ZZ Top, Battling Bill Bonds and Angry Aretha Franklin are just some of the inside stories Hall of Fame rock critic Jim McFarlin shares when he joins ML, Marc and Shawn, while Joe listens in the green room.

STRAIGHT DOPE: We start with a brief salute to Carlos Monarrez, who is in our prayers for a reason other than hosting a weekly podcast with Shawn.

Long-time Detroit News rock and local media critic Jim McFarlin joins the show and tells stories that demonstrate why he was inducted into the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame Sunday night.

Bonzo gave Jim his phone number one night at the Press Club. Listen and learn what happened when Jim used it to ask about one of the legendary anchorman’s many brushes with the law.

Jim sometimes felt like he couldn’t win; white folks said he was too Black when he criticized a rock band, and Black folks said he was too white when he criticized an R&B band. So he came up with the “McFarlin Rule.”

Find out what happened when Bob Seger invited Jim to hear to his new album — and then watched him as he listened for the first time.

A drunk friend who went with Jim to an Aretha Franklin concert got him in hot water with the Queen of Soul. Hear how Jim saved his job.

Drew Lane got off to a rough start in Detroit, which Jim chronicled for the Detroit News. He became a big Drew and Mike fan along the way.

ML single-handedly inducts Jim into the Integrity in Journalism Hall of Fame for the way he stood by his principles with his career on the line. Jim tells the crew how he was handed a line of manure, almost literally, after the newspaper strike ended.

GEEK OF THE WEEK: It seems like every year or so, the same local radio personality hypes a new weight loss plan, prompting ML to ask “if the plans are so great, why do you need to keep losing weight?”

This much is sure: The only thing the pitch man has lost for sure is credibility.

ROOM 7609: Marc orchestrates a prank on ML involving how much Shawn knows about the New Wave song that provides the main riff for Basement Jaxx’s “Where’s Your Head At?”

Listen to hear whether the hijinx succeeded.

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