Latest / The Ben Maller Show / The Fifth Hour: The King is Dead

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The Fifth Hour: The King is Dead · The Ben Maller Show

0:00
Speaker 1: Cutbooms.
0:02
Speaker 2: If you thought four hours a day, twelve hundred minutes
0:05
Speaker 2: a week was enough, think again. He's the last remnants
0:09
Speaker 2: of the old Republic, a soul fashion of fairness. He
0:12
Speaker 2: treats crackheads in the ghetto gutter the same as the
0:15
Speaker 2: rich pill poppers in the penthouse. Wow to clearinghouse of
0:19
Speaker 2: hot takes, break free for something special. The Fifth Hour
0:23
Speaker 2: with Ben Mahller starts right now.
0:28
Speaker 3: In the air eywhere the Fifth Hour with Me, Ben
0:34
Speaker 3: Mahler and Danny g Radio A Happy Saturday to you.
0:39
Speaker 1: The night day of August. It is National Book Lover's
0:43
Speaker 1: Day today. Yeah, there you go. Think of this like
0:48
Speaker 1: an audio book. So in many ways you're honoring National
0:51
Speaker 1: Book Lover's Day because today is the day to celebrate
0:56
Speaker 1: the book. Oh that's right, and we can thank Joannis Guttenberg.
1:04
Speaker 1: I believe that's how you say the name. I know
1:05
Speaker 1: the last name Guttenberg, but the inventor of the printing
1:09
Speaker 1: press that goes all the way back to fourteen forty.
1:13
Speaker 1: An ex Goldsmith invented the printing press in fourteen forty
1:18
Speaker 1: and watch out. So there you go National Book Lovers
1:23
Speaker 1: Day today. And of course the most famous book club,
1:27
Speaker 1: Oprah Oprah's book Club, which started what thirty years ago,
1:31
Speaker 1: almost in the nineteen nineties. Oh my god, it's almost
1:34
Speaker 1: been thirty years since that started. Is also today the
1:39
Speaker 1: day to celebrate the garage sale. It's garage sale Day today,
1:44
Speaker 1: and the original garage sale goes back to the sixteenth century.
1:48
Speaker 1: Here's a fun fact for alf the Alien, Opiner and
1:51
Speaker 1: Ferg Dog and anyone else who might be interested, including you.
1:56
Speaker 1: The original garage sale a rummage shale, rummage sales of
2:01
Speaker 1: unclaimed and you know, basically garbage cargo ships, stuff from
2:08
Speaker 1: cargo ships, defective cargo ships. They started having rummage sales.
2:14
Speaker 1: That was in the sixteenth century, back in the day.
2:17
Speaker 1: So it is National garage Sale Day, and I guess
2:21
Speaker 1: it actually goes back to the nineteen seventies. Before that,
2:24
Speaker 1: they didn't really do that in modern society. Western society,
2:29
Speaker 1: residential sales known as rummage sales started taking place in
2:32
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies. And of course today watch Out Watch
2:38
Speaker 1: Out on this podcast though, as we are just getting
2:41
Speaker 1: warmed up on a Saturday, we have the we'll get
2:44
Speaker 1: to the new Meatthead. We'll get to that, and the
2:47
Speaker 1: King is dead. The King is dead? Or is the
2:52
Speaker 1: king dead? We'll start with that. That's a good jumping
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Speaker 1: off point on this Saturday. And so this is how
3:00
Speaker 1: it ends, not with a bang, but a headline in
3:06
Speaker 1: a tabloid or is it true? Tales of the Naked
3:11
Speaker 1: Audio City. The rumors flying earlier this week while I
3:16
Speaker 1: was away, while I was away from my post the
3:20
Speaker 1: Watchtower in the overnight, that Howard Stern, the legend, Howard
3:28
Speaker 1: Stern reportedly dne done, done, Don Dunski at Sirius XM
3:36
Speaker 1: satellite radio canceled, retired, faded out into the Hampton's mist
3:43
Speaker 1: like a barefoot Gatsby. Who knows The details will still murky.
