Local Hour: What Did I Miss?
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Hello! I am so happy to be back. What did I miss? Did I miss anything? Anything at all? No? Good. I'll get to the events of the American weekend in just a little bit. And I've also got a truly terrifying story to tell you from an otherwise lovely vacation safari in South Africa with our adventurous friend Ron McGill. But first, let me tell you about where I have been.

and where I think and hope and pray I'm going after what I believe to be one of the most inspiring experiences of my life. The audio audience will have to forgive me, but for those on television, here are just a few of the more than 17,000 plus photos that Ron took at my side.

We went with our wives through Botswana and Zimbabwe, and it really was the trip of a lifetime, filled with light and laughter and love and some of the most breathtaking things I've ever seen or felt. Today has been Greg Cody's Tuesday for many years. It's usually a circus, complete with animals, because in the shadow of those Tuesdays, swinging on a vine around all the proceedings, is this giant of a man, Ron McGill from Zoo Miami, who towers over us in more ways than one.

He's the longest standing guest our show has in its history and its most popular. Absurd as it sounds, I had to fight ESPN executives on nothing more consistently than keeping his non-sports segment on our show so you can imagine my delight when they eventually started using him on SportsCenter to decide who would win fights in the animal kingdom between sports mascots.

For more than 15 years, while becoming one of America's foremost wildlife authorities, Ron has made weekly appearances with us and never been paid a solitary cent.

but his is the only charity with which our show is ever aligned consistently because A, he personally bypasses all bureaucracy to get funds directly to people he trusts to care most correctly, and B, he's a man of uncommon moral rectitude. Ron has never had a drink, a cigarette, or so much as a traffic citation. He hasn't taken a sick day from work in more than 30 years.

His idea of being reckless and irresponsible is, I'm not making this up, having a Coca-Cola. In these troubling times, I really do wish more people had a fraction of his decency and sense of right. Ron organized this intimate safari for just a few of Zoo Miami's biggest donors. I'm not one of them, but you are.

You, 10 and 20 and $100 at a time, represent the single largest contributor to his endowment, which has now ballooned to more than $3 million and represents the greatest professional pride of a distinguished 44-year career nearing retirement.

It was an honor to be with him as he gave thousands of your dollars to the people in Botswana protecting the endangered cheetahs and the people in Zimbabwe successfully growing the population of the endangered painted dogs. I paid full price for the safari, of course, because every penny of that endowment goes directly toward the animals and conservation efficiently, no matter how much we joke that Ron is buying Cadillacs and clothes with that money.

But you're the only reason I even got this opportunity. And I've got to tell you, I spent the last two weeks in a perpetual state of awe and wonder and discovery I didn't know possible. My God, I saw and learned so much.

It's one thing to know that an elephant's trunk has more than 40,000 individual muscles and that a human only has about 700 in the entirety of the body. And that that trunk can do everything from pick up a dime to pull down a tree. But it's quite another to sit stunned in a vehicle because you simply can't believe this five-ton creature can somehow walk right by you so silently.

Frankly, I could have gone without ever learning just how small and scared I'd feel to startle a mother elephant in front of her baby and have her trumpet all of her menacing disdain in my direction. Every day on this trip, we went on eight hours worth of excursions deep into the unknown. Animal dung everywhere, but not an ounce of human litter anywhere to be found.

Lions sleeping with nursing cubs close enough to touch. Same with rhinos and their nursing babies. Elephants and hippos and buffalo threatening us. A giraffe standing in a cemetery of elephant bones and spreading bow-legged to reach down to the ground just to chew on those bones for calcium.

Jackals and hyenas and honey badgers and antelope and zebras and warthogs and cheetahs and leopards and so many birds, including penguins. Yes, penguins. I didn't even know there were any of those in Africa. An impala at one point ran right past our vehicle because it was being chased by a lion. Ron was so stunned by that one that he forgot to lift his camera.

He said he had never seen it happen before, just like he hadn't before seen a pack of rare painted dogs surrounding and protecting like soldiers, the whole out of which they dug up 10 hidden weeks old puppies that needed nursing.

