Celebrating White Line Fever, 50 Year Anniversary: Rob Mariani On Legacy And Grit

Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_05 (00:15):
Welcome back to Doss Deliver Podcast.
I'm your host, Truck and Ray,and this is where we celebrate
the road, rigs, and the bigstories of trucking.
Today we're going to get we gotsomeone who's been representing
truckers for on the screen foryears.
He's been in the AmericanTrucker, he's been on the Speed
Channel.
Rob Mariani is back behind thecamera with passion for the

(00:37):
project and also has a soul fortrucking and documentary.
So we want to welcome him to theshow, and he's going to tell us
about his Hollywood stunt legendand all this with Mike Ryan and
bring the spirit back to lifefor so many people out there
that want to know more abouttrucking.
So, Rob, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_01 (00:58):
Thanks for having me again, Ray.
It is going uh right as rain.
If we're walking and talking,it's a good day, right?

SPEAKER_05 (01:05):
That's right.
That's right.

SPEAKER_01 (01:06):
Another opportunity to take a whack at it.
Uh, and that's kind of what I'vebeen doing.
Um, this being 2025, theanniversary year of White Line
Fever, the movie that came outin 1975, um, sort of was the
impetus for this year's uhmotivation, if you will, or
inspiration.
Yeah.
Um what for those of you thatdon't know, uh, the decade of

(01:29):
the 70s, when I was a little kidgrowing up, I was born
throughout all the, I was a kidthroughout all the 70s.
And when when you're a littlekid that's, I don't know, five,
six, seven years old, and youbecome enamored with trucks like
I did, you didn't you don't havethe world that I would I I
should say the the kidsnowadays, or it doesn't matter

(01:51):
what hobby you have or whateveryou're into, the internet and
and everything that goes with itis like the candy store of all
candy stores.
There's nothing you can't find,trace, get to, get references
on.
But there was none of that wayback then.
There was no, you can just go onand Google that and find a photo
of that really cool truck.
You like you had to go to the 76truck stop to see the 359 bill

(02:14):
or be on the interstate while itwas rolling down, you know,
hauling bread, you know, to theMrs.
Carl's bread store.
And that's what I grew up in.
So every time I would see trucksand growing up in Milwaukee in
the city, I would ride my bikeor my skateboard to all the
local places that were thefactories that was blue-collar
town, and you could seesemi-trucks everywhere.

(02:36):
And I just became sucked in andenamored with it.
And then the older I got, uh,when I say older, when you're
cognizant that your grandfathersare truck drivers, about that
age, whatever it was, fivemaybe, that I realized that both
of my grandfathers were truckdrivers, the drove for gateway
in yellow.
And then that became um morefuel for my fire, for my passion

(02:58):
about trucks.
And then we couple that with mygrandmother, God bless her,
Molly.
She ran a tavern in Milwaukeefor 48 years.
So in the mid-70s, she washumming right along with her
business that she's had fordecades.
And it just so happened that oneof my grandfathers drove for
Schlitz and uh Schlitz beer, andshe had a Schlitz beer bar, and

(03:19):
he drove B Model Max with thekegs of beer and delivered them
to her tavern.
So when I'd see that, it becamemore and more like dumping fuel
on my fire.
And then that same grandpa,Amil, he had a subscription to
Overdrive magazine, and thatwould come in the mailbox.
You know, you didn't go onlineand see the local whatever
article that whatever they had,Overdrive has now, it's all

(03:41):
online.
And I would get those magazinesthat were fresh.
You know, he would look at themfor maybe 15 minutes, an hour,
and then he'd give them to me.
So I had a stack of Overdrivewhen I was a kid.
And if you can imagine, I don'tknow, I'm already bit by the
trucking bug as a little kid,and then going through those
magazines and seeing the ads forWilson Antennas or the model of

(04:02):
the month or the tractor of themonth.
It just was crazy.
Plus, they had really hot modelson the cover, and that was
awesome.
I always liked the, I mean, I Iknew uh what a pretty girl was,
but I wasn't into that for thatper se.
But it certainly is cool.
When you get older, you're like,damn, overdrive was just so
badass.
It was just a badass magazine,and still is, but it's not like

(04:23):
it was.

SPEAKER_05 (04:23):
It's Milwaukee, huh?
My mom's from Milwaukee.
She went to Milwaukee.
There we go.

SPEAKER_01 (04:27):
I love it.

SPEAKER_05 (04:29):
And she knows about slits and all that.
She's just telling me aboutthat.
So how cool is that?
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (04:34):
Absolutely.
So that that became the theimpetus, and then all of a
sudden, so white line fevercomes out in 1975.
My parents weren't exactly I'mthe middle, I'm a middle child
uh of seven, but we didn't haveseven then.
I think we had maybe four orfive.
So I was either the youngest orthe somewhere in the pecking
order when white line fever cameout.
And it wasn't like my parentswould take us to the theater to

(04:56):
go see white line fever.
We don't, it wasn't a family,let's all go see white line
fever.
So I didn't get to see it whenit was released, but it came out
a couple years later, maybe onthe late, late show, I think it
was.
And when they would re-air thethe whatever, you know, the any
uh distribution for a film orany project like that, you would
ring the rag out in the theater,you know, what did it make at

(05:17):
the box office, and then we'llkick it into the drive-in
theater.
And then the advent of VCRs andthings were they were a few
years in the distance yet.
So when I saw it a year or twolater, I remember seeing the ads
for it on the TV because therewas only like three channels
when I was a kid.
You'd watch NBC, CBS, ABC,whatever, or public channel on

(05:38):
the and on the click dial.
You know, you literally changedthe dial.
And I would see the the whiteblade channel, white blind
fever, and the truck driverwho's had enough, or whatever it
was.
And I'm like, Oh my god! And Iwould I remember saying to my
mom, I have to stay up late.
Um and she let me, she said, youcan stay up late and watch the
movie.
That was like super steroids forme.

(05:59):
It was like the DuPont blastingmachine went down and the
dynamite blew up in my brainwith white line fever.
Have you watched it?
Have you gone in toretroactively watch the film?
Have you ever seen it?
No, I haven't.
I gotta check it out now, man.
That's amazing.
Yeah, you absolutely have to.
And what's great about it is itwas at the time.
Now, everything time is a it'sit's time as a construct is such

(06:24):
it an allusion to everybody.
I feel no different than I didwhen I was a kid talking to you
about white line fever as anadult now.
I mean, I don't know, there's nogap there for me.
The the passion meter has alwaysbeen pegged, and doesn't matter
if I'm old or not or young, I itit's all the same to me.
So the uh the the movie wascaptured as a depiction of real

(06:47):
life trucking and some of theplight the trucking was facing
with corrupt brokers.
Shocking my god, corruptbrokers, can you imagine that?
Double dipping and all the restof it.
So it what's old is new.
So when they when they createdthe film, when it was written by
Jonathan Kaplan, they wanted tocapture the turbulent 70s and

(07:08):
they did it well.
And every aspect that they didof it was done with the
direction or the technicaldirection of Mike Parkhurst, who
was the editor and the creatorof Overdrive magazine.
So if you've seen Smoking theBandit, or if you've seen White
Line Fever, or if you've seenDuel or Convoy or any of the
classic trucking films, and Idon't you can go all the way

(07:30):
into Black Dog, you can go intoevery movie that you've ever
seen with a truck that'sinvolved with a truck, uh
including the 18 Wheels ofJustice that used to run on the
Nashville Network, uh, any ofthose shows.
Mike Parkhurst, if you go on toIMDB, is listed as the technical
consultant.
And I mean, I've done myhomework on him, on everything,
on every friggin' movie,including Spielberg's debut with

(07:53):
Duel in '71, all the way throughuntil he died in God bless him
in 2013.
And I got to be friends withMike before he died.
But anyway, they the the reasonwhy white line fever resonated
was because they went to MikeParker's.
He was the technical guy to say,this is how this scene should

(08:13):
look.
This is how the brokers talk tothe truck drivers.
This is how the the loads fromthe you know um uh Red River,
where he was the fictitious uhtrucking company that he was
leased on to.
This is how they did it.
So when you watch that movie,the the great thing that'll
stand out is the vintage aspectsbecause you're talking cab

(08:33):
overs, you're talkingconventionals, you're talking
there is no plastic.
I love Freetliner, buteverything now is so hard to
tell apart.
They're all monochrome looking,plasticky, windswept,
aerodynamic rigs, which Iunderstand the need of that for
fuel, but back then it wasn't,and there was all this
character, and that's the coolthing about it that it captured

(08:56):
all of the essence of what itwas like for me being a kid,
looking at it in you know inreal time, going down the road
in my parents' motorhome andseeing a 4W series cruise on by,
you know, at five miles an hourfaster than you're going, which
is a slow pass, you know.

SPEAKER_00 (09:11):
So you seem like look at his dual antennas.
This is unbelievable.
I go crazy, I go hog wild.

SPEAKER_05 (09:19):
How young were you?
What's the youngest?

SPEAKER_01 (09:22):
I was seven, seven when I saw White Line Fever,
seven.
Wow, seven, something like that.
But remember, I'm buildingmodels, I'm reading Overdrive
magazine, I'm going to truckstops every weekend uh in Oak
Creek, Wisconsin.
If you know that where that ison 994, they had a 76 truck
stop, which my grandma wouldtake me there every Saturday for
we'd get strawberry pie icecream, and I had a 110 clicky

(09:44):
camera, and I would go up anddown the roads knocking on truck
doors.

SPEAKER_04 (09:49):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (09:49):
Hey, can I go in your 352 Peterbelt?
And the truck drivers, yeah,were like salt salt of the earth
guys that would not only, youknow, and they're they
everything from the way theydressed to the way they carried
themselves to the way theymaintained their trucks,
polishing up all while they'reon their brake.
I don't, I was never turned downonce.
I think I might have gottenturned down once from a guy that

(10:11):
had to leave the maybe the fuelisland, but they never turned me
down.
They would get out of thedriver's seat, let me go up
inside.
Most of them would let me startit, you know, turn the key and
hit the button.
And I could go, I went crazy.
And I mean, I did this, Ray.
I did this for 15 solid years asa kid, 15 at least, just nuts on

(10:31):
all of it.

SPEAKER_05 (10:33):
You were getting content back then.

SPEAKER_01 (10:35):
Well, white line fever, I I didn't know.
I was just kept creating my Iwas just the content was there.
White line fever, though, is ait's it's a complete time stop
if when you look at it, and youthen you factor in the how
absolutely um brutal theindustry can be, and even even

(10:55):
though it's a Hollywood film, itresonated big time and it got it
got it did a lot of it made alot of money at the box office.
It it was critically acclaimed,and it's aged like anything,
like fine wine, because you cannever see that that era of
trucking ever again.
It's it's long gone.
And I got I was fortunate enoughto grow up in it and to be

(11:16):
immersed in that on thatpassionate side, which is where
all my passions came from.
And when I mentioned that whiteline fever was um definitely one
major aspect of me creating theum the American Trucker
television series, that's nothyperbole, that's it's very
true.
All of those little nuances andthings that I picked up from all

(11:37):
just being a fan, and then mygrandfathers never left me.
And that's why when I went intoexcuse me, the creative world in
my adult years, I went tocollege for design.
Um I never I started working atloading docks when I was in
school because you can make bigbank at the loading docks.
Yeah, and I would I would loadum uh we we worked at a uh a big

(12:01):
glass warehouse that didinternational like glass
shipping and things, and andthey had crazy specialized
18-wheelers to haul glass to jobsites, and they had they had
they had two 83 and 84 CL9000Fords, they had an LTL 9000 with
a 13-speed 350 small campCummins, no big cam Cummins,
they had um a Mac cruise liner,a 75 Mac cruise liner with a

(12:26):
maxodyne and a five-speed.
And I don't know if you've everbeen around one.
The five all drivers out therethat they'll laugh at me, but
they'll know to drive a Macfive-speed is one of the hardest
things in the world.
Manual steering, that was thefirst truck I ever got to drive
from my boss who would let usdrive these things, and we
didn't have CDLs, but we knewhow to drive them because he

(12:46):
taught us how to drive them.
We had to drive the truckseverywhere, load up the truck,
go get trailer number eight,hook it up to tractor five, and
I'd be like, yeah, yeah, CDL, ormy the LTL 9000.
They had an LTL 9000, which wasa conventional with a 36-inch
bunk on it, which was like ifyou go look up that truck now,
it's super super badass.