3:47
Speaker 1: It is just a tabloid report, and as someone that
3:51
Speaker 1: had followed many tabloid reports, oftentimes they're very entertaining to
3:56
Speaker 1: read the tabloids, and many times they are complete non So,
4:01
Speaker 1: who knows, But the feeling is that Howard Stern is done,
4:06
Speaker 1: although it's not official official. He is a semi retired
4:09
Speaker 1: He's been semi retired for years. He takes a lot
4:12
Speaker 1: of time off from his radio post. He's got a
4:15
Speaker 1: good archive of content and he chooses not to work
4:19
Speaker 1: that hard at his age. I don't blame him. He's
4:23
Speaker 1: old and he's made a lot of money and he
4:26
Speaker 1: can get away with it, so why not. But let
4:29
Speaker 1: me say this straight straight away, all right, as we
4:32
Speaker 1: look at this tabloid report, now I will assume the
4:36
Speaker 1: position that the tabloid got it right, knowing that Stern
4:40
Speaker 1: will be heard somewhere, but just for this particular moment,
4:45
Speaker 1: on this particular podcast, I do have some mixed emotions,
4:51
Speaker 1: all deeply mixed, like a cocktail of audio nostalgia and
4:57
Speaker 1: disillusionment served over a bit cold rock of reality. Now,
5:02
Speaker 1: if you grew up on radio, and even if you
5:06
Speaker 1: just lived in a world where radio mattered, where radio
5:09
Speaker 1: met something, and I'm assuming the position that by listening
5:13
Speaker 1: to this podcast and listening to the overnight show that
5:16
Speaker 1: we do, that you have a place in your heart
5:19
Speaker 1: for audio content. You are someone that appreciates the theater
5:23
Speaker 1: of the mind, and as someone that dabbles in that industry,
5:29
Speaker 1: I am grateful to you. I also obviously love audio content.
5:34
Speaker 1: So if you're someone in that domain, which I'm gonna
5:36
Speaker 1: assume you are, then you know that Howard Stern was
5:39
Speaker 1: not just a broadcast. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
5:44
Speaker 1: He was in a category unto himself, the gold standard,
5:50
Speaker 1: the gold standard, the shock jocks, shock jock, the guy
5:54
Speaker 1: who built the house and then tore the house down,
5:59
Speaker 1: rebuilt it out of flaming garbage, and then sold tickets
6:04
Speaker 1: to the wreckage and sold out the joint. And yet,
6:09
Speaker 1: and yet, somewhere along the way, Howard lost me. He did,
6:17
Speaker 1: And now it's possible I lost him. I grew up
6:21
Speaker 1: listening to Howard Stern's syndicated morning show. It's possible he
6:26
Speaker 1: lost each other. It happens in every long term relationship.
6:31
Speaker 1: Of course, Howard doesn't really know who I am. But
6:34
Speaker 1: one day I was sneaking a radio under the covers
6:39
Speaker 1: so my parents would not hear me listen to Howard
6:42
Speaker 1: Stern ranting about lesbians and making jokes about Richard Simmons.
6:49
Speaker 1: Next thing, you know, Howard Stern. You wake up. You're
6:52
Speaker 1: an adult. Howard Stern's sipping Chardonnay in the Hampton's and
6:57
Speaker 1: grilling Jennifer Aniston about her skincare routine. And you're thinking, well,
7:02
Speaker 1: wait a minute, that's not the Howard Stern I grew
7:05
Speaker 1: up with. And so I stopped listening about twelve years ago,
7:10
Speaker 1: give or take. I'm going to say twelve years. Maybe
7:12
Speaker 1: it's been ten, maybe it's been fifteen. And I'm not
7:15
Speaker 1: sitting here flexing by any means. I generally, as a rule,
7:19
Speaker 1: if you've heard me over the years, you know I
7:21
Speaker 1: try not to listen to too much talk radio. I
7:26
Speaker 1: don't want to be stealing other people's stuff through osmosis
7:30
Speaker 1: by listening to it and you're like, hey, I'm gonna
7:32
Speaker 1: do the same thing, even though you don't realize you're
7:34
Speaker 1: doing the same thing. So I try not to be
7:36
Speaker 1: that guy. I want to do my own original content.
