May 31, 2011

8:40 a.m. -- Let's keep talking about unrest at The Ticket, it's delicious if rather unsettling to those of us who would prefer a smoothly running Little One with hosts and JV focused on bringing us only the highest-quality sports-guy-talk entertainment.

But I do have an off-topic question:  I keep hearing these Driverselect.com ads by Bob, Dan, and Donovan, and I ask myself -- are those prices for the described vehicles really that good?  Aren't those prices for late-model used vehicles about in the ballpark for car-lot prices?  Those discounts they trumpet are not from the purchase price of the vehicle, but from MSRP.  Not trying to screw BaD's endorsements up, but offhand those prices seem pretty un-head-turning to me.  I recently did some car shopping and checked the used prices on the model I was looking at -- nothing to write home about.  Any car guys out there:  What's the deal on Driverselect?


9:15 a.m. --  OPEN THREAD NOTICE:  Our priceless colleague AP from The (Incomparable) UnTicket has requested that Confessors assist in creating a list of all the screwed-up broadcasts, events, and technical issues that have plagued The Ticket in the last six months for a project he is compiling.  Please respond with dates and details if possible, and if not possible, describe the problem you heard.  I'll start with a couple.


    --  Frequently overdriven microphones (some use the term "overmodulated").

      --  Mics missing spit guards or screens, according to Danny, so that Ps and Ss pop and hiss.  (Gordon's live spot this morning was awful.)

      --  Televisions not timely installed in the studio, and installation is a physical mess (see the photo Cash Sirois sent awhile back)

      --  TeeBox transmission took place in the midst of a swamp of static on May 12, I think it was.

      --  TeeBox remotes are always of poor sound quality, Rick and Craig end up with a gargly, gravelly, need-to-clear-throat sound to their voices.

      --  Last Friday's complete Hardline meltdown.

     --  I'll let others detail issues with the stream and mobile access, but we should at least note that access is being reduced to IHeart.

Let's support AP in this -- even if you think "oh, AP will remember THAT one," list it anyway.  Thanks to all.

*      *     *

12:25 p.m. --  This situation harks back to something I wrote about in my "Apocalypse Sometime" post, from which I now liberally quote:

"Consider the position of the hosts, and maybe even a guy like Rich, who also seems unhappy with what's going on, even though he is Rich the Suit.

"They're placed in a terrible position. They don't like what's going on. They would like to advocate for the P1, but what can they do? If they complain too much, they could get disciplined, or perhaps even squeezed when renewal time comes around -- or nonrenewed. Some of them may have been made well-off by their years of service, but, like Deion, they can't do without their salaries. But if they hold their tongues and broadcast like nothing's happening, the listener begins to think of them as compliant, even complicit with the CTO. Their bond with the P1 is compromised as the growing crappiness is ever more apparent coming out of the speakers."

Isn't this what is happening?   In the past we've enjoyed the fairly harmless and fairly occasional barking by the hosts about management issues, it's what we all do at our own places of work, the difference being that our workplace utterances don't go out on the air, and we don't Tweet them.   But when management has really fouled up and the anger is genuine, widespread, and constant, it's not so fun for management anymore, and the whip comes down.

And our guys seem, well, whipped.  They have to take the crappy chief engineering and crappy management decisions and shut up about them.  They can't be on "our side" any more, which makes all the happy horseshit about how P1-oriented The Ticket is sound completely ridiculous.  Certainly not the hosts' fault -- but you can see the point I've been banging on for some time now:   Eventually, bad management seeps into the product and damages what comes out of your ear buds.  Confessors, you are hearing it even now and it is going to get worse.  

It's easy to say that "oh, The Ticket will never change as long as the hosts are there, and they're not going anywhere, The Ticket has survived crap management in the past, so no worries."

But it is not true.

May 30, 2011

3:37 a.m.--It appears this site (that is, Your Plainsman) may owe an apology to The Dancing Bear at First Base, one Ty Walker by name, who an Anonymous commenter reported had been suspended for Tweeting a Jeff Catlin email.  I had my suspicions, since I could find no Internet reference to this having taken place.  And if this report was wrong, then apologies are also owed to the CTO as well.

