Card Shark

and not not David Gascon. He's gonna miss another weekend here and we'll have Bowie in on the Saturday and Sunday podcast. We do this because four hours a night clearly not and off on the overnight show eight days a week, eight days a week. Now. We thank you for supporting the podcast, and I at least him here every weekend unless somebody dies in my family and then I can't show up. But other than that, I'm here. Other than that, I'm here, and uh, we're good to

have good to have you. The download number has been great. The reviews we asked for some reviews, we got a few more of those, which is very cool, so thank you for that. But we try to have someone hang out with us, someone we like. I like talking to radio people. Uh, those are my favorite people to have on because we relate. We have a similar life radio people, uh, TV people, but we have athletes on as well. And this week is an interview podcast. Now, if you looked

at what this podcast is, you already know. But our colleague, the guy that leads in to the Ben Mallor Show with with Jason Smith, Mike Harmon, Mike Harmon of of the Jason Smith Show with Mike Harmon Monday through Friday, and we'll get a chance to catch up to Mike. I've known Mike for many many years. Mike's been to the Mallard mansion, He's been to the we sweater parties.

We've hung out, we've broken bread together. I loved the back before the pandemic when we would hang out and we'd have these brief conversations as we were ships passing in the night before before work and we were we were talking about the business and what was going on at the company or whatever. And so, uh, it's a chance to bring Mike. And we've been meaning to bring Mike Harmon in, but we have not done. That's a

bad job. By us. So I thought this week would be a great opportunity to catch up with with Mike and learn a little bit more about him and and how he began. And uh. One of my problems here is that I think everyone's around my age, and I also think that everyone I've known for uh forever. You know, Mike's one of those guys who I've worked with a long time as a colleague. But I have no grasp

of when this actually began. Like, I have no idea when this actually be And I know that that you know been around Mike in different time slots at Fox Sports Radio over the years, but I'm not sure when. So Mike, we'll bring Mike Carman in. Why don't we start with that? As I am bad with dates here and I I feel like I've been around you for a very long time. But when did you actually start at Fox Sports Radio the fall of two thousand and six.

That's a long time. That's a very long time, long time. Yes, Now, when I when I first met you, you you were you were like the fantasy guy. I remember you came on and you did a lot of the fantasy stuff back and you were you were at Yahoo, right, didn't you do a bunch of stuff with Yahoo, and that was where you were at the time you got it. Yeahoo

Sports helped to build that beast. Unfortunately no stock option lottery for this guy, but a lot of learning and some work with the engineers and producers and eventually UH worked my way to where they handed me some copy because they didn't want to pay anybody to do a press tour. Uh. And a bunch of radio folks liked what I did, so I started doing regular hits that became part of my job on Friday. Uh. And I started doing a mail bag column that did very well.

And before you do it, we had a TV showed on the Ill Faded the Football Network, which ran all about fourteen weeks. They ran out of money because they started bidding against you know, that NFL network thing that came out. Uh. And then UH, the guys I worked with at Yeah who said, hey, how about we try to do it at Fox and build the Beast again with TV and radio implemented, and well, radio decided they liked me. And maybe that's where I my face belongs

because UH still still going as you know. Yeah, And I give you all the credit because you you were typecasts as the fantasy guy, which is not a bad place to be in being the fantasy guy, because that's a huge, burgeoning business even you know, big today and big then and the whole thing. But you've had a metamorphosis now you might have become recent years here general talk show host. Man. You're you're no longer in a box. You have a broad range to attack everyone in sports

and not just the fantasy world. And how did that happen? Because usually my experience, and we've all seen this, when you get type cast, you know, I was the weekend overnight guy for a long time. I couldn't get out of that. You get in these little boxes, it's hard to get out of it. But you you were able

to do it. So what's the secret? The secret was literally work basically for free a lot for many many years while being typecast, like because I wasn't even allowed to do you know, sub work right, not enough for you, not for any other weekend at the time, not like I was on Sunday mornings. But everybody would ask me on for what seemingly became our long segments. Hey can

you stick around for another one? Like your feet are literally up on the desk that got not you're absolutely I remember being in uh studio preparing for shows and you would be on and the phones would light up and it was like the whoever the talk show host at the time was, the eyeballs would light up. They're like, okay, I could just I gotta have Harmon here, and I don't. I don't have to worry. I just you know, as you said, put your feet off and just have Harmon

do all the work. And you weren't even getting paid for that. My god, it was. It was a lot of hours, a lot of hours. So I keep trying to remind folks, Uh, it doesn't want it don't come easy, like Raino Star saying all those years ago, but but a lot of extra hours. And look, you learned to work with a lot of different people, you know. I was doing segments on a lot of the affiliates as well.

