May 7, 2026 • 30 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
It's that time time, time, time, luck and load till
Michael Very Show is on the air.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
I fellaw's been dorm bit of boozing. Have you sucking
back on Grandpa's old cough medicine.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
Through the load?
Speaker 4 (00:22):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (00:23):
What nobody else?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
I threw the load?
Speaker 4 (00:32):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (00:33):
What nobody is?
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Yea, you know what?
Speaker 1 (00:39):
I threw the load.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
I prefer to be by, said Captain Whittaker. On the
three nights before the accident October eleventh.
Speaker 5 (00:51):
October eleventh, October twelfth, and thirteenth and fourteenth.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
I was intoxicated. I drank all of those days. I
drank and excess. On the morning of the accident, I
was drunk. I'm drunk now, I'm drunk right now. That's
some kind of Chinese checkers. Chinese checkers. No, this is
(01:21):
a peanuckle. I'm drunk. It's just stuffy in here, that's all.
Speaker 5 (01:27):
I'm drunk.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Yeah, what nobody is?
Speaker 4 (01:38):
You know?
Speaker 2 (01:39):
I preferred to me by my don't go me food.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Hell, he's appreciats to the way he's drunk.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
It's a stop. Why don't you shut up? A shout out.
It's Dong Dong dong. Grandpa is talking to you. Where
is my automobile automobile.
Speaker 5 (02:21):
Zo like.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Al, yeah, what nobody is?
Speaker 4 (02:40):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (02:41):
You know, when I'm alone, I prepare to me.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
By Hey, you got the door open? Are you drunk?
Speaker 4 (02:57):
No?
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Okay, here's the thing. We have thrown a very formal
surprise party for you. In there, all your friends are
in there and your parents no, oh no, my parents
have never seen me drunk.
Speaker 4 (03:13):
And they know of.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Who doesn't love a yellow school bus? Right? Can you
raise your man if you love a yellow school bus?
Speaker 5 (03:22):
Right?
Speaker 6 (03:23):
Just there's something.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
About yeah, and most of us.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Many of us went to school on the yellow school bus, right, yeah,
what nobody? Yeah? You know.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
And I threw the lone. I'm prepu to be bye bye.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
I said.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
And I threw the lone. I prepare to be bye bye, said.
Speaker 6 (04:01):
So I'm just saying, let me just call my phone
and sneezed and hung up and is sick and tired
of these cold calls.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Where do high strung overachievers go on vacation type A.
A friend of mine used to always say, the first
rule of theater is to leave him wanting more. He
was a great guy, terrible anesthesiologist. So I was filming
(04:48):
an interview yesterday for my friend Dan Cockdail's podcast, and
we finished and it was at a cigar lounge called
Stoa over on.
Speaker 4 (05:04):
What is that on.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Voss, Yeah, Voss. Few blocks south of that would be
Sam Phillip so between Sam Phillipy and West Timer. And
he was doing another interview because his crew when they
set up all the all the TV equipment, he does
a couple of interviews in a row. And so I said, well,
(05:33):
let's go have a steake after your next interview, And
so I went out while they were doing that have
a cigar. I invited Ramone to come and join me.
So he came, and then we took the crew to dinner,
and afterwards we I said, you want to get a
nightcap because I wasn't driving, And so we walked into
(05:56):
Ron's Pub, which they've renovated and been there in years
and used to be a nice, nice little vibe to
the place, but it was run down and they've renovated
it and made it very and they just redid the
bar and the countertop. So what a difference it makes.
And as Ramone and I walk in the door, with
God is my witness, simple man begins and it was
(06:19):
it was like in What's the John c Riley, Will
Ferrell stepbrothers. You know where you turn and make eye
contact with each other. He turns, said lettle body, and
I said, let her biddy. They've played our song and
it was just it was like it was right on
Q and so we sauntered up to the bar to
(06:39):
our theme song and felt pretty good about it. I'm
just wondering. At one point they decided on Hannity's show
to play simple Man when Bill O'Reilly with Bill O'Reilly
as a guest, because I'm thinking, that is not what
I would think of as Bill O'Reilly's theme song. There
would be some things I would think of as a
(07:01):
theme song, simple Man would not be one of them.
I just nothing, nothing quite says skinnered and straight as
Bill O'Reilly. I don't know where I'm not suggesting, but
I don't know that that was I don't know if
that was the best choice. I say that so for years,
(07:23):
Amy Davis, investigative reporter Channel two KPRC has been running
stories on the water Department at the City of Houston,
and those stories ranged from the water department had these
massive leaks and no ability to fix it, and the
reason was Sylvester Turner had put people in the position
(07:45):
that like this one woman, she hired her husband, I
mean her brother to be in charge of it was
clear they're stealing money. She ended up going to prison,
so did her top person. And that person he didn't know,
He had no idea what was going on, and wasn't
worried about it. They were just billing the city for
a bunch of mone And then of course we had
people who were getting six, eight, ten thousand dollars water bills.
(08:07):
The city couldn't explain it while you had a gushing
thing while the city was rationing. Well, there's an update
to the story, and it ain't pretty coming up.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
I really enjoy I listen to both sessions of your
show every day.
Speaker 5 (08:26):
Michael Berry, you had the most pleasant voice.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
This segment is probably sponsored by SIA Rama Marine World
featuring orca well shows, dolphin shows, sea lion shows, marine
animal training workshops, Dive to the Deep Adventure, Seven Seas,
Aquarium tours, water ski shows, puppet shows, petting zoo, Exotic
bird Show, Shark Lagoon, Rattlesnake Show featuring an event known
(08:54):
as the Kiss of Death between a snake and a handler.
