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Slappydoodle · 08-25-2019, 01:22 AM

graders, I would like to submit both the podcast and the writing for payment this time. All to be split evenly between Bonk and myself, as always.

So this one is 157. That may not mean much to most of you. It’s not a round number. People like round numbers. They like to celebrate fifty or one hundred of something. It’s significant to Bonk and I though. 157 episodes makes The Big Slappy Hour the longest running podcast in SHL history, surpassing the Klosecast, Gifter of Bikes wonderful gift to the SHL.

Alrighty, for those just looking for the podcast, here it is

https://soundcloud.com/slappydoodle/the-...y-hour-157

Thanks to Avakael, Rice, Slash, BK, CrossFit and Joe K for questions and comments Cheers

For anyone who might want to take another minute, I’d like to pay tribute to the podcast who’s record we broke with this one and talk way too much about our own fair to middling efforts as well.

The Klosecast

Gifter of Bikes, the long-time manager of the Seattle Riot and outstanding member of the SHL, sadly inactive these days, used to have a podcast. The Klosecast was the jewel of the SHL podcasting world. Of course, at that time in the league’s development, the podcasting world was dying on the vine, but the Klosecast was the lone exception.

Bonk and I had decided that we needed to try and record a podcast together to fund our first players. Neither of us had the time or inclination to get a SHL job and were both too lazy to do any extensive writing. A podcast seemed to be the way to go. How hard could it be? Well, the truth is I had no idea. I didn’t even know what a podcast truly was. Honestly, I really did not know what it meant. I needed to do some research.

I listened to a couple of the casts I found in the media area. They were not all that good. Kind of boring, unimaginative and a chore to slog through. Then.....a revelation. The Klosecast opened up with a rocking little opening, just enough to get my attention. Then Gifter, great voice and charisma, started talking. He was leaving his house for work in the morning. I could hear his garage door closing, the squeak of the car door, birds chirping. Then the drive, construction, honk of horns, people cutting him off. Meanwhile, basically a stream of consciousness rambling as his brain slowly got into gear. This was something different. This was basically cinema verite’. I was hooked.

I never missed another episode as long as it lasted. I lived vicariously through Gifter and these weekly half hour slices of life out in Western New York State. There were the ongoing house renovations, including a prolonged basement remodel that was almost legendary in its scope and length. There was the disenchantment with his job, acidic comments about the company and the promises of promotion always delayed. The raw and powerful truth of an actual marriage, with all the turmoil and drama we all live but rarely admit. Pride in his daughters, young hockey players both. There was the infatuation with his coworker, growing perhaps into something deeper. Oh, and also some fake hockey talk too.

This was the real shit. A real life, real angst, longing and unrequited love. And it was being presented a half hour at a time on a weekly basis. It was therapeutic for him and for me. It was truly great drama and entertainment, one work commute at a time.

The Klosecast ran for one hundred and fifty six glorious episodes. Nothing else in the SHL podcasting world even came close. There was no second place in quantity or quality. When it comes to raw truth and candidness there never will be.

Gifter has gone inactive. The Klosecast exists now only as the three last episodes on SoundCloud. I hope he’s happy. I hope he’s writing. I hope the basement is finished.

The Big Slappy Hour

Bonk and I are not making the Klosecast. We are not Gifter of Bikes. The Big Slappy Hour is an hour of two life-long friends, morons both, giggling, drinking and smoking. The production value is for shit. The preparation is nil. But, I would like to think we bring some truth to what we do. What you hear is us, unadorned and unadulterated.

We record at Bonk’s house, known as La Casa De Los Bulldogs. And yes, there are multiple bulldogs present at every recording and yes, I do spend a fair amount of time scratching their royal butts during the average episode. We are not so brave as to reveal half as much as Gifter did but I think we do welcome listeners into our lives a bit. And therefore we are allowed into theirs as well.

The first episode was posted back on July 11th of 2015. We have done 157 of these things now. They average around an hour and twenty minutes per episode. I don’t know the exact count, but it’s over two hundred hours by now of us two doofuses rambling.

