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Pat Walsh
Pat's Peeps Podcast
Ep. 322 Today's Peep Is Enjoying Vacation and Loving the Surprise Rain & Thunder, Pat's Radio Hideaway, When Sports Meets Politics, and Weird Stevie Wonder Tunes on a Rare EP from '76
Thunder rolled across Northern California as Pat Walsh settled into day two of his vacation, recording episode 322 of Pat's Peeps podcast while reflecting on the unexpected weather shift. The peaceful rainstorm served as a stark contrast to the brewing storm in professional sports that dominated this episode's discussion.
At the heart of the podcast lies a critical examination of how the NFL has transformed from pure athletic competition to a platform for social messaging. Walsh unpacks the league's mandate requiring all 32 teams to stencil social justice phrases like "End Racism" and "Choose Love" in their end zones. With genuine nostalgia, he recalls the golden era of sports when fans could cheer for legends like Joe Montana and Walter Payton without knowing their political affiliations – when the focus remained purely on athletic excellence and the game itself.
The conversation dives deep into Colin Kaepernick's controversial legacy, from his kneeling protests to his Netflix documentary comparing the NFL draft to slavery. Walsh doesn't hold back, sharing clips from Black commentators who also criticized Kaepernick's stance, highlighting the complexity of the issue beyond simple political lines. The podcast raises profound questions about whether these mandatory messages actually create meaningful change or simply alienate fans seeking an escape from political discourse.
Between weightier topics, Walsh shares a lighter moment exploring a rare Stevie Wonder EP from the "Songs in the Key of Life" era, expressing his genuine disappointment with tracks that clearly didn't make the album's final cut for good reason. This musical interlude provides perfect balance to an episode otherwise concerned with the collision of sports, politics, and social justice.
Whether you're a sports fan troubled by the NFL's evolving approach to social issues or simply curious about the changing landscape of American athletics, this episode offers thoughtful commentary on where we've been and where we're heading. Subscribe to Pat's Peeps for more unfiltered conversations at the intersection of culture, sports, and everyday life.
Welcome to the Pats Peeps podcast. How are you? Welcome to the Pat's Peeps podcast. How are you? This is Pat's Peeps, number 322 here on the 26th day of August 2025. What a day it has been. Looking out the studio window into the beautiful foothills of Northern California, looking out the studio window into the beautiful foothills of Northern California, it is dark. I'm doing this at night, late at night, but the day started off really with a surprising little twist, weather-wise Lightning and thunder and rain, cooler temperatures. It was absolutely beautiful. It was absolutely beautiful. It was so nice. And this is a Tuesday. I love the little weather change. I posted a little video of it on Facebook.
Speaker 1:My name is Pat Walsh. I'm the host of the Pat Walsh Show, as heard on KFPK Radio in Sacramento, 93.1 FM, 1530 AM, and I'm on vacation. So this is day two of my vacation being Tuesday, and then next Monday is Labor Day. So I still have a few days off and I'm just kind of loving not having to do anything right now other than my podcast in lieu of my radio show. Thank you to Bruce Campbell, bc for filling in. Thank you to Scott Robinson for filling in and please, the big news yesterday here on Pat's Peeps. Please go to patspeepscom or just go into Rock and Soul R-O-C and then that and sign that you see on the keyboard SOL, s-o-l and get two-for-one dinners by just mentioning Pat's Peeps and that's going through September 30th. And if you do that, as I said yesterday, that would be huge for my business. For that business it gives you a free meal. So we're trying to bust the inflation here. By the way, on this Tuesday we have new music, my friends, right here, exclusively on Pat's Peeps. Pat's Peeps 322.
Speaker 2:Gavin Newsom, tell me, can we trust your way? While crime's on the rise, you just sit and play. This land's for the people, not the suits on the hill. Make crime illegal. Let's harness the will. California dreamin', but it's wakin' nightmares. Politicians lie while they play in their chairs. Crime's creepin' forward. Can't let it invade America. First. Let's start a crusade. Restore the order, make justice the law, fighting for the future. We'll rise from the floor. Gavin Newsom, tell me, can we trust your way? While crime's on the rise, you just sit and play. This land's for the people, not the suits on the hill. Make crime illegal. Let's harness the will Together. Insane Just called you a name, so it's sex, like you know.
