Ep. 133 Angelo Cataldi Podcast Transcript

Steve Martorano 
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The Behavioral Corner 
Hi, and welcome. I'm Steve Martorano, and this is the Behavioral Corner; you're invited to hang with us as we've discussed the ways we live today, the choices we make, the things we do, and how they affect our health and well-being. So you're on the corner, the Behavioral Corner. Please hang around a while.

Steve Martorano 
Hi, everybody. Welcome to the Behavioral Corner. It's me again, your host and guide Steve Martorano. That's right. I make my modest living now, standing on a street corner in the hopes that interesting people will come by, and they always do. I'm so very lucky. The Behavioral Corner is brought to you with the financial support of Retreat Behavioral Health, about which more later. Well, I'm excited about the fellow that will be joining us on this episode of the Corner. Angelo Cataldi's day began before most of us were awake. In fact, for many, many years now, Angelo's days have begun before the birds were awake. As the morning man and team captain of the morning show on the mighty-mighty WIP Sports Radio in Philadelphia. Angelo has started a lot of people's mornings for, as I say, a lot of years. And he joins us to talk about the end of that because he's announced his retirement. And as you know, it's a topic that we have touched upon here on the Corner in the past. So we welcome Angelo Cataldi to the Behavioral Corner. How do you like my Corner, Ang, it's pretty nice, huh?

Angelo Cataldi 
I do love it, Steven. The people should understand that when I first started at WIP, the man doing mornings there was somebody named Steve Martorano. So I stole some stuff from him too, believe me. But let's let the record show you getting up early before I was.

Steve Martorano 
You know, when they offered me that. And then I lasted one week. And because of my infinite wisdom, I thought, well, sports radio will last no longer than six weeks. And so I took the job in Boston. But I remember when they started to talk to me about it. I said to them as a direct quote. They said, "Are you interested?" The columnist in the paper, "Are you interested?" And I said, "Well, I gotta tell you, I don't burn with an ambition to get up at three o'clock in the morning. But if they offered, you know blah, blah, blah..." I left the door wide open. But the first thing I said was, "I don't know about that." Anyway, we bring it up, and I bring it up because I understand what that means. It is a strange, strange lifestyle that you have to devote yourself to body and soul, or you won't last a week. It is a strange, strange gig. And we'll find out a little bit about that and how Ang has managed it. And I say this to people who are listening, you know, and wherever they listen to this podcast. This guy is a legend in broadcasting, not only in the Philadelphia, Delaware Valley area but nationally. He's recognized as one of the top people in his field. And as he gets ready to say goodbye to all that, we thought we would have a minute to talk about preparations for that. So, Ang, I know you didn't arrive at this decision quickly that you have been going back and forth on when the date will be, and so you've come up with, you know, the end of football season here. Here's my question, and then we'll get into the weeds on this. What do you imagine the day after you retire will be like? Tell me about that day.

Angelo Cataldi 
All right, I've given out a lot of thought because I put off this decision for at least five years. I'm going to be 72 in March. And I mean, once I hit 70, that voice got a lot louder in my head. The day -- it'll be Monday. It'll be the day I don't have to get up at 2:30 in the morning. What I will do is I will come into this office I'm sitting in right now. I will close that door. And I will begin to put together an outline for a memoir. My 33 years with the most passionate sports fans in America. That will be the plan. Will that ever be published? I have no idea. I will certainly have it for posterity for my grandkids and my grandkid's grandkids. So they'll at least know that at one point. They had a semi semi-famous relative who was known in the city of Philadelphia as a radio person. It may never get beyond that, Steve, but I was a writer before I was a radio person. And it's still something I like to do. And I'm hoping to milk a year out of that, during which time I will become more comfortable with whatever life is after radio. That's...that's really the only plan I have.

Steve Martorano 
Yeah, well, you know, first of all, you're way ahead of the curve because most of what I read, people fail to think of is going to be... next week, right or whatever it is. I won't have to do what I have done in my adult life. So that's what's there? Well, let me ask your question. Since you're gonna get up, you're gonna get up early, not 2:30, maybe 7...6, whatever, you'll go into your office, will the radio station beyond behind you?

Angelo Cataldi 
No, it won't. I could say this, Steve, that when I walk out that door for the last time, I'm walking out for good. I have already told the people I work with that I don't want to be a guest. Unless I'm promoting the book a year or two later. No, I really, I want to close that chapter. Because first of all the people that are following me, I was doing it for 33 years at the same exact time every day on the same station. They don't need me evaluating what they do getting in their ear in any way. I'm done. I'm cutting it off. Cold turkey. I did that with newspapers. I never looked back. I'll never look back from the radio, either. I think this is...when it's over, it's going to be over.