7:39
Speaker 1: I don't want to take from other people. Now. Obviously,
7:42
Speaker 1: what I am today is a product of who I
7:44
Speaker 1: listened to when I got into the business, and they
7:47
Speaker 1: rubbed off on me. However, at this point I just
7:50
Speaker 1: tried to avoid that as much as I can. So again,
7:54
Speaker 1: the fact that I stopped listening to him, whether it's ten, twelve,
7:57
Speaker 1: fifteen years ago, Howard Stern, it's not ag I'm not
8:00
Speaker 1: being braggadocious. That is merely a time stamp. As we
8:03
Speaker 1: are having a conversation. The moment the Howard Stern Show
8:08
Speaker 1: stopped feeling dangerous and started feeling like it was processed
8:15
Speaker 1: by Access Hollywood with better drops. Is the moment I
8:20
Speaker 1: checked out, But that doesn't erase what came before it.
8:25
Speaker 1: And clearly Stern still has a much bigger audience than
8:27
Speaker 1: I could ever imagine that I would ever get. But
8:31
Speaker 1: for me, I was the guy that listened to Stern
8:35
Speaker 1: because he was the shock jock and he he would
8:38
Speaker 1: go places no one else would go. And there was
8:41
Speaker 1: a time, maybe it was the late eighties, the nineties,
8:45
Speaker 1: the early two thousands, when Howard Stern was thrown one
8:48
Speaker 1: hundred miles an hour and he had all those pitches.
8:52
Speaker 1: It was gas. It was he had a killer curveball,
8:57
Speaker 1: he had a breaking ball, he had a just everything
9:00
Speaker 1: right everything. It was must listen appointment radio in an
9:03
Speaker 1: era when people still made appointments to listen. Right now,
9:08
Speaker 1: the audio world that we have so much of it,
9:13
Speaker 1: so much of it, is as well listen when I want.
9:16
Speaker 1: It's on demand, like this podcast. You can listen to
9:18
Speaker 1: this podcast we recorded early in the day. You can
9:21
Speaker 1: listen early in the day, you can listen later in
9:24
Speaker 1: the day, you can listen the next day or two
9:26
Speaker 1: days later. It's just like it's at your convenience, but radio.
9:28
Speaker 1: One of the great things about radio is you generally
9:31
Speaker 1: have to listen to it live to get the full
9:33
Speaker 1: essence of it's a live broad because one of the
9:35
Speaker 1: cool things about doing the overnight show is it's live
9:38
Speaker 1: while you're working, while you're trying to sleep, while you're
9:42
Speaker 1: having insomnia, all of that. So Howard Stern built this
9:48
Speaker 1: amazing whack pack and it was just so entertaining, like
9:53
Speaker 1: all these rejects and goofballs. And you had somebody on
9:58
Speaker 1: his staff, Stuttering John, who would go out and do
10:01
Speaker 1: these terrible interviews with celebrities and ask him the most
10:04
Speaker 1: vile questions. And it was the funniest thing in the
10:06
Speaker 1: world because there's nothing celebrities would hate more on the
10:10
Speaker 1: red carpet than Stuttering John asking some weird questions. And
10:14
Speaker 1: Howard Stern battled the FCC. I don't want to say
10:17
Speaker 1: he beat the FCC because he did run to satellite radio,
10:20
Speaker 1: but he was in the crosshairs with the Federal Communications
10:23
Speaker 1: Commission in America and he was going mono a motto.
10:29
Speaker 1: He destroyed multiple Morning Zoo guys and lapped the drive
10:36
Speaker 1: time DJs one by one by one. It was like
10:40
Speaker 1: whack the mole, they'll pop up. Stern'll knock him down.
