From the Dept. of Be Careful What You Ask For: Holy Crap!
I’ll try to address them in order posted but, dude, no way I get to all them in one sitting:
*CORBY: I left two messages on his work phone, one on his cell and sent a request through our mutual media buddy, one Robert Wilonsky. Even offered to talk to him off-the-record. Nothing. My take? Corby owes me nothing. Doesn’t matter a bit if he talks to me or the public or not. But for him not to take five minutes to call Greg privately seems sorry. I said “seems” because, since he refused to talk about it, maybe he has a legit reason we don’t know about. But I can tell you that Greg is genuinely hurt/pissed that Corby – above all of them – hasn’t at least picked up a phone.
*FATHER’S FUNERAL: Far as I know, and I checked yesterday, The Ticket as a whole sent nothing as far as a memorial. Interesting, in that, I think, Greg went to the funerals of both of George’s parents and to the passing of Rhyner’s father. I kinda thought that event would serve as an ice-breaker. An uncomfortable, yet inconvenient reason to re-open the lines of communication. But it just shows how deep the feelings are against the guy.
*MYSTERY MEDIA GUEST: He just took part in Why Today Doesn’t Suck (and I’m pretty sure Dennis alluded to his appearance at the party in a previous post). Let the guessing begin.
*DANNY: He responded to my interview request via email, basically saying he’d let Rhyner speak for him.
*GREGGO’S SON: All he would say is that his son is named Derek, is 26, lives in Fort Worth and he is “working on” forging a relationship with him. He said he's never been married.
*TRUTH: Sure, some of Greg’s stories could be exaggerations, if not fabrications. But since he embarrassingly admitted to some of those past lies, it’d be bizarre to lie about suicide, etc.
*CLYDE: I think Clyde passed on a while back, but I’m not 100 percent sure. I did not interview him, or his current dog, Lexi.
*TICKET RELATIONSHIPS: I’ve been friendly with all Ticket hosts, but not “friends” with any of them. I guess we’ll see how they respond when I bump into them out at Cowboys camp. Even though I think I reported and wrote the story fairly, I do not expect to be asked on as a guest anytime soon.
*BOOK: Actually, yes, I thought about this a couple years ago. It’d obviously be a regional thing, but get me a publisher and I’ll start writing tonight.
*IF CORBY “CAUGHT” GREGGO AUG. 23, WHY WAS HE STILL EMPLOYED OCT. 12: Good question. I’m assuming – you do that a lot when most of the players on one side of the tale go mute – Corby said nada to management, in another attempt to give his friend and co-worker another chance to eventually right his ship.
*GREG’S TICKET FRIENDS?: Honestly, if he started naming his closest relationships at the station right now the list would start with Dan McDowell.
*GEORGE: Left him two voice mails on his work phone. Same with Craig Miller and Gordo. No return calls, though Gordon did send me an email asking when the story was coming out.
*HE SAID/HE SAID: I interviewed Rhyner first, then confronted Greg with his allegations. I went back to Rhyner with Greg’s take on the “Corby Conundrum”, but, to their credit, they both stood by their original responses to almost every issue.
*SALARY: I’m sure most hosts aren’t happy I revealed Greggo’s salary, but I found it to be one of the shocking revelations to the whole damn thing. Just shows you how good they were/are at attracting listeners and, in turn, advertising revenue.
*HE WHO MUST NOT BE NAMED: I just heard Rhyner refer to him as “Hammer”, but my feeling is, after this story, references to him and his drops will be minimal if at existent at all.
*CLEAN: Honestly, I’ve only been around him for that one day back in May. I’ve had several phone conversations and, from what I can tell, he’s always been sober.
*PARTY FAVORS: Agree with most of you on this. I went to the party preparing to drink water and Diet Coke. I was taken aback when I saw tin troughs full of beer and liquor bottles sitting out. For what it’s worth, Jen did not drink. But, yes, like I wrote, it seems awfully dicey to tempt him with alcohol that’s so accessible.
*THE MEETING: I emptied my notebook on the details of the meeting. I would’ve loved to have gotten others’ perspective on how it went down, but … Greg, as well, didn’t want to talk details. In fact, he went to great lengths to take – I know, bad choice of words – the high road. The meeting was called by Jeff Catlin and Dan Bennett, originally designed as a clearing of the air between Greggo and on-air personnel. But it quickly deteriorated into a lynching.
*REHAB: Yes, as I wrote, he went to rehab for four days in Arlington. Funny, T-Bar said Hammer got bored and called him on his cell phone to come play Texas Hold ‘Em. I never knew you could keep your cell phone in rehab.
*FAME AND FORTUNE: Oh, I’m sure most of the hosts have grown big heads. Who among us wouldn’t? Give me all that adulation and 500k and I’d be insufferable. The difference is that the rest of the hosts didn’t develop deadly addictions.
*HARDLINE LINEUP: Last time I asked – about a month ago – the current set-up of Mike-Corby-Danny was bravely heading into the future without an extreme makeover.
*DROPS: I’m sure, legally, they can play Greggo drops if they want. Why aren’t they? Don’t know for sure. Maybe they realize the hypocrisy involved in not talking about someone while at the same time exploiting his work for profit.
*RHYNER GONE IF GREG WENT BACK: I believe that 100%. While the rest of the hosts run from this issue, Rhyner was adamant about stamping his voice on the story. He truly feels Greggo shit on his life’s work and he’s pissed about it. Perhaps eternally. Don’t know if I blame him.
*GREGGO THE BUTT OF JOKES: Interesting question. But I sincerely doubt it. His depression is more clinical and hereditary, more than something that arose because he got his feelings hurt.
*MENTAL BREAKDOWN OVER GIRL: Not exactly sure on the exact date, but I think it was sometime in ’94.
*MOST VEHEMENT AGAINST INTERVIEW: As for Ticket personnel, I think it’s a last-place tie between everyone not named Rhyner or Hitzges. At some point in April management put out an edict to not talk about Greggo, but I had made one – if not two – rounds of calls before then.
*LAST-CHANCE CONTRACT: One of my biggest complaints with how Greggo was treated. He says he actually signed the diminished contract, tail fully between legs. Neither Bennett nor Cat wouldn’t comment directly as to that question when I posed it.
*HARDLINE YANKED BECAUSE OF GREGGO?: I’ve seen this in a couple posts, but it’s news to me. With its ratings power – even without Greggo – I’d be shocked if management thought of yanking the show. I think it’s an overstatement to say Greg’s actions almost cost the others their careers, or even their jobs.
*DO I LIKE THIS GIG?: Huh? -- Richie Whitt
