From Freestyles to Frequencies: Ben Rogers, the Jedi Wordmaker

Hey, how about a nice live spot to get things rolling?
Let me tell you about Smokey Rose, the Tex-Mex barbecue joint.
We are quite fond of it, so are people over in East Dallas. It's in the heart of their community.
You need the burnt ends as Smokey Rose. You don't just want them. You need them.
Trust me, it's brisket that melts in your mouth. All their meats are smoked in their wood burning smoker.
Low and slow, the right way to bring out the best flavors.
And if you want to go the salad route, well, they got several of those to choose from and they are all loaded with the freshest ingredients.
Whatever you won't go home hungry at Smokey Rose and don't forget to grab a carefully crafted cocktail.
And the vodka bar will be open. You can count on that. It's located in East Dallas right across the street from the Arboretum.
Smokey Rose has the perfect seat for you inside and a large comfy booth or on their patio.
They are open for brunch on Sundays. Happy hour every day from three until six.
They're located at 8602 Garland Road in Dallas.
And we will be there on the 11th of October. We'll be there from five until nine. The whole gang will be there.
Along with many of our cohorts who knows this man that we're about to introduce today may be there.
I don't know. But you can join your old friends and new hosts from every show in the sunset lounge.
Shippy and grooves will be there.
Beer 30 sports. A clock will be there. The clubhouse. The angle angle with Mac angle will be there.
And new shows such as insurance unhinged. And what you're in game. And of course,
the entire your dark companion crew is going to be out there. That's October 11th from five until nine.
At Smokey Rose. So everybody come out there and see us. But before you do, stop by there.
Try it out for yourself. Believe me when I tell you, you will not be disappointed with the Smokey Rose.
Oh, with the big mic. Oh, okay. All right. Yeah. Okay. Now I get it.
We're going to lightning strike boys.
What happened over there, Grego? We had a little lightning strike outside the window.
All right. All right. Here's a tip for all these Americana lake teams. Don't do it. You said tip.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I would keep jamming.
To take it. To take it. Cullen. Nothing but a big gen X jerk off site.
This is a little lighter. What?
Although somebody would hear that. Oh, shit. I'm back.
Hello. And welcome into another episode of your dark
companion. We are glad you were with us. No matter where you may be, no matter when or how or even
why, you may be consuming this podcast. We are glad to have you out there on the other side.
It is the second of October. The calendar is flipped. We are now in the optional month of
October where it is okay for you to wear pants if you want to or if you don't want to wear pants
wear shorts. There are no mandates in the month of October or April. That's why they call it the
optional month of October. And we are in it and very glad to be so because sooner or later
the weather is going to change. And when the weather changes, you know what that can mean.
Sure. That is changing. Look who we have with us today. Look at him over there.
Gross. It is Ben Rogers of the Ben and Scan Show. Hello. Hello. Hello. It's nice to see you.
It's nice to see you as well. Thank you for doing this. Thank you for the invite. I
got to tell you I'm a little nervous. Why? Because you make me nervous. Why do I make you nervous?
You make me nervous. You make me nervous. It's not your fault. It's my fault. But because of who you are
and what you mean to my life and at so many different crossroads of our interactions,
you've thrown me massive curveballs where if I thought I knew the pitch that was coming,
it wasn't the pitch that came. And every time I leave those situations going, I just respect the
hell out of it. I like the way your brain works. I didn't know what did work. Most people hate
the way it works. I'll give you an example. When skin is out battling cancer and I'm doing a show
at the Eagle with Katie and Christina and I'm like, well, let's do we, we don't know how long he's
going to be out. I don't know if it's prolonged. I don't really know what the situation is. But
I was like, what if we called Mike Reiner and who to us is a God because obviously we fall in love
with talk radio by listening to the ticket and wouldn't even have this career if you didn't start
what you started. And so I called you and said, Hey, skin's battling cancer. Would you mind
coming in? And I expected you to say no. And that was an awesome curveball you threw. You said
absolutely, when do you need me? How long do you need me? When are we doing it? And I was like,
holy shit, this is sorry. I was like, this is, this is rather amazing and you came in and it,
you know, radio as you know can be such a difficult business in any, at any point if you get one
little tiny victory, it can keep wind in your sales for a long time and you just doing that
kept wind in our sales during a very challenging time in our career.
Well now would you like to hear my version of that? Yes. I do remember that. And first of all,
I was very surprised to hear from you because I knew what had been happening with skin. I knew
that he had been out and I knew that you'd been having, you know, all kinds of people in there.
But I'd never really thought you were going to work your way around to me. In fact,
it really didn't cross my mind at all until that day that you called. And my first
knee jerk response was to say thanks but no thanks because there I was nestled in the
comfy confines of retirement, not looking to get back into the game or anything like that.
But right after I said that, something else kicked in. And that's what's wrong with helping
a brother out. And so that kicked in and you hit me with that at the right time and that won out.
The help of brother outside of things won out. So, okay, I went up there and we did the show.
And I thought that that was that. And that was huge for us on many different levels. Obviously it was
it was a big boost. It was exciting and it was really cool. But just having your stamp of approval
on our show on a radio station that wasn't the ticket was pretty powerful. And I remember some
people going, wow, he did that. So he's willing to go on that station. And I was like,
that was not the first curve ball. I had to reach out to you because we were dealing with
some challenges of, you know, we were working with the Russ Martin show at that time.
And I had called you to get your advice on some things. And I didn't know if you were going to say,
hey man, lose my number. And that was a curve ball because you were like, yeah, tell me what's going
on. How can I help you? And when we talked about it and how some of those unique challenges,
you gave me some great advice. And you didn't want anything for it. You were just happy to give
me that advice. And so that's actually the bridge to why I felt comfortable even inviting you to come
do that show with us. Well, that was out. But after that, I called skin. And I was like,
I think he would do more than this. And he was like, what? I go, I think he might want to do,
he, I think we could probably talk him into coming on regularly every once in a while. I don't,
I don't know. But I, he goes, no way. I go, we should at least ask. And that's kind of what led to
us seeing if you had interest in doing something more regular. Well, first of all, I would do anything
for you or skin, you know, anything you want. You've got for me. It was that way. Then it's
always been that way. Let's put this hot dog in your mouth. Let's have some hot dogs. You know,
if I go back. So when we were, when we were at the ticket, it was, I think 2001 or something
like that, doing the maps post game show to 2007. And if I ever had the opportunity to pass you in
the hall, I would just hope that you wouldn't kill me with laser eyes. I didn't know, you know,
so I was like, I don't even know if he really knows who, who we are. But then there was the first
major curve ball was the fan had these stupid ass promotions. We, we learned a lot from the ticket.
And then the best thing I never have dose was leaving the ticket, probably in forging our own path.
Yeah. But when we got over to the fan, we were like, the station, all the shows were in silos.
