ApeDonkey Power Rankings - 1/3/11

Before I get to the power rankings this week, I wanted to say a few things about the Sean and John Show which came to an end last week on 1560 the game. I was listening when they guys broadcasted their very first segment and I was listening when Cade Dear Sistered them to close the final show. In between, they gave us more than three years of very good radio. The show lost something for me when the Dusty Rhodes open was so unceremoniously ripped from our lives. I grew a little weary of some of the guests during college football Wednesday but I never missed a Game 7. If I was in the car with my wife and the Game 7 came on she would stop and say I'll wait til the Game 7 is over. That's a good woman and a good segment.

ApeDonkey has two connections with the Sean and John Show. The first is when Sean screamed down my 11 month old when I emailed in to tell them how he was dancing every time Kyle played the S&J version of Brando's email song. The guys were so frustrated at that point that when I emailed them Sean went off on my poor unsuspecting baby and told me I should just go out and get him some 20 sided dice now because he's going to need them in the future. The second is that the ApeDonkey power rankings are partially inspired by the Seinfeldian Mock Draft. Just as the guys pointed out that you can mock draft anything, I figured you can rank just about anything and so was the power rankings were born.

Thanks again guys for three plus enjoyable years and I wish you much success with your new shows.

Top 5

1. ApeDonkey -I started this blog last April while I was burning through DVD after DVD of Lost seasons. I had been reading Danny's Diatribes for a while and thought "I've heard that dude on the radio, he's not that smart. I can do that." I've been lucky enough to see my blog hits increase each month with December being the biggest month yet with more than 1600 hits. Much of the increase can be attributed to some great readers who have commented, retweeted and recommended the blog to others. I want to thank @heydannyv, @nikvzierlein, @SteveintheKT, @jaydirt1560, @bcstagg, @lancezierlein, @tonyprock and @cockshittington. All are must follows on Twitter. I hope I haven't missed anyone but if I did, Thanks.


Since I started this blog the Texans, Longhorns and 1560 the game have been the most frequent subjects outside of TV and movies. I've reviewed 91 movies, written 6 posts that never saw the light of day and 1 that caused so much trouble in my family I had to take it down. I've been given a laundry list of subjects I'm not to write about by my wife. My wife reads the blog just to make sure I haven't written about her love affair with Olive Garden salad & bread sticks. 

I intend to post more often in the new year and I hope you'll all continue to read.

2. 1560 The Game - Last week I wrote a blog post questioning some of the recent moves by 1560 The Game. A couple of the guys from 1560 contacted me through twitter and the blog to explain the lineup changes. I thought that was really cool and classy of them. Just another example of how much they care about their listeners and the listeners' opinions.

After last week's post, I thought it was my duty to listen to all the shows today and I think overall it was a great success. John & Lance did their thing before giving way to Harris and Raheel who I thought had an excellent debut. I also enjoyed the bleed over between the two shows. The Sean Pendergast Show was a bit of a let down but I think that may have been a result of Jim Ross being the first thing I heard once I got my stream back up and running. Not my favorite guest. The Spencer Tillman, Dan Pastorini interview was very good. After a first segment in which Travis came out of the gate like he'd just done a speed ball with a meth chaser, he settled in and put together a good show.

I don't know if the new lineup is going to be a success but I do feel a lot better about it today than I did last week.

3. Parents everywhere - The second most important day of the year for parents. The first is the first day of school. The second is the day kids go back to school after the holiday break. Kids are great and I have a lot of fun with mine but I'm ready to get them the hell out of here. Thank God buses start running again tomorrow and kids go back to school. This year I came to the realization that kids are off for the holidays roughly a week and a half too long. Hey Pres. Obama how about we get to working on that year round school thing.

4. McDonald's - You won't catch me saying good things about giant corporations like McDonald's often but I'm making an exception today. While other fast food joints are trying to make up for rising food cost by raising drink prices disproportionately to their food prices, McDonald's actually lowered theirs. I have a serious iced tea addiction and being able to get a large for just $1 has been a godsend. Places like Chick-fil-a and the like are charging about $1.80 for a large these days. Way too much. I don't like supporting soulless entities like McDonald's but at that price I'll sell just a bit of my soul.





