Speaker 1: We're starting with a laugh everybody, because we're no longer
Speaker 1: talking about Arena's curtains. We are talking about episode number
Speaker 1: twenty three of Relationships Is a Bitch. It's Mike here
Speaker 1: with AJ and Arena.
Speaker 2: Hey, guys, Hey, everybody, you're looking good.
Speaker 3: I like you. Like your jacket, very nice.
Speaker 1: She looks very very nice. She's concerned, though, ag because
Speaker 1: she's gained a little weight. In case you didn't notice,
Speaker 1: you didn't gain five or six No, you didn't you. No,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm an idiot. I would be stupid enough to
Speaker 1: say something like, hey, maybe you did you know your
Speaker 1: face is a little full. I would try look good.
Speaker 1: I would try to turn it into a compliment, which
Speaker 1: is why you know half the time you see me,
Speaker 1: it's my wife is in the middle of yelling at
Speaker 1: me for something. But I'd be I'd be dumb enough
Speaker 1: to screw something like that up. But in this case,
Speaker 1: there's there's no chance that you get You might have
Speaker 1: gained two pounds or something. There's no chance you gained
Speaker 1: five pounds. But I would say that five pounds a
Speaker 1: weight gain is better than I've been living with this
Speaker 1: lip buddy now.
Speaker 3: But it's not a herpye. We have to this thing
Speaker 3: where it's not herpies.
Speaker 1: Well, I haven't officially had it tested, so we can't.
Speaker 1: We can't eliminate anything. But I'm pretty sure it's the
Speaker 1: result of me having bit my lip badly and then
Speaker 1: going out on Kenny's boat and getting sunburned where I
Speaker 1: had where I had bit my lip, and it's been nasty.
Speaker 2: You're using your lips constantly. If you didn't talk for
Speaker 2: two days, it would it would clear up.
Speaker 1: And dry out. You think of the potential damage to
Speaker 1: planet Earth if I.
Speaker 3: Can talk for two days. That's not it's.
Speaker 1: A plaus solution.
Speaker 2: I have people, you know, I have fans listeners asking
Speaker 2: me where's where's Everything is a bit?
Speaker 3: Should you guys quit doing that.
Speaker 2: There's a few guys out there who are very concerned
Speaker 2: about about everything is a bit.
Speaker 1: We're going to give them a big dose of everything
Speaker 1: is a bit this week. That's that's right, Okay, I
Speaker 1: got something that I guarantee age he's gonna know the
Speaker 1: answer to. All right, something big happened fifty three years
Speaker 1: ago today.
Speaker 3: Fifty three years ago was fifty three.
Speaker 2: What you today today is March twenty fifth, fifty three
Speaker 2: years ago, I was nine years old. Doesn't have to
Speaker 2: do at the Moon an astronaut nine years old.
Speaker 3: I can't believe that was nineteen seventy seventy one. The
Speaker 3: next morning the World Series.
Speaker 1: Seventy one and fifty three seventy two.
Speaker 4: That it's not me who has to know.
Speaker 1: I don't know. He's gonna, he's gonna, he's gonna hate
Speaker 1: himself for this.
Speaker 3: But it will be in New York next.
Speaker 1: It will be a major topic on Famous a Bitch tomorrow.
Speaker 1: I can guarantee it. Let me hear the fifty three
Speaker 1: years ago today, the Godfather premiered at theaters.
Speaker 3: God damn it. I should know.
Speaker 2: Oh course nineteen seven, Yeah, that was a big one.
Speaker 2: When my family took me, we saw in the theater.
Speaker 2: The book was all over our house for I think
Speaker 2: a year before that. My father, my mother, my sisters
Speaker 2: read it. It was in the bathroom and the other
Speaker 2: bathroom and made the rounds.
Speaker 1: And remember you had we would know. Ajo should should
Speaker 1: have known that if he spent any time online today,
Speaker 1: if he was on X or anywhere he was.
Speaker 3: I didn't do X. I didn't do actually yet maybe something.
Speaker 1: But so Irena the author of the book The Godfather,
Speaker 1: which preceded the movie by three years. The book came
Speaker 1: out in sixty nine. He lived on Montauk Highway, which
Speaker 1: was the main road that went right by AJ's neighborhood.
Speaker 1: In my neighborhood one town over right, So we would
Speaker 1: constantly drive by, and for anybody in your car that
Speaker 1: didn't know, you had to. It was the official landmark.
Speaker 1: You had to point out, that's that's Mary Opuzzo's house.
Speaker 3: Right, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: And we had sack the coast manor where George Washington slept.
Speaker 2: We went to the point that out, you know. And
Speaker 2: then I'm sorry really quick, and this is personal, but
Speaker 2: the name of the bar that we used to go
Speaker 2: to at night was a house.
Speaker 3: Was it Jack's?
Speaker 2: Jack Smith's Smith's Remember that house? That was a bar
Speaker 2: on the left that would Sweet Petersith Peter Smith.
Speaker 3: That's it. That was such a crazy place.
Speaker 2: It was a house, and that's where we all sang
Speaker 2: Sweet Caroline. And if you can remember, I lived on Sneercrow,
Speaker 2: which was less than a mile from that house. On
Speaker 2: certain nights when I wasn't out, I'd go play basketball,
Speaker 2: throw the garbage out or something. And you could hear
Speaker 2: Sweet Caroline being sung a mile away by all the
Speaker 2: drunk revelers at Peter.
Speaker 1: Smith's probably are it's it's a tribute to aj They
Speaker 1: still do it.
Speaker 2: It's oh father, damn it, I should. My father saw
Speaker 2: Coppett to Mario Puzo. He went to Calvin Carpet. It
Speaker 2: was a big story of his. Yeah, the best movie
Speaker 2: ever made. I never I never changed the channel when
Speaker 2: it's on. It's one of those movies you just drug.
Speaker 2: That's a good question. What movies give me? One or
Speaker 2: two movies in your life where if it comes on,
Speaker 2: you just put the remote down and don't even bother
Speaker 2: the change the channel.
Speaker 1: Jaws and shosh Anchor my too. Can't can't pass it
Speaker 1: Jaws because I know every word of the dialogue. I
Speaker 1: know I have to do it. We used to do
Speaker 1: we Agent and I would do every word of the dialogue.
Speaker 1: In marine biology class.
Speaker 3: Goes in the water and goes into the water cage.
Speaker 3: We killed mister Neal's fish. We killed his fish. This
Speaker 3: is something that we're not. We're not.
Speaker 2: We're very good to animals. We don't we don't ever
Speaker 2: mess with that. We love animals. But one year, mister
Speaker 2: Ino and in marine biology had a big fish tank
Speaker 2: of different sorts of fish, and we took a little man,
Speaker 2: I don't know who we have, this little man, and
Speaker 2: we put them in a tack container, those plastic containers,
Speaker 2: and we lowered that in the in the fish tank
Speaker 2: as if you as.
Speaker 1: An anti shark case.
Speaker 2: Then we put from aldehyde in the tank and the
Speaker 2: next morning the fish were dead.
Speaker 3: What did we do that for?
Speaker 2: You?
Speaker 3: Almost cried.
Speaker 1: I don't know if the statue of limitations is right
Speaker 1: out on that age. Probably in case mister A is
Speaker 1: listening at the I think he passed.
Speaker 2: Actually, last question, I know, I know you'll get this.
Speaker 2: If you don't, it's as bad as my godfather reference.
Speaker 2: What was the name of the plant life or flora
Speaker 2: we looked for.
Speaker 1: On the Spartana flora?
Speaker 3: Oh okay, that's all I got from real biology.
Speaker 1: Spartan and Joe Pie Joe Pie, Joe Pi.
Speaker 3: My days are you're checking a temperature at the firm? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Sixty two three? We still got Yeah, just lying.
Speaker 1: We actually for being two complete clowns in that classic
Speaker 1: entire we actually learned quite a bit in that class
Speaker 1: because it was like lab every day. Yeah, it was okay.
Speaker 1: But you know, we just mentioned fifty three years ago
Speaker 1: the Godfather premiered, But an even bigger in my estimation,
Speaker 1: anniversary was yesterday, the forty. Excuse me, the twenty fourth
Speaker 1: anniversary of this event was yesterday, twenty four years ago,
Speaker 1: just when you're not going to get it. No, I
Speaker 1: don't think so. I was in my forties.
