Hollywood and Horsepower Show with Mark Otto

Hollywood and Horsepower Show with Mark Otto The Improv Roots of Saturday Night Live: Second City, The Groundlings, and Fifty Years of Lorne Michaels Mark Otto flies solo this week, tracing the lesser-known paths performers took to Saturday Night Live through Chicago's Second City, its Toronto outpost, and Los Angeles's Groundlings, while reflecting on Lorne Michaels's fifty-year run as the show's executive producer. Sponsors And A Solo Show Mark Otto opens Hollywood and Horsepower with his usual roll call of sponsors, thanking Tony's Steaks and Seafood, bluenile.com, Cutler Nutrition, and a promotional-products company he refers to as Gogaffi.com, while reminding listeners the show also supports No Fallen Heroes and Old Friends Equine. He tells the audience he has no guest today, choosing instead to walk through the history of Second City and The Groundlings and the broader road that leads performers to Saturday Night Live, a show he admits is one of his personal favorites. Otto frames the episode as an attempt to show listeners what actually goes into careers that look effortless from the outside, promising a look at paths beyond straight stand-up. He sets up the hour as a tribute to the training grounds that quietly built modern American comedy, before diving into the show's own origin story. Lorne Michaels Launches A Risk Otto recounts how Saturday Night began in October 1975, developed by Lorne Michaels alongside Dick Ebersol and other NBC executives, with Michaels securing an unusual seven-episode commitment from the network before the show ever aired. He credits Michaels with the instinct to let the cast itself become the center of the show, a structural choice Otto believes shaped everything that followed. The premiere, hosted by George Carlin, stumbled through friction and sketches that did not land, and Otto notes the show did not truly find its footing until three or four episodes in. He adds that the show's early run drew plenty of skeptics, including some NBC executives themselves, and wonders aloud whether a single pilot episode, rather than a guaranteed run, would have let the show survive its shaky start, calling Michaels the longest-serving executive producer he can think of in television history. Why Every Cast Gets Called The Best Otto turns to how fans talk about Saturday Night Live's different eras, noting that whenever someone insists the original cast or the Farley-and-Spade years were the best, he can almost always guess they graduated high school around that same time. He argues every cast has actually been strong, and that nostalgia, not quality, usually drives the ranking, since most viewers were most captivated during high school or early college before life got busier. He reminds listeners the show existed in a pre-internet world: missing a sketch on Saturday night meant waiting up to six months for a rerun, with no clips, no streaming, and in places like the United Kingdom, often no broadcast at all. That scarcity, Otto says, is exactly how the show built its reputation, spreading through word of mouth even as critics dismissed it early on with headlines calling it Saturday Night Dead and predicting its best days were already behind it. Second City And The Groundlings Feed The Show Otto walks through the improv theaters that quietly stocked Saturday Night Live with talent, starting with Second City, founded in Chicago's Old Town in December 1959 by Paul Sills, Bernie Sahlins, and Howard Alk out of the earlier Compass Players. He describes working in Chicago early in his career and witnessing firsthand how many then-unknown performers passed through its stage before turning up on television a year or two later. Second City expanded into Toronto around 1973, producing John Candy, Eugene Levy, and Catherine O'Hara, while Chicago kept feeding the show names like Bill Murray, John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Harold Ramis, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Stephen Colbert, and Steve Carell. Otto then turns to The Groundlings, founded in Los Angeles in 1974 by Gary Austin, crediting it with launching Phil Hartman, Mike Myers, Melissa McCarthy, Will Ferrell, Kristen Wiig, and Lisa Kudrow, and stressing that most of these performers came up through improvisation and sketch work rather than traditional stand-up comedy. Writers, Timing, And Near Misses Otto explains that many SNL legends actually started as writers rather than