The Ben Maynard Program
Friday Night Live: 45 Years of Friendship, Childhood Adventures, and Donut Delights
Enduring friendships are priceless, and tonight on the Ben Maynard Program, we celebrate a 45-year bond with my closest friend, Matt Davis. What keeps friendships strong over decades? Tune in as we share hilarious childhood antics, such as sneaking into the local bowling alley during the Pac-Man craze, and our creative improv sessions spoofing popular movies. It’s a night filled with laughter, nostalgia, and a reminder that relationships are meant to be cherished.
Ever tried Malort? Brace yourself for our "Malort Challenge" where music trivia meets the notoriously awful-tasting liquor. We also dive into some sweet talk as we celebrate National Donut Day, sharing our favorite donut varieties and the beverages we loved as kids, like gallons of milk and even the dreaded powdered milk. We invite you to join the fun by calling in with your own donut stories and favorite flavors, adding your voice to our interactive night.
Looking ahead, we're thrilled to announce our upcoming guest, true crime author Pepper Anne, and discuss the joys and challenges of balancing podcasting with our passion for music and vinyl record collecting. From reminiscing about historical events to reflecting on personal anecdotes, we underscore the importance of storytelling and preserving memories. Don’t miss out—subscribe, leave comments, and follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and Instagram to stay connected with the vibrant discussions and engaging content of the Ben Maynard Program.https://www.buzzsprout.com/2268968/15150849#tellyourstory #familymatters #thebenmaynardprogram #goodbuddies #mattdavis #nationaldonutday #fridaynightlive
Thanks for listening! Follow me on Instagram: benmaynardprogram
and subscribe to my YouTube channel: THE BEN MAYNARD PROGRAM
I also welcome your comments. email: pl8blocker@aol.com
Enduring friendships are priceless, and tonight on the Ben Maynard Program, we celebrate a 45-year bond with my closest friend, Matt Davis. What keeps friendships strong over decades? Tune in as we share hilarious childhood antics, such as sneaking into the local bowling alley during the Pac-Man craze, and our creative improv sessions spoofing popular movies. It’s a night filled with laughter, nostalgia, and a reminder that relationships are meant to be cherished.
Ever tried Malort? Brace yourself for our "Malort Challenge" where music trivia meets the notoriously awful-tasting liquor. We also dive into some sweet talk as we celebrate National Donut Day, sharing our favorite donut varieties and the beverages we loved as kids, like gallons of milk and even the dreaded powdered milk. We invite you to join the fun by calling in with your own donut stories and favorite flavors, adding your voice to our interactive night.
Looking ahead, we're thrilled to announce our upcoming guest, true crime author Pepper Anne, and discuss the joys and challenges of balancing podcasting with our passion for music and vinyl record collecting. From reminiscing about historical events to reflecting on personal anecdotes, we underscore the importance of storytelling and preserving memories. Don’t miss out—subscribe, leave comments, and follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and Instagram to stay connected with the vibrant discussions and engaging content of the Ben Maynard Program.https://www.buzzsprout.com/2268968/15150849#tellyourstory #familymatters #thebenmaynardprogram #goodbuddies #mattdavis #nationaldonutday #fridaynightlive
Thanks for listening! Follow me on Instagram: benmaynardprogram
and subscribe to my YouTube channel: THE BEN MAYNARD PROGRAM
I also welcome your comments. email: pl8blocker@aol.com
Hey there, everyone, welcome into the Ben Maynard Program. Oh, wow, I think I'm shouting here. Thanks for being here. Before we get started, a little bit of housekeeping to take care of. And, by the way, it's Friday night and you know what that means Date night with the Ben Maynard Program, friday night live. That's right people. So, as I said, a little housekeeping to take care of.
Speaker 1:And, as you know, this program is available on multiple podcast platforms like Apple Podcasts, amazon Music and Spotify. Or if you just search the Ben Maynard program, you'll see plenty of options. Choose your option and go with it. Or, if you like me a lot, you'll steer your way to Buzzsprout, because that's where my website is. Or, you know, if you can't resist all this right here, maybe a little bit of that over there and you're watching on YouTube, which you better be tonight because we're live then you know, subscribe to the channel. Please do me a favor, subscribe, and I think you got to maybe hit that notification bell or something, I don't know, but you do do it.
Speaker 1:Give me a thumbs up and leave a comment. You know I like comments. You know I read all your comments. I reply to all of your comments, so I like to keep them coming. Last but not least, follow me on Instagram. All one word Ben Maynard Program. So plenty of ways to take in this show for your dancing and listening pleasure. And with that, it's Friday night and we're live, and I have sitting next to me in studio my good buddy, matt Davis. Thanks for being here, matt.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me. Who would have thought that 20 years ago, even 30 years ago now, or 40-something years ago, 40-something years ago, even 30 years ago now, or 40-something years ago, 40-something?
Speaker 1:years ago we'd be sitting here doing a podcast. I know, isn't that weird 2024. 2024, and we've known each other since like 1980, something like that. 79, 80, yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh actually, yeah, you're right. Yeah, I think we moved in 79 to the Broadway house. Yeah, oh actually. Yeah, you're right, I think we moved in 79 to the Broadway house.
Speaker 1:So just to bring some of you up to speed, as you know, as you can tell, matt and I have known each other for quite a long time, like 45 years or something like that. See, this is what's cool, right? Spaz. Everyone knows Spaz, right? He's been on this show I don't know four or five times now. He's like a regular. Everyone knows that we've known each other for I don't know, 40, a little over 45 years, 46, 47 years, something like that, and Matt's here. We've known each other for about 45 years. So there's a common thread to all of that is that I like people, or people like me, and they like to hang around me and stick around for a while, I suppose. But that's what it's all about. It's friendships and keeping those lifelong friendships. I think it's very valuable, 100%, I mean when you have a relationship that's enduring and lasting and you can pick up a conversation, you know whatever it was that was happening when you were in high school or after high school or some life event that you have in common, right.
Speaker 2:I mean that's so important, it's what bonds us together as people. It helps us to um, demonstrate our love and our affection for one another, and those are so important. I mean, you know, doesn't only happen with your, your spouse, who you, hopefully you're married to for 45 years, right, but it helps us with all those people you grow up with and and uh, that's one of the things I really like about friendship and just getting back together with people. You know, because we moved from Northern California back down there and I saw you were doing the podcast.
Speaker 1:We'll get into that a little bit. We're going to get into that. I don't want to get into it too much right now because we're still at the, I'm still setting everything up, but you know, to what you said, though is, and then we're going to get into the setup here. Folks, right, just so you know the setup, the setup, friendships, like we said we've established, friendships are really important. They're important to us and people are not disposable, absolutely, you know you. Just you keep the ones that you, that you love, close to you and and, as I said, we're going to get into this, as friday night, live moves on this evening, um, because it's been a little bit since matt and I've seen each other, and we'll talk about that a little bit, but today is Friday night, we're live and it's date night, that's right date night with Ben Maynard how's that?
Speaker 2:what do you think about that guys? I know my wife would think about that. Tell her I was coming on a date with her.
Speaker 1:You said I was coming to hang out on your podcast. Well, so a couple of things to get started. We're going to have all the regular stuff.
Speaker 1:Oh, let me do this real quick because we all know Friday Night Live is here, so let's do there. It is Bam, all right. Good, we got the phone number up, so, listen, pick up the phone call into the show. Oh yeah, if it sounds terrible tonight, people, I deeply apologize. Okay, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1:The last show that we did was with Kim Kid Curry, the radio veteran, and I haven't changed anything in this studio since then. I did move a couple things around and I moved them back and I'm doing my microphone test. I mean, I don't know, 90 minutes ago I'm doing a microphone test and a camera test, which I do before every episode just to kind of see if things are looking decent and sounding good, and it just sounds horrible. I don't know what's going on. I try to check all my levels and you know me. Look, I've said this.