Speaker 2: I don't know what happened the twenty forty Yesterday.
Speaker 1: It was the twenty fourth anniversary of Randy Johnson killing
Speaker 1: a bird with a pin. Remember when he killed the bird,
Speaker 1: they exploded.
Speaker 2: Here He drew one hundreds and something miles an hour,
Speaker 2: and the bird happened to fly by in front of
Speaker 2: the catcher and it exploded.
Speaker 1: The video the video is all over the place today
Speaker 1: online with people just just totally trolling the poor bird.
Speaker 1: That may he rest in peace. But that was a
Speaker 1: I thought that was a regular I remembered it as
Speaker 1: a regular season game. It was a it was a
Speaker 1: spring training game for Randy Johnson. And then I then
Speaker 1: I remembered that it was actually Dave Winfield that killed
Speaker 1: the seagull.
Speaker 3: Yes he did, Yankees.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was at Scores the Strip Club when Randy
Speaker 2: Johnson hit that bird.
Speaker 3: It was all the TVs. Uh took my took my.
Speaker 2: Attention away from the the girls on my legs. Yeah,
Speaker 2: for a moment, but then I got back to business.
Speaker 1: You know, was there not like a moment of silence
Speaker 1: in the bar for the bird?
Speaker 3: Do that? Plus? You know, you know I can't you know,
Speaker 3: thinking back? How bad was it that I.
Speaker 2: Went to Scores every night because there was the biggest
Speaker 2: topless club in New York City arena and everybody, everybody's famous,
Speaker 2: every athlete went there. So I went there every night
Speaker 2: because I got stories constantly. It helped that the girls
Speaker 2: were beautiful. But every night at a certain hour there
Speaker 2: were a hundred girls who danced and the DJ would say, hey,
Speaker 2: they come, and they'd introduce them all and they'd all connot,
Speaker 2: you know, nearly naked and prants around the stage.
Speaker 3: Just think of that objectification that we just sat there.
Speaker 2: And watched all these girls spin around and take the
Speaker 2: tops down and show.
Speaker 3: Us their goods, and that exists.
Speaker 5: Yes, I may ask you something because I've never seen
Speaker 5: so many strip class I've never been just once tore
Speaker 5: cup in my life.
Speaker 4: It doesn't mean I'm saying I just don't know nothing
Speaker 4: about it.
Speaker 5: And I used to live eight years in Europe and
Speaker 5: I never seen them either. Doesn't mean in the United
Speaker 5: States you have a huge culture, because I hear that
Speaker 5: even women without men they go to strip clubs I
Speaker 5: don't know, to pick up guys, to get acquainted with somebody.
Speaker 4: They say, it's like, oh, they discounted sushi.
Speaker 5: When I listened to this and say, okay, so you're
Speaker 5: gonna go for sushi, You're gonna go to go to
Speaker 5: look at other people naked.
Speaker 4: I don't know what people are doing there.
Speaker 5: I understand men they're enjoying and having fun, but is
Speaker 5: it a big cultural thing in the.
Speaker 4: United States that I know? Even couples are going there like.
Speaker 2: Iget it because sex in Europe isn't as taboo, it's
Speaker 2: not taboo at all. In America, we grew up with
Speaker 2: it being taboo. You gotta hide it, you can't watch it.
Speaker 5: In the United States, it's taboo. I think you came
Speaker 5: from Italy, your blood came from Italy.
Speaker 1: It's a culture, but culturally it's much more conservative here
Speaker 1: than it is.
Speaker 4: Really, that's why did you go to these places?
Speaker 2: Well, that's why that's why they go because if you're
Speaker 2: a boy in Europe, you're used in nudity, you see
Speaker 2: it more often. So for Americans, they hid it from
Speaker 2: us when we're kids, so we first chance we get,
Speaker 2: we want to see it.
Speaker 3: And I got to tell you, you know, I went
Speaker 3: there all the time. I had no problem with girls
Speaker 3: who danced. Good for you. It's you beautiful, go ahead
Speaker 3: and make your money after a while.
Speaker 2: It's not even I was not. I didn't go there
Speaker 2: and get a heart on. I just liked the environment.
Speaker 2: Pretty girls, they were fun to talk to. The food
Speaker 2: was great, the people were cool, the music. It's just
Speaker 2: like it was a good atmosphere.
Speaker 1: It wasn't like you just say you didn't go there
Speaker 1: and get a heart on very.
Speaker 2: Rarely, but that would very rarely happen to me, I
Speaker 2: really because probably I wasn't a guy that went there
Speaker 2: to get lap dances.
Speaker 3: I was like, I hate to say this, but I
Speaker 3: was like royalty there like that.
Speaker 2: And when I walked in there, I gave that club
Speaker 2: so much, uh popularity and all that all that stuff
Speaker 2: in my column. So I love beautiful women. I dated
Speaker 2: plenty of girls who were dancers, but at sitting down
Speaker 2: there I never went there for dancers. I went there
Speaker 2: for saken lobster, great conversation, beautiful girls and getting getting
Speaker 2: some stories. Yeah, but I got turned on. I dated
Speaker 2: several of those girls all the time.
Speaker 3: But there a lap dance. I never did that. Never,
Speaker 3: that wasn't my thing.
Speaker 1: I took clients there occasionally, and uh, I remember one
Speaker 1: guy was one guy was short on cash one night
Speaker 1: and wanted to go to whatever they called it, They're
Speaker 1: campaign the champagne lounge or whatever, and uh so I
Speaker 1: gave him five hundred bucks and uh and sent him
Speaker 1: to the champagne room. He came back with three hundred
Speaker 1: dollars worth to change in about seven minutes and a
Speaker 1: huge stain in the front of his freaking dance. And
Speaker 1: so when I hear him, oh it took two dances
Speaker 1: for the guy to lose it in his trow. Well yeah, crazy,
Speaker 1: But but I'm I'm I'm impressed at AJ's TV bar
Speaker 1: discipline that he didn't get any directions in.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 2: But here's here's the real here's the here's the real story.
Speaker 2: When I was working at Mysteries and Scandals, I was
Speaker 2: always out with his suit nice you know, HARMANI you
Speaker 2: name it. I had all the best suits. One night
Speaker 2: we went to the one on Sunset. I can't think
Speaker 2: the name right now, but it's all nude, which I
Speaker 2: really don't like.
Speaker 3: But I went there was late.
Speaker 2: I got my suit on and this girl was really
Speaker 2: attractive and very flirty, and I gave her whatever was
Speaker 2: one hundred bucks. Went in the back room and I
Speaker 2: did get very aroused, and uh, you know, I started talking,
Speaker 2: what am I going to do with this? I can't
Speaker 2: go out there like this, that kind of thing. And
Speaker 2: she said, you can take you can take care of it.
Speaker 2: So I took care of it in the room, right.
Speaker 2: I jerked off in the room with her. She didn't care.
Speaker 3: She watched and then as I finished, he goes, wait,
Speaker 3: I know you. You're the guy on the TV show
Speaker 3: and I'm not. It's not me. I guest that all
Speaker 3: the time. So it was a good It was good
Speaker 3: in bad. But yeah, it happened once. It happened once.
Speaker 1: Yeah, not always good to be recognized.
Speaker 3: But it was good until it wasn't good. But it
Speaker 3: that way, you know.
