My Tracy Simers post for 2009

After reading a ReadWriteWeb post on Wikipedia's policies regarding blogs, and thinking back on Wikipedia's removal of my Tracy Simers article (she didn't meet the notoriety guideline or some such), I ended up doing a search for Simers. In the process, I found a Google cache of what might have been her last blog post at the AM 570 radio site. Dated May 18, 2008, it begins as follows:

With Roggin & Simers Squared off the air, I have now returned to a normal life. I'm back to my 10-key working as an accountant and that's okay with me. I check in with Fred every now and then through email and he's always got some new project that he's working on. Thankfully my dad and I are no longer co-workers and have found our way back to having the best father/daughter relationship of anyone I know. I was thrilled to see that Ginger Chan is now doing traffic on tv. Since the show's been off the air, I've taken a bit of a break from my sports watching. Would you believe I haven't seen all four quarters of any Laker game this season? And as for the Dodgers and Angels - are they playing? I did follow USC basketball - love Tim Floyd and Dad and I made our annual trip to Vegas for the first and second rounds of the NCAA basketball tournament. And I can definitely promise that my mini sports vacation will come to an end when football season comes back around.

For those who haven't heard of Tracy Simers - which, by definition, would be most of you - Simers is the daughter of Los Angeles Times sports columnist T.J. Simers. Tracy herself was not in the limelight until she joined her father for a weekend radio show a few years back. Eventually, the two Simers joined Los Angeles television sportscaster Fred Roggin, replacing Mancow, on a morning drive-time show on Los Angeles radio - a show that was eventually replaced by Dan Patrick (amid comments that T.J. Simers was tiring of the show anyway).

From the post, Tracy Simers appears to be happy with the way things turned out, both professionally and personally. This is good.

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Plumbing the Depths - 23 July 2004, California Casino Entertainment

Back in 2004, the hot news was the whole Annie Jacobsen "Terror in the Skies" thing, which ended up publicizing famed entertainer Nour Mehana.

Four years ago today, on July 23, 2004, I wrote a post that listed the luminaries, other than Mehana, who were performing at the Sycuan Casino & Resort's Showcase Theatre. You know, Foghat, Tony Orlando, tribute bands, and the like. Just one week after Mehana performed, Carrot Top graced the stage.

Well, Carrot Top's since moved to the Luxor in Vegas. So who's going to be at the Sycuan's Showcase Theatre in the future? Well, other than Foghat, we have these artists:

July 25 Ronnie Milsap On Sale Now!
July 30 Fight Night at Sycuan On Sale Now!
Aug. 9 Rita Moreno CANCELLED
Aug. 22 - 24 The Flying Karamazov Brothers On Sale Now!

Note that the cancelled performer is Rita Moreno, not Rita Moreno of Arte.

As for Nour Mehana, this video was posted to YouTube earlier this year.



Would someone tell that woman in the video to cover up some skin?

And, by the way, Nour Mehana has not been deemed to be worthy of his own Wikipedia article, despite his notoriety. (He's mentioned in the Diana Karazon article.) So Nour Mehana joins Tracy Simers in the list of people who are interesting to me, but do not meet the standards of Jimmy Wales.

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Un-Elevating the Conversation

Winston Churchill famously said that "democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."

For that and similar reasons, I have a philosophical tendency to support unrestricted participation in political and other discussions. I have believed that a full participation in discussion will result in the best solution - and certainly a better solution that if the discussion were limited to a set of pre-selected elites.

You can put this philsophy in practice via politics, with an emphasis on unrestrained voter participation (and in giving the District of Columbia the right to vote for Congresspersons and Senators, regardless of the fact that I might not care for the outcome).

You can put this in practice via the business or education world, via the practice of crowdsourcing. Over the last year, I've witnessed several attempts to harness the wisdom of the Twitter or FriendFeed population to produce a solution, one example being the Super Bowl Ads discussion organized by Jeremiah Owyang.

And, theoretically, you can put this in practice via textual adjuncts to traditional media. Theoretically, message boards or blog comments associated with a radio or television station, or with a newspaper, can yield valuable insights from the listening audience that can be used to improve the station's broadcasting.

Theoretically.

Last night, I noted how a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel blog announcement of the use of Twitter degenerated into a series of blog comments about how useless Twitter was: "empty drivel," "something intended for 12 and 13 year old girls to talk about how tough algebra is and talk about cute boys," etc.

Dana Franks (Twitter/FriendFeed user ariedana), who presently works for WAAY TV in Huntsville, Alabama and who also discusses entertainment news at Mediascribbler), provided some additional insight via a Disqus comment. This is part of what she said.

This is something that's very unfortunate that I have seen and dealt with at another TV station I work at, but at least one out of five commenters at news sites are there to rabblerouse, complain or generally just try to make a Web journalist behave badly. That number goes up drastically on stories about race, politics or a story about something happening in a part of a city that is stereotyped by the other parts of town.

Rest the rest of her comment here. (I'm hoping that she'll address this issue in more detail, either on Mediascribbler or her personal blog.)

Which brings us to Petros Papadakis and Matt "Money" Smith, co-hosts of an afternoon drive sports radio show here in Los Angeles on KLAC radio. One afternoon while I was driving home, they spent an entire segment detailing their negative assessment of the comments that are posted on the show's message board. Smith stated that he occasionally responds to the comments, while Papadakis doesn't respond at all.

Even though I have an AM 570 All Access account, I confess that I go there very infrequently. I guess that Tracy Simers' departure has still left a hole in my heart. So, while writing this post, I figured I'd do a non-scientific survey of the posts on the message board to see what quality, or lack thereof, can be found.

