Tell the Truth

If you are able to get 96.7 FM, do you still listen to 1310 AM?  Some Confessors said they didn't switch over when The Ticket got its long-pants signal, but is this still the case?

A few quick hits:

A commenter at the end of the last thread beat me to it:  I thought the Norm expense report review on The Hardline yesterday was pretty bad.  Remember when Bob and Dan got yanked off the air when Dan undertook to read an internal memo regarding, as I recall, producers?  This is plainly company-confidential information, and, in my judgment, about as sorry as Dan's disclosure.  I'd be surprised if someone didn't get spoken to.  Also agree with that commenter that the expense report was not all that exceptional.  Kind of made The Hard Ones look like they weren't too hip.

I like it when people say "coach 'em up."

Wish the Dirk "Guess What Day It Is" commercial parodying the GEICO ad with the camel had run more often.  Thought it was absolute genius.  Not only was Dirk extremely funny, not only did he actually walk like that camel, the thing featured a star turn by the too-little-seen-on-major-visual-media-outlets Cash Sirois.

As a Man of the Plains, I have a pretty thick skin after coming on five years of composing this site.  For those who have not heard me say it in the past:  I compose very quickly and do not spend a lot of time on this site.  I listen to The Ticket when I can, which is maybe 2-4 hours a day, almost all of it in drive time.  I do not have time to do much else.  I almost never re-listen or to go back and find things I missed.  And I have listened to precisely one podcast, ever.  This means I will be less knowledgeable than some others who have lots more time to do these things.  I am very grateful that those people visit the site and I appreciate it when my errors are pointed out. 

But really, put a cork in the personal aspersions, OK?  I tend not to delete them because I don't want to seem like a guy who can't take criticism, and because I do get stuff wrong.  But I'm considering greatly increasing the deletions for tone around here.

Thank you, and also for Shopping at My Ticket Confession.

You Watch -- T.C. Is Going to Kill

Fare well, T.C.

I mean it.  I think everyone who has commented on his departure has been sincere in wishing him good luck with the new engagement on ESPN Pensacola, WBSR, 1450 AM, 101.1 FM.  (Do they call it "The Buzzer"?  They should.  Maybe T.C. can rename his show.  T.C., I hereby grant you an irrevocable royalty-free license to use it.)

But with all of the well-wishing, there's also a "but  .  .  . " to many of these comments, suggesting some shortcomings that kept him down at The Ticket.

I think this is misguided.  I think we need to do some celebrating.  Not because he's left, but because he's on his way.  I'll come back to this thought.

If I'm reading his Twitter feed correctly, he's going to be "host/PD," so other duties other than on-air, it sounds like.  Good strategy, keep one's hand in management.  He tweets that he's starting on-air on March 24.  I cannot find any announcement of this on the WBSR website or any kind of a press release.  Any radio types out there who can give us more details about T.C.'s show?  Again, his Twitter feed says it's "Good Morning Pensacola."  (Co-hosting with Chad Brillante, the incumbent? Solo shot?)  Nor any chatter out there, really.  I just Googled ["T.C. Fleming" WBSR], just like that, and got seven hits.   Probably not a gigantic media event so nothing should be expected, but thought there would be some account of this other than T.C.'s.   NOT DOUBTING that he's going to be on, just curious about how ESPN is handling it.

I did not hear one second of any of the T.C. sendoff segments, nor have I listened to It's Just Banter on this subject.  I get the impression from Confessors who did that there was an overtone of ill grace from T.C.  I hope that's not the case.

If it is, it's too bad.  I feel pretty positive about T.C. and about this move.

His Ticket persona was among the most interesting I can recall.  He was the Zelig of The Ticket:

     --  The eager BaD intern who would do anything for the show and their hosts.

     --  The presumptuous insider, pre-on-air days, who rubbed certain other hosts the wrong way.

     --  The shy, soft-voiced guy who would show up occasionally on-air, do a roving-mic bit, mocked and humiliated by certain hosts.

     --  The ambitious would-be host, given a brief shot with Jake, and the two of them even taking over a Hardline show with Mike in September 2011.

     --  The co-host of It's Just Banter with Jake, which gained something of a following.

     --  The host of The Top 10, sounding very different both from IJB and from his shy, soft-voiced guy.

     --  The more mature fill-in guy whose shot selection had vastly improved.

In the past, I had not been interested in commenting on T.C. because it was so very obvious that he was so very ambitious to be an on-air guy, and I did admire the lengths to which he had gone to move up at The Ticket, but  .  .  .  .    And I thought he did a very, very good job with The Top Ten.  The truth is, and I've admitted this in the link you'll find in the next paragraph, I pulled my punches with T.C.

My past T.C. views got their most thorough airing in the comments to this posting, which featured the T.C./Jake Hardline appearance with Mike R on September 2, 2011:  What Did We All Think of The Hardline Today?  Which, if you take the time to read through it, was exactly that I did not care to engage in extensive T.C. nutkicking because I really did not want to knock a guy who was just starting out.  Reading between the lines, yeah -- I didn't see him as Ticket host material, at least at that point.  Which, combined with the nutkicking from Confessors, did not endear this site to him.  I believe he once referred to it as the worst website ever, OWTTE.

But that was a long time ago.  He's a hard worker, he's very smart -- I don't think he gets enough credit for his brains in these parts, I really don't -- he'll prepare the bee-jeebers out of his Florida shows, and I'll bet he'll do extremely well.

