Episode 115

Louise Palanker (00:00:04):

Welcome to Media Path. I am Louise Palanker.

Fritz Coleman (00:00:07):

And I'm Fritz Coleman.

Louise Palanker (00:00:07):

Today on the show, we are three guests strong, and within those three guests, one of our guests is three people, which brings us to a record total of five guests on one podcast. Here's a fun cross promotional fact. Each of our guests are show hosts who have bravely had Fritz and me as guests on their shows. We'll begin with podcaster, author, radio host Robert Manny. Then the Castles will join us for backstage at the Andy Williams Moon River Theater in Branson, and will round out the show with NPRs Steve Tia Take, and he's gonna share his latest projects and break down some election results for us with a podcast full of guests. Fritz and I are gonna be bullet pointing our media picks for you this week. So Fritz, what have you got for us?

Fritz Coleman (00:00:49):

Well, I, I've said this a couple times before for my money. One of the best shows ever produced for television is The Crown. Yes. And they just dropped season five. One of the most interesting episodes is about four in when they do the whole history of the Faed family. Dodi Faed was Diana's boyfriend at the time of her death. The story goes all the way back to when his father, Mohammed Faed was a little boy and always had a fixation with the royal family. So it's a really fascinating arc from this little boy's fixation with royalty to his son dating a princess, and all of it seems pre-ordained, especially when he buys herds, the biggest department store in the world in London. And amazing. I also watched episode six last night, which is really wonderful. It's the whole Martin Bashier story where this BBC journalist forged documents to get an interview with Princess Diana. Really interesting.

Louise Palanker (00:01:40):

I just love it and I can't help but sort of picture the royal family kicking back and going, Hey, let's see what's

Fritz Coleman (00:01:45):

Going on. They do watch

Louise Palanker (00:01:46):

It.

Fritz Coleman (00:01:46):

Do, do they? They do watch it. I don't know what the reaction is, but they do watch it.

Louise Palanker (00:01:51):

Okay. All right. I'd love to watch it with them and have them press pause and go, that's not what I said. <laugh> <laugh>. So I am watching was sp speaking of British ladies and, and we are thematically. Today I am watching and recommending 19th century British lady detectives whose efforts to lend their unique skills to the betterment of all within a patriarchal society are stalwart and empowering. If you hunger for strong historical female heroes and richly detailed Victorian settings, you will love Miss Scarlet and the Duke on PBS starring Kate Phillips and Stuart Martin and Eola Holmes on Netflix starring Millie Bobby Brown, Henry Caval, and Sam Claflin. So, how are men adapting to the collective amplification of female roles and voices? Our first guest, Robert Manny, has been studying exactly that. Robert is a guy's guy looking at life through a guy's lens because he's a guy with some stuff to say about guys to guys.

(00:02:44):

Robert Manny is the host of Guys Guy Radio, a podcast, and a weekly primetime radio show on K C A A in Southern California. Robert Show features a dynamic spectrum of guests from the worlds of celebrity, modern relationships, writing, career guidance, wellness, diet, sports, music and spirituality. Robert has written the guy's guy, the guy's, guys guy, <laugh>, Robert can say the name of his book, <laugh>, the guy's guy Guide to Love. His YouTube channel is called Guy's Guy tv, and he's pulling his efforts together under you guessed at the guy's guy Banner. Welcome Robert, and tell us, if you will, about your brand and your perspective.

Robert Manny (00:03:22):

Well, thank you so much, Louise, and thank you Fritz, and I really enjoyed having you on my show. So I'm so excited to be here. Well, my brand's really about trying to do the very best I can to help men kind of keep up, because this is a time where in some ways it's paradoxical because men have never been more free to be whoever they wanna be. Yet it's also a time where it's never been less clear who men really are. While women are on a steady path of achievement and long overdue recognition, guys have kind of fallen behind. And for younger guys, they don't have a lot of role models. They have had, they've got the mma manscaping superheroes for the Boomers. You know, we're kind of being put out the past in the eyes of some folks, and I think really men have to take it in a positive light because this is a terrific, uh, time for men. I actually think it's the best time ever to be a man and what we need to do, it's pretty simple. We need to pay attention and to listen to what women have to say because women have been kind of kept down for not hundreds of years, but thousands of years. And this is a time where change is happening very rapidly. And unfortunately for guys, they're kind of caught in the crosshairs in terms of what's happening. And it's challenging to them because they're not sure sometimes what their roles are.

Fritz Coleman (00:04:38):

What do you think is men's greatest misunderstanding about women and then the reverse of that?

Robert Manny (00:04:46):

Well, I can only speak for myself. I think what men, what they, we, what we need to do more of is pay attention. Um, I, I think women are fantastic at paying attention to the details and really knowing how to read their guys and what's going on. And men, uh, pay attention, but usually it's more about themselves. So I don't know if men have taken enough time to really think about what it is that they don't really understand about women. And instead, a lot of guys just either throw their hands up in the air and says, or say, Hey, you know, it doesn't matter. I am who I am. And that's the way it is. And I think that's a big mistake.

Louise Palanker (00:05:20):

Well, you know, in, in your branding you kind of talk about men falling behind, but then you go on to say, this is not a competition. So do you mean that they're sort of falling behind in terms of evolving into all they could be or all they all they hoped to be or all they've always secretly wanted to be? And Yes, and kind of like from little boy on in all kinds of like subliminal ways they're taught, you know, what a man is, and some of their interests get squashed or some of their instincts get squashed. And so maybe they're focusing on themselves because they're so pre-conditioned to make sure that they're being a man enough, being enough of a man that that's a preoc becomes a preoccupation.

Robert Manny (00:06:02):

Yeah, that's a great point, Louise. It's tricky. I have a nine year old son and I've been watching the situation. My wife and I have been watching very carefully how it's about it because they seem to be really taken into consideration that the individuals and everybody's treated fairly. And it's not like, well, you're a boy and you do this and you're a girl and you do that. Uh, it's, it's humanity and I think that's really terrific and it, it takes a while for guys to get over that. It's not just a, you can't just flip the switch for men, particularly guys like, you know, Fritz and myself, we're boomers. We're not gonna change instantly, but if we're open-minded and we start to listen a little bit more as to some of the, uh, I don't wanna say grievances, but some of the issues women have and deservedly so we need to listen to them and hear what they have to say.

(00:06:45):

And I think it's all been coming out, whether it's me Too or just the breakthroughs and various industries that women are really forging ahead and, uh, a lot of guys get confused by it. And as, as you look at the numbers, men are not, uh, educating themselves the same way. The the, the attendance in college, the graduations are down men versus women, and it's a, it's a different, uh, trajectory. It's a different trend. And I think we have to keep close eyes on that, cl close tabs on it because we really want everybody to kind of, all boats to rise.

Louise Palanker (00:07:15):

You know? Uh, I know that we know that the, that men and women are different and now we know there's more to, uh, gender spectrums than we had ever realized. But I still think that there's a lot of pressure on boys to be a breadwinner, to be a person that's, if you're gonna have a family, like it's gonna be all it's gonna be on you, whether or not everybody eats and everybody has a home. And that pressure, I think builds as you move through your childhood. I, I've never been a man, but did you guys feel that as you were growing up?

Robert Manny (00:07:46):

For me, absolutely. That was just the expectation. So it wasn't like a, a pressure, it was just, that's how we were conditioned. I'm not sure it

Fritz Coleman (00:07:55):

Was modeling first from our parents and modeling from other adult men in the family.

Robert Manny (00:07:58):

Yeah. It was the expectation. So we didn't really think about, oh my God, I have all this pressure on me. It was just, this is how guys live. And we didn't really think about, well, the women are gonna have a different type of expectation or different path. We just figured this is what we do, this is what dad did. Some things will be different, but you know, we're, we're putting ourselves forward one step at a time to really be a breadwinner and take care of ourselves and take care of our families. And I don't think we did a lot of, uh, circumspection about that in terms of, well, are our roles changing? Or, you know, what's the roles of women while we were growing up and getting into it? I think we just did our thing.

Fritz Coleman (00:08:34):

Uh, I think that women understand men better than men understand themselves, but what do you think a woman's greatest misunderstanding about men is?

Robert Manny (00:08:47):

I, I, well, I would, um, you know, respectfully, I would, I don't think women understand men better than men understand men, because ultimately a woman, woman isn't a man. And you really have to be, to be one to, to to know one in, uh, in the full spectrum. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So I, I think guys, they, they're, they're, they're mistakenly considered more complicated than they are. I think a lot of times women, because they pay attention so well, they're thinking there's all kinds of things going on in the guy's mind. And there, there might not be. I find that with most of the guys I know, if they have an issue, they bring it up. If they don't, that means they're happy. Now, that sounds pretty simple, but maybe just that's the way it is. And I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. And a lot of times, women in an effort to make the relationship as good as it as it can be, they'll do a lot of thinking in terms of like, what, what about this, what about that? Getting really into the details. And you can see when men and women have conversations or arguments, even disagreements, where a woman lot many times wants to keep going and really drill down. And that's understandable. And the intention is good. And a lot of times guys are like, well, this is my opinion. I'm sorry if you don't agree with me. And I think that's kind of where the separation in, in terms of how men and women think differently.

Fritz Coleman (00:10:01):

And, and I, I, I think along with that, women are more prepared to go deeper emotionally than men are even in discussing it, women are not afraid to sort of look inward and figure out where the feelings are coming from and express those men have to have this outer crust to protect themselves against the onslaught of other, you know, alpha males. And it, it's just interesting in, in my family, it's always been the women who have been able to bear down on whatever the emotional problems are.

Louise Palanker (00:10:29):

I think there may be more vulnerability for that a guy might feel to reveal something that might, like, as Fritz was talking about, like within the pecking order of male men being men together, that you're just not supposed to show that kind of weakness that, you know, they give each other the business in different ways than women do. You know, women can be mean, but men can be, uh, like a little rough and, uh, and you have to, you know, be a man and, and take it or, you know, you get mocked or teased or whatever. And I, I kind of wanted to, um, press on that a little bit in terms of like toxic masculinity and ask you, cuz I've been kind of playing with this theory that I think it may be cause the root cause may be fathers bullying and belittling their sons. And that may, that, that may be the, the core of it, because that of course is hereditary. So if, if a father is saying to his son, you little fairy or what, whatever, then he's gonna try to be ultra strong and he's gonna do that to his kid. And I think that once they get to adulthood, they're not gonna talk about that. Cuz it would be embarrassing to admit that your father called you those types of those types of names. So what are, what are your thoughts on that?

Robert Manny (00:11:42):

Whoa, there's a lot there. There was, uh, the toxic ma masculinity is, is certainly an issue, but we have to be careful not to paint a wide brush with it. And, uh, dad's being tough with their sons. Um, you know, there's a fine line where you, they wanna bring out the best in their sons and they know that other dads are gonna be tough with their sons also. And they, they have to be prepared for competition, whether it's in the classroom or on the sporting field. Uh, so you wanna have a high bar there, but you don't wanna be into a bullying situation or putting your son down, of course, because that's not gonna really help anybody. And that's, that's a human issue where nobody really benefits from being bullied. And you know what? Women bully guys and guys bully other guys and fathers bully sons.

