Kelly Farnsworth's Recovery Fest

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hey, everybody, Welcome to thepublic affair show of your favorite iHeart radio
station right here in Seattle. Attentionfolks in recovery or folks who are curious
about being in recovery. There isa big party recovery, fun, fast,
fireworks for recovery. It is Saturdaynight, August nineteenth, at beautiful

(00:22):
Seward Park and it's free right absolutely, your checkbook at home. My guest
in the studio today is Kelly Farnsworth. He is the founder and president and
starter upper of this excellent party,and I want to welcome you to the
show. He's the ambassador of funright on. Okay, So, Kelly

(00:45):
Farnsworth is in here, and youhave been sober, and you're very openly
you're open about because I don't oweanybody on that way. You can say
my name over the radio, Kelly, don't have to say Kelly f Kelly
is in here. He's got fortyyears of sobriety. And how long have
you been doing these fun fests?Well, it started when COVID happened,

(01:08):
and what it was has been twentysixteen. So I started writing these songs,
started taking songs that were, youknow, popular songs, everybody liked,
you know, like run around Sue. You know, here's my story
sad but oh right, right,and I change it to here's my story
sad but true about all the alcoholand drugs I used to do. Change
all the words right, and Isang my very first one at their birthday

(01:32):
meeting. Brought the house down.It took like two and a half years
to write the song. But thennow I can. I've written over five
hundred and almost six hundred songs nowand I can literally write one at a
stoplight, right, and you know, because he hears the catch in the
hook and you can just boom andhe just so. They gotta be fun,
you know, songs everybody likes toclap to. Done a few slow
songs, but they's just gotta befun songs. And I suggest that to

(01:53):
anybody and alcoholics anonymous, if theywant to write a recovery twisted tune song,
uh, you know, just picka song that you would walk into
a karaoke bar or something like thatand it'd be your go to song that
you want to impress all your friendswith. Well, then change the words
to it for recovery, and it'sit's not a weird Al Yankovich thing.
You know, it's not a comedything. It's a musical message right on.

(02:15):
All right, So this upcoming party, you started it in the times
of the COVID and now it's freeand it's huge, and how many folks
do you expect, Well, thatcould be over five hundred to two thousand.
But the way I started it wasI bought a bunch of tickets for

(02:37):
the Oak Tree Cinema and gave himout to all the people that would volunteer
at the AA meetings. I wouldpour coffee and you know, and run
meetings and stuff like that. Andit was kind of like when you and
I were kids and we'd hold theflag at the crosswalk duty and then they'd
take us all down to the tothe fun forest, right as a as
a reward, right at the endof the year. Well it was my

(02:58):
way of saying, hey, here'sa reward, or let's do something fun.
We're all being cooped up and nowthree movies. Yeah, and so
a free movie. And I wasable to sing like five or six of
my recovery songs before the movie.It was a way for me to get
it out there. And because youknow, I don't. I'm not getting
if you don't charge when you changea song, if you don't charge for
it, then it's considered reasonable useand you can use the music bed.

(03:21):
So that's why I would do thesefree shows. So that way I could
get the musical message out there.But you can't charge for the tickets,
right, So that was a wayto get everybody to do it. So
they did it for two years,but it's become so overwhelming that now we
went outdoors. Eventually I was goingto do this. I had a thought
that it might be a grass rootsthing and we could do it at the
Gorge at George because I knew themayor and Live Nation bought it really is.

(03:46):
But you know the thing was isthat I stumbled onto the Amphitheater last
year. Yeah, and they hadthey had a twelve step picnic pot luck
there and I was like, ohmy god, this this is amazing.
And I thought to myself, thiswould be the perfect location. And then
two, if we if we throwa fireworks showing to you know, the

(04:06):
mix, then that way people onMercer Island, people rent in Seattle and
Madonna and Belby, they could allsee that. And so what's kind of
cool is you've got the Mercer IslandHigh School radio station eighty eight point nine
is going to go ahead and they'regonna play the synchronized music at ten forty,
you know with them. So they'regonna let me sing five of my

(04:27):
recovery songs. They're gonna play themwhile the fireworks are going on. People
that are driving by. I canlook at it, people at the park,
and you know, so so youare going to be the music behind
then your recovery songs. I tookthe song Thunderstruck and changed it. Instead
of gunder, I changed it tosober no so, and then then you've
got Then it goes into that's howa country boy rolls. I changed it

(04:49):
to That's how a sober boy rolls. And then it rolls into Van Halen
Ain't talking about love, and Ichanged the words to we don't want to
do drugs. Those drugs are rottento the core. And then I changed
the Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong andI go instead of it's a wonderful day,
I changed it to it's so gratefultoday, you know. And then
the last one is Blackman Turner Overdriveand I changed it to taking care of

