iHeart and Stuff They Don't Want You To Know's MATT FREDERICK stops by to tell us an awe-inspiring tale of his performance at the fabled Disney Millennium Celebration Super Bowl Halftime Show. It was an extravaganza that had Xtina Aguilera, Enrique Iglesias, Toni Braxton, Phil Collins, Edward James Olmos, and MORE! And just like Rihanna, they were ALL pregnant. Head over to Matt's Linktree for all his incredible work.
And call us at 323-741-1873 to share your stories!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The title of this Super Bowl halftime show officially is
the E Trade super Bowl Halftime Show. The subtitle or
the alternate title is Disney's Tapestry of Nations. Wow, brought
to you by Enron. And it was a different time, people,
(00:21):
was such a different time. Remember last weekend when the
(00:44):
Super Bowl happened or did you already forget? To be honest,
it was kind of forgettable. I mean, the game was great,
but it had a real buzzkill ending. The commercials were
pretty cringey, too many QR codes, Scientology and Jesus commercials
for my taste. And the halftime show it's pretty mid.
I mean, don't get me wrong. Rere featuring Little Fetus
did their thing. You know, she's saying about forty five
absolute bangers in twelve minutes from a floating super Smash
(01:07):
Brothers stage, surrounded by dozens of gyrating dancers and puffy
white costumes. The whole thing was giving opening credits from
look Who's talking. But it was fun, but it wouldn't
even crack the top five best halftime performances, maybe even
top ten. Now, my buddy Matt Frederick, who you may
know as one of the hosts of stuff they don't
want you to know had the honor of performing in
(01:29):
the greatest halftime show of all time. You know, you're
probably thinking of Prince or Beyonce or last year's Doctor
Dre Snoop, Eminem Kendrick fifty cent, Mary Jay or even
the infamous Janet Jackson justin Timberlake Nip Slip Show. Well,
you'd be wrong, because I am talking about in the
two thousand and the Disney Millennium performance. I'm Will Spinach
(01:56):
Dip McFadden and this is hashtag Storytime brought to you
by iHeartRadio. Well, will do you play any music at all?
Or have you ever been into music like that? I'm
a I'm a tap dancer at heart. Yeah, I mean
I've I dabbled in tap dancing. Now I'm i'm a
I can sing. I'm not uh, I don't play any
(02:17):
musical instruments, but uh yeah, I can sing and I
can do a little bit of tap dancing. Oh man,
I get that. I was in this thing called the
Maskers at Forsyth Central High School and we were a
performance group, so we had to sing and tap dance
and other kinds of dance in front of our school mates,
(02:38):
I would have been next to you harmonizing and you know,
shuffling off to buffalo. Yeah, well, I dude, shuffling off
to buffalo is one of my favorite activities. I think
once you learn it, it is kind of fun. It
doesn't matter what kind of shoes you get on exactly,
I still do it. I'd say it's the move that
I do most often, the tap move. Yeah, I think
(03:00):
it might be the only one I remember, honestly, But
I still I still got a time step or two. Um. Yeah,
I could do a little Spanish time step. I should take.
We should take a class. We should meet somewhere in
the because you're are you in Atlanta? Yeah, I'm in Atlanta. Okay,
So we'll meet in like Utah and we'll take up
dancing class. Oh man, I can't imagine Utah has got
(03:22):
some dope tap dancing. Yeah. I think it's a different
style of of tap in Utah. Yeah, upright, you know
very Yeah. There's like a sheet you have to put
your hand through or sorry, I know, you have to
tap through the sheet. There's a little hole in the
sheet and you put your tappies through and you tip
tap away. Sorry, everybody in Utah, I'm not not sorry,
(03:47):
deal with it. So so I've I've been a drummer
since gosh, a long time ago. I just I took
up drumming because I played a snare drum in my
It was in my uncle's garage out in upstate New
York somewhere, just one time as a kid, and I
just fell in love with being able to create sound
just with my hands and my arms, and just there's
(04:10):
something very primal about it. And honestly it spoke to
me and I didn't have to. It wasn't as complicated
as the piano I was trying to learn. It wasn't
as difficult physically on my fingers as learning a guitar.
Because my dad was a has always been a guitar player,
and he's awesome a songwriter. I also have just like
kind of nubby little fingers too, say yeah, had a guitar,
(04:30):
I could never really get that the spread to hit
the chords. I was also drawn to the drum when
I was a child. I was like, yes, animals my
favorite Muppet, so let's go Annimal rocks. So I just
took this up as a thing, and I didn't really
do much with it. At first, I took drum lessons
on the side to learn a drum kit, which was
a whole separate thing, then learning to play drums like
(04:52):
with your school. Until I got to I think it
was eighth grade. I actually played in an orchestral setup
where I was you know the drum around the snare
in the back that plays a little bit, just a
couple of times during each song. You don't really need
that drummer unless it's like the Christmas Show and then
there's like little drummer boy comes in and say, oh, yeah,
it's my time to shine. Oh no, I shown I
(05:14):
really did, shown you rump a pum pum. Yeah, man,
we played there was the Men in Black movie came
out around that time, and I got to play a
drum kit on the Men in Black song for some assembly.
But it was it was I mean I was objectively awesome. Yeah,
(05:36):
that's pretty frank. And in terms of like, wait, what
were you at eighth grade at that? Yeah, I think
I was eighth grade. I mean that's about as cool,
the coolest thing you could do, and as an eighth grader, yeah, right,
it felt good. But then that transitioned going into ninth grade.
This is around ninety nine, nineteen ninety nine, and there
(05:56):
was really no opportunity to play a drum kit for school.
And what I ended up doing is trying to pursue
just snare drumming for the marching band, because that was
the that was the I don't know, the most interesting
thing that I could potentially do. But generally they didn't,
let you know, little ninth graders come in and pick
up a snare drum. You had to start on like
the one of the big basses or in the pits
(06:19):
what they called it, the auxiliary. You gotta pay your dues.
You can't just freaking waltz in here and pick get
on the drum line. Well, I'll tell you what. Guess
who did Waltson picked up those sticks and played a snare?
I did, John Wynne, Yeah I did. I got to
join the snare line as a ninth grader with another
(06:42):
one of my friends, Dana I think it's I think
she came in ninth grade two. It was both of us.
We were young and we were just hungry for it.
Joined our friends. It was just a good time. It
was awesome. Was there was there some salty senior who
was like these damn freshman coming in here waltson onto
my drum line. Oh yeah, so salty? No, No, I
(07:03):
don't think so. It was. There's really good camaraderie there
actually in the drum line. And because it was difficult.
We were at a school that took drumline really seriously,
and it hadn't always been that way, but there was
an instructor that was really just like getting on us
and wanted us to pursue you know, greatness. Yeah. And
because of that, he had heard about some audition that
(07:25):
was in town and he wanted to send out his
drum line to go try out for this thing because
it was going to be a big deal. I'm also
I'm picturing Nick Cannon as this, as this this drum
line coach, and I'm just gonna keep picturing Nick Cannon
no matter what you say. Oh Nick Cannon, have you
seen have you seen the movie drum Line? Ie, I'm
basing all of my information off of Marching Band from
(07:48):
the movie drum Line. Imagine Nick Cannon's drum line without
the style. Okay, and that was us? Does that make sense?
Like zero style? Just a bunch of kids in Forsyth
County just up right in our outfits, just oh so
serious and like crab stepping. Yeah. Well, well to our
(08:09):
drum instructor at the time, said, hey, there's there's this thing,
go try out for it. So a bunch of us
went downtown. We're in the suburban area of Atlanta, but north,
so like forty five minutes north yea. So we all
head down to downtown Atlanta and we go to this
huge space. I think it was some kind of gym
for a middle school or something like that. A bunch
(08:30):
of kids pile in there. We don't even really understand
what it is or what's going on, and we learned
that these are tryouts for the Super Bowl halftime show. Wait,
once you get there, you learned this. That's how I
recall it. I may be completely misremembering it right. For me,
it was this whirlwind like weird thing. And then we
show up there and they announced this is what it is.
(08:52):
I think it was a secret call out to like
maybe banned instructors and stuff in the area, like hey,
we need kids to try out for this musical performance.
And then you know, when we're there, we learned what
it is, and then we all had to sign I
think I just signed something. Yeah. It's it's like it's
like when you audition for Marvel movies these days, it
says like untitled insect Man movie. Yeah, and you're like,
(09:14):
I think this is a spider Man. I think I'm
pretty sure I'm unditioning for Spider Man. They're like, or
aunt Man, Yeah, it could be also an insect yeah.
For you would be like, we need musicians for big
sports game intermission performance. Yeah, I think, oh yeah, it's
the super Bowl dude. Yeah, but it was the Super
(09:36):
Bowl halftime show and it was trials for that and
oh my god, you should have seen the competition in
that room when all of us get there and we
realize what it is, and oh, this is my big break. Yeah,
I've got to just I got to focus and do
this thing. You get sheet music for drums. We all
got these little floor toms. They're they're the drums that
(09:57):
they don't well I guess they sit on the floor
officially with legs, but they're kind of just round and
are closer to the ground. You stand over them and
you play on top of them. Right, all of us
going there, we just kind of look at the sheet
music we play in unison on this thing, and we
all notice that there are no drumheads on these drums,
so the actual resonant thing that would make the tone
(10:18):
when you hit a drum, there are these mesh heads
on these things. And we think, oh, well, we're in
this giant space, like it would sound crazy if we
were all trying to play these drums together in this
in this huge auditorium like thing. This makes sense. It's
like practicing the part right. Well, I end up getting
it along with several other people. I don't think I
(10:40):
knew anybody who was there who got it as well.
I can't remember if you were there, Dana or not,
I'm sorry, or Blake or any any 'all on the drumline.
I can't remember. So the auditions were individual auditions, not
even like a group like. It wasn't like you on
the rest of the No, it was a group doing it, okay.
So somebody whoever was in charge was just watching us
in this huge grid of kids playing these things, and
(11:04):
they were just like picking out, you know, who's not
in unison, who's out of line. We'll just cut that
person and we'll keep everybody who can do this thing
at once. But I got it, and oh my god,
I was so excited. Dude. Yeah, my dad was so stoked.