Speaker 1:Life's gathered to fight an article by cory brooks uh, this is from Fox News today and what he's talking, what Corey is talking about is the fact that the NFL which, by the way, it kicks off not this weekend but the next weekend I love the NFL and I'm not going to let clowns ruin that for me, because I've loved the NFL since I was a kid major league baseball in the NFL and so what he's talking about here he's not a clown. I actually agree with what he's saying 100%. He was talking about some people have turned away from the league. They find that it's too woke, ever since Colin Kaepernick. But he was talking about.
Speaker 1:Corey was talking about in this article that he was reading about what the NFL is doing and what they're requiring, and that they are dead set on sticking with the woke and the fact that all 32 teams must this is required stencil a social justice message into their end zones. I've seen this for years and, let's not forget, it's on the back of most of the team's helmets too. So we're talking about the social justice messages and they have to pick from one of four of these messages and racism choose love, inspire change and stop hate. Oh, and it takes all of us will be the message in the opposing end zone. So by putting and stenciling these in the end zone, suddenly someone's going to look at it and go well, wait a minute. That's a good point.
Speaker 1:I should stop being racist, Honey it looks right there it says in racism Okay, all right If you say so, I I didn't even consider that. But since the NFL has it stenciled in the freaking end zone, choose love. I've always chosen, chosen hate. But okay, nfl, if you say so, golly, shucks. Inspire, change, change, stop it, shut up.
Speaker 1:If you remember the 1980s, think about this Back in the 70s. I mean, how far do you go back watching the 60s, the 70s, the 80s? Guess what? You didn't know what any person on that field, what their politics were. You didn't know. You watched Joe Montana, niner fans you watched Joe because he was Joe Montana, dwight Clark and these guys because they were on your favorite team, the 49ers. He didn't care what their political affiliation was or what they felt about LGBTQ, and that was before all of that man. You had class act, like Walter Payton back then, bo Jackson carrying the flag for millions of football fans. You couldn't tell their politics. It was just sports. We were inspired by great athletes.
Speaker 1:Going back to the article's point, the people playing the game dreamt of this. This was a dream come true, something they'd been striving for forever and very few people are able to achieve this. Football or baseball, greatness, hockey, any of these sports, nba. You got to work and you're working because you really want to get to that level, because, again, you have a dream. Here come the come the 2010s.
Speaker 1:Wow, this is where everything went awry, and you know what I'm talking about. This colin kaepernick with this ridiculous, meaningless kneeling protest. You're so inspirational, colin, wearing your depicting police officers as pigs, comparing the NFL and the league to being a slave. It was a joke. He goes out there to throw passes to impress teams. After he calls the league slave drivers and compares it to slavery. He wears a shirt out there to throw passes and it's a black t-shirt. And on the black t-shirt it says Kunta Kinte. Go back and look, guy, turned press conferences into referendums on policing.
Speaker 1:And then the NFL in 2021, well, I don't know if it was 2021, but I do know that in 2021 because the NFL ended up caving into this. Obviously, that's why you're seeing these social media messages in the end zone. But in 21, you had Kaepernick with his ridiculous show, colin in Black and White again, where he equated the NFL draft with slavery. You talk about absolutely ridiculous hypocrisy. You got a multimillion-dollar quarterback who went to the Super Bowl, lost it to the Ravens living a dream come true, raised in the California suburbs, but suddenly he's a victim of Whitey, dressed up in his fake black power suit, and he's again telling us that modern-day football is modern-day slavery. Then after that, of course, george Floyd we all know what happened there. So everything blows up Now, every criminal that runs, he goes. I can't breathe. On behalf of Georgeorge floyd, watch youtube, I'm not making this up, they do.
Speaker 1:Then you had a low point where the nfl commissioner, roger goodell, takes a knee and apologizes for not taking, as cory in this article says, charlatans like Kaepernick more seriously. So what does the NFL do? They commit millions of dollars in the name of George Floyd to address systematic racism. Hey, nfl, this is why people have turned away from you Now. I hate to be a downer when NFL's coming up in two weeks.
Speaker 1:Well, pat, how do you feel about? Well, I'm trying to tell you that, that I will not let someone like Roger Goodell or Colin Kaepernick ruin my love for my team and the sport. You can try, but I just need them to know that your ridiculous, asinine statements in the end zone mean nothing to me and to many other people. It's woke. Guess what too. It goes both ways All races and racism, yeah, overall, every race, every race. So when you go back to the BLM and the Black Lives Matter and all the politics and the George Floyd and the demonstrations and all the burning the cities, you know what we're talking, you know. So it's interesting to me that, yeah, and then in his little documentary he this is this is just appalling. This is what he had to say, part of what he had to say Before they put you on the field.
