Pat's Peeps Podcast
Join our Pat's Peeps family today and be a part of the exciting journey as renowned national talk show host Pat Walsh connects with Friends and Aquaintances. Together, they delve deeper into the captivating world of Pat Walsh's nightly national talk show, all while championing local businesses.
Whether you are a business owner, a devoted listener, or both, we extend a warm invitation for you to become a valued member of our ever-growing community. Don't miss out on this incredible opportunity to join us ASAP!
Pat Walsh
Pat's Peeps Podcast
Ep. 342 Today's Peep Celebrates A Record Day for Downloads, Stumbles into a Brand New Playground, Infamous Outbursts from Buddy Rich, Casey Kasem and William Shatner
A rainy fall morning, a record day of downloads, and a park that literally changed overnight—sometimes the smallest surprises set up the biggest questions. We stumbled onto a brand-new playground where a restroom used to be, tested the slide with more courage than grace, and used that jolt of change to explore the hidden pressure behind great performances. From there, we traveled into the tape archive of infamous studio blowups: Buddy Rich’s volcanic bus tirades, Casey Kasem’s whiplash between up-tempo hits and a tender dedication, and William Shatner’s surgical takedown of vague direction in a recording booth.
What ties a surprise slide to a studio meltdown? Expectations, transitions, and the fragile craft of keeping things smooth when the world is not. We talk about perfectionism and its double edge—how high standards lift music, radio, and live shows, but can also scorch the people who make them. Buddy Rich’s temper sits alongside his genius; Kasem’s outburst reveals how tone is a real editorial problem, not just a vibe; Shatner’s exchange shows why creative feedback must be specific and owned. We ground those moments in our own day: gratitude for your support, a shout to local businesses, a birthday nod to a superfan, and the calming snap of a flawless Tom Petty promo 45 sliding from its sleeve.
If you geek out on radio history, production war stories, or the psychology of performance under pressure, you’ll feel right at home. And if you just needed a smile, picture an adult discovering that modern slides are faster than they look. Thanks for listening and helping us hit a new high-water mark. Follow the show, share it with a friend who loves behind-the-scenes audio lore, and leave a quick review—what meltdown taught you the most about craft?
Hello there, welcome to the Pat's Peeps Podcast. What a great day it was yesterday. Today we're at Pat's Peeps number 342. Yesterday was International Podcast Day, like we talked about. And I am so thankful to you. Because you guys broke it open yesterday with more podcast downloads here on the Pat's Peeps Podcast than ever in one single day. Thank you guys. Thank you so much for that. So grateful. You know, because of it, I went out today and I did my train trestle shout out to all of the great listeners out there. Thank you, everyone. Shout out for a record-breaking day in downloads for the Pat's Peeps podcast. There you go. Train Trestle shout out for this Wednesday, first day of October 2025. Happy October. Fall is here. The rain has been falling overnight. It is another day of clouds and beautiful temperatures. I just came back from my run today, so I'm doing that consistently, which I'm super happy about that. Please support your local businesses. We always tell you that. We got a lot of exposure for our businesses yesterday. And uh really very happy for that. So as I was on my walk today, by the way, there's one little thing that happened. I I today I I hadn't intended really on doing, you know, doing my podcast for my walk because I've been doing that a lot lately. But as I was doing my walk, I had my run today, got some running, and it's another reason I didn't podcast while I was doing it. It's hard to podcast while you're actually running. But I made a new discovery out there at the park today. Yeah, so today on Patch Peeps, 342. I wasn't gonna do uh I wasn't gonna do it from my run today, but you know, here I'm at the ballpark up in the community where I live. And I came up here to uh I walked down here and I was gonna do some laps. And it's the strangest thing. Like, I have been to this park every day, including yesterday, including the other day when we talked to Linda and Chloe, who we met out here at the park, the nice lady with the dog. And ever since I've lived in this area and come to this park, at this corner right here, there's been this rooftop area with some picnic tables under it, and then a restroom. And today I just noticed the restroom is gone. The restroom is gone. There's a little outhouse over in the parking lot, and just like