Hey, Hey, everybody, welcome. We're trying to decide we believe this
is episode six of Everything Is a Bitch. I'm my gaga. You know
here with Lifelong Pally AJ Benza, is it six already? I believe this
is episode six. AJ. We were just talking about the merit involved in
naming numbering episodes, and AJ's point was, who gives a shit? They
don't care. I don't tell people this is the twenty seven hundred episode of
Famous. I mean they just you know, they expect it, they like
it. It's like a delivery. That was right before AJ told me to
never read the reviews. Listen, listen to me. My sister and my
girlfriend have read reviews, and I just say, you cannot have. My
Vie used to send me a website when we were first starting. Yeah,
this company kept track of your podcast right out of trouble, and I would
read it and I'm like, my old begetting is I'm reading bad reviews about
my show. I don't want to read this shit anymore because I'll start to
believe I suck. Just let it go. You cannot read your reviewers.
You have to at some point in life you have to realize. Look,
I have two, three, four or five thousand hardcore fans, and they're
gonna be with me no matter what. I don't care about the other people
who want to talk shit. I just can't. And I bounced some of
them from my show too. I don't. This is my comfort zone when
I go and do a show. This is my life, my family.
I tell you the truth. I don't want somebody coming in talking crap to
me. I get rid of them. I don't read review but I hear
you. My biggest thing is, don't hide. If you have a criticism
to make and you want to argue a point about something I said, or
a position I took, whatever it is, don't go making an anonymous exactly
post on Apple so that you know you can you can have. You can
feel better calling me a moron or saying I don't know what I'm talking about,
or I'm misinformed, or whatever is. If you really believe it,
go to the Facebook page or somewhere where uh, you're not uh anonymously,
you're where you're disnonymized and uh and then we can get into a back and
forth about it, and then I can show the rest of the audience why
you're moron and not me, and so that's my that's my problem with this.
I have some idiots that that stuff. I'm posted on the Apple thing
and you knew it this. I've been getting reviews since the eighties on my
anything I do. And my editor in chief at the Daily News, Martin
Dunn, terrific man from London, told me half the people hate you,
half love you. You're doing great. I don't care about your bad letters
we get, we get bad letters about you, but they can't stop reading
you. It's like Howard's Doned. Anybody that like that, that has a
show where you know people are offended, you're going to get your fans,
but there's some fans that are going to write and say I can't stand this.
Listen. If everybody likes the show, it will never be a hit.
If half the people love the show and people hate the show, those
people that love the show will listen, and you may very well have a
hit. Some of those people say they hate will listen anyway. Out of
hate. Most won't listen, and it doesn't matter. You don't need them.
So any show that doesn't have or any human being that doesn't have their
share of people who feel strongly in a positive way about them and others that
feel negatively about them. Then that person's probably never taken a position on anything
in their lives and they live a milk toast existence just going along together.
Look, I both, we both have the perscudo in our blood, and
we take fucking positions on stuff. And that's the way it is. And
sometimes maybe you know, we might not always be right, but we were
not great, but ourselves for ourselves. Out Let me tell you something.
I do this every day, and there is sometimes I finish the show and
I go, oh, I got that wrong. I made them. Oh
that's an error. You know. I want to fix it. I want
to fix the show, but I can't, and I read my listeners will
correct it for me. And I'm like, anybody who speaks for almost an
hour a day every day is bound to trip up you. Just I defy
anybody to speak for forty five minutes a day about anything and not have a
mistake or two. It's almost impossible. So I try to give him entertainment,
some truths, some value, some stories, and we all have fun.
But I had a song in my bedroom when I was a kid.
If you can't We'll just say if you can't remember the sign now, no
what it was forty years ago, If you can't baffle them with brilliance,
oh okay, something about bull dazzle them right. The point is, of
course you're gonna get shipped wrong. But you know you can't read your reviews
and believe them, because then you can't believe your positive reviews. So just
no longer reading. You've convinced that, I'm no longer reading reviews, okay,
So I want to see if you're a little bit more on top of
things. And I'm so sick of the you know, the five thousand new
holidays and Day of Remembrance of this and Day of that and everything else and
and but but sometimes I think there's so much of that that you get lost
in it and you shut down and you don't consider things that really are important
and relevant. And and so as the audience is listening to this, it's
June teen, and I have to say that that just on the name,
it's a really dumb name, folks, just on the just on the name.
I I didn't realize this ignorance. I didn't realize what we were commemorating,
or supposed to commemorate on Juneteenth, and knowing that this episode was coming
out on Juneteenth, I just said, I need to just take a minute
and google Juneteenth, because you know, we have three hundred and seventy five
days a year where we we honor transgender people and and you get lost in
yeah, three hundred and seventy five days a year. We I know that
I was saying. I know, I was saying, there's ten extra days
you didn't know about where they have two separate on Stay with me, But
anyway, uh, I am, I am. After reading and understanding what
Juneteenth is all about, I'm now a very much a supporter of Juneteenth.
But what I think they really should do is change the name of Juneteenth.
And if they changed it to you know, Emancipation Day or something like that,
where people understood immediately, wait a minute, this is about the end
of slavery, right and uh and that's something I think everybody of every color
in the United States would happily celebrate. I think this this holiday is day
of remembrance, gets lost within you know, the other the three hundred and
seventy five other days of remembrance that have become meaningless to most of us,
because you know, we just assume it's about nothing and and this day actually
has some some real significance. And so one I want to acknowledge Juneteenth,
and two I want to say, uh, may be the first to say
we need to change the name that you contained, so that I think you're
right about the name absolutely. And I also I have to say, you
know, I spent a lot of time with black folks in my life.
I don't know why. I know why. I just felt when I was
a kid, they were more fun. My brother in law introduced me to
a bunch of black kids playing basketball every Saturday up in Westchester County, and
I love their their just their energy, their rhythm, the way they spoke,
and I'm like, okay, I like this culture. When I got
older, I began to travel to the after Albs clubs, which are owned
by black men, and I met everybody there. And last night I was
with my kids, we had some dinner for Father's Day, and I said,
and the black guy was walking by us having a good time, and
I said, hey, man, you're looking good. You having a good
time and he was like yeah. And I said to my kids, doesn't
it feel good to make could be nice. This sounds awful. I like
the connection when I see a black person. I can't explain it, Like,
I wouldn't feel as good if it was a white guy walking down the
street in a good mood. But the fact that I connected with the black
dude, I said, is that wrong? I feel better about it and
I love these people. And my daughter was like, I get it.
I get it. I think a lot of us get it. Do you
know what I mean? Like it just I totally know what you mean.
I just feel better about it for me. For me, where that really
happened is with my son playing as much club basketball and travel basketball as he's
played over the years, you are inevitably you're you're part of a team of
families that you get to know incredibly well. And you know, once the
guard gets let down, I mean, once the bullshit stuff that we've all
been taught or her or conditioned on, once you crack that, and it's
people with people and uh and just talking about life and your kids and and
everything else. Uh. I mean, it's it's great and uh. And
you know, some of the friendships we've built up over the years are are
really special. And you know, We have a some friends here with his
son just got a scholarship that my son had played with and uh he's a
year behind my son. So we just graduated high school this year and he's
he's going out to uh uh to Oregon to play uhlay college ball. And
I'm I mean so freaking happy for that. And the and the celebrations online
are hysterical. Uh and we're just having a ton of fun with it.
I feel the same. I've had a number of black girlfriends, one in
particular, I was with for several years. I and by the way,
I can talk about Trump for a minute. When I was dating my ex
girl, we broke up and she ended up having a relationship with Donald Trump.
Her mother got really ill, and Trump, who was a racist as
we know, did all he could to get her mother the best doctor,
the best hospital. Like he did everything and picked up the tab I can't
stand when people say he's racist. But getting back to what we're talking about,
I feel genuinely better when a black person does well or what have you.
I just do. I think I have some kind of guilt, not
that we had slaves, but I feel some kind of guilt way back in
the back of my head. I feel like these people were treated like shit.
Like if they had the same ride we had for the last three hundred
years, do you think they'd be behind us? Do you think if they
got the great schooling they weren't slaves like they were held back? It bothers
me, It really does bother me. And I know I'm very critical of
black culture when it comes to crime, what have your no father at home?
But it really does bother me because they didn't get a fair shake.
Well, and look, the no father in the home goes back to LBJ
and the Great Society and creating an incentive for black women to not have a
man in the heart. When you go you go back and you look at
the you know, pre LBJ. You know, go through the nineteen fifties,
in the early sixties, marriage rates were virtually the same for Black Americans
and white Americans. It's only what got started in that era and then what
has continued to the to the day. I mean, think about that,
there was a point in time where and those were much more difficult times racially
in the United States. There was a time where seventy five eighty percent of
black women were married. There was a family structure, and it's gone from
eighty to about a third today, where you know, on the white side
it's also gone down a lot, but it's like eighty to sixty eighty to
high fifties, and so well, I just wanted to so for those listening
that don't know, you know, what June teenth is all about is on
June nineteenth of eighteen sixty five, two thousand Union troops arrived in Galveston Bay,
Texas, and the Army announced that more than I guess, there were
two hundred and fifty thousand enslaved black people in the state of Texas, that
those people were now free by executive decree. And the reason that matters is
because Texas was the furthest west state of the Confederacy, and so it went
sort of east to west in the executive decrees officially freeing people. And so
that day marks the point at which all formerly enslaved people we were now free.
And so it's a really important date historically of the country and one that
absolutely should be celebrated by people in the country of all color. I wish
the government would have spent as much much time articulating what this date is and
what it's about, and giving it a name that's more fitting for what is
being celebrated, because to me, it just got lost with these thousand things
and all this other shit. So you know, listen, man, our
father's both served in the war. They get a day. Gay people get
a month and what they do with their month. And I've been I've lived
in New Yorpe for many years. You have no idea what that well that
the parade, the gay parade looks like in New York there is outdoor sex
everywhere. They're having sex on your stoop while you're home. It's a disgusting
thing. And we celebrate that for a whole moment. That's so great that
you're gay. Listen, man, I got I've got so many friends who
are gay. I don't know. I don't care what you do, but
don't you how do you get a month and our fathers who liberated Europe but
your father was in career, right, how do you how do you dismiss
that and give gays a month and our dad's a day. It's bullshit,
man. Well, and they took Columbus Day away from us, and oh
that's gone tore down a bunch of the statues, right, yeah, Ricks
Columbus was a racist and all this. Look, I think I've seen a
trend. There are there are schools in the South that are now back to
adopting the names of Civil War heroes, et cetera. They're going back to
that. They're bringing those names and back, which we need to do that.
You cannot erase your past or else you're not gonna know where you're going.
You have to show your past. I'm very honest to my show.
I tell everybody what I've done in my life. But that allows you to
see where I'm headed in my future. Don't erase America's past, as ugly
as it might have been. You got to. You have to show it,
otherwise you're never gonna know how to go forward. You have to know
our our warts and all. You have to well. And it becomes a
slippery slope like everything else once you start saying, well, if you were
a a general in the Confederacy, then we can't have your name on anything.
I mean, it's just the line keeps moving and uh, and all
of a sudden, you're taking Lincoln's name off of schools in Washington's name off
of schools and crazy so anyway, happy happy June teenth. Next year,
we we have a different name for for Junete. Okay, it being June
teenth. As you're listening and we're recording here on Tuesday, it's just two
days ago that we all celebrated Father's and I saw that that USA Today had
I had come up with a list of the ten worst Father's Day gifts a
J and I don't I don't know if if you're going to be in sync
with this. I found this pretty much on on Target the uh so they
listed ten, So I'm gonna go from from ten down to one, with
one being the absolute worst gift. So number ten was jewelry. Now I
know you don't mind jewelry. I don't really mind. I love jewelry.
I have ten pieces on my body every day. I'm sick with jewelry.
I love jewelry. Yeah, I don't know. I still wear a watch
a lot of the time. I always wear this always where this baby is.
And so I don't I don't mind it. I don't wear crazy stuff.
But and my kids, But my kids probably wouldn't get me that but
that I thought was a weird one. Nine. I'm definitely with them on
barbieue tools, barbecue of course. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, I know
that. Yeah, it's such a it's such an easy go to for any
that's like, oh shit, I gotta get dad something. Okay, let
me take two minutes to do it. Let me log onto Etsy and see
if somebody's got something. But here's the thing, New York Giants themed.
But listen, like Mother's Day gifts are typically I'm gonna go out for dinner,
you know, get some flowers. It's gonna be a great day with
the family. Father's Day traditionally has always been. And I've seen people online
complaining about fathers get dumb gifts and they don't. People don't care what they
give us. Listen, man, as long as my children acknowledge that I'm
a great dad and they come around or text me or say something. My
daughter gave me a card. She wrote it herself. She drew the I
have a tattoo on my arm of a wolf print. She drew that,
and she said, Daddy, you know I love you. You introduced me
to music when I was a little baby, and now that's all I think
about is music. That means more than any gift you can give me,
you know, I don't care what. I don't want to tie or a
fucking spatch love for the barbecue. Just I love that they say what they
say. So I don't care about gifts. My kids. You know,
they're not running around with money. They're nineteen and sixteen. Just acknowledge that.
Oh you're a good dad. I love you. The cards. The
cards mean more than yeah, the cards are ever anything. But Mother's get
celebrated more. And I'm okay with that, I really am. And look,
it's it's just like Valentine's Comparing Mother's Day and Father's Day. To me,
it's also the same thing with Valentine's Day. Valentine's Day is about the
woman, it's not about the guy. I agree. I get my wife
something very meaningful for Valentine's Day, and I expect a little card from her,
and you know, and maybe if I don't fuck it up, a
little bit of action that night, if I don't screw it up. Which
fifty to fifty propositions are so wait, so on this list, believe it
or not, numbers number number eight was socks. Who don't Who the f
gets their dad socks? I never got socks. Okay, I've never gotten
socks either. I can't believe that made the list. Okay, number seven
is a definite best dad merchandise coffee cups have you? Yeah, yeah that
happens. That's really bad. Yeah, I don't want that. Six is
gym Attire. I never got that, gim attire. I get my own
clothes. No one buys me shorts in the tank top. I know.
I never got gym atarre never abother. Get you Gymitar. It's more than
than a hint. It's more than a hint. I mean that's all.
I know where you're going. Yeah, I need a lot of Gymitar and
a membership. Five and four I mean they're just five is cuff links and
four as bow ties. I mean, who the hell? Links and bow
ties? Botox? No botox bow ties? Oh both ties. Actually botox
would be better. Give Have you ever done bothtox? I've done it four
or five times. It's great, it's great. Well you you have a
good complexion, you know, like you've aged very well. And I've done
it because I had Bell's palsy and it lifted up the left the side of
my face. That it's great. Botox is tremendous. If I had a
if I had a physical reason, you would do it. You know that
I needed to do it. Look, I mean, you have no creases
up there. Nothing. I mean, I've got got I got this.
I got like a Batman crease. You know you could see men have all
these insecurities. I have the under eyes of my father, a little baggy.
You have the Batman increase. I never noticed that at all. It's
weird. I don't know why. I don't spend that much time in the
mirror. It scares me. I will not look for myself that long because
I I'll see things that really bother me. No, I don't either.
And my wife will take out my wife, I'll take my son's and I
can't believe they'll do this. She'll pull out her her magnification mirror and she'll
get she'll get them to lay down. I mean, and she'll start popping,
ship on popping. No, no, no, no, I mean
maybe maybe a couple of times in my life I had I had like an
ingrown hair or on my shoulder or back that was so painful that I asked
her to intervene. But but maybe I've done that three times. I mean,
they'll go under there I know fairly often and for some reason they lie
about it. But women enjoy that. They love to do that. Let's
look it. I have. I have a perennial black head on my upper
chest and my back on the same side of my body, and I'm my
wife and I are separated for four years. She will still ask me,
do you need me to squeeze the black like she loves it. They haven't
squeeze it in four years, but like I see it, I'm like,
she used to squeeze this. I can't do it myself. I don't know
why, but there's like an instinct. There's like an instinct there, Like
the one of the new dogs that we have. I don't know what the
dog's problem is, but it's on occasion it needs it's it's anal glands expressed.
Yeah, so so the vet, you know, actually we take it
to the vet and and have the vet to it a couple of times,
and then my I've just decided that she should just do it. Yeah,
so she'd just go right in there attacking the dog's ass and express and I'm
like, are you fucking kidding me? Thank you for It's true. You
do that. Dix will go into a dog's asshole and cleavy anal glands a
dog's ass, the dog's ears. Okay, you know, look, I
haven't had a BJ since nineteen sixty seven, but you'll express the dog's ass.
Yeah. No, they're so good. They're so into that. And
I'm like, why are you so into that? But other things are no
like I know, and the dog needs it. My sister was really good
at my dad. My dad was older, as he was getting really sick,
we'd all give him rub down to three of us, me and my
two sisters, and we put all console lotions and potions on him and rub
them. And and I'm sixty two now. He died in sixty one,
and this is what he was in his fifties. And I go, Dad,
why isn't your second tell work on your left foot? I don't know,
it doesn't bend. I have no idea what happened. I I'm actually
at that point now where there are different things on my body that don't work,
and I don't know what to tell people, like I don't know.
I don't know why I can't touch my back, my lower back. I
don't know why my left to doesn't work on my fingers going to spasms.
I don't know, but chicks love to address it and take Thank God for
them, and they go to the They'll go to the doctor for anything like
anything like me. You know, I'm a couple of months behind you.
I'm going to be sixty too soon, right, so I'll uh, I'll
hurt something like I have something wrong with this this left elbow. I don't
know what it is. I know I'm not going to the fucking dotor.
What's gonna do? Well, you need surgery on your left elbow? What
because I'm trying out for the Yankees next year. I mean, what am
I gonna do with my my left elb I'm not not even my jerk off
on if it was. If it was, then maybe maybe I would think
about that. But but so what so so there are things that you just
go, Okay, You're like you're a car and you get a warning light.
Okay, Now, my warning light says, you know, a complete
transmission failure. All right, I'm going to go to the freaking doctor.
You got Yeah, But if it says, you know, your rear window
will only go down one third, that's the equivalent of my ebos screwed up.
I'm not going to have a freaking doctor f around with me and start
to telling me I need a surgery. I went, listen. I have
a thirty year old car. It's a mint blue nineteen ninety three Lincoln.
It is gorgeous. The white New Yorker that died on the highway about a
year and a half ago. I got a blue Lincoln. It's gorgeous.
It's I mean mint And what model is it? What model is it?
Signature series Linking Continental nineteen ninety three. It's a fucking big blue boat.
I'd love to send me a picture of Oh well, and I put the
air conditioning. I have to fix the AC no problem. And then yesterday
the ignition switch would not turn them with the key. I'm like, now,
thank god. The guy that the body shop is right next door to
the hotel. I go, what's up? He says, Oh, that
can happen with Lincoln's especially you got to call a lockspill. They'll fix it.
It's just a thirty year old car. Like, there's gonna be shit
that happens. Like our bodies sometimes our need doesn't work right, or our
elbow. It's just wear and tear. It's just the way it is.
You know, you have to walk through those things and you'll be okay,
I'll pay you when I have. As a guy, your default is unless
it's you know, complete transmission failure. I'm not really gonna screw around with
it exact. But the tendency if you're a woman is if everything isn't operating,
you know perfectly, I got to go. I gotta go to the
doctrincy. Anyway, let me let me go through these last three so we
can get beyond Father's Day here at this right, it's going to be a
ten hour podcast. Okay. Number three was Hawaiian shirts. I never you
know what, I just never got those shirts. I never did I've gotten
my sister would buy me like the you know, Tony Soprano made the big
button down lazy shirts popular, and I had a few of those from my
sister Rosalie. But otherwise, don't buy me Hawaiian shirt. Go to a
luel. It doesn't doesn't work the one part of a year you need it
for. It's just this just a bizarre list. Number two golf golf related
items I don't mind so much gets me. I'm jealous of you. I'm
jealous. I've only hit golf at top Golf. I've only hit you know,
what do you call it. I've only smacked some golf balls at top
golf with a friend of mine about four years ago. And I totally understand
why you guys love it. I didn't. I didn't want to think about
it for all my adulthood. But I totally get why you guys love it.
It's so hard, but it's a great day with your buddies, your
bullshit, your break balls. You have a few trainers shit golf, but
you do that. You've done How long have you been golfing twenty years more?
Oh? No, I've been golfing since I was twenty years old,
so I mean forty years. Wow? And are you good? I mean
I played a lot in my like thirty five to fifty. I played a
lot and I got I wouldn't say good, you know, I got to
where I was like a twelve thirteen handicap, which is, you know,
is pretty good but not good, but it's good enough. Because of the
handicap system, you can play golf with anyone. So it's like the handicap
system in golf allows the guy who shoots ten strokes worse to play against the
guy that's ten strokes better, and that guy doesn't have an advantage because on
the ten hardest holes, he's given me a shot. So if I get
a five and he gets a five on the hole, I win. Oh
right. So that's how the handicap system works in golf. And so it
creates this social environment for golf where really anybody who plays can play with anybody
else who plays. Now, somebody who's really really good isn't going to have
the patience to play with a twenty five handicap, but you know, a
scratch golfer playing with a twenty five handicap. But basically, you know,
when I was playing a lot, I could play with anybody from you know,
scratch to somebody who's a twenty. And well, how do you feel
about the whole situation with golf right now with the Saudi Arabians and people leaving
the tour to play for them, Which I'm actually shocked that you're up on
that, But hold that thought for one second, because I want to.
I want to give the number one shittiest Father's Day gift is fishing gear for
those of you I do love to hear what it is. And it's weird
because the last two items that they say are the shittiest are actually, to
me are better than everything else on their list. So, Mike, you
I grew up on the day we fished, we clanned cramped. I miss
fishing so badly. Where do you go in Los Angeles to fish? I
drive along to PH's no boats out there? Where are you going to fish?
Catalina? Oh dude, no where do you We went on some great
charters there. Yeah, you go to take my sun fishing. Then he's
dying a fish. Oh no, Just go to any of the marinas.
Long Beach has got a big one, Marina del Rey, any any of
those areas, Malibu, I'm sure, yeah, And just go online and
search charge check it out, and you know you can go just like where
we grew up. You could go on a party both where a bunch of
people are, you're paying a lower fee and uh, there are a bunch
of lines in the water. Or you could go with a private or center
private charter where you're going with just you know, a handful of people.
But man, I miss it. We did it a bunch of times out
there. I mean the Jib four of the Jib five back in the old
days of Long Island, and I went. My brother in law was five
years ago after my sister passed, and the three of us fished and my
brother law Frankie won the won the pool with the biggest fluke. I missed
that so much, man, I got to get back out there and do
that. I love it. Fishing is just fantastic to me. It's a
lot like it. Golf and fishing have to be the top two. Uh.
You know, escapes for for guys. I mean you get away and
be with buddies, or you're taking your kids whatever. But it's your your
uh you know, it's your escape, it's your fun. I get it.
Yeah, you got to have a little bit of that. So I
didn't get it till I was older. I didn't get it when I was
younger. I remember I was arguing with Howard Stun's producer. I forget his
name now, But when I got kicked off the show, I said,
because he's a big golfer, I forget his name, the head of the
network whatever. I can't think of his name, And I said, you
talk about golfing for five hours a day, and I actually said, and
I regret it. Your wife's fucking somebody else. You can't leave your wife
on the weekend for five hours. I was I was throwing for you know,
a laugh, but I know that's not true. But I just did
not like golf. And now when I see people do it, I want
to do it. I really can feel how that's fun because you know what,
there's not many things we do anymore athletically at our age. Well that's
it, that's it. But you know what, now a lot of people
playing pickleball. A lot of people playing pickleball, because you know, we
probably at our age you can play tennis, but probably get yourself hurt playing
playing tennis because you, I mean, you really got to exert yourself and
and be in shape to play, and it's tough on your knees. This
game is a lot easier on them because the court's a lot smaller. You're
playing with with whiffleballs that don't go as as fast, and you're and you
know, you're almost always playing playing doubles. It's a cocktailing. A lot
of people do it at night and they're building, you know, just like
you're seeing top gulfs everywhere. You're seeing these pickleball places go everywhere, and
you know they're all getting liquor licenses and serving. It's a big thing.
It's huge. I saw them. I Rock and I were playing at the
court the other day in Van Nines and there was a two pickleball courts and
a couple of men in their forties were playing a great game, like they
were smashing it. I can't do that yet, but that's interesting. That's
good stuff. Yeah, it's a big thing. Remember remember when racquetball was
so weird that that just like died, like who killed racketball? I know,
you know, my son played ball at his friend's house and I said,
show me the court and he goes, it's in door. Dad,
it's a big white room. I said, you're playing in a racquetball court.
So some apartment complex built a racquetball court for the people who live in
the complex and they just got rid of racketball and they put some hoops up.
I said, that's fun, that's great. You're in a white room
with two hoops. And somebody, somebody, somebody's responsible for racquetball died at
some point. But you know, you go when you watch like some old
seventies movies and there'll be scenes where the guys are playing racquetball, and if
you're watching, all your kids are like, what the fuck they got goggles
on? Se Dustin Hoffman playing racquetball in a movie. I know it was
a big thing back in the eighties. It was was there a Was there
a Wall Street scene where he was playing racketball? Thinking of no, it
might have been Michael Douglas. Remember the there was a big racketball place,
Remember the Caprio Hotel? They sure up road there was a racquetball course next
to that slash gym that I belonged to. But I remember playing racketball with
some of the guys at Newsday, the newspaper, and it was crazy.
Hit off any wall you were goggles. It was No, it was a
big deal for It was a big deal for But that's what I'm saying.
How did you like who killed? I don't know, Yeah, I want
it was responsible for the death of racket racketball. Good point. We need
to after we do our that other movie we decided we were doing about recruiting
fish kids for eating context. We got to do the We got to find
the guy that destroyed bracketball, right, I do want to I do want
to talk about that US Open for a minute, because I know all of
all of your fans are huge golf fans. I know they're not, and
so I'm not gonna I'm not going to go into a long thing about it.
But because it was Father's Day, which often the US Open is is
decided on Father's Day. Most years it aligns with Father's Day. And because
of that, it's one tournament that a lot of women do watch, a
lot more women than normally watch because you know, let's face it, one
of the one of the perks of Father's Day is you know, you're controlling
the TV until until twelve o'clock, right, So, so I know it's
the one day year my wife watches any golf. And what you saw,
if you watched, was the effect of pressure on the ability of people to
perform, because you had two of the greatest golfers in the world today on
the final nine holes and especially the final three or four holes of that tournament
absolutely fall apart. I mean Rory McElroy, who is the great player for
many years. He's number two in the world right now, but he hadn't
won a major tournament in ten years, so it's been a decade since since
since he had won a major. And he missed a two foot putt,
a two foot putt on the sixteenth pole. He had made four hundred and
ninety six straight of less than three feet on wow, So he had made
four hundred and ninety six in a row. And he had this thing.
This This is in a normal game of golf between friends. It's one of
those where you go, that's good, it's a gimme, yeah right,
you don't even make the guy hit it. In here, you have the
number two player in the world miss a two feet and I knew it when
I saw him line up, I knew it. And it was texting back
and forth with John Ziggler, Who's who's a big golfer. Ziggler's a,
uh, well, did you see him doing wrong? I saw that he
wasn't square to the hole, he wasn't lined up the way he usually lines
up to hit a putt, and I couldn't understand why. I didn't know
why his caddy didn't grab him. It was just bizarre. And and then
he pushed the putt and missed it. Bryson Deshamba the guy who ended up
winning it couldn't put And this guy hits the golf ball further than anybody else
on the tour, and I mean absolutely just obliterates the golf ball and was
hitting it straight for most of this tournament, which is why he was winning
it going into Sunday. But all of a sudden he couldn't put the ball
in the fairway. And at the US Open, if you don't put the
ball in the fairway, you're gonna be in jail. And so he was
hitting out of what they call the native area at this course, Pinehurst,
but he kept getting lucky and kept having it's you keep hitting your ball ship,
but some somehow you find it and you can actually get a club on
it, and blah blah blah. And so mclri's falling apart missing putts.
He missed another one on He missed one on eighteen that was a little bit
less than four feet another putt. He makes ninety nine points something percent of
the time. And Deshambo absolutely, you know, pulls the ball like a
right hand hitter hitting a home run down the left field line. It's literally
up against the grand stand. And he had and instead of just chipping it
out and then going for the green from there, where he would have had
a decent chance at making park. He tries to hit some wild hook out
of the stuff and puts it into this impossible position in a bunker. One
of the hardest things to do in golf is to hit a fifty to fifty
five sixty yard bunker shot. So you're not right next to the green,
you're fifty yards away from the green, and you know it's probably normal.
Pro has a ten chance of putting the shot he had inside of twenty feet.
He puts it four feet and that's why it makes the butt and he
wins the wins the championship. But what got missed by everyone who doesn't follow
the sport is that, as you said a little bit ago, a couple
of years ago, the Saudi's basically came and did a hostile take over of
professional golf in the United States. They attacked the PGA Tour by setting up
their own tour and then paying unbelievable amounts of money to players to come over
and play in their tour, knowing they were going to lose millions and millions,
and I say millions, tens and tens of millions. But in so
doing they really changed the fate of the PGA Tour, which people don't realize.
But when the PGA Tour comes to your city, they did. It
operates like a big charity. They do a tremendous amount of community work.
They bring millions and millions of dollars into those communities where they play. And
the thing really hasn't operated like a company operating for profit. It's you know,
the players make money winning winning tournaments and gain fame that allows them to
you know, collect money and name, image and likeness basis. But the
but the tour, you know, basically functioned as a sort of a break
even type of operation. There's a large staff there that needs to get paid,
et cetera. But uh, but this really really made it difficult and
lured a lot of big players away. Rice and Deshambo's probably the second biggest,
maybe third biggest former PGA player to now be playing on the live tour.
Him God the name of Brooks Koepka and God the name of John Rahm
probably the three biggest that have gone over there. And they get paid a
fortune just to appear in these lived tournaments that no one watches there. The
only deal they could get done for coverage was a d deal with with an
independent network of television stations. I mean, just nobody watches, and nobody
watches any of it. It's bizarre, what's happened. They're paying a fortune
to these people. Nobody's watching the tournament's even Phil Mickelson's over there playing.
The other person making a shipload of money from their tournaments is Trump because they
play multiple events at Trump venues. They play at the time right well,
they play at Trump's course in Miami, which is called Durrau, they play
in the h they play an event to the one in New Jersey that he's
always at, and uh and yeah, and he's got one. So there's
no telling what they're there's no telling what you what would you do? I
mean, you get to a certain point in life where, hey, if
there are fering that kind of money and I've already got I've got more than
I need. But why not get the big money and go play with l
I V. You know, like I've been on TV many times, I
won this and that. Now I'm gonna go for the money. Make sure
my family is okay forever. I don't know. Is it that big a
deal. Look, I wouldn't do it, but uh, but there are
it is, these guys are all multi millionaires, right, but they were
they all were before. Yeah, yeah, I mean most of them.
There are some players playing on the live tour that are lesser players. But
look, it's it's uh, you're taking money from the Saudi oil family,
I know, and so you know, it doesn't matter to you where your
money comes from. I know, I guess not. I mean to those
people doesn't. Obviously to Trump, it doesn't. I mean he's taken enough
no fortune from from those people to host to host those tournaments. But you
know, uh, people like like Rory McElroy and and Tiger Woods and others
have stood up for the trade and defended the PGA Tour. And so what
this what this was was not just McIlroy versus Deshambo, but the PGA Tour
versus Live, except NBC didn't want to tell you that, and so NBC
never ever brought up during any of their coverage of the weekend the whole live
versus PGE thing. Right, the crowd seemed to be oblivious to it.
I mean, it was just bizarre. It was like you're watching something and
wondering. I mean, am I one of just this small fraction of people
on planet Earth that understand what's going on here? And so I don't know
that anyway, it was to me, the biggest takeaway from it, and
I had this discussion with my sons, is just you see what pressure,
you know can do, and this is this is a tremendous performance pressure on
these guys to the point where their performance level, uh, you know,
dropped tremendously in the face of it. And so it can happen to the
best golfers in the world, it can happen to anybody and everybody. And
you know, you have to have you have to have some system you use
two you know, to fight that adversity off when when it hits you.
And and look, most of us don't live lives that ever put us in
a position like Rory McIlroy and Bryce and Shambo we're in. But you know,
you had to perform in front of audiences. But let me ask you
a question. I'm just to you know, I remember when I first thought
of doing my show on the Streets. We're in Las Vegas doing it.
An episode about George reed Superman, and there were people behind the camera on
the on the Las Vegas strips staring at me, and I said to my
producer, I can't do this with them watching me. Can we just go
someplace else? No, we can't. This is the shot. You got
to do it here. And I have to memorize the paragraph. Whatever the
hell. And I always when I watch golf, I'm like, Okay,
yes, it's a very difficult sport, but no one's yelling at them.
No one's saying if you miss this put, your coach will be far the
general manager might be out. I'd like to see golf for at least a
week played with people who want to boo while the guy's putting, because there's
no pressure when there's no people streaming at you, like basketball or football or
I mean, let's see some pressure. I know you know what the pressure
feels like you play golf. But I want to see not golf claps.
I want to see someone saying, fuck you, so and so let's make
that put. I'd like to see their tendency then when people are really angry
like every other athlete. Yeah, but dude, it's a different kind of
So look, we we've both done it when you get butterflies in your stomach
before a football game, before a basketball game, before even a baseball game,
but the second the game starts, you're in constant motion. You know.
The first time you hit somebody on the football field, the nerves are
gone. The first time you get hit, the nerves are gone. The
first time shot you take, the nerves are gone. The first golf doesn't
move at that pace. You hit a shot, then you have to walk
all the way to where your ball is and then hit the next shot,
and then you know. So it's it's a different, a very different kind
of sport where those if you get those butterflies, they ain't gonna go they
don't go away that easy like they like they do on the on the football
field. You're I mean you the game can just break them. I mean,
we just we just saw the number two player in the world. He
announced that he's taking several weeks away from the game after he couldn't he was
crying and couldn't bear to watch the final ceremony, didn't even congratulate de Shambeau.
He got enough. He got in a courtesy vehicle and sprinted and sprinted
off the grounds. He's a better human being than that. He has a
lot more class than that in that in that moment, the flow of emotions
he had, the would think of a field goal kicker, or a guy
in a free for a line with a championship at stake, or a quarterback.
This guy hit this square out to this guy. This guy felt left.
This guy felt like he let Ireland down, he let the PGA tour
down. He I mean, there was so much, there was so much
riding on this, you know, And like I said, it's it's fascinating
in a way to just see what pressure no it is, and I you
know it is. And I don't want to see people screaming at golf matches,
but I do. I would like to know how much, well how
much they'd be better or worse if people were actually talking while they putted,
because no other sport lets you just do what you want to do without screamings.
And they're both tremendous sports that I can never play. I don't mean
to act like there's no big deal. I'll tell you something. When we
first were doing this podcast seven years ago, remember Tiger Woods got in the
car accident and I said, I got to show I know that the judge
who gave him the judge was really good to him because he wants to play
golf Tiger Woods. But just for our listeners, Tiger Wood shows up.
Have you ever played a beth Page on the island playing in that crocket?
So the beth Page course is a big, big deal. And big Glack
and my buddy Stuve Feiner, who taught me all about handicapping and getting money
from gamblers, we were together for years in the eighties. He lives in
beth Page and actually Farmingdale, big beautiful home. Tiger Woods came there and
said, I want to live in this guy's house because it's close to the
course, and I will take all my furniture. I'll like It cost him
two hundred thousand dollars. He paid my buddy to move all his furniture out
of his home and then Tiger put his furniture in this house in Farmingdale and
then went ahead and golf on the bed Page Black course. That is just
astounding to me, you know, like just to move your home into someone
else's home to feel better while you're golf. I don't there's no other sport
like that, No one else could do that. No, that's somebody who
needed his head, all the money in the world, that needed as a
routine to be exactly how he wanted his routine to be. And yeah,
that's a that's crazy that these guys, these guys do you know end up.
You know, they have people that arrange everything for him, but they
will go in in advance, and they will find a house to rent for
the length of the tournament, and they won't generally move all the furniture out
new furniture in. But yeah, it's crazy. Well, you know,
since we're on sports, let's stay on sports, because every time, every
time I think things are going to settle down and uh, you know,
controversy is gonna stop flowing in the the whole Caitlin Clark w NBA thing,
it just it just keeps ongoing. And you know, this week saw I
think some of the some of this stuff just up the shark to the point
where you know, it's so obvious that those that are making the accusations of
racism are actually the ones committing some pretty gross racist acts in this whole thing.
And how this is just lost on all of them, I don't understand.
I don't understand how hm, there aren't people there to to sit these
people down and say, wait a minute, I know this, this is
not it's a great thing. It's great, it's it's great for all of
you. This is this is not, uh, the white supremacists of America
discovering the game of women's basketball and all coming to watch because their savior,
a white girl who can shoot from thirty feet is out there. Now.
I saw a few episodes ago. I think I I criticized Bill Maher to
you for how he handled something in an interview with Meggilly. Well he had.
He had Charlemagne on. I saw a show, and not that it
was a stroke of brilliance, but Charlemagne, who was repeating this rhetoric of
all of this being, you know, showing how racist the country still was,
blah blah blah. Bill mar says to him, well, you know,
how do you explain Serena Williams and tedxactly? And Charlemagne just looked at
him and his eyes glossed over, like, well, you know, I
don't know, Yeah, I know, I know I saw that, and
I first of all, I was watching. I said to my son,
this Charlemagne, this guy's a plant. They've meant. Look, I don't
know how to explain this. There are so young people that get ahead of
the world in different avenues of work. Stephen A. Smith, who I
enjoy Charlemagne. There were some people that just attain these heights and then we're
supposed to just listen to everything they do, and they're just the greatest.
Charlemagne isn't shit. He's if you know, his background is history, where
he came from, how he went to jail. This is not the person
you want to base all your beliefs on what he thinks is right and wrong.
He's an asshole. And Bill Maher said to him, well, Serena
Williaman, he had nothing to say. So all these people are trying to
tell you, well, Caitlin fucker is white, and this is why the
league is just bowing down. I saw the foul that the what's the name
the Bay of Barbie and jel Reese. There was a basketball play. She
hit her head with a four arm I get it. It wasn't It wasn't
like the other one last week when the guy the girl just after Kennedy shoved
it like great, this is a basketball play going to the hoop you hit
in the head. Calm down, they're making everything crazy. Well, look,
I think the right thing for Caitlin to do is to say, hey,
it's a basketball play and we're all they're playing hard. She did,
But between you and me, I don't know. I don't know. I
mean, I want to play a bunch of different times. And you know,
if you're trailing number one, if you're trailing that play, the shot
gets blocked, right, I mean not by not by Reese, but by
the freaking center who's sitting there that that Clark is dribbling right into right.
So if you're trailing that play and you see that, you don't do what
Angel Rees did. You know what you're saying. I know what you're saying.
But it's a bang bang play. And look, well look they reviewed
it and their tendency. If it wasn't, they wouldn't have called it a
flagrant foul. If it didn't at least obviously deserve to be flagged as a
flagrant foul. Now, are there other flagrant fouls in almost every game that
gets played in the w NBA or every day? Yes? Are they black
on black often? And and so there's a microscope on everything that goes on
here it because I mean, it's just it's just amazing how it has mushrooms
into this. But people have to accept and understand that Calin Clark is a
skinny white girl, a young white girl who was propped up in college for
breaking records one to the final two got drafted. There's a there's a hazing
period where these chicks who've played in the WNBA, college and also Europe and
have come back from Europe. There's three different levels of play, collegiate,
WNBA and Europe. Those are all three different styles. So somebody these chicks
come back and they're like, no, I'm not gonna just let this girl
do what everybody thinks she can do. She's gonna hear it from me.
She's gonna get pummeled. Look. Man, Well, when we were in
our forties playing basketball against my nephew in his twenties and his buddies, me
and my buddies were like, look at we have to hurt them. We
can't beat them physically because they're too young. So when they go to the
basket, hurt them. That's exactly what's happening to Katelyn. Well, look
the opponent is always going to try and find your weakness. They're gonna test
the toughness when you're new to it. But but look to me, it's
like Angel Reese gave away. She said the quiet part out loud. She
said the other day she said, some people get a special whistle. Exactly
there, you bullshit, Angel. She doesn't get us. She doesn't get
a special whistle. She's out there playing the same game you are playing.
You got a bunch of people looking at this and looking at all the fowls
called against her and reviewing. Nobody's seeing a bias in you know, she's
not getting the Michael Jordan whistle. Now, there was a point in the
in the NBA with Jordan whre if he didn't make the shot, the assumption
by the ref was foul and the whistle and and you gotta whistle, right.
I mean, as a Nick fan, how frustrating was it? A
series? I know where you know if you if you breathed on them,
uh, the foul and Oakley and Anthony Mason everything else, we were more
than breathing on him. But but anyway, this is her name, Jefferson.
It wouldn't be a problem today it's because she's Caitlin Clark, the whitest
two names in the world. If she was a black chick coming out of
Illinois or whatever, Indiana, they wouldn't have a problem with her. It's
a white black thing. And it's also add on to that the new chick
who's got all this, all this uh popularity and press. So they're gonna
they're gonna welcome her into the league in a certain way. It'll clear up
by next year. It's gonna be one year bullshit. She'll be fine next
year. That's why I feel, I don't know, We'll see because now
what I've got, you got people lining up on both sides now. And
so you got Stephen A the moron. I know, he's saying some of
the stupidest ship I've ever heard. And that guy two months ago, he
he shocked a lot of people with uh some comments that were very conservative.
Yeah, and he got he got challenged by a lot of people for what
he said, and so he reacted and went back and uh and everything he
has said since then has come from a far leftctive perspective. And this whole
thing is, I mean, well, have you seen Jason Whitlock has done
yet through Uh okay, Whitlock has been there every step of the way on
his heels, and he's been calling out all the lies that stephen A says
about his college career. And I got a scholarship for singing seventeen threes in
a row. He's like, no, you didn't. You averaged one and
a half points a game. You say college, you were horrible. I
know I'm liking this because I love it. I love Whitlock. I like
Steve Lay too. I'm entertained by him. But I know he's full of
bluster. I know that look he is. He figured out what clickbait was
before anybody knew what clickbait was, and he's been in a clickbait business on
ESPN for million years while he's making me a fortune over there, But I
know six million. I watched another morning. I have a story that that
going into Father's Day. The story caught my eye and wanted to I wanted
to bounce it off you. I don't. I don't know if you would
have ever heard about it, but I think this was in What did I
see it? And I think I might have saw it in the New York
Post. But there's a guy in Brooklyn they call the Sperminator. Okay,
yeah, I know this story. Okay, so it's crazy. So folks,
here's the story with this guy. This guy is a is a math
professor at a college in Brooklyn, Kingsborough Community College. He uh, he
grew up an Orthodox Jew in upstate New York. And at some point he
started, you know, marketing his sperm. Yeah, and you know,
not in the you know, go get fifty dollars for showing up at a
sperm bank and spanking your monkey in the in the bathroom. This guy literally
marketing his sperm to the point that he has one hundred and sixty five I
want to say, it's going to be one hundred and seventy five in a
few days based Pond who is presently impregnated and about to have to have babies.
So he's going to have one hundred and seventy five offspring walking the planet.
So they interview him and they ask him what he's going to do on
Father's Day and he says, wait a minute, where is the He says,
I never did this. He was he was planning on going to the
zoo. This is like what he does every year is he goes to uh
Is, he goes to the zoo for Father's Day. But he yeah,
but he oh, here, it is here, it is here. It
is so first of all, he Sperminator said, he sees many of his
sons and daughters often, mostly the fifty six who live in the New York
York. You live in New York, the twenty who live in New Jersey,
and the thirteen who are in Connecticut. So he's got basically half of
his half of them are in the are in the Tri state area. So
after a Sunday morning, return to Brooklyn, Okay. So he expects that
he and a handful of his kids along with their mothers will go to the
Bronx Zoo like they did last year on Father's Day. I will receive many
gifts and cards, he said. One piece of advice he tries to import
to his descendants is to embrace saying yes to do favors, new experiences,
invites an opportunities. It's the key to a fulfilling life. But he wishes
there was a woman out there who would say yes to him. Quote.
I have all the dating apps, but haven't had much success finding a woman
who wants to date someone with one hundred and seventy kids. You know,
I'm also pretty broke, which doesn't help. Yeah, no kidding. I
mean, look, I've never done that. One hundred and seventy five.
There's something really sweet about that, but something very strange as a man to
walk around knowing that you fathered or you're the father of all these kids.
I look, I've said this before on my show. This is nothing new.
I've got ten abortions in my past. Okay, ten girls. No,
not yeah, not ten girls, but ten abortions. I was a
I mean, I was just so forget the word careless. The girls knew.
It wasn't like you know, but I did, Mike. I didn't
rest until every girl that I was with in the past finally had children,
and I said, okay, thank god they're all okay because I've been through.
Some girls had two and I was just horrified by it. But back
then they didn't want children. It was a mutual decision, you know,
father being a father's nothing to joke about. I don't know how you could
do that and just give you a sperm to so many people like that.
What does it do to you as a man? How do you walk around
knowing there's that many children alive because of what you did. I could never
do that. I could have a sleep at night. Well, it's sat
somewhere in there that he keeps up with it all on a spreadsheet. So
no, but think about it. He's got all those in the New York
career. I mean, at some point, what are the odds that you
know they be a girl. You got a little accidental, a little accidental
incests going on because you know he's the one seventy five doesn't know who the
other one hundred and seventy four are. Right, answer question crazy, You've
been a good man. I know you have because I know you for fifty
years, and I know there's never been a situation in your life where you
had sex with a girl and didn't quite know if she was pregnant. I
don't think that that's not been your life. I've had those experiences. And
I remember dating this girl, Jackie Black Girl, for like three days.
We hung out and she left whatever, she went back to whatever she was
living. And then I got a call about a year later, and I
heard my message and she was like, ag, it's Jackie. I want
to talk to you about something I never I could never call her back.
I have a feeling that she was going to tell me she had pregnant.
I don't know, I could be wrong, but I remember hearing that phone
call going, no, I'm not I can't call her back. It's been
years. What is she going to tell me? Horrifying? So if it
was a real series, she probably would have tried you a second time.
I would imagine if it was, I would agree serious. But you know,
my sisters we all like, you know, I don't know my dad.
We found out about my dad after he died. That you know,
at his funeral there were women. There were people talking about, oh,
your dad, but the women. He was great with women. And we're
going, like, what, he worked five minutes from home, he called
the mother six times a day. How could he what women? And they're
like, no, no, your dad was womanizer. I had no idea
what they're talking about. So Rosalie and I my sister, always go,
is there a kid out there that's that's daddy's And we don't know. I
don't know. But to hear people who work with him and say, oh
your dad, I mean the women, look, I can't believe they said
those things to you, and they said that the funeral I heard them wasn't
to me. Remember you came and made you came to my father's funeral,
and you saw my cousin Raymond, who had really long hair. He was
a hippie. He was in Vietnam. His head was so long, and
you said to me, Granted I wasn't laughing at this point. I was
so, you know, miserable, and you go, hey, it's I
that's zz top funeral. No, but so maybe I always knew how to
get a like I could get a j to laugh in class and I would
never get in trouble for it. He would get in trouble for it,
and so but I would. Also I also had a pretty good sense to
when you needed a laugh, So I don't I don't remember that one,
but it sounds fucking me at the funeral, and then Gallagher said, I
think there's a keg Uh, there's a keg party downstairs, stupid ship.
And thank god I laughed so hard. I needed it. I needed it.
Was like when I think about Gallagher the the So there's another guy we
went to mycho called him Godzilla. He was a weightlifter, big wrestless,
strong guy, the best physique, lifted weights everything. He started working out
when he was four, Okay, something like that, right, And he
was he was that kid in school that all he cared about was everyone knowing
he was the strongest kid in school. So, like I remember the first
time I met Gallagher at Beachfields, He's like, where do you go to
school? I go to to Seconta Because second talk, who's the toughest kid
in school? I don't know. I think maybe, I think maybe that's
George, George Perez. I could take him. He was tough. I
could take I could take him, like, you don't even know who the
you don't even know who the guy is Mike, And I'm but whatever,
that was a West is something I could take him. But Mike Gallagher grows
up to become a fire chief lieutenant nine to eleven, like he became who
he's supposed to become. Mike was a hero, and his brothers were too.
They all became fireman. I mean, but when I think of Mike,
instantly goes to Gallagher is next to uh this this girl on a couch
and he's trying he's trying to okay, trying to make out with the girl.
Now for any other humor and okay, any other human being on planet
Earth. If the girl's on your right, you would take your right arm
and you would put it around her shoulders, and the bring Gallagher is reaching
across with his left arm and like putting it behind, like he's gonna put
her in a half nelson, and and then like makes out with her.
Somehow from that position we ended up. We called it the crossover method,
and for the rest of his time in high school, we just completely abused
him. Anytime he was talking about a girl, we're like, oh,
she'd definitely go for the crossover. And you can say say the cross of
a method. But I remember Gallaghan at Obi. We were I mean,
he was. We did some bad shit, breaking windows on cars, just
stupid shit. But Mike would rip his shirt off before a fight. If
a guy was like after him, he would rip his show up and show
the guy's physique. And his physique was amazing and usually most fights didn't happen.
But his brother Freddie was a tough guy. Brian was a tough guy.
His father was a fire chief. There were tough people, but you
know, on my on our twentieth reunion. I know, I came back
and I love I'm gonna say this because it meant a lot to me.
I came back being in Hollywood my twentieth reunion. I dressed. I had
leather pants on for the reunion. I had a seat for Killing Black Sweater
Kill. You guys were destroying me, and I'm like, I've been in
LA for years. I'm like, what's wrong with this outfit? They were
like, what the fuck are you doing? Everybody had like business suits on.
And when we got to like the whole affair at Lagrange, somebody wanted
my autograph. Some girl wanted an autograph for a kid, and I'm sorry,
and Kenny would was like, what the fuck are you doing? I
said, I don't know she wants an autograph. Why would you do that?
I said, I've done it before people. I don't know. He
made me feel like such an asshole, Kenny, and you were like,
my like, how can I put this my conscience? Like you guys would
always if I was going off kilter or off rail, you guys have the
ability to raid me in. But Kenny was like, don't fucking sun autographs?
After union, I said, Mark it just she wanted one. What
am I gonna do? Swalk away as I can't do that. I can't
do that, but the reunion, So Sheila Lambert ready, that's the one
that Galla was with. And for I had a ball, I had,
I had some flags with a few high school girls that I didn't have flame
with the high school. But twenty years later I did like Robin Pisone and
Maria DeAngelis, and Sila Lambert made a move on me, and I feel
really bad because I shouldn't have said a name, but mehow she she was
like after me and I really don't want to be with her, but she
came to Rose this one night we messed around and she was really opening her
heart that her life was falling apart, and you know, she had done
some cocaine and her husband saw it in the bathroom and he wanted to divorce
her and take the kids. And I remember going, what how did you
get? What's wrong with you? And then my life went into like a
free fall, And I'm like, Okay, I get why this happened to
some people. Sheila was unhappy with her man, and Robin wasn't happy with
her man, and it was a real eye opening situation for me, the
twenty eighth reunion. I couldn't believe how how people were living and then admitting
how hard things were in marriage wasn't right. And I mean, did you
did you ever? Did you talk to anybody there like that you were flirting
with or dating? I just couldn't believe, like, people's lives twenty years
later are really in a bad way. To me. The biggest thing that
hit me was how I was able to immediately reverse twenty years. Just Kenny
and I were just we We did the same stupid shit that we did in
high school that that entire night. So we were given the people, we
gave ship to ship. We were flirting with the girls that we you know,
would flirt with and the best. We were asking every girl for a
picture of her husband because most people didn't bring, and then we would rip
up. This is who you ended up? Are you kidding me? I
know you had a shot for me in eleventh grade? Why with this guy?
And you go, well, he's a lawyer, he's he's really good,
he supports us, he's he's look he looks ugly. I know we
were awful, but I have a videotape. My nephew Joey followed being around
with a camera and film all that out of the grange and all the people,
and I got fined. Oh, I gotta find it's gonna I'm gonna
be embarrassed by the way I acted. But I really you know what's interesting,
you guys, it was a big misunderstanding. I took a limo with
I think Whitey and but you guys thought, like a Jay's taking a limo,
like he's a big shot. No, I just I wasn't in your
limo. So we created another limo situation with them. Oh, I thought
you had a limits. Well, it's only a mile from a house.
But I thought, well, maybe I was an asshole. But we had
a limo me I think didn't have leather We didn't have leather pants, you
guys. Miss You guys killed me when I walked in. I'm like,
I want to go fucking change right now. This is horrible. But the
truth is that I always say this, and I mean this one of the
most clear things I can think of. When I left New York for Los
Angeles, even though you and I weren't talking much at that point, I
really lost the guys who kept me in in in order in a row,
my my pylons. I like to call them like I lost those guys,
to say, hey, don't do that. You know, if I can
asshole, don't say that. And when you go to LA and you're being
treated, you're speaking to producers and movie people and tiving people, you tend
to start believing you're the best. And what I needed was my guys back
in West is to say, she's an asshole, he's an like And I
missed it. And I wanted to tell you guys when I got there,
and I was able to tell you years later. The one thing I missed
was you guys. I didn't want to be away from you, guys.
I wanted to be one of us. And you know, it's never the
friends that you make at thirty and forty. It's nothing like the friends you
make at ten and fifteen. It's the and you know, twenty years I
spent in LA and probably six months after I left, it was really really
clear to me who the handful of friends I actually made in LA were,
and who the other fifty people that we considered friends when we lived there.
How fake? Oh of their shit is how fake their their lives were,
how fake they're interested in our lives were all of that sort of So it
is it breeds it out there. It's everything is fake, just you know,
uh, from the boobs to the to the you know, talks to
the I mean, it's a no one. Very few people actually have a
sense of self. Actually, they have a clear understanding of who they are
and what they stand for and what they believe in. They what they believe
in is wherever the money is coming from next, and how to work their
way up the ladder. Who's asked they need to kiss and and you know,
and it's a it's really gross. I mean you really you lived around,
I mean you had you have some Hollywood friends that are you know,
big time people. I imagine those people are not what you're talking about.
There were guys who you've lived there and you're friends with who have been in
Hollywood for decades and they're pretty grounded. Let me tell you something. I'm
uh, one of my best friends in the world to this day is Andy
Garcia, right, and uh, honest as the day is long. He
is a great father, he's a great husband, he has great values.
He would he he knows who he is and you know he he lives that.
And I've I've been with him in scenarios where people tried to, you
know, pull him into trouble in one no way not going there. Wouldn't
go there. I mean to run out of Staples Center, run out of
Laker games, to the car with him to escape, you know, the
the chase going on. And so but it takes a it takes somebody who
take somebody who's deep, somebody who has a real sense of of of morality
and what they believe in. And that's just a great family guy who is
not about any of the crap that tell you. But I've been around you
know, the Mickey Rocks and the George Clooney's. It was a buddy of
mine for a while, and they, I mean as as big as George
is and was and Nicky was, they would they would cry, like they
would actually talk to me about life in the Hollywood and their eyes would well
up with tears. There's something that you have to eliminate in your life to
get what you want in Hollywood. It's evident on their faces. I mean,
Nicky has called me at four o'clock in the morning at my sister's house
in tears because of some bullshit movie situation. It's just not those are not
the men we grew up with, Like our fathers would never that kind of
guy crying over a job. It's a very different you know. I just
I grew up wanted to be famous. I grew up wanting to be known,
and that's where it led me. And you know, I like being
known, but I'm much much liked better being one of the guys. There's
no comparison. I don't give a fuck how much money there was at the
end of the rainbow. It is no comparison. I want to be right.
I also think, and I don't know this, we've never had this
conversation, but I also think that growing up in a in a place where
you spoke your mind, you didn't pull punches, You called it, you
know, you called things out that that's not very welcome in La La.
If something's going on you don't like, you're supposed to just shut your mouth,
pretend it's not happening and move on. And you're talking to me about
losing I mean, my career suffered because I have a mouth, and I
mean I have a mouth and The podcast has been a place for me for
seven years where let's be honest, we're very lucky. I've said everything I
wanted for seven years. We had one dust up you and I the what's
your name? That's it. And I can't think of a better revenue for
me to have, which is to tell you the truth about Hollywood and about
people in it. And I know all that. I know everything about the
machine of Hollywood. I'm not surprised by anything. Thank God for the podcast,
because without the podcast, I would have this feeling in my chest that
I'm not letting people know something. I have to talk, as you know,
I have to be loud, and this has given me the chance to
tell everybody what I know. It's not from somebody who thinks they know Hollywood.
It's from somebody who was in it in the bedrooms of the biggest people
in the world. I know everything, and I thank god I have the
podcast to do that, because it would be really hard to walk around walk
around with this feeling in my chest of no one knows like I want to
tell people this bullshit. I want to tell people. It's a great release
for me well and for the people that have followed you and followed the show
since it began. They've come to know you deeply and understand that what's an
unbelievably rare personal characteristic that you have, which is good times bad times,
there's no difference. You're going to criticize yourself honestly, You're going to say
what you did, talk about what happened. You're not capable of of bullshitting
it all out there, and at times it's not flattering. I mean,
at times there's some shit, but I don't care. I don't care because
I think all of us fall down, face down the mud sometimes, unless
you have a really well crafted life, most of us fall down face down
and looking up you might see the curb or the sky, but I know
we've all been there. I don't know what your falldown was in your life,
but there comes a point where you go, I did this all fucking
wrong, man, and you've got to correct yourself, dust yourself off,
and do it again. And I think that's why a lot of people like
to hear it because and by the way, Mike, people should know this.
There's not an email, a text, or a message on Instagram that
I don't return. I call my listeners. I don't call them fans.
I call them, I write them, I see them, we have dinner
together. And I just think that's what they like the most, that this
guy is a regular guy. He just has his experienced ship that we never
will but it's great to have him around because he knows the ship. That's
the way I think. I think the you are the perfect person for this
platform because the the potential intimacy that the platform offers you've you've taken full advantage
of because you've let people inside you and uh and in turn, you've welcomed
them into your life. You take criticism from them, you ask them for
advice, you make friends with them, but they better me. I call
them, I make friends with them. And I wonder You're you're not new
at this, but you've been at this for a while now where you're actually
speaking on a podcast. What is it that it does for you? What
do you feel because you're never You've never been that guy that wants to limelight,
you know, Mike, You've always been like a very pragmatic, great
person, smart, well healed. You know what is it about podcasting that
you think? Oh? I like this, I like being hurt that's kind
of new for you, isn't it. It is it. I didn't know
this, but I think it was something I always wanted to do, just
never really got the opportunity to do it. I mean, I was in
the media business for you know, thirty plus years, but always on the
sales and management side of things. Occasionally would have something that would cross over
onto the content side, but I was never in front of the camera or
the or the mic. But but I have opinions. I always had opinion,
and I have more opinions now, I know, of course, than
i've than I've ever had. I mean, what's gone on on in the
country in the last ten years has really it's it's changed my life. It's
changed my Uh the way I look at the world. I'm probably much worse
off for it financially, but I don't care. I don't think of it
that way. I don't look at life through uh, through that kind of
lens, you know. I feel like I'm I'm living you know, as
and honestly I can be proud of them. And part of part of the
getting away from la thing that you realize is you realize how much you can't
how many times you bit your time, how much you compromised things you you
really believe in because because there was a dollar involved in it, And you
know, I'm just at a f that I'll never do that again. I'm
embarrassed and I forget it. I know. But uh, maybe all of
that sort of combined to compel compel me to uh, you're good, You're
you're good at it, you have you have a lot to offer. And
I I remember being with Howards Derned. I've been lucky that I've been with
some people who really had a strong standing in this life, whether it's Robert
Evans or Nicholson, or or Howard starting to Harvey Weinstein if I can bring
up a bad name. But I've been around those guys so long, and
I'm like, I when I approached you, I was asking my manager at
the time, he's now deceased. I said, Howard, I need I
got to do a podcast. I have so much to say. Trump's gonna
announce, I have stories to tell. He's like, well, there's no
radio shows, there's no money in radio. He was like trying to figure
out where I fit. I said, I just want a podcast. How
do I do it? And then you and I met and at Bob's Big
Burger, Bob's whatever, BIG's Boy, and it was like kismet. Oh,
I have podcasts. That's what I do. I've got Mike Tyson's podcast.
