Ty Wal-KAH!!

We listeners and Confessors listen to the shows, and we get to know these guys, and we speculate about them, and what goes on at the station, and who's a nice guy in private and who's a jackass.  And which guys don't like which other guys, and why.  Well, maybe not all of us, but I do.

I'm a little late with this item, but I wanted to think about it.  This Ty-Walker-at-the-Final-Four thing is absolutely fascinating.  The story was featured on both The Musers and The Hardline.  (If BaD Radio or Norm dealt with it, would one of you who heard it leave a comment?  My thanks.)   I'm sure I don't have all the details correct, but Westwood One needed a stringer to do some reports from the Final Four for some local stations.  Someone else there -- Sean Bass, maybe -- declined the assignment, byt Ty Walker took it.  Expenses paid, went to the game, got to pet the bulldog, hit a couple bars, and gave a couple of reports for an Atlanta station, maybe on the air for a few minutes total.  Something like that.

And not a single report from him on any of the Ticket showgrams.

Both Ty and Assistant Program Director Rich Phillips insisted that all of the producers had received an email that Ty was on this assignment.

Here's what I found most interesting:  The Musers did not question Fernando, and The Hardline did not question Danny -- at least not on the air.  Neither did either of them jump in and say hey, I never got any email about this.  So I assume that Rich and Ty are correct that the producers got the email.  The hosts, to a man, denied that they knew anything about it.  I believe them too.

So what we have here are the producers being aware that Ty Walker was going to be going to the Final Four, hosts wondering where the heck Ty Walker had gone, and nobody saying anything to anyone.  Ty Walker didn't tell any hosts; Rich Phillips didn't tell any hosts; no hosts undertook to find out where Ty Walker was during the Final Four; Rich Phillips' supervisor(s) didn't communicate to any hosts. 

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that somewhere along the line, someone did not want to give Ty Walker a platform to broadcast a report on The Little One from the Final Four.

So -- is the hard time that The Hardline gives Ty Walker not just a bit?  (Danny:  "Stay out of this, Ty!"  Gordon:  "Wanna switch your mic off there, buddy?") 

Is Ty Walker persona non grata across a wide swath of The Ticket?  If so, why is he still employed there?  If not, why didn't a single soul, not one, undertake to enlist his services while The Ticket had boots on the ground at the Final Four?

It is interesting that the hosts chose to shine a light on this apparent station snafu.  Which suggests that maybe Ty's OK with them, but not OK with the next tier in production.

We listen to Ty, and he seems OK.  We know he's young, large, reputedly without woman, and a Star Wars fan.  Does a very nice job with the Tickers.  Ocasionally steps in to provide internet-provided answers to pressing showtime questions. 

So he doesn't seem like someone you wouldn't want to hear from the Final Four.

Which suggests that there's something else going on, and consider:  It may have absolutely nothing to do with Ty.  In fact, I'm guessing that it doesn't.  It may be that inter-level communications -- and we have at least four levels here:  Cat/Rich; hosts; producers; and Ticker guys -- are not what they should be.

And it could be that these guys get too much email, and they're not exactly the types to sit in an office looking at email all day, especially email from management with "Ty Walker" in the subject line.

Can any Confessor shed any light on this fascinating episode?

Confessional Quick Hits

Couple of thoughts from the broadcast day:

(1)  20 Generations.  In discussing the new Lisa Kudrow show about searching for ancestors, Corby (jokingly, I think) talked about going back "20 generations."  That isn't so crazy, necessarily, since 20 generations is about 500 years, which takes us back to the 1500s, which isn't that far from when Danny's ancestors came over on the Mayflower, or whatever it was he was claiming.  However, if one really did try to go back 20 generations, he would be examining a large number of people -- 2 to the 20th power, to be exact.  That works out to 1,048,575 people.

(2)  What Were the Rangers Thinking?  In listening to today's conversations about why the Rangers didn't fire Ron Washington, I didn't hear this one (but I usually don't get to hear Norm or BaD Radio, so they may have touched on it):  The Rangers were for sale at that tme.   Disarray and lack of discipline would have made the team (admittedly, only marginally) less attractive to purchasers, and that would have been an issue only if Washington had been fired (since the the whistleblower was not blabbing at the time).  There was no likely successor to Wasington in place at that time.  So it made more sense to stay the course and disclose Washington's issue to shoppers at such time as they were doing their "due diligence" on the Rangers.  

(3)  More Ron Washington.  Gordon sensibly asks, "wasn't the world a better place without HR?"  Sure. But HR didn't explode on the scene in the last 25 years all by itself.  It was compelled by the interference of courts and legislatures in hiring and firing decisions.  Some of this interference has been necessary (ending certain kinds of discrimination), but a whole helluva lot of it has been absolute nonsense (forbidding employers from making reasonable distinctions between good and bad employees and imposing their own notions of "fairness" on the hiring and firing process).  My point here is that you can bet that the Washington situation was far more drenched in legal considerations than HR considerations.

