June 2, 2026 • 32 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
It's that time time, time, time, luck and load. The
Michael Vari Show is on the air.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
I mentioned that my granddad was a Baptist preacher and
when I was real little, he told me that we're
supposed to follow Jesus's two commandments.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Love God and love neighbor.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
And I believe forcing my religion down the throats of
my Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Atheist, agnostic neighbors is not love,
and it's why I have fought so hard for the
separation of church and state. I was raised to believe
that that boundary in our First Amendment is a sacred boundary,
and it doesn't just benefit our democracy, although it certainly does,
(00:54):
it also benefits the church because when the church gets
too cozy with political power, it loses its prophetic voice.
And so I hope in the US Senate that I
can continue my fight against Christian nationalism because it is
fundamentally un Christian. It is a betrayal of Jesus of Nazareth,
his life, his death, and his tea.
Speaker 4 (01:15):
Jesus, Jesus, He's a champions, sees takes a week.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
God is non binary. The prophetic voices like Jesus have
helped me reckon with my own whiteness in context of abortion.
Before God comes over Mary and we have the incarnation,
God asks for Mary's consent, which is remarkable. I mean,
(02:07):
go back and read this and in Luke, I mean
the angel comes down and asks Mary if this is
something she wants to do, and she says, if it
is God's will, let it be.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Done, let it be, let it happen.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
So to me, that is an affirmation in one of
our most central stories that creation has to be done
with consent.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Have you heard about the Indian banker who uses they
them pronouns they're non binary. Well, on the annoying little
(03:10):
things that people do after they vote is they need
everybody to know they voted, so they get a sticker. Okay,
you got this sticker. That's fine, but not enough people
notice that they're wearing their sticker because they voted. So
then they take the social media and they say, guys, y'all,
come on, we gotta vote. Everybody's gotta vote. Well, to
(03:35):
be clear, in November, that's true. In November, it's simply
a question. It's not qualitative, it's quantitative. Can we get
more of our people to show up? And vote than
the Democrats do win or lose. That's it. You don't
need people to think it through. Hey, show up, vote
(03:56):
for all the Republicans, vote all the way down the ballot.
That's it. That's all. Talking to Orlando Sanchez last night,
who's the new county judge candidate, and we were talking
about the down ballot because people will show up in November. Normally,
in a presidential year, you'll have the president the presidential candidate,
(04:17):
so people will show up to vote Trump versus Kamala Harris,
Trump versus Biden, Trump versus Hillary Clinton. But when you
don't have that this year, you will have a Paxton
versus Tallarico, and people will show up. I'm going there.
I'm gona vote because that's the one they've seen all
the that they've seen all the media about. That's the
(04:39):
one they have an opinion of. It's hard to get
them to stay all the way down to the bottom.
We no longer have straight ticket voting, which we stopped
in twenty eighteen, and Democrats were good at getting people
to go in. They go just go in and vote Democrat.
Do you remember Ramon there's a Shila Jackson Lee clip
it's about seven to ten seconds. Law I think it's
(05:01):
seven seconds long. And she says, vote straight party. And
what she's telling them is, you know, don't go in
and vote individually, just go in and vote Democrat. So
in November, here we go. Yep, this is.
Speaker 5 (05:17):
Congress Woman Shiela Jackson Lee. Vote the Street Democratic ticket,
which would include the president and all of us. Do
not after voting the straight Democratic ticket, vote individually. It
will cancel your vote. Vote the straight Democratic ticket.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
So in November you want everybody to vote. It's very important.
People vote in the primary or the runoff, it's not
that important. And my argument for this is you don't
want people showing up to vote who don't know what's
going on. Are they walking there and they go, hmm,
(05:49):
Paxton versus Corning, I've heard of Corner. I think I'll
vote for him. Middleton versus Rules just too many letters,
I go for it. I mean, you don't want people
choosing your candidate who don't know what the heck's going
(06:10):
on in November. You don't need them to know it.
Just show up and vote for the Republican. Well, my
point is, after all of that, the Republican turnout in
the runoff was the highest we've ever had, the highest
we've ever had at one point four million.
Speaker 6 (06:32):
Is that right?
Speaker 3 (06:33):
Let me look at my numbers. This is chicken scratch.
This is the probably with my chicken scratch. Democrats had
five hundred and forty sorry, five hundred fifty thousand voted.
Their record was in twenty twenty when they had a
million votes cast in the in their primary. We had
(06:59):
one point four let's see numbers shattered twenty twenty four.
Both parties had competitors just over one point four million
voted in twenty twenty two to one point nine million
voted in twenty twenty six. Long story short, it's the
highest primary voter turnout we've ever had in the state,
(07:28):
it's the highest runoff total we've ever had, and it's
the highest Republican Party turnout we've ever had. So yes,
people were showing up to vote. I think it turns
out that about twenty five percent of registered voters showed
(07:48):
up to vote. Now I understand that one of the
things that people I've never found highly highly tuned in
voters to say this. I find people that just kind
of want to have a cause and they're really just
say we need more. How the people don't vote, Well,
there are a lot of reasons for that. There are
people who are registered that are dead, that aren't off
the rolls. There are people who are registered who've moved
(08:11):
on and just not change their registration, and there are
people who just don't care, and well, you don't join us,
it'll be like old times.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Michael Berry, So.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Years ago, I would do dad joke here and there
because I thought they were fun, mostly just to make
people cringe, because I knew they would roll. The point
of a dad joke is, and some people don't get this,
the point of a dad joke is like you tell
(08:53):
a joke in front of your kids that you act
like you think is real funny, and they go, oh, Dad,
it's one of those things you do to embarrass your kids.
That's the nature. The dad joke is a specific, special
type of joke, and I would do it on occasion
just to kind of be a little annoying and because
I also enjoy them. And Jason Knox was a HPD officer.