(13:07):
We had one of those anyway.
Um, all of that, all of thosecomponents fed into me then
sitting down to write what wouldbecome American Truck or the TV
series.
Most people think that I wasjust like an actor and I was
plugged in because I'm crazyhyper to do the show.
I wrote it all, and and I I Ispent years trying to get the

(13:28):
show off the ground.
Actually had pilots.
Uh the hosting aspect for me isI've always told people I'm an
Italian kid from the Midwest, sothere was no problem with me
with the camera.
I talk to you like I talk to acamera.
It's all the same to me.
So and the camera's very weirdthough.
I I can't just say, you know,arbitrarily let everybody can do

(13:50):
it.
The camera sucks energy out ofyou.
And if you've ever had to standand do any kind of live thing,
or or God certainly hosting a sha show with no script, and that
camera, when that camera's putin front of you, let alone if
there are people around you,yeah, all you can feel is like
this vortex sucking energy outof your mouth, and you'll end up
saying dumb things, or you'llend up like, Oh, I don't know

(14:10):
what to say.
I just naturally had a talentfor it to to stare at the barrel
of the lens and and deliver themessage.
I'm trying to bring everybodyinto what trucking is.
And and and so it it took off.
It took off with trucking fans.

SPEAKER_05 (14:25):
Yeah.
How did it come about?
What was um some of the originof that?

SPEAKER_01 (14:29):
Um, well, we I almost got the show funded
independently from pilot travelcenters in in the mid-2000s.
I was invited to what they callpilot university, okay, and
that's where all of theircorporate uh business deals
happen, or wherever they, youknow, it's like their Oz Behind
the Curtain Empire, if you will,if you go into Knoxville.

(14:50):
And I what I did first is Iwrote it because again, I go
back to my design um prowess.
I would I wrote everything atPowerPoint.
I would just build elaboratePowerPoints to write and then
get my message across withgraphics and video and things
that I would want so that Icould pitch it to get to the
next level.
So it's one thing if I couldpitch you on a phone call or uh

(15:12):
in this case, uh like a uh youknow, internet, something like
that.
We didn't, I didn't really havethat that stuff was around when
I was doing this.
It was called, I think it wascalled um oh, I can't remember
the name.
There was a there was not Zoom,not what's the one around with
this duck here?
What's the one?
What's this what's thisinterface we use?
This one's StreamYard, yeah.
StreamYard.
So there's a lot of them.

(15:33):
This one seems pretty cool.
I've never used this interface.
Yeah, I like it.
Yeah, it's very good.
But they were the software wasstill evolving in those days
where you could get oh, WebEx,it was called.
So I I put it together for aWebEx meeting, and so what I
would do is I would script, Iwould script myself, even though
I've never scripted on AmericanTrucker, and I'm not scripted

(15:55):
now, certainly.
I would just make myself somenotes that I could spin it where
I could read it if I had to getsomebody on a voicemail and it
sounded organic.
Right.
I would make sure I wouldn'tmiss my points.
So I would, because I'm I all Iwas used to was rejection.
Who is this guy that's calling?
Uh I would call, I can't eventell you all the companies I

(16:16):
would call.
I would do all my I would targetwhat would be relevant for the
industry, what would be a goodsponsor for this, what this
segment could be, all of thosethings.
And then I would call throughthe firewall.
If you can imagine calling pilottravel centers, now this was
back in again the mid-2000s,early 2000s.
There are there's a litany ofpeople that are listed from the

(16:39):
marketing on down, and who's inthe executive VP of blah to get
to whoever that gets towhatever.
So I would delineate who andwhat, and then keep my target
numbers ready to go.
And then I would wait and Iwould rehearse myself and I
would read what I could write incase I get voicemail because I
knew that I was gonna getvoicemail.

(17:00):
And you know, once you getvoicemail, you can trip yourself
up.
Oh, uh hi, it's John.
You know what I mean?
It's like, okay.
So I started leaving theserelevant, but when I say
relevant messages where you Ididn't want people to ignore me,
I didn't just want to sound likeI was selling insurance to
somebody over the phone.
I I was coming up with thingsthat were like trigger words

(17:23):
that might get them to call meback.
And and I would keep it shortand sweet.
Well, one day, and this isafter, I don't know, lots of
rejection, I wouldn't get anyresponses back.
Um I get this phone call.
Hi, is this Rob?
Yes, this is blah blah blah fromPilot Travel Centers.
And I said, Oh, great, great,excellent.
Thank you for the call.

(17:43):
And and I I remember her saying,get a piece of paper.
This is the number you need toreach.
You're you're I'm not theperson, and I've they've been
not ignoring me, but they knowthat when they came in, it took
a long time for them because Iwas congenial with them.
I didn't want to pester them.
And I would even write down onmy on my calendar when I left a
voicemail for so that I wouldspace it out and not be one of

(18:06):
these abrasive.
And so I was like, Oh, great.
She gives me the number uh andname of the executive vice
president of the nationalmarketing director of pilot
travel centers.
And she then cleared me throughthe firewall and said, There's a
guy, blah, blah, blah.

(18:27):
I I set it up.
She she said, she called me upand she said, now I have the the
big one on the line here, thebig fish.
And she and she said, I'm gonnagive you, I like what you've uh
what you've got.
She said, I'm gonna give you atwo-hour WebEx meeting and you
can pitch me.
And if I like it, I'll take itto the executives.
If not, um, you know, I'll wishyou the best of luck.
I said, okay, great.

(18:48):
So now at this point, right, I'mcalling a couple of guys that I
know that are in corporatemarketing for like wireless on
the wireless side.
They would they would sell umthe uh insurance policies to
like all the major carriers.
This is a good friend of mine.
And so I would kind of bouncesome ideas off of him over beers
and and do some things.
And and I'd say, okay, once Itold him that I had the WebEx

(19:09):
meeting, he went, his antennawent so far up, he's like, What?
You've got a meeting with theblah blah.
I mean, oh yeah, I do.
And so they're like, Oh, nowsuddenly they're the attention
starts to come on.
Oh, crazy Rob has a WebExdedicated WebEx meeting with the
executive VP of marketing forpilot.
That's no small affair.
And I pitched her on and had myPowerPoint running.

(19:31):
Um, it wasn't called AmericanTrucker, it was uh it was like
it, but it wasn't quite what itbecame.
And she said after the meeting,she said, I am I am very excited
about it.
She said her um my passion forthe project, she said is is
uncharted.
She said, I'm gonna bring thisto the executives and uh

(19:51):
congratulations, where I'll getin touch with you.
And that's kind of how it went.
And then from there, theyinvited me into Knoxville, and I
had high level meetings with Imean everybody, everybody from
the the you can cut this if youwant, or you can do whatever you
want with this.
But this is a very interestinglittle side note.
This is this is some good dirtfor you.

(20:12):
Pilot travel centers, I don'tknow if you remember this, they
got involved, they got theirhands slapped big time by the
feds.
They were bilking people out oftheir fuel points, and it was a
major sting.
And the feds came in and raidedKnoxville, where I was.
It was you can find this story,and the guy's name rhymes is

(20:34):
it's like a nut.
Okay, I'll just say that.
It's one of the nuts.
I don't want to give his name,but you could say an almond, or
you could say a walnut, or youcould say a blah, you'd
eventually fight figure out hisneck name because it's gonna
show up in the news stories.
He was a perp walked.
The guy that said to me after mynext meeting with him, he said,
Rob, this is what he said, myass is puckered up on this
chair.

(20:54):
I'm so excited.
He said, Your passion, he said,is off the charts, and I am my
interest level is 9.5 out of 10.
That's what he told me in themeeting.
In the in-person meeting.
Well, this guy then got perpwalked years later.
He's kind of wiped out, but butthat's where it sort of crumbled
down the mountainside.
They were gonna fund what wasgoing to be American Trucker,

(21:16):
and this isn't conjecture.
So, whatever you're saying outthere to you, lawyers, uh, all
I'm saying to you is the honestygot truth.
This is just how it, becausepeople say, How did you get
American Trunker?
Because I basically climbedMount Everest to get to the
show, and it was my child frommy childhood on.
And so it it didn't happen.

(21:36):
I ended up spending a lot ofmoney, the money I didn't have
on lawyers to wiggle my way outand get control back of my
intellectual property.
Because then what happened wasthese guys that came in when
they smelled all the money, andthere were there were millions
of dollars in in uh at stake tofund the show.
And when you know, when peoplesmell money, that's when you see

(21:59):
who's honest and who's not, realfast, you know, and and these
guys try to usurp me and andmelon ball me out of it and act
like it was their thing.
And and I I ended up getting it.
I then went on, I don't know.
I you know, I was doing interiordesign and I and I was a little
dejected at that stage, but thenthe show came on on this uh HE

(22:21):
TV.
It was a Sunday night show, itwas their biggest show, it's
called Design Star, and they hadthis season one, and they had
designers from all over thenation could join and try to get
on the cast of this reality showwhere you could win your own
reality TV show uh doing adesign show.
And I had friends from all overand clients that because I've

(22:42):
done a lot of cool stuff thatwas in magazines, got a lot of
magazine work from hot rod guysand things.
I've done hot rod garages andjust cool, cool stuff.
Um, and they would um uhencourage me, you should send
your stuff into that show beforeblah, the deadline.
And I was like, I'm not going ontelevision, I'm not doing any of

(23:03):
that.
I'm a private person, this ishow I am, and so I thought, huh,
but I have I accrued such aportfolio from my design stuff
that I thought, all right, I'mgoing on with the hidden agenda.
I'm first I'm gonna I'm gonna doit.
I'm literally Ray made thedeadline by uh maybe 10 hours on
FedEx because the the cutoff wasso tight, and they wanted you to

(23:27):
do, they wanted you to do thisis in 2007-ish, somewhere.
They wanted you to do uh filmyourself with an interior, a
commission that you've done fora client in the space that
you've done, and then uh aboutyourself, and then send in three
of your favorite examples ofyour portfolio.

(23:49):
Three for me is like I havethree million photos.
I don't how am I gonna pickthree?
Well, then just so happen, sohappened that I can pass the
smell test for you, Ray.
Because back before this everhappened, I already bought a
74-4W1 uh 9000 out ofSmithville, Tennessee, with
53,000 original miles on it,which was the exact truck that I

(24:11):
wanted to build the blue mulefor White Line Fever.
And I was doing this in 2009,99-ish.
Okay.
I was obsessed with this thing,okay, since I was a kid.
So I already had my truck and itwas in Florida where I live.
And um I had filmed myself withit because it's who I am, and

(24:32):
I'm like blah blah blah, andthis and that.
Well, I FedEx the thing out toLA, thinking, thinking that if
if they could maybe, if I got abite off of that apple, maybe I
could parlay that into trying togo back to the my truck show,
which is what I'm trying to get.
I don't want to do a designshow, but I thought, okay, but I
don't know.

(24:52):
I just put the stuff out there.
The I got a phone call from uhthe guy's name was Jesse.
He was a producer, he said, HiRob.
My name is Jesse.
I'm a producer with H HTTV.
Um, and I have a couplequestions for you.
I said, shoot.
He said, let me understand this.
You do you do interior design,you're overtly straight, and you

(25:13):
own a big rig?
Is that correct?
These are the three questions heasked me.
I asked that plus yes and yes.
So I'm an anomaly.
I'm already so far out on leftfield that here comes this butch
dude with a big rig that doesinterior design, and I send in
what I bought my I mean, mystuff was good.
I can't say it wasn't, and itwas in magazines.

(25:35):
So it went down the rabbit holewhere they wanted me to be on
this show, and I wasn't gonna doit, but I ultimately said I was
gonna do it.
I went on with the agenda oftrying to get to another show
after it.
And when I went on to HTTV, Iended up being in the final
four.
I ended up, I thought I wasgonna win, but the whole thing
was rigged.
That's a whole nother topic.

