I don't call in regularly for two reasons.
1) I sometimes can't listen live on Tuesday's. I've got things going on, etc. Or, if I am listening live, my wife's asleep (she gets up super early for work) and I don't want to wake her up.
2) Less is more. I was calling in too much during the protege battle. In fact, I never called in until Tom for whatever reason floated my name on the air as a protege replacement. It took me a while to find out exactly how to be a quality caller. The trick for me is less-is-more. I only call in when I have something I want to bring up and/or I'm listening and something fits the topic.
The Dark Greggulator call was an absolute blast. I flamed out a lot in previous calls. Or maybe I didn't flame out a lot, as much as people got sick of me and the things I said that were okay didn't click because people didn't like what I was selling. So I used the old wrestling adage -- If they hate you, give them a reason to hate you. I wanted to use the protege battle to get some heat by attacking a few other protege candidates/banned callers.
It was all in good fun, but I know people don't come from the same vantage point as me. I met Geneva a few weeks before that call and really hit it off well with her. She's such a great, sweet person. I really didn't want her to take offense as to what I was doing. But she was sort of the perfect target exactly because of that, and I ran with it. I couldn't let Geneva in on what I was up to ahead of time or else the whole thing wouldn't have worked. It needs that "kayfabe" -- when people think what they see is real when it's not, in wrestling parlance -- to really sell itself.
Wally took the bait the next week and gave us all a psychodrama to remember.
I obviously buried the hatchet with those guys. None of it was personal at all. It was all in good fun.
But less-is-more with that stuff. I only called five or six times after the heel turn, I think. (And made an in-studio appearance with my brother.) And only a few of those calls were me being a heel. The one was Mit Hamine. I'd like to think that I may have helped break up that awful band.
Being a heel is fun but you can only do it in limited doses. Plus, a lot of FOTs have met me and/or know me in some fashion and, I hope, realize I'm not this jerk who goes around belittling people. Now I only call in if I have something I really want to talk about that I think is a good subject, ala the sensory deprivation tank, which has some legs to it. (Although I couldn't resist the nuclear option deal.)
And I love how Tom has cast me as this sorta insane weirdo, too. It's pretty true, but all in good fun.
I really hate it when people take getting GOMP'd seriously. It still happens. There's radio Tom and actual Tom. Most people get and understand that but not everyone does.