I had a dance card up in the home way at the home of all right, here's all the spots Dad has to do each week, and during football season, I was doing up to forty hits and stations all over the place. It was all our of the day, all hours of the night. I mean, it was pretty crazy. Uh. And then eventually right at the time you were moving to the weeknight overnight. Uh, you know a little Bertie told me, oh, it might have been you, but our

our boss at the time, Bruce Gilbert. I just was trying to figure out what was going on because I was still working over at Fox Sports dot Com and as the writer. As they were getting ready to pivot to all video and I'll let that just pause for a second, because you know how that worked out. But they they let a lot of us go or or we're going to I was assuming my contract was not going to be extended, nor did I necessarily want to extend it at that point. So I got an opportunity

to sit with Bruce Gilbert. We just talk radio business for probably almost two hours, just philosophy and you know, me being the numbers, and um just I love the business of it all right. One of the things, I'm the rare guy to have spent a lot of money to go get an MBA that just kind of sits and collects dust uh in sports talk radio. But every now and again he gets to talk wisely on those things. And with Bruce, I did and convinced him that maybe I was worth taking a look as you transition to

the weekday overnights. And I was on vacation down in Florida with my with my family, and I got a call saying, Hey, how about we think about that? How about we do that? And then it took all of about forty eight hours. He calls me back and says, hey, I've got an idea. You know Jason Smith. I yeah, We've We've done one on air segment together, and I don't think what would you think about working with him?

And just like that, it went from Sunday Mornings, which I still do for the network all these years later, to that just one conversation of trying to sell what I thought I knew about radio. That says, so you just got to get in with the right person. And Bruce Gilbert and I've been with Fox for for the most part since it began, except for six months and twenty six days and when they got rid of me. But but I I love Bruce. Bruce ran ESPN radio for a long time and he's like a radio life

or his family is. His brother ran a big station in Boston's now in Chicago, and Bruce was only at Fox Sports radio for like a year or two. He wasn't there very long, but I had great conversations. I'm the same way or I love talking shop. I love talking about the business and uh and you know, getting inside the weeds if you will, on on the radio business and Bruce, you know, he knew everybody and and he was he was a talker too, which is and still is Uh still is a talker. So it made

a lot easier. So you start with Jason and you're you're doing the show with Jason, and how how did that go? Was it smooth at the beginning or where you're like, whether it was there a little rocky road there when you guys got together. Well, you know, as we first began, and obviously it's evolved, and they would now this we're into year eight. At the beginning, as it was pitched, was all right, you're gonna be on the show. I don't know how much you're gonna talk

each show? I was like, okay, but five nights a week going from you know, just the two hours I had on the weekend to an operated on the one weekend overnight. I did one weekend. Then um, you last you lasted, you lasted one weekend on the weekend, the COVID Weekend overnight shift, the shift that I did for like ten years at the beginning of Fox Sports Radio.

My god, it was. But it was insane because because Justin Cooper, you're current executive producer, and Bobo the legend they were they were gonna be my my team, and they came in with all sorts of ideas and all excited because hey, one of our own, right that was the attitude. One of our own got a shot. And I was like I had to tell them, like, guys,

we got one weekend. So we did the Friday show, and everybody hated me because I wasn't you as you know, I mean, that is the greatest one of flattery for you. I think that you have to appreciate that. Every time you take a day off or or or miss you know, take a week you know, on vacation or whatever, the amount of hatred speued because you're not there. I mean, you know, you always have that in the back pocket. I don't know that it amounts for much cash wise,

but it's still kind of cool for the ego. But on that Saturday, we had one of those crazy NFL comeback games, so I just let people call and tell me their their sobs stories. And literally by the end some of the guys started crying. I'm like, how drunk are you? But it was a fun weekend. Uh. And then working with Jason, you know, the way it was pitched was, you know, there might be segments you don't talk at all from my benefits five nights a week, you get to promote it's good expand need a new

guy and and and someone to riff with. And pretty soon into the show he would do a quick little monologue and then lay out being like, all right, what do you think? And now I just yell over him and yell at him. So you know, it wolves pretty quickly. But early on, yeah, a little bit of you know, trying to figure out what your role is, how much do you disagree? And because I'm not one for the year an idiot radio, because we certainly have some of those on the network and in the industry in general.

