On location and driven by Dons G. Brown. It's Billified the Bill Moran
Podcast. Well, hello and welcome. Thanks for getting your pod on.
Thanks for telling a friend. That's how we spread the word about the pirate
ship on the road. Today at the Bill's Mafia House, Danny, this
is the first time for both of us, that's right. And we're sitting
down with Shane Crowdy, who is the owner of the Bill's Mafia House.
And I'm looking down at the scream that everybody's looking at, and I believe
we spelled his name wrong, and I just went to edit it, and
I think we've spelled a p r o U d y and it's t y.
Yeah, it's t y. I apologize. You should change my whole
life. You should change it to d though for defense, you know,
because if it's condus your help right about now? Yeah? Yeah, So
why do we just leave it like that? Go to the town hall and
change your name tomorrow? Shane? You are you? And I spoke before
you came on the podcast, and uh, we're gonna be coming uh segment
by segment today from the Bill's Mafia House with different people. But I thought
it'd be fun to have Shane On. First, you're from Central p A.
Yeah, how does the Central PA guy become a Bills fan? I
mean, you're you are Bill's mafia, my man. Well, it's funny.
A lot of people actually ask that all the time. And the the
funny part about it is is that when you when you watch the news where
like I come from. It's if you watch like news for or anything in
Buffalo, right, there's always those two random counties that they show when they're
doing the weather. The weather, that's where from Warren, Pennsylvania. It's
gonna be a little cult too, right, So those two random counties just
south of Wellsville, New York, that's where I'm from. So okay,
so right over the border. So you're always a Bills fan. Yeah.
I grew up as a young child just following the Buffalo area and it was
actually a lifelong dream of mine to move to Buffalo. It was look at
this, not only that, but how did you come to then own this
this home. Well, it's funny. I always tell everybody this, this
this small story because I remember like growing up watching games with my dad all
the time and everything and I got I always tell my dad I was like
man, how cool would it be to like live in Buffalo never miss a
Bills game, you know. And then when I I finally got the opportunity
to move up here, we'll talk about like manifesting your dream, you know
what I mean. I mean, seriously, I don't mean. I'm sorry
to jump on. So the company I was working for at the time,
I had an opportunity to finally move to Buffalo, and I came up and
matter of fact, I would I tailgate it right across the street from here,
the house right across the street, and that's where I parked, and
I saw this house come for sale, and I thought, well, man,
like this is it right, this is how it happens. Yeah,
so I bought the house, and well, my girlfriend at the time,
which is now my wife, she was she was good to go along with
it and to paint the outside. We weren't this on the inside yet right
as we lived here remodeling it and stuff at the time. And then how
is she living? Like, I mean, you're in the shadow of Highmark
Stadium. Yeah, yeah, it's and there's not a lot around. Well
no there's not. So, but the thing is, what's so fun about
it is that like all this happens, and you know, the weekends are
crazy and everything, but honestly, the way things are around here, two
hours after the game happens, you wouldn't even you wouldn't even know there's a
football stadium. Yeah, Like your kids would just ride their bikes up down
the street. Like it's just a small little family neighborhood. Yeah it is.
So it's it's amazing. So and then and then you own this property.
So we took a tour. We're outside walking around, and I see
a bunch of campers and things. So people set up here and they just
stay here till April or March or April. Do you rent these spaces out?
Yeah, we run all the spaces, you know. So a few
campers would come in when we first bought the property and stuff, but they
didn't stay for like long periods of time or anything else like that, just
because we try to separate ourselves a little bit from it when we lived here,
right, because we're small kids. Yeah yeah, right, And but
now that we don't live here anymore, that's really what it's all about.
Right as we rent the house and then there's people camping outside and and yeah,
there's there's people that they can't here for every Bills game, so they'll
just leave their campers here throughout the season. Then after the seasons over the
pull the mouth. Yeah, and then so and everybody has their party.
But do you know all the people, Oh yeah, I woul they become
like friends. Yeah we are. We're pretty much all friends, I mean,
and mostly it's yeah, there's always that one weirdo. And honestly,
that's what makes it makes it so great, right, is because you get
to see the same people, and you know, and everybody's inviting other people
to their own tailgate and then you know, i mean just social media representing
itself right and bringing other people in to take pictures of the house. I
mean, we've had so many different people here taking pictures of the house,
and it's so cool. Can show up, you know, well as the
owner of the house. Who's the most famous person you've met because of the
house? I mean, don't mean to put you on the spot like that,
but I mean I got to think that there's been some that you go,
man, never in my life that I ever expect to meet blank and
yeah, well, I mean, honestly, the probably the most famous person
like right now in America, right would be Josh Allen. It's been two
years in a row now that like like Wegman's and stuff with their coffee and
the Josh's Jacks and all that stuff, and then they have the digs Hot
sauce. They'll they'll do like a little photo shoot and a signing and stuff
for that promotional thing. So I kind of have to keep it under the
ropes. I'm not allowed to tell anybody, like even my own family for
that aspect of but I can bring my kids, but uh, they'll come
over here. And it was just two months ago they called and said Josh
was coming over and they actually set up like right in here. Like if
you look at the background of the promotions like on the like the Josh's coffee
and the Josh Jack's, like this is the background these covers too. Oh
wow. Yeah yeah, now when you see the picture you'll put it together.
But yeah, he stood right here. He got a sign one of
coboards. Yeah, he was just like sitting over there on the couch though,
and like just signing stuff. And it was like that it was like
a super surreal moment. Sure, yeah, I think this is like I
mean, you know, he's probably like top five, top ten most popular
guys in America right now, and he's just like chilling on my couch.
Now, I did hear that you got a call from the owner of the
Buffalo Bill's Terry Pagoula. How how was that? What? What what happened
with that? And what were you expecting with that when that went down?
Yeah? So that that was kind of the whole thing was was super weird.
Right. My neighbor calls me one day and over there it's you know,
I don't hear from Bill a lot, right, It's more Patty.
Patty calls more shots over there. But so Bill calls me one day and
I'm like, man, why is Bill calling me? So he calls me
and he's like, hey, You'll never guess. He was just showed up
at the house. And I was like, who's that. He's like,
Terry Paula. I was like, he just knocked on your front door and
he's like, yeah, he came over guard. I'm like, and he
was looking. He was looking for you too. He was like, you
want to know who owned the house. And I was like, well,
that's crazy, right. So, like I called in and then I ended
up speaking to a few different people over there, and it was in reference
to one of the signs I put back up right it had it still had
like a cours light logo on it, and that really wasn't gonna fly.
So they wanted to talk about that a little bit. But then when we're
on the phone, they were like, hey, we just want to let
you know. When they put the fence up back there, and then you
saw him come back and take it down. That was because Terry himself and
all of them that were like, you can't see the house anymore. He's
like, I want that down, So they wanted to be able to see
the Bill's Mafia House. Yeah, so that was a really cool thing for
me because like I guess, so when did you turn it into the Bill's
Mafia House. I mean, obviously you buy it and the logo wasn't on
it or anything when you bought this house. No. Actually, when I
bought it, it was like like green, like New York Jets green.
Oh wow, Oh yeah. I actually still have a half a can of
pain because I was like, I can't believe somebody actually bought this color paint.
Like when I bought it, some of my friends actually took the pictures
of the house and like photoshop jet logos on it. Yeah. So no,
I painted it right away when when we first bought it. So this
is the tenth year and you put the logo on it and everything. Yeah,
we had to. We had to change it a few times just because
of different marketing logo. Yeah, working with Dell and then the Bill's Mafia,
right, they've had to change something. So we've changed a couple of
different things. But yeah, from the first year we had it, we
painted the outside just just the inside was a little bit. So I hear,
I have lots of questions as we're talking. I forgive me. But
so you buy the house. It's a family neighborhood, right you have kids
at the time when when you moved in here? Yeah, you have kids?
Yeah when when we moved in. Yeah, because I had a son
and my wife had a daughter and we met and then we had a little
one together. Okay, we had a baby living. Okay, so now
you've got but when do you do people start coming up and knocking on the
door after they after you put the logo outside, saying hey can we park
here? Did you rent parking for games. How did this? Because I
nothing just happens, right, Things evolve over time. Yeah, Like I'm
thinking the first year you own the house ten years ago, there probably weren't
campers on the property. That's evolved over time. Yeah, there was no
campers when we first started, and it was just the people we knew that
we intailgated with before. And it was like prime spot. Yeah, we'll
see what else happens, and we'll see who else parks and who else tailgates,
and then you you just get to know more and more people, and
then you know, and then all of a sudden, you know, people
start asking like, hey, what can we do? Yeah, you print
campers? Can we do this? Right? So it becomes a revenue generator
for you. Yeah. Yeah, Now it's you know, it's it's it's
not like it's like I make millions. No, I don't think they are.
But you got to do something. Yeah, like I own a really
cool house, Yeah, cool place. It cost me nothing? Yeah,
okay there yeah, right your property taxes? Yeah. Right now we're here
with uh with uh Clark Pashkin and they're they're a law firm, so they've
rented the house. But I got to think, like, is it booked
out for how long? And how hard is it to get in? I
think you got to wait till the schedules out right to see ye, So
yeah, I I released after the schedule releases is when I'll I have some
repeat customers, so they'll kind of reach out to me and book certain games.
But then from there it just goes on online and then people book it
and it books up pretty quick. I mean this whole season book. The
schedule released in May, right in the beginning of May, and by June
the house was booked for the year. So you know, we just had
just had one cancelation and and it uh it happened just this past week and
so it it opened back up online and within two days it was it was
rebooked. Is that crazy? Yeah? Yeah, it's it's it's it's cool,
it's fun. And your dad still around, Yeah yeah, yeah,
my dad has done a lot to help with this. I was gonna say,
he's got to be just blown away by this. Yeah, yeah,
yeah, my my dad has helped a ton with this place. Right,
So he's he's a little bit more patient with a paint rush than I am.
So I would I would do the rough draft back there of what needs
to be done, and then he would just stand back there with a small
little paintbrush and yah, yeah, everything here's hand yeahs hand painted. Because
I went back there and I put some pictures on my Instagram story. Now,
tell me about some of the Memorabilian stuff. I mean, where have
you gotten this? And how long has it taken? Has it been donated
to you some of it from Bill's mafia people or no, It's just been
an accumulation of time. I've always collected things. I've always been a big
helmet guy, and and then different pictures and things I've I've always just collected
different things. And when when when my wife's grandmother passed away, we were
we were looking to buy in her house, right and then kind of doing
what we need to do over there, and it was a way of well,
I don't want to have two mortgages, right, like, so how
do we make this work? And the Airbnb thing is what really started it,
right, because that's where I started to look into and I said,
what what if I just take all my bill stuff and I just turned started
decorating the whole house, right, Yeah, And some of it's different,
like right, so like the tissue boxes, my grandmother made those things.
Yeah, there can you grab that? Dancers we getting shown out even on
the camera, they're all they're crocheted, yeah right and that. Yeah,
but she had that when you were a kid. Yeah, my grandmother just
made those in the last couple of years. She made them in the last
couple of years. But yeah, just right there just different things and uh,
you know a lot of the uh, like there's a champagne bottle in
there from one of the Super Bowls that came from. Yeah, where did
that come from? Because we were talking about that. That's the uh it's
probably behind me and it's from Super Bowl twenty five. Yeah. So so
back when, back where I grew up, and I grew up in a
real small town and called Guilton, Pennsylvania is where it's at. It's in
Potter County. One of the most beautiful places on earth if you ever get
a chance to go there. But so so my neighbor there. Once I
had the house and everything, and then it started to kind of become a
thing and everybody kind of learned about it. She came to me when I
went back to visit my dad one day and she was just like, hey,
like you should probably have these things. And she gave me like the
champagne bottle and this old like old bill's logo that was hand made by somebody.
That's a nice yeah. So, and and there's just a combination of
different things from like collecting helmets and just collecting. Because you've got a lot
of autograph memorabilia here as well. Did you personally get it autographed? Yeah?
Yeah, most of it's either that or else it was it was kind
of bought in that way, or just there's a few of the things in
here I won from like like the bills from the like fantasy season ticket holder,
like football fantasy football leagues. Really that's just crazy crazy stuff, and
uh, you know, or other things I know when uh man, I
forget who who used to be down there doing like the thing down here at
Danny South. But they would always have football players down there, so I'd
go down again. Stuff autograph just yeah, you know, however, you
can do it right, and and so now I have to think too,
do you ever even must be bugged by friends and family? Hey man,
can you get it? Not? Really? No? I mean most people
are pretty extremely respectful of it. I mean, obviously when it comes to
the house, right, the rental, that's that's where the the brother money
comes from, right to to make sure that it pays for itself. Right
And and obviously right as some friends and family come up, you know,
you get them into park and things like that and let them experience everything.
But well, it is an experience. I mean, you know when it
comes to tailgating. And I haven't been to many NFL games at other stadiums,
but I remember going to even the Cleveland Browns years ago and it's nothing
like this. I mean, it's good, but it isn't this. Yeah,
And that's just it, right that it's always the next step is is
how do you how do you step it up every year? Right? Right?
It's it's where do we where do we go from here? So?
Yeah, what is the is that you? I'm sorry you get no,
I don't want to. I don't want to keep you if you need to,
you sure? Because so what do you do like every day? What
your do you have a day? Got day job? Yeah? I work
for Sintas Okay, great sales training, yeah, great sales training. Okay?
What do you do with stas? I'm a service manager for the First
s Aid and Safety divisions. Okay, yeah, so my office is actually
in Henrietta, is it really? Yeah? Okay, I live in Henrietta.
Yeah, there you go. Danny lives in Henrietta. And now what
a fun thing. And I got to think, like, I know,
the Steve Tasker comes over here quite a bit. Yes, he came by.
He came by last time. He's been through here a few times.
But then the last game, we actually got a chance. When you were
a kid, did you watch him play? Yeah? Yeah, I mean
that's got to be somewhat surreal. It is a kid from where was it,
Potter County? Yeah, I graduated with like thirty seven people, Okay,
like I did sixty five. I'm from a really small part of New
York State. Same thing, but it's like thirty You don't think you're gonna
like that's gonna happen to you where they're going to be in the house that
you own. I think that's awesome, and I think that's I think that's
great. So then the Bill's Mafia. You've gotten to know Dell, who's
I think fan of the Year, and you probably deserved. Yeah, all
that stuff, and then I would assume you're a season ticket holder and you
go to every game. Yeah, I haven't missed. I haven't missed a
home game now and well at the end of at the end of this year,
it'll be fourteen years woeen years. Wow? Yeah, how do you
feel about the new stadium? I mean, now it'll be right across the
street from you, right, so I'll still right in the vicinity in the
shadow. I'm excited for it, right, I mean every year that passes
by, I think I like the cold less and less. I think the
new one might be a little warmer. Yeah, so that's true. H
You know what somebody I did see we walked outside and on your property is
somebody with an Lway jersey, and I think it was Danny. You said,
uh wow, the first er jersey I saw was an Lway jersey.
But someone had texted the podcast and said, do you guys feel like Josh
Allen is more like John Elway in that his style of play? And will
he have a career like Lway where he does and get to a Super Bowl?
Until towards the game, and I don't know what the what you think
of that? But when you're looking at things. I mean, it's a
he's more Elway than Kelly. I'll say that he's got Kelly Kelly's toughness,
but Elway was a tough quarterback too, right. I mean, I've made
the argument, and I've gotten killed for this, but I've made the argument
that Elway after Brady's the greatest quarterback ever. Being. The reason why is
because in those three Super Bowls that they went and lost. Name the second
best player on those Denver Bronco teams. You can't, they all sucked.
Now. He then he gets Terrell Davis, and he gets Rod Smith,
who by the way, was like a non drafted free agent, right,
and Mike Shanahan's his head coach, and all of a sudden, Oh wow,
to that we have talent and we could go win a couple of Super
Bowls at the end of his career. Yeah, it's pretty freaking good.
Yeah, you know, and I think as a hell of an athlete because
I think he was a Yankee recruit. Oh yeah, yeah. He he
levers the Yankees to like get traded from Baltimore to Denver. He didn't want
to play in Baltimore. That's where he was drafted because buying the Baltimore Colts
first overall, and he didn't want to he didn't want to play in Baltimore,
Kelly didn't want to play in and ma Reno was just happy to be
drafted in the first pepadge that. Meanwhile, there's three other guys, Todd
black Ledge, Tony Easton, and Ken O'Brien, who like nobody talks about
anymore, and we're all drafted before Damn Marino. That's pretty funny. Uh,
while this is fantastic, great spot, funhouse. I actually snuck in
here once and got yelled at what I came in to just peek at it.
Somebody else had rented it, so we snuck in behind some people.
I just wanted to see it so badly because you realize you have a little
piece of folklore that you own, Like people want to see this. Yeah,
you know, every every time these little things like this come up,
right, Yeah, it's kind of like surreal moments of you know, yeah,
yeah, you know, when you when you do things, you never
know what it's going to turn into or whatever. Right, And we just
did this for fun and and here we are. And the great thing is
I would assume since you're in charge of first aid, that you know first
aid, and that sometimes you have to administer it out here at the Bills
Mob House. Sometimes he saved the mar Hamlin's life. You don't know that.
We try to keep the craziness of course. Actually I've been over here
and everybody's very well behaved. There's nothing outrageous at all, crowded. It's
fun that it's great food, great atmosphere. You know, it's it.
I I think that, uh, some of the crazy gets highlighted, but
it's usually somewhere else in the on the not your property a hundred percent,
right, I mean, and that's you know, as far as here is
concerned, it's you know, obviously even when my family lived here, right,
that's we've tried to keep the same precedent. Right. We all have
fun, right, we're all adults, and we know as adults and fun
and football comes with it with a few pops here and there. Right,
So, but we try to keep it. I mean, there's people out
there that have their their kids here too, right exactly, and most importantly
for me, right, I love when people come in from opposing areas,
right, And you know, for me, that's fun right to see you
know some some Denver Broncos fans out in the yard, right, because that
means like they kind of know the place to come, you know, I
know a place where they can come have fun and tailgate and yeah, right,
it's tell me on your jersey. This the coat, it's like the
it would be like a coat of arms for a family crest or something,
but this looks like it's the tailgate crest. It is. Yeah, so
it's the tailgate Hall of Fame crest. Right that I didn't even know they
had such a thing. Yeah, get the hell out of here. Are
you a member? Well, did you get inducted? Not? Not officially?
Okay. There's there's a gentleman that the tailgates here and he rents the
house once a year. Hans. He's actually from on the Detroit area,
but he's a big Bills fan. But this is what he does is he
goes around and he has visited every football stadium and found like the best places
to tailgate. And that's so if you if you ever reach out to him,
you go into any football stadium anywhere, he'll tell you the best tailgates
to go to and the best places of his name is Hans and he lives
in the Detroit area. Yeah. Yeah, and here comes Detroit looking pretty
good. Yeah, they're coming out of nowhere right like, Yeah, what's
like all of a sudden, Detroit and Houston are good. It's not.
Yeah, it's happening. The world's upside down. But that's the NFL.
Every month, you know what, I think we got this league figured out.
And then next week, you know what, I think we got this
league while we have you to tell how people may be able to find the
house to rent it next season before you know, when the schedule comes out
if they wanted to. Yeah, just anywhere on I mean the two bigger
social media platforms, right Facebook or Twitter. Look for us called the Bill's
Mafia House. If you look on there, you'll find my contact information,
email information and everything. That's the best way to just reach out and ask
questions. You should have a draft lottery so people, you know what I
mean, And then people get their first pick of the weekend they want like
all these people, you just line it up. You get seventeen weeks or
no, you know, you get what eight or nine depending on the on
the season. All games well this year to the England game. Yeah,
yea, yeahhould be like seat licenses. Yeah, yeah, you donate X
amount of dollars you know what I mean, you really manipulate that your advantaged.
But it seems like you're better than that. Yeah, it's you know,
the way I've always looked at it, right, it's nice to uh
to make a little money to to to just cover everything and and and that's
it. I'm not I'm not really doing this right to make big money on
it. This is fun. I have my own place to tailgate. We
have a great, great crowd over here. And like I said, I
want a piece of property costs me nothing, right, so that that comes
with itself. Let me ask you, with the stadium moving across the street,
are you gonna move the house too? Have you talked to Terry about
that? And wheeling and over? What's what's actually funny is I think when
you look at the pictures of it and you see now like the layout of
where it's being built, I actually think Gate two might be closer to the
house than the new stadium. Oh wow, Now, yeah, I think
you're right, because I mean it's right there, it is, yeah,
literally across the street. Yeah, it's definitely gonna be fun. It'll be
a great time. Well, Shane, it's been a pleasure talking to you,
meeting you and uh. I suggest to anybody who's a Bills fan try
to get in here because it is right exactly where you want to be,
on the heart of Bill's Mafia tailgating. Yeah. Great, appreciate you guys
being here. I appreciate you having me on. Thank you, thanks for
having us, Thank you. We are live at the Bill's Mafia House.
We'll be right back. But first bTB would fire Peach and Grill and the
mall at Grease Ridge Danny great place for people to watch any football game over
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They have Italian poutine. Have you ever had Italian Italian. I don't know
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then I had the bTB Cheeseburger Mac the other night. Oh man, it
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bt B would Fire Pizza and Grill, where you can also have your holiday
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Why not go there? You just go to bTB Rock. That's bTB
ro oc dot com. You can get all the details on how you can
do that. bTB would Fire Pizza and Grill in the mall at Grease Ridge
Comedy, the Carlson Ticket and show times at Carlson Coomedy dot com. Danny
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Drive in East Rochester and open every day. The bills make new water,
throw your hair and something. Throw your hair down. The Bills. I'm
making it. Bill's Mafia House is where we are get ready for the Bills
and the Denver Broncos Monday Night football. Sorry, I interrupted a story you
were telling you Mdilldill Uh. Vince Press from Clark Peshkin invited us up because
they rented the Bill's Mafia House and allowed us. Vince Uh I had been
in radio It's with us for a while. Glad you could make it.
I'm glad we made sure you're coming. You appreciate it coming. Tip that
camera down just a little bit so we can get Vinie. I don't know
if it'll go. We're a little wobbly there. That's that's the one that
I knocked over. It's all right, there we go. I knocked one
office stand. It's the way it is. But man, you have so
much fucking food here. The Bloody Mary's could last a week. What are
you doing? Well? We invited obviously our crew, but then I invited.
I just put something on Facebook and Instagram too. Oh you didn't stop
by it, Okay, so people will be stopping by. Yeah, and
then we have a core crew. But we're taping this. It's only ten
of five, the games at eight thirty and you know Monday night traffic,
it's getting crazy out there now. Yeah, yeah, well we got here
in plenty of times set up. We talked to the owner of the house,
Shane, and we're hoping to get the head of the Bill's mafia on
a little while. But you're a foodie. I didn't realize what a food
you are. The food is phenomenal that you've made. You find different things
at Wegman. What what is happening in your life? What how did this
all come about? Well? I wrote I wrote a column for DNC for
ten years. That was my side hustle actually one of the before all the
instagrams. Wait wait, hang on a second, hang on a second,
time out timeout, Yeah, hang on one second, Danny, Yeah,
you write a time for the Times in Wayne County. He wrote one for
the DNC. What happened, Well, Danny can't ring. They got enough
sports people to see. They keep letting more and more people go, that's
totally that's cool, kidding, we're talking about food. I know, I
know it when I great texture. When I first pitched the DNC for my
column, which was now twelve years ago, I said, we'll do the
best of where to get the best veggie burger? Where the best where to
get the best colum ari? They said, people really want to know that.
So I had to fight them to get that written. And then now,
of course every it's the biggest thing, top ten lists, and absolutely
know it's one of the biggest things. Tell me how because I would have
when it comes to doing things like this for Paskin Clark Paschkin, excuse me
that it would be you. So how far in advance do you have to
try to book this house? I think we booked it eight months in advance.
Okay, you have booked it before, and Shane does book this place
up. Yeah, we booked it a long time ago, not knowing who
is going to be around or available, right, but you knew it was
a Monday night game and yep, yeah, one of the reasons to book
it. Sure, absolutely you don't have to go home. By the way,
you guys are welcome to crash here. Yeah, I know we're going
to get this get out of here. I'm afraid I'm gonna wake up with
you, you know, spooning me or something. I don't either, anything's
possible, anything is possible. So when it comes to the food, Vince,
talk to me about things that you have made, the different cheeses that
you bring, what makes well, let's start here, what makes a great
tailgate food for you? What's a great tailgate food? Well, snack table
obviously, and there's one over here that has some of the stuff you brought.
But there's a fantastic goat and sheep's milk, and I just want you
to notice the back handle. Did you notice how I got dissed some of
the stuff you brought. But there's a fantastic there's a fantastic goat, cheese.
You you base basic Dick did not bring that, not at all.
You did your part. You brought more than I thought you were going to
bring it. Actually well I didn't know, so I just figured. I
said, guinnis and some snacks and you, yeah, yeah, I try
to do I try to do my part. You're very good to me,
you know. I tried to do my part. So snack table is important,
obviously, a charcuteri plate of some type, and meats and cheeses and
I actually we had so many other snacks. I left that in the fridge.
Oh you did meats and cheeses is very important. Yeah, and then
you have to run the gamut on the mains. So you have burgers,
sausage, chicken, chili, and so there's a little something for everyone to
eat. And it's and then the bloody Mary's that you made. Now,
what happens with all this food if it's left over? Well, that's a
good question. The bloodies can stay for two weeks because those meld. There's
about eighteen ingredients and then my bloody marry mix there's eighteen ingredients. What do
you have in there? Well, there's I used clemato and then I use
some combination of other mix and vhus. But then there's dill weed and black
pepper and pickled juice and old bay and some other secret stuff. Now,
is this a recipe you've just perfected over time or is it something that you
have stolen from somebody? I don't mean steel, what borrowed? Maybe I've
perfected it over time. Okay, And it's there's literally it's a great bloody
mary. It's a little spicy. You said that it's a little spicy,
a little soft soft. Did other guys here going to Kevin Clark? I'm
not drinking it it's too spicy you drank? Oh yeah, it's perfect.
At eleven am it is. It was a great bloody marry. Oh.
I didn't have it at eleven am, and I think I may have another
one please, And usually I don't have it here. But you can use
vodka or tequila. Yeah, tequila, I think goes a lot better with
bloody may it does. What do you have, Aria, that's a great
counter says, what do you have with tequila? Yeah? It goes better
with the buddy. Wow, he's a big tequila guy. Yeah, it's
tequila. What is the What is in yours vodka? Yeah? That's I
just brought that local recipe twenty one from Rochester the okay, And I don't
put a lot of it in there. It's mostly about the mix. Yeah,
so all right, this is very good. So are there? So
there are twenty one ingredients in that, eighteen to twenty depending depending on the
deck. And then the garnish people are going eight shit with bloody Marit garnishes
I have. I brought Swan Market beef sticks. Yeah you did, pepperccini.
I usually put a toothpick of pickles and some buffalo cheese. Curds on
there. Oh wow, you could do shrimp or crab claws, which I've
done. It's a way to do it. I mean, it does.
It is fun and it's I mean, and it feels party ish and it's
a great way to kick off your tailgate. The Bills don't have any more
one o'clock games until New England in December or New Year's. New Year's probably
a great idea. Yeah, hey do that kid at one Yeah, one
o'clock New Year's Eve. You make a bloody Mary like that. Vince just
laid down. You put a little crab claw on there. That's awesome.
Yeah, that's one of the best things. That's right. You bite into
it and you go take that in New England. Eh, you do it.
How are you feeling about the game tonight? I feel pretty good.
I mean, clearly, there's a ton of pressure and they just have to
win, especially because I believe they could take first place in the division tonight
the way things have fallen out, and they beat Miami and so I think
they can take right Yeah, what do you what do you think? I
think that they'll win, but I don't think it's going to be a blowout.
I think it'll be another close game. I think we'll walk away from
this going like the last seven games. What the f right? And uh,
it's just this team right now, they're at a forty percent chance of
making the playoffs. You got to remember the last time this team, actually
for last week, was not favored in the football game was in twenty twenty.
Think about that. That's how much America and Vegas thought about this team.
And now all of a sudden, yeah they're I mean, yesterday you
saw Cincinnati get beat by Houston. This is the same team the Buffalo couldn't,
like, you know, crack until the fourth quarter. So this this
team's got issues and hopefully they'll figure it out tonight. But I don't I'm
not expecting fireworks. I'll expect him to win, but it's gonna be a
nail bier, I don't I think. Yeah, I don't like saying it,
but the truth with you, I think they're gonna win pretty handling lots
of pressure and they've had lots of meetings this week. Yeah they're gonna crush
right, I think so too. They've had players only meetings things. That's
right, over problem, what's problem? My offense sucks. Oh you're Josh
Allen overeaters anonymous meetings. They've had it all. They've had it all.
Leonif for Net's supposed to play the night Okay, so that's exciting. Leonard
Furnett is the running back who has played on the Super Bowl champion Tampa Bay
Buccaneers. Yeah, he came out of college. People were talking him into
like, you know, well he was with the jat Yeah, people were
talking him into like he just stopped playing bro before he get hurt because he
was projected to be the number one pick at one point when running backs were
still a thing. Maybe that's the spark. I mean, we got to
convert those fourth and two's that we haven't been going for and that that pisses
me off. Yeah, let's draw the defense off side. So yeah,
that I didn't realize like foody and sports and well you got the whole thing
going there. You did realize the foodie things. Yeah, even since we
worked, No, I knew the foody thing, but I didn't know that
it was that big. I guess I never paid attention to the I never
read the column. I didn't know it was only out for ten years,
and I did TV everyone for ten years, for five years? Or did
you do TV thirteen? What? Oh my god, just put on mornings
mornings. Yeah, you would go on in the morning in the mornings and
talk about yeah with Doug and Jaja. Look at you. That's great.
Yeah, what a nice little gig. Yeah, it was unpaid. I'll
tell Can I tell a story about the very first time I did? So?
I took my column in the in the DNC and then I went,
if you get lower that just a little bit. I don't know if there's
a way to squish just because it's the top of my head. Yeah,
and it's yeah, it's just a bad shot. I get all the all
the camera people who are like, you know, really do well with their
podcasts and their cameras and stuff always go, I think you need help with
yours. They's something wrong. I think you have too much duct tape on
them. Well, it's not it's the duct tapes around the thing. Try
squishing down on the legs, try to make the legs water, all right,
Yeah, never mind, I think I don't know if I should tell
this story about Yes, you should, Mike to George to Georgia. There
you go, right there, that's perfect right, and I'm bringing over this
way a little bit. Hang on, we're doing this live on the pod.
The other way, the other way, the other way, the other
way. There. Look, and now I get to see Vince's face Govin,
so that this is the first time I'm on. Otherwise it was no,
you were on. You were on. It just was you know,
a little bit of your skull. It's still an odd shot. Go ahead.
So the first time I did Morning TV, Mike de Giorgio, the
fabulous producer over there e x VP he uh, I think it was.
It was actually what to cook for the Super Bowl. So I brought in
meatballs and all this other stuff and I'm getting ready on their prep table to
wheel it in to do the set, and one of the one of the
meatballs falls off the table and rolls down the hall in the in the corner
of the wall and the floor tell me it had sauce on it. Yeah,
they were. They were meatballs. They were saucy barbecue meatballs. And
it's rolling down the corner picking up all their ship from years and Mike looks
around, picks it up and eats. He did not stop it. That
was my first experience. Did you did you watch this happen? And he
did. He say to you, I'm gonna eat this. He just don't
tell anyone that no, he ate and then don't tell anyone and then we
and then I did TV for or five more years with him, and all
right, so how long ago was this? Probably five or six years.
Okay, you need to find out from Clark Pashkin if the satulations on its
story is run out, because he said, don't tell anybody, right,
don't kill me Mike it was Mike. He might have wiped it off.
But you know what, we're over sensitive to this stuff. You know,
there are parts of the world that are just going thank you for this food
or whatever we got. Right. Yeah, he probably, like you know,
immunized himself from like seven or eight different diseases by eating that meatball.
So he's good. All the germs out there. He's probably live another hundred
years, probably, And then I did one of my episodes was a spicy
food episode that I did, and I brought the spiciest tie ship you can
imagine in Yeah, they killed because it was oh my god, wait,
did you have him eat it? Yeah? Everybody ate it and they couldn't
finish it Norma and Jennifer Johnson, and they were crying because it was so
high, and I don't think they could do their next segment because they were
And so they reminded me, it's too bad that you didn't jump on the
hot what's the hot enough or something with the ones? Hot ones? Yeah,
I don't even want to talk about that. Why are you what happened?
Did you what happened? Did you get pissed about that or something?
No, it was my idea. I've had that idea for a long time.
I think del Reed is here. Sorry, Oh all right, great,
yeah, all right, Dell is the head of the Bill's moth.
Like many ideas that don't go anywhere, and it's it should be a lesson
for everybody. I had the idea of interviewing celebrities when they came to town
and being a food column and then just talking about interviewing them but over food.
And that was the years, and I pitched it to the d n
C too, and it never went anywhere, and then hot Ones came out.
You see. The great thing is now and I will use the term
that everybody makes fun of me for is the barrier to entry is gone,
and so hot ones could just go right onto YouTube. They didn't need to
get the DNC to approve because everybody's gonna go that's not our idea. I'm
not sure. We're not sure, and until you prove that it works.
And it's too bad because you were coming in a little you were a little
before your time. You know, I had a little bit in some stuff,
and you also were doing a job and trying to you know, keep
your family going something. Sure, I mean, I'm not saying they stole
it. I'm just saying I had the idea. Yeah, well, I
congratulations. How often though that we have we all said that to some degree,
like we go, we can't believe that we had that idea and then
they and somebody did it. Right, no matter what it is, you
got, it's the dumbest thing in the world, and that somebody's made a
million dollars with it, and we all kick ourselves. So you got to
be, you know, one of these proactive people to actually when you get
the inspiration, move take action. And but I think you've done it.
I mean you've written screenplays and everything. You're a man of many talents.
Yeah, a little bit, Yeah, that's what I do at Clark Peschkin,
a little bit of everything, and yeah, promote the hell out of
them. Yeah you do. Yeah, facilities and parties and yeah, you're
you're a great You're a great host. You do nice, nice work with
all this stuff you do. You are you're a great host everywhere, great
American. You guys are great guests. Well, thank you. We've taken
over your entire kitchen here and I allow, I'm juice to the well.
It's fun and we were doing a segment by segment, so you know,
I thought it'd be fun to get you on. And uh, I think
when when if Dell comes in, the head of the Bills Mafia. Yeah,
well we'll talk to him. But Bill's Bill, Oh he is here.
All right, let me why don't we take a quick break and we'll
come back and we will talk to the head of the Bills Mafia, the
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net. It was a beautiful Da sunt Radio. I was you know I
played this? I know why you played this. Let's see if you know
I played this. Me and Dell were singing right, well read I love
singing Bills Mafia. I love singing to Petty because's you not have to sing
it just to I love to dell Is the twenty twenty three Bill's Fan of
the Year. How did that feel? I watched the whole thing on,
like, I watched you run out of the tunnel and onto the field and
you got who gave you the shirt the jersey? Was it Stevie Johnson?
That's right, Stevie Johnson. The that had to be What was that like?
What did that feel like for you? It was a huge surprise,
really, they had the Bills invited me out to do an interview about the
you know, the history of Bill's Mafia, and I've done a bunch of
things with them in the past yea, So it wasn't like a huge surprise
for them to say, hey, come on down to the stadium. We
want to we're putting something together, yea. And they said we're gonna do
you know, the interview down the tunnel. They said, we're doing this
with everybody. Everybody's coming down the tunnel and okay, we're gonna have everybody
run out onto the field and everything. I was like, did you feel
a little self conscious doing that? Because I would have absolutely. Yeah.
Somebody said it was probably like an ant or something. They said, oh,
it was my mom. Oh, you look really athletic runging out there.
No I didn't. I looked like a man. That your mom.
That's the greatest thing. That's cool that she got to see that too.
That was cool. So it feeling like von Miller limput out there exactly,
I looked like a forty eight year old athletic man doing that. So how
does okay, so what did what does being the fan of the Year entitle
you too? I guess what? What is the whole thing with that?
What do they give you? Well, they give me a pretty sweet jersey.
Yeah, I saw that on everything that I'm not allowed to wear according
to my wife until like a special night or whatever. Okay, but she's
looking out for me because I'll spill something on it. But yeah, you
get the jersey, you get two tickets to the Super Bowl. Oh wow,
all expenses paid trip and throughout the I guess the remainder of the season,
they have all these different zooms, halls and everything where you get to
see behind the scenes stuff with the NFL. That's I just got that first
invite the other day, so I don't know what's involved. It'll be like,
but yeah, the whole you know, that little minor Super Bowl trip
is kind of cool. Yeah, that is pretty cool. Bill's better be
there. I'm gonna be I'm not going there to watch Patrick Mahomes another super
Yeah, if you don't want to go, we would be glad. Yeah,
I'm sure there's ready. There's many people. So as the the president
of the Bill's Mafia, the founder of the Bill's Mafia, what is the
title co founder of the cole founder? Yeah, so who's the other founder?
That would be Breon Harris, Leslie Willie. It was the three of
Us shoot twelve plus years ago. Now that kind of took that phrase that
I invertently came up with as a joke based on conversations and stuff we were
doing together on Twitter. That's when we kind of decided like, hey,
maybe we could do something with this because it was going viral with the fans
and the players and we really just wanted to do We felt the opportunity to
do something special. Yeah, and we chose not to make it about of
So what was the Yeah, when you say something special, what do you
mean by that? It was an opportunity for because I mean at that time,
especially think about it, the Bills were basically the Washington Generals. Yeah,
of the NFL. You know, the team that always losesus to the
Globetrotters or there just what the other team has a team to play, right,
But that's not that's how the country looks at the team. The way
fans look at the team is they are be all end all right. We
love the Bills, and so it was an opportunity for us to kind of
with the attention we were getting to put the focus not only on the team,
but more so on just the fans because we love our culture. We
lost our team. So these weren't bandwagon fans. These are die hard die
I mean, live and die by this team no matter what this season brings
us. We are fans well absolutely, and people I remember saying like,
oh, Bill's Mafia as a bandwagon thing. Yo, that thing started in
twenty ten, twenty eleven, in the middle of a terrible drought, you
know, playoffs. Like, if you've been around Bill's Mafia, you know
that we're not. So I mean, when did they start coming to Saint
John Fisher University two thousand, so two thousand we were doing radio shows from
there, and the team every year was awful. I mean they had some
guys right, Bledsoe came out. He was good for a game. Was
the Curse of Saint John Fisher. Yeah, it was either him or Billy
Buffer that or Billy Buffer, Billy Buffalo Billy Buffer because they never had a
mascot before that. So all those things you're right through all that time.
So you bring the Bills Mafia, then it starts getting attention nationally when Josh
Allen shows up and everybody starts to get a little better. And even with
Josh Allen when that draft happened, I don't know what the Bills Mafia were
saying on social media, but I kept hearing things like I know exactly what
he was saying. Well, okay, what was it, Dell? I'd
like to do you mind saying yeah, sir, So Actually that's Josh Begelman.
He is our creative director at twenty six Shirts, and Josh, I'm
sorry all right when we get to introduce it, so j twenty six Shirts,
we'll talk about twenty six Shirts in a second, But there's context there.
