April 24, 2025 • 32 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's that time time, time, time, luck and load. So
Michael Varry Show is on the air. Well, there's draft
(00:24):
day to day. No, not like Vietnam food. They are
having a celebration out at Mahoney's. I think that's Northwest,
but I'm not positive. I've got some friends whose kids
went to school with Matthew Golden, who will hopefully go
(00:47):
in the first round. I don't listen to what Melchiper
says because he's never right. It's amazing the guys like
Jim Kramer. How can you be this wrong? This often? Anyway,
they're having a Matthew Golden went to Klein, Kane and Ramon.
Can you see where Mahoney's is. It's called Texas Bar
(01:10):
and Restaurant. Tonight starting at six, NFL Draft watch party,
celebrate one of our own, Matthew Golden. Golden was one
of those guys even in the big Game when when
we were struggling, that guy kept popping up. You know,
there'd be a pass thrown and you're just sort of
(01:30):
getting defeated and frustrated, and it would be Golden and
he'd you know, is where, Oh it's in the Woodlands.
You've been there, you've been to Mahoneys. Would you do
a live broadcast or what happened? Huh? You had chicken wings?
Is it Irish?
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Bar?
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Okay?
Speaker 2 (01:47):
All right?
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Well, anyway, started at six o'clock night. It's open to
the public. He went to Klin Kane High School. And
I think this is the cool thing. I think that
some of the parents of the other kids are the
ones hosting this thing. I'm not saying they're gonna buy
y'all's beer. I don't know the story. I'm not offering
that because they're rich, they could, but I don't know.
I guess it depends on how many people show up.
(02:10):
I guess we could redirect some of the money from
Jcob's barbecue if enough officers don't show up starting at
eleven to eat at his place at one four, one
five one Hiram Clark. But anyway, that is for those
of you from the Klein Kane family or just ut
Longhorn fans. If y'all want to be at the draft
party for Matthew Golden at six o'clock tonight at Mahoney's
(02:31):
in the Woodlands. And also kid also played at clin Kane.
Can you imagine how good that team was Jayden Blue
played running back. I don't I don't know that. Jayden
probably won't go tonight. The expectation I'm hearing is it'll
be tomorrow or Saturday. But he played at at clin
(02:52):
Kane as well and had a good career as a
running back for the for the Longhorns. Michael called me
yesterday and said, hey, Dad, can I put four hundred
dollars on your credit card? And I said for what?
And he said it's for the season ticket package and
(03:12):
I said, sure, absolutely. You know that's that's part of
the experience of going to college is going to the games,
if that's what you want to do. And he said
I do. And I said, you have to realize you
are in such a lucky time to be at the
University of Texas. This is arguably the best this team
(03:35):
has been since mattress Mack was there sixty nine, seventy,
seventy one, seventy two. Now know what you're going to say,
You know what you're going to say. You know you
ever heard of Vince Young and right after him, you
know you had a quarterback who ended up having a
longer NFL career, Colt McCoy. I mean, people forget. If
(03:56):
Colt doesn't get that stinger in the championship game, they
win that game. There's no doubt in my mind. I mean,
and that poor guy he's in he's in the he's
in the tunnel crying. That's not because he's not a
tough guy. It's because his emotions were running high. And
his dad, he's throwing passes with his dad. I mean,
this is the way you've done it since you were
(04:16):
two years old. And your dad's sticking a football in
your hands and you're trying to throw it at You're
gonna be the quarterback of University of Texas one day.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Boy.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
It was uh man, that was just painful. It was
painful to lose the game. It was really really painful
to watch how Colt had prepared to himself for that moment.
And and I'll tell you who the star of that
team was was a white kid playing wide receiver. Uh
(04:45):
jordans sh. I can't remember anything anymore anyway, Uh jordans
H Jordan Shipley, Yeah, that kid. I don't think there's
been a white wide receiver like that since Don Maine.
I mean, honestly, I don't remember a white ride receiver.
I'm not talking about Tasker or Welker or you know.
(05:08):
Every year there's a white dude that's about four feet
ten inches tall and he on third down, he lollygags,
runs cuts in runs a little curl about seven yards
when they need six lays on the ground and they
throw it to him, and nobody knows what happened to
the ball. He's just a little bit.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
He did that.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Nobody can cover tough as nails going across the middle
and can catch anything in their presence. This is a
guy who played straight up Drew Hill football. This was
a guy who played like Terrell Owens or Randy Moss
or anybody else. Not really he passes across the middle,
and but he was out running people that didn't look
(05:48):
like him. And I don't recall that happening in a
very long time. I saw a post by Jeremy Kitchen
and he's with the Texas Policy he's with Texas Policy Research,
and it was about this film subsidy business. And I've
asked some of you to weigh in on this. It's
not an easy issue, it's an interesting issue. It's the
(06:10):
kind of conversations we ought to be having because it's
your money, and it is to give a lot of
money to films to shoot films in the state of
Texas and hire people here and some of them living
here and all that. But it's a whole lot of money,
and we keep getting bigger and bigger, bigger budgets. And
I think it should be the role of the public
(06:31):
to have a say over whether you want this or not.
I do believe it's good for your state to have
films in your state. I do believe that it's just
a question of at what cost. And I think it's
a conversation we should have, and we're going to have
it now. But first, Jeremy Kitchen, welcome to the program.
I'm a little disturbed why it's spelled j e r
(06:52):
A m Y.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Believe me. I remind my mother every time I fear
that that is a problem, that it creates the problem
for sure. But I appreciate you having me on.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Is Kitchen a Jewish name?
Speaker 2 (07:05):
It is not, No, sir, most of my kids from Missouri.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
You can have Jews in Missouri. Well, what kind of
comment I said. I didn't say you were from Israel?
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Are you Jewish?
Speaker 1 (07:15):
No, I'm from Missouri. How does that work?
Speaker 2 (07:20):
No, sir, I am a Christian.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
I think Saint Louis has a huge Jewish community. What's
the d far Jeremy d Kitchen. Douglas is my middle name,
Douglas with one ass.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Yes, sir, named after my grandfather.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
General Douglas MacArthur. No, sir, all right, so we're gonna
get to it. This is a conversation. I asked listeners
on the Evening Show a couple of days ago to
send in your thoughts. I'd be curious what y'all have
to say. What's interesting is I will get criticism from Republicans,
why say, why can't you be free anything? I didn't
(07:59):
say I was four against anything. I'm saying these are
the kind of conversations we should have. And Jeremy Kitchen
is run the numbers on the finances and we're going
to discuss this time. Oh it's Jeremy, not Jeremy Jr.
A and one Michael show all world alone. I told
the story that they were getting together at Mahoney's in
(08:23):
the Woodlands, which you've been to Irish bars starting at
six o'clock to celebrate Matthew Golden hopefully going in the
first round. That would be cool. I'd like that for him.
