December 5, 2024 • 34 mins
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
It's that time, time, time, time, luck and load.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
So Michael very show is on the air. Hey, come on, man,
wake up.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
I've said it for years now.
Speaker 4 (00:18):
He's cogent.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
But I undersold him.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
When I said he was cogent. He's far beyond cogent.
In fact, I think he's better than he's ever been.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
And f you if you.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Can't handle the truth. This version of Biden intellectually, analytically
is the best Biden ever, not a close second. And
I've known him for years. The Brazinskis have known him
for fifty years.
Speaker 4 (00:47):
If it weren't the truth, I wouldn't says.
Speaker 5 (01:02):
You were you rise sleep very time, do not cry.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
And that few if you can't handle the truth, and.
Speaker 5 (01:12):
I will sing another of Biden.
Speaker 6 (01:15):
Joe Biden, he fell asleep today during the latest meeting
in Angola.
Speaker 7 (01:20):
What do you make of him falling asleep at the
table in front of the cameras?
Speaker 3 (01:24):
Is it disappointing for you?
Speaker 6 (01:26):
And Joe Biden is in Delaware sleeping right now in
one of his many estates, One of his many estates.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
How did he get so many houses? He never was anything?
It is a politicians.
Speaker 8 (01:50):
Had a fundraiser in Virginia last night. The President blamed
his performance on jet lag, saying, quote, I decided to
travel around the world a couple of times shortly before
the I didn't listen to my staff, and then I
almost fell asleep on stage.
Speaker 5 (02:20):
When the President of the United States gets a little
unscheduled shut eye, its eye opening for the.
Speaker 9 (02:27):
Press appearings and taken nap dozing.
Speaker 5 (02:30):
Even climate change couldn't compete with changing time zones and
jet lag. President Biden's eyelids dropped, then flickered open, then
went down for the count. A half minute or so later,
an aide came to the rescue and roused him. After
barely catching forty winks, he.
Speaker 10 (02:51):
Clapped and rubbed his eyes. He su.
Speaker 4 (03:08):
And f you if you can't handle the truth.
Speaker 7 (03:14):
Doing and regular.
Speaker 9 (03:27):
I'm still.
Speaker 7 (03:30):
Wind them in the middle all the dream.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Well, it's Christmas time, and that means that thefts will
be up, and with more shoppers in the stores, the
Democrat turds will blend in easier, so they will increase
(03:58):
the amount of theft they will undertake. So used to
back in the day, because I had nurtured law enforcement
relationships while I was on city Council, not just with
Houston Police Department, but with all of them, Metro, all
the constables, the sheriffs, DPS, Texas Rangers, all of them.
(04:22):
I would get pretty good tips DEA, FBI, and most
of them I couldn't use because if it was the
arresting officer, I got the information from everybody know it
was them. But in time, almost twenty years at this
since we talked about it day in and day out.
(04:45):
Now there's folks that will give me a tip from
the DA's office, from the court system. The court system
actually turns out to be your best source of information
because if you have one law enforcement agency, there's a lot,
but everything comes through either the Fort Ben Court System,
(05:10):
Harris County, Montgomery County, and so anybody in any position
with access to the database there can get you information.
The problem is most of it I can't use or
it would burn the person who gave it to me.
So I give you an example of what we're seeing
(05:33):
right now, and this is one that happened this week.
Earlier this week, there was a blackmail forty four years old.
He goes into the academy next to Willabrook Mall and
(05:56):
it turns out that he's wearing a brand new pair
of shoes, and he's carrying a liquor bottle in a
brown paper sack. Because if it's in a brown paper sack,
so wonder anybody knew it was a liquor bottle because
it was in a brown paper sack. How would you
know unopened? There is a liquor store directly next door,
(06:22):
and there is a shoe store in Willowbrook law. As
you'll find the way this story develops, those other two
items are going to turn out to be stolen almost
certainly as well. He walks into the academy, acting very suspiciously,
(06:46):
and he ends up stealing some more stuff, including another
pair of shoes. Because if there's one thing a turd loves,
it's a new pair of high dollar shoes. Then he
this Saint Jean Valjean stealing a loaf of bread for
his sister's son. It's stupid stuff. So even if you
(07:09):
pull off a thousand heightsts, what have you or a
thousand thefts? What have you really done? So he steals
another pair of sneakers, but this time they got eyes
on him. Cops are onto this guy. I'm not sure
(07:30):
which department. It doesn't matter. My guests would be constables,
but it could be. It doesn't matter anyway. So they
catch him coming out. He's got the newly stolen pair
of shoes in a brown paper bag. I guess he thought.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Nobody'll ever know it's in my magic brown paper bag.
It hides all identities. The point of this story is this,
once they arrest him, he doesn't have one prior arrest
or two, not five, not ten. I gotta cut this
(08:14):
short because it's he has sixty five, a nice round
sixty five. So I have my private investigator pull this
guy's record. He's got beaten up twice, beating up elderly people.
Now that might have been he's stealing from those elderly people,
but a lot of times they beat up their own family.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
He's got robberies. That's where a human being is involved.
He's got crimes up. He was given a twenty five
hundred dollars bond, which means for two hundred and fifty
dollars he's out. But they'll also give him terms or
sometimes even waive the amount of that. That's why you're
paying so much at the ball. Thank you, Sev. Again,
(08:53):
that's why I had so guitar probably out of tune.
Now you might have to edit that. This is Mark
Yest nut Enjoy Bizaar of talk radio.
Speaker 6 (09:04):
From Television City in Hollywood.
Speaker 7 (09:08):
Boy the way Glenn Miller plays songs that neither parade
nois why us we hadn't made nose for the.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
And you do win.
Speaker 6 (09:27):
Lass Medal woman, Mister, we could use a man like private.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Welfare stage.
Speaker 10 (09:41):
Everybody Goes his Way Jr.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
On the Sound.
