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?

Why Are We Fighting? Mick, I Have No Idea

What are we to make of this fracas over The Fan ripping off The Ticket?  I confess (of course), I'm amused and puzzled by the whole thing.

I personally have not heard any of this thievery, but the accounts I've read from Confessors' comments is pretty persuasive that the Fan is nakedly copying more than a couple of Ticket bits.

Now, let's acknowledge that The Ticket itself may have been, um, inspired, in some cases, by historical bits from gag-based radio.  I personally don't know of any, but it would be surprising if some of those items don't have broadcast antecedents.  I don't think that's very important.  Clearly, The Ticket has owned the bits in question in this market for a long, long time, and their sound and structure must be counted as The Ticket's Own.

This has several aspects.

First, there's the copying itself.

My first thought was anticipated by a commenter to the previous thread, which is that this avalanche of plagiarism may be a deliberately provocative "mass bit" to get some attention, get The Ticket's goat.  If so, it must be considered a success.  Guy's Night Out, today's BaD Radio.  The Fan hasn't had that kind of publicity since RaGE and Greg Williams's perambulations kept us all fascinated by the slow, but inevitable, train wreck.

Second, there's The Ticket's reaction.

Is it wise to let anything about a station as seldom visited as The Fan get under the hosts' collective skin?  I suppose a little well-placed outrage isn't going to improve The Fan's fortune very much.  I'll confess (again), though, when Mike's Mind today was going to be about a current event, instead of checking out Cowlishaw and Mosely (or whoever was subbing for Matt today), I tuned in The Fan.  (It was a segment on Ben's, I think, trip with his family to a drive-in in Ennis.  Of some interest.)

On balance, though, I think I'd let it go.  It can't be a smart competitive move to rip off a rival with bits which, by all accounts, are hugely inferior to the original.

Third, and only tangentially related, there's the suspected invasion of this site by Fan operatives.

We have welcomed Kevin Turner here for a long time, and I personally continue to do so.  I find his contributions credible, and they're always restrained and within the spirit of the site.  As to various other non-named interlopers, I have no evidence other than anonymous accusations that The Two Gavins (Spittle and Dawson) are posting.

Gavin Spittle preparing to open his laptop to compose a comment
for My Ticket Confession

My self-interested reaction is to be somewhat flattered, on my own behalf and that of the Confessor.  I am encouraged in this by Anon 232 from the last thread, who wrote:  "Oh, and why, pray tell, would The FAIL mess around with MTC? Because, and this is a testament to you commenters and to Plainsman, they know the CTO and Ticket personnel DO pay attention to MTC."  While I know that what is written here is sometimes reflected in on-air adjustments, those influences are extremely minor and extremely rare.  (Other than the move to 96.7 FM, for which I still have not received a commission check.)  Some hosts fly by.  Cat checks in maybe once a quarter.  Some of he JV and off-air staff read it with some regularity, I think.  (Long ago I heard from a Ticket employee who said that in walking through the station he would see My Ticket Confession displayed on laptops.)  Most hosts -- no.  I think maybe two check it from time to time, the others only if someone emails them a link.  But The Fan guys?  Maybe more.  Kevin, certainly, and others looking for evidence of interest in their offerings.

Gavin Dawson fortifies himself for the burst of creativity
required for the drafting of a standout comment for
My Ticket Confession

(Side note:  I've noted in the past that the fact that  I so seldom hear from Ticket insiders via email -- really, pretty much never, maybe once every few months -- tends to suggest that whatever the intensity of the politics at the Ticket workplace, it's a tight-knit, loyal, satisfied group.)

Come to think of it, though:  Other than the occasional radio message board and Reddit, this site remains maybe the only regulated swap-meet for views on DFW sports radio.  Guess I should speculate more responsibly.

Self-interest aside, I've said it before:  If Fan enthusiasts want to be heard, I don't have any strong objections to that and won't unless they threaten to take over the comments, which they are far from doing.  As far as who the commenters might be  .  .  .  I will say that I haven't heard privately from anyone denying that Fan luminaries are posting here.   If I were one of The Two Gavins, though, I think I would let the speculation and accusations fly even if I weren't commenting.  As Oscar Wilde famously observed, "There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about."

I oughta know.

The inventor of Gay/Not Gay

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ThePlainsman1310@gmail.com

@Plainsman1310

A Quick Thought on Originality and Corby

My time and ability to be by the station has been limited lately.  Sorry that new posts have been few and far between.  Hoping that will ease soon.

The prior batch of comments contains some interesting reports on Fan filching of Ticket bits, some of them of long-standing and not even that frequently heard on the station any longer.

I thought of this when I was able to catch about an hour of The Hardline today.  I heard Corby's new bit, Bad Follow-Up Question Guy.  (I don't have that quite right -- it wasn't "Bad," was it?  Someone here will remember.  Yeah, maybe it was.)  He was interviewing a Cowboy hopeful, a second-year guy, I think, whose name I did not catch.  Corby was doing a legitimate interview, the guy was responsive and cooperative, but after every response, Corby would throw in a complete non-sequitur, sometimes a random remark, sometimes a question, would pause for a moment, and then would go on to a legitimate question.  The guy eventually caught on and chuckled some at what he probably figured out was a bit.

