Philly Delight

hope you're doing well. Thank you for tuning into the Fifth Hour, because four hours on the Overnight Show are not enough, and you are in for a special treat on this edition of The Fifth Hour with Me, Ben Maller and David Gascon on the I Heart Podcast Network. Because the o g one of my inspirations to get into the wacky world of sports talk radio, is gonna be hanging out with us. The great Tony Bruno, the legendary figure Tony Bruno, the forefather of network sports radio.

Tony started ESPN Radio and started Fox Sports Radio, and I've known Tony for years. I was very excited when I first met Tony because I had been a big fan of his as a listener to Tony over the years, and then I got to know him a little bit. We worked together at local radio for a couple of years and then at Fox Sports Radio in the early days for almost ten years or so. At Fox Sports Radio. Um, we were colleagues. So it's it's pretty cool to catch up with Tony. We're also gonna have some grab bag

at the end of this. We'll we'll throw in some grab bag at the end and some questions. But Tony's back in the game. One of the reasons we're having Tony on is he's launching a new radio show on Sirius XM, and so why don't we start with that, Tony, tell me, tell me what this is all about, give me the details, give me the inside, Skinny. It's a sports show without sports. I mean, we're gonna try something different. You know. I could do a little we'll talk, but

there's too much of that. I could do sex talk, and I'll probably do that late night. But sports show without sports hasn't been done. And no better time to start a sports show without sports than right now, I would say. And for those that don't like when can they hear the shots? It's on give me on Serious Satellite Radio. It starts next week from this weekend when

we were recording the podcast. But it's gonna be on every day, right, Yes, it's gonna be a Monday, April six, So the following the next Monday, coming up April six, three to six in the afternoon Eastern time, that's noon to three in the West. And uh, Monday Friday. I'll be in there. My old buddy Harry May's who I used to do a show with in Philly for many many years. He'll be on the show. MS. Robin will be there just making sure everything goes straight. And it's

gonna be fine. I mean, you know, obviously you've been on Sirious. Anybody who's been on other Fox Sports or ESPN or any other CBS, you name it, you know those channels are all now broadcasted on on Sirius. So that well, and you know, as you know, one of the best things is when you're on satellite radio. You know, the truck drivers who have always been out there and

making America move. I get a chance to listen and don't have to charry worry about finding another station when they drive a hundred miles through the middle of America. So it's really a great opportunity for people around the country to be able to hear you. Uh and with the app of course to the apps up for free now through the middle of May, so good time to listen.

Everybody just wants to get their head away from the daily numbers and all the depression and all the noise out there and just want to escape and have some fun every once in a while. I know from the old days, Tony h For years there was always a joke in sports radio that the month that everyone wanted to take off was like July, right right around the All Star Game in baseball. There was nothing going on, and and guys would be like, oh, I can't I

can't work. You know, there's not enough sports news going on and and now and now we're in this period of time where there is. It's it's not that there's nothing, but it's you really have to be creative. And so I like, I mean, you're gonna do great, Tony, because you don't need, you know, a million things. You're able to be creative. But some of these guys are really struggling right now because there's just not a lot of

meat on the bone. Yeah, and you're absolutely it's not because they're not good at what they do or anything. But luckily, you know, I was I was in l A with andrews Aciliano the morning the nine eleven attacks happened, and we were grouping off and talking about the NBA, and all of a sudden we look up at our monitors and see, you know, the World Trade Center where the whole and smoke coming out, and everybody thought it

was a joke. So Andrew and I were, you know, with backgrounds and reporting and stuff, we're able to transition and into from talking about sports into talking about the biggest story in our lifetime. And now we were in the same situation. I mean, everybody's affected by this. You know, nine eleven, we were affected as a country because we

didn't know what was going on. And then sooner or later, it didn't take months and months and months before people were feeling confident enough to go out and not worried about being attacked, and you know, sports being back in business. So we don't know right now. That's the biggest uncertainty of this this compared to nine eleven, is that we

felt that the nation needed to get sports back. It wasn't that the league's were all shut down purposely it's that the decisions were made after a week or two, as opposed to now months and months and months, the possible and the prospect of losing an entire baseball season

or losing the NBA in the hockey season. Again in the real world, for the average person, that's not like, oh my god, o sports is going to destroy the wor no. But there's so many people who rely on sports, not just for entertainment, not just for the fun of watching their favorite teams, but the people who work in these arenas and stadiums, and the people who work and rely on sports. You know, the gambling people. I'm gambling and became a really big deal now, So all these

casinos are shutdowns. So it's not just sports here and there, it's it's everything that's involved. This entire country not able to do the things that we used to do. And while it was a similar situation for a couple of weeks with nine eleven, it's now a situation where we're going month after month after month and nobody knows what we're going to get back to anything that resembles being

close to normal. Tony. When when you talk about that and what you're doing right now, You've made the unique transition which a lot of broadcasters have not done, at least in the radio set of things, is going from radio to digital and then now to satellite. But what's that been link for you working on Twitch? Because I follow you and I know you from Afar, and much like Ben, I didn't know who the hell Ben was.

