On the Seventh Day of Lino: Spring Break Broke

April 2-3, 2008: So Lino travels down to Gus Lloyd's house, gets kicked out, and is then reinvited back, all in the space of three days. Finally, everything is normal and Lino can enjoy his time in Florida.

Or so we thought.

About midway through Lino's Wednesday broadcast, Program Director Rob Astorino called in and, with an explanation about as weak as the coffee in the Lino Watch World Headquarters breakroom, ordered Lino to return to New York the next day for some nebulous meeting. An incredulous Lino thought that the whole thing was a joke, but Maureen received an e-mail from Rob a few minutes later saying that it wasn't. After taking numerous calls on the subject, Lino was still unsure about whether to go back to New York or defy Rob and remain in Tampa.

The next morning during the first hour of Seize The Day, Lino came into Gus' studio and announced that, after thinking about it overnight, that he would catch an early morning flight back to NYC that morning. After well-wishes from Gus, Lino departed and arrived back at the Sirius studios in time to broadcast his show on Thursday afternoon. Then things got really ugly.

During the first hour, Rob called into the show and announced that his request to bring Lino back to New York was all just a big joke that he never imagined Lino would actually fall for. He was actually surprised to see Lino in the building that day. Not only that, it came to light a few minutes later that Maureen was in on the joke the whole time. The next day Rob came into the studio to face the music from Lino and the listeners, and the listeners let him have it.

We know that we have a tendency to mock Lino whenever there's an opportunity to do so, but in this case Lino got a raw deal, and we felt really bad for him. Here's hoping that Spring Break 2009 (assuming there'll be one) is much more enjoyable for Lino.

On the Sixth Day of Lino: Bearing gifts of DVDs, an Orange, and Olde English 800

March 30-April 2, 2008: This is going to be the easiest post of the twelve, as our beloved host Lino already did most of the work for me. So instead of retelling the story myself, just click on the photo below to go to Lino's web site, where you'll enjoy a nice narrative (complete with pictures!) of Lino's first three days of Spring Break at Gus Lloyd's house:


But be sure to come back tomorrow, because the saga of Lino's Spring Break doesn't end there.

On the Fifth Day of Lino: "This is a scam"

March 2008: In anticipation of Lino's spring break trip to Gus Lloyd's house in Tampa, Gus placed a poll on his web site and asked listeners to choose what Lino should do while he was there. The five choices were:

• Option 1 nobody can remember
  
• Option 2 nobody can remember
  
• Option 3 nobody can remember
  
• Clean toilets
• Nothing -- Gus should serve Lino

What started out as an innocent poll turned into much, much more. "Clean toilets" took a strong lead for the first few days of the poll, and then Lino promoted it on his show and "Nothing" bounced back to take the lead. Both choices traded the lead for days, and then Gus decided to have a little fun with the poll by having an on-air trivia contest, with correct answers meriting multiple votes for whatever choice the caller desired. (You can guess where most of those votes went.) This prompted Lino to call into Gus' show and declare the whole thing a big scam, among other epithets. If only you could hear the actual clip... and you'd be able to if only my computer's hard drive hadn't destroyed itself back in mid-May. Gus ended up relenting and canceled out all of the multiple votes, and afterwards was mercilessly mocked for a short speech where he declared to everyone that it was "my poll" to do with as he saw fit.

Eventually the poll devolved into a huge tug-of-war between fans on both sides, some of whom figured out how to manipulate the poll to cast huge numbers of votes at once. In the end, "Clean Toilets" ended up winning the poll by about 300 votes (out of over 8,000 cast), but in a show of Christian humility Gus declared that he wouldn't force Lino to clean toilets after all, and that he would in fact serve Lino while he was there.

On the Fourth Day of Lino: "I am your bro-ther! Your best friend forev-er!"

