A Taste of PMS

LAist: Your show has regular features like Dudes in the League (covering local players who turned pro). What other features can listeners expect?

PETROS: Lance Romance is coming out, that was something I did on my old show. My dad, "Don" John Papadakis will be on every Friday on any show that I'm involved in. We're doing the Not Sports Report that Money was doing before I got here.

MONEY: We'll have a theme everyday. The opening between 4:00 and 4:20 is the most structured part of the show. It'll have the top story, the best story. It's not necessarily a sports related story, just the best story that we decide should be passed on to people every day. We will have a word of the day, a number of the day, and a song of the day. It'll be very music intensive. Both Petros and I have extensive backgrounds in music. We'll provide our play list at the end of the show for the kids. Of course there'll be a couple interviews. It won't be an interview driven show, but the interviews we put on are always going to be A-level guests.

LAist: Since both of you are really into music, where should people in LA be tuning in to find new artists and new talent, and where do you guys look?

MONEY: Inside your soul! Try to be as exhaustive as possible. I think that's one of my pet peeves when it comes to music. People allow themselves to be spoon feed from one source. Whether it's reading a review or a word of mouth artist, or on a radio station be it KROQ or Power or KISS or Star, it doesn't matter. I think it's important to figure out what you like and do everything you can to try and take that to the next level. Not necessarily just artists that are going to be heard on the radio or are going to be written up in magazines. Try and figure out what you might be missing out on.

PETROS: You're going to have to look. If you look it's a lot easier to find stuff that you like. And if you're lazy you can just listen to the "Petros and Money Show" and see what's on our play list everyday. That will be the most high-ended, unique play list in the city on a daily basis.

LAist: You mentioned Lance Romance earlier. Which one of you is the bigger ladies man?

MONEY: I'm married and have two daughters and a third girl on the way. I might be the ladies man. I think you meant in a different way.

PETROS: I'm not an attractive man. I think I'm the only single person at the station who's on air. I don't really fancy myself much of a Lothario.

LAist: So no crazy experiences with lusty listeners?

MONEY: A 65 year old man cornered me in the bathroom and showed me his …

PETROS: Really?!?

MONEY: No.

PETROS: I used to get a lot of calls like, "I'm going to kill myself, can I talk to Petros?" Stuff like that. But usually just from men, no chicks. Hearing chicks on the radio, well, it's just a voice. You don't know what they look like. They show up and they have a beard.

LAist: Outside of KLAC, what projects are you working on?

PETROS: I've got "Pros vs. Joes" premiering at the end of the month on Spike TV. I host that show. Most of my football work with Fox is coming to an end because the college football season is coming to an end, but I do a lot of that stuff as well. I'm also on "The Best Damn Sports Show" from time to time.

LAist: David Beckham is getting a quarter of a billion dollars to play soccer here in LA. What were to first words out of your mouth when you heard that?

MONEY: For me it was kind of a mix of "it's about time" and "250 million bucks is a lot of money." That said, you can't doubt the commitment to the MLS by Phil Anschutz and Tim Leiweke, and essentially he is the man that Phil goes to for answers. Consider that they owned about 7 MLS franchises at one time when they weren't a very profitable franchise to own. They're desperate to make soccer work. A lot of people today who honestly don't know what they're talking about are talking about Pele and the NASL and that it didn't work then. To me it's a different time for soccer because of the internet and because of satellite. I think you'll find people here in the United States who do appreciate the Premier League or Champions League or whatever it may be. And they can watch it. Before, you couldn't. You got your fix every four years.

You could argue that he's the biggest sports star in the entire world, there's no bigger name in all of sports besides David Beckham. At 31 years old, he's 6 months removed from captaining the English World Cup soccer team. By no means is he washed up. Because the World Cup is every four years, people are making a big deal about his departure [from the English World Cup team]. But in four years he'll be 35, and that's a lot different 31. I think it's a great move. I don't know the details of how they'll get to $50 million per year, but to bring David Beckham to the United States to play soccer in the MLS? It's a no brainer. It's probably the only thing that could make it work.

PETROS: I just thought about that movie with that Indian girl and Keira Knightley.

LAist: She was cute in that movie.

PETROS: She was a little too Sporty Spice for the Ol' P.

LAist: Are there any local teams or players (pro, college, or otherwise) that you're excited to be watching in 2007?

PETROS: I don't know. That people don't already know? Demetri Papadakis is a 15 year old strong safety and linebacker for the Peninsula Panthers football team. He's my little brother. I'm very excited to see him. I think he's a breakout player for Peninsula High School.

LAist: What do you think about the NFL coming back to LA? Will it happen? Do you care at this point?

PETROS: I care about the NFL.

MONEY: It's not coming back anytime soon.

