A Few Quick Hits

(1) Craig "Junior" Miller was on fire this morning.  He played the race card explicitly (even used the phrase "I'm going to play the race card") in arguing that the Rangers wouldn't give a black player the same chance after chance that they are giving Josh Hamilton.   Then he called Sooner quarterback Baker Mayfield a "spazz" and "spastic," not just once, but several times.  Not disputing the point -- just a little startling to hear while I'm shaving.

(2) I haven't heard much of Monty + The Machine (i.e., "Not a Podcast") lately.  I did hear some of Mike "The Machine" Marshall's post-game Mavericks work and thought it was pretty good.

(3) We now have some theories on the ubiquity of those unlistenable Meador ads.  (i) A couple of posts ago a Confessor advised that Meador had fallen off a list of -- I forget exactly, maybe the Confessor can re-post, but the thought was that it had lost a spot on a list of quality or trustworthy dealers, or something like that.  Accounts for a million ads that say nothing about the products or the price, but are all about honesty, transparency, and the like.   (ii) General Sales Manager Charlie Gray, I'm guessing, is doing all those voices and, I'm also guessing, writes the copy.  Remember the one where Charlie is talking and all of a sudden, without an obvious edit, "Bob" begins to talk?

(4)  I owe Emmitt Smith an apology.  For weeks I drove by the digital billboard going north on the Tollway not far from downtown, and I would see this ad for PlainsCapital bank.  It showed a photograph of Emmitt and what I took to be a computer-generated image of a very beautiful young woman.  I mean, I thought she was a product of the animator's art, I really did.  The legend was "Our Bank Has Swagger."  Why, I thought, would they generate some fake image to show with Emmitt?  I thought maybe she was supposed to be his banker.   Here is the photo, without the PlainsCapital logo.

I suppose a true fan would know that that is his wife, Pat.  But I didn't.  Driving by at 65 mph, with billboard-quality resolution, I thought she was CGI all the way.  Turns out no, she's just perfect.  So I apologize to both Mr. and Mrs. Smith for my crass error.  Been making a lot of those lately.

Go forth, Confessors.

Ticketshock [+ CORRECTION]

All right, Confessors, let's get some reports from Ticketstock, and photos if you have them.  (Send to ThePlainsman1310@gmail.com)

To my surprise, The Girl said she was game for some Ticketstock.

In the past, I have usually departed work early on Friday to attend.   I would arrive at the Irving Convention Center maybe four-ish, and the crowds would already be good and the booths lined up in several rows and along the walls.

This time  .  .  .

We arrived around 6:30.  Paid the $5.00 for parking.  (That's not extortionate for parking, but The Ticket should say something about that in their promotions since they stress that the event is free.  Maybe that's why they always stress it's "free to enter."  It's not free to arrive, but free to walk in the door.)

I will confess, Confessors, that I was rather startled.  I had prepared The Girl for a milling, noisy, T-fueled crowd.

But the crowd was very sparse; not a "crowd" at all.  There was a group of people sitting on the ground in front of the stage listening to (and enjoying) the round table, but the surrounding floor in the convention hall was pretty empty.

And there was a lot of floor to be seen.  The number of vendors with displays there was way down from the last time I was at a Friday Ticketstock presentation.  No need to place them in rows, there weren't enough of them to make up rows.

Just a strange vibe.  Despite the rich possibilities for TicketChick costuming from the Eighties theme, they appeared to be wearing the same outfits they'd worn a few years before when the theme was supposedly "Mardi Gras" (although I recall zero promotion for that at the time).  The three I encountered a couple of times seemed a little unsure of what they were supposed to be doing.

And in the past, they had moved bleachers up to an area in front of the stage to accommodate people who wanted to listen to the show.  On Friday, the bleachers sat unused against a far wall and people who wanted to listen (you had to be directly in line with the speakers -- a little off to the side and all you could hear was Corby's keening howler-monkey larf) had to sit on the ground or stand.

Now I'm thinking a couple of things here in possible mitigation:

(1) Maybe vendors figure Saturday is the big day so in these uncertain times they don't pop for two days, and there were a lot more on Saturday.  What was the vendor/booth situation like on Saturday?

(2) Maybe people were holding off until Saturday because they'd moved the TimeWasters' performance.  All the headliners were for Saturday.  I heard Junior say Saturday morning that they were expecting the biggest crowd in the history of TicketStock that day, but when I tuned in around 5 that afternoon I thought I picked up one of the Roundtablers making a sideways reference to a thin crowd, and there was little crowd noise being picked up.  How was the Saturday crowd?

