December 25, 2024 • 29 mins
In this conversation, radio host Tony Katz shares insights about his journey in the media industry, his passion for bourbon and cigars, and the importance of personal growth and introspection. He discusses the evolution of his career, the challenges he faced, and how he found happiness through honesty and self-reflection. The conversation also touches on family, mortality, and the joy of pursuing one's passions. The Karol Markowicz Show is part of the Clay travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Wednesday & Friday.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Marcowitz Show on iHeartRadio.
A few days ago, this big story broke involving a squirrel.
A guy in New York State had taken a squirrel
and a raccoon as a pet and put them on
the internet. Peanut the squirrel became an Internet sensation, had
(00:27):
half a million followers, and people just loved that little guy.
Then a few days ago, the Department of Environmental Conservation
seized Peanut and the raccoon named Fred, from owner Mark
Lungo's home. He had an animal sanctuary in rural Pine City,
(00:48):
New York. They then euthanized the animals. So they take
the animals from this guy's house where he films himself
snuggling with this squirrel and kissing the squirrel constantly, and
they're just like best friends, and they kill him. They
kill the squirrel. A lot of people were outraged, me included. Now,
(01:10):
I think it's important to note that I hate squirrels.
I am not into them at all. I have an
animal loving mom who saves turtles and you know, feeds
stray cats, and she used to feed the squirrels on
my balcony in Brooklyn and I was very anti that
(01:31):
whole thing. They're really gross, They're gross, they're vicious. I mean,
I think the only animal I dislike more than squirrels
are pigeons. Just itw But coming into someone's home and
taking away their animal who isn't bothering anyone, scares me,
and I think it's scared a lot of people who
(01:52):
heard the story. And I've seen a lot of commentary
around this go something like people are more concerned about
squirrels and they are about blank could be you know anything.
I saw high grocery prices, the border death and gaza, etc.
But I want to say that I found it very
encouraging that people cared about the insane thing that happened
(02:14):
with this squirrel. We can't culturally accept that kind of
action from our government. If they do that, what else
can they come and do? As I like to say,
this show is not about politics, and it's not the
politics of this that bothers me. It's not that it
happened in New York. If it happened in a red state,
(02:35):
I'd be just as mad. Where in this time where
people tell me they can't sleep because they're so worried
about what's going on in our country, and I really
think that small stories like this squirrel story really exacerbates that.
Silly as that may sound, we need to be able
to count on things going a certain way, and the
(02:57):
government coming to your home and seizing and you're, yes,
weird but harmless pet should not happen, and then killing
that pet is just really crossing the line. I told
my kids' story, and they wondered, why didn't they just
set the animals free? After all? The whole concern supposedly
was that their wild animals and shouldn't be living in
(03:19):
someone's home, right, Why kill them? I worry about the
future of the country with stories like that. I really
do people need to know what to expect During COVID,
I just wanted normal seedback and we were willing to
move to Florida to get it. People need normal, They
crave normal. I think stories like this move us away
(03:42):
from normal, move us away from knowing what to expect,
and that really harms our country overall. I'd love to
hear your thoughts. Drop me an email, Carol Markowitz Show
at gmail dot com. Ka r O L M A
R kow I c isn't charlie' z as and ZBrush
at gmail dot com. Coming up next and interview with
(04:03):
Tony Katz. Join us after the break.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Welcome back to the Carol Marcowitz Show on iHeartRadio. My
guest today is radio host Tony Katz.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
How's it going?
Speaker 4 (04:16):
It is going well.
Speaker 5 (04:17):
I didn't know if David Marcus rules applied and whether
or not I could smoke.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Dry you could totally smoke. Go ahead.
Speaker 4 (04:23):
Have you done an interview with David Marcus?
Speaker 2 (04:25):
I have, and I discouraged him from smoking, just because
I like picking on him.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
But yeah, he smoked pretty much the whole way through.
Speaker 4 (04:33):
Okay, But but.
Speaker 5 (04:35):
He's a cigarette smoker and he needs to. I'm a
cigar smoker, right.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
So tell me about your Before we got on, you
were telling me you have three radio shows, which you know,
I would say, seems like a lot. But I have
two podcasts now, so I get it. So tell us
about your shows.
Speaker 5 (04:53):
There used to be a time in radio where you
could do just one show and feel like you made
a living and feel like you know everything's gonna all right.
Speaker 4 (05:01):
It's a tenuous world, it is radio.
Speaker 5 (05:03):
So I'm the morning host of ninety three point one
FMWIBC in Indianapolis. I've been doing the morning show here
for ten years, and then I am I'm the host
of something called Tony Kats Today, which is nationally syndicated.
We're we're in Memphis, We're in Tulsa, here in Indianapolis,
throughout Indiana. We then share the show on weekends, and
(05:24):
then I host the which started as a hobby because
I'm a cigar guy, Eat Drink Smoke, which is the
largest cigar in bourbon radio review program in the country.
We're on eighty eight stations across the country on weekends,
myself and Fingers Below, who is a Joy and a
treat of a man.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
And that's led to books on barbecue and bourbon, and
you know.
Speaker 5 (05:46):
Just a very idea of I have a hobby, I
like this thing, I talk about this thing, and then
it turned into kind of turned into a business.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
Turned out that's the best, right.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
That is actually when magic happens when you can talk
about something that you love to talk about and make
money from it. I love bourbon also, I'm actually I'm
more into rye. Do you is it all brown liquors
or do you limit to bourbon?
Speaker 4 (06:08):
Rye is Rye is unsung in Indiana. It is. It
is the drink.
Speaker 5 (06:14):
Yeah, I'm much more a fan of Midwest Rise and
let's say East Coast Rise. I'm not as much of
a whistle pig guy as I am some of the
other things.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Me, some of your favorites, I need, I need some recommendations.
Speaker 4 (06:25):
See that that's unfair.
Speaker 5 (06:26):
Favorite is I can give you recommendations, but I can't.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
I can't rank Pikesville.
Speaker 5 (06:33):
I think every liquor cabinet should have Pikesvill Rye in it.
I think that is absolutely unsung. A spectacular, spectacular drink
out of Indiana. There's some guys called Hard Truth, which
is down in Nashville, Indiana, Brown County, which is a beautiful,
beautiful spot.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
You guys have a Nashville right.
Speaker 5 (06:52):
It's there is no Broadway, no no girls going, none
of I can. I'm over if you need it, but no,
please please, There's.
Speaker 4 (07:02):
Only so much of that one can handle. Uh. So
they do some great work because they do it.
Speaker 5 (07:06):
They do a sweet mash rye, which is you know
they're not they're not using a starter, They're doing it
fresh every time. So as far as Rise, those two
I think should be in liquor cabinets all.
Speaker 4 (07:19):
Over the place.
Speaker 5 (07:19):
But no, it's it's not just it's not just brown
liquor rum is fantastic with a cigar and people never
ever put it together.
Speaker 4 (07:27):
Bamboo b u M b u.