My mom was like, yeah, it's cool. And so that
(11:25):
day at the audition they told you. They were like,
you have been cast to be in the super Bowl. Yeah,
you're gonna be in the super Bowl halftime show. And
I'm thinking, my god, I'm playing drums in the super
Bowl halftime show. All this hard work and my drum
instructor outside of school is paid off. You know, I
was good enough to make it in the snare line.
It showed that that it mattered that I was doing
(11:46):
all this stuff right, it's all coming together, it's all damn.
So then we continue to rehearse. I think there's one
more time where you re rehearse this thing. And what
they do is they over these loudspeakers, they play the
entire performance like a prerecorded thing that they put together
so that we all know the cues, so everybody knows
(12:09):
what's going to happen when yeah, you're just listening to
it and you're waiting for your cues and then playing
your parts. And then there's choreography in between where you
have to do certain things when you're not playing so
we had to learn that and drill that got it down.
We were all excited and I'm going to jump to
(12:29):
the day before the Super Bowl. Okay, okay, this is
what a lot of reality starts setting in of what's
actually going on, what's happening. So we're at the Georgia
Dome in Atlanta, Georgia at the time, that was where
the football games were played, and we're all in the
back stage area, like inside the building, in the parts
(12:50):
that nobody gets to see, right right, and we're going
to practice getting the entire stage onto the field, practice
going out, hitting our marks, doing the perform and then
getting it off the stage. Kind of like one of
those one act plays that the kids do. I was
an actor. Judge did one act plays. Oh yeah, where
you have to bring the entire set onto the stage,
(13:10):
perform your thing, and then get it off before sometimer
runs out. Oh or so even like the festivals you're
talking about, Like I used to do drama festivals too
that were like competitions. Yeah, bro, this is my state
champion two thousand and two thousand and one Georgia High
(13:30):
School Association. Hell yeah, what Yeah, I was a I
was a d Task Champion, which is the Drama Teachers
Association of Southern California. Oh my god, see that I
don't have a much more legit. I mean just because
you got California in there. It was what I mean
when we would when we if you would win first
place in that in d Task, you would perform at
(13:52):
Paramount Studios and a thing called the Salute to the Winners,
and like on a set you would perform your ten
minute Shakespeare scene or whatever. Yeah, and like agents and
producers would show up and it was but nothing ever happened. Dude.
I have a whole other story there where I performed
in of Mice and Men with all my friends my
senior year and actually got to go to Lincoln, Nebraska,
(14:15):
and we thought that was so amazing because we got
to do International Thespian Conference. Were you a Lennia or George?
I was not. I was Candy. I had one hand
and my dog. Oh all right, we should remount this
production for sure. Did you say you got to you
(14:36):
did that as well? No, I didn't do. I mean
International Thespian Society. Sound it's like a dream as a
high school student. No, we didn't get to participate in
that one unfortunately, but you but you did of mice
and men. Oh no, I'm just just just a fan,
just man. All right, Well, I want to learn more
(14:56):
about you, will. I'm just in there here at Blabbin.
I'm yeah, No, I'm a I'm an open book. We
can do a whole other I feel like I need
to do an episode where I tell some stories because
nobody knows any of my fun stories. So maybe, yes,
we'll flip the script one of these days. I'm in
I'll interview you. Let's go, Yes, finally, So it's wait,
(15:23):
day before yeah, day before the super Bowl. You're at
the stadium. You guys are rehearsing the transitions. How many
how many people are involved in this production? I don't
even know how many? Hundreds right, Yes, they're easily hundreds. Yeah,
because I guess let me should I paint the scene already?
I feel like I'm revealing things in a weird order,
(15:46):
but I don't know. I mean, it's it's you know,
as as however the bones fall, that's how we read them.
All right, Well, here we go, okay, all right, rule
just twenty Here we go. When we're there rehearsing This
is when I find out that I and all the
drummers they have been rehearsing with me are going to
be wearing these silver, strange looking futuresque costumes that are
(16:13):
extremely unflattering on anyone's body. And they come with a
silver spike helmet. Cool, huge silver spike helmet. And yeah,
and just a reminder to everyone, this is the year
two thousand. Yes, right, it is the two thousand super Bowl.
The millennium has just tappened. We're in a new millennium
(16:36):
and it's and it's Disney, right, it's putting on this.
Oh that's the Yes, we should reveal that it is Disney.
The title of this Super Bowl halftime show officially is
the E Trade super Bowl Halftime Show. The subtitle or
the alternate title is Disney's Tapestry of Nations. Wow, brought
(16:56):
to you by Enron. And it was a different time, people,
it was such a different time. Oh my god. At
the very end, well, yeah it was. It was in
promotion of the Walt Disney World's millennium celebration. It was
(17:16):
occurring in Walt Disney World. Yeah, and the featured performers.
Am I spoiling anything? If I reveal who some of
the featured performers are. Yeah, yes you are, because we
have to establish what else is on the stage before
we established the stars that we're on the top of it.
I guess I'm clearly too familiar with this halftime performance.
(17:37):
I'm obsessed with it. It's a fever dream and I've
watched it multiple times. God dude, Okay, so I in
a bunch of I don't know. I've got to say
it was probably around fifty kids who look just like me,
younger people, and in silver spandex outfits with spiky helmet yep, yep.
(17:58):
And we've all got our drums. That are floor tombs
that are right in front of us, and those floor
tombs have lights that shine up from under them. Cool
and okay, So imagine a big circle, right There are
two sections of us that are doing this as a
part of that circle, small pieces of the pie though
(18:20):
really in between us. On the backside, there are two
massive sections of a choir, like a huge choir, but
they're separated in two sections. Those folks are wearing this weird,
flowy white thing that looks kind of like a nun,
but not really like a nun. Maybe from the future. Also,
(18:42):
I think I know which ones you're talking about. They're
kind of whirling dervishes with rabbit heads rabbit ear. Yes,
that's exactly what it is. Okay, cool. So they're they're
there down on the bottom part of the circle. There
is a full orchestra, all the instruments of they're wearing.
(19:04):
You know, I think they're wearing suits, right man, I
need to rewatch it again, but I think they're like
wearing formal orchestral attire. Right. Yeah, they're in like tuxedos,
but have like fraggle rock heads or something that's everything's
kind of like sort of normal and then also just
kind of insane. It's it's I love it. There's also
(19:25):
an entire group of actual snare drummers, like marching snare
drummers who have these silver or shiny like almost mirror
like vests on and these feathered, huge feathered main cap things.
They're all there, the mirror bird section birds. It's the Millennium,
(19:47):
you know, on the millennial celebration. Guys. These are all
the things you would find at any millennial celebration. Worth
it's waiting if you think, uh, you know, like circ
disilaic costumes are weird. This show takes it to a
whole different level. Yes, yes, and that's not need to
mention the actual circ to Sola performers who are there,
(20:11):
or maybe they're not from circ but they are circ
like right, they can do all kinds of hanging things,
stuff on ribbons. I don't know the real terminology for that.
They could do incredible acrobatic feats. They're real aerialists. Silks.
That's it. Then you've got the dancers who are on
the ground, probably some of the same people, but several
(20:32):
of them are also puppeteers, and they're carrying these puppets
that are four times the size of a regular human.
Maybe there's a lot of giant puppets in this halftime show. Now,
just to begin icing this cake, you got to throw
in performances by Let's start with Christina Aguilera and Enrique Iglesias. Yeah,
(20:57):
and now was this pre was this morell Enrique or
was this post mole removal? I have no idea. I
imagine this is mole Iglesis, but yeah, I think he
still got the mole, which was pride and time Enrique, Well,
it was definitely prime time Christina because I saw her
in person, and like, I just you have no idea
(21:20):
how mind blowing that was to see I gilera for
this little boy in ninth grade. Who you know, she's
a genie in the bottle. She was a genie in
a bottle. And uh yeah, I was a very sheltered child,
mostly self imposed. But you built your own shelter. That's right,
(21:42):
that's right. I hid inside that cave that I dug
out myself. Um. So it's those two they sing a
song together. There's Tony Braxton, who was huge, I mean
is huge, was huge. Phil Collins, the Phil Collins was
there just I feel like he had just done Tarzan
maybe yes, right, and he performed a Tarzan song. Yeah
(22:06):
that I can't. I'm not even gonna sing. I can
sing it in my head right now. I'm not gonna
sing it. Get out of here, Disney, you know you
want me to. But a copyright claim on this episode,
it's right, not gonna happen. No, no, no, no, no oh.
I forgot narrated by Edward James almost, that's right, of course,
who's gone some ups and downs in his career. Um,
(22:28):
but an amazing voice either way, right, I wrote down.
I wrote down some of the a few of the
lines that he says, just so, just so you just
you can, to remind you of what the vibe was,
Oh Edward James. Almost At one point, he goes, the
sage of Time has returned to rekindle the human spirit.
The gates of time have opened, as they do every
(22:51):
thousand years, for the Great Millennial Walk or the Great
Millennium Walk. Oh yeah, oh yeah, right, I just I'm
going to correct you there slightly, there will because he
said the gateway of time has opened, the gateway of time, yes,
which for a little kid who plays a bunch of
(23:11):
video games, watches a bunch of TV and movies, I
know what a gateway is. What the hell is going
on here that there's a gateway opening up? Yeah? I
mean yeah, there are we about to enter a new dimension.
If the whole show really did feel like Disney was
making a movie about the millennium, it was. It's so
(23:36):
it's it's really hard to unpack everything that's going on
in there. Well, you know what to me, honestly, as
a good little Christian boy watching all this stuff happen,
then noticing the giant Idol that was also a part
of the set, and it led to like the backstage
area where the actors, singers or whatever could go and
(23:57):
hide while they weren't performing. And we're talking towering. This
thing was towering over everybody. There was a ton of
fire involved during this. There's a lot of pyrotechnics. Yes,
so much, dude. In the moment, I didn't think about it,
but afterwards I think I took part in some kind
of Disney sponsored ritual that altered time and space as
(24:21):
we know it. I'm pretty sure something happened that night.
