The sad life of Jeff Dubay

I get Google alerts when Jeff Dubay makes the news. It's weird, I know, but I'm always curious to know why his name resurfaces. 

I was aware he had been in legal trouble in North Dakota, and I learned in late January that Dubay was sentenced to 20 years in prison. But it appears that if he minds his business while in the slammer, he will serve five years of that sentence. 

Here's what the Grand Forks newspaper had to say: 

A Grand Forks man was ordered Tuesday, Jan. 20, to serve five years for Class A felony possession of at least 50 grams of methamphetamine with intent to deliver.

Jeffrey John Dubay, 58, was approached by local law enforcement after exiting the Amtrak train on May 17, according to a declaration of probable cause summary filed in the case. Law enforcement had obtained a search warrant for Dubay and his luggage while he traveled from Minneapolis to Grand Forks.

Inside the backpack, law enforcement located approximately 178 grams, or 6.28 ounces, of methamphetamine, including the weight of the baggie, the summary said.

The story goes on to note he identified a woman as the source of the meth he was carrying. Her legal fate was still pending as of late January.

A day before he was sentenced to up to 20 years in prison, he was blowing out 58 candles on his birthday cake. 

I was stunned by the timeline when I started reading his Wikipedia page and other info about him. He was fired by KFAN radio in 2008, so he'd have been 40 years old at that time. The guy was prominent and reasonably successful in Minneapolis-St. Paul radio for about a decade at that point. He wasn't getting rich quick, but he wasn't living a meager life, that much I recall. He was doing well enough to afford a boat, cruise Lake Minnetonka occasionally and may have had a lake cabin of some kind during his better days. He was married at one point, as well. He was living a dream. 

The story goes that his marriage crumbled, and that his brother not only was responsible, but ended up with his ex-wife, and I think Dubay said in an interview that they had a child together. He didn't blame the infidelity for his drug addiction, but I could see how that would be a bitter pill to swallow.

In the nearly 18 years since he was fired by KFAN, he has had recurring run-ins with the law for his drug offenses. I think there are more incidents than have made the news. In 2018 he was convinced in an assault case that stemmed from a 2017 incident in Cottage Grove. 

A recap of the case suggested that Dubay may have been having sex with a couple of women, and it was not Three's Company at the Cottage Grove home where the assault allegedly occurred in 2017. The woman he appeared to have assaulted had two prosthetic legs and had trouble fleeing the scene when Dubay allegedly turned violent. 

Dubay thinks he was the victim of a trumped up bunko charge, according to a Pioneer Press story.  

Dubay told the Pioneer Press in December that he disputed the victim’s account and that he planned to plead not guilty when he showed up in court, but was “never given that chance.”

“I was told that if I pleaded not guilty, then my charge would be changed to first-degree assault, and I’d have to go to a jury trial with a potential for a seven- to eight-year prison term,” Dubay said. “I was not willing to risk seven to eight years of my life and put it in the unpredictable hands of a jury. Anything could happen then.”

He got a mild sentence in that case, two years after his second drug conviction. 

I know there were a few arrests between 2018 and his Grand Forks arrest. I didn't easily find documentation, but I've seen it before. 

One story you can find is the weird tale of him being stopped by Minnesota State Patrol in March 2024 and ultimately pleading guilty to a simple case of driving while on drugs. 

The guilty plea comes after Dubay told the Star Tribune that the allegations against him are "full of misinformation and horrible assumptions."

The Bring Me The News summary of the arrest and guilty plea, for which he served 10 days of a 90-day sentence, also included this popular nugget from stories of the initial arrest. 

Dubay was found inside the Jeep "naked by covered by a blanket." He was also covered in vegetable oil.

I never heard the explanation for the vegetable oil.

If you google Dubay a bit further, you find, -- on reddit of all places -- somebody citing detailed info claiming Dubay rear-ended a Metro Transit bus in 2024. He had no license and his vehicle's registration was expired. (Shocking.)

A year later Metro Transit was trying to collect $13,000 for the damage to the bus, but was having a hard time reaching Dubay. Then came the Amtrak train incident and somehow Dubay was able to respond in court from jail in North Dakota, saying he had no money/assets to pay for the damage to the bus. 

