Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
It's that time tar whoops.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Sorry, we apologize for the technical issues. Due to the
severely cold weather. We have to defrost the Michael Berry Show.
Is there a bottle of bourbon around here? No, this
old hair dryer should do.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
There we go, all right, come on, warm up, warm up.
There we go the Michael Very Shay.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
There we go, boom fully locked and loaded. Enjoy.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Yes we are back, and yes we are live. You
know what I thought would take a little time away.
It's typically the dead season. You know, you're you're kind
of in that period of time where people are supposed
to be spending precious moments with family and traveling. There
(01:16):
shouldn't be much to happen live that requires us to
comment on it. And maybe some people won't even notice
that we slept out of town and got a little
little downtime. Oh no, it was not meant to be.
We have a terror attack in New Orleans from a
(01:39):
home grown, although far ungroomed terrorists from right here in Houston.
And as you will find in the coming weeks if
everything comes to full light, there are some disturbing houstons.
(02:00):
And I don't just mean he's from here. The mosque
that he attended and the people with whom he was
preparing this and as it turns out, as an FBI
leader has noted, Houston has become ground zero for this
(02:25):
sort of thing. FBI Washington Field off of Special counter
Terrorism Agent John Gundolo said, I rate Houston, Texas as
the number one worst city in America for the Jihati
network threat. Let me read that again. I rate Houston,
(02:47):
Texas as the number one worst city in America for
the Jihati network threat. The leadership of Texas has done
nothing to dismantle these hostile networks. I'll read that one
(03:09):
again too, Ramo. The leadership of Texas has done nothing
to dismantle these hostile networks. I've got news for you
that's not limited to Democrats. See us being away, you forget.
(03:30):
We hit the Republicans too, because you have to, because
you have to. You want a good reminder on why
you have to. During that period of time where all
these things happen, Joe Biden honors Liz Cheney with the
(03:51):
highest honor an American can receive. What did Liz Cheney do? Exactly?
Was it valor in battle?
Speaker 4 (04:01):
You know?
Speaker 1 (04:02):
President Trump saying over the weekend this firefighter, pizza delivery
man you see the story or mom pizza delivery man,
several kids in the house. The house is on fire,
and this pizza delivery man goes sprinting into the house
(04:26):
and brings out three or four of the kids. When
he brings out the last of the kids, he looks
like he's about to die from the smoke inholation of
going in and out, and you know he's wearing no
breathing apparatus, no protection, nothing. I'm sure he's blistered all
(04:47):
over his body. And they say that's the last one.
That's the last kid. He falls back on his back
and an officer says, he said, are you sure that's it?
Are you because he's going back in if there's another kid.
And the officer said, no, no, you did good. You
did good. And it was sort of like it was
(05:10):
sort of like, I don't know your coach when you
were eight saying you did good, or your grandpa saying
you did good when you just got kicked by a
horse he's trying to break. It was just one of
those moments where, well Trump star might given him that award.
What exactly did Liz Cheney do to deserve our nation's
(05:32):
highest honor. She didn't serve with any distinction in Congress.
In fact, you'd be hard pressed to know what she
did as a member of Congress, which she was elected
because her dad had been elected in that same state.
(05:53):
What did she do in the course of her service
before being voted out by her district, So she wasn't
even like by her congressional district. Just off top of
your head, can you think of another Congressman? There are some,
but I'm just saying, I bet you can't think of
one quickly who was voted out of their congressional district
(06:16):
in a primary. The district didn't change, she wasn't redistricted.
Her own base or the base of the party in
Wyoming voted her out. She didn't come to the district
for the entire last year. She was holding fundraisers hours
(06:38):
away in the state capitol because she couldn't hold him
in her own district because she'd be booed out of there.
And Joe Biden honored her well, Liz Cheney didn't get
to be an awful human being. After the January sixth
show trials, remember they brought in the ABC producer. The
(07:01):
point being our job and we take it seriously. Is
to criticize both parties in every single elected official because
it should not be said of our state. It should
not be said of our state. By the former FBI
(07:22):
Washington Field Off, a special counter terrorism agent, John Guandolo,
I rate Houston, Texas as the number one worst city
in America for the Jihati network threat. The leadership of
Texas has done nothing to dismantle these hostile networks. Well,
I'm not sure that FBI has done much either, come
(07:45):
to think of it. They have, by the way, they
have rated, or investigated or entered oh Boys home a
second time here in Houston, which is interesting because they
let a blogger go walk through his house and probably
contaminate a great deal of evidence. They did not take
the Quran that was there open. Why is that important?