I saw on somebody's draft board they had him I
think as a number three wide receiver. Anyway, I do
(08:44):
hope for the best for him and Jaden Blue, who
was expected to go later. Not tonight, but that clin
Kane family all obviously very proud. It's a big deal
to send not one, but two kids into the NFL
from your high school, UH in one draft. So a
fellow named Tony Williams writes, Mahoney's is owned by Sean McConnell,
(09:06):
who was Matthew Golden's youth football coach, who was a
teammate of mine at UH. You talk meout, Shaw McConnell,
along with David He said, cleaner. But it's Cleingler, andre
Ware and Ted Pardee, son of Jack Party. Oh well,
then we were at u H at the same time
Sean and I coached together. Matthew was also a teammate
(09:29):
of Luke Pardy, Ted's son. Okay, so let me do
the math here. Sean McConnell played ball at u H
with Klingler and with Andre Ware and then Clingler under
coach Ted Pardy, I mean under coach Jack Party and
Ted would have been there about that time, and he
and Ted are the same agent. Ted has a kid
(09:52):
who also played with Matthew Golden Man. I'm gonna tell
you something. I've watched a few kids from relatively young
ages go on to collegiate and even professional success in
certain sports, and it fills me with so much pride
(10:13):
to think, like Bruce Avian or Jeff Granger, to think
of kids that you're running around a field at eight
years old with and now they're in the big leagues.
They're up there with Jose Cruz and Terry Poole and
Nolan Ryan and Andre Dawson and Tim Rainz and Gary Carter,
and I mean the legends, Babe Ruth, and you just
(10:36):
think it's really you know, the players today. I sat
and watched the game with my dad last night, and
the players are but I don't feel that connection. I'm
not just proud of them being out there, but somebody is.
Somebody in Venezuela or Vermont is, and good for them,
but there's just a connection. When a kid, Andre Robertson
(10:58):
was the first one he'd gone to Western Stark and
he was playing for the for the Yankees, in that
eighty one World Series, and we were rooting for him
so hard because his whole family, Harlan and all of
them worked out at the plant with my dad and
Orange was just really wanting Andrea to succeed. And I
guess before that it was Steve Wooster from Bridge City,
(11:21):
who's one of the all time great University of Texas Longhorns.
Jeremy j e r A m Wymon, Jeremy Kitchen, not Jeremy.
It's Jeremy is our guest. So Jeremy, let's talk about
this Senate Bill twenty two house built forty five sixty
eight to bring movies to the State of Texas. Take
a couple of minutes and talk about what that is factually,
(11:43):
and then share some opinions on it.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Yes, sir, well, first off, thanks for having me. You
know said, Bill twenty two is a well intentioned, but
we would argue deeply flawed piece of piece of legislation.
At its core, it's a one point five billion dollar
taxpayer funded subsidy program for approved film and multimedia projects.
It expands government in both sides and scope, and it
gives unelected officials sweeping authority to decide what kind of
(12:10):
stories deserve support. So we don't think it's good fiscal policy.
We think it's dangerous precedent for free expression, and it's
just not the proper role of government ultimately, you know,
just mechanically the way this works, just so people where
Texas does currently have a film incentive program that's called
the Texas Moving Image Industry Incentive Program, this would create
(12:31):
a kind of a separate fund, if you will. It
would kind of supercharge it, but this would be a
separate fund outside of the state treasury where every two
years biennially, five hundred million dollars from general revenue, which
is tax perry money, five hundred million dollars would be
transferred to support this fund. And the important takeaway here
on the top of a lot of things is that
that's five hundred million dollars that automatically goes to this
(12:53):
separate fund to do this that lawmakers have no control
over other than when they choose to either sunset or
continue the program itself, which is different from the existing
film incentive program that they have to appropriate money for
every time they budget.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Jeremy, I not long, but.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
That's kind of the start.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Jeremy, how much are they are they giving the program now.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Currently it's in the millions. I don't have the exact
number in front of me, but it's in the millions.
It's not upward. It's not five hundred million dollars every
two years though, and it changes every biennem.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Okay, but because I have no concept of it. When
I was on Houston City Council, we had a Houston
Film Commission, and I'm going to pull this number out
of my head, but it was let's say it was
five hundred thousand. We had a guy named Rick Ferguson
who was executive director, and he basically would just get
on the phone and do whatever he could. But there
wasn't really much of a budget. Does the state deal
(13:47):
directly with the filmmaker or are they given some of
that to the cities? How is that? Don't you know
how that money is set to be? Sure?
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Well, so are you talking about curly or in the
proposed legislation?
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Both?
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Okay? So currently you know it's administered as a part
of the Texas Film Commission, So that's it's under the
executive it's part of the Governor's office. The current program
Texas Moving Image Industry Incentive Program or TEAMMATE is the acronym,
and that's administered from the Texas Film Commission under the
Governor's Office, and they have like specific folks that allocate
(14:21):
depending on what's a qualified project and not. A project
can earn anywhere from five to almost twenty three percent
back depending on how much they spend their certain thresholds, right,
how much they spend in the state, and where they
spend it.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Oh so, so the way it's presently set up, you
spend the money and you might get a rebate based
on behaviors. We're trying to encourage and incentivize, correct, Yes, sir, yeah, both.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
You know, they're trying to incentivize not only that it's
Texans doing this, but that they're spending in Texas right
as kind of this economic incentive to stir economic activity.
In the proposed legislation Center Bill twenty two, this would
create a kind of a separate office, if you will,
in the in the Governor's office. I think it's eight
(15:05):
full time employees that would be hired, so we're expanding bureaucracy.
Eight full time employees that would be hired, and they
will be kind of they're unelected so they'd be the
sole arbiters of what qualifies under these the content restrictions
that exist in this program. It's important, right, So, like
the current program doesn't have a lot of content restrictions,
it just has to you know, it has to be
(15:27):
somewhat decent, if you will. But the proposed program would
have content restrictions that are you know, does it show
Texas in a good light? They have to decide kind
of that, Uh, what qualifies for that? And so as
you can imagine, what you have is the only things
that would qualify people trying to make to make films
(15:47):
or to express themselves in a way that is uh,
you know, amenable to these unelected folks to get money. Right,
It's just kind of a perverse incentive.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
And does it make clear who those electors or Sadducees
or Pharisees or whatever these people would be? Does it
make clear? But I guess those are gubernatorial appointees.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Yees, So they'd be people just in the governor's office,
people that they hire there.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
All right, hold on just a moment, Jeremy Kitchen, Texas
Policy Research dot Com coming up.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
You are listening to the Michael Berry Show.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
You know every band in the Pearl jam Nickelback Breed era,
they all just sound exactly as same. And I can't really, ever,
I don't really ever know what words they're saying. It's
all just a it's the same kind of sound that
is anyway. Jeremy Kitchen is our guest. We're talking about,
(16:46):
among other things, Senate Bill twenty two House Built forty
five sixty eight, which means nothing to our listeners, five
hundred million dollars every two years to supposedly fund bringing
films here. In your judgment, this is a bad call.