The morning show had their listeners. The afternoon show had their listeners. We had ours. And
listeners would come up to us and go, man, sorry, I'm a G-bag fan. And I'd be like, we're on
the same team. Like, what do you mean? Like, we were on the same station in December. I'm a Sean
and RJ fan. And I was like, wait, we're a team. And so we kept wanting to take what we learned
from the ticket and have all the shows like be friends and have the listeners be friends and things
like that. But we, you know, sometimes we're successful with it. But we were, they had these events
where they had, it was called sausage fest. And they had, you know, it was like, hey, let's go
grill some sausages in downtown Dallas and have some bands. But the, the, the hosts weren't really
that big of a part of it. And we were in the grind of corporate radio. We were kind of down. And
we were in the back of the stage by chain link fence. We were like, holy shit, there's lines.
And you were just taking a walk because you lived downtown, right? Yeah.
Yeah. I was like, we're just going, hey, we're kind of going, should we say hi?
And we're like, yeah, let's say hi. And we said, hey, Mike, how you doing? And
just walk right over the fence and talk to us. And we thought that was pretty damn cool in itself.
And that, it's so funny the way those little interactions, because I mean,
each one kind of led to us having, you know, more confidence or courage to talk to you about
each next thing. But I think that was one of the first ones.
Well, it kind of bothers me that you felt like you needed courage to talk to me. But at the same
time, I understand it because in those early days of the ticket, I was very protective of the thing.
And I only wanted people in there that I knew and that I approved of. And I didn't know you guys.
So I was, well, I'm not proud. I was going to say probably, but there's no probably to this.
I was a good bit more red-assed about things than I needed to be. And I had to get over that.
And I had to be brought around by you boys. And over time, you did that. I'm not very good at
hanging on to stuff like that, believe it or not. But over time, you know, just let me be for a while.
And just work me. And I'll get over it. I'll get around it, you know.
What? That's Greg. Oh, yeah. Well, that's another exact point. Yeah, that's another case in
point. I was never more red-assed about anybody than I was him. I haven't totally forgotten,
you know, the way I felt at that time when all that stuff with him was going down and everything.
But now, years have passed. And I see that it's not productive at all to hang on to that stuff.
Now I can't quite totally let it go, you know. But it's not like it used to be. And that's kind
of the way it was with you guys. You guys worked me for a little while and wore me down. And I came
to see that these guys are okay. In fact, I kind of like these guys. They're all right.
That's awesome. I love it. I love it. What's going on with Rollertown? I know that's something
you like talking about. Oh, I love talking about Rollertown. And, you know, we have a sign in this
room, a 10-tacker, which Becca put up for us. And thank you guys for doing that. When I called
my brother about that, I thought he was going to cry. He's our CEO and Skin and I go, hey, they're
going to put up a Rollertown 10-tacker in there. You're a dark companion. He was like, what are you
getting me? Rollertown is, it's really the culmination of our entire voyage doing this,
in this entire business. Because, you know, what we realized at one point was we're essentially
growing brands. When you work for a radio station, you have, you know, these partners and you do
these live reads and you're growing brands. And like, for instance, one of them was Balkona's whiskey.
Balkona's whiskey, a whiskey out of Waco, Texas. And my brother was the CMO. And so he believed
in us. And so we were endorsing Balkona's whiskey. Well, we had great success with that. Their
sales and Dallas Fort Worth were really high. And then eventually, I think Balkona's was sold
to Diagio and everybody involved in that did really well. But as an endorser, you just have a small
part in that. But you kind of work for the corporation and you're helping this company grow.
But we wanted something that was our own. And so we were on the lookout for, we knew we couldn't
have a Benin Skin, Benin Skin's dry cleaners and Benin Skin's pizza and Benin Skin's sports bar.
Why not? I was going to say, what's stopping you? Yeah, why not? Because we, I think that's
up in his skin's dry cleaners. I would love to get my shirt pressed by skin.
So I would too. I'd love a Benin Skin car wash. Yeah. Skin in a bikini. We were just looking for
one thing. And yeah, I'm at my son's youth baseball game. And that one of the dads is just small
talking. And he goes, you know, we bought a building that'd be great for a gun range or a brewery.
We don't know what we're going to do with it. And I was like, brewery. Interesting. And so
that sparked this idea where we're like, hey, what, what if it's a brewery that we started? And so
we started Roller Town, brewery in Salina, Texas. The day of our grand opening was the day that
the state was closed for the pandemic. Our big grand opening event was the day. And because we
didn't serve food, we were shut down. And we opened up a website, my brother built a website. He'd
never done that before. We said, you can come in three weeks and get four packs to go, but you can't
stay. And you got to drive this line to get them. And we put it up for sale online and we sold out
in 57 minutes. Really? And we're like, okay, there might be good. There might be something here. And so
we've just been scrapping and clawing. It's another incredibly difficult business. And we've grown
and grown and grown and we announced a deal with the City of Frisco. So we're building a big new
facility on Main Street, two doors down from Toyota Stadium and FC Dallas. And we're going to
build a big, giant, massive entertainment facility and brewery. And the thing I'm probably
most proud about is along the way, the way we developed our relationships with athletes is
we never burned any bridges. We would get inside information. And then we were right in front of
a microphone and we never betrayed that trust. We were proud of that. And so when the time came
for us to go to some athletes and ask them to invest, they all did. All the ones we asked did.
And so, and you know, it's a funny thing. They take notice of that stuff. And they don't forget it
because I too have built bridges with those guys and never burned them. And they do remember.
Yeah. I mean, you treat them right. They'll treat you right. Exactly. And there were times where,
and you know this, when you have someone on sports talk radio, they're like, okay,
you're having Mike McCarthy on. Well, tell him he sucks. Don't be a pee. Like, how come you're
kissing his ass? You know, like, tell him he sucks. I'm like, you don't understand. He's a guest
on the show. It's not what this is. But you know, yeah, you know, I get that, but they don't. Right.
But they think that, you know, you get a guest on your show that maybe doesn't have things going
real well for them right then or maybe the team sucks or he's not playing well or whatever.
Then you should just go after him. Yeah. And that's not how it works. It's not how I mean,
if you want to, or if you don't want to forge a career, I guess that's how it works. Right.
The other side of that, you, you, you went somewhere that I never had the courage to go. And,
and I think all of us have wanted to do this. Who've interviewed a guy. And this is not when you're
interviewing a guy who's a local guy who you have a longstanding relationship with, but say,
somehow you get some big name athlete on the show. And they're just not terribly interested in
doing the interview. And what you did with, I wasn't Kenny Lofton. Yeah. That is something that
every radio personality in the world is like, yes. Everybody had their liders out. You're like,
you're not terribly interested in this. So neither are we, right? Yeah. Well, I was getting one
word answers. What I didn't know at that time is that's really all anybody ever got from him.