(00:12:28):

And it just, it goes all around. And bu bullying is an issue in our society nowadays. Why it's bigger now than before, I don't know. But it seems to be something that every parent needs to be mindful about. And I think the best thing to do is really, if you're a parent, is really listen and get a sense as to you, if you have a son like I do, how is he like me? How is he different? How can I help him be the person that he is? Because, you know, I got married late in life and I thought, oh, when we had a a child, he'll be like half like my wife and half like me. Of course that was completely neanderthal thinking, <laugh>. But I realized what a beautiful, uh, person my son is and how much of a teacher he is to he is to me. Yeah, I will be, I will be tough on him. We go out and we, we play ball together. I'm gonna really drill into him, uh, the fundamentals and the importance of practice and the importance of repetition and imp importance of getting things down to muscle memory. Um, because other people aren't gonna do that. And, um, I'm not gonna coddle him on that yet. I'm his biggest supporter and I make sure that he, he, number one, he sees sports and other activities as fun because that's the way it should be. Mm-hmm.

Fritz Coleman (00:13:36):

<affirmative>, uh, you, you and Louise both brought up a good point about toxic masculinity. The, I wouldn't say this was toxic, but the masculinity that my father showed, classic World War ii, uh, post World War II father. And, uh, he, he was not emotional at all. He, he kept all of his feelings inside. And I think that was a post-war syndrome of men who say, look, we survived the war. Hitler's not in charge. We made it through the depression. I'm providing you a beautiful home, three squares a day. Uh, you have a safe place, a roof over your head that my obligation is done. I, that that was his obligation. His obligation wasn't to drill down and find out the many layers of my emotional issues. My mom did that a little bit, but it was, it was the expectation of masculinity at certain times. I think it's a product at the time, he was also a softy at heart, but he had this external crust because he was a businessman and always had to put up a tough front. And I, I think those, thankfully those expectations are settling down now. But I always felt bad for my dad that he, that he couldn't be, he, he couldn't explore his feminine side as, as much as I think he would've liked to, because it was expected for a man to put up a crusty front in those times.

Robert Manny (00:14:57):

I, I think in general terms, you're, you're correct rich, but every situation is different. And there are, um, exceptions with my dad. He was in World War ii, he won a Bronze Star, he was a medic. He was doing some type of work that I didn't know about when he got home from there. And, um, he was a tough businessman, yet he was always available. And that's the thing I really love and respect about him, is that he was always there for me. He didn't, if I needed to talk about something about feelings or a situation, whether it's work or personal, he was always there. And I don't think I could ask for more than that, particularly because of all those things his generation went through that you mentioned Fritz. So just being there and being available I think is pretty much something that a, a son could be very, uh, very grateful for to be

Fritz Coleman (00:15:44):

Your, your father was more involved in mine, that's for sure. Okay. My father also suffered from alcoholism, and that helped to shut him down the rest of Okay. But, but, uh, it, it, I, I'm just speaking in general terms about expectations of the male role model have changed over the last years and I'm so happy. And I think that's the equality of responsibilities coming in marriages now. Women have reached a little bit of inequality, not as much as we would like, but but, but they talk to one another, eye to eye instead of the man being condescending. So maybe men are allowed to be more emotional now. I don't know.

Robert Manny (00:16:16):

You know, that's a slippery slope also. And I agree, I agree with you completely, but you know what women want, a lot of times they say they want the man to show their feelings. Yet if a you, you don't want the guy to be a blubber person, be crying all the time, either. There has to be a fine line where you know, you're, you're a man and you know how to express your feelings at the right time in the right way. But it has to be kind of measured in a way because women don't want men to be men. You know, I've interviewed a lot of, uh, dating experts, a lot of male and female dating experts, and to a person, all of the female dating experts say that women want to date, they want men to be men in the best sense of the wo word. That doesn't mean arrogant, it means confident, it means kind, it means respectful, it means fun. It means being a guy's guy, but it doesn't mean being a macho jerk.

Louise Palanker (00:17:07):

So that y you know, you're, you're threading, uh, a ga delicate needle, especially when it comes to matters of the heart and hoping to win over the heart of, of someone that, that you, that you're interested in. From the guy's perspective, it feels, that to me seems like a narrow lane. So what are, what are some of the mistakes that men make when they're, when they're trying to go deep, like past the third date when they're trying to have like a, like a, a meaningful conversation but not becoming too emotional for her to handle?

Robert Manny (00:17:39):

You know, that's, that's a great question. Um, when I first met my wife, we went on three dates and I had been in long-term relationships and I really enjoyed them, but they never ultimately worked out to marriage, if you will. And I, I was having such a great time with my wife to be, and at the time we were just eating, I said, what do I need to do to be a good boyfriend? And she, we were out to eat and she put her fork down and she looked at me and she said, pay attention. And I said, is there anything else? And she said, no. And it really, but made a light bulb go off a above my head. And I realized that just be myself, but be more, be more mindful of that. I'm not the only person in the room. And I think a lot of guys fall into that trap, maybe because we've been allowed to be that way or the expectations that we talked about Fritz, but I think men need to be mindful as to the things that are going on with women the same way that women are so fantastic at keeping up with the details as to they can read your mood.

(00:18:38):

They know what's, if there's something wrong, they're gonna ask some questions. And a lot of guys, a lot of times guys aren't gonna do that. And I think we need to be better at being present, mindful, and paying attention. And if we did those three things and just continue to be ourselves, otherwise things will get good really fast.

Louise Palanker (00:18:56):

<laugh> well, I, I'll, I'll give you an action item. Robert and I am no, okay. Relationship expert, but act, you know, a guy might listen to that and say, I'm not sure exactly what he means cuz I'm, you know, I need to order, you know, some food and not, and worry about it in my teeth. And like, I, you've given me too much to think about. So here's like a specific swing thought for the golfers out there. Um, ask a follow up question. So in other words, you may, you might say, tell me about your, your childhood. Don't let her just talk and then talk about your childhood, right? I mean, even though I'm sure she wants to hear about it, but let her know that you listened by saying, oh, so your dad was interested in, in, uh, in his garden, you know, and, uh, what kind of flowers did he grow? So, yeah, I mean that's, I think the best way to show an interest is to ask a follow up question that lets them know that not only were you listening, but you're really interested.

Robert Manny (00:19:44):

I agree with you a thousand percent. That's great advice. And, uh, I hope, I hope men are listening out there because it'll really score a lot of points. And I, not, not that it's a game, but you know what, one of the things that's happening nowadays is dating should be a fun sport. And so many people, uh, treat it like a business transaction. Uh, and it's like an interview and it really needs to be more, you know, what happened to romance. I think if we got back to that a little bit, and, you know, with the online dating and the check marks and the must haves and all of that, let's just have some fun. I gotta tell you, when I was dating online, I had such a blast. And I have friends who I met online, women who are long-term friends and business associates, and it, there's no, they're people, it's, you can make friends. It's always good to meet new people. You don't want to tangle things up when with the relationship stuff. But, you know, people are people. So if you look at things in an open mind saying, am I meeting somebody new? That's a pretty cool person that I want to hang out with, that's a really great thing. Not every situation is gonna turn into a romantic, uh, partnership, but people need to mix it up with people more and not be so judgmental.

Fritz Coleman (00:20:51):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So you wrote a novel, the Guy's, guys Guide to Love. What Came First the novel or your podcast?

Robert Manny (00:20:58):

Uh, the novel. Everything started with the novel. Um, I had written a prior book to learn how to write really. And, uh, uh, I learned all about the industry. I learned what I needed to do, right? I knew, realized I needed to write something in the third person. And I just had a thought about this book. The title came to me first. And I wrote about, um, the world I Knew, which is the world of advertising. And it's about two men in New York competing for love, sex, power, and money. And the one main character he decides, well, he's asked by his ex-girlfriend to write a column for a woman's magazine publication about men. And he refuses to do it, and he refuses to do it, and he refuses to do it until his best friend starts messing around with one of his clients. And then he takes the gloves off and says, you know what?

(00:21:44):

I'm going to, I'm going reveal what a lot of guys are really like and see what happens there. And from there, uh, the roles get reversed. A lot of things happen. There's a lot of savvy women in the novel. There's a lot of, uh, you know, guys who need to really wake up and, uh, there's a lot of sex and there's a lot of fun. And Dan Wakefield, the iconic 20th century author of, uh, New York in the fifties and starting over, he called my book The Male Successor to Sex In the City. So I couldn't ask for a better blurb.

Fritz Coleman (00:22:16):

Wow. Absolutely. And it's quite flattering. So how's the definition of a guy's guy changed over the last 10 or 15 years?

Robert Manny (00:22:23):

Well, you know, a guy's guy is really, he is not a, he's not a macho man. He's really more contemporary man. He's, uh, emotionally available. He respects women, uh, guys like him, women like him. He can be your friend if he's women, you can be your, your lover. And, uh, it's, it's somebody that's positive and really the type of person you want to hang out with and you can trust and that you like. And that's really what I hope a lot of men will start to think about. How can I do things for other people? How can I be a, a, a guy that's not a predator? How can I really develop relationships with my female friends, with female partnerships, and also my buddies?

Fritz Coleman (00:23:02):

I have to say, um, your podcast stretch way beyond relationships. There's some really wonderful ones. And I started to listen to 'em. Thank you. You, you did one called Jewish Gangsters versus the Nazis with Michael Benson. That was fascinating. So it was New York Jews that, that were in their own sort of underworld, and that was fascinating. And there was another good one called Resurrection with Paul Sig. So you sort of stretch your titles into all sorts of interesting areas.

Robert Manny (00:23:29):

Well, I gotta tell you what happened, Fritz was, I, I wrote the novel and then, uh, life Imitated Art in that I started blogging about Men for Women on my website. And then I started to do the podcast and I got a lot of, uh, dating and relationship experts on the show. And then a few publicists discovered me and they started sending me different types of people. And I thought, you know what? The, let me let this thing grow organically, and if I can do anything to help raise the vibration, the frequency of the planet to help men be the as good as they can be to help women help men, I think that would be a positive. So I get, I, I'm deluged with, uh, with guest, uh, requests, and it's fantastic. And the show keeps growing. We've been downloaded in over 101 countries. The YouTube now is up and running. We've got, we're on Rumble and I've got some other books in the works. So, uh, all systems go and I'm, I'm having a blast. And you know what we're doing anything we can to, uh, bring new information to people and help

Fritz Coleman (00:24:29):

Them. Well, you're an interesting guy. Great podcast, my friend.

Robert Manny (00:24:32):

Thank you.

Louise Palanker (00:24:33):

It's just it. Thank you so much for the work that you do. It's so valuable. Thank you.

Robert Manny (00:24:37):

And thank you. And thank you for being on my show. You guys are awesome. I love the work you're doing and I love the Calcis. Uh,

Louise Palanker (00:24:43):

All right, well, you're on the same bill with them, so we'll say hi. Excellent. All right. Thank you so much.

Robert Manny (00:24:47):

Thank you so much,

Louise Palanker (00:24:48):

Guys. All right, Robert, take care. Care, Robert.

Fritz Coleman (00:24:49):

Take care. Bye-Bye. Care. All right. For those of you who might be checking out Media Path for the first time, we'd like you to be hip to what we're doing. This is episode one 18, I think. Is it one 18?