Animal exhibitions including false wells, false killer wells, tortoises, kangaroo's,
pelican displays, piranhas, spoonbills and wading birds, river otters, seal
and sea lion exhibits, Australian black swans and alligators with
wrestling shows.
Speaker 7 (09:18):
Oh, it's possible to see everything seem a marine world
on Galveston Island in one day if you're very fast.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
See Rama marine World. There's a world of lib I
was looking up Cierrama and I came across articles written
over the years and two of the writers of the
(10:19):
ten stories that came up over all the years going
back to nineteen seventy five, one was by Craig Levati
called Cierrama in Galveston was an island attraction for decades.
That was written for the Chronicle. I don't know what
year it published. It was retrieved in twenty twenty four.
Craig Livati, we've had him on the show. He was
(10:40):
working at the Houston Museum Nentros Science. I don't know
if he still does doing kind of PR and things.
I think he was working for a PR agency at
one point, but fantastic writer did some fantastic pieces over
the years, and he wrote the kind of stuff I
like to read, you know, a little bit of nostalgia,
a little bit of.
Speaker 5 (11:01):
The real.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Blood of the city, the real lifeline, the real what's
the word I'm looking for, to get a real feel
of the vibe of the city at a given time,
or going back in history. The Chronicle had put him
on a project where they just sent him in to
the archives, the Houston Chronicle archives, and regardless of what
the Chronicle has evolved into today, there was a time
(11:26):
where it was the paper of record along with the
Houston Post, and those archives are in there as well.
And he just went back and he would pick a date.
You know, Hey, here's the Rodeo from seventy two, and
here's Elvis coming out, and here's a photo of the
first time George Strait appeared on stage at the Rodeo.
And here's the first Astros game and Mickey Mantle up
(11:47):
to bat. It was a really really cool series. That's
Craig Lavati. The other one who wrote a story on
this is Chris Gray, who wrote a piece called for Galveston.
This theme park was on on par with Astra World
and Chris Gray, I think works for the Houston Chronicle.
(12:07):
Now I saw his byline. It's been a while, but
I think that's where he is now. But Chris Gray
was at one point the editor. You know, his wife
worked with us, Did you know that?
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Yes, what's her name? Uh, you'll remember she worked. I
think she was a seller if I remember correctly. Gosh,
I can't remember anything anymore. Anyway, Chris Gray was the
editor and one of the star writers for the Houston Press.
And I've kind of lost track of years and when
(12:42):
things happened, but that was about a five year period
there where the Houston Press, same name as the old
Houston Press of eighty years before, when it was a
very serious paper in this town. But the Houston Press
was writing, was doing some of the best journalism in
the city of Houston, covering the scene, whether it was
(13:02):
the night life, off the restaurants, sports, cool things that
were happening. And then they would do kind of a
think piece on you know, why people are having their
tattoos removed now? And they'd go into a tattoo parlor
that also did tattoo removals, and it was kind of
like speed bumps. These people over here are getting speed
(13:22):
bumps put in. These people over here want their speed
bump removed. It was It was fantastic. Just took me
to a good place I used to when I had
a real estate company in the late nineties. I used
to go to a place called Dessert Gallery that was
on Kirby and there was a Cafe Express that fronted Kirby.
(13:43):
This is across the street from about where Caravas is,
right in that area, and the front restaurant was Cafe Express.
There were some offices upstairs and in the back because
it was much cheaper rent, was a place called Dessert
Gall and it was owned by a woman named Sarah.
(14:05):
What was Sarah's last name. It's a prominent Jewish family
in town. And I cannot remember what her darn last
name was. But they had the best desserts. And I
used to eat a fat free lemon poppy seed cake.
So my meal was I'm not a turkey guy, but
(14:25):
I would eat a turkey there. There was a turkey
sandwich on some sort of a craft artisan bread that
they made that had some kind of don't judge, but
it had some kind of like not sunfly, It had
some kind of nut in it. I don't remember what
the nut was, and some grains, which is not normally
my type. And then it had alfalfa sprouts, again not
(14:48):
something I normally like. It had this amazing spread, like
a Russian dressing spread. I'd have that and sun chips
and an iced tea and I would sit there every
Thursday when the press would come out, and I would
read from front to my Houston Press. That was my
little tradition. I saw a post woman said, you're either
the person in the relationship who believes food has gone
(15:08):
bad or the person who doesn't believe expiration dates are real.
Amy Davis has done a wonderful job on this water
department story and now the update KPRCTV Part one. Credit
Amy Davis. She should win an award for this.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
In twenty twenty four, the City of Houston worked overtime
to replace old water meters and install remote reading devices
on meters that would automatically send usage data back to
the City of Houston. I'm Amy Davis, and I've spent
years investigating problems at the Houston Water Department.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
During that big push to.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
Replace about one hundred and twenty five thousand meters they
accidentally installed the wrong meter on hundreds of homes. The
result inaccurate water bills for multiple years, and most of
these more than six hundred customers have no idea why
their bills are so out of whack.
Speaker 4 (16:02):
But getting up to three hundred, five hundred, seven hundred,
we have noticed water bills that were unusually high, and
sometimes it doesn't make any sense compared to what water
you're used to using.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
I received a tip and a list of addresses where
all of the bad meters were installed.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
The tipsters were worried.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
That the city was removing all of the bad equipment
and replacing it without telling customers, some of whom had
complained about high bills for years.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
For sure, they should have sent some type of letter
or email or something to let us know what's going
on or what's causing it.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
Brandon Citizen lives on Real Street in the Gulfgate area.