Steve Martorano 
Well, you know, what's an interesting attitude. And I think it's a healthy one. Are there retirements that you've seen of high profile people, of course, that you think that's the way to do it? Or that's not the way to do it because some guys retire six or seven times publicly. And others do it a more definitive way you seem to have adopted the more definitive retirement plan.

Angelo Cataldi 
They did not allow you that actually. It was very weird the way it happened. Mike Francesa is one of the gods in sports talk in New York. And he walked away at 65. And I contacted him after that to be a guest on our show because he had made some comments Eagles had just won the Super Bowl. And he came on the show, and he went, be careful about this retirement thing. I'm not sure you're gonna love it as much as you think you do now. That was in like a four-month period between when he retired from The FAN and when he went back. And you could tell when he went back, it wasn't the same that you can't suddenly turn the clock back for months and expect it to be the same. You've got to understand that when you're doing this, it's...it's real. And he was only back. I don't even think it was back a year, maybe a year. And his advice was great. That's why I know that this is it when you do it. And he did it. He really didn't. He still...he was still Mike Francesa of WFAN. You have to be pure. And then I read this book. I just finished this book by Steve Lopez, I believe a writer you and I both admire.

Steve Martorano 
Yes.

Angelo Cataldi 
And Steve had many examples of people who had succeeded in retirement. But in every single case, they knew it was time, and they didn't look back. And that's the one lesson I've gotten from it so far, the people that are successful with it understand it's over and move beyond.

Steve Martorano 
Yeah. Steve, as you know, was on the show to talk about the book. I've admired him since he was working with you on the paper. We're sort of half-buddies. But by the way, you'll get a kick out of this. I said to him, "Hey, you know, all your accomplishments, having been portrayed in a motion picture by Iron Man, is a big deal." So I mean, what he said in the retirement thing was fascinating to me, and I pushed him on this a little bit. Because he was talking about all these people, it was so funny. He was interviewing Norman Lear or Mel Brooks, I forget. And he said I'm thinking of doing this. And one of them said, you're thinking of...he said, think about that for a second. You woke up this morning. You could have done anything in the world. And here you are sitting talking to me, a legend. You're gonna quit that job. My point...my point is that some jobs are easier to walk away from. And certainly, your job had plenty of good downsides. I mean, the lifestyle, the amount of prep. The vitriol you were often subjected to because of your opinions. And there were a lot of perks too, But when you say you're done, is that out of the sense of I won't do that anymore? Or do you recognize you had a great job for a very long time?

Angelo Cataldi 
The latter, for sure, Steve, and you know, a lot of people say, well, you'll never get a chance to talk to the coach of the Eagles every week, or you never get...none of that has ever registered with me. I have never been...every once in a while, a movie guy will come on that, unlike a giddy schoolgirl. But if you ask me for any sports figure other than Wilt Chamberlain, who I got to interview in the first year was in radio. It doesn't register with me. I'll miss talking to the fans every day. Those are the people that I really did the job and made a bond with. And those I will miss by far the most. The athlete, Steve, I never had one. I loved it the whole time. And I have regular guys on our gods in our town. Brandon Graham, Jason Kelce. And it's a marriage of convenience for both of us. Yeah, they're talking to their fans and on the conduit. And this is no relationship. They have never wanted one with any of the athletes or the coaches, or the front office people. It's just been a job. But the fans, that's a different thing. That'll be harder for me.

Steve Martorano 
Well, if people don't understand that there's a tightrope, you have to walk in your business. And that has to do with you. You have been fortunate to have hard work and good luck to find the doorway between ordinary life and showbiz and the bright lights, and you get to go walk through that door. But on the other shorter people that you only know from the other side of the door, and you don't want to know too much more about them when you get inside.

Angelo Cataldi 
Yeah, you don't want to know more. These are not people that would ever hang around with me or me with them. I'm not going to a bar with Bryce Harper tomorrow. I don't want to be that type.

Steve Martorano 
It's really it's a cliche, but it's true. You don't want to meet your heroes. You absolutely do not. But let me ask you only to go back up to this thing about the way to leave a job like yours because you are walking away from something that for the majority of your adult life has defined you. Your continuity, everything. Every single plan you made. Every decision, every vacation, everything was defined by having to go to work and do this job a certain way. I think of Johnny Carson, who you share something with on a much smaller scale. Both of you guys were public figures who were ingrained in people's lives. When Carson...and who was more ubiquitous to Johnny Carson? Johnny Carson was a member of everyone's family for years. And then he said goodbye and left.