Speaker 1: I I hear you. Well, that's that's all I got
Speaker 1: for anniversaries. Today. We got we got a couple of
Speaker 1: big ones and we got a dead that was a bird,
Speaker 1: not a seagull in the Randy Johnson story. All right,
Speaker 1: So I think we talked about this last week. I've
Speaker 1: now gotten to go out on the boat the yacht
Speaker 1: excuse me twice, Yes, which listeners The name which I
Speaker 1: love of the is the bott of Being, And yes
Speaker 1: it is. I can explain tying it back to the
Speaker 1: prior story. But I got injured during the last what
Speaker 1: happened here, I may have been overserved. Aside whether I was,
Speaker 1: I was self overserved, yet I made himself overserved. And
Speaker 1: I was walking to the bow and I put my
Speaker 1: foot up on what I thought was a dry piece
Speaker 1: of the boat of the bow, and it was wet,
Speaker 1: and so my my foot slid really fast off of
Speaker 1: that right into the railing of the boat, really hard,
Speaker 1: and and well, I ah, it turned into a pretty
Speaker 1: serious didn't realized that day, partially because of my blood
Speaker 1: alcohol level, and partially because sometimes like it takes a
Speaker 1: little while for these things to to kick in their
Speaker 1: worse the day after than they are the day of
Speaker 1: kind of thing. And so I I brought my dilemma
Speaker 1: to Gemini near me to Ai, because I really wanted
Speaker 1: to try and resolve the situation. I want to look
Speaker 1: at my notes because I want to tell you exactly
Speaker 1: what Irena told me. Irena Ai told you so. I
Speaker 1: explained that I had had an accident while out on
Speaker 1: a friend's boat that resulted in my foot being broken
Speaker 1: in multiple places. And oh, no, I broke, I broke
Speaker 1: multiple Uh what do you call them? Metatarsals? Both toes
Speaker 1: and metals.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I told Irena Ai that a visit to the doctor
Speaker 1: resulted in a treatment plan requiring possible surgery, rest, physical therapy,
Speaker 1: and three to four months of not putting a lot
Speaker 1: of wheat on the foot.
Speaker 6: Wow.
Speaker 1: My question was whether I should expect my friend slash
Speaker 1: his insurance company to cover my medical expenses. Irena Ai
Speaker 1: asked me whether I discussed the situation with my friend
Speaker 1: and how that conversation made me feel Okay. Well, as
Speaker 1: it turned out, I went to a preseason baseball game
Speaker 1: with my friend a couple of days later, and my
Speaker 1: son joined us for that, and when I explained to
Speaker 1: my friend what had happened, he called me a pussy,
Speaker 1: a drunken and a drunken moron, and said I was
Speaker 1: an idiot. If I wasn't an idiot, I would never
Speaker 1: have slipped on his yacht of my name was Well,
Speaker 1: remember I haven't been saying the name of my friend,
Speaker 1: but you just clarified that. Although people probably connected the
Speaker 1: yacht ownership with my friend. But if you're asking me
Speaker 1: whether he called me a pussy and a drunken moron
Speaker 1: and said if I wasn't an idiot, I never would
Speaker 1: have said that a shot absolutely scouts honor. That's exactly
Speaker 1: what he said. In fact, he may have even used terminology.
Speaker 1: I'll let you guess what it was that was worse
Speaker 1: than worse than idiot, but politically incorrect to use that language.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So Arena AI asked me how it made me feel
Speaker 1: when my friend said that those said those things during
Speaker 1: our conversation. I told her it made me feel like
Speaker 1: a drunk, pussy idiot, and Arena AI asked me what
Speaker 1: I wanted to do about it. I said that I
Speaker 1: planned to get a great personal injury attorney and sue
Speaker 1: my friend's balls off. I also asked her whether she
Speaker 1: knew any great personal injury attorneys. So Arena I would
Speaker 1: not give me the name of any personal injury attorneys,
Speaker 1: so no recommendations. And then she asked me if I
Speaker 1: really wanted to end, potentially end a personal relationship over
Speaker 1: something like this, and I said I didn't want to,
Speaker 1: but I felt that it was the only option left
Speaker 1: for me. Understandable, at which point Arena AI said that
Speaker 1: in that case, you are a drunken pussy idiot. Okay,
Speaker 1: So the Arena AI did not call me a drunken
Speaker 1: pussy idiot, but it did take me through a very
Speaker 1: different road than when I tried to uh to have
Speaker 1: the same dialogue with chat GPT and with Crop three,
Speaker 1: both of which not only suggested I should sue my
Speaker 1: friend but also gave me recommendations for personal injury attorneys
Speaker 1: in my area. Yes, and so I actually think that
Speaker 1: there's a reason I told the story, folks, which is
Speaker 1: that there's, you know, there's just the lazy way of
Speaker 1: just going going to a chatbot or one of those
Speaker 1: services and just asking them to solve your problem for you,
Speaker 1: or give you a personal injury attorney's number or name,
Speaker 1: and give you a suggestion on whether you should an
Speaker 1: answer as to whether you should or shouldn't sue. And
Speaker 1: in each case there was a small qualification about my
Speaker 1: comfort level of suing a friend, but there was the
Speaker 1: immediate suggestion that from a financial standpoint, I absolutely should
Speaker 1: be suing my friend. And so we talk about the
Speaker 1: distinction between what Irena AI does and what the chatbots
Speaker 1: or or you know, chat ept rock, et cetera, would do.
Speaker 1: And I think it's a great illustration of that here
Speaker 1: she's trying to lead me to the emotional answer to
Speaker 1: ask of myself, is it do I feel right about
Speaker 1: suing a friend over an accident that happened on his
Speaker 1: yacht where he was kind enough to ask me to
Speaker 1: go out in the and I got myself drunk and
Speaker 1: I stepped on the wet spot and hit my foot,
Speaker 1: and and so of course I think that I would
Speaker 1: never ever uh suing Kenny over something like this or
Speaker 1: my friend excuse me, but I think it's a it's
Speaker 1: a great illustration.
Speaker 2: I like how zeep she she got, She really got
Speaker 2: inside your head rather than these other chat shepts, et cetera,
Speaker 2: just giving you straight up information, which is doesn't really
Speaker 2: weigh emotions or friendships.
Speaker 3: My sister, same thing happened her many years ago.
Speaker 2: She was stepping from a dock onto her friend's boat
Speaker 2: and her the boat slid away from the dock and
Speaker 2: she fell right in between her thighs on the hard
Speaker 2: fiberglass boat and she went and hospital. She got all
Speaker 2: cut up down there, very painful.
Speaker 3: She wanted to suit. We all said, don't do that.
Speaker 3: Marie and Perry are your friends. You can't do that.
Speaker 3: She did it.
Speaker 2: She got nothing, basically, and the friendship was over. My
Speaker 2: sister was not like the rest of the family. We
Speaker 2: told her, don't do that, You'll be fine. But the friendship.
Speaker 2: Friendship ended.
Speaker 7: All that.
Speaker 3: I don't blame.
Speaker 1: Mercury was in retrograde the day, okay, but this reminds
Speaker 1: me of a moral dilemma I went through with aj
Speaker 1: in in high school. And you know, I would suggest
Speaker 1: to aj the things that he should be reading in
Speaker 1: order to you know, understand the material in a class
Speaker 1: and then perform well on exams. And AJ would let
Speaker 1: me know that he greatly preferred just copying whatever I wrote,
Speaker 1: and you know, cheating off of my off of my paper.
Speaker 2: And because you're a left e, I really couldn't see
Speaker 2: over your left arm. You know, left is right in
Speaker 2: that weird way where they cover the world very hard.
Speaker 3: Mike. Mike writes very small.
Speaker 2: To this day, he writes like crib notes only him
Speaker 2: and Jimmy Sanders was my accountant for a while.
Speaker 3: Jimmy would write the teeniest.
Speaker 1: Words like I remember Sanders rather and.
Speaker 3: You guys had that slint that I couldn't pick up.
Speaker 1: I mean I did, Okay, I'm talking multiple choices. I mean,
Speaker 1: you can't really cheat on an essay test.
Speaker 3: No, that's hard. That's hard.
Speaker 1: I mean I guess you could, but it'd be much
Speaker 1: harder than multiple choice.
Speaker 2: That's multiple trust they did, Okay, I ended up with
Speaker 2: a base. I think the worst thing.
Speaker 3: Got an eight. Of course.
Speaker 1: Well, and he never cheated off me in marine biology, so.
Speaker 3: No, I don't think that was fun. That was a
Speaker 3: fun class.
Speaker 1: Okay. Well, we seldom talk about sports, even though we
Speaker 1: just talked about ranking killing the bird on on relationships
Speaker 1: as a bitch. But there's something going on that has
Speaker 1: gone on over the past week that has really mushroomed
Speaker 1: into a I think a much larger issue that a
Speaker 1: much greater percentage of the population is now aware of.