Perhaps I can start with the thread that Billy Pilgrim started on July 19:

Petros isn't going to keep up with sports happenings while on vacation?

How is this any different than what he does when he's not on vacation?

Cousin Calvin came to Papadakis' defense:

Are you jealous that Petros has a life and you don't? There is more to life than sports. Maybe you should take a trip to where the 10, the 210 and the 57 meet, and enjoy yourself a little.

(See my previous post on the 10/210/57. Not that it's much better than the stuff on the boards.)

And I'm not even going to look at the thread having to do with one of the show's advertisers, SICK OF "ANDREW" FROM BOSTON MEDICAL GROUP. (And yes, that was in all caps.)

After a little bit of searching, I found a post that appeared to consist of some real sports analysis. Needless to say, it had no responses.

QUESTION: Am I wrong in my assessment that unrestrained participation yields valuable information? Or do the aforementioned newspaper blogs and TV/radio message boards suffer from having TOO FEW participants?

I welcome your comments.

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Note to self - do not send "White Album listening party" invitation to Half Moon Bay

If you think that this mrontemp blog was based on the book Abnormal Psychology, you're sadly mistaken.

It's actually based on the album The Beatles.

This album is by a band called the Beatles. They used to be popular.

And I've talked about the album before.

What I love about this album is the jarring way in which it switches from one song to another. Take side four, which starts with a mellow little ditty about the futility of pushing Chairman Mao down people's throats. It's followed by an old style 1920s ditty ("her kind of music"). An electro rock song about truffles and ob la di ob la da follows, and is in turn followed by a very English folk song about tea and seances. An uncredited folk blues number is next, succeeded by the most avant garde song the Beatles ever recorded, which is immediately followed by Ringo's voice cracking over a lushly instrumentalized traditional standard.

This blog is like that. Or at least I hope it's like that. My entries during the first five blog entries in June talked about a fire in Universal City, California; applications of Blogger's scheduled post feature; a portable toilet; a Cracker Barrel restaurant; and a short (short short) theatrical production entitled "Webelo."

Now I'll be the first to admit that this is not the roadmap for blogging success. That's why I have other blogs that are dedicated to specific topics. If you want to find an Inland Empire blog or an NTN Buzztime blog, you can find them.

But here at mrontemp, a blog which functions as my personal blog, everything is discussed. And, when things are going really well, they kind of meld together. Note that this blog post itself has several labels, because it spans a lot of topics. When I started this blog and instituted labels, I didn't envision this, but it happened. I've talked about this previously.

[T]he one thing that I didn't realize back in February [2007] is how often my posts overlap multiple labels. Rather than categorizing each post into the most appropriate label, I have tended to apply all applicable labels to a post....[T]his has resulted in some interesting behaviors. Although I haven't measured it, I'd be willing to bet that the vast majority of my "business" posts also have a "technology" label on them. This merely indicates that I'm primarily interested in technology businesses, or in the impacts of technology on business. Whether this detracts from the usefulness of the labels is up to you.

But wait, it gets better. Before I explain how it gets better, let me quote a comment from a FriendFeed thread.

Hutch: no, it's more about having separate audiences that are passionate about different things. For instance, let's say I participate in a religious blog, and a political blog, and a business blog. Those have three separate audiences. If I mix them all together I'm going to be much more careful about what I discuss than if I participate in all three separately. - Robert Scoble

Now I'll admit that I myself perform some segregation, and there are some things that I won't discuss on here that I will discuss in other places. But a religious blog, and a political blog, and a business blog don't necessarily HAVE to have three separate audiences. Various combinations of those topics can result in some interesting interactions; if you don't particularly value this blog, be sure to take a look at RedBlueChristian, which attempts to combine politics and religion into a single discussion.

I think you can predict my response to this idea of three separate blogs and three separate audiences.

"let's say I participate in a religious blog, and a political blog, and a business blog." Actually, while I have some vertical blogs that are laser focused on specific topics, my most popular blog is my personal blog, which covers religion, politics, business, and several other categories. Often there's rampant cross-pollination; just today I inserted a video of Chromeo's "Fancy Footwork" into a blog post about General Wesley Clark. Rather than segregating the audiences, I believe it's fun to bring them together and see what happens. Again, my personal opinion - segregation makes you successful, but mixing things together is pretty danged fun.

If you didn't see my post in which I inserted the "Fancy Footwork" video, it's here.

Now perhaps you'll recall a previous brouhaha about the mixing of topics; specifically, Howard Rogers' displeasure in seeing a technical information source overrun with personal "eight things" posts. Of course, in that case, Rogers was reading something that was advertised as a technical service.

So let me officially set the record straight here.

This is an announcement to the readers of mrontemp.

Some of you may have been under the impression that the mrontemp blog is solely devoted to a discussion of Tracy Simers. To that end, I would like to officially advise you that this is a blog that covers a variety of topics, including such diverse topics as Natalie Sawyer and, in a change of pace, Kiira Korpi.

So if you were looking for a blog that was completely devoted to Tracy Simers, please look elsewhere.

Thank you for your attention.

P.S. I also talk about a woman named Katrina.

There, I feel better already.

And at least I didn't base this blog on the Grey Album.

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Contract and Expand

A little over a year ago, I made a conscious decision to combine several of my existing blogs into a single blog - the one that you are reading now, mrontemp.

A little history on the prior blogs is in order.

The first blog that I created, back in October 2003, was the Ontario Empoblog. That blog was in some ways similar to this one, inasmuch as it touched upon anything and everything. And it ended up getting a good deal of general traffic because if you were searching for anything, you'd eventually end up at the Ontario Empoblog. (And, later, at mrontemp.)