Speaker 10 (09:49):
Nos Wild.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
One year ago today, Norman year past Now. Norman Lear
is claimed by the left, and probably for good reason,
but a classic liberal of those days in many cases
(10:20):
would not be today because what they were fighting against
was totalitarianism, authoritarianism big brother, and that is what the
Democrats in fact became. Of course, in his lifetime he
had the Golden Touch. He created and produced Maud with
(10:44):
what was her name? She was Claire in The Golden Girls.
Sanford and Son, one of my all time favorites One
Day at a Time, Solid the Jeffersons Fan Fantastic, which
of course was a spin off Good Times. Never missed it,
(11:06):
and yes it was introducing social themes, cultural themes, political themes,
and yes it was a little heavy handed, but at
least it managed to do so from a position of
actual comedy and not hatred, angerness or anger bitterness. And
(11:32):
it did manage to be entertainment. But the top, of course,
would be All in the Family and the amazing thing.
I've spent a lot of time studying this show. They
thought that Archie was the anti hero. He was supposed
to be the grumpy, old, out of date guy that's
(11:55):
just not with it, and it resonated with audiences. People
felt for him. Change is not always good, much of
it's bad, being old, fashions not always a terrible thing,
some of us being anchored to some values. Was he
(12:18):
reactionary to what was going on? Sure? Did he sometimes
speak in harshton Yes, that's real, that's raw. We pulled
just one clip of him talking about Democrats.
Speaker 6 (12:33):
Oh let me tell you something. I am so sick
of Washington and Orleans, wikes and all them politicians down there,
and them congressman and the congressman. Boy, I bet you
won't find none of them congressman signing down their electric
blacks tonight. Which if they did, their secretaries to get
up and go home. Wha is the Democrats is doing
(12:59):
a whole and you put them in there. That's the
place you had on you when you come back in
the polls. But the Democrats way of running this cartry
is to go tell us all how we ought to
make sacrifices.
Speaker 11 (13:12):
God did great on that stuff.
Speaker 6 (13:16):
But they're all gonna have us over the hill to
the poorhouse. We ain't gonna be able to drive over
there because we ain't got no gas. We're gonna have
to walk it. The Reader's Digest says walking is very
good for you.
Speaker 11 (13:33):
Oh, ain't that lovely?
Speaker 6 (13:35):
You read his digest can always put a little joy
into poverty.
Speaker 11 (13:42):
This is my whole paint, My whole paint.
Speaker 6 (13:45):
Is this whole thing with the energy and everything.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
This is all a conspiracy.
Speaker 6 (13:49):
Know you know that it is a conspiracy. There listen
for years, all our lives, they've been telling us go
out and buy stuff that use energy, all electrical stuff.
Electly chose electly go it was likely store, likely stereo
electri giv race like to hear blow electric k lives
likely every damn thing not to.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Mention the cause.
Speaker 6 (14:11):
And now at the role of big corporations, damn make
the business and business of dollars, which the profits signals
ram that change. And I to tell us for years
that we can't live without this junk. Now they tell
us that we gotta live without it. The country is
going straight into the dumper.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Pivot. I uh spoke to Justin White, who owns Senior
Health Services dot com, and when people become of Medicare age,
they will contact me and I put them in contact
with him, because now Medicare begins to have a big
part in your life, whether you realize it or not.
(14:57):
I think I first realized that when my brother passed
and I started digging into my parents situation and you
know who pays for this, and I didn't realize how
much Medicare controls how much of what you're doing with
regard to healthcare, and healthcare becomes a big part of
what you're doing. So I came across Senior Health Services
(15:21):
through all that, and then he became a resource for
me on the show and we were talking the other day.
This Saturday is the annual election period expiration for Medicare.
They call it the AEP. That is the primary time
to make changes to your Medicare advantage plan or your RX,
(15:44):
your drug plan, for next year. It started on October fifteenth.
I told you that first week. It ends this Saturday
at midnight. If you are on a health plan at
your company, there is probably, as it was recently at
the company we work for, there was a time period
(16:07):
within which you had to renew your options. What kind
of did you want a PPO or an HMO? How
much did you want with? Hell? Did you want this?
Did you want that? Well, that period is going on
right now with Medicare, and if you don't know anything
about that and how to do it, we send everybody
to Justin White at Senior Health Services. It is a
(16:29):
Houston base. They're in Tombaugh, but he literally helps our
listeners across the country because he and his team are
Medicare experts. It is surprising to me, sort of like
I didn't realize how many people had prostate cancers until
I started speaking for a doctor who has a prostate care.
A prostate cancer treatment that's two and a half weeks
instead of eight weeks, and you don't have to go
(16:50):
into the medical center for it. Then all of a
sudden you start noticing. I guess if you own a
funeral home, you notice how often people are dying you
otherwise wouldn't if you don't read the obituaries. But if
you need, if you are a Medicare recipient user and
you email me through our website Michael Berryshow dot com,
I will connect you directly with them. And like, you know,
(17:15):
I hate having to say when businesses are laying off,
but I love to say when businesses are hiring. And
he said, look, by the beginning of the new year,
if you can help me, I need to hire some
folks because we've got we've got our businesses growing and
it takes me some time to train these people and
get them ready to be dealing directly with people. So
(17:37):
if you're a person who has worked in insurance and
you've been laid off, you're a person who's good at details.
Like it's a certain personality type that can help people
through administrative things. You know what I'll be You would
be perfect for you. Hermon, Yeah, that that'd be real good.
Are you a smoker? Well, holdo sky right be ramon
(18:05):
doing his job?
Speaker 6 (18:07):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Okay? Are you a smoker? Okay? Do you drink to excess? Okay?
Are you morbidly obese? Okay? Are you sixty five years old? Okay,
so are you're not taking any notes? No, no, I
just I've just hit the danger for twenty years. It's
(18:30):
paid well so far. What was I am? I supposed
to do something else? This is Tracy Baird and welcome
to the Lifestyles of the not so rich and famous
are as.
Speaker 8 (18:40):
I call it the Michael Barrett Show.