(09:20):
His father was Mike Knox, and Jason was a helicopter
pilot for the Houston Police Department Helicopter Unit. And he
and an officer named Chase Cormier, we were over a
scene at night with the lights on over at Green's Point,
(09:45):
and their helicopter crashed. Chase was thought to probably going
to die, but he didn't. It tore him up badly, horribly.
The good news was he was it was very fit,
(10:08):
worked out a lot, took care of himself, was strong,
and it took it took a while, but he has recovered.
Now he's I wouldn't want to know how many pens
he's gotten, his ankles and his feet and his knees
and the pain he has had to endure going through it.
(10:28):
He's not, you know, one hundred percent, He's not in
a wheelchair. So he has managed, after these years to
to uh to find some semblance of normalcy, which in
and of itself is pretty darned impressive. Jason, of course passed,
and one of the things that hit me was that
(10:52):
his sergeant told me that when they cleaned out Jason's locker, Look,
I'm not supposed to not supposed to do this, but
you might appreciate it. I'm sending you a photo of
Jason's locker, and he had a Michael Berry show sticker
and Michael Berry for mayor sticker in there, and he
(11:20):
several people told me that he would repeat the dad
jokes that we would tell in the morning all day
long so that when he got home he could tell
his kids. And he thought that was such a hoot,
and they'd be waiting on his dad joke when he
got home. So we start to show with a very
positive story what started as a passion project for him.
(11:45):
He was collecting and restoring these old patrol cars. You
remember the old was it a Crown Vic? The baby
blue Crown Vic. And so now that has become a
nonprofit called Vintage HPD to kind of retain, preserve, and
promote and celebrate the historic HPD vehicles. And it's a
(12:11):
good story and it's a nice it's a history of HPD,
but it's also a tribute to the late Jason Knox
ABC thirteen of the story. My late husband, Jason.
Speaker 6 (12:23):
He worked in the Fox Division of HPD.
Speaker 7 (12:25):
He worked hard to get into the Houston Police Department.
Of course, he grew up around it. When I was
a policeman. I used to take him to the station
all the time, and many just took it on like
it was life mission.
Speaker 8 (12:35):
So his personality was very goofy, a little bit of
a smart butt, but could make you believe anything.
Speaker 7 (12:43):
When he was on patrol in October around Thanksgiving, he
bought a skeleton and he dressed it in a police
uniform and put it in his patrol car in the
passenger seat and said he would patrol with officer bones
on Halloween.
Speaker 6 (12:55):
He was a character for sure.
Speaker 7 (12:56):
She came to me one day and he said, hey, Dad,
you know HPD really doesn't keep track of its history.
And he goes, you know, I should start a nonprofit
and get some money and buy them and restore cars.
Speaker 6 (13:06):
And I said, that's great. It's a great idea.
Speaker 7 (13:08):
You're going to get a lot of people that say
that's a good idea, I said, but they're not going
to give you any money until they see that you
can do what you say you're going to do. So
that's when he decided to buy. His first police car
was a nineteen ninety six Chevy Capri.
Speaker 6 (13:21):
This was actually the first one that he did. Everything
on the vehicle is period correct for the nineties.
Speaker 8 (13:26):
The lights in the sirens work, not the computer, but
it is age appropriate to the car.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
He said.
Speaker 7 (13:31):
He wasn't going to restore them to what he called
pristine quality. He wanted to restore them to patrol quality.
Speaker 5 (13:37):
Ended up being in pretty good condition considering.
Speaker 6 (13:40):
And then he ran across this eighty eight Capri Classic.
Speaker 7 (13:46):
His goal was to have a car representing each decade
of the of the police department history.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
Ala Imperial cram is how they dropped it?
Speaker 6 (13:57):
An HPD helicopter responded. He died in May of twenty twenty.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
He was thirty five years old, the son of Houston
City Council and Mike Knox, with fourteen years in local
law enforcement.
Speaker 6 (14:09):
We want to fulfill his dream of one per decade.
Speaker 8 (14:15):
I mean, there's nothing else out there that's like these cars.
I see what it does to everybody else. It is
very rewarding, especially the newest one. That was the kind
of car he was driving towards.
Speaker 6 (14:25):
The end of his career.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
One must dignity to come up with the right character.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Michael Barrys, That's how I found my first ten wives.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
A friend of mine, see me an email, what big
scary movie guy? I went in with you like scary movies,
not into the whole horror genre ever have been. My
mom took my brother and me. My dad was working
a shutdown. It must have been a Friday night, and
(15:04):
it must have been the beginning of the summer or
the end of the summer. The two times he would
do that. The beginning of the summer was so that
we could take a vacation, and the end of the
summer was so we could buy clothes to go back,
or Christmas if Christmas was coming on. But anyway, so
she took my brother and I seventy six or seventy eight.
I think it was seventy six, so I would have
(15:24):
been six, my brother would have been ten to see
Amityville Horror. Amityville Horror was woo scary stuff back then.
And I don't know that I have watched all the way.
I mean, I guess the shining counts, but I was
(15:44):
really you know, I'm going to watch every Jack Nicholson movie.
I'm gonna watch every gene. So I didn't really view
it as a genre specific I really viewed it as, Okay,
this is a really important role in the work of Nicholson.
Let me see what I think think of it. Anyway,
So he says that he is a big scary movie.
(16:05):
I am a big scary movie guy. I went in
with zero. The subject was obsession, the movie obsession. I
went in with zero knowledge of the movie other than
it was a scary movie, which is why I liked
the main guy was pathetic and very believable in this
day and age of kids and how they do not
(16:26):
know how to date without their phone. Truly sad, very
simple action taken to change the whole movie. Wish made
main female, small white girl with average looks, girl next door.