(4)  Another Unbelievable Bear-Trap.  The one Gordon just told about the guy who was holding forth on "Wayne" as a middle name.  It was going fine until the wife says "Didn't I tell you his father killed his mother and went to the chair"?  He said, "no, I don't remember that."    First, if this were true, of course she would have told him.  And this supposedly wasn't the first time they were getting together.  Second, if she had told him about it, one of them would have remembered.  Third, there were very few executions taking place during the time when that mother and father would have been alive.  Fourth, the electric chair was not a common method of execution during that period.  Fifth  .  .  .  hell, it doesn't make any sense and it didn't happen the way the bear-trap guy says it did, if it happened at all. 

The Bear Trap Contest is starting to become like Hypothetical Thursday -- what I call "NPR Moments," because that's when I am compelled to change the channel for a few minutes until the inauthentic broadcasting abates.

(5)  Junior v. Keith.  No, not that Keith.

Junior said he feared Keith Olberman's intellect.  He needn't worry.  Olberman is glib but his intellect is a mile side and an inch deep.  Junior's intelligence is far more subtle and penetrating.  He could hold his own and, after enduring a verbal barrage or two, would prevail in any debate.  Any debate about cycling, anyway.

(6) Baby Doll Ad.  I was really disappointed to hear this ad a little after 5 pm Wednesday.   I've heard other sports-radio stations (other markets) run these ads for "gentlemen's clubs."    The station will run them for awhile, then station management awakens to how awful they sound and how cheap they make the station seem.  And the station stops accepting those ads.  Put aside the content -- the chicks they get to read that copy all sound stupid and amateurish.   Same with The Ticket.   Those smarmy ads never fit in with The Ticket and after awhile they went away.  Then there was the Baby Doll ad yesterday, which was the sleaziest, smuttiest ad for a strip joint I have ever heard.  Same stupid amateur chick reading it.   It came as close to a soliciation for prostitution as you're ever going to hear on the radio.  It almost makes me wonder if, despite the great numbers for The Ticket, the economy has made it hard to get the rates The Ticket needs to pay all the on-air talent.

I wish all Confessors a fine weekend.

Danny the Producer Produced a Small Jewel Last Thursday . . .

. . . when The Hardline was discussing the Talker magazine “Heavy 100.” Mike had come to “The Monsters in the Morning” and was considering the listing of the collection of wacky characters who appeared on the show. [What follows is my recollection of what was said, may have word wrong here and there.]

Corby started to read the list of characters, laughing and commenting.

Danny interrupted and said “You read it.” There was an interesting lilt to his voice when he said it, like he had some broadcast strategy in mind.   (Kind of like Jason Walker saying "crane.")

Mike says “you want me to read it?”

Danny says yes.

Mike finishes the list, reading straight through it.

The reading was instantly funny because Mike is a great broadcaster and a naturally amusing speaker.

It was a brilliant little touch by Danny and a telling moment.

My Ticket Confession -- I'm Worried About the Hardline

As any regular reader (?) knows, I've been concerned about the Hardline for awhile. I always issue two preliminary thoughts: (1) I favored Hammer's departure, and (2) Corby does not suck. However, I have come to think over the months, now years, that have followed, that the show has lacked balance. Love Corby, Love Danny, but they're overwhelming Mike, whose show it more or less is. The problem is balance – the show has lost it.

Oh yeah, there's a third thing I usually try to remind myself – why would anyone think that something as wildly successful as the Hardline is – still is – needs to be fixed? Well, good question. But it's My Ticket Confession – I love the damned thing, but I sometimes I wish it were better.

I've been thinking about a solution I've been meaning to post for awhile, but it would be a multi-parter and needs a little context. In the meantime, let me throw this out:

The Hardline has gotten a lot more vulgar in the last few months. I'm not a prude and past levels of profanity and misogyny seemed to me acceptable for afternoon drive radio. Let me put it this way: Used to be, when my wife was in the car, she could enjoy the Hardline with me. Now, I have to quickly turn to something on satellite before the next clinical reference to female genitalia. In general, the references to women have gotten pretty difficult to listen to. The profanity is also out of control -- effective in small doses, it's now Stern Lite.

Yeah, it's successful, but it's starting to sound cheap and lazy. I listen every day, I love it a lot, but I worry about the Hardline. I really do.

The Hardline -- The Curtains Part (Slightly)

The Hardline boys made one of their rare forays into commenting on the nature of their partnership today. I forget the context, but Corby had said something naughty, and Mike was complaining that if he had said it, the music would have come down and it would have been dumped. Danny then referred to Mike as the “Patriarch” of the show by way of suggesting that Mike’s role was to “keep the monkeys in line” (and, the implication was, to lend some dignity to the proceedings by virtue of his age and seniority). That is, Danny and Corby were arguing that they were allowed to get away with impish misbehavior that Mike should not be associated with and should be discouraged from pursuing. Mike objected that he wanted to be every bit as disruptive (I forget the actual word he used) as monkeys Corby and Danny.


Corby and Danny were right, and this supports something I have written several times in the past:  The one thing missing from the Hardline program since the departure of Greg Williams (which I favored) is balance. Mike has become infantilized because he can’t compete with the barrage of juvenilia issuing from the Danny-Corby axis in the way he used to, when he had some support, however sporadic, from the Hammer. He can’t beat ‘em, so he’s been trying to join ‘em, and it’s a little sad to hear.

I actually have a solution to what I perceive in this one problem with the Hardline, and I’ll sketch it out sometime in the future. (Would need to stretch over a few posts.)  In the meantime, I thought today’s colloquy showed some interesting program self-awareness.