Speaker 1: This is something that that I've been particularly focused on
Speaker 1: for a while because it's a it's a topic of
Speaker 1: great interest to John Ziggler that we talk about on
Speaker 1: the depth of journalism a lot. But you know, it's
Speaker 1: a it's a cautionary tale about you know, being careful
Speaker 1: what you ask for, because you know, Twitter is now
Speaker 1: in a frenzy over the less than entertaining NCAA Basketball
Speaker 1: tournament thus far, because all the favorites are winning these games,
Speaker 1: or at least the overwhelming majority of the favorites are winning.
Speaker 1: In fact, all of the number four seed or lower
Speaker 1: in the first round won their game. So those top
Speaker 1: four seeds all won their first round game, and they
Speaker 1: won them by an average of twenty two point six points.
Speaker 3: Yeah, blowouts.
Speaker 1: So there's something in particular. Everybody is pointing at Aja
Speaker 1: as the reason that this has changed, and March madness
Speaker 1: has become March sadness.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's exactly exactly what I That's exactly what I said.
Speaker 2: We're all talking about Nil, which, in case you don't
Speaker 2: know his name, image and likeness. This is the policy
Speaker 2: that's been instituted in college basketball, and the debate rages
Speaker 2: on because now you know, I told my son, make
Speaker 2: sure you watch the first day or two of the
Speaker 2: NCAA tournament has always tremendous upsets and he's already for
Speaker 2: written and it just nothing really happened. And when's the
Speaker 2: last time the top seeds all made it. I don't
Speaker 2: even know the last year that happened. But this, I mean,
Speaker 2: where are the Davidson's, the Gonzagas, the Villanova's of the past.
Speaker 2: So now it's harder for lower seeds, lower seeded teams
Speaker 2: to pull off upsets because NIL was what introduced four
Speaker 2: or five years ago, and it allows college athletes to profit.
Speaker 3: From their personal brands.
Speaker 2: Branding is everything now and that leads to big financial
Speaker 2: disparities between powerhouse schools.
Speaker 3: And smaller schools, the ones that we root for to be.
Speaker 2: Cinderella, and it's altering the whole balance that has basically
Speaker 2: fueled the fact that we all love this tournament because
Speaker 2: it's unpredictable. You could be a brain, you could be
Speaker 2: a bringing act with college ball, and you could lose
Speaker 2: your bracket in the first two days. That's why we're
Speaker 2: all on even ground.
Speaker 3: Now we're not.
Speaker 2: And the big argument with this NIL is that this
Speaker 2: talent at high major programs have the bigger budgets and
Speaker 2: a lot of big multimillionaire donors. Wealthier schools can afford
Speaker 2: these lucrative nil deals. We're talking high six figures, low
Speaker 2: seven figures at times, and that entices recruits and transfers
Speaker 2: to join or stay rather than develop at these mid majors.
Speaker 2: And it just trains the whole experience that the Cinderello
Speaker 2: teams we rooted for in the past. They just can't
Speaker 2: make it past these top heavy favorites. So now, I mean,
Speaker 2: you got your sons. Your son's playing it, well, he
Speaker 2: went to Texas.
Speaker 1: Right, my son's at TCU, but he's not he's not playing.
Speaker 3: But I know, but.
Speaker 2: Didn't that happen in his school not too long ago?
Speaker 2: Was a quarterback or was that Texas? Some some players,
Speaker 2: some quarterback in football really really made things topsy turvy.
Speaker 3: I can't think his name right now.
Speaker 1: Oh we're okay. I don't remember where it was. But
Speaker 1: there was a guy who refused to play in a
Speaker 1: bowl game. Yeah, that's it because he was going to
Speaker 1: enter the transfer portal and didn't want himself to to
Speaker 1: risk injury in the bowl game. Look, they are all
Speaker 1: kinds of unintended consequences. The NIO rule changed. I don't
Speaker 1: think it was four or five years ago. There's more
Speaker 1: recent than that. I think it's like three years something
Speaker 1: like that. But it's also evolved since the beginning, and
Speaker 1: it takes some time to ramp up these programs and
Speaker 1: hire people and sort of you know, professionalize or commercialize
Speaker 1: the effort at getting advertisers, boosters to come in and
Speaker 1: support the program and help get these get these guys paid.
Speaker 1: But the huge difference in college basketball and Steph Curry
Speaker 1: would be the poster child, yes, who took a little
Speaker 1: school like Davidson because he was a little guy who
Speaker 1: couldn't get Duke or North Carolina to give him a scholarship,
Speaker 1: so he went to Davidson. He ends up growing a
Speaker 1: little and becoming the best shooter in basketball history, and
Speaker 1: he's able. He stays four years at Davidson, and he
Speaker 1: puts the school on the map and makes a run
Speaker 1: deep into the NCAA Tournament because of the continuity of
Speaker 1: being there for four years on that team and being
Speaker 1: a great player who stayed at a little school because
Speaker 1: there was no one dangling millions of dollars at Steph
Speaker 1: Curry at the end of his freshman year saying we
Speaker 1: were wrong, you are good enough. To play for Duke.
Speaker 1: Please come over, Mike Krzyzewski didn't have a check book
Speaker 1: to write checks back in the day and couldn't do
Speaker 1: that now. If you make if you make some noise
Speaker 1: at a small school, Saint Peter's, Liholl of Chicago, University
Speaker 1: of Maryland, Baltimore County all day, and that's the team
Speaker 1: that was a sixteen that beat a one. Yeah, those
Speaker 1: kinds of schools or mid majors in general, that could
Speaker 1: make a run in a tournament because of the continuity
Speaker 1: of their team and the fact that they could keep
Speaker 1: athletes for four years. Well, they can't keep anybody who's
Speaker 1: good because they're going to get offered big money by
Speaker 1: a big school to make the jump. And so it's
Speaker 1: now there's nothing more nauseating than hearing an announcer go, oh,
Speaker 1: there's aj Bens. It's his senior year here at the Paul.
Speaker 1: He played for played for Creighton last year, and the
Speaker 1: year before that he played for Saint John's, and year
Speaker 1: before that he was at Auburn. But he's a great kid,
Speaker 1: and you know doing great chapter is come on, I
Speaker 1: don't know.
Speaker 3: I hate that. Yeah, I'm sorry.
Speaker 5: No, no, no, no, no, no, just look, it's more about
Speaker 5: I just wanted to say, if fe're worse about it.
Speaker 5: I think it's such a tendency now because personal branding
Speaker 5: started to be crucial all over the place, and if
Speaker 5: you think about social media definitely gives you so many
Speaker 5: opportunities for that to build it up. But people stop
Speaker 5: to be stable, they stop to be committed, whether its
Speaker 5: relationship or your careers. They don't care about, you know,
Speaker 5: being linked to somebody. They don't care about representing something
Speaker 5: bigger than them. They care about themselves. They are losing
Speaker 5: their jobs, not losing. They do it consciously, and they
Speaker 5: care about being a blogger. I'm a part of it.
Speaker 5: I understand them, but I fix it up with my expertise.
Speaker 5: And people don't you know, they think, okay, I will
Speaker 5: play here a little bit there, a little bit. My
Speaker 5: goal is making money only and probably build up personal brand.
Speaker 4: They don't think about.
Speaker 7: The value, call value of it.
Speaker 5: And definitely, I don't know if you have such a saying,
Speaker 5: you don't change the horses they're crossing right, you know
Speaker 5: when you cross when you started your way. So I
Speaker 5: think that's what happening because such a competition right now
Speaker 5: about the love about the careers all over the place
Speaker 5: that people don't care about, you know, being a part
Speaker 5: of something bigger.
Speaker 7: Well, yes, I know, and treplaceable.
Speaker 3: Well, typically I think.
Speaker 2: I think underdogs in March Madness have a win rate
Speaker 2: of thirty three percent the past five years in this tournament.
Speaker 2: That's that's the kind of shit. You can turn your
Speaker 2: head away from a game that a team has that
Speaker 2: kind of a chance to beat a top major university
Speaker 2: that's over now, or it's going to be severely curtailed.
Speaker 3: You know, this whole thing branding, if we.
Speaker 2: Got into branding ten or fifteen years ago, boy, it's
Speaker 2: everything now.
Speaker 3: Kevin Hart how it works in Hollywood.