But they're still screwed up.

*    *     *

8:09 a.m. -- Cannibalizing from some of my later-last-night comments:

Because of the existence of message boards and sites like this one, there are lots of ways Ticketarians could communicate dissatisfaction to listeners, not to mention through their own Twitter accounts and blogs. But there wasn't much of that, and I almost never heard discouraging words from Ticket guys behind the scenes.  That suggested to me that employees felt loyalty to The Ticket and, perhaps derivatively, to Cumulus.

But now, we do hear a lot of public grumbling in different forums and on the air.  This suggests that Cumulus and local Ticket management no longer inspire that loyalty.  /What we're hearing from hosts and JV has job-losing potential all over it; it follows (to me) that the conditions that gave rise to the previous loyalty must have changed, and changed dramatically.

Conclusion, as if you didn't know if you were a faithful reader of Your Plainsman's speculations: Things are much worse at The Ticket than they were even six months ago, so bad that the risk calculus for Ticketarians has changed.  Grumblers may risk the loss of a paycheck or two, or even a job. But the grumbler gains something, too -- he's embarrasses a management that for the last six months has done little but embarrass him and his professional colleagues. Worth it? Not it things are cool; maybe, if the grumbler thinks things are headed off the rails anyway.

So it's not the content of the grumbling that is of the greatest interest -- it's that Ticketarians think it things have gotten so bad (and believe me, it's not limited to catastrophic remotes, crappy Internet feeds, and bungled hardware/software implementation in the studio, although that would be enough) that they want to risk telling the P1 about it.

And by the way -- if you accept Danny's invitation to contact the CTO, send them the link to this site.  They can start here (http://myticketconfession.blogspot.com/2012/05/apocalypse-sometime.html) and work their way forward.

*     *     *

2:40 PM -- NUMEROUS REPORTS THAT JAKE KEMP MAY HAVE BEEN INVITED TO RELAX AWAY FROM THE TICKET FOR A WEEK. 

See comments below for possible/likely reasons for this generous offer by the CTO.

I'll be by the station if I can, but if anyone can confirm, please post.

May 29, 2012

+     +     +

7:40 a.m. -- Playing around with something different.  With my time availability dwindling and likely to dwindle further, I'm going to try to get quick hits up from time to time for whatever interest they may have, but mainly to provide a continuing and occasionally refreshed forum for those who care enough to leave a comment.

The usual articles and thought pieces will continue to appear as I'm able to get to them.  I invite anyone with a hankerin' to write a piece to drop me an email, and, of course, I will be pirating emails to generate content for this space either anonymously or credited (with permission only). 

In any given day, there may be added material that will be headed by the time it was posted, thrown up as things occur to me.

*     *     *

I was out of town over the weekend.  Did The Orphanage comment on last week's technical disasters (I understand they had some technical challenges of their own)?

Did George DeJohn and the TeeBox have a real handoff on Saturday?  (The prior weekend the handoff was torpedoed by the worse TeeBox transmission quality ever, and the week before that, I 1think, was the George D-Craig R tiff.)

Does anyone have any information on Greg Williams's medical condition?

*     *     *

1:35 p.m. -- We hear from folks who think I'm (and some commenters are) overblowing the whole Ticket technical crisis.  Entirely possible they're right.  The show does manage to go on, mostly.  

But the commenters here and to the site that T4 directs us to (see comments to this post), including a well-known local broadcaster, makes the same point I made a week or so ago -- when things go bad and good people start to leave, everything suffers.  Not just the ability to stick plug A into port A, but morale, initiative, the desire to do well, the desire to come to work every day.  It shows in the product, and, eventually, it will show in the cast of characters who emerge on the air.

OPEN THREAD: Local Industry Scuttlebutt

+++++

Apologies to the Confessor Nation for not much in the way of new postings.  Scrambling at work and home, hope to re-emerge in the next few weeks. 

In the meantime, Confessors are reporting on rumors of regime change at The FAN and even within the Cumulus family of stations:  T4 in Rockwall sums up the recent whispers:

"A rumor I read on the board.radio-info.com said the Fan was flipping formats on June the 4th, Arnie Spanier's (spelling?) last day is June 1 and that possibly I93.3 was moving to 96.3. The last seems extremely unlikely because KSCS has been here for years and successful. Taking the place of the Fan is supposedly Amp radio, which is a syndication."