You know, he's just not one of those guys that likes to do interviews. But if you don't like to do
interviews, what do you say yes for? You know, if you don't like to do interviews and you don't
want to come on our show, fine. Yeah. You know, I don't think that's going to be the end of the
world for anybody. Yeah. So I don't take it was the rights holder, the rangers or anything like
that. There was no obligation. No, they're absolutely lost. And he didn't want to do it. All he
had to do was just tell us no. And that whole scenario never happens. But he did come on. And
the rest as they say is history. That was giant balls power move. All right. See you later. And
that's when you're listening to something and you realize how special it is because you're
listening to that going, holy shit, this is the place to be. You know what I mean? It's like he's
not going to play the game. He's going to, this is the game. It was the closest skin and I ever
got to that was Mike Evans, the A&M receiver in the bucks. And he just, we didn't have the balls to
do what you did. But our version of that was as soon as the wheels came off on the interview,
we just started asking him the worst questions ever. You're like, skin's like, what's your favorite
animal? You know, he's like, I don't know, zebra and boom, going right under the next thing. It's
like this interview really sucks. But we didn't have the balls to say it. Well, I don't know if it
took balls, but maybe he caught me on a day where I was already kind of pissed off and didn't need
much more to shove me over the edge and get me to do something stupid. That was a long time ago.
It was going to say to be fair. I think that was probably around 2007, I think, when Kenny
Lobson was with the Rangers. Yeah. That was near the end of Grego's time with the show.
So there's probably a bit of tension each day. Yeah, probably. So probably. So
exactly what made you want to get into radio? So skin and eye were rappers, as you know, I mean,
I mean, I'm washed. He's done it. He can. He can. He can. He'll come up with something
in just a second. You watch. We're just old men. But thank you, Groves, stop that.
But we were, you know, we were still chasing a music career. And we'd gotten pretty close. We
were, we'd opened up for house of pain and naughty by nature and some pretty big name acts. And
there was a local group called Mad Flava, and they had signed a priority records. And we were
friends with them because skin interviewed the DJ, baby G. And so they kind of liked the vibe of
what we were doing. Sorry, if that's my phone going off. Sorry about that. That's okay. And they were like,
let's let these guys open up for us. And they were a big deal. So they opened up for everybody.
And so we kind of wrote their co-tails and got to open up for a lot of people. And we got pretty close.
There was one point where salt and pepper's label was interested in us. I don't know if they
really offered a full deal or whatever, but we were smoking a lot back then as well. And you know,
we've gotten pretty close, but we just couldn't get over the hump and probably had something to do
with the smoking too much. But we didn't make it. And so we were still chasing it. It was
we was escaping us, but we had jobs as careers. I had a piece of shit jettah that had the
car stereo stolen from the state fair. I had robbed my mom of her jam box, just took it from
her house. It was broken and I had a coat hanger antenna. That was riding shotgun for me. We would
go to this business card company at like 4 a.m. cut business cards and then go deliver them to
print shops all around the Metroplex. And I would when the ticket came on the air, we were listing.
My brother tells me I was the ninth caller ever to call into the ticket. And that was a big thing
for me. I was the ninth caller. And so I fell in love with the ticket. And I never studied
journalism. I never studied radio television. But so you were on the first skip, Bayless show.
We listened from day one. And so we were like, this is different because these guys aren't
not to take a shot at anybody, but they're not sports dorks. They're not nerds. They've got sports
credibility. But I'm like, these guys are musicians. And they're in bands and they're funny. And
this is edgier than just give me the box score. And we fell in love with it. And so all day every day,
we'd be skin and I'd be driving our delivery routes. We'd just be listing that station all day
every day, listening to the ticket and fell in love with it. And so we never said, hey, let's go
be in radio. We said, holy shit, let's go try to get in at the ticket. And you know,
skin's dad is a basketball coach. He's brilliant. He could his brain power could be used for
anything. He just chose to use it for music and sports. And we just kept trying to weasel our way
in and finally found a crack and got in and we did the maps post game show and Bruce Gilbert,
who named our show. He's like, why don't you just we were calling it basketball Jones. He's like,
why don't you just call it Ben and skin? That's your name. So we're like, yeah, we were sending him.
We were on Fox Sports 1190. And we were doing the show basketball Jones. And we were sending him,
I think CD ROMs. And we were like, would you mind listening to this? And he did it out of the
kindness of his heart. He coached us. We didn't even work there. And then they gave us the
maps post game show one year. And we were we had arrived. Like I for my whole family, that was the
moment that my family was like, okay, maybe Ben's not a complete fuck up. He's got on a ticket.
And so we were doing the the maps post game show. And you know, we turned that into a Saturday
show and to vacation fill in stuff. And we were like, holy shit, let's figure out a way to do
this forever. This is awesome. So had the ticket not existed, we wouldn't exist in this business.
But I don't know if you remember this, but the the wheels came off. And one of the first maps
post game shows we did, we skin was destroying somebody. Like he's just annihilating something
that happened in the game. And Mark Cuban calls in. And I'm like, Mark Cuban called in. We made it.
And but it turns out he wanted to call in to argue with us about the point skin was making.
Yeah. And so he starts arguing with skin. And we don't really have a good familiarity with the
clock. And at that point, I think the argument went on for 45 minutes. And we blew through commercial
breaks. And he's going at skin and skin is not holding up going right back at him. And me,
I'm like, guys, let's just lower the temperature. Isn't it great that we're all talking?
And skin's like, shut up, Ben. Mark, here's why you're wrong. You know, and it's like, so it's
like example of our relationship. And so the next day, Mark Cuban goes to Dan Bennett and says,
you need to fire these post game guys. Get rid of these guys. I don't know who they are. And
I don't know where you found them. Get rid of them. And Dan Bennett said, hold on, Mark, I'm going
to let Norm Hitzgiz review the audio. And if Norm says that they were making things up, because
that was what he was saying. He was like, they're making things up. They're not even on point.
This is not accurate. So they had Norm Hitzgiz listen. And our fate was in Norm's hands.
And Norm listened and goes back to Dan and goes, not only did everything that skin guy say was
right, but where the hell do you find him? He's good. And had another dude with me. And so Dan
Bennett goes back to Mark Cuban and says, we've analyzed and listened to the tape. You know,
we don't have any problem with anything they said. And so if you want to kick him out great,
you'd be doing us huge publicity favor, because we can say the outlaw maps post game show that
got kicked out of the AAC. If you want to kick him out, go right ahead. And so because of Norm,
Dan stood up for us and we got to keep on going. But this whole thing could have been derailed at
that moment. Yeah. All right. Let's go back before all that though. Let's go back to when you were
kid. Did radio mean anything to you then? Oh, yeah. It was everything. You know, it was before
Friday night videos came along. You know, that's where we got our music. And you know, when I was
a kid, I think my brother had the zoo sticker on his door. And I had the eagle sticker on my door.
And it was like, we were all about it. If you could get a Q102 t-shirt or something like that,
you had made it. And so I remember Van Halen tickets had gone on. I want to say I was in sixth,
seventh grade or something in Richardson. And Van Halen tickets went on sale for a show in Dallas.
And I think they went on sale at ticket master. And we snuck out that night and walked from Richardson
to Walnut Hill in 75 to get Van Halen tickets. Because that's what we were into. And so that's what
we listened to on the radio. And that's so absolutely, you know, growing up in Richardson,
all the local stations were a huge part of our radar. Now, were you really serious about being a
rapper? Oh, yeah. You were, weren't you? Oh, yeah. Put everything I had into it. So when I was growing
up, again, I think it was eighth grade. I started, I loved rap music. I would listen to,
what was the public access station here? God, I can't believe it with Kanoann. Kanoann. Yeah.
Easy, Eddie D and D ask you had hip-hop shows. And I would listen to them. And so I remember them
playing, you know, it was like Will Smith when he was first coming out. And I was like, wow,
listen to this storytelling. This is so damn cool. And then I was into the Sugar Hill gang. And I
was into all those things. And so I never envisioned doing it myself until around eighth grade. I
remember being in class, ignoring the teacher. And I was writing a rap. And I had spelled rap wrong.
I wrote W R A P. You know, it's just grown up in the burbs. Not really known what the hell's going on.
And so over time, the teacher correct you. You need to learn a trade.
And so, that's when I picked up welding. Later on in high school, one of our good friends,
Tadrak Magatash was one day I saw him at school and he was wearing a milk carton
in through his belt loop. And I was like, what is that? And he goes, MC Milk, you know,
you don't know him. Milk is chilling. Yeah, big milk at that time was pushing their agenda.
But, um, and so there were different things kept happening. I kept getting more and more interested
in it, but never interested in doing it myself or pursuing it. But Skin and I would be at these
parties. We partied way more than we should have at a young age. And whenever there was that
kind of parties. Yeah. We had parties. We went to parties. Don't say what kind of parties.
Just dumbass high school kids. Hey, their parents are gone. Let's go drink a bunch of beer at their
house. Let's play quarters. Let's play drinking games. Let's listen to music. Okay.
We're talking about a lot of holes. Yeah. Exploration. And so, we were, we would always end up going
to the roof and we had a friend who could beat box. And so this guy's name was Ty Tonton. And he
could beat box. And so we would just find ourselves on the roof of these parties freestyle rapping.
I know what is beat boxing? You know, making the drum sounds with your mouth. Okay.
Okay. And that's what you needed. You had to have a beat to get going. And, um,
baseball, baseball, baseball, baseball, baseball, baseball. Yeah.
And so we have it right before you might have a career.
Oh, you would. And so we got into it. And then at some point, this is one of my favorite
skinlines ever. When I tell this story, he, I had gone to a junior college and then went to
Texas Tech and then he had gone to the University of Texas. And, um, by the way, we, we,
we missed over 70 days of high school our senior year. 70. RISD has just cut in school.
RISD had this policy. They tried it for one year. If you had an excused absence, you could
miss as many days as you wanted. So we found out where they were going to match the signatures
on the excuse notes and we forged that. And then every excuse we had would match to that.
And so our senior year, I think he missed 77 days. I missed 71, 73 days. We would be at school.
So our parents didn't know, but we would go to all four lunches, peruse the hallways,
dropping a class sometimes. But wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute here.
You were there though. I didn't realize that. I thought yo, we're still going somewhere.
I didn't realize that's where you started having your two sandwich as a day prize.
Yes. Yes. How can this even be? I mean, they think that you're not there because you've
got an excused absence. But then they see you walk around the halls. Yeah. They, they got rid
of the policy after one year. But my, they didn't, they never figured this out. So they did after
the year. And so, um, my dad got a call, uh, long line of calls that he got that were very
disappointed, uh, that disappointed calls to get. But he was like, uh, but keep in mind our style
of like being class clowns or whatever, we were never disruptive to where the teachers didn't like
us. They liked us that we were friends with the teachers. We weren't jerks. Yeah. We like cracking
them up. But, uh, so the vice principal who I knew very well calls my dad, uh, Mr. Rogers,
we need to talk to, uh, need you to come down here. So I can tell you what happened. And, uh,
my dad goes down there and he said, well, Benji is that was my name. He goes, Benji missed, uh,
73 days of school. And my dad goes, what? And he goes, yeah, and we've got this stack of excuses
here that are, we believe are forged. And so that's going to be 77 absences. He's going to have to repeat,
you know, his senior year. And, uh, my dad's like, oh, good. No. And vice principal goes, unless
you tell me these are from you. We, we like Benji. We think he's a good guy. And, uh, you know,
if these are from you, we're just saying he's going to graduate. No problem. Are these from you?
And he's like, yes, they're from me. And so we graduated, but this is the, the, the point I'm
making is that I graduated with like a 69.9999. Nice. And skin was on the honors rule. Even though
he missed 77 days, he was graduated with the white thing around his, he was on the damn honor
roll. Missing that many days. That is so skinned. How did he manage that? I don't know. I don't know.
I don't know. But we, so we, so he was able to get into Texas. I, I applied to Texas. They were like,
and then I applied to Texas tech. And they were like, you got a Texas driver's license?
You're in. Come on. Anybody's welcome at Texas tech. I got to. So, so he heads for Austin. Yes.
And you head for Texas tech. And at around this time, uh, we were probably smoking a lot more
and into hip hop a lot more. And when we started making hip hop and we would go to a studio and
actually record songs, he was really good at production. He would make the beats and I would do
most of the rapping. And he would rap a little bit. And um, we started doing these shows opening
up for these bands. And we're like, Oh my god, we're going to make it. We're going to be huge rap
stars. Now, where were shows like this? Take deep balls at that time. So Exodus, uh, Exodus and Deep
Elm was one of the main spots. There were a couple different spots around that time. And, uh, weirdly,
we somehow got connected with the Mavericks. And so we were like friends with Tony Dumas and Donald
Hodge and guys like that. And we ended up shooting a rap video at one of those spots down in
Deep Elm. And we were certain that we were going to be that we were going to make it. And so we
dropped out of college to pursue that. And my favorite line that skin says is we found out later,
you didn't really need to drop out of college to pursue it. We just kept going to college. And, uh,
so, you know, we chased that dream. We crashed and burned it. And when I, when we didn't make it,
I was devastated. I thought it was my whole identity. I wanted my life to end. I was like,
I'm devastated. But what I didn't realize and I realized now is when you chase a dream and you
fail, it gives you the courage to chase any dream because you're kind of bulletproof at that point.
You've had your nuts kicked so much. You're like, oh, yeah, why wouldn't we try this? And so when
it came time to trying to get on the ticket, we're like, why not? We just tried to make it in music.
Why wouldn't we try? And one of the most interesting things about life to me is we got really good,
I think, at making music and freestyling where you're coming up with the rap at the time and
spontaneously and you can't write it down. You're just boom, boom, boom. I remember the CD you
put out. Yes. Hell yeah. And it is still one of my favorite CDs. Did that, that is another
curveball that I have? Do you have been a supporter of our music and that has always meant so much?
Yeah, I mean, I, yeah, we talked about this before. Yeah, I'm told you what I think of it.