I mentioned that because that night of that draft, we knew the Bills
were drafting a quarterback. In fact, when they traded Cody not Cody Ford,
Cody Ford. Yeah, yeah, well they he was traded away Cody
Glenn. That did not sound right to me. That's how long ago it
was. Now when they traded Cordy Glenn away. You can ask Josh.
I actually got out of my chair in the office and like ran around because
I was so excited. Was like, they're definitely drafted a quarterback and so
we had it's a true story, like I got up on it. So,
uh, we had a shirt designed for every quarterback that was in that
draft that the Bills could possibly draft. Okay, and you know we had
the best one we had was Baker Mayfield is planning a mafia flag based on
when you know the flag? Wait, did you have a Kyle Aletta shirt?
Did you have a Kyle Letta design? We had the top five Sam,
Sam Donalds and Josh Josh Rows and Sam Donald, Baker Mayfield, Josh
and Lamar Jackson those were the five and the Letta was six. Yeah.
So we had the top five. Well, we had we had Rudolph Mason
too, right, he went to the shirt QB Mason. So so anyways,
that to the Josh Allen point, Josh Allen was the one that we
were least excited about because all the pundits were saying, like, this is
not the guy. He's not accurate. Right, I don't watch a lot
of college football, and even if I did, I'm not right. And
so the design that we put the least amount of effort into was that Josh
Allen designed, so like he gets all right, alive, all right,
that's good, and we were very pleasantly surprised. So you fast forward a
few months and he plays that that preseason game against the Browns. I remember
he threw a touchdown pass where he just threaded the needle so perfectly, and
I was like, oh my gosh, he might be good. Yeah.
Remember the first pass he threw though, like they called the bomb, like
in his first throw and he throws it he was out of bounds, but
there was like, wow, man, he's got a cannon. Yeah,
and he's like eighty yards. And then the regular season starts and he's running
around like I didn't even know this was part of the package. This was.
It's just it is It's like they did a great job scouting, because
I think most fans said, we picked the wrong Josh. That's what I
could hear. We picked the wrong Josh. Like Josh Rosen was going to
be the guy. Josh Rosen's out of the league. Baker Mayfield, the
number one pick, is on his fourth team. This is his fourth or
fifth fifteen. Yeah, because he went he was with Cleveland, then he
was with Carolina, Carolina Ram, then he went to the Rams. Okay,
so forth Tampa, and then you look at Sam Darnold and he was
Jets, Carolinas, Carolina, they were both is he out of the league?
San Francisco and he was considered to be the best quarterback in the league.
He's the backup to this guy was supposed to be the first overall pick
in the draft. But the Browns let's go with Baker and like he's backing
up the guy was the last pick of the NFL draft for two years later.
It's interesting and it just shows you how hard it is to play in
the NFL. I always say, do you know how good you have to
be to suck at the NFL? Right? Right? Right? And yet
we live in eye and get angry and do all this. So as the
Bills Mafia has grown, what has the purpose become for you? I feel
like there's a charity element to well, yeah, pretty much. I mean
since our since our inception. Really we wanted it to be about serving the
community that the team represents. And we were selling T shirts early on,
just said Bill's Mafia before I understood intellectual property, okay, And what happened
what happened with that? We were given a season desist or anything. It
was I think Cafe Press if you remember them. I think they took it
down because we were using the Twitter bird. It wasn't even the Bills,
you know, who said anything that's right? Okay, but we so we
you know, but we learned really quickly and what we can do and what
we can't do. And but even then the we wanted the proceeds to go
to to charity. So they were supporting the what was then called Carl's Club
now Courage of Karlie at Roswell Park and we began doing tailgates. You know,
we've been once or once or twice a year and we do like a
basket raffle and the money that we raised from basket Raffle would go to Courage
of Karly. So we always wanted a charitable What is Courage of Carly?
It is a pediatric cancer foundation or fund at Roswell Park Row. They do
monetary support for the families and also psychosocial for the kids. As you've seen
this grow overwhelmed by fans, I mean, how can I how can I?
You couldn't think this? No? And I get asked that sometimes like
did you ever? Who could? Who thinks this? Who? Whatever?
I mean, this is just an idea to just sort of bring fans together,
and we'll put it under the umbrella Bill's Mafia and then from that idea
on social media, you've got tangible stuff. Now, well tell me about
the twenty six shirts, because that's time to Bill's Mafia, correct, right?
Right? So two years, about two years into the whole Bill's Mafia
movement, I really thought of I had the opportunity. I had the thought
that I, you know, even during a drought, Bills fans are so
Mrch hungry, it doesn't matter if they would own sixteen I'm wearing my Bill
shirt if I'm going on vacation, especially I'm wearing Bill shirt. Everyon's gonna
because I'm wearing my Bill's hat, you know what. Yeah, absolutely absolutely,
And so you know, I had the idea of, like, maybe
I could do a different shirt every two weeks and support a different you know,
family along the way, because one thing I was learning as our Bill's
Mafia Twitter account had grown, people were always asking us to retweet this or
retweet that, share this, share that, And so I had the idea,
like, I could probably sell a different shirt every two weeks, do
it as one year and that's it, because this will be exhausting. And
I already had a full time job at Roswell and do it at nights and
on the weekends and stuff. And my one year project is now celebrating it.
Just Saturday was the actual tenth anniversary of the tenth anniversary. So tell
me about the twenty six shirts then what it would come You come out with
how many per season? Well, now it's a shirt of It's shirts a
week, two shots, it's non stop, at least two. Yeah,
and Josh, our creative director, designs, probably it was at one point
like ninety percent of them. It's probably down to like eighty or something five
now, but we've heard somebody to help him out so he doesn't get carpal
tunnel again again again? Yeah, surgery, might I had? Actually I
almost had? Is it because of this? Yeah? You're Tommy john because
of I had got Tommy Johnson drawing too much? Yeah, you're a kidding.
I'm not kidding now, so I'm not laughing at you. I have
the scard. Wow. If anybody is from OSHA is listening, just turn
off. So but man, I can throw a hell of fastball. No,
buddy, Josh, hang on a second, because you do you have
it? Is this a full time job for you yet? Oh? Yeah?
Okay, So actually I started as a freelancer. What year two?
You're beginning of year three? Literally in new year two? That's right?
Okay, So I started as a freelancer and then I jumped in uh in,
I guess twenty sixteen sixteen. Thank you for knowing, because I don't
as a I quit my job to come because he said, hey, why
don't go tell your boss you're gonna come work for me? Yeah? I
said, okay, So this is this now a full time job for you?
It has to be yeah, yeah, we have six full time employees.
Now you have six full time employees the Bill. I had no idea.
Yeah, yeah, twenty six Shirts. It's a we've actually so twenty
six Shirts has become the company. Yeah, and that's kind of the company
behind Bill's Mafia. Well, there's separate. It grew out of bills.
Out of bills bills, mafia kind of belongs to everybody. Yes, I
got that, Yes, but it's something that that all fans share. Who
runs the Bill's Mafia Twitter account? You do, correct, I do with
a bunch of other people's, right, But from twenty six Shirts. So
do you have somebody who's just running social because that's a full time job in
and of itself. Yeah, well, twenty six Shirts Social is managed by
Andrew Baglini primarily former weather man for former weather man for now our marketing guy
stole a weather man. Yeah, wow, Buffalo fan base, give you
the weather before the games? Just curious we have a report? Do you
really around the twenty six Yeah that's awesome. Oh that's so great. I
love this A fun cheeky that's awesome. Yeah, we do DLA and I
do a little news segment beforehand, just make a joke about something and then
we toss a day. Where can we see that it's all of our socials.
So it's at twenty six at twenty six shirts. Yeah, okay,
and you'll see Della and I sitting at a desk, at a news desk,
and it's pretty some of them are somebody we have a lot of fun.
Yeah, So my wife thinks they're hilarious and she doesn't think any of
my stuff is funny. Well, that's good. I mean, that's that's
a great litt that's the highest phrase I can get. Well, so,
Dell, I mean this as as we're talking, it became and went from
an idea to a full on company for you, Yeah, to supporting your
family and other families. Yeah, it's really surreal. I mean I remember
so in twenty fifteen I got laid off from Roswell and it was a union
job, so I could have posted for another position that was opened, but
I really felt like I was driving to the wrong building every day at that
point. And the the company that I was working with, the twenty six
shirts project on you and who Dan Giganti. He said, why don't you
come work alongside me and I'll give you fifty percent of the company and we'll
just we'll do it together. It was it was a small boutique T shirt
company. It was like a hobby for both of us, and it was
one of those things where it was one of those things where it was just
it was crazy enough where it might work. Sure. So my wife,
who is awesome, really believed in the idea, believed in me, and
really, you know, realized this is worth taking a shot on. Part
of my severance from Roswell was one year's health insurance for the families. Awesome,
the daughters. You got to be careful. So a way to worry
about was the whole money thing. But outside of that. But yeah,
So I came on in twenty fifteen and within six months we had to hire
somebody because the work was becoming overwhelming, which led into Josh, and a
year and a half later we had to hire somebody, and then a year
after that we had to hire somebody, and then it just kept getting shorter
and shorter between the needed hirings. Right, I think we're kind of right
sized at least right now. Who knows what the future holds. Do you
ever get fan bases from other teams reach out to you? How can we
do. Yeah, I had to think you did. Yeah. We actually
for a while we had a Chicago line like twenty six shirt Chicago, twenty
six shirts Pittsburgh, and twenty six shirts Cincinnati, and we kind of in
that reverse order, kind of folded them up. After a year, we
realized we were spread tooth thin, and we shut down Cincinnati when COVID started.
We shut down Pittsburgh because I didn't March twenty twenty yearly we're gonna be
in business. Twenty twenty turned out to be our best year, but people
were sitting at home online and the government was sending them free money. Yeah,
so oh advice some shirt? Yeah yeah, right, And then Chicago
we closed down in twenty twenty one, just because we realized as Buffalo was
growing exponentially, we couldn't be spending the way I always describe it as for
every unit of energy we put into Buffalo, we get ten back, right,
we were putting ten units into these other cities to get one back.
