Latest / The Ben Maller Show / Best of The Ben Maller Show

Transcript

Best of The Ben Maller Show · The Ben Maller Show

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the best of the Ben Maller
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Show podcast. Be sure to catch us live every weeknight
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: from 2 to 6 Eastern, 11 p.m. to 3 a.m.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Pacific on Fox Sports Radio. And to find your local
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: station for the Ben Maller Show at foxsportsradio.com. You can
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: find it there or stream us live every night on
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app by searching FSR.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: This is the best of the Ben Maller Show on
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: Fox Sports Radio.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Our lead this hour, though, is going to change it
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: up a little bit. College football. I don't know if
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: you know about this. Beginning, like, just days away here,
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: college football gets going. And our lead from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. And, oh,
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: what a story it is. southern fried football at its
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: finest we've got a plot twist as we have our
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: obligatory monologue on the life and times of big time
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: college football a lot of moving parts a lot of
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: moving part a lot of rough edges a lot of
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: rough edges in this story so lane kiffin who is
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: a coach you might have heard of him He gets
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: a lot of publicity. A lot of media guys love
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: Lane Kiffin. They like to go on that magic carpet
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: ride with good old Lane. So Lane Kiffin is hanging out.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: He's a carpetbagger, and he's put his stuff down there
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: in Baton Rouge at LSU. And he is under siege now.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Lane Kiffin under attack. Criticism from here, there, and everywhere. Now,
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: what are people upset about with Lane Kiffin? New allegations
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: crawling out of the woodwork. New allegations that Lane Kiffin
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: did not just simply exploit the NFL to college eligibility situation.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: He was the father, the creator of this situation. You
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: see this? No? Oh, this is a good one. You
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: know it's got to be good if I'm going to
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: start with college football. This is good. I'm digging my
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: tentacles into this. So we have learned now, based on
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: the new reporting, LSU contacted multiple NFL players or their
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: agents representing said NFL players and encouraged them to sue
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: the NCAA for another year of college eligibility. There's a
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: report over at CBS. They claim that LSU, under the ringleader,
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: the ringleader, Lane Kiffin, Lane Kiffin, spoke with players who
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: were still participating at the time in NFL training camp.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: You're with the Cardinals or the Browns and Ring Ring. Yeah,
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: who's this? It's Lane Kiffin. What do you want from me?
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: You know, you want to come back to college, you know,
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: beautiful women get paid under the lights, Death Valley, all that. Yeah,
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: so supposedly Lane Kiffin or people representing Lane Kiffin were
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: contacting these NFL, low-level NFL players who were likely not
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: going to make a roster. Maybe they made a practice squad.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: And so this, of course, has led to natural questions
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: about whether Lane Kiffin's staff was indeed recruiting players who
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: were still under contract in the NFL. Now, the strategy
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: temporarily paid off. We'll see if it pays off in
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: the long run as LSU had been romping through NFL rosters,
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: cherry-picking three major additions, three major additions. led by Daquan
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: Wright and Zavian Harris. There's a third player also supposedly
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: was going to go to LSU. That is all up
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: in the air right now. All right, so that's a
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: good jumping off point. Let us discuss the question. A
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: lot of online chatter that Lane Kiffin needs to be punished.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: In fact, some going as far as to say, That
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: LSU coach, Lane Kiffin, if proven, if proven that he
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: was recruiting NFL players to come play in Baton Rouge
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: and to sue the NCAA, should be banned from college
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: football because of this. What say you? All right, so
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: I've got obstacle course, home goods, and farmer boys. And
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: we will combine all of these things together, and we
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: will be in the danger zone. So my first thought
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: on this, all right, we're going to make some boiled
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: crawfish and blackened alligator. Isn't that what they eat in
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: Baton Rouge? I remember watching a game there, and they
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: had the proverbial shot of the tailgate, and I feel
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: like they were eating blackened alligator and boiled crawfish. two
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: things I do not want to consume. All right, so... Yeah,
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: I mean, you can have all of mine. I will
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: be fasting, is what I will be doing. Now, I've
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: got to tell you, to answer the question, this noise, oh, Lane's,
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: you've got to get rid of Lane, bending the rules here,
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: college football, suing the NCAA, recruiting NFL players. So what
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: say I, as a talk show host, I say two words.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: Hell no, is what I say. We don't want Lane
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: Kiffin banned. Why would you ban Lane Kiffin? Banned for what?
