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Speaker 2: I want to.
Speaker 3: Open today's podcast, the last of twenty twenty five, the
Speaker 3: last of the twenty twenty five season, the last of
Speaker 3: the first season of the Mark Belling Podcast with one
Speaker 3: of those stories I talk all the time going back
Speaker 3: through my radio career and doing the podcast. The topics
Speaker 3: that I think are the best ones to do are
Speaker 3: the ones that in and of themselves are interesting.
Speaker 2: But they explain all sorts of other.
Speaker 3: Things beyond the specific topic itself. We now have the
Speaker 3: ability to do a side by side comparison of what
Speaker 3: happens when you ban cell phones and schools. First of all,
Speaker 3: some schools do and some schools don't, so you can
Speaker 3: compare that. But secondly, many of the schools that have
Speaker 3: banned cell phones had not banned them prior to this.
Speaker 3: You can compare that against that. Almost everyone will know
Speaker 3: what the result was before I even tell you everything
Speaker 3: has improved in the schools that ban cell phones in
Speaker 3: the classroom.
Speaker 2: Now that begs a question and we're going to dive.
Speaker 3: Into that as we dive into today's podcast. Have you
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Speaker 2: This story appears, and it is Wall Street Journal.
Speaker 3: New evidence shows that bans on phones in classrooms work well. Again,
Speaker 3: no kidding, but let's dive into and by the way,
Speaker 3: you can find that with the Wall Street Journal. We
Speaker 3: always hesitate to link those pieces up because sometimes they
Speaker 3: end up behind a paywall. Every now and then they'll
Speaker 3: give you free stories out there for free. But if
Speaker 3: you want to find it, it is on the Wall
Speaker 3: Street Journal, online, WSJ, dot comm or and the prededition.
Speaker 3: I don't want to share some paragraphs from the story
Speaker 3: written by Julie Jargon. A large urban district in Florida
Speaker 3: saw an increase in student test scores. A smaller school
Speaker 3: district in rural California experienced a dramatic decline in student
Speaker 3: behavioral problems. The reason for both the absence of smartphones
Speaker 3: in the classroom. Early data on the effects of school
Speaker 3: of phone bands confirm what teachers and administrators have long
Speaker 3: suspected that phones in the classrooms were the primary culprit
Speaker 3: behind bad behavior and low engagement.
Speaker 2: Quote.
Speaker 3: When you have two hundred and sixty seven incidents of
Speaker 3: threats and physical injury in the first ten weeks of
Speaker 3: a school year, that's a problem, said April Moore, superintendent
Speaker 3: of the Sierra Sans Unified School District near California's Mojave Desert,
Speaker 3: of last year's disciplinary problems, students were using their phones
Speaker 3: to plan bathroom vaping meetups, gossip sessions, and fights. When
Speaker 3: behaviors escalate in the invisible space, we can't prevent them
Speaker 3: or react as fast, said More, who presides over a
Speaker 3: district of about five thousand students. Since district wide ban
Speaker 3: on cell phone use during instructional class time went into
Speaker 3: effect this fall, student behavior as time around, and they
Speaker 3: go into some of the numbers, and the story goes
Speaker 3: on and lays out all sorts of other anecdotes did.
Speaker 3: As I say, as somebody who's not involved in running
Speaker 3: a school, it's just the most obvious thing, the idea
Speaker 3: of the kids right sitting there during school with their
Speaker 3: cellph instance, says, well, some of them can't use them
Speaker 3: during class. Okay, you can say that they're using them
Speaker 3: during class. To once again quote Francis McDorman from Fargo, well,
Speaker 3: how do you know these kids are pretty good at
Speaker 3: concealing the fact that they're using them. Secondly, even if
Speaker 3: they're only using them during the breaks they can cause all,
Speaker 3: there's just zero upside for it.
Speaker 2: Furthermore, we also know that there's no need for.
Speaker 3: It, given the fact that just about every student in
Speaker 3: the history of students until about fifteen to twenty years
Speaker 3: ago didn't have a Snell phone with them in the
Speaker 3: classroom because they didn't exhaust. The point though in bringing
Speaker 3: this up is I think every school in America knows
Speaker 3: that banning them is a good idea, and now some
Speaker 3: have done so to one extent or another. As I say,
Speaker 3: some you're required to turn the phone in at the
Speaker 3: beginning of the day and you don't get it to
Speaker 3: the end of the day. Others the kids can only
Speaker 3: use them during lunch, and so on their varying degrees
Speaker 3: of the kinds of bands.
Speaker 2: That you have.
Speaker 3: I think everybody knows the bands are a good idea,
Speaker 3: but the fact that not all schools ban them indicates
Speaker 3: just how much we've lost any type of common sense
Speaker 3: in anything the government runs at all. If banning cell
Speaker 3: phones is a good idea, why haven't we banned them everywhere?
Speaker 3: And the answer is because sometimes parents object, sometimes students
Speaker 3: raise a ruckus about it. And the third one of
Speaker 3: the story addresses this. One of the downsides of banning
Speaker 3: them is if you find a student is violating the ban,
Speaker 3: they're terrified of what to do with them.
Speaker 2: List. Man, you've got a kid who just he's got
Speaker 2: he's gonna go.
Speaker 3: He has his phone and he's just gonna bring it
Speaker 3: in every day despite them, What are you gonna expel
Speaker 3: him for that?
Speaker 2: Well, they don't have.
Speaker 3: The willingness to do it, so they would just assume
Speaker 3: look the other way and not address it. The whole
Speaker 3: area of cell phones, I just think as smartphones is
Speaker 3: really the better term. And I think that this is
Speaker 3: in direct proportion to your age people have become. It's
Speaker 3: almost like they're mortified if they don't have them. You
Speaker 3: watch some of the YouTube videos of police arresting people,
Speaker 3: the thing that they freak out that most about is
Speaker 3: losing their cell phone. No, maybe maybe they're sometimes concerned
Speaker 3: that there's damning information on there.
Speaker 2: They're terrified if they can't have it. They can't.
Speaker 3: Paul said, if his wife forgets it, it's like the
Speaker 3: end of the world. My own My own end of
Speaker 3: the world is only if I think I've lost it.
Speaker 3: Now that actually is the end of the world. But say,
Speaker 3: knowing that you've forgotten it, I actually needed here at
Speaker 3: work because we can't log into our computer system without
Speaker 3: having the authenticator in place, so I would need it
Speaker 3: to do that. But another reason that I bring it.
Speaker 3: But I think it has a greater impact on kids
Speaker 3: because having the phone with them twenty four to seven
Speaker 3: is the only life that they know. But if they
Speaker 3: have them, they're going to use them. So to me,
Speaker 3: the takeaway from this is and it's it's like everything else,
Speaker 3: you can't argue anymore that they don't There isn't a
Speaker 3: benefit in banning the phones. Yet there are some districts
Speaker 3: that still don't do it. In some cases, the parents.
Speaker 2: Are the problem.
Speaker 3: They want to text their kids all day in school.
Speaker 3: There are others that say that, well, I want to
Speaker 3: keep track of what's going on. It's all crap. Your
Speaker 3: daughters are pushing thirty now, almost, aren't they. So, I mean,
Speaker 3: the smartphones were around when they were in school, but
Speaker 3: the smartphones just weren't as smart. But like, texting came
Speaker 3: in before browsing access and all of that.
Speaker 2: But were they.
Speaker 3: Allowed when they were still in school to have the
Speaker 3: So I mean it kind of was your banned and
Speaker 3: then they became ubiquitous and they were allowed and now
Speaker 3: it's a.
Speaker 2: Mish mash all over the place.
Speaker 3: As the story discusses, I want to move now to
Speaker 3: another story. In fact, I have companion stories that I'm
Speaker 3: going to put together and make a point both in
Speaker 3: and of themselves are interested. This story is reported on
Speaker 3: Fox six. It has to do with a seventeen year
Speaker 3: old who she was at a bar in a parking lot.
Speaker 3: It's unclear if she was ever in the bar. A
Speaker 3: security guard attempted to stop her from driving because she
Speaker 3: was drunk. She gets in the car and drives, and
Speaker 3: what do you think she does? She hits the security
Speaker 3: guard you just talk about somebody doing the right thing
Speaker 3: and getting burned for it instead of looking the other
Speaker 3: way and letting her go off and do whatever it
Speaker 3: is that she is.
Speaker 2: She gets hit, Let me coo.
Speaker 3: From the Fox six story, a seventeen year old Milwaukee
Speaker 3: girl is facing multiple felony charges. Prosecutors say she drove
Speaker 3: intoxic kid, struck a security guard, and fled the scene
Speaker 3: outside a Northwest Side bar. What we know, here's what
Speaker 3: we know. The accused is Juliette Perez. She's in charge
Speaker 3: of the following injury by intoxicated use of a vehicle
Speaker 3: causing great bodily harm, knowingly operating a motor vehicle without
Speaker 3: valid license, causing great bodily harm, hit and run, resolving
Speaker 3: a great bodily arm. The incident oft happened he on
Speaker 3: one fifty am Saturday, December twenty seventh, So this would
Speaker 3: have been this past Friday night turning into Saturday morning
Speaker 3: at the Prime Social Lounge. It's seventy sixth in Good Hope,
Speaker 3: where Milwaukee Police were conducting tavern patrol.
Speaker 2: Now that's key.
Speaker 3: The police were on the seat. Now, I don't know
Speaker 3: anything about this club, but chances are draws a very
Speaker 3: large crowd and maybe a crowd that's bordering on underage,
Speaker 3: and they're at the scene of this bar closing, and
Speaker 3: one fifty is approaching closing times throughout the the scene
Speaker 3: of the bar doing that. So there's all the kinds
Speaker 3: of things that would happen. You have people dispersing from
Speaker 3: a large crowd and police are already on the scene.
Speaker 3: According to the complaint, officers say they saw a security
Speaker 3: guard and by the way, sometimes there's video of these things.
Speaker 3: In this case, cops actually saw it. Saw a security
Speaker 3: guard speaking with the driver of a blue sedan when
Speaker 3: a commotion broke out. Two security guards were then seen
Speaker 3: lying on the ground in the parking lot as the
Speaker 3: vehicle drove away. Police stopped the car a short distance
Speaker 3: away and found three occupants inside, none of whom were
Speaker 3: in the driver's seat. Say, this tells me that they're
Speaker 3: street wise. Amazing none of them are in the driver's seat. Now,
Speaker 3: if this was one of musk cars, maybe you could
Speaker 3: claim that it was autonomous. By the way, you know
Speaker 3: that that's what's gonna happen is these people are gonna
Speaker 3: when people do hit and runs, they're gonna claim the
Speaker 3: car did the hitting and the car just kept on
Speaker 3: with They were claiming it all anyway, none of we're in
Speaker 3: the driver set, which means whoever the driver was scurried
Speaker 3: and got in the back seat. They were able to
Speaker 3: identify that Perez was identified as one of the rear
Speaker 3: seat passengers. Officers say she was unbuckled, sitting on a
Speaker 3: child's car seat. I would probably indicate that she scrambled
Speaker 3: for the first place that she could fight, and she's
Speaker 3: sitting out a car seat, had slurred speech, was unable
Speaker 3: to maintain balance without assistance. She initially refused to identify
Speaker 3: herself and later attempted to leave the traffic stop before
Speaker 3: being detained purd the complaint. Investigators say one of the
Speaker 3: security guards to Whole police he was struck by the
Speaker 3: st anne while trying to stop the driver from leaving
Speaker 3: because she appeared too intoxicated to drive. Surveillance video from
Speaker 3: the bar allegedly shows Perez entering the driver's seat of
Speaker 3: the sedan before it drives off.
Speaker 2: All right, so you have.