Speaker 1:This is, uh, you know I'm not the most technological, most technologically advanced person, and this show is being held together by scotch tape and bubble gum. I can attest I see some bubble gum right there, at least some gum wrappers anyway, right, because the gum might be on the bottom of your shoe now. Anyway, so we've got all the regular stuff tonight the Malort Challenge is on. That's why the phone number is there at the bottom of the screen Call in, remember, if you call in, then I get to take a drink of this nasty stuff right here. Oh, there, it is this nasty stuff. Okay, have you heard of this before, matt?
Speaker 2:No, but I won't drink any either.
Speaker 1:Look, I won't subject you to that. I won't subject you to that. I won't subject you. But what I do is to try to get engagement from the audience. I tell them call in, and if they call in then I have to take a shot at this nasty stuff. Malort is the worst tasting liquor ever. It's from Chicago, it's from Jefferson's in Chicago and it was created during Prohibition. It was a way for them to still sell alcohol during Prohibition, because it was sold as medicine and it tastes horrible.
Speaker 2:It tastes a lot like mouthwash that has gone bad. Yeah, hey, everybody calling. I want to see him drink a lot of that stuff.
Speaker 1:You know this isn't a drinking show, but let's you know I don't want to be on the floor but by the end of the podcast, so, anyways, welcome to the show again. So the Malort Challenge is on. We're going to play Stump to Chump if you guys want to, if you guys call in. You got to call in with your music trivia, and if you stump me, well then I got to take a drink of that Malort right over there. Oh yeah, I do, and I've got my Mr Spock shot glass right here.
Speaker 1:It's been sitting in this studio for how many months now? And all I do is pour the Malort in there and I drink it. I don't rinse this cup out, so it's got dust in there and everything. I just make it as disgusting as possible. People Come on. Oh yeah, so we'll get into, we'll get into. Today is a special day. We're going to get into that a little bit. But I want to get back to matt here. So I said matt and I we've known each other for like 45 years and all my dirty secrets. I know pretty much all of them and he knows pretty much all mine too. Um, but that's the beauty in it, as as friends you know, we you and I and and you know the rest of the guys we would we shared a lot of stuff. Yeah, you might have a different type of relationship with this friend and this one over here and you can open up a little more to this one over here.
Speaker 1:You kind of hold back a couple things on this one over here, that type of stuff. But I mean, I think on the whole growing up we were all pretty. We are, you know, fairly open with each other.
Speaker 2:Well, I don't think there, I mean, when you're growing up, there's nothing to hide. I mean, you know, especially among boys, boys talking and talking about girls and what they want and what they can't have and what they wish they had. I think for girls it's probably the same way they grow up to be women.
Speaker 1:And then it gets worse.
Speaker 2:I mean, you look at popular culture, you see all those things Like Stand by Me. You see how boys treat each other in that movie. It's one of the reasons I think that it's very endearing to people. And then you have other shows, like the famous one with with the ladies Sex and the City.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Sex and the City, a big, very popular show. It was very reflective of popular culture and the relationships that women have, not that I am a Sex and the City watcher. Sorry that kind of pins you guys, but if anybody who knows me knows I'll watch just about anything when it comes to a television show or a movie.
Speaker 1:You know something, when we were kids and we were growing up, that was the night owl of the group. I mean gosh, he would stay up until like 5, six o'clock in the morning and and one of the channels I don't remember if it was channel nine or channel five used to have what they called movies till dawn channel five, one of our local channels here and movies till dawn. This guy knew all the classic movies because that's what they would show for sure, and it's like horror movies, especially with the stuff back then. Yeah, that started when I was in like the fifth or sixth grade?
Speaker 2:yeah, because I. I would sleep for four hours and I would wake up. My parents solution was to give me a black and white tv in the bedroom and tell me you could watch tv. Just stay in bed, right. And so I.
Speaker 1:I saw everything the old black and white, it was an humphrey bogart and all that stuff. Yeah, um, you know when, when we were in high school, I think yeah, we were sophomores in high school and that was that was right smack in the middle of the Pac-Man craze and we had a bowling alley that was right up the street from our house. Matt lived right there. Mattley Bowling Alley, mattley Lane. Mattley Lane, it was our local bowling alley. It was 10 lanes and I mean the building was so small you couldn't understand how they could get 10 lanes into that little building.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you drive by there now it's got that little house on the corner and you're like the whole building Exactly.
Speaker 1:Unfortunately, in 1987 we had the Whittier quake and it was so severely damaged that they couldn't save a real thing. They tore it down and somebody must have bought the property and built house on. But that was our hangout and they had. It, had a couple of pinball machines and then we were there when they brought in asteroid.
Speaker 2:We used to rig the quartering.
Speaker 1:Oh, you take the taking piece of like you know red string strings too thick. You take a piece of of like thread strings strings too thick. You tape a piece of thread to the side of the quarter and then you would tie it like to your belt loop and then you would stick it in the coin slot and it would just, and then you just kind of tug on and you get free plays all day long on one quarter and we would come over there like if we were there for too long, us kids, and didn't go out for change, we should have no money.
Speaker 2:And he comes over and he's all like I don't get it, because he would find the quarter with the tape on it and the thread stuck to it. So I would come over and you just like pull the thread off the quarter.
Speaker 1:Good old days. Yeah, it was Henry and Fred. I think Henry's girlfriend was Leah or something like that, but but we were there. I think we might have been there on the day they brought Pac-Man into the bowling alley, and so we were. We were right there, you know, from the beginning of the Pac-Man craze beginning, bringing it all right back around. So we're sophomores in high school right in the middle of the past many days, and Matt and I and our buddy, our good buddy, nelson, we want to be industrious and we want to make some money and we started our own gardening business and it was just the three of us.
Speaker 1:We had a lawnmower, we had an edger, and it was just the three of us. We had a lawnmower, we had an edger, we had hand shears to trim the hedges and I think we had a broom and a rake. That was about it. And we went out and we hustled and we drummed up our own business. We made a flyer and we hung it up at the grocery store. We posted it the grocery store whichever chain it was at that time, because it was so many different stores during that time and they had a bulletin board where people would put their business cards and we put a flyer there and we had little tabs with I don't remember whose phone number it was. Might have been your, your number, I don't think it was. Yeah, I don't remember. But people would tear the tabs off.
Speaker 1:They would call us, we drummed up business and we made money and I used to bring my little boom box. I used to bring my little boom box and we had. We had tunes going while we were playing and we were saving up our money because we wanted to make a Pac-Man movie. Wait, wait, wait.
Speaker 2:I think at that time we were going to buy a camera. Yeah, we were talking about costumes.
Speaker 1:I think at that time we were going to make Pac-Man the bad guy, that's right, and the ghosts were going gonna be the good guys, and I think we were calling it something about the waka waka monster or something like that maybe.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it sounds familiar. I didn't remember that, but yeah, I think you're something like that.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, yes, good times, you know, and uh yeah, it's just silly stuff like that. Or we would. We would hang out in your bedroom. You had a out of all of us. You had the best stereo, you had this great stereo. Yes, oh, that's Adam Holland. Oh wait, a second. Hold on a second. Folks hold on a second here, come on, come on a second here, come on, come on, come on up here.
Speaker 2:Let me get my glasses on and then I'm going to explain this is good stuff.
Speaker 1:So, my bad, I thought it was noontime. I can't. No, it's bad.
Speaker 2:Bad news Bad news.
Speaker 1:Oh man, I'll get into it right now. So, uh, I have the next couple of guest books for the show and the listeners, my audience here, they know that almost from day one of doing this podcast, the one guest I've been trying to get on like no other is Steve Augeri. For those of you who may not know, steve Augeri is the gentleman who took over for Steve Perry when he departed from Journey in 1997. And I love Steve Augeri and I've reached out. We almost connected one time and didn't happen. Well, that was his lead guitarist right there texting me back.
Speaker 1:I had him booked for Tuesday of next week and he just. I had him booked for noon, my my time and he thought it was noon his time. So he was just telling me he can't make it at noon his time. So I have to. I don't want to play hooky from work because I'm already off next Friday. Oh man, just have to reschedule that one. Doggone it. Anyway, I was so looking forward to that because that was going to get me one step closer to getting Steve Augeri on the show.
Speaker 2:I was watching the Journey documentary on Peacock before I came over here. Really, yeah, daniella turned it on and I heard it. I was like what's this? I don't remember the name, but I'm going to go back home and watch it when I go home. Okay, all right, they were interviewing steve and jerry. He was talking about how he was like I'm like I don't know I'm gonna be able to do like steve barry. Can you imagine being the guy that has to replace steve barry? There's like no bigger shoe, right, bill, right. And they were saying how he was the voice and how even djs were going like oh yeah, there's no way jerry, jerry's going to survive now.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, well, darn it, I'll have to figure something out. Okay, I don't know. Back on track. So, matt, out of all of us, he had the best stereo Turntable, dual scene deck and You'll never guess where I got it.
Speaker 2:I don't know when did you get it. It was a birthday present from Zody's. Oh, do you remember Zody's? Zody's? Yeah, it was right over on Imperial, right by the 605. It was like.
Speaker 1:Cerritos, norwalk, that area, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And I wanted one that had a cassette tape, an eight track and a turntable. So my dad got me. It was an Emerson, I remember, yeah, and it had the dual monitors on it for the recording. Yeah, they know where you're going.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's exactly where I'm going. And it had dual, dual inputs for the microphones and all that, and and what we would do. You know, I'm sure we may not be the only ones ever to have done this, but we would, you know, there'd be. It depended on what night it was, what weekend it was, because we did this quite a bit. There might be three of us, there might be six of us, and we would get in there and we would do improv, we would create a scenario. Usually it was based on a movie movie. There was a couple of times we created our own scenarios and we just went with it. No script, totally unscripted, 100% yeah, and and we would go and do our thing, and and we would just like this, just like this podcast. There's no editing. We didn't edit our cassette, we didn't edit those tapes, we let it go warts and all and yeah warts is a good way to talk about, yeah, and and, and.
Speaker 1:You know, when we love something, we just kept right on rolling with it. We would start busting up and then get right back. You know, know, we break the fourth wall and then we rebuild it and carry on. And you know, like I said, we created a lot of different scenarios. We did a spoof on gosh, if you remember, I know you remember, but anybody out there in the audience, because my demographic is like our age, right, they are. Anybody out there in the audience because my demographic is like our age, right, they are. Um, the movie prom night with jamie lee curtis. Yeah, and we did a spoof on that. Did one on halloween. Yeah, yeah, we did. We did one on. We did one on halloween. Uh, we did one. We didn't do one on star wars, but we used the characters from Star Wars. We created our own scenario.
Speaker 2:I was listening to that today.
Speaker 1:Oh, did you really I did and I'm totally going.
Speaker 2:I'm coming here tonight and I'm like I'm going to listen to this. I'm listening to it and I'm going to be like how in the world did we mix the Justice League?
Speaker 1:And our movies.
Speaker 2:We were just so proud of ourselves, justice League, and our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our. Know Nelson Stickman, stickman, yeah. And Babs, anthony, yeah. And Vince, who was a friend who was visiting from the Marine Corps with me. He had come home one weekend with me and he was the one that did R2-D2. He did and Chewbacca, and Chewbacca.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we called him. We called him V Cooper because those were his initials, so we just called him VD and yeah, yeah, I was listening to that. I was just like, oh my gosh, we were such dweebs, dorks, you know what. But I still have the original cassette, original cassette, original cassette, original cassette. And I don't know 15 years ago or so, for some reason, I had it in my vehicle and matt burned a copy of it on onto cd. So I have that as well. So I have it in digital format. Yeah, so, but, but that was't know if that was our crown jewel or not, because the Halloween, the prom night, those were great tapes, yeah, and somebody did something, somebody recorded over them. This guy over here, wait, where's my thumb, there's my thumb, yeah, so anyway, but just, you know just silly stuff as kids, and I think that's why, later on, as young adults, and when I was listening to morning radio, like we would, we would listen to Rick Dees when we were still in high school.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:Rick Dees. He's been a big time guy, nationally known. If you know the song disco duck, that's rick dees. But he did mornings here, uh, on one of the top 40 stations back in the early 80s. He had about a 10-year run on there, maybe a vlogger, I don't know, but um, he would do sketches like that and uh, different, you know different scenarios. And then I kind of guess I graduated to my radio heroes Mark and Brian, and they were doing that stuff and I'm saying to myself and you and I would talk about it and go, mark and Brian haven't thought about that in years.
Speaker 1:But we would say these guys are doing the same stupid stuff that we were doing 10 years before. You know, we were kids and uh, so it might have made us think that we were even smarter than we, than we were. So, but yeah, just stuff like that silly stuff that you do, um, and it's a part of that that that you know that that friendship process, and you hang on to that stuff. It's just good memories, yeah for sure. In fact, there's a part you mentioned.
Speaker 2:we didn't edit it here but we did edit the Star Wars tape because there's a part where I'm doing Tegar and my mom walks in the room and I go, go away. You did stop, and so I had to stop the tape for you. And then we're like, well, what are we going to do? And so I think what we did was I kept saying go away. And then you guys all said like, all right, we're going to leave, yeah, we're going to, yeah, let's get out.
Speaker 1:And I'm like no, no, come back Okay.
Speaker 2:So we got to set this down.
Speaker 1:I'm going to explain to you this. Okay, tegar is the character that matt created even before we knew each other, and he had created that character and and we used it in a couple of we used it in more than a couple of scenarios on our tapes, and tagar was just this, this beast of a guy, and he was a scary guy. Well, I don't know what he looked like. I don't know what he looked like. We didn't know what he looked like.
Speaker 2:We were afraid of his voice.
Speaker 1:We were afraid of his voice, and so in that Star Wars scenario we created a port scene and it was, I think, darth Vader was on trial for the murder of Obi-Wan, yeah, and so Tegar was presiding over the proceeding of Judge Tegar, and yeah, so he had this big, booming voice, and whenever Tegar spoke, you listened. He was better than EF Reduced the Wookiee to limper Actually he did, that's fine.
Speaker 2:At. That's the one, at least on the page. Yeah, chewbacca wasn't afraid of anybody, but he was that day.
Speaker 1:I think Tegar would have been challenged by the real Chewbacca. But yeah, so that's Tegar. So just give us a little, just a tiny bit of Tegar, just so people can really get a thing. So his big thing was just, you know, tegar rules the universe Kind of like, yeah, I'll do that. He kind of would announce it, he would announce his presence Tegar rules, the universe, stuff like that.
Speaker 2:If you can imagine him doing that with a 15, 16-year-old voice, yeah, yeah, yeah, but you always had a voice that sounded like you were 35. That's true, my voice does sound deep on the tape. That was one of the things I noticed. And then you were talking about the bubble gum and stuff before and the tape. Everything pulled together. We had these tubes and glass jars that we're using to do sound effects look, I think we were pretty darn creative.
Speaker 2:Myself, I don't know, yeah, we just, and we weren't on drugs. No, there's no drugs involved in this, it was just us being stupid teenagers 15, 16, 17 year old kids.
Speaker 1:You know, yeah, but good times, it was good times, yeah, definitely. So I want to get into this real quick. Okay, and no one's called, so I don't have to take a shot yet. That's awesome, huh, you know, oh wait hang on, there's another time, if I call. No wait, there's a comment, let's see. When did you hang on Debbie's asking when?
Speaker 2:did you get the flyer or wait when?
Speaker 1:did you Hang on Debbie's asking when did you get the flyer? Wait, where did you get the flyers printed? Kinkos is my guess Is that how? No, debbie, we didn't have Kinkos back then. We hand-drew all this stuff and then we took it and we Xeroxed copies of it. I don't remember where we went. It was like a 10 cent sheet, something you know, just free hand, everything you know. Come on, we're old school and in terms of us getting to business, I mean a lot. Often we'd be out doing somebody's yard and the neighbor would come over hey, how much did you do? Money? We charged. We charged five bucks to do the front yard and we charged and oh wow, a whole two extra dollars to do the backyard. Are you kidding me? Most backyards are bigger than the front yards.