With your indulgence, I would like to reprint something I wrote for our one hundredth episode in honor of my friend and co-host:

The year 1985. The place, a junior high school in Connecticut. Two seventh graders share a gym class. They know each other, but only a little bit, having met through a mutual friend a month or so earlier. In truth, up to now, they haven't really cared too much for one another. The taller, skinnier kid comes off maybe a little bit like a poser, trying a little too hard. The shorter, thicker one seems, at first impression, to have some meathead qualities.

The gym coach allows kids to bring in a cassette tape (an outdated musical conveyor) to play on a small stereo while the kids jog. Most kids at this point are bringing in Michael Jackson and Madonna. The taller boy brings in a Suicidal Tendencies tape and plays the song "I Saw Your Mommy (And Your Mommy's Dead)". The gym coach, upon hearing the lyrics, is not amused. The shorter kid, on the other hand, is familiar with the song and band already and very amused. The boy who would someday be known as Slappy is chastised and censured by the coach, but in the process gains a lifelong friend and companion in the boy not yet known as Bonk.

The two quickly become fast friends, spending a great deal of time at one another's houses. They go into town together and cause minor trouble, shoplifting and various vandalism. Before too long, they begin experimenting with drugs and alchohol and discovering girls.

Time passes. The boys grow older. The parties get wilder. The girls become a major focus of time and attention. Through it all, the bond between the two holds strong.

Eventually the boy's, now more accurately young men, paths divert and they wind up in different parts of the country. They attend institutions of higher learning. They eventually get real jobs and start on the road to adulthood. Through this all they remain tight friends, if only infrequently in contact at points.

Eventually both meet wonderful girls and get married, Slappy in a small civil ceremony and Bonk in a larger affair with Slappy serving as best man. They spend almost a decade with one living in Massachusetts and one in NYC. They get together when they can but careers and distance keep them too often separated.

In a minor miracle, Bonk has an opportunity to relocate to a different office within his company, twenty minutes away from where Slappy finished high school and where his mother still lived. A few years later Slappy manages to convince his wife to move to that same town where he has many friends and family.

Thus, with both now living in the same town for the first time in about two decades, a lifelong friendship is reborn greater and stronger than ever before. Now living less than ten minutes apart, a weekly routine is established wherein Slappy heads over to Bonk's every Friday night after the kids are in bed, to hang out, drink a few beers, smoke a little weed, watch stupid movies and maybe play Risk on the computer. This goes on for a long time until a new element in introduced.

Calgary Dragon GM Esa Anrikkanen, the younger brother of one of Bonk and Slappy's oldest and dearest friends, introduces Bonk to the SHL. Bonk soon drags Slappy in as well. Both are immediately hooked. Now, the perpetually poor duo need a way to finance their Challenge Cup dreams. Bonk comes up with an idea. The two of them will do a podcast. These two Luddite children of the 70's and 80's, not even certain exactly what a podcast was or how to go about one, figured how hard could it really be.

Well, one hundred and fifty seven episodes and more than four years later , the answer is not too hard at all, as long as we’ve got each other’s backs.

Thank you and I wish you well

r1c3bowl22 · 08-25-2019, 10:05 AM

Congrats to @Slappydoodle and @Bonk on being the longest running podcast in SHL history.

**bk1689** · 08-25-2019, 03:45 PM

Congrats on breaking the record guys. I may not comment in every thread, but waking up Saturday mornings and seeing a new podcast up is one of the highlights of my week.

DeletedAtUserRequest · 08-26-2019, 04:02 PM

That was an awesome way to bring in the now longest running episodic podcast on the site! Congratulations slappy and bonk.. I’ve listened to every episode since season 35 and it’s been one of the great enjoyments I have on the site. Cheers

Here’s to 157 more!

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ArGarBarGar · 08-27-2019, 01:25 PM

Congrats on breaking the record!

I will say I am a bit peeved at how Slappy breezed through the pronunciation bit of the podcast, but good job nonetheless.

Good stuff, as usual. Didn't feel like two hours.

Alonzo Garbanzo Final Tallies (Among Defensemen):
2nd in Goals (208), All-Time Assists Leader (765)*, All-Time Points Leader (973), 3rd in Hits (2587), All-Time Blocked Shots Leader (1882)*
*All-Time Leader Among All Skaters
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