Speaker 3: A by the way the story goes on, They found
Speaker 3: numerous empty bottles and cans and so on inside the vehicle.
Speaker 3: One of the things that happens at a lot of
Speaker 3: these clubs that attract a younger crowd is the people
Speaker 3: who can't come in will hang around in the parking
Speaker 3: lot and drink in the cars. There also, one of
Speaker 3: the problems that you see with regard to a lot
Speaker 3: of these bars, where they have heavy security presents and
Speaker 3: metal detectors and so on, doesn't do anything about the guns.
Speaker 2: That are in the cars. I don't know if there were.
Speaker 3: Guns in this car, but there's a problem that the
Speaker 3: bars simply can't control what's happening in the vehicle that
Speaker 3: is outside the bar. And again I don't know if
Speaker 3: she ever got inside the bar or not. And she's
Speaker 3: way under the age. She's seventeen years old.
Speaker 2: Now update on.
Speaker 3: The story, and this is where I wan to tie it.
Speaker 3: End of the second story. She's facing, as I said,
Speaker 3: three felonies. She doesn't have a driver's license, she was drunk,
Speaker 3: way under age. Then she ran into him badly injured
Speaker 3: a security guard who was trying to stop her from
Speaker 3: driving away. Two thousand dollars cash bond, Milwaukee County, the
Speaker 3: Commissioner's Burry Phillips, two grand I don't know anything about
Speaker 3: her family situation, boyfriends and so on. Two grand is
Speaker 3: usually something that most people can dredge up. She gets out,
Speaker 3: what are the chances that she's not right back drinking
Speaker 3: and driving again?
Speaker 2: Two grand? She could have killed him.
Speaker 3: Now this story it's some Wakershaw County. A few days ago,
Speaker 3: the Wakershaw County Courthouse received a telephone threat that the
Speaker 3: courthouse was going to be shot up. Now, as I've
Speaker 3: explained any number of times with cases like this, almost
Speaker 3: never are these threats real. When somebody does go into
Speaker 3: a public building and shoot it up, which sadly happens
Speaker 3: now all the time, they don't usually announce in advance
Speaker 3: that they're going to do it.
Speaker 2: Why would you do that.
Speaker 3: If you intend to go to a building and shoot
Speaker 3: it up, you're going to try to get into the
Speaker 3: building before anybody knows that you're there so you can
Speaker 3: shoot it up. So there's every reason to believe that
Speaker 3: the guy was bluffing. However, given that so many people
Speaker 3: are now so many cases that we have of public
Speaker 3: shootings like this, they can't take it as cavalierly as
Speaker 3: I would take it in the past. I mean, even
Speaker 3: when I was a kid, you'd have bomb threats and
Speaker 3: you know, just you're yawn because there's never a bomb.
Speaker 3: You can't yawn anymore. Let me quote from the report.
Speaker 3: It's again a five to six report. A seventeen year
Speaker 3: old Milwaukee team is charged with allegedly calling in shooting
Speaker 3: threats to the Walkershaw County Courthouse, prompting a lockout. He
Speaker 3: did have a pending case in Walkershaw County, not surprisingly
Speaker 3: in the court. A seventeen year old Milwaukee is facing
Speaker 3: felony charges after authority say he called in shooting threats
Speaker 3: to the Walkershaw County Courthouse, prompting a large scale law
Speaker 3: enforcement response and a lockdown of the county comm According
Speaker 3: to the Wakashaw County Sheriff's Department, just after six thirty
Speaker 3: pm Friday, again another story from last Friday, the Wakershaw
Speaker 3: Kuntie Communication Center received a call from a person claiming
Speaker 3: he was outside the courthouse with a gun. The County
Speaker 3: Justice Center was immediately placed on lockdown. Now, fortunately, six
Speaker 3: thirty pm, My guess is that all the courts and
Speaker 3: the offices were shut down for the day. Plus it's
Speaker 3: the day after Christmas. Thankfully, this wasn't like two o'clock
Speaker 3: on a weekday afternoon when zillions of people in there.
Speaker 3: Continuing investigators say the caller allowed them to hear what
Speaker 3: sounded like gunfire in the background. So the guy's making
Speaker 3: the threats now it starts to shoot off the gun,
Speaker 3: so it sounds like there's a shooting there. In other words,
Speaker 3: the threat is going to be taken even more seriously
Speaker 3: because now you're actually hearing somewhere there's gunfire. Well, the
Speaker 3: gunshots later turned out not to be real. He apparently
Speaker 3: had an audio track. The response was nine on one.
Speaker 3: Calls were released Tuesday, December thirtieth. That's yesterday, and I'll
Speaker 3: clean it up a little bit, but these are among
Speaker 3: the things that he said. I'll shove that great draco
Speaker 3: down your effing mouth and blow your head off. Don't
Speaker 3: mike my ass come in there and shoot y'all. I'm
Speaker 3: outside the courthouse. Pull up to my crib. See what's
Speaker 3: going to happen. I'm gonna shoot you all. Investigators were
Speaker 3: able to identify the caller as Cameron, Gats and Staples
Speaker 3: in the nearly twenty minute nine to eleven recording. Five
Speaker 3: six has obtained the recording.
Speaker 2: You could find it.
Speaker 3: Another side authority said The Milwaukee address was Gaston Staples's
Speaker 3: group home, a location police had responded to before. Milwaukee
Speaker 3: County prosecutors say the teenager got into an argument with
Speaker 3: a caretaker there in September. Police say Gaston Staples became
Speaker 3: aggressive and hit a security guard in the eye at
Speaker 3: an officer in the face. The story goes on, So
Speaker 3: now in this case, well, the guy caused the ruckus.
Speaker 3: There are separate charges in Milwaukee County for that because
Speaker 3: the group home was there. I'm dealing now only with
Speaker 3: the Wakashaw County charge. He didn't actually do anything, as
Speaker 3: opposed to the case of the seventeen year old. By
Speaker 3: the way, they're both seventeen. The seventeen year old who
Speaker 3: while drunk ran over a security guard who was trying
Speaker 3: to stop her from driving because he was concerned that
Speaker 3: she was too drunk. That seventeen year old only got
Speaker 3: a two thousand dollars bond. This guy in Waukeshaw County
Speaker 3: Circuit Court has a five thousand dollars cash bond. I
Speaker 3: am often very critical of the Waukashaw County Court commissioners.
Speaker 3: In this case, I want to praise the court commissioner
Speaker 3: who are coming up with a proper bond. Daniel Week,
Speaker 3: I think of the two, certainly, the Milwaukee County case
Speaker 3: is the more serious. Both are serious, they're both felties
Speaker 3: with The Milwaukee County case is more serious. A security
Speaker 3: guard who's all banged up, beaten, badly hurt as a
Speaker 3: result of being hit by a drunk drive ever fleeing
Speaker 3: the sea and who shouldn't have been drawnk to have
Speaker 3: been driving, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, as opposed
Speaker 3: to the other, I've got another set of candem stories.
Speaker 3: They have one thing in common, the controversy over what
Speaker 3: stuff goes where.
Speaker 2: The first.
Speaker 3: This is a proposal in New Berlin. Many of you
Speaker 3: have heard of the Milwaukee Rescue Mission. It's a homeless
Speaker 3: shelter and more. It's faith based and they have very
Speaker 3: strict rules. It's located at nineteenth and Wells. Back in
Speaker 3: the early dages, the days of WYS and we were
Speaker 3: at the WIS and TV building. It was kitty cornered
Speaker 3: from us. The Rescue Mission is a large facility and
Speaker 3: is highly respected in Milwaukee. They run that place as
Speaker 3: well as it could possibly.
Speaker 2: Be run run.
Speaker 3: They have numerous rules no booze, no this, no that curfew.
Speaker 3: You got to be in by a certain time, you
Speaker 3: don't come in. They don't tolerate any craft segregation on
Speaker 3: the basis of your gender, to avoid any kind of
Speaker 3: it's a class operation, and they provide services obviously for
Speaker 3: people who a are homeless or have just gotten so
Speaker 3: screwed up that because of drugs or alcohol or whatever
Speaker 3: that they got nowhere to go. What they can't do
Speaker 3: Harvard is use while they're there. The Rescue Mission wants
Speaker 3: to open kind of a satellite complex in New Berlin.
Speaker 3: It would not be the same as the Rescue Mission
Speaker 3: in Milwaukee. What it would be is long term housing
Speaker 3: for people that are essentially in recovery. The location is
Speaker 3: for those of you who don't know the area, I'll
Speaker 3: do my best to describe it, but Moorland Road is
Speaker 3: just a main thoroughfare on Wakashaw County and it runs
Speaker 3: north and south all the way to Brookfield. This is
Speaker 3: in the area well south on Moreland Road, where it
Speaker 3: is near Interstate forty three.
Speaker 2: It's a huge interchange. Even you know that interchange.
Speaker 3: I think if you're to have a facility like this anywhere,
Speaker 3: it's ideal because it's a mostly commercial area. I'm not
Speaker 3: saying there's no residential nearby, but there's like lots of
Speaker 3: big box stores, fast food restaurants and so on. That's
Speaker 3: where the Rescue Mission wants to build this satellite facility, which,
Speaker 3: as I say, is residential. It's not a lockdown facility,
Speaker 3: just like the Rescue Mission in Milwaukee is not lockdown.
Speaker 3: They lock you out, you can't come in after a
Speaker 3: certain point, but you can come and go at the
Speaker 3: Rescue Mission. Well, this would be a residential, but it's
Speaker 3: for people that are in recovery, and they would probably
Speaker 3: offer the same kinds of services that they offer in Milwaukee.
Speaker 3: Help you get off of booze and help you get
Speaker 3: off of drugs and so on. That's what it is.
Speaker 3: Preliminary approval has been given to this in New Berlin,
Speaker 3: but a number of residents believe that this thing is
Speaker 3: being rammed through and they don't like the notion of
Speaker 3: a large residential complex coming in to this area. I've
Speaker 3: seen the artist renderings. It looks exactly like all any
Speaker 3: of these other kind of generic treatment centers or even
Speaker 3: medical buildings that have housing and so on, and it
Speaker 3: would seem to me that if you're going to put
Speaker 3: it anywhere in the suburbs, it's about a perfect location
Speaker 3: because it's in it's not stuck in the middle of
Speaker 3: a residential area. It's not a group woman, it's big,
Speaker 3: but it's in an area where there's just a lot
Speaker 3: of people. In general, some of the residents are expressing concern. Now,
Speaker 3: the residents have a right to offer the input to
Speaker 3: their community. I want to offer some context on this.
Speaker 2: I do believe.
Speaker 3: That it is not correct, not just Milwaukee, but throughout
Speaker 3: all of urban America that every shelter, halfway house, and
Speaker 3: so on be stuck in central of cities. If for
Speaker 3: no other reason, then a huge portion of the population
Speaker 3: didn't emerge from those neighborhoods. The people who get screwed
Speaker 3: up on alcohol and some one are as likely to
Speaker 3: come from downtown Milwaukee as they are from Muskego or
Speaker 3: Brookfield alreadywhere else. In addition to that, if you have
Speaker 3: people that are in a legitimate recovery facility that are
Speaker 3: trying to provide proper services here, why do they all
Speaker 3: have to live in crappy neighborhoods. If there's an outfit
Speaker 3: that's out there raising private funds in order to provide
Speaker 3: services with compassion. They should be given the benefit of
Speaker 3: the doubt on locating them anywhere. Again, the argument I've
Speaker 3: made with regard to the data centers is we have
Speaker 3: to get these data centers, but that doesn't mean that
Speaker 3: we shouldn't give consideration to where the data centers are located.
Speaker 2: And my criticism is.