You're a get it.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Yes, our organization made a recommendation that lawmakers vote against
the bill. I mean, we already have an existing program
and the merits of that can be discussed too, but
this is just kind of expands that program, puts it
on steroids with no guarantee that we're actually going to
get our investment back. On top of the fact that,
you know, the Governor's office that the people that make
(17:27):
the calls right for balls and strikes on this, they
can rescind funding at any time in the production process,
so taxpayers can lose out on money. If let's say
a film or vide game or whatever it is that's
being produced. Let's say they get halfway through and there's
some content that they don't like, they could pull the funding,
and that means taxpayers are on the hook and or
out of that money. I mean, that's that's frustrating. All right.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
I'm going to ask you for quick answers here because
I've got a bunch of questions for you. But you
note that overall the state budget is the largest in
Texas's history. This isn't conservative values, This isn't what taxpayers
voted for. This is a tax and spend drunken sailor
budget by Republicans in Austin.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Right, yeah, sir, Yeah. Three hundred and thirty seven point
four billion dollars is our overall state budget that they
both chambers have now approved. Of the total, they're just
kind of debating the differences.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
I hear from people every day about their tax bill
and tax bills increasing, and they are so angry about it,
and there's nothing they can do. You never really own
your home, as Kevin Williamson at National Review has said,
you never really own your home in Texas. You just
rent it from the government. You can pay off the mortgage,
(18:43):
but you never own it because you always have to
keep paying the government in order to retain possession of
your home, which means it's not complete impure ownership. You
are a tenant of the government. You say that house
built two three, the Texas two step eight billion dollars
for public school finance and one billion dollars for the
(19:04):
school choice program. Which is why I have argued that
from a policy perspective, the school choice as they're calling
it program is an inch forward. It's not a setback,
but it's an inch forward. But as you note in
one of your headlines, Texas House bill passes school choice bill,
but it misses the mark. They decided that rather than
(19:25):
upset the public school lobby, which includes a lot of
rural Republicans, all right, we'll give y'all all the money
you want, and instead of taking some of it to
put it to people who are leaving the public schools,
we'll just give them a bunch of money too, so
everybody gets money. It's an Oprah Winfrey show.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Yeah, sir, I mean, at the end of the day,
we're giving a billion dollars, which is a huge investment
of tax fair money. Right, I think you hit the
nail on the head. We're giving a billion dollars to
a school choice program. That's great, we support school choice,
but the point of school choice is to increase competition.
And then when you're trying to quote unquote increase competition,
but you give eight billion four dollars on top of
the funding you're giving just in the base budget to
(20:05):
the people you're trying to compete against, it seems like,
again it's just a not a bargain. I think that
it's being sold as and so yeah, that's another frustrating
element of what's happening in Austin right now.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
One of your headlines, I think is it gets into
procedural issues, which a lot of folks don't see. A
lot of folks I want to vote for Republicans. I
want good government. If I vote for good government, I'll
get good government. And they don't understand the way these
games are played. And you can't blame people because this
is the real in the weeds kind of stuff. But
your headline April sixteenth, Texas House Calendars Committee can kill
(20:38):
bills by inaction as key deadline nears. I think of
the old pocket veto that's been used over the years
by certain governors, the idea that you don't actually vote
down something taxpayers want, you just the calendar's committee puts
it up for vote. It does make it out of calendars,
(21:01):
which ends up being a very very powerful gatekeeper. So
you end up killing bills by never actually voting on them.
And then you come back and go, ah, you got
to send me one more time. We couldn't get to it.
We was so busy, that's right.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
I mean today is day I think day one hundred
and one of the one hundred and forty day session, right,
and the first deadline that comes up in the House
that really matters is I think day one hundred and
twenty two. It's May fifteenth, and that means that the
House can't take up any House bills or House joint
resolutions anymore. They can only take up Senate bills beyond that. Right, So,
if you're doing the math, today's day one hundred and one.
(21:37):
If bills that you're watching in the House that are
specifically House bills or House joint resolutions haven't made it
out of committee, haven't gotten hearing a committee technically, right now,
let's say they get to the House Calendar's Committee to
be quote unquote set on a calendar. The Calendar's Committee,
by rule, can sit on a bill for thirty days
without taking any action on it. And we're under that
(21:57):
thirty day threshold. So effectively, any bill they get sent
to calendars right now, they don't have to vote on.
They can just sit on it and effectively kill it.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
It's frustrating because the first two months they would recess
on Thursday, take a long weeknd not hear any bills.
And we know that the Democrats control the House because
the Democrats picked the House, It picked the speaker that
was Dustin Burrows. All they needed was a few Republicans
to get there. So taxpayers who expected taxpayers with Trump values,
(22:30):
taxpayers who want small government, taxpayers who wanted cuts, taxpayers
who were tired of property tax increases and want more
control over where their kids go to school, all of
these things people worked hard to elect candidates for. And
they send these folks up there who made promises and
commitments to them with no intention of following through. And
the game, the way it's played is gosh, that's a
(22:53):
great idea. You know, thank you guys for your support.
We didn't get it done. But well, we worked hard.
We do roll up our sleeves and it's lot of work.
You know, it's just good, hard, solid, holesome work. We're
going to go back next session, which means vote for
me again. It's it's debilitating and it's why it's what
turns people off of politics and why they don't get
(23:15):
involved ever again, because they win elections and lose the
policy issues and that makes them crazy.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
Well, we share your frustrations. I mean, obviously you talked
about the House not taking action. You know, in Texas
we have one hundred and forty day session once every
two years, and I would argue that, you know, really
the only thing they're constantusly bound to do is pass
the balance budget, so you know they get if they
get here they can do that great. Everything else is
kind of extra. But yeah, people are frustrated, rightfully. So
(23:43):
with this session, previous sessions on, they just take so
long to get to even their first bill. I mean,
they didn't do any bills in the first sixteen days
of the Texas House, so I think it was day
seventy two of the one hundred and forty day session
was the first time that a calendar had hit the floor.
Whereas you know, compare that to the Senate. The Senate
took up the school choice bill. That was their first
bill of Senate bill too. They took that up in
(24:04):
early February. Right, just a night and day difference.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
Well, you guys are doing great work. Jeremy Kitchen, Texas
Policy Research dot Com. I encourage you to follow them.
