June 17, 2025 • 32 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
It's that time time, time, time, luck and load. So
Michael Very Show is on the air.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
We won't take a lot of hate. We're gonna be
sued every day, numerous times. I think you will see
the left try to control the media. They're going to
show the first crying female, first crying child, and say
how inhumane we are.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Just would say that I'm so sorry. Only people who
are getting detected children. I don't understand they're so sorry.
I wish they could do something that they can't. I
(01:07):
don't know what to do.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
He'll try every there, but they won't talk about three
hundred and forty thousand children that they've failed to take
care of.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
They're not going to talk about the.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Young women who have been murdered in this country the
hands the criminal cartels. They're not going to talk about
the hundreds of angel moms and dads who bury their children.
Want to talk about family separation, they bury their children.
Their children were killed by a member of a member
of a criminal cartower. Someone's not supposed to be here.
They'll tell one side of the story. They'll try to vilifie,
but they're not going to stop it.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
You can do.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
All I can do is crap you can do scrab
It's where.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
He lets some. Martina fights through her pain and tears
after she says her father, Andres Martina, was arrested from
his Wakegan home early Sunday morning by Immigration and Customs
enforcement agents.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
She says, the forty four year old.
Speaker 4 (02:16):
Grandfather came to the US from Mexico nearly thirty years ago.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
They will open the door because that maybe one of
us were intro where something or something happens was they
would been nice.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
We both find that priority tiger, which is a criminal alien.
If these were with the others in the United States,
I legally we're going to take enforcement action against them.
We're going to force the immigration.
Speaker 5 (02:38):
Helping the curtain and saw that it said police. When
I saw the agents get out, they had the buildings surrounded,
so they entered. They went up and started knocking on
the doors really loudly. My children started to crying.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Crab the main. It was hot yesterday, scrap stock market
(03:25):
was hot, Nasdaq was up, s and p UP, Dow
up ten year up, Tenure Treasury up, Bitcoin up three
point sixty one percent to one hundred and eight thousand,
five hundred and seventy nine and US steal up over
five percent. As you probably know, because of the merger
(03:46):
deal with Japan's Nippon Steel, which President Trump has now signed,
all fun there is as part of that deal what's
known as a golden share, which the specific have not
been released on, but a golden share basically gives you
(04:07):
a gives the United States a veto power. Now, my
understanding at this point is that US deal will have
an American CEO and an American board, so we shall see.
It should be interesting no matter what we shall see.
(04:27):
Over the last several years, Harris County courts in our
current DA have made it very clear that public corruption
is no big deal. You're going to have people stealing money,
You're going to have fraud, You're going to have them
handing out deals for kickbacks. Think of the Housing Department.
Think of the Barbie Robinson who had two jobs at
(04:51):
one time as health director here and health director in Phoenix,
all the while cut the deal with an LA company
as she's getting ready to walk out the door to
give them the deal while they're negotiating, while she's negotiating
with them, that she's going to get paid to go
to work for them. The day after the deal is done,
(05:13):
she's moving to California to be their employee, and they
asked how much would you like to get paid. Now.
I don't know about you, but that is a rather
unusual arrangement for a company to say, yeah, we want
you to come to work here, just tell us what
(05:35):
we need to pay you. It's doubly unusual when that
company saying just tell us what to pay you, is
also waiting for your approval on a deal in Harris
County for a multi multi multimillion dollar deal for them
to get for them to get this big contract. So
(05:57):
former City of Houston water department man under Sylvester Turner
sentenced to ten years in prison for orchestrating a multimillion
dollar kickback scheme. Now she could be released on parole
next month after serving just five months. From KPRCTV quote
(06:22):
Patrise Lee received her sentence in February for orchestrating a
kickback scheme that costs Houston taxpayers millions. She becomes eligible
for parole due to Texas laws governing nonviolent offenders and
credit for time served. The Texas Rangers investigation revealed Lee
awarded waterline repair contracts to family members and friends in
(06:43):
exchange for monetary kickbacks during her tenure as a maintenance
manager at Houston Public Works. Both Sylvester Turner Cadre really
pick them, couldn't he. Lee pleaded guilty to one count
of bribery and a plea agreement that led prosecutors to
drop a distional charges of engaging in organized criminal activity
(07:04):
and abuse of official capacity. The agreement included her commitment
to testify against other defendants in the case. Texas law
requires non violent offenders to serve only a quarter of
their sentence before becoming eligible for parole. Lee received credit
for two hundred and fifty days spent in jail awaiting trial,
plus additional credit for good behavior while in prison, earning
(07:26):
two to three days for each day served. First uncovered
by KPRC by KPRC two investigates, Lee's February sentencing came
after a lengthy investigation into corruption within the Houston Public
Works Department. Prosecutors say Lee used her position to funnel
emergency water line repair projects to her brother's construction company
(07:47):
while accepting kickbacks from other contractors. The scheme came to
light after the Houston City Council allocated eighty million dollars
for emergency water line repairs caused by extreme drought conditions.
Lee's role in verifying potential vendors allowed her to orchestrate
the fraudulent contracts. According to court documents, at least four
vendors made payments directly to Lee or her company in
(08:11):
exchange for contracts or expedited payments. It's like some third
world banana republic in one place, so crazy, so totally WeGo,
that everybody has a fighting. The Michael Berry.
Speaker 6 (08:24):
Show appears that Jimmy Swaggert has had a heart attack
and is on life support in critical condition at ninety
years old.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
The family is saying that only a miracle can save
his life. Ninety years old? How did everybody get so
old all of a sudden? I guess I got old
in the process. I just I didn't realize that was happening.
President Trump left the G seven meeting a day early,
(09:00):
rushing back to the White House, arriving at about five
point thirty early this morning. There is quite a bit
of speculation that Israel is about to take the final
measures to wipe out any nuclear capacity, and in some
(09:22):
that Iran might have or could develop in the near future.
China called for all Chinese citizens to evacuate Iran, many
countries suggesting that their citizens should evacuate Iran forthwith. The
(09:43):
expectation is that it's about to be very bad. Retail
sales data for may Or do this morning, Industrial production
do about an hour after that, and the fed's Federal
Open Market Committee is set to begin a two day
meeting this afternoon. There is hope, not expectation, but there
(10:06):
is hope that the interest rate will be dropped very soon.
And I will tell you that every indicator is there
to give cover if in fact, the interest rates will
be dropped. Everybody I talked to says that it would
(10:27):
be a boon to their business, not just housing. Mattress
Mac says that a number of folks come in and
buy their furniture on credit. They might buy one hundred
thousand dollars worth of furniture, but they're buying it in
many cases on credit. Car dealers obviously talked to Mike
(10:48):
batchis Saturday afternoon, and car sales are good. They will
be great when the interest rate is dropped. The expectation,
the hope should I say, is that that would be
done sooner rather than later, but by the end of
the year, so that that would give time for the
economy to really heat up prior to the midterms next November.
(11:09):
I think there are forces conspiring to keep that from happening.
The economy is doing well absent that, but we have
not seen inflation. And you're not going to drop interest
rates if you actually care about inflation, because it can
lead to inflation. But the hope is that we'll see
a spurred economic activity. There's an odd thing going on.
I spent Saturday calling a number of my show sponsors
(11:32):
and texting and emailing, and I always ask how business
is and what people think would make it better. And
part of the issue is that we were rolling along
with a relative consistency in economic activity, including the fact
(11:53):
that we had a great economy under Donald Trump in
January of twenty twenty, so he's up for election that November.
Most people were doing great. Most people we're seeing positive growth.
The Trump economy was doing well in most sectors. It's
(12:16):
never going to be the case that if you're a
bankruptcy lawyer in the economy is doing well, your business
is not going to be good. Your business is doing
best when the economy tanks, but people were doing pretty well,
and then all of a sudden, the COVID conspiracy hits
and that changes everything for everyone and for most people.
(12:39):
As that year progresses and as people begin to panic,
economic activity declines. By the beginning of the Biden administration,
everything that they had been demanding of Trump so that
you could shut the economy down, insure mail in ballots,
so you could conduct fraud, they all of a sudden,
Oh no, you can go public again. Now you're all
(13:01):
going to take the shot because we've promised Fizer that
they get to make a lot of money on this
and Johnson Johnson and Merk. But you can go ahead
and go out in public now, Okay. Well, when that happened,
you saw a fracture in the economy. Travel companies have
a friend that owns a company called Vacations to Go.
I think it's probably the largest cruise company in America,
(13:26):
if not the world. Emerson Hankcamer. A lot of people
know Emerson. Their headquarters is over on San Philippe next
to about bearing next to the elementary school there. They
owned that building and they had a booming vacation business
been growing and growing and growing since he took the business.
Over All of a sudden, that business was dead. Nobody
(13:47):
was going on cruises, The airlines tanked, anything related to
travel tanked. But what quietly happened and nobody wanted to
admit it because they felt bad about it, is all
of our home improvement folks. Their business went through the
roof because as you were sitting around, you were saying, hey,
(14:08):
we should replace that door. Hey you noticed that our
our roof needs our roof tiles are some of them
are loose? I bet you they're going to be leaking.
Do you notice that this window is leaky. We've been here,
you know, I've never really cared for this flooring. Truth
be told, I've never really Let's let's go ahead. We're
(14:29):
not going on vacation this summer. Let's go ahead and
replace our flooring. So, all of a sudden, all of
our home improvement companies were having, by twenty twenty one,
the best year that ever had. I'm sure MAC had
a good year as well. Because you're sitting around, you
want new furniture. People were buying new chevies. People were
doing things they weren't doing before, spending in ways where
(14:51):
they weren't spending before, So twenty twenty one became the
new normal in twenty twenty one, and twenty twenty t too,
and even into twenty twenty three. But eventually, you're only
going to replace the floors so many times in a
short period of time. You're only going to replace the
windows one time in a short period of time. Eventually
(15:13):
you'll do that again. So now we've been we've dragged,
and then you had the full term of Biden, you
had the inflation, you had the fear over Terrace. So
I feel like the country is coiled and ready for
economic activity on the edge on the precipice ferry, and
(15:37):
the triple Crown weave is, you know, tilted to the side,
the leaning tower of Weaver. I always read the restaurant
openings and closings with a lot of interest. The openings
not so much because they're all something of the sort.
They're all something of the same thing. They go something like,
(15:59):
we're gonna we're gonna put a Houston twist or an
La concept you know Houston really doesn't have, and then
fill in the blank and we're gonna bring that here.
Oh okay, all right. There's a certain amount of arrogance
(16:20):
to announcing that the fourth largest city, number one for
restaurants per capita, number one for per person spend eating
out as developed a restaurant community as there is in
the country. And you're gonna go ahead, yeah, yeah, you
(16:41):
people have too much tax max and barbecue and steakhouse
and burgers, and uh, we're gonna go ahead, and me me,
I am gonna go ahead and bring something it doesn't
count as choking if you're laughing a moment. We're gonna
(17:04):
go ahead and bring y'all something that y'all don't have already, because, uh,
because I've traveled to LA and y'all might not know about,
you know, airplanes and everything.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
And you know, I go to food and wine and
Aspen and I read the magazines, and I have a
friend I went to chef's school with, and you know,
we're just really behind the times here in Houston.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
So I'm gonna go ahead and bring this thing that
y'all don't know about. And I'm gonna go ahead and
tell you right now, you rough Roffian Hillbillies, that you
don't you don't know anything about this thing, but I'm
gonna bring it here Okay, a year later, so and
so restaurant has is shuttering the doors after a year. Well,
(17:51):
isn't that interesting? Maybe you brought something here that nobody wanted.
You know, Maybe there's a reason there's a tex Mex
restaurant on there every corner, and a steakhouse on every
second corner, and a burger joint in between. Maybe there's
a reason. Maybe that's our palette, Maybe that's our our preference. Ramon,
(18:15):
I want you to take one minute. You know what
that took so long to ding? You would napping? I saw,
I see you in there, you would napping. I want
you to tell me three food concepts and be serious
that we don't have enough of in the greater Houston area.
I did see, as political as it is, that a
(18:37):
chef in Spring won the UH won the James Beard Award,
and I am happy to see that. Let's see what
this fella's name is. Tommy Thomas Billy is Houston's newest
James James Beard Award winner. He is chef and owner
of Belly of the Beast in uh Spring, earning Best
(19:01):
Chef Texas at the James Beard Foundation's Restaurant and Chef
Awards ceremony. The reason I'm happy with that is there
is a prejudice, a bias that the only place the
food is good and innovative and exciting is in Montrose
and the Heights. And it's nice to see that somebody
(19:22):
that there is the recognition. Oh, you can be a
good restaurant in Spring. If you look at the Houston
Chronicle restaurant reviews, it is almost always somewhere in midtown
on Washington, in the Heights, or in Montrose. Maybe they walk,
I don't know, but you just can't be a good
(19:45):
restaurant in Spring the Woodlands, Tomball, you can't do it
all right, mony. Do you want to hear the menu? Oh,
they got a Michelin star. Two. Do you want to
hear the menu of what is on this? Let's see? Okay,
here we go menu. You got impanadas, the papa ekeso.
(20:08):
That's just basic cheese and potato and panada romon. You've
got peach and barrata. These are starters. Roasted peach, barata, pistachios, shishitos,
brown butter grilled bread that sounds good as hell. Beria
qeso tacos. My kids love Beria. Your had Beria Ramon
(20:28):
Media that for those of you who don't know, it's
like a toastata but kind of crispy. And they put
the meat in it and you dip it in the drippings.
They collect the drippings from the ground beef as is
being cooked and that's what you dip the meat the
stuff in. It's messy, but it's delicious. This is just
(20:52):
the starters. Moon grilled shrimp and pork belly. Oh, you
can't go wrong with pork belly. Yes, listen to the
listen to how it describes it tom yum flavors, herbs,
garden vegetables, crunchy things and peanuts. See, that's kind of clever.
Seared pork belly. What is n F and DF? I
(21:14):
know what gluten free is? What is n F? That's
Berkshire pork, salsa creolea peach habbonero and corn tortillas. And
then grilled Spanish octopus. I'm gonna pass on that. That
has black beans, Spanish terriso, baja crama and peanuts, salsa machia.
All right, then I'm not gonna read you the sides
(21:36):
because we have a show to do. Then then there's
a raw bar there's no reason to do a raw bar,
so I'm not even gonna read that. Then here we
go to the entrees. You're ready. We got grilled Texas redfish.
We got roasted half chicken, Texas wagu carne asada, seared
Hokkaido scallops. I don't care for scallops. Do you care
(21:57):
for scallops? From them? I don't understand the one of scallops.
Scallops have a questionable texture to begin with, and they
don't have any flavor. Again, what they're stingray fins? Are
you serious?
Speaker 5 (22:16):
No?
Speaker 1 (22:16):
They don't. No, they don't see now that. Now I
said that, and people think I'm an idiot. Texas woggu
petit fil a Meerkshire pork chop Rohan duck two ways.
I don't like duck. You like duck. If there's duck
on the menu and my wife's gonna order it, let
me just tell you that right now, she's going to
(22:37):
order it. She loves duck. I don't understand why. I'm
just not a fan of duck. All right, So let
me go back here. You got redfish, chicken, Guoggu carne asado,
she seared hokkaido scallops, petit file at pork shop. That's
(22:59):
a solid me you so you got all the stupid stuff,
but you still have a solid menu for men. Right.
So somebody's wife, that's you know, she and her girlfriends
went out for rose all day and she comes home
and says, I want to try this. I guess you
can get that there. I'd pass on. I'd pass on
the Spanish octopus, and I'd pass on the entirety of
(23:21):
the raw bar. Then they got some homemade pastas. That's
a pretty big menu. Romon, that's a very big menu.
But what got me on the subject was that I
was reading about a restaurant that's closing called Eloise Nichols
and it's in it's in river Oaks and it's part
(23:43):
of that it's just west of river Oaks District, and
it's it's been there for nine years. It's run by
a dere concept, which is a very good operator. They
now run a buffalo grill, a dare Kitchen, Los Tios
and it's just nine year. It's just hard. If you know,
if you watch a restaurant long enough, if it's not
(24:03):
named Gringos, it's gonna close. An insurance law murdered two
Native American Michael Berry Show. Okay, you have my attention.
Did you come up with the three types of restaurants
we need?
Speaker 6 (24:19):
What you got me?
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Yeah? Concept, that's fine street food? Okay, it feels pretentious.
All right, we'll come back to that. Go ahead, specifically
what countries that aren't Okay, So so let me ask
you this. You're telling me that you're driving around and
(24:43):
you're hungry, and you think, man, I wish say it
was some street food by countries that aren't represented right now.