She hit on some, she hit on some, fact many
crazy indicators small at first, but nailed them. Then the
(16:48):
obvious crazy actions to follow, making up for the crazy
actions with sex or attention. This guy was so craving
perfect storm ending thirty minutes was eyes wide opened, bat
crap crazy that plenty of us went through and then
some got very graphic. My kids asked all about my
(17:09):
history of dating both his wife say their name, and
I had so many stories of experiences dealing with crazy
people we dealt with. I had a stalker X in college.
Kids enjoyed a solid two hours of laughing at the
dumb things people do when they lose their mind. Solid film. First,
(17:30):
I've heard of this film, Then I start noticing, you know,
you buy a white Chevy Silverado, all of a sudden
you start noticing how many white Chevy Silverados there are
out there. So then I start noticing, Oh, this film
is getting a lot of attention. This is that film
he was talking about for having been shot for seven
(17:52):
hundred and fifty thousand dollars and making I think it's
first weekend fifty million dollars. Now, some people will point
out that the budget to shoot it was seven point
fifty but then it was bought for a few million
dollars or however million dollars, and then it had a
massive production budget. So it's not that a seven hundred
fifty thousand dollars film then turned around and grossed fifty million.
(18:16):
You had to have some promotion dollars. People forget the
promotion part of all of these things. But anyway, it
says a horror movie made for seven hundred and fifty
thousand dollars, it's about to become one of the most
profitable films ever made. Obsession, shot in twenty days in
Alabama by a twenty six year old YouTuber with no
stars in the cast, is now eyeing a two hundred
(18:38):
and fifty million plus box office finish. That's a return
north of three hundred times its budget. It's already the
highest grossing release in focus features history. Now, look at
what the industry spent that same money on The Joker
two hundred million dollar budget. It's a punchline, Mickey seventeen
(19:00):
one hundred and eighteen million forgotten in a month. I
might get some of these wrong because I don't know
any of these movies, so I'm warning you in advance.
The Mandalorian and Grogu one hundred and sixty five million
dollars seven years, the entire Lucasville machine. It's currently losing
the weekday box office to obsession. Hollywood keeps insisting you
(19:23):
need two hundred million dollars, a pre sold IP, and
a marketing budget the size of a small country to
make a hit. Then a guy with a camera, a
wish granting, and three weeks in Alabama has out earned
all of them on a rounding error of their catering bill.
(19:44):
So the reason I tell you all that is you
are constantly told by the quote experts that they know
more than you do on everything. There is an industry
(20:05):
around everything. Now, I saw the Washington Post. This morning
they do a morning newsletter and it was the seven
top contenders for the Republican primary nomination. We're talking about
twenty twenty eight here. It irritates me that the minute
a super Bowl is won, as they're on the field,
(20:28):
the commentators will begin talking about the likelihood this team's
coming back next year, because we have to promote the
offseason talk the chatter. It's about the chatter, not the
quality of the sport, not the quality of the game,
not what it means, nothing about the sport itself. Really,
these are all just commodities to use for the churn
(20:51):
of the public's interest. And that's what presidential politics is.
What are top cans. Well, you got jd vancel here,
he's pretty good. You got let's doe that I'm not
going to do it. You've got Donald Trump, Jennior over here,
Marco Ruby over here, and you got and then that
creates water cooler talk. And the thing nobody thinks about
(21:12):
is it also reduces the influence of the president because
now you're making him a lame duck president, which is
why he never wants to talk of that. But that
just goes to show there's an entire industry around presidential
politics talk. They don't care that we have a good
president who leads the country well with good policies that
(21:34):
is reflecting the values and wishes and votes of the public. No,
it's all a game to them, and the movie industry
has become quite some time ago. Harvey Einstein contributed to
this in addition to other things when he wasn't doing
the other things. Is the mechanization, the systema systematization of everything.
(22:00):
You lose authenticity. What did COVID do to small businesses?
How many small businesses that you personally patronized closed down? Well,
eventually you still need those goods and services. So what
did you do? You went to big box stores, private equity,
buying out every small local plumbing, electrical, carpentry, you know,
(22:28):
you name it store and rolling them up into a
company where you call and get customer service in some
other country. Oh, I guess we're going Hispanic customer service now.
So last night, I want to go see some of
the UT games because my kids will be in Austin.
And that's my excuse for why I'm pestering them. It's
(22:49):
not not here to bother you. I'm here for the game.
Why are you asking me if I'm here to bother you?
I forgot you were even going to school here. I'm
doing what I do every year and go onto the
UT football game. It might win a national championship. Why
are you bothering me? Please go away? So that's my excuse, right,
So I start calling for customer service on the Marriotte
(23:11):
Bonvoy program, and now they have a Hispanic or it's
somewhere in Latin America. I don't know where it is.
That's I could tell. I couldn't understand. I thought, let's
just switch over to Spanish girl, because you're English is atrocious,
not that we should be able to communicate for me
to book a room. Interesting and unfortunate case in spring,
(23:33):
two families engaged in a legal battle over who is
the valedictorian at a charter school, a Harris County judge
being forced to ultimately decide the story from ABC thirteen, Well, there.
Speaker 9 (23:50):
Were two families who believed their sons should be valedictorian,
but as you mentioned, it took a lossu in a
judge to figure out which one of these two boys
was ultimately to get that honor. So, according to one
of these families lawsuits and their lawyer. Senior Nathan Olivari
was told that his grade showed that he was number
one in his graduating class and he would earn that.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
Title a valedictorian.
Speaker 9 (24:12):
But the court document says that a short time later,
Olivari was.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
Told at eight, sweetie, there's only one v in valedictorian.
Tell me you weren't the valedictorian.
