AM Show Hr 1 | It's Our Annual Adoption Show

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
It's that time, time, time, time, luck and load. So
Michael Very Show is on the air. What love is this.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
That calms our hearts, whispers the promise into the dark
that we are love, Yes, we are love.

Speaker 3 (00:36):
Until forever, though we were homeless in need of rest,
gave us a name and daily break how we are love,

(01:00):
Yes we are unco forever. So we are.

Speaker 4 (01:14):
We are now.

Speaker 5 (01:15):
Every year for many years we are. We do our
Adoption Special So was my favorite show of the year.
And this year we with the election, like everything else
in our lives, we had pushed everything till after the election.
We can't think about it till we get past the election.

(01:39):
And then we woke up and we were so giddy
that all we wanted to do was talk about the election.
We started getting closer and closer and closer. And we
always do it before the Thanksgiving break because many people
travel during that week, and so we don't We don't
have as big an audience as we would every other time.

(02:03):
And now the podcast listening goes through the roof, which
is good because then people start listening on the podcasts
that are normally broadcast listeners. But be that as it
made and the Friday before Thanksgiving is when we do
our Thanksgiving show again in case people are out, so
that we get more interactive calls and engagement, and we

(02:25):
really enjoy that the things for which you're grateful, thankful,
and there are so many right now, which meant we
started looking at the calendar and realizing we had to
do it today. So we start prepping and reading through
all the materials and building show parts and different elements

(02:47):
that we use.

Speaker 6 (02:49):
And I said, you know, let me.

Speaker 5 (02:50):
Look up when National Adoption Day is, and why do
you know?

Speaker 6 (02:54):
It's Saturday.

Speaker 5 (02:57):
So it would look like we were going to do
our adoption special on National Adoption Day, but we couldn't
because it was Saturday and here, but actually we just
got lucky. But my story is we were going to
do it on adoption National Adoption Day, and because it
was Saturday, and then tomorrow is our Thanksgiving, that's why

(03:17):
we do it today.

Speaker 6 (03:19):
And what ends up happening.

Speaker 5 (03:20):
You know, when I was growing up, people don't say
this anymore, but it was a joke, and it was
meant as a money, funny joke. It was never meant
it with a mean spirit. But when I was growing up,
if you were hitting with your sibling. People would say,
you know, you know, Bobby, you're adopted, and that was
a way of saying, you know, you're not really one

(03:42):
of us. And adoption was one of those things that
was talked about in that way. It was also one
of those things it was hidden away. There were so
many adoptions, but people weren't comfortable with it.

Speaker 6 (04:01):
They didn't embrace it then.

Speaker 5 (04:04):
And a common thing to happen was that if a
young lady in high school had a baby, that her
parents would just adopt care for that child. She would
go on about her life, and later in life an

(04:24):
adult or a late teen would find out that their
older sister was actually their mom, and yeah, there might
be some resentment at first, but it usually turned out okay.

Speaker 6 (04:36):
There were all these different.

Speaker 5 (04:39):
Elements of the adoption process, but they were never talked about,
and many people have just never really talked about it.
And every year somebody will reach out to me. Years ago,
it was David Malsby at Camp Hope, the executive director
that he has adopted and he tells me every year

(04:59):
my face Fvorite show.

Speaker 6 (05:00):
I look forward to it.

Speaker 5 (05:02):
And he said, you know, I don't do any meetings
during that time, I just sit, I cry. I think
I process. I'm grateful, but I really it's a cathartic
process for me. Every year he'll send me some long
email before it and afterwards, which he didn't fail to.

Speaker 6 (05:19):
Do again this year.

Speaker 5 (05:21):
So this morning, I'm talking to a friend of mine
and I'm asking about a City of Houston issue. And
I have not talked to this friend in years, but
I needed some insight on something that's going on with
regard to the finance at the City of Houston. And

(05:42):
he said, so, I'm gonna try to see if I
can't listen to the show? Are you The show is
my life. You don't act like it's I don't know
if I'm gonna have a bag of Cheetos or not.
Just don't say anything. I might see if I'm want.
So I said, I'm gonna see if I can listen
to the show again. What's the time up? Oh man,
I had two strikes. Why don't you not listen?