(3) Maybe the bleachers were really only for the TimeWasters' performance in the past and so had not been put in place on Friday, and they got moved up on Saturday.

I applaud The Ticket's community outreach with its Guys Nights Out (Guys Night Outs?) and Ticketstock and all the rest.  I've enjoyed them all in the past.  But this one seemed a little denatured, a little dispirited and frankly, a little half-assed.

But give me your experience, and set me straight.  I'm thinking Friday was an outlier and that things must have turned around on Saturday.

The Girl was puzzled.

LATER:

ERROR ERROR ERROR:  Just heard Jake and Sean, whose reportage I trust, talking about how the crowds were amazing Friday night and also Saturday, bigger on Friday than Saturday, even.  Biggest Ticketstock ever.  So I must have gone at a quiet time, sample size too small.

Your Source for Quality Ticket Journalism regrets its misleading analysis.

Alert Snopes.

FURTHER:  To see how way wrong I was, see NTexas's sister's photos in the cut-and-paste link in the first comment.  Thanks much for that.  Man, I shoulda hung on.

"If You're Going to Irving, Texas . . . [+ an MTC Milestone]

.  .  .  be sure to wear some flowers in your hair."

So, who's going to Ticketstock?

I try to make it if I can.  I've been to three or four, but missed the last one.  Both Fridays and Saturdays are a little tough.  I'd love to come tomorrow night, but  .  .  .

.  .  .  there's The Girl.

The Girl may not want to go to Ticketstock.

And I can't ditch The Girl even in the service of my crucial journalistic duties.

Well, how about Saturday?

Saturday carries with it chores during most of the day and then  .  .  .

.  .  .  The Girl will need to be fed and entertained.

On the other hand, The Girl might be OK with Ticketstock.

Something a little different.

So I'm asking myself how I might be able to meet some Confessors there. I don't think I want to just hang in one spot, and besides, I don't know what hang-likely spots there will be around the Irving Convention Center.

Tell you what: if I go tomorrow, I will wear a purple tie. If I go Saturday, I'll wear a Ragonk t-shirt under a sport jacket (and maybe an unbuttoned long-sleeved shirt, if it's chilly).  I'll probably also have a 35mm DSLR with a big honkin' flash on it.  If you see someone matching that description, just stand in the general vicinity and say, loudly enough for that person to hear, "Plainsman?" And I'll be glad to say howdy.

Whether we meet or not, have a fun, safe time at Ticketstock. Give more than serious thought to a designated driver. And thank you for shopping at My Ticket Confession.

*     *     *

LATER:  I am delighted to note that today's offering is the 800th post in My Ticket Confession.  Hard to believe.  Includes the occasional archival post, but I'll count 'em.    

Partial stable of MTC models poses for a group shot during TimeWasters' break.

I Only Caught a Few Seconds, But I Could Swear . . .

.  .  .  that Becca is back with Stick-It-Up-Your-Tailpipe Traffic!

I'll rush to take this post down if I find out that I'm wrong.

But for those few seconds, my sinuses cleared, plaque shattered and fell from my teeth, and the fog lifted from my spectacles.

That voice, what an instrument for good on Cool Metro's roadways, and the world.

So welcome back, Becca.  If you're back.

More Country Force, Please

Country Force, starring Ty Walker and Eli Jordan, is rapidly becoming one of my favorite shows on The Ticket -- JV and varsity.  So far it's been something of a pirate show, an ad hoc fill-in when some JV show can't make it onto the air for one reason or another.

However, yesterday we were treated to a Country Force Hall of Fame show on the late-Saturday-afternoon graveyard shift.  A really enjoyable listen on a nothingburger topic.  That's hard to do.  Giving the lads a bonus Ticket "special" to host is a step in the right direction.

In addition to finding both Ty and Eli enjoyable radio presences, I am attracted to the show because there is so little BS in it.  This is a show that gets to the sports point, has almost no time for current events, and states its positions plainly without a lot of back-filling and ass-covering and excuse-making.  On more than one of the current offerings (weekday and weekend) I'm finding my finger hovering over the PO button pretty much the entire show.

Country Force comes blowing through the speakers like a cleansing prairie wind.

CONFIDENTIAL TO THE WESTERN-HEMISPHERICAL CATMAN:   Consider jiggering the Saturday lineup to give us a regularly-scheduled CF, or add it as original Ticket content on Sunday.  Make it the go-to fill-in show when a weekday show is on vacation.

Hell, I'll sponsor the thing.

Ty Walker is never underwater.

Someday, Eli Jordan will have his own Fathead.