I started back in San Diego with my heart San Diego, and lo and behold, I found out Ben used to work for the Mighty six ninety back in the day when he first got started. But my my impression of you from Afar, when you were here at Fox and now where you're at in the East Coast was you were a a human firecracker and you let it rip and you don't sugarcoat anything. And I'm kind of curious to the way that you operate now compared to what you were like at Fox and and how you been

on other platforms as well. Or I don't never think I've changed, I mean, and one of the things that I tried to be consistent at is staying the same, I mean. Times change. Digital obviously came along a lot of guys in my age group in the six been their sixties, A lot of the old school radio guys, you know, like I don't want to do Twitter. I

don't want to do social media. And I knew back five, six, seven years ago, and I got on Twitter in two thousand and nine, so we're talking eleven years now, and so I've embraced it because that's that's the way everybody is doing business now, especially the younger generations. You know, I don't want to just program to sixty five year old guys. And I've never been that way. When I was on Fox, I take call from thirteen year old kids listening out there, and you know, things that most

stations wouldn't do it. I'll ever put a kid on the air. Oh my god, we can't do that. So I it was not called pushing the envelope. It's about just having fun. And I've always done this in the same approach, have fun. Let people hear you laugh. When people hear somebody having fun on their jobs, they're gonna feel good about themselves too. And now more than ever, people don't want to hear people complaining about you all.

You know, the Lakers and the Clippers. Now we don't know who's gonna win the who's gonna win the m v P. That's all fun and game stuff, but in the real world, none of that really matters. And so it's about, yes, we cannot We can talk about when sports is coming back, when baseball, what's baseball gonna do, What's football gonna do, what's hockey gonna do? But we have to do it in a fun way now. And as you mentioned earlier, people on radio and sports radio

are having a tough time. You know, we can always do the Mount Rushmore's, which are always good, We can always do different lists, but not of the time to be creative. So I always try to be creative. I always try to have fun incorporate other things, which pretty much everybody now is doing. And I was doing it for thirty years ago. And now you know, you hear people having fun talking about stupid shows like you know, the Tiger King and Netflix and that kind of stuff.

Because people who are sports fans don't just only care about sports. They care about they have other things in life. They go outside, well, not not right now, I'm talking about a normal situation. They said at all and watch TV at night and they want to be entertained. They can't go to the movies anymore, and so you've got maybe got to be sort of an entertainer to them

as well in these times. So do you think it's more challenging for a guy like Ben to to be more entertained with his Mallard militia because half the time they're not even sober anyway, and they love they love anything he does that includes list radio and I don't and I'm not doing this radio. I don't long with you. I don't break into a fight here now listen. I

love Ben. I remember when Ben was just a young pop in l A and I'd come out there and he said to me, you know you're the guy because you know Roome and I and those guys in that generation. Ben was out there in California when I first met him. He was telling me all these one wonderful things about having hurt me when I was at ESPN. And now Ben's a legendary figure in this business and he's got a great following. And that's what it's all about, about

developing a core audience that likes what you do. And I said this earlier. I was talking to somebody else earlier today and they said, you know, what is it that you want what do you what do you think that attracts people to you? And I said, I want people to like me. You know, the old Howard co Cell mentality was you had half the audience hate you and the other half of the audience like you, but they were going to listen to you no matter what. To me, I've always wanted to be the guy that

everybody liked. Now, of course, the people who aren't gonna like me, but I think for the most part those have listened to me over the years, and my p ones, as we like to call them in the world of ratings and all that other stuff, those are the people that have stayed with me wherever I've gone. And now, even in the last couple of years, where I haven't done any terrestrial radio, it's of a couple of pregame

shows during the football season locally. You know, I've been doing the Twitch thing, and Twitch is a big, big platform. They started adding sports content and so I'm on there now and I've been on there for a year and it's fun because I get to talk to people every day. And and the one thing about Twitch talking about the generational divide is when I talked to somebody over thirty and they say, where are you on now? Say Twitch?

Will say what the hell is that? When I talked to somebody under thirty, they're like, Wow, you're on Twitch.

And so that's the thing is about getting people to know all these new different digital platforms, especially for the older generation that doesn't even well, they're pretty much they're consuming and anybody who has a phone now except a flip phone, is basically digitally connected now, so you're getting everything in your hand as opposed to have to worry about what time the game ends and finding out where the score is. All that information is available to everybody now.

So breaking news and stuff about this game is over the point, spreads and all that stuff. People get that instantaneously. We have to provide the other parts of it, the the fun and entertaining parts of the world without sports every day. Be sure to catch live editions of The Ben Meller Show weekdays at two am Eastern eleven p m Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the I Heart Radio app. Yeah, and Tony, you brought up the early days man and I you were a big influence on me.

I'm a huge Tony Bruno fan. You were awesome and you've been very kind to me over there. I remember we used to hang out every once in a while. I was I was honored we'd hang out. A was at Hooters in Santa Monica, which I don't even think there anymore, at the Third Street Promenade back in the day. But I should thank you. I've been at Fox. I started right around when I think it was a week

or two after the network started. But the only reason Fox Sports Radio exists, for those that are new and maybe don't realize the history, it's because of you, Tony. You are the reason that this entire network, which has been on the air now for twenty years exists. When you made the move to come to Fox Sports Radio and do the show, you were the centerpiece, you were the rock star, and everything else was built around uh you. So I should thank you because it's gotta feel good that.