They're doing a great job covering the state legislature right now,
Maberry ship.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
Done that.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
Doesn't it feel almost like a parody now that it's
not a hot song. It's like you take a nineties
song that has a synth pop sound to it and
a soft, low testosterone you know, this is where this
is where I went to school, and then you go,
let's make this very two thousand and five dedictions where
euple school. Dude, you're just talking about where you went
(24:47):
to school. You're driving past your high school. Be careful,
you're gonna blow an O ring. It's not that intense, right,
I mean, think about that line in the nineties, right,
think about Weezer or Barenaked Ladies singing, you know that's
where I went to school. In this sort of I
(25:10):
don't know slightly a slight malaise. Right, and then you
take the same exact line and it's what year was that?
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Right there?
Speaker 1 (25:23):
That was Nickelback?
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Right?
Speaker 1 (25:25):
And I don't mind Nickelback, It just it feels today
like a parody. It feels like you know, you're doing
a sketch and you go, let's take a barenackad Lady's
song and let's do it in that style, like how
Nickelback did it. All right, I'll give you the line. Uh,
that's where I went to school. This is where I
(25:46):
went to school. A diction where I went to school? Wait,
hold on, why all that intensity? It's just where you
went to school. You're not raging against the machine, nobody's
it's not a battle for your soul. It's just where
you went to school. Why are you doing that very intense?
I'm trying to poop thing? What is going on with that?
Speaker 2 (26:10):
So? Uh?
Speaker 1 (26:11):
For our officers, any officer, any department? One four, one
five one Hiram Clark Jcob's barbecue. I had a lot
of people, white people that went to the barbecue shop
yesterday and they didn't know what to expect. It's in
a gas station and it's very hard to start a business.
When I say it's in a gas station, your immediate
(26:33):
reaction is going to be its rundown and trashy. Believe
it or not, it's actually a nice gas station, especially
for that area. It's a very nice gas station, and
the owners take good care of it and ready for
this Indian or Pakistani owned gas station. And they don't
claim the bathroom is broken so you can't use it. Booh,
nothing makes me matter. You walk in, you're trying to
(26:55):
drop the kids off the pool. You are backed up,
and you're like, hey, restroom over there, it is broken.
Oh come on, man, it's broken every time. You can't
tell me it's broken all the time, because if I
sit here long enough, you're gonna go to it. But
they don't want you to use it. Nobody believes. But
these are nice. So Paul has the barbecue portion to
(27:18):
the side of it's all wide open. You can do
both the thing. You can go buy a beer and
then buy his barbecue if you want, because he doesn't
sell alcohol because he's part of a gas station. But
it's a nice gas station, and it's incredibly nice gas
station actually anyway, So I had one guy say, hey,
did you know this place in a gas station. No,
I've never been there. It's really nice, and I said,
(27:40):
I they just was in a gas station. Yeah, it's
a really nice gas station. And it's in the gas station,
and it's really clean, and really I thought it was
gonna be a hole in the wall, which, by the
way of all the cuisines you serve, if your place
doesn't look terribly clean and it's run down and there's
soot on the walls and the windows don't close entirely,
as long as you're serving barbecue, fried chicken or burgers,
(28:06):
I could taste the flavor. Okay, this is a well
seasoned burger. Anyway, I got an email from a woman
named Kelly Grundy and she said, I listened to the
barbecue robbery this morning. Then I got tied up on
the phone. When I joined back in, I heard the
names of Martha, Amaya and little Paul. This came last night,
late last night. I just want to let you know
that my kids went to Red Elementary with them. My
oldest was one year behind Paul. I didn't realize until
(28:28):
then who you were speaking with. Both Paul and Martha
were very involved with their kids education. And the Parent
Teacher organization. They also had another daughter, their oldest, named Amber,
who passed away from heart failure in her senior year
of high school. They set up a funder, a scholarship
fund in her name. I believe it was at bel
Air High School. Thank you for helping a great family
(28:50):
have a great day, you know. I asked him about
his kids, and he said he had Amaya graduated college,
and little Paul, Paul the fourth. And he said, and
we had a third child. She passed away at high school.
And I paused, and I did not ask, but I assumed, Okay,
(29:16):
probably a car accident that's most common, could be suicide,
which is more common than we realize among sixteen seventeen,
eighteen year olds. But if he wants to tell me,
he'll tell me, which is not usually my approach. But
it bothered me. I wonder, how has daughter died? I
mean that changes a man daughters senior in high school.
(29:37):
Crockett's a junior about what they call a rising senior.
He'll be a senior in a few months. I can't imagine.
I can't imagine burying him. I can't imagine him not
being in my life. I can't imagine not texting him,
you know, how was class? What'd you have for lunch?
And then waiting and remembering that my text can't go through.
It says Crockett has his notification silence, so you have
(29:59):
to notify. That's what kids do now, apparently is you
got a double click. So if you send them a text,
because you're my age and you didn't grow up with phones,
you send a text, Hey, I'll meet you in ten
minutes over here. I know you're on the other side
of the field, but I'll meet you over here. They
don't come because they never saw your message. And then
when you do find I'm forty five minutes later, and
(30:20):
you go, where did you go?
Speaker 2 (30:22):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (30:22):
I was over there? Well, but I asked you to
meet me over here. Oh I didn't see that, And
they pull their phone out. No, and they show you
the phone. It didn't go through, and you look back
and go, I'm positive I sent it, and it says
Crockett has notifications silenced, and then it's like notify anyway,
(30:43):
this person does not want to talk to you. You sure
you want to talk to them, and now you have
to hit the notify anyway. Well, I don't always remember
because it takes a few seconds when you send it
for their phone to go no, the door's closed, you
can't come in. And then their phone sends that message
back to you and your phone is like, hey, they're
pretending they're not inside. You want to bang on the door.
Make it weird. Yeah, I can't imagine if I have
(31:06):
that in my life. My little fella for my older
fella it Yeah. Michael T sent me his schedule last night.
Just they just he met with his academic advisor in
his schedule for the freshman for the fall semester of
his sophomore year. Wow, how fast he goes. And one
of his classes was nutrition, And I was so happy.
(31:28):
I thought, Man, there's certain things in life we should learn.
We spend all this time in school. I mean, look,
I love the Peloponnesian War and Thucydides, I do, don't
get me wrong. And I love Greek mythology, and I
really enjoy Calypso's dilemma because she wants to marry are mortal,
(31:49):
a mere mortal man in Odysseus, and the gods tell
her a god can't marry a mere mortal. You must
let him go back to his family. But why don't
we learn how to file your own taxes and you
know how the tax code works. Why don't we learn
about nutrition in our body? Why don't we learn about sex, sexuality,
(32:11):
pregnancy and death. In fact, let's open it up to that.