Louise Palanker (00:24:58):

No, this is one 15. Fritz one

Fritz Coleman (00:25:00):

I one 18 is where I want to be. That's what I'm, that's my goal. You're very aspirational. We'd love to check out, we'd love you to check out our vast library at past episodes@mediapathpodcast.com. You can hear us hanging out with a wide variety of guests. For instance, episode three, a subject close to my heart, Motown episode seven, we have Dateline host Keith Morrison talking about the red hot topic of true crime. In episode 90. We have guides that, uh, did the writing of the music in, uh, dirty Dancing. So check us out Media Path Podcast on YouTube as well for lots of additional visual content,

Louise Palanker (00:25:32):

Legendary family band. The Cows sills are joining us with new music. They're recently dropped. Critically acclaimed album is called Rhythm of the World. They have their own podcast. They travel every summer with the Happy Together Tour, and the Cows Sills star in the documentary we made together called Family Band, the KCI story, which you can find and enjoy on Amazon Prime. Paul, Susan and Bob kci are coming to us from backstage at the Andy Williams Moon River Theater in Branson. You're a part of their big Christmas show. Tell us about the show. What do people see when they come

Bob Cowsill (00:26:03):

First? First, I would like to make one correction. We refer to it as Louise LAN's documentary.

Louise Palanker (00:26:09):

Oh, thank you. Family

Bob Cowsill (00:26:10):

Ban the story of the council.

Louise Palanker (00:26:12):

Sorry, the council.

Bob Cowsill (00:26:13):

So just, just to set the record

Fritz Coleman (00:26:15):

Straight on there, Lenny Reference Stahl presents the

Louise Palanker (00:26:17):

Councils, what do you That's right. Stop. There's almost as many atrocities. Yes, Paul. I,

Paul Cowsill (00:26:25):

I, I will tell you that, um, you know, when we were kids, I know Louise, you know all about these things. And Chris, you probably do too, when they had craft music halls and they would have, you know, their Christmas craft music hall, and we would get to be on those shows mm-hmm. <affirmative> and man, they were so much fun and doing little skits and doing things other than what you would you would normally do. And, uh, and this is so much like that, you know, we're in a bunch of productions where they're not looking at us, they're looking at the dancers behind us.

Susan Cowsill (00:26:53):

The only difference is Yeah. Is that learning all those dance moves while singing all those songs was a heck of a lot easier back in

Louise Palanker (00:27:00):

1968. Oh yeah.

Paul Cowsill (00:27:01):

Well, sorry Bob, I know you wanna talk, but Yeah, that's another thing about its is that, is that we got handed all these Christmas carols that, you know, one would think that we would've known by now. You would, but, but you know, little did I know that rocking around the Christmas tree had a pumpkin pie in it. Oh, yeah. And I thought that Andy was making up these lyrics. And come to find out, I had been making up my own lyrics all these years. Yeah. So I had to just learned what I thought it was and relearn. That's

Louise Palanker (00:27:29):

It for me. That's fun. You had the schoolyard version. Yeah.

Paul Cowsill (00:27:33):

Also, Bob, oh, sorry.

Louise Palanker (00:27:35):

<laugh>.

Bob Cowsill (00:27:36):

I will tell you a big difference. Okay. Like even in an orchestra setting, the best orchestra in the world, all the musicians have their music stand and their, their notes and their, they're what I need to play to do this great part in this production. You get no quote music stand. There are no monitors.

Paul Cowsill (00:27:55):

No,

Susan Cowsill (00:27:56):

There's no

Paul Cowsill (00:27:56):

Prompters,

Bob Cowsill (00:27:57):

Teleprompter, teleprompter. You've memorize everything. And I'm at 73. I have reached a certain tier in my artistic life. I'm the oldest person in this musical production

Paul Cowsill (00:28:09):

<laugh>, and I'm the second oldest.

Louise Palanker (00:28:11):

You're that, you're

Susan Cowsill (00:28:12):

At that point. Seriously.

Bob Cowsill (00:28:14):

Yeah.

Susan Cowsill (00:28:14):

Honest to God, you guys, when we started with, uh, happy Together back eight years ago, you're the best. And we still are. In fact, we need to may always go to happy together where we are still the youngest people out.

Louise Palanker (00:28:26):

Yeah. They don't wanna say impressionable things around you.

Fritz Coleman (00:28:29):

What's more fun? Is it more fun touring now that you're older and care less than it was when you were younger and being ordered around, which is more fun?

Susan Cowsill (00:28:38):

Huh? Good question, Bob Paul.

Paul Cowsill (00:28:40):

Well, I mean, look it, we're having the time of our life. So if that's not happen more fun than we had before, then I don't know what is having more fun. Um, the only, well, these are great, you see, because un unlike the Happy Together tour where we're on a bus and we're thinking we're sleeping great, but we're not <laugh>. We think we're eating great and we're not, and you know, but we know we're not eating. It's very stressful on the Happy Together Tour for some reason. It could be personnel or what have you. But here it's Christmas and it's Andy Williams mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so everybody respects what we're doing here.

Susan Cowsill (00:29:10):

It's really a nice vibe.

Paul Cowsill (00:29:11):

And, and we're not moving and we're going to these bitching apartments, right, Bob

Bob Cowsill (00:29:14):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative> six nights a week, the audience is coming to us. Yeah. Which is the opposite of the happy together. Yeah. And this is why we understand the, the acts that want to go to Las Vegas and get a residency. And I'm tired of going to the audience, let the audience come to us and we're experiencing that. Yeah. Because Right. The, the stress of the Happy Together tours, the show's over Hurry up, hurry up. We gotta pull out real quick. Uh, you know, it's like always that crazy. We're here, hurry up, hurry up. We gotta go back to, to,

Susan Cowsill (00:29:41):

To our Cozy Little Houses.

Paul Cowsill (00:29:42):

We have these large, large apartments that large, large, you know, it's actually timeshare. It's a timeshare building, you know, kind of thing. So we're in these big apartments with a kitchen or normal sized fridge and normal, everything

Susan Cowsill (00:29:55):

Decorated for Christmas. Some of us have.

Paul Cowsill (00:29:57):

And so we really are getting quality sleep here. Right. Quality

Bob Cowsill (00:30:00):

Sleep. And you come from singing with two people to, honestly, I'm singing Jingle Bells with probably 15 or 16 people. I mean, this is fantastic support. I must

Fritz Coleman (00:30:11):

<laugh>, is it all Christmas music or do you get to do some stuff from Rhythm of the World or any of your earlier hits?

Susan Cowsill (00:30:17):

Oh, no, no Rhythm of the World. But we are definitely doing the, we're doing, what are we doing three

Paul Cowsill (00:30:22):

Days? We're doing Rain Indian and Hair.

Susan Cowsill (00:30:24):

Yeah. And then we do a Christmas show

Bob Cowsill (00:30:26):

And we do a little four song segment in the first half. And the Letterman are also on the show. Now we're reconstituting this show. It's, it's first time back in three years, this has been gone. Like everything. Yeah. So Branson's about 50% back at best. And so, but every night we got a wonderful audience there. I know. Look, this was a 2,200 cedar Andy built that he filled every night during his aday. So

Louise Palanker (00:30:48):

Bob, what what you need to know is this, when you guys, when I lost touch with you guys when I was a kid, my next like obsession was the Letterman. And I loved that obsession piece. Oh my God. Right, Susan. Because it got me familiar with the whole American songbook. Like ev the Letterman had recorded every great song ever. I

Susan Cowsill (00:31:05):

Can go with that. Yeah.

Louise Palanker (00:31:06):

And the harmonies, and like, I was obsessed. And so I'd go to the department store and look through the record bins and find Letterman albums like from, you know, 1963. And I was like, yeah, that was my big thing. So that's cool. So give them big hugs.

Paul Cowsill (00:31:20):

I will. But these Lettermans weren't born in

Louise Palanker (00:31:22):

63. It's New Letterman, right? <laugh>. Yeah.

Bob Cowsill (00:31:25):

Lemme me tell you something. Yeah. And I know you love their songs and everything. And this is, if you wanna come to Branson, you can hear the Lettermans and the council's vocal stacks connect like magic. Wow. And combine and sing together. And it's really been a, a hoot and holler.

Louise Palanker (00:31:41):

I don't know if my head and my heart could even take it. That's so much love. It's crazy. And harmony. I would just,

Fritz Coleman (00:31:48):

And you're there until December 9th and then the next day you're in Wisconsin. You guys are torn, like 18 year olds.

Paul Cowsill (00:31:57):

No, we are, boy, the, the, the thought of of flying Day of show in the north is pretty scary. I'll tell ya

Susan Cowsill (00:32:04):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, which we're doing and we don't normally do. Yeah. Boy duty calls.

Paul Cowsill (00:32:08):

But yeah. We're that, thanks a

Bob Cowsill (00:32:09):

Lot. Thanks a lot Fritz. We're really,

Fritz Coleman (00:32:11):

I wanted to remind you that this is all gonna come to a crash here

Louise Palanker (00:32:14):

Soon. I, I can relax you, uh, right now very easily because we're going to play a game and I know you love games. This game is called Teen Mag Trivia. And, uh, are you ready to play

Bob Cowsill (00:32:25):

16 magazine? Okay.

Susan Cowsill (00:32:26):

Um, yeah. I wish our lighting was a little better in here. Go

Bob Cowsill (00:32:29):

Ahead. Actually, lighting look good.

Susan Cowsill (00:32:30):

Looks, I'm like completely washed.

Louise Palanker (00:32:32):

All right. In, in a 16 magazine article entitled Susie Squeals on The Cow Sills, what secrets did she reveal about Bob

Susan Cowsill (00:32:41):

<laugh>

Bob Cowsill (00:32:42):

Outta?

Susan Cowsill (00:32:44):

Okay, first of all, by asking this as a trivia question, you are assuming that any one of my brothers would read an article about me in 16 magazine. Like that would never

Bob Cowsill (00:32:57):

Happen. This isn't, they came to you and said, give us secrets about

Susan Cowsill (00:33:02):

What happened. No. No. To your point. No, no, no, no. Well, here's the thing. No, no, no, no, no, no. To be fair, well, no. Yeah. To be fair. Right. My experience with 16 magazines mm-hmm. <affirmative>, there are times when they would come over to your house and interview you. Yeah. There were times when you had to fill out these little questionnaires. Yes. There were times when they were there wrangling these ridiculous articles.

Bob Cowsill (00:33:24):

In fact, I contend Yeah. I will know if this is truly something she answered when I indeed hear the answer.

Louise Palanker (00:33:30):

Okay. Okay. So here's the answer, Sue, this is, this is the secret only Cause this is the secret. Only

Susan Cowsill (00:33:35):

Cause I've read it, Lou.

Louise Palanker (00:33:36):

Oh, so she had nothing on you, Bob. So the secret is he's peaceful and he helps me with my math homework. Devastating.

Bob Cowsill (00:33:44):

All right.

Susan Cowsill (00:33:44):

Yeah. And my cursive writing, which he doesn't

Louise Palanker (00:33:47):

Remember <laugh> mm-hmm. <affirmative>. All right. In the 16th. It's

Susan Cowsill (00:33:49):

True.