5. The end of the holidays - I bag on the Christmas holidays a lot and that's mostly because I don't like them. I do find Christmas enjoyable when there are babies around. I am the baby whisperer. No crying baby stands a chance at staying upset if I'm around. I think this is a result of my body being very much like a giant cushy baby recliner combined with the fact that I don't piss them off with ridiculous baby talk. I'd open a daycare for kids under 2 but people tend to distrust a man's ability to handle the job. This year was exceptionally good with a total of 4 kids under the age of 2 at Christmas. I'm pretty sure everyone in my family is done having kids now so this is probably the last great Christmas I'll have for the next 25 years until I become a grandfather.

Bottom 5

1. Sports in 2010 -The 2010 sports year started in earnest with the Longhorns fifth play from scrimmage. As I watched Colt McCoy on the ground writhing in pain, I had no idea the shit spiral this sports year would take. The Longhorns lost. The Astros sucked. The Rockets sucked. The Longhorns sucked. The Texans sucked. I had to watch evil creatures like Kobe and Saban victoriously raise championship trophies. Lance Berkman and Roy Oswalt were traded away. Yao Ming proved that Chinese peanut brittle is not the strongest brittle of all. Ugh, I done with this year. I can't wait for 2011.

2. Dan Graziano - Congrats to Dan Graziano for writing the single most idiotic piece about why he won't vote for Jeff Bagwell in the Hall of Fame. Basically, he says even though Bagwell produced offensive numbers that put him in a select group of baseball players, he won't vote for him just in case years down the line it is revealed that Bagwell did PED's. Well Holy Shit Dan, you might not want to drive to the store, you might get into an accident. Never mind that Bagwell never failed a test, didn't show up on the Mitchell Report nor were their rampant rumors of use during his playing days. I'm not naive enough to think he probably didn't use but I'm also not dumb enough to not think everyone was on PEDs during that era. Jason Grimsley was busted with the stuff for God's sake. If you are going to argue that you can't vote for Bags just in case then you shouldn't vote for anyone who played over the last 20 years.

Razzball had a very good article on Bagwell's HOF credentials.

3. Bowl Games - I am absolutely bored with these exhibition games. The Rose Bowl is the only game I've watched from start to finish. The rest of the bowl lineup was so lackluster that I haven't even tried to get into them. I'm sure I've missed some decent games and apparently some controversial endings but ultimately they're still just exhibition games and don't mean anything. I'm looking forward to the Auburn/Oregon game and will probably watch the Cotton Bowl. By the way, how ridiculous is playing the Cotton Bowl on a Friday night a week after the new year? Playoff people. Playoff.

4. Kobayashi - How the hell are we supposed to go on without the man who represents Keyser Söze? Do yourself a favor and honor Pete Postlethwaite by watching The Usual Suspects and In The Name of the Father today.

5. Houston Texans fans - Remember back in the 90's when we all made fun of the Redskins when they kept bringing Norv Turner back year after year even though it was apparent to everyone he lacked the skills it takes to be a successful head coach? WE ARE THE REDSKINS. Remember last season when we all laughed at the bumbling Cowboys head coach? HE'S THE LEADING CANDIDATE TO BE OUR DC. Your 2011 Houston Texans folks.

1560 The Change

About a week ago the news came down regarding lineup changes at 1560. John & Lance 6-10a, Raheel & John Harris 10-12p, Sean Pendergast 12-3p and Travis Rodgers 3-6p with Sean and Travis' shows being national Sporting News Radio broadcasts. My first reaction was to run to my computer blog away. I decided though to give myself some time to really think about the changes and fully form my opinions instead of spewing a knee jerk reaction.

The fact that I spent a week thinking about this should tell you how big a fan of the station I am. I've been a gamer from the start through and through. When the changes were announced I had just finished blog posts on both the Sean & John Show and Travis Rodgers Now but had yet to post them. They were rendered moot so I had to now think about where my favorite station was going instead of where it had been. I wanted to break my assessment down into three parts the local shows, the national shows and where the station stands now and it's relationship with listeners.

The Local Shows
It's strange to see a station built around it's local appeal go from four to two local shows. Thankfully, one of the remaining local shows is John & Lance in the morning. I wrote a recent blog post with my opinions on the show and aside from a greater appreciation for Del's input, those opinions haven't change. I expect J&L to continue delivering the best morning product in the market and the callers to deliver the best animal noises in Houston.