10:44
Speaker 1: And it was the thing we talked about off and
10:46
Speaker 1: you could love him or you hated him, but you
10:49
Speaker 1: had to deal with him. He wasn't just in the
10:52
Speaker 1: conversation Howard Stern back in those days, he was He
10:57
Speaker 1: was the conversation. And there's a term that we still use.
11:05
Speaker 1: Minus originated with Howard Stern back in the nineteen eighties
11:10
Speaker 1: and before I got in you know, I was a
11:13
Speaker 1: kid in those days. But there's a term that Howard
11:17
Speaker 1: Stern had program directors had used about Howard Stern and
11:22
Speaker 1: his ranting and all that. They call it the Stern effect,
11:26
Speaker 1: and it's still to this day something that is in
11:31
Speaker 1: all media. It's a little different now because of podcasting,
11:35
Speaker 1: but in live audio or video, there's a thing called
11:39
Speaker 1: the Stern effect. You probably have heard of it if
11:42
Speaker 1: you've listened to the show. I brought it up multiple
11:44
Speaker 1: times in monologues, and if you're a fan of Stern,
11:47
Speaker 1: you know what I'm talking about. But people who really
11:49
Speaker 1: really hate Howard Stern would listen longer, would listen longer
11:57
Speaker 1: than those who loved Howard Stern. The reason people would
12:01
Speaker 1: listen for as long as because they wanted to make
12:02
Speaker 1: sure they didn't miss an opportunity to be outraged. And
12:06
Speaker 1: that seam mindset today to this very day, is why
12:14
Speaker 1: a lot of people will watch on the Republican side,
12:18
Speaker 1: not to get political, but we're about to get political.
12:21
Speaker 1: But Republican voters will watch CNN to get pissed off,
12:26
Speaker 1: and Democratic voters will watch Fox News and get pissed off,
12:32
Speaker 1: and they actually watch longer because they get so offended
12:37
Speaker 1: by all this stuff. And much of social media. One
12:40
Speaker 1: of the great hacks of social media is to send
12:44
Speaker 1: out things that are on the spectrum that upset people,
12:47
Speaker 1: like the culture wars of society. Right, People get offended
12:52
Speaker 1: by certain things, and you send those things out and
12:55
Speaker 1: you get caught up in what we call the matrix.
12:58
Speaker 1: And so Howard Stern back in those days again he
13:02
Speaker 1: was the conversation. Now in twenty twenty five, in the
13:07
Speaker 1: summer of twenty twenty five, well, now the whispers say
13:11
Speaker 1: it's over serious. One hundred million dollars a year marriage
13:17
Speaker 1: that they had with Howard Stern. May finally and I
13:20
Speaker 1: say may, that's a weasel word, may finally be heading
13:23
Speaker 1: to divorce. Court, and yeah, I get it. One hundred
13:27
Speaker 1: million dollars a year buys you a lot of goodbyes.
13:31
Speaker 1: That is more money than Patrick Mahomes will make to
13:35
Speaker 1: play quarterback for Cansas City or show Hey Otani to
13:41
Speaker 1: hit home runs and pitch once a week for the Dodgers.
13:45
Speaker 1: So that's more money than anyone, to my knowledge, has
13:48
Speaker 1: ever made to talk into a microphone outside maybe Rush
13:53
Speaker 1: Limbaugh or God. And some would say that those are
13:58
Speaker 1: one and the same in terms of audio content, but
14:00
Speaker 1: it still, it still stinks. It does this tabloid report
14:04
Speaker 1: because Howard meant something. I'm gonna tell you a little
14:08
Speaker 1: story story time on the Fifth Hour podcast. Read for
14:11
Speaker 1: a story you ready, So way back in January of nine.
14:20
Speaker 1: January of nine, they were swearing in a president named
14:23
Speaker 1: Barack Obama. And while that was going on, I was
14:27
Speaker 1: given a piece of paper that was pink, a pink slip.
