Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
It's that time, time, time, time, luck and load. So
Michael Verie Show is on the air Friday. Alsmont was
(00:35):
made that Dion Sanders would be holding a press conference
following day with doctors to reveal some medical news. Dion
Sanders the coach of the University of Colorado. His son
went in the fifth round to Cleveland. Nobody could believe it,
even after Dylan Gabriel. He may not even make the team.
(00:58):
He's number four on the depth chart. At least he
started camp at that. Deon Sanders arguably the greatest two
way NFL player of all time if you consider his
body of work because Bo Jackson's bone came out of
his hip. Bo Jackson two sport player, not two way player.
(01:20):
Deon Sanders certainly, in the conversation an absolute legend and
a guy that was also a two sport athlete that
played professional football games and baseball playoff games on the
same day. He is a master, absolute master at drawing
(01:43):
attention to himself. And you've probably seen him in a
number of commercials, even if you never saw him play
the aflet commercial with Nick Saban. Nike a longtime sponsor
Kentucky Fried Chicken, Chevrolet well, he's been in the news
because he took a bad University of Colorado team, and
(02:04):
while they didn't make a bowl game, they beat the
defending or the former participants in the National Championship Game
the year before TCU, and that was a big deal.
He had a two way player himself in Travis Hunter,
who has the potential to shake up the NFL. Incredible player,
(02:26):
and Dion's like a father to him. Dion has become
a major part of college football and the media landscape
when it comes to football altogether. Most people really like Dion.
Donald Trump loves Deon Sanders. They go way back. So
the news was announced on Sunday. I assumed because he's
(02:50):
been very public about losing several of his toes due
to a blood condition, I assumed that maybe they were
going to announce that they were going to have to
take the foot off, that he would be be walking
with the prosthetic foot. It's unfortunate that this guy has
all these medical problems because he doesn't drink, he doesn't smoke.
(03:11):
He takes pretty good care of himself, you'd think, but
some people it's genetics. For a lot of people, it's genetics.
So he's to have the press conference to highlight what
has happened with his health. And he has the press
conference and he says that he has bladder cancer. And
(03:37):
his doctor is there and she talks about the procedure
they have undertaken, and I don't even begin to understand
how that works. I'm not much of an expert on
the bladder. I've studied the bladder a lot less than
I have the kidneys and the liver. I've known some
folks to have bladder problems, to have bladder cancer. I have.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
I have.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Our webmaster, Brian Hackel, has an ostomy bag, but not
because of his bladder, but because of his digestive system.
And he's been on the show. He has a company
called Sturmagear that that makes the components so that your
colostomy bag doesn't rub blisters on your belly, which was
(04:28):
something an invention that he came up with out of necessity.
In fact, he makes a couple of hundred thousand dollars
a year off of this invention. He fashioned and created
a website. By day, he is an engineer and technical guy,
but he created this thing because in his late twenties
(04:48):
he had to poop in a bag, and it turns
out that bag, when it rubs against your belly, creates blisters,
and so we've had him on the show. I became
mildly obsessed with the whole ostomy system, whether it's internal
or external. A number of people have to have that
when your internals fail, and it's relatively common, especially as
(05:14):
you get older, and most of my friends are older
than me. It's the sort of thing you talk about
a lot. Went to Vegas with some friends a few
weeks ago, and a friend of ours that we know
that's in his early eighties, but as spry as a
fifty five year old had just had prostate cancer and
(05:35):
he had to self cap for six months prior to
the surgery while his body was being prepared for that.
And that means to stick a tube up as willy
every day when he peed five times. Pretty miserable thing.
And it was all we talked about on the trip,
because I'm fascinated by medical stuff, and so we were
making jokes, led by my joke making, and it was
(05:57):
all a rollicking good time. And that's how we old
our friend that we love him and that he has
he has our support as he goes through this. So
I didn't watch the press conference, but Dion apparently said
I have bladder cancer, I can't control my pe and
I depend on Depends. Well, my wife happened to watch
(06:20):
the press conference. So we go for a walk late
yesterday afternoon and she says, and you see what happened
with Dion Sanders. She's not a pop culture person. Saw
surprise you even knew? And I said no. And she says,
he has bladder cancer. And I said, oh, it's unfortunate.
He's had a run go rough go, and she said,
but I love the way he handled it. He said,
(06:41):
I depend on Depends and he said that my I
guess his grandchild and he compete for who can fill
up the diaper the most. And she said, you know what,
He's going to end up being the spokesman for Depends,
and he's going to make incontinence and everything for men
(07:02):
and women something that you feel comfortable talking about, because
Dion opened the door to it, and he's going to
get a lot of money from Depends on this, because
if you think about it, who's the better spokesman to
make that conversation something you open with? And I said,
you're right, you're right. So last night we go for
(07:25):
a while and we're talking about it, and how brilliant
is that he's going to get paid a lot of
money and he's going to actually do some good because
it is true. Incontinence is common as you get older,
prostate cancer, bladder issues, all of this, And so I
posed not to be funny, although there'd be nothing wrong
(07:45):
if I did. I said, Dion Sanders about to get
paid paid all caps with a lot of eyes. But
it depends. It turns out I wake up this morning
to find out that he does now have an endorsement
(08:07):
deal with depas depend this the company. But the thing
I want to talk about is why I got scolded
by so many people say that's not funny, that's not funny.
First of all, it wasn't meant to be funny. To
be okay, if it did it turns out to be true.
