Hm.

Entertainment News (for You) not sponsored all week. 

Holiday week maybe not a big ratings week?  I dunno, lots of people with non-work time to listen to the radio.  Mike made mention of it today.  "A clean sweep," he said.

Who Is Rich Phillips?

Of course I know who Rich Phillips is. He does tickers. He does "Race Week." He does SMU Mustangs play-by-play.

He is also in Ticket management. I have forgotten his title, but I remember being startled when Cumulus announced his promotion. I thought the Musers were a little uncertain how to react to that as well. And I haven't heard anything much more about it.

Some on-air guys grow on me. Some decline in my estimation. At first, I didn't care for Phillips. I thought he was kind of a dark presence on the Musers, ill-tempered, sarcastic, antagonistic. Yeah, Gordon needs to be smacked down now and then, but it seemed pretty clear that Phillips just didn't like him and didn't really care to disguise it. (And Gordon doesn't care that some of the Ticket guys don't like him.)

But the more I heard of his work, the better I liked him. I could not care less about NASCAR, but when I'd hit the car radio on Saturdays and the Ticket (of course) would emerge from the speakers, there was "Race Week," and I found myself listening to this stuff in which I had no interest. And I realized it was because Rich Phillips was a pretty good broadcaster.

And I caught a few minutes of something else I don't care about – SMU football – and Phillips was phenomenal. Informative, enthusiastic without being sycophantic. His big-play calls were sensational. Man, he was really, really good.

I heard him on with Bob Sturm on Cowboys pre-game a couple of weeks ago. Now if you're on with Sturm, you're not going to be saying much. But he was pretty good there as well.

So I'm asking myself – who is Rich Phillips at the Ticket? Is he in line for a host job? Yeah, I know there aren't any obvious vacancies coming up . . . or are there?

Junior's Pun

I loved Junior's pun today after Gordon read the story about the guy who had to go to the emergency room because he had a combination padlock on his johnson. Junior said that he had run into trouble because "he had forgotten the penal (penile) code." George and Gordon moaned and groaned, but this was surely a tribute to its excellence.

It was indeed choice. The dedicated punster, which Junior may well be, will note homonymic associations in phrases and will store them up, hoping for a chance to convert them to puns. Speaking only for myself, I have saved up some howlers for years until the right moment came along.

This one was a jewel. The pun is near-perfect because "penal" and "penile" are so close in pronunciation, and the application to the combination padlock is not at all tortured. Bravo.

Mike Checks Out

Sorry I've been away.

Anyone else getting the impression that Mike is losing interest?

Late the week before last, I think it was, the Hardline interviewed Mark Followill, always a good segment.

Except that it wasn't exactly a Hardline interview. It was a Corby interview.

Nothing wrong with that. Corby is knowledgeable about the Mavericks and he did a good job, as he usually does. And I didn't hear every syllable of this interview, but I did not hear Mike utter a single word.

This is symptomatic of the continuing imbalance in the Hardline showgram.   Mike just sort of shows up.  He seems not to be terribly interested in the proceedings.  He seems not to know what segments are coming up.  The guys kid about the lack of preparation for the show, and that's fine, we love them for their informality in conducting something as precisely timed as broadcasting usually is, but when the lack of preparation – and interest -- begin affecting the show, the hand begins to reach for the dial