Speaker 5 (07:29):
If you've never had a bamboo rum with a cigar,
I think is great. We we just did an Irish
whiskey that was absolutely spectacular, kind of like apple and
pear pie.
Speaker 4 (07:45):
Mixed with butter. It was.
Speaker 5 (07:47):
Yeah, I'm not an Irish whisky guy at all. That
is not where I feel. It's like Japanese whiskey that
is just not it's not enjoyable. But no, it's it's
it's more about just being able to taste and get
an idea of what it's like. What is an artist
trying to do? It's like the cigar, this is this
is art, right? What was the plan here? What's the
thinking here? And kind of exploring what they're all about.
(08:11):
And I'm much more of a cigar person than a
drinker by any stretch.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
I don't have to finish the drink. I will finish
the cigar.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
What kind of cigar are you smoking today?
Speaker 5 (08:18):
So this is an oliva or sometimes pronounced Oliva. I
leave it to others. The Suri v this is the Millennia,
which is not Millennia. This says nothing to do with Trump.
Speaker 4 (08:27):
It's just just not.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
A bad business idea. The Millennia.
Speaker 4 (08:30):
Say someone hasn't done Trump cigars already.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
Oh, I'm sure they have.
Speaker 5 (08:34):
You know, they haven't created an eight inch cigar and
just called it huge. That has to have happened. I
like this is a pretty moderately priced cigar. The regular
seriv is probably about ten eleven bucks. This is probably
about seventeen. But I find it to be a very easy,
all purpose smoke, no matter what you're doing, when you're
doing coffee, whether you're doing bourbon, whether you're doing a
diet coke, which is a nice clean way to cleanse
(08:56):
the pallet each time without affecting flavor of the cigars.
It's it's it's in the humand or constantly. But it
isn't my every day It's just what I happen to
pick right now.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Can you see yourself getting into the business of maybe
a bourbon or a cigar or something.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
I had Michael Knowles on the show. He has his
own cigar.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Company now, Clay and Buck my my overlords here at iHeart.
They started a coffee company. I think people are kind
of branching out. Can you see yourself doing that?
Speaker 5 (09:24):
I think that is it's the business and the brand
and the concept of the brand, and I think we're
all in it and it gets very very strange and
very odd. I know Carol Markowitz from the New York Post.
Now it's Carol Markwitz from the podcast, and soon will
be Carol Markwitz from the stage show New re enacting
(09:46):
the life of Elaine Strich. That's clearly what's coming. For
those who don't know Elaine Strich, you might have to
go to Google and check that out.
Speaker 4 (09:56):
Yeah, so I'm doing I did when COVID started.
Speaker 5 (10:01):
I did a rye whiskey called Recovery Rock and we
raised money for hospitality workers impacted because of closures. Right,
So myself and a guy who owns a cigar lounge,
Corey Johnston, and a group called Backbone Bourbon and we
did this and it did very very well, tens of
thousands of dollars, and was thrilled to do it. I
have coming out in the end of November my first
(10:22):
barrel pick that I did with Hotel Tango Distillery. Vetteran
owns here in Indianapolis a ten year, so I've.
Speaker 4 (10:28):
Got a ten year barrel pick.
Speaker 5 (10:29):
And now it's a conversation of doing a collaboration on
a bourbon and a series of bourbons really kind of
focusing on what they refer to as orphan barrels, this
idea that this barrel never got sold or this barrel
turn out the way people want it.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
Well, what if you did this and mixed it with that?
Speaker 5 (10:47):
What if there's an idea here, What if there's something
here that's just perfect on its own, uncut, and just
just get it out to people and let them try it.
And I think that it's all part of it is
all part of joy, right, being able to do like
I did the podcast, Eat Drink, Smoke because I wanted
to an escape from the politics, and then it became
its its own thing.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
That is that is, that is lightning and a lightning
in a bottle. Lovely. But it's never it's not necessarily
about the money.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Being a capitalist, why not, you know, why not make
money along the way.
Speaker 4 (11:17):
There's no way I agree with you. Why not make
make money?
Speaker 5 (11:20):
Sponsorships now available, But it's it wasn't the driver. It's
never been the driver. The doing, to me is much
more interesting than than the rest.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
I would argue that I I'd probably.
Speaker 5 (11:34):
Be further along in a career, more financially successful in
a career if I had made some of those moves.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
But I kind of like just doing the stuff.
Speaker 5 (11:45):
Doing the stuff is kind of fun and let the
chips fall where they may. So, uh, Doing a cigar
is far different than doing a bourbon. You've got a
lot of people out there that you could work with,
reach out to and do something in a collab aborative effort,
and then use whatever platform you have to try and
get it sold. A cigar is only going to go
(12:06):
as far as the people who sell the cigar or
can push it, because they're gonna buy the box and
then they have to sell the twenty cigars that are inside.
There has to be something worthwhile, a story that they're
going to buy into and believe and share, and it
has to actually be good in order for those cigar
lounges to do it.
Speaker 4 (12:25):
So you know, you can.
Speaker 5 (12:28):
You can gimmick a cigar from now to the end
of time. And there are a lot of people in
the celebrity world who get in cigars? Those people are
gonna suss it out. You can't get you can gimmick bourbon.
A Snoop can give me gin and juice all you want,
and and Ryan Reynolds can get lucky as bloody heck
with Aviator Gin. Fantastic marketing. I'll leave the gin to
(12:48):
others what George Clooney did with tequila. Remember, no one's
made more money than Sammy Hagar with Kabba Loabo. I
mean that guy is the originator for sure. But people
will do it for the kitch, not a cigar. Cigar
has to be good and I haven't yet just decided
on the cigar maker.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
Well, I would.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Smoke the Tony Cats. If you make it, I will
smoke it.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
So I pledge that to.
Speaker 4 (13:11):
You right here. Do you smoke cigars?
Speaker 2 (13:14):
I mean occasionally, I'm not like, I don't think I
would do it at ten twenty am on a Wednesday.
Speaker 5 (13:20):
Well then I'll I'll do it just to say cut
time and that's a great lighter.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
But yeah, yeah, I absolutely you know, late night with
a whiskey?
Speaker 3 (13:29):
Sure? Why not?
Speaker 4 (13:31):
What do you drink? Is?
Speaker 5 (13:32):
What is the Carol Markoitz end of the day. I've
told people how great Florida is.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Well, once I've gotten through that, you know, I don't
drink as much.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
As I'd like.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
I know everybody talks about drinking drinking less. No, but
it's true, Like my bar has really grown, and my
husband and I are always like, oh, we should drink more.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
We just don't remember to do it. But again, I'm
a whiskey person.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Like if I go to an event and it's like
red or white wine, like kill me right there. And
I would say my most controversial opinion is that wine
is bad. So I get a lot of flack on
the Twitter X for that. It's just whiskey is so
much better. It's just it's a different universe.
Speaker 4 (14:10):
So all right, but what is this?
Speaker 3 (14:13):
I would say, you know, in a in a bar
where I know they're going to have it.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Woodford Rye is sort of the one that I would
go for. I love four Roses. I I do like
whistle Pig. You know, I like all those Kentucky brands,
so you know, I like.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
The fancy stuff too. I drink all kinds of Wellers.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
And my husband, when I had my third kid, he
got me a bottle of pappies.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
I mean, you know, we do it right.
Speaker 5 (14:40):
Also, so on the pappy side, the well Or twelve
I think is a brilliant, brilliant bourbon. You don't have
to spend the pappy money. The four Roses a great pick,
The small back Select I think is exquisite. And on Woodford,
Elizabeth McCall would be a great interview. She's she's now
(15:01):
the master distiller there. She's tremendous, and they do not
only the Rye is good, but the Woodford double oaked
and there isn't small batches, the double double oaked spectacular.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
Really all right, I have to check that out.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
So how did you get into the radio world before
you even had the show about the whiskey and the
food and the cigars. What was the first step into
this kind of landscape going broke?
Speaker 5 (15:32):
I had moved to Los Angeles to start a tech
company with a friend of mine, fraternity brother still dearest
friend in the world.
Speaker 4 (15:42):
And this was when the bailouts came.
Speaker 5 (15:44):
In two thousand and eight and two thousand and nine,
and anybody who was an investor was running for cover
trying to figure out which end was up and lost
our funding and I lost I had to short sell
my house back in Florida Tampa Bay at the time,
and spent a year trying to figure out which end
(16:05):
was up. And as this was happening, the tea party
was coming into existence, and I started that I was
one of those original people and did that first rally
in California on the Santa Monica Pier, which is a
weird place to have a tea party, yeah for sure,
but on the on those steps right at the end
of the pier, that was that was me in the
first word, spoken at a tea party in California and
(16:27):
did that for a while and said I wanted to
have these conversations, but I didn't want to make money
off these people. I wasn't gonna be a guy printing
T shirts or anything like that. So I knew of
a radio station where I'd done a little bit of
work in Clearwater, Florida, and I bought the time, and
I bought an hour a day and did the show
from California on Skype Wow Los Angeles, and that's and
(16:51):
that's how I got started. That's how I started my
my my radio career. And it was right around the
time where Arizona was.
Speaker 4 (17:01):
Was having this law SB ten seventy.
Speaker 5 (17:04):
You have a lawful stop, you can ask the person
you stopped what country they're from. People were upset and
they were saying boycott Arizona and don't do conventions in Arizona.
And Congress members from Arizona was saying this. I thought
this was nuts. I started offering free advertising to Arizona businesses, which.
Speaker 4 (17:23):
I mean California. The shows in Florida today make sense.
Speaker 5 (17:26):
A guy I know, John I haven't spoken to in
a great number of years, had run the story on
his website and some other people put the word out
and then Kavudo called and three days later I'm doing
the Okavudo Show, my first time on Fox ever.
Speaker 4 (17:41):
And that was the start of the career.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
I'll be right back with more from Tony kat.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
So.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
A question that I ask all of my guests is
what advice would you give your sixteen year old self, Like,
do you still follow that path?
Speaker 3 (17:55):
Do you go into tech?
Speaker 4 (17:57):
No? No, I knew nothing about tech.
Speaker 5 (18:00):
Had a friend who was smarter than me, who had
a good idea, and I said, here's my money, and
I was willing to risk all my money and I did.
Speaker 4 (18:06):
I lost everything. In that my sixteen year old self.
Speaker 5 (18:13):
Was an extremely unhappy kid, an outrageously unhappy kid that
led to real depression in my twenties and being suicidal.
Speaker 4 (18:29):
It was a it was.
Speaker 5 (18:30):
An awful decade, sadly a wasted a decade. You know,
it is cliche to say it gets better, but I
would argue that you can get through this. It's just
going to take a lot of work. And maybe maybe
you want to recognize it a little bit earlier than
you did, and it'd be proactive about it if I
was giving myself that that advice. But the the also
(18:56):
maybe the idea that nobody knows anything.
Speaker 4 (18:59):
They all have advice, but no one knows.
Speaker 5 (19:01):
Crap, and and and try some things on your own
and see what works. It's okay, Failure's fine.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
Right, So how did you turn it around? I?
Speaker 5 (19:11):
Uh A have a spectacular wife, absolutely spectacular. I went
to a a wasn't a psychiatrist psychologist once once because
my wife had a job and it was covered by insurance,
and and I went and I went back a second
time and the guy was basically like, why are you here.
Speaker 4 (19:31):
I'm like, oh, all right, I must be fine. I
wasn't cured.
Speaker 5 (19:35):
Yeah, right, magic, I tell you is it's like taking
the collidal silver.
Speaker 4 (19:40):
You're heeled of all your ailments. I I certainly wasn't.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
I'm not sure I've ever heard of therapist turned down
clients before.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
But you must.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
You must have been a good one.
Speaker 5 (19:52):
I don't.
Speaker 4 (19:52):
I I it was. It was odd. As I look
back on it, it was very, very, very odd.
Speaker 5 (19:58):
But it it was a reminder that it was really
up to me. I saw something wrong, right, And that's
first recognizing that you're seeing something wrong. I should have
been more proactive. And the thing that turned me around,
which really didn't start working until my thirties, was I
stopped lying about everything. I never lied to another person again.
I never lied to myself about anything, not the smallest detail,
(20:23):
not how this shirt looked, not the fact that my
hair is total.
Speaker 4 (20:26):
I don't know what's what's there? I nothing.
Speaker 5 (20:29):
I don't lie about anything anywhere at any time.
Speaker 4 (20:33):
Let the chips wall where they may.
Speaker 5 (20:34):
And it really got me into this idea of don't
do things for the money, do things because they can
be done.
Speaker 4 (20:41):
Do the thing, try the thing if it doesn't work.
Speaker 5 (20:44):
Yeah, it's like in November November fourteenth, I'm gonna shameless plug.
I'm doing an event understanding the election in three bourbons, right,
so hopefully we'll have Electra results by then. I'm gonna
take it down for a crowd what happened in the
battlegrounds and in the Battle of the sexes and everything else.
Speaker 4 (21:00):
And we're gonna pair it with bourbon. And we've got food.
Where our cigars Afterwhere's the event? This is in Fishers, Indiana.
Speaker 5 (21:07):
You can go to tickets dot Tony Kats dot com,
tickets tot dot com.
Speaker 4 (21:10):
Thank you, I will fly you out, Carol. If you
want to be a part of.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
It, well, I will certainly consider that.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
I've never been to Indiana.
Speaker 4 (21:19):
Indiana in November.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
I'm not sure I have the warm clothes anymore.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
For that.
Speaker 5 (21:25):
Oh, we have goodwills and the willingness to give you
a sweater. These people are very friendly. That has been
years me saying I want to do a live event.
You know you talk about like Clay and Buck doing
the coffee and.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
Back at coffee check it out.
Speaker 4 (21:41):
You know, all these kinds of things. Do the thing.
I have no idea if this is gonna work. I
have no idea what it's gonna make money. I don't
know if people are gonna leave going.
Speaker 5 (21:49):
That sucked, or they're gonna say this was a great time.
If they leave saying it was a great time and
then they learned something, that's the win.
Speaker 4 (21:57):
Great time first, Right, that's gonna be tough. I just
liked the idea of doing and saying I have to
do this.
Speaker 5 (22:05):
I got to get this out of my system, get
it out of my soul, and so I now just
do anything I dang well.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
Please, I love it. So what do you worry about?
In whatever path? Do you think that question lead you?
Speaker 4 (22:18):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (22:21):
So, I mean you could argue some of the basic stuff. Right,
I have a family, I have children, and certainly concerns
for them in this world, in this society, without question
being Jewish, it's something that we both talk about on social.
Speaker 4 (22:38):
Media, noticeable than before, right, more noticeable than than ever before.
Speaker 5 (22:44):
You know. I used to argue that very often what
you saw was an anti semitism, it was moronism. Somebody
brought a swastik on a stop sign, right, and you're
down the street. They're not after Jews. They were a
smuck and they thought, oh this will this will be shocking.
It's it's you know, it's like pick the latest teeny
bopper star who thinks that getting undressed for a camera
(23:05):
is shocking.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
We grew up during Madonna. We've seen literally everything you.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
Made a how she made a whole book.
Speaker 5 (23:12):
You cannot you cannot surprise us in the slightest. But
I will tell you that maybe it's a function of age.
But over the last year death I part of the
whole depression thing was being obsessed with family members and
(23:35):
what would I do if they passed away? Like it's
a weird, odd thing to be to be a part
of it. How would I handle this? And how would
handle that? Like somehow you could control that, but I
couldn't control anything else in my life, which is part
of the depression. So I invented things that I could
grab control of. And it makes sense as a you
utilize that as a crutch, as a vehicle dealing with
(23:56):
the fact that mortality will come. And I the only
thing that has truly ever stuck with me on a
philosophical level from my father passed away in June. He said,
the worst part about the idea of passing away is
I want to see what happens next.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
Right, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5 (24:16):
That is that is as a matter of just take
a step back and have a sip of that, you know.
Speaker 4 (24:22):
Carol Mark, WIT's proved wry. I want to see what
happens next.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
Yeah, I want to see how things turn out.
Speaker 4 (24:28):
Yeah, it's all going to go on without me. That's
all going to go on without.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
That.
Speaker 4 (24:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (24:36):
So maybe worry is the wrong word. That has gotten
a lot of my attention lately.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
I think about that a lot.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
I was raised partially by my grandmother, who I just
was like, you know, obsessed with, and she died before
things got good. She died before I met my husband,
before my career took off.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
Before any of that happened.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
She died when I was largely like a drift, and
I wish she had gotten to see, you know, it
turned out okay, it went better than expected.
Speaker 3 (25:04):
So I you know, fully hear you?
Speaker 4 (25:07):
Yeah, I uh so, I don't.
Speaker 5 (25:09):
I don't know if I think the idea that I
do radio and I've done TV stuff and I've had
these interviews I.
Speaker 4 (25:16):
Think tickled my father to no end.
Speaker 5 (25:20):
And he lived in the in the villages, and I
am sure that everybody there heard, oh my son the
radio like it was like it was Jerry's father, you.
Speaker 4 (25:29):
Know, did you go in the public or just I
don't know.
Speaker 5 (25:35):
We didn't usually talk in that kind of way, so
I don't know have the ass but it's a it's
an interesting thought, uh, for for sure.
Speaker 4 (25:42):
But does it does it bother you?
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Do you?
Speaker 4 (25:44):
Is that something you obsess about?
Speaker 3 (25:46):
Obsessed about?
Speaker 2 (25:47):
No, but it is definitely like the regret, you know,
the regret of like my grandma didn't see that it
all turned out okay. Again, it was like I was.
I was in graduate school when she passed, so it
wasn't like I was completely a mess, but I I
had definitely been a mess in my twenties. And when
you were talking about that and you started with have
an amazing wife, I mean it was definitely my husband
(26:08):
also that turned my life around.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
And I think that I wish she had gotten to
see it. That's really that's it.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
I wish she had gotten to know that it was
all good and that my brother got married and had
two little girls and just all the whole picture of
like the family turned out okay, because when she died
it wasn't going that great.
Speaker 5 (26:27):
Yeah, that's a I think that's a relatable. I think
that people are going to understand that very very well.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
Definitely well. I've loved this conversation, Tony.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
I feel like we had laughs, we had sadness, We
really ran the gamut.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
You smoked the cigar.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
I wish I had to leave us here with your
best tip for my listeners on how they can improve
their lives.
Speaker 5 (26:51):
Oh, no pressure, No pressure from Marky Markowitz.
Speaker 4 (26:57):
Has anybody ever referred to as Marky Markowitz?
Speaker 3 (26:59):
We have? But I like it.
Speaker 4 (27:02):
Copyright. Remember that, that's right.
Speaker 5 (27:06):
I don't know how you're supposed to lead a good life.
It's like, what's the best cigar? Hell if I know,
I don't know you. I don't live in your taste buds.
I have no idea what your palette is. I think
maybe the question is, have you asked yourself what that is?
I mean, honestly asked yourself and ripped apart the other
(27:28):
stuff to get to the thing. I get that it
sounds hokey. It sounds like I voted for Marian Williamson.
Speaker 4 (27:34):
But I cannot.
Speaker 5 (27:37):
I don't think I can give it enough words to
how true that is? That it all got better when
I stopped lying about everything. The weight just went away,
to an extent that something can go away. It went
away better and better for time, but it went away.
Have you ever asked yourself what makes you happy? And
(27:58):
have you ever asked yourself? Are you willing to do
the things that get there? Because just because it makes
you happy doesn't.
Speaker 4 (28:03):
Mean it isn't tough. That's I mean.
Speaker 5 (28:07):
And by the way, it could be that taking care
of your family makes you happy, and that means you
work a job you don't like and there there's reward
in that. There's reward in that sacrifice, that is that
is valuable stuff. So I don't know if I've got
the good tip. I don't know if I'm you know,
I like that.
Speaker 4 (28:23):
Thank you, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (28:24):
Prospection introspection with Tony Kats.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
I love it.
Speaker 5 (28:27):
That's that's the new podcast that is coming on the
podcast podcast podcast number four.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
Thank you so much for coming on, Tony. I love this.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Go to Tony's event, tell us one more time?
Speaker 3 (28:38):
Where is it? When is it?
Speaker 5 (28:40):
Here's November fourteenth, tickets dot Tony Kats dot com. You
can find me on locals at Tonykats dot com because
of course love the locals, and on Twitter, accent on Instagram.