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: Being better at exploiting the system than everyone else? At
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: what point does the commissioner, Greg Sankey, I believe is
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: his name, the guy that's in charge of the SEC,
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: the rulebook there. So at what point is Sankey like
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: just step in there and say, listen, we're going to
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: adjust the Southeastern Congress rulebook. And we're just going to
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: have a golden rule, things Lane Kiffin is no longer
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: allowed to do. Just put that in there. Boom, done. Now,
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: Lane wasn't simply responding to the court rulings based on
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: what I read. He helped recruit the players to challenge
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: the NCAA rulebook, thus being the father, the forefather of
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: this new movement and engineering the exact loophole that which
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: he later exploited, and being the snake that Lane Kiffin is,
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: he said, well, I'm just here to take advantage of
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: the rule. He left out the part. That's called a
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: lie by omission. He left out the part, if this
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: is true, where he was actively behind setting this whole
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: thing up. Now, all of that said, having a rule
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: created specifically because you're such a nuisance— I you're such
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: a troublemaker. But to have it created because of you
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: is the coaching equivalent of getting your jersey number retired.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: And to think across the pearly gates how proud Al
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: Davis must be, because I'm old enough to remember when
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: Lane Kiffin coached the Raiders and not very well and
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: a frail Al Davis and his. It was an overhead projector.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: Al read Lane Kiffin, The Riot Act, and Lane Kiffin
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: has evolved. And he's slowly turning in to a poor
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: man's Al Davis of college football. You might never know
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: who Al Davis is anymore. He's been dead for so long.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: But Al Davis was this legendary owner of the Raiders.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: And was a troublemaker and fought back against the NFL
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: at every turn and pissed off the old guard NFL people.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: But that's essentially what Lane Kiffin is doing now as
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: he bounces around as a carpetbagger around college football. And
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: it's wonderfully ironic given the fact that Al Davis was
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: not exactly the president of the Lane Kiffin Marching and
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: Chowder Society in Oakland. Regardless of that, Lane Kiffin embracing
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: the old Raider philosophy. And that Raider philosophy, when Al
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: Davis was there, was the rule book is an obstacle course,
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: not a moral document. Of course, now the Raider philosophy
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: is make sure you're at happy hour at P.F. Chang's.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: The orange chicken's really good. That's the new philosophy of
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: the Raiders. And let me tell you something. Mark Davis
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: does not miss happy hour. At the P.F. Changs. Now,
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: Lane Kiffin is the new mercenary. The face... Well, he's
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: not new. He's been around for a while. But he's
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: the ultimate mercenary in college football at this point. He's
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: like the Reggie White of coaching. The minister of mischief
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: is Lane Kiffin. So LSU pays him millions of dollars
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: to find better players and plausibly to win a lot
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: of games. We'll see if he does. He hasn't coached
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: a game at LSU yet. Lane is... Any way you
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: slice it, Lane, is good for business. Every sport needs
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: a villain poking the establishment. And so you had just win, baby.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: And in the case of Lane, you better win and
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: then let everyone else complain. And there'll be another round
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: of lawsuits. And this is not over at all. All right,
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: page two. To Froggyland we go. Why would you go
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: to Froggyland? Another compelling story from the wacky, wacky world
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: of college sports. So TCU, that's what they're known as.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: Their real name is Texas Christian University. But TCU revoking
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: the credentials of a reporter from one of the few
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: newspapers still in business in America, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram newspaper.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: They had a beat reporter. Believe it or not, they
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: had a beat reporter for TCU. And the newspaper informed
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: the reporter was persona non grata after an alleged football
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: locker room assault. That made its way into the newspaper.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: The incident, let me give you the thumbnail recap here.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: So the incident resulted in the TCU campus cops having,
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: there was a case filed there that led to a
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: player being booted off the TCU football team. And the
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: reporter for the newspaper, he reported, he blamed, he said
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: TCU blamed the punishment on concerns that the alleged victim
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: victim received threats following the the media coverage, although the
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: reporter disputed that, noting the original report did not identify
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: said alleged victim, who later self-identified himself publicly on social media.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: So the guy that was the person that TCU was
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: upset about getting the name out put their name on it.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: Put your name on it, they put their name on it.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: So the newspaper, the Star-Telegram, is the only media outlet
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: in the greater Dallas area with a full-time reporter covering TCU.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: It's a one-newspaper outfit. Of course, most towns are one-newspaper
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: towns these days. So the question, TCU says it is
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: protecting a, I love this term, student athlete. Now, the
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: critics say that they're punishing the journalist, the journalism in general.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: So which side of the aisle is, Has the stronger case.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: You got TCU saying, hey, we're protecting the harmless student athlete.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: And you have the other side saying, well, you're really
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: punishing the newspaper reporter. So after a minutes long. Deliberation
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: of the available information. You talk about a drama-o-rama, and
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: we have determined, the Court of Malheur has determined that
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: Texas Christian University has to eat the L on this one.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: No barbecue sauce, no honey mustard. Eat the L. And
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: I went and checked. I was trying to figure out, TCU,
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: did they move the campus to Pyongyang? No, no. Then
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: I thought, well, TCU must have gone down to HomeGoods
