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