Speaker 6 (06:05):
That's okay? You just you pierced my little ego.

Speaker 5 (06:10):
And he said, what's it going to be about today?
And I said, and he went into what I had
just asked him about, and I said, no, that wouldn't
fit with today. Today is actually our adoption special.

Speaker 6 (06:28):
We do an adoption special.

Speaker 5 (06:30):
He said, oh, I've heard that in the past. I
didn't realize that was today. And I said, well, we
just kind of make a day up.

Speaker 6 (06:35):
It is today.

Speaker 5 (06:37):
And he said, do you know that so and so,
a very good mutual friend of ours is adopted. And
I said no, I didn't. And he told me the story,
and I thought, I'd love to send a message to
our mutual friend and say, this guy's in his sixties.
I didn't realize you were adopted. And it was kind

(06:57):
of one of those He was at the hospital and
his now mother was the nurse and came home and
told her husband there's this child and the child's going
to be taken to Austin. They're trying to place it
for adoption. It's the most beautiful child. And the husband said,
are you wanting to bring this baby home?

Speaker 6 (07:16):
And she said yes. They had two daughters already, and
he said, well, that's fine.

Speaker 5 (07:20):
That's men in the fifties sixty seven.

Speaker 6 (07:23):
If that's what you want to do, that's fine.

Speaker 5 (07:24):
Another mouth feet, that's fine, but would be a good dad.
It just always amazes me. And one of the things
I enjoy most about our adoption special is that people
who are always a little embarrassed or maybe not quite
embarrassed but shy about it, or felt weird or felt
odd or felt different, suddenly kind of come into the

(07:45):
light and go, wait a second, I can embrace this.
Today is my day. It's a special day. And that
makes me very, very happy. We believe in adoption. There
are so many different elements to the adoption. There is
the person who's adopted and is just grateful that when
they were helpless, because you come into this world helpless

(08:06):
and squawking, that somebody stepped forward and said I will
care for and love this child.

Speaker 6 (08:13):
That's the best.

Speaker 5 (08:14):
Then there are parents who cannot have a child, or
maybe already have a child and choose to adopt, and
the joy they.

Speaker 6 (08:22):
Find in that.

Speaker 5 (08:23):
And then there's always later in the show, a mother
who gave up a child, which I think is a
very courageous thing to do, who will tell that story.
Then there are other reconnections, people who meet up with
their biological parents and that experience or a biological brother. Uh.
It is my favorite show of the year and I
am excited. Seven one, three, one thousand, your stories of

(08:46):
adoption coming.

Speaker 2 (08:47):
Up here.

Speaker 1 (08:54):
The Michael Berry.

Speaker 7 (09:10):
Go stop crying, just take my hand. Ohta a little
bit to you from all around.

Speaker 8 (09:27):
Oh, I'm so excited to be here. This is my
first time at the laugh Factory. Thank you, thank you.
I got a lot of friends, a lot of family here.
Unfortunately my mother couldn't make it, but I told her
I was performing here tonight, and she said, oh, I'm
sure you will bring great shame to a Emily yep.

(09:50):
Been going on my whole life. Finally, I said to her, mom,
you gotta stop talking to me like that. Okay, first
of all, I'm a grown woman. But more importantly, you
are not Asian. I'm adopted. You're white.

Speaker 9 (10:11):
You know that.

Speaker 5 (10:13):
One takes a minute. You got to know that she's
Asian to do that. How many people remember do you
remember the call from Chaos on our show? I don't
remember how many years ago it was, but we've saved
that that call in our archive of adoption show materials,

(10:38):
and I was planning on playing it on the evening
show today. We may play it on this morning show.
We'll we'll see. But it's it's just one of those Wow,
this is I was out of paper, and Emily has
drawn my ire by not refilling my paper. And so

(11:03):
in the middle of the show, I'm tiptoeing around trying
to replace my printer paper. Because I'm ninety years old.
I like to print everything out.

Speaker 6 (11:11):
I can't.

Speaker 5 (11:12):
These young people today, they don't know what a printer is.
They don't know about the horror that is the printer
ink industry. And it's I mean, it's worse than heroin.
They get you hooked. They'll give you a free printer
just to get you hooked on the printer ink. Printer
ink becomes the bane of your existence. It's worse than alcoholism.
Just battling the printer ink.

