Show review for 1/13/2012

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Highs: Father Jim being on the show is praise enough... and of course where there's Father Jim, there's another awesome installment of What's Up With That. But if that's not enough to stir your soul, Mama Rulli drops in and drives her son nuts for 30+ minutes with a special African-themed edition of Answer The Question. Smoking weed can't get you this high.

Lows: This could potentially be the last installment of TCGS you'll ever hear if Lino's plane explodes en route to/from Africa... or if he gets eaten by a giraffe while he's there.

Our take: It would've taken a complete disaster for any show featuring Lino's mom to merit a bad grade... and fortunately there was plenty of other good stuff to enjoy as well. If Lino's remains end up getting spread across South Africa by some wild animal, this show was a pretty good way to go out.

Grade: A

Where To Go From Here

This morning started out like any other… waking up waaaay too early to get ready for work and get my kids ready for school. With the house still silent I fired up the ol’ Internets and checked what was happening on Twitter. “A new post on CatholicGuyShow.com”, I said to myself with delight. So I clicked on it.

And I was stunned.

And within seconds… before even reading what dustin had to say… I knew exactly where they were coming from. Because for months I had been agonizing over what to do with LinoRulli.net.

I posted a whopping 24 times for all of 2011… and only five of those posts came during the latter half of the year. (In contrast, the site’s corresponding Twitter account has been far more active, with nearly 250 followers and over 500 tweets.) Most things that I used to post I can now broadcast more effectively over Twitter, and I simply haven’t had the time or inclination to post clips from the show or more in-depth thoughts that necessitate a full-fledged blog post. Life for me has changed a lot in the past three years.

Additionally, Lino has gotten his social media act together. When I started this site in 2008, Lino was still relatively new to Facebook and wasn’t even on Twitter yet. Now he tweets multiple times a day and responds to just about everyone who posts to his Facebook wall. The off-the-air conversation between Lino and his fans used to be facilitated by sites like this and CatholicGuyShow.com, but now the conversation is directly with Lino… which has started to make sites like these obsolete.

So last month with the domain renewal for LinoRulli.net coming due, I seriously considered pulling the plug. But I had also been toying with ideas for making the site worth reading again, and after doing many trial runs offline to see if I could make it work I launched an effort earlier this month to summarize each show and give it a grade. While reading a summary is no substitute for listening to the show, it gives people who can’t listen for whatever reason a sense of what went on that day so that they’ll be in the know. And the show highs and lows are there to give a little context as to how the show felt listening to it.

So I’ll see how it goes. It’s been a labor of love so far, but if external forces keep me from doing a good job on this, I’ll likely hang up the site for good.

Which brings me back to the winding down of CatholicGuyShow.com. To dustin, Alli, Elaine, LaJuan, and all of the other awesome people who have contributed to the blog throughout the years: thanks for the memories. The Official UnOfficial Lino Rulli Fan Club has been around almost as long as the show itself, and this wild ride wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun without your site leading the way. I’ll miss it immensely, and will try to keep the fan presence going on the Internets in my own small way.

God bless,

Steven

Show review for 1/12/2012

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Highs: The evil Father Timmy hijacking Father Dave's Facebook account was shamefully entertaining. Lino's sound-effect laden demonstration of how a cellphone stopped the New York Philharmonic in its tracks was good... and got better when Father Rob kept up the sound effects to the point of annoying Lino to death.

Lows: Unfortunately, Father Rob's cellphone effects also served to distract us from what Lino was trying to say. An entire hour was spent on The Catholic People's Choice Awards, but Lino and Father Rob barely got through three of them... they needed to pick up the pace a bit. And the whole discussion of Father Rob extending his school's day next year just fell flat.

Our take: We really wanted to like this one more than we actually did.

Grade: B-

Show review for 1/11/2012

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Highs: Father Rob's takeover of the news segment by demanding the manufacture of chocolate Twinkies (and subsequent arguments with the listeners about various snack cakes) is radio gold and the kind of stuff you'll never hear anywhere else. Despite a somewhat bumpy start (primarily due to Lino acting like a doofus), the new game The God's Honest Truth hit its stride and sounded like a keeper.

Lows: Nothing really bad stood out (unless you want to count Lino's mind-numbing Pope impression during the General Audience segment).

Our take: Twinkie-gate (and no obvious lows) pushed this one into top-tier status.

Grade: A-