cast members, naming Conan O'Brien, David Spade, and Jimmy Fallon among those who worked the writers' room under figures like head writer Jim Downey, Robert Smigel, and Jack Handey before ever appearing on camera. He also addresses performers who never made the cast, noting Jim Carrey auditioned but arrived when the roster was already a murderer's row, and Ben Stiller chose to pursue other projects rather than wait for playing time. Otto describes how David Spade sat behind Dana Carvey for years before Chris Farley joined and their on-screen chemistry finally gave Spade his opening, arguing talent alone rarely decides who breaks through. He closes with portraits of John Goodman, called one of the best cold readers anyone has seen, and Phil Hartman, remembered as meticulously organized, keeping notebooks and labeled materials for every sketch while calmly reading unrelated manuals backstage during moments of panic. Modern Challenges And What's Next Otto argues today's cast and writers actually face a harder job than their 1975 predecessors, since Saturday Night Live now competes with YouTube channels, podcasts, and endless streaming options instead of the three or four television channels available when the show began. He singles out Kenan Thompson for staying sharp year after year despite that crowded field, calling the show's continued growth under Lorne Michaels, who has adapted it through technology shifts and a pandemic shutdown, a genuine testament to both the host and the cast. Otto closes by repeating the sponsors, including Tony's Steak and Seafood, bluenile.com, Cutler Nutrition, the promotional-products company, and The Palm Miami, alongside the charities Old Friends Equine, No Fallen Heroes, and Top Gun Options, before previewing next week's episode, when NASCAR driver Mike Skinner joins the show to discuss his racing career, shifting the series back toward the horsepower side of Hollywood and Horsepower.

Hollywood and Horsepower Show with Mark Otto Howard W. Koch's Hollywood Legacy, Hollywood Park Memories, and Little Red Feather Racing with Billy Koch Mark Otto talks with Billy Koch, grandson of Hollywood producer Howard W. Koch and founder of Little Red Feather Racing, about growing up at Hollywood Park, his family's ties to Casablanca, Airplane!, and Ghost, and his own path from a college racing syndicate to founding The Owner's Box podcast. A Hollywood Royalty Connection Mark Otto opens Hollywood and Horsepower by welcoming Billy Koch, grandson of producer Howard W. Koch and son of Hawk Koch, calling the family royalty in both Hollywood and horse racing. The conversation quickly turns to Casablanca, Otto's favorite film, and Koch explains his grandfather always used the middle initial so no one would confuse him with screenwriter Howard Koch, even wearing a hat reading "I didn't write Casablanca." Otto mentions his friendship with Michael Blowen of Old Friends, who once shared notes exchanged between Julius Epstein and Warner Brothers over the film's censorship. Koch runs through his grandfather's credits, noting he produced many Academy Award telecasts, won the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, and is best remembered for producing Airplane! and Ghost, plus the Walter Matthau comedies including The Odd Couple. Otto and Koch agree Airplane! is a rare comedy that has only grown funnier with age, still making fun of everybody despite its brief, breezy runtime. Growing Up At Hollywood Park Koch describes Hollywood Park as his childhood home track, where his grandfather would pick him and his sister up on weekends to watch races from the directors' room, calling it a privilege he did not fully appreciate until the track closed. He recalls being at Hollywood Park when Seattle Slew lost to J.O. Tobin, a memory he says still bothers him decades later, and shares a story about running onto the mile oval as a twelve-year-old during reshoots for the Howard W. Koch production Let It Ride, only to quit at the clubhouse turn once the sandy surface proved tougher than expected. Otto and Koch trade affection for Cougar II, a longtime fixture at Kentucky racing events, and lament the string of lost California tracks, including Hollywood Park, Bay Meadows, and Golden Gate Fields. Koch keeps mementos from Hollywood Park, including a barn sign and a box-seat placard, while Otto owns saddle cloths of his own, and both agree the track's closing marked the end of an era unlike any other in racing. Family's Horse