Speaker 2: Kevin Hart and many of these people have and they've
Speaker 2: amassed twenty thirty forty sixty seventy million people one hundred
Speaker 2: million people on their social media platforms. In the old days,
Speaker 2: you did a movie, you're starting a movie, then you
Speaker 2: go out and do publicity for that movie. The studio
Speaker 2: loves the publicity you bring. Kevin Hart was the first
Speaker 2: person to say, yeah, I want to be paid.
Speaker 3: For doing that publicity.
Speaker 2: What do you mean, Well, the forty million people I reach,
Speaker 2: I reached because I.
Speaker 3: Did all that work.
Speaker 2: I made them come to me with little things I
Speaker 2: did talking to the public.
Speaker 3: So now you pay me, in addition to my movie salary,
Speaker 3: pay me a few.
Speaker 2: Million to push this movie onto my fans that I
Speaker 2: built into my platform. I think it started in Hollywood,
Speaker 2: that this extra, this branding thing, And now I don't. Look,
Speaker 2: we all think it's fair for these kids to make
Speaker 2: some money because they bring in millions and millions of
Speaker 2: dollars to these universities.
Speaker 3: But you know, the consequences are what we're looking at
Speaker 3: right now. The games aren't as good.
Speaker 1: I would take count me as somebody who doesn't think
Speaker 1: it's fair and never thought it was a good idea,
Speaker 1: and we go back to the old way heartbeat. Look,
Speaker 1: I know there are all kinds of individual stories we
Speaker 1: can tell about families living in poverty and the kid
Speaker 1: gets to a school and it not only changes the
Speaker 1: life of his family, but his relatives and everything. Yes,
Speaker 1: I know that, but look at what's happening culturally. Everything
Speaker 1: is about me. Everything is about the name on the
Speaker 1: back of the jersey, not the name on the front
Speaker 1: of the jersey. Institutions that have been so important to
Speaker 1: this culture. We're gonna want the Michigan Ohio State rivalry,
Speaker 1: and football is going to go away. It's not going
Speaker 1: to be a USC, UCLA, Notre Dame USC. All of
Speaker 1: these rivalries lose their meaning when we don't even know
Speaker 1: who the quarterback is because they've been there for half
Speaker 1: a minute and then they're going to be gone the
Speaker 1: next year. Think of all the players historically that we
Speaker 1: when we conjure them up, we think of them. There's
Speaker 1: so many players that I think of and think instantly
Speaker 1: of their time at Duke as a basketball player, or
Speaker 1: their time at Michigan as a football player. That's your
Speaker 1: reference point is where you first become a fan of
Speaker 1: that athlete, dub Flute at Boston College. I mean things
Speaker 1: like that that they will disappear from the culture, not
Speaker 1: be a part of what happens. And so it's and
Speaker 1: the deeper we get into it, the more time that
Speaker 1: goes by, the more those things like those rivalries become
Speaker 1: distant memories. We've got twelve teams making a football playoff now,
Speaker 1: rendering conference championship games meaningless in a lot of cases.
Speaker 1: Except all of these things that are that are changing sports.
Speaker 1: And you're right, it all goes back to cultural changes
Speaker 1: around social media and technology and what people were able
Speaker 1: to do to build personal brands. But it cuts both ways.
Speaker 1: Is not that happy that she has the social reach
Speaker 1: that she has after she you know, put her foot
Speaker 1: in her mouth and changed the you know, the tide
Speaker 1: of that whole day publicly.
Speaker 3: But surely you know why.
Speaker 5: Because relationships stop to be a value. That's what we
Speaker 5: have to bring back to people. It's all about now
Speaker 5: self love. But self love is misinterpret by like by
Speaker 5: social media. People don't understand self love. It's nothing to
Speaker 5: do with egoism ega centuries. Self love is about self
Speaker 5: care and that's it, and self respect and so on.
Speaker 5: Good things, not bad and destructive things. But people lost
Speaker 5: value of relationships. Then normal marriage is for fifteen years together,
Speaker 5: no matter what the normal friendships like that, everybody is
Speaker 5: soon everybody. There is no more team work, there is
Speaker 5: no more relian on somebody else. And because people are
Speaker 5: trying to misuse information behind your back and.
Speaker 4: Look good, you know, So yeah, relationship I lose in value.
Speaker 2: And now people don't even realize unless you're a real
Speaker 2: sports fan, how these these people involved in basketball or
Speaker 2: football baseball programs, How they visit these kids and these
Speaker 2: kids' families when they're eighth graders, ninth graders, and gradation
Speaker 2: in themselves inside the family, inside the community. We're going
Speaker 2: to make this kid a star at our university. And
Speaker 2: then you know, there's a lot of work to be done,
Speaker 2: countless nights and months and years. The kid gets there,
Speaker 2: and then with the nil deal, he can split whenever.
Speaker 3: He feels necessary.
Speaker 2: You lose all that that stuff you've built for years
Speaker 2: when he was a kid to get him to come
Speaker 2: to your school.
Speaker 3: The almighty dollar moves him away.
Speaker 1: Right, And don't forget this is bleeding down to high school.
Speaker 1: Imagine a Jack Bradish who couldn't pull you out of
Speaker 1: the game, hold your face mask to his face, call
Speaker 1: you a scup whatever the hell, scup, scup They love
Speaker 1: to call you a Scott Scot.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I forgot that word.
Speaker 1: Okay, all of that is And think about these athletes
Speaker 1: that think about Saquon Barkley and when they interview him
Speaker 1: and he and say, what inspired you to dedicate yourself
Speaker 1: the way that it's always about a coach that took
Speaker 1: an interest beyond what happened on the field, that challenged
Speaker 1: me and nobody ever thinks the coach who took it
Speaker 1: easy on them they expected nothing of them, was happy.
Speaker 1: You know, just yeah, yeah, Coach Jones was the greatest
Speaker 1: thing in the world because he cut me lots of
Speaker 1: checks on Friday. No character is not getting built with
Speaker 1: these with these changes that are happening to all these institutions.
Speaker 1: So anyway, let's talk about an athlete. This has turned
Speaker 1: into a sports show today. Let's talk about an athlete
Speaker 1: who had great character and and it's funny. I think
Speaker 1: we'll both have memories of this guy that we're talking
Speaker 1: about the passing of George Foreman this week as an
Speaker 1: evil carra see. I was a big Ali fan as
Speaker 1: a kid. You two, and Muhammad Ali was the master
Speaker 1: of public opinion long before social media existed. He would
Speaker 1: troll opponents like no one had ever trolled them before,
Speaker 1: and he never saw a microphone. He didn't like. Howard
Speaker 1: Cosell was on the present as a broadcaster, and the
Speaker 1: banter between Cosel and Ali was everywhere, and prior to
Speaker 1: the so called Rumble in the Jungle, which was the
Speaker 1: big fight between Ali where he was a major underdog,
Speaker 1: speaking of underdogs, against George Foreman, who was this huge
Speaker 1: guy who appeared merciless and had this huge punch and
Speaker 1: was much bigger than Ali. And and you know, he
Speaker 1: was just painted as this evil giant and uh and
Speaker 1: Ali not only painted him as evil, he painted him
Speaker 1: as stupid.
Speaker 3: Ye I mean.
Speaker 1: Ali's entire strategy for the fight was this thing called
Speaker 1: ropidope where he would get he would get Foreman to
Speaker 1: punch himself out by just putting his arms, covering his
Speaker 1: head and and letting Foreman punch into his shoulders and
Speaker 1: his arms rather than making contact. And Forman got tired
Speaker 1: later in the fight and Ali knocked him out in
Speaker 1: the eighth round.
Speaker 3: Man he said he would, He said he would. It's
Speaker 3: a great, great documentary.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 2: When when they they get up to the fight with
Speaker 2: Ali and Foreman in Africa, and you see the way
Speaker 2: Ali was painting him. Ali the man of the People,
Speaker 2: got a bunch of Africans and made them believe how
Speaker 2: bad Foreman was, your bad man.
Speaker 3: And Forman had no idea this was going on.
