Monday, July 16, 2012

An Uninvited Guest Visits the Musers

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Gone for a week.   No Ticket?  No problem! 

Not only a wheels-off moment, not only an all-time E-Brake (will be interesting to see if it makes the list on Friday), but a real no-kidding confrontation within the first half-hour of this morning's listening.

Of course, Gordon was at the heart of it.

I have not heard any promo where the Fake Jason Garrett (supposedly) retired but hope one of you will fill us in.    The Musers were talking about how the quality of the impersonation on the promo was not up to Gordo standards -- one P1 thought it was George.   [Wait, just heard it.  Yeah, it does sound a little like George.]

[Love, love, love the Fake Jason Garrett, but the first time I heard it, I thought -- this is genius, but where in the world can you go with a guy whose bit is that he's incredibly dull?  How many "well" jokes can Gordon make?   I don't know if Gordon felt the same way, but from the outset it was clear he wasn't crazy about this character, referring to it as the "first and only" appearance of the Fake Jason Garrett.  One other point on impersonations:  Muser impersonations are aided by being broadcast through a fake telephone line most of the time.  A "clean" recording of even the best impersonation is going to let more of the voice-actor's inflections and timbre leak through.]

As usual in the morning, I was getting ready for work and not paying the closest attention, but I gather that Gordon must have said something that was interpretable as critical of the promo-recording process.

The next thing I hear is someone talking about a "double bird" and someone identified as -- I'm not sure, could it have been "Mr. Doo" (I believe it was a black guy, but sure didn't sound like Donovan, although the precise identity of this guy was not clear)?  The guy must have been the recording engineer for that particular promo, and he was hot.  The Musers were clearly taken aback.  Gordon tried to banter with the guy, but he wasn't having any.  He said that if he'd told Gordon that the impersonation needed work Gordon would have bitten his head off.  (Gordon admitted this.)   Craig and George were yukking it up but man, it was tense.  At one point, Gordon told the guy that if he didn't like the impersonation, he should do it, whereupon Gordon did a black Fake-Jason-Garrett voice.  The guy's parting shot was to say that when Gordon came into the studio, "don't half-ass it."

Hope The UnTicket snags this.  It was chaos, everyone talking at once.  Pretty amazing and tense radio.

While Gordon is a favorite of this site, this does resonate with stuff we hear through The Ticket grapevine from time to time, which is that Gordon is not a favorite among the technical staff.  I have some sympathy for Gordon on this -- his is frequently a high-wire act.  It depends on timing, and everything needs to work and work the first time, and work well, and not get interrupted.  Wherever the merits fall on this particular dispute, this was one of those delicious Ticket pull-back-the-curtain events.

And the guy was probably sick of wrestling with the problems from the botched Victory move, and wasn't having any of Gordon this morning.

I'll be happy to be corrected on any of my recollections here, and would especially appreciate some confirmation of the identity of this courageous (or crazy) recording engineer, if that's what he was.

17 comments:

  1. What time of the morning was it?

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  2. birq, I'm going to estimate about 6:35 or a little after. I believe it was a Gordon segment so that would make it the O-Deck. He started out with his account of the not-up-to-standard impersonation in the promo and had gone on to something else when this guy came blasting in.

    I'll tell you, it was astounding to hear -- this guy came right into the studio, middle-fingers a-blazing, much to Craig's and George's (apparent) amusement and Gordon's discomfiture. I wish I had been able to listen more closely at the beginning so I could have caught this brave (or foolhardy) soul's name. And the whole thing was absolute cacaphony, everyone talking at once, and this guy not backing down one angstrom.

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  3. I was only half listening so I thought it was contrived tension. I would like to re listen and pay better attention.

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  4. It wasn't as tense as The Plainsman made it seem. I was just waking up at that time though so I might have been hazy.

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  5. As I said, it didn't get my full attention until I realized what was happening and I'm happy to be corrected. As far as where it falls on the tense-o-mete, no point in arguing about it -- I'm sure TUT will have it for us. I do know that the guy came in with the double-bird, that there was no amusement in his voice, and that he told Gordon not to "half-ass" his studio work before he departed. I recall the whole thing as pretty noisy -- I didn't interpret Craig's/George's guffawing as sincere hilarity, but an effort to keep the segment from taking an even darker turn. And when the guy left, they didn't comment on it -- it was dropped immediately.

    Again, my recall can be checked against TUT. In any event, I've never heard a tech guy come into the studio in that way. A singular Ticket event, in my experience.

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  6. I heard the whole thing and it just sounded like good natured ball-kicking on both sides. Why do we have to turn everything into a huge deal? 'Moron dog' was a conflict. 'You make a joke out of damned everything' was an on-air conflict. 'We're having fun here, no?' was an on-air conflict. 'What, are you walking out?' was an on-air conflict. (notice a pattern there?) This was not.

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  7. Also, Dan going off on Gribble about not wanting audio and just wanting the answer was classic.

    The David Robinson "I'm gonna KICK yo' ass" was some good conflict, and that had nothing to do with Dan. There was also the infamous "COME ON!" from The Ender. I know there were other Ender/Hot Spot/Rant/Hardline tense moments, but I can't recall any. It does seem that Dan is at the epicenter quite a bit, doesn't it?

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  8. Yes, it does seem that Dan is often at the center of these. I'll tell you what, though - that "I DON'T WANT AUDIO!" blow-up would have cost me my job as producer for the show, though. Flake Boy's a much better man than me.

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  9. Mr. Doo's voice is sheer audio anthrax. 'If you could save someone's life on your lunchbreak would you do itttttttttt?' Worse than Aubrey (what happened to him btw?).

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  10. Brad C is correct. This was nothing but good natured ribbing on everyone's part. I got absolutely no impression of tension at all.

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  11. The Come On you speak of was Doogy. Another long time ago weekender who's no longer with the Little One.

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  12. I would bet the Musers all retire on Monday.

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  13. Brad C, Shaggy, etc.... you don't get it. This site exists only to stir the pot, not to provide good-natured, even-handed reports/discussion of Ticket topics.

    Oh, and also to diagnose the secret medical conditions of pro ballplayers.

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  14. Stream down all morning.

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  15. I was going to post what Shaggy already did. Nothing worse than listening to 1310 in the car (nearly impossible to pick up 104.1 coming from Rockwall) and I pull up to a light. The signal goes out and I immediately try and pull up the stream on my phone. I was listening to the 6:30 segment while they were talking about AFV talk, leading into the Fake J-Kidd. Very frustrating because I missed a good portion of the FJK segment. They can't do what we do? I'm sure other stations have little to know problems streaming, but the Ticket?!? Daily problems. WT?

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  16. I'm checking out of MTC for a while.

    I fully realize The Plainsman has every right to do what he wants to do with this blog, but I miss the days of legit posts and legit discussions regarding Ticket content. It's become quite clear there are no intentions to post stuff other than blowing every little thing out of the water and making things a bigger deal than they probably are.

    Anyway, it's been fun discussing The Lil' Ticket with y'all. Good luck with the blog, Plainsman. Hope it restores its former glory at some point.

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  17. Safe travels, normal. We hope to see you back soon.

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