Speaker 2:We were just and then we would charge a couple extra bucks that they wanted the hedges trimmed or something like I don't remember my dad lecturing me about that, saying how, how come I could go out and do other people's yards and stuff, but I couldn't do our yard, and I remember telling them they paid me oh, that didn't make him happy, right, because, I mean, he bought my club and he said, yeah, yeah, that's right, he had a roof over my, but you know what?
Speaker 1:you know what? In all fairness, though, the only yard work you would have had to do at your house is trim the hedges and maybe pick some oranges up, because they must have had a half a dozen to eight, ten citrus trees on their property, and, instead of grass, the whole thing was red brick. Yeah, the front yard is still like that. It's just two trees, two what gendry, and an orange tree in the front, yeah, but there was grass in the back. But it's a small house, a little tiny house. That's a great house. That's a great house. That was great. You had five bedrooms, like four bathrooms. You had your own bathroom. That was awesome, it was awesome. And, again, your bedroom was opposite side of the house, so at two o'clock in the morning, when we're raising cane, you know no one else could hear us, because everyone else was. You know, that was. That was a big house too.
Speaker 2:I think my parents were paying like ninety, eight thousand dollars for that house. Ninety eight thousand dollars. That house when I I remember looking at it on it was for sale and I stopped in and they were asking like 1.7 million, wow, wow. I was like my god, my parents lost it because, you know, my dad was out of work and then my mom was, uh, not able to maintain the house payment, which was like it was nothing, it was, it was and I was in the corps, but nobody told me I wasn't. Yeah, I probably would have stayed in the marine corps if they had told me. I probably would have stayed in the Marine Corps if they had told me that, and my life would have been completely different.
Speaker 1:Man, yes, former service member right here at USMC. That's right. Semper Fi Semper.
Speaker 2:Fi Hoorah, nothing compared to these guys that served in the Second World War and I'm very thankful to God that they had never served in any combat and I'm I'm so glad about that because, uh, I can't even imagine those people who do serve and do that. They all deserve our gratitude and uh to they earn our respect by doing those things, man.
Speaker 1:how about that? Yesterday was-Day? Yesterday was the 80th anniversary of D-Day. And I didn't have this down here to talk about because I don't want to bring down the show, but I'll tell you what it actually deserves a few minutes of our time, because what an event in the history of mankind.
Speaker 2:Absolutely yeah, definitely In the history of the world, of mankind, absolutely, yeah, definitely in the history of the world, and especially when you come to think that there are people out there today, in other nations and of different beliefs, who will deny all the stuff that happened. But the german army and the nazi party, right right, they just denied the holocaust happened at all. And yeah, I don't want to bring anything down too. But the people who took up the charge and said we're willing to go and lay down our lives for freedom, man, I know yes, absolutely so that we could be free.
Speaker 1:and because, because of those brave men, thousands of brave men that gave their lives and you know, thank God, god had his hand on those guys, whether they gave their lives that day or they made it through and, man, because of those brave men on that day, we can sit here and do this today, we can kid around and goof off Every person that experiences liberty and pursues whatever, by the Constitution their pursuit of liberty, life and happiness.
Speaker 2:It's because people have fought the beginning of the country until today, because, even with the stuff that happened on 9-11, we went to war in Afghanistan and a lot of people, a lot of bad things happened in war period. Right, that's right, we all agree, but in terms of the freedom that's earned as a result, you know, hey, we haven't had another major terrorist attack.
Speaker 1:And that's a lot of bad things.
Speaker 2:I mean, you know, it could happen again, but yeah.
Speaker 1:God's in control. Yeah, but, boy, I'll tell you what you know. Just the bravery that those guys showed. Yeah, like you said, I mean, come on, they were at such a disadvantage on that day. You're talking about like 400 yards of a beach that's wide open, no cover, and you're coming in on. What were those boats called? I can't even remember now, transport, yeah, but there was a different name. I don't know what they're anyway, but but, man, that that door would, and guys were getting picked off, one at a time, right out of the gate, before their feet even hit the sand, and guys were able to make it. I mean, it was an impossible mission, an impossible mission and they made it happen. They completed the mission, took down tyranny, took down the Nazi Party, took down Hitler. It was, it was, you know, major. It was the turning point in World War two. The turning point, yeah. So god bless all the men who sacrificed their lives on that day and and God bless the guys who came back. Yeah, thanks guys, yeah, yeah, thanks guys for that. So, anyway, all right.
Speaker 1:So look, today is National Donut Day. How many of you out there know that? How many of you knew that today is National Donut Day. Well, guess what we're sad? Yes, because I stopped at Krispy Kreme and picked up two dozen donuts. You know, I just had to. I just had to. I even brought plates up. I didn't bring any plates. No, I can't eat, all right, fine, I'll eat them by myself. You can have them bring any plates. No, I can't eat, all right, fine, I'll eat it by myself. I, I, I, uh, I bought it, doesn't know their original glaze. And then these, these are just like my favorites. It's crap right there. The chocolate, the chocolate glaze are you kidding me? Right, right, yeah, they look like crap and I've never been on the track, but yeah, no, this is good stuff. And oh so professional. Eating on the air Isn't that great. Dumping your face on the air. You couldn't have had something with more protein in it. But look, I don't know how many of you out there like donuts. I love donuts. I love cronuts too.
Speaker 2:I love donuts too. That's why I'm trying to lose some weight, yeah.
Speaker 1:There's a couple of things that go great with donuts. Water is not one of them. Okay, so I had to bring a cold glass of milk up here. We've been going for I don't know like 30 minutes, so it's probably not very cold anymore.
Speaker 2:But a cold glass of milk or a nice cup of hot cocoa, yeah, that goes great with donuts. I can't argue with that. Yeah for sure. Oh yeah, it's not real cold anymore. You've always been a milk guy though, too. You really enjoy milk milk.
Speaker 2:It does a body good you know, I can remember the days when my uh, my mom used to get mad because we four of us, right, right, and they'd buy a gallon or two gallons of milk and we'd drink it all in two days. Oh yeah, and then my mom would be all upset. I remember my dad telling her well, what are they supposed to do? Why did we buy gallon or two gallons of milk and we drink it all in two days? Oh yeah, and then my mom would be all upset you drink all of that. And I remember my dad telling her well, what are they supposed to do? Why did we buy it? Yeah, so then she would buy that evaporated milk and she would put it in like half and half a week. We're like, oh, or, or the powdered milk, yeah, yeah, evapor powdered milk. Yeah, yeah, evaporated milk. That's what I'm talking about. Powdered milk, yeah, oh, horrible.
Speaker 1:Yeah, mixed with water. Oh geez, wow, bad stuff, bad stuff. Somebody got to call in Now. I've never had Malort with a donut, so tonight could be a burst. Tonight could be a burst, okay, I'll let you know. Somebody calls in to the show tonight and I will not only pour a shot of Malort, I'll not only put a nasty bean in there. Okay, yeah, I got the beans right here. Okay, but I'll dump my donut in the Malort. All right, how's that? Just for you? Just for you? Okay, guys. So take advantage, take advantage. All right. How's that? Just for you? Just for you? Okay, guys, so take advantage, take advantage, all right. Um, so, yeah, uh, um, don't. National donut day, let's stop. Who do they come? Come on, someone, leave a comment. Tell me what your favorite donut place is, and then maybe tell me what your favorite donut is as well. Come on, you, you've got to participate. All right, danielle has pooped on US Donuts. Buttermilk bars right over the top of Hadley. Uh-oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, hadley and wait. Where's that? It's changed around over there.
