FROM THE ARCHIVES -- Let's Take a Break for a Little Green Tail Shiner

CONFESSORS:  I'm still tied up with some personal and professional changes.  got some stuff in the hopper but we're in desperate need of a thread-freshener.  dipping into the archives this morning for a spot of fun.  the ticket should bring this back as a station meme, but it seems to have faded in the collective memory.  thanks for keeping the site going while i'm tied up.  let me hear from you if you have something you'd like to propose as a featured post.  thanks, confessors.  -- plainsman

All right, things are getting a little too testy around here for my liking.

We all need to calm down a little for some Ticket fun from the archives. 

I've written about this a couple of times in past posts.  For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, and for those who do, the good men at The UnTicket have the goods as they usually do.  I re-listened to this a few minutes ago and I laughed out loud again, and not just one or two giggles.

9/11 was unquestionably a worthy Number One moment at The Ticket, but here is my personal favorite moment on The Ticket of the last ten years:

Green Tail Shiner Non-Explanation with Embedded Replay of Original Reference with Bonus Classic Michael Gruber Background Chortling

The link is actually Mike's Mind on the day following the original reference, but I believe most if not all of the original Green Tail Shiner reference is replayed here.

So if, on my deathbed, my final words are "Green Tail Shiner," as they may well be, you won't need a whole damned movie to figure out what I was talking about.

Let's All Take a Break for Some Green Tail Shiner

All right, things are getting a little too testy around here for my liking.

We all need to calm down a little for some Ticket fun from the archives.

I've written about this a couple of times in past posts.  For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, and for those who do, the good men at The UnTicket have the goods as they usually do.  I re-listened to this a few minutes ago and I laughed out loud again, and not just one or two giggles.

9/11 was unquestionably a worthy Number One moment at The Ticket, but here is my personal favorite moment on The Ticket of the last ten years:

Green Tail Shiner Non-Explanation with Embedded Replay of Original Reference with Bonus Classic Michael Gruber Background Chortling

The link is actually Mike's Mind on the day following the original reference, but I believe most if not all of the original Green Tail Shiner reference is replayed here.

So if, on my deathbed, my final words are "Green Tail Shiner," as they may well be, you won't need a whole damned movie to figure out what I was talking about.

ThePlainsman1310@gmail.com

@Plainsman1310

A Perfect Ending to a Perfect Day

Aren't all Ticket days perfect?

The Hardline had just finished its final segment.  The 6:50 ads were coming on and I reached over to punch over to Underground Garage on Sirius XM until Jake Kemp's 7:00 p.m. Ticket Top Ten comes on around 7:18 or so.    How many times do you need to hear Mike's identical daily farewells to the P1?   The show was over, right?

I pulled up.  Of course not.

What, I wondered, would that Nice Young Michael Gruber have cued up for us after the Hardline Theme today?

And then it struck me -- I've only been listening now for almost eight years, so y'all probably caught on to this a long time ago -- those slices or archival gold that he runs after Mike signs off are not only welcome repeats of good stuff from the past, but it keeps you tuned in through another couple of SweetJack joints and the Ticket All-Pro Foundation Repair Chorus Mass Endorsement Oratorio.   Turns a sponsor wasteland into something you purposely leave turned on.

A spot of genius, that.

Not only are the replayled bits usually fun, but they frequently answer questions listeners have about where certain inside references come from.  I didn't know what "Stand back, Burrito" meant until Grubes played the original bit at 6:59 back a few months ago.

And yesterday there was an extra reward:  A rare mention (although not the original) of one of the most mind-melting concepts ever slung on terrestrial radio, by one Mike Rhyner:  Green Tail Shiner (originally reported here), my obsession with which will doubtless someday destroy me, and this site along with it.

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Follow Your Plainsman on Twitter:  @Plainsman1310

Email Your Plainsman:  ThePlainsman1310@gmail.com

A Very Happy and Healthy New Year to All Confessors

It's been a very gratifying year at My Ticket Confession.  Hits are up hugely and page views -- new readers checking out the archives -- are healthy as well.  The numbers may not be impressive in comparison with the listenership of The Ticket, but seeing as how it was me and about three other people in the early days, it's nice to have visitors.

In the last post's epic thread of comments on DryDock, I mentioned how healthy the hits were whenever that time of year rolled around.  That prompted a response from one Michael Krenek, who wrote: 

Your hits are up during dry dock because all of us Ticket spares are refreshing the site every 5 minutes to see if anything is written about us.

Krenek

#truth #hungryforfeedback

In addition to being hilarious, I think there's some truth there.  It had long been my assumption that Ticket hosts and CTOs get tons of email, in some cases hundreds a day, with reactions from P1's to Ticket programming, bits, hosts, features, everything.  And I would have thought that any views expressed on this site would be pretty much lost in that torrent of opinion and not much noticed by the varsity and JV and CTOs at The Little One. 

I'm less sure now.   Some time back I heard from a Ticket guy via email who mentioned that he sees MTC up on laptops from time to time.  Now here's Michael K's testimony.  And of course we have heard in "signed" comments this year from Grubes, Matt, Jake, Casey, and Jeremy (actually, haven't heard from Jer in awhile, that may have been further back in the past).  Also, I'm reasonably sure that one or more of our Anonymi from time to time are also station personnel.  On rare occasions I will hear via email from a Ticket guy with an "atta boy" or a correction or something like that. 

So somebody's checking us out at our favorite radio station.

But I'll tell you something, Confessors:  It's not me they're interested in -- it's you.   There have been some absolutely sensational mini-essays in the comments over the past several months that are well-written and thoughtful.  Sometimes I agree, sometimes not, but these are people who obviously care about the station and think about what makes it great.  In fact, I would put all non-troll commenters in that category; even the offhand comments are pungent and get at something true about the station.