As T4 also points out, this would open the way for The Ticket to move its FM signal, at least, to 93.3 and, in all likelihood, for hell to freeze over. 

Fascinating stuff.  It would mildly surprise me if CBS pulled the plug on The FAN after the investment it's made, but it's still mired in third and not making dent one in The Ticket's ratings. 

This site has been beating the drums for signal swap almost since it started:

http://myticketconfession.blogspot.com/2009/12/tickets-lousy-signal-and-what-to-do.html

http://myticketconfession.blogspot.com/2010/03/that-lousy-ticket-signal-and-what-to-do.html

http://myticketconfession.blogspot.com/2010/03/no-sooner-said-take-wbap-for-example.html

http://myticketconfession.blogspot.com/2011/06/wherein-nation-is-instructed-by-someone_21.html

http://myticketconfession.blogspot.com/2011/06/indulge-me-one-more-article-on-signals.html

So the renewed speculation that The Ticket might be in line for a better signal is intriguing.  Although this thread from late 2010 suggests that 93.3 would not help The Ticket up north:

http://boards.radio-info.com/smf/index.php?topic=181375.10;wap2

Maybe hang on to 104.1 in addition to 93.3?  Possibly enable the region's most popular station to be heard everywhere?  Nah.  They should give The Ticket 96.7.    Won't happen, but fun to consider.  By the way, a couple of the foregoing links have comments from some folks who seem fairly well-informed who are skeptical about signal swap, so if you go back and check out those articles, don't overlook the critics.

*     *     *

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I Really Don't Much Like Calling People "Douches," But . . .

.  .  .  in your opinion, who is a bigger one?  (a) C.J. Wilson, or (b) the guy who lists all the ways that SMU's Cox School of Business is better than the other guy's business school?

Apocalypse Sometime

+++++

Confessors, I've got a bad feeling.

In a rare burst of efficiency, I'll get to the point.  

While we may not be seeing the end of The Ticket, or the beginning of the end of The Ticket, we may well be seeing the beginning of the beginning of the end of The Ticket.

By "the end of The Ticket," I mean the end of The Ticket we love and support and defend.

I'm not one of those who predicts the end of The Ticket, or one or show or another, "in the next six months."  And of course, we're still listening and the shows are still great.  Other than the occasional outburst at ongoing technical deficiencies, the hosts are doing their usual very entertaining jobs.

But clearly, something has changed and is continuing to do so.  And I think we can put our Confessing fingers on what that is and why it's damaging The Ticket.

Let's consider what we know:

First, the move to Victory was months behind plan.  It seemed not to have been planned at all, at least not by anyone who knew what he was doing.

Second, it was a botch.  I'm not a radio expert or insider, but I've heard enough by now to convince me that this was not par for the course.  It was a disaster, and a continuing disaster.  The Ticket lost gigabytes of one of the main things that binds the place emotionally to the P1 -- its history.  Stuff still doesn't work.

Third, SweetJack.  I've long felt there was more to that cursed cur than met our ears, and now we know at least part of the story -- his fleabitten services were bartered by Cumulus for reduced and inferior Internet availability for the programming.

Fourth,  Grubes ups and leaves.  I believe him that he's anxious to complete his education and improve his career prospects, but I also believe (and he has hinted as much) that the garbage Cumulus gave him to work with had something to do with it.  In fact, I think it had quite a bit to do with it, the timing at least.  

Fifth, remotes, one of the hallmarks of Ticket programming, and a lot of fun, got worse after the move to Victory and, incredibly, are getting worse as time goes by.  I felt sorry for Rick Arnett and Craig Rosengarden Saturday morning, fighting through that static haze.

Sixth, hosts are dumping on management like never before.  Even called out that Brett Blankenship guy by name awhile back.  They've dialed it back a bit in recent weeks, but it still creeps in.