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: and went shopping for curtains at HomeGoods. And they, for
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: some reason, decided to install the iron curtain around Fort Worth,
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: complete with the... Ministry of Horned Frog Information, I guess
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: you could call it there. These thin-skinned little weasels, these dopes,
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: hiding behind the credential police. If you write something that
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: we don't like, and oh, poof, you're going to disappear.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: Little press pass. You talk about amateur hour. And again,
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: this is another byproduct. I've talked about this a lot
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: over the years, the manipulation of the younger generation who
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: have been raised on rainbows and lollipops, rainbows and lollipops. Yes,
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: the state-sponsored media, Major League Baseball really the first to
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: fully embrace this, but all the sports do it. And
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: so you get something like this in sports, and you
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: get a bunch of people that have been programmed to
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: only want the sunshine and not the clouds, and they
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: get all worked up into a tizzy over this kind
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: of stuff. And so it really is amateur hour. Crisis
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: Management for the Athletic Department, who apparently did not pay
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: close attention. They believe that bad publicity vanishes when you
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: confiscate the laminated badge that you gave out, a little badge. Apparently,
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: nobody at TCU has heard of the Streisand effect. And
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: yet they contacted Femi, the top Uber Eats driver. They said, hey, Femi,
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: I know you're in Minnesota. Can you drive down to
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: Fort Worth? Femi's like, that's kind of far. It's going
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: to cost you 11. He said, maybe I'll do it.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: And so they contacted Femi over there at Uber Eats.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: And they said, hey, can we order the deluxe-sized family
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: package of the Streisand effect? And Femi said, well, I'll
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: get it to you. Sure, why not? And they wanted
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: this controversy, TCU, to disappear. So naturally, they transformed a
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: local story. into this national freedom of the press story,
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: which I got to give him credit. Pretty brilliant to
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: be that incompetent. So good job by you. And why
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: even bother having any... independent reporters just use state-sponsored horned
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: frog media you can get horned froggy or just horny
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: frog media i think that's probably a porn site or
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: something but hand everyone purple pom-poms and you can have
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: the the face paint a little sticker face paint thing
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: and have the university approved talking points memo sent out
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: every morning it really is hilarious so tcu again they
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: tried to They tried to bury what they thought was
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: an embarrassing story, and instead they essentially rented out billboard
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: space right on the interstate for everyone to see. And
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: they have lit up lights, the whole thing. All right,
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: last word we go. Speaking of lit up, let's go
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: to Vegas. We'll be in Vegas this weekend. Big Mallard
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: meet and greet coming up on Saturday. Viva Las Vegas.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: Looking forward to it. So the Raiders have not officially
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: confirmed the exact injury to running back Ashton Genting. So
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: we don't know exactly what's going on, but there are
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: reports indicating that Jente suffered an ankle sprain. Now, that
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: could mean a number of things. You could have a
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: mild ankle sprain, which you're back in a couple weeks,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: a high ankle sprain where you're out for two months
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: or longer. He's not expected to be out all season,
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: but there's no timeline. Now, Ashton Jente fueling speculation by
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: posting a photo of himself kneeling on social media, of course,
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: And he was kneeling down there and along with a
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: Bible verse about God working circumstances towards a greater purpose.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: So he he did that. Now, the question you got
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: Raider running back Ashton Gentry posting a Bible verse after
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: his injury. Why does every athlete injury these days, every
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: athlete injury update update now have to become a cryptic
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: social media thing? scavenger hunt. It just every single time,
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: every single time. And the reason why is because the
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: scavenger hunt pays off. Cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching. It's a fast
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: food special from Farmer Boys, fresh, hot engagement farming, right
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: off the griddle, right off the griddle, served right near
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: timeline there. So Ashton Gentry posts a Bible verse, and
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: suddenly the Raider backers are amateur theologians, and they're trying
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: to decode the book of the running back. And as
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: for the coach, Clint Kubiak, and his Raiders... I can't
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: get over the fact that they held a full-blown prayer
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: circle on the field around Ashton Jenty, and now we're
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: talking about just a sprained ankle. Seems like a pretty
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: strong piece of evidence that they initially thought it wasn't
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: a sprained ankle, that it was more like burnt avocado toast,
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: meaning Jenty was burnt toast, and Kubiak He's a very
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: religious man. Good for him. He talks about the power
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: of prayer, and it's a wonderful way also to avoid
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: having to provide any actual update on the status of
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: your player. You just say the power of prayer, and
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: then you don't actually have to give a straight answer.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: So if Jenty returns quickly... Who gets the game ball
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: on this? Who do you think gets the game ball?
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: The training staff? Modern medicine? Does Kubiak just move the
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: prayer circle at the 50-yard line around the Raider logo there?
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: And do they hold services at Allegiant Stadium? Inquiring minds
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: would like to know.
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: Be sure to catch live editions of the Ben Maller
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: Show weekdays at 2 a.m. Eastern, 11 p.m. Pacific on
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: Hey, it's me, Rob Parker.
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: Check out my weekly MLB podcast, Inside the Parker, for
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: 22 minutes of piping hot baseball talk featuring the biggest
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: names and newsmakers in the sport. Whether you believe in
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: analytics or the eye test, we've got all the bases covered.