However, after I set up the Ontario Empoblog, I set up some slightly more focused blogs to touch on various topics. For my (succinct) purposes, I'll mention one of those blogs right now, the Ontario Technoblog. This was a blog that I set up for focused discussions of technical topics, such as Oracle OpenWorld, my Hewlett Packard PDA, and my Motorola phone. It still remains somewhat popular - this post on Motorola Q sound issues has received 21 "thank you" comments over the past several months.

When I started mrontemp, I stopped updating the Ontario Empoblog, the Ontario Technoblog, and all of the other blogs in my empire (with one notable exception). I decided that, rather than creating a bunch of different blogs, I would create a single blog with different labels so that people who were just interested in technology stuff could simply read the mrontemp technology posts.

After doing this for over a year, I've decided that I want to continue doing this in general, but that I'm ready to start some vertical interest blogs again.

Well, one vertical interest blog, with possibly more to come.

The biggest difference between this new vertical interest blog and my previous vertical blogs is that this one will be VERY vertically targeted. Inasmuch as everyone is speaking about, say, technology, I don't think that another general technology blog is going to stand out. I've found over the years that I excel at locating and publicizing the more esoteric and limited vertical links, which is how I have become the acknowledged expert on Tracy Simers and similar items of limited interest.

So this new blog, I can assure you, will be of no interest to most of you. But I want to try it out and see what happens.

[18 FEBRUARY 2008: I HAVE FORMALLY ANNOUNCED MY NEW BLOG.]

[mrontemp business] | [mrontemp politics] | [mrontemp technology] | [mrontemp del.icio.us tags]

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Where Are They Now? Tracy Simers

In an attempt to be less reactive and more reflective, I decided that I would take one of my older posts in the mrontemp blog and revisit the person(s) or situation(s) that I was discussing at the time.

I determined that I would check Google Analytics and find the most popular blog post in the entire history of the mrontemp blog. Whatever it was, I'd write about it.

As I write these words, I still have not checked my Google Analytics tab to see what the number one post was. Time to do so.

OK. The clear winner was a May 2007 post which received a lot of activity in the fall. The post? All you need to know - the Tracy Simers Wikipedia article grows. This particular post, which for some reason ended up near the top of Google searches for Tracy Simers (and is still today the number three post for such a search), chronicled an edit by an anonymous Wikipedia user that noted that Tracy attended the University of Notre Dame.

Perhaps I should catch some of you up on this whole affair.

T.J. Simers is a sports columnist who, after several other jobs around the country, landed at the Los Angeles Times. A few years ago, Simers decided to branch into radio and decided to bring one of his daughters, Tracy Simers, along for the ride on KLAC radio. Tracy had left Notre Dame with an accounting education, and she maintained her accounting career while working weekends with Dad on the radio.

This all changed when Mancow got the boot. As I wrote a little over a year ago:

AM 570, purportedly a sports station, has now actually shifted to a sports format. Phil Hendrie has been replaced by Joe McDonnell, and Greasemancow or whatever (Mancow) has been replaced by a local show with Fred Roggin, T. J. Simers, and Tracy Simers. As far as I know, no Krystal Fernandez on the air out here (except perhaps in Lancaster).

This meant that "Roggin and Simers Squared" were working every weekday, which meant that Tracy Simers had to temporarily leave her accounting career behind as she sat in between the opinionated Roggin and the very opinionated T.J. Simers.

The show was on the air for a while, until Dan Patrick became available and Roggin and Simers Squared were bought out, although it was subsequently revealed that T.J. Simers wanted to quit the show anyway, tiring of the grind.

So, what happened to Tracy Simers? I haven't been able to find anything subsequent to her October 5, 2007 blog post.

laradio.com has the briefest of biographies:

Simers, Tracy: KLAC, 2006-07. Tracy co-hosted a morning show (Roggin & Simers Squared) on all-Sports KLAC until September 27, 2007.

And what of my famous Wikipedia article? Well, as the history notes:

• My last edit was in July, in which I made a minor change regarding the location of KLAC radio


• Some spammer made a couple of attempts to add some "ugly bitch" and "gang bang" references to the page, but they were reversed.


• On October 2, an anonymous contributor noted the end of the Roggin and Simers Squared show, and that Tracy Simers would no longer be affiliated with KLAC.


• On November 28, "CmdrObot" made a spelling correction.

Incidentally, there is still a "general notability guideline" flag on the article, dating from June 2007. Although I performed some subsequent edits to the article, I chose not to remove the flag. Considering that she has dropped out of public view, perhaps that was the best decision.

But Tracy will be happy to know that her name has now infiltrated the world of spam blog postings. Here's a sample:

...For a while, there was a lot of uncertainty of
whether freshman forward Tracy Smith would qualify academically. He
did and now the Detroit native is expected to bring some
inside-outside scoring punch off the bench this year. ...
.. tracy
sherrod literary agent tracy sherrod literary services tracy shreve
tracy silverman tracy silverman violin tracy simers tracy simers photo
tracy simmons tracy site myspace.com tracy slocum tracy slone tracy
smith tracy smith ...

If I may paraphrase Barry Manilow, looks like she made it.

[mrontemp business] | [mrontemp politics] | [mrontemp technology] | [mrontemp del.icio.us tags]

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Geddit? (On substantive blog posts)

From Steve Rubel:

Tech bloggers (and I put myself squarely in this group), I am sorry to report that many of us have become lazy - really lazy....Let's kill the Lazysphere once and for all.

