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Caller, Are You There?
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Lately, I've been listening to a lot of sports radio. Not really by choice. It's just that I've been visiting my parents, and when I'm in the car with my dad, that's what he likes to listen to. For those of you who've never had the privilege of hearing sports radio, it basically sounds a lot like this:
"Bob from Scituate is with us on a car phone. Bob, are you there?"
"Hello?"
"Hello, Bob. You're on sports radio."
"Hello?"
"Yes, Bob, you're on the air."
"Hello? Eddie?"
"Yes, go ahead, Bob."
"Hey there Eddie! How are ya?"
"Just great. How about you, Bob?"
"Oh, I can't complain."
"That's great. What's on your mind, Bob?"
At this point, there is often a pause of up to thirty seconds while Bob from Scituate tries to remember what exactly is on his mind. And in some cases, whether or not he has a mind at all. I don't mean to sound too elitist here, but the biggest problem with this whole new movement towards giving the people more of a role in the media through talk radio, town meetings, etc. is that now when you turn on the television or radio you end up having to listen to the people a lot more than you used to.
"Yeah, Eddie, I want to talk about the Red Sox. I'm a bit worried about Mo Vaughn's contract problems—"
"Bob?"
"Hello? Eddie?"
"Bob, I think we're losing you."
"Hello? Eddie?"
"Yeah. I think we lost Bob, but we've got Jim on a car phone from Revere. Jim, you're on sports radio."
"Hello? Eddie?"
Imagine this for 24 hours a day, and you've got a feel for the excitement of sports radio, except you should also take into account that the hosts are often more annoying than the callers. Apparently, whenever a caller says a certain number of stupid things on the air, he automatically gets his own show. I just know that next time I go home, Bob from Scituate will be the host.
Bob from Scituate, of course, is not the worst of the callers. About once a day, someone calls in and forgets to turn the radio off. As many of you may know, calling talk radio with your radio on is strictly verboten. You'd think, of course, that after listening to approximately 10,000 hours of sports radio the brainchild calling in would have figured out that he has to turn off his radio before calling, but he never does.
Obviously, sports radio has always been this bad ("Yeah, this rookie Babe Ruth. He's a bum. They should trade 'em to the Yankees!") Still, "sports talk just like in a bar" might have been digestible back when it was only on an hour a day. I may be a sports fan, but I long for the days when you had to search for sports on the radio. 24 hours is just too much of anything. Perhaps the biggest lesson of the '90s should be this: More is definitely not better.
Joe Lavin is much more than a man; he's an entire domain name. Check out his humor column at joelavin.com.
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