It would not, however, be the most surprised he would be on this trip. There was this one terrifying morning in the darkness that really crystallized for me, especially after what happened with Donald Trump over here and then what happened with Copa America at Hard Rock Stadium even closer to home, that life and death, chaos and danger are all around us all the time, and all we can really do to protect ourselves is create the comforting illusion of safety.

for ourselves, for our children, for our democracy, for our sanity. More than ever, it seems, especially in our divided and gun-toting country, armed America, safety really is, at our political rallies, at our soccer games, at our concerts, in our classrooms, an optical illusion and an optical delusion.

As you saw with our Secret Service, and as you saw with overwhelmed personnel trying to keep soccer passion at bay because they thought this would be like a Miami Dolphins game, we're surrounded at all times only by the semblance of security. It isn't real. There's no such thing as security.

So I went to South Africa searching with no illusions. I was a world away from all my comforts and about a million miles deep into my discomforts. No televisions, no computers, staying in the most remote places I've ever been, the temperature fluctuating by 50 and 60 degrees between day and night because it's winter there. I might need a gallbladder surgery I've been trying to avoid and I had a pain in my stomach one night.

The fear that gripped me the rest of my sleepless night was the realization that in an emergency, I was 160 miles from the nearest village. I probably don't need to tell you that I'm not much of an outdoorsman. I've been near the Arctic Circle and in other parts of Africa, but this was the most out of my element I've ever been.

Going with McGill, though, is like traveling with Tarzan as your tour guide and travel agent. He's been to Africa 54 times. And how much danger could we possibly be? I wasn't thinking at the time that Steve Irwin was killed by a stingray. We stayed in tents, kind of the same way Stugatz mocks J.J. Watt for trying to appear he was roughing it by working out in a cabin that had an elevator. I know what you're thinking. Here's this rich guy lecturing me on his high horse. But I got to tell you,

It was an elephant. I'm lecturing you from a high elephant. You have to pay extra for those over there. Our tents were obviously luxury tents with running water, but they were still tents. And the giant animals we could hear just outside at night, hippos and elephants and buffalo and lion, don't really have to respect the tents or the encampment or anything humans put together to make it feel more like order. We were very much in the wild where not many humans had ever been.

So one morning, McGill was making the rounds to wake folks up at 6 a.m. He was with a guide, Donald, who had 27 years of experience. Donald's uncle, also a guide, had been killed by a buffalo goring 10 months earlier. In the dark, along a pathway carved out amid trees, McGill and Donald accidentally startled a buffalo that was sleeping on its side in the bushes a few feet away.

They hadn't seen it. It was black, both the buffalo and the early morning in an area with very few lights. In a split second, in a panic, the buffalo got up and charged the noise it heard. A bit like a matador, Donald temporarily blinded and disoriented the rampaging beast with a bright light, but all that did was change the animal's direction, not its bucking speed or its wrath.

McGill was missed by a matter of feet hiding and trembling behind a tent pole that again only provided the illusion of safety. That beast would have wrecked that pole and McGill. Without that light, one of this show's best friends is dead. It's as scared as he has ever been. The buffalo missed him and gored and destroyed the tent instead.

It had charged the only two people among us who wouldn't have been killed by it. Any one of us without their experience would have run or made the screaming sound that ended our life. McGill, a giant of a man, was so thankful that his wife Rita wasn't with him that he immediately ran to where she was and wept in her arms.

We probably don't spend enough time in the conscious gratitude for the precious frailty of life and living, or in the conscious mortality of how it can all be taken away with the next step in the next second. If Trump hadn't moved his head a few inches a moments earlier, all of America descends into an anarchy that makes the January 6th insurrection feel like ballroom dancing.

I really didn't expect to return from safari after 40 straight hours of travel to discuss an assassination attempt. So let me preface everything on this subject by saying the obvious and proper and most respectful thing, which is that there is zero place in America or politics or humanity for this kind of violence ever, no matter your affiliation. So we should all be uniform and loud and condemning it. That said, holy shit.