You you opened some gates, you helped. Yeah, I mean yeah,
if you think about like a pagan ritual, it looks
a lot like what what you guys did. Hey, look man,
I was just there. Okay, Oh I think maybe maybe
(24:41):
you guys stopped y two K from happening. It was like, no,
this is this was January thirtieth, Okay, okay, so thirty
days post everybody crapping themselves in their windows ninety five machines.
What a dumb thing that was. Oh, the economy is
gonna cra that's because the computers are going to go
(25:01):
to zero. Everybody go buy canned food were sample. Okay,
so we gotta jump back. Everybody ready, We're jumping back
to rehearsal night. Yea, we are. We're getting ready. I've
got my helmet, I've caught my sticks. My dad is
there and my mom, they're both there. My dad is
(25:24):
so excited because he is going to assist in the
backstage area in getting Phil collins Zizz drummer out like
the drum set physically out to the stage on Super
Bowl night. Wow. And we're huge fans of Phil Collins
by the way. Yeah, my dad's a singer. I like singing,
(25:44):
I like playing drums. It's just kind of fit. Um.
I mean, one of the most famous drum fills of
all time is from in the Air Tonight, And but
I think he plays Doesn't Phil Collins play the drums
in that? Yes? Yeah, well, well you know what, honestly,
I can't I can't say that with full certainty. I
don't know if he plays the drums on that part.
But yeah, I just I love that stuff. My dad
(26:07):
was so excited. We get everything out on to the
field the night before to test the thing, to do
a rehearsal, and they play that track again. That we've
been rehearsing with. And I was like, Okay, well they're
playing that track again. That's a little weird. Why does
my drums still have the mesh head on it? That's weird.
We go through the whole performance and rehearse again. I
(26:28):
still think we're in rehearsal mode. Wait, man, they're gonna
have to rehead these drums. Like that's gonna take a while.
I guess I'll do it overnight. Then we you know,
But I'm still freaked out. But everything is magical, right,
Like Enrique Iglesia says in his song, maybe performs a
magical tomorrow lives inside of you. And that's what I felt.
And I can't believe he said that. He said that.
(26:50):
He's saying that to Christina Aguilar. All right, So it's
now Super Bowl night, Yeah, and we're all there and
we're so excited. We are marching out, you know, all
the groups like on the sidelines getting ready. The football
has almost ended. I love it. We haven't talked about
(27:11):
the football at I don't I don't even know who played,
who played. I don't know Rams, Titan, Rams, Tights. Sure, football,
it's great, I just don't know anything about it, but
Ramstein's played. It was halftime. We all get out and
then everything goes dark in the stadium except for you know,
some specific lights. The stuff has moved out, all these
(27:32):
huge pieces of the giant idol, all the fireworks. We
all march out there. I do, I do trip. Oh
And by the way, I lost my helmet at one
point backstage, and they had to get me a new
one because I completely misplaced it somewhere because there are
all these hats and I was like, well, that's not mine,
that's not mine, that's something I know. God, where's my helmet?
I have the spiky one. That's that's a bird, that's
a mirror bird helmet, that's a frag rock helmet. Oh God,
(27:55):
where did I put my silver spikey helmet. Whoever the
stage managers are for this too, must just be losing
their minds, like wrangling cats. Like all right, all of
you ninth grader is in your like silver light crowds,
spandex outfits, please, like stand in line over here. I
lost my hat. But if we'd only rehearse this, you
(28:18):
know a handful of times for a big rehearsal like this,
I thought, Oh, man, you gotta do this for a
month at least. Yeah, but no, we hadn't. So then
we're there running out. We're getting out there. I trip
at one point, and it's I tell myself it's because
I saw Christina Aguilera, because I did. But I don't
know if that's why I tripped around. I'm just clumsy,
but I did trip. And I feel like I've embellished
(28:38):
that story over time, where it's like Chris, like I
saw Christina and I fell, and then she looked at
me and thought it was funny. I don't think she
saw me. She went crafting. Yeah, she did a little
finger gun that ship, and it makes me feel better.
But that's a that's a fabrication, I believe um. But
then we get out there and we're ready for the performance.
(29:00):
Drumhead is still the fake drumhead, and I'm looking around
at everybody. I'm like, oh, I guess we're just doing
it this way. And I realized this whole thing is
on tape and we're just sitting out here in front
of thousands and thousands of people and in front of
millions of people on the television, and we're just pretending.
We're just pretending to do a thing, and I realize
(29:22):
it's a lie as it's beginning, and I'm just going,
oh no, what, nothing's real, nothing matters. Due it was
such I can't emphasize enough how mind blowing that was
for me to see behind the curtain. I've never seen
behind any curtains before. This is a pretty big curtain
(29:44):
to take a peep of it. Yes, you're like Phil
Collins was five foot one, what the hell? No, But
it wasn't even that. It was watching the stage. And
then on those video screens, Edward James almost his face
comes up and he starts delivering that speech once again,
as it does every thousand years. The game we have
time is open and all this stuff, and on stage
(30:07):
there's a guy standing on stage that is not Edward
James almost, he's almost Edward James. Also, he's Edward James
almost almost. But so that's like, weird me out. Then
Christina Aguilar Enrique come out and they start mouthing the words.
They start lip syncing on national television on a huge
(30:29):
this huge thing, and they're just and I'm just let
sinking there for you, and they said, the future is coming.
You gotta catch it. If you can. Yeah, but they're
not actually they're they're just mouthing that. Then everybody else
does their performances. It's crazy. It actually looks great. If
(30:52):
you like what the spiky drummers are doing. They're doing
these weird lean back moves. They me we um. The
choir is some weird things. It makes their flowy gowns
look funny, look cool. It looks crazy kind of cool.
But then I thought about the orchestra, and there's this
(31:12):
entire full orchestra down there in tuxedos, and they're just
pretending too. And then I thought, this can't be a ritual.
If we were actually playing drums, if we were actually
like chanting these things into the ether, if if almost
was there saying those words with the fire and the idol,
(31:32):
if Phil Collins was actually on that riser going up
towards the Idol's head as the fireworks happened, maybe that
would be a ritual. If the human sacrifice was real
and the blood was real, then maybe we would have
opened the gates the gateway. It could have been a
real cremation of care. And if you if you don't
know what that is, look up, look up. The Bohemian
(31:53):
Club and the Bohemian Grove. It's a giant owl and
fake human sacrifice. The presidents take part in. It's fun
and it's real. Now I know what you're talking about. Yeah, yeah,
I don't know. Will I just I feel like I
had to tell you some of this because it's it
was just the strangest thing I've ever done, And I
(32:14):
can't believe somehow, by this weird set of circumstances, I
got to be a part of it. But now I'm
worried that I was a part of it. And how
it's yeah, how it's affected the next millennium. Yeah, what
did we do? I don't know, Like it's gotten weird
since then. Yeah, I have two thousand and one. I
(32:37):
think things really took a turn. Yeah. So if we
if we were you know, if we were taking part
of that ritual for positive things, like they said, we're
going to celebrate the future hand in hand, Yeah, I don't.
I feel like we messed up. We messed up a
part of it. This is a hot take here, but
I think Osama bin Laden was watching that and he
(33:00):
was like, fuck these guys, oh my and then and
now that's why I think you guys caused nine to eleven.
That's what I'm saying. It's look, it's a bold statement,
but I think, uh, Disney caused nine to eleven? Hot?
Oh oh super hot. Take and you realized it right
(33:24):
in the middle. You're like, oh my god, what am
I a part of? Where's my hat? Why? Christina is
not real? She's just a hologram. Edward James almost is here.
I don't even like football. What have I done? Yeah?
But it was a positive message. It was the crazing
to me is how positive it was and how um
almost naive it felt. And when you watch it now,
(33:45):
like really, when you watch it now, it feels like
a naive, positive vision of what the world and the
earth and you know, all of the countries working together,
all the people, all the voices singing together. It feels
like our cynicism has increased to such an extent that
watching this feels insane. But in the moment on national television,
(34:10):
everybody was just like, oh, yeah, it's Disney cool. I mean,
it was a beautiful ideal, you know, it was it
was the idealist vision of what the new millennium was
going to look like, and it was it was it
was beautiful and super naive, I mean really didn't know
what was right around the corner. Yeah. But and then
(34:33):
with times it reminds me of how devastating September eleven
was because there was this kind of spirit maybe that existed,
It was floating around magically, and it feels like that
thing just got knocked right out yep in hours. Um,
(34:54):
that's weird to think about. It's weird how I somehow
wove nine to eleven into this. That's gonna be my
new my new thing in this story Time season. It's like,
how can I bring up nine to eleven every episode? Well,
that reminds me a lot of nine to eleven? God Man,
(35:14):
who won the game? I don't know. I don't know.
Probably the ram what is it? Rams? And who Titans? Packers, Titans? Okay,
sure it must have been the Titans because we remember them, right, Yeah,
never forget the Titans. I think that's the same. Yeah,
So like that, I honestly don't know. I could have
(35:35):
looked that up. I should probably should have. No, I'll
never know. I like, I like I just like the
idea of you being backstage, just like reality is really
sucker punched. You in the gut and you just don't.
You're like, I don't care about anything anymore, Like nothing's real.
This drum isn't real. Like no, I was just worried
about my hat until I was out there, and then
(35:56):
it all just hit me like a ton of bricks.
Where's my hat? I tripped in front of Christina Acilara.
I'm wearing silver spandex. This does sound like a ninth
grader's nightmare. Yeah, but see then I went on every Friday,
almost every Friday, to put on a weird stinkin suit,
to strap on a snare drum and march around in
(36:19):
front of all my schoolmates in between probably awesome games
of football that I didn't watch, didn't care about with
all the cool like the awesome cool people in my
school who were playing the games and cheering for the
games and in the stands. But I did go tappy
tap tap like pretty well. Okay, so first, last, best, worst?
(36:46):
What was your first job? My first job was working
at the Piedmont Driving Club in Atlanta, Georgia, which is
a world renowned, very old private club like a health club,
a long time driving club. I pictured like, oh, we
drive cars around like come to the Driving Club and
(37:07):
we'll drive your car. It is like that, but think
the eighteen hundreds because when this club was formed, and
there's a right next to it, it's kind of on
the edge of this place called Piedmont Park in Atlanta.