(08:07):
There could have been notes in it that if that's
his holy book. I don't know about you, but in
our family for generations, that's where you put special notes.
That's where you put important notes inside your Bible. But
we're back, You're back. We're glad for it.
Speaker 5 (08:25):
I'm just sitting here listening to Michael Berry.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
So we try to slip out of town. I went
to Japan, which had never visited, and stopped back in
Maui on the way back, which had also never visited.
But Michael t really really wanted to visit Maoi in
something I both always wanted to visit Japan. I have
(08:54):
something of a Japan obsession and have for many, many years.
And it's interesting. I think probably the only actual serious
tweet or Facebook post I put up during that time was,
and I just couldn't help myself, was that Carine Jean
(09:18):
Pierre posted a picture of herself and the communications team
in the White House, and Joe Biden is in it
as well. I don't think he knows where he is.
And I made the comment, well, I'll let I'll let
Rachel Compost Duffy at Fox News read the comment. But
I realized how many of our listeners wake up Saturday
(09:41):
morning and watch Fox and Friends because they read the
tweet on Fox and Friends. And I heard from a
number of you. And it wasn't my finest work. It's
just sort of funny the things people pick up. But
it was just a flippant remark, just funny. You're out
of town, you're out of the country, and you're quoted
on Fox. I'm here every day and nobody bothers. She's
(10:04):
a uniquely untalented person. And I and I'll be honest
with you, I stopped. I had to quit watching the
press conferences about two years years so ago, just because
it made literally made me dumber. I knew less.
Speaker 4 (10:18):
At the end of it, it was entertaining and it
was funny and you would laugh. But at the end
of it, you're literally you have you are less smart,
You're less not.
Speaker 6 (10:27):
So funny you say that, Charlie.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
His conservative radio host Michael Berry said in his posts
dumb and dumber, and dumber and even dumber and yet
more dumb and shockingly even more dumber than that.
Speaker 4 (10:38):
Yeah, at some point it becomes a matter of for like,
how do I put up the gates to stop the pollution.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
From entering into my brain. Let's start with there's so
many things to get to. And you know, Rush used
to have this way of saying, when multiple stories had
had broken out beginning of the show, in the first segment,
he would say, as the show, as the show rolls on,
(11:06):
we'll get to these things, and if we don't, we'll
talk about them tomorrow. And I always thought he had
this uncanny ability because at the time, I would listen
to talk show hosts across the country and they would
start their show with this sort of frenetic energy, trying
to get everything in. They would tell you all the
(11:27):
thing he's ever gonna it was sign posting. They would
signpost all the stories that we're going to get to
on the show today, and they they would just seem nervous,
how the hell they were going to do this, And
and it conveyed conveyed through the air, you could hear it,
and Rush always gave you the sense, you know, he said,
I'll tell you it's not time to panic. I'll tell
(11:48):
you when it's time to panic. And people would call
in and now the time can we pantic? Now it's not.
It's not the time to panning, And people to this
day will even if Rushing series you'd say it was
time to panic, you weren't hearing what he said. It's
not time to panic. It is time for leaders in society.
(12:12):
And by the way, that's not elected officials, leaders in
the homes, in the churches, in the schools, and the communities,
in the workplaces to be calm and to demonstrate leadership.
So let's start with the story out of New Orleans.
(12:34):
You've got a guy who accomplished what he wanted in
the sense that he murdered a lot of people. Although
I have to tell you you'd think with that much planning,
(12:54):
you could have murdered more people, right, and so in
that sense, I think to myself, it could have been
a lot worse. Nine to eleven was three thousand people,
many of whom were aware of their death for some
(13:14):
period of time. They're impending death before their death, many
of whom had to jump to their death. You think
about Let's roll and the plane they had to take down.
You know when you're taking a plane down that you're
(13:34):
taking your own life. So here's a guy who's planning
all this here in Houston, goes to New Orleans. There's
now video. You either know every detail of the case,
or you know as much as you need. And I
think for many people it's kind of a cottage industry.
