One of the recurring tropes of social media is the outpouring of emotion when someone famous or well known dies. It tends to be an easy way to signal that you care, to drive engagement and occasionally the tributes can be truly moving or thought provoking. Many have commented on how the alst years it feels as though there has been an uptick in the number and notoriety of those passing on. But there's a perfectly natural explanation for this.
The way our media environment has exploded in the last few decades has also expanded the universe of names the average person would recognize to where now even legislative aides and patent lawyers have public profiles. For the Gen Xers and Millennials who today shape discussion on the Internet, the actor, musicians and athletes they grew up with are sadly but inevitably starting to age out of this life.
He was not as renowned or esteemed as others who passed over the break for New Year's. The likes of Pelé, Pope Benedict XVI and Barbara Walters are rightly celebrated but for me personally, the unexpected death of Dori felt like the loss of an old friend even though I never met him and hadn't been listening to his radio show recently.
I still have nothing profound to say but I do have some recollections and reflections on the life and impact of a remarkable man after the jump.
In the wilds and mists of the early to mid 2000s I and my fellow Brits would engage in fierce, banterous debates with Americans about which was better - American football or real football aka "soccer". At some point I decided to try and find what what the real deal was with the sport, in part because I wanted to write a story in which it was a component feature. After familiarizing myself with the rules, which did not seem as complicated as I thought they were going in, it was time to pick a teeam.
Somehow there was never any doubt that it would be the Seattle Seahawks. I don't recall why. perhaps it's because Seattle was where Frasier, one of my favorite shows at the time was set. Perhaps because Pearl Jam, one of my favorite bands at the time were based there. Or Perhaps there was something about the city that reflected the experience of being a Western-born East Asian. Full of wealth, high achievers and industry but tucked away in the far corner of the country, often forgotten and overlooked.
The voice that greeted me was just repellent; Nasal and grating with a peculiar accent. I just had to know more! Examining the KIRO website I discovered that this was Dori Monson who hosted the Seahawks pre and postgame show with analysts Sam Adkins, Paul Moyer and Dave Wyman who would become one of Dori's very best friends. When he would speak later of starting to work with him, it doesn't sound like that's something Wyman ever expected but it was a common experience. Almost every single person who met and took the time to engage with Dori personally, even those inclined to be adversarial would be struck by and remark upon his geniality and generosity, in both spirit and pocket.
The night I first met Dori Monson, I didn’t know how to feel. We disagreed on EVERYTHING… But he was so sweet to me. I went home and said “wait Dori is so kind…”
— Bhavisha Patel (@BhavishaPatel) January 2, 2023
We knew we didn’t agree, but he treated me with respect. He was a good man. Thinking of his beautiful family 💕 pic.twitter.com/IMvNduFbbX
Monson got his break as a professional sports broadcaster at KING-TV in the 80s, working first as a a producer where he encountered an interning Colin Cowherd, then later on-air as a reporter often working with Tony Ventrella. One story he was fond of telling from those days covering sports in Seattle was a run in with Hall of Fame pitcher Randy Johnson during Mariners spring training in Arizona one year. Dori had lined up an interview with Johnson that would go out live on the newscast so he collected him from the team hotel and drove him through the blazing desert heat to the ballpark to prepare for their hit... which was repeatedly delayed, forcing Monson into profuse apologies as "The Big Unit" stood stewing in irate silence. Eventually the segment was canceled entirely and they made the journey back once more across the desert. When they arrived, Johnson finally spoke for the first time that day: "Well that was f*cked up!"
Monson was given his own talk show at KIRO in 1995 between noon and 3pm, a slot he would hold by himself for almost all of the next twenty-right years. Some might have categorized the show as political, particularly after 9/11 when many observers reported a noticeable shift in his outlook. But the genre Dori would have described his style as was "local". He spent his whole life in the Puget Sound area. boasting of growing up on "the mean streets of Ballard", in those days a working-class neighborhood, a hub for the fishing industry with a large Scandinavian population.
He himself was of Icelandic heritage, though for him it was not something he thought much about after his childhood. His father was a paratrooper in the Second World War and seemed to have returned deeply scarred by the experience, turning to alcohol and stoic silence before his relatively early death. He was closer with his mother who would playfully chase an infant Dori around as he ran around naked after baths shouting, "Eg er klippa tittlingur!". One day, Mother and son were out shopping when they ran into an old Icelandic friend of Mom's from the Dakotas with her sullen but comely teenage daughter. The friend asked the young boy if he knew any Icelandic and he repeated the one phrase he was familiar with which caused the daughter to fall about laughing in the aisles: Apparently it is slang that roughly translates to "I'm going to cut your penis off".
When I first started listening to the Big Show, the hot topic of the day was a controversy with the football team at Archibshop Murphy High. Soon after that came a lampooning of the decision to install works of art at the Brightwater sewage plant paid for with public money. In those days the show was largely caller driven but those two threads formed the backbone of the show - that local angle he was so proud of along with being a fierce watchdog of government and local institutions.
After his death, the Seattle Times detailed the incident that saw him fired from his duties with the Seahawks. Many of his fans found it disrespectful but I think it's part of his story. He was suspended by both the team and the station in October 2020 after posting a tweet mocking Governor Jay Inslee's covid policies comparing the Governor's claim of following the science to the state's gender self ID laws which allowed residents to change the sex they were born with on their birth certificates. The ease with which both caved to trans-ideologist and leftwing activists who had long held a grudge was appalling and unjust but emblematic of the ridiculous knee-bending times. It's really a matter of framing.
It is not worth giving his detractors any more oxygen than absolutely necessary and we won't dwell on the horrifically cruel way they have behaved in the wake of his passing other than to say; Those who choose to slander him, slur him accusations like bigot, racist, transphobe, those who accuse him of "causing suffering" or "hurting people's feelings" (an actual complaint leveled against him), call him a bad person while pissing on his grave without a hint of irony... I don't envy their lives. And I think after all is said and done, Dori and his family would still pray for you.