14:32
Speaker 1: I got whacked or excommunicated from Fox Sports Radar. I
14:36
Speaker 1: was gone, replaced by a can of soup. I vanished
14:40
Speaker 1: from the airwaves of Fox Sports Radar. I was off
14:43
Speaker 1: the air for six months and twenty six days. I
14:46
Speaker 1: was unemployed. I didn't have a gig it was also
14:49
Speaker 1: the most money I'd ever made in radio, because they
14:51
Speaker 1: had to pay me a lot of money to have
14:53
Speaker 1: me go away. So these weird emotions where I was
14:57
Speaker 1: very upset, I didn't have a microphone, I didn't have
15:00
Speaker 1: a gig, and then at the same time I made
15:02
Speaker 1: more money than I had ever made and still to
15:05
Speaker 1: this day, I have made more money in twenty oh
15:08
Speaker 1: nine than I have ever made in radio while being
15:11
Speaker 1: in Radio purgatory, because I had been with the company
15:15
Speaker 1: at that point for a long time and they had
15:17
Speaker 1: this sweetheart buyout package where they just threw tons of
15:21
Speaker 1: money at me, but yet I didn't have a gig anyway.
15:25
Speaker 1: Story continues, So one day around January twenty a few
15:32
Speaker 1: days after that, a gentleman by the name of Pete
15:35
Speaker 1: in Pittsburgh a legend dairy Looney tune and a crossover,
15:41
Speaker 1: a crossover from the caller Underworld who happened to be
15:46
Speaker 1: part of Howard Stern's whack pack and a member of
15:48
Speaker 1: the mal Or Militia simultaneously simultaneously. So one day Pete
15:54
Speaker 1: and Pittsburgh calls in to Howard Stern's show and they
15:59
Speaker 1: talked on the air for a few minutes about all
16:01
Speaker 1: these people in radio who lost their job. But Pete
16:04
Speaker 1: and Pittsburgh, being a fan of the Overnight show, mentioned
16:10
Speaker 1: me by name, some overnight sports radio slub floating out
16:17
Speaker 1: in the ether. And now Howard Stern, Howard effing Stern
16:23
Speaker 1: is saying my name on his show and talking about
16:29
Speaker 1: me on his show. Now I didn't hear it. I
16:33
Speaker 1: wasn't listening to Howard during that day. I was not
16:36
Speaker 1: tuned in the reason I knew that happened. Immediately, my
16:40
Speaker 1: phone blew up people I had not heard from in months,
16:46
Speaker 1: years old friends from high school, people i'd lost contact
16:52
Speaker 1: with family, Folks who couldn't care less about sports and
17:00
Speaker 1: knew that I kind of worked in radio, and they thought, well,
17:03
Speaker 1: I think you mentioned a radio guy that had your name.
17:06
Speaker 1: Could that have been you? They were calling me, like,
17:09
Speaker 1: I just want to Grammy. It's like, Wow, I must
17:12
Speaker 1: have done something really special that shows you the reach.
17:16
Speaker 1: And that was what are we looking at sixteen years ago,
17:20
Speaker 1: twenty oh nine. Wow, I can't believe it's been sixteen years.
17:23
Speaker 1: But that's the reach, that's the power, that's the hammer
17:27
Speaker 1: that Howard Stern was wielding, and that's what made him, Howard,
17:32
Speaker 1: that's the magic. And yeah, somewhere along the way, he
17:38
Speaker 1: traded his trench coat for a tuxedo. The rebel Howard
17:45
Speaker 1: Sern joined the gala, the met Gala rage against the machine,
17:50
Speaker 1: became ordures with the machine. The very people that he
17:55
Speaker 1: loved to goof on and make fun of. Now he
17:58
Speaker 1: was hanging out with the Hamptons. But you know what,
18:02
Speaker 1: that's life. Maybe the real shock, Jock, is that it
18:07
Speaker 1: took this long. That's the real shock that the jock
18:11
Speaker 1: took that long to become that guy. Give me that guy.
18:15
Speaker 1: Everything he used to goof on, he became. And so
18:19
Speaker 1: now we say bye bye. Maybe, but I don't even know.
18:23
Speaker 1: He might end up working for the company I work for.