The Lazysphere - a working definition - is a group of bloggers who I won't name by name, but you can spot them a mile away. Rather than create new ideas or pen thoughtful essays, they simply glom on to the latest news with another "me too" blog post. Their goal is largely to land on Techmeme and sometimes digg - perhaps Google in an archival/Long Tail perspective. These sites - and Twitter too - have perpetuated a lot of lackadaisical writing....

My blogging New Year's resolution is to quit The Lazysphere. I can't go cold turkey reading it, but I aim to avoid using my blog to perpetuate it. To inspire me (and perhaps you) I have started a category of feeds in my Google Reader that include a group of people I feel really think - and do so often.

Me too.

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

Now if I had wanted to stay true to my joke, I would have simply quoted Rubel without adding any substance to it, therefore jumping on the "let's not jump on the bandwagon" bandwagon.

In my view, my best blog posts are the ones in which I take two opposing views and put them together in the same blog post. My most recent example of this would be my Lynne Spears post, in which I countered two Lynne Spears slams by an opposing view that noted that ALL of the people around the Spears girls are responsible for what has happened to them.

In addition, I also like to take two non-opposing views and put them together, as I did in the post about the appeal of Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee.

As to my regurgative posts (including my series of posts about various capital punishment methods from earlier today), there's actually a method to the madness there also. I'm slowly building up a set of blog posts on the capital punishment issue, and hope to be able to refer to them later (e.g. John Doe says this about lethal gas, but Clark County Indiana said this about lethal gas as I noted earlier). In other words, the web can be a web with a bunch of little modular pieces in it. (What a concept.)

Then there are my posts that have no excuse, such as the "stove top" type posts that I put out every so often. Not only are they devoid of original content, but they're unorganized to boot. So sue me.

So, all of that having been said - what has been the most popular post on mrontemp to date? By far the most popular post, accounting for nearly 5% of the total views on this blog, is my post about the additional material that was added to the Tracy Simers Wikipedia article. All that it basically states is that some anonymous person recorded Simers' alma mater. Riveting.

As for my favorite post in this blog, I'd have to think about it - something I want to do as the blog's one year anniversary nears. My choice of my favorite post in the old Ontario Empoblog is easy - my Annie Jacobsen parody "They Weren't Terrorists...They Weren't Desert Casino-Bound Musicians...They Were Girlie Men!"

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Paul Lo Duca, Eric Gagne, Bill Plaschke, T.J. Simers, and the Receipt of New Information

Followup to my posts from 11:52 am and 1:14 pm.

Bill Plaschke wrote the following this afternoon:

Baseball will survive, because as long as there are summer nights and bleacher seats, baseball will always survive.

But the players listed in the report, and the wondrous history surrounding them, will not.

Eric Gagne's 84-consecutive-save streak?

Phony.

Kevin Brown and the magical 1998 San Diego Padres?

Questionable....

The renowned leadership of catcher Paul Lo Duca?

A sham.

Capitol Punishment comments:

Heady stuff from the guy who's love for Lo Duca led him to repeatedly bash LA's then-GM day after day after day after day for loving spreadsheets and not manly virtuous men who will their teams to victory with the sheer volume of their charisma like Paul Lo Duca.

OOPS.

Nevermind! /Litella

Back in August 2004, "Love of Sox" posted two articles - one from Bill Plaschke, the other from T.J. Simers - which mentioned a couple of people whose names were mentioned today.

From Plaschke:

BILL PLASCHKE
Dodgers Didn't Need to Do This
Bill Plaschke

August 1, 2004

Hello? Anybody here? Anybody left?

You are wading through rubble that, only 48 hours ago, was a special baseball team.

You are sifting through the fallen chunks and thick dust of a Dodger clubhouse that led the league in comeback wins, in last-gasp effort, in unmitigated belief.

You knew that the team could use a few swipes of a paint brush. You had no idea its owner would attack it with a wrecking ball.

Stepping carefully over uprooted cornerstones, you're looking for words of inspiration, so you seek the guy who epitomizes the word.

Paul Lo Duca? You in there? No?

Hopping over ripped foundations, you search for other signs of strength, the kind that are found in baseball's best bullpen.

Guillermo Mota? ¿Estas aqui? ¿Hola?

They are clearly gone, but, wait a minute. The only way anyone would gut this team would be to acquire the gutsiest pitcher in the game, right? A Cy Young winner, a World Series champion, the one guy who might make it all worth it.

Randy Johnson? Hello? Hello?...

The week started with the best team in the National League since July 1 requiring one ace starting pitcher to have a legitimate shot at a world championship.

The week has ended with the Dodgers acquiring an almost-ace starter, a slumping first baseman and an aging outfielder in trades that sent away a clubhouse leader and fan favorite, an important bullpen bridge, and the team's best speed in Dave Roberts.

This all would have been fine, even Lo Duca's departure, if the guy coming back was Randy Johnson.

Seems like DePodesta made Friday's deal with the Florida Marlins only because he thought it would lead to Johnson.

Sounds like once the Arizona Diamondbacks gained all the leverage Friday night, they made additional demands on the Dodgers (Edwin Jackson?) that made the trade unworkable.

Looks like the rookie general manager put the cart before the ace....

these Dodgers didn't become a first-place team with paper. Among baseball's top teams, the Dodgers were the least likely contenders on paper.

They have done it, for the first time in a long time, with a sense of teamwork and sacrifice and smarts. They have done it with what Lo Duca brought into that clubhouse every day during each of his four seasons as a full-time Dodger.

Well, based upon his stationery, we know what Lo Duca brought into the clubhouse.

