It's a whimsical question, of course. There's no "best" show; each listener has a favorite. The weekday lineup has never been stronger, with the strengthening of BaD.2 (I know I'm in the minority in thinking Bob and Dan needed to be separated, and not everyone cares for Jake, but for my taste the show sounds real good) and the enormous improvement in The Hardline. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Norm 'n' D is also in its prime with the increased role of Mike Sirois. And the Musers -- well, there isn't much room for improvement there. I'm a fan of Cirque du Sirois and Country Force, too. Let's not forget specialty shows The Teebox and The Kickaround and Race Week, each of which has its partisans.
But the show I've been looking forward to the most for the last year is Work in Progress, the Sunday morning joint hosted by Justin Montemayor and David Mino.
If you've been reading this column for a long time you know I have a soft spot for the JV. They may not toil in anonymity down there south of Tier 1, since The Ticket lets them get a little air now and then, but they toil a lot for a tiny wage (supply and demand -- lots of younger adults wanting to get into show biz, even behind the scenes, and not many slots to fill). A tiny wage, and very uncertain opportunities for advancement. So I like to bring them front and center and say nice things about them when I can.
I've liked Justin for as long as I've heard him on the air at The Ticket. Usually just snippets in the midday shows where he had board duties, or maybe he produced now and then -- those lines tend to blur with me for some of the on-air voices of lesser-known players. But his pop-ons were usually invited rather than forced and I instantly liked the sound of his voice, his attitude, and his content. Didn't know one thing about the man. Just a great radio sound, a real natural common-man Tickety sound.
Wait -- I did know one other thing: I knew that Gordon worked his name into bits now and then. For example, when The Touchdown Brothers sign off, more often than not they promise an upcoming interview with Justin Montemayor. I figured if Gordon was teasing him that much, he must have some kind of cachet around The Ticket, either that or the kind of visibility -- and thick skin -- that caught Gordon's attention.
David Mino: I knew he was considered a worthy heir to Dropmeister Michael Gruber on The Hardline's board and the target of Mike Rhyner's "bird of youth" references in the intro. (Did we ever find out why he was dropped from the MR intro for an extended period?) And once in awhile we heard from him. Didn't make a huge impression, but yeah, OK, he was noticeably adding to the fun.
Justin hit the programming scene with "Not a Podcast" with Mike "Machine" Marshall, a show I also liked a lot. Well, I liked it for awhile. Did some columns on it early on, but it changed over time. We won't dwell on that. Machine moved on and Not a Podcast is Not Anything now.
In the early days of Work in Progress, Justin really ran the show. David was finding his way but it wasn't too long before he got a whole lot more comfortable with the mic. As time has gone by, I have really come to like the sound of his voice. He has an interesting cadence, an appealing way of accenting certain words. Even that ad for the apartment complex -- for some reason I can't begin to describe, the way he says "a great place to lay your head" always makes me smile. At this point, the gents have achieved a nice balance.
At this point, it's really not a work in progress anymore; it's a pretty polished, integrated presentation that always entertains me. I'm not a younger listener, but I find that they manage to bring some cultural awareness to the show without being snotty or inside or elitist about it -- I've learned something about shows and music and internet entertainment to which I had no prior exposure.
And they're both funny. Their humor is of the dry, self-deprecating, deprecating-one-another-like-friends-do type, but it hits the right pitch for a Sunday morning.
Sports knowledge -- I'll say "solid," but since I don't know a whole lot about sports myself, I'll have to say that I like it as much as I like any of the sports coverage on any of the shows. Neither is Bob Sturm, but neither is anyone else.
But I don't want to get too molecular here. I just like the sound of the show, its good-naturedness, its modesty, its humor, the obvious friendship between Monte and Mino. I know I talk a lot about the overall "sound" of the shows on The Ticket, a sound unlike what you get on any other show on any other station. It is hard to create (it must be, or more shows would be doing it) and it is hard to describe, but Work in Progress has it. They keep the bits to a tasteful minimum. They prepare the show each week, but they don't over-prepare it. It has the same spontaneous, genuine feel that the best Ticket shows (which is to say, almost all of them) have always had.
And there's something else they do well that some programs have stumbled over -- they work in a group of support guys but they don't overdo it -- there's never a jumble of voices that you can't quite identify. Those skillful supporting players are Chris Tapia running the board, "Cray" Trey Mitchell producing, and Ryan Medellin with Tickers. Sam Hale fills in if Cray Trey or Ryan are unavailable.
Hey, this ain't exactly the New York Times make-or-break theater review, but if you can haul your ass out of bed on a Sunday morning, give these men a try. Good sound, good stuff, and to the extent you can get a feel for human beings through buds, good people.
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