Top Shelf Stories
In a world that often shuns the uncomfortable, we embrace it with open arms—and open laughs. Our candid narratives around our stories assure you that awkwardness is a shared human experience. Tune in, enjoy the ride, and maybe learn a thing or two.
Top Shelf Stories
Unmasking Mascots and Milwaukee Memories
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We reminisce about our Bucks game experience that highlighted the joy of camaraderie, unexpected challenges, and shared adventures. Through mishaps and laughter, we reflect on the sensation that sports create, bringing friends and memories alike as we navigate modern-game experiences.
• The episode explores the logistics of planning a game night with friends
• The experience of attending a live Bucks game is discussed
• The evolving nature of ticketing, food, and drinks in sports venues
• Anecdotes of public transportation adventures before and after the game
• Reflections on the significance of shared experiences in urban life
• Encouragement for listeners to share their game-day memories
If you could do just that, that'd be great.
Top Shelf Stories with Jay, chris and Tony.
Speaker 2Yo, yo yo.
Speaker 1What is up? Everybody's chris, jay and tony and this is top shelf stories and I got a tale for you guys today. You were there, we went out?
Speaker 3are you telling me after all these years we had a shared experience.
Speaker 1We kind of did, because I was on the exact opposite side of the arena from you two. We didn't ride in together, we didn't do much together. You did come say hi, and then we didn't leave together.
Speaker 2The story behind is actually amazing. Tell the story about you buying the tickets and then asking we went to the bucks game and for those of you at home, that's milwaukee bucks. Yeah, everyone knows if you say bucks, there's not sure. Isn't there a football team?
Speaker 3famous, the buccaneers that everybody calls oh yeah, okay, okay, all right I'll give you that, the boxs, if you type in Google right now, if you talk to text Bucs score, it's going to give you the Buccaneers, bet you not.
Speaker 1Our basketball team is so aggressive. Our mascot is a white-tailed deer.
Speaker 2Yeah, Named Bango. They strap him to whatever they want and they lift him up 30 feet in the air and throw him around like a ragdoll.
Speaker 1He's the best mascot in the NBA, probably in professional sports.
Speaker 2Do you think it's only one guy or do you think people interchange?
Speaker 1I know for a fact that there's a well documented history that includes the fact that there's some elusiveness to the whole fact. But there are people who were it, who were. I was bingo for 12 years, and that's that guy. And I was bingo for 18 what's his name?
Speaker 2again, I heard him say it, but just bingo, bingo, bingo the buck.
Speaker 1I yeah, I don't know. She's the best mascot in the world. I got a bobblehead with his autograph on it is it worth? Anything, I don't know. It's a mascot signing autographs. I don't know. It's Bango the Buck, it's a mascot signing autographs. What when I was in the costume? It's signed as Bango. Not like Jim, he's not like a famous mascot guy.
Speaker 2No, I thought it'd be pretty cool seeing those guys throwing the shirts around. I mean, if they got paid good money, I would love to do that.
Speaker 1There's guys coming down our aisles because we were up high. What did they call it? The hoop troop?
Speaker 3they still call it the hoop troop so in every professional sport I'm just going to go off of what I know basketball, it is pretty much every sport. But so the way I watch the game is I got this little like, uh, I don't know, black box I. I get like every channel.
Speaker 1Everyone should be telling everyone that they have. They're legal.
Speaker 3You can buy them on amazon, okay they have a lot of problems with them when they buy them on amazon, because I'm part of a facebook group, but nonetheless. So the way I get to watch my local sports is the local channel to the away team, and so it's really bizarre. So if we're playing um, no, I get it, sacramento, kings or whatever, I get all sacramentos interesting local commercials I would not like that um every single sporting event. Local city has a lawyer that advertises like crazy, crazy during, and their number is always insert area code four, four, four, four, four four, four.
Speaker 3We have an all sevens guy in town we have an all sevens, but so ours is a, a gentleman named david gruber. He's fours, all four, I think he's fours, all fours. I think he's fours, I don't know. Call it, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not. But he has all these like wacky promotions through the game, and one of them is every time a three-point shot is made, they come out and launch T-shirts into the crowd At the Bucs games. At the Bucs games. At the Bucs games you know Jim Plimpton, down in Utah.
Speaker 1It's t-shirt time.
Speaker 3Who wants a David Gruber t-shirt?
Speaker 1from the Bucs. My wife sleeps in one that I've got at the game probably 25 years ago.
Speaker 3You know, and this David Gruber does this at everything His advertising budget must just be unlimited and 85% t-shirts.
Speaker 1Like you go to a fair, a festival, there's like a Gruber booth where you can get a t-shirt.
Speaker 3My wife and I play. We count Gruber shirts anytime we go to a public setting Like a fair or something like that. It's powerful. One year at State Fair we broke 50.
Speaker 1I believe it, at State Fair. Half of them might have gotten them that day even.
Speaker 3That's crazy. I bet you, I couldn't find 50 people wearing Puma shoes.
Speaker 2No, I got 50 pairs of Puma shoes. No, I got 50 pairs of Puma shoes.
Speaker 3I know you do. It's probably the only thing that fit them. Skinny little feet Shut up.
Speaker 1So we decided so. Back to the box game here, right Go back to this.
Speaker 2Yeah, let's do it.
