Most Important Thing in the World

Holy crap! The eclipse. It was beautiful. How did you take it in?

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
The Downbeat on ninety seven to one, The Freak seven thirty will say,
if your eyes are going to bepermanently messed up from yesterday eight o'clock.
Author Don Van Nada joins the show. He's writing the Jerry Jones biography.

(00:20):
I just wrote down off the topof my head, like four questions,
but there's many more, the wrenthof my mind about this one other thing
on that, because we're talking aboutwhy Jerry would let the guy who continues
to write expose's on his poor behaviorwrite a book about him. And I
think you're probably spot on what yousaid to anywhere. It's just either he
didn't care, he respects the bestof the best, does good work like

(00:45):
that was thorough the way you ripme a new one. But also is
anyone else doing it? And ifsomebody approaches you and is like, I
want to write your story, yourwhole life story, Like isn't that everyone's
not everyone's dream because not realistic andall of our lives are nowhere near full
enough to write a book about.I suppose, well, I'm gathering from

(01:07):
what you've said that this is anauthorized biography, then well that's a good
question. There was a picture ofthem talking on the man. We can
ask him that, Yeah, Imean, obviously that'll be a big thing.
We ask him, is the JerryJones support or involvement in this?
Yeah? Yeah, because typically anauthorized biographies, I think that can be
misleading because then you you, Ithink you end up giving up too much

(01:32):
control to have the narrative customized tobenefit the person that's being written about.
Right. Yeah, this doesn't say, and he may not be willing to
say, is this book didn't comeout for another two years? Has he
even started it? Surely he startedit. Surely he's been working on us
for a long time. And Ithink just by interviewing someone about their life,

(01:53):
if they're willing to talk to you, I mean, Jerry's pretty open
to talk to anybody. You know, hop on the bus, let's go
have a have a cocktail and let'schat. Yeah, it could be no
more than that, and that's gonnabe the things from those conversations could be
included in the book. But asfar as Jerry having a lot of control
on what's written and what's what goesto press, I doubt. I don't

(02:16):
think Don would write. I don'tthink Don would write a book like that,
and imagine Jerry's like, look,yeah, tell my story. And
Jerry, in the deep part ofhis head is probably you don't know the
worst. Like Don's like singing,writ yeah the daughter, and yeah I
did this and yeah I went tothat rally and Don's like, well the

(02:36):
picture yeah, And then Jerry's like, whoa who you talk to? I
don't know how you keep that bookunder five thousand pages long like I have.
You're gonna you have to leave thathuge stuff. I mean, were
you talking about the Are we talkingabout the party House in nineteen ninety three?
Yeah? You, yes. Idon't know that he will Maybe that's

(02:58):
cowboys centric and that's more of aMichael Irvin Eric Williams tail maybe then a
Jerry Jones tail. Maybe that's leftout. I don't know. That's why
I want to ask him. Interesting. OK, we'll have him just because
we didn't. I mean, wehad some response from some listeners who are
like, yeah, you should dothis. Tomorrow we're having on comedian Dusty
Sleigh. I gotta do some DustySleigh homework tonight. You're gonna see him

(03:23):
and you're gonna think he's Joe Dirtand then you're gonna be blown away by
his voice. I might see himand go, oh that guy you and
him. You might yeah, buthe's a I listen, I'm not gonna
tell you that I'm a Dusty Sleighfan. I have not seen much of
his stuff. I've seen a coupleof things enough that when I got the
email, I knew his name andokay, interesting, and I think we

(03:46):
do it out there on the airlast week, and we got a little
bit of listener feedback was like,yeah, you absolutely take him. We'll
see, we'll have him for tenminutes tomorrow. But right now, let's
do the most important thing in theworld. Wait, yes, talking before

(04:27):
we discuss how we took it in. Here's how it went down live on
ninety seven one The Freak yesterday atClyde Warren Park with the min and skin
show in the speakeasy. Thirty seconds, everybody, it's about to get really
weird. It does look like nightrain. Like right now, your boys
got so high because I really gonnaeat me quiet because people are hating us.

(04:49):
Right now we are eight seconds awayfrom your life being changed forever.
Ladies and gentlemen, soak it in. It's the path of totality. It
is happening. I swear girlfriends withpubic hair is heavier than that. Yes,
there's no sexual morality in the pathof totality. It's so weird that

(05:10):
people are clapping for the sun.Who are they clapping for the moon?
Everywhere? That is a question whoseside are we on? Here? Take
your glasses off and look around athow dark it is? My legal dark,
most there, almost there, almostthere, almost there, almost there,

(05:32):
adding Christina, look at how darkit is. This happened show.
No glasses were days. Look atit. Look at this and this is

(05:55):
completely orgasmic. Shooty, oh mygod. Look at how well lit me
Cosina is. Oh my god,that's funny. We're all dead. We're
all dead. Grooves grooves are shoobad. That's funny. I was listening.