Speaker 2:So much now you know where the Hadley Five Points, the Hadley car washes, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean it used to be an old school car wash. I think they even did a semi-R-rated soft-corn movie there one time. Whoa, oh my God. But there's like a nice car wash there now and they have the what do you call it? The Armed Forces Recruiting Station right there. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yes, I know where you're talking. Very popular place. I get the keno lottery in there and then there's a lot of uh, a lot of, you know, a lot of winners. Two thousand thousand, ten thousand dollar winners over there, yeah, but we go in there and get the benefits, see, matt.
Speaker 1:Matt still lives in our old stomping grounds at whittier. Yeah, he still does. Oh I moved back.
Speaker 2:I'm literally living less than a mile from where you grew up.
Speaker 1:Where we were wreaking havoc over the neighborhood.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I told oh, we used to play like.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was telling Tess. Tess was on the show a couple months back, so we got to talking about, you know, my childhood or whatever, I don't know. She likes hearing those stories, just like when Jake and Aaron were growing up and they all. They like to hear all the, all the stupid stuff that we did as kids. And I was telling about all the doorbell ditch that we did, or just idiot stuff where we would knock on someone's door and go stand on on the sidewalk and when they would open the door we'd just be jumping jacks don't stop, or somebody we pretend to jump somebody on their front yard.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if I you know, try to get somebody to holler at us or, you know, call the police or whatever that kind of thing. You know, chase somebody. You know we pick somebody out of the group and chase them down the street. And okay, now we're growing up. Matt was the biggest out of all of us. You know, he was the. He was pretty much the tallest and he was pretty much the stockiest one out of all of us. Okay, and I don't know how he gets this idea. Okay, I'm gonna to be the guy now that you're chasing down the street. Okay, you're going to be beating me up. I remember that night, okay, what, what? He was great at it because he would scream and holler. I mean, oh, he was great at it. He sounded like a girl. He did sound like a girl.
Speaker 2:What is happening?
Speaker 1:And so people were freaking out over it. So Matt's all girl and so so people were freaking out over it, so that's all right. I'm up now and I just said matt's always had this voice. He's running down the street and, like I said, he's the biggest guy and he's running like this with his arms out. He said, okay, I'm not even buying this, I'm serious. Yeah, nobody bought it, nobody bought it.
Speaker 2:That's hilarious Good times.
Speaker 1:You know it's funny, okay. So I just called Matt last night or yesterday afternoon. I've been on nights all week, so today, of course, is my Friday and that's why I'm here. I've been up since I don't know, like 7 o'clock last night. I haven't even gone to sleep yet. So if I get loopy, you'll know why. Loopier, oh yeah, okay, loopier. So I called Matt yesterday afternoon like, hey, dude, what are you doing tomorrow night? I don't know nothing. I think, hey, why don't you come on the podcast? I'm just streaming live. Let's just, you know, let's just get together, let's have some fun, you know. So here he is, but I got this. Remember it was the last friday night, live we did, and I introduced some vinyl, and remember I said it was my buddy matt. On a sunday morning I'm eating cereal at the table right before I'm getting ready to leave for church, and matt sends me this excuse me this message on facebook with the eBay link for that 441. Hang on, let me get it right here 441,.
Speaker 2:You've heard them at Knott's Berry Farm.
Speaker 1:Well, that wasn't where I first heard them, but we saw them live?
Speaker 1:Yeah, we saw them. Yeah, we saw them live. Where'd it go? I'll put it in here. There it's me. Is that it? Yeah, yeah, remember this one from a couple weeks ago? You, yeah, remember this one from a couple weeks ago. You guys remember this one. So I picked that one up. But what was so weird about that? I'll get back on mic here, people, and I hope the sound has gotten a little bit better. I apologize for it. We're going to try to fix something. I don't know. Maybe I'll have to buy a couple more microphones, I don't know Anyhow. So where I'm going with that story is. This message comes from out of the blue, matt. He.
Speaker 1:I don't know. It was around 2010, 2011, 2012,. Somewhere around there. I don't know what you're talking about. Yeah, you're talking. He's talking in 2010. Matt left, he moved out of Whittier and went to seminary. That was the end of 2013.
Speaker 2:Okay, so I was doing courses from home. Yeah, but we had made the decision to go full-time to seminary so I could get everything done in three years.
Speaker 1:And where was the…? City Seminary, sacramento. That's how you ended up up north to start.
Speaker 2:Well, we were going to go to South Dakota, but that ended up not working out because the two professors who were the main draw at that particular seminar were, um, they left. And so then I called the dean and I said so what's going on? And he said, well, don't worry, any courses that you can't do live it here. And it's going to be one teacher right, um, he says you can do distance learning, and I was like, well, that defeats the whole purpose of why we were planning on moving there. I wanted to do live courses, kind of sort of. Yeah, well, because when I was doing the courses from home, the problem was is I'd be reading the stuff which was assigned, but he would hold the, he would hold the class and I would watch the recording and then, if I did have questions, I would have to submit the questions but to continue with the reading. And so by the time the time they got back to me a week later, I was already five or six questions ahead where I was, like, you know, I had these other issues. Yeah, it just wasn't real productive, it wasn't, and it's just much more. It's much more, um, engaging and you have relationships that you, uh, that you build when you're in seminary, like we talked about the friendship, right, and you know those go on forever and I appreciate the. The men that I met and uh were encouraged by, you know, being there in in classes with them. It was so it made the difference.
Speaker 2:So we ended up switching to sacramento, and the nice thing about city Seminary is that they attempt to teach on the budget that you have. They offer a lot of free courses to anybody in the area who is a member of a church, and it didn't matter what denomination you were a member of, and so you could graduate from seminary without owing 150 to 200 000. Could it really cost that much? Yeah, to get a master, so the uh, you know, so I'm. I graduated free of debt. Nice, yeah, it was. I praise god for that. So where I'm going with this is matt leaves, moves north, goes to seminary. Then I know he's pastoring at a church in Auburn. Right, it was a grasshopper. Okay, close enough. Right, moved to Auburn.
Speaker 1:Okay, and really, to be honest, we've been out of touch for quite some time. Yeah, we're friends on Facebook but you know, but we're not showing up on each other's timelines really. And so that message on that Sunday morning was so out of the blue and it was so right on the money and I sent him a message right back, I mean inside of five minutes, just bought it, just bought the album, know, and then we started kind of messaging back and forth and I thought let me just look at his profile, you know whatever. So clicked on it and it says he's living in Whittier. And I'm like you gotta be kidding me.
Speaker 2:I said okay, wait a second.
Speaker 1:Wait a second because I know it used to say something else, so I sent, so I, I, uh, I messaged him. I said you back in with your sister. Yeah, how long you been here? Three years, okay. You said okay, no, that you're right. You're right. In two years. You said it was the year after your mother passed. Yeah, we moved here, that's right, yeah. So it's like come on serious. So get the message, but the album no, I like this part.
Speaker 2:You're leaving this part out. What am I leaving out? So when I said the thing he goes you, you would ask me how did I know about it? I said, well, I follow you. And then I could like told you in the message I said have a good time at the. At the lunch, the lot, what the alumni lunch, the lunch, the lunch yeah, so yeah.
Speaker 1:So it just you know and I knew you got the golden mic award remember.
Speaker 2:I remember I called you up and gradually you were like how do you know it, Mike, Because I follow you.
Speaker 1:Gosh that was Jake was in still high school when I got that. He was still in high school when I got that Golden Mike Award. Yeah, okay, so, wow, okay, I just took it back folks A little bit, right, yeah. So what was really cool about that is I just said to Matt. I said, well, I'm getting ready to go to church. By the way, you still got the same phone number, right. Yep, okay, okay. So last week I was on vacation and so Matt was nice enough to take a day off and we had a great lunch last Thursday. That was a great lunch.
Speaker 2:What was it called?
Speaker 1:El Torito Grill.
Speaker 2:El Torito Grill there off of, right off of Colima, no no, right off of Lambert Lambert.