18:25
Speaker 1: Ihearten his rumors. He's gonna take his show somewhere else.
18:29
Speaker 1: I have no idea. I know I'm not involved in
18:31
Speaker 1: those conversations. That's above my pay grade. Right, He'll be
18:35
Speaker 1: somewhere only he's completely done. It just seems like Satellite
18:38
Speaker 1: Radio is not gonna pay him one hundred million, and
18:41
Speaker 1: I doubt Howard's gonna take a penny less. So the
18:46
Speaker 1: other thing about this, he hit ninety five people. I
18:49
Speaker 1: read in one of the stories, ninety five people work
18:51
Speaker 1: on that show. I can barely get one person to
18:55
Speaker 1: work on my show. I get people showing up the
18:57
Speaker 1: last minute or after the show starts, completely high, not
19:01
Speaker 1: paying any attention. I mean, I can't imagine I mak
19:03
Speaker 1: ninety five people working for you to try to make
19:06
Speaker 1: you sound good. That's amazing that. Oh my god, I
19:10
Speaker 1: would die for that. I mean, I wouldn't know how
19:12
Speaker 1: to handle having people trying to support you and make
19:15
Speaker 1: you sound good. Holy crap, that would be amazing. But
19:19
Speaker 1: any of listen, it's not about that. So Howard Stern
19:24
Speaker 1: maybe not officially yet gone, but in spirit even if
19:28
Speaker 1: he still goes somewhere, this is not the version of
19:31
Speaker 1: Howard Stern. I want to remember the Fastball's been gone
19:34
Speaker 1: for a while, the memory of the heater still lingers.
19:39
Speaker 1: You remember the smoke, right, You remember the buzz, the
19:42
Speaker 1: You remember being a teenager and hearing something you weren't
19:46
Speaker 1: probably supposed to hear, and knowing, just knowing that this
19:50
Speaker 1: was radio that mattered. That's one of the reasons I
19:53
Speaker 1: wanted to get into radio. I was like, that mattered.
19:55
Speaker 1: That got a reaction out of people. So Howard Stern.
19:59
Speaker 1: He would there's never everyone's cup of teas. Certainly now
20:02
Speaker 1: he is in everyone's cup of tea's. It's odd, though
20:04
Speaker 1: the base he's attacked the very core of his fandom,
20:11
Speaker 1: which seems counterproductive. It seems counterproductive, but hey, that's his choice.
20:18
Speaker 1: And if this is it, if the curtain really is
20:21
Speaker 1: coming down on the King of all Media, then we'll
20:26
Speaker 1: give the man his due. There was a time when
20:29
Speaker 1: Howard Stern ruled the audio world, absolutely ruled the audio world,
20:37
Speaker 1: and for a long stretch, nobody did it better. The
20:42
Speaker 1: man made multiple books, movie big movie, private parts. And
20:50
Speaker 1: we have a feeling that Howard will still be around
20:53
Speaker 1: the radio dials Somewhere's old shows will live on. They
20:57
Speaker 1: have a long shelf life, some of those class bits
21:00
Speaker 1: back when Stern did radio as a loud mouth and
21:04
Speaker 1: would all the historyonics and all the dramatics and all
21:07
Speaker 1: the overstatement and all that stuff that made him great.
21:09
Speaker 1: Not the hanging out at cocktail parties with people who
21:12
Speaker 1: are Hollywood elites. Not that Howard Stern, the Stern from
21:16
Speaker 1: back in the day. That's the one that people want
21:18
Speaker 1: to hear. That's the one that's got legs, all right,
21:21
Speaker 1: now meanwhile, it's being a broadcasting we'll have a theme
21:24
Speaker 1: on this Saturday podcast. So some other news which is
21:29
Speaker 1: now official. The news came out yesterday on Friday that
21:34
Speaker 1: Rob Gronkowski, Yes, that Rob Gronkowski, he of the frat
21:40
Speaker 1: boy charm and protein shake for brain's charisma, has gotten
21:45
Speaker 1: one of the biggest jobs in sports television. He is
21:50
Speaker 1: replacing Jimmy Johnson on the NFL on Fox Sunday pregame set.