Speaker 1This is going to end up being like an hour long episode. I bet that's fine. But so I was out with a friend I hadn't been to a box game. We used to him, me and this other friend we go to the box. We used to go to the box games all the time, but we haven't been able to. Life catches up to you, whatever. So we were out having a beer and I was like hey, we should go to a box game. I bought tickets. There were 20 bucks. I was like, cool, that's great. I get home. And the next day, Tony here, who is an owner of what? Is it? A quarter or a half season, yeah a quarter.
Speaker 1Okay, so he's got a bank of tickets that he goes to random games every once in a while, and he hasn't invited me to a game before that I recall. But he happened to call me the time I already just had gotten tickets, Like what are the chances right.
Speaker 2Maybe he's got a hidden microphone or some type of hearing device in your phone.
Speaker 1He was the automatic no ask.
Speaker 2He's like I'll ask when I know he can't go. Yes, I don't have enough tickets for Chris but I'm still going to ask him.
Speaker 3So here was my plan. My wife and five-year-old were going to come to this with us.
Speaker 1This is like a week or two before.
Speaker 3It's like two weeks before and yeah, we're old.
Speaker 1We fucking plan ahead two weeks to go to the ballgame.
Speaker 3They're like OK. Well, she's like well, we got tickets for this game next week and that one starts a little bit earlier, that one. She's like I don't want to get home at 11 o'clock with a five-year-old who's got to go to school in the morning. So she's like just take Chase, invite somebody else. And I'm like, well, I don't have any friends, so I'm like I'll invite the podcast boys.
Speaker 3And so first thing I do is I call Jay Anytime I'm going to invite either one of you, to both you guys to something. I'm calling Jay first and that's because he needs permission from his family to go do stuff.
Speaker 2I still do too. Why would that make you call me?
Speaker 3first, what's the?
Speaker 2reasoning behind that.
Speaker 3Well, because you got to get permission and find out whether or not you can.
Speaker 2But you wouldn't go. So you wouldn't go unless I went.
Speaker 3I would have invited you guys to a different game, but you wouldn't go. So you wouldn't go unless I would have invited you guys to a a different game had you couldn't call. Oh, so I wanted to get jay's.
Speaker 1Yeah, this is going to be good, we'll do it you were knowing that I likely am like 95 a goal on almost anything.
Speaker 3The only way you couldn't call is if you had already bought tickets.
Speaker 1I can't think of another reason.
Speaker 3really, that's really the only reason.
Speaker 2Well, in that case, you should have called Chris first and then invited us to a different game like today's, where you get a free hat.
Speaker 1I don't think I would have gone two days in a row. I don't have tickets for today's game.
Speaker 2Yeah, he doesn't have a ticket for today. I don't understand why you have season tickets or whatever and you don't get the same game when it's home again. I don't know, it doesn't make sense.
Speaker 1So one of our first, if not, well, not our first, but one of our we while to go out and do anything Like, probably like since the Renaissance.
Speaker 3Renaissance fair or comedy show.
Speaker 1We might've did the camper once after that but we haven't done a bunch Right, so but it's one of my biggest regrets in life in in this which one doing the comedy show in this particular example, we were per.
Speaker 1we were going to participate in the same event. Because a basketball game, it's an event, right, it's a thing you go do Because you could just watch it on TV. You could go to a bar or restaurant and watch it on that TV if you wanted to make it a semi-event. You could stay home, talk on the phone if you really wanted to Watch it separately.
Speaker 3Whatever right, Skype your boys.
Speaker 1But we're going to go do this thing. But we're going to go do this thing, but we have different journeys. Right to get there, I came from my house, I Ubered there, you guys drove, I imagine you maybe picked Jay up, I picked.
Speaker 2Jay up. Well, not totally.
Speaker 1Not from his house. Okay, so you scooped him.
Speaker 3I wasn't going to pay for the tickets.
Speaker 1You park and ride it or whatever.
Speaker 3And drive a half hour out of my way.
Speaker 2Hey, you already had the tickets.
Speaker 3So you came from one part of town. They weren't free, motherfucker.
Speaker 2So what? What are you going to sit by yourself, then?
Speaker 1You could resell them back right on the app, I think.
Speaker 3Yeah, I would have brought my brothers. I paid for parking One of my uncles, I think.
Speaker 1So here we are. I'm in an Uber, this guy that I took. I looked at this guy's stats before I got in the thing he had given 34,000. Some odd rides, dude.
Speaker 2I started talking to him in the cab.
Speaker 1I started talking to him in the cab. He said yeah, you saw that. Yeah, I am the number one Uber driver in the entire state of Wisconsin dude.
Speaker 1He's like yeah, they email me all the time His car had like 300 000 miles on it. Oh, but it was like a 2022 cheap wrangler or some shit, like it was not that old and it was a. It was a nice truck, like a truck. It looked brand new in the inside but it had all these miles, but, but anyway. So then I went what I did after the Uber. We went and got a couple beers met up at the Brat House me and DeVore did and then we walked over to the game. We got in buy tickets. I didn't pay attention, I didn't have them downloaded and shit, because you know you can't bring a physical paper ticket anymore. No, no matter, they don't have it, they don't do that. They don't even barcode. It was like a Wi-Fi scan out of your wallet, right?
Speaker 3I don't put them in the wallet you have it in the app. They try to make me put it in the wallet and I always just go app.
