A List, and Some Thoughts

I'm still thinking Corby and Danny stay where they are in the positions they now have.  I don't think Danny will be elevated, if he even wants that with his other outside interests.  He may not.


The thought I have is that the replacement must have sports knowledge.  Must.  This is where The FAN eats The Ticket's lunch.  It's where The Hardline has weakened over the years in a way that there simply was almost no serious sports talk on the show except maybe when Corby would talk tennis or college football, and even then  .  .  .  .

The second thought I have is that the replacement needs to have some weight, some heft, some adult credentials to rein in Corby/Danny's more juvenile tendencies.  Although, on further consideration, maybe The Ticket is looking to get younger at all positions, bring in some guys at the lower end of the demo that they seem to be losing.

So let's go through the list:

Of the current hosts, only Donovan strikes me as a potential Hardline replacement, and I don't see that working, much as I like Donovan.  Just not enough razzle-dazzle, and I think Corby and Danny would be tiptoeing around him to some degree.  While he and Corby do seem comfortable together and can put on a good show, that combo just doesn't spark for me.

Cat isn't going to break up BaD, and is not going to move BaD into The Hardline slot -- I don't think.  


That leaves, in no particular order:

Jake:  Leading coming out of the turn.  Sportsy, loquacious, smart, snotty.  At first I thought Jake with Corby would be too much snot for one show, but of the people at the station, he's probably tops.  There's no weightier Ticket guy available except Donovan, assuming neither Bob nor Dan graduates to The Hardline.  (And, if so, it would have to be Bob.  Dan -- Corby would say, "Are you kidding me?"  Besides, I think both Bob and Dan really like their time slot and massive intern support where they are now.)

Mike Sirois:  Love Mike Sirois.  Sportsy enough?  A little thin-skinned sometimes, makes for some interesting radio.  Cirque is frequently replaced, although he seems to be present for his producer duties with The Invasion.  He doesn't suffer fools gladly and he and Corby/Danny might be a tense fit.

Sean Bass:  Oddly, Sean seems to be a polarizing figure with the Confessor.  I like him.  Is he flavorful enough to boost The Hardline?  He's been moved into a semi-management role at The Ticket, so there's some weight there, and he is sportsy.  I don't recall a Sean/Corby pairing in the past but I'd like to hear it.

I don't see anyone more junior than Jake, Mike or Sean being serious candidates, as talented as some of them are.  Both Justin Montemayor and David Mino have turned into accomplished hosts on the Work in Progress Sunday show, they're both very good.  But with them there's the weight problem.

Ty Walker:  Like him on Country Force, and he can talk baseball.  He's gotten kicked in the cojones for so long by hosts -- all in fun, sure -- could he be elevated?

Dave Lane:  Again, a guy I like whenever I hear him.  I didn't think his +1 coat-and-tie "interview" appearance last week showcased him to good advantage.  His Mike tribute was great, but overall he didn't seem to be at his best.

I like Eli Jordan quite a lot, but I just don't see him leapfrogging more tenured in-house candidates.

One possibility is to do nothing.  No replacement.  Leave it as the Corby/Danny show.  Anyone else thinking that Corby sounds more responsible without Mike present?  Danny too?  Maybe I'm imagining things.  The Confessor seems to think that would not be a good idea, but I wouldn't mind it.

Let me throw out a couple of longshots:

David Moore.

Mike Doocy.

They're both sportsy; they're both adults.  I have no idea whether they are available or willing.  I do believe that Doocy, at least, could keep his current gig and still do the afternoon show.  David has to be present at Cowboy events and skulk around the locker room, so his availability is less certain.  However -- what is it that is making me think that David Moore is not a young man?  I went looking for his age and couldn't find it, but I think I heard somewhere that he's actually out of the demo.  (David, sorry if I've misheard that somewhere.)  He may be ready for a regular radio gig and broadcast paycheck.  Both are familiar to Ticket listeners.  Both have a sense of humor.  Doocy would need to tamp down his natural inclination to deference.  And again -- The Ticket may not want to replace Mike with an actual adult.  No idea whether either would blend with Corby/Danny.