I think in the future we will expand into other markets again, but in
the meantime, we're going to just focus on Buffalo and grow Buffalo. There's
just so much good left to do. Here that yeah. You know,
so when you see things like the Bills Mafia and it gets its reputation and
you've known for over the years the wild shit that's gone on in the parking
lot and all that events, that that's not a representative I would love for
people to know that's a small portion of the fan base, don't you think.
Yeah, people think that they're gonna, you know, fly to Buffalo
and as they deep playing, they're going to see people in the you know,
on the tarmacicly jumping got to be driving. I mean, it's a
funny thing and you see some people do it, and you know, of
course we the guy from Rochester covers himself in the in the condiments every year,
printal Ron before the games and I'm sure you've met pintal Ron and all.
But these are these are fun, novelty things. But overall the fan
base pretty freaking cool and down to earth, welcoming to any fan base,
Like I think you could come in if you wanted to come over to the
Bill's Mafia House. By the way, how did this get christened the Bill's
Mafia House or you? I don't I don't know if it's just because well
it's got the name the Bill's Mafia house. And is it because he put
the logo on the back when he bought it, and everybody just said,
that's the Bills. That's Shane reached out to me in twenty thirteen, okay,
and he said, is it cool if I put your logo on my
house? Oh? And I'm like, okay, where you live? He's
like, oh, I live near the stadium. Like, all right,
sure, send me a picture when it's done. I'd love to see it.
So he does it, and it was back when our logo was the
actual like it was still like a bird with a slash and everything, and
so he took the time and he painted it on there and we're walking out.
I remember so fast forward now that same year, it's a preseason game.
I've my wife and our two you know now you know younger daughters.
Ten years ago. We're walking out of the preseason game. And when he
said near the house near the stadium, yeah, I didn't think he meant
like facing the stadium, walking out of the stadium, and there's a billboard
of Bill's Mafia. And I remember I said, you got the girls right?
Okay? Good? I like booked across the parking lot to get to
the house. I was like, this is amazing, Oh my gosh.
And then I changed our logo to a buffalo. Later that year, he
repainted the whole house. Yeah, made it. I felt bad. He's
like, like, I won't change the logo again in front. Yeah,
but then we did no no oh yeah, well indirectly yeah, directly,
yeah, but no, this one is still our classic logo. So it's
been great. And Shane has been just he's become a good friend. Yeah,
and he's been really cool. He says, anytime you have an interview,
you don't even have to ask, because a lot of times we'll do
stuff like national, like CBS or whatever, and they want to do it
here, okay, And he's like, anytime at all, just show up.
You don't even have to ask. So he's been awesome like that.
We did a photo shoot here a couple of summers ago, right after COVID.
We had a shirt said a great day for a tailgate because so long
as then we got the tailgate and we did a whole photo shoot and everything
here for that shirt, Like in the backyard, I want a hot tub
contest in his backyard. Wait, wait wait, this is a separate thing.
Wait wait wait wait, yeah, what's the hot tub contest? So?
Uh, what was it? Two years the year that we beat the
Patriots twenty twenty one, Molson Canadian had a contest where you send in like
a vintage style photo and you could win. What what is a vintage style
photo you know from the early nineties, all the guys sitting in the hot
Yeah. Yes, so they so they had a contest and I was like,
man, my buddy's like, we got to do this, well,
we could win. I was like, you know, we would be hilarious.
And it was like a good almost negative five. He's like, you
know, would be hilarious if we got a kiddie poll just filled it with
bubbles and sat in the back of somebody's truck with a bunch of beers in
our bathing suits and and you know, pretend we were you know, right
exactly, just do it. How old were you at the time? This
was two years ago. I was thirty six years old. So we got
a bunch of our friends together and uh, I text him and I was
like, can you give me Shane's number? I'd love to do it at
the Mafia house with the stadium in the background. Shane was super gracious.
He let us use his camper to warm up because like it was real cold
and the bubbles were freezing negative. Yeah, it was always real cold,
and uh yeah yeah we were we were dying. He's like, you can
go in the camper if you want. We were like, oh, thank
you. So yeah, and we ended up winning. So we got to
sit in a hot tub before the Patriots game and we met a bunch of
the former players, like John Foena was out there and they're like, you
guys are nuts. But they gave us a bunch of swag. They had
a uh like a merch tent and all kinds of good stuff. I got
like this gorgeous Bill's robe. Wow. Yeah. So but it was all
because I think it was. It was all because, like you could have
green screened it, but everybody's gonna know you green right, that's uh,
why don't we go do it at the Bill's MAFIAU. So yeah, it's
fantastic. It was good. That's fantastic. It was really smart to do
it well. I mean, we'll get a robot. So we used we
used kid in bath bubbles and a leaf blower and just made a whole bunch
of foam and just sat in full and there was like no water because it's
like it's too cold for water. That's hysterical. That's great. Yeah,
yeah, he seems like he's a very cool guy down the earth. And
then and boy, isn't it finding how things just are meant to be?
Yeah, you know what I mean. I mean, shere, as you
look at this, you go, well, you've done a lot of good
work. You've had people other fan bases donating. When Josh mentioned his grandmother
or something, didn't a bunch of money come in and that went to the
I think, to your charities. Yeah, it went well. It was
to the Oshi Children Hospital, which is his his children, yes, rep
And so now they have the Patricia Allen Fund named after his grandmother. I
could name, you know, but that kind of went through the Bill's mafia
or you got credit. Was the Bill's mafia that was doing it. Bill's
mafia being bills for everybody every time I see. I mean, I've done
a few over the years, but most of them I've not weren't my idea.
Try to, you know, give him a signal boost and share it
and I'm always excited when that's able to happen. But yeah, you talk
about destiny and sometimes like I look back and like it's because I fired off
a tweet in April twenty eleven. All this has happened, and you know,
I really believe it. I mean, I'm not I'm not manifesting this
stuff. It's part of who we are as a commun yes, and it's
going to happen either way. You know, I'm lucky enough to be the
guy part of it. Yeah, to he's sort of the conduit to it,
right, I mean, it's sort of the guy that made it happen.
And now twenty twenty three Fan of the Year and that's pretty big.
It's it's it's surreal. And my wife had I mean, my wife learned
about this, you know, effort that the NFL does every year with fans,
and she's like, we're doing it. Yeah. I was like,
I don't really feel comfortable like asking people to vote for me and stuff.
It's really weird. But she's like, I don't care, I'm gonna do
it. And she hit up anybody we talked to, or any player we
ever met, any like connection that we had, and she just said,
will you please share this? Will you please share this? And she I
mean, I think I tweeted it. Maybe I didn't understand this. You're
the twenty twenty three NFL Fan of the Year. No, no, no,
no, you're the Bills fans, the Bills version of Okay, now,
do you guys get to fight each other like in a royal rumble a
battle royal? Who is king? Fan? Well? I mentioned before I
was forty eight year old on Athletic. Yeah, but we still share.
But your mom said you've ran out of the tunnel or John Athletic. I
could take her there. No, but they actually have a vote going on
right now on NFL dot com where all the different fans who were nominated as
Fan of the Year. So we could vote for you to be fan NFL
Fan of the Year. So let's please do that. I think that that's
great. I know you're not asking. I'm gonna ask no, And you
can vote as many times as you want. I'll give him the extra plug.
You go to NFL dot contract built dot com and then you scroll down
just a little bit. There's a big subheading and says Fan of the Year.
You find his picture. You quick on it. They ask you to
put in your email address and you can vote. Like the other day at
work, I was like, wow, this is a company time. It
doesn't matter to me. Uh, you fire me for quoting co I fired
off ten in like five minutes. So you know, if you're sitting in
traffic or what, don't do it while you're in traffic. Don't. Yeah
you're a passenger, but you're up in the back yep, come exactly.
You know you can do that kind of thing. Well, it's been a
pleasure meeting you guys. I think I I think the stuff you do is
pretty uh admirable. I think that's not even capturing it accurately. But the
whole twenty six shirts thing, it's really cool to see how all that,
to hear the story behind it. I wasn't as familiar with that. Yeah.
No, we're really blessed to be able to do this. Yeah,
and you're very humble, if exhaustingly so. No, I know, but
you're not like I mean, some bills, some fans, sports guy guys,
sports guys. You're you know, this beating their chest and all.
You've done more than any sports fan. You wouldn't know it. You're very
humble. Well, listen, I like that. I like that it's a
nice quality. Well, thank you. This whole thing happened because I fired
off a tweet as a joke while I was waiting for a pizza. Pick
up a pizza. So like, everything has kind of fallen into my lap,
and I've tried to be a good steward of the attention that's come my
way. But I'd like to think that most people would do the same.
Whether they do or not, I don't know, but I have to think
most people. I think you're probably right. I think it's the ones that
we get that get the attention aren't always the best. You know what I'm
saying the loudest, they're there, and there are smaller percentage we ask it.
Is it hard tho when people are like tagging you and everything, Hey,
can you help this charity? Can you help that? You? Because
it's got to be exhausting after a while, because you want to help everybody.
No, it's not exhausting. I mean the exhausting part is talking to
these families that need to help. I mean, when we work with a
family and we're working, we do a new shirt every week. Now it's
not every two weeks every week. When you meet these families, you're meeting
them at the worst time of their lives, like my kid has cancer,
my my house burned down. You know, I'm you know, I just
lost my job, and in between jobs, I've been diagnosed with cancer and
I have no health insurance. I mean, these are all things that you
know, you learn about, and so it's tough not to carry that with
you. But at the same time, you can't shut off your heart to
these people you know you don't want. I've I caught myself a couple years
into it treating these campaigns almost like business transactions, like Okay, you need
help, we will sell your shirts and we will give you the money.
But because I subconsciously was kind of protecting myself, sure, it felt like
I had hurt. You know, it's just as right kids and that pass
away and stuff sometimes so but then I realized, I'm not allowed to celebrate
the kid that gets to ring the bell when they beat cancer if I'm not
going to also be there if they lose that bad. Did you come to
this conclusion on your own, like, I think it's very very Yeah,
I don't know valid. Yeah, No, that's a very valid thing.