(13:56):
They love to know the details. But other than what
I need to know, I don't bother or certainly don't
bother to talk about it. But I think the bigger
issue is how it was handled. In the next segment,
I will play you in pr in Houston, worried about
(14:25):
the backlash to Muslims because he had taken a trip
to Egypt. He said he was doing this as part
of his Isis tribute. He couched all of this in
a Muslim cloak. When's the last guy who converted to
(14:53):
being a Lutheran and shot the gem up? Ran people
over or mode over crowds of people. It's reading an
article last night about the wife of the editor of
(15:14):
Charlie Hebdo remember Charlie Hebdo remember the French magazines satirical magazine.
They were slaughtered in the middle of an editorial meeting
by Muslims in Paris for the unforgivable crime of daring
(15:37):
to make a cartoon of Muhammad. And so the French
press marched through the streets of Paris carrying pencils. What
a mawkish move. Mark Stein, to his credit, said, if
(15:58):
you wanted to pay tribute to charliebbat Dope, and you
wanted to actually protest as you walk through the street,
you shouldn't have carried a pencil in your hand. You
should have carried the cartoon of Mohammed. But they won't
dare do that. Well, they our own press here, you
(16:18):
see it. They'll mock Maga, they'll mock the Christian Church,
the Catholic Church, they'll mock anyone else, but they won't
mock the Muslims because they're scared Omeda to go Daimasu
Mike Goo. Jeff Lehner, the top meteorologist for the region,
(16:51):
says widespread freezing conditions in place this morning, widespread freeze
again tonight into Tuesday day morning. Strong storm system will
move into the state late Wednesday into Thursday, with a
coastal low moving up the Texas coast, producing widespread rain
(17:13):
and gusty winds Wednesday night into Thursday night. Much advertised
Arctic front has passed through the area with onset of
subfreezing conditions this morning. Strong cold air advection will be
maintained today off the fresh central Plains. Snowpacks, so temperatures
(17:38):
will only slowly warm even with full sun, into the
low to mid forties for much of the area. You know,
Houstonians don't well, don't do well when it drops below eighty.
But boy, oh boy, do the TV stations get active.
Speaker 7 (17:55):
Today's top story. Massive snowstorms blanket much of the country.
More is expected in the coming days white out conditions
stretching over two thousand miles from Texas to make frigid
temperatures causing freezing rain and ice, downing trees and power lines.
For more on this colossal storm, we go to our
reporter Brent Rodriguez Gonzalez, braving this mess down in Houston, Texas.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Brent, how are you coping?
Speaker 4 (18:20):
Yes, Bill, We're hanging in there. The temperature is dipping
to a brutal thirty seven degrees. Forecasters are warning the
temperatures may drop even more and the sky will open
up and dump a quarter inch of snow, paralyzing the
city of Houston. Local officials are urging people to hunker
down and please wrap your pipes. Let me repeat, wrap
(18:44):
your pipes. Bring in your pets, let them sleep in
bed with you, Put a sweater on them. Go into
the attic and find the winter coat that you have
from the ski trip a few years back.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
I can't feel my finger.
Speaker 4 (18:57):
Five pairs of socks will be mandatory.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
I need my snuggie.
Speaker 4 (19:01):
All area schools will be closed. Thirty seven degrees is
way too cold to have your child walk from the
car to the front of the school. Did I forget
to tell you to wrap your Pipes's weird. Being that
we're in Texas, you won't find tire chains at the
local auto parts store, so go ahead and rip down
your kid's swing set and use the chains from that.
(19:24):
The big one is coming. Local Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee
is holding a press conference today to urge you Stonians
to stay warm.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
Must I die, Must I die?
Speaker 4 (19:36):
If we survive this storm, you will need to wake
up at two thirty in the morning in order to
get to work with your snow shoes. But I wouldn't
leave the house for a week if I didn't have
to make sure you wrap your pipes. People are really
losing their minds here, so I'm.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
Gonna have to go.
Speaker 4 (19:55):
This is Brent Rodriguez Gonzalez reporting from the frozen tundra
in Texas and now back to New York.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
So, yet again, Americans were murdered by a man in
the name of Islam. A few hours after it happened.
It was pretty early after it happened, because we have
footage of it that it was clear it was a Muslim,
(20:30):
And it wasn't long before it was clear, you know,
within the day. If not a few hours that he
had done this in the name of Islam. He was
a crusader for Islam. It's not just that he happens
to be a Muslim and he did this, it is
(20:51):
that he did it as part of his Islamic service.
