RUSH: Jerry in Cleveland, you’re next. Great to have you here.
CALLER: Hey, Rush, thank you for taking my call.
RUSH: Yes, sir.
CALLER: I wanted to tell you, one of my favorite things about your program is listening to you talk about the NFL and your love for football because I share it. I really do enjoy it, and one of my favorite issues is when you talk about and you share with us your travel experience and how you tie it in with football or golf or whatever, and that is… I must say, I live vicariously through you when you tell us those stories, because I would think that would be like the most fun thing to do is to get up and fly to a game and fly home, and —
RUSH: You know, it is.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: I tell you, it is. I mean… My life is blessed. It really is. That’s why these kids coming out of college being depressed irritates me. There’s no reason for it. If they’re going to be depressed at something be depressed about Obama, who is the one who’s taking away some opportunity, but it’s still out there. But I’m glad to hear you say this because when I do talk about those things I’ve got these nattering nabobs in the audience that send me e-mails that say, ‘Stick to the issues, golfer! We don’t care about football. If you want to talk about that, talk about it on Friday.’ Well, it’s Friday so you’ve called and we’re going to talk about it.
CALLER: Rush, as you well know, if you would — and I’ve learned — one of the hardest things I’ve learned in life is to listen to that voice inside you, and I believe it’s there for a reason. But there’s people around you that just want to live your life for you — you know, and for them and not you, and — and, you know, people are —
RUSH: You’re exactly right. I’ve been… For example, I have been number one. I have the most listened radio talk show here for 18 of the last 20 years. And do you know, Jerry, there are still people who tell me I don’t know how to do it? And I should not do this or I should do that or I should go out and have more guests or I should go do more speeches or what have you. You’re exactly right. But this happens, Jerry. I want you to understand. It happens to everybody who makes what they do look easy. Look at all of the people who can’t play baseball telling people who can what they have to do.
CALLER: Exactly.
RUSH: It’s human nature and you just have to learn to deal with it.
CALLER: Exactly, and that’s one of the — and I have, and like I said… But your stories and your experiences, they’re an important part of this program that doesn’t have to do with what you do in the morning, and I know in your heart you know that. That’s why you continue to share. One quick question specifically. In the first hour, when you were giving the Obama and the NFL. You know, when you were — I can’t think of the word right now —
RUSH: Well, when I was telling first-year coaches to blame previous coaches and owners if they come out of the chute 0-4 like —
CALLER: Exactly.
RUSH: — Obama is blaming Bush. Yeah.
CALLER: Yeah, when you were giving that football analogy I happened to be driving by Cleveland Browns stadium and the adjacent airstrip and that’s why I’m like, ‘I gotta call him and ask him what it’s like to go see a football game,’ because I remember you coming up here in Cleveland and flying in for the Steeler game, and that’s really why I called. If you could share a little bit with us, you know, what’s the specifics? Are you invited? Do you go…? I mean, verbally take me through that day with you. That’s what I want to know.
RUSH: Well, you know, I’m very old-fashioned. My parents raised me long ago: ‘Don’t invite yourself anywhere,’ and I don’t. It has stuck with me. ‘Don’t tell anybody, because,’ they said, ‘if somebody wants you there they’ll ask you.’ So don’t invite yourself anywhere. But with this radio show, my love of the NFL has become so well known that I get my share of invitations. I don’t have to ask. Now, one of my good friends is Al Michaels who does play-by-play for NBC on Sunday Night Football and he out of the blue one day suggested, ‘You know, you ought to come to one of the games.’ I’m inside going, ‘Me? Me!’ I’m like you would be, Jerry.
CALLER: Oh, yeah.
RUSH: But on the outside I’m cool.
CALLER: (laughing)
RUSH: I’m saying, ‘Well, yeah, it sounds all right. Let me think about this. The logistics might be a problem,’ blah, blah, blah, and he was the one who invited me to go into Cleveland. He knows I love the Steelers.
CALLER: Mmm.
RUSH: So I flew… We actually flew on Saturday afternoon, and got in there about four o’clock. We made the decision to go late, and NBC had the whole Ritz-Carlton locked down. There was not a hotel room to be found. The Steelers were staying out in Beachwood at the Hilton and, you know, Beachwood’s a place you only want to go there if you have to.
CALLER: Yeah, I go past there about four times every day. I’m a courier.
RUSH: That’s where the Steelers stay. The Steelers stay in the Beachwood Hilton. I didn’t want to stay there but Al had to go out there. I took Al with me. When we got off the plane, Al went straight to the Beachwood Hilton because he had his production meeting with the Steelers — and, interestingly, it was at that meeting, Jerry, where Roethlisberger told Al that he had a separated shoulder. And nobody in the media knew it. It caused a firestorm the next week. And Al was just sitting there conducting a production meeting, and then Roethlisberger volunteered the information. He told me all this when we had dinner later that night. So anyway he had a car pick him up. We went to the lakefront hotel there. The people at the Ritz-Carlton, they did some dancing and they got me in a closet. (laughs)
CALLER: (laughing)
RUSH: The hotel was booked, and it wasn’t until that week. You know, Steelers week is a big week in Cleveland.
CALLER: Yeah. I wish we’d win one sometime. It would be even bigger. Go ahead.