Man, I got the news of this assassination attempt in the strangest way, in an airplane over South Africa.

That photograph of a bloodied Trump shaking a fist in the shadow of the American flag popped up on my phone without explanation or elaboration in a text from a friend. I don't even know how it got through. I wasn't online. I didn't have any idea what it was or the context. I initially thought it was some weird Photoshop meant to look like George Washington crossing the Delaware River.

That photo might win the Pulitzer Prize and the election. And it, like safety, like security, is one hell of an optical illusion. Trump isn't running for president to live in the White House. He's running for president to not live in prison. You can't embrace and incite and unleash the crazy in your constituency and expect it to always march trained and neatly in the other direction.

You can't be the party of guns and expect that all the bullets will always go in the other direction either. That photograph is badass, no question about that. Probably the most badass photo an American president has ever taken. But it is brazen and craven too, and not just because of how immediately Trump saw and grabbed it as a political opportunity. It isn't brave to stick your head out when there's an active shooter. It's dangerous. It's stupid.

I expect Trump to cheapen that photo by putting it on merch and using it to fundraise before I get to the end of this sentence. But I did find the reaction of the people all around him interesting. It really is staggering that in that moment of shock and fear and horror that people stayed where they were and some pulled out their phones, such is the comfort in the illusion of safety. But I can't blame them. I probably wouldn't have known to flee either.

It's the feeling for many of us at the moment, a helplessness so overwhelming and complete that no action feels like the action most critical to survival, as if we're all just hoping to make it home to cry in the arms of our most cherished loved ones. Listen, I've had trouble mustering enthusiasm for much of anything since the death of my little brother, but you know what was the most inspiring thing about my trip these last two weeks?

Ron McGill himself, he's 64 now and has been doing this since he was a teenager, 44 years at the zoo alone. But he still somehow has the enthusiasm and wonder of a child discovering awe for the first time. He's an award-winning photographer, but a lot of his photographs get ruined because he can't keep his hands still from trembling with excitement.

His exuberance rushing into the cold at 6 a.m. every morning allowed us all to borrow his giant, unending enthusiasm. He also happens to be the older Cuban brother I never had. And I don't need to tell you that, broken since losing Lebo ten months ago, I'm valuing brotherhood more these days than I ever have.

I've lost too many friends in the last few years of dark struggle in ways that have hurt me profoundly, but I'm comforted so much by the ones who have rushed to my side, one of whom is Ron. Truth is, I probably should have taken the last two years off, but I didn't know when we started a business that my little brother was going to need a year of nursing and then die. This show and my life has taken a battering as I stumbled around in that darkness."

but I do feel stronger, inspired, reinvigorated. Not healed, but healing. I had misplaced my passion, but the older brother I never had just walked me through the wilderness and lent me some of his. I don't know how I'll ever repay him, but I'm sure you know how.

Video, please put up the information for his substantive endowment so one of the most loyal audiences in the history of this space can help repay my friend for his never-ending support. We have a pretty cool relationship, you and us. Intimate and vulnerable and connected.

The greatest compliment we get as a show, and we get it more than any other, is when you tell us that we helped you through a dark time because our laughter felt like medicine and our company felt like company. That relationship, like all the best ones, is reciprocal. So allow me to return the compliment as I return from the healing vacation of a lifetime that was only possible because of you.

Thank you so very much and forever for staying by our side, for carrying me, and for helping me get through to the other side of my darkest time.