I mean, I know you haven't been at Fox for a number of years, but the reason this thing is even around is because of your your impact. Well, I mean it wasn't just me. I mean obviously Greig Kitchen and the people who put the Fox Radio Sports Radio together. I left the FPN after ten years and they called me and said move out to l A. And you know, I've been l A a million times that I never lived there. So I moved out to l A. I made in my home for eleven consecutive years, from two

thousand all the way to two thousand and eleven. And I worked with a lot of great people. I mean I was on the morning show because they wanted me to be there, and so I did it with Andrews Siciliano, who's now on the Bigger and Better Things the NFL Network. And so I've worked a lot of great people no matter where I've been, and to see them continuing to excel. So I don't I don't make things better. I've been

fortunate to be in great spots. I've been handed the keys to ESPN Radio, to Fox Sports Radio is the first voices on and so I was. I was privileged to work with a lot of really talented people around me, which made me better. And I hope that I always felt that the younger generations who asked me about how did you get to where you are? I'm always willing to do that. You don't why because I had people helping me when I was fifteen years old and said

I wanted to be in radio. I'd called radio stations at night. You know, there were a lot of there was a lot of sports radio, but I'd called the DJs and talk about music and tell them how I wanted to be in this business. So I got a lot of help when I was a kid, and now I try to help others by just telling them to be themselves. You know, everybody the one question I'm sure you guys get this too. You know, how do I be like you? How do I be like Ben Maller? And I always say, how do you be like Tony?

You can't You're not you can be yourself. You can't be another Tony Bruno, but you could be yourself and just be don't don't create an act, don't do something, don't be what you're not, because if you try to do this for a long time, people will always know who you are what you are. You just try to stay consistent. And that's all I've tried to do for

almost fifty years now. See Tony that that's the one thing I wanted to ask you about, because you're so seasoned in this game, is that I find at least where where my perception is with with guys like you and a colleague of ours here, Rob Parker, is that you guys aren't looking behind you. You're like, you're not looking over your shoulder, You're not looking behind you. You're just looking straight ahead. And you have not to say you don't have any worries. But you're not worried about

the outside noise. But what about people that are just up and coming. They're going to get in because there are there are teams, there are organizations, and there are networks that like, you need to have a positive spin no matter what, or you have to shade your beliefs towards one side of the aisle and you compromise what you do as an individual or who you are for the sake of the greater good, or in some instances, especially nowadays, your paycheck, Like how do you how do

you toll that line? Well, I've been fortunate that for the last five years, you know, I haven't worked for a big company where I'm you know, where I'm dealing with ratings every day. Not think that's bad, I mean that's the world we live in. Almost every radio station that's on the air that's not a public radio station

has to deal with you know, contracts. If you work for a radio station and everybody deals with this now for the most part, you work for radio station that's the rights holder to a specific team, and you're a talent and you want to criticize the team. You know, right now you're under immense pressure because the partnerships between ADEO stations and sports franchises is now at a point where they don't want anybody who is going to criticize

the product on the air. And so you're basically are hanging yourself out there every day having to walk that tight rope. Not that you're looking to be negative, but when things are really bad to not be able to say things on the air that everybody at home is thinking, but they know that you're not allowed to say it because you're worried about losing your job. I think that's how the business has changed more than ever before. You know, it's run by corporate America. That's the way it is.

You just look recently, uh enter Com just got rid of a bunch of people, uh Beasley earlier on on March thirty one, the end of the quarter year. You know, they're trying to cut back and so it's all about a world not just in radio, but particularly in radio, where people are losing their jobs every day because companies are under pressure to help their shareholders, and the way they make more money is spending less money. So I

think that's how the business has changed. And it's not like I'm happy that I don't have somebody hanging over my head or telling me what to talk about every fifteen second. It's just that I've done all that and I've been through that whole error from the beginning of how this starts and how you have to deal with working and I've always worked well with people. I've never really had problems. I've had some issues with management, but only because I was hired and then management would trying

to tell me to change what I was doing. And that's one of the things I've always stayed to stayed loyal to. If you hire me because you like what I've done and you see my track record, then don't try to change me and to make me what you want me to be. And I think that's the biggest problem that a lot of talent have now. They get hired to do one job and then once they get on the air, it's like, well, that's not what we

really want you to do. And so that's the power that I think we've lost as entertainers, as performers, as journalists, whatever you want to call us hosts. There's a lot of people who walk on eggshells every day trying to do their jobs because they fear saying the wrong thing and being fired over something that ten twenty years ago was not really a big deal. Be sure to catch live editions of The Ben Miller Show weekdays at two

a m. Eastern eleven pm Pacific. Yeah. I know you've mentioned this, Tony, but you are You are a firecracker on social media now you can do you People are jealous of you because you're able to say whatever you want. Now. Is that gonna have to change now? Because you're going on satellite, You're gonna be able to keep doing the same stuff you've been doing here. How's that gonna work? Yeah? I mean one of my biggest things, Ben, and I'm not you know, And it's it's funny how the world

has changed where you go on social media. And my biggest problem is with media now. It's not what the people on Twitter. You know, anybody can say whatever they want on Twitter. You know. I was a political science major in college. I'm not a political hack. I'm not a Republican. I'm not a Democrat. I don't really root for one party. But we live in the world now where you know, it's easy for particularly most people in media.

You know, they're primarily liberals and super progressive, and so bashing Trump every day is a fun thing to do. And so if you don't bash Trump, and you say you don't even have to beat Rob, I don't put mega. I don't have any of that stuff. I'm not a super right wing guy. But now, if you're not super left wing, and you're not twenty four of seven going crazy about everything the president does for three and a half years, then all of a sudden you get that

when you're a drumper. What happened to you? Man? You're a right wing whack jog, You're Alex Jones. And that's not the way I'm at all. I get angry when I see media people who were supposed to be doing journalism. I'm not talking about opinions and pundits and people who make their livings awful politics and rooting for one party or one candidate. I don't do any of that stuff. I just have fun. I mock most media people who are to me embarrassing and shameful in the way that

they become hacks for either political party. So that's what Bob is me on me, and that's where I go after. I don't go after individual people, you know, who disagree with me. People come at me all the time. I go back and forth, but I'm not I'm not in the name calling or threatening or any of that stuff. I just I just have a good time. Twitter is basically like the toys. It's like what sports radio used

