Speaker 1: From Workhouse Connect and aj Benza fame. Uh, he'd liked
Speaker 1: to be walked on a leash and play really dirty,
Speaker 1: kinky sex games. Is uh the guy put the cock
Speaker 1: in the peacock network. Okay, bitch, Hey, everybody aj Benzi
Speaker 1: here with fame is a bitch. This is your daily
Speaker 1: Unfiltered podcast for November twentieth, twenty twenty four one one
Speaker 1: two oh two oh two four or one one twenty
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four. Let's think about bab blah blah blah
Speaker 1: as we do the show. Well, I wish Barbara Walters
Speaker 1: just could come back to their view and get rid
Speaker 1: of some people who don't belong there, basically all of them.
Speaker 1: What a shit show that program is. I can't believe it, folks.
Speaker 1: If you oh God, It's not like Dan Bongino. I
Speaker 1: can't stay look at Bongino is definitely qualified to do
Speaker 1: what he does. You know, I never really liked him
Speaker 1: on air. I thought he was on Fox News to
Speaker 1: basically attack Heraldo Rivera. That's what Sean Hannity had him for,
Speaker 1: and he was his attack dog. You know, I'm not
Speaker 1: saying Heraldo didn't deserve it, but there's something about Dan Bongino.
Speaker 1: I get that he's unpolished. I respect his work in
Speaker 1: the Secret Service at his military background, but I just
Speaker 1: don't like him on his podcast. I just don't. I
Speaker 1: know he knows a lot because he knows the lay
Speaker 1: of the land with respect to the White House and
Speaker 1: Secret Service and presidents, but I don't know. There's something
Speaker 1: about him I find and I should talk because I'm
Speaker 1: the most unpolished person in the world with a podcast,
Speaker 1: and I wish I had his audience. But I don't
Speaker 1: think he's that good at what he does. And I
Speaker 1: just can't stand how many times he says folks, I
Speaker 1: don't know. Not trying to shoot him down. The guy
Speaker 1: does find jo and he's on our team. But yeah,
Speaker 1: not a big fan. Not a big fan. Uh, listen,
Speaker 1: you gotta listen to everything as a bitch. It's probably
Speaker 1: gonna be up today. We finished it yesterday, Mike and myself.
Speaker 1: It was so funny, as a lot of shows do
Speaker 1: that him and I do together. It devolves into high
Speaker 1: school and some of the crazy stuff that happened in
Speaker 1: high school. And there are some stories that I just
Speaker 1: I've covered a lot of them on my own show,
Speaker 1: but sometimes Mike evokes in memory out of me that
Speaker 1: I didn't have in my chest of I'm looking at
Speaker 1: I'm looking at AOC on TV to my right. I
Speaker 1: remember I said before the election that she's pregnant and
Speaker 1: she would announce after Trump wins. But she hasn't announced yet,
Speaker 1: so I guess I was wrong. I don't know. I
Speaker 1: just felt like she was pregnant. I'm wrong. It happens,
Speaker 1: happens once in a while, not a big deal. There's
Speaker 1: something I wanted to address about the podcast Obsessed. Oh.
Speaker 1: I understand some of you, and if you're listening to this,
Speaker 1: then the problem isn't happening to you. But some of
Speaker 1: you have had issues with the podcast not showing up
Speaker 1: on the third party app overcast. One of you said
Speaker 1: it didn't show up on Apple. Well, my Patreon shows
Speaker 1: don't go to Apple. Only my free shows go to Apple,
Speaker 1: which I'm going to start doing again now that I'm
Speaker 1: in my apartment and everything is behind me, and I can,
Speaker 1: you know, finally rest easy and do my shows each week,
Speaker 1: which are ten shows a week. But if you had
Speaker 1: problems with that, Mike Agavino said he's going to post
Speaker 1: how post instructions on how you may be able to
Speaker 1: get around that if it keeps happening. But happen to
Speaker 1: me too. I listened to my show either through Patreon
Speaker 1: or through overcast, and I didn't get Monday and Tuesday's
Speaker 1: show either, so but they appeared on Patreon. So those
Speaker 1: of you having an issue, why don't you listen on Patreon.
Speaker 1: I don't get it, but Mike is going to address it.
Speaker 1: It's not a problem on our end, it's a problem
Speaker 1: out there. I don't know what, but I'll keep you posted.
Speaker 1: I'll put something on the podcast of says Page. I'll
Speaker 1: maybe do a live Facebook on it. But I can't
Speaker 1: help those people who don't do Facebook and aren't on
Speaker 1: the podcast of sess Page, and they just have to
Speaker 1: figure it out, you know. I don't know what else
Speaker 1: to say. I read an interesting article and it got
Speaker 1: me thinking about the old days. Chaer has a book
Speaker 1: coming out, her memoirs, and obviously a lot of it's
Speaker 1: about Sonny Bono. It's amazing I haven't said his last
Speaker 1: name in so long that when I see the word
Speaker 1: I always say Bono. It's Sonny Bono. Sonny Bono used
Speaker 1: a lie to share and say he was a direct
Speaker 1: descended from Napoleon Bonaparte that it was hard to fathohim
Speaker 1: because Sonny Bono was Sicilian and Napoleon was Corsican. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess people move around, but I kind of get
Speaker 1: the feeling that was Sonny's little extra added ingredient about
Speaker 1: himself to impress the girls. Maybe, but Shared tells some
Speaker 1: great stories. Look, I can't stand in her politics either,
Speaker 1: but there's no disagreeing that this woman led a fascinating life.