You can go to my Facebook page and apologize if
you'd like. My wife and I had a long discussion
(08:32):
about how you deal with bad news. Forgive me for
repeating this story. It's still relatively fresh. My mom died
September nineteenth, and if you've lost your mom, you know
that's you only get one mom so it still hangs
heavy in the air. The last conversation I had before that, well,
(08:55):
on the last conversation, but at the moment where she
decided that she wanted to go home and die, she
had had a very painful procedure that day. The doctors
had told me I wouldn't want this for my mother,
and the diagnosis had been very clear, and she'd been
suffering for a very long time, and she never really
recovered well, she never recovered at all from my brother's
(09:17):
sudden death January twenty fifth, a couple of years before,
and my dad's health was failing, and I think she's
seventy nine, the weight of the world. She saw nothing
good to come, and her race was run. Everything was good,
her grand my brother's kids or adults, they're doing well.
(09:39):
I think she felt like her race was run. And
so we go over, my wife and I and we
sit with her for several hours late into the night,
where she says I want to go home, and my
wife dutifully the next morning shows up early and they
put her in the ambulance and we take her to
the house. And I've rushed to Orange that morning and
(09:59):
to be the the hospice care provider to have beds there,
to have the bed there so that it's and I
have to prepare my dad pretty tough conversation, you know.
You imagine you hear me tell that story of what
I had to be rough. We laughed, actually laughed the
(10:20):
whole time.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
We laughed.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
My wife quotes my mom's commentary that night constantly because
she had some really, really funny things to say. And
laughter is one way that some people deal with a
lot of things in life. Do you notice how many
(10:47):
jokes there are about that. Men will tell about coming
home and their wife's in bed with another man, or
their wife running away on them, or the wife not
loving them for them, or when they're dead happy their
wife will be. That's not their dream or their fantasy.
It's your worst fear. But you make jokes about things
(11:07):
because when you can laugh, it's something you can own something.
I think one of the reasons we've lost young people
for so many years. Trump has brought this back is
that our people don't laugh. Our people are miserable. How
(11:27):
long can you be mad? You don't catch many bees
with that brand of honey. I'll tell you that you'll
learn to laugh. Well, I let it make me madder
than I should have not, because I care some woman
sitting out in somewhere, a real somewhere of ill America
(11:49):
scolding me. That's not funny, Michael. We have bladder cancer.
Hope you don't get it. Well, if I do, I laugh,
just so you know I'll make jokes. I make jokes.
What I did. It's how I cope. You don't because
you are humor less. You have no sense of humor,
and that's your problem. That's sad because laughter is a
(12:09):
very important tool God gave us to make life more joyful,
even in the midst of sadness and misery. It's true.
So I read the emails and I scolded every person
who was scolding me. I hate a scold. It made
me realize and I thought this for a while. One
(12:32):
of the reasons so many people need therapy in this country,
and so many people are on prescription drugs, and so
many people are so miserable and self medicating and sad
all the time is because we've allowed the left to
make us a bunch of scolds, a bunch of wet blankets,
a bunch of people running around waiting for someone to
say something that is impolite, imperfect in some way insensitive
(12:57):
and says you did that. It's like the kids who
showed up on Saint Patrick's Day waiting to pinch somebody,
just hoping somebody wasn't wearing greens so they could pinch them.
Or the kids in the far back on a long
drive waiting for a car that had only one light
or whatever else because that was the game and you
get to slap the other person. It's like people are
(13:19):
running around all over social media waiting for the moment
that someone says something imperfect. Everything must be serious and
sad and downer. What a miserable way to go through life?
What a sad existence? And all the while, all the while,
(13:40):
they didn't realize that Dion had made the point about depends.
Was it was his joke I was making I actually
wasn't making a joke. I don't know how much Depend
apparently the brand doesn't have an s. I don't know
how much Depend paid him. But you stop and think
about this. You sell adult Dike It kind of things
(14:01):
people don't feel comfortable talking about. Kind of thing. It's hard.
What do you do do you show a commercial like
the late night infomercial, Hi, I'm Bob. I can't control
my p anymore, but I wear depends depends keep me
from pissing all over the floor, because it would be
odd for spanking the dog for peeing all over the
(14:22):
floor and smearing her face in it so she doesn't
do it again. Maybe they would have done that to me,
but not now, not with depends. It's weird, right, And
then you got Dion Sanders. So imagine how this is
going to go. Your Grandpa's watching the football game with you.
(14:42):
Ballgame brings everybody together. You're watching the game, there comes Den,
Hey Deon, is it true you wear it depends? Well,
it depends. No, Seriously, guys, bladder cancer's real. Not everybody
can control. We're all getting older. Take this approach. Don't
be ashamed. Dion does how many depends? Are they gonna
(15:07):
sell a trillion? Right? And now you've taken a subject
that's awkward, a subject that's off the fence, a subject that,
in your twenties is nothing but funny. It's funny, funny,
funny because partly funny because you know one day you're
going to be there. We all are. But I go
back to the idea of how many people have followed
(15:30):
me for twenty years, and immediately felt the need to say,
that's not nice, Michael, my brother's got past take cancer.
That's not nice, Michael. Cancer's not funny. But that's just it.
It is funny. The things you think are most impossible
to laugh about are the things you must most laugh about,
(15:54):
because when you laugh at something, that's when you own it.
I get so mad at people who get angry over
the left, and I say, it's not until you can
laugh at them, that's what will hurt them the most.