Speaker 3: Entirely of Evers on this he's provided and trying to
Speaker 3: put them here. The more they have to obviously have
Speaker 3: access to transportation because zillions of people are going to
Speaker 3: work there, but you want to put them kind of
Speaker 3: on the peripheries of towns and maybe near the freeway
Speaker 3: or something or another, or near a more industrial area
Speaker 3: and away from et cetera. I get the concern of
Speaker 3: the residence of New Berlin because once you start putting
Speaker 3: in big apartment complexes in any community, and if there's
Speaker 3: treatment facilities associated, it can cause deterioration of the neighborhood.
Speaker 3: I will tell you, however, that when we were over
Speaker 3: at nineteenth and Wells in Milwaukee, which is a neighborhood
Speaker 3: that was kind of it's on the it's not it's
Speaker 3: on the edge of the inner city. It's on the
Speaker 3: edge of market. It's kind of the crossroads of everything
Speaker 3: over there. You could not have had a better neighbor
Speaker 3: than the Rescue Mission because they don't tolerate any crap
Speaker 3: from the people there. But it's an interesting diversity that
Speaker 3: they're going to have in Some of the residents don't
Speaker 3: believe that the community should be ramroding it through. Next
Speaker 3: there's another land used controversy that I think is quite
Speaker 3: interesting and appropriate. We're recording this podcast and releasing it.
Speaker 2: On New Year's Eve.
Speaker 3: Traditionally, v spot in Milwaukee on New Year's Eve for
Speaker 3: decades was Victor's, which closed last year on New Year's Eve.
Speaker 3: It was their last night after being in continuous operation
Speaker 3: at that location since nineteen sixty four, and years earlier
Speaker 3: at another site.
Speaker 2: It's been closed.
Speaker 3: The family had disputes, they sold the property, they sold,
Speaker 3: and there's been nothing in there for a year. For
Speaker 3: those of you who don't know the area, it's been
Speaker 3: on the same location in North Van burenu Straeted Milwaukee
Speaker 3: since nineteen sixty four. Over the last several years, as
Speaker 3: many of you know, there has been a housing boom
Speaker 3: in downtown Milwaukee. The Lower east Side and the third ward.
Speaker 3: This place would be where kind of downtown on the
Speaker 3: Lower east Side come to together. And over the many years,
Speaker 3: there was never there's always there are always apartment rental
Speaker 3: houses behind Victors. But since all of this, a brand
Speaker 3: new high rise apartment building is opened across the street.
Speaker 3: Two blocks down is the Ascent, a very high end
Speaker 3: apartment complex. Another blockdown is the seven to seventy seven,
Speaker 3: which is a high rise apartment complex, extremely high end
Speaker 3: that Northwestern developed. There is someone who has put in
Speaker 3: an application to open a bar at the old Victor's site,
Speaker 3: and there is overwhelming opposition from the neighborhood. There's going
Speaker 3: to be a hearing in front of the Milwaukee Common
Speaker 3: Council's Liquor License Committee on January sixth. Now I pick
Speaker 3: up on this because I'm from the area and you're
Speaker 3: just hearing it. I don't live that close to where
Speaker 3: the Victor's property was, but I live close enough that
Speaker 3: I hear from all of the people that are involved
Speaker 3: in this, and it's become a big to do and
Speaker 3: down to Milwaukee. The opponents are all the people that
Speaker 3: you would figure. First of all, the apartment building across
Speaker 3: the Street, which is new Land Enterprise. That's the Gakman
Speaker 3: family and their partner, Whickman. They're obviously opposed. They probably
Speaker 3: enjoy not having a bar that's open until two o'clock
Speaker 3: in the morning five nights a week or whatever it was.
Speaker 3: Victors used to be seven nights a week across the
Speaker 3: street from them. They're opposed, as are the majority of
Speaker 3: the residents who live there being opposed because they don't
Speaker 3: want to have all the commotion that occurs at the bar.
Speaker 3: In addition to that, there's a high school, Saint John
Speaker 3: and Tino, which is a black and a half away.
Speaker 2: They're opposed.
Speaker 3: Katz, who owns lots of the smaller apartment house metals
Speaker 3: all around the area.
Speaker 2: He's opposed.
Speaker 3: Pretty Much everybody in the vicinity is opposed. The aldermen
Speaker 3: from the district, Bob Bauman is opposed, and Bob Bauman
Speaker 3: is opposed because every one of his constituents is opposed.
Speaker 2: Here's the thing. For six decades there's.
Speaker 3: Been a bar operating on that location. It's not like
Speaker 3: the people would not be used to a bar. And
Speaker 3: in the case of the old Victors, an extremely popular
Speaker 3: bar that had a huge late night crowd back in
Speaker 3: the old days, a huge late night crowd, damn near
Speaker 3: every night of the wake. The aldermen from the district,
Speaker 3: Bob Bauman, who opposes it, said yeah, but that Victor's
Speaker 3: is closed. Of course, Victors had the benefit of the
Speaker 3: doubt and being able to continue to operate there because
Speaker 3: they were there before almost all these new people came in.
Speaker 3: But now you've had a building that's empty. This is
Speaker 3: a brand new way application to put something in at
Speaker 3: a brand new site, from a brand new ownership group, etc.
Speaker 2: They start from square.
Speaker 3: One and they don't get a benefit of the doubt.
Speaker 2: The city coach is going to have to decide what
Speaker 2: to do here now.
Speaker 3: I think one of the things that you consider is
Speaker 3: the track record of the operator. And it's one of
Speaker 3: those deals where somebody owns the building, somebody else is leasing,
Speaker 3: and the leasing hires a manager and the manager apparently
Speaker 3: runs a bar on the south side where there's been
Speaker 3: a little bit of incident stuff and so on. I
Speaker 3: can tell you, as somebody who's not unfamiliar with that place,
Speaker 3: which is generally bars.
Speaker 2: And so on.
Speaker 3: Everything has gotten worse over the years, and you see
Speaker 3: it on Water Street and shootings almost never occurred in
Speaker 3: the past.
Speaker 2: Shooters occur all the time.
Speaker 3: Now there's nothing bars can do about it, because, as
Speaker 3: I say, almost all of them make sure that you
Speaker 3: can't bring guns in. But what do you do about
Speaker 3: the parking lots? And then as we see on Water Street,
Speaker 3: this new thing, and it's just it's the strangest thing
Speaker 3: for me, and I can't relate because when I was
Speaker 3: a kid, the drinking age is eighteen. I asked Paul
Speaker 3: this all the time because I always forget. Was it
Speaker 3: eighteen when you were a kid. Yes, it turned twenty
Speaker 3: one right after them, so we both experienced, well, okay,
Speaker 3: you're eighteen, you can go into a bar, which we
Speaker 3: could do. But the thing now is for people under
Speaker 3: twenty one who can't get into the bar, they go
Speaker 3: and hang around outside the bar. It's a huge issue
Speaker 3: on Water Street. It's huge to a lot of these places.
Speaker 3: They're in the cars doing the pot in the form
Speaker 3: of edibles. They usually don't smoke because the cops are
Speaker 3: patrolling out there, or they're drinking like crazy in the
Speaker 3: bar and maybe somebody's designated. The police do what they
Speaker 3: can to hang around these places. But in Milwaukee, the
Speaker 3: cops can't be around all the bars all the time. Now,
Speaker 3: the people that are applying for the license there application
Speaker 3: says Vix and van Bura on a takeoff on the
Speaker 3: old victor's name, and they spill Vix like the cough
Speaker 3: dur Bicks, so they want to take advantage of the
Speaker 3: old name. They say that they're going to do a
Speaker 3: sports bar, but everybody assumes that the place is going
Speaker 3: to be a late night club that has a hip
Speaker 3: hop component to it, late at night, et cetera, because
Speaker 3: how else can you make money late at night other
Speaker 3: than operating that My guess is that the alderman from
Speaker 3: the district and the residents would like to have a
Speaker 3: restaurant that opens at nine o'clock that closes at nine
Speaker 3: or ten at night, which that whole area surrounded by
Speaker 3: and doesn't have the same issue. But one of the
Speaker 3: things the city we'll have to address is that we're
Speaker 3: going to discriminate against these new potential operators by telling
Speaker 3: them that they can't operate a business at a site
Speaker 3: that somebody else did for sixty years. Or are you
Speaker 3: going to tell the neighbors who are moving into a
Speaker 3: community one of the only areas of Milwaukee where there's
Speaker 3: been residential growth, that we're gonna let somebody with no
Speaker 3: track record come in and make your lives miserable every night.
Speaker 3: Two very different land used decisions. In both cases, the
Speaker 3: municipality will have to make a decision. I have no
Speaker 3: opinion on either. Just share the story, all right now,
Speaker 3: this story I'm I'm gonna say this is unprecedented, but
Speaker 3: it's close. Paul and I are in the radio business.
Speaker 3: I of course now I'm a podcast through but I
Speaker 3: still work for a company that is in the radio business,
Speaker 3: and I do my show from a radio studio.
Speaker 2: Are you used to doing?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Paul's doing still doing and will continue to do
Speaker 3: radio programs with the weekend shows that here on WISI.
Speaker 2: Both of us have been in radio our entire lives.
Speaker 3: Everyone knows that radio is one of the industries that
Speaker 3: is contracting for the same reason that everything else that's
Speaker 3: been contracting because of technology. Streaming and all of the
Speaker 3: podcasting which I now do are competing with radio. And
Speaker 3: radio companies have largely responded to this by cutting spending,
Speaker 3: having fewer personnel, fewer on air people, etc. This is
Speaker 3: confronting a number of industries. There's something happening in the
Speaker 3: story that I'm mentioning here. I'm not going to say
Speaker 3: it never happens. What I will say is it almost
Speaker 3: never happens in an area of any size. I don't
Speaker 3: even think that it's happened in Milwaukee. We have a
Speaker 3: case in the Fox Valley station that's going to shut down.
Speaker 3: In other words, not of anything. Now Milwaukee, we have
Speaker 3: several stations. They operate, but they're just running syndicated programming
Speaker 3: twenty four hours a day, or they might be running
Speaker 3: infomercials twenty four hours a day. And when those properties
Speaker 3: have been sold, they don't sell for what they did
Speaker 3: in the past. But there's always a value to it
Speaker 3: because there's so many signals above. In this case, though,
Speaker 3: they're just shutting down, which is very weird, and I
Speaker 3: don't know if it's a sign of the times or
Speaker 3: if they're up to something. There is reason to think
Speaker 3: they're up to something because of who owns the company.
Speaker 3: First of all, I'll tell you that the radio station
Speaker 3: is WNAM Nina Manasha. Are you familiar with that station, Paul?
Speaker 3: That was at one time just a giant, particularly before
Speaker 3: FM radio came in. I'm up from the year in
Speaker 3: the Fox Valley and WNAM was a big time radio station.
Speaker 3: Back in the sixties, they were still playing the easy
Speaker 3: listening music when people like me were listening to top
Speaker 3: forty stations and so on, and then in the seventies
Speaker 3: they switched to.
Speaker 2: Rock and roll.
Speaker 3: But as rock and roll listeners went over to FM,
Speaker 3: they were basically just trying to survive ever since playing
Speaker 3: easy listening. They didn't go to talk, which most AM
Speaker 3: stations did and so on. But back in the day,
Speaker 3: this was a huge station and a lot of people
Speaker 3: who went on to become big deals worked there. I
Speaker 3: think the most famous. He only worked there for a
Speaker 3: few months, but I was in high school. Who was there?