Speaker 1So think about this for a second. You cannot participate in this event without fully doxing and identifying yourself 100%, like the world can find. That's where you are yeah, like we all kind of are that with our phones in our pockets, but literally you can't go into unless, I guess, as a a guest. My friend didn't have to. I scanned my thing twice so he was in there. But what? Why is that like? Why is that? Do you know?
Speaker 1I don't know is it for our convenience, because it sure didn't feel very convenient with me and three other people while we were trying to go through had to fumble through our phones to try to figure out, because I only put one of the tickets in my wallet, apparently not two. So then I had to go back, re-sign in, do the log and I'm looking at and there's like 15 other people doing this on the entrance of the game so it does.
Speaker 3It does bother me quite a bit that you can't have, you know, like a physical stub, analog ticket as a keepsake or whatever you want to do with it. But I did think about this. I recently, really like a week ago bought tickets to another show at the Riverside, and the Riverside is a small local theater, you know like 1800 seat or something.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's my favorite place in the world.
Speaker 3It's one of mine too, but I haven't been there in a couple years, and when I would do, you had to buy the tickets online. I mean, that's been like a 10-year thing. You can go to the box office, yeah, I know, but I'm saying it's just you buy your tickets online now. But there was always an option for will call tickets and that's what I did. So I paid for them, I put my name down, I get there, I go to the box office, I show my id, they hand me my two or four tickets, whatever, yep, and I go, get in line and now that at the riverside is a six dollar add-on, a convenience fee, yeah, so it's six bucks to get will call tickets you can pay a convenience fee.
Speaker 1If you go to the counter and buy tickets, you have to pay a counter fee. It's called. I'm not lying. Yeah, it's called. I'm not lying to you. The cheapest way to get tickets still is to go to the place and buy them there. But you do pay additional fee, called the counter fee. It's like $250 or something.
Speaker 2How do you buy a ticket for something like this? Just like a normal person, like a scalper, Like you? Can't do it anymore.
Speaker 3I think that's why they got rid of physical tickets.
Speaker 2Because of scalping, so people can't stand outside and sell them anymore.
Speaker 3Why can't you? You certainly can. It's much harder.
Speaker 1You can transfer them to anybody anywhere anyhow, they're just making it harder now, like it's validated, now it's right through the Bucks app.
Speaker 2But imagine giving someone a piece of paper and then be like okay, instead of the paper, now you got to turn your phone on, you got to log into this app. You don't have the app, you can't. Blah, blah, blah. All these things you have to jump through.
Speaker 1Have you ever bought a scalper ticket and then went to scan it and the fucking buzzer's red, not green, and you can't go in? I never bought a scalping I've had that happen before that's wild, because they can just print out a hundred of them and sell a hundred even though there's only six tickets, and they get the heck out of there everybody bought the same seat.
Speaker 1That's why, most of the time, the ticket scalping game is run by a group of people who are they're like yeah, man, you can go buy it from some other guy here, but but you know my shit, it's legit, I'll be here next Tuesday too. I'm a scalper guy, but you just buy it off some guy in the parking lot two blocks from the stadium. Hey, I got an extra ticket, buddy, here's $7 for it. Okay, cool, denied. That won't happen with the electronic ticket. I don't like it. I didn't like it. Electronic ticket I don't like it. I didn't like it.
Speaker 3I don't like it either, and I don't like also that now, when you go online to buy tickets, if, if, something gets released, you know Tuesday at 10 AM and you're waiting in line to get tickets online and you, finally, you finally get through and then you pull up the map of the place to pick out your tickets. They're all gone and three quarters of them are already verified. Resale.
Speaker 2I think it's a good thing I like it Saving the planet.
Speaker 1Let's save the trees, man.
Speaker 2Okay, get the paper back in the tree.
Speaker 1So we get to the Bucs game. We're all set. You guys are already in there. I presume You're texting me. Where are your seats? Where are your seats? I'm trying to get in the door. Still, we were in there at 6 o'clock and inside the stadium the stadium is freaking awesome.
Speaker 2Tony took a picture of you and zoomed in on you to show me that you were sitting over there, sweet I showed him the picture you sent me.
Speaker 3I dig it.
Speaker 1Oh, that's what it was. So, uh, what was I saying? Oh, because so we walk in there. The stadium's awesome, dude, it's all white in there. It's awesome, dude, it's all white in there, it's all open. There's big pillars and there's big tall escalators you got to take to go upstairs.
Speaker 1So I jump on the escalator to my left, I ride it up and then we circle around and go up the next escalator and you get to the top and it says like, basically all sections over here to the left. So I just start walking to the left, I get about five, six walking to the left. I get about five, six sections into walking and I'm like, dude, you got to go all the way around this stadium. Like, should we turn around? So we walked all the way around the whole stadium is. The national anthem was going off and the whole player introductions were happening. Um, then, yeah, we got to our seats. We got these pretty cool seats. We were up in the aisle, sat there and, like I had a table in front of me and bar top, high situation you didn't get a bartender or a waitress, did you?
Speaker 2no? But you can order in the app, did you know that?
Speaker 1and they send it, they bring it down to you even beer and it's probably like instead of $16 it's $26 a beer so I go to grab my seat and it's in the walkway of the stadium and there are in the stadium open seats where you can just stand at the bar, like you're a stand at the rail there and watch the game. There's like standing room only tickets, but not these ones. These were reserved. I go to sit there and this woman comes by me and she's like I got to see your ticket. Like what? These are my seats, you don't need like what? Okay, I'll show you my ticket. She moves the little. Don't sit here. Sign over to the next seats over. Show her my ticket. And she's like I got to see his ticket too. Like what? Okay? So then show her my ticket and she's like I gotta see his ticket too like what okay.