• 18:04
  Speaker 4: New episodes drop every Thursday, so do yourself a favor
• 18:08
  Speaker 4: and listen to Inside the Parker with Rob Parker on
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: So our lead this hour is from the Starless Knight. Now,
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: I went back and I checked through my many copious
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: notes that I've done over the years for these screaming
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: lunatic monologues. And no less, no less than 12 times
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: over the last number of years have I ranted and raved,
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: howling at the moon. regarding the Pro Bowl and how
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: fugazi it was. Well, the NFL has decided now to
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: finally listen to me. This event, which is as dull
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: as dishwater, the NFL has now excommunicated the Pro Bowl.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: No more Pro Bowl or whatever that thing was that
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: they had, the Pro Bowl games, beginning with the upcoming season,
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: which will cap off with the Super Bowl in La
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: La Land. Now, if you didn't hear about this, maybe not. Now,
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: the league will still designate 88 players as Pro Bowlers. So,
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: 88 players will be announced. That'll happen in late December. However,
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: there will be no replacement selections, unfortunately, ending any chance
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: that Shadur Sanders is ever sniffing a Pro Bowl. You
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: knew when Shadur Sanders made the Pro Bowl that it
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: had jumped the shark, that somebody had royally effed up. And,
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: of course, there were other examples than him, but It
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: turns out that's the one that pushed everything over the edge.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: And so they will, again, announce the Pro Bowl players.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: They will have no replacement selections. That was always the problem, right?
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: You'd announce the Pro Bowl and then... the top 12
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: players at every position were like, screw you. I'm not
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: going to the Pro Bowl. What's wrong with you? That's
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: not appealing to me. And so they're not going to
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: do that anymore with replacements. And that tradition is now over.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: The NFL defending the move, they call it an evolution
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: of the event. So after 88 years, 88 years, that's
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: four generations, the league has become the first of the
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: American Big Four, the industrial complex of sport, to eliminate
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: its annual all-star event. It is dead. The all-star game
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: in pro football is dead. And that is a good
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: jumping off point. So let us discuss the question. What
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: was the official cause of death for the NFL's Pro Bowl? Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: So I've got corporate retreat, Kodak Classics, and body armor.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: And we'll combine all of these things together, and we
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: are going to play Connect 3. Not Connect 4, because
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: we only have three things. We'll do Connect 3. So
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: we always start out with number one. Number one. Try
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: that again.
• 21:08
  Speaker 5: One, one, one, one, one.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: Number one. I said one, one, one. Number one. All right.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: That's good.
• 21:14
  Speaker 6: That's good.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: So the Pro Bowl did not technically die. On one
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: hand of the aisle, you can say it was... euthanized
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: after years, years of terminal irrelevance. Now, if you do
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: need an official cause of death, I would argue that
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: on the death certificate for the Pro Bowl, you have
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: to write down player empowerment with complications from terminal apathy.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: And that's it. Just write that on the death certificate.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: The average NFL salary is around $ 5 million. So that
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: means if you're poor in the NFL, you're making about
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: $ 5 million. And players decided long, long ago, they did
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: this collectively, that they were not going to risk any
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: kind of boo-boo in their financial future to play in
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: the NFL All-Star Exhibition game. So they essentially staged... A
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: sit-down strike. I believe that's the proper term. You can
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: correct me if I'm wrong. I believe that's called a
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: sit-down strike. This took place at the infamous Pro Bowl
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: in Lost Wages, Nevada, as that was an absolute puke
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: fest in Vegas, and players stopped caring. Even before that,
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: they stopped caring. Fans, as a result, stopped watching, as
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: many as had in the past, and Eventually, it took
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: several years, the NFL even noticed, like, wait a minute,
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: this is not good. So Roger Goodell tried to do
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: CPR with the flag football, but that was not the solution.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: It was merely hospice care for the NFL All-Star Game.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: And then came what I just laughed my ass off,
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: thinking that the NFL thought it was a good idea
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: at a boardroom in midtown Manhattan to Somebody said, hey,
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: let's do some dodgeball. OK, that seems like a good idea.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: Let's get into dodgeball. Oh, I got a better idea.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: How about tug of war? Oh, that's really good. Let's
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: do tug of war. Seems like it'll be very popular.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: How about tic-tac-toe? Everyone loves tic-tac-toe. Wonderful. And they had
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: all these other goofy skills competitions. It's basically like watching
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: your coworkers do one of those trust falls. You ever
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: seen that, the trust fall thing at a corporate retreat?