Speaker 1:Good food, good stuff, stuff. We had a great lunch, great conversation, do a little more ketchup and all that. And so, getting back to the first three minutes of the show, when we're talking about friendships, you know, when you have a real, true bond with somebody and a stretch of time goes by when you haven't spoken to someone, you haven't seen them, you come back together and you pick up right where you left off. And that's exactly how it was last week. Yeah, I mean, that's always measured friendship.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, I imagine I've been estranged from somebody who you know, my cousin Brian, for many years. Yes, and I did him wrong. I stabbed him in the back. I readily said that I've apologized for it and I've seen him on one occasion or since then, seen him on one occasion since then, and but if I ever saw him and had the opportunity to speak with him, I would hope that the good times that we did have together would trump the things that were bad, that occurred, and because I love him, I pray for him and his family. And same thing like with you, you know. Yeah, I mean I, you know something like I pray for you every day, but anytime I'm thinking about you, I pray for you. And I thought that you had gotten engaged and married.
Speaker 1:So I was happy about that, and we're still friends with Sherry, too, on Facebook, and I have told anybody and everybody that knew the both of us don't two sides. You're her friend too.
Speaker 2:You can be friends with both of us don't two sides. You're a friend too. She's a great lady. Yeah, I love her to death. Yeah, I mean I won't. I bet she lives in Tennessee, so you're probably not gonna be getting together for lunch any time. I totally envy the fact that she goes to all these great concerts and stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, well, that's a part of what she's doing for a living. Now I have she's working something good. Yeah, she doesn't get to see a lot of great shows. I got donut glaze on me, you know what. That's what you get. That was a good donut, though I'm trying not to rub it in, but I can get in and Another one too. No, so, oh okay, I mentioned Kim Curry, that he was a guest on the show last week. It was a really good interview. Kim's a good storyteller. I encourage everybody to give it a view. Just you know, give it a look. Everybody to give it a view. Just just you know, give it a look. It's actually doing well. The audio, the audio version of the that that particular show, is doing really well. So I'm kind of surprised that the audio version is doing much better than the YouTube version or the video version.
Speaker 2:I mean I think that's a thing about podcasting is that you can have the video version. I mean I think that's the thing about podcasting is that you can have the video version and the audio version, and the audio version will outperform quite often because people spend a lot of time in their cars and they can listen and they don't have to watch.
Speaker 1:Well, I wish that was the case with my podcast. I wish the audio version did outperform the video, but it doesn't. But that's okay, it's just the way it is. We take it one show at a time. This is actually episode number 49, and I was really thinking that Adam Holland was going to be episode number 50. I was going to have streamers and balloons and everything in here. I'd probably have a cake. Now I'm not going to get to eat cake. I'm a villain, so you know. But so really, check out that episode.
Speaker 1:But let me talk about somebody that's coming up in the next couple of weeks Also. I have an author coming up. Her name is Penny Ann and she is a true crime writer, and she reached out to me and asked if I'd be interested in having her on the podcast and I thought, well, I mean, okay, I had Kim on and he is an author now. But as far as authors, that's that he's the only one I've had on the on the show. I went. I am trying to get another author on as well. She's a motivational speaker and she gave me her book to read and I just have like no time to read. I think I read about four pages of it and I haven't picked it up since. And yeah, get on that so I can have her on the show. But so she she's a true crime writer and she has a fascinating story and she wants to share it.
Speaker 1:So we are going to be recording that show on Saturday, the 22nd, so it'll post that morning. If you're in the Pacific time zone, yeah, we're going to do it early in the morning. She's in Texas and of course, I'm here in California, so we're going to make it happen. She's really excited. We talked her and I talked for about half hour yesterday, a day before yesterday. She's so sweet, oh my gosh. And she was. I was blown away. I was like, okay, well, I just got a little old tiny podcast here, you know.
Speaker 2:Can you give us anything without giving anything away?
Speaker 1:No, it's just a really bad story. So you'll have to listen to the show. But she's sending me a book. I'm going to try to skim it a little bit, but I primarily want it so that I can show you the book on the show and you guys can get out there and make your purchases on it. But yeah, I'm looking forward to it because yeah, she was just really neat to talk to.
Speaker 1:Like I said, we talked for about 30 minutes the other day and just really, really nice, so I'm looking forward to that. That's coming up on the 22nd, okay, so stay tuned for that and I'll keep reminding you before we get there. Uh, so that's kind of what's coming up on the podcast. Um, oh, yes, well, I'm gonna get into another donut real quick. First, uh, I had a chocolate, so now I'm going to get into another donut real quick. First I had a chocolate, so now I'm going to have an original glaze. You're more than welcome to eat, but you know it's up to you.
Speaker 2:So I had my calorie limit Okay.
Speaker 1:All right. So I was talking about the vinyl and I told you I had a couple other things that I had purchased. Sorry about getting off mic there, but I told you I had a couple other things that I purchased and I was waiting for them to come in. I'll start with this one, since it's a CD. We all know we talked about it six weeks ago, two months ago that Journey's Great Hits excuse me, journey's Greatest Hits just hit like 800 consecutive weeks on the Billboard Top 200 album chart. It's been on the chart ever since it came out. It's never been off the chart. I think that's absolutely fabulous Greatness. Yeah Well, I don't know if anyone's aware, but Journey released a Greatest Hits 2. I think that was. I don't know. Let me get my glasses out. I didn't own this one. I never picked it up.
Speaker 2:Greatest Hits when you own every other album. Well, pretty happy right, right. Sometimes it's not necessary to buy a greatest hits package we can go into my playlist and put all the songs. No, you gotta have the physical form.
Speaker 1:Physical. Physical was to the 2011, I think, is what that says. Yeah, 2011 is when this came out. Now, I said at the time we talked about Journey's Greatest Hits that it let me scoot over here so I can look at you and look at them that Journey's Greatest Hits had sold over 16 million copies Wow, and that was long before the announcement on its longevity on the top 200 chart. So, who knows? That could be in upwards of 20 million copies already and I mean that's just awesome for an album to sell like that. You know the Escape album is a diamond album. More than 10 million, like I said, greatest Hits is a diamond album. It could, be like I said, 20 million seller, who knows? So I never picked this one up, but it's got great songs.
Speaker 1:Obviously it's the Greatest Hits 2. Well, if you go and see Journey live, then yeah, you can say this is Greatest Hits 2, because it's a lot of stuff that's in the set list and they change their set list up from time to time. But I just I'll be quite honest with you. When I first saw it on eBay, I right after I excuse me right after I made the purchase, I was like, oh, oops, that's Greatest Hits 2.
Speaker 1:That's not the one I wanted I wanted to buy. It's called Essential Journey. I don't know I had it, but it was in my Hummer and it was stolen, so I need to replace it. So that's what I thought I was buying, because it's got a purple cover on it, like Essential Journey does. Anyway, I don't know, it asked me where I was going with that one, but I picked it up and so I got a couple of albums here. You all know that I absolutely love this band. Love, love, love this band. I'm trying to get and I talk about guests I want to get on the podcast and then I don't get them.
Speaker 2:So, but, and it's- all his brother Jim's fault.
Speaker 1:And there's a writer for what's it called Spinning Something or other, I can't recall, but he has a channel here on YouTube and his name's Phil Afton. Watched one of his videos and he did it on this band, uriah Heep. He's a huge Heep fan. So I thought, oh, get this guy on the show. We got to talk some Uriah Heep, he's a huge Heep fan. So I thought, oh, all right, get this guy on the show. We got to talk some Uriah Heep here. And so I've been going through and trying to get and collect my vinyl and all that and this one I used to have as a kid and remember I sold my albums in 83. We're not going to rehash that story again. Okay, you're right, neeps. Look at yourself, look at that cover. It's got actual mirror on there and that was what was so awesome about it and you can see, I can see my. Look at wait, wait, wait. Let's get in there, matt. Oh, look, there we are. Look at those noses. Mine is bigger, two of the biggest noses you've ever seen.