Speaker 4 (28:51):
At Tony kats. I hope you get to talk to
you and thank you Carol for having Thank you.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
Tony, thanks so much for joining us on The Carol
Markowitch Show. Subscriber wherever you get your podcasts.
Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Marcowitz Show on iHeartRadio.
A few days ago, this big story broke involving a squirrel.
A guy in New York State had taken a squirrel
and a raccoon as a pet and put them on
the internet. Peanut the squirrel became an Internet sensation, had
(00:27):
half a million followers, and people just loved that little guy.
Then a few days ago, the Department of Environmental Conservation
seized Peanut and the raccoon named Fred, from owner Mark
Lungo's home. He had an animal sanctuary in rural Pine City,
(00:48):
New York. They then euthanized the animals. So they take
the animals from this guy's house where he films himself
snuggling with this squirrel and kissing the squirrel constantly, and
they're just like best friends, and they kill him. They
kill the squirrel. A lot of people were outraged, me included. Now,
(01:10):
I think it's important to note that I hate squirrels.
I am not into them at all. I have an
animal loving mom who saves turtles and you know, feeds
stray cats, and she used to feed the squirrels on
my balcony in Brooklyn and I was very anti that
(01:31):
whole thing. They're really gross, They're gross, they're vicious. I mean,
I think the only animal I dislike more than squirrels
are pigeons. Just itw But coming into someone's home and
taking away their animal who isn't bothering anyone, scares me,
and I think it's scared a lot of people who
(01:52):
heard the story. And I've seen a lot of commentary
around this go something like people are more concerned about
squirrels and they are about blank could be you know anything.
I saw high grocery prices, the border death and gaza, etc.
But I want to say that I found it very
encouraging that people cared about the insane thing that happened
(02:14):
with this squirrel. We can't culturally accept that kind of
action from our government. If they do that, what else
can they come and do? As I like to say,
this show is not about politics, and it's not the
politics of this that bothers me. It's not that it
happened in New York. If it happened in a red state,
(02:35):
I'd be just as mad. Where in this time where
people tell me they can't sleep because they're so worried
about what's going on in our country, and I really
think that small stories like this squirrel story really exacerbates that.
Silly as that may sound, we need to be able
to count on things going a certain way, and the
(02:57):
government coming to your home and seizing and you're, yes,
weird but harmless pet should not happen, and then killing
that pet is just really crossing the line. I told
my kids' story, and they wondered, why didn't they just
set the animals free? After all? The whole concern supposedly
was that their wild animals and shouldn't be living in
(03:19):
someone's home, right, Why kill them? I worry about the
future of the country with stories like that. I really
do people need to know what to expect During COVID,
I just wanted normal seedback and we were willing to
move to Florida to get it. People need normal, They
crave normal. I think stories like this move us away
(03:42):
from normal, move us away from knowing what to expect,
and that really harms our country overall. I'd love to
hear your thoughts. Drop me an email, Carol Markowitz Show
at gmail dot com. Ka r O L M A
R kow I c isn't charlie' z as and ZBrush
at gmail dot com. Coming up next and interview with
(04:03):
Tony Katz. Join us after the break.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Welcome back to the Carol Marcowitz Show on iHeartRadio. My
guest today is radio host Tony Katz.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
How's it going?
Speaker 4 (04:16):
It is going well.
Speaker 5 (04:17):
I didn't know if David Marcus rules applied and whether
or not I could smoke.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Dry you could totally smoke. Go ahead.
Speaker 4 (04:23):
Have you done an interview with David Marcus?
Speaker 2 (04:25):
I have, and I discouraged him from smoking, just because
I like picking on him.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
But yeah, he smoked pretty much the whole way through.
Speaker 4 (04:33):
Okay, But but.
Speaker 5 (04:35):
He's a cigarette smoker and he needs to. I'm a
cigar smoker, right.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
So tell me about your Before we got on, you
were telling me you have three radio shows, which you know,
I would say, seems like a lot. But I have
two podcasts now, so I get it. So tell us
about your shows.
Speaker 5 (04:53):
There used to be a time in radio where you
could do just one show and feel like you made
a living and feel like you know everything's gonna all right.
Speaker 4 (05:01):
It's a tenuous world, it is radio.
Speaker 5 (05:03):
So I'm the morning host of ninety three point one
FMWIBC in Indianapolis. I've been doing the morning show here
for ten years, and then I am I'm the host
of something called Tony Kats Today, which is nationally syndicated.
We're we're in Memphis, We're in Tulsa, here in Indianapolis,
throughout Indiana. We then share the show on weekends, and
(05:24):
then I host the which started as a hobby because
I'm a cigar guy, Eat Drink Smoke, which is the
largest cigar in bourbon radio review program in the country.
We're on eighty eight stations across the country on weekends,
myself and Fingers Below, who is a Joy and a
treat of a man.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
And that's led to books on barbecue and bourbon, and
you know.
Speaker 5 (05:46):
Just a very idea of I have a hobby, I
like this thing, I talk about this thing, and then
it turned into kind of turned into a business.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
Turned out that's the best, right.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
That is actually when magic happens when you can talk
about something that you love to talk about and make
money from it. I love bourbon also, I'm actually I'm
more into rye. Do you is it all brown liquors
or do you limit to bourbon?
Speaker 4 (06:08):
Rye is Rye is unsung in Indiana. It is. It
is the drink.
Speaker 5 (06:14):
Yeah, I'm much more a fan of Midwest Rise and
let's say East Coast Rise. I'm not as much of
a whistle pig guy as I am some of the
other things.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Me, some of your favorites, I need, I need some recommendations.
Speaker 4 (06:25):
See that that's unfair.
Speaker 5 (06:26):
Favorite is I can give you recommendations, but I can't.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
I can't rank Pikesville.
Speaker 5 (06:33):
I think every liquor cabinet should have Pikesvill Rye in it.
I think that is absolutely unsung. A spectacular, spectacular drink
out of Indiana. There's some guys called Hard Truth, which
is down in Nashville, Indiana, Brown County, which is a beautiful,
beautiful spot.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
You guys have a Nashville right.
Speaker 5 (06:52):
It's there is no Broadway, no no girls going, none
of I can. I'm over if you need it, but no,
please please, There's.
Speaker 4 (07:02):
Only so much of that one can handle. Uh. So
they do some great work because they do it.
Speaker 5 (07:06):
They do a sweet mash rye, which is you know
they're not they're not using a starter, They're doing it
fresh every time. So as far as Rise, those two
I think should be in liquor cabinets all.
Speaker 4 (07:19):
Over the place.
Speaker 5 (07:19):
But no, it's it's not just it's not just brown
liquor rum is fantastic with a cigar and people never
ever put it together.
Speaker 4 (07:27):
Bamboo b u M b u.
Speaker 5 (07:29):
If you've never had a bamboo rum with a cigar,
I think is great. We we just did an Irish
whiskey that was absolutely spectacular, kind of like apple and
pear pie.
