98.7 ESPN New York host Michael Kay created headlines earlier this week by threatening the job of a producer with the station’s morning show — DiPietro & Rothenberg — for his comments that Kay’s ratings were “on the decline”. Kay backtracked those comments by saying it was “performance art”, and it’s safe to say WFAN morning host Gregg Giannotti didn’t buy that excuse.
During Thursday’s episode of Boomer & Gio, the show closed with a discussion about Kay’s comments, and Giannotti ranted about Kay and his co-hosts Don La Greca and Peter Rosenberg.
“Gimme a break,” Giannotti said after mentioning La Greca and Rosenberg backed Kay. “You don’t have to sit there and bootlick him any longer. He’s gonna retire. It doesn’t matter whether you kiss his ass or not, it’s not gonna be the difference in you getting that job when he leaves. Just stop it. Just stop kissing his ass. He was wrong. Call him out for it. He was absolutely wrong. It’s not performance art. You were pissed off.”
Giannotti continued by saying it was an easy position for Kay to apologize.
“So how about coming on the air and being like ‘You know what? I stepped over the line, I was really mad in the moment, I shouldn’t have threatened that guy’s job, I talked to him off the air, I’m sorry for doing that.’ But instead I gotta believe it’s performance art?,” said Giannotti as his volume grew.
“Are you freaking kidding me?! If it is performance art, why are you pulling back the curtain?! Does the magician show you where he keeps the rabbit before he pulls it out of the hat?! If you’re such a great performer, then continue your bit! But then you pulled back the curtain to tell everybody about it ’cause you weren’t man enough to step up and say you were wrong!”
The WFAN host then took umbrage with Kay potentially abusing his power and standing at the New York radio station.
“And for someone to be in the business as long as he has and to pull that kinda bullcrap was embarrassing. Absolutely embarrassing. I sit here and I bust everybody’s balls, I’ll point out mistakes, but if I ever — EVER — go out on the air or go back to Spike Eskin and say ‘This guy needs to be fired’, you have permission to punch me right in the face. Because that is a ridiculous — ridiculous — abuse of power.
“And that’s a guy who I think had no way out and couldn’t admit he was wrong, and painted this bullcrap picture that he’s some sort of a performer. Jesus Christ, performance art from Michael Kay?! Performance art?! What, are you a part of the Blue Man Group?! What do you mean performance art?! He’s about the least performance art person I can think about — EVER — that I know.”
Co-host Boomer Esiason agreed that Kay was legitimately angry and was understanding that Kay would be angry that someone at his own station would have that opinion, but said Kay was trying to “big time a low level employee at that station”.
Giannotti then continued by saying it’s the first time he’s listened to The Michael Kay Show and it’s been compelling, before adding “the two stooges in the sidecar (Rosenberg and La Greca) tongue-bathing him, that was even more embarrassing,” followed by noises of tongue bathing. He concluded the segment by sarcastically saying his entire rant about Kay was performance art, so none of it was true or really mattered.