You know, two man shows of just rating the other guy really doesn't get you anywhere because everybody's resentful by you know, second three. But it's it's evolved and it's been a good run. We've had the same team primarily in place during the period, and a lot of ups and downs and as you know, some crazy turns that well that aren't necessarily in the sports world. Yeah, well exactly pretty much. The last couple of a year and

a half has not been as much about sports. But you mentioned the Mallard militia, and they I have this relation. I love the people that are big fans of mine, but they every time I to take a show off or I something happens that I have to miss some time, I end up upsetting people who get very frustrated. Uh you know, Brian no fills in a lot now and uh you know's there's a couple of plank that usually

fill in for me on the overnight. And I love that these people are so upset down there, but that the the attack dog mentality here that uh you know, I mean, what do you do? And people think I'm like behind, I had nothing to do with that harmon

I I don't know. I mean these people and I love them to get very riled up, and uh, I think part of it is the neurosis of what happened back in oh nine where I was here one day and then I was gone, and so I think they're some of the people have been with me a long time,

so I think there's a little bit of hysteria. Anytime I miss the show, they think I'm never coming back, which is, by the way, not necessarily wrong in the radio business because that, you know, that does happen quite a bit, where you know, your favorite host is away for a day and never comes back, and and and never comes back. But now you're doing a two man show with Jason. Have you ever done the solo show?

It's much different the the art of radio. Like, I'm pretty much by myself at night, but I have you know, I have Eddie. I can bounce some things off of from time to time, and we try to bring the other guys in. But you know, usually it's me ranting and raving at the beginning, doing a monologue whatever, and then we take calls and kind of a cadence to it.

But when you do a two man show, there's got to be a lot of the plan what's the planning, like, I guess is what I'm asking your harm and when you guys are getting ready, is it the email chain? I mean, how much how much back and forth is there about what you guys are gonna talk about, because it does change at night because there's games going on. So it's not like if you did a daytime show that usually stuff is kind of set up for you,

where at night it's a lot different. Yeah, I think it's you know, it's we pride ourselves and being able to pivot quickly by the latest news that goes on and and you know, the one man show. I've been able to do some not not you know, I'd love to do more right, to refine, you know, my own ten minute monologue things, more podcasts to come. I gotta got an idea. I'm gonna run by you. Maybe maybe

there maybe there's some some marriage to be had there. Um, but it's it's you know, I did a fantasy season, so I kind of did all right, let's grab a couple of uh, you know, the beat writers where there's injuries that we have to percolate with and whatever. So so we did some of that. But you know, oftentimes, you know, when Jason's out, I end up, I will

not usually have the four hours solo. Usually there will be somebody there, uh to sit alongside me, whether it's a LaVar Arrington, Dan Buyer, you know, some of the usual cast of characters that could come to know and love across the vast Fox Sports Radio network. As you would say, but the planning a couple of texts. I mean, Jason is going to have he sends out a note

early afternoon. And what's always been fun is when we've got a producer of filling in, right, our guy Justin Frostber a couple of years ago, I had some health concerns, had to step away for a while. So people were filling in and they'd be like, all right, why don't we gonna meet and Jason and I would just laugh at them and like, what do you mean, just wait

this way, and like all right. So he would send out a note, say three o'clock, and you know, it varies what time, depending on what's going on with his daughter, if he's at a movie or you know, when we could go to the movies and things like that, we're taking a nap, and it would be here's the four or five biggest stories as at that moment, and as we know, it all changes on a dime, uh you in the overnights and us as we are, we've got games,

we're reacting to some great postgame audio on guys sticking their feet in their mouth, arrests and craziness that happened. Uh, and it changes. But you know, we'd have these sub producers to be like, all right, so let's let's plan out these and we just look. Now, you plan out the first two segments, and then we see what happens. Right, We've got a whole slate of NBA games. If a