to be. It's the toy store for people who want to check in and have tough opinions about their favorite teams and rip coaches and call for firings. I use Twitter as pretty much to promote my brand and also to have fun with with an income. Poops out there in pictious positions of power. Not Joe Schmo on there, because I'm just Schmo in there, just like anybody else. I don't think I'm better than anybody else. I don't

think my opinion matters more. But I love when people who don't know anything about politics or sports tell me that my opinion doesn't matter because they disagree with me. I'm Tony, what's it like right now in Philly? Because I was telling them this earlier, Like my normal Actually, our commute to the studio from where we live as anywhere from about an hour to an hour in ten minutes,

and now it's thirty minute drive. I mean, the streets are nearly empty, and it's a rare occasion where obviously you get to breathe clean air in Los Angeles, but what about in Philly, Like, what's it been like around town and how are people acting. Well, I don't go out much. I mean I don't go out much anyway,

but it's pretty much ago. It's like everywhere else. I live on a very busy My old neighbor actually moved back to the same neighborhood I grew up in in South Philly, which is a legendary area near the sports complexes, and it's a very, very big restaurant neighborhood. I can walk fifty yards and there's some of the best restaurants in the country here and now they're all closed. So that's what everybody is seeing around the country. Philly is

no different than any other big city. Streets are empty, there's not a lot going on downtown. The businesses. A lot of the businesses, the liquor stores are boarding up their windows, and it's a really scary, like walking dead kind of feel to it. But I think people are becoming a little more as as as anxious as everybody is,

as stir crazy as everybody is. I get out and walk around MS Robin and I go take a walk, you know, because there's nobody on the streets, so we're not worry about getting into a big crowd of people and that kind of stuff and the social distancing. But I think everybody's trying to deal with this and being stuck at home and having your TV on with all the noise on the news channels. That's the best thing.

That's what I don't do. I watched the coronavirus thing every day and then I turn it off, and so that the more you stay away from the noise and all the division and all the vitriol and all of the all this that and this guy stinks and this guy is not doing a good job. Uh, you try to get that out of your head, which is what I try to do. And then I go on Twitter while I'm working downstairs preparing for my shows, and I'll go back and forth with some people, and then for

the most part, I just watched like Science Channel. I'm watching The Tiger King and all these other diversion. Everything's that that everybody's watching now when they're stuck inside. I hope you're I hope you're cooking is better than Ben's because he's tempted to do a YouTube channel on cooking. And I don't know if you've ever had his cooking, but it's not that good Tony. So if you do Tony guest on, he's like he lives west of the four oh five, you know, the l a landscape, Tony.

When you live west of the four or five different cat you're not a normal person when you live west of the four oh five. And exactly well, you know, Miss Robin's a great cooking and Robin and I have been on a Keto diet. So the funniest thing is everybody's you know, sitting at home and eating and gaining weight and you know, doing the normal things that I did.

When back last year, back in October November, I had some surgery issues and I had like three different surgeries, and so there weren't major, weren't life threatening, and they were. They were just a pain in the asked literally in figuratively. So I was going through this area where I was having surgery and I couldn't walk around, I couldn't lift things. So what did I do? I sat around like we always do in the fall here on the East Coast, when it gets cold and miserable out. You sit up

late at night. You're watching TV. You know, you're watching sports, You're watching hockey, NBA, and you start eating stuff and then it's eleven o'clock and you go get some ice cream and then you wake and you're still up and it's one o'clock. You know, when you're watching T n T and the NBA on t V T T n T, the post game from the West Coast, and you eat and eat and eat till people put on a way

and I put on like thirty pounds. And so while everybody's putting the weight on, now I'm actually losing the weight. So we went on the keyto diet, and this Robin is a brilliant at it. And even though you got to give up the breads and as an Italian giving up bread, giving a pizza, giving up those things, I

mean that's almost impossible. But we've been doing it and I've lost fifteen pounds in less than a month, and I got another ten to go and then I'll be an optimum shape so that when everything is back to normal, I'll be out there and I'll be able to come back to l A. But the boy shorts on or maybe the the speedos and go back on the Venice Beach and hang out with all my boys and girls down there, your old snoppy grounds in Venice Beach. Uh,

I got I, Well you're on. I gotta tell one of my favorite Tony Bruno's stories and to show how professional Tony was. The night of June nineteen, two thousand

and the Lakers had won a championship. We were broadcasting doing local radio in l A. And that was the Shaq Kobe, the first title together, and there was a riot that broke out across right in front of Staples and we were broadcasting from the corner studio, which was the l A Live wasn't there, but we were in a corner corner studio and I was doing a show

with Dave and then you came on. But but we were like talking about what we were seeing as the riot was kind of starting, and you were so professional. You handled that so much better than we handled it, because it was chaos down there, Tony that night. It was insane. What was going on down there. Yeah. Again, it's you know, you're, you're, you're the eyes and the ears of everybody listening, and so the people who aren't there,

they want to hear something that's an accurate portrayal. And so I always tried to be the en I've covered news for so long, and I've covered events. I wasn't you know at the Olympics and seventies six when the Richard Do jewel thing at Centennial Olympic Park. I remember being in l A and eighty four for the Summer Olympics. John Madden and I and a couple of the producers, uh. When I was at r k O radio in the eighties with Keith Olberman and Charlie Steiner and those guys.

