ON THE DL

Tony Kornheiser Enjoys Salty Snacks, Talks MNF, Radio Future and Twitter

Tony Kornheiser joins the show while having a snack. First it’s peanuts, in the shell. He calls them circus peanuts, but I suppose he’s never seen the orange foam-like marshmallow treat of that name. Rather, Tony is eating peanuts like one would have at the circus, or the ball game.

We start with Tony’s reaction to his departure of Monday Night Football. Is this a good thing for Tony? After saying, “yeah, it’s fine,” he explains that he enjoyed doing MNF, but the travel was terrible for him. Far too

many flights and far too few bus trips. But he did enjoy doing the games and loves the support he has gotten on the street.

“I am absolutely gratified and buoyed by the street reaction that I have gotten where people say to me ‘we really liked your work, we’re really going to miss you.’ Total strangers, people I don’t know, seem to have responded very well to what I did on Monday Night Football. That thrills me. I didn’t expect that.

“You know, I thought that critically I was crushed, and internally, maybe, at ESPN there were a lot of people who didn’t like me -- I mean, I don’t know that, but I sense that every once in a while -- but I think there are just people who don’t like me. But the average guy on the street, at least the one who wants to talk to me, is so kind in what they’ve said and I’m very grateful for that.”

During our best of segments I put in a clip where I talked to Tony about all his jobs -- Monday Night Football, radio, PTI, Washington Post, George Michael’s show -- but now he’s down to just one...PTI. He loves PTI, but it seems he hates having just one job.

So we discuss his future in radio. He still needs to hammer out his contract limitations with ESPN (there’s a stipulation that he can do local

radio but he can’t do syndicated radio, which is what he wants to do because, hello, there is more money in syndicated radio). When pressed on the issue of why the wheels haven’t been put in motion on figuring out what he can and can’t do, Tony explains that the man he needs to speak to is currently out of the country. Who is this man? His agent? Dan Snyder? (These are things you’d think I would have asked.)

We also talk about the prospects of doing a podcast, being able to tape the show whenever and where you want to as well as the value of having people you can look at in studio when doing a radio show. Nick and I have developed the ability to do our show while we never see the other person’s face. But Tony’s show was always a ‘hang out and chat’ type of show. And if there was no ‘hanging out’ would the ‘chatting’ suffer? Tony thinks it might. Which means he’d either need to work at a radio station studio or have some space for his cast of regulars to sit and record. And by the sound of it, his kitchen isn’t open for business.

At some point Tony shifts from peanuts to Uncle Jerry’s Extra Dark, Low Salt pretzels. Mail ordered from PA. He makes sure to tell us that (as well as Twittering it through the PTI Twitter). We even get the sound of Tony cracking into the pretzels. Great radio, folks.

This leads to a debate of hard and soft pretzels. Tony hates the cinnamon pretzels but he’s always admired the Philly style of soft pretzels and mustard.

Before we go on to some topics in sports we talk a bit more about Monday Night. He thinks Gruden will be great (that’s all he says) and we discuss the rumor that Matt Millen will be doing the NFLN games. Tony loves Millen, and we discuss the fact that when Millen eventually goes into the booth -- be it at ESPN or NFLN -- someone is going to have to stand up and defend that decision. And frankly, he was a terrible GM, but he was good on TV (Tony thinks great) before he became a GM. It’s not like the Michael Vick situation, where we know a GM and owner will eventually stand next to him and ask that he be redeemed. Millen was just bad at his job. Sure, some might say criminally bad, but not ACTUALLY criminally bad.

The interesting thing is that the Millen to NFLN rumor came out of Gruden ostensibly being stolen from the Network by ESPN. Is the Millen sharing a trade-off? And did all this start because Tony doesn’t like to fly? Tony wonders if he’s the Oswald the Lucky Rabbit in all of this.

We move to Eddie Jordan, the new coach of the Sixers. Tony thinks he’s a really good coach and a really good guy. After going through Jordan’s credentials and

wondering what the Philly fans who are ripping the Sixers for hiring him want out of their coach, he takes a shot at Gilbert Arenas for good measure.

“Gilbert Arenas is the worst person on Earth. He’s a coach killer and a team killer. He’s a team killer, Gilbert Arenas. That’s why - he got Eddie Jordan fired. He didn’t play.”

We also touch on the return of Phil Mickelson after his brief hiatus to spend time with his wife who was diagnosed with breast cancer. Is this story as big as the story has become? Tony makes the point that he’s no different than any other guy who took a few weeks off to spend time with his wife when she was diagnosed with cancer...he’s just famous. Sometimes famous people are just people with the same problems we all have.

This leads to a conversation about the difference between individual sports and team sports...would this be an issue if it was a player on a team sport? And it leads to a conversation about the microscope we put on our celebrities. Has all this tumult in media changed our responsibility

in the way we (and I mean everyone who does this, paid, free, full or part time) cover celebrities and cover news. Along that line, I ask Tony the question that was posed to us -- would Watergate have happened today?

Of course, Tony immediately says no, but we debate the quality of work from online only journalists and traditional print reporters. Haven’t the lines grayed enough where there are online-only journalists who are just as talented as the print counterparts? And some of those people work for ‘newspapers’ but only write online. In addition, while there may not be two guys in a back room doing investigative journalism, our world has become much more transparent. Everyone is a journalist now (ahem) so everyone’s eyes are always looking for the story...the truth.

Tony points out that everyone is watching the celebrities, but the lack of reporters covering the school boards and other non-celeb issues will be the most troubling. But anyone can be a celebrity in their own community, and there is always someone watching. Which leads to Twitter.

Tony has come around on Twitter. He loves it now, as much as he only does it at PTI. He mentioned that his son called him five minutes after he put on PTI’s Twitter that his son hadn’t talked to him in a while. We discuss if Twitter is the next hula hoop or pet rock or of it can be the same as email and blogging and actually catch a foothold. I explain the different uses of Twitter, including the ability to get immediate breaking news from many different perspectives. Tony’s reply:

“You know I’m old and you know I don’t know the difference between any of these things, and so now I’ve learned a lesson. But I’m not going to Twitter. I’m not going to sit down and do that. I’d rather lay down and go to sleep. I’m getting prepared to die, by laying down and going to sleep whenever possible.”

Which leads to GenKvetch.com...Facebook for old Jews! Maybe Kornheiser can get them to sponsor his podcast.

Housekeeping:

Kenny Mayne tomorrow to talk about Mayne Street’s return to ESPN.com as well as the horsies. And much more. And we plug the heck out of Blogs With Balls. If you aren’t going yet, you really should think about it. It should be a lot of fun and pretty darn informative.

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