Summer's the best time to run the way you want. Dial it up with new challenges and programs and bring your workouts with you to make the most of outside sunny days. Stugatz, guess what? What? You know what you can do with Peloton? What? Get the app, go outside, ride a bike. Well, I thought you ride Peloton inside. Well, you do, you can ride Peloton inside if it's a rainy day or if it's cloudy or you just don't want to get outside, maybe it's too hot.

summertime, go outside. I record a lot for my office with you and you've noticed it's sitting there yet. It hasn't been used. Well, now's the time. Summer's the best time to start that push. Right. Can we do it together? Not on the same bike, but we could join a class together. I used to do that. We used to have Guillermo Tan. I'd invite people. We'd all take a class together. Okay. So I think you're starting to get concerned about my health and my age, Billy. I,

I sense that with you. We're beyond starting. Okay. Whatever road lies ahead, your training starts here with Peloton Tread and Tread Plus. It's not just a bike, a treadmill too. I'm going to go outside. I'm going to get in shape. I'm going to do it with Billy Gill. I want to be in your class. I want you to be my instructor. You know what? I won't be your instructor. You don't want to spend more time with me. No, I can schedule a class and we can ride together. I won't be the instructor of the class. We can have Camila could be our instructor. I like the Grateful Dead class. My daughter, she uses the Peloton. Mm-hmm.

She was on it once and an instructor who was playing Grateful Dead tunes. Let's do that. Okay. Why don't we go for a run outside? Guided run. Peloton. Me and you. That's something we can do together. Okay. Turn on the app. Me and you go outside. Enjoy the summer. Call yourself a runner with Peloton at onepeloton.com slash running. All right.

Don Levitard. I haven't told you guys that on my honeymoon in Africa, the hot air balloon caught fire. What? What? Stoogatz. There are animals beneath you. Jesus. Animals that can eat you. And I look up and the balloon itself has a hole that is growing because it is on fire. And.

And the guy seemed like it wasn't the scariest thing in the world. It's like looking at the flight attendant, making sure if they're not panicked, you're good. And they were not panicked, but we absolutely did crash land near some dung.

But the basket ended up sideways just sort of spilling us out into the African plain. Yes. The basket's supposed to land flat. It did not land flat. It landed and then went to its side and spit us out. And my head ended up near some fresh animal dung of some sort. When does poop graduate to dung? When you're in the African plain. This is the Dan Levatar Show with the Stukats. I don't know about you guys.

But I want to hear more about Donald. Yeah. I mean, which one? Yeah, not the Donald I thought we'd be talking about today. Oh. The first note I get is there was also a hippo inside the tent.

Welcome back. I've missed you guys. Legitimately missed you guys. We miss you. And something that I didn't know that I missed so badly was that classic sports reporter cadence. What a parting shot. I was expecting you to toss it to Lupica at the end of that. Did power go out again? Was Dick Schaap in the corner giving you the wrap-up signal like three minutes in?

I never did the show with Dick Shep. John Saunders. Elephant can't pick up a dime. Get out of here. All right. Now Stugatz has to do one of equal length detailing the sphere and Lake Tahoe. Little did I know that the person to my left was tripping balls on acid. But I did know.

But thanks to Jimmy Roberts, who guided me through Lake Tahoe in the American Century Championship, I found God. And God was a 58-foot putt for birdie by Marty Fish. Jimmy Roberts has been coming there for 40 years, still has the enthusiasm for it. I love you telling me how Ron's endowment is on the up and up and then detailing a really opulent trip.

That he's taken 54 times. 54? And then you said he was like, he's a government employee. Oh, no, it don't make sense. It's all an elaborate grift. I go to sleep every night worried that they're going to catch us. So there I was, sucking on a balloon. What was in this balloon? Who knows? But I was laughing. But here comes a touch of gray. Very.

It's the only song you know, right? I was kind of hoping that... Tulsa time. No, that's a different one. I was hoping Dan went hunting, and that was the biggest twist. He has a trophy hunter over here. It ends with him just like with the skull of a rhino and a couple of elephant tusks. I come back totally pro-guns, pro-killing animals. So after that elephant killed me, I decided there was only one way to go about this. Fight fire with fire.

That elephant's head now hangs in my living room. I do think that Stu Gatz needs to do one of those because I walk in today and because of whatever he's been doing the last two weeks, and I don't know what it is. You know what it is. It's calling his agent, finding out how he can get on Undisputed.

