MTC Wishes Itself a Happy 7th

Please keep a good thought today for Your Source for Quality Ticket Journalism.  My Ticket Confession stumbled into this world mewling and howling and with no readers (except, apparently, Michael Gruber) on June 30, 2009.

I've very much appreciated your support and participation.  Ticket fansites and blogs come and go, but you've kept us in the game and kept me wanting to think up things to write about.

Still dealing with some personal matters but hope to have wrapped it up in the next 3-4 weeks.  In the meantime, keep those comments (and post offerings -- please) coming.

I suspect we will not get a mention on WTDS -- not even as a spare.  But we can still party.

Jack McCall Confesses

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I had some personal matters to tend to that were going to make me scarce for a bit.  That will probably continue for another month or so.  So I was very pleased to hear from a confessor who asks to be known as Jack McCall.  He inquired as to whether he could offer pieces for posting.  Seeing as how I've begged for volunteers in the past, I was very pleased to hear from him.

Here is his first offering, and I believe there will be more to come.  You will see that it refers to events that happened a bit ago.  I apologize to Jack and to you for my delay in getting this up.  But its point survives.

Thank You for Continuing to Shop at My Ticket Confession.  

And anyone else who has an essay of any length with a worthwhile Ticket connection, please let me hear from you.  I can't promise I'll post everything, but I'll always give it a respectful and generous read.

       -- Plainsman

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Monday morning was especially lousy. You woke up to ongoing news from yet another mass shooting, this one barely 24-hours old and somehow even worse in toll than the others. And you woke up knowing you'd be dealing not just with the tragedy itself but the hot takes of others, including the Ticket guys.

Maybe they made you mad. Or maybe you agreed. Likely some combo. But if you're like me, maybe you just needed a damn laugh.

Which brings us to Monday morning's 8:40 guest, Exaggerator.

Gordo as some famous racehorse is always funny. But, folding the character into a Muser playlet that calls back to an absurd question Gordo once posed to baseball-great Gaylord Perry? That's next-level funny.

When George loses it I laugh out loud. Or maybe I'm already laughing because I know Gordo knows he's delivered a line so perfectly that George is about to lose it. Meanwhile, Junior lurks innocently with a can of gasoline.

The Ticket has jokes for all. But the jokes for few are the P1's real payoff. And damn those jokes feel good on an otherwise lousy morning.

Oooo, Plainsman, who's your cute friend?

Do You Like EJs? And a Question

(1)  Yes, I do like me some Eli Jordan.  The Ticket has some fine Tickermen, Ty and Sean and others; even T.C. is, in one sense or another, a must-listen.

But Eli sounds like nothing else on the Ticket -- nothing, that is, since the departure of Ticker God Rich Phillips.  Eli is kind of a cross between a throwback Mr. Broadcast Pipes with the staccato delivery, and a reg'lar Ticket jamoke.  His voice commands attention, which I deliver even though I have almost no interest in any of the results he's discussing.

By the way, have you caught Eli and Ty's "Country Force" fill-in show?  Pretty good little show, pretty darned good little show.  I've always liked Ty as a host and he and Eli make a pretty cool team, I thought.  Good showgram title, too.  I could hear more of that.

(2) This morning the Musers were (unfortunately) reprising the Eighth-Grade-Graduation-Presidential-Candidate-Impressions Kid.  Craig said to Gordon something like (precise recollection dim):  "You should name him as your successor, since your last designated successor was a complete failure."  And they all had a good chortle, and Craig said:  "But at least he ended up leaving and wrecking one of our competitors," OWTTE.

To whom was Craig referring?

[PS:  Any show replaying viral videos = burnt segments.]

The Dilemma of The Ticket and the P1 in Times of Tragedy

A brief and I-hope-not-disrespectful Ticket observation on this sad morning:

With full understanding of how trivial our concerns are here at MTC when something like the Orlando murders dominate the news: 

I think The Ticket shows face a difficult choice in these situations.  I wonder if it's rough on the P1 as well.  Speaking only for myself, it is.

You're a Ticket host, and something like this happens.

On the one hand, you're broadcasting for a sports/guy station, known for a humorous approach. It's what your listeners tune in for.

On the other, if you ignore the event, you would give the impression of being frivolous, disconnected, uncaring.

I feel the same dilemma as a listener.

I would think it odd if The Ticket programs didn't devote segments to something this spectacular in the non-sports news.

But I don't particularly want to listen to those segments.  Confessors have observed, and I agree with them, that Current Events Talk brings the shows to a stop, although some (Musers) handle it better than others (Hardline).  I don't expect Ticket hosts to be particularly well-informed or astute on non-sportsy/guyish things, and they're not.  Not only that, but there are many superior radio sources for breaking news and punditry up and down the dial and now on satellite.

My resolution of the dilemma:  I tune out.  I'm off to CNN, Fox News Channel, Little Steven's Underground Garage or Bluesville on Sirius/XM, or maybe NPR, until I judge the Ticket segment to be concluded, then it's back to Fun With the Ticket.   Sorry.

FROM THE ARCHIVES: That Musers' Deep Throat Informant and the "Poltergeist" Medium -- Separated at Birth?

 

Confessors:  I have a couple of, whaddya call them, "life events" going on at the same time right now.  Nothing likely to be mortal.  I'll try to get up something fresh but I may have to recycle items for awhile.  This one is from March of 2010.

Yesterday's visit with the Deep Throat Informant reminded me once again of an iconic screen character:

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I've noted this before, but thought I'd re-run it since the Musers' Deep Throat Informant reported on his/her presence at the Ron Washington cocaine ingestion episode.

The Deep Throat Informant -- at least the upper-register part of the fractured voice -- sounds almost exactly like the tiny “Poltergeist” ghost hunter that visited Craig T. Nelson and JoBeth Williams as they attempted to rescue Heather O'Rourke from  .  .  .  well from the poltergeist.  

The actress, Zelda Rubinstein, died earlier this year [2010].

Check it out and see if you think Gordon got any inspiration here: