[SPEAKER_04]: Michael Mera, Radio Entertainment.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's a good choice.
[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_04]: You do that for our guests.
[SPEAKER_03]: I did.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's this old theme song.
[SPEAKER_03]: I used to love here in this every night.
[SPEAKER_04]: I am very very pleased on the RTMOS extra this week to welcome a voice from the past as far as the I'm concerned and the Donna Mike show is concerned and Rob's concern.
[SPEAKER_04]: Ron Bennington from Sirius, satellite radio is joining us right now.
[SPEAKER_04]: He back in the day if you remember us,
[SPEAKER_04]: It was the Don and Mike show and the Ron and Fesh show on WJFK and we said to ourselves in the hallways at ten eight hundred main street in Fairfax, Virginia, who are these strange dudes.
[SPEAKER_04]: And then when we did a short brief failed time in New York City,
[SPEAKER_04]: We remembered listening to Ron, describe a pizza that came from two boots, pizza in the Greenwich.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know where.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: It was pretty close.
[SPEAKER_04]: Greenwich Village was everywhere.
[SPEAKER_04]: It was from.
[SPEAKER_04]: Ron with a sense of love that could only be conveyed by him said, look at that son of a bitch.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, that was one of the greatest ways to describe a pizza.
[SPEAKER_04]: And Robin, I talked about that for, well, we've been talking about it for ever since.
[SPEAKER_03]: As a kid would say, he said it without a trace of irony.
[SPEAKER_03]: He meant it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, you really did.
[SPEAKER_04]: Ron Bennington, the Bennington show is on two to five.
[SPEAKER_04]: You probably know that already on a serious XM that's the channel one a zero three the history of Ron you might remember the Ron and Ron show back in the day and then the Ron and face show and the cool thing that I don't know anything about is that you have been working
[SPEAKER_04]: with your daughter Gale for quite some time now and that's been your most recent endeavor.
[SPEAKER_04]: Ron Bennington, welcome to the Michael Marisha.
[SPEAKER_04]: We are delighted to see you and to have you on.
[SPEAKER_04]: How are you, my friend?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, this is great.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is like the last scene in Titanic, where everybody gets back together again.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man
[SPEAKER_04]: due to many reasons, incredible stress, a love of alcohol.
[SPEAKER_04]: I am not sure the circumstances that brought us together as radio people, because you came from somewhere.
[SPEAKER_04]: I just don't know where you came from, but suddenly,
[SPEAKER_04]: we had Ronin Fez at WJFK in Washington, D.C.
[SPEAKER_04]: Do you know, now, if you asked me the question, I wouldn't be able to answer it.
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_04]: But yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Rob's raising.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: As a historian, let me see if I get this right, Ron.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: You, you were in New York when we brought you on to WJFK in D.C.
[SPEAKER_03]: With a later night show, maybe at 11.
[SPEAKER_03]: Roninfez.com.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_03]: Were you basically reviewed websites?
[SPEAKER_03]: I thought it was brilliant.
[SPEAKER_01]: of, like, how do you get to New York, you know, because the run around show was a very big show in Florida.
[SPEAKER_01]: I went the exact opposite of normal people.
[SPEAKER_01]: I started in Florida and ended up in North.
[SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, I went through, you know, all the same things that you're talking about with the craziness of radio, with the craziness of many abuses.
[SPEAKER_01]: So by the time I met you guys in New York,
[SPEAKER_01]: And that, I mean, how has somebody not written a book about that time at WNW?
[SPEAKER_01]: In the United States, it was a pirate ship.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was insane.
[SPEAKER_04]: It was horrible for me personally.
[SPEAKER_04]: It was, it was a time where to give anybody that might not be familiar with the backstory of the Donna Mike show.
[SPEAKER_04]: We were, uh,
[SPEAKER_04]: We were asked to, in order to get a clear, which is getting a radio affiliate, to get a clear in New York City and in Philadelphia, to give up our afternoon show, and it would be taken over by Opian Anthony, who would also get more affiliates that way.
[SPEAKER_04]: And that's how it happened.
[SPEAKER_04]: We ended up going to mid-days on WNEW.
[SPEAKER_04]: And when that happened, it was a time on my life.
[SPEAKER_04]: I remember Rob, we were down in, we were in DC for a week, and then we'd be in New York for a week, back, and forth, and back, and forth, and my marriage was crumbling, and it was horrible, and then throw nine, eleven into the whole thing.
[SPEAKER_04]: But the main thing, I think, Ron's referring to in the pirate ship and the craziness, is that,
[SPEAKER_04]: we went up to New York and got ourselves into a dandy radio war with opian Anthony up there and it was very I was surprised by it maybe listeners weren't surprised but it was really tough because we were walking down the same hallway to do the transition and they had a separate way of
[SPEAKER_04]: walking us into this.
[SPEAKER_04]: Do you remember that wrong?
[SPEAKER_03]: I thought, yeah, we could go, they would go into the hallway.
[SPEAKER_03]: Either one of us, either them or our team would go through the engineer's shop and the other staff would use the hallway.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so we wouldn't ever have to make eye contact.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think, you remember the cut through?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, no, no, we could go through.
[SPEAKER_04]: But the thing that always troubled me about it is, the weakest radio management team I've ever seen.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't see that at all.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's not a lot.
[SPEAKER_03]: She's right.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, really do a strong will radio manager would have said shut the f up and behave like adults.
[SPEAKER_03]: We really did come in ready to play nice.
[SPEAKER_04]: I want to go back one thing though.
[SPEAKER_04]: But do we meet Ron at
[SPEAKER_01]: You're Washington or in New York, we met in New York first and then when the it was first in New York right then you are Can them when the station blew up they brought us down to that's how it went Yeah, they brought it sounds like oh, okay You'll come back to New York in some reason and then if as an I jumped to XM and Can you abuse you they split your shift you had to do an hour at lunchtime and then still your evening show
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was hard.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody was lost and, you know, crazy, but I just chose to roll with it.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: I just chose to like, I don't give it shit.
[SPEAKER_01]: What happens?
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's just show it.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're a dude.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, you're somebody who actually, you are.
[SPEAKER_04]: What I remember is that, you know, and I would go out and chat with the outside in front of a WJF can.
[SPEAKER_04]: I remember what you see, what you hear is what you get.
[SPEAKER_04]: You do the same thing on your radio show.
[SPEAKER_04]: You're just, you know,
[SPEAKER_04]: when you would broadcast, where it'd be just like, you know, it was just, uh, I'm just gonna, yeah, it's just a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a,
[SPEAKER_01]: Some radio related and some not, you know, but I also knew like the differences you brought up stress.
[SPEAKER_01]: The stress of doing radio in those days.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Where it's book by book by book.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nobody realizes.
[SPEAKER_01]: that feeling, you know, I mean, it's almost gone.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's certainly no one who lives in the podcasting world.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Understands, not just yours show was on the line.
[SPEAKER_01]: The entire station is on the line every, you know, four times a year.
[SPEAKER_04]: Talk to me about because we got a, we got you for a short amount of time.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I want to make sure I ask the questions I wanted to ask you.
[SPEAKER_04]: When you talk about that, uh, with the, uh, with the, uh, with the serious thing.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's not.
[SPEAKER_04]: like the old days of radio, but it's still, uh, is it more of a, is, is it a, it's obviously more of a pressure cooker?
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know anything about it.
[SPEAKER_04]: I've never done it.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I don't know what describe it.
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know what it goes on.
[SPEAKER_01]: I actually cook her at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: You come in, do a show, and then everybody says it's a good show.
[SPEAKER_01]: I guess today.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's been like one of the years of that, but he is, that's great.
[SPEAKER_01]: The big shot, who the big VP here is Jim McClure, who you guys came up with.
[SPEAKER_03]: I know he was still there.
[SPEAKER_03]: I saw him not long ago, and I know he's still there.
[SPEAKER_03]: Stop.
[SPEAKER_04]: Wait a minute.
[SPEAKER_04]: I didn't bring sound effect.
[SPEAKER_04]: I want to play a crashing center.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, Jim McClure is the, is the biggie.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's the big VP and like he's coming into his own.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's that guy, you know, in this place.
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_01]: Our part of the thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's one of the few great guy by the really good guy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Really great bag like what I would call players coach you know there's 100% and one of the few guys in those type of VPs positions who has the background of broadcasting you know a lot of these guys come in from all different walks of life and so that's the connection to the radio that we all grew up.
[SPEAKER_04]: And you know, it's a weird time.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, you were around.
[SPEAKER_04]: You were doing it in the 80s.
[SPEAKER_04]: I was doing it in the 80s.
[SPEAKER_04]: It was just absolutely nuts.
[SPEAKER_04]: We both had a radio partnerships that would be best described as interesting.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, it's difficult when we make the joke about one of the few people we can say high-do, that's not necessarily true, but we both went through interesting partnerships.
[SPEAKER_04]: You had Fez, and that's who we associated with when you came and joined us.
[SPEAKER_04]: Ron and Ron was a massive show down in Florida, and you guys were huge, based on a Tampa down there?
[SPEAKER_04]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: big stuff down there.
[SPEAKER_04]: And why that show, uh, why did that show end?
[SPEAKER_04]: Did that show blow up or how it went?
[SPEAKER_01]: It all shows kind of blow up.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I mean, there's all shows, uh, do blow up, especially because when you get to heat, you're so young, you guys when young at the time, starting with young everybody, you know, there's something about being in your 20s and suddenly all that stuff starts to happen.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I, you know, we were still doing stuff like, uh,
[SPEAKER_01]: winner of my nine of the YouTube tickets, my Coke dealer, boom.
[SPEAKER_04]: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
[SPEAKER_04]: Eastern City radio people were out of their minds.
[SPEAKER_04]: No, I don't even know what that station was down there, but they were bat as crazy.
[SPEAKER_04]: All of them, all of them down there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's crazy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, just living down there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, especially when you're young, especially when you have money, especially when you look around and there's just titty dancers all around you.
[SPEAKER_01]: And people are party and I mean, it's crazy.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you wonder how long can this go on?
[SPEAKER_01]: But don't you feel like all shows kind of hit that point that you've been in a car ride with somebody for a long time and what happens on that road trip after a while?
[SPEAKER_04]: It's inevitable and it is also I have found in my career it's tough to
[SPEAKER_04]: after it's over, that type of relationship is difficult to continue on any level for me.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's just awkward for me.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's awkward, and I feel like in the case of Don, some feelings were heard at the end, and during the whole time, and it's just,
[SPEAKER_04]: It's not his fault.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's not my fault.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's just something that you grow apart sometimes and you move on and then There are other times like with my most recent example would be Oscar where it ends really kind of painfully and it And you know, you pull the band aid off and all this stuff comes out that you really didn't know is there It can end in a variety of ways, but it is extremely difficult to To to to to to to go back.
[SPEAKER_04]: You don't see I'm sure you see people that work in a certain off Office buildings and certain businesses that is like
[SPEAKER_04]: Phil, great to see you again, how are you?
[SPEAKER_04]: Radio, it's a little weirder.
[SPEAKER_04]: Broadcast show business is a little weirder that way, you know?
[SPEAKER_04]: Of course it, yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Donna Mike aren't talking to each other, open an Anthony aren't talking to each other.
[SPEAKER_01]: A man, Fez aren't talking to each other.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, you know, what are you gonna do with it?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I just wanted to point.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Fez was, you know, an interesting cat.
[SPEAKER_04]: He really, how did you, how did you meet Fez?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: when you guys took that as was after Ron and Ron yeah no it was actually during Ron and Ron okay it was a walk-in intern I had actually met him in a little comedy club wow and he goes you were a con radio I weren't being radio he'll come in tomorrow
[SPEAKER_01]: You know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't know it.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I always like the guys to bring into your team or the ones that are hanging around the balloon.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know what I'm saying, like 100% mean word to me that any of the kind of broadcasting and he came in and he's funny and he's, you know, literally a guy.
[SPEAKER_01]: who's playing a gay guy, who didn't know that he was a gay guy.
[SPEAKER_04]: There it is, right there, that's fence, right there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even when you guys met him, he did not say I'm gay.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, he was not officially out.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was not officially not only out, but not practicing in the normal way, because he had this religious,
[SPEAKER_01]: upbringing that made the whole thing a terrible sin, you know, so he never, you know, got to that point, even when he played, you know, Fesfer, you know, over, you know, decades.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then one day he says, you know, okay, I'm gay, and he couldn't go back and play the Fes character the same way.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: He wasn't being true to himself and I'm like, it's still a character, but it wasn't as funny to him Once he decided, you know, I mean, he couldn't he couldn't put the stereotype mask on, you know, so he was a The funniest person I've ever met and you guys know, yeah, I've heard him do shit that was just no one else and radio was done it before since during But he was so tortured
[SPEAKER_01]: and had anxiety and depression, which eventually became really physical in his life where he would, you know, have heart attacks and shit like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it is, uh,
[SPEAKER_01]: It's hilarious in so many ways.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's heartbreaking in so many ways.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's so complicated that since he's passed away, I think about what the fuck was that friendship about?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because it was like more of a friendship first than even a show.
[SPEAKER_01]: And yet we only really talked about the show, like people who do this.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, do, you know, I mean, you'll spend two minutes on family in the rest of the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, that shit that you said, that could work, you know, you shouldn't run with that tomorrow.
[SPEAKER_01]: So all that stuff, but what I also realized when he died is because I didn't have to deal with all his problems.
[SPEAKER_01]: I went, oh shit, I'm kind of fucked up too, you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, like, I'm sober, but mmm.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, a lot of issues that you know used to party about, but I probably used him and all of his problems is a way of feeling Probably stronger about myself than you know, I should have like on the guy watching out for this and that
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, never a year.
[SPEAKER_01]: Go ahead.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sorry.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm sorry.
[SPEAKER_03]: When he was still closeted and and presenting the way he was presenting on air, did you ever sense that there was something deeper going on there or was okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just get it out of the way.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know guys that experiment.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like a little time.
[SPEAKER_01]: But that, you know, that didn't like you really.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, as a gay guy, he was more like a lesbian, where he wanted to be in a committed relationship, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, tortured as the word you used that I think is perfect in that situation, and especially in those years.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, that's it's so much different than it is today.
[SPEAKER_04]: It really is.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's a much different world.
[SPEAKER_01]: calls and shit, which, you know, a lot of people never got a bit.
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't matter.
[SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, he dealt
[SPEAKER_01]: with that easier before he decided he was gay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you remember?
[SPEAKER_02]: I can see that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's how people are.
[SPEAKER_01]: When I did the Ronin Ron show, people would say, hey, his face gay.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, I don't know, you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: The fact that we started to do the Ronin of Fashow, I would get, are you guys gay?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that was awesome.
[SPEAKER_04]: There were, I think part of the charm, and this is from an outsider, when we experienced you guys,
[SPEAKER_04]: Rob, I have a strong memory of knowing what the fuck they were about, and that's what made the whole thing cool.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was mysterious, they were creatures of the night, they came into that radio station, I'd stick around a little bit after seven, it will go, and I'd see their show kick off, but it was, it was mysterious, and it had an energy,
[SPEAKER_03]: unlike any radio show I'd ever heard.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now I'd listen to little bit to Ronin Fez.com.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I kind of got the characterizations, but when you got away from that internet angle and you started doing like I had never heard a radio show that would sit down and the first break would be like 55 minutes on which of the little rascals built the fastest car to drive down a hill.
[SPEAKER_04]: that's like and that was that go to topic and it was so great it was it was eye-opening for me because I think it was fun yeah but as far as the broken people and I want to get your thoughts on on my opinion of this it was like a bunch of
[SPEAKER_04]: roosters that a cockfight.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: And the roosters would be thrown in the ring.
[SPEAKER_04]: And they'd start cockfighting.
[SPEAKER_04]: And then if one particular rooster You know acted too violent they said no you a hold on you can't do that.
[SPEAKER_04]: We were asked to be kind of crazy and do stuff and then when something would go wrong You know the the weak need
[SPEAKER_04]: management would step in.
[SPEAKER_04]: But it was all it was there was a lot of confrontation and confrontation sold at least on the dollar mic show.
[SPEAKER_04]: It really did.
[SPEAKER_04]: There was a, I will say, sweetness to Ron and Fez, which I personally found.
[SPEAKER_04]: Refreshing after my own show where I would listen to that and go, I would be Envious of it.
[SPEAKER_04]: I would be Envious that it wasn't just, you know, you know, being a cobra all day long and hunting rotants.
[SPEAKER_04]: It was, it was cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that was conscious choice.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, you know, I mean, like, if we were going to do this show, we were only going to have fun with it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because we had been through, you know, morning radio wars and all that shit that just dragged down.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I mean, the thing about that show, although we never had a good morning show because we couldn't put a, you know, a big morning show in there.
[SPEAKER_01]: But there was, you know, you could, it was the Yankees.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I mean, like, there was so much talent at the same time.
[SPEAKER_01]: But there was also such self-destructive
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, stuff going on with all the shows with all the shows, you're like, you could have it all and you're not going to.
[SPEAKER_04]: I feel that way all the time.
[SPEAKER_04]: I feel that I look back and I do say, you know, if we had been normal people,
[SPEAKER_04]: And we were able to communicate normally and experience life normally and just be like adults.
[SPEAKER_04]: Things might have been lasted longer, but sometimes it doesn't work out that way.
[SPEAKER_04]: Who in your opinion are more fucked up?
[SPEAKER_04]: Stand up comedians or radio personalities that, you know, or the shock juxtapes that we had.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: The shock juxtapes thing was set up.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you see it in some places still, but it's way more political.
[SPEAKER_01]: gave a shit who was president right I don't even know if I vote at the whole time I was in Yeah, I mean, I don't I don't think it ever entered into the program at all ever and now you can't get away from it You know, if you even say I like this performer all that guy's a lib tart or that guy's a Just you know, yeah, it's in the episode so it's almost like the country became shock juxtapes Yeah, so are the shock juxtapes today
[SPEAKER_01]: But that thing, that self-destructive thing comes in because no one, everyone thought there's only so much cake.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: When the reality of it is that you could all eat a piece of cake every day, forever, stop just jamming it into your face.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we were all brought up as gladiators.
[SPEAKER_01]: our boss was, oh, I hate this, you know, we hate 98 rock, we're 95, blah, blah, blah, blah, all that shit.
[SPEAKER_01]: They would key each other's vans or whatever you think.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then those two guys were, I saw the two general managers that a fucking thing together.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, what do you know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah, it's played.
[SPEAKER_04]: And there's a lot of that.
[SPEAKER_04]: Let's take, let's take where the guys that have the, the business degrees.
[SPEAKER_04]: Let's put the, let's put the pimples out there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it'll be, it'll be great for both of us.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, it was weird.
[SPEAKER_04]: It was a weird world, but you know, with the, with the business of show, whether it be stand up or, uh, and you know, most times,
[SPEAKER_04]: I have always had a feeling that the relationship with stand-up comedians to radio personalities is in many cases can be a difficult one because there was nothing that most stand-ups like to mock then.
[SPEAKER_04]: Hey, it's a 50 minutes after the hour, nice to see.
[SPEAKER_04]: I do that routine.
[SPEAKER_04]: You have you have made quite a business out of interviewing, stand up, some being around, say, as open Anthony did for a long time.
[SPEAKER_04]: What's the, what makes it work for you to do that, to be in that world?
[SPEAKER_01]: I would say this like if you remember the 80s because I had a club is the reason why we're going to go to the radio.
[SPEAKER_01]: They didn't know how to come in and do radio at that time.
[SPEAKER_01]: They only knew how to do their act.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, everything that was happening in the station we're at them out and
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a guy named Carrie Kerlop who's still, you know, program director.
[SPEAKER_01]: He goes, look, because I would bring comics in every Friday.
[SPEAKER_01]: He goes, why don't you just come in and leave your comics home?