It's huge public park and before it was that public park,
of the people who were members of this club would
drive their carriages around, right, their carriages around with the
(37:30):
little lake that's there. And I guess, I don't know,
you frolic sometimes whatever I do, I don't know what
you do. Drink lemonade out of jars and play Cat's Cradle. Sure,
and you you delineate you know the property lines right,
you and all your cohorts owned right and like slavery
was just abolished, so like that's new. Huh what? Yeah,
(37:54):
it was. It was a rollicking time there at the
Piedmont Driving Club back then. When I got there, my
dad worked for them. Don't want to give too many specifics,
but he worked for them. He was he was employed
by them, but he wasn't like a part of the club,
if that makes sense, right. So I went there to
be a snack bar. I don't know what you call it,
like it's kind of like a server but behind a
stack bar, so kind of like fast food. Yeah, it
(38:16):
was outside the pool. Okay, a little pool pool snack boy.
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, because this place is like a
health club, but it doesn't have a golf course at
that time. It doesn't have a golf course associated with it,
which is very weird because there are a ton of
these private clubs in Atlanta and cities across the United
States where the main thing is the golf club and
then you like do other stuff there too. Yeah, in
(38:38):
this case, it's like Jim Spa that kind of stuff.
Squash courts were huge there. So I'm working there outside
the pool. It's hot, it's summer. It's just a summer job.
I'm a kid. I think I'm in eleventh grade. Maybe Okay,
you've already been You've already performed at the super Bowl
at this point, so yes, you're kind of hot. Shit.
Oh yeah, man, I kept my spiked helmet. I would
(39:00):
like leave it behind the counter and if anybody, you know,
you know, just got a little mouthy, I'd be like,
oh yeah, yeah yeah. All the girls around the pool
be like that's Matt. He played the drums for Christina
Aguilera and Edward James almost he's an exceptional employee. So
it's very weird working for this place. And what I
(39:21):
remember learning there. I guess it was my first job.
It meant a lot to me though, because it was
the first time I really got to see the way
the ultra wealthy live. Yeah, like the top of that
one percent cream stuff that rises up there. Yeah, because
with this place, you had to have my salary that
(39:42):
I make right now, get the pay that like on
a yearly basis just to hang out with them, yeah,
you know, just to gain access to this, to this
pool yeah, and squash court. Yeah. And then every month
they've got a lease facilities and all these restaurants, including
the snack bar yeah, where you can get prepackaged peanut
butter and jelly sandwiches at any time for eighteen dollars. Yeah.
(40:07):
Well you don't have to pay a thing because when
you're inside the club, you just give your member number
and then all of that it cruise up and you
got to pay that on a monthly basis, and you
have to pay a certain amount every month or you're
out of here. What a racket. But I got to
watch how they live, and I got to watch how
you know different people when you're at that status, you know,
(40:32):
on a society level, on economic level, how you treat
quote the help like me, like the people who are
there just working for you, right or performing a service
for you, And the vast difference between someone who values
just other people, other humans and people who just you know,
(40:52):
view me us as cogs in this machine that they've
got built for them. Yeah, it was very, very meaningful
for me. It's not really a great story, no, I
I but it is a it is a life lesson
that you know, it definitely had an impact on you.
I mean, I feel like everyone at some point needs
to work in the service industry because I think people
(41:12):
who are unkind to servers or waiters or anyone in
the service industry, I think there there's scum for the
scum of the earth. It's it's terrible because I want
to have empathy for those people too, Like I want
to understand what's going through their minds when when like
I want to psychologically analyze that, like why why would
you treat someone like that? That doesn't make sense to me.
(41:33):
That's one of the reasons I love making true crime
shows with the Tenderfoot and some of those you know,
those other guys, because it's just we get to analyze
the human brain and why it does things. Yeah, okay,
so that was that was the first job. So that's
my first job. Okay, last job as your current job. Yes,
last job is being I was an intern at How
(41:55):
Stuff Works in two thousand six. Wow. Oh yeah, so
you've been sixteen years, same job, so though, I mean, yep,
I'm gonna maybe assume that that's also the best job. Yeah. Yeah,
but I want to get you in trouble. That's fine, No,
it is, for sure. I was an intern videographer, video editor,
(42:18):
video producer, senior video producer. What was the next one?
Then we became podcasts only because I was all video
for a long time. I have a video degree. And
then it became, you know, podcast producer, supervising producer, executive producer,
and podcast host. So being a podcast host I think
(42:40):
is my favorite sub version of my last job. Yeah.
But look at that, I mean that ladder that you've
just climbed up from intern all the way up to
being here on hashtag story time. Yeah. Man, I ripped
those rungs away. So no, one else could come up
behind me. Just burn you burn that bridge behind you
as you cross. No. No, that's one of the great
(43:03):
stories about How Stuff Works, honestly, and the group of
people with whom I work, because I mean I could
name so many people right now that started as interns
at how Stuff Works in you know, before twenty ten.
Several of them I ended up meeting in college. Like
we are, our world's just kind of intersected. We all
ended up working there. A bunch of people like Annie,
(43:26):
like Ben who have been working with me since we
were babies, basically where we were look like kids were
our early twenties and just watching us grow as a family.
No matter who acquired us, it's been pretty pretty stinking great. Yeah,
And for any of the listeners out there, How Stuff
Works was acquired by iHeart in when was it twenty nineteen?
(43:50):
I think nineteen and basically became the podcasting division and
department of all of I Heeart yep. Okay, So that
that would be first, kind of last, and bet so,
what would be the worst job that you've had? The
worst job I ever had was being caretaker for my
dog Buddy. I consider this kind of a job because
(44:14):
this is a sad one. Yeah, I can already already
this little already break well, get ready. He's this little
docks in terrier um, tiny little guy, huge body, way
too big, kind of plump, tiny little legs, adorable face.
He's got like he looks like a little wizard, a
little scruffy looking face, kind of Brindley. He was the
(44:36):
first dog I ever I ever had with my wife
at the time. And he's got this back man and
it's too heavy in the middle, and every time he
would jump up and down from a couch, it was
like tiny little you know, like a needle or like
a single little cut, you know, imagine a thousand cuts.
And one day I came home from a band rehearsal.
(44:57):
I was playing in a band called Lions and Scissors,
which was just this really weird, cool radioheadlike band in Atlanta.
Cool man and came, Yeah, it was weird. I think
it should have been Lions in Sizers instead of Lions
and Sissums, inc, I think, But again, either way, whatever,
it was an awesome band. Did you wear your spiky
helmet in that band? Every time? Sick? Every touch sick?
(45:24):
But I came home from rehearsal was pretty late and
he was usually good at the house alone. When I
opened the door, he was sitting funny and I didn't
understand what's going on, and he couldn't move his back legs.
So after a bunch of calls like late night figuring
out what's going on, taking him to an emergency VET,
we find out that he needs surgery and we can't
(45:45):
afford it. But we find out that at University of
Georgia in Athens, Georgia, they have like students who are
in the veterinary program who will do things like that
for a way cheaper. It's a little more risky, I guess,
but there are still people who are learning and you know,
this is like one of their big tests, you know,
can I actually do this? So we decided to try that.
(46:07):
He got his surgery and he was still paralyzed and
we weren't We weren't sure what was going to happen.
It was just compression, by the way, it was just
like disc compression that was pressing so hard in this
one area that I know with with blows docins and
with with corgis, they have hit hip displasia. That that
(46:28):
which is why you see, I feel like a lot
of those dogs with the little carts that kind of
take their take the weight and carry the back legs.
But in this case with this guy, what I had
to do with Diana at the time is we had catheters,
like physical little catheters, because he couldn't control his urine
or so I had to physically put a catheter in him,
(46:50):
like all day long. I had to do this to
make sure he always had gone to the bathroom. And man,
that was like, first of all, it's an uncomfortable thing
to do, right, to shove something up your dog's private party.
Then to express, I had to phys physically express the
bladder and I do that for a long time. But
guess what that little dude about a month later, I
(47:11):
went out to get the trash cans. You take the
trash can out to the edge of the street, bring
it back. Went out to get the trash can, and
he like, I brought him with me and set him
down out there on the street, and for the first
time in over a month, he like kind of moved
his legs around and then he ran to Diana. It
was amazing, and he recovered after that, and he was
(47:32):
totally fine, oh yep, and he lasted for like, Okay,
I'm glad, I'm glad that that six story had a
happy ending. I was like, I don't know if we
can end the podcast exactly. Well, the lesson is, even
when you get, you know, really injured, you can recover,
You can cover, you can recover from anything. And I'm
(47:52):
still recovering from the ritual. You know that Disney put
you through I don't know what you call it, put
me through too, but ricked you into it lies one
step at a time. Well, I'm glad. I'm glad you
didn't have to stay at that job long and that
you got out of it right all right, Well, Matt,
(48:15):
that was awesome. Thanks for listening to hashtag storytime. Huge
shout out to Matt Frederick for coming on the pod.
If you're a fan of The Unexplained, then check out
Matt's podcast stuff they don't want you to know links
in the description. Please take literally two seconds right now,
grab your phone and hit the follow buttons so you
don't miss next week's episode with McCall Marabella. Because Max
(48:38):
and I we had played so many Wougie boards in
the past, so we were like pros yeah, I was ready,
And basically through some conversation we realized that we were
talking to a spirit named Zach and he was a
little boy who lived in my house. Is what he said. Nope, no,
I'm out. I'm already out. I would already like kid,
(49:01):
ghosts silly are the scariest ghosts. Oh, he was kind
of nice. He was friendly. If you're enjoying the podcast,
please leave us a review. It helps us out a
lot and I literally read every single one of them.