overnight, they put in a playground. They put in a children's playground. Literally overnight. I can't believe this. Slide and I mean just boy, the playgrounds have changed since I was a kid. Let me see if I can't climb up here. This may be very, this may be very noisy, alright? So I'm warning you. This could be noisy. I don't know what this is gonna sound like. It's not a ladder, it's like a rope. Let me feel this thing. Oh, it's like but here we go. Here we go. I'm gonna try to climb this thing. Alright. Alright, here we go. Okay, alrighty. Okay, now I'm up in the uh little top of the little playground equipment here. So I'm gonna go into the tunnel. Jeez, it's been forever since I've gone down a slide. Let me go ahead and go down the slide. What the heck? Alright, slides are even different. When I was a kid, a slide was metal and hot. These are plastic. Here we go. Hey! Whoa! That was actually pretty fun. That was a lot quicker than I thought. I'm bifided on my my tukus. Wow. So I wasn't expecting that. Man, I hit right on my token. Right on the old derriere. Oh, no wonder. Here's a sign. Adult supervision is recommended. That's why I landed like that. I just need an adult around. Anyhow, I just thought I'd chime in with that. Changes, overnight changes here at the park. Alright, back to the uh Pat's Peeps podcast. 342. Back to you, Pat. Sounds like a lot of fun, Patrick. Thank you for that live report from the playground. Now, if they only had swings, I always liked the swings. You know, because I always I was always the kid that liked to jump on the swings and you'd see how high you could get swinging, and then you'd jump off. See how far you could fly in the air. And still, as an adult, if I see a playground with swings, and it's it there's nobody around, you know, there's no one around, I'll go out and swing on the swings. I don't want to be, you know, it's kind of weird to be the adult when you're a playground if there's kids around. You don't want to do that. So but if it's completely abandoned at the time, hey, why not? It's an empty swing, go have a little fun. So that kind of caught me off guard today. But nonetheless, I got a nice workout in. And uh, you know, today I had so many little thoughts that I was gonna do. Every day there is something new that I discover, and I'm thinking, oh, that's fascinating. I had a couple of ideas, but I may have to go with them. By the way, happy birthday to Joey Swinsky, who is like the ultimate radio fan. Joey's birthday today, 62 years old. Happy birthday, Joey. We're gonna have him on the show tonight. He just loves it. He takes over my radio show. By the way, Pat Walsh, the host of the Pat Walsh show, has heard on KFPK Radio in Sacramento, Monday through Friday, 7 to 10 p.m., 93.1 FM and 1530 a.m. So Joey will literally try to take over my show at 8.05 uh tonight. So but uh you know, as I was uh as I go through all these fascinating things that I find, occasionally I'll see something and I think, you know, I might have to feature that on my next podcast. I'm always looking to do something different. I never want it to be the same. And I I came across this. And now we're talking about a real meltdown here. Anger, raging anger. The reason I came across this is because yesterday was Buddy Rich's birthday. For those of you who don't know, Buddy Rich, Gene Krupa uh from back in that day, considered to be one of the I mean, two of the greatest among others, but greatest drummers of all time. They'd always have duels, Buddy Rich and Gene Krupa. Very well known. When I was growing up, Buddy Rich would always be on the talk shows, Mike Douglas, Merv Griffin, Dick Cavity, he'd always be on all of the tonight show. Buddy Rich was everywhere. But for those of you, you know, sometimes sometimes there's another part, well, you know, another aspect to a person. You don't hear that often. Here's a bigger audio from Buddy Richard. The majority of whom are apparently much younger than he is. Richard Chapter was well known. His attitude, his imposing personality, well known, well documented. In these secret recordings, it's not to make him out as a bad guy, it's just real life and interesting. There's a lot of people, Chris Berman, Chris Sha, I mean uh William Shatner, a lot of people, Randy Quaid, or whatever it is. This is the most least most unprofessional set I've ever been on, which I end my show with every night. Um Bobby Knight, of course, Rant, and that's what this is. Tommy Lazorda, Lee Ilya, managers, umpires. Richard's temper uh Buddy Richard's Temper was well known. These tapes were made during some of his tantrums on tour buses and backstage in the early 80s. The recordings were long circulated in bootleg form. They've done a lot to fuel the reputation of Richard's