"....these alleged analysts and colormen serve a limited role - and they rarely proved themselves capable of bridging the gap between entertainment and journalism. How many times must the viewing public be subjected to the same old worn-out bromides?" Excerpt from I Never Played The Game by Howard Cosell, 1985.
The term "jockocracy" originated with writer Robert Lipsyte and was popularized by the aforementioned greatest sportscaster ever. It is today such a permanent fixture of sports television, hardly anyone complains about it anymore. What's even worse is that the jockocracy mentality is also permeating portions of our world that contain actual quality of life meaning.
The quintessential example of the current state of the TV sports jockocracy was a recent episode of ESPN's college basketball highlight show "Midnight Madness."
On the screen was the usual lone broadcaster-by-trade on the panel. (His name does not matter; in the Jockocracy, regular hosts are known as "interchangeable part number one"). After said broadcaster spoke his requisite seven words of the evening, the "analysts" began their bloviation. However, for the first time in my memory, these ex-jocks arrived with an on-screen "resume" which let the viewer know where they had played, where they had coached, how many containers of hair gel they had used prior to the show. In other words, we needed to know why they were more qualified than you or I to hold discourse on March Madness.
There are many former athletes who have become fine additions to my television routine. Too often, though, the typical ex-jock speaks platitudes such as "you don't know what the pressure is like to play. I played, I know." That serves as their usual answer to questions regarding steroids, life on the road, and why so many athletes' manhood demands that they fire guns at strip clubs or bring dogs to the fighting ring. When the "analyst's" assertion is challenged, a repeat of the above remark is, in their mind, supposed to "nyah-nyah nyah-nyah boo boo" the discussion to an end.
This is, of course, a trivial worry, since it only involves games, distractions from the ills of society. But the Soviet-like behavior of some ex-athletes on the tube now increasingly shows up in that very society. Some examples of this lucridity that you may have heard, as have I:
- How dare you criticize the asinine behavior of Congress/our President/your City Council or County Commission. Since when have you ever served office?
- I don't have to go to court because I am a Member of Congress/the President/the Secretary of Bulletin Boards in the Capitol Mess Hall, therefore, I am above the law.
- Don't you dare complain about the lack of road construction speed; you aren't an engineer.
- You can't have an opinion on global warming; you aren't a scientist.
- How dare you criticize TV and newspaper journalists; you are not a journalist.
- You can't criticize talk radio, because you don't know the business. And you're probably a member of "The Liberal Media" anyway.
- Leave my naugahyde couch alone. You don't know what it's like to be one of those little Naugas, sacrificing itself for my sofa! (Apologies to the late Lewis Grizzard!)
You may laugh, but it is no laughing matter that people actually believe some of those statements at a time when, according to the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University, a majority of Americans say they don't mind some restrictions on free speech.
So, though I may complain like Cosell, I can handle the United States of Jockocracy so long as it is confined to ESPN and it's knock offs. If Americans are only allowed to comment on topics in which we are experts, our next discussion will be limited to Frank Sinatra and Popeye cartoons from the 1930's. Unless you'd like to hear Bluto's rendition of "The Lady Is A Tramp", I can't imagine subjecting a friend to that conversation.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Paul Harvey, RIP
The broadcast Gods have thwarted me again.
If you know me, or know of me, you are probably saying "Of course they have. You lost your job in radio a few weeks ago." But if my life were a Bob Ross painting, that answer would only comprise the trunk of my happy little tree. This is my own personal, irregular but dependable, miniature version of Halley's Comet, and the rest of the story begins and ends with Paul Harvey, the greatest news voice ever picked up by a microphone, so "Stand by for news."
It was the wee small hours of this past Sunday morning. It was a dark and stormy night. No, really it was, which is why my beautiful bride and I were not sleeping in our Sleep Number bed. I was half-asleep on the non-sleep numbered couch, a baby fully ensconced on the road to dreamland on my shoulder, while the Mrs. was on the internet checking to see how much the Doppler radar was doppling. That's when she gave me the news as the man himself would have given it; Paul Harvey....dead.....90 glorious years. It was pouring outside, so there was no chance to take the suggestion of the old song to hang my tears out to dry when IT came knocking on my brain; Deja vu, popping in as unexpectedly as A-Rod's sample-taker.
PAGE TWO: April 23, 1995. Howard Cosell, the first and best pontificator of sport, passes at the age of 77. I am devastated. It is Sunday, which means I am anchoring newscasts for WGMZ in Gadsden, Alabama. But my opportunity to go on the radio and "tell it like it is" about the erudite master of profundity will not happen. News of Mr. Cosell's death broke after my shift had ended. I was a part-time newsman. My next shift is the following Saturday. My obituary is unread to this day. Strike one for the radio gods.