(06:16):
Yeah, it was a little delayed, you know when you listen.
I was watching on the Instagram liveyou see the video, and I actually
had social media yesterday with Ashley andshe was, uh yeah, she had
pictures of it too, happening.I don't know where she got that feed
or if she was doing it herself. I'm not sure how that worked out,
but it was cool because a goodshot at the eclips happening on the

(06:42):
feed. I don't know if weget ratings credit for watching on Instagram live
or not, but the company istracking our Instagram engagement, so maybe a
good thing. I don't know anddon't care. Go ahead, what'd you
guys do? I had quiet experience, so go ahead kick it off.
So there's a park. I wasgonna go down to Clydeborne Park and join

(07:03):
the gang, but then I waslike a traffic and all that stuff.
But more on that later. Traffic. The uh, there's a park near
my house. So I got homeand immediately like I tried to go to
sleep. I said, look,I'm sleeping till twelve and then so so
and I, Uh, I mademyself a peanut butter sandwich, no jelly

(07:29):
I had. I hit fast forward. Yeah, yeah, that doesn't sound
like essential information. I got somesun chips, okay, fast forward,
fast forward times two. They didn'thave moon pies at the store. Can
we listen to this? At onepoint five? That's what people do?
This a podcast what people do sometimes? The point is a lovely picnic at
twelve fifteen, twelve twenty. Itbegins at twelve twenty three, and we

(07:56):
were talking about the one forty twelvetwenty three. It's on goggles on,
it's covered, it's starting to coverit. It was badass, okay,
so let's start with that. Sothe big concern, and I was really
convinced that it was just going tobe thick ass clouds, were you,
guys? I was shocked when atabout twelve ten, the rays, the
real sun rays started beaming down onmy neighborhood. I'm like, okay,

(08:20):
this thing might happen. Well,you were down playing it all day saying
it was gonna be cloud covered,and we were all boned. I fought
clouds pretty much the whole time.Yeah, I think everyone did, and
some people did probably get somewhat screwedby clouds, but I'm talking about but
there were gaps, it was partlycloudy, and they were moving quickly,

(08:41):
so there was very little time wherethe sun was just completely obscured for long,
like minutes upon minutes. And Ireally did think that with that storm
coming in, which it just seemslike it came in a lot later than
they expected, I did that itwas going to be those thick, thick,
gray white clouds just covering the entirearea for the duration, so we

(09:05):
got really lucky. It was awesome. This is going down, lovely picnic,
great day. But there's tons ofpeople in the park where I'm at,
and there was a school and thisis kind of where you got me.
Uh, this is this is what'sweird. But this is where I
kind of got chills more than anything. It is like so it's just like
it's preschool where kindergarten kids and theclouds are covering it up and they start

(09:28):
chanting, go away, really cloudy. It's like forty kids, but the
clouds do go away and it startsto happen, and kind of like that
in that clip, you could hearthe crowds start to just kind of uh,
you have all these people, butespecially these kids just started shrieking.

(09:50):
You know what it's I mean,it's a bunch of kids and they were
on the other side of the park, but they're just shrieking as as they're
seeing it happen, just getting louderbecause they were effing thrilled. And that
part I just like, I wasjust like, this is unbelievable. I
don't know why that part got mea little bit but I was just like,
it's so cool. I think everyI think what you just described in

(10:11):
that audio that you played of themlistening live told the stories, the same
story for all for all of us. What was you were thinking and hearing?
Because yes, it's cool, right, Oh my god, it's covering
it. You keep looking, itkeeps trying to cover it, right,
and I feel like and I'm somewhere, maybe in Florida years ago I saw
a partial eclipse, because I rememberI was not I was excited, but

(10:33):
I wasn't blown. I wasn't allthat excited for you stas. I'm like,
all right, it's gonna be cool. You know, I give or
take. I know this is gonnalook like same cool. Excited, I'm
outside. I went to my frontyard but plopped a chair out there,
had Simon and Hendrix by myself,glasses on, chilling, and it kept
covering, covering. I had noidea that when it got to that totality