Speaker 6 (11:33):
Dilemma. Yeah, you're right. People have done dirty things for
printer ink. So I went in.

Speaker 5 (11:40):
I had all these adoption related things I needed to
print out, and my printer was out of paper and
there was no printer in my studio. There's no printer
paper in my studio, no printer anyway, I'm running late.
I can't go all the way down the hall to
get it. So I go into Ramon's office and I said,
may I please, sir, may I have another like Oliver Twist.

(12:01):
He said, he pulls out I thought I was an
office supply person. I thought I was, but until I
met Ramon. He takes it to a whole different level.
Everything has to be leather, old school heavy. I mean
he's like the Aid de camp to Robert E. Lee,
a British aversion. It's very maybe Lord Wellington. And so

(12:25):
he pulls out, you know, as if it's the you know,
the golden trundle. He pulls out his hammer mill thirty
two pound paper. If you don't know your paper weights
in the printer, you if you print things, you probably
use a twenty pound, which is standard and you wouldn't
think of it.

Speaker 6 (12:44):
But it's lightweight paper. He uses a thirty.

Speaker 5 (12:47):
He'll go higher. But man, when you print this thing out,
my printer was was struggling. It was needed to lax it.

Speaker 6 (12:55):
It was push trying to push that paper out. It
couldn't get there. This is some heavy duty.

Speaker 5 (13:00):
So now I'm holding this paper that I've printed on
his thirty two pounds. I mean it's substantial and it's
you've got something in your hands. When you've got this
paper in your hands, all right? Is our adoption special
and we'll just go down the list.

Speaker 6 (13:16):
Derek Euroup, Sir, go ahead.

Speaker 9 (13:20):
Hey, Michael, Hey, I had mentioned or heard you mention
Jordie Tallett maybe a month or two back when you're
talking about the commissioning of the Super Bowl here. I've
been best friends with his oldest daughter since we were
seventeen or so, and we've been dating now for about

(13:42):
five years. And she was adopted by him. He met
her mom while her mom was pregnant with her and
went ahead and adopted her before she was born, and
her real dad followed them from California here to Texas

(14:04):
and lived nearby, but stayed out of the picture until
Amanda was eighteen, and then they met. And now Amanda
has stepped up and is being the best mom ever
to my children. I have three children, and she's a
wonderful mom.

Speaker 5 (14:26):
I love it, Derek til Jeordie, I said hello, just
so you know, for those who think that this or
that doesn't qualify as adoption, it does on this show.

Speaker 6 (14:38):
So does fostering.

Speaker 5 (14:40):
Our concept of adoption is not limited to the idea
of a husband and wife who cannot have a baby,
and the coordination through usually intermediaries with a mother who
is giving birth or has given birth, and them taking
that baby. That is what most people think of as
a adoption. Adoption for me is the idea that a

(15:05):
child deserves love and that if the traditional relationships are
not in place for whatever reason abandonment, imprisonment, death, then
someone else steps in. Whether that's because that's a part
of the human experience they want to enjoy and have

(15:27):
not been able to biologically, or whether it's their daughter's child,
or whether it's they're a nurse and it's someone's child
that's abandoned, all of those situations, whatever, they may be
a stepdad who is so beloved by his children that
they say, would you adopt us? We would like to
refer to you as dad. I don't refer to my

(15:49):
children as adopted children. I don't want them referred to
his adopted children. People will sometimes, you know, he has
two adopted children from Ethiopia. Now I just have two children.
I just have two children. There they're not you don't
refer to them as to right handed kids or to
black kids. I hate that they're just two kids. They're
just my kids. I love my kids the same way

(16:10):
you love your kids. I may love my kids more
than you love your kids.

Speaker 6 (16:13):
I don't know.

Speaker 5 (16:13):
You may love your kids more than I don't know.
We don't know. I just know that it's not. I
don't see them as adopted. I don't see them as black.
I don't see them as anything else. I see them
as my kids, with all the highs and lows and
foibles and errors and successes and need to be disciplined

(16:34):
and need to be loved and need to be provided for.
It's the same thing. It's no different than anything else.
It's not an adopted child, just a child, just a
child where you participate in their lives in the way
that you do.