Speaker 9 (24:22):
By TELLVIY you weren't doing you're not titled a valedictorian.
But documents says that a short time later, Olivari was
told that a junior had decided to graduate early, had
a higher GPA, and we'd be taking that title. The
Olivari family argues in the legal paperwork that the other
students GPA was improperly calculated and that it happened too
late in the school year. Ultimately, a judge sided with Olivari,
(24:43):
allowing him to give that valedictorian speech on a graduation
day and claim the title. We heard from Olivari after
he walked the stage.
Speaker 7 (24:51):
I'm thankful for the courthouse for realizing who the true
valedictorian is, and I'm thankful for my parents for always
supporting me through everything.
Speaker 5 (25:00):
We did.
Speaker 9 (25:01):
Speak with the school's founder, who says that this is
an ongoing legal matter and sent us an investigation that
was completed independently and a review that was done by
their board of directors, both of which determine that the
GPAs were calculated correctly and on time, and that there
was no wrongdoing on the behalf of the school Olivari.
After graduating from high school, he's going to be playing
(25:21):
baseball at Christian Community College's upcoming school year. Tonight. He
also has his first game with the Astros Youth Academy.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
If you're wondering why they're going to so much trouble,
there are scholarships and tuition waivers and things like that
for the valedictorian of a school. I'm assuming that applies
to charter schools as well. It does not apply to
private schools. But I guess they're calling a charter school
(25:49):
a public school for the purposes I don't know. I'm
not saying that I know that to be the case.
I'm guessing it would matter in that sense if you
don't have kids, or you haven't had kids in a while.
There is now in the state of Texas it is
incredibly competitive to get into University of Texas and Texas,
(26:12):
A and M. It's competitive get in everywhere now, but
for the two largest public schools, there is a required
admission if you are in the top I think it
used to be seven percent and now it's six percent,
but I could be I could very well be wrong
on that. I'm open to being corrected of your graduating class.
(26:38):
So those schools primary form of admission is the large
number of people who go to public schools who comprise
that number. And if you've been through the process of admissions,
you know that there's the first round of admissions, which
(26:59):
is you usually late fall, and in that second round,
which is about January, and then that third round, which
is about March. And the reason for that is the
schools will send out more acceptances than there are slots,
and the first round of acceptances are students who uh
(27:20):
Title nine athletes, you know, the coaches put this for
we want we want this guy to be our starting quarterback,
and we want her to be our starting pitcher on
our softball team or whatever. And then there is the
eligibility based on your rank in your school, and then
there is the and then there is the application generally,
(27:41):
which is heavily weighted toward your It's not SAT anymore,
it's not AMCAT. Whatever the test is. Now there's a
there's another test and uh GPA and then extra curriculars.
It is incredible, incredibly competitive. Now, University of Texas had
(28:07):
the most applications that they have ever received, by quite
some number. And the crazy thing about that is you
may or may not think this is silly. What I
do is that the admission that the applications go up
dramatically when you have a good football year. Where where
(28:27):
are you going to go and study to learn the
skills for your future? Welly, you paint on how to
fucky obtane does. But that's that's the way it is. Georgia.
I never knew anybody that went to Georgia from Texas.
Georgia starts winning national championships. Everybody's kid's going to Georgia.
What in the hell? So when you for those people
(28:51):
who are not athletics fans, if you didn't know there
is a certain prestige to your university to being a
winner in football, it's just a fact. I mean, they'll
show you the numbers. I forget what the number was,
thin one hundred and fifteen thousand applications this year. Don't
get me lying, but that number kind of pops in
(29:11):
my head. And I think the likelihood you get in
this year was one in nineteen something like that. It's
the numbers are staggering.
Speaker 6 (29:22):
A and M.
Speaker 3 (29:23):
I think A and M was worse this year in
terms of harder to get into, and that is because
A and M artificially reduced the size of their incoming class.
So A and M also had I think that was
the best season in A and M history. They made
the playoffs. A and M had had a high profile season.
(29:46):
Remember they were undefeated going into that Thanksgiving game and
lost to UT twenty seven seventeen. That A ANDM, that
A and M football team got a lot of attention
last year. Well, there's kids who are in high school
that's where I'm going to go. And then Longhorned kids
want to go to UT, and Aggie kids want to
(30:07):
go to Aggie Land. And then Texas Tech, which used
to be my understanding kind of a shoe in that
you got in. Texas Tech has made a massive gain
in every way possible. They now have a veterinary school,
they now have a law school. Their business school ranking
(30:27):
has improved. They have a really good football team. They
made the playoffs. I mean they're getting on the national scale,
on the national stage, they're getting a lot of attention.
And then if you don't know because your kids are
not going through the process, SMU and TCU, particularly TCU
since they went to the national championship few years ago,
(30:50):
have become incredibly competitive as well. TCU has a program
where you can apply I think it's no number first,
or you can apply October fifteen. I forget it. You
get an early admission, but you make a commitment if
you do early admint that you don't that you would
draw your application from UT and A and M. So
(31:14):
that forces kids to kind of that creates quite the
strategic decision as to, you know, whether to hit on
fifteen or not. So that whole competition for those people
who've been through it, you know that for your kids
because it's something you can't control and it's something that
affects your kids, and you know your kids thinks it's
(31:35):
the most important thing in the world. They've got, you know,
where they want to go to school, and there just
aren't as many slots in law school. They used to
tell us because top ten percent is law of you,
and that's the best way to get a job. Coming
out of law school. They used to say, try as
we may, we can only fit ten percent of you
into the top ten. Now. I remember the first time
I heard that, I thought it was the stupidest comment ever,
(31:57):
because you know, there I am just grinding and out
to get top ten percent. But now it makes sense.
I mean, look, everybody wants to be in. Ain't everybody
getting in?