Leon Sanders is a man's man. Any given Sunday, he
(16:16):
was the fastest man on the field. He was certainly
the most athletic. If you ever watched Dion play, particularly
defensive back those years in Atlanta particularly, I know Dallas
loved him, but those years in Atlanta, to watch his
(16:38):
timing and to watch him step in front of a
pass and take it to distance and dance as he
got down there, it was truly a thing of beautiful beauty,
It really was. It was glorious to watch not just
his speed, but his savoa fare, his style of a doll.
(16:58):
Now you could argue that that Dion is a precursor
to the style over substance, the celebrating being more important
than the scoring, the terrell Owens and the me me me,
and yes that all is absolutely true, but one can't
deny it was athleticism and skill, talent prowess on full display.
(17:25):
And that's how he's known more than anything else. That's
how he's known. Kind of a Donald Trump with the
football field bravado, but he delivered. So for him to
have to lose toes too young. If you ever watched
any of the documentaries and things on the Colorado team,
(17:47):
and you see the woman that comes in that massages
his feet, and you see how bad his feet look.
They're mangled and gnarled, and I mean they can't feel good.
He's having to lose toe after toe, and that alone
has to be exhausting. He's entered Uncle jerry realm, where
Uncle Jerry wakes up from a surgery that he's put
off for five years, much to my nagging and his
(18:09):
wife's nagging. But finally he did it and he wakes
up and Renee, his wife. I'm texting back and forth
to get the news on how we're doing with the thing,
and it went well. All the doctors said they feel
like they've restructured his foot now hopefully won't have this again.
Hopefully within a couple of months, he'll be walking. Uncle
Jerry's supposed to come on our trip in late October,
(18:32):
the Palm Beach three trip, and she said he was
determined that he's going to be on that trip, and
so that's what he's working towards. It's good to have
a goal. And ten texts in she says, oh he
by the way, they had to cut off his pinky toe.
I said, Renee, you can't tell me ten messages in
they cut his pinky toe off. And she said, you
(18:53):
know what, I wasn't even worried about it, Michael. I
was just so happy that everything turned out well. And
I said, and I got to figure out a way
we can have some phone with this, and she said
he would love that. I'm sure that will make him
feel better. So I'm literally riding my bike. I called
Chance mclan which is a bad idea because I've had
a bad crash and blew my eye out. But I'm
on the phone with one hand and writing with the other,
(19:15):
and I'm calling Chance McLain and I tell him what's happened,
and for an hour we're on the phone spitballing ideas
as to Uncle Jerry's pinky toe. We got to make
a joke about this, right, We got to remind Jerry,
don't get too serious about this. Let's have some fun
with it. And you heard the song yesterday. I don't
think I figured the whole world out, but if I
can help people with one thing, it stopped taking everything
(19:38):
so seriously. I've had conversations with blacks who'll get so
upset when the N word is mentioned. They're so upset
over the N word being mentioned. You don't understand. I
understand that words can be hurtful, but I also understand
that no matter what the word is, you choose whether
the word is hurtful. I understand that you choose your
(19:59):
reaction life. I do understand that, and that many people
have chosen to be very set. You know, a friend
of mine's daughter is in college at University of Texas,
which is also where my son goes. And I asked
my friend how his daughter's experience is going with the
University of Texas, and she's going back for her junior
(20:20):
or senior year and are you ready for this? She
had the four girls in an apartment. In each one
of they have these little rooms and they have the
room in the middle, and two of the four girls,
not his daughter, but two of the other four girls
have emotional support dogs. You're twenty years old. What do
(20:44):
you need an emotional support dog? Four? What trauma are
you working through? You're twenty. We have allowed the left
to make us a miserable people. And yes, on our
side too, we have allowed the left. I get emails
(21:05):
every day. I just can't Jasmine Crockett as a TV
and she must be president. And you know, while they
ain't putting them in jail yet, and then the hunter's
over there, and who's Michael?
Speaker 2 (21:16):
Who's on?
Speaker 1 (21:18):
What are you doing? We're winning? We are winning. It
hasn't been this good for us in decades. I know, well, what, yes,
what's it got?
Speaker 2 (21:31):
Well?
Speaker 1 (21:31):
I don't put them in What are they gonna put
them in prison? I don't know. But if you think
them putting them in prison is gonna make you happy,
you are in desperate search for a drug that's not
fulfilling your needs. You need a fix that you can't get.
They have so hyped you in to frustration. You probably
(21:52):
spent three hours yesterday. But you're shooting Manhattan. Yeah, shooting Manhattan. Okay,
the CNN said it this white guy. He ain't why
look at you?
Speaker 2 (22:00):
Look at me?
Speaker 1 (22:00):
No? Why he and they're just breathless all day. I
don't know how people get anything done. I really don't.
It's shooting, it's black. This seems why you know what
you think it's why? Yeah, it's CNN. Are you really
that upset? And then somebody posts a picture of a
black suburban and they said, this is a white suburban.
Per se and in Okay, at least somebody can laugh,
(22:21):
a little deon can laugh. He's the one that's got cancer.
Listen to this. This is Dion Sanders yesterday.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
I'm thankful. It's been a tremendous journey. It's been tough.
I think I dropped twenty five pounds. I was like
a Atlanta valcant Prime at one point. No, and just
dealing with the cafe. They're dealing with all the stuff
that I had to deal with. And right now I'm
still dealing with going to the bathroom like it's a
(22:53):
whole life change, Like I can't and I'm gonna be transparent.
I can't pee like I used to pee. It's totally different.
And uh, she not only is a blessing, but she
provided other persons that have gone through what I've gone
through so that I could talk to them and get
some solace and understand like what I'm facing not just
(23:15):
from a doctor but from another individual. And to have
to have been told like it's a totally different life.