That was yesterday. There's going to be a bidding war for Stephen A., isn't there? That's what's going to end up happening there, right? A seat just opened up for him. I come in today and Stu Gott says, because he's been off for two weeks, I've got an assortment of top five lists. Top five athletes who can own Fourth of July, Lake Tahoe, Lakes and Generals, Safaris, Ruths and Doctors for Dr. Ruth, and Dan, I've also got an all-time Big East team. I do. You do?

Big East football or Big East basketball? Big East basketball. And the reason I have my all-time Big East team is because Kemba Walker retired. He's going to get to the Basketball Hall of Fame. If he gets in, I am done with the Basketball Hall of Fame. He has no business being there. None. He's the Hall of Good. And it's not just good. It's Hall of Good. There's a Hall of Good and a Hall of Good. He's Hall of Good, but he's on my all-time Big East team. How about that? He's Hall of Peaked in College. Yeah.

You have an objection. What an alibi. No, no, not really. But you have an objection about a number of Hall of Famers, right? You've got Joe Maurer in Makes You Insane. It reinvigorated the same passion I was just talking about in you when you started ripping Joe Maurer making the Hall of Fame this week. He's a first ballot Hall of Famer. He has no business being a first ballot Hall of Famer. Zero.

No business being a first ballot Hall of Famer. But Mike, I forgot to point this out yesterday. I spent the two days at Tahoe avoiding Joe Maurer. Did you guys create content from Tahoe? No. No, no, no. We just went on vacation. I spent much of it trying to avoid Stu Gatz because he reminded me of something I didn't want to be doing, which was work.

So you avoided Joe Maurer, but he's not. Are you as mad at Joe Maurer as you are about Bo Jackson being in the Kansas City Royals Hall of Fame? It's an absolute joke. Bo Jackson is only getting into the Royals Hall of Fame because he's Bo Jackson.

It's at Dan. It would be weird if he got in because he was Buddy Biancolana. Dan, you can't be 17th on the all-time Royals home run list and make it to the Royals Hall of Fame when Steve Balboni is not in. I mean, Balboni has to be in. Balboni is not in the Hall of Fame. He has more home runs than Bo Jackson. I'll tell you what Bo was good at. He was good at striking out.

He didn't play a lot of games for the Royals, but he is still 11th all-time in strikeouts for the Kansas City Royals. How is that man making a baseball Hall of Fame? He's overrated. He is overrated. OPS is under 750. He is not in the top 10 in homers. He is not in the top 10 in hits, RBIs, or anything. He's overrated.

He is top 11 in strikeouts, though. I mean, it's a joke. Seriously. So he's not top 10 in strikeouts. When you think Kansas City Royals, how many names do you go through before you get to Bo Jackson? You think of Steve Balboni, don't you? You think of Saberhagen. You think of Frank White, Willie Wilson, Amos Otis. You think of Balboni. You think of John Wathen. You think of Larry Gurra. Dan Kresenberry. Quiz. Oh.

I mean, it's absurd. Zach Granke, Kevin Avery. I just want to name some more recent ones, possibly. Mike Sweeney. I mean, Hosmer. Can you play for me, please, in honor of Stugatz and how well he does this Mad Dog character, some sound I missed while I was gone? Or if Biden doesn't come to his senses, or if Obama...

Or, you know, Clinton, whomever the, it's Obama. Michelle and Barack if Barack Obama. I'd love for politics to not matter that much to me. I mean, Danny Tartable. Legend. David DeJesus.

Are we doing this? Are we just doing royals? Yeah. Are we doing it? Kevin Apier? No, we're not. Come on. Wait a minute, I already did Apier. Mike McFarlane. Sorry. Mike Farland's.

Barik Obama. I want you to do the whole thing again. I want you to play the whole thing again so you can hear him stumble through the end of this. Or if Biden doesn't come to his senses, or if Obama, or, you know, Clinton, whomever the... It's Obama. Michelle and Barak. If Barik Obama... Matt Stairs. Joe Randa. Oh!