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: It's essentially what the NFL did. They made it like
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: summer camp and all that. I was told by somebody
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: that works in the NFL, the idea was for it
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: to go viral on social media and that that's really
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: what it was for. It was for the kids. For
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: the kids! I did it for the kids! Well, it
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: didn't really work the way they thought it was going
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: to work, so I say good riddance. There's no candlelight
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: vigil being held outside NFL headquarters in Manhattan right now
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: because the Pro Bowl has met its demise. And the
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: NFL finally admitted What everyone knew, the game sucked. The
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: game sucked. It's because the players didn't want to play it,
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: and a lot of them didn't show up. Anytime you
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: get to the point where Shadur Sanders is being called
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: the Pro Bowl quarterback, you know you have a problem.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: You know you have a problem. And the NFL has
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: a license to print money. So simply just releasing the schedule,
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: they make money. It does not need a charity exhibition.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: And as we have preached from atop the bully pulpit,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: the all-star games are relics. They are. And I recall
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: talking to some of the old-timers when I got started.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: I was a kid. I started at 19 years old
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: in this stupid business, and I should have become a lawyer.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: So at 19, I remember telling these old-time guys, and
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: they would talk about how one of my favorite stories,
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: there was a gentleman that played for the Lakers when
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: they first moved from Minneapolis to L.A., And he told
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: me the story. He said nobody wanted to go watch
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: the basketball. They liked college sports. They didn't like pro basketball.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: So at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, they would get
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: on a flatbed truck with a megaphone. This is in
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: like the 1960s. And they would drive around, early 1960s,
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: they would drive around L.A., like the neighborhoods in L.A.,
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: And they would say, hey, we're playing so-and-so tonight at
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: the sports arena. You want tickets? Come on out and
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: support us. And they had all-star games. The all-star games
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: were a showcase to let people watch the greatest players
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: in the product, to grow the brand. Well, these leagues
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: are so big. These are monsters, these leagues. They don't
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: need that. They don't need that at all. And so
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: it's like, oh, who cares? And mark my words. Now
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: that the NFL has done it, they've hit the kill switch,
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: I will guarantee you, keep an eye on the NBA,
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: the NHL, and even eventually Major League Baseball. And they're
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: all going to look for the same off-ramp, and every
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: one of them is going to say, well, the NFL
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: did it, so we can do it. And sure, why not?
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: All right, page two. Keeping the beat going. So the
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: NFL played what turned out to be the final Pro
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: Bowl flag football game in the most appropriate spot, the
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: basement of the convention center in downtown San Francisco. We
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: were there for Radio Row while the event was going
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: on that week. Came into San Francisco for the media event,
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: and it was just great because you juxtapose the dog show,
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: which was going on that same week, if I remember correctly,
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: at The Mecca, Madison Square Garden, the world's most famous
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: arena in midtown Manhattan. And then you have the NFL's
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: all-star game being played in the basement of a convention center.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: The ceilings were so low you couldn't have any kicking,
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: no punting in the game. And the place where they
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: held boat shows and plastic surgeons, like doctors would come
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: in and try to sell people on getting nose jobs
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: and tummy tucks. And that's what they held. That's where
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: the final Pro Bowl was played. And it looked like
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: a nuclear fallout shelter, which is just outstanding. Just outstanding.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: So the question, with the NFL Pro Bowl officially headed
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: six feet under, do you have any scrapbook memories? Do
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: you have any scrapbook memories of the Pro Bowl? So
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: I absolutely do. This wasn't, again, a cancellation. It was
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: more of a mercy killing thing. Youth in Asia situation. Appropriately, though,
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: the final game, as we said, played in that convention
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: center in San Francisco and all that. Now, we remember, barely,
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: we remember when the Pro Bowl had some juice. And
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: for better or worse, I was assigned one of my
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: side gigs. I was working here at Fox Sports Radio.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: I took a side gig. And what a gig it was.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: I was doing some NFL halftime, some college football halftime
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: stuff at another... network which is long out of business
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: and i was assigned to go to honolulu for the
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: week and do broadcast like a one hour show each
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: night it was on the local radio there in hawaii
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: and that we broadcast from aloha stadium where the pro
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: bowl was this is many almost 25 years ago now
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: so it was a long time ago and this is
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: how relaxed it was at the Pro Bowl at Aloha Stadium.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: So I was doing interviews. I happened to be in
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: the NFC's locker room at the Pro Bowl in 2002
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: in the bowels of Aloha Stadium. And there was this
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: very large man named Andy Reid, who was the coach
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: of the Philadelphia Eagles, who had just lost the NFC
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: championship game. Back then, if you lost the championship game,
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: you had to go coach the Pro Bowl. So flew
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: off to Hawaii to coach the NFC Pro Bowl team.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: And so I'm in the locker room and Andy Reid
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: decides to call a meeting And so the players all
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: get to the front of the locker room. I'm standing
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: in the back of the locker room. And I'm like, well,
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: I got to leave. Somebody's going to tell me to leave.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: Nobody told me to leave. I just stood there, stayed.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: And I was in an NFC meeting during the Pro Bowl,
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: which was not the most exciting. It sounds exciting. It
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: sounds really exciting. It's not exciting. And had some great
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: times there. It was fun. It was a great week.