Racing Roots Koch traces the family's racing roots to his great-grandfather, also named Billy Koch, who worked as a bookie, a trade Koch jokes may have put racing in the family's blood before his grandfather ever got involved. Howard W. Koch kept horses including Doc Simon and, with actor Telly Savalas, a colt named Telly's Pop who won the two-year-old Western Triple Crown and was considered a Kentucky Derby contender before an injury ended his bid. Koch remembers Savalas, famous for playing Kojak, bringing bags of lollipops to the track and having young Billy hand them out to every woman he saw. His grandfather also owned horses with Walter Matthau under the name Billy Charlie Stables, named for Matthau's son Charlie, and jockeys would give his grandfather their whip whenever a horse broke its maiden, leaving the house full of them. Koch recalls being given twenty dollars by his grandfather at the track each weekend, losing his on daily doubles while his more disciplined sister kept hers, calling it proof he was hooked on the sport from the very start. From Little Red Feather To Ownership Koch explains how he built his own path into ownership after graduating from Northwestern in 1991 with no money but a clear goal, pooling funds with friends from a Cuban restaurant called Versailles to form the Versailles Racing Syndicate and buy a filly named No More Worries. He later ran small claiming funds for fun before friend and Metropolitan Theatres head Bruce Corwin loaned him money to buy horses with partner Don Chatlos, a group that in 2000 included a colt named Singletary. That purchase became the foundation of Little Red Feather, the fractional-ownership partnership Koch still runs, and Singletary rewarded the gamble by winning the 2004 Breeders' Cup Mile at Lone Star Park. Koch says Little Red Feather now counts roughly 500 active investors who trust the operation to find, place, and campaign horses responsibly, though he is candid that the business nearly did not survive the 2008 recession. He warns prospective partners the venture is not an investment vehicle but a way to spend disposable income on the experience of ownership. The Business And Safety Of Racing The conversation turns to the business and politics of the sport, with Koch describing himself as the president of CARMA, the California aftercare organization dedicated to finding retired racehorses safe second careers. Otto and Koch both push back on a recent New York Times article critical of racing's safety record, with Koch pointing to the advocacy group Light Up Racing's rebuttal and arguing that the numbers show the sport is safer than it has ever been, even as individual states still enforce inconsistent medication rules. They agree the sport is remarkably accessible compared with other professional leagues, since fans can speak directly with owners and trainers at the rail, but Koch warns that new wagering platforms such as FanDuel have pulled bettors away from the in-person, brick-and-mortar experience that built the sport's culture. Koch raises Florida's decoupling fight as a genuine threat to purses and the wider industry, while Otto compares racing's safety evolution to that of football and NASCAR, insisting most owners, trainers, and horsemen genuinely want what is best for the animals in their care. Family Legacy And The Owner's Box Koch shares that entertainment still runs through the family despite skipping his father's generation, naming two of his three sons, Cooper, who played Erik Menendez in Netflix's Monsters, and Payton, an Emmy-nominated editor on Only Murders in the Building now cutting Avatar: The Last Airbender, alongside a youngest son pursuing music as a singer-songwriter. He credits his grandfather, Howard W. Koch, with inventing bedtime stories about a fictional chief named Little Red Feather, which inspired the name of his racing partnership as a tribute after his grandfather's passing. Koch and Otto close by discussing The Owner's Box, the podcast Koch has hosted with Michelle Yu for roughly a decade to let owners, bloodstock agents, and veterinarians tell their own stories rather than letting trainers get all the credit. Koch says he runs the show purely to promote ownership and expects no income from it, while Otto praises the format's positivity. Both men reflect on perseverance, noting Cooper nearly quit acting before landing his breakout role, and Otto thanks Koch before closing with sponsor mentions and an invitation to visit a track.