Speaker 1So then again I have to get my phone out, go into this app, bring it up, find it, blah, blah, blah, whatever, instead of just going to my pocket and giving her the top, the stub, right, so whatever. I'm kind of perturbed by this whole interaction, because it was so like hello, this is, I'm here for the event you work here. Be a little nicer to me. I felt like, and so now I'm turning into like this old man yells at the sky attitude about things here at this event. So I go, we get set up, good deal. I go to get a beer and I look behind me and there's no people. There's no. There's, there's food up on the rails, but there's no people, because everything here is self-checkout. Do you have all self-checkout by you on your side too? It wasn't just me. So this self-checkout there's like not even really any instruction. There's just this you can't cross this line, exit over here. There's people, there's two employees that are not paying any attention to any of the guests there at the event.
Speaker 3They're texting.
Speaker 1They're just standing there Like yeah, they were all in all black, like they weren't even there. So I'm like, okay, I guess they're just watching. So I get myself in there. There's nobody else there at this point, so there's like it's just like you see somebody standing in the a window behind you see all this food like nachos, tacos or whatever hot dogs, chicken tenders, sodas, coolers full of beer, all this shit. So you just go in there in the line and I grab it out of the shelf.
Speaker 1I go to this thing and there's a box on the table. It's just put your items here, separated from each other, with space between them, and then on this screen, boom, there pops up what you got. But my machine doesn't do anything because I'm purchasing alcohol and so there's apparently another step. So it's just sitting there and this lady comes up to me and she's like I need your id. I'm like, well, hello, hi, how are you? Like? Come on, she doesn't make eye contact in any way. I look at her, she looks at my id, but she doesn't look at me. She gives it back to me and she scans this like like piece of paper with like a barcode on it, and then the machine goes happy, I pay my money and I walk away with my goods. I was like that was one of the worst and I'm $30 less. I got two beers. I got $28.50 out of my account, like it's gone.
Speaker 2Why is everyone hating on you? When we came by, you seemed pretty spry.
Speaker 1Oh, I was fine.
Speaker 2I was just acknowledging that this no, but like everything you're saying, they're like yelling at you. This lady, the people, like that lady was yelling at you, yes, and the one that you were sitting down and yelling at you at you and the one that you were sitting down yelled at you yes, and the lady that was was not.
Speaker 1She was pretty friendly, not super frustrated, but kind of frustrated that I didn't have my ticket ready on my phone too, and that my friend had already gone in because I scanned a ticket. He had gone in and she's like where's your friend go? I'm like it doesn't matter, I scanned his ticket, he's inside I don't know.
Speaker 1Well, you need whatever. So the second time around, at the beers, I'm like, okay, my buddy didn't have his card or something, all he had was cash. So he was paying for some of the beers, but he I had to go get them each time. So now I'm up for round two. I go up there and now I get the idea of the system right. So I'm like, fuck, I don't need these people, right? But then I remembered I need them for the ID part. So she, the thing, beeps or whatever. She acknowledges that there's a problem. She comes over and she slams this. She looks at me this time briefly, notices that I'm 42 years old and just slaps the piece of paper up against the barcode. The screen turns green. I pay for the things. I walk away. But as I walk away she goes hey, you need to open those. Yeah, they make you open them. Yeah, I just walked, I just continued to walk did you chase?
Speaker 1I'm like I'm with an eye shot. And when I did open them, when I set it down and put my koozie in it, cracked it open, she could. I mean it became a non-issue because I opened it. I don't know if it was an issue. I don't know if she followed me. I don't know if she was coming.
Speaker 2Yeah, she's here running after you. You turn around. I didn't turn around.
Speaker 3It's the caps. Nobody's allowed to have caps. No, it's because it was a full beer.
Speaker 1I could throw the whole thing. It was a ounce can. That that's what I was told. That might be photos. Yeah, they're like you cannot have caps. Yeah, because they're afraid you're gonna throw them. It's gonna become a weapon.
Speaker 3That's how we're treated at these events that our sodas are gonna be a weapon, or or they think somebody's just gonna buy a 12er at their prices and leave with it right, Right or something right, like you're going to take it out.
Speaker 2Do you think that Holy?
Speaker 3shit, $14.50?. What a fucking bargain. Let me get 20 of them.
Speaker 2You can throw your beer better when it's closed than when it's open. I would think so.
Speaker 1Is that? The logistics of it, that's the idea that it would cause more harm if you did.
Speaker 1I never heard of that, so when they started, taking the soda tops away from you, like at Marcus Amphitheater specifically and Summerfest specifically. I carried in with like three, four different kinds of tops, one for a 20 ounce, one for a water and I was a fucking hero for people, Because if you get a bottled water for $7 at Summerfest and you don't get a fucking top for it so you can smash it into your back pocket and walk around it's a bottle of water you might.
Speaker 2I mean start your own business, bring, bring a bag full of caps in there you have to drink it faster.
Speaker 1Well, that's part of it too, I'll bet, okay. So now we are it's halftime. Uh, you guys stopped over.
Speaker 3Yeah, my kid was really worried about whether or not we were going to come find you.