Public Works installed the wrong meters at these homes in
September twenty twenty four. Emails we obtained through an open
records request show the city realized the error in January
twenty twenty six. In March, it replaced all of those
bad meters. We interviewed Director of Public Works Randy Mackay
(16:59):
on April fifteenth.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
To this day, no one from the city has said, hey,
it was the wrong equipment.
Speaker 5 (17:05):
Yeah, yeah, that's a failure on our part and customer service.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
Mac Guy says the city is working on sending letters
to all of the impacted customers, but if you're one
of them, you probably want to know that sooner rather
than later so you can make sure the city's going
to make it right and give you back any money
they might owe you.
Speaker 5 (17:23):
The most important thing for us to do is actually
get the right equipment in the ground right away and
then start the calculation.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
Mac Guy says the error happened when the meter manufacturer
sent the wrong equipment in a big order back at
the end of twenty twenty two.
Speaker 5 (17:37):
They actually installed the wrong register on those water meters.
The register they had was not compatible, and so that
means that the meter itself was was registering either a
faster or a slower flow than what actually took place. Regardless,
what it means is the wrong equipment was in the
ground wrong in terms of broken.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
The city put those meters into inventory and grabbed a
wrong meter anytime they needed to install a new one.
They installed those meters all over Houston, from Kingwood to downtown,
up by the big airport over in southwest Houston.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
The kind of people you hire are the kind of
people who make mistakes and when caught, don't admit to it.
We're not getting the best and brightest. Here's the second
part of that story.
Speaker 3 (18:26):
Charles Nichi got one of those bad meters. He lives alone.
Then he uses about two thousand gallons of water a month.
But several months after the city installed that bad meter,
the meter registered he used seven thousand gallons in one month.
Several months later it showed he used eleven thousand gallons,
and then in February it showed he used fifteen thousand
(18:46):
gallons of water.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Anichi just stopped paying.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
His bill, and he said, that's when someone from the
City of Houston called him.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
It wasn't a calling me to say, hey, we've noted
your bill's getting high. They were calling me to see
exactly how was I going to make a pain.
Speaker 5 (19:00):
Thank you for contacting three one one Water Customer Service.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
When we told a Nietzsche public Works had installed the
wrong meter at his home, the city had already replaced it.
With the correct one, but no one had told him
what had happened or that he may have been overcharged.
We wanted to see if water customer service would come
clean when Anchi called them to ask about his nineteen
hundred dollars bill, So we listened in.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
The bull continues to go up and up.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
The representative on the phone suggested he check his.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
Toilet, continuing rhymes for.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
Well unknown the amount of time because you don't hear it,
and let's call a silent lead or fill out an
adjustment for him. Finally, after fourteen minutes on this call,
A Nietzschi asked a very direct question, do you.
Speaker 5 (19:44):
Know the city has made any like changes to the
water equipment recently? No, I'm not sure that being the ancident.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
You specifically asked, has the city changed anything on my
meter recently?
Speaker 2 (19:58):
She had no recollection on if they install something new
or not. She couldn't really give me any information only
if anything was falty.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
It almost seems like the call center people should have
this list of addresses, this list of seven hundred addresses
of people who have the incorrect meter, so that when customers.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Call they could fast forward. I know what's wrong with
your meter.
Speaker 5 (20:18):
The city is from a technology standpoint, really still in
the stone age when it comes to our customer database.
Most of the time when a customer calls in, the
technology doesn't even allow our agents to have good information
in front of them about what this customer's got going on,
down to their billing history, down to the infrastructure of
the ground, down to technician requests and service visits.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
That guy says, Public Works is now tackling this most
current issue by figuring out what they may owe the
six hundred and thirty seven customers. They'll do this by
looking at their usage history from before they installed that
faulty equipment.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
They'll take the.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
Average usage and compare it to what the faulty equipment
shows that they used, and then credit and the difference.
Charles Anizci will receive an eight hundred and twenty five
dollars credit. Heather Lorella is in the heights, we'll get
a six hundred and twenty three dollars credit.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
See there again, six.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
Hundred and twenty three dollars and nine cents.
Speaker 4 (21:11):
That is not insignificant.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
When we went to knock on doors to notify residents
of the meter mix up, we noticed that many of
the six hundred and thirty seven homes are now on
the market listed for sale. So those customers, how would
they ever get their money back?
Speaker 5 (21:28):
Yeah, you know, if a customer closes their account, it's
going to be nigh impossible to do that. There won't
be anything for us to give a credit back towards
because the account's not open anymore.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
Mac I says, if you want to get any money
back from this error, make sure you don't close your
water account until you can work this out.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
Mac shows up at Gallery Furniture after forty five years
of doing this started at nineteen eighty one. First thing
he does is he starts calling people from yesterday who
had furniture delivered, and he asked questions like did we
have the inventory you wanted? Because not, I want to
know what we need to have more of. Were you
taken care of at the store? Where your questions answered?
(22:10):
Was how long take the delivery from the time you
picked it till it arrived at your house? The delivery
guys take good care of you. Would you tell people
to shop it? That's how you that's how you end
up with excellence and make it forty five years. But
Mac has to compete. The city government doesn't. Why is
it that the most dangerous place is between Sheila Jackson
(22:32):
Lee and the camp from Michael Berry and the triple Crown.
