Latest / The Ben Maller Show / The Fifth Hour: Maller Mitzvah

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The Fifth Hour: Maller Mitzvah · The Ben Maller Show

0:00
Speaker 1: Kubbooms.
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 cutter the same as the
0:15
Speaker 2: rich pill poppers in the penthouse.
0:18
Speaker 1: Wow.
0:18
Speaker 2: The Clearinghouse of Hot takes break free for something special.
0:22
Speaker 2: The Fifth Hour with Ben Maller starts right now.
0:29
Speaker 1: In the air everywhere. The Fifth Hour with Me, Ben
0:34
Speaker 1: Mahler and Danny g Radio A Happy Saturday is Today's
0:39
Speaker 1: the third day of January, our second podcast of the
0:43
Speaker 1: brand new year, and it's an NFL Saturday. It is
0:48
Speaker 1: on like Donkey Kong. Two games, one good, one bad.
0:54
Speaker 1: The early game at four thirty Eastern one thirty in
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Speaker 1: the West, Carolina at Tampa Bay, which is supposed to
1:00
Speaker 1: be the NFC championship game. However, it is not necessarily
1:07
Speaker 1: a standalone championship game Carolina. If they win, they win
1:12
Speaker 1: the NFC South. If they lose, meaning Tampa Bay wins
1:16
Speaker 1: that game, then it comes down to the Atlanta Falcons
1:20
Speaker 1: game on Sunday with New Orleans, and if Atlanta is
1:25
Speaker 1: able to win that game, Carolina will still win the
1:28
Speaker 1: division based on the tiebreakers, so Tampa Bay is really
1:32
Speaker 1: up against it. That game getting the d level broadcast
1:37
Speaker 1: crew of Chris Fowler, Dan Orlovsky and Lewis Riddick, which
1:41
Speaker 1: means my remote controls mute button will be getting a
1:45
Speaker 1: workout today from my right hand. And the late game
1:49
Speaker 1: Seattle and San Francisco, which is for all the marbles
1:52
Speaker 1: in the NFC West. You've got Joe Buck and Troy
1:56
Speaker 1: Aikman in the seeding atop the NFC all that great
2:01
Speaker 1: stuff on the line in that game. So those are
2:03
Speaker 1: the two games today. Benny versus the Penny is up
2:06
Speaker 1: and running if you want to check that out. We
2:09
Speaker 1: have all the information you need on both those games
2:13
Speaker 1: and the full episode for Sunday. As it is the
2:17
Speaker 1: final weekend of the NFL regular season, which means a
2:22
Speaker 1: lot of teams who are just trying to get the
2:25
Speaker 1: heck out of Dodge and go on vacation. You have
2:28
Speaker 1: a mix of that. You also have a mix of
2:31
Speaker 1: teams that are scratching and clong trying to get in
2:33
Speaker 1: the playoffs. On today's podcast, we have Malar Mitzvah Carbon Dating.
2:39
Speaker 1: We'll get to those things. We begin though, by pointing
2:42
Speaker 1: out it is National Drinking Straw Day today, so please,
2:47
Speaker 1: when you have a beverage today, drink with a straw.
2:50
Speaker 1: And I was blown away doing research for this podcast
2:54
Speaker 1: when I found out that the straw goes back to
2:57
Speaker 1: three thousand BC. Things tubes were used as ancient straws
3:03
Speaker 1: and thin long metallic tubes to brew beer. The original straw.
3:09
Speaker 1: In the eighteen eighties there was a patent filed for
3:15
Speaker 1: paper drinking straws. A person that made them a guy
3:18
Speaker 1: named Marvin Stone. I have no idea who that is,
3:22
Speaker 1: but Marvin Stone did not like the rye straw aftertaste,
3:26
Speaker 1: so he's like, I just come up with this paper straw.
3:28
Speaker 1: So that was in the eighteen eighties. And then in
3:31
Speaker 1: the nineteen thirties a guy filed a patent for a
3:37
Speaker 1: bendable straw because his daughter was having issues. This young
3:43
Speaker 1: lady there was having issues drinking with a straight paper straw,
3:46
Speaker 1: which is completely understandable. And then it wasn't until the
3:49
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties with the rise of the fast food industry,
3:54
Speaker 1: the paper straw replaced by the plastic straw, and really
4:01
Speaker 1: the superior straw. The plastic straw. I live in a
4:03
Speaker 1: state which is outlawed the plastic straw. It is the
4:07
Speaker 1: People's Republic of California. I stand with the plastic straw.