(05:13):
business because we pray taking care ofbusiness every day. You know. There's
one more that I love to do, and it's I took the song you
are so Beautiful, and I changedit to those steps are beautiful, and
I changed it to you know,to do it like Joe Cocker, and
I go those steps a beautiful.My guest everybody in the studio is Kelly

(05:35):
Farnsworth's sober for forty years. Heis a living testament to having a good
time. It's the third annual RecoveryFest. Fireworks for recovery and all day
long. We've got twelve step meetingsthat are every two hours, so at
noon, two four six, andyou've got all four fellowships there. They

(05:58):
have their own separate it's a barbecueshelter, so each one has the barbecue
shelter. I've got him a refrigeratorwith a generator, and then they have
the hamburger meets and then all thebuns and have the hot dog meeting all
the of course it's two years old, it's been in the freezer for a
while, but no, it's gonnabe good. What four meetings are going
to be there? Well, youhave a the AA, NACA SO Alcoholics

(06:23):
Anonymous, Heroin Anonymous, Cocaine Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, and they each have
their own shelters. They're very autonomous, and when they passed the basket,
the money at each one of thosemeetings goes to like the Seattle in A
group or the Cocaine Anonymous Area group, and and so they you know,
they're basically that's the only money that'scoming out of somebody's pocket. Everything is

(06:44):
all free at those and it's apotluck. So we suggest people bring like
a you know, like a dessertor maybe a side dish or their favorite
choice, you know. But whenI went to AA, I didn't go
there with a baseball met and whowanted to be on a baseball team.
I went there because I needed helpin recovery. And as Neil Scott would
say, the bright side of recoveryis or the bright side of addiction is
recovery, you know. And soI thought to myself, when you rent

(07:06):
Seward Park, when you rent thewhole park, you get the whole park.
And I'm like, well, Idon't need these shelters, are like,
well, you get them anyway.I'm like well, what can I
do with these? And I thoughtto myself, well, we could do
meetings at those. Now, I'vebeen to plenty of you know, uh
roundups and stuff like that, andthey don't really have meetings there, right,

(07:27):
you know. They it's generally justyou know, the work speaker and
workshops and all that stuff. Sowhen I first came to AA and ANA
and everything, it was I feltthe most comfortable going to a meeting.
So I thought, if there's peoplecoming to the park and there's going to
watch a movie because there's a youknow, a big blockbuster movie on the
four story high movie screen, youknow that they're gonna feel most comfortable if

(07:49):
they're they're by themselves to go toa meeting, and then they start fellowshipping
with people, and then they startwalking around the park and seeing that there's
kickball, dodgeball and all that,and that's just drop in stuff. So
if if you're for dodgeball, ifyou're a sober birthday is odd, you're
on this side this side. Kickball. We you know, if somebody wants
to throw a volleyball in that up, sure, But the thing is is

(08:11):
dodgeball and kickball, those are theones that I remember as a kid because
you could just go up, gettired and quit playing. You know,
it was fun. So get yourfeelings hurt and going. I'm joking about
it's dodgeball. Everybody in the studiois Kelly Farnsworth putting on a big old
party out of the goodness of yourheart. It sounds like, man,
it's free. You can show up. You know, you can be a

(08:33):
clean and sober person, or youcan just be curious about like maybe I
want to get clean and sober.Third Annual Recovery fun Fest Fireworks for Recovery
Saturday, August nineteen. It's anall day thing. Just look up twelve
Step Funfest dot com and that isthe numerals twelve one two Step Funfest dot

(08:54):
com. I've really complicated that.Just do a search on Recovery fun Fest
and you're in. Yeah, ifyou go to Recovery Funfest dot com as
well. I bought both domains,so they should both you know, talk
at fact. I bought even thethird one, which is spelled out the
number twelve, you know, twelvestep fronts. Oh yeah, I just
want everybody to just make sure thatthey don't miss a chance, like this

(09:16):
to have fun and this is thefirst year outdoors. And what we did
is I bought a T shirt printingcompany, so I went ahead and I
printed up five thousand shirts and spreadthem out to all the AA and ANCA
meetings for free. And then themore signatures that the people get on their
shirts from their friends that are inrecovery, like their birthdays, like minds
three eleven eighty three. If youknow so, I signed a shirt three

(09:37):
eleven eighty three. The more signaturesare on there, you walk up and
you present it at the booth itsays free raff will ticket for a Tesla
lease for a year. Yeah.Then if you have two hundred and sixteen
signatures on there, you get yourname thrown in for the raffle two hundred
and sixteen times. So everybody's gonnabe running. And then I got a
couple of thousand shirts that will havethere at the at Funfest as well,

(09:58):
and people will be running around gettingtheir shirt signed and everything with their friends.
And then that's great, you know, so it goes. It goes
dodgeball, kickball at three, thenit rolls into a recovery singing contest.
I have a bunch of my songs, and I have people in AA that
are singing those songs in a contest. I have a Michael Jackson look alike
that's going to be one of thejudges, and have the judge from one
of the famous rock bands that themanager from there is going to be one