That's no, that's not true. You don't think that. There's
no chance that you think that. What happens is you're
answering because you see food reviews, and that's real cool
from from people who live inside the loop of their
(25:06):
little community of New York or LA or San Francisco
or Chicago, and they have a thriving street food community
from countries you didn't even know existed. Yeah, okay, what
I would love is some street food from Zimbabwe, Trinidad
and Tobago. That's that's really Djibouti. I want some street
(25:28):
food from Jibouti. Get in, get it, get you some,
all right. So that's what we need some street food
from countries that aren't well represented. All right. See this
is this is my proof people can't talk about food
without being pretentious. Number two, modern cafe. What what you
want a Okay, so you want a cafe style? All right?
(25:50):
That is modern unique pastries. The modern cafe needs to
have unique pastries, esthetically pleasing atmosphere. Okay, have you ever
been to one of Benji Levitt's restaurants? You are describing
his restaurants. This is a Benji Levitt restaurant you are
describing right now. Have you been to one? Okay? Benji
(26:13):
Levitt is a nice fellow, lives in town, and he
opens restaurants. He spends approximately eight billion dollars on them,
and then in three years he closes it and opens
another concept, same location. I think I love Benji, don't
get me wrong, but I don't know how he does
it because I think about the time he pays off
his build out. He's like, all right, we're about to
(26:34):
get profitable. Let's shut this thing down into a whole
new concept. So I think his first concept was called
Benji's and this was man Benji's about my age. So
I bet you the first Bengi's was thirty years ago
because we used to go there. I remember we celebrated
my wife's birthday there. She's a few years older than me.
(26:56):
I bet you we celebrated her twenty seventh day there,
So thirty years ago, yeah, I bet you. It's so
it's it's on uh. I think it's Dunstan in Rice Village.
So if you're southbound on Kirby from fifty nine and
you go over Biscine and you go down and just
before you get fully into Rice Village on your left,
(27:18):
you turn left on Dunstan and you go in there.
There used to be a little taie restaurant right there,
and then Benji's was upstairs and he did. He's got
a few concepts now. He's had a number of concepts
over the years. He you remember where Downing Street used
to be Kirby in West timmer there was a taka.
(27:42):
There was a really good I don't remember the name
of it, but it was a fast, casual text mechs concept.
It was like it was like the Cafe Express of
tex mex It had that vibe, that feel, and he
he's in that space now, so whatever that is is,
he's got a concept in there, but basically his whole
(28:02):
concepts are modern cafe. I'll tell you had another one.
He had another one on Washington, further west than most
of the stuff you see on the north side of
the street. Down there, you know where all those apartments are.
They built all those apartments sky high where the Specs
was supposed to be, and then they opened it and
they took it away from him. On the curve before
it curves and starts going north, he has a place
(28:25):
right there again, another modern cafe type place with as
you call it, pleasing esthetics. All right, what is the
third one? Dinner and a show?
Speaker 5 (28:36):
Now?
Speaker 1 (28:36):
You know, Dan Pastrini used to tell me about a
place that was called Dicky Dicky. What was that called
Dicky Dicky Gorman's Dicky something, you know in the seventies
that was that was before my time. I think I
(28:56):
would have loved that. You know what you and I
talk about. The's a lot we go back and watch
old videos of you know, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis
Junior and Frank Sinatra and that cabaret style and people
are having dinner and a show and you know, you
got your table and you eat and then you pull
your table back so you can see the show, and
(29:18):
maybe they come out into the audience when they sing,
kind of an Alison Kraus vibe to it. That dinner
and a Dicky Something's I can't remember, you know what?
I think? What was what was Sonny Look's Place? I
never went there. It was closed by the time I
(29:39):
got to Houston, but I think that place would do.
I wonder if there's still in enough Taco Malagro. Taco
Malagro was the place that that that kind of fast
casual place that might have been owned by Robert del
Grande because it had a Robert del Grande feel to it.
Remost should we ask people to answer this question for us?
You know, of what you've just said, the one that
(30:00):
gets me is dinner in a show. Dinner in a
show man that would be so nice, and and that
show could either be a comedy show or a single
acoustic more sort of folk or you know, sit down.
The problem at my age, if I'm completely honest, is
(30:24):
I don't enjoy shows as much as I used to
because they want to be so damn loud, and I
admit it, get off my yard. I'm old. I don't
like it it. Most people don't know this, but I
wore clear earphones earplugs at the RCC every night because
it was too loud. In fact, Uncle Ted Ted Nugent
(30:45):
was so loud that I couldn't stay in the building.
It was just when I saw how many speakers they
were bringing in, I thought, I can't. I can't destroy
my hearing, my living on my hearing. I can't do that.
All right, Well, that is your question. What concept that
we need in the greater Houston area. What concept? It
can be a concept that what that once existed and
(31:08):
you'd like to see that concept come back, or it
could be a concept that you experienced somewhere else. So
we visited the Pearl District in San Anton recently and
they have a kind of a theater in the round.
That's an old fashioned theater where it's just the seats
and they're kind of stacked going high, and it's not
(31:30):
very big, but because you have them on an incline,
you can get it belly up. And Colorado has that.
You see it a few places like that. The idea
of the small intimate music venue like that, I love that,
But I thought to myself, man, if I could eat
while I'm here, I could consolidate my tasks. See, because
(31:51):
I know I need to eat and I'd really like
to watch a show. But if I could do both
at the same time, all right, seven one three nine
nine nine one thousand seven one three nine nine nine
months of I will tell you I miss Cafe Express.
I wore that place out, don't judge. But they had
a black Karan te man. It was so good. I
would get the grilled chicken breast h with the pasta.