4:12
Speaker 1: The paper straw is just a waste of time. It
4:16
Speaker 1: is also today is the Festival of Sleep Day. Yeah,
4:22
Speaker 1: the Festival of sleep Day, and celebrate appropriately.
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Speaker 2: There.
4:27
Speaker 1: The first bed, the first bed. The earliest account of
4:33
Speaker 1: a bed goes to the eighth century BC. Bed was
4:40
Speaker 1: woven of rope. Sounds like a nightmare. Then in four
4:45
Speaker 1: point fifty BC, you had a Greek physician who suggested
4:50
Speaker 1: that sleep, the reason that we sleep is because of
4:52
Speaker 1: a lack of circulation to the brain. So that was medicine.
4:59
Speaker 1: That was modern medicine in four point fifty BC. So
5:03
Speaker 1: you had that. Then in the twelve hundreds you had
5:08
Speaker 1: people who tried to sleep while sitting up. Yeah. Yeah,
5:13
Speaker 1: Well the beds were smaller because they used pillows and
5:17
Speaker 1: other things, and that's how that operated back in the
5:23
Speaker 1: twelve hundreds. And so you've got that. Then in the
5:27
Speaker 1: sixteen hundreds you had the magical Tale of Sleeping Beauty,
5:34
Speaker 1: which how much money has Disney made off that that?
5:39
Speaker 1: That's a ton of money I mean the whole the
5:41
Speaker 1: merchandise and the whole thing, the movie back in the day,
5:44
Speaker 1: and Money, Money, Money that came out in sixteen thirty four, right,
5:49
Speaker 1: sixteen thirty four, My goodness. All right. Meanwhile, let's get
5:53
Speaker 1: to the meat of the matter here. Let's not mess
5:56
Speaker 1: around the holiday hiatus which technically ended with Benny Versus
6:03
Speaker 1: the Penny and the podcast which all popped up yesterday
6:07
Speaker 1: back in the content business. But the holiday hiatus from
6:11
Speaker 1: overnight Radio is supposed to be about rest. You're supposed
6:16
Speaker 1: to recharge your batteries, powered down the vocal cords, pretend
6:21
Speaker 1: for a fleeting moment that the rhythms of the brain,
6:26
Speaker 1: Thesecanian rhythms, have not been permanently manipulated and hijacked by
6:32
Speaker 1: the graveyard shift. That's what you people tell me. You
6:37
Speaker 1: know who you are, experts, have all the answers, It
6:42
Speaker 1: all sounds good. Nevertheless, somewhere between Christmas rainstorms in Socow
6:48
Speaker 1: which we actually have had, and the itch to be
6:51
Speaker 1: back behind the microphone, which I am now in the
6:54
Speaker 1: podcast studio, the highlight of my break veiled itself, not
7:01
Speaker 1: in a studio on asphalt, in a never before told story,
7:09
Speaker 1: This is a global exclusive here on the Fifth Hour podcast.
7:13
Speaker 1: Settle in for the details on a last minute desert dash,
7:19
Speaker 1: a spontaneous pilgrimage across the American Southwest, the Great American Southwest.
7:26
Speaker 1: There's not a lot there. There's not a lot there. Now,
7:29
Speaker 1: this was with no advanced notice. There was no RSVP,
7:33
Speaker 1: none of that. Just me, my wife and the Maladmobile
7:37
Speaker 1: pointing east away from southern California and the comforts of
7:41
Speaker 1: the Malard Mansion towards the Valley of the Sun. Now,
7:47
Speaker 1: if you've ever driven from Los Angeles to Fause, I've
7:51
Speaker 1: talked about this a few times over the years, but
7:52
Speaker 1: if you've ever driven from LA to Phoenix, you know
7:55
Speaker 1: that that route is less a road trip and more
7:58
Speaker 1: of a test of endurance. Once you clear what's known
8:03
Speaker 1: as the Inland Empire, the civilization waves goodbye to you.
8:09
Speaker 1: It's like a distant relative at a bus station, you know,
8:13
Speaker 1: the Greyhound bus station. Now. Palm Springs a desert oasis
8:18
Speaker 1: which was made famous by legends like Frank Sinatra and
8:24
Speaker 1: Bob Hope and people like that back in the day.