Speaker 4 (07:45):
Mixed with butter. It was.
Speaker 5 (07:47):
Yeah, I'm not an Irish whisky guy at all. That
is not where I feel. It's like Japanese whiskey that
is just not it's not enjoyable. But no, it's it's
it's more about just being able to taste and get
an idea of what it's like. What is an artist
trying to do? It's like the cigar, this is this
is art, right? What was the plan here? What's the
thinking here? And kind of exploring what they're all about.
(08:11):
And I'm much more of a cigar person than a
drinker by any stretch.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
I don't have to finish the drink. I will finish
the cigar.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
What kind of cigar are you smoking today?
Speaker 5 (08:18):
So this is an oliva or sometimes pronounced Oliva. I
leave it to others. The Suri v this is the Millennia,
which is not Millennia. This says nothing to do with Trump.
Speaker 4 (08:27):
It's just just not.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
A bad business idea. The Millennia.
Speaker 4 (08:30):
Say someone hasn't done Trump cigars already.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
Oh, I'm sure they have.
Speaker 5 (08:34):
You know, they haven't created an eight inch cigar and
just called it huge. That has to have happened. I
like this is a pretty moderately priced cigar. The regular
seriv is probably about ten eleven bucks. This is probably
about seventeen. But I find it to be a very easy,
all purpose smoke, no matter what you're doing, when you're
doing coffee, whether you're doing bourbon, whether you're doing a
diet coke, which is a nice clean way to cleanse
(08:56):
the pallet each time without affecting flavor of the cigars.
It's it's it's in the humand or constantly. But it
isn't my every day It's just what I happen to
pick right now.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Can you see yourself getting into the business of maybe
a bourbon or a cigar or something.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
I had Michael Knowles on the show. He has his
own cigar.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Company now, Clay and Buck my my overlords here at iHeart.
They started a coffee company. I think people are kind
of branching out. Can you see yourself doing that?
Speaker 5 (09:24):
I think that is it's the business and the brand
and the concept of the brand, and I think we're
all in it and it gets very very strange and
very odd. I know Carol Markowitz from the New York Post.
Now it's Carol Markwitz from the podcast, and soon will
be Carol Markwitz from the stage show New re enacting
(09:46):
the life of Elaine Strich. That's clearly what's coming. For
those who don't know Elaine Strich, you might have to
go to Google and check that out.
Speaker 4 (09:56):
Yeah, so I'm doing I did when COVID started.
Speaker 5 (10:01):
I did a rye whiskey called Recovery Rock and we
raised money for hospitality workers impacted because of closures. Right,
So myself and a guy who owns a cigar lounge,
Corey Johnston, and a group called Backbone Bourbon and we
did this and it did very very well, tens of
thousands of dollars, and was thrilled to do it. I
have coming out in the end of November my first
(10:22):
barrel pick that I did with Hotel Tango Distillery. Vetteran
owns here in Indianapolis a ten year, so I've.
Speaker 4 (10:28):
Got a ten year barrel pick.
Speaker 5 (10:29):
And now it's a conversation of doing a collaboration on
a bourbon and a series of bourbons really kind of
focusing on what they refer to as orphan barrels, this
idea that this barrel never got sold or this barrel
turn out the way people want it.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
Well, what if you did this and mixed it with that?
Speaker 5 (10:47):
What if there's an idea here, What if there's something
here that's just perfect on its own, uncut, and just
just get it out to people and let them try it.
And I think that it's all part of it is
all part of joy, right, being able to do like
I did the podcast, Eat Drink, Smoke because I wanted
to an escape from the politics, and then it became
its its own thing.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
That is that is, that is lightning and a lightning
in a bottle. Lovely. But it's never it's not necessarily
about the money.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Being a capitalist, why not, you know, why not make
money along the way.
Speaker 4 (11:17):
There's no way I agree with you. Why not make
make money?
Speaker 5 (11:20):
Sponsorships now available, But it's it wasn't the driver. It's
never been the driver. The doing, to me is much
more interesting than than the rest.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
I would argue that I I'd probably.
Speaker 5 (11:34):
Be further along in a career, more financially successful in
a career if I had made some of those moves.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
But I kind of like just doing the stuff.
Speaker 5 (11:45):
Doing the stuff is kind of fun and let the
chips fall where they may. So, uh, Doing a cigar
is far different than doing a bourbon. You've got a
lot of people out there that you could work with,
reach out to and do something in a collab aborative effort,
and then use whatever platform you have to try and
get it sold. A cigar is only going to go
(12:06):
as far as the people who sell the cigar or
can push it, because they're gonna buy the box and
then they have to sell the twenty cigars that are inside.
There has to be something worthwhile, a story that they're
going to buy into and believe and share, and it
has to actually be good in order for those cigar
lounges to do it.
Speaker 4 (12:25):
So you know, you can.
Speaker 5 (12:28):
You can gimmick a cigar from now to the end
of time. And there are a lot of people in
the celebrity world who get in cigars? Those people are
gonna suss it out. You can't get you can gimmick bourbon.
A Snoop can give me gin and juice all you want,
and and Ryan Reynolds can get lucky as bloody heck
with Aviator Gin. Fantastic marketing. I'll leave the gin to
(12:48):
others what George Clooney did with tequila. Remember, no one's
made more money than Sammy Hagar with Kabba Loabo. I
mean that guy is the originator for sure. But people
will do it for the kitch, not a cigar. Cigar
has to be good and I haven't yet just decided
on the cigar maker.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
Well, I would.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Smoke the Tony Cats. If you make it, I will
smoke it.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
So I pledge that to.
Speaker 4 (13:11):
You right here. Do you smoke cigars?
Speaker 2 (13:14):
I mean occasionally, I'm not like, I don't think I
would do it at ten twenty am on a Wednesday.
Speaker 5 (13:20):
Well then I'll I'll do it just to say cut
time and that's a great lighter.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
But yeah, yeah, I absolutely you know, late night with
a whiskey?
Speaker 3 (13:29):
Sure? Why not?
Speaker 4 (13:31):
What do you drink? Is?
Speaker 5 (13:32):
What is the Carol Markoitz end of the day. I've
told people how great Florida is.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Well, once I've gotten through that, you know, I don't
drink as much.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
As I'd like.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
I know everybody talks about drinking drinking less. No, but
it's true, Like my bar has really grown, and my
husband and I are always like, oh, we should drink more.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
We just don't remember to do it. But again, I'm
a whiskey person.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Like if I go to an event and it's like
red or white wine, like kill me right there. And
I would say my most controversial opinion is that wine
is bad. So I get a lot of flack on
the Twitter X for that. It's just whiskey is so
much better. It's just it's a different universe.
Speaker 4 (14:10):
So all right, but what is this?
Speaker 3 (14:13):
I would say, you know, in a in a bar
where I know they're going to have it.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Woodford Rye is sort of the one that I would
go for. I love four Roses. I I do like
whistle Pig. You know, I like all those Kentucky brands,
so you know, I like.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
The fancy stuff too. I drink all kinds of Wellers.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
And my husband, when I had my third kid, he
got me a bottle of pappies.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
I mean, you know, we do it right.