Speaker 6 (16:46):
Let's go to Leslie. Leslie, you're on the Michael Berry Show.
Go ahead, sweetheart, good morning.

Speaker 4 (16:52):
I'm falling in as a birth mom. I was sixteen
when I had my child, and she was placed for
adult option. She actually turned twenty nine last week, and
so it's been a pretty story she. I found myself
pregnant in February of nineteen ninety five and she was

(17:13):
born November fifteenth of that same year, and kept in
touch with her throughout the years. Wrote letters back to
her adoptive mother, and she would send me pictures and
huts and gifts and things, but I didn't see her
in person again until her eighteenth birthday. She wanted to
meet me, and so we did that, and we've intermittently

(17:34):
seen each other, you know, over the years and text
each other and if she comes to town, visit and
things like that.

Speaker 9 (17:41):
So it's a pretty story.

Speaker 6 (17:43):
It's a beautiful story.

Speaker 5 (17:45):
You brought life into this world and you had a
choice not to, and you literally birthed into being a
beautiful child of God. I think that's an incredible thing thing,
an incredibly selfless thing. And you know, it wasn't the

(18:05):
first year that we did our adoption special that a
birth mom called. It may have been several, but it
was one of those moments that you could have heard
a pen drop because it was such a powerful moment.
And since then we have consistently always had at least
one birth mother call in.

Speaker 6 (18:23):
You know, we're not going to talk about.

Speaker 5 (18:25):
Abortion today in the politics behind it, but if we're
going to celebrate life, we have to understand that it's
imperfect and that everybody has to play a part, and
that is the woman who has a childhood but whatever
reason is not going to be able to care for it.

Speaker 9 (18:40):
Michael Berry's.

Speaker 8 (18:45):
And the Old Man's Bag Coat found.

Speaker 5 (18:49):
It is our annual adoption special. It's also a very
happy birthday for our friend Chris Conrad was a public
boot company, his labor of love, his passion project Generation Texan.
We're going to make custom boots and outfit folks in
all things Texan. I got a picture the other day

(19:10):
that I was authorized to receive and it was Val
Kilmer sitting in one of the chairs there holding a
pair of boots that he was.

Speaker 6 (19:20):
Contemplating.

Speaker 5 (19:22):
And I said, am I okay to am I authorized
to tell this? And he said, yep, he knows, he
knows we're telling you, And so I did, and he said,
I don't know if I told you, but we he
had he had come in sometime back and he wanted
some badass boots and so we collaborated with him on

(19:44):
that and we made them for him when he was
going through his awful throat cancer and he does tombstone
reenactment reenactments and he wears he wears these boots particularly
for that and it says say on the left boot
and win on the right boot with a lightning bolt

(20:05):
on there.

Speaker 6 (20:06):
It's pretty cool.

Speaker 5 (20:06):
I just posted it to the Facebook, speaking of which
Facebook shut me down. The Facebook page, which is even
more complicated, is still up. The one that we had
for years that most of you follow or many of
you followed. We had to start a new one, and
so if you go poking around looking for Michael Berry,

(20:27):
it's the one that has our show logo. And somebody
kind of as a joke, took the old picture of
me from fifteen years ago and aged it. It's red,
white and blue. It should have about three thousand followers.
We've just been at this for a couple of days,
but I decided, rather than just keep fighting with them,
I would start another page without all the strikes and
all that.

Speaker 6 (20:46):
And that's I.

Speaker 5 (20:47):
Enjoy posting things like this because we don't have a video.

Speaker 6 (20:50):
Element to the show.

Speaker 5 (20:51):
So I'd appreciate it if you found us over there
and let me know that you found us on Facebook.
If you send me an email, my response has an
auto link to it and you can click there and
then you can follow the page that way. All right, Bruce,
You're on the Michael Berry Show. It's our annual adoption special.