It's a little deep. I'm saying. Some people go to therapy and figure
that out. That's funny. I could probably use therapy for other things like
that. That's pretty Yeah, I agree. And there's there's a human aspect
of it. And you can't be a robot when you're dealing with people who
are dealing with such emotional things. And it's easier to be a robot because
who wants to feed all this stuff? Who wants to carry that? And
even now, ten years later, I'll catch myself building that wall up again.
Sure, And I have to remind myself teartown because the whole mission.
If we lose sight of our mission, we lose. So what's the point
have you bought? Have you bought stock and Kleenex? Because I swear to
God, I would be crying at every one of these. I'm a very
I can I couldn't possibly be in a father myself, you know, and
be tough. It's tough. Yeah. And the first family we helped girl,
little girl named Amber, had a condition called retina blastomas. She was
the inspiration for twenty six shirts, which, like eye cancer, had one
eye removed. The other eye was getting chemotherapy applied directly to it. And
Scott, who had reached out to me a total stranger, now dear friend.
He told me, you know about the situations, got two daughters,
one of them, and immediately human nature is to put yourself in that position.
I have two daughters, you know, and you think about, like,
how blessed you are, how blessed we are to not have to be
dealing with that situation, and you know what, God forbid anything that ever
happens. I'm still blessed, you know, but you just you know,
from our position of strength or well offness, I don't know. We're sure
as humans we should always pull somebody up who's in a tough position, because
you know, tell me again, twenty six shirts. So each week a
new shirt, one or two to two new shirts come out. Yep,
okay, And even if I wanted to buy last week's shirt, I can
still go on, well there or no, they're limited runs. They're limited
runs, so this is important for people to kind of know. So there's
a limited run, but each different shirt goes to a different person the money
raised, right, or a portion of the money raised, So who is
it this week? There's we actually have two running right now. Okay,
run We launch a new one every week, but they overlap each other.
When does your week launch begin? Like, guys, sometimes some people woul
lunch, like on a Wednesday to a Wednesday Sunday night if the Bills win,
will sometimes we push it a little early just to kind of, yeah,
to drive that momentum, that momentum, right, yeah, sure,
you know, anything, any little extra we can do. But we've got
a couple of really good ones right now. Yeah. We have one.
It's called Mafia Football and it's a really cool vintage looking design, and that
one supports the family of Teresa and Novsky. And there she was the second
shirt in a row where the beneficiary we were supposed to help passed away just
before the campaign launched, and so we're still raising money. We're gonna support
her family. Sure, And the one Bills don't go away. Yeah,
no, they don't know. I think that's no, no, I understand.
And the Bill's Mafia doesn't go away. We don't go away. So
that that's a great double entendre there because you you can remember that, but
I mean that that's a that's a really important thing to say and to your
point just because the person right, Yes, a lot of these families that
lose a loved one, even with they have great insurance or whatever. Like,
every situation is going to require money, whether it's paying for a funeral
or paying for whatever the situation is. I mean, you know, we
want to help it. And then the other shirt we're offering right now,
we just launched today, is for a gentleman named Tom Albone and uh he
has U cancer which is fantastasized. Forgive me if I'm remembering incorrectly, there
is pancreas or his liver. I think my dad had that. I think
it's pancreas. I was gonna say, what a real pain in the ass,
but I now, yes, right both. But when it when it
spreads right, it goes outside of its origin. It's original airs automatically a
stage four Stage four exactly. Yeah. So, and so we just launched
his shirt campaign today. And actually, as the as the business has grown,
I feel like I'm taking up your who PODCASTO. No, You're fine.
As the business has grown, our supporters, their dresser drawers are filling
up, right, but they still want to support us, and so we're
trying more and more to offer as much as possible. So the design we
launched today. You can buy it on two different color shirts, two different
color pillows, and we also have a mug. So we're offering more and
more stuff love it to support these fans love it. Yeah, that's great.
So go to twenty six shirts dot com and you can see all you
can see it there and buy it there and buy everything else there, and
then go watch the newscast that you do and the weather cast, the weathercast,
all of it. We're starting our own podcast pretty soon. All right,
we're getting I like this. We're getting there. Look out, cover
one it. I like it for your bab I like it, Josh,
All right, Josh, I like it. Well, I've been studying.
I'm just watching you right now. Yeah, I don't know what I'm doing.
But it's fine. You're doing a good job. Baking it till you
make it. That's the way I do it. That's our model too.
How I did it mean to? You know what? Only I don't have
carpal tunnel and had to have surgery. Well, they work too much.
I didn't know what I was doing so much that it hurt me. Well,
guys, it was a pleasure meding. I don't want to hold you
guys up anymore. I'm sure there's a bunch of people that want to talk
to you and see you. But it was really nice and I like that
twenty six Sure it's hat. Yeah, this is a one off. You
can't get this well good. It's a custom order. That's good. Going
to fight you for it afterwards, all right, all right, get the
pool queue out, we'll break the hat. We'll go to it. All
right, Thanks guys, We're going to take a moment and we'll be back
from the Bill's Mafia house. It is bilified on the road. But first,
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never fell, Never thought, I say what ye Buffalo's own Google dolls?
Danny, does your band play this? No, I'd like to play
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it's silver trick my hometown. Did they really Their manager, Armin Petrie,
whose parents owned Petrie Cookies for the longest time, was their manager, and
they spent a lot of time. He used to come to my uncle's restaurant
all the time. Really, Oh yeah, did you ever I met him?
Yeah? No, But did you ever ask him for tips or anying?
I mean, like you never come out and go, hey, man,
I played guitar too. I play I'm hey, you know, I
uh, I mean, I'm not I'm not much rainying, but I could
play mean guitar. No, I never know that it's been too bad.
She jumped on the bandwagon a little bit. Yeah, I should have,
you know, I could have could have done a bunch of of uh.
Tonight, the Buffalo Bills. We are at the Bill's Mafia House. I'm
very excited thanks to our friend Vince Press from Clark Peshkin, which, by
the way, on the screen earlier I wrote Pushkin and I didn't catch it.
I fat fingered the typing on the iPad. When I'll wait a second
or hang on, Vince, is it sorry? I thought I edited that
and saw it and said it looks good. Fat fingered it. I think
I did. Either that or we both just wet like in a blur of
trying to get the things done. It's been a lot of fun here man
meeting Dell who is the twenty twenty three Fan of the Year, meaning Shane
who owns the house, and just walking around. Thanks so much for inviting
us, Thank you for coming. It's been up blindly and it's beautif you
guys haven't been outside too much, but it's it's a gorgeous night, is
it it? It was a little windy earlier. You hearing the winds picking
up in the stadium. The flags are flying. It's nice out there.
Sunset okay, perfect, perfect lighting. It's going to be fun, all
right now. I hesitate to ask you what the keys of the game are
because most people will listen to this after the results of this game are in.
That's it's one of the brought to you by covers, and it's one
of the problems with with the thing. But let's look at it this way.
This looks like it may be on paper. I don't like that term,
but on paper maybe the easiest game they have for the next several weeks.
Would that be fair to say? Because what again? Game the most
winnable game. I don't want to say easy, because nothing in the end.
You do have the Jets next week, but the Jets have always given
the Bills problems. See week one. Yeah, yeah, you go.
So you got the Jets, and then then you go to Philadelphia. You
got two four twenty five games. Then you get a week off to prepare
for Kansas City another four to twenty five game. Yeah. Then you got
to Dallas at home for twenty five. Yeah. Then you go on Christmas
I'm sorry, the Saturday before Christmas Eve, and you play the Chargers in
La at today o'clock Saturday night game. Then you got the Patriots at home
at one o'clock, and you finish the season at a time to be determined
in Miami that could be a Sunday night or Okay, so you gotta win
tonight, yeah, period, all right, gotta win tonight. Vince got
to we could do the thing where we look back on the game and say
what we thought, well, should we do? Should we do? Like
two versions of it? Hear it now, and then we'll edit and whatever
happens in the game. That's the podcast we post Actually was going to post
it before we get into the sadium. Oh that's because we got to drive
home after this. And you know, well that actually goes with what I
was gonna say, which is, if we're aggressive tonight and we go for
fourth and one or two, yeah, and we don't settle for field goals,
Yeah, then we'll be all right. Yeah I will. I will
boo so loud next to Billy. No, if they don't go for it,
Oh, Vic Derby bomb. Yeah that you bumb you bomb. Now
your your buddy is a huge fan and he won't say anything on the on
the microphone, Troy is why didn't want to embarrass him? If he didn't,
but now he's now I'm gonna put him on camera. There's Troy Well,
he's like the mayor of East Arora beside Steve Tasker. Well, is
that where you live? Troy? Yes? I do. And no it's
Steve Tasker, not me. But you live in East Ah Okay? Why
did I think he was a Rochester guy? No? And are still pilot?
No? I was a Oh you were air traffic control. Yeah that
seems even more stressful. I didn't stressful, but most people say it is.
Yeah, you didn't find it stressful? No, It's no, I
did not. You never had those pushing ten moments where like you had to
like rewire, like reroute eight planes at once. Yes, quite a bit.
Yeah, it's funny because I know all the players involved in that.
Why don't know the actors? Could I know the people that the actors portrayed?
And I could probably tell you some stories, but probably not late for
that now. But yes, did you? Uh? Do you miss it?
Why did you leave? You have to retire at a certain age,
you do, and wanted to come home. We had a daughter late in
life, were and decided to have her be from somewhere to follow me around.
Where were you so you bounced around as an air trafficking I didn't know
they bounced. You don't have to, You don't have to, but I
did. I started in Cleveland, went to Boston, went down to the
Washington, d c. Area, got involved in some military's off in different
things. Yeah, and ended up doing the Seattle well at the Vancouver Olympics
outside of Seattle, and what was So you were in charge of what with
the Vancouver coming up with the traffic management plan so they could deal with the
traffic, the plane, the air traffic, air traffic and security and security
they were worried about. You know what year was that. That was twenty
ten, twenty ten, so we're posting to eleven. We're all that.
