Daniel Ferguson III, who is Kwame Kilpatrick’s brother-in-law, joins M.L. Elrick (@elrick) and Marc Fellhauer (@MarcFell) in the basement as our first-ever guest. Also with us, rolling video for Daniel, is Tobias Smith. Tobias is the creative force behind “kMk,” the Kwame Kilpatrick documentary you can find at www.kwamemovie.com. Shawn Windsor (@ShawnWindsor) joins us via fiber optic wire from Minneapolis for The Great Debate and Geek of the Week.

PROGRAM NOTE: Because we try to not to take any more of your valuable time than necessary (and to torture Marc), we had to trim a lot of killer conversation from the podcast to make it fit our approximately hour-long format. If, as Depeche Mode says, you “Just can’t get enough,” get the full, unedited conversation here: ML Soul of Detroit 

THE STRAIGHT DOPE: Before the boys start chopping it up with Daniel, the show starts with one of the WORST imitations of Mike Valenti EVER! (Just who thought that would be funny anyway? Listen and find out …!)

When we say Daniel fills a room, we mean it! But M.L. — standing 6-foot-1 and 1/2 inch calls him out for giving Drew his height at 6-foot-7 and 3/4 inch — as if fractions matter to a dude that big!

For March Madness, Daniel recounts his championship days at Cooley High School — and his brief career as a member of the University of Missouri Tigers.

The conversation turns to Daniel’s time in federal prison and he makes it clear that it was a GATE PASS — and not what M.L. thought he heard — they helped him learn how to handle tools so well.

M.L. sets the record straight on the work history of Daniel’s cousin — and Kilpatrick crony and co-defendant Bobby Ferguson. In the process, they tell the origin story of Ferguson and Kilpatrick’s friendship. A discussion of Kilpatrick’s plowing ensues.

Marc asks Daniel how often he talks with his brother-in-law, which prompts Daniel to comment on Kilpatrick’s lack of contrition — and a lively debate on whether Hizzoner owes restitution follows.  

Following on last week’s Black Trump theme, Daniel claims that the media went wild with Kilpatrick stories as a way to bolster their bottom line. Not surprisingly, M.L. disagrees. 

Marc tries again to find out more about the current status of Kilpatrick family members. 

A lively discussion of the appropriateness of Kilpatrick’s sentence addresses the myth that Kilpatrick got the heaviest sentence ever. Can Daniel and M.L.’s beautiful friendship survive this exchange?

Daniel asks M.L. if it’s true he told Kilpatrick he wasn’t going to stop reporting until Hizzoner “was federally indicted.”

The conversation turns to M.L.’s affection for Kilpatrick, Kilpatrick’s culpability for Detroit’s bankruptcy and whether Mayor Mike Duggan is responsible for everything going on in Detroit today.

In a rare moment of total agreement, M.L. and Daniel that Duggan is not facing the same level of scrutiny that Kilpatrick did. Then they get back to sparring on whether Duggan gets a free pass — and why Charlie LeDuff left Fox 2.

Marc marks how the decline in media fortunes means EVERYONE faces less scrutiny these days. 

Daniel posits that M.L. and Duggan’s joint Irish heritage has garnered the mayor a free pass — a blatant example of Celtic profiling!