I've never seen that story anywhere other than on reddit, but it sounds like a Dubay misadventure. 

We don't know when Dubay started taking drugs to cope with life as a successful sports talk radio co-host whose personal life wasn't so great, allegedly. 

Some people have a hard time controlling their urges. Some harm only themselves. Some harm others. Some seek help and turn their life around. Some repeat the same mistakes. 

We all know folks who fit into each of those categories. Dubay fits most of those categories, and all of the wrong ones.

Why did things go south for Dubay? Why has he failed to clean up his act and kick the habit? I think he has claimed in the past to be sober, but it obviously didn't last. And he posted on his social media account that he's sober now as he is about to begin his five-year staycation in a grey bar hotel.

Years ago I predicted it was going to end badly for Dubay. He's still alive, and now he's going to give up five years of his life. And if he gets out after five years, what kind of a future does a 63-year-old felon have after more than two decades of destroying his life? 

His social media post had a lot of comments offering words of encouragement. People root for him. I don't know why. 

Perhaps there's something to like about him, but he seems to blame the system for at least some of his past situations. 

From what I saw on his social media history, he's not simply a political conservative. He's a right wing jackass. I get some people want to believe one party is always on the right side of history, but Dubay is an asshole about it. And isn't shy about being an asshole. 

Yet people root for him. 

I named this blog after Dubay because he's a pompous jerk. All these years later, and after all his legal troubles, he still is. 

If he can do something meaningful and worthwhile with his life going forward, I'll applaud him. Isn't that what we want for everyone? 

I created this blog nearly 12 years ago. I haven't used it in a few years, by design. Yet here we are, nearly 12 years later, and I'm still writing about Dubay. He beat the odds thus far, at least in my opinion. I never game a timeline, but I figured it would all end badly for him. And maybe it will. 

I'm not rooting for him. But he has survived this long. Perhaps he'll get his life on track before he reaches the final station in his mortal journey. 

I do wish that for him. 

Do you love Jeff Dubay more than he hates you?

When I started this blog a little over two years ago, I needed some random, slightly clever title for it, emphasis on slightly.

Jeff Dubay seemed like the perfect minor broadcasting "celebrity" worthy of immortalizing with this blog. Little did I know his life would implode, again, soon after I launched the blog. I'm not a fan of his schtick, but I do root for him, despite his appetite for self-destruction.

My goal was never to build a a vast online audience or a social media empire, I just wanted a place for opinions to be shared on people who think they're really, really special because they are seen or heard daily in the Twin Cities.

I have promoted the blog a bit, but I've mostly given that up. I tried promoting it via a couple of avenues, but I've since come to enjoy watching blog postings find their audience organically. I share each blog post via Google, and usually tweet a link to it once or twice, otherwise I'm rather low key when it comes to promotion.

I won't cite a lot of analytics, but I will share a few interesting tidbits when I look at how this modest collection of essays has reached the masses during the two years I've churned out content.

I'm averaging about 12 posts a year, and I never intended for this blog to have weekly content.

I'm not delusional, page views are no promise that a viewer has read a word I wrote. But that's one of the few measurements I have available in trying to decide if anyone notices the content I create.

I've tried a few experiments with Google and learned that my blog postings are near the top of Google searches for some of the broadcasters I've toasted.

Number one, easily, is Alix Kendall.

My April 2014 blog post about Kendall and her lawsuit against the cops has generated more than 13,000 page views in nearly two years.

I'm no analytical genius, but it doesn't take one to know that female TV broadcasters are frequently Googled.

Kendall must be quite popular with the Googlers of the Twin Cities. As a matter of fact, there's a blog site that features thousands of pictures of newswomen nationwide wearing boots. (Rena Sarigianopoulos, my new least favorite broadcaster, has been featured on the site.) That blog started as a site dedicated to the worship of Kendall.

So the fact that Kendall generates the most traffic to this blog is not a surprise. I should probably write about her more often just for the web traffic, but I'm not as fascinated by her, or her boots, as some people.

