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The Fellowship of the Unemployable
One hour before the season and home opener against the Red Sox, WBAL 1090 radio in Baltimore, the flagship station of the Orioles, received no phone calls. Not one. Not one person called in to talk about Marty Cordova’s contributions in ‘04. Not one person inquired about Sidney Ponson’s weight . Not even one person was curious about Rafael Palmeiro’s erectile dysfunction. This brings me to the conclusion that Baltimore has the lowest unemployment rate in the nation.
Sports talk-show callers are the fellowship of the unemployable. The beer-gutted, foul mouthed, mid-life malcontents who have the time to wait on hold for 3 hours on a Tuesday at 10:00 am for a ten second conversation about QB pocket pressure. It appears that the only time that matters to these deadbeats-on-the-dial is Miller time.
This is not to say that George Carlin was correct when he referred to these devotees of the dollar-draft as “fat, ignorant, beer-soaked, loser, racist, white male, c***suckers.” But, it stands to reason that George may have been on to something when he claimed that the caller’s tendency to use the words “impressive, major, massive, key, gigantic, extraordinary, and crucial” may be a reflection of their lack of “manhood.”
These are the men that cried when they heard of the passing of Ted Williams, but will not hug their sons because it may be “too gay.” They call to slam the overpaid crybaby athletes they claim to despise but cannot stop talking about with as much passion as Mel Gibson in heat. The hatred and anger in their voice is so intense when decrying a manager who did not sac-bunt trailing by a run in the fourth inning, it makes one wonder what their reaction will be if their child (probably conceived in high school) cracks up the IROC-Z.
Typical quotes from them might include, “I’m not a racist or nothing like that, but what Paul Hornung said makes sense…” and “I’m a former athlete myself, I played college ball…” Let the truth be told that by “college ball” he means he rode the pine for a season as a utility outfielder for the community college he spent one semester studying turf management at.
The stations know that their core audience is the type of guy who would skip his own child’s birthday to attend a Scorpions concert. The breaks are peppered with ads for baldness cures, oil filters, beer festivals, and a cure for something called “sexual longevity issues” (SLI for short). It is as if that any two-dollar skank one of these High Lifers may bring back to his bachelor pad in his parent’s basement is actually expecting a satisfying romp.
What confounds this problem is that as a society we now celebrate the philosophies of Al Bundy, completely ignorant of Descartes and Aristotle…hold on…
“Mean Machine, you are on the air.”
“YEAH, I HATE THAT MORON CRYBABY MANNY RAMIREZ. WITH THE MONEY HE MAKES HE SHOULD BE...”
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