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: Everyone was awesome in Hawaii. The players seemed to generally
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: enjoy Hawaii, not the game. That was so many years ago.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: There were players like Javon Curse, who was a big
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: star for the Titans. Lawyer Malloy, safety for the Patriots
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: were there. I've told the story. Javon Curse autographed everything
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: on the table. We had a little card table in
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: the end zone at Aloha Stadium. And the guy I
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: was working for, of course, was trying to get stuff
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: signed for charity. I'm sure he kept all the crap.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: And Javon Chris just started signing everything. And it was crazy.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: But then you have the Kodak moments, the Kodak classics.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: And I think we all agree, those of us that
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: have been around a number of years, that the greatest
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: moment in modern Pro Bowl history happened, I think it
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: was like 06 or 07, when the late, great Sean Taylor,
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: the Redskins safety, absolutely went kaboom and just unloaded. one
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: of the all-time great hits on the punter for the
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: Buffalo Bills, Brian Mormon was his name. It was a
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: fake punt play. Didn't work out so well. And the
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: things I remember about that play were the fact that
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: the punter for the Bills, that guy Mormon, he congratulated Sean.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: He jumped right up and he congratulated Sean Taylor on
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: the hit. Today, you'd hire a lawyer and file a lawsuit,
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: and you'd get lots of thoughts and prayers on social media.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: Back then, you jumped up. You said, boy, that was
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: a great hit. Way to go. And that was also
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: the era where players actually tried, which is really shocking.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: I know. Yeah, if you remember that, you can tell
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: your kids or your grandkids, I'm old enough to remember
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: when players actually gave a crap about the Pro Bowl.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: And they said, well, what's the Pro Bowl? And then
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: there was that famous incident with Peyton Manning and publicly
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: roasting Mike Vanderjack as his idiot kicker for saying some
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: outrageous stuff, apparently all liquored up. And the Pro Bowl
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: actually had, at one point, personality. It was a badge
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: of honor and competition. There was hostility. There was a
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: certain razzle-dazzle to it. And then the money kept going up, up,
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: and away, and it all went away. And now they've finally...
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: pulled the plug on the Pro Bowl. So it is gone.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: And you can't really bring it back, right? What would
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: be the scenario where you brought it back? The NFL
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: would have to be on life support. You need to
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: lower the salaries and desperately try to save the league.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: I don't see a scenario where the Pro Bowl ever
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: returns in my lifetime. I, Maybe you're planning on living
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: a longer time than I am. All right, final point
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: to the pro bouncy ball world, to Philadelphia, where Bob Myers,
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: good old Bob Myers, boring Bob, they called him on TV.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: So Bob Myers left TV because he was so bad
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: at it. He's now back working for a front office,
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: and he just happens to be working for the Philadelphia
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: basketball team there. And he called Bob Myers the Sixers, the, quote,
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: hardest path ever. LeBron James could have chosen this offseason. Yeah,
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: I'm not making this up. Myers argued that LeBron picked
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: Philly for essentially one reason, winning. He said rather than
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: going to a place he was familiar with or friendships
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: or returning to a former team, the longtime NBA executive
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: who rode the coattails of Stephen Curry and Clay Thompson said,
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: And Bob Myers said the hardest referred partly to the
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: massive expectations LeBron willingly accepted by joining a roster that
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: includes the newly acquired Jalen Brown, who was given as
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: a tax-deductible donation by the Boston Celtics to Philadelphia, Tyrese Maxey,
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: Joel Embiid, Vijay Edgecombe, all those guys. Question. What exactly
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: is Bob Myers smoking for? at the time he decides
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: to call Philadelphia the hardest path for LeBron James. So
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: we're not sure. We can only speculate that Bob Myers
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: is moonlighting for the Mexico Tourism Board because the man appears,
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: in this person's opinion... of enjoying some extra-strength Acapulco gold,
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: if you know what I mean. Can we stop with
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: the LeBron hero worship for a couple of minutes here?
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: It's unbecoming. You're an executive in the basketball world, and
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: Myers is portraying King James like he's basketball's Lewis and Clark,
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: bravely choosing the dangerous, unexplored trail into Philadelphia. Very dangerous.
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: Like LeBron, here's what he did. He changed lanes. He
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: went to the right there and then right on to
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: the Autobahn with Embiid, Brown, and Tyrese Maxey and all
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: these other guys. So if Myers actually, if he thinks this,
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: is he expecting anyone outside of Philadelphia to buy the
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: sales pitch? Apparently so. Apparently so. So Bob has officially,
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: Bob Myers has officially become the president of the LJAS.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: What is the LJAS? That is the LeBron James Appreciation Society.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: The Sixers exec is going to, I assume he's going
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: to throw out his back carrying all the water for
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: LeBron as he wanders around here. Now, fortunately... Some of
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: us use common sense and realize what this is. And
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: it's also good to note that we understand Bob Myers
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: wearing protective equipment. Myers has strapped on the body armor
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: and a pair of gold-plated LeBron knee pads for that
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: Hawk Tua. So good for him and the hardest path ever. Police!
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: Now next, I'm telling you, the next conversation Bob Myers
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: has with media people, he's going to tell us that
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: LeBron actually crossed the Delaware barefoot in a blizzard to
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: sign the contract, and he did it for the children.
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: He did it for the kids.
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: Be sure to catch live editions of the Ben Maller
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: Show weekdays at 2 a.m. Eastern, 11 p.m. Pacific.
• 35:52
  Speaker 6: Here we go.
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: How about that? To the third degree.
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: This is when Big Ben gets grilled.