Speaker 1: And if she tells the complete truth in her memoirs,
Speaker 1: it would be a hell of a read, I believe,
Speaker 1: if I'm not mistaken, Am I wrong about this? Why
Speaker 1: do I think that she lost her virginity to Warren Baty?
Speaker 1: I could swear that, well, Maarren wouldn't say that, but
Speaker 1: I think I read that one time. I mean Shared
Speaker 1: had some fun, But I mean when she met Sonny
Speaker 1: she was sixteen and she lied and said she was
Speaker 1: you know, seventeen is if that's even better? But I
Speaker 1: guess back in the sixties it didn't really matter much.
Speaker 1: But she did date Warren Beatty when she was Warren Batty.
Speaker 1: I had to say Beatty Batty. She dated Warren at
Speaker 1: sixteen years old, and she says she lost her virginity
Speaker 1: to Warren Batty. Wow, unbelievable. And then she met Sonny.
Speaker 1: Imagine you mean, imagine your sunny bono and you meet
Speaker 1: a sixteen year old girl and you find out what
Speaker 1: she's gross to begin with, but you find out that
Speaker 1: she already lost a virginity to a superstar, you know,
Speaker 1: who's not a tiny short Sicilian with a crazy bowl cut,
Speaker 1: but he's a movie star. Anyhow. The excerpts from this
Speaker 1: book are fascinating, the very interesting, the fact that Sonny
Speaker 1: was just this very kind of controlling person, but he
Speaker 1: knew what he wanted, he knew what he had to do.
Speaker 1: He'd already written songs that was sung by other groups,
Speaker 1: so when he met Share, he was beginning to become
Speaker 1: a somebody. But she writes in the book that when
Speaker 1: he first shut up at this table at some nightclub,
Speaker 1: he was interested in Cher's friend, who happened to be
Speaker 1: a lesbian. But Sonny didn't know that, and he didn't
Speaker 1: really have interest in Share. But Chaer was living with
Speaker 1: that girl in a platonic way, and at some point
Speaker 1: the girl said, look, you're gonna have to get your
Speaker 1: own place, so she didn't know what to do. She
Speaker 1: saw Sonny move into a building next door to her,
Speaker 1: and she approached him and said, I have no place
Speaker 1: to go, and he said, you could stay with me Share.
Speaker 1: Don't worry. I have twin beds and I'm not that
Speaker 1: attracted to you, which was probably a lie. But eventually
Speaker 1: she came to him crying one night, nervous about whatever,
Speaker 1: and he said, you can sleep next to me in
Speaker 1: the bed, but let's behave ourselves. So she's telling the
Speaker 1: truth about how Sonny was, but in this book she
Speaker 1: also says how he took God this. He set up
Speaker 1: a company call that Think Share Enterprises and from that entity,
Speaker 1: Sonny Bono took ninety five percent and the other five
Speaker 1: percent went to his attorney Share God Netting. Wow. I Uh,
Speaker 1: my cousin Vinnie, my uncle, Vinnie was very close to
Speaker 1: Sonny and his ex wife Mary. I told you about
Speaker 1: me going to Mary's restaurant. She had a place in
Speaker 1: Long Beach, California. She got involved in politics, and one
Speaker 1: night we all went down to eat there. You know,
Speaker 1: Vinnie was very close to Sonny and Share. In fact,
Speaker 1: when I stayed at Vinie's house when I first moved
Speaker 1: to La he had this big white not a light bulb,
Speaker 1: but the thing in the lamp that goes above you
Speaker 1: and the light bulb hangs instead. I mean it's a
Speaker 1: lighting fixture. But the fixture was a big white, at
Speaker 1: least three bowling balls big, and it had Sonny and
Speaker 1: SHARE's face on. It was a light from their Variety show.
Speaker 1: And Vinnie had that, which I thought was always so cool.
Speaker 1: But we went down to Long Beach to have dinner
Speaker 1: with a couple of friends of ours, and Mary Bono
Speaker 1: sat with us, and I didn't pick up on this,
Speaker 1: but apparently she had a little bit of a thing
Speaker 1: for me. I had no clue. So we're eating dinner.
Speaker 1: She's bringing out fantastic food and all this is on
Speaker 1: the arm. It's free, guys, please eat please. She sat
Speaker 1: down with us, she's eating. I mentioned I love to
Speaker 1: cook myself. Oh, you got to see the kitchen, I said,
Speaker 1: I'd love to see the kitchen. Oh, I go see
Speaker 1: the kitchen and Mary and I go in the kitchen
Speaker 1: and Mary and now the staff is gone because it's
Speaker 1: late and they're done cook. She throws me up against
Speaker 1: the wall. And starts sticking her tongue down my throat
Speaker 1: and she's begging me to touch her and squeeze. I
Speaker 1: swear to God. And you know, it wasn't like a
Speaker 1: woman that I I didn't want to be with her.
Speaker 1: I didn't flirt with her. Just she was considerably old me.