Speaker 3: I remember listening to him and the wow, this guy's
Speaker 3: going He was only there for six months. He went
Speaker 3: on to become a huge DJ at America. You know
Speaker 3: Don Geronimo knows the name. He became a talk show
Speaker 3: host and was always on that same list the top
Speaker 3: one hundred in the country that I was as another
Speaker 3: guy that has an almost identical name, but it's mostly
Speaker 3: a rock and roll DJ before talk shows. He worked
Speaker 3: at that station when he was sixteen. I still remember
Speaker 3: here it was when that song from Greece was on
Speaker 3: the top forty. You're the one that I want. Remember that.
Speaker 3: Remember who did it? Yeah, that's right, that's who did it. Well, anyway,
Speaker 3: he played it and he said, there's that awful song
Speaker 3: from Greece by Olivia Newton, John and John Revolting. I
Speaker 3: mean I laughed out loud because I had given what
Speaker 3: year he worked there. I had to still be in
Speaker 3: high school and I heard the thing. Well, a lot
Speaker 3: of people came to that station, and it was a
Speaker 3: big deal for anyway, Fox Eary is a major, pretty
Speaker 3: big market. It's the second largest market in Wisconsin for
Speaker 3: radio and television, Madison's third because the Fox really covers
Speaker 3: Green Bay all the way down to Ashkash and some
Speaker 3: even Defindale. I ended a pretty good signal on the
Speaker 3: AM dial, but they'd been running a format that doesn't
Speaker 3: have any listeners. Who wants to listen to easy listening
Speaker 3: music on AM radio. They were the voice of the
Speaker 3: Brewers Farm Team, the Wisconsin Cumber Rattlers. What's interesting, though,
Speaker 3: is by just turning it off, I mean even if
Speaker 3: you have almost we have a couple of stations in
Speaker 3: our building that have very small listenership, but you can
Speaker 3: still put something on and do something off of it
Speaker 3: or sell it to somebody. Often they'll sell them and
Speaker 3: they'll become a religious station. I don't know if they
Speaker 3: couldn't sell it, or if they're turning it off and
Speaker 3: they have it for sale to somebody else, but they're
Speaker 3: just shutting it down as of today. Now here's why
Speaker 3: I'm intrigued, aside from just is this what now radio
Speaker 3: is gonna come? That stations are now on AMDAL if
Speaker 3: they have low listenership or now not even you can't
Speaker 3: even sell them, I don't know. The company involved is Cumulus,
Speaker 3: which is the second largest radio company in America, the
Speaker 3: one that WYSN, where I used to work, iHeart.
Speaker 2: Is the largest.
Speaker 3: Cumulus is owned by George Soros. When Soros took over Cumulus,
Speaker 3: I wondered what he was going to be doing with
Speaker 3: the number of those stations. Now in Soros as a
Speaker 3: hedge fund manage operator and so on, they tend to
Speaker 3: slash and cut, but radio is seeing slashing and cutting
Speaker 3: from everyone involved. But in this case, they're just turning
Speaker 3: the damn thing off. And I don't know if that's
Speaker 3: where all of radio is going. But boy, usually even
Speaker 3: if you have a minuscule audience, once you already have
Speaker 3: the station, the costs of operating are rather limited. And
Speaker 3: the state they own several other stations that run in
Speaker 3: that same building, so you're just running the utilities of
Speaker 3: keeping the transmit around. Otherwise, you can do a radio
Speaker 3: station and almost have it operate twenty four to seven
Speaker 3: by machine. But even in smaller communities they've got some
Speaker 3: of them. But as I say, this isn't like a
Speaker 3: tiny station in the middle of nowhere. It is a
Speaker 3: station that's got lots of FM stations and so on.
Speaker 3: My guess is they probably try to sell it, and
Speaker 3: maybe they've just decided that why pay anything anybody, any
Speaker 3: salaries or any costs whatsoever. But that and now this
Speaker 3: story big deal coming up in Milwaukee this weekend. As
Speaker 3: how many people don't know that the Olympics are coming
Speaker 3: up in a month and a half twenty five percent tone.
Speaker 2: Well they are.
Speaker 3: That means the American teams are being selected right now.
Speaker 3: They call them the trials. The American Olympic Trials for
Speaker 3: speed skating are this weekend and they're at the Petit
Speaker 3: in and of itself. That's interret I've got a story
Speaker 3: here that I think they're approaching sellout for a lot
Speaker 3: of the sessions of this, But I mean, it's just
Speaker 3: it's a first of all, the Olympic Trials are the
Speaker 3: biggest thing that you have other than the Olympics. It's
Speaker 3: the championships for the United States of America because it
Speaker 3: determines the Olympic game. But secondly, the best speed skater
Speaker 3: in the world and maybe the best, potentially the best
Speaker 3: speed skater since Eric Heiden forty five years ago, is
Speaker 3: Jordan Stoles, who's from our own area and he competes
Speaker 3: in everything. He's long track, not short track. This is
Speaker 3: not the short track speed skating you've seen some of
Speaker 3: that that the really really tiny ranks. Long track is
Speaker 3: the final trials that are going to be here. So
Speaker 3: it's going to be an opportunity for Jordan's Stoles from
Speaker 3: Kewaskam to star out, a chance for people to see
Speaker 3: them that you actually have Olympic trials that a determined
Speaker 3: the American Olympic team in a major sport going on
Speaker 3: this weekend.
Speaker 2: All right, the.
Speaker 3: Plan for today's program, We're going to do our football
Speaker 3: preview next, and then that's not normally that's the end
Speaker 3: of our program. Then we're going to do a segment
Speaker 3: after this one, so stick through what in which we
Speaker 3: will allow Paul to address the fact that he's.
Speaker 2: I still what if I fired you right now? See
Speaker 2: what he would be able to do a farewell.
Speaker 4: You?
Speaker 3: Paul said that would post the podcast. Yeah, that's the
Speaker 3: problem with firing him. First of all, there's nobody in
Speaker 3: our building today. I don't even know if it's a holiday.
Speaker 2: Is it a holiday or maybe.
Speaker 3: We're like that w one a m and then just
Speaker 3: turned everything off and I.
Speaker 2: Don't even know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I can't fire Paul because he's got to post
Speaker 3: the podcast. If I could fire him, I suppose after
Speaker 3: he post the podcast, but he wouldn't be working for
Speaker 3: the show anymore. So we're going to do that at
Speaker 3: segment three. So football and the coming up next on
Speaker 3: the Markepelling Podcast. This is the Mark Belling Podcast. We're
Speaker 3: going to do things a little bit out of sync today. Normally,
Speaker 3: the final segment of the program is our weekly football
Speaker 3: preview and football picks, but we're doing in a segment
Speaker 3: two A because I want to use the final segment
Speaker 3: two talk about Paul's long, long time coming departure from
Speaker 3: the program, in the future of the podcast and so on.
Speaker 2: So we'll do that at the end.
Speaker 3: Right now, I'm joined by Mike Blat of American Sports
Speaker 3: Analysts in Madison as we wrap up the twenty twenty
Speaker 3: five season. First of all, we're on a recording this
Speaker 3: on a Wednesday. Football is kicking in right and left.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of games, in fact going on today.
Speaker 3: All of the college football playoff games go Wednesday night
Speaker 3: or Thursday. Some of you may be hearing the podcast
Speaker 3: after they've already been played. Anyway, Mike, is there anything
Speaker 3: you'd like to share about how ASA is going to
Speaker 3: be handling all this?
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Sure, Go to our website, wins dot com right on
Speaker 4: the front page and get the rest of our season,
Speaker 4: both college and NFL for ninety nine bucks. That's the
Speaker 4: rest of our bowl games. Well, it looks like we'll
Speaker 4: have a couple of bowl games on Thursday, and then
Speaker 4: moving forward we'll have some and then you know, last
Speaker 4: week in the NFL and our playoffs, we've been doing
Speaker 4: really well. We won seven of the last eight top
Speaker 4: games in college and we've swept the board in the
Speaker 4: NFL two of the last three weekends, so we're rolling
Speaker 4: right now. And then get everything for ninety nine through
Speaker 4: the Super Bowl.
Speaker 3: And has that super Bowl record Sage str I mean,
Speaker 3: you had some unbelievable super Bowl record forever and ever
Speaker 3: and ever, and I don't remember anymore if that got
Speaker 3: all screwed up or is that still a strong thing.
Speaker 4: It's still strong. We won last year. I don't have
Speaker 4: it off the top of my head, but it's a
Speaker 4: really strong record in the super Bowl.
Speaker 3: So I mean, you get the Super Bowl included for
Speaker 3: doing all of that. All right, let's get to this weekend.
Speaker 3: First of all, more college football gets more attention for
Speaker 3: a lot of reasons, including the college semifinal games are
Speaker 3: going on. There are four of them, and I'm going
Speaker 3: to sure you pick out two of them. And again
Speaker 3: I want to remind the audience that we're recording this
Speaker 3: on Wednesday, so those of you who listen after Wednesday
Speaker 3: or Thursday or Friday, some of these games might already
Speaker 3: be played.
Speaker 2: Of the four.
Speaker 3: Games that we chose, I wanted to cherry pick out
Speaker 3: and talk about the two that I guess I find
Speaker 3: most interesting. The first is Alabama in Indiana, We've talked
Speaker 3: about Indiana a lot this year because there are emergence
Speaker 3: from awful to then really good to this year dominant
Speaker 3: and maybe the best team in America. Has been a
Speaker 3: compelling story that not a lot of people have seen coming.
Speaker 3: They play Alabama. Indiana's the number one seed in the
Speaker 3: whole thing, so of course they're pretty hefty favorites over Alabama.
Speaker 3: Alabama is no longer the Alabama of Nick Saban, It's
Speaker 3: the Alabama of Kailin de boor Indiana is still I
Speaker 3: think it still has skeptics who aren't certain how good
Speaker 3: they are, even though I think they've proven everything that
Speaker 3: there is to prove. Alabama's come out of the SEC
Speaker 3: and has played a really brutal schedule and has a
Speaker 3: pretty good record.
Speaker 2: What are your thoughts in this game?
Speaker 4: Yeah, you've kind of hit it on the head as
Speaker 4: far as Indiana not always getting the respect they deserve,
Speaker 4: and I think it's because it's kind of a weird matchup.
Speaker 4: You've got a long term college powerhouse, Alabama against an
Speaker 4: Indiana team that's stunk just a few years ago. And
Speaker 4: Indiana's favored by a touchdown in this game, and a
Speaker 4: lot I've had a lot of people asking me, why
Speaker 4: is Indiana a whole touchdown against Alabama? Well, they're better.
Speaker 4: I mean, they're the better team this year, and it's
Speaker 4: not really particularly that close. I think, you know, just
Speaker 4: to sidetrack a little bit, I think you can say Indiana,
Speaker 4: right is the turnaround Indiana's had is possibly the quickest
Speaker 4: and best in college football history.
Speaker 2: I agree.
Speaker 4: They were nine and twenty seven in the three years
Speaker 4: before Signetty came. Now they're twenty four and two with him,
Speaker 4: and their two losses were last year at Ohio State
Speaker 4: and at Notre Dame, who played for the national championship.
Speaker 4: That's the only two losses under him. Remarkable turnaround. Indiana
Speaker 4: is a better team, far better margins. If you look
Speaker 4: at you yards for play points per game, they're beating
Speaker 4: teams by thirty one points per game, Alabama by thirteen
Speaker 4: points per game. It's a interesting matchup, but there's a
Speaker 4: reason that Indiana's favored by seven. One thing to watch here,
Speaker 4: it's supposed to rain. It's been raining all day in
Speaker 4: Pasadena's supposed to rain all day tomorrow, so the conditions
Speaker 4: could be a little bit sloppy tomorrow for that game.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the game is in the Rose Bowl. The four
Speaker 3: games are all played in traditional ball games. In fact,
Speaker 3: four of the Big Ball games are this weekend, and
Speaker 3: they're all the ones for the National Championship quarter finals.