Speaker 2:Teams poke pride and examine you, searching for any defect that might affect your performance. No boundary respected.
Speaker 1:You mean, oh really, that might affect your performance. Any defect before they, I don't know, pay you millions of dollars. It's okay to make sure that. Oh, and here's the other thing the last time I checked and I do watch a lot of football hey, not all the players are black. I see a lot of white boys and people of various races play in the game. So quit, acting like every player is a black slave. No dignity left intact. Really no dignity left intact. That's incredible. But, pat, you're just an old white guy. Well, let's hear from Ruined Leon on YouTube. He happens to be black. What are his thoughts on this? Let's just take a listen here, shall we? Let me see if I got this right.
Speaker 3:A dude who participated in the NFL and then made a public stunt of trying to get a workout so that he could go back to the nfl. After what? Three, maybe even two years of not being mentioned anywhere in the sports world comes out of thin air with a netflix documentary about how his life sucked, even though he was with a rich white family. To let you all know that the NFL combine and trying to get drafted and trying to work in the NFL where you could make millions of dollars is the equivalent to slavery. Why is this one of the people that you pride in being one of the good ones? Why is this person sitting there and embarrassing the black community? Why is somebody who actively worked for this organization, this league, this company, whatever you want to call the NFL sitting here and saying, hey, all of you that are trying to get here, you're trying to follow your dreams.
Speaker 3:You want to be the next Odell Beckham, tom Brady, drew Brees, peyton Manning, any of these legends. You want to be the next version of them. Guess what? You're contributing to slavery. You're selling yourself, you're getting poked, prodded, you're being examined so that a team could select you in a draft where you could make millions playing in a game. That's your dream, that's something you wanted to do, and so that in and of itself is equal to slavery. I could sit here and laugh at this dude for literal hours, at how stupid all of that just sounded, but I'm embarrassed. I'm embarrassed that this dude shares my skin complexion and is walking around claiming that he's so woke and he knows the true black experience and every single thing that upsets him is a product of slavery. This dude is embarrassing.
Speaker 1:And then, not long after that, what does he do? According to ABC News and every other resource he goes out tries to get a job in the NFL.
Speaker 4:Colin Kaepernick and the media circus that has become his comeback tryout for the NFL. Abc's Kaylee Hartung has more on how it went. Colin Kaepernick showing off his talent on his own terms, with his own camera crew rolling in front of representatives from eight NFL teams, the media and fans. The polarizing quarterback throwing passes for nearly 40 minutes on this high school football field Wow.
Speaker 1:I've been ready for three years To be a slave. I've been denied for three years To be a slave. I've been denied for three years what denied to be a slave.
Speaker 4:This after Kaepernick called an audible Saturday afternoon.
Speaker 1:Wearing a Kunta Kinte t-shirt.
Speaker 4:Moving the location of an NFL-sanctioned workout 59 miles from the Falcons' practice facility, just a half hour before it was set to begin Our biggest thing with everything today was making sure we had transparency in what went on.
Speaker 1:You mean that you were, you're a slave and you're trying to be a slave again?
Speaker 2:We weren't getting that elsewhere. So, we came out here to do what?
Speaker 1:to try to be a slave.
Speaker 4:I'm saying multiple disagreements with the NFL led to the sudden change in plans. The NFL challenging that claim, saying we are disappointed that Colin did not appear for his workout for a slave meeting informed us of that decision today, along with the public. Frankly, I think it angered the NFL.
Speaker 1:But Colin Kaepernick, adam Schefter, with a body, an entity that hadn't cooperated with him for the past three years, when he has not been allowed back into the NFL anyhow. That's enough time. On Colin Kaepernick, I just wanted to point out Cory Brooks article, which I agree with his opinion piece with Fox News that came out today. So if you want to check that out for yourself, it's a very good article. But it is true, all 32 teams must stencil a social justice message in their end zones at home games. Those were their choices End racism, stop hate. Hey, choose love, inspire change. I wonder how much crime went down in baltimore when they told them they could no longer have the team known as the baltimore bullets in the nba or the aba, whatever it was. I wonder if crime went down. I'd love to see, see the stats. Well, it's not called the bullets anymore. Crime should go down. It's ridiculous. And speaking of NFL news, there is news with the Cleveland Browns. All they could talk about in the offseason was Aaron Rodgers and Shador Sanders, who ended up going with the Cleveland Browns, who have traded a quarterback after making the decision on Shador. So now this will restructure everything with the Browns, who have been losers forever and ever, can never get a solid quarterback. But apparently they have faith in Shador Sanders, the Deion's kid, as they've traded away Kenny Pickett, the quarterback, to the Vegas Raiders for a fifth round pick for next year. So for the Browns if anyone even cares about the Browns uh, this means that it simplifies their quarterback rotation. They'll keep four quarterbacks Joe Flacco will get the starting job, dylan Gabriel and then so they added Tyler Huntley to the quarterback room during the preseason. Whatever it's preseason, we have NFL starting in two weeks.