Seventh, you almost never hear Cat mentioned on the air anymore.  There used to be a teasing kind of mixed affection/resentment thing going on like a lot of us have with our bosses, but you don't hear it much any more.  I'm no Mentalist but I'm sensing a growing divide between talent/operations and management.  

Eighth, as noted, the Internet stream is also getting worse, for the reasons we now know.

Ninth, stalwarts at other Cumulus stations are leaving or being shown the door.  KLIF has terminated guys like Jon-David Wells.  WBAP non-renewed (?) Mark Davis.  Jeff Bolton, also at KLIF.  Non-local programming is creeping in.  Grubes.  I've heard that other off-air staff have been leaving and that an audit of Cumulus employee laptops would find a variety of resume-generating software.

Tenth, Cumulus is introducing more and more syndicated programming.  I was very saddened when Joe Morgan's show started running weekends, reversing the trend of increased local weekend Ticket programming -- fewer opportunities for the up-and-comers.   I have heard that Dr. Sanjay Gupta segments will begin appearing on Cumulus Dallas outlets -- including, possibly, if you can conceivably believe it, The Ticket.  (If it hasn't already -- I haven't heard one, but since no one has commented, I'm thinking it may not have started yet.)

Finally (or at least until I think of another one) .  .  .

Finally, there was that really odd moment on The Hardline a few days ago.  I mentioned it in a comment.  Corby was doing a fairly amusing bit on Mike dating the mom suckling an eleven-year-old son, and Danny broke in.  Now it may have been a time-for-a-break thing, but there was a different quality about it, like Corby was treading into territory he'd been warned away from.  Corby kind of snorted and said something about "executives listening" back at the station.  May be reading too much into that, but it was a very odd little exchange.

And I'm thinking -- this isn't just a flubbed migration to Victory.  Something has changed, is changing.  And that last little goofy fifteen seconds of broadcasting is what got me thinking:

It's not that the move to Victory was incompetent, although it surely was.

It's that they moved to Victory at all.

Because the move to Victory wasn't just a Ticket move -- it was a Cumulus, and then a Cumlus/Citadel move.

They brought all the children together in one place.  WBAP, KSCS, KLIF, KTCK, i93, The Wolf.  Yes, including sometimes naughty children like The Ticket.

So what?

So this:

Stations like The Ticket who operated somewhat on the edge, somewhat independently, somewhat as a separate team, are brought more firmly under the thumb of corporate management.  Think physical location doesn't make a difference in things like this?  You'll have to trust me on this one -- it does.

While it is hard to begrudge a conglomerate the cost savings of consolidation -- that's one of the capitalistic benefits of consolidation, after all -- in this case it is being amateurishly managed to the detriment of the overall product.  What used to be distinctive becomes homogenized.  What used to be improvisational and edgy becomes guarded and vanilla.  What used to be dedicated to a particular function for a station is now required to serve that function for multiple stations -- and the same management may not be appropriate for the different stations.  We've already seen that in Anon's report last time that The Ticket is being required to use equipment/software that may work for the other stations, but not for a station that is, for the most part, extended improv. 

"Executives" formerly remote from a rowdy station's operation now find overall supervision and authority -- and discipline -- much easier to exercise.

Cost-cutting also becomes easier.  The Ticket disappears in the gang of lower-rated stations; not only are its individual requirements lost in the clamor for resources at Victory, so is recognition of its singular greatness.  Instead of being nurtured and promoted and expanded, the station is starved and discouraged.

Morale gutters.

And, inevitably, the greatness starts to leak away.

I know I've gone on too long already, but let me make one more point:

Consider the position of the hosts, and maybe even a guy like Rich, who also seems unhappy with what's going on, even though he is Rich the Suit.

They're placed in a terrible position.  They don't like what's going on.  They would like to advocate for the P1, but what can they do?  If they complain too much, they could get disciplined, or perhaps even squeezed when renewal time comes around -- or nonrenewed.  Some of them may have been made well-off by their years of service, but, like Deion, they can't do without their salaries.  But if they hold their tongues  and broadcast like nothing's happening, the listener begins to think of them as compliant, even complicit with the CTO.  Their bond with the P1 is compromised as the growing crappiness is ever more apparent coming out of the speakers.