Speaker 2: He gets on the plane with his German shepherd, not
Speaker 2: knowing that in that part of Africa that dog was
Speaker 2: like feared. You don't come out, you don't have a
Speaker 2: dog next to you. He turned everybody off just for
Speaker 2: that German shepherd with him. But then Ali got the
Speaker 2: crowd to scream Ali Boumay, which apparently meant kill Foreman
Speaker 2: or something derogatory toward Foreman. He lost before he entered
Speaker 2: the ring, but he was such a hated man, largely
Speaker 2: because many of us love I'll heave was my idol
Speaker 2: the first time I fought with my father because he
Speaker 2: hated him and I loved him, and that was the
Speaker 2: first time we ever had a split and might not
Speaker 2: thinking like him, but from Foreman to be such a
Speaker 2: hated person to then become so beloved, far more than
Speaker 2: Shaquille O'Neal is beloved or Charles Barkley, this is global.
Speaker 2: Foreman became one of the most loved, beloved human beings
Speaker 2: ever after being looked at as such a terrible, mean,
Speaker 2: angry person. But that was just his exterior when he fought,
Speaker 2: That's not what his heart was like.
Speaker 1: Well, it didn't happen immediately though, if you remember he
Speaker 1: he lost to a guy named Jimmy Young, who was
Speaker 1: a good fighter. But isn't that that well known. I
Speaker 1: don't think most people unless they're a fight fan you
Speaker 1: know will today would know of Jimmy Young, But he
Speaker 1: had this forming credited that fight because he lost that
Speaker 1: fight to Jimmy Young as a spiritual awakening. So that
Speaker 1: was in seventy seven, and he bought Young and he
Speaker 1: lost to Ali in seventy four, so he had three
Speaker 1: more years of still being you know, labeled as this
Speaker 1: mean guy and everything. But he had a near death
Speaker 1: experience following that fight, which took place in Puerto Rico.
Speaker 1: In his dressing room, he collapsed and claimed that he
Speaker 1: encountered a vision of despair followed by divine intervention. He said,
Speaker 1: I was dead and then I heard a voice say
Speaker 1: I don't want you to die.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: And that moment led him to become a born again
Speaker 1: Christian and ordain himself as a minister. And so given
Speaker 1: that this mountain of a guy who the public opinion
Speaker 1: after that Young fight, after his devotion to Christianity, long
Speaker 1: before even the forming Grille came to market, Yeah, I thought,
Speaker 1: this is a great person to ask Irena about this
Speaker 1: week and to have us tell a little bit about
Speaker 1: what the numbers say about George Foreman.
Speaker 3: Cool.
Speaker 4: Yeah, thank you, Mike.
Speaker 5: So astrologically I checked on George Horman and his son
Speaker 5: is Capricorne and speaking about his forecoholism that he did
Speaker 5: a lot. You know, he is very intense and his
Speaker 5: venus in Sagittarius actually speaks about the expect that tends
Speaker 5: to tell people what to do or act as a
Speaker 5: spiritual mentor that's what happened to him. His karmic task
Speaker 5: was around gaining the qualities of Taurus, which speaks more
Speaker 5: about the desire to be materialistic always spirital. But he
Speaker 5: still combined both his son.
Speaker 7: With conjunction with Jupiter.
Speaker 5: He has few powerful aspects actually speaks about no matter
Speaker 5: whatever happens in his life. It's a very positive aspect,
Speaker 5: the two biggest and most benevolent planets coming together symbolizing
Speaker 5: an additional guardian angel that probably helped him to survive
Speaker 5: on that day. This aspect enhances influence and goal achievement.
Speaker 5: It brings optimism, self confidence, hopeful for the best, enthudiasm
Speaker 5: to inspire other people. It provides the ability to realize
Speaker 5: oneself and maintain a positive outlook on life. Power comes
Speaker 5: through personal projects and partnerships as well. His mercury in
Speaker 5: conjunction with Mars, which is very masculine planet, speaks about
Speaker 5: his sharp brain and great intellectual energy, prefers to take
Speaker 5: one side in discussions and often gets involved in arguments.
Speaker 5: I don't know him from this side. If he was
Speaker 5: very engaging in the negotiations, and you know, discussions, decision
Speaker 5: making can be impulsive, forms connections through conflicts, so sometimes
Speaker 5: he can raise up conflicts or speaking very intensively with
Speaker 5: the other people discussing difficult, challenging topics as well, makes
Speaker 5: very clear decisions and follows through them. Interested in politics,
Speaker 5: enjoy delivering speeches, debating, presenting controversial topics for discussion. From
Speaker 5: health point of view, as soon as he passed away,
Speaker 5: I can afford talking about that.
Speaker 7: He could have had issues.
Speaker 5: With upper inspiratory track and his career posts could be
Speaker 5: also related to journalism reporters and researchers because he had
Speaker 5: kind of very curious personality. He possibly had a chronic
Speaker 5: emotional dissatisfaction. That's why he was constantly searching for something else.
Speaker 7: I don't know how many partners he had.
Speaker 5: But he had an opportunity had a lot better.
Speaker 4: Its venus is in the position with arietis.
Speaker 5: It means that you mysteriously meet a lot of people
Speaker 5: and get into love affairs and so on and so on.
Speaker 5: Do aspect of divorce and as well possible marriage to
Speaker 5: a foreigner and tendency to flirt with the opposite gender.
Speaker 5: May experience multiple marriages as well or multiple suparations, multiple divorces.
Speaker 2: Well, i'll tell you what. He married five times and
Speaker 2: he had twelve kids. But here's the thing most people
Speaker 2: know about Foreman. He named all of his sons George Foreman.
Speaker 7: Oh my god, that's crazy.
Speaker 4: By the way, I don't know.
Speaker 5: In our country, it's not considered to be a good
Speaker 5: tradition because they say that you're given away the energy
Speaker 5: of the father to the kids. But looks like you
Speaker 5: had a good life anyway. So I hope that maybe
Speaker 5: in America it's totally different. So I don't want to disrespect,
Speaker 5: never have the culture, because I don't know exactly to
Speaker 5: be honest.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I thought I thought years ago, well ten years
Speaker 1: ago or so, that I was going to do a
Speaker 1: podcast with George Foreman, because I was doing one at
Speaker 1: the time with Mike Tyson and AJ was actually a
Speaker 1: guest on Once with Us, and Tyson's agent had set
Speaker 1: me up with I guess had the same agent at
Speaker 1: the time, or at least they were both represented by
Speaker 1: ICM at the time, and set me up with Foreman's
Speaker 1: daughter to have a conversation George Anne I think was
Speaker 1: her nable to George something Georg George and something. And
Speaker 1: I assumed that they were going to want to do
Speaker 1: a boxing kind of so I prepared everything around about No, no,
Speaker 1: they had no interest in anything. Boxing was all about spirituality,
Speaker 1: which especially at the time, I knew nothing about. And
Speaker 1: so I go and I present this whole idea for
Speaker 1: a boxing angle sports angle to the show and she's like, no, you,
Speaker 1: you didn't get the memo. This is about we want
Speaker 1: it to be about spirituality. And I'll tell.
Speaker 5: You one more aspect just to explain why it happened
Speaker 5: to him. He has a San Squen napton which speaks
Speaker 5: about huge desires of significance and recognition and feels like
Speaker 5: an instrument of higher forces, but sometimes it can go unacknowledged.
Speaker 5: So I think he felt like some kind of message
Speaker 5: they say, you know that person who is bringing the knowledge.
Speaker 5: As soon as he felt it on his level, whatever
Speaker 5: he has seen you know the spirit, and he felt connected.
Speaker 5: I think he just wanted to deliver that knowledge to
Speaker 5: the other people.
Speaker 1: Well, he developed a meaningful thought. I don't know how
Speaker 1: big his ministry got, but it got pretty big.
Speaker 3: And yeah, yeah, yeah, he was. I've interviewed him one
Speaker 3: hundred years ago at Newsday.
Speaker 2: There was something, some function in New York that he
Speaker 2: was there, which happens a lot, and he grab somebody
Speaker 2: for a five minute interview, but he remember that. What
Speaker 2: lasted in my mind is he talked about how he
Speaker 2: knew he was on a bad path in life younger.
Speaker 3: I believe he was. He was frustrated in life.
Speaker 2: He was committing crimes and there was a point where
Speaker 2: the police dogs were after him and he was rolling
Speaker 2: around in the dirt so he can get his scent off,
Speaker 2: and he remembers and at that point.