(25:55):
We can talk about that laterbecause there's lots of Design
Star fans that are out there.
The whole thing is fake.
Reality TV is so fake, but Ray,what it did for me by going on
that fishbowl reality show inLas Vegas and trying to just
hold my own with thesechallenges was if you could
imagine, and I in fact, I knowthat YouTubers can't imagine

(26:17):
what I'm gonna say.
You can't imagine what it's liketo be on a show like a big
brother kind of a show where youhave, I counted them, no less
than 25 big cameras shooters,25.
When you're when you see thelocal news guy or girl that's
out on whatever, and they've gotthe big camera on them, oh,
we're live reporting at thescene of the illegal CDL crash,

(26:41):
yeah.
Whatever that camera, imagine 25professional shooters that are
get that get you at all anglesfrom everywhere, and you're
mic'd almost 18 to 20 hours outof a 24-hour day.
So, whatever you say, imagineright now we're doing your
podcast, and when we're not onyour podcast, if you were mic'd
and on camera, what you mightwhat anybody might be doing or

(27:04):
saying throughout their day.
Anyone, so that's how it was,and they tried to get you with
gotcha TV.
Well, I learned fast, quick,because they would say you have
to be able to design and executeand host on the show.
So I had invaluable experiencegoing on a major, major show
like that.
It was a that's a majoroperation, sponsored by it was

(27:25):
Sears and God knows everythingelse.
Uh, all of these major sponsorsand corporate everything.
You're in New York andManhattan, you're in Los
Angeles, blah, blah, blah.
And I was in Hawaii.
They brought me to Hawaii to dosome other hotel rooms with the
other finalists and all thiscrazy stuff.

SPEAKER_04 (27:43):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (27:44):
I'm I'm I'm I know I'm long, but when the edit,
this should work for you.
So after LA was the final uhobligation for the network, and
we all had to be there in thestudio.
My good friend of mine, name isMatt.
Um, I've known him since he was15.
He was living in LA and he wasworking for a major Hollywood

(28:04):
film director as his assistant.
And he's a screenwriter, but hewas cutting his teeth.
And he was working for aproduction company that was in
Ojai.
And he said, When you're whenyou come out to Los Angeles,
extend your ticket and then staywith me for several days.
And then I said, I will be soglad to do that to decompress.

(28:24):
You know, let's just cook somefood, drink some wine, get the
hell away from fishbowl reality.
I couldn't take any more ofthat.
And it's crazy, it's a grind onyou.
It's a grind.
And so I said, Okay, and hesaid, Bring your truck shill,
which was the PowerPoint,because I didn't have it in into
it, I didn't have it into avideo format, like I could send
you things now.

SPEAKER_04 (28:44):
But PowerPoint was okay.

SPEAKER_01 (28:46):
So I brought it, I brought it.
And he said, I'm gonna introduceyou to my boss.
We'll come in.
And one morning we went in tosee to meet his boss, his name
was Steve, and I startedwhipping through it and started
telling him what what the showis and and what what I think it
needs to be done.
And and and it's about timesomebody started singing the
praises of the unsung heroesbecause without them, you don't

(29:06):
have a job as a TV executive bysimply you have to eat food and
put fuel in whatever car you'rein.
Yeah, I don't care who you are.
The industry touches you.
Okay, it doesn't matter ifyou're some uh you know ex
eccentric, crazy Hollywoodexecutive living in the
Hollywood Hills, you're affectedby the industry just like we
are.
Okay, and so that he went,You're the show.

(29:29):
And I and I said, I'm I'm notthe show.
I said, here's who I want.
I at the time I had Jerry Reed,I had all these people that
could host it.
And I said, and he said, no, no,no, you're the show.
So from there, it took me almostthree years, three years of
going out with him on our owntime and dime filming places.
He would say, I want you to giveme uh some locations that we

(29:51):
could shoot at.
And I would say, Absolutely, Ihave copious amounts of this
stuff.
I so I said, I want to go andshoot at the Nationals, I want
to shoot at the Diesel ThunderDragons, uh, all these things.
And so we would pick and choosewhat for his schedule.
I'm just going along doing whatI'm doing, doing commercial
interiors.
And that then he would say, Ihave a date on such and such for

(30:14):
four days.
Could we do something with it?
And and so we would hunt andpeck, we would go and film a lot
of the stuff that you'll see inthe show open of American
Trucker, where I'm like, look atthis lineup, and I'm going crazy
in New Jersey.
That all I can tell you exactlywhere every single one of those
pieces were, and they ultimatelybuilt into the components that
we were pitching to networks.

(30:36):
And at the time, once we gotthat, it's called a sizzle reel
in the industry.
Once you get that sizzle reeldone, which is the tangible at
that time, it's probablydifferent now in today's
landscape of streaming, but atthat time, you really needed to
have that to get eyeballs fromthe networks to see if you were
there.
People try to get TV shows allday, every day for decades.

(30:58):
You just can't get them.
They're very hard to it's it wasso hard to get a network to
show.
Well, we had at the time, it waswhat is Paramount now was True
TV, it's still the same network.
Paramount, um, History Channel,Discovery Channel, and Speed
Channel, which was Fox, all wereinterested and wanted American
Trucker.
One came to the forefrontbecause they wanted a primetime

(31:19):
show, and that was Fox.
And that's how the genesis of itgot you know to be uh, I guess,
put into the chamber, ready togo.
And once they picked it up, oncethey pick up it's a great day in
your life when you hear that anetwork has picked up your show
that you've worked so hard toget, but then you're terrified
at the same time because I don'thave a freaking clue how to host

(31:41):
this show, and I don't know whatit's gonna be like.
I don't know if people will likeit.
Yeah because if the networks,Ray, if you put out your show
and you know this, even if youwhen you put out episode one of
your podcast, it's a giantgamble.
Everything's a gamble.
You don't know if someone'sgonna watch it or if you can
hopefully just stay with it ifit if their numbers are low.

(32:02):
You just keep gotta keep goingand going and going and going
and going and keep climbing,right?
So I thought, okay, I'm gonnahere we go.
Once we did it, and once we hitthe air, January 27th, 2011 was
episode one, season one.
The networks will they do this.
I know this now because I'vebeen a producer in the game for

(32:23):
quite a long time and I've gotexperience.
They'll pull your show just likethat.
It doesn't matter how much theyput in, if they don't get
numbers that they want on thatshow that they put all their
treasure into, then you'repulled.
You're pulled within twoepisodes.
So when you go out on episodeone, season one, it's like
walking off the proverbialcliff.
I don't know where it's going.

(32:44):
I mean, this is a passion ofmine, but maybe it won't, maybe
people won't go crazy on that.
Even though American Trucker isa show about uh trucks in the
industry, it's not a show fortruckers per se, it's a show for
everybody because we'reeducating people on history.
And I I took them into deepdives on things that they would
never have a clue wereinvolving, you know, the the

(33:05):
industry.
Yeah, it it took off.
It it went it went crazy.
It was in the top fiveimmediately and out of 27 shows,
and we just kept going.
And the only thing that stoppedit was we got our legs clipped
down from underneath us becauseof the format change where speed
wanted to have an ESPN rival,and they simply bumped the

(33:26):
everything and shelved.
I didn't own the other thing.
I had to sign a grant of rights,even though I created the show.
The grant of rights, anybodywill know in contract language,
is it's kind of like yourdoomsday.
You're not gonna get anythingout on the air if you don't sign
it, because no network will everlet you control a network
television show.
Like if I'm Rob Rogue, executiveproducer, and I say it's my way

(33:51):
or the highway, they don't wantany of that stuff.
You know, the network ultimatelyowns it.
Right.
And when they fund it, that'show it works.
So it wasn't mine, it wasn't itwas out of my control, but it
it's it's like I look at it now,right?
With where the industry is andthe plight of today's industry
being oversaturated withillegals that have come from

(34:13):
every country there is that havesuddenly got a fake CDL from a
24-hour CDL mill.
We can see it, we we see thecrashes, it's horrible.
We know what the DOT is doing,they're cracking down.
That the the dichotomy fromAmerican trucker to today and
where the industry is, is it'salmost an it's it blows my mind.

SPEAKER_05 (34:36):
What do you what's your thoughts on a lot of that
stuff, man?
I mean, you see it in thevideos, you go online, and I
mean, man, it's like anotheraccident.
How did they get that footage?
Man, wow, what what are we notseeing?

SPEAKER_01 (34:47):
We we we did we did um some we did episodes on
everything.
I mean everything.
I've done heavy haul, I've doneuh we've hauled potato chips
over the continental divide withuh Sy Sandy, with Western,
Western uh distribution withGino and everybody in Colorado,
um, to NASA to NASCAR uh toNASCAR to UPS to I can't even

(35:12):
tell you all the stuff thatwe've done, and we've covered a
huge swath, ag all of this.
I look at where and we did Iwent to CDL school.
For those, this is what'srelevant now to today's topic.
We anyone can read now if it youhave to be living under a rock
if you don't know that there arenow there's a major problem in

(35:33):
the in the trucking industrywith illegal CDLs from
foreigners that have come infrom their country.
I don't begrudge them trying tocome in, but you come in
illegally, and then when you dothat, you're getting a fake
illegal CDL license, and you'reputting you, me, and everyone
else in jeopardy that's done itthe right way.
That's not the way the industryworks, that just doesn't count
work, and you can see thecarnage as a result.

SPEAKER_04 (35:55):
Yeah, people are dying.

SPEAKER_01 (35:56):
I went to CDL school on camera.
Now, this is the thing.
If you've gone to CDL school,you did it on camera, why don't
you do it on camera?
Because it is not easy.
And I can attest to you when Isee this and I read about these
stories with these CDL mills, myblood boils because I know they
used to call it your cola test,like your cutout low air, all

(36:17):
those things that you learn uhin in school.
I learned it on camera live,like a complete guffey fish, uh
I know like everyone else.
And then to do it, and I seethis how they've just looked
there's no sugar coating it.
The former administration wasinto some nefarious stuff, and

(36:37):
they've tried deliberately toflood in all these people and
overwhelm the system, andthey've done it now.
The trucking industry iscatching all of it like a
fishnet, man.
It it is it's like a full net oftrash that we've got to compete
with.
Where we all know that they havewatered down all the wages.
It wasn't but three or four orfive years ago that most truck

(36:59):
drivers can make six figuresrespectably, on top of that.
Six figures all day.
I have driver friends that weremaking big bank.
You can't uh I have friends thatsay they were offering me a load
from Georgia to New York for$800or$600.
It's like, what?
Because some guy from Ethiopiaor India takes that load,

(37:20):
they're undercutting all of thewages, and then you have all
these corrupt brokers that arein now.
I have I've been told by guysand I know they're on the road
that the Russians, okay, there'sa whole influx of Russians, the
brokers, that have taken andfigured out ways that they reset
your 24-hour clock, and they'vegot guys out driving

(37:41):
indefinitely on because the thethe uh electronic log says
otherwise, but this crazy dudewho's on pills, like the guy in
uh California last week orwhatever that killed three
people and plowed right into itwithout even stopping, and
outside of Fresno or wherever hewas, yeah, was on drugs and
didn't even so much to slowdown.

(38:02):
We've got huge problems, hugeproblems, and it it it bothers
me immensely.
And so I can look back and say,I I there there something's gone
awry here and it needs to befixed, and it needs to be fixed

(38:38):
in a big way because the there'sthere's pride, the pride is
gone.

SPEAKER_05 (38:45):
What's your predictions on the next let's
say five years?

SPEAKER_01 (38:49):
I I think Ray that from what I'm seeing in Florida
and at least um GovernorDeSantis is doing some great
things where he is stoppingeverybody at the at the DOT stop
at the way stations.
Okay, and getting checks.
That is the perfect way to fishhim out.
You you could be cut you've gotto go in.
You know that you're a driver.

(39:10):
When it says it's open, you'rehitting to the right.
Okay.
So and then if you go in andthen they do these CDL checks
and they're they're pulling themout.
I read that, I read they'repulling them out.
Uh it's actually frightening howmany they're actually pulling
off of the roads quickly.
But that's I think a way thatdefinitely is going to call the
attention onto it where they'refleeing now.
And now that you've got, butthere's so many other issues.

(39:32):
You've got these leasingcompanies, these unscrupulous
guys that are leasing theseguys' rigs, which have no
business being in one.
If your CDL is illegal, so isyour insurance.
How are you supposed to getinsurance if you're illegal and
something happens, but you don'tfind out until after the fact
because they're all just like,hey, here's your buck.

SPEAKER_00 (39:52):
Let me just give you what I got here.

SPEAKER_01 (39:54):
Get out of the road.
And then they all the problemsare backlogged.
Well, now they're leaving trucksin the middle of nowhere.
There's a shortage of guys evengo get the trucks that people
don't think of that either.
Oh, they pulled Manuel out ofhis GOT stop in Missouri.
And where's his truck?
It's over there in Missouri.
Well, how's that small companysupposed to be able to pay to

(40:15):
fly the guy out?
And right so many ramificationsto this.
And it listen, I wouldn't mindgoing out there with a cape if I
could and and going out thereand doing anything I could to
help out.
But it it I could look at thecatalog of American Trucker and
the people that I know and whoI've met, and certainly the
large companies that thatfacilitate this.