Hollywood and Horsepower Show with Mark Otto Guests: Buck Wilson and Frank Santorelli Cleveland Open Mics, Boston's Comedy Boom, and Landing a Role on The Sopranos with Frank Santorelli Mark Otto continues his series on the history of stand-up comedy with comedian, actor, and writer Frank Santorelli, joined by longtime friend Buck Wilson, tracing Santorelli's climb from a Cleveland open mic to a memorable run on The Sopranos, with detours through The Comedy Store, Monty Python, and the craft of building a set. Second Chapter In A Comedy Series Mark Otto opens the Hollywood and Horsepower Show with his usual rundown of sponsors, including Tony's Steaks and Seafood, Blue Nile, and Cutler Nutrition, before explaining that this episode continues a series on the road to stand-up comedy that began the week before with former Boston Globe writer Michael Blowen. He welcomes two guests, comedian, actor, and writer Frank Santorelli, and his friend Buck Wilson, whom Otto introduces as someone who grew up around Hollywood entertainment through his mother's connections, adding that talking with Buck feels like talking with Hemingway. Otto explains the series aims to show listeners what actually goes into building a career many assume arrives overnight, noting that ten or fifteen years of hard work usually precede any so-called overnight success. He credits Blowen with recognizing stand-up as a real subject worth covering in the 1970s and 80s, back when Frank Santorelli was among the first comics Blowen wrote about for the newspaper. Winning An Open Mic In Cleveland Frank Santorelli recalls how he stumbled into comedy on a whim in 1981, entering an open mic night at the Cleveland Comedy Club with a friend and beating out twenty-five amateur acts to win fifty dollars, using material built from sound effects and bits he had performed since childhood. He explains he then spent four years working as the club's MC, opening for real headliners including Roseanne Barr, Tim Allen, and Jerry Seinfeld, doing only seven minutes at a time until he could reliably fill a full half hour. In 1985 a friend convinced him to move to Boston, one of comedy's four major hubs alongside New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, where a comic named Tony V got him working immediately in front of influential crowds. Santorelli describes Boston's scene as red hot, naming Denis Leary, Steven Wright, and Lenny Clarke as the monsters of the era, and recalls performing multiple sets a weekend across the city's seven comedy clubs and their smaller satellite rooms. Editing A Set Like A Poker Hand Santorelli describes writing as an ongoing process rather than a fixed script, comparing a working act to a poker hand where a comic discards material that has gone stale and picks up new bits to replace it. He says he built his approach around improvisation, sound effects, and reading a room rather than joke-for-joke writing, and stresses that corporate audiences demand a squeaky-clean set with nothing that could offend, citing Steven Wright as the perfect example of material safe enough for any crowd. Otto and Santorelli agree that comedy is as personal as food, noting how wildly different styles, from Wright's deadpan monotone to Steve Harvey's physical animation to Sebastian Maniscalco's improvisational energy, can each fill a room. Buck Wilson adds a memory of comedian Larry Miller's bit about being introduced to make a grieving crowd laugh moments after a police officer's memorial service, a story Santorelli confirms happens more often than audiences realize, since acts constantly have to adjust to whatever mood a room hands them. Buck Wilson Remembers The Comedy Store Buck Wilson describes sneaking underage into West Hollywood's Comedy Store as a teenager, watching performers who would turn up on television just a few years later, and recalls the shock of recognizing a young Michael Keaton from those nights once Keaton appeared in the film Night Shift. He and Otto trace a long list of comics who came through the same rooms around 1980, including Steve Martin, Chevy Chase, Robin Williams, and Whoopi Goldberg, arguing that stage-honed timing later gave their film work its depth. Otto shares a story Michael Blowen told him about Chris Rock arriving unannounced at a Boston club and spending four hours reworking just a few jokes word by word in front of a nearly empty room. The conversation turns briefly to Saturday Night Live's writers' room, with Otto recounting how a Bill Hader sketch originally built around Dean Martin was swapped for James Mason minutes before airtime after Lorne Michaels rejected the first choice at dress rehearsal. The Hello Bit That Became The Sopranos Santorelli tells the story of auditioning for The Sopranos as a bartender, delivering nothing but roughly twenty-five repetitions of the word hello into a phone before revealing the punchline that it was only a menu, a bit that made casting director Georgianne Walken laugh while the rest of the room, including David Chase and James Gandolfini, stayed silent. Hired for what he expected to be a single episode, he improvised bar-rag tricks and nose-balancing between takes and ended up appearing in thirteen episodes after Chase asked to photograph his tattoos as the shoot wrapped. Santorelli also recalls his own sitcom, Let's Be Frank, a cop comedy shot for The WB opposite shows like Sister, Sister, which never aired despite months of work, and how his manager likened the experience to being marked by misfortune. He mentions currently developing a project with fellow Sopranos actor John Fiore and auditioning for a recurring role on the HBO series The Chair Company. Closing With Cleese, Izzard, And Next Week Buck Wilson closes out the conversation with a story from a Dick Cavett interview in which John Cleese explains how Monty Python's team built The Life of Brian around characters adjacent to the Messiah, since comedy needs greed, envy, and confusion rather than goodness itself to work, a principle Wilson connects to Eddie Izzard's gentler bit imagining a watered-down Church of England offering tea and crumpets or death. Otto adds a story from Steve Harvey about a talented New York comic who refused to adjust his set to a tiring crowd and got booed off stage, using it to underline how much of stand-up depends on reading an audience in real time. Otto thanks Santorelli and Wilson for their time, notes the show is still finding its own rhythm after early stumbles, and previews next week's episode, which will continue the comedy series with a focus on improv, The Groundlings, Second City, and Saturday Night Live, before closing with mentions of the show's sponsors and supported charities.