If today's episode made you think of your own story,
I want to hear it. Call the Storytime hotline at
three two, three, seven, four one, eighteen seventy three and
(49:22):
tell us your story to be featured on an upcoming
Listener Tales episode. And if you just can't get enough Storytime,
give us a follow on the gram at storytime dot
pod or on TikTok at Storytime dot podcast hashtag. Storytime
is produced by iHeartRadio and Curativity Productions. Hosted by Will McFadden,
sound designed by Tony maddox, written by Will McFadden and
Jason Shapiro, Produced by Jason Shapiro, Daniel Lama, and Jordan
(49:44):
Elijah Michael. Theme song by Scott Simons,
The title of this Super Bowl halftime show officially is
the E Trade super Bowl Halftime Show. The subtitle or
the alternate title is Disney's Tapestry of Nations. Wow, brought
to you by Enron. And it was a different time, people,
(00:21):
was such a different time. Remember last weekend when the
(00:44):
Super Bowl happened or did you already forget? To be honest,
it was kind of forgettable. I mean, the game was great,
but it had a real buzzkill ending. The commercials were
pretty cringey, too many QR codes, Scientology and Jesus commercials
for my taste. And the halftime show it's pretty mid.
I mean, don't get me wrong. Rere featuring Little Fetus
did their thing. You know, she's saying about forty five
absolute bangers in twelve minutes from a floating super Smash
(01:07):
Brothers stage, surrounded by dozens of gyrating dancers and puffy
white costumes. The whole thing was giving opening credits from
look Who's talking. But it was fun, but it wouldn't
even crack the top five best halftime performances, maybe even
top ten. Now, my buddy Matt Frederick, who you may
know as one of the hosts of stuff they don't
want you to know had the honor of performing in
(01:29):
the greatest halftime show of all time. You know, you're
probably thinking of Prince or Beyonce or last year's Doctor
Dre Snoop, Eminem Kendrick fifty cent, Mary Jay or even
the infamous Janet Jackson justin Timberlake Nip Slip Show. Well,
you'd be wrong, because I am talking about in the
two thousand and the Disney Millennium performance. I'm Will Spinach
(01:56):
Dip McFadden and this is hashtag Storytime brought to you
by iHeartRadio. Well, will do you play any music at all?
Or have you ever been into music like that? I'm
a I'm a tap dancer at heart. Yeah, I mean
I've I dabbled in tap dancing. Now I'm i'm a
I can sing. I'm not uh, I don't play any
(02:17):
musical instruments, but uh yeah, I can sing and I
can do a little bit of tap dancing. Oh man,
I get that. I was in this thing called the
Maskers at Forsyth Central High School and we were a
performance group, so we had to sing and tap dance
and other kinds of dance in front of our school mates,
(02:38):
I would have been next to you harmonizing and you know,
shuffling off to buffalo. Yeah, well, I dude, shuffling off
to buffalo is one of my favorite activities. I think
once you learn it, it is kind of fun. It
doesn't matter what kind of shoes you get on exactly,
I still do it. I'd say it's the move that
I do most often, the tap move. Yeah, I think
(03:00):
it might be the only one I remember, honestly, But
I still I still got a time step or two. Um. Yeah,
I could do a little Spanish time step. I should take.
We should take a class. We should meet somewhere in
the because you're are you in Atlanta? Yeah, I'm in Atlanta. Okay,
So we'll meet in like Utah and we'll take up
dancing class. Oh man, I can't imagine Utah has got
(03:22):
some dope tap dancing. Yeah. I think it's a different
style of of tap in Utah. Yeah, upright, you know
very Yeah. There's like a sheet you have to put
your hand through or sorry, I know, you have to
tap through the sheet. There's a little hole in the
sheet and you put your tappies through and you tip
tap away. Sorry, everybody in Utah, I'm not not sorry,
(03:47):
deal with it. So so I've I've been a drummer
since gosh, a long time ago. I just I took
up drumming because I played a snare drum in my
It was in my uncle's garage out in upstate New
York somewhere, just one time as a kid, and I
just fell in love with being able to create sound
just with my hands and my arms, and just there's
(04:10):
something very primal about it. And honestly it spoke to
me and I didn't have to. It wasn't as complicated
as the piano I was trying to learn. It wasn't
as difficult physically on my fingers as learning a guitar.
Because my dad was a has always been a guitar player,
and he's awesome a songwriter. I also have just like
kind of nubby little fingers too, say yeah, had a guitar,
(04:30):
I could never really get that the spread to hit
the chords. I was also drawn to the drum when
I was a child. I was like, yes, animals my
favorite Muppet, so let's go Annimal rocks. So I just
took this up as a thing, and I didn't really
do much with it. At first, I took drum lessons
on the side to learn a drum kit, which was
a whole separate thing, then learning to play drums like
(04:52):
with your school. Until I got to I think it
was eighth grade. I actually played in an orchestral setup
where I was you know the drum around the snare
in the back that plays a little bit, just a
couple of times during each song. You don't really need
that drummer unless it's like the Christmas Show and then
there's like little drummer boy comes in and say, oh, yeah,
it's my time to shine. Oh no, I shown I
(05:14):
really did, shown you rump a pum pum. Yeah, man,
we played there was the Men in Black movie came
out around that time, and I got to play a
drum kit on the Men in Black song for some assembly.
But it was it was I mean I was objectively awesome. Yeah,
(05:36):
that's pretty frank. And in terms of like, wait, what
were you at eighth grade at that? Yeah, I think
I was eighth grade. I mean that's about as cool,
the coolest thing you could do, and as an eighth grader, yeah, right,
it felt good. But then that transitioned going into ninth grade.
This is around ninety nine, nineteen ninety nine, and there
(05:56):
was really no opportunity to play a drum kit for school.
And what I ended up doing is trying to pursue
just snare drumming for the marching band, because that was
the that was the I don't know, the most interesting
thing that I could potentially do. But generally they didn't,
let you know, little ninth graders come in and pick
up a snare drum. You had to start on like
the one of the big basses or in the pits
(06:19):
what they called it, the auxiliary. You gotta pay your dues.
You can't just freaking waltz in here and pick get
on the drum line. Well, I'll tell you what. Guess
who did Waltson picked up those sticks and played a snare?
I did, John Wynne, Yeah I did. I got to
join the snare line as a ninth grader with another
(06:42):
one of my friends, Dana I think it's I think
she came in ninth grade two. It was both of us.
We were young and we were just hungry for it.
Joined our friends. It was just a good time. It
was awesome. Was there was there some salty senior who
was like these damn freshman coming in here waltson onto
my drum line. Oh yeah, so salty? No, No, I
(07:03):
don't think so. It was. There's really good camaraderie there
actually in the drum line. And because it was difficult.
We were at a school that took drumline really seriously,
and it hadn't always been that way, but there was
an instructor that was really just like getting on us
and wanted us to pursue you know, greatness. Yeah. And
because of that, he had heard about some audition that
(07:25):
was in town and he wanted to send out his
drum line to go try out for this thing because
it was going to be a big deal. I'm also
I'm picturing Nick Cannon as this, as this this drum
line coach, and I'm just gonna keep picturing Nick Cannon
no matter what you say. Oh Nick Cannon, have you
seen have you seen the movie drum Line? Ie, I'm
basing all of my information off of Marching Band from
(07:48):
the movie drum Line. Imagine Nick Cannon's drum line without
the style. Okay, and that was us? Does that make sense?
Like zero style? Just a bunch of kids in Forsyth
County just up right in our outfits, just oh so
serious and like crab stepping. Yeah. Well, well to our
(08:09):
drum instructor at the time, said, hey, there's there's this thing,
go try out for it. So a bunch of us
went downtown. We're in the suburban area of Atlanta, but north,
so like forty five minutes north yea. So we all
head down to downtown Atlanta and we go to this
huge space. I think it was some kind of gym
for a middle school or something like that. A bunch
(08:30):
of kids pile in there. We don't even really understand
what it is or what's going on, and we learned
that these are tryouts for the Super Bowl halftime show. Wait,
once you get there, you learned this. That's how I
recall it. I may be completely misremembering it right. For me,
it was this whirlwind like weird thing. And then we
show up there and they announced this is what it is.
(08:52):
I think it was a secret call out to like
maybe banned instructors and stuff in the area, like hey,
we need kids to try out for this musical performance.
And then you know, when we're there, we learned what
it is, and then we all had to sign I
think I just signed something. Yeah. It's it's like it's
like when you audition for Marvel movies these days, it
says like untitled insect Man movie. Yeah, and you're like,
(09:14):
I think this is a spider Man. I think I'm
pretty sure I'm unditioning for Spider Man. They're like, or
aunt Man, Yeah, it could be also an insect yeah.
For you would be like, we need musicians for big
sports game intermission performance. Yeah, I think, oh yeah, it's
the super Bowl dude. Yeah, but it was the Super
(09:36):
Bowl halftime show and it was trials for that and
oh my god, you should have seen the competition in
that room when all of us get there and we
realize what it is, and oh, this is my big break. Yeah,
I've got to just I got to focus and do
this thing. You get sheet music for drums. We all
got these little floor toms. They're they're the drums that
(09:57):
they don't well I guess they sit on the floor
officially with legs, but they're kind of just round and
are closer to the ground. You stand over them and
you play on top of them. Right, all of us
going there, we just kind of look at the sheet
music we play in unison on this thing, and we
all notice that there are no drumheads on these drums,
so the actual resonant thing that would make the tone
(10:18):
when you hit a drum, there are these mesh heads
on these things. And we think, oh, well, we're in
this giant space, like it would sound crazy if we
were all trying to play these drums together in this
in this huge auditorium like thing. This makes sense. It's
like practicing the part right. Well, I end up getting
it along with several other people. I don't think I
(10:40):
knew anybody who was there who got it as well.
I can't remember if you were there, Dana or not,
I'm sorry, or Blake or any any 'all on the drumline.
I can't remember. So the auditions were individual auditions, not
even like a group like. It wasn't like you on
the rest of the No, it was a group doing it, okay.
So somebody whoever was in charge was just watching us
in this huge grid of kids playing these things, and
(11:04):
they were just like picking out, you know, who's not
in unison, who's out of line. We'll just cut that
person and we'll keep everybody who can do this thing
at once. But I got it, and oh my god,
I was so excited. Dude. Yeah, my dad was so stoked.
My mom was like, yeah, it's cool. And so that
(11:25):
day at the audition they told you. They were like,
you have been cast to be in the super Bowl. Yeah,
you're gonna be in the super Bowl halftime show. And
I'm thinking, my god, I'm playing drums in the super
Bowl halftime show. All this hard work and my drum
instructor outside of school is paid off. You know, I
was good enough to make it in the snare line.