I mean, thank God, I'm now I'm dee. I depend
on depend you know, if you know what I mean.
I truly depend on depend Like I cannot control my bladder,
so I get up to go to the bathroom already
(23:38):
four or five times a night. But then I'm sitting
up there waking up, you know, like grandson, We're in
the same thing. We got the same problem right now,
we're going through the same trials and tribulations. We kind
of see who has the heaviest bag at the end
of the night. Like it's ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
Ritch Michael Berry shaken from us far too soon. I
heard Richard Pryor doing an interview later in his career.
And in case you don't remember, didn't follow comedy, aren't
(24:25):
old enough to know there was a period of time
for not quite five years, that Richard Pryor was the
funniest man in America, and that wasn't really open for dispute.
He was the undisputed champion of comedy. His stuff was
(24:50):
so raw, so new, so groundbreaking, that it was changing comedy.
And he talked about how he had morphed as a
comedian and how it changed his comedy. And he talked
about how when he was a little kid in a
(25:14):
young man and he got on the stage to tell stories,
he didn't have any life experiences. He'd never been betrayed,
he'd never been swindled, he'd never been mugged, he'd never
had a physical problem, never gone through a divorce, never
had an addiction. All the things that would plague him
in later life that he would cope with through humor.
(25:35):
And he said he would tell jokes about looking in
the toilet at the pooh that he'd put there, and
what it was shaped like and how it would leave,
and he said, it's all I had, that's all I knew.
So I talked about what I knew, and I made
people laugh because everybody'd been to the toilet. It's interesting
at fifty four how different our show is than when
we started and I was thirty four, because I hadn't
(25:58):
really lost anybody close to me. You know, the world
is your oyster. Everything's perfect, it's always going to be great.
There's never going to be sadness or illness or failure,
scandal or controversy or betrayal. And so that's really all
you know to talk about. But as you get older
(26:20):
and things happen, it changes you. Iron sharp sharpens iron,
and you become a bit wizened, and you become a
bit wiser. And it's interesting because the things I want
to talk about today come from a very different perspective
than they did before. And a lot of you have
(26:41):
grown up with me, and many of you who are
my age or a few years more, have nursed your
elderly parents and then buried your elderly parents, and some
of you have done that, and now you are the
elderly parent. And I love that. I love that we
have so many listeners eighty plus. Michael Petru loves it
(27:02):
because they all call him and want to get off
that tennis ball walker thing. They want to get back
up standing tall. I mean a lot of our listeners
say man You've got more folks post eighty that are
in great shape who are calling us for whatever our
particular person does. It's incredible and I love that reading
(27:23):
emails during the break from people who the laughs they've
enjoyed with their parents or their spouses, depending on if
they're in their fifties and sixties or seventies and eighties,
as they go through cancer and different horrible conditions. I
don't know. I like to think that makes the whole
(27:44):
process just a little bit better for them. So if
you would like to tell that story and how laughter
was a part of all that, feel free to call
seven one three nine nine one thousand seven to one
to three nine nine nine one thousand. Amy writes, my
mother fussed at anyone who messed up the house, left
(28:04):
out dirty dishes, shoes all over the floor. She had
post polio syndrome and used those metal crutches. We were visiting,
and my husband shouted, who left their crutches in the
middle of the floor. I still laugh about that joke.
Julianne writes, I was diagnosed with an aggressive breast cancer
(28:26):
at forty three, just before Christmas. I had a double
mistectomy on January third, two thousand and seven, my daughter's
made boob cupcakes and brought them to the hospital for
all the nurses and doctors and staff. We all laughed
and laughed. We made so many friends. It was basically
a party and a happy one in and outside the room.
It made a hard thing so much easier and better.
(28:48):
I think people have forgotten we can laugh and have
fun in the midst of pain. Anyone who tells you
that you can't laugh at this or that because they
have a child with cancer, out of cancer, or you
don't know I have a health condition, that's a person
who doesn't know how to laugh. And by the way,
(29:09):
do you say to yourself when I make jokes about
some black guy who claims that white people invented the
computer because a black guy in Africa played the bongo,
and we make jokes and we play the mm hm woman,
and you just laugh and laugh. Do you know there's
somebody out there going, that's not funny. I'm black. Most
(29:32):
people are going, now, that's funny. I'm black. That's funny,
right there, funny. That was a ridiculous statement, and he's
making a joke to prove the absurdity of it. If
you don't understand the point of laughter. You're never going
to get laughter. Laughter is not insult. Laughter is not minimizing, dehumanizing,
and humiliating unless you choose for it to be. Perspective
(29:59):
is everything. I've seen more happy people working in the
kitchen in the steam and the heat, with scars up
and down their forearms, who are whistling while they work
and loving what they do. I've seen other people who
are trust fund babies and rich as they can be,
and just miserable all the time. It is all your perspective.
(30:23):
What is and isn't funny isn't in some book. There's
no lists, there's no rule. Not funny, Michael, not funny.
People have cancer, my friend has cancer. Okay, then learn
to laugh about it. Tell a joke about it. Yeah,
that's how you deal with things. That's how you own things.
(30:44):
You never truly truly own a condition until you laugh
about it. Just try this sometimes when you hear when
you meet one of these wet blanket democratics says, yeah,
well you just think that because of white privilege. Make
a joke about it as well. You just feel that
(31:05):
way because you didn't get anything. You just feel that way.
Because you have a miserable life. You just feel that
way because you are humorless, you're no sense. That's the
worst thing you can do to the way. That's what
they want you to do. If you have, you laugh
at them, destroys them.