Speaker 1:We, you know, in high school we measured. We took all the measurements on our noses. Yeah, the length, how far it stuck out, how white it was, everything. And when you added it all up they were the exact same dimension or they were the exact same measurements. Like his was like maybe a little bit longer this way, but mine stuck out a little further and whatever it was, but that all equaled the same measurements.
Speaker 2:Who does that stuff? Oh, my mom. Yeah, she's with her micrometers, yeah, yeah we used to.
Speaker 1:We rip on each other on how big our noses are and were and still are. That's how big of geeks we are. That's how stupid we are. But you're right, look at yourself. This came out in 1970, I think Let me double check, double check the math on it 71. July of 71. That's right, because this was the. Oh no, this was yeah, this was the. This was like their third album. They had five albums out by the time they hit their live album in 73. But it's got some of the Great stuff on here. The title track Look at Yourself. Great song, july Morning. Remember I did my Uriah Heep Top 20 and July Morning was my number one song, number one on the list. There's another one on here.
Speaker 1:Tears in my Eyes. You got to hear the live version of this song. So awesome. Steps out from behind the Hammond organ and just kills it on slide guitar. Kills it. It's so good, so, so, so good. But, yeah, good stuff. I'm so happy to see it in really good condition, really good condition. And remember, I don't even have a turntable. I don't even have a turntable, I don't. So this was the next one, this was the next one I picked up and I've been telling you about this one people Uriah Heat Live 1973. Yeah, man, one of the best live albums ever from anyone. And remember I was telling you this when I did the Kiss Live albums ranked and I was telling you that Kiss Alive.
Speaker 1:They got the idea for that album, for the packaging on the album from this, right here you open this up, you open the gatefold and there you have a biography on the members of the band. You've got David Byron right there, mr Operatic, with his shirt open, and all that good stuff. Yeah, look at that Great. And the booklet is in awesome condition, so awesome. The great Ken Hensley. The great Ken Hensley on keyboard and guitars and vocals. Oh, what a tremendous songwriter. Mick Foxley, guitarist still.
Speaker 2:This is what we miss with you know all the electronic and the MP3s is we miss this kind of artwork and the dedication and remember, we would say collectability.
Speaker 1:That's right. You put this on your stereo, you sit down and you lean up against your bed and you sit down on the floor and you put this on your lap and you just stare at the cover. If it's got pictures, you flip the pictures and you know the great Lee Kerslake. I talked about him not too long ago, talked about him in his documentary. The great Lee Kerslake oh, the bear, Gary Thane. And I'm saying that about. I'm saying great about every single one of these guys, because this lineup here is known as their classic lineup and these guys were so proficient in what they did and what they brought to the band and they had such a tremendous reputation and it's a shame that these guys weren't any bigger than they are.
Speaker 1:And then you got a stage shot right here from behind the stage. I think we got a little light on that. And then the discography Five albums leading up to the live one, and then some candid shots right there and away we go. Great album. The best version of July Morning is on this. It's live. The best version of Tears In my Eyes. You really get to hear Ken rip it up on slide guitar. Good stuff. I just want to share some volume with you people. Okay, it doesn't matter. Every show we have to throw in a little bit of music talk, right? Why not? So, so, so matt. Now, when we were, we were growing up, I mean, we had a lot of the same, uh, we liked a lot of the same artists and bands oh yeah, there's some that.
Speaker 2:Well, I didn't really get into music until I went to Okinawa. Yeah, you brought back a ton of it. Well, they had all the bootleg albums. I could buy a bootleg album over the three bucks on a cassette. It was high quality, yeah. So I had like 40 or 50 albums, I remember.
Speaker 2:But what really got me into music, and Rush particularly, was they had these drinking houses where you would go in a basement, some building, and you'd go in and they would have these concert-sized speakers set up, hooked up to some high-fidelity sound system and a wall of vinyl and you would go through the book and pick what you wanted to listen to. And I had a friend, Steve Jensen, still remember his name. He was a corporal. We weren't supposed to hang out because I was only a PSA and he's an officer yeah, well, not completely, but you know you're not supposed to mix and he was wanting to introduce me to Rush. And I remember sitting down there and listening to 21th Fall and just having my mind blown and just couldn't get enough.
Speaker 2:I'm still a big Rush fan today. I remember when you had come back from Japan, you were just huge on Rush. Oh yeah, you were huge on Rush. I remember I came back and you guys were all at Anthony's house and I came over there and you were like oh man, and then you were like oh man, and then you were all you know that album just celebrated 42 years last month.
Speaker 1:No, uh, yeah, 42 years last month, yeah, and uh, I saw aldo, I saw him, I saw him and I saw him in vegas, so the first time since 1982 that I'd seen him live.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've only been to a handful of concerts ever, but yeah I mean music is an important part of our lives in every aspect.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, it is and that's. And I think that's why when I started the podcast, I had a couple of things kicking around and you know ideas of what I wanted to do, and I'd scratch out my ideas and I recorded a couple test shows, just audio.
Speaker 1:I have a little a little zoom recorder in the basket right there. So they're on it, they're on an SD card in there. They may never see the light of day, they may never get past the studio, those those two little recordings but and I was like, yeah, I know, like one of them I had no, it sounded like I had no energy at all and I was like, okay, all right, okay, let's tweak this, tweak that, tweak this one over here, let's do it again.
Speaker 1:and I hit record again right afterwards. Then energy level was higher. I got goofed off, did a few things and went for about 35 minutes or so. I played it back. I'm like, okay, this is like no energy, this is too much energy. I sounded like a morning zoo or something. Yeah, I don't want to do that. I know I wanted to have fun when I did this, but I know also that, um, mike, I told you and it's right there, right in the show description tell your story right now.
Speaker 2:I know people who may be watching this and probably people that you know mostly, and then hopefully the word of mouth gets around and you start having interesting people coming on, like the last guests that you had. Yeah, uh, I mean, if you get into true crime and you can get the some sort of trend there, there's a lot of really interesting stories there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know, I mean a lot of the day we lived in the hafian, the heights house when the night when, yes, oh, yeah, I mean, and so these, these events that are, you know, they're historical events they, they, um, invade the mind of, uh, the culture and they live on. I mean, he was, he was our boogeyman, you know, both that way bats in every room and we were always done. Hop had his knife that was about this big under his pillow. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And yeah, that was Not only that, but what you're doing, doing a podcast, I mean, you know, you talk about energy level and yet, I mean, a lot of people are like, well, I could never do that. And the truth is, anybody can do it. You can do this If this is something that you're interested in, yeah, it, you know, takes some time. It's. You're always going to be harder on yourself, but here's a secret that a lot of people don't know when a photographer takes pictures and you go man, you're such a great photographer he doesn't show you all the pictures.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I'm like, no, because I shot wedding photos for for a few years and I got a little money out of it and people would say you do such great pictures but you don't see all the bad pictures that I don't show you. And I'm sure Picasso could look at his photo or paintings and go I didn't like this part right here. Van Gogh, the same thing. Michelangelo. I'm sure he could see his sculptures and he would know exactly where the flaws were, that we would just look at the genius of what he was doing, and not that we're geniuses or that Ben's a genius.
Speaker 1:I don't think he thinks of himself that way, maybe in the shower? He's a legend in his own shower, that's for sure, when we all sing in the shower, we're all legends, that's for sure.
Speaker 2:When we all sing in the shower, we're all legends, that's right. No, you can do this, and I think, calling in and talking, engaging if you had regular course, you might think well, what am I going to talk about?
Speaker 1:Well, whatever you want to talk about.
Speaker 2:That's right. You know you're having a bad day and you stubbed your toe. That's a story, right yeah, you lost a cat. You that's a story, right yeah, you lost a cat, you lost a dog, you lost a mom, you lost a brother. Those are things to talk about, and this forum is such a good forum because it allows people to just express themselves and tell their story and everybody has a story.