It showed that that it mattered that I was doing
(11:46):
all this stuff right, it's all coming together, it's all damn.
So then we continue to rehearse. I think there's one
more time where you re rehearse this thing. And what
they do is they over these loudspeakers, they play the
entire performance like a prerecorded thing that they put together
so that we all know the cues, so everybody knows
(12:09):
what's going to happen when yeah, you're just listening to
it and you're waiting for your cues and then playing
your parts. And then there's choreography in between where you
have to do certain things when you're not playing so
we had to learn that and drill that got it down.
We were all excited and I'm going to jump to
(12:29):
the day before the Super Bowl. Okay, okay, this is
what a lot of reality starts setting in of what's
actually going on, what's happening. So we're at the Georgia
Dome in Atlanta, Georgia at the time, that was where
the football games were played, and we're all in the
back stage area, like inside the building, in the parts
(12:50):
that nobody gets to see, right right, and we're going
to practice getting the entire stage onto the field, practice
going out, hitting our marks, doing the perform and then
getting it off the stage. Kind of like one of
those one act plays that the kids do. I was
an actor. Judge did one act plays. Oh yeah, where
you have to bring the entire set onto the stage,
(13:10):
perform your thing, and then get it off before sometimer
runs out. Oh or so even like the festivals you're
talking about, Like I used to do drama festivals too
that were like competitions. Yeah, bro, this is my state
champion two thousand and two thousand and one Georgia High
(13:30):
School Association. Hell yeah, what Yeah, I was a I
was a d Task Champion, which is the Drama Teachers
Association of Southern California. Oh my god, see that I
don't have a much more legit. I mean just because
you got California in there. It was what I mean
when we would when we if you would win first
place in that in d Task, you would perform at
(13:52):
Paramount Studios and a thing called the Salute to the Winners,
and like on a set you would perform your ten
minute Shakespeare scene or whatever. Yeah, and like agents and
producers would show up and it was but nothing ever happened. Dude.
I have a whole other story there where I performed
in of Mice and Men with all my friends my
senior year and actually got to go to Lincoln, Nebraska,
(14:15):
and we thought that was so amazing because we got
to do International Thespian Conference. Were you a Lennia or George?
I was not. I was Candy. I had one hand
and my dog. Oh all right, we should remount this
production for sure. Did you say you got to you
(14:36):
did that as well? No, I didn't do. I mean
International Thespian Society. Sound it's like a dream as a
high school student. No, we didn't get to participate in
that one unfortunately, but you but you did of mice
and men. Oh no, I'm just just just a fan,
just man. All right, Well, I want to learn more
(14:56):
about you, will. I'm just in there here at Blabbin.
I'm yeah, No, I'm a I'm an open book. We
can do a whole other I feel like I need
to do an episode where I tell some stories because
nobody knows any of my fun stories. So maybe, yes,
we'll flip the script one of these days. I'm in
I'll interview you. Let's go, Yes, finally, So it's wait,
(15:23):
day before yeah, day before the super Bowl. You're at
the stadium. You guys are rehearsing the transitions. How many
how many people are involved in this production? I don't
even know how many? Hundreds right, Yes, they're easily hundreds. Yeah,
because I guess let me should I paint the scene already?
I feel like I'm revealing things in a weird order,
(15:46):
but I don't know. I mean, it's it's you know,
as as however the bones fall, that's how we read them.
All right, Well, here we go, okay, all right, rule
just twenty Here we go. When we're there rehearsing This
is when I find out that I and all the
drummers they have been rehearsing with me are going to
be wearing these silver, strange looking futuresque costumes that are
(16:13):
extremely unflattering on anyone's body. And they come with a
silver spike helmet. Cool, huge silver spike helmet. And yeah,
and just a reminder to everyone, this is the year
two thousand. Yes, right, it is the two thousand super Bowl.
The millennium has just tappened. We're in a new millennium
(16:36):
and it's and it's Disney, right, it's putting on this.
Oh that's the Yes, we should reveal that it is Disney.
The title of this Super Bowl halftime show officially is
the E Trade super Bowl Halftime Show. The subtitle or
the alternate title is Disney's Tapestry of Nations. Wow, brought
(16:56):
to you by Enron. And it was a different time, people,
it was such a different time. Oh my god. At
the very end, well, yeah it was. It was in
promotion of the Walt Disney World's millennium celebration. It was
(17:16):
occurring in Walt Disney World. Yeah, and the featured performers.
Am I spoiling anything? If I reveal who some of
the featured performers are. Yeah, yes you are, because we
have to establish what else is on the stage before
we established the stars that we're on the top of it.
I guess I'm clearly too familiar with this halftime performance.
(17:37):
I'm obsessed with it. It's a fever dream and I've
watched it multiple times. God dude, Okay, so I in
a bunch of I don't know. I've got to say
it was probably around fifty kids who look just like me,
younger people, and in silver spandex outfits with spiky helmet yep, yep.
(17:58):
And we've all got our drums. That are floor tombs
that are right in front of us, and those floor
tombs have lights that shine up from under them. Cool
and okay, So imagine a big circle, right There are
two sections of us that are doing this as a
part of that circle, small pieces of the pie though
(18:20):
really in between us. On the backside, there are two
massive sections of a choir, like a huge choir, but
they're separated in two sections. Those folks are wearing this weird,
flowy white thing that looks kind of like a nun,
but not really like a nun. Maybe from the future. Also,
(18:42):
I think I know which ones you're talking about. They're
kind of whirling dervishes with rabbit heads rabbit ear. Yes,
that's exactly what it is. Okay, cool. So they're they're
there down on the bottom part of the circle. There
is a full orchestra, all the instruments of they're wearing.
(19:04):
You know, I think they're wearing suits, right man, I
need to rewatch it again, but I think they're like
wearing formal orchestral attire. Right. Yeah, they're in like tuxedos,
but have like fraggle rock heads or something that's everything's
kind of like sort of normal and then also just
kind of insane. It's it's I love it. There's also
(19:25):
an entire group of actual snare drummers, like marching snare
drummers who have these silver or shiny like almost mirror
like vests on and these feathered, huge feathered main cap things.
They're all there, the mirror bird section birds. It's the Millennium,
(19:47):
you know, on the millennial celebration. Guys. These are all
the things you would find at any millennial celebration. Worth
it's waiting if you think, uh, you know, like circ
disilaic costumes are weird. This show takes it to a
whole different level. Yes, yes, and that's not need to
mention the actual circ to Sola performers who are there,
(20:11):
or maybe they're not from circ but they are circ
like right, they can do all kinds of hanging things,
stuff on ribbons. I don't know the real terminology for that.
They could do incredible acrobatic feats. They're real aerialists. Silks.
That's it. Then you've got the dancers who are on
the ground, probably some of the same people, but several
(20:32):
of them are also puppeteers, and they're carrying these puppets
that are four times the size of a regular human.
Maybe there's a lot of giant puppets in this halftime show. Now,
just to begin icing this cake, you got to throw
in performances by Let's start with Christina Aguilera and Enrique Iglesias. Yeah,
(20:57):
and now was this pre was this morell Enrique or
was this post mole removal? I have no idea. I
imagine this is mole Iglesis, but yeah, I think he
still got the mole, which was pride and time Enrique, Well,
it was definitely prime time Christina because I saw her
in person, and like, I just you have no idea
(21:20):
how mind blowing that was to see I gilera for
this little boy in ninth grade. Who you know, she's
a genie in the bottle. She was a genie in
a bottle. And uh yeah, I was a very sheltered child,
mostly self imposed. But you built your own shelter. That's right,
(21:42):
that's right. I hid inside that cave that I dug
out myself. Um. So it's those two they sing a
song together. There's Tony Braxton, who was huge, I mean
is huge, was huge. Phil Collins, the Phil Collins was
there just I feel like he had just done Tarzan
maybe yes, right, and he performed a Tarzan song. Yeah
(22:06):
that I can't. I'm not even gonna sing. I can
sing it in my head right now. I'm not gonna
sing it. Get out of here, Disney, you know you
want me to. But a copyright claim on this episode,
it's right, not gonna happen. No, no, no, no, no oh.
I forgot narrated by Edward James almost, that's right, of course,
who's gone some ups and downs in his career. Um,
(22:28):
but an amazing voice either way, right, I wrote down.
I wrote down some of the a few of the
lines that he says, just so, just so you just
you can, to remind you of what the vibe was,
Oh Edward James. Almost At one point, he goes, the
sage of Time has returned to rekindle the human spirit.
The gates of time have opened, as they do every
(22:51):
thousand years, for the Great Millennial Walk or the Great
Millennium Walk. Oh yeah, oh yeah, right, I just I'm
going to correct you there slightly, there will because he
said the gateway of time has opened, the gateway of time, yes,
which for a little kid who plays a bunch of
(23:11):
video games, watches a bunch of TV and movies, I
know what a gateway is. What the hell is going
on here that there's a gateway opening up? Yeah? I
mean yeah, there are we about to enter a new dimension.
If the whole show really did feel like Disney was
making a movie about the millennium, it was. It's so
(23:36):
it's it's really hard to unpack everything that's going on
in there. Well, you know what to me, honestly, as
a good little Christian boy watching all this stuff happen,
then noticing the giant Idol that was also a part
of the set, and it led to like the backstage
area where the actors, singers or whatever could go and
(23:57):
hide while they weren't performing. And we're talking towering. This
thing was towering over everybody. There was a ton of
fire involved during this. There's a lot of pyrotechnics. Yes,
so much, dude. In the moment, I didn't think about it,
but afterwards I think I took part in some kind
of Disney sponsored ritual that altered time and space as
(24:21):
we know it. I'm pretty sure something happened that night.
You you opened some gates, you helped. Yeah, I mean yeah,
if you think about like a pagan ritual, it looks
a lot like what what you guys did. Hey, look man,
I was just there. Okay, Oh I think maybe maybe
(24:41):
you guys stopped y two K from happening. It was like, no,
this is this was January thirtieth, Okay, okay, so thirty
days post everybody crapping themselves in their windows ninety five machines.