Let's see what Simers says:

EARLY FEEDBACK on the massive overhaul to turn the Dodgers from winners — overnight — into losers: The Dodgers won't have to rely as much on Eric Gagne with Darren Dreifort taking over for Guillermo Mota as the team's eighth-inning reliever. The opposition will score, as the Padres did twice Saturday night to turn a 2-1 Dodger win into a 3-2 San Diego victory, and Gagne can sit down.

THE FIRST look at Hee Seop Choi: He ran hard to first while grounding into a double play. Like that hustle.

JIM TRACY, the Micro Manager, said the duo of David Ross and Brent Mayne are an "upgrade" at catcher over Paul Lo Duca. That was before Ross was charged with a passed ball and went 0 for 3 with two strikeouts. Lo Duca hit a homer on the first pitch thrown to him playing for Florida.

Fast forward to November 2007, when Dhivy tried to predict who would be in the Mitchell Report. Here's one of his choices:

Paul Lo Duca – Only so many of his tantrums can be attributed to a fiery Italian temper. Plus I want to see Ramon Castro get the starting job for New York, so I'm starting a rumor that 'Lo Duca' is Italian for 'the clear'.

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Roggin and Simers Square Rooted

Tracy Simers appears to have disappeared from the 'Net, but presumably she's enjoying private life.

I haven't seen any mention of Fred Roggin and radio since his guest appearance with the Loose Cannons in mid-October.

T. J. Simers said the following in his November 20 column:

A FEW minutes later we ran into each other once more.

"I've got to do a radio show," Pete [Carroll] said with a mischievous grin. "Oh, that's right, you don't have a show anymore, do you?"

As you might've already noticed, he always wins.

[mrontemp business] | [mrontemp politics] | [mrontemp technology] | [mrontemp del.icio.us tags]

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Oh yeah...Tracy Simers is Somewhere

Thought I'd check Simers' blog to see if she has posted any updates on her plans, but her last post was on October 5. It stated, in part:

I was getting used to the idea of the show ending in December (that was the original agreement - 14 months - and I could tell my dad just wasn't really feeling up to signing up again) - but things did end a bit too soon for me. I plan on blogging from time to time for a while - I figure I'll need an outlet for all the opinions that I can no longer share on air. I'll let you all know what the future holds for me....just as soon as I know.

As I previously tweeted, Fred Roggin appeared as a substitute for Mychal Thompson on the Loose Cannons yesterday afternoon. If you haven't heard the show, it often consists of a lot of over-the-air theatrics, especially when you consider that personalities such as Vic "the Brick" Jacobs and Lee "Hacksaw" Hamilton contribute to the show. (Thankfully, no "Ladies Line" during the Cannons.)

In other words, Roggin was in an environment that was a lot calmer than his previous radio sting.

[mrontemp business] | [mrontemp politics] | [mrontemp technology] | [mrontemp del.icio.us tags]

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Can Dan Patrick Deliver to Don Martin's Standards?

Lately I've been listening to more Bill Handel than Dan Patrick, but Don Martin would rather stop that slide.

Don Martin, the KLAC program director who says he's disappointed having to lose his previous team of Fred Roggin and T.J. and Tracy Simers to make room for Patrick, would like to see the new morning man go beyond sports jabbering and permeate into other areas that interest listeners in that time slot.

"Dan fits into what we're trying to do, and we're encouraging him to open up a little, not be so much hardcore sports," Martin said. "It behooves him to do that in whatever city he's heard in. Anyone who paints themselves into a box prohibits growth in other places. People know his name and he has to take advantage of that. At ESPN, he had to march to that drum, but here we don't have lines to box our guys in."

Postioning Patrick as a tour guide leading into Rome's jungle provides a cool package deal.

"Back to back with the two biggest names in the game in this genre can't hurt you," Martin said. "They split the market in a lot of cities for a long time, and now both of them can fill up their day."

Since I'm not behind the Megacorp firewall at the moment, I'm able to view what Sports by Brooks had to say about Dan Patrick's first show:

We know it's only the first day of Dan Patrick's *new* radio show, so we'd like to think the development of the show is still in progress. But, after listening to it this morning on KLAC-AM in Los Angeles, this version of the DP show reminds us a lot of right after Rob Dibble was dumped from his initial ESPN production - which isn't a good sign.

Patrick didn't take on a co-host after the goofy former fireballer was jettisoned, and the show soon sounded like a funeral procession. Humorless and worse yet, featuring no unique insight into the sports we all already follow.

After about a month of that, program directors at Patrick's ESPN radio affiliates at the time staged a revolt, demanding that they be allowed to drop the show if no changes were made to the NPR-esque format. Bristol executives responded by bringing in Keith Olbermann to save the show (along with major outdoor ad campaigns in large markets).

Then Sports by Brooks commented on a first-day visitor:

The top personality on KLAC, afternoon host Petros Papadakis, made an appearance on Patrick's show this morning to discuss USC football. Papadakis is a hilarious personality who has taken the L.A. market and college football media world by storm.

You would think Patrick would embrace the highest-ranking host on what will surely be his top affiliate in the future. But shockingly, DP brought on the former USC football captain for only a few seconds to analyze USC football, and then brushed him off like he was a phone monkey calling in a high school volleyball score.

And no, I hadn't read that Sports by Brooks post when I wrote this:

[I]t turns out that there's one thing that Patrick and [Jim] Rome have in common.

They both work solo (as does Bill Handel and Tom Leykis for the most part).

For me, this immediately puts you at a handicap unless you're a completely riveting personality, since a solo host can't interact with anyone unless he/she takes callers (and even when Rome takes callers, he doesn't interact with them).

A group show, such as Roggin and Simers Squared, the Loose Cannons, Petros/Money, or Jeff Pope/Evelyn Erives is much more entertaining.