Speaker 2Why he?
Speaker 3asked me two times on the way there.
Speaker 1I was really excited that you guys came by to be honest with you.
Speaker 2Yeah, I saw Tony run at you and you were about to hug him and you were like I shouldn't do this in front of the kids. Oh no, we hugged. That's weird.
Speaker 1Oh, I didn't see that so, yeah, I want to end this story line, or this line of story of this self checkout thing. So I'm I'm kind of perturbed by the whole thing. I'm thinking I'm spending a freaking three hours of my wage on a fucking beverage every 25 minutes here and I can't even get eye contact. I can't even get eye contact. I can't even get a hello. I didn't like the whole idea. I started thinking about how the food's not even made there. It's probably made in the central kitchen to the bottom of the stadium. They just bring it up and slide it down the little rail. I kept thinking about how much fucking food gets wasted. And all this whatever third time around it's a self-checkout. I know how this bitch works. I grab my beers, I go to the machine, I grab that lady's little piece of paper, I scan myself as 21 years old. I walk away after paying for them. She's yelling again about something you didn't, something, I don't know. I sat down.
Speaker 2That was the end of it. When they do the self-checkout thing, they don't ask for a tip, do they?
Speaker 1That was the one thing I enjoyed about this experience is that there was a button in the lower left-hand corner of the checkout screen where it showed all your items and how much they cost, where you could push to tip.
Speaker 1But it didn't prompt me ever to tip and I was appreciative of that, I will say I think, I think the the companies are realizing people don't like it, that's not gonna I think that the amount of people who are afraid to hit no tip or afraid to hit other and just smash the 18% that's glowing is too high for them to ever stop doing it. Too many people would just be like that's normal. I think I bought, I'm at McDonald's and I got to give $7 tip for my $32 McDonald's Like what.
Speaker 2That's crazy. I think I bought like five beers there and every time I did not tip, no way. And that guy I went to the same guy. Did you get a tapper guy, or what was it? I went to the guy that's just standing there with the bucket of ice and shit. You know Sure.
Speaker 1Just by himself.
Speaker 2And he's got so used to me that he actually would sign my name for me and then he'd continue because he'd want me just to get out of my way and if somebody else come there and tip him, cause he knew I wasn't going to tip, so he signed my name every time.
Speaker 1So my rule of thumb at at events like stadium events or concerts is if you have a, if you go up to a bar and you're having them make you a cocktail you have to tip oh that's a different story.
Speaker 1You have to tip. If you're going up to the bar and you're just grabbing a beer, you don't have to tip every time, but you should probably tip pretty good the first time, especially if you're going to come back, because then you get like what you said, where the guy just knows what you're doing. He understands what's the rule on that. But at an arena or Bucks game, brewers game concert, where you're just going to the man in the ice bin, if it's cash you give him the change or you give him the extra dollar, but if it's a card you don't. That's my rule.
Speaker 3That's where it goes, I don't know man, I think with how, because they're making money.
Speaker 1I mean, they're making a decent wage. They're not there as tipped employees like they are at a bar. If you go to a bar, that bartender or bartenderess is probably making $5 an hour plus tips, and so the tips is like 90% of their wage. Right Versus at the Bucks game, the guy's making $32 an hour. Dude, like I'm not kidding you, they're all union paid. Dudes Like you get paid Because you're only working four hours a night though.
Speaker 2Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 3Dude, I went to a Brewer game last summer and they had this big beautiful like bar right in the middle and I'm like, oh, dude, old-fashioned, I'll grab an old-fashioned michelle's. Like grab me one too. So we got two uh tall old fashions and it was 54 dollars, yeah. And I'm like this is fucking insanity, yeah. And then, and then you can't pay with cash and you swipe your card and it's like how about you tip 25 percent? It's like how about you go fuck yourself? You just charged me literally for two bottles of corbel, a fucking case of soda. Yeah, you can make like 50. And then you're like, oh, come on, man, let me get a little more.
Speaker 1I mean that's the thing. But those drinks I mean they are pretty strong drinks normally at these events they don't really mess you, weaken you up.
Speaker 3I feel like they overcharge so much and then they try to pity you and like, oh, come on, man, just like three more dollars. No, you spent nine dollars on this pretzel, right, but three bucks, man.
Speaker 1This guy had to hand it to you yeah, but the game though, man, the game was fun. Our seats, perspective wise, were phenomenal. Where I was sitting, I had a good angle on everything. The sound was really cool. In fact they played the radio broadcast in the hallways so we could almost hear both, which was pretty cool. Actually, we were up 47 to 22 at the end of the first quarter, so it was like game's over. It was an ass-whooping. But even Tony told me 47 to like 22 at the end of the first quarter.
Speaker 2So it was like, oh, it was over, it was an ass whooping. But uh, even Tony told me like I was like, dude, this is gonna be a record breaking night at 47 points at the first quarter. So I was like, just wait, two quarters in, they're going to have 10 more points and it's going to be tied.
Speaker 1Yeah, I mean they only won by like 12 or something.
Speaker 2Yeah, they just like they don't give up, but they just like lose steam.
Speaker 3I mean not that I've been to every Bucs game or watched every Bucs game. You know a lot more now than you really did before. It's so fucking wild to half, uh, their third quarter. They're so fucking good like they. Just the bucks have always been pretty good in the third, but if they're ahead in the third at at the half, by the time it gets to the fourth they're rarely still ahead yeah, like they throw away the third quarter if they're ahead.