And I think Lee "Hacksaw" Hamilton is available.

I'm probably forgetting someone's favorite, and when you tell me who I've forgotten I'll smack my forehead and apologize.

BREAKING: Country Force to Take 10-Noon Saturday Slot

If my deep Cumulus source is correct, I believe most Confessors will find this a welcome development.  (I never know how reliable my sources are, but this one has the ring of accuracy on the merits, so I'm going with it.)

I have enjoyed Eli Jordan's work since he emerged at The Ticket awhile back -- he'll even sit in with Rick Arnett on The Tee Box from time to time -- but I'm especially pleased for Ty Walker.  Of course, he hosts Diamond Talk with Sean Bass, but it's great to see he's earned a permanent daylight-hours slot after his expert backwater toil at The Ticket all these years.  (I'm still waiting for someone to tell me what award Diamond Talk has won, not that it doesn't deserve to have won one, but it's right there in all the promos; you'd think someone would know.)

That leaves Sunday mornings, 8-11, to be filled.

My own listening plus comments received on this site inspire a respectful request to the New World Catman to give the very most thoughtful and heartfelt consideration to some combination that includes Justin Montemayor.

Then the Ticket world will be perfect, except for all that network programming.

Congratulations to Ty and Eli.

Hay!  Country Force, can't wait for your tractor-pull coverage.

(1) Welcome back, Monte, and (2) PROGRAM NOTE: Sunday AM Country Force

Wish I'd known Justin Montemayor was going to be returning to Monte + The Machine yesterday morning, I'd have tried to catch more of the show.  I thought he sounded real good -- a little rough, a little tired, but pretty darned good little broadcast, what I heard.

Machine seemed happy to have him back as well.  His account of he and David Mino visiting Justin in the hospital where he had his leg tucked back under him -- giving the appearance that he might have been relieved of that limb as well -- was pretty amusing.

So was their talk about the Golden Chick empire being built on the music of Ronnie James Dio.  You had to be there.

I didn't hear the first of the show so if he delivered his package of his account of his hospitalization, I'd appreciate it if one of you would fill us in.

*     *     *

A long, long time since Country Force with Ty Walker and Eli Jordan got a slot.  Good to hear those boys this morning.

Grocery-cart talk very welcome.

*     *     *

Liking some of these new Ticker guys.  Caleb seems like a zero-BS guy.

 

PROGRAM NOTE: It's an All-Eli Saturday!

(1) It's starting right now on The Teebox, where Craig Rosengarden is expressly showcasing Eli Jordan in partial expiation for Craig "Junior" Miller's failure to include him in his just-published Ticket Tier Chart (see below).  Always good to hear Eli on The Teebox.

Eli was talking about how long he's been at The Ticket.  I couldn't quite parse his entire account, but he's been associated with the station a lot longer than I thought, not always in an on-air role.  This is his second stint at the station.  He said he's been on-air for three years -- I wouldn't have thought it was that long, but the old memory ain't what it used to be.

(2)  Country Force starring Eli and Ty Walker will be subbing for the Kickaround this afternoon.

(3)  From 5 to 6:30 today, Country Force will be conducting a special pre-MMA show.  I believe they will be broadcasting from The Plaza, so stop by.

*     *     *

Now, as to Junior's Ticket Tier Chart, published yesterday on Twitter.

Here it is:

TIER ONE

     Mike
     Corby
     Norm
     Donnie
     Bob
     Dan
     George
     Gordo
     Craig

TIER TWO

     Vacant

TIER THREE

     Fernando
     Big Strong Jer
     Sean
     M. Sirois
     TC
     Jake
     Danny
     Ty
     Mino
     Fahey

TIER FOUR

     Monty
     Marshall
     Letsche
     Cray Trey
     C. Sirois
     Arnett
     Rosengarden
     Welpton,
     Swift
     Moore
     Wilonsky,
     Carlos Leal
     Tony
     Blake
     Andrew
     Pete
     Charlie
     DiGianni
     DJ Mark

TIER FIVE

     Anyone whose name I don't know
     Interns

TIER SIX

     Vacant

TIER SEVEN

     Killer

*     *     *

Note the omission of the aforementioned Eli Jordan and also David Newbury.  Surely an oversight.  And surely a bit.