Speaker 1:From the shelves of the rare records, I pulled this one off the shelves today and this really is a rare one. This is on Tomler Records. It's the same exact size as a 45. However, it has four songs on this and it's a 33 and a third rpm. So it's the same as an album, a 12 inch record, but this is in a 7 inch 45 format, two songs on each side, and these songs are from a very popular record from the mid 70s, 1976. The album was released september 28th of 76, tomla, a division of motown, recorded at the crystal sound studio in hollywood, some sessions recorded at the record plant in sausalito hit factory in new york, so at various places, and the album has been regarded by music journalists as the culmination of this artist's classic period of recording. The previous year, at 74, this artist was one of the most successful figures in popular music and that these years of his songs, right in that time, were so good before this album came out. And of course this was very popular as well.
Speaker 1:I don't know that any of the songs really on this particular record I'm about to play, I don't think any of them are hits. I don't believe they are. This is a double LP and a four-song bonus EP, which is this that I'm holding in my hand. The rare four song bonus EP debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 chart, became only the third album to achieve that feat, the first by an American artist. The lead single, which I love this song I will tell you in a second. You'll know exactly what I'm talking about and then the follow-up single went to number one on the Billboard Hot 100. Spent 13 consecutive weeks at number one. So those two songs would be I Wish and Sir Duke, which of course means I'm talking about Stevie Wonder. So let me play the four songs on this EP. The first one, and there are no radio station stickers on this, nothing of any kind, just a record with the songs. All right, this is, and I have not listened to these. I don't know what these sound like. Song called Saturn. Here we go.
Speaker 5:I can my bags on the way to a place where the air is clean and sad. There's no sense to sit and watch people die.
Speaker 1:Never heard this. Wow, there's no sense to keep on doing such crime. I can honestly say I don't really care for that. I'm sorry. Wow, all right, here it is. Here's something Ebony. You know, when I think of Ebony Eyes, I think of Bob Welch, formerly of Fleetwood Mac, but he had a song called Ebony Eyes. It can't be the same song. Stevie Wonder.
Speaker 5:She's a mischievous woman, a girl that others wish that they could be. If there's seven wonders of the world, then I know she's got to be number one, wow.
Speaker 1:That's different.
Speaker 5:She's the sunflower from nature's seed, a girl that some men only find in their dreams.
Speaker 1:When she smiles, it seems the stars are now I'm just not sure what to make of it. What?
Speaker 3:do you make of?
Speaker 1:that? I don't, I'm not sure. Okay of it. What do you make of that? I don't, I'm not sure. Okay that let's flip it over. This is, um, all day sucker. Never heard these. All right, all day sucker. Stevie wonder. Songs in the key of life. Here we go. Okay. Now come on Last one, because you can't slow.
Speaker 1:Is it just me? You seem very quirky. Either I'm off or these songs are. It could be me, I don't know who. Am I to doubt Stevie Wonder? It just sounds like songs that just didn't make the cut, you know, like Coda by Led Zeppelin. All right, here's the final one.
Speaker 1:We'll go out with this one Easy Going Evening, which is precisely what I hope for you and for me, and I really thank you so much for listening to the Pats Peeps and paying attention to our businesses. So here it is Easy Going Evening. Let's check this one out. They all just sound off to me. I don't know. Maybe I'm going crazy right now. What, come on? I can honestly see why this was an EP. I think they put these songs that just didn't make the cut and said, hey, we're going to release an EP, we need a place to put these songs. I don't know why. You know I love Stevie Wonder, but I'm 0 for 4 on this record. That's 0 for me on this record. That's zero for me. I would never listen to this Never. Oh well, que sera sera. But I sure appreciate you listening too, like I said, to the podcast, I'll keep enjoying a relaxing week off. We'll see you tomorrow for Pat's Peeps 323.
Speaker 5:It's just off.