Speaker 2: The other game that I want to talk about involves.
Speaker 3: The Big Ten is all over this, but of course
Speaker 3: they are because there's nine hundred and fifty seven teams
Speaker 3: in the Big Ten. One of them is one of
Speaker 3: those newer Big Ten teams, Oregon. They play the closest
Speaker 3: thing we have to Indiana, and that's Texas Tech. Texas
Speaker 3: Tech has always been okay, and they've got a new coach.
Speaker 3: They hired a general manager who does all the recruiting.
Speaker 3: The school has a lot of big time oil money alumni,
Speaker 3: and they have a massive nil budget, and they've bought
Speaker 3: a spectacular team. Oregon versus Texas Tech really good game.
Speaker 3: Texas Tech is one of those Texas schools that didn't
Speaker 3: leave to go to the SEC. They're in the Big Twelve.
Speaker 3: Oregon did not make the Big Ten Championship game. They're
Speaker 3: probably the third best team in the Big Ten, which
Speaker 3: is a pretty good statement given the fact that Ohio
Speaker 3: State and Indiana the only two better than them. This
Speaker 3: is the I think the closest to the points spread matchups.
Speaker 3: Oregon is favored by two and a half points in
Speaker 3: the game, and I think this is the Orange Bowl
Speaker 3: in Miami.
Speaker 2: Your thoughts on.
Speaker 4: The game, Mic, Yes, the game's in Miami, and I
Speaker 4: think this is the best game of the week. Of
Speaker 4: the four. I think these two teams are evenly mashed.
Speaker 4: I really do that. You have to factor in the
Speaker 4: strength of schedule and try to balance the stats based
Speaker 4: on the strength of schedule. Texas Tech has a much
Speaker 4: weaker their strength of schedule sixty fifth compared to eleventh
Speaker 4: for Oregon. But you know, we said before, you can
Speaker 4: only play who's in front of you, and they you.
Speaker 3: Know, Texas Tech twice had to play BYU, which I
Speaker 3: thought was a pretty good team this year, and they've
Speaker 3: pieceded them twice. So that tells me again, you can
Speaker 3: only beat who you played. They did take the loss
Speaker 3: to Arizona State, but they've been strowing consistently throughout the
Speaker 3: season and they never really hit much of a speed bump.
Speaker 4: They didn't and they've won every game by at least
Speaker 4: twenty four points. And they beat the UYU twice and
Speaker 4: they won Utah with a really good team they beat
Speaker 4: They destroyed Utah on the road this year at Utah,
Speaker 4: so they've beaten the teams in front of them. Oregon's
Speaker 4: played one playoff team. Texas Tech hasn't played a playoff team.
Speaker 4: Oregon played one and lost by tenant home to Indiana.
Speaker 4: Their best wins are probably at Washington and at Iowa,
Speaker 4: which are good wins, so comparable. These two teams are
Speaker 4: very comparable, but they're a lead on both sides of
Speaker 4: the ball. Texas Tech is top six nationally in total
Speaker 4: offense and total defense, and Oregon is top twelve. I'd argue,
Speaker 4: you know, this is an interesting staff here. I'd argue
Speaker 4: Tech Tech defense hasn't talked about enough. Their defense is elite, elite.
Speaker 4: They faced three top twenty five offenses this year and
Speaker 4: allowed eight points per game in those in those games.
Speaker 4: Oregon has played also three top twenty five offenses, and
Speaker 4: they allowed thirty points per game in those games against
Speaker 4: James Madison, Indiana, and USC tex better on defense, Oregon's
Speaker 4: better on offense. It's going to be a fantastic game.
Speaker 4: I think this is by far.
Speaker 3: The best game of the One interesting component the Texas
Speaker 3: Tech coaching staff is obviously very good, but very inexperienced.
Speaker 3: The head coach is an old guy, Joey Maguire, but
Speaker 3: he spent most of his career as a high school
Speaker 3: coach in the state of Texas. Their coordinators and everybody
Speaker 3: else and their staff are guys that he's plucked out,
Speaker 3: and almost none of them have been in anything like this. Oregon,
Speaker 3: on the other hand, Dan Lanning ran the defense at
Speaker 3: Georgia for a number of years and his whole staff
Speaker 3: is filled with coaches that have been in big games
Speaker 3: and in big programs. I don't know if that comes
Speaker 3: into play or not you put a game pan together
Speaker 3: with the players that you have, but I do note
Speaker 3: that there's just a tremendous experience difference in coaching in
Speaker 3: big games that would favor Oregon. That being said, I
Speaker 3: kind of think Texas Tech's going to win. Let's turn
Speaker 3: our attention to the NFL. I say this every year.
Speaker 2: And I'm going to say it again.
Speaker 3: The two most impossible weeks to figure out in the
Speaker 3: NFL are the week first week and the last week.
Speaker 3: And the last week is especially impossible because the overwhelming
Speaker 3: majority of games this weekend are meaningless and I don't
Speaker 3: even know. In fact, let's talk about that before we
Speaker 3: get to the one game that I do want to
Speaker 3: focus on, Mike. It kind of strikes me like a
Speaker 3: lot of the minor ball games where you look at
Speaker 3: the opt outs of who's going to play and who
Speaker 3: isn't going to play. That's really what the last week
Speaker 3: of the NFL is going to be. Which teams are
Speaker 3: going to play starters, which ones are not, and so on.
Speaker 3: I think that this is just a brutal week to
Speaker 3: figure out anything in the NFL.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I have to be really good comparison Mark as
Speaker 4: far as the opt outs in the bowl games in
Speaker 4: this last week in the NFL, very good comparison. I mean,
Speaker 4: it's you kind of have to focus on the last week.
Speaker 4: Focus on teams that are facing off that are eliminated
Speaker 4: because they're still playing all their starts, they're still playing
Speaker 4: for you know, then you at least know what's going
Speaker 4: on with those or teams that are fighting for the
Speaker 4: playoffs or playoff spots right now. Other than that, you
Speaker 4: got to throw the rest of the rest of the
Speaker 4: games out here. Here's what we look for in the
Speaker 4: last two weeks of the season, and unfortunately, this week
Speaker 4: nothing falls into this situation. We look for teams that
Speaker 4: are eliminated from the playoffs against teams that have to
Speaker 4: win again that particular game, and we go against the
Speaker 4: teams that have to win. In fact, since nineteen ninety
Speaker 4: the teams that have to win those games are sixty
Speaker 4: nine and one ten against the spread. So the teams
Speaker 4: that are eliminated and don't have to win cover almost
Speaker 4: sixty two percent of the time happened.
Speaker 2: And you can see why that would be.
Speaker 3: I mean, for the team that's been eliminated, this is
Speaker 3: their only playoff game, whereas the team that needs to
Speaker 3: win and there's no pressure on that team, where the
Speaker 3: team that needs to win has a lot of pressure,
Speaker 3: plus the lines are probably really inflated to the team
Speaker 3: that needs to win. But you're right, there are none
Speaker 3: of those situations this weekend. There are more games like
Speaker 3: green Bay and Minnesota where Minnesota is out and green
Speaker 3: Bay is locked in game has no impact on the
Speaker 3: Packers whatsoever. Minnesota, Okay, it's the last game of the season.
Speaker 3: That's what The whole schedule is. A few games in
Speaker 3: which there's tremendous meaning and then a bunch of others
Speaker 3: in which they're eliminated. Teams are playing teams that have
Speaker 3: already been locked into the playoffs. But there's not one
Speaker 3: situation that, as Mike mentions, where a team has to
Speaker 3: win to get into the playoffs. There are a couple
Speaker 3: of games where both teams have to win to get
Speaker 3: into the playoffs, like Pittsburgh and Baltimore, but none of
Speaker 3: the other The one game of the meaning that I
Speaker 3: think is the most fascinating, and it really does have
Speaker 3: importance because the number one seed in the NFC is
Speaker 3: at stake in this The loser is going to be
Speaker 3: a wildcard team, and the winner of the game is
Speaker 3: going to be the number one seed in the whole NFC,
Speaker 3: and that's the Seahawks and the forty nine Ers. What
Speaker 3: a good game. The betting odds right now favor the
Speaker 3: Seahawks to win the Super Bowl. But this is as
Speaker 3: wide open a year as I think has ever existed.
Speaker 3: The Rams where everybody's Super Bowl team until they've now
Speaker 3: clunked a couple of times. Here the Rams are for
Speaker 3: certain now a wildcard team. The Seahawks and the forty
Speaker 3: nine Ers are playing for control of the West. Really
Speaker 3: good game, very tight point spread the games at San
Speaker 3: Francisco Stadium. The Seahawks are a little bit favored on
Speaker 3: the road. Very good game, has a lot of meeting.
Speaker 2: What do you think?
Speaker 4: Yeah, first of all, how good is the NFC West?
Speaker 4: My gosh, the Rams are considered by a lot of
Speaker 4: people that they be the best team in the NFL,
Speaker 4: and they might be a sixth seed, right.
Speaker 3: They're the third place team in that they might be
Speaker 3: the best team, as you said, in the in the
Speaker 3: whole league and the third best team in their own division,
Speaker 3: which is just perverse.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And as you said, the winner of this is
Speaker 4: the number one seed in the NFC. The loser can
Speaker 4: be the five or the sixth seed. It's gonna be
Speaker 4: Seattle or the Rams as the five or six seed.
Speaker 4: And just a side note, you want to be the
Speaker 4: sixth seed. You want to be the five seed, not
Speaker 4: the sixth seed. Normally a lot of times it doesn't matter.
Speaker 4: But this year the five seed is going to play
Speaker 4: Carolina or Tampa Bay and the six gaed is going
Speaker 4: to have to go to Philadelphia Chicago. They're a big
Speaker 4: difference in that. So if San Francisco wins this game,
Speaker 4: they're the number one seed. They went through. They never
Speaker 4: have to leave home the Super Bowls in their stadium
Speaker 4: this year, which is an interesting side note as well.
Speaker 4: Offense against defense in this game. We mentioned it last week.
Speaker 4: San Francisco has scored one hundred and twenty seven points
Speaker 4: in their last three games, forty two points per game,
Speaker 4: and since Perty came back they're six and zero. They're
Speaker 4: averaging thirty six points per game. They're playing the second
Speaker 4: best defense in the NFL in the points per game situation,
Speaker 4: and Seattle only allowed twenty four points twice this season,
Speaker 4: So really interesting game. Seattle's been really good on the road.
Speaker 4: People don't realize there's seven and one on the road
Speaker 4: this year, with a two point loss at the Rams.
Speaker 4: Going back to their last eighteen games they won on
Speaker 4: the road, they've won sixteen of them. That's probably why
Speaker 4: they're favorite here. They're the better team, the better defense,
Speaker 4: But man, San Francisco's offense is humming right now. This
Speaker 4: is going to be a fantastic game, best game of
Speaker 4: the year, possibly in the NFL.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and boy, I think that the team that loses
Speaker 3: it hask the turnaround and play next week. They might
Speaker 3: be up against it because they're going to be playing
Speaker 3: a team that's had a chance this week to rest
Speaker 3: all of their starters and that whole thing, and they'll
Speaker 3: be on the road. So not only does winning the
Speaker 3: game give you the number one seed, losing the game
Speaker 3: puts you behind.
Speaker 2: The eight ball.
Speaker 3: All right, let's get to some point spread picks for
Speaker 3: this week and recapping the.
Speaker 2: Picks of last week.