Speaker 12 (18:45):
Russell Lebara and his marketing director Heather McKeon and his
president Jonathan Kim will occasionally send me gift cards and say,
just give these to somebody who's done something nice, and.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
So we do, and then I get busy and sometimes
I forget. And Emily came in yesterday because it didn't
let her in the office earlier in case I might
be contagious, and we were clearing out some things from
the desk and I had put my gringoes gift cards
to the side, and she said, we got to check
the date on these, and they expire at the end
(19:23):
of the month. So we decided that I better get
those in the mail to folks. So listen carefully to
the rules. But I have I think about a dozen
left right now. I think they're fifty dollars each, at
maybe one hundred each. I can't remember. But either way,
if you want to nominate somebody, and it can be
(19:45):
yourself for why you deserve it, make it quick and
easy and include a name and mailing address so that Emily,
for those that are chosen, can send them and send
that by the end of the show today, which would
be eleven o'clock, and then when she and I meet
(20:07):
at eleven, we can pick those and she can mail them.
Somebody who does something nice. It doesn't You don't have
to pour mouth because when we do something like it,
so and so lost his leg and his eye, his
hair and he has zero is negative four thousand dollars
in polio. It doesn't have to be It could just
(20:28):
be someone who does something nice, someone who stands and
opens the door at the restaurant, or who every fifth
person buys him a coffee, a police officer that goes
above and beyond for the people who are crime victims.
It could be anything. It doesn't have to be the saddest,
most awful story in the world. Could just be kind
(20:49):
of a normal person who does something a little bit nice.
Send those through the website Michael Berryshow dot com and
make sure you include a full mailing address for the
person so that it can be mailed. I got a
message yesterday from a It took me years, Ramon, to
(21:14):
learn to pivot like that. When you first get into
kind of a long form format, you have a tendency
to try to figure out how to go from one
subject to the next seamlessly, and you worry about it.
(21:34):
It took me a long time to be able to
do it, and now I don't even it could go
from sad to happy to sad to happy and not
even think twice about it. But it kind of amuses
me because I think about how long we spent worrying
about such things. No, I'm not going to do it again, Ramon.
I'm not some monkey that just dances to your tune.
(21:59):
So I get an email from a fella yesterday and
he says, I he said, Sam Minikey passed this morning,
And I figure you probably knew him, and I wanted
you to know because he is I guess he assumed
(22:20):
we were friends. I made it my business for a
very long time to get to know prominent, powerful, influential
historic figures in Houston, and in a pretty short period
of time I did a pretty darn good job of
it such that for a period of time, if somebody's
name was a prominent name, I probably knew him personally,
(22:42):
may have had their cell phone number, may have had
lunch or dinner with or coffee, or been to their home.
I made it a mission. I'm not saying that's normal behavior,
but that's what I did. And you develop in the
course of that some friendships out of the deal. And
I thought, why did he mention sam Minikey to me,
(23:03):
the only monarchy that can be is Minucke Muffler's. And
so I sat here thinking about it. Was in between
shows and we were working on some other stuff. I said,
give me five minutes, and I looked up Sam Minikey
and it turns out that Sam Minikey had started Minique
Mufflers in San Anton I think in seventy nine. I'm
(23:24):
not looking at it right now. And then a few
years later, somehow he and his wife Sadie, and by
the way, he passed on her birthday yesterday was her birthday.
I know, I know, and so he. I don't know
how they end up in Houston. Maybe it was just
more natural fit. If you're going to have a national
(23:46):
company and a few years later they began franchising the shop.
It's not clear to me how many shops they ended
up owning themselves and how many were franchised. And it
was a fellow I can't remembers first name. I think
it was Harold Needell, I remember the guys or my
ben Gerald Kneedell was the guy's last name, or Needle,
(24:08):
I don't know how you pronounce it. But they ended
up selling out to a British concern at some point
that took it even more national, and they changed Minukey
Discount Muffler to Minucke Carcare And that was a time
when these roll ups were going on. They bought a
(24:29):
company out of California called Waltz Car Shop or something
like that. But the roll ups were big at that
time where you'd go in and buy it. It's still happening.
Private equity does that. They'll go in and buy these these.
A target rich environment is family owned plumbing stores, electrical stores,
(24:50):
electrically sorry, plumbing companies, electrical companies. Those are big ones
because they've got a loyal client base, they're known for
good quality, and they usually lack technology, and they're undercapitalized,
so you get these national guys that'll come in, that
will wait, that'll that'll fan out across the country and
they just buy them up and consolidate them and put
(25:12):
them under one name and one phone number and add
some marketing and figure out how to upsell. You know
that that's when the change occurs. That's when you know
Joe Bob who's been your plumber for many many years
and comes to your house or your electrician. Now all
of a sudden, when he comes he says, uh, would
you like to add the warranty and this and this
and this and this, Well that those are all you know,
(25:34):
the best biafication of of of the service business. And
you've seen it across the board, and that gives a
competitive advantage to the local guy that's still you know,
writing out his his bid on there. But anyway, so
eventually I'm going to get his wife, Sadie, when everything
settles down. But it was it was a Houston story.
Who knew they got to a thousand stores. Interestingly, if
(26:06):
you'd ask me at ten years old to name a
muffler company, I would have probably said mine Que And
wasn't Merlin one of them too, wasn't Merlin? Muffler. What
was there another one? Maco? I read later that Mako
was one of the big I mean it was pretty much.
(26:32):
Wasn't there somewhere here in Houston where there was like
a pipe man out in front of the building and
huh pick your parts? Maybe that where was that? And
it was like a you know, uh, mister Roboto with
it with the the torso of a of a big muffler.
(26:52):
Am I remembering that? I can't remember if that was
Orange or Houston, because it's it's a very old memory
of mine, but own reminded me of how good the
Minucke muffler spots were. Now. I don't know if this
was after they were already bought out or when they
were still Houston owned franchiser, but he was reminding me
(27:13):
how good those spots were.
