I'm Never Buying Another Subway Sammich, Ever

 

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ThePlainsman1310@gmail.com

@Plainsman1310

A Hearty Congratulations to BaD Radio

I had hoped to get something more substantial up for this notable accomplishment, but  .  .  .  failed.

Congratulations to Bob Sturm and Dan McDowell on their 5,000th show.

I was able to catch some of this today.  Was a kick to hear Gribble, that Nice Young Michael Gruber, and T.C. Fleming again.

On the one hand, the show's obsessive self-chronicling (do they have every show on tape?) is a little self-absorbed.  But forget that hand -- I'm really glad they take the show seriously and archive their stuff, keep track of show numbers, all the rest.  Keep it up, lads.   Whatever one may think of the show, it can't be denied that their show preparation is tops at The Ticket -- yes, topping even the Sainted Musers.

That shows respect to the listeners.

And we shouldn't forget that they turned down an opportunity for (it is said) more money to move to another station not so very long ago.  There's some love there.

I do worry that Bob will take his Large Sports Brain to more lucrative fields full-time (TV, behind the scenes with a network, play-by-play, sports journalism, books), so let's enjoy the team while we can.

A question for wayback P1s:  Don't The Hardline and The Musers each have more shows in the bag -- maybe not at their current time slots, but at least identifiably as the shows they still are -- than BaD?  I don't want to detract from the 5,000-show milestone, but, in the words of an immortal BaD staffer -- am I wrong here, guys?

Again, best wishes and for many more shows to come.

 

False Advertising, and a Couple of Observations

Freshening up the thread with a cheap post:

(1) The Ticket is running ads this morning for Intentional Grounding for 7 PM tonight.  But it will not be on at 7 PM tonight, because of  .  .  .  the Stars!

David and Big Bob did their show last night.

(2) While we're on the subject of Intentional Grounding -- love it, always have, but with all of the self-deprecating show-opening banter and discussion of the lads' non-IG activities of the prior week, football talk doesn't get started until a third of the show is in the books.  It's only an hour show, and it also gets eaten into with Hardline cross-talk and ads.

They gots innarestin Cowboys talk.  Get on with it, D and BB.

(3) The Musers, and Gordon in particular, are way, way too terrified of the ascendance of artificial intelligence.  Maybe it's a bit.  But doesn't sound like it.

There.

As a bonus for reading this cruddy post, you get two redheads today.

 

 

ThePlainsman1310@gmail.com

@Plainsman1310

Jury Orders Bart Reagor to Pay Ford $53.7 Million

[[TICKET CONNECTION FOR NEWCOMERS:  Reagor-Dykes Auto Group ads, featuring folksy Bart Reagor, a man who never threw a touchdown pass like Tony Romo, but who could get you Any Car U Want, were ubiquitous on The Ticket for quite some time, before his empire went all completely to hell over the course of a few days in the summer of 2018.]]

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A Lubbock jury has found Bart Reagor personally liable to pay Ford Credit $53.7 million and change.

Bart Reagor, Radio Advertising Pioneer

This was not a finding that ol' Bart personally committed any fraud.  The chief culprit here is Reagor-Dykes's Chief Financial Officer at the time, Shane Andrew Smith.   Smith kited checks between multiple banks, and got Ford Credit loans for Reagor-Dykes based on dummy VIN numbers for cars not at the dealership, then used the cash to cover other expenses.  He could get up to 20 years in jail; I haven't been able to find any information on whether he has been sentenced.  Four of his staff have also pleaded guilty and taken deals.

Shane Andrew Smith, Fraudster

Ol' Bart was not criminally charged, but was he aware?  We're talking about nine-figure liability (totaling up other claims) here.  When Ford Credit swooped in and audited the dealerships, Bart claimed this was the first he'd heard of it.  Reagor-Dykes fired Smith and referred the matter to the U.S. Attorney.  Was ol' Bart covering his ass, or doing what his lawyers told him he had damned well better do?  He was apparently pretty sure Smith would not implicate him, so maybe he was innocent of the fraud.  He hasn't been charged but has taken the fifth amendment under some questioning.

What he was not innocent of (along with Dykes, who settled earlier with Ford Credit) was signing a personal guaranty of Reagor-Dykes's indebtedness to Ford Credit.  Those things are pretty ironclad;  when the primary debtor (the dealership) doesn't pay, you gotta pay and I mean now and no backtalk, and there's almost nothing available to you as a defense, including that the default is someone else's fault (it frequently is).  In fact, 'ol Bart's argument was that the amount of money Ford claimed was much, much more than its actual losses.

The jury did not agree and awarded Ford every penny it sought.  The court had already ruled that the guaranty was valid -- this trial was more or less about where to put the decimal point.


Ol' Bart probably wishes he hadn't threatened to shoot the Ford Credit auditor who showed up to check his books.  (Ford Credit came back a couple of days later with the Ford corporate security team.)  No, he probably wishes he'd made nice and made a deal with Ford, which (as these things usually go) was probably available to him.   After all, the whole thing was more sordid than just a rogue executive screwing Ford Credit.  Rick Dykes has alleged that one of Smith's direct reports, one Pepper Rickman

Pepper Rickman, Enchantress

was having an affair with a Ford Credit guy. (https://www.kcbd.com/2019/03/21/rick-dykes-reveals-corruption-secrets-affairs-within-rdag-witness-statement/)   He said that Ms. Rickman was tipped off to audits in advance and alerted Smith, who moved things around to enable Reagor-Dykes to stave off the day of reckoning.

But no, ol' Bart got his back up and refused to pay, and now he's going to have a court order telling him yeah, you gotta.  I assume he'll appeal.

I'm thinking:  You know, he probably wasn't as nice a guy as he tried to make us think he was in all those ads.  I mean, it's possible.

I'm glad he didn't shoot Tony Romo.

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ThePlainsman1310@gmail.com

@Plainsman1310