Our readers are guys (and Jonaessa!) who spend an astonishing percentage of their lives listening to The Ticket.   I would think that Cumulo-Ticket guys would be very interested in the views of quality listeners like you, even if they think that Your Plainsman is looney tunes with his between-the-lines interpretations, guesses, speculations, and opinions, not to mention his unhealthy obsession with Green Tail Shiner.  

So:  Raise a glass to yourselves tonight, and have a safe and joyful New Year and 2012, with my continued Thanks for Shopping at My Ticket Confession.

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Follow Your Plainsman on Twitter:  @Plainsman1310

Email Your Plainsman:  ThePlainsman1310@gmail.com

Penn State Sodomy Quick Hits

(1)  The Musers and The Hardline did a good job with this hot topic on Thursday.  I thought that their efforts to tone down the comedy were notable.  (The Musers generally more sincere, and successful, in this than The Hardline, but the fact that they acknowledged the gravity of situation was to the credit of both shows.)  I felt that they also made an effort to find something different to say about the matter in addition to the obvious.

The seriousness with which both shows treated this topic, and that fact that the Penn State mess was almost the only topic covered, was perceptive.  This is one of those events that changes the way we look at an entire institution, and I'm not talking about Penn State -- I'm talking about sports in general and perhaps even large, powerful institutions of all kinds where horrors are swept under the rug because the consequences of exposure are so vast.  It seems like any time we get past the surface of what we see on the teevee in college or pro sports we find financial, sexual, medical, political, and other-words-I-can't-think-of-ending-in-"al" misdeeds that take our breath away.  The drive shows didn't get all philosophical on us like I'm doing right now, but I thought that their reaction -- being brought up short by the enormity of what took place -- was a perfect mirror of how many of us are reacting.

(2)  I was able to have BaD on in the background on Thursday, but couldn't hear it very clearly.  I got the impression that they didn't devote much airtime to this subject at all, but I may be way wrong about that.  Can anyone give us an account of how BaD handled matters?

(3)  The student riots and support for Paterno are excellent reasons for raising the voting age to 25, and also fodder for the growing literature on the worthlessness of the modern liberal arts education.  It will be interesting to see what happens to applications there.  It's one of the largest universities in the United States, so perhaps it is to be expected that some irreducible core of maroons would be out and about spouting fatuities.

(4)  "With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had done more."  HINDSIGHT?  HINDSIGHT??  Does Paterno even know what kind of activity is involved here?  Is there a more poorly-worded confession in the annals (yes, that's "annals") of American history?  Who drafted Paterno's appalling statement?  That mouthy lawyer kid of his?  Craig Rosengarden?

"Hindsight":   Astoundingly unfortunate word choice aside, think about what he is saying.  "Hindsight" doesn't mean that you now have more facts than you had back at the time to which you are looking back -- it means that some new circumstance has caused you to interpret those facts differently.   What are those new circumstances here?  Only the threat to his own skin and Penn State arising out of disclosure of the matters he and his staff chose to at best ignore, and at worst to cover up.  

His effort to instruct the Trustees on their duty not to regulate his employment is exactly the kind of tone-deaf arrogance that has now tarnished his legacy.

(5)  OFF-TOPIC:  This site strongly endorses The Hardline's increased references to Green Tail Shiner.

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Follow Your Plainsman on Twitter:  @Plainsman1310

A COUPLE OF QUICK HITS: (1) Paynj and (2) Croak

(1)  Mike's Continued Interest in Unusual Animal Habits.   We have already had occasion to remark on one of the most bizarre moments in recent Ticket history --  Mike R's reference to Green Tail Shiner.  (You need to listen to the links in the comments if you don't remember this -- I mean, Mike was at his out-there best.)

Today, he referred to a canine activity, presumably theoretical, called a "paynj."  I'm spelling it phonetically -- like "pain" with a "j"-sound on the end.  (So why not spell it with an "i"?  So as not to associate it with "pain."  I hope we've cleared that up.)

How did this come up? you may well ask.  Grubes was replaying some old account of how Corby's parents used to wake him up when he was a boy by sending his dog into his bedroom, whereupon said cur would leap upon the slumbering MiniSnake and proceed to (bleep -- presumably, "hump") him until he woke up.  This recollection was the cause of well-earned hilarity, and then, apropos of nothing, Mike makes reference to something called a "paynj."

This perplexed everyone, until someone, I think Danny, suggested that Mike was giving a name to the way a dog would perform a haynj (phonetic) -- because a dog has paws (starting with a "p") and not hands.  Got that?  What it had to do with waking up the adolescent Corby is shrouded in the mists of radio lore.

But shouldn't it be "pawj"?

(2)  Greggo's Lost Cords.  Flipped over for a spot of RaGE today.  Greg's voice had almost completely disappeared.  All he could do, when I was listening, was whisper.  I didn't listen long enough to tell if he was coherent. 

Did anyone hear an explanation of this?

So maybe he was yelling at the TV all weekend.  Doesn't a radio host with a history of vocal problems have some kind of obligation to care for the pipes?

Recent commenters have suggested that Greggo's Tweets are spiraling towards unhingedness.  

Richie Whitt must be fighting carpal tunnel in both hands as he keeps his fingers tightly crossed at all times.

OPEN THREAD: Green Tail Shiner

I'm hopeful AP will favor us with a link to the clip.  Two clips, now, actually.

If you didn't hear them  .  .  .  I'm sorry, I'm not even sure I have the vocabulary to describe what I heard.

All I can say is -- you have absolutely got to love The Ticket.  It will admit of no other emotion.  Even when one of its stalwarts is apparently on the edge of sheer naked lunacy.

Open Thread Question to Ignore:  What do Mike's speculations about green tail shiner tell us about the future of American media?