Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 09:53, 19 September 2009

Karel is an American talk radio host, best known for his work on KGO in San Francisco, California before his firing by station management for controversial on-air statements. Bouley is also an occasional columnist for The Advocate.com, a contributing blogger for The Huffington Post. A currently out-of-print book of essays authored by Bouley, You Can't Say That, was published in 2004 by the LGBT publishing house, Alyson Press.

Biography

Charles Raymond Bouley, Jr. was born November 7, 1962 to father, Charles Raymond Bouley Sr. and mother, Rose Marie (née Tremblay) Bouley.

Before radio

Before his radio career, Bouley released a 1999 album entitled "Dance...Or Else"; named the number ten pick-of-the-year by Billboard's Dance Music editor Larry Flick. Bouley later recorded the single "Don't Stop" with Steve Bronski and the single "I Am" with Jellybean Benitez as well as "Take Your Heartache Away" also on the Jellybean label. Several of Bouley's recording projects included Thea Austin, a personal friend of Bouley and former lead singer of Snap!.

Radio talk show host

Bouley and his on and off-air partner, Andrew Howard, started in radio together at KYPA Los Angeles in addition to Triangle Broadcasting based in Palm Springs, California. For the latter, they hosted the program "Good Morning Gay America".

In 1998, Bouley and Howard became the first openly gay couple to host a drive-time radio show on a major station. At Los Angeles' KFI, the duo replaced John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou (known on-the-air as John and Ken) in the afternoon drive-slot.. The pair were moved from the afternoon drive to the evening drive slot, to accommodate Phil Hendrie's national feed time slot.

After twenty-two months on KFI, Bouley and Howard were replaced by returning hosts John and Ken in May 2001. KFI's owner was reportedly preparing to launch them on Los Angeles area station, but Howard's death on May 21 in the same year of cardiac arrest due to arteroscelorotic cardiovascular disease changed that course. Following Howard's death, Bouley went on to win a battle in appellate court in Los Angeles that allowed him to sue as a domestic partner in the alleged malpractice in Howard's death. His court victory effectively rewrote the wrongful death laws in California, making them retroactive. Karel returned to KFI and hosted his own talk-show there for almost a year after Andrew's death until he was fired by station management in 2002. It was then that he was hired by San Francisco radio station KGO.

Controversy

Ronald Reagan

On June 5, 2004, Bouley opened his weekend KGO program with a clip of The Wizard of Oz song, "Ding-Dong the Witch is Dead!" as a "tribute" to former President Ronald Reagan, who had died earlier that day. Bouley ranted about Reagan during the first two hours of his show because of what he saw as the inaction of Reagan and his administration in the face of the then-new AIDS crisis. On the Monday following Reagan's death, Bouley was castigated and panned by listeners in addition to being strongly reprimanded by KGO management. He later apologized on the air for choosing to air his comments the same day as the former president's death and later included an open letter of apology to Nancy Reagan in his book You Can't Say That.

Tony Snow

On March 27, 2007, Bouley wrote the following for the online The Huffington Post, regarding reports that White House spokesman Tony Snow had developed colon cancer:

"I hear about Tony Snow and say to myself, well, stand up every day, lie to the American people at the behest of your dictator-esque boss and well, how could a cancer not grow in you?"

Consequently, the draft was replaced and Bouley's inflammatory statements removed without a notation in the blog that it had been edited from the original version. The original post, however, got wide airplay in print, on television, and the internet, compelling Huffington Post editor Roy Sekoff to speak out about the issue on The O'Reilly Factor shortly after the row.

Joe The Plumber

When Karel was hosting his weekend 7-10 p.m. call-in program on KGO Saturday, November 1, 2008, the sound engineer unintentionally failed to mute Bouley's microphone during the national news break. When a reference to Joe the Plumber came up during the news, Karel was clearly heard on-air to yell "Fuck goddamn Joe the goddamn mother-fucking Plumber! I want mother-fucking Joe the Plumber dead!". Following the news break, Karel apologized to the audience for his comments, explaining that his words were not intended to be aired. Bouley's comments earned him the title "pinhead" from Bill O'Reilly on Fox's The O'Reilly Factor on Monday, Nov. 3, 2008. Karel posted on his website Nov. 4, 2008, that he had been "suspended pending review from KGO" and as of Nov. 5, 2008, his profile and blog on KGO's website were removed. On Nov. 6, 2008, KGO host Ronn Owens confirmed on-air that Bouley had been suspended indefinitely. KGO issued a news release on the afternoon of November 11, 2008 stating that Karel had been fired. Bouley stated on Nov. 11, 2008 via the blog on his web site that he had been fired from KGO. Bouley stated on November 11, 2008 on his own website blog that he takes responsibility for the incident but " not my fault", blaming the newly-hired KGO engineer instead. The entire blog entry has since been removed from Bouley's website, but is still viewable at the blogsite "Thoughts of A Conservative Mind". Bouley went on to blame KGO for his remarks being aired in Brad Kava's November 11, 2008 column in the S.F. Radio Examiner. He stated, "Weekends are cheap and they were using a cheap engineer for my show... shouldn't have had an inexperienced engineer for my show, which is done remotely, and in which the host doesn't have an on/off switch on his mic. They put an inexperienced driver in the seat and the show crashed."

Current life

Presently, Bouley hosts talk radio programs on both KRXA broadcasting from Monterey, California and KUDO broadcasting from Anchorage, Alaska.

Since his firing from KGO, Bouley has performed standup-comedy in the Rrazz Room at the Hotel Nikko in San Francisco.

Bouley is married platonically to longtime friend Karen Dittman for insurance protection; Dittman has since moved to Texas.

References

2. Kowalski, Eileen (4 June 2001), "Andrew Howard", Variety, retrieved 2008-11-19
3. ^ Moxley, Scott (27 Mar 2003), Dr. Kooshian vs. the Gay Community, retrieved 2009-09-17
4. Bronstad, Amanda (28 Mar 2005), "Surviving partner in gay couple can sue after revision of law", retrieved 2009-09-16
5. Bouley, Charles Karel (10 Oct 2006), "My Ground Zero of Fear", The Huffington Post, retrieved 2009-09-16
6. Bouley, Charles Karel (2007-03-27). "There's All Types of Cancers Growing". The Huffington Post.
7. "Video: Michelle versus HuffPo editor on O'Reilly". Hot Air. 2007-03-30.
8. http://newsbusters.org/blogs/k-daniel-glover/2008/11/12/liberal-talker-fired-over-joe-plumber-rant
9. "Ronn Owens Program". 2008-11-06. {{cite episode}}: Missing or empty |series= (help)
10. Bouley, Charles Karel (2008-11-11). "KGO Talk Host Karel Fired". Retrieved 2008-11-18.
11. Bouley, Charles Karel (2008-11-11). "Fired". Retrieved 2008-11-11.
13. Kava, Brad (2008-11-11). "Karel and engineer fired in one-paragraph e-mail and three-minute phone call". Retrieved 2008-12-06.
15. http://www.kudo1080.com/staff.asp
16. Kava, Brad (18 Nov 2008), Fired Radio Host Karel Back in San Francisco--With a Standup Comedy Act, retrieved 2009-09-19
17. Bouley, Charles Karel (2006-01-26). /blog/archivedblog.html "Time to Breathe". Retrieved 2008-12-06. {{cite web}}: Check |url= value (help)

External links

• Karel's official website
• "Charles Karel Bouley". The Huffington Post.

• Alternative journalists
• American political pundits
• American talk radio hosts
• Gay writers
• LGBT people from the United States
• LGBT radio personalities
• San Francisco, California radio personalities
• 1962 births
• Living people