Geoausch

• The Rockets now have Ron Artest and many in the Dallas media feel that this reprsents just another nail in the coffin of the Mavericks. On paper, I agree. The addition of Artest makes the Rockets tougher–in more than one way. However, each year we hear the same thing–”if the Rockets stay healthy, they will compete for the Western Conference title.” Personally, I think it is impossible for both McGrady and Yao to make it through an 82 game schedule healthy. Last year, the Rockets proved that they could get hot without Yao, but in the end they missed his presence dearly. Even with the addition of Artest, the Rockets will need both Yao and T-Mac to make it through the season healthy in order to compete with the Lakers, Spurs and, yes, even the damn Hornets. I don’t think it directly hurts the Mavs–the West was already tough.

• I’m a huge Cowboys’ fan, but can we please tap the breaks on Danny Amendola. Based on what I saw him do in college, I’m willing to give the little dude a shot, but there is a very large and very vocal group of Cowboy fans who seem to think that just because Amendola is short, from Tech and, yes, WHITE, he will turn into the next Wes Welker. I love rooting for the underdog and I would love to have a Wes Welker-like receiver on my team. However, it disturbs me that every person I have heard make a call for Amendola has been white and most of the time they bring up his race or say something like–”he’s a hard worker.” Let’s drop the race card and pick the 5 or 6 receivers best suited to bringing another Lombardi trophy back to Dallas.

• Rangers attendance is down—way down!  I wonder what attendance would be like for the Rangers if this club played in a downtown stadium with a retractable roof?  I know I would go to at least a game every homestand. Who wants to drive to Arlington, sit in traffic on 30, get to the game and sit in 100 degree heat and then have an almost hour drive back to the city? Not me…

• I’m sick and tired of hearing the words “super bowl’ come out of the mouth (and pens) of the Dallas media. The players aren’t talking Super Bowl, the coaching staff is not talking Super Bowl, and the owner is not talking Super Bowl, the Dallas media in need of a juicy story creats the “Super Bowl or bust” mentality.

Like many, I worked myself through college doing a variety of jobs, including “waiting tables.” Today, I read that one of my former employers would cease to exist as I once knew it (http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/073008dnmetbennigans.140b9e44.html). That’s right, Bennigans, you’re favorite Irish themed casual dining experience locked its doors.

When I first read the story, I felt a little sentimental. I still have several vivid memories from the Bennigans where I worked, store #420, a perfect number for this particular store. Oh the stories I could tell. I ran across a letter I wrote to Metromedia, Inc., almost five years ago to the day, July 31, 2003. Reading through the letter, I feel like a prophet, or perhaps just Mr. Obvious.

In the letter, I outlined for the corporate office tales of outrageous food costs, outrageous liquor costs, inept and sometime absent management, illicit activities among many of the staff members and reminder of the store’s nefarious past. In the letter, I did not mention the story of the female hostess who tried to seduce five male servers, including myself, during one shift. The corporate office ignored my letter and it hardly shocked me to see the news today that Bennigans would cease to exist. At the same time, I can’t help but shed a small tear, if for nothing else the death of the Turkey O’Toole.  So tonight my brothers and sisters, have yourself a pint of Guiness, raise it to the roof and shout out the old Gaelic phrase, “Slainte,” in memory of Bennigans.

Call me a curmudgeon, but I hate summer! The sun, the laziness, the endless days, and the lack of football make for a miserable season.  A stubborn high-pressure system prevents any relief from the heat, but relief from the lack of football lies just around the corner. I write this while streaming the Jerry Jones, Wade Phillips press conference that officially signals the start of the Dallas Cowboys’ training camp in Oxnard, California. We’re still a couple of weeks away from preseason games and players won’t really start hitting for a few days, but at least it provides some mental relief to know we past summer’s steep hump and it should be all downhill from here.  In a few weeks, high schools and colleges will begin their two-a-day practices. NFL preseason games get under way the first weekend in August. The last weekend in August we’ll get REAL high school and college games to watch and before you know it we’re chugging through September, heading towards October and the slightly cooler temperatures of autumn.