[SPEAKER_01]: You know.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, at this.
[SPEAKER_01]: But what's really funny about all those comics that hate it broadcasting, every one of them is doing a goddamn podcast.
[SPEAKER_01]: Every one of them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Every single one of them is doing live reads.
[SPEAKER_04]: Right, right.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, some of the funniest stuff you will ever hear in the world of podcast, and it will be Norm McDonald doing some of his live reads, which are unquestionably some of the funniest I've ever heard when he does that.
[SPEAKER_04]: But it's a two-way street, too.
[SPEAKER_04]: Radio people didn't know on a handlestander because you're like, oh, they're dance monkey dance.
[SPEAKER_04]: Dancing, you fucking act, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: And they didn't want to do their act.
[SPEAKER_04]: And then when you get people in a room, where everybody's just talking,
[SPEAKER_04]: And somebody's a successful stand a comedian if they just get on any subject can can roll and go like that.
[SPEAKER_04]: And you know, you've been around that for a long time.
[SPEAKER_01]: But again, in those days, there was so much pressure per break.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I mean,
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, in your head in those days, you're like, we're losing people.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we're losing.
[SPEAKER_01]: All you were thinking, the entire show.
[SPEAKER_01]: People are tuning out of this shit.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right, that's a great way to make her feel funny, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: When you're thinking about that all the time, it's got to be perfect.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's going to be perfect right now.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, when you look, I always talk about the fact that when I went into the world of podcasting, which coincided with losing a radio gig.
[SPEAKER_04]: And it started doing it before the very last radio gig I did.
[SPEAKER_04]: and then finally settling on this and not having the burden of dealing with that and it sounds like blissfully they let you do what you do at serious as well.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's just a different world.
[SPEAKER_04]: And you know, and also working with a family member, working with the daughter has to be a thrill because I mean, after I counted my son's fingers and toes, I wanted the sense of humor.
[SPEAKER_04]: And your daughter has it, and in Spain, she's going to say this maybe a little funny or than you are, Ron.
[SPEAKER_04]: But I get it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I get that all the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: The funny thing is, is because she was always right there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, you know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, you bring your kids to the even on 9 11, because you brought that up earlier.
[SPEAKER_01]: that I had to go and grab both and lay kids and then I couldn't get back home and I had her.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was in any W with her and she sat right next to us when we did the show.
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember walking in there and I just got in her out of this school and this was any W look like, OK, it's a place to use here as a center.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Donna Mike, we're on the air.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I swear to God, this was the first thing in my mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, holy shit, these guys know how to do this.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: You guys turned on to broadcasting.
[SPEAKER_01]: You both had that background.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you were doing it.
[SPEAKER_01]: As is good as anybody did it that day, you know, while it was amazing, I appreciate that it was an amazing thing to say, but I was also like, what the fuck are we going to have any, you know, really good broadcasters, they could do, you know, a rock show football game, a prey doesn't matter.
[SPEAKER_04]: right and you guys were so good at that kind of radio of where, you know, we're just going into the moment and I was like, oh, shhh, somebody asked me about the UN, he's W and being in New York on 9-11 and being on the air with the first tower coming down the second tower being on for about eight hours that they something like that, some weird number like that.
[SPEAKER_04]: And they said, well, you're thinking about it.
[SPEAKER_04]: I said, I was actually when we would not be broadcasting, we would do, we weren't running commercials at that point.
[SPEAKER_04]: We wouldn't.
[SPEAKER_04]: But we would take shifts where we would go out.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'd have a cigarette in the stairwell.
[SPEAKER_04]: And somebody said, well, you think about, I was thinking about somebody attacking that building.
[SPEAKER_04]: First thing about my own ass.
[SPEAKER_04]: I was thinking when I hear a creek or this or that, nobody knew, nobody knew what was happening in that.
[SPEAKER_04]: It was that weird, a time where are they gonna attack us?
[SPEAKER_04]: We don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: it was shocking that it stopped.
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember that day it was shocked when the plane stopped hitting.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't get it now, you know, because you're getting of an invasion, not just, you know, what it turned out to be.