(10:20):
of the judges. And we havesome of the fun judges, and we
have five judges, and we takeout the high score and the low score
out of each category and then keepthe three scores in between, so it's
that's based on an average. Andthen while we're adding the scores up for
the Recovery Twisted Too and singing contests, and we're gonna throw the Michael Jackson
look alike out there, you know, to sing not where the world who

(10:43):
sing Man in the Mirror, Andthen the Blues Brothers might show up,
you know you didn't do their thing. And then it rolls into the blockbuster
movie The Dungeon and Dragons. Yeah, yeah, the Free for Free.
It's a huge new movie and youget to see it on your huge how
many four story story hide movie screen, and then it rolls right into a

(11:03):
huge right into a huge fireworks shopfrom Lake Washington Fireworks for recovery nice.
And then right after that then wedo four because it's a big story,
four story hop movie. We dofour dance videos, old school dance videos
at you know, like Mary J. Blide and all that nice and up
on the screen. And then rightwhen that's those four songs over, then
we roll right into giving away theTesla lease for a year. Yeah,

(11:26):
let me stop you there. Whoset you up with this? Well?
I just went down to the Tesladeser shipping Seattle, and I said,
I just want a Lisa. Andso what's going to happen is that'll be
on a Saturday when I walk inwith the whoever wins on Monday and then
they put it in their name.Well, all they do is there's there's
a bunch of cars on the lotthat they can pick on model three or
if they want to order a customone with their color they want their you

(11:48):
know, cigarette lighter here or whateverthey want, you know, I mean,
if they want a custom one,it'll take about thirty days to get
it. But if they want towalk off with one that day, they
just have to have a credit scorea seven hundred then and I pay their
insurance and the good driving good drivingrecord. I paid their insurance for a
year. Nice. And then whathappens is if they if they say they
don't qualify, you know the personwhen we're when we're drawn the name,

(12:09):
and then they're like, oh Idon't have a credit score like that.
Well then you win second place andthen they get a twelve because we like
the number twelve. They get twelvehundred dollars caste, third places, six
hundred places, three hundred Nice Kelly. It's just because of the big cooin
you know, started mining it intwenty fifteen. I was able, you're
able to get really get back.It's just a fun thing. It's a

(12:31):
big fun party for everybody in recoveryand those people who want to get sober
and clean and see. It's away to u to salute recovery, celebrate
recovery, stand up in a shockand all way. Yeah, it really
is talking about and people who aren'tand have worried about like I don't want
to get sober it looks so boring, right or you know, I'm not

(12:56):
going to have any fun. No, this is proving that there is so
much fun to be had. Well. Mercer Royland has rolled out the red
carpet. The city council proved thefireworks from the police department. The firework.
They're all excited, so you're gonnahave it in Mercer Island waters,
but people from from everywhere can seeit. But the party once again at
Seward right, when you're sitting therelooking at the movie screen, you know

(13:18):
you can see the fireworks behind.While I'm singing those five songs. You
know, I'll be up on aman lift on top of the the wow
the movie screen because if I'm downbelow, nobody's gonna see, you know,
but I'll be up above kind oflike a yell kid, and everybody
going singing those songs. Great.Kelly Farnsworth, I just want to thank
you so much for giving back toyour community, because the whole community is

(13:39):
invited to this thing. It's asober it's the Sober fun Fest. Let
me get back up here. Let'stake it to the next level. It'll
be kind of like instead of insteadof like os Fest, here, it'll
be like fun fest. You know. Oh that's right, it's coming up
exactly, and it'll be a grassrootssinging or just get bigger and bigger and
this will be this will be agreat home for it. And this is

(14:00):
our first year. The Seattle ParksDepartment has rolled out the red carpets and
just made the place just look likea shiny new panty for us. And
it's just we're so excited. ThirdAnnual Recovery Funfest Fireworks for Recovery Saturday,
August nineteenth. Go to Recovery Funfestdot com or twelve Step Recovery Fundfest dot
com. Well, and then what'sgoing to happen is is there's eighty eight

(14:22):
point nine. It's going to themercer Ryland High School Raciation. He's going
to be playing. It's gonna bethere live all day, calling it Recovery
fun Fest Radio Call you'll come ondown. So for twelve hours they're going
to be, you know, lettingus call it the Recovery Fundfest Rader.
And the way we stumbled upon thatis because they for the last five years
have been at Seafair at the logBoom and they called it log Boom Radio.

(14:46):
So they're letting us call it theFunfest Radio Recovery Recovery. And Joe
over there and then the whole staffand the kids and the crew. I
mean, it's just They've rolled outthe red carpet for us Everybody. Three
Annual every Fun Fest Fireworks for RecoverySaturday, August nineteenth, Seward Park.
Thank you again for the party,much appreciated. Oh thank you,