What a dumb thing that was. Oh, the economy is
gonna cra that's because the computers are going to go
(25:01):
to zero. Everybody go buy canned food were sample. Okay,
so we gotta jump back. Everybody ready, We're jumping back
to rehearsal night. Yea, we are. We're getting ready. I've
got my helmet, I've caught my sticks. My dad is
there and my mom, they're both there. My dad is
(25:24):
so excited because he is going to assist in the
backstage area in getting Phil collins Zizz drummer out like
the drum set physically out to the stage on Super
Bowl night. Wow. And we're huge fans of Phil Collins
by the way. Yeah, my dad's a singer. I like singing,
(25:44):
I like playing drums. It's just kind of fit. Um.
I mean, one of the most famous drum fills of
all time is from in the Air Tonight, And but
I think he plays Doesn't Phil Collins play the drums
in that? Yes? Yeah, well, well you know what, honestly,
I can't I can't say that with full certainty. I
don't know if he plays the drums on that part.
But yeah, I just I love that stuff. My dad
(26:07):
was so excited. We get everything out on to the
field the night before to test the thing, to do
a rehearsal, and they play that track again. That we've
been rehearsing with. And I was like, Okay, well they're
playing that track again. That's a little weird. Why does
my drums still have the mesh head on it? That's weird.
We go through the whole performance and rehearse again. I
(26:28):
still think we're in rehearsal mode. Wait, man, they're gonna
have to rehead these drums. Like that's gonna take a while.
I guess I'll do it overnight. Then we you know,
But I'm still freaked out. But everything is magical, right,
Like Enrique Iglesia says in his song, maybe performs a
magical tomorrow lives inside of you. And that's what I felt.
And I can't believe he said that. He said that.
(26:50):
He's saying that to Christina Aguilar. All right, So it's
now Super Bowl night, Yeah, and we're all there and
we're so excited. We are marching out, you know, all
the groups like on the sidelines getting ready. The football
has almost ended. I love it. We haven't talked about
(27:11):
the football at I don't I don't even know who played,
who played. I don't know Rams, Titan, Rams, Tights. Sure, football,
it's great, I just don't know anything about it, but
Ramstein's played. It was halftime. We all get out and
then everything goes dark in the stadium except for you know,
some specific lights. The stuff has moved out, all these
(27:32):
huge pieces of the giant idol, all the fireworks. We
all march out there. I do, I do trip. Oh
And by the way, I lost my helmet at one
point backstage, and they had to get me a new
one because I completely misplaced it somewhere because there are
all these hats and I was like, well, that's not mine,
that's not mine, that's something I know. God, where's my helmet?
I have the spiky one. That's that's a bird, that's
a mirror bird helmet, that's a frag rock helmet. Oh God,
(27:55):
where did I put my silver spikey helmet. Whoever the
stage managers are for this too, must just be losing
their minds, like wrangling cats. Like all right, all of
you ninth grader is in your like silver light crowds,
spandex outfits, please, like stand in line over here. I
lost my hat. But if we'd only rehearse this, you
(28:18):
know a handful of times for a big rehearsal like this,
I thought, Oh, man, you gotta do this for a
month at least. Yeah, but no, we hadn't. So then
we're there running out. We're getting out there. I trip
at one point, and it's I tell myself it's because
I saw Christina Aguilera, because I did. But I don't
know if that's why I tripped around. I'm just clumsy,
but I did trip. And I feel like I've embellished
(28:38):
that story over time, where it's like Chris, like I
saw Christina and I fell, and then she looked at
me and thought it was funny. I don't think she
saw me. She went crafting. Yeah, she did a little
finger gun that ship, and it makes me feel better.
But that's a that's a fabrication, I believe um. But
then we get out there and we're ready for the performance.
(29:00):
Drumhead is still the fake drumhead, and I'm looking around
at everybody. I'm like, oh, I guess we're just doing
it this way. And I realized this whole thing is
on tape and we're just sitting out here in front
of thousands and thousands of people and in front of
millions of people on the television, and we're just pretending.
We're just pretending to do a thing, and I realize
(29:22):
it's a lie as it's beginning, and I'm just going,
oh no, what, nothing's real, nothing matters. Due it was
such I can't emphasize enough how mind blowing that was
for me to see behind the curtain. I've never seen
behind any curtains before. This is a pretty big curtain
(29:44):
to take a peep of it. Yes, you're like Phil
Collins was five foot one, what the hell? No, But
it wasn't even that. It was watching the stage. And
then on those video screens, Edward James almost his face
comes up and he starts delivering that speech once again,
as it does every thousand years. The game we have
time is open and all this stuff, and on stage
(30:07):
there's a guy standing on stage that is not Edward
James almost, he's almost Edward James. Also, he's Edward James
almost almost. But so that's like, weird me out. Then
Christina Aguilar Enrique come out and they start mouthing the words.
They start lip syncing on national television on a huge
(30:29):
this huge thing, and they're just and I'm just let
sinking there for you, and they said, the future is coming.
You gotta catch it. If you can. Yeah, but they're
not actually they're they're just mouthing that. Then everybody else
does their performances. It's crazy. It actually looks great. If
(30:52):
you like what the spiky drummers are doing. They're doing
these weird lean back moves. They me we um. The
choir is some weird things. It makes their flowy gowns
look funny, look cool. It looks crazy kind of cool.
But then I thought about the orchestra, and there's this
(31:12):
entire full orchestra down there in tuxedos, and they're just
pretending too. And then I thought, this can't be a ritual.
If we were actually playing drums, if we were actually
like chanting these things into the ether, if if almost
was there saying those words with the fire and the idol,
(31:32):
if Phil Collins was actually on that riser going up
towards the Idol's head as the fireworks happened, maybe that
would be a ritual. If the human sacrifice was real
and the blood was real, then maybe we would have
opened the gates the gateway. It could have been a
real cremation of care. And if you if you don't
know what that is, look up, look up. The Bohemian
(31:53):
Club and the Bohemian Grove. It's a giant owl and
fake human sacrifice. The presidents take part in. It's fun
and it's real. Now I know what you're talking about. Yeah, yeah,
I don't know. Will I just I feel like I
had to tell you some of this because it's it
was just the strangest thing I've ever done, And I
(32:14):
can't believe somehow, by this weird set of circumstances, I
got to be a part of it. But now I'm
worried that I was a part of it. And how
it's yeah, how it's affected the next millennium. Yeah, what
did we do? I don't know, Like it's gotten weird
since then. Yeah, I have two thousand and one. I
(32:37):
think things really took a turn. Yeah. So if we
if we were you know, if we were taking part
of that ritual for positive things, like they said, we're
going to celebrate the future hand in hand, Yeah, I don't.
I feel like we messed up. We messed up a
part of it. This is a hot take here, but
I think Osama bin Laden was watching that and he
(33:00):
was like, fuck these guys, oh my and then and
now that's why I think you guys caused nine to eleven.
That's what I'm saying. It's look, it's a bold statement,
but I think, uh, Disney caused nine to eleven? Hot?
Oh oh super hot. Take and you realized it right
(33:24):
in the middle. You're like, oh my god, what am
I a part of? Where's my hat? Why? Christina is
not real? She's just a hologram. Edward James almost is here.
I don't even like football. What have I done? Yeah?
But it was a positive message. It was the crazing
to me is how positive it was and how um
almost naive it felt. And when you watch it now,
(33:45):
like really, when you watch it now, it feels like
a naive, positive vision of what the world and the
earth and you know, all of the countries working together,
all the people, all the voices singing together. It feels
like our cynicism has increased to such an extent that
watching this feels insane. But in the moment on national television,
(34:10):
everybody was just like, oh, yeah, it's Disney cool. I mean,
it was a beautiful ideal, you know, it was it
was the idealist vision of what the new millennium was
going to look like, and it was it was it
was beautiful and super naive, I mean really didn't know
what was right around the corner. Yeah. But and then
(34:33):
with times it reminds me of how devastating September eleven
was because there was this kind of spirit maybe that existed,
It was floating around magically, and it feels like that
thing just got knocked right out yep in hours. Um,
(34:54):
that's weird to think about. It's weird how I somehow
wove nine to eleven into this. That's gonna be my
new my new thing in this story Time season. It's like,
how can I bring up nine to eleven every episode? Well,
that reminds me a lot of nine to eleven? God Man,
(35:14):
who won the game? I don't know. I don't know.
Probably the ram what is it? Rams? And who Titans? Packers, Titans? Okay,
sure it must have been the Titans because we remember them, right, Yeah,
never forget the Titans. I think that's the same. Yeah,
So like that, I honestly don't know. I could have
(35:35):
looked that up. I should probably should have. No, I'll
never know. I like, I like I just like the
idea of you being backstage, just like reality is really
sucker punched. You in the gut and you just don't.
You're like, I don't care about anything anymore, Like nothing's real.
This drum isn't real. Like no, I was just worried
about my hat until I was out there, and then
(35:56):
it all just hit me like a ton of bricks.
Where's my hat? I tripped in front of Christina Acilara.
I'm wearing silver spandex. This does sound like a ninth
grader's nightmare. Yeah, but see then I went on every Friday,
almost every Friday, to put on a weird stinkin suit,
to strap on a snare drum and march around in
(36:19):
front of all my schoolmates in between probably awesome games
of football that I didn't watch, didn't care about with
all the cool like the awesome cool people in my
school who were playing the games and cheering for the
games and in the stands. But I did go tappy
tap tap like pretty well. Okay, so first, last, best, worst?
(36:46):
What was your first job? My first job was working
at the Piedmont Driving Club in Atlanta, Georgia, which is
a world renowned, very old private club like a health club,
a long time driving club. I pictured like, oh, we
drive cars around like come to the Driving Club and
(37:07):
we'll drive your car. It is like that, but think
the eighteen hundreds because when this club was formed, and
there's a right next to it, it's kind of on
the edge of this place called Piedmont Park in Atlanta.