Speaker 5 (14:40):
Also, so on the pappy side, the well Or twelve
I think is a brilliant, brilliant bourbon. You don't have
to spend the pappy money. The four Roses a great pick,
The small back Select I think is exquisite. And on Woodford,
Elizabeth McCall would be a great interview. She's she's now
(15:01):
the master distiller there. She's tremendous, and they do not
only the Rye is good, but the Woodford double oaked
and there isn't small batches, the double double oaked spectacular.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
Really all right, I have to check that out.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
So how did you get into the radio world before
you even had the show about the whiskey and the
food and the cigars. What was the first step into
this kind of landscape going broke?
Speaker 5 (15:32):
I had moved to Los Angeles to start a tech
company with a friend of mine, fraternity brother still dearest
friend in the world.
Speaker 4 (15:42):
And this was when the bailouts came.
Speaker 5 (15:44):
In two thousand and eight and two thousand and nine,
and anybody who was an investor was running for cover
trying to figure out which end was up and lost
our funding and I lost I had to short sell
my house back in Florida Tampa Bay at the time,
and spent a year trying to figure out which end
(16:05):
was up. And as this was happening, the tea party
was coming into existence, and I started that I was
one of those original people and did that first rally
in California on the Santa Monica Pier, which is a
weird place to have a tea party, yeah for sure,
but on the on those steps right at the end
of the pier, that was that was me in the
first word, spoken at a tea party in California and
(16:27):
did that for a while and said I wanted to
have these conversations, but I didn't want to make money
off these people. I wasn't gonna be a guy printing
T shirts or anything like that. So I knew of
a radio station where I'd done a little bit of
work in Clearwater, Florida, and I bought the time, and
I bought an hour a day and did the show
from California on Skype Wow Los Angeles, and that's and
(16:51):
that's how I got started. That's how I started my
my my radio career. And it was right around the
time where Arizona was.
Speaker 4 (17:01):
Was having this law SB ten seventy.
Speaker 5 (17:04):
You have a lawful stop, you can ask the person
you stopped what country they're from. People were upset and
they were saying boycott Arizona and don't do conventions in Arizona.
And Congress members from Arizona was saying this. I thought
this was nuts. I started offering free advertising to Arizona businesses, which.
Speaker 4 (17:23):
I mean California. The shows in Florida today make sense.
Speaker 5 (17:26):
A guy I know, John I haven't spoken to in
a great number of years, had run the story on
his website and some other people put the word out
and then Kavudo called and three days later I'm doing
the Okavudo Show, my first time on Fox ever.
Speaker 4 (17:41):
And that was the start of the career.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
I'll be right back with more from Tony kat.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
So.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
A question that I ask all of my guests is
what advice would you give your sixteen year old self, Like,
do you still follow that path?
Speaker 3 (17:55):
Do you go into tech?
Speaker 4 (17:57):
No? No, I knew nothing about tech.
Speaker 5 (18:00):
Had a friend who was smarter than me, who had
a good idea, and I said, here's my money, and
I was willing to risk all my money and I did.
Speaker 4 (18:06):
I lost everything. In that my sixteen year old self.
Speaker 5 (18:13):
Was an extremely unhappy kid, an outrageously unhappy kid that
led to real depression in my twenties and being suicidal.
Speaker 4 (18:29):
It was a it was.
Speaker 5 (18:30):
An awful decade, sadly a wasted a decade. You know,
it is cliche to say it gets better, but I
would argue that you can get through this. It's just
going to take a lot of work. And maybe maybe
you want to recognize it a little bit earlier than
you did, and it'd be proactive about it if I
was giving myself that that advice. But the the also
(18:56):
maybe the idea that nobody knows anything.
Speaker 4 (18:59):
They all have advice, but no one knows.
Speaker 5 (19:01):
Crap, and and and try some things on your own
and see what works. It's okay, Failure's fine.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
Right, So how did you turn it around? I?
Speaker 5 (19:11):
Uh A have a spectacular wife, absolutely spectacular. I went
to a a wasn't a psychiatrist psychologist once once because
my wife had a job and it was covered by insurance,
and and I went and I went back a second
time and the guy was basically like, why are you here.
Speaker 4 (19:31):
I'm like, oh, all right, I must be fine. I
wasn't cured.
Speaker 5 (19:35):
Yeah, right, magic, I tell you is it's like taking
the collidal silver.
Speaker 4 (19:40):
You're heeled of all your ailments. I I certainly wasn't.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
I'm not sure I've ever heard of therapist turned down
clients before.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
But you must.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
You must have been a good one.
Speaker 5 (19:52):
I don't.
Speaker 4 (19:52):
I I it was. It was odd. As I look
back on it, it was very, very, very odd.
Speaker 5 (19:58):
But it it was a reminder that it was really
up to me. I saw something wrong, right, And that's
first recognizing that you're seeing something wrong. I should have
been more proactive. And the thing that turned me around,
which really didn't start working until my thirties, was I
stopped lying about everything. I never lied to another person again.
I never lied to myself about anything, not the smallest detail,
(20:23):
not how this shirt looked, not the fact that my
hair is total.
Speaker 4 (20:26):
I don't know what's what's there? I nothing.
Speaker 5 (20:29):
I don't lie about anything anywhere at any time.
Speaker 4 (20:33):
Let the chips wall where they may.
Speaker 5 (20:34):
And it really got me into this idea of don't
do things for the money, do things because they can
be done.
Speaker 4 (20:41):
Do the thing, try the thing if it doesn't work.
Speaker 5 (20:44):
Yeah, it's like in November November fourteenth, I'm gonna shameless plug.
I'm doing an event understanding the election in three bourbons, right,
so hopefully we'll have Electra results by then. I'm gonna
take it down for a crowd what happened in the
battlegrounds and in the Battle of the sexes and everything else.
Speaker 4 (21:00):
And we're gonna pair it with bourbon. And we've got food.
Where our cigars Afterwhere's the event? This is in Fishers, Indiana.
Speaker 5 (21:07):
You can go to tickets dot Tony Kats dot com,
tickets tot dot com.
Speaker 4 (21:10):
Thank you, I will fly you out, Carol. If you
want to be a part of.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
It, well, I will certainly consider that.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
I've never been to Indiana.
Speaker 4 (21:19):
Indiana in November.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
I'm not sure I have the warm clothes anymore.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
For that.
Speaker 5 (21:25):
Oh, we have goodwills and the willingness to give you
a sweater. These people are very friendly. That has been
years me saying I want to do a live event.
You know you talk about like Clay and Buck doing
the coffee and.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
Back at coffee check it out.
Speaker 4 (21:41):
You know, all these kinds of things. Do the thing.
I have no idea if this is gonna work. I
have no idea what it's gonna make money. I don't
know if people are gonna leave going.