Speaker 11 (27:15):
When you come to Minugue discount mufflers, you don't have
to worry about the price to pay a lot.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
I'm not gonna pay a lot.
Speaker 5 (27:25):
Uff I'm not going to pay a lot for.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
This muffler.
Speaker 11 (27:30):
That minikee.
Speaker 6 (27:31):
You won't pay a lot.
Speaker 11 (27:32):
We install the everlast muffler you needed thirty minutes. In
most cases at a price you won't worry about from
eighteen ninety three installed.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
I'm not gonna pay a lot to this.
Speaker 13 (27:42):
You're not gonna pay a lot in that minuke thing
about it is, I don't know that people perceive any
value to a muffler, right, So when you're.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
By it's it's like, if you're just buying minimal insurance,
you don't really you know. If you're just buying it.
If you're a person who's only buying insurance to comply
with the law, then you don't care if it's mister
A Ramco or if it's the general or whatever else.
(28:16):
I don't know how many people, really, myself included, understand
what a muffler actually does. And I don't. I mean,
I got the gist of it. Don't look, don't judge me,
Like my man card is on the table here, you
don't really know either. You'll coll skip partly and ask
him to explain it to you. It's kind of one
of those things. I'm not going to say it's beneath me.
(28:39):
I'm going to say I am not going to spend
a lot of time on it because other people have
and I trust them. How about that, I trust that
other people have taken care of that, and I don't
feel like I'm going to drive away from the muffler
shop going. Man as a good muffler right there, right,
(29:00):
that's a good ass muffler. Now, I don't know if
this is a Houston thing or not, but I got
a lot of emails from people who mentioned Bass and Minikee.
Does that ring a bell to you? Or you too young?
So okay, apparently that was apparently that. Look, I'm probably
gonna get this wrong, folks, because I don't know, so
I'm just speaking without any knowledge. Apparently that might have
(29:24):
been a car parts Maybe they were a NAPA competitor.
I don't know. Jimmy Smith writes Zar, I remember Bass
and Maynikee. Back in the day. I had a customer
ed Bass. His store was in Pasadena. I never knew
their business relationship. Hopefully we will know the rest of
(29:45):
the story when you do the interview. Well, that'd be
the fun Midas Muffler. It is Midas Muffler had the
man made out of muffler tailpipe. That's what Kenny Mungle
tells me. Kenny would know such things. David says Sam Minikey,
they were my neighbors growing up. Sam was a great guy.
He started his business in Pasadena and Houston with bass
(30:09):
and Minukee auto parts. Then he patented the everlast muffler
and started the muffler chain. Sadie is his second wife. Okay, well,
there you go. David gave us the answer. Let's see
if there was anything else. Muffler shops. Ripley Muffler on
nineteen sixty at Kirkandal had the pipe figure guy out front.
(30:33):
That's from Sean Elkins at Stem Distributors. And Josh Writes says,
Ken's Muffer in Beaumont at College and eleven had the
big muffer man out front. I know that one is
true now that you mentioned Kens Muffer and Beaumont, that
is definitely true. I don't maybe there's a lot of
the muffer man out front. Maybe that's a common thing. Yeah,
(30:58):
So there we go. Thank you to Lena and Rodney
Ellis Harris County homeowners see historically high. So that was
to see that. Just how smooth that segue with historically
high tax bills, in part because of the Democrat majority
on Harris County Commissioner's Court. Using the state's natural disaster
(31:20):
loophole to raise your taxes twenty five percent, among other
tax hikes. The story of Fox twenty six.
Speaker 14 (31:29):
These historically high increases are hitting homeowners already hammered by
escalating insurance costs and lingering inflation. Bottom line, get ready
to budget hundreds, if not thousands of dollars more because
local governments say they need it and aren't taking no
for an answer. In Harris County, property tax bills are out,
(31:50):
and as Fox twenty six was the first to forecast,
they are punishing.
Speaker 9 (31:54):
To be sticking. This kind of tax increase on top
of people is on consiable and somebody are to pay
the price for doing this.
Speaker 14 (32:03):
Bill King, Fox twenty six contributor and fellow at Rice
University's Baker Institute, was the first to sound the alarm.
Speaker 9 (32:11):
This is going to hurt people sort of in the
middle class the most. They're the ones that are on
the titus budgets.
Speaker 14 (32:19):
His analysis of an average homeowner's twenty twenty five tax
bill is shocking. A twenty five percent hike from Harris County,
nineteen percent increase from Houston ISD, fifteen percent from HCC,
and a comparatively modest ten percent hike from the City
of Houston. The total hickey for this household eighteen percent,
(32:42):
a perfect storm of higher home appraisal and jacked up
rates from local governments.
Speaker 9 (32:47):
This is one year, Greg, This is not over a
five year period. This is one year now. I'm pretty
sure that this person probably didn't get an eighteen percent
raise last year.
Speaker 14 (33:00):
The two damn how already we caught up with South
Park super Neighborhood President Travis McGee at the shack on
Red Road. He says, very few folks in Sunnyside can
absorb this kind of hit.
Speaker 15 (33:12):
It's a big way go call.
Speaker 14 (33:13):
We about to get priced out.
Speaker 15 (33:15):
Being a home owner and business own has always been
the American dream, but these taxes make it to the
American nightmare.
Speaker 14 (33:22):
As for return on the additional taxpayer investment, McGhee, like
most is cynical.
Speaker 15 (33:28):
If you look around on some of the infrastruction and
three thousand stuff. We're now saying all taxiles at work.
But each time they misuse the money, mismanaging money and
sometimes even stealing money.
Speaker 14 (33:39):
Turns out, these local hikes have totally wiped out the
much bally hooed property tax relief delivered by the Texas
legislature two years ago.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Twenty five percent increased, Harris County nineteen percent, HISD fifteen percent,
HCC ten percent, City of Houston. And by the way,
it's not going to anything you're ever gonna see it,
not one bit of it.