American are so angry over this, rightfully so? And how
does NPR's Houston branch tell the story?
Speaker 8 (21:17):
That's some Hamid, one of the Amams at this mosque,
dedicated a majority of his sermon to addressing the horrific attack.
Speaker 9 (21:25):
This act has no place in Islam, and has no
place amongst Muslims, and is not accepted by any standard.
There is no excuse and there is no justification for it.
Speaker 8 (21:38):
Hamid didn't just condemn the attack. He singled out what
he believes is fueling a lot of hate and anger
and misinformation, particularly online and on social media.
Speaker 9 (21:49):
This is how people get tardigalized by getting exposed to
unreliable sources of Islam.
Speaker 8 (21:56):
Hamid and other Imams in Houston say they've been talking
to each other about how to combat this problem. Houston
has the largest and most diverse Muslim population in Texas,
which includes immigrants as well as native born US citizens.
Umei Coolsum is originally from India but has lived in
Texas for a number of years. She's married and is
(22:17):
raising four children. She follows the news closely and said
she had two fears when she heard about the attack
in New Orleans.
Speaker 6 (22:25):
The first, this fear in my mind was I hope
it's not someone from Abur community. That was the first fear.
Then it's like, now, what will happen? What next? What
will be the Islamophobic reactions we might face in our community.
Speaker 8 (22:39):
Sharak Gunny is the executive director of a multi faith
organization in Houston.
Speaker 5 (22:44):
The clergy that I've spoken to aren't very concerned about
retaliation or secondary attacks. What they're most concerned about is
how this impacts us, our neighborlyess here in Houston, our
social cohesion. Will it lead to a rise in Islamophobia
or othering communities here in our city.
Speaker 8 (23:02):
Some say this is an uncomfortable echo to what they
felt more than two decades ago. Mohammed Salama is an
IT worker who was at the Medical Center Islamic Society
for Friday prayers.
Speaker 10 (23:14):
I lived through September eleventh, and I have to this
day have very vivid memory of both how sad it was,
and then afterwards how difficult it was to be a
Muslim and the US, and how concerned I was about
practicing simply just going to mosque.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
You know, Muslims make up just over one percent of
the American population. And if you want to look at
the numbers of how many Americans are murdered by Muslims
versus the inverse of that number, I dare say Americans
(24:00):
fear Muslims far more than Muslims fear Americans. Norm MacDonald,
the great comedian Norm MacDonald, had the funniest bit on this.
And the beauty of Norm is that he didn't need
(24:21):
you to laugh. He didn't need you to think he
was funny and show him you thought he was funny.
The right people understood his humor, and it is so
wise looking back. Listen to this.
Speaker 11 (24:39):
My friend's name, but he said his biggest well, I
can't say, well, I can't say my friend's name, But
he said his biggest fear is that isis or some
terrorist group like that would get a hold of a
dirty bomb and exploded over a major city within the
(25:02):
United States and kill tens of millions of people. Because
then the blowback against innocent Muslims would be absolutely terrible. Yes,
that's true, that's true.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
Let's do some jokes. Bizarre of talk radio The Michael
Barry Show.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
A hungry traveler stopped at a monastery and was taken
to the kitchens where a brother was frying potatoes. Are
you the friar, he asked? The brother replied, no, I'm
the chipmunk. Lady put an AD out in the classifieds.
(26:11):
You remember the classifiers for more amiss the classifiers. There
was something about reading the classifier. They jimmed a lot
of information in the little box. I was young, so
that didn't bother me then, But now my eyesight failing me.
I think I would be annoyed by the classifieds reading
them today because it was tiny tribute right classified advertisement called.
(26:35):
Lady took an AD out and classified I'm looking for
a man. They won't run around on me, won't beat me,
and can please me in bed. It's a tall order.
On one day, she gets a ring in her doorbell.
(26:58):
She looks out I level and there's nobody there. She
opens the door and what does she behold but a
man with no arms and no legs. And she said,
can I help you, and he said, I'm responding to
your ad. She said, what am I going to do
(27:20):
with you? And he said, well, I have no arms.
I can't beat you. I have no legs. I can't
run around on you. And she said, well, I guess
that's two out of three. But how are you going
to please me in bed? And he said, no, I'm
(27:46):
not gonna tell it. Some bad news over the break.