(40:36):
industry, certainly theFreightliners and the Macs who
I've done some work for, and theCobra electronics.
And there's just so many peoplethat are affected by this
because we're all out here withto no fault of yours or no fault
of mine, we've gotten the foodthrown on us.
You know, we've got it's likethe food fight.
You know, we're we're we're hitwith it.

SPEAKER_05 (40:54):
What do you think uh what do you think it's gonna do
for a lot of those majorcompanies that do need people,
the reliable truck drivers goingto have a hard time finding them
or and what's your predictionsthat you're hearing out there?

SPEAKER_01 (41:07):
I've I've thought about this because when I did an
episode on UPS, UPS is thelargest trucking corporation in
the world.
Okay.
To go into there and get thatwhole episode done was not only
a uh eye-opening um but I saw itfrom so many different angles.
And I know the the the episodethat we did was called Searching

(41:30):
for the big dog and Ron Souderwas a driver at he's retired
now.
Hey Ron hope you're out therebrother have a cocktail at your
dog he was such a cool guy hewas at UPS for I think 50 years
something crazy some crazy ninemillion miles I don't know some
some ridiculous number and noteven a not even a scratch fender
bender nothing zero on hisrecord.

(41:52):
So I went to find him deep downinside of UPS in the episode to
track him down and I I I rolledwith him from Cincinnati to
Worldport and and um fromChicago.
So we did some some cool thingsin there so when to your
question I what brings to mindmy question is how is the UPS
how is uh the that type of a acompany handling this where

(42:16):
there's a they all say there's ashortage and we all know that
half of that is talking out ofone side of your mouth they say
it for whatever reasons ohthere's a shortage no there's
not a shortage but you broughtin people that have watered down
the the wages and they're noteven legal and that certainly is
what you could say the shortageand that fear porn panic stuff

(42:36):
again get them all the panicthere's a shortage no there
really isn't a shortage if youwould have I don't care who you
are what color creed or whateveryour uh flavor of the month is
if you have a desire to go toCDL school and get a commercial
driver's license legally throughthe schools like I even did.

(42:57):
Yeah yes and and to to to wearthat there is a an uh an innate
sense of pride and satisfactionthat you get when you not only
did you set out to do it becauseit's not easy to do it.
I was shit in my pants half thetime with like oh we gotta do
the alley doc and I'm on cameradoing it.
I'm on mic I got cameras on me.

(43:19):
Imagine you're in CDL school andyou got cameras on you for the
audience it's like well man if Iscrew this up I'm gonna really
get my ass kicked in on the inthe blogs everywhere.
Yeah all of that I that is sucha for me uh uh it's like an
American almost like abirthright is you got your CDL

(43:40):
you've achieved the highestdriver's license you can really
get certainly with your hazmattags on there and all that you
achieve something that fewpeople do and if you do once you
are once you get it how in theworld are you not so mindful of
every day when you're getting inholding that wheel and shifting
gears or or in this case pushingpushing drive now that you you

(44:01):
wouldn't have the pride thatcame along with it that I knew
you don't want to lose it.
You want to hold on to it wellnow they they've watered it down
to the point where I was just inNorth Carolina at Brad's and I
drive it's a eight nine hourdrive for me and every time I go
every year and just this I Imake mental notes like nobody
makes mental notes I'm out thereRob from American truck or

(44:24):
whatever you want to I'm I'm inmy car and the lane jammers I
can't they they lane jam thesedrivers now they just get in the
other you know they're justsitting there holding up
everybody they won't even passthey're so rude there's no
there's no i i half of the rigsi i mean i make note of all the
details right they'redilapidated garbage piles they

(44:47):
they they're i don't even knowhow they're even allowed to be
on the road and you can alwaystell because one of them has
like hey here's his name andit's taped onto the side of the
door anti express out ofwherever it is with the
temporary dot number right andyou're like what what is that
truck and it's cockeyed on thedoor it's like that is not

(45:09):
exactly my type of Americantruck or I don't know I would
have to call it anti-Americantrucker what's on the roads they
don't and going in the truckstop flip-flops the pea bottles
the trash it's so embarrassingit is embarrassing is it's
embarrassing and it's it'sreally it's gotten to the point
where I think I fear Ray thatthe older generation like guys

(45:33):
my age I'm in my 50s thatthey're going out they're
getting out of those seats andthey're not coming back and so
whatever the new influx issomebody needs to get a hold of
the it and sort of you know tieits bootstraps type get rid of
all of this stuff and make itexactly like it was uh a whole

(45:53):
12 13 years ago when I was doingit on TV it's completely changed
the landscape is completelychanged and and the reputation
of truck driving now is I'm notI'm not gonna lie to you it's in
the gutter.

SPEAKER_05 (46:05):
Yeah deal DMV or DVS or however whatever the state
government agency that's therethey need to enforce it
companies need to enforce itunfortunately that's their last
um that's the last area whereyou know we can stop it like you
said at those uh at those truckstops and um way skills I mean
that's uh that's a huge thing Imean not just to say ah well I'm

(46:28):
glad they're here I'm glad theyshowed up no you should actually
be ready to work um like yousaying even your footwear should
be good to go like what if youbreak down on and the ground's
soft and you got to get out andput your your your triangles out
with your foot flops and youbreak your toe when you're on
the on the and you're kicking onthe step there's a reason why
truck drivers wear boots andjeans.

SPEAKER_01 (46:49):
Yeah protect you yeah you're going out there with
the glad hands and you got yourflop t-shirt on and you're
you're all full of grease it'sit's it's there's no the the
pride thing is gone.
I think what they need to do iswhat we're talking about.
Hit them right where they needto get them at the dot stops
there's no way that you won't beable to flag them all down
because if you know that if theygo rogue and blow by you're

(47:10):
you're done they'll find youyou're on camera everywhere
they'll get those tags andhopefully that's the way they
can get them out.
And then what I think needs tohappen is there needs to be like
a grassroots and I would startat the high schools I remember
being in high school at thescience fair you know you're in
the gym and all the recruitingfor the job people are there
they should be right theregetting the kids out of high

(47:31):
school because it is still ifyou go into it with with the
advent of technology now and thethe unbelievable things that
these truck drivers have nowwhat you guys have at your
disposal for a truck not like ablue mule 1975 Ford W series
that I mean it had air but thatwas about it.
There was no GPS there's nopower anything is what you have

(47:54):
now is a very inviting world forthe people that want to go out
and still drive the miles andsee the world and not be chained
to a desk and and and do thisunbelievably important job with
pride but it's just got to startthe it can reset I know that it
could reset and the DMT and thefeds are the where it can and

(48:15):
will have to be reset.

SPEAKER_05 (48:16):
Right.

SPEAKER_01 (48:17):
They're gonna have to gain control of it and then
go out there and do a push andsimply recruit these companies I
I'm I'm if you watch theseTikTok videos I laugh my ass off
on these TikTok videos wherelike the Warners of the and the
and I I you can blurt out thesenames we'll just call them the
big box truck drivers where theythey make fun of them with

(48:40):
cartoons it's the greatest thingI've ever seen where you know
they've got the action figureswith a big urine bottle as part
of the accessories in the toyand they buy they've got all of
these flips and all these thingsit's absolute parody but where
does that parody come from fromreality right it's it's it comes

(49:01):
comedy comes from somewhere realand that's real that's where it
is I just was out I I I I lookat it all and I think you know
oh my you know what's greatthough right when I'm on the
road when I can see and veryrarely do you see them but
they're there you see the owneroperators that are still out
there and their truck looks likenight and day next to some some

(49:24):
other plasticky whatever rundown fake driver rig.
And when you see it it's like ohthere's one of the last of the
cowboys yeah out still runningand that that gives me hope but
the it's this younger generationand and this is this is it's on
topic when I would go out andmeet thousands and I've met

(49:45):
thousands of fans from Americantrucker over the years thousands
of them at truck shows andwhatnot and I love them all and
I would talk to them as much asI could talk to them and I would
always ask them what's yourfavorite episode all kinds of
things and these kids were someof these kids were uh didn't
matter boys girls um maybe 10 12years old and they were crazy

(50:06):
they'd never miss episodesthey'd tell me everything they
would quote me stupid stuff thatI would say on the show
hilarious stuff then I've metI've met them again and they
there were drivers with CDLsthat were 21 said I got my CDL
because of you and I just saidthat's the greatest thing I've
ever heard I said even if it wasone person that made American
trucker a phenomenal success itwarmed my heart.

(50:28):
Right you don't know who you'reimpacting and who you're
influencing and it doesn'tmatter and I say that about any
truck driver that could bedriving down the road right now
today if you have pride in whatyou're doing it's up to you guys
individually to try to clear outthis all of this this noise that

(51:08):
has entered the industry and andbring it back bring back some
polish to it some pride to it.
So what's your friend speakingof reset what uh what helped you
um I know you've been through alot yourself um even in the
content world the creativityworld um I mean you mentioned a
few things to me backstage uhthere's been a lot of targeting

(51:29):
that goes on even with you asyour uh public figure is if we
can reset yeah I know you foundsome peace in your life if we
can reset the trucking world wegot to find that peace where we
can bring it back to why don'tyou tell the listeners about
what you've been through man umwell in in those of you who have
that used to follow me on socialmedia um this is around 2016

(51:55):
after American trucker I neverleft the game I mean I left the
stage of network television butI was again I was a brand
ambassador for Cobra for anumber of years I worked with
Freightliner I worked with Macwe'd done some MCs and did lots
of can't can't count how manytruck shows I'd go to and we
would as a producer we're alwaysfilming things so we we were out
in Sturgis doing some filmingwith Evil Knievel because the

(52:19):
evil can I did on my show yeahthat truck has never left me and
all the guys that now have it atthe Las Vegas Evil Knievel
Museum I think it's gonna bemoved there from we restored the
truck I went on with overdriveand did some podcasts over the
years when we restored the truckafter it was on American trucker
and now it's like a showroomquality it's a museum piece.

(52:40):
So we were in Sturgis doing somefilming with the truck with the
Evils Mac and some other thingsand um uh some a good friend of
mine names Tom sends me a texthey have you seen this meme of
you and I I didn't know what ameme was it's 2016 ish and and I
I don't pay attention to thatstuff I'm kind of crazy that way

(53:02):
I don't really care about it andI'm like what is that and he
sends me this and it's me andit's this promo picture and I
know the promo picture well I'msitting in Jerry Howard's um
auto car which is one of themost badass autocars that the
world has ever seen.
I think there's a buzz and dozenin it um and it's me in this
promo picture which I recognizeand it says something like

(53:25):
you're not a real trucker unlessyou've hit a hitchhiker with a
piss bottle some some crazystupid thing that I would never
let my you know young audienceever you know I would never say
such things and so all I did wasI went into Photoshop and I just
crossed out the thing and putnot my words never would be
that's it okay I didn't crossswords with anybody I didn't get

(53:49):
into the keyboard warrior you'rea douche and blah blah blah blah
blah I'm rob I didn't care aboutI just put it out there well
then some for some reason thisone guy and I know his name in
fact I know I know everythingabout him he doesn't know that I
know but I know I found out whoit was started this avalanche of
uh I don't know if this was theearly bot days but it certainly

(54:09):
seemed like bots within theywere just pounding and pounding
on my Facebook and Twitter justgoing crazy on um the one guy
doxed it it got to the pointwhere I could care less I wasn't
you know again I don't want togo in there and it takes two to
tango and if I go in there startswinging you'll be swinging and

(54:29):
then we're all in a fist fight.
And so but if you don't swingyou're not in a fist fight.
I mean you can defend yourselfthat's that's what I was doing
at this point.
They publicly put out what theythink is my address it's a
family member it's not myaddress and my family member has
a disability and they literallyI I I I think I'm sort of

(54:51):
paraphrasing it was somethingalong the lines of here's the
address we're gonna drive by andshoot that mother effer um and I
mean multiple and they keptgoing with the address and they
kept putting all the location itgot to the point where I had to
go to the police immediately mylocal sheriff and they told me
exactly what to do I said I am asecond proud Second Amendment uh

(55:12):
supporter I said I've got gunsto defend myself in my house
because if somebody comes to myhouse I'm I I'm defending myself
they said oh yeah you need toput on a no trespassing signs I
got different cameras I went tothe news I went to the news
media they didn't exactly giveme the most flattering edit
because I was the point thatthat I was making was at the
time um I'm Rob from Americantrucker and if they can do this

(55:37):
to me and and still keep it upthey that was my beef with
Facebook I complained in theearly going and whatever you you
have to go through that somearbitrary ridiculous you know AI
now uh gatekeeper yeah wait thisguy posted this and can you
please take a look at it in oneof those things but this is
pre-AI and so whatever the thegatekeepers were then they just

(55:59):
decided that no this was allgood this was on the level you
can keep up all that you canpost uh addresses of my family
and give me death threats andit's not even me there'd be
killing my family and all thesethings so I went to the media
with it and I out of goodconscience after and it took a
little bit of a slow boil and Iwas working on these projects
and I it's the one thing aboutsocial media that I cannot

(56:22):
stand.
It's a constant vice on yourskull that you have to be
producing something.
You have to be out thereeverybody thinks that
everybody's word needs to beheard by everybody all the time
I'm I'm just like I don't wantto bother people with whatever
I'm thinking people thinkwhatever they want to think.
I just stay in my own lean rightthe same way.