RUSH: Exactly right. So we checked in there, and — not a closet, just a small, regular room. And we went to dinner in the hotel restaurant that night and Al was telling me about the production meeting he had with the Steelers, because I’m a big Steelers fan, and we were just having good time. We got up the next day, watched football in the closet, in the room that we had. Al had to go to the stadium a couple hours before we did, but they sent a van to pick us up. The van took us right to the player entrance, all the teams, the officials and so forth, underground.
CALLER: Mmm-hmm.
RUSH: I went out on the field with Al before the game. I mean, this is…
CALLER: Great.
RUSH: You know, I feel like a five-year-old when I get to do this stuff. You’re exactly right. I pinch myself every time I get to do this stuff. I just absolutely love it. And the fans and the sidelines there in the stands were just great. There was a weather babe from one of the TV stations who came up and was very nice. I’m having a mental block on her name. But what was funny, the people at the hotel apparently somehow, you know, I had said on the air that I’m going to Cleveland.
CALLER: Mmm-hmmm. Yeah, I knew that.
RUSH: Right. But I didn’t say the hotel and I never check in under my real name.
CALLER: Gotcha.
RUSH: But people had assumed — there were about 10 or 12 people lingering outside the hotel on Sunday afternoon before the game figuring I was there, and the security people at the hotel were wise enough to see it. I didn’t take my security people because nobody knew I was going, specific location. The security guy comes up and says, ‘Look, we’ll be glad to walk you outta here. There’s some nice people out there, but they’ve got your books.’ I said, ‘No, you can accompany me, fine, but I’ll be glad to sign the books.’ Then the security guy says, ‘What the hell are you doing in this room?’ (laughing)
CALLER: (laughing)
RUSH: I said, ‘They did the best they could getting us in here. The hotel is sold out. This is the best they could do.’ So we went to the game and it was about the middle of the fourth quarter that I told Al… And we had some yuks with John Madden. I have a little John Madden story. Before the game, up in the booth, Madden is getting his final makeup touch-up, and it’s hot as hell. The humidity is up and the lights in the booth and so forth and he’s got a on a coat and tie and he gets out of the chair. He’s walking to get something to drink and he says, ‘This is what’s great about radio: you don’t have to guck up your face with this gunk,’ and his buddy John Robinson he always took with him, the coach of the Rams, and his high school friend was up there. It’s a great time. In the middle of the fourth quarter, I said, ‘I want to leave. I want to get a head start on the crowd getting out of here. I want to get to the airport. I’ve got DirecTV on the airplane. So I can watch the rest of the game getting out, getting home,’ because I had to go to work the next day, which was Monday.
CALLER: Mmm-hmm.
RUSH: I did it in Dallas, went to a Dallas game in December, the Giants.
CALLER: Fantastic.
RUSH: A couple Steelers game. But no, I wait ’til I’m invited.
CALLER: Well, I’ll tell you, I thank you sincerely for sharing those stories, because it means a lot to me personally. Because I can tell your passion and it’s not fake and it’s very genuine, and I just wanted to call and get the details, and I live five minutes from Beachwood. That’s why I’m sitting there laughing, because I can see all this.
RUSH: (laughing) You live in Beachwood or you drive by it?
CALLER: No, I live about five minutes up the road from Beachwood.
RUSH: Yeah, okay.
CALLER: I’m there —
RUSH: But you’re not actually in it?
CALLER: No, sir.
RUSH: Yeah, okay.
CALLER: But God bless you, and thank you so much for sharing and continued success, Rush.
RUSH: All right, thank you, Jerry. I appreciate it. We’ve gotta take a brief time-out here. (interruption) No, I’m talking about Beachwood. (sigh) I never heard of Beachwood, Ohio, until I learned that’s where the Steelers would stay because I asked. You know, Al, landing in Cleveland on Saturday afternoon and he said he’s got a car to take him to the Steelers’ hotel. I think the Steelers have a deal with Hilton. I think they stay in Hiltons wherever they travel. I think they stay in the Hilton the night before the game at home. So I said, ‘Where’s the hotel?’ He said, ‘East of here.’ (interruption) No! Their fans figure this out. They’ve got security out the wazoo. There’s multiple Hiltons in the town anyway, Dawn. Stick to the kids’ pictures. I’ll do the show. You talk about the kids’ pictures. So anyway he said, ‘Yeah, their hotel’s out, it’s east of here. It’s like a half hour away from here.’ I said, ‘Where is it?’ He said, ‘Beachwood.’ I never heard of Beachwood so when I got to the hotel I fired up the computer and I Google mapped it. You know, and it’s Cleveland suburb — and I looked at Beachwood Hilton, and I got the picture of it, and it looks like… (sigh) Well, never mind. It’s all fun. I love all this stuff. Don’t misunderstand. And it was the first time I’d been to Cleveland since I worked in Pittsburgh in the early seventies.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I just got a great e-mail, folks. You know, during the conversation with Jerry when I described going to all these football games, I said, ‘It makes me feel like a five-year-old.’ So I got an e-mail here from Christopher Langston: ‘If you really want to feel like a five-year-old, next time Al Michaels asks you to an event like that show up ten minutes late and have him turn you away, then you can honestly say you feel like a five-year-old.’ Just like what happened to the five-year-olds at the White House when they got turned away ’cause they were ten minutes late for their tour ’cause the Steelers were there.