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It's a Lonely World Out There - Dan Patrick Talking to Himself

DubaLakers has an interesting perspective on Dan Patrick replacing Fred Roggin, T.J. Simers, and Tracy Simers:

Say what you want about that boob Roggin, and yes Simers can be annoying at times, but he's more of a journalist than anyone else on the radio. At least he asks the questions, and knows what to ask.

Patrick has one talent getting anyone he wants whenever he wants he has access to so many people thru ESPN. You are the same people that like Stuart Scott and Steven A Smith. All three are blow hards.

Patrick practically flirts with the guests to get his answers with his man crushes it's pitiful.

But who does DubaLakers like?

The only true excellent sports radio is Jim Rome.

Now I've already expressed my opinion on Jim Rome, but it turns out that there's one thing that Patrick and Rome have in common.

They both work solo (as does Bill Handel and Tom Leykis for the most part).

For me, this immediately puts you at a handicap unless you're a completely riveting personality, since a solo host can't interact with anyone unless he/she takes callers (and even when Rome takes callers, he doesn't interact with them).

A group show, such as Roggin and Simers Squared, the Loose Cannons, Petros/Money, or Jeff Pope/Evelyn Erives is much more entertaining.

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One of these good news, bad news things

Excerpts from a post at Obscure Sports Quarterly about the end of Roggin and Simers Squared:

It was announced this morning that Dan Patrick’s new radio show will be heard on KLAC, AM 570 in Los Angeles starting Monday (Oct. 1) from 6-9 a.m. (No link is available yet, so you’ll have to trust me — I heard it on the radio this morning).

Dan Patrick’s old radio show on ESPN Radio was easily the best sports radio show in the country and I’m thrilled that not only is he returning to the airwaves, but that I will be able to listen to it....

The return of the Dan Patrick Show comes at the expense of my 2nd favorite sports radio show and the only other one I listened to consistently.

Today was the last day of the Roggin and Simers Squared show, a show by local TV sports anchor Fred Roggin, L.A. Times columnist T.J. Simers and his daughter, Tracy Simers.

The trio were highly entertaining every morning, as they’d argue with each other over little things, but in a fun, entertaining way, not the Around the Horn yelling at each other type of way.

If only there was some way for KLAC to move them to a different time slot or keep them on the air in some capacity. They were easily the best show on that station and best sports radio show in L.A.

Roggin has his work at KNBC to fall back on, and T.J. Simers his column in the L.A. Times. I wonder what Tracy will do (she was an accountant before joining her father and Roggin on the radio show).

However, if the show returns with the current hosts, it sounds like it won't be on a daily basis, at least not with T. J. Simers.

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Reaction to the Roggin and Simers Squared Cancellation

As I previously noted, KLAC AM 570 has cancelled Roggin and Simers Squared in favor of Dan Patrick. Subsequent to my original posting, there have been other reactions.

Awful Announcing:

Dan Patrick is officially on KLAC-AM in Los Angeles and to make room the roster is getting trimmed. T.J Simers Fred Roggin are the first show hosts to get the ax from a major market and there will certainly be more to come....

So that's one radio show axed. How many more do you think will perish at the hands of DP? I'm officially calling this the Dan Patrick Effect and hope everyone in radio doesn't hate him for firing half of the country's Sports Talk hosts.

SoCalSportsObserved:

Personally, I had enjoyed listening to Fred Roggin, TJ Simers, and his daughter Tracy Simers for the past few months in the morning. They really seemed to coming into their own. It was fun listening to the dichotomy between Roggin and TJ, two very different LA sports personalities, while Tracy acted as the voice of reason in the crew. They discussed more than just sports, and they made my slow morning crawl across the 101 just a bit easier.

Also see Farther Off the Wall.

And there has been reaction from the hosts. SoCalSportsObserved quoted T.J. Simers:

"I made it very clear to management that this was killing me. I'm an old man. This was a tall order we took on. It was bigger than I thought. As recently as a couple of weeks ago I told them I couldn't do it every day. So I think it was pretty much understood that we were not going to continue in the same format," Simers said.

And Fred Roggin (Sports by Brooks is blocked by a corporate firewall, so I'm getting this from Awful Announcing):

"This is going to be our final show together on KLAC. Yesterday, [we received] the somewhat sobering, yet exciting news. As many of you know, Dan Patrick, who worked for ESPN for many years, left that network and became a free agent and decided to go with syndicated radio."

"As the story goes, as the crow flies, as the wind blows, Clear Channel, which owns this station, signed Dan Patrick. Dan Patrick needed a Los Angeles home. Given the fact that from the very beginning of our go-round here, it had been trumpeted that it was only going to last a year."

I haven't seen any reaction from Tracy Simers yet. The last post in her blog concerned pole dancing.

Will I try it again? Absolutely...after another shopping trip to TJ Maxx for stripper clothes!

However, most of the comments to this post had nothing to do with pole dancing.

Tracy,

My daughter and I listen to you, your dad and Fred each morning while I am taking her to school.

Your show was a refreshing way to start the morning.

We hope that you and your co-horts pick up another time frame....

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Tracy Simers May Need Those Pole Dancing Lessons After All - Dan Patrick to Replace Roggin and Simers Squared on KLAC AM 570

My car phone charger interferes with my AM reception (except for KFI), so I didn't tune into Roggin and Simers Squared until around 6:30 this morning.

At that point I heard Fred Roggin saying good-bye.

DP will form a nasty duo with Jim Rome for Premiere Radio Networks. The new Patrick show starts on 10/1 and will lead into Rome from 9a-Noon ET.