As I said -- The Ticket is in no danger of collapsing tomorrow.  I'll be tuning in tomorrow to catch Rich's 5:30 AM Ticker.  But, like the Ghost of Christmas Present says, if these shadows remain unaltered I foresee major changes at The Little-and-Getting-Littler Ticket -- soon, behind the scenes (hell, they've already begun) -- and in the next couple of years, on the air.

And we're not gonna like them.

That's enough for now.  I have a couple of other topics to address on this subject, but I'll save them until after The Nation has its say on this regrettably gloomy STD.

Put That Damned Mutt to Sleep

The Ticket stream is drying up.

I hope you all noticed a comment from T4 in Rockwall a couple of posts ago:

"Concerning the TuneIn app, I took this from the DFW Radio Forums: 


"http://boards.radio-info.com/smf/index.php?topic=211872.0

"In short, the TuneIn app will apparently not be carrying The Ticket after a certain time and will be carried on the iHeart app."


Confessor Shaggy responded that that is "awful, awful" news.

Shaggy, it's worse than you think.  The day is coming when iHeart will be your sole app for The Ticket.

I don't get much industry info, but I did hear from someone I would classify as an industry guy, who reported that the culprit here is only one-foot-three.

Yep, you have SweetJack to thank for the shrinking Ticket listening area.  Actually, a little further down on that message board that T4 linked to, you'll see this, which confirms the information I received:

"It has to do with SweetJack.  The deal requires Clear Channel to start promoting SweetJack while Cumulus goes onto iHeartRadio.  My understanding is that SweetJack hasn't been completely rolled out yet.  The original plan was that Cumulus would go onto iHeartRadio around the same time Greater Media arrived.  Then, they said it would be sometime this month.  I guess they're technically still on schedule, but I was under the impression it would be closer to May 1."

There are two horrifying things there:  (1) The deliberate, knowing reduction by Cumulus of the ability of P1s to hear The Ticket, and the CTO's apparent lack of any concern for Ticket listeners.  (2) The possibility that SweetJack "hasn't been completely rolled out yet."

Watch this space.  I've got an STD in the oven.

A Radical Proposal on Ticket Tech

Okay, I think we've established that Ticket tech is truly bad. Or, at the very best, not appropriate for The Ticket.

And many thanks to the Anon, obviously either a Ticket, Cumulus, or radio insider who's picked up the news somewhere, for his authoritative disquisition on the OpX system.

What I can't figure out is -- why?  I suppose it's a word that Mike uses -- "leverage."  The audience is the biggest and best, it won't stop listening, Cumulus makes enough money with it, so why improve (1) signal, (2) remotes, (3) in-studio tech, (4) Internet stream?   Small expenditure, big revenue.  Leverage.  What's not to like, as a CTO?

Now, let us confess (of course):  We can hear the station.  It broadcasts.  We like it.  The negligent IT and tech administration doesn't render it unlistenable most of the time.

But the persistent failure to fix problems that have existed for years is not only disrespectful to the listeners, it's degrading to the amazing talent that has assembled there and remained over the years (for which the CTO, let us further confess, deserves some unknowably small amount of credit).

Which leads me to a question that I was going to address back before I gleaned that Mike had signed his contract without the benefit of the conclusion of my highly speculative series awhile back on Mike's new deal:

What does the CTO care about?  Well, I would think they would care about keeping their talent, even if they don't care about giving them appropriate tools and a grown-up signal. 

[ALERT:  WILD-EYED ADVICE TO FOLLOW.]  

Which is why, if I were a host in demand in the market, as each one of them must surely be, and my noncompete weren't too long, and I really, really cared about the IT and tech  .  .  .

.  .  .  I'd start holding out. 