• 36:01
  Speaker 5: John Gruden made an appearance on Tampa Radio this week
• 36:04
  Speaker 5: where he predicted that Baker Mayfield and the Bucks would
• 36:06
  Speaker 5: get a deal done and that the two sides are
• 36:08
  Speaker 5: closer than you'd think.
• 36:09
  Speaker 6: Ben, do you think Baker gets his contract?
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: It's 50-50. I will tell you, Gruden knows all these people.
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: He did a Bucs game on TV. I'm just concerned
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: because he's always Mr. Sunshine. He's Mr. Zippity-doo-dah, Zippity-day guy.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: And so he always is Mr. Positive with his stuff.
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: So I'm skeptical. that they'll get a deal done. Baker
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: should sign a contract and protect himself, but I say
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: it's actually not even 50-50. It's like 40-60.
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: Next!
• 36:41
  Speaker 5: The closest division race in baseball belongs to the AL West.
• 36:44
  Speaker 5: The Astros and the Rangers are essentially tied at the
• 36:46
  Speaker 5: top of the division. Mariners two and a half games back. Ben,
• 36:49
  Speaker 5: who do you think comes out on top? Well, you
• 36:51
  Speaker 5: were asking, who do you think I want to see?
• 36:53
  Speaker 5: I'm going to take the Seattle Mariners.
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: Come on. I don't want the Astros or the Rangers.
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: I want the Mariners to sneak back up. Between those two,
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: I'm going to take the Rangers. But listen, the Mariners
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: are only two and a half back. Cal Raleigh is
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: starting to hit again. So here we go, Mariners. Here
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: we go. I got my trident right. I'm holding my trident.
• 37:12
  Speaker 5: Next. In a recent podcast appearance, former Denver Nugget Michael
• 37:15
  Speaker 5: Porter Jr. said that he thinks getting rid of Contavious
• 37:18
  Speaker 5: Caldwell Pope in 2024 was the beginning of their downfall. Ben,
• 37:22
  Speaker 5: do you think KCP was the glue guy that held
• 37:24
  Speaker 5: everything together in Denver?
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yes. It's like taking a pillar out of
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: the White House. What are you going to do? Come on.
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: What are we doing here? Contavious Caldwell Pope. Have you
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: lost your... What was he smoking, Michael Porter, when he
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: said that? You've got to be joking. How did we do?
• 37:41
  Speaker 6: You passed this edition.
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: That is a win.
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: Put it on the bar.
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: Winner, winner, winner.
• 37:47
  Speaker 6: Winner, winner, winner.
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: the nation. Catch all of our shows at foxsportsradio.com. And
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: within the iHeartRadio app, search FSR to listen live.
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: It's now time for.
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: Hurry, hurry, I can hardly wait.
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: Ask Ben. Twitter.
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: Send us your questions on Twitter now.
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: And away we go. It's Ask Ben. Your questions are
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: answers for the rest of the hour. These are actual
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: questions by actual listeners. Now to the reading of the
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: questions via hashtag Ask Ben. These sparks are about to fly.
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: The Koopaloop.
• 38:28
  Speaker 5: All right, we're going to start off with a question
• 38:31
  Speaker 5: from Fergdog. He would like to know, when's the last
• 38:35
  Speaker 5: time you got a really bad sunburn?
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: It's been a few years. I know that I am
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: a nocturnal person. And for me, the sun, it's like
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: a vampire. It's not with garlic.
• 38:50
  Speaker 6: It's not.
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: Or the sun. It's not good. So it's been several years.
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: I used to get terrible sunburns around my... The worst
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: is around your elbows and your knees because you got
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: to move those all the time. So it's probably been
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: about five, six years since the last really bad sunburn.
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: What about you, Lorena? Oh, yeah.
• 39:06
  Speaker 7: I've got to be close to... Eight years since I
• 39:09
  Speaker 7: was absolutely toasted. I fell asleep on the beach in
• 39:12
  Speaker 7: Venice before I lived down here. And, yeah, me and
• 39:16
  Speaker 7: my friend moved up.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: We were toasted like lobsters. There's a lot of things
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: that can go wrong when you fall asleep on the
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: beach in Venice. What about you, Coop, last time you
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: were sunburned?
• 39:26
  Speaker 5: I think it's probably, I mean, a really bad one,
• 39:28
  Speaker 5: The really bad one that stands out to me is
• 39:30
  Speaker 5: probably over 10 years ago.
• 39:31
  Speaker 6: I was on a cruise in the Bahamas.
• 39:33
  Speaker 5: Oh, no. And I decided to go snorkeling and just,
• 39:40
  Speaker 5: I don't know, just completely forgot about applying sunscreen. Oh, no.
• 39:44
  Speaker 5: And so just my entire back because, you know, my face.
• 39:47
  Speaker 5: faces in the water. You're kind of floating up top.
• 39:51
  Speaker 6: It was bad. Very painful.
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: The sun hits a little different in places like Hawaii
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: and the Bahamas.
• 39:56
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: Just a little sharper. I don't know if you know this.
• 39:59
  Speaker 7: You guys are really pasty.
• 40:00
  Speaker 6: You should probably use more sunblock.