Speaker 3 (34:05):
Mm hmm
It's that time, time, time, time, luck and load.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
So Michael very show is on the air. Hey, come on, man,
wake up.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
I've said it for years now.
Speaker 4 (00:18):
He's cogent.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
But I undersold him.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
When I said he was cogent. He's far beyond cogent.
In fact, I think he's better than he's ever been.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
And f you if you.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Can't handle the truth. This version of Biden intellectually, analytically
is the best Biden ever, not a close second. And
I've known him for years. The Brazinskis have known him
for fifty years.
Speaker 4 (00:47):
If it weren't the truth, I wouldn't says.
Speaker 5 (01:02):
You were you rise sleep very time, do not cry.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
And that few if you can't handle the truth, and.
Speaker 5 (01:12):
I will sing another of Biden.
Speaker 6 (01:15):
Joe Biden, he fell asleep today during the latest meeting
in Angola.
Speaker 7 (01:20):
What do you make of him falling asleep at the
table in front of the cameras?
Speaker 3 (01:24):
Is it disappointing for you?
Speaker 6 (01:26):
And Joe Biden is in Delaware sleeping right now in
one of his many estates, One of his many estates.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
How did he get so many houses? He never was anything?
It is a politicians.
Speaker 8 (01:50):
Had a fundraiser in Virginia last night. The President blamed
his performance on jet lag, saying, quote, I decided to
travel around the world a couple of times shortly before
the I didn't listen to my staff, and then I
almost fell asleep on stage.
Speaker 5 (02:20):
When the President of the United States gets a little
unscheduled shut eye, its eye opening for the.
Speaker 9 (02:27):
Press appearings and taken nap dozing.
Speaker 5 (02:30):
Even climate change couldn't compete with changing time zones and
jet lag. President Biden's eyelids dropped, then flickered open, then
went down for the count. A half minute or so later,
an aide came to the rescue and roused him. After
barely catching forty winks, he.
Speaker 10 (02:51):
Clapped and rubbed his eyes. He su.
Speaker 4 (03:08):
And f you if you can't handle the truth.
Speaker 7 (03:14):
Doing and regular.
Speaker 9 (03:27):
I'm still.
Speaker 7 (03:30):
Wind them in the middle all the dream.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Well, it's Christmas time, and that means that thefts will
be up, and with more shoppers in the stores, the
Democrat turds will blend in easier, so they will increase
(03:58):
the amount of theft they will undertake. So used to
back in the day, because I had nurtured law enforcement
relationships while I was on city Council, not just with
Houston Police Department, but with all of them, Metro, all
the constables, the sheriffs, DPS, Texas Rangers, all of them.
(04:22):
I would get pretty good tips DEA, FBI, and most
of them I couldn't use because if it was the
arresting officer, I got the information from everybody know it
was them. But in time, almost twenty years at this
since we talked about it day in and day out.
(04:45):
Now there's folks that will give me a tip from
the DA's office, from the court system. The court system
actually turns out to be your best source of information
because if you have one law enforcement agency, there's a lot,
but everything comes through either the Fort Ben Court System,
(05:10):
Harris County, Montgomery County, and so anybody in any position
with access to the database there can get you information.
The problem is most of it I can't use or
it would burn the person who gave it to me.
So I give you an example of what we're seeing
(05:33):
right now, and this is one that happened this week.
Earlier this week, there was a blackmail forty four years old.
He goes into the academy next to Willabrook Mall and
(05:56):
it turns out that he's wearing a brand new pair
of shoes, and he's carrying a liquor bottle in a
brown paper sack. Because if it's in a brown paper sack,
so wonder anybody knew it was a liquor bottle because
it was in a brown paper sack. How would you
know unopened? There is a liquor store directly next door,
(06:22):
and there is a shoe store in Willowbrook law. As
you'll find the way this story develops, those other two
items are going to turn out to be stolen almost
certainly as well. He walks into the academy, acting very suspiciously,
(06:46):
and he ends up stealing some more stuff, including another
pair of shoes. Because if there's one thing a turd loves,
it's a new pair of high dollar shoes. Then he
this Saint Jean Valjean stealing a loaf of bread for
his sister's son. It's stupid stuff. So even if you
(07:09):
pull off a thousand heightsts, what have you or a
thousand thefts? What have you really done? So he steals
another pair of sneakers, but this time they got eyes
on him. Cops are onto this guy. I'm not sure
(07:30):
which department. It doesn't matter. My guests would be constables,
but it could be. It doesn't matter anyway. So they
catch him coming out. He's got the newly stolen pair
of shoes in a brown paper bag. I guess he thought.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Nobody'll ever know it's in my magic brown paper bag.
It hides all identities. The point of this story is this,
once they arrest him, he doesn't have one prior arrest
or two, not five, not ten. I gotta cut this
(08:14):
short because it's he has sixty five, a nice round
sixty five. So I have my private investigator pull this
guy's record. He's got beaten up twice, beating up elderly people.
Now that might have been he's stealing from those elderly people,
but a lot of times they beat up their own family.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
He's got robberies. That's where a human being is involved.
He's got crimes up. He was given a twenty five
hundred dollars bond, which means for two hundred and fifty
dollars he's out. But they'll also give him terms or
sometimes even waive the amount of that. That's why you're
paying so much at the ball. Thank you, Sev. Again,
(08:53):
that's why I had so guitar probably out of tune.
Now you might have to edit that. This is Mark
Yest nut Enjoy Bizaar of talk radio.
Speaker 6 (09:04):
From Television City in Hollywood.
Speaker 7 (09:08):
Boy the way Glenn Miller plays songs that neither parade
nois why us we hadn't made nose for the.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
And you do win.
Speaker 6 (09:27):
Lass Medal woman, Mister, we could use a man like private.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Welfare stage.
Speaker 10 (09:41):
Everybody Goes his Way Jr.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
On the Sound.