8:27
Speaker 1: So Palm Springs and its sister cities, which are just
8:31
Speaker 1: wonderful places. They tease you though about twenty twenty five minutes,
8:35
Speaker 1: most of them off the highway. It's a mirage of
8:39
Speaker 1: golf courses and windmills and just really nice. But then
8:45
Speaker 1: back to nothingness. And then you get to this town
8:48
Speaker 1: called Blythe, which appears like a punctuation mark on the
8:53
Speaker 1: California Arizona border. So you go through Blythe, you cross
8:57
Speaker 1: the state line, you enter the Grand Canyon state which
9:01
Speaker 1: is mostly sand cactus, and this unsettling feeling that you
9:07
Speaker 1: missed and exit three hours ago. What's going on? Arizona
9:13
Speaker 1: to its credit, I will give credit to Arizona. They
9:16
Speaker 1: know who they are, and who they are is a
9:20
Speaker 1: whole lot of nothing, and they lean into it. The
9:24
Speaker 1: rest areas are outstanding, much better than California. In Arizona,
9:29
Speaker 1: the rest areas are first class, five star oasis is
9:34
Speaker 1: the wherry driver driving these desert roads. You've got relatively
9:38
Speaker 1: clean bathrooms, shaded benches. Although I went this time of
9:42
Speaker 1: the year it was not very warm, so you didn't
9:45
Speaker 1: really need the shade, but it's there. You know, most
9:47
Speaker 1: of the year it's pretty hot. You had those informational
9:51
Speaker 1: plaques that quietly say, yes, this is all there is
9:55
Speaker 1: for miles and miles and miles. You have this weird
9:59
Speaker 1: pocket of Arizona, which is not on the local time.
10:04
Speaker 1: It's a Native American land anyway, Listen, you give credit
10:08
Speaker 1: where credits due. The first real sign of life as
10:11
Speaker 1: you drive from state line of California and you get
10:15
Speaker 1: into Arizona. The first town that really stands out is
10:20
Speaker 1: called Buckeye, and there's construction everywhere, houses sprouting like weeds
10:26
Speaker 1: after rain. Suburbia marching westward if you will. And then
10:31
Speaker 1: you get to a town called Goodyear. I wonder what's
10:34
Speaker 1: named after a spring training home of the Cincinnata Reds,
10:38
Speaker 1: along with the team formerly known as the Cleveland Indians,
10:41
Speaker 1: and thus the holy land for Dick from Dayton. From
10:45
Speaker 1: there it is a conveyor belt of Phoenix suburbs until
10:50
Speaker 1: you reach the main event. However, this trip wasn't about
10:56
Speaker 1: the scenery, it wasn't about cactus. It was a mission,
11:00
Speaker 1: a malar mitzvah. What is a malar mitzvah? So a
11:03
Speaker 1: couple of weeks earlier, at a family gathering, I mentioned
11:07
Speaker 1: this briefly. I believe here on this podcast it might
11:09
Speaker 1: have been on the radio. So I think It was
11:11
Speaker 1: the podcast that at this event. One of my uncles
11:15
Speaker 1: had an event, a wedding anniversary. I attended, and the
11:19
Speaker 1: only living uncle I have, by the way, and this
11:22
Speaker 1: is the one where I had my relatives lecturing me
11:25
Speaker 1: over a monologue I did about women's soccer three years earlier,
11:30
Speaker 1: and this woman pulled me aside, a very nice woman,
11:33
Speaker 1: in the most polite way, told me I was an
11:35
Speaker 1: a hole, which I appreciated. So anyway, I was there
11:39
Speaker 1: at that event. My beloved cousins Lynn and Jerry, both
11:43
Speaker 1: in their eighties mid to late eighties. Jerry eighty seven,
11:48
Speaker 1: I got eighty seven. So they invited me to their
11:52
Speaker 1: daughter's birthday party that I was sixty. She's not a
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Speaker 1: little kid, obviously sixty in Phoenix. Another cousin obviously related,
12:01
Speaker 1: and now I recognized at the time. I recognized at
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Speaker 1: the time immediately this was a token invitation. This is
12:08
Speaker 1: the polite kind you extend, knowing full well that because
12:12
Speaker 1: of travel and my job, there was no chance I
12:17
Speaker 1: was going to show up. So naturally I just had
12:21
Speaker 1: to show up. I said, oh, what the hell, I'm
12:23
Speaker 1: off from work. I love these people, they're getting older.