Speaker 10 (21:11):
Go ahead, my man, Hey Michael, Yes, sorry, yeah, I'd
just like to explain my story to you a little bit.
I'm a married man of twenty five years, happily married.
I have three biological children, but I raised six. When
I got together with my wife a long time ago,

(21:32):
twenty five years ago, she had a little girl. You know,
no one was really happy that she had that little girl,
and I was so happy. We were friends for a
long time before that, but you know, I didn't really
expect us to get together and end up the way
it was. But when I found out news that she
was pregnant, I was so happy for and you know,

(21:55):
years later she told me, you know, you were the
only one that was happy for that little girl. Little
girl now is my retired army daughter. She served four
years in the army and she got injured over there
in the sandbox. But man, I love her with all
my heart and so and so proud of her. And

(22:17):
you know, we never did the adoption papers, but I mean,
in my mind, she's my daughter, and her mind, I'm
her daddy.

Speaker 5 (22:24):
You know, when you look at all the things that
confront societies before computers and airplanes and telephones, it is
the birthing raising and caring for children and then repeating
the process for the elderly. That's from the beginning of time.

(22:48):
These are the fundamental things that we should never lose
sight of. Jennifer, you're on the Michael Berry Show. Go ahead, sweetheart.

Speaker 11 (22:56):
Hey Michael, I love that you're doing a show on adoption,
and I wanted to share my story because I know
other people think about it but don't do it, and
I'd like to encourage them to do it. Because my
husband and I we had one biological child and we're
unable to have another. So in twenty twelve, we brought

(23:17):
home a little girl and a little boy from Stoberpol, Russia,
about four months before the adoption band took place and
Putin took over. And I'll tell you what, it was tough.
It was really, really tough. They didn't speak our language
at first. But they're twenty and seventeen now and I

(23:38):
cannot imagine my wife without them. The boy, he's twenty,
he's in college, he's got his head on straight, been
dating the same girl for five years, and he's going places.
In fact, he told his dad and I I'm not
wasting this opportunity. I'm going to make something of myself,

(24:00):
not that we expected that, but it's such a blessing
to hear it and we were just I just feel
so honored we both do to be their parents. And
my daughter my best little friend. I just I just
love her so much. Thank you for allowing me to
share my story.

Speaker 6 (24:18):
You got it. Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (24:21):
Uh.

Speaker 5 (24:22):
The emails come rolling in and woman just email me,
I'm adopted and I've never told anybody.

Speaker 6 (24:30):
Just told me. I love it. That's cool.

Speaker 9 (24:37):
And what I see all over the place is people
who care about looking good while doing evil. Michael, please.

Speaker 5 (24:52):
Can't back there.

Speaker 6 (24:58):
That scene in.

Speaker 5 (25:01):
That Mike Myers did with him in the double decker bus.
What do you think that did for the cool factor
of Burt mckerach. I was watching a documentary last night
on the song Betty Davis Eyes, and Betty Davis was
seventy three years old, and you know she was she was, oh,

(25:25):
she was forty years from her heyday. And Betty Davis
shoots to number one, it wins a Grammy for Song
of the Year, it wins Album of the Year. And
her grandkids, who knew that their grandmother had been kind
of famous a long time ago, all of a sudden, Rema,

(25:49):
you were the stuff man. We had no idea and
she said that for the first time ever, I was
cool to my kids. Here's a little trivia for you,
Ramon Jay Rotis.

Speaker 6 (26:00):
Who were the other two Silver screen stars mentioned in
that movie? See if you can remember Jean Harlowe very good?
Did he get the third one?

Speaker 5 (26:13):
I'll accept Garbo, Greta Garbo. That's exactly right. Yeah, yeah,
there are two others paid tribute to. It is the
annual Adoption Special and we start with Chad.

Speaker 6 (26:24):
Chad, you're on the Michael Berry Show.

Speaker 12 (26:25):
Michael, I have Michael. I've been married for twenty three years.
When I met my wife, she had a one year
old daughter. I pretty much immediately became her father and
my wife's husband pretty much immediately we moved in together.
We had two other children after that. When my oldest

(26:47):
started school, it was about seven, she didn't have my
last name in school, and that really bothered me. I
always wanted an adopt it. That was always going to
be happening. So we started the process and then we
get a letter are in the mail saying that her
biological father had committed suicide, which the process just went
extremely fast after that, So next thing you know, we're

(27:09):
in the court and we're the first ones on docket.
The judge wanted us first because he had a lot
of cases that he didn't want to do after that.
They're not happy cases always in court, in family court
like you know that. So we got through. I finally
got through it. I was about very past that I
couldn't see, just balling like you know, ugly man crying.