Speaker 3: He said, what am I doing? Why am I? This
Speaker 3: is not for me.
Speaker 2: Then he gets into boxing and becomes an Olympic champ
Speaker 2: a few years later.
Speaker 3: But I was I was struck by how you know
Speaker 3: he's so mean? He's saw this, he said at one
Speaker 3: point he was actually training with Sonny Listing.
Speaker 2: At one point when Sonny was much older, sparring what
Speaker 2: have you, and he very quickly was better than Sonny.
Speaker 2: Listening he could see and he got said as mean
Speaker 2: as he was in the ring with those body blows.
Speaker 2: He said that I hated that.
Speaker 3: I was better than my eye was growing up.
Speaker 2: When I got better than my idols, I didn't get
Speaker 2: that fierceness.
Speaker 3: I got sad. And you could see sometimes in the
Speaker 3: way he fights he has like a If you look
Speaker 3: at all those fights, he didn't always look mean.
Speaker 2: Sometimes he looked a little tender in the head, like
Speaker 2: something was bothering him, something was conflicting in him. At
Speaker 2: least I picked up maybe because he told me that
Speaker 2: that I started to see it.
Speaker 3: But he had a big heart, like Muhammad Ali did too.
Speaker 3: It's just they Foreman was unable to show his heart
Speaker 3: because Ali.
Speaker 2: Was much better with banter and knowing how to deal
Speaker 2: with people. Foreman not so much. Same thing with Larry Holmes.
Speaker 2: Didn't have a gift of gab, and we labeled these
Speaker 2: people as stupid dumb. But no, the Foreman had a real,
Speaker 2: really sweet good side that eventually came out with his
Speaker 2: with his ministry and everything else he's done, he did
Speaker 2: before he passed.
Speaker 1: Now, I don't know if this is how much money
Speaker 1: they made in terms of sales or what he sold
Speaker 1: the business for. But according to groc he made two
Speaker 1: hundred million dollars. Wow on the George Forman grill. Okay,
Speaker 1: how many idiots bought that stupid fucking we had?
Speaker 3: We had one. I was in college. I think I
Speaker 3: was in college. I used like five times.
Speaker 2: We put a little chicken on it, a little salt, pepper, garlic,
Speaker 2: padda and it was good. But cleaning it was a
Speaker 2: pain in me asked, but it was all. It was
Speaker 2: good for a young kid twenty three years old trying
Speaker 2: to make something nice for himself instead of peanut butter
Speaker 2: and jelly. I didn't like cleaning it, but it tastes good.
Speaker 2: It worked, It worked great. I mean, the numbers speak
Speaker 2: for itself. Everybody bought one of those goddam big stuff
Speaker 2: for you.
Speaker 1: I think, all right, I'm gonna have to do a
Speaker 1: little diligence on the George Foreman grill to find out
Speaker 1: the genesis of it. Did he actually invent this thing
Speaker 1: or did he just get a call from Company X
Speaker 1: one day saying, hey, we want to put your name
Speaker 1: slash your name on the side of a grill. Yes,
Speaker 1: probably that, Yeah, but two hundred million dollars worth of
Speaker 1: that and.
Speaker 3: Everybody jumped on it.
Speaker 2: But don't forget that was the big informer that when
Speaker 2: infomercials were huge in America, you couldn't go to bed
Speaker 2: at night past midnight without seeing a bunch of infomercials.
Speaker 2: There was an infomercial channel. America was different back then.
Speaker 1: An infomercial channel.
Speaker 3: Well, now you put this on TikTok.
Speaker 2: The TikTok shop would sell the grill without anybody fronting it,
Speaker 2: without having a guy who was a former champ fronting it.
Speaker 2: Back then, boxers when their careers ended all tried to
Speaker 2: hawk things.
Speaker 3: Mufflers. Rocky Graziana wasmini Kee muffler.
Speaker 2: All these great old champs did outside of being a
Speaker 2: greeter at a casino and shaking hands with people at
Speaker 2: the crabs table, they hawked stuff on TV.
Speaker 1: Ali should have just made a grill and completely trolled
Speaker 1: on the George Forming grill. He would have killed it
Speaker 1: and he would have made an extra two hundred million dollars.
Speaker 3: Yeah that would be great. Yeah, yeah, yeah, mo'st the
Speaker 3: Muhammad Ali grill that would have killed them. That would
Speaker 3: send them to a spiral forman.
Speaker 2: Great guy, great man, and uh yeah, just shame. But
Speaker 2: seventy four, seventy six years old, I guess that's a
Speaker 2: good life. After being pounded in the head for so
Speaker 2: many years. He didn't show many signs of you know,
Speaker 2: Alzheimer's or dementia or that kind of head trauma.
Speaker 3: It was good till the end.
Speaker 5: Yeah, they said it's a standard age for American citizens.
Speaker 5: I heard that, yes, recently a couple of days.
Speaker 1: Years.
Speaker 7: Yeah, but he's just sad it's still young, you know.
Speaker 3: I guess it's young. I'm starting to think it ain't young.
Speaker 3: I don't think it's young.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's young for a boxer, for professional
Speaker 1: But I saw something a while ago where they looked
Speaker 1: at the average lifespan of people in different professions, and
Speaker 1: it's staggering the difference between, you know, a career like
Speaker 1: I think one of the worst was being a prison guard,
Speaker 1: a corrections officer. That's one of the lowest. It didn't
Speaker 1: even reach sixties, like he was. The average lifespan of
Speaker 1: correction officers. You're like, why would anyone ever go.
Speaker 3: Into Why would you want to do that?
Speaker 2: It's it's always that there's always a town where the
Speaker 2: jail is the main thing in the town. And maybe
Speaker 2: your father was a correction and you become the you know,
Speaker 2: they used to be honor in that. There's no more
Speaker 2: you know, there's no more honor in following what your
Speaker 2: father did, you know what I mean. Like in other cultures,
Speaker 2: it's honorable. Japanese Asian culture, it seems to be what
Speaker 2: your father and grandfather did you do, even if it's
Speaker 2: not a lot of money. If your father made shoes
Speaker 2: and your grandfather you made shoes.
Speaker 3: It's not like that in America.
Speaker 2: We just all want to get out and become big
Speaker 2: and make, you know, be bigger than the last generation, richer, smarter,
Speaker 2: you know, have a bigger house just well.
Speaker 1: But also part of parenthood is wanting a better life
Speaker 1: for your kids. Yeah, and so you're trying to push
Speaker 1: them into something that's seen as in ascent from where
Speaker 1: you were. And then also you've got just generation to
Speaker 1: generation technology changes so much that it sangs every it's
Speaker 1: hard to do that changed everything.
Speaker 2: I'm not even sure my kids, I'm not. I mean,
Speaker 2: I don't talk to Roco about college much. I think
Speaker 2: he wants to go.
Speaker 3: But it's like when we were young we knew we
Speaker 3: were going to college. I mean, we knew it. I
Speaker 3: don't think.
Speaker 2: I mean there was those kids who stayed and God
Speaker 2: bless them their copper. There's electricians and plumbers and firemen, cops,
Speaker 2: God blessed those guys.
Speaker 3: I just knew I was going to go to school.
Speaker 3: I always didn't you. I mean, you knew it. I'm
Speaker 3: sure your father preached higher education and you did very
Speaker 3: well with it.
Speaker 6: But nowadays I don't know, Well the ROI was obvious
Speaker 6: that during at that time in history, because college didn't
Speaker 6: cost anything, even adjusting for standard of living.
Speaker 1: What you paid in the eighties for a top university
Speaker 1: versus what you paid today for a top university.
Speaker 3: It's what is it, ninety eight year, one hundred a year.
Speaker 1: Well some are at least seventy you're going to pay
Speaker 1: to for a private university of some prestige, and you
Speaker 1: know that's four x you know when we were paying
Speaker 1: in the in the eighties for those same schools, and
Speaker 1: so it's gotten to where and also you know, you
Speaker 1: look at the specialization and these liberal arts educations where
Speaker 1: when we went to school, a lot of people, just
Speaker 1: the majority of people just went and got a degree,
Speaker 1: a liberal arts degree, and then you just go to
Speaker 1: whatever industry was willing to hire you, where today it's
Speaker 1: far more specialized, and you're also competing against a huge
Speaker 1: foreign population that comes into this country to go to
Speaker 1: school and go to work, which would be a good
Speaker 1: thing if if our president sort of controls that a
Speaker 1: little bit over the next four years.
