Yes, you guessed correctly. This is my last column.
I still like The Ticket.
I may be in the minority, but I think 12-3 and 3-7 are both much better shows since the reshuffling. The Ticket is handling the fluidity at 10-12 required by Norm's illness very well. The weekend shows are stronger than ever. My Musers continue to nurture their legend.
Some things have changed, of course.
I realized over the past year or so that I don't like sports that much. I don't like the athletes. I don't like the owners. I don't like the league administration. It was part of the genius of The Ticket that it could still appeal to a guy like me.
Then two things happened.
The first thing, which is not that important as far as my decision to bid farewell to MTC, is The Contagion combined with The Unrest, and the effect both had on The Ticket.
Without sports to talk about because of The Contagion, one might have thought The Ticket would have been well-positioned to tough it out, since much of their broadcasting was already non-sports-related. But it is not handling The Contagion well.
Because the hosts chose to fill too many of their now-empty segments with talk about The Unrest (with a sports angle where possible), and, incidentally, the political response to The Contagion.
I'm interested in The Unrest. But I can hear about that anywhere, and more authoritatively, and less annoyingly, than I heard it on The Ticket.
Some of this is not The Ticket's fault. The response of sports administration to both The Contagion and The Unrest was an independent news event -- in this column's view, amounting to rank pandering -- and The Ticket had not much choice but to talk about it it. But the editorializing, both implicit and explicit, that accompanied it struck me as being way out of step with its listenership. At least that segment of it that is typing these words.
Can't prove it, but I believe The Ticket's ratings slide is a direct result of its misestimation of its listeners' tolerance for HOs that are not HSOs. (Yes, yet more men brought low by their obsession with hos.)
Not saying the hosts don't have a right to their opinions. Not even saying they shouldn't use their soapbox to broadcast it. Just saying you'll be hearing punch-outs from here to Waxahachie.
[[Small-print aside:
Before leaving this topic, which I have avoided in the past, let me say something in defense of Craig, Bob, Corby, Gordon, and all the rest who seem to be jumping on the social-justice bandwagon: These guys are not young men any more. When men (women, of course, too) get older, they reflect on what is important. It may be dawning on them, as it has dawned on me, that a lot of what has occupied our days through middle age, while necessary to put bread on the table, is slight, evanescent, unimportant -- most significantly, empty of meaning. There is a craving for meaning, for larger themes, for leaving a mark that sets the world a little closer to the right direction. I think we're hearing some of that restlessness in the noticeable veering of The Ticket away from entertainment based on sports commentary to bigger topics that increasingly resonate with these aging stars. It may not be good radio, but neither is it bombastic posturing or egotistical lecturing.
My own path (see second point below) is much the same. No one has to read my novel, and no one has to listen to The Ticket. It is not, and, truth to tell, never was, must-hear radio. It's a delightful confection struggling for air in a time when delightful confections completely dominated by middle-aged white males are in bad odor. I feel sorry for them and I'm missing them, but I'm embracing things I now find more important. So are they, and I applaud that mind-set, but nothing about them suggests that they're reliable guides for their traditional listeners. But they, each one of them, were a huge part of my life, and I love them all.]]
I found that I was going days without hearing a single minute of Ticket broadcasting. I'd punch out on the political talk, wait for what seemed to me to be a period where the station surely would have moved on to something of greater interest, punch back in, and the wearisome woke talk would still be going on.
In addition, I was busy with the second thing I'll get to in a moment.
It struck me that not listening much to the station would eventually result in me being a very poor Ticket blogger, if it hadn't already.
But this is going to pass. This alone would not have made me either forswear The Ticket, or forswear MTC. Things will eventually return to normal with a host lineup, possibly sans Norm but plus Sirois, that I have loved for years.
It is the second thing is luring me further from The Ticket and pretty much killing my willingness to continue MTC, at least as it has existed since 2009.
No, it isn't the politicization of the comments.
The second thing is: I've written a novel. I expect it to be published within the next month or so. Note the passive voice: "expect it to be published." In fact, I'm publishing it myself through my own company as do thousands of other Amazon authors. I've already started on novel number two, and I expect to write full time for money, both fiction and non-fiction, from here on out. Seventy percent royalties on ebooks on Kindle, not too shabby if you can catch on with readers who become fans. Something's gotta give; one of them is my career job, and another is MTC.
(I regret not telling you what the novel is, although some of you might like it. I am publishing it pseudonymously, and, much as I love The Confessor, I can't have anyone writing an Amazon review that even says so little as "hey, this is the guy that did The Ticket blog." Very sorry; I'd love to have y'all downloading it or buying the paperback.)
* * *
I haven't decided exactly what to do with the site. I'm not taking it down. It is of some very minor interest to the history of The Ticket. Sometimes, I suspect, of a little more interest than we know, although perhaps I flatter myself.
I have considered just doing a new one-sentence post from time to time to keep the thing alive as a place where people can come to participate in a curated discussion forum. Maybe industry or Cumulus guys will toss me a tip now and then. Maybe I'll give that a try and alert Twitter if there's anything of interest reported. But (1) would communicants really come here with no actual content offered (maybe I'll toss up a red with each new post), (2) Reddit exists (and I may check in there from time to time), and (3) do I really want to spend any time refereeing flame wars?
* * *
My gratitude to The Confessor is immense. I wish I had a chance to meet you all -- yes, even grumpasaurus Surly. I had a lot of fun doing the site and I have regretted the decline in my output over the past several months.
But the times are changing for many reasons, and The Ticket is likely to feel the seismic buckling as much as any aging institution, maybe more. I'd love to be around to report it, but commerce, if not art, is calling my name (even if it's not really my name).
Fond best regards to all.
And so, after 945 posts, I Thank You for Shopping at My Ticket Confession, Your Source for Responsible Ticket Journalism.
Good-bye, Plainsman. Who are you, anyway?