21:59
Speaker 1: He's got the chair. Just when you thought sports television
22:02
Speaker 1: couldn't dig deeper for quote personality, close quote, they strike
22:08
Speaker 1: oil in a field of synthetic testosterone and bro jokes.
22:15
Speaker 1: So Jimmy Johnson, the man that had that job forever
22:20
Speaker 1: and ever and ever, the Super Bowl winning coach, a
22:24
Speaker 1: great college football coach, a master motivator, one of the
22:27
Speaker 1: last credible football minds on television, quietly fading into retirement.
22:34
Speaker 1: And in his place you got the Gronk, the guy
22:39
Speaker 1: whose main qualifications are that he played for the New
22:43
Speaker 1: England Patriots with Tom Brady. He knows Tom Brady, and
22:47
Speaker 1: he's got the Hall of Fame resume. He's got a
22:50
Speaker 1: lot of followers on Instagram, and he has this uncannyability
22:54
Speaker 1: to turn every piece of analysis into some kind of
23:00
Speaker 1: punchline about partying or his body or now. The one
23:06
Speaker 1: advantage he has is he's much younger than everyone else, right, Gronkowski,
23:10
Speaker 1: Gronk on a set with Howie Long and Terry Bradshaw,
23:15
Speaker 1: who have been doing that forever and ever as well,
23:18
Speaker 1: so you can flash a smile of flex a bicep toll, chuckle.
23:22
Speaker 1: He's a walking meme. He's perfect for the social media era,
23:29
Speaker 1: where the depth is a liability. The depth is a liability.
23:35
Speaker 1: Everything's got to be quick, it's got to be TikTok ready,
23:39
Speaker 1: no no long form, no long form. So let's also
23:45
Speaker 1: not pretend that the decision to have Gronkowski on television
23:50
Speaker 1: every week is about football. It is not. In my opinion,
23:55
Speaker 1: It is about optics. This is about the network executives
23:59
Speaker 1: who can to be obsessed with the jockocracy and they
24:04
Speaker 1: want that. They want the engagement, not the enlightenment. And
24:08
Speaker 1: in many ways I understand the NFL pregame show is
24:13
Speaker 1: a dinosaur. It is as relevant today as a payphone
24:18
Speaker 1: or a typewriter. Now, there are people that use typewriters,
24:22
Speaker 1: and there are people that are in areas where cell
24:25
Speaker 1: reception goes out and they end up they end up
24:30
Speaker 1: using a payphone. The NFL pregame show is no longer
24:33
Speaker 1: a place where you go to learn something about a game.
24:37
Speaker 1: It is a variety hour. It's chuckles, chuckles, chuckles, and
24:43
Speaker 1: then you throw some shoulder pads on some ex jock
24:46
Speaker 1: and you're on your way. You're more likely to get
24:50
Speaker 1: a viral dance routine on social media than some kind
24:54
Speaker 1: of breakdown on the Tampa two. Now Fox is not
24:58
Speaker 1: alone across the board. NFL pregame shows have become relics
25:03
Speaker 1: from a different ear of hollow monuments to a time
25:07
Speaker 1: when that mattered, a time before the interweb, back when
25:11
Speaker 1: Sunday mornings meant you turned on to hear actual football
25:15
Speaker 1: minds from the old country break it down. You had
25:21
Speaker 1: the iconic IRV Cross back in the day, Jimmy the Greek,
25:24
Speaker 1: the handicapper, depending how old you are, Tom Brookshire. Now
25:30
Speaker 1: it's about the vibe, not the value. It's all about
25:34
Speaker 1: the Shticklach over substance, laughter overlearning. It's been that way
25:39
Speaker 1: for many, many years. So they're like the hardcore fan.