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: I'm calling HR. What's next? What do we got?
• 40:06
  Speaker 5: Mike would like to know, if you could only have
• 40:09
  Speaker 5: two toppings on your pizza for the rest of time,
• 40:11
  Speaker 5: what would they be?
• 40:12
  Speaker 6: It's FedEx, Mike.
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: Oh, FedEx Mike. Hi, FedEx Mike. I love my garlic,
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: my roasted garlic. Big fan of that. And I don't know,
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: the other one, I usually, my go-to pizza has always
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: been the garlic and the onions. So that's kind of
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: what I go with. So I'd go with that. Lorena?
• 40:28
  Speaker 7: Probably pepperoni and pineapple.
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: Oh, such an Oregon woman. Not bad, right? Jeez, okay, whatever.
• 40:37
  Speaker 6: That's my answer.
• 40:38
  Speaker 4: What?
• 40:39
  Speaker 6: Pepperoni and pineapple would be my two.
• 40:41
  Speaker 5: Oh, my gosh.
• 40:41
  Speaker 7: Are we pizza soulmates?
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: The pineapple thing.
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: We are pizza soulmates.
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: Great.
• 40:49
  Speaker 7: I'm going to order one tomorrow night for our final meal.
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: Final meal. I hope it's not your final meal. Next.
• 40:56
  Speaker 5: The King Rory would like to know, have you ever
• 41:00
  Speaker 5: eaten snails or frog legs before? And if not, would
• 41:03
  Speaker 5: you at least try them once?
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: Not intentionally, and I'm not interested, although you can pretty
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: much eat anything if it's deep fried and covered in chocolate. No,
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: my older brother eats all that stuff. I don't. I
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: have a very, very simple palate. What about you, Lorena?
• 41:18
  Speaker 7: If you deep fry a snail and smother it in chocolate,
• 41:22
  Speaker 7: I will beat you with a stick. I love snails
• 41:25
  Speaker 7: I eat them all the time escargot es muy delicioso
• 41:29
  Speaker 7: and it depends on where you get it at too
• 41:31
  Speaker 7: so sometimes it'll come in the shell and you have
• 41:33
  Speaker 7: to scoop it out like I did in Paris but
• 41:35
  Speaker 7: I've been to restaurants where it already comes deshelled and
• 41:37
  Speaker 7: it's just in a pool of garlic butter that sits
• 41:40
  Speaker 7: down in a little dish and you put the bread
• 41:42
  Speaker 7: the crostini with it it's delicious.
• 41:47
  Speaker 5: I have also had escargot many times it's never been
• 41:50
  Speaker 5: in the shell that's crazy Oh, yeah.
• 41:53
  Speaker 7: That's why they give you the little forks so you
• 41:54
  Speaker 7: can dig them out.
• 41:55
  Speaker 6: It's always been like you said.
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: Go out and pick it up in the garden.
• 41:59
  Speaker 6: Why not that?
• 42:00
  Speaker 5: In the pool of garlic butter. That's how I've always
• 42:03
  Speaker 5: had it. I've never had frog legs before, but I
• 42:05
  Speaker 5: would try it. I'd try anything.
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: Okay. Eat some cockroaches. Next.
• 42:13
  Speaker 5: Analog Al would like to know, do you want permanent
• 42:15
  Speaker 5: daylight savings time?
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: Yes, pick a time. I don't even care which time.
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: Just pick a time, stay with the time, and that's it.
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: It's 2026. Stop changing the clock. We don't need it. Lorena?
• 42:29
  Speaker 7: I love daylight savings. I like when it goes from
• 42:32
  Speaker 7: really dark to really light. I think it's fun.
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: Coop?
• 42:37
  Speaker 6: I'm with you, Ben. Let's just pick a time.
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: I don't care which one. I'm fine either way. Just
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: pick a time. Next.
• 42:44
  Speaker 6: Mike the Leprechaun wants to know, do you shower every day?
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: Yes. Sometimes even twice a day. What about you, Verena?
• 42:53
  Speaker 7: Yeah, most days.
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: Most days.
• 42:55
  Speaker 7: I'm not much of a sweater, so I don't need
• 42:56
  Speaker 7: to do.
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: It all the time. Yes. Yeah.
• 42:59
  Speaker 6: Yes, absolutely.
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: Does he think we don't? He met us.
• 43:03
  Speaker 5: I know.
• 43:03
  Speaker 6: That's what I was trying to, like, wondering there. What
• 43:05
  Speaker 6: are you trying to say?
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah. All right. Next.
• 43:08
  Speaker 5: Alf the Alien O'Piner wants to know, what's your go-to
• 43:10
  Speaker 5: item at the buffet?
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: Well, I know how they price things at the buffet,
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: so you always want to go to the far end
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: of the buffet where the meats are and the expensive foods.
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: They always start with a lot of starchy foods, so
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: I always go to the far end, like prime rib, pastrami.
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: What about you?
• 43:25
  Speaker 7: Yeah, you got to start with the meats and the seafoods.
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the meats. Crab legs. Crab legs, Coop says. All right.