12:26
Speaker 1: I want to see them, so I didn't make an
12:29
Speaker 1: announcement because I wasn't completely sure I was going to go.
12:32
Speaker 1: There was a lot of weather. I don't drive unless
12:36
Speaker 1: I have to in the bad weather. I've learned that lesson.
12:38
Speaker 1: I almost died several times driving in rain, so I'm
12:40
Speaker 1: like all, I picked my spots, so I wasn't sure
12:45
Speaker 1: it was going to happen. I didn't tell them. I
12:47
Speaker 1: didn't want to get their hopes up. Not that I'm
12:49
Speaker 1: the end all be all, but I didn't make it
12:51
Speaker 1: an announcement. There was no fanfare. I just got in
12:54
Speaker 1: the car on Saturday. Six hour drive actually was over
12:57
Speaker 1: that because we stopped a couple times and a bit
13:00
Speaker 1: of a curveball. So Lynn and Jerry have lived in
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Speaker 1: the same house, my cousins for fifty six years. They
13:08
Speaker 1: have watched Phoenix more from a one horse town filled
13:12
Speaker 1: with tumbleweeds into a major league city home of the
13:16
Speaker 1: MLB NFL Super Bowls. The whole deal, the whole deal.
13:23
Speaker 1: They were once season ticket holders to the Suns back
13:27
Speaker 1: when they played at the Mad House on McDowell, and
13:31
Speaker 1: I learned when I went to their home just a
13:32
Speaker 1: few miles from their home the Madhouse on McDowell. They
13:37
Speaker 1: watched the legends like Kevin Johnson, thunder Dan Marley, the
13:42
Speaker 1: Round Mound of Rebound, Charles Barkley dominate with Cotton Fitzsimmons
13:47
Speaker 1: as the coach. Some of those great Sons teams back
13:50
Speaker 1: in that era, and that building shaped generations of basketball fans.
13:54
Speaker 1: It probably violated several fire codes being at the time
13:58
Speaker 1: it was there, and as far as the trip now,
14:01
Speaker 1: we did not factor in one rather important detail, one
14:06
Speaker 1: rather important detail. Arizona does not mess with daylight savings time.
14:11
Speaker 1: The Grand Canyon State is in open rebellion against the clock,
14:15
Speaker 1: and I respect it now. As you know, I am
14:18
Speaker 1: by the clock, for the clock, all about the clock.
14:20
Speaker 1: I live by the clock. However, I respect Arizona and
14:26
Speaker 1: their rebellions. I endorse it. I also showed up an
14:31
Speaker 1: hour late because of it, so, not factoring in the
14:36
Speaker 1: time we planned it all out. We would have left
14:39
Speaker 1: an hour earlier if we had known about the time change.
14:41
Speaker 1: We didn't factor that in. So my thought was, oh,
14:45
Speaker 1: let's go straight to the party, you know, let's go straight.
14:48
Speaker 1: We're gonna be late. My wife's like, let's go to
14:50
Speaker 1: the hotel. First of course she won. She always does.
14:53
Speaker 1: So we arrived at the party at seven pm sharp,
14:57
Speaker 1: right in the middle of the birthday girl's speech. It
15:01
Speaker 1: was a subtle entrance, like a marching band during a
15:05
Speaker 1: eulogy at a funeral. It's like, what are we doing?
15:10
Speaker 1: Very awkward, and then it happened, right, you know, cousins
15:16
Speaker 1: in the air everywhere, faces people I had not seen
15:20
Speaker 1: since I was a kid thirty forty years ago, people
15:25
Speaker 1: who shaped my childhood when family functions were mandatory as
15:29
Speaker 1: a little kid, I talked about weddings, bar Mitzvah's family reunions.
15:33
Speaker 1: We had a lot of those, from ages zero to ten,
15:37
Speaker 1: eleven twelve something along those lines. I was dragged to
15:40
Speaker 1: all of them. And then around fifteen or so, my
15:44
Speaker 1: mom's health really got pretty bad and she had rheumatoid
15:48
Speaker 1: arthritis and all kinds of craps. She just did not
15:51
Speaker 1: win the health lottery, and so travel slowed down and
15:55
Speaker 1: the family circuit kind of faded away. And then at
15:59
Speaker 1: age nineteen, I dove head first into radio. At the time,
16:05
Speaker 1: it was like it was cool to be on the radar.