personality. They were popular with comedians, Jerry Seinfeld, Larry Dave. They actually use quotes from their you know, from their more or less verbatim on Seinfeld, for instance. On the opposite episode. Quote, if I have to tell you again, we're gonna take it outside, and I'm gonna show you what it's like. From the understudy. Remember that with Kramer? This guy, this is not my kind of guy. From the Buttershave episode with Kramer, too. Then let's see how he does up there without all the assistance. On one recording, Rich actually threatens to fire Dave Panicci, who's a trombonist, for wearing a beard. Days be it reminded me of that because Pete Heggs said, Yeah, no more beardos. But days before Rich died, he was actually visited by Mel Tormey, the Velvet Fog, who claims that one of Rich's last requests was to hear these tapes that featured his angry outbursts. At that time, Tor May was working on an authorized biography of Rich and was released after Rich's death titled Traps, the Drum Wonder, The Life of Buddy Rich. And although he was very friendly usually, they said helpful and all that, but he had a short temper, they say. Threatened his bands. Threatened to fire them, at least. Matter of fact, in the Beastie Boy song Sabotage, the lyrics, I'm Buddy Rich, when I fly off the handle, referred to Rich's temper. I'm not the first one to play it, so it's not like I'm unearthing some, oh gosh, what are you trying to do about his reputation? It's been out there forever, but I just figure here's incident number one. Many people have not heard these. Here's some of that on Pat's Peeps 342.
SPEAKER_06:What the fuck do you think is going on here? You think I mean what it's gonna work on everyone? You motherfucker should have all over this fucking joy. What do you think this is, anyhow? What kind of place is this? What kind of huge?
SPEAKER_01:There's more as well, but uh just a little taste of that. Happens to the best of them. Everyone, most people remember the Casey Caseon meltdown, American Top 40.
SPEAKER_03:That'll begin this Sunday afternoon at one, right here on the radio station you grew up with. Music Radio 138. Oh fuck. What the hell's going on here? Jeez, well, isn't it the last hour? We got another hour to do. This is fucking ponderous, man. Conderous, fucking ponderous. Hi, this is Christian Catholic. American South 40 is moved to a new time. I hope you'll join me this Saturday morning and every Saturday morning at two. We're up to our long-distance dedication. And this one is about goods and best and a situation that we can all understand. Whether we have kids or best or either. And here's what he likes. This may seem to be a strange dedication request, but I'm quite sincere in a little lot of complaints. Recently, there was a death in our family. He was a little dog named Snuggles, but he was most certainly a part of the studio. Coming out of the record. Please, here we go. Come out of those up-tempo goddamn numbers, man. It's impossible to make those transitions. And then you gotta go into somebody dying. You know, they do this to me all the time. I don't know what the hell they do it for, but goddamn it, if we can't come out of a slow record, I don't understand it. Is that on the phone? Okay, I want a goddamn concerted effort to come out of a record that isn't a fucking up-tempo record every time I do a goddamn death dedication. Now, make it and I also want to know what happened to the pictures I was supposed to see this week.
SPEAKER_02:It's a god last goddamn time. I want somebody to use his fucking brain to not come out of a goddamn record that is uh that that's up tempo, and I gotta talk about a fucking dog dying.
SPEAKER_01:American top 40! You know, when you're doing radio like that, that's production. It's behind the scenes, you're trying to produce a show. Sometimes you're trying to produce a promo. And if you're the guy, if you're the guy in the production booth, and you got a big star in the booth, and that big star has been a big star for a long time, well known. In this case, as an actor, respected, and you're the production guy, the last thing you probably want to do is tell that actor or actress how to deliver the lines in a promo or anything. Because you're not an actor, you're a producer. In this case, a technical producer who learned a heavy lesson in this from none other than William Shatner.
SPEAKER_04:This is William Shatner, and I would like to invite you to take a journey with me into the 21st century. So take the next few minutes and listen very closely. You'll be amazed at what you hear. Okay?
SPEAKER_07:Um can there be a little more uh excitement in the beginning? Oh God. Oh no.
SPEAKER_04:Oh boy, okay.
SPEAKER_07:All right. It sounded like really late, you know, really super late back.