Angelo Cataldi 
Ah, that is the best example. Steve, the number one example, is Carson. And you're gonna understand I live in awe this day of that man and what he did, and he did 30 years. And I am equally awestruck by what he did at the end. Now I actually went back and looked at what he was saying in his final shows because he was as addicted to a job as anybody could be. And he said he was going to do other projects, and he was going to be seen again. And he never was. And I think that's perfect. Because people remember Johnny Carson for what he did on that TV show, and that's perfect. That's the way it should be. Because whatever comes next, it's not likely to match what he did in his prime. So remember him for the greatness heap, the greatest TV talk show host in the history of the medium. That's why I look at it.

Steve Martorano 
Oh, no, there's no doubt, and you know, when I say walked away, I don't mean just having to go to Burbank every night. I'm talking about you didn't read a column that Carson was at dinner or Carson attended the Golden Globes...done. Goodbye.

Angelo Cataldi 
That's cool, isn't it?

Steve Martorano 
No, absolutely. I'll tell you what else is brilliant about it. I've got a theory about why movie stars last longer than people in our business, the electronic media. What we did what Carson did was sent out electronically in the air. And no matter how impactful it was over how many years, once it was out there, it was gone. Yeah, you can videotape this stuff and all that. But you know that Angelo Cataldi's success and career were defined by what you did at that moment.

Angelo Cataldi 
Yep.

Steve Martorano 
That moment. Carson's the same way. Movie stars...movie stars get to last forever. It's up there. We've done it. Now go back and look at it 100 times. So they're eternal, and they're iconic. But you guys sort of disappeared the vapor.

Angelo Cataldi 
They this is a much deeper conversation than I generally have for four hours every morning. I want you to know that. But you're 100% Right. It's here today, and it's gone tomorrow. That's the truth.

Steve Martorano 
Yeah, I want you to know some people in our business are not aware of that. I think they cling to it a little long for some hidden fear about it. When you talk about some of the stuff, we haven't thought about. And as you you know, faces a life-changing decision, you know, you're going to be a private citizen now. I've been reading up since I talked to Steve, now you about retirement, something like 10,000 Americans a day turn 65 years old. And the number is getting bigger. So it's going to be an issue for a lot of us, but I've read some academic stuff on it. And let me...let me ask you whether...here's some fella from the University in Canada, who's done a whole paper on retirement. And it's, and it's he calls it the Disengagement from Work, rather than...the effects include you ready? Are you ready for what you're facing here?

Angelo Cataldi 
I'm ready.

Steve Martorano 
Do the effects include partial identity disruption? Decision paralysis? No, How about this one, diminished self-trust? And that's kind of interesting if you think about it. You know, what you had to do every day to achieve what you wanted to? Now you're going to question whether your decisions are...are correct because it's not...it's a different context. Right?

Angelo Cataldi 
That won't happen for me because I know I'm doing the right thing at the right time.

Steve Martorano 
Experience a post-retirement void?

Angelo Cataldi 
I will work through that. The identity thing is a big issue.

Steve Martorano 
That's a big one, eh?

Angelo Cataldi 
I'm not that person anymore. Yeah, no. And that's not four hours a day. That's every hour of the day. That's going to be tough.

Steve Martorano 
Do you think...do you think you will notice the first time somebody doesn't fawn over you in a restaurant? Do you think...

Angelo Cataldi 
They already don't fall over me. No. You know this is the strangest part. I've never said this to anyone, including the woman I've been married to for 23 years. She's never known me when I wasn't the radio guy. I mean, she sees me when I'm not on, but I assume she would see me differently. I've been bringing a lot of money into this household for a long time. And if I'm not doing that, am I the same guy?

Steve Martorano 
What kind of consultation did you have with your wife about your decision?

Angelo Cataldi 
A lot. A lot for many years. And she has always been totally supportive of whatever the decision is. But she has also privately told people when I was sitting there, so I could hear that she has not ruled out getting a job at a Wawa or at another convenience store. So she wouldn't be home with me 24/7. It's an adjustment for her too. A big one. Now, the one thing I am home a lot during the day because I'm done. I'm back home by 11:30. Right? She has experienced me here during hours when other people normally wouldn't be home. So that may be a benefit to some degree. But I'm going to see myself differently. She's going to see me differently. And it's going to be an adjustment. But I tried to attack this the way I would either the two big careers I had before, and that is to plan it and execute it. And that's what I plan to do this. I plan to schedule days literally, so I'm doing things that I think are going to be productive in a different way. And I'm going to be less demanding than what I've been doing for 33 years.

Steve Martorano 
Have you had the opportunity to talk to anybody that you...that you trust or who has done this, and ask them what it's like now that they're not working.

