Jim Rome
Welcome to the Jungle (Outpost)
by Dave Liljengren
When Jim Rome announces that in his jungle, only the strong survive, he isn’t kidding. Rome is the confrontational Los Angeles sportscaster who rose to fame by picking a televised fight with an NFL quarterback. In 1994, as the host of “Talk2,” an ESPN2 gabfest, repeatedly referred to NFL quarterback Jim Everett as “Chris Everett,” implying the failed signal caller exhibited no more toughness than female tennis billionaire, Chris Evert. QB Everett, a guest on Rome’s show at the time, became incensed and trashed the set. Rome’s career went into the stratosphere. He’s currently a national radio host, heard by 3 million listeners daily. Rome’s recent CD, if nothing else, is proof that radio sports talk is the interactive rock ‘n’ roll of the millennium’s end, a point he drives home on the disc by including, unedited and free of his spicy voiceovers, the Ramones version of “Do You Remember Rock’n’Roll Radio?” While this tune by Joey and the boys may have a title that conveniently forwards Rome’s thesis, its inclusion here is yet one more reminder of how disastrously limp The End of the Century, the late 1980 Ramones/Phil Spector collaboration album really was. Give me “Carbona Not Glue” any day. The same can be said of GNR’s “Welcome to the Jungle.” Rome, who proclaims that the only rules on his “Jungle” show are “have a take” and “don’t suck,” includes this song by Axl and the big hair Guns because its name coincides with the name of his show, certainly, but it also lands on the disc for its “lick my serpentine” shock value, an effort that falls flat mostly because time has morphed GNR from feared agents of Satan into snippets of MOR eighties nostalgia.
On the rest of the disc, Rome gets out his jungle Howitzer and shoots down the slow-moving dirigibles of the sports world. In the funniest and cruelest bit on the record, he belittles the incomprehensible erudition of Dale Earnhart and other NASCAR drivers in a voiceover bit piggybacking on the “Beverly Hillbillies” theme. Underneath Rome’s nail-driving baritone, Lester Flatt’s “Come and listen to a story ’bout a man named Jed…” nasal twang sounds otherworldly, gospelish, almost sacred. One wonders how he got stuck in the Jungle. Rome later pokes fun at the inclusion of the National Spelling Bee on ESPN2. In another rant, he makes it clear that bowling is not a sport. He deftly uses boxing promoter Don King’s penchant for rambling, self-serving speeches against him in “Don King Did That,” a rant smorgasbord served up over a flowing, jump blues soundscape. While the disc is essentially a collection of lengthy promos for Rome’s talk show, and is thus artistically suspect, it’s impossible to ignore Rome’s gift for gripping and immediate radio. He has the courage to speak truth to power and enough blunt, regular-guy eloquence to make it stick. By cloaking his vitriol in over-the-top Jungle theatrics, he’s able to say that the powerful and monied titans of the adult games game aren’t always on the level. He’s no more and no less than Ring Lardner with a microphone and a prophet’s urgency. Welcome To The Jungle succeeded in making me want to hear Rome’s show, and I guess that was the point.
(www.jimrome.com)