I'm a little concerned about the new 10-12pm show with Raheel and John Harris. I'm afraid they are pairing a guy with a narrow appeal with someone who has limited entertainment value. What I mean is that Raheel is a bit of an acquired taste. Kind of like a fried spam sandwich with mustard. To the right person it's delicious and a lunch staple but most people never give it a chance even though they might love it. Johnny, on the other hand, can break down football like no one else on the airwaves. He's able to translate complex football terminology into something consumable to the masses. He's also able to speak intelligently on baseball and basketball. Where John falls a bit short is the entertainment side of a show. He works better as the straight man of a broadcast team. This is what made his pairing with Sean Pendergast perfect. Both of these guys have been at this for a few years now, so I hope they are able to craft a show that appeals to the midday consumer. In all honesty though, they could hire an intern to play with an iPhone fart machine for three hours and it would be better than the Brando garbage being broadcast now.

The new Raheel & John Harris show is walking into a good situation though. The Texans season died just as the Rockets started playing better ball. Raheel's strength is his basketball knowledge which lines up nicely with a January premier. Combine that with John's ability to break down the major bowl games, a likely Texans coaching change, high draft pick and Rockets trade deadline chatter and they could come out of the gate like a fireball. Though I'm not a big fan of caller driven shows, John and Raheel's strengths as broadcasters almost dictates a successful show would have a high caller volume. With a strong lead in from John & Lance they should have a great opportunity to build a winner. The competition down the dial is strong in listener ship but weak on content. The Jim Rome Show has been terrible for years now and I still don't know why the hell the Mighty Gwinn is yelling at us all the time.

I do wish 1560 could find a place for Danny Vara. Unless he's not interested in getting back in to broadcasting outside of South Bound Food, it's an indictment on local radio management that he is a man without a regular hosting job. Danny's a guy that has a great combination of broad listener appeal and good entertainment value. Maybe all these changes will lead to something for him down the road.

I'm a big believer is supporting your local businesses and I see local shows as no different. I'll give these guys every opportunity to win me over and as long as I believe in the product they're putting out, I'll continue to promote them in forums like this.

The National Shows
I couldn't be happier that both Sean Pendergast and Travis Rodgers are getting a chance to bring their shows to a national audience. Both hosts are extremely talented and offer unique perspectives. From the outset of Travis Rodgers Now on 1560, I felt like his show was being honed for national release. I had hopped it would be in the 10-1pm slot but 3-6 is good too. Travis' experience is in producing a wildly successful national show (Jim Rome Show) for over a decade. If you ever wondered who the real talent was on that show, flip it over there one day. It won't take you long to figure out it wasn't the guys still there. It took me about three shows on 1560 to figure out TRN was cannot miss radio. Travis is very good at exposing the twisted reality of the sports world with his dark sense of humor. He has quickly connected with listeners and has successfully integrated those listeners into the show through twitter. I have no doubt Travis will be a home run for SNR.

I've been a big fan of the Sean and John show from day one. They had their marching orders to not suck too much and delivered consistently. I was surprised when the S&J team was broken up but I know Sean has been doing a lot of fill in work on SNR recently. So maybe I shouldn't be that surprised. I can't say I have a strong opinion one way or another on Sean's solo show hosting ability. I always preferred the S&J show when both hosts were present and would usually listen to music when one was out.

What does concern me though is that even though both guys are coming from 1560, we as Houston listeners will be losing six hours of local programming. The old Houston listeners have to change their expectations of what Sean and Travis' shows are going to be. They will now have an audience that doesn't care about the Texans' woes or our frustrations with Gary Kubiak. They'll care about the Buckeyes, the Lakers, the Red Sox and all those other teams we may give a rat's ass about. I like the idea of having a national show to break up all the ridiculous calls from arm chair GMs trying to trade Yao Ming's contract for Carmelo but a six hour block of Yankees/Heat talk? I'm not sure I'm up for that. I need my Gary Kubiak bashing.

The State of the Station
As I took a week to think about the changes at 1560 and my opinions continued to form the one thing that didn't change was my disappointment with what I perceived as a shift away from a local sports focus. When Sporting News Radio moved its operations to Houston and 1560 became its flagship, a lot of listeners, myself included went "uh oh" and waited for the other shoe to drop. I think the sound we heard last week was the sound of leather hitting the floor.