(56:43):
Yeah you be you I'll be me we'llget along just fine unless you
do a piss meme and then threatento kill me and and all the rest
of it.
So it's like okay I wrote a Ibet I could find the letter I
wrote a well thought out letterto everybody on Facebook and all
my ardent fans that were onthere um that I you know loved
and adore them still and I saidunder uh as good faith good

(57:05):
conscience I'm a man ofprinciple I have to walk the
walk the way I'm I I was raisedand I cannot stay on Facebook or
Twitter Jack was the owner of itthen and he was worse of a
tyrant than Zuckerberg was atthat point even though they've
all flip-flopped since and youknow we've seen the ebb and flow
and the evolution of socialmedia and how they've the free
speech is the greatest thing andthey've got all these free

(57:27):
speech platforms but yet theypolice free speech so it's like
stop talking you're a completehypocrite you're making money
while you're doing it yeah andthe only people that are out
there and disenfranchise is youand me and everybody else that
that wants to pitch a bitch andand and and gripe about
something which you have a rightto think about what's going on
out there in uh I think uh theUK um 12 000 or more getting

(57:49):
arrested for memes can youbelieve that's gotta be
devastating I mean it's it's butthis this is what I think that's
the only good thing is that nowbecause of the the reach of it
they can't control it thewater's coming in into the front
of the Titanic and they're notstopping it where they're caught
because they can't policeeverybody and every angle and

(58:10):
get everything at all.
And so now there's awarenessgoing on and people are seeing
how tyrannical they are and freespeech must be preserved because
if you lose it once that's thelast time you're getting it
right it's the reason why thefounding fathers came and did
what they did to to build thecountry and to establish the
country in the constitutionbecause we were still in a world

(58:32):
that was like that then it mightnot have been social media but
the tyrannical kings and leadersand imperial whatever these
people these oligarchs rulingover the masses when the masses
are the leaders there we're therulers it's not them it's just
small faction and so now afterall of that I pulled out of it
right and it was good for mebecause I didn't feel that vice

(58:56):
on my skull that you're alwayslooking to post something and
and what should I say here butif somebody says a spontaneous
um they're watching somethingand they see it and the worst
thing you can do is knee jerkreaction and then when we knee
jerk with the keyboard itdoesn't go away and then and
then it get it stockpiles andand compounds and rolls downhill

(59:18):
like the snowball and the nextthing you know you're you're
you're completely canceled thisguy's a blob I told you um when
the Canadian truckers were doingtheir strike over the uh illegal
mandate to to have them takeexperimental vaccines for the
whatever you want to call theirvirus I I went right back into

(59:39):
action i i was banned on youtubewithin 15 minutes i was on two
podcasts and they banned mewithin 15 minutes because i was
i i don't go out there i'venever been one i've done media
in new y on those morning showsi brought a 69 peterbilt into
fox and friends once upon a timei've been out there i've done i
i can't count it all what thethings even news nation a year

(01:00:00):
or two ago had me on it whateverthe stuff comes on i don't uh go
out and and and just disparagepeople and and throw stupid you
know bombs at people i i i ijust call it square and uh but
i'm not afraid to call it whenit's out in front of you balls
and strikes that was absoluteridiculous uh i don't know what

(01:00:22):
you want to call it tyranny thatthey were inflicting upon the
canadian truck drivers so i wastrying to get there you know
delivering socks and supplies tothem and then i'm banned and it
it doesn't matter if you want tocome out as a crusader against
it if your crusade is againstthe narrative of the ones that
own those companies or the onesthat are paying their bills

(01:00:44):
you're shut off you're shut offit's not like the town square
where you can go out in the townsquare and nobody can they can
hear you with a bullhorn butthat's it and so if you're on
the socials oh it's a doubleedged sword you know you got we
got to save We have to stay asvanilla as vanilla can get, and
most of the stuff we're workingbanned off.
Which pisses me off.

SPEAKER_05 (01:01:05):
Yeah, I like the vanilla concept.
I mean, that definitely doeshelp keep it in perspective.
A lot of times you you can getcaught up in all of it.
I mean, it's a lot out there.
I mean bombarded by the content.
I mean, it's just sense, andlike just taking that break
because it gets that peace.
I mean, that's that's huge.
Uh good good advice for a lot ofpeople out there that may be
going through the same thing.
So I think the trucking industrywill will hear that.

(01:01:27):
And um when maybe we'll uh juststop posting all these things
that that are screw-ups outthere on the road, stop giving
them the attention that theythat they're looking for because
they're they're just trying toget people to see how you know
how bad they can they can getthe truck industry.
I think I think that'ssomething.

SPEAKER_01 (01:01:45):
I think you're exactly right.
And the way that oh think aboutit, it's it's the backbone.
And if you could you know uhmess up the backbone, the spine,
well, you're really gonna createhavoc, right?
I mean, I mean well, I mean it'sit's there, it's getting into
the backbone of our country, andit's it's it's arrived.
It's like a cancer that's on it,and we need to get that gone and

(01:02:07):
put the steel spine backtogether, which is the trucking
industry.
And because every single personon the planet, uh, your entire
life is predicated on food,fuel, clothing, or some
something that's deliveredeventually by somebody with a
steering wheel.

SPEAKER_05 (01:02:24):
So when you devalue the human and you think about
all the money that goes into theautonomous trucks, you know, if
you if we can just make thetruck industry seem so terrible
that the autonomous truck looksbetter, um it kind of makes you
wonder is that intentional or isthat this is just happening by
mistake?

SPEAKER_01 (01:02:42):
Ray, man, I can't agree.
You're you're my kind of dude.
I I talk about the I was justtalking about the autonomous
trucks.
We we've all read when they whenthe advent of the technology
came on several years agothrough Tesla.
Um, I remember reading where oneTesla guy was decapitated when
he would get underneath an18-wheeler because he was on
autopilot, and the autopilotcouldn't recognize the glare

(01:03:05):
from the trailer and the sun,thinking that it was okay for
him to drive underneath it, andhe cut his own, you know, he
chopped his own head off whilehe's on autopilot.
Now, there's a flip side ofthat.
Is for me, I the term isdriving.
I like driving.

SPEAKER_05 (01:03:18):
Yeah, it is.

SPEAKER_01 (01:03:19):
I don't need to get into what do you even need a
driver's license for if you'vegot a car that will drive you
somewhere?
You don't need one.
So driving is a yeah, if youkeep driving out of driving,
what are we left with?

SPEAKER_05 (01:03:31):
You know, American dream, have a driver's license
that freedom and independenceand the Tesla trucks, the Tesla
trucks.

SPEAKER_01 (01:03:39):
Although I think that um I know that the
evolution has always been there.
Even when I was a kid, Iremember seeing the um
turbine-powered Ford truck thatthey had out in the 60s.
They were trying to do massiveum futuristic renditions of what
the trucks of the future wouldlook like, and they weren't far
off at all.
You know, they were they werecoming out with the arrow noses.

(01:04:00):
In fact, in the 70s, you couldget these arrow noses put on,
like the if you had a vantrailer, uh, they're called uh
there was some kind of a bubblething, and it was a brand name.
You could put those onaftermarket.
It was like a plastic bubble onthe on the on your trailer.
This is before side skirts andall that came on, but they were
doing these evolutionary, youknow, inevitable changes to the

(01:04:22):
industry and making trucks alllook like I mean, I am Rob from
American Trucker, and peopleknow that I'm a retro style dude
and I like old iron.
Okay, there's no doubt aboutthat.
And I have no problem withmodern trucks and the fact that
they look, unfortunately, theyall look the same.
Although I did see a new Volvogoing to North Carolina that was
pretty badass, look pretty good,and then EKW is badass too.

(01:04:46):
Yeah, they are there are thereare there are those, but those
are some of the manufacturersthat I hope that they was
Freightliner, was doing it a fewyears ago with the Coronado.
They really tried to embrace thethe retro look of the over uh
over-the-road owner operator rigwith the coronado, and that was
always a good, I thought, uh uhuh litmus test of where the

(01:05:07):
balance of fuel economy andstill not taking the character
out of the trucks, but a lot ofcharacters gone.
And and I when I when I say alot of characters gone, well the
characters gone between the themirrors, the the the driver
character.
The driver character right nowis like I'm wearing you know a
flip-flops and whatever.
Yeah, it if they don't even it'slike they don't even care.

(01:05:28):
They're they don't care, it'sjust it's a job, and they're
they're all of that pride stuffis gone, which is which is
probably a good segue for me tomention to you why I am escaping
it all with white line fever in2025, where what's old is new,
and it's the anniversary year 50of the 50th anniversary of this

(01:05:49):
movie that came out.
But Mike Ryan, who is a goodfriend of mine, is a stunt man
in Hollywood for 35 years, andhe's done a lot of things,
hasn't he?
A lot.
A lot.
I met Mike at Freightliner andRichard Petty when we were in
the booth for their 70thanniversary.
I think that was somewherearound 2012.
I met him way back then, and wegot along immediately, and I

(01:06:11):
started picking his brainbecause I you know I love the
craft of of filmmaking and all Ilove all of that.

SPEAKER_05 (01:06:17):
And Terminator uh two terminator two.
He did some of the stunts inTerminator 2 with the record, so
he knows about that futuristicstuff too.

SPEAKER_01 (01:06:25):
Right?
The guy the you love the guy,he's just he's salt of the
earth, and we've never not beenfriends.
And so, over the years, likewhen we were in Sturgis, we were
gonna do this thing uh for thefull throttle saloon at the
time.
This is before it burned.
We were doing some things and umfor the rebuild, I should say,
burned and then rebuilt.

(01:06:46):
Um, and so over the years, I'vepicked Mike's brain on a few
things, and and he's alwaysdoing things.
I mean, he's done five or six ofthe Fast and Furious films.
Yeah, I don't I don't watch thefranchise.
I watched the 50s one, I likethe 50s version, but I've never
watched the franchise like theyou know crazy fans that that
love it, which is great.

(01:07:07):
But Mike is the guy that's doingthe big stunts in it, with it's
not the cars, he does all thebig stuff.
And when you've seen five or sixof them, you already know Mike's
work without knowing Mike.

SPEAKER_04 (01:07:18):
That's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 (01:07:18):
And if you're a fan of you know, whatever these
movies, like you mentionedTerminator 2, Paul Walker, yeah.
Paul Walker, awesome.
Mike knew Paul Walker, he hadnothing but great things to say
about him.
Um, but again, we don't know howlong we have on the planet, you
know.
One day we're here and the nextday we're not, and that's why
when I say it's good to bewalking and talking, it's true.
Yeah, so over the years, I'mI've got this white line fever

(01:07:42):
episode that I I was trying toget off the ground, and I
thought the 50th anniversarywould be the ultimate uh impetus
to try to get that done.
And so Mike and I startedcultivating this thing in
January, and it has taken a longtime, and we're where we are now
is we we launched theKickstarter, we did the uh we
did some stuff with Overdrive.
We're supposed to go on somesat, do some satellite media.

(01:08:05):
Um in fact, the truth be told tothe audience, Ray is a very
cordial, nice man because he hadcontacted me and I said, I want
to do your podcast and I'm gonnado your podcast.
I'm just not at a point becauseI couldn't say anything when I
was doing with white line fever,I wasn't at a point where I
couldn't get to it.
But I'm a man of my word.
So I said when it came aroundand and and and I got it back

(01:08:26):
around.
Now the cast out of the bag,which is why Ray's gracious
enough to have me on to talkabout it.
Um, thank you.

SPEAKER_05 (01:08:32):
No, you get back.