It's a close race for first runner up. The edge goes to a guy known on KFAN radio as Meatsauce.

His post grabbed a lot of attention in June 2014 because I tweeted the link to him, and he tweeted the link to his followers. As you'd expect, Paul Lambert wasn't enamored with my critique of his success in radio. I don't hate him, I don't love him and I didn't flatter him when I reviewed his charmed life, but he shared my writing, perhaps to rally those who love him to his defense. It worked, it appeared, as my blog post about him blew up quicker than any other I've written.

But ultimately Kendall proved to be more appealing to the Internet than Lambert, not to my surprise, so he's a distant second with barely half of Kendall's page views.

In third place, not far behind Lambert, is a post about Kelsey Soby. I've penned a couple of posts about Soby, but it was the first one that has her at more than 6,000 page views. Not to my surprise she generates a lot of Internet steam, although that has slowed down thanks to her retirement from being a morning traffic babe.

In fourth place is my post about Emily Engberg. The out-and-about imp for the channel 5 afternoon chat fest is easy on the eyes, and she has managed to generate nearly 5,000 page views.

From there things drop off dramatically. No other blog post has generated 2,000 page views. The closest would be a long dissection of Jason Matheson's career. That post is a steady performer, helped in part by the fact that a Google search of his name sometimes puts my posting at the bottom of page 1. He's no Engberg, clearly, but he's an established broadcaster that has a strong name in this market. So thanks, buddy, for the blog traffic. I'm not a loyal fan of his work, but I like his attitude, so it's hard to root against him.

Some of my older blog posts have low page views, often because I didn't drop a name into the title, I suspect. Name checking the primary subject, if there is one, helps generate traffic. Posts that don't have a name in them are the worst performers, according to page views.

Although I have several post titles that reference Dubay, none of them top 1,000 page views. And my very first post, about Dennis "Rusty" Gatenby, has more page views than any Dubay post, although it, too, has less than 1,000 page views.

Showing promise is a November 2015 post about Shayne Wells, the new traffic babe at FOX 9. It has nearly 1,400 page views, which is pretty good compared to everything I've written about Dubay.

Another measurement of interest in the comments I receive. None of my posts receive a truckload of comments, and the comment tally includes responses I make, and I respond in some capacity to most of the comments I receive.

Many posts have no comments, but the post with the most is my Lambert analysis. His total is due, in part, to the fact he tweeted it to his followers, and several of them read it, and responded. The post manages to generate an occasional comment nearly two years later.

Kendall gets the most page views, but her post is second when it comes to comments. She has never tweeted a link to my writing, to the best of my knowledge, so I'm guessing that has something to do with it.

My first post about Soby is the third most popular with those who comment. Beyond that my blog has a small, random handful of comments.

These numbers don't tell you a lot, and I don't care. I just wanted a snapshot for comparison purposes should I continue this blog in the years to come.

One last note, my post about Keith Leventhal is doing pretty well. It has nearly 1,000 page views, which is impressive given nobody in the Twin Cities knows who he is. I suspect half of that traffic is due to the fact he visits the post on a daily basis.

Carla Beaurline must be a handful

I don't write enough short blog entries about the wonderful world of Twin Cities broadcasters. I need to rectify that.

I wrote about some of our cable access TV stars not so long ago. One of them was the lovely Carla Beaurline. After I wrote about her I did a big of Googling, and I found out that she was once a national television pitch woman. She once worked for the Eden Prairie-based shopping channel that has had several names and incarnations over the years, and did so for more than a decade. While our local shopping channel appears to be the low-rent version of cable shopping channels, it does have a national platform, and those hosts become national personalities for the millions who haven't discovered eBay or Amazon.

Turns out that Beaurline and current Eden Prairie pitch woman Wendi Russo, who seems to have a QVC-sized ego, don't like each other. Now that's hilarious.

I also noted in my cable access TV stars piece that Mike Woodley was allegedly a legitimate broadcasting talent at one point. Not so long ago the "Common Man" Dan Cole was spinning a yarn about the infancy of KFAN radio and nearly started telling a Woodley story. Woodley was part of the on-air talent in those early days, an era where I wasn't tuned into the station. (Not living in the Twin Cities had a lot to do with that.)