(32:14):
Or if I was trying to lose weight, usually unsuccessfully
back then, I do that with some grilled vegetables. That
place was good. Get you the uh, what's a pesto
on top of it? Man,
It's that time time, time, time, luck and load. So
Michael Very Show is on the air.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
We won't take a lot of hate. We're gonna be
sued every day, numerous times. I think you will see
the left try to control the media. They're going to
show the first crying female, first crying child, and say
how inhumane we are.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Just would say that I'm so sorry. Only people who
are getting detected children. I don't understand they're so sorry.
I wish they could do something that they can't. I
(01:07):
don't know what to do.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
He'll try every there, but they won't talk about three
hundred and forty thousand children that they've failed to take
care of.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
They're not going to talk about the.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Young women who have been murdered in this country the
hands the criminal cartels. They're not going to talk about
the hundreds of angel moms and dads who bury their children.
Want to talk about family separation, they bury their children.
Their children were killed by a member of a member
of a criminal cartower. Someone's not supposed to be here.
They'll tell one side of the story. They'll try to vilifie,
but they're not going to stop it.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
You can do.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
All I can do is crap you can do scrab
It's where.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
He lets some. Martina fights through her pain and tears
after she says her father, Andres Martina, was arrested from
his Wakegan home early Sunday morning by Immigration and Customs
enforcement agents.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
She says, the forty four year old.
Speaker 4 (02:16):
Grandfather came to the US from Mexico nearly thirty years ago.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
They will open the door because that maybe one of
us were intro where something or something happens was they
would been nice.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
We both find that priority tiger, which is a criminal alien.
If these were with the others in the United States,
I legally we're going to take enforcement action against them.
We're going to force the immigration.
Speaker 5 (02:38):
Helping the curtain and saw that it said police. When
I saw the agents get out, they had the buildings surrounded,
so they entered. They went up and started knocking on
the doors really loudly. My children started to crying.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Crab the main. It was hot yesterday, scrap stock market
(03:25):
was hot, Nasdaq was up, s and p UP, Dow
up ten year up, Tenure Treasury up, Bitcoin up three
point sixty one percent to one hundred and eight thousand,
five hundred and seventy nine and US steal up over
five percent. As you probably know, because of the merger
(03:46):
deal with Japan's Nippon Steel, which President Trump has now signed,
all fun there is as part of that deal what's
known as a golden share, which the specific have not
been released on, but a golden share basically gives you
(04:07):
a gives the United States a veto power. Now, my
understanding at this point is that US deal will have
an American CEO and an American board, so we shall see.
It should be interesting no matter what we shall see.
(04:27):
Over the last several years, Harris County courts in our
current DA have made it very clear that public corruption
is no big deal. You're going to have people stealing money,
You're going to have fraud, You're going to have them
handing out deals for kickbacks. Think of the Housing Department.
Think of the Barbie Robinson who had two jobs at
(04:51):
one time as health director here and health director in Phoenix,
all the while cut the deal with an LA company
as she's getting ready to walk out the door to
give them the deal while they're negotiating, while she's negotiating
with them, that she's going to get paid to go
to work for them. The day after the deal is done,
(05:13):
she's moving to California to be their employee, and they
asked how much would you like to get paid. Now.
I don't know about you, but that is a rather
unusual arrangement for a company to say, yeah, we want
you to come to work here, just tell us what
(05:35):
we need to pay you. It's doubly unusual when that
company saying just tell us what to pay you, is
also waiting for your approval on a deal in Harris
County for a multi multi multimillion dollar deal for them
to get for them to get this big contract. So
(05:57):
former City of Houston water department man under Sylvester Turner
sentenced to ten years in prison for orchestrating a multimillion
dollar kickback scheme. Now she could be released on parole
next month after serving just five months. From KPRCTV quote
(06:22):
Patrise Lee received her sentence in February for orchestrating a
kickback scheme that costs Houston taxpayers millions. She becomes eligible
for parole due to Texas laws governing nonviolent offenders and
credit for time served. The Texas Rangers investigation revealed Lee
awarded waterline repair contracts to family members and friends in
(06:43):
exchange for monetary kickbacks during her tenure as a maintenance
manager at Houston Public Works. Both Sylvester Turner Cadre really
pick them, couldn't he. Lee pleaded guilty to one count
of bribery and a plea agreement that led prosecutors to
drop a distional charges of engaging in organized criminal activity
(07:04):
and abuse of official capacity. The agreement included her commitment
to testify against other defendants in the case. Texas law
requires non violent offenders to serve only a quarter of
their sentence before becoming eligible for parole. Lee received credit
for two hundred and fifty days spent in jail awaiting trial,
plus additional credit for good behavior while in prison, earning
(07:26):
two to three days for each day served. First uncovered
by KPRC by KPRC two investigates, Lee's February sentencing came
after a lengthy investigation into corruption within the Houston Public
Works Department. Prosecutors say Lee used her position to funnel
emergency water line repair projects to her brother's construction company
(07:47):
while accepting kickbacks from other contractors. The scheme came to
light after the Houston City Council allocated eighty million dollars
for emergency water line repairs caused by extreme drought conditions.
Lee's role in verifying potential vendors allowed her to orchestrate
the fraudulent contracts. According to court documents, at least four
vendors made payments directly to Lee or her company in
(08:11):
exchange for contracts or expedited payments. It's like some third
world banana republic in one place, so crazy, so totally WeGo,
that everybody has a fighting. The Michael Berry.
Speaker 6 (08:24):
Show appears that Jimmy Swaggert has had a heart attack
and is on life support in critical condition at ninety
years old.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
The family is saying that only a miracle can save
his life. Ninety years old? How did everybody get so
old all of a sudden? I guess I got old
in the process. I just I didn't realize that was happening.