16:07
Speaker 1: Now it's like, oh yeah, the radio, But at the
16:08
Speaker 1: time it was really cool, so I dove into radio
16:10
Speaker 1: and I dedicated my life to the profession of gas baggery.
16:15
Speaker 1: And suddenly there they were, my cousin Brad, the guy
16:20
Speaker 1: that gave me my first beer at a family reunion.
16:24
Speaker 1: I was far too young. Statute of limitations safely expired,
16:28
Speaker 1: safely expired. My cousin's Tammy and Karen. They were there,
16:33
Speaker 1: my cousin Barbara ninety two, and this was very awkward.
16:38
Speaker 1: I wanted to share this with you. So I get
16:39
Speaker 1: to the party and it's bad timing and the birthday
16:43
Speaker 1: girls speak and I show up. A lot of the
16:46
Speaker 1: people have no idea who I am. Then there's some
16:48
Speaker 1: people that did know who I was, and they were
16:50
Speaker 1: kind of like, oh, excited to see me and making noises.
16:53
Speaker 1: Well Barbara, God bless her. You know, she was a
16:57
Speaker 1: friend of my mom's, older than my mom two and
17:01
Speaker 1: she screamed when she saw me, and she started crying
17:05
Speaker 1: when she looked at me, like I just walked out
17:08
Speaker 1: of some kind of seance or something. And it was
17:11
Speaker 1: very touching. It was really sweet, and it was very
17:15
Speaker 1: emotional and deeply awkward. It happened right in the middle
17:20
Speaker 1: of everything and everyone's trying to shush her, and she's like,
17:23
Speaker 1: you know, when you're ninety two, you don't really give
17:25
Speaker 1: a crap. You know, you're on borrowed time at that point.
17:29
Speaker 1: And then just as suddenly, it was all over at
17:32
Speaker 1: seventh and we got there about seven, right around seven,
17:35
Speaker 1: at seven thirty local time, the mass exodus began at
17:39
Speaker 1: this party. I'm not kidding. One by one we had
17:43
Speaker 1: cousins departing. It was like a conga line of closure.
17:48
Speaker 1: And by the ninety minute mark from the beginning, I
17:51
Speaker 1: remember we got there about an hour late, but by
17:52
Speaker 1: the ninety minute mark, the place was pretty much empty.
17:56
Speaker 1: My wife was stunned. Her family gatherings are these people
18:02
Speaker 1: on her family, They just keep going and it's like
18:04
Speaker 1: the energizer Bunny and her grandparents have passed away now,
18:07
Speaker 1: but when we used to go out with them. Luigi,
18:12
Speaker 1: authentic Italian guy who ironically loved the Olive Garden and
18:17
Speaker 1: his bride there and they be there for three or
18:20
Speaker 1: four hours, minimum five hours. The Malor family treats events
18:25
Speaker 1: like a Broadway show. Ninety minutes, brief intermission, curtain down,
18:32
Speaker 1: go home, and still the love was real, the hugs,
18:37
Speaker 1: the laughter, there was genuine joy. People seemed really happy
18:40
Speaker 1: to see me. I was happy to see them, and
18:43
Speaker 1: it was great. Mission accomplished, Mission accomplished. It was wonderful.
18:48
Speaker 1: And unlike past Arizona trips where we just drove and
18:52
Speaker 1: drove back, we stayed overnight at a boutique hotel my
18:57
Speaker 1: wife picked out in the car on the way there,
19:00
Speaker 1: and amazingly, this is gonna blow you out. There was
19:02
Speaker 1: no resort fee. There was free parking. I imagine that
19:09
Speaker 1: the people in Vegas. You can have a hotel with
19:13
Speaker 1: no resort fee and free parking. It's a miracle. It's
19:16
Speaker 1: proof that hotels can survive without nickel and diming you
19:20
Speaker 1: through the Badonka donk like they do in Lost Wages, Nevada.
19:24
Speaker 1: In Phoenix they had this was a nice hotel and
19:27
Speaker 1: it was right in the central part of the action,
19:30
Speaker 1: and it had no resort fee and free parking.