He returned to his radio show after two weeks but the suspension from Seahawks was never reviewed or lifted. I could not in good conscience continue supporting a team that treated a loyal employee of almost twenty years in such a publicly declamatory manner. But Dori's demeanor also felt different to me. After participating in the campaign (led by Monson superfan Matt Gilbert) to have him restored to his show, I drifted away as my listening habits changed. I wasn't a fan myself of some of the paths he would eventually travel as symbolized by his support for Joe Kent, the populist troll candidate who would proceed to lose the district the incumbent he defeated in the primary had previously held by 13pts.
Which is to say I hadn't been listening to the show at the time of his death. I had checked in after the passing of Olivia Newton John, his childhood crush whom he had retained great admiration for, unfortunately he was away at the time. But I choose to remember the good times. In 2010, The Dori Monson Show experienced a change of producer for the first time in twelve years as Phil Vandervort and Jake Skorheim were shuffled within the company, Young Jake coming onboard from working with Dave Boze at KTTH.
The format of the show was refreshed and shifted in line with the times with less emphasis on callers , more pop culture topics, more features and defined blocs within the show. Old standbys like "The Hour 2 Echo" and "One and one against the Nuns" where Dori picked football games against well, nuns, were augmented with new, enduring segments with catchy titles like "The Big Lead", "The Fastest Fifteen" and "Today's Sign (That the End is Near)". Skorheim acted not just as producer but a pseudo co-host and mentee as Dori bounced the stories of the day against him, sound engineer Erryn Rose and liberal news anchor Jessica Gottesman.
He never took himself too seriously. A story was circulating about a beverage company that was retailing vodka that had been poured over the naked breasts of supermodels. Monson was inspired to adopt this genius marketing strategy for himself, heading to the station's shower room to douse himself in his signature drug of choice, Diet Coke.
Those years saw the replacement of the Alaskan Way viaduct with what would eventually become the State Route 99 Tunnel, a project Dori bet would be completed neither on time, nor on budget. Despite the incentive this provided to state lawmakers included then Transportation Secretary Lynn Peterson who jested about it at a meeting of the Seattle Rotary, he was proven correct as Bertha, the boring machine digging the tunnel, was repeatedly impeded and damaged for long periods.
On the home front, he had his own problems with tunnel digging pests as listeners got to hear about his frequent battles with moles underneath his lawn. one famed incident he related had him preparing for church, already dressed in his Sunday suit when he noticed the telltale forming of a hill. His exasperation boiling over, he determined to immediately smoke the rodents out of the hole, pouring gasoline down the hole and setting it alight. With nothing emerging, he escalated finding another hole to repeat this with and only later did it occur to him that any neighbor looking in would suspect of performing a satanic ritual.
In 2016, Skorheim left the show and the industry, pursuing his dream of becoming a writer. Despite their great on-air chemistry and hard won ratings success, he was supported in his decision by his boss. He released his first novel in 2019 with his writing partner in 2019 under the pen name W.F. Sawyer.
It was a common story before and after as Monson pushed and promoted those around him to chase their ambitions, better themselves and fulfill their talent. With Monson's backing the likes of his friend Dave Wyman, former Seahawk Marcus Trufant and his friend Terry Hollaman, his newsreader Ursula Reutin all received their own shows. Intrepid show reporter Brandi Kruse made the jump to TV journalism and eventually hosted her own show. The opportunities weren't just limited to colleagues and friends as local newsmakers would always be welcome and found a platform on his show. Some, like Christopher Rufo and Katie Herzog would go on to become players in national discussion. Barronelle Stutzman, who he supported and Coach Joe Kennedy who he found himself at odds with were allowed to make their case through him.
Jake was replaced by producer Nicole Thompson and the final, and greatest era of the show began. While he had great relationships with previous producers Phil, Jake and Shawn Splane, it came through loud and clear over the air that he would form this strongest bond with Nicole. He never said it out loud but I truly believe he came to see her as a fourth daughter. Together, every aspect of the show was reworked, refined and made to excel. On air, Dori, Nicole, Ursula and engineer Sean Detore bickered and bantered and just sounded like a good hang.
Thompson was more experienced coming into the role than Jake had been, having also worked with Boze, John Curley and most recently frequent Dori fill-in Jason Rantz, the evening host who would go on to host his own show at KTTH and become a Fox News regular reporting on the region. Along with working to set the tone and agenda for the show she worked every contact she could track to secure several memorable interviews, most notably one with Donald Trump as he ran for President in 2016 that made international news after remarking that Colin Kaepernick should find a country that worked better than him following the 49er quarterback's national anthem protest.
Another was Olivia Newton John who as aforementioned was Dori's dream woman as a young man. He would moon in particular over the song "Have You Never Been Mellow" and the way she growled "kick your shoes off". After charming her the way he could and badgering from her a claim that things could have worked out for them if they'd met, unmarried in another life, he could rest easy. He never did get to meet or interview the other great idol in his life Billy Joel but it's only appropriate we close out with one of his songs.
It would be too east to go with "Only the Good Die Young". There are so many more tales and lessons to be told but more than those, more than the libertarian politics and conservative philosophy of life that guided me, I'll always remember him for living life like it was meant to be fun. Attending the Super Bowl in early 2014, the broadcasting team were out in New York enjoying some Italian food when Dori began to complain about a pain he had in his foot. This prompted former Washington Huskies quarterback, salmon fishing maestro and yet another close friend Brock Huard to take hold of his feet in his "big Dutchman hands" and begin rubbing. And thus another unforgettable story was born...
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