Other than that, I don't think I have much of a quarrel with this chart.  I would move some guys up or down depending on my likes and like-less, but in terms of the actual real objective station pecking order, I think Junior's has the right peckers and peckees.

And the biggest peckers are in Tier One.

Welpton? 

"But  .  .  .  but Cat, you  .  .  .  you told me you were Tier Zero."

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.

PROGRAM NOTE: BREAKING: Country Force in for That Shake Joint Thang

Starring Ty Walker and Eli Jordan.  Good stuff.

PROGRAM NOTE: Country Force (Ty Walker, Eli Jordan) in for Cirque Today at Noon

Check it out. 

Hey, Country Force, can you fix my chain?

Not a Lot to See Here, Just Keeping the Thread Moving Along

I'm as big a fan of Monty + The Machine (aka "Not a Podcast") on Saturday morning as most of you seem to be.  A raucous, slacker-anarchic show even with only two voices.  Fun, different, some good Emerging Demo Sports Takes.

It's still kind of finding its way, though; still poking a sharp stick into the side of The Ticket.  Is it a good strategy?  I dunno.  I shake my head sometimes, but I don't punch out.

Yesterday, for example.

The Machine was on fire, returning to his roots as a guy who talks a lot.  The guy has a very unique radio timbre, and it's an interesting sound to have coming through the buds, but the guy gives some signs of being positively Sturmian as the syllables pour out of him, irrespective of what else is happening on the show at the time.   I thought that he and Justin had really worked out a nice balance in the last couple of months, but Justin's 1-1:30 news was a jumble of both of them talking at once.  (Hey, Machine, don't get upset -- love the show, love what you got.  OK?  This is just what one guy is hearing.  Maybe I'll hear from Confessors who ain't hearing the same thing.  And I'm estimating a P1 readership for this site on the order of 0.05% and a Cumulus readership south of that.)

And then there was the Eli Jordan Ticker.  It was cruising along at its usual dramatic pace, when all of a sudden there was a bunch of talking going on over his report.  I thought it was Machine, but I could be mistaken about that.  Could have been both him and Justin.  I tried to tell if whoever was talking over the Ticker was doing it accidentally because of a mis-hit board button, or just crashing the Ticker for the hell of it, but since the whole thing was incomprehensible, it was hard to tell.  I will say this, Eli didn't miss a beat, so it wasn't clear to me that he could hear the host-noise going on over his report.

But I think he did, and I think he did not believe it was a technical meltdown, because:

After it was all over, Machine and Justin tried to get Eli to get on-mic to  .  .  .  well, it wasn't clear what they wanted to talk to him about, although they said once or twice they wanted to "ask him a question."  But Mr. Jordan was having none of it, a 100% layout, Eli has left the building, leaving M+M to vamp embarrassingly for a bit before moving on. 

And M+M didn't blame the technology.

I dunno, guys, dunno what you get out of jabbing the Musers, don't know what you get out of jabbing Eli, don't even know what you get out of pretty harshly jabbing the Siroises as you also did yesterday (and do a lot).  I know, I know, it's a M+M bit to be the snotty newcomers.  Maybe that's what Cat is looking for, maybe you've got a deal with Mike and Cash.

But it's starting to take on just a bit of a hostile cast, pretty aggressive for a show that may feel established to its hosts but does not to most everyone else (all right, maybe just to me).  I really want to be hearing M+M on the air for the foreseeable future, so I'm hopeful that they will give some thought to the whereabouts of that fine line between bit and bloviation.

ThePlainsman1310@gmail.com

@Plainsman1310

Do You Like EJs? And a Question

(1)  Yes, I do like me some Eli Jordan.  The Ticket has some fine Tickermen, Ty and Sean and others; even T.C. is, in one sense or another, a must-listen.

But Eli sounds like nothing else on the Ticket -- nothing, that is, since the departure of Ticker God Rich Phillips.  Eli is kind of a cross between a throwback Mr. Broadcast Pipes with the staccato delivery, and a reg'lar Ticket jamoke.  His voice commands attention, which I deliver even though I have almost no interest in any of the results he's discussing.