John Madden and I were in Los Angeles and we were in the We were in Westwood Village because John liked to go to the Pantry in l A all the time. That was a favorite place downtown in l A legendary place, the pantry, But then we were in Westwood Village one night, going out for pizza and we're sitting in a restaurant and there's a Kareem Abdul Jabbar sitting at a table across from us. And this is now eighty four where obviously the l A is buzzing,

the world's paying attention. The Summer Olympics are there, and so John Madden obviously was huge, and everybody knew we were. We're sitting there. All of a sudden, a couple of which sounded like gunshots went off, and here we are. And I remember this is pre nine eleven, but this is during the Olympics, and all of a sudden, all the fun and games and people looking around and talking about it's John Man, there's uh, there's Kareem abdul Jabbar.

Everybody immediately freaks out and we had to go into reporter mode. So I go run to a phone and people are calling me on my phone and saying, what's going on? Is there are terrist attacks? So people thought there was a terror attack in Los Angeles and Westwood Village there on the u c l A campus, and so that's what happen. You've gotta be ready for that stuff. Nobody goes out thinking that the world's gonna end for

that there's going to be a pandemic. But when you're out in you hear gunfire or you here are somebody crashing into a building. The first thing you do when you instinctively you have been in the media business, and I started out as a news reporter, gets to go into that news reporter mode where you want to make sure you find out what's going on and you transmit that information as responsibly as you can by scene what's on the scene, and then talking to the people who

know what they're talking about. So I've always had that inner instinct in me, so if something happens, I always want to make sure I know what's happening and get responsible information. Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in the nation. Catch all of our shows at Fox Sports Radio dot com and within the I Heart Radio app. Search f s R to listen live Tony.

I know, obviously we're we're in a downturn with the way that the economy has been hit right now, and and obviously with the industry itself sports and media coming to a crashing halt. But how do you go about your preparation now and just the way that you have kept yourself, you know, chin up, head down type of mentality. Because as you guys were talking about earlier, there there's guys that are running thin on material or they're kind of going through like the Mount Rushmore of sports and

on the other crap. But how do you go through the process because I would imagine, I mean, it's like going to a baseball game, right, like no game is ever the name as the next one. So for a show, I can imagine this falling on one the same lines for you. But what's the background for you in terms of how you rev up to how you go Well, the interesting thing is when I started doing the twitch thing, you know I could have just because I do it from my home. So I walked down two flights of stairs.

Robin and I redid the house that we brought. So we we remodeled it. The basement looks really nice. We turned it into a little wine cellar, and so we built a little studio down there. And again this is this is long before any of this stuff where everybody's doing shows in their basement studios now, and so we had a nice little studio there and we did it

on Twitch. But I would do the same thing. Instead of just mailing it in and going down and saying I just wing it for two hours, I would prepare just like I did for any other show that I've ever done. So I get up at nine, we didn't go on to one, and I would prepare for four hours to do a two hour show. I would write little notes done. I want to make sure I knew

everything was happening. And so once you get that up, once you decide how you know what, I don't feel like doing it today, I'm just gonna mail it in. That's and you really don't want to do this anymore, and you probably should just hang it up. But I've always tried to approach thing that things with great preparation. I didn't need to write scripts. I would just write notes. I have all the scores that have anything I needed.

The point spreads, because we've always done this, you know the stone called Locks, and now it's bigger than ever. So I've always tried to be overprepared. And most of the times I'll have more material than I even could possibly use on the show, and so we incorporate music and video and stuff Robin does a great job. We pull up the funniest videos and being on Twitch, I don't have to worry about profanity and things. And we

didn't curse intentionally, just a curse. But if there's a video that has profanity in it, or a song we play an old school rap song, we don't have to play the watered down versions. And so that's one of the fun things about doing radio. We don't have to worry about the FCC, and you don't do things just to be outlandish, but you can do things that you can't do on regular radio. And that's been part of

the front of the Twitch part. And now the Twitch will remain on when I'm on the Serious channel, and so they'll so there'll be a video component which you can still see on the Twitch channel, Twitch dot tv, Slash Tony Bruno Show, and also on Sirious x eppisode to have the video coupon. Not to anybody wants to see me talking on TV. But it's not just talking on TV. We do crazy stuff in the in the basement.

We'll play darts. I'll go up and play drums when when the music song and there's a good drum riff, I'll just get my drumsticks and bang them on the on the desk. You stupid stuff, stupid stuff that people find funny, and that's what it is. And you know it's you're having fun. And if I don't have fun anymore, I'll have to be dead or I won't be doing

this anymore, or whichever comes first. There you go, and you'll be happy to know, Tony, that the Fox Sports Radio Studios since you left have not changed at all. It's same equipment, same computers, same everything's the same they have. It's like a museum there, Tony, since you left, I want you to know that. Yeah, but it's it's still uh do Pete Rose still go to the restaurant right

across the street there on Venture and Spolita. No. Rose moved to Vegas and that restaurant changed, that Italian restaurant over there's no a longer. Now it's a bar and bar restaurant. Yeah it's not. It's not the same setup that place closed a couple of years ago. Yeah, he's pets moved on. I thought maybe been telling me that the Fox Sports Radio Studies went back to being a Denny's, which it was originally before they converted into the Fox

Sports Radio and that was a great studio there. I can't believe you're disrespecting the beautiful studio facilities with the double bulletproof glass on the outside of the filding and on the inside of the building. That's right. And and I was there and years ago and they did somebody did uh shoot at the at the studio. Listen, Tony. I love you man. You're the greatest dominate on serious x M. And I'm so happy you're back. I can hear you now, everyone can hear you in the afternoon.