Speaker 1That makes me always think about how it might be scripted. You know Like they want these games to be close. They want them to go four quarters. They don't want people turning off their TV sets, they don't want people turning away from you know, thinking the game's over.
Speaker 3I don't know when other teams are putting a real hurting on us. Their third quarters are pretty solid. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1I don't see it. So do you guys? So before the game I said we went and got a couple beers at a local drinking hole just a few blocks away from the stadium, just those few blocks was freezing cold. It was like seven degrees, six degrees out yesterday, with wind chills in the negatives, I believe.
Speaker 2I mean it was really cold.
Speaker 1So then after the game, we file out of there and we're like, okay, he's like I'm hungry, I'm like all right. So we walked to Ian's Pizza, which is probably like about a third of a mile maybe. So cold, dude, there's a hotel St Kate Hotel, I think it's, or Kate Hotel.
Speaker 2I was like we got to stop there, dude.
Speaker 1Maybe that was after we got pizza. Yeah, dude, so cold. So we got some pizza and then we had to walk to.
Speaker 2I took the bus home and he took the bus home so we had to walk to, we had to walk to wisconsin in water so he took, you took city public transportation.
Speaker 1We took separate city public transportation I would have.
Speaker 3I would have fucking shoehorned you into my truck.
Speaker 1I don't care I enjoyed it, so we had some pizza and then there's nothing better than taking public transportation. The walk dude was so cold, dude, so cold you have no idea how fast you start walking. When it starts to really like, your jeans become sheets of ice and are slapping against your fucking legs, oh man it was so cold.
Speaker 3You're so much more adventurous.
Speaker 1So then, I'm waiting at the bus stop. My bus shows up, he's. I zoom past him. He's still waiting for his bus. Like I could see him waiting, I'm like, oh, it's so warm in here, bro.
Speaker 3It's like 80 degrees did. So you guys went and sat in separate little three-walled igloos.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, on different opposite corners of the street, because he was going south and I needed to go west.
Speaker 2How long does it?
Speaker 1take you, so my ride is the best bus ride in the planet. It's called the Blue Mountain Rapid Transit, the Connect One bus, and it only stops at special stops that they built that don't have to have the bus kneel down. They stop only if there's people at the stop and it freaking cruises, dude. So it goes straight up Wisconsin. It's got its own lanes and everything. It's phenomenal. And guess what? They don't ever make you pay for it. They don't ever make you pay for it. They don't have a way to prepare something. I don't.
Speaker 2But they have that thing that you have to tip them.
Speaker 1So you pay at the kiosk, which is what I did, but then it doesn't, yeah, anyways. So the ride takes about from Wisconsin and water to my house. Yes, well, the stop by my house. It takes about 16 or 18 minutes depending on how many times it stops. It runs every 25 or 20 minutes. There's another bus All the way up until like 1.15 in the morning is the last one leaving downtown towards my house. So I rode the bus. It was nice and warm in there, got my nice seat to put the radio on my head. People coming on, coming off or going through the hood Cause you're going up Wisconsin Avenue through like where all the the housing is and all of like, the homeless shelters are and all this stuff, and it was like what?
Speaker 1Probably 11 o'clock, 1130 or something by this time Cause you had grabbed pizza and whatever walked Dude, get out to my spot. Sometimes I can get the bus driver to stop right on the corner for my street where I only have to walk like six, five blocks maybe and it's all downhill.
Speaker 2But this time the driver didn't want to stop.
Speaker 1So then the driver she drove to the bus stop, but the bus stop is another, like seven or eight blocks. So, now I'm almost a half a mile walk from my house. So the bus to get on it the stop isn't closer, but this one goes down towards the medical center a little bit off of Blue Mound. So now I'm a block and a half or so from Blue Mound.
Speaker 3Then I got out from 95th to 92nd and then not lay down whatever I'm doxing my fucking location bro, I felt bad dropping jay off at his car because I pulled like a car, a car width away from his car.
Speaker 2No dude, when I got out of your warm ass car and trying to even start my car was a fucking nightmare. We, my son and I, was shivering in that fucking car, half frozen, and I don't think the heat actually got warm until I got home. That's how fucking well. And then you had to walk up.
Speaker 1I mean at your, did you just run like fuck it, you just run home so yeah, um, I started walking and there's two guys got off the same stop as me and I passed them right away. I'm like I'm cooking dude, they're like lackadaisically walking. I, there's two guys got off the same stop as me and I passed them right away. I'm like I'm cooking dude, they're like, lackadaisically walking. I'm like you guys, where are you even going? Like it's weird to have anyone get off. It would be normally they go all the way onto the medical center. If they made it that far, which they normally don't, normally have the bus to myself, like the whole way. It's pretty legit. I start walking. I got the pizza tucked under my arm, my hands are in my pockets, I got my hood on, my hats on. I'm, I'm cruising, I'm I'm making a good pace and I'm like man, is it freaking cold?
Speaker 1so now I'm cutting corners like I jaywalked across the blue mound and I cut through the church hot church parking lot quick and I kitty cornered through this guy's yard and I'm, and now I'm it's downhill, I know it's not a path now it's getting cold.