Angelo Cataldi 
Ray Didinger did it six months before I'm doing it, and I have had some communication with him. He was a guest on our show just earlier this week. Ray Didinger is a tremendously beloved columnist, writer, and broadcaster in our city. And it's funny. He said he'd occupied himself by doing podcasts. Is that ironic, and he has done other stuff? But I'm also getting the feeling he wants back in a little. And he's way more methodical and far smarter than I am. And I think maybe he might have overreached by shutting everything down. Everybody's got...Steve, in the end, everybody's got to find what's most comfortable for them. It's a feeling-out process for the first few months. And I anticipate I'm going to have to do that. But I'm my attack on it to just plan the heck out of it.

Steve Martorano 
Angelo Cataldi is our guest here on the Behavioral Corner. Angelo, as we've been talking about, a brilliant career in broadcasting in the Philadelphia area. He is a national figure in his field, and he's approaching a life-changing experience that, as I said, millions of us are going to face sooner or later. That's retirement. Ang's most people think of planning for retirement in purely financial terms. I'm guessing that some of the money that you've made over the years is stuck with you. So that's not a consideration. I think that Ray may illustrate what most of us do. And that is we don't plan about the psychological impact of leaving this thing. So it's important to keep that in mind. It's why we think this is a topic worth discussing. Let me ask you about the beginnings of your career because you surprised me before we started recording today. I would say at the beginning, when you stumbled in with your writing. I can tell you such great stories. Ang knows them. They said, Steve, right after you're done at 10 o'clock in the morning, we're gonna bring a bunch of writers in from the paper who knows something about sports, which of course, you don't. So it'd be good to have them for an hour. And there was a cavalcade of these guys going, "Oh, I'll try that. I'll try that." And Ang was one in the group, and Al Morganti, his partner now for over three decades, somehow or another, wound up coming in together. I don't know whether you remember this. But I said they said to stay around for an hour and push the buttons for them. I said I could do that. And I love...I love sports writers. I've loved them my whole life. So these guys tested me. I remember you guys stumbling in and doing your act. And I said to you at the end of that show. This is the thing...this works.

Angelo Cataldi 
Yeah, you did.

Steve Martorano 
This works. And a couple of guys I didn't say that too. You had a great editor named Jim Cohen. I forget.

Angelo Cataldi 
Jim Cohen was our editor, and he was the craziest man on the air ever.

Steve Martorano 
I called him Conan the Barbarian.

Angelo Cataldi 
The Inquirer ordered him off the air. As they were, he was saying stuff that was so extreme. They could not believe this was coming out of the mouth of one of our editors. And the thing was, I would be listening to Steve Martorano, and you are, say what you want...even back then...that was a long time ago, you were a seasoned radio professional. You knew how to do the job. It was well-planned. It was planned, and it was well executed. And I would listen to that and go, "Well, that's not something we're ever going to be able to do." And we never could. We didn't ever attempt to be professional. Those first few months, my goodness, it was... Tom Brookshire was our boss. Tom Berkshire said to us when he gave us the job, "Come in Monday morning." And he didn't even tell us, Steve, that we would not be working for very long with anybody who had any professional experience that we were going to be around hosts. But we had never done that. We had done interviews on the radio, but we had never done that. But it was a brand new format with not enough people to fill all the hours. So they had to bring in somebody, and they decided let's bring in people who know the end of the sport, and they'll figure out the radio part of it. And that's what we did. But when Brookshire left, he was my partner when I went full-time there. And when he left, I hit the rocks. I mean, crash landed. Because I would go to events...back then, I had to do a lot of speaking stuff and things to get out there in public. And I can't tell you how many people said to me, "So when are you going back to writing? When are you going to be a newspaper guy again? This radio thinks not gonna work for you. Brookshire carried you for two years. And I had a...I mean, I had a personal crisis. I went into a clinical depression, which required treatment. Require the pills. You need to get through it. And there was a period of about six months. It had a profound impact on my marriage, my first marriage, which ended. And an identity crisis that I dealt with, which was far greater than anything I ever could have imagined.

Steve Martorano 
Yeah, who am I? Who am I? Who am I supposed to be? Can I do this?