guy gets hurt, suddenly there's something changing. Like today, you know, as you and I sit to talk on a Thursday, Uh, you know when when this is getting ready to you know, the Carson went steel through a monkey wrench and everybody's you know, morning planning, and it's exciting, but it's also Man, I planned a nine minute rant about this, that or the other that now gets thrown out the window. Well,

we generally don't have that. We've got some notes and people will be like, well, how do you respond to this that he wrote? And I'd laugh, I go, well, I don't actually know what he's gonna say when he actually goes on air. This stuff has been verrinating in

his head for however many hours. You want to be, you want to you don't want to be you don't want to be scripted, right, you know you want you want to go back and yeah, and my my thing people I don't know on their shows, and this is, you know, how everybody gets in the method behind their madness, whether they do bullet points, whether they do right out whatever I mean, I I it's to each their own.

But for me, all I can do is have an array of things and wait and take notes as he speaks for when it's been my time to either expand on his point or refute him, uh with vociprously. Well, I'm a big bullet point guy. My. You know, people sometimes ask you, like the method to the madness, how we make the hot dogs? For me, the most stressful part of my day is trying to find stuff that's actually I find interesting that I want to rant about and rift about in a model. I mean, like doing

the show. I love doing the show, But it's the annoying part and often the frustrating part, depending on what time of the year, is if I if I don't see any meat on the bone, you know, and I I want a big, juicy piece of meat to bite into. And you know I always have, you know, said this for for years that we get paid. Actually, uh, when there is nothing going on. Anybody can do talk radio when there's a lot of a lot of news and there's big, big stories. But it's when there's nothing and

you've got to compose and put a show together. And I'm a big bullet point guy and all that, but that, to me, that's the thing. And I also have this this case where I I don't like to do the same I know, you're in good radio. You're supposed to do the same thing over and over again, you know, and program directors will tell you that. But I only do that if it's like an A story, like an A plus story. I try to every hour, change, change

it up, and because you know, keep it fresh. And I know a lot of people don't listen to the whole show, but some people do. And so that's also becomes a problem because you know, oftentimes they'll be two stories that really excite me, but then you know there's two other you know, I got four hours, so I gotta find a couple of other stories and all that. I mean, these are these are first world problems to have.

These are these are great problems. I mean, if you're gonna have, you know, problems that irritate you in life. This is a wonderful problem to have. But it's it's just to let people in on the podcast what it's like to do to do a show. And you you, of course, you know generally, as you said, what Jason is going to talk about and what you're gonna start the show, but you don't know what he's gonna say. And then you've gotta you've got to be on your

toes there to be able to react. And then the other thing is, uh, you know, we we've all been as you said, things change being on you know, nights and I'm I'm on when the West Coast games and uh late, especially the baseball games during baseball season, and you'll we we call it putting the show to bed, right, You'll have an idea, Okay, this is what we're gonna talk about each hour, and then inevitably, whether it's basketball season,

Lebron will come out and say something. And the other night, for example, Draymond Green, uh, he had a rant after the Warriors game about the unfairness of the NBA, you know, because they they sit players down with with Andre Drummond

and so that became a story and all that. So you know, you often put the show to bed where you you have an idea, Okay, this is what we're gonna do, and then you can kind of watch a game or something like that, and then you end up getting kicked on the back side because you have to kind of just it's like, but again, these are first world problems and all that, but it's pretty much doing your radio show harmon. It's like it's like, uh, whack a mole. Right, things keep popping up, but you have

to keep knocking them down. It's like a game of whack a mole. Yeah. I think the hardest thing in the two man is clearly we're going to be topics that he gets excited about that I really couldn't care less about. Yeah, right, and so I'll take my l's

and know that he's going to have a rant. And some of the best radio is while you can clearly tell I have no desire to talk about a topic, which means I am hammering at any point, or excitement in his voice, and it's become a fun piece of theater back and forth between us, and he usually knows very quickly when he's picked one of those stories. Mets Jets,

what have you. But you know we do something, you know when when we're in studio together and even now you know, as we're in our our separate homes and doing a lot the attacks is what I like to call the spider in effect. Right as we're watching games unfold, guy gets hurt, or there's the blow up in the post game, or you know, when there is a playoff series or the NFL playoffs. I agree with you, in the NFL season is paint by numbers relative to the