Weave is, you know, tilted to the side, the leaning
tower of Weaver. There are some people who value in
and of itself, order in structure. There are some people
(22:57):
who simply don't. Doesn't make them bad people. It's not
a judgment of someone's goodness or righteousness. I happened to
be someone imbued from Earth with a Calvinist theology sense
(23:18):
that cleanliness is next to godliness.
Speaker 7 (23:20):
I did not know that wasn't in the Bible, per se.
I believed it was because we acted like it. I
was raised.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
We didn't wear our shoes in the house. We entered
through the garage, not the front door. Garage door would
be up, you'd walk in, you'd take your shoes off,
and you put them to the side, starting from the door,
moving to the right. If there were no shoes there,
you'd put them just at the corner of the door,
(23:54):
so that you could walk through the door and not
hit the chair. I not hit the the door, still
not hit the shoes. The next person would put theirs
beside them. You did not more than one time just
kick your shoes off. Your shoes were taken off, placed there,
(24:16):
ordered there, lined up there, all the way down the road.
You didn't put your shoes up with mud on them.
There were just things that were taught once and they
became something that you internalized. Structure, order, consistency, cleanliness. And
(24:44):
I find that countries who succeed, companies who succeed, people
who succeed, by and large follow this code. And I
find that people who are failures are the exact opposite.
(25:10):
They are sloppy in their presentation. They are sloppy in
their home. They are sloppy in their car, They are
sloppy at their workplace. They are sloppy in So when
folks send me an email through the website Michael Berryshow
dot com and they say, I need somebody to come
(25:31):
out and take a look and see if I need
foundation work. Can you ask your guy to call me?
Hopefully they put their phone number. If they haven't, I'll
say can I eat your phone number? That email will
then be sent to Rob Deschazer, who is the head
of Atlas Foundation. Rob does not sit all day and
answer the phone at Atlas Foundation. He runs a big company,
(25:54):
but if it's an email for me, he will jump
on it, and within five minutes I will get the
conclusion of his call, Michael, thanks for sending I'm meeting
them there tomorrow at nine o'clock. Sounds like it's probably
not a foundate or whatever. Whatever. The update is right
within five minutes. When Christine Weavers started as a show sponsor,
(26:20):
her first name is hard to spell, k r y
st i N. Weaver's a common name. So I've told
people just send me an email, I'll connect you. So
a lot, a lot a lot of her new clients
for Will's estate planning come through the website and I
forwarded to her. The first one I got came in
(26:41):
in the morning, and I forwarded it to her, and
I got an email back from her that evening at
about eight thirty that said, spoke to the Robertsons or
Johnson's or who it was, I'm going to be meeting
them tomorrow and all as well. It's the very first
(27:01):
one that came in, and I sent back politely but firmly,
I'm going to need you to respond in less than
twelve hours, because that's the expectation my listener, has I
sent this to you, timestamped eight twenty one, you responded
to me. Am. You responded to me a timestamp eight
forty nine pm, And she said, oh, I'm sorry. I
(27:27):
called them at eight fifty two, or I hung up
with them at eight fifty two and just checked on
my phone this morning. I just didn't want to send
an email and bother you while you were on the air.
I said, you get it. I noticed that highly successful
people have highly successful habits. There was a book seven
(27:48):
Habits of Highly Effective People. And there was a period
where these self help books, these these kind of personal
behavior books were real hot. Gerber had one series of
them that became kind of breakout bestsellers. But they all
come back. There's no nobody cracked the code. They all
(28:09):
come back to very simple, straightforward, common sensical things.
Speaker 5 (28:18):
That you do.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Or maybe that's just the way I was raised, because
often I think we think I know I do that
something is common sense, and it never crossed someone's mind.
If I owe a check to someone, why wouldn't I
deliver it to them. If I'm going to deliver it
(28:42):
to them, why wouldn't I deliver it?
Speaker 3 (28:44):
Now?
Speaker 2 (28:45):
Instead of waiting three days. Why would I leave it
on my desk? If someone places a call to me
needing my service, why wouldn't I pick up the phone
and call them back and set an appointment on their
schedule as soon as I possibly could. I would not
do those things. Of course, you would do those things
if you're building a business. Except the City of Houston
(29:09):
and government, gentlemen, is not seeking more business. Once you
understand that, you realize why you want government performing as
few functions, not as many as possible. Government is not
your benevolent dictator. They're not your kind overseer. The people
(29:30):
who show up in the permitting department of water department
to fill in the blank. They don't show up with
the intention of how many customers can we serve today?
Who might be future customers? Think about that. They would
much rather show up and nobody call and need them.
(29:54):
Think about that alone. Should we do it quick? Actruly
believe we'ven't had one in a while. I'm feeling overdue
seven one three nine, nine, nine, one thousand. It's not
I truly believe. Remember, rehearse what you're gonna say in
your head. Try to do it in one sentence or less.
It's not a four paragraph treatise. I truly believe that
it can be very serious. It can be very offensive,
(30:15):
be very provocative, It could be very silly, it could
be I truly believe that Nutella is the best shelf
stable dessert spread ever made since seventeen twenty seven, or
whatever that may be. Seven one three, nine nine nine,
one thousand. If if you're not a caller, you can
(30:36):
email us through the website Michael Berryshow dot com Michael
Berryshow dot com. But otherwise seven one three nine nine
one thousand, and start with I truly believe that
It's that time time, time, time, luck and load till
Michael Very Show is on the air.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
I fellaw's been dorm bit of boozing. Have you sucking
back on Grandpa's old cough medicine.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
Through the load?