Hollywood and Horsepower Show with Mark Otto The first in a series, "The path to the comedy stage", what comedians go through to get into show business and entertainment Boston's Comedy Boom, the Art of Building a Set, and Johnny Carson's Magic Touch with Michael Blowen Mark Otto opens a new series on the history of stand-up comedy with former Boston Globe entertainment writer Michael Blowen, who covered the city's comedy clubs through the 1980s and shares stories of Steven Wright, Chris Rock, Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Rodney Dangerfield, and Johnny Carson's outsized influence on young comics. Kicking Off A Series On Comedy History Mark Otto opens the Hollywood and Horsepower Show with his usual thanks to sponsor Tony's Steaks and Seafood before explaining that the episode is the first in a new series on the history of comedy, recorded a day ahead for broadcast. He tells listeners the plan is to show the many different paths comedians take to build a career, since most people assume every comic simply walks onto an open mic and takes off. His guest is Michael Blowen, a former entertainment writer for The Boston Globe who covered comedy through the 1980s. Otto notes that Blowen was one of the first journalists anywhere to treat stand-up as a beat worth covering, at a time before the internet gave comics their own websites and profiles. Blowen agrees, recalling that covering movies meant competing with two or three other writers at every paper, while Boston's booming comedy scene offered him an almost uncontested subject and comics who were unusually accessible to a reporter looking for real stories. Boston Becomes A Comedy Breeding Ground Otto and Blowen dig into what made Boston different from Chicago, New York, or Toronto: its clubs actually paid comics well enough to make a living. Blowen credits Emerson College, where he taught, as a breeding ground for talent, naming Steven Wright and Mike McDonald as students who worked out material there before testing it onstage at night. He recalls that Jay Leno and Henry Winkler both went to Emerson, and that Leno has told the story of playing drums in a strip joint at the edge of the Combat Zone to work his way through school. Otto adds a favorite detail, that Leno once prepped and cleaned a new car for Robert Klein at a Boston dealership before ever meeting him as a fellow comic. Blowen praises Wright as an underrated genius who built his act by trying ideas out in class and then testing them live, and he stresses that facing an unfamiliar crowd with unproven material takes real courage, since a comic alone onstage has nowhere to hide. The Discipline Behind A Polished Act Otto calls stand-up the most honest form of entertainment because the audience's reaction is immediate and unarguable, a point Blowen echoes by comparing comics to cliff jumpers who must keep leaping to stay sharp. Blowen offers Chris Rock as his sharpest example of discipline, describing a night at Bill Blumenreich's Comedy Connection when Rock spent hours polishing just four jokes, playing each one like a musician adjusting tempo and emphasis and recording every version on a cassette recorder to study later. Otto contrasts that meticulous approach with true improvisers such as Don Rickles, who worked largely off the crowd itself, and recalls Frank Santorelli telling him that comics once wrote together in groups of four or five, tailoring bits to each other's styles, a practice Otto says has faded as performers have grown more independent. Blowen notes that Boston's clubs, unlike Chicago's or New York's more competitive rooms, paid comics well enough that many built entire careers without ever leaving the city, citing Lenny Clarke and Steve Sweeney as examples still working decades later. Stolen Jokes And Rodney Dangerfield's Code The conversation turns to the darker side of the business, the material theft that shaped how comics protected their work. Blowen recalls a running joke of his own, an unmade movie idea about warring comedy club owners feuding like mobsters, inspired by real stories of comics who stole each other's bits and clubs that quietly punished the thieves. Otto brings up Milton Berle's reputation as a notorious joke pirate, and Blowen counters with Rodney Dangerfield, who ran his own club, Dangerfield's, and paid comics twenty-five or fifty dollars per joke, once spending months tracking down the true author of a bit he suspected had been stolen so the original writer could finally be paid. Otto adds