Speaker 3: But you didn't study in America, did you? Did you study?
Speaker 3: You go to college in America or always in.
Speaker 7: Your studied, Yes, it is, it is.
Speaker 3: It very expensive in Europe as well.
Speaker 5: My university was very expensive because it was diplomatic university. Yes,
Speaker 5: it's probably the most expensive in the country.
Speaker 3: So you come from a family.
Speaker 2: Your father was very, very learned and well read, right,
Speaker 2: I mean he went he was what was your father
Speaker 2: what was your follows line of work?
Speaker 7: Again, fat industry.
Speaker 5: We had a milk factory and a manufactory some flour
Speaker 5: based factory margarine victories existing until now.
Speaker 3: But he wanted you to be he wanted you to.
Speaker 5: Me to be in that in the same industry because
Speaker 5: he was an innovator. It's not about all in the factories.
Speaker 5: He was producing the new type of oil high equally oil.
Speaker 5: He was some kind of investigator how it could be
Speaker 5: useful for your health because he believed that it can
Speaker 5: cur up to the cancer.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: My father was kind of of engineering brain plus businessman
Speaker 5: plus and dream which matters. And I've been to conferences
Speaker 5: with him to buy at a different places. Actually, you know,
Speaker 5: it was interesting time for me.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: He always wanted me to inherit it.
Speaker 5: And my cousin is really in the factory now because
Speaker 5: it's your My uncle started it. So they worked together,
Speaker 5: my father and my uncle, And I know I was
Speaker 5: interested in that, to be honest, That's why I will.
Speaker 3: Yeah. But Mike, you kind of followed your father's footsteps
Speaker 3: as well, for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, he was in the radio industry for for
Speaker 1: years and actually got out. I think he retired in
Speaker 1: seventy nine, is that right seventy nine? No, because I
Speaker 1: went to I think he retired in sorry eighty three
Speaker 1: and the next year I was dumb school and in
Speaker 1: the workforce.
Speaker 2: So and then he did he want you to go
Speaker 2: on that field or you just liked what he did,
Speaker 2: you liked how he provided you know what?
Speaker 1: He never he never pressured me to do it, but
Speaker 1: I I pressured him to help me land in internship. Sure, uh,
Speaker 1: two different summers during school and he did. And then
Speaker 1: I got exposure to a number of people. I fell
Speaker 1: in love with everything. And then yeah, I leveraged those
Speaker 1: people to to help me get my first gig.
Speaker 3: So that's funny.
Speaker 2: I mean you you you guys had fathers that I mean.
Speaker 2: My father was great. He just never pointed me toward
Speaker 2: a career. Whatever I said I wanted to be.
Speaker 3: This TV great, they just said do it, you could
Speaker 3: do it, do whatever you want.
Speaker 2: But I wasn't push toward anything. But yeah, there's something
Speaker 2: he said for for a father or a parent that
Speaker 2: tells you you should do this, you're good in this
Speaker 2: versus a guy like me who just decided I'm gonna
Speaker 2: do what I want to do and.
Speaker 7: That it's much better, much better.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't blame my parents.
Speaker 7: Never gave me the best.
Speaker 3: No, I think that's great.
Speaker 4: I thought I kind of last.
Speaker 5: Five years and to have do a master's degree in
Speaker 5: economic international relationships when I wanted to go like.
Speaker 4: Mike's father, to be unready and television.
Speaker 5: And what I'm doing right now after develop twenty years apart,
Speaker 5: I'm trying to build my name in this industry again
Speaker 5: in podcasting and broadcasting. So coming back to my roots,
Speaker 5: my personal roots, not what my parents wanted to Yeah,
Speaker 5: so I think.
Speaker 3: You're lucky, No, But I think the part of the
Speaker 3: reason is you both grew up.
Speaker 2: You both grew up well you guys, you know, had
Speaker 2: means and stuff and we really didn't. And I viewed
Speaker 2: my father's career as a salesman ian before that, he
Speaker 2: was a very significant undercover cop in New York. That
Speaker 2: was his fifties and sixties job. But as a salesman,
Speaker 2: I viewed his job as I don't want to go
Speaker 2: to an office every day and come home at nine
Speaker 2: o'clock at night and have dinner.
Speaker 3: And that's not for me, man.
Speaker 2: I want to do something big. So his career made
Speaker 2: me want to do the opposite. And I got into
Speaker 2: sales in my life, which I'm good at, but it's
Speaker 2: not exciting enough for me. So it's funny with our parents,
Speaker 2: what they leave us, what they push us toward. You know,
Speaker 2: sometimes you want to do the opposite of what you
Speaker 2: saw growing up.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: Look, some parents are very involved in everything going on
Speaker 1: with their kids' education growing up, and some are some
Speaker 1: are at a great distance, like, yeah, I looked. My
Speaker 1: parents never did my homework with me once, never looked
Speaker 1: at my homework. I would get I would get asked
Speaker 1: occasionally whether I had done it or not, and usually look,
Speaker 1: high school was so easy for us. You always had
Speaker 1: a study hall, and you could manipulate doing your homework
Speaker 1: around when you had study hall, except that half the
Speaker 1: time in study hall you'd end up we'd end up
Speaker 1: sitting next to each other and shooting spitballs of people
Speaker 1: for an hour and not getting anything done. But it
Speaker 1: was ridiculous how easy its high school was. But but
Speaker 1: we never like my I can't believe the amount of
Speaker 1: time my wife. I can't believe her level of involvement
Speaker 1: in the amount of time she spends, like it's her
Speaker 1: responsibility in her mind to think about the internships that
Speaker 1: my son needs to have for the summer. And you
Speaker 1: know she's on him in December over break asking about
Speaker 1: what he's arranged for the sun.
Speaker 3: Well, that's good.
Speaker 1: I know he's nineteen year old years old. He's thinking
Speaker 1: about you know, whether it's fake id's going to get
Speaker 1: him into the bars or not, and you know whether
Speaker 1: he's going to get laid before the year ends. You
Speaker 1: know it's but but she's right, and the competition is
Speaker 1: fears for all these things, and you have to do
Speaker 1: that stuff.
Speaker 2: So I know, I know, I still have not seen
Speaker 2: my son Roxy straight A's National Arted Society. I started
Speaker 2: to homework. I've never seen Rock. I'll open a book
Speaker 2: at home. Ever, he's a's and a beer or two.
Speaker 2: He's a good student. I've never seen a bunch of
Speaker 2: But we went home with books. I remember we did homework.
Speaker 2: We took shut not a lot of it, but still,
Speaker 2: I mean I didn't school work did become as easily
Speaker 2: to me as it came to you.
Speaker 3: I could have been eighty five or harder.
Speaker 2: But I love fucking around having bunch, so I probably
Speaker 2: finished an eighty, which you know, it's okay, but I
Speaker 2: could have been better.
Speaker 3: I just love having fun. I love chasing girls.
Speaker 2: I just it was too when you sit next to
Speaker 2: Chico and Agavino and Kenny Wood and Bob Passio. I
Speaker 2: don't know how you guys even learned. I was laughing
Speaker 2: my balls off every day so far. We're still doing
Speaker 2: that now. So it goes to I'm still telling those
Speaker 2: stories about all of us, so clearly it meant.
Speaker 3: A lot to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, we were. We were bad, man, we were
Speaker 1: we were. We were not good.
Speaker 3: I know, I know, but I wouldn't trade it for
Speaker 3: the world.
Speaker 1: Neither would I. Neither would well, folks. I had another angle,
Speaker 1: another story for us, but I think we're going to
Speaker 1: run out of steam and not be able to do
Speaker 1: that one. You know what, Let's do that on everything.
Speaker 1: Let's do that on everything. As forward to that, we'll
Speaker 1: hold back and talk about that one here. Thanks for listening, folks,
Speaker 1: and we'll pop back at you next week, all right, gang,
Speaker 1: Thank you.