Speaker 10 (09:49):
Nos Wild.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
One year ago today, Norman year past Now. Norman Lear
is claimed by the left, and probably for good reason,
but a classic liberal of those days in many cases
(10:20):
would not be today because what they were fighting against
was totalitarianism, authoritarianism big brother, and that is what the
Democrats in fact became. Of course, in his lifetime he
had the Golden Touch. He created and produced Maud with
(10:44):
what was her name? She was Claire in The Golden Girls.
Sanford and Son, one of my all time favorites One
Day at a Time, Solid the Jeffersons Fan Fantastic, which
of course was a spin off Good Times. Never missed it,
(11:06):
and yes it was introducing social themes, cultural themes, political themes,
and yes it was a little heavy handed, but at
least it managed to do so from a position of
actual comedy and not hatred, angerness or anger bitterness. And
(11:32):
it did manage to be entertainment. But the top, of course,
would be All in the Family and the amazing thing.
I've spent a lot of time studying this show. They
thought that Archie was the anti hero. He was supposed
to be the grumpy, old, out of date guy that's
(11:55):
just not with it, and it resonated with audiences. People
felt for him. Change is not always good, much of
it's bad, being old, fashions not always a terrible thing,
some of us being anchored to some values. Was he
(12:18):
reactionary to what was going on? Sure? Did he sometimes
speak in harshton Yes, that's real, that's raw. We pulled
just one clip of him talking about Democrats.
Speaker 6 (12:33):
Oh let me tell you something. I am so sick
of Washington and Orleans, wikes and all them politicians down there,
and them congressman and the congressman. Boy, I bet you
won't find none of them congressman signing down their electric
blacks tonight. Which if they did, their secretaries to get
up and go home. Wha is the Democrats is doing
(12:59):
a whole and you put them in there. That's the
place you had on you when you come back in
the polls. But the Democrats way of running this cartry
is to go tell us all how we ought to
make sacrifices.
Speaker 11 (13:12):
God did great on that stuff.
Speaker 6 (13:16):
But they're all gonna have us over the hill to
the poorhouse. We ain't gonna be able to drive over
there because we ain't got no gas. We're gonna have
to walk it. The Reader's Digest says walking is very
good for you.
Speaker 11 (13:33):
Oh, ain't that lovely?
Speaker 6 (13:35):
You read his digest can always put a little joy
into poverty.
Speaker 11 (13:42):
This is my whole paint, My whole paint.
Speaker 6 (13:45):
Is this whole thing with the energy and everything.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
This is all a conspiracy.
Speaker 6 (13:49):
Know you know that it is a conspiracy. There listen
for years, all our lives, they've been telling us go
out and buy stuff that use energy, all electrical stuff.
Electly chose electly go it was likely store, likely stereo
electri giv race like to hear blow electric k lives
likely every damn thing not to.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Mention the cause.
Speaker 6 (14:11):
And now at the role of big corporations, damn make
the business and business of dollars, which the profits signals
ram that change. And I to tell us for years
that we can't live without this junk. Now they tell
us that we gotta live without it. The country is
going straight into the dumper.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Pivot. I uh spoke to Justin White, who owns Senior
Health Services dot com, and when people become of Medicare age,
they will contact me and I put them in contact
with him, because now Medicare begins to have a big
part in your life, whether you realize it or not.
(14:57):
I think I first realized that when my brother passed
and I started digging into my parents situation and you
know who pays for this, and I didn't realize how
much Medicare controls how much of what you're doing with
regard to healthcare, and healthcare becomes a big part of
what you're doing. So I came across Senior Health Services
(15:21):
through all that, and then he became a resource for
me on the show and we were talking the other day.
This Saturday is the annual election period expiration for Medicare.
They call it the AEP. That is the primary time
to make changes to your Medicare advantage plan or your RX,
(15:44):
your drug plan, for next year. It started on October fifteenth.
I told you that first week. It ends this Saturday
at midnight. If you are on a health plan at
your company, there is probably, as it was recently at
the company we work for, there was a time period
(16:07):
within which you had to renew your options. What kind
of did you want a PPO or an HMO? How
much did you want with? Hell? Did you want this?
Did you want that? Well, that period is going on
right now with Medicare, and if you don't know anything
about that and how to do it, we send everybody
to Justin White at Senior Health Services. It is a
(16:29):
Houston base. They're in Tombaugh, but he literally helps our
listeners across the country because he and his team are
Medicare experts. It is surprising to me, sort of like
I didn't realize how many people had prostate cancers until
I started speaking for a doctor who has a prostate care.
A prostate cancer treatment that's two and a half weeks
instead of eight weeks, and you don't have to go
(16:50):
into the medical center for it. Then all of a
sudden you start noticing. I guess if you own a
funeral home, you notice how often people are dying you
otherwise wouldn't if you don't read the obituaries. But if
you need, if you are a Medicare recipient user and
you email me through our website Michael Berryshow dot com,
I will connect you directly with them. And like, you know,
(17:15):
I hate having to say when businesses are laying off,
but I love to say when businesses are hiring. And
he said, look, by the beginning of the new year,
if you can help me, I need to hire some
folks because we've got we've got our businesses growing and
it takes me some time to train these people and
get them ready to be dealing directly with people. So
(17:37):
if you're a person who has worked in insurance and
you've been laid off, you're a person who's good at details.
Like it's a certain personality type that can help people
through administrative things. You know what I'll be You would
be perfect for you. Hermon, Yeah, that that'd be real good.
Are you a smoker? Well, holdo sky right be ramon
(18:05):
doing his job?
Speaker 6 (18:07):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Okay? Are you a smoker? Okay? Do you drink to excess? Okay?
Are you morbidly obese? Okay? Are you sixty five years old? Okay,
so are you're not taking any notes? No, no, I
just I've just hit the danger for twenty years. It's
(18:30):
paid well so far. What was I am? I supposed
to do something else? This is Tracy Baird and welcome
to the Lifestyles of the not so rich and famous
are as.
Speaker 8 (18:40):
I call it the Michael Barrett Show.