Louise Palanker (00:33:49):

It, see, do you wanna elaborate?

Susan Cowsill (00:33:51):

Yes. Oh, no, uh, no. Uh, just that, um, just more to the point of our relationship that he remembers zero of up until recently

Louise Palanker (00:33:59):

That Bob at age 18 knew third grade math. So props Yes, he

Susan Cowsill (00:34:03):

Did. And he was the only one in the house who did,

Louise Palanker (00:34:05):

Frankly. So, uh, in, in 16 magazine article entitled Bob Answers 80 Intimate Questions. Bob, how did you answer the question? What type of

Bob Cowsill (00:34:14):

Girl? 80 questions. Yeah.

Louise Palanker (00:34:16):

<laugh>, there was a lot of homework. So what type of girl do you usually dislike?

Bob Cowsill (00:34:21):

Dislike,

Louise Palanker (00:34:22):

Yeah.

Bob Cowsill (00:34:23):

Oh, am I to answer this?

Louise Palanker (00:34:25):

Well, that, well we're, the, the correct answer would be,

Susan Cowsill (00:34:27):

Yeah. Me and Paul, we wanna do

Bob Cowsill (00:34:29):

The typical thing. Oh, I don't like phonies, uh,

Susan Cowsill (00:34:33):

Phonies.

Bob Cowsill (00:34:34):

Loud. Loud,

Louise Palanker (00:34:35):

Right.

Bob Cowsill (00:34:36):

Loud.

Susan Cowsill (00:34:37):

Uh, aggressive,

Bob Cowsill (00:34:38):

Pretentious. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, how am I doing?

Louise Palanker (00:34:43):

You're doing good. It said, girls who are trying to make a good impression on everyone when they're actually blowing their cool

Bob Cowsill (00:34:51):

<laugh>. That's a very hip answer. That's the 18 year old way to say it.

Susan Cowsill (00:34:55):

It actually sounds like, God, there were the occasional times where they did get us to actually say things. It was rare.

Louise Palanker (00:35:00):

Okay. Well, in, let's see what, let's see. They ha what they had on Paul. Okay. In the 16 magazine article entitled Are Hates and Loves by The Cows Hills. Did Paul say, I hate when girls wear too much makeup and are always talking I hate P Soup. Yes. Or I hate working with people who have hangups.

Bob Cowsill (00:35:19):

I hate P Soup.

Louise Palanker (00:35:20):

Okay. It's a trick question. All of the above.

Bob Cowsill (00:35:23):

Yeah, I

Susan Cowsill (00:35:24):

Was gonna say, I sounded like all of those,

Bob Cowsill (00:35:25):

The first one so sounded familiar to my brain, cuz I must have read that somewhere. You said all the above after you let him answer the question. Question,

Louise Palanker (00:35:37):

Yeah. Because I know that you guys have to go on stage and that Fritz has stuff he wants to say to you. So I don't wanna, I didn't wanna take up too much time with my Little Game.

Fritz Coleman (00:35:46):

I wanna talk about this beautiful new album Rhythm of the World. Yeah. How, what year was the last album you recorded? It's been a while. Well,

Bob Cowsill (00:35:54):

We put out Global and we put out Global, which was number two of the three we've done now Counting Rhythm of the World in like, think 1998.

Louise Palanker (00:36:02):

No, you have to count the Billy Benefit.

Bob Cowsill (00:36:05):

Billy Benefit Concert is number three of four we've put out. Okay. Um, you're right Luis. She's okay. That's, and the, actually the Billy Benefit concert album is probably the one of the most expensive historical albums that of the four. Um, but anyway,

Louise Palanker (00:36:20):

Just microphone rental alone,

Bob Cowsill (00:36:23):

We ended up on this Happy C tour and on a bus together, the three of us for three months. And we started getting inspiration to write songs really initially from Howard Kelly Kaylin of the Turtles, who kept going, you gotta get up to the audience every night. And at one point you hear that 20 times and you finally say, I Yeah, you're

Susan Cowsill (00:36:43):

Write a song.

Bob Cowsill (00:36:43):

I think there's

Louise Palanker (00:36:44):

A song there,

Bob Cowsill (00:36:45):

<laugh>. And

Susan Cowsill (00:36:46):

Then hear anything 20 times.

Bob Cowsill (00:36:47):

There must be 15 songs about getting up. Well we'll do number 16.

Susan Cowsill (00:36:52):

Yeah. Jackson wrote a

Bob Cowsill (00:36:53):

There

Paul Cowsill (00:36:54):

You go. We had a lady talk to us yesterday, uh, last night when we were headed up to where we do a meet and greet and she was coming by and what were we were just talking about

Susan Cowsill (00:37:01):

Oh God. Writing the songs.

Paul Cowsill (00:37:04):

Oh yeah. And, and, and she was telling us, you know, gosh, it's really hard for us to get up that lady. Yeah.

Susan Cowsill (00:37:10):

She was, uh, in their seats too. Um,

Paul Cowsill (00:37:12):

And we didn't even tell 'em to get up. She was just their

Bob Cowsill (00:37:15):

Happiness to, we do not tell our audience to get up to our audience that could be viewed as exercise <laugh>. But nonetheless, <laugh>, we started that song which led which led to other songs. And uh, we just had a frenzy of a writing spree fren that was unusual. And then we said, well look, these are pretty good songs. And then that's when you really get inspired to record them.

Fritz Coleman (00:37:35):

Well, let me ask you this. How, how does pledge music work? That was the first time I'd ever heard that term. Is this like a crowdfunding for music

Louise Palanker (00:37:42):

Was

Paul Cowsill (00:37:43):

Yes, it was

Susan Cowsill (00:37:45):

<laugh>. Yeah. Until it went belly up right in the middle of our campaign.

Fritz Coleman (00:37:48):

Oh Lord.

Bob Cowsill (00:37:49):

It's like a Kickstarter program goal as, uh, I thought we thought we could do this in $70,000. As soon as we reached that the whole thing went south, it went bankrupted. They took the money of the pledgers. We never got any money and rock's money. But is at this point that we're meeting our executive producer, rock Pano, who's gonna rescue the project, everything right there. And then he steps in and rescues the whole thing. We get into the studio at Dockside, we make the recording we all wanted to make. It's mixed by Frank Phillip Petty, one of the best mastered by Greg Gaby, one of the best. Cuz rock's kind of, uh, intertwined with a lot of people in our business. And, uh, in the role of executive producer knew who to bring us to and how to, uh, his part of the equation. You need his part of the equation filled into equal success. Oh

Louise Palanker (00:38:38):

Yeah. And

Bob Cowsill (00:38:39):

We're very fortunate about that. Sur

Louise Palanker (00:38:41):

You need direction and

Paul Cowsill (00:38:42):

Rock and rock lost a ton of money with the pledge thing because he went with us. We said, look, we've got about 300 people here pledge, and we wanna, you know, at least respect their pledge and take care of that. And he went, oh, well we can either do that or we can just drop it. And we said, no, we gonna keep that. And, and so he lost his money and we were worried about that. And he said, rock man, your money. He goes, Hey, if I want that money, I'll go get it. <laugh>. Wow.

Fritz Coleman (00:39:04):

Where, where'd you do this album?

Susan Cowsill (00:39:07):

Dockside Recording Studios in beautiful Maurice, Louisiana, the home of Steve and Wish Nails.

Louise Palanker (00:39:13):

And you lived there and you lived there while you're recording, correct? Yeah.

Bob Cowsill (00:39:16):

Yeah. You live there. 12 acres of isolated, uh, no one can get to you. It was just us. No, the seven of us walked in with our engineer Justin talk and, uh, came up with what you hear and, uh, it was quite the experience.

Louise Palanker (00:39:30):

And what do you eat?

Susan Cowsill (00:39:32):

Oh, well it's really cool because you can eat regular food. So breakfast dinners, lunches all can be prepared. Like whoever's not in the booth working. Yeah. They're down making food.

Paul Cowsill (00:39:42):

So they so wish and, and Steve have a house and then they have this other house where you sleep and full on kitchen. It's a full-on Yeah. Huge house. And then you walk from the house and we did it like 10 in the morning and we walk over to the studio in our PJs, a little bit of a walk and we'd stay there till about six or seven at night and get the heck outta there. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Aw,

Bob Cowsill (00:40:01):

That's a, we did that every day. Yeah.

Louise Palanker (00:40:04):

That's

Bob Cowsill (00:40:05):

Sounds beautiful. And stay healthy.

Paul Cowsill (00:40:06):

Yep.

Louise Palanker (00:40:06):

Yeah.

Paul Cowsill (00:40:07):

It was so much fun.

Louise Palanker (00:40:08):

So I wanna hear about some conversations cuz when you, when you talk about your podcast, you talk about finally getting a chance to sit down and talk to the people with whom you were crisscrossing the country when you guys all had hit records and were touring in the late sixties. And now you get to have these heart to heart conversations with people. Like for example, when I found out that your brother John and Jay Osmond, who are both drummers have the same birthday and have been talking to each other on their birthdays every year. What other fun things have you found out while you talk to people?

Susan Cowsill (00:40:38):

Wow. I know one. Oh,

Paul Cowsill (00:40:40):

Go ahead. I, I only have one and so I can get rid of this one really quick. <laugh>, what we have found out is, uh, is is, uh, how much they all liked our band Aw. And respected what we were doing. We never knew that until, you know

Susan Cowsill (00:40:52):

Yeah, for sure. We didn't know that because we didn't hang out with any of those folks. Right. Um, one thing I learned was that Felix Cavalier played the bass with his feet. What? Wow. That was, yeah, like on all the Rascals things, it's, it's a, it's a keyboard bass he's playing, which is was at that time very rare. Now it's done all the time. But yeah. How

Fritz Coleman (00:41:12):

About that? We had him on this podcast and, and a and a lovely man. Just a great guy. Yes. Really nice

Susan Cowsill (00:41:19):

Man. Yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure.

Bob Cowsill (00:41:20):

Here's a nugget, here's a

Paul Cowsill (00:41:22):

Nugget,

Bob Cowsill (00:41:22):

Here's a Springsteen nugget. So we had Steve, Stevie van, and, and because we're in the same business, we like to know about the lives on the road. And we thought, well, this is in triple A team, we got going here with the East Street band. So we said to Stevie, well what do you guys do for soundcheck <laugh>? Because we know what we do. And I said, are you guys back at the hotel? Do you have stand-ins? That kind of thing. And Stevie just hung his head. He goes, oh, sound checks <laugh>. So here's, they can be. Now Bruce Springsteen is known for like four hour marathon shows and the sound check can be as long. Yes. Because Bruce Micromanages and Brew Stern, all of their concerts had to go into each section of the auditorium or the arena stadium or arena and make sure the mix was okay at that section. Like it was at all the other sections. And now Steve Vann's gonna quit because of it, this band. Okay. So he's telling us good stuff because, you know, he quit. He thought it was the worst career decision in his life, but he doesn't know the Sopranos is coming and other things are gonna happen. But at the time he just couldn't, can you imagine a four hour sound check follow by a four hour show? It's

Susan Cowsill (00:42:34):

Eight hours.