And you're the o G man. Good luck to you. Thanks, guys, really appreciate man. Always great to talk to you about him. I have to catch up soon. All right, that was awesome, big thanks Tony. Bruno loved love chatting with Tony. We have a little time left, gast scout, so we can

do some grab bag. Is that all right? Yeah? Are we gonna have a mom it where you can actually read to me some of the positive emails that you are purposely confiscating from our general inbox, because I heard a rumor or two that you've been doing that of the last month. Not at all. I've not received any positive messages about you. When I do, I will start laughing and know the show is not going well at

that particular moment. But we have some random questions. Let's get to as many of these as we can, guess, because we don't have a lot of time, because we love talking to Tony and and all that. This one's from Carlos and Houston. He says, Ben, when did the Curse of the ben Binos starting? And when will it end? Uh? Those are great questions, Carlos. The curse of the ben Bino, the term curse of the ben Bino started. There was a caller from Detroit in the early days of the

show at Fox Motor City. Mike, I believe was the night the guy's name, and he was a newspaper delivery guy in Detroit, and he started figuring out that every time I made a bold prediction, and I would predict things that should happen that most people thought were going to happen that didn't happen. And then he's like, you know, you're cursed. You've got the curse of the Benbino. And

then that's kind of how it started. It's gonna end when the Clippers when the NBA Championship, which will be in December of this year, when the NBA c C comes back with Cohi Leonard. Uh so that's when it's gonna end. Uh. Let's see r J and san Antonio rights and he says with no sports on, has this been the hardest time in your career as a sports radio host? Uh, I'm gonna actually go no on that, r J. Uh I and and maybe it will change. But I've been okay, I've been. I mean there's not

a lot. You know. One of my faults, I'm a type A personality, and so when times are normal and there's a ton of stuff to choose from, Uh, those are actually harder times for me because I don't I don't want to do something that's not an A story. I don't want do something that's an A story. Uh, we'll only do any story I don't want to do, like lower stories. So I will sometimes overlook certain things and be hyper focused on getting only the biggest stories,

only the most interesting stories. But now there's not enough. There's not a lot of variety, so the options are limited on what we have to talk about. So it hasn't been that hard. There's still a little bit of information every day that we can talk about and kick around. So surprisingly, no, the couple of weeks after nine eleven, we're really that was the hardest time for me doing this kind of stuff. I think are our podcast had

had you prepared for for this moment? Because are you taking credit for this, guest go No, No, I'm not taking credit for I'm just saying, like what we did with the podcast because we had Beny Versus the Penny, which embarked in September to open up Week one or nineteen football season. But everything else we've done on the podcast, We've talked about fasting, we've talked about different elements of this podcast, and most of it is not sports related.

So the conditioning aspect for you when you go through a three four hour show and now onto this is that's you've already been trained, or I guess you've already your mind has already been trained to go off the beaten path and not always take like the low hanging fruit that everybody else does in the sports world. Well, I've always tried to do a little things a little different. I don't I don't want to be like everyone else.

I can't I can't stand most of the things I hear, so I don't want to do that, So I always have to have your unique smith. But it's an answer. R J gett. I don't know, it's not. It might get to that point, but we're not quite at that point. Um, and who else do we have? A guy from Maple Grove, Minnesota? Did not write the guy's name down? Bad job by me, uh says Why do most of the Ben Mall Show regular callers make Joe Exotic look completely sane? Did you watch the Tiger King gas No, I was texting. I

was texting your wife, I said. I got through the first episode. I wanted to kill myself. These people, what's wrong with your dude? Oh, they're entertaining cartoon characters not entertaining. Well, listen, you're west of the four oh five. For us common people, it's entertaining. It's everyone loves a freak show. They're just guy Joe Exotic, flamboyantly gay guy that collects big pats and lives in Oklahoma. Not it's in the world we live in right now. He gets to peek in on

the other side. It's I was compelled by and I thought it was very well done with the production value was great. They had some real characters, not just Joe Exotic. They had the guy from Inside Edition who was the videographer. They had the you don't know any of this stuff because you didn't watch No thankfully I do not. I'm not. I'm sorry, but but no. I said on the show that Joe Exotic seems like a kind of guy that

would be one of my callers, you know. He seems like he would fit in with Doc Mike or Mark the full name guy, or any of these people. So Kenn and Talita writes in this this grab bag actual questions by actual listeners, Kent says, uh, Benn, and guesscon have you ever weighed yourself then taken a ship and then weighed yourself after to see how much your ship weighed?

So from Ken, you ever done that? Yeah? So what I did do is I weighed myself, took a deuce, showered, and then weighed myself again, and I lost a couple of pounds. Don't you weigh less early in the day? Was it late? It's early in there? You want to weigh yourself in the morning, Yes, especially when you're in an empty stomach. So not drinking any water. I assume if you're slept the least seven or eight hours, you haven't eaten for maybe ten hours. Um, that's usual when

you're at your lightest. I don't understand why people go to the gym and way themselves and they weigh themselves at night, Like that doesn't do anything. I mean, you're you're at your heaviest at that point. Yeah. Um, what I do when I go to the doctor's office, every one song they weighed me. And if I don't like the number that they put, I just assume it's because I have my keys in my wallet. My keys in my wallet weighs seventeen pounds. Your shoes too, probably right,

my shoes, yeah, my exactly. I'm like, OK, well, I don't wait that much. I mean my shoes, my wallet, my keys, that's gotta be like twenty five pounds altogether plus clearly plus right, and plus your pajama clothing now, which is like three inches too big on the waist and what like? Shame me? Richard in Texas writes, and he says, Ben and guests, God, which HBO series would you consider better? Arless? Or curb your enthusiasm? All right? I'll go first. This is this is not even close. Now.