Speaker 12 (18:45):
Russell Lebara and his marketing director Heather McKeon and his
president Jonathan Kim will occasionally send me gift cards and say,
just give these to somebody who's done something nice, and.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
So we do, and then I get busy and sometimes
I forget. And Emily came in yesterday because it didn't
let her in the office earlier in case I might
be contagious, and we were clearing out some things from
the desk and I had put my gringoes gift cards
to the side, and she said, we got to check
the date on these, and they expire at the end
(19:23):
of the month. So we decided that I better get
those in the mail to folks. So listen carefully to
the rules. But I have I think about a dozen
left right now. I think they're fifty dollars each, at
maybe one hundred each. I can't remember. But either way,
if you want to nominate somebody, and it can be
(19:45):
yourself for why you deserve it, make it quick and
easy and include a name and mailing address so that Emily,
for those that are chosen, can send them and send
that by the end of the show today, which would
be eleven o'clock, and then when she and I meet
(20:07):
at eleven, we can pick those and she can mail them.
Somebody who does something nice. It doesn't You don't have
to pour mouth because when we do something like it,
so and so lost his leg and his eye, his
hair and he has zero is negative four thousand dollars
in polio. It doesn't have to be It could just
(20:28):
be someone who does something nice, someone who stands and
opens the door at the restaurant, or who every fifth
person buys him a coffee, a police officer that goes
above and beyond for the people who are crime victims.
It could be anything. It doesn't have to be the saddest,
most awful story in the world. Could just be kind
(20:49):
of a normal person who does something a little bit nice.
Send those through the website Michael Berryshow dot com and
make sure you include a full mailing address for the
person so that it can be mailed. I got a
message yesterday from a It took me years, Ramon, to
(21:14):
learn to pivot like that. When you first get into
kind of a long form format, you have a tendency
to try to figure out how to go from one
subject to the next seamlessly, and you worry about it.
(21:34):
It took me a long time to be able to
do it, and now I don't even it could go
from sad to happy to sad to happy and not
even think twice about it. But it kind of amuses
me because I think about how long we spent worrying
about such things. No, I'm not going to do it again, Ramon.
I'm not some monkey that just dances to your tune.
(21:59):
So I get an email from a fella yesterday and
he says, I he said, Sam Minikey passed this morning,
And I figure you probably knew him, and I wanted
you to know because he is I guess he assumed
(22:20):
we were friends. I made it my business for a
very long time to get to know prominent, powerful, influential
historic figures in Houston, and in a pretty short period
of time I did a pretty darn good job of
it such that for a period of time, if somebody's
name was a prominent name, I probably knew him personally,
(22:42):
may have had their cell phone number, may have had
lunch or dinner with or coffee, or been to their home.
I made it a mission. I'm not saying that's normal behavior,
but that's what I did. And you develop in the
course of that some friendships out of the deal. And
I thought, why did he mention sam Minikey to me,
(23:03):
the only monarchy that can be is Minucke Muffler's. And
so I sat here thinking about it. Was in between
shows and we were working on some other stuff. I said,
give me five minutes, and I looked up Sam Minikey
and it turns out that Sam Minikey had started Minique
Mufflers in San Anton I think in seventy nine. I'm
(23:24):
not looking at it right now. And then a few
years later, somehow he and his wife Sadie, and by
the way, he passed on her birthday yesterday was her birthday.
I know, I know, and so he. I don't know
how they end up in Houston. Maybe it was just
more natural fit. If you're going to have a national
(23:46):
company and a few years later they began franchising the shop.
It's not clear to me how many shops they ended
up owning themselves and how many were franchised. And it
was a fellow I can't remembers first name. I think
it was Harold Needell, I remember the guys or my
ben Gerald Kneedell was the guy's last name, or Needle,
(24:08):
I don't know how you pronounce it. But they ended
up selling out to a British concern at some point
that took it even more national, and they changed Minukey
Discount Muffler to Minucke Carcare And that was a time
when these roll ups were going on. They bought a
(24:29):
company out of California called Waltz Car Shop or something
like that. But the roll ups were big at that
time where you'd go in and buy it. It's still happening.
Private equity does that. They'll go in and buy these these.
A target rich environment is family owned plumbing stores, electrical stores,
(24:50):
electrically sorry, plumbing companies, electrical companies. Those are big ones
because they've got a loyal client base, they're known for
good quality, and they usually lack technology, and they're undercapitalized,
so you get these national guys that'll come in, that
will wait, that'll that'll fan out across the country and
they just buy them up and consolidate them and put
(25:12):
them under one name and one phone number and add
some marketing and figure out how to upsell. You know
that that's when the change occurs. That's when you know
Joe Bob who's been your plumber for many many years
and comes to your house or your electrician. Now all
of a sudden, when he comes he says, uh, would
you like to add the warranty and this and this
and this and this, Well that those are all you know,
(25:34):
the best biafication of of of the service business. And
you've seen it across the board, and that gives a
competitive advantage to the local guy that's still you know,
writing out his his bid on there. But anyway, so
eventually I'm going to get his wife, Sadie, when everything
settles down. But it was it was a Houston story.
Who knew they got to a thousand stores. Interestingly, if
(26:06):
you'd ask me at ten years old to name a
muffler company, I would have probably said mine Que And
wasn't Merlin one of them too, wasn't Merlin? Muffler. What
was there another one? Maco? I read later that Mako
was one of the big I mean it was pretty much.
(26:32):
Wasn't there somewhere here in Houston where there was like
a pipe man out in front of the building and
huh pick your parts? Maybe that where was that? And
it was like a you know, uh, mister Roboto with
it with the the torso of a of a big muffler.
(26:52):
Am I remembering that? I can't remember if that was
Orange or Houston, because it's it's a very old memory
of mine, but own reminded me of how good the
Minucke muffler spots were. Now. I don't know if this
was after they were already bought out or when they
were still Houston owned franchiser, but he was reminding me
(27:13):
how good those spots were.