Louise Palanker (00:42:35):

I do remember that documentary. I, I don't know if they were making darkness on the edge of town or one of their albums, but it was, he just was trying to get the right, um, drum sound out of Max and he just, max would hit. And, and, and, and Bruce would yell stick. He didn't wanna hear the stick. He wanted to hear the drum. So, uh, that sounds like your brother Billy to me a lot. <laugh>.

Susan Cowsill (00:42:55):

Yeah. A little intense there, huh? Yeah. <laugh>. Alright.

Louise Palanker (00:43:00):

All right. Any que What else you got kids? Um, any questions for us?

Fritz Coleman (00:43:04):

Talk about nuclear winner.

Louise Palanker (00:43:06):

Oh, nuclear winner. Yeah.

Bob Cowsill (00:43:09):

Unfortunately

Fritz Coleman (00:43:11):

I brought up a lot of bad subjects and I apologize. I didn't realize

Susan Cowsill (00:43:15):

I love you. I love where you're going. France. Okay.

Bob Cowsill (00:43:17):

The, the problem with nuclear winter is that it's relevant today more than it was even when it was written, which was in the eighties by a friend of mine, Peter Bunch and myself. We had a band called Channel nine. But anyway, nuclear winter was a fear back then, but a long fear. Like, oh, can you just imagine? Can you just imagine Now we've been having it on Rhythm of the world just as soon as it comes out. Yeah. It was a little weird. All hell's breaking loose. Yeah. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> over <laugh> pretty good. Yeah. And we're going, oh my God. So it's like a rhythm of the world. Yeah. Nuclear winner. You can blow it up. Rhythm of the world, you know, have your fun, but be careful for crying out loud. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, Linda hand, this is our main suggestion on the record to that we should lend a hand, not not nuclear winter, but go, go the direction of Linda Hand.

Louise Palanker (00:44:03):

There's a lot of beautiful sounds on the album and, uh, you know, everything feels relevant. And maybe the lesson is, everything's always relevant. Everything about humanity is always relevant and things go in cycles and they come back and you have to, it's

Susan Cowsill (00:44:15):

Really true. And yes, Louise Cycles, because if we think about it, the last time the councils had a a for true release that was getting out to a larger public, the same darn stuff was going on. We had social unrest, we had political unrest, we had racial issues. And it's like the councils popped in, had more, we popped in with our, let's all just try and, you know, maybe be happy. Yeah. Uh, well it's just ironic to me that it, that the climate is incredibly similar. Has,

Fritz Coleman (00:44:45):

Has, have the streaming services been, um, beneficial to you, Spotify and all those things.

Paul Cowsill (00:44:51):

This is kind of what I was gonna say, Fritz, in that, you know, we sit here with, with an album out, but the landscape is so different looking and, you know, yeah. You can have a cover in like a Shindig magazine, but you know, that's gonna get to 10,000 people or, or you know, the old days of getting it to the radio station now it's like blasting all over the country. That's just not happening anymore. So,

Susan Cowsill (00:45:16):

Or one Ed Sullivan.

Paul Cowsill (00:45:17):

Yeah. One or that's all Johnny Carson or one Jimmy Kimmel or Fallon.

Susan Cowsill (00:45:21):

That was it. You were it. But

Paul Cowsill (00:45:23):

Nowadays, yeah. And so we're really, we're in our first tier that we call it, of the album, which is basically pr, low-hanging fruit stuff we can get without spending money on, you know mm-hmm. <affirmative>. But it has to go up to another level soon and we're gonna be going to that level.

Louise Palanker (00:45:37):

Awesome. Wow. Well, I'm, I'm excited to hear

Fritz Coleman (00:45:40):

Deserves to be that

Louise Palanker (00:45:41):

At that level. You know, any way we can help, we would be happy to. So thank you Fred. Please listen to Rhythm of the World by the Cow Cells. It is extraordinary. You will, how

Fritz Coleman (00:45:49):

Many shows are you doing a day? One show a day, six days a week. That's all you need. Please. Okay. I was just curious. That's

Louise Palanker (00:45:56):

A lot. Please.

Susan Cowsill (00:45:58):

<laugh>

Louise Palanker (00:45:59):

Ideas.

Fritz Coleman (00:46:00):

Well, you guys are so

Bob Cowsill (00:46:01):

Talented six nights a week, and by the way, there's many people in our show who actually do do a second show during

Fritz Coleman (00:46:07):

The day. Oh my God.

Susan Cowsill (00:46:08):

But there are a whole lot younger,

Paul Cowsill (00:46:10):

I mean, a dancer that might be dancing in our show tonight is gonna go run the spotlight at the Americana Theater for the Brans Brass Elvis show. Yeah. Wow.

Fritz Coleman (00:46:18):

Well, Andy Williams isn't the Andy Williams theater. That's the largest theater in Branson, isn't it? I think he,

Susan Cowsill (00:46:23):

I believe so. Yeah. I believe it's one of, and they're

Paul Cowsill (00:46:26):

Actually, Orlando's got a 2000 theater as well

Louise Palanker (00:46:28):

Though. Oh, okay. And I, I went, when I was with the Cows Hills in Branson when we were making the movie, I took a pilgrimage to the and Williams Theater. There's actually a river, there's a Moon River that runs through

Susan Cowsill (00:46:37):

It. Yeah. Oh God, Louise. It's so sweet around here. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> every night they have Andy piped all through the parking lot. He come and he's in a singing rock. He, there's a rock that I sit next to and Andy comes out

Louise Palanker (00:46:49):

Of it. Oh my goodness know.

Susan Cowsill (00:46:51):

It's

Louise Palanker (00:46:51):

Quite amazing. Andy's like a hug to me. I just love him.

Susan Cowsill (00:46:54):

Oh, big time for us too.

Louise Palanker (00:46:55):

Yeah. Wait. Oh yeah. We have Castel mugs that were from when you guys sang at Fenway on our table. I don't know if you can see them.

Susan Cowsill (00:47:02):

What? Hey, you know, what's Lime Road?

Louise Palanker (00:47:05):

Oh, I can send you another one. I've got like three. I wish I was down there to see you guys

Susan Cowsill (00:47:09):

Facing front.

Louise Palanker (00:47:10):

Have fun dancing the cast's. Always loved dancing.

Fritz Coleman (00:47:13):

You guys are awesome.

Susan Cowsill (00:47:14):

Yeah. Oh yeah.

Fritz Coleman (00:47:15):

Have a great time. How long until the show starts? How far away from show?

Bob Cowsill (00:47:19):

Um, seven

Paul Cowsill (00:47:20):

30. Seven 30. Hello.

Louise Palanker (00:47:21):

All right. Enjoy. I love

Fritz Coleman (00:47:23):

You guys. Be well. Great talking to you guys. You're always so entertaining. See you later.

Louise Palanker (00:47:26):

I love you.

Susan Cowsill (00:47:27):

Love you guys. Thanks

Paul Cowsill (00:47:28):

For having us, Dan. You're welcome. Good to see you. Always. Thanks for getting the, thanks for getting the word out, you guys. Absolutely. Is the lake beautiful? We're happy. Merry

Louise Palanker (00:48:06):

Christmas.

Paul Cowsill (00:48:09):

Okay. Merry Christmas. Okay, mom, ho ho.

Louise Palanker (00:48:12):

Steve Chi Takeko hosts kcr W's Greater La a daily show that brings you a little closer to the places and people of this giant, often unwieldy region that millions call home. Steve, tell us about your latest project. Born and Raised.

Steve Chiotakis (00:48:29):

Uh, millions live here. Oh my God, I had no idea. No

Louise Palanker (00:48:32):

<laugh>. Yeah, you can start counting. You'll see. Wow.

Steve Chiotakis (00:48:35):

Yeah. <laugh>, uh, born and raised, you know, I am born and raised is sort of a labor of love, right? Because in LA and, and Fritz, you know, this, you got both of you know this, that, that this is a city, uh, it's a, it's a city of transients. It's a city of people who come from, you know, different parts of the universe. And so what we see are people who grew up here, who have been here all of their lives who've been here, multi-gen generationally, whose neighborhoods, cities, towns have just changed, you know, uh, uh, wholeheartedly from, from one generation to the next. And so you've got like a place like Boyle Heights, which has changed immensely since the days of the thirties and the forties. Boyle Heights is actually a big Jewish community right. In LA for, for many, many years. Yeah. And then, and then, uh, a large Latino contingency moved in there and, um, and now you see a lot of gentrification happening in Boyle Heights. And it's all, it's, it's, it's all a product or a byproduct of how expensive it is to live in la. And so people are always looking for a, uh, you know, a better, less expensive place to live. They're looking for a cooler place to live. They're looking for some culture, you know, things like that. Um, which is what new Angelinas want. But the people who have been here for a long, long time are the ones who suffer. They're the ones who get kicked out or, or priced out of the market. And

Paul Cowsill (00:49:55):

If an area gets more expensive, they call it gentrification.

Steve Chiotakis (00:49:58):

They call it gen. I mean, obviously it is gentrification. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I mean, and, and, you know, I don't want to demonize it. Like it's the worst thing in the, because gentrification happens all over the country. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, it happens in New York and Chicago and smaller cities too, where it becomes more expensive to live and people are looking for different neighborhoods to go to. So do you call them interlopers? Do you call? I mean, what mm-hmm. <affirmative>, what do you call people who are just trying to find a different place to live? Fancy.

Louise Palanker (00:50:24):

Mm-hmm.

Steve Chiotakis (00:50:24):

<affirmative>. <laugh>. <laugh>. That's right. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. I, I mean, I moved to LA uh, 14 years ago, and it was a, it was a wonderful experience for me. And I, I met many people and I, I don't think I was a gen, I moved to West LA and Santa Monica, so I don't think anyone accused me of gentrifying. But, but it's, it's one of those things where it's like you see people who are priced out of their, out of their homes or priced out of their apartments, and where else can they go? They can't afford to live in a $4,000 a month apartment, high-rise building somewhere in la. Um, it's just, it's

Fritz Coleman (00:50:57):

The perennial problem in Southern California. It's never going away. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I used to listen to you cheaper. I used to listen to you between five and six o'clock in the morning on NPR Marketplace Morning report. And I loved it cuz it was the first indication of how the stock market was gonna do on this day.

Louise Palanker (00:51:15):

Wait, Fritz, were you still up from the night before

Fritz Coleman (00:51:17):

<laugh>? Well, it depends. Explain yourself. That's bathroom break number three at five o'clock in the morning. Okay. <laugh>,

Steve Chiotakis (00:51:25):

Let's do the numbers. I remember it well. Um, and, you know, I moved, I moved to LA in the middle of, um, the, the Great Recession, uh, when, you know, bear Stearns was, was going, oh, I

Fritz Coleman (00:51:38):

Know.

Steve Chiotakis (00:51:38):

Up and Lehman Brothers and all these others. And they were like, can you get here as fast as you can? Because

Fritz Coleman (00:51:43):

Where did you do that show from the Culver City Studios? Or where did you do that from? Did you do a Deer?