25:43
Speaker 1: They don't tune into these shows, and I understand the
25:46
Speaker 1: networks are like, there's not that many hardcore fans. There's
25:48
Speaker 1: not Most people that watch sports are casual fans. They're
25:52
Speaker 1: just casually invested. You're not into the all twenty two
25:57
Speaker 1: film breakdown. If you want that, there are on the
26:00
Speaker 1: dark web. You can get it, and you can have
26:03
Speaker 1: it all consumed by Thursday. The algorithms have replaced the analysis,
26:08
Speaker 1: the social media threads, breaking down, blitz packages and all
26:13
Speaker 1: that stuff. That is what the social media world is for,
26:18
Speaker 1: or parts of that world. And so if you get
26:22
Speaker 1: on television, you gotta be loud, and you gotta laugh
26:26
Speaker 1: a lot and have some catchphrases and do all the
26:29
Speaker 1: shikola and Gronk will fit perfectly in that mold. He chuckles,
26:36
Speaker 1: the clown in cleets. He'll dance, he'll grunt a little bit,
26:41
Speaker 1: He'll say yo a lot, and the producers will beam,
26:46
Speaker 1: thinking they have nailed the coveted eighteen to thirty four
26:49
Speaker 1: male demographic and that that'll play well in Peoria on
26:54
Speaker 1: social media. Here's the truth. Though again this is not
26:58
Speaker 1: about Gronk being bad at the job. I'm not saying
27:01
Speaker 1: that by any means he will do what's asked of him.
27:06
Speaker 1: The real issue is what the job has become and
27:10
Speaker 1: what it no longer even pretends to be. Jimmy Johnson.
27:13
Speaker 1: Whether you like him or not, he's out right, he's gone.
27:15
Speaker 1: He retired. He's going to live the rest of his
27:17
Speaker 1: life out there in Key West and enjoy the hell
27:20
Speaker 1: out of it. Rob Gronkowski is in, and the football.
27:24
Speaker 4: Analysis the john concres, at least on TV, continues its evolution,
27:31
Speaker 4: evolving from what used to be some kind of insight
27:36
Speaker 4: to inside joke, from a strategy years ago to slapstick.
27:42
Speaker 1: But hey, the ratings, you know, they get ratings. People
27:46
Speaker 1: still watch Foxes dominate the ratings for some time, and
27:50
Speaker 1: I would imagine that's not going to change any time soon.
27:56
Speaker 1: So that will be the way it is. All right,
27:59
Speaker 1: it is the fifth hour, and I think we'll put
28:02
Speaker 1: the baby to bed. I did not do a MAVL
28:05
Speaker 1: monologue about Shadur Sanders lighting up the Carolina Panthers in
28:09
Speaker 1: an exhibition game. The reason I did not is because
28:13
Speaker 1: it was an exhibition game. It was now if he
28:16
Speaker 1: had played terribly, would I have done a monologue? Maybe
28:19
Speaker 1: I would have, probably not. He made his NFL preseason
28:24
Speaker 1: debut against the Carolina Panthers on Friday night, and by
28:27
Speaker 1: all accounts he looked pretty good. I didn't see the game.
28:30
Speaker 1: And Tom Brady got a statue yesterday that looked like
28:34
Speaker 1: it was from North Korea, like the Overside or Russia,
28:38
Speaker 1: a twelve foot bronze statue of Tom Brady outside Jillette Stadium.
28:43
Speaker 1: So that's good news for the Pigeons. Outstanding news there.
28:47
Speaker 1: They can knock themselves out. And I also saw some
28:51
Speaker 1: of the Raiders there, Gino Smith and Max Crosby given
28:54
Speaker 1: a little rasthma task to the Seahawks fans there. The
28:57
Speaker 1: twelfth Man with the bird and all that, So that
28:59
Speaker 1: would been good for a male of Milogue and all that.
29:03
Speaker 1: But listen, we've done what we've done here and we
29:06
Speaker 1: will move on. We'll have the mail bag on Sunday.
29:10
Speaker 1: Have a wonderful Saturday here, enjoy the heck out of
29:13
Speaker 1: your day today, and we'll catch you on the Sunday
29:17
Speaker 1: mail Bag. By Folation