Get Smart

We always knew it.

Tony Kornheiser is one smart guy. The reason he runs the best sports radio on the air is that it isn't purely about sports. Mr. Tony is at least as passionate about music as he is about sports. He invites people to talk about movies, while other people just blah-blah-blah about Terrell Owens or Barry Bonds or any number of bad boys of sports. They put up rhetorical questions, invite callers to phone in questions, where they invariably beat down on them, wondering why they bother with calls.

Tony dispenses with all that. He doesn't take calls. Listeners may want to hear themselves on the air, but they aren't paid to come up with bon mots and witticisms in print. They aren't paid to have great insight. It's not that they can't, it's that so few of them really have something smart to say.

Today, Tony was talking to the sardonic Washington Post movie reviewer, Stephen Hunter, discussing the latest Kevin Costner movie (I hadn't heard of it) called Mr. Brooks where he plays an urbane serial killer (sounds familiar, Mr. Hopkins). In it (must like the film Copycat) there's a younger character that wants to imitate and learn from the master.

Hunter points out that it's about being cool and who's cool enough to do these grisly deeds, implying Costner, the upper class guy is, and Dane Cook, the wannabe somewhat-lower class guy, lacks this.

Then, Tony makes a really smart comment that shows (unlike Arsenio) that he's listening. He says "So he must kill this other guy". If the other guy is annoying, and the lead guy is a killer, it seems to follow that he should get his just desserts, no?

And even if it doesn't happen, that it makes sense for it to plausibly happen is insightful, far beyond what the average person would say, as they'd be totally uninterested in the movie.

And that's why I listen to Mr. Tony.