a story about Dennis Miller, who has said that watching an unnamed comic perform one of Miller's own jokes on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson was the moment that pushed him to finally build a real act of his own, determined never to be the writer left off the couch again. Comic Geniuses From Jeni To Wright Blowen shares memories of comics he calls genuine originals. He remembers Richard Jeni, creator of the Platypus Man character, and Albert Brooks, describing both as comics who saw the world in a way that seemed almost genetic, recalling Rob Reiner's story that his father Carl Reiner once called the teenage Albert Brooks the funniest person he had ever met. Blowen calls Richard Pryor a fearless genius, comparing him to Otto Preminger's description of the rare director who never has to work at the craft, and recounts how Columbia blocked Pryor from starring in Blazing Saddles despite his writing much of the script for Mel Brooks. He praises George Carlin as timeless, tracing Carlin's start as a Boston disc jockey doing weather reports from a street-level studio at the Statler Hotel under the character Hippy Dippy Weatherman, long before his political satire took shape. Blowen also singles out Steven Wright, noting that Wright delivered his strangest lines without ever smiling, which only deepened the effect of his material. Johnny Carson's Couch And What Comes Next The two turn to Johnny Carson's Tonight Show as the moment that could remake a comic's career, agreeing that a strong set, and especially an invitation to sit on the couch, could set phones ringing with club bookings overnight. Otto recalls hearing that Carson would lean in during commercial breaks to quietly coach nervous young comics on their sets, and both agree Carson stayed funny even when a joke bombed, which Blowen says made him feel human to millions of viewers. Blowen recalls listening to Conan O'Brien rehearse jokes above a Cambridge Chinese restaurant early in his career, working out timing alone with a notepad long before he became a host himself. Otto reflects that many performers spend a decade or more grinding through clubs before any breakthrough, and that writers such as Jack Handey and Robert Smigel shaped shows without ever seeking the spotlight themselves. Closing the hour, Otto thanks Blowen, plugs Tony's Steaks and Seafood again, and previews next week's guest, comic and actor Frank Santorelli, who will dig deeper into the Boston scene.

Hollywood and Horsepower Show with Mark Otto Growing Up in Gotti's Howard Beach, Codes of Loyalty, and 9/11 Memories with Anthony Stabile Mark Otto sits down with longtime friend Anthony "The Big A" Stabile to talk the new Belmont Park, growing up in John Gotti's Howard Beach, and the codes of loyalty and respect that shaped both of their families, closing on the eve of the 25th anniversary of 9/11. New Belmont Park and Keeneland Talk Mark Otto opens the show a few minutes late after some studio trouble and welcomes his frequent guest, Anthony "The Big A" Stabile, promising talk that touches New York, Queens, and horse racing. Stabile reports that Saratoga has just wrapped and that Keeneland's yearling sales begin Monday in Kentucky, though he still calls himself a New York guy at heart. The bigger story, he says, is the reopening of Belmont Park on September 18, almost three years after the old grandstand came down. He has not toured the new facility yet and worries, from photographs alone, that it looks sterile like so many modern tracks. Otto asks whether any of the old history carried forward, and Stabile notes a wrinkle: the nearby UBS Arena was contractually required to match Belmont's old green and brown facade, yet the rebuilt track itself now stands white, so nothing actually matches. He adds that the Racing Association is reportedly weighing a shorter Belmont Stakes even though the new main track was just built at the old mile and a half. Howard Beach: The Alleged Mafia Capital Otto turns to a subject he has wanted to explore with Stabile before: growing up in Howard Beach, Queens, in the shadow of John Gotti. Stabile lays out the neighborhood's geography, describing Old Howard Beach, Lindenwood, and his own section, sometimes called New Howard Beach, along Cross Bay Boulevard off the Belt Parkway. He says the area is what many consider the alleged mafia capital of New York, home base of the Gambino family, a reputation he calls unfortunate because of its negative connotation. Otto notes that mentioning