By the way, have you caught Eli and Ty's "Country Force" fill-in show?  Pretty good little show, pretty darned good little show.  I've always liked Ty as a host and he and Eli make a pretty cool team, I thought.  Good showgram title, too.  I could hear more of that.

(2) This morning the Musers were (unfortunately) reprising the Eighth-Grade-Graduation-Presidential-Candidate-Impressions Kid.  Craig said to Gordon something like (precise recollection dim):  "You should name him as your successor, since your last designated successor was a complete failure."  And they all had a good chortle, and Craig said:  "But at least he ended up leaving and wrecking one of our competitors," OWTTE.

To whom was Craig referring?

[PS:  Any show replaying viral videos = burnt segments.]

Saturday Morning with Rick and Craig

A couple of weekend quick hits:

I had an errand to run up north today  and it being the first Saturday of the month, I thought I would grab a young auto enthusiast relation of mine and drop by Cars & Coffee at Classic BMW.  The Teebox Golf Show (that's what they call it on The Ticket website) usually broadcasts from that event.

Never been there before.  It was quite a thing.  Huge crowd of women and (mostly) men and some amazing vehicles.  Parking was a double sawbuck, but there was no place to park -- actually, the cool older cars were kind of interspersed with the regular old parking.  I found a place where my heap wouldn't look too out of place.  I was interested in the vintage cars but my companion made a beeline for the Ferraris, Maseratis, and his favorites, the Lamborghinis.  I asked him how much he thought they cost.  He was off by a factor of about forty, so I suggested that he go with the leveraged buyout specialist as a career choice, and maybe put "Jedi" on the back burner for the time being.

I looked around for the Teebox, looked for the mast of the broadcast truck, couldn't find either.  I was looking for the usual remote setup, hosts sitting at a table, speakers blasting the show.   Then my companion saw some guys and said, "Is that the radio show?"   Sure enough, there were a couple of guys, Rick Arnett and Craig Rosengarden, with headsets on relaxing on some comfy chairs smack in the middle of the showroom with a couple of guys, an engineer and some other guy who was just kind of a guy sitting there enjoying the presentation and checking his phone.  (Craig on the left with the red cap, Rick with his back to the camera on the right.)  

[[CORRECTION:  I am reliably advised that the "kind of a guy" checking his phone isn't just any old guy, but the guy who is a good friend of Corby Davidson, the one and only Eric Maas, owner of Classic BMW.  By the way, if you haven't been there -- it's a gorgeous dealership.  Wonder what he'd take for the Conestoga.]]

A Coupla White Guys Sitting Around Talking Gahf

There were no speakers set up in the showroom to broadcast the show to the shoppers, and I wonder how many of them even knew that one of the original Day One Ticket guys (Rick) was even at that  moment broadcasting in their very midst.

*     *     *

By the way, Rick Arnett has a nice Avid Golfer blog you should check out.  Gahf and babes.  It's listed on the Ticket-Friendly Links, and here it is:  Avid Golfer Blog

*     *     * 

Did someone throw some cold water on Eli Jordan?  I was listening to a Ticker this morning and I thought -- I know this voice, but there's something different.  It was Eli, speaking in normal human tones. 

I like Eli's overheated narratives.  I hope they haven't asked him to calm down.

*     *     *

Back to Cars & Coffee for a minute:  When we drove out there was a long line of people along the Parkway.  They seemed to have a couple of banners but they were kinda crinkled up and I couldn't read them entirely, although one displayed the partial phrase "CROSS THIS LINE," as though it were some kind of demonstration.  Anyone know what that was about?

*     *     *

I may regret this, but I'm going to suspend moderation and see what happens.  I was browsing some older threads and came across one where the Confessors were talking about moderation.  Some liked it, but a thin majority didn't.  So I thought I'd take off the leash and see if the dog stayed close.

Take it easy, Confessors.  I derive no joy from deleting comments.  The Rules of the Confessional remain in effect:  READ 'EM HERE

ThePlainsman1310@gmail.com

@Plainsman1310

Comment moderation suspended (for now).