So there was a lot, but that sounds and you were in charge of
all that. Yes, it was one of the people that was in charge
of Did you live in Vancouver at the time, No, we but I
was out well i'll put it do this, but I was out there so
much that when I would come back to Virginia and they were bringing my wife
and daughter were bringing me back to the airport. Like I said, we
have a daughter late in life. She was about three at the time.
For she said, are we bringing daddy home to the airport? Like,
yeah, it was. That didn't sit well with you. We missed it
as a family. So we ended up moving out there. Yeah, and
my daughter heard a great life growing up out there. And then oh really,
so where where did you grow Where was that? Seattle? Right downtown
downtown Seattle. We went from a home and a home in Virginia and you
know a house normal you think, to living in a condo top floor with
three about two hundred and eighty degree views of the mountains, Sound. It
was totally totally different, living totally How many years did you live in Seattle.
We're there five five years now. My uncle was a pilot for Delta
and he lived in Bainbridge Island when I was a kid. I was about
fifteen and we went out to see him there. That's pretty nice. Yeah,
we used to take the ferry there. From we live right in downtown
Seattle, we take the ferry out to Bambridge. It's a beautiful in the
summer. I'd only been there in the summer, but I winter more mild
and wet, more mild than wet. We get more rain in DC.
We get more rain here than they do out there, but it rains more
often. It's more overcast. Yeah, that makes sense. But right around
the fourth of July they always say fourth July is horrible and then the weather
is great until sometime in mid October to early November. That's their dry season.
And but yeah, your you are correct. So you did five years
there and then came back to she went great to Gray. Really that's well,
I mean you're talking about right there, you're on the coast and here
you're on the Great Lakes. It's kind of the same. It's Yeah.
And when we first moved back, and actually right before we moved back,
there's a place in Buffalo called the Ocean, and we went there and the
lady Tanning Bayer was from Seattle. I met so many in the military Buffalo.
She was here and we talked about my wife and her and I talked
about how similar the places were. It'll be much bigger, Yeah, and
it is very simler. You get the clouds to come over the lake,
same thing. Yeah. Do you miss Seattle and all of you miss?
You do? Yeah? What was what was the thing to bring you back?
Family? Family? Just being here, everybody we know is here,
just just you know, Western New York, Rochester, all that pulls you
back. Yeah, it just does pull you back. Well, I can
understand that. I mean I certainly having you know, family that's out there,
but stayed there. You just don't see everybody as much. And there
is something about having that family base you seat as you get older, you
don't appreciate it. When you're young, you just want to get out and
explore and be and live and do. But as you get older, you
start to see the value in family and stuff. And but how great for
your daughter though, to have kind of a East coast West coast. Yeah,
she's with the home college, so she's a sixteen and she's looking at
college. She really likes here, but she keeps springing up Seattle University,
which is downtown Seattle, and University of Washington because she has great memories.
Yeah, it's a beautiful place. Yeah, it's a beautiful place. Yeah,
and you can't really, I mean, what would you say? Just
where you want and go where you want. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
we'll make it work. We'll probably follow her around for a little bit,
sure, and then stop being helicopter and let her go. Stop being an
helicopter. It is funny, like the only child. Yeah, long last
Yeah do you think that like that'll? Do you think of yourself as a
helicopter? Yes, you do. I really it's a different world now because
there's so much different from when you and I grew up, with so much
exposure that you can be having we could be having a conversation, and I
could be having a separate conversation with someone who's physically not here same as you
in real time, you know, So the same thing with your kids.
You don't know who they're talking to. You don't know all this stuff,
and so you try to kind of protect because you don't know what else to
do. And when it's your only kid and it's a girl, it gonna
be a little more protective. And I'll throw these A new term I've heard
is a snowplow, and that's what you now want to be as a snowplow
parent. I just push right through and everything's about their kids. They're just
right through, teachers, everything. Yeah, I think I was. I
was more the was more like the let's see what happened, fucking figure it
out. The feral parents, well, I don't know about that. Like
I certainly was involved in things, but I would always say, like,
you know, when it came to bullying stuff, I'd rather and I didn't
know. It may not have been the right thing to do, but my
gut instinct would be rules of the playground, right, Let the rules of
the playground work out here and the kids will figure it out. And why
do we need to get involved and be pushing our weight around? And this
kid needs to apologize to this kid, and I go, that's it.
And it's funny because I watched twice now on Netflix, and I never do
this, and I'm more of a guy who would watch a documentary over something
that's fictional or made up. I've now watched twice Old Dads on Netflix with
Bill Burr. Have you seen this, I've had a chance. Yeah,
you gotta see. It's hysterical because it's really about like, you know,
he is a kid late in life, kid's five, he's fifty one,
and you know, the kid falls down and as ad buddy rubs some dirt
it and don't worry about it. And the kid rubs a little dirt in
it, and somebody goes, you should really have that cleaned and put some
sporn on it. And he stands up and he goes, you a medical
doctor. I go. He goes, listen, I'm trying to raise a
man here, not a pussy. It's just so different, and I go,
I'm of that. I never wanted to see my kids get hurt and
stuff. But at the same time, you know, it's the rules of
the playground. You let him kind of do the rules of the playground.
And that's it. They have a name for you now too, what that's
called free range? You're a free range? Okay, no antibiota. It
was a free range parent. Other parents just said I was an asshole.
Like my favorite thing ever was I still get shipped about a little bit here
and there was They had an incident at Park Road Elementary School where my kids
went. There was somebody who got loose in the neighborhood and he came flying
through. Do you remember this. I think we were on the break room
and they had it was somebody came up from New York City picked up a
guy and his daughter, thinking they were for a drug deal gone bad.
They were picking them up. I don't who knows what they were doing.
They were they had the wrong people. They dropped them off. Well,
meanwhile, a police chase ensues. So now they're coming four ninety headed east.
These guys get off at Bushnell's Basin, come flying up at like one
hundred miles an hour through East Street. And I happened to be coming home
around one o'clock to do in morning radio. And you're watching all this chaos
go on, and the guy's abandoned a car. One walked into a lady's
house. This is like quaint little Pittsford. They had raised their family.
Their house was adjacent to the school grounds and all she's literally baking a pie.
She's baking a pie and she goes to take it out. Guy comes
busting through the back door. Was open the back door and he goes,
hey, can you call me a cab? And the lady freaked out like
they sold their house after that, But all this stuff goes on. One
guy goes in because the gym teacher was a warm day in either May or
June, and he had propped the gym door open because to keep there was
no air conditioning in the school. So some guy walks in and he asked
to the gym teacher, can you can you call me a cap This is
probably a little before uber to twenty ten maybe, And so now the all
the I mean the sniper team shows up. They're climbing up in trees.
They're pointing the guns at the windows in case they don't know what's gonna happen.
But there's a so this they eventually get the guy. My kid is
in second grade who's now twenty one. That teacher closed the blind so they
wouldn't see the guys up, got them all on the floor, turned off
the lights, read to the kids. I see her after she's crying when
I went to get pizza that night, but all the parents meanwhile, are
gonna run up to the school. And my wife's going, we gotta go,
and I go, fuck I am. She goes, what are you
talking about? I go, they're the pros. I go, you're a
cholesterol. Here're gonna get in the fucking way. These guys know what they're
doing. They got guns, they got something. What are you gonna do?
Don't don't. I mean, what what are you gonna do? What
the fuck are you gonna do? But getting the way? I know,
it's always it. That was my whole like, and I just stood.
I wouldn't go. I refuse, and I stood in our sun room and
I watched all these parents marching up to I go, this is fucking insane.
There's not a goddamn thing you can do except get in the way,
right, get in the way. And obviously everything worked out fine. I
don't know what happened with the guy. They arrested them, but I go,
why are we doing this? Let the pros be the pros. Let
them handle their shit. Then when the kid comes home, let's not make
a big deal about it, right, No big deal. Everybody survived,
that's it. If that's free range parenting, that's me. It's story multiple
I know it's fantastic, but it's just one of those things, Vinnie,
that they can stick to it because I got so much shit for that.
I got a ton You wouldn't even go up to the school like other people
saying it's me and I'm going, yeah, I wouldn't. I wouldn't other
if other dads have said to me, I would have been right there,
I go for what what are you gonna do? You think you're superman?
You're running in there. Bullets won't bounce off you, asshole, Just stand
back. I wouldn't call that free range. I would call that smart.
Well, it's what I say. But you know that's people didn't like it.
That's all. People didn't like it. We're gonna wrap it up.
Thank you very very much for having us. Yeah, thank you. This
was an absolute blast. I'm glad you guys decided to do it and it
worked out to the party and it was it was fantastic. Well, it
was fun to meet like Shane and hear the story of the house in Dell
right, Dell's full story, and that that was that was fantastic. So
I I really appreciate you inviting us up and I can't wait to see the
game though. Yeah. Go Bills, Yeah, go Bills. That's what
we uh, that's what we're We just learned about Vine's defunct food column and
TV career. Yeah, which which, by the way, we need to
bring back. I will, I will throw this out there to you.
If you want to do food reviews, I'm open to having you on like
once a month. You know. I know it's funny. I used to
pitch to radio and say, hey, everybody wants to know where to get
the best ship and everybody I knew in radio, probably including you over now,
the most calls a radio station guests are a podcast is when somebody says,
where do I get the best chicken French in Rochester? The phones blow
up on French brown is now, Well, I'll throw it out there.
You are welcome to come in any time you want, and we can make
it a regular thing. We can make it a regular thing, and then
uh, maybe we get the column going and we do you know, we
do right on the web page to be fantastic, fitty, let's do it.
We get you going, it'll be awesome, all right for Vince Press
for Troy the former air traffic controller. Do you ever, just once in
a while. Now I know you're up in a tower, but just for
fun, do you pull some lightsabers and do this ship? I know,
but that's amazing. How all right? For Dan Burrillo, I'm Bill Moran.
Go Bills. We'll see you tomorrow. Go Bills. See hey,
we're looking borrow cattle with Tanna. See Califonia, baby, Things have gotten worse.