No -- no, first thing I would do is call a meeting of my fellow hosts, or at least those maddest about the situation.  Oh, this is much better: 

I'd see who was interested in taking the Ticket act, en masse, to another station.  Don't sign the damned contracts, or -- no, this is even better -- make any noncompete contingent on a new signal, appropriate in-studio tech, and a couple of new mobile remote suites, fixing the Internet stream.  That way, if things didn't improve, an entire showgram whose hosts (and essential Y-monks) had signed such a contract could quit and move instantly if promises along these lines were not kept by a date certain.  Producers -- doubt they even have a non-compete, George and Craig and Gordon could take Fernando and Jeremy right along with them, and adios Cumulus.  Cumulus wouldn't go for it?  Well, that's nut-cutting time, isn't it?  You either stay and live with the crap, or you go to a competitor.  Or retire.  Or go to another market that the noncompete doesn't reach.  The more showgrams signed on, the greater terror they could inflict on the CTO.

This assumes, of course, that there are other stations to go to.  It's dreaming (even more than I'm dreaming by even proposing this) to think that anyone would uproot their entire programming to take on The Ticket guys, but on a showgram-by-showgram basis?  ESPN or The Fan?  They'd love to have The Musers.

Don't leave comments telling me I'm crazy.  (Oh, all right, go ahead.)  It's not that crazy.  Some of these hosts are angry.  And they should be.

Horrifying thought:  Is it possible that some of the guys, a little bit, like being The "Little" Ticket (I'm not necessarily referring to Mike here).  They like being the scruffy, underpowered, tech-challenged underdog constantly whipping the be-jeebers out of coddled lame-o sister stations and better-financed and reliably audible competitors? 

I hope not.  I personally don't find the meltdowns amusing (except for the way that Danny handles them on The Hardline, which can be counted on to crack me up), and from the comments it seems to me that the Nation doesn't perceive any benefit there, either.   And, again, I find it insulting that Cumulus offers an audio product this lame especially since AM technology has been around for over a century and FM for over 60 years and stations have been doing remotes for decades?

Hosts, arise!  You have nothing to lose but your comfortable incomes through the noncompete period!!  (I wonder if Lenin got his start this way.)

Mike, you really should have waited for my advice.

* * *

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OPEN THREAD: Is Ticket Tech Really as Bad As It Seems?

We need to hear from some radio experts and, ideally, Cumulo-Ticket insiders.

I used to think:  The Ticket does a lot of remotes; I'm sure those present some technical challenges as they move from venue to venue.  So, atrocious signal(s) aside, in my early years of listening I tended to give Ticket tech a pass.

Then:

(1)  I heard the hosts grow increasingly testy about the lousy technology they had to deal with in the studio.

(2) It occurred to me that the number of remotes mean that they should have figured out how to do them fairly seamlessly.

(3) There was the absolute disgrace of the move to Victory, during which, apparently, a large chunk of Ticket history disappeared in addition to the overall amateurism of the transfer.  If no one lost his/her job in that disaster, then  .  .  .  well, I guess you see a lot of this in ossified corporate cultures.

(4) The tech meltdowns in the last two Hardline remotes, one of which won the E-Brake today.  Now, I will say that Hardline meltdowns tend to be extremely entertaining, between Danny's exasperation and sarcastic sing-songy efforts to broadcast over the mortification and Corby's and Mike's disgusted commentary.

It occurs to me that I've been listening to sports radio and other talk radio for a long time, and I've never heard anything as technically error-prone as The Ticket. 

Really -- what's the problem?  Bad equipment?  Bad IT/AV administration up the ladder?   Insufficient investment in personnel? Or are we (am I) just wrong about how lousy Ticket technology is?

Please advise.

*  *  *

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There's An Extremely Lively Spontaneous Open Thread on T.C. Erupting in the Comments to the Prior Post, If You're Interested

Or, you can comment here.

Mike on Fire

=====

We heard something Friday we haven't heard in a long time.

Animated Mike.  Magnificent Mike.  Dominant Mike.

The discussion related to the fans' expectation for this year's team.  Corby and Danny were more or less giving the Mavericks a pass, taking the position that they remained grateful for last year's magic run.  It's not like they weren't disappointed by what looked like it was going to be a speedy exit for the Mavs (and so it proved to be, as of about ten minutes ago), but they were giving management the benefit of the doubt on the Cuban/Nelson cap strategy.  I don't want to be critical of Corby or Danny or misrepresent their position; their point of view is one you hear a lot, and, as I say, it's not like they didn't care whether the Mavs' won or lost.  In fact, I believe Danny, and maybe Corby (I forget) were predicting Mavs' first-round success. 