What's something that schools should teach us that we should
learn seven one three, nine nine nine one thousand. Seven
one three, nine, nine nine one thousand
It's that time time, time, time, luck and load. So
Michael Varry Show is on the air. Well, there's draft
(00:24):
day to day. No, not like Vietnam food. They are
having a celebration out at Mahoney's. I think that's Northwest,
but I'm not positive. I've got some friends whose kids
went to school with Matthew Golden, who will hopefully go
(00:47):
in the first round. I don't listen to what Melchiper
says because he's never right. It's amazing the guys like
Jim Kramer. How can you be this wrong? This often? Anyway,
they're having a Matthew Golden went to Klein, Kane and Ramon.
Can you see where Mahoney's is. It's called Texas Bar
(01:10):
and Restaurant. Tonight starting at six, NFL Draft watch party,
celebrate one of our own, Matthew Golden. Golden was one
of those guys even in the big Game when when
we were struggling, that guy kept popping up. You know,
there'd be a pass thrown and you're just sort of
(01:30):
getting defeated and frustrated, and it would be Golden and
he'd you know, is where, Oh it's in the Woodlands.
You've been there, you've been to Mahoneys. Would you do
a live broadcast or what happened? Huh? You had chicken wings?
Is it Irish?
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Bar?
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Okay?
Speaker 2 (01:47):
All right?
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Well, anyway, started at six o'clock night. It's open to
the public. He went to Klin Kane High School. And
I think this is the cool thing. I think that
some of the parents of the other kids are the
ones hosting this thing. I'm not saying they're gonna buy
y'all's beer. I don't know the story. I'm not offering
that because they're rich, they could, but I don't know.
I guess it depends on how many people show up.
(02:10):
I guess we could redirect some of the money from
Jcob's barbecue if enough officers don't show up starting at
eleven to eat at his place at one four, one
five one Hiram Clark. But anyway, that is for those
of you from the Klein Kane family or just ut
Longhorn fans. If y'all want to be at the draft
party for Matthew Golden at six o'clock tonight at Mahoney's
(02:31):
in the Woodlands. And also kid also played at clin Kane.
Can you imagine how good that team was Jayden Blue
played running back. I don't I don't know that. Jayden
probably won't go tonight. The expectation I'm hearing is it'll
be tomorrow or Saturday. But he played at at clin
(02:52):
Kane as well and had a good career as a
running back for the for the Longhorns. Michael called me
yesterday and said, hey, Dad, can I put four hundred
dollars on your credit card? And I said for what?
And he said it's for the season ticket package and
(03:12):
I said, sure, absolutely. You know that's that's part of
the experience of going to college is going to the games,
if that's what you want to do. And he said
I do. And I said, you have to realize you
are in such a lucky time to be at the
University of Texas. This is arguably the best this team
(03:35):
has been since mattress Mack was there sixty nine, seventy,
seventy one, seventy two. Now know what you're going to say,
You know what you're going to say. You know you
ever heard of Vince Young and right after him, you
know you had a quarterback who ended up having a
longer NFL career, Colt McCoy. I mean, people forget. If
(03:56):
Colt doesn't get that stinger in the championship game, they
win that game. There's no doubt in my mind. I mean,
and that poor guy he's in he's in the he's
in the tunnel crying. That's not because he's not a
tough guy. It's because his emotions were running high. And
his dad, he's throwing passes with his dad. I mean,
this is the way you've done it since you were
(04:16):
two years old. And your dad's sticking a football in
your hands and you're trying to throw it at You're
gonna be the quarterback of University of Texas one day.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Boy.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
It was uh man, that was just painful. It was
painful to lose the game. It was really really painful
to watch how Colt had prepared to himself for that moment.
And and I'll tell you who the star of that
team was was a white kid playing wide receiver. Uh
(04:45):
jordans sh. I can't remember anything anymore anyway, Uh jordans
H Jordan Shipley, Yeah, that kid. I don't think there's
been a white wide receiver like that since Don Maine.
I mean, honestly, I don't remember a white ride receiver.
I'm not talking about Tasker or Welker or you know.
(05:08):
Every year there's a white dude that's about four feet
ten inches tall and he on third down, he lollygags,
runs cuts in runs a little curl about seven yards
when they need six lays on the ground and they
throw it to him, and nobody knows what happened to
the ball. He's just a little bit.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
He did that.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Nobody can cover tough as nails going across the middle
and can catch anything in their presence. This is a
guy who played straight up Drew Hill football. This was
a guy who played like Terrell Owens or Randy Moss
or anybody else. Not really he passes across the middle,
and but he was out running people that didn't look
(05:48):
like him. And I don't recall that happening in a
very long time. I saw a post by Jeremy Kitchen
and he's with the Texas Policy he's with Texas Policy Research,
and it was about this film subsidy business. And I've
asked some of you to weigh in on this. It's
not an easy issue, it's an interesting issue. It's the
(06:10):
kind of conversations we ought to be having because it's
your money, and it is to give a lot of
money to films to shoot films in the state of
Texas and hire people here and some of them living
here and all that. But it's a whole lot of money,
and we keep getting bigger and bigger, bigger budgets. And
I think it should be the role of the public
(06:31):
to have a say over whether you want this or not.
I do believe it's good for your state to have
films in your state. I do believe that it's just
a question of at what cost. And I think it's
a conversation we should have, and we're going to have
it now. But first, Jeremy Kitchen, welcome to the program.
I'm a little disturbed why it's spelled j e r
(06:52):
A m Y.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Believe me. I remind my mother every time I fear
that that is a problem, that it creates the problem
for sure. But I appreciate you having me on.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Is Kitchen a Jewish name?
Speaker 2 (07:05):
It is not, No, sir, most of my kids from Missouri.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
You can have Jews in Missouri. Well, what kind of
comment I said. I didn't say you were from Israel?
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Are you Jewish?
Speaker 1 (07:15):
No, I'm from Missouri. How does that work?
Speaker 2 (07:20):
No, sir, I am a Christian.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
I think Saint Louis has a huge Jewish community. What's
the d far Jeremy d Kitchen. Douglas is my middle name,
Douglas with one ass.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Yes, sir, named after my grandfather.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
General Douglas MacArthur. No, sir, all right, so we're gonna
get to it. This is a conversation. I asked listeners
on the Evening Show a couple of days ago to
send in your thoughts. I'd be curious what y'all have
to say. What's interesting is I will get criticism from Republicans,
why say, why can't you be free anything? I didn't
(07:59):
say I was four against anything. I'm saying these are
the kind of conversations we should have. And Jeremy Kitchen
is run the numbers on the finances and we're going
to discuss this time. Oh it's Jeremy, not Jeremy Jr.
A and one Michael show all world alone. I told
the story that they were getting together at Mahoney's in
(08:23):
the Woodlands, which you've been to Irish bars starting at
six o'clock to celebrate Matthew Golden hopefully going in the
first round. That would be cool. I'd like that for him.