(27:32):
We go to the chambers. We went through that, took pictures.
It was amazing looking down. I just remember holding her.
I've never not been her father in her eyes. Never,
She's never not caught, never said that I wasn't her father.
I have two other daughters after her. They're awesome, they're
they're great friends. They don't want to talk about the adoption.

(27:54):
She just wants to be one of the family. To me, Oh,
I'm proud of it. I brag when I meet somebody,
I tell them, tell him how amazing it is there
and just I have three daughters and my wife are
just unbelievable support team and it all started with her,
and I love it.

Speaker 6 (28:12):
I love it. Chad James, you're on the Michael Berry Show.

Speaker 13 (28:16):
Go ahead, sir, Good morning, Mike right quick. I met
my then girlfriend wife back in ninety three, late ninety three,
and you know, she had a young boy, it was
like three months old. A few years later we got married,
and a year after that, I adopted Cody, and I

(28:38):
think it's one of the best things I've ever done
in my life. A few years later, his mom changed
her mind about plans and everything, and she ended up
divorcing me. However, you know, it was a struggle maintaining
that relationship with with Cody from thousands of miles away.
Because I'm a Mariner. I worked in different countries and
all that, but I would always pay child support, and

(29:00):
every chance I could make it to Atlanta, I would
go and visit. And he turned eighteen and he's he
was out on his own, and as much as possible,
I would always try and influence him to read, learn
to read. I taught him to read at a very
young age. And here we are years later, He's thirty.
Won this past October. Mike, He's got four paths into

(29:21):
his name. He's so smart, he's so great as a
young man, and we play video games together. We talk
like we're we talk like we're brothers. Even though that
there's no question that I'm his dad, and I just
I'm so glad to call him my son, and uh,
it's one of the best things that's ever happened to me.

Speaker 8 (29:45):
You know.

Speaker 5 (29:46):
That's the important thing for people to understand. You're not
saving another person, You're saving yourself. The reason to do
a kind thing for another person, the reason to help
our veterans beating PTSD at Camp Hope is not because

(30:06):
there's some sad soul and you're swooping in to save
the day. It is to save yourself. Is the most
selfish thing you can do. It will give you such joy, happiness, fulfillment.

Speaker 6 (30:22):
And purpose.

Speaker 5 (30:22):
Jordan Peterson talks at length about this, is that the
pursuit of life should not be happiness. The idea that
we're going to achieve this giddiness, this happiness, and we're
just going to be smiling, and that will mean that
we don't have to work, and we are wealthy and
we can just buy things and people will attend to

(30:45):
us and we won't have to do anything. The idea
it will be so wealthy that we won't have to
do anything, and that that will lead to happiness, but
it never does. Actually, we think it would, but it
never does. What we should pursue is purpose, should pursue

(31:06):
a mission, a sense of accomplishment. All of the great
joys in life are as a result of sacrifice and
discipline and struggle and prevailing winning a Super Bowl.

Speaker 6 (31:20):
I suspect is is good.

Speaker 5 (31:21):
Or better than any drug you could ever buy without
the side effects, because it is hard to sacrifice raising
a child. The pride you have when your child walks
across that.

Speaker 6 (31:31):
Stage at the graduation, because.

Speaker 5 (31:34):
It's not just your child that's doing that.

Speaker 6 (31:36):
You're there, You contributed to that. It's beautiful.

Speaker 5 (31:43):
Brown. I'm sorry to interrupt our adoption special, but I
just got a message from Orange A search is underway
for men who held up the driver of a Brinks
truck and a credit union in Orange County, in Mauriceville.

Speaker 6 (31:55):
This just does not happen. This is somebody I would
have gone on to school with and they have jacked
the Brinks truck. Don't listen.

Speaker 5 (32:07):
Yes, I will accept a portion of it as a
peace offering, as your sort of pastoral figure for the
golden trailer makes your mind doesn't have any die pacts
in it.

Speaker 6 (32:17):
Those things.

Speaker 5 (32:17):
That's a mess.