Speaker 6 (32:07):
M
It's that time time, time, time, luck and load. The
Michael Vari Show is on the air.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
I mentioned that my granddad was a Baptist preacher and
when I was real little, he told me that we're
supposed to follow Jesus's two commandments.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Love God and love neighbor.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
And I believe forcing my religion down the throats of
my Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Atheist, agnostic neighbors is not love,
and it's why I have fought so hard for the
separation of church and state. I was raised to believe
that that boundary in our First Amendment is a sacred boundary,
and it doesn't just benefit our democracy, although it certainly does,
(00:54):
it also benefits the church because when the church gets
too cozy with political power, it loses its prophetic voice.
And so I hope in the US Senate that I
can continue my fight against Christian nationalism because it is
fundamentally un Christian. It is a betrayal of Jesus of Nazareth,
his life, his death, and his tea.
Speaker 4 (01:15):
Jesus, Jesus, He's a champions, sees takes a week.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
God is non binary. The prophetic voices like Jesus have
helped me reckon with my own whiteness in context of abortion.
Before God comes over Mary and we have the incarnation,
God asks for Mary's consent, which is remarkable. I mean,
(02:07):
go back and read this and in Luke, I mean
the angel comes down and asks Mary if this is
something she wants to do, and she says, if it
is God's will, let it be.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Done, let it be, let it happen.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
So to me, that is an affirmation in one of
our most central stories that creation has to be done
with consent.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Have you heard about the Indian banker who uses they
them pronouns they're non binary. Well, on the annoying little
(03:10):
things that people do after they vote is they need
everybody to know they voted, so they get a sticker. Okay,
you got this sticker. That's fine, but not enough people
notice that they're wearing their sticker because they voted. So
then they take the social media and they say, guys, y'all,
come on, we gotta vote. Everybody's gotta vote. Well, to
(03:35):
be clear, in November, that's true. In November, it's simply
a question. It's not qualitative, it's quantitative. Can we get
more of our people to show up? And vote than
the Democrats do win or lose. That's it. You don't
need people to think it through. Hey, show up, vote
(03:56):
for all the Republicans, vote all the way down the ballot.
That's it. That's all. Talking to Orlando Sanchez last night,
who's the new county judge candidate, and we were talking
about the down ballot because people will show up in November. Normally,
in a presidential year, you'll have the president the presidential candidate,
(04:17):
so people will show up to vote Trump versus Kamala Harris,
Trump versus Biden, Trump versus Hillary Clinton. But when you
don't have that this year, you will have a Paxton
versus Tallarico, and people will show up. I'm going there.
I'm gona vote because that's the one they've seen all
the that they've seen all the media about. That's the
(04:39):
one they have an opinion of. It's hard to get
them to stay all the way down to the bottom.
We no longer have straight ticket voting, which we stopped
in twenty eighteen, and Democrats were good at getting people
to go in. They go just go in and vote Democrat.
Do you remember Ramon there's a Shila Jackson Lee clip
it's about seven to ten seconds. Law I think it's
(05:01):
seven seconds long. And she says, vote straight party. And
what she's telling them is, you know, don't go in
and vote individually, just go in and vote Democrat. So
in November, here we go. Yep, this is.
Speaker 5 (05:17):
Congress Woman Shiela Jackson Lee. Vote the Street Democratic ticket,
which would include the president and all of us. Do
not after voting the straight Democratic ticket, vote individually. It
will cancel your vote. Vote the straight Democratic ticket.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
So in November you want everybody to vote. It's very important.
People vote in the primary or the runoff, it's not
that important. And my argument for this is you don't
want people showing up to vote who don't know what's
going on. Are they walking there and they go, hmm,
(05:49):
Paxton versus Corning, I've heard of Corner. I think I'll
vote for him. Middleton versus Rules just too many letters,
I go for it. I mean, you don't want people
choosing your candidate who don't know what the heck's going
(06:10):
on in November. You don't need them to know it.
Just show up and vote for the Republican. Well, my
point is, after all of that, the Republican turnout in
the runoff was the highest we've ever had, the highest
we've ever had at one point four million.
Speaker 6 (06:32):
Is that right?
Speaker 3 (06:33):
Let me look at my numbers. This is chicken scratch.
This is the probably with my chicken scratch. Democrats had
five hundred and forty sorry, five hundred fifty thousand voted.
Their record was in twenty twenty when they had a
million votes cast in the in their primary. We had
(06:59):
one point four let's see numbers shattered twenty twenty four.
Both parties had competitors just over one point four million
voted in twenty twenty two to one point nine million
voted in twenty twenty six. Long story short, it's the
highest primary voter turnout we've ever had in the state,
(07:28):
it's the highest runoff total we've ever had, and it's
the highest Republican Party turnout we've ever had. So yes,
people were showing up to vote. I think it turns
out that about twenty five percent of registered voters showed
(07:48):
up to vote. Now I understand that one of the
things that people I've never found highly highly tuned in
voters to say this. I find people that just kind
of want to have a cause and they're really just
say we need more. How the people don't vote, Well,
there are a lot of reasons for that. There are
people who are registered that are dead, that aren't off
the rolls. There are people who are registered who've moved
(08:11):
on and just not change their registration, and there are
people who just don't care, and well, you don't join us,
it'll be like old times.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Michael Berry, So.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Years ago, I would do dad joke here and there
because I thought they were fun, mostly just to make
people cringe, because I knew they would roll. The point
of a dad joke is, and some people don't get this,
the point of a dad joke is like you tell
(08:53):
a joke in front of your kids that you act
like you think is real funny, and they go, oh, Dad,
it's one of those things you do to embarrass your kids.
That's the nature. The dad joke is a specific, special
type of joke, and I would do it on occasion
just to kind of be a little annoying and because
I also enjoy them. And Jason Knox was a HPD officer.