rest of the calendar. Right, there's always NFL stories or whatever games Cursed Tom Brady, whatever your stick is. I mean, you can do it, uh and do it a lot and still get a response. Right, it's all cool. But like when we're rolling through an NBA thing, All right, let's let's how far can we take this? What angles come out of this? Right? Can we get two or three different angles on what becomes the story of the night. And that's the hope that it carries. We don't use

a lot of guests. I know you you have a guy who you know occasionally, and you have your your militia and the regular callers who are you know, characters in color of the show. We need to figure out how to monitor times. Yes, I agree, well in general, any monitor anything that involves money. Uh, my years, I'm I'm like Dumbo. My years are big, and I am I am open to listening and making money and all of that wonderful, you know. I you know this because

we talk off you know, off professional radio whatever. But I when I started at Fox Sports Radio, I did a weekend show with Jason like he we were together at the time, and Jason had worked locally at A M eleven fifty, the station that we all worked at back in the nineties, and then uh he was doing like TV stuff at Channel seven. I remember that in l A and we worked together, and my memories, this

is what I remember working with Jason. We were both you know, you know, single guys whatever doing our thing. I think he might have been engaged at the time, but he wasn't married, and we we would just go to the the gas a liquor store sometimes in the middle of the show, we during a break, we would go there and buy like candy and soda and snacks. We were very big on snacks. We were very big on snacks. And this is back out, you know, my

big eating days. So we'd go in there and just load up on you know, gummy worms and gummy sharks and all this stuff. And it was it was it was great. I mean, and and doing that, I mean, we were we would do that and then after the show, you know, sometimes we go out to eat or something like that, or we you know, I was coming home at like six in the morning after you're sitting at Denny's for two hours eating eating eggs. It was quite quite the life back then, Quite the quite the radio

life back then. Harmon with he loves his pint of ice cream. That that's been the show's staple. Uh. And I've never seen anybody so adamant about getting receipts from an help polio loco or from a liquor store. Why is that? Is that cause his tax tax reasons? Like, yeah, he's claiming that, I think as as show food expense.

I'm not quite gold in claiming that stuff myself. But we we had about two years ago there was a period of months where he refused to go to the liquor store because he got tired of asking for bags. Right by two and he's getting his ice cream and maybe you know, whatever, a candy bar or a bag of chips or something, and he always had to ask for a bag for months. Now we're going to the gas. That's great. Now, Now, Harmon, I must address this week

big loss in the radio world. We both worked obviously Fox Sports Radio, which is syndicated by the Premier Networks. I heart media, but Premiere Networks. One of the reasons the company is the giant that it is in broadcasting is because of Rush Limbaugh and they syndicate Russia Limboss show. Rush passing Away earlier this week, a titan in in radio and creator the pioneer of the political talk radio Here.

I'm doing a rift on this on the Saturday podcast because I have a couple of, uh by proxy stories about Rush. Not that I ever hung out with him or anything like that, but just being at Premiere over the years. Uh any any run Ins, did you have any brushes with Rush? He would come in and actually broadcast right across the hall in the studio that he was. They they turned that into just like Russia's l a studio and no one was allowed in there other than Rush.

And they had all of his his you know, gold mic and all that stuff in there just in case he popped up all of a sudden in l A. But any memories about Russia just a titan in the radio business, well, you know, politics aside, and obviously everybody gets uh gets excited if you say the word politics anymore. Uh. You know, Rush, I remember a couple of times. Always you'd have people kind of standing out as if guarding

the area. And you know, one nod As I was standing at the coffee machine and he came through through the hallways. Obviously we've had some some real heavyweights come walking through that hallway, right, I mean between Rush and some of the other Premier network stars, right when Nicky six had his show down the hall, I think I met almost every rock star that you might want teaching guys how to use coffee machines, which are kind of weird.

