Farewell, Danny

I was in Coachella; I didn't see Corby. I was at the LINQ in Las Vegas during the draft; I didn't see Jake. I'm writing this from Phoenix.

Will Someone Please Tell Shane Mullen of Mullen & Mullen Law Firm, Sponsor of Ticketstock, What a "Spoiler" Is?

All-Pro Has Changed Its Ads

Per always, see first comment below.

More Weirdness from All-Pro Foundation Repair

A Mortifyingly Tardy Congratulations to The Ticket and Each and Every Muser

See first comment below.

Do You Remember "Norman"?

Happy 71st, Mike Rhyner

A Very Happy Birthday to "My Ticket Confession"

Turning 12 today. Still Your Source for Responsible Ticket Journalism. Such as it is.

Something Special for the Confessor: "You I Like"

See first comment.

Is The Ticket a Sports Station, Really?

See first comment below.

"Ms. Dobbs? Please Hold for the Deputy Director of Enforcement, Securities and Exchange Commission, Fort Worth Division."

SEE FIRST COMMENT

Whither MTC?

See first comment.

I'm Sure Someone Has Tweeted This Out

but here is the clip of Mr. Ed hitting a home run against Sandy Koufax (Musers, Sturm Center). https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=549241279173020 Let me know if this doesn't open for you. Plainsman

My Ticket Confession: I Haven't Tuned in to The Ticket in Several Weeks

Not upset at any of the shows. Not tired of or bored with any of them. No wokeness issues with any of the hosts. Just seem to have better things to do at all times of the day. Two more books coming out, including a Christmas fantasy novella. Working on some songs with a Nashville talent. And, as I believe I said in my schwanz-song several months back, but if I didn't I'll say it now: Sports has plummeted on my list of budgeted interests. I realized one day that I had come to dislike: the owners; the players; the governance; the corruption and cheating; the overall entertainment value of the presentation. As it turns out, I did have a bit of inside scoop a while back: Danny's girlfriend is the sister of a major business contact of mine, so I knew that nativity was on the horizon. But personal stuff is extremely limited here unless it has something to do with the shows, so I kept it under my chapeau. I'll keep the site up as a monitored message board for at least a while longer. But I'll have little idea of what's going on with the shows unless I find the time to tune back in. Which I may. I'm an inconstant sort of chap. Also: Blogger has gotten worse and worse as a platform for this kind of thing. Thank you for shopping at My Ticket Confession.

Stuff Like This Keeps Cat and Dan Bennett Up at Night. Well, Maybe Just Cat.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/02/what-pandemic-revealed-about-sports/618157/?utm_source=pocket-newtab

Best Wishes to Norm Hitzges for a Continued Recovery from Whatever, or Whatever Combination of Things, Is (Are) Ailing Him

I Will Never Purchase a Product or Services from Welborn Garage Doors

Hoping that all Confessors are maintaining under the difficult conditions currently obtaining in Cool Metro. Your loved ones as well. '

Conrad's Back?

Did I miss an announcement? Or isn't he really back?

Happy 27th Birthday, The Ticket

And may consultants grant you many more.

 

 

Party at The Barley House?

 

I'm Out of the Loop (i.e., Missing Some Shows So May Have Missed News) -- What's the Deal with Conrad?

This red wants to know.

 

Urging All Confessors to Check Out the Great Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in the Southwestern Sky Tonight, Tomorrow Night (Closest Apparent Approach, the "Official" Conjunction) and for Some Days Thereafter

[And a very happy 55th birthday this day to Craig "Junior" Miller.]

 Go out 45 minutes/hour after sunset and look to the southwest for the brightest thing in the sky (other than the moon).  You might think you're only seeing one object, but look more carefully, perhaps slightly avert your gaze.  They will only be one-tenth of a degree apart -- about one-fifth the apparent diameter of the full moon.  Saturn, which is usually intrinsically bright, will be much dimmer than Jupiter.  As you can see from the chart, it's about twice as far away.  Jupiter and Saturn will in fact be over a half-billion miles apart at that time.

 Don't wait too long, as the conjunction will set not long into the night.

 Great Conjunction of 2020

 Wishing all Confessors a safe and happy Christmas.

       -- Plainsman

Happy 95th Birthday, Jonathan Winters (RIP 2013)

 

And, by the way, Alex Trebek's predecessor as Jeopardy! host, Art Fleming (in my view, a better host than AT), also died of pancreatic cancer (RIP 1995).

 

Happy Birthday, John Cleese and Roy Lichtenstein

 

Classic Red Stunner, Rhonda Fleming, RIP at 97

 

October 14, 2020: National Fossil Day

Huntonia Trilobite from Oklahoma.

October 2, 2020 -- 130th Anniversary of the Birthday of Julius "Groucho" Marx

 

 

ThePlainsman1310@gmail.com

Thank You for Shopping at "My Ticket Confession"

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.

ThePlainsman1310@gmail.com

@Plainsman1310

 

Good-bye, Plainsman.  Who are you, anyway?

FROM THE DRAFT PILE: Are Any Confessors Former Members of the Highland Park High School Ticket Club?

I'm rummaging through old draft posts that never got posted.  Here's one from 2014.  Kind of a give-up at this point, I know, but the more I thought about it, the more I was interested in the answer.  Let us hear from you if you were in that club or know anything much about it.  

To make up for its brevity, I offer two reds.

Thanks.

        -- Plainsman
 

*     *     *

Were you or anyone you know a member of the Highland Park High School Ticket Club?  If so, let us hear from you about those heady days.  The Hardline talks about the Club once in awhile, and Corby did today.  One of its alumni runs a website that was the key to raising the money necessary to enable the Foo Fighters to play the small venue in Virginia where Corby had attended the show.  I'd like to hear more.

 

  

 

 Oh, all right, all right, here's one more for this crummy post:

 

 

 

BLOG INTERRUPTION: Technical Question for Streaming Experts

PRELIMINARY NOTE:  Myrna Loy, today's red, would have been 115 today.

*     *     *

For some years I have done a lot of my Ticket listening on the stream via bluetooth.  I stream from the website -- not from the app -- on my phone.  This has worked great until recently. 

Now I find that when the Ticket website leaves the screen -- let's say I'm out on my bike listening with a bluetooth bud and the screen (but not the stream) goes to sleep -- the stream breaks up into little bits.  No content is lost, but the voices all experience gaps that makes them sound as though they've slooooowed down their talking because of all the little interruptions.  If I turn the phone back on (it was never off, just not displaying anything) and return to the Ticket home page, the stream continues playing normally.

Formerly, the screen would go to sleep and the stream would be unaffected.

Any suggestions?  I'm trying to remember why I decided not to use the app.  Maybe that's the best way to listen to the stream?

Thanking you in advance.

Happy birthday, Myrna.