Speaker 3: I managed to out by a half point a win
Speaker 3: in a wild game I took in the one of
Speaker 3: the college football ball games, Houston over LSU. I was
Speaker 3: laying two and a half and Houston won the game
Speaker 3: by three. Mike was actually right on the money. He
Speaker 3: took BYU a four point favorite over Georgia Tech, and
Speaker 3: it ended up a four point win. In fairness to Mike,
Speaker 3: that line dropped a three and a half a lot
Speaker 3: of places that you would have gotten to win, and
Speaker 3: Paul didn't come close to tying anything, and all he
Speaker 3: this is we talked to I don't I think we
Speaker 3: talked about this game maybe in the context of Paul's pick.
Speaker 3: The Steelers played the Browns. It was a somewhat important
Speaker 3: game I think for Pittsburgh, and Cleveland beat him. Cleveland
Speaker 3: beat him thirteen to six. Maybe it wasn't. I mean,
Speaker 3: even if Pittsburgh had lost, I think they still could
Speaker 3: have gotten into the playoffs by beating Baltimore this week,
Speaker 3: So maybe it wasn't important to them. But anyway, those
Speaker 3: are the picks for the week. None of us had
Speaker 3: a particularly good season, but I did clinch the season
Speaker 3: this twenty twenty five season championship. All right, so much
Speaker 3: for the past. Let's get to this weekend. Lots of
Speaker 3: NFL games, many are just puzzlers, and quite a few
Speaker 3: college football games, both lesser balls and the four National
Speaker 3: Championship semi finals. And again, as we are recording this
Speaker 3: on Wednesday, some of you be listening anytime any of
Speaker 3: the games beginning that have not yet started. You're at
Speaker 3: one one pm Wednesday. Anything from that point forward through
Speaker 3: I guess the end of the weekend, the end the
Speaker 3: final game of the NFL.
Speaker 2: Would be fair game for our picks.
Speaker 3: Paul, you get to, uh, this is your last pick.
Speaker 3: I maybe we'll invite Paul back next season to uh
Speaker 3: to make picks, just to uh, just to put somebody
Speaker 3: into uh into the rummy position. Yeah, he's asking about
Speaker 3: the overrunner in the Seattle San Francisco.
Speaker 2: Game, I mean, pages are all messed up.
Speaker 3: Sure, forty nine and a half, and as Mike said,
Speaker 3: you know, San Francisco's scoring points like crazy, but the
Speaker 3: Seahawks defense is phenomenal, makes it really hard. The line
Speaker 3: in the Cowboys and Giants game, now that's one of
Speaker 3: those games that Mike talked about, is a good one
Speaker 3: to look at because both teams are knocked out, so
Speaker 3: you're not. The difference is is that the Giants, you know,
Speaker 3: have an incentive to lose as they try to get
Speaker 3: the best draft choice that they can get.
Speaker 2: The Cowboys on.
Speaker 3: The road are favored by three and a half over
Speaker 3: the Giants. I think there are a lot of teams
Speaker 3: that were really disappointing teams in the NFL this year,
Speaker 3: Kansas City and Detroit among them.
Speaker 2: But Dallas has to be in that group.
Speaker 3: Well, the Giants, I guess are in that group too.
Speaker 3: They certainly were even worse than people thought. Three and
Speaker 3: a half. The Cowboys favored. Yeah, he's gonna take Dallas.
Speaker 3: I think I believe Prescott's going to play and Dallas
Speaker 3: is playing at starters. It's a tough game because Dallas,
Speaker 3: I don't think that there's good internal dynamics on that
Speaker 3: team and all of that. The Giants are the kind
Speaker 3: of organization you can see them screwing up by winning
Speaker 3: a game that would help the overall franchise to lose.
Speaker 3: But Dallas is the better team. I mean, in fact,
Speaker 3: they're the way better team than the Giants. And I'll
Speaker 3: put it to Mike because it's probably a game that
Speaker 3: you did look at because, as we stated, it is
Speaker 3: a game in which both teams are eliminated, so the
Speaker 3: motivational factor is even just playing for a win.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and you know they played earlier this year and
Speaker 4: Dallas won an overtime at home by three points against
Speaker 4: the Giants. That was before Dark took over at quarterback.
Speaker 4: That's a hard game. I don't trust Dallas on the
Speaker 4: road as a favorite in this type of game. And
Speaker 4: as you said, the Giants are potentially potentially playing for
Speaker 4: the number one pick, and they them against the Raiders
Speaker 4: last week and they destroyed the Raiders.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean the Raiders are there's a big controversy
Speaker 3: in the NBA with so many teams tanking.
Speaker 2: The Raiders are Okay.
Speaker 3: The Raiders, I think they I think that I honestly
Speaker 3: think they broke their kicker's leg just to make sure
Speaker 3: Crosby couldn't kick. I mean, now he says he's gonna
Speaker 3: have knee surgery, but he said he was able to play.
Speaker 3: They wouldn't let him play. The Raiders, that little Mark
Speaker 3: Davis operation cent ofvel. They're gonna do everything they can
Speaker 3: doos this weekend, So I don't think that the Giants
Speaker 3: can drop down and get them. But number one is
Speaker 3: just you know, in the NFL, the second pick is
Speaker 3: an awfully good pick two and so on. So I
Speaker 3: don't think coaches and players try to lose, but there
Speaker 3: could be direction from management to try, well, we need
Speaker 3: to see this young guy here, and let's look at
Speaker 3: some backups on the O line and D line as
Speaker 3: are prepared for next year.
Speaker 2: All of that stuff.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I know, I agree one hundred percent. Players don't
Speaker 4: tank it. They're playing for contracts, they're playing for the
Speaker 4: next deal. And and the Giants, you know, they don't
Speaker 4: need a quarterback, so they don't need the one or
Speaker 4: the two picks. They've got Jackson Dart. So they played
Speaker 4: hard last week, and I guess they would hear this
Speaker 4: is a tough game. For that, I don't like this
Speaker 4: game at all as far as the side goes.
Speaker 2: Okay, time to get a pick from Mike on a
Speaker 2: game that you do like. And by the way, I
Speaker 2: had to put.
Speaker 3: Mike talks a lot about with regard to the college
Speaker 3: bowl games. You have to be watching right up to
Speaker 3: the last minute. And I'm calling it audible at the
Speaker 3: last minute because the game that I was in kent
Speaker 3: on picking for a week. I'm not going to pick on.
Speaker 3: But let's go to Mike and get his pick first.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm gonna look at two. I'm gonna get two
Speaker 4: lines for two bowl games, both on Friday. All right,
Speaker 4: how about the Rice versus Texas State.
Speaker 3: That's actually a game I looked at. Texas State is
Speaker 3: favored by a trillion points. It's see where it is
Speaker 3: right now? My last page. Yeah, so he said, I
Speaker 3: got my pages all out of sync. Here, sixteen and
Speaker 3: a half Texas State is faid over Rice. I think
Speaker 3: that's the widest margin of any of the bowl games.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it definitely. I think it is as so far.
Speaker 4: And the other one is Navy against Cincinnati.
Speaker 3: Now that's going to be my game, and that game
Speaker 3: seven Navy is favored over Cincinnati by seven. That's going
Speaker 3: to be the game.
Speaker 2: That I pick.
Speaker 4: That's going to be the game I take, too, And
Speaker 4: I'm taking Navy in that game.
Speaker 3: You're taking Navy. Well, I'll just tell you right now,
Speaker 3: so am I. So we've got the exact same pick,
Speaker 3: Navy minus seven against Cincinnati. So Michael give his reasons
Speaker 3: that I'll give mine, and we both stumble out of
Speaker 3: the same game independent of one another. By the way,
Speaker 3: before we get into that, I am curious. I don't
Speaker 3: know that you want to give away the picks that
Speaker 3: your service is offering, but could you give us a
Speaker 3: hint as to whether or not you were going to
Speaker 3: take Texas State or laying sixteen and a half or
Speaker 3: taking the underdog in that game?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I was leaning Texas State in that game.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree with that.
Speaker 3: I think there's just a lot of factors going on,
Speaker 3: including the Rice team having to plan nobody a quarterback,
Speaker 3: Texas State's quarterback. Texas State scores a trillion points to
Speaker 3: play in everybody it could be the ugliest ball game,
Speaker 3: and Rice is one of those teams. They got in
Speaker 3: with a five and seven record, and this isn't like
Speaker 3: getting into the five and seven record in the Big Ten.
Speaker 3: They're getting in with a five and seven record and
Speaker 3: a lesser conference.
Speaker 2: And so on.
Speaker 3: But anyway, let's get to Navy and Cincinnati. We both
Speaker 3: like Navy. Mike, you give me your reasons, and I'm
Speaker 3: going to agree with every single one of them, because
Speaker 3: I want to hear all the reasons Navy winsor were
Speaker 3: a touchdown.
Speaker 4: Okay, I'll keep it short so I don't steal everything
Speaker 4: that you've got. Possibly. So, first of all, Cincinnati quarterback
Speaker 4: out soors be one of the better quarterbacks.
Speaker 1: In the backup.
Speaker 2: He's barely played.
Speaker 4: He's played, he's got three hundred career passing in his
Speaker 4: career passing yards, and he's going to split time with
Speaker 4: a freshman that's taken two snaps this year. So Cincinnati's
Speaker 4: kind of viewing this as a future type thing, I
Speaker 4: think for them, Let's face it, Navy showing up for
Speaker 4: the game, Army showed up for a similar situation. Army
Speaker 4: played against Yukon with a bunch of opt outs and
Speaker 4: creamed Yukon in the bowl game. Service academies dating back
Speaker 4: to two thousand and three are nineteen and three against
Speaker 4: the spread.
Speaker 3: They won all their bowl games. And by the way,
Speaker 3: Navy has won eight bowl games in a row and
Speaker 3: covered the ball.
Speaker 4: And I like that they're coming off a loss against Army.
Speaker 4: I like that situation. And let's face and for Cincinnati,
Speaker 4: he's got a ton of opt outs on defense. You
Speaker 4: have to be completely focused in when playing a team
Speaker 4: like Army or Navy. They're ninety seventh against the run
Speaker 4: this year. I think it just sets up for Navy
Speaker 4: to pull away. And I like that it's you know,
Speaker 4: a lower spread at seven. I think they won by
Speaker 4: double digits.
Speaker 2: No, Mike, you've never made a mistake and all the
Speaker 2: years you've been on so.
Speaker 3: I've never had to correct you. Navy actually won that
Speaker 3: game by a point over Army.
Speaker 2: They came out that's right, and that was about what
Speaker 2: right down to the end. The ball was right at
Speaker 2: the end zone when it happened. But I don't think
Speaker 2: it matters.
Speaker 3: The Service Academies are great in ball games in part
Speaker 3: just the discipline of Service Academy members. They don't really
Speaker 3: let down for anything. Ever, Secondly, never an opt out
Speaker 3: for a Service Academy because the players. The only time
Speaker 3: a Service Academy player leaves as well as entire eligibility
Speaker 3: and service is up. I think there's a guy, that
Speaker 3: guy that transferred running back somewhere. I think but Arizona
Speaker 3: State or somewhere. They used to play at Army. But
Speaker 3: otherwise the entire team is intact. Cincinnati has opt outs,
Speaker 3: the quarterback isn't playing, and Navy has a great I
Speaker 3: just love this guy.
Speaker 2: His name is Horvath. He's a tremendous quarterback.
Speaker 3: Navy had a really soft schedule when they were seven
Speaker 3: and zero, and they lost a couple of games and
Speaker 3: reality kicked in, but they finished really strongly. They have
Speaker 3: only two losses on the season. Cincinnati was in the
Speaker 3: Big twelve and had a pretty good season, but they
Speaker 3: lost their last three games down the stretch, and they
Speaker 3: didn't just lose him. Let me pull out this list here.