It's that time, time, time, time, luck and load. So
Michael Verie Show is on the air Friday. Alsmont was
(00:35):
made that Dion Sanders would be holding a press conference
following day with doctors to reveal some medical news. Dion
Sanders the coach of the University of Colorado. His son
went in the fifth round to Cleveland. Nobody could believe it,
even after Dylan Gabriel. He may not even make the team.
(00:58):
He's number four on the depth chart. At least he
started camp at that. Deon Sanders arguably the greatest two
way NFL player of all time if you consider his
body of work because Bo Jackson's bone came out of
his hip. Bo Jackson two sport player, not two way player.
(01:20):
Deon Sanders certainly, in the conversation an absolute legend and
a guy that was also a two sport athlete that
played professional football games and baseball playoff games on the
same day. He is a master, absolute master at drawing
(01:43):
attention to himself. And you've probably seen him in a
number of commercials, even if you never saw him play
the aflet commercial with Nick Saban. Nike a longtime sponsor
Kentucky Fried Chicken, Chevrolet well, he's been in the news
because he took a bad University of Colorado team, and
(02:04):
while they didn't make a bowl game, they beat the
defending or the former participants in the National Championship Game
the year before TCU, and that was a big deal.
He had a two way player himself in Travis Hunter,
who has the potential to shake up the NFL. Incredible player,
(02:26):
and Dion's like a father to him. Dion has become
a major part of college football and the media landscape
when it comes to football altogether. Most people really like Dion.
Donald Trump loves Deon Sanders. They go way back. So
the news was announced on Sunday. I assumed because he's
(02:50):
been very public about losing several of his toes due
to a blood condition, I assumed that maybe they were
going to announce that they were going to have to
take the foot off, that he would be be walking
with the prosthetic foot. It's unfortunate that this guy has
all these medical problems because he doesn't drink, he doesn't smoke.
(03:11):
He takes pretty good care of himself, you'd think, but
some people it's genetics. For a lot of people, it's genetics.
So he's to have the press conference to highlight what
has happened with his health. And he has the press
conference and he says that he has bladder cancer. And
(03:37):
his doctor is there and she talks about the procedure
they have undertaken, and I don't even begin to understand
how that works. I'm not much of an expert on
the bladder. I've studied the bladder a lot less than
I have the kidneys and the liver. I've known some
folks to have bladder problems, to have bladder cancer. I have.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
I have.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Our webmaster, Brian Hackel, has an ostomy bag, but not
because of his bladder, but because of his digestive system.
And he's been on the show. He has a company
called Sturmagear that that makes the components so that your
colostomy bag doesn't rub blisters on your belly, which was
(04:28):
something an invention that he came up with out of necessity.
In fact, he makes a couple of hundred thousand dollars
a year off of this invention. He fashioned and created
a website. By day, he is an engineer and technical guy,
but he created this thing because in his late twenties
(04:48):
he had to poop in a bag, and it turns
out that bag, when it rubs against your belly, creates blisters,
and so we've had him on the show. I became
mildly obsessed with the whole ostomy system, whether it's internal
or external. A number of people have to have that
when your internals fail, and it's relatively common, especially as
(05:14):
you get older, and most of my friends are older
than me. It's the sort of thing you talk about
a lot. Went to Vegas with some friends a few
weeks ago, and a friend of ours that we know
that's in his early eighties, but as spry as a
fifty five year old had just had prostate cancer and
(05:35):
he had to self cap for six months prior to
the surgery while his body was being prepared for that.
And that means to stick a tube up as willy
every day when he peed five times. Pretty miserable thing.
And it was all we talked about on the trip,
because I'm fascinated by medical stuff, and so we were
making jokes, led by my joke making, and it was
(05:57):
all a rollicking good time. And that's how we old
our friend that we love him and that he has
he has our support as he goes through this. So
I didn't watch the press conference, but Dion apparently said
I have bladder cancer, I can't control my pe and
I depend on Depends. Well, my wife happened to watch
(06:20):
the press conference. So we go for a walk late
yesterday afternoon and she says, and you see what happened
with Dion Sanders. She's not a pop culture person. Saw
surprise you even knew? And I said no. And she says,
he has bladder cancer. And I said, oh, it's unfortunate.
He's had a run go rough go, and she said,
but I love the way he handled it. He said,
(06:41):
I depend on Depends and he said that my I
guess his grandchild and he compete for who can fill
up the diaper the most. And she said, you know what,
He's going to end up being the spokesman for Depends,
and he's going to make incontinence and everything for men
(07:02):
and women something that you feel comfortable talking about, because
Dion opened the door to it, and he's going to
get a lot of money from Depends on this, because
if you think about it, who's the better spokesman to
make that conversation something you open with? And I said,
you're right, you're right. So last night we go for
(07:25):
a while and we're talking about it, and how brilliant
is that he's going to get paid a lot of
money and he's going to actually do some good because
it is true. Incontinence is common as you get older,
prostate cancer, bladder issues, all of this, And so I
posed not to be funny, although there'd be nothing wrong
(07:45):
if I did. I said, Dion Sanders about to get
paid paid all caps with a lot of eyes. But
it depends. It turns out I wake up this morning
to find out that he does now have an endorsement
(08:07):
deal with depas depend this the company. But the thing
I want to talk about is why I got scolded
by so many people say that's not funny, that's not funny.
First of all, it wasn't meant to be funny. To
be okay, if it did it turns out to be true.