19:34
Speaker 2: It was wonderful.
19:36
Speaker 1: So then we say it was Saturday, so we stayed
19:38
Speaker 1: Saturday night. Sunday morning brought breakfast in Scottsdale. I should
19:43
Speaker 1: also point out we went to a tiki bar, because
19:46
Speaker 1: when you think tiki, you think the greater Phoenix area.
19:48
Speaker 1: But on Sunday morning, we had breakfast in Scottsdale. I'm
19:51
Speaker 1: not a breakfast guy, my wife loves breakfast and we
19:53
Speaker 1: went to this trendy breakfast spot in Scottsdale. Quick goodbye
19:58
Speaker 1: visit with Lynn and Jerry. One final sacred stop. My
20:02
Speaker 1: cousin Karen came by to say hello as well. But
20:04
Speaker 1: on the way out of Dodge we went to Culver's,
20:07
Speaker 1: the mecca of the cheese curd the in and out
20:10
Speaker 1: of the Midwest. Butterburger, Wisconsin cheese curds. Oh my yum
20:16
Speaker 1: yum to my tumb tum, delicious enough to be very dangerous,
20:21
Speaker 1: very very dangerous if one ever opened near the Malar mansion.
20:26
Speaker 1: And then it was back into the desert darkness, surrounded
20:30
Speaker 1: by unseen critters, wandering spirits, things that go bumpitty bump
20:34
Speaker 1: in the night, and probable extraterrestrial activity overhead. A lot
20:38
Speaker 1: of extraterrestrials spotted in the desert Southwest. It was a
20:43
Speaker 1: successful Malar mitzvah, A lot of miles on the odometer.
20:48
Speaker 1: Time was bent, some love was delivered, a reminder that
20:53
Speaker 1: sometimes the best part of stepping away from the microphone
20:56
Speaker 1: is finding the people who helped shape the voice using it,
21:01
Speaker 1: and that was those people, and it was grasping a
21:04
Speaker 1: lot of time. Some of my fondest memories, the big memories,
21:08
Speaker 1: were with them, and I haven't seen him in years.
21:12
Speaker 1: It's bad job by me, but it was great to
21:14
Speaker 1: see them now turning the page, I wanted to tell
21:17
Speaker 1: another tale. A long time ago, when the world was
21:19
Speaker 1: full of wonder, before GPS lied to all of us,
21:23
Speaker 1: there was a voice, a voice that did not whisper,
21:26
Speaker 1: a voice that did not mumble, didn't need closed captioning,
21:31
Speaker 1: a voice that boom, A voice that could cut through
21:36
Speaker 1: bad football like a chainsaw through wet cardboard. Just like
21:41
Speaker 1: get a wet cardboard box like weed ban has on
21:44
Speaker 1: a rainy day in Miami. You get a chainsaw, and
21:46
Speaker 1: that voice could just cut through it like a chainsaw.
21:49
Speaker 1: A Gene decker Off, the Buccaneers mentioned they played today.
21:53
Speaker 1: The Buccaneers announced this week the Deckerhoff will retire at
21:57
Speaker 1: the conclusion of the season, which will likely be today.
22:00
Speaker 1: It's unlikely the Buccaneers are going to make the playoffs.
22:03
Speaker 1: They have to win and get help. And if they
22:06
Speaker 1: don't get that help, even if they win, they're not
22:08
Speaker 1: in so we won't know until tomorrow unless they lose today.
22:12
Speaker 1: So this is likely the last game that Deckerhoff will
22:15
Speaker 1: call for the Buccaneers, closing the book on thirty seven
22:18
Speaker 1: years of calling the Creamsicle football games on the radio.
22:24
Speaker 1: That is not a career. That is a mortgage length sentence.
22:29
Speaker 1: Is what that is? My God? The third longest active
22:33
Speaker 1: tenure in the NFL right now, three quarters of all
22:37
Speaker 1: Buccaneer games in franchise history, both Super Bowl runs, every era.
