Category Radio

USA 234, HIPRB! 1

Pat Ryan Leave a comment

Happy 4th of July, all you American patriots…the rest of ya, too.  I’ve got a gift for you, even though you’re not the one turning 234 years old: I invite you to remove your shoes and stroll barefoot among the new tabs at the top of the page, up there under the site title (I gotta get a better title).

For almost a year I’ve been using this page to show off my ideas, but mostly to practice putting one word in front of the other on a regular basis again.  When I discovered that there can be more than one page here, I knew how I wanted to use them.

For years I’ve been saving quotations that appealed to me.  Some I saved just because they were so well written but most of them are ideas I agree with, expressed more ably and eloquently than I am capable (of).  (See.)

Choose from ideas about American law and government and politics, thoughts about my first post-college profession, a section of funnies, and a collection of philosophical takes on life.  I hope you enjoy them, and offer your comments pro and con.  I’ll be adding to the sections as new material is discovered.

So, what did you get me?

Dear Michael Berry…

Pat Ryan Leave a comment

Really?  Really?

I confess I don’t listen to your radio show, but if Houston’s Leading Information Source is to be believed you said on the air Wednesday that you thought it’d be a good thing that any mosque built near the site of the September 11 attacks in New York City be bombed:

“I’ll tell you this — if you do build a mosque, I hope somebody blows it up.” Berry added: “I hope the mosque isn’t built, and if it is, I hope it’s blown up, and I mean that.”

Really?

I see that you posted a message online the next day insisting

“I did NOT advocate bombing any mosque.”

and provided the audio there so people can listen for themselves.  Good.  But the words say what the words say: “I hope it’s blown up, and I mean that” do not convey the same message as “I hope the mosque isn’t built.”  And

“I hope the mosque isn’t built, and if it is, I hope it’s blown up, and I mean that.”

teeters right on the edge of encouragement.  I expect better from someone serious about the responsibility attendant to using the public airwaves.  (Yes, I know there are plenty of others who aren’t…but if Johnny jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge…)

I respect your apology for the poor word choice, but what’s really beneath you is playing the victim: accusing the Council on American-Islamic Relations of trying to intimidate you?  Telling your audience, “If that means I have to go off the air because I have an opinion that offends them, then that’s what that means.”?

(Does that kind of thing really sell on the air these days?  Really?)

Now, this is what play-by-play is supposed to be

Pat Ryan 1 Comment

I never heard Ernie Harwell call a whole baseball game on the radio, and from all I can tell I am the poorer for that.

The long-time Detroit Tigers play-by-play man passed away last week, in his 90s and suffering from bile duct cancer.  Google him and you’ll find pages of eloquent tributes to the man, to what he meant to Detroit, and to what he meant to generations of Tiger fans.

As a baseball fan, and a broadcaster, I’ve admired the great radio voices of the game’s past—Red Barber, Mel Allen—through what was written about them and from what brief recordings I’ve heard.  A few of those great voices did some television, and that’s how I got more familiar with the likes of Jack Buck and Jon Miller.  And, of course, Vin Scully.

Scully is from the Bronx, so I have a soft spot.  When Ernie Harwell moved to the Giants in 1950 it was young Vin Scully who took his seat in the Brooklyn radio booth.  Despite his belonging to that hated team, I’ve admired Scully’s easy, relaxed call of a game, how he could bring the sequence of events of a game to life and tell another story, and never let one get in the way of the other.

Here’s the proof: today I found a transcript of Scully’s call the night Harwell passed away; imagine a little crowd noise in the background…I’ll wait.

(waiting)

Now…imagine how it would go if your team’s radio guy tried to do that.

Recommended reading

Pat Ryan 1 Comment

If you’re a fan of Stevens & Pruett, or KLOL, or the good old days of Houston radio, do yourself a solid—read Laurie Kendrick’s post about S&P on 101. 

I worked at the sister station KTRH when S&P came back to Houston, and I was a Hudson & Harrigan fan as a kid.  I tell you, she nails it…of course, she was there, and one of the pieces that made that whole so much fun to listen to.  Be sure to check the comments, too, to hear from some of those mentioned.

And if you’re just a fan of good writing, read Laurie’s blog any day…it’s on my blogroll for a reason.