Local Hour: Annoying Voices

It’s a little niply out there, but I woke up feeling good. The Panthers look like they’ve turned a corner and are clawing back.

They were past the pain threshold for a bit, but key guys are back and Bennett’s rolling, even the blue-liners are chipping in. With games in hand, it’s lining up again.

Debate for the room: nippy or niply? Also, I’m in twenty-something degrees and thinking about a Bears game in negative 20 degrees. If it were up to me, I’d cancel that for basic human rights.

I can live with players in that cold because adrenaline helps, but why should fans sit there and freeze when their couch is warm?

Dominique told me football pain plateaus; once you’re at constant pain, the weather hardly matters, even if I swear the cold should make everything hurt more.

I’ve stopped trying to compare myself to people who choose consensual car wrecks for a living; Dominique strolling around in a vest made that clear.

Quick Panthers context: guess how many sub-500 teams are in the East? One, and barely. You’re basically facing winners every night.

And with three-point games and overtime loss points, a slow start buries you. Climbing takes forever.

Which is why hockey could expand; there aren’t many truly bad teams and tanking isn’t the norm.

Pop quiz was coming on Utah’s team name, but Tony spoiled it. Is Utah ‘Mammoth,’ and is the plural ‘mammoth’?

The club says the plural is ‘mammoths,’ but they brand it as just ‘mammoth’ to push a one-state, one-team vibe.

To the big college story: a 39-year-old coach loses his dream job over an alleged inappropriate relationship and winds up in custody. Then Notre Dame spends a month ranked in before getting yanked out on TV; if that happened to your school, you’d be furious. So what’s the right way for Bavakwa to fight for his people?

My team went unbeaten twice and still got iced out. That sting is real, even if Notre Dame got the public tease first.

He sold the idea that shadowy SEC power did this, which works for the base, but he should’ve campaigned weeks earlier. Make the debate Alabama versus Notre Dame and hammer head-to-head so the committee hears it.

I think he used the right words, but people were waiting to dunk on Notre Dame no matter what. There are only a few brands the nation loves to mock when they cry foul.

This is politics. You don’t aim for America; you aim for your constituency, and they want you loud, stubborn, and unbowed.

Side note from the chat: is this Pablo’s first hoodie? Those factory-tied drawstrings scream ‘just unboxed.’

I’m busy fighting with Nick Wright, hearing from lawyers, and juggling stories, so I probably missed the fraud shot. Also, yes, Method Man let us hear tracks from the one-of-one Wu-Tang album that Shkreli bought for millions.

That’s the pharma bro record no one else heard; somehow you ended up in that room.

Method had the songs on his phone and, in hindsight, wished parts of that project went differently.

Why did yesterday feel unlikeable to you?

Because debate TV pays and reporting bleeds. SI and ESPN The Magazine are ghosts, real sports docs are gone, and truth is a tough business model. I’m trying to prove journalism can still be fun and worth the risk.

The audience starts out hating ‘journalist’ as a job title, which makes the optics a losing fight, much like Notre Dame’s. Add a whiff of self-righteousness and it gets worse.

Or maybe it’s simpler: annoying voices. People love Ernie Johnson’s easy tone. They hear you, Dan, Pablo, Nick, and think, nope.

Voice aside, what grates is someone who cares deeply about a thing most people do not, then bristles when others think they could do it just as well.

Sure, but Dan Patrick’s voice makes his righteousness go down smooth.

He knows it. He calls my wife and purrs, ‘Hello, Valerie,’ just to flex that golden voice, and I’m stuck sounding aggrieved and jealous while he glides.