SPEAKER_01 (01:08:34):
So so Mike Ryan was he's personal friends with Buddy
Joe Hooker.
And Buddy Joe Hooker, again,people that don't pay attention,
this is for me, this is thestorytelling that I love to tell
to the audience, is that youmight not know his name, but
you've seen what he's done inhis work.
Because if you went out to theIMDB, internet movie database,

(01:08:54):
and you put in Buddy Joe Hookerand you look at his list of
films, and I don't care rightnow if you're a mom that's out
there uh cleaning the bathroomor changing a diaper, or you're
a dad in the yard putting a pinetree in, go look at his IMDB.
I guarantee you, with 100%certainty, that you've seen or
loved some work that either MikeRyan or Buddy Joe Hooker has

(01:09:16):
done that you don't get to seebecause the second units that
are in all the movies that makeit look so good are the ones
that you don't hear about.
You'll see them in the credits,second unit director.
Those are where the actor says,I'll kick your ass, and then he
cocks back, and then the secondunit does everything from that
on.
The other stars don't even seethe second unit, they're shot on

(01:09:37):
different time frames, and theyjust piece the movie together
with that.
Well, in White Line Fever, theycrashed a 1974 Ford W T 9000 Big
Rig through uh the corporateglasshouse sign and the
nefarious corrupt truckingcompany in the film was called

(01:09:57):
the Glasshouse G H.
And they and the character hadso much of the uh corruption in
the industry, they tried to killhim, they killed his best
friend, they uh they maimed hiswife.
You you need to see White LifeHere because it's very much a
hard-hitting depiction oftrucking in the 70s and the
plight that they were goingthrough.

(01:10:18):
But the stunt we get to is forme was always it's jaw-dropping.
When you see the actual realstunt in the end of the movie,
for me, I've always lived inthat pocket of how they did
that, who did that, and how Iwas always still framing what
was then my VCR.
Yeah, um, and in fact, laugh.

(01:10:39):
Look at this.
I've got my VHS.
Nice, I've got my VHS of whiteline fever, which is still
wrapped, it's still wrapped inthe self, it's still wrapped in
the plastic.
I paid$86 for this way back inlike the late 90s or late 90s on
VHS.

(01:10:59):
Okay, and you couldn't youcouldn't get it.

SPEAKER_05 (01:11:01):
That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 (01:11:02):
So of that.

SPEAKER_05 (01:11:04):
Oh, I'm gonna check it out.

SPEAKER_01 (01:11:05):
Yeah, you can go now, you can get on Tubi, you
can see it all, it's all over.
I mean, you can you can watch onYouTube.
I I watch, I have severalcopies, but I never if it's on,
I'll I'll always watch it.
And so this impetus of theredoing the stunt came on with
Mike, and I thought, well,there's only one guy because
he's the guy that's done it inHollywood.
I mean, they're they're the guysthat do it, right?

(01:11:27):
And he loved the idea, he'salways been open to it.
And so what we did first out ofthe gates, I want to just
preface to everybody that if youdid go on to our Kickstarter,
which we made yeah, yeah, theKickstarter thing, we made like
nothing.
We did that as a we we justtried to dip our toe into the
water with that to see if if wecould get to our goal.

(01:11:48):
But the problem is is to geteyeballs in this day and age.
You just you can do thesethings, and if you don't get the
circulation or you don't get theright eyeballs on it, and it
doesn't go to the algorithm towherever, you you you're often
you're floating out in the sea,and so that's kind of where we
were.
But our Kickstarter just ended,I think it just ended like uh
yesterday or day before, and wedidn't meet our goal, but we're

(01:12:10):
not quitting by any stretch ofthe imagination.
We're now and we're working ontrying to solicit sponsors,
relevant sponsors that want tojoin us for this crusade.
And I have copious amounts ofthis the video from the
Kickstarter and lots of polishedthings in our in our pitch
package that what we can bringto the table and what we're
going to do, and we've got twolocations.

(01:12:31):
Uh, it's either LA and a privatefilm ranch that Mike owns, and
or a really big facility inVegas, which has that one, we
really like it.
And and it's it's there, it'sit's on the platter for us to to
get to.
We're just trying to puttogether, like I said, some
relevant sponsors.
One or a dozen, doesn't botherus if they're a smaller sponsor

(01:12:54):
or a larger sponsor.
We just need to get in sometraction and going on shows and
talking to you know, guys likeyou is a big part of it, uh, to
see if maybe we could find theright person that say, hey, I've
got an ad budget with someleftover dollars.
And if you want to take a lookat us, we're squeaky clean
dudes.
We're we may be old as dirt, butwe're still kicking.
And all of these stories, if youdon't tell them now, will never

(01:13:16):
be told.
So what we want to do with it isjuxtapose the stunt and what
they did in 75 with Buddy Joe.
And Mike's parallel here is howthe industry of stunt men and
stunt coordinators, stunt women,are under siege from AI.

(01:13:37):
They're it's taking over whateven where traditional stunts
are in a film or would be,they're doing it for budgetary
reasons.
And now, as the audience member,we're all in there.
I mean, who are we kidding?
I saw Jurassic Park in 1993 whenit came out.
I was in line.
I loved it.
I thought it was the greatestthing I've ever seen in my life.
AI or whatever it was, CGI then,yeah, not AI, but CGI has been

(01:14:02):
around for a long time.
Well, what we want to do is gobeyond in into the story, into
this documentary of we are goingto show you because he's got a
really good friend that's got astudio in um New Mexico or
Arizona somewhere that does hottop Hollywood stuff that you've
seen, I've seen, and it's a goodfriend of Mike's because again,

(01:14:23):
he's been in the industry for along time.
And Mike's very he's a veryinteresting character to talk
to.
And we want to juxtapose whatthey did with White Line Fever
with the Blue Mule stunt and howit has changed the game.
In like today, if you were ifyou're producing a film and it's
that's delivered movie, and wehad to have a truck stunt in it,

(01:14:46):
you're gonna either go to an AIhouse and you're gonna pay them
a chunk of money.
Okay, it's gonna cost you achunk of money, or you're gonna
take a chunk of money, not asmuch money, and pay the stunt
coordinator to do it in theanalog way, which is the best
way.
Because you know that whenyou're watching a move a movie
up when I am, if it's sooverdone with the special

(01:15:07):
effects, you're like it losesyour attention.

SPEAKER_05 (01:15:11):
Isn't that crazy?

SPEAKER_01 (01:15:12):
Uh it's like I can't.

SPEAKER_05 (01:15:13):
There's no way that's real.

SPEAKER_01 (01:15:14):
You can't even watch it anymore.
It's like, what is this?
So that's sort of the pocketthat we're doing with the white
line fever stunt.
And this the the biggest pointthat I can underscore, Ray, is
Buddy Joe Hooker himself.
The guy is 82 years old.
He does Pilates every day.
He just finished a movie withmajor stars in 2025.

(01:15:35):
He's still in the business.
You could go on and watch, likeon our Kickstarter, if you went
on to that.
I don't know if it's still up orif you can still see it, but if
not, I can you can check it out.
Um, you can look and see whereor go on to Buddy Joe Hooker
onto YouTube and and look upBuddy Joe Hooker and Quentin
Tarantino.

(01:15:57):
Okay, Quentin Tarantino is uhquite famous as a Hollywood
director, he's done everything.
Yeah, he he loves Buddy JoeHooker like he's his dad, and
I'm it's not just me, he'sbeloved throughout Hollywood,
he's an absolute living legend.
And not only is he into what wewant to do with white line
fever, he's uh he's I've gotvideos of him talking to me,

(01:16:20):
saying how he's expressingeverything when I first got his
phone number through from Mike.
It's so I we've got majorcomponents put together for
this, yeah.
And it's really, I want to getto buddy Joe Hooker so he can
tell that aspect and then goback to like I said, white line
white line fever and themagazine, which had it on the

(01:16:41):
cover.

SPEAKER_05 (01:16:43):
Oh, yeah, you got it.

SPEAKER_00 (01:16:44):
I gotta show you.
This is hey, this is white linefever and laser disc.

SPEAKER_05 (01:16:48):
Oh, laser disc laser disc.
Man, gotta hold on to that one.
I'll get rid of that.

SPEAKER_01 (01:16:57):
Those are lobby cards from the film.
I don't, I'm not just a uh aposer, right?
This is this is my part of myoffice, and and I I love this
stuff.
This is white line fever on thecover of Overdrive, Overdrive,
on the cover of Overdrive.
You can see it.
Here's the truck smashing here.
Okay, so that that is from theindependence issue in '75.

(01:17:19):
When I was a little kid, I gotthis from my grandpa, and this
is before the movie came out.
When I when I opened up and saw15 pages worth, holy lord! So
that is where we're gonna diveinto that pool with Buddy Joe
Hooker, who was the man thatcoordinated the stunt.
He's the man, he's the guy.
So it can't get better thanthat.
So we're hoping that we can geta few, you know, people that you

(01:17:43):
know, sponsors that likehistory, like uh anything with
an engine, and certainly stunts.
I mean, stunts are as cool as itgets.
In in I mean, everyone likes astunt man, right?
It's like if you say tosomebody, what do you do?
What do you do?
I'm a stunt man, and you'relike, Uh oh, he's a badass,
right?
Yeah, you automatically know astunt man's a badass, only now

(01:18:05):
it's AI.
Now you're like, Hey, I'm abadass with my keyboard.
They're not even stunts, really.
They're not even, I told Mike isthis AI stunts aren't even
stunts.

SPEAKER_05 (01:18:15):
Yeah, so you guys got that same problem that the
trucking industry has with theartificial intelligence, the uh
autonomous trucks.
You're like, Well, we're at arace.
I'm like, who's gonna win orwho's gonna are we gonna just
work together, or is one gonnaeliminate the other?
And um, it's all about what thepeople want.
So we got to keep pushing thehuman factor, I think.
Keep telling people howimportant it is that the humans

(01:18:37):
are involved in this wholeprocess, not to not just go off.

SPEAKER_01 (01:18:41):
100%.
Because remember, technologiesare they're they're not
foolproof.
We how many times have we beenwatching our smart TV and you've
got to reboot the smart TVsometimes?
Oh, yeah.
Sometimes it doesn't matter ifit glitches out one time, and
you're if let's say it's a majortruck manufacturer that's making
an autonomous 18-wheeler, and ifit glitches and has a software

(01:19:01):
issue one time in Ohio on theturnpike, well, do you want your
family next to it when ithappens?
Because I don't want my familynext to it when it happens, or
however it's gonna happen.
So that that's really where thedouble-edged sword is.
I'd rather have a truck driver,okay, not a truck driving.

SPEAKER_05 (01:19:21):
Yeah, going down Donner's path or something.
That's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 (01:19:24):
Did you ever you've been down Donner's Path?

SPEAKER_05 (01:19:26):
Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (01:19:27):
I'm gonna tell you this.
I'll tell the audience the samething.
Of the all the episodes ofAmerican Trucker, I'm very proud
of all of them.
Um, Bud Bretzman and Steve Beebewere my other executive
producers, and Steve Beebe stillto this day is one of my
favorite people.
I learned so much from him.
He is uh, without him, there wasthere would be no American

(01:19:49):
trucker.
It was he and I that built it.
He's the guy that I told youabout that we'd fly around with
on his dime in time and the guythat we we did an episode that
on Whiteout, it was called WhiteOut on Downer Pass.
And and this is in season one.
When when you pitch a show tothe networks, they want a list
of your episodes for forecastingwhere and what that's going,

(01:20:12):
what the series will be.
And I had listed 25, at least 25episodes written out.
One of them was White LineFever.
Um, another one was um thepusher trucks on Downer Pass.
And people didn't know what thepusher trucks were.
And I knew them since I was akid, a because of Overdrive
magazine, reading it and seeingthem.
The CF guys were um running outPacific Northwest and they would

(01:20:33):
be up and down the summit onDowner Pass on 70.
Is it 70?
Um and they would get theirtrucks stuck sometimes in the
snow.
And these guys back at thegarage said, We're going to go
up there and rescue our trucksbecause they're stuck.
So they took the they werealways running doubles and they
had freight liners, day cab,single screw, uh, you know, just

(01:20:57):
mini tractors with the doubles.
And they had them all boggeddown with chains and all kinds
of cool stuff.
And it just looked gnarly ashell.
But they'd get stuck.
Well, they took those cabs andthey built a box over the rear
axle and filled it with cement.
Then they welded a huge stingerbar, they called it a stinger on
the front of their trucks.
They did this back at the CFshops, the mechanics, and put

(01:21:17):
some lights on it.
And they went up onto DownerPass and found their trucks and
pushed the suckers over the overthe summit through the snow.