But it's just the reminder, like I was, I listened when I was younger and uncle that that listened really religiously in the cadence, the point by point as you say, bullet points and then expounding from there. Um, for me, it was I was incredulous at the level of hatred. Right, if you're gonna use the word hatred and describing the man at his passing and now you're being hateful in

your words. Are you really helping anything? Was really where I got to and the spin watching things transpire on social media and just in news reports, looking at just different ways that his career was described. But for our business, I mean, there's no bigger you know, for premier networks. Uh, it'll be interesting to see the next few months in terms of what happens. And obviously, uh, they've had some time to think about that. But you know, for you and I, I mean growing up he was he was

the biggest name, remain the biggest name. And you think about that kind of kind of mark on an industry. It's like you've got him on this side of talk, and then you've got the entertainment side with Howard Stern, and then for sports. You know, you can pick your favorite from there as your benchmarks. But how to conduct a radio show, how to build an audience, how to keep an audience, how to make people loyal? I mean, like I I'd give you every nod when I when

I'm asked about guys I like to listen to. I like the way you command your four hours and that you have a group like the your militia. It's very very much in the vein of of what Rush Limbaugh created for all those years. So you've got people that are hanging on, Okay, what's been gonna say on this topic? And that's was Rush every day. Every day people would tune in our one what's that a block? Which part

of this? I mean think about, you know, just the last couple of weeks what he would have been saying on air about some of this. And then certainly, uh, what's going on with whether in Texas or reopening of schools and ever whatever. I mean, there's there's just that void and now I will not be filled. But in our industry, uh, there's none none bigger. And you know for me growing up outside of sports, you want to talk about constructing a radio show and learning how to

captivate an audience. I think he wrote the book. Yeah, I mean there was talk radio before Rush, but political talk radio and the format and and everyone copies something that Rush did, even the you know, liberals doesn't matter. You don't have to be conservative. It's and that's the thing. And I agree with you and and we and we had known for some time that that Russ Rush was

was gonna pass. I had found out about a week before he passed that a friend of mine called me up and said that he was It was probably the end for Rush, and so you knew what was coming. I remember talking to a friends, but this is gonna be horrific because of you know, social media and the way people react when they think no one. It's weird because you have an avatar usually with your photo on on social media, but for some reason, you you still

think you have uh, you know, privacy or something. You can say whatever you want and there's no repercussions and all that. I guess maybe there is. I don't know. That's a that's a different world. But Rush, I remember I was a kid and I wanted to get into ray Deo. I tried to learn as much as I could about the business. And I remember reading a book about Rush Limbaugh which really impacted me and rushed his life, and that he dropped out of college. He was a DJ.

You know in the days of radio, where you bounced from market to market doesn't happen quite as much these days, as not even were close to what it was like back in in Russia's days in the seventies and the eighties, and so he would bounce around and he was a failed radio guy and not a failed radio guy, but he was just a normal jock that would bounce from from top. He was a top forty DJ. His name, I think was Jeff Christie or something like that. He he had a he had a couple of fake names

that he used stage names in radio. And then you know, I had the fact he worked for the Royals. He became very good friends with George Brett, the Hall of Famer from the Royals, and and he didn't really become the megastar until he was about forty. He was but I think he was thirty thirty seven when his show started being syndicated UM nationally and eight. But then it

took a couple of years to really kick in. And then once it kicked in, he was about forty and then for the rest of his life he became this like mega a hero in in radio. UM. So it's a it's an interesting life when you learn about how people get to certain points and rush you know who you know, say overnight sensation or whatever. But he took him twenty years of being a DJ and not having

much success before finally he found his goalielock zone. And you're right, you talk we always talk about in sports radio harm and replacing legends, right, you don't want to be the guy that replaces Bill Belichick someday with the Patriots. You want to you want to be the guy who replaces the guy that replaces Bill Belichick, just like you don't want to be Cam Newton who replaced Tom Brady. You want to be the person that comes in after

Cam Newton. Well, yeah, someone's gonna be given the you know, aversion. It's not gonna be the same because I'm sure some affiliates will drop the show and they'll be different. But it's like when when Stern, Remember when Stern left terrestrial radio to go to sad of Like CBS had a West coast, they had a Midwest, and they had an East coast. Joe right that it didn't it didn't really work so well. It was it was a hot mess.

Who was the music? Remember they had a musician that's I forget the guy's name, but he he was like the East coast guy. And uh yeah, now I'm remembering the experiment. But you know, as with all of this, whenever there's a void, there's the the dangerous attempt to fill it. So that my fear is that you you do have that in fighting uh and maybe people going to uh, well, I don't know. It's like we do

in sports rights. I call it hot take nonsense to where you get to a point where it's like, all right, you don't even believe what you're saying here. So you know that that's always the fear in these kind of situations that maybe to try to grab an audience, uh and maybe convince a boss that you were the guy. But you know that's above my pay grade and in terms of making those decisions. But you know, it's a project that I've been working. I was actually sitting down.