Yeah. I mean, I thought it was really good now. I might be jaded a little bit just by the
fact that it is you doing it and it's kind of incongruent to me that a guy like you would be doing
music like that. But I think that I can put all that aside and just judge the product for what it is.
And I mean, back in the day when you guys were doing it, you gave it to me. I believe I told you
what I thought of it. Yeah. I thought it was great. And I still do, man. I still do. You're
really, really good at it. For most people doing something like that would be kind of a
lark, you know? Yeah. But you were really, really good at it. Well, that's, that's really nice of
you to say. I need you still are. I'm washed. Let's get it going again, man. I'm totally washed.
I'll tell you not. This is this one of my favorites on this. This song is about a metaphor of working
too hard and not realizing what's important in life and comparing it to an astronaut who's going to
get lost in space and it's too late to get back and realize that his wife and kids were the most
important things all along. So it was fun. That's me. Yeah. That's him. So, but the thing about it was
is that we heard intros on the ticket. We heard introsongs. And we were like, okay,
those intros sound like they were not made by professional musicians. In some cases, I was like,
I think we could make a good introsong. And they value it because we're like in the studio.
Like, and so we started recording these introsongs. We did it for our maps post game show. And then
we made one for Norm that people still remember. He doesn't come to laugh when he would have
listened to 1310. Please take your seats. We're about to begin. Yes. What is it? You're about to
spend some time with a legend ever since the decade started with a seven.
Yes. And it was like, well, not the one or is he doesn't come to laugh when he covers the draft
because he's a whole schooled true pioneer. Oh, the crowd.
And I, you know, I'll be driving down the road. I'll flip over and see what's on the ticket.
I love that. It's so good. And I'll hear the ticket VO guy go, you know, he doesn't come to laugh
when he covers the draft, you know, and I'm like, they're still kind of using it in some ways. And
so, you know, at that time, skin had made so many really cool instrumentals. And we took
them up to the ticket to be used as bed music. And I don't know if they know it, they still use it
for bed music. I'll be listening to another Donovan doing an ad. I'm like, that's a beat skin
made behind that right now. Really? Yes. It's crazy. It's a kind of little Easter egg for us when
we, when we listen. God. Well, just that's only one more way in which you're an amazing cat.
Well, that's nice of you. But you know, you're, you're talking about a guy that looks like me
doing hip hop. You know, I, I looked like Al Bundy, you know, I look like an undercover police officer.
And, and that's funny. And then because I later got my shit together enough just to go get a
job and sales. And I mean, I'm, I'm the black sheep in my family. My brothers are rock stars.
One, one was the CMO of Walmart, like one of the top marketing people in the world. The other
one owns his own agency was in charge of seven up. Like they're rock stars. Me, I'm a disaster. And
so somebody, like, it just depends on a what point you knew me along the way to where you're like,
because I have never had my shit together ever, ever, never. Neither of us. You're going to try
to get together a long, a lot longer than you. But this, this lane you created where people can
talk about the teams they love and goof off at their buddies, like they're in a bunker clubhouse
together is, like, was a gift from heaven to fall into my lab to, you know, I've been full time
in radio somehow since 2008. Like my kids, my kids, this is the only career they've ever known me to
have. It's just remarkable. And I'm grateful. Now, what's the status of your kids these days? So,
my, my eight, this is how hard it is to get into the University of Texas now. My 18-year-old
graduated as a sophomore in college or almost a sophomore. So he'd already taken dual credit courses,
knocked out his freshman year. While he's still in high school, while he was still in high school,
had like a 1,300 on his SAT. If he ever had a grade that was below a 95, my wife and I would look
at each other going, is max okay? Like, you know, we had one teacher call about him one time.
They're like, hey, man, this teacher called us. His senior year is like, he's in his phone too
much. Like, he's looking at sports and stuff and we're like, what's his grade? And they're like,
he's got a 99. I'm like, yeah, people tell me that. Right. I'm like, I think he's okay. So,
both his uncles went to grad school and undergrad at Texas. And so he only wanted to go to Texas.
If he looked back at any of the pictures of him his whole life and he's wearing Texas jerseys,
he wanted to be a longhorn. But he could not get in. That's how hard it is to get into Texas.
And so he wants to be a sports agent. He wants to get a lot of green, be a sports agent. And so
he applied to a couple other schools that had good programs, football programs. But he never thought
he would need him. He thought he was going to Texas for sure. And if he didn't get in, he'd go to
JC in Austin and then transfer to Texas. But I'll be damned out of nowhere. Alabama offered him a
full academic scholarship, full ride. Like, it's nothing. What about women? You mean one day,
the phone ring. And it was somebody from Alabama saying, Mr. Rogers, we'd love to have Max come to
the University of Alabama. And we're prepared to offer him whatever it takes to do this.
I'll tell you what, it's even weirder than that because he applied to those schools but was so
horse blinders about Texas. Yeah. He wasn't even checking his email. And then he caught an email that
was like three weeks old from Alabama that said, we'd like to offer to pay your full ride. And
he forwarded it to us. He was like, I think Alabama's offering to pay for my college. He goes,
I'm not going to go though. And we were like, what? Hell, you're not. You are. Yeah. I was like,
Sanford son, heart attack. But he went and visited a couple times and he said when he went,
he wanted to hate it. And he tried to hate it. But he eventually kind of liked the campus and
decided to go. And now he's Bama for life. You know, he was at that Bama Georgia game and he's
got friends now and he's he settled in. So our oldest is at Alabama. I sent him the long text,
you know, you've given me some great parenting advice too. And you got to, I know you have. Yeah,
we you got to meet Max. We went to a Maverick game and you got to meet my son who was on a date
at that game. And we talked a lot about, you know, Jordan and we talked about Max and we talked
about raising kids and whatnot. And you know, he's a he's one of he's the one we have to worry about
the least. All right. Like we have ones we have to worry about a lot. We have to worry about him
the least. But yeah, he's settling in out there. He's he's having a great time. And I got a 16
year old who is requires 80% of my parental parental concern. And then a 13 year old girl who is
in teenage attitude right now. The fun's about to start here. Help me out here. Now give me a
forecast of personality wise, attitude wise, what I'm embarking upon. Just hang on. Just
grab on to something. Hang on. It's going to be a rough ride. But it will end. One of these,
I mean, you're you're going to feel like you have totally lost her at many different points
along the way. And it's going to be really, really hard for you to deal with. You're going to think
you failed as a girl dad, as a parent. But don't worry about it because one day you're going to get
her back. Just just know that. Understand that. If you've never believed anything that I've ever
said to you, just believe that. You will get her back one of these days. 13 sex for everybody.
It doesn't matter what your gender is. It is the worst year. Yeah. And it is the year that all
the hormones hit and all of the things begin. But I promise you, like she'll start coming back around
at 14. Good. It may still take a while with a girl. No, she won't. No, she won't. It'll be it'll be
well later than that. It'll run over. In fact, it might take until she's into her 20s.
