Sports talk host Bob Kemp, the former overnight host on the national radio network Sporting News Radio, had a show that aired from 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. Eastern each weekday. He'd been a member of the network going back to the days when it was known as One on One Sports

The only subject on Kemp's show was sports, delivered by a person with a demeanor that was surly on his best day. Sometimes it sounded like the idiocies of the sports world left him completely despondent.

After leaving the network in 2002, Kemp took a few years off and then surfaced on KDUS, a local sports talk station in Tempe, Arizona. He's been an afternoon host there ever since.

Kemp's show is as dry and plain-spoken as radio gets. Some subjects are banned for discussion because they've been talked to death or lend themselves to inane chatter (at one time the list included Pete Rose, Dennis Rodman, and the Bowl Championship Series).

Another anti-stupidity rule is that no caller can mention the word "respect," as in "The Cowboys don't get enough respect." Anyone who uses "the R word" is immediately cut off by Aretha Franklin.

I started listening to his show in the early '90s in Dallas and it followed me to Colorado and Florida.

Kemp, a former newspaper sportswriter who worked in sports handicapping for a few years, is one of the only people on the air who studies sports. He reads dozens of sports columnists and reporters each week, occasionally bringing on his favorite sources for interviews.

Because he is so well-informed, Kemp is great at ferreting out a caller who doesn't know what he's talking about. Part of the charm of his show is the occasional caller meltdown -- especially if the person says something dumb as a result of being "rah rah" in support of a favorite team. Kemp feasts on that stuff like a shark on chum.

Kemp's show airs from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. local time and is streamed live over the Internet.

More Bob Kemp