Expect Premiere/FoxSportsRadio to strong-arm as many stations as possible to carry Patrick’s launch.

Patrick may have a real soft launch since most stations can’t make a move like this without waiting 60-90 days.

Well, KLAC AM 570 was able to make the move. While they're apparently going to pay Fred Roggin, T.J. Simers, and Tracy Simers through December, their last on-air show is Thursday. (Not sure what's going to happen on Friday.)

This will give Tracy three months to master her new skill. (Truth to tell, she may return to accounting. Or, for all we know, she may stay in radio.)

For the record, Simers did discuss the pole dancing class that she took last night. As Money would say, "It's hard." (And Jim Harrick never had to wear three inch heels when he coached basketball.)

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In other news...

Fred Roggin and T.J. Simers are talking about a veteran vs youth split in the Los Angeles Dodgers of Los Angeles clubhouse.

And Tracy Simers has a pole dancing lesson Wednesday night.

Petros Papadakis was unavailable for comment.

[27 SEPTEMBER 2007 - TRACY MAY NEED TO PUT HER POLE DANCING SKILLS TO USE. ALL GOOD THINGS MUST COME TO AN END.]

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Reality Radio - Petros and Money Didn't Have This on Fight Club

One of the things that radio broadcasters (as opposed to radio "personalities") try to do is to inject some reality into their shows. Rather than playing the consistent superficial happy guy, they refrain from masking their feelings. I'll grant that this reality can itself be faked, but nevertheless it makes for more interesting radio than, say, Rick Dees. (Then again, things can be a little too real - take Tracy Morgan.)

Whether by design or by accident, Don Martin has assembled an interesting bunch of radio broadcasters at KLAC, including Joe McDonnell, who is never afraid to speak his mind, and T.J. Simers, who makes a living out of speaking his mind.

Hence the on-air fight between T.J. and his show's producer, with Tracy Simers aligning with her father on this one.

The producer, identified only as "Producer Laura," is usually only heard when she does one of the inane promotions (This segment brought to you by StubHub), at which point Fred Roggin provides an attaboy for her excellence in reading from the script.

However, this is only a minor part of a radio producer's job. One of Laura's major responsibilities is to arrange for guests to appear on the show. This can be difficult at times, because of a variety of circumstances - for example, if your team has lost a big game, you may not be so charged up about going on the radio.

For the last few days, T.J. Simers has been asking why Karl Dorrell wouldn't appear on the Roggin and Simers Squared radio show after UCLA's loss to Utah.

Yesterday, T.J. Simers interviewed Dorrell in connection with Simers' other job at the Los Angeles Times, and ended up writing a column about it.

During and after the interview, Simers got the impression that Dorrell would appear on Roggin and Simers Squared today (Wednesday), and (according to Simers) Don Martin got the same impression.

When Dorrell cancelled his appearance, Simers wanted to know why, so Producer Laura was brought on-air. As Laura talked, she mentioned that the cancellation was probably due to "T.J. Fatigue."

Well, that did it.

While some people are clearly fatigued by T.J., Simers (and his daughter) maintained that Karl Dorrell, Pete Carroll, and Phil Jackson didn't fall into that category. T.J. emphasized the relationships that he has built up with these people over the years, and stated that he knew more about Dorrell's feelings than Producer Laura, who only deals with the PR people and not with the guests themselves.

All in all, a very interesting exchange, with Fred Roggin sitting on the sidelines, trying to (in Dorrell's words) "move on."

Did anyone else hear this exchange? What were your impressions?

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Tracy Simers Has a Blog

Well, you don't need to come to this mrontemp blog for information on Tracy Simers any more. Tracy has her own blog. (Don't know if she has Twitter.)

She mentioned it on the show this morning, and ended up asking the question, "Do I have to write something there every day?"

Obviously she has not mastered the art of typing meaningless drivel like I have. Well, perhaps she has, but not in quantity. (If Tom Peterson were a blogger, he'd be typing, "Post in quantity!" With the arrows pointing at his fingers instead of his head.)

So what did Tracy write in her maiden (heh) post? Here are the sports-related excerpts (go to her blog to find out about taco places and Craig Shoemaker):

Okay, so my Irish suck this year...but after UCLA's ridiculous loss to Utah this weekend I now have hope that ND might end up pulling out a victory. My Broncos sure are making their games interesting....putting everything on Jason Elam's leg.

I suspect, however, that I'll have better luck as a Redskins fan than Tracy will as a Notre Dame fan.

I hope.

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You're My Perception, with footnotes (footnotes?!?) on Raggin, Roggin, and Belichick

This morning on Roggin (Raggin? [1]) and Simers Squared, Fred Roggin [2], Tracy Simers, and Dave Dameshek (T.J. Simers is in Nebraska) were discussing the popularity of NFL teams outside of their home cities. While the three noted that Americans generally like successful teams (witness the popularity of the Steelers and Cowboys in the 1970s), for some reason the New England Patriots have not been the beneficiaries of that popularity - and that was before the current videotaping scandal.

Interestingly enough, when I went to the Hewlett Packard Americas Partner Conference in June 2006, I actually saw Bill Belichick [3]. An entertaining speech, which was enjoyed by the mostly sales crowd.

And, regarding Patriots popularity - back in 2004, the Patriots were more popular than the Celtics.

In Boston.

Everyone loves a winner. The problem for the Boston Celtics is, they haven't won it all for a long, long time.

In a market that has seen two local teams take home championships in the past two years, the Celtics face a crisis of marketing: Do you hearken back to the team's Hall of Fame heritage -- or do you push the team forward, hawking its new ownership, new management and new coach?...