SPEAKER_04:Well, uh I'm I'm uh I'm saying uh Okay. I'll I'll try and do that. Oh my god. Let's do take two. This is William Chatner, and I would like to invite you to take a journey with me into the 21st century. So take the next few minutes and listen very closely. Um Well, uh speak up. Uh and and maybe you better do it do it the way you hear it. Don't do it for me. No, I mean just go ahead.
SPEAKER_07:Uh this is William Shatner, and I would like to invite you to take a journey with me into the 21st century. So take the next few minutes and listen very closely. You'll be amazed at what you hear.
SPEAKER_04:Is that the way you'd like me to do it? Okay, ready. This is William Shatner, and I would like to invite you to take a journey with me into the 21st century. So take the next few minutes and listen very closely. You'll be amazed at what you hear. Okay, so it d uh I think that came pretty close.
SPEAKER_00:Are you making five minutes?
SPEAKER_04:Uh no, I'm doing testing about it. No, no. I was I believe that you asked if that was about the way you did it. I wasn't jesting.
SPEAKER_07:Okay. I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_04:Uh no, no. I I I I insist. Now, what I want you to do is on pay uh is that uh satisfactory to you?
SPEAKER_07:Uh maybe I should have just kept my mouth shut.
SPEAKER_04:No, no, because if your mouth were open, you'd have popped some pills in them. So do the next paragraph on uh page two.
SPEAKER_07:Well, I I don't know. I I really don't want to. Because I think you you actually have a better much better view.
SPEAKER_04:No, I don't think I do. I would like to hear you read the second paragraph so I can do it that way.
SPEAKER_07:You know, I really, you know, now that I've looked at the different things you did, I really like the first one.
SPEAKER_04:No, I like it better the way you did it. I really, I mean it. Please read pla uh so I can get an idea of what you want. No, no, I'm gonna do it the way you you think it should go. No, I am going to do it the way you're reading it. Okay? I know you're here to see that I do it the way the company wants it, so I'm going to do it the way you read it.
SPEAKER_07:Oh, but I don't I don't I don't want you to do it.
SPEAKER_04:But you're telling me how you want me to do it.
unknown:Well, I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_04:No, no, no. I am going to do it your way. No, there's no apology necessary. You you know what you want. You know what you want.
SPEAKER_07:No, I don't. I agree with you.
SPEAKER_04:You mean you come in here and you don't know what you want?
SPEAKER_07:Well, I come in here because I know you're a professional. I mean, that's right.
SPEAKER_04:You know how to do it, and I'm sorry, but no, I am going to do it the way you want, every paragraph. Oh, boy. And you'll send it back to town and you'll see whether. I hope it's will please everybody else. As long as I'm pleasing you, that's all that matters. Mr. Chandler, would you please?
SPEAKER_07:You know, I I don't feel right about doing that, but I really well.
SPEAKER_04:No, you felt uh you wanted something done on the first paragraph. I'm trying to do what you want. Okay, let's lay down the second paragraph.
SPEAKER_01:I'm going to go to my record here. I pulled this one off. This is interesting that I pulled this record out of my rare record 45 shelves today because we actually just added this song. Boy, that is in beautiful mint condition. I just pulled it out of the sleeve. We just added this song to my set our set list and my band that I'm in. We're doing this song. I like this. This is off a sophomore album by this band. One side mono, same song, both sides. One side mono, one side stereo. There's no stickers. This is in absolute perfect condition. I mean perfect. What is this? This is on shelter records. Promotional copy, not for sale. All right. So this song, like I say, is off the sophomore album by this band, and I love this record. I love their debut, and I love this one. American Rock Band, released in 78, first single from the second album. You're gonna get it, peaked at number 41 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in 78. Uh, this song, as well as, and they'll give it away instantly, Listen to Her Heart, was already being played live in concert as early as June of '77. Cashbox said that it is hard-driving rock and roll, and that the hook repeats hypnotically as a guitarist drive the message.
SPEAKER_00:From the album You're gonna get at Tom Pitty and the Heartbreakers, I need to know it's a big one to do, one fun one to play and sing in our band, I'll tell you that.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you for listening, Pats Peeps Podcast 342, wishing you a beautiful Wednesday. We'll see you on the radio.