Speaker 1: I don't know. She just wanted to feel something. It's
Speaker 1: and I felt horrible to be like, no, no, oh no,
Speaker 1: come on, they gonna I have to make believe now
Speaker 1: Uncle Vinnie's gonna catch me, and this is embarrassing. He
Speaker 1: gotta come on another time. And then as I was leaving,
Speaker 1: she was like, oh, I'm so sorry, Please please don't
Speaker 1: hold that against me. I don't know what came over me.
Speaker 1: Maybe it was the wine. I said, yeah, it's okay,
Speaker 1: don't worry. I'll never say a word. I was back
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety seven, so I've said a word now.
Speaker 1: But it happened again years later when I went to
Speaker 1: I don't know why I'm telling the story like I'm
Speaker 1: some big shot now. I'm just saying that sometimes these
Speaker 1: things happen, and it's a weird feeling. I went to
Speaker 1: the Sunset, the Sunset Bar, Sunset Marquee, which was the whiskey,
Speaker 1: very famous bar that's inside at the bottom level of
Speaker 1: the sunset Marquee in Beverly Hills, beautiful place, grate pool.
Speaker 1: A lot of people go there, a little little fucking
Speaker 1: time barr at the bottom of this is where I
Speaker 1: met Billy, Bob and Angelina, Joelee and a lot of
Speaker 1: people slash. I mean everybody goes there. Back in the day,
Speaker 1: it was packed. So I'm there one night and do
Speaker 1: you know the do you know the Oh God, I
Speaker 1: hate you know. Maybe I shouldn't tell the story. I
Speaker 1: feel bad. An actress, an actress came at me and
Speaker 1: did the same thing, like just pushed me against the
Speaker 1: wall in on the way to the restroom. And uh,
Speaker 1: Patty Darbinville, who I love Patty, And we all know Patty.
Speaker 1: She was a New Yorker. She she's gotten a lot
Speaker 1: of work over the years. You know, dated Don Johnson.
Speaker 1: Oh it's all, But when she did that to me,
Speaker 1: I didn't want to be with Patty. I didn't know
Speaker 1: what to do. And again, oh no, Patty, and people
Speaker 1: are gonna catch us. It's embarrassing. Don't worry. I don't know.
Speaker 1: People have needs. People have needs. And I talked about
Speaker 1: a story like that with Mike today on Everything as
Speaker 1: a Bitch, where I mentioned this story and I love
Speaker 1: telling these stories to Mike because Mike didn't have this life.
Speaker 1: And as a matter of fact, you know, Mike is
Speaker 1: much more pragmatic and reasonable and more intelligent than I
Speaker 1: am in a lot of ways. I lived my life
Speaker 1: to have fun. Mike lived his life to build a
Speaker 1: better life and a good life, and he's stacked, you know,
Speaker 1: good karma on top of good karma. I wasn't doing that.
Speaker 1: And I made mention of that on the Relationships as
Speaker 1: a Bitch show, and you'll hear that as well, which
Speaker 1: I talked to him in arena and said, you know,
Speaker 1: I did bad things. I said, I still feel like
Speaker 1: I'm paying back with Mike karma. Some of the things
Speaker 1: I did, I said. I was with the woman one
Speaker 1: time who was married, and I was doing I was
Speaker 1: doing some advertising a TV show like a free weekend
Speaker 1: of Showtime and the movie Channel, remember TMC, and I
Speaker 1: was the guy who delivered scripts and I was looked
Speaker 1: at the camera and talk about why you should get Showtime.
Speaker 1: And I would review a couple of movies that are
Speaker 1: going to be on Showtime and Movie Channel that week,
Speaker 1: and it was all to sell those particular cable companies
Speaker 1: and for people to subscribe. So I sat in this
Speaker 1: makeshift desk with a typewriter in a bookshelf, and they
Speaker 1: made it look like I was in my office, so
Speaker 1: to speak, and I would deliver these lines that I wrote,
Speaker 1: and I'd review the movies that are going to be
Speaker 1: on Showtime and Movie Channel. The whole time, there was
Speaker 1: a woman across from me. Oh, a woman, you know.
Speaker 1: She's probably in her thirties, so was I, and very pretty.
Speaker 1: But she was behind the glass. She was a director,
Speaker 1: and she stayed in the booth and I didn't really
Speaker 1: she was behind the glass, but I could tell she
Speaker 1: was very pretty, and I could tell from the glass
Speaker 1: that I could see her upper body, and I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: that's a pretty girl there. I was single, and the
Speaker 1: shoots over. I had one more day the next day
Speaker 1: to do the Movie Channel stuff and okay, that's a wrap.
Speaker 1: And this girl came out and gave me a hug
Speaker 1: as much as normal. You say goodbye to the crew
Speaker 1: that helped you work. Okay, guys, thanks so much. That's
Speaker 1: a wrap. And then uh, okay, thanks so much. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like a ten thousand dollars off of two days work.
Speaker 1: It was easy, peasy. I go back to the office.
Speaker 1: A week later, I got a phone call. It's the
Speaker 1: director a j Hi, it's Chris. Listen, I have the
Speaker 1: tapes of all the stuff you did, if you want them.
Speaker 1: I said, yeah, I like them. I don't know where
Speaker 1: they are now, but because I could mail them or
Speaker 1: I could meet you and hand them to you. And
Speaker 1: she was pretty so I said, we'll just meet. I said, well,
Speaker 1: I'll take you to dinner. You know, you did a
Speaker 1: nice thing. You gave me a great a great easy gig.