Speaker 5 (21:49):
That sucked, or they're gonna say this was a great time.
If they leave saying it was a great time and
then they learned something, that's the win.
Speaker 4 (21:57):
Great time first, Right, that's gonna be tough. I just
liked the idea of doing and saying I have to
do this.
Speaker 5 (22:05):
I got to get this out of my system, get
it out of my soul, and so I now just
do anything I dang well.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
Please, I love it. So what do you worry about?
In whatever path? Do you think that question lead you?
Speaker 4 (22:18):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (22:21):
So, I mean you could argue some of the basic stuff. Right,
I have a family, I have children, and certainly concerns
for them in this world, in this society, without question
being Jewish, it's something that we both talk about on social.
Speaker 4 (22:38):
Media, noticeable than before, right, more noticeable than than ever before.
Speaker 5 (22:44):
You know. I used to argue that very often what
you saw was an anti semitism, it was moronism. Somebody
brought a swastik on a stop sign, right, and you're
down the street. They're not after Jews. They were a
smuck and they thought, oh this will this will be shocking.
It's it's you know, it's like pick the latest teeny
bopper star who thinks that getting undressed for a camera
(23:05):
is shocking.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
We grew up during Madonna. We've seen literally everything you.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
Made a how she made a whole book.
Speaker 5 (23:12):
You cannot you cannot surprise us in the slightest. But
I will tell you that maybe it's a function of age.
But over the last year death I part of the
whole depression thing was being obsessed with family members and
(23:35):
what would I do if they passed away? Like it's
a weird, odd thing to be to be a part
of it. How would I handle this? And how would
handle that? Like somehow you could control that, but I
couldn't control anything else in my life, which is part
of the depression. So I invented things that I could
grab control of. And it makes sense as a you
utilize that as a crutch, as a vehicle dealing with
(23:56):
the fact that mortality will come. And I the only
thing that has truly ever stuck with me on a
philosophical level from my father passed away in June. He said,
the worst part about the idea of passing away is
I want to see what happens next.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
Right, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5 (24:16):
That is that is as a matter of just take
a step back and have a sip of that, you know.
Speaker 4 (24:22):
Carol Mark, WIT's proved wry. I want to see what
happens next.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
Yeah, I want to see how things turn out.
Speaker 4 (24:28):
Yeah, it's all going to go on without me. That's
all going to go on without.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
That.
Speaker 4 (24:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (24:36):
So maybe worry is the wrong word. That has gotten
a lot of my attention lately.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
I think about that a lot.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
I was raised partially by my grandmother, who I just
was like, you know, obsessed with, and she died before
things got good. She died before I met my husband,
before my career took off.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
Before any of that happened.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
She died when I was largely like a drift, and
I wish she had gotten to see, you know, it
turned out okay, it went better than expected.
Speaker 3 (25:04):
So I you know, fully hear you?
Speaker 4 (25:07):
Yeah, I uh so, I don't.
Speaker 5 (25:09):
I don't know if I think the idea that I
do radio and I've done TV stuff and I've had
these interviews I.
Speaker 4 (25:16):
Think tickled my father to no end.
Speaker 5 (25:20):
And he lived in the in the villages, and I
am sure that everybody there heard, oh my son the
radio like it was like it was Jerry's father, you.
Speaker 4 (25:29):
Know, did you go in the public or just I
don't know.
Speaker 5 (25:35):
We didn't usually talk in that kind of way, so
I don't know have the ass but it's a it's
an interesting thought, uh, for for sure.
Speaker 4 (25:42):
But does it does it bother you?
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Do you?
Speaker 4 (25:44):
Is that something you obsess about?
Speaker 3 (25:46):
Obsessed about?
Speaker 2 (25:47):
No, but it is definitely like the regret, you know,
the regret of like my grandma didn't see that it
all turned out okay. Again, it was like I was.
I was in graduate school when she passed, so it
wasn't like I was completely a mess, but I I
had definitely been a mess in my twenties. And when
you were talking about that and you started with have
an amazing wife, I mean it was definitely my husband
(26:08):
also that turned my life around.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
And I think that I wish she had gotten to
see it. That's really that's it.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
I wish she had gotten to know that it was
all good and that my brother got married and had
two little girls and just all the whole picture of
like the family turned out okay, because when she died
it wasn't going that great.
Speaker 5 (26:27):
Yeah, that's a I think that's a relatable. I think
that people are going to understand that very very well.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
Definitely well. I've loved this conversation, Tony.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
I feel like we had laughs, we had sadness, We
really ran the gamut.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
You smoked the cigar.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
I wish I had to leave us here with your
best tip for my listeners on how they can improve
their lives.
Speaker 5 (26:51):
Oh, no pressure, No pressure from Marky Markowitz.
Speaker 4 (26:57):
Has anybody ever referred to as Marky Markowitz?
Speaker 3 (26:59):
We have? But I like it.
Speaker 4 (27:02):
Copyright. Remember that, that's right.
Speaker 5 (27:06):
I don't know how you're supposed to lead a good life.
It's like, what's the best cigar? Hell if I know,
I don't know you. I don't live in your taste buds.
I have no idea what your palette is. I think
maybe the question is, have you asked yourself what that is?
I mean, honestly asked yourself and ripped apart the other
(27:28):
stuff to get to the thing. I get that it
sounds hokey. It sounds like I voted for Marian Williamson.
Speaker 4 (27:34):
But I cannot.
Speaker 5 (27:37):
I don't think I can give it enough words to
how true that is? That it all got better when
I stopped lying about everything. The weight just went away,
to an extent that something can go away. It went
away better and better for time, but it went away.
Have you ever asked yourself what makes you happy? And
(27:58):
have you ever asked yourself? Are you willing to do
the things that get there? Because just because it makes
you happy doesn't.
Speaker 4 (28:03):
Mean it isn't tough. That's I mean.
Speaker 5 (28:07):
And by the way, it could be that taking care
of your family makes you happy, and that means you
work a job you don't like and there there's reward
in that. There's reward in that sacrifice, that is that
is valuable stuff. So I don't know if I've got
the good tip. I don't know if I'm you know,
I like that.
Speaker 4 (28:23):
Thank you, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (28:24):
Prospection introspection with Tony Kats.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
I love it.
Speaker 5 (28:27):
That's that's the new podcast that is coming on the
podcast podcast podcast number four.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
Thank you so much for coming on, Tony. I love this.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Go to Tony's event, tell us one more time?
Speaker 3 (28:38):
Where is it? When is it?
Speaker 5 (28:40):
Here's November fourteenth, tickets dot Tony Kats dot com. You
can find me on locals at Tonykats dot com because
of course love the locals, and on Twitter, accent on Instagram.
Speaker 4 (28:51):
At Tony kats. I hope you get to talk to
you and thank you Carol for having Thank you.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
Tony, thanks so much for joining us on The Carol
Markowitch Show. Subscriber wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Karol Markowicz
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