Remember Evans Music City. Our friend Brian Evans passed away
at eleven eleven on Christmas Eve. He was eighty one
years old. I am told by their daughter, Deborah that
(28:09):
they have a GoFundMe page set up to help his mom.
I'm not a fan of promoting GoFundMe pages just because
something bad happens, But my understanding is that they fell
on pretty tough times at the end there, and I
(28:31):
think that story is probably true for so many people
in businesses like that. If you were to be westbound
on West Timer ten years ago and you were on
(28:52):
your way to vass coming from Chimney Rock and Brier Grove,
I guess would have been to your right north of
you the retail along there on the right, you would
have noticed in the biggest letters possible Evans Music City.
(29:13):
I bet those letters were ten feet high. It was
a blue sign, reverse out lettering, white lettering on a
blue sign that had faded over the years. And one
day Brian called me and said, Michael, unfortunately, we're not
going to be able to sponsor the show anymore. I said, oh, shoot,
(29:33):
well that's okay. I've enjoyed the partnership a lot of
our listeners who have really appreciated the introduction and gotten
to know you. He had so many people who'd been
going to Evans Music City for so many years already.
That for as many people as we introduced to Evans
(29:54):
Music City that didn't know about it and now went
over there and supported them because they respond insters of
our show. There were just as many who had been
there in years past. And we're now going to Guitar
Center and I would say, you know, you can support
the big box store from seven states away, but here
(30:15):
we've got a shop that's been here forever. This husband
wife owned that the employees or the employees are what
a music shop employees should be, right John Cusack in
what was that? Nick? What was high fidelity? They're burned
(30:36):
out they're David Obert, right. They got long hair down
to their shoulder. They're tall. They're wearing a Ramone's shirt
or the Kinks or the Clash that hasn't been that's
been washed too many times but hasn't been washed for
twenty five years. They're divorced, they're mad at the world.
(30:56):
And they sat in with Rod Stewart for four years
on tour. You know, they just and you would go there.
You could buy, you could buy musical instruments, and you
could rent musical instruments. Steve Cropper had come to town,
who was the head of Stax Records. There's a great
documentary I watched it on the plane actually about Stax Records.
(31:18):
That's out right now, and it's called Soul Town, The
Story of Stack Trucks. He's in it. Oh, my goodness,
is it good. It is so good. Yes, it's wonderful.
And I took Steve Cropper, this guitar god, into Evans
Music City and they immediately recognized him and they wanted
(31:40):
photos with the guitars, and he went into He obliged,
and he went in. They had a little like a
studio inside there. You could go in and plug in
any of the guitars and get a feel for it,
and of course he had to show off, right and
he just started ripping in there. It was one of
(32:01):
my favorite memories. It was too loud, I'll be honest
with you, because I'm very protective with my ears, and
so I feigned needing to go to the restroom because
it was so loud. But Cropper was was Block was
deaf by then, so you know, he didn't probably couldn't
even hear it. And Brian Evans probably death by that
(32:22):
time too, So they were just in there, and you know,
he goes into Green Onions and the whole story behind
Green Onions and how that happened with Booker t and
the MG's and anyway, the passing of Brian Evans is
sad because the passing of anyone means they're not with
us on this earth any longer. But what is also
(32:48):
very sad is the death of the small owner operated business.
And I believe in the cycle of life life, you know,
births for deaths, new life coming in as someone else's exiting.
But I don't think that the Evans music cities are
(33:09):
opening anymore. I don't. I don't think there are I
think that's a change in globalism. I think that's a
change in logistics. I think that's a change in buying power.
And I think unfortunately the consumer doesn't and especially younger
consumers don't appreciate that or understand that. And I'm unfortunately
in that in that age that went from that's all
(33:32):
you had to you got fewer and fewer. We're watching
them die out. You watched what COVID did. Brian didn't
I think Brian Hazel, I think he's what I say.
They didn't own that center and I asked him, I said, Brian, Brian.
He said no, no, we'd stay with you till we
till the end, and now it's the end. And I said, well,
what's what's happened and he said, well, we've lost our lease.
(33:54):
They want to put up they've got a higher end
dog Topia or something they're putting in there. I think
that's what they put in there. I said, you don't
own the land and he said no, it's something like
forty years and they never did, so rest in peace.
Brian Evans and Evans Music City have used an institution