Why? But but you'll get her back. Don't worry. I mean, I'm only a girl. I don't really know. Right.
Well, why haven't you been on the other end of it? I kind of been on the more important end of it.
How come every time I tell you that you've given me really good advice, you're like, what is he
talking about? Because I never give, I give people bad advice. No, you've given me, you've given me
great advice. Well, do you know this, this you can believe, this you can believe. If you've never
believed anything I've told you, this, you can believe in, there'll come a day when, when we're
all well down the road. And I may or may not even be here, but you will think of this conversation
once she comes back around and you'll go, you know, he was right about that. I promise.
I think that lie. You've been right about pretty much everything we've talked about. And I don't
know if you, I mean, since you don't remember this great, this great advice you've given me or
you didn't think it was that great. The last time I talked to you on the phone, I was crying.
And I don't know if you knew that or not, but you gave me some very sound advice that time too.
And it was when they decided to part ways with the freak. And I called you and I was like, you
know, we're still under contract. And so we have some tough decisions to make life decisions.
You know, we're hurt and we're sad and we're frustrated, but, you know, we've got families and
we've got a contract, which is different than, you know, a severance. It's a contract. Yeah.
And what you said mattered to me a lot. And so I just called you and I was like, hey, I really need
your guidance here. And I need to know what you think we should do. And, you know, when, when you're
every bone in your body is kind of leaning towards making an irrational decision that could probably
hurt your family, it's good to get some sound wisdom of like, hey, from somebody you respect
tremendously in the field. And you're like, look, this is a tough situation, but you need to do
what you need to do for your family. And like to hear that from you meant the world to me. And,
you know, I could, you're about the only person in the world I could have heard that from at that
moment. And it would have had that impact. But I'm grateful for that. I'm grateful that you,
you said that. I'm grateful that you cared to be compassionate. And this should give me some
wisdom in that moment. And it still to this day means a tremendous amount to me. Well, I appreciate
that. But the other side of that was that, I mean, after the freak, after what happened up there
happened and everything. I mean, I realized, looking back on it now, I realized that I made one
serious, serious mistake and had a very bad lapse in judgment or just wasn't seeing the big picture
at the time. Because man, once I got in there, I couldn't believe how much the game had changed.
I'd been out of it for like four years. And foolishly, I, I don't know if I really thought this,
I probably didn't, but I didn't take it seriously enough either way. But I thought that I would be
walking into a situation that was pretty similar to what I walked away from. And I found that nothing
could have been further from the truth than that. And that's where I blew that, I mean, I,
I can't have blew it on that front, but I didn't want you to do the same thing and go down that road.
Right. Right. Well, I'm grateful to this day. And that, that whole experience was
so challenging, obviously, but I think we learned lessons we speaking for myself. I learned lessons
from that, just learning about how sometimes you feel like you can control things that you can't.
And you, you know, you go crazy trying to figure out how to control things that you have no say in
or no control over. And at some point in our lives, we have to be able to compartmentalize things
and still provide for our family and do what we have to do. And it's just, it was, it was very humbling,
but I'm, I'm so proud of what we did together because I think that's one of the most special things
I've ever been a part of for all of its warts or how it ended and all those things. But while it was
happening, it was, I enjoyed it more than anything I've ever been a part of. Well, you will never
convince me or they will never convince me. Nobody will ever convince me that we were not having
an impact out there and that that impact may have not shown up ratings-wise. But I had so many people
come up to me and tell me that they liked what we were doing and that they were into what we were
doing. And I still have that today. People still come up to me and tell me that that they miss it,
that they thought we were on a good path, that we were giving them something that was not out there
anywhere else and that they appreciated it. And now that it's not there, it's, you know, a chunk of
their, their scene that is no longer there and they do miss it. Yeah, I think I can speak for
for both of you all that any moment that we were on the air, it did not feel like we were struggling
or the things were against us or whatever. Like I felt great about the shows we were putting out.
I felt great about seeing all the people we, you know, I got to work with each day. I just hope like
there's no regret or guilt or whatever, especially in your part been because you're the one that
really this all falls on, you know. But seriously, it was just a really amazing experience, at least
personally for me and, you know, the fact that I get to work with Shupie again in a third
workplace and all that, like that wouldn't have happened if I kept going on the path that I was
and I wouldn't have had any regrets. I don't think of staying on that path, but getting that
opportunity to get back into radio or something radio adjacent like we're doing now, it's,
it's still the best feeling in the world. Yeah, I have no regrets about it at all. You know,
there were, there were some some great memories that we made along the way and then in that short
time, but maybe the thing that I'll take away the most with regard to you two guys is while we were
plotting and planning and trying to figure out a way to make it work, I remember the day we called
you, Ryan's and it was, hey, we're getting groups and of all of the time, all the different things
we had talked about along the way, that was the single happiest he ever was and he was, you were
downright giddy. Oh, yeah. I was. I was. That was a real red letter day for me to get to work with
Shupi again and and do those things that we used to do in that way that we did them once again and
we really kind of fell right back into that mode. And it was really, really cool. Yeah, that was
a really cool thing was, you know, Shupi and I had seen each other in the 10 years that I was out
of radio, but you know, we didn't know how it was going to work. Like I felt like I would get
there eventually maybe, but I didn't know, and especially the first few days, there was so much to
learn, so much to figure out, but the chemistry that I felt with everybody, but especially Shupi,
it did just come right back. We're especially the way that we were situated, you know, you were
always looking pretty much right into the control room. Yes. We were always able to catch each other's
eye or, you know, just what? Ashley. What? What's so funny? We think of like dating. Oh, we
look deep into each other's eyes. Oh, we look deep into each other's eyes. Oh, yes, we do. I got
lost in those baby blues. But it's a, it's a magical chemistry that you guys have with one another,
because you're the only one that likes groups. And that's really, no, it's really amazing.
Incredible. No, it's like you guys, everyone loves both of you. And it's like, but you guys have
this thing and when you see each other and hit the Shupi start popping off, everybody loves that
so much. But it's an authentic, really cool chemistry. We still do it every day when I
went to his house. That's right. Every day. You know what, you used to, you used to call,
what would you say about him? Would you say the devil himself or something? What did he say,
something like that? I call you the devil's own. You call me the devil. Yeah, he's the devil.
Yeah. And I, you know, we, we've worked with groups a lot. And I think he's the best to ever do
what he does. But once we started doing a show with him, I understood what you meant,
because he can just destroy your soul with drawings. And you're just helpless.
You just got to take it. And they're all hilarious. So you just got to sit there and take it.
And he could just take them and make the world see just what an idiot you were.
Yes. And let's go to a dark place here.
And to that end, you know, the whole tight, you guys, when you had Tim Rogers on that
in pot, you guys talked about in posture syndrome and all that. That's something that has been
with me the whole time. I keep expecting someone to kick down the door and go, hey, dumbass,
get out of here. How are you in here? You're, you cannot be here right now. Yeah, I have to
with you. Yes. I understand. I had it too. And it's something that's followed me around my
entire life. I will probably always will. There's just something in the back of my head saying,
you know, you don't belong here. You don't deserve any of this. You're not good enough for this.