Speaker 1: Let me spend somebody. But then to my friend's restaurant.
Speaker 1: We'll go down to Boom and soho oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I's Friday. Okay. So I meet her there
Speaker 1: at the restaurant. First thing she says to me when
Speaker 1: we meet, I've never done this before. So what do
Speaker 1: you mean I've never I've never been with the man
Speaker 1: I'm married. I did not know that's where she was headed.
Speaker 1: I not gonna lie. I thought that, hey, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe who knows, there could be some fun here. But
Speaker 1: she just said, I've never done this. I said, Oh,
Speaker 1: don't worry, don't worry. We don't have to do No,
Speaker 1: I want to. Oh, okay, you want to? And I
Speaker 1: said on the relationship show, because we were talking about
Speaker 1: people getting divorced or not being happy and how marriages
Speaker 1: or relationships have trouble and I, you know, sex is
Speaker 1: a big part of it. And this girl said to me,
Speaker 1: and it was not easy for her to say this.
Speaker 1: She said, you know what, I have a great husband.
Speaker 1: He is a wonderful guy. He's a good father. We
Speaker 1: have two kids, both under seven, and he's just a
Speaker 1: wonderful guy. But I don't feel wanted by him. I
Speaker 1: don't feel hungered by him. I'm hearing this going, oh
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ. And I just, you know, oh God, don't
Speaker 1: think badly of me. I said, I don't stop. I
Speaker 1: totally get it. Just don't worry about it. And she's
Speaker 1: basically telling me she wants to go back and you know,
Speaker 1: culminate this situation. And we did.
Speaker 2: And basically, and I hated to hear this. This girl
Speaker 2: wanted to be treated a different way. She didn't want
Speaker 2: to be treated like something fragile in a box.
Speaker 1: That's taped together. She wanted to feel like free and
Speaker 1: maybe hear some things in her ear that she never heard.
Speaker 1: And I did that for her. Okay, that ends. She
Speaker 1: was very happy. Please don't think ill of me. Stop
Speaker 1: saying that I don't look life is complicated, it's long.
Speaker 1: I'm glad I was there to help you. That's the
Speaker 1: way I thought back that I was providing a service,
Speaker 1: which is so stupid. I should have said I'm not. No,
Speaker 1: you're married, your husband's a good guy. I don't I
Speaker 1: don't want to get involved. But no, me, mister shortcut said,
Speaker 1: oh boy, this is an easy one. And then about
Speaker 1: two months later, her husband died. He was walking through
Speaker 1: the train cars to go back up to Westchester County
Speaker 1: and this, you know, you walk through the cars on
Speaker 1: a t and for a second or so you're in
Speaker 1: between cars, and you could fall off the train if
Speaker 1: you're being sloppy or drunk or whatever. He was neither,
Speaker 1: but he slipped, and he fell off the train and died.
Speaker 1: And I carried this guilt around, not because it was
Speaker 1: my fault, but I thought, oh my god, this fucking
Speaker 1: guy has a nice wife, two kids. I what did
Speaker 1: I do? So whatever my life is like issues and problems.
Speaker 1: I always think back to the shit I did wrong
Speaker 1: that other men didn't know I did, and it makes
Speaker 1: me feel real shitty, it really does. Of him being honest.
Speaker 1: But anyhow, we're talking about sunny and show. Oh I
Speaker 1: know what about to say? I wanted to say that
Speaker 1: back then. You know, we'd all watch around the TV
Speaker 1: all these variety shows, right, everybody had one Glenn Campbell
Speaker 1: Good Time Hour. Oh my god. It's knowing that your
Speaker 1: door was always open and you're a path is free
Speaker 1: to all that makes me tenderly, my sleeping bag rolled
Speaker 1: up and stashed behind your couch. I love that first
Speaker 1: Stanza because it didn't rhyme, and I thought, what balls on?
Speaker 1: Glenn Campbell not even rhyming? Good for him. And it's
Speaker 1: knowing I'm not shackled by forgotten words and bombs and
Speaker 1: the he stands all dried upon some line that keeps
Speaker 1: you in the back road by the rivers of my
Speaker 1: memory and keeps you evgen alone my mind. Can I
Speaker 1: be honest with you? I remember, I remember hearing that
Speaker 1: and knowing those words that keeps you in the back
Speaker 1: roads by the rivers of my memory. I remember thinking, I, I,
Speaker 1: how do you write that? How do you how do
Speaker 1: you find those words to write that? And then you
Speaker 1: know I did. But isn't that something? As a kid,
Speaker 1: Perry Como had a variety show, John Denver, of course,
Speaker 1: John Davidson, who I mean, I don't know what talent
Speaker 1: he had. Here's the name for the past. How many
Speaker 1: of you remember Bobby Goldsborough? And if that's not loving me,
Speaker 1: then all I've got to say. God didn't make little
Speaker 1: green apples. It don't rain in Indianapolis in the summer time.