Speaker 1I can tell the speed of my legs is, like subconsciously, speeding up. I'm starting to get ahead of myself just cooking, cooking, cooking. Now I can see my house and I'm starting to count it down in my head. I'm grabbing for my key. I got this pizza. I'm balancing still. I grabbed my key as soon as I got to the right in the house well, we would.
Speaker 2We would have warned you if you died if you didn't make it home, dude, if you just got like a block away from all dead with the pizza in your hand, oh, my gosh like I would.
Speaker 1I would have died. I'll bet you, when I put that pizza in the fridge for the night, it was probably almost frozen already.
Speaker 3It made everything in the refrigerator colder.
Speaker 1But man, part of the event was talking to the Uber driver, 35.
Speaker 3So why didn't you just?
Speaker 2Uber home. So I could have Ubered home, saving money. I could have Ubered home, it's's free ride a couple things about uber, and home was one.
Speaker 1I would have had to wait in my spot for the uber and I was not inside. I guess I could have called it from ian's pizza, but my guy was riding. He wanted to ride the bus and they, they they saw they charge you a lot more. It an uber to get there was like 17 bucks I mean to get back, to get home at that hour. Yeah, well, because I wasn't near the event hour anymore, it had been an hour and a half or so there was no one around downtown.
Speaker 1I probably would have had to wait 15 20 minutes for a cab or uber to get there is she waiting somewhere warm? And then, uh, the uber itself would have cost me, yeah, 20, 25 bucks because they charge a little more at night, I think, and so this was zero dollars faster.
Speaker 2So how, how many times were you thinking to yourself as you're walking home in this freezing cold environment? I should have just got a fucking uber.
Speaker 1Um, not at all, not really, really yeah, I was glad I took an Uber down there because that ride walk there. I would have had to walk. Yeah, it would have sucked to do it there, but I don't know, dude, sometimes. So I've taken an Uber ride down Wisconsin Avenue hundreds of times now Like it's yeah, it's 15, 15, 20 bucks every time. And you take that into account because I don't drink when I go out drinking, I don't drive, I just don't. You just take the freaking the uber, you know, uh, but the the cost.
Speaker 1I'm like this bus is here now. It's like the first city transit bus. That's like built for me Because I like go down with like the Riverside all the time. All the time you could go straight down to Wisconsin or to Water Street. Grab the other bus up and down Water Street and you can find yourself anywhere in all of downtown and it's $2., $2. I thought it was free. Well, it's free. This brt system bus, for some reason, is still not all the buses have the machines that work for something to collect. I don't know, maybe I'm stealing the ride. I don't even know.
Speaker 1If I am, I'll pay it, I don't this fucking guy again train not paying, but I noticed nobody else does, so I don't get it. I got the app. I'm supposed to be able to scan the app. There's nowhere to scan it, so I don't know what to do, so maybe I'm doing it wrong.
Speaker 2I guess I'm pretty privileged. I've only taken the city bus like twice in my life. I take it for choice like when I travel somewhere.
Speaker 1I love taking other cities. Public transit absolutely love it. Me and my brother once once went to Chicago and we decided that we were going to take all public transit, no Ubers, no taxis or whatever. So we were on, we took a bus, basically, and then the train. We took the bus and the train and we rode it sitting backwards the whole time, because on the trains and the buses they have seats that sit the wrong way, because the bus, the trains for one, they just go back and forth, they don't turn around, just go forward and then go backwards and that's it. And so everywhere we rode, we rode backwards for an entire day through chicago. It's kind of cool yeah, I mean way more adventurous than me.
Speaker 1You're what's? What was your story? So you guys did what.
Speaker 3We drove down there, found, found, jay. Correct me if I'm wrong we were the second closest person to be able to park to the stadium. Yeah, we're really close. There's one car behind me that was technically three steps closer.
Speaker 2And so they parked pretty shitty, shitty and Tony made sure to park better, you know, in the spaces so some everyone could fit, more cars could fit, and I was like there's no way someone's going to fit in front of you. Parallel parking is, but this, the space in front of them looks so tiny. And then, two seconds after I said it, fucking guys backing up, reversing and bump it, hitting the curb going forward. Again, hit the curb going, starting straight.
Speaker 1Now a little bit more in this good spot, dude, and I'm like tony, could you do? That in one pass, oh yeah did you have to pay for this parking?
Speaker 3Yeah. So rule of thumb downtown is if you find a meter and it's after 6 pm, that meter's free. Yes, a lot of people don't understand that or realize that. And the meters will let you continue to plug them, correct, but they do not Park. Parking enforcement stops at six, correct? For meters uh, the ones out in front of the bucks arena, it's it's now two hour parking between 6 am and 6 pm, and from 6 to9 it's unlimited parking, but still metered. So it's basically the city saying well, everybody else is charging for parking, so we're gonna too. So I told Jay because Jay has the parking app and I don't he had to pay for parking and he got really upset because they wanted $2 an hour.
Speaker 1I think that's normal.
Speaker 2Yeah, Actually, I had no idea what they wanted. I just didn't want to do it because it was cold. Then I'm like Tony, I need to know your license plate number. I can't just fucking put anything I want there Shit. We had to go back to the car because he doesn't have it memorized.
Speaker 1I don't think he has to put the license plate.
Speaker 2You do Well when I did it.
Speaker 1I had to.
Speaker 2It asks for it, but I don't think you actually have to.
Speaker 1You don't have to Because my dentist pays for my parking when I go to the dentist.
Speaker 2He doesn't either. Maybe he knows your license plate is over. Maybe he's looking out the window. All right, make sure I got that X and L Down eight floors.
Speaker 1No, he can't see me, yeah, well you know, I don't know, Damn parking man we got.
Speaker 3I've only been that lucky one other time.
Speaker 1So when I lived downtown, I had a balcony. It was on the fourth floor and I would sit out there. I smoked cigarettes at the time and on Saturdays I'd have coffee, and Sundays, coffee and cigarettes out on the patio. It's the sun coming up, watching all the people walk around. But my civic duty, my goodwill for the day, was yelling down to people on the street. You don't have to pay the meter, it's Saturday. Oh, thanks, man. Like you'd see them going back in their car digging through their purse and like you don't have to pay today.
Speaker 2oh shit, that's great I don't even think these meters had slots for coins. Yeah, they do did it yeah but they prefer you just put your credit card in there or use the app use the app and, yeah, pay well. I mean, it's easier. It shows you a countdown on your phone and then it tells you oh, oh, your time's coming, you better.
Speaker 1Do you ever see them collect the money out of the meters? No, it's a special little box they use. They pull the little box that's on a dolly, they pull it up next to the meter and this little thing comes out and they jam it into the shoots, all the money into the box, and then they can't pull the thing off until they lock the meter again and you can't get into the thing to the money. So that makes the people they can't steal it.
Speaker 2That sounds super sexual, doesn't it Not?
Speaker 1though, does it not? Though, so that you can't steal it Cause you wouldn't you imagine the meter made person could like steal tons of quarters, man you can't steal, because you wouldn't you imagine the meter made person could like steal tons of quarters, man, like I'm emptying them out. Nope, sorry boss, there was only eight in there today and no cameras, but yeah, that's a whole operation. Dude, they still have to do it because there's still cash yeah no no, it was.
Speaker 3It was wonderful parking the lot that we parked at the entrance of that watched, watched me park in a spot. It's charging 40 I think it was 50 in that lot.
Speaker 1It's ridiculous that's the other reason why I take ubers and stuff down, because there's nowhere to park, even if you wanted to you just gotta be willing to pay so the uber driver and I picked me up. He's like, yeah, I was just dropping somebody off at uh, then the I forget the name of the bar right now Uh, brewskis, I guess they do a shuttle on the bucks game. I'm like, yeah, I'm going to the bucks game. He's like, oh go to brewskis.
Speaker 1So I was like I thought about it, actually of the game fucking cancel ride. Give them a bad review so then you guys just drove home. Then right just that's wonderful drove home. So you didn't get an adventure because you didn't have a public we can't get in the biggest adventure children, was jay buying his kid a jersey?
Speaker 2a hundred dollar jersey for a child, a youth, medium? Yeah, I mean, if I looked at it this way, which T at which?
Speaker 1part.
Speaker 2I spent less on his Jersey than I did on beer. There you go, you're a good dad. What's?
Speaker 3the, but the thing is Jay is is you made a lifetime core memory for him? Pretty?
Speaker 2much. What T? What player? Uh, well, of course, the honest oh, you got to be honest, is he?
Speaker 1well, I mean, I just whatever he wanted and the good thing is, you were telling us earlier that he's scrawny and doesn't eat, so he'll never grow out of it true that?
Speaker 2yeah, I told him get a little bigger, just in case it grows.
Speaker 3Yeah, no, for the medium instead of small, this time, buy a youth large so you can have it all through your adulthood. Yeah, that's true too.
Speaker 1Like I have an old, I put it. I took it off a hanger just recently and put it in a drawer, but I got this old Padres baseball jersey that used to be huge on me and now I can barely fit.
Speaker 2Wear it in the summertime to one of the casts. That's basically what I wear. Wear it in the summertime.
Speaker 3That's basically what I wear to the beach or whatever I don't even have to button it two years ago I bought Chase a Giannis jersey and at the time he was in he was in a kids large so I took him in. We got it at a sporting goods store, I took him in, I had him try it on and it fit perfect. And I'm like you know what fuck this? We're getting a men's small. He tries it on. He looks like dude, he looks like fucking puff daddy.
Speaker 3In 1998 jump it's down to his knees. Yeah, he had to wear like a fucking sweatshirt under it, so it didn't look so like a dress on him just have him use it as a blanket for the first couple years and then last year.
Speaker 3It fit great on him. There you go and I was like perfect man, we got a whole nother year out of it. I'm like it'll probably still fit him next year. He fucking put it on this year still huge, with no shirt on under it and it's like fucking skin tight, no way so he grew too fast anyway, so he never had it fit right last year it fit good, he leave this year. Man, it was too tight. I had to get him a fucking men's medium. Yeah, these kids grow up fast man.
Speaker 1Well, that's it. That's the top shelf story of Trip to the Game. We went together-ish. We shared the experience-ish.
Speaker 3I hope in life I get to run into you guys more in the real world.
Speaker 1It is odd we get together every week but we don't hang out much outside of the pod. Yeah, top Shelf Stories we're coming in every Tuesday. This one is a long one. We appreciate you sticking through it. Hope you enjoyed it.
Speaker 3Yeah, tell us on the internet about experiences you had with your bros.
Speaker 1No, but for real. If you go on Apple Podcasts and you write us a review, it actually helps us a lot. So if you could do just that, that'd be great.