I saw on somebody's draft board they had him I
think as a number three wide receiver. Anyway, I do
(08:44):
hope for the best for him and Jaden Blue, who
was expected to go later. Not tonight, but that clin
Kane family all obviously very proud. It's a big deal
to send not one, but two kids into the NFL
from your high school, UH in one draft. So a
fellow named Tony Williams writes, Mahoney's is owned by Sean McConnell,
(09:06):
who was Matthew Golden's youth football coach, who was a
teammate of mine at UH. You talk meout, Shaw McConnell,
along with David He said, cleaner. But it's Cleingler, andre
Ware and Ted Pardee, son of Jack Party. Oh well,
then we were at u H at the same time
Sean and I coached together. Matthew was also a teammate
(09:29):
of Luke Pardy, Ted's son. Okay, so let me do
the math here. Sean McConnell played ball at u H
with Klingler and with Andre Ware and then Clingler under
coach Ted Pardy, I mean under coach Jack Party and
Ted would have been there about that time, and he
and Ted are the same agent. Ted has a kid
(09:52):
who also played with Matthew Golden Man. I'm gonna tell
you something. I've watched a few kids from relatively young
ages go on to collegiate and even professional success in
certain sports, and it fills me with so much pride
(10:13):
to think, like Bruce Avian or Jeff Granger, to think
of kids that you're running around a field at eight
years old with and now they're in the big leagues.
They're up there with Jose Cruz and Terry Poole and
Nolan Ryan and Andre Dawson and Tim Rainz and Gary Carter,
and I mean the legends, Babe Ruth, and you just
(10:36):
think it's really you know, the players today. I sat
and watched the game with my dad last night, and
the players are but I don't feel that connection. I'm
not just proud of them being out there, but somebody is.
Somebody in Venezuela or Vermont is, and good for them,
but there's just a connection. When a kid, Andre Robertson
(10:58):
was the first one he'd gone to Western Stark and
he was playing for the for the Yankees, in that
eighty one World Series, and we were rooting for him
so hard because his whole family, Harlan and all of
them worked out at the plant with my dad and
Orange was just really wanting Andrea to succeed. And I
guess before that it was Steve Wooster from Bridge City,
(11:21):
who's one of the all time great University of Texas Longhorns.
Jeremy j e r A m Wymon, Jeremy Kitchen, not Jeremy.
It's Jeremy is our guest. So Jeremy, let's talk about
this Senate Bill twenty two house built forty five sixty
eight to bring movies to the State of Texas. Take
a couple of minutes and talk about what that is factually,
(11:43):
and then share some opinions on it.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Yes, sir, well, first off, thanks for having me. You
know said, Bill twenty two is a well intentioned, but
we would argue deeply flawed piece of piece of legislation.
At its core, it's a one point five billion dollar
taxpayer funded subsidy program for approved film and multimedia projects.
It expands government in both sides and scope, and it
gives unelected officials sweeping authority to decide what kind of
(12:10):
stories deserve support. So we don't think it's good fiscal policy.
We think it's dangerous precedent for free expression, and it's
just not the proper role of government ultimately, you know,
just mechanically the way this works, just so people where
Texas does currently have a film incentive program that's called
the Texas Moving Image Industry Incentive Program, this would create
(12:31):
a kind of a separate fund, if you will. It
would kind of supercharge it, but this would be a
separate fund outside of the state treasury where every two
years biennially, five hundred million dollars from general revenue, which
is tax perry money, five hundred million dollars would be
transferred to support this fund. And the important takeaway here
on the top of a lot of things is that
that's five hundred million dollars that automatically goes to this
(12:53):
separate fund to do this that lawmakers have no control
over other than when they choose to either sunset or
continue the program itself, which is different from the existing
film incentive program that they have to appropriate money for
every time they budget.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Jeremy, I not long, but.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
That's kind of the start.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Jeremy, how much are they are they giving the program now.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Currently it's in the millions. I don't have the exact
number in front of me, but it's in the millions.
It's not upward. It's not five hundred million dollars every
two years though, and it changes every biennem.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Okay, but because I have no concept of it. When
I was on Houston City Council, we had a Houston
Film Commission, and I'm going to pull this number out
of my head, but it was let's say it was
five hundred thousand. We had a guy named Rick Ferguson
who was executive director, and he basically would just get
on the phone and do whatever he could. But there
wasn't really much of a budget. Does the state deal
(13:47):
directly with the filmmaker or are they given some of
that to the cities? How is that? Don't you know
how that money is set to be? Sure?
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Well, so are you talking about curly or in the
proposed legislation?
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Both?
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Okay? So currently you know it's administered as a part
of the Texas Film Commission, So that's it's under the
executive it's part of the Governor's office. The current program
Texas Moving Image Industry Incentive Program or TEAMMATE is the acronym,
and that's administered from the Texas Film Commission under the
Governor's Office, and they have like specific folks that allocate
(14:21):
depending on what's a qualified project and not. A project
can earn anywhere from five to almost twenty three percent
back depending on how much they spend their certain thresholds, right,
how much they spend in the state, and where they
spend it.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Oh so, so the way it's presently set up, you
spend the money and you might get a rebate based
on behaviors. We're trying to encourage and incentivize, correct, Yes, sir, yeah, both.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
You know, they're trying to incentivize not only that it's
Texans doing this, but that they're spending in Texas right
as kind of this economic incentive to stir economic activity.
In the proposed legislation Center Bill twenty two, this would
create a kind of a separate office, if you will,
in the in the Governor's office. I think it's eight
(15:05):
full time employees that would be hired, so we're expanding bureaucracy.
Eight full time employees that would be hired, and they
will be kind of they're unelected so they'd be the
sole arbiters of what qualifies under these the content restrictions
that exist in this program. It's important, right, So, like
the current program doesn't have a lot of content restrictions,
it just has to you know, it has to be
(15:27):
somewhat decent, if you will. But the proposed program would
have content restrictions that are you know, does it show
Texas in a good light? They have to decide kind
of that, Uh, what qualifies for that? And so as
you can imagine, what you have is the only things
that would qualify people trying to make to make films
(15:47):
or to express themselves in a way that is uh,
you know, amenable to these unelected folks to get money. Right,
It's just kind of a perverse incentive.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
And does it make clear who those electors or Sadducees
or Pharisees or whatever these people would be? Does it
make clear? But I guess those are gubernatorial appointees.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Yees, So they'd be people just in the governor's office,
people that they hire there.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
All right, hold on just a moment, Jeremy Kitchen, Texas
Policy Research dot Com coming up.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
You are listening to the Michael Berry Show.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
You know every band in the Pearl jam Nickelback Breed era,
they all just sound exactly as same. And I can't really, ever,
I don't really ever know what words they're saying. It's
all just a it's the same kind of sound that
is anyway. Jeremy Kitchen is our guest. We're talking about,
(16:46):
among other things, Senate Bill twenty two House Built forty
five sixty eight, which means nothing to our listeners, five
hundred million dollars every two years to supposedly fund bringing
films here. In your judgment, this is a bad call.