You can go to my Facebook page and apologize if
you'd like. My wife and I had a long discussion
(08:32):
about how you deal with bad news. Forgive me for
repeating this story. It's still relatively fresh. My mom died
September nineteenth, and if you've lost your mom, you know
that's you only get one mom so it still hangs
heavy in the air. The last conversation I had before that, well,
(08:55):
on the last conversation, but at the moment where she
decided that she wanted to go home and die, she
had had a very painful procedure that day. The doctors
had told me I wouldn't want this for my mother,
and the diagnosis had been very clear, and she'd been
suffering for a very long time, and she never really
recovered well, she never recovered at all from my brother's
(09:17):
sudden death January twenty fifth, a couple of years before,
and my dad's health was failing, and I think she's
seventy nine, the weight of the world. She saw nothing
good to come, and her race was run. Everything was good,
her grand my brother's kids or adults, they're doing well.
(09:39):
I think she felt like her race was run. And
so we go over, my wife and I and we
sit with her for several hours late into the night,
where she says I want to go home, and my
wife dutifully the next morning shows up early and they
put her in the ambulance and we take her to
the house. And I've rushed to Orange that morning and
(09:59):
to be the the hospice care provider to have beds there,
to have the bed there so that it's and I
have to prepare my dad pretty tough conversation, you know.
You imagine you hear me tell that story of what
I had to be rough. We laughed, actually laughed the
(10:20):
whole time.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
We laughed.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
My wife quotes my mom's commentary that night constantly because
she had some really, really funny things to say. And
laughter is one way that some people deal with a
lot of things in life. Do you notice how many
(10:47):
jokes there are about that. Men will tell about coming
home and their wife's in bed with another man, or
their wife running away on them, or the wife not
loving them for them, or when they're dead happy their
wife will be. That's not their dream or their fantasy.
It's your worst fear. But you make jokes about things
(11:07):
because when you can laugh, it's something you can own something.
I think one of the reasons we've lost young people
for so many years. Trump has brought this back is
that our people don't laugh. Our people are miserable. How
(11:27):
long can you be mad? You don't catch many bees
with that brand of honey. I'll tell you that you'll
learn to laugh. Well, I let it make me madder
than I should have not, because I care some woman
sitting out in somewhere, a real somewhere of ill America
(11:49):
scolding me. That's not funny, Michael. We have bladder cancer.
Hope you don't get it. Well, if I do, I laugh,
just so you know I'll make jokes. I make jokes.
What I did. It's how I cope. You don't because
you are humor less. You have no sense of humor,
and that's your problem. That's sad because laughter is a
(12:09):
very important tool God gave us to make life more joyful,
even in the midst of sadness and misery. It's true.
So I read the emails and I scolded every person
who was scolding me. I hate a scold. It made
me realize and I thought this for a while. One
(12:32):
of the reasons so many people need therapy in this country,
and so many people are on prescription drugs, and so
many people are so miserable and self medicating and sad
all the time is because we've allowed the left to
make us a bunch of scolds, a bunch of wet blankets,
a bunch of people running around waiting for someone to
say something that is impolite, imperfect in some way insensitive
(12:57):
and says you did that. It's like the kids who
showed up on Saint Patrick's Day waiting to pinch somebody,
just hoping somebody wasn't wearing greens so they could pinch them.
Or the kids in the far back on a long
drive waiting for a car that had only one light
or whatever else because that was the game and you
get to slap the other person. It's like people are
(13:19):
running around all over social media waiting for the moment
that someone says something imperfect. Everything must be serious and
sad and downer. What a miserable way to go through life?
What a sad existence? And all the while, all the while,
(13:40):
they didn't realize that Dion had made the point about depends.
Was it was his joke I was making I actually
wasn't making a joke. I don't know how much Depend
apparently the brand doesn't have an s. I don't know
how much Depend paid him. But you stop and think
about this. You sell adult Dike It kind of things
(14:01):
people don't feel comfortable talking about. Kind of thing. It's hard.
What do you do do you show a commercial like
the late night infomercial, Hi, I'm Bob. I can't control
my p anymore, but I wear depends depends keep me
from pissing all over the floor, because it would be
odd for spanking the dog for peeing all over the
(14:22):
floor and smearing her face in it so she doesn't
do it again. Maybe they would have done that to me,
but not now, not with depends. It's weird, right, And
then you got Dion Sanders. So imagine how this is
going to go. Your Grandpa's watching the football game with you.
(14:42):
Ballgame brings everybody together. You're watching the game, there comes Den,
Hey Deon, is it true you wear it depends? Well,
it depends. No, Seriously, guys, bladder cancer's real. Not everybody
can control. We're all getting older. Take this approach. Don't
be ashamed. Dion does how many depends? Are they gonna
(15:07):
sell a trillion? Right? And now you've taken a subject
that's awkward, a subject that's off the fence, a subject that,
in your twenties is nothing but funny. It's funny, funny,
funny because partly funny because you know one day you're
going to be there. We all are. But I go
back to the idea of how many people have followed
(15:30):
me for twenty years, and immediately felt the need to say,
that's not nice, Michael, my brother's got past take cancer.
That's not nice, Michael. Cancer's not funny. But that's just it.
It is funny. The things you think are most impossible
to laugh about are the things you must most laugh about,
(15:54):
because when you laugh at something, that's when you own it.
I get so mad at people who get angry over
the left, and I say, it's not until you can
laugh at them, that's what will hurt them the most.