Speaker 1: No one has put Indianapolis in a song. There's no
Speaker 1: such thing as Doctor Seuss, no Disneyland, Mother Goose, There's
Speaker 1: no nursery rhyme. Yeah, we all sat around the TV
Speaker 1: and listened to these awful songs, but we were with
Speaker 1: our family, are siblings. There was Mac Davis, Pearl Belly,
Speaker 1: who my father loved, And as I looked back, I said,
Speaker 1: my dad liked black women, Edna James Pearl Bailey, Dinah Washington,
Speaker 1: Come on that smothers brothers. My god, that was a
Speaker 1: funny show. Tony Orlando and Dawn with not three times.
Speaker 1: Diane Carol, do you remember Diane Carroll, what a beautiful woman.
Speaker 1: I remember she was dating David Frost, the Upper crust
Speaker 1: talk show hosts, and I recall one of the first
Speaker 1: times in my life I remember talking about or noticing
Speaker 1: the fact that it was an interracial relationship. And I
Speaker 1: think that was the first time. I was like eight
Speaker 1: years old, but I understood, or I recognized that whites
Speaker 1: and blacks could be together. And once I knew that,
Speaker 1: I found it fascinating and I jumped into soul train,
Speaker 1: and you know, I just you know, I looked at
Speaker 1: my sister's album, Martha and the Vandella's. I just looked
Speaker 1: at these saw these these musical groups from the fifties,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh, I want to hear black women sing.
Speaker 1: Isn't amazing that you just don't know what your kids
Speaker 1: are seeing that that rattles around their brain. But I
Speaker 1: gotta say something and then maybe you have a similar upbringing.
Speaker 1: My father was his racist as they came back in
Speaker 1: the day. The N word was said in our house.
Speaker 1: A lot of words were said in our house. I mean,
Speaker 1: he made fun of Italians too. But when I remarked
Speaker 1: on the interracial aspect of Diane Carroll and David Frost.
Speaker 1: My father just like waved his hand like, ah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's bullshit. Just like try to let me know, no,
Speaker 1: that's that's bullshit. Doesn't happen. I don't know. Carol Burnett
Speaker 1: obviously was huge. Remember remember Captain and Taneil Muskrat Love
Speaker 1: It's a big I'll tell you what. Make fun of
Speaker 1: them all you want, But to this day, whenever you
Speaker 1: hear the initial beats to Love Well Keep Us Together,
Speaker 1: come on, you have to sing along that song. Those two,
Speaker 1: they were the epitome of pop music in the seventies,
Speaker 1: along with Elton John and a few others Jackson five.
Speaker 1: That was real pop. Muskrat Susie Muskrat, Sam Do the
Speaker 1: Jitterbug and Muskrat. I remember me and my mother going shopping.
Speaker 1: My sister Lauriam was driving her Camaro Silver Camaro to
Speaker 1: King Cullen to get cold cuts on a Saturday afternoon,
Speaker 1: and all the good music was on AM radio and
Speaker 1: we would listen to that song. The first time we
Speaker 1: heard it, I'm not lying, we were on Keith Lane.
Speaker 1: I still remember going south on Keith Lane and my
Speaker 1: sister turning up the volume. I love this song. Much
Speaker 1: my mother. Oh the rain stop it. Mauch's a good song.
Speaker 1: They're singing about rats and rodents. It's not about that,
Speaker 1: it's about love. It's about rats. Those two were together.
Speaker 1: They were together thirty nine years before they got a divorce.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you go, why bother, why they need to divorce
Speaker 1: so late in life. I remember it was reported that
Speaker 1: Tony Today was a lesbian and finally had enough keeping
Speaker 1: that a secret. But she denied that. She wrote a
Speaker 1: book and denied it. I don't believe it, but she
Speaker 1: denied it. But they had a great run. I mean,
Speaker 1: they came out so strong and so fast that back
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy six, they went to the Grammys. Right,
Speaker 1: they were asked to be the guests of honor at
Speaker 1: their label's Grammy party. But the hitch was that they
Speaker 1: weren't invited to the party until they took home the
Speaker 1: Grammy because they weren't even known yet. But when they
Speaker 1: won the Grammy, they were invited. That's how fickle Hollywood is.
Speaker 1: But while they were together, they slept in separate bedrooms.
Speaker 1: I don't know something about that, screams I'm an unhappy lesbian,
Speaker 1: or it could be him saying I'm an unhappy gay man.
Speaker 1: But no, I think it's about her, not about him.
Speaker 1: I could be wrong, but everybody had a variety sh
Speaker 1: Don Nutts, Don Ho, the Hawaiian guy. My aunt Mary
Speaker 1: never missed it, tiny bubbles, you know the story that
Speaker 1: schmuck would stand there with his ukulele. I used to
Speaker 1: make fun of the ukulele. And then I get older,
Speaker 1: have a daughter who learns to play the hell out
Speaker 1: of the ukulele, and she's really great at it. And
Speaker 1: now I love the sound of the fucking ukulele. I
Speaker 1: hated it when Don Hoe played it, but Roxy plays it,
Speaker 1: I'd love it. That's what God will do to you,
Speaker 1: and I'm glad he did. But when I think back
Speaker 1: to that era, even if it was just the whole
Speaker 1: family watching the monkeys, and I remember watching the monkeys
Speaker 1: because one night, as we're watching the monkeys, I had
Speaker 1: a fever. I was running a high fever, probably nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty eight. I was in first grade, and I couldn't
Speaker 1: get They couldn't get the feet with that they're putting
Speaker 1: hot I mean cold washcloths on my forehead, sometimes with
Speaker 1: alcohol on them, which I mean remember eyes tear and
Speaker 1: my nose got all crazy. But back then that's what
Speaker 1: you thought alcohol cold rag and alcohol in the forehead
Speaker 1: and lower the fever. But it turned out I started
Speaker 1: throwing up right in the middle of the monkeys. Here
Speaker 1: we come walking down the street, and I didn't want
Speaker 1: to miss it. But I'm throwing up on the floor
Speaker 1: and there was some blood in it. I'm six years old.