SPEAKER_05 (01:21:24):
Wow.

SPEAKER_01 (01:21:24):
It became legendary.
I know when I knew this as akid.
Okay.
And this is again the industryis so not what it was.
Okay, it's just so not what itwas.
I I was enamored.
These were like superheroes tome, totally superheroes.
I mean and and so we wanted todo this episode called White Out
on Donner Pass, where I would gowhen a whiteout happens.
Nobody wants to deliver youdon't want to go to Donner Pass

(01:21:47):
and get a whiteout.

SPEAKER_00 (01:21:49):
No.

SPEAKER_01 (01:21:50):
Right?
We I came back from shooting anepisode.
I literally landed in Orlando.
The uh Stephanie called me, oneof the producers, and she said,
Rob, I know that you're supposedto have a week off, but um, oh,
we just got a call, and they'resupposed to get a ton of snow on
Donner Pass.
And and can you go tomorrow andfly out?

(01:22:12):
And I'm like, uh, yeah, becausewe've been chasing the episode
for two seasons.
I said, Let's go.
And so when we did, we didn'tknow what we were getting into
until we got into it.
Um, during the episode live, Ilost my camera crew.
I I had one small camera thatwas with me that salvaged the
episode.
There was they shut down theentire uh interstate.

(01:22:34):
There was uh 47 vehicle pileup,including I think eight big
rigs, fatalities.
This was I was embedded withCaltrans on the show.
It's the best I should have wonan Emmy Award, but I didn't
realize that you had to pay toplay for Emmy Awards.
This white out whiteout onDonner Pass from American
Trucker is the best episode I'veever done, and it was all so

(01:22:55):
they were all real, but this onewas way beyond.
I literally was out of theCaltrans vehicle with people
screaming, sliding in dieselfuel.
There were people there were uhthere was this lady who was
driving a uh doubles, and hertruck was over the cliff, had to
be 5,000 feet straight down.

(01:23:16):
The only thing holding her truckon was where the metal
guardrails are, and then there'sthe the wooden posts that go in.
Those posts are probably eightfeet long.
I didn't know they were thatlong.
It was sucked out all the way toabout six feet, and it was
barely holding her truck on.
She was in the cab.
There was no there was nobody onsite yet.

(01:23:38):
There wasn't even I was I wasstanding in in mayhem, mayhem,
mayhem.
So yeah, done a lot on AmericanTrucker.
Done a lot.

SPEAKER_05 (01:23:46):
I was gonna ask you, what's your favorite uh or most
memorable moment?
And that I think that was it,man.

SPEAKER_01 (01:23:51):
I think I think you're right.
I think that's got to be one,but I mean, for sure.
I mean, CDL school was cool, butWhite Out on Donner Pass was
just over the moon.
But NASA was, I mean, NASA, thatwas that was insane.
We did the last launch of thespace shuttle challenger, no or
discovery rather.
Discovery, yeah, we did the lastlaunch with it, and nobody knew

(01:24:13):
that there's a fleet of 67Peterbilt needle noses that have
supported every Apollo programall the way through the space
shuttle.
And we I took I take him righton in.
We we I went to go find therigs.
There's just there was a ton ofstuff that we you know what
needs to happen.
We need to put the show back onthe air right now, as it is, out
of its time capsule, and watchhow beautifully it's aged

(01:24:35):
because the show is the show,the show is amazing.
I like I said, Steve B, he's theman behind it all.

SPEAKER_05 (01:24:41):
But man, everything goes on a truck.
I mean, I think they put thatthat uh shuttle in a museum, and
I think they had to uh close outa lot of roads, and so that was
on the back of trucks.

SPEAKER_01 (01:24:50):
There's still a whole lot that I've got.
Listen, uh, I this is sadbecause I've got full tanks on
on episodes and things.
I've tried to get um I tried toread, I couldn't go out and make
American Trucker 2 because thatthe network would slap me down
quite hard.
So I I had uh come up with analternate series.
I had come up with um Smoke andMirrors.
I did projects called SemiFreaks, where I have all this

(01:25:14):
content.
And yeah, and it is it isthere's so much more on it.
And and going back into myepisodes, I really want to go
back to the NASA guys becausethese trucks are that supplied,
um, they're called refrigeranttrucks.
They cooled the the spacecapsules down when they landed
and or supported like the Apollorockets, they would have all

(01:25:35):
this nitrogen and weird thingsthat they would put in their
rockets, and there was pierbiltsthat were pulling them out to
the space uh pad to the launchpad.
Oh those trucks are stillaround.

SPEAKER_05 (01:25:45):
I I I think they're around because my research,
yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (01:25:50):
Yeah, yeah, they're so so I want to go back in and
get one of them stuck into amuseum.
There are so many things, andit's like, well, I'm to the
point where I'm just by myself,and if I go and I I need a I
just need I need a crew, youknow, to go out and film it all.
And I can't, I gotta do justiceto it.
So that's why I'm I'm sitting ona couple of things.

SPEAKER_05 (01:26:10):
Yeah, I wish you could join your crew.
That's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 (01:26:12):
Consider it uh you're a consider it it's a done
done deal, uh, with bestfriends.
Um but there it's just it'sinteresting content.
And what I was saying, it aboutwhat we're doing with white line
fever is it's sort of an escape,it's an exit off of this crazy
industry that we're facing rightnow.
And and I I I want there's gottabe more of that around so we

(01:26:33):
can, it's not all doom andgloom, and they're and it's not
all hurry.
We gotta the news media isplaying another crash, they love
the sensationalism of it.
And and you know, I'm not sayingthis, it's a good thing that
they're discovering illegal CDLmills, it's terrible.
I mean, get a license in 24hours.
You went to school, man.
Could you imagine that?
24 hours.

SPEAKER_05 (01:26:54):
That's crazy.
Professional test takers, too,people that go out to the DMV or
whatever and just take tests andthen hand off the license
because I don't know, maybe theycan pass off as looking like the
other guy.

SPEAKER_01 (01:27:06):
Ray, imagine now imagine this.
So let's just say you or I wentout and we we wanted to get our
CDL, and within a day, we all wedid was we we paid some guy,
some skoloda on the side, and hegives us that license.
And now you somehow, I don'tknow how.
Think of this.
You end up getting a job at acompany or you getting into a
truck how with insurance, Idon't know.

(01:27:28):
However, they actually get up init, and the day comes where
they're with an elite, they knowthat well, you'd be getting into
your truck with a it says noname, no name CDL.
I don't believe that that that'sreal.
No name, it's real.
It says no name, and you're theguy.
Let's say you're a key, whateverhis name is from India that did

(01:27:48):
the U-turn on on the turnpike inFlorida, yeah, and you get it,
and you're in that truck.
Wouldn't you be terrified ofkilling someone, let alone
yourself?
I mean, I you you don't evenknow how to drive.

SPEAKER_05 (01:27:59):
Well, yeah, what is scary?

SPEAKER_01 (01:28:01):
It is scary, scary driving an 18-wheeler if you
don't know what you're doing.

SPEAKER_00 (01:28:04):
It is scary.

SPEAKER_05 (01:28:05):
The first time I got in one, I was pretty scared.

SPEAKER_00 (01:28:07):
Scary, it's scary.

SPEAKER_05 (01:28:09):
You always tell you that, and they're like, Well, I
drive school bus.

SPEAKER_01 (01:28:13):
No, that's not articulating.
A school bus is a straightchassis.

SPEAKER_00 (01:28:18):
And if you're if you're out there in an
articulating rig with 80,000plus and you're in traffic,
totally different, you're intraffic with people with a
newborn baby next to you.
This guy, these people, theydon't give a shit about us.
They're just out there hand overfist, taking them and out there
crashing and burning and doingwhatever it's like, yeah, la la
la la.

SPEAKER_01 (01:28:37):
Meanwhile, the industry is like getting black
eyes every five minutes.
Terrible.
It's zero.

SPEAKER_05 (01:28:43):
You nailed it.

SPEAKER_00 (01:28:44):
Don't get me going, don't get me going, Ray.

SPEAKER_05 (01:28:48):
Yeah, something's gotta change.
You can't it's uh people outthere, like you said, babies,
young ones out there vulnerableto this greed.
The greed is gonna it's gonnaget us, man.
It's not it's not good.
Money's not everything.
All money ain't good, money,right?

SPEAKER_01 (01:29:02):
The responsible, the responsible aspects of American
trucking are it's that what'sseemingly right now dying on the
vine.
I it's like, whoa.
You have that was the thing whenI was a kid.
When I would meet these truckdrivers at the local truck
stops, and I would every singletime I would meet them, I just
was enamored with them.

(01:29:23):
They were just, you know, theywore their chain wallet and they
got their hat on, their boots,their Wrangler jeans, and
they're all you know, aroundpolishing stuff, looking,
checking fluids.
Just pride everywhere.

SPEAKER_00 (01:29:36):
And now the guys he's inside of his cab watching
Pornhub and throwing his urinebottle out the door, and it's
just like walking.
Yeah, out the window.

SPEAKER_04 (01:29:49):
Have you heard this?

SPEAKER_01 (01:29:50):
Oh god, have you heard this?
I this is credible informationthat I was I got from I've got a
lot of sources.
I have heard now.
This was this was in the lastcouple of years.
There are Chinese groups ofdrivers that are in the United
States, um, and they're from allover.
I mean, listen, any person thathas come here illegally, it is

(01:30:14):
the when the door was kickedwide open on purpose, and the
message was very clear to themthat the borders are wide open
in America, come on in, right?
And one, whatever.
And the and the percentage ofthem that were truck drivers,
and there's a great percentageof them that came from
everywhere, from Tunisia towherever, that have gotten in
and they've gotten out of thehighways.
Doesn't matter if you're Chineseor a Venezuelan or I don't care

(01:30:35):
what yeah, the race thing isn'treally what it is.
Yeah, I don't care what theyare.
I just heard from the story wasthat these Chinese guys are in
the trucks, four and five ofthem.
They remove the passenger seat,they cut a hole in the
floorboards for a toilet, andthey never stop running.
They just rotate them in and outof the seats and they run the

(01:30:58):
truck 24-7, and they'recrapping.
Listen, I I I'm not kidding you.
The guy that told me the story,who I said sells at the
corporate level of Kenworth,knows his customers and is said
that there are guys and DOTguys, especially the guys that
are in, like my friend SkeetHardis um of Conover, North

(01:31:19):
Carolina, who runs Skeetstowing.
He was on American trucker.
Those guys see the side of thecrashes where they've got to go
and clean them up off theinterstates, but they crash.
And they won't even there,there's now this is a this is a
it's like an epidemic in thetrucking uh in the tow truck
industry that there are drivers,the the recovery drivers that
won't even touch the trucksbecause the entire side of feces

(01:31:43):
and urine from going down.
And I mean coated.
Can you imagine how long theydon't even wash these trucks
off?
They said they won't even touchthem because it's a biohazard.
How can you make that up?
That's not made up.
That's reality.

SPEAKER_05 (01:31:55):
Yeah, you got to get in there released the uh the
axle to the drive screen.

SPEAKER_01 (01:31:59):
If you can't get to the boat because it's covered
with poop and and pee, imagine,imagine if but if the thing is
turned over on the interstate,right?
And you're gonna walk up thereand you're like it's two in the
morning, and then there'smayhem, the roads are shut down,
and you're like, I'm nottouching that.

SPEAKER_05 (01:32:17):
Yeah, it it can you people don't even read that that
uh the uh ammonia eats up.

SPEAKER_01 (01:32:23):
It's a real thing.
I'm telling you, it's it's a reit's a real thing, it's a real
thing because it couldn't thosethose that that couldn't be like
some uh some folklore tale fromthe road thing.
This is real that came down,trickled down from my guy to
where and it all makes sense.
It's like oh going in bags andthen throwing the bag out the

(01:32:44):
window, and throwing hey, thinkabout this you're a human being,
you're a human being, and thennot only are you doing that,
okay, but you're throwing thebag out the window, which it
could kill someone from the bagflying on the windshield.
Maybe grandma can't see, oryeah, that's what happens goes
all up the windshield or thewhatever and you rain in that
day and it hit the windshieldand bust.

SPEAKER_05 (01:33:06):
Yeah, or or your common one.

SPEAKER_00 (01:33:09):
Yeah, when you're not in your truck, I'm sure you
like your car or your motorcycleor whatever you're driving.
Would you want that thrown allover your car?