Speaker 11 (27:15):
When you come to Minugue discount mufflers, you don't have
to worry about the price to pay a lot.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
I'm not gonna pay a lot.
Speaker 5 (27:25):
Uff I'm not going to pay a lot for.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
This muffler.
Speaker 11 (27:30):
That minikee.
Speaker 6 (27:31):
You won't pay a lot.
Speaker 11 (27:32):
We install the everlast muffler you needed thirty minutes. In
most cases at a price you won't worry about from
eighteen ninety three installed.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
I'm not gonna pay a lot to this.
Speaker 13 (27:42):
You're not gonna pay a lot in that minuke thing
about it is, I don't know that people perceive any
value to a muffler, right, So when you're.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
By it's it's like, if you're just buying minimal insurance,
you don't really you know. If you're just buying it.
If you're a person who's only buying insurance to comply
with the law, then you don't care if it's mister
A Ramco or if it's the general or whatever else.
(28:16):
I don't know how many people, really, myself included, understand
what a muffler actually does. And I don't. I mean,
I got the gist of it. Don't look, don't judge me,
Like my man card is on the table here, you
don't really know either. You'll coll skip partly and ask
him to explain it to you. It's kind of one
of those things. I'm not going to say it's beneath me.
(28:39):
I'm going to say I am not going to spend
a lot of time on it because other people have
and I trust them. How about that, I trust that
other people have taken care of that, and I don't
feel like I'm going to drive away from the muffler
shop going. Man as a good muffler right there, right,
(29:00):
that's a good ass muffler. Now, I don't know if
this is a Houston thing or not, but I got
a lot of emails from people who mentioned Bass and Minikee.
Does that ring a bell to you? Or you too young?
So okay, apparently that was apparently that. Look, I'm probably
gonna get this wrong, folks, because I don't know, so
I'm just speaking without any knowledge. Apparently that might have
(29:24):
been a car parts Maybe they were a NAPA competitor.
I don't know. Jimmy Smith writes Zar, I remember Bass
and Maynikee. Back in the day. I had a customer
ed Bass. His store was in Pasadena. I never knew
their business relationship. Hopefully we will know the rest of
(29:45):
the story when you do the interview. Well, that'd be
the fun Midas Muffler. It is Midas Muffler had the
man made out of muffler tailpipe. That's what Kenny Mungle
tells me. Kenny would know such things. David says Sam Minikey,
they were my neighbors growing up. Sam was a great guy.
He started his business in Pasadena and Houston with bass
(30:09):
and Minukee auto parts. Then he patented the everlast muffler
and started the muffler chain. Sadie is his second wife. Okay, well,
there you go. David gave us the answer. Let's see
if there was anything else. Muffler shops. Ripley Muffler on
nineteen sixty at Kirkandal had the pipe figure guy out front.
(30:33):
That's from Sean Elkins at Stem Distributors. And Josh Writes says,
Ken's Muffer in Beaumont at College and eleven had the
big muffer man out front. I know that one is
true now that you mentioned Kens Muffer and Beaumont, that
is definitely true. I don't maybe there's a lot of
the muffer man out front. Maybe that's a common thing. Yeah,
(30:58):
So there we go. Thank you to Lena and Rodney
Ellis Harris County homeowners see historically high. So that was
to see that. Just how smooth that segue with historically
high tax bills, in part because of the Democrat majority
on Harris County Commissioner's Court. Using the state's natural disaster
(31:20):
loophole to raise your taxes twenty five percent, among other
tax hikes. The story of Fox twenty six.
Speaker 14 (31:29):
These historically high increases are hitting homeowners already hammered by
escalating insurance costs and lingering inflation. Bottom line, get ready
to budget hundreds, if not thousands of dollars more because
local governments say they need it and aren't taking no
for an answer. In Harris County, property tax bills are out,
(31:50):
and as Fox twenty six was the first to forecast,
they are punishing.
Speaker 9 (31:54):
To be sticking. This kind of tax increase on top
of people is on consiable and somebody are to pay
the price for doing this.
Speaker 14 (32:03):
Bill King, Fox twenty six contributor and fellow at Rice
University's Baker Institute, was the first to sound the alarm.
Speaker 9 (32:11):
This is going to hurt people sort of in the
middle class the most. They're the ones that are on
the titus budgets.
Speaker 14 (32:19):
His analysis of an average homeowner's twenty twenty five tax
bill is shocking. A twenty five percent hike from Harris County,
nineteen percent increase from Houston ISD, fifteen percent from HCC,
and a comparatively modest ten percent hike from the City
of Houston. The total hickey for this household eighteen percent,
(32:42):
a perfect storm of higher home appraisal and jacked up
rates from local governments.
Speaker 9 (32:47):
This is one year, Greg, This is not over a
five year period. This is one year now. I'm pretty
sure that this person probably didn't get an eighteen percent
raise last year.
Speaker 14 (33:00):
The two damn how already we caught up with South
Park super Neighborhood President Travis McGee at the shack on
Red Road. He says, very few folks in Sunnyside can
absorb this kind of hit.
Speaker 15 (33:12):
It's a big way go call.
Speaker 14 (33:13):
We about to get priced out.
Speaker 15 (33:15):
Being a home owner and business own has always been
the American dream, but these taxes make it to the
American nightmare.
Speaker 14 (33:22):
As for return on the additional taxpayer investment, McGhee, like
most is cynical.
Speaker 15 (33:28):
If you look around on some of the infrastruction and
three thousand stuff. We're now saying all taxiles at work.
But each time they misuse the money, mismanaging money and
sometimes even stealing money.
Speaker 14 (33:39):
Turns out, these local hikes have totally wiped out the
much bally hooed property tax relief delivered by the Texas
legislature two years ago.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Twenty five percent increased, Harris County nineteen percent, HISD fifteen percent,
HCC ten percent, City of Houston. And by the way,
it's not going to anything you're ever gonna see it,
not one bit of it.
Speaker 3 (34:05):
Mm hmm
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.