Leon Sanders is a man's man. Any given Sunday, he
(16:16):
was the fastest man on the field. He was certainly
the most athletic. If you ever watched Dion play, particularly
defensive back those years in Atlanta particularly, I know Dallas
loved him, but those years in Atlanta, to watch his
(16:38):
timing and to watch him step in front of a
pass and take it to distance and dance as he
got down there, it was truly a thing of beautiful beauty,
It really was. It was glorious to watch not just
his speed, but his savoa fare, his style of a doll.
(16:58):
Now you could argue that that Dion is a precursor
to the style over substance, the celebrating being more important
than the scoring, the terrell Owens and the me me me,
and yes that all is absolutely true, but one can't
deny it was athleticism and skill, talent prowess on full display.
(17:25):
And that's how he's known more than anything else. That's
how he's known. Kind of a Donald Trump with the
football field bravado, but he delivered. So for him to
have to lose toes too young. If you ever watched
any of the documentaries and things on the Colorado team,
(17:47):
and you see the woman that comes in that massages
his feet, and you see how bad his feet look.
They're mangled and gnarled, and I mean they can't feel good.
He's having to lose toe after toe, and that alone
has to be exhausting. He's entered Uncle jerry realm, where
Uncle Jerry wakes up from a surgery that he's put
off for five years, much to my nagging and his
(18:09):
wife's nagging. But finally he did it and he wakes
up and Renee, his wife. I'm texting back and forth
to get the news on how we're doing with the thing,
and it went well. All the doctors said they feel
like they've restructured his foot now hopefully won't have this again.
Hopefully within a couple of months, he'll be walking. Uncle
Jerry's supposed to come on our trip in late October,
(18:32):
the Palm Beach three trip, and she said he was
determined that he's going to be on that trip, and
so that's what he's working towards. It's good to have
a goal. And ten texts in she says, oh he
by the way, they had to cut off his pinky toe.
I said, Renee, you can't tell me ten messages in
they cut his pinky toe off. And she said, you
(18:53):
know what, I wasn't even worried about it, Michael. I
was just so happy that everything turned out well. And
I said, and I got to figure out a way
we can have some phone with this, and she said
he would love that. I'm sure that will make him
feel better. So I'm literally riding my bike. I called
Chance mclan which is a bad idea because I've had
a bad crash and blew my eye out. But I'm
on the phone with one hand and writing with the other,
(19:15):
and I'm calling Chance McLain and I tell him what's happened,
and for an hour we're on the phone spitballing ideas
as to Uncle Jerry's pinky toe. We got to make
a joke about this, right, We got to remind Jerry,
don't get too serious about this. Let's have some fun
with it. And you heard the song yesterday. I don't
think I figured the whole world out, but if I
can help people with one thing, it stopped taking everything
(19:38):
so seriously. I've had conversations with blacks who'll get so
upset when the N word is mentioned. They're so upset
over the N word being mentioned. You don't understand. I
understand that words can be hurtful, but I also understand
that no matter what the word is, you choose whether
the word is hurtful. I understand that you choose your
(19:59):
reaction life. I do understand that, and that many people
have chosen to be very set. You know, a friend
of mine's daughter is in college at University of Texas,
which is also where my son goes. And I asked
my friend how his daughter's experience is going with the
University of Texas, and she's going back for her junior
(20:20):
or senior year and are you ready for this? She
had the four girls in an apartment. In each one
of they have these little rooms and they have the
room in the middle, and two of the four girls,
not his daughter, but two of the other four girls
have emotional support dogs. You're twenty years old. What do
(20:44):
you need an emotional support dog? Four? What trauma are
you working through? You're twenty. We have allowed the left
to make us a miserable people. And yes, on our
side too, we have allowed the left. I get emails
(21:05):
every day. I just can't Jasmine Crockett as a TV
and she must be president. And you know, while they
ain't putting them in jail yet, and then the hunter's
over there, and who's Michael?
Speaker 2 (21:16):
Who's on?
Speaker 1 (21:18):
What are you doing? We're winning? We are winning. It
hasn't been this good for us in decades. I know, well, what, yes,
what's it got?
Speaker 2 (21:31):
Well?
Speaker 1 (21:31):
I don't put them in What are they gonna put
them in prison? I don't know. But if you think
them putting them in prison is gonna make you happy,
you are in desperate search for a drug that's not
fulfilling your needs. You need a fix that you can't get.
They have so hyped you in to frustration. You probably
(21:52):
spent three hours yesterday. But you're shooting Manhattan. Yeah, shooting Manhattan. Okay,
the CNN said it this white guy. He ain't why
look at you?
Speaker 2 (22:00):
Look at me?
Speaker 1 (22:00):
No? Why he and they're just breathless all day. I
don't know how people get anything done. I really don't.
It's shooting, it's black. This seems why you know what
you think it's why? Yeah, it's CNN. Are you really
that upset? And then somebody posts a picture of a
black suburban and they said, this is a white suburban.
Per se and in Okay, at least somebody can laugh,
(22:21):
a little deon can laugh. He's the one that's got cancer.
Listen to this. This is Dion Sanders yesterday.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
I'm thankful. It's been a tremendous journey. It's been tough.
I think I dropped twenty five pounds. I was like
a Atlanta valcant Prime at one point. No, and just
dealing with the cafe. They're dealing with all the stuff
that I had to deal with. And right now I'm
still dealing with going to the bathroom like it's a
(22:53):
whole life change, Like I can't and I'm gonna be transparent.
I can't pee like I used to pee. It's totally different.
And uh, she not only is a blessing, but she
provided other persons that have gone through what I've gone
through so that I could talk to them and get
some solace and understand like what I'm facing not just
(23:15):
from a doctor but from another individual. And to have
to have been told like it's a totally different life.