SPEAKER_01 (01:33:17):
It's literally on top of it.
It's like what you don't careabout the highways, you don't
care about the people on thehighways, you don't care about
anything except themselves,right?

SPEAKER_05 (01:33:24):
It's disgusting, it's disgusting.
Very selfish mentality.

SPEAKER_01 (01:33:27):
Greed is it is it's nasty.
It is nasty, right?
And it's it's gross, but youknow what?
It's like we said, if we couldjust maybe take the uh adapt
like the Florida, state ofFlorida, and what they're doing
to catch them, because that'sall we're trying to do.
Nobody, if you got a if you're alegal and and a law-abiding uh

(01:33:48):
CDL holder, you don't have anyworries.
What the hell do you have toworry about?
But if the guys behind youthat's running four or five guys
in the seats removed and he'spooping and peeing through the
hole, and and he did come in andthey find out that they're
illegal.
I want them off the road now.
So do you?

SPEAKER_00 (01:34:03):
I would want them off now.

SPEAKER_05 (01:34:05):
Yeah, I'm a team driver too.
So I've been back sleeping andhoping that while I'm sleeping,
I'll I'll be able to wake up.

SPEAKER_01 (01:34:13):
Yeah, I'll watch, watch uh uh some uh I'll send
you I'll send you an episode ofuh I think I might have sent it
for the CDL episode.
I think on there we we managedto get a clip from this driver
that was um out in Californiathat didn't make it and he was
overdriving the truck too faston the turns, and uh his

(01:34:34):
co-driver was sleeping in thesleeper when he did it, killed
them both.
It's terrible.
You don't know so that yourco-driver has to you have to
have as much faith as him islike your your brother.
I mean, you you have to be ableto trust your co-driver.
Yeah, can you imagine if yourco-driver is some dude that got
his license out of 24-hour CDLmill and doesn't know how to
drive to save his life anyway?

(01:34:55):
And he's if it wasn't for youknow what this may be a small
little microcosm of it, but Iknow that the made the majority
of the trucks are now automaticsso they can get more people into
the seats to drive them.
I think that's also the biggestdouble-edged sword that there
is.
Uh-huh.
You would eliminate so manydrivers that can't drive stick

(01:35:16):
double clutching.
I would CDL school doubleclutching.
You would eliminate them becausehalf of these guys they couldn't
drive this, saved their lives.

SPEAKER_05 (01:35:24):
That you I think you nailed it on that one.
That did open up a lot, and thentwo, I've seen the entitlement
where they feel like everybodyevery truck should be automatic
now.
Yeah, they got restriction, butyou're like, why?
What's what what's with the 18speed and the 10?

SPEAKER_01 (01:35:41):
Hey, I know friends like my friend.
Uh I have so many driverfriends, especially my friend
Brad.
An 18 speed, I'm terrified.
I could never drive in it.
I tell them all the time, I'mlike, I never drove over the
road, and I didn't need to.
I didn't, I go, I didn't go intotrucking over the road.
But I if you put me with an 18speed, you'd have I'd have to,
I'd have to have a week's seattime to watch you to to get
comfortable with it.

SPEAKER_05 (01:36:02):
Well, at least you respect it, and and the fact
that they you know what they'resaying is that get with the
times, get all they should allbe automatic.
You're like, what?
No, no, actually, I lovechanging gears.

SPEAKER_01 (01:36:13):
Yeah, and and it would eliminate if they said
right now, hey, as a mandate,they they couldn't all park all
the automatics becauseeverything's automatic.
But if you if it was manuals,you wouldn't have probably a
half of this problem, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 (01:36:25):
Because they just in the schools they they say, oh,
it's too expensive to get themanuals work done because the
students are grinding the gears,so uh we just got all
automatics, and I was like, Ohthere, here we are, here we are
again.

SPEAKER_01 (01:36:38):
So we're we're out here two two two dudes just
talking about it, and there's amajor issue right there that has
um uh ramifications all acrossthe boards, yeah.
But that's what's happening.
When you make it simple, andthen they all think they can
drive it because it's big, justoh, it's big, it's automatic.
I can drive it.
No, you can't, it's eight feetwide for the love of God.

(01:37:00):
Yeah, and your trailer's 53feet, you're you're pushing
almost 70 feet in one lane, andif you look at a guy that
doesn't know what they're doing,yeah, the like the one in
California.
How do you not even stop?
He didn't even didn't even applythe brakes.
Yeah, I mean, aren't you behindthe wheel terrified?

SPEAKER_00 (01:37:20):
I mean, think about that.
Nobody wants to crash.
I mean, could you look up andsee that?

SPEAKER_01 (01:37:24):
You're not even hitting the brakes.
It's like, what what what'sgoing on?

SPEAKER_05 (01:37:26):
Andrew, yeah, that's a pucker right up.

SPEAKER_00 (01:37:30):
Whoa, Rodney, he's wigged out on whatever he's
wigged out on.

SPEAKER_05 (01:37:34):
Stomach's in your throat.

SPEAKER_01 (01:37:36):
Yeah, I couldn't even imagine, but they've
there's so many of thesestories, and you know what's
even worse, right?
Is the families and of thepeople that they left behind for
no reason at all are living nowwithout their dad or their uncle
or their mom because becausehey, some ridiculous politician

(01:37:58):
got their palm greased at hislocal level to say, hey, when
this bill comes up, we needfavorability to vote on that,
and we'll give you your uh moneyfor your bridge and your town,
and and this is what they'redoing, and they don't even
realize that the legislationthat they've passed to do this
or make it however they've madeit legal, how did they make it
legal?
How did I don't know how theprevious administration allowed

(01:38:20):
yeah away from the politics?

SPEAKER_05 (01:38:23):
But man, it because it's just no, I'm with you all,
I'm with you all the way.

SPEAKER_01 (01:38:26):
I'm just simply saying the reality is, but how
could you, no matter if it wasMickey Mouse as the president,
how do you as an industry withregulations and test your your p
tests and everything else, allthe how are you how are you
getting away with getting awaywith the illegal the uh somebody

(01:38:46):
somebody's turning a blind eyesomewhere?

SPEAKER_05 (01:38:48):
Yeah, yeah, completely blind, and I hope it
gets better.
Uh, because like you said,people are dying, and that's uh
big time, doesn't matter who'sin there.
Um, somebody's paying the price,yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (01:39:00):
And and eventually we all are, yeah.
Yeah, and we also are paying theprice.
We're also paying the price ofdiesel fuel being 375.
Wow, why is why is diesel fuelso high?

SPEAKER_05 (01:39:12):
It's gotta be.
Sometimes it's just that easy.

SPEAKER_01 (01:39:16):
What do you normally haul?
What do you what do you guyshaul, Ray?

SPEAKER_05 (01:39:19):
Uh so yeah, I I work for UPS right now.

SPEAKER_00 (01:39:22):
So oh baby, how about it?
UPS are you like a car driver?

SPEAKER_05 (01:39:26):
Yeah, uh, go over the road uh uh 48.
So right now I'm going SaltLake.
I go nice.

SPEAKER_01 (01:39:33):
I'm gonna send you my UPS episode.
Yeah, I gotta check it out whenyou said that and and you're
gonna make make note because Ihave a beard in it, okay.

SPEAKER_05 (01:39:41):
And they don't allow it, maybe what it is, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (01:39:43):
You gotta do it now, too, though.
But you can drive for UPS, yeah,yeah.
At then they didn't allow itwhen I was filming it.
We said to the network, theysaid, Can he shave?
And I said, I simply can'tbecause we were in the middle of
filming, and pickups are if wemissed something that we had to
film, and all of a sudden mybeard left in the middle of the

(01:40:03):
same episode, it didn't die.
So when we were filming at UPS,it's in the episode, it's
hilarious.

SPEAKER_05 (01:40:09):
No, no, you're great because at UPS is there's a lot
of talk about that too, though.
And we lowered the standard.
Did they oh see?

SPEAKER_00 (01:40:15):
I think that Rob broke the I broke the ice.

SPEAKER_05 (01:40:19):
I broke the ice doing a great job, man.
If you watch those guys, theiruniforms are so crisp and tight,
man.
They look fresh.
There's no great job.
I know there was a big lawsuitwith Tracy Morgan, an accident
that happened, but uh I thinkthey put safety first now.
Walmart's probably setting thebar pretty hot.

SPEAKER_01 (01:40:38):
They have to, yeah, they have to.
There it's the benchmark, isthey set the benchmark.
You're the largest retailer inthe world.
Yeah, well, so if you're thatand you've got the fleets of
everything, and you know thatthe ramifications of that are
industry-wide from they'rebuying what are the majority
have freightliners, those arecontracts.
Everybody's got contracts foroil, everybody's got contracts

(01:40:58):
for.

SPEAKER_05 (01:40:59):
tires they got contracts for light bulbs they
got contracts for everything soyeah you better set the trailers
uh that that's a problem theygot they they uh they
subcontract a lot of their workout uh walmart's setting the
standard i don't know if peoplelike where they shop or whatever
who they want to support but youknow those are again the big box
stores but yeah we gotta keepraising the bar we can't let it

(01:41:22):
go lower we gotta keep thestandards up there and i reach
really appreciate you coming ontalking about it and how it also
affected your life and i meanman you've been through a lot of
struggles um just trying to i'mstill out there i'm still out
there trying to trying to youknow row the boat to the shore
somewhere but you know it's okaywe got a lot of things happening

(01:41:42):
hopefully we can get somesponsors kicking on white line
fever and we're gonna show youwhat we're really up to nice no
pain no gain though that's whatthey say right honest to god
it's it's so true and i i i lookback at when it took me years to
get american trucker off theground and since it's been like
whoa whoa mama but you know whati still have um a lot of energy
to to to do it and and we've goti'm i'm ready to rock and roll

(01:42:05):
with it you're gonna be greatyeah you're you're great already
so we just gotta be blessed withsupport yeah you're awesome
you're awesome certainlyappreciate you so man to all the
listeners out there Rob i reallyappreciate you telling about
your story it means a lot to youand also it resonates for anyone
whoever is uh want to know moreabout big rigs i mean go all the
way back to when you were fiveor seven years old man that's

(01:42:25):
awesome man and and and this isuh it's like a news flash for
everybody i i'm um i'm at irejoined let me find it for you
i rejoined uh oh hold on here sodid i just block you off okay no
you're good um i just rejoinedat real rob american trucker on

(01:42:46):
twitter oh yeah at real robamerican trucker there's only a
couple little things on therebut i i put myself back into the
stream on there i know what thislike you gotta give it a break
come back to it at real rob onamerican trucker on on x and um
we have semi freaks on instagramwhich they when you see them if
anybody ghosts in them it lookslike crickets but i'm we're

(01:43:08):
trying to breathe life into itall now and trying to float back
into the with these projectswhat we're doing but i'm uh i'm
trying to make a resoundingcomeback of source in just these
passion projects and what we'redoing you're gonna do it man oh
and trucksdunts.com mike ryansite that's where you can get
any information on whitelinefever truckstunts.com that's the
spot all right any other spotsare you on linkedin at all or um

(01:43:31):
i i don't try i don't don't tryto go on linkedin only because
it's facebook related andfacebook owns it and facebook
remember tried to did give medeath threats and whatnot so i'm
i'm not i'm not i'm not warmedback up to them yet all right
i'm just not warm everything youput on ice put those guys on
yeah yeah i put them on ice fora while but you know you never
know i mean i don't want to be ahypocrite so i mean i'm going
back i'm on x i've got you knowsemi freaks at uh instagram and

(01:43:53):
maybe if i get some traffic onthere that'll prompt me to start
posting some things sweet i'mglad to have you back on the on
the ones that you are on soanybody out there please look
for rob and give all the supportyou can for white line fever
project um i think it isn't justabout you know recreating stunts
it's also about celebrating atrucking legacy and proving that
the spirit uh of the open roadstill burns strong so a lot of

(01:44:15):
people out there hey trucking'snot over we're not giving up yet
so um that's it man we want toput this episode out there for
the listeners uh anything elseyou want to say before we go I
just thank you for having me onRay I really appreciate it and
and and thanks for your patiencebecause I I know that I pushed
you off but I didn't I wasn'tdoing it deliberately my friend
oh I know man no no I'm easygoing man easy going appreciate

(01:44:36):
that boss man appreciate you yougot it hey I'm trucking Ray at
NAS Delivered this is thepodcast that keeps stories
rolling and delivering strong uhstories for people for for the
end until that's right that'sright we we'll take the trucking
industry back we'll take it backby storm that's right

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