PETROS: It's kind of a mess. The NFL is letting everybody run around in Los Angeles and do whatever they want, as opposed to really dealing directly with anybody. The NFL is just saying, "Show us what you got." There's different groups scrambling around and doing stuff, but nothing pops up that's concrete and makes you go "wow" or think that this is really going to happen.

MONEY: They're not going to add a franchise, so you have to deal with relocation. Relocation fees are in the multiple hundreds of millions of dollars. Then you to find a team that wants to move and then you have to get around the political hurdles to allow them to move. The earliest? 2010, maybe 2012. At that point, who cares?

PETROS: It's nothing people love in LA. LA's been getting along without it and people aren't really that geeked on it. You don't hear a lot about it. Sometimes you hear a story in the LA Times that this move has been made, or the Rose Bowl said this, or the Coliseum said this, or maybe they're going to do it down in Carson. It sparks a little conversation, but in all honesty from doing radio for awhile in this city, I don't think anybody cares anymore. People are getting tired of the stories because there's not action behind it.

LAist: If we're talking about long term, what about the possibility of the Olympics coming in 2016?

PETROS: Listen, it's great, but I'm hoping to be alive next year. I'm not worrying about 2016. I remember the Olympics here in 1984 and everybody was very excited. I was seven years old. Sam the Eagle was the mascot. Mary Lou Retton, Carl Lewis, yeah … but remember Sam the Eagle? Look him up. But it wasn't the Muppet's Sam the Eagle. I remember that whole thing. It was great. It was awesome. And it was wonderful for the city and it brought a lot of jobs and a lot of attention to a great city.

LAist: Petros, you seem to have a thing for birds and fights. Who would win in a fight, Sam the Eagle or the Seattle Seahawk?

PETROS: Well, it's tough to vote against America. Which Sam the Eagle are we talking about?

LAist: The Olympic mascot from 1984.

PETROS: I'm saying the Seahawk.

MONEY: Yeah, but what about Sam the Eagle from the Muppets?

PETROS: If it was Sam the Eagle from the Muppets, also a great patriot, then I'd say Sam the Eagle maybe, maybe beats him. You can't just ask that question, there's a lot of talking involved with that stuff. But let me know when something like that goes down … with two great birds fighting.

MONEY: Don't forget the Seattle Seahawk is based on the Osprey.

LAist: In the press conference after USC's recent team meeting, a lot players seemed emotionally confused and lost in the wake of the Mario Danelo tragedy? What does it take for a team to overcome something like this, and what would you say to the players and people close to the team and family?

PETROS: The advice for that sort of thing is tough. We all deal with death in different ways. No one really knows what to say. You try and say the right thing, and you try not to say too much. Mario is from my hometown and it happened very close to my house. I knew Mario. Not super well, but I knew him. The whole thing is kinda' shrouded in mystery. The emotional confusion that you talk about is indicative of the way that he died. There are not a lot of answers to what happened. The whole thing seems very senseless, and there is no sense to be made of it.

A team deals with it in their own way. A team is a living thing, it's a bunch of guys and it's also a group of individuals. They all have to deal with it in their own way, and they have to deal with it with their leader, who is Pete Carroll. They need to try to make some sense of it and move on while honoring their teammate. It's a tough situation for anybody to deal with, especially when it's a young guy like that. He was doing something that a lot of people would love to do, which is play for USC.

LAist: You've both mentioned internet message boards on the air. Are there any that you read regularly or post on, and do you think this is a good resource for the average sports fan?

MONEY: I use the internet a lot. There'd be too many to name. Some of my favorites? I like insidesocal.com and all of their different blogs. I love Deadspin, it's one of my favorite sports related sites. There are the obvious ones: Foxsports, Sportsline, ESPN, Pro Sports Daily, and SportsPages.com. I spend an endless amount of time on them all day. Is it a good resource? Of course. The daily rags are nice, but unless you read them for the columns it's pointless. You already have your information. Other than that, it's good for pornography. It's not like you can read the LA Times, put down the sports page and pick up the porno page. You can do that on the internet. That definitely makes it better.

PETROS: I just started to learn to use a computer about a year ago so I'm just now figuring it out. The ones I check for my own personal stuff are WeAreSC.com and I check Scott Wolf's blog all the time because he's got a good blog when it comes to USC football.

MONEY: You like bigbreastlovers.com.

PETROS: No, I don't do that. Are you crazy? That's for dirty people.

MONEY: And you are a filthy man.

PETROS: No! I AM NOT!!!

LAist: On the air you said you were an ass man, not a breast man.

PETROS: I am an ass man. Is there a bigasslovers.com? Money is a lot more computer savvy than I am. But I just found a pretty good picture of Britney Spears. I like it!

LAist: Where's the best place to watch a game in LA? Press box? Bleachers? Field? Bar?

MONEY: If you're talking NBA basketball it's good just to be there.

PETROS: I stay in the house. I don't like to get out too much. I usually stay home.