President Trump left the G seven meeting a day early,
(09:00):
rushing back to the White House, arriving at about five
point thirty early this morning. There is quite a bit
of speculation that Israel is about to take the final
measures to wipe out any nuclear capacity, and in some
(09:22):
that Iran might have or could develop in the near future.
China called for all Chinese citizens to evacuate Iran, many
countries suggesting that their citizens should evacuate Iran forthwith. The
(09:43):
expectation is that it's about to be very bad. Retail
sales data for may Or do this morning, Industrial production
do about an hour after that, and the fed's Federal
Open Market Committee is set to begin a two day
meeting this afternoon. There is hope, not expectation, but there
(10:06):
is hope that the interest rate will be dropped very soon.
And I will tell you that every indicator is there
to give cover if in fact, the interest rates will
be dropped. Everybody I talked to says that it would
(10:27):
be a boon to their business, not just housing. Mattress
Mac says that a number of folks come in and
buy their furniture on credit. They might buy one hundred
thousand dollars worth of furniture, but they're buying it in
many cases on credit. Car dealers obviously talked to Mike
(10:48):
batchis Saturday afternoon, and car sales are good. They will
be great when the interest rate is dropped. The expectation,
the hope should I say, is that that would be
done sooner rather than later, but by the end of
the year, so that that would give time for the
economy to really heat up prior to the midterms next November.
(11:09):
I think there are forces conspiring to keep that from happening.
The economy is doing well absent that, but we have
not seen inflation. And you're not going to drop interest
rates if you actually care about inflation, because it can
lead to inflation. But the hope is that we'll see
a spurred economic activity. There's an odd thing going on.
I spent Saturday calling a number of my show sponsors
(11:32):
and texting and emailing, and I always ask how business
is and what people think would make it better. And
part of the issue is that we were rolling along
with a relative consistency in economic activity, including the fact
(11:53):
that we had a great economy under Donald Trump in
January of twenty twenty, so he's up for election that November.
Most people were doing great. Most people we're seeing positive growth.
The Trump economy was doing well in most sectors. It's
(12:16):
never going to be the case that if you're a
bankruptcy lawyer in the economy is doing well, your business
is not going to be good. Your business is doing
best when the economy tanks, but people were doing pretty well,
and then all of a sudden, the COVID conspiracy hits
and that changes everything for everyone and for most people.
(12:39):
As that year progresses and as people begin to panic,
economic activity declines. By the beginning of the Biden administration,
everything that they had been demanding of Trump so that
you could shut the economy down, insure mail in ballots,
so you could conduct fraud, they all of a sudden,
Oh no, you can go public again. Now you're all
(13:01):
going to take the shot because we've promised Fizer that
they get to make a lot of money on this
and Johnson Johnson and Merk. But you can go ahead
and go out in public now, Okay. Well, when that happened,
you saw a fracture in the economy. Travel companies have
a friend that owns a company called Vacations to Go.
I think it's probably the largest cruise company in America,
(13:26):
if not the world. Emerson Hankcamer. A lot of people
know Emerson. Their headquarters is over on San Philippe next
to about bearing next to the elementary school there. They
owned that building and they had a booming vacation business
been growing and growing and growing since he took the business.
Over All of a sudden, that business was dead. Nobody
(13:47):
was going on cruises, The airlines tanked, anything related to
travel tanked. But what quietly happened and nobody wanted to
admit it because they felt bad about it, is all
of our home improvement folks. Their business went through the
roof because as you were sitting around, you were saying, hey,
(14:08):
we should replace that door. Hey you noticed that our
our roof needs our roof tiles are some of them
are loose? I bet you they're going to be leaking.
Do you notice that this window is leaky. We've been here,
you know, I've never really cared for this flooring. Truth
be told, I've never really Let's let's go ahead. We're
(14:29):
not going on vacation this summer. Let's go ahead and
replace our flooring. So, all of a sudden, all of
our home improvement companies were having, by twenty twenty one,
the best year that ever had. I'm sure MAC had
a good year as well. Because you're sitting around, you
want new furniture. People were buying new chevies. People were
doing things they weren't doing before, spending in ways where
(14:51):
they weren't spending before, So twenty twenty one became the
new normal in twenty twenty one, and twenty twenty t too,
and even into twenty twenty three. But eventually, you're only
going to replace the floors so many times in a
short period of time. You're only going to replace the
windows one time in a short period of time. Eventually
(15:13):
you'll do that again. So now we've been we've dragged,
and then you had the full term of Biden, you
had the inflation, you had the fear over Terrace. So
I feel like the country is coiled and ready for
economic activity on the edge on the precipice ferry, and
(15:37):
the triple Crown weave is, you know, tilted to the side,
the leaning tower of Weaver. I always read the restaurant
openings and closings with a lot of interest. The openings
not so much because they're all something of the sort.
They're all something of the same thing. They go something like,
(15:59):
we're gonna we're gonna put a Houston twist or an
La concept you know Houston really doesn't have, and then
fill in the blank and we're gonna bring that here.
Oh okay, all right. There's a certain amount of arrogance
(16:20):
to announcing that the fourth largest city, number one for
restaurants per capita, number one for per person spend eating
out as developed a restaurant community as there is in
the country. And you're gonna go ahead, yeah, yeah, you
(16:41):
people have too much tax max and barbecue and steakhouse
and burgers, and uh, we're gonna go ahead, and me me,
I am gonna go ahead and bring something it doesn't
count as choking if you're laughing a moment. We're gonna
(17:04):
go ahead and bring y'all something that y'all don't have already, because, uh,
because I've traveled to LA and y'all might not know about,
you know, airplanes and everything.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
And you know, I go to food and wine and
Aspen and I read the magazines, and I have a
friend I went to chef's school with, and you know,
we're just really behind the times here in Houston.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
So I'm gonna go ahead and bring this thing that
y'all don't know about. And I'm gonna go ahead and
tell you right now, you rough Roffian Hillbillies, that you
don't you don't know anything about this thing, but I'm
gonna bring it here Okay, a year later, so and
so restaurant has is shuttering the doors after a year. Well,
(17:51):
isn't that interesting? Maybe you brought something here that nobody wanted.