(09:20):
His father was Mike Knox, and Jason was a helicopter
pilot for the Houston Police Department Helicopter Unit. And he
and an officer named Chase Cormier, we were over a
scene at night with the lights on over at Green's Point,
(09:45):
and their helicopter crashed. Chase was thought to probably going
to die, but he didn't. It tore him up badly, horribly.
The good news was he was it was very fit,
(10:08):
worked out a lot, took care of himself, was strong,
and it took it took a while, but he has recovered.
Now he's I wouldn't want to know how many pens
he's gotten, his ankles and his feet and his knees
and the pain he has had to endure going through it.
(10:28):
He's not, you know, one hundred percent, He's not in
a wheelchair. So he has managed, after these years to
to uh to find some semblance of normalcy, which in
and of itself is pretty darned impressive. Jason, of course passed,
and one of the things that hit me was that
(10:52):
his sergeant told me that when they cleaned out Jason's locker, Look,
I'm not supposed to not supposed to do this, but
you might appreciate it. I'm sending you a photo of
Jason's locker, and he had a Michael Berry show sticker
and Michael Berry for mayor sticker in there, and he
(11:20):
several people told me that he would repeat the dad
jokes that we would tell in the morning all day
long so that when he got home he could tell
his kids. And he thought that was such a hoot,
and they'd be waiting on his dad joke when he
got home. So we start to show with a very
positive story what started as a passion project for him.
(11:45):
He was collecting and restoring these old patrol cars. You
remember the old was it a Crown Vic? The baby
blue Crown Vic. And so now that has become a
nonprofit called Vintage HPD to kind of retain, preserve, and
promote and celebrate the historic HPD vehicles. And it's a
(12:11):
good story and it's a nice it's a history of HPD,
but it's also a tribute to the late Jason Knox
ABC thirteen of the story. My late husband, Jason.
Speaker 6 (12:23):
He worked in the Fox Division of HPD.
Speaker 7 (12:25):
He worked hard to get into the Houston Police Department.
Of course, he grew up around it. When I was
a policeman. I used to take him to the station
all the time, and many just took it on like
it was life mission.
Speaker 8 (12:35):
So his personality was very goofy, a little bit of
a smart butt, but could make you believe anything.
Speaker 7 (12:43):
When he was on patrol in October around Thanksgiving, he
bought a skeleton and he dressed it in a police
uniform and put it in his patrol car in the
passenger seat and said he would patrol with officer bones
on Halloween.
Speaker 6 (12:55):
He was a character for sure.
Speaker 7 (12:56):
She came to me one day and he said, hey, Dad,
you know HPD really doesn't keep track of its history.
And he goes, you know, I should start a nonprofit
and get some money and buy them and restore cars.
Speaker 6 (13:06):
And I said, that's great. It's a great idea.
Speaker 7 (13:08):
You're going to get a lot of people that say
that's a good idea, I said, but they're not going
to give you any money until they see that you
can do what you say you're going to do. So
that's when he decided to buy. His first police car
was a nineteen ninety six Chevy Capri.
Speaker 6 (13:21):
This was actually the first one that he did. Everything
on the vehicle is period correct for the nineties.
Speaker 8 (13:26):
The lights in the sirens work, not the computer, but
it is age appropriate to the car.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
He said.
Speaker 7 (13:31):
He wasn't going to restore them to what he called
pristine quality. He wanted to restore them to patrol quality.
Speaker 5 (13:37):
Ended up being in pretty good condition considering.
Speaker 6 (13:40):
And then he ran across this eighty eight Capri Classic.
Speaker 7 (13:46):
His goal was to have a car representing each decade
of the of the police department history.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
Ala Imperial cram is how they dropped it?
Speaker 6 (13:57):
An HPD helicopter responded. He died in May of twenty twenty.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
He was thirty five years old, the son of Houston
City Council and Mike Knox, with fourteen years in local
law enforcement.
Speaker 6 (14:09):
We want to fulfill his dream of one per decade.
Speaker 8 (14:15):
I mean, there's nothing else out there that's like these cars.
I see what it does to everybody else. It is
very rewarding, especially the newest one. That was the kind
of car he was driving towards.
Speaker 6 (14:25):
The end of his career.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
One must dignity to come up with the right character.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Michael Barrys, That's how I found my first ten wives.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
A friend of mine, see me an email, what big
scary movie guy? I went in with you like scary movies,
not into the whole horror genre ever have been. My
mom took my brother and me. My dad was working
a shutdown. It must have been a Friday night, and
(15:04):
it must have been the beginning of the summer or
the end of the summer. The two times he would
do that. The beginning of the summer was so that
we could take a vacation, and the end of the
summer was so we could buy clothes to go back,
or Christmas if Christmas was coming on. But anyway, so
she took my brother and I seventy six or seventy eight.
I think it was seventy six, so I would have
(15:24):
been six, my brother would have been ten to see
Amityville Horror. Amityville Horror was woo scary stuff back then.
And I don't know that I have watched all the way.
I mean, I guess the shining counts, but I was
(15:44):
really you know, I'm going to watch every Jack Nicholson movie.
I'm gonna watch every gene. So I didn't really view
it as a genre specific I really viewed it as, Okay,
this is a really important role in the work of Nicholson.
Let me see what I think think of it. Anyway,
So he says that he is a big scary movie.
(16:05):
I am a big scary movie guy. I went in
with zero. The subject was obsession, the movie obsession. I
went in with zero knowledge of the movie other than
it was a scary movie, which is why I liked
the main guy was pathetic and very believable in this
day and age of kids and how they do not
(16:26):
know how to date without their phone. Truly sad, very
simple action taken to change the whole movie. Wish made
main female, small white girl with average looks, girl next door.