Steve Chiotakis (00:51:47):

Well, npr, the, the, the NPR West Bureau is in Culver City. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, this Marketplace Productions is a different facility. Oh, okay. It's, it's not npr. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, it's American Public Media. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, which is owned by Minnesota Public Radio. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and their studios are in downtown LA at Third and Fiig. Oh,

Fritz Coleman (00:52:03):

Okay. Um,

Steve Chiotakis (00:52:04):

Right across from the Western and Bonna Venture. I

Louise Palanker (00:52:06):

Think a lot of people might wanna know a little bit more about how all the NPRs are connected and how they're separate.

Steve Chiotakis (00:52:15):

Uh, I mean, just like, there are commercial radio broadcast networks, TV and radio networks. There are public TV and radio networks as well. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, so they do, they all fill a different role. There aren't, you know, NPR is the main, I, I don't wanna call it the main, but it's, it's, it's the big one, right? It's the one with, you know, hundreds and hundreds of stations across the country. Um, but there are other entities that, that certainly offer public radio programming, such as American Public Media, which is, is what I told you. And, and there are different, you know, production houses that do different shows. You know, marketplace does one thing. There are different distributors, just like, there are podcast distributors and, and TV show distributors. There are radio, public radio distributors as well. And so,

Louise Palanker (00:52:58):

Prx

Steve Chiotakis (00:52:59):

Prx of course, of course. One of the big ones.

Louise Palanker (00:53:01):

So how do, how do you guys decide like what, how much local content you want versus how much of the great shows that people are very familiar with Na, that are nationally famous? Like how do you, how do you determine your lineup?

Steve Chiotakis (00:53:15):

Um, what we, what we air on kcr r w

Louise Palanker (00:53:17):

Yeah.

Steve Chiotakis (00:53:18):

I think, you know, I mean, we know the people who listen to the radio station. I mean, just the, the, the, the, the, the fact that we have so many, many members. We have probably, what, 45, 50,000 members mm-hmm. <affirmative> at the radio station. So we know what people want, what their tastes are. We also have the luxury, um, as being one of the first, you know, public radio, true public radio stations in the country. Um, we were one of the first on board with this new network called NPR back in the early seventies. We were one of the first to, to put on Morning Edition and all things Considered, um, LA is the, at that time it was the third largest market, but now it's the second largest market in the country. So a very important one for, um, for the national network as well.

(00:54:00):

And so, you know, we, we can understand sort of what our taste is. And we, and, and over the years we've tweaked it a little bit, but we are one of the few, um, unique dual format public radio stations where we have news and information, which is Morning Edition. All Things Considered, you know, my show Madeline Brand, other shows as well. The culture shows that we run on the weekends, but also we have music programming that we air from nine to noon that we air at night after eight o'clock. Um, and overnight, we have an eclectic, uh, 24, uh, stream that we have online that's 24 hours a day. We have a news stream that's 24 hours a day online. So, um, we, you know, we ask our members, we, we communicate with them as much as we can to find out what it is that they like. And they like the music, they like the news and that mixture. They don't want, you know, 24 hours. We're just gonna give you the information you need because I think people are hammered over the head over, you know, what, what's going on?

Fritz Coleman (00:54:59):

Two questions. Is it the same audience for your news content as it is for the music? And second, can't be. And, and second of all, who is a typical K C R W listener?

Steve Chiotakis (00:55:12):

Um, very cool people. Fritz, listen to

Fritz Coleman (00:55:14):

Kc. No, I, I believe that people who are smart <laugh>.

Steve Chiotakis (00:55:17):

Well, I mean, how long have you lived in la? I mean, you 40 weren't you brought here with the mission back in

Fritz Coleman (00:55:23):

<laugh>? Yes, I was. Yep.

Steve Chiotakis (00:55:28):

Who is the kcr? R w I mean, you know, that, that we are, look, there are two main public radio stations in town. Main ones that are npr. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, affiliates. There's KPCC on the east, on the east side. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> in Pasadena. And then there's Kcr, R w Kcr. R W is the, I always call it the original. It's been here for a long time. KP KPCC was much smaller until Minnesota Public Radio bought it and, and put a lot of money into it to make it a, a, a contender and a, a major player. And they do very well as a news and information source. So when we look at like, the people who listen to our radio station, we look at, you know, I mean, again, it, it, it has its roots in music. It has its roots as a, as a pure college radio station.

(00:56:09):

Uh, the call letters mean college radio works, K C R W mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, to, to, you know, licensed to Santa Monica College. So we tried to do, you know, be very, um, not to overuse the word eclectic about what we do to try, try and use music and let you know students understand what it is, um, that we're doing with the music and things like that. And, and I think when you look at the audience and, and who we're targeting, um, and I'll get to the first question, which was, you know, do the people who like the music also like the news? And, and the short answer is yes. Um, we do see a lot of crisscross with that. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, uh, we do see a lot of, you know, for a long time it was, we would do news in the morning and then our numbers would drop a little bit during the music. But I think we're seeing like all day parts that, that have been doing pretty well. And a lot of those listeners are the same. So it, it's, you know, we, we have an, a unique product. Um, we have a, it it is a, i I always say it's an indelibly connected LA product. You know, we are, uh, you're not gonna find a station like ours in very many places across

Fritz Coleman (00:57:13):

The country, especially your presentation, cuz you really drilled down on the culture of Southern California. You're one of the smartest people on the radio. I love listening to.

Steve Chiotakis (00:57:20):

Oh my God.

Fritz Coleman (00:57:21):

No, you are. No, you are. I'm honored. You are. And God bless public radio because in this, this chasm between culture classes now and mostly AM radio, but even FM radio talk radio is so polarizing and it's all hate and no light and it's awful. And so I'm just so thankful that there's public radio to listen there because you assume your audience is smart enough to be able to parse this information and make up their own mind about it. And I just Well,

Steve Chiotakis (00:57:49):

It's called nuance. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Which is, which is missing in, in radio. I mean, you remember when AM radio, I mean, I'm old enough to remember, you know, listening to 89 w l s in Chicago. Yeah. I grew up in Garrett Piano mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And I listened to John Records land,

Fritz Coleman (00:58:03):

I listened to him when he was in Philadelphia, W I B G, John, Rick Landecker and Larry Lujack and all those, Larry, great, Larry, all those great guys from Chicago, that was amazing. Media market, both radio and television.

Steve Chiotakis (00:58:14):

Oh, Chicago, are you kidding me? Absolutely. And Chicago and LA media markets are both, I think LA's a a wonderful, um, media market as well. But, but when you think about, seriously going back to the days of like the fifties, 60 seventies when it was AM radio and it was music and it was pop music, c h r mm-hmm. <affirmative>, it was mm-hmm. You know, um, it was your, your state, you know, w uh, uh, a b ABC in New York or mm-hmm. <affirmative> or, uh, W N B C in

Fritz Coleman (00:58:38):

New York, K h J out here in, uh, in Los Angeles. Angeles.

Steve Chiotakis (00:58:40):

K H J. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. That's right. K F W B, which was, you know, large news presence. I mean, you have so many radio stations that were rooted in mu or middle of the road as they used to call it mm-hmm. <affirmative>, where they'd have music and then they'd have a newscaster, they'd put, you know, both news and information on. And it changed as FM radio really took hold in the seventies and early eighties. Um, a lot of people made the switch and music sounded better on fm mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And all of a sudden you saw all these AM stations that were powerhouses Yeah. In the fifties, sixties and seventies. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, go either go dark, lose a lot of money, and they had to figure out what to do. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And the one thing that you can put on am radio that sounds okay, is a

Fritz Coleman (00:59:22):

Voice is right wing crazy people,

Steve Chiotakis (00:59:24):

<laugh> and a lot of right wing crazy. I mean, seriously, I mm-hmm. There is no doubt. I worked for one of them. I worked for several news talk stations mm-hmm. <affirmative> commercial stations in, uh, Birmingham, Alabama. You wanted, I mean, very right wing

Fritz Coleman (00:59:35):

And you went to the University of Alabama Birmingham. And when I read that, I won't say I was horrified, but let's just say I was surprised because you don't seem like somebody who might have come from there. And that's a very judgmental and probably a very shallow thing to say. It just surprised me.

Steve Chiotakis (00:59:51):

Yeah. I mean, I look all just like any other place people, there are stereotypes, there are stereotypes about California that I can't stand either. Oh. You know, people like, oh, you just drink oat milk all day, <laugh>. And it's, it's not what we do in California. You know, Alabama is a beautiful state. My my sister and my mom still live there. I go see them. I can, I can fathom it like once or twice a year. That's about it. <laugh>. Um, but it is a beautiful state fill full of beautiful people. And, and the thing, I think, and, and we have to realize, you know, cuz I wanted to talk a little bit about the election too. Mm-hmm. And I don't

Fritz Coleman (01:00:25):

No, we weren't gonna

Louise Palanker (01:00:25):

Talk about We do too. Yeah.

Steve Chiotakis (01:00:26):

I don't know how much time we have, but we, we have to get to know one another again. Yeah. Because we have really lost our minds. Um, and I don't, I don't wanna point blamed toward anybody like, you know, whose fault it is that this happened, but we are so polarized as a nation. And I, I was talking to, I do, uh, some hits in Australia, um, the, a ABC down there, I, I've been to Australia and I've got friends in the media markets there in Sydney and Melbourne, and they'll call me sometimes for like an American perspective and I'll go on the radio with them on their afternoon drive programs in Sydney and Melbourne. And you know, I, I talked to them right before the election and, and you know, they were like, do you think Steve, there will be a Civil War <laugh> in the United States?

(01:01:13):

And, you know, and I'm like, oh God, I don't, I hope not. <laugh>, that's terrible to think about. And I said, there's no geographical line like a Mason Dixon line that separates the north. I mean, we don't have that anymore. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, what we do have are differences of opinion and differences of values and differences in what we think the federal government should do. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and I, I think a civil war will look like nothing else we've ever experienced. And God forbid anything like that happens. But, you know, and I, I made the description and I said, you know, we, we have this, we don't even have a Venn diagram anymore. Right. <laugh>, we have just two circles. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, they're just on opposite sides of the country with deep

Fritz Coleman (01:01:52):

Space in between. That's right.

Steve Chiotakis (01:01:53):

Yeah. Nothing, there's no commonality. And we've gotta find a way to talk to one another again and stop talking over each other. Um, well, I

Louise Palanker (01:02:01):

Feel like we're sort of digesting, or we're sort of kind of like taking in whatever it is that we want in that moment because it's doable. You can curate exactly what enters your brain. And so that becomes like crack or whatever will make you feel good in that moment. And so we've come away from that time period where you had to sort of listen to or watch whatever was on. And so you were gonna, in order to get to Gilligan's Island, you were gonna ingest some knowledge or do some thinking, and now you can mainline, you know, whatever it is your particular inclination or ideology is. But like, how has NPR changed or adapted when we're all going to this sort of, uh, curated or streaming media that's, that you can pause and come back to and it's still exactly what you wanna listen to and not anything that's in the general consciousness. Like how are you guys adapting to that?

Steve Chiotakis (01:02:55):

Well, I mean, I I we're doing what the others have done. I mean, you were, how long were you with Westwood One? You know, you had to sort

Louise Palanker (01:03:02):

Of I was with Premiere.

Steve Chiotakis (01:03:03):

Oh, you were Premiere. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I thought you were at Westwood

Louise Palanker (01:03:06):

One. No, no. But like, you know, like we're talking about, we have to accept everybody. So <laugh> Westwood one valid, valuable programming for sure. Not our, not our enemy.