Speaker 3: This is Cincinnati's final three games of the season.
Speaker 2: They lost.
Speaker 3: Let's go back four games. They lost their last four
Speaker 3: games of the season. They got killed by ut Off
Speaker 3: forty five to fourteen. Then they lost at home to
Speaker 3: Arizona thirty to twenty four. They lost to BYU twenty
Speaker 3: six to fourteen, and then they went to TCU and
Speaker 3: lost forty five to twenty three. So you've got a
Speaker 3: rare case of ball team coming in here off of
Speaker 3: four losses, and three of them were real blowouts. And
Speaker 3: as I say, there's just more motivation with Navy. Now,
Speaker 3: this line has moved all the way up. I think
Speaker 3: it opened at two or three and it's up to seven.
Speaker 3: But I think that Navy's going to cover it. Mike
Speaker 3: and I agree on that pick. Again, Mike and his
Speaker 3: company ASA offer your own service. You can check him
Speaker 3: out throughout the year in the website is ASA wins
Speaker 3: dot com. Hopefully will connect again next season.
Speaker 4: Mike, Thanks Mark, I appreciate it. It's a pleasure.
Speaker 3: Okay, Paul and I are going to give a rap
Speaker 3: on the twenty twenty five season and on Paul's producing ten.
Speaker 3: You're next on the Marked Belling podcast. This is the
Speaker 3: Mark Belling podcast. All right, A couple of big things
Speaker 3: to announce. This is the final podcast of the season.
Speaker 3: My podcast has a season. As we explained when we
Speaker 3: began the podcast. For those of you who didn't listen
Speaker 3: to my radio program, for the last couple of years,
Speaker 3: I've been on the same schedule as I Approach. I
Speaker 3: was going to say, Approach senior citizen status. I mean,
Speaker 3: I don't consider myself a senior citizen, but by every metric,
Speaker 3: AARP lets you join when you're fifty. That's just a
Speaker 3: racket that they just trying to get at as many
Speaker 3: people to give their membership dues as possible. Yeah, well
Speaker 3: you're way over that level too. I mean, you're not
Speaker 3: over sixty fives.
Speaker 2: You wouldn't think.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm just in that. My intention is to
Speaker 3: work as long as I can possibly do it, and
Speaker 3: I've made the decision that the way to do that
Speaker 3: is to do it about as much as I am now.
Speaker 3: So the hopefully permanent schedule for the podcast will be
Speaker 3: made in December, as was the schedule for my radio
Speaker 3: show prior to transitioning to the podcast this year. The
Speaker 3: first year of the podcast was beyond any expectation. We
Speaker 3: were somewhere between number twenty and thirty five just about
Speaker 3: every week, and the entire iHeart national podcast system. Man,
Speaker 3: a lot of pretty famous people were lower than me,
Speaker 3: and I started with an audience that basically only knew
Speaker 3: them knew me from southeastern Wisconsin. It's been a tremendous success.
Speaker 3: So we're going to be back on May first, same
Speaker 3: as we did last year. I will be posting more
Speaker 3: frequently on X under Mark Belling Show. It's also possible
Speaker 3: that we'll do a couple of special podcasts somewhere in between.
Speaker 3: I don't know anything schedule, but for instance, if something happens,
Speaker 3: we might do a short nine minute podcast or maybe
Speaker 3: an hour, and if you're a subscriber to the podcast now,
Speaker 3: you'll get a notification that one is up, and I'll
Speaker 3: post an X that we do one. So I'm not
Speaker 3: going to say we're doing that for sure, but maybe
Speaker 3: we will, maybe we won't. So this is the final
Speaker 3: podcast of twenty twenty five, and the next one is
Speaker 3: going to be released on May first, and we'll revert
Speaker 3: to the exact same schedule studing then. I'm doing three
Speaker 3: podcasts every week, without regard to holidays or anything else.
Speaker 3: No days off, no shows off. Three podcasts every week
Speaker 3: to be released Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday, starting May first
Speaker 3: and running until.
Speaker 2: The end of the year. And that's been the.
Speaker 3: Way that I've done my career for the last few years.
Speaker 3: It's the way we did the podcast this year. It
Speaker 3: worked spectacularly well, and I've found, unlike say in radio
Speaker 3: or TV. Podcast listeners are used to this because most
Speaker 3: podcasts have seasons where they come and go. My season
Speaker 3: is just most of the year, eight months a year
Speaker 3: and then four months. Well, it's like a streaming series.
Speaker 3: It's the whole thing. And we will obviously have people
Speaker 3: who will fall out of the habit of listening because
Speaker 3: I wasn't there. But there are zillions of podcasts that
Speaker 3: have been able to make this work. And we'll remind
Speaker 3: you that we're coming back and this.
Speaker 2: Set and the other thing.
Speaker 3: Now, Paul is not coming back to my podcast, but
Speaker 3: I think you do want to stress you're not retiring.
Speaker 3: In fact, one of the challenges we've had with the podcast,
Speaker 3: I think about fifty five percent of the old radio
Speaker 3: audience followed me to the podcast, and they have been
Speaker 3: replaced by a huge number of people who never or
Speaker 3: rarely listened to the show on AM radio. Many of
Speaker 3: them are people who are not from the Wisconsin area
Speaker 3: who stumbled upon me by just stumbling onto podcasts, and
Speaker 3: we've heard from a lot of them who are not
Speaker 3: familiar with me prior to finding the program. And then
Speaker 3: there are other people from the Wisconsin area who just
Speaker 3: stopped thirty five forty years ago ever listening to am radio.
Speaker 3: But they're all over podcasts worlded podcasters tend to people
Speaker 3: that are looking for certain podcasts find them and like
Speaker 3: on iheard, they'll say themes and people hear about it
Speaker 3: and then tons of word of mouth.
Speaker 2: And so on.
Speaker 3: But if that group that just and many of the
Speaker 3: are older people who think that finding a podcast is difficult,
Speaker 3: And as IF explained, it's like everything else. Once you
Speaker 3: do it, you realize it's incredibly simple. But until you
Speaker 3: do it, yeah, you know, you just do it once
Speaker 3: and it's the same. It was the same thing I said.
Speaker 3: Use the example I use all the time as Facebook.
Speaker 3: When Facebook came out, no older people were on it.
Speaker 3: They none of them could figure out how you could
Speaker 3: possibly even do it, and they couldn't imagine why you
Speaker 3: would want to do it.
Speaker 2: And Facebook now is only old people.
Speaker 3: There's nobody in the age of fifty on face. I
Speaker 3: mean they can, but I mean I would be young
Speaker 3: if I was on face. So it's the same thing.
Speaker 3: Once you learn a technology, you're able to adopt it.
Speaker 3: But what I was going to say is one of
Speaker 3: the things that I face is there are many people
Speaker 3: who didn't follow me over who asked me what retirement
Speaker 3: is like.
Speaker 2: So I'm retired.
Speaker 3: In fact, I work virtually as much as I was
Speaker 3: doing in radio, one show less a week. The podcasts
Speaker 3: are a bit shorter, except when you consider my radio
Speaker 3: show had twenty three minutes or so of spots, newscast, traffic, promos,
Speaker 3: et cetera, whereas the podcast has only two minutes or
Speaker 3: two and a half minutes in addition to the little
Speaker 3: bit that the I Heart nationally pops into this. So
Speaker 3: the length the show isn't that much shorter when you
Speaker 3: take out all of that other thing, and it's one
Speaker 3: day a week less.
Speaker 2: But I'm on the same.
Speaker 3: Type of schedule and i do the same amount of
Speaker 3: show prep because I'm still looking for all the good
Speaker 3: things that I can possibly do. But people think that
Speaker 3: I've retired, and I think Paul probably wants to stress
Speaker 3: the people that you are not retiring. You don't want
Speaker 3: people to think that you're gone forever. If there is
Speaker 3: something you get to do, you get to talk, turn
Speaker 3: your microphone on. I'm figuring if people have asked me
Speaker 3: forever and ever and ever, why Paul has never talked
Speaker 3: And first of all, it just started that. I want
Speaker 3: you know, Paul was not the first producer. We went
Speaker 3: through like three or four in the first year and
Speaker 3: they didn't talk. So Paul comes in, Well when I
Speaker 3: change that, And it's a good thing that the first
Speaker 3: three or four didn't talk, because none of them lasted,
Speaker 3: and so forth and so on, and it just became
Speaker 3: a device.
Speaker 2: And I would say half the.
Speaker 3: Talk show host who have producers, they don't talk and
Speaker 3: have to And Rush Limbaugh for example, he.
Speaker 2: The guy that was playing bost nearly.
Speaker 3: James Golden occasionally would talk toward the end, but hr
Speaker 3: Kick Carson, Whitefish Bay never spoke on the air, and
Speaker 3: so on. So it's done like half and half and
Speaker 3: half you and John why has found that it work?
Speaker 3: John Wyatt talked now that you just heard Paul's voice,
Speaker 3: which is the first time that it's ever happened. And
Speaker 3: this is a no risk thing for me because if
Speaker 3: you completely screw this up, I can say, good writtance,
Speaker 3: You're never going to hear it again. Now, most people
Speaker 3: who are from Milwaukee know that Paul has been on
Speaker 3: the air with his voice on WYSN for decades. He
Speaker 3: does a number of the weekend shows he's done promos
Speaker 3: here and has spoken while as a producer of other programs.
Speaker 5: And thirty five years. Actually thirty five years.
Speaker 3: And I started in nineteen eighty nine. I think he
Speaker 3: started in nineteen eighty. So your years on the radio
Speaker 3: are the same as mine, because my radio years ended.
Speaker 5: I said, you said I started in eighty. I started
Speaker 5: in ninete.
Speaker 3: I did say ninety. No, I know, I said ninety.
Speaker 3: You just can't hear anymore. Maybe it was eighty. Well,
Speaker 3: I'm talking to this is what I nine. Paul started
Speaker 3: in ninety, so roughly because I my show had been
Speaker 3: on for about a year and part of the reason
Speaker 3: that we had there are part timers that were doing
Speaker 3: it and people that were going to college and so on,
Speaker 3: and people doing this.
Speaker 2: That and the other thing, and just running through a lot.
Speaker 3: So and Jerry Bot fired as a producer from Your Shot,
Speaker 3: was actually the very first producer and then he kind
Speaker 3: of moved up into management. Here we had Karen was
Speaker 3: the next producer. I don't know if she cares when
Speaker 3: wanting her last name mentioned or not, but she she
Speaker 3: was young, and she was in Marquette at the time,
Speaker 3: and she's going on and had she has a successful career.
Speaker 5: She trained me.
Speaker 2: We had a guy named Barry who did the show
Speaker 2: for a while.
Speaker 3: He had numerous other jobs at WISN and then we
Speaker 3: had like two or three people who were just spot
Speaker 3: here and there, and then Paul came in and he's
Speaker 3: stuck and he lasted with it. So I just my
Speaker 3: own advice, based on my experience, is to not let
Speaker 3: people think that you're leaving or going anywhere. But what's
Speaker 3: happening all over radio is people are moving into other positions.
Speaker 3: Jay Webber has made the decision to do what I'm doing.
Speaker 3: He's taking The Winner off and is going to return
Speaker 3: as a podcaster. He'll be doing two days a week
Speaker 3: rather than three. He's taking the Winner off as well
Speaker 3: as I am, and his podcast will be released on
Speaker 3: Tuesdays and Fridays and mine when Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays,
Speaker 3: which has.
Speaker 2: A rhythm to it. The station.
Speaker 3: The company has not announced who my new producer is.
Speaker 3: I will say that it is somebody that the wis
Speaker 3: audio audience will be familiar with. It will unveil all
Speaker 3: of that on May first, but it will not be
Speaker 3: somebody foreign to the station, for.