It's huge public park and before it was that public park,
of the people who were members of this club would
drive their carriages around, right, their carriages around with the
(37:30):
little lake that's there. And I guess, I don't know,
you frolic sometimes whatever I do, I don't know what
you do. Drink lemonade out of jars and play Cat's Cradle. Sure,
and you you delineate you know the property lines right,
you and all your cohorts owned right and like slavery
was just abolished, so like that's new. Huh what? Yeah,
(37:54):
it was. It was a rollicking time there at the
Piedmont Driving Club back then. When I got there, my
dad worked for them. Don't want to give too many specifics,
but he worked for them. He was he was employed
by them, but he wasn't like a part of the club,
if that makes sense, right. So I went there to
be a snack bar. I don't know what you call it,
like it's kind of like a server but behind a
stack bar, so kind of like fast food. Yeah, it
(38:16):
was outside the pool. Okay, a little pool pool snack boy.
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, because this place is like a
health club, but it doesn't have a golf course at
that time. It doesn't have a golf course associated with it,
which is very weird because there are a ton of
these private clubs in Atlanta and cities across the United
States where the main thing is the golf club and
then you like do other stuff there too. Yeah, in
(38:38):
this case, it's like Jim Spa that kind of stuff.
Squash courts were huge there. So I'm working there outside
the pool. It's hot, it's summer. It's just a summer job.
I'm a kid. I think I'm in eleventh grade. Maybe Okay,
you've already been You've already performed at the super Bowl
at this point, so yes, you're kind of hot. Shit.
Oh yeah, man, I kept my spiked helmet. I would
(39:00):
like leave it behind the counter and if anybody, you know,
you know, just got a little mouthy, I'd be like,
oh yeah, yeah yeah. All the girls around the pool
be like that's Matt. He played the drums for Christina
Aguilera and Edward James almost he's an exceptional employee. So
it's very weird working for this place. And what I
(39:21):
remember learning there. I guess it was my first job.
It meant a lot to me though, because it was
the first time I really got to see the way
the ultra wealthy live. Yeah, like the top of that
one percent cream stuff that rises up there. Yeah, because
with this place, you had to have my salary that
(39:42):
I make right now, get the pay that like on
a yearly basis just to hang out with them, yeah,
you know, just to gain access to this, to this
pool yeah, and squash court. Yeah. And then every month
they've got a lease facilities and all these restaurants, including
the snack bar yeah, where you can get prepackaged peanut
butter and jelly sandwiches at any time for eighteen dollars. Yeah.
(40:07):
Well you don't have to pay a thing because when
you're inside the club, you just give your member number
and then all of that it cruise up and you
got to pay that on a monthly basis, and you
have to pay a certain amount every month or you're
out of here. What a racket. But I got to
watch how they live, and I got to watch how
you know different people when you're at that status, you know,
(40:32):
on a society level, on economic level, how you treat
quote the help like me, like the people who are
there just working for you, right or performing a service
for you, And the vast difference between someone who values
just other people, other humans and people who just you know,
(40:52):
view me us as cogs in this machine that they've
got built for them. Yeah, it was very, very meaningful
for me. It's not really a great story, no, I
I but it is a it is a life lesson
that you know, it definitely had an impact on you.
I mean, I feel like everyone at some point needs
to work in the service industry because I think people
(41:12):
who are unkind to servers or waiters or anyone in
the service industry, I think there there's scum for the
scum of the earth. It's it's terrible because I want
to have empathy for those people too, Like I want
to understand what's going through their minds when when like
I want to psychologically analyze that, like why why would
you treat someone like that? That doesn't make sense to me.
(41:33):
That's one of the reasons I love making true crime
shows with the Tenderfoot and some of those you know,
those other guys, because it's just we get to analyze
the human brain and why it does things. Yeah, okay,
so that was that was the first job. So that's
my first job. Okay, last job as your current job. Yes,
last job is being I was an intern at How
(41:55):
Stuff Works in two thousand six. Wow. Oh yeah, so
you've been sixteen years, same job, so though, I mean, yep,
I'm gonna maybe assume that that's also the best job. Yeah. Yeah,
but I want to get you in trouble. That's fine, No,
it is, for sure. I was an intern videographer, video editor,
(42:18):
video producer, senior video producer. What was the next one?
Then we became podcasts only because I was all video
for a long time. I have a video degree. And
then it became, you know, podcast producer, supervising producer, executive producer,
and podcast host. So being a podcast host I think
(42:40):
is my favorite sub version of my last job. Yeah.
But look at that, I mean that ladder that you've
just climbed up from intern all the way up to
being here on hashtag story time. Yeah. Man, I ripped
those rungs away. So no, one else could come up
behind me. Just burn you burn that bridge behind you
as you cross. No. No, that's one of the great
(43:03):
stories about How Stuff Works, honestly, and the group of
people with whom I work, because I mean I could
name so many people right now that started as interns
at how Stuff Works in you know, before twenty ten.
Several of them I ended up meeting in college. Like
we are, our world's just kind of intersected. We all
ended up working there. A bunch of people like Annie,
(43:26):
like Ben who have been working with me since we
were babies, basically where we were look like kids were
our early twenties and just watching us grow as a family.
No matter who acquired us, it's been pretty pretty stinking great. Yeah,
And for any of the listeners out there, How Stuff
Works was acquired by iHeart in when was it twenty nineteen?
(43:50):
I think nineteen and basically became the podcasting division and
department of all of I Heeart yep. Okay, So that
that would be first, kind of last, and bet so,
what would be the worst job that you've had? The
worst job I ever had was being caretaker for my
dog Buddy. I consider this kind of a job because
(44:14):
this is a sad one. Yeah, I can already already
this little already break well, get ready. He's this little
docks in terrier um, tiny little guy, huge body, way
too big, kind of plump, tiny little legs, adorable face.
He's got like he looks like a little wizard, a
little scruffy looking face, kind of Brindley. He was the
(44:36):
first dog I ever I ever had with my wife
at the time. And he's got this back man and
it's too heavy in the middle, and every time he
would jump up and down from a couch, it was
like tiny little you know, like a needle or like
a single little cut, you know, imagine a thousand cuts.
And one day I came home from a band rehearsal.
(44:57):
I was playing in a band called Lions and Scissors,
which was just this really weird, cool radioheadlike band in Atlanta.
Cool man and came, Yeah, it was weird. I think
it should have been Lions in Sizers instead of Lions
and Sissums, inc, I think, But again, either way, whatever,
it was an awesome band. Did you wear your spiky
helmet in that band? Every time? Sick? Every touch sick?
(45:24):
But I came home from rehearsal was pretty late and
he was usually good at the house alone. When I
opened the door, he was sitting funny and I didn't
understand what's going on, and he couldn't move his back legs.
So after a bunch of calls like late night figuring
out what's going on, taking him to an emergency VET,
we find out that he needs surgery and we can't
(45:45):
afford it. But we find out that at University of
Georgia in Athens, Georgia, they have like students who are
in the veterinary program who will do things like that
for a way cheaper. It's a little more risky, I guess,
but there are still people who are learning and you know,
this is like one of their big tests, you know,
can I actually do this? So we decided to try that.
(46:07):
He got his surgery and he was still paralyzed and
we weren't We weren't sure what was going to happen.
It was just compression, by the way, it was just
like disc compression that was pressing so hard in this
one area that I know with with blows docins and
with with corgis, they have hit hip displasia. That that
(46:28):
which is why you see, I feel like a lot
of those dogs with the little carts that kind of
take their take the weight and carry the back legs.
But in this case with this guy, what I had
to do with Diana at the time is we had catheters,
like physical little catheters, because he couldn't control his urine
or so I had to physically put a catheter in him,
(46:50):
like all day long. I had to do this to
make sure he always had gone to the bathroom. And man,
that was like, first of all, it's an uncomfortable thing
to do, right, to shove something up your dog's private party.
Then to express, I had to phys physically express the
bladder and I do that for a long time. But
guess what that little dude about a month later, I
(47:11):
went out to get the trash cans. You take the
trash can out to the edge of the street, bring
it back. Went out to get the trash can, and
he like, I brought him with me and set him
down out there on the street, and for the first
time in over a month, he like kind of moved
his legs around and then he ran to Diana. It
was amazing, and he recovered after that, and he was
(47:32):
totally fine, oh yep, and he lasted for like, Okay,
I'm glad, I'm glad that that six story had a
happy ending. I was like, I don't know if we
can end the podcast exactly. Well, the lesson is, even
when you get, you know, really injured, you can recover,
You can cover, you can recover from anything. And I'm
(47:52):
still recovering from the ritual. You know that Disney put
you through I don't know what you call it, put
me through too, but ricked you into it lies one
step at a time. Well, I'm glad. I'm glad you
didn't have to stay at that job long and that
you got out of it right all right, Well, Matt,
(48:15):
that was awesome. Thanks for listening to hashtag storytime. Huge
shout out to Matt Frederick for coming on the pod.
If you're a fan of The Unexplained, then check out
Matt's podcast stuff they don't want you to know links
in the description. Please take literally two seconds right now,
grab your phone and hit the follow buttons so you
don't miss next week's episode with McCall Marabella. Because Max
(48:38):
and I we had played so many Wougie boards in
the past, so we were like pros yeah, I was ready,
And basically through some conversation we realized that we were
talking to a spirit named Zach and he was a
little boy who lived in my house. Is what he said. Nope, no,
I'm out. I'm already out. I would already like kid,
(49:01):
ghosts silly are the scariest ghosts. Oh, he was kind
of nice. He was friendly. If you're enjoying the podcast,
please leave us a review. It helps us out a
lot and I literally read every single one of them.
If today's episode made you think of your own story,
I want to hear it. Call the Storytime hotline at
three two, three, seven, four one, eighteen seventy three and
(49:22):
tell us your story to be featured on an upcoming
Listener Tales episode. And if you just can't get enough Storytime,
give us a follow on the gram at storytime dot
pod or on TikTok at Storytime dot podcast hashtag. Storytime
is produced by iHeartRadio and Curativity Productions. Hosted by Will McFadden,
sound designed by Tony maddox, written by Will McFadden and
Jason Shapiro, Produced by Jason Shapiro, Daniel Lama, and Jordan
(49:44):
Elijah Michael. Theme song by Scott Simons,
Host
Will McFadden
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