Steve Chiotakis (01:03:16):

To, to find, to find, um, I, I had Radio Network in my head. Yeah, that's fine. Yeah. So anyway, to find a good, you know, like what NPR went all in on podcasts. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and they early have, I think very early Absolutely. To understand to knowing that on demand is the way that we're all gonna go. Um, we don't have, I mean, we kind of have it in our cars now. We listen to podcasts for sure, but there's gonna be a time when we get in our car and it's just gonna be the internet on that screen. Yep. And you're not gonna tune a M F M mm-hmm. Like we used to. Mm-hmm. You're not gonna put a cd cd, we don't have those anymore, or cassette or whatever it is that we used to have in cars. You're just gonna go in and you're gonna, you're gonna go online and it's gonna be easy to do it. And it's, and it's already here. So as far as finding the best way to go forward in what NPR did was they, they really invested heavily in podcasts and on demand radio programming. They have a, a, a just a huge breadth of, of, of different programs from news programs to the politics, podcasts and things like that, that I think do very, very well. Some of them are like some of the most successful podcasts in the country mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And, um, I'm proud of them for that,

Louise Palanker (01:04:28):

But I don't know if there's anyone on the right that's listening to NPR programming

Steve Chiotakis (01:04:33):

And, and, and Aest, there's our problem. Yeah. Right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah. Um, I mean, but, but you know, and what do they think they're, they're told, I mean, what does the right do when, when they take power? Like I'm expecting as soon as the Republicans, and it looks like the Republicans obviously are gonna take the house barely. Um, do they go after the Corporation for Public Broadcasting? Again, it's, it's,

Fritz Coleman (01:04:52):

Well, I wanted to talk to you about that. Baxter and Reagan and Bush won, there was a period of time when they wanted to defund public broadcasting and just make it part of the, part of the, uh, you know, a private business model. And they also took away the fairness doctrine and ruined broadcasting in a whole bunch of different ways.

Steve Chiotakis (01:05:09):

Wow. That's a big one for, its Yeah. The fairness doctrine was a big one. Yeah. 86.

Fritz Coleman (01:05:13):

Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was huge. But

Louise Palanker (01:05:15):

How would the fairness doctrine survive? Podcasting? That's the question. So,

Fritz Coleman (01:05:19):

Well, if they, nobody, well, cuz the FCC doesn't regulate podcasting.

Steve Chiotakis (01:05:22):

Yeah. FCC is, is a broadcast, you know, that's over the air stuff. And we don't use, we don't have the internet as sort of a, what is it, a common carrier mm-hmm. <affirmative>, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, and until we deem it as a common carrier, then this is what we're gonna get. That it's a private entity and you can do whatever you want with the internet. Um, you know, the spectrum is ours. That's, you know, that's the air mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, and, and that's why the FCC regulates it, but it doesn't regulate it as much as it used to. No, for

Fritz Coleman (01:05:48):

Sure. All right, let's get to the election. Uh, I I, if you go, uh, under the K C R W website, they have a great clip. They have several great clips, but one of Steve talking about why LA takes so long to count ballots in the midterm elections. And that's become everybody's question. Would Arizona, please wrap this up. We have to get home with our lives <laugh> and and we're still counting, so to speak. So why, why does it take so long in California?

Steve Chiotakis (01:06:11):

Well, it takes long because, uh, you got 10 million people in LA County and, and let's say 10 million people in LA County, and let's say 20% of those people vote. So you're counting 2 million votes and you're doing it through different systems. Um, LA uh, moved to a new voting center apparatus where it's no longer polling places. They're a voting system, a voting centers all across the county. So they're having, and they've got electronic ballots, and then of course they counter it with paper ballots too. I'm, I'm, uh, 99 and a 5% sure that they have paper ballots that are, that are, um, um, backing up those electronic votes as well. And, and, you know, you've gotta also, in the mail-in ballots, you have to, um, check signatures. So you compare the signatures to the one on file with the one that you signed on the back of that envelope. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so it takes a minute and California takes a minute. There are 40 million people in California mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you

Louise Palanker (01:07:01):

Know, um, so what, what is going on locally that I feel like if, if you're from la this is where entertainment comes from. And when you hear the word Los Angeles, it doesn't even perk up your ears the way it would if you heard the name of your hometown and you lived in Boston or Boulder or Baton Rouge or Buffalo or Bend or whatever. So when you hear la you just, you don't, we, we still don't know who our mayor is. What should we LA citizens be paying attention to that we tend to ignore in favor of MSNBC or national politics? What are we missing here?

Steve Chiotakis (01:07:31):

Um, in l Well, I mean, we have a new sheriff, do

Louise Palanker (01:07:35):

We? Okay.

Steve Chiotakis (01:07:36):

We we do.

Louise Palanker (01:07:37):

Yeah.

Steve Chiotakis (01:07:37):

Frank, we

Louise Palanker (01:07:38):

Do. Who's that?

Steve Chiotakis (01:07:39):

Luna. Uh, Robert Luna, the former, you know, the retired police chief of Long Beach. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, defeated Alex Vinueva. It's very uncommon for, uh, an incumbent sheriff to lose. Um, ironically, Alex v Vinueva beats the incumbent sheriff four years ago, Jim McDonald. So now Alex Vinueva is in that seat. He has lost to Robert Luna. So we have a new, I think that's a big deal.

Louise Palanker (01:08:04):

And how will that change things? How is he

Steve Chiotakis (01:08:06):

Oh, I mean, I I think it'll change things. It, it, it, Vinueva was a very bombastic sheriff. I mean, you know, he'd gone after like reporters mm-hmm. <affirmative> and Yeah. Um, you know, put, put the picture of a reporter on the screen saying that she was being investigated for, I mean, just all kinds of things like that. He would do a Facebook video, you know, land basting, different politicians and different people, and it, it just wasn't what the LA County Sheriff had had done before. Now look, there have been all kinds of scandals. Um, uh, you had, um, Lee Baca, who mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, you know, who had Alzheimer's disease, but also was, was convicted, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> of, of corruption. Um, Paul Tanaka, his assistant, you had even going back in Orange County, you had Corona who, who I believe went to jail. Um, so, so, you know, l uh, LA and Southern California is no stranger to, um, all kinds of, uh, uh,

Louise Palanker (01:09:00):

Corruptions shenanigans. Yeah.

Fritz Coleman (01:09:01):

There's another interesting subject.

Steve Chiotakis (01:09:02):

What is a big deal? It is a big deal. Yeah. And I think Luna maybe brings some freshness to it. I don't know what he is gonna do. Let's up. He's at least a decent guy and, and, and looks at, you know, all of the things going on at the sheriff's department, including, um, reports of, uh, gangs, actual deputies who are in gangs. Wow.

Fritz Coleman (01:09:19):

Yeah. That's

Steve Chiotakis (01:09:20):

Crazy. Which has been reported, widely reported. Wow.

Fritz Coleman (01:09:23):

Uh, another great clip that plays on your website with you is how, this is another top of mind topic right now, how election officials fight conspiracies and how they can push back against that. Give us a, give us a thumbnail of that discussion.

Steve Chiotakis (01:09:38):

How do you fight conspiracies? I don't know how you do that, Fritz. I, you know, I, I mean, look, I have a, I have a family and I, I think we all probably do, maybe we do. Of, you know, people who believe different things. Um, and I, and I've, I've actually said this to several of my coworkers. You know, if I can't convince my own family to believe that the election wasn't stolen in 2020, how am I gonna convince somebody on the radio

Fritz Coleman (01:10:06):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Oh, that's interesting.

Steve Chiotakis (01:10:07):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, it is, it, we, we, and again, it g it goes back to that the, the lack of the Venn diagram and the fact that we're talking over one another. Um, we just believe what we believe because either someone tells us or because we have, you know, skin in the game. Um, and, and that's all that matters. And it doesn't, and, and whate whatev whatever you have to say, whatever evidence you can put forth doesn't much matter. And I don't know how you fix that. I, I mean, maybe you fix it if you're the New York Times, instead of saying former President Trump's falsehoods, and you use the word lie mm-hmm. <affirmative> instead mm-hmm. <affirmative>, which always sort of gets my goat mm-hmm. <affirmative> the fact that, you know, they use these, you know, these very antiseptic, benign terms. Yeah. Like falsehoods are misinformation or the, and it's like, why don't you call it what it is?

Louise Palanker (01:10:57):

Even, even election denying is still kind of a

Steve Chiotakis (01:11:01):

Election. Denying is a very antiseptic term. Right. You know, it's like this, they lied about the election, and so there is incontrovertible proof that the election was not stolen. They went to court 63 times and lost almost all of 'em, with the exception of one. That was a very small case in Pennsylvania. So when you look at all of these things, and we could say this until we're blue in the face or red in the face, whatever you wanna say, <laugh>, okay? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. But if people aren't gonna listen to you, if they don't care about the facts or they don't get, they only know something's amiss. I mean, Donald Trump went on television, said, I just know I won by a landslide.

Louise Palanker (01:11:35):

People believe what they, I know for no proof, but people believe lies that they wish were true. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And they, and they welcome people to say something very truthy that, that is just aligned with whatever their fantasy is of reality. I wanna talk for a second about Rick Caruso, because, you know, he, he, no, he certainly put a lot of money into his campaign. I still don't know who our mayor is going to be. What are your thoughts on him? She's

Fritz Coleman (01:11:59):

Ahead right now, which I find very surprising.

Louise Palanker (01:12:01):

Yeah. So talk about, let's, let's yeah. Ahead. Yeah. Let's talk about the mayoral race. We don't really know who he is other than it's, I think like most people like me, feel like he's a Republican parading round as a Democrat to win as mayor of Los Angeles. What are, what do you know? Yeah.

Steve Chiotakis (01:12:17):

I mean, he wasn't gonna win as a Republican. Yeah. You know, I think the last person to do that was who was, was Dick Rearden, right? Yes. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yes. Yeah. Um, and Dick Ridden was a, by the way, a very liberal Republican mm-hmm. <affirmative> mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So, I mean, he wasn't the Republican in the mold of, you know.

Louise Palanker (01:12:33):

No. He was a Schwarzenegger Republican.

Steve Chiotakis (01:12:35):

Yeah. Right, right. Exactly. So all, you know, owned some businesses and that's what Rick Car, I think Rick Caruso, it's interesting because, you know, he owns these properties, these developments. There's, you know, the, the Americana brand and Glendale, and there's the Grove and, um, the place in Pacific Palisades, and, you know, he amassed, um, that kind of money, um, grew up in la so feels a connection to la. Um, there are a lot of folks who believe, he's like very Trump-esque when it comes to, you know, I'm just gonna buy my way into the election. He spent a hundred million dollars. Um, and by the way, it may have worked. Uh, I,

Fritz Coleman (01:13:11):

I'll tell you, some of those ads, uh, I, you know, the, the, the, the anti Karen Bass ads were devastating. The one with the Scientology, I just thought that's gonna crush her. That one ad alone could take her down, but she's still floating, uh, ahead. It's very interesting.