And I remember you said, well, do you think you have enough
material? I said, Mike, just turn the mic on. I'll never
run a material. And even yesterday I was in a bad mood. I
didn't feel good, my car didn't start. I'm making plans to go to
Chicago. It didn't work out, and I'm like, I don't even want
to go. Fuck it. I started writing a text to you and Joey
saying no show tomorrow, and then my son was like, you can do
a show. I said, yeah, I know, and I just got
out of the mic and just talked the way I talk about. I forget
what I even did. Oftentimes, I forget that yesterday's show was about.
But it's so cathartic to me. It's really good for me. And I
wonder if you get the same feeling when you talk. When you're done,
do you feel like you've got uh something off a chest out of your system.
We didn't even talk about Jerry Sandusky. Yeah, I'm on a story.
Yeah, I'm not at that stage. I'm at the stage where I'm
trying to get better at it and just looking at uh, you know,
listening to each show that I do and thinking, you know, do you
are you coming off the right way or you I think, I think what
you mean to say, but did you did you deliver that the right way?
But here's the thing about you. If I can not critique, but
you're very smart. You have sound advice. I've learned when I as a
writer to you, just it's what's it's what you take away that makes your
story better. It's like a sculptor. There's the block chip, chisel,
chisel, block, block banging out. You've got to get rid of ship
to make your your story or your advice more crystal clear. You can talk
a blue streak for a long time because you're very smart and you're very You've
been around the world. You understand life. I would only tell you.
The only thing I would tell you is just I don't even know like you.
I listened to you. I want to hear what you say. I
just learned to say less and to make the words I say stronger. And
that might upset some people, but I learned less words, stronger, pronounce
something better. You know. I can sit there and I know right now
tomorrow's show is going to be thirty seven minutes. I just know what I'm
going to talk about. It's in my head. I've been living with it
and sleep as I wake up. I know what I'm gonna say. Maybe
that's my my talent of being on air for many years, but I just
know, Okay, this I'm gonna Howie Mandel, I know where I'm gonna
go, you know, and I have to get it out. It's actually
like I don't know, an exorcism. I have to get it out where
I feel like shit. I hope you get that way one day. I
hope I do too. I'm not. Maybe there's a little bit of that,
Like I really, I really, you have a much You have a
much bigger life than I do right now. You know, You're you're living
with your wife and kids. You have a career. She has a career.
You know. I'm in a different spot right now where I have the
time to just say what I want to say in this motel room. It's
a different life in a different time, I might have not said as much
or been as enthusiastic to talk. But I think you have everything, you
live in a great life. Well, but I don't. I don't.
I'm not carefully couching what I say. I want to uh. I want
to just speak honestly no matter what the topic is, and I want to
not care about anybody's criticism of me talking honestly about Look, generally, I
won't talk about something if I don't feel like I have a strong expertise in
that subject, that I've invested a lot in understanding what's going on in the
situation, Which is why next time we talk, next time we do the
show, I really want to talk a lot about the Penn State scandal.
The yeah, finally getting the story picked up in a lot of papers today
and maybe having some kind of chance at a new trial somewhere in this guy's
life. It's gonna happen. I know what's gonna happen because you, you
and Zigler did this. It's in the it's in the ether. And when
we first met and we were talking about my show, you were talking about
Tyson show, and then you were saying, I got this thing with Sandusky,
he's innocent. I said, what are you talking about? The guy's
a pedophile and you present that everything and I'm like, holy shit, he's
innocent. I can't believe this. I can't believe. And Jane Moore,
the comedian, told me the same thing before I saw you, that he
went through it and he said, Jerry Sandusky's innocent. I said, get
the fuck out of here. But you have a way of laying out the
facts that are very like, oh, you're like a lawyer. You really
lay shit out that people can't disagree with. I don't have that ability.
I just I'm more of a trumpet. I just like this shout. But
you really lay things out in a really good, pragmatic way, you know.
And I You're made for this, you really are. And I don't
know if you feel like, how can I say this? I like that
people recognize me. I like it that people know my show or my kids
say, my teacher listens to your show. I don't know if you've gotten
that or if that does anything to your head. It fills me up that
that feels good. I can look. I can totally see that. It's
it's happened on such a micro level for me at this point. That and
and you know, no matter what nobody around here around me? What ever?
Ever let me think I was a deal if I started in the slightest
bit thinking I was a big deal. So they smack me right back into
me. But I know what you mean, but that no, I'm not.
I'm not. I'm not there yet. But you've never been. I
don't think you've been that guy that wants appreciation from the public. That's generally
not what fuels you, right, I think that's always fueled me. Do
you know more than more than me? Yeah, but it doesn't it doesn't
not feel me. I mean, everybody likes recognition. I mean, I'm
just I'm just more even keel probably I know you are. And isn't it
funny? Our kids and our wives well fun They don't care what the fuck
we talk about, right, I mean you they don't. They have no
interest. And I thought for a while I used to get mad, Like
when I wrote my book seventy four and Sunny, it sat on this old
bar I have, nineteen twenty beautiful bar and they never opened. My wife
never read it. And I'm like, I worked on that for a year
more. It got us out of New York. It got us back to
La I got, you know, one hundred thousand dollars to read the book.
She wouldn't open the book, and it made me so angry that how
could you not read your husband's work. Because while I was writing it,
I was not the kind of guy you to be around. I was identifying
with my dad, which meant I drank before I wrote because I was I
was channeling him. It's a it's not People might not understand this, but
I had to channel my dad because the book was a love story to my
father, and I was channeling him, and I would take I might say,
drink two shots and a beer. I'm not plubbing a bottle. But
she didn't like who I was at that point. But that's all I am.
I like to produce things, a book, a movie, you know,
a podcast. But it's funny. Well I would just I would get
really really hurt if that would hurt you, Right, I put that much
effort into something, and my family wasn't. It wasn't touch that bothered me.
But that was the beginning of us breaking up. It just really was
like, how did you not open this up? You know it's dedicated to
you and the kids. What the fuck? Uh? I'm sorry, man,
that's uh just hearing it. But you know what, we we need
to wrap up. We we definitely will get into the uh I think we
covered like three of the great topics that there's a great show. There's a
lot of a lot of stuff here. No, dude, it's so easy
for us to just talk once we get going. So uh great talking.
Thank you everybody for for listening. By the way, if you do like
us and you want to leave a comment so I can read that instead of
that stupid bitch calling me an idiot and saying I don't know what the f
I'm talking about, I would I would love to uh U to read that.
But and I'm and I'm sure uh a j Wood as well, even
though I know he's talking to on Instagram, Facebook, everything else anyway,
but seriously tell uh. I know over the last couple of years, the
overwhelming majority of the content has been over on Patreon, but we're we're doing
this and AJ's doing at least one free episode a week, so there's content
here on the free feed. So make sure people know that I will do
and I still will provide some famous a bitch free shows as well. I'm
leaving for Chicago on Thursday, be it rose to see the family, and
yeah, I'll have more time then. I just this is a really weird.
The last couple of weeks have been tough time wise, et cetera.
But you'll be getting some free famous at bitches as well. Okay. Well,
and if if AJ has time and I have time always in Chicago,
maybe we'll get back on and do explaining of the whole Penn State scandal.
So yeah, that'd be great. I had about fifteen other topics too,
So anyway, good hanging and we'll talk at you all soon, all right, buddy,