Just a little outside

I have a very long commute to work in the morning. This has caused me to exceed the warranty on my car in a comically fast fashion (that, along with travel to such exotic locales as Atlanta, Clemson and the Homeland). Other benefits include consuming a lot of of radio (still haven't gotten an iPod or an iPhone. What is wrong with me?), some of which is talk radio. This prompted a certain friend of mine to say to me, "You listen to AM talk radio? What are you, like close to death old?" Yes. I am close to death old because I like to listen to ESPN radio and the news.

That last one might not help my cause, but if you look on my link section, you can see that my interest in the news is of a semi-professional interest. (I say "semi" because I don't get paid in actual "money.") The former, though, is completely in bounds, I think. I caught some of Mike and Mike this morning on the way in and was struck by something, though: a lot of people on the radio are not really that good. Sporst in particular has a bit of a weird issue with this, because sports jounralism is necessarily local (or at least regional) due to concentrated loyalties and interest. Try talking Big Ten football with a resident of Georgia or South Carolina. You'll be laughed all the way back to Columbus (OH). And rightfully so.

National sports figures are famous, frequently, for their non-sports production as much as they are for their sports broadcasting or content. Bill Simmons, Peter King, and John Madden (and Mike and Mike, for that matter). This is because, in my mind, ESPN.com, SI.com and ESPN radio have sufficiently large market share that they basically only have to put competent people out there to get an audience. How many people who use Windows or Internet Explorer o so because they tried all the competition and liked it best? My guess is the same number of pirates who don't regret trying to capture the Maersk Alabama.

This leads me to my most paramount rule of irritation when consuming media: if I (or someone I know) can do a job better than a professional making millions of dollars, then that contract is probably ill-advised. I could not write an operating system or internet browser very well, so I'm going to let Bill Gates slide. But he knows I have my eye on him.

I think anyone who watches a lot of sports could do Mike and Mike's show. I think there are probably some rather intelligent pets that could write Peter King's Monday Morning Quarterback column. (A friend of mine insists that her Jack Russell has the vocabulary of a 5 year old!) Bill Simmons is talented but burnt out or lazy now or bored. The point is, if I watched sports for 25 hours a week, I could host a 3 hour talk show a day about it, especially if I had a friend with me. I could probably write a weekly column, too. If you put me on ESPN radio and published me on SI.com, people would listen and read because they are big media outlets. With backing like that, I could also even get players, press offices, agents and even owners to take my calls.

Really, what this tells me is that after all this driving in the mornings, I should just break down and buy an iPod Touch and be done with it. That way, I could get angry over podcasts, too.