Matt Stairs was a Royal? He played for everybody. I don't remember him as a Royal. Oh, man. DH for hire. Yeah, he was. Mercenary. He did play for everyone, though. I'm with you. I was just guessing. Yeah.

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Don Levitard. The elephant went into a 7-Eleven and bought a pack of cigarettes. But my question to Ron is this. Stugatz. That joke didn't really land the way you wanted it to, did it? We all just stared at you. It didn't land at all. This is the Don Levitard Show with the Stugatz. You guys went to Tahoe just for fun? Yeah, well, Stugatz is definitely expensing it.

You talked to Jason Kelsey on a voice note for seven seconds, and that's getting on like God bless football. Yeah, I went there for fun. I paid for it. I had a great time. I love that place. I do. I love that tournament. I love that entire place. I love everything about it.

And I told Mike yesterday, I told the crew yesterday, Jason Kelsey, he doesn't own that tournament yet because it's still Travis's and Patrick Mahomes. But within two years, Jason Kelsey is going to own that tournament. In fact, I'm convinced after spending time with Jason Kelsey, he's going to own everything. He is a rock star, that guy. There were thousands of people following him around the golf course in which Aaron Rodgers was playing on. No one following Aaron, just Jason Kelsey.

I found myself feeling bad for both Kelsey's because they the way they have to react anytime there's a Taylor Swift song played. It's crazy. Like I saw three different times over the weekend where Travis they're playing a Taylor song. He has to sing all the words and do the finger pointing and the dancing. Let there be one video on the Internet of him seeming annoyed by a Taylor song and that'll be it.

Their comfort with fame is almost envious to watch how easily they slip it on without fear and with monster charisma and confidence in themselves. It's an unusual thing. Well, the Taylor Swift economy has been very good for years.

The Kelsey family business. Wait a minute. Yes, of course. But they had tons of personality beforehand. Yeah, but they don't overnight become the number one podcast in America. They might over time. But that podcast. Instant sensation. Microwave. Number one smash hit. The Taylor Swift thing just totally...

exponentially grew their celebrity. Oh, it definitely helped. There's no question about it. How could it not? But what Dan is saying is that podcast was already on the right track before he met Taylor Swift. That's not what anyone's saying. That's what I was saying. I agree, but it just fast-tracked everything for them. Jason Kelsey and Travis Kelsey were the most famous people at a golf tournament. They might have had a bigger gallery if Steph and Justin Timberlake were there like they were in years prior. Much dwarf the size of Aaron Rodgers' gallery, like you were saying. There were...

Four starting active quarterbacks in there, and the retired former center for the Philadelphia Eagles had a much larger gallery. That tournament broke attendance records without having Patrick Mahomes and Steph Curry there. Jason Kelsey was the substitute. I mean, he was the new guy in the tournament this year. What I'm telling you guys, or what I was trying to say, is that they were ready for it. It's the surprising part to me that...

A center for the Philadelphia Eagles can be so comfortable in his hairy, heavy body that he would step immediately into that and still be himself publicly in a way that's authentic and doesn't have the veneer and the crud that so much celebrity has. And not jaded by it because Taylor Swift's celebrity is unlike anything really on the planet.

right now travis has always kind of wanted to cross over as a celebrity he's always been kind of looking for it he's always been super affable and throughout all of this being put on that fast track getting chewed up by this fame monster that surrounds that pop stardom he's still really authentic he's still very much the same guy as it would appear he still carries himself a similar way than he did like prior to all of this at least from our experience in lake tahoe he's

very much the same dude. What I found truly amazing was the second Travis got there, because he's the bigger star of the two. So Travis got there a couple of days after Jason. Jason was holding court, holding it down until Travis got there. The second Travis got there, the relief for Jason Kelsey, who because all the credit, they had to have security detail just to get Kelsey to the putting green. And Jason Kelsey finally got a moment to relax.

because the crowd was off of him and they were all over Travis Kelsey. It's crazy. That's when you struck. Yes, I did. Right in the driving range. Unsuspecting Jason Kelsey. Take a little picture. I realize now why Stu and myself, we go to Lake Tahoe the way that Ron McGill goes to Africa. There is just such healing in the lake for us. Yeah.