She hit on some, she hit on some, fact many
crazy indicators small at first, but nailed them. Then the
(16:48):
obvious crazy actions to follow, making up for the crazy
actions with sex or attention. This guy was so craving
perfect storm ending thirty minutes was eyes wide opened, bat
crap crazy that plenty of us went through and then
some got very graphic. My kids asked all about my
(17:09):
history of dating both his wife say their name, and
I had so many stories of experiences dealing with crazy
people we dealt with. I had a stalker X in college.
Kids enjoyed a solid two hours of laughing at the
dumb things people do when they lose their mind. Solid film. First,
(17:30):
I've heard of this film, Then I start noticing, you know,
you buy a white Chevy Silverado, all of a sudden
you start noticing how many white Chevy Silverados there are
out there. So then I start noticing, Oh, this film
is getting a lot of attention. This is that film
he was talking about for having been shot for seven
(17:52):
hundred and fifty thousand dollars and making I think it's
first weekend fifty million dollars. Now, some people will point
out that the budget to shoot it was seven point
fifty but then it was bought for a few million
dollars or however million dollars, and then it had a
massive production budget. So it's not that a seven hundred
fifty thousand dollars film then turned around and grossed fifty million.
(18:16):
You had to have some promotion dollars. People forget the
promotion part of all of these things. But anyway, it
says a horror movie made for seven hundred and fifty
thousand dollars, it's about to become one of the most
profitable films ever made. Obsession, shot in twenty days in
Alabama by a twenty six year old YouTuber with no
stars in the cast, is now eyeing a two hundred
(18:38):
and fifty million plus box office finish. That's a return
north of three hundred times its budget. It's already the
highest grossing release in focus features history. Now, look at
what the industry spent that same money on The Joker
two hundred million dollar budget. It's a punchline, Mickey seventeen
(19:00):
one hundred and eighteen million forgotten in a month. I
might get some of these wrong because I don't know
any of these movies, so I'm warning you in advance.
The Mandalorian and Grogu one hundred and sixty five million
dollars seven years, the entire Lucasville machine. It's currently losing
the weekday box office to obsession. Hollywood keeps insisting you
(19:23):
need two hundred million dollars, a pre sold IP, and
a marketing budget the size of a small country to
make a hit. Then a guy with a camera, a
wish granting, and three weeks in Alabama has out earned
all of them on a rounding error of their catering bill.
(19:44):
So the reason I tell you all that is you
are constantly told by the quote experts that they know
more than you do on everything. There is an industry
(20:05):
around everything. Now, I saw the Washington Post. This morning
they do a morning newsletter and it was the seven
top contenders for the Republican primary nomination. We're talking about
twenty twenty eight here. It irritates me that the minute
a super Bowl is won, as they're on the field,
(20:28):
the commentators will begin talking about the likelihood this team's
coming back next year, because we have to promote the
offseason talk the chatter. It's about the chatter, not the
quality of the sport, not the quality of the game,
not what it means, nothing about the sport itself. Really,
these are all just commodities to use for the churn
(20:51):
of the public's interest. And that's what presidential politics is.
What are top cans. Well, you got jd vancel here,
he's pretty good. You got let's doe that I'm not
going to do it. You've got Donald Trump, Jennior over here,
Marco Ruby over here, and you got and then that
creates water cooler talk. And the thing nobody thinks about
(21:12):
is it also reduces the influence of the president because
now you're making him a lame duck president, which is
why he never wants to talk of that. But that
just goes to show there's an entire industry around presidential
politics talk. They don't care that we have a good
president who leads the country well with good policies that
(21:34):
is reflecting the values and wishes and votes of the public. No,
it's all a game to them, and the movie industry
has become quite some time ago. Harvey Einstein contributed to
this in addition to other things when he wasn't doing
the other things. Is the mechanization, the systema systematization of everything.
(22:00):
You lose authenticity. What did COVID do to small businesses?
How many small businesses that you personally patronized closed down? Well,
eventually you still need those goods and services. So what
did you do? You went to big box stores, private equity,
buying out every small local plumbing, electrical, carpentry, you know,
(22:28):
you name it store and rolling them up into a
company where you call and get customer service in some
other country. Oh, I guess we're going Hispanic customer service now.
So last night, I want to go see some of
the UT games because my kids will be in Austin.
And that's my excuse for why I'm pestering them. It's
(22:49):
not not here to bother you. I'm here for the game.
Why are you asking me if I'm here to bother you?
I forgot you were even going to school here. I'm
doing what I do every year and go onto the
UT football game. It might win a national championship. Why
are you bothering me? Please go away? So that's my excuse, right,
So I start calling for customer service on the Marriotte
(23:11):
Bonvoy program, and now they have a Hispanic or it's
somewhere in Latin America. I don't know where it is.
That's I could tell. I couldn't understand. I thought, let's
just switch over to Spanish girl, because you're English is atrocious,
not that we should be able to communicate for me
to book a room. Interesting and unfortunate case in spring,
(23:33):
two families engaged in a legal battle over who is
the valedictorian at a charter school, a Harris County judge
being forced to ultimately decide the story from ABC thirteen, Well, there.
Speaker 9 (23:50):
Were two families who believed their sons should be valedictorian,
but as you mentioned, it took a lossu in a
judge to figure out which one of these two boys
was ultimately to get that honor. So, according to one
of these families lawsuits and their lawyer. Senior Nathan Olivari
was told that his grade showed that he was number
one in his graduating class and he would earn that.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
Title a valedictorian.
Speaker 9 (24:12):
But the court document says that a short time later,
Olivari was.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
Told at eight, sweetie, there's only one v in valedictorian.
Tell me you weren't the valedictorian.
Speaker 9 (24:22):
By TELLVIY you weren't doing you're not titled a valedictorian.