The Boston Celtics face a new identity or at least a rebuilding of a brand that, of late, has slipped its championship status.

I suspect that there are die-hard Patriots fans outside of New England - probably more than the die-hard Broncos fans which Tracy Simers assumes are situated throughout the land.

And no, I'm not apologizing for the footnotes.

---

[1] Just in case you didn't follow the link, I couldn't pass this up. It's from the Yankton Press, and was discussed on the radio this morning.

Our family philosophies are similar, but that isn't hard to understand. T.J. was born in Wheaton, Ill. He and his wife are very close to their two daughters, just as we are to our children. One is married with their only grandchild -- a girl. The other daughter is an accountant who is not married. Since dad feels obligated to remedy this problem, he is constantly fixing her up with dates. This daughter also works with him on an early morning drive-time talk show five days a week at an L.A. radio station -- Raggin & Simers Squared.

T.J., who called into the radio show from Lincoln this morning, obviously prefers this name to the real name of the radio show. Perhaps even Fred might get used to it.

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[2] Can't remember if I talked about this or not earlier. I remember the story when it happened, but no one seems to talk about it any more. Ironically, the story is only preserved by the one guy (Jon Weisman) who DIDN'T cover it at the time:

Stories like Milton Bradley's domestic troubles are essentially why I left full-time sportswriting.

It wasn't as if I couldn't do them. I just didn't want them. But if you do the job, you have to take them....

I woke up on a Friday morning, like virutally every morning during my Daily News career, with that slightly nervous feeling in my stomach that wouldn't be eased until I saw the Times hadn't beaten me on a story. This Friday morning, it had. Leading Larry Stewart's TV-radio column was the news that Roggin, the KNBC sportscaster, had checked into drug rehab. Blissfully ignorant, my media column led with changes at The Sporting News.

I came downcast into work that day, churning over the reaction I would get from Rick Vacek, then the Daily News sports editor. The grief I got was even worse than I had expected. Apparently, I was the most clueless person in Los Angeles for not knowing that Roggin's need to detox was imminent.

I tried to imagine what I was supposed to do - stake out every broadcaster in Los Angeles every night and see what they were sniffing? I know there are some reporters who live for this stuff, but that was not what I got into sportswriting to do.

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[3] If you haven't seen it, here's Belichick's statement about the recent unpleasantness:

"I accept full responsibility for the actions that led to tonight's ruling. Once again, I apologize to the Kraft family and every person directly or indirectly associated with the New England Patriots for the embarrassment, distraction and penalty my mistake caused. I also apologize to Patriots fans and would like to thank them for their support during the past few days and throughout my career. "

"As the Commissioner acknowledged, our use of sideline video had no impact on the outcome of last week's game. We have never used sideline video to obtain a competitive advantage while the game was in progress."

"Part of my job as head coach is to ensure that our football operations are conducted in compliance of the league rules and all accepted interpretations of them. My interpretation of a rule in the Constitution and Bylaws was incorrect."

"With tonight's resolution, I will not be offering any further comments on this matter. We are moving on with our preparations for Sunday's game."

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There's an accident...GET ON THE TELEPHONE!

I was checking laradio.com to see if either T.J. Simers or Tracy Simers had done any radio before their weekend show on KLAC (they hadn't), but I ran across a couple of other interesting entries in the S category.

Scott, Dr. Gene: KHOF. The flamboyant tv preacher owned KHOF (99.5fm). Gene died February 21, 2005. He was 75.

I didn't know that Scott owned 99.5. But he did, for a time.

In the late 1970’s, Dr. Scott was on KHOF, 99.5 FM, 24 hours-a-day, seven days a week. With the strange shifts that I [Lindell] worked at LAX, his teachings were my constant companion. I listened to him all the time. When KHOF was sold, Doc moved to short wave, broadcasting on WWCR-5935 from Nashville, Tennessee and KAIJ-9815 from Dallas, Texas. I have worn out three short-wave radios listening to Dr. Scott.

But the following entry will be of more interest to my El-Lay audience:

Sigmon, Loyd: KMPC. Loyd devised a system to make it easy for the police to alert radio stations. The system gave each radio station a special receiver tuned to a specific frequency and attached to a tape recorder. A dispatcher at LAPD headquarters could press one button to activate all the machines and announce the nature of the problem. "What I had in mind was to get more listeners for KMPC, to be honest with you," said Sigmon. When the LAPD broadcast the first SigAlert on Sept. 5, 1955, the announcement caused even more trouble than the accident that had precipitated it. A train en route from Union Station to Long Beach had derailed downtown, rolling onto its side. When the LAPD sent out a plea for doctors and nurses in the area through the new system, so many responded that they created a traffic jam themselves. Born in Stigler, Oklahoma in 1910, Loyd was the son of a cattle rancher, educated at Wentworth Military Academy and got a ham radio license at age 14. He started his radio career at WEEI-Boston and KCMO-Kansas City. Loyd spent three years in Europe during World War II where he was officer in charge of radio communications for the European Theater where Colonel Sigmon directed building of the world's largest mobile transmitter, 60,000 watts. Prior to selling his interest in Golden West, Loyd was it’s corporation's executive vp, with Gene Autry ran a number of radio stations and KTLA/Channel 5, was vp of operations at KMPC and was part of the acquisitions of the California Angels. The California Highway Patrol took over responsibility for the freeways in 1969, and with that the SigAlert system as well. And though most radio stations now get information about SigAlerts from the CHP Web site, the name has remained - striking terror and dread in the hearts of L.A. drivers. Loyd died June 2, 2004, at the age of 95.

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