PAGE THREE: January 23, 2005. Johnny Carson, no further introduction needed, is dead at 79. I cried for about two hours straight because I loved the man. Then I cried for another hour because I was on vacation, 620 miles from my microphone at WREC, Memphis, so no on-air obituary from yours truly....again. Then, I shed a few more tears as I darn near shattered a few knuckles going Mike Tyson on the radio, thanks to a remarkably clueless newsman from radio station WWJ in Detroit and the hatchet job he gave Mr. Carson's epitaph. It was almost as painful as Georgia's defense in the third quarter of the Tech game. Strike two.
Then, of course, this weekend came to pass. Paul Harvey is gone, and I don't yet have a new radio home. The three people who are the reason for me wanting to talk to the folks via the radio all pass on, and irony of ironies, I don't get to eulogize any of them on the radio. So, if you will please indulge me for a few more minutes in a medium that is foreign to my fingers, I would like to say goodbye to Mr. Harvey.
FOR WHAT'S IT'S WORTH: I wish, Mr. Harvey, I could speak through our favorite electronic device right now just to say, for all my pals to hear, thanks for being my friend. Sure, we never met. Neither did most of the tens of millions who listened to you, but rest assured, you were our friend. You told us what was going on in our bizarre, beautiful, and dangerous world, reassuring us that it was always going to be okay. You sold us on the Sleep Number bed and countless other products and stores. You made us laugh 'til it hurt and cry 'til it hurt even more. Now, you aren't there to make the hurt go away.
The broadcast Gods have thwarted me again. Or perhaps, they saved me from what would have been a comical series of embarrassingly maudlin performances over the years. Perhaps they knew better than I that I needed a little more time to return to the radio so I can honor Mr. Harvey in a way that hopefully will make him proud, a way that will help all of my radio friends have a... Good Day.
If you know me, or know of me, you are probably saying "Of course they have. You lost your job in radio a few weeks ago." But if my life were a Bob Ross painting, that answer would only comprise the trunk of my happy little tree. This is my own personal, irregular but dependable, miniature version of Halley's Comet, and the rest of the story begins and ends with Paul Harvey, the greatest news voice ever picked up by a microphone, so "Stand by for news."
It was the wee small hours of this past Sunday morning. It was a dark and stormy night. No, really it was, which is why my beautiful bride and I were not sleeping in our Sleep Number bed. I was half-asleep on the non-sleep numbered couch, a baby fully ensconced on the road to dreamland on my shoulder, while the Mrs. was on the internet checking to see how much the Doppler radar was doppling. That's when she gave me the news as the man himself would have given it; Paul Harvey....dead.....90 glorious years. It was pouring outside, so there was no chance to take the suggestion of the old song to hang my tears out to dry when IT came knocking on my brain; Deja vu, popping in as unexpectedly as A-Rod's sample-taker.
PAGE TWO: April 23, 1995. Howard Cosell, the first and best pontificator of sport, passes at the age of 77. I am devastated. It is Sunday, which means I am anchoring newscasts for WGMZ in Gadsden, Alabama. But my opportunity to go on the radio and "tell it like it is" about the erudite master of profundity will not happen. News of Mr. Cosell's death broke after my shift had ended. I was a part-time newsman. My next shift is the following Saturday. My obituary is unread to this day. Strike one for the radio gods.
PAGE THREE: January 23, 2005. Johnny Carson, no further introduction needed, is dead at 79. I cried for about two hours straight because I loved the man. Then I cried for another hour because I was on vacation, 620 miles from my microphone at WREC, Memphis, so no on-air obituary from yours truly....again. Then, I shed a few more tears as I darn near shattered a few knuckles going Mike Tyson on the radio, thanks to a remarkably clueless newsman from radio station WWJ in Detroit and the hatchet job he gave Mr. Carson's epitaph. It was almost as painful as Georgia's defense in the third quarter of the Tech game. Strike two.
Then, of course, this weekend came to pass. Paul Harvey is gone, and I don't yet have a new radio home. The three people who are the reason for me wanting to talk to the folks via the radio all pass on, and irony of ironies, I don't get to eulogize any of them on the radio. So, if you will please indulge me for a few more minutes in a medium that is foreign to my fingers, I would like to say goodbye to Mr. Harvey.
FOR WHAT'S IT'S WORTH: I wish, Mr. Harvey, I could speak through our favorite electronic device right now just to say, for all my pals to hear, thanks for being my friend. Sure, we never met. Neither did most of the tens of millions who listened to you, but rest assured, you were our friend. You told us what was going on in our bizarre, beautiful, and dangerous world, reassuring us that it was always going to be okay. You sold us on the Sleep Number bed and countless other products and stores. You made us laugh 'til it hurt and cry 'til it hurt even more. Now, you aren't there to make the hurt go away.
The broadcast Gods have thwarted me again. Or perhaps, they saved me from what would have been a comical series of embarrassingly maudlin performances over the years. Perhaps they knew better than I that I needed a little more time to return to the radio so I can honor Mr. Harvey in a way that hopefully will make him proud, a way that will help all of my radio friends have a... Good Day.
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