So you took a picture here that you were showing me because you're proud of it? You definitely got to do a monologue in which behind you is B-roll of photos of Jason Kelsey and Jack Wagner. Dan, I'm sorry. I apologize for repeating myself, but I told this yesterday. Jason Kelsey, the reason I took that picture is Jason Kelsey, after a practice round, is perched on some sort of rock.

And there are thousands of people around. And he is signing autographs, shaking hands, kissing babies. And I went up to him right in the middle of the pack. And I said, hey, you need to learn a word. Mix it into your vocabulary. No. And he laughed. And, you know, we had a chummy moment. He pushed me a little bit. And then a half hour later, I asked him to come on the show. And he said yes. And I said, listen, I told you to say no. And he said, I'm not saying no to you. And so then I asked him to come on the next day. I did. I did.

And he was willing to do it with Travis. But I let him off the hook because I want him to focus on his golf. So he signed my hat, took a picture. He's coming on God Bless Football this week. Why do you act like that around people? I don't know. I always ask for a picture or an autograph. I don't know. Do you treat people like people? I don't know. Hal Morris. Good point. Put it on the poll, please, Juju, at Levitard Show. Do humans just exist for Stugats to request things from them? No.

Warren Grimaldi. Who else did you get autographs from? Well, that's a good question. I had some hats out there. Charles Woodson signed a hat. I ruined that hat by asking Derek Carr to sign it right after.

Are people still doing autographs? I thought the selfie had replaced the autograph. I didn't even think. People go there, and that's the opportunity because everyone's super nice with their time. They had to institute a rule at the American Century Championship this year because Stugatz tried to walk in wearing six hats. He said he could only wear one hat, one jersey, because people would go there and wear like nine layers of jerseys and just camp out at a hole. Billy, I got an autographed hat by A-Rod. How about that?

But the thing is, is like I saw this at Super Bowl. You just have them autograph your dirty hat. And then you're like, you know how much this is worth? It's like nothing. It's filled with your sweat. And you don't even remember who the people that signed them are. You just ask them to get the. It's like you do it for the rush of it, I think. And then once you do it, you don't even remember who you've asked. It started with Michael Penix. They were promoting Sharpie at the Super Bowl. That made sense. I think it was Roma Tuesday. Right. I had to sign the hat. Because they had.

They were promoting Sharpie. That's how we do it on Radio Row. Yeah, but then you asked little Dickie to sign your hat for no reason. Who's that? Exactly. That dirty Travis Matthews hat signed by Charles Woodson and Derek Carr. You could get a lot for that on the internet. Never wore it. I mean, it was a new hat. I bought it just for the occasion to get an autograph. I have to imagine Ricky Batalico.

That a lot of people listening to this have in their garage or in a drawer somewhere that autograph they asked for and never looked at again. I don't know where. Going through Stugatz's stuff, I would assume, would produce an assortment of worthless crud that is just a memory that he doesn't care about anymore of him requesting something from someone else, which isn't a special moment. It's a way of life for him. Right.

I got to tell you, though, it did feel good. Mike was out there for his anniversary. I was trying to work, but I wasn't. I was saying to myself, if I could just speak one word into a microphone, I could expense this entire vacation. You were trying. But we couldn't figure it out. But I got to tell you, it did feel good outside of that picture with Kelsey and the autograph, not asking those guys for anything. Yeah. Just hanging out with them. A welcome vacation from you always hustling. Yeah.

is you realizing I don't have the means to actually hustle here. Correct. I have no microphone to walk you over to. I can't speak to you, so I just hung out with him. Technically inept. I am nothing. And I'm three hours behind. Fuentes won't come in at 11 p.m. Eastern. There's always a lonely guy in Lake Tahoe, Dan. Usually it's Brian Kelly. This year it was me.