Steve Chiotakis (01:13:28):

She's a, and, and Fritz, I think, you know, if you look at the numbers right now, I think she's probably gonna pull it out. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Now that's, that's a, based on nothing aside from, you know, we have this many votes. I I think there's still a lot of the San Fernando Valley that's been counted mm-hmm. <affirmative> and other parts that have not been counted. But here, here's, here's my thinking on this, because you, you've seen a left lurch of the LA City Council mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and in the, the same electorate that voted for the folks who are making that left word lurch also are voting in the mayor's race as well. And they're not gonna vote for Rick Caruso. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, they're gonna vote for Kara. Yes. So, I, it's just a, a hunch I have No, there's, there's, I have no data aside from something anecdotal in my head, <laugh> that I think she's gonna pull it out. It's gonna be very close. Um, and it's gonna prove that you can, you certainly can, can buy an election. Wow. A hundred million dollars. That's a lot of money for a mayor election. Wow. Yeah. It's a lot of money for any

Louise Palanker (01:14:32):

Election. I mean, he could have just, you know, bought a boat, a

Fritz Coleman (01:14:35):

Normal rich person, uh, in the, uh, Georgia Senate race, a hundred million dollars, which is insane.

Louise Palanker (01:14:40):

Wow. Well, our producer Dina, has a question for you.

Steve Chiotakis (01:14:43):

Yes.

Dina (01:14:44):

Hi, Steve. Is this on? Hi,

Steve Chiotakis (01:14:45):

Dina,

Dina (01:14:46):

Is this thing on you? Yeah, I can hear you. Um, so my question hopefully is quick. Uh, it's just an interesting observation some people have made about the, um, la mayoral, um, candidates that, uh, there's like a celebrity divide right between who voted like, um, Gwyneth Paltrow and the Kardashians, they voted for Rick Caruso and like Mark Hamel voted for Karen Bass. And it's sort of like an interesting, for those of us that live in Los Angeles, it's such a unique experience for like, you know, who's the celebrity that voted like for the candidate that I voted for and for other people in the country. It's interesting too, because you can really see, like, you know what Chris Pratts, like Paul, where his politics lie. And like, you know, some people may decide how they feel about him, how they feel about watching his movies, you know, seeing who he voted for, for Mayor of Los

Louise Palanker (01:15:40):

Angeles, even though he hopes it's the other way around, he hopes that if you like him, you'll pick the candidate that

Dina (01:15:45):

He picked. Right? Yeah. So, I mean, do you have any thoughts on that?

Steve Chiotakis (01:15:49):

Well, I mean, it's la so obviously, you know, and, and actors typically aren't very quiet about people that they want to be president. Right? So why would it be different about the mayor of LA mm-hmm. <affirmative> by the, the Kardashians if they're in Calabasas? I don't think Calabasas is in the city of la. Is it? I don't know. I think Calabasas it's is its own city. Can they even vote for Mayor?

Fritz Coleman (01:16:11):

Pardon me? Just let me hit the who cares button here? It'll just hit

Louise Palanker (01:16:14):

<laugh>. See, that's what I mean, like the foreigners coming in and voting. Right. If those Kardashians voted, those are illegal votes. See,

Dina (01:16:21):

I should have said Katie Perry in Gwenth Paltro. Cause I'm, you

Louise Palanker (01:16:25):

Come in, you can't come in from Calabasas and vote.

Steve Chiotakis (01:16:27):

I know Woodland Hills is a part of LA but I I I, I think Calabasas is another, maybe

Louise Palanker (01:16:32):

They're using Caitlin's address to vote. I don't know. It's illegal. It's, I'm denying it. <laugh>, we're gonna say something. Uh, uh, Fritz, you wanted to say something about Bud Friedman and, uh

Fritz Coleman (01:16:42):

Oh yeah. I'm gonna do that, but I can, can I, do I have time to ask him one more question? Oh, yeah, sure. Uh, there's another very wonderful, uh, clip on your website. Uh, Steve and I, I would recommend that everybody who with children or grandchildren listen to it. It's how to teach kids about the climate crisis. Yeah. Without instilling fear in them. And you've talked about the climate crisis on your show. I just think that's just a, a really beautiful piece of information that parents can listen to and absorb. So I hope they will.

Steve Chiotakis (01:17:14):

We've, we've had you on talking about,

Fritz Coleman (01:17:16):

I, I know in your credibility, it took two months for your credibility to return to normal <laugh> in the afternoon. <laugh>.

Steve Chiotakis (01:17:23):

I mean, how do you look at, how do you look at the things that are, you know, the storms, the sheer magnet,

Fritz Coleman (01:17:27):

Oh my God, it

Steve Chiotakis (01:17:28):

Crazy. Not think that something's going on.

Fritz Coleman (01:17:31):

I mean, how much more proof do you need?

Steve Chiotakis (01:17:33):

Yeah. You can't look at the data and, and how warm things are. How long? I mean, look, somebody said the other day, you know, it rained last week Right. Which was really nice. Yeah. Um, we got, we got a couple of days of rain. I, I forget how much it was like more than an inch though, I think in la mm-hmm. <affirmative>, which is, which was miraculous. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And they were like, oh, thank God we got some rain. And I was like, you better enjoy it because it could be March <laugh> before rain.

Fritz Coleman (01:17:53):

Mm-hmm.

Steve Chiotakis (01:17:54):

<affirmative>, you know.

Fritz Coleman (01:17:54):

Well, the people that I, I, I know there are climate deniers and I, I, I get them cuz I can, I know exactly who they are, but the people that know there's climate change, but don't care. Like, well, what's the problem? All the water from the melting glaciers will eventually drown out all the brush fires and everything will be okay. Oh my

Louise Palanker (01:18:13):

God. It's these conditions that are pouring in across the border to vote for.

Fritz Coleman (01:18:17):

I, I'm telling you, that's what it is.

Steve Chiotakis (01:18:18):

Yep. That's scary. It's scary. No, it's not gonna work itself out. Look, the, the planet has gone through what the planet has gone through. We've had ice ages, we've had, you know, I mean, supposedly, well what killed off the dinosaurs? A a giant meteor, right?

Louise Palanker (01:18:31):

Kardashians,

Steve Chiotakis (01:18:32):

<laugh>. All right. Yeah. Look it up. So look it up. The planet's been through a lot, over the course of millions and millions of years. So when you, when you think about it, I mean, and then, and, and, and I think I've talked to you about this before, think about how many, like at any given time, there are upwards of 30,000 aircraft in the air on planet Earth. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> circling the globe, like going from one place to 30,000 aircraft at any given time, think of all the jet fuel, the exhaust out of the jet. Oh, I

Fritz Coleman (01:19:06):

Know. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yes,

Steve Chiotakis (01:19:06):

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, so for you to think that we don't have anything to do with it mm-hmm. No. Or that, or that the planet's not changing or something's going on, or the, you know, the fossil fuels that we use or all of those things, I think is my, it's myopic at best. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, and

Fritz Coleman (01:19:23):

A thousand percent right, my friend.

Steve Chiotakis (01:19:24):

Yeah. So you're preaching to the court. I don't, I don't know what you, I don't know what you do about it. I mean, except you try and ban the things that make the earth, you know, warm up. And we did that with the, remember the ozone layer? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, remember the big hole that we had in Antarctica? Yeah, yeah. We, we stopped using aerosol cans. Yeah. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>,

Fritz Coleman (01:19:42):

I think the styrofoam cups and all that stuff. And

Steve Chiotakis (01:19:44):

Tyro. Yeah. And it helped.

Louise Palanker (01:19:45):

I have a roll on deodorant on me at this very

Steve Chiotakis (01:19:48):

Yeah, exactly. Saving the

Louise Palanker (01:19:49):

Planning. Well,

Fritz Coleman (01:19:50):

I wanna say in closing, you are so good at your job and you Oh, you, you, you, you do what we podcasters strive to do, which is develop this intimacy. When you, when you listen to you, it always feels like it's you and your interview person and one listener in a very small, dark room. And if the conversation is lost, you

Louise Palanker (01:20:12):

Just made it creepy.

Fritz Coleman (01:20:13):

No, I didn't mean to make it creepy. I just, I think that's, I love that kind of intimacy when you're in the car. It's very, um, I don't wanna say soothing, but it's very

Louise Palanker (01:20:23):

Intimate, comfortable, warm and intimate, comfortable as well.

Steve Chiotakis (01:20:25):

Yeah. What, what did the TV school teach you crit about?

Fritz Coleman (01:20:27):

I didn't go to TV school, which is painfully obvious to anybody that watched.

Louise Palanker (01:20:30):

You're talking to one person.

Steve Chiotakis (01:20:31):

You're always talking to one person.

Fritz Coleman (01:20:33):

Oh, no, that's, that's exactly correct.

Steve Chiotakis (01:20:34):

You're always talking to one. You're never talking, like when people say hello everybody, it's like, I'm not in an arena. No. With the microphone coming down

Fritz Coleman (01:20:42):

From the tv, you're,

Steve Chiotakis (01:20:43):

I'm talking to one person.

Louise Palanker (01:20:44):

Rick Dese taught me that. You never say you guys, it's one person.

Fritz Coleman (01:20:48):

Yeah, no, that's true. And, and, and TV you're breaking the fourth wall. So you established this false intimacy with your eyes as well. That's right. But you keep up the good work, my friend. You're a sound of reason. This vast l landscape of weirdness.

Steve Chiotakis (01:21:01):

Thank you for, uh, inviting me on the show. And Fritz, we want you back on Greater La Louise too. You both come,

Fritz Coleman (01:21:06):

Let's go. Let's, seriously, if you'll forgive us, we're gonna, we're gonna give us a point of personal privilege here. I wanted to, uh, send my condolences out to the family of Bud Friedman, who was the founder of the Improv and all the comedians whose careers he was responsible for. Uh, his, his success in LA is interesting, but if you really want to learn about his success, learned about him starting that club in Greenwich Village in New York, or wherever it was, and all the stars who were on Broadway would perform and then come into the improv and then do sets later. It's, it's, it's a great story. God bless him. He was 90 and he passed away. And we wanna wish our best of Jay Leno who, uh, had this gasoline explosion in his face. He's in the Grossman Bird Center, but the latest I heard was he's stable and we're praying for his

Louise Palanker (01:21:52):

Recovery as well. Heal my friend. Yep, sure are. All right. Thank you so much for joining us. We would love to continue this conversation with you on Instagram and Twitter, where we are at Media Path Pod and on Facebook where our show page is, media Path Podcast. And our Facebook group is Media Path with Fritz and Weezy podcast community. You can find full video podcast episodes loaded with bonus visual content on our YouTube channel Media Path podcast. You can write to us at media path podcast gmail.com. And if you enjoy the show, please tell social media about it. Hashtag awesome Miss podcast ever. It's also super helpful if you could give us a nice rating in Apple Podcast. And we've got some prizes coming up for folks who do exactly that. You can sign up for our Fun and Dishy newsletter@mediapathpodcast.com. We wanna thank our guest, Robert Manny, Steve Chite, and Bob Paul and Susan kci. Our team includes Dina Friedman, John Maddox, Sharon Beo, Phil Fiac, Thomas Hubble, Mason Brown, Garrett Arch, and you. Our theme music is by me and John Maddox. I am Louise Lanker here with Fritz Coleman. Be well and wise and we will see you along the media path.

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