Speaker 1: Everybody's panicking and the rain started crying. Took me to
Speaker 1: the emergency room. I had to get my tonsils out
Speaker 1: and my adnoids, which I had no idea what those
Speaker 1: things were. Went to Good Samarian Hospital. Back then there
Speaker 1: was a big room like sixteen by twenty with like
Speaker 1: six different beds in their small beds for kids, and
Speaker 1: all of us were there for ton selectamies. Do people
Speaker 1: still get ton selectivities? Had that changed? It was a
Speaker 1: big thing in the sixties. Did you get to us up?
Speaker 1: Do you s love your tonsils? I have my tonsils?
Speaker 1: I don't do you ever adenoids? No one talks like
Speaker 1: that anymore. Did they figure out what tounsils and adnoids
Speaker 1: are good for or what the I don't know, but
Speaker 1: I got them removed. I sat in that bed was
Speaker 1: overnight one day. One night, they gave you a doll,
Speaker 1: a cubie doll, and they gave they kept saying you
Speaker 1: didn't have ice cream after the surgery ice cream. And
Speaker 1: my parents left me alone six years old in the hospital,
Speaker 1: and both my mother and father had tears in their eyes.
Speaker 1: I was petrified. I hated being alone. I swear to
Speaker 1: God from that moment on, by being left alone in
Speaker 1: the hospital, I had such a close tie to my
Speaker 1: parents and my sisters that I couldn't bear the thought
Speaker 1: of being without my family. I would never go to
Speaker 1: people's parties. I would never go to a sleepover. Even
Speaker 1: if I went to the store, my mother and father
Speaker 1: I had to hold the wagon or their hands. I
Speaker 1: was not the kid who disappeared and played behind a
Speaker 1: clothes rack, or did shit where your parents go? Where
Speaker 1: is he? Ay Jay? Get over you? I wasn't that kid.
Speaker 1: I would put a finger in my father's belt loop
Speaker 1: and walk with him. And as I got older and
Speaker 1: I tried to stray, my father hold my hand and
Speaker 1: squeeze it a little bit to let me know you're
Speaker 1: not going anywhere. Oh yeah, I could not be without
Speaker 1: my family, very very deep seated issues there. But when
Speaker 1: I think about those days and I look back and remember,
Speaker 1: that's when I really understand the phrase make America great again.
Speaker 1: It's got nothing to do with me believing white people
Speaker 1: had all the advantages or any of that racism shit
Speaker 1: that I hear from people who want to know what
Speaker 1: exactly was America ever? Great assholes? When I hear that,
Speaker 1: you know, I want to come on, man, go back
Speaker 1: to what those days felt like. It was a simpler time.
Speaker 1: Nobody had a phone in their hands all day. Last
Speaker 1: time I made macaroni, a laguini would clam sorocco and
Speaker 1: I and I don't care because he's like I don't.
Speaker 1: My son is a great boy. I never have to
Speaker 1: discipline him. He runs to the table. Now, mind you,
Speaker 1: he's got his own room now, finally, and that means
Speaker 1: that when we're home, he goes in his room and
Speaker 1: shuts his door. And that's just what sixteen year olds do.
Speaker 1: Heok him out for dinner, hook him out for a
Speaker 1: basketball game, to shoot this shit with me for five minutes.
Speaker 1: Then he's back in his room. But he came to
Speaker 1: dinner last night, eating Laguinian clams with his right hand,
Speaker 1: and the left hand. His phone was in his hand,
Speaker 1: and he's looking at his phone and eating pasta at
Speaker 1: the same time. That's the youth of that. Now, if
Speaker 1: I had a story to tell him, he put the
Speaker 1: phone down. But I gotta kick out of watching it.
Speaker 1: But back in the day, no one had a phone
Speaker 1: in hands, not a book, nothing. People actually made eye
Speaker 1: contact and spoke to one another. And let me tell them,
Speaker 1: you know what turned out to be very valuable. All
Speaker 1: of us had to grow up and cope with the
Speaker 1: very real and common phenomenon of being bored. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: remember Sometimes you'd lay on your back and look at
Speaker 1: the clouds. If it was nighttime, you'd look for shooting stars.
Speaker 1: You'd lay on the picnic table in the backyard, maybe
Speaker 1: see some fireflies. You chase them with a net, put
Speaker 1: them in a jar. Being bored made us use our imaginations.
Speaker 1: It made us feel like if I can be so trite,
Speaker 1: I guess it made us feel like explorers and all
Speaker 1: of us were trying to discover our little piece of
Speaker 1: land or things to pass the time. We got good
Speaker 1: at what we wanted to do. We got very intelligent,
Speaker 1: Like we want to go fishing. You know, we could
Speaker 1: fish off the dock. Roslyn Jack lived on the water.
