On a serious note, I have some sad news to relay. Bernard "Buddy D" Diliberto, New Orleans sports radio icon, passed away on January 8th. He was 73. Growing up a Saints fan, I always loved listening to Buddy D's postgame call-in shows. Through the lean years in the mid-90s and especially the disastrous Ditka years, oftentimes Buddy D's postgame ranting and venting were the highlight of my Sunday afternoons.
He was the quintessence of New Orleans. By all measures, he had no business being in radio (or any other media) to begin with. He had a blatant intractable speech impediment, couldn't pronounce names to save his life, and was also hilariously prone to Spoonerisms. Ex: "Dim Jombrowski", "Tyle Kurley", "Joe Yenner, mayor of Kenni", and "torn lee negament". He once praised patients at the Children's Hospital as "courageous boys and girls hooked up to their RVs". He even once mispronounced his own name as "Buzzy D". But honestly, it was his lack of polish, his lack of pretense, his acceptance and celebration of his own shortcomings that endeared him to the city in the first place. New Orleans is a really laid back place, short on style. We didn't really need a suave, sophisticated commentator with a big (or even adequate) vocabulary. A crazy dude who loved the Saints was good enough for us. I realize that a lot of the reasons I'm giving for my admiration of Buddy D sound eerily similar to reasons a Bush supporter might give...I don't at all know what to make of that. Anyway, the point is, he really was a local icon, and deservedly so. I'll never forget his classic Domino's Pizza commercials, in which he donned the Domino's uniform and informed us that on game day you could "buy one peetzer at regula menu price, get a second peetzer of equal uh lesser vayoo...free!". And also those hilarious WWL 870 AM promos in which the camera would film him offering his sage wisdom from every angle imaginable. I seem to recall that those promos had a ton of notable quotes (since Eli and I would quote them all the time at Harris), but the only one I remember is the title of this post. My favorite part about those promos was seeing him struggle while attempting to articulate the call letters of WWL. "You're listening to the Point After on," at which point he would laboriously intone, "duhbuhyuh duhbuhyuh ell". You'd wonder, "Hey Buddy, why don't you just do yourself a favor and move to the other side of the river so you can work at KABC, it'd make your life a lot easier, no?"...but of course Buddy D would have none of that. His love of New Orleans and the Saints prevailed over the allure of the majestic American West with its easy to pronounce monosyllabic radio call letters.
His enthusiasm for the Saints rubbed off on me. Even though he could be hard on them at times (he dismissed those of us who were optimistic enough to predict a playoff berth as "squirrels", plus he's the one who popularized the whole "Aints-baghead" thing), you could always tell the Saints were his team. It can be quite lonely and futile being a die-hard Saints fan, so seeing someone else have that kind of pride in them couldn't help but have a beneficial effect on Saints fandom. It seems strange to so strongly associate a football team with one man (and a commentator at that!, and not even a play-by-play or color guy, but a halftime, pre-, and postgame guy no less), but that's how I inexplicably feel. It's particularly sad to see him go at such a tumultuous time in franchise history, with the issue of relocating to Los Angeles not yet resolved. But on the bright side, this opens the door to a dramatic 2005: the Saints dedicate the season to Buddy D, decide to stay in New Orleans for the long run, and go out and win a Super Bowl while Buddy D provides the postgame analysis for God, who finds the name "Hoe Jorn" absolutely hilarious.
1 comment:
Dear Shaq,
I am sorry to hear about your loss. It sucks when someone like that dies, because they often go unappreciated in the main stream. But, you wrote a terrific obituary, and in fact, Shaq, I think you maybe would like to send it in to a N'Orleans publication, not for personal gain, but just because I think many of the other Saints fans would appreciate. I don't know, I guess that's the point of a blog in the first place, but that's something I think you'd maybe want to do.
Your feelings towards him remind me of Moez's feelings towards Ron Santo. Apparantly Ron Santo had some sort of speech impediment, and always screwed up phrases, like "rock scientist." I'm not sure if he is responsible for Hideous Nomar, but whatever. If you can help me out here, Moez--go for it. Yes, yes, death is sad. But, seriously Shaq, since when did you live in Waleeziana?
Anyway, come on and comment on one of my posts once in a while. Tit for tat, man. Also, are you coming up to visit anytime soon? I don't get a lot of basketball superstars around here.
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