My mother shot to my kids that they don't write her enough handwritten notes, and so I sat down with with I mean, she's not little anymore, she's twelve, but we're talking. All right, on Sunday, we're going to do this. And I've got a project that I've been trying to, you know, motivate myself to do it. I'm like, all right, I'm gonna do it. I'll buy some stationary and we'll

work to it. It's it's one of my regrets right between Rush and whether I agreed or not on you know, any and all the topics is not the point, but still just the inspirations, right, because we've had a lot of losses in our business ban this last year. Right and and obviously no no different than any other sector of life. But because there are public personalities, you know, you have the tributes, whether it be players, managers, talk

show people. We've had a number of reporters this last two three months and tried to be better about writing folks to say thanks for whatever part they played either on our shows or as inspiration. And this is one I'm sorry I didn't get around to before his passing of just kind of what he meant to what our business is. Uh So I'm gonna be better about that. And so I'll have to send one in the mail

with some beef jerky or something to you. Ah, there you go, all good and well, at some point we'll actually be able to have the Ugly Sweater party again, so I look forward to it. Yes, yeah, we didn't have one. We missed it this year. I mean, you know, it's the backyard big enough that maybe there's been some but like man you just can't trust Gascony be trying to tackle people and it would just get out of control. I can't even trust him to be here most weeks.

I mean, my my goodness, Uh yes, yeah. Now before we get out of here, Harmon and I, because of my situation my family, I have repossessed my sports memorabilia collection and this is an area that I am going to use your counsel here the mind of my Carmen, because it is insane right now. We see these stories. Usually somebody like Darren Ravel will tweet out a story about some sports card that sold at auction for a

ridiculous amount of money. But you're in that world, right You're you're you're dabbling in addition to the radio, you're dabbling in sports memorabilia. So how insane is this? I mean, we hear about the Jordan's cards and some other things that sell for verdunculous amount of money. But is this the gold rush? It appears to be right now for the next couple of years. It appears it is because you've got a lot of players and celebrities and I hate the word, but influencers are coming into that was

my best whatever, deep boys, guy impression. But you've got a lot of people with money that had idle money and are either trying to pick up pieces of their childhood doing a little bit of day trading. I'm currently monitoring a few auctions so I don't get sniped. I'm not going to talk about them, but adding things. So I've been doing cards and memorabilia events since i was about twelve years old. So we had some some choice

stuff in the Chicago neighborhood. Uh we're at the end of a rail line, so mom would get household goods and every time once in a while they'd have some cards, and we piled up some good stuff and eventually went to a show, sold a bunch and looked at each other's going, now, this is easy, let's do this. So my brothers and I would do this, and you know, being good at math helped back in the day when there wasn't an instant marketplace. But right now there's so

much money being infused. I mean, people haven't been able to travel. Maybe they're not spending in other spots, you know, wasting money at the bar because they can't go to the bar, et cetera. So money found its way back in here and it's become It's always been a stock market, but right now it's even bigger. Grading of cards and ticket sales and all of these things commemorating big events have really gone off off to a whole other world.

And then we're talking about cards selling regularly in the six figures and the way they do things now, some of the stuff is so limited out of the jump. There's a whole market of haad buy into a break.

So there's a box of cards that comes out, you know with this year's rookies, say LaMelo Ball and these guys, and you pay a premium to try to have that team or to get by player whatever, and then you just literally watch someone else open the boxes of cards and then they send you what your part is Like. It's really just mutated into this whole new world, and I'm happy to try to cash in on it. Yeah, And you know, I I was looking at my collection and it is vast. But I am of the age

where there's this cut off point. I feel like, because you know, some of the cards I think are worth a decent amount, but then they I'm of the age where when I was a certain point, it was just mass production so then that becomes that becomes a nightmare situation. And then the you mentioned the grading thing, All right, my god, this place, I believe it's in Orange County, the main hub of grading trading cards. It is. It

is insane. Like if you you take a card you think it is worth I don't know, five hundred or a thousand dollars, how much does it cost? Just for the layman who doesn't understand this world, harmon, explain how much it costs. You have a say it's worth fifty, you think it's worth ten, fifteen dollars. How much does it cost to get that card graded? And what's the