Speaker 4 (00:22):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (00:23):
What nobody else?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
I threw the load?
Speaker 4 (00:32):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (00:33):
What nobody is?
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Yea, you know what?
Speaker 1 (00:39):
I threw the load.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
I prefer to be by, said Captain Whittaker. On the
three nights before the accident October eleventh.
Speaker 5 (00:51):
October eleventh, October twelfth, and thirteenth and fourteenth.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
I was intoxicated. I drank all of those days. I
drank and excess. On the morning of the accident, I
was drunk. I'm drunk now, I'm drunk right now. That's
some kind of Chinese checkers. Chinese checkers. No, this is
(01:21):
a peanuckle. I'm drunk. It's just stuffy in here, that's all.
Speaker 5 (01:27):
I'm drunk.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Yeah, what nobody is?
Speaker 4 (01:38):
You know?
Speaker 2 (01:39):
I preferred to me by my don't go me food.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Hell, he's appreciats to the way he's drunk.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
It's a stop. Why don't you shut up? A shout out.
It's Dong Dong dong. Grandpa is talking to you. Where
is my automobile automobile.
Speaker 5 (02:21):
Zo like.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Al, yeah, what nobody is?
Speaker 4 (02:40):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (02:41):
You know, when I'm alone, I prepare to me.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
By Hey, you got the door open? Are you drunk?
Speaker 4 (02:57):
No?
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Okay, here's the thing. We have thrown a very formal
surprise party for you. In there, all your friends are
in there and your parents no, oh no, my parents
have never seen me drunk.
Speaker 4 (03:13):
And they know of.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Who doesn't love a yellow school bus? Right? Can you
raise your man if you love a yellow school bus?
Speaker 5 (03:22):
Right?
Speaker 6 (03:23):
Just there's something.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
About yeah, and most of us.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Many of us went to school on the yellow school bus, right, yeah,
what nobody? Yeah? You know.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
And I threw the lone. I'm prepu to be bye bye.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
I said.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
And I threw the lone. I prepare to be bye bye, said.
Speaker 6 (04:01):
So I'm just saying, let me just call my phone
and sneezed and hung up and is sick and tired
of these cold calls.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Where do high strung overachievers go on vacation type A.
A friend of mine used to always say, the first
rule of theater is to leave him wanting more. He
was a great guy, terrible anesthesiologist. So I was filming
(04:48):
an interview yesterday for my friend Dan Cockdail's podcast, and
we finished and it was at a cigar lounge called
Stoa over on.
Speaker 4 (05:04):
What is that on.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Voss, Yeah, Voss. Few blocks south of that would be
Sam Phillip so between Sam Phillipy and West Timer. And
he was doing another interview because his crew when they
set up all the all the TV equipment, he does
a couple of interviews in a row. And so I said, well,
(05:33):
let's go have a steake after your next interview, And
so I went out while they were doing that have
a cigar. I invited Ramone to come and join me.
So he came, and then we took the crew to dinner,
and afterwards we I said, you want to get a
nightcap because I wasn't driving, And so we walked into
(05:56):
Ron's Pub, which they've renovated and been there in years
and used to be a nice, nice little vibe to
the place, but it was run down and they've renovated
it and made it very and they just redid the
bar and the countertop. So what a difference it makes.
And as Ramone and I walk in the door, with
God is my witness, simple man begins and it was
(06:19):
it was like in What's the John c Riley, Will
Ferrell stepbrothers. You know where you turn and make eye
contact with each other. He turns, said lettle body, and
I said, let her biddy. They've played our song and
it was just it was like it was right on
Q and so we sauntered up to the bar to
(06:39):
our theme song and felt pretty good about it. I'm
just wondering. At one point they decided on Hannity's show
to play simple Man when Bill O'Reilly with Bill O'Reilly
as a guest, because I'm thinking, that is not what
I would think of as Bill O'Reilly's theme song. There
would be some things I would think of as a
(07:01):
theme song, simple Man would not be one of them.
I just nothing, nothing quite says skinnered and straight as
Bill O'Reilly. I don't know where I'm not suggesting, but
I don't know that that was I don't know if
that was the best choice. I say that so for years,
(07:23):
Amy Davis, investigative reporter Channel two KPRC has been running
stories on the water Department at the City of Houston,
and those stories ranged from the water department had these
massive leaks and no ability to fix it, and the
reason was Sylvester Turner had put people in the position
(07:45):
that like this one woman, she hired her husband, I
mean her brother to be in charge of it was
clear they're stealing money. She ended up going to prison,
so did her top person. And that person he didn't know,
He had no idea what was going on, and wasn't
worried about it. They were just billing the city for
a bunch of mone And then of course we had
people who were getting six, eight, ten thousand dollars water bills.
(08:07):
The city couldn't explain it while you had a gushing
thing while the city was rationing. Well, there's an update
to the story, and it ain't pretty coming up.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
I really enjoy I listen to both sessions of your
show every day.
Speaker 5 (08:26):
Michael Berry, you had the most pleasant voice.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
This segment is probably sponsored by SIA Rama Marine World
featuring orca well shows, dolphin shows, sea lion shows, marine
animal training workshops, Dive to the Deep Adventure, Seven Seas,
Aquarium tours, water ski shows, puppet shows, petting zoo, Exotic
bird Show, Shark Lagoon, Rattlesnake Show featuring an event known
(08:54):
as the Kiss of Death between a snake and a handler.