Speaker 1:That's what I say. Everyone has a story, not just the famous.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know know, just look, and yes, the famous they don't. You know, they're like, I'm just like anybody else, right, my job just happens to be I get up on stage and sing, right, right, if they're down home, you know, of course there are those others that are, you know, crazy and but, uh, you know they're, but most, most down-to-earth artists are going to be like you know, hey, I'm just a regular person and this happens. I'm blessed to be able to do this Right, and I might want to have the talent of somebody that can play guitar or something. And I can tell you, if you're hearing me now and you're hearing this voice and Ben was alluding to it earlier, but I've been told more than once in my life, you should be doing radio. Oh, yeah, and I'm just like, if somebody had given me the opportunity, I'm sure I'd be doing radio.
Speaker 1:This is what I talked about with Kim Curry last week and I had a phone call with him. It was not a memorial thing, we recorded the show the following day, but I asked him to call was not memorial day, we recorded this show the following day but asked him to call me up and call me the day before. So we, I could just kind of say, hey look, this is what I want to go over, this we're going to talk about, and it's just going to be loose and wherever the, wherever the conversation takes it, that's where we're going to go. And he's like okay, that's great. And then he said I mean, in the first 30 seconds he says to me you know, you have a radio voice and I was like, I was, I mean I, I saw and I and I and I thought, wow, that'd be for somebody who did radio for 33 years.
Speaker 1:Uh, thank you very much. And and then last week I told you I happened into this podcast studio. You know, a couple of miles down the road and oh my gosh, the equipment they had in there. But the first thing out of the guy's mouth he says you have a radio voice and podcast. Yeah, so I mean I don't. I'm certainly not going to let it swell my head because I mean I've got like four viewers right now. We've been as high as six tonight and we'll see what happens when we post it. I apologize for being so ugly and dragging people away from the show. Well, you know what? Hey, you're going to come back on the show.
Speaker 2:We're going to shave that off on the show. There's no chance, not at all. How much money are we talking about? I make no money.
Speaker 1:I make no money from this podcast. I pay. I pay to put this podcast on here. Yeah, that's the truth, oh my gosh. Yeah, so you know the bottom line and all you know. Catherine pointed this out to me. I didn't even think about it and she said this I was probably doing the show for about a month or two months or so. People come in studio. Is that's a document? It's a video document, it's an audio document that their kids can listen to or watch their grandkids. It's something that they can. Oh my gosh. My grandpa was on this show and they talked about this look or listen, that kind of thing. And I thought about um. You know, I thought about um having one of my niece's dad's come on Because he's in his 80s and I was talking with him last week. He's just got some great stories and we were talking for a couple hours. He's just going off. Look, you know me. I just talk and shut up Because he does it one story after another. You know that's true.
Speaker 2:What you're saying is so true. You know, steven Spielberg wanted to document the Holocaust survivors for that very reason, because once those people were gone, that's it. Yeah, I can attest to that because remember my little grandma, so my great-great grandmother. She used to tell us the most hilarious stories. She was a womanizer, she was a bootlegger. This was the way New York would be in 89, and she had been around when we could get the stories out of her. It was good stuff.
Speaker 1:And going back to d-day 80 years ago, you know we're down to just a very few veterans left survivors, yeah, from world war ii to be able to the opportunity.
Speaker 1:I don't know. Uh, 12 years or so, I was in hawaii and I did the pearl harbor tour and I had done it before and it's it's a great tour, it's a great memorial, great stuff. But this one, this last time I was, I was there and I did the tour. There were two guys oh where's that? Oh, it's out on the bookshelf there. There were two veterans, survivors of the pearl harbor attack, and they were pitching this book and it was a picture book, a little story from that day and all that and I was. I just said, I just give me the book, give me the book, just give me the book. Here's my money, sign it for me. And I'm listening to them talk.
Speaker 1:And the difference between that visit and the visit before which was, I don't remember how many years prior to that, there were no World War II veterans there that particular day there were this day and that was all it took, seeing these survivors and I got so I mean, just tears just were streaming down my face Uncontrolled. I'm just standing there and uncontrollably I had to walk away. I couldn't control myself Because it was so emotional and as big as Normandy is and was, that was in Europe. We had a very similar thing happen here that got us into the war, that got us into, dragged us into it, forced our hand into it.
Speaker 1:And it's just to visit have a couple minutes with a survivor from that day.
Speaker 2:Well, the reason why the movie Oppenheimer was so successful, and that's because all of this ties together in our history. Pearl Harbor happens, and then we have a bunch of scientists that get drawn in, and then we have the most devastating weapon ever created that still continues to threaten the survival of the people. Yeah, and it's all tied to stories, right. Most devastating weapon ever created that still continues to threaten the survival of the people. And it's all tied to stories, right? The story that Oppenheimer told was a mathematical story that he could see in his head and he knew how to bring people together that were able to communicate with one another so that they could actually develop the atomic bomb. I mean, you don't think about it that way, but that's exactly when you watch the movie. That's what the movie's about. It's about how Oppenheimer was the perfect person to bring people together so that they could communicate what they needed to communicate so that it could actually produce this weapon. And that's true of anything. You know, if you look at Holocaust survivors, what did they do when they were in prison? They communicated, they spoke to each other some of the most interesting things that you'll ever read or learn about people who are having a hard time. Look at, look at the places in the heart.
Speaker 2:Sally phil, it's a movie. I'm a movie guy, right? Yeah, it's totally about the depression era, but there's also elements of danny glover plays this black man. There's also elements of Danny Glover plays this black man. There's the Ku Klux Klan towards the end of the film. There's the devastation of nature in that film, and stories are what drive us. So you can have a relationship right here with this podcast by calling in and talking about your story, getting to know Ben and getting invited on the show. You know, I didn't think I was going to be invited. It just turned out he needed me on a Friday night because nobody else was scared.
Speaker 1:Unless Catherine's up here giving me something to drink or making summertime cocktails. I fly solo on Friday Night Live. It's just you and me. That's it, but yeah.
Speaker 2:We can play Monopoly. We'll roll the dice for you. No, no, we're not doing that. We play chess. I still play every day. Oh my gosh, just the things that we did.
Speaker 1:Look, we're going to cut it here, okay, because I've kept you too long and I so appreciate everybody being here, everybody who's come in, come out, stuck around the whole time, whatever it is, this is two Friday Night Lives in a row that I am a Lord free. So I mean thumbs up for me. It's bad for you, though it's bad for you. Look, he wants to drink. No, no, no, no, no. He's begging you to call in. You know, they were sticking it to me one time.
Speaker 1:Well, we, I think I, I think I had like five shots, oh Lord. And then Catherine and Jim were down in the dining room and they were tasting Imperial Stouts, barrel-aged Imperial Stouts, good stuff, I drink beer, it is very good. And so they're bringing these. Oh, try this, try this, try this. And then I'm taking four or five shots of the Lord and I was like whoa man, I was like I've got to finish this show here. How many people now? I don't know. We were up to six. I think we're down to five now. But hey, that's good. Hey, five's better than four, that's right, yeah, so, yeah, that's right, yeah, so, um, yeah. So, look, look people, this guy's coming back because we have music stories to share I thought myself.
Speaker 1:So. So look, uh, let's just wrap it right here because, like I said, I kept you guys for a while. We don't usually run this long on Friday Night Live but when you get to talking to two guys that can just talk oh yeah, see, I preached for a living yeah, two guys that can talk. It's not like, like I've said before, it's not like I love the sound of my voice, I just love to hear myself talk, and you know we're going to cut it here, okay. So that's going to be a wrap, and I'm going to finish it up by saying this program is available on multiple podcast platforms, like Apple Podcasts, amazon Music and Spotify, or just search the Ben Maynard Program and you'll have multiple options to choose from. A lot of Sprout, okay. And if you're watching it, just like you are right now watching this on YouTube, then please subscribe to the channel, give me a thumbs up and leave a comment, all right? Last but not least, follow me on Instagram.
Speaker 1:Ben Maynard Program, all one word. That is it. Folks, we are out. Thanks for being here. It's date night, friday night live, map night. This is the Ben Maynard Program. Tell a friend.