I liked Arless back in the day, and I watched Arless, but Curb Your Enthusiasm is a masterpiece. It's masterpiece theater. Not even close. That is a k oh first round. Mike Tyson Early Days Tyson knockout for Larry David and Curb Your Enthusiasm? Why was this so good for you? Before I answer, why was it so good for you? Curb Enthusiasm? I just love that brand of humor, Like

I feel like I've I've lived my email. Larry David's a character on a TV show, Like a lot of things that I have experienced in my life are relatable, Like I have the same when I go out. I hate the annoying things in life, and I I've complained about those things way before Curb Your Enthusiasm. So it's it's just resonating. It's preaching to the choir, which I enjoy.

All right. Well, the reason why I ask is because I have not watched either of those shows, but so out of hold HBO the two best series that I've ever watched on there, not Game of Thrones, but The Wire and True Detectives. So I've never seen The Wire or True Detective. I love the Sopranos. That was a great show back in the day. That's to me, the top show that HBO has had is The Sopranos. But Curb Your Enthusiasm is just outstanding. Well, I mean, you

have to watch The Wire. The Wires, I mean True Detective season one is the best of the three that they they showcased. But The Wire season one to season five. It talks about all the nuance in the city of Baltimore, police politics, the dock workers, the kids in the school system, like it encompasses everything of that city. Um, you have to watch it, man, and it's that good. Well you got time, now, that's a good point. I do have a lot of time, plenty. We all have a lot

of time. It's grabbed bag. These are actual questions by actual listeners. Ethan in akron A k Ethan in Detroit writes and he says, what's the worst thing you can do while pursuing a career in sports media? So this guy Ethan is looking for some career advice on how to get into the media business. Well, my advice, Ethan is, I don't know if it's the worst thing you can do. But I think the thing that I noticed, the reason a lot of people don't make it is not because

a lack of talent. It's that they give up. And it's a business that will wear you down, and much like anything, only the strong survive. And I've noticed that a lot of people, if they don't get to a certain point and become a kingpin in the media business after an X number of years, they're like, Okay, I'm just not gonna make it. I'm gonna go do something else. And I think that's the wrong at it. That's a

that's a loser's mentality. So I think you just gotta have tenacity, and you've got to continue, and you've got a network and all that. But I think that's the biggest mistake. The worst thing I see from people is they just give up. They don't try. What about you guess? I think to echo that or a piggyback off of it, I would say not having any goals. I think for me, I went from a career and stability in real estate to starting my entire life over when I went to

grad school. So when I got out of grad school, I went and worked for two public access channels here in l A making a dime with a master's degree for an entire year. And when I got my first job was with the I Heart San Diego. I took the job as a board operator. If everyone that listens to your show knows who Roberto is. I was doing his job part time for ten dollars an hour, and I was doing that Monday through Friday. I was getting

paid six dollars every two weeks. But when I first started, I wrote down goals, like in terms of how I want to ascend, what I wanted to do for work. I eventually got my first on air opportunity six months after I got in the door, and then I became the game day host the Chargers, the game day host of the San Diego State Aztecs. Then I started getting play by play work in San Diego, then in Riverside, and then eventually I moved up to l A to work with you fourteen months after I started at My

Heart San Diego. But I had goals and had benchmarks and things I wanted to do. So if you have goals down, it puts in the front of your mind like, Okay, this is what you got to do and there's your objectives. I think one of the thing is you can't be cavalier with your social media because there's always eyes on you Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. You can't do stupid shit on there because you'll get either exposed or will come back and bite you eventually. And those are the two things.

So acid wash your social media, thankfull you get into the business. Or if you're gonna have to have someone help you out, yeah, I've helped a few people out over the Year's guest And look to my counsel too. I know a couple of tricks on how to erase certain certain things that are in your past on social media that that can come back to haunt you. Absolutely. Jason and Bakersfield Right City says what sport would be the funniest to add a mandatory amount of alcohol too?

Al Right, I think the obvious one would be hockey, al right, seeing guys try to skate when they're completely snockered, yeah, liquored up, but anything would be more. We see guys played softball completely hammered. Right, Um so, man, I wouldn't want to have our all this chatman throwing at me while intoxicated, but you might. I mean if he's schnockered, he might not be able to throw it straight, so he might not hit you right. He could be so

sloshed up the ball sales into the second deck. Maybe I'm a right handed batter, so he throws a slider that things hitting me, eating the hip or the dick like. Either way, I'm getting dotted by that thing. So well, when you were playing back in the day, guest Gun, you had first base with Scotch, second base was Whiskey, third base with bourbon, right run around the basis at home. Home plate was all of it? Yeah, home plate was was all the above. There. Let's see. This is Colin

in Denver listening to the fifth Hour right soon. He says, have either of you guys found anything similar to sports to watch that isn't reruns? And will this pandemic help to legitimize sports in general? Well, listen, Coy, I guess we'll take the last part. I think that's the more interesting question. No offense, comb um, But will this legitimize the sports? I'm not convinced. I think people are watching, and the ratings have been very good for for e sports.

Uh so far, people, millions of people have been watching these things, But I think it's more a product of the times that if you had a game with real human beings actually playing to watch that, more people would watch that and less people would watch the sports. But when you have no other options, you watch this. You know, when you have only one channel to watch, you're gonna watch that one channel more than you're not going to

watch the channel. So I'm not convinced that this coronavirus pandemic is going to lead to the new normal being e sports. But I know it's a hell of a lot cheaper to put an e sports game on, and it is to put a real professional sports game on. I know that, yeah, And and to piggyback off of that, to Ben, I would rather it's like having an automated umpire as opposed to a human being behind the dish.