Animal exhibitions including false wells, false killer wells, tortoises, kangaroo's,
pelican displays, piranhas, spoonbills and wading birds, river otters, seal
and sea lion exhibits, Australian black swans and alligators with
wrestling shows.
Speaker 7 (09:18):
Oh, it's possible to see everything seem a marine world
on Galveston Island in one day if you're very fast.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
See Rama marine World. There's a world of lib I
was looking up Cierrama and I came across articles written
over the years and two of the writers of the
(10:19):
ten stories that came up over all the years going
back to nineteen seventy five, one was by Craig Levati
called Cierrama in Galveston was an island attraction for decades.
That was written for the Chronicle. I don't know what
year it published. It was retrieved in twenty twenty four.
Craig Livati, we've had him on the show. He was
(10:40):
working at the Houston Museum Nentros Science. I don't know
if he still does doing kind of PR and things.
I think he was working for a PR agency at
one point, but fantastic writer did some fantastic pieces over
the years, and he wrote the kind of stuff I
like to read, you know, a little bit of nostalgia,
a little bit of.
Speaker 5 (11:01):
The real.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Blood of the city, the real lifeline, the real what's
the word I'm looking for, to get a real feel
of the vibe of the city at a given time,
or going back in history. The Chronicle had put him
on a project where they just sent him in to
the archives, the Houston Chronicle archives, and regardless of what
the Chronicle has evolved into today, there was a time
(11:26):
where it was the paper of record along with the
Houston Post, and those archives are in there as well.
And he just went back and he would pick a date.
You know, Hey, here's the Rodeo from seventy two, and
here's Elvis coming out, and here's a photo of the
first time George Strait appeared on stage at the Rodeo.
And here's the first Astros game and Mickey Mantle up
(11:47):
to bat. It was a really really cool series. That's
Craig Lavati. The other one who wrote a story on
this is Chris Gray, who wrote a piece called for Galveston.
This theme park was on on par with Astra World
and Chris Gray, I think works for the Houston Chronicle.
(12:07):
Now I saw his byline. It's been a while, but
I think that's where he is now. But Chris Gray
was at one point the editor. You know, his wife
worked with us, Did you know that?
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Yes, what's her name? Uh, you'll remember she worked. I
think she was a seller if I remember correctly. Gosh,
I can't remember anything anymore. Anyway, Chris Gray was the
editor and one of the star writers for the Houston Press.
And I've kind of lost track of years and when
(12:42):
things happened, but that was about a five year period
there where the Houston Press, same name as the old
Houston Press of eighty years before, when it was a
very serious paper in this town. But the Houston Press
was writing, was doing some of the best journalism in
the city of Houston, covering the scene, whether it was
(13:02):
the night life, off the restaurants, sports, cool things that
were happening. And then they would do kind of a
think piece on you know, why people are having their
tattoos removed now? And they'd go into a tattoo parlor
that also did tattoo removals, and it was kind of
like speed bumps. These people over here are getting speed
(13:22):
bumps put in. These people over here want their speed
bump removed. It was It was fantastic. Just took me
to a good place I used to when I had
a real estate company in the late nineties. I used
to go to a place called Dessert Gallery that was
on Kirby and there was a Cafe Express that fronted Kirby.
(13:43):
This is across the street from about where Caravas is,
right in that area, and the front restaurant was Cafe Express.
There were some offices upstairs and in the back because
it was much cheaper rent, was a place called Dessert
Gall and it was owned by a woman named Sarah.
(14:05):
What was Sarah's last name. It's a prominent Jewish family
in town. And I cannot remember what her darn last
name was. But they had the best desserts. And I
used to eat a fat free lemon poppy seed cake.
So my meal was I'm not a turkey guy, but
(14:25):
I would eat a turkey there. There was a turkey
sandwich on some sort of a craft artisan bread that
they made that had some kind of don't judge, but
it had some kind of like not sunfly, It had
some kind of nut in it. I don't remember what
the nut was, and some grains, which is not normally
my type. And then it had alfalfa sprouts, again not
(14:48):
something I normally like. It had this amazing spread, like
a Russian dressing spread. I'd have that and sun chips
and an iced tea and I would sit there every
Thursday when the press would come out, and I would
read from front to my Houston Press. That was my
little tradition. I saw a post woman said, you're either
the person in the relationship who believes food has gone
(15:08):
bad or the person who doesn't believe expiration dates are real.
Amy Davis has done a wonderful job on this water
department story and now the update KPRCTV Part one. Credit
Amy Davis. She should win an award for this.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
In twenty twenty four, the City of Houston worked overtime
to replace old water meters and install remote reading devices
on meters that would automatically send usage data back to
the City of Houston. I'm Amy Davis, and I've spent
years investigating problems at the Houston Water Department.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
During that big push to.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
Replace about one hundred and twenty five thousand meters they
accidentally installed the wrong meter on hundreds of homes. The
result inaccurate water bills for multiple years, and most of
these more than six hundred customers have no idea why
their bills are so out of whack.
Speaker 4 (16:02):
But getting up to three hundred, five hundred, seven hundred,
we have noticed water bills that were unusually high, and
sometimes it doesn't make any sense compared to what water
you're used to using.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
I received a tip and a list of addresses where
all of the bad meters were installed.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
The tipsters were worried.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
That the city was removing all of the bad equipment
and replacing it without telling customers, some of whom had
complained about high bills for years.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
For sure, they should have sent some type of letter
or email or something to let us know what's going
on or what's causing it.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
Brandon Citizen lives on Real Street in the Gulfgate area.