I've been a gamer from the beginning. I bought in fully to the little guy taking on the radio giants and I supported the station the best way I could, through word of mouth promotion and by supporting their sponsors. My wife knew whenever we needed something a KGOW sponsor would be my first choice. Whether it was Dirt Free, Indoor Comfort, Wild Wing Cafe or Klein's, I felt it was my duty to repay the station for the hours of entertainment they had provided me by using the advertisers that kept them on the air.

You see I bought in to the 1560 spirit because I'm a small business owner and I'd bet KGOW has a greater percentage of small business listeners than any other Houston sports radio station. As a small business owner/Entrepreneur you're invigorated by the opportunity to stick it to the man. You pull for one another to beat the world of corporations and live by your own rules. But, starting with their marriage to SNR, the us against the man rhetoric from 1560 became increasingly difficult to believe. Now, with the recent lineup changes 75% of it's broadcast day will be national shows. I feel like this is  a 180 degree philosophical change for a station built on a local and extremely loyal fan base.

I realize this is a business and the 1560 management has to do what they feel is best for the company but on the other hand I want "my" radio station too. For more than three years now, those two forces have not only coexisted but flourished together. Now, I worry we are at a crossroads heading in different directions. Maybe we aren't. Maybe I'm being led down a path I never realized I wanted to travel. Maybe I'm just a fan whose favorite indie band just signed with a major label that is going to take them to new heights. The harsh reality though is that the indie band, major label marriage rarely works out and the promise of new bigger heights is almost never delivered.

1560 The Game part 1: John & Lance

I've been a 1560 listener since the first minute they started broadcasting. Well kind of, those first few months the signal was pretty sketchy, especially out in Cypress. I've been a long time gamer none the less. In fact, I've been listening to John and Lance since way back when they were The Bench. I suffered with them through the Russ Small experiment and laughed through the J-Fizzle years. I remember when John Harris was just Lance's friend who knew a shit ton about college football. What I'm trying to say is, I've been around and I've got opinions.

I started planning a 1560 blog post 2-3 months ago after Travis Rodgers was fully entrenched in his new position but for whatever reason never got around to writing it. Then a few weeks ago I read a post concerning the John & Lance show and Chris Solis at Houston Media Watch. This post along with the 1560 listener survey finally convinced me that yes I do need to put my thoughts on the station down.

As just a base of where I'm coming from, here's a little about me and my listening habits. I've been a stay at home dad for three years now. I spend an average of 5-8 hours a day listening to 1560. On a typical day I start streaming John and Lance at about 7 am and stop listening to Sean and John somewhere around 6 pm. Life and it's many detours keep me tuning in and out all through the day.

Now that you know my listening experience, how much I listen, what I listen to and why I'm writing this let's get going with the John and Lance Show.

The Hosts

What I like

John and Lance have been the gold standard of morning shows for a decade now. They have tremendous chemistry and through years of experience have learned to play off of each others strengths. You can tell these guys genuinely like each other without feeling compelled to agree on everything. Some of their best segments are when they are on opposites sides of an issue.

John's strengths are in driving the show and his willingness to push the boundaries of appropriateness without being overtly offensive. John is also the only radio personality who you don't want to change the channel during live spots. He has a confidence in his relationships with sponsors that allows him the freedom to go sideways with their live spots. The fact that you never know when that is going to happen keeps me tuned in when I would usually be checking in elsewhere.

Lance continues to be one of the funniest guys on radio. He has an array of characters he's developed through the years along with some very good impersonations. I don't want to be the one to pull the curtain back on the wizard so I won't list the characters but they can be heard on various 1560 shows throughout the day.

Both hosts have good sports acumen, although Lance is generally the go to guy for scheme and player analysis, especially concerning football.

Lance has developed a quality list of contacts he's able to call on for inside information and bring on for analysis.

John has very good local contacts and a well developed pipeline of information.

Lance can also be counted on for quality television and movie recommendations.

Points of Criticism

Years ago I almost had to quit listening to the show because Lance's eating on the show drove me absolutely nuts. He's improved greatly in this area but on occasion that old demon will rear its ugly head.

Anytime there's more than just the two hosts, there's a tendency for everyone to talk over one another.

I want Ketch back during the football season. This may be an issue because of the station he works for in Austin but his past appearances for big Longhorn games were pure radio gold.