I suspect the Woodley tidbit is common knowledge to longtime rubes, but I don't think I had ever heard this.

But it's good to see Woodley has solidly built upon his broadcasting career since hosting a program on the fledging Twin Cities sports talk radio station.

The charmed life of Paul Lambert

You've got to admire Paul "Meatsauce" Lambert.

I don't know the full story behind the rise of Lambert, but it's a great story. (I've heard the story behind his Meatsauce nickname, but I don't quite remember how it goes, and I have no interest in hearing it again.)

Here's my assessment of Lambert's schtick: You take a guy with mediocre, at best, broadcasting skills, add a dash of pudginess and top it with a little self-deprecation and somehow you get a success story that's too good to be true.

I don't remember how long it has been since Lambert found his way onto the KFAN airwaves, but he started as a bit player on the station's morning show, as best as I understand it. (I can't tolerate the morning show, so I rarely listen for more than 10 minutes.) Desperate for whatever minimal hourly wage the station was willing to pay him, seemingly, Lambert would show up anywhere and everywhere he could. Whenever there was a job to do later in the broadcast day, Lambert would stick around and fill the seat. He seemed to end up sitting in on Dan Barreiro's show most often.

As time went on Lambert became a prominent player on the KFAN morning show, despite the fact he seemed to play the fool most of the time. He has never developed a polished, competent on-air persona, but that doesn't seem to slow him down. It's as if people want to listen to a guy who sounds as if he has no business on a major market radio station.

As I noted, Lambert was a bit doughy. Nobody would describe him as debonair. But a few years ago he decided it was time to stop looking the part of a slob as he played the role of the doofus, so he started to lose weight. That hardly explained what happened next.

His improbable career in major market radio wasn't enough, evidently. Lambert pulled another horseshoe out of his rear end. He married the easy-on-the-eyes female sidekick of the local top 40 radio station this spring. Yep, a doughy guy with male pattern baldness is a cult figure in Twin Cities radio and married the cutesy sidekick at the neighboring station.

It's a fairy tale, I tell you.

Obviously I'm not in awe of Lambert's skills. Love them or hate them, most personalities on the radio have a quality and skill set that tells you they're a radio personality. Not Lambert. He continues to sound like a guy who is struggling through his first semester at a college radio station. And yet people seem to love him for it. If he's giving what the people want, there's nothing wrong with that. Those who don't enjoy his work can easily change the station.

I can appreciate the role of the dopey sidekick on a sports radio station, but the latest announcement about Lambert, via City Pages, can only make me laugh. He's going to be one of the on-air personalities for the horrible new "alternative" station KFAN's parent company, Clear Channel, is launching at 93.3 FM. So far the station is a painful joke of an alternative station, and having Lambert try to fill the role of one of the jocks should only cement my opinion of it.

I suspect Lambert will double dip. Clear Channel will likely pay him a few dollars over the paltry salary he receives for his work on KFAN and expose him to the non-sports audience. Perhaps those that love the milquetoast flavor of 93.3 will enjoy Lambert's bumbling, stumbling ways. Or perhaps Lambert will become the broadcast professional he presumably wanted to be all those years ago when he was a bit player on KFAN. Time will tell. Good luck to him. I won't be tuned in to 93.3, so it won't matter to me if he succeeds or fails.

Lest you think I simply want to slap Lambert on the back for his good fortune, I will note that the guy has skin as thin as Jeff Dubay. Lambert has no problem playing the fool or dishing out a heaping helping of self-deprecation, but as soon as somebody suggests anything mildly unflattering about him via social media, he'll be quick to cut you off at the knees, at least when it comes to Twitter. That receding hairline is further exposing awfully thin skin. There's a good chance this blog's Twitter account will be blocked by Lambert if he even thinks one critical thing has been written about him.

It will be interesting to see where Lambert is in 10 years. His schtick seems to play well, but radio is a fickle mistress. As soon as Clear Channel is done with him, he'll be tossed aside faster than Chad Hartman. Will there be another radio station ready to embrace him if Clear Channel decides to untether him? Only time will tell.