Speaker 1: It was a small dock, like forty feet wide. We
Speaker 1: had our boat there, but we could sit on the
Speaker 1: and fish for snappers or cocktail blues in the canal.
Speaker 1: Back then, our canal had weak fish, bluefish, flounder, fluke.
Speaker 1: It was so plentiful. In the early seventies, fucked sand
Speaker 1: sharks used to be in the canal. Back then. It
Speaker 1: was unbelievable, big giant eels. You'd throw your pole in
Speaker 1: the water. You wouldn't believe if you catched. But we
Speaker 1: didn't have bait, and we knew to catch the right fish,
Speaker 1: we needed live bait. How do we get live bait?
Speaker 1: No one's going to drive us to a bait store.
Speaker 1: There's nothing around. We can't but spider us on the hook,
Speaker 1: or bugs. If we get corn and bread, we need
Speaker 1: live We need achillies or shiners spearing. What did we
Speaker 1: do well? We used our imagination. We learned that if
Speaker 1: we went back to West Ice Slip Marina where a
Speaker 1: lot of people's boats were docked. We get our bike
Speaker 1: and go to the marina, and we noticed there's high
Speaker 1: tide and low tide. High tide and low tide, and
Speaker 1: once we figured out what high tide was, the water
Speaker 1: would rise. A lot of people back then in the marina.
Speaker 1: In order for them boat to not hit the bulkhead
Speaker 1: or the posts where they were tied to, they would
Speaker 1: hang car tires on the bulkhead or the piers or
Speaker 1: the poles. So in the case of a you know,
Speaker 1: a wake or you know a choppy water or bad weather,
Speaker 1: the boat would hit the rubber tire and not the wood.
Speaker 1: So with a high tide came and then it went
Speaker 1: down in those tires would be bait fish. They would
Speaker 1: be stuck in the tire because the tide went lower
Speaker 1: than the tire. We'd scooped the baitfish out with little
Speaker 1: nets from our aquariums at home, put them in a
Speaker 1: bucket with water, take it back to Jack and Rose house,
Speaker 1: bait them on the hook and go fishing. We're fucking
Speaker 1: eleven twelve years old catching fish for our family to cook.
Speaker 1: Not to mention crabs hanging on the side of the bullhead.
Speaker 1: It was like we were explorers. It was amazing. And
Speaker 1: don't even let me tell you how many we came
Speaker 1: up with stup bawl porch bowl. Some games you heard
Speaker 1: of some games you didn't, rumbles, which was just kill
Speaker 1: the guy with the ball. You run around with a
Speaker 1: football with ten fifteen guys, and when you get tackled,
Speaker 1: you throw the ball up. In the end, someone else
Speaker 1: runs around. It taught you how to make moves. It
Speaker 1: taught you how to work in traffic of a bunch
Speaker 1: of players in the same field. It made you a
Speaker 1: better runner, a better athlete. We didn't have to search
Speaker 1: through Instagram or TikTok. We used our bodies, in our minds.
Speaker 1: No one dictated shit to us. We made up the
Speaker 1: stuff we wanted to play. That's when America was great
Speaker 1: to me. Right. I played the silly game with Jackie
Speaker 1: and Joey when they were young. I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 1: It was in Rosalie's backyard before she had a pool.
Speaker 1: I'd run next door and I would you know, we
Speaker 1: were separated by one gate, and my father's great barber
Speaker 1: went from our house to Rosalie and Jack's deck, and
Speaker 1: we followed that little pathway open the gate. I'd be
Speaker 1: at Rosalie and Jack's house and I'd tell Jackie and
Speaker 1: joe to come down, says Jackie. Must have been eleven.
Speaker 1: I'm seventeen eighteen, Joey six or seven, and we played
Speaker 1: this game of baseball in the backyard. It was me
Speaker 1: against those two. Joey would pitch a big, fat, plastic
Speaker 1: imitation baseball, the kind of baseball and bat you give
Speaker 1: for a kick. The bat was really thick and wide right,
Speaker 1: and the ball was crisp and plastic, and they'd pitched
Speaker 1: to me. Joey would pitch. I'd let Joey strike me
Speaker 1: out for him. He was a kid. He thought he
Speaker 1: was doing well. Oh man, I keep missing it, and
Speaker 1: he's like so happy. I let the game get really close.
Speaker 1: I didn't even let them get the lead. Oh you
Speaker 1: guys are winning by three runs. It's my last inning.
Speaker 1: I'd load the bases and then Joey would pitch, and
Speaker 1: I'd crack a fucking grand slam. I would hit it
Speaker 1: over the house. That was the rule. If it landed
Speaker 1: in the deck, it was one run over the house,
Speaker 1: four runs, and I would hit a blast over the roof.
Speaker 1: This happened every week, and for some reason, I don't
Speaker 1: know why, I know it was a hit song, but
Speaker 1: every time I hit the home run over the roof,
Speaker 1: I would start to sing the Bay City Rollers song,
Speaker 1: s he tu are da y night s Hey. Joey
Speaker 1: would start balling his eyes out, kicking things over, throwing
Speaker 1: the ball in the canal. He was so pissed off.