22:43
Speaker 1: He touched, every era, every uniform, the throwback uniforms were
22:48
Speaker 1: the uniforms that weren't throwback uniforms, every quarterback experiment that
22:53
Speaker 1: came with an instructional manual written in crayon. Jane was
22:57
Speaker 1: there for all of it, the good, the bad, and
22:59
Speaker 1: the think about that. Coaches came and went. Owners shuffled
23:04
Speaker 1: through like bad renters. Quarterbacks rotated like spared tires, temporary, unreliable,
23:11
Speaker 1: many of them. And there was Gene. He was the
23:15
Speaker 1: load bearing wall who documented all of that. Remove him
23:20
Speaker 1: and the whole thing collapses. And here's the part where,
23:23
Speaker 1: of course I insert myself, because that's what we do
23:26
Speaker 1: in radio. How do I relate to this story. The
23:30
Speaker 1: reason I wanted to talk about Gene decker Hoff is
23:33
Speaker 1: it reminded me of one of my favorite memories in
23:36
Speaker 1: recent years. Thanks to my friendship with Fox Sports Radio
23:39
Speaker 1: alumni member Buck's sideline reporter TJ. Reeves, I got to
23:44
Speaker 1: meet Jean a few years ago, and not just meet him,
23:49
Speaker 1: I got to help him out, which frankly, is now
23:52
Speaker 1: going to go on my resume. Hopefully I don't need
23:54
Speaker 1: my resume, but I'll put that under public service. So
23:57
Speaker 1: the Buccaneers were in Los Angeles for their first trip
24:01
Speaker 1: or Jane's first trip to Sulfi statem. I think they
24:04
Speaker 1: might have come to LA during the pandemic, but Gene
24:08
Speaker 1: didn't go, and so whatever I was told, it was
24:10
Speaker 1: his first time at Sofi Stadium. And if you know Sofi,
24:14
Speaker 1: this shiny billion dollars like a sci fi movie prop
24:18
Speaker 1: that looks like it landed from another planet. And it's
24:22
Speaker 1: got the footprint I want to say, it's big. It's
24:24
Speaker 1: the footprints of the size of Texas and the navigational
24:29
Speaker 1: clarity of a corn maze mixed with a crossword puzzle
24:32
Speaker 1: while you've had too much whiskey. It's just a mess.
24:37
Speaker 1: And so TJ. I ran into him, and TJ mentions, Hey,
24:40
Speaker 1: you know, Gene is trying to find his way to
24:42
Speaker 1: the press box. We're all trying to find Gene. We
24:44
Speaker 1: can't find Gene decker Off. The game's going to start
24:47
Speaker 1: in like an hour and a half. Can we find Gene?
24:50
Speaker 1: So we need your help. So I said, no problem.
24:52
Speaker 1: I got nothing else going on, so I am. Now
24:56
Speaker 1: I'm walking around the state. I find myself in one
24:58
Speaker 1: of the elevators near the press box, minding my business,
25:02
Speaker 1: embracing my inner introvert, where I don't talk to anybody.
25:06
Speaker 1: When I hear a short, portly, older gentleman say he's
25:10
Speaker 1: lost and going to be late. And I recognized right
25:13
Speaker 1: away the golden pipes. The light bulb didn't just flicker.
25:19
Speaker 1: This wasn't just a guy. This was the guy. This
25:22
Speaker 1: was the man, the myth, the legend, Gene Deckerhoff. I
25:25
Speaker 1: introduced myself, I said, hello, mister Dekerhoff, and suddenly I'm
25:29
Speaker 1: not a radio guy. I am a pace car. I
25:32
Speaker 1: remember this is how I remember it. I'm leading the
25:36
Speaker 1: broadcast field safely through the turns, sirens blaring, mission, Get
25:42
Speaker 1: Jean to the booth, Get Gene to the booth. That's
25:45
Speaker 1: the mission, and we did mission accomplished. It felt like
25:50
Speaker 1: guiding the Pope through Times Square or helping Santa Claus
25:53
Speaker 1: find the chimney. You don't forget. You don't forget. What
25:57
Speaker 1: a run. A congrat to Geen Dekkeroff. Since joining the
26:00
Speaker 1: Buccaneers in nineteen eighty nine, you had Hugh Culverhouse, the
26:06
Speaker 1: menacing owner. At the time. Ray Perkins was the coach
26:10
Speaker 1: of the Bucks. In eighty nine, Vinnie Testaverdi was the
26:13
Speaker 1: starting quarterback. Joe Ferguson, who is thirty nine years old,
26:17
Speaker 1: was the backup quarterback. He's now seventy five. Time goes
26:20
Speaker 1: quick and Gene has been the constant. He's now Jean's
26:23
Speaker 1: eighty and he's called over seven hundred and fifty games,
26:27
Speaker 1: screaming touchdown Tampa Bay more than a thousand times. The
26:32
Speaker 1: phrase is stitched into the DNA of the franchise. Same
26:35
Speaker 1: with Fire the Cottons, which is in Raymond James Stadium.