I'm at a loss to explain the aura of Lambert, but you can't hate a guy who lives a charmed life, even if you don't root for him.

As for Dubay, do you think he hates Lambert? Dubay's tenure at KFAN had a similar track as Lambert's. Dubay was Meatsauce before Lambert was Meatsauce. Dubay might not hate Lambert, but I'm sure he's bitter he threw away his career and opened a door for Lambert to walk through.

What would Jeff Dubay think?

I don't know Jeff Dubay, I've never met Jeff Dubay and I don't think I know anyone who knows Jeff Dubay.

But I know more than a few things about Jeff Dubay, because he chose a profession that makes him a public figure. (He is not a celebrity, but the word often is used to describe folks who appear on air at a local radio or television station.)

So, what does Jeff Dubay think about a blog that is named after him? I can only guess. Ultimately I don't care, but I couldn't help but wonder.

Thanks to Dubay's one-year tenure at 1500ESPN he had a chance to pimp his morning radio gab fest by talking about the latest sports headlines for a few minutes on the Hubbard-owned KSTC45 morning newscast.

The man chose a career that depends in part on people like you and me to love or hate him. Ultimately he needs us to listen to him, regardless of how we feel about him. And even if thousands of people listened to 1500ESPN strictly because of him, it wasn't enough to keep him employed. We don't know if his dismissal was purely a financial decision or if there was another reason, significant or insignificant, and we never will.

As chronicled previously, Dubay craves the spotlight and all the perks of a pretty cushy job: talking about sports on the radio. Who can blame him? I'd take that gig.

Also detailed previously: Dubay has a short fuse and can be arrogant at times. (Yes, he can be very self-deprecating, but don't kid yourself, there's more than a tinge of arrogance.)

Put the two together and you have the title of a blog featuring copious quantities of Twin Cities commentary and analysis, with a bit of a focus upon those who consider themselves the créme de la créme of the local media.

On the one hand, naming a blog after a Twin Cities broadcaster is an affirmation of his "celebrity" status. Dubay should be pleased with such an honor. It validates his opinion of himself. On the other hand, naimg a blog after one of his biggest personality flaws is something nobody wants to shine a spotlight on. I wouldn't want the warts on my other hand to be memorialized in the title of a blog, so why should Dubay? 

I'm not a celebrity. I don't work in television or radio. I have never made a dime talking about sports on the radio or appeared on the company-owned morning newscast to talk about sports. It doesn't matter who I am. I'm not trying to make a dime off my name or persona.

Dubay's career, however, is based upon his name and persona. Despite that, there is no doubt that Dubay would not be flattered by a blog named in his honor. His thin skin has been exposed numerous times in his post-KFAN career.

And as honest as Dubay wants to pretend he was when it came to owning up to his mistakes as he attempted to resurrect his broadcasting career, there is no doubt he would hate me for providing my  analysis and criticism of his very public career.

There's no doubt about it: Jeff Dubay hates me. 

Jeff Dubay: Appetite for self destruction?

Jeff Dubay's improbable return to the Twin Cities airwaves via 1500ESPN ended unceremoniously earlier this year when the station cut him, seemingly as part of a series of salary dumps the Hubbard-owned TV and radio stations made.

Dubay was gracious in being kicked to the curb, thanking the Hubbard empire for the opportunity and looking optimistically toward his future.

What I'll never understand is the non-complete clause in a contract. I get why radio and television stations have them, but what I don't understand is why the clauses seem to apply when a station kicks an employee to the curb, without cause. If you're going to cut a guy and stop paying him simply because you can't afford or don't want to continue paying his salary, why is he prohibited from being hired immediately by another station in the market?

It was made clear in stories about Dubay's dismissal that his non-compete clause was waived.

It didn't take long for Dubay to turn up on sports radio, this time at the lackluster CBS Sports Radio affiliate 105 The Ticket. Dubay was invited to contribute to the award winning afternoon duo of Mike Morris and Bob Sansevere.