Who would have thought that T.C. would beat all other recent J.V.'s to hosting a drive-time show on an ESPN property?  (Elf wasn't drive; B&S, Matt & Scot -- not ESPN.)   This is a credit to his strategies at The Ticket and with IJB.  Come on, Confessors, we need to do more than just wish the guy luck -- we need to acknowledge that if the standard is personal advancement, T.C.'s tenure at The Ticket was a success, and he made most of it happen by sheer industriousness and, yes, talent.  There is no reason to think that he won't continue to work on his skills and keep his audition tape shiny and current.

I'll go out on a limb here:  I think T.C. has a great career ahead of him.  He's an ESPN team member now.  He's ambitious.  He's smart.  He's interesting.  He's young.  He has an interesting look.  He has a great-sounding media name.  He works hard.  Yes, he can talk.   I think he is going to move up the ESPN ladder and we're going to see and hear a lot more of T.C. Fleming.  And I think we will think that is a good thing.

And that's My Ticket Confession for the day.

Best to you, T.C.

*     *     *

ThePlainsman1310@gmail.com

@Plainsman1310

End-of-Spring-Break Quick Hits

(1) Having some problems with Blogger lately.  If I vanish for awhile it may be for technical reasons.  Will leave a comment if there are further issues.

(2) Craig "Junior" "the Joonze" Miller reported on his favorite websites in the 5:30 segment this morning.  "My Ticket Confession" was not among them.

(3) Jeff "The Pan-American Catman" Catlin is really cutting into his host's extra promotional income.  First it was Pat Lobb Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep, now he's flogging a Chevrolet dealership.

(4) I remarked in a comment to the last thread that TC had made himself a Ticket "immortal."  Some readers took that as an endorsement of his entire body of work.  No -- I meant he has made himself a Ticket character that people will remember long after he's gone.  Someone mentioned Rocco Pendola, who, in my book, is also a Ticket immortal.  I never heard a single syllable he ever uttered, being long gone before I arrived in the area.

(5) Pretty cool that Gordon was runner up for the Royko Award from the American Society of Newspaper Editors for his Dallas Morning News column.  Congratulations, and best of luck to him as he's also been submitted for consideration for a Pulitzer.

(6) Anyone else find the "Between Two Ferns" thing with Galifianaklis/POTUS about 17% as amusing as a couple of Ticket hosts did?  Actually, I thought the President did a good job -- he's a natural performer -- but it just didn't move my yuk meter.  Probably didn't help that it gave off the fragrance of just another Hollywood shill for Obamacare.

Almost Drove off the Road

I was laughing hard.

I won't be able to reconstruct this entirely, and I don't recall whether Corby or Danny made some of the incidental remarks, but Mike R cracked me up in the opening segment today.  Maybe The Unticket will have it.

It wasn't so much what he said, it was how he said it.  No  .  .  .  no, it was what he said, too.

Setup:

Corby is talking.  Rangers preseason game is on.  He interrupts what he is saying to say that "[Someone] Cowsill" has hit a three-run homer against Alexi Ogando, realizing that this will make Mike sad.

There is some banter about the old group The Cowsills.  Mike does not believe that any Cowsills played major league baseball.

They bantered a bit on the name, and someone said "maybe it was The Herd."  (ESPN guy Colin Cowherd.)

Mike says, "I can't stand that guy."

Mike says, "The Laddie [former Ticket PD] probably knows what he's [Cowherd] is up to.  And you know who else was tight with him?  Djeel-BEAR."  (Another former PD, Bruce Gilbert.)

Corby:  "Bruce Gilbert and Cowherd were buddies?"

Mike:  "Gilbert gave him his start.  What did he [Gilbert] ever do for this place?"

Corby:  "He hired Bob and Dan."

Mike, after a pause, deliberately and with emphasis:  "Whoop.  Dee.   Do."

Danny:  "They've been solid on middays for 15 years!"

Mike, contemptuously, practically spitting out the words:  "Ah, you could get a chicken to do middays around here."

Good thing I was cruising the middle lane with no traffic or I'd been in the ditch or up against the divider for sure.

We're Going to See More and More of This

Philadelphia Judge Issues Ruling That Could Give Anonymous Online Commenters Second Thoughts

"Have you thought about it?" -- George DiGianni

ThePlainsman1310@gmail.com

@Plainsman1310

Speculation Upon Speculation

So sometime Confessor Provocateur Gypo Nolan (a character from an old movie called "The Informer") threw up a comment last night that stated only "Hold on to your butts."  The last time he did that, Bob and Dan were flirting with The Fan.

When asked for clues, he responded only:  "Norm, Mike, Corby, Jake, Mino, Dan, and Bob .  .  ."

Which looks huge but is so huge that it really isn't much of a clue.  And how likely is it that Cumulus is really going to bust up its still-number-one schedule in any significant way?    And his last clue re Bob and Dan related to the Cuban Missile Crisis, so I don't think highly of Gypo's clues.

There was a time when I thought I knew who Gypo was but when I asked that individual directly, he denied it.  So now I think it's someone else.

We know Lew Dickey was in town last week.

We know T.C. Fleming is off to ESPN Pensacola to be on the morning show there.  (A big congratulations, we'll try to cover that soon.)

We know Norm is working on a new contract.

My few radio-related guys who sometimes know Ticket stuff haven't heard any Ticket stuff.

So all I can ask is that you stay tuned and keep the thread lively and civil.

In the meantime, I'll keep my ear to the ground  .  .  .

.  .  .  and check email frequently.

ThePlainsman1310@gmail.com

@Plainsman1310

Got a New Phone with Salty Battery. So Which App is Best: iHeart or SportsDay TALK?