Public Works installed the wrong meters at these homes in
September twenty twenty four. Emails we obtained through an open
records request show the city realized the error in January
twenty twenty six. In March, it replaced all of those
bad meters. We interviewed Director of Public Works Randy Mackay
(16:59):
on April fifteenth.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
To this day, no one from the city has said, hey,
it was the wrong equipment.
Speaker 5 (17:05):
Yeah, yeah, that's a failure on our part and customer service.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
Mac Guy says the city is working on sending letters
to all of the impacted customers, but if you're one
of them, you probably want to know that sooner rather
than later so you can make sure the city's going
to make it right and give you back any money
they might owe you.
Speaker 5 (17:23):
The most important thing for us to do is actually
get the right equipment in the ground right away and
then start the calculation.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
Mac Guy says the error happened when the meter manufacturer
sent the wrong equipment in a big order back at
the end of twenty twenty two.
Speaker 5 (17:37):
They actually installed the wrong register on those water meters.
The register they had was not compatible, and so that
means that the meter itself was was registering either a
faster or a slower flow than what actually took place. Regardless,
what it means is the wrong equipment was in the
ground wrong in terms of broken.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
The city put those meters into inventory and grabbed a
wrong meter anytime they needed to install a new one.
They installed those meters all over Houston, from Kingwood to downtown,
up by the big airport over in southwest Houston.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
The kind of people you hire are the kind of
people who make mistakes and when caught, don't admit to it.
We're not getting the best and brightest. Here's the second
part of that story.
Speaker 3 (18:26):
Charles Nichi got one of those bad meters. He lives alone.
Then he uses about two thousand gallons of water a month.
But several months after the city installed that bad meter,
the meter registered he used seven thousand gallons in one month.
Several months later it showed he used eleven thousand gallons,
and then in February it showed he used fifteen thousand
(18:46):
gallons of water.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Anichi just stopped paying.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
His bill, and he said, that's when someone from the
City of Houston called him.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
It wasn't a calling me to say, hey, we've noted
your bill's getting high. They were calling me to see
exactly how was I going to make a pain.
Speaker 5 (19:00):
Thank you for contacting three one one Water Customer Service.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
When we told a Nietzsche public Works had installed the
wrong meter at his home, the city had already replaced it.
With the correct one, but no one had told him
what had happened or that he may have been overcharged.
We wanted to see if water customer service would come
clean when Anchi called them to ask about his nineteen
hundred dollars bill, So we listened in.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
The bull continues to go up and up.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
The representative on the phone suggested he check his.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
Toilet, continuing rhymes for.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
Well unknown the amount of time because you don't hear it,
and let's call a silent lead or fill out an
adjustment for him. Finally, after fourteen minutes on this call,
A Nietzschi asked a very direct question, do you.
Speaker 5 (19:44):
Know the city has made any like changes to the
water equipment recently? No, I'm not sure that being the ancident.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
You specifically asked, has the city changed anything on my
meter recently?
Speaker 2 (19:58):
She had no recollection on if they install something new
or not. She couldn't really give me any information only
if anything was falty.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
It almost seems like the call center people should have
this list of addresses, this list of seven hundred addresses
of people who have the incorrect meter, so that when customers.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Call they could fast forward. I know what's wrong with
your meter.
Speaker 5 (20:18):
The city is from a technology standpoint, really still in
the stone age when it comes to our customer database.
Most of the time when a customer calls in, the
technology doesn't even allow our agents to have good information
in front of them about what this customer's got going on,
down to their billing history, down to the infrastructure of
the ground, down to technician requests and service visits.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
That guy says, Public Works is now tackling this most
current issue by figuring out what they may owe the
six hundred and thirty seven customers. They'll do this by
looking at their usage history from before they installed that
faulty equipment.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
They'll take the.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
Average usage and compare it to what the faulty equipment
shows that they used, and then credit and the difference.
Charles Anizci will receive an eight hundred and twenty five
dollars credit. Heather Lorella is in the heights, we'll get
a six hundred and twenty three dollars credit.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
See there again, six.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
Hundred and twenty three dollars and nine cents.
Speaker 4 (21:11):
That is not insignificant.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
When we went to knock on doors to notify residents
of the meter mix up, we noticed that many of
the six hundred and thirty seven homes are now on
the market listed for sale. So those customers, how would
they ever get their money back?
Speaker 5 (21:28):
Yeah, you know, if a customer closes their account, it's
going to be nigh impossible to do that. There won't
be anything for us to give a credit back towards
because the account's not open anymore.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
Mac I says, if you want to get any money
back from this error, make sure you don't close your
water account until you can work this out.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
Mac shows up at Gallery Furniture after forty five years
of doing this started at nineteen eighty one. First thing
he does is he starts calling people from yesterday who
had furniture delivered, and he asked questions like did we
have the inventory you wanted? Because not, I want to
know what we need to have more of. Were you
taken care of at the store? Where your questions answered?
(22:10):
Was how long take the delivery from the time you
picked it till it arrived at your house? The delivery
guys take good care of you. Would you tell people
to shop it? That's how you that's how you end
up with excellence and make it forty five years. But
Mac has to compete. The city government doesn't. Why is
it that the most dangerous place is between Sheila Jackson
(22:32):
Lee and the camp from Michael Berry and the triple Crown.