You know, Maybe there's a reason there's a tex Mex
restaurant on there every corner, and a steakhouse on every
second corner, and a burger joint in between. Maybe there's
a reason. Maybe that's our palette, Maybe that's our our preference. Ramon,
(18:15):
I want you to take one minute. You know what
that took so long to ding? You would napping? I saw,
I see you in there, you would napping. I want
you to tell me three food concepts and be serious
that we don't have enough of in the greater Houston area.
I did see, as political as it is, that a
(18:37):
chef in Spring won the UH won the James Beard Award,
and I am happy to see that. Let's see what
this fella's name is. Tommy Thomas Billy is Houston's newest
James James Beard Award winner. He is chef and owner
of Belly of the Beast in uh Spring, earning Best
(19:01):
Chef Texas at the James Beard Foundation's Restaurant and Chef
Awards ceremony. The reason I'm happy with that is there
is a prejudice, a bias that the only place the
food is good and innovative and exciting is in Montrose
and the Heights. And it's nice to see that somebody
(19:22):
that there is the recognition. Oh, you can be a
good restaurant in Spring. If you look at the Houston
Chronicle restaurant reviews, it is almost always somewhere in midtown
on Washington, in the Heights, or in Montrose. Maybe they walk,
I don't know, but you just can't be a good
(19:45):
restaurant in Spring the Woodlands, Tomball, you can't do it
all right, mony. Do you want to hear the menu? Oh,
they got a Michelin star. Two. Do you want to
hear the menu of what is on this? Let's see? Okay,
here we go menu. You got impanadas, the papa ekeso.
(20:08):
That's just basic cheese and potato and panada romon. You've
got peach and barrata. These are starters. Roasted peach, barata, pistachios, shishitos,
brown butter grilled bread that sounds good as hell. Beria
qeso tacos. My kids love Beria. Your had Beria Ramon
(20:28):
Media that for those of you who don't know, it's
like a toastata but kind of crispy. And they put
the meat in it and you dip it in the drippings.
They collect the drippings from the ground beef as is
being cooked and that's what you dip the meat the
stuff in. It's messy, but it's delicious. This is just
(20:52):
the starters. Moon grilled shrimp and pork belly. Oh, you
can't go wrong with pork belly. Yes, listen to the
listen to how it describes it tom yum flavors, herbs,
garden vegetables, crunchy things and peanuts. See, that's kind of clever.
Seared pork belly. What is n F and DF? I
(21:14):
know what gluten free is? What is n F? That's
Berkshire pork, salsa creolea peach habbonero and corn tortillas. And
then grilled Spanish octopus. I'm gonna pass on that. That
has black beans, Spanish terriso, baja crama and peanuts, salsa machia.
All right, then I'm not gonna read you the sides
(21:36):
because we have a show to do. Then then there's
a raw bar there's no reason to do a raw bar,
so I'm not even gonna read that. Then here we
go to the entrees. You're ready. We got grilled Texas redfish.
We got roasted half chicken, Texas wagu carne asada, seared
Hokkaido scallops. I don't care for scallops. Do you care
(21:57):
for scallops? From them? I don't understand the one of scallops.
Scallops have a questionable texture to begin with, and they
don't have any flavor. Again, what they're stingray fins? Are
you serious?
Speaker 5 (22:16):
No?
Speaker 1 (22:16):
They don't. No, they don't see now that. Now I
said that, and people think I'm an idiot. Texas woggu
petit fil a Meerkshire pork chop Rohan duck two ways.
I don't like duck. You like duck. If there's duck
on the menu and my wife's gonna order it, let
me just tell you that right now, she's going to
(22:37):
order it. She loves duck. I don't understand why. I'm
just not a fan of duck. All right, So let
me go back here. You got redfish, chicken, Guoggu carne asado,
she seared hokkaido scallops, petit file at pork shop. That's
(22:59):
a solid me you so you got all the stupid stuff,
but you still have a solid menu for men. Right.
So somebody's wife, that's you know, she and her girlfriends
went out for rose all day and she comes home
and says, I want to try this. I guess you
can get that there. I'd pass on. I'd pass on
the Spanish octopus, and I'd pass on the entirety of
(23:21):
the raw bar. Then they got some homemade pastas. That's
a pretty big menu. Romon, that's a very big menu.
But what got me on the subject was that I
was reading about a restaurant that's closing called Eloise Nichols
and it's in it's in river Oaks and it's part
(23:43):
of that it's just west of river Oaks District, and
it's it's been there for nine years. It's run by
a dere concept, which is a very good operator. They
now run a buffalo grill, a dare Kitchen, Los Tios
and it's just nine year. It's just hard. If you know,
if you watch a restaurant long enough, if it's not
(24:03):
named Gringos, it's gonna close. An insurance law murdered two
Native American Michael Berry Show. Okay, you have my attention.
Did you come up with the three types of restaurants
we need?
Speaker 6 (24:19):
What you got me?
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Yeah? Concept, that's fine street food? Okay, it feels pretentious.
All right, we'll come back to that. Go ahead, specifically
what countries that aren't Okay, So so let me ask
you this. You're telling me that you're driving around and
(24:43):
you're hungry, and you think, man, I wish say it
was some street food by countries that aren't represented right now.
