I’ve painted myself into a corner with this feature; just ask my Spank krewe mates, I’m a rotten painter. I’ve focused too much on macro-malakatude posts of considerable length as opposed to short-n-punchy micro-malakatude posts. That stops today. I’m going to focus on a slice of malakatude offered by this week’s honoree instead of his overall douchebaggery. And that is why Joe Buck is malaka of the week.

Sports fans out there immediately know the name: Buck is the lead announcer for Fox Sports on both NFL and MLB games. He’s best known as a dull and bland announcer, and for being the son of the legendary Jack Buck the late, great voice of the St. Louis Cardinals. In this case, the apple did NOT fall near the tree, it was carried into the next continent on a gust of banal Buckian blather.

Buck did the Panthers-Saints game at the Superdome yesterday. It was the day before Pearl Harbor Day, the 74th anniversary of the day that still lives in infamy. The National World War II Museum is located in New Orleans so there was a tie-in PSA. Malaka Buck went off on a tangent about servicemen who attended NFL games on 12/7/1941, which did fall on Sunday so he got that part right. Announcements were made at NFL stadia asking active duty military personnel to report to their units. Buck even got that detail right, but faltered big-time when he claimed that soliders, sailors, and Marines also got the news on their transistor radios. Houston, we have a problem: the transistor wasn’t invented until 1947 and transistor radios didn’t hit the consumer marketplace until 1954. I didn’t know those details off the top of my head but I knew that transistor radios were a Fifties thing. I also know how to use Mr. Google. Oops.

I realize that I’m nit-picking this nitwit, but this sort of nonsense bugs the living shit out of me. I decided to write about it because few people noticed Malaka Buck’s foggy history. But I’m the Fog of History guy, and I think professional broadcasters should be called on their mistakes. Malaka Buck got it woefully wrong. Next, he’ll claim that bobbysoxers swarmed Sinatra whilst toting their transistor radios. The bigger problem over this mistake involves the tie-in with the World War II Museum. I’d hate for their docents (I know two vets who volunteer there) to have to answer questions about the role of transistor radios in WWII. Just remember: Buck rhymes with both fuck and suck and he sucks the big one about the Big One this week. And that is why Joe Buck is malaka of the week.