In the incestuous world of radio, The Ticket is a sister station of 92KQRS. Longtime KQRS morning drive god Tom Barnard happens to be in the process of building his own little online radio empire. They like to call it podcasting, but the reality is that Barnard is building a talk radio outlet that isn't broadcast the way God intended it to be, over the airwaves. Barnard has spent more than a year ramping up his side project into what will probably become his full-time gig in the next few years. To do that, you need a roster of talent. Dubay was ripe for the picking.

Dubay's podcast debuted March 3. It was just one hour and was broadcast live at 8 p.m. Twin Cities time. The idea must have been that the downloading and podcasting of the hour would be a big draw rather than listening to the show live over the Internet. Why would people who follow and watch sports want to list to sports talk during prime time, when the majority of sporting events are played?

As the world learned this week, Dubay's podcast was dropped by Barnard's network during its third week. Dubay fired off a tirade against Barnard's nephew, a honcho for Barnard, and hours later began excising his social media footprint. Of course Dubay's online sins live on in perpetuity, but the hot-headed Dubay no longer has a Twitter account in his name to rip those who want to take cheap shots at him.

Much of what we know as of this week came to light thanks to a blog on the St. Paul Pioneer Press website, a blog written by Sansevere. Sansevere continues to write opinion pieces for the fledgling St. Paul paper in addition to his periodic radio appearances as Barnard's sidekick in the morning and on the afternoon gab fest with Morris. Sansevere deemed it necessary to share tidbits of Dubay's online meltdown and handicap Dubay's future in broadcasting. When it comes to Sansevere's handicapping, I'd have a hard time arguing against his logic.

Dubay's defenders seem to think their "common man" has been railroaded again, and seem to think Barnard is some sort of godfather who put the hit out on Dubay because Dubay crossed Barnard's nephew. The theory also suggests Sansevere's ripping of Dubay was an order by Barnard to strike first rather than employ damage control after the fact.

Others seems to think that Dubay's tirade is an indication that he has taken a liking to the crack cocaine he found so enticing several years ago.

We're unlikely to know what really went down between Dubay and Barnard mafia.

What we do know is that unlike the 1500ESPN dismissal, Dubay failed to handle the bizarre end to his short-lived podcast career under Barnard's umbrella with the same grace.

I have no idea how you make money doing a one-hour podcast, but the idea behind Barnard's podcast network is to make money, presumably by selling commercials. There couldn't have been much money to be made during the first week of Dubay's podcast, but presumably the idea was to cultivate an audience and hope the dollars followed. That would take months, if not years. There's no way you can make a value judgment on a podcast in less than three weeks.

Dubay claims he was the victim of Barnard's nephew and the nephews habitual imbibing. Barnard's camp really hasn't said much to justify pulling the plug so quickly.

Let's pretend Dubay is back smoking the crack pipe. If so, he's committing career suicide. But at this point I doubt that. His tirade was simply Dubay being Dubay. He was wronged by an organization that quickly reversed its belief in Dubay's draw.

Better yet, let's pretend Dubay was the victim of Barnard's alcoholic nephew. Either way, Dubay's anger management issues resulted in an online tirade against those who wronged him. Justified or not, Dubay just affirmed to the broadcasting industry that he's a loose cannon who can't control his temper.

Despite the fact that his supporters, probably fewer than I imagine, long for him to grace the Twin Cities airwaves, KFAN isn't going to hire him back in any meaningful way. There's no room on the payroll, and none of the on-air personalities are going to give up the Clear Channel paycheck any time soon.

1500ESPN isn't going to bring him back, either. There's a possibility, I suppose, that The Ticket would look for a sports radio retread, a la Morris, to drive more local content, but that seems like a remote possibility.

As noted previously, whatever be Sansevere's motivation for digging Dubay's broadcasting grave, he hit the nail on the head: Dubay's hatred of you, me and anyone else that doesn't kiss his ass is likely to spell the end of the Jeff Dubay rebirth.

And yet I won't count the guy out.

Why does Jeff Dubay hate you?

Given the developments of this past week, this blog is far overdue to pay homage to the talent that is Jeff Dubay.