(10:56):
what it was going to be,and that audible shriek was on air,
I mean skin They were screwing around, making jokes and then then when it
hit total you could hear them yelland act differently. Those kids acted differently
when it hit. I absolutely acteddifferently. All the way up to winter,
it was just a little sliver ofthe sun. I'm like, oh
cool. But when that thing hittotal and I took those glasses off,

(11:20):
I involuntarily said, oh my effinggod, I know I did, and
again I was by myself. Yeah, I shrieked like it was David Blaine's
birthday, and I said, Oh, my efing god, I don't know
that. Look, I'm not radioman. That's one of the most amazing

(11:41):
things I've ever seen in my damnlife. It was awesome. I can
Before it left totality, I waslike, I can see why these crazy
people traveled to fight to hunt thesethings. I can see. I mean,
dude, I would fly to whatever, Arizona something a couple hours to
experience that. Again. Too much, absolutely incredible to experience. Yeah.

(12:05):
Look, I'm historically and one knownto be one that will downplay things or
not buy into hype. Kind oflike, was it Tim yesterday that I
did? I kind of, Idon't know. I saw his point of
view. I didn't agree with itcompletely. I was concerned, obviously that

(12:28):
I thought that the clouds were goingto screw this whole thing up. But
I still thought total darkness would becool. But nothing that anybody, no
photograph, no video, and nopersonal description could prepare me for the feeling
that I had when that happened yesterday. So I was at home with Malcolm.
It was just he and I andat about twelve twenty, it's like,

(12:54):
let's go, let's go out inthe backyard. And because I wanted
him to see how interested he wouldbe in and he doesn't like wearing glasses
or things on his face, butI didn't get him to put him on
and look up at the sun whenthe when the moon started kind of starting
starting to invade on the Sun's propertya little bit, and that was really
cool, and he did check itout, but he was more interested in

(13:16):
pointing out where Geraldine's dog poop wasin the backyard. That though it is,
it's very important. And once wei'd say it reached about twenty five
percent coverage, I was like,let's go out in the front and we
went out in the front yard andkind of killed some time. He got
in his swing and I'm looking upat it, kind of monitoring it and
everything. And then once it getsto the point where, okay, this

(13:39):
is getting close. I went acrossthe street to my neighbor's yard and he
doesn't have any trees, so Iwas able to get a real clear view
of it. And Malcolm was inour yard across the street, you know,
hitting baseballs off of a tee atme, and when it happened,

(14:01):
the it's it's I'm almost speechless todescribe it. The sensation, the feeling
that in one moment it is puredaylight, and then for a stretch of
about four minutes, the neighborhood becomesomething that you'll never experience again. In

(14:22):
that way. People's people's lights thatare set to timers or are set on
a light sensitive timers that you knowthere, there's their porch lights go on
when the sun goes down. Allof those came on. The street lights
came on. A guy that stillhas his damn Christmas lights up that are

(14:43):
set to one of those. Thosewent on, and the birds went completely
silent. You could hear animals,you could hear dogs in the neighborhoods kind
of making some you know, somereaction to it. I heard cheering in
the park down the street. Itwas it was ominous. In a way.

(15:05):
But it was also it was therewas a sense of elation, there
was no sense of dread. Itwas it was an emotional experience. And
I'm not one to really say thingslike that about something that you know and
did you see? Did you?I'm having a hard time getting it into
words, I really am, Butwere you? Sort of what I said,

(15:28):
which was, yeah, this isgonna be cool, but until it
hit, you had a different Ihad a completely different reaction than I expected
when it went total. Man,I just don't know what I I guess
I did expect that didn't city buildup or anything. No, I did,
But I was like, all right, I give or take. I
know what this is going to be. Yeah. Sure, whether you mentally
calm yourself or prep yourself or trynot to get too excited, I don't

(15:48):
know whatever. But when it hit, man, I felt like I was
on a different planet. Yeah,and it was just I don't want to
be cheesy, but like a peacefulmoment. Oh I got misty eyed,
but I cry like I'm getting worse. I I haven't got MISTI oud of
nam WrestleMania. Okay, I'm sorry, I don't I don't care. Oh
my God, it's Meek Mill.He's here, so like it's it probably

(16:11):
happened four times this weekend, soit's not abnormal for me. I don't
know why, and I'll still whoopyour ass say something about it. No,
I'm tough as hell, but Ialso cry a little bit. And
I'm not saying ball, but Iget misty eye. Man, I get
emotional on important things that maybe Ijust deem important for a brief moment,
or something that's important to someone elsereally gets me. If I can watch