1/17/2008: The night before on American Idol, a white-caped Renaldo Lapuz shocked the ears of millions with his heartfelt yet nails-on-the-chalkboard-esque rendition of his original composition, "I Am Your Brother, Your Best Friend Forever". Lino, appreciating the meaning behind Renaldo's song yet unbothered by its potential effects on people's eardrums, extolled the virtues of his song on the air the next day... while having the song play in continuous loop in the background:



To this day, Lino uses the opening strains from this song as a sound effect on the show, and he eventually had Renaldo on the show a few weeks later. But you thought the whole Celine Dion debacle was bad? At least her song didn't go on for 45 minutes.

On the Third Day of Lino: "God doesn't send you to hell; you send yourself to hell"

...and apparently that hell involves listening to Celine Dion on a continuous loop.

6/3/2008: The previous day, then new (now ex) producer Ryan Stewart came up with a new segment for the show entitled "Ryan's Riddle", where Ryan would read a riddle on the air, and listeners would call in and guess what the answer was. Apparently it either didn't prove very interesting to the audience or no one could come up with the answer, as not a single listener called in to participate. This apparently did not sit well with Lino, and he took it out on us the next day:



Mercifully "My Heart Will Go On" did not go on for the entire hour. But it went on long enough.

On the Second Day of Lino: "Did he just hang up on me?!"

December 2007: For me, one memorable moment happened while I was driving home from work as I listened to an episode of "Let's Make A Catholic Deal". Lino had just gotten hooked on hanging up on people, and it was about to come back and bite him.

The caller up to play made the deliberate mistake of telling Lino that he 'loved' him in a manly sort of way. Lino, not taking too kindly to having guys tell him that they love him, advised the caller that he had just about ruined his chances of playing LMACD. This is the gist of what happened next:

Caller: Hey, Lino?
Lino: Yeah.
Caller: [click]

Sound of professional phone answerer Tom Falcone bursting out in laughter.

Lino: Did he just hang up on me?! On Let's Make A Catholic Deal?!!
Maureen McMurray [Lino's producer]: Whoa!
Lou Ruggieri [Lino's technical director]: That guy waited on hold for 20 minutes just to get on the air and hang up the phone!

Tom continues to laugh hysterically in the background.

Sadly I had the recording of this at one time, but early this past May my computer's hard drive imploded and I lost all of the recordings I had made over the prior six months. So to someone who didn't experience the clip first-hand it loses some of its effect just reading it. But to those like me who heard it live, it's just more proof that payback can be a b----.

On the First Day of Lino: "It Just Got Crazy"

As a tribute to the Catholic Guy while he abandons his loyal listeners for a trip to Morocco, I've decided to blog about twelve memorable Lino Moments that stick out in my mind from the past two years... henceforth titled "The Twelve Days of Lino". (Catchy title, isn't it?) I'll be writing about one each day from today to coincide with the Twelve Days of Christmas, ending (not so) coincidentally with his return to the airwaves on January 5th. So without further ado...


2/14/2008: Sure to be a fan favorite, this hour of the Catholic Guy is also known as the St. Valentine's Day massacre. Lino was supposed to be playing a Catholic version of "The Dating Game" with three available women brought in by producer Maureen McMurray. The "winner" was to go on a date that night with Lino (while technical director Lou Ruggieri would get his pick of the runners-up). What happened next was one of the most incredible hours of Catholic radio I've ever heard, and is one of the biggest reasons I miss Maureen's presence on the show.

I desperately tried to record the show on the midnight replay of the day it aired, but as luck would have it Sirius Internet Radio was "temporarily unavailable" at the time, and the crew conveniently chose never to replay this episode again. Fortunately "LinoFanatic" was kind enough to preserve this cherished moment forever on YouTube:

I waited all week for this?

So, on Monday Lino promises swift retribution after Gus releases his hit "Catholic Guy Who Stole Chirstmas" single last week. Swift appears to be a relative term with Lino, as Monday turns into Tuesday (when we're again promised retribution), which turns into Wednesday (where he drags us along one more time). Finally, on Thursday afternoon as I was getting in my car to go home from work I turned on the radio, and lo and behold he finally delivered...