You're a get it.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Yes, our organization made a recommendation that lawmakers vote against
the bill. I mean, we already have an existing program
and the merits of that can be discussed too, but
this is just kind of expands that program, puts it
on steroids with no guarantee that we're actually going to
get our investment back. On top of the fact that,
you know, the Governor's office that the people that make
(17:27):
the calls right for balls and strikes on this, they
can rescind funding at any time in the production process,
so taxpayers can lose out on money. If let's say
a film or vide game or whatever it is that's
being produced. Let's say they get halfway through and there's
some content that they don't like, they could pull the funding,
and that means taxpayers are on the hook and or
out of that money. I mean, that's that's frustrating. All right.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
I'm going to ask you for quick answers here because
I've got a bunch of questions for you. But you
note that overall the state budget is the largest in
Texas's history. This isn't conservative values, This isn't what taxpayers
voted for. This is a tax and spend drunken sailor
budget by Republicans in Austin.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Right, yeah, sir, Yeah. Three hundred and thirty seven point
four billion dollars is our overall state budget that they
both chambers have now approved. Of the total, they're just
kind of debating the differences.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
I hear from people every day about their tax bill
and tax bills increasing, and they are so angry about it,
and there's nothing they can do. You never really own
your home, as Kevin Williamson at National Review has said,
you never really own your home in Texas. You just
rent it from the government. You can pay off the mortgage,
(18:43):
but you never own it because you always have to
keep paying the government in order to retain possession of
your home, which means it's not complete impure ownership. You
are a tenant of the government. You say that house
built two three, the Texas two step eight billion dollars
for public school finance and one billion dollars for the
(19:04):
school choice program. Which is why I have argued that
from a policy perspective, the school choice as they're calling
it program is an inch forward. It's not a setback,
but it's an inch forward. But as you note in
one of your headlines, Texas House bill passes school choice bill,
but it misses the mark. They decided that rather than
(19:25):
upset the public school lobby, which includes a lot of
rural Republicans, all right, we'll give y'all all the money
you want, and instead of taking some of it to
put it to people who are leaving the public schools,
we'll just give them a bunch of money too, so
everybody gets money. It's an Oprah Winfrey show.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Yeah, sir, I mean, at the end of the day,
we're giving a billion dollars, which is a huge investment
of tax fair money. Right, I think you hit the
nail on the head. We're giving a billion dollars to
a school choice program. That's great, we support school choice,
but the point of school choice is to increase competition.
And then when you're trying to quote unquote increase competition,
but you give eight billion four dollars on top of
the funding you're giving just in the base budget to
(20:05):
the people you're trying to compete against, it seems like,
again it's just a not a bargain. I think that
it's being sold as and so yeah, that's another frustrating
element of what's happening in Austin right now.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
One of your headlines, I think is it gets into
procedural issues, which a lot of folks don't see. A
lot of folks I want to vote for Republicans. I
want good government. If I vote for good government, I'll
get good government. And they don't understand the way these
games are played. And you can't blame people because this
is the real in the weeds kind of stuff. But
your headline April sixteenth, Texas House Calendars Committee can kill
(20:38):
bills by inaction as key deadline nears. I think of
the old pocket veto that's been used over the years
by certain governors, the idea that you don't actually vote
down something taxpayers want, you just the calendar's committee puts
it up for vote. It does make it out of calendars,
(21:01):
which ends up being a very very powerful gatekeeper. So
you end up killing bills by never actually voting on them.
And then you come back and go, ah, you got
to send me one more time. We couldn't get to it.
We was so busy, that's right.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
I mean today is day I think day one hundred
and one of the one hundred and forty day session, right,
and the first deadline that comes up in the House
that really matters is I think day one hundred and
twenty two. It's May fifteenth, and that means that the
House can't take up any House bills or House joint
resolutions anymore. They can only take up Senate bills beyond that. Right, So,
if you're doing the math, today's day one hundred and one.
(21:37):
If bills that you're watching in the House that are
specifically House bills or House joint resolutions haven't made it
out of committee, haven't gotten hearing a committee technically, right now,
let's say they get to the House Calendar's Committee to
be quote unquote set on a calendar. The Calendar's Committee,
by rule, can sit on a bill for thirty days
without taking any action on it. And we're under that
(21:57):
thirty day threshold. So effectively, any bill they get sent
to calendars right now, they don't have to vote on.
They can just sit on it and effectively kill it.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
It's frustrating because the first two months they would recess
on Thursday, take a long weeknd not hear any bills.
And we know that the Democrats control the House because
the Democrats picked the House, It picked the speaker that
was Dustin Burrows. All they needed was a few Republicans
to get there. So taxpayers who expected taxpayers with Trump values,
(22:30):
taxpayers who want small government, taxpayers who wanted cuts, taxpayers
who were tired of property tax increases and want more
control over where their kids go to school, all of
these things people worked hard to elect candidates for. And
they send these folks up there who made promises and
commitments to them with no intention of following through. And
the game, the way it's played is gosh, that's a
(22:53):
great idea. You know, thank you guys for your support.
We didn't get it done. But well, we worked hard.
We do roll up our sleeves and it's lot of work.
You know, it's just good, hard, solid, holesome work. We're
going to go back next session, which means vote for
me again. It's it's debilitating and it's why it's what
turns people off of politics and why they don't get
(23:15):
involved ever again, because they win elections and lose the
policy issues and that makes them crazy.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
Well, we share your frustrations. I mean, obviously you talked
about the House not taking action. You know, in Texas
we have one hundred and forty day session once every
two years, and I would argue that, you know, really
the only thing they're constantusly bound to do is pass
the balance budget, so you know they get if they
get here they can do that great. Everything else is
kind of extra. But yeah, people are frustrated, rightfully. So
(23:43):
with this session, previous sessions on, they just take so
long to get to even their first bill. I mean,
they didn't do any bills in the first sixteen days
of the Texas House, so I think it was day
seventy two of the one hundred and forty day session
was the first time that a calendar had hit the floor.
Whereas you know, compare that to the Senate. The Senate
took up the school choice bill. That was their first
bill of Senate bill too. They took that up in
(24:04):
early February. Right, just a night and day difference.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
Well, you guys are doing great work. Jeremy Kitchen, Texas
Policy Research dot Com. I encourage you to follow them.