Speaker 5: They haven't even told me Mark so Paul.
Speaker 3: So they haven't even told him, but I know who
Speaker 3: it is, but it is somebody that is affiliated with.
Speaker 5: I'm sure your podcast will be successful, and.
Speaker 3: Paul said, I'm sure. Well, I think there's a very
Speaker 3: good chance it'll be better. Well, well, we have no
Speaker 3: we have. I talked about the side by side comparison
Speaker 3: earlier on the program with regard to the h just
Speaker 3: don't let the new guy with regard Paul said, that'd
Speaker 3: be hilarious, but that would not be good with the
Speaker 3: side by side comparison to the cell phone abandons.
Speaker 2: I have no side by side comparison.
Speaker 3: Whether or not anybody better than you went through three
Speaker 3: or four people in the first year. Otherwise it's only
Speaker 3: been you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: David Michael's always claimed that he did a better job
Speaker 3: of producing the show than you did when he on
Speaker 3: the old radio.
Speaker 5: There's no way.
Speaker 3: He's sloppy, Paul, so that he's sloppy that there's no
Speaker 3: way on that. But you are now tell us what
Speaker 3: weekend shows.
Speaker 2: You do or what are you doing?
Speaker 3: And like I had, by the way, there's no gap
Speaker 3: on this that your these continue this coming week.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, not taking off.
Speaker 3: So there's nothing happening with regard to Paul here at
Speaker 3: the end of the year, as opposed to me going
Speaker 3: on my normal winter hiatus. But my podcast is ending
Speaker 3: and it's the perfect time for us to make this
Speaker 3: flip over.
Speaker 2: So which weekend shows do you do?
Speaker 5: Yes?
Speaker 6: And I've I started all of these shows. Mark, So
Speaker 6: Saturday the remodeling shows two hours. Then we go into
Speaker 6: a real estate show, Jeff Cohals retirement clinic, we do
Speaker 6: the designer yard show. I'm not boring you yet because
Speaker 6: you've all said these weekend self help shows.
Speaker 2: People know what we do, right.
Speaker 6: We sell the time to companies that pay for the show.
Speaker 6: They get commercials and then they do the programs.
Speaker 3: Whase I infomercials, but they're not fully information educational.
Speaker 2: They're not fully.
Speaker 3: Informercials in that see most infomercials, nobody connected with the
Speaker 3: individual station does them. In the cases of the programs
Speaker 3: that we have, Jerry Bott does a couple of them.
Speaker 3: I think Paul hosts them, and it's identified as part
Speaker 3: of WISN. But there's a disclaimer put out at the
Speaker 3: beginning in the end that these are paid programs in
Speaker 3: which the advertisers are putting themselves out there, and they
Speaker 3: expose themselves to the audience and then offer the advice
Speaker 3: and so on. And my guess is that they'll have
Speaker 3: you draft you into doing a couple of other things
Speaker 3: here at Wis.
Speaker 6: In addition, I should thank you for all the cruising
Speaker 6: years because because of that Mark, I get to now
Speaker 6: have my own crew.
Speaker 3: He's going to go, so his whole thing. This is
Speaker 3: why he couldn't talk. He's gonna go and take this thing. Now. Well,
Speaker 3: you can't plug your cruise because you'll leave in like
Speaker 3: five days or something.
Speaker 5: There is one in twenty seven though, so stay tune,
Speaker 5: you know.
Speaker 3: Yes, so he's been leading a cruise and people have
Speaker 3: asked you're ever going to do a cruise again. The
Speaker 3: one advantage that you have in not being married, as
Speaker 3: I am not and never have been, is I don't
Speaker 3: have to lock my feet and stow it on anything.
Speaker 3: I mean, I can change it, I maybe at some
Speaker 3: point in the future, but it was just something I
Speaker 3: did every year. Plus it was always something that I
Speaker 3: did in the winter. Well, now the winner is the
Speaker 3: period of which I'm taking the break and I'm in
Speaker 3: Florida and just kind of have been there and done that,
Speaker 3: and we did that for over thirty years with Paul's
Speaker 3: now leading a cruise.
Speaker 2: And where are you going this year?
Speaker 6: Belize, Belieze close to Maya, Mexico, so it's a Caribbean cruise.
Speaker 2: But are about the civil war that just started there today?
Speaker 5: Now we're avoiding all of that time.
Speaker 2: I just made that up. There's no civil war going
Speaker 2: on in Belize.
Speaker 5: Next year to Lisbon, Portugal and Spain.
Speaker 3: Portugal, all right, and that's enough plugging of your that's
Speaker 3: enough plugging of your cruise. Are you working with your
Speaker 3: wife in real estate or is that not.
Speaker 5: Going No, she's the realtor.
Speaker 6: But I am involved in some businesses that we own,
Speaker 6: like storage units I think you've talked about.
Speaker 3: So he's been doing that and the other thing and
Speaker 3: keeping his three grand show grant. And the one thing
Speaker 3: I think Paul and I can both say, I've ended
Speaker 3: micro radio career but doing something very similar doing it
Speaker 3: for the same company I did radio, is we got
Speaker 3: into radio and what was close to the golden age
Speaker 3: of radio, and for a zillion reasons other than news
Speaker 3: talk stations like WYS and almost all of them are
Speaker 3: hurting for a zillion reasons and WISN, which had incredible
Speaker 3: host stability. We had the great lineup for the longest time.
Speaker 3: There's now on transition because we're all hitting the same age.
Speaker 3: Jay's a little bit younger than me, but he's gone.
Speaker 3: Dan o'donald is you know, moved into my old radio
Speaker 3: shift this past year, and Benet will be taking over
Speaker 3: for Jay by hosting morning Drive. And I don't know
Speaker 3: that they've yeah, they've announced they have announced the replacement
Speaker 3: for Ben in the mid day program.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Jason Gotch will be doing the match a day
Speaker 6: show from nine until eleven, and uh Vicky still on
Speaker 6: from two to three and then playing Buck in the
Speaker 6: middle of the day.
Speaker 2: It's a good one.
Speaker 3: So I mean, it's it's they continue to have a
Speaker 3: very very good lineup and so on, in addition to
Speaker 3: all of the other programs that are out there. I
Speaker 3: refused when I ended the radio program to do anything
Speaker 3: that was sappy whatsoever. And I'm banning Paul from saying
Speaker 3: anything sappy that was here. But Paul was obviously the
Speaker 3: most important part of the program that we had the
Speaker 3: entire time that was on and so on and the
Speaker 3: so he's gonna he's not going anywhere. He's not retiring,
Speaker 3: and he wouldn't be on this podcast for four months anyway.
Speaker 3: And when I come back, there'll be a producer whose
Speaker 3: name will be announced that and again I know who
Speaker 3: it's going to be, but it has not been announced
Speaker 3: in general to the staff and all of that. So
Speaker 3: keep that hutched up again. Follow me on X and
Speaker 3: I may. I'll probably pop up on a couple of
Speaker 3: the radio shows around here and so on. If something
Speaker 3: comes up during I.
Speaker 5: Should publicly thank you Mark for everything I see.
Speaker 3: I mean, there are some people that are narcissists. I
Speaker 3: know that this sounds like I'm crowing. I am like
Speaker 3: the opposite of a narcissist. You are a part of
Speaker 3: that is generational. I mean way more our parents' generation
Speaker 3: had that.
Speaker 2: I mean, I.
Speaker 3: Know a fair number of people that served in World
Speaker 3: War Two and not a damn would have never wanted to.
Speaker 3: And I don't think it was just because of post
Speaker 3: traumatic stress and all of that.
Speaker 2: They just didn't brag or bring up a thing.
Speaker 3: They talk about it with their other buddies that were
Speaker 3: in the war and so on, and I just I
Speaker 3: mean I mentioned that the in all of the years
Speaker 3: I did radio, and all the years that I've done
Speaker 3: the podcast, the number of times that's somebody from management
Speaker 3: walked down the hallway after where I shows and said
Speaker 3: that was a really good show.
Speaker 5: Never, it's less than five never.
Speaker 2: But part of that is the air that I put off,
Speaker 2: like what do you want?
Speaker 3: Why are you.
Speaker 2: Telling me this?
Speaker 5: So what I will stress when you're gone.
Speaker 6: Though you do a great job on Twitter, which X
Speaker 6: it's a thing now, a thing daily tweet.
Speaker 3: See now you keep saying that, I don't need to
Speaker 3: keep saying formally known as Twitter, but an incredible number
Speaker 3: of people still call it Twitter.
Speaker 5: We do because it's either to say tweet, what do
Speaker 5: you say XT?
Speaker 3: Well, I say post, and that's what I hear Musk say,
Speaker 3: and it's the term that he Musk uses and he
Speaker 3: runs the thing. But I was inactive on Twitter in
Speaker 3: part because before Musk bought it and renamed it views
Speaker 3: like mine, you'd be blocked and banned and et cetera.
Speaker 3: The reason that you now you can now can post
Speaker 3: on there. But secondly, when he's taking this hiatus for
Speaker 3: four months, it was away for me to keep putting
Speaker 3: my information out there on things. And thirdly, it became
Speaker 3: a huge win. I didn't need to promote the show
Speaker 3: because you either knew about it or you didn't after
Speaker 3: all those years. But the podcast was a new thing.
Speaker 3: So every podcast that we do, I post on X
Speaker 3: is another way of being out there. But I mean,
Speaker 3: I still catch the whole problem when you put something
Speaker 3: like that in writing, that's out there for all the
Speaker 3: critics to see. You put one little thing out of context,
Speaker 3: or say one thing that somebody may deem offensive, and
Speaker 3: it can be a career hunting kind of thing. It's
Speaker 3: it's a risky thing in which the sanctions still apply
Speaker 3: to people in the right far more than thee left.
Speaker 3: You have any other parting words? No more thank you?
Speaker 3: So any other parting words that you have? No just
Speaker 3: feel see as usual, very very little to say, which
Speaker 3: is why it was not on there on the first one.
Speaker 2: What else? What were you saying? Feeling?
Speaker 5: Your word transitioning and transitioning.
Speaker 3: We're transitioning, not reciting. I think if I transitioned to
Speaker 3: a woman, I wouldn't.
Speaker 2: Be bad looking.
Speaker 3: You would be the ugliest woman that there ever could
Speaker 3: possibly be terrible.
Speaker 5: I got a big nose.
Speaker 3: First of all, have you ever seen anyone who did
Speaker 3: transition that.
Speaker 2: Did look good.
Speaker 5: Bruce Jenner likes Jenner slightly.
Speaker 3: I hate to say that, but I mean he started
Speaker 3: as a good looking guy. You know what I'm saying, Well,
Speaker 3: he had to be a good looking guy. Look with
Speaker 3: you know all of these Kardashians, you know, and the
Speaker 3: last Kardashian was not the Kardashian that was his kid,
Speaker 3: but he married Missus Kardashian.
Speaker 2: Or he was a a cathlete.
Speaker 3: And so we've clearly run out of things to say,
Speaker 3: and indeed those will be the last words that you
Speaker 3: hear from me until May first. I don't to thank
Speaker 3: Paul for all of his contributions that we've made. And
Speaker 3: so when again the podcast returns May first, Paul isn't
Speaker 3: going anywhere. He'll still have a number of duties. And
Speaker 3: with that, we're out of time for this year. Season
Speaker 3: number one was spectacular. I'm not announcing anything, but we
Speaker 3: are going to be making some formatic changes in the
Speaker 3: second season of the podcast.
Speaker 2: And the way that we do it.
Speaker 3: But I'm not going to announce anything until we come
Speaker 3: around and start doing it in May.
Speaker 2: Talk to you then.
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