process like to get that done? Well, right now, there have been inundated, So you've got several p s A. Is the one in Orange County you're speaking of, and then there's that right there grading always the price guides, but they have their grading arm and there's a couple of other companies that have come online because the demand is so strong. So people that have left P. S A or Packet or one of the companies that have teamed up when with big money men uh to try

to go through. So the backlog isn't meant so what can you do when demand exceeds your supply I your quick ability to turn around? What do you do? You raise your prices? So right now, to get a card graded between two hundred and a thousand dollars, it's gonna cost you fifty bucks plus insurance and shipping. Wow, and yeah, so you have to Now that's per per card. But what do you send? So you send that, you send the cards in. But what if you don't know? How?

They can just pick whatever they want the value is like if you if I send cards and think, well it might be worth you know, two hundred or maybe it's worth a thousand, You don't really know. Then it's up to them to decide what it's worth it. They can charge you whatever they want. Is that how that works? Well?

And that's just it. But but the good side of that, though, Ben is say you you know, to to play their their corporate side is if you put in a card and the market's going crazy now, right, So if I send it in now, by time it gets great and it might be two to three months from now, right,

that's how big the backlog is. So there's a possibility that that card is either dropped precipitously, or it's multiplied by ten, as we've seen in some of the markets, you know, because everybody's going back and finding their Shaquille O'Neal rookies, those what word quote junk wax as you were, you know, you were referring to. There's cards like what used to be a two dollar Shawn Temp card, it's

a tenants suddenly a five card. That's how much money has found its way into and some other stuff is insane and I don't know that it's sustainable, but I'm gonna enjoy the roller coaster. But so what what can happen is say you you think it's two hundred, because maybe it's on a grading scale of one to ten end for those unawares um p s A only deals in whole numbers, so you're graded one through ten on the integer Beckett grades. On the subgrades. It gets complicated, right.

You might think it's only going to be a nine, so you say, all right, it's worth two d bucks and then they look at it and they graded at ten. Well, suddenly it might be worth two thousand. So yes, it takes you from the fifty level to the seventy five. But in theory, you've just now made ten times what you thought that card was worth. Now, and when a card is graded, that's the price, right, I mean, does

it once it's graded, does it self for less? Are you guaranteed to at least get what they say it's worth. How does that work? Well, they don't put a great, great a price on it that it's now marketplace, right, So they're looking at it based on what the market is as they grade, and they've got researchers on tap, and obviously they they're aware, I mean they're they're keenly

aware of how crazy the market is right now. The big thing is, you know, if you're sending in under the guys of hey, this is a card from two thousand eighteen, and I'm going to put a ten dollar value on it, but we know it's a six card, like like Zion Williams and some of our Jama Rant or some of these you know rookies from last year, like out of the pack. The stuff's three four bucks raw, right,

which means ungraded. So if you're a value of a hundred bucks one, you're lying, uh, And then they're gonna appropriately right to make sure you're in the right, uh sweet spot, and some of the services you know coming on and come online and go offline based on demand. But um, in the end it goes back into your in your hands. And the thing for me, when I used to do shows what I always thought these were valuable and at the time I thought it was prohibitively

expensive when I was hustling as a kid. But wish I'd just done it because you don't don't have to haggle with people. Then right, if it's great at than nine by P. S A or Becket or whoever it's at nine. You may not like the grade, you may disagree with it. You can re submit if you want to go through that. But if someone trying to buy it from you, they can't say I don't know, this corner is not great or this isn't sharp enough. You're

just like, shut up. It says a nine, yea. So you're buying it as a nine, and and that that has value in and of itself. If you're trying to divest one or thousands of cards, right to not have to bother with it. Yeah, absolutely all right, harmon, listen, we appreciate it. We'll have you on again. Thank you. Godspeed well, including that. I appreciate it. You know, I've always been a fan, and you're you're you're a worker, and I I appreciate the rolling up to sleeves and

doing hard work, so I appreciate it. I appreciate you too. You're a good, good fellow radio broadcaster, and I love when you you hang out. We get to hang out off the air, which hasn't happened a long time, but but I'll live a long and prosper Thank you, Mike. I appreciate you. But hey, they're opening the canes. Find me. You can come visit that one. I'm there Katie at Combo done. Let's get it.