Mike begged to differ.

Actually, "begging" doesn't begin to describe it.

He was angry.

I wish I could quote it in full, but it was absolutely smashing to hear.  He reserved his greatest bile for the notion that the top free agents -- the reason management was supposedly conserving cap space -- are going to be attracted to to this deadass burg.  He practically screamed that they are not.  They don't want to come to Dallas, he said, it's not a nightlife town that the posse-laden superstars will ever be attracted to.  He went on for some time with some heat, and it was by far the best radio I've heard from Mike in months. 

It was great to hear and it reminds the faithful that when this legend is engaged, he's unbeatable.  Would that he would spend some more of that passion more often grabbing control of (what I, at least, still cling to the thought of as being) his show.

Mike R is Disgusted

Not that anyone's looking to me for HSO's, but I am in complete agreement with him.  I was appalled at the effective dismantling of the World Champions and the short-sighted band-aid of the feckless Lamar that was mishandled from the second it became apparent that the guy was, essentially, a thief.  A cap-space strategy makes sense only if one has some reason to believe that today's free agent is going to find this team, city, owner, and coach attractive, and there are a lot of reasons to think that the Mavs offer none of those things.  My God, how many more years of Effective Dirk do we have left?   Long-time readers will have discerned that I spent some time in Chicago, and as a Bulls fan during both of Jordan's stretches with the team, six titles in eight years, hearing that it's somehow just too bad that management sacrificed this year but, wow, it was fantastic while it lasted -- it's really sad.  Hell, I was furious when Dirk showed up out of shape this year.  "Heart of a Champion," shit. 

WWNRAJDD? (What Would Nolan Ryan and Jon Daniels Do?) Not what Mark and Donnie did.  Bearing in mind that I understand zero about caps and the like, I will leave it to informed Confessors to instruct me (gently, please) on why this year's strategy was a good one. 

So:  I'm with Mike.

The Mavs' new long night has officially begun.

Can We Get a Report on Today's Mix 'n' Mingle Between George DeJohn and the TeeBox?

Was able to hear a little of the Train Station Fitness Show but wasn't near the channel at 8 AM.  Can we get a witness?

OPEN THREAD: Wanna Go Camping?

Punchline to an old joke.

I haven't studied up on where these guys might be, although I thought I might be able to make some hay with Junior's account of the anti-semitic billboard, but nothing's coming up.

The station's half-hearted about this campout, and I guess that's kind of how I feel.  Very strange, like maybe they had some sponsors set up but after things got underway they faced a host revolt, so the whole thing just kind of fizzled. 

Deeply regret missing Junior Coast-to-Coast, which is always good.  Makes you wish Craig would sign on for the occasional later-night show.

We'll see if tonight's party makes this tripworthwhile. 

Meanwhile, I'll puzzle over where these guys might be.

OPEN THREAD: Draft

A number of Confessors have been groaning about The Ticket's NFL draft coverage.  Mainly, that there's too much of it.

I have about as much interest in the draft as I do in women's curling, but I tuned into as much coverage as I could.  I found it very listenable, and even enjoyable.

It takes some talent to make compelling a subject one's audience knows next to nothing about, but by his enthusiasm and expertise and presentational skills Bob Sturm manages it.  David Moore -- terrific.  And personally, I have no problem whatsoever with Norm's draft obsession.

But this year, Norm sounded tired and ragged although his enthusiasm for the task burned as brightly as ever.  I didn't mind his rough sound, but I worried that perhaps the travel and long hours are starting to take their toll.

Commenters have already noted Mike R's nonperformance.  Craig didn't have much to say, but I always get a kick out of what little he does say.  I thought Corby's College Football Blowhard might have had a little more to offer, but he wasn't bad -- tough to compete with Bob and Norm.  The question is, why have anyone but Norm, Bob, and guys like David Moore and perhaps other station draft wonks on the air at all?

In any case, I kind of got sucked into the coverage -- again, evidence of skilled broadcasters taking an arcane and complex subject and making good radio out of it.

But I know not a lot of you don't agree, and now it's your turn.