Like it's nice to have someone accurately called balls and strikes properly, but there's something very human and great about dishing it out to an umpire, whether you're for him or against him, whether he has a liberal strike zone or it's really conservative, there's something about that that you take away with automation. I don't want to watch a kid or an adult playing video games. I want to see people competing out there in the cord or on the ice or in the field of play, like there's

there's no substitute. And you'll find that out the hard way if we don't have an NFL or college football season. Yeah, yeah, boy, don't say that. I come on, I mean, you know, watch your mouthought with soap and one what's wrong with you is say that. Don't even put that out in the world. What's wrong with you? All right? Jeff in Clarksville, Indiana, right scenes just across the Ohio River from Louisville, Kentucky, He says, pull the magic radio curtain back and give

us an inside look. What is something in the radio business that goes on behind the scenes that the normal listener has no idea goes on? Uh? Well, I mean, in some ways I can answer this. I think the one thing that I've been eye opening. I don't see it that often, but every once in a while. Over the years, I've worked with different people, and um, I'm always amazed by the guys that just kind of skate

by and don't prepare. And sometimes you listen to these shows you think, oh man, this guy's been preparing all day. And I've known a few people that have worked in the business that literally show up two minutes before the show, haven't done any preparation, and they just it's called rip and read whatever the top stories are on the sports websites. They just kind of make it up as they go, and those people are exposed, they don't last very long.

But that's that's something that I've seen behind the scenes that I think a lot of people assume if you have one of these jobs, that you work hard, you're prepared, air and all that, and it's not not always the case, not always the case at all. What about you guess, Yeah, they call that, whether it's in college baseball or in

minor league baseball, they call it stretch and go. And usually it's in the final game of a three or four game series where the home or where the road team will come in and they won't even take batting practice. They'll warm up, they'll stretch, and then they just hit the diamond and play the game. And that's exactly what

you're talking about. It is amazing to me the amount of work that certain producers will will do and provide for the talent that's either on television or radio, and that individual man or woman has the slightest clue about what's going on. And that's for live TV and that's for regular shows as well. So that is there's one thing.

And I don't know if that's uh earth shattering, but I think along the lines of that, there's also a lot of box score television, a lot of box score radio, and just basically you and I coming into the studio. All the Dodgers played the Ace today and they want seven and nothing, but you're just going through this box score to see who did what and who didn't and obviously just talking about the low hanging fruit that's there too, and that happens more often than you think. Yeah, you

can tell when they don't actually watch the games. So we don't break down games very much these days in sports or over nothing right now, But even when games are going on, we it's only usually playoff games like big games that will break down. But otherwise we're talking about the stories around around the games. All right, we'll ask you. We got I've got a few questions in right, that's a good amount of questions. I want to end one more. You want me to give you one more?

One more. Let's do one more, one more shot. Uh, let's see here. This is from Mike in Upper Michigan. Formally, he's the guy guesscon that invited weed Man. He tried to help weed Man and gave him a place to stay, and then weed Man said he accused me of having him kidnapped. Nut job. I feel bad. Mike was a nice guy opening his home to lead Man. And and and that's the thanks, that's what we get anyway. Um. He says, what are your worst accidental grocery store purchases? Does?

His top three are creamy peanut butter, oatmeal raisin cookies, tuna packed in oil. Uh. He says those are his worst accidental I don't mind creamy peanut butter. I'm fine with that. The oatmeal raising, yeah, I don't like oatmeal raisin cookies. I'm trying to think, like I've tried, I don't really buy things. I don't need these dies. I go to the grocery store, I'm like, I'm I got laser focused guest, laser like focus. Okay, I go in there,

I get what I need. I very rarely go off the reservation and get somebody I'm not supposed to get. But back in the day, my big eating days, when I was big fat tub of goo man, I would go in there and with any new flavor of Oreo cookies, you know they used to try all these news I would buy those. Any kind of weird ex A chip flavor, I would pick that up, and you know, gallons of grape soda and all that. I would just go for it back and they what about you guess on any

weird stuff west of the four oh five you picked up? No, But I wanted to be a fat ass. I would always buy or get stuff that looked healthy, like vegetables or fruit. And anytime I wanted to pick out whether I'm eating, like frozen pizza or ice cream or ice cream bars, I'd always put it at the bottom of my cart so that way it looked like I was stacking everything with like healthy food. It's healthy, So people walking by me or go into the cashier's desk, I

wasn't getting judged. Yeah, well, that's like the people that would eat the salad and then you just put like a gallon of salad dressing on top, so you might as well just eat a big mac. It's the same amount of calories. What are you doing? You know that kind of thing? Yeah, which is really the only way to eat a salad is just to pour a ton of salad dressing on top of the ranch. Please, no wretch. A thousand island that was an island is my addressing

of choice. That's that's what I go for. All right, Well, that is it, Gascon. Thank you. Another a wonderful edition of the Fifth Our. Thanks again to Tony Bruno. Love Tony. Very excited to have a chance to talk to him. It's been the first time in several years that I've been able to catch up with the o G of sports radio. Now. Hey, follow us on social media. I'm on The Graham on Instagram, Ben Maller on Fox. You can follow me on there also Ben Mallard Show on

Facebook and on Twitter. Ben Mallard Gistcon. You're also around those parts. Yes, on Twitter, I'm at David J. Gascon and The Graham. I g I'm at Dave Gascon. Alright, so thanks, tell a friend about the podcast. Be safe. We'll catch you back on the radio in probably just a few hours, who knows, depending how you look at it. All right, we'll talk to you then. Thanks.