery stores, not so long after Krispy Kreme just didn’t seem so special anymore.

Mark Bites’ words: The Kreme will rise again! Having to schlep to Mountain View(!) or Daly City(!!) to get those scrumptious love-handle makers will reposition them as a worth-driving-miles-for sensation all over again.

Remember, we like the glazed.