There's a lot to admire about Dubay. He has parlayed a love of sports into a reasonably successful career in radio broadcasting. I have yet to hear anyone praise him for his dulcet tones on the radio. That is the claim to fame of his longtime KFAN partner, Paul Allen. Dubay was the sidekick in that scenario. He may have been equally billed as a co-host of the show, but there was no Dubay without P.A.

Dubay proved that following sports passionately and dedicating yourself to your career choice will pay dividends. Nobody refers to Dubay as a marquee talent, and nobody would ever have mistaken him for it on KFAN. Allen won the play-by-play job for the Minnesota Vikings radio network, Dubay chewed the fat with Vikings rubes on the air following the games. Allen calls horse races at Canterbury Park to this day. Dubay would occasionally be tapped for an on-air promotion of Body Solutions during the KFAN broadcast day.

Dubay's fall from grace was well chronicled in the local media. I won't rehash it. All I'll say is that many have fallen further, and harder, than Dubay, but given Dubay's profile, it got more attention than those who crashed and burned. That's the price you pay when you seek out a public profile. Right or wrong, that's how it works.

Dubay is synonymous with crack cocaine, but I'd argue that wasn't his only addiction. I'm relatively certain Dubay was addicted to the cult of celebrity. Dubay's celebrity pales in comparison to that of the Kardashians, but on a local level he is a public figure who enjoyed the benefits of being a public figure in an entertainment medium, and the trappings of it were his first addiction. Crack cocaine was a bonus that came along later. Both addictions were capable of derailing his career, but unfortunately for Dubay, it was the latter addiction that did it, and in the process that addiction also made him a criminal drug user.

Despite his improbable rise to KFAN co-host and fall from grace, Dubay accomplished another miracle: a second chapter in his broadcast career. Dubay may have name recognition, but again, he wasn't an elite talent. There are plenty of young Dubay wannabes in the Twin Cities. But instead of cultivating one of those, 1500ESPN allowed the phoenix that is Jeff Dubay to rise from the ashes.

Clearly the guy is more of a talent than I realize. Good thing I'm not pursuing a career in talent scouting.

I'll share thoughts about Dubay's short-lived podcasting career another night. For now I want to conclude by theorizing why Jeff Dubay hates you.

He doesn't hate you, necessarily, but he hates people who don't want to kiss his ass. He proved this via Twitter.

Dubay was active on Twitter during his year at 1500ESPN. When people didn't like what he said, or disagreed with him, they'd take cheap shots at Dubay about his previous crack addiction. Dubay didn't like that, and rightfully so. It was childish and mean-spirited at best.

But Dubay's anger seems to be deeper seeded. Sure, he'd hate you if you made a crack comment in regard to him, but he seemed to be angered by anyone who challenged him or dismissed his point of view. I've seen it firsthand.

One of his most famous moments was when he was talking on-air with a former KSTP-TV weatherman about global warming. Dubay has decided the concept is fraudulent and made that clear. I'd love to know what kind of reading he's done on the topic. Maybe the sports geek is also a science geek who spent his years of recovery reading up on the topic. I'd be surprised, but you never know.

Those who scoffed at his simple dismissive comments via Twitter drew his ire. Mocked for his past crack addiction, Dubay claimed he was quitting Twitter. That didn't last long. And when he returned,  Mr. Thin Skin was once again quick to snap at comments he perceived as insulting. The dude has anger management issues, and he demonstrated them on Twitter.

For reasons I'm uncertain of, but will touch on soon enough, Pioneer Press sports columnist Bob Sansevere blogged about the quick demise of Dubay's podcast. He nailed it in his closing graphs: "Unfortunately, Dubay appears to have a tendency to be quick-tempered and knee-jerk."

Plenty of people like Dubay. When he was dismissed by 1500ESPN – purely as a cost-cutting move by all indication – several people were quick to kiss his ass, telling him via Twitter how much they would miss him and how they had no reason to listen to 1500 any more. Additional praise was showered upon Dubay at the announcement that he was going to host a podcast.

If you kiss up to Dubay, he'll tell you how much he appreciates you. If you mock his crack addiction, he'll be quick to dismiss you, and rightfully so. And if you dare to question or criticize him, he'll hate you.