Gary Trichter - If I ever get divorced, I'm pretty sure his commercials are going to play a big part in it. My wife was hit by a drunk driver when she was a teenager and we both find driving drunk despicable. Whenever the Gary Trichter spots come on, my wife starts fuming and I'm faced with the choice of changing the station of riding around with a pissed off woman in the car. I think you can figure out what I choose. 

Regular Contributors

Richard Justice - I'm one of the four people that really liked Richard Justice's original show on 1560. He always had a great lineup of both local and national guests. He was at his best when having a casual conversation with the likes of Peter Gammons or Kirk Bohls. However, Richard is more in his element the way he's being used now. Justice is plugged in to all the local teams including UT and A&M. He's not afraid to give his opinion on the state of the franchises although that opinion is prone to change on a dime. The dynamic he has on each show is a little different which keeps his appearances fresh. My biggest complaint with Justice would be that he tends to offer up the same anecdotes from show to show.


Chris Solis - Solis is a sniper. That is what he's there for and he's really good at that job. Anyone looking for analysis on the Texans running game would do well to look elsewhere. But if you want someone to offer a biting quip on Drayton McLane's apparent cheapness, then Solis is your man.

Adam Caplan - Caplan offers very good NFL information with his own unique opinions. His laid back delivery is very reminiscent of Mike Leach. Caplan isn't quite as dynamic or staunchly opinionated as Mike Lombardi but he is very good and a quality Twitter follow.

Joel Dreesen - I'm not a fan of player shows in general. Steve McKinney was about the only player show I found worth listening to and that was only when he wasn't talking football. Players aren't going to offer honest insight into the teams problems so I'm not sure what the point of having them on is. I usually spend this hour listening to my ipod.

Kevin Sumlin, Les Miles - The only thing worse than player shows is a segment of coach speak. No insight has ever been gained by speaking to a coach in season unless that coach is named Jeff Van Gundy. I'm a Texas fan and I wouldn't even listen to a Mack Brown segment if 1560 had one. Now Mack Brown on a mobile is a completely different story.

Del - I didn't care for Del's contribution to the show at first even though he was a breath of fresh air following the Raheel era. However, Del has grown on me over the past couple of months. The little snuggie of hate definitely has his own on air persona. I'm still not big on everything being a racial issue but maybe that's just played up for effect.

Listener Interaction

I am so glad the morning show isn't caller driven. There are a few good callers to the show like Lesbian Craig, Jose and Mouton but quality callers like this are few and far between. Longhorn Scott is very entertaining and his ability to get listeners riled up is high comedy at the expense of the lowest common denominator. Most of the rest of the show callers I can do without. Brad is Spring Branch is good for a laugh in small doses. PD is barely coherent and every time he calls I just start hearing the DBT song "The Company I Keep" playing in my head. Once guy, Kirby I think it was, called the other day to tell a freaking joke. Yeah, a joke like you'd read in a "The 1001 Dirtiest Jokes" book. Worse still, it was a bad joke. Let's leave the comedy to the professionals fellas.

Gilbert? Next.

We don't need calls about how great your pee wee football team is or your hitting instructions for Hunter Pence because you coached Little League for 6 years. We don't need you you play Rockets GM even though you've devised a way to get Kobe and Carmelo if only you could get Daryl Morey to listen. If you have a legitimate opinion to offer and you absolutely must share it then, fine call. But don't subject the rest of us to your scripted routine you've already delivered on 790, complete with fake anger and yelling. We didn't care for it the first time and don't want to hear it again.


Around the Dial


610 - I don't fall into their 55-85 year old target demographic so I don't listen to them, ever.

97.5 - Mike & Mike is actually worse than the name would suggest. ESPN hasn't had a decent national show since Tony Kornheiser and Dan Patrick left the network. Don't waste your time.

790 - Matt and Adam are my alternative of choice. Wexler was terribly underused for years at 610. He offers smart well developed analysis on the Houston sports scene. Matt Jackson, I can take or leave as a host. I think Jackson is better when simply talking sports and offering opinions. Whenever, he consciously tries to do comedy, he misses the mark, badly. My biggest issue with Matt and Adam is their tendency to lift bits from other shows. If you hear a good bit or segment on another show, there's a good chance you're going to hear something very similar on their show very soon. They have a good show overall though.