My first reaction: I waited all week to hear an infomercial?
My second reaction: It took three days to come up with this? Lino has no life; he either should've been able to crank this out in a day or this should've been a much higher quality bit.

More intemperate thoughts:

• My two-year-old daughter can sing better than Lino. Hell, my cat can sing better than Lino.
• I love how he promotes this as "eight songs" or an "entire album" versus Gus' one song. I guess majoring in theology doesn't require more than third-grade math skills. Gus takes the time to write and record a complete song with six full verses. Lino slaps together one verse per song for eight songs. So that's eight verses as opposed to six. I'll give him credit for putting out more "music"... and then promptly take it away for having to hear him sing it.
  
• He only used the tired "Dog and Pony" line twice. He also called Seize The Day "just okay" in one song, and overall his first two songs were really weak compared to the others (where he finally started to throw out random insults at a decent clip). I'm stunned... he must be getting soft.
• He's really got a Tampa fetish, doesn't he? He can't stop talking about it in his clips. I guess he must've been impressed by his spring break visit earlier this year.
  
• To set the record straight: Gus had his bike stolen twice and broke his ankle three times. But since when are details important to Lino?

Bottom line: Lino says he hit it out of the park. Neither Lou nor Fr. Rob were willing to go that far. This was more like a bunt single at most.

UPDATE 12/22: For the third day in a row he's playing his little infomercial. What's the matter Lino? Don't have enough original material to fill up eight minutes of airtime?

Oh by the way, you're making such a big deal of being the only live host on the channel today. Yet you're taking off the day after Christmas, when all of those people who received Sirius and XM receivers for Christmas are activating their subscriptions. I would've figured that you wouldn't miss a prime opportunity to attract (or repel) new listeners with a live show. At least a certain morning show host on the channel is smart enough to have a live show on Friday.

The Catholic Guy Who Stole Christmas

Last Wednesday morning I went into my office to turn on my Sirius Internet Radio stream so that I could listen to Seize The Day while I got my two kids ready for daycare and preschool. What greeted me made my day:

Needless to say, I was grinning from ear to ear. My 7-month-old son (who I was holding at the time) seemed to enjoy it as well judging by the smile on his face.

Gus just takes it from Lino every day, and I'm happy that he finally decided to fight back. Of course some of his die-hard fans reacted with predictable results. There were complaints about timing the release to coincide with Lino being in Rome. Excuses, excuses... they have the Internet in Rome, don't they? I'm sure there's a way Lino could've gotten hold of the clip while he was there. Even yours truly got panned by a certain Catholic priest when he put in his two cents' worth.

I will give credit to Lino, though... he played the entire song on his Monday show and chose not to pick it apart. Then he promised retribution... a lot of it. Oh boy, looks like this blog's gonna get busy fast.

Welcome to Lino Watch!

What this blog is:

• A forum for expressing our thoughts on Lino Rulli and The Catholic Guy Show as we see them.


• A means of poking a little fun at Lino when we think it's deserved... which is often.


• A place to remember classic Lino moments, especially from the older shows with Maureen and Tom that Lino has quietly buried.

What this blog is not:

• A competitor to CatholicGuyShow.com and the Unofficial Lino Rulli Fan Club. That site certainly has its place and we're an eager reader of it. We see this site as a complement to it... posting thoughts that don't always toe the line of the die-hard Lino fans.


• A mouthpiece for Gus Lloyd. Gus doesn't maintain this blog (he has his own, after all), and we're not a shill for him. But we're as much of a fan of his "dog and pony show" as we are The Catholic Guy, and we think that Lino and his pack take the Gus-bashing a little too far sometimes, even if it might be in jest. We're more than happy to poke a little fun back.


• A resurgence of the Catholic Taliban's defunct blog. We're not that orthodox.

Will it last? We don't know... only time will tell. But we'll give it our best shot.