{"id":5081,"date":"2009-07-13T12:00:46","date_gmt":"2009-07-13T17:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=5081"},"modified":"2012-03-16T21:10:14","modified_gmt":"2012-03-17T02:10:14","slug":"things-im-suppose-to-love-but-cant-stand-garage-logic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=5081","title":{"rendered":"Things I’m Supposed To Love But Can’t Stand: Garage Logic<\/i>"},"content":{"rendered":"

Now, don’t get me wrong.\u00a0 Joe Soucheray has been for over 20 years one of my favorite columnists in the Twin Cities, first as a sports writer, then as a general columnist.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

And I certainly like the idea of a talk show that’s focused on “conservative” principles like common sense and deflating the puffery of some of the more cliched, insufferable parts of Minnesota liberal society, while upholding the obverse.\u00a0 Soucheray is sort of a curmudgeonly centerish-right retort to “Lake Wobegone”, in a way.\u00a0 This is good.<\/p>\n

And one can not argue with success; while Soucheray’s original rise to prominence probably had something to do with having Rush Limbaugh as a lead-in (at a time when talk radio was exploding from moribundity to prominence), there’s no arguing that he’s built a talk radio juggernaut.\u00a0 At KSTP’s peak, Soucheray was one of an unstoppable ratings 1-2-3 piledriver punch; Limbaugh, Souch, Jason Lewis.<\/p>\n

Today – after five years of KSTP-AM listening to consultants who assure management “Conservative talk is dead!\u00a0 Really!\u00a0 Honest!\u00a0 Any day now!”, and having shed Limbaugh, Lewis, Bob Davis, Dave Thompson and the rest of the leftovers from the station’s glory days – Soucheray is carrying the station pretty much singlehandedly.<\/p>\n

That ain’t chicken feed.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

And Soucheray’s on-air foil and sidekick, The Rookie, has done what precious few people in the radio industry get <\/em>to do anymore; developed from an annoying backslapping yahoo into one of the wryest, funniest, most talented sidekicks in the business.\u00a0 Anywhere.\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

So what’s the problem?<\/p>\n

Part of it is that it feels Soucheray has been repeating the same show for over a decade now, with the same components plugged in over and over and over and over.\u00a0 When the Northern Alliance got started, I tired to kick off a parody of GL’s endless, ongoing bit where guys call in from their garages, and turn on and rev engines on the air.\u00a0 I wanted to have it go something like this:<\/p>\n

CALLER: “Hey, Joe…:<\/p>\n

MITCH:\u00a0 “It’s actually Mitch, but go ahead…”<\/p>\n

CALLER: “I got an engine from a 1974 Charger for ya…”<\/p>\n

MITCH: “er…OK, start ‘er up?”<\/p>\n

[Caller starts a small chainsaw: “REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE”]<\/p>\n

MITCH: “Er, thanks, caller…”<\/p>\n

(TWENTY MINUTES ELAPSE)<\/p>\n

———-<\/p>\n

MITCH: “You’re on the air…”<\/p>\n

CALLER:”Hey, Joe, yeah, I got Don Garlits’ original 451 hemi top-fuel rail rod, there!”<\/p>\n

MITCH: “Um, it’s still<\/em> Mitch, but OK – kick it…”<\/p>\n

[Caller starts a small chainsaw: “REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE”]<\/p>\n

(TWENTY MORE MINUTES ELAPSE)<\/p>\n

———-<\/p>\n

MITCH: “You’re on the air…”<\/p>\n

CALLER:”Yeah, Joe, I got me\u00a0a 1952 MIG-15 jet fighter”<\/p>\n

MITCH: “Er, I’m…ah, who cares.\u00a0 A MIG-15?\u00a0 Cool.\u00a0 Go ahead,\u00a0rev ‘er up”<\/p>\n

[Caller starts a small chainsaw: “REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE”]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And so on.\u00a0 Note to Joe: all engines sound the same over the phone<\/em>.<\/p>\n

And the bit about ‘Foghorning” kids’ names that, apparently, aren’t what you’d find in a Catholic Parish in 1955?\u00a0 Yeah, Joe, try insulting kids’ names to their parents’ faces, m’kay?<\/p>\n

But the worst – and by worst, I mean “most objectionable to a conservative” – part of Garage Logic is the constant invocation of “The Mystery”.<\/p>\n

Sit down for a minute, Garage Logicians.<\/p>\n

If someone were to present to you an overweight, shrieking single mother of five wearing a “Wellstone Action” button, who were to say “I and my people are being disempowered and kept in poverty by racism that wants to keep us down!”, what would you say?<\/p>\n

“Take some personal responsibility”, right?<\/p>\n

So replace a few words.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Change the sentence to “I and my people\u00a0<\/strike> common sense and traditional values <\/em>are being disempowered and kept in poverty\u00a0<\/strike> marginalized <\/em>by racism<\/strike> a huge impersonable, undefinable but inescapable “mystery” <\/em>that wants to keep us down<\/strike>!”, then <\/em>what’s your response?<\/p>\n

That the comparison has escaped “Garage Logicians” for almost two decades amazes me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now, don’t get me wrong.\u00a0 Joe Soucheray has been for over 20 years one of my favorite columnists in the Twin Cities, first as a sports writer, then as a general columnist. And I certainly like the idea of a talk show that’s focused on “conservative” principles like common sense and deflating the puffery of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6],"tags":[211],"class_list":["post-5081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media","category-mitch","tag-love-and-hate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5081"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5081\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26887,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5081\/revisions\/26887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}