Yes my friends, today is a wonderful day, because it represents the beginning of the most wonderful time of year—FOOTBALL SEASON!

I love talk radio, especially sports talk radio, and I’ve been lucky enough to experience talk radio not only as a consumer of the product, but also as “on-air talent.”  I will not lie; part of me thinks my brief radio experience, in a very small media market, qualifies me as an expert on the subject. So every day, while at work, I turn the dial until I find some program to critique.  From Rush Limbaugh to Thom Hartmann, from Mike and Mike In The Morning to The Hardline, if they are talking, I’ll listen and many times I’ll end up writing about something I heard that day.

Today is no different!

Since moving to Dallas, I’ve been amazed at how The Ticket (KTCK 1310 AM) kicks the local ESPN radio affiliate’s ass (ESPN 103.3 FM). Ask any Metroplex male in between the age of 24-50 and you’ll probably get a hundred different answers on why they prefer The Ticket to ESPN radio, but I suspect 95% of those answers would deal with entertainment value. In the end, sports talk radio exists to entertain. If a station fails to entertain, it fails to serve its’ purpose and will eventually fail.

What makes for entertaining radio? Well, it’s kind of like pornography–you’ll know it when you see it, or in this case hear it.  I think we can begin by listing what makes radio NOT entertaining.

1.) Phones Sure, listener feedback can be helpful and possibly even entertaining, in small recommended doses, but when I tune into a radio program, I do so to listen to the on-air talent and not “Doug in Garland“. As I began my journey into radio, a great talent taught me that an on-air personality should not go to the phones more than one segment per hour. Tune into ESPN 103.3 and their shows contain a ton of phone calls and text messaging, especially Randy Galloway‘s program.

2.) No Experts Needed In the world of sports, experts don’t exist and anyone who claims to be one is lying out their ass. Sure, it helps to understand the techniques and nuances associated with the games; however, in the end, there are way too many intangibles to attempt to proclaim some universal truth.  Sports journalist serve two functions—report and entertain. The last thing I want from a sports journalist is conversations with other media members. If I wanted to know what Todd Archer thought about the Dallas Cowboys, I’d read the Morning News. If I cared what John Clayton thought, I would watch ESPN. If, for some reason, I turn on Randy Galloway’s radio program I do so with the hope (or fear) of hearing Grandpa Urine. The on-air talent who depends on “experts” expresses low confidence in their ability to both report and entertain.

3.) Tunnel Vision We have all read the various studies; we live in a country of shrinking attention spans. Yet some radio producers failed to read the memo. Many sports talk radio stations, especially the generic sports talk stations, want to take a 3 hour radio program and focus on one or two issues. Even in July, material exists to fill a 3-hour program. Sure, you may have to venture off the sports page, but being cultured and diverse never hurt anyone. In short, after two segments on a subject, it is time to move on to another subject. After that time, you’ve said all that can said and you risk rambling or even worse yet, becoming cliché.

4.) Don’t Take Yourself Too Seriously Jock talkers are the worst when it comes to egos. Turn on sports talk and you’re going to hear extreme bravado. While I think it is necessary to be self confident, on-air personalities need to realize that in the end, they’re talking sports, which is entertainment and for which there are no experts. For example, let’s take Dallas sports talk personality, Chuck Cooperstein, “Coop” carries himself as a man’s man. He speaks with the deep baritone falsetto of “radio voice” and issues strong opinions, often against the home team, to appear non-biased. He grows impatient if talk deviates, even for one second, from sports and grows even more irate if the conversation turns to certain sports topics he feels are not worthy of “talk” (i.e. high school football, fantasy sports, etc.). “Coop” needs to realize he might be a little more successful if he broadened his horizons.