They're doing a great job covering the state legislature right now,
Maberry ship.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
Done that.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
Doesn't it feel almost like a parody now that it's
not a hot song. It's like you take a nineties
song that has a synth pop sound to it and
a soft, low testosterone you know, this is where this
is where I went to school, and then you go,
let's make this very two thousand and five dedictions where
euple school. Dude, you're just talking about where you went
(24:47):
to school. You're driving past your high school. Be careful,
you're gonna blow an O ring. It's not that intense, right,
I mean, think about that line in the nineties, right,
think about Weezer or Barenaked Ladies singing, you know that's
where I went to school. In this sort of I
(25:10):
don't know slightly a slight malaise. Right, and then you
take the same exact line and it's what year was that?
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Right there?
Speaker 1 (25:23):
That was Nickelback?
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Right?
Speaker 1 (25:25):
And I don't mind Nickelback, It just it feels today
like a parody. It feels like you know, you're doing
a sketch and you go, let's take a barenackad Lady's
song and let's do it in that style, like how
Nickelback did it. All right, I'll give you the line. Uh,
that's where I went to school. This is where I
(25:46):
went to school. A diction where I went to school? Wait,
hold on, why all that intensity? It's just where you
went to school. You're not raging against the machine, nobody's
it's not a battle for your soul. It's just where
you went to school. Why are you doing that very intense?
I'm trying to poop thing? What is going on with that?
Speaker 2 (26:10):
So? Uh?
Speaker 1 (26:11):
For our officers, any officer, any department? One four, one
five one Hiram Clark Jcob's barbecue. I had a lot
of people, white people that went to the barbecue shop
yesterday and they didn't know what to expect. It's in
a gas station and it's very hard to start a business.
When I say it's in a gas station, your immediate
(26:33):
reaction is going to be its rundown and trashy. Believe
it or not, it's actually a nice gas station, especially
for that area. It's a very nice gas station, and
the owners take good care of it and ready for
this Indian or Pakistani owned gas station. And they don't
claim the bathroom is broken so you can't use it. Booh,
nothing makes me matter. You walk in, you're trying to
(26:55):
drop the kids off the pool. You are backed up,
and you're like, hey, restroom over there, it is broken.
Oh come on, man, it's broken every time. You can't
tell me it's broken all the time, because if I
sit here long enough, you're gonna go to it. But
they don't want you to use it. Nobody believes. But
these are nice. So Paul has the barbecue portion to
(27:18):
the side of it's all wide open. You can do
both the thing. You can go buy a beer and
then buy his barbecue if you want, because he doesn't
sell alcohol because he's part of a gas station. But
it's a nice gas station, and it's incredibly nice gas
station actually anyway, So I had one guy say, hey,
did you know this place in a gas station. No,
I've never been there. It's really nice, and I said,
(27:40):
I they just was in a gas station. Yeah, it's
a really nice gas station. And it's in the gas station,
and it's really clean, and really I thought it was
gonna be a hole in the wall, which, by the
way of all the cuisines you serve, if your place
doesn't look terribly clean and it's run down and there's
soot on the walls and the windows don't close entirely,
as long as you're serving barbecue, fried chicken or burgers,
(28:06):
I could taste the flavor. Okay, this is a well
seasoned burger. Anyway, I got an email from a woman
named Kelly Grundy and she said, I listened to the
barbecue robbery this morning. Then I got tied up on
the phone. When I joined back in, I heard the
names of Martha, Amaya and little Paul. This came last night,
late last night. I just want to let you know
that my kids went to Red Elementary with them. My
oldest was one year behind Paul. I didn't realize until
(28:28):
then who you were speaking with. Both Paul and Martha
were very involved with their kids education. And the Parent
Teacher organization. They also had another daughter, their oldest, named Amber,
who passed away from heart failure in her senior year
of high school. They set up a funder, a scholarship
fund in her name. I believe it was at bel
Air High School. Thank you for helping a great family
(28:50):
have a great day, you know. I asked him about
his kids, and he said he had Amaya graduated college,
and little Paul, Paul the fourth. And he said, and
we had a third child. She passed away at high school.
And I paused, and I did not ask, but I assumed, Okay,
(29:16):
probably a car accident that's most common, could be suicide,
which is more common than we realize among sixteen seventeen,
eighteen year olds. But if he wants to tell me,
he'll tell me, which is not usually my approach. But
it bothered me. I wonder, how has daughter died? I
mean that changes a man daughters senior in high school.
(29:37):
Crockett's a junior about what they call a rising senior.
He'll be a senior in a few months. I can't imagine.
I can't imagine burying him. I can't imagine him not
being in my life. I can't imagine not texting him,
you know, how was class? What'd you have for lunch?
And then waiting and remembering that my text can't go through.
It says Crockett has his notification silence, so you have
(29:59):
to notify. That's what kids do now, apparently is you
got a double click. So if you send them a text,
because you're my age and you didn't grow up with phones,
you send a text, Hey, I'll meet you in ten
minutes over here. I know you're on the other side
of the field, but I'll meet you over here. They
don't come because they never saw your message. And then
when you do find I'm forty five minutes later, and
(30:20):
you go, where did you go?
Speaker 2 (30:22):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (30:22):
I was over there? Well, but I asked you to
meet me over here. Oh I didn't see that, And
they pull their phone out. No, and they show you
the phone. It didn't go through, and you look back
and go, I'm positive I sent it, and it says
Crockett has notifications silenced, and then it's like notify anyway,
(30:43):
this person does not want to talk to you. You sure
you want to talk to them, and now you have
to hit the notify anyway. Well, I don't always remember
because it takes a few seconds when you send it
for their phone to go no, the door's closed, you
can't come in. And then their phone sends that message
back to you and your phone is like, hey, they're
pretending they're not inside. You want to bang on the door.
Make it weird. Yeah, I can't imagine if I have
(31:06):
that in my life. My little fella for my older
fella it Yeah. Michael T sent me his schedule last night.
Just they just he met with his academic advisor in
his schedule for the freshman for the fall semester of
his sophomore year. Wow, how fast he goes. And one
of his classes was nutrition, And I was so happy.
(31:28):
I thought, Man, there's certain things in life we should learn.
We spend all this time in school. I mean, look,
I love the Peloponnesian War and Thucydides, I do, don't
get me wrong. And I love Greek mythology, and I
really enjoy Calypso's dilemma because she wants to marry are mortal,
(31:49):
a mere mortal man in Odysseus, and the gods tell
her a god can't marry a mere mortal. You must
let him go back to his family. But why don't
we learn how to file your own taxes and you
know how the tax code works. Why don't we learn
about nutrition in our body? Why don't we learn about sex, sexuality,
(32:11):
pregnancy and death. In fact, let's open it up to that.
What's something that schools should teach us that we should
learn seven one three, nine nine nine one thousand. Seven
one three, nine, nine nine one thousand
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