[SPEAKER_04]: I didn't know you thought it was with you.
[SPEAKER_04]: It was definitely on that day.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's that's an amazing.
[SPEAKER_04]: I really, I just, I, we could do this for 10 more hours, but I know you were generous with your time tonight, the, the future of radio, not, and, and I talk about regular radio, not satellite radio, but it's a, it's a, it's a weird world out there right now.
[SPEAKER_04]: What are your thoughts on, and what's going to happen with the, the biz of radio in the future?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I mean, everything that we ever knew, TV, movies, magazines, newspaper, radio, they all got swept under this telephone.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, everything that we thought of, it's almost even with nightly news, broadcasting is gone.
[SPEAKER_01]: Narrowcasting is the thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to find.
[SPEAKER_01]: whatever that thing is that you guys are obviously doing here with with your show where you're like this is what we're going to focus on.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I don't think the the world is going to see that kind of thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I especially miss it for local.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't agree.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the bad.
[SPEAKER_01]: We all got out and did different things besides that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But one show and one town.
[SPEAKER_01]: where everybody knows exactly what you're talking, you bring up a pothole, you bring up a councilman and everybody knows that is the best funnest radio you can offer.
[SPEAKER_04]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_03]: And the old way broadcast radio will ever continue to exist, I think.
[SPEAKER_03]: It has to stay local.
[SPEAKER_03]: for it to, you know, flex the muscle that it has.
[SPEAKER_04]: Now, when you guys voice tracking 18 stations, you know, in the building, you know, in Auschka, for whatever it is, but I, you know, the thing about the thing that's truly special to me about that era was exactly what he said where you can really, you can really zero in.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's like when I do an impression, I do impressions of a lot of different people, but there's nothing better than when I would do an impression of somebody at the radio station.
[SPEAKER_04]: whether it be a Ron Bennington or or Faz or or one of the sales guys.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's the, you know, when it's that small.
[SPEAKER_04]: Ron is on every day on serious with his daughter Gail Bennington and the Bennington show is just you guys do such a nice job.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's always funny.
[SPEAKER_04]: You're always funny.
[SPEAKER_04]: And we wish you this is such a cool little trip down.
[SPEAKER_03]: Can I make one thing real quick?
[SPEAKER_03]: You go right ahead.
[SPEAKER_03]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_03]: Two things.
[SPEAKER_03]: First of all,
[SPEAKER_03]: I was scared to death when we started doing the stuff at WNEW and you and Fez were so kind and so embracing and I thank you for that.
[SPEAKER_03]: I remember that many years later, but also to this very day.
[SPEAKER_03]: After he listens to the micomerisho, my father listens to Bennington and then every day listens to a classic Ronin Fez.
[SPEAKER_03]: every day and he scared that one of these days YouTube is going to run out and I said don't worry you won't remember anyway but he does listen every day and you continue to be really one of the most naturally funny people that we've ever met.
[SPEAKER_03]: So thank you again.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's so nice and also your old board-up Earl Douglas.
[SPEAKER_04]: Earl, that's right.
[SPEAKER_04]: Earl, the politically incorrect name of Earl.
[SPEAKER_04]: You can't do that anymore, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: I thought it was always referring to his wardrobe.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's just the only color he wore.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he wore black and still.
[SPEAKER_01]: And unlike all of us, he looks exactly the same.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the same.
[SPEAKER_01]: There was something.
[SPEAKER_04]: Black don't crack, Ron.
[SPEAKER_01]: I guess.
[SPEAKER_03]: Did he ever, did he ever finish his book?
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe one that he read.
[SPEAKER_04]: You're the best.
[SPEAKER_04]: Thanks so much.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, and in your work, they take the time to come in and talk with us say hi to Earl say hi to Eddie and drunk.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, drunk and say and say hi to Jim McClure.
[SPEAKER_04]: I remember is a skinny goofball back in the man.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's on top of the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: You guys ought to get in touch with him.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm not doing that anyway Ron Bennington you rock thank you so much for joining us and thanks for coming on our TMOs extra We appreciate that and we'll be back with another episode a regular show for you on Monday everybody