26:39
Speaker 1: That's not just the catchphrase, that's the dagger, the final nail,
26:43
Speaker 1: the Mike drop before mike drops were cool. And let's
26:46
Speaker 1: not forget forty two years as the voice of the
26:49
Speaker 1: Severnoles of Florida State football forty two. That is not longevity.
26:55
Speaker 1: That is carbon dating. What this man has been able
26:57
Speaker 1: to do forty two years at Florida State and then
27:00
Speaker 1: the thirty seven with the Buccaneers. I didn't grow up there, obviously.
27:05
Speaker 1: I didn't grow up listening to Jeen Deckerhoff on the radio.
27:09
Speaker 1: I have heard his calls for over twenty five years.
27:12
Speaker 1: I've been in radio. I've been in radio longer than that,
27:15
Speaker 1: but I've heard his calls, like Florida State back when
27:18
Speaker 1: they had great teams and the Buccaneers where they've had
27:20
Speaker 1: some pockets of good teams. And you don't last that
27:24
Speaker 1: long unless you're really great. You don't, or unless somebody
27:28
Speaker 1: wants you know, I guess if nobody wants your job,
27:32
Speaker 1: then maybe you can stick it out. Or you're the
27:35
Speaker 1: son or the daughter of the owner of the team.
27:37
Speaker 1: But trust me, trust me, bro. Everyone wanted Jeen decker
27:41
Speaker 1: Hoff's job. Those are those are great jobs. They pay
27:44
Speaker 1: very well. You have to travel with the football team.
27:46
Speaker 1: You want those jobs. They just couldn't touch the skill
27:50
Speaker 1: level that Jeen decker Hoff had. And he wasn't flashy,
27:53
Speaker 1: he didn't chase the trends. He didn't try to sound
27:56
Speaker 1: like he was auditioning for TikTok. You morons, these older guys,
28:03
Speaker 1: they don't get loud enough for me. Come down. He
28:05
Speaker 1: just called the damn game, clean, loud, honest, proud professional.
28:09
Speaker 1: In a business where voices change faster than coaching philosophies,
28:14
Speaker 1: they change a lot they do, especially now these days.
28:18
Speaker 1: Gene Deckerhoff was the lighthouse. He was the same beam,
28:22
Speaker 1: the same and cadence, the same conviction, all of that.
28:26
Speaker 1: So you tip the headphones in this case, you fire
28:30
Speaker 1: that cannons one last time later today, and then the
28:34
Speaker 1: voice fades away and the echo will stay. We'll still
28:39
Speaker 1: have those calls, those clips on NFL films from back
28:42
Speaker 1: in the day. What a hell of a legacy for
28:45
Speaker 1: the great Gene Deckeroff, a career that is one of
28:49
Speaker 1: the greats. So congratulations to Gene Deckeroff, and enjoy your
28:53
Speaker 1: final broadcast later today. Unless you hear this after the game,
28:56
Speaker 1: and then hopefully Gene already enjoyed his final broadcast, we'll
29:00
Speaker 1: get out on that. We've got the mail bag, which
29:02
Speaker 1: should be yours on Sunday, unless there's some kind of
29:05
Speaker 1: snaffu like something gets deleted and then you won't hear
29:08
Speaker 1: the mailbag. But other than that, the plan is we
29:11
Speaker 1: will give you the mailbag, have a wonderful rest of
29:15
Speaker 1: your day if you're listening when this thing immediately drops,
29:20
Speaker 1: and enjoy the football today. If you listen two days
29:23
Speaker 1: later or three days later, hopefully everything we said is
29:25
Speaker 1: completely accurate, and if not, just blame I guess we'll
29:28
Speaker 1: blame Danny, who me, I don't know who else, but
29:32
Speaker 1: blame somebody. Blame whatever you want. But on that note,
29:35
Speaker 1: we'll catch you next time. Later, skater asta pasta Now
29:41
Speaker 1: I think so, my Felisia