So probably what you ought to do is just get away from it and go disappear into the
never, never world somewhere. See, I understand why I have it. I don't understand why you have it.
You, you, you were at a Mavs game with the Saroi boys and the arena spontaneously gave you a
standing ovation. You should never have that. Because say that was one of the coolest things because
I was actually filling in for a DJ Poison Ivy that night. So I got the heads up that Chupi was
there. Got to play the hardline theme for him and all that. So, but seeing the crowd reaction,
like that went for a decent while. Yeah. It was cool. Yeah. It was awesome, Chupi.
It is pretty awesome. Hey, I want to ask you about this. One of my favorite people we worked with
in our career was the great Randy Galloway. And Skin and I got to work with him at ESPN for a while.
And it's been neat for me to see you guys kind of connect now, you know, at this point in your
careers. And I love, I mean, both of you guys are giants, you know, and mean so much to us. But,
you know, obviously the way the ticket was positioned, it was like us against the world, right?
And so he was out there in the world. But you guys are cool. What do you think about Randy Galloway?
Well, you know, for years and years, we went up against him when he was a WBAP.
And it was, I mean, when I compete with somebody, I can compete pretty hard, probably harder than I
should, but I'll grind on you. Now, though, damn. See what I mean? Yeah. He's a devil.
He's a devil. He's a devil. He's a devil.
Where was I? Just to go about, right? Galloway. You're grinding on Galloway.
Yeah. I mean, now he's out of the game. I'm out of the game. And I don't know how he feels about
it, but I kind of look back at it and say, you know, you really got kind of uptight for what?
You know, and we've made friends. He came on to the first round of your dark companion.
We had a really nice conversation that day. And if I ever run into him at a long time,
but if I ever do, I will greet him warmly. And I hope he's well. And his work out there and the work
that he did, both of the paper and on the radio is missed. Yeah. Agreed. And I want to share this
with you. So while we were at ESPN, Randy Galloway was so good at being a columnist and being a
talk show host. Very few people could do both, right? He was excellent at both. And the crazy
thing is he did both just by being himself. Yes. You know, just being himself. And so
they would say to the ESPN Dallas guys, they started ESPN Dallas and they had these riders.
And they're like, hey, we need you guys to go be radio hosts. And we need you host to go be
riders. Right. It's not that easy to go do both things. He made it look easy because to your
point, he was himself. But Randy was, you would have, you would have loved the way he dealt with
corporate America because he was the 800 pound gorilla at ESPN locally. And these big suits would
come in town. And they're having this big meeting. And he's in the meeting going, or they're
going, hey, guys, we need you to do this, this and this. And Galloway is in there with sunglasses on.
And he's like, guys, this is all bullshit. Don't do anything. These suits are telling you,
you just beat yourself. You know, it's like it was rad, dude. It was really cool to see him. And I
know you would have respected the hell out of that. Oh, yes, I would have. I would have. He was
one of a kind. He is one of a kind. Agreed. And the game misses him, man. The game really misses him.
I miss Frito too. We've been thinking about him a lot lately. You know, Frito, obviously a great
relationship with all you guys, but especially groups, I believe, right? Don't you? Absolutely.
Like, we were really close, especially when I was interning with Norm, but even after that,
you know, he was always the one defending me from other management types that maybe didn't
enjoy some of the things that I would try to do. But Frito is just an incredible friend. And,
you know, he actually showed up to one of our remotes, one of the speakers, these remotes,
like a few weeks before he passed. And it was just shocking because he seemed vibrant. He
seemed typical. Was it sardonic, Frito? Just kind of, you know, always acting like everything is
a little bit stupid, but still a really great attitude about everything. And yeah, I still can't
believe it's what been almost a year now that passed. Now, for those who may not know who we're
talking to, Frito is Mark Friedman. He was Norm's producer for years, right? Yeah. And he was
another of the many, one of the kind personalities that you run across in this game. And he had a,
um, um, shall we, shall we say sarcastic and if not sardonic, yeah, way about him. Yeah.
He was skeptical of just about everyone and everything, but he was a, oh, no, no, no,
shooting. Oh, God. Yeah. Sorry about that. Fine. He was a walking conspiracy theory.
Yeah. One of the only guys in radio, one of the only guys in radio, you'd run across that
actually had spirals of manifestos. And we, we, we were at ESPN. He was our boss. He brought us
over there. And so we were at ESPN. And when we went to Back to Back World Series trips with the
Rangers and the Mavs won the NBA championship. And we traveled to all those games home and away,
or went to the home game, traveled to the away games with Frito and spent a ton of time with him.
But he actually went to our same high school. He went to Berkner high school, same school,
Skin and I went to and I think he helped us kind of wedge our foot in at the ticket as well and
then helped our career later on. And I think about him a lot and miss him. And he was such a,
such a good dude. He was a good dude. I miss him too.
Does having to constantly spell your name bother you? What do you mean?
Just what I said. Why do I gotta spell it? Don't you have to spell it a lot for people? No.
What do you mean? My last name? Or your, yeah, yeah, mostly your last name because it's,
what do you think my name is? I think it's Rogers, but you know, some people put a D in there.
That's because Ben is a D. Yes.
If we have a person, Rogers and a Dalen Rogers, Texas, Westland,
then the entire season, last year, I spelled our starting quarterbacks named wrong,
because I didn't know that I was playing it. Yes.
Yes. I wonder what is the percentage? I should look this up. What is the percentage of people
named Rogers that spell it with a D and without a D? How about with a D is considerably lower?
Right. Yeah. I bet most people spell it like you do. Yeah. Those jerks need to explain
how to spell their name. I'm just doing it the right way.
Right. I mean, how did Fred Roggers do it? Like, let's go to the phones.
Fred Roggers. Hey, Fred Roggers is probably the most famous Roggers, right? Mr. Roggers neighborhood.
Yes. I think Fred Roggers. Right. So he's the king of the Roggers name. So he should, you know,
there was Phil Roggers. He might have something to say about that of the Dallas Morning News.
Okay. No, he's not as popular as Mr. Roggers. Okay. Here's where it could get complicated
Aaron Rodgers. Yes. Aaron Rodgers. Yes. That could be probably all right. What we need is for
one of these guys who spells it with a D to start pronouncing it that way. Let's go three
syllables here. Rodgers. Yes. Rodgers drops back. That does feel like something Aaron would do
just to be different. Yes. Get some more notice. Yeah. You think the cowboys are going to win
the Super Bowl this year? Absolutely. Absolutely. I don't see how they couldn't. It's all falling
into place. Exactly. But it really is. They're all in by the way. I want to make sure that we ask
this question because it's on my calendar. We need to ask you about anal bleaching. Okay. Yeah.
So I'm for it. And there's 17. I do. I get professionally bleached though. I don't ever. He
doesn't practice. I don't trust amateurs around my butthole. Unlike you guys who are really
out there taking huge risks. Now I've never understood who is it getting bleached for?