I mean, thank God, I'm now I'm dee. I depend
on depend you know, if you know what I mean.
I truly depend on depend Like I cannot control my bladder,
so I get up to go to the bathroom already
(23:38):
four or five times a night. But then I'm sitting
up there waking up, you know, like grandson, We're in
the same thing. We got the same problem right now,
we're going through the same trials and tribulations. We kind
of see who has the heaviest bag at the end
of the night. Like it's ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
Ritch Michael Berry shaken from us far too soon. I
heard Richard Pryor doing an interview later in his career.
And in case you don't remember, didn't follow comedy, aren't
(24:25):
old enough to know there was a period of time
for not quite five years, that Richard Pryor was the
funniest man in America, and that wasn't really open for dispute.
He was the undisputed champion of comedy. His stuff was
(24:50):
so raw, so new, so groundbreaking, that it was changing comedy.
And he talked about how he had morphed as a
comedian and how it changed his comedy. And he talked
about how when he was a little kid in a
(25:14):
young man and he got on the stage to tell stories,
he didn't have any life experiences. He'd never been betrayed,
he'd never been swindled, he'd never been mugged, he'd never
had a physical problem, never gone through a divorce, never
had an addiction. All the things that would plague him
in later life that he would cope with through humor.
(25:35):
And he said he would tell jokes about looking in
the toilet at the pooh that he'd put there, and
what it was shaped like and how it would leave,
and he said, it's all I had, that's all I knew.
So I talked about what I knew, and I made
people laugh because everybody'd been to the toilet. It's interesting
at fifty four how different our show is than when
we started and I was thirty four, because I hadn't
(25:58):
really lost anybody close to me. You know, the world
is your oyster. Everything's perfect, it's always going to be great.
There's never going to be sadness or illness or failure,
scandal or controversy or betrayal. And so that's really all
you know to talk about. But as you get older
(26:20):
and things happen, it changes you. Iron sharp sharpens iron,
and you become a bit wizened, and you become a
bit wiser. And it's interesting because the things I want
to talk about today come from a very different perspective
than they did before. And a lot of you have
(26:41):
grown up with me, and many of you who are
my age or a few years more, have nursed your
elderly parents and then buried your elderly parents, and some
of you have done that, and now you are the
elderly parent. And I love that. I love that we
have so many listeners eighty plus. Michael Petru loves it
(27:02):
because they all call him and want to get off
that tennis ball walker thing. They want to get back
up standing tall. I mean a lot of our listeners
say man You've got more folks post eighty that are
in great shape who are calling us for whatever our
particular person does. It's incredible and I love that reading
(27:23):
emails during the break from people who the laughs they've
enjoyed with their parents or their spouses, depending on if
they're in their fifties and sixties or seventies and eighties,
as they go through cancer and different horrible conditions. I
don't know. I like to think that makes the whole
(27:44):
process just a little bit better for them. So if
you would like to tell that story and how laughter
was a part of all that, feel free to call
seven one three nine nine one thousand seven to one
to three nine nine nine one thousand. Amy writes, my
mother fussed at anyone who messed up the house, left
(28:04):
out dirty dishes, shoes all over the floor. She had
post polio syndrome and used those metal crutches. We were visiting,
and my husband shouted, who left their crutches in the
middle of the floor. I still laugh about that joke.
Julianne writes, I was diagnosed with an aggressive breast cancer
(28:26):
at forty three, just before Christmas. I had a double
mistectomy on January third, two thousand and seven, my daughter's
made boob cupcakes and brought them to the hospital for
all the nurses and doctors and staff. We all laughed
and laughed. We made so many friends. It was basically
a party and a happy one in and outside the room.
It made a hard thing so much easier and better.
(28:48):
I think people have forgotten we can laugh and have
fun in the midst of pain. Anyone who tells you
that you can't laugh at this or that because they
have a child with cancer, out of cancer, or you
don't know I have a health condition, that's a person
who doesn't know how to laugh. And by the way,
(29:09):
do you say to yourself when I make jokes about
some black guy who claims that white people invented the
computer because a black guy in Africa played the bongo,
and we make jokes and we play the mm hm woman,
and you just laugh and laugh. Do you know there's
somebody out there going, that's not funny. I'm black. Most
(29:32):
people are going, now, that's funny. I'm black. That's funny,
right there, funny. That was a ridiculous statement, and he's
making a joke to prove the absurdity of it. If
you don't understand the point of laughter. You're never going
to get laughter. Laughter is not insult. Laughter is not minimizing, dehumanizing,
and humiliating unless you choose for it to be. Perspective
(29:59):
is everything. I've seen more happy people working in the
kitchen in the steam and the heat, with scars up
and down their forearms, who are whistling while they work
and loving what they do. I've seen other people who
are trust fund babies and rich as they can be,
and just miserable all the time. It is all your perspective.
(30:23):
What is and isn't funny isn't in some book. There's
no lists, there's no rule. Not funny, Michael, not funny.
People have cancer, my friend has cancer. Okay, then learn
to laugh about it. Tell a joke about it. Yeah,
that's how you deal with things. That's how you own things.
(30:44):
You never truly truly own a condition until you laugh
about it. Just try this sometimes when you hear when
you meet one of these wet blanket democratics says, yeah,
well you just think that because of white privilege. Make
a joke about it as well. You just feel that
(31:05):
way because you didn't get anything. You just feel that way.
Because you have a miserable life. You just feel that
way because you are humorless, you're no sense. That's the
worst thing you can do to the way. That's what
they want you to do. If you have, you laugh
at them, destroys them.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.