For those of you who are unfamiliar with 1560 The Game, we are Houston's newest sports talk station. 50,000 watts of unbridled enthusiasm! Monday through Friday, I host the afternoon drive time show alongside a fellow named John Harris who is best known for the following:
(a) being very smart (graduated from Brown University in1994)
(b) being very knowledgeable about sports (John can recite the name, birth date, and favorite anabolic steroid of every baseball MVP in order since 1975)
(c) moonlighting as a Jonathan Lipnicky lookalike on weekends
Here is a picture of me and Mr. Harris in the press box at the LSU-Virginia Tech game earlier this season (drum roll please, as I get to use these new fangled blog commands to insert a picture for the very first time ..... you can cut the electricity in the air with a KNIFE, MEAN GENE!) :
Wow, I am no longer a picture uploading virgin! Someone get me a cigarette. I hope it was as good for all of you as it was for me! In fact, it was so much fun for me, I'm gonna do it some more! LOTS MORE! As much as I can! By God, I'm a picture posting whore!!
Staying with the LSU trip, check this out. These are the name tags for me, John Harris, and our production guru Frank Bullington (a/k/a Frankie the Bull). Yes, it says "Season Pendergast". Season?!? Sounds like a name that a lazy mom would give to her stripper daughter. "Should I name her 'Autumn'? How about 'Summer'? Ah, screw it, I can't decide. I'll just call her 'Season'. Now go make it rain, my little angel!!"
This picture posting thing is AWESOME!!! Hey, here is the Schlotsky's Deli sign I drove into with a UHAUL the first day I moved back to Houston!
How about that, kids? Just remember the old adage, when you're driving a twenty foot high vehicle, it means you're driving a twenty foot high vehicle. Don't you forget it.
Hey, how about another one? Here is the driver side window of my car on the SECOND day after I moved back to Houston! (Some frisky young ragamuffins decided to break into my car in broad daylight and steal my laptop, watch and iPod! Those little rascals!!!) Yes, for a period of time, I was averaging one insurance claim per day after moving back to Houston. I think I'm the one guy Geico couldn't help save 15% or more on my car insurance.
(Hey now watch me wrap text around a picture! DIG ME!) Now for those of you who wonder what it's like to have a career in radio, well, as soon as my career runs longer than a few months, I'll let you know. Because you see, here's the thing - neither John Harris nor myself ever hosted our own radio show before we landed this gig in the summer of 2007. That's right, thousands of broadcasting school grads working graveyard shifts in "metro areas" like Utica, NY and Billings, MT, and Johnny and I bully our way right to the front of the line in Houston. Is there no justice in this world?How did this happen? Well, as soon as I figure it out I'll tell you. You see, Johnny had been a mild mannered accountant by day, and a nationwide college football expert by night (and during breaks between debits, credits, and pondered suicide attempts at Ernst and Young), writing for collegefootballnews.com and appearing on radio shows nationwide as a college football expert.
And me? Well, by day I'd been a mild mannered sales guy for various telecom companies, which is not quite as boring as it sounds, but certainly doesn't make you the center of attention at any Super Bowl parties. However, along the way I managed to become friendly with the right people (good people, by the way) in Houston, made a bunch of wisecracks, dabbled a bit in radio, and won five Smack-offs on the Jim Rome Show. Kids, if you want a career in radio, I'm not sure if I would follow this blueprint, but it worked for me.
So now, here I am, and I'm not going back. I'm at a radio station doing what I've always wanted to do with some of my best friends. In fact, in conjunction with the advent of my new blog, one of them (Lance Zierlein) returns to the airwaves today with longtime partner John Granato! The best Houston sports talk duo is back on the air from 7-11 weekday mornings, and not a moment too soon (echoing the sentiments of many Houston sports fans who have endured John-and-Lanceless mornings for far too long now).
In the few months I've been on the air, I have many stories to tell (which I will tell in time). I am now the 10th ranked kolache eater in the world. I'm one half of the TASW tag team champions. I've interviewed Corey Haim, and I've met Nick Van Exel. Can I now die in peace? Probably. With my love of fried foods, frankly we'll likely find out soon enough. But along the way, you can check back here at the Sports Kolache for some opinions, views, and a very light hearted, self-deprecating look at the life of a middle aged guy who is finally enjoying coming into work each day.