Speaker 1: Jack You'll be laughing whether I keep balling, dance until
Speaker 1: the night. It is true, and I go as I
Speaker 1: ran past Joe I say Saturaday night, saturdayday night. Oh
Speaker 1: my god. He couldn't take it. And then you know,
Speaker 1: as we got older, Joey becomes a great baseball player,
Speaker 1: and then the video game sensation happened, Sega Atari, Nintendo,
Speaker 1: all this kind of shit that I wasn't into because
Speaker 1: I was older and Joey were dialed in. There was
Speaker 1: a swimming there was an Olympics game where you diving contest,
Speaker 1: swimming contest, and Jackie knew how to make my controller
Speaker 1: or my swimmer weaker. I didn't know that. So he
Speaker 1: would beat me in every swimming race by a mile,
Speaker 1: and I would get so fucking pissed off. And Joey
Speaker 1: made my controller weaker. When we played baseball, every time
Speaker 1: I pitched, he hit a home run and the whole
Speaker 1: crowd would scream. You can imagine the graphics back then
Speaker 1: were awful, but just hearing the crowd goes crazy. Everybody's
Speaker 1: jumping in the stands, and Joey would love it. And
Speaker 1: I started to hit my nephews whatever they Why are
Speaker 1: you hitting? What is wrong? Why are you hitting home runs? Jackie?
Speaker 1: Why are you beating me in races by a mile?
Speaker 1: What the fuck? Nothing? We just know how to play. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: you're not telling me something. What are you not telling me?
Speaker 1: And I would hit them, not in the said. I
Speaker 1: punched their shoulders, hit their stomach. It got to be
Speaker 1: a real big competition. And then they finally admitted to
Speaker 1: me what they were doing. But you know, I remember,
Speaker 1: as much as I fucked with them when they were kids,
Speaker 1: when they got older and I was getting older and
Speaker 1: I didn't like losing to them at video games, then
Speaker 1: they were the ones who had it over me. And
Speaker 1: I remember Joey getting so mad one time because I
Speaker 1: punched Jackie in the shoulder, and Joey got mad, he's
Speaker 1: don't hit my brother. The first time they stood up
Speaker 1: for each other, you know, against me, their uncle. And
Speaker 1: then there came a day where I was getting pissed
Speaker 1: off of Joey for some reason, and he decided to
Speaker 1: stand on his bed and be bigger than me. It
Speaker 1: was like we were in the wild Kingdom. Suddenly Joey
Speaker 1: made himself bigger and taller, and I said to myself, Okay,
Speaker 1: all right, I know what this means. That means he's
Speaker 1: had it and he's done, and you know he doesn't
Speaker 1: want to be fucked with anymore. So I led off him.
Speaker 1: But man, oh man, I want I want you to
Speaker 1: hear that show. Listen to Relationships a Bitch, Listen to
Speaker 1: everything as a bit, because it really does delve into
Speaker 1: high school and it's refreshing. As many things as I remember,
Speaker 1: there are something Mike, something's Mike remembers that take me
Speaker 1: way back to those days and it just makes me
Speaker 1: laugh so much. There is nothing better than being able
Speaker 1: to do these shows with a friend from from junior
Speaker 1: high no. From twelve years old, little league football until
Speaker 1: now fifty years later, and we're still laughing at the
Speaker 1: same shit. And I just wish you guys had the
Speaker 1: same thing, and maybe you do with some of your friends,
Speaker 1: but working with them, working with Mike and hanging out
Speaker 1: with him and Kenny and doing podcasts, we're all involved
Speaker 1: and we're all in this together like Musketeers means the
Speaker 1: world to me, and that's why I get very sentimental
Speaker 1: about these stories as such. Listen to those shows. I
Speaker 1: promise I'll figure out well. Mike already sent me instructions
Speaker 1: on what to do about this situation. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't need to tell you guys now because you're
Speaker 1: listening to the show, but I will post instructions on
Speaker 1: what happens and what you need to do should it
Speaker 1: happen down the road, and we'll talk about it and
Speaker 1: make sure that everybody's getting the show and everything is
Speaker 1: hunky dory until then, Gang, I'm aj Benza hoping you
Speaker 1: remember the old days and wishing that all of us
Speaker 1: can somehow get back to what it felt like. America
Speaker 1: was great to us. Don't let the detractors and the
Speaker 1: people who weren't a part of your lives tell you
Speaker 1: that America wasn't great back then. Don't let them piss
Speaker 1: on your parade. It was great and it's going to
Speaker 1: get great again, but don't forget how great it was it.
Speaker 1: Don't be embarrassed that you had that kind of fun.
Speaker 1: The world can't be fair to everybody. All the time,
Speaker 1: and as we all have got older, we've run into
Speaker 1: situations where the world has kicked us in the fucking shins,
Speaker 1: haven't we? So it all equals out, It all equals
Speaker 1: out in the end. I think that's what God knows
Speaker 1: he needs to do, including giving me a dose of
Speaker 1: karma because of some of my past misdeeds. But maybe
Speaker 1: some of you guys, what are do the same thing
Speaker 1: as I did. That remains to be seen, all right.
Speaker 1: I'm aj Benzon. I was your Daily on the Filtered
Speaker 1: podcast for November twentieth, twenty twenty twenty four. Talk to
Speaker 1: is tomorrow.