Weave is, you know, tilted to the side, the leaning
tower of Weaver. There are some people who value in
and of itself, order in structure. There are some people
(22:57):
who simply don't. Doesn't make them bad people. It's not
a judgment of someone's goodness or righteousness. I happened to
be someone imbued from Earth with a Calvinist theology sense
(23:18):
that cleanliness is next to godliness.
Speaker 7 (23:20):
I did not know that wasn't in the Bible, per se.
I believed it was because we acted like it. I
was raised.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
We didn't wear our shoes in the house. We entered
through the garage, not the front door. Garage door would
be up, you'd walk in, you'd take your shoes off,
and you put them to the side, starting from the door,
moving to the right. If there were no shoes there,
you'd put them just at the corner of the door,
(23:54):
so that you could walk through the door and not
hit the chair. I not hit the the door, still
not hit the shoes. The next person would put theirs
beside them. You did not more than one time just
kick your shoes off. Your shoes were taken off, placed there,
(24:16):
ordered there, lined up there, all the way down the road.
You didn't put your shoes up with mud on them.
There were just things that were taught once and they
became something that you internalized. Structure, order, consistency, cleanliness. And
(24:44):
I find that countries who succeed, companies who succeed, people
who succeed, by and large follow this code. And I
find that people who are failures are the exact opposite.
(25:10):
They are sloppy in their presentation. They are sloppy in
their home. They are sloppy in their car, They are
sloppy at their workplace. They are sloppy in So when
folks send me an email through the website Michael Berryshow
dot com and they say, I need somebody to come
(25:31):
out and take a look and see if I need
foundation work. Can you ask your guy to call me?
Hopefully they put their phone number. If they haven't, I'll
say can I eat your phone number? That email will
then be sent to Rob Deschazer, who is the head
of Atlas Foundation. Rob does not sit all day and
answer the phone at Atlas Foundation. He runs a big company,
(25:54):
but if it's an email for me, he will jump
on it, and within five minutes I will get the
conclusion of his call, Michael, thanks for sending I'm meeting
them there tomorrow at nine o'clock. Sounds like it's probably
not a foundate or whatever. Whatever. The update is right
within five minutes. When Christine Weavers started as a show sponsor,
(26:20):
her first name is hard to spell, k r y
st i N. Weaver's a common name. So I've told
people just send me an email, I'll connect you. So
a lot, a lot a lot of her new clients
for Will's estate planning come through the website and I
forwarded to her. The first one I got came in
(26:41):
in the morning, and I forwarded it to her, and
I got an email back from her that evening at
about eight thirty that said, spoke to the Robertsons or
Johnson's or who it was, I'm going to be meeting
them tomorrow and all as well. It's the very first
(27:01):
one that came in, and I sent back politely but firmly,
I'm going to need you to respond in less than
twelve hours, because that's the expectation my listener, has I
sent this to you, timestamped eight twenty one, you responded
to me. Am. You responded to me a timestamp eight
forty nine pm, And she said, oh, I'm sorry. I
(27:27):
called them at eight fifty two, or I hung up
with them at eight fifty two and just checked on
my phone this morning. I just didn't want to send
an email and bother you while you were on the air.
I said, you get it. I noticed that highly successful
people have highly successful habits. There was a book seven
(27:48):
Habits of Highly Effective People. And there was a period
where these self help books, these these kind of personal
behavior books were real hot. Gerber had one series of
them that became kind of breakout bestsellers. But they all
come back. There's no nobody cracked the code. They all
(28:09):
come back to very simple, straightforward, common sensical things.
Speaker 5 (28:18):
That you do.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Or maybe that's just the way I was raised, because
often I think we think I know I do that
something is common sense, and it never crossed someone's mind.
If I owe a check to someone, why wouldn't I
deliver it to them. If I'm going to deliver it
(28:42):
to them, why wouldn't I deliver it?
Speaker 3 (28:44):
Now?
Speaker 2 (28:45):
Instead of waiting three days. Why would I leave it
on my desk? If someone places a call to me
needing my service, why wouldn't I pick up the phone
and call them back and set an appointment on their
schedule as soon as I possibly could. I would not
do those things. Of course, you would do those things
if you're building a business. Except the City of Houston
(29:09):
and government, gentlemen, is not seeking more business. Once you
understand that, you realize why you want government performing as
few functions, not as many as possible. Government is not
your benevolent dictator. They're not your kind overseer. The people
(29:30):
who show up in the permitting department of water department
to fill in the blank. They don't show up with
the intention of how many customers can we serve today?
Who might be future customers? Think about that. They would
much rather show up and nobody call and need them.
(29:54):
Think about that alone. Should we do it quick? Actruly
believe we'ven't had one in a while. I'm feeling overdue
seven one three nine, nine, nine, one thousand. It's not
I truly believe. Remember, rehearse what you're gonna say in
your head. Try to do it in one sentence or less.
It's not a four paragraph treatise. I truly believe that
it can be very serious. It can be very offensive,
(30:15):
be very provocative, It could be very silly, it could
be I truly believe that Nutella is the best shelf
stable dessert spread ever made since seventeen twenty seven, or
whatever that may be. Seven one three, nine nine nine,
one thousand. If if you're not a caller, you can
(30:36):
email us through the website Michael Berryshow dot com Michael
Berryshow dot com. But otherwise seven one three nine nine
one thousand, and start with I truly believe that
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