(16:33):
anyone around a marathon toward the finishline, I'll cry the whole time because
these people are achieving their life dream. Whatever I did, I got misty
eyed and I was just there insilence, and I pet my dogs and
I'm like, I don't know,this is just a magic moment that I'm
not gonna forget. But I justfelt way different than I was expecting to
feel because of Bamn. When I'vehit I found myself. And maybe i'll

(16:56):
play this later, I don't know. I don't know if I want to,
but it's pretty awesome. But Idid film about a minute and a
half of the neighborhood when it wasin totality, and you can see Malcolm
in the background just firing off baseballsand at one point he goes, Daddy,
is it nighttime? Yeah, themost basic, simple question. Yeah,

(17:21):
it kind of is. But notfor long man, and the reaction
that I have to it. I'mnot even realizing that I'm filming. And
I go back and I listen tothis, like, you sound like an
idiot. I sound like the guythat saw the double rainbow. Oh my
god, my god, is thisreal? Is this real life? Okay?

(17:41):
Like I know that if you're aperson who was just tired of the
hype because this has been in thenews around here for three months, like
I get I actually understand that part. I'm just tired of hearing about it.
Everyone's been talking about it for threemonths. I get that, And
I think even those people get swungon it, you know eventually where I
think I ended up feeling and Iknew. I kind of knew it was

(18:04):
gonna happen, I think, butI was like almost in my head,
going, how could you take thisfor granted? This is the ultimate everything
is bigger than you moment? Ittruly was. Yeah, maybe that's the
root of it. I think that'swhat stop and go. I don't really
matter that much and I don't knowman it when it happened to me,

(18:26):
like as dark as the guy Iheard TC. He jumped on with the
Speakes yesterday and he mentioned a skinreference because skin is like, it's like
it's eight thirty PM. And TCsaid, no, it's kind of like
a no shade of color that I'veever really seen. And I agree with
that outside a text TC, andit remind him skin is color blind.

(18:47):
He couldn't see a thing. Yeah, don't trust me. Don't trust him
about anything when it comes to that. Skin doesn't know what color anything is.
When people say they don't see color, skin truly does not see color.
He thinks I'm Mexican. Yes,he always goes hey, dingle.
It's really shocking. He shouldn't doit that way. But I wish he's
allow it because we know of hiscondition. Right. But I agree the

(19:10):
color, the shade of that colorwas, I agree, like not it
almost felt like you were in theupside down and stranger things. Yeah,
yeah, it was like you It'slike Apple put a filter on on your
world for about four minutes. Thatthat is not known to man I ran
into look I got when that washappening. I'm like, dude, I

(19:33):
downplayed this in my head. Maybenot downplayed it, but it just wasn't
what I expected. And I thoughtback to Tim's phone call yesterday, and
I go, Tim was wrong.These people that traveled here, good for
them, you know what I'm saying. That there were people at the park
at freaking Saint Francis Park right downthe street from my house when I went
up there. Afterwards, we walkedto the park to go play playground,

(19:56):
and there were people that were notfrom the state that travel to Hear two
Texas, and somehow they found infar east Yallas this little park and they
camped up there and sat out thereand watched the eclipse. And I heard
him talking as they were they hadmet some other people that had come from
out out of town, and like, so, are you guys heading back
tonight or tomorrow. It's like,yeah, we got to fly out in
the morning, so we're gonna godo some blah blah blah, and like,

(20:18):
what the hell? They're in myneighborhood, my little silly neighborhood.
And they found that spot out ofthe way to watch the eclipse and they
traveled here for it, and goodfor them. I think it's awesome yea,
and I would love to see thisagain sometime to experience that again tomorrow.
Do you want to do it tomorrow? Yes, God, let's go
to Clyde Warren Park tomorrow and justsee if it happens. By all accounts,

(20:41):
that was not exaggerated, that thenumber of people coming, the specific
number might have been. But eventhen on the area yesterday, we're just
like men, was even panicking aboutI don't want to hand out all these
ninety seven one of the freak chirchsto people who don't live here, panicking
because there was a lot of peoplewho weren't from here. Can you see
everyone with glass on staring at thesun and the moon, and Ben just

(21:03):
staring at the merch table, justJohn d dang it from Michigan. I'm
gonna listen, gonna help us.I get out. We started going in
line and interviewing people asking where theywere from. Dude, We've got an
ESPA. More of eclipse stuff throughoutthe show. I want to hear JJ's
experience too. We'll get that next. We will do a little bit of

(21:25):
sports as well, and and morethan its seven thirty. The whole eye
Eye thing, we'll get to that. It's a big show. It's fun
stuff, all right. We'll continuethe excitement freak