But documents says that a short time later, Olivari was
told that a junior had decided to graduate early, had
a higher GPA, and we'd be taking that title. The
Olivari family argues in the legal paperwork that the other
students GPA was improperly calculated and that it happened too
late in the school year. Ultimately, a judge sided with Olivari,
(24:43):
allowing him to give that valedictorian speech on a graduation
day and claim the title. We heard from Olivari after
he walked the stage.
Speaker 7 (24:51):
I'm thankful for the courthouse for realizing who the true
valedictorian is, and I'm thankful for my parents for always
supporting me through everything.
Speaker 5 (25:00):
We did.
Speaker 9 (25:01):
Speak with the school's founder, who says that this is
an ongoing legal matter and sent us an investigation that
was completed independently and a review that was done by
their board of directors, both of which determine that the
GPAs were calculated correctly and on time, and that there
was no wrongdoing on the behalf of the school Olivari.
After graduating from high school, he's going to be playing
(25:21):
baseball at Christian Community College's upcoming school year. Tonight. He
also has his first game with the Astros Youth Academy.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
If you're wondering why they're going to so much trouble,
there are scholarships and tuition waivers and things like that
for the valedictorian of a school. I'm assuming that applies
to charter schools as well. It does not apply to
private schools. But I guess they're calling a charter school
(25:49):
a public school for the purposes I don't know. I'm
not saying that I know that to be the case.
I'm guessing it would matter in that sense if you
don't have kids, or you haven't had kids in a while.
There is now in the state of Texas it is
incredibly competitive to get into University of Texas and Texas,
(26:12):
A and M. It's competitive get in everywhere now, but
for the two largest public schools, there is a required
admission if you are in the top I think it
used to be seven percent and now it's six percent,
but I could be I could very well be wrong
on that. I'm open to being corrected of your graduating class.
(26:38):
So those schools primary form of admission is the large
number of people who go to public schools who comprise
that number. And if you've been through the process of admissions,
you know that there's the first round of admissions, which
(26:59):
is you usually late fall, and in that second round,
which is about January, and then that third round, which
is about March. And the reason for that is the
schools will send out more acceptances than there are slots,
and the first round of acceptances are students who uh
(27:20):
Title nine athletes, you know, the coaches put this for
we want we want this guy to be our starting quarterback,
and we want her to be our starting pitcher on
our softball team or whatever. And then there is the
eligibility based on your rank in your school, and then
there is the and then there is the application generally,
(27:41):
which is heavily weighted toward your It's not SAT anymore,
it's not AMCAT. Whatever the test is. Now there's a
there's another test and uh GPA and then extra curriculars.
It is incredible, incredibly competitive. Now, University of Texas had
(28:07):
the most applications that they have ever received, by quite
some number. And the crazy thing about that is you
may or may not think this is silly. What I
do is that the admission that the applications go up
dramatically when you have a good football year. Where where
(28:27):
are you going to go and study to learn the
skills for your future? Welly, you paint on how to
fucky obtane does. But that's that's the way it is. Georgia.
I never knew anybody that went to Georgia from Texas.
Georgia starts winning national championships. Everybody's kid's going to Georgia.
What in the hell? So when you for those people
(28:51):
who are not athletics fans, if you didn't know there
is a certain prestige to your university to being a
winner in football, it's just a fact. I mean, they'll
show you the numbers. I forget what the number was,
thin one hundred and fifteen thousand applications this year. Don't
get me lying, but that number kind of pops in
(29:11):
my head. And I think the likelihood you get in
this year was one in nineteen something like that. It's
the numbers are staggering.
Speaker 6 (29:22):
A and M.
Speaker 3 (29:23):
I think A and M was worse this year in
terms of harder to get into, and that is because
A and M artificially reduced the size of their incoming class.
So A and M also had I think that was
the best season in A and M history. They made
the playoffs. A and M had had a high profile season.
(29:46):
Remember they were undefeated going into that Thanksgiving game and
lost to UT twenty seven seventeen. That A ANDM, that
A and M football team got a lot of attention
last year. Well, there's kids who are in high school
that's where I'm going to go. And then Longhorned kids
want to go to UT, and Aggie kids want to
(30:07):
go to Aggie Land. And then Texas Tech, which used
to be my understanding kind of a shoe in that
you got in. Texas Tech has made a massive gain
in every way possible. They now have a veterinary school,
they now have a law school. Their business school ranking
(30:27):
has improved. They have a really good football team. They
made the playoffs. I mean they're getting on the national scale,
on the national stage, they're getting a lot of attention.
And then if you don't know because your kids are
not going through the process, SMU and TCU, particularly TCU
since they went to the national championship few years ago,
(30:50):
have become incredibly competitive as well. TCU has a program
where you can apply I think it's no number first,
or you can apply October fifteen. I forget it. You
get an early admission, but you make a commitment if
you do early admint that you don't that you would
draw your application from UT and A and M. So
(31:14):
that forces kids to kind of that creates quite the
strategic decision as to, you know, whether to hit on
fifteen or not. So that whole competition for those people
who've been through it, you know that for your kids
because it's something you can't control and it's something that
affects your kids, and you know your kids thinks it's
(31:35):
the most important thing in the world. They've got, you know,
where they want to go to school, and there just
aren't as many slots in law school. They used to
tell us because top ten percent is law of you,
and that's the best way to get a job. Coming
out of law school. They used to say, try as
we may, we can only fit ten percent of you
into the top ten. Now. I remember the first time
I heard that, I thought it was the stupidest comment ever,
(31:57):
because you know, there I am just grinding and out
to get top ten percent. But now it makes sense.
I mean, look, everybody wants to be in. Ain't everybody
getting in?
Speaker 6 (32:07):
M
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