I don't know. Are there imporiums that do this or are there are anal bleaching for everyone?
Yeah. I've never been never been really a butt play guy. It's never really been a factor for me.
I think there's pink got dangers of pink guy. No, no. It's like you really have to be
comfortable with somebody to get down in there. I would be very careful.
Where might one get this done? I don't know. Ben's got a guy.
Have you got a lot of guys? I got a staff. It's a bleached crew. I call them in after a tough
weekend. No, I mean, just in general. Do you have a lot of guys? Oh, you mean Ben's thought.
Yeah, I think I do. You think you got a lot of guys? I think I do. And I know what you're talking
about. Yeah, I think there's I think is it post Malone has a new song out where he's talking about
I have a guy for that. I think it's a cut. And it's the idea that everybody has a guy. If I find a
guy, like I didn't matter if it's car detail guy, handyman guy, fenced-stained guy, car guy. Yeah,
I stick with them loyally for life. And we have a guy who we go to for automotive advice. He's just
been that guy. And while I was pulling up here, I saw my wife texting him, hey, I just took my
son's car to the dealership and they say we need this valve. I was like, honey, you he's not your guy.
You can't bother him for the rest of life on it. He's my guy. Only my car needs. I can only call him.
What's going on you guys? What's going on you guys? What's going on you guys?
So funny. Was that the Saturday show?
Yes. And so the automotive edge with hurt Chuck.
And why was there interaction with him?
Okay, so I remember this because you, me and skin, filmed that Chili's roller town commercial.
And after we've finished and we're driving away, skin freaks out calling both of us saying,
dude, have you heard this car show that's on the freak at, you know, the Saturdays at Tanner
that's going on right now? He's like, this is like the greatest radio we've ever heard.
And it just kind of progressed from there where we of course tune in after skin hangs up with us.
And then I think it was like the very next week you somehow wrangled your way onto a show or
no skin was calling in and just asking crazy questions. I got questions about my muffler.
And he just called into their show. And then and so then strip all Steve would mix with them,
right? Yeah, it's strip all Steve and KT had their weekend show. Rest in peace.
Yeah. And so yeah, so then all of a sudden they started mixing with them and it became
whole thing and because they would say, hey, guys, we're going to be out in Rallette today.
And if you come out and join us, we'll make you a burger. And I'm like, man, I don't know,
finance, I don't know, financially, that makes sense to drive your Rallette for a free burger.
They this guy made the burger master, but he is the burger master. Yeah, it's kind of a
poor investment of time. It's not money. But see, did I talk you about raising a girl yet?
Being a girl dad, I did. Yeah, yeah. We got too much. We got through all that.
Yeah, we got through all that. I'm just going to hold on and hope that we get she gets into her
20s quickly. It's so much attitude. It's like we're experiencing it like yesterday. So she's
a basketball player. And I love this. So with my boys probably pushed them too much to play baseball
and get lessons and stuff like that. They got burnt out early. So with her, she loves basketball.
I wasn't going to try to push her in basketball at all. But I love basketball. I still play.
It's not well, but I love the game of basketball. And so she's right handed. And she can get to the
bucket pretty much anytime she wants right now. She's one of the taller girls, but she's got decent
handles, but no left hand yet and no shot yet. And so she always gets the ball right next to the
sideline and the sidelines and extra defender. And so I said, I'm going to tell her one little thing.
I'm just going to tell her one little thing. So I was like, hey, honey, I noticed that you're
getting the ball on the right. Can I show you something here? Look, pretend that's the goal.
Like when you get the ball, you're over here on the right side. And since you're really only going
to your right, you don't have a lot of space over there and you're getting jammed up over there.
So if you start maybe at the top of the key, you get that whole right side of the court to go to.
And I just wanted to point that out. She goes, she looked at me like she wanted to kill me.
She goes, that's the play we run. And I was like, you only have one play. She goes,
that's where the coach wants me. And I was like, oh, so you couldn't say she goes, no, that's
the play. And I was like, good talk. All right. All right. And I'll see you at your next game.
13, dude, the attitude is wrong. Oh, man. I remember it well. Well, I'm about out of shit here,
man. Unless you've got anything else I've run through my entire list of stuff to
talk to you about. And I cannot thank you enough for doing this today, man.
This, this is an honor. And I've been enjoying watching the episodes.
The team you've assembled is insane. Like I love everybody in this room. You have a really
talented team. And you know, all of us, you see what's happening with like sports franchises,
even they don't even know where their TV content is going to go. Are we going to start our own
company? Are we going to do it? We're at a fascinating time in media where it's really hard.
It's all evolving and changing. And, you know, and so I see you guys out blazing a trail.
It's really cool to see the quality of the stuff you guys are putting out. The video looks gorgeous.
It's obviously a very entertaining, but the team you've assembled is phenomenal. So, dude,
I'm honored to do it. Thank you for the invite, man. It means a lot. It will get better. He is the great
Ben Rogers. This has been your dark companion. But before we go, I must tell you one more time,
about Smokey Rose, the Tex-Mex barbecue joint, which is in the heart of their community,
over there in East Dallas. Now, when I say they're in the heart of community,
the community, I mean that. They are really a part of the community. They are located right
across the street from the Arboridam on Garland Road. You can't get much more East Dallas than that.
You need the burn ends at Smokey Rose. Believe me, when I tell you, you don't just want them.
You need them. Brisket that melts in your mouth. All their meats are smoked in their wood-burning
smoker low and slow, which is the way you're supposed to do this. It brings out all the best of
the flavors. And if you want to go the salad route, well, they got several to choose from.
And they are all loaded with the freshest ingredients. They're all about that. It's Smokey Rose,
too. Whichever way you choose, there is no wrong way and you will not go hungry. And don't forget
grab a carefully crafted cocktail. The vodka bar will be open. They're located in East Dallas
right across the street from the Arboridam. 86.02 Garland Road. They're open for brunch on Sundays.
They got a seat waiting for you right there in a large comfy booth or on their patio. And don't
forget, on the 11th of October, we will be out there from five until nine. The whole gang will be
there. You can join all your old friends and your new ones host from every show on the sunset
lounge. That means Shippy and Groobbs will be there for right out loud. Yes. Here that Shippy and
Groobbs. You hear that bin? I've got a show. I love those two guys. Yes. Beer 30 sports o'clock
will be there. The clubhouse will be there. Mack Engle with the Engle angle will be there. And
new shows such as Insurance Unhinged. What you're in game. And of course, the entire your dark
companion crew will be there. We will be there. We want to see you there. October 11th, five to
nine Smoky roads. Smoky roads on Garland Road. Not Smoky Road on Garland Rose. Smoky Rose on
Garland Road. We want to see you there. Anything further here? Anybody? We're tailspin.
Let's go. We're tailspinning. All right. Well, let's spin on out and crash and burn.
All right. I'll go to pants to all of
you.
Your dark companion is a stolen water media presentation.