Tall Midget wrote:
Joe Orr Road Rod wrote:
The King can do any on-air job in radio- sports, music, comedy, straight man. I could see him having his own show on WGN in fifteen years.
I have mixed feelings about your assessment above. While it's true that Paruch is generally well-informed and possesses the requisite level of professional polish to speak somewhat intelligently on a broad range of topics and fill a variety of on-air roles, the flexibility that you site as his greatest strength may also be his most significant weakness. That is, he personifies the old cliche of being a jack-of-all-trades and master of none. In general I find his on-air presence so smooth that it is entirely nondescript, his generic adaptability so great that he comes off as sounding, well, generic. He is a persona who is almost completely devoid personality. I don't dislike him, but I don't hate cheese sandwiches made from Wonder Bread, either. They provide a means for subsisting after all--just not the elements of a feast.
Or were you basically saying the same thing I was, given your reference to WGN? I guess I don't think of WGN as the same kind of haven for the radio undead as I once did since I tend to enjoy Nick DiGilio's show quite a bit.
This conversation relates to the current state of media in general, and radio in particular.
When Dahl and North first came on the scene they were a breath of fresh air. Real guys with real voices in a sea of polished and phony professionalism. But I think we've come full circle when every douchebag behind a microphone has an annoying voice, a few obnoxious catch phrases designed to provoke the audience, and, worst of all, doesn't really know shit about anything.
Within the current reality, it's guys like Paruch that are the breath of fresh air. Guys that take the time to actually learn who John Wall is when March rolls around and Tournament talk is unavoidable. Even if college hoops is something they don't care anything about. Most of us do things on our jobs we don't care anything about. We don't have the luxury of being proudly ignorant. "Hey! I'm a know-it-all who doesn't know anything! Let me explain the mechanics of a "pump-and-dump" to you. Just as soon as I'm done diagnosing Brent Seabrook's concussion and removing Larry Bird from the Hall of Fame."