You're saying three hours behind and I feel two weeks behind because the world is moving very fast, obviously very crazy. And, um,

I'm wondering, as we talk about some of this stuff, if you guys, any of you, have ever had the dream or the recurring nightmare of being late to class or missing your graduation or not being prepared for a test. Because I don't know if that's an affliction only for good and responsible students and if you guys were that or not.

And I feel like that today because I don't know what you've talked about. I've been off of the grid, so I don't know a lot of stuff that's happened over the last two weeks. I tried to cram some last night, but it seems like a ton of things have happened in the last two weeks. Well, you can breathe a deep sigh of relief because we had Wimbledon covered. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

In fact, we covered the last 15 years of men's tennis yesterday. We nailed it. We did. I mean, tennis has never been discussed more in a sports radio show than it was yesterday with me and Mike. I'm embarrassed. That's not true. That's not true. I'm proud. It was the first six minutes of tennis that have ever been discussed on this show. Without a joke or having to work on a funny name like Nefi Perez or Jeff Supan. Tom Gordon. Oh, wow. Flash. Flash.

Dan, it's funny you mention it because while you were gone, we wanted to make sure that when you got back, we could fill you in on everything you missed. So here you go. Let's watch. Natural. I hear the drums echoing tonight. What she hears only whispers of some quiet conversation. She's coming in 1230 flight.

The moonlit wings reflect the stars that guide me towards salvation. I stopped an old man along the way, hoping to find some old forgotten words or ancient melodies. He turned to me as if to say, hurry boy, it's waiting there for you.

It's gonna take a lot to drag me away from you There's nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do I bless the rains down in Africa Gonna take some time to do the things we never had

The wild dogs cry out in the night as they grow restless longing for some solitary company. I know that I must do what's right. As sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti. I seek to cure what's deep inside. Right in the middle of this thing that I've become.

It's gonna take a lot to drag me away from you. There's nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do. I bless the rains down in Africa. Gonna take some time to do the things we never had. They fired Berhalter? They did.

After five long years, Dan, the national nightmare is over. If you're listening on the podcast, there was headlines going on with that. It wasn't just Taylor singing Africa by Toto. Good job by Taylor. Taylor, man, what a decision to do that. Was it? Was it?

Prove tricky. It's funny that you make that helpful addition to the video audio differences because somebody out there might have been thinking, did I miss the Berhalter lyric in listening so closely to that awful song Taylor produced?

Summer's the best time to run the way you want. Dial it up with new challenges and programs and bring your workouts with you to make the most of outside sunny days. Stugatz, guess what? What? You know what you can do with Peloton? What? Get the app, go outside, ride a bike. Well, I thought you ride Peloton inside. Well, you do, you can ride Peloton inside if it's a rainy day or if it's cloudy or you just don't want to get outside, maybe it's too hot.

summertime, go outside. I record a lot from my office with you and you've noticed it's sitting there yet. It hasn't been used. Well, now's the time. Summer's the best time to start that push. Right. Can we do it together? Not on the same bike, but we could join a class together. I used to do that. We used to have Guillermo Tan. I'd invite people. We'd all take a class together. Okay. So I think you're starting to get concerned about my health and my age, Billy. I,

I sense that with you. We're beyond starting. Okay. Whatever road lies ahead, your training starts here with Peloton Tread and Tread Plus. It's not just a bike, a treadmill too. I'm going to go outside. I'm going to get in shape. I'm going to do it with Billy Gill. I want to be in your class. I want you to be my instructor. You know what? I won't be your instructor. You don't want to spend more time with me. No, I can schedule a class and we can ride together. I won't be the instructor of the class. We can have Camila could be our instructor. I like the Grateful Dead class. My daughter, she uses the Peloton. Mm-hmm.

She was on it once and an instructor who was playing Grateful Dead tunes. Let's do that. Okay. Why don't we go for a run outside? Guided run. Peloton. Me and you. That's something we can do together. Okay. Turn on the app. Me and you go outside. Enjoy the summer. Call yourself a runner with Peloton at onepeloton.com slash running. All right.

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