Angelo Cataldi 
Three weeks. I was off the air totally for three weeks when I was in this crisis, really. And during that three-week period, I met and talked to professionals; they put me on antidepressants, and they said, we're not sure you're cut out for this. I don't know if you're gonna be able to do this deal with it psychologically. Because it was something I had no training in, something I had no confidence in. I was totally insecure in what I was doing. And finding my place. Brookie's replacement...Tom Bookshare was my co-host back then, and he was running the show. They created a dog and pony show. They brought in radio professionals. There was a guy in New York, Joey, something I can't remember his name. He was a famous New York guy. He came in with a script one day, and they said to work with him. I said, Well, you didn't even know sports. Work with him. It'll be fun. It wasn't funny. Hey, they tried a whole bunch of things. And I was just like, this isn't gonna go. And then they finally said, Well, who would you be comfortable with? Let's try it without way. And I brought in Al from the other show, and we needed a professional. So Tony Bruno came on. But even that, there was a six-month period when I said this isn't gonna...this isn't a long, long-range plan. I can't even give you a good reason, now, Steve, why I suddenly said Yeah, okay. I think I can do this. And we're gonna do it. It just kind of evolved after that.

Steve Martorano 
Yeah. Well, no, I think that it's just my armchair psychology. And as I said, I was there...they could have saved themselves a lot of trouble. I predicted that you and Al would be...

Angelo Cataldi 
You did.

Steve Martorano 
I did. I just said, I just...I just...it wasn't even difficult. But in the years that I've watched your career prosper, and I know what your background is, and I know you're, you're, you were a different person when you were writing. You were a different guy with different skills. And there you were at this circus, and it was a circus. And as you got better at it, I thought, well, you know what, he didn't know it. But he was ready for this job. He was always going to wind up this guy. He just didn't know it. I've always felt that about your career. Let me ask you, having blown some smoke here. Whether this crisis that you experienced in deep depression, anxiety, and uncertainty at the beginning of your career, whether you have any concern at all, that...that going away, as dramatically, as it will, in a couple of months, will lead to any other psychological problem?

Angelo Cataldi 
Yeah. My wife has strongly urged me to see somebody. I mean, I have a guy who is a regular contributor on our show, Dr. Joel Fish. And I do have every intention, although somehow I put it off till this day of sitting down with him a few times. And having...he has given, he has said to me whatever you need on this. And yeah, I think I'm gonna have to think...a talk that through some I really am. Because if you have that history, if it happened before when you entered a period of not being so secure in what you're doing, what's going to happen? Yeah, it's very, very feasible that that could come up again. Hopefully, this time, I'll be more proactive, and I'll be able to identify it quickly and do something about it.

Steve Martorano 
Yeah, you will not be blindsided by this. But let me say this to you in terms of reaching out. I know, I know, you have your fellow that's very good. I have a whole organization that specializes in this stuff. And I can warn you that I think podcasting has become a substitute for clinical psychiatry for a lot of people. It's like, Oh, I can't leave it. Well, you don't have to leave it. You can go into your den and have a podcast and talk to yourself for three hours a day. That's not a substitute for the deep and meaningful exploration of what's next. Let me ask you this, and then I'll let you go. I'm going to torture a sports metaphor here. How do you view your retirement? Is this the fourth quarter? Or the bottom of the ninth inning? Or is this overtime for you? Is something ending or something beginning?

Angelo Cataldi 
That's a weird question. And I'm going to answer it in a way that is totally uncharacteristic. In a soccer game, after 90 minutes, they tack on whatever little time is left. It could be three minutes. It could be eight minutes...

Steve Martorano 
...and you don't know.

Angelo Cataldi 
You don't know. That's the best analogy I can give you, Steve. I'm entering past the 90-minute mark and a World Cup soccer game. How's that?

Steve Martorano 
Together you and I could elevate any bed sports metaphor into semi-art because you've just described it better than overtime, as they say in soccer...football. It's extra time.

Angelo Cataldi 
Yes, that's what they call it. You're right. The extra time you just don't know how much you got.

Steve Martorano 
Angelo Cataldi, thanks so much. I know you're going to have a successful retirement as you've had a work life. Your date is a little tentative. The actual date, you will...you will leave for those of you who are not from the area among the people that Ang coverage or the local football team, who are 10 and 1. So in that context, I hope you're still working in early February.

Angelo Cataldi 
Well, I did that on purpose because of this way, without a fixed date. There's less hoopla. I don't need a long goodbye. And I'm trying to prevent that.

Steve Martorano 
I appreciate that myself. Thanks for joining us on the behavior corner.

Angelo Cataldi 
My pleasure.

Steve Martorano 
Take care, buddy. And the rest of you guys, listen, I gotta do a little tutorial real quick. I'm going to show you, not now but at some point, how to push the damn subscription button. Okay, I'm getting a little annoyed here. You know the likes and all that stuff and just subscribe. I don't even care if you listen. I don't care. But subscribe. Thank you. Appreciate it. See you next time on the Corner.

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