I'm not a big fan of Ticket ambush interviews, but I gotta say that I laughed at this.  Corby's non-sequiturs were masterful, and delivered with just the right offhanded lack of emphasis.

This made me think about the comments we had on RaGE swiping old Ticket bits.

Corby came up with a successful original bit.  Why can't RaGE?

This got me thinking about whether Greggo or anyone on RaGE could even have performed that bit if it had been given to them.  I don't think so.  Oh, they could have tried it, but it would have fallen completely flat.

Why?  Because of Corby's unique talent for manufactured sincerity.   He gets his share and more of ballbusting by readers here, some of it accurate (although sometimes overheated, in Your Plainsman's view), but this is a true gift, and I don't intend this opinion as damning with faint praise.  It's what makes him the best interviewer on The Ticket.   Who else on Dallas sports radio could have drawn superstars like Shaq or impossible interviews like Parcells into some really great radio?

I hadn't intended this entry as a celebration of Corby, although I'm always glad to be positive about The Little One.  My point started out to be that it isn't just bad decisionmaking that keeps The Fan down -- it's a major talent gap.   I've said it, we've all said it in one way or another:  In the words of an early commenter on this site, The Ticket is lightning in a bottle.  Whether the assembly of the host lineups throughout the day was brilliant on the part of the station's founders and early managers or merely fortuitous, we should enjoy the hell out of it while we can.

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I'll try to catch The Train Station Fitness Show tomorrow to see if George Di addresses last week's much-remarked-on interaction with his somewhat addled guest.

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Follow Your Plainsman on Twitter:  @Plainsman1310

Email Your Plainsman:  ThePlainsman1310@gmail.com

George Proves My Point

Yesterday I wrote about Jumior Miller's consummate skill as the larfing sidekick during the 8:40 bit.  Hard to seem sincerely amused -- which brings the listener in, keeps him listening -- without overdoing it.  Junior is the Picasso, yes, dare I say, the Norman Rockwell of this delicate art.

Yesterday he got some relief from his larfing chores because Gordon did the Snapper John M.D. bit solo, so George could carry some of the pretend-audience burden.

It was an OK bit, middle-of-the-road, predictable naughty anatomical-feature jokes, a peculiar choice of voice, but OK.

George seriously, seriously overlaughed, to the point where I actually began to question whether George has  a sense of humor.  He was practically breathless as he wheezed out peals of mirth. 

Of course, in comparison to the subtle master, Junior -- who was doubtless looking on disapprovingly as George chortled uncontrollably -- anything would have sounded contrived.

The Guy with the Hardest Job at The Ticket

No, it's not the grossly underpaid but highly talented guys like Michael Gruber, Danny Balis, and some of the other guys who put in astounding hours for low-five-figure revenues.

It's Craig "Junior" Miller.

Junior is blessed with high intelligence but cursed by not being a good mimic or comedy writer.  He is further cursed by sharing his program with two guys that are good mimics, and one of those (Gordon) is both an excellent and prolific writer, and the other (George) has unexpectedly good timing and even weaves some improv around what I expect are some fairly skeletal Gordon scripts.

When you have to come up with a couple of sketches per show, some will inevitably hit and others will miss.  I'm constantly impressed at how good this work is, and how consistent it is. 

But this is comedy that is played to one listener at a time, over the radio.  Comedy is impossible to perform convincingly without feedback. 

The feedback is Junior's gift.

He is charged with keeping these sketches going by reacting with laughter.  This must be incredibly difficult.  He has to provide enough audible yuks to bring the individual listener into the fun as a participant in the hugely dispersed audience, but not overlaugh and draw attention to himself, or sound like an idiot by exhibiting a degree of hilarity that is not justified by the yuk-value of the material.  And it has to sound sincere, not merely polite.  How often do you laugh out loud when sitting in your home alone watching a comedy on TV, or reading a humor piece?  Like, almost never?  And how often have you been buttonholed by someone telling you something they think is hilarious, and you feel compelled not to give offense by offering up a few ha-has?  And you feel that same dilemma -- show appreciation for the story, be nice to the speaker, but don't overdo it.

I have been listening carefully to Junior's laughing, and I do believe the man is a master.  Now the fact is that Gordon is a pretty good comedy writer both for bits and his newspaper column.  With all the material he terns out, there is going to be some repetition of motifs and the rhythms and style have become identifiable.  But it's still pretty good, and both he and George have become accomplished radio performers.  So it's not like it's a terrible burden for Junior to show amusement.  But it must be difficult to pitch it correctly gag after gag, bit after bit.  He starts out with a gentle chuckle, and as Gordon back-loads the better gags as his scripts careen toward the punch line, Junior's laughing increases in volume and rises in register and concludes with a hearty belly-laugh as the dial-tone clicks on. 

It is a performance in itself, and I think it's time he got some credit for it.