Gotti's name to anyone on a Howard Beach sidewalk still produces the same answer: "the best." Stabile explains that the neighborhood existed in what he calls a bubble, insulated from the disorder hitting other parts of New York in the 1980s, and that crime in Howard Beach actually fell while it rose elsewhere in the city, a shift many residents credited directly to Gotti's presence and the message that nothing was allowed to happen there. Parallel Stories From Detroit's Partnership Mark Otto responds with his own family history, explaining that his father served as a Detroit vice officer for twenty-seven years and personally knew leaders of the Detroit Partnership. He describes a handshake arrangement between organized crime and police much like the one Stabile outlines from the early twentieth century. Otto recalls being taken as a boy to a poolside birthday party at a Holiday Inn, where his father greeted an older man in sunglasses, a Detroit Partnership figure Otto later identified from photographs, though the transcript is unclear whether the man was Tony Giacalone or Joe Zerilli. The conversation turns to the old numbers racket, which Stabile says was tied to the final digits of the daily racetrack handle at Aqueduct, Belmont, or Saratoga. Otto remembers his father, dying of a heart attack years later, growing furious whenever a state lottery commercial appeared on the hospital television, insisting men had served prison time for the same game the government later legalized. Fourth of July Parties and Peter Gotti's Gift Stabile paints a picture of the old Howard Beach, remembering John Gotti's Fourth of July block parties on 103rd Avenue that drew thousands of people for food and a fireworks show he compares favorably to the Grucci family's professional displays. He also recalls a school chocolate-bar fundraiser around 1982, when he finished second in sales as a first-grader with just over six hundred dollars, only to learn that Peter Gotti, John's youngest son, had sold roughly eighteen hundred dollars worth and taken first place. A few days later, Stabile says, Peter approached him at school and handed him twenty-four gold dollar coins, explaining his mother had insisted on it because she played cards with Stabile's grandmother. Stabile contrasts these childhood memories with what he calls today's culture of informants turned podcast personalities, naming Chazz Palminteri as someone he believes has built a career retelling stories about people who are no longer alive to dispute them. Lessons in Loyalty and Standing Up Both men trade stories about fathers who demanded loyalty and self-reliance rather than name-dropping family connections. Stabile describes a run-in outside a Howard Beach post office where a younger driver invoked an uncle's name before lunging at him, and recalls his own father praising him afterward for staying quiet about whose nephew he had grabbed. Otto matches it with two memories of his own father, a Detroit police officer: one in which his dad let a traffic ticket stand rather than pull rank, and another in which his father confronted a shop teacher who had shoved Otto against a wall, warning him never to touch his son again. Stabile then describes breaking both cheekbones of a boy who had sexually harassed his sister, expecting serious punishment, only for his father to tell him to hit the boy again if he ever saw him near her. Otto answers with a story of a father who told him to finish any fight someone else started and to protect those who could not protect themselves. A Racetrack Money Drop and Remembering 9/11 Stabile closes with a story from his years hanging around the third-floor teller windows at Aqueduct, when a friend who thought he had won thirty-two thousand dollars on a Pick 3 discovers, thanks to Stabile's recount, that he actually won sixty-four thousand. The friend responds by staging what he calls a money drop, tossing thousands of dollars in small bills into the air among bettors so strangers could scoop it up before the holidays. Stabile links the story back to his childhood, recalling that John Gotti once handed him a fifty-dollar bill at a plumbing company his father worked for, money he spent that night buying his mother a hot dog at a Mets game. As the show winds down, Stabile marks the date, noting that twenty-five years earlier to the day he had signed up for a bowling league that was set to begin on September 11, 2001. Otto closes by honoring No Fallen Heroes' Matt "Whiz" Buckley and Old Friends Equine.