That's no, that's not true. You don't think that. There's
no chance that you think that. What happens is you're
answering because you see food reviews, and that's real cool
from from people who live inside the loop of their
(25:06):
little community of New York or LA or San Francisco
or Chicago, and they have a thriving street food community
from countries you didn't even know existed. Yeah, okay, what
I would love is some street food from Zimbabwe, Trinidad
and Tobago. That's that's really Djibouti. I want some street
(25:28):
food from Jibouti. Get in, get it, get you some,
all right. So that's what we need some street food
from countries that aren't well represented. All right. See this
is this is my proof people can't talk about food
without being pretentious. Number two, modern cafe. What what you
want a Okay, so you want a cafe style? All right?
(25:50):
That is modern unique pastries. The modern cafe needs to
have unique pastries, esthetically pleasing atmosphere. Okay, have you ever
been to one of Benji Levitt's restaurants? You are describing
his restaurants. This is a Benji Levitt restaurant you are
describing right now. Have you been to one? Okay? Benji
(26:13):
Levitt is a nice fellow, lives in town, and he
opens restaurants. He spends approximately eight billion dollars on them,
and then in three years he closes it and opens
another concept, same location. I think I love Benji, don't
get me wrong, but I don't know how he does
it because I think about the time he pays off
his build out. He's like, all right, we're about to
(26:34):
get profitable. Let's shut this thing down into a whole
new concept. So I think his first concept was called
Benji's and this was man Benji's about my age. So
I bet you the first Bengi's was thirty years ago
because we used to go there. I remember we celebrated
my wife's birthday there. She's a few years older than me.
(26:56):
I bet you we celebrated her twenty seventh day there,
So thirty years ago, yeah, I bet you. It's so
it's it's on uh. I think it's Dunstan in Rice Village.
So if you're southbound on Kirby from fifty nine and
you go over Biscine and you go down and just
before you get fully into Rice Village on your left,
(27:18):
you turn left on Dunstan and you go in there.
There used to be a little taie restaurant right there,
and then Benji's was upstairs and he did. He's got
a few concepts now. He's had a number of concepts
over the years. He you remember where Downing Street used
to be Kirby in West timmer there was a taka.
(27:42):
There was a really good I don't remember the name
of it, but it was a fast, casual text mechs concept.
It was like it was like the Cafe Express of
tex mex It had that vibe, that feel, and he
he's in that space now, so whatever that is is,
he's got a concept in there, but basically his whole
(28:02):
concepts are modern cafe. I'll tell you had another one.
He had another one on Washington, further west than most
of the stuff you see on the north side of
the street. Down there, you know where all those apartments are.
They built all those apartments sky high where the Specs
was supposed to be, and then they opened it and
they took it away from him. On the curve before
it curves and starts going north, he has a place
(28:25):
right there again, another modern cafe type place with as
you call it, pleasing esthetics. All right, what is the
third one? Dinner and a show?
Speaker 5 (28:36):
Now?
Speaker 1 (28:36):
You know, Dan Pastrini used to tell me about a
place that was called Dicky Dicky. What was that called
Dicky Dicky Gorman's Dicky something, you know in the seventies
that was that was before my time. I think I
(28:56):
would have loved that. You know what you and I
talk about. The's a lot we go back and watch
old videos of you know, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis
Junior and Frank Sinatra and that cabaret style and people
are having dinner and a show and you know, you
got your table and you eat and then you pull
your table back so you can see the show, and
(29:18):
maybe they come out into the audience when they sing,
kind of an Alison Kraus vibe to it. That dinner
and a Dicky Something's I can't remember, you know what?
I think? What was what was Sonny Look's Place? I
never went there. It was closed by the time I
(29:39):
got to Houston, but I think that place would do.
I wonder if there's still in enough Taco Malagro. Taco
Malagro was the place that that that kind of fast
casual place that might have been owned by Robert del
Grande because it had a Robert del Grande feel to it.
Remost should we ask people to answer this question for us?
You know, of what you've just said, the one that
(30:00):
gets me is dinner in a show. Dinner in a
show man that would be so nice, and and that
show could either be a comedy show or a single
acoustic more sort of folk or you know, sit down.
The problem at my age, if I'm completely honest, is
(30:24):
I don't enjoy shows as much as I used to
because they want to be so damn loud, and I
admit it, get off my yard. I'm old. I don't
like it it. Most people don't know this, but I
wore clear earphones earplugs at the RCC every night because
it was too loud. In fact, Uncle Ted Ted Nugent
(30:45):
was so loud that I couldn't stay in the building.
It was just when I saw how many speakers they
were bringing in, I thought, I can't. I can't destroy
my hearing, my living on my hearing. I can't do that.
All right, Well, that is your question. What concept that
we need in the greater Houston area. What concept? It
can be a concept that what that once existed and
(31:08):
you'd like to see that concept come back, or it
could be a concept that you experienced somewhere else. So
we visited the Pearl District in San Anton recently and
they have a kind of a theater in the round.
That's an old fashioned theater where it's just the seats
and they're kind of stacked going high, and it's not
(31:30):
very big, but because you have them on an incline,
you can get it belly up. And Colorado has that.
You see it a few places like that. The idea
of the small intimate music venue like that, I love that,
But I thought to myself, man, if I could eat
while I'm here, I could consolidate my tasks. See, because
(31:51):
I know I need to eat and I'd really like
to watch a show. But if I could do both
at the same time, all right, seven one three nine
nine nine one thousand seven one three nine nine nine
months of I will tell you I miss Cafe Express.
I wore that place out, don't judge. But they had
a black Karan te man. It was so good. I
would get the grilled chicken breast h with the pasta.
(32:14):
Or if I was trying to